IN THE PARROTT PLAYROOM
Miss Parrott looked the two children over carefully. Then her glance
rested on David. He sat tucked up in the corner of the green-leather
seat, as far away from the keen dark eyes as he could get, his hand
tightly clasped in Polly’s.
“Now then,” said Miss Parrott, the investigation being over, “you must
tell me everything about it. I was unable to get a satisfactory account
at Atkins’ store. Begin, little boy.”
Davie gave a sob, and ducked farther back into his corner. This was
so much worse than being waylaid for a recital of his adventure by
the ordinary run of Badgertown citizens, that he couldn’t conceal his
dismay. To think of being fastened up in the Parrott coach and made
to tell of what was now a perfectly hateful thing since he was to be
petted and praised for his part in it, made him sob again; and he flung
himself up against Polly and hid his burning face on her shoulder.
“Oh, Miss Parrott,” Polly broke out, “Davie cannot bear to talk about
it. He only did what he ought to.” She forgot that she was talking to
the aristocratic lady, whose comings and goings in this same stately
coach to the little church on Badgertown green were eagerly watched for
of a Sunday. She raised her brown eyes pleadingly.
“That is where you are very wrong to encourage your little brother
in refusing to answer my questions. And I must insist on knowing all
about what happened.” The tall aristocratic figure on the seat opposite
loomed up so forbiddingly that Polly had all she could do to keep from
joining in Davie’s distress. But this would never do. Besides, Miss
Parrott was saying, “I am sure your mother, whom I have heard brings
you children up most excellently, would wish your little brother to
answer my questions.”
“Davie,” said Polly desperately, bending her head down to his ear, “you
must sit up and tell Miss Parrott about it. Mamsie would want you to.”
She had to say it over three times, “Mamsie would want you to,” for
instead of sitting up, Davie burrowed deeper against her shoulder. At
last her tone was so decided, that anything being more desirable than
to lose Polly’s approval, David somehow got up into a sitting posture;
and before he quite knew what he was going to say, there he was doing
his best to let Miss Parrott understand just what happened in Mr.
Atkins’ store. He must please Mamsie.
And to his great surprise and relief, Miss Parrott never said one word
of praise for anything that he did, and as for petting him, she still
sat bolt upright at the conclusion of the tale, and only said, “Thank
you for telling me.”
David drew himself up, and began to enjoy himself. As for Polly, her
brown eyes danced and the color came back in her cheeks.
“I am going to take you home with me,” said Miss Parrott suddenly.
“Oh,” cried Polly, wrenched away from the bliss of actually driving in
the Parrott coach, “we can’t go. Mamsie doesn’t know where we are, and
we ought to go home now.”
“I suppose,” said Miss Parrott reflectively, “that I ought to drive
around and ask your mother.” But she bit her lip, being accustomed to
do all things as she chose without leave or license from anybody. Still
a woman should be asked about the movements of her own children. So she
gave the order to the old coachman, and the horses were soon turned in
the direction of the little brown house.
Davie forgot himself and sprang out without a word of thanks, and
rushed up to the old green door.
“Oh, do forgive him, Miss Parrott,” begged Polly in distress, “he
didn’t mean to be rude.”
For answer Miss Parrott only said, “Will you ask your mother to come
out here?” But she smiled, so Polly knew that things weren’t so very
bad, and she ran up the path, greatly relieved.
And presently Mrs. Pepper came out, with Polly, and to the great
astonishment, said, “Yes, the children could go,” and “Run in, and put
a clean blouse on, Davie.”
“The boy looks well enough,” said Miss Parrott decidedly. “I’m sure
you keep your children always clean, Mrs. Pepper,--everybody says so.”
But Mrs. Pepper only smiled, and Polly ran into the house to get Davie
ready. For when Mamsie said a thing, she always meant it, and pretty
soon out they came, Davie quite fresh in another calico blouse and not
entirely at rest in his mind as to the visit at the Parrott estate.
When they drove up with a flourish before the big front door with
carved stone lions on either side, Davie held Polly’s hand closely, and
surveyed everything with wide blue eyes.
The butler, a dignitary resplendent enough in the children’s eyes to
be the owner of many estates, came down the wide hall. Miss Parrott
gave him instructions concerning her guests, whom he viewed with cold
unconcern.
“Now, then, children,” she said, “I’m going to take you into the garden
and leave you there. You will be called when luncheon is served,” and
turning off from the big hall to a narrow passage, they came to a green
lattice door.
Miss Parrott opened this. “Oh!” cried Polly, clasping her hands in
delight. And Davie forgot his fright and gave a little squeal.
“It’s so perfectly beautiful!” exclaimed Polly.
An old-fashioned garden, bright with hollyhocks and all sorts of dear,
homely flowers, a little square plot in the center, around which were
stone seats, burst upon their view. All off in the distance were
terraces and lawns, with all manner of splendid trees, and pleasant
paths intersecting.
Miss Parrott’s long gaunt face drew up into a pleasant smile that
seemed to say, “Good-by to your wrinkles.”
“Now run along, children, and enjoy yourselves,” she said. “You will be
called when luncheon is ready. Be sure that you come in at once.”
“Polly,” said Davie in an awe-struck voice, “do you suppose the lady
can come in here every time she wants to?”
“Of course,” said Polly, longing to hop up and down, but perhaps some
one would see her and it wouldn’t be considered proper. “Why, she lives
here, Davie.”
Davie drew a long breath. To live in this beautiful place and come out
in this wonderful garden! He drew a long breath and stood quite still
beside the green lattice door.
“Let’s go and sit down on one of those little stone seats,” said Polly.
So the children walked quite properly over and sat down on one of the
seats in the little green square.
“Polly,” said Davie, “I very much wish that we could go over under
those trees,” pointing to a bit of greensward where the noonday sun was
making cool shadows.
“Why, we can,” said Polly; “Miss Parrott said we could run about and
enjoy it all.” She got off from the little stone seat and held out her
hand.
“Oh, Polly, can we really run?” cried Davie in great excitement.
“Yes, indeed,” cried Polly, finding her courage in David’s happiness.
“Come on, I’ll race you to that big pine-tree.”
“Now what does Miss Parrott want with the likes of them poor children,”
exclaimed a scornful housemaid, peering out of the green lattice door.
“Hevin knows!” cried the butler, raising both hands, “and they are
actually to stay to luncheon.”
“Oh--oh!” ejaculated the housemaid with a sniff.
Up-stairs under the gambrel roof overrun with sweet-brier, Miss Parrott
was sitting by her window, listening to the childish peals of laughter,
as Polly and David played hide-and-seek between the ancestral trees.
“I haven’t felt so happy here,” placing her hand on her heart, “since
Sister and I played there. Strange that I dreaded asking children here.”
The butler flung open the green lattice door, and said harshly, “Come
in to luncheon,” and started to find Miss Parrott just behind him.
“That is scarcely the way to summon my guests,” she said.
“Beg pardon, Ma’am,” said the butler obsequiously.
“I want you to go out and treat them as you would any other of my
friends,” said Miss Parrott.
And the butler with a sullen face but a back that expressed nothing
but complete submission, stalked down the garden path to the big
trees whence the happy sounds proceeded. And the scornful housemaid
confided it all to the equally disdainful cook, who said never in her
twenty-five years of service on the Parrott estate had she seen such
goings on.
When the three were seated around the luncheon table in the handsome
dining-room, Davie was quite overwhelmed at the array of silver and
glass that shone upon the polished mahogany table. And Polly turned
pale and only hoped they should neither of them do anything to disgrace
Mamsie.
But although they didn’t know what to do with all the knives and forks,
Miss Parrott never appeared to notice. Polly, who hadn’t been able to
forget the disdainful butler, saw him back of Davie’s chair scornfully
survey the efforts to carry the food up nicely to the small mouth
and the color flew over her cheek. Then Miss Parrott said to him, “I
sha’n’t require you any more. Bring me the bell--and I will ring if I
need you.”
And the butler quite humble once more, brought the little silver bell
from the massive sideboard heavy with ancestral plate, and went out of
the room, his head lowered by several inches. Polly’s hot flush died
down on her cheek, and things began to get comfortable.
“Now,” said Miss Parrott, when luncheon was over, “I am going to show
you some things that I played with when I was a little girl.” She had
a faint pink color on her sallow face, and she smiled as if quite
content. But still she didn’t know what to do with her guests to make
them happy.
David wanted to ask, “Were you ever a little girl?” as he looked the
long, angular figure up and down, but he kept quite still.
“Oh, would you really?” cried Polly in delight.
“Yes,” said Miss Parrott, greatly pleased, “would you really like to
see them?”
“Oh, we would--we would!” declared Polly.
“Come this way then,” and out into the big wide hall, and over a broad
and winding staircase dim with the shaded light of a tall Colonial
window, they went, then down a narrow passage, at the end of which were
two cunning little steps.
“Here was our playroom--Sister’s and mine,” said Miss Parrott, pausing
at a door, and taking a key from her black silk bag, she fitted
it in the lock. And presently there they all three were in a long,
low-ceilinged room. It had shelves on two sides filled with books and
games, and dolls--and there was a small table in the center, and little
chairs scattered about.
Miss Parrott turned her back on it suddenly, and made as if she were
going out. But she faced the children in a minute and smiled, and again
she put her hand to her heart.
“Now you can each pick out something, and I will tell you about it,”
she said, seating herself on an old-fashioned broad sofa.
Polly stood quite still before her with shining eyes. “Can we really
touch the things?” she asked.
“Yes, all you like,” and Miss Parrott actually laughed.
“Davie,” Polly ran up to him, “we can choose something and take it to
her and she will tell us about it,” she said. Then she ran off to the
corner where the dolls sat up in all their faded and old-fashioned
glory.
David went over to one of the book-shelves. At first he only gazed;
then he put a timid finger on one and another. At last he selected
a worn old reader whose pages were interspersed with pictures, and
holding it closely, he marched up with it to Miss Parrott’s sofa, just
as Polly came flying up with a big rag doll in a little checked silk
gown, a quaint neckerchief, and a big mob-cap.
“I will tell you about yours first,” said Miss Parrott, taking the
doll. Then she laughed, “Well, you see Sister and I both had the
promise of a new doll. We were to own it together, because that was the
way we had everything,” and she waved her hand around the playroom.
“Well, our mother had given the order to have it made and dressed, and
its face was to be painted by a real artist. Oh, you can’t think how
we watched for that doll. We were quite impatient for its arrival. The
lady who was to dress it kept sending word that she had been detained
from doing the work, but that it was to be quite fine. We were letting
our imaginations run riot with all sorts of splendid ideas on just how
that doll was to look. Sister decided it would be dressed in a pink
satin gown with a little pink cap,--but I hoped it would be all in
blue. Well, we used to watch at the window, a part of every day for
the big box containing that precious doll.
“At last one day Sister was at the window, and she screamed
‘Judith--Judith!’”
Davie forgot his awe, to burst out, “Was that your name?”
“Yes, dear,” said Miss Parrott, very much pleased that he had found his
tongue. “I was named for my grandmother.”
“Oh,” said David.
“And Sarah was my sister’s name; she was named for our mother.”
“Oh,” said David again.
“Well, we ran after the big box as it was carried into the
sitting-room, and Mother had one of the maids cut the heavy cord and
then Sister and I were each to lift one end of the cover and take it
off. You can’t imagine, children, what that moment, so long waited for,
was to us!”
Polly and Davie each side of Miss Parrott, the big rag doll on her lap,
didn’t dare to breathe, so afraid they should miss something of this
great moment.
“We lifted the tissue paper with trembling fingers, and there lay this
doll,” Miss Parrott lifted it, “and we had watched every day for a pink
or a blue satin one!”
Polly broke the silence first. “Oh, I think this one was the nicest to
play with.”
“So it was, child, but we were silly little girls, and we had set our
hearts on quite another kind of doll. Well, what do you think we did?
I am quite ashamed to tell you, but you shall have the whole story.
We threw ourselves down on the floor, our arms around each other, and
declared we didn’t want that doll.”
“O dear!” exclaimed Polly.
“And so our mother said ‘Very well,’ and she had the tissue paper all
put back over the doll, the cover put on and the box tied up. And then
it was taken away and put up on a shelf over the linen press.”
“O dear!” breathed Polly again.
“And that doll stayed up there all one year, and we never said we were
sorry, and asked for her. And one day an awkward servant in cleaning
that shelf, knocked the box off, and then he became frightened, so he
opened it to see if he’d broken anything. And somebody calling him,
he left the box on the floor, and a little dog we had, a mischievous
creature, ran into the linen-room and stuck his nose in the box.”
“O dear!” exclaimed Polly and David together.
“And Towsle--”
“Was that his name?” asked Davie, pressing up to her black silk gown in
great excitement.
“Yes, dear,” said Miss Parrott, smiling down into his blue eyes. “Well,
Towsle nipped that doll up in his sharp teeth, and ran off down-stairs
with her. And Sister heard him coming and she called ‘Towsle--Towsle’
for she wanted him to come and play with her. But Towsle was going
to have a great deal more pleasure he thought with the doll, so he
hid behind one of the big carved chairs in the hall. And then when he
thought she had gone safely by, he crept out. But she spied him, and
she screamed, ‘Oh, he’s got our doll!’ and Uncle John, who was in the
sitting-room with Mother, ran out with her. But Towsle--oh, there was
no catching him then, for--”
“And didn’t they catch him?” burst in Davie with round blue eyes.
“Why, yes, dear,” Miss Parrott pointed to the doll in her lap.
“Oh, yes,” said Davie with a sigh of relief, looking down at it.
“But in flying down the long steps at last, Towsle caught one of
his feet in the doll’s dress, and over he rolled from the top to
the bottom. But he wouldn’t give up the doll. And then I heard the
noise, and I ran out from the garden, and before Mother and Uncle
John and Sister got there, I seized the doll, and Towsle pulled and I
pulled--and there,” Miss Parrott turned the doll over in her lap, “the
silk gown was torn. You can scarcely see the place, for our mother
mended it so neatly.”
The Pepper children bent over to scan closely the rent in the back of
the checked silk gown.
“I shouldn’t know it was mended,” declared Polly at last.
“No, would you?” said Miss Parrott, with bright eyes. “Our mother was
a most beautiful sewer. Well, we couldn’t help laughing, Towsle was
so funny, and he tried to get that doll away from me after I had at
last torn it from him. And then Sister cried right out, ‘Oh, our _poor_
doll!’--and then I cried over her, and we petted her up. And we said
we’d love her forever after.”
“That was nice,” said Polly, smoothing down her gown in great
satisfaction.
“And we called her ‘Priscilla,’ and we took her to bed with us every
night,” finished Miss Parrott.