An Old-Fashioned Girl

“I was a beast, that’s what I was!” said Tom, in a tone of great disgust; and just at that awkward minute down tumbled his father’s old beaver over his head and face, putting a comical quencher on his self-reproaches.

Of course, neither could help laughing at that; and when he emerged, Polly was sitting up, looking as much better for her shower as he did for his momentary eclipse.

“Fan feels dreadfully. Will you kiss and be friends, if I trot her down?” asked Tom, remembering his fellow-sinner.

“I’ll go to her.” And Polly whisked out of the closet as suddenly as she had whisked in, leaving Tom sitting on the bootjack, with a radiant countenance.

How the girls made it up no one ever knew; but after much talking and crying, kissing and laughing, the breach was healed, and peace declared. A slight haze still lingered in the air after the storm, for Fanny was very humble and tender that evening; Tom a trifle pensive, but distressingly polite, and Polly magnanimously friendly to everyone; for generous natures like to forgive, and Polly enjoyed the petting after the insult, like a very human girl.

As she was brushing her hair at bedtime there came a tap on her door, and, opening it, she beheld nothing but a tall black bottle, with a strip of red flannel tied round it like a cravat, and a cocked-hat note on the cork. Inside were these lines, written in a sprawling hand with very black ink:

DEAR POLLY – Opydilldock is first-rate for sprains. You put a lot on the flannel and do up your wrist, and I guess it will be all right in the morning. Will you come a sleigh-ride tomorrow? I’m awful sorry I hurt you.

    TOM.

Chapter 6

Grandma

“Where’s Polly?” asked Fan one snowy afternoon, as she came into the dining room where Tom was reposing on the sofa with his boots in the air, absorbed in one of those delightful books in which boys are cast away on desert islands, where every known fruit, vegetable and flower is in its prime all the year round; or, lost in boundless forests, where the young heroes have thrilling adventures, kill impossible beasts, and, when the author’s invention gives out, suddenly find their way home, laden with tiger skins, tame buffaloes and other pleasing trophies of their prowess.

“Dun no,” was Tom’s brief reply, for he was just escaping from an alligator of the largest size.

“Do put down that stupid book, and let’s do something,” said Fanny, after a listless stroll round the room.

“Hi, they’ve got him!” was the only answer vouchsafed by the absorbed reader.

“Where’s Polly?” asked Maud, joining the party with her hands full of paper dolls all suffering for ball-dresses.

“Do get along, and don’t bother me,” cried Tom, exasperated at the interruption.

“Then tell us where she is. I’m sure you know, for she was down here a little while ago,” said Fanny.

“Up in grandma’s room, maybe.”

“Provoking thing! You knew it all the time, and didn’t tell, just to plague us,” scolded Maud.

But Tom was now under water stabbing his alligator, and took no notice of the indignant departure of the young ladies.

“Polly’s always poking up in grandma’s room. I don’t see what fun there is in it,” said Fanny as they went upstairs.

“Polly’s a verwy queer girl, and gwandma pets her a gweat deal more than she does me,” observed Maud, with an injured air.

“Let’s peek and see what they are doing,” whispered Fan, pausing at the half-open door.

Grandma was sitting before a quaint old cabinet, the doors of which stood wide open, showing glimpses of the faded relics treasured there. On a stool, at the old lady’s feet, sat Polly, looking up with intent face and eager eyes, quite absorbed in the history of a high-heeled brocade shoe which lay in her lap.

“Well, my dear,” grandma was saying, “she had it on the very day that Uncle Joe came in as she sat at work, and said, ‘Dolly, we must be married at once.’ ‘Very well, Joe,’ says Aunt Dolly, and down she went to the parlor, where the minister was waiting, never stopping to change the dimity dress she wore, and was actually married with her scissors and pin-ball at her side, and her thimble on. That was in war times, 1812, my dear, and Uncle Joe was in the army, so he had to go, and he took that very little pin-ball with him. Here it is, with the mark of a bullet through it, for he always said his Dolly’s cushion saved his life.”

“How interesting that is!” cried Polly, as she examined the faded cushion with the hole in it.

“Why, grandma, you never told me that story,” said Fanny, hurrying in, finding the prospect was a pleasant one for a stormy afternoon.

“You never asked me to tell you anything, my dear, so I kept my old stories to myself,” answered grandma, quietly.