Polly Oliver's Problem

"I 'm glad you do. There used to be a painful lack of reverence in your manners, Miss Polly."

"There used to be a painful lack of politeness in yours, Mr. Edgar. Oh dear, I meant to begin so nicely with you and astonish you with my new grown-up manners! Now, Edgar, let us begin as if we had just been introduced; if you will try your best not to be provoking, I won't say a single disagreeable thing."

"Polly, shall I tell you the truth?"

"You might try; it would be good practice even if you did n't accomplish anything."

"How does that remark conform with your late promises? However, I 'll be forgiving and see if I receive any reward; I 've tried every other line of action. What I was going to say when you fired that last shot was this: I agree with Jack Howard, who used to say that he would rather quarrel with you than be friends with any other girl."

"It is nice," said Polly complacently. "I feel a sort of pleasant glow myself, whenever I 've talked to you a few minutes; but the trouble is that you used to fan that pleasant glow into a raging heat, and then we both got angry."

"If the present 'raging heat' has faded into the 'pleasant glow,' I don't mind telling you that you are very much improved," said Edgar encouragingly. "Your temper seems much the same, but no one who knew you at fourteen could have foreseen that you would turn out so exceedingly well."

"Do you mean that I am better looking?" asked Polly, with the excited frankness of sixteen years.

"Exactly."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, Edgar. I 'm a thousand times obliged. I 've thought so myself, lately; but it's worth everything to have your grown-up, college opinion. Of course red hair has come into vogue, that's one point in my favor, though I fear mine is a little vivid even for the fashion; Margery has done a water color of my head which Phil says looks like the explosion of a tomato. Then my freckles are almost gone, and that is a great help; if you examine me carefully in this strong light you can only count seven, and two of those are getting faint-hearted. Nothing can be done with my aspiring nose. I 've tried in vain to push it down, and now I 'm simply living it down."

Edgar examined her in the strong light mischievously. "Turn your profile," he said. "That's right; now, do you know, I rather like your nose, and it's a very valuable index to your disposition. I don't know whether, if it were removed from your face, it would mean so much; but taken in connection with its surroundings, it's a very expressive feature; it warns the stranger to be careful. In fact, most of your features are danger signals, Polly; I 'm rather glad I 've been taking a course of popular medical lectures on First Aid to the Injured!"

And so, with a great deal of nonsense and a good sprinkling of quiet, friendly chat, they made their way to Professor Salazar's house, proffered Polly's apologies, and took the train for San Francisco.

CHAPTER VII.

"WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS."

The trip from Berkeley to San Francisco was a brilliant success from Edgar's standpoint, but Polly would have told you that she never worked harder in her life.

"I 'll just say 'How do you do?' to your mother, and then be off," said Edgar, as they neared the house.

"Oh, but you surely will stay to dinner with us!" said Polly, with the most innocent look of disappointment on her face,–a look of such obvious grief that a person of any feeling could hardly help wishing to remove it, if possible. "You see, Edgar" (putting the latch-key in the door), "mamma is so languid and ill that she cannot indulge in many pleasures, and I had quite counted on you to amuse her a little for me this evening. But come up, and you shall do as you like after dinner."

"I 've brought you a charming surprise, mamacita!" called Polly from the stairs: "an old friend whom I picked up in the woods like a wild-flower and brought home to you." ("Wild-flower is a good name for him," she thought.)

Mrs. Oliver was delighted to see Edgar, but after the first greetings were over, Polly fancied that she had not closed the front door, and Edgar offered to go down and make sure.

In a second Polly crossed the room to her mother's side, and whispered impressively, "Edgar must be kept here until after midnight; I have good reasons that I will explain when we are alone. Keep him somehow,–anyhow!"

Mrs. Oliver had not lived sixteen years with Polly without learning to leap to conclusions. "Run down and ask Mrs. Howe if she will let us have her hall-bedroom tonight," she replied; "nod your head for yes when you come back, and I 'll act accordingly; I have a request to make of Edgar, and am glad to have so early an opportunity of talking with him."

"We did close the door, after all," said Edgar, coming in again. "What a pretty little apartment you have here! I have n't seen anything so cosy and homelike for ages."

"Then make yourself at home in it," said Mrs. Oliver, while Polly joined in with, "Is n't that a pretty fire in the grate? I 'll give you one rose-colored lamp with your firelight. Here, mamacita, is the rocker for you on one side; here, Edgar, is our one 'man's chair' for you on the other. Stretch out your feet as lazily as you like on my new goatskin rug. You are our only home-friend in San Francisco; and oh, how mamma will spoil you whenever she has the chance! Now talk to each other cosily while the 'angel of the house' cooks dinner."

It may be mentioned here that as Mrs. Chadwick's monthly remittances varied from sixty to seventy-five dollars, but never reached the promised eighty-five, Polly had dismissed little Yung Lee for a month, two weeks of which would be the Christmas vacation, and hoped in this way to make up deficiencies. The sugar-bowl and ginger-jar were stuffed copiously with notes of hand signed "Cigar-box," but held a painfully small amount of cash.

"Can't I go out and help Polly?" asked Edgar, a little later. "I should never have agreed to stay and dine if I had known that she was the cook."

"Go out, by all means; but you need n't be anxious. Ours is a sort of doll-house-keeping. We buy everything cooked, as far as possible, and Polly makes play of the rest. It all seems so simple and interesting to plan for two when we have been used to twelve and fourteen."

"May I come in?" called Edgar from the tiny dining-room to Polly, who had laid aside her Sunday finery and was clad in brown Scotch gingham mostly covered with ruffled apron.

"Yes, if you like; but you won't be spoiled here, so don't hope it. Mamma and I are two very different persons. Tie that apron round your waist; I 've just begun the salad-dressing; is your intelligence equal to stirring it round and round and pouring in oil drop by drop, while I take up the dinner?"

"Fully. Just try me. I 'll make it stand on its head in three minutes!"

Meanwhile Polly set on the table a platter of lamb-chops, some delicate potato chips which had come out of a pasteboard box, a dish of canned French peas, and a mound of currant-jelly.

"That is good," she remarked critically, coming back to her apprentice, who was toiling with most unnecessary vigor, so that the veins stood out boldly on his forehead. "You're really not stupid, for a boy; and you have n't 'made a mess,' which is more than I hoped. Now, please pour the dressing over those sliced tomatoes; set them on the side-table in the banquet-hall; put the plate in the sink (don't stare at me!); open a bottle of Apollinaris for mamma,–dig out the cork with a hairpin, I 've lost the corkscrew; move three chairs up to the dining-table (oh, it's so charming to have three!); light the silver candlesticks in the centre of the table; go in and bring mamma out in style; see if the fire needs coal; and I'll be ready by that time."

"I can never remember, but I fly! Oh, what an excellent slave-driver was spoiled in you!" said Edgar.

The simple dinner was delicious, and such a welcome change from the long boarding-house table at which Edgar had eaten for over a year. The candles gave a soft light; there was a bowl of yellow flowers underneath them. Mrs. Oliver looked like an elderly Dresden-china shepherdess in her pale blue wrapper, and Polly did n't suffer from the brown gingham, with its wide collar and cuffs of buff embroidery, and its quaint full sleeves. She had burned two small blisters on her wrist: they were scarcely visible to the naked eye, but she succeeded in obtaining as much sympathy for them as if they had been mortal wounds. Her mother murmured 'Poor darling wrist' and 'kissed the place to make it well.' Edgar found a bit of thin cambric and bound up the injured member with cooling flour, Mistress Polly looking demurely on, thinking meanwhile how much safer he was with them than with the objectionable Tony. After the lamb-chops and peas had been discussed, Edgar insisted on changing the plates and putting on the tomato salad; then Polly officiated at the next course, bringing in coffee, sliced oranges, and delicious cake from the neighboring confectioner's.

"Can't I wash the dishes?" asked Edgar, when the feast was ended.

"They are not going to be washed, at least by us. This is a great occasion, and the little girl downstairs is coming up to clear away the dinner things."

Then there was the pleasant parlor again, and when the candles were lighted in the old-fashioned mirror over the fireplace, everything wore a festive appearance. The guitar was brought out, and Edgar sang college songs till Mrs. Oliver grew so bright that she even hummed a faint second from her cosy place on the sofa.

And then Polly must show Edgar how she had made Austin Dobson's "Milkmaid Song" fit "Nelly Ely," and she must teach him the pretty words.

"Across the grass,
I saw her pass,
She comes with tripping pace;
A maid I know,
March winds blow
Her hair across her face.
Hey! Dolly! Ho! Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,
Before the spray is white with May
Or blooms the eglantine."

By this time the bandage had come off the burned wrist, and Edgar must bind it on again, and Polly shrieked and started when he pinned the end over, and Edgar turned pale at the thought of his brutal awkwardness, and Polly burst into a ringing peal of laughter and confessed that the pin had n't touched her, and Edgar called her a deceitful little wretch. This naturally occupied some time, and then there was the second verse:–

"The March winds blow,
I watch her go,
Her eye is blue and clear;
Her cheek is brown
And soft as down
To those who see it near.
Hey! Dolly! Ho! Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,
Before the spray is white with May
Or blooms the eglantine."

After this singing-lesson was over it was nearly eleven o'clock, but up to this time Edgar had shown no realizing sense of his engagements.