Polly Oliver's Problem Part 13

CHAPTER XIV.

EDGAR DISCOURSES OF SCARLET RUNNERS.

One day, in the middle of October, the mail brought Polly two letters: the first from Edgar, who often dashed off cheery scrawls in the hope of getting cheery replies, which never came; and the second from Mrs.

Bird, who had a plan to propose.

Edgar wrote:--

. . . "I have a new boarding-place in San Francisco, a stone's throw from Mrs. Bird's, whose mansion I can look down upon from a lofty height reached by a flight of fifty wooden steps,--good training in athletics! Mrs. Morton is a kind landlady and the house is a home, in a certain way,--

"But oh, the difference to me 'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee!

"There is a Morton girl, too; but she neither plays nor sings nor jokes, nor even looks,--in fine, she is not Polly! I have come to the conclusion, now, that girls in a house are almost always nuisances,--I mean, of course, when, they are not Pollies. Oh, why are you so young, and so loaded with this world's goods, that you will never need me for a boarder again? Mrs. Bird is hoping to see you soon, and I chose my humble lodging on this hill-top because, from my attic's lonely height, I can watch you going in and out of your 'marble halls;' and you will almost pa.s.s my door as you take the car. In view of this pleasing prospect (now, alas! somewhat distant), I send you a sc.r.a.p of newspaper verse which prophesies my sentiments. It is signed 'M. E. W.,' and Tom Mills says whoever wrote it knows you."

WHEN POLLY GOES BY.

'T is but poorly I 'm lodged in a little side-street, Which is seldom disturbed by the hurry of feet, For the flood-tide of life long ago ebbed away From its homely old houses, rain-beaten and gray; And I sit with my pipe in the window, and sigh At the buffets of fortune--till Polly goes by.

There 's a flaunting of ribbons, a flurry of lace, And a rose in the bonnet above a bright face, A glance from two eyes so deliriously blue The midsummer seas scarcely rival their hue; And once in a while, if the wind 's blowing high, The sound of soft laughter as Polly goes by.

Then up jumps my heart and begins to beat fast.

"She 's coming!" it whispers. "She 's here!

She has pa.s.sed!"

While I throw up the sash and lean breathlessly down To catch the last glimpse of her vanishing gown, Excited, delighted, yet wondering why My senses desert me if Polly goes by.

Ah! she must be a witch, and the magical spell She has woven about me has done its work well, For the morning grows brighter, and gayer the air That my landlady sings as she sweeps down the stair; And my poor lonely garret, up close to the sky, Seems something like heaven when Polly goes by.

"P. S. Tony has returned to the university. He asked after the health of the 'sunset-haired G.o.ddess' yesterday. You 'd better hurry back and take care of me! No, joking aside, don't worry about me, little missionary; I 've outgrown Tony, and I hope I don't need to be reformed oftener than once a year.

"Yours ever, EDGAR.

"P. S. No. II. I saw you twice after--you know--and I was dumb on both occasions. Of all people in the world I ought to have been able to say something helpful to you in your trouble, I, who lived with you and your dear mother through all those happy months before she left us. It will be just the same when I see you again: I shall never be able to speak, partly, I suppose, because I am a man, or on the road to becoming one. I know this is making you cry; I can see the tears in your eyes across all the distance; but it is better even that you should cry than that you should think me cold or unmindful of your sorrow. Do you know one of the sacred memories of my life? It is that, on that blessed night when your mother asked me to come and live under her roof, she said she should be glad to feel that in any sudden emergency you and she would, have a near friend to lean upon. There was a 'royal accolade,' if you like! I felt in an instant as if she had bestowed the order of knighthood upon me, and as if I must live more worthily in order to deserve her trust. How true it is, Polly, that those who believe in us educate us!

"Do you remember (don't cry, dear!) that night by the fireside,--the night when we brought her out of her bedroom after three days of illness,--when we sat on either side of her, each holding a hand while she told us the pretty romance of her meeting and loving your father?

I slipped the loose wedding ring up and down her finger, and stole a look at her now and then. She was like a girl when she told that story, and I could not help thinking it was worth while to be a tender, honorable, faithful man, to bring that look into a woman's face after eighteen years. Well, I adored her, that is all I can say; and I can't _say_ even that, I have to write it. Don't rob me, Polly, of the right she gave me, that of being a 'near friend to lean upon.' I am only afraid, because you, more than any one else, know certain weaknesses and follies of mine, and, indeed, pulled me out of the pit and held me up till I got a new footing. I am afraid you will never have the same respect for me, nor believe that a fellow so weak as I was could be strong enough to lean upon. Try me once, Polly, just to humor me, won't you? Give me something to do,--something _hard_! Lean just a little, Polly, and see how stiff I 'll be,--no, bother it, I won't be stiff, I'll be firm! To tell the truth, I can never imagine you as 'leaning;' though they say you are pale and sad, and out of sorts with life. You remind me of one of the gay scarlet runners that climb up the slender poles in the garden below my window. The pole holds up the vine at first, of course, but the vine keeps the pole straight; not in any ugly and commonplace fashion, but by winding round, and round about it, and hanging its blossoms in and out and here and there, till the poor, serviceable pole is forgotten in the beauty that makes use of it.

"Good-by, little scarlet runner! You will bloom again some day, when the storm that has beaten you down has pa.s.sed over and the sky is clear and the sun warm. Don't laugh at me, Polly!

"Always yours, whether you laugh or not,

"EDGAR."

"P. S. No. III. I should n't dare add this third postscript if you were near enough to slay me with the lightning of your eye, but I simply wish to mention that a wise gardener chooses young, strong timber for _poles_,--saplings, in fact! _Mr. John Bird is too old for this purpose_. Well seasoned he is, of course, and suitable as a prop for a century-plant, but not for a scarlet runner! I like him, you know, but I 'm sure he 'd crack if you leaned on him; in point of fact, he 's a little cracked now! E. N."

The ghost of a smile shone on Polly's April face as she folded Edgar's letter and laid it in its envelope; first came a smile, then a tear, then a dimple, then a sob, then a wave of bright color.

"Edgar is growing up so fast," she thought, "I shall soon be afraid to scold him or advise him, and

"'What will poor Robin do then, poor thing?'

"Upon my word, if I caught him misbehaving nowadays, I believe I should hesitate to remonstrate with him. He will soon be capable of remonstrating with me, at this rate. He is a goose,--oh, there 's no shadow of doubt as to that, but he 's an awfully nice goose."

Mrs. Bird's letter ran thus:--

"MY DEAREST POLLYKINS:----We have lived without you just about as long as we can endure it. The boys have returned to school and college.

Mr. Bird contemplates one more trip to Honolulu, and brother John and I need some one to coddle and worry over. I have not spoken to you of your future, because I wished to wait until you opened the subject. It is too late for you to begin your professional training this year, and I think you are far too delicate just now to undertake so arduous a work; however, you are young, and that can wait for a bit. As to the story-telling in the hospitals and asylums, I wish you could find courage and strength to go on with that, not for your own sake alone, but for the sake of others.

"As I have told you before, the money is set aside for that special purpose, and the work will be carried on by somebody. Of course I can get a subst.i.tute if you refuse, and that subst.i.tute may, after a little time, satisfy the impatient children, who flatten their noses against the window-panes and long for Mias Pauline every day of their meagre lives. But I fear the subst.i.tute will never be Polly! She may 'rattle round in your place' (as somebody said under different circ.u.mstances), but she can never fill it! Why not spend the winter with us, and do this lovely work, keeping up other studies if you are strong enough?

It will be so sweet for you to feel that out of your own sadness you can comfort and brighten the lives of these lonely, suffering children and these motherless or fatherless ones. It will seem hard to begin, no doubt; but new life will flow in your veins when you take up your active, useful work again. The joyousness that G.o.d put into your soul before you were born, my Polly, is a sacred trust. You must not hide it in a napkin, dear, or bury it, or lose it. It was given to you only that you should share it with others. It was intended for the world at large, though it was bestowed upon you in particular. Come, dear, to one who knows all about it,--one whom you are sweet enough to call

"YOUR FAIRY G.o.dMOTHER."

"Mrs. n.o.ble," said Polly, with a sober smile, "the Ancon sails on the 20th, and I am going to sail with her."

"So soon? What for, dear?"

"I am going to be a banian-tree, if you please," answered Polly.

CHAPTER XV.

LIFE IN THE BIRDS' NEST.

Polly settled down in the Birds' Nest under the protecting wing of Mrs.

Bird, and a very soft and unaccustomed sort of shelter it was.

A room had been refurnished expressly for the welcome guest, and as Mrs. Bird pushed her gently in alone, the night of her arrival, she said, "This is the Pilgrim Chamber, Polly. It will speak our wishes for us."

It was not the room in which Polly had been ill for so many weeks; for Mrs. Bird knew the power of a.s.sociations, and was unwilling to leave any reminder of those painful days to sadden the girl's new life.

As Polly looked about her, she was almost awed by the dazzling whiteness. The room was white enough for an angel, she thought. The straw matting was almost concealed by a mammoth rug made of white j.a.panese goatskins sewed together; the paint was like snow, and the furniture had all been painted white, save for the delicate silver lines that relieved it. There were soft, full curtains of white bunting fringed with something that looked like thistle-down, and the bedstead had an overhanging canopy of the same. An open fire burned in the little grate, and a big white and silver rattan chair was drawn cosily before it. There was a girlish dressing-table with its oval mirror draped in dotted muslin; a dainty writing-desk with everything convenient upon it; and in one corner was a low bookcase of white satinwood. On the top of this case lay a card, "With the best wishes of John Bird," and along the front of the upper shelf were painted the words: "Come, tell us a story!" Below this there was a rich array of good things. The Grimms, Laboulaye, and Hans Christian Andersen were all there. Mrs. Ewing's "Jackanapes" and Charles Kingsley's "Water-Babies" jostled the "Seven Little Sisters" series; Hawthorne's "Wonder-Book" lay close to Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare;" and Whittier's "Child-Life in Prose and Poetry" stood between Mary Howitt's "Children's Year" and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses."

Polly sat upon the floor before the bookcase and gloated over her new treasures, each of which bore her name on the fly-leaf.

As her eye rose to the vase of snowy pampas plumes and the pictured Madonna and Child above the bookcase, it wandered still higher until it met a silver motto painted on a blue frieze that finished the top of the walls where they met the ceiling.

Polly walked slowly round the room, studying the illuminated letters: "_And they laid the Pilgrim in an upper chamber, and the name of the chamber was Peace_."

This brought the ready tears to Polly's eyes. "G.o.d seems to give me everything but what I want most," she thought; "but since He gives me so much, I must not question any more: I must not choose; I must believe that He wants me to be happy, after all, and I must begin and try to be good again."

She did try to be good. She came down to breakfast the next morning, announcing to Mrs. Bird, with her grateful morning kiss, that she meant to "live up to" her room. "But it's going to be difficult," she confessed. "I shall not dare to have a naughty thought in it; it seems as if it would be written somewhere on the whiteness!"