Polly Oliver's Problem. Wiggin Kate Douglas Smith

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      CHAPTER I.

      A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

      "I have determined only one thing definitely," said Polly Oliver; "and that is, the boarders must go. Oh, how charming that sounds! I 've been thinking it ever since I was old enough to think, but I never cast it in such an attractive, decisive form before. 'The Boarders Must Go!' To a California girl it is every bit as inspiring as 'The Chinese Must Go.' If I were n't obliged to set the boarders' table, I 'd work the motto on a banner this very minute, and march up and down the plaza with it, followed by a crowd of small boys with toy drums."

      "The Chinese never did go," said Mrs. Oliver suggestively, from the sofa.

      "Oh, that's a trifle; they had a treaty or something, and besides, there are so many of them, and they have such an object in staying."

      "You can't turn people out of the house on a moment's warning."

      "Certainly not. Give them twenty-four hours, if necessary. We can choose among several methods of getting rid of them. I can put up a placard with

      printed on it in large letters, and then assemble them in the banquet-hall and make them a speech."

      "You would insult them," objected Mrs. Oliver feebly, "and they are perfectly innocent."

      "Insult them? Oh, mamma, how unworthy of you! I shall speak to them firmly but very gently. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' I shall begin, 'you have done your best to make palatable the class of human beings to which you belong, but you have utterly failed, and you must go! Board, if you must, ladies and gentlemen, but not here! Sap, if you must, the foundations of somebody else's private paradise, but not ours. In the words of the Poe-et, "Take thy beaks from off our door."' Then it will be over, and they will go out."

      "Slink out, I should say," murmured Polly's mother.

      "Very well, slink out," replied Polly cheerfully. "I should like to see them slink, after they 've been rearing their crested heads round our table for generations; but I think you credit them with a sensitiveness they do not, and in the nature of things cannot, possess. There is something in the unnatural life which hardens both the boarder and those who board her. However, I don't insist on that method. Let us try bloodless eviction,–set them quietly out in the street with their trunks; or strategy,–put one of them in bed and hang out the smallpox flag. Oh, I can get rid of them in a week, if I once set my mind on it."

      "There is no doubt of that," said Mrs. Oliver meekly.

      Polly's brain continued to teem with sinister ideas.

      "I shall make Mr. Talbot's bed so that the clothes will come off at the foot every night. He will remonstrate. I shall tell him that he kicks them off, and intimate that his conscience troubles him, or he would never be so restless. He will glare. I shall promise to do better, yet the clothes will come off worse and worse, and at last, perfectly disheartened, he will go. I shall tell Mr. Greenwood at the breakfast-table, what I have been longing for months to tell him, that we can hear him snore, distinctly, through the partition. He will go. I shall put cold milk in Mrs. Caldwell's coffee every morning. I shall mean well, you know, but I shall forget. She will know that I mean well, and that it is only girlish absent-mindedness, but she will not endure it very long; she will go. And so, by the exercise of a little ingenuity, they will depart one by one, remarking that Mrs. Oliver's boarding-house is not what it used to be; that Pauline is growing a little 'slack.'"

      "Polly!" and Mrs. Oliver half rose from the sofa, "I will not allow you to call this a boarding-house in that tone of voice."

      "A boarding-house, as I take it," argued Polly, "is a house where the detestable human vipers known as boarders are 'taken in and done for.'"

      "But we have always prided ourselves on having it exactly like a family," said her mother plaintively. "You know we have not omitted a single refinement of the daintiest home-life, no matter at what cost of labor and thought."

      "Certainly, that's the point,–and there you are, a sofa-invalid, and here am I with my disposition ruined for life; such a wreck in temper that I could blow up the boarders with dynamite and sleep peacefully after it."

      "Now be reasonable, little daughter. Think how kind and grateful the boarders have been (at least almost always), how appreciative of everything we have done for them."

      "Of course; it is n't every day they can secure an–an–elderly Juno like you to carve meat for them, or a–well, just for the sake of completing the figure of speech–a blooming Hebe like me (I 've always wondered why it was n't Shebe!) to dispense their tea and coffee; to say nothing of broma for Mr. Talbot, cocoa for Mr. Greenwood, cambric tea for Mrs. Hastings, and hot water for the Darlings. I have to keep a schedule, and refer to it three times a day. This alone shows that boarders are n't my vocation."

      A bit of conversation gives the clue to character so easily that Mrs. Oliver and her daughter need little more description. You can see the pretty, fragile mother resting among her pillows, and I need only tell you that her dress is always black, her smile patient, her eyes full of peace, and her hands never idle save in this one daily resting-hour prescribed by the determined Miss Polly, who mounts guard during the appointed time like a jailer who expects his prisoner to escape if he removes his eagle eye for an instant.

      The aforesaid impetuous Miss Polly has also told you something of herself in this brief interview. She is evidently a person who feels matters rather strongly, and who is wont to state them in the strongest terms she knows. Every word she utters shows you that, young as she looks, she is the real head of the family, and that her vigorous independence of thought and speech must be the result of more care and responsibility than ordinarily fall to the lot of a girl of sixteen.

      Certain of her remarks must be taken with a grain of salt. Her assertion of willingness to blow up innocent boarders in their beds would seem, for instance, to indicate a vixenish and vindictive sort of temper quite unwarranted by the circumstances; but a glance at the girl herself contradicts the thought.

      Item: A firm chin. She will take her own way if she can possibly get it; but item; a sweet, lovable mouth framed in dimples; a mouth that breaks into smiles at the slightest provocation, no matter how dreary the outlook; a mouth that quivers at the first tender word, and so the best of all correctives to the determined little chin below.

      Item: A distinctly saucy nose; an aggressive, impertinent, spirited little nose, with a few freckles on it; a nose that probably leads its possessor into trouble occasionally.

      Item: Two bright eyes, a trifle overproud and willful, perhaps, but candid and full of laughter.

      Item: A head of brilliant, auburn hair; lively, independent, frisky hair, each glittering thread standing out by itself and asserting its own individuality; tempestuous hair that never "stays put;" capricious hair that escapes hairpins and comes down unexpectedly; hoydenish hair that makes the meekest hats look daring.

      For the rest, a firm, round figure, no angles, everything, including elbows, in curves; blooming cheeks and smooth-skinned, taper-fingered hands tanned a very honest brown,–the hands of a person who loves beauty.

      Polly Oliver's love of beautiful things was a passion, and one that had little gratification; but luckily, though good music, pictures, china, furniture, and "purple and fine linen" were all conspicuous by their absence, she could feast without money and without price on the changeful loveliness СКАЧАТЬ