Half a Dozen Girls Part 11

"So do I," groaned Polly fervently, as she caught sight of the empty fire-place, for there was not one single stick on the andirons.

Now, to lay an open fire ready for the lighting is at once a science and a fine art, and Polly was by no means versed in the operation. Why, of all days in the year, this happened to be the one on which Mrs. Adams had neglected to arrange her usual pile of round sticks and kindlings and shavings, it would be hard to say.

Some little unexpected call on her time had made her forget this regular duty, and had left her daughter as hostess to preside over a cheerless hearthstone.

"What's the trouble?" asked Molly, as she detected the discouraged ring to her friend's tone. "Don't you know how to lay a fire?"

"I never have laid one, all alone," admitted Polly, whose share in the matter, it must be confessed, had been to tuck a handful of soft, light shavings under the andirons and apply the match.

"But," she added valiantly; "I've watched mamma often enough, and I know I can do it. We must have a fire; the furnace one is 'most out, for Mary forgot to put in any coal, and it's just freezing here. You sit down, and I'll go get some wood."

She came back in a few moments, tugging a great basket of wood, which she arranged in an orderly, solid pile across the andirons, much as she might have placed it, had she been packing it in a woodshed. Then she added a generous handful of shavings, and touched it off with a match.

"There!" said she, with a prolonged accent of contentment; "you see it's easy enough. It will all be going, in a minute."

"Don't you be too sure," returned Molly, doubtfully eyeing the shavings which flashed into flame and quickly died away, leaving the wood unscorched.

"What do you suppose is the matter?" said Polly, rather annoyed at her lack of success.

"Seems to me you've put the wood in too tight," said Molly, arming herself with the shovel, and trying to pry the sticks apart.

"Perhaps I have," said Polly meekly.

Regardless of soot and ashes, she pulled the wood out on the rug, and began again. This time she arranged it cris-crossing as regularly as the walls of a log-house, and, having exhausted her supply of shavings, she lighted a newspaper and thrust it into the middle opening. The girls watched it with eager eyes. It blazed up like the shavings and, like them, burned out, leaving only the blackened cinders, with here and there a line of red, to show where an edge had been. This was discouraging; the room was uncomfortably cool, and they were wasting their entire evening in preparing for their talk.

"The third time conquers," said Molly, laughing, as she saw Polly tearing down her log cabin. "What are you going to do next, Poll?"

"Lay it yourself, if you want to," retorted Polly, showing more heat than the fire had done.

"I never did such a thing in my life," Molly a.s.sured her. "Can't Mary do it?"

"I don't know," said Polly, dropping back from her knees until she sat on her heels; "anyway, she's so cross I don't dare ask her."

"What makes your mother keep her if she's so cross?" inquired Molly, leaning forward to blow the last spark which still lingered on the newspaper.

"Because she can't get anything else," answered Polly, unconsciously touching the key-note of the whole servant question.

"Well," remarked Molly, after a pause, while Polly again wrestled with the fire, "we shall catch our deaths of cold here, Polly; we may as well go to bed, for this isn't going to burn to-night."

"I'm sorry, Molly," her hostess said penitently, as they went up- stairs after leaving a note on the table addressed to the doctor, and containing the simple but alarming statement: "Good night; we've gone to bed to keep from freezing."

"I don't care a bit," said Molly. "I like to talk after I'm in bed, and we shall have ever and ever so long before we get sleepy."

At breakfast, the next morning, the girls had to bear with much teasing from the doctor on the subject of their struggles, the evening before; and, as he rose from the table, he suggested that they should ask Alan to give them a few lessons in making bonfires.

"I shan't be back to lunch," he added, as he put his head through the dining-room door again; "but I'd like dinner on time to-night, surely, for I must go down to the hospital before my evening hour."

"I'll tell Mary," said Polly, jumping up to follow him to the front door, as was her mother's custom.

"Now," she continued, as she went back to the table, "what let's do all day?"

Their plans were soon formed: a drive with Job in the morning, for, of late, after many cautions, Polly had been allowed to drive the old creature; and in the afternoon they would go to see Jean.

"I wonder if Alan wouldn't go with us, this morning," said Polly.

"I think he'd like to," answered Molly. "He caught cold a week ago, and since then he's been so stiff that he hasn't been anywhere but just to school and back; and I should think he would be glad to get away from Katharine. He says he gets so tired of her."

"We'll ask him, then," said Polly. "I think 'twould be a good idea to start early, so I'll go out to tell Mary about lunch, and have John harness right away."

She was gone for some time, and when she came back to Molly in the sitting-room, her face was flushed and her eyes were s.h.i.+ning with an angry gleam.

"Why, Polly?" said Molly, raising her eyebrows inquiringly.

"It's that horrid Mary!" responded Polly, casting herself down on the sofa with unnecessary vigor. "I don't see what we are going to do, Molly Hapgood; I've a good mind to send you right straight off home."

"You've done it before now," Molly began teasingly, but seeing the real trouble in her friend's face, she relented and asked, "What's gone wrong, Polly?"

"It hasn't gone, it's only going," answered Polly lugubriously.

"It's Mary. She says mamma has been promising her a vacation for a long time, and that she's going to take it now, for it's such a good time when part of the family are away. I told her she mustn't; but she says she's going to, or else she'll go for good.

I don't dare let her do that, but whatever am I going to do, Molly? She's going right off now, and you'd better go home to stay." And Polly rose and stalked tragically up and down the room, with her fingers buried in her curls.

Molly surveyed her in pity; then she rose to meet the emergency like a heroine.

"I'm not going to go home one single step, Polly," she declared.

"I'll stay here and help you through with it."

"But you'll starve, Molly," remonstrated her hostess tearfully.

"Nonsense!" responded Molly. "Now you just sit down and don't go rus.h.i.+ng round like this, and we'll talk the matter over, and take an account of stock."

This was encouraging, and Polly felt her spirits coming up again.

"Well?" she asked, as she seated herself on the sofa once more.

"In the first place," said Molly, with a calmness born of inexperience, "we'll tell her to go. I have heard mamma say, often and often, that it's easier to do the work yourself than to have a girl around that's restless and wanting to be off all the time."

There was something so impressive in Molly's manner, as she delivered herself of this sentiment, that Polly gazed at her with a new respect. She had never dreamed that her friend knew so much about housekeeping.

"And so," Molly went on, "we'll just get rid of her and do the work ourselves. I've always been dying to try it, and this is a splendid chance. We won't do much sweeping and dusting, for it will only be for a day or two--How long was she going to be gone, Polly?"

"A week," answered Polly briefly.

"A whole week!" Molly's face fell. Then she resumed, "Well, we shall get on, in some way or other."

"We needn't do much but get the meals and wash the dishes," said Polly, with renewed courage.

"We shouldn't have time, if we wanted to," returned Molly. "Now, Polly, the question is: how much do you know about cooking?"

"Not very much," Polly confessed. "I can boil eggs and make toast, and I have made coffee, once or twice, just for fun."

"That's good," said Molly enthusiastically; "you're a treasure, Polly. I can do codfish and milk, and make mola.s.ses candy, and fry griddle-cakes. We shan't have such a bad time, after all."