Half a Dozen Girls Part 7

"And so this is your garden, Mrs. Adams! It's a likely place for petunias and sweet williams, but I don't think much of those new- fangled things," pointing to a brilliant bed of dwarf nasturtiums near by. Then she went on in a sing-song tone,--

"'So I've come out to view the land Where I must shortly lie.'"

"Needn't think I expect to lie in your garden, though," she hastily added, evidently fearful of being misunderstood.

"Hush, Alan! you must not laugh at her," said Polly, stifling her own merriment as best she could.

But Miss Bean, absorbed in her eloquence, had pa.s.sed on out of hearing, and Jean returned to the charge.

"Come, Alan, there's a dear boy," she began persuasively, "tell us about the girls."

"I don't know much about them," answered Alan. "Katharine is the older one, about fifteen, and Jessie is just my age. Her birthday is the third and mine the seventh. I suppose they're well enough, but their pictures look a little toploftical, and I'm not over fond of that kind. They are going to bring their pony, if they come, and that will be fun, if mother will only let me ride him."

"You'll get your neck broken," predicted Polly. "Do you remember the day we tried to ride Job, and he lay down and rolled us off?"

"That was your fault," returned Alan; "if you hadn't gripped his mane so, he'd have been all right. Well," he added, sitting up and stretching himself, "mother sent me to the market, and I s'pose I must go, but I thought I'd just stop in a minute."

"Oh, dear! how I wish I had a brother!" sighed Polly, watching his boyish figure, as he sauntered away across the gra.s.s.

"Yes," said Jean slowly, as she thought of the four little brothers at home, "it is nice, but it has its drawbacks, Polly.

When they all want to do the same thing at the same time, and can't wait a minute, why, then it doesn't seem quite so agreeable."

In the warm twilight, Mrs. Adams and Polly sat on the broad piazza. Miss Bean had taken her departure, long before, and Jean had gone home to help her mother get supper and put the younger children to bed. The birds were twittering their last sleepy good nights, and two or three little stars were faintly showing in the blue sky above the dark mountain, while scores of tiny fireflies were dotting the air below.

"There, Jerusalem!" Polly was saying triumphantly, as she perched herself on the broad arm of her mother's piazza chair; "now everybody is out of the way, and I can have you all to myself."

"What is it to-night?" inquired Mrs. Adams, laughing, as she pulled her light shawl over her shoulders to keep out the evening air.

"Lots of things, mamma," answered Polly, with a sudden thoughtfulness; "there's been a good deal to-day."

"About Molly's cousins, for instance?" asked Mrs. Adams.

"Yes," replied Polly; "I don't think we want them, mamma. I know they won't fit in a bit. And Alan says he doesn't want them."

"That's not quite fair of Alan," said her mother: "he oughtn't to say so without knowing anything more about them. But, Polly, you may find them pleasant friends, and like them better than you do Molly."

Polly shook her head with decision.

"I'm sure I shan't. But I'm afraid Molly will like them better than she does us."

"Jealous, Polly?" And there was a tone of regret in her mother's voice as she went on: "I am a little disappointed in my daughter.

Of course, Polly, Molly will be thrown with them a great deal, much more than with you; and, so long as they are her cousins, she will probably be fond of them. But, after all these years, can't you trust Molly's friends.h.i.+p enough to believe that it won't make any difference in her feeling to you, but that she can love and care for you all, at the same time?"

"Sometimes I think she can, and sometimes I think she can't,'"

said Polly slowly. "Once in a while, when we have had a 'sc.r.a.p,'

as Alan calls it, I think she doesn't care a bit about me."

"Whose fault is it, when you quarrel?" asked Mrs. Adams, smoothing the short curls. "I don't think it is all Molly's fault, any more than it is all yours. If my small daughter wants her friends to care for her, she must govern that temper and study self-control."

"I know that, mamma," broke in Polly impetuously; "but you don't have any idea how hard 'tis, nor how sorry I am after it is over."

"It is just because I do know it so well, my dear, that I keep saying this to you; for I hope I can save you from a part, at least, of the pain I have suffered in just this same way. I have been through it all, Polly, and I know that every time you give up to your temper, it is just so much easier to do it again; and if you were to go on long enough, in time you would get to where it would be impossible to stop yourself, and you would do something that might be a sorrow to you, through all your life. It is just so with every habit; the more you give way to it, the more it becomes a part of your nature. That is the reason I am trying to help you form the habit of a quiet, even temper. And now," added Mrs. Adams, changing the subject, "what else was there that we wanted to talk over?"

"'Twas Jean," said Polly, as she slipped down on the floor at her mother's feet. "Miss Bean was twitting her to-day because she wasn't rich." And Polly repeated the little conversation which had taken place under the trees.

Mrs. Adams listened thoughtfully. When Polly had finished, she said decidedly,--

"That was rather uncalled for, I think, Polly. Whatever Jean's parents may be, they are really refined people, and Jean is at heart a lady."

"What difference does it make, anyway?" asked Polly impatiently.

"Not so much as most people think," said Mrs. Adams. "If your parents are cultivated people, it helps you to make something of yourself; and whatever teaching you get from them is so much stock in trade, just as money would be, if you were starting in business. If, when you have this start, you don't make the most of it, it shows that you are unworthy of it; and if you become a grand woman without it, then you deserve ever so much more credit than the people who have had everything in their favor. Do you understand me, Polly?"

"Yes, I think I do," said Polly. "And it doesn't make any difference whether we are rich or poor, does it?"

Her mother paused for a moment, as if the question were a hard one to answer. Polly had a way of asking deeper questions than she realized. Mrs. Adams rocked back and forth in silence two or three times; then she said,--

"Yes and no, Polly. Money in itself doesn't make the least bit of difference; but people that have it can make more of themselves,-- I don't say that they do, remember. If Jean didn't have to wash so many dishes nor mend so many stockings, she could give more time to study and reading every year. But, after all, I don't believe she would be half so fine, unselfish a girl as she is now, when she has to give up doing what she likes, to help her mother. It is just the same whether it is money, or family, or a fine mind, or beauty; the more that is given you, the more you are expected to make of it, and the more the shame to you if you neglect it. But we're getting into very deep subjects for so near bed-time. What did Alan come for?"

"Just to tell me about the girls," said Polly. "He says they're going to have a pony, and everything."

"How well Alan has been, all summer," remarked her mother.

There was a sudden click of the gate-latch, and a tall figure came up the walk.

"Sitting here in the damp, Isabel, and catching your death of cold! I can't afford time to sit around in the dark doing nothing, when I think of all the good that can be done around us." And Aunt Jane stalked past them into the house, and sat down to cut the leaves of the last scientific magazine.

However, though Mrs. Adams did not reply, she had made up her mind that her usual goodnight talk with Polly was far more important than all the clubs in the world, and no words from Aunt Jane could induce her to give up her nightly habit.

CHAPTER V.

TWO MORE GIRLS.

"It does seem as if to-morrow afternoon never would come," Molly was saying, as she and Polly stood leaning on the fence in the early twilight.

"What time will they get here?" Polly asked her.

"Three o'clock, and I just feel as if I couldn't wait, when I think how every minute is bringing them along. It's going to be splendid to have them here. You must come over to see them the very first thing, Polly, for I want them to know my best friend right away."

"I do hope they'll be nice," said Polly thoughtfully.

"Nice!" echoed Molly. "Of course they are. I'll tell you what, Polly, Alan has been running them down to you. He is so queer about it; I should think he'd like to have them come. They're just as pretty as they can be, and boys always like pretty girls."

"Oh, dear," sighed Polly; "how nice it would be to be pretty!"