Half a Dozen Girls | Page 6

Jane. And Polly
herself? Like countless other girls, she was good and bad, naughty and
lovable by turns, now yielding to violent fits of temper, now going into
the depths of penitence for them; but always, in the inmost recesses of
her childish soul, possessed with a firm resolve to be as good a woman
as her mother was before her. She knew no higher ambition.
CHAPTER II.
THE V.
Everybody in town knew the Hapgood house. It stood close to the

street, under a row of huge elms, and surrounded with clumps of purple
and white lilac bushes whose topmost blossoms peeped curiously in at
the chamber windows. Such houses are only found in New England,
but there they abound with their broad front "stoops," the long slant of
their rear roofs, where a ladder is firmly fixed, to serve in case of fire,
and the great, low rooms grouped around the immense chimney in the
middle. The Hapgood house had been in the family for generations, and
was kept in such an excellent state of repair that it bade fair to outlast
many of the more recent houses of the town. A wing had been built out
at the side; but even with this modern addition, no one needed to glance
up at the date on the chimney--sixteen hundred and no- matter-what--to
assure himself of the great age of the stately old house before him.
Up in the Hapgood attic a serious consultation was going on.
"Now, girls," Polly Adams began solemnly, "'most half of our vacation
has gone, and I think we ought to do something before it's over."
"Aren't we doing something this very minute, I should like to know?"
inquired Molly Hapgood, who had felt privileged, in her capacity as
hostess, to throw herself down on the old bed which occupied one
corner of the garret.
Polly frowned on such levity.
"I don't mean that, Molly, and you know it. What I think is, that we
should get together regularly every two or three days and do something
special. Aunt Jane is in lots of clubs and things, and-- "
"I've heard it said," interrupted Jean Dwight solemnly, "that Aunt Jane
spent so much time doing good outside that she never had a chance to
be good at home." "Now, Jean, that isn't fair," said Polly laughing.
"You know I'd be the very last one to hold up Aunt Jane as an example,
only she has such good times with her everlasting old people that I
thought we might do something like it."
"Which do you propose to do," asked Molly disrespectfully, "start a
society for the improvement of the jail or open a mission at the

poor-house to teach Miss Bean some manners?"
"Let's have a dramatic club, and get up a play," suggested the fourth
member of the group, who was seated on a dilapidated hair- covered
trunk under the open window, regardless of the strong east wind which
now and then lifted a stray lock of her long yellow hair and blew it
forward across her cheek.
"What a splendid idea, Florence!" said Jean, rapturously bouncing
about in her seat on the foot of the bed. "How does that suit you,
Polly?"
"We might do that, for one thing," assented Polly cautiously; "but
oughtn't we to try something a little--well, a little improving, too." "I'd
like to know if that wouldn't be improving?" asked Molly. "It would
teach us to act, and then, if we wanted, we could charge an admission
fee and raise some money."
"I think it would be splendid, girls," said Polly, in spite of herself
carried away by the prospect, and forgetting her own plan. "What shall
we take?"
"Let's take 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,'" said Jean. "We could make it over
into a play easily enough, and Florence would be just the one for Eva.
Alan could be Uncle Tom, you know."
"I think we could get something better than that," remarked Florence, in
some disgust. "If I'm Eva, I'll have to die, and I don't know the first
thing about that."
"Oh, that's easy enough," answered Molly, with the air of one who had
experience; "just stiffen yourself out and fall over. But I don't believe
you could ever get Alan to act."
"Why not take a ready-made play?" asked Polly. "It would save ever so
much work."
"What is there?" said Molly, sitting up to discuss the matter.

"We don't want any Shakespeare," added Jean; "that's all killing, and
Florence doesn't want to go dead, you know."
"I'll tell you what, girls," said Molly, as if struck with a sudden idea,
"we'll have an original play, and Jean shall write it."
Florence and Polly applauded the suggestion, while Jean groaned,--
"I can't, girls. I never could in this world."