Polly Olivers Problem | Page 7

places for scratching matches. The lounge was the sort of
lounge that looks well only between two windows, but Polly was
obliged to place it across the corner where she really needed the table,
because in that position it shielded from the public view the enormous
black spots on the wall where Reginald Benton had flung the ink-bottle
at his angel sister Pansy Belle.
Then there was an umbrella-lamp bestowed by a boarder whom Mrs.
Oliver had nursed through typhoid fever; a banjo; plenty of books and
magazines; and an open fireplace, with a great pitcher of yellow
wild-flowers standing between the old-fashioned brass andirons.
Little Miss Oliver's attitude on the question of the boarders must stand
quite without justification.
"It is a part of Polly," sighed her mother, "and must be borne with
Christian fortitude."

Colonel Oliver had never fully recovered from a wound received in the
last battle of the civil war, and when he was laid to rest in a quiet New
England churchyard, so much of Mrs. Oliver's heart was buried with
him that it was difficult to take up the burden of life with any sort of
courage. At last her delicate health prompted her to take the baby
daughter, born after her husband's death, and go to southern California,
where she invested her small property in a house in Santa Barbara. She
could not add to her income by any occupation that kept her away from
the baby; so the boarders followed as a matter of course (a house being
suitable neither for food nor clothing), and a constantly changing
family of pleasant people helped her to make both ends meet, and to
educate the little daughter as she grew from babyhood into childhood.
Now, as Polly had grown up among the boarders, most of whom petted
her, no one can account for her slightly ungrateful reception of their
good-will; but it is certain that the first time she was old enough to be
trusted at the table, she grew very red in the face, slipped down from
her high chair, and took her bowl of bread and milk on to the porch.
She was followed and gently reasoned with, but her only explanation
was that she did n't "yike to eat wiv so many peoples." Persuasion bore
no fruit, and for a long time Miss Polly ate in solitary grandeur. Indeed,
the feeling increased rather than diminished, until the child grew old
enough to realize her mother's burden, when with passionate and
protecting love she put her strong young shoulders under the load and
lifted her share, never so very prettily or gracefully,--it is no use trying
to paint a halo round Polly's head,--but with a proud courage and a sort
of desperate resolve to be as good as she could, which was not very
good, she would have told you.
She would come back from the beautiful home of her friend, Bell
Winship, and look about on her own surroundings, never with scorn, or
sense of bitterness,--she was too sensible and sweet-natured for
that,--but with an inward rebellion against the existing state of things,
and a secret determination to create a better one, if God would only
give her power and opportunity. But this pent-up feeling only showed
itself to her mother in bursts of impulsive nonsense, at which Mrs.
Oliver first laughed and then sighed.

"Oh, for a little, little breakfast-table!" Polly would say, as she flung
herself on her mother's couch, and punched the pillows desperately.
"Oh, for a father to say 'Steak, Polly dear?' instead of my asking,
'Steakorchop?' over and over every morning! Oh, for a lovely,
grown-up, black-haired sister, who would have hundreds of lovers, and
let me stay in the room when they called! Oh, for a tiny baby brother,
fat and dimpled, who would crow, and spill milk on the tablecloth, and
let me sit on the floor and pick up the things he threw down! But
instead of that, a new, big, strange family, different people every six
months, people who don't like each other, and have to be seated at
opposite ends of the table; ladies whose lips tremble with
disappointment if they don't get the second joint of the chicken, and
gentlemen who are sulky if any one else gets the liver. Oh, mamma, I
am sixteen now, and it will soon be time for me to begin taking care of
you; but I warn you, I shall never do it by means of the boarders!"
"Are you so weak and proud, little daughter, as to be ashamed because
I have taken care of you these sixteen years 'by means of the boarders,'
as you say?"
"No, no, mamma! Don't think so badly of me as that. That feeling was
outgrown long ago. Do