An Old-Fashioned Girl (32 page)

That sound gave Polly more pain than the news of a dozen failures and expulsions, and it was as impossible for her to resist
putting her hand tenderly on the bent head, as it was for her to help noticing with pleasure how brown the little curls were
growing, and how soft they were. In spite of her sorrow, she enjoyed that minute very much, for she was a born consoler, and,
it is hardly necessary for me to add, loved this reprehensible Tom with all her heart. It was a very foolish thing for her
to do, she quite agreed to that; she couldn’t understand it, explain it, or help it; she only felt that she did care for him
very much, in spite of his faults, his indifference, and his engagement. You see, she learned to love him one summer, when
he made them a visit. That was before Trix caught him; and when she heard that piece of news, Polly couldn’t unlove him all
at once, though she tried very hard, as was her duty. That engagement was such a farce, that she never had much faith in it,
so she put her love away in a corner of her heart, and tried to forget it, hoping it would either die, or have a right to
live. It didn’t make her very miserable, because patience, work, and common sense lent her a hand, and hope would keep popping
up its bright face from the bottom of her Pandora-box of troubles. Now and then, when anyone said Trix wouldn’t jilt Tom,
or that Tom did care for Trix more than he should, Polly had a pang, and thought she couldn’t possibly bear it. But she always
found she could, and so came to the conclusion that it was a merciful provision of nature that girls’ hearts could stand so
much, and their appetites continue good, when unrequited love was starving.

Now, she could not help yearning over this faulty, well-beloved scapegrace Tom, or help thinking, with a little thrill of
hope, “If Trix only cared for his money, she may cast him off now he’s lost it; but I’ll love him all the better because he’s
poor.” With this feeling warm at her heart, I don’t wonder that Polly’s hand had a soothing effect, and that after a heave
or two, Tom’s shoulders were quiet, and certain smothered sniffs suggested that he would be all right again, if he could only
wipe his eyes without anyone’s seeing him do it.

Polly seemed to divine his wish, and tucking a little, clean handkerchief into one of his half-open hands, she said, “I’m
going to your father, now,” and with a farewell smooth, so comforting that Tom wished she’d do it again, she went away.

As she paused a minute in the hall to steady herself, Maud called her from above, and thinking that the women might need her
more than the men, she ran up to find Fanny waiting for her in her own room.

“Mamma’s asleep, quite worn out, poor dear, so we can talk in here without troubling her,” said Fanny, receiving her friend
so quietly, that Polly was amazed.

“Let me come, too, I won’t make any fuss; it’s so dreadful to be shut out everywhere, and have people crying and talking,
and locked up, and I not know what it means,” said Maud, beseechingly.

“You do know, now; I’ve told her, Polly,” said Fan, as they sat down together, and Maud perched herself on the bed, so that
she might retire among the pillows if her feelings were too much for her.

“I’m glad you take it so well, dear; I was afraid it might upset you,” said Polly, seeing now that in spite of her quiet manner,
Fan’s eyes had an excited look, and her cheeks a feverish color.

“I shall groan and moan by and by, I dare say, but at first it sort of dazed me, and now it begins to excite me. I ought to
be full of sorrow for poor papa, and I am truly sorry, but, wicked as it may seem, it’s a fact, Polly, that I’m half glad
it’s happened, for it takes me out of myself, and gives me something to do.”

Fanny’s eyes fell and her color rose as she spoke, but Polly understood why she wanted to forget herself, and put her arm
round her with a more tender sympathy than Fanny guessed.

“Perhaps things are not as bad as they seem; I don’t know much about such matters, but I’ve seen people who have failed, and
they seemed just as comfortable as before,” said Polly.

“It won’t be so with us, for papa means to give up everything, and not have a word said against him. Mamma’s little property
is settled upon her, and hasn’t been risked. That touched her so much! She dreads poverty even more than I do, but she begged
him to take it if it would help him. That pleased him, but he said nothing would induce him to do it, for it wouldn’t help
much, and was hardly enough to keep her comfortable.”

“Do you know what he means to do?” asked Polly, anxiously.

“He said his plans were not made, but he meant to go into the little house that belonged to grandma, as soon as he could,
for it wasn’t honest for a bankrupt to keep up an establishment like this.”

“I shan’t mind that at all, I like the little house ’cause it’s got a garden, and there’s a cunning room with a three-cornered
closet in it that I always wanted. If that’s all,
I
don’t think bankrupting is so very bad,” said Maud, taking a cheerful view of things.

“Ah, just wait till the carriage goes and the nice clothes and the servants, and we have to scratch along as we can. You’ll
change your mind then, poor child,” said Fanny, whose ideas of failure were decidedly tragical.

“Will they take all my things away?” cried Maud, in dismay.

“I dare say; I don’t know what we are allowed to keep; but not much, I fancy,” and Fan looked as if strung up to sacrifice
everything she possessed.

“They shan’t have my new earrings — I’ll hide ’em — and my best dress, and my gold smelling-bottle. Oh, oh, oh! I think it’s
mean to take a little girl’s things away!” And Maud dived among the pillows to smother a wail of anguish at the prospect of
being bereft of her treasures.

Polly soon lured her out again, by assurances that she wouldn’t be utterly despoiled, and promises to try and soften the hard
hearts of her father’s creditors, if the earrings and the smelling-bottle were attached.

“I wonder if we shall be able to keep one servant, just till we learn how to do the work,” said Fanny, looking at her white
hands, with a sigh.

But Maud clapped hers, and gave a joyful bounce, as she cried —

“Now I can learn to cook! I love so to beat eggs! I’ll have an apron, with a bib to it, like Polly’s, and a feather duster,
and sweep the stairs, maybe, with my head tied up, like Katy. Oh, what fun!”

“Don’t laugh at her, or discourage her; let her find comfort in bibs and dustpans, if she can,” whispered Polly to Fan, while
Maud took a joyful “header” among the pillows, and came up smiling and blowzy, for she loved housework, and often got lectured
for stolen visits to the kitchen, and surreptitious sweepings and dustings when the coast was clear.

“Mamma is so feeble, I shall have to keep house, I suppose, and you must show me how, Polly,” said Fan.

“Good practice, ma’am, as you’ll find out someday,” answered Polly, laughing significantly.

Fanny smiled, then grew both grave and sad. “This changes everything; the old set will drop me, as we did the Mertons when
their father failed, and my ‘prospects,’ as we say, are quite ruined.”

“I don’t believe it; your real friends won’t drop you, and you’ll find out which the true ones are now. I know one friend
who will be kinder than ever.”

“Oh, Polly, do you think so?” and Fanny’s eyes softened with sudden tears.

“I know who she means,” cried Maud, always eager to find out things. “It’s herself; Polly won’t mind if we are poor, ’cause
she likes beggars.”

“Is that who you meant?” asked Fan, wistfully.

“No, it’s a much better and dearer friend than I am,” said Polly, pinching Fanny’s cheek, as it reddened prettily under her
eyes. “You’ll never guess, Maud, so I wouldn’t try, but be planning what you will put in your cunning, three-cornered closet,
when you get it.”

Having got rid of “Miss Paulina Pry,” as Tom called Maud, who was immediately absorbed by her cupboard, the older girls soberly
discussed the sudden change which had come, and Polly was surprised to see what unexpected strength and sense Fanny showed.
Polly was too unconscious of the change which love had made in herself to understand at first the cause of her friend’s new
patience and fortitude; but she rejoiced over it, and felt that her prophecy would yet be fulfilled. Presently Maud emerged
from her new closet, bringing a somewhat startling idea with her.

“Do bankrupting men” (Maud liked that new word) “always have fits?”

“Mercy, no! What put that into your head, child?” cried Polly.

“Why, Mr. Merton did; and I was thinking perhaps papa had got one down there, and it kind of frightened me.”

“Mr. Merton’s was a bad, disgraceful failure, and I don’t wonder he had a fit. Ours isn’t, and papa won’t do anything of that
sort, you may be sure,” said Fanny, with as proud an air as if “our failure” was rather an honor than otherwise.

“Don’t you think you and Maud had better go down and see him?” asked Polly.

“Perhaps he wouldn’t like it; and I don’t know what to say, either,” began Fan; but Polly said, eagerly —

“I know he
would
like it. Never mind what you say; just go, and show him that you don’t doubt or blame him for this, but love him all the
more, and are ready and glad to help him bear the trouble.”

“I’m going, I ain’t afraid; I’ll just hug him, and say I’m ever so glad we are going to the little house,” cried Maud, scrambling
off the bed, and running downstairs.

“Come with me, Polly, and tell me what to do,” said Fanny, drawing her friend after her.

“You’ll know what to do when you see him, better than I can tell you,” answered Polly, readily yielding, for she knew they
considered her “quite one of the family,” as Tom said.

At the study door they found Maud, whose courage had given out, for Mr. Merton’s fit rather haunted her. Polly opened the
door; and the minute Fanny saw her father, she
did
know what to do. The fire was low, the gas dim, and Mr. Shaw was sitting in his easy-chair, his gray head in both his hands,
looking lonely, old, and bowed down with care. Fanny gave Polly one look, then went and took the gray head in both her arms,
saying, with a tender quiver in her voice —

“Father dear, we’ve come to help you bear it.”

Mr. Shaw looked up, and seeing in his daughter’s face something that never had been there before, put his arm about her, and
leaned his tired head against her, as if, when least expected, he had found the consolation he most needed. In that minute,
Fanny felt, with mingled joy and self-reproach, what a daughter might be to her father; and Polly, thinking of feeble, selfish
Mrs. Shaw, asleep upstairs, saw with sudden clearness what a wife should be to her husband — a helpmeet, not a burden. Touched
by these unusual demonstrations, Maud crept quietly to her father’s knee, and whispered, with a great tear shining on her
little pug nose —

“Papa, we don’t mind it much, and I’m going to help Fan keep house for you; I’d like to do it, truly.”

Mr. Shaw’s other arm went round the child, and for a minute no one said anything, for Polly had slipped behind his chair,
that nothing should disturb the three, who were learning from misfortune how much they loved one another. Presently Mr. Shaw
steadied himself and asked —

“Where is my other daughter, where’s my Polly?”

She was there at once; gave him one of the quiet kisses that had more than usual tenderness in it, for she loved to hear him
say “my other daughter,” and then she whispered —

“Don’t you want Tom, too?”

“Of course I do; where is the poor fellow?”

“I’ll bring him;” and Polly departed with most obliging alacrity.

But in the hall she paused a minute to peep into the glass and see if she was all right, for somehow she was more anxious
to look neat and pretty to Tom in his hour of trouble, than she had ever been in his prosperous days. In lifting her arms
to perk up the bow at her throat, she knocked a hat off the bracket. Now, a shiny black beaver is not an object exactly calculated
to inspire tender or romantic sentiments, one would fancy, but that particular “stove pipe” seemed to touch Polly to the heart,
for she caught it up, as if its fall suggested a greater one, smoothed out a slight dint, as if it was symbolical of the hard
knocks its owner’s head was now in danger of receiving, and stood looking at it with as much pity and respect, as if it had
been the crown of a disinherited prince. Girls will do such foolish little things, and though we laugh at them, I think we
like them the better for it, after all.

Tom was himself again when Polly entered, for the handkerchief had disappeared, his head was erect, his face was steady, and
his whole air had a dogged composure which seemed to say to fate, “Hit away, I’m ready.” He did not hear Polly come in, for
he was looking fixedly at the fire with eyes that evidently saw a very different future there from that which it used to show
him; but when she said, “Tom, dear, your father wants you,” he got up at once, held out his hand to her, saying, “Come too,
we can’t get on without you,” and took her back into the study with him.

Then they had a long talk, for the family troubles seemed to warm and strengthen the family affection and confidence, and
as the young people listened while Mr. Shaw told them as much of his business perplexities as they could understand, every
one of them blamed him or herself for going on so gayly and blindly, while the storm was gathering, and the poor man was left
to meet it all alone. Now, however, the thunderclap had come, and after the first alarm, finding they were not killed, they
began to discover a certain half-anxious, half-pleasant excitement in talking it over, encouraging one another, and feeling
unusually friendly, as people do when a sudden shower drives two or three to the shelter of one umbrella.

It was a sober talk, but not all sad, for Mr. Shaw felt inexpressibly comforted by his children’s unexpected sympathy, and
they, trying to take the downfall cheerfully for his sake, found it easier to bear themselves. They even laughed occasionally,
for the girls, in their ignorance, asked queer questions; Tom made ludicrously unbusinesslike propositions; and Maud gave
them one hearty peal, that did a world of good, by pensively remarking, when the plans for the future had been explained to
her —