Polly Oliver's Problem by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

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POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM

by

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

With a Biographical Sketch, Portrait, and Illustrations

Boston, New York, and Chicago
Houghton, Mifflin & Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge

1896

[Frontispiece: Portrait of Mrs. Wiggin]

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.

It is an advantage for an author to have known many places and
different sorts of people, though the most vivid impressions are
commonly those received in childhood and youth. Mrs. Wiggin, as she is
known in literature, was Kate Douglas Smith; she was born in
Philadelphia, and spent her young womanhood in California, but when a
very young child she removed to Hollis in the State of Maine, and since
her maturity has usually made her summer home there; her earliest
recollections thus belong to the place, and she draws inspiration for
her character and scene painting very largely from this New England
neighborhood.

Hollis is a quiet, secluded place, a picturesque but almost deserted
village--if the few houses so widely scattered can be termed a
village--located among the undulating hills that lie along the lower
reaches of the Saco River. Here she plans to do almost all her actual
writing--the story itself is begun long before--and she resorts to the
place with pent-up energy.

A quaint old house of colonial date and style, set in the midst of
extensive grounds and shaded by graceful old trees,--this is
"Quillcote,"--the summer home of Mrs. Wiggin. Quillcote is typical of
many old New England homesteads; with an environment that is very close
to the heart of nature, it combines all that is most desirable and
beautiful in genuine country life. The old manor house is located on a
sightly elevation commanding a varied view of the surrounding hills and
fertile valleys; to the northwest are to be seen the foot-hills of Mt.
Washington, and easterly a two hours' drive will bring one to Old
Orchard Beach, and the broad, blue, delicious ocean whose breezes are
generously wafted inland to Quillcote.

Mrs. Wiggin is thoroughly in love with this big rambling house, from
garret to cellar. A genuine historic air seems to surround the entire
place, lending an added charm, and there are many impressive
characteristics of the house in its dignity of architecture, which seem
to speak of a past century with volumes of history in reserve. A few
steps from these ample grounds, on the opposite side of the road, is a
pretty wooden cottage of moderate size and very attractive, the early
home of Mrs. Wiggin. These scenes have inspired much of the local
coloring of her stories of New England life and character. "Pleasant
River" in _Timothy's Quest_ is drawn from this locality, and in her
latest book, _The Village Watch Tower_, many of her settings and
descriptions are very close to existing conditions.

Her own room and literary workshop is on the second floor of the house;
it is distinctively a study in white, and no place could be more ideal
for creative work. It has the cheeriest outlook from four windows with
a southern exposure, overlooking a broad grass plat studded with trees,
where birds from early dawn hold merry carnival, and squirrels find
perfect and unmolested freedom. A peep into this sanctum is a most
convincing proof that she is a woman who dearly loves order, as every
detail plainly indicates, and it is also noticeable that any display of
literary litter is most conspicuously absent.

Interesting souvenirs and gifts of infinite variety are scattered all
over the room, on the wainscoting, mantel, and in every available
niche; very many are from children and all are dainty tributes. A
picture of an irresistibly droll child face, of the African type and
infectiously full of mirth, is one of a great company of children who
look at you from every side and angle of the room.

Dainty old pieces of china, rare bits of bric-a-brac, the very broad
and old-time fireplaces filled with cut boughs of the spicy fir balsam,
and various antique pieces of furniture lend to the inner atmosphere of
Quillcote a fine artistic and colonial effect, while not a stone's
throw away, at the foot of a precipitous bank, flows--in a very
irregular channel--the picturesque Saco River.

In this summer home Mrs. Wiggin has the companionship of her mother,
and her sister, Miss Nora Smith, herself a writer, which renders it
easy to abandon herself wholly to her creative work; this coupled with
the fact that she is practically in seclusion banishes even a thought
of interruption.

And now, what was the beginning and the growth of the delightful
literary faculty, which has already given birth to so many pleasant
fancies and happy studies, especially of young life? A glimpse is
given in the following playful letter and postscript from herself and
her sister to a would-be biographer.

MY DEAR BOSWELL,--I have asked my family for some incidents of my
childhood, as you bade me,--soliciting any "anecdotes,"
"characteristics," or "early tendencies" that may have been, as you
suggest, "foreshadowings" of later things.

I have been much chagrined at the result. My younger sister states
that I was a nice, well-mannered, capable child, nothing more; and that
I never did anything nor said anything in any way remarkable. She
affirms that, so far from spending my childhood days in composition,
her principal recollection of me is that of a practical stirring little
person, clad in a linsey woolsey gown, eternally dragging a red and
brown sled called "The Artful Dodger." She adds that when called upon
to part with this sled, or commanded to stop sliding, I showed certain
characteristics that may perhaps have been "foreshadowings," but that
certainly were not engaging ones.

My mother was a good deal embarrassed when questioned, and finally
confessed that I never said anything worthy of mention until I was
quite "grown up;" a statement that is cheerfully corroborated by all
the authorities consulted. . . . Do not seek, then, to pierce my happy
obscurity. . . .

Believe me, dear Bozzy,
Sincerely your Johnson,
(K. D. W.)

Postscript by Johnson's Sister,--

The above report is substantially correct, though a few touches of
local color were added which we see Johnson's modesty has moved her to
omit.

My sister was certainly a capable little person at a tender age,
concocting delectable milk toast, browning toothsome buckwheats, and
generally making a very good Parent's Assistant. I have also visions
of her toiling at patchwork and oversewing sheets like a nice
old-fashioned little girl in a story book; and in connection with the
linsey woolsey frock and the sled before mentioned, I see a blue and
white hood with a mass of shining fair hair escaping below it, and a
pair of very pink cheeks.

Further to illustrate her personality, I think no one much in her
company at any age could have failed to note an exceedingly lively
tongue and a general air of executive ability.

If I am to be truthful, I must say that I recall few indications of
budding authorship, save an engrossing diary (kept for six months
only), and a devotion to reading.

Her "literary passions" were the _Arabian Nights_, _Scottish Chiefs_,
_Don Quixote_, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_, _Irving's Mahomet_, _Thackeray's
Snobs_, _Undine_, and the _Martyrs of Spain_. These volumes, joined to
an old green Shakespeare and a Plum Pudding edition of Dickens, were
the chief of her diet.

But stay! while I am talking of literary tendencies, I do remember a
certain prize essay entitled "Pictures in the Clouds,"--not so called
because it _took_ the prize, alas! but because it competed for it.

There is also a myth in the household (doubtless invented by my mother)
that my sister learned her letters from the signs in the street, and
taught herself to read when scarcely out of long clothes. This may be
cited as a bit of "corroborative detail," though personally I never
believed in it.

Johnson's Sister,
N. A. S.

Like many who have won success in literature, her taste and aptitude
showed themselves early. It would be unfair to take _Polly Oliver's
Problem_ as in any sense autobiographical, as regards a close following
of facts, but it may be guessed to have some inner agreement with Mrs.
Wiggin's history, for she herself when a girl of eighteen wrote a
story, _Half a Dozen Housekeepers_, which was published in _St.
Nicholas_ in the numbers for November and December, 1878. She was
living at the time in California, and more to the purpose even than
this bright little story was the preparation she was making for her
later successes in the near and affectionate study of children whom she
was teaching. She studied the kindergarten methods for a year under
Emma Marwedel, and after teaching for a year in Santa Barbara College,
she was called upon to organize in San Francisco the first free
kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. She was soon joined in this
work by her sister; and the enthusiasm and good judgment shown by the
two inspired others, and made the famous "Silver Street Kindergarten"
not only a great object lesson on the Pacific Coast, but an inspiration
to similar efforts in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia,
and the Hawaiian Islands.

This school was, and is at the present time, located in a densely
inhabited and poverty-ridden quarter of the city. It was largely among
the very poor that Mrs. Wiggin's full time and wealth of energy were
devoted, for kindergartening was never a fad with her as some may have
imagined; always philanthropic in her tendencies, she was, and is,
genuinely and enthusiastically in earnest in this work. It is
interesting to know that on the wall of one apartment at the Silver
Street Kindergarten hangs a life-like portrait of its founder,
underneath which you may read these words:--

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.

_In this room was born the first free Kindergarten west of the Rocky
Mountains. Let me have the happiness of looking down upon many
successive groups of children sitting in these same seats._

We are told that the children love that room the best; it is pictured
as a bright, cheery spot, where the children used to gather with "Miss
Kate" in the bygone days. By the window there is a bird-cage; the tiny
occupant bearing the historical name of "Patsy." Connected with this
kindergarten is a training-school, organized by Mrs. Wiggin in 1880,
and conducted by Miss Nora Smith for several years afterward. The two
sisters in collaboration have added much valuable matter to
kindergarten literature, notably the three volumes entitled _The
Republic of Childhood_, _Children's Sights_, and _The Story Hour_.

On her marriage, Mrs. Wiggin gave up teaching, but continued to give
two talks a week to the Training Class. She was also a constant
visitor in the many kindergartens which had sprung up under the impulse
of herself and her associates. She played with the children, sang to
them, told them stories, and thus was all the while not only gathering
material unconsciously, but practicing the art which she was to make
her calling. The dozen years thus spent were her years of training,
and, during this time she wrote and printed _The Story of Patsy_,
merely to raise money for the kindergarten work. Three thousand copies
were sold without the aid of a publisher, and the success was repeated
when, not long after, _The Birds' Christmas Carol_ appeared.

In 1888 Mrs. Wiggin removed to New York, and her friends urged her to
come before the public with a regular issue of the last-named story.
Houghton, Mifflin and Company at once brought out an edition, and the
popularity which the book enjoyed in its first limited circle was now
repeated on a very large scale. The reissue of _The Story of Patsy_
followed at the hands of the same publishers, and they have continued
to bring out the successive volumes of her writing.

It is not necessary to give a formal list of these books. Perhaps _The
Birds' Christmas Carol_, which is so full of that sweet, tender pathos
and wholesome humor which on one page moves us to tears, and the next
sets us shaking with laughter, has been more widely enjoyed and read
than her other stories, at least in America. It has been translated
into Japanese, French, German, and Swedish, and has been put in raised
type for the use of the blind. Patsy is a composite sketch taken from
kindergarten life. For _Timothy's Quest_, one of the brightest and
most cleverly written of character sketches, the author feels an
especially tender sentiment. The story of how the book took form is
old, but will bear repeating; it originated from the casual remark of a
little child who said, regarding a certain house, "I think they need
some babies there." Mrs. Wiggin at once jotted down in her note-book
"needing babies," and from this nucleus the charming story of "Timothy"
was woven into its present form. It is said that Rudyard Kipling
considers Polly Oliver one of the most delightful of all girl-heroines;
and Mrs. Wiggin really hopes some day to see the "Hospital Story Hour"
carried out in real life.

She owns a most interesting collection of her books in several
languages. The illustrations of these are very unique, as most of them
are made to correspond with the life of the country in which they are
published. _Timothy's Quest_ is a favorite in Denmark with its Danish
text and illustrations. It has also found its way into Swedish, and
has appeared in the Tauchnitz edition, as has also _A Cathedral
Courtship_. Her latest book, _The Village Watch Tower_, is composed of
several short stories full of the very breath and air of New England.
They are studies of humble life, interesting oddities and local
customs, and are written in her usual bright vein.

It was not long after her removal to the Atlantic coast that Mrs.
Wiggin, now a widow and separated much of the year from her special
work in California, threw herself eagerly into the kindergarten
movement in New York, and it was in this interest that she was drawn
into the semi-public reading of her own stories. Her interpretation of
them is full of exquisite taste and feeling, but she has declared most
characteristically that she would rather write a story for the love of
doing it, than be paid by the public for reading it; hence her readings
have always been given purely for philanthropic purposes, especially
for the introduction of kindergartens, a cause which she warmly
advocates, and with which she has most generously identified herself.

I may say that there is an old meeting-house in Hollis in which she has
been interested since her childhood. Each succeeding summer the whole
countryside within a radius of many miles gathers there to hear her
bright, sympathetic readings of her manuscript stories, sometimes
before even her publishers have a peep at them. These occasions are
rare events that are much talked over and planned for, as I learned
soon after reaching that neighborhood. During the summer of 1895 she
read one of her manuscript stories--_The Ride of the Midnight Cry_ (now
published in _The Village Watch Tower_)--to a group of elderly ladies
in the neighborhood of Quillcote, who are deeply interested in all she
writes. The story takes its title from an ancient stage-coach well
known throughout that region in its day, and known only by the
suggestive if not euphonious name of "The Midnight Cry."

Mrs. Wiggin possesses rare musical taste and ability, and
enthusiastically loves music as an art. It is simply a recreation and
delight to her to compose and adapt whatever pleases her fancy to her
own flow of harmony. She is the possessor of some very rare and
interesting foreign instruments; among this collection is a Hawaiian
guitar, the tiniest of stringed instruments, and also one of curious
Portuguese workmanship.

In the early months of 1895 she was married to George C. Riggs, of New
York, but she prefers to retain in literature the name with which she
first won distinction. I will speak of her New York winter home only
to say that it is the gathering-place of some of the most eminent
authors and artists in the country. She goes abroad yearly, and Maine
levies a heavy claim on her by right of home ties and affection, for
the 'Pine Tree State' is proud to claim this gifted daughter, not only
for her genius but her beauty of character and true womanliness.

Mrs. Wiggin's work is characterized by a delicious flow of humor, depth
of pathos, and a delicate play of fancy. Her greatest charm as a
writer is simplicity of style. It enables us to come in perfect touch
with her characterizations, which are so full of human nature that, as
some one has said, "we feel them made of good flesh and blood like
ourselves, with whom we have something, be it ever so little, that
keeps us from being alien one to another." Her keen but sympathetic
penetration attains some of the happiest results in the wholesome
realism of her child characters; her children become real to us, creep
into our hearts, and we love them, and in sympathy with this sentiment
springs up a spontaneous reawakening of interest in the child-world
about us.

EMMA SHERMAN ECHOLS.

POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM

A STORY FOR GIRLS

"_What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it_."

GOETHE.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
II. FORECASTING THE FUTURE
III. THE DOCTOR GIVES POLLY A PRESCRIPTION
IV. THE BOARDERS STAY, AND THE OLIVERS GO
V. TOLD IN LETTERS
VI. POLLY TRIES A LITTLE MISSIONARY WORK
VII. "WHERE IGNORANCE IS BLISS"
VIII. TWO FIRESIDE CHATS
IX. HARD TIMES
X. EDGAR GOES TO CONFESSION
XI. THE LADY IN BLACK
XII. THE GREAT SILENCE
XIII. A GARDEN FLOWER, OR A BANIAN-TREE
XIV. EDGAR DISCOURSES OF SCARLET RUNNERS
XV. LIFE IN THE BIRDS' NEST
XVI. THE CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE
XVII. POLLY LAUNCHES HER SHIPS
XVIII. THE CHILDREN'S HOUR: REPORTED IN A
LETTER BY AN EYE-WITNESS

ILLUSTRATIONS

PORTRAIT OF MRS. WIGGIN . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

MRS. OLIVER AND POLLY

"IT IS SOME OF THE STUDENTS"

"SHE OPENED THE BOOK AND READ"

[Transcriber's note: The second illustration was missing from the
original book.]

POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM.

"Pretty Polly Oliver, my hope and my fear,
Pretty Polly Oliver, I've loved you so dear!"
DINAH MARIA MULOCK.

CHAPTER I.

A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

"I have determined only one thing definitely," said Polly Oliver; "and
that is, the boarders must go. Oh, how charming that sounds! I 've
been thinking it ever since I was old enough to think, but I never cast
it in such an attractive, decisive form before. 'The Boarders Must
Go!' To a California girl it is every bit as inspiring as 'The Chinese
Must Go.' If I were n't obliged to set the boarders' table, I 'd work
the motto on a banner this very minute, and march up and down the plaza
with it, followed by a crowd of small boys with toy drums."

"The Chinese never did go," said Mrs. Oliver suggestively, from the
sofa.

"Oh, that's a trifle; they had a treaty or something, and besides,
there are so many of them, and they have such an object in staying."

"You can't turn people out of the house on a moment's warning."

"Certainly not. Give them twenty-four hours, if necessary. We can
choose among several methods of getting rid of them. I can put up a
placard with

BOARDERS, HO!

printed on it in large letters, and then assemble them in the
banquet-hall and make them a speech."

"You would insult them," objected Mrs. Oliver feebly, "and they are
perfectly innocent."

"Insult them? Oh, mamma, how unworthy of you! I shall speak to them
firmly but very gently. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' I shall begin, 'you
have done your best to make palatable the class of human beings to
which you belong, but you have utterly failed, and you must go! Board,
if you must, ladies and gentlemen, but not here! Sap, if you must, the
foundations of somebody else's private paradise, but not ours. In the
words of the Poe-et, "Take thy beaks from off our door."' Then it will
be over, and they will go out."

"Slink out, I should say," murmured Polly's mother.

"Very well, slink out," replied Polly cheerfully. "I should like to
see them slink, after they 've been rearing their crested heads round
our table for generations; but I think you credit them with a
sensitiveness they do not, and in the nature of things cannot, possess.
There is something in the unnatural life which hardens both the boarder
and those who board her. However, I don't insist on that method. Let
us try bloodless eviction,--set them quietly out in the street with
their trunks; or strategy,--put one of them in bed and hang out the
smallpox flag. Oh, I can get rid of them in a week, if I once set my
mind on it."

"There is no doubt of that," said Mrs. Oliver meekly.

Polly's brain continued to teem with sinister ideas.

"I shall make Mr. Talbot's bed so that the clothes will come off at the
foot every night. He will remonstrate. I shall tell him that he kicks
them off, and intimate that his conscience troubles him, or he would
never be so restless. He will glare. I shall promise to do better,
yet the clothes will come off worse and worse, and at last, perfectly
disheartened, he will go. I shall tell Mr. Greenwood at the
breakfast-table, what I have been longing for months to tell him, that
we can hear him snore, distinctly, through the partition. He will go.
I shall put cold milk in Mrs. Caldwell's coffee every morning. I shall
mean well, you know, but I shall forget. She will know that I mean
well, and that it is only girlish absent-mindedness, but she will not
endure it very long; she will go. And so, by the exercise of a little
ingenuity, they will depart one by one, remarking that Mrs. Oliver's
boarding-house is not what it used to be; that Pauline is growing a
little 'slack.'"

"Polly!" and Mrs. Oliver half rose from the sofa, "I will not allow you
to call this a boarding-house in that tone of voice."

"A boarding-house, as I take it," argued Polly, "is a house where the
detestable human vipers known as boarders are 'taken in and done for.'"

"But we have always prided ourselves on having it exactly like a
family," said her mother plaintively. "You know we have not omitted a
single refinement of the daintiest home-life, no matter at what cost of
labor and thought."

"Certainly, that's the point,--and there you are, a sofa-invalid, and
here am I with my disposition ruined for life; such a wreck in temper
that I could blow up the boarders with dynamite and sleep peacefully
after it."

"Now be reasonable, little daughter. Think how kind and grateful the
boarders have been (at least almost always), how appreciative of
everything we have done for them."

"Of course; it is n't every day they can secure an--an--elderly Juno
like you to carve meat for them, or a--well, just for the sake of
completing the figure of speech--a blooming Hebe like me (I 've always
wondered why it was n't _She_be!) to dispense their tea and coffee; to
say nothing of broma for Mr. Talbot, cocoa for Mr. Greenwood, cambric
tea for Mrs. Hastings, and hot water for the Darlings. I have to keep
a schedule, and refer to it three times a day. This alone shows that
boarders are n't my vocation."

A bit of conversation gives the clue to character so easily that Mrs.
Oliver and her daughter need little more description. You can see the
pretty, fragile mother resting among her pillows, and I need only tell
you that her dress is always black, her smile patient, her eyes full of
peace, and her hands never idle save in this one daily resting-hour
prescribed by the determined Miss Polly, who mounts guard during the
appointed time like a jailer who expects his prisoner to escape if he
removes his eagle eye for an instant.

The aforesaid impetuous Miss Polly has also told you something of
herself in this brief interview. She is evidently a person who feels
matters rather strongly, and who is wont to state them in the strongest
terms she knows. Every word she utters shows you that, young as she
looks, she is the real head of the family, and that her vigorous
independence of thought and speech must be the result of more care and
responsibility than ordinarily fall to the lot of a girl of sixteen.

Certain of her remarks must be taken with a grain of salt. Her
assertion of willingness to blow up innocent boarders in their beds
would seem, for instance, to indicate a vixenish and vindictive sort of
temper quite unwarranted by the circumstances; but a glance at the girl
herself contradicts the thought.

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