Polly Oliver's Problem by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

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"Go out, by all means; but you need n't be anxious. Ours is a sort of
doll-house-keeping. We buy everything cooked, as far as possible, and
Polly makes play of the rest. It all seems so simple and interesting
to plan for two when we have been used to twelve and fourteen."

"May I come in?" called Edgar from the tiny dining-room to Polly, who
had laid aside her Sunday finery and was clad in brown Scotch gingham
mostly covered with ruffled apron.

"Yes, if you like; but you won't be spoiled here, so don't hope it.
Mamma and I are two very different persons. Tie that apron round your
waist; I 've just begun the salad-dressing; is your intelligence equal
to stirring it round and round and pouring in oil drop by drop, while I
take up the dinner?"

"Fully. Just try me. I 'll make it stand on its head in three
minutes!"

Meanwhile Polly set on the table a platter of lamb-chops, some delicate
potato chips which had come out of a pasteboard box, a dish of canned
French peas, and a mound of currant-jelly.

"That is good," she remarked critically, coming back to her apprentice,
who was toiling with most unnecessary vigor, so that the veins stood
out boldly on his forehead. "You're really not stupid, for a boy; and
you have n't 'made a mess,' which is more than I hoped. Now, please
pour the dressing over those sliced tomatoes; set them on the
side-table in the banquet-hall; put the plate in the sink (don't stare
at me!); open a bottle of Apollinaris for mamma,--dig out the cork with
a hairpin, I 've lost the corkscrew; move three chairs up to the
dining-table (oh, it's so charming to have three!); light the silver
candlesticks in the centre of the table; go in and bring mamma out in
style; see if the fire needs coal; and I'll be ready by that time."

"I can never remember, but I fly! Oh, what an excellent slave-driver
was spoiled in you!" said Edgar.

The simple dinner was delicious, and such a welcome change from the
long boarding-house table at which Edgar had eaten for over a year.
The candles gave a soft light; there was a bowl of yellow flowers
underneath them. Mrs. Oliver looked like an elderly Dresden-china
shepherdess in her pale blue wrapper, and Polly did n't suffer from the
brown gingham, with its wide collar and cuffs of buff embroidery, and
its quaint full sleeves. She had burned two small blisters on her
wrist: they were scarcely visible to the naked eye, but she succeeded
in obtaining as much sympathy for them as if they had been mortal
wounds. Her mother murmured 'Poor darling wrist' and 'kissed the place
to make it well.' Edgar found a bit of thin cambric and bound up the
injured member with cooling flour, Mistress Polly looking demurely on,
thinking meanwhile how much safer he was with them than with the
objectionable Tony. After the lamb-chops and peas had been discussed,
Edgar insisted on changing the plates and putting on the tomato salad;
then Polly officiated at the next course, bringing in coffee, sliced
oranges, and delicious cake from the neighboring confectioner's.

"Can't I wash the dishes?" asked Edgar, when the feast was ended.

"They are not going to be washed, at least by us. This is a great
occasion, and the little girl downstairs is coming up to clear away the
dinner things."

Then there was the pleasant parlor again, and when the candles were
lighted in the old-fashioned mirror over the fireplace, everything wore
a festive appearance. The guitar was brought out, and Edgar sang
college songs till Mrs. Oliver grew so bright that she even hummed a
faint second from her cosy place on the sofa.

And then Polly must show Edgar how she had made Austin Dobson's
"Milkmaid Song" fit "Nelly Ely," and she must teach him the pretty
words.

"Across the grass,
I saw her pass,
She comes with tripping pace;
A maid I know,
And March winds blow
Her hair across her face.
Hey! Dolly! Ho! Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,
Before the spray is white with May
Or blooms the eglantine."

By this time the bandage had come off the burned wrist, and Edgar must
bind it on again, and Polly shrieked and started when he pinned the end
over, and Edgar turned pale at the thought of his brutal awkwardness,
and Polly burst into a ringing peal of laughter and confessed that the
pin had n't touched her, and Edgar called her a deceitful little
wretch. This naturally occupied some time, and then there was the
second verse:--

"The March winds blow,
I watch her go,
Her eye is blue and clear;
Her cheek is brown
And soft as down
To those who see it near.
Hey! Dolly! Ho! Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,
Before the spray is white with May
Or blooms the eglantine."

After this singing-lesson was over it was nearly eleven o'clock, but up
to this time Edgar had shown no realizing sense of his engagements.

"The dinner is over, and the theatre party is safe," thought Polly.
"Now comes the 'tug of war,' that mysterious game of billiards."

But Mrs. Oliver was equal to the occasion. When Edgar looked at his
watch, she said: "Polly, run and get Mrs. Noble's last letter, dear;"
and then, when she was alone with Edgar, "My dear boy, I have a favor
to ask of you, and you must be quite frank if it is not convenient for
you to grant it. As to-morrow will be Saturday, perhaps you have no
recitations, and if not, would it trouble you too much to stay here all
night and attend to something for me in the morning? I will explain the
matter, and then you can answer me more decidedly. I have received a
letter from a Washington friend who seems to think it possible that a
pension may be granted to me. He sends a letter of introduction to
General M------, at the Presidio, who, he says, knew Colonel Oliver,
and will be able to advise me in the matter. I am not well enough to
go there for some days, and of course I do not like to send Polly
alone. If you could go out with her, give him the letter of
introduction, and ask him kindly to call upon us at his leisure, and
find out also if there is any danger in a little delay just now while I
am ill, it would be a very great favor."

"Of course I will, with all the pleasure in life, Mrs. Oliver," replied
Edgar, with the unspoken thought, "Confound it! There goes my game; I
promised the fellows to be there, and they 'll guy me for staying away!
However, there 's nothing else to do. I should n't have the face to go
out now and come in at one or two o'clock in the morning."

Polly entered just then with the letter.

"Edgar is kind enough to stay all night with us, dear, and take you to
the Presidio on the pension business in the morning. If you will see
that his room is all right, I will say good-night now. Our
guest-chamber is downstairs, Edgar; I hope you will be very
comfortable. Breakfast at half past eight, please."

When the door of Mrs. Howe's bedroom closed on Edgar, Polly ran
upstairs, and sank exhausted on her own bed.

"Now, mamma, 'listen to my tale of woe!' I got off at the wrong
station,--yes, it was stupid; but wait: perhaps I was led to be stupid.
I lost my way, could n't find Professor Salazar's house, could n't find
anything else. As I was wandering about in a woodsy road, trying to
find a house of some kind, I heard a crowd of boys singing vociferously
as they came through the trees. I did n 't care to meet them, all
alone as I was, though of course there was nothing to be afraid of, so
I stepped off the road behind some trees and bushes until they should
pass. It turned out to be half a dozen university students, and at
first I did n't know that Edgar was among them. They were teasing
somebody to go over to San Francisco for a dinner, then to the
minstrels, and then to wind up with a game of billiards, and other
gayeties which were to be prolonged indefinitely. What dreadful things
may have been included I don't know. A wretch named 'Tony' did most of
the teasing, and he looked equal to planning any sort of mischief. All
at once I thought I recognized a familiar voice. I peeped out, and
sure enough it was Edgar Noble whom they were coaxing. He did n't want
to go a bit,--I 'll say that for him,--but they were determined that he
should. I didn't mind his going to dinners and minstrels, of course,
but when they spoke of being out until after midnight, or to-morrow
morning, and when one beetle-browed, vulgar-looking creature offered to
lend him a 'tenner,' I thought of the mortgage on the Noble ranch, and
the trouble there would be if Edgar should get into debt, and I felt I
must do something to stop him, especially as he said himself that
everything depended on his next examinations."

"But how did you accomplish it?" asked Mrs. Oliver, sitting up in bed
and glowing with interest.

"They sat down by the roadside, smoking and talking it over. There was
n't another well-born, well-bred looking young man in the group. Edgar
seemed a prince among them, and I was so ashamed of him for having such
friends! I was afraid they would stay there until dark, but they
finally got up and walked toward the station. I waited a few moments,
went softly along behind them, and when I was near enough I cleared my
throat (oh, it was a fearful moment!), and said, 'I beg your pardon,
but can you direct me to Professor Salazar's house?' and then in a
dramatic tone, 'Why, it is--is n't it?--Edgar Noble of Santa Barbara!'
He joined me, of course. Oh, I can't begin to tell you all the steps
of the affair, I am so exhausted. Suffice it to say that he walked to
Professor Salazar's with me to make my excuses, came over to town with
me, came up to the house, I trembling for fear he would slip through my
fingers at any moment; then, you know, he stayed to dinner, I in terror
all the time as the fatal hours approached and departed; and there he
is, 'the captive of my bow and spear,' tucked up in Mrs. Howe's best
bed, thanks to your ingenuity! I could never have devised that last
plot, mamma; it was a masterpiece!"

"You did a kind deed, little daughter," said Mrs. Oliver, with a kiss.
"But poor Mrs. Noble! What can we do for her? We cannot play
policemen all the time. We are too far from Edgar to know his plans,
and any interference of which he is conscious would be worse than
nothing. I cannot believe that he is far wrong yet. He certainly
never appeared better; so polite and thoughtful and friendly. Well, we
must let the morrow bring counsel."

"I hope that smirking, odious Tony is disappointed!" said Polly
viciously, as she turned out the gas. "I distinctly heard him tell
Edgar to throw a handkerchief over my hair if we should pass any wild
cattle! How I 'd like to banish him from this vicinity! Invite Edgar
to dinner next week, mamma; not too soon, or he will suspect missionary
work. Boys hate to be missionaried, and I 'm sure I don't blame them.
I hope he is happy downstairs in his little prison! He ought to be, if
ignorance is bliss!"

CHAPTER VIII.

TWO FIRESIDE CHATS.

It was five o'clock Saturday afternoon, and Edgar Noble stood on the
Olivers' steps, Mrs. Oliver waving her hand from an upper window, and
Polly standing on the stairs saying good-by.

"Come over to dinner some night, won't you, Edgar?" she asked
carelessly; "any night you like, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday."

"Wednesday, please, as it comes first!" said Edgar roguishly. "May I
help cook it?"

"You not only may, but you must. Good-by."

Polly went upstairs, and, after washing the lunch-dishes in a
reflective turn of mind which did away with part of the irksomeness of
the task, went into the parlor and sat on a stool at her mother's feet.

A soft rain had begun to fall; the fire burned brightly; the bamboo
cast feathery shadows on the wall; from a house across the street came
the sound of a beautiful voice singing,--

"Oh, holy night! the stars are brightly shining.
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth!"

All was peaceful and homelike; if it would only last, thought Polly.

"You are well to-night, mamacita."

A look of repressed pain crossed Mrs. Oliver's face as she smoothed the
bright head lying in her lap. "Very comfortable, dear, and very happy;
as who would not be, with such a darling comfort of a daughter? Always
sunny, always helpful, these last dear weeks,--cook, housekeeper,
nurse, banker, all in one, with never a complaint as one burden after
another is laid on her willing shoulders."

"Don't, mamma!" whispered Polly, seeking desperately for her
handkerchief. "I can stand scolding, but compliments always make me
cry; you know they do. If Ferdinand and Isabella had told Columbus to
discover my pocket instead of America, he would n't have been as famous
as he is now; there, I 've found it. Now, mamma, you know your whole
duty is to be well, well, well, and I 'll take care of everything else."

"I 've been thinking about Edgar, Polly, and I have a plan, but I shall
not think of urging it against your will; you are the mistress of the
house nowadays."

"I know what it is," sighed Polly. "You think we ought to take another
boarder. A desire for boarders is like a taste for strong drink; once
acquired, it is almost impossible to eradicate it from the system."

"I do think we ought to take this boarder. Not because it will make a
difference in our income, but I am convinced that if Edgar can have a
pleasant home and our companionship just at this juncture, he will
break away from his idle habits, and perhaps his bad associations, and
take a fresh start. I feel that we owe it to our dear old friends to
do this for them, if we can. Of course, if it proves too great a tax
upon you, or if I should have another attack of illness, it will be out
of the question; but who knows? perhaps two or three months will
accomplish our purpose. He can pay me whatever he has been paying in
Berkeley, less the amount of his fare to and fro. We might have little
Yung Lee again, and Mrs. Howe will be glad to rent her extra room. It
has a fireplace, and will serve for both bedroom and study, if we add a
table and student-lamp."

"I don't believe he will come," said Polly. "We are all very well as a
diversion, but as a constancy we should pall upon him. I never could
keep up to the level I have been maintaining for the last twenty-four
hours, that is certain. It is nothing short of degradation to struggle
as hard to amuse a boy as I have struggled to amuse Edgar. I don't
believe he could endure such exhilaration week after week, and I am
very sure it would kill me. Besides, he will fancy he is going to be
watched and reported at headquarters in Santa Barbara!"

"I think very likely you are right; but perhaps I can put the matter so
that it will strike him in some other light."

"Very well, mamacita; I 'm resigned. It will break up all our nice
little two-ing, but we will be his guardian angel. I will be his
guardian and you his angel, and oh, how he would dislike it if he knew
it! But wait until odious Mr. Tony meets him to-night! What business
is it of his if my hair is red! When he chaffs him for breaking his
appointment, I dare say we shall never see him again."

"You are so jolly comfortable here! This house is the next best thing
to mother," said Edgar, with boyish heartiness, as he stood on the
white goatskin with his back to the Olivers' cheerful fireplace.

It was Wednesday evening of the next week. Polly was clearing away the
dinner things, and Edgar had been arranging Mrs. Oliver's chair and
pillows and footstool like the gentle young knight he was by nature.

What wonder that all the fellows, even "smirking Tony," liked him and
sought his company? He who could pull an oar, throw a ball, leap a
bar, ride a horse, or play a game of skill as if he had been born for
each particular occupation,--what wonder that the ne'er-do-wells and
idlers and scamps and dullards battered at his door continually and
begged him to leave his books and come out and "stir up things"!

"If you think it is so 'jolly,'" said Mrs. Oliver, "how would you like
to come here and live with us awhile?"

This was a bombshell. The boy hesitated naturally, being taken quite
by surprise. ("Confound it!" he thought rapidly, "how shall I get out
of this scrape without being impolite! They would n't give me one
night out a week if I came!") "I 'd like it immensely, you know," he
said aloud, "and it's awfully kind of you to propose it, and I
appreciate it, but I don't think--I don't see, that is, how I could
come, Mrs. Oliver. In the first place, I 'm quite sure my home people
would dislike my intruding on your privacy; and then,--well, you know I
am out in the evening occasionally, and should n't like to disturb you,
besides, I 'm sure Miss Polly has her hands full now."

"Of course you would be often out in the evening, though I don't
suppose you are a 'midnight reveler.' You would simply have a
latch-key and go out and come in as you liked. Mrs. Howe's room is
very pleasant, as you know; and you could study there before your open
fire, and join us when you felt like it. Is it as convenient and
pleasant for you to live on this side of the bay, and go back and
forth?"

"Oh yes! I don't mind that part of it." ("This is worse than the
Inquisition; I don't know but that she will get me in spite of
everything!")

"Oh dear!" thought Mrs. Oliver, "he does n't want to come; and I don't
want him to come, and I must urge him to come against his will. How
very disagreeable missionary work is, to be sure! I sympathize with
him, too. He is afraid of petticoat government, and fears that he will
lose some of his precious liberty. If I had fifty children, I believe
I should want them all girls."

"Besides, dear Mrs. Oliver," continued Edgar, after an awkward pause,
"I don't think you are strong enough to have me here. I believe you
're only proposing it for my good. You know that I 'm in a forlorn
students' boarding-house, and you are anxious to give me 'all the
comforts of a home' for my blessed mother's sake, regardless of your
own discomforts."

"Come here a moment and sit beside me on Polly's footstool. You were
nearly three years old when Polly was born. You were all staying with
me that summer. Did you know that you were my first boarders? You
were a tiny fellow in kilts, very much interested in the new baby, and
very anxious to hold her. I can see you now rocking the cradle as
gravely as a man. Polly has hard times and many sorrows before her,
Edgar! You are old enough to see that I cannot stay with her much
longer."

Edgar was too awed and too greatly moved to answer.

"I should be very glad to have you with us, both because I think we
could in some degree take the place of your mother and Margery, and
because I should be glad to feel that in any sudden emergency, which I
do not in the least expect, we should have a near friend to lean upon
ever so little."

Edgar's whole heart went out in a burst of sympathy and manly
tenderness. In that moment he felt willing to give up every personal
pleasure, if he might lift a feather's weight of care from the fragile
woman who spoke to him with such sweetness and trust. For there is
nothing hopeless save meanness and poverty of nature; and any demand on
Edgar Noble's instinct of chivalrous protection would never be
discounted.

"I will come gladly, gladly, Mrs. Oliver," he said, "if only I can be
of service; though I fear it will be all the other way. Please borrow
me for a son, just to keep me in training, and I 'll try to bear my
honors worthily."

"Thank you, dear boy. Then it is settled, if you are sure that the
living in the city will not interfere with your studies; that is the
main thing. We all look to you to add fresh laurels to your old ones.
Are you satisfied with your college life thus far?"

("They have n't told her anything. That 's good," thought Edgar.) "Oh
yes; fairly well! I don't--I don't go in for being a 'dig,' Mrs.
Oliver. I shall never be the valedictorian, and all that sort of
thing; it does n't pay. Who ever hears of valedictorians twenty years
after graduation? Class honors don't amount to much."

"I suppose they can be overestimated; but they must prove some sort of
excellence which will stand one in good stead in after years. I should
never advise a boy or girl to work for honors alone; but if after doing
one's very best the honors come naturally, they are very pleasant."

"Half the best scholars in our class are prigs," said Edgar
discontentedly. "Always down on the live fellows who want any sport.
Sometimes I wish I had never gone to college at all. Unless you deny
yourself every pleasure, and live the life of a hermit, you can't take
any rank. My father expects me to get a hundred and one per cent. in
every study, and thinks I ought to rise with the lark and go to bed
with the chickens. I don't know whether he ever sowed any wild oats;
if he did, it was so long ago that he has quite forgotten I must sow
mine some time. He ought to be thankful they are such a harmless sort."

"I don't understand boys very well," said Mrs. Oliver smilingly. "You
see, I never have had any to study, and you must teach me a few things.
Now, about this matter of wild oats. Why is it so necessary that they
should be sown? Is Margery sowing hers? I don't know that Polly feels
bound to sow any."

"I dare say they are not necessities," laughed Edgar, coloring.
"Perhaps they are only luxuries."

Mrs. Oliver looked at the fire soberly. "I know there may be plenty of
fine men who have a discreditable youth to look back upon,--a youth
finally repented of and atoned for; but that is rather a weary process,
I should think, and they are surely no stronger men _because_ of the
'wild oats,' but rather in _spite_ of them."

"I suppose so," sighed Edgar; "but it's so easy for women to be good!
I know you were born a saint, to begin with. You don't know what it is
to be in college, and to want to do everything that you can't and ought
n't, and nothing that you can and ought, and get all tangled up in
things you never meant to touch. However, we 'll see!"

Polly peeped in at the door very softly.

"They have n't any light; that 's favorable. He 's sitting on my
footstool; he need n't suppose he is going to have _that_ place! I
think she has her hand on his arm,--yes, she has! And he is stroking
it! Oh, you poor innocent child, you do not realize that that soft
little hand of my mother's never lets go! It slips into a five and
three-quarters glove, but you 'll be surprised, Mr. Edgar, when you
discover you cannot get away from it. Very well, then; it is settled.
I 'll go back and put the salt fish in soak for my boarder's breakfast.
I seem to have my hands rather full!--a house to keep, an invalid
mother, and now a boarder. The very thing I vowed that I never would
have--another boarder; what grandmamma would have called an 'unstiddy
boy boarder!"

And as Polly clattered the pots and pans, the young heathen in the
parlor might have heard her fresh voice singing with great energy:

"Shall we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,--
Shall we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?"

CHAPTER IX.

HARD TIMES.

The new arrangement worked exceedingly well.

As to Edgar's innermost personal feelings, no one is qualified to speak
with any authority. Whether he experienced a change of heart, vowed
better things, prayed to be delivered from temptation, or simply
decided to turn over a new leaf, no one knows; the principal fact in
his life, at this period, seems to have been an unprecedented lack of
time for any great foolishness.

Certain unpleasant things had transpired on that eventful Friday night
when he had missed his appointment with his fellow-students, which had
resulted in an open scandal too disagreeable to be passed over by the
college authorities; the redoubtable Tony had been returned with thanks
to his fond parents in a distant part of the state, and two others had
been temporarily suspended.

Edgar Noble was not too blind to see the happy chance that interfered
with his presence on that occasion, and was sensible enough to realize
that, had he been implicated in the least degree (he scorned the
possibility of his taking any active part in such scurrilous
proceedings), he would probably have shared Tony's fate.

Existence was wearing a particularly dismal aspect on that afternoon
when Edgar had met Polly Oliver in the Berkeley woods. He felt
"nagged," injured, blue, out of sorts with fate. He had not done
anything very bad, he said to himself; at least, nothing half so bad as
lots of other fellows, and yet everybody frowned on him. His father
had, in his opinion, been unnecessarily severe; while his mother and
sister had wept over him (by letter) as if he were a thief and a
forger, instead of a fellow who was simply having a "little fling." He
was annoyed at the conduct of Scott Burton,--"king of snobs and prigs,"
he named him,--who had taken it upon himself to inform Philip Noble of
his (Edgar's) own personal affairs; and he was enraged at being
preached at by that said younger brother.

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