An Old-fashioned Girl, Louisa M. Alcott [best ereader for pdf TXT] 📗

listen and admire the wit, wisdom, and charitable spirit of the accomplished young ladies about her. There was a perfect Babel of tongues, but out of the confusion Polly gathered scraps of fashionable intelligence which somewhat lessened her respect for the dwellers in high places. One fair creature asserted that Joe Somebody took so much champagne at the last German, that he had to be got away, and sent home with two servants. Another divulged the awful fact that Carrie P.'s wedding presents were half of them hired for the occasion. A third circulated a whisper to the effect that though Mrs. Buckminster wore a thousand-dollar cloak, her boys were not allowed but one sheet to their beds. And a fourth young gossip assured the company that a certain person never had offered himself to a certain other person, though the report was industriously spread by interested parties. This latter remark caused such a clamor that Fanny called the meeting to order in a most unparliamentary fashion.

"Girls! girls! you really must talk less and sew more, or our society will be disgraced. Do you know our branch sent in less work than any of the others last month, and Mrs. Fitz George said, she did n't see how fifteen young ladies could manage to do so little?"

"We don't talk a bit more than the old ladies do. I just wish you could have heard them go on, last time. The way they get so much done, is, they take work home, and make their seamstresses do it, and then they take credit for vast industry," said Belle, who always spoke her mind with charming candor.

"That reminds me that mamma says they want as many things as we can make, for it 's a hard winter, and the poor are suffering very much. Do any of you wish to take articles home, to do at odd times?" said Fan, who was president of this energetic Dorcas Society.

"Mercy, no! It takes all my leisure time to mend my gloves and refresh my dresses," answered Belle.

"I think if we meet once a week, it is all that should be expected of us, with our other engagements. Poor people always complain that the winter is a hard one, and never are satisfied," remarked Miss Perkins, making her diamonds sparkle as she sewed buttons on the wrong side of a pink calico apron, which would hardly survive one washing.

"Nobody can ask me to do any more, if they remember all I 've got to attend to before summer," said Trix, with an important air. "I 've got three women hard at work, and want another, but everyone is so busy, and ask such abominable prices, that I 'm in despair, and shall have to take hold myself, I 'm afraid."

"There 's a chance for Jane," thought Polly, but had n't courage "to speak out loud in meeting," just then, and resolved to ask Trix for work, in private.

"Prices are high, but you forget how much more it costs to live now than it used to do. Mamma never allows us to beat down workwomen, but wishes us to pay them well, and economize in some other way, if we must," said Emma Davenport, a quiet, bright-eyed girl, who was called "odd" among the young ladies, because she dressed simply, when her father was a millionaire.

"Just hear that girl talk about economy! I beg your pardon, she 's some relation of yours, I believe!" said Belle, in a low tone.

"Very distant; but I 'm proud of it; for with her, economy does n't mean scrimping in one place to make a show in another. If every one would follow the Davenports' example, workwomen would n't starve, or servants be such a trouble. Emma is the plainest dressed girl in the room, next to me, yet any one can see she is a true gentlewoman," said Polly, warmly.

"And you are another," answered Belle, who had always loved Polly, in her scatter-brained way.

"Hush! Trix has the floor."

"If they spent their wages properly, I should n't mind so much, but they think they must be as fine as anybody, and dress so well that it is hard to tell mistress from maid. Why our cook got a bonnet just like mine (the materials were cheaper, but the effect was the same), and had the impertinence to wear it before my face. I forbid it, and she left, of course, which made papa so cross he would n't give me the camel's hair shawl he promised this year."

"It 's perfectly shameful!" said Miss Perkins, as Trix paused out of breath. "Servants ought to be made to dress like servants, as they do abroad; then we should have no more trouble," observed Miss Perkins, who had just made the grand tour, and had brought home a French maid.

"Perky don't practise as she preaches," whispered Belle to Polly, as Miss P. became absorbed in the chat of her other neighbors. "She pays her chamber girl with old finery; and the other day, when Betsey was out parading in her missis's cast-off purple plush suit, Mr. Curtis thought she was mademoiselle, and bowed to her. He is as blind as a bat, but recognized the dress, and pulled off his hat to it in the most elegant style. Perky adores him, and was mad enough to beat Betsey when she told the story and giggled over it. Betsey is quite as stylish and ever so much prettier than Perky, and she knows it, which is an aggravation."

Polly could n't help laughing, but grew sober a minute after, as Trix said, pettishly, "Well, I 'm sick of hearing about beggars; I believe half of them are humbugs, and if we let them alone they 'd go to work and take care of themselves. There 's altogether too much fuss made about charity. I do wish we could be left in peace."

"There can't be too much charity!" burst out Polly, forgetting her shyness all at once.

"Oh, indeed! Well, I take the liberty to differ from you," returned Trix, putting up her glass, and bestowing upon Polly her most "toploftical stare," as the girls called it.

I regret to say that Polly never could talk with or be near Trix without feeling irritated and combative. She tried to conquer this feeling, but she could n't, and when Trix put on airs, Polly felt an intense desire to box her ears. That eye-glass was her especial aversion, for Trix was no more near-sighted than herself, but pretended to be because it was the fashion, and at times used the innocent glass as a weapon with which to put down any one who presumed to set themselves up. The supercilious glance which accompanied her ironically polite speech roused Polly, who answered with sudden color and the kindling of the eyes that always betrayed a perturbed spirit, "I don't think many of us would enjoy that selfish sort of peace, while little children starve, and girls no older than us kill themselves because their dreadful poverty leaves them no choice but sin or death."

A sudden lull took place, for, though Polly, did not raise her voice, it was full of indignant emotion, and the most frivolous girl there felt a little thrill of sympathy; for the most utterly fashionable life does not kill the heart out of women, till years of selfish pleasure have passed over their heads. Trix was ashamed of herself; but she felt the same antagonism toward Polly, that Polly did toward her; and, being less generous, took satisfaction in plaguing her. Polly did not know that the secret of this was the fact that Tom often held her up as a model for his fiance to follow, which caused that young lady to dislike her more than ever.

"Half the awful stories in the papers are made up for a sensation, and it 's absurd to believe them, unless one likes to be harrowed up. I don't; and as for peace, I 'm not likely to get much, while I have Tom to look after," said Trix, with an aggravating laugh.

Polly's needle snapped in two, but she did not mind it, as she said, with a look that silenced even sharp-tongued Trix, "I can't help believing what my own eyes and ears have seen and heard. You lead such safe and happy lives, you can't imagine the misery that is all round you; but if you could get a glimpse of it, it would make your hearts ache, as it has mine."

"Do you suffer from heartache? Some one hinted as much to me, but you looked so well, I could n't believe it."

Now that was cruel in Trix, more cruel than any one guessed; but girls' tongues can deal wounds as sharp and sudden as the slender stiletto Spanish women wear in their hair, and Polly turned pale, as those words stabbed her. Belle saw it, and rushed to the rescue with more good-will than wisdom.

"Nobody ever accused you of having any heart to ache with. Polly and I are not old enough yet to get tough and cool, and we are still silly enough to pity unhappy people, Tom Shaw especially," added Belle, under her breath.

That was a two-edged thrust, for Trix was decidedly an old girl, and Tom was generally regarded as a hapless victim. Trix turned red; but before she could load and fire again, Emma Davenport, who labored under the delusion that this sort of skirmishing was ill-natured, and therefore ill-bred, spoke up in her pleasant way, "Speaking of pitying the poor, I always wonder why it is that we all like to read and cry over their troubles in books, but when we have the real thing before us, we think it is uninteresting and disagreeable."

"It 's the genius that gets into the books, which makes us like the poverty, I fancy. But I don't quite agree that the real thing is n't interesting. I think it would be, if we knew how to look at and feel it," said Polly, very quietly, as she pushed her chair out of the arctic circle of Miss Perkins, into the temperate one of friendly Emma.

"But how shall we learn that? I don't see what we girls can do, more than we do now. We have n't much money for such things, should n't know how to use it if we had; and it is n't proper for us to go poking into dirty places, to hunt up the needy. 'Going about doing good, in pony phaetons,' as somebody says, may succeed in England, but it won't work here," said Fanny, who had begun, lately, to think a good deal of some one beside herself, and so found her interest in her fellow-beings increasing daily.

"We can't do much, perhaps, just yet; but still there are things left undone that naturally fall to us. I know a house," said Polly, sewing busily as she talked, "where every servant who enters it becomes an object of interest to the mistress and her daughters. These women are taught good habits, books are put where they can get them, sensible amusements are planned for them sometimes, and they soon feel that they are not considered mere scrubs, to do as much work as possible, for as little money as possible, but helpers in the family, who are loved and respected in proportion to their faithfulness. This lady feels her duty to them, owns it, and does it, as conscientiously as she wants them to do theirs by her; and that is the way it ought to be, I