【英文文学】Polly Oliver's Problem_ A Story For Girls.docx

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1、【英文文学】Polly Olivers Problem_ A Story For GirlsChapter 1 A Declaration Of IndependencePretty Polly Oliver, my hope and my fear,Pretty Polly Oliver, Ive loved you so dear!DINAH MARIA MULOCK.I have determined only one thing definitely, said Polly Oliver; and that is, the boarders must go. Oh, how charm

2、ing 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 nt obliged to set the boarders table, I d work the m

3、otto 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, thats a trifle; they had a treaty or something, and besides, there are so many of them, and they hav

4、e such an object in staying.You cant turn people out of the house on a moments 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 withBOARDERS, HO!printed on it in large letters, and then assemble them

5、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

6、 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 elses private paradise, but not ours. In the words of the Poe-et, Take thy beaks from off our door. Then it

7、will be over, and they will go out.Slink out, I should say, murmured Pollys 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

8、 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 dont 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

9、 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.Pollys brain continued to teem with sinister ideas.I shall make Mr. Talbots bed so that the clothes will come off at the foot every night. He wi

10、ll 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. Gree

11、nwood 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. Caldwells coffee every morning. I shall mean well, you know, but I shall forget. She will know that I mean well, and

12、 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. Olivers boarding-house is not what it used to be; that Pauline is growing a little slack.Polly! and Mrs. Oliv

13、er 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

14、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, thats 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

15、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 nt every day they can secure an-an-elderly J

16、uno 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 nt _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,

17、 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 nt 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

18、 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 ex

19、pects 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. Ever

20、y 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

21、 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._Item_: A firm chin. She will take her own

22、 way if she can possibly get it; but _item_; a sweet, lovable mouth framed in dimples; a mouth that breaks into smiles at the slightest provocation, no matter how dreary the outlook; a mouth that quivers at the first tender word, and so the best of all correctives to the determined little chin below

23、._Item_: A distinctly saucy nose; an aggressive, impertinent, spirited little nose, with a few freckles on it; a nose that probably leads its possessor into trouble occasionally._Item_: Two bright eyes, a trifle overproud and willful, perhaps, but candid and full of laughter._Item_: A head of brilli

24、ant, auburn hair; lively, independent, frisky hair, each glittering thread standing out by itself and asserting its own individuality; tempestuous hair that never stays put; capricious hair that escapes hairpins and comes down unexpectedly; hoydenish hair that makes the meekest hats look daring.For

25、the rest, a firm, round figure, no angles, everything, including elbows, in curves; blooming cheeks and smooth-skinned, taper-fingered hands tanned a very honest brown,-the hands of a person who loves beauty.Polly Olivers love of beautiful things was a passion, and one that had little gratification;

26、 but luckily, though good music, pictures, china, furniture, and purple and fine linen were all conspicuous by their absence, she could feast without money and without price on the changeful loveliness of the Santa Ynez mountains, the sapphire tints of the placid Pacific, and the gorgeous splendor o

27、f the Californian wild-flowers, so that her sense of beauty never starved.Her hand was visible in the modest sitting-room where she now sat with her mother; for it was pretty and homelike, although its simple decorations and furnishings had been brought together little by little during a period of t

28、wo years; so that the first installments were all worn out, Polly was wont to remark plaintively, before the last additions made their appearance.The straw matting had Japanese figures on it, while a number of rugs covered the worn places, and gave it an opulent look. The table-covers, curtains, and

29、 portieres were of blue jean worked in outline embroidery, and Mrs. Olivers couch had as many pillows as that of an oriental princess; for Pollys summers were spent camping in a canon, and she embroidered sofa-cushions and draperies with frenzy during these weeks of out-of-door life.Upon the cottage

30、 piano was a blue Canton ginger-jar filled with branches of feathery bamboo that spread its lace-like foliage far and wide over the ceiling and walls, quite covering the large spot where the roof had leaked. Various stalks of tropical-looking palms, distributed artistically about, concealed the gapi

31、ng wounds in the walls, inflicted by the Benton children, who had once occupied this same apartment. Mexican water-jars, bearing peacock feathers, screened Mr. Bentons two favorite places for scratching matches. The lounge was the sort of lounge that looks well only between two windows, but Polly wa

32、s 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 board

33、er 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 Olivers attitude on the question of the boarders must stand quite without jus

34、tification.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. Olivers heart was buried

35、 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 husbands death, and go to southern California, where she invested her small property in a house in Santa Barbara. She could not a

36、dd 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

37、 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,

38、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 nt yike to eat wiv so many peoples. Persuasion bore no fruit, and for a long time Miss Polly ate in solitary grandeur. Indeed, t

39、he feeling increased rather than diminished, until the child grew old enough to realize her mothers 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

40、 Pollys 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 bitternes

41、s,-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

42、 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 mothers couch, and punched the pillows desperately. Oh, for a father to say Steak, Polly dear? instead of my asking, Steakorchop? over and over every m

43、orning! 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!

44、But instead of that, a new, big, strange family, different people every six months, people who dont like each other, and have to be seated at opposite ends of the table; ladies whose lips tremble with disappointment if they dont get the second joint of the chicken, and gentlemen who are sulky if any

45、 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

46、of the boarders, as you say?No, no, mamma! Dont think so badly of me as that. That feeling was outgrown long ago. Do I not know that it is just as fine and honorable as anything else in the world, and do I not love and honor you with all my heart because you do it in so sweet and dignified a way tha

47、t everybody respects you for it? But it is nt my vocation. I would like to do something different, something wider, something lovelier, if I knew how, and were ever good enough!It is easy to dream noble things, dear, but hard to do them all day long. My own feeling is, if one reaches the results one

48、 is struggling for, and does ones work as well as it lies in one to do it, that keeping boarders is as good service as any other bit of the worlds work. One is not always permitted to choose the beautiful or glorious task. Sometimes all one can do is to make the humble action fine by doing it as it

49、is done in heaven. Remember, they also serve who only stand and wait.Yes, mamma, said Polly meekly; but, stretching out her young arms hopefully and longingly, it must be that they also serve who stand and _dare_, and I m going to try that first,-then I ll wait, if God wants me to.What if God wants you to wait first, little daughter?