she did his tasks, hectored by him in private, and with a child's
strange reticence, she never told even us how unbearable he made her
life. We could see it, however; for not much remains hidden in that
communistic atmosphere of the country neighborhood. But sometimes Polly
revolted; her temper blazed up, a harmless flash in the pan, and then,
it was said, Mis' Jeremiah took her to the shed-chamber and, trounced
her soundly. I myself have seen her sitting at the little low window,
when I trotted by, in the pride of young life, to "borry some
emptin's," or the recipe for a new cake. Often she waved a timid hand
to me; and I am glad to remember a certain sunny morning, illuminated
now because I tossed her up a bright hollyhock in return. It was little
to give out of a full and happy day; but Polly had nothing. Once she
came near great good fortune,--and missed it! For a lady, who boarded a
few weeks in the neighborhood, took a fancy to Polly, and was stirred
to outspoken wrath by our tales of the severity of her life. She gave
her a pretty pink cambric dress, and Polly wore it on "last day," at
the end of the summer term. She was evidently absorbed in love of it,
and sat, smoothing its shiny surface with her little cracked hand, so
oblivious to the requirements of the occasion that she only looked up
dazed when the teacher told her to describe the Amazon River, and
unregretfully let the question pass. The lady meant to take Polly away
with, her, but she fell sick with erysipelas in the face, and was
hurried off to the city to be nursed, "a sight to behold," as everybody
said. And whether she died, or whether she got well and forgot Polly,
none of us ever heard. We only knew she did not return, bringing the
odor of violets and the rustle of starched petticoats into our placid
lives.

But all these thoughts of Polly would be less wearing, when they come
in the night-time knocking at the heart, if I could only remember her