Five Little Peppers Abroad by Margaret Sidney (graded readers txt) 📕

pale.

It was too true. Mrs. Vanderburgh had sold her two tickets to the "Flying Dutchman," to be presented that evening, and departed from Bayreuth.

"It's no use, Polly," Fanny's note ran, "trying to make me have a good time. Mamma says we are to go back to Paris; and go we must. You've been lovely, and I thank you ever so much, and good-by."

Mother Fisher found Polly, a half-hour later, curled up in a corner of the old sofa in her room, her face pressed into the cushion.

"Why, Polly," exclaimed her mother, seeing the shaking shoulders, and, bending over her, she smoothed the brown hair gently, "this isn't right, child - "

Polly sprang up suddenly and threw her arms around her mother's neck. Her face was wet with tears, and she sobbed out, "Oh, if I'd done more for her, Mamsie, or been pleasant to Mrs. Vanderburgh, she might have stayed."

"You haven't any call to worry, Polly, child," said Mother Fisher, firmly. "You did all that could be done - and remember one thing, it's very wrong to trouble others as you certainly will if you give way to your feelings in this manner."

"Mamsie," exclaimed Polly, suddenly wiping away the trail of tears from her cheek, "I won't cry a single bit more. You can trust me, Mamsie, I truly won't."

"Trust you," said Mother Fisher, with a proud look in her black eyes, "I can trust you ever and always, Polly; and now run to Mr. King and let him see a bright face, for he's worrying about you, Polly."


XIX

MR. KING HAS A LITTLE PLAN FOR POLLY


"Oh Jasper," exclaimed Polly, clasping her hands, "do you suppose we'll ever get to a piano where it's all alone, and nobody wants to play on it - "

"But just you and I," finished Jasper. "I declare I don't know. You see we don't stay still long enough in any one place to hire a decent one; and besides, father said, when we started, that it was better for us to rest and travel about without any practising this summer. You know he did, Polly."

"I know it," said Polly; "but oh, if we could just play once in a while," she added mournfully.

"Well, we can't," said Jasper, savagely; "you know we tried that at Brussels, when we thought everybody had gone off. And those half a dozen idiots came and stared at us through the glass door."

"And then they came in," added Polly, with a little shiver at the recollection. "But that big fat man with the black beard was the worst, Jasper." She glanced around as if she expected to see him coming down the long parlour.

"Well, he didn't hear much; there didn't any of them," said Jasper; "that's some small satisfaction, because you hopped off the piano stool and ran away."

"You ran just as fast, I'm sure, Jasper," said Polly, with a little laugh.

"Well, perhaps I did," confessed Jasper, bursting into a laugh. "Who wouldn't run with a lot of staring idiots flying at one?" he brought up in disgust.

"And we forgot the music," went on Polly, deep in the reminiscence, "and we wouldn't go back - don't you remember? - until the big fat man with the dreadful black beard had gone, for he'd picked it up and been looking at it."

"Yes, I remember all about it," said Jasper; "dear me, what a time we had! It's enough to make one wish that the summer was all over, and that we were fairly settled in Dresden," he added gloomily, as he saw her face.

"Oh, no," exclaimed Polly, quickly, and quite shocked to see the mischief that she had done.

"We wouldn't have the beautiful summer go a bit faster, Jasper. Why, that would be too dreadful to think of."

"But you want to get at your music, Polly."

"I'll fly at it when the time comes," cried Polly, with a wise little nod, "never you fear, Jasper. Now come on; let's get Phronsie and go out and see the shops."

Old Mr. King in a nook behind the curtain, dropped the newspaper in his lap and thought a bit. "Best to wait till we get to Lucerne," he said to himself, nodding his white head; "then, says I, Polly, my child, you shall have your piano."

And when their party were settling down in the hotel at Lucerne, ending the beautiful days of travel after leaving Munich, Jasper's father called him abruptly. "See here, my boy."

"What is it, father?" asked Jasper, wonderingly; "the luggage is all right; it's gone up to the rooms - all except the portmanteau, and Francis will go down to the station and straighten that out."

"I'm not in the least troubled in regard to the luggage, Jasper," replied his father, testily; "it's something much more important than the luggage question about which I wish to speak to you."

Jasper stared, well knowing his father's views in regard to the luggage question. "The first thing that you must unpack - the very first," old Mr. King was saying, "is your music. Don't wait a minute, Jasper, but go and get it. And then call Polly, and - "

"Why, father," exclaimed Jasper, "there isn't a single place to play in. You don't know how people stare if we touch the piano. We can't here, father; there's such a crowd in this hotel."

"You do just as I say, Jasper," commanded his father. "And tell Polly to get her music; and then do you two go to the little room out of the big parlour, and play to your hearts' content." And he burst into a hearty laugh at Jasper's face, as he dangled a key at the end of a string, before him.

"Now I do believe, father, that you've got Polly a piano and a little room to play in," cried Jasper, joyfully, and pouncing on the key.

"You go along and do as I tell you," said Mr. King, mightily pleased at the success of his little plan. "And don't you tell Polly Pepper one word until she has taken her music down in the little room," as Jasper bounded off on the wings of the wind.

And in that very hotel was the big fat man with the dreadful black beard, resting after a long season of hard work.

But Polly and Jasper wouldn't have cared had they known it, as long as they had their own delightful little music room to themselves - as they played over and over all the dear old pieces, and Polly revelled in everything that she was so afraid she had forgotten.

"I really haven't lost it, Jasper!" she would exclaim radiantly, after finishing a concerto, and dropping her hands idly on the keys. "And I was so afraid I'd forgotten it entirely. Just think, I haven't played that for three months, Jasper King."

"Well, you haven't forgotten a bit of it," declared Jasper, just as glad as she was. "You didn't make any mistakes, hardly, Polly."

"Oh, yes, I made some," said Polly, honestly, whirling around on the piano stool to look at him.

"Oh, well, only little bits of ones," said Jasper; "those don't signify. I wish father could have heard that concerto. What a pity he went out just before you began it."

But somebody else, on the other side of the partition between the little music room and the big parlour, had heard, and he pulled his black beard thoughtfully with his long fingers, then pricked up his ears to hear more. And it was funny how, almost every day, whenever the first notes on the piano struck up in Mr. King's little music room, the big fat man, who was so tired with his season of hard work, never seemed to think that he could rest as well as in that particular corner up against that partition. And no matter what book or paper he had in his hand, he always dropped it and fell to pulling his black beard with his long fingers, before the music was finished.

And then, "Oh, Polly, come child, you have played long enough," from Mother Fisher on the other side of the partition; or old Mr. King would say, "No more practising to-day, Miss Polly;" or Phronsie would pipe out, "Polly, Grandpapa is going to take us out on the lake; do come, Polly." And then it was funnier yet to see how suddenly the big fat man with the dreadful black beard seemed to find that particular corner by that partition a very tiresome place. And as the piano clicked down its cover, he would yawn, and get up and say something in very rapid German to himself, and off he would go, forgetting all about his book or newspaper, which, very likely, would tumble to the floor, and flap away by itself till somebody came and picked it up and set it on the sofa.

One morning old Mr. King, hurrying along with his batch of English mail to enjoy opening it in the little music room where Jasper and Polly were playing a duet, ran up suddenly against a fat heavy body coming around an opposite angle.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir," exclaimed Mr. King in great distress, the more so as he saw that the stranger's glasses were knocked off his nose by the collision. "I do trust they are not broken," he added, in a concerned tone, endeavouring to pick them up.

But the big man was before him. "Not a beet, not a beet," he declared, adjusting them on his nose again. Then he suddenly grasped old Mr. King's hand. "And I be very glad, sir, very glad indeed, dat I haf roon into you."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mr. King, releasing his hand instantly, and all the concern dropping out of his face.

" Very glad indeed!" repeated the big man, heartily; then he pulled his black beard, and stood quite still a moment.

"If you have nothing more to remark, sir," said Mr. King, haughtily, "perhaps you will be kind enough to stand out of my way, and allow me to pass. And it would be as well for you to observe more care in the future, sir, both in regard to your feet, and your tongue, sir."

"Yes, I am very glad," began the big man again, who hadn't even heard Mr. King's tirade, "for now - " and he gave his black beard a final twitch, and his eyes suddenly lightened with a smile that ran all over his face, "I can speak to you of dis ting dat is in my mind. Your - "

"I want to hear nothing of what is on your mind," declared old Mr. King, now thoroughly angry. "Stand aside, fellow, and let me pass," he commanded, in a towering passion.

The big man stared in astonishment into the angry face, the smile dropping out of his own. "I beg to ex cuse myself," he said, with a deep bow, and a wave of his long fingers. "Will you pass?" and he moved up as tightly as possible to the wall.

Old Mr. King went into the little music room in a furious rage, and half an hour afterward Polly and Jasper, pausing to look around, saw him tossing and tumbling his letters and newspapers about on the table, fuming to himself all the while.

"Father has had bad news!" exclaimed Jasper, turning pale; "something about his agents,