Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1877 — Youths’ Department. [ARTICLE]

Youths’ Department.

FOLLY'S THIMBLE. Haiti) time* for Pqlly Pardoef Only that mqrnlng her mother had said: “This will never do. ’ Here you are, most nine years old and can’t sew with a thimble J'et. You must begin to-day.” And orthwlth a brown towel was carefully basted and placed in Polly's unwilling hands; a thimble (cast aside by sister Jeannie, a world too large for the little finger and half filled with raga to make up for too much room in its upper story) fitted to her d thimble finger,” and the struggle began. And a hard struggle it bid fair to be. Polly had learned to hem and run seams, and was about mastering the art of “ overcasting;” but all had been accomplished without a thimble. She had worn a little hard spot on the palm of her hand which answered veiy well in place of that article—in fact Polly liked’it much better, and declared she “ never could sew with that clumsy brass thing.” And indeed it did prove a decided hinderabce to her progress with the hem. Every minute or two off it would tumble, and lose the scraps of cotton out, and Polly would have inch a time getting it right again. But at last she finished one end of the towel, but there was the other; and Polly thought if she might only throw away that ugly thimble how quickly she could finish it and be free to run out to the beach to play with Jean and 'Pom Jerrold. Just then Tom’s head appeared at an open window. “Isay, Polly!” he shouted, “Come down to the cove and he;p us sail the Dreadnaught. We are going to Switzerland this trip; so come along!” Now this was very kind in Tom, for big boys seldom like to have little girls in their plays; but Tom Jerrold always stood up for Polly, and Polly thought Tom was the nicest boy in all* the world. Polly held up her towel withawoe-begone face. “ Mother says I must finish this before I can do another single thing,” she said; “ and if it wasn’t for this old thimble I could do it in a Jiffy. Bull must learn to use it, so 1 can’t go.” And Polly heaved a doleful sigh, and took the other end of the towel in her clumsy little hands. Of course the thimble fell off again, and this time rolled close to the doorsill, and lodged there. Tom’s face disappeared from the window like a flash, and before Polly knew vrhat he was doing he had darted around to the door, seized the thimble, and put it in his pocket. “ There!” he said with a triumphant smile; “ in two minutes and a half it will be where you’ll never see it again; and, remember, you don’t know where it is and you can’t find it. D’ye see? Now then, rush and get that hem done and come down to the cove. The Dreadnaught is all laden with American produce, but I made Jean wait till I got you to see her go. 80 hurry up, and we’ll wait.” Ana off he darted, leaving Polly to her own reflections. She was glad — just a little bit—that the thimble was gone, but she had an uncomfortable feeling that Tom’s advice was not just what she ought to follow. She would be deceiving if she made her mother think the thimble was accidentally mislaid when she knew Tom had spirited it away, and that with her knowledge. But she was wild to help launch the ship, so she stitched stead i’y while her thoughts were busy with this subject. In a short time the hem was finished. Polly longed to leave it there and steal to the cove without meeting her mother, for she hoped Tom would give the thimble back to her; hut she knew this would never do; so she folded her work neatly and carried it to the “ spring house.” “It’s done, mother,” she said; “and Tom and Jean want me to help sail their ship. Can Igo now?” Tolly looked flushed and uncomfortable. The question she dreaded came: ‘‘ Where’s your thimble ?’ ’ “ Oh,” said Polly, hastily, “ it dropped off my finger and rolled to the door, and i don’t know where it is. I finished the hem without it.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Pardoe, “let it go now; but when you come home you must look for it.” rPolly darted off. glad to get away, but with an unaccountable choke in her throat. The ship was a splendid one, built in imitation of a genuine sailing vessel, and was a present to Jean from his father, who was a sailor and was now off at sea in a vessel of which Jean’s ship was a miniature. Polly’s father was a native of Switzerland, and Polly’s greatest delight was to listen to his stories of his native country, which was to her the most wonderful land in the world. The children were all enthusiastic on this subject, and “playing Switzerland” was their play of plays. A little dell across the cove they named after this favorite country—the cove itself answering to liakc Geneva, and a line of sand hills to the westward they called the Alps. To this port the Dreadnaught was now bound. Tom greeted Polly with a shout and a slychuckle as he inquired if “she had finished up that hem in good style;” and “ how did she like sewing with a thimble? ” Somehow Polly did not enjoy the sport so much as she had anticipated, for that thimble lay heavy on her conscience. "Tom,” said Polly, some hours after, as they were about starting for home, “ do give me that thimble. It’s mean to make mother believe it’s lost, and I’ll just tell her, so there 1” “Can’t,” remarked Tom. It’s beyond the reach of mortal hand. It’s gone where the good thimbles go. Didn’t I tell you you’d never see it again ?” “But,” said Polly, “mother says I must look for it when I get back, and how can I when I know it isn’t there ? Let me tell her about it, Tom, dear, do.” “Don’t you be a goose. Poll,” said Tom; “ don’t call me names, either. Suppose Jean had heard you, wouldn’t he laugh ? If the thimble’s lost, it’s lost, and I’m sure I don’t know where it is just at this moment, any more than you do. Come on, and don’t be silly.” Tom accompanied Polly and Jean to their home, and even pressed his services on them in their search for the missing article.

“ Beats everything where that can have gone,” he said, with a side glance at Polly. “She says it rolled to the door and disappeared, and so it did, sure enough. But it doesn’t seem possible that it shouldn’t turn up with all ibis search, does it, Mrs. Pardoe?” But of coarse they had to give it Up. “Poliy, are you sick?” asked Mrs, Pardoe that night at supper. “No, ma’am,” said Polly, meekly; but she pushed away her bowl of milk almost untasted, and hurried off to bed at an astonishingly early hour for wide-awake Polly. The next morning in canto J.ean, holding in his hand—what but the identical oil thimble that was giving Polly so much trouble. Sne sprang up eagerly. “ Where did you find it?” she cried. “ You’re a pretty girl, you are,” said Jean, “ to pretend you lost it, and then go

er’s truthful girl, arn t you? Funny abojt my finding it, too. Ivh wading out after a shell I saw, and when I had got the shell I saw something shining away off In the water. I couldn’t reach it myself, so 1 uoilered to Joe, and he came off in the boat with the oyster-tongs and fished it up; Wsan’t he mad when he found it was only Jesunie’s old thimble! I’m going to show it to mother,” and off he went in spite of Polly’a declarations that she “didn’t throw it m there, truly.” ’’S’puse It rolled there?” said Jean, scornfully. Mrs. Pardoe looked startled and very sorry. Polly Had always been so truthful that Mra. Pardoe had often said, “when Polly tells me a thing la so. I know it U so;” and now she believed Polly had told her an actual lie. She went and asked poor Polly for her explanation, but Polly only cried bitterly and declared “she didn’t do it, indeed she didn’t.” But no further light could Mrs. Pardoe get on the subject. She took her little girl to her own room And talked to her a long time, but Polly would not tell anything more of the matter. As a punishment, Polly was forbidden to go to the cove in a week, and condemncu to sew three hours each day during that time, and to use the old thimble, too. The next day Polly was seated in her little chair, patiently stitching eome patch-work, when who should appear but Tom. “ Halloo, Polly; Jon’t have to be bothered with any thimble now, do you ?” Polly solemnly raised her finger to hia astonished gaze. “Well,” he burst out, “I never expected to see that again. How did you find it, Polly?” Polly recounted the whole story. “ You see,” she said, with a sage air, “ it’s of no use to try to deceive about things. We are sure to get found out in some way by somebody.” (This was what Mrs. Pardoe had told her yesterday, and she knew it must be the proper thing to say.) • /m. . “ Well, I don’t know about that,” said Tom, “ but, anyway, come down to the beach and help dig up those things we buried in onr mine last week.”

“ Can’t,” said Polly, soberly. “Why not, I’d like to know? I’ta going back to school next week, and I think you might put off that sewing and have good times while I do stay.”''And Tom pukon an injured look, and began whistling indignantly. Then Polly told him about her "punishment, and no sooner had he learned how matters stood than he rushed off like a boy “possessed,” as . Polly said, and soon came tearing back in great haste. “80 you took all the blame yourself, did you, and made Mother Pardoe think you told an out-and-outer? I always said rou were a splendid girl, Polly, and now say it more than ever. But I’ve made it all right with Mother P., and she’s as pleased as a boy with a brand-new pair of red-top boots to think you’re not so bad as she supposed. She says you needn’t sew another stitch while 1 stay, so come on. Hurrah for our gold mineT” And off he scampered with Polly at bis heels. The day Tom left for school he deposited a mysterious little package in Polly’s hand, with orders to “ not open ittill he had cleared.” It contained a tiny box lined with red velvet, and nestling in its soft bed was the dearest little silver thimble, with “ Plucky Polly” engraved on the side. Accompanying it was a funny, scrawly note, which read thus: “ Dear Pout—Be gars this thimble ioecu’t roll into the cove. To*.” Perhaps it was the new thimble which made learning to sew such a comparatively easy task after this; perhaps it was because Polly devoted herself so perseveringly to her task; but at all events she did learn, and to this day keeps the old brass thimble, in memory of her trouble in learning to use it. and her own little girl now wears the tiny silver one which Tom gave her so idng ago .—Fanny Shore Watrotu, in New York Tribune.