The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1902-07-11
"Pa'' and Polly
Moberly
BY SUSAN HUBBARD r1ART1N

THE girls were having a good time
IN the sitting-rOom. 1t was well
warmed and lighted, and there was
a sound of laughter and the hum of
merry voices. Some one was tuning
a mandolin to the piano, and there
was a futtering of music leaves.
Company had come in, as usual, to
spend the evening. The Moberly
girls, that is, the three older ones,
all had light hair, blue eyes, and
lively, viYaciOus manners that
proved very attractive to the young
people in the quiet village.
'Pa" MOberly nobody knew much
about. He sat out IN the kitchen
most of the time. It was a dingy
little room, and often in the evening
he had no light; only the dull glow
Of the stove and the red sparks of
his Old-fashioned pipe.
Pa MOberly was a little, timid,
shrinking man He had faded blue
eyes, bent shoulders and tOil-worn
hands He had worked hard for his
girls. He had ungrudgingIy given
them his best. 1t seemed too bad
that now he was old and they were
grown to wOmanhoOd they did not
care.
When Mrs. MOberly was alive,
things were different He had his
comfortable easy chair then in the
sitting-rOOm; his slippers, too, and
there was the lounge to rest on
when he was tired.
But as his girls grew up, pretty,
strOng-wiIled and altogether selfish.
Pa MOberIy found himself banished
from his comfortable quarters. A
number of cushions too fine for use
adorned the old sofa, and his arm
char had three tides on it. He was
soon made to understand that he
was not wanted.
1t was not long before he began
to stay in the kitchen, and by and
by he sat nowhere else. He knew
every figure on the dingy paPered
walls, and the only chair he had to
sit in was a straight-backed wooden
one, N which he could not rest.
He used to long sometimes for his
old corner in the sitting-rOom, with
its lights, its laughter and its music,
but to his gentle hints the girls gave
5(dAAG ClAACuL- lnEN ulQn
want pa around" they told them
selves.
The lonely, tired old man had
many thoughts as he sat in the
kitchen night after night in solitude,
and he used sometimes to ponder the
question in his gentle heart as to
whether, after all, it paid to bring
up girls who were ashamed of you
when you were old.
Polly did not know about the
changed condition of affairs. Polly
was the youngest, and more like her
mother than any of the others, be-
ing small, quiet and brown-eyed.
She had been staying for three
years out in Pennsylvania with an
invalid aunt for whom she had been
named. Poor Aunt Bassett was dead
now, and to-day Polly had come
home again. She was upstairs now,
busy in the small back room that the
girls had forgotten to make ready
for her.
As Pa MoberIy sat alone in the
kitchen tonight he was thinking of
Polly. In his yearning, fatherIy
heart there was faint stirring of
hope.
There was a chance that he might
take some comfort with this, his
youngest daughter. He had felt that
from the time she was born. She
wasn't like the other girls, and she
had seemed so unfeignedly glad to
see him. He felt the pressure of her
young arms yet about his neck, and
her kisses still lay warm upon his
furrowed cheek.
In the darkness of the old kitchen
he brushed tear from his eye. He
was thinking of Ma MoberIy, too,
and Of her gentle, tender, wOmanly
ways. He wished the girls were more
like their mother.
Just then Polly came in. She went
quickly to his side.
''Why, pa she cried, what are
you sitting in the kitchen for, and
in the dark, too? Is anything the
matter2"
In the friendly darkness Pa Mo-
berly took the little hand and
stroked it. Nothing, Polly" he said.
Ell always sit here
Polly seated herself on his knee.
always sit here?" she cried, in sur
prise. Don't you go into the sit
ting-room evenings as you used top
Pa Moberly shook his head. ''No, !"
he faltered.
But why?T insisted Polly. You
don't mean to tell me you don't sit
in your old chair any mOre?"
Pa Moberly's chin quivered. Polly
did not know. and it was hard to tell
her. Polly was like her mother.
"AIice likes to keep that chair for
company" he said, slowly. 'Oh, 1
don't mind the kitchen so much,
now" he added, as cheerfully as he