Four Girls of Forty Years Ago

Four Girls of Forty Years Ago by Nina Rhoades

Four little sisters—Dulcie, Daisy, Molly, and Maud Winslow—live in the top-floor nursery of their stern step-grandmother's house near Washington Square, their mother dead and their father working in China. Grandma Winslow and her daughter Aunt Kate run a joyless, rule-bound household: no food between meals, no newspapers for Dulcie, no friendships with neighbors, and evenings of silent obedience while Grandma plays solitaire and Aunt Kate knits for missions. The children's beloved nurse Lizzie was dismissed years earlier for impertinence, leaving the sisters to fend for themselves, bound together by loyalty to their absent father and stubborn imagination. Their world brightens when their mother's brother, Uncle Stephen Maitland, arrives from California and treats them to a theater outing with his charming friend Miss Florence Leslie, giving the girls a taste of affection and adventure they rarely know at home. Around the same time, Maud reveals a secret she has kept for weeks: a long-forgotten door, cut between the Winslow house and the adjoining boarding-house by their grandfather and his brother, remains unlocked. Through it the sisters discover Miss Polly Oliver, a sweet, impoverished, wheelchair-bound singer paralyzed by a streetcar accident three years earlier. Miss Polly has hidden the truth of her disability and poverty from her devoted brother Tom in Chicago, sustaining the deception through inventive letters rather than become a "burden" to his young family. The girls' visits to Miss Polly become a cherished secret, sustained through the mysterious door, even as their own lives bring fresh trials: a disastrous excursion in which Dulcie, Molly, and their visiting cousin Paul Chester—Aunt Julia's coddled, surprisingly good-hearted son—track down a ragged crossing-sweeper the girls have romantically imagined as a "stolen child," only to provoke a humiliating scene and a street fight when the girl's real, impoverished family angrily denies the fantasy. Punishment and shame follow, but the episode cements Paul's loyalty and courage, and he is let in on the secret of Miss Polly, whom he delights with songs and recitations. As money troubles force Miss Polly to sell her cherished piano, her health and spirits decline. Daisy, the gentlest and most conscience-driven sister, learns from the servants that Miss Polly may not survive the summer and that her brother remains ignorant of her true condition. After anguished prayer, Daisy secretly writes to Tom Oliver herself, confessing Miss Polly's hidden suffering. Tom arrives in New York with his wife and baby, and the sisters orchestrate a tender reunion, presenting the baby to Miss Polly before Tom reveals himself. Far from angry, Miss Polly and her brother are reconciled in joy, and the secret door—no longer needed—is quietly bolted with the housemaid's complicity, sparing the children from Grandma's wrath. Woven through these episodes are the sisters' distinct temperaments: bookish, dramatic Dulcie, who mothers the others in memory of their mother's dying wish; cheerful, selfless Daisy; impulsive, sociable Molly; and tenderhearted little Maud. Their imaginative games, loyalty to their father despite Grandma's coldness, and small acts of courage and kindness carry them through a hard, loveless domestic routine. The narrative closes on notes of restored hope: Miss Polly's family reunited, Paul proven a true friend despite his spoiled reputation, hints of a romance between Uncle Stephen and Miss Leslie, and the promise of the children's own father's return—all pointing toward the dissolution of the sisters' long exile in their grandmother's house.

By Nina Rhoades · First published 1920 · Genre: Coming-of-age fiction, Domestic fiction, Family drama · 18 chapters · 77,363 words

First lines

They all lived in the big front room on the top floor of Grandpa Winslow's old-fashioned house near Washington Square. They had lived there for so long that Molly and Maud -- who were only nine and seven -- could not remember ever having lived anywhere else. But Dulcie -- who was nearly twelve -- and Daisy -- who was ten and a half -- had dim memories of a very different home -- a home that was always bright and happy, and in which the grim figures of Grandma Winslow and her daughter, Aunt Kate, played no part.

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classic literature · children's fiction · sisters · sisterhood · family drama · coming-of-age · grief · loss · childhood · orphaned · New York City · early 20th century

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