Playmate Polly

Elizabeth Otis
PLAYMATE POLLY
BY AMY E. BLANCHARD Author of “Little Miss Oddity,” “Little Miss Mouse,” “Little Sister Anne,” “Mistress May,” etc.
NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1909, by George W. Jacobs and Company Published June, 1909 All rights reserved Printed in U. S. A.
CHAPTER I Up Hill and Down
When Jessie started out in the morning to school, she began at the gate to say to herself, “Bridge, Railroad, Hill,” and when she started home again if she came alone, it was “Hill, Railroad, Bridge.” Home was at one end of the journey; school at the other; Bridge, Railroad and Hill were the stations between, Jessie told herself. If she were reasonably early, she would stop on the bridge and peep over at the running water. At the railroad she seldom stopped except to say good-morning to Ezra Limpett who sat outside his little box of a house on sunny days, and inside it on rainy ones. He always held out the red flag to show the engineer, when the trains went whizzing by. Once, when the train was behind time, he had allowed Jessie to hold the fluttering flag, but that was on her way home, and he had said she must never cross till the train had passed. It was on account of Ezra that Jessie was allowed to go to the Hill school, for he never failed to be at his post watching for her, and Jessie’s father knew she would be perfectly safe in crossing the track because Ezra was there. Of course, it was pleasanter to come from school than to go to it, not only because it was down hill and home was at the far end of the way, but because Effie Hinsdale could come nearly as far as the railroad with her, and a companion always makes the distance seem shorter. Furthermore, there was time then to loiter, unless one felt very hungry, though loitering meant a talk with Ezra about the engines and the trains. The engines were always spoken of as her and she and were known by their numbers.
One day when Jessie was about to skip across the railroad ties, she heard Ezra call out: “Better wait a bit. 589 ain’t came along yet. She’s late to-day by ten minutes, and she’s due just about now.”