AT MIDVALE SPRINGS
Polly’s worry about her father’s reduced salary and the unpaid coal bill did not wholly leave her mind, but returned at intervals with ever renewing force. At these times she still wondered if she ought to have gone to live with Uncle Maurice; yet the thought of it brought such terror to her heart that she would resolutely turn from the picture, arguing that the time was past for accepting his offer, and that now, whatever the consequences, she must remain in the home she had chosen. She longed intensely to earn some money to help out the situation, thinking how delightful it would be to put ten dollars into her father’s hand with the astonishing announcement that it was her very own to do with as she pleased. But, realizing her helplessness in this line, she would resolve again and again to eat as little as possible, and as far as she was able to insist on wearing her old clothes, and to protest against spending even precious pennies for the pretty things she so loved to wear. But it was the eating question that troubled her more than the dress, for her healthy appetite often tempted her into indulgences which she would afterwards regret.
One noon she so far forgot herself as to ask for a second helping of strawberry shortcake.
“Why,” exclaimed her father playfully, “if you keep on at this rate, I shall have to charge you more for board!”
Polly looked up, dropped her fork, and covering her face with her hands broke into tears.
“Thistledown!” cried the Doctor.
“You foolish child!” laughed Mrs. Dudley. “You know father was only in fun!”
But Polly sobbed on, nor could she be induced to eat the piece of shortcake she had wanted.
Dr. Dudley and his wife were puzzled, but Polly did not make matters clearer, only refused to finish her dinner, insisting that she had had enough. Her mother coaxed, the Doctor all but commanded, yet she silently kept her trouble in her heart, and went miserably to school.
There Patricia met her with the announcement that she and her mother were going to Midvale Springs to spend the summer, having arranged to leave as soon as school should close.
“And we want you to go with us,” Patricia went on with eager emphasis, passing her arm cozily around Polly’s waist. “You and I can have a room together next to mamma’s and it will be too lovely! I lay awake last night thinking of it.”
“But I can’t—” began Polly.
“You can, too!” contradicted Patricia. “You’ve got to! I won’t let you do anything else! Now say yes right away—there’s a dear!” she coaxed, pinching Polly’s mouth with a thumb and forefinger, her favorite method of wheedling.
“Cousin Harold’s coming for a visit pretty soon,” evaded Polly. “I don’t know what he would do if I shouldn’t be here when he came.”
“Huh!” scorned Patricia, “guess I shouldn’t stay home for a boy! He can come some other time. I’m your cousin, and I want you, and I’m going to have you! You never do anything I ask you to, and I think you might just for this once!” she pouted.
“Why, Patty, I do everything I can to please you!” protested Polly.
The “Patty” won smiles. It was Patricia’s favorite nickname, and she was always pleased when Polly used it.
“You’re a darling!” she cooed. “You do everything lovely! And you’ll do this for me—I know you will!” she ended archly.
Yet Polly was equally certain in her inmost heart that she should never go to Midvale. To be sure, she reasoned prudently, it would save her board at home, and that was to be desired, but, on the other hand, there must needs be new clothes for a summer’s stay at the fashionable Springs, which would more than offset the gain. She would give Patricia no encouragement.
Mrs. Dudley looked with favor on the invitation, although saying she should allow Polly to do as she chose. The Doctor, too, welcomed the plan as a good one, thinking it would be just the change needed for the little girl, who was growing thin and pale. Still Polly held out against them all, and felt actually homesick to hear so much talk about it. If it had been going with Mrs. Collins and David, why, she would have considered the question. She loved David’s sweet, girlish little mother; but of Mrs. Illingworth she had never been fond, and she wondered that her father and mother should wish her to go.
“I’d rather stay here and live on crackers—’thout any butter,” she said miserably to herself, and she began to curtail her meals as much as discreetness and her appetite would allow.
It was only a week to the end of school, and Patricia had been urging her claims, to which Polly had paid small attention, having heard the same talk, with variations, for the last fortnight. But all at once the half-listener grew interested. What was Patricia saying?
“If you’ll only go for just one month I’ll give you fifty dollars!”
“Your mother wouldn’t let you,” argued Polly.
“She would, too!” Patricia declared. “Guess I can do what I want to with my own money! Oh, say, will you go? Will you?”
“Maybe,” yielded Polly. “I don’t know. I’ve got to think it over. I do want some money, and I was wishing I could earn some—”
“Oh, then you will! you will! you will!” cried Patricia gleefully. “This is just your chance! Why didn’t you tell me before? Oh, I’m so glad I want to stand on my head!”
“I haven’t said yet that I’d go,” laughed Polly; “only maybe I would.”
“But you will! I know the signs!”—and Polly was grabbed in an uncomfortable hug.
Dr. Dudley and his wife were pleased at the turn affairs had taken, although they wondered at Polly’s sudden change of mind. Of the offer that was the sole cause of it Polly said nothing. What a joyful surprise it would be when she should come home a month hence with sufficient money to pay the haunting coal bill! The anticipated pleasure of that moment kept her resolution steady.
Yet at times Polly was so sober in the midst of the preparations for her going that her mother would turn to her with searching eyes, and wonder how she had lost her usual blitheness.
“You are not doing this just to please Patricia?” she asked one twilight, stopping in her task of packing Polly’s small trunk to catch her in her arms and hold her solemn little face towards the window.
“Oh, no!” was the tremulous assertion; “I’m not going for Patricia’s sake at all—that is, of course, I’m glad to please her; but I want to go! Only I guess”—her eyes filled—“I’m a little lovesick for you and father!”
Mrs. Dudley smiled.
“I know!” she nodded. “I’ve been homesick beforehand.”
“Have you?” Polly brightened. “And did it go off?”
“Oh, yes, after a while!”
“Then I guess I shall get over it soon as I’m really there,” she said bravely. “I wouldn’t give it up for anything!”
Yet the end of the pleasant all-day’s journey found Polly looking forward to her promised month with a vague uneasiness. She half wished she had confided in her mother and had let her decide. While listening to Patricia’s happy chatter, she wondered whether she had done right in coming, arguing the question back and forth; still so secretly did she carry on her own line of thought that merry Patricia never guessed she was not holding Polly’s entire attention.
In the morning things looked different. The charming little village of Midvale Springs, dropped so cozily among the Vermont hills, won Polly’s heart at first daylight glance. If father and mother were there, too! But even with the knowledge that they were hundreds of miles away the early days of her visit were spent very happily. There was so much to see, new faces at every turn, merry playmates at all hours, straw rides and barn frolics, beautiful drives alongside tumbling brooks and through deep mountain gorges,—Polly’s letters home told of these unfamiliar scenes and pleasures. Mrs. Dudley said to herself that the homesickness must have passed with the journey.
Polly had been at the Springs but a week when she was one of a party to spend the day at Lazy Lake, twenty miles distant. On her return, in the early twilight, a small figure popped out of the dusk to give her a frantic embrace.
“Harold!” she exclaimed, recovering wits and breath together. “Where did you come from?”
“Fair Harbor,” promptly answered the unabashed boy. “Couldn’t find anybody home at your house, and that feller next door—what’s his name?—”
“David Collins?”
“Yes, David—he said you were up here, so I came right along.”
At first it was a problem to know how to dispose of the rash little lad; but by dint of certain shifts a room in the hotel was finally provided for him, and he fitted very happily into the gay life there.
The next week another surprise came to Polly, and it was even greater than the advent of Harold.
An automobile had gone to the nearest station, ten miles away, to meet the evening train and fetch back some new boarders—so much the children knew; but as this was not an unusual occurrence they only wondered mildly if there would be any boys or girls among the coming guests. They had finished their last game of tennis, and were lounging on the piazza steps, when the hotel car was sighted up the dusty road.
“We’d better scoot,” advised Carl Webster, “or some of the new folks may agree with old Mrs. Chatterton, that they ‘never did see such a raft o’ young ones!’”
The imitation of the fidgety little woman’s voice and manner was so complete that the others broke into laughter; but nobody moved.
The car was slowing up, and Polly, turning carelessly to look, gave a little cry of astonishment. Then, to the surprise of the rest, she darted down the steps.
“Ilga!—Miss Price!”—her words stopped short, for Ilga was on her feet—was stepping forward! Her face matched her joyful greeting.
In a minute Patricia was there, asking excited questions and begging the invalid to be careful.
“As if I were not crawling!” laughed Ilga. “Oh, it does seem so splendid to walk! I’ve got lots of messages for you, Polly. Your father came to the station to see me off—just think of that! Wasn’t it lovely of him? And your mother made me a long call yesterday! I wouldn’t let anybody tell you a thing about my coming—I wanted to surprise you! You were surprised, weren’t you?” she queried anxiously.
“I’m so surprised I can’t think,” laughed Polly. “Did you know it when I came away—that you were coming, too?”
“We’d just spoken of it, hadn’t we, Miss Price? It wasn’t a bit sure then. I was wild to come—just wild!” Ilga dropped into the easy chair placed for her, and drew a long, happy breath.
“Aren’t you awfully tired?” questioned Patricia.
“Oh, I guess not!—I don’t know. I only know I’m here and it’s beautiful! Father and mother are coming next week; won’t that be grand?”
So the pleasant talk went on, until Miss Price carried her patient away to supper and rest.
Merry days followed. Polly, remembering the old Ilga and her few school friends, looked delightedly upon the popularity which this subdued, humbled girl was winning. Once such attention might have incited her to overbearing conduct; now it seemed only to make her fairly beam with good-fellowship and happiness. “And she actually loves father!” Polly would smilingly tell herself, secretly rejoicing in the fact; but she rarely spoke of the change even to Patricia. It was enough that the miracle had been wrought. It did not need to be passed about in words.
Although somewhat against his father’s wishes, Harold remained for the week which he had started to spend in Fair Harbor; but all his pleading could not make the grudging consent cover a longer time.
With tears in his eyes he bade Polly good-bye.
“If you were only going, too!” he whispered. “Come on, Polly—do!”
“Why, you know I can’t!” she returned, half laughingly, half sadly.
He muttered an exulting reply that she could not quite catch, and then the train came, and he was hustled away, leaving Polly to wonder what he had said.
“It was something about what he was going to do when he was grown up,” she mused. “I don’t see why he should talk of that now—and here!”
On her return to the hotel, she ran over to the croquet ground that skirted the opposite side of the road. A game was in progress, and for the time Harold faded into the past. Patricia being called to the house, Polly took her place, and she was driving a ball to the last stake when somebody cried out:—
“There’s your cousin! What’s he coming back for?”
Polly glanced up, to see Harold grinning and waving to her jubilantly.
He jumped from the car as it slowed, and came to meet her.
“How did you get here? I s’posed you were on the way to New York!”
“Had an accident,” he answered cheerfully,—“just below the station, and the track was so blocked up they said we couldn’t get along in hours. I wasn’t going to stay fooling round there, you bet! I said, wasn’t there an auto somewhere that could bring us back to the hotel, and a man asked me what hotel ’twas and all about it up here, and he and another man said they’d get an auto if there was one to be had. So they did—and here I am!”
He wagged his head gleefully.
“I never saw such a boy for pouncing in on people!” laughed Ilga. “But I’m awfully glad you’ve come. Was there anybody hurt?”
“Yes, some of ’em. No one killed, they said. ’Twas a mighty big smash-up, though! My! you’d ’a’ thought the whole world was going to pieces when we came together! And we hadn’t been started much more ’n two minutes! Our car tilted over, and I climbed out through the window! I didn’t even get a scratch.”
“Don’t let’s talk about it,” begged Polly. “I’m so glad you aren’t hurt.”
“Yes,” agreed Harold; “but I’d ’a’ come back here all the same if I had been, and then pop would ’a’ had to let me stay.”
The children laughed, all but Polly. She said, with a little pucker of the brows:—
“What a boy!”
Later, as they went up to the hotel, she glanced towards the broad piazza, now dotted with men and women, and her eyes widened in amazement.
“Why, there’s Mr. Morrow!”
“Who’s he?” queried Harold indifferently.
“Chris Morrow’s father—don’t you know? The one that gave me the pansy pin.”
“Oh! Where is he?”
“Over there by the post, right next to the girl in light pink.”
“That’s the man I came up with! But his name isn’t Morrow—it’s Winship. He said so.”
“Well, it looks just like him anyway,” insisted Polly. “Perhaps it isn’t,” she added disappointedly.
Before they reached the piazza steps, the stranger arose and went inside.
“It doesn’t walk like Mr. Morrow,” admitted Polly. “But I wish he’d stayed, I wanted to see him nearer.”
For several days, however, no opportunity came for observing the man at close range. In the big dining-hall, even if he chanced to be there at the same time, he sat the entire length of the room away from her, and they did not meet elsewhere. Then, one morning, at a turn of the long piazza, they chanced to come face to face, and Polly, struck by his remarkable resemblance to the father of her friend, could not forbear to speak.
“I beg your pardon,” she began, half afraid now that she had actually started, “but aren’t you Mr. Morrow,—the one I used to see at the hospital in Fair Harbor?”
A puzzled look swept the man’s face. Then he smiled.
“I think you are mistaken, little lady. My name is Winship, Bradford Winship of New York.”
“You look almost exactly like him,” returned Polly, even now refusing to be quite convinced, although there was not a trace of recognition in the smiling face she was scanning.
“I seem to have two or three doubles around the country,” he remarked. “I am continually being taken for somebody or other. Sorry not to have had the previous pleasure of your acquaintance, but I hope that we may follow up the little we have made.”
He left her with a deferential bow, and she ran to tell Patricia and Ilga of her blunder. How Harold would have laughed! But he had left for home as soon as it had been ascertained that the trains were running on time.
The next day, returning to her apartment for a light wrap, after the evening meal, Mrs. Illingworth passed her dressing-table, and stared in amazement. The girls, in their room, heard her peremptory call.
“Patty, have you been meddling with my jewel cases again?”
“No, mamma, I haven’t touched them,” she answered comfortably.
“Are you sure? Think! Come here quick!”
Patricia sprang to obey. Her mother’s voice was tense and sharp. More than once she had made free to appropriate necklaces and bracelets for her own adornment in plays with the children, but this time she was quite innocent of any misbehavior.
“Why!—why!” she gasped, gazing, big-eyed, at the beautiful empty cases, “where are all your jewels? I haven’t taken a single thing! Have I, Polly? We were playing tennis early, and then we went to ride, you know. Why, what could—”
But Mrs. Illingworth waited for no more; dashing from the room, she hurried to the office to report her loss.
She was only one of many. While supper was in progress the rooms of the guests had been rifled of money and jewelry to the amount of thousands of dollars. The thief had entered the apartments by means of a skeleton key, for most of the doors had been locked.
“Oh, I wonder if he took my lovely coral bracelet!” cried Patricia, who had followed her mother downstairs.
The girls scampered back, to find their fears true. Patricia’s pretty bits of jewelry, as well as Polly’s pansy pin, were gone. They were distressed over their loss, but their excitement was a small part of that throughout the hotel.
The authorities were not long in placing the charge. The men who had accompanied Harold from the railway wreck had vanished, and although they were traced to a neighboring town, there they seemed to be utterly lost.
Perhaps nobody grieved more than did Polly.
“And the man was so pleasant to me!” she mourned. “To think he should go and steal my pretty pin—Chris’s present!”
The occurrence actually made her homesick, and she longed for the day when her month should be up. It had been arranged for her to travel in company with an elderly gentleman who must pass through Fair Harbor on his way home, and she would have hoped that his business would hasten his going, only that she had promised the entire month in return for the fifty dollars.
The day was finally set, but nothing was said about the price of her visit, and Polly grew anxious and perturbed. What if Patricia had forgotten! What if she should not get the money after all! To be sure, the month had been for the most part pleasant, still the loss of her precious pin was enough to make her hate the name of Midvale Springs. Now if she had gained not even the amount of the coal bill by coming! By the last night Polly was in a fever; she could not sleep, while her irresponsible bedfellow lay beside her like a little log.
Shortly before breakfast, Polly, dressed for her journey, appeared in Mrs. Illingworth’s room, and with a pleasant good-morning was on her way to the hall, when the lady stopped her.
“Wait a moment, dear!”
Polly turned, to see Patricia’s mother opening her purse. Her heart leaped in sudden joy. She had been blaming Patricia for neglect, but now she silently begged her pardon.
“Run and get your hand-bag,” Mrs. Illingworth smiled, “I want to put something into it.”
Polly fetched it gladly.
“There is fifty dollars, a little present from Patty and me, and I hope you will have as much pleasure in spending it as we have in giving.”
Polly thanked her, and then added:—
“I wouldn’t take it, as I told Patricia before I came, only that I want the money for a very special purpose.”
Mrs. Illingworth’s eyes narrowed, as was their habit in surprise, and she started to speak; but Polly was going innocently on, and the lady glanced keenly at her daughter, who was standing transfixed in the door of her room.
“I was wishing I could earn some,” Polly was saying, “when Patty offered this if I would come for a month; so it happened just right. I thank you ever so much, and for my lovely visit beside.”
It is doubtful if either the mother or daughter heard much of Polly’s grateful little speech. Patricia’s face burned with shame at her forgetfulness, and she wondered what her mother would say as soon as Polly was out of hearing.
As for Polly she went blithely on her way, never dreaming that by fortunate chance Mrs. Illingworth’s gift came to cover up a bit of negligence.
Fair Harbor was not reached until evening. To Polly’s surprise, her father was not at the station. Her letter, she reasoned, could not have been received. But the road was well-known and the hour was not late, so she took the way to Lady Gay Cottage with a light heart.
The house was dark. Neither father nor mother was on the piazza, as Polly had hoped they would be. She was eager to feel their arms around her. She pushed the bell-button again and again, but there was no answer. It was dismally dark at Colonel Gresham’s, too, and not the murmur of a voice came to her as she listened.
“They are all out riding, probably,” she explained to herself discouragedly. It was a lonesome home-coming indeed. She walked slowly over to the hammock, and dropped into it. Anyway she was at home—that was a comfort.
“And they’ll come pretty soon,” she thought gladly. “They never stay out late.”
She was tired, after her long day on the hot, dusty train. She leaned wearily back among the soft cushions. Yes, home was the best place in the whole world.
Two hours later an automobile stopped at Lady Gay Cottage. Dr. Dudley and his wife stepped out, there were good-nights, then the two went up to the house together.
“Going in?” queried the Doctor. “Guess I’ll stay out here awhile, it is too pleasant to go to bed.”
He unlocked the door, and then, left to himself, went over to the dark corner where the hammock swung. There he suddenly stopped, with a soft ejaculation.
The sleeper did not stir.
Putting his hand gently under her neck, he thought to take her in his arms. How surprised she would be when she awoke! But she spoiled his plan by suddenly opening her eyes.
With a glad cry she nestled her head on his shoulder. How dear it was to be home again! Mother heard the voices, and came out, which meant more kisses and happy greetings.
Polly was talking fast and eagerly about the exciting events of her visit, when she thought of the money in her purse.
“Oh, I forgot!” she broke off, and dived into her little hand-bag.
“There,” she said, her voice low and tense, “is the money to pay the coal bill! Mrs. Illingworth—I mean Patricia—gave it to me for going with her.”
“But, Thistledown,” objected the Doctor whimsically, “that coal bill was paid long ago,—besides—”
“Oh, dear,” she broke in, “I wanted to pay it myself! I wanted to help you!” She hid her face against his coat. “I wouldn’t have gone only for that. Patty said she’d give me fifty dollars if I would.”
In a flash Dr. Dudley saw it all,—her sudden turn regarding the summer trip, her brave fight with homesickness. Involuntarily his arms tightened around her. Must he make her feel that her sacrifice had been in vain?
“You say that Patricia gave you the money when you came away?”
“No, father, it was Mrs. Illingworth that gave it to me—this morning. She said it was a present from both of them. But Patty had promised it to me.”
“I understand. Well, there are other ways, Thistledown, where your money can help, if you wish. You know we have not used our ‘wedding’ car for a good while, because I haven’t been able to spare enough for a needed tire. Now, if you like, you shall buy the new tire, and then we will have some rides. How will that do?”
“Oh, splendid!” she cried. “I’m so glad! I did want to help! I was afraid for a minute that you were not going to let me keep the money; but a present has to be kept, doesn’t it? Only this wasn’t exactly a present, if she did call it so. I’m glad you didn’t mean that.” She drew a long, satisfied breath.
The Doctor smiled across at his wife over Polly’s curls, and her eyes told him he had decided in the wisest way.
They were still talking when Colonel Gresham and his family drove in.
Polly called a cheery, “Hullo, David!” and then, of course, they all had to come over and tell her how glad they were to see her.
It was late before the mother could get her nestling snug for the night; but Polly was at home again, and nobody cared.