“My father is coming to see if he cannot do something for Polly Jarley,” declared Bessie, with emphasis.
But Wynifred Mallory was quite sure that the Lavines–no matter how good their intentions now were toward the boatman’s daughter–would find Polly rather difficult. Wyn had been down to the boatkeeper’s house several times alone to see Polly; but the backwoods girl would not be shaken from her attitude. She would not come to Green Knoll Camp any more, nor would she send any word to Bess Lavine.
Bess really was sorry for what she had said and the way she had treated Polly. But the latter was obdurate.
“I don’t want anything from those Lavines,” she replied to Wyn’s urging. “Only that Mr. Lavine should treat my father kindly. I’d pull the girl out of the lake again–sure! But I don’t want her for a friend, and I don’t want to be paid for doing my duty. You don’t offer to pay me, Wynnie.”
“No, dear. I couldn’t pay you for saving my life,” Wynifred admitted.
“Neither can they!” retorted Polly, heatedly. “They think they’re so much above us, because they have money and we have none. They are like those millionaires at the other end of the lake–Dr. Shelton and the others. I don’t want their money!”
But Polly’s obstinacy was cutting the boatman’s daughter out of a lot of fun. This fact became more pronounced, too, when the visitors from Denton, in the Sissy Radcliffe, came to Green Knoll Camp.
The Sissy was a big motor launch, and there was a good-sized party aboard. When the ladies had once seen how the girls and Mrs. Havel lived, they were glad to take advantage of the tent Mr. Lavine brought. The gentlemen slept aboard the launch, which was anchored at night off Green Knoll Camp.
There were indeed gay times, for instead of acting as “wet-blankets” to the young folks’ fun, the visitors entered into the spirit of the outing and, with the Busters and Professor Skillings from Gannet Island, made a holiday of the occasion.
Both the girls and boys “showed off” in their canoes in the shallow water under the bank, and in their bathing suits. They showed the more or less anxious parents just how skillful they were in the management of the tricky craft.