And so it happened that by the time the March thaws were setting in and the March winds were getting ready for their boisterous attack, Polly and Dan had slipped away, and were travelling as fast as steam could carry them toward the high, health-giving region of the Rocky Mountains.
“A harebrained venture as ever was!” Miss Louisa Bailey declared when she heard of it. “I don’t see what Mr. and Mrs. Lapham were thinking of, to countenance such a step!”
The monthly sewing-circle had come round again, and Mrs. Lapham, whose turn it was to look after the supper, had stepped out of the room for a moment.
“Well, I don’t know but it’s about as well,” the Widow Criswell rejoined, sighing profoundly. She was more out of spirits than usual to-day, for circumstances, otherwise known as Mrs. Royce, the president of the sewing-circle, had forced into her hands a baby’s pinafore, the cheerful suggestiveness of which could only serve to deepen her gloom. “The 151 boy’s doomed, wherever he is, and Sister Lapham never had any real taste for sick-nursing. She’s spared a sight o’ trouble and expense.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Henry Dodge, winding a needleful of No. 20 thread off the spool, with the hissing sound familiar to the ears of the seamstress, and breaking it off with a snap, “I think it’s the very best thing that could have been done. The minute I saw that girl’s face last sewing-circle, I knew she’d make out to save that boy. Mark my words, he’ll outlive us all yet! I declare, I always did like Polly Fitch. She reminds me of myself when I was a girl!”
CHAPTER II
WESTWARD HO!
“Pike’s Peak or Bust!” was the chosen motto of those early pilgrims who, thirty-odd years ago, crossed the continent in a “prairie schooner,” escorted by a cavalry guard to keep Indian marauders at a respectful distance; and “Pike’s Peak or Bust!” was the motto chosen by Polly and Dan, our two young modern pilgrims, as they journeyed with greater ease, but with no less courage and venturesomeness, across the two thousand miles intervening between quiet Fieldham and their goal.