CHAPTER V
POLLY ARRIVES
It was midnight when the buckboard stopped in front of the company house where Mrs. Van Zandt and Henry Hard assisted the drowsy Polly out of the wagon, while Scott painstakingly performed the introductions.
“Nothing to eat since noon!” gasped Mrs. Van Zandt, in horror. “What on earth was old lady Morgan thinking of? Mr. Hard, if you’ll throw some more wood into the stove, I’ll put on the percolator and run down to the dining-room for some sandwiches.” She ran off in one direction, while Scott drove the team in another, leaving Hard to do the honors.
“It’s a shame to have things happen this way,” he said. “A thousand times I’ve heard Bob talk about having you come down here, and now that you’ve come, he’s flying in another direction.”
“It’s my own fault,” admitted Polly, honestly. “We are all so sudden in our family—make up our minds and hardly wait to write or telegraph. I might have known that Bob would be doing something just as queer as I was. How comfortably you have this place fixed! Am I turning you out of it?”
“Oh, we’re tramps, Scott and I. We thought it would be pleasanter for you to be here with Mrs. Van Zandt, so we moved ourselves out. We rather like changing about.” He built up the fire and adjusted the percolator, while Polly divested herself of her hat and coat and sat down in a comfortable chair.
“It won’t be for long,” she said, decidedly. “I shall go back as soon as I can now that Bob and Emma are home.”
“I hope you won’t. Apart from the very great pleasure that it gives us all to see someone from home, it would be a pity to let you go back without seeing some of the country.”