All Queen’s Ferry knew that five of Miss Calvert’s girls were to spend their vacation on a ranch out in Wyoming, but it took the strawberry festival, and Polly’s birthday party to make it understand likewise that they were earning their own way out there. Steadily, the sum in Ruth’s treasury mounted higher and higher. Mrs. Yates, the Senator’s wife, who had been so kind to them the previous year, offered her help at the birthday party, and it was gladly accepted. Polly was radiant as she stood beside her, receiving guests, and likewise birthday donations, and her eyes were brimful of fun as she handed back a five dollar bill to the Senator.
“You’re not telling the truth about your age, Senator Yates,” she said, rebukingly. “It’s only a cent a year.”
“We’ll count in something on the extra Sundays and holidays,” the Senator returned. “I’m always doubly glad to have a birthday on a Sunday or a holiday, and mine comes on the Fourth of July. Isn’t it worth ten cents extra and more too, to have the same date as your country?”
“Then I ought to pay more, Polly,” whispered Crullers, as the Senator went on. “My birthday is on Easter.”
“How can it be on Easter, goose, when that’s a movable feast?” laughed Polly. “Crullers, you old stupid dear!”
“I think, Polly, I can give you a little chance to make some money on your trip,” Mrs. Yates said, later. “I am anxious to buy some Indian novelties. Marbury has his den fixed up like a tepee this year, and he wants to make things for it, not pretty beadwork, or birch-bark ornaments, but the real things an Indian boy would naturally have in his tent. If you want to buy them on commission, that would help too. You must think of every possible way.”
“Indeed, we’re very glad to,” said Polly, heartily.
And they were too. After the first struggle was over, there was a literal charm in seeing the little treasury fund grow day by day, and in adding to it. It was astonishing how many urgent duties the Admiral discovered which needed to be performed.
“Upon my word, Polly, my books show up badly in this sunlight,” he would say. “I don’t like to trust Mandy in here, or Welcome. Now if you had the time, and felt like it, it would be worth a dollar to me to have those books all dusted, and straightened—a whole dollar.”
The books were dusted, and Polly pocketed the dollar proudly. This gave the rest a hint, and one day Miss Calvert found herself approached by four determined young persons, after class. They offered to clean the library thoroughly, they assured her they would take out all the books, dust them, wash the glass doors, straighten everything up right, send the rug down to old Jim, the gardener, to be beaten, and make the whole room look like new.