“Do, Polly,” and he pushed the hair off from his forehead. So, as she saw he really wanted her to, Polly began with shining eyes, and glowing cheeks, to finish the story.
And she told how Grandpapa had ordered provisions and coal for the poor widow enough for many months to come; and how—oh, wasn't that perfectly splendid in dear Grandpapa?—he had promised that the little girl (Arethusa was her name) should take music-lessons from one of the teachers in the city. And Polly clasped her hands and sighed, quite unable to do more.
“And what do you want us to do?” cried the secretary forgetting all about losing his seat, to crowd up to the table. “Say, if that family has got all that richness, what do you want the club to do?”
“Oh,” said Polly turning her shining eyes on him, “there are ever and ever so many things the boys and that girl will need, and Grandpapa says that they'll think a great deal more of help, if some young people take hold of it. And so I'm sure I should,” she added.
“It strikes me that I should, too,” declared Pickering, all his laziness gone. And getting his long figure out of the chair, he cried, “I move, Mr. President, that we,”—here he waved his hands in a sweeping gesture,—“the Salisbury Club and our club, unite in a plan to do something for that family.”
“I second the motion,” the secretary cried out, much to everybody's surprise, for Polly was all ready to do it if no one else offered to. So the vote was carried unanimously amid the greatest enthusiasm.
“Now what shall we do?” cried the president, jumping to his feet. “Let us strike while the iron is hot. What shall we do to raise money?”
“You said you had plans,” cried one of the girls.
“Yes—tell on,” cried several boys.
“Well, one is, that we have a play,” began Jasper.