It was in vain that Polly explained that it was no lack of affection on her part, that she surely loved her own people as much as they could love her, but that she felt she must see more of the world, live a wider life than Woodford could give her. Mollie was always obdurate. There was only one way by which Polly could silence her twin and that was to inquire if Mollie meant always to stay at home, to remain an old maid? And when Mollie most indignantly denied any such suggestion, Polly would then ask how if she loved them could she make up her mind to go away from home on account of a strange man, and if a career wasn’t as good as a husband, until Mollie became too indignant and unhappy for argument and usually by making no further replies carried off the honors of war.
If only Mollie could have had another girl to unbosom herself to, but there was no one; Polly had asked her not to discuss her affairs with any one of the Camp Fire girls except Betty Ashton, and Betty openly sympathized with Polly. Having no gifts herself she used to say that all she could do would be to live in the successes of Polly and Esther; although Polly used always to assure her in return that a Princess was above the possession of small abilities like ordinary mortals, and Esther that she never expected to have any success beyond learning to sing well enough to make her own living and perhaps some day to have a position in a Woodford church choir.
So Mollie for the month succeeding Christmas kept most of her worry to herself, and to the entire Sunrise Camp Fire club’s surprise and consternation grew quite unlike her usually sweet-tempered, happy self. Sometimes she used to insist upon taking the daily exercise prescribed by the Camp Fire rules entirely alone, if she were allowed, in order that she might think up some possible way of influencing Polly to give up her wholly foolish ambition. Since Polly felt that she must do something toward supporting her mother and herself, she should try to learn to be a teacher like Miss McMurtry or Miss Mary Adams.
One Saturday afternoon, being particularly low in her mind because Rose Dyer had thought Polly not very well and had suggested that she stay at home and take her walk outside the cabin with the newest Camp Fire girl, Mollie had deliberately stolen off while her friends were getting ready for a hard tramp through the woods. She did not care at the time that their guardian might object to her going off alone. She almost hoped that something might happen to her to make Polly feel uneasy. Since Polly was always making her perfectly miserable why she might as well experience the sensation occasionally herself. So, knowing that the other girls were to strike out through the pine woods, find the road and walk over toward the asylum to escort Esther home (who was now having a weekly music lesson with Herr Crippen), Mollie first walked back of the cabin and then found the road through the Webster farm. She didn’t walk very far however. It was perfectly ridiculous of her of course to anticipate trouble, and yet somehow she felt that she and Polly were never going to be just the same that they had been in the past to one another, in some way they would be separated. Suddenly Mollie felt a wave of homesickness, of longing for her mother such as she had not felt since the first few weeks after Mrs. O’Neill’s sailing for Ireland the spring before. So quite unmindful of consequences Mollie dropped down on the stump of a tree, deliberately giving herself up to the enjoyment of tears. It was so utterly impossible ever to cry at the cabin. Some one was always about seeing you and besides all the other Camp Fire girls Mollie solemnly believed to have outgrown the foolish weakness of crying, it was so utterly in contradiction to all their training.
The tears, however, must have been extremely near the surface, since they dried so instantly, and Mollie jumped to her feet indignantly when a hard ball of snow went whizzing past her ear, almost striking her. A moment later she heard footsteps coming up behind her.
“Hope you won’t mind my appearing to pay off old scores in this way; I really had no idea of hitting you, but I had to attract your attention in some fashion, so you wouldn’t run away from me,” said a voice Mollie immediately recognized and a moment later Billy Webster appeared by her side. “Would any one in the world except Miss Polly O’Neill seat herself calmly on a stump in the midst of the winter woods with nothing but snow and ice all about her as if she were in the lap of spring?” he asked. And then, when Mollie made no answer and catching just a side glance at her downcast face, he puckered his lips as though intending to whistle, but better manners prevailing said as sympathetically as he could: “Dear me, Miss Polly, you look as though you were desperately unhappy over something or other. What is it that is troubling you this time?”
Mollie was wearing a long brown coat exactly like Polly’s red one and her brown tam-o’-shanter she had pulled down as low as possible over her face because of the cold January wind, but now she turned with some indignation toward her companion. “I am not Polly,” she announced with a good deal of vexation (the twin sisters never liked being taken for one another). “I am sorry, but I suppose Polly hasn’t a monopoly of all the trouble in this world. Or at least she very often passes it on to other people.”
Instantly Billy’s fur cap was off, showing his heavy hair, which was browner than during the months of exposure to the summer sun, but although his face was also less tanned, his eyes were as blue and as full of humor as ever.
“It is I who am sorry and glad too, Miss Mollie,” he answered as gallantly as possible. “It seems to be my fate everlastingly to put my foot in it with both you and your sister. I could have sworn not long ago that I would never again mistake you for one another and here I am at it again. But you will forgive me this time. You see you don’t look quite like yourself to-day; you are so much paler and kind of uncertain looking—and cross. But now I beg the other Miss O’Neill’s pardon,” and Billy laughed, not so much as though he cared a great deal about having made fun of Polly, but more in order to cheer up Mollie.
“Better not let Polly hear you say that,” she returned, smiling a little. “You know, like the tiger in ‘Little Black Sambo,’ she would have to eat you up. But Polly is really a great deal better tempered than I am and sweeter than anything nowadays; ask anybody in camp. It is I who am the cross one. And it is all because I am so unhappy.”