And then, to Mollie’s own surprise and Billy’s decided embarrassment, she began crying a great deal harder than before.
There was nothing a fellow could do but just to stand there and watch her for a moment and then Billy had a feeble inspiration. He tucked her arm through his comfortingly. “Come, it is getting dark, these days are so dreadfully short. Let me walk on back to the cabin with you.”
And on the way Mollie discovered herself unexpectedly confiding everything that troubled her about her sister to this comparatively unknown boy friend. Although the Camp Fire girls had seen more of Billy Webster than any one else because of their living so near his father’s farm. For the first few minutes Mollie felt she might regret her outburst, but not for long, for to her satisfaction and indeed to her very real consolation, Billy felt exactly as she did about Polly. It was utterly absurd for Polly to talk about going away from Woodford even to study for the stage; she was not strong enough; the life was a perfectly abominable one for a lady, but for a delicate high-strung girl like Polly O’Neill it was worse than absurd; it was wicked! Mollie should write for her mother to come home to prevent Polly’s getting the idea more firmly fixed in her mind. Later on it might be more difficult to influence her. Billy Webster fairly spluttered with indignation. His mother was a perfect farmer’s wife, devoted to her husband, to her son and a younger daughter, and to the life and work of her farm and very naturally Billy’s mother was his ideal. He liked the two O’Neill girls very much, had known of their struggle to get along and of their mother’s efforts to give them an education, and believed, like Mollie, that it was ungrateful of Polly to wish to leave her home so soon as she was grown up. Besides he did not like to see Mollie so worried! What a strangely difficult person Polly was! There were times when he felt that he almost hated her and then again she was rather fascinating.
“I have got about half as much influence with your sister as that totem pole,” he announced, when he had brought Mollie almost back to the Sunrise cabin, “but if there is anything I can ever do to help you make her change her mind, why count on me up to the limit. Don’t you think the best thing would be somehow to joke the whole idea out of her? She is just the kind of a person to be more influenced by joking than any real opposition.”
Mollie bowed her head in entire agreement. “Yes, but what kind of a joke could we ever think up that could have anything to do with Polly’s wishing to be an actress and meaning to study several years from now?” she inquired doubtfully.
And to do Billy Webster credit he did look considerably confused.
“Well, I can’t say right off,” he confessed, laughing a little at himself, “but if you and I think things over for a week or so, perhaps an inspiration may come to one or the other of us. And in the meantime,” he added this rather hastily, “I wouldn’t mention to your sister that you have spoken of her plans to me. It is all right though, for I shall never breathe what you have told me to any one.”
CHAPTER XV
A Boomerang
Two weeks later Polly received a note at the cabin asking that she come into Woodford on the following Friday afternoon for an interview with a friend of Miss Margaret Adams, who happened by chance to be in Woodford for a few days and wanted an opportunity for talking with her about her future. For whatever resulted from this interview Polly had herself chiefly to blame. She most certainly should never have replied to a note signed by a name which was unfamiliar without consulting the guardian of the Sunrise club. But Polly knew perfectly well that Rose would never have permitted her to have any such conference. She knew also that their guardian and her mother’s friend was almost as much opposed as her sister Mollie to her ambition and considered that she was behaving most unwisely in letting her mind dwell on a possibility which in any case was very indefinite and far away. Indeed, Rose had had a quiet talk with Polly asking her not to discuss the subject of the stage with the other girls and to try and give her own energy and attention solely to their Camp Fire work. Polly had agreed and was apparently keeping her promise, since she felt so assured that the Camp Fire ideals must help every woman in whatever work she undertook later in life.
Nevertheless, when the first temptation came Polly fell. One night she spent in indecision, wondering why Miss Margaret Adams had not written to her about her friend or why Miss Adams, their elocution teacher, had said nothing. These questions, however, Polly finally answered satisfactorily to herself, since it is usually easy to find answers that accord with one’s own desires. By morning she had made up her mind that she would go and see the stranger and have a talk with him, since no harm could come of one small visit.