It suddenly occurred to her that the child had never spoken since their meeting. Could she possibly be deaf and dumb? That might explain her strange expression.
"What is your name?" Polly asked gently.
Still the girl stared. Miss O'Neill repeated her question.
Then the girl, picking up a stick from the ground, slowly and laboriously printed in big letters, such as a child of six might have made, the word "Bobbin."
"Bobbin?" Polly repeated the name aloud as she read it. What an extraordinary title! One could scarcely call it a name.
"Is that the only name you have?" she inquired again, wondering at the same time how it was possible for the little girl to understand what she said without being able to reply. But Bobbin bowed her head, showing that she had understood. In some fashion she must have learned the lip language. Yet it was curious why if the girl had ever been sent to school she had learned nothing else. She appeared the veriest little savage that ever lived so close to wealth and civilization.
Polly sought in her mind to find out what she could do or say to show her gratitude. She had a sudden feeling that she could not turn her back upon the girl and leave her to her wretched fate, and yet of course the child had no claim upon her. It was something in the expression of Bobbin's eyes that seemed to haunt one.
With a slight, unnoticeable shrug of her shoulders, as though giving up the problem as too much for her, Polly now slipped her hand into her pocket, drawing out her purse bag. Opening it she found a large silver dollar, such as one uses in the West.
"Won't you buy yourself something from me?" she asked, trying to speak as distinctly as possible. She had not observed that in taking out the money she had carelessly dropped a handkerchief from her bag.
With a fleeting expression of pleasure the girl accepted the gift, but the next instant, when Polly turned to watch the man who was now approaching her with a lean horse hitched to a cart, she swooped down toward the ground and picking up the crumpled white object thrust it secretively inside her dress.