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WHEN POLLY WAS EIGHTEEN
[Illustration]
WHEN POLLY WAS
EIGHTEEN
BY
EMMA C. DOWD
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1921
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY EMMA C. DOWD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TO MY FRIEND
JULIA DARLING PECK
IN HAPPY MEMORY OF
SHELBURNE SUMMERS
CONTENTS
I. “WHY DON’T YOU LAUGH?” 1
II. THE LETTER 8
III. DAVID MAKES A REQUEST 15
IV. THE BIRTHDAY FÊTE 21
V. “I WILL TAKE CARE OF PARADISE WARD” 32
VI. “MAYBE” 41
VII. GLADYS GUINEVERE 52
VIII. COUCHES OF CLOVER 58
IX. NO. 45678 64
X. THE TOP OF THE WORLD 71
XI. DR. ABBE 79
XII. PATRICIA AND A FEW OTHERS 85
XIII. WHAT SARDIS SAID 93
XIV. PARADISE WARD ON WHEELS 100
XV. THE FIRST DAY 115
XVI. BENEDICTA MAKES IT GO 124
XVII. A PICTURE AND A MESSAGE 129
XVIII. AN ATTEMPT AT MATCHMAKING 135
XIX. AN UNINVITED GUEST AND A MYSTERY 146
XX. THE TELEGRAM 155
XXI. “TEN LITTLE GIRLS” AND SARDIS MERRIFIELD 164
XXII. A LITTLE LAME DUCK 177
XXIII. IN THE “GARDEN OF EDEN” 187
XXIV. ROSALIND FERNE 195
XXV. THE STORM 207
XXVI. CLEMENTINA ASKS QUESTIONS 217
XXVII. THE BUTTERFLY LADY STAYS 223
XXVIII. BENEDICTA’S OPPORTUNITY 239
XXIX. TROUBLE IN THE KITCHEN 251
XXX. THE NEW COOK 259
WHEN POLLY WAS EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER I
“WHY DON’T YOU LAUGH?”
Polly leaned back against the great oak, her eyes bent on David’s
face. She wondered--and wondered hard. If she could only fathom that
inscrutable expression!
The young man, stretched on the grass among the waving shadows, was
gazing across the valley to the hills in their soft afternoon veiling.
It was a June picture beautiful enough to hold the attention of any
one, yet it was plain that David’s thoughts were not on the landscape.
They had come out for a walk, which had led them miles to the south and
finally to the top of Chimney Hill, where they had stopped to rest.
At the start David had been talkative enough, in fact unusually merry;
then, from no discernible cause, his lips had shut gravely and Polly
had not been able to draw out more than monosyllables and short,
matter-of-fact sentences. As she watched the unreadable face she tried
to guess what the trouble might be. As in the old days before college,
her lover had his occasional jealous moods, and although they were
less frequent they grew more and more bitter. Still, during the happy
intervals Polly would coax herself to believe that they were past
forever. Now she thought over the route, bit by bit, trying to find
something which could have disturbed him. At last, baffled in her
endeavors, she ventured suddenly:--
“David, why don’t you laugh?”
He turned instantly. “At what?”
“Anything--nothing,” she answered lightly. “You seemed to be weighing
some heavy matter.”
“No, I was only--” He halted, then went on without completing his
sentence. “I am going away to-morrow,” he announced.
Polly’s smile vanished in surprise.
“Where?” she asked with her usual eagerness. “Spitzbergen or the South
Pole?”
David did not appear to notice her pleasantry.
“To the Adirondacks,” he said simply.
“Oh!” Polly exclaimed. “Were you just making up your mind?”
David reddened. “N-no,” he denied; “but Converse invited me only a day
or two ago, and I didn’t decide at once.”
“Going with Child Converse?” queried Polly’s lips, while her thoughts
ran along, “Why didn’t he tell me sooner? We were together all
yesterday morning and this afternoon--never a word until now!”
“Yes,” David was saying, “he is going to take me up to their camp. His
father and mother are in Seattle, you know.”
“M-h’m,” she bowed. “How long you going to stay?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t set any time.”
“It’ll be great, won’t it?” Polly smiled in her friendliest way.
He nodded gravely, slipping abruptly into complaint.
“You do not like Converse. You have never taken the trouble to know
him.”
The girl’s eyes twinkled. “I certainly ought to adore him,” she said;
“it is the first time you ever wanted me to look at any boy except Your
Royal Highness.”
“Oh, you don’t understand!” sighed David.
“I am always wondering,” Polly went on, a tiny scowl wrinkling her
smooth forehead, “how it is that Converse happens to attract you.”
“He is a good fellow,” said David positively. “But he has no stock of
prittle-prattle.”
“It isn’t his lack of nonsense,” Polly smiled. “He is too pretty. That
combined with his name--but he can’t help either, poor boy! Anyway, he
looks like a nice baby--”
“Baby!” sniffed David.
“Well, he does. With his round face and rosy cheeks and curly
hair--honestly, I always want to take him on my knee and trot him.”
David laughed, though as if against his will.
“There’s nothing of the baby about him,” he asserted, “and a fellow
can’t help his looks.”
Polly shook her head. “No,” she agreed. “If only he and his sister
could exchange faces! Maybe, after all, it is she that flavors my
opinion of him.”
“Marietta?”
“Yes.” She was making little jabs in the soft moss with her slender
forefinger, and a faint smile began to curve her lips.
“She is a brainy girl,” was the somewhat stiff response, “and she has
always been very pleasant to me.”
“She is brainy enough,” replied Polly; “the trouble is, she knows it
and she shows that she knows it.”
“If she did not know it, there would be nothing to know,” said David
severely.
Polly’s smile broadened. “I was thinking,” she resumed, “of what
Patricia said the other day. Marietta has just been elected president
of the Much Ado Club in place of Ruth Mansfield. You know the
Mansfields are going to live in California. Ruth has grown pretty
stout, and Marietta looks as if she would blow away. Somebody was
wondering if she could fill Ruth’s place, and Patricia said very
soberly, ‘I think she’ll wabble about a little.’ Wasn’t that bright?”
“Unkind,” he answered forbiddingly.
“Oh, David!” she sighed, “you are so matter-of-fact. You don’t like
Patty any better than ever.”
“There is not much of her to like,” he said quietly.
“David Collins!”
“It is true.”
“Every one but you thinks she is lovely,” asserted Polly.
“Probably they don’t require depth.”
“Patricia isn’t shallow,” she retorted.
“It appears so to an outsider. Look at her and her gang!”
“Gang!--David!”
He gave a short laugh.
“The truth is, Polly, seeing we are talking plainly, I don’t like the
girls with whom you are so popular--the girls that have made you their
queen. They--”
“Queen! What are you talking about, David?” Polly broke in without
ceremony. Her voice was scornful.
“Yes, queen,” reiterated the young man. “Only they rule you, not you
them.”
“You don’t like it because I said yesterday I hadn’t time to have a
flower garden,” accused Polly.
“No,” denied David, “I was thinking of something else. You have too
many clubs on your hands.”
“They don’t amount to much in the way of time,” returned Polly.
“They must be a great bore.”
“No; they keep me out of a rut, put me in touch with everything.”
“H’m!” scorned David. “I am glad I don’t need a posse of chattering
girls to keep me up to date. Not a single club for me in vacation! Cut
them out, Polly, every one! Why not?”
The girl laughed. “What a queer fellow you are! I’ll write to you every
day if you wish,” she added with seeming irrelevance, remembering a
certain request when they had separated at the beginning of the last
college year.
David brightened perceptibly--until a sparkle of fun in her brown eyes
swiftly altered his expression.
“Yes, you will have as much as three minutes a day to give to me, won’t
you!” he flashed, a tinge of bitterness in his tone.
“No, truly, David, I am in earnest,” smiled Polly. “My clubs don’t
take up nearly as much of my time as you think. If you would join some
of them--the College, for instance--you would change your mind. You
stand outside and criticize; you don’t get the right viewpoint. Try it,
David! You won’t be sorry. I’ll propose your name at the next meeting.”
“No, you will not!” was the prompt reply. “Nice time to join, while I
am off in an Adirondack camp.”
“Oh, well, you are not going to stay all summer, are you?”
“I may.”
Polly looked straight into the blue eyes opposite. “Do you mean it?”
He bowed gravely. “It is more than possible.” He pulled out his watch.
“Time we were on the march,” he said, springing to his feet.
The walk home was like many another walk. Polly tried to make talk,
with poor results. There were long silences, while she, watching her
companion’s face, longed with all her heart to read what was being
written behind those unreadable eyes. She felt a relief when the
hospital was sighted.
“You’ll be up in the morning, shan’t you?” she asked.
“I think there will not be time,” David answered quietly. “Converse
wishes to make an early start. I would better say good-bye now.” He
took her hand in his strong grasp, held it a moment as if words were
not ready, then said calmly, “I hope you will have a pleasant summer.”
“Just as if I were some ordinary acquaintance he had met on the
street,” Polly told herself in the seclusion of her own room. “What
does ail him!”