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Strangely enough the sight seemed to give her courage. She looked
fearlessly up at him and met his twinkling eyes without flinching.
“Well, you are a cool one!” he exclaimed appreciatively.
Polly’s fingers fumbled with the string of her recaptured bundle, but
she said nothing, nor did she remove her gaze from his face.
“Say now--you needn’t go to the trouble of tyin’ up that bundle,” the
fellow continued. “I’m goin’ to carry it for you, see? and I won’t want
a string. You didn’t need a string the time you carried my papers for
me, did you? Droppin’ things behind you, one by one, can be done better
without a string!”
Polly simply made a knot in the cord she was fingering and did not
reply.
“I say!” exclaimed the newsboy at last, “what kind of a girl are you,
anyway? Why don’t you cry?”
“There’s nothing to cry for,” said Polly, stoutly.
“Oh, ain’t there! How do you know but I’m goin’ to cuff you over the
ear, same’s you did me?”
“Because you won’t. It’s cowardly for a boy to hit a girl.”
“And how about a girl hittin’ a fellow? Hey?”
“You took my Priscilla’s doll! You made my Priscilla cry!”
“Why, so I did! And you wouldn’t stand it! And so you hit me! Well,
you’re an out-an’-outer, and no mistake! Say now, d’you want to know
all I have against you?”
Polly looked at him squarely but was too cautious to reply.
“You can’t take a joke. You don’t know when a feller’s funnin’. Why,
bless your boots, I wouldn’t have took the kid’s doll off of her for a
farm! I was only foolin’, just to see what ye’d do and--my eye! but the
joke was on me--for you did it! you gave me as good a chase as I want
in a hurry! Say now, I like you a lot! I like any feller a lot that’s
got nerve and grit and when I like a feller a lot I stand by him! I’m
going to stand by you, see?”
Then suddenly and without any warning Polly felt her eyes fill.
The newsboy’s face fell. “Say now,” he exclaimed in a tone of anxious
reproach, “you ain’t goin’ to weaken now, are ye? When there ain’t
anything to cry for? An’ me thinkin’ you was an out-an’-outer, and
countin’ on your grit and savin’ I’d stand by you!”
Polly smiled through the mist in her eyes. “I guess that’s just what
made me,” she confessed. “You see, I don’t know my way, and my sister’s
sick at the hospital and I can’t find her, and I thought I was all
alone, and when you said you’d stand by me--why----”
The newsboy nodded. “I know,” he assured her bluffly. “But now, just
you leave that whole business to me. I’ll find the ’ospittle for you
without any trouble at all an’ you wait an’ see if your sister ain’t
better by the time you get there. That bundle of yours ’s no good. Who
did it up? Well, they--they didn’t know how, that’s all. Now you see
this leather? It’s what goes around my papers! Just you watch me strap
it round your bundle, fast an’ tight, like this--so-fashion! There y’
are. See! Now come along. Step lively and keep off the grass!”
Polly followed as fast as she could in his swinging steps. He guided
her across the crowded streets as safely and swiftly as if they had
been country lanes and, though it proved a long, long walk, almost
before she knew it, she found herself at the door of the hospital.
“Now, I tell you what it is,” explained her escort, as she turned
to thank him. “I’ll wait out here till you give me the word that
everything’s O.K. inside. If ’tis, why, good enough! I’ll go about my
business, but if it isn’t--well--all you’ve got to do is to give me a
nod and I’ll be there for whatever ’s to be done.”
So Polly went up the steps and timidly rang the bell. Her heart beat
suffocatingly as she asked for her sister, but no one in the office
seemed to be able to tell anything about her. Some one was sent
up-stairs to enquire and, meanwhile, she sat upon a wooden bench in
the cool, tiled hall and waited. It seemed ages before the messenger
returned. Nurses flitted through the corridors, laughing and chatting
together, telephone-bells rang, dispatch-boys came and went and the
office was astir with business. But Polly’s mind and heart were too
full for her to feel any concern in all the interesting bustle and
commotion about her. All she longed for was to be led to that quiet
room up-stairs where sister lay.
The minutes dragged slowly, slowly by, and the hands of the round-faced
clock over the desk in the office seemed scarcely to move at all. Then,
just as she was beginning to think the messenger had forgotten her,
he returned accompanied by a cheerful-looking young woman in nurse’s
uniform, who came directly up to Polly and said in a kindly voice:
“You are enquiring about Miss Ruth Carter?”
Polly nodded.
“Well, her nurse has been called away and I don’t really know much more
than this--that a lady came for Miss Carter yesterday and took her
away. She isn’t here any more. Another patient has her room.”
Polly stared hopelessly up at the cheerful-looking young woman and her
lips moved but she could not speak.
“Perhaps you are Miss Carter’s little sister? Yes, I thought you might
be. Well, you’ll probably hear all about her when you get home. If her
nurse hadn’t been called away she could tell you just how the case
stands. I’m new here and don’t know anything more about Miss Carter
than what I’ve told you.”
“Then you don’t know if she’s worse?” stammered Polly.
“Why, no--I don’t,” admitted the nurse.
“Do they--do they--ever take them away when they’re worse?” The
cheerful-looking nurse examined her cuffs with a good deal of interest.
“Why, yes--sometimes they do,” she replied hesitatingly. “You know this
isn’t a hospital for incurables. If your sister had been here some time
and she couldn’t be cured, or if she grew worse she would have to be
removed.”
Polly moved slowly toward the door. The cheerful-looking nurse did
not think it was worth while to take the trouble of looking up Ruth
Carter’s case in the hospital records just to satisfy a child. She had
something she wanted very much more to do, and so she let Polly out of
the great building with a pleasant, encouraging smile. The newsboy came
whistling around the corner as soon as the little girl appeared upon
the outer steps.
“Everything O.K.?” he enquired.
Polly shook her head.
“O, I say, nothin’ ’s wrong with the sick lady, is there?”
Polly nodded.
“She ain’t--gone?”
Again Polly nodded.
“Well, I’m--I’m sorry! I say, you’re hard hit and that’s a fact!
Come--cry if you want to. Never mind me! It’ll do you good, p’raps.
Even a feller’d be let cry if--if--his folks at the ’ospittle
was--gone.”
But Polly did not cry. She was too stunned. The newsboy joined her and
they walked slowly and silently down the street. At last Polly spoke:
“I--don’t quite know--what I’d better do,” she said drearily. “I
haven’t any place to go and I haven’t any money.”
Her companion whistled.
“Why, I thought you were one of the four-hundred! You live on the
Avenoo!”
“Yes, but the house is shut up. No one is there. They’re all in the
country.”
“What’d they mean then, by lettin’ you come away alone with no money in
your pocket, eh?”
Polly sighed. “I don’t know,” she said wearily. “A telegram came and
Theresa--she’s the parlor-maid--told me it was about sister’s being
worse and wanting me, and Theresa got me ready and--and--that’s all.”
The newsboy considered. “Well, Tresser hasn’t got much sense--or
else--she’s got too much, that’s all I have to say about it,” he
exclaimed. “But that ain’t our business just now. What’s our business
just now is this: What are you goin’ to do? Now just you think. Ain’t
there any one--not a single soul you know in this friendly town? Not a
one? Just make a try at it, an’ fish up one! One ain’t much! Oh, I say,
I’d be willing to--to--declare you can think of one!”
Polly shook her head.
“We used to live down-town,” she explained. “But sister and I didn’t
know many people there, and besides they move about a great deal--the
down-town people do. And all Priscilla’s relations are in the country.
And sister’s nurse at the hospital is away too and----”
“Did you, may be, know any one at the ’ospittle besides your sister?”
“Only Mrs. Bell.”
“Who’s Mrs. Bell?”
“She’s the mother of little Cicely. She isn’t at the hospital any more.
Miss Cissy said she had moved into a nice little flat.”
“Where?”
Polly gave the street and number.
The newsboy hailed a trolley and the next moment they were flashing
up-town as fast as electricity would take them. She was too bewildered
to know how or where they went, but blindly followed her leader and let
him pilot her from one car to another without a word.
Dazed by the heat and her hunger, and stunned by the blow she had
received at the hospital, Polly did not even realize that they had
reached the street in which, Miss Cissy said, Mrs. Bell lived and was
not conscious of the fact that her companion had rung the bell of the
ground-floor flat and that they were standing before the door waiting
for it to be opened to them. But, in another moment her wits returned,
for the door was flung open, a flood of mellow sunlight streamed into
the dim hall in which they stood, and Mrs. Bell’s hearty voice, full of
amazement, was crying out:
“Why, Polly!--Polly Carter! What brings you here?”
The newsboy chuckled. Baby Cicely, in her mother’s arms, crowed lustily
and Polly uttered a sharp cry of joy--for there, just before her--not
two yards away--stood sister! Smiling and happy and--well!
Nobody could understand how it had all come about, perhaps because
nobody could keep still long enough to listen to explanations, but one
can be very, very glad and thankful without quite understanding just
the way the things have occurred that make one so.
Mrs. Bell would not hear of Polly’s protector leaving her house till he
had promised faithfully to come back again as soon as he had sold out
his “Extry ’Dition! Evenin’ Papers!” But when he had given his word and
gone whistling away she set about getting Polly something to eat, for
it was easy to see, in spite of her joy and excitement, that the child
was worn out with fatigue and faint from hunger.
It was nothing less than luxury to sit in Mrs. Bell’s best chair,
sipping cool, fresh milk and eating a soft-boiled egg and buttered
bread, and seeing sister walk--really walk (somewhat slowly, to be
sure, and with the help of a stick, as yet) but still walk--back and
forth and about the room.
Then, little by little, everything began to explain itself. Polly’s
coming to town on account of the telegram that had never been sent
(at which gentle sister’s eyes shot sparks of righteous indignation);
her meeting with her old enemy, who proved such a friend (at which
sister’s eyes grew soft again); sister’s having left the hospital the
day before, because she was entirely cured and because Miss Cicely
had arranged to take her up to the country the following morning as a
surprise for Polly, and Mrs. Bell having the dearest little flat in
the world because her husband had got a good position in Mr. Cameron’s
office and could afford to give her a comfortable home now, in which
she had begged to be allowed to entertain sister the first day she was
out of the hospital. It all seemed very wonderful and yet very simple,
when the tangles were unraveled. Even the cloud that had hung over
Polly since Priscilla’s accident seemed to grow lighter when sister
knew of it and pointed out the way to explain the matter to Mrs. Duer.
“We ought to send a dispatch to her at once,” Ruth Carter declared.
“She will be anxious about you, dear,” but Polly soon explained that
Priscilla, her mother and Hannah were still at the seashore and would
not be back for a week at least, and that as they had not known she was
absent they would hardly worry about her safety. So it was decided to
wait until to-morrow when Polly would go up to the country with Miss
Cicely and sister and they would all three be there together to welcome
the travelers on their return.
So, while Priscilla and her mother and Hannah were spending the
dolefulest of evenings in the great country-house, Polly and sister and
little Cicely’s parents and Jim Conroy, the newsboy, were having the
happiest of ones in the little city flat.
Priscilla, in her lonely night-nursery, fell asleep at last with her
cheek pressed against one of Polly’s old pinafores, which she had
smuggled into bed with her and was clasping lovingly to her breast,
while Mrs. Duer and Hannah sat up late, talking and planning about the
next day and the hurried trip to the city in search of Polly that both
of them felt should be made without delay. As it happened they were
both so tired that when they did, finally, go to bed, they slept so
soundly that they were late in waking the next morning and Mrs. Duer
missed her train.
Her plan had been to go, directly upon reaching the city, to the store
where she felt pretty confident Polly had meant to return. But now this
idea must be given up and she must think of another way to get news of
the child. She sent a telegram to the firm and within an hour received
the reply:
“Polly Carter left us in spring. Know nothing of her present
whereabouts.”
It was a sort of comfort to Hannah and Priscilla when James returned,
as he did that morning. James had always seemed to like Polly and he
would surely grieve to hear she had gone. The good nurse told him
everything that had happened, as far as she knew it, with tears in her
voice as well as in her eyes, but when she came to the part where the
broken bank was made to prove that Polly had used her money to pay her
fare to the city, he sprang up with a shout and Hannah’s eyes grew dry
in a twinkling.
“Why, bless your heart,” the butler exclaimed, “I can tell you all
about that bank. I smashed it myself--the night of the kirmess. It was
this way:----”
And then out came the story of the little “chamois bag.”
“And, by the way,” James concluded, “that bag is somewhere down the
ravine this minute, and I’m going to find it. I was on the way to,
when Miss Priscilla fell and then, in all the hurry and worry, I clean
forgot about it. But the five dollars in it belongs to Polly--fair and
square--and I’m going to get it for her, or my name’s not James Craig.”
“But James,” interposed Hannah, “even if Polly didn’t take the money to
pay her fare, the fact remains that she’s gone.”
“Why, yes, true enough,” admitted James, “but if Mrs. Duer told Polly
not to go out of the gates unless Theresa gave her leave, you may be
pretty certain Polly didn’t do it. The kind of character a person has
stands for something, as I look at it, and Polly has proved she’s the
right sort, clear through. You mark my words, Hannah, there’s a screw
loose somewhere, but it ain’t with Polly.”
[Illustration: SHE RUSHED WILDLY FORWARD]
So James strode off to the ravine to search for the little “chamois
bag,” and Hannah hastened back to Mrs. Duer to repeat to her what the
butler had just been saying. His cheery air and encouraging words
seemed to lift a weight from the heart of every one in the house except
Theresa. She was plunged in the deepest gloom, for she seemed to see
possibilities of her deception being discovered and she made up her
mind that if the truth of the telegram were brought to light she would
leave the house of her own accord rather than risk the disgrace of
being discharged by Mrs. Duer. She had not had an easy moment since
she saw the train sweep by that was carrying Polly into the sweltering
city on her hopeless errand. She had been haunted by the vision of her
trusting, sorrowful eyes as they had looked when she, Theresa, had told
her of the telegram and Polly had thought it contained bad news for
her. The memory seemed to stab her every time she thought of the child,
and, somehow, she thought of the child continually. She did not really
believe Polly would come back. The chances were too many against
her. She had no money, no friends in the city save the sister whom it
was improbable she would find and the heat in town was reported to be
prostrating. To her surprise Theresa found herself worrying about the
little girl’s danger and her heart softened in spite of herself.
“The poor scrap,” she muttered uneasily, “I hope she’ll come to no
harm. Who knows, if Angeline had been like her, I might have been
different--better!--And then, again, who knows, if I’d been like her,
Angeline might have been different--better. Perhaps I’ll try, if I go
away from here, to be nicer to Angeline and maybe, if I am, and her
mother helps me, we can make a good child of her, after all. And maybe
we’ll be better, helping her, you can’t tell.”
Theresa’s eyes grew curiously blurred and dim at the vision and her
hard, handsome face took on a very gentle, softened look. But all of a
sudden its expression changed to one of eager anxiety. She dropped Mrs.
Duer’s brush and comb, with a handful of other toilet articles she had
been in the act of replacing in the traveling-bag, which her mistress
intended taking with her when she went to the city, as she expected
to do, that afternoon; flew to the window and gazed out in a sort of
trance of amazement, for there, coming around the driveway, was one of
the station hacks and in it were Miss Cicely, Polly and some one else
whom, she knew at a glance, to be sister herself.
Priscilla had lain hidden away in a shady corner of the veranda since
breakfast, mourning lonesomely, and refusing to be comforted, when
the sound of wheels upon the gravel made her look up. One glance was
enough. She was on her feet in an instant, rushing wildly to the
carriage entrance and crying: “Polly! Oh, my Polly! My Polly!” between
a shower of happy tears and a quiver of joyous laughter.
Polly’s wistful face lit up with sudden surprise. Her lips trembled and
her cheeks grew pale. For a moment she could not speak; her heart was
too full. But Priscilla, frantic with delight, noticed nothing but that
she had her Polly back again.
“Polly, oh, my Polly! My Polly!” she repeated over and over, while
James came running around the side of the house at the sound of her
happy voice, victoriously swinging the recaptured “chamois bag” above
his head, and Mrs. Duer and Hannah appeared simultaneously from the
house to join in the general jollification.
It was a reception to be remembered.
Priscilla clung to Polly and would not let her out of her sight for an
instant. Even the beloved Cousin Cicely had to take second place on
this occasion, but far from objecting, she joined with the others in
giving the little wanderer a royal welcome home and told the story of
her trials with so much truth and tenderness that--well, even James was
guilty of a stealthy sniff as he listened to the recital.
Lawrence and Richard came up from the stables for the express purpose
of shaking Polly by the hand and telling her they were glad to have her
back again and Bridget and the rest had to be allowed to give their
greeting too, while the only one who did not appear was Theresa and
even she, it proved, had left her message behind her, for later in the
day Polly, on going to the nursery, discovered a hurriedly-written note
upon her bureau which read:
“I’m going away. I’m sorry I acted mean to you. Tell them to
send my trunk where it’s directed to.
“THERESA.”
So Polly’s cup of bliss was filled to the brim and, as if it needed
one drop more for good measure, pressed down and running over, Miss
Cicely supplied it in the wonderful secret she had to tell and which
sounded very much like the ending to the story she had told sister that
memorable day of the tea-party in the hospital.
“But,” concluded Miss Cicely, “if the Person and
The-Real-one-with-the-Heart are to get married, as they certainly
hope to do very soon, why, I’m afraid they will have to ask two
little girls they know to assist them through the ceremony. The two
little girls must consent to be dressed in white and lead the bridal
procession up the church aisle, for though there will be plenty
of blossoms to be had for the buying, there are none the Person
and The-Real-one-with-the-Heart like quite so much as the ones we
call--Sweet-P’s.”