Part 14 (1/2)
”Scared? Not I!” and she walked down the path with him, drying her hands on a dish-towel.
It was a delicious morning in late September; the air dry and sparkling as a jewel, the mountains baring their shoulders to the morning sun. The Peak had already a dash of winter on his crown, but the barren slope of rock below looked like an impregnable fortress.
Polly and Dan were never tired of wondering at the changing moods that played so gloriously upon that steadfast front.
”Seems as if they must almost see him from Fieldham this morning, he's so bright,” said Polly.
”That's so,” Dan agreed. ”I say, Polly, isn't he enjoying himself, though?”
”Course he is!” Polly answered. ”Isn't everybody?”
Then Polly went back to her splas.h.i.+ng water and flopping dish-towels, and was busy for an hour about the house. By and bye she sat herself down in the little porch and proceeded to put good honest st.i.tches into a child's frock, for the making of which she was to receive twenty-five cents. Not very good pay for a day's work, but ”twenty-five-hundred-million per cent. better than nothing,” as she had a.s.sured the doubtful Dan.
Life looked very different to her since those two bright words had been added to the sign. Not that it had looked otherwise than pleasant before; but there was so little originality in the idea of doing needlework that it had scarcely merited success, while this,--of course it must succeed!
In truth, she had sat there hardly an hour, when she distinctly heard the occupant of a yellow buckboard read the sign, and then turn to her companion with a word of comment. Polly had always had an idea that one of those yellow buckboards would be the making of her fortune yet.
The one in question was drawn by a pretty pair of ponies, and two young girls were in possession of it.
”I have an idea they'll notice it again, when they come back this way,” Polly surmised. ”But if they're going up the canon they won't come back till just as I'm getting dinner.”
And, sure enough, the mutton stew was just beginning to simmer, when there came a rap at the door.
The front door opened directly into the little sitting-room, and was never closed in pleasant weather. As Polly emerged from the kitchen, her face very red from hobn.o.bbing with the stove, she found one of the girls of the yellow buckboard standing in the doorway.
”Good morning, Miss----”
”Fitch. My name is Polly Fitch.”
”What a jolly name!” the visitor exclaimed. ”I think you must be the one with ideas.”
”Yes,” said Polly, ”Do you want one? Come in and take a seat.”
”I do want an idea most dreadfully,” the young lady rejoined, taking the proffered chair. ”I want something for a b.o.o.by prize for a backgammon tournament. I don't suppose anybody ever heard of a backgammon tournament before, but it's going to be great fun. We are doing it to take the conceit out of a young man we know, who declares that there's nothing in backgammon that he didn't learn the first time he played it with his grandfather.”
”And you want a b.o.o.by prize?” Polly looked thoughtful for the s.p.a.ce of sixteen seconds. Then she cried; ”Oh, I have an idea! Get somebody to whittle you a couple of wooden dice; then paint them white and mark them with black sixes on each of the six sides of each die. You could call it '_a b.o.o.by pair-o'-dice_' if you don't object to puns!”
”What a good idea! It's simply perfect! I wonder whom I could get to do it for me?”
”Why, Dan could do it with his jackknife, just as well as not. If you'll come to-morrow morning you shall have them.”
Accordingly, the next morning, the young lady appeared, and was enchanted with her prize.
”And how much will they be?” she asked.
”Well, I had thought of charging twenty-five cents for an idea, and the dice didn't cost us anything and only took a few minutes to make.”
”Supposing we call it a dollar. Would that be fair?”
”I don't believe they are worth a dollar.”
”Yes, they are; I should be ashamed to take them for less. What a splendid idea that was of yours, to put out that sign!”