Part 29 (2/2)

”She would, too!” Patricia declared. ”Guess I can do what I want to with my own money! Oh, say, will you go? Will you?”

”Maybe,” yielded Polly. ”I don't know. I've got to think it over. I do want some money, and I was wis.h.i.+ng I could earn some--”

”Oh, then you will! you will! you will!” cried Patricia gleefully.

”This is just your chance! Why didn't you tell me before? Oh, I'm so glad I want to stand on my head!”

”I haven't said yet that I'd go,” laughed Polly; ”only maybe I would.”

”But you will! I know the signs!”--and Polly was grabbed in an uncomfortable hug.

Dr. Dudley and his wife were pleased at the turn affairs had taken, although they wondered at Polly's sudden change of mind. Of the offer that was the sole cause of it Polly said nothing. What a joyful surprise it would be when she should come home a month hence with sufficient money to pay the haunting coal bill! The antic.i.p.ated pleasure of that moment kept her resolution steady.

Yet at times Polly was so sober in the midst of the preparations for her going that her mother would turn to her with searching eyes, and wonder how she had lost her usual blitheness.

”You are not doing this just to please Patricia?” she asked one twilight, stopping in her task of packing Polly's small trunk to catch her in her arms and hold her solemn little face towards the window.

”Oh, no!” was the tremulous a.s.sertion; ”I'm not going for Patricia's sake at all--that is, of course, I'm glad to please her; but I want to go! Only I guess”--her eyes filled--”I'm a little lovesick for you and father!”

Mrs. Dudley smiled.

”I know!” she nodded. ”I've been homesick beforehand.”

”Have you?” Polly brightened. ”And did it go off?”

”Oh, yes, after a while!”

”Then I guess I shall get over it soon as I'm really there,” she said bravely. ”I wouldn't give it up for anything!”

Yet the end of the pleasant all-day's journey found Polly looking forward to her promised month with a vague uneasiness. She half wished she had confided in her mother and had let her decide. While listening to Patricia's happy chatter, she wondered whether she had done right in coming, arguing the question back and forth; still so secretly did she carry on her own line of thought that merry Patricia never guessed she was not holding Polly's entire attention.

In the morning things looked different. The charming little village of Midvale Springs, dropped so cozily among the Vermont hills, won Polly's heart at first daylight glance. If father and mother were there, too! But even with the knowledge that they were hundreds of miles away the early days of her visit were spent very happily. There was so much to see, new faces at every turn, merry playmates at all hours, straw rides and barn frolics, beautiful drives alongside tumbling brooks and through deep mountain gorges,--Polly's letters home told of these unfamiliar scenes and pleasures. Mrs. Dudley said to herself that the homesickness must have pa.s.sed with the journey.

Polly had been at the Springs but a week when she was one of a party to spend the day at Lazy Lake, twenty miles distant. On her return, in the early twilight, a small figure popped out of the dusk to give her a frantic embrace.

”Harold!” she exclaimed, recovering wits and breath together. ”Where did you come from?”

”Fair Harbor,” promptly answered the unabashed boy. ”Couldn't find anybody home at your house, and that feller next door--what's his name?--”

”David Collins?”

”Yes, David--he said you were up here, so I came right along.”

At first it was a problem to know how to dispose of the rash little lad; but by dint of certain s.h.i.+fts a room in the hotel was finally provided for him, and he fitted very happily into the gay life there.

The next week another surprise came to Polly, and it was even greater than the advent of Harold.

<script>