Kitabı oku: «A Bookful of Girls», sayfa 6

“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!”

“I should think it was, if I could get any more customers like you!”

“I’ll send them to you, – never you fear!”

Miss Beatrice Compton returned to her buckboard a captive to Polly.

“She’s the sweetest thing,” she told her mother, who chanced to be her passenger on this occasion. “She’s got eyes and hair exactly of a colour, a sort of reddish brown, and her eyes twinkle at you in the dearest way, and she wears her hair in the quaintest pug, just in the right place on her head, sort of up in the air; and she’s a lady, too; anybody can see that. I wonder who ‘Dan’ is; you don’t suppose she’s married, do you?”

“You can’t tell,” Mrs. Compton replied. “Persons in that walk of life marry very young.”

“But, Mamma, she isn’t a ‘person,’ and she doesn’t belong to ‘that walk of life.’ She’s a lady.”

Miss Beatrice was as good as her word, and three days had not passed when a horseman stopped before the little cottage, sprang from his horse, and looked about for a place to tie; there was no hitching-post near by. Polly was sitting in the porch making buttonholes.

“If you were coming in here, you’d better lead him right up the walk,” she said, “and tie him to the porch-post.”

“That’s a good idea!” the young man replied, promptly acting upon the advice. “You are Miss Polly Fitch, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“I knew you the minute I saw you, because Miss Compton described you to me.” This was meant to be very flattering, but Polly, who seldom missed a point, was quite unconscious that one had been made.

“Have you come for an idea?” she asked, quite innocently, and Mr. Reginald Axton, who was rather sensitive, wondered whether she “meant anything.” On second thoughts he concluded that she did not, and he began again:

“I got that booby prize you made.”

“Did you?” cried Polly, with animation. “Oh, I wonder whether you were the one – ” she paused.

“The one that what?” he asked hastily.

“The one that thought there wasn’t anything in the game.”

“Well, yes, I was. And the others had all the luck, and so of course I got beaten.”

“Of course!” said Polly, with a twinkle of delight.

“I see you’re on their side, but all the same I want you to help me to pay them back. You see I wanted to do something about it, and I thought of sending Miss Compton some flowers with a verse, and I thought perhaps you could do the verse.”

“Did you expect me to furnish the idea, too?”

“Why, of course! That’s why I came to you. I thought, if you were so awfully bright, perhaps you could make verses.”

Polly looked thoughtful.

“I should charge you quite a lot for it,” she said, – “much as a dollar perhaps; for you know writing verses is quite an accomplishment.”

“I’ll pay a dollar a line for it! I know a fellow that gets more than that from the magazines. And I’m sure that it will be good if you do it.”

“My gracious! that’s great pay!” cried Polly, with sparkling eyes, ignoring the compliment, but enchanted to hear what a price verses brought. “I’ll send it to you by mail.”

“No, I guess I’ll look in every once in a while and see how you’re getting on!”

“Dear me!” said Polly, “you don’t expect me to spend a week over it, do you? That isn’t why you offered such high pay?”

“Oh, no; the quicker you got it done the more I should be willing to pay for it.” He paused a moment. “And, Miss Fitch,” he went on, “I don’t care if you make it a little, – well, – a little soft. She deserves it, she’s such a tease! Her name’s Beatrice,” he added. “We call her Trix, if that’ll help you any.”

Polly understood Mr. Reginald perfectly, and she dismissed him with a twinkle which promised well. Then Polly proceeded to cudgel her brain, while the needle went in and out, and a buttonhole formed itself in the firm, narrow line that makes of a buttonhole a work of art.

“I wish I could rhyme words as well as I can stitches,” Polly thought to herself, as she held up a completed buttonhole, with the honest pride of a good workman. “Sixes, – Trixes! that heart were Trix’s! That ought to be made to go. A double rhyme, too! I don’t believe he expects a double rhyme.” And in and out and in and out her thoughts plied themselves round and about the two words, and her cheeks got quite hot with the pleasurable excitement of this new mental exercise.

At last she tossed down her work, and, fetching a piece of brown wrapping-paper, proceeded, with many erasures and tinkerings, to inscribe upon it the following verse:

 
Were hearts the dice and love the game,
Of no avail were double sixes;
On every heart is but one name,
We nought could throw but double-Trixes!
 

“Rather neat,” said Polly to herself, “rather neat! Now if he were to send it with two bunches of roses of six each, I think it could not fail to make an impression. I should rather hate to pay another person to make love for me, though,” she went on, with a little toss of the head; and then she picked up her work and began again to “rhyme buttonholes.”

When Dan came home to supper he had much to learn. He was lost in wonder over the rhyme which Polly repeated to him, but still more impressed by the four great silver dollars she had to show; for her impatient customer had already called for the verses.

“Jiminy!” cried Dan; “that’s most a week’s earnings for some of us!”

“Yes,” Polly replied, demurely; “that’s what Mrs. O’Toole would have paid me for sixteen baby-dresses. Things even themselves out in the long run, don’t they, Dan?” As though Polly knew anything about the long run, by the way!

Before Christmas Polly was driving a pretty trade, not only in ideas but in sewing. She had in all ten dozen pocket handkerchiefs to mark for Christmas customers, besides towels and table-linen, sheets and pillow-cases. People had found her out, and she had to refuse more than one good order for lack of time. But needlework alone, quick as she was in doing it, would have given her but a meagre income, had she not been able to furnish “also ideas.”

One lady, for instance, came to ask her for an “idea” for a Thanksgiving dinner, and Polly not only suggested the idea, but carried it out for her. She went about with a big basket to all the markets and collected perfect specimens of vegetables with which to make a centrepiece for the dinner table. The dinner was given in a house where the round dining table would seat twenty-four guests. In this ample centre she erected a pyramid of fruits of the earth. There were crimson beets, pale yellow squashes, scarlet tomatoes, and the long, thin fingers of the string-bean; potatoes furnished a comfortable brown, which, together with the soft bronze of the onion, harmonized discordant colours; and, crowning all, the silken tassel of the red-eared corn raised its graceful crest.

The hostess was delighted with her table, and more delighted still with the pretty decorator. Polly’s fame flew from one to another throughout that kindly and prosperous community, and she found herself accumulating a goodly hoard. As Christmas drew near, many a perplexed shopper came to her for “ideas,” and all went away content. She had long since discovered that the Colorado shops were treasure-houses of pretty things. She never passed a jeweller’s window without taking note of his latest novelties; she kept an eye upon Mexican and Indian bazaars, and Chinese bric-à-brac collections; she made a study of Colorado gems, and knew where the prizes lay hidden; she ran through the books in the bookstores; she was alert for new inventions in harness decoration and bridle trimmings; she gave hints for fancy-work of divers kinds.

Mercury, meanwhile, sped about the town, dispensing healing, as Polly often reminded him, and “getting more than I dispense, Polly,” he would declare in return. “I feel so well that everything is a regular lark!”

And so Dan made a “lark” of his work, and trotted all day in his capacity of Mercury, little dreaming of the wealth that was accumulating for his use; while Polly went on with her hoarding, of which she made a great secret, and thought of a still better time coming.

CHAPTER III
A MERRY CHRISTMAS

Of all Polly’s new friends, not one took a warmer interest in the young idea-vendor than that first customer of hers, Miss Beatrice Compton. Miss Beatrice was a warm-hearted and enthusiastic girl, who never did anything by halves; and when she talked of Polly, of Polly’s skill and of Polly’s originality, when she extolled Polly’s eyes and Polly’s hair, Polly’s wit and Polly’s sweetness, few listeners remained quite unmoved and incurious. Among the many who were thus stirred to seek out this youthful paragon, was Miss Compton’s brother-in-law, Mr. Horace Clapp. Nor was an idle curiosity his only motive in taking the step. Beneath the pretext he found for paying the visit lurked a rather shamefaced purpose of doing this “plucky little genius” a good turn.

It happened, therefore, one morning in December, that Polly came home from her marketing to find a stranger sitting in her porch. A dog-cart, driven by a groom in livery, was passing and repassing her door; and one look at the occupant of the porch sufficed to fix the connection between the two. He was a well-dressed man of thirty or more, who rose as she opened the gate and saluted her as if she had been a duchess.

“Miss Polly Fitch?” he inquired, as he stood before her, hat in hand.

It was noticeable that no one ever omitted the “Polly” from the girl’s name. It seemed as much a part of her as the ruddy hair and the dimple in her chin. That dimple, by the way, should have been mentioned long ago; but that, in its turn, was so essential a feature, that one would as soon think it necessary to state that Polly’s nose had an upward tilt as that her chin had a dimple. Any one who had ever heard of Polly must know that her nose would tilt and her chin have a dimple.

Polly had a large market-basket on her arm, and as she felt in her pocket for the key to the front door, her visitor took possession of the basket. She was a good deal impressed by the attention from so magnificent a personage, and one, moreover, of advanced years. She began to think that she must be mistaken about his being thirty; why, that was Cousin John’s age, and Cousin John was quite an oldish man. She motioned her visitor to enter, and it must be admitted that there was no oppressive reverence in her tone as she said:

“If you would tell me your name, now we should be starting fair!”

“My name is Horace Clapp. Did you ever hear of me?”

“No, I don’t think so. Ought I to have?”

“Well, no, there’s no obligation in the matter. I only had an idea that I was a local celebrity, like you.”

“Like me?”

“Yes! You’re a surprise to the town and so am I.”

“What have you done to surprise the town?” asked Polly, filled with curiosity.

“I’ve only got rich very fast.”

“Why, so have I!” said Polly. “We are a good deal alike.”

“Really? Then you will be in an even better position to advise me than I thought for.”

“I supposed you had come for an idea,” said Polly, as naturally as if her wares had consisted in tape and buttons.

Offering her visitor the only fairly comfortable chair in the room, she seated herself by the window, near which was one of the draped barrels with her work-basket on top.

“You won’t mind my sewing, please,” she said, picking up a bit of embroidery; “I can think better that way.”

The new customer meanwhile was wondering whether Miss Polly would guess that he had come partly from curiosity, and partly with that other far more daring motive of finding a way to do her a service. And yet, who could tell? Perhaps she could give him a hint; perhaps she was the youthful sibyl people seemed half inclined to believe her.

“Miss Polly,” he said, leaning forward in his chair, with his elbows on his knees, – “Miss Polly, I’ve got an awful lot of money, and I don’t know what to do with it.”

Mere words had not often the power of staying Polly’s needle, but at this astounding declaration she actually let her work fall in her lap, and gazed with wide-eyed wonder at the speaker.

“Yes,” he went on, “I really want to do some good with it, and I’ve tried in lots of ways and I’ve never hit it off. I should just like to tell you about some of the things I’ve made a fizzle of in the last year, – if it wouldn’t bore you?”

“Oh, no, it wouldn’t bore me; nothing ever does. Only, – I can’t understand it. Why, I think I could give away a thousand dollars a year just there at home, where we used to live, and every dollar of it would be well spent!”

“Yes, Miss Polly,” he said very meekly, “but, you see, what I’ve got to consider is two hundred thousand dollars a year!”

He looked positively ashamed of himself, and Polly did not wonder. She had given a little gasp at mention of the sum; then she shook her head with decision. Polly knew her limits.

“I haven’t any ideas big enough for that” she said. “I should as soon think of advising the President of the United States!”

“Well, if you won’t advise me about mine, perhaps you will tell me what you are going to do with your own riches. You said you were getting rich, did you not? You know,” he added, “it isn’t necessary to make the map of a State as big as the State itself.”

“You have ideas, too,” Polly remarked appreciatively, resuming her embroidery.

“But you have not told me how you are going to use your riches.”

“Oh, I’m going to use mine for education.”

“Going up to the college?” he asked.

“Oh, no; there’d be no good in my knowing a lot. I’ve been nearly through the Fieldham High School already, and the little that I’ve learned doesn’t seem to stick very well. No, indeed! I’m going to – ” she paused with a feeling of loyalty to Dan – “I’m only going to help on the general cause of education,” she finished demurely.

As she made this sphinx-like remark, Mr. Horace Clapp wished she would relinquish the pursuit of wealth long enough to put her work down and let him see exactly what she meant.

“I think that is the best use to put money to,” he said gravely, “but I’m not in the way of knowing about people who need help. Couldn’t you tell me of somebody, some young man who wanted to go to college, or some girl who would like to go abroad? Of course, I could found a scholarship, or endow a ‘chair,’ but one likes a bit of the personal element in one’s work.”

Polly’s heart gave a thump. Here was a chance for Dan; a word from her was all that was needed to make his path an easy one. Had she a right to withhold that word, – to cramp and hinder him? She did not speak for a good many seconds; she simply plied her needle with more and more diligence, while her breath came fast and unevenly. Suddenly a furious blush went mounting up into her temples and spread itself down her neck. Her visitor thought he had never seen any one blush like that, and it somehow struck him that his little plan was swamped. Quite right he was, too. Polly blushed to think that she had thought of Dan in such a connection for a single instant.

It was very unreasoning, this impulse of rebellious shame: are we not admonished to help one another? And what could the helpers do if all their benefactions were indignantly thrust back? Very unreasoning indeed, but natural! – natural as the colour of her hair and the quickness of her wit, natural as all the graces and virtues, all the misconceptions and foibles, that went to make up the personality of Polly Fitch, – of Polly Fitch, the daughter of Puritan ancestors; men and women who could starve, body and mind, but who never had learned to accept a charity.

Before the flush had died away, Polly was quite herself again, and looked up so brightly and sweetly that Mr. Clapp took heart of hope.

“You do know somebody like that; I’m sure you do!” he said insinuatingly.

“I?” said Polly. “I know hardly anybody. But I’m sure the president of the college could tell you of a dozen boys who would be grateful for help.”

And so Mr. Horace Clapp’s little plan had come to nought, and he took his leave more than ever convinced that it is a very difficult thing to spend one’s money in a good cause. As he stood a moment, waiting for his dog-cart, a boy came down the street with a parcel under his arm.

“Say, Mister, do you know whether Daniel Fitch lives here?” he asked.

“Daniel Fitch?” thought Mr. Clapp, as the boy turned in at the gate. “Daniel Fitch? Where have I heard that name? Oh, yes, Beatrice said there was a brother; runs errands for Jones, the druggist. Plucky children! It would be pleasant to give them a lift!”

As for Polly, she had not a twinge of regret. In fact, she rather enjoyed dwelling upon the splendour of the opportunity she had thrust from her, the better to glory in her escape. And she looked forward with entire confidence to the time when she should test Dan’s feeling on the point.

On Christmas Eve they hung up their stockings, fairly bulging with materialised jokes and ideas which the morning was to bring to light, and we may be sure that they did not wait for the lazy winter sun to put in an appearance before beginning their investigations. Amid shouts of merriment the revelations of a remarkably inventive Santa Claus were greeted, while Polly held her climbing excitement in check until the hour should be ripe for greater things. But when, at last, just as the sun was peeping in at the kitchen window, Dan’s ferret fingers penetrated the extreme toe of his sock, she grew so agitated that she quite forgot to make a certain witty observation she had been saving up for that particular moment. And so it came about that an unwonted silence reigned as the unsuspecting Dan drew forth a small flat parcel labelled: “A Merry Christmas from Polly.”

Within was their familiar bank-book, wrapped about with a less familiar sheet of note-paper bearing the following inscription:

“An Idea! Namely, to wit: That Daniel Reddiman Fitch, Esq., lay aside his character of Mercury, and become a student at Colorado College!

“P. S. – An examination of the within balance will assure the said Dan that there is nothing to prevent his thus delighting the heart of his faithful Polly.”

A glance at the balance recorded, a reperusal of the “idea,” and the impressive silence was broken into a thousand fragments.

“For you see, Dan,” Polly explained, when, at last, she had secured a hearing, “I shouldn’t know what in the world to do with so much money, – some rich people don’t, they say, – and I’ve got plenty of ideas to last us for years to come. Then, just as they begin to give out, you’ll have got to be a mining engineer, with your pockets cram-full of money, and you’ll have to support me for the rest of my life. So I don’t see but that I’m getting the best of the bargain, after all!”

It all seemed perfectly natural to Dan. This sister of his had always lent a hand when he needed it. Of course he would accept her help, and let the future, the glorious, inexhaustible future straighten out the account between them. He did not express himself even in his inmost thoughts in any such high-flown manner as this. He simply gave an Indian war-whoop, administered to Polly a portentous hug, and declared for the hundredth time, “Polly, you beat the world!”

When everything was thus amicably settled and Dan had agreed to “give notice” in his capacity as Mercury, the following day, Polly said: “You won’t mind being poor, will you, Dan? You don’t wish we were rich, do you?”

“Rich? Why, we are rich!”

“But, Dan, if any one came along and offered you a lot of money, say a thousand dollars a year, you wouldn’t take it, would you?”

“Do you mean a stranger, Polly, some one we hadn’t any claim on?”

“Yes; but somebody who had such a lot he wouldn’t miss it. Would you take it, Dan? Say, would you take it?”

“What a goose you are, Polly! Of course I wouldn’t take it! I would rather go back to the Augæans for the rest of my life!”

On the evening of that momentous Christmas Day, our two young people had out their Latin books and began industriously to polish up their somewhat rusty acquirements in that classic tongue. A year ago they might not have regarded this as precisely a holiday pastime, but their ideas had undergone a great change since then.

They sat at the little centre-table, the ruddy head and the black one close together in the lamp-light, reading their Cicero. A rap at the door seemed a rude interruption; yet so unusual was the excitement of an evening visitor that they could not be quite indifferent to the event, – the less so when the visitor proved to be Polly’s client of the cumbrous income.

“Good evening, Miss Polly,” he called, from the door, and Polly fancied that his voice had a particularly cheerful ring in it. As he spoke, he glanced at Dan, who had opened the door.

“This is my brother, Dan. Won’t you come in, Mr. Clapp?”

“With all the pleasure in the world, for I have come in the character of Santa Claus.”

“Have you indeed?” thought Polly to herself; “we’ll see about that!” Perhaps there was something in her manner that betrayed her thoughts, for her visitor said, with evident amusement:

“You take alarm too easily, Miss Polly. I should as soon think of offering a gift in my own name to, – to any other extremely rich young woman.”

“I was glad to hear that your brother’s name was Dan,” he continued with apparent irrelevance, as he took his seat. “And more delighted still when I found out his middle name. Didn’t it strike you,” he asked, turning abruptly to Dan, “that your employer, Mr. Jones, was developing rather a sudden interest in your antecedents?”

“Yes,” Polly thought, “he is pleased about something.”

“Why, yes,” Dan answered, with boyish bluntness. “But what do you know about it?”

“Only that it was I that put Jones up to making his inquiries.”

“You?” Dan looked half inclined to resent the liberty. But Polly saw that there was something coming.

“Would you mind telling us what it’s all about?” she asked. “You look as if you knew something nice.”

“I do; it’s one of the nicest things I ever knew in my life. I didn’t tell you the other day, did I, that I had made most of my money in mines?”

“No,” said Polly, wondering why he should want to tell them how he made “his old money.”

“Well, that is the case; nearly all in one mine, too. It’s a great placer mine up north. I don’t suppose you know much about placer mines?”

Polly, disclaiming such knowledge, tried to look politely interested, while Dan’s interest, fortunately for his manners, was very genuine. Was he not to be a mining engineer, and did he not want to learn all he could?

“Well,” Mr. Clapp went on, “a placer mine is one where the gold lies embedded in the soil and has to be washed out, and if there doesn’t happen to be running water near by it costs an awful lot to bring it in.”

“Yes,” said the polite Polly, with a vision of a fire-brigade running about with buckets in their hands, as they used to do in Fieldham.

“What they call hydraulic mining,” Dan put in.

“Yes, that’s it. Big ditches to be dug, and all that sort of thing. Well, this ‘Big Bonus Mine’ was discovered twenty years ago. A company was started and the stock was put on the market at a dollar a share. The management made a mess of it, as a management usually does, and it fizzled out. It was believed that the thing was chock-full of gold, but they couldn’t get it out.”

Polly was beginning to be interested; she usually did find things interesting when she gave her mind to them.

“Well, what did they do?” asked Dan.

“They gave it up for a bad job, and tried to forget all the money they had put into it.”

“Then where did your money come from?”

“Out of the ‘Big Bonus Placer Gold Mine!’ We scoop it right out to-day.”

“I wish you’d go ahead!” said Dan, for the guest had paused, and was examining the Cicero.

“Well, hydraulic mining improves, like every thing else, and three years ago a new company was formed. Luckily the old company had not gone into debt; perhaps they could not borrow money on their elephant. However that may be, they agreed to put half their stock back into the treasury, and it was sold at fifty cents a share, which gave us money to work with.”

“And it was a howling success!” cried Dan. “I remember; I’ve heard all about it.”

“Yes, we’ve paid out two dollars a share in dividends in the last six months, and the stock is held at fifteen or sixteen dollars a share to-day. The beauty of it is,” Mr. Horace Clapp added, glancing quietly from Dan to Polly, “I am convinced that you are both stockholders.”

“We?” they cried in a breath.

“Yes! For Jones tells me that your father was a doctor; that his name was Daniel Reddiman Fitch, and that he once lived in Bington, Ohio.”

“Yes,” said Polly; “that was when he was first married; before old Doctor Royce died, and left an opening in Fieldham, so that Father came back home again.”

“The name of such a stockholder stands on our books, but we haven’t heretofore been able to trace him.”

“That’s why old Jones pumped me so,” Dan remarked, giving his mind first to the more familiar aspects of the case.

“What a pity he never knew!” said Polly, with glistening eyes. “He was always so poor.”

“Your father’s original holdings were five thousand shares, so that you are the possessors of twenty-five hundred shares. If you sell it pretty soon, as I think you may as well do, you will have something over forty thousand dollars to invest; for there is, in addition to the stock, five thousand dollars in back dividends due you.”

Dan and Polly looked at each other almost aghast; but that was only for a moment.

“Why, Dan, you can have a saddle-horse of your own!” cried Polly.

“And so can you!”

“And we can – O Mr. Clapp, how rude we are!”

Mr. Clapp looked as if it were a kind of rudeness that he was enjoying very much. As he rose to go, he said:

“Don’t you think I’m a pretty good sort of a Santa Claus after all, Miss Polly?”

Polly seized his outstretched hand.

“I didn’t believe any one person could be so rich, and so good, too!” she declared.

“And, O Dan!” cried Polly, the minute they were alone together, “let’s send a New-Year’s box home. There’ll be just time enough. We can get one of those great carriage rugs for Uncle Seth, and a China silk for Aunt Lucia.”

“And I’ll send Cousin John’s boys some Indian bows and arrows.”

“And Cousin Martha a dozen Chinese cups and saucers.”

“And the old Professor a meerschaum pipe.”

“And Miss Louisa Bailey, and dear Mrs. Dodge, and the Widow Criswell, – what shall we send the Widow Criswell, Dan?”

“Some black-bordered pocket-handkerchiefs!” cried the irreverent Dan.

Before going to bed they stepped out on the porch to bid the Peak good-night.

“Going to be a fine day to-morrow, Polly.”

“All the days are fine in Colorado,” said Polly.

“You forget the blizzard last month.”

“Oh, but it was such a dear blizzard not to do you any harm when it caught you out!”

Dan grew thoughtful.

“Do you ever think, Polly, that we should never have come out here if it hadn’t been for you?”

“You know it was ‘Pike’s Peak or bust!’ with both of us, Dan.”

Dan looked critically from the great Peak, gleaming there in the starlight, to Polly’s uplifted face, and then, as they turned to go in, he exclaimed, for the hundred-and-first time:

“Polly, you beat the world!”