A Bookful Of Girls Part 16

"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 a.s.sure 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 Augaeans 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 cla.s.sic 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 c.u.mbrous 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 amus.e.m.e.nt:

"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.