Polly and the Princess Part 4

"Dear child! I don't expect you to spend all your time with an old gray-haired woman who hasn't the mite of a claim on you."

"Gray-haired!" chuckled Polly. "You can't find one gray hair. I dare you to try!" She shook a threatening finger.

"Don't have to try. I know just where there are two--right in there." She bent her head.

"Oh, they're only a little pale!" laughed Polly. "They aren't really gray. But I must go, Miss Nita. Good-bye."

"If you come across the Board anywhere downstairs, you may give it my compliments."

"Does the Board meet this afternoon?" whispered Polly. "It wouldn't be compliments I'd give them!" She waved her hand, and the door shut.

Yes, the Board was in session, the Board of Managers of the June Holiday Home. A little hum of voices came to Polly's ears from a room at the left. "I wish--" She stopped midway between the staircase and the front entrance, her forehead wrinkled in thought.

A maid came from the rear of the house, duster in hand.

"Oh, Mabel!" Polly began in a low tone, "would you mind taking a message to the Board for me?"

The girl, with a shade of surprise on her face, said, "Certainly, Miss Polly, I'll take it in. Who shall I give it to?"

"Mrs. Beers--she's president. Tell her, please, that I have something very important to say to the Board, and ask her if I can come in now, or pretty soon--whenever it won't interfere with their business."

The maid knocked and disappeared. In a moment she returned.

"She says you can come now."

There was very evident curiosity mingled with the smiles of greeting.

"I happened to think," Polly began at once, "that maybe you could do something to help out matters. I've been up to see Miss Sterling, and she is feeling pretty bad because she can't curl her hair to go to her cousin's wedding, and I didn't know but you would fix things so she can."

"'Fix things'?" scowled the lady at the head of the table. "You mean, put on an electric attachment?"

"Oh, no!" Polly came near disgracing herself by a laugh. "But it's against the rule, you know, to curl your hair, and Miss Sterling asked if she couldn't, just for the evening, and Miss Sniffen said no."

The ladies gazed at one another, plain surprise on their faces.

Then they looked questioningly at their presiding officer.

"The Board never interferes with the superintendent's rules--"

began Mrs. Beers.

"Unless it is something we especially don't like," put in the member with a conscience.

The president sent a severe glance down the table.

"I thought, maybe, just for this once, you'd fix it so she could--she would wet it all out before breakfast." Polly was very much in earnest.

"There's altogether too much complaint among the inmates," spoke up a fat woman on Mrs. Beers's left. "They should be made to realize how fortunate they are to have such a beautiful Home to live in, instead of finding fault with every little thing and sending people to try to wheedle us into giving them something different from what they have."

"Oh, Mrs. Puddicombe!" burst out Polly, "Miss Sterling didn't send me at all! She doesn't know a thing about it! I never thought of coming in until I pa.s.sed the door--then it occurred to me that maybe you would like to help her out. It's pretty hard to have to go to a wedding with your hair all flat, just as they do it at a hospital--I don't believe you'd like it yourself, Mrs. Puddicombe."

Several smiles were visible. A t.i.tter escaped the youngest member.

Mrs. Puddicombe's broad face reddened under her amazing labyrinth of screwlike curls.

"These charity people," she resumed irrelevantly, "never know when they're well off. Why, this Home is the very gate of heaven! Just look at that new rug in the library--it cost three hundred dollars!

But who appreciates it?"

"Well, I should rather walk over a thirty-cent rug than every time I turned round have to have a rule to turn by!" Polly tossed out the words impetuously.

"You're a saucy girl!" returned Mrs. Puddicombe. "You'd better go home and tell your father to teach you good manners." The president rapped for order.

"I beg your pardon, if I was saucy," Polly hastened to say. "I didn't mean to be. I was only thinking--"

"That will do," interrupted Mrs. Beers. "There has been too much time given to a very trivial matter."

Polly walked away from the June Holiday Home in the company of uneasy thoughts. She feared she had made matters worse for her dear Miss Nita.

CHAPTER IV

A JUNE HOLIDAY

The wedding night brought no recall of the negative answer which Miss Sniffen had given to Juanita Sterling, although the little woman hoped until the last moment for some sign of relenting.

But Polly was on hand to braid the thick, soft hair into a becoming coronet, and to a.s.sert that she knew the bride wouldn't look half so pretty.

Several days after, Polly danced in, her face full of the morning.

"You feel pretty well, don't you?" she began in her most coaxing way.

"A little better than usual," Miss Sterling laughed. "What do you want me to do?"

"You know David and Leonora and I went down to Fern Brook last week," Polly began deliberately, seating herself in the rocker which Miss Sterling did not like, "and ever since then I've been wishing it would come a lovely day for you and me to have a little picnic all by ourselves. Or we might ask one or two others, if you like. Will you, Miss Nita? You'll break my heart if you say no--I see it coming! Just say, 'I should be de-e-lighted to go!'"

"Oh, I'd love to, but--"

"No, there isn't a 'but' or an 'if' or anything! We're going! Who else do you want?"

"You crazy child! I'm afraid it will use me up. I don't dare risk it. We'll have to take the trolley--and the walk across lots--oh, I can't, Polly!"

"Yes, you're going! I've made up my mind! The trolley ride won't hurt you; you'll have nothing to do but to sit still, and the walk isn't long."

"Remember, I haven't been off the grounds, except for the wedding, in months."

"I don't forget, and it's awful. You felt better the day after the wedding."

"Ye-s, but--"