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Polly and the Princess by Emma C. Dowd

E >> Emma C. Dowd >> Polly and the Princess



POLLY AND THE PRINCESS

BY

EMMA C. DOWD

AUTHOR OF

POLLY OF THE HOSPITAL STAFF.
POLLY OF LADY GAY COTTAGE.
DOODLES, ETC.

ILLUSTRATED



1917




CONTENTS

I. WAFFLES AND DEWLAPS
II. IN MISS MAJOR'S ROOM
III. POLLY ADDRESSES THE BOARD
IV. A JUNE HOLIDAY
V. MISS LILY AND DOODLES
VI. "BETTER THAN THE POORHOUSE"
VII. ROSES--AND THORNS
VIII. WAITING TO BE THANKED
IX. BLANCHE PUDDICOMBE
X. "GOOD-BYE, PUDDING"
XI. "SO MYSTERIOUS!"
XII. MRS. DICK ESCAPES
XIII. ALONG A BROOK-SIDE ROAD
XIV. POLLY PLANS
XV. "LOTS O' JOY"
XVI. THE HIKING CLUB
XVII. GRANDAUNT SUSIE AND MISS SNIFFEN
XVIII. VICTOR VON DALIN
XIX. A MOONSHINE PARTY
XX. THE PARTY ITSELF
XXI. TWO OF THEM
XXII. DANCING HIKERS
XXIII. "HILLTOP DAYS"
XXIV. "HOPE DEFERRED"
XXV. ALICE TWINING, MARTYR
XXVI. MR. PARCELL'S LESSON
XXVII. "I LOVE YOU, DAVID!"
XXVIII. A VISIT WITH MRS. TENNEY
XXIX. DISAPPOINTMENT
XXX. DOODLES SINGS
XXXI. SHUT OUT
XXXII. THE TALE IS TOLD
XXXIII. THE PRINCESS AND THE DRAGON
XXXIV. A MIDNIGHT ANNOUNCEMENT
XXXV. A NEW WIRE
XXXVI. POLLY DUDLEY TO CHRISTOPHER MORROW
XXXVII. HOLLY AND MISTLETOE




POLLY AND THE PRINCESS

CHAPTER I

WAFFLES AND DEWLAPS

The June Holiday Home was one of those sumptuous stations where
indigent gentlewomen assemble to await the coming of the last train.

Breakfast was always served precisely at seven o'clock, and certain
dishes appeared as regularly as the days. This was waffle morning
on the Home calendar; outside it was known as Thursday.

The eyes of the "new lady" wandered beyond the dining-room and
followed a young girl, all in pink.

"Who is that coming up the walk?"

Fourteen faces turned toward the wide front window.

Miss Castlevaine was quickest. Her answer did not halt the syrup
on its way to her plate.

"That's Polly Dudley."

"Oh! Dr. Dudley's daughter?"

"Yes. She's come over to see Miss Sterling. They're very
intimate."

"Miss Sterling?" mused Miss Mullaly, with a sweeping glance round
the table. "I don't believe I've seen her."

"Yes, you have. She was down to tea last night. She had on a
light blue waist, and sat over at the end."

"Oh, I remember now! She's little and sweet-looking. Somebody
told me she had nervous prostration. Too bad! She is so young and
pretty!"

A tiny sneer fluttered from face to face, skipping one here and
there in its course. It ended in Miss Castlevaine's "Huh!"

"I think Miss Sterling is real pretty!" Miss Crilly, from the
opposite side, beamed on the "new lady."

"She has faded dreadfully," asserted Mrs. Crump. "They used to
call her handsome years ago, though she never was my style o'
beauty. But now--" She shook her head with hard emphasis.

"She has been through a good deal," observed Mrs. Grace mildly.

"No more'n I have!" was the retort. "If she'd stop thinking about
herself and eat like other folks, she'd be better."

"Nervous prostration patients have to be careful about their diet,
don't they?" ventured Miss Mullaly.

"She hasn't got it!" snapped Mrs. Crump.

"She thinks she has." Miss Castlevaine's thick lips curved in a
smile of scorn.

"If she can't digest things, it won't do her much good to eat
them," interposed Miss Major positively. "Nobody could digest
these waffles--they're slack this morning."

Miss Castlevaine gave her plate a little push. "I wish I needn't
ever see another waffle," she fretted.

"Oh!" exclaimed the "new lady," "I don't understand how anybody can
get tired of waffles!"

"Nor I!" laughed Miss Mullaly's right-hand neighbor. "I shall have
to tell you about the time I went to Cousin Dorothy's wedding
luncheon.

"I never had eaten waffles but once; that was at my aunt's. She
had gone to housekeeping directly after the wedding ceremony, and
was spoken of in the family as 'the bride.' I had been her first
guest, and, as she had treated me to waffles, I thought waffles and
brides always went together. So when I was included in the
invitation to Dorothy's wedding luncheon, my first thought was of
waffles. I said something about it to my brother, and Ralph was
just tease enough to lead me on. He told me that the table would
be piled with waffles, great stacks of them at every plate! Like a
little dunce I believed it all and went to that party anticipating
a blissful supply of waffles. In vain I looked up and down the
elegant table! I ate and ate, but never a waffle appeared!
Finally, when I could stand it no longer, I piped out, 'Cousin
Dorothy, please can I have my waffles now?' Of course, my mother
was dreadfully mortified, for some of the guests were strangers,
and very great people; but Dorothy took it as a mighty good joke,
and even after I was married she used to laugh about my 'w'awful'
disappointment. I've not gotten over my appetite for waffles
either! I believe I could eat and relish them three times a day."

"You couldn't! Just wait till you've had 'em fifty-two times a
year, five years running--as I have!" Mrs. Crump's lips made a
straight line.

"Mrs. Crump has kept tabs on her waffles," giggled Miss Crilly.
"How many does this morning make--five hundred and--?"

"Sh!" nudged Mrs. Bonnyman at Miss Crilly's elbow.

Two youngish women entered the room. They were the superintendent
and the matron.

Upstairs, meanwhile, Miss Juanita Sterling; in bed, and Polly
Dudley, seated on the outside, were having a familiar talk.

"I shouldn't think you'd want to die till God gave you something to
die of," Polly was saying wistfully. "I think He must want you to
live, or He would give you something to die of. Perhaps He has
some beautiful work for you to do and is waiting for you to get
well and do it."

"Polly, I cannot work! And there is no lack of things for me to die
of!" Impatience crept into the sweet voice. "Being in prison is
bad enough even with good health; but to be sick, wretched--the
worst kind of sickness, because nobody understands!--and to grow
old, too, grow old fast--oh, I wish God would let me die!" The
little woman gave a sudden whirl and hid her face in the pillow.

"Don't, Miss Nita!" Polly's voice was distressed. She stroked the
smooth, soft hair. "Don't cry! You're not old! You're not old a
bit! And you're going to be well--father says so!"

"That won't take away the dewlap--oh!" cried Miss Sterling
fiercely, "I don't want a dewlap!"

"Dewlap?" scowled Polly. "What's a dewlap?"

"Polly! You know!" came from down among the feathers.

"I don't!" Polly protested. "Is it some kind of--cancer?"

"Cancer! Polly!" Miss Sterling laughed out.

"Well, I don't know what it is." Polly laughed in sympathy.

"Look here!" The little lady raised herself on her elbow and
lifted her chin. "See that!"

Polly peered at the fair, pink skin.

"What? I don't see anything."

"Why, that! It's getting wabbly." Her slim forefinger pushed the
flesh back and forth.

"Oh!" Polly's face brightened. "I remember! That's what
Grandaunt Susie called it! She said she used to have an awful
one--it hung 'way down. And she cured it! You'd never dream she
had one ever!"

"Oh, yes, you can do away with such things if you have money--if
you can go to a beauty-doctor!" The tone was bitter.

"No, she didn't!" hastened the eager voice. "She did it herself!"

"Of course, if you have expensive creams and all the
paraphernalia--"

"But she didn't--she said so! She just used olive oil!"

"How old was she?" Miss Sterling inquired with a now-I-'ve-got-you
air.

"She was seventy when she had the dewlap; now she's seventy-three
or four."

"Polly Dudley! I don't believe it!"

"Why, Miss Nita, I'm telling you the solemn truth!"

"Yes, yes, child! I didn't mean you! But this Aunt Susie--"

"Oh, she's just as honest! Why, she's mother's grandaunt, and
she's lovely! She was sick and couldn't do anything, and her hair
was thin and her cheeks hung down and she was all wrinkles and she
had the dewlap--she said she looked dreadful. Now you ought to see
her! She's perfectly well, and her hair is as thick, and it's
smooth and solid all under her chin, and her face is 'most as round
as mine!"

"How did she work the miracle?" Miss Sterling's eyes twinkled.

"Why, I guess by massage and exercises. She didn't take anything.
She did lots of stunts; she had piles of them for her legs and arms
and neck and face and feet and all over. She made up mighty funny
faces. You lie over this way, and I'll show you one.

"First you must smile--just as hard as you can." Polly laughed to
see the prompt grin. "Now I'll put my hands so, and you must do
exactly as I tell you." Polly's little palms were pressed against
the other's cheeks, and she began a rotary motion.

"Open your mouth--wide, and then shut it again--oh, keep on
smiling! And keep your mouth going all the time, while I do the
massaging."

"Goodness!" Miss Sterling broke into a laugh. "I should think that
was a stunt! It ought to do something." She turned on the pillow
in another paroxysm of mirth.

"But you made me stop too soon," objected Polly. "You ought to
open and shut your mouth twenty-five times. 'Most everything Aunt
Susie did twenty-five or fifty or a hundred times."

"I don't wonder she got well! She'd have to if she didn't die. I
should laugh before I got through twenty-five times, I'm sure.
What's it for, anyhow?"

"To make the cheeks plump up and not sag--oh, yours look so pink!"
Polly danced over to the dresser and back.

The handglass showed a face of surprise. The thin, white cheeks
had taken on a soft rose tint and--yes, an extra fullness!

"Queer!" Miss Sterling ejaculated. "I wouldn't have believed it!"

"Oh, let's try it again! Then you get up and go to walk with
me--won't you?"

"I can't, Polly! Wish I could! But I don't feel as if I could
even stand up. I suppose I shall have to go down to dinner. I
don't dare not."

"Haven't you had any breakfast?"

"No. Folks that can't get up don't need to eat." She laughed
sadly. "It's well I'm not hungry."

"But you ought--"

"Tap! tap!"

The matron opened the door while Polly was on the way.

"Mr. Randolph is at the other end of the building and will be here
presently to see about the new wing."

Mrs. Nobbs was gone.

"Nelson Randolph!" cried Miss Sterling. "Hand me my blue kimono,
Polly, quick! It's right there in the closet, by the door!"

She swung her feet to the floor and caught up her stockings.

"You going to get up?"

"Of course! Hurry! I believe he's coming--no, he isn't! Oh, I
can get this on all right! You fix the bed! Never mind the
wrinkles--plump up the pillows! Yes, hang my clothes anywhere you
can find room. There! Does my hair look all right?"

"Lovely! That kimono is very becoming."

"Little flatterer!"

By the time Nelson Randolph, president of the June Holiday Home,
appeared in the doorway, what he saw was a well-appointed bedroom,
a little blue-clad lady demurely reading a small volume, and Polly
hovering near. With a perfunctory good-morning to Miss Sterling,
and a genial handshake for Dr. Dudley's daughter, he passed with
Mrs. Nobbs to the southwest corner of the apartment. He took a
glance around the ceiling, a look from the window, and some
measurements with a foot-rule; then he walked briskly across the
room, nodded politely, and departed.

"What a lovable man he is!" commented Polly, as the retreating
footsteps told of their safe distance.

"Is he?"

"Don't you know him?" Polly queried.

"Not very well. Probably he doesn't remember me at all. He used
to come to the house occasionally to see father. That was before
he was married. I was only seventeen or eighteen."

"I like to look at him, he is so handsome." Polly's head wagged
admiringly. "I guess he'd remember you all right, only he doesn't
know you're here. He hasn't been president very long, just since
Mr. Macy died. What are they going to build now?"

"I don't know. First I've heard of it. They have more money than
they know what to do with, so they've decided to put up an L and
spoil my view," laughed Miss Sterling.

"I could tell them lots of things better than an L--some new
dresses for Mrs. Crump and Mrs. Albright and Miss Crilly. They've
been here longest and look the worst. That brown one of Mrs.
Crump's is just full of darns."

"Same as mine will be when I've been here as long," added Miss
Sterling.

"Strange, when they have so much money, they don't give the ladies
nice things to wear," mused Polly. "Perhaps that is what makes
Mrs. Crump so cross-grained. Mrs. Albright isn't. She's sweet, I
think."

"She is a dear," Miss Sterling agreed. "But she's had enough
trouble to crush most women. I wonder sometimes if anything could
make her blue."

"Miss Crilly's cheerful," observed Polly. "I like her pretty well."

"She is kind-hearted. If only she weren't all gush and giggle!
She raves over everything, cathedral or apron trimming--it's all
the same to her."

Polly laughed. "She's rather pretty, I think."

"Too fat."

"No, you can't call her fat; only her bones don't show. I wish
Miss Castlevaine could thin up and show her bones just a little,
and I do feel sorry for her because she can't curl her hair. She'd
look a thousand per cent better with some little fluffs."

"Why don't you be sorry for me?"

"Oh, you don't need curly hair as the rest do!" answered Polly
comfortably.

"Need it! I'm a scarecrow with my hair straight!"

Polly took the smooth head between her two palms. "You'll never be
a scarecrow if you live to be a hundred and fifty!" she declared.
"But the dear homely ones--it is hard on them. What do you suppose
is the reason Miss Sniffen won't let them curl their hair just a
mite?"

"Walls are said to have ears," replied Miss Sterling, with a little
scornful twist to her pretty mouth. "It wouldn't be safe for me to
express my opinion."

Polly smiled. "It's a shame! And it isn't fair when she has curly
hair that doesn't need any putting up. I just wish hers would
straighten out--straight as Miss Castlevaine's!"

"You seem to have taken a sudden liking to Miss Castlevaine."

"Oh, no! Only I feel sorry for her, she is so fat and fretty, and
her hair won't fluff a mite. It must be dreadful to think as much
scorn as she does."

"And talk it out," added Miss Sterling. "I wish she wouldn't, for
she is really better than she sounds."

"Oh, if she'd try some of Aunt Susie's exercises, perhaps they'd
make her face thin!"

"I thought they were to make it plump."

"So they are--and thin, too, in the right places. They'd cure her
double chin."

"Anyway, she hasn't any dewlap yet. When it comes it will be an
awful one. I can't imagine her in that exercise you tried on me."

"Are you going to do it every day?"

"I would if I had any faith in it." Miss Sterling sighed--with a
wrinkled forehead.

"Oh, you mustn't pucker in wrinkles if I'm going to rub them out!"
Polly smoothed the offending lines. "Now I'll run over home and
get yon that book Aunt Susie gave to mother. It tells all about
everything, and it will make you have faith. It did mother."

"She doesn't need it."

"No; but Aunt Susie said she'd better begin pretty soon, for it was
easier to cure wrinkles before they came."

"Yes, I guess it is," Miss Sterling laughed, "and dewlaps too!"




CHAPTER II

IN MISS MAJOR'S ROOM

When Russell Holiday and his wife named their only child June, they
planned to make her life one long summer holiday. For eighteen
years success went hand in hand with their desire; then an
unfortunate marriage plunged the joyous girl into bleak November.
She grew to hate her happy name. But with the passing of the man
she called husband much of the bitterness vanished, and she began
to plan for others.

"I want this Home to be as beautiful as money can make it and as
full of joy as a June holiday," she told her approving lawyer.
"There must be no age limit. It shall welcome as freely the woman
of forty as her mother or her grandmother. I will gather in the
needy of any sect or race,--the oppressed, the disabled, the
sorrowful, and the lonely,--and as much as can be give to them the
freedom and happiness of a delightful home."

In just one week from the day the ground was broken for the big
building, a drunken chauffeur drove the donor and her lawyer to
their death, and the institution was continued in a totally
different way from that intended by the two who could make no
protest.

To be sure, it stood at last, in gray granite magnificence, on the
crest of Edgewood Hill, a palace without and within; but to those
for whom it was built had never come, through the years of its
being, a single June holiday.

It was this that some of the residents were discussing, as they
crocheted, knitted, or embroidered in Miss Major's room on a dull
May morning.

"Too bad June Holiday couldn't have lived just a little longer!"
Mrs. Bonnyman sighed.

"What would she say if she knew how her wishes were ignored!" Miss
Castlevaine shook her head.

"Regular prison house!" snapped Mrs. Crump.

"Well, I'm glad to be here if I do have to obey rules," confessed a
meek little woman with grayish, sandy hair. "It's a lovely place,
and there has to be rules where there's so many."

"There don't have to be hair-crimping rules, Mrs. Prindle--huh!"

As the curly-headed maker of the hated law walked across the lawn.
Miss Castlevaine sent her an annihilating glance.

"Is that Miss Sniffen?" queried Miss Mullaly, adjusting her
eyeglasses.

Miss Castlevaine nodded.

The others watched the tall, straight figure, on its way to the
vegetable garden.

"She has the expression of a basilisk I saw the picture of the
other day." spoke up Mrs. Dick.

"What kind of an expression was that?" inquired Mrs. Winslow Teed.
"I saw a stuffed basilisk in a London museum when I was abroad, but
I can't seem to recollect its expression."

"Look at _her_!" laughed Mrs. Dick. "She has it to perfection."

Miss Crilly's giggle preceded her words.

"She's like a beanpole with its good clothes on, ain't she? But,
then, I think Miss Sniffen is real nice sometimes," she amended.

"So are basilisks and beanpoles--in their proper places," retorted
Miss Major; "but they don't belong in the June Holiday Home."

"Are her rules so awful?" inquired Miss Mullaly anxiously.

"I don't like them very," answered the little Swedish widow.

"Mis' Adlerfeld puts it politely." laughed Miss Crilly. "I'll tell
you what they are, they are like the little girl in the rhyme--with
a difference,--

'When they're bad, they're very, very bad,
And when they're good, they're horrid!'"

"I heard you couldn't have any company except one afternoon a
week," resumed Miss Mullaly, after the laughing had ceased,--"not
anybody at all."

"Sure!" returned Miss Crilly. "Wednesday afternoon, from three to
five, is the only time you can entertain your best feller."

"Why, Polly Dudley was here Thursday morning!"

"Now you've got me!" admitted Miss Crilly. "She's a privileged
character. She runs over any blessed minute she wants to."

"And she brings her friends with her," added Miss
Castlevaine,--"David Collins and his greataunt's daughter,--Leonora
Jocelyn,--Patricia Illingworth, and Chris Morrow, and that girl
they call Lilith, besides the Stickney boys up in Foxford--huh!"

"She must be pretty bold, when it's against the rule," observed
Miss Mullaly.

"No," dissented Mrs. Albright, "it isn't boldness. Polly runs in
as naturally as a kitten. The rest don't come so very often. I
shouldn't say they'd let 'em; but they do."

"There's never any favoritism in the June Holiday Home--never!"
Mrs. Crump's brown poplin bristled with sarcasm.

"Maybe it's on Miss Sterling's account," interposed Mrs. Albright.
"She thinks so much of Polly, perhaps they hope it'll help to bring
her out of this sooner."

"Don't you believe it!" Miss Castlevaine's head nodded out the
words with emphasis. "Dr. Dudley's a good one to curry favor with."

"Is Miss Sterling a relative of his?" asked Miss Mullaly.

"No. Haven't you heard how they got acquainted? Quite a pretty
little story." Mrs. Albright settled herself comfortably in the
rocker and adjusted the cushion at her back.

The others, who were familiar with the facts, moved closer together
and nearer the window, both to facilitate their needles and their
tongues.

"It was the day after Miss Sterling came, along in September," the
story-teller began, "and she was up in her room feeling pretty
lonesome--you know how it is."

Miss Mullaly nodded--with a sudden droop of her lips.

"She stood there looking out of the window toward the back of the
new hospital,--it was building then,--and she saw a little girl
climbing an apple tree. She watched her go higher and higher,
after a big, bright red apple that was away up on a top branch.
Miss Sterling says she went so fast that she fairly held her
breath, expecting to see her slip; but she didn't, she's so
sure-footed, and it would have been all right if she hadn't
ventured on a rotten branch. When she stepped out on that and
reached up one hand to pick the apple, the branch broke, and down
she went and lay in a little heap under the tree.

"Well, Miss Sterling said she felt as if she must fly right out of
that window and go pick her up. But it didn't take her many
minutes to run down the stairs and out the front door--she didn't
stop to ask permission--and over across lots to Polly. She was in
a dead faint, but in a minute she came to, and Miss Sterling ran up
to the house and got Dr. Dudley and his wife, and they carried her
in, and Miss Sterling went too. The Doctor couldn't find that
Polly was hurt at all, only bruised a little--you see, the branches
had broken her fall, and she was all around again in a few days.
Miss Sterling was pretty well upset by it, so that the Doctor came
home with her, and she had to go to bed, same as Polly did! It
made quite a stir here.

"Ever since then Polly has run in and out, any time of day, just as
I hear she does at the hospital. She's that kind of a girl, never
makes any trouble, and so nothing is said."

"I guess I shall break lots of the rules before I know what they
are."

"You'll learn 'em soon enough, don't you worry! There's a long
list; but you'll get used to 'em after a while--we have to.
There's nothing like getting used to things. It's a great help."




CHAPTER III

POLLY ADDRESSES THE BOARD

"It is a shame, Miss Nita!" Polly was saying. "To think of
it--that you can't curl your hair even to go to a wedding! I
wonder if father or mother could do anything."

"Oh, no!" cried Miss Sterling, in sudden terror. "Don't, I beg of
you, let them say a word to Miss Sniffen! She'd turn me right out!"

"I should wish she would, if I were you."

"Where could I go? I'd have to sit on the sidewalk!"

Polly laughed.

"No, Miss Nita," catching one of the slim white hands and pressing
it against her cheek, "you come right over to our house when Miss
Sniffen turns you outdoors, and we'll take care of you!"

"It isn't anything to laugh at," sobbed the little woman.

"I know, I'm wicked to laugh; but I had a picture of you sitting on
the curb in your nightgown, and I couldn't help it!"

Then Miss Sterling laughed too.

Shortly she fell to crying again. "I did want to look nice at
Cousin Jennie's wedding, as nice as I could, and I do think it is
downright mean!" She hammered out the last words with desperate
force.

Polly stood by her side, distressed into silence.

"You don't know that she'll let you go anyway, do you?" she asked
presently.

"Yes, she said I could, and then I asked her if I might curl my
hair. She snapped out a disagreeable 'no,' and I turned and came
upstairs."

Polly was doing some hard thinking.

"Queer, Jennie should marry at her age," Miss Sterling resumed
after a brief pause, wiping her eyes dry. "She is forty-one, only
two years younger than I."

"Are you forty-three? Nobody'd ever guess it." Polly gazed at her
critically. "I wonder if I couldn't curl your hair at the last
minute, and smuggle you downstairs, all wrapped up, so Miss Sniffen
wouldn't know. You could wet it out the next morning."

Miss Sterling shook her head with a wee smile. "I would if I
dared, but I don't. If Miss Sniffen weren't there to see, Mrs.
Nobbs would be, and nothing escapes her eyes. No, 't would be too
much risk."

"Maybe it would," Polly admitted, and then paused to listen. "It's
three o'clock and I must go. I halfway promised David and Leonora
I'd come down there this afternoon. I guess they're a little bit
jealous of you. It's handy to run over here, and they're so far
away. I should think you'd get tired of me, I come so much."

"Tired of you!" echoed Miss Sterling. "You are the only bit of
cheerfulness I have to look forward to. Last night I couldn't
sleep; I was just upset after seeing Miss Sniffen, and my head felt
wretched. But I kept saying to myself, 'Polly will be here in the
morning!' and that helped me through the night. You don't
know--you never will know!--what a comfort you are!" She pulled
Polly down and gave her a little squeeze.