Polly's Business Venture

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

POLLY RETURNS TO AMERICA

Five girls were promenading the deck of one of our great Atlantic liners, on the last day of the trip. The report had gone out that they might expect to reach quarantine before five o’clock, but it would be too late to dock that night, therefore the captain had planned an evening’s entertainment for all on board.

“Miss Brewster! Miss Polly Brewster! Polly Brewster!” came a call from one of the young boys of the crew who was acting as messenger for the wireless operator.

“Polly, he is calling you! I wonder what it is?” cried Eleanor Maynard, Polly’s dearest friend.

“Here, boy! I am Polly Brewster,” called Polly, waving her hand to call his attention to herself.

“Miss Polly Brewster?” asked the uniformed attendant politely, lifting his cap.

“Yes.”

He handed her an envelope such as the wireless messages are delivered in, and bowed to take his leave of the group of girls. Polly gazed at the outside of the envelope but did not open it. Her friends laughed and Nancy Fabian, the oldest girl of the five, said teasingly:

“Isn’t it delicious to worry one’s self over who could have sent us a welcome, when we might know for certain, if we would but act prosaically and open the seal.”

The girls laughed, and Eleanor remarked, knowingly: “Oh, Polly knows who it is from! She just wants to enjoy a few extra thrills before she reads the message.”

“Nolla, I do not know, and you know it! You always make ‘a mountain from a mole-hill.’ I declare, you are actually growing to be childish in your old age!” retorted Polly, sarcastically.

Her latter remark drew forth a peal of laughter from the girls, Eleanor included. But Polly failed to join in the laugh. She cast a withering glance at Eleanor, and walked aside to open the envelope. The four interested girls watched her eagerly as she read the short message.

Polly would have given half of her mine on Grizzly Slide, to have controlled her expression. But the very knowledge that the four friends were critically eyeing her, made her flush uncomfortably as she folded up the paper again, and slipped it in her pocket.

“Ha! What did I tell you! It is from HIM!” declared Eleanor, laughingly.

Dorothy Alexander was duly impressed, for she had firmly believed, hitherto, that Polly was a man-hater. The manner in which she had scorned Jimmy Osgood on that tour of England would have led anyone to believe that such was the case. Now the tell-tale blush and Eleanor’s innuendo, caused Dorothy to reconsider her earlier judgment.

Polly curled her full red lip at Eleanor’s remark, and was about to speak of something of general interest, when Dorothy unexpectedly asked a (to her) pertinent question.

“Polly, has anyone ever proposed to you?”

Eleanor laughed softly to herself, and Polly sent poor Dodo a pitying glance. “Is that little head of yours entirely void of memory, Dodo?” said she.

Then, without waiting for a reply, Polly continued: “Did not Jimmy propose to me, as well as to every one of you girls?”

“Oh, but I didn’t mean that sort of an affair,” explained Dorothy....