the child, she wants me if she is sick. Go on with your suppers, I’ll see to her,’ and Bell rose from the table.
‘No, my dear, I want you all to leave her alone at present,’ said Mrs. Winship, decidedly. ‘I’ve put her to bed in Dicky’s play-tent, and I want her to be quiet. Gin has taken her some supper, and she needs rest.’
Polly Oliver in need of rest! What an incomprehensible statement! Nobody was satisfied, but there was nothing more to be said, though Bell and Philip exchanged glances as much as to say, ‘Something is wrong.’
Supper ended, and they gathered round the camp-fire, but nothing was quite as usual. It was all very well to crack jokes, but where was a certain merry laugh that was wont to ring out, at the smallest provocation, in such an infectious way that everybody else followed suit? And who was there, when Polly had the headache, to make a saucy speech and look down into the fire innocently, while her dimples did everything that was required in order to point the shaft? And pray what was the use of singing when there was no alto to Bell’s treble, or of giving conundrums, since it was always Polly who thought of nonsensical answers better than the real ones? And as for Jack, why, it was folly to shoot arrows of wit into the air when there was no target. He simply stretched himself out beside Elsie, who was particularly quiet and snoozed peacefully, without taking any part in the conversation, avowing his intention to ‘turn in’ early. ‘Turn in’ early, forsooth! What was the matter with the boy?
‘It’s no use,’ said Bell, plaintively; ‘we can’t be anything but happy, now that we have Elsie here; but it needs only one small headache to show that Polly fills a long-felt want in this camp. You think of her as a modest spoke in the wheel till she disappears, and then you find she was the hub.’
‘Yes,’ said Margery, ‘I think every one round this fire is simply angelic, unless I except Jack; but the fact is that Polly is—well, she is—Polly, and I dare any one to contradict me.’
‘The judgment of the court is confirmed,’ said Philip.
‘And the shark said, “If you
Don’t believe it is true,
Just look at my wisdom tooth!”’
sang Geoffrey.
‘And if any one ever tells me again that she has red hair and hasn’t good features, I should just like to show them a picture of her as she was to-day at the dinner-table!’ exclaimed Bell.
‘As if anybody needed features with those dimples,’ added Elsie, ‘or would mind red hair when it was such pretty hair!’
‘I think a report of this conversation would go far towards curing Polly,’ said Dr. Winship, with a smile.
‘And you say we can’t go in there before we go to bed, mamacita?’ whispered Bell in her mother’s ear, as the boys said good-night—and went towards their tent.
‘My dear,’ she answered decidedly, with a fond kiss for each of the girls, ‘Polly herself asked me to keep everybody away.’
Polly herself wanted to be alone! Would wonders never cease?
Meanwhile Dicky, who had disappeared for a moment, came back to the fire, his bosom heaving with grief and rage.
‘I went to my play-tent,’ he sobbed, ‘and putted my hand underneath the curtain and gave Polly a piece of my supper cake I saved for her—not the frosted part, but the burnt part I couldn’t eat—and she liked it and kissed my hand—and then I fought she was lonesome, and would like to see my littlest frog, and I told her to put out her hand again for a s’prise, and I squeezed him into it tight, so ’t he wouldn’t jump—and she fought it was more cake, and when she found it wasn’t she frew my littlest frog clear away, and it got losted!’
This brought a howl of mirth from everybody, and Dicky was instructed, while being put to bed, not to squeeze little frogs into people’s hands in the dark, as it sometimes affected them unpleasantly.
All this time Polly was lying in the tent, quite exhausted with crying, and made more wretched by every sound of voices wafted towards her. Presently Gin appeared with her night-wrapper and various things for comfort sent her by the girls; and as she wearily undressed herself and prepared for the night, she found three little messages of comfort pinned on the neck and sleeves of her flannel gown, written in such colossal letters that she could easily read them by the moonlight.
On the right sleeve:—
Cheer up! ‘I will never desert Mr. Micawber!’
Bell.
On the left sleeve:—
Darling Polly,—Get well soon, or we shall all be sick in order to stay with you. Lovingly,
Meg.
P.S.—Jack said you were the life of the camp! What do you think of that??
M.
On the neck:—
Dearest,—You have always called me the Fairy Godmother, and pretended I could see things that other people couldn’t.
The boys (great stupids!) think you have the headache. We girls can all see that you are in trouble, but only the Fairy Godmother knows why; and though she can’t make a beautiful gold coach out of this pumpkin, because there’s something wrong about the pumpkin, yet she will do her best for Cinderella, and pull her out of the ashes somehow.
Elsie.
Polly’s tears fell fast on the dear little notes, which she kissed again and again, and tucked under her pillow to bring her sleep. ‘Elsie knows something,’ she thought, ‘but how? she knows that I’m in trouble and that I’ve done wrong, or she wouldn’t have said that about not being able to turn a bad pumpkin into a beautiful gold coach; but perhaps she can get Aunt Truth to forgive me and try me again. Unless she can do it, it will never come to pass, for I haven’t the courage to ask her. I would rather run away early in the morning and go home than have her look at me again as she did to-day. Oh! what shall I do?’ and Polly went down on her knees beside the rough couch, and sobbed her heart out in a childish prayer for help and comfort. It was just the prayer of a little child telling a sorrowful story; because it is when we are alone and in trouble that the unknown and mysterious God seems to us most like a Father, and we throw ourselves into the arms of His love like helpless children, and tell Him our secret thoughts and griefs.
‘Dear Father in heaven,’ she sobbed, ‘don’t forgive me if I ought not to be forgiven, but please make Aunt Truth feel how sorry I am, and show me whether I ought to tell what made me so angry, though it’s no excuse. Bless and keep my darling patient little mother, and help me to grow more like her, and braver and stronger too, so that I can take care of her soon, and she needn’t work hard any longer. Please forgive me for hating some things in my life as much as I do, and I will try and like them better; but I think—yes, I know—that I am full of wicked pride; and oh, it seems as if I could never, never get over wanting to live in a pretty house, and wear pretty dresses, and have my mother live like Bell’s and Margery’s. And oh, if Thou canst only forgive me for hating boarders so dreadfully, and being ashamed of them every minute, I will try and like them better and tell everybody that we take them—I will indeed;
