CHAPTER VIPOLLY AND ELEANOR BEGIN COLLECTING
Within a week after the westerners had gone back home, matters with Polly and her friends in New York settled down in a smooth current. The Fabians found a commodious house in a refined environment quite near the Ashby’s home, and the two girls, Polly and Eleanor, lived with them.
Mr. Fabian temporarily resumed his lectureship at the Art School of Cooper Union, and his two promising pupils, with Dodo Alexander as a new beginner, accompanied him every night that the classes met.
The Alexanders had leased an expensive suite at an apartment hotel near the Fabians, and much to little Mr. Alexander’s joy, although much to Mrs. Alexander’s disgust, they settled down to a hum-drum life that winter. She sighed as she referred to her life.
“Dear sakes! Here I am with all this moneyto spend on a fine time, and I have to waste my days sitting around hearing Dodo rave about Corunthian Columns, Ionack Piers, and such foolish stuff. As for Ebeneezer! He is just impossible to get along with, since he found what quiet friends he had in the Fabians and the Ashbys!”
The result of such complaints from Mrs. Alexander were soon evidenced by her spending her evenings at theatres, dances at various clubs and places she had forced an entrance to, and in daily shopping trips about the city.
The motley collection of antiques the girls had secured while abroad and had shipped home, arrived in due season and the cases were sent to Mr. Ashby’s Shop. The girls were told that the goods had been delivered, and the next day they hastened to the establishment to admire their purchases.
The articles were arranged in one small room, and when the three girls followed Mr. Ashby to the place, they were amazed at the insignificance of their exhibition.
“Why! I thought I had a lot of stuff,” declared Eleanor.
“You see all that you bought. There is your list,” laughed Mr. Ashby, sympathizing in her disillusionment.
“And I thought that chest so much more elaborate—when I chose it in France,” ventured Polly, puckering her forehead.
“I’ll tell you why,” said Mr. Ashby. “When we see these pieces on the other side, the glamour of the places and the stories connected with them, actually charm us more than the objects themselves. After we secure our desires and find we own them, we ship them home and do not see them again until they reach prosaic and business-like New York.
“Meantime, we enhance the beauty and romance of the objects we purchased, by thinking of them in connection with the romance of their past; thus idealizing them in mental pictures, they appear far finer and more alluring than in truth they are.
“When we really view them again, just as you are now doing, the shock of finding them just simple antiques, and so inferior to what we dreamed them, reverses our sentiments about them.
“Now beware, girls! Don’t let this reversal affect you, in the least. These objects are just as valuable and desirable, here, as ever they were over there. It is only your personal view-point that has changed, somewhat. You have not beenvisiting old collections, or museums abroad, for some weeks now; and the radical change from touring ancient Europe, to rushing about in New York in quests of homes, school, and clothes for the season, has made a corresponding change in your minds.
“In a short time, you will be back in harness and feel the same keen delight in these old possessions as aforetime.”
Polly appreciated the sense of Mr. Ashby’s little lecture, but Eleanor still felt disappointed with her purchases. And Dodo laughed outright at the old pewter she had gone wild over in England, and now scorned in America.
That evening Mr. Fabian explained, carefully, about the times and customs of the purchases that represented certain people. He wove a tale of romance about each piece of furniture the girls had delighted in, and enhanced their interest in the dishes and other small objects they had collected that summer, until the three disappointed owners felt a renewed attraction in the articles.
Mr. Ashby was present, but he said nothing until Mr. Fabian had ended. Then he added in a suggestive manner: “Fabian, what do you say to the girls taking short trips to the country, each week, to hunt up such antiques as can be foundin out-of-the-way nooks all through New England?”
The girls perked up their ears at this, and waited to hear Mr. Fabian’s reply.
“If they had a car and someone to accompany them on such excursions, I think they would thoroughly enjoy it.”
“Dalken has three cars—two limousines, you know; and he told me that he wished he could prevail upon the girls to make use of one, instead of his leaving it in a garage to eat up its value in rent. I thought of this way to give the girls many interesting quests, and make use of the car at the same time, so I mentioned it to him. He was delighted and wants the girls to try the plan,” explained Mr. Ashby.
“And I will offer myself as chaperone,” hastily added Mrs. Fabian.
“If I could only be included in these outings I should love it,” laughed Nancy Fabian.
“You are! Any one who belongs to us, must consider themselves as invited,” said Polly, laughingly.
So an outing for Saturday was planned, that night, and Mrs. Fabian and Nancy were to manage the details for the girls.
“We will choose a likely country-side for ourfirst trial,” remarked Mrs. Fabian, looking at her husband for advice.
“That’s hard sense,” laughed he. “But where is such a spot?”
“Somewhere in New England,” ventured Nancy.
“That’s as ambiguous as ‘Somewhere in France,’” retorted Polly.
“Not when you consider that New England begins just the other side of the city-line of Portchester,” said Mr. Fabian.
“But there are no antiques to be found in Rye, Portchester or Greenwich, in these days of amateur collectors hunting over those sections,” remarked Mrs. Fabian.
“You are not limited to those nearby towns; but you can travel fifty miles in the inland sections in a short time, and stop at simple little farm-houses to inquire, as we did this summer while touring England. I wager you’ll come home with enough trophies of war to start you off again, in a day or two,” explained Mr. Fabian.
On Saturday morning, Mrs. Fabian packed an auto-kit with delectable sandwiches, cakes and other dainties, and the party of amateur collectors started out on their quest. The chauffeur smiled at their eagerness to arrive at some placeon the Boston Post Road that might suggest that it led to their Mecca. He kept on, however, until after passing through Stamford, then he turned to the left and followed a road that seemed to leave all suburban life behind, in a very short time.
“Where are you taking us, Carl?” asked Polly, curiously.
“On a road that Mr. Ashby told me about. He has never stopped at these places, but he thinks you will find something, along here.”
After several more miles had been reeled off, the eager and watchful passengers in the car glimpsed a low one-story farm-house, with plenty of acreage around it. The two-story box-like addition built at the rear and hooked up to the tiny dwelling that almost squatted on the road itself, seemed to apologise for the insignificance of its mother-house.
“Slow up, Carl. Let’s look this place over,” called Mrs. Fabian.
The automobile came to a stop and the ladies leaned out to inspect the possibilities in such an old place. A girl of ten came around the corner of the box-house and stood gazing at the people in the car.
Carl seemed to be no novice in this sort of outing,and he called to the girl: “Hey! Is your mudder home?”
The girl nodded without saying a word.
“All right! Tell her to come out, a minute.”
Mrs. Fabian hastily interpolated with: “Oh, we’d better go in and ask for a drink, Carl.”
Carl laughed. “Just as you say, Missus. But dese farmer people don’t stand on fussin’. You’se can ask her right out if she wants to sell any old thing she’s got in the attic or cellar.”
“How do you know?” asked Polly, smilingly.
“’Cause Mr. Dalken got the fever of collectin’ after you folks went to Urope. And many a time I’ve sat and laughed at his way of getting things.”
“Oh! That’s why you knew where to drive us, eh?” said Eleanor.
“No, ’cause he never come this road, yet. He mapped it out, once, and said he would try it some day. That’s why he told me which road to foller today.”
The girl had disappeared but was coming back by this time. She climbed upon the picket gate and hung over it, as she called out: “My ma’s kneadin’ bread an’ can’t get out, this minit. She says if you want somethun, fer you to come in and seeher!”
This invitation sufficed for all five to instantlyget out of the car and lift the latch on the gate. The girl never budged from her perch, but permitted the visitors to swing her back as the gate was opened.
“Go right to the side door,” advised she, holding on to the pickets.
As invited, the collectors went to the side door and Mrs. Fabian knocked timidly. “Come in!” said a shrill voice from within.
The lady of the house had plump arms elbow-deep in dough. She glanced up and nodded in a business-like manner. “Did yer come fer fresh aigs?” asked she, punching the dough positively.
“If you have any for sale, I should like to take a dozen,” returned Mrs. Fabian, politely. Polly and Dodo stared in surprise at their chaperone, but Eleanor and Nancy comprehended at once, why this reply was made.
“Wait a minute, will yuh, and I’ll get this job off my hands afore I go fer the aigs.”
Eleanor laughed humorously as she remarked: “It looks like dough on your hands.”
The woman laughed appreciatively, while the others smiled. “That’s right! It’s dough, all right. I s’pose you folks are from nearby, eh?”
“Not very far away,” returned Mrs. Fabian. “We are out on a pleasure jaunt this morning,but I saw your farm and so we decided to ask your little girl if you were in.”
“That’s right! I tole my man to put a sign out on the letter-box fer passers-by to see how I had aigs to sell; but he is that procrastinatin’—he puts off anythun’ ’til it’s too late.”
The woman was scraping the bits of dough from her hands as she spoke, and this done, she sprinkled flour over the top of the soft lump in the pan and covered it with a piece of old linen cloth. As she took it to a warm corner behind the stove, she added: “Do you’se know! Abe was late fer our weddin’. But I knew him for procrastinatin’, even in them days, so I made everyone wait. He come in an ’nour behind time, sayin’ he had to walk from his place ’cause his horse was too lame to ride. That’s Abe all over, in everythun.”
The house-keeper finished her task and turned to her callers. “Now then! Do yuh like white er brown aigs?”
“White ones, please,” returned Mrs. Fabian.
The woman went to the large storeroom off the kitchen and counted out a dozen eggs in a box. When she came back she held them in one hand while waiting for payment, with outstretched other hand.
“That’s a fine sofa you’ve got in the next room,” remarked Mrs. Fabian, pretending not to notice the open palm.
“Yeh, d’ye know, I paid fifteen dollars jus’ fer that red plush alone?” declared she, going to the door and turning to invite her visitors to come in. The box of eggs was forgotten for the time.
The girls followed Mrs. Fabian to the best room that opened from the large kitchen, and to their horror they saw that the sofa referred to was a hideous Victorian affair of walnut frame upholstered in awful red mohair plush.
But Mrs. Fabian made the most of her optics the moment she got inside the room. Thus it happened that she spied a few little ornaments on the old mantel-shelf.
“What old-fashioned glass candle-sticks,” said she, going over to look at the white-glass holders with pewter sockets.
“Ain’t they awful! I’ve told Abe, many a time, that I’d throw them out, some day, and get a real nice bankit lamp fer the center table,” returned the hostess.
“And won’t he throw them away?” asked Mrs. Fabian, guilelessly.
“He says, why should we waste ’em, when theycomes in so handy, in winter, to carry down cellar fer apples. He likes ’em cuz he onny paid a quarter fer ’em an’ a glass pitcher, at an auction, some miles up the road. But that wuz so long ago we’ve got our money’s wuth outen them. Now I wants a brass lamp an’ he says I’m gettin’ scandalous in my old age—awastin’ money on flim-flams fer the settin’ room. He says lamps is fer parlor use.”
Her repressed aspirations in furnishings made the woman pity herself, but Mrs. Fabian took advantage of the situation.
“I’ve needed a pair of candle-sticks for some time, and I’ll exchange a lamp for your auction bargain which you say has paid for itself, by this time.”
“What! Don’t you want your lamp?” exclaimed the lady, aghast at such a statement.
“Well, I have no further use for one, and it would look lovely on your marble-top table,” returned Mrs. Fabian.
“Well, well! How long will it take you to get it from home?” asked the woman, anxiously.
“If you really wish to get rid of the candle-sticks and jug, I’ll leave the quarter you paid originally for them and go for the lamp at once. Maybe I can be back in an hour’s time. I’ll payfor the eggs, too, and leave them until I come back,” explained Mrs. Fabian, graciously.
Without wasting an extra word or any precious time, the owner of the rare old candle-sticks wrapped them in a bit of newspaper and went for the glass pitcher. Mrs. Fabian had no idea of the extra item being worth anything, but she included it, more for fun, than anything else. But once they saw the tiny glass jug with Sheffield grape-design on its sides, they all realized that here was a wonderful “find.”
Mrs. Fabian seemed uneasy until she had the paper package in her hand and had paid the twenty-five cents for the three pieces of glassware. Then Eleanor made a suggestion.
“Why couldn’t we wait here, Mrs. Fabian, and look at some of the old china the lady has in this cupboard, while you go for the lamp. There’s no sense in all of us going with you.”
“That’s a good plan, if Mrs.——” Nancy waited for the lady to mention her name.
“I’m Mrs. Tomlinson,” said she, politely.
“If Mrs. Tomlinson is not too busy to show us her dear old house,” added Nancy.
“All right, girls. Is that satisfactory?” asked Mrs. Fabian. “How does it appeal to you, Mrs. Tomlinson?”
“Oh, now that that bread is risin’, I’ve got time to burn,” declared the lady, independently.
“All right. We’ll visit here while you get the lamp,” agreed the girls, deeply concerned to know where their chaperone would find a lamp such as Mrs. Tomlinson craved.
Mrs. Fabian left, and invited the child swinging on the gate to drive with her as far as Stamford. The little girl, pleased at the opportunity, ran for her bonnet and told her ma of the wonderful invitation.
Mrs. Tomlinson signified her consent to Sarah’s going, and then gave her full attention to showing her company the house. “You musn’t look at the dirt everywhere, ladies,” began she, waving a hand at the immaculate corners and primly-ordered furniture.
“Now come and see my parlor, girls. I’m proud of that room, but we onny use it Sundays, when Sarah plays the melodian and we sings hymns. Now an’ then some neighbors come in evenin’s, fer a quiltin’-bee in winter; and I uses it fer a minister’s call, but there ain’t no way to het the room an’ it’s all-fired cold fer visitin’.”
Polly thought of the ranch-house at Pebbly Pit as Mrs. Tomlinson described the cold winter evenings, and she smiled at the remembrance of howshe used to undress in the kitchen beside the roaring range-fire, and then rush breathlessly into her cold little room to jump between the blankets and roll up in them to sleep.
Eleanor laughed outright at the picture of a visiting dominie sitting on the edge of a chair with his toes slowly freezing, while his parishioners tried in quaking tones and with teeth chattering to entertain him.
But Mrs. Tomlinson paid no heed to their laughter, for she was in her glory. “Ain’t this some room?” demanded she, pulling the shades up to give enough light to admire the place.
A stained cherry parlor suite of five pieces upholstered in cheap satin damask, with a what-not in one corner, and an easel holding a crayon portrait of Abe and his bride at the time of their wedding, in the other corner, graced this best room. A few cheap chromos flared against the gorgeous-patterned wall-paper, and a mantel-shelf was crowded with all sorts of nick-nacks and ornaments. Polly seemed drawn to this shelf, the first thing, while the other girls glanced around the parlor and felt like laughing.
“Won’t you sit down, a minute?” invited the hostess, but her tone suggested fear lest they soil the damask with their dust-coats.
Polly had made a discovery in that moment she had to look over the motley collection on the shelf.
“This is a nice tray you have standing against the wall,” said she, using Mrs. Fabian’s tactics to interest the hostess.
“Yes, that’s another auction bargain. When Abe fust got it, the day I went fer that oak side-board, I got mad. But I’ve used it a lot sence then, fer lemonade and cookies, when comp’ny comes to visit all afternoon. And I feels made up,I kintell you, when I brings that tray in like all society does.” Mrs. Tomlinson chuckled to herself.
Polly examined the tray and believed it a rare one. It was oval in shape, and had a stencilled rim in a conventional design. The coloring was exquisite, and the central design was a wonderful basket over-flowing with gorgeous fruit. The touches of gold on the decorations was the beauty-point of the unusual object.
“I’ve always wanted just such a tray, too. I wonder if you know anyone who has one and will sell it to me. I’d drive a long ways to go to an auction such as you say you attended, when you bought this tray,” said Polly, trying to act indifferent.
“Laws-ee, Miss! I see’d trays sold at mos’ every country auction I goes to. I’d jes’ as soon sell that one to you, if you like it, but maybe you’d think I was askin’ too much if I was to tack on the cost of time I lost that day. I never got a chanst to bid on the oak side-board, ’cause a city man felt so mad at Abe fer buyin’ the tray, that he run up the side-board out of spite, when he found we wanted it. Ef he’d onny a said he wanted the old tray he’d cud have had it an’ welcome. But he never told us. The neighbor who finally got the side-board laffed an’ told Abe why the man did the trick. The man told him he’d double-crossed us that way.”
Polly would have offered the woman the full value of the fine stencilled tray, but Eleanor hurriedly spoke for her.
“How much was the tray with the cost of time tacked on?”
“Well, it won’t be fair to chargeallafternoon, ’cuz I had a good time with my neighbors what met at that vendue. But Abe lost three hours’ work on the corn that day and that is wuth sixty cents an ’nour, anyway. Tack that on to thirty-five cents fer the tray, an’ you’ve got it.”
Mrs. Tomlinson started counting laboriously on her fingers and ultimately reached the sametotal as the girls had found five minutes before. So Polly paid over the munificent sum to the lady’s delight, and took possession of the tray.
“Ef I onny had some other old things you’d like to get, I would almost have enough money to buy a swell glass lemonade set I saw down to Stamford one day. It had a glass tray under it and a dozen painted glasses and a fine glass pitcher—all fer two ninety-eight.”
Almost before the lady had ended her words of her secret ambition, the four girls had pounced upon various things found on the shelf. Eleanor had an old glass toddy-mug with a lid, which was used for a match-holder in the parlor.
Nancy selected a small oil lamp with a brass base and stem, and a lovely-shaped glass shade. Mrs. Tomlinson informed her it was another auction bargain that cost fifty cents. Being so expensive they put it on the parlor mantel instead of using it.
Dodo yearned to possess an old afghan she saw on the settee of the suite of furniture, but she feared to say so. Finally she summoned courage enough to offer the lady a price for it that caused Mrs. Tomlinson a failure about the heart.
“My goodness’ sakes alive! That’s ten times more’n the wool ever cost when the thing wasnew. Take it! Take it, quick, ef you really mean it!”
The girls laughed wildly, for Dodo took it quickly and paid the price offered to the consternation of the sales-woman. “Well,” gasped she, at last, “you must have some family-past what has to do with knitted covers, is all I can say to explain you!”
By the time the inspection of the house was over, Mrs. Fabian returned with just such a brass pedestal banquet lamp as Mrs. Tomlinson had secretly envied and long hoped for. Such joy and pleasure as she took in selecting a clean crocheted mat to spread on the cold marble slab of the center table, and then place thereon her vision come true, was worth all the trouble Mrs. Fabian had had in finding the lamp at a second-hand shop at Stamford; but later when that wise collector examined her old candle-sticks and pitcher, she felt a hundred times repaid for the lamp—as she truly was.
The merry collectors started home that afternoon, after enjoying the picnic luncheon beside a brook in the woods back of Stamford, with their hopes pitched high for future successes in collecting.
Mr. Dalken heard from Carl about the successfulquest that day, and telephoned to the Fabians, that evening. The Ashbys had hurried over when they heard of the pieces secured at the farm-house, and were present when Mr. Dalken questioned the girls all about their “find.”
“Now we’re dying to start again, Mr. Dalken, and hunt up other trophies,” said Polly, in conclusion.
CHAPTER VIIA REVOLUTIONARY RELIC HUNT
So delighted were the amateur collectors with the result of their first search for antiques, that they planned another trip a few days later. Carl could not drive the car for them, as Mr. Dalken had invited a number of business friends who were in New York for a few days to go out on Long Island with him, for the day. He took the seven-passenger car and Carl for the drive, so the girls had to be contented with the smaller car. But neither Mr. Dalken nor Carl knew that the girls proposed going alone. They believed Mr. Fabian or Mr. Ashby’s chauffeur would drive the car.
Eleanor bragged about her ability to drive an automobile and the girls knew from experience how well Dodo could drive, so the outing was planned without any grown-up being consulted about the driving or chaperoning.
“Did not Carl have a road-map in the side-pocket of the car, the day he drove us to Stamford?” asked Polly.
“Yes, but the car is in the garage, and the map with it,” returned Eleanor.
“Daddy has a road-map. I’ll get his,” remarked Ruth Ashby, who had been invited to be one of the party this trip.
“Then bring it around tonight, Ruth, when you come to plan about the route we ought to choose for this outing,” said Polly.
Ruth hurried home and immediately after dinner, that evening, she found the map in the library desk-drawer and tucked it in her pocket. As she ran through the front hall she called to her mother:
“I’m going over to the Fabians for a little talk, Mummy.”
“But, Ruth, you just came from there a few moments before dinner,” came from Mrs. Ashby.
“Oh, I didn’t visit that time! I only stopped in with the girls to wait and see if Nancy had a map they all need. Now I’m going to visit,” explained Ruth.
Mrs. Ashby laughed at a girl’s interpretations of a call and Ruth ran out.
Their pretty heads were closely bending overthe map, when Mr. Fabian passed the living-room door and stopped a moment to consider the picture they made under the soft-shaded light. He went on to his private den without saying a word to distract their attention from (as he thought) their books of learning.
“Now listen here, girls!” exclaimed Nancy, tracing a line on the map. “Polly doesn’t know much about this end of the United States, and Eleanor doesn’t know much more than Polly does but I am supposed to be well informed about Westchester County, having lived there when I was a little girl. So I can tell you something about this road I’ve traced.”
The four girls lifted their heads and listened eagerly.
“You know Dobb’s Ferry and its vicinity was there in the days of the Revolution, and Washington camped at that town. Even the Headquarters he occupied is to be seen as it was at that time. This road, running easterly from Dobb’s Ferry, is the old turnpike road used by the army as it marched towards the Hudson.
“Now this is what I say! Why shouldn’t there be lots of old houses along that road, or in that locality, that were there during Washington’s time? And if standing still, why shouldn’t therebe old furniture, or odd bits, to be found in them?”
Eleanor instantly caught Nancy up on one of her phrases. “Naturally the houses would be standing still—you wouldn’t want them to be dancing a tango, would you?”
“Oh, pshaw, Nolla!” scorned Nancy, in disgust at such a poor attempt to joke, “you know, well enough, what I mean.”
The other girls laughed at Nancy, and Polly added: “Well, what is your plan?”
“I say, let’s drive along the River Road as far as Dobb’s Ferry, and then turn off to this road and venture on any country road we find, that has old-fashioned houses which look as if they were built in 1776.”
“That sounds thrilling!” laughed Eleanor.
Her companions refused to smile this time, so she sat grinning at Nancy, as if waiting to attack her again.
“I think that plan will answer as well as anything Nolla has proposed, don’t you?” asked Nancy.
“Yes, we’ll try your scheme out, Nan. But you’ll have to be the guide through the country, as we haven’t the least idea of the lay of the land,” said Dodo.
“We’ll succeed splendidly, as long as we have this map,” promised Nancy.
The girls pictured many rare treasures added to their collection after this proposed trip, and when it was time for Ruth to go home, each girl had chosen rare and wonderful objects to be found in these imaginary Colonial home-steads they expected to visit on the morrow.
Classes had to be attended to before excursions could be enjoyed and then it was lunch-time; but after that they finally started on this trip.
Mrs. Fabian was out with Mrs. Ashby, so the girls met no one who would question them, when they were ready to leave. Ruth and Dodo called at the Fabians and they all went to the large garage where Mr. Dalken kept his automobiles; and the man, having had instructions to give the car to these young friends of the owner, whenever they wanted it, said nothing but backed the car out to the street for them.
The five girls drove away in high spirits, for they were eager to harvest all the marvelous antiques they had ever read or heard of, that might be scattered throughout the country-sides wherever General Washington had made a camp for his army.
Dodo was an excellent driver but she had noNew York license, and the girls had forgotten all about that necessity. So the car was speeding along the boulevarde at about twenty-five miles an hour, when a traffic policeman in Yonkers held up his hand to stop the northward-bound travelers.
Dodo had just turned her head momentarily to send a quizzical look at Polly who sat in the back seat, and so failed to see the raised hand. The car therefore ran across the street and at the same time, a low-built racer shot along the right of way and the two noses rammed each other, although both drivers used the emergency brakes.
The girls screamed with fright at the unexpected shock and the dreadful jolt they received when the cars collided. And two young college students cursed politely and scowled fearfully at the “crazy girl-drivers” who never knew which way they were going. But the poor cars suffered the most from this conflict. Headlights were smashed, fenders and mud guards were so dented in as to look pitiful, while the front wheels of both cars were interlocked in such a way that they could not be separated.
This cause held up all traffic on both streets and annoyed the officer so that he threatened a wholesale arrest. He asked the names of bothdrivers. The young man gave his as “John Baxter, New York.” His license number was taken, and he was asked for his permit. He showed it without hesitation, and the girls gazed at each other in dismay. They had forgotten about such a need!
The officer came over to Dodo’s side.
“What’s your name?”
“Dodo Alexander,” stammered she, forgetting her full name.
“Humph! Baptized that name?”
“Yes—no, oh NO. I never was baptized, I reckon.”
“Humph—a heathen, I see!” snarled the policeman. “Well, where do you live, or where’d you hail from?”
Eleanor had been grinning at the officer’s reply, and now she could not withstand the temptation to answer: “From the Cannibal Isles.”
The crowd standing about the two cars, laughed—all but the policeman. He scowled at Eleanor and said: “Be careful, young lady, or I’ll take you along for contempt of court.”
“But you are not arrestingme, and this is not Court,” argued Eleanor.
“Oh, goodness me! Is he going to arrest me?” cried Dodo.
“If you don’t answer my questions promptly, I’ll arrest you,” returned the officer, severely.
“Well, I am from Denver, Colorado, where folks don’t fuss like you do in the East, just because you cross a street to get to the other side!” declared Dodo, in self-justification.
“From Denver! Got a New York license to drive?” said he.
“No, I haven’t, but I’ve driven all over England and the Continent this Summer—as these girls will tell you. They were in the party.”
“It’s nothing to me whether you drove up the Matterhorn and down the other side; as long as you can’t show me a plain old American license, you’ll have to pay the costs.”
“How much is it?” quickly asked Dodo, taking her purse out to settle the bill.
“I don’t know. You’d better follow me to the police station and we’ll see.”
Dodo was handed a little paper which she read aloud to her horrified companions, and thus, finding themselves arrested, they meekly tried to follow the blue-jacket. But the cars had not been disentangled, although both boys from the racer were doing their utmost to clear the way.
As the storm raised in the hearts of the two students by the carelessness of Dodo abated, bothboys realized how pretty and helpless the five girls were, so they began to feel sorry for them. Besides this, the front wheels were now divorced and the two cars backed away from each other to give room for the congested traffic to pass.
“Dear me,” wailed Dodo, “what will Mr. Dalken say when he hears about his car! I don’t mind going to jail or being made to pay a hundred dollars fine, but to break up his automobile the first time I drove it, and get his license tag into trouble—that is terrible!”
Polly laughed. “Not Dalken’s license tag, but his name—in the papers. That’s what comes of being so well-known in New York.”
“And the newspaper men will be sure to say that a party of joy-riders stole his car to have a little jaunt in the country, I suppose,” added Eleanor, teasingly.
One of the good-looking young students now came over to the girls and lifted his cap. “Did I understand you to say this is Mr. Dalken’s car?”
Five girls glowered at him. Polly snapped out: “Are you a reporter from a city paper?”
John Baxter laughed. “No, I am his protegé. Mr. Dalken is the executor of my father’s estateand I was just on my way to the city, to visit him, this evening.”
“Oh how nice! We know Mr. Dalken very well, too. He is one of our best friends,” returned Polly, eagerly.
Nancy Fabian would have been more reticent had she been spokeswoman for the girls; but both boys were so pleasant, now, that they were introducing themselves to the girls, hence she said nothing.
“We’ll go with you to the station house and see that the sergeant behaves himself,” suggested John.
The girls felt very grateful to this needed friend, and the boys started their car after the policeman, the girls following in their damaged car that bumped and jolted on one side.
When the inspector learned that not one of the five girls had a license to drive a car in New York State, and that the car belonged to someone else, he fined Dodo and gave her a good scolding to boot.
“This time I’ll let you off easy, as you are green in the East. But don’t let it happen again, or you’ll be sorry. Apply for a permit to drive, as soon as you get home, young lady, and thenget a book of rules on traffic, and learn it by heart.”
Dodo meekly paid the fine, and the young people left the room with lighter hearts than they had entered it. Both cars had to be taken to a garage and put into running shape again. Meantime there would be two hours of waiting on their hands, and seven young folks with impatient blood in their veins to kill that time.
“I’m sorry you ladies have been deprived of your pleasure drive, but I might suggest a little consolation if you ever deign to go to the Movies,” said John Baxter, politely.
“There’s a good show up the street in that large Picture Theatre,” added his friend Andrews.
“We love movies—when they are good,” ventured Eleanor.
“What do you think, Nan? Shall we go?” asked Polly.
“Oh yes! it will be awful—waiting about this place with nowhere to go other than the Movies, as you say,” returned Nancy.
So the two young men escorted the five girls to the show where they forgot their recent troubles in watching Harold Lloyd do his best to break his neck.
Dodo paid the bill at the garage for both cars,even though the boys insisted that they pay for their own damages. But she replied: “No, the insurance company will have to settle eventually.”
The good-natured way in which Dodo accepted the situation more than convinced the boys that these girls were “bricks” all right! It was now past five, and the cars were ready to go again, but the “collectors” found they had to go back to the city for that time, without having seen as much as a shadow of an antique.
“What will you girls do about getting home?” asked Andrews.
“Why, drive, of course!” returned Dodo.
“But you can’t—you haven’t a license. Neither has any one of the other girls,” explained Jack.
“Oh, we never thought of that!” exclaimed Polly, perplexed.
“I have one,” suggested Andrews. “I can get in your car, and one of you girls can drive with Baxter, if you will. That will solve the problem.”
“All right,” assented Dodo, getting out of her seat to allow Andrews to get in.
“Which one wants to drive with Jack?” asked Andrews.
Neither girl answered, and not as much as by a tremor of the eye-lid did either show how delighted she would have been to sit beside the handsomeyoung man and skim along the road to New York.
Baxter laughed heartily, and Andrews added: “I never dreamed thatnoone would care to drive with him. I’m sorry, Jack, but you’ll have to go alone.”
“Not if I know it!” retorted Baxter, quickly. “I can’t choose when all are so desirable, but we can cast lots to see who will be my companion.”
The girls thought this most exciting, and when Andrews had shown the slip of paper that would be the lucky draw, and then had folded and shaken the slips well in his cap, the girls drew. As each girl opened her scrap of paper to find it was blank, and then watched the others try, there was great laughter and anxious waiting. Finally Polly opened her slip and found she had drawn the lucky one.
“Ha! Isn’t Jack Baxter lucky, though!” laughed Eleanor. “Not only gets the cleverest girl in the crowd, but the prettiest one, too!”
“Stop your nonsense, Nolla! How many times do I have to tell you to allow me to live in peace, without so much of your chaffing!” exclaimed Polly, impatiently.
Everyone laughed merrily at Polly’s retort, and Baxter looked admiringly at the flushed cheeksand sparkling eyes. He was most gallant in assisting Polly into the “boat” as he called it, and then he jumped in beside her.
Eleanor sat beside Andrews in the other car, and entertained him with a highly colored story of Polly and her home in Pebbly Pit. Before they reached the Fabian home in New York, young Andrews pictured the enormous wealth of “Choko’s Find” gold mine, and the marvellous beauty of the lava jewels found in Rainbow Cliffs on the ranch. To think that one girl should be lucky enough to own both such money-producers!
Shortly after dinner that evening, Mr. Dalken telephoned the girls and told them to come over to his apartment for a party. He explained that he had two nice little boys visiting him, and he was at a loss to know how to entertain them so that they would care to come again, another day. Remembering how well Polly and her friends managed other boys, he felt sure that they could help him now.
Polly laughed in reply, and said: “Oh yes! If one of those boys now visiting you, is anything like Jack Baxter who drove me home, this afternoon, we won’t have any trouble in amusing them.”
But Polly never told Mr. Dalken that Jackdeclared himself so deeply in love with her, before she had been in his car ten minutes, that she had all she could do to keep him at the wheel instead of placing an arm about her, and thus stalling the engine in the ditch alongside the main road to the city.
That evening, after the girls returned from Mr. Dalken’s party, Eleanor remarked: “My goodness! Polly has another scalp to hang to her belt of trophies. If she keeps on piercing hearts, as she has done this past year, she’ll have to discard some of her old scalps and loan them to us, to make room for her new ones.”
But Polly sniffed loftily at such foolishness, and made no reply.