a half-dozen wheel-chair girls and boys were ranged along the wide veranda, all smilingly alert to their new surroundings.
polly, seated on the top step of the stairs that faced the south, looked dreamily off to the hills—thinking of david.
russell ely came suddenly into her line of vision, and her eyes followed him, a trim young figure in the morning sunshine.
“hullo!” he called presently, “come and show me the rest of it!”
“i can’t,” polly answered. “dr. abbe will take you all over.”
he came nearer.
“i didn’t ask dr. abbe,” he objected quietly; “i asked you.”
polly smiled and moved nearer the post as he dropped to the step beside her.
“i have to stay with the children,” she explained.
“all the time?” queried the young man.
“nearly.”
he shook his head. “don’t believe i’d like it.”
“it is much more satisfactory,” she returned, “than watching time all day.”
[116] russell looked at her keenly; but her eyes still kept to the hills.
“miss dudley, what does that mean?” grissel pointed upward, stretching sidewise in a vain attempt to see the words over the entrance.
“oh! ‘sunrise chalet’?”
“yes’m—i mean, miss dudley. clementina said it was ‘sunrise something’—she didn’t know what.”
“it is the name of the house,” polly explained. “all the houses up here have names or inscriptions. we’ll go to see them some day.”
“what do they have ’em for?” persisted grissel. “and what does ‘shallay’ mean?”
“i’ll tell you all about it, honey,” broke in benedicta, appearing in the doorway. she moved a chair towards the child, and sat in it, pulling her sleeves down and buttoning them about her wrists.
“you see, my miss flora and mr. aimé who live here were part swiss and part scotch. their pa was a swiss gentleman, a descendant of the great patriot, mr. arnold von winkelried, and their ma was a scotland girl, and they lived in a shally in switzerland till their pa passed over. then their ma, bein’ raised in scotland, begun to hanker after the heather—that’s a little pink flower—or sometimes white. wal, back she went, and it kicked up a prodigious muss with their pa’s brother, and the joke of it is, their uncle—the[117] old bach, him who’s just gone—procrastinated one day too many and passed over sudden, without a will, and my miss flora and mr. aimé possess all that property! they inhabited scotland as long as their ma lived; then they came out to new york and sojourned there until mr. aimé got to be a lawyer and my miss flora learned to be a beautiful singer—oh, you ought to hear her! i don’t ever expect to hear anybody sing like her till i get to heaven. my, can’t she sing! wal, where was i? oh, yes! they wanted to be out in god’s country, and they built here. they had an appalling time gettin’ somebody to do their cookin’ till i come—that was five years ago, when my twin passed over. my twin—his name was benedict—lived down the mountain a piece, and after his wife was gone i resided with him and took care of the kids. ben was always grumpy and he kep’ sayin’ he was going pretty quick, pretty quick, and one day i said i sh’d think he’d try to hold on a while longer, funerals were so inordinately expensive just then, and he said he didn’t see much use in waitin’ when anybody felt as bad as he did. but i could see he exhilarated up a bit, and he stayed quite a period after that. my miss flora and mr. aimé came for me before he passed over; but i said no, i’d stay till he got through. after a while he had a stroke, and we buried him right out front. maybe you saw it comin’ up.... yes, a little brown house with a[118] red barn alongside of it and the graves across the road. that’s the place. my nephew, young ben, sojourns there now. i get all our milk of him. he’s got three guernsey cows, and they’re amazin’ healthy—sinners and snobs! i forgot!”
benedicta ran a short race with time, and won, for her voice came back to them, “ain’t i the lucky one! a minute more, and they’d been goners sure!”
“say!” clementina pulled polly’s sleeve, “miss dudley, when she comes back, you shut her off! i want to talk.”
polly shook her head soberly, though russell’s eyes were dancing, and the next moment benedicta returned and with no word of explanation resumed her story.
“wal, let’s see, where was i? oh, yes, to go back to my miss flora! one day before they put up that shally sign over the door i was tellin’ her how i always looked up to this house soon as i got out o’ bed, for the sun showed right here first of any locality on the mountain. you see, this is a mite the highest situation, anyway, and it touches up the chimney first and then the roof before it hits anywhere else, ’cept some of the trees back. and i remember now how my miss flora leaped up and clapped her hands and cried, ‘aimé, aimé! come here quick!’ he was establishin’ a flower bed down there, and he came right off, and she said, ‘i’ve got it! i’ve got it!’ ‘got what?’ he[119] asked, calm as a violet. ‘the name—“sunrise chalet”! isn’t that the very thing!’ of course, he said yes—he always chimed straight in with her, whatever. and if they didn’t have it up soon as ever they could get it done! and there it’s been ever since.”
“and i can’t see it!” mourned grissel.
russell sprang to his feet, but benedicta was ahead of him. taking the child in her strong arms she descended the steps and faced the veranda.
“that looks nice,” commented the little girl, wagging her head happily. “now take me to see the others,” she demanded.
“why, grissel!” reproved polly.
“well, i want to see ’em,” she explained.
“that isn’t the way to ask. besides, you are too heavy for benedicta.”
“pshaw, she ain’t weightier ’n a hummin’-bird,” scorned the woman. she was already marching off across the lawn.
polly shook her head. “if she lets them impose upon her this way,” she said in a soft tone, “she’ll have her hands full.”
“suppose we follow on,” russell suggested. “can’t any of your kids walk?”
“some of them a short distance; but i can’t go now.”
“why not? i’ll shoulder one; the rest can’t run away—that’s an advantage.”
[120] “lilith will show you about,” said polly. “shall i call her?”
“thank you,” he smiled politely, shaking his head; then, with a twinkling “i can find my own way,” he picked up the girl in the next chair and started on a run towards the invisible bungalows.
going inside, polly met mrs. daybill and lilith coming downstairs.
“benedicta and russell have started on a western pilgrimage—you’d better go, too. and do you mind taking esther and timmy along? it won’t hurt them to walk as far as the sandfords’ and the temples’, will it?” addressing the white nurse.
“i don’t know how far that is; but a little walk will do them good. what’s the matter with your going?”
“not this morning. i’ve promised russell to go over to sally’s with him after dinner.”
“all right for this once,” laughed mrs. daybill; “but it is not to be ‘you go and i’ll stay behind’ all summer, remember.”
it was nearly five o’clock when polly and russell bade good-bye to sally on the steps of the robinsons’ pretty bungalow.
some distance away polly turned to look back at the inscription which ran across the gable:
the hills rejoice on every side
[121]
“that is the best i have seen yet,” said russell.
“i love it,” returned polly. “i think i’ll borrow it for the little house i mean to build up here some day.”
“‘up here’ is wonderful,” responded the young man. “i wish i were going to stay.”
“oh, do! you can help us take care of the kiddies.”
he laughed and shook his head. “guess not this time; but i will run up again for some week-end, if you would like me to.”
“of course, we should. we’d be glad to see you any time.”
“i am not much interested in the ‘we,’ but if you want me to come, i will come. do you want me, polly?”
“certainly i do. why shouldn’t i?”
“well, i didn’t know. i am not sure about it now.”
“you foolish boy! as if i wouldn’t! what possible reason could i have for not wishing you to come?”
russell grew grave. he turned and looked squarely into polly’s eyes, looked until the brown eyes wondered—half understood—and fell away from the passionate gaze.
“don’t be silly!” she said.
then all the man in him burst forth.
“is it silly to love you, polly dudley? to wish to be with you? to covet the right to give you everything[122] that can add to your pleasure and happiness? to long to hold you in my arms and to call you my wife? is that silliness? if it is, i plead guilty.”
polly did not look up. the red burned in her cheeks and crept up under the little curls that fell over her forehead.
“i suppose i am a fool,” russell went on. “first, to come up here at all, and then to blurt out like this, when i had made up my mind to wait. but, of course, you’ve seen all along how it was, ever since—why, ever since the first day i saw you at high school, away back when we were kids. but david collins was always in my way. how i longed to knock him aside! you have seen it all—haven’t you, polly?”
a tiny shake of the drooping head.
“i don’t understand how you could help seeing—only you were never the girl to imagine every fellow in love with you that happened to wish you good-morning.”
there was a moment’s silence. presently he asked, “haven’t you a single word for me, polly?”
even then she did not speak at once. finally the answer came.
“i am sorry, russell—oh, i’m so sorry! i never dreamed it!” she glanced up, and the eyes that looked into his were mournful.
he drew a deep breath. “don’t grieve over it,[123] polly. i ought to have known how it would be. it’s all right.” he was looking straight ahead, and his voice seemed far away. “i hoped you did care for me—a little; but if you—do not—” the words suddenly halted.
“i am afraid you don’t quite understand. i like you, russell, i have always liked you; but—there is david!”
“polly!” he stared at her in amazement. “surely you do not care for david collins—after his abominable treatment of you! it is unbelievable.”
a sad little smile fluttered over polly’s face. “i do love him just as well as ever i did. those things—happened because he was jealous—and angry. i told him that i could have nothing more to do with him until he would trust me—that’s all. i suppose he isn’t ready to trust me yet.”
russell shook his head. “i see,” he said grimly. “forgive me, polly. i supposed that all was over between you and david. i have made a mess of it.”
“no, no!” polly hastened to say. “i’m only sorry that you—you—feel as you do. we have always been such good friends.”
he looked down at her with a little sad, tender smile. “and we will”—there was the hint of a break—“be good friends still, won’t we, polly?”
