Chapter XIII: What Polly Wore

BEFORE the next Friday came around, Janet had solved the problem of Polly's attire.

"How much do you know about sewing?" she asked Polly abruptly one morning as she entered the girl's little attic and sat down on the foot of the bed.

"Why, I don't know," replied Polly doubtfully. "I can sew rather neatly by hand, and I can run a machine, but I don't know much about cutting and fitting."

Janet smiled; the latter fact was made so very obvious by the appearance of Polly's clothes.

"If you can put things together after they are cut out, and can run a machine, and do all that, I think I see our way clear to get some new togs for you, if you don't mind their not being bran-new."

Polly sprang to her feet. "What do you mean?"

"Why, just this: Louise Baker has just lost her brother, and is going into mourning. She isn't at all well off, but she has some pretty things, for her brother fitted her out for college, and she has made it known that she would be glad to dispose of some of her clothes. Ted and I were in there to see her this morning; we each relieved her of some of her white elephants, and she has more that she would be glad if some one would take off her hands. She was saying that she couldn't afford to pay for dressmaking, and wished she could get hold of some one who would help her with her sewing and take the pay in trade. She wants a black frock and a couple of shirt-waists right away. She has a pretty hat and a little tan jacket as good as new, besides a pale blue silk waist, and one or two other things. So, if you have any time to give her, now is your chance."

"Oh, Janet, of course I'll do it. I'll make time. If I could manage to get those things, all I would need would be a skirt and a pair of gloves."

"Perhaps there will be a way to get those, too. What number gloves do you wear?"

Polly stretched out her pretty little hand. "I prefer a six, though I can wear a five and three-quarters, on a pinch."

"Then I can do something for you. I have an unruly pair of light gloves that seem too small for me. I usually wear a six, but these are very crampy, and I cannot button them, so if you will take them off my hands, I shall be delighted. I offered them to Ted, but she has quite as large a fist as mine, so neither of us can struggle into them. I shall have to give them to some one else if you don't take them."

"Oh, Janet, I will take them and be thankful. It is so good of you to be always looking out for my interests. I will sew on any amount of skirt braids in exchange for the gloves."

"My dearest Polly, don't always be so eager to pay off scores. I don't think it is friendly of you never to let me make you the smallest present. Just this once let it go. You never do allow me the pleasure of giving. I think you might take a pair of misfit gloves without insisting upon paying for them." Janet spoke in quite an injured tone and Polly gave in.

"I will then, if you feel that way. I suppose I am a little stiff about accepting favors, but when I can't return them, it makes me feel uncomfortable to be under any great obligations."

"You are usually exactly right about it, but in this case I think you needn't fear you will lose your self-respect. Come along and let us go to the clothes sale. Of course only a few of the girls know what Louise is doing, and they are the loyal ones who will not let it leak out. Get ready and I will wait for you."

Janet arose and went over to Polly's modest little book-shelf. "Why Polly Perkins," she exclaimed, "what are you doing with two sets of Browning when I haven't even one? You extravagant wretch, no wonder you haven't a cent for giddy clothes."

"You don't suppose I am such a reckless creature as all that," returned Polly. "It isn't my fault, I assure you. I have an absent-minded, as well as an absent-bodied, old uncle who usually sends me books at Christmas. He never remembers my existence at any other time or in any other way. Last year he sent me a set of Browning, and this year he duplicated it. It was funny but very provoking when there are so many books I should have been delighted to have."

Janet took down one of the little volumes and looked over the pages. "Just the edition I want," she said.

"Then please take it," said Polly eagerly. "I should love to give it to you, for you see it is no use to me."

"I'll give you six dollars for it," said Janet. "I will not take it for nothing. I can be proud, too, Mary Singleton Perkins."

"Oh, Janet, you are just saying that."

"Just saying it? Of course I am. Don't you suppose I know a bargain when I see it? I'd have to pay more than that for a new set, and I have been simply dying for one. Will you take me up?"

"Won't you please take it as a gift?"

"No, I will not. I will go down street this very afternoon and waste my substance upon a set just like this for which I shall have to pay at least two dollars more. Then the next time you come to my room you will be reproached by seeing how I have had to spend my money."

"Janet, you are the most wheedling person I ever saw when you want to accomplish a thing. Of course if that is the way you look at it, I shall be only too glad to let you have the set."

"I ought really to give you full value," said Janet, "for these books are perfectly new."

"No, no. Please let me have that grain of satisfaction. I think you ought to allow me such crumbs of comfort as I can pick up after all you have done for me."

"All right then. Six dollars, going, going, gone to Janet Ferguson." And Janet drew the box from the shelves and took it under her arm. "Oh, how proud I feel," she said. "Stuart gave me the money to get a set for my birthday and I recklessly spent the money. He'd rake me over the coals if he happened to come up and should find I hadn't it. So now I can face him with a clear conscience, and am two dollars to the better, the two dollars that you ought to have."

"Janet!"

"Well, it is so. You might have put up a notice on the bulletin-board and some one might have given you eight dollars."

"Please, please, don't say any more about it, as you love me. I really believe I can afford the skirt now. Could I get any sort of one for five or six dollars?"

"This time of year I think you could, with all the bargain sales going on. Shall we go to town together and see what we can do? I am a magnificent bargain hunter, as witness my latest transaction."

"I'd be so relieved if you would go with me. I don't know a thing about the city shops, not having occasion to visit them very often." She stopped to gather up a large bunch of violets which stood in a glass on the table. "Won't you let me give you these?" she said wistfully.

Janet shrank back and held her box of books in both hands. "No, oh, no, thank you," she said nervously. "I wouldn't rob you. I couldn't carry them, you see."

"I can carry them for you. Please take them. I'd love to give them to you."

"Oh, no, no," Janet protested, backing toward the door. "I shall not be at home to enjoy them. I am going to Becky's to dinner."

"But you could wear them."

"No, no. They wouldn't look well with my dress. I am going to wear red."

She bolted out the door and ran down the stairs leaving Polly to follow. The latter restored the violets to the glass and went down after Janet, a disappointed look on her face.

Janet chattered excitedly all the way to Hopper Hall, deposited her purchase upon her shelves and then proposed that they should go at once to Louise Baker's room. They found Louise at home and Janet at once unfolded her plan.

"I announce myself as agent," she began. "Polly here, sighs for a hat and jacket, only something exactly like those lying on the bed will do, and you, Louise, sigh for nimble fingers to help you with your sewing. Now, proceed to swop—My part in the matter is done."

"I'd be delighted," said Louise. "What a girl you are, Janet. I never dreamed you would be so quick in carrying out that plan. I don't know any one else so fertile in devising ways and means. I believe you would make a wonderful general."

"Then on general principles, let us proceed to clinch the bargain."

Polly groaned. "That is unworthy of you, Janet. Such a dreadful pun as that. Miss Baker, do you really want some one to help you?"

"Indeed I do, most decidedly. It seems a perfect mountain to me. Are you willing to exchange time for attire?"

"Just at this time nothing would please me more."

"That brown velvet hat," suggested Janet, "and the tan coat, Louise. I think they would be just the things for Polly. The coat isn't tightfitting and the hat is all right. You know they were the things you said nobody seemed to want because every one was supplied. And what about the blue silk waist? Is that still in the market?"

"It is still on my hands," Louise told her, producing the articles, which Polly tried on to her own and the others' satisfaction.

"Take them right along," said Louise generously. "All my customers are buying on time. I want the room these take up and I want the girls to have the good of the things before the season is over."

This matter settled, Polly agreed to give her Saturdays, and any other spare time she might have, to Louise till a certain amount of work should be done, and they parted in mutual content. Then Janet bore Polly off to hunt up a proper skirt and returned home, tired out, but well satisfied with what had been accomplished.

She sought out Teddy and with great pride told of her success in providing Polly with proper raiment.

But Teddy answered savagely, "I wish you had never seen Polly Perkins."

"Why Teddy Waite," exclaimed Janet. But her color heightened and she bit her lip.

"Yes, I do," declared Teddy, "and how you can do everything in your power to make her attractive to Van Austin passes my comprehension. After all his devotion to you last summer; all those moonlight sails, those walks and drives, all those glances and low tones and followings of you around, I don't see how you can endure Polly."

Janet sat gravely gazing off into vacancy. She knew it was very true that there had been cause for her to believe that Van Austin's devotion meant more than a summer flirtation.

"To think you are so loyal and noble a friend to that girl, and she repays you by stealing—"

"Stop," Janet raised her hand. "Don't get into heroics, Ted. In the first place, Polly hasn't an idea of all that, and in the second place, I am not noble. I came as near as anything to allowing the opportunity to pass. It flashed across my mind as soon as I heard that Louise wanted to dispose of those things, and I said to myself, 'This is Polly's chance,' but I didn't mean to tell her. I thought I would let her find it out, if there was any way for her to, and if not, I would let it go. Then I thought of that line of Emerson's: 'What does not come to us is not ours.' If that did not come to me—naturally come to me, it wasn't mine. If I should allow myself to struggle for it, and should appear to have secured it, still it would not be mine. It has come to Polly. She has made no effort to secure it. It is hers. I have no right to it."

"Janet Ferguson, that is all nonsense. If you had not made it possible for Polly, it would not have come to her. Of course if one doesn't make the slightest effort to keep a thing, it is likely to slip from her. You simply stepped aside and let Polly have a clean sweep."

"It wasn't quite as you imagine it," said Janet. "When you discover that a hero is simply an every-day, ordinary man, who can be vacillating and inconstant, he loses his starry crown and you find that instead of worshiping something that actually exists you have been worshiping an ideal, and the hero is merely a creation of your own imagination, not flesh and blood but an accumulation of dreams and illusions. When you learn that an echo is merely the rebounding of the sound of your own voice why—" She shrugged her shoulders expressively and was silent.

Teddy sat looking at her gravely. She wondered how much of this was a real philosophy and how much was meant only to cover real feeling.

"Besides," Janet went on, "if it were all so, if I really did care, what sort of woman would I be to deprive that lovely child of the things which she has a right to? She has endured poverty and privation; I have always had comforts and luxuries. Her life has been a struggle; she has had to pinch and screw and contrive, and I have never had to think of real economies. What would I be worth if when this good thing came her way, I should stand in the path and prevent her from having it?"

"But suppose," said the practical Teddy, "suppose Van Austin should be no truer to her than to you?"

Janet compressed her lips and her eyes flashed. "Then he is so far removed from a hero that I could wish to see him dashed down to the nethermost regions of misery. But seriously, Ted, I don't believe that of him. I think he only thought he was in love with me, but that this is the real thing, and I shall do all I can to further her interests and his, and you must, too, if you love me."

The tears sprang to Teddy's eyes. She Was not demonstrative, but she laid her cheek against Janet's dark hair.

"Janet, dear," she said, "I have known you for over five years, but I never before discovered what is really in you. I couldn't be as unselfish as you. I would be like most other girls and would want to spite both of those two. I couldn't forget myself."

"But I am not forgetting myself," said Janet. "I am remembering myself all the time; that's just it. Don't make a saint of me, Ted."

An hour later, when Teddy had finished her work and was about to go to bed, she stole to Janet's door to see if she were still up. She beheld her sitting at her writing table, her head resting on her arms, her whole attitude one of weariness and dejection. Teddy stole back to her room very softly and shook her fist at some invisible person.

"Oh, you fiend," she whispered, "I could flay you alive."

It was a day or two after this that Cordelia, commenting upon Polly, brought troubled thoughts to Janet.

"How is pretty Polly Perkins going to get through her mid-year's creditably," said Cordelia, "if she spends so much of her time on outside things? It is as much as any of us can do to pull through without dancing off to studios every afternoon and spending all our Saturdays in sewing for other people."

"Polly has to do it; you know that, Cordelia," protested Janet. "She couldn't make expenses, you well know, if she didn't do such things. She makes the greater part of her money by going to Miss Thurston's studio."

"I know that, and Miss Thurston is all right, but why these Saturday sewing bees?"

"To pay for the things she got from Louise Baker, if you must know."

"I wonder if you are not spoiling Polly," said Cordelia thoughtfully. "I saw her at the concert Friday night with that Mr. Austin who used to come here sometimes on Friday evenings to see you. She certainly looked like a dream, but she is thinner than she was and her eyes are getting too big for her face. She is doing too much, and is working too hard for the things that she didn't care for when she first came. Aren't you afraid you will arouse an ambition which will make her restless and unhappy when she goes home and can have none of the things she is growing to depend upon? If she has to struggle through college, and doesn't have you for the last years of it, to think up ways and means for her, what will she amount to? And if she makes clothes the great desideratum, how is she to make her studying tell?"

"To hear you talk, Cordelia Lodge," said Janet, with some asperity, "one would suppose that poor little Polly had suddenly developed an inordinate love of dress and that she was wasting her time and her substance on the most expensive and gorgeous attire, when all the poor little child wants is to appear as respectably clad as her classmates. I think it is a shame to grudge her that. You would consider the costume she wore the other night as too plain to wear on such an occasion; a second-hand hat and coat, and a cheap skirt. I don't see what makes you talk so."

"Oh, don't get huffy," said Cordelia, still dissatisfied. "I can't help it. She was twice as interesting in her old clothes, I think. Now that she is like everybody else, one ceases to consider her a heroine, and she'll not receive half the consideration that she did from most of the girls."

"Well, she may be less interesting to you," returned Janet, "but she is certainly more interesting to some one else, and that is the great point."

"You mean Mr. Austin?"

Janet nodded an affirmative.

"Oh well, if it is college versus a man, I have nothing more to say. If that is a matter of the first importance, good-bye honors and a good college record. Why can't she wait till she is through college before she thinks of such things? She is young enough, goodness knows. Besides, Van Austin is the kind to have any number of affairs, and what if she wastes all her year over him and comes back to find he has another affair on hand? It will probably make her so miserable that she can't do herself justice in her classes and then where is the benefit of college to her?"

"I don't think Polly's college record will suffer," said Janet stiffly.

Nevertheless, she began to feel anxious about her little protégé, and the next time she saw her, she declared that Louise's sewing was completed and the bargain closed. She did not say that she had borne off the unfinished garments and had herself sewed upon them late at night, long after Teddy was in bed and asleep. Nor did Louise know that it was Janet and not Polly who put the finishing touches to the work. Even Teddy did not find it out, for Janet meant that she should not.

"You must get the roses back into your cheeks," she said to Polly. "You are too pale for a country girl. Are you working very hard, Polly? Don't do it, dear."

The blue eyes which met Janet's, had shadowy circles around them, but the girl's face wore a happy expression. "I don't believe the hard work hurts me," she said in her slow, sweet voice, "for I have so much play; more good times than I ever had in my life. I think when things balance that way, it is all right, don't you?"

"Perhaps," said Janet thoughtfully. "I don't want you to break-down, Polly, neither do I want you to fall behind in your college work."

Polly put her arms around her friend and laid her head on her shoulder. "I'd do anything to please you, dear princess," she said. "You haven't been to the studio for ages. I am going to tote you there some day and dress you up in some of those gorgeous costumes that will show you off. I'd like Mr. Austin to see you look as beautiful as I know you can look."

Janet's arm, which had enfolded Polly, fell to her side.

"Nonsense!" she said sharply. "The days are past when I would do such a foolish thing. I liked to parade around in my mother's gowns and shawls when I was a youngster, but I hope I am beyond dressing up for the mere looks of the thing."

"But I do it."

"Not simply to show off, but as a duty. There is a vast difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. I am not thinking of looks these days, but of books."

Polly looked thoughtful. "I never used to think of looks at all," she said. "I was brought up to think it wrong, but I am afraid I do think about them since I have been going to the studio. It isn't right, is it, Janet? One ought not to make trade of one's looks, nor consider them above more lasting things."

"No," replied Janet uncompromisingly. "Character first; that is lasting, the other is only superficial. I don't want you to grow vain, Polly. I should feel that I had lost you, if you were to disappoint me in that way."

"And this after I have encouraged the child to look her best!" said Janet to herself as she walked home. "I, who have told her that it was every woman's duty to make herself attractive; I, who have given her to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to bewilder her by these contradictory speeches. What will she think of me?"

But the next morning, Polly appeared with her hair screwed back in the old fashion, and in her most unbecoming of shabby gowns. At sight of her, Janet smiled sadly.

"The dear child," she said to herself, "she did it because she thought it would please me. I will not interfere. If she presents herself to Van Austin in that gear and he loves her in spite of it, I will believe he is in earnest."

The very next day she mot Polly and Van on the main thoroughfare, going to the studio. Van had his arms full of parcels and Polly wore her old hat and jacket, but both were laughing and talking happily, and as Janet came up, Van gave her a beaming smile, and a nod.

"I can't take off my hat," he said, "or I'll drop some of these precious things. We're going to have tea in the studio."

"You'd better come and join us," said Polly.

Janet pleaded an engagement and hurried on. Van had been put to the test; he had not flinched and Janet was satisfied.