Chapter 9

"Then you know how awful it is. You can't go to school or out to play, or anywhere. I had to stay in our own garden and grounds by myself, because all the girls' mothers were afraid of me. The doctor said I must be out of doors, so I had a play house away down by the high box hedge in the maze; and took my dolls and things out there, and made the best of it. And then Meg found me. She was coming down the lane one day, and heard me talking to my dolls. I had to talk to them because there was no one else. And she peeped through the hedge and asked if she could come in and see them. I told her about the whooping cough, but she said she wasn't afraid: that she had had it three times already, and her mother was dead and wouldn't mind if she took it again. So she came in, and we played all the morning; and she came the next day and the next for weeks and weeks. Oh, we did have the grandest times together! You see, dad was away, and mamma was sick, and there was no one to bother us. I used to bring out apples and cookies and chocolate drops, and we had parties under the trees, and we promised to be real true friends forever. I gave her my pearl ring so she would always remember. It was that pearl ring that made all the trouble." And Miss Polly's voice trembled.

"How?" asked Dan very gently. He never had a sister or a girl cousin or any one to soften his ways or speech; and little Polly's friendly trust was something altogether new and strangely sweet to him.

"Oh, it broke up everything!" faltered Miss Polly. "That evening an old woman came to the house and asked to see mamma,--oh, such a dreadful old woman! She hadn't any bonnet or coat or gloves,--just a red shawl on her head, and an old patched dress, and a gingham apron. And when James and Elise and everybody told her mamma was sick, she said she would see her anyhow. And she did. She pushed her way upstairs to mamma, and talked awfully,--said she was a poor honest woman, if she did sell apples on the corner; and she was raising her grandchild honest; and she asked how her Meg came by that ring, and where she got it. And then mamma, who had turned pale and fluttery, sent for me; and I had to tell her all, and she nearly fainted."

"Why?" asked Dan.

"Oh, because--because--I had Meg in the garden and played with her, and took her for a real true friend. You see, she wasn't a nice little girl at all," said Miss Polly, impressively. "Her grandmother had an apple stand at the street corner, and her brother cleaned fish on the wharf, and they lived in an awful place over a butcher's shop; and mamma said she must not come into our garden again, and I mustn't play with her or talk to her ever, ever again."

There was no answer for a moment. Dan was thinking--thinking fast. It seemed time for him to say something,--to speak up in his own blunt way,--to put himself in his own honest place. But, with the new charm of this little lady's flattering fancy on him, Dan's courage failed. He felt that to acknowledge a bootblack past and a sausage shop future would be a shock to Miss Polly that would break off friendly relations forever.

"So you gave up your real true friend?" he said a little reproachfully, and Miss Polly hopped down from her rock perch and proceeded to make her way back to the yacht.

"Yes, I had to, you see. Even dad, who lets me do anything I please, said I must remember I was a Forester, and make friends that fitted my name. And so--so" (Miss Polly looked up, smiling into Dan's face) "I am going to make friends with you. Dad says he knows all about St. Andrew's College, and you must be first-class boys if you belong there; and he is glad of a chance to give you a little fun. There he is calling us now!"--as a deep voice shouted:

"All aboard, boys and girls! We're off in an hour! All aboard!"

"Dan--Dan," piped Freddy's small voice. "Jim and Dud are dressing for the party, Dan. Come, we must dress, too."

And Dan, feeling like one venturing into unknown waters, proceeded to make the best of the things Good Brother Francis had packed in his small shabby trunk. There was the suit that bore the stamp of the English tailor; there was a pair of low shoes, that pinched a little in the toes; there was a spotless shirt and collar outgrown by some mother's darling, and a blue necktie that was all a necktie should be when, with Freddy's assistance, it was put properly in place. Really, it was not a bad-looking boy at all that faced Dan in the "Lady Jane's" swinging mirror when this party toilette was complete.

"You look fine, Dan!" said his little chum, as they took their way down to the wharf where "The Polly" was awaiting them,--"so big and strong--and--and--"

"Tough," said Dan, concluding the sentence with a forced laugh. "Well, that's what I am, kid,--big and strong and tough."

"Oh, no,--Dan, no!" said Freddy. "You're not tough at all, and you mustn't say so when you go to a girl's party, Dan."

"Well, I won't," said Dan, as he thought of the violet eyes that would open in dismay at such a confession. "I'll play the highflier to-night if I can, kid; though it's a new game with Dan Dolan, I must say."

And, with a queer sense of shamming that he had never felt before, Aunt Winnie's boy started off for Miss Polly's party.

XVII.--POLLY'S PARTY.

To all Miss Polly's guests, that evening was a wonderful experience; but to Dan it was an entrance into a fairy realm that his fancy had never pictured; for in the hard, rough ways his childish feet had walked neither fairies nor fancies had place. He had found sailing over sunlit seas in Killykinick's dingy boats a very pleasant pastime; but the "Sary Ann" seemed to sink into a drifting tub when he stood on the spotless deck of "The Polly" as she spread her snowy wings for her homeward flight.

Dad, who, though very rich and great now, still remembered those "pirate days" when he was young himself, proved the most charming of hosts. He took the boys over his beautiful boat, where every bit of shining brass and chain and rope and bit of rigging was in perfect shipshape; and an artful little motor was hidden away for emergencies of wind and tide. There was a lovely little cabin, all in white and gold, with pale blue draperies; and two tiny staterooms dainty enough for the slumbers of a fairy queen. There were books and games, and a victrola that sang full-toned boating songs as they glided onward.

Even Dud was properly impressed by the charms of "The Polly"; and Jim was outspoken in his admiration. Freddy was wide-eyed with delight; and Dan was swept quite away from his usual moorings into another world,--a world where Aunt Winnie's boy seemed altogether lost. For, with Miss Polly slipping her little hand in his and guiding him over her namesake, and Freddy telling Tad the story of Dan's dive among the sharks, to which even the man at "The Polly's" wheel listened with interest, with dad so jolly and friendly, and everything so gay and beautiful around him, it was no wonder that Dan's head, accustomed to sober prosy ways, began to turn.

"Dolan,--Dolan? I ought to know that name," said dad, as, with Polly and her "nice" boy at his side, he stood watching the roofs and spires of Beach Cliff come into view. "There was a Phil Dolan in my class at Harvard,--one of the finest fellows I ever knew; rolling in money, but it didn't hurt him. He is a judge now, and I think he had a brother at West Point. Are you related to them?"

"No, sir," answered Dan, who at another time would have blurted out that he was not of the Harvard or West Point kind. "I--I am from Maryland."

"Oh, Maryland!" said dad, approvingly. "I see,--I see! The Dolans of Maryland. I've heard of them,--one of the old Catholic families, I think."

"Yes, we're--we're Catholics all right," said Dan, catching to this saving spar of truth, in his doubt and uncertainty. "We--we wouldn't be anything else if we were killed for it."

"Of course you wouldn't. That is your heritage, my boy! Hold fast to it," said dad, heartily. Then he turned about to see that "The Polly" made the way safely to her private wharf, feeling that he left his little girl with the scion of a family quite equal to the Foresters.

With the strange sense of treading in an unreal world, Dan passed on with the rest of the chattering, laughing crowd to the pretty, rustic wharf jutting out into the waters, and up to the steep, narrow street where carriages were waiting to take them to the Forester home. The wide grounds and gardens were already gay with the gathering guests. Pretty, flower-decked tables were set in the maze. The trees were hung with Japanese lanterns, that a little later would glow into jewelled lights. There was a group of "grown-ups" on the porch,--mamma, beautiful in cloudy white; sisters and cousins and aunts,--for the Forester family was a large one. There were two grandmothers--one fat and one thin,--very elegant old ladies, with white hair rolled high upon their heads. They looked upon the youthful guests, through gold lorgnettes, and were really most awe-inspiring.

The St. Andrew's boys were brought up and "presented" in due form. It was an ordeal. How Dan got through with it he didn't know. He had never before been "presented" to any one but Polly. But dad managed it somehow, and on the porch friendly shadows were gathering that concealed any social discrepancies. Then Polly flitted off to don her party dress, and Dan found himself stranded on the danger reefs of this strange world, with dad giving the fat grandmother his family history.

"Dolan?" repeated the old lady, who was a little deaf. "One of the Dolans of Maryland, you say, Pemberton? Dear me! I used to visit Dolan Hall when I was a girl. Such a beautiful old Colonial home! Is it still standing?" she said, turning to Dan.

"I--I don't know, ma'am," stammered Dan, who found the gleam of the gold lorgnettes most confusing.

"What does he say?" asked the old lady sharply.

"That he does not know, mother dear!" answered dad.

"He should know," said the old lady, severely. "The young people are growing up in these careless days without any proper sentiment to the past. A home like Dolan Hall, with its memories and traditions, should be a pride to all of the Dolan blood. The name is really French--D'Olane,--but most unfortunately, as I consider, was anglicized. The family was originally from Touraine, and dates back to the Crusaders, and is most aristocratic."

"He looks it," murmured the thin grandmother, fixing her lorgnettes on Dan's broad shoulders as he moved away to join Tad and Freddy, who were making friends with Polly's poodle. "I have never seen a boy carry himself better. Blood will tell, as I have always insisted, Stella."

The lady at her side laughed. She, too, had been regarding Dan with curious interest.

"What does it tell, Aunt Lena?" she asked.

"The lady and the gentleman," answered Polly's grandmother.

"Oh, does it?" said the other, softly. "I suppose I am not very wise in such matters, but one of the nicest ladies I ever knew was a little Irish sewing woman who made buttonholes. It was one summer when I went South, more years ago than I care to count; and Winnie--her name was Winnie--came to the house to renovate my riding habit for me."

The speaker paused as if she did not care to say more. She was a slender little person, not awe-inspiring at all. She had just driven up in a pretty, light carriage, and was still muffled in a soft fleecy wrap that fell around her like a cloud. The face that looked out from it was sweet and pale as a star. It brightened into radiance as Polly, a veritable fairy now in her party fluffs and ruffs and ribbons, sprang out on the porch and flung herself into Miss Stella's arms.

"Marraine! Marraine!" she cried rapturously,--"my own darling Marraine!"

"Why will you let the child give you that ridiculous name, my dear?" protested grandmamma, disapprovingly.

"Because--because I have the right to it," laughed the lady, as Polly nestled close to her side. "I am her godmother real and true,--am I not, Polykins? And we like the pretty French name for it better."

"Oh, much better!" assented Polly. "'Godmother' is too old and solemn to suit Marraine. Oh!" (with another rapturous hug) "it was so good of you to come all the way from Newport just for my party, dear, dear Marraine!"

"All the way from Newport!" answered the lady. "Why, that dear letter you sent would have brought me from the moon. You will be ten years old to-night, it said,--ten years old! O Pollykins! Pollykins!" (There was a little tremor in the voice.) "And you asked if I could come and help you with your party. I could and I would, so here I am! And here is your birthday present."

Marraine flung a slender golden chain around Polly's neck.

"Oh, you darling,--you darling!" murmured Polly. "But _you_ are the best of all birthday presents, Marraine,--the very best of all!"

"Now, really we must stop all this 'spooning,' Pollykins, and start things," said Marraine, dropping her, and emerging in a shining silvery robe, with a big bunch of starry jessamine pinned on her breast.

"You are not going to bother with the children, surely, Stella?" said dad, who had drawn near the speaker.

"I am," said the lady, flashing him a laughing look. "That's what I came for. I am going to forget the years (don't be cruel enough to count them, Cousin Pen), and for two hours (is it only two hours we have, Pollykins?) be a little girl again to-night."

And, taking Polly's hand, she tripped away from the grown-ups on the porch, and things were started indeed.

Grove and garden, maze and lawn, suddenly sparkled with jewelled lights; the stringed band in the pagoda burst into gay music. Led by a silvery vision, Polly's guests formed a great ring-around-a-rosy for an opening measure, and the party began. And, with a fairy godmother like Miss Stella leading the fun, it was a party to be remembered. There were marches and games, there was blind man's buff through the jewel-lit maze, there was a Virginia reel to music gay enough to make a hundred-year-old tortoise dance. There was the Jack Horner pie, fully six feet round, and fringed with gay ribbons to pull out the plums. Wonderful plums they were. Minna Foster drew a silver belt buckle; her little sister, a blue locket; Dud, a scarf-pin; Jim, a pocketknife with enough blades and "fixings" to fill a miniature tool chest; and Freddy, a paint box quite as complete; while Dan pulled out the biggest plum of all--a round white box with a silver cord.

As it came out at the end of his red ribbon, there was a moment's breathless hush, broken by Polly's glad cry:

"The prize,--the prize, Marraine! Dan has drawn my birthday prize!" And, under a battery of curious and envious eyes, Dan opened the box to find within a pretty gold watch, ticking a most cheering greeting to its new owner.

"Dan,--Dan!" Polly's jubilant voice rose over all the chorus around him. "Oh, I'm so glad you got it, Dan!"

And Marraine's eyes followed Polly's delighted glance with the same look of curious interest that she had bent upon Dan a while ago on the porch.

"Do you mean that this is for me?" he blurted out, in bewilderment.

"Yes, for you,--for _you_," repeated Polly in high glee. "It's real gold and keeps real time, and it's yours forever!"

"It's too--too much--I mean it's--it's too fine for a fellow like me," stammered Dan. "What will I do with it?"

"Wear it," chirped Miss Polly, throwing the silken guard around his neck, "so you will never forget my birthday, Dan."

And then a big Japanese gong sounded the call to the flower-decked tables, where busy waiters were soon serving a veritable fairy feast. There were cakes of table-size and shape and color; little baskets and boxes full of wonderful bonbons; nuts sugared and glazed until they did not seem nuts at all; ice-cream birds in nests of spun sugar; "kisses" that snapped into hats and wreaths and caps. And all the while the band played, and the jewelled lights twinkled, and the stars shone far away above the arching trees. And Dan, with his watch around his neck, held his place as the winner of the prize at Miss Polly's side, feeling as if he were in some dizzy dream. Then there were more games, and a grand hide-and-seek, in which dad and some of the grown-ups joined.

Dan had found an especially fine place under the gnarled boughs of an old cedar tree, that would have held its head high in the starlight if some of dad's gardeners had not twisted it out of growth and shape. Hiding under the crooked shadows, Dan was listening to the merry shouts through maze and garden, when he became suddenly conscious of a change in their tone. The voices grew sharp, shrill, excited, and then little Polly burst impetuously into his hiding place,--a sobbing, trembling, indignant little Polly, followed by a score of breathless young guests.

"I don't believe it!" she was crying tempestuously. "I _won't_ believe it! You're just telling horrid stories on Dan, because I like him and he got the prize."

"O Pollykins! Pollykins!" came Miss Stella's low, chiding voice.

"Halloo! halloo! What's the trouble?" rose dad's deep tones above the clamor. "My little girl crying,--crying?"

"Yes, I am!" was the sobbing answer. "I can't help it, dad. The girls are all whispering mean, horrid stories about Dan, and I made them tell me all they said they had heard. I don't believe them, and I _won't_ believe them! I told them I wouldn't believe them,--that I would come right to Dan and let him speak for himself.--Were you ever a newsboy and a beggar boy, Dan? Did--did you ever black boots? Have you an aunt in the poorhouse, as Minna Foster says?"

XVIII.--BACK INTO LINE.

There was a moment's pause. Dan was really too bewildered to speak. He felt he was reeling down from the rainbow heights to which Miss Polly had led him, and the shock took away his breath.

"It's all--all a horrid story; I'm sure it is,--isn't it, Dan?" pleaded his little friend, tremulously.

"Why, no!" said Dan, rallying to his simple, honest self again. "It isn't a story at all. I _was_ a newsboy, I _did_ shine boots at the street corner, and Aunt Winnie _is_ with the Little Sisters of the Poor now."

"Bravo!--bravo!" came a low silvery voice from the shadows, and Miss Stella clapped her slender hands.

"O Dan, Dan!" cried poor little Miss Polly, sobbing outright. "A newsboy and bootblack! Oh, how could you fool me so, Dan?"

"With your infernal lies about your home and family!" burst forth dad, in sudden wrath at Polly's tears.

"I didn't fool,--I didn't lie, sir!" blurted out Dan, fiercely. "I did nothing of the kind!"

"If you will kindly do the boy justice to remember, he did _not_, Cousin Pem!" and Miss Stella's clear, sweet voice rose in witness. "You gave his family history yourself. He did not know what you were talking about, with your Crusading ancestors and the D'Olanes. I could see it in his face. You are all blood-blind up here, Cousin Pem. I was laughing to myself all the time, for I guessed who Dan Dolan was. I knew he was at St. Andrew's. His dear old Aunt Winnie is one of my truest friends."

"O Marraine, Marraine!" murmured Polly, eagerly. "And--and you don't mind it if--"

"If she is with the Little Sisters of the Poor, Pollykins? Not a bit! Some day I may be there myself. Now that this tempest in a teapot is over, you can all go off and finish your games. I am going to sit under this nice old tree and talk to Miss Winnie's boy."

And while dad, still a little hot at the trouble that had marred Polly's party, started the fun in another direction, Miss Stella gathered her silvery gown around her and sat down on the rustic bench beneath the old cedar, and talked to Dan. He learned how Aunt Winnie had sewed patiently and skilfully for this lovely lady a dozen years ago, when she was spending a gay season in his own town; and how the gentle old seamstress, with her simple faith and tender sympathy, her wise warnings to the gay, motherless girl, had won a place in her heart.

"I tried to coax her home with me," said Miss Stella, "to make it 'home,' as I felt she could; but Baby Danny was in the way,--the little Danny that she could not leave."

Then Dan, in his turn, told about Killykinick, and how he had been sent there for the summer and had met little Polly.

"I should have told," he said, lifting Aunt Winnie's own blue Irish eyes to Miss Stella's face,--"I should have said right out straight and square that I wasn't Polly's kind, and had no right to push in here with grand folks like hers. But it was all so fine it sort of turned my head."

"It will do that," replied Miss Stella, softly. "It has turned mine often, Danny. But now we both see straight and clear again, and I am going to make things straight and clear with all the others."

"You can't," said Dan,--"not with those grand ladies in gold spectacles; not with Polly's dad; maybe not with Polly herself. I'm all mixed up, and out of line with them. And--and--" (Dan took the silken guard from his neck) "I want you to give them back this gold watch, and tell them so." (He slipped the Jack Horner prize into Miss Stella's hand.) "I'm not asking anything and I'm not taking anything that comes to me like this. And--and--" (he rose and stood under the crooked tree in all his straight, sturdy strength) "Neb is down at the wharf with a load of clams. We passed him as we came up. I'm not pushing in among the silk cushions any more. I'm going home with him."

Which, with Miss Stella's sympathetic approval, he did at once.

When a little later the guests had all gone, and "The Polly" was taking her white-winged way back to Killykinick with Dud, Jim, and Freddy; when the jewelled lights had gone out, and the party was over, and all was quiet on the starlit porch, Miss Stella returned Dan's watch and gave his message. Even the two grandmammas, being really grandmammas at heart, softened to it, and dad declared gruffly it had been a fool business altogether, while Polly flung herself sobbing into her godmother's arms.

"O Dan,--poor Dan! He is the nicest boy I ever saw,--the nicest and the kindest, Marraine! And now--now he will never come back here any more!"

"I don't think he will, Pollykins," was the low answer. "You see" (Marraine dropped a light kiss on the nestling curls), "he was a newsboy and a bootblack, and he does not deny it; while you--you, Pollykins--"

"Oh, I don't care, what he was!" interrupted Miss Polly, tempestuously,--"I don't care what he was. I took him for my real true friend, and I am not going to give up Dan as I gave up Meg Murray, Marraine." Polly tightened her clasp around Miss Stella's neck so she could whisper softly in her ear: "If he won't come back, you and I will go after him; won't we, Marraine?"

Meanwhile, with his head pillowed on a pile of fish nets--very different, we must confess, from the silken cushions of dad's pretty yacht,--and with old Neb drowsily watching her ragged sail, Dan was back again in his own line, beneath the guiding stars. It was a calm, beautiful night, and those stars were at their brightest. Even Neb's dull wits seemed to kindle under their radiance.

"You can steer 'most anywhere when they shine like that. Don't want none of these 'ere winking, blinking lights to show you the way," he said.

"But the trouble is they don't always shine," answered Dan.

"No," said Neb, slowly, "they don't; that's a fact. But they ain't ever really out, like menfolk's lights. The stars is always thar."