THE POLLY PAGE RANCH CLUB

For Miles and Miles the Only Spot of Human Life Was the Ranch

For miles and miles the only spot of human life was the ranch

Stony smiled a broad welcome

“Where did you come from?” he demanded

They never forgot that picture

“Isn’t it beautiful, Polly?”

CHAPTER I

“Oh, girls, Crullers can’t come.”

Sue Warner ran down the flight of stone steps that led from the side entrance at Calvert Hall to the garden, her face full of perplexity. Waiting for her were three of the girls, Isabel Lee, Ruth Brooks, and Edwina, or rather, “Ted” Moore.

“But why?” demanded Ted. “Is she behind on classes? I’ll help her out to-morrow, tell her. She must go. Polly said so.”

“But she can’t, Ted, don’t you understand? She would if she could. Why, her face looked as if she’d swallowed a lot of tacks when I passed her just now. Miss Murray was with her.”

“That accounts for said tacks,” Ruth put in, gravely. “Bonnie Jean has very likely hurt Crullers’ feelings.”

Sue laughed, as she gathered up a pile of books from the old Roman seat at the turn of the path, and led the way out of the garden.

“Perhaps this time it’s Crullers who has hurt Bonnie Jean’s feelings. Crullers stumbles over other people’s feelings the same as she does over stools or steps or anything. Where’s Polly? Why didn’t she wait for us?”

“The Admiral drove by, and called her to ride home with him,” Ruth explained. “Oh, girls, isn’t it getting pretty and summery? Look—the vines on the old stone wall are leafing out.”

“Polly said four sharp. No time for landscape gazing.”

“Ted, you never see what’s happening right under your nose.”

“Can’t when you carry a perpetual spy-glass on coming events,” laughed Ted, with a gay toss of her head.

“Since Ted went into psychics last fall, she hasn’t touched real ground to speak of.”

“And a good thing too,” protested Ted, shaking her head at them. “If Polly and I did not keep a level outlook on the business side of things, where would the club be? As secretary I’ve had my spy-glass leveled all winter at the coming summer. Polly and I figured and studied over the whole plan while you girls were noticing old vines on stone walls, and ‘sech like,’ as Aunty Welcome says. Now, wait till you hear what she has to say.”

Down the beautiful old street they started. It was the end of April, and never did Queen’s Ferry show to such advantage as when springtime scattered blossoms everywhere. The horse-chestnut trees were showing feathery plumes of gold and white. Over gray garden walls catalpas lifted masses of bloom, and fruit trees stood in orchards like brides in their snowy loveliness. The air was heavy with fragrance of white lilac and cherry blossoms.

It was Friday. Only Calvert Hall girls knew just what that stood for in the calendar of events. It was the one day when discipline relaxed, when books and lessons went into desks, when Miss Calvert herself partook of the general relaxation, put aside her gown of stiff gray silk, and, garbed in white lawn, with a black lace shawl draped about her slender shoulders, went out into the garden with a book of poetry.

Strangely enough, the girls could always tell just how the week had affected her nerves, by her choice of books on Friday night.

“It’s Tennyson to-day, girls,” Sue had told the rest, when she came through the garden after seeking Crullers. “Spring calls to the Lady Honoria. She’s reading ‘The Princess’ with a bunch of red and yellow tulips on her lap.”

“Just as sure a sign of summer as ripening buds,” Isabel had added, happily. “All through the winter, don’t you remember, girls, she read Whittier and Milton, and now she’s put all the old chilly poets back into the library, and has her own small, handy volumes of Browning and Burns and even Whitman. She says she likes the poetry in springtime that makes you think of freshly turned earth and upspringing buds.”

“What a good old darling she is,” Ruth said in her serious, grandmotherly way. “I found her this morning standing before the old painting in the hall, and I’m sure there were tears in her eyes, girls.”

The girls were silent. The Calvert spirit towards its principal was very peculiar. The girls loved and honored her, but mingled with both sentiments was a curiously protective feeling too. The story of Calvert had passed into the realm of romantic tradition with its students, and they held it sacred. Every new girl was taken apart by Polly and Ruth and solemnly initiated into it. They were told how Honoria and her younger sister had been left well-nigh penniless at the death of their father, old Orrin Calvert, thirty years before. They had been brought up in seclusion, and fed on all the old traditions of Queen’s Ferry as it had been from the days that followed on the Jamestown settlement. The main teaching they had received was that no Calvert should work for a living. But after the old gentleman’s passing, and a long talk with the family lawyer from Richmond, Miss Honoria had felt tradition and sentiment slip from her like a worn-out garment.

All that was left of the old estate, when her father’s obligations were canceled, was Calvert Hall; and the excellent education both young women possessed was their sole capital. Yet the two had faced the issue contentedly and courageously, like other Dixie girls of the newer generation, and had turned the old Hall into a home school for young girls.

Later Miss Diantha, the younger sister, had married. She lived in the West, but the Hall remained the same, a landmark at Queen’s Ferry.

Sometimes it seemed to the girls in the great, somber stone house, as though the tender spirit and influence of Diantha still lived there, and made her stately sister more tolerant in dealing with the merry, youthful natures over which she ruled.

At the foot of the broad oaken staircase, was a full-length oil painting of the sisters, when they were girls. Quaint, old-fashioned portraits they were, too, with Honoria in white mulle with pink rosebuds, and Diantha in white mulle with forget-me-nots scattered over its flounces. Honoria’s chin was up, and she looked right ahead, just as calmly and as serenely as she did to-day in the classroom. But Diantha’s head was half averted, and she was smiling shyly, and the little rows of short up-and-down curls around her head seemed ready to bob and tremble at any moment with a laugh.

“Do you know, girls,” Polly would say, after a fresh inspection of the painting, “I think the old darling hung it there so that all her girls would try to pattern themselves after it. I only wish we could.”

Polly’s own home, “Glenwood,” was about half an hour’s walk from the Hall, down along the river bank. As they drew near, they caught sight of Polly herself, watching for them from the veranda railing, with old Tan, the Gordon setter, beside her.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here,” she exclaimed, running to meet them; “I was afraid something had happened, and you know we’re going to have a feast.”

“That’s the very first thing Polly thinks of—something good to eat,” laughed Ruth, dropping down into the nearest garden chair.

“So do all good generals,” retorted Polly, calmly. “It makes people friendly to eat and enjoy the same kind of food at the same time.”

“Bread and salt in the Arab’s tent, Polly?” queried Ted.

“Yes, only this time——um-m-m. I promised not to tell. The bread and salt gave out, so we have other supplies.” She laughed, and counted heads. “Where’s Crullers?”

“Unavoidably detained,” Sue replied. “Now, it’s no use asking why, Polly. None of us can even guess. Crullers never would miss a good chance at a feast, you know, unless there was a vital reason for her absence. And she wouldn’t tell. I hunted everywhere for her, and finally caught her just coming out of the upper recitation room with Miss Murray.”

“Bonnie Jean?” Polly’s forehead puckered doubtfully. “What has Crullers been doing?”

“I think she’s broken her parole,” Isabel said.

“What parole? We didn’t know she was on parole.”

“I did,” Polly added, quickly. “Wait till we get settled down in the arbor, and I’ll tell you about it. That’s just about what has happened if she has Miss Murray on her trail.”

She led the way around the broad veranda, down the short flight of steps that led to the garden, and out to the arbor that stood on the terrace. Every one who loved Polly knew her garden, and the old arbor. It overlooked the river, and faced the sunset, and was thickly covered with rose vines. They were just leafing out now. The seats that encircled it were Polly’s private invention. Beneath them were lockers, in boat fashion, for cushions, books, hammocks, and all kinds of things which Polly found necessary to comfort or happiness when she took possession of the arbor.

“Let’s put up a couple of hammocks, girls,” she said. “Sue, you and Ted might do that, and Ruth and Isabel can set the table. I’m going to pick over strawberries while we talk. Aren’t they beauties? Stoney just got them for me out of the garden.”

The girls gathered around the rustic table for a peep at the generous-sized basket filled with red fruit, piled high in a nest of green leaves.

“Oh, let’s eat them that way, Polly,” Isabel cried. “They look so tempting and pretty.”

“Can’t,” said Polly, briefly. “Against orders. These are to be hulled, mashed, and sweetened.”

“Now, we know,” exclaimed Ted. “Short—”

“No fair telling.”

“But only think how poor Crullers would have loved a piece of it!”

“We’ll send her some. Yes, and girls,”—here Polly’s brown eyes twinkled with the merry glint of mischief,—“we’ll send Miss Murray a nice share too. To-night. I’ll take it to the Hall and find out what’s the matter with Crullers. Did we ever desert a comrade in distress?”

“Never,” came back the swift and hearty chorus, just as Stoney came down the walk from the kitchen garden.

CHAPTER II

He smiled a broad welcome at Miss Polly’s guests, as he set down the tray from his head, and uncovered the contents, his brown face fairly glistening with importance.

“Whipped cream in de blue jug, Mis’ Polly, and—and sho’tcake in de deep dish, and gran’maw says you’re to eat it while it’s hot.”

“We will, Stoney,” promised Polly. “Now, girls, gaze on this.”

Back went the snowy linen towel, and there lay disclosed to view one of Aunty Welcome’s famous three-layer shortcakes, all ready for the “fillin’s,” as Stoney would say. It was hot and crisp from the oven. The girls spread the layers with the berries and piled them up.

“I just love this kind of shortcake,” said Ted, as she poured cream from the blue jug over the cake. “Sometimes it’s only plain layer cake with some whole berries laid on the frosting.”

“I knew you’d like it.” Polly leaned her arms on the table with a happy disregard of formalities. As Aunty Welcome had expressed it once, “Dar’s a little laxity permissible in yo’ own backyard, honey chile.” Polly went on. “I wish Crullers were here, too. What new scrape do you suppose she has managed to tumble into?”

“The last one isn’t cold yet,” laughed Ted. “She was sorry for a stray cat, and smuggled it up to the dormitory, and hid it in the closet there. Then Annie May, the cook, gave her some milk for it, and she took that up when she went to bed. But the closet had a spring lock, and Crullers couldn’t open it. Tableau at ten o’clock. Miss Calvert roused: appears in nightgown and kimono, hair in crimpers, dangling a bunch of keys like Fatima. When closet is opened, poor kitty is scared out of its wits, makes a flying leap past the girls, out the nearest window, and disappears. Annie May says she doesn’t believe it was a cat at all. She says it must have been something with an unquiet spirit.”

“Probably poor Crullers had the unquiet spirit when she saw it dash out,” Sue said. “But it really was funny, Polly. The dormitory girls told us about it. Crullers had the milk under her bed, and all at once the cat started to yowl awfully. Then Miss Murray heard it.”

Stony Smiled a Broad Welcome

“Her room’s right over the dormitory in that wing,” Ted put in, eagerly.

“Too bad,” Polly said, judicially, “but it’s Crullers all over. What did Miss Calvert do?”

“Paroled her on good behavior for a week, to report nightly to Miss Murray.”

“And she’s probably forgotten all about her parole, and broken it. I’ll find out when I take up the offering of shortcake to-night. Only I wish it were one of the regular teachers, because I don’t know Miss Murray very well.”

“Don’t you like our Bonnie Jean, Polly?” inquired Ted, happily. “She hasn’t distinction, of course—”

“Distinction! Ted Moore,” cried Sue, indignantly. “She hasn’t as much distinction as Buttercup, the Hall tabby. I don’t know why it is, but she never seems friendly to us girls. She’s so abrupt.”

Here the girls broke in with laughter at Sue, for surely if anyone at the Hall could be dubbed abrupt, it was Sue herself, who always thought out loud, and never knew by any chance what she was going to say next.

“Well, I don’t care if you do laugh at me,” Sue declared. “It’s true. She comes from the far West, and I don’t see how she ever got into Calvert Hall as teacher.”

“I’ll ask her to-night, Sue,” promised Polly, gayly.

“But, really and truly, Polly, how did she? Isn’t she unresponsive and ordinary looking? I’ve tried to talk to her ever so many times, and all she says is, ‘Perhaps,’ or ‘I should judge so.’ I don’t think she has any imagination at all.”

Sue pronounced sentence in a very grieved tone of voice, but the girls only laughed at her.

“Miss Murray is in earnest, though,” Ruth said, finally. “She has always seemed strange to us girls, but maybe we’ve seemed so to her. She surely is in earnest, girls, and Miss Calvert says that’s the very first quality a teacher needs. Maybe if we knew her better, we’d like her.”

“Eat your shortcake, children, and stop criticizing your elders,” Polly ordered. “This meeting is not called to discuss Miss Murray or Crullers either. This is the first call for action on the part of the vacation club.”

“Isn’t it pretty early even to think of vacation, Polly?” asked Isabel, with a sigh. “It’s weeks and weeks ahead of us.”

“Don’t groan, good pilgrim, over the hills ahead. They lead to glory,” chanted Polly. “Indeed, it isn’t too early; not if we expect to accomplish anything worth while. Haven’t we planned for it ever since last December, when we gave the first outing bazaar? How much did we glean that time, Ruth?”

“Thirty-four dollars and seventy-two cents,” replied the treasurer, proudly.

“Do you know, Polly,” interrupted Sue, “I think that was a dandy idea; to take the spoils of one vacation, and make them help out on the coming one. We sold off all the frames of seaweed Isabel made, at twenty-five cents each, remember, and the shell curtains went at five dollars each. That’s what swelled the fund.”

“They were not too high,” Isabel said, with a sigh of recollection. “It took pecks and pecks of those pink shells to make the curtains. Kate and I worked on them for two months at odd times.”

“And the tableaux helped out besides. Wasn’t Crullers funny?”

“Forget the past,” Polly ordered. “The future is bobbing right up under our noses, and says ‘attend to me.’ We gave four entertainments—”

“I don’t think they were entertainments, Polly, do you? I think they were fantastic gatherings,” interposed Isabel in her precise way. “The Friendship Fair, where we sold everything that friends could possibly think of—”

“You’re exaggerating, Isabel,” Ruth put in, stolidly. “We just sold airy trifles that people buy to show other people they are remembering them.”

“Same thing,” pronounced Polly. “Have some more shortcake, children, and don’t waste time arguing.”

“The long and the short of it all is this,” said Ruth, who was treasurer of the outing club, and could therefore speak with authority. “Out of the monthly entertainments, fairs, and other things that we have given through the winter, we have cleared about $124.00. Of course Kate Julian helped out too, before she went home, and all the mothers helped, and Polly’s grandfather, but I think we’ve done mighty well.”

“It won’t fill the toe of the stocking when it comes to paying for a real vacation for us girls, Ruth,” Polly returned. “It’s April now, and we must make up our minds where we wish to go, and then work for it with all our might.”

“Now then, how’s the board of lady managers to-day?” demanded a deep voice outside the arbor, and the gray head of the Admiral looked in at them smilingly.

CHAPTER III

“Oh, grandfather, dear—” exclaimed Polly, holding up a slice temptingly on a plate, “Shortcake?”

“No, Polly, don’t coax me. Not a bite to eat. I’ve just been riding along the river. And girls, that reminds me.” The Admiral sank into one of the deep-seated garden chairs, and held up his finger at them all mysteriously. “I have seen her again.”

“The same girl?” asked Polly eagerly, bending forward and even forgetting the shortcake.

“The same one. I never saw a girl ride so splendidly in all my life. She is the admiration of every one along the river road. I heard Senator Yates telling somebody about her at dinner last evening, and bless my heart, she isn’t any larger than Isabel here. Yet, she must be older, but she does not appear so mounted. I can always rely on meeting her Friday afternoons about this hour. Never have I seen her on the street, mind—but ride! Polly, if you could sit a horse like that, and take the road as she does, I’d—why, I don’t know what I would do as a reward of merit.”

Polly leaned back, puzzled, and thinking hard.

“I don’t see who it can be, girls. Grandfather says he sees her every Friday afternoon, and has for weeks this spring, and I don’t know her at all. Maybe it is a guest at one of the houses outside of Queen’s Ferry.”

“Maybe it’s the ghost of the Lady Kathleen,” Ruth suggested gravely. “Don’t you remember her?

“I think you made that up, Ruth,” Polly cried, merrily. “Is the Lady Kathleen blonde or brunette, grandfather dear?”

“I should say she was rather sorrel,” remarked the Admiral judicially. “But I strongly advise this board of lady managers to discover her identity, and gather her into your circle. I can usually tell a thoroughbred, can’t I, Polly?”

“What color are her eyes, Admiral Page?” asked Isabel.

“Bless my heart, child, I did not get near enough for that. But if you will watch the river road about five any Friday afternoon, you will find her. Now, I must go and dress for dinner.”

“How can we find out who she is?” asked Isabel, when the Admiral left them for his late stroll by the river. “I don’t know anybody around Queen’s Landing that looks like that.”

“We’ll ask Miss Calvert on Monday,” Ruth declared. “She knows everybody who is anybody in this vicinity, and their pedigree back to the days when the first English ship sailed into Jamestown harbor. We must be going, Polly, and your shortcake was dandy. Next Friday it is my treat, girls. Don’t forget.”

Polly walked with them to the tall green hedge that separated Glenwood from the road, and waved good-bye. Then she hurried back to the arbor, and called Stoney up from the garden.

“I want the little green basket, Stoney, and a nice fresh pitcher of whipped cream, and then you and I will go for a walk up to the Hall.”

Aunty Welcome’s turbaned head appeared at the side door as the two started away.