Slowly and painfully she fetched wood and threw it in the heater, opening the draughts wide, and watching to see if it caught. Soon it began to crackle and blaze cheerily, and, despite her loneliness and her suffering, hope leaped in her heart.
"It will be nice and warm when mother wakes up--oh, I"m so glad I came down!"
Yet it was dreary waiting for the moment when it seemed best to put on the coal, and then she lingered still longer before she dared shut off the draught. But at last her labor was complete. The pipes were growing warm, and the heater could safely be left to care for itself.
Going upstairs was difficult and distressing; but the two flights were finally accomplished, and Polly was free to rest. She lay down quietly beside her mother, though not to sleep. Pain that made her almost cry out for relief kept her awake hour after hour. Mrs. Dudley lay very still. But for her soft breathing the little watcher at her side would have thought her dead. Many times Polly lifted herself upon her elbow, leaned over to listen, and dropped back again satisfied, but with a stifled groan. Every movement now was torture.
The night seemed to have no end. Polly felt as if she had lain there a hundred hours, and yet no sign of day. She wondered if G.o.d had forgotten to wake up the world--and then she slept.
It was so that Dr. Dudley found them at eight o"clock in the morning.
When Polly came to herself her father and mother were talking of the great storm, the delay of his train, and of her sudden illness. But Polly"s story of the night sent the Doctor in haste to the aid of the injured ankle.
One glance at the swollen foot, and he whipped a pair of scissors from his pocket, inserting a blade underneath the leather.
"Oh, father," cried Polly in alarm, "these are my second-best boots!"
But the scissors were doing their merciful though destructive work, and the little sufferer closed her eyes with a sob of relief.
For several days Polly"s seat at school was vacant; but Patricia did not allow her to get lonely.
"If you had come to see Lester, as I wanted you to," she insisted, "you wouldn"t have sprained your ankle and had to stay home. Honestly, don"t you wish you had?"
Polly glanced across to her mother with a mysterious smile.
"I am sorry," she answered, "not to have seen your cousin--"
"And yours!" put in Patricia.
"Yes, "and mine,"" Polly laughed. "But father says that blizzard lessons are sometimes better than Latin and geography; so I"m glad I didn"t miss them."
Patricia looked puzzled.
CHAPTER VIII
THE INTERMEDIATE BIRTHDAY PARTY
"There are Leonora and David and Patricia, to start with," began Polly, "and Elsie Meyer and Brida McCarthy and Cornelius O"Shaughnessy."
Mrs. Dudley, writing down the names, smiled her sanction.
"I want to invite as many of the girls at school as I can," Polly went on thoughtfully, "Lilith Brooks and Betty Thurston anyway--oh, and Hilda Breese! I must have Hilda. She is a new scholar, but such a dear! How many does that make?"
"Eight girls, with you, and two boys."
"Only three more girls!" mused Polly anxiously. "I can"t leave out Aimee Gentil, and I meant to ask Mabel Camp and Mary Pender." She paused.
"That just makes it." Her mother"s pencil was waiting.
"But I don"t know what to do," Polly sighed. "There"s Gladys...o...b..rne, I ought to invite her. She"s Betty"s intimate friend, and I"m afraid she"ll feel hurt to be skipped. And Ilga!" She drew another sigh.
"Ilga Barron?"
Polly nodded, her forehead wrinkled over the problem. "She has been good to me lately, and she"ll expect an invitation. Still Mabel and Mary don"t have half the fun that Ilga has, and I want them. Oh, dear, having parties is hard work!"
Mrs. Dudley smiled sympathetically, but offered no direct a.s.sistance.
"Suppose we leave the girls, and take up the boys. Then we can come back, and things may look clearer."
"All right." Polly welcomed a respite from the struggle between loyalty to her old hospital friends and duty to her new acquaintances.
The second list was soon complete, with former patients of the convalescent ward outnumbering the others.
"I want Otto Kriloff and Moses Cohn and those boys to have a good time for once," Polly unnecessarily explained, and then turned to the matter which had been dropped.
"I think I"ll have Aimee and Gladys and Ilga," she at length decided.
And so the names went down.
"I will write the invitations this evening," promised Mrs. Dudley; but in less than an hour came Mrs. Jocelyn with a proposal which precluded all previous arrangements and more pleasantly solved Polly"s difficult problem.
"Leonora and I are in a quandary," began the little lady who was used to having her own way, "and we hope you will help us out. With Polly"s birthday coming on the eighteenth and Leonora"s on the twentieth, and we planning for separate parties, it is strange I didn"t think of it sooner. Probably it wouldn"t have occurred to me now, only that the invitation list has been giving us no end of bother."
Mrs. Dudley and Polly smiled appreciatively to each other.
"We reached the end of it," Mrs. Jocelyn continued, "long before Leonora was through choosing, and she was distressed at thought of leaving out so many. It is all nonsense, this restricting the number of guests to the years; but if it must be so I think we had better combine. Then we can double the list, and n.o.body will have to be invited twice. Polly and Leonora ought to be satisfied with forty-four friends--no, forty-two besides themselves," she amended, with a twinkle in her gray eyes.
The girls eagerly awaited Mrs. Dudley"s reply.
"That would be very pleasant," she began; "but--"
"There isn"t a single but to it," laughed the little lady comfortably.
"We will have the party at my house, two parties in one, on the nineteenth."
"Oh! that will be a between birthday party, won"t it?" piped Polly delightedly.
"We will call it just that," agreed Mrs. Jocelyn.
Plans were making progress when the Doctor came in, and Polly watched his face anxiously as he listened. She knew the signs.
"I don"t quite like this arrangement," he objected frankly. "We have intended to make Polly"s party a very simple little affair, without fuss or ceremony. You, of course, will wish things different."
"Now, see here, Dr. Robert Dudley," broke in Mrs. Jocelyn, laughingly, "I"m not going to allow any such insinuations. It shall be bread and b.u.t.ter and cookies for tea, if you wish; but you are not going to spoil our good time. Just look at those children! They are worrying their hearts out for fear you won"t let them play hostess together."
At that, the disturbed faces broadened into smiles, and presently the Doctor asked Polly if she had shown Leonora the new paper dolls that Burton Leonard"s mother had sent her. Which delicate hint told her that the elder people preferred to discuss the matter alone.
It was finally settled according to Mrs. Jocelyn"s mind, as Leonora had felt sure it would be.