Adventure stories; Americans -- Mexico -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
"And the worst of it is that everybody will say it serves me right," she
went on to herself, "just because I've flirted a bit here and there. It's
not my fault if people never turn out as I expect them to. I guess I'm
like Grandfather Street was in his religion. He thought the Baptists were
wonderful until he joined them and then the Presbyterians looked more
interesting to him. After he'd been with them a while he couldn't see how
anybody could be a Presbyterian, so he joined the Unitarians. People
thought he was a turncoat, but he wasn't--he was just a sort of religious
Mormon. One church wasn't enough for him.
"Oh dear, I wish I'd gone to Douglas alone! Bob would understand. I
believe I'll go to Athens. Why not? It's safe enough or Emma's parents
wouldn't let her go. Of course it's a bit soon after their wedding, but
I'll be tactful and keep out of their way."
The light of determination was in Polly's dark eyes. They were big lovely
eyes that looked at you wistfully from under arched brows. They seldom
laughed or twinkled and the nose that kept them company was equally
sedate, being purely aquiline, but a mouth with dimpled corners upset the
scheme entirely, while ripples of golden brown hair completed the picture
of a healthy, happy youngster--not radiantly beautiful but what people
like to call "winsome," which is after all as good a word as most.
She parked the electric on the Lake Front and crossed the Boulevard. The
policeman on the crossing nodded to her and she smiled at him. Polly had
what her father called a "stand in" with the force. It was unnecessary,
for she was a good driver when her feelings were not agitated, but there
was something about policemen that appealed to her. They were so big and
pink and forceful that you felt rather important when they nodded to
you--a bit after the fashion of a man who is recognized by the head
waiter.
She was still smiling when she entered the building in which was located a
club to which she belonged. It was a serious-minded club of clever women,
and most people had been amused when Polly Street joined it. Nobody
expected serious-minded things of Polly, though here and there someone was
willing to admit that she was "clever enough in her way."
Finding the writing-room empty, Polly sat down to write a letter. Several
times in her career she had decided upon courses of procedure which had
seemed to her eminently practical, only to be talked out of them by her
family. This time she would take no such chances. She would write to Bob,
and Bob, being much like her, understood her--as well at any rate as any
brother understands a sister. Then she would go over to the bank and get
some money on her Liberty Bonds. Polly was as usual broke, Mr. Street
being a man who provided credit liberally for his family but who had
learned from experience that money was safer in his own hands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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