When Polly Was Eighteen

“WHY DON’T YOU LAUGH?”

Polly leaned back against the great oak, her eyes bent on David’s face. She wondered--and wondered hard. If she could only fathom that inscrutable expression!

The young man, stretched on the grass among the waving shadows, was gazing across the valley to the hills in their soft afternoon veiling. It was a June picture beautiful enough to hold the attention of any one, yet it was plain that David’s thoughts were not on the landscape.

They had come out for a walk, which had led them miles to the south and finally to the top of Chimney Hill, where they had stopped to rest.

At the start David had been talkative enough, in fact unusually merry; then, from no discernible cause, his lips had shut gravely and Polly had not been able to draw out more than monosyllables and short, matter-of-fact sentences. As she watched the unreadable face she tried to guess what the trouble might be. As in the old days before college, her lover had his occasional jealous moods, and although they were less frequent they grew more and more bitter. Still, during the happy intervals Polly would coax herself to believe that they were past forever. Now she thought over the route, bit by bit, trying to find something which could have disturbed him. At last, baffled in her endeavors, she ventured suddenly:--

“David, why don’t you laugh?”

He turned instantly. “At what?”

“Anything--nothing,” she answered lightly. “You seemed to be weighing some heavy matter.”

“No, I was only--” He halted, then went on without completing his sentence. “I am going away to-morrow,” he announced.

Polly’s smile vanished in surprise.

“Where?” she asked with her usual eagerness. “Spitzbergen or the South Pole?”

David did not appear to notice her pleasantry.

“To the Adirondacks,” he said simply.

“Oh!” Polly exclaimed. “Were you just making up your mind?”

David reddened. “N-no,” he denied; “but Converse invited me only a day or two ago, and I didn’t decide at once.”

“Going with Child Converse?” queried Polly’s lips, while her thoughts ran along, “Why didn’t he tell me sooner? We were together all yesterday morning and this afternoon--never a word until now!”

“Yes,” David was saying, “he is going to take me up to their camp. His father and mother are in Seattle, you know.”

“M-h’m,” she bowed. “How long you going to stay?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t set any time.”

“It’ll be great, won’t it?” Polly smiled in her friendliest way.

He nodded gravely, slipping abruptly into complaint.

“You do not like Converse. You have never taken the trouble to know him.”

The girl’s eyes twinkled. “I certainly ought to adore him,” she said; “it is the first time you ever wanted me to look at any boy except Your Royal Highness.”

“Oh, you don’t understand!” sighed David.

“I am always wondering,” Polly went on, a tiny scowl wrinkling her smooth forehead, “how it is that Converse happens to attract you.”

“He is a good fellow,” said David positively. “But he has no stock of prittle-prattle.”

“It isn’t his lack of nonsense,” Polly smiled. “He is too pretty. That combined with his name--but he can’t help either, poor boy! Anyway, he looks like a nice baby--”

“Baby!” sniffed David.

“Well, he does. With his round face and rosy cheeks and curly hair--honestly, I always want to take him on my knee and trot him.”

David laughed, though as if against his will.

“There’s nothing of the baby about him,” he asserted, “and a fellow can’t help his looks.”

Polly shook her head. “No,” she agreed. “If only he and his sister could exchange faces! Maybe, after all, it is she that flavors my opinion of him.”

“Marietta?”

“Yes.” She was making little jabs in the soft moss with her slender forefinger, and a faint smile began to curve her lips.

“She is a brainy girl,” was the somewhat stiff response, “and she has always been very pleasant to me.”

“She is brainy enough,” replied Polly; “the trouble is, she knows it and she shows that she knows it.”

“If she did not know it, there would be nothing to know,” said David severely.

Polly’s smile broadened. “I was thinking,” she resumed, “of what Patricia said the other day. Marietta has just been elected president of the Much Ado Club in place of Ruth Mansfield. You know the Mansfields are going to live in California. Ruth has grown pretty stout, and Marietta looks as if she would blow away. Somebody was wondering if she could fill Ruth’s place, and Patricia said very soberly, ‘I think she’ll wabble about a little.’ Wasn’t that bright?”

“Unkind,” he answered forbiddingly.

“Oh, David!” she sighed, “you are so matter-of-fact. You don’t like Patty any better than ever.”