Polly of the Circus

Chapter X

Douglas dropped wearily onto the rustic bench. He sat with drooped head and unseeing eyes. He did not hear Polly as she scurried down the path, her arms filled with autumn leaves. She glanced at him, dropped the bright-coloured foliage, and slipped quickly to the nearest tree. “One, two, three for Mr. John,” she cried, as she patted the huge, brown trunk.

“Is that you, Polly?” he asked absently.

“Now, it's your turn to catch me,” she said, lingering near the tree. The pastor was again lost in thought. “Aren't you going to play any more?” There was a shade of disappointment in her voice. She came slowly to his side.

“Sit here, Polly,” he answered gravely, pointing to a place on the bench. “I want to talk to you.”

“Now, I've done something wrong,” she pouted. She gathered up her garlands and brought them to a place near his feet, ignoring the seat at his side. “You might just as well tell me and get it over.”

“You couldn't do anything wrong,” he answered, looking down at her.

“Oh, yes, I could—and I've done it—I can see it in your face. What is it?”

“What have you there?” he asked, trying to gain time, and not knowing how to broach the subject that in justice to her must be discussed.

“Some leaves to make garlands for the social,” Polly answered more cheerfully. “Would you mind holding this?” She gave him one end of a string of leaves.

“Where are the children?”

“Gone home.”

“You like the children very much, don't you, Polly?” Douglas was striving for a path that might lead them to the subject that was troubling him.

“Oh, no, I don't LIKE them, I LOVE them.” She looked at him with tender eyes.

“You're the greatest baby of all.” A puzzled line came between his eyes as he studied her more closely. “And yet, you're not such a child, are you, Polly? You're quite grown up, almost a young lady.” He looked at her from a strange, unwelcome point of view. She was all of that as she sat at his feet, yearning and slender and fair, at the turning of her seventeenth year.

“I wonder how you would like to go way?” Her eyes met his in terror. “Away to a great school,” he added quickly, flinching from the very first hurt that he had inflicted; “where there are a lot of other young ladies.”

“Is it a place where you would be?” She looked up at him anxiously. She wondered if his “show” was about to “move on.”

“I'm afraid not,” Douglas answered, smiling in spite of his heavy heart.

“I wouldn't like any place without you,” she said decidedly, and seemed to consider the subject dismissed.

“But if it was for your GOOD,” Douglas persisted.

“It could never be for my good to leave you.”

“But just for a little while,” he pleaded. How was she ever to understand? How could he take from her the sense of security that he had purposely taught her to feel in his house?

“Not even for a moment,” Polly answered, with a decided shake of her head.

“But you must get ahead in your studies,” he argued.

She looked at him anxiously. She was beginning to be alarmed at his persistence.

“Maybe I've been playing too many periscous games.”

“Not periscous, Polly, promiscuous.”

“Pro-mis-cuous,” she repeated, haltingly. “What does that mean?”

“Indiscriminate.” He rubbed his forehead as he saw the puzzled look on her face. “Mixed up,” he explained, more simply.

“Our game wasn't mixed up.” She was thinking of the one to which the widow had objected. “Is it promiscuous to catch somebody?”

“It depends upon whom you catch,” he answered with a dry, whimsical smile.

“Well, I don't catch anybody but the children.” She looked up at him with serious, inquiring eyes.

“Never mind, Polly. Your games aren't promiscuous.” She did not hear him. She was searching for her book.

“Is this what you are looking for?” he asked, drawing the missing article from his pocket.

“Oh!” cried Polly, with a flush of embarrassment. “Mandy told you.”

“You've been working a long time on that.”

“I thought I might help you if I learned everything you told me,” she answered, timidly. “But I don't suppose I could.”

“I can never tell you how much you help me, Polly.”

“Do I?” she cried, eagerly.

“I can help more if you will only let me. I can teach a bigger class in Sunday-school now. I got to the book of Ruth to-day.”

“You did?” He pretended to be astonished. He was anxious to encourage her enthusiasm.

“Um hum!” She answered solemnly. A dreamy look came into her eyes. “Do you remember the part that you read to me the first day I came?” He nodded. He was thinking how care-free they were that day. How impossible such problems as the present one would have seemed then. “I know every bit of what you read by heart. It's our next Sunday-school lesson.”

“So it is.”

“Do you think now that it would be best for me to go away?” She looked up into his troubled face.

“We'll see, we'll see,” he murmured, then tried to turn her mind toward other things. “Come now, let's find out whether you DO know your Sunday-school lesson. How does it begin?” There was no answer. She had turned away with trembling lips. “And Ruth said”—he took her two small hands and drew her face toward him, meaning to prompt her.

“Entreat me not to leave thee,” she pleaded. Her eyes met his. His face was close to hers. The small features before him were quivering with emotion. She was so frail, so helpless, so easily within his grasp. His muscles grew tense and his lips closed firmly. He was battling with an impulse to draw her toward him and comfort her in the shelter of his strong, brave arms. “They shan't!” he cried, starting toward her.

Polly drew back, overawed. Her soul had heard and seen the things revealed to each of us only once. She would never again be a child.

Douglas braced himself against the back of the bench.

“What was the rest of the lesson?” he asked in a firm, hard voice.

“I can't say it now,” Polly murmured. Her face was averted; her white lids fluttered and closed.

“Nonsense, of course you can. Come, come, I'll help you.” Douglas spoke sharply. He was almost vexed with her and with himself for the weakness that was so near overcoming them. “And Ruth said, 'Entreat me not to leave thee——'”

“'Or to return from following after thee.'” She was struggling to keep back the tears. “'For whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my' “—She stopped.

“That's right, go on,” said Douglas, striving to control the unsteadiness in his own voice.

“Where thou diest, will I die'”—her arms went out blindly.

“Oh, you won't send me away, will you?” she sobbed. “I don't want to learn anything else just—except—from you.” She covered her face and slipped, a little, broken heap at his feet.

In an instant the pastor's strong arms were about her, his stalwart body was supporting her. “You shan't go away. I won't let you—I won't! Do you hear me, Polly? I won't!”

Her breath was warm against his cheek. He could feel her tears, her arms about him, as she clung to him helplessly, sobbing and quivering in the shelter of his strong embrace. “You are never going to leave me—never!”

A new purpose had come into his life, the realisation of a new necessity, and he knew that the fight which he must henceforth make for this child was the same that he must make for himself.