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Page 9
At the present moment, however, Miss Anita Ferguson, clad in a black
habit, with a white rose in her buttonhole, and a neat black derby with
a scarf of white _cr�pe de chine_ wound about it, had gone on the mesa
for a horseback ride, so Polly and Margery had borrowed the cosy corner
for a chat.
Margery was crocheting a baby's afghan, and Polly was almost obscured
by a rumpled, yellow dress which lay in her lap.
"You observe my favorite yellow gown?" she asked.
"Yes, what have you done to it?"
"Gin Sing picked blackberries in the colander. I, supposing the said
colander to be a pan with the usual bottom, took it in my lap and held
it for an hour while I sorted the berries. Result: a hideous stain a
foot and a half in diameter, to say nothing of the circumference. Mr.
Greenwood suggested oxalic acid. I applied it, and removed both the
stain and the dress in the following complete manner;" and Polly put
her brilliant head through an immense circular hole in the front
breadth of the skirt.
"It 's hopeless, is n't it? for of course a patch won't look well,"
said Margery.
"Hopeless? Not a bit. You see this pretty yellow and white striped
lawn? I have made a long, narrow apron of it, and ruffled it all
round. I pin it to my waist thus, and the hole is covered. But it
looks like an apron, and how do I contrive to throw the public off the
scent? I add a yoke and sash of the striped lawn, and people see
simply a combination-dress. I do the designing, and my beloved little
mother there will do the sewing; forgetting her precious Polly's
carelessness in making the hole, and remembering only her cleverness in
covering it."
"Capital!" said Margery; "it will be prettier than ever. Oh dear! that
dress was new when we had our last lovely summer in the ca�on. Shall
we ever go again, all together, I wonder? Just think how we are all
scattered,--the Winships traveling in Europe (I 'll read you Bell's
last letter by and by); Geoffrey Strong studying at Leipsic; Jack
Howard at Harvard, with Elsie and her mother watching over him in
Cambridge; Philip and I on the ranch as usual, and you here. We are so
divided that it does n't seem possible that we can ever have a complete
reunion, does it?"
"No," said Polly, looking dreamily at the humming-birds hovering over
the honeysuckle; "and if we should, everything would be different.
Bless dear old Bell's heart! What a lovely summer she must be having!
I wonder what she will do."
"Do?" echoed Margery.
"Yes; it always seemed to me that Bell Winship would do something in
the world; that she would never go along placidly like other girls, she
has so many talents."
"Yes; but so long as they have plenty of money, Dr. and Mrs. Winship
would probably never encourage her in doing anything."
"It would be all the better if she could do something because she loved
it, and with no thought of earning a living by it. Is n't it odd that
I who most need the talents should have fewer than any one of our dear
little group? Bell can write, sing, dance, or do anything else, in
fact; Elsie can play like an angel; you can draw; but it seems to me I
can do nothing well enough to earn money by it; and that is precisely
what I must do."
"You 've never had any special instruction, Polly dear, else you could
sing as well as Bell, or play as well as Elsie."
"Well, I must soon decide. Mamma says next summer, when I am
seventeen, she will try to spend a year in San Francisco and let me
study regularly for some profession. The question is, what?--or
whether to do something without study. I read in a magazine the other
day that there are now three hundred or three thousand, I can't
remember which, vocations open to women. If it were even three hundred
I could certainly choose one to my liking, and there would be two
hundred and ninety-nine left over for the other girls. Mrs. Weeks is
trying to raise silkworms. That would be rather nice, because the
worms would be silent partners in the business and do most of the work."
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