POLLY SHIPS HER CREW

The following day Polly was very busy, mysteriously busy, but not one word did she speak to anyone of the household, regarding her purpose. She pored over books in the library, and wrote items down for future reference. But the Admiral was able to guess her intentions, for every once in a while, she would hail him with various queries.

“Grandfather, dear, what’s a cuddy?”

“Small cabin up for’ad,” responded the Admiral. “Why, matey?”

“Is it anywhere near the lobscouse?” asked Polly anxiously, tapping her under lip with her pencil.

The Admiral laughed till the tears came in his eyes, and he had to blow his nose vigorously.

“I’m sure I don’t see why that’s funny,” protested Polly with dignity. “It says here that they tackled the lobscouse in the cuddy.”

“I haven’t the least doubt of it,” laughed the Admiral heartily, “and not one scrap did they leave to throw to the porpoises, either, did they?”

But Polly refused to be teased, or daunted in her purpose. When the girls arrived on Saturday afternoon, she was prepared to meet them, and very businesslike and imposing the library appeared with the earnest faces gathered around the old flat-topped mahogany table that stood in its center.

“We all came, Polly,” said Sue, fanning her flushed face with a blotter, comfortably. Sue rarely stopped for the fitness of things. If she needed anything at all, she always took the first substitute at hand, rather than go without. “It’s getting pretty warm weather, sister clubbers, know it?”

“Sister clubbers?” repeated Isabel. “Sue, how you do talk.”

“Well, it is hot, all the same, isn’t it, Polly?”

Polly laughed, and stepped to the doorway to receive from Aunty Welcome’s hands a generous tray with ice-cold fruit lemonade in a tall cut glass pitcher, covered with a snowy napkin, and a plate of fresh honey jumbles.

“You be suah and stir dat up well from de bottom, chile,” cautioned Aunty. “Doan’t want all juice when you got orange, an’ banana, an’ strawberries, an’ cherries, an’ mint leaves.”

“Oh, you darling Aunty Welcome,” cried Ted and Sue, and Ruth blew the old mammy a kiss from her finger tips, while Isabel and Kate smiled. They were all favorites with her, and knew mighty well how to value her favor.

Polly set the tray at her end of the long table, and poured out the luscious summer drink while she went on talking.

“There’s one more to come still, girls. I hope you will all agree with me and be nice to her. It’s Crullers.”

“Crullers! Why, she has gone home,” exclaimed Isabel.

“No, she hasn’t,” said Polly, calmly. “Her brothers have the measles, and everybody else’s little brothers and sisters are likely to have it at Sharon Hill, where she lives, so Crullers cannot go home for a vacation. I found her crying when I left you girls last Thursday, and I told her to come to-day. Do you mind?”

“I don’t,” Ruth spoke up cheerfully. “I always liked Crullers, poor little thing.”

“Poor little thing,” Isabel repeated, dubiously. “She’s heavier than I am, and can eat nearly a whole pie at once.”

The other girls broke into a peal of laughter over the protest. Nobody dreamt of taking Isabel or her protests at all seriously. She was always the first to see the windmills waving their terrible arms in the distance, and the first one to plan the attack on them. Crullers was a favorite with all the day scholars at Calvert Hall. Her name was Jane Daphne Adams, but the combination had proven too great a strain on the Hungry Six’s sense of humor, so they had cut it short to Crullers. Four times a month a large box arrived for Jane Daphne, filled with crullers from home, and she never failed to donate them to the chafing dish feasts. Therefore she herself had been named in honor of them.

Before there was time to say any more, there was a step in the hall, and Crullers herself appeared, rather shyly, in the library doorway. She was plump and rosy-cheeked, with deep dimples and big blue eyes that seemed to question everything, and if there was anything at all in the way that Crullers could fall over, she always took a tumble. At school the girls had declared that Crullers would trip over her own shadow any time. She was fifteen, and slow in every way, slow to think, or act, or speak, or learn, and awkward as some overgrown lamb; but behind the awkward shyness there lay a staunch, faithful nature that Polly knew and loved. She had found out long ago that it was far safer to depend on Crullers’ slowness, than on Isabel’s hasty willingness that usually burnt itself out like a pinwheel in two minutes.

“I didn’t know you’d all be here,” said Crullers, hesitating. “Hello, Polly.”

Polly kissed her, and seated her next herself at the table, close to the pitcher of lemonade, for she knew the surest way to Crullers’ heart.

“We expected you,” she said, just as if all of the girls had signified their intention of adopting Crullers into their new circle. “Now I think we may proceed with the business of the afternoon. I want to read a letter to you girls, first. It came from my Aunt Milly last week.” Polly paused, and smiled, as she always did when she mentioned the bevy of aunts who watched over her from a distance. “Aunt Milly is grandfather’s youngest daughter, and she’s a dear. She lives in Boston, or at least just outside, in Newton Centre, and she’s married and has four boys.”

“What are their names?” asked Sue, promptly.

“It doesn’t matter, for they will not be there,” answered Polly, firmly. “Here’s her letter.” And she read it aloud.

“My Dear Polly:

“I am writing this hastily, on the eve of our sailing for London town. Your Uncle Thurlow was compelled to go abroad this summer on business, and offered to take the boys also, so we are all going to join him in London. It has occurred to me that if you and father have not already made summer plans, you would enjoy yourselves at Eagle Bay. Lost Island has been the boys’ favorite outing place for years, and I am sure you would like it. It is on the coast of Maine, not far from Bar Harbor, but somewhat out of the summer tourist’s beaten track. If you get tired of roughing it in the boys’ bungalow on the island, you could stop at the hotel on the main shore. But if you care for the open, there is a good camp outfit down there, and some boats, and perhaps you might turn it into something worth while.

“It is not really an island, except when the tide comes in. There is a neck of land that connects it with the main shore at low tide. The boys wish me to add that the Captain will show you about everything, and that he and Tom have the yachts down at their landing. I hope you will go, and spend a happy vacation.

“Who’s the Captain?” asked Kate.

Polly shook her head, and laid the letter on the table. “I don’t know any more about it than you girls do, but I want to go. Grandfather is willing to act as consort, he says. You know, a consort is the ship that trots along to look after other ships. That means he will stay up at the hotel near the telegraph office, and have regular meals. I know him like a book. But Aunty Welcome will go along as cook, and I suppose we should have a chaperon.”

“Oh, let’s don’t,” implored Sue, pushing back her hair from her forehead, as she always did when she was listening intently. “Ruth is seventeen, and Kate is going on eighteen. Let’s do it all ourselves. It will be ever so much more fun.”

“And it won’t be as if we were wrecked on a desert isle, Polly,” laughed Ruth. “There are sure to be plenty other vacationers around with whom we will get acquainted. I suppose there’s a real house, isn’t there?”

Polly nodded her head.

“I guess so, from the letter. Aunt Milly always lived at the hotel up the beach, and the boys had an old fisherman’s cottage—”

“Do you mean a fisherman’s old cottage?” suggested Isabel.

“Well, anyway, it was a sort of bungalow, where they camped out. Grandfather says he remembers that much. We don’t want to take a lot of things along, girls, just enough to get on with. I can put all I shall need into a couple of suit cases, and that will save bothering over baggage.”

“But, Polly, what shall we do after we get there?” Isabel asked, anxiously. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand. Are we going to camp out?”

“We’re going to do just what seems best to us after we arrive,” said Polly cheerfully. “The boys had a yacht club, I know, and if they had one we can have one. I want to go ever so much, and I want you girls to go too. If grandfather goes, and Aunty Welcome, nothing can happen to us, don’t you see it can’t? I suggest that we organize, or rather reorganize, right now, and start our first vacation club, and call it, call it—”

“The Squaw Girls of Lost Island,” said Sue solemnly.

“Oh, Sue, don’t make fun of it,” said Kate reproachfully as she leaned forward. “I think it will be splendid, Polly. You can count me in, and I’ll bring my kodak along, too, and perpetuate our memory forevermore.”

“Polly,” asked Ruth, suddenly, her brows meeting in a little frown of perplexity. “May I say something, please?”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied the chairman, promptly, reaching for the lemonade. “Try some of this, though, before you get strenuous.”

“I only want to say that I’m afraid I can’t go, because—” Ruth hesitated.

“Oh, Ruth, you must go,” cried Polly, anxiously. She dreaded long explanations. She knew that Ruth was going to tell right before the girls that it would cost too much, and that she felt it her duty to get ready for her kindergarten training.

Ruth seemed to read her thought as their glance met across the table, and instinctively she shook her head, with its close bands of brown braids, bound around like a laurel crown.

“But we really need you, Ruth,” persisted Polly. “Kate will be the ship’s husband—”

“The what?” laughed Kate. “This is all news to me. Isn’t it just like Polly, girls, to arrange all our destinies, and then placidly break the tidings to us at the last minute.”

“Miss Calvert says I am a born organizer,” Polly declared, decidedly, “and how on earth can one organize if one lets every member have her own way? Ruth, you must go along. As I said before Kate will be the ship’s husband. I notice that no one present has the least idea what that means. I didn’t myself until yesterday. When a ship is in port fitting out for a cruise, the ship’s husband is the person who attends to all repairs, and fits her out for the new voyage. I like it better than steward, don’t you? So I want Kate to manage that part of our club business. Keep an eye on general supplies, and profit and loss, and all that sort of thing. You know what I mean, don’t you, Kate?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Kate, saluting with uplifted finger. “Seems to me, though, if I am to be a ship’s husband to a yacht club, I’ll be a Mormon, won’t I?”

As the laughter subsided, Polly went on.

“So if you look after that part of the club, and I take care of the general business, Ruth ought to be in charge of the bureau of knowledge.”

“Polly,” exclaimed Sue. “Do talk so we’ll understand you.”

“I am,” answered Polly, emphatically. “If we go to the seashore, we shall do something besides sail boats, and lie in the sand, shan’t we? We’ll study shells and seaweeds, and swim, and fish, and all that sort of thing. Ruth is the only one among us who has studied up and knows about such things, and she could take charge of all that part of the vacation, show us how to make collections, and preserve them, and so on.” Polly hesitated. Out on the veranda, behind the honeysuckle vines and creepers, dozed the Admiral, with Tan at his feet. Polly wondered whether he had heard the discussion, and if he had, why he didn’t come to the rescue. He always did when there was rough weather or any breakers ahead.

“Would you go, Ruth, if you could?”

Ruth weakened. Polly’s eyes were eloquent, and her tone persuasive.

“I should be very glad to, Polly,” she replied quickly. “It’s splendid of you girls to want me—”

“We couldn’t get along without you, Grandma,” laughed Ted and Sue together. “Will you surely go?”

“Well,” promised Ruth. “I will go if I can, and maybe I won’t be glad to.”

“We need you,” Kate put in, in her steady, serene fashion. “I’ve never been to the shore. It must be glorious. The Potomac is dear to us all, of course, and old Chesapeake seems like an ocean in itself, but I mean right on the banks of the real sea—”

“‘Old ocean’s grey and melancholy waste,’” quoted Polly. “That’s where we’re going, Kitty Katherine.”

“Neither have I,” Isabel put in reflectively. “Of course we’ve been to summer resorts, and stayed at hotels, papa and mamma and the boys and I, but I mean to go to a stretch of shore where you couldn’t find a single peanut shell, or old tin can around. I hope there are great rocks and plenty of shells, Polly.”

“There will be along the Maine coast,” Ruth explained. “When you get south of Cape Cod, you rarely find beautiful shells. I forget the reason myself, but it is something about the tidal currents. Between Cape Cod and Cape May, the shells are more common, and there are not so many washed up along the shore.”

“Didn’t I tell you that Grandma’s knowledge would be valuable,” Polly cried, triumphantly. “Every time we get stranded on any point of information, we can appeal to our Bureau, and find out the facts. Crullers, dear, you take the last jumble. We’ll make you the cook’s assistant, and you shall eat until your eyelashes have to be done up in curl papers, and your finger nails crack.”

Crullers smiled at the prospect, as she adjusted her wide brimmed, dark blue sailor hat, with her class pin fastened to the band in front.

“I am willing to help any way I can, if I may go with you,” she said.

“How much do you figure it will cost each of us, Polly?” asked Kate, practically. “As ship’s husband, I have a right to know.”

“Only what we eat and possibly, repairs on the boats,” answered Polly. “Grandfather says he will take us up to Portland by sea, and we are to be his guests. From there we go by train to Eastport, the nearest village, and then to the island some way. You figure out how much it will cost to feed us all per week for eight weeks, and leave a margin on fish and canned goods. We can catch the fish when we get there, and grandfather says he will ship a box of canned goods up from New York.”

“I think the Admiral is too kind to us,” protested Ruth, but Polly frowned at her.

“Isn’t it my plan?” she asked. “If I am to be commodore of a yacht club, I must look after things, mustn’t I? Talk it over at home, now, and meet here again Tuesday, if you all can. We want to leave within two weeks, and less, if possible.”

“I say the end of next week,” said Kate, judiciously. “It can be done, Polly.”

“And don’t forget to bring along the chafing dish,” added Sue.

Polly walked down with them to the wide entrance gates, where Aunty Welcome waited, with a bouquet of fresh cut roses for each girl.

Up on the veranda the Admiral surveyed the scene with a good deal of satisfaction.

“They make me think of a lot of butterflies, Tan,” he told the old setter. “Or flowers, Tan, that’s the best simile, a garden of girls. It keeps the heart young just to listen to their laughter, old fellow.”

Tan beat his tail on the floor gently to show he had caught the sentiment, and approved, and the Admiral’s face still wore a smile of pleasure when Polly came up and dropped into the chair beside him.

“How’s she bearing on her course, matey?” he asked.

“Handsomely, sir, handsomely,” laughed Polly. “I am sure they’ll all go. I wonder if they can sail boats.”

“Best find out before you start them off for a yacht club,” advised her grandfather. “Don’t ship any crew on false premises. You let them know what is ahead of them before they sign articles, or you’ll have foul weather as sure as you’re afloat.”

“That may be right, grandfather, dearest, when you’re really shipping sailors, but when you’re only taking a lot of land lubbers, you have to explain things to them by degrees, or they’ll run away.”

“And how about yourself?” The Admiral reached down, and pulled at the long, brown curls that were tied loosely at the nape of his shipmate’s neck. “Does the commodore of the yacht club know the difference between a skip jack and a cat boat?”

“Maybe she doesn’t now,” responded the commodore stoutly, “but she will. Just you wait, and see. And anyway,” she added in a softer tone, with one of her quick side glances of coaxing merriment, “if she doesn’t, she’ll have her consort handy, right over on the hotel veranda.”