The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1915-02-23

PROTECTING POLLY
BY ErHELLyn 3. DE FOE.
Copyright,

(Copyrightl
From the very day when she had
discovered iLat. with the aid Of the
kitchen tt dc. she could stand alone,
Polly haG aapired to take are Of her
self.
In time she not only took care of
herself, Let also of her father and
mother, aL,a al a contributory source
of no mean value TO an ever-increasing
army of little PIECES and nephews.
Polly was cheerful!y wing and con-
sidered her responsibilities no burden.
The n thing about her that was
not in perfect harmony was her name.
1t should have been martial and
commanding. That was probably the
reason why, in the Office, where no IA
miliarity but great fellowship was
shown her, they called her the Major.
She had a temper, too. She was no
patient Griselda; she was doing as
good work as any Of the men, with and
among them, shoulder to shoulder, and
If they forgot 1t and tried to thrust her
aside on the plea of the weaker sex,
she poured forth the walls of her wrath
indiscriminately upon. all, from the
night city editor to the Office boys. She
stood her ground, gave good service
and demanded fair return.
Slowly but surely she rose. Her
acumen was good, her discrimination
certain, her sense of q story invalua-
BILE.
Soon the paper began to realize that
she could be trusted. Her pen was
quick and did not make trouble. In
short, she had found herself. She was
safely launched on the sea of journal
ism.
But this making of a little slip of
southern gfrlhood into a capable re-
porter on a responsible newspaper had
not happened in a day; nor in a year.
Silver hairs had appeared among the
dark locks. The twenties were past
and the thirties were ~trooping along.
The Major was very nearly middle
aged.
Side by side with the Major a dream
er had been working. There was no
better man on the staff. None knew
that he was a dreamer, not even the
Major, although she was his dream.
Year after year., Robert Mcpherson
had watched her as she came and
went, laughing at the cold and snow,
scolding good-naturedly at the ener-
waiting humidity Of New York's merci-
less summers.
He, even as she, had been under obli-
cations to others whom he could not
neglect. Even after they both knew
that they we're all in all to each other
there were years Of waiting; but they
were good years, for now the Majors
life was filed with the secret without
which no woman's life is complete.
Finally the day came when, with
their duty to others discharged, they
could at last enter into their own.
After the wedding trip they went to
the dream home.
1t had never been a fiat in the
dream; so, although it awakened dread
In the Majors heart, she acquiesced
when he showed her a little house in
a new suburb.
At first the excitement of buying
furniture and arranging their belong
ings filed the time, and all went we'll.
But after a few weeks everything was
complete, and then long, lonely eve
nings began to shut down on Polly
the woman so unused to indoors, I'M
used to idleness or to woman's task
of the needle and, over and above all,
used to being alive.
Then. too, Nanny, the old colored
servant, who had been old for many
years, could not cope with the work of
a house; and Polly-no longer the Ma
jor, pleaseEfound her days becoming
more and more filled with the drudg-
cry of homework.
AS in all newspaper homes, their
mornings were their evenings. This
was Nseir time together; this when
they read and walked, and In those
sunny hours the little home seemed
all that al cheerful to Robert. But
there were often days when, tired
from a late assignment of the night
before, he had to sleep until it was
LAu40 " 81 bdCh " WOAht 81, OltC1s
Polly began and ended her silent day
alone.
When Robert took her in his arms
and told her how great was his happi-
ness in the thought that at last she
was sheltered from the buffeting of the
world, told her of his strength, his ex-
h~ilaration, his lust for work, because
he had before him the constant r~ealiza-
ton that at last he was doing hers as
well as his own; then, indeed, she al
most cried out to him. But his joy
was too beautiful.
In the long, silent evenings, her
thoughts turned to the Office. To the
city editor, goading her like a gadfy to
catch the first edition, to the thrill Of
excitement as her story, page by page.
was whisked off by the copy boy, to
the lull till another assignment, filed
in with an argument with another
mind as alert rs her own, a battle
fought point by point about some topic
of tomorrow's news, filed with good
natured acrimony.
Or an Office joke, for which no one
was ever too tired, and for which time
could always be found
That was where her Robert was,
where her old friends we're, where her
heart and life were.
The old comrades were playing the
glorious game, and she, the Major
hearted, put her poor dropping head
on Polly's pathetic attempt at sewing
and sobbed out her loneliness into the
awful stiffness of Roberts protecting
home.
Polly began to grow pale and list
less as the summer came on. Robert
asked often and tender1y if she was
doing too much. They had started a
little garden in the spring.
Patiently Polly bent over the 4
customed task until her back and head
ached, and, somehow, the things didn't
grow after all. When they did, she
could not find any great thrill over a
little green shoot, but Robert exulted,
and told her how beneficial it was
working in the soil.
She smiled, still too much the moth
er to tell the truth and ask of him
the sacrifice of giving up this newly
found joy Of protection.
AS the weather grew ~pleasanter, the
people from the Office came out often
er, and Robert was surprised to find
how keen was her interest in them and
their work; but he laid 1t to her warm
hearted concern for her old friends,
and supposed much of it was tactfully
assumed.