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Polly in New York
Polly in New York
CHAPTER I – IN THE BIG CITY
The long Pullman train, that left Denver behind and carried Polly Brewster away on her first venture from the ranch-home, was fitted up as luxuriously as capital could do it. Eleanor Maynard, Polly’s bosom friend, enjoyed her companion’s awe and wonderment – that a mere car should be so furnished.
“Nolla,” whispered Polly, furtively glancing about, “how different are these cars from the ones that come in and go out at Oak Creek!”
Eleanor, whose pet name was Nolla, laughed. “I should think they would be, Polly. Why, those ‘ancients’ that rock back and forth between Denver and Oak Creek, are the ‘only originals’ now in existence. They’ll be in Barnum’s Show next Season as curios.”
Polly seemed to fully appreciate the comfort of her traveling carriage, and remarked, “One would hardly believe these cars are going at all! They run so smoothly and without any awful screeching of the joints.”
Anne Stewart, the teacher to whose charge these two girls had been committed, had been studying the time-table, but she smiled at Polly’s words. Then she turned to her mother, a sweet-faced woman who was enjoying the trip almost as much as the young girls were, and said: “Mother, we’ll have at least seven hours in Chicago before we have to take the New York train. We can visit Paul all that time.”
“Goody! Then Poll can visit John and I can see Daddy,” exclaimed Eleanor, eagerly. “But we must first charter the wash-room to turn ourselves from dusty travelers into respectable citizens.”
“There isn’t a fleck of dust to be seen, Anne,” objected Polly, glancing around the tidy interior, then at herself and friends.
“Wait till after we have crossed the plains and passed through all kinds of towns – we won’t look like the same people.”
To Polly, that journey was a source of great interest and fun. The dining-car, the folding tables for games or work, the sleeping arrangements – all were so strangely different from the vast open-air life of the ranch.
Then the express train reached Chicago and the recess hours were filled with greetings, visits and then good-bys, before the little party of four was on its last lap of the journey.