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Polly: Apron Strings Series, Book One

By Naomi Musch

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Fall 1919

Polly’s mouth watered as the aroma of melted chocolate wafted upward. Mmm … heavenly. She swirled her wooden spoon through thick, glossy bubbles and inhaled the richness, but she captured the tip of her tongue between her lips and resisted the temptation to snitch even a drop, having learned that patience outweighed a scalded tongue. Everyone said Grandpa was the one with the sweet tooth, but Polly’s own penchant for confections was well-established. At least she had come by her taste for sugary sweets honestly, having made her favorite goodies for Grandpa for as long as he was able to enjoy them before he passed. Sugar rationing during the war had made that task a challenge.
A fringe of hair dropped from her twist and tickled her temple. Polly flicked it away. Drat her slipping hairpins. Thin, straight hair made it difficult to keep pins, clips, or combs in place for long, even if she curled or twisted it.
She focused again on the chocolate in the pan. Just ... about ... perfect. There. She tapped the spoon and set it aside. Grabbing one of Mrs. Adams’s quilted potholders off the oaken worktable, Polly grasped hold of the iron handle on the pot and removed it from the coal-fed cook stove. Cautiously, she set it on the work table in the center of the room and paused to fan herself with the potholder. The September days might be gentling, but with the stove heated up for baking, the kitchen was as warm as a summer’s day. Next, Polly drizzled chocolate from a small spoon over each of the balls of gooey goodness already awaiting on a flat tray.
A flurry of movement behind her announced Mrs. Adams’s entry through the butler’s pantry into the kitchen. “Is that chocolate I smell, or does my nose deceive me?”
Without raising her eyes from her task, Polly continued her artful drizzling. “Yes, it most certainly is. I thought I might take a batch of something special to Pastor and Mrs. Swanstrom. They’ve helped so many people through hardships this last year. I want them to know how much they’re appreciated.”
A broom swished behind her. “I see your tongue poking out. It must be quite delicate work.”
Polly pulled the tip of her tongue from the corner of her mouth. She had the habit of pinching it between her lips while in deep concentration. She straightened. “There we go. All done.” She moved to set down the spoon, but on second thought, shrugged and licked it clean. “Perfect.” Spinning to pop the spoon into a pan of warm, sudsy water in the sink, she turned again and stepped back to display the perfect candies. “Ta-da!”
Mrs. Adams paused from sweeping and leaned forward to peer at the tray. “They do look good, if I say so myself.”
“Make sure you try one once the chocolate completely sets. I’ll leave us a little sampling on a plate.”
“Just one. I’m afraid I’ve sampled a few too many of your treats lately. If I keep it up, I’ll have to let some of the gathers out on my skirts.”
Polly put an arm around Mrs. Adams’s shoulders and squeezed her. “You’re the most wonderful guinea pig. I miss Grandpa terribly, but I can still count on you.”
The woman grunted with a grin and returned to her task, moving on with her broom into the dining room.
Amanda Adams had been her grandfather’s housekeeper since Polly was a little girl, coming to work for him as a young widow with a boy to raise. When Grandpa Holloway passed on last winter, he’d left his friend and housekeeper a living stipend, should she choose to stay on. If not, she would take a severance and make do some other way. Polly thought Mrs. Adams might decide to move away and live with her boy Lester when he returned from overseas back in April, but Lester took a tiny two-room apartment while trying for steady work in the Twin Cities, and Mrs. Adams didn’t want to intrude on him there. He took the train across the river one Sunday a month to attend church with his mother and spend the day with her.
If only Glenn had been able to come home in April when Lester did.
Polly wrung out the wet dish rag in a silent pining for Glenn and focused her yearning on wiping crumbs from the work table. During the war, she’d worried herself sick at times. There had been long periods when she’d heard no word from him, especially in the dark days toward the end. So very many men had died, if not in battle, then from the Spanish flu. Thankfully, Glenn was spared the illness, as was her household. Grandfather passed away before the disease came to their small western Wisconsin town, and she and Mrs. Adams kept to themselves during the worst of it, only going out to deliver gift baskets of soup and bread and the occasional clean blanket to the doorsteps of the ill.
When the war ended and demobilization finally began, Polly dreamed Glenn would show up on her doorstep any day. But the War Department hadn’t figured for such a swift end to the hostilities, and they’d not planned a way to get all those millions of soldiers back home in a smooth and orderly fashion. Finally, the Emergency Fleet Corporation authorized American shipyards to convert cargo ships already under construction into troop transports. Those ships, along with dozens of European passenger ships, were eventually fitted to carry American soldiers home.
So, month by month, the troops returned. In June alone, nearly 368,000 men were sent home—including Glenn, at last. Unfortunately, while trains carried their boys back to farms and cities across the land, Glenn hadn’t come all the way to Wisconsin but remained as a clerk for his commander back in New York. He still didn’t write often, not even now that he was back. He had so much correspondence to handle for the colonel, he complained that sometimes writing one more letter at the end of the day was just too much. But she remembered one.
Don’t worry, Polly. I’ll get there when I can. I’ve made myself too invaluable to him, and he just won’t sign my release papers. It’ll be okay. It’s not like I have a job waiting for me back in Wisconsin. I’m sure Hudson isn’t bursting with employment vacancies.
That was true. Glenn’s previous bookkeeping job before he enlisted had been swallowed up by someone else. Lots of fellows coming home from war were finding it hard to get their old jobs back or find new ones. The market was flooded with unemployed soldiers for employers to pick from.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it was good he kept on with his position as long as the colonel needed him.
At least he was safe now.
Oh, but she missed him. Their one phone call when he first came ashore wasn’t enough to satisfy her need to hear his voice, and they’d had to keep the call brief to save costs, even though she told him she could afford it.
It wasn’t as though Polly had much to spend her money on the past two years. Grandpa left her enough to live on if she were careful, along with his house, and her parents would never allow her to starve. If she had any other need, she could always call on them. Plus, Ned was home now too. He’d be continuing his medical education, no doubt. Dad would encourage it if Ned was having any doubts. Grandpa had left Ned his Chevrolet touring car and everything else out there in the sheds, as well as a bundle of money to contribute to his education.
Dad would be home with Mama soon too, she hoped. He’d gone over as a ship’s surgeon, and now he was filling in temporarily in a hospital down in Chicago, helping with all those wounded veterans. Mama still lived in Madison, keeping Dad’s office in shape for the day he returned to his own practice. But Daddy couldn’t ignore the need where the floodgates had opened.
Everyone she loved was scattered.
Polly finished up the dishes and hung the rag to dry. Then, careful not to slosh, she poured the pan of water down the drain. Grandpa had brought drainage into the house for the kitchen, though they still depended on the hand pump by the sink and the water reservoir on the cook stove for hot water.
With a swipe of her hands over her apron, she untied and tugged it over her head and hung it on the hook beside the back door. Leaving the kitchen through the butler’s pantry, she moved through the dining room and hall to the back of the house and pushed through the wooden screen door leading to the covered back veranda. A breeze immediately brushed over her, cooling her skin as it swept across her lawn from the west where the broad St. Croix ran only a couple of streets distant, separating the Wisconsin and Minnesota shores.
She folded her arms and leaned onto the porch railing, pulling in a deep breath and letting it out again. Nothing smelled better than this air. Not even chocolate.
The breeze tugged on her hair, and her hairpin slipped to her chin. She pulled it free then reached up and pulled out several more pins, tucking them into her dress pocket. With a push of her fingers, she freed the twist to tumble down, long and straight. She’d have to give it a good brushing and fix it up again before she carried the plate of bonbons over to the parsonage.
Maybe she’d bring Pastor and Mrs. Swanstrom some fresh flowers from the bed on the west side too. Straightening, Polly took the three wide steps down onto a bricked walk that stretched from the veranda and wrapped around the side of the three-story Queen Anne and back to the street front. She paused along the flower bed Mrs. Adams had so painstakingly weeded and selected a few late summer blooms.
Sometimes the fact that Grandpa had left her his grand house was still a little too much to comprehend. She didn’t think it would ever feel like it belonged to her, at least not until she and Glenn got married and they could live there together, turning it into something of their own. She hadn’t changed a thing yet, and she especially avoided making alterations to Grandpa’s room. It seemed like it should be his for a while longer. Maybe after the wedding, the time would come. They could replace the wall coverings and rugs and curtains, and make it a bright and welcoming place for newlyweds. Grandpa wouldn’t mind.
She continued to the front of the house and shaded her eyes to glance over it. Her gaze carried from the tiny parlor in the ground floor turret where she loved to read, up past the bedrooms, and to the third floor with the wide-open space that Polly used to pretend was a ballroom. Painted in shades of beige with white trim, the house made a lovely foreground to the natural scenery behind it.
A car door slammed down the block and across the street. Polly turned. Someone had parked off the main street alongside the corner tavern, which remained a gathering place even with prohibition recently signed into law. To Polly’s mind, it was the only blot on the neighborhood.
Oh, it was that Mr. Dalton, the owner—not the father but the son. He turned from his car and caught her looking his way. He put on a smile and lifted his fedora in greeting. Polly’s hair blew strands across her face, and she tucked it behind her ear with a curt nod. Mr. Dalton had returned from war hale and hardy it seemed. She’d heard rumors he’d earned a medal for heroism or some such. Or was it that someone had heroically saved him? She gave a mental shrug as Mr. Dalton turned away and strode into his building, and the thought of medals and her neighbor fell away.
Polly wrinkled her nose and scanned the horizon up and down the street. Trees scattered around her neighborhood and rose behind other buildings, crowning the town, with the steeple of the church peeking up a few blocks farther on. The afternoon sun striking that side of the street alighted the sight. She did love her little town on the banks of the river, quiet and peaceful as it was. She hadn’t grown up here, only visited, but once she’d come to live with Grandpa last year, it seemed as though she’d always called this place home. She would love it even more when Glenn returned to marry her and they could settle down together.
She headed toward the front porch as the snappy rhythm of a ragtime tune reached her from down the street. She should get that tray of goodies to the parsonage before Mrs. Swanstrom got busy cooking their family’s evening meal, if she wasn’t already doing so. Humming along with the tune, she marched up the steps and strolled inside into the front hall, then passed the small parlor on the right and turned through the French doors leading into the living room on the left. There Polly paused.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” She shook away the bawdy love song Oh Frenchy that had wound into her head about an American nurse serving in Paris who’d fallen in love with her French patient. Of course, it had come through the door of that establishment down the road when Mr. Dalton passed through. She didn’t want a song like that ringing in her ears, especially while she was getting ready to visit the pastor’s home. She forced another song to her lips, a favorite hymn, as she passed through the dining room where sunshine gleamed on one of her grandmother’s special vases.
“Mrs. Adams? I’m going to leave just as soon as I change.” She peered into the butler’s pantry, but Mrs. Adams wasn’t there, and there wasn’t any sound of her coming from the kitchen. She headed back into the hall. She’d just started up the long stairs for her room where she could change into a fresh dress and pin up her hair when Mrs. Adams called from above.
“Polly!” Her voice sounded frantic. “Heavens’ sake ... Polly!” She appeared in a flurry on the landing above.
Polly stopped midway on the stairs. “I’m coming. What—” Stopped short by the flush on Mrs. Adams face, Polly frowned. “What is the matter?”
Mrs. Adams jerked to a halt. “There you are.” She pointed past Polly. “He’s here. It’s him! I saw him walking up, from the upstairs window.”
“Who is here?” Mr. Dalton next door? But why should he concern Mrs. Adams? “I was just outside moments ago. You must have heard me come in. I saw Mr. Dalton returning to his establishment.”
Someone knocked on the door.
Polly flicked her windblown hair over her shoulders and continued up the stairs. “Do answer the door, Mrs. Adams, if you don’t mind.”
The housekeeper shook her head, blocking the landing with her animated stance. “You need to answer it,” she stated matter-of-factly, and then her face broke into a smile that lit her eyes with delight. “Hurry.”
Polly put a hand on her head and tugged at a shank of mussed strands. “My hair is tangled, and I smell like a chocolate bar.”
“It’s just fine.”
Fine? She looked like a harridan. Mrs. Adams couldn’t want her to go out in front of anyone like that, not even the paperboy. She almost never wore her hair down anymore. None of the girls from school did. Some of them even had theirs cut short. “Won’t you just tell me who it is?” Polly turned to obey.
“You’ll see.” Her mysterious tone set Polly’s heart beating a little faster. The way Mrs. Adams was behaving, it couldn’t be any of her close friends, nor even an acquaintance or their pastor. Could it be her brother, Ned, home to see her? Or had her parents come from downstate for a visit? Or... Her heart leaped.
It couldn’t be Glenn, could it?
She rapidly pulled her hair back and twisted it, trying her best to contain the silky strands somehow, but it wouldn’t stay, not without pins or a braid. She remembered the pins in her pocket and poked a few of them into place, but there wasn’t time to do it properly. It was useless.
“Oh...” She growled. “It’s probably no one important anyway.” Mrs. Adams did stir pots sometimes without meaning to. Polly smoothed back the long strands over her shoulders and quickened her steps to the front door as another knock came. “Coming!” She forced calm cheer into her voice and opened the door.
And swayed. Then clutched the edge of the door. She could only stare for another moment as Glenn—her Glenn whom she hadn’t seen in fifteen months—removed his cap. “Hello, Polly.”
She cried out. “You’re here!” With only a moment’s hesitation, she fell against him.
Dear, dear Glenn. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. How solid he felt. How real. After so, so many months apart, he’d come back. Real, living, breathing flesh standing before her, and he seemed more wonderful, more hers than he had ever been in all their time together as a couple. Instant memories flashed of their first embrace and when he’d asked her to be his steady back in college, three years ago. And then he’d graduated and gone to war. Polly finished school, then she’d done nothing but wait and live with her memories since. The last time he’d held her was when he proposed, just the day before he boarded the train to training camp.
Her throat tightened as tears crept into her eyes. Oh, how many times she feared she’d never get to hold him again, but now ... now Glenn was home!
“I’m sorry I had to keep you waiting so long,” he whispered against the top of her head. He braced her arms with his strong hands.
She raised her face and blinked away the moisture, wanting him to kiss her. “It’s all right.” Her whole body quivered. “Now everything is all right.”
A line creased his brow for only a moment and disappeared. “You look good, Polly. Just like I knew you would. You came through all right.”
She nodded, her face turned upward, awaiting the touch of his lips, but he released her arms and stepped back, the kiss unbestowed. Her heart ached with longing, but maybe the long separation made him unsure.
He seemed ... different. Changed somehow. Grown older. Ah, yes. The war probably was the reason, and many other experiences even since then that he’d been through and she hadn’t shared. Or was he nervous, and maybe just shy of her after all this time?
Perhaps she was the one who should feel that way. Her father would say it wasn’t ladylike to throw herself into a man’s arms at first sight, especially into the arms of a man who’d spent the past many months soldiering. She should be thankful Glenn was a decent sort of fellow who wouldn’t take advantage of a girl yearning for his attention, even if they were engaged.
“You’re all right, Glenn?” She swallowed, searching for a more proper reintroduction. “How’s your mother? How’s Marge? Is she going to be all right?”
Glenn nodded, but his square jaw was tight. “I’m fine. They’re all fine. Well ... Marge of course is... It’s going to take a while.”
Glenn’s sister Marge was a widow now. Her husband Andrew had been killed less than a year ago during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. The casualty numbers had been staggering on both sides, and the only blessing there could be for Marge in such a thing was that there were no children, although maybe that wasn’t true either. Marge had expressed wishing there was a child to carry on Drew’s name.
“I’m so sorry for her.” She reached for Glenn’s hand. “Come inside. Let’s sit down together. You’re probably hungry. I’ll get you something. Did you take the train or drive? The train of course.” She was rambling, full of words that meant nothing. What she wanted really to say was that she loved him.
“I’m not hungry. I ate a sandwich just a little while ago. A cup of coffee would be nice if you have it.” He held his hat in one hand, and now he pushed the other across his short-cropped, light brown hair.
“I’ll make a fresh pot.”
“I don’t want to make you work.”
“I have chocolate.”
“I smelled it on you.” There was a smile in his voice as though he was finally relaxing just a little.
She tugged him through the door and into the parlor. “You know me. I love to bake. I’ve been baking up a storm since the rationing ended. Have a seat, and I’ll be right back.”
“Wait a minute, Polly.”
She turned to him. Glenn took her shoulders, and her heart throbbed. Then he laid a soft kiss to her forehead.
“Why don’t you sit down.” He indicted the love seat with his twisted cap.
A crawling feeling inched over her, and despite her desire to hurry to the kitchen and fix him a tray of bonbons and coffee, she obeyed and lowered herself to the cushioned seat. Raising her gaze to his serious face, the crawling feeling worsened into an itch.
“You look serious.” She pulled in a breath and eased it out. Maybe he was going to propose again. Yet she didn’t really think so. “Glenn—”
“Let me get this out. Forget the coffee and whatever concoction you’ve made up for a moment. Polly”—he dropped to a knee and grasped her hand—“I have something to tell you.” His Adam’s apple climbed his throat and fell with an audible swallow.
Polly’s breaths came in tiny leaps. He really was proposing again ... wasn’t he? Some other sensation told her that wasn’t the case, but she wouldn’t ask what was wrong, though with every passing second, she knew something must be terribly so. She couldn’t imagine what it could be. Was he not coming home to stay? Not yet? Was it only a visit?
“Polly, I have to call off our engagement.”
She jerked her hand away, but he reached for it and pulled it back, holding it tightly so she couldn’t get free without a tussle. And she tried. She would have jumped to her feet, but he blocked the way, still there on his knees, gripping her hand.
“Call it off? You mean postpone it? Are you injured? What is it, Glenn? Hurry up and spit it out.” She was scared and hurting and angry and trying desperately not to be any of those things.
He was shaking his head. “No. None of that. Polly ...” There went his Adam’s apple again, and he averted his eyes. “I can’t marry you. I’m... You see... I’m already married.”
“What?” Now she did leap to her feet, almost knocking him backward as he let go of her hand. “What do you mean, already married? How can that be? You’re making no sense.” Her chest felt like it might burst open.
He stood before her. “I’m married, Poll. I married a girl in France.”
“You—” A billion words and thoughts screamed through her brain, creating a cacophony that she couldn’t draw a single one from. She swayed but pushed away when he tried to catch her arms. “Don’t.” Looking down at his hands stretched out to catch her, she gripped his left one and looked at it then dropped it—or rather—shoved it away. “You’ve no ring. Are you really married? If you don’t love me, just say so. Don’t make up a story. Not after all this time.”
“You know me better than that, Polly. I wouldn’t lie. I wouldn’t say such a thing.”
“Yet apparently you’ve been lying for months now.”
“I’ve been waiting to see you in person. It wasn’t the sort of thing to write in a letter or say on the telephone.”
“You still lied.”
“No, I didn’t. Think on it, Polly. I never talked once about us getting married. Not after last Christmas.”
That truth slammed into her. He never had.
“But you intimated.”
“No. I only said we’d be fine. And we will be. Both of us, only not together. You’ll be fine, Polly.”
“But you didn’t have to say anything more. We were already engaged.”
“I asked and you said yes, but I never gave you a ring or anything. There was never anything binding. I was leaving, and—”
“Glenn Mitchell! Are you saying you only asked in the emotion of the moment? That you didn’t mean it? This is a breach of promise!” Her voice pitched louder.
“Well of course I meant it, but I was foolish. I was afraid. I was—”
“How could you? I waited for you.” Tears oozed into her eyes, blurring him. He touched her shoulder, but she shrugged away.
“It was something that happened. You don’t really want to hear about it. I met Giselle in Paris, on leave, and then—”
“Stop!” She threw her hand up in front of him. “You’re right. I don’t want to hear about it.” She reached into her dress pocket but had no hankie. Glenn held out his and she swiped it from his hand, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose.
“I’m sorry. I know I handled it wrong.”
She shook her head and blew again. Then she walked past him and plopped on a chair, a tightrope of anger and hurt vibrating inside her as she tried to find her balance. “I can’t believe it. You let me think... All this time... A letter would have been kinder.”
“You’re probably right, but it didn’t seem like the way to own up to what I did. I knew it would hurt. I had to face you.”
She shot a look at him through a veil of tears. “Well, you’ve faced me. Just leave now, won’t you?”
“I really couldn’t come right away. It’s true I was tied down to Colonel Phipps. And I had to wait for Giselle to get here with other war brides, but she’s here now, and we’ll be settling down in a little place downtown. It’s just a small apartment.” He sounded now like he was rambling. “I thought you ought to know.”
She stared at him through glazed eyes, offering him her hardest stare. “You’re moving back here? Thanks for the warning. I’ll see to it that I never darken your path.”
“Polly...”
She stood and brushed past him out of the parlor and led the way back to the front door. Swinging it wide, she stood back.
“I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Really, I didn’t.”
She lifted her chin and denied herself the sniff that threatened to give way to a greater shedding of tears. She cast her glance away and waited for him to leave.
“Goodbye, Polly. I did love you.” He stepped out, and only then did she look at his back as he paused to tug his cap back on, then he moved on down the porch steps.
Polly’s face crumpled along with her heart, and she quietly closed the door and lay her forehead against it.
“Polly? Sweetheart?” Mrs. Adam spoke tentatively. Polly hadn’t even heard her approach. “Where is Glenn? Is everything—”
Polly turned around, her eyes blinded with tears.
“Polly!” Mrs. Adams opened her arms, and Polly fell into her embrace.
“Oh!” All her heartache and bitterness groaned out in that one single word as she sobbed.
Mrs. Adams’ stroked her head. “He’s gone and left you then, I take it. My poor, poor girl.”

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