Polly's Business Venture — Reading Companion

(0 User reviews) 1291

In Category - Fantasy Juvenile Worlds

Authors: Roy, Lillian Elizabeth, 1868-1932 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2008 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: New York (N.Y.) -- Juvenile fiction; Adventure and adventurers -- Juvenile fiction; Girls -- Juvenile fiction Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 66,604

Reading time 290 min

Text sections 8

For Polly's Business Venture — Reading Companion, the stored edition analysis reports 66,604 words, 4 hr 50 min estimated reading time, and 8 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 17.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “New York (N.Y.) -- Juvenile fiction,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #25778

Polly Brewster returns from Europe and plunges into antique collecting with friends, navigating auctions, heirlooms, and business deals in 1920s New Jersey. The narrative moves between shipboard banter, car trips, and farmhouse sales, with recurring attention to material objects and their histories.

Editorial Edition Score 4.7/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Calculated from edition completeness, EPUB availability, text structure and catalogue metadata. Not a user rating.

How this score is calculated

Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg25778

Read the Text

Dorothy was now certain that Polly had a real beau, somewhere, and being so very candid and talkative herself, she admired the reticence displayed by Polly in keeping the affairs of her heart to herself.

Dodo whispered back to Eleanor: "Dear me! I hope he is worthy of her. She ought to have the finest husband in the world."

Eleanor laughed. "Don't worry, Dodo. She will. If he was not meant for Polly, I'd try and get him for myself--that is how much I admire him."

"Oh my! Won't you tell me something about him, Nolla?" asked Dorothy, eagerly.

"I really don't dare, Dodo," returned Eleanor, assuming a wise expression. "Polly would drop me forever, if she thought I confided in anyone about her love-affairs. Besides, you can find out everything for yourself, now that you are going to remain with us, this winter. Still, I would love to know just who that wireless came from." Eleanor added the latter remark after a moment's deep consideration.

"I'll tell you what we can do," ventured Dorothy, in a whisper. "We have often visited the wireless room; let's you and I go there again, and start a friendly chat with the operator. Maybe he will speak of the message."

Without stopping to think whether this method would be principled or not, Eleanor eagerly agreed to Dorothy's plan. While Polly and Nancy were discussing the beautiful hazy picture made by New York's sky-line as seen from the Harbor at Quarantine, Dorothy and Eleanor hurried to the wireless room.

The young man had often been entertained by the girls during the trip from Europe, so this visit was not suspected of having a secret motive back of it. He chatted pleasantly with his callers and, after a time, spoke of the very topic they wished to hear about.

"I suppose you girls will all be on the _qui vive_ this evening?"

"Yes, it is awfully nice of the captain, isn't it?" said Eleanor, referring to the dance and thinking that the operator also meant that event.

"Oh, I do not think the captain had as much to do with the invitation as had the Inspector General of the Quarantine. Of course we have a clean bill for the ship or no one would have been allowed to step on board tonight; but at the same time your friends must have had a good hard time to get the invitation from the authorities. Only a New Yorker who understands the ropes, could have managed the matter so quickly."

Dorothy was about to ask what he was talking about, when Eleanor pinched her arm for silence. Then the latter spoke: "Oh yes! He is a wonder--we think!"

Dorothy gasped at Eleanor, and the smiling girl winked secretly at her. The operator had not seen the pinch nor the wink, but he continued guilelessly: "Well, from what I've seen of Miss Polly, only a 'wonder' would cause her to notice him at all!"

He laughed at his own words and Eleanor joined him, even though she failed to see a joke. Then she said: "Polly could have so _many_ admirers, but she never looks at a man. Perhaps that is why all you males sigh so broken-heartedly at her heels."

The young man laughed softly to himself. "Maybe! But this 'Tom' seems to feel assured of a 'look' from her."

Now it was Dorothy's turn to pinch Eleanor, and she did so with great gusto. Eleanor winced but dared not express herself in any other manner, just then. She was too keen on the trail of learning what she could, to signify any sense of having felt that pinch.

"Oh--Tom! He is an old family friend, you know. He was Polly's brother's college-chum for four years while both boys studied at the University of Chicago. I am from Chicago, and I knew those boys when they used to come to my home with my brother, who also attended the engineering classes. There was a fourth boy--Paul Stewart, who was from Denver. Anne Stewart was his sister and she married John Brewster, this Spring. So you see, we are all old friends together. I suppose the whole family crowd will come out on the yacht, tonight."

Dorothy listened in sheer amazement, as Eleanor spoke with all the assurance possible. But Dorothy was not aware of Eleanor's lifelong training in the home of a social leader of Chicago's exclusive set. That such a home-training made a girl precocious and subtle, was not strange, and Eleanor had had fourteen years of such a life before she went to Pebbly Pit and met Polly. Habits so well-engrounded are not easily broken, or forgotten.

Continue Reading →

The story opens not with a business venture but with a shipboard scene: five girls promenade the deck of an Atlantic liner on the last day of the voyage. A wireless message arrives for Polly Brewster, and the group’s banter—teasing, sarcastic, affectionate—immediately establishes the social dynamics that will carry through the book. The excerpt shows Polly’s characteristic blend of impatience and control: she walks aside to read the message, and the narrator notes she “would have given half of her mine on Grizzly Slide, to have controlled her expression.” That mine, mentioned in passing, hints at a prior adventure and a source of independence.

Movement Between Scenes

The narrative structure relies on quick, often abrupt transitions between settings. A shipboard conversation gives way to a telephone call, then to a drive through Morristown, then to an auction room with a tacked-up note. These shifts are not lingered upon; the reader is carried along by the momentum of plans being made and leads being followed. The automobile is a frequent device—Mrs. Fabian has Carl stop at Mr. Van Styne’s auction rooms, and later they discuss when Carl can arrange a trip to Parsippany. Movement is practical, goal-oriented, and rarely scenic for its own sake.

Recurring Objects and Their Stories

Objects in the excerpts are never merely decorative. A quilt is described in detail: its pieces bear the printed names of fabrics from an ancestor’s gowns, and it comes with instructions to keep tar-paper or tobacco in it against moths. Polly wants it “not for its value in money but really to hold it as a precious patriotic reminder.” The auctioneer’s letter mentions “queer old things” that might otherwise be split up for kindlings. Each object carries a provenance and a potential narrative, and the characters treat them as clues to the past rather than commodities.

Voice and Dialogue Patterns

The dialogue is marked by playful exaggeration and retort. Eleanor accuses Polly of wanting “a few extra thrills,” and Polly fires back that Eleanor makes “a mountain from a mole-hill” and is “growing to be childish in your old age.” The exchange draws a laugh, but Polly fails to join in—a small detail that signals her seriousness beneath the banter. The speech rhythms are colloquial and period-appropriate, with phrases like “I reckon so” and “whiles I live.” The characters often speak in complete, slightly formal sentences, even when teasing, which gives the conversations a deliberate, almost staged quality.

The Business of Collecting

Collecting antiques is presented as a systematic pursuit. Mrs. Fabian writes to the auctioneer to ask “what sort of things the people have,” and Eleanor dismisses the possibility of “horrid old modern stuff.” The letter from Mr. Van Styne is valued for its honesty—he admits he is not enough of a connoisseur to judge actual value. This emphasis on knowledge and trust suggests that the business venture is as much about discernment and relationships as it is about acquisition. The Parsippany vendue is framed as an opportunity, but one that requires advance scouting and careful judgment.

Readers attentive to the interplay of objects and social maneuvering will find the book’s pleasures in its details: the way a quilt’s fabric tells a family story, the offhand mention of a mine that funds Polly’s independence, the auctioneer who admits his own limits. The narrative moves briskly from ship to car to farmhouse, and the dialogue keeps the characters in constant, lively negotiation with each other and with the past.

Polly’s antiques carry their own quiet tales, each chipped vase and faded portrait a patient witness. That same hush of accumulated history lingers in The Head Girl at the Gables — Reading Companion, where young lives unfold among old walls. I’ve often felt these two share a shelf-bound friendship, their girls learning what objects—and people—truly hold.