“‘The wisest finding that I haveIs very young, no doubt,Yet many a man must needs grow oldBefore he finds it out.“‘How happily it comes about–And I was never told!–That we must all be young awhileBefore wecanbe old!’”
“‘The wisest finding that I haveIs very young, no doubt,Yet many a man must needs grow oldBefore he finds it out.“‘How happily it comes about–And I was never told!–That we must all be young awhileBefore wecanbe old!’”
Dr. Helen laughed. “That is certainly very appropriate, and a good close to our rather sermonizing talk. I suppose fifty-year-old birthday parties should lead one to serious thinking! But now show me how far your nonsense rhyming has progressed. It’s nearly supper time.”
The Three R’s were early comers and late stayers. Before the summer twilight was over, they had gathered in force. Alice, counting, suddenly said:
“Why, there are just forty-nine. Wouldn’t it be fun if just one more should come?”
“Who isn’t here?” asked some one. “Perhaps262there will be one other, though almost everybody has come.”
“The Judge himself isn’t here yet,” said Dr. Harlow. “He’ll make the fiftieth. There he is! Let’s line up, and give him a royal welcome!”
The suggestion “took,” and the little judge came up the walk, bowing on all sides, and smiling. As he reached the door and shook hands with Dr. Harlow and Dr. Helen, he looked about him peeringly. “Where’s my girl?” he asked.
“Here I am,” said Catherine, “and here is a little souvenir for you, Judge Arthur, with wishes for many returns of the day.” She presented with a flourish, a huge feather duster adorned with a great green bow. That was the signal and the others at once produced parcels of all sizes and shapes, and bestowed them upon the judge, who opened them under a rapid fire of friendly wit.
The special form of recreation offered for the evening was called “Strange Compounds.” Catherine had taken the idea from the nonsense verses which had been spreading over the country as generally as the limericks of a few years before. The guests grouped themselves at little tables, and some, with shears and pages cut from old natural histories, geographies or poultry and live stock journals, created grotesque illustrations for the verses descriptive of the hippopotamustang and the kangarooster and other strange beasts which263Catherine and Alice concocted during the afternoon. Others labored over historical combinations and the deeds of Bathrobespierre were sung in limpid strains, and the plaintive history of Old Black Joan of Archæology set every one off into a gale of mirth. The Three R’s had done so many foolish things together in the many years since their beginning as a club, that they were ready to laugh before a joke was thought of, and in that atmosphere of appreciation the frailest wit was bound to flourish. Mrs. Osgood headed a party of gardeners whose attempts at grafting produced such startling results as cro-custards and gerani-umbrellas. When some one requested help in developing the theme of a disaster, Judge Arthur shouted from the animal table that he had attempted to draw a wild-cat-astrophe and the picture would probably do for both!
Just in time to save them all from mental collapse, the white-gowned maidens brought in the dainty salad, sandwiches and cups of fragrant coffee. Then the noble birthday cake, wreathed in scarlet flame, was set before the judge, the candles blown out with good wishes, and the cake cut and served with the ice.
Dr. Harlow rose to announce that the prize for the most complete compound was given to Mr. Kittredge, who had conceived of a “pigeon-toad, with a lovely long dove-tail, and a pot-pied waistcoat264ringed and streaked, and a sweet dove-cot-ton veil.” Frieda and Hannah came solemnly into the room, bearing a crate, from the top of which appeared the head of a rooster, with a big bow of ribbon around its neck. They set it down before the minister amid the shouts of the assembled company.
“You may crow as much as you like, Sir,” said the doctor, “but this fellow will beat you.” And straightway, as though primed for his part, the rooster opened his mouth and filled the room with a long and lusty cock-a-doodle-doo!
“I was so afraid they would hear him before we brought him in,” said Frieda to the girls, as the four gathered on the window-seat. “He kept growing and growing out there!” and then she looked bewildered at the others’ sudden mirth. Her peculiarities of pronunciation were so few that the girls could never learn to expect them, and this, added to the other nonsense of the evening, was too much for even Catherine’s self-control.
“I never saw grown-up people do such funny things,” said Hannah, in order to cover their laughter. “Do they always act this way, Catherine?”
“O, no, indeed. I never saw them put in a whole evening quite so foolishly before. I didn’t know whether they would take the idea up or not, but Judge Arthur loves to laugh, and lately mother said265they had had quite stupid commonplace meetings,–cards and talking politics and literary and musical programs,–and she wanted something entirely different. They’re a lot of dears, anyway! The younger set wouldn’t think of laughing so hard and being so hilarious, even the Boat Club; and you should see the formal dignified parties that the Galleghers and those girls give! They go in carriages and the dancing doesn’t begin till nine, though every one has a six o’clock supper and almost goes to sleep waiting for it to be stylishly late to go. Max and Archie and Bess and Win always go, and sometimes the rest of us get in, but we hardly feel acquainted with each other when we meet in such surroundings. Polly’s mother told her she ought to entertain that crowd a while ago, because she was ‘indebted,’ and she planned a luncheon party, and at the last minute changed her mind and got up a Boat Club picnic instead. That was the last picnic before you girls came.”
“I’ve heard so much about those jolly picnics,” said Hannah, “and we haven’t been to one!”
“I know. Isn’t it odd that it happens so? But we’ll have one the night before we go back to college. The moon will be full, and the boys have all the plans made. There! They’re beginning to leave.” And Catherine went forward to help her mother’s guests find hats and scarfs.
“I never heard Catherine talk so much at once266before,” said Frieda lazily. “She looks beautiful to-night, too,–to boot!” She had just heard that phrase and though a little uncertain as to its exact significance, took pleasure in inserting it here and there in her speech.
“She’s a darling dear,” assented Alice, “and so is Dr. Helen, to boot! Now let’s help Inga clear things away and go to bed.”
A half-hour later, Frieda and Alice in the guest-room were sound asleep, and Hannah in her little bed was sleeping likewise. But Catherine was sitting by the window writing, by moon and candle light, notes for theCourier, due to appear to-morrow, and still lacking at least two columns! She wrote slowly and conscientiously, trying to be clear and simple, and yet not so unlike the usual style of theCourieras to excite comment. Presently she finished and, resting her elbows on the window-sill, looked out into the night. Capella twinkled at her and she leaned out to identify such of her beloved constellations as she could.
The house stood high on a hillside, and overlooked the streets of the little town. Suddenly through the trees Catherine saw the gleam of a moving lantern, then another and a third. She heard a voice call, and an answer from a distance.
“I wonder what it means?” she thought, watching and listening. “It sounds and looks very mysterious.The Courier!”
267The recently acquired news instinct recognized in this mystery of voices and moving lights at the dead of night a possible “scoop” for her paper. To be sure, her paper was the only one in Winsted, but that did not matter. She got up, and taking a long light cloak from the closet threw it over her shoulders, drawing the silk hood over her head. Then she stole out into the corridor and down the stairs, her party skirts rustling, and the boards now and then creaking under her stockinged feet. Down stairs she stopped, put on her pumps, and then let herself out, closing the door softly behind her.
Outside everything was very still. Catherine felt a little frightened and foolish. But having started, she would not turn back. Resolutely she went down the walk in the direction in which she had seen the lights.
“I might take Hotspur, though,” she thought, and turned back toward his house under the porch. The big dog sprang up to meet her, and leaped upon her, then drew her toward his kennel. Puzzled, Catherine followed him, and once there, knelt down and looked inside. Curled on the straw inside the roomy doghouse were two little figures. She pulled at them and called. Suddenly one sat up and said: “Mamma! Peter!”
“Perdita Osgood! what are you doing here?” and Catherine drew a sleepy dishevelled-looking268little girl out and into her arms. Perdita blinked and woke entirely.
“Elsmere and me went journeying,” she said, “and we stayed all night in Hotspur’s house, so bears wouldn’t get us.”
Then Catherine remembered the other slumberer, and dragged Elsmere out with more force than gentleness.
“I see now what the lights and the calling were,” she said. “They discovered that the children were not at home, and were out looking for them. Poor Polly and poor Algernon! Elsmere, wake up here, and come along home this minute. There, Perdita, I’ll carry you, you sleepy, naughty little girl. Elsmere, come along. Give me your hand.”
Down the hill they went, and through the short cut to the Osgood house, Elsmere running beside Catherine, who walked as rapidly as though Perdita had no weight, Hotspur leaping and bounding alongside.
In the path, through a little grove, they saw a twinkling lantern and Catherine called:
“Polly, Algernon! They’re here! I’m bringing them home.” With a rush the lantern-bearers were upon her, and Perdita was taken from her arms into Mr. Osgood’s, while Algernon, husky and faint with relief, picked up his brother and listened to Catherine’s story. She followed the others to the Osgoods’, where Polly and Mrs. Osgood were waiting269in suspense. Perdita had been put to bed as usual, but when Mrs. Osgood came home from the Three R’s party she had gone in to tuck the children up, and kiss them good night. Perdita was not there, and they searched the house before they thought of being alarmed. Not finding her anywhere, they had roused Peter and questioned him. He could only say: “I say, ‘Perdita, Perdita, stay home with Peter. Elsmere bad boy.’”
That suggested Elsmere, and investigation showed that, though he had not been missed at home, he was not there. Then the men had taken lanterns, and gone out to search.
No one was more distressed than Peter. “I’d ought to tooken care of Perdita better,” he would sob. “I’d ought to watched her better.”
“There, there, boy,” Catherine and Polly soothed him. “You did your best, and she’s home now, all safe, and won’t go journeying again, ever. She didn’t like Hotspur’s house, and she will stay home with Peter.”
“O, Catherine,” sighed Polly. “You are an only child, and you don’t know what agonies you can have over your brothers and sisters. It seems to me ever since Peter and Perdita were born I’ve been worrying about one or both of them!”
“Poor Polly!” said Catherine sympathetically. “But I don’t suppose you’d give me your share in them, would you?”
270Polly caught Peter close, and hugged him till he protested and drew away from her.
“Kiss me,” she begged.
“I did,” said Peter.
“Kiss me again.”
“I did twice,” said Peter. “I want to go to bed. Aw-ful sleepy!” and, with a yawn that set the others to imitating him, he stumbled off toward the stairs, in his little night clothes. Polly followed to make him comfortable, while Mr. Osgood took Catherine home.
“You did us a great service to-night, my dear,” he said, as he lifted his hat to say good night, when she had reached her home porch. “But I haven’t learned yet how you happened to find them.”
“I was out reporting for theCourier,” she told him and then, laughing softly at his astonished expression, explained her meaning. “And though I did find out the news, I can’t write it up,” she sighed. “I know how real journalists feel when they have to sacrifice a scoop for reasons of delicacy.”
“TheCouriershall not suffer!” said Mr. Osgood. “Since it was for its sake that you went out, I’ll have to see that Max gets a little assistance. My profession doesn’t advertise, but I have some influence with one or two concerns that do, and I’ll see that your next number is full of something more profitable to the management than harrowing accounts of midnight searches for missing babies!”
Rain.
Rain.
Rain.
“It’s beastly,” said Alice, with her nose pressed to the window-pane, watching the cold drifting downpour.
“Let’s go in and see if the others are awake.”
So Frieda put on her heavy leather slippers, lined with figured satin and edged with fur, and a very bunchy bathrobe, and followed Alice’s kimonoed figure across the wide corridor to Catherine’s room.
They pushed the door softly open and entered.
Then they exchanged glances of mischief. Dr. Helen did not believe in girls sleeping two in a bed, but Alice had found the big mahogany bed in the guest-room lonely, and Frieda had found the cot narrow; so they had made a law for themselves and slept together; and here, in Catherine’s four-poster, were also two heads, one auburn and one brown.
272“Wake up, you two!” said Alice, tickling Hannah’s plump cheek, while Frieda tweaked the pink bow from Catherine’s bronze braids.
“Time to take off your pink bow, dear. It’s daylight and it looks worse than goldenrod with red ribbon.”
“Ouch! You needn’t have given that last yank. I’m awake. Hannah!”
Hannah sighed and turned over. “Don’t bother me,” she said. “I didn’t get to sleep last night until this morning.”
“Why aren’t you in your own room and bed?” asked Frieda severely.
“I’ll wager you two slept together, yourselves,” said Catherine. “O, Hannah, do wake up! It’s raining!”
“Yes, that’s what we came to tell you,” said Alice. “We’ve just been watching it wash away our beautiful moonlight picnic.”
Hannah sat up and looked out.
“Isn’t it beastly?” she remarked.
“I should call it foul,” said Catherine, beginning to comb out her great braids.
“Why not fish-ous?” suggested Alice mischievously, whereupon Hannah pitched a pillow at her.
“Ow! Look out for my glasses!”
“Well, don’t make such flat puns then. I believe you sleep with your glasses on. How funny they must look staring away in the dark. There goes273the rising-bell. I’ll beat every one of you to breakfast.”
Dr. Helen was not sorry to see the rain. An all afternoon picnic, with the evening and a late-rising moon added, did not seem to her a wise plan for the day before going back to college,–“though I do dislike putting a damper on your pleasure,” she said at breakfast.
“There’s a damper on this one,” sighed Catherine. “Alice has not been up the river yet, and the other girls haven’t been to one real Boat Club picnic. Mother!” and an inspired look came into Catherine’s eyes, “why couldn’t we have our picnic in the library instead? It would be as appropriate a way to end this summer as on the river, and this is one of the closed evenings. Don’t you think we could?”
The other girls held their breath with eagerness, while Dr. Helen considered.
“I don’t see any objection,” she said presently. “I suppose that would be more fun than having them all come here?”
“O, heaps more,” cried Hannah. “It would be the jolliest kind of a lark.”
“Would the Board be willing?” suggested Alice.
“I’m sure of that,” said Catherine. “Algernon will be the hardest to persuade, for he feels as though the library were almost holy ground, but I’ll interview him at once.”
The telephone was kept busy for the next half-hour;274by its means everything was arranged, and every one notified, and the girls went to work making preparations for the supper. Polly and Dot came over in the afternoon and the time slipped quickly by, trunk-packing and sandwich-making being mingled in what seemed to the doctor, some of the time, an almost hopeless jumble. At last the sounds of talk and laughter and running up and down stairs ceased. The boys had arrived to carry baskets, and a rain-coated procession tramped gayly off, waving good-bys now and then to the two doctors standing in the window.
“It hardly seems as though Catherine could be the same girl,” said her father. “She is so eager and full of fun.”
“But she keeps her quaint sweet dignity all the same,” answered Dr. Helen softly. “She will never lose her characteristic charm, and it is such a comfort to have her well enough to wish to eat a cold supper in that bare little room!”
“Can’t they heat the place?” asked Dr. Harlow sharply.
“O, yes,” his wife assured him, “and they have all solemnly promised me to dry their skirts as soon as they get there! Hannah always contrives to get into puddles.”
“She’snot much changed,” chuckled the little doctor. “Her language is as funny now and then as Frieda’s. She told me they were going to275relegate themselves on watermelon this evening!”
“It was a fortunate day for us when Catherine found her,” and Dr. Helen’s eyes smiled, as they always did when Hannah’s image came before her mind. “And, do you know, I am very much pleased with Alice. She has the honestest eyes, and her manners are as unconscious and simple as can be. I should like to see her mother.”
“Father’s not so important, of course! But I agree with you, she’s the true blue sort. It’s Frieda for me, though. Of all inscrutable countenances, hers is the most. I believe she is, on the whole, the most unforeseen young person I have ever had dealings with, and in whatever direction she may choose to let herself out, in the future, she will do something interesting, or ‘I shall astonish’!”
At which quotation from the young lady in question, they both laughed, and went out to their own supper, not at all sorry to have a quiet evening alone.
It was not a quiet evening in the little library. Behind the drawn shades, the boys and girls were busy spreading the long reading-table with a white cloth, setting out upon it the motley collection of plates, cups and silver ware which came out of the various picnic baskets, and an equally motley, but very appetizing, array of good things to eat. Winifred had laden Max with a chafing-dish, all legs and handles, he declared, and with this at one end,276Bess’ little copper teakettle at the other, Dorcas’ asters for centerpiece and Polly’s red-shaded candles at accurate intervals between, the whole effect was “very festival,” as Frieda said admiringly.
As a finishing touch, Bertha and Algernon, official hosts, walked around the table laying typewritten catalog cards at each place.
The others swarmed around instantly, examining and commenting.
“Cunning!” “Real library place cards!” “What a pretty idea!” “Butwhatdo they mean?”
Algernon and Bertha only laughed.
“No one can sit down till he has found his proper place,” said Algernon sternly. “This is a well-conducted library!”
“They all have the same number,” cried Bert. “I’m on to that. See! It’s the date, fixed up to look like the mystic symbols they mark the books with. 190.9 Se 16. September 16th, 1909. That’s so much, gained. Now some of you others can figure out the rest. I’ve done my share.”
The others wandered around the table, picking up the cards and laying them down again.
“Brightness, or Beauty,” read Polly, disgustedly. “Imagine any one of us owning up to that! Of course, we all know we have them both, but who is going to claim them?”
“It’s going to be a conflict between modesty and hunger soon, I can see that,” said Archie.
277“PeaceandPurityare all well enough. If I could find a half-way sort likePerfect HonestyorGenius, I’d stop there! What’s this?Bright Raven!I tell you, it’s a game, made out of book titles. But I’ll be jiggered if I ever heard of one of them.”
“I never did, either,” said Dorcas, shortly. “They must have hunted around in very queer places to find things that none of us know.Star of the Sea, though, does sound familiar. Isn’t it one of Tennyson’s?”
Bertha choked and turned away, avoiding Algernon’s eye.
“Hurry up, and find yours, the rest of you,” said Tom suddenly, “I’m fixed and I’m ready to eat.”
Every one pounced upon him, to discover that he had chosen to install himself at a place markedThe Whiskered One.
“I’m the only fellow here who ever wore a mustache,” he said, “so it’s plain, though rather far-fetched.”
“It’s not your place, though, Tom, truly,” said Bertha. “I’m afraid we’ll have to help. The librarian always does help stupid people.”
“We won’t ask him, though! If you two were bright enough to make these cards, we’ll figure out the meanings or go without our supper,” said Polly decisively, and the girls echoed her, though the boys groaned, and Max helped himself to a sandwich.
278“Now, listen,” said Polly. “I’m president of this club, and I call you all to order. I’ll read the cards, one after another and you must all think, and perhaps we’ll be able to get on to the system–I mean, to understand it.”
Every one struck an attitude and waited while Polly walked up one side of the table and down the other, reading aloud in order:
“The Whiskered One.Chastity.Star of the Sea.A Twin.Consecrated to God.Extremely Bold; or Holy Prince.Peace.A Lover of Peace.Brightness, or Beauty.The Greatest One.Purity.The Woman Strong with the Spear.Bright Raven.Grace.A Gazelle.A Princess of Noble Birth.”
“The Whiskered One.Chastity.Star of the Sea.A Twin.Consecrated to God.Extremely Bold; or Holy Prince.Peace.A Lover of Peace.Brightness, or Beauty.The Greatest One.Purity.The Woman Strong with the Spear.Bright Raven.Grace.A Gazelle.A Princess of Noble Birth.”
When she had finished, there was a moment’s silence and then everybody but Hannah burst out laughing.
With a little “O!” she flew across the room to the big dictionary, and opening it toward the back, dropped on her knees before it.
279“I have it!” she cried joyfully. “I used to study and study the meanings of names when I was a youngster, and here they are. Mine means Grace and I know where I’m going to sit, and the rest of you can find out in a minute.”
The long delayed supper was at last eaten, and sitting idly around the table, with watermelon rinds before them, the young people talked over the summer which seemed already closed.
“We’ve accomplished a lot, haven’t we?” said Polly. “I’m really proud of the Boat Club this year. It never used to stand for anything but its own fun before, but from now on it will be a recognized factor in Winsted life.”
“Bully for you, Polly!” said Bert. “I never heard any one say ‘factor’ offhand like that. It’s one of the words I’ve always held sacred to special topics and theses and such.”
“Like ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’?” asked Polly. “I always feel about those as the old lady did about her pies, after she labelled them T. M.”
“What did she label them like that for?” asked Frieda, leaning forward from her seat between Winifred and Archie.
“O, dear,” sighed Bert in mock despair. “Frieda has made us explain all the old jokes we knew this summer, and I don’t see how that one was overlooked. Did you ever hear the riddle about when a door is not a door, Frieda?”
280“Yes,” said Frieda good-naturedly. “It was in an English book I learned. There was a whole chapter on riddles, and the answers were printed upside down!”
“That dear Edith and Mary book!” cried Hannah. “Such a fine lot of riddles as there were! I think you and I ought to give a copy of that book to the library, Frieda!”
“That reminds me,” exclaimed Algernon. “We have had gifts to-day. I saved them to tell you when you should all be listening, for they came to us through our honorary members, the Wide-Awakes.”
“Hear!” “Hear!” shouted Max, but Polly rapped the meeting to order. Alice and Hannah and Catherine and Frieda looked puzzled, and the others interested, as Algernon went on.
“Mr. Kittredge told me to-day that they had voted to give the Sunday-school library books to us, as he thought the public library much more important than theirs, and they wanted to help all they could, following the good example of several of the Sunday-school teachers. That’s a compliment to Dorcas and Catherine, both. So that’s one of the four ‘notorious Wide-Awakes,’ as Mr. Graham calls them. And then a Mr. Tracy came in with his arms full of boxes, and said that his wife had been ill here at the hotel for some weeks, and she had amused herself during her convalescence281with working on picture puzzles; now she was well and going away, she did not want to take them with her, and, as the Winsted Library had been a great help to her, she would like to give them these six or seven puzzles, to be loaned to people like books. She said she thought a small library like this where the librarian knew every one personally, could easily handle such a department, for convalescents and lonely old people. Pictures and games and all such things might be included, to be loaned at the librarian’s discretion, only.”
“What a good idea!” cried Polly, “but how do the Wide-Awakes come in on that?”
“Just this way. Mrs. Tracy said that if we would let her name the collection, she would be glad to add to it from time to time. And when we consented, as, of course, we did, she said she wanted it called The Hannah Eldred Department.”
“Three cheers for Mrs. Tracy!” shouted Bert, and Max sprang to his feet and led off with a right good will. Then followed cheers for Hannah, for Catherine, for the Wide-Awakes and the Boat Club. When the noise subsided, Algernon took the floor again.
“That’s not all, either! You know, most of you, that Frieda started the German part of the library, giving some books and an invaluable list; but none of you know what Miss Prescott told me a day or two ago. It is a secret, but I think she will let me282tell it now, just for completeness, won’t you, Miss Prescott?”
Alice blushed and smiled.
“If you really wish, but I don’t like to be thanked for what is only a promise as yet.”
“Never mind about that. It will be more than a promise soon. Miss Prescott does very clever designing, and she heard me lamenting the fact that we have no book-plate for the library, and most kindly offered to furnish one.”
“I’ll submit it to my teacher in designing,” said Alice shyly, “and then Mr. Swinburne will present it to the Board to accept or reject as they see fit. You’re not bound to take it, but I did want to help along somehow!”
“We ought to do that cheering all over again,” said Archie, “but I move you, Madam President, that Miss Lange and Miss Prescott consider themselves specially included in the yells of a moment ago, and that the meeting proceed to sing the Boat Club song.”
The passers-by, if there had been any, must have wondered at the joyous burst of song that followed this remark. As a matter of fact, however, there were no passers-by at all. The rain had washed the streets clear, and the corner lights, glimmering faintly through the wet, fell on one figure only.
Standing before the library window, holding a great cotton umbrella over his head, and peering283patiently through a crack between the casing and the shade, was a small boy, in an overcoat several sizes too large for him.
Agnes’ seat was near the window. Suddenly she saw a small nose and an inquiring eye pressed against the crack.
“Look!” she said, and all eyes followed her gesture.
Bert sprang to open the door and drag the dripping little figure in. Polly and Catherine quickly took off the great coat and shut the vast umbrella. Then they drew the little chap to the table, where Bertha had a plate of goodies ready for him.
“Attention, everybody!”
Max sprang to his feet.
“Sing to the air of the Boat Club Song:
“He is the Boat Club mascot,Give a cheer! give a cheer!For the Boat Club mascot,Elsmere! Elsmere!”
“He is the Boat Club mascot,Give a cheer! give a cheer!For the Boat Club mascot,Elsmere! Elsmere!”
“Do it again!” cried Elsmere, brandishing a fork and making Bertha dodge, “Give a cheer, Elsmere! Boat Club stomach! Give a cheer!”
Such a bustling place as Three Gables was on that Friday morning!
“It seems a pity that you can’t stay till Monday, when college really opens,” said Dr. Helen, pressing out a filmy waist in the dining-room, where the four girls were gathered, setting last stitches.
“But the new girls who have come on early and those who have had to take ‘exams’ are just the ones who need cheering up, and we are the official Comfort Committee, aren’t we, Alice?”
Alice, fastening the thread after sewing in a fresh ruche, nodded. “Got to keep the blues away, or perish trying to,” she said. “And Hannah has to be home before Monday. And Frieda needs a day or two to get settled. Hilda said she’d come back to-day, and they could get their room in order before Sunday. I’m so glad you’re going to room with Hilda, Frieda dear. She’s such a darling child.”
“Is she still given to crushes?” asked Hannah. “She fairly worshiped Lilian Burton’s door-sill when I was there.”
285“Crushes are going out of fashion at Dexter,” said Catherine emphatically. “And one of the reasons I thought it would be good for Hilda to room with Frieda was that Frieda has too much sense to indulge in them, and she will keep Hilda suppressed.”
“Catherine, you have such a positive manner when you talk about Dexter,” said Hannah thoughtfully. “You’ll be House President senior year. O, dear!” for Frieda, in getting up to help Dr. Helen fold up the ironing-board, had brushed by Hannah’s chair, and a fat little button bag rolling to the floor had emptied its contents all over the room.
“Such a lot of buttons, Hannah!” exclaimed Dr. Helen, stooping to help gather them up.
Hannah laughed. “Mamma was so surprised when I came back from Dexter because there were as many in it as when I went, and I told her there were more because I had put in all the buttons that had come off while I was there! And then she was shocked!”
The doorbell rang and Inga came in with a big parcel for Catherine with Grandma Hopkins’ compliments. Catherine opened it, wondering, and the others dropped their work.
“A cake! Did you ever in your life? And I already have Mrs. Graham’s jelly, and Mr. Graham’s bag of nuts, and old Mrs. Hitchcock’s jar of preserves! Mother, how can I ever thank them all?”
286“How can you ever get them all transported to Dexter, is what I’m wondering! Do they always send girls off to school with food for the term, Catherine?” asked Hannah.
“Well, I had cookies and mince pie to take last year, after my trunk was packed. Mother persuaded me to leave the pie, but I was sorry afterward. And one of Polly’s mother’s friends baked a chicken for her to carry all the way to Wellesley! People are so kind! How do you suppose I can carry this cake, though, Mother? It’s such an awkward shape, and I couldn’t pack it with my clothes!”
“Do you remember how Inez brought a pail of honey in her trunk,” put in Alice, “and how it leaked out all over everything she had?”
“I’ll put the cake into a stout hat-box, and fasten a heavy cord and a handle on it, and you can get it there safely, I think. You won’t have to carry it, except just getting on and off the train.” Dr. Helen hurried off to see to that bit of packing, herself.
Bertha, Agnes and Dot, and even Dorcas, found excuses to drop in at the house that morning. Win and Bess promised to be at the train. On the way home from school three or four of Catherine’s Sunday-school children ran in to say good-by. Polly was in and out a dozen times, and Peter and Perdita came together to present a beautiful photograph of themselves in their newest garments and287shiniest shoes. Dinner was interrupted by the trunkman’s arrival, and Dr. Harlow had to keep a watchful eye upon each girl to see that she did not forget to eat.
Algernon and Bert came to escort the party to the station, and they started out merrily enough. When they reached the sidewalk, Catherine turned and ran back to the house for a private farewell to her mother, who preferred saying good-by there instead of going to the station. College seemed suddenly robbed of its pleasure, and the length of days between September and Thanksgiving intolerable, but they were used to helping each other be brave, and they blinked away the tears and parted smiling, Catherine turning frequently to wave good-bys till the house was lost in the trees.
It was quite like a reception at the station. While Dr. Harlow attended to ticket-buying, the young people clustered together, talking at random and laughing easily.
“It will be so lonely without you all,” sighed Bess. “All the other college folk will be off by Tuesday at the latest, and here we shall languish!”
“You’ll not have much time to languish if you assist in the kindergarten, Winifred,” said Catherine affectionately. “I’m so glad you are going to do it! You’ll make them sing like little nightingales. O, Bess, you go right by Grandma Hopkins’ on the way home, don’t you? Would you mind running288in and telling her that the cake got off all right? I’ll write her, of course, but I know she will want to know. Algernon! You don’t mean it? Miss Ainsworth drawing her own novels! How perfectly delicious! O Max, there you are! What did Mr. Morse say? Was he pleased with the way we handled the paper?”
“Seemed to be. How I wish I were still on, to be able to write up your departure fittingly! I say, who’s that odd little pair over there? They seem to be looking this way as if they wanted something.”
The others turned and Frieda, who had been standing in a dreary silence, listening to the chatter of all these dear boys and girls whom she was leaving perhaps forever, suddenly ran across the platform to where a little old lady in black with a knitted shawl over her head, and a little old man in ill-fitting clothes were standing.
“We came to tell our little friend good-by,” “And to wish herGute Reise!” They spoke in a kind of duet.
“Here are a few poor blossoms from our garden–”
“That you forget not the old people–”
“And a trifle ofKuchenthat I made myself–”
“And this I have carved for you, to put your pens on–”
Frieda, beaming and exclaiming her gratitude, made a pretty picture and the young people, observing her and hearing the rapid German, felt that they289were seeing her in a better light than they had before, much as they had already learned to like and enjoy her.
Dot clung to Hannah, and the gentle Agnes, who had found Alice incredibly congenial, walked arm in arm with her a little apart from the others, while Catherine in the center of the group held her father’s arm fast.
They were off at last.
“I thought that child in the back seat was Elsmere,” sighed Catherine, starting up and dropping back again, relieved. “That child actually gets on my mind so that I expect to see him everywhere.”
“Algernon tied him up, or he would have been there. He is a little rascal. It was a relief to me to have Perdita live up to her name and reputation, though,” said Hannah. “I heard about her all summer as a little mischief, and I never saw her do an indecorous thing. I didn’tseeher do that.”
“Well, you may mark my words,” said Catherine, “before you have grown many years older you will hear astonishing tales of Perdita Osgood. Peter’s influence will not always keep her in check. Polly told me that yesterday she tried to vaccinate the cat, with a mixture of ground chalk and vinegar! Peter came for help to prevent her!”
“American children are pretty bad, aren’t they, Frieda?” said Alice mischievously, for Frieda’s lips were set sternly.
290“Don’t make her say so,” pleaded Hannah teasingly. “She has made such a beautiful record.”
Frieda flushed a little, but slipped her hand into her pocket and felt there the shape of the little carved frame of Karl’s picture and held her tongue once more. She would not quarrel with Hannah in this last hour for anything!
“Next year,” Hannah said thoughtfully, “I am surely coming to Dexter, and you three are to get the fire-wall room for us, and we’ll live in glory and rapture.”
“If it were onlythisyear!” Alice moaned out the words, and the others sighed with her. The excitement of getting off had died, and they were becoming painfully aware of the separation that was approaching with every revolution of the wheels.
There were other passengers in the car, but they felt peculiarly alone, none the less. It was a curious tie that bound them. They felt that their friendship, so oddly started, had something more vital in it than most school-girl relations. They had all been sorry to leave bright, lovable Polly, but still, so long as they four stayed together, nothing could matter very much.
“O, dear,” sighed Hannah aloud. “I do think I spend all my time getting along without somebody or other!”
“‘We meet so seldom, yet we surely part so often,’” quoted Catherine musingly.
291“O, Catherine, my darling, if you dare begin on that sad Rossetti woman!” cried Alice. “You don’t know how dreadful she is about it, Hannah! She goes about for days with a distant sad look in her eyes and, if she is spoken to suddenly, she says, ‘When I was dead my spirit turned,’ or ‘Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end!’ or something equally doleful. I feel as though some one were dying in the next room, and I do believe I’ll hide the book.”
“It won’t do you any good,” remarked Catherine serenely. “I know almost all of her by heart. But you must admit, Allie, that I do say cheerful things at times. You got sick of the Jumblies last year.”
“They were as idiotic as the Rossetti lady, in another way. We’ll never agree on such subjects, Catherine!”
“Well, anyhow, Catherine isn’t going to read so much poetry this year,” said Hannah.
“And Hannah is going to read more,” rejoined Catherine, at which Hannah made a wry face and set them all laughing.
“Dexter!”
“Already? O, Hannah darling, how can we ever let you go on without us?”
All three were kissing her, but Hannah laughed at their sorrowful faces.
“I’ll go out on the platform with you. And I’ll292carry the hat-box, Catrina. Shall you have a spread to-night? Oh! it’s the same dear little, queer little station! And there’s Miss Eliot, and Dy-the Allen! Glory! Glory! Glory! Dy-the, going on this train? Joy and rapture! I should have died of loneliness!”
And Hannah plunged down the steps and threw out her arms to embrace Dy-the, when thud! out fell the bottom of the hat-box, and with it Grandma Hopkins’ lovely cake!
Miss Eliot looked into the distressed blue eyes and laughed.
“Just the same Hannah!” she said. “Dy-the, take good care of her and don’t let her get lost in Chicago. Now, child, introduce me to your Frieda and get back on the train at once.”
“Here she is,” said Hannah, casting one more sad look at the shattered cake, over which a baggage-man had rolled a heavy truck. “And, Frieda, Miss Eliot is the one to go to, always, when you need anything, from shoe-strings to a scolding. O, Catherine, I’m so sorry. I just wanted to help!”
Catherine caught her in a mighty hug.
“Never you mind one minute. It would have given us indigestion, and it was so funny to see it go smash! Give your father my love, won’t you, darling? And Aunt Clara, when you see her.”
“And write from the very first station,” said Alice. “I’m so glad Dy-the is going to be with you.”
“Give Karl my greetings,” said Frieda, holding293on to Hannah’s hand tightly. “And O, ever my love to Tante Edith and Uncle Edward!”
“Come, Babe, not another minute,” and Dy-the, little but determined, plucked Hannah from detaining arms, and set her firmly on the platform of the rear car. There, as the train glided out, she stood, her eyes fixed upon the little group of three with arms around each other.
“Good-by! Good-by!” she called and they answered. Then Frieda ran a little nearer, holding out her arms in a pleading gesture, and over the noise of the retreating train their voices rang out together:
“Auf Wiedersehen!”
“Auf glückliches Wiedersehen!”