Part 34 (1/2)
”Such a lot of b.u.t.tons, 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 b.u.t.tons 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. Hitchc.o.c.k's jar of preserves! Mother, how can I ever thank them all?”
”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 and s.h.i.+niest 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 languis.h.!.+”
”You'll not have much time to languish if you a.s.sist 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 running in 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 her _Gute 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 of _Kuchen_ that I made myself--”
”And this I have carved for you, to put your pens on--”
Frieda, beaming and exclaiming her grat.i.tude, made a pretty picture and the young people, observing her and hearing the rapid German, felt that they were 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.”