Part 5 (1/2)

”I am going to boarding-school,” announced Ruby, triumphantly.

Ruthy was just as surprised as Ruby had expected her to be. She sat straight up in the hay, and let her book fall, while she looked at Ruby with wide-open eyes.

”What!” she exclaimed, as if she could not believe her ears. ”Did you really say you were going to boarding-school, Ruby Harper?”

”Yes, I really am,” Ruby responded, ”but there 's more than that to tell you. What do you suppose I am going to have to take with me?”

”I am sure I don't know,” Ruthy answered.

”I am going to have a trunk of my very own,” said Ruby, proudly. ”It will be like Maude Birkenbaum's, papa said it would be. It is to be black, and have a beautiful row of gold nails all around the top, and then at one end there will be 'M. D. B.' in letters made of the nails all driven in rows. Won't that be beautiful?”

”Yes, indeed,” answered Ruthy. ”But what will 'M. D. B.' stand for, Ruby?”

”Why, for my initials of course,” Ruby answered. ”Oh, no, I made a mistake. It won't be 'M. D. B.,' but 'R. T. H.,' to stand for Ruby Todd Harper. I forgot that my initials and Maude's were n't the same.

But just think of it, Ruthy. To have a trunk of one's own and a key to it! I think that will be too lovely for anything.”

”Are you glad you are going to boarding-school?” asked Ruthy, looking at her rather soberly.

”Why, yes, of course I am,” said Ruby, trying to forget that it meant going away from home, too.

”How long will you stay, do you suppose?” asked Ruthy.

”Oh, I don't exactly know. Till mamma gets well again, papa said,”

Ruby replied. ”I spose maybe about a year.”

Ruby had rather vague ideas about the length of a year. She always counted a year from one Christmas to the next, or from one Fourth of July to the next, whichever happened to be nearest the time from which she was calculating; and though it seemed a long time when she looked back from one holiday to the last, yet she did not have a very good idea how much time it took for twelve months to pa.s.s away. Ruby knew her tables, and she could have told you in one minute, that it took three hundred and sixty-five days to make a year, but she did not know how long it took that procession of days to pa.s.s along and let the new year come in.

”Oh, dear,” and Ruthy buried her face in the hay, and began to cry.

”Why, what is the matter?” asked Ruby, in surprise.

”I shall miss you so dreadfully,” sobbed Ruthy. ”I shall not have any one to play with, that is, any one like you, and I shall miss you all the time.”

”But I am going to ask your mamma to let you go with me,” Ruby said comfortingly. ”I forgot to tell you, but I truly will. Do you suppose I would go away off to boarding-school without you, Ruthy Warren? You might know I would n't. Of course not. Come and let's go in now and ask your mother if you can't go with me.”

But Ruthy cried harder than ever.

”But I don't want to go to boarding-school,” she sobbed. ”I want to stay with my mamma. I should just die if I went way off away from her.

I don't want you to go either, Ruby. I don't see what you think it is nice to go to boarding-school for, anyway.”

”Now, Ruthy, I thought you would go with me, even if you didn't think it would be very nice at first,” Ruby said, in rather reproving tones.

”Of course you think it would n't be nice, but it would be after you got used to it, and you would have a trunk, too, maybe. Wouldn't that be nice?”

But the trunk was no comfort to Ruthy. She could not understand how Ruby could bear to think of leaving her mother. She was quite sure she would never be willing to do it, and not Ruby's most eloquent representations to her of how delightful going away with a trunk would be, could induce her to want to accompany her.

”Oh, I wish you were not going, either,” was all that Ruby could coax from her, after she had talked until she was tired.