TROLLEYING
As for the Art Museum, they wandered delightedly from one room to
another, but went away with a sensation of having seen too much that
was almost as uncomfortable as that of having eaten too much.
"I should like to come here or to go to the Metropolitan in New York
with some one who could tell me about every picture or every object in
just one room and stay there for an hour and then go away and think
about it," said Ethel Blue.
"We will do that some day at the Metropolitan," said Mrs. Emerson. "If
the Club would like to go in a body some day we can get one of the
guides who do just what you describe. We can tell her the sort of
thing we want to see--classical statuary or English artists or the
Morgan collection--and have it all shown to us from the standpoint of
the expert critic. Or we can put ourselves in the hands of the guide
and say that we'd like to see the ten exhibits that the Museum looks
upon as the choicest."
"Either way would be wonderful!" beamed Ethel Blue, and the three girls
promised themselves the delight of reporting Mrs. Emerson's offer to
the Club at its next meeting.
The homeward trip was made by a route quite different from the one by
which the party reached Boston. Grandfather proposed it at breakfast
on the morning of the day on which they had intended to leave in the
afternoon.
"Are you people very keen on this drive through the Park System
to-day?" he asked.
The girls did not know what to say, but Mrs. Emerson scented a new idea
and replied "not if you have something to suggest that we'd like
better."
"How would you like to trolley back to New York?"
"Trolley back to New York!" repeated the girls with little screeches of
joy. "All the way by trolley? How long will it take? I never heard
of anything so delightful in all my life!"
After such a quick and satisfactory response Mr. Emerson did not need
to lay his plan before them in any further detail.
"I see you're 'game,' as Roger would say, for anything, so we'll go
that way if Mother agrees."
Mrs. Emerson did agree and even went so far as to say that she had
wanted to do that very thing for a long time.
"It's lucky Grandfather insisted that we shouldn't bring anything but
small handbags," said Ethel Brown. "These little things we have won't
be any trouble at all, no matter how many times we have to change."
They started in heavy inter-urban cars which rode as solidly as
railroad cars and enabled them to be but very little tired at the end
of the first "leg" of the journey. The wide windows permitted views of
the country and the girls ran from one side to the other of the closed
cars, so that they should not miss anything of interest, and sat on the
front seat of the open cars into which they changed later, so that they
might have no one in front of them to obstruct their view.
They went out of the city straight westward through Brookline, through
Chestnut Hill, where is one of the reservoirs from which the city is
supplied; past Wellesley, where they saw the college buildings rising
among the trees on the left.
The party reached Springfield at dusk and had time to take a walk after
dinner. They admired the elm-bordered streets and the comfortable
houses, and they thought the Arsenal looked extremely peaceful outside
in spite of its murderous activities within.
It was a deep sleep that visited them all that night. A whole day in
the open air with the gentle but continuous exercise provided by the
car made them unconscious of their surroundings almost as soon as they
touched their pillows.