Glory ran in the last minute to bid Aunt Hope good-by. That was
the one thing that she never forgot.
"Good-by, auntie. I'm off, but I'm not happy. _Happy!_ I'm perfectly
mis-er-a-ble! If only I had passed last year! To think I've got to go
back to that baby seminary, and the other girls will have entered at
Glenwood! Oh, dear! I'll never be able to catch up."
"There, dear, don't! Keep brave. Remember what a pleasant vacation
we've had, and this is such a lovely day in which to begin all over.
I wouldn't mind 'beginning over' again to-day!"
Aunt Hope was smiling up at her from the cushions of the big couch,
but Glory's lips trembled as she stooped to gather the thin little
figure into her strong girlish arms.
"Auntie! Auntie! If you only could!" the girl cried wistfully. "If
you could only take my place! It isn't fair that we can't take turns
being well and strong. But, there," she made a wry face to hide her
emotion, "who'd want to be poor me to-day and go back on that horrid
train to that horrid, horrid school!"
"Glory Wetherell, I believe you're lazy!" Aunt Hope laughed. "A
Wetherell lazy! There, kiss me again, Disappointment, and run away to
your 'horrid train'!"
But out on the landing Glory paused expectantly, taking a rapid
mental account of stock in readiness for the coming questions.
"She'll call in a minute," the girl thought tenderly, waiting for the
sweet, feeble voice. "The day auntie doesn't call me back I sha'n't
be Gloria Wetherell!"
"Gloria!"
"Yes'm. Here I am. I've got my books, auntie."
"_All_, Glory?"
"Every single one."
"All right, dear!" came in Aunt Hope's soft voice. And Glory went on
downstairs, smiling to herself triumphantly. Such luck! When had she
been able to answer like that before?
"Gloria!" again.
"Yes, auntie. Oh! oh! yes, I _did_ forget my mileage book, auntie.
I'll get it this minute. But, auntie,"--Glory stopped at the foot of
the stairs. Her discomfited laugh floated upward to the pale little
invalid--"I've felt of my head and it's on. I didn't forget that!
Good-by."
"Dear girl--my Little Disappointment!" murmured the invalid, sinking
back on her pillows, with a tender sigh. "Will she ever grow heedful?
When will she come to her own?"
Oddly enough, at that moment Glory was saying to herself, as she
hurried down the street, "I wish she wouldn't call me her
'Disappointment' like that--dear auntie! There's any quantity of love
in it, but I don't like the sound of it. It reminds me of the trains
I've missed, and the books I've forgotten, and--oh, me!--all the
lessons I haven't learned! I wish auntie didn't care so much about
such things--_I_ don't!"
It was a splendid September day. The sweet, sharp air kissed the
girl's fresh cheeks into blushes and sent her feet dancing along with
the very joy of locomotion. In spite of herself Glory began to be
happy. And the girls were at the station to see her off--that was an
unexpected compliment. They ran to meet her excitedly.
"Quick, quick, Glory! We've 'held up' the train as long as we can!"
they chorused. "Didn't you know you were late, for pity's sake? And
it's the Crosspatch Conductor's day, too--we've had an awful time
coaxing him to wait! But he's a real dear, after all."
"Give me your books--help her on, Judy! There, take 'em quick!
Good-by."
"Our sympathies go-o with--yo-oo-ou!"
The chorus of gay voices trailed after her, as she stood alone on the
platform. With a final wave of her book-strap she went dolefully
inside. Suddenly the September getting-off intoxication oozed out of
her finger-tips. She tumbled into the nearest seat with a sigh. It
was even worse than she had anticipated.
"I wish the girls hadn't come down," she thought ungratefully.
"Sending their condolences after me like that! I guess I could see
the triumph in Judy Wells' face, and Georgia Kelley's, and all their
faces. They were hugging themselves for not having to go back to the
seminary. Nobody's got to but just poor me. I declare, I'm so sorry
for you, Glory Wetherell, and I think I'm going to cry!"
The "girls," all four of them, had graduated the previous spring.
Only heedless, unstudy-loving Glory had lagged over into another
year, and must go back and forth from little Douglas to the Center
Town Seminary all by herself. Every morning and every night--the days
loomed ahead of her, not to be numbered or borne. Well, it was hard.
No more merry chattering rides, as there had been last year when the
girls were her companions. No more gay little car-feasts on the home
trips, out of the carefully hoarded remnants of their dinners.
"I wish I'd kept up in mathematics and things!" lamented Glory,
gazing at the flying landscape with gloomy eyes. "If I'd known how
this was going to feel, I'd have done it if it killed me. Think of a
year of this! Two times three quarters of an hour is an hour and a
half. Let me see--in the three terms there'll be three times
sixty-five days. Three times sixty-five is"--Glory figured
slowly--"one hundred and ninety-five days! An hour and a half in one
day--in one hundred and ninety-five days there will be--oh, forever!"
groaned Glory. She sat and looked into the year to come with a gloomy
face. In spite of herself she multiplied one hundred and ninety-five
by one and a half.
"That's the number of hours you're going to sit here on a car-seat,
is it?" she demanded of herself. "It's a nice prospect, isn't it?
You'll have a charming time, won't you? Aren't you glad you didn't
keep up in things?"
It did not occur to Glory that she might employ the time in study.
Studying very rarely "occurred" to Glory, anyway. She went back and
forth from little Douglas to the Centre Town "Seminary for Young
Ladies" because of Aunt Hope. Aunt Hope wanted her to, and Aunt Hope
was a dear. She would do even that for Aunt Hope!
The slow local train lurched on between grainfields and cattle-dotted
pastures, and the pretty, dainty little maid on the back seat sat on,
with the plaintive face of a martyr. In spite of herself the Other
Girl smiled. The Other Girl was not dainty, nor was she pretty unless
she smiled. The uptwitch of her mouth-corners and the flash of white
teeth helped out a great deal. She had never had occasion to laugh
much in her fifteen years of life, but now and then she smiled--when
she saw girls playing martyr, for instance!
"It's funny, if she only knew it," the Other Girl thought. "There she
sits feeling abused because she has to go to school--oh, my goodness,
goodness! She feels that way, I'm certain she does! It's printed in
capitals on her face. Diantha Leavitt, do you hear?--there's a girl
back there feeling abused because she's got to go to a Young Ladies'
Seminary! If you don't believe me, turn square round and look at
her."
The Other Girl was sitting sidewise on her seat to give her a
slanting view from under her shabby sailor of the trim little
tailor-made figure on the back seat. She had been watching it ever
since the train drew out of Douglas. She had recognized it at once as
one of the five trim, girlish figures that had got on at the same
place the previous spring. School-books and schoolgirl nonsense tell
their own story, and, besides, hadn't they always got off at Centre
Town, and wasn't there a Young Ladies' Seminary there? You could put
two and two together if you _didn't_ study arithmetic--if your name
_was_ only Diantha Leavitt and you worked in the East Centre Town
rubber factory, instead of going to school.
The Other Girl's admiring eyes had taken in all the dainty details of
gloves, tiny chatelaine watch, and neat school satchel out of which
protruded green and brown books. With a fierce little gesture the
Other Girl had slid her own hands under her threadbare jacket. They
were reddened and rough.
"I should like to know if she can smell rubber clear back there," she
thought. "You ought to go ahead to the front o' the car, Diantha
Leavitt. Don't you know dainty folks don't like the smell of rubber?
Oh, my goodness--goodness--goodness! I wish I could get out o' the
reach of it for one day in my life! _One day_--doesn't seem like
asking a great deal, does it?"
She straightened and turned her back to the dainty girl of luxury on
the rear seat. She would not look again. But straight ahead, on the
very front of the car, her gloomy, roaming gaze was stayed. What was
this she saw? The pretty, plaintive face of the schoolgirl, in the
mirror! She could not get away from it. The two pairs of blue eyes
seemed to be looking directly into each other, but the Other Girl's
were full of angry tears. The Other Girl sat up, straight and
defiant, and stared ahead unswervingly. Mentally she was taking a
scornful inventory of her own shabbiness.
"My feather is perfectly straight;--it rained Saturday night, and I
haven't had any time to curl it over the poker. It doesn't belong on
a sailor, anyway, but it's better than a hole right into your hair!
It covers up. My jacket collar is all fringy round the edges, and the
top button is split. My necktie has been washed four times too
often--ugh! I smell rubber!"
Glory consulted her little chatelaine watch impatiently.
"I hope we're 'most there!" she sighed. "If this hasn't been the
longest ride! I know one thing--I shall bring my crochet-work
to-morrow, and my tatting, and my knitting-work, and my--patchwork!
There's more than one way to 'kill' time." She smiled to herself a
little. From the cover of the tiny watch Aunt Hope's picture looked
up at her, smiling too. Glory nodded back to it.
"Yes'm, I've got everything--I haven't forgotten a thing. And I'm
going to be good," she murmured, as she shut the sweet face out of
sight.
The train slowed up. Glory was feeling better because of the little
draught of Sweet Face Tonic, and she was even humming a tune under
her breath when she stepped down on to the platform. She stepped
daintily along with her pretty head held up saucily and her skirts
a-flutter. It wasn't so bad, after all, once off that horrid
train--good riddance to it! Let it go fizzing and puffing away. The
farther the better--
Suddenly Glory stood still and gazed downward at her empty hands,
then at the fading curl of white smoke up the track. Her face was a
study of dismay.
"Oh! oh! That horrid train has carried off my books!" she cried.