HOW ARE YOU?
In what seemed an incredibly short time, Edna was getting out at the
station nearest her own home. Ben and his mother had parted from them an
hour before and were now on their way to their own home. Ben, however,
would return on Monday to take up his college work again.
"There they are!" were the first words Edna heard as she and her mother
descended from the train. And then the boys rushed forward to hug and
kiss both herself and her mother and to make as much fuss over them as
if they had been gone a year.
"Gee! but I'm glad to see you," cried Charlie. "It hasn't seemed like
home at all without you, mother."
"Didn't you have a good time at Mrs. Porter's?" asked Edna.
"Had a high old time," responded Frank. "Here, let me take some of those
things. You look like country travellers with all those bundles. What
you got there?"
"Oh, things," returned Edna vaguely. "All sorts of things the girls gave
me to bring home."
"You look like a regular old emigrant with so many boxes and bags."
"We couldn't get them all in the trunk," Edna explained, "and so we had
to bring them this way. When did you get back, Frank?"
"Last night. We came home with father."
"Then you haven't had such a very long time in which to miss us," said
Mrs. Conway, with a smile.
"Well, it seemed like a long time," returned Frank, "Nothing ever does
go right when you're away, mother."
"What special thing has gone wrong this time?" asked his mother.
"Oh, I couldn't find anything I wanted this morning, and nobody knew
where anything was, and Celia didn't know how to fix anything, and all
that."
Mrs. Conway laughed. "That shows how I spoil you all. I am afraid I
missed my boys, too, and am glad to get back to them."
"Where's Celia?" asked Edna.
"She's home. We all came up together last night. Lizzie had waffles for
supper, and Frank ate ten pieces," spoke up Charlie.
"Well, that was all I could get," said Frank, in an injured way. "Lizzie
said there were no more."
"Oh, Frank, Frank," laughed his mother. "Well, at any rate, I am glad
to know my absence has not affected your appetite."
"Tell us what you did at the Porter's," said Edna.
"Oh, we just racketed around. We went to a fierce old football game, and
we did all sorts of stunts in the house. Steve and Roger have a fine
little workshop. I don't believe I like living right in the city,
though. We boys have a heap more fun at a place like this where we can
get out-of-doors. Roger and Steve say so, too."
"I am glad you are so well content," observed Mrs. Conway.
"There's Celia," Edna sang out, seeing some one on the porch watching
for them. It was a chill, wintry morning, and they were all glad to
hurry indoors to the warm fire. The house looked cozy and cheerful,
yellow chrysanthemums in tall vases graced the hall and library; in the
latter, an open grate fire glowed, and Edna looked around complacently.
"It is kind of nice to get home," she remarked. "I love it at grandma's,
but I reckon we all like our own home better than other people's. How
are you, Celia? Tell me everything that has been going on at school. How
is Dorothy? Did you have a club-meeting and was it a nice one? Oh, I
must tell you about the Elderflowers, mustn't I, mother? Has Agnes gone
back to college? Have you seen Miss Eloise?"
"Dear me," cried Celia, "what a lot of questions. I wonder if I can
answer them all. Let me see. I'll have to go backwards, I think. I
haven't seen Miss Eloise, but some of the girls have. She and her sister
dined at the Ramseys on Thanksgiving Day."
"I know they had a good dinner, then," remarked Edna, "for I was there
myself last Thanksgiving."
"Agnes has gone back to college. Dorothy is well. We had a nice
club-meeting, and I missed my little sister's dear, round, little face.
Dorothy has been so impatient that she can hardly wait to see you. She
has been calling me up at intervals all morning to know if you had come
yet. There is the telephone now. No doubt it is Dorothy calling."
Edna flew to the 'phone and Celia heard. "Yes, this is Edna. Oh, hello,
Dorothy. I'm well, how are you? I don't know; I'll see. Oh, no, you come
over here; that will be much nicer. I have some things to show you.
What's that? Yes, indeed, I am glad to get back." Then a little tinkle
of laughter. "You are a goosey goose; I'm not going to tell you. Come
over. Yes, right away if you want to, Dorothy."
She went back to her sister, and established herself in her lap, putting
one arm around her neck and stretching out her feet to the warmth of
the fire. "It was Dorothy," she said.
"That was quite evident, my dear," returned Celia. "What was it you
wouldn't tell her?"
"Oh, Dorothy is such a goose. She was afraid I had gotten to like some
of the Overlea girls better than I do her. Just because I wrote to her
about Reliance and Alcinda and all of them. Just as if I couldn't like
more than one girl. Don't you think it is silly, sister, for anyone to
want you to have no other friend, I mean no other best friend? Of course
I love Dorothy dearly, but I love Jennie, too, and I am very fond of
Netty Black, and, oh, lots of girls. Are you that way about Agnes,
Celia?"
Celia felt a pang of self-reproach, for it must be admitted that she had
felt a little jealous of the new friends Agnes was making at college. "I
don't suppose I should be?" she answered after a pause. "I suppose it
is very selfish and unfair to feel that way about it. Mother says it is
very conceited of a person to think she can satisfy every need of a
friend, and that it shows only love of self, and not love of your
friend, when you want to exclude others from her friendship, and I am
sure I don't want to be either selfish or conceited, and I should hate
to be called a jealous person."
"Do you think Dorothy is conceited and selfish?"
"I don't think she means to be, but when she wants to deprive you of
good times with other girls, or is jealous of your friendship for them,
she is encouraging conceit and selfishness. I'm glad you asked me about
the way I feel toward Agnes, for it makes me see that I am by no means
the true friend I ought to be. If I loved her as I should, I'd want her
to have all the good times, all the love, all the benefit she could get
from others, and I mean to fight against any other feeling but the right
one. I don't believe my little sister will be the jealous kind," she
said hugging Edna up.
"If you see me getting that way, I hope you won't let me," returned Edna
earnestly.
"There's Dorothy now," said Celia, putting down the plump little figure
from her lap. And Edna ran out to greet her friend.
There was so much to talk about, so many things to show, that Dorothy
must needs stay to lunch. A little later, over came Margaret McDonald to
say "How do you do" and to bring some flowers from her mother's
greenhouse. Edna's tongue ran so fast and she had so much to tell that
the afternoon seemed all too short. Dorothy and Margaret, too, had their
own affairs to talk about, and it was dark before the two little
visitors were ready to go.
The next excitement was the coming of her father, for whom Dorothy
watched and who appeared almost gladder than anyone that his wife and
little girl were at home again. "This is something like," he said as he
came in, his face wreathed in smiles.
"You poor dear," said Edna, in a motherly way, "it has been a lonely
time for you, hasn't it?"
"Pretty lonely, but then it teaches me how to appreciate my family when
they get back. My, my, my, what a difference it does make, to be sure. I
don't think I can stand you all skylarking off again very soon."
It was all very cozy and natural after dinner to be back again in the
library, Mrs. Conway on one side the table with her fancy work, Mr.
Conway on the other with the evening paper, the boys reading, or
scrapping in the hall, Celia in the next room at the piano, and Edna
herself with the Children's Page of the paper spread out before her
where she lay at full length on the big rug before the fire. Somehow the
page of stories and puzzles did not absorb her as much as usual. She
wondered what Reliance was doing, if her grandmother felt lonely without
her little granddaughter, and if the white kitten missed her. She saw
the long street bordered by maples, the store and the postoffice, the
white church. Presently she got up and went over to her mother.
"Wouldn't it be nice," she said, "if one could be in two places at the
same time?"
Her mother nodded. "I shouldn't wonder if you and I were in two places
at the same time, or that we had been during the last few minutes, for I
am sure while our bodies are here our thoughts have been in Overlea."
"That is just where my thoughts have been," answered Edna. "Do you
suppose they miss us, mother?"
"I am afraid they do, very much," said her mother, with a soft, little
sigh. "I know if either of my daughters ever goes away to a home of her
own, I shall miss her very much when she has left me after making a
visit."
Edna stood with her arm still around her mother's neck. This was rather
a new thought. Once her mother had been a little girl like her, of
course, and had stood by her mother's side just like this, and now she
was living in quite a different home. Edna tried to imagine how it would
seem to come back to this, her childhood's home, from one of her very
own, but it was entirely too difficult a matter so she gave it up and
went back to her paper. But in a few minutes, the pictures on the page
before her became pictures of Overlea. She was taking the spring-house
key to old Nathan Keener that he might unlock his door and let out the
white kitten. Then she was half conscious of hearing a voice say: "No,
never mind; she is all tired out; I'll carry her up." Then she was
helped to her feet, a pair of strong arms lifted her up, and she was
borne up the stairs. She hardly knew who undressed her and stowed her
away in bed. She felt a soft kiss on her cheek and then she sank into a
deep slumber. The dear little girl's Thanksgiving holidays were over.
Transcriber's Note:
Alternative spelling for good-bye and good-by has been retained as it
appears in the original publication.