THE COMING OF GENEVIEVE
Genevieve was to arrive in Sunbridge at three o'clock on the afternoon
of the third of July. Her father was to remain in Boston until one of
the evening trains. The Happy Hexagons, knowing Genevieve's plans,
decided to give her a welcome befitting the club and the occasion. They
invited Harold Day, of course, to join them.
Harold laughed good-humoredly.
"Oh, I'll be there all right, at the station," he assured them. "I've
got Mrs. Kennedy's permission to bring her up to the house; but I don't
think I'll join in on your show. I'll let you girls do that."
The girls pouted a little, but they were too excited to remain long out
of humor.
"Don't our dresses look pretty! I know Genevieve'll be pleased," sighed
Elsie Martin, as, long before the train was due that afternoon, the
girls arrived at the station.
"Of course she'll be pleased," cried Alma Lane. "She can't help it. I
can hear her laugh and clap her hands now, when she sees us--and hears
us!"
"So can I," echoed Bertha. "And how her eyes will dance! I love to see
Genevieve's eyes dance."
"So do I," chorused the others, fervently.
Sunbridge was a quiet little town in southern New Hampshire near the
state line. It had wide, tree-shaded streets, and green-shuttered white
houses set far back in spacious lawns. The station at this hour was even
quieter than the town, and there were few curious eyes to question the
meaning of the unusual appearance of five laughing, excited young girls,
all dressed alike, and all showing flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.
At one minute before three o'clock, a tall, good-looking youth drove up
in a smart trap, and was hailed with shouts of mingled joy and relief.
"Oh, Harold, we were just sure you were going to be late," cried
Cordelia.
"Late? Not I--to-day!" laughed the boy. Then, with genuine admiration:
"Say, that is pretty slick, girls. I'll take off my hat to the Happy
Hexagons to-day all right!" he finished, with an elaborate flourish.
"Thank you," twittered Tilly, saucily. "Now don't you wish you had
joined us? But then--_you_ couldn't have worn a white frock!"
A prolonged bell-clanging and the rumble of an approaching train
prevented Harold's reply, and sent the girls into a flutter of
excitement. A moment later they stood in line, waiting, breathless with
suspense.
They made a wonderfully pretty picture. Each girl was in white, even to
her shoes and stockings. Around each waist was a sash of a handsome
shade of blue. The same color showed at the throat and on the hair.
Quietly they watched the train roll into the station, and still quietly
they stood until a tall, slender girl with merry brown eyes and soft
fluffy brown hair appeared at a car door and tripped lightly down the
steps to the platform. They waited only till she ran toward them; then
in gleeful chorus they chanted:
"Texas, Texas, Tex--Tex--Texas!
Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah!
GENEVIEVE!"
What happened next was a surprise. Genevieve did not laugh, nor cry out,
nor clap her hands. Her eyes did not dance. She stopped and fumbled with
the fastening of her suit-case. The next minute the train drew out of
the station, and the girls were left alone in their corner. Genevieve
looked up, at that, and came swiftly toward them.
They saw then: the brown eyes were full of tears.
The girls had intended to repeat their Texas yell; but with one accord
now they cried out in dismay:
[Illustration: "A TALL, SLENDER GIRL ... APPEARED AT A CAR DOOR"]
"Genevieve! Why, Genevieve, you're--crying!"
"I know I am, and I could shake myself," choked Genevieve, hugging each
girl in turn spasmodically.
"But, Genevieve, what is the matter?" appealed Cordelia.
"I don't know, I don't know--and that's what's the trouble," wailed
Genevieve. "I don't know why I'm crying when I'm so g-glad to see you.
But I reckon 'twas that--'Texas'!"
"But we thought you'd like that," argued Elsie.
"I did--I do," stammered Genevieve, incoherently; "and it made me cry to
think I did--I mean, to think I do--so much!"
"Well, we're glad you did, or do, anyhow," laughed Harold Day, holding
out his hand. "And we're glad you're back again. I've got Jerry here and
the cart. This your bag?"
"Yes, right here; and thank you, Harold," she smiled a little mistily.
"And girls, you're lovely--just lovely; and I don't know why I'm crying.
But you're to come over--straight over to the house this very afternoon.
I want to hear that 'T-Texas' again. I want to hear it six times
running!" she finished, as she sprang lightly into the cart.
On the way with Harold, she grew more calm.
"You see, once, last fall, I said I hated Sunbridge, and that I wouldn't
stay," she explained a little shame-facedly.
"You said you hated it!" cried Harold. "You never told me that. Why, I
thought you liked it here."
"I do, now, and I did--very soon, specially after I'd met some one I
could talk Texas to all I wanted to--_you_, you know! I reckon I never
told you, but you were a regular safety valve for me in those days."
"Was I?" laughed the lad.
"Yes, even from that first day," nodded Genevieve, with a half-wistful
smile. "Did I ever tell you the reason, the real reason, why Aunt Julia
called you into the yard that afternoon?"
"Why, no--not that I know of." Harold's face showed a puzzled frown.
"Well, 'twas this. I'd been here a week, and I was so homesick and
lonesome for father and the ranch and all. I was threatening to go back.
I declared I'd walk back, if there was no other way. Poor Aunt Julia!
She tried everything. Specially she tried to have me meet some nice
girls, but I just wouldn't. I said I didn't want any girls that weren't
Texas girls. I didn't want anything that wasn't Texas. That's what I'd
been saying that very day out under the trees there, when Aunt Julia
looked toward the street, saw you, and called you into the yard."
"Is _that_ why she introduced me as the boy who was born in Texas?"
laughed Harold.
"Yes; and you know how I began to talk Texas right away."
"But I couldn't help much--I left there when I was a baby."
"I know, but you'd been there," laughed Genevieve, "and that helped.
Then, through you, I met your cousin Alma, and the rest was easy, for I
always had you for that safety valve, to talk Texas to. You see, it was
just that I got homesick. All my life I'd lived on the ranch, and things
here were so different. I didn't like to--to mind Mrs. Kennedy and Miss
Jane, very well, I suspect. You see, at the ranch I'd always had my own
way, and--I liked it."
"Well, I'm sure that's natural," nodded Harold.
"I know; but I wasn't nice about it," returned the girl, wistfully.
"Father said I must do everything--everything they said. And I tried to.
But Miss Jane had such heaps of things for me to do, and such tiresome
things, like dusting and practising, and learning to cook and to sew!
And it all was specially hard when you remember that I didn't want to
come East in the first place. But I love it here, now; you know I do.
Every one has been so good to me! Aunt Julia is a dear."
"And--Miss Jane?" queried Harold, eyeing her a little mischievously.
Genevieve blushed.
"Miss Jane? Well, she's 'most a dear, too--sometimes. As for
Sunbridge--I love both the East and the West now. Don't you see? But,
to-day, coming up from Boston, I got to thinking about it--my dear
prairie home; and how I had hated to leave it, and how now I was going
back to it with Aunt Julia and the girls all with me. And I was so
happy, so wonderfully happy, that a great big something rose within me,
and I felt so--so queer, as if I could fly, and fly, and _fly_! And
then, when I saw the girls all dressed alike so prettily, and heard the
'Texas, Texas, Texas'--what did I do? I didn't do anything but
cry--_cry_, Harold, just as if I didn't like things. And the girls were
so disappointed, I know they were!"
"Never mind; I guess you can make them understand--anyhow, you have me,"
said Harold, trying to speak with a lightness that would hide the fact
that her words had made him, too, feel "queer." Harold did not enjoy
feeling "queer."
A moment later they turned into the broad white driveway that led up to
the Kennedy home.
On the veranda of the fine old house stood a sweet-faced,
motherly-looking woman with tender eyes and a loving smile. Near her was
a taller, younger woman with eyes almost as interested, and a smile
almost as cordial.
"You dears--both of you!" cried Genevieve, running up the steps and
into the arms of the two women.
"Thank you, Harold," smiled Mrs. Kennedy over Genevieve's bobbing head;
"thank you for bringing our little girl home."
"As if I wasn't glad to do it!" laughed the boy, gallantly, as he picked
up the reins and sprang into the cart. To the horse he added later, when
quite out of earshot of the ladies: "Jerry, I'm thinking Genevieve isn't
the only one in that house that has 'improved' since last August. It
strikes me that Miss Jane Chick has done a little on her own account.
Did you see that smile? That was a really, truly smile, Jerry. Not the
'I-suppose-I-must' kind!"
Genevieve and the two ladies were still on the veranda when the five
white-clad girls turned in at the broad front walk.
"We came around this way home," announced Tilly. "You _said_ you wanted
us."
"Want you! Well, I reckon I do," cried Genevieve, springing to her feet.
"Come up here this minute! Now say it--say it again--that thing you did
at the station. I want Aunt Julia to hear it--and Miss Jane."
The change in Genevieve's voice and manner was unconscious, but it was
very evident. No one noticed it apparently, however, but Tilly; and she
only puckered her lips into an odd little smile as she formed in line
with the other girls: Tilly was not without some experience herself with
Miss Jane and her ways.
"Now, one, two, three, ready!" counted Cordelia, sternly, her face a
tragedy of responsibility lest this final triumph of their labors should
be anything less than the glorious success the occasion demanded.
Once more five eager, girlish countenances faced squarely front. Once
more five fresh young voices chanted with lusty precision:
"Texas, Texas, Tex--Tex--Texas!
Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah!
GENEVIEVE!"
It was finished. Cordelia, with the expression of one from whom the
weight of nations has been lifted, drew a happy sigh, and looked
confidently about for her reward. Almost at once, however, her face
clouded perplexedly.
Genevieve was dancing lightly on her toes and clapping her hands softly.
Mrs. Kennedy was laughing with her handkerchief to her lips. But Miss
Jane Chick--Miss Jane Chick was sitting erect, her eyes plainly
horrified, her hands clapped to her ears.
"Children, children!" she gasped, as soon as there was a chance for her
voice to be heard. "You don't mean to say that you did _that_--at a
public railroad station!"
Cordelia looked distressed. The other girls bit their lips and lifted
their chins just a little: they did not like to be called "children."
"But, Miss Chick," stammered Cordelia, "we didn't think--that is, we
wanted to do something to welcome Genevieve, and--and--" Cordelia
stopped, and swallowed chokingly.
"But to shout like that," protested Miss Chick. "You--_young ladies_!"
The girls bit their lips still harder and lifted their chins still
higher: they were not quite sure whether they more disliked to be
"children" or "young ladies"--in that tone of voice.
"Oh, but Miss Jane," argued Genevieve, "you know Sunbridge station is
just dead, simply dead at three o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody ever
comes on that train, hardly, and there wasn't a soul around but that
sleepy Mr. Jones and the station men, and that old Mrs. Palmer. And you
know _she_ wouldn't hear a gun go off right under her nose."
"Genevieve, my dear!" murmured Mrs. Kennedy--but her eyes were
twinkling.
Cordelia still looked troubled.
"I know, Genevieve," she frowned anxiously, "but I never thought of it
that way--what others would think. Maybe we ought not to have done it,
after all. But I'm sure we didn't mean any harm."
Promptly, now, Mrs. Kennedy came to the rescue.
"Of course you did not, dear child," she said, smiling into Cordelia's
troubled eyes; "and it was very sweet and lovely of you girls to think
of giving Genevieve such a pretty welcome. Oh, of course," she added
with a whimsical glance at her sister, "we shouldn't exactly advise you
to make a practice of welcoming everybody home in that somewhat
startling fashion. That really wouldn't do, you know. Sunbridge station
might not be quite so dead next time," she finished, meeting Genevieve's
grateful eyes.
* * * * *
"That really was dear of you, Aunt Julia," confided Genevieve some time
later, after the girls had gone, and when she and Mrs. Kennedy were
alone together. (Miss Jane had gone up-stairs.) "Only think of the pains
they took--to get themselves up to look so pretty, besides learning to
give that yell so finely. I was so afraid they'd be hurt at what Miss
Jane said! And I wouldn't want them hurt--after all that!"
"Of course you wouldn't," smiled Mrs. Kennedy; "and my sister wouldn't
either, dear."
Genevieve stirred restlessly.
"I know she wouldn't, Aunt Julia; but--but the girls don't know it.
They--they don't understand Miss Jane."
"And do you--always?" The question was gently put, but its meaning was
unmistakable.
Genevieve colored.
"Maybe not--quite always; but--Miss Jane is so--so shockable!"
Mrs. Kennedy made a sudden movement. Apparently she only stooped to pick
up a small thread from the floor, but when she came upright her face was
a deeper red than just that exertion would seem to occasion.
"Genevieve, have you been to your room since you came home?" she asked.
There were times when Mrs. Kennedy could change the subject almost as
abruptly as could Genevieve herself.
"No, Aunt Julia. You know Nancy carried up my suit-case, and I've been
too busy telling you all about my visit to think of anything else."
"Oh," smiled Mrs. Kennedy. "I was just wondering."
Genevieve frowned in puzzled questioning.
"Well, I'm going up right away, anyhow," she said. "Mercy! I reckon I'll
go up right now," she added laughingly, springing to her feet as there
came through the open window behind her the sound of a clock striking
half-past five. "I had no idea it was so late."
Genevieve was not many minutes in her room before she ceased to wonder
at Mrs. Kennedy's questioning; for in plain sight on her dressing-table
she soon found a small white box addressed to Genevieve Hartley. The
box, upon being opened, disclosed in a white velvet nest a beautiful
little chatelaine watch in dark blue enamel and gold.
"To keep Genevieve's time.
With much love from
Jane Chick."
read Genevieve on the little card that was with the watch.
"Oh, oh, oh, how lovely!" breathed the girl, hovering over the watch in
delight. "And to think what I said!" With a heightened color she turned,
tripped across the room and hurried down the hall to Miss Jane's door.
"Miss Jane!"
"Yes, dear."
"May I come in?"
"Yes, indeed."
"I--I want to thank you--oh, I do want to thank you, but I don't know
how." Genevieve's eyes were misty.
"For the watch? You like it, then?"
"Like it! I just love it; and I never, never saw such a beauty!"
"I'm glad you like it."
There was a moment's pause. Over by the dressing-table Miss Jane was
carefully smoothing a refractory lock of hair into place. She looked so
calm, so self-contained, so--far away, thought Genevieve; if it had been
Aunt Julia, now!
Suddenly the girl gave a little skipping run and enveloped the lady in
two wide-flung young arms, thereby ruffling up more than ever the
carefully smoothed lock of hair.
"Miss, Jane, I--I've just got to hug you, anyway!"
"Why, Genevieve, my dear!" murmured Miss Jane, a little dazedly.
From the door Genevieve called back incoherently--the hug had been as
short in duration as it had been sudden in action:
"I don't think I can be late now, Miss Jane, ever--with that lovely
thing to keep time for me. And I wanted you to know--next year, when I
come back, I'm just sure I shall cook and sew beautifully, and do my
practising and everything, without once being told. And if I do sprain
my ankle I'll be a perfect angel--truly I will. And I won't ever keep
folks waiting, either, or--mercy! there's Nancy's first ring now, and
I'm not one bit ready!" she broke off, as the musical notes of a Chinese
gong sounded from the hall below. The next moment Miss Jane was alone
with her thoughts--and with the lock of hair that she was still trying
to smooth.
"Dear child!" smiled the lady. Then she turned abruptly and hastened
from the room, her hair still unsmoothed. "I'll just tell Nancy to be a
little slow about ringing that second gong," she murmured.
When Genevieve came down-stairs to supper that night, she brought with
her two books: one a small paper-covered one, the other a larger one
bound in dark red leather.
"Here's the latest 'Pathfinder'--only I call it 'Path_loser_,'" she
laughed, handing the smaller book to Miss Jane Chick; "and here
is--well, just see what is here," she finished impressively, spreading
open the leather-covered book before Mrs. Kennedy's eyes.
"'Chronicles of the Hexagon Club,'" read Mrs. Kennedy. "Oh, a journal!"
she smiled.
"Yes, Aunt Julia. Isn't it lovely?"
"Indeed it is! Who will keep it?"
"All of us. We are going to take turns. We shall write a day apiece--we
six Happy Hexagons of the Hexagon Club."
"Do the girls know about it?" asked Miss Jane.
"Not yet. I just thought of it yesterday when I saw the book in the
store. Father bought it for the club--of course _my_ money was gone long
ago--at such a time as _this_," she explained with laughing emphasis.
"I'm going to show the book to the girls to-morrow. Won't they be
tickled--I mean pleased," corrected Genevieve, throwing a hasty glance
into Miss Jane's smiling eyes.
"I think they will," agreed that lady, pleasantly.
The girls were pleased, indeed, when Genevieve told of her plan and
showed the book the next day. But even so entrancing a subject as a
journal kept by each in turn could not hold their attention long; for
time was very short now, and in every household there were a
dozen-and-one last things to be done before the momentous fifth of July.
Even the Fourth, with its fun and its firecrackers had no charms for the
Happy Hexagons. Of so little consequence did they consider it, indeed,
that at last one small boy quite lost his patience.
"You won't fire my crackers, you won't take me to the picnic, you won't
play ball, you won't do anything," he complained to his absorbed sister.
"I shall be just glad when this old Texas thing is over!"