BREAKING UP.
The June days had come again, and the children were beginning to look
forward to the summer exodus to Kayuna. Their school closed the second
week in June, and the flitting was to take place on the 11th. Eunice and
Cricket were to go to Marbury in July for a two weeks’ visit to their
grandmother. The Somers family were to be there, as usual, and Edna had
written imploring letters that the girls might be with her there for a
little while. Then Edna was to be with them in Kayuna the entire month
of August.
“Doesn’t it seem six years since last June, when we were all flying
around, and mamma was getting ready to go to Europe?” said Cricket on
the last night at the house in town. “Seems to me I was such a _little_
girl then.”
Indeed, Cricket, as well as Eunice, had grown much older in the last
year, and was more responsible and self-reliant in every way. Both girls
had grown tall, Cricket especially, for she had shot up within half an
inch of Eunice this winter.
Cricket was very proud of this, and was hugely delighted when people
took her to be Eunice’s twin, as they quite often had of late. But her
curly hair was getting to be a great grievance, as it still tumbled
about her shoulders, and wouldn’t grow long.
“Do you suppose my hair will _always_ stay short and curly?” she
asked, anxiously. She was sitting perched on her father’s knee. The
younger children were in bed, and the others were all in the back
parlour. The furniture was in its summer dress of brown holland, the
pictures had retired behind mosquito nets, and everything wore a
shut-up-for-the-summer expression, except the family.
“Just think how I’ll look when I’m eighty,” went on Cricket, in an
aggrieved tone, “going about with little flippy-floppy curls all over my
head, like old Mrs. Crazy-Beecher, round on Jones Street. Don’t you know
how her curls always jiggle up and down, because she nods all the time
like a Chinese mandolin?”
“Mandarin, dear. Yes. You might wear a wig then,” suggested mamma.
“Ugh! I’d hate to wear store hair.”
“Did you hear Kenneth’s latest? He watched Eliza this morning putting on
that funny jute braid she wears, and it seemed to strike him for the
first time, so he said, ‘’Liza, what makes you wear _cloth_ hair? Mamma
doesn’t.’”
“I don’t want cloth hair, either,” said Cricket, decidedly. “Papa, can’t
anything be done to straighten my curls out? Couldn’t you give me some
medicine for it? I’d like to put it up in plaster of Paris. Wouldn’t
that do it? It straightened out the little Smith boy’s leg.”
“We might put your mind up in plaster of Paris, to take some of the
kinks out of _that_,” observed Donald.
“My mind’s the best I’ve got, and you’ll please be respectful to it,”
said Cricket, with dignity. “You’re a model of sarcasticity, I suppose
you think. Anyway, I _do_ wish I had ‘plain hair,’ as Zaidie says.
Eunice just gives hers a good brushing in the morning, and braids it up
all smooth and nice, and there it stays. While mine!”—a gesture of
despair finished the sentence.
“I don’t know what I can do for you, little Gloriana McQuirk,” said her
father, tumbling the obnoxious curls affectionately over her face.
“There!” exclaimed Cricket. “Nobody would ever think of throwing
Eunice’s braid over her face, and it wouldn’t disturb it a bit if they
did, and nobody minds tossing mine every which way, as if I hadn’t a
feeling to my name.”
“Cricket’s trials with her hair are like Amy March’s with her nose,”
said Marjorie.
“Good idea,” said Donald. “Braid your hair into pig-tails, and put a
patent clothes-pin at the end of each one, Miss Scricket,” and only the
fact that none were to be found in the kitchen regions, whither Cricket
instantly repaired, prevented the suggestion from being carried out.
“How different things will be when we come back next fall,” Mrs. Ward
said, presently, when Cricket had resumed her place on her father’s
knee. “It will seem strange to have Marjorie gone, and the little ones
in school.”
For the next year was to see several changes. For one thing, Marjorie
was to go to boarding-school for a year. She would soon be seventeen,
and her father and mother wished her to have the training in
self-reliance and independence that a year away would give her. Marjorie
did not aspire to college life, but was eager to cultivate her musical
talent especially. Later, she was to have a year in Germany for that
purpose.
Eunice and Cricket were to be collegians, however, and were already
planning with regard to Wellesley days.
Next year, also, the twins were to be launched on their school career.
They had never been even to a kindergarten, for Helen had been too
delicate, and Mrs. Ward did not wish to separate the children. Now Helen
seemed to be growing stronger all the time, and Doctor Ward thought that
school would be quite feasible the next fall. Even Kenneth was to begin
at the kindergarten, and it was no wonder that Mrs. Ward, as she said,
began to feel that she really had a grown-up family.
The girls would miss Marjorie immensely next year, but, by way of
compensation, Eunice thought she would enjoy the dignity of being the
oldest daughter at home.
“And I think people really ought to begin to call me Miss Ward,” she
said, meditatively.
THE END.
THE
“Queen Hildegarde” Series.
By Laura E. Richards.
=HILDEGARDE’S HARVEST.=
The _fifth volume_ of the Hildegarde Series. Illustrated with eight
full-page cuts. Square 16mo, cloth, $1.25.
A new volume in the “Hildegarde” series, some of the best and most
deservedly popular books for girls issued in recent years. This new
volume is fully equal to its predecessors in point of interest, and is
sure to renew the popularity of the entire series.
=HILDEGARDE’S NEIGHBORS.=
Fourth volume. Illustrated from original designs. Illustrated by L. J.
Bridgman. Square 16mo, cloth, $1.25.
=HILDEGARDE’S HOME.=
Third volume. Illustrated with original designs by Merrill. Square
16mo, cloth, $1.25.
=HILDEGARDE’S HOLIDAY.=
Second volume. Illustrated with full-page plates by Copeland. Square
16mo, cloth, $1.25.
=QUEEN HILDEGARDE.=
First volume. Illustrated from original designs by Garrett (292 pp.).
Square 16mo, cloth, $1.25.
“We would like to see the sensible, heroine-loving girl in her early
teens who would not like this book. Not to like it would simply argue a
screw loose somewhere.”—_Boston Post._
=THE HILDEGARDE SERIES.=
as above. 5 vols., square 16mo, put up in a neat box, $6.25.
⁂ Next to Miss Alcott’s famous “LITTLE WOMEN” series they easily rank,
and no books that have appeared in recent times may be more safely put
into the hands of a bright, intelligent girl than these five “Queen
Hildegarde” books.
Other Books by Laura E. Richards.
=LOVE AND ROCKS.=
Tall 16mo, handsome cover design, etching frontispiece, $1.00.
A charming story of one of the pleasant islands on the rugged Maine
coast, told in the author’s most graceful manner.
=WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE.=
Quarto, cloth, gilt top. Illustrated, $1.25.
A series of papers which has already delighted the many readers of St.
Nicholas, now revised and published in book form, with many additions.
The title most happily introduces the reader to the charming home life
of Dr. Howe and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe during the childhood of the author,
and one is young again in reading the delightful sketches of happy child
life in this most interesting family.
=GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT.=
Sketches from French History. Handsomely illustrated with a series of
portraits in etching and photogravure. Square 12mo, cloth, neat
cover design, gilt top, $1.50.
=SAME.=
_Handsomely bound in celluloid, boxed_, $2.00.
The History of France, during the eighteenth century, is a
treasure-house of romantic interest, from which the author has drawn a
series of papers which will appeal to all who care for the picturesque
in history. With true literary touch, she gives us the story of some of
the salient figures of this remarkable period.
=Estes & Lauriat, Publishers, Boston.=
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.