German part of the library, giving some books and an invaluable list;
but none of you know what Miss Prescott told me a day or two ago. It is
a secret, but I think she will let me tell it now, just for
completeness, won't you, Miss Prescott?"
Alice blushed and smiled.
"If you really wish, but I don't like to be thanked for what is only a
promise as yet."
"Never mind about that. It will be more than a promise soon. Miss
Prescott does very clever designing, and she heard me lamenting the fact
that we have no book-plate for the library, and most kindly offered to
furnish one."
"I'll submit it to my teacher in designing," said Alice shyly, "and then
Mr. Swinburne will present it to the Board to accept or reject as they
see fit. You're not bound to take it, but I did want to help along
somehow!"
"We ought to do that cheering all over again," said Archie, "but I move
you, Madam President, that Miss Lange and Miss Prescott consider
themselves specially included in the yells of a moment ago, and that the
meeting proceed to sing the Boat Club song."
The passers-by, if there had been any, must have wondered at the joyous
burst of song that followed this remark. As a matter of fact, however,
there were no passers-by at all. The rain had washed the streets clear,
and the corner lights, glimmering faintly through the wet, fell on one
figure only.
Standing before the library window, holding a great cotton umbrella over
his head, and peering patiently through a crack between the casing and
the shade, was a small boy, in an overcoat several sizes too large for
him.
Agnes' seat was near the window. Suddenly she saw a small nose and an
inquiring eye pressed against the crack.
"Look!" she said, and all eyes followed her gesture.
Bert sprang to open the door and drag the dripping little figure in.
Polly and Catherine quickly took off the great coat and shut the vast
umbrella. Then they drew the little chap to the table, where Bertha had
a plate of goodies ready for him.
"Attention, everybody!"
Max sprang to his feet.
"Sing to the air of the Boat Club Song:
"He is the Boat Club mascot,
Give a cheer! give a cheer!
For the Boat Club mascot,
Elsmere! Elsmere!"
"Do it again!" cried Elsmere, brandishing a fork and making Bertha
dodge, "Give a cheer, Elsmere! Boat Club stomach! Give a cheer!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AUF WIEDERSEHEN
Such a bustling place as Three Gables was on that Friday morning!
"It seems a pity that you can't stay till Monday, when college really
opens," said Dr. Helen, pressing out a filmy waist in the dining-room,
where the four girls were gathered, setting last stitches.
"But the new girls who have come on early and those who have had to take
'exams' are just the ones who need cheering up, and we are the official
Comfort Committee, aren't we, Alice?"
Alice, fastening the thread after sewing in a fresh ruche, nodded. "Got
to keep the blues away, or perish trying to," she said. "And Hannah has
to be home before Monday. And Frieda needs a day or two to get settled.
Hilda said she'd come back to-day, and they could get their room in
order before Sunday. I'm so glad you're going to room with Hilda, Frieda
dear. She's such a darling child."
"Is she still given to crushes?" asked Hannah. "She fairly worshiped
Lilian Burton's door-sill when I was there."
"Crushes are going out of fashion at Dexter," said Catherine
emphatically. "And one of the reasons I thought it would be good for
Hilda to room with Frieda was that Frieda has too much sense to indulge
in them, and she will keep Hilda suppressed."
"Catherine, you have such a positive manner when you talk about Dexter,"
said Hannah thoughtfully. "You'll be House President senior year. O,
dear!" for Frieda, in getting up to help Dr. Helen fold up the
ironing-board, had brushed by Hannah's chair, and a fat little button
bag rolling to the floor had emptied its contents all over the room.
"Such a lot of buttons, Hannah!" exclaimed Dr. Helen, stooping to help
gather them up.
Hannah laughed. "Mamma was so surprised when I came back from Dexter
because there were as many in it as when I went, and I told her there
were more because I had put in all the buttons that had come off while I
was there! And then she was shocked!"
The doorbell rang and Inga came in with a big parcel for Catherine with
Grandma Hopkins' compliments. Catherine opened it, wondering, and the
others dropped their work.
"A cake! Did you ever in your life? And I already have Mrs. Graham's
jelly, and Mr. Graham's bag of nuts, and old Mrs. Hitchcock's jar of
preserves! Mother, how can I ever thank them all?"
"How can you ever get them all transported to Dexter, is what I'm
wondering! Do they always send girls off to school with food for the
term, Catherine?" asked Hannah.
"Well, I had cookies and mince pie to take last year, after my trunk was
packed. Mother persuaded me to leave the pie, but I was sorry afterward.
And one of Polly's mother's friends baked a chicken for her to carry all
the way to Wellesley! People are so kind! How do you suppose I can carry
this cake, though, Mother? It's such an awkward shape, and I couldn't
pack it with my clothes!"
"Do you remember how Inez brought a pail of honey in her trunk," put in
Alice, "and how it leaked out all over everything she had?"
"I'll put the cake into a stout hat-box, and fasten a heavy cord and a
handle on it, and you can get it there safely, I think. You won't have
to carry it, except just getting on and off the train." Dr. Helen
hurried off to see to that bit of packing, herself.
Bertha, Agnes and Dot, and even Dorcas, found excuses to drop in at the
house that morning. Win and Bess promised to be at the train. On the way
home from school three or four of Catherine's Sunday-school children ran
in to say good-by. Polly was in and out a dozen times, and Peter and
Perdita came together to present a beautiful photograph of themselves in
their newest garments and shiniest shoes. Dinner was interrupted by the
trunkman's arrival, and Dr. Harlow had to keep a watchful eye upon each
girl to see that she did not forget to eat.
Algernon and Bert came to escort the party to the station, and they
started out merrily enough. When they reached the sidewalk, Catherine
turned and ran back to the house for a private farewell to her mother,
who preferred saying good-by there instead of going to the station.
College seemed suddenly robbed of its pleasure, and the length of days
between September and Thanksgiving intolerable, but they were used to
helping each other be brave, and they blinked away the tears and parted
smiling, Catherine turning frequently to wave good-bys till the house
was lost in the trees.
It was quite like a reception at the station. While Dr. Harlow attended
to ticket-buying, the young people clustered together, talking at random
and laughing easily.
"It will be so lonely without you all," sighed Bess. "All the other
college folk will be off by Tuesday at the latest, and here we shall
languish!"
"You'll not have much time to languish if you assist in the
kindergarten, Winifred," said Catherine affectionately. "I'm so glad you
are going to do it! You'll make them sing like little nightingales. O,
Bess, you go right by Grandma Hopkins' on the way home, don't you? Would
you mind running in and telling her that the cake got off all right?
I'll write her, of course, but I know she will want to know. Algernon!
You don't mean it? Miss Ainsworth drawing her own novels! How perfectly
delicious! O Max, there you are! What did Mr. Morse say? Was he pleased
with the way we handled the paper?"
"Seemed to be. How I wish I were still on, to be able to write up your
departure fittingly! I say, who's that odd little pair over there? They
seem to be looking this way as if they wanted something."
The others turned and Frieda, who had been standing in a dreary silence,
listening to the chatter of all these dear boys and girls whom she was
leaving perhaps forever, suddenly ran across the platform to where a
little old lady in black with a knitted shawl over her head, and a
little old man in ill-fitting clothes were standing.
"We came to tell our little friend good-by," "And to wish her _Gute
Reise!_" They spoke in a kind of duet.
"Here are a few poor blossoms from our garden--"
"That you forget not the old people--"
"And a trifle of _Kuchen_ that I made myself--"
"And this I have carved for you, to put your pens on--"
Frieda, beaming and exclaiming her gratitude, made a pretty picture and
the young people, observing her and hearing the rapid German, felt that
they were seeing her in a better light than they had before, much as
they had already learned to like and enjoy her.
Dot clung to Hannah, and the gentle Agnes, who had found Alice
incredibly congenial, walked arm in arm with her a little apart from the
others, while Catherine in the center of the group held her father's arm
fast.
They were off at last.
"I thought that child in the back seat was Elsmere," sighed Catherine,
starting up and dropping back again, relieved. "That child actually gets
on my mind so that I expect to see him everywhere."
"Algernon tied him up, or he would have been there. He is a little
rascal. It was a relief to me to have Perdita live up to her name and
reputation, though," said Hannah. "I heard about her all summer as a
little mischief, and I never saw her do an indecorous thing. I didn't
_see_ her do that."
"Well, you may mark my words," said Catherine, "before you have grown
many years older you will hear astonishing tales of Perdita Osgood.
Peter's influence will not always keep her in check. Polly told me that
yesterday she tried to vaccinate the cat, with a mixture of ground chalk
and vinegar! Peter came for help to prevent her!"
"American children are pretty bad, aren't they, Frieda?" said Alice
mischievously, for Frieda's lips were set sternly.
"Don't make her say so," pleaded Hannah teasingly. "She has made such a
beautiful record."
Frieda flushed a little, but slipped her hand into her pocket and felt
there the shape of the little carved frame of Karl's picture and held
her tongue once more. She would not quarrel with Hannah in this last
hour for anything!
"Next year," Hannah said thoughtfully, "I am surely coming to Dexter,
and you three are to get the fire-wall room for us, and we'll live in
glory and rapture."
"If it were only _this_ year!" Alice moaned out the words, and the
others sighed with her. The excitement of getting off had died, and they
were becoming painfully aware of the separation that was approaching
with every revolution of the wheels.
There were other passengers in the car, but they felt peculiarly alone,
none the less. It was a curious tie that bound them. They felt that
their friendship, so oddly started, had something more vital in it than
most school-girl relations. They had all been sorry to leave bright,
lovable Polly, but still, so long as they four stayed together, nothing
could matter very much.
"O, dear," sighed Hannah aloud. "I do think I spend all my time getting
along without somebody or other!"
"'We meet so seldom, yet we surely part so often,'" quoted Catherine
musingly.
"O, Catherine, my darling, if you dare begin on that sad Rossetti
woman!" cried Alice. "You don't know how dreadful she is about it,
Hannah! She goes about for days with a distant sad look in her eyes and,
if she is spoken to suddenly, she says, 'When I was dead my spirit
turned,' or 'Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very
end!' or something equally doleful. I feel as though some one were dying
in the next room, and I do believe I'll hide the book."
"It won't do you any good," remarked Catherine serenely. "I know almost
all of her by heart. But you must admit, Allie, that I do say cheerful
things at times. You got sick of the Jumblies last year."
"They were as idiotic as the Rossetti lady, in another way. We'll never
agree on such subjects, Catherine!"
"Well, anyhow, Catherine isn't going to read so much poetry this year,"
said Hannah.
"And Hannah is going to read more," rejoined Catherine, at which Hannah
made a wry face and set them all laughing.
"Dexter!"
"Already? O, Hannah darling, how can we ever let you go on without us?"
All three were kissing her, but Hannah laughed at their sorrowful faces.
"I'll go out on the platform with you. And I'll carry the hat-box,
Catrina. Shall you have a spread to-night? Oh! it's the same dear
little, queer little station! And there's Miss Eliot, and Dy-the Allen!
Glory! Glory! Glory! Dy-the, going on this train? Joy and rapture! I
should have died of loneliness!"
And Hannah plunged down the steps and threw out her arms to embrace
Dy-the, when thud! out fell the bottom of the hat-box, and with it
Grandma Hopkins' lovely cake!
Miss Eliot looked into the distressed blue eyes and laughed.
"Just the same Hannah!" she said. "Dy-the, take good care of her and
don't let her get lost in Chicago. Now, child, introduce me to your
Frieda and get back on the train at once."
"Here she is," said Hannah, casting one more sad look at the shattered
cake, over which a baggage-man had rolled a heavy truck. "And, Frieda,
Miss Eliot is the one to go to, always, when you need anything, from
shoe-strings to a scolding. O, Catherine, I'm so sorry. I just wanted to
help!"
Catherine caught her in a mighty hug.
"Never you mind one minute. It would have given us indigestion, and it
was so funny to see it go smash! Give your father my love, won't you,
darling? And Aunt Clara, when you see her."
"And write from the very first station," said Alice. "I'm so glad Dy-the
is going to be with you."
"Give Karl my greetings," said Frieda, holding on to Hannah's hand
tightly. "And O, ever my love to Tante Edith and Uncle Edward!"
"Come, Babe, not another minute," and Dy-the, little but determined,
plucked Hannah from detaining arms, and set her firmly on the platform
of the rear car. There, as the train glided out, she stood, her eyes
fixed upon the little group of three with arms around each other.
"Good-by! Good-by!" she called and they answered. Then Frieda ran a
little nearer, holding out her arms in a pleading gesture, and over the
noise of the retreating train their voices rang out together:
"_Auf Wiedersehen!_"
"_Auf glueckliches Wiedersehen!_"