“There’s plenty of time yet,” Ellen tried to soothe her.
“There may be, but one can never tell what delays may crop up. I’d rather be half an hour too early than one minute too late.”
They were standing on the porch, the door locked and the key in Ellen’s hand, ready to be delivered into Jeremy Todd’s keeping, when they saw Beulah lumbering up the street and laden down with various equipments for the journey. Her fellow-travellers hurried down to the gate to meet her. “I don’t know why I didn’t tell her to meet us at the railway station,” complained Miss Rindy; “it would have saved time. Hurry up, Beulah,” she called out.
“’Deed, Miss Rindy, I comin’ fas’ as I kin,” responded Beulah breathlessly. “I so borned down with all dese yere bun’les an’ bags.”
Miss Rindy looked aghast as she saw what Beulah carried: a dilapidated suit-case, bursting at corners and tied up with various assortments of string, a discarded cover of a sofa pillow, tied around the top to make a bag, various heterogeneous newspaper bundles of different shapes and sizes kept together by strips of muslin, the string having given out, and, last, a paper bag containing, supposedly, a hat which was secured to Beulah’s sleeve by a large safety-pin.
“My fathers, Beulah!” exclaimed Miss Rindy. “You can’t travel all the way to Maine with that collection. Why didn’t you put them all in one bag or trunk?”
“Didn’t have nothin’ but dis yere suit-case, an’ dey wasn’t no papers big enough to pack uverthing in.”
“Well, why didn’t you send some of the stuff by parcel post?”
“I don’ trus’ my bes’ clothes to no mail bag. I sees how dey flings ’em eroun’.”
“You might have worn the hat, at least.”