"Well, I'd like to know who it is that is keeping her busy. She's been sewing for you all week. If you're so particular, I'll bring them to you and you can mend them yourself."
Janet looked decidedly put out. "I'll do no such thing. When I am so up to my eyes in work I think it is very inconsiderate in you to say such things. Why you have to go to town anyhow, I don't see. Hooker can get the mail and do any errands that are necessary."
Dicky made a face at her and began to joggle the back of his mother's chair so that its occupant in self-defense said: "Oh, Janet, do let him go. I'd rather mend the trousers ten times over than have him around here bothering everybody. Go get them, Dicky, and put on your old ones till these are mended."
Dicky scrambled from the room in tumultuous boy fashion, returning in a moment with the unlucky trousers which were speedily mended and he was sent off forthwith.
"I wish I had gone, too," said Janet after watching the light wagon disappear down the lane. "I might have stopped at Aunt Minerva's and have had them pick me up on the way back. Never mind, I'll get this done and go there this afternoon."
She worked away with a will, saying little for the next hour. Her thoughts were busy with the future, for these were exciting times for Janet Ferguson. She had been prepared for college at a small boarding-school where life had not offered many sensations. One of her fellow students, who had been graduated at the same time as herself, was to enter college with her and would be her roommate. Edna Waite's circle of friends included a number who were college girls and these she had considered her authority in all matters. In consequence, every few days she dashed off a letter to Janet with some new item of information, and with some necessity added to the list which at first had seemed a sufficiently long one.
So now Janet was beginning to feel that the burden of her preparations would soon threaten to swallow up not only her every moment, but every penny which the resources of the family could furnish. Janet was also beginning to have misgivings. If difficulties arose thus early in her career what would happen later when all sorts of unexpected expenses might drain her pocketbook to the last penny of her allowance, for Edna discoursed at length upon the various directions in which, as college girls, they would be expected to make a showing.
She looked so serious, as she pulled out the basting threads from the hem of one of her frocks, that her mother said, in the absence of Miss Roxy in the kitchen: "Not homesick already, Janet?"
The girl smiled. "No, momsey, not that; I was only wondering if I should find it hard to get through on my allowance."
"You thought it ample when your father suggested it."