By this time the car was rounding the Foster drive, and the two girls alighted, in haste to tell all of Katherine’s interested and somewhat disapproving family about their adventures with the soothsayer.
Each of the small brothers agreed with Katherine that it must be all true, but that was the only support she found at home for her belief.
————
When it came time for the girls to start back to Andrews, they were torn with conflicting emotions. They were glad they were going back, and yet they could hardly bear to tear themselves away from the home that seemed now to belong to Peggy, too. So when they and their suit-cases were at last regretfully taken to the train by the entire family, the girls were dissolved in a flood of tears as they settled themselves for the journey, and the train had been under way some two hours before they managed to say a single word to each other.
[CHAPTER X—MISS ROBINSON CRUSOE]
It was the snowiest part of the season that Katherine and Peggy rode back into when they returned from their Christmas vacation in the Middle West.
The school grounds shone and blazed under a triumphant sun, and out around them as far as they could see was a great white world. One of the most important gifts of the Foster family to the two girls had been two pairs of snow-shoes: not the poorly constructed, make-believe affairs that are sometimes on sale in cities where there is never enough snow to use them, but real Indian-made shoes for which Mrs. Foster had sent to Canada.
Naturally, they wanted more than anything else to try them. So the first day that Mrs. Forest gave them permission they went out on the porch of the Andrews dormitory, comfortably dressed in white sweaters and white tam-o’-shanters, with moccasins on their feet and their beloved snow-shoes ready to strap on in their hands. After some grunting and much tugging the shoes were adjusted, and then the two expected to fairly sail over the white world, away, away, like ice-boats, as fast as the wind. But, oh, for the things that look so easy! There was a good crust over the snow, but at the first step—well, Katherine seemed to be trying to walk on her head instead of her feet, that was all. In trying to pick her up Peggy herself fell headlong, and there they lay, ignominiously waving their snow-shoes in the air, shrieking with laughter and so limp from their merriment that they could not get up again.
It was only after many attempts that they stood erect once more, powdered over and caked with snow where they had plunged through the crust, and very red in the face and still shaking with laughter.
“I put my toe down first,” gasped Katherine between spasms, “just as I would if I was walking ordinarily. I forgot that father said the foot must come down flat. I’ve seen people snow-shoe, but I never—t-tried it—oh, dear me, I’m almost exhausted to start out with.”