“Oh,” said Marjorie, “I wish I could go to sleep for six weeks, and then wake up the day you come home again.”
“Oh, you have that farewell feeling now,” said Mr. Maynard; “but after we’re really gone, and you find out what fun it is to have no one to rule over you, you’ll begin to wish we would stay six months instead of six weeks.” Marjorie cast a look of reproach at her father.
“Not much!” she said, emphatically. “I wish you’d only stay six days, or six hours.”
“Or six minutes,” added Kitty. But at last the melancholy meal was over, and the good-bys really began.
“Cut it short,” said Mr. Maynard, fearing the grief of the emotional children would affect his wife’s nerves.
They clung alternately to either parent, now bewailing the coming separation, and again cheering up as Mr. Maynard made delightful promises of sending back letters, postcards, pictures and gifts from every stopping-place on their journey.
“And be very good to Miss Larkin,” said Mrs. Maynard, by way of final injunction. “Cheer her up if she is lonely, and then you’ll forget that you’re lonely yourselves.” This was a novel idea.
“Oho!” said King, “I guess she’d better cheer us up.”
“Oh, the four of you can cheer each other,” said Mr. Maynard. “Come, Helen, the carriage is waiting—Good-by for the last time, chickadees. Now, brace up, and let your mother go away with a memory of four smiling faces.”
This was a pretty big order, but the Maynard children were made of pretty good stuff after all, and in response to their father’s request they did show four smiling, though tearful faces, as Mrs. Maynard waved a good-by from the carriage window. But as the carriage passed through the gate and was lost to their sight, the four turned back to the house with doleful countenances indeed.