“You can bring whatever you like, Chicken; but I wouldn’t advise carting in many of those heavy things at first, until we’re sure we like the place well enough to stay all winter. It certainly looks attractive, and it has been highly recommended to me, but after all it may prove to have serious disadvantages. So at first we’ll just bring our desks, and some books and pictures, and a few little trinkets to prettify the rooms, and then later on, if we like it, we can run back to Vernondale for a few more things.”
“Yes, that is best, papa,” said Patty; “you always do know what is best. And now how soon do you suppose we can come in to stay?”
“I think we’ll move next Saturday. I can take a whole holiday that day, and get you and Grandma safely established here.”
So eager was Patty to select and pack up the things she wanted to take to the city that she could scarcely wait to get back to Vernondale. It had been a tiresome day, but as soon as she reached home she quite forgot her fatigue in the fun of making her selections. Her favourite pictures were taken from the walls and stood in the hall ready to be packed. All of her tea-things, a small selection of bric-a-bric, and a large box of books were added. Then Patty packed her own trunk and her father’s. Mr. Fairfield looked after the heavier matters, such as rugs and chairs and the two desks and Grandma’s little work-table.
Altogether, it seemed like a regular moving, and Marian, who came over in the midst of the excitement, sat down on the box of books and burst into tears.
“Marian,” said Patty, almost crying herself, “if you don’t stop acting like that I don’t know what I shall do. I’m rapidly growing homesicker and homesicker, and now if you commence to weep all over the place I shall just go to pieces entirely.”
“But you want to go away,” wailed Marian, between her sobs, “you just want to go, and that’s the worst of it! If you did cry you’d be nothing but an old hypocrite!”
“I do want to go, but I’m sorry to leave Vernondale, too. Don’t you suppose I’m fond of all you girls? Don’t you suppose I’ll miss you like sixty? And don’t you suppose it’s a heap worse for me to go away from you all than it is for you to have me go? Why, there’s lots of you to cheer each other up, and there’s only one of me. But what’s the use of acting like this, anyway? I’ve got to go, and I might as well go laughing as crying. If your father wanted you to go, you’d go, and I wouldn’t do all I could to make it harder for you by crying from morning to night.”
The logic of these remarks seemed to impress Marian, for she stopped crying, and said: “I suppose I am a horrid old thing to act so, and I am going to stop, at least until after you’re gone, and then I’m going to cry all I want to.”
“Do,” said Patty, “have a real good time and cry all day, and every day, if you like. But now come on and help me pack my photographs.”