Well, I came last night. Mother and Grandfather and Aunt Hattie and Baby Lester all met me at the station. And, my! wasn't I glad to see them? Well, I just guess I was!
I was specially glad on account of having such a dreadful time with Father that morning. I mean, I was feeling specially lonesome and homesick, and not-belonging-anywhere like.
You see, it was this way: I'd been sort of hoping, I know, that at the last, when I came to really go, Father would get back the understanding smile and the twinkle, and show that he really did care for me, and was sorry to have me go. But, dear me! Why, he never was so stern and solemn, and you're-my-daughter-only-by-the-order-of-the-court sort of way as he was that morning.
He never even spoke at the breakfast-table. (He wasn't there hardly long enough to speak, anyway, and he never ate a thing, only his coffee—I mean he drank it.) Then he pushed his chair back from the table and stalked out of the room.
He went to the station with me; but he didn't talk there much, only to ask if I was sure I hadn't forgotten anything, and was I warmly clad. Warmly clad, indeed! And there it was still August, and hot as it could be! But that only goes to show how absent-minded he was, and how little he was really thinking of me!
Well, of course, he got my ticket and checked my trunk, and did all those proper, necessary things; then we sat down to wait for the train. But did he stay with me and talk to me and tell me how glad he had been to have me with him, and how sorry he was to have me go, and all the other nice, polite things 'most everybody thinks they've got to say when a visitor goes away? He did not. He asked me again if I was sure I had not left anything, and was I warmly clad; then he took out his newspaper and began to read. That is, he pretended to read; but I don't believe he read much, for he never turned the sheet once; and twice, when I looked at him, he was looking fixedly at me, as if he was thinking of something. So I guess he was just pretending to read, so he wouldn't have to talk to me.
But he didn't even do that long, for he got up and went over and looked at a map hanging on the wall opposite, and at a big time-table near the other corner. Then he looked at his watch again with a won't-that-train-ever-come? air, and walked back to me and sat down.
And how do you suppose I felt, to have him act like that before all those people—to show so plainly that he was just longing to have me go? I guess he wasn't any more anxious for that train to come than I was. And it did seem as if it never would come, too. And it didn't come for ages. It was ten minutes late.
Oh, I did so hope he wouldn't go down to the junction. It's so hard to be taken care of "because it's my duty, you know"! But he went. I told him he needn't, when he was getting on the train with me. I told him I just knew I could do it beautifully all by myself, almost-a-young lady like me. But he only put his lips together hard, and said, cold, like ice: "Are you then so eager to be rid of me?" Just as if I was the one that was eager to get rid of somebody!
Well, as I said, he went. But he wasn't much better on the train than he had been in the station. He was as nervous and fidgety as a witch, and he acted as if he did so wish it would be over and over quick. But at the junction—at the junction a funny thing happened. He put me on the train, just as Mother had done, and spoke to the conductor. (How I hated to have him do that! Why, I'm six whole months older, 'most, than I was when I went up there!) And then when he'd put me in my seat (Father, I mean; not the conductor), all of a sudden he leaned over and kissed me; kissed me—Father! Then, before I could speak, or even look at him, he was gone; and I didn't see him again, though it must have been five whole minutes before that train went.