“Gee!” cried Tom, turning sharply toward the track where had stood a moment before the train that brought them. “An’ if ’tain’t gone so soon!”
“Gone—the bag?” chorused five shrill voices.
“Sure!” nodded Tom. Then, with a resigned air, he thrust both hands into his trousers pockets. “Gone she is, bag and baggage.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” murmured Mrs. Kendall.
“Pooh! ’tain’t a mite o’ matter,” assured Patty, quickly. “Ye see, dar wa’n’t nothin’ in it, anyhow, only a extry ribb’n fur Arabella’s hair.” Then, at Mrs. Kendall’s blank look of amazement, she explained: “We only took it ’cause Katy Sovrensky said folks allers took ’em when they went trav’lin’. So we fished dis out o’ de ash barrel an’ fixed it up wid strings an’ tacks. We didn’t have nothin’ ter put in it, ‘course. All our clo’s is on us.”
“We didn’t need nothin’ else, anyhow,” piped up Arabella, “for all our things is span clean. We went ter bed ‘most all day yisterday so’s Patty could wash ’em.”
“Yes, yes, of course, certainly,” agreed Mrs. Kendall, faintly, as she turned and led the way to the big four-seated carryall waiting for them. “Then we’ll go home right away.”
To Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, Arabella, and Clarabella, it was all so wonderful that they fairly pinched themselves to make sure they were awake. The drive through the elm-bordered streets with everywhere flowers, vine-covered houses, and velvety lawns—it was all quite unbelievable.
“It’s more like Mont-Lawn than anythin’ I ever see,” murmured Arabella. “Seems ‘most as though ’twas heaven.” And Mrs. Kendall, who heard the words, reproached herself because for four long weeks she had stood jealous guard over this “heaven” and refused to “divvy up” its enjoyment. The next moment she shuddered and unconsciously drew Margaret close to her side. Patty had said:
“Gee whiz, Mag, ain’t you lucky? Wis’t I was a lost an’ founded!”