All too soon they were turning in at the Jarmans' drive and all too soon standing on the Jarmans' doorstep waving good-by as the old Machine, a figure of skin and bones, went dancing spryly off toward Gone-Away.
"You know what I wish, Mother?" Portia said, later that evening. "I just wish we could stay here all through the spring till summertime, and never have to go back to the city or to school until the fall."
"Darling, it won't be for very long," her mother told her. "Only a few weeks, really. And we still have nine days here ahead of us, remember."
"I know," Portia said. She appreciated her mother's talent for making things look better and gave her a hug to show it.
Before she went to bed that night, Portia opened the window wide. Cold damp air came in, bringing a smell of old soaked leaves, of soaked earth. There was a sound of wind in branches, and another sound, too: the spangled, silver-noted calling of the peepers, the first sweet jingling bell notes of the spring.
[3]
The House
The first one up, next morning, was Foster Blake. He had slept industriously for eleven hours and woke up all of a piece without any lingering or yawning.