“My mind’s the best I’ve got, and you’ll please be respectful to it,” said Cricket, with dignity. “You’re a model of sarcasticity, I suppose you think. Anyway, I do wish I had ‘plain hair,’ as Zaidie says. Eunice just gives hers a good brushing in the morning, and braids it up all smooth and nice, and there it stays. While mine!”—a gesture of despair finished the sentence.
“I don’t know what I can do for you, little Gloriana McQuirk,” said her father, tumbling the obnoxious curls affectionately over her face.
“There!” exclaimed Cricket. “Nobody would ever think of throwing Eunice’s braid over her face, and it wouldn’t disturb it a bit if they did, and nobody minds tossing mine every which way, as if I hadn’t a feeling to my name.”
“Cricket’s trials with her hair are like Amy March’s with her nose,” said Marjorie.
“Good idea,” said Donald. “Braid your hair into pig-tails, and put a patent clothes-pin at the end of each one, Miss Scricket,” and only the fact that none were to be found in the kitchen regions, whither Cricket instantly repaired, prevented the suggestion from being carried out.
“How different things will be when we come back next fall,” Mrs. Ward said, presently, when Cricket had resumed her place on her father’s knee. “It will seem strange to have Marjorie gone, and the little ones in school.”
For the next year was to see several changes. For one thing, Marjorie was to go to boarding-school for a year. She would soon be seventeen, and her father and mother wished her to have the training in self-reliance and independence that a year away would give her. Marjorie did not aspire to college life, but was eager to cultivate her musical talent especially. Later, she was to have a year in Germany for that purpose.
Eunice and Cricket were to be collegians, however, and were already planning with regard to Wellesley days.
Next year, also, the twins were to be launched on their school career. They had never been even to a kindergarten, for Helen had been too delicate, and Mrs. Ward did not wish to separate the children. Now Helen seemed to be growing stronger all the time, and Doctor Ward thought that school would be quite feasible the next fall. Even Kenneth was to begin at the kindergarten, and it was no wonder that Mrs. Ward, as she said, began to feel that she really had a grown-up family.
The girls would miss Marjorie immensely next year, but, by way of compensation, Eunice thought she would enjoy the dignity of being the oldest daughter at home.