“To go to the station with a telegram, child, of course! Vic, give me a pencil and paper, please, and I will write it. I wish you would get some telegraph blanks, Peter. Do bring some home with you, for they are such a convenience. Now, let me see. ‘Mr. Dickinson Abbott,—State Street, Boston. Aunt Sophia has been here and has told us’—dear me, that is nine words before I began to tell him what she has told us,” said Honor, biting the end of her pencil.
“Oh, there is ever so much you can scratch out,” said Katherine, taking the paper. “‘Sophia,’ for one. He knows we have only one aunt—for which blessing let us be thankful! ‘Aunt has been here and says—’ no, ‘Aunt here and says we must go there to live because—’”
“Will it do to put all that in a telegram?” queried Victoria. “Why not just say, ‘Please come and see us; we want to talk to you on matters of importance.’”
“That will do very well,” said Katherine, writing it, “and only fifteen words. Those extra five won’t cost much more.”
“We could leave out ‘please,’” said Victoria.
“That wouldn’t be polite.”
“It isn’t necessary to be so very polite in a telegram,” remarked Honor, as she erased the word, “and if it is true that we have no money, we had better begin at once to be economical. And we could say ‘important matters,’ instead of ‘matters of importance.’ That would bring it down.”
“And save five cents, I suppose,” laughed Katherine, derisively. “However, far be it from me to frustrate your good intentions.”
“There,” said Honor, laying down her pencil and reading the amended message; “‘Come see us. We want to talk on important matters.’ Exactly ten words, and now my name—‘Honor Starr.’ Peter, are you ready? Why, you haven’t stirred! Peter!”
And all his sisters with one voice exclaimed reproachfully, “Peter!”