The Cheerful Smugglers

by Ellis Parker Butler

“Are you sure, very sure, that you do not mind, Kitty?” asked Mrs. Fenelby. “You will not feel hurt, or anything?”

“Oh, no!” said Kitty, lightly. “It will be a lark. I never in my life went visiting with three trunks, and then had them stored in another house. It will be quite like being shipwrecked on a desert island, to get along with one shirt-waist and one handkerchief.”

“It will not be quite that bad, you know,” said Mr. Fenelby, with the air of a man stating a great discovery, “because, don’t you see, you can open your trunks at the Rankins’, and bring over just as many things as you think you can afford to pay on.”

For some reason that Mr. Fenelby could not fathom Kitty laughed merrily at this, and then they all went in to dinner. It was a very good dinner, of the kind that Bridget could prepare when she was in the humor, and they sat rather longer over it than usual, and then Mr. Fenelby proposed that he should step over to the Rankins’ and arrange about the storage of Kitty’s trunks, and on thinking it over he decided that he had better step down to the station and see if he could not get a man to carry the trunks across the street and up the Rankins’ stairs. As they filed out of the house upon the porch, Kitty suddenly decided that it was a beautiful evening for a little walk, and that nothing would please her so much as to walk to the station with Mr. Fenelby, if Laura would be one of the party, and after running up to see that Bobberts was all right, Laura said that she would go, and they started. As they were crossing the street to the Rankins’ Kitty suddenly turned back.

“Never in the history of trunks was the act of unpacking done so quickly or so recklessly”

“You two go ahead,” she said. “The air will do you good, Laura. I have something I want to do,” and she ran back.

She entered the house, and looked out of the window until she saw the Fenelbys go into the Rankins’ and come out again, and saw them start to the station, but as soon as they were out of sight she dashed down the porch steps and threw open the lids of her trunks. Never in the history of trunks was the act of unpacking done so quickly or so recklessly. She dived into the masses of fluffiness and emerged with great armfuls, and hurried them into the house, up the stairs, and into her closet, and was down again for another load. If she had been looting the trunks she could not have worked more hurriedly, or more energetically, and when the last armful had been carried up she slammed the lids and turned the keys, and sank in a graceful position on the lower porch step.

Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby returned with leisurely slowness of pace, the station loafer and man-of-little-work slouching along at a respectful distance behind them. Kitty greeted them with a cheerful frankness of face. The man-of-little-work looked at the three big trunks as if their size was in some way a personal insult to him. He tried to assume the look of a man who had been cozened away from his needed rest on false pretences.