"Is it time to get supper already?"
"Not quite. And if four members of the family didn't insist upon having waffles, you shouldn't help at all. Your clothes are all ready, and I want you to come and see them."
The twins raced wildly toward the house, and Sarah followed more slowly with her sister-in-law and Albert. She looked shyly and gratefully at Laura. She had not yet grown quite accustomed to having "Teacher" a member of the family. She had so long looked up to her with awe and admiration that her constant presence in the house did not seem quite real. Laura often laughed at her.
"I should think, Sarah, that after you had cleared up my outrageous bread-dough three times, and had taken my burnt pies from the oven, you would begin to feel fairly well acquainted with me."
Sarah flushed with embarrassment. It was true that Laura was slow about learning to cook. But cooking was such an ordinary, every-day accomplishment! It was much more remarkable never to have had to cook.
"But now you can make good bread and pies," she would insist.
The whole summer had seemed like a dream. The house was no longer strange and dark and lonely as it had been after their father had died. Sarah no longer crept fearfully about at night, fastening the shutters before dark, for fear that Uncle Daniel would try to get in. It had been a happy, happy summer. William came and went, whistling, teasing the twins, riding fat Albert round on his shoulder. Uncle Daniel annoyed them no more. "Teacher" bent with flushed face over the stove, laughing at her mistakes, and calling occasionally to Sarah for help; and Sarah herself sat by the window, a little table before her, on which were books and paper and pencils.
The little table was gone from the window now, the lessons with Laura were over, to-morrow night Sarah would sleep away from home for the first time in her life. They had expected that the trolley company, which had given them a good price for the right of way through the farm, would have finished its line, and that Sarah would have been able to go back and forth to school each week. But the tracks had just begun to creep out from the county-seat.
The twins had run upstairs; their deep ohs! and achs! could be heard in the kitchen below. They shrieked for Sarah, who was already on the steps.
When she looked round the familiar room, she clasped her hands and then stood perfectly still. Beside her bed was an open trunk, and spread out on the bed itself and on the twins' trundle-bed was her outfit for school. There were two school dresses, and a better dress and a best dress,—the last of red cashmere, with bands of silk. There were new shoes and a new coat and two hats and gloves and an umbrella and handkerchiefs and underwear, all marked with her name, and a gymnasium suit, and a scarlet kimono and a comfort and pencils and tablets and—Sarah began suddenly to tremble—a little silver watch and chain and a fountain-pen.