“I don’t understand how you did it,” said Julie to her husband, who leaned over the back of the chair on the arm of which she was perching, his head on a level with hers.
“It was not difficult, dear. I had been on the track of ‘The Hustle’ for some time. I always intended to capture you all sometime and take you off for a vacation in her. That was one of my dreams, but I never mentioned it to certain little girls I knew for fear it would never come true. Early this spring I learned that the car had been relegated to a car shed on a Western road—it was not considered modern enough for use. So I ordered it on to Radnor, had it overhauled and thought it would be an ideal place for a honeymoon, eh, little wife?”
“Oh! yes,” she said shyly.
“And Hester,” slipping his hand down over the chair and resting it on her shoulder, “it is your honeymoon, too, dear. I am so glad. And ‘The Hustle’ is yours as much as it is Julie’s. Will you always remember that? Kenneth, old man,” with a change of tone, “will you come with me and see that everything is aboard? I hear the train, which means that we shall be picked up and taken on in a few minutes.”
Left to themselves, the girls, half-dazed by these astonishing events, wandered slowly about the dear old familiar car, which had suffered scarcely an alteration. Julie felt it was Dr. Ware’s exquisite forethought which had kept the interior so nearly as they had left it. There was the piano at which she had so often played and sang for Daddy and the great leather chair drawn up close in which he had spent many a restful hour listening to her. Over the piano in its old place hung a portrait of her mother and at one end of the car, looking down benignly, hung their favorite picture of their father—the Major in full uniform with that spirited look of action which so distinguished him. Over the picture were crossed two swords, his and the Doctor’s; over these higher up was draped Old Glory hanging in splendid folds.
“Miss Nannie and Mr. Renshawe and Jack, they come over this mornin’ an’ fixed the flag an’ all the flowers you see around everywheres. Jack said to tell you he done the swords. Didn’t he get ’em up fine? They had a great time over here all unbeknownst to yez,” explained Bridget.
The girls stood hand in hand before the picture. “Oh! Daddy,” they whispered, “dear Daddy, help us to be worthy of all this!”
CHAPTER XXIV
They made the run to Tampa in two days. The transports were being loaded with ammunition, provisions and all the paraphernalia of war as they arrived and Kenneth went on board with the last detachment of Rough Riders.
Hester bore up like the brave little soldier she was. There was never a tear, though she clung at the last to Kenneth as if she could not let him go. That was for but a moment. The next she stood erect and smiling on the rear platform of “The Hustle” waving him off. The picture Kenneth carried away with him cheered all the hours of all the days to come. He had only to close his eyes to see a slender girlish figure with head thrown back and radiant, unflinching eyes smiling and smiling into his very heart. And all through the desperate fight before San Juan when the bullets hissed and all was deafening, blinding chaos, rang her last words, “Fight for your country and me—be as brave an officer as Daddy.”