“Tell it not in Gath—nor in Pawtucket! I’ve been as worried as a ball of knitting-wool in the claws of a six-weeks’-old kitten! I had a chance offered me, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Believe me, the wind is tempered to the lawn sham! Professor Keeps, who is a good friend of mine, is going to spend some weeks in the Caribbean, starting soon after New Year’s, and he offered me the chance to go along—and get a salary for so doing! Think of it! Luke Shepard is to be assistant to a grave professor who is curious about the botany of those tropic isles.
“I am going to tell him now that I am his for keeps! Pardon the pun. I will be there with bells on, Ruthie. You can’t lose me. Maybe we can sail in the same boat for St. Sergius. Tell Mr. Howbridge to try to make the Horridole of the Black Pennant Line. She is some boat. I am coming down to see you before the start. Package of remembrances starts with this letter for Christmas. Hang ’em on the tree. I forbid your peeping into yours, Ruthie, until Christmas morning.”
Naturally this news could not be hidden. All the household at once knew that Luke Shepard would be able to spend some of the time, at least, with the party which was to go to St. Sergius.
By this time, too, Tess and Dot, knowing that they were to be included in the party, were telling everybody they met of the good times in store for them.
“Huh! You’d better stay home,” said Sammy Pinkney disappointedly, for he knew that this was a party which he could have no part in. “There’ll be more going on here than down there in the West Indies. You wait and see!”
“But they won’t be the same things,” declared Tess. “We know all about the things that happen in Milton in winter.”
“You don’t know everything,” said the boy, wagging his head.
“What’s going to happen here, Sammy?” cried Dot. “Oh! Do tell us.”
“You’re going to get a present.”
“We always get presents,” said Tess.