“Chicken pie would cure all those faults,” suggested Graham, and they all laughed again at Peggy’s expression of horror. “Didn’t you tell me they’d bring forty cents a pound,” the young man persisted, teasingly.
“Yes, but that was before I got acquainted with them. I couldn’t turn even the yellow hen into chicken pie, much as I dislike her. The wonder to me,” Peggy ended thoughtfully, “is that anybody ever makes money out of raising chickens.”
Between the supper and the early bedtime there was much to be done. Trunks were packed, except for the bedding and similar articles, which could not be dispensed with before the morning. The remnants of the groceries were bestowed on Mrs. Snooks, and some matters which the girls did not have time to attend to were left in charge of the capable Mrs. Cole. Against everybody’s protest, Peggy insisted on running over to the Cole farmhouse to say good-by. Graham acted as her escort, and the two were admitted by Rosetta Muriel, at the sight of whom Peggy gave an involuntary start.
“Do you like it?” asked Rosetta Muriel, immediately interested. The fair hair which she usually arranged so elaborately, was parted and drawn back rather primly over her ears, giving her face a suggestion of refinement which was becoming, if a little misleading.
Peggy was glad she could answer in the affirmative. “Indeed, I do. The simple styles are so pretty, I think.”
“There was a picture of Adelaide Lacey in the paper, with her hair done this way. She’s going to marry a duke, you know.” It was characteristic of Rosetta Muriel thus to excuse her lapse into simplicity, but though the ingenuous explanation was the truth, it was not the whole truth. Even Rosetta Muriel was not quite the same girl for having come in contact with Peggy Raymond, and her poor little undeveloped, unlovely self was reaching out gropingly to things a shade higher than those which hitherto had satisfied her.
The news of the hasty departure was magically diffused. Amy said afterward that she began to understand what they meant when they talked about wireless telegraphy. For as the stage rattled and bumped along the dusty highway the next morning, figures appeared at the windows, handkerchiefs fluttered, and hands were waved in greeting and farewell. In many a harvest field, too, work halted briefly, while battered hats swung above the heads of the wearers, as a substitute for a good-by. And at the station, to the girls’ astonishment, quite a company had collected in honor of their departure.
Graham and Jack had deferred their start till they had put the girls on the train, and they regarded the gathering in amazement. “Sure they’re not waiting for a circus train?” Graham demanded. “Are you responsible for all this? Rather looks to me, Jack, as if we weren’t quite as indispensable as we fancied.”
The stage was never early, and the girls hardly had time to make the rounds before the whistle of the train was heard. “Come back next summer,” cried Mrs. Cole, catching Peggy in her arms, and giving her a motherly squeeze. “I declare it’ll make me so homesick to drive by the cottage, with you girls gone, that I shan’t know how to stand it.”
Peggy was saying good-by all over again, but she saved her two special favorites for the last. “Now, Lucy,” she cried, her hands upon the shoulders of the pale girl, whose compressed lips showed the effort she was making far self-control, “you must write me now and then. I want to know just how you’re getting along.”