“Hate to take up the grind, Fleta?” queried another, whose locks of a reddish gold were gathered into a little net over the fluffed mass at the back of her head. Irma Reed was letting her “bob” grow out.
“Sort of,” laughed Fleta, a tall, grey-eyed girl with good features, whose hair she declared was grey at the start, though its soft ash color was becoming to Fleta’s fresh complexion.
“I shall quite welcome it,” a plump, brown-haired lass contributed. “I have had the pokiest summer that you ever imagined. It is one grand adventure to get back to school! Mother was sick all summer, too sick to leave town, even, and we could not get to our summer cottage at all. Of course no help wanted to stay where there was sickness, and beside the trained nurse I had one lone woman in the kitchen and I had to take care of one small brother and two smaller sisters and keep them quiet on account of Mother.
“I was glad to do it, of course, and you may know that I learned first aid to the injured, beside a whole kindergarten and primary course! The only poetry that I can repeat is Mother Goose and the like. But perhaps it paid. I’ve been up against some real things, girls; and I am so thankful that Mother is well now and that things are so I can come back here!”
A pair of beautiful dark eyes were watching Edith Stuart as she related her summer’s experience. A pretty little chin lifted as Sidney Thorne remarked, “‘All’s well that ends well,’ as the immortal Shakespeare hath it. You have had a hard summer, Ede. But I am rather glad, too, to get back, though I had quite as full a summer as usual of good times. It is our last year here, girls. Can you realize it?”
“Sidney has been East this summer girls,” a very slight, dainty girl remarked, with a gesture of complete information. “That’s the Boston accent she is bringing back. Yes, Sidney, I’m ‘ratheh’ glad to get back, too, and it is ha’d to realize that indeed it is our lawst year!” The girl’s face was dimpling with mischief and she shook back from her face hair almost as golden as Sidney’s own.
Sidney looked a trifle taken back at this. Sidney Thorne did not like to be made fun of and preferred to do the criticising herself if there were any to be done; but after a moment, during which she did not know whether she wanted to freeze up or not, she gave way to smiles instead.
“Little sinner,” she said, “don’t you make fun of me! But you are all wrong, though I have been with my aunt all summer and I talk more or less like her all the time, which is perfectly proper for any Standish to do! I haven’t been East at all. I was on a big western trip, partly by rail, partly by auto. If you are good, I will tell you about some of the good times I had. But give me hotels and cars, no camps except for very limited stops. I did some mountain climbing, though, and I like the riding, though I had one terrible scare, riding on a ‘sky-line,’ when the horse slipped and there were only inches to slip in.”
“Oo-ooh!” shivered Dulcina Porter.
“Not so bad,” said Sidney, “after it is over. Think how many times you just miss being hit when you cross a street, or your car just escapes a collision. The great event of the trip was going up into Alaska, where I had never been before.”