“Now that you’re all awake you might as well dress, so we can get an early start,” Miss Prudence announced crisply.
Jo Ann groaned audibly and sank back in the bed.
“Isn’t it only about two or three o’clock?” Florence asked hesitatingly.
“Mercy, no! It’s after five. It takes you girls so long to dress that it’ll be six or half past before you’ll be ready.”
“Oh, but I’m so—so sleepy!” Peggy yawned. “Five o’clock’s an awful hour to get up.”
Miss Prudence eyed her severely. “You stayed up too late last night, probably. Just dash some cold water in your face—that’ll wake you.” She added with a whimsical note in her voice, “Perhaps I’d better do it for you—and sprinkle some on Florence and Jo Ann, too.”
“Oh, have a heart, Miss Prudence!” Jo Ann begged, burrowing her head under the covers.
Seeing that Miss Prudence was in earnest about the early start and was going to stay there to see that they did get up and dress, Florence and Jo Ann reluctantly slipped out of bed.
“When we reach the mine, I’m going to sleep and sleep to make up for all this lost time,” Jo Ann murmured to the girls between yawns as she was dressing.
“Maybe you’ll even sleep through the siesta hour—you couldn’t learn that trick last summer, it seemed,” Peggy replied. “I take to sleeping the way Miss Prudence does to getting up with the chickens. Maybe the tropical heat’ll make her more sleepy-headed down there.”