“Yes. We had such fun trimming it, and there was a Santa Claus too.”
“Where will you go to school this year?”
“I don’t know. There isn’t any place now, unless I go down to Deercroft and board, and mother doesn’t want me to do that.”
“Why don’t you come back with us to Calvert?” asked Polly. “You’re old enough. Crullers started when she was twelve. Oh, Peggie, why don’t you try to? It would be lovely.”
Peggie said nothing for a minute, but rode along, her face bowed a little, her eyes full of longing.
“I’d like to go,” she said finally, “but I don’t think it’s my turn yet. The boys come first, and then when they’re through college, they’ll help me.”
No more was said then, but the thought remained with Polly, and, as the Admiral always said, once a really good and interesting thought had taken root in Polly’s mind, it was almost certain to grow and bear fruit.
The little schoolhouse stood at the fork of the river, a rough log cabin, with some spruces growing back of it. What impressed the girls was the instinctive sense of holiness that seemed to enfold the whole place. The horses were hobbled, and a few minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Murray arrived in the surrey. They had stopped at one point in the journey, and turned off towards an out-of-the-way ranch, to pick up some neighbors, Sam Brumell and his two sisters.
“Not that they’re church folks, ’cause they’re not,” Mrs. Murray had said, in her bright, cheery way, “but I know it does ’Lisbeth Brumell a pile of good just to feel she has touched the Hand of the Father again in the dark, and it won’t hurt Sam any to listen to the Words of Life, either, nor poor blind Emily, so we’ll just stop and gather them in, father.”
There were others who wanted to be gathered in too, that day. Strangest of all, to the girls, was the group of cowboys, friends and “pardners” of Jimmie’s from the Big Bow outfit, who had ridden over twenty miles to do honor to Jimmie and his Missionary Bishop. And there were several families from outlying ranches, some with children. Mr. and Mrs. Sandy arrived last of all, because as Sandy explained later, Diantha had stopped to pick all her roses for the altar.