“The kit is the smallest part you have to think of,” Miss Murray interposed, cheerfully. “It is so small, that I never even thought of it in jotting down probable items. You will live at the ranch, and father can supply us with everything we need out there, fishing tackle, riding outfits, and camping supplies.”
“What’s the fare?” asked Ruth, leaning forward, her chin on one propped-up hand, her brown eyes wide and inquiring behind their spectacles. “It seems to me as if that’s the worst thing we have to figure on.”
“It is, Ruth. I only wish you were all small so I could cuddle you under my wing on half fares. But I can’t. You’re fearfully ‘over twelve.’ The best we can do is to hunt half rate tickets, and summer excursions. The way I came down last fall, I took a train from Carlile to Omaha, then east to Washington, and then down here to Queen’s Ferry. Miss Calvert paid half my fare or I could not have come so far from home. As nearly as I can figure it out roughly for you, the summer rate is about sixty or seventy dollars for the round trip.”
“That isn’t so much,” Polly cried hopefully.
“It’s so much that it shuts me out.” Ruth accepted the decree with philosophy, but the other girls knew how much the chance of a vacation always meant to her, and Polly added hastily.
“It must not shut out any of us, Ruth. We are an outing club, and if one goes, the rest go. No picking or choosing. What have we been saving our money for all winter, I should like to know—paying dues each week, and giving entertainments?”
“Are you really an organized club, girls?” Jean’s face brightened with quick interest. It seemed so strange to find her quiet room filled with happy young faces, and merry girlish voices. A thought flashed through her mind, as Polly spoke, of how much pleasure it would mean all around, if the girls could spend a month out on the Crossbar ranch that vacation.
“Really and truly we are,” Polly replied. “We formed a vacation club. All last winter, each one paid in twenty-five cents a week dues. Ruth is our treasurer. And she’s just as good as a safety-deposit bank, too, the little home toy kind that won’t open till they are full, you know. Sometimes, when we almost despaired, and were on the point of disbanding, she would refuse positively to give us back our money, so what were we to do?”
“Stand pat, as you should,” retorted the treasurer, calmly. “I knew they’d change their minds again. We have a little over one hundred and twenty-four dollars in the treasury now, thanks to my safety-deposit system. That’s a pretty fair start, isn’t it, even towards Wyoming?”
“But how little it seems when we need five hundred.” Polly puckered her forehead anxiously, as she leaned her chin on her palm, and bent forward. “I’m afraid that I have really aimed for the gate-post this time.”