“Bless my heart, girls,” exclaimed Miss Calvert, laughing in spite of her dignity. “How did you ever guess that the cleaning of the library is my one bête noire of the springtime? I will give you each a dollar if you can do it right.”
It was accomplished, and the four dollars added to the “main pile,” as Ruth called the growing hoard.
Miss Murray heard from the railroads, and it was a more encouraging outlook than she had hoped for. After the end of May, the summer rates went into force, she found, to encourage a western exodus of “teachers, poets, homeseekers, invalids, and all of summer’s sweethearts,” as Polly said later. The round trip tickets from Washington out to Deercroft, Wyoming, would be $67.50 apiece.
“And mother writes that she will board you at four dollars a head weekly, and at that figure you must do your own laundry, and take care of your own shack. How’s that, girls?”
“It seems too little,” Ruth answered, with her quick judgment on things material.
“But it is not, Ruth. Board at five dollars can be had up where we are and this is only one less. That will be twenty a week for all five.”
“We plan to stay a month,” Polly interrupted. “Do you think we can manage it, Miss Murray?”
“How much is there in the treasury so far, Ruth?”
Ruth figured hastily.
“About two hundred and forty-six dollars, I think. Polly handed in thirty-seven dollars from the birthday fête, and the auction brought thirty-two, and Isabel made eighteen out of her strawberry festival, besides what we had, and my money that isn’t all earned yet, you know.”