“I won’t worry as soon as I am sure you are really there,” Mrs. Lee replied, “but I am afraid the trip will be wearisome without any special privileges.”
“Never mind about special privileges for this club,” Polly declared as she settled down in the car seat finally. “We’ll have the best time yet, making believe we are homeseekers and land-tourists, won’t we, girls?”
“You’re crowing at the wrong end of the journey, Polly,” Jean warned, but it surely seemed, from the first, as if the trip promised well for all of them.
At Washington, they waited in the great, marble depot for the train to be made up, and the girls found plenty to occupy the time. The very first outlay in cash was for post-cards. Polly bought some even for Aunty and Mandy and old Uncle Peter.
But it was not until they found themselves fairly settled on the train for Chicago, and actually moving west, that they felt themselves true travelers. As Ruth declared, it was a proud moment when the Polly Page Ranch Club paid its own way, with money it had earned through its own efforts. However, the fares lowered their principal so much that they finally had decided to forego sleepers.
“Real summer tourists never take sleepers; not if they can get out of it,” Ted said, happily, as she bolstered her suit-case up on a rack in what they called the Tourists’ Special. Jean had the brakeman turn the seats over, so that they could all sit together. “I think I’d be nervous with a sleeper berth over my head, wouldn’t you, Polly?”
Polly laughed.
“Surely would.” She looked about her at all the different faces. There were many people with children in this day coach, and they looked tired and worn out even before the journey had fairly begun. “Like wilted flowers,” Ruth said.
Polly watched the group across the aisle as long as she could stand it. The mother was weary and flustered, with two toddlers bumping into everything, and a baby crying in her arms.
“Can’t we amuse the twins?” she asked, suddenly.