“But must we start to-morrow?” demanded Laura. “Why, I never can get ready in the world.”
“Very well,” replied her father with a smile. “If you’re not ready, you may remain at home while Harry, your aunt, Mr. Reed and I will take the trip. Shall I send word to the steamship office that we only need tickets for four?”
“No, no, no,” cried Laura, jumping up and down excitedly, “don’t do that. I’ll go right away now and get ready. I’d die if I had to stay home while you and Harry went off.”
Then both children set about the work of packing up their things and of writing one or two good-bye letters to the friends whom they where leaving behind.
“Did papa say how long we were to remain away?” asked Laura as she paused in the middle of a letter.
“No,” answered her brother carelessly, “but probably quite a while. I don’t care how long we stay. It will be lots of fun over there, and ever so much better than learning stupid lessons and staying in one place all the time. I guess I’ll write a letter to Bruce and tell him that we’re going to Europe to-morrow. I won’t say anything about papa getting hold of that letter, and when we come back maybe we’ll be allowed to ask him up here again.”
So Bruce learned the next day, at the very moment when the steamer was leaving her dock, that his friends had sailed away across the ocean and did not know when they would see him again. Europe seemed so far away to the young boy, and a trip across the ocean such a formidable undertaking, that it seemed to him that he had said good-bye to them forever, and that if they did come back at all, they would never be the same.
Now Mr. Van Kuren had purposely said nothing to his children about the probable length of their stay, but he had really determined to remain with them abroad for at least a year, with the intention of carrying on their education, at the same time giving them the advantages of travel in foreign lands. Once across the ocean, he was satisfied that his daughter would forget the young fireman for whom he feared she cherished a childish liking, and so, as soon as the steamer had passed Sandy Hook, he dismissed Bruce altogether from his mind, and busied himself with thoughts of the days that lay before him.
Harry’s letter to his young friend proved a genuine shock, and for fully twenty-four hours after receiving it, Bruce walked about the quarters, or sat in his accustomed seat in the corner, in a condition of dejection that did not escape the notice of Tom Brophy or the chief, for they both spoke of it, and both of them hoped that after distinguishing himself as he had, the boy would not allow himself to fall back into the state of discontent and indifference that had previously annoyed them.
At the end of twenty-four hours, however, the boy suddenly regained his good spirits. During his period of gloom he had argued with and succeeded in convincing himself that, after all, the departure of his two cherished friends for Europe was the very best thing that could have happened to him. “It made me sore,” he acknowledged to himself, “to go up there to their big house and see all the nice things they had, and then come back to my work again. If a fellow has got to work for his living as I have, he’d much better keep away from rich folks, and not have any friends who can spend a dollar where he can spend a cent. Everybody says I’ve made a good beginning, and now I am going to keep right on. If I have any spare time, I’ll spend it with that Skinny, working up what Laura calls the mystery of my birth.”