"You shan't, Bessie. I was only joking," said Eleanor, quickly. "I know just how you feel. I've been that way myself. When you get away from a place you begin very quickly to forget everything that was disagreeable that happened there, and you only remember the good times you had. That's why you're homesick."
"We'll be able to take walks and go for straw rides here, won't we, Wanaka?" asked Minnehaha. She used Eleanor's fire name, Wanaka, just as Minnehaha was her fire name; her own was Margery Burton.
"You'll have to, if you expect to be in fashion," laughed the Guardian. "And you shall learn to milk cows and find eggs and do all sorts of farm work, too. I expect Bessie will want to laugh often at you girls. You see, she knows all about that sort of thing, and you'll all be terrible greenhorns, I think."
"I ought to know about a farm," said Bessie. "I lived on one long enough. And I don't see why I should laugh at the rest of the girls. They know more about the city now than I ever will know. I've been there long enough to find that out, anyhow."
Just then the conductor put his head inside the door, and called "Deer Crossing!"
As the train slowed up, all the girls made a rush for their bags and bundles, and five minutes later they were standing and watching the disappearing train, waving to the amused conductor and trainmen, who were all on the platform of the last car. Then the train disappeared around a curve, and they had a chance to devote their attention to the two big farm wagons that were waiting near the station, each with its team of big Percherons and its smiling driver. The drivers were country boys, with fair, tousled hair, and both wore neat black suits. At the sight of them Eleanor burst into a laugh.
"Why, Sid Harris—and you, too, Walter Stubbs!" she cried. "This isn't Sunday! What are you doing in your store clothes, just as if you were on your way to church?"
Both the boys flushed and neither of them had a word to say.
"Did you get mixed up on the days of the week!" Eleanor went on, pitilessly.