Mrs. Wyeth's first remark, after entering, was concerning Sam's friend.
“I rather like that young person,” she said. “Samuel idolizes him, of course, but Samuel would worship a hyena if it played football. But this Smith boy”—in Mrs. Wyeth's mind any male under thirty was a boy—“seems to have some common sense and a mind of his own. I don't approve of his name nor the howling wilderness he comes from, but he can't help those drawbacks, I suppose. However, if he is to call here we must know something about him. I shall make inquiries.”
CHAPTER XII
The school term ended on a Saturday morning in mid-December. Mary's trunk was packed and ready, and she and it reached the South Station long before train time. She was going home, home for the holidays, and if she had been going on a trip around the world she could not have been more delighted at the prospect. And her delight and anticipations were shared in South Harniss. Her uncles' letters for the past fortnight had contained little except joyful announcements of preparations for her coming.
We are counting the minutes [wrote Zoeth]. The first thing Shadrach does every morning is to scratch another day off the calendar. I never saw him so worked up and excited and I calculate I ain't much different myself. I try not to set my heart on things of this world more than I ought to, but it does seem as if I couldn't think of much else but our girl's coming back to us. I am not going to worry the way Shadrach does about your getting here safe and sound. The Lord's been mighty good to us and I am sure He will fetch you to our door all right. I am contented to trust you in His hands.
P.S. One or both of us will meet you at the depot.
Captain Shad's epistle was more worldly but not more coherent.
Be sure and take the train that comes right on through [he wrote]. Don't take the one that goes to Woods Hole. Zoeth is so fidgety and nervous for fear you will make a mistake that he keeps me on pins and needles. Isaiah ain't much better. He swept out the setting-room twice last week and if he don't roast the cat instead of the chicken he is calculating to kill, it will be a mercy. I am the only one aboard the ship that keeps his head and I tell them not to worry. Be sure you take that through train. And look out for them electric cars, if you come to the depot in one. Better settle on the one you are going to take and then take the one ahead of it so as to be sure and not be late. Your train leaves the dock at quarter-past four. The Woods Hole one is two minutes earlier. Look out and not take that. Zoeth is afraid you will make a mistake, but I laugh at him. Don't take the wrong train.
Mary laughed when she read these letters, but there was a choke in the laugh. In spite of the perils of travel by the electrics and the New Haven railroad, she reached South Harniss safe, sound, and reasonably on time. The first person she saw on the platform of the station was Captain Shadrach. He had been pacing that platform for at least forty minutes.