“Then we can take our lunch to school, can’t we?” suggested Elizabeth Ann.
“Why you’ll have to take your lunch,” Aunt Grace replied. “I believe some of the teachers make hot soup in the winter, but there is no place where you can buy anything to eat. The consolidated school is right in the country; there was some talk of building it in Gardner, but they couldn’t agree on a plot of ground for it. You’ll both be country girls if you live on a farm all winter, and go to a country school.”
Elizabeth Ann and Doris had always wanted to take their lunches to school. In Seabridge, Doris came home at noon to lunch, and Elizabeth Ann had done that, too, wherever she went to school. Even at Aunt Ida’s school, they had gone to Aunt Ida’s house for lunch—her house was next door to the school.
“I think it will be more fun to carry our lunches,” said Elizabeth Ann. “That is, if it won’t be too much trouble for you, Aunt Grace,” she added.
Elizabeth Ann said “Aunt Grace” because Doris did, and now Aunt Grace told her a surprising thing.
“I’ll be glad to put up lunches,” she declared. “I always wanted a little girl or two of my own to work for; and it’s nice to hear you call me ‘Aunt,’ Elizabeth Ann. You know you are distantly related to Uncle Hiram.”
“Doris’s Uncle Hiram?” asked Elizabeth Ann.
“Yes,” Aunt Grace smiled a little. “Don’t ask me how it is, but I believe your father is a sixth or seventh cousin of Hiram’s. You don’t have to puzzle it out—it’s worse than the ship-time that Hiram is always trying to get me to learn.”
They went down from the deck presently and Aunt Grace said she thought Doris should lie down and take a little nap. This gave Elizabeth Ann an excellent chance to study the mahogany clock, and listen to it strike. And if ever she had said in her careless little mind that Aunt Grace was “silly” not to learn ship-time, Elizabeth Ann was soon sorry.
For the more she puzzled over the eight bells, and the two and three bells, the more confused she became. And when Uncle Hiram came in and asked her where the first mate was, Elizabeth Ann merely raised her head and stared at him.