286“How can you ever get them all transported to Dexter, is what I’m wondering! Do they always send girls off to school with food for the term, Catherine?” asked Hannah.
“Well, I had cookies and mince pie to take last year, after my trunk was packed. Mother persuaded me to leave the pie, but I was sorry afterward. And one of Polly’s mother’s friends baked a chicken for her to carry all the way to Wellesley! People are so kind! How do you suppose I can carry this cake, though, Mother? It’s such an awkward shape, and I couldn’t pack it with my clothes!”
“Do you remember how Inez brought a pail of honey in her trunk,” put in Alice, “and how it leaked out all over everything she had?”
“I’ll put the cake into a stout hat-box, and fasten a heavy cord and a handle on it, and you can get it there safely, I think. You won’t have to carry it, except just getting on and off the train.” Dr. Helen hurried off to see to that bit of packing, herself.
Bertha, Agnes and Dot, and even Dorcas, found excuses to drop in at the house that morning. Win and Bess promised to be at the train. On the way home from school three or four of Catherine’s Sunday-school children ran in to say good-by. Polly was in and out a dozen times, and Peter and Perdita came together to present a beautiful photograph of themselves in their newest garments and 287 shiniest shoes. Dinner was interrupted by the trunkman’s arrival, and Dr. Harlow had to keep a watchful eye upon each girl to see that she did not forget to eat.
Algernon and Bert came to escort the party to the station, and they started out merrily enough. When they reached the sidewalk, Catherine turned and ran back to the house for a private farewell to her mother, who preferred saying good-by there instead of going to the station. College seemed suddenly robbed of its pleasure, and the length of days between September and Thanksgiving intolerable, but they were used to helping each other be brave, and they blinked away the tears and parted smiling, Catherine turning frequently to wave good-bys till the house was lost in the trees.
It was quite like a reception at the station. While Dr. Harlow attended to ticket-buying, the young people clustered together, talking at random and laughing easily.
“It will be so lonely without you all,” sighed Bess. “All the other college folk will be off by Tuesday at the latest, and here we shall languish!”
“You’ll not have much time to languish if you assist in the kindergarten, Winifred,” said Catherine affectionately. “I’m so glad you are going to do it! You’ll make them sing like little nightingales. O, Bess, you go right by Grandma Hopkins’ on the way home, don’t you? Would you mind running 288 in and telling her that the cake got off all right? I’ll write her, of course, but I know she will want to know. Algernon! You don’t mean it? Miss Ainsworth drawing her own novels! How perfectly delicious! O Max, there you are! What did Mr. Morse say? Was he pleased with the way we handled the paper?”
“Seemed to be. How I wish I were still on, to be able to write up your departure fittingly! I say, who’s that odd little pair over there? They seem to be looking this way as if they wanted something.”