“But there are farm houses,” put in Mary.
“Just stupid wooden buildings,” answered Elinor scornfully.
The truth is our five tourists still felt the inevitable homesickness which rarely fails to come during the first few days of a long journey before one is settled into the groove of traveling. The hard beds and uninteresting food of the small hotels of the Middle West had not helped to dispel their vision of West Haven seated on its bluff looking out across the bay. Its hilly streets and comfortable old houses mellowing each year into a softer, deeper gray came back to them now with a pang. Nancy yearned infinitely to be sitting at that moment before the driftwood fire in their sitting room while her father smoked an old black pipe and blinked at the crackling flames and her mother hummed softly to herself over her mending basket. Even Americus, her teasing brother, would have gladdened her eyes just then.
Mary was thinking of her pretty mother standing at the door of the Tea Cup Inn in a trim gray chambray dress with its white muslin fichu. Elinor was too proud to admit even in the secret chambers of her mind the voice from home which kept calling to her across the spaces. As for Miss Helen Campbell she could not efface from her mind a dainty little vignette of herself seated at her own breakfast table; on her head was her favorite lace breakfast cap trimmed with knots of blue ribbon and separating her from her beloved Billie across the table was the steaming silver coffee urn. This enticing picture persisted in passing before her mental vision, perhaps because breakfast that morning had been unspeakable.
Billie also was silent. She was trying to explain to herself why this wave of homesickness had come over them. Was it the flatness and monotony of highly cultivated farm lands which they ought to admire and be proud of seeing since this vast territory had once been the home of the buffalo and the prairie dog?
“I know what’s the matter with us,” she cried suddenly, breaking the long silence which had fallen on the company.
“There’s nothing in the world the matter with me, child,” interrupted Miss Campbell guiltily.
“I’m sure there is, dearest cousin. You know you can’t hide anything from your most intimate relative. We are all of us in the dumps and have been for more than a day. We are desperately homesick! Aren’t we now, as man to man?”
“Yes,” admitted the others in a gloomy chorus.
“On this the third day of our voyage, while we are still in shallow water, as papa would say, there is not one of us who would not be glad to turn back again to the next railroad station, ship the Comet home by freight and take the first train to West Haven. Isn’t it the truth?”