“Well, I guess you’ll have your hands full, Ralph,” Rebecca exclaimed, “if you fill all these commissions. I declare it seems as if you belonged to all of us.”
Jean and Kit drove Ralph and Buzzy to the station the next day. The boys had already made their goodbyes to the others at home, for Mrs. Hancock had preferred it that way. She declared she would cry at the station and would rather say goodbye to her son and nephew at home, where she could weep in privacy.
As the train puffed its way around the hillside bend of the track, Jean remembered when she had once before waited for the same train to arrive. The day which now seemed so long ago, when she was meeting the family arriving from Sandy Cove. That time she had thought the train would never come. Now, all too fast, it was making its way into the station.
“You promise to write to us now, Buzzy,” reminded Kit.
“Sure thing.”
“I’ll be back next summer, Jeannie,” said Ralph, looking deep into her eyes. “And you’ll be surprised how fast the days will fly by in the meantime. Goodbye, dear.”
“Goodbye.” Jean was suddenly overcome by the meaning of their farewell and added, “Oh, Ralph, I shall miss you so very much.”
As she and Kit walked back to the car, Jean thought over what Ralph had said last. Would the next year go so fast as he had said? He seemed so positive. Yet Jean wondered.
Jean had no need to worry. Her adventures at an art school in New York, told in JEAN CRAIG IN NEW YORK proved that Ralph was right.