"Yes, and the rest like 'em more so," assented Bob. "Flour and blueing, mix carefully and take regularly to depress your spirits. All right, Rosie. 'Bye, mother." And Bob departed, leaving Rosie's gaunt shoulders shaking over his exquisite wit.
Monday morning came very quickly. The entire family dreaded the three months which should be spent without Margery, and to no one else in all the world than her girlhood friend did Mrs. Scollard feel that she could have borne to intrust her pretty daughter. She tasted in imagination the loneliness and motherly anxiety which she must feel before she got her back again.
Laura reveled in the opportunity for sentimental melancholy, composing a song entitled "Parting," according to her custom on all family events.
Happie found it hard to see Margery depart; her desire for the outing was swallowed up in the realization that for the first time in their lives she and Margery were to be separated.
The group of stay-at-homes gave Margery many last injunctions as to what she should do on arriving in the Jersey station at which Mrs. Charleford was to meet her, and they watched her skirt around the corner of the car door, and waved their good-byes to her from the platform, where they gathered to wave at her in the car window, until the train was lost to sight around the curve.
Then, true to their principles, Bob and Happie shook off their depression and bestirred themselves.
"Got to haul hay to-day," drawled Bob, in accurate mimicry of Jake Shale's twang. "If you want to git that there hay in, Miss Bradbury, you'd might as well come along, fer they hain't much time these June days, 'n' the sun's hot."
"I was taught there was more time in June days than in any others, Mr. Shale," said Miss Bradbury, while his mother laughed in response to Bob's effort to cheer her. "However, I'm ready to go home if you're ready to drive me."
Happie and Laura walked home from the village, and Laura hummed her latest song, "Parting," as they walked, such a dismal air that Happie was not equal to sustained conversation to such an accompaniment.
At the Neumann gate Happie paused. "I see Gretta out there hanging up her clothes," she said. "I'm going to ask her if she can't steal off this afternoon when we are haying. We'll make a jollification of it. You can go on, Laura; I'll come in a few minutes; no one would dare linger at the Neumanns' on a Monday morning."