"Once more," cried Teddy, and this time his voice joined hers, and Mamma, coming to the hall door, looked out to see what was going on.
"Teddy's Mamma had packed his little trunk."
"It's 'cause we're so glad, Mamma dearie," replied Polly to the question asked, "and it's our starting day, you know." She was perched upon the piazza rail nearest the piazza of Teddy's house, and Teddy was to have breakfast with her presently. Just now he was having his jacket well brushed by Bridget, as he stood on his own piazza, and he was so impatient to get over to Polly that he could hardly stand still long enough for the brushing.
"Goin' inter the dirty wudshed just to see 'bout that tricircle," said Bridget, grumbling as she brushed, "an' s'ilin' this bran' new suit yer Ma bought for yer trav'lin'! I told yer I'd put it safe away!"
"Well, I wanted to see if you hadn't only thought you'd put it safe," explained Teddy, who had considered it a very manly thing to investigate his affairs himself, and had consequently gotten his new clothes into disgrace.
"There now, yer clane and swate as a rose, an' it's ould Bridgie who'll be missin' the trouble of yersel', an' for sure'll be wantin' some more of that same!" said the good woman, giving him a parting hug and pat before he was off to join Polly. At half-past nine the carriage was to come for them and their trunks, and they would catch the ten a. m. train for New York, and say good-bye to their pretty village home for a long time. It was truly a very exciting morning, and Polly's mood for rhyming was so strong that she finally accomplished this wonderful couplet, which Teddy admired as much as she did herself. It ran this way:—
"Oh, Teddy Terry! we're going away!
For this—this—this is our starting day!"
So Ted caught the rhyme, and joined in the singing of it, and if it was sung once, it certainly was sung twenty times, till at last Papa put his head out of the window and asked "if they would mind giving him and the neighbors something new?"
Breakfast over, the little couple sat down on the sofa in the hall and watched the clock, and at last the little hammer inside lifted itself and struck against the bell waiting beside it, and lo and behold! there came the carriage, driving up the road, and through the big gate, and up to the door. Then the trunks were put on the rack behind (while Teddy watched closely to see that the man did not forget to go and get the "T. T." little trunk).