The biscuit and egg tasted delicious. To her hostess’s surprise Hazel refused coffee. “My mother doesn’t want me to drink it until I am grown up,” she explained; and instead she had a glass of milk. Breakfast over, she gladly accepted the invitation to lie down in the clean, white bed in the little room upstairs. How good it was to get into a fresh night-gown and creep between the sheets! Her head swam from the motion of the cars, but soon that stopped and she was in the land of dreams.
She dreamed that her mother called, “Come, Hazel, it is time for dinner,” and she answered, “Yes, I’m coming,” and tried to run from the bedroom into the little kitchen; but she could not move. Again the voice called her, and with a great effort she caught her mother’s hand, and awoke to find that she was clutching Mrs. Jenks’ dress.
“You’ve slept a long while, dear,” her hostess said. “There’s only time to wash and dress for dinner. Here is hot water I’ve brought for you. You’ll feel better when you’ve had a bath.”
She washed and dressed, and was just fastening her collar when there was a knock at her door. Opening it she found a little girl of about six who shyly held out to her a bunch of roses.
“Are these for me?” Hazel asked.
The child nodded.
Hazel looked with astonishment at the flowers. They were like hot-house roses. At home they would cost ten, fifteen cents apiece, so much that you only looked at them in the florist’s window. You could never afford to buy them, unless it were for a wedding or a funeral. And she held all these lovely pink and white blossoms in her hand!
“Thank you so much,” she said to the child, who still remained outside. Hazel went to the washstand and filling the glass she found there with water, placed the roses in it. Then, viewing her treasures with great pride, she took out one bud and pinned it to her dress.
It seemed very festive, like a party, to be wearing a pink rose. And the dinner was festive, too, with more roses on the table and Mr. and Mrs. Jenks and their two little daughters talking and laughing. Hazel ate heartily of the chicken and sweet potato and guava jelly, the last a gift from a friend in Florida and only put on the table at special occasions. But this was a special occasion, for while Hazel was only a little girl she was a visitor from the North, and from the North’s best-loved city, Boston.
Dinner over, Hazel and the children played together, building towers of blocks and destroying them only to build others. The time seemed short when Mrs. Jenks called her to make ready to go to the train.