"You may order me a piece of lemon pie, Jack. I see some on the sideboard and the meringue is about two inches thick."
"We want to go over and see the train for the north pull out; might see some Bozrah people, Hazel," said Jack, after the dinner, "it leaves five minutes before we do."
"Oh, sure enough, and there are a lot of students just going home. I suppose Chiquita is in Denver by this time."
"Hazel, there is old Deacon Petherbridge and Elam Tucker. I'll bet they've been down to New Haven on a horse trade. You know Elam had the big livery stable that burned down when you were eight and I was just eleven. You remember the Tucker boy was foolish and set fire to the hay, 'Wanted to see it burn,' he told the town marshal. But we must get aboard."
The last beams of rose-tinted sunlight percolated through the gathering darkness as the train sped on its way, winding in and out among the hills of western Massachusetts. Hazel watched the fading panorama as it dissolved in the gloom of the night. She was thinking of her happy school days among those very hills through which she was now gliding, a one-day bride, wife of her childhood lover. As the scenes vanished she shyly snuggled a little closer and whispered, "Jack, we will always be happy, won't we?"
"Why, yes; but what made you ask it?"
"Oh, just 'cause," continuing, "I kinder wish we had gone around by Hoosac tunnel, we could have seen 'Old Bozrah' hills and"—
"I guess my new wife is a little homesick," consolingly interrupted Jack. "Suppose we visit Old Bozrah when we come back and have a famous time going nutting and picking autumn leaves"—
"And getting ivy poisoned so my face will be all spots next winter. I guess not."
The obsequious, ebony-hued gem'man, in white coat with black buttons, interrupted the first family differences.