"But I want Ruthy, too," Ruby said, looking very much as if she was going to begin crying again at the thought of being separated, not only from her father and mother, but from her little friend as well.
"Now Ruby, dear, if you are really sorry that you have been so naughty," said her father, "you will show it by doing all you can to be good now. If you fret and cry and worry about going to school, it will make it very hard for your mother, and perhaps make her worse. If you had been good, and tried to do what you knew would please her when she was not able to watch you, it would not have been necessary to send you away; but you have shown that you need some one to look after you, so there does not seem to be any other way but this of giving your mother a chance to get well without unnecessary anxiety; and of making sure that you are not doing every wild thing that comes into your head. I do not think Ruthy can go with you; so you must try to make the best of things, and go with your Aunt Emma without complaining. If you will do this, I shall know that you really love your mamma and want to do all you can to make her better; and then just as soon as she is well, you shall come home again."
Ruby was silent. It was a very hard way of showing that she was sorry, she thought. She would rather have been shut up in her room, or go without pie or almost anything else that she could think of, instead of going away to boarding-school with Aunt Emma.
Much as she loved her aunt, she did not want to have to leave her father and mother for the sake of being with her. All at once a thought came into her head which made going away seem less hard. I am sure you will laugh when I tell you what it was that could console her in some part for the thought of leaving her father and mother. She remembered that once when she was upstairs in Mrs. Peterson's house, she saw a little trunk standing at the end of the wide hall, studded with brass-headed nails, and upon one end were the letters "M. D. K." She had asked Maude to whom the trunk belonged, and Maude had looked very important when she answered that it was her own trunk, and that the letters upon the end stood for Maude Delevan Birkenbaum. Ruby was wondering whether she should have a trunk like Maude's if she should go to boarding-school. It had seemed just the very nicest thing in the world to have a trunk of one's own with one's initials upon it in brass-headed nails, and she thought she could go, without being quite heart-broken, if only she had a trunk to take with her. Finally she said,—
"Papa, if I go to boarding-school, I shall have to have a trunk, won't I? And may it be a black trunk with my name on it in brass nails?"
Papa smiled, though Ruby did not see him.
"Yes, dear," he answered. "If you are a good little girl, and try not to worry your mother by fretting about going, and don't get into any more mischief before you go, I will certainly give you just such a trunk to take with you, if that will be any comfort to you."
"It certainly would be a comfort," Ruby answered, cuddling up closer to her papa. "And may I take some butternuts in it?"
"You will have to consult your Aunt Emma about what you shall put in it," her father answered, "but I will get you the trunk."
"And it will have a key?" asked Ruby.