The first thing was to pack up. Sophie had a new trunk, and had shown her all her pretty things packed snugly in it: cologne, a box of paper, new handkerchiefs, and ever so many things to go on an outing with. How could Jean play she had things which she hadn’t? And she had no trunk. She would “pack” in a shawl-strap.
She put in her Sunday dress, her morning gingham, two white aprons, her Bible and tooth-brush. She had ever so many things to take on an outing. In half an hour her shawl-strap was packed. She looked down at it with a sigh of relief and pleasure. Now she had started.
“Jean,” came up the stairway, “do you want to go to town?”
Of course she did! The coming back would be “getting there.” She was going into the country for two weeks to board. The boarding was a part of it. She had never boarded in her life; she would be a summer boarder at Daisy Farm.
“There’s the butter to take,” the voice at the foot of the stairs went on, “and you may as well get your shoes, and I’ll give you twenty-five cents to spend as you like.”
“Oh, thank you!” cried Jean, delightedly. That would buy a box of paper and envelopes, and she had twenty cents for stamps. She could not think of another thing she wanted.
At six o’clock that afternoon, when Jean drove back into the yard with her father, she had two packages, her shoes and the box of paper. She had not been her usual talkative self on the way home. This gentleman sitting beside her was the farmer to whose house she was going. He had met her at the train. She was looking about the country and admiring things; she found seven things to admire which she had never noticed before. At the tea-table she intended to talk about them—“rave,” as the summer boarders did.
She went up to her little room and gravely unpacked her shawl-strap, putting the things into the drawers and the closet.
Her sister Lottie was setting the tea-table,—not in her play, but in sober reality,—and it was Minnie’s turn to milk to-night. The four sisters shared the housework with their mother; Jean was number three. Pet, eleven years old, was the youngest.
“I must take a great interest in everybody,” Jean said to herself. “Boarders always do. I must try to do good to somebody, as Mrs. Lane helped me last summer.”