On Friday Everett Braggen, apparently committed to long trousers for good and all, arrived in his Ford and Hope and her mother bade farewell to Goodale Manor Farm. Poor Mrs. Stillmore seemed quite overcome, as she kissed kind old Mrs. Goodale again and again. “Hope is simply going to dance off the nine pounds that she gained here, that’s what I tell her,” the good lady whispered. “But there’s no holding her down; she always has her own way. Her father has spoiled her.”
“Don’t you blame the men now,” said Mr. Goodale cheerily; “girls will be girls and so will boys, as the fellers says.” And he patted Hope on her shoulder in his friendly, fatherly way. “When you get all done cavortin’ you jes’ make that army feller get an army stretcher n’ you have him n’ that Bolsheviki feller carry you down here and we’ll put them nine pound back onter you again, now there,” he said. It may be said to Hope’s credit that she cried a little at leaving.
As for Scout Harris he had washed his hands of the fair traitor altogether. But he had not washed his face, for he came around at his mother’s call, a great smutch like a comet across his round countenance, and submitted himself to the parting handshakes. He had been putting the finishing touches on his float of which he was now the sole commander and engineer.
“I hope you have just a fine time at the parade, Walter,” Hope said.
“You leave it to me,” said Pee-wee coldly.
“And when I see you I’m going to wave. If you hear someone shouting to you, you’ll know who it is.”
“Girls don’t know how to shout,” said Pee-wee. He certainly ought to have known for he was a specialist in that art.
CHAPTER XIV
FORWARD, MARCH!
Hope’s departure was a good thing for one person at least, and that was Simon Hasbrook, the farm-boy, for Mr. Goodale gave him a holiday on Saturday. The farmer hesitated, however, to loan a pig or a calf, and so the members of the new partnership sawed a doorway in the back of their gala caravan and put some boxes and milking stools inside for seats.