XXIX
TWO FAR JOURNEYS
I suppose you have wondered why I never mention Guy any more. Well, he has gone away off to Boston to attend school. I well remember when a new trunk was brought into the house, and mistress packed all of his things into it so carefully. When it was very nearly filled to the top, she tucked in a box of candy and four little pictures; one of herself, one of a darling little girl, one of a beautiful lady with a baby in her arms that had a white circle around his head, and one of a group of kittens all standing in a row. On top of the pictures and the candy she laid a new silk muffler, and a beautiful soft, fluffy bath-robe, and before she could put in any more she had to go down-stairs to see a caller.
I had been with mistress all the morning, watching the different things she put into the trunk, and I felt myself getting quite sleepy; so while she was down-stairs I crawled into the trunk to take my morning nap, and I found a very cozy little place between the folds of that beautiful robe.
I was just getting nicely settled, when I felt Budge crawling in from the other side. “Isn’t this fine,” said he, as his nose touched mine; and in less time than it takes to tell it, we were fast asleep in Guy’s new trunk.
This was very pleasant, but imagine my feelings when I was rudely awakened by being squeezed so hard that it is a wonder my body has not ever since been flat instead of round; and as for making an outcry, it was utterly impossible. But thanks to the kind Providence, in an instant I felt the pressure released. Just then I heard mistress say something about the trunk being too full, and before I got myself out of the folds of the robe, her kind hands were upon me. As she pulled me out of my hiding-place, she said, “For mercy sakes! cats! did you want to go to Boston, too?” Then without another word she quickly locked the trunk, for the expressman stood ready to take it away. So you see how near we came to going to Boston with Guy.
After Guy had gone, some of mistress’ friends advised her to break up housekeeping and to board.
“Just think how much cheaper it would be for you,” said Mrs. Cotton one day; “and with no housekeeping to bother with, how much more leisure time you would have.”
“I don’t know how I would employ my leisure more profitably,” said mistress, “than in maintaining the dear home on which my boy’s tenderest thoughts are centred, and around which cluster those sacred memories that form the very ground-work of a wholesome and rugged life. The very first letter he wrote me started out: ‘I am seated by my window as the sun is setting over my dear western home.’ Now, would he have such fond thoughts of his home, and would he be likely to connect it with the beautiful spectacle of the setting sun, were it reduced to a room in a boarding-house?”
“Again you have convinced me that your way of thinking is right,” said Mrs. Cotton.
And so now, although Guy is no longer with us, we are still in our dear home on Elmwood Place.