Meantime, the children, in the other room, were in various stages of excitement. Helen, the older of the three, in whose charge Baby Joe was especially put, occupied herself in racing to the front gate every few minutes to see if she could not get a glimpse of her father’s horse and wagon climbing the hill; and Baby Joe, each time she went, either reached after and tumbled over something which he ought not to have touched, or tumbled down, in his eager haste to follow to the gate. In this way the room was being put into more or less disorder.
“How perfectly silly you are!” said Jessie, looking up from the book she was reading, as Helen came back panting for the third time. “Just as though racing to the gate every few minutes would bring them any quicker! and look at Joe; he has tipped the spools all out of mother’s box. A nice tangle they will be in.”
“Why didn’t you keep him from them then?” asked Helen irritably; “you are doing nothing but pore over a story book. I should think you would go and comb your hair and change your dress. Mother will not like to see you in such a tangle, I can tell you.”
“There is time enough,” said Jessie, yawning. “I can’t do anything but read a story book; it is impossible to settle to anything when mother is so near home as she must be by this time. I haven’t done a thing this afternoon; I couldn’t. I don’t see how Elsie can bend over that stupid History, just as if nothing unusual was going to happen.”
This made Elsie raise her eyes; they were pretty brown ones. She was a little girl of about ten, in a neat blue dress, and with her hair in perfect order. “I thought it would be a good plan to get my history ready for to-morrow while I was waiting,” she said, “then I will not have to study this evening, when I want to listen to mother. I should think you would like to get your examples done; and anyhow, Jessie, you ought to comb your hair; it looks like a fright.”
“I mean to, of course,” said Jessie. “I dare say there is time enough. Father can’t drive fast on such a warm afternoon; and besides, Mary said she wouldn’t be at all surprised if he should have to wait for the evening train. Wouldn’t that be just horrid! If it were not for the lovely story I am reading I couldn’t endure this waiting another minute.”
“It’s easier to wait when you are at work doing what ought to be done,” said Elsie, with the air of a philosopher.
“Oh! you are a regular Miss Prim,” said Helen, laughing, as she stooped to pick little Joe out of another piece of carefully planned mischief; “for my part, I think it is horrid to have anything that ought to be done at such a time. Joe, you little nuisance, I do wish you would go to sleep, and give me a chance to watch for mother. I hope I shall get all the things picked up and put to rights that you have upset before mother comes; she will not be charmed with the looks of the room if I don’t. However, there really must be oceans of time yet.”
“Then why did you race down to the gate every few minutes to see if they were coming?” Jessie asked.
“Oh! because I did not know what else to do,” said Helen; “I knew better, of course. Take care, Joe! There, I declare! he has done it now.”