We arrived at the Burtons’ yesterday. Elsie bore the journey exceedingly well, but I would not take any risks, and so we shall not drive over until day after to-morrow morning.
(‘You needn’t have hurried quite so fast, Polly dear.’)
I venture to send the tent and its belongings ahead to-day, so that Jack may get everything to rights before we arrive.
The mattress is just the size the girls ordered; and of course I’ve told Elsie nothing about the proposed furnishing of her tent.
I am bringing my little China boy with me, for I happen to think that, with the Burtons, we shall be fourteen at table. Gin is not quite a success as a cook, but he can at least wash dishes, wait at table, and help Hop Yet in various ways; while I shall be only too glad to share all your housekeeping cares, if you have not escaped them even in the wilderness.
I shall be so glad to see you again; and oh, Truth, I am so happy, so happy, that, please God, I can keep my child after all! The weary burden of dread is lifted off my heart, and I feel young again. Just think of it! My Elsie will be well and strong once more! It seems too good to be true.
Always your attached friend,
Janet Howard.
Mrs. Winship’s voice quivered as she read the last few words, and Polly and Bell threw themselves into each other’s arms and cried for sheer gladness.
‘Come, come, dears! I suppose you will make grand preparations, and there is no time to lose. One of you must find somebody to help Philip unload the team. Papa and the boys have gone fishing, and Laura and Margery went with them, I think.’ And Mrs. Winship bustled about, literally on hospitable thoughts in-tent.
Polly tied on her sun-bonnet with determination, turned up her sleeves as if washing were the thing to be done, and placed her arms akimbo.
‘First and foremost,’ said she, her eyes sparkling with excitement, ‘first and foremost, I am going to blow the horn.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Aunt Truth. ‘Are you crazy, Polly? It is scarcely ten o’clock, and everybody would think it was dinnertime, and come home at once.’
‘No, they’d think something had happened to Dicky,’ said Bell, ‘and that would bring them in still sooner.’
‘Of course! I forgot. But can’t I blow it earlier than usual? Can’t I blow it at half-past eleven instead of twelve? We can’t do a thing without the boys, and they may not come home until midnight unless we do something desperate. Oh, delight! There’s Don S. D. M. F. H. N., and Phil has found Pancho to help unload.’
‘Isn’t it lucky that we decided on the place for Elsie’s tent, and saved it in case she should ever come?’ said Bell. ‘Now Philip and Pancho can set it up whenever they choose. And isn’t it fortunate that we three stayed at home to-day, and refused to fish? now we can plan everything, and then all work together when they come back.’
Meanwhile Polly was tugging at an immense bundle, literally tooth and nail, as she alternated trembling clutches of the fingers with frantic bites at the offending knot.
Like many of her performances, the physical strength expended was out of all proportion to the result produced, and one stroke of Philip’s knife accomplished more than all her ill-directed effort. At length the bundle of awning cloth stood revealed. ‘Oh, isn’t it beautiful?’ she cried, ‘it will be the very prettiest tent in camp; can’t I blow the horn?’
‘Look, mamma,’ exclaimed Bell, ‘it is green and grey, in those pretty broken stripes, and the edge is cut in lovely scollops and bound with green braid. Won’t it look pretty among the trees?’
Aunt Truth came out to join the admiring group.
‘O-o-o-h!’ screamed Polly. ‘There comes a piece of the floor. They’ve sent it all made, in three pieces. What fun! We’ll have it all up and ready to sleep in before we blow the horn!’
‘And here’s a roll of straw matting,’ said Phil, depositing a huge bundle on the ground near the girls. ‘I’ll cut the rope to save your teeth!’
‘Green and white plaid!’ exclaimed Bell. ‘Well! Mrs. Howard did have her wits about her!’
‘Oh, do let me blow the horn!’ teased the irrepressible Polly.
‘Here are a looking-glass and a towel-rack and a Shaker rocking-chair,’ called Philip; ‘guess they’re going to stay the rest of the summer.’
‘Yes, of course they wouldn’t want a looking-glass if they were only going to stay a month or two,’ laughed Bell.
‘Dear Aunt Truth, if you won’t let me turn a single decorous little hand-spring, or blow the horn, or do anything nice, will you let us use all that new white mosquito-netting? Bell says that it has been in the storehouse for two years, and it would be just the thing for decorating Elsie’s tent.’
‘Why, of course you may have it, Polly, and anything else that you can find. There! I hear Dicky’s voice in the distance; perhaps the girls are coming.’
Bell and Polly darted through the swarm of tents, and looked up the narrow path that led to the brook.
Sure enough, Margery and Laura were strolling towards home with little Anne and Dick dangling behind, after the manner of children. Margery carried a small string of trout, and Dick the inevitable tin pail in which he always kept an unfortunate frog or two. The girls had discovered that he was in the habit of crowding the cover tightly over the pail and keeping his victims shut up for twenty-four hours, after which, he said, they were nice and tame—so very tame, as it transpired, that they generally gave up the ghost in a few hours after their release. Margery had with difficulty persuaded him of his cruelty, and the cover had been pierced with a certain number of air-holes.
‘Guess the loveliest thing that could possibly happen!’ called Bell at the top of her voice.
‘Elsie has come,’ answered Margery in a second, nobody knew why; ‘let me hug her this minute!’
‘With those fish?’ laughed Polly. ‘No! you’ll have to wait until day after to-morrow, and then your guess will be right. Isn’t it almost too good to be true?’
‘And she is almost well,’ added Bell, joyfully, slipping her arm through Margery’s and squeezing it in sheer delight. ‘Mrs. Howard says she is really and truly better. Oh, if Elsie Howard in bed is the loveliest, dearest thing in the world, what will it be like to have her out of it and with us in all our good times!’
‘Has she always been ill since you knew her?’ asked Laura.
‘Yes; a terrible cold left her with weakness of the lungs, and the doctors feared consumption, but thought that she might possibly outgrow it entirely if she lived in a milder climate; so Mrs. Howard left home and everybody she cared for, and brought Elsie to Santa Barbara. Papa has taken an interest in her from the first, and as far as we girls are concerned, it was love at first sight. You never knew anybody like Elsie!’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘Pretty!’ cried Polly, ‘she is like an angel in a
