Edna had not finished telling her mother about the afternoon's adventures when Ben came in. The family had gathered in the living-room, Edna sitting on her grandfather's knee, and the others ranged around the big fireplace. "There comes Ben now," Edna sang out, catching sight of her cousin's figure, and running to meet him.

"Halloo, young man," was grandpa's greeting. "I hear you have been having a set-to with Nathan Keener. It isn't the first time that he has had a fisticuffs with a member of this family. He and I used to be continually at it when we were boys together."

"Oh, but isn't he much older than you, grandpa?" said Edna, in surprise. "He looks like a very, very old man."

"And I don't? That's a nice compliment, missy. No, he and I are about of an age, and went to school together in the little, old, red schoolhouse that was burned down some years ago. It is ill health and trouble that makes him look so old, I suppose. Poor old chap, he has lost most of the friends who would have stood by him, for he has taken such an attitude it is impossible to be on good terms with him."

"Ben thinks he used to play baseball," spoke up Edna. "Did they play it so many, many years ago?"

Her grandfather laughed. "They certainly did, and he was tremendous at it. Let me see, forty, fifty years ago isn't so long, and I can well remember the time the Overlea boys beat the Boxtown boys, and it was all because of Nat Keener's good playing. The Boxtown fellows thought all they had to do was to walk in and win, but we gave them a big surprise that day. I remember how we cheered and, after the game was over, carried Nat around the village on our shoulders."

Ben smiled and nodded as if this event came within his recollection, too. Edna looked at him in surprise. "Why, Ben," she said, "you weren't there."

Ben laughed. "No, but I heard about it all years ago, and it came to my mind to-day when I was having it out with Nathan. I'll venture to say he is thinking more of those old times, at this very minute, than he is of his troubles."

"Poor old Nat," grandpa shook his head. "He was as high-spirited a young chap as ever lived, but uncontrolled and always fighting against the pricks. It must be pretty hard for him, pretty hard. He has grown so morose and snappish that no one takes the trouble to do more than nod to him nowadays. He wasn't a bad sort, too free and open-handed, too fond of pleasure, maybe."

"He doesn't have much chance to indulge himself there in these days," remarked grandma.

"False friends, a worthless wife and a bad son have about finished up what he had. With good money after bad all the time there is nothing left but that little tumbledown house he lives in."

"What does he live on?" asked Ben.

"Ask your grandpa," answered Mrs. Willis smiling across at her husband.

"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Mr. Willis, "nobody counts a load of wood or a bag of potatoes once in a while. I must stop and see if I can't draw him out of his shell some of these days."

"Talk to him about when you were boys, grandpa," said Ben; "that will fetch him."Just here, Reliance came to the door to say that Ira would like to speak to Mr. Willis, and Mrs. Barker appropriated Ben, so Edna was left to her grandmother and her mother.

"So we are going to lose our little girl to-morrow," grandma began.

"You won't be left without any little girl," replied Edna cheerfully, "for you will have Reliance."

"But that isn't the same thing as having my own little granddaughter," responded Mrs. Willis.

"No," returned Edna. "When are we coming here again, mother?"

"Why, my dear, I don't know. We have made grandma a good, long visit this time."

"It isn't what I call a long visit," grandma observed. "When I was a child I spent months at a time at my grandparents.""I spent months at Uncle Justus', but then I was there at school," remarked Edna. "I don't see why I couldn't come here on holidays, mother."

"You can do that sometimes, surely. We have promised you to Uncle Bert for the Christmas holidays, but maybe you could come at Easter, if grandma would like to have you."

"Grandma would like very much to have her," said that lady.

"Even if I came without mother?" questioned Edna.

"Even if you came by your own little self. We shall claim her for the Easter holidays, daughter, and you must let nothing prevent her coming. If it is not convenient for any of the rest of you to come, just put her on the train upon which Marcus Brown is conductor and he will see that she gets off safely at Mayville."

Edna looked a little doubtful at the idea of making the journey by herself but she did not say anything.

"However," grandma went on, "I don't see why Celia couldn't come with her, or perhaps Ben could."

"Well, we shall see," responded Mrs. Conway. "Well try to get her here in some way."

"Then we shall consider that quite settled," said grandma with a satisfied air.

"I've had an awfully good time," said Edna thoughtfully.

"Even though you have been sick abed, and have had all sorts of unpleasant adventures?" said grandma with a smile.

"I wasn't so very sick," returned Edna, "and I wouldn't have minded that except for the mustard bath."

Her grandmother laughed. "Well hope that you won't need one the next time."

"I didn't mind the adventures very much, either, and now that they are all over, I am awfully glad that I will have something so interesting to tell the girls at home. I think a great deal has happened in the time I have been here, don't you, grandma?"

"From the standpoint of a little girl I suppose that is true, though it hasn't seemed such a very exciting time to the rest of us. This is a quiet old village and we jog along pretty much the same way year in and year out, without very many changes."

"I think it is just lovely here," replied Edna, "and I like all the girls, too. I shall be glad to see them again. I sort of remembered some of them, but you know I haven't been here before for ever so many years, and I had forgotten lots of things, even about the house and the place."

"Then don't stay away so long as to forget anything again," her grandmother charged her.

"I'm forgetting that this is the last chance I will have to help Reliance set the table," said Edna, jumping up.

She found Reliance had already begun this task and that Amanda was making some specially good tea-cakes in honor of this last evening. She was in a good humor and did not object, as she did sometimes, to Edna's being in the kitchen while supper was being prepared. "Just think," remarked Edna, as she leaned her elbows on the table to watch Amanda, "where I shall be to-morrow evening at this time."

"And are you sorry?" asked Amanda.

"No, not exactly. I am glad and sorry both. I should love to stay and yet I want to see them all at home."

"That's perfectly natural," Amanda returned, pricking the tea-cakes daintily."What do you have to do that for?" asked the little girl.

"To keep 'em from blistering," Amanda told her. "There, open the oven door, Reliance, and then bring me that bowl of cottage cheese from the pantry. I didn't know as it would be warm enough to allow of us having any more this week, but you see it was."

"I just love cottage cheese," Edna made the remark, as she watched Amanda pour in the yellow cream and stir it into the cheese. "I wish we kept a cow, so we could have all the milky things you have here."

"Ain't your place big enough for one?" inquired Amanda, in rather a surprised tone.

"No; it isn't just country, you know. Mrs. McDonald has a big place, and the Evanses have a nice garden and a grove of trees. We have some trees and some garden, and we have a stable, but we haven't any pasture for cows."

"You might pasture her out," Amanda suggested, scraping the contents of the bowl into a glass dish. "Here, Reliance, take that in and set it on the table, and then go after your milk and butter. The dark will catch you if you don't hurry."

"I'm going, too," announced Edna. "I can carry the butter, but I won't bring the key." The two little girls laughed, for this was a standing joke between them.

They started out through the rustling leaves to the spring-house; the leaves gave forth a queer, though pleasant odor, as they pushed their feet through them. A big star blazed out against the pale rose of an evening sky. Over in the cornfields, crows were calling, and a few crickets, not yet driven to cover by the frost, chirped in the grass. The cows were standing in the stable yard. They had been milked, and Ira had brought the pails to the spring-house before this. The little white kitten which Edna had made a great pet of, followed her down the walk, frisking away after a falling leaf, or dancing sideways in pretended fear of its own tail. Edna picked it up but it had no desire to stay when this, of all hours in the day, was the best to play in, so it scrambled down from her arms and was off like a flash, darting half way up a tree, with ears back and claws outspread.

"I do hate to leave the kitten," said Edna. "I hope it won't miss me too much. You will try to give it a little attention, even though you love the grey one best, won't you, Reliance?"

Reliance promised, and leaving the kitten to its own wild antics they went into the spring-house, issuing forth with the various things they had gone for. "Just think," sighed Reliance, "this is the very last time you will help me bring up the things. I shall miss you awfully, Edna. You have been so good to me."

"Why, no, I haven't," answered she; "you have been good to me. I'm coming back at Easter, Reliance, and it will be so nice, for I shall have so many questions to ask about the girls and the club and all that."

"Are you really coming at Easter? I didn't know that."

"Yes, mother just now promised grandma I should."

"Goody! Goody! I must tell the girls when I see them."

The girls, however, found out before Reliance saw them, for knowing that Edna was to leave in the morning, they gave her a surprise that very evening. Supper was hardly over before Reliance, trying very hard to smother laughter, had a whispered consultation with Mrs. Willis, who, after it was over, came back to her place by the fire. In a few minutes she said, "Edna, dear, I wish you would go up to my room and see if you can find my other pair of glasses. Look on the bureau and the table in my room, and, if you don't find them there, look in the other rooms."

Very obediently Edna trotted off upstairs, searched high and low, looked in this room and that, but no glasses were to be found. After much hunting, she came down without them. She stepped slowly down the stair, humming softly to herself. It was very quiet in the living-room, or did she hear whispers, and subdued titters? Was Reliance or maybe Ben going to play a trick on her? She heard a sudden "Hush! Hush!" as she reached the door of the living-room, but she made up her mind that she would appear perfectly unconcerned, and entered the room in a very don't-care sort of manner. "I couldn't find——" she began and then stopped short, for there, ranged around the room, were twelve little girls all smiling to see the look of surprise on her face. So that was what the trick was.

"We're a surprise party," spoke up Esther Ann.

"And we're a good-by party, too," added Reba.

"We've all brought you something," Alcinda spoke.

"We are going to stay an hour," Letty added.

Here Esther Ann darted forward with a bag of nuts which she plumped down in Edna's lap. "There," she said, "you must take those along with you."

Next, Reba presented a neat little book. It looked very religious, Edna thought, but the cover was pretty and there was an attractive picture in it.

Alcinda came next with a very ornate vase which Edna remembered seeing on the glass case in Mr. Hewlett's store.

Letty brought the figure of a cunning cat playing with a ball; this Edna liked very much. Some brought candy, some brought cakes, one brought a paper doll, another a little cup and saucer, but each one had something to contribute till Edna exclaimed: "Why, it is just like a birthday, and these are lovely presents."

"Oh, they're nothing but some little souvenirs," remarked Esther Ann loftily. "We wanted you to have them to remember us by."

"I shall never forget you, never," said Edna earnestly, "and I thank you ever and ever so much." She gathered up her booty and piled it on the table, then some one proposed a game, and they amused themselves till grandma sent out for nuts, cider, apples and cakes, which feast ended the entertainment, though it is safe to say it lasted more than an hour. At the last, the girls all crowded around Edna to kiss her good-night and to make their farewells, and then, like a flock of birds, they all took flight, scurrying home by the light of their lanterns, some across the street, some down, some up.

As the sound of the last merry voice died away, Edna threw herself into her grandmother's arms. "Oh, grandma," she cried, "wasn't it a lovely surprise? Did you know about it?"

"Not so very long before. Reliance came and told me what the girls wanted to do, and I promised to help in any way that I could."

"And was that why you sent me up for the glasses? I didn't tell you after all that I couldn't find them."

"I didn't expect you to," said her grandmother, laughing. "I only told you to go see if you could find them so as to get you out of the way and keep you occupied long enough to allow the girls to come in."

"I didn't hear the front door shut."

"No, for they came around by way of the side door, and tip-toed in by way of the dining-room."

"Well, it was lovely," sighed Edna in full content.

Although the real farewells had been said on that evening, that was not quite the last of it, for the girls were gathered in a body by the church the next morning when Edna drove by on her way to the train. She was squeezed in the back seat of the carriage between her mother and her Aunt Alice. Ben was on the front seat with his grandfather. Reliance at the gate was waving a tearful farewell, a white kitten under one arm and a grey one under the other. Grandma herself stood in the doorway. "Good-by! Good-by!" sounded fainter and fainter from Reliance, but the word was taken up by the girls who shouted a perfect chorus of good-bys as the black horses trotted nimbly along and bore Edna out of sight.

Back to Contents