“See the school?” echoed Aunt Grace. “My dear child, of course you can’t see the school; why it’s fully three miles from here, on the other side of that section of woods. You have to walk half a mile to get the bus.”

Elizabeth Ann hadn’t heard about the bus, and neither had Doris.

“You’re going to a consolidated school,” explained Aunt Grace. “When I was a little girl they didn’t have them—we went to a little school house near this farm. There was only one room, and my older sister taught all the grades. But now they have combined a number of these small schools into one large one. A bus goes through the country gathering up the scholars, and in that way one school building can be made to do the work of six or seven one-room buildings.” “Why doesn’t the bus come and get us right here?” Doris asked.

That was almost the first question she had asked and Aunt Grace told her she was glad to hear her voice.

“The bus couldn’t go round to every farm—it would take too long,” Aunt Grace said. “So the pupils gather in certain places where the bus driver knows they’ll be, and he picks them up in groups. You and Elizabeth Ann and the other children who live around here, have to walk to the nearest cross-roads—your uncle will tell you what time the bus passes there and what time you have to leave the house. If there’s a bad storm or it rains too hard, he will take you in the car as far as the cross-roads; but your Uncle Doctor wrote to tell me that he wanted both of you to walk whenever it is possible.”

Elizabeth Ann liked to walk and Doris didn’t. But everyone did as Uncle Doctor directed, always.

“Then we can take our lunch to school, can’t we?” suggested Elizabeth Ann.

“Why you’ll have to take your lunch,” Aunt Grace replied. “I believe some of the teachers make hot soup in the winter, but there is no place where you can buy anything to eat. The consolidated school is right in the country; there was some talk of building it in Gardner, but they couldn’t agree on a plot of ground for it. You’ll both be country girls if you live on a farm all winter, and go to a country school.”

Elizabeth Ann and Doris had always wanted to take their lunches to school. In Seabridge, Doris came home at noon to lunch, and Elizabeth Ann had done that, too, wherever she went to school. Even at Aunt Ida’s school, they had gone to Aunt Ida’s house for lunch—her house was next door to the school.

“I think it will be more fun to carry our lunches,” said Elizabeth Ann. “That is, if it won’t be too much trouble for you, Aunt Grace,” she added.

Elizabeth Ann said “Aunt Grace” because Doris did, and now Aunt Grace told her a surprising thing.

“I’ll be glad to put up lunches,” she declared. “I always wanted a little girl or two of my own to work for; and it’s nice to hear you call me ‘Aunt,’ Elizabeth Ann. You know you are distantly related to Uncle Hiram.”

“Doris’s Uncle Hiram?” asked Elizabeth Ann.

“Yes,” Aunt Grace smiled a little. “Don’t ask me how it is, but I believe your father is a sixth or seventh cousin of Hiram’s. You don’t have to puzzle it out—it’s worse than the ship-time that Hiram is always trying to get me to learn.”

They went down from the deck presently and Aunt Grace said she thought Doris should lie down and take a little nap. This gave Elizabeth Ann an excellent chance to study the mahogany clock, and listen to it strike. And if ever she had said in her careless little mind that Aunt Grace was “silly” not to learn ship-time, Elizabeth Ann was soon sorry.

For the more she puzzled over the eight bells, and the two and three bells, the more confused she became. And when Uncle Hiram came in and asked her where the first mate was, Elizabeth Ann merely raised her head and stared at him. “Who—who is the first mate?” she stammered uncertainly.

“Your Aunt Grace, to be sure,” said Uncle Hiram. “I’m the Captain of this ship and she’s first mate. She stands the forenoon watch.”

“Is that the watch you carry in your pocket?” Elizabeth Ann asked, beginning to feel that she didn’t understand anything Uncle Hiram said.

“No, the forenoon watch is from eight o’clock till noon,” said Uncle Hiram. “That’s the morning hours, you see. At eight bells, or 12 noon, I come up to the house for dinner.”

Elizabeth Ann blinked.

“How many bells is it now?” she asked, pointing to the clock which said half-past eleven.

“Why, it’s seven bells,” Uncle Hiram replied promptly.

Then and there Elizabeth Ann decided that she must be like Aunt Grace—it was so much easier to say “half past eleven” than to count up to seven bells. Of course it was easier for Uncle Hiram to tell time that way than by the regular time, for he had done it so long.

“Don’t bother your head about it,” he said now, noticing that Elizabeth Ann was bewildered. “Perhaps you’ll pick it up as you go along, and if you don’t, it doesn’t matter. Your Aunt Grace was brought up on a farm and she can’t learn about the sea; I went to sea when I was a young lad and I can’t pick up land ways. But we each do our way and get along splendidly. There’s more than one way of doing a thing and I haven’t much use for any man who thinks his is the only possible one.”

Elizabeth Ann thought that was very nice. If she learned to tell time by the bells that would be fine—she could surprise Lansing and Ted. But if she didn’t learn, Uncle Hiram wouldn’t be annoyed—he thought that the old way of telling time—by the old way, Elizabeth Ann meant the way she had been taught—was good, too.

Uncle Hiram had come up to the house before noon because he wanted to drive to Gardner as soon as dinner was over and, he explained he could get ready to go before dinner. “I could ship two passengers,” he announced, a twinkle in his eye.

“That means we can go, Doris!” cried Elizabeth Ann joyfully.

“Does it?” Doris, who had just woke up from her nap, and was still a bit sleepy, inquired doubtfully.

“Of course you may go,” said Aunt Grace, who had found time to cook a marvelous dinner—with peach shortcake for dessert—informed them. “Uncle Hiram just loves to have company with him when he drives to Gardner.”

Aunt Grace wouldn’t hear of them waiting to help her with the dishes—she said there were not many, and she was used to doing them alone—and when Elizabeth Ann and Doris went outdoors to get into the car, they found Tony sitting on the front doorstep, washing his face as though he had always lived in the “Bonnie Susie.”

“Isn’t it nice to live in a house like that!” exclaimed Elizabeth Ann proudly, looking back to wave to Aunt Grace as they drove away. “Pretty good ship, if I do say it myself,” Uncle Hiram agreed proudly.

And all the way to town he told Elizabeth Ann and Doris stories of what had happened to him while he was at sea.

“I can feel the way the hammocks used to sway in a storm, even now,” he said. “I still sleep in a hammock, but your Aunt Grace couldn’t get used to one; she had to have a bunk.”

Elizabeth Ann and Doris looked at each other. They were glad they had bunks instead of hammocks—a hammock was all very well to sleep in for an hour or two on a warm afternoon, but they didn’t care to sleep in one.

Gardner was a pretty little town, about four miles from the farm. There was one main store, where almost everything was sold that you could mention. Uncle Hiram drove directly to this store and he said Elizabeth Ann and Doris might come in with him while he bought the things he had come for—knives for cutting corn, and gloves for the men who were to cut it.

“Hello,” said Uncle Hiram as soon as he went into the store. “Elizabeth Ann—Doris—here’s one of your neighbors. Catherine, this is Elizabeth Ann Loring and Doris Mason, my nieces. They’re going to school to-morrow, and Aunt Grace was saying she hoped you’d stop for them as you go past the house. Catherine Gould lives near us,” Uncle Hiram added.

Elizabeth Ann and Doris saw a pretty girl, about their own age, very beautifully dressed. She didn’t look as though she could have much fun in her pink silk frock, but it certainly was pretty. And she smiled at Elizabeth Ann and Doris and was about to say something when suddenly she frowned and looked so cross Elizabeth Ann was startled.

“Hello, Cathy!” said a boy’s voice, and a lad in faded overalls, with a large package under his arm, pulled off his cap and smiled as he passed the three girls.

“Hello, Roger!” Uncle Hiram boomed in his deep voice.

“I’m surprised your uncle speaks to him,” said Catherine, looking crosser than ever. “Roger Calendar is only a taken boy.”