“When do we get to Buffalo?” asked Katy, with an uneasy recollection of having heard that canal boats travel slowly.
“Buffalo? Let me see. This is Tuesday,—Wednesday, Thursday,—well, if we’re lucky we ought to be there Friday evening; so, if we’re not too late to catch the night boat on the lake, you’ll reach home Saturday afternoon.”
Four days! The girls looked at each other with dismay too deep for words. Elsie was expecting them by Thursday at latest. What should they do?
“Telegraph,” was the only answer that suggested itself. So Katy scribbled a despatch, “Coming by canal. Don’t expect us till Saturday,” which she begged Mr. Peters to send; and she and Clover agreed in whispers that it was dreadful, but they must bear it as patiently as they could.
Oh, the patience which is needed on a canal! The motion which is not so much motion as standing still! The crazy impulse to jump out and help the crawling boat along by pushing it from behind! How one grows to hate the slow, monotonous glide, the dull banks, and to envy every swift-moving thing in sight, each man on horseback, each bird flying through the air.
Mrs. Peters was a thin, anxious woman, who spent her life anticipating disasters of all sorts. She had her children with her, three little boys, and a teething baby; and such a load of bundles, and baskets, and brown paper parcels, that Katy and Clover privately wondered how she could possibly have got through the journey without their help. Willy, the eldest boy, was always begging leave to go ashore and ride the towing horses; Sammy, the second could only be kept quiet by means of crooked pins and fish-lines of blue yarn; while Paul, the youngest, was possessed with a curiosity as to the under side of the boat, which resulted in his dropping his new hat overboard five times in three days, Mr. Peters and the cabin-boy rowing back in a small boat each time to recover it. Mrs. Peters sat on deck with her baby in her lap, and was in a perpetual agony lest the locks should work wrongly, or the boys be drowned, or some one fail to notice the warning cry, “Bridge!” and have their heads carried off from their shoulders. Nobody did; but the poor lady suffered the anguish of ten accidents in dreading the one which never took place. The berths at night were small and cramped, restless children woke and cried, the cabins were close, the decks cold and windy. There was nothing to see, and nothing to do. Katy and Clover agreed that they never wanted to see a canal boat again.
They were very helpful to Mrs. Peters, amused the boys, and kept them out of mischief; and she told her husband that she really thought she shouldn’t have lived through the journey if it hadn’t been for the Miss Carrs, they were such kind girls, and so fond of children. But the three days were terribly long. At last they ended. Buffalo was reached in time for the lake boat; and once established on board, feeling the rapid motion, and knowing that each stroke of the paddles took them nearer home, the girls were rewarded for their long trial of patience.
At four o’clock the next afternoon Burnet was in sight. Long before they touched the wharf Clover discovered old Whitey and the carryall, and Alexander, waiting for them among the crowd of carriages. Standing on the edge of the dock appeared a well-known figure.
“Papa! papa!” she shrieked. It seemed as if the girls could not wait for the boat to stop, and the plank to be lowered. How delightful it was to feel papa again! Such a sense of home and comfort and shelter as came with his touch!
“I’ll never go away from you again, never, never!” repeated Clover, keeping tight hold of his hand as they drove up the hill. Dr. Carr, as he gazed at his girls, was equally happy,—they were so bright, affectionate and loving. No, he could never spare them again, for the boarding-school or any thing else, he thought.
“You must be very tired,” he said.
“Not a bit. I’m hardly ever tired now,” replied Katy.
“Oh, dear! I forgot to thank Mr. Peters for taking care of us,” said Clover.
“Never mind. I did it for you,” answered her father.
“Oh, that baby!” she continued: “how glad I am that it has gone to Toledo, and I needn’t hear it cry any more! Katy! Katy! there’s home! We are at the gate!”
The girls looked eagerly out, but no children were visible. They hurried up the gravel path, under the locust boughs just beginning to bud. There, over the front door, was an arch of evergreens, with “Katy” and “Clover” upon it in scarlet letters; and as they reached the porch, the door flew open, and out poured the children in a tumultuous little crowd. They had been on the roof, looking through a spy-glass after the boat.
“We never knew you had come till we heard the gate,” explained John and Dorry; while Elsie hugged Clover, and Phil, locking his arms round Katy’s neck, took his feet off the floor, and swung them in and ecstasy of affection, until she begged for mercy.
“How you are grown! Dorry, you’re as tall as I am! Elsie, darling, how well you look! Oh, isn’t it delicious, delicious, delicious, to be at home again!” There was such a hubbub of endearments and explanations that Dr. Carr could hardly make himself heard.
“Clover, your waist has grown as small as a pin. You look just like the beautiful princess in Elsie’s story,” said Johnnie.
“Take the girls into the parlor,” repeated Dr. Carr: “it is cold out here, with the door open.”
“Take ‘em upstairs! You don’t know what is upstairs!” shouted Phil, whereupon Elsie frowned and shook her head at him.
The parlor was gay with daffodils and hyacinths, and vases of blue violets, which smelt delightfully. Cecy had helped to arrange them, Elsie said. And just at that moment Cecy herself came in. Her hair was arranged in a sort of pin-cushion of puffs, with a row of curls on top, where no curls used to grow, and her appearance generally was very fine and fashionable; but she was the same affectionate Cecy as ever, and hugged the girls, and danced round them as she used to do at twelve. She had waited until they had had time to kiss once all round, she said, and then she really couldn’t wait any longer.
“Now come upstairs,” suggested Elsie, when Clover had warmed her feet, and the flowers had been admired, and everybody had said ten times over how nice it was to have the girls back, and the girls had replied that it was just as nice to come back.
So they all went upstairs, Elsie leading the way.
“Where are you going?” cried Katy: “that’s the Blue Room.” But Elsie did not pause.
“You see,” she explained, with the door-knob in her hand, “papa and I thought you ought to have a bigger room now, because you are grown-up young ladies! So we have fixed this for you, and your old one is going to be the spare room instead.” Then she threw the door open, and led the girls in.
“See, Katy,” she said, “this is your bureau, and this is Clover’s.
And look what nice drawers papa has had put in the closet,—two for
you, and two for her. Aren’t they convenient? Don’t you like it?
And isn’t it a great deal pleasanter than the old room?”
“Oh, a great deal,” cried the girls. “It is delightful, every thing about it.” All Katy’s old treasures had been transferred from her old quarters to this. There was her cushioned chair, her table, her book- shelf, the pictures from the walls. There were some new things too, —a blue carpet, blue paper on the walls, window curtains of fresh chintz; and Elsie had made a tasteful pin-cushion for each bureau, and Johnnie crocheted mats for the wash-stand. Altogether, it was as pretty a bower as two sisters just grown into ladies could desire.
“What are those lovely things hanging on either side of the bed?” asked Clover.
They were two illuminated texts, sent as a “welcome home,” by Cousin Helen. One was a morning text, and other an evening text, Elsie explained.