'
'Good gracious,' cried Bell, 'what angels' food! only I would as soon
devour a pet canary as a mourning dove. But to think that I've been
trying to diet for a week in order to get intimate with suffering and
privation! Polly came to stay with me one night, and we slept on the
floor, with only a blanket under us, and no pillow; it was perfectly
horrid. Polly dreamed that her grandfather ate up her grandmother,
and I that Dicky stabbed the Jersey calf with a pickle-fork.'
'Horrors!' ejaculated Margery; 'that's a pleasant prospect for your
future bedfellows. I hope the gophers won't make you nervous,
gnawing and scratching in the straw; I got used to them last summer.
But we really must go, darling,' and she stooped to kiss Elsie good-
bye.
'Well, I suppose you ought,' she answered. 'But remember you are to
start from this gate; Aunt Truth has promised me the fun of seeing
you out of sight.'
The girls went out at a side door, and joined the boys, who were
busily at work cleaning their guns on the broad western porch.
'How are you coming on?' questioned Polly.
'Oh, finely,' answered Jack, who always constituted himself chief
spokesman, unless driven from the rostrum by some one possessed of a
nimbler tongue. 'I only hope your feminine togs are in half as good
order.'
'We take no baggage to speak of,' said Bell, loftily. 'Papa has cut
us down to the very last notch, and says the law allows very few
pounds on this trip.
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