thousand miles by themselves as the Babes in the Wood,” remarked Dr. Carr, who, like many other fathers, found it hard to realize that his children had outgrown their childhood. “However, there’s no help for it. If I don’t stay and grind away at the mill, there is no one to pay for this long journey. Clover will have to do her best.”
“And a very good best it will be you’ll see,” said Katy, consolingly. “Does Dr. Hope tell you anything about the place?” she added, turning over the letter which her father had handed her.
“Oh, he says the scenery is fine, and the mean rain-fall is this, and the mean precipitation that, and that boarding-places can be had. That is pretty much all. So far as climate goes, it is the right place, but I presume the accommodations are poor enough. The children must go prepared to rough it. The town was only settled ten or eleven years ago; there hasn’t been time to make things comfortable,” remarked Dr. Carr, with a truly Eastern ignorance of the rapid way in which things march in the far West.
Clover’s feelings when the decision was announced to her it would be hard to explain in full. She was both confused and exhilarated by the sudden weight of responsibility laid upon her. To leave everybody and everything she had always been used to, and go away to such a distance alone with Phil, made her gasp with a sense of dismay, while at the same time the idea that for the first time in her life she was trusted with something really important, roused her energies, and made her feel braced and valiant, like a soldier to whom some difficult enterprise is intrusted on the day of battle.
Many consultations followed as to what the travellers should carry with them, by what route they would best go, and how prepare for the journey. A great deal of contradictory advice was offered, as is usually the case when people are starting on a voyage or a long railway ride. One friend wrote to recommend that they should provide themselves with a week’s provisions in advance, and enclosed a list of crackers, jam, potted meats, tea, fruit, and hardware, which would have made a heavy load for a donkey or mule to carry. How were poor Clover and Phil to transport such a weight of things? Another advised against umbrellas and water-proof cloaks,—what was the use of such things where it never rained?—while a second letter, received the same day, assured them that thunder and hail storms were things for which travellers in Colorado must live in a state of continual preparation. “Who shall decide when doctors disagree?” In the end Clover concluded that it was best to follow the leadings of commonsense and rational precaution, do about a quarter of what people advised, and leave the rest undone; and she found that this worked very well.
As they knew so little of the resources of St. Helen’s, and there was such a strong impression prevailing in the family as to its being a rough sort of newly-settled place, Clover and Katy judged it wise to pack a large box of stores to go out by freight: oatmeal and arrowroot and beef-extract and Albert biscuits,—things which Philly ought to have, and which in a wild region might be hard to come by. Debby filled all the corners with home-made dainties of various sorts; and Clover, besides a spirit-lamp and a tea-pot, put into her trunks various small decorations,—Japanese fans and pictures, photographs, a vase or two, books and a sofa-pillow,—things which took little room, and which she thought would make their quarters look more comfortable in case they were very bare and unfurnished. People felt sorry for the probable hardships the brother and sister were to undergo; and they had as many little gifts and notes of sympathy and counsel as Katy herself when she was starting for Europe.
But I am anticipating. Before the trunks were packed, Dr. Carr’s anxieties about his “Babes in the Wood” were greatly allayed by a visit from Mrs. Hall. She came to tell him that she had heard of a possible “matron” for Clover.
“I am not acquainted with the lady myself,” she said; “but my cousin, who writes about her, knows her quite well, and says she is a highly respectable person, and belongs to nice people. Her sister, or some one, married a Phillips of Boston, and I’ve always heard that that family was one of the best there. She’s had some malarial trouble, and is at the West now on account of it, staying with a friend in Omaha; but she wants to spend the summer at St. Helen’s. And as I know you have worried a good deal over having Clover and Phil go off by themselves, I thought it might be a comfort to you to hear of this Mrs. Watson.”
“You are very good. If she proves to be the right sort of person, it will be an immense comfort. Do you know when she wants to start?”
“About the end of May,—just the right time, you see. She could join Clover and Philip as they go through, which will work nicely for them all.”
“So it will. Well, this is quite a relief. Please write to your cousin, Mrs. Hall, and make the arrangement. I don’t want Mrs. Watson to be burdened with any real care of the children, of course; but if she can arrange to go along with them, and give Clover a word of advice now and then, should she need it, I shall be easier in my mind about them.”
Clover was only doubtfully grateful when she heard of this arrangement.
“Papa always will persist in thinking that I am a baby still,” she said to Katy, drawing her little figure up to look as tall as possible. “I am twenty-two, I would have him remember. How do we know what this Mrs. Watson is like? She may be the most disagreeable person in the world for all papa can tell.”
“I really can’t find it in my heart to be sorry that it has happened, papa looks so much relieved by it,” Katy rejoined.
But all dissatisfactions and worries and misgivings took wings and flew away when, just ten days before the travellers were to start, a new and delightful change was made in the programme. Ned telegraphed that the ship, instead of coming to New York, was ordered to San Francisco to refit, and he wanted Katy to join him there early in June, prepared to spend the summer; while almost simultaneously came a letter from Mrs. Ashe, who with Amy had been staying a couple of months in New York, to say that hearing of Ned’s plan had decided her also to take a trip to California with some friends who had previously asked her to join them. These friends were, it seemed, the Daytons of Albany. Mr. Dayton was a railroad magnate, and had the control of a private car in which the party were to travel; and Mrs. Ashe was authorized to invite Katy, and Clover and Phil also, to go along with them,—the former all the way to California, and the others as far as Denver, where the roads separated.
This was truly delightful. Such an offer was surely worth a few days’ delay. The plan seemed to settle itself all in one minute. Mrs. Watson, whom every one now regretted as a complication, was the only difficulty; but a couple of telegrams settled that perplexity, and it was arranged that she should join them on the same train, though in a different car. To have Katy as a fellow-traveller, and Mrs. Ashe and Amy, made a different thing of the long journey, and Clover proceeded with her preparations in jubilant spirits.
Chapter V.
Car Forty-Seven
It is they who stay behind who suffer most from leave-takings. Those who go have the continual change of scenes and impressions to help them to forget; those who remain must bear as best they may the dull heavy sense of loss and separation.
The parting at Burnet was not a cheerful one. Clover was oppressed with the nearness of untried responsibilities; and though she kept up a brave face, she was inwardly homesick. Phil slept badly the night before the start, and looked so wan and thin as he stood on the steamer’s deck beside his sisters, waving good-by to the party on the wharf, that a new and sharp thrill of anxiety shot through his father’s heart. The boy looked so young and helpless to be sent away ill among strangers, and round-faced little Clover seemed such a fragile support! There was no help for it. The thing was decided on, decided for the best, as they all hoped; but Dr. Carr was not at all happy in his mind as he watched the steamer become a gradually lessening speck in the distance, and he sighed heavily when at last he turned away.
Elsie echoed the sigh. She, too, had noticed Phil’s looks and papa’s gravity, and her heart felt heavy within her. The house, when they reached it, seemed lonely and empty. Papa went at once