“You mean your father hasn’t been home since yesterday afternoon?” she exclaimed, after the first joys of reunion. “What did you have for lunch this noon?”

“We made hot water soup,” said Lena. “You boil the water and put in salt and pepper and buttered crackers for oysters, so it tastes like oyster soup.”

Aunt Lois looked thoughtfully around the rooms, made no comment while they admiringly described the details of Bonnie Purdy’s costume, and the news that she was visiting Mabel and Mr. Hartwell. Presently she accosted Mrs. Jane in the hallway and there was a low-voiced conference, clicking of tongues, shaking of heads on both sides, sighs, shrugs, sorrowful glances at the girls, all ending up in Mrs. Jane helping Aunt Lois find a suitcase into which to put their clothes. Lena nudged Marcia. “We’re going back to London Junction,” her lips formed the words.

“But we can’t,” Marcia lamented in a whisper. “The truant officer will come after us tomorrow if we don’t go to school.”

“We’ll be in school there,” said Lena rapturously. “With Mary Evelyn.”

“Put on your coats, you’re coming home with me,” said Aunt Lois, buckling the straps of the wicker suitcase. She shook her head significantly at Mrs. Jane. “It’s beyond me. I honestly wouldn’t have believed it, well as I know Harry Willard. I advise you to get your money from him, Mrs. Jane, before he skips. That’s the way Harry is. Oh, you poor kids!”

There was delay in leaving, eager as the older two were to go anywhere and have something happen, anything at all. Florrie sat on the floor and sobbed that she would not leave Papa, that she wouldn’t leave Mrs. Jane’s tomcat, Tommy, and that she had to look after her dear Papa because he had said so. Marcia suddenly remembered she had two library books out, The Green Fairy Book and The Blue Fairy Book, and unless she took them back tomorrow she would have to pay four cents or else the police would come to London Junction and get her. Mrs. Jane promised not only to deliver the books but not to give her address to the police in case of delay. Florrie stuck to her guns till the threat of leaving without her brought her, weeping, after them. The faint twinges about Papa’s reaction were lost completely in the unexpected treat of being driven all the way back to London Junction in Mr. Sweeney’s new Winton car. The three sat in the back and sang the songs they knew, very loud when they passed Burnadetta’s house on East Park. Aunt Lois sat in front with Mr. Sweeney, talking earnestly in the low emphatic tone which always meant “something was going to be done about the girls.”

PART THREE

Home is Far Away

23

THERE WERE DIFFERENT kinds of happiness, Marcia decided. What most people wanted was the happiness of having what other people wanted. Then they had brief moments of an inferior happiness when they only got what they themselves but nobody else wanted. This rather spoiled things. Some people made mistakes in their opinion of what other people wanted, but if they didn’t find out they managed to be happy, maybe wondering a little once in a while what everybody wanted this for. Others wasted so much time trying to have what other people wanted that sometimes they never knew they were perfectly happy without it. The biggest jolt in growing up was to discover that you didn’t like what others liked and they thought you were crazy to like what you liked.