e objections, too. They have pigs. I can't bear pigs!
Pooooey, pooooey! The filthy little things! I don't know,--Jim and the
gray suit and the auto and the cows are very nice, but when I think of
Jim and overalls and pigs and onions and freckles I have goose flesh.
Here they come! Where's that other slipper? Oh, it's clear under the
bed!" She wriggled after it, coming out again breathless. "Did I rub the
powder all off?" she asked anxiously.
The low honk of the car sounded outside, and the twins dumped a
miscellaneous assortment of toilet articles into the battered suit-case
and the tattered hand-bag. Carol grabbed her hat from Connie, leisurely
strolling through the hall with it, and sent her flying after her
gloves. "If you can't find mine, bring your own," she called after her.
Aunt Grace and Connie escorted them triumphantly down the walk to the
waiting car where the young man in the new sentimental gray suit stood
beside the open door. His face was boyishly eager, and his eyes were
full of a satisfaction that had a sort of excitement in it, too. Aunt
Grace looked at him and sighed. "Poor boy," she thought. "He is nice!
Carol is a mean little thing!"
He smiled at the twins impartially. "Shall we flip a coin to see who I
get in front?" he asked them, laughing.
His mother leaned out from the back seat, and smiled at the girls very
cordially. "Hurry, twinnies," she said, "we must start, or we'll be late
for supper. Come in with me, won't you, Larkie?"
"What a greasy schemer she is," thought Carol, climbing into her place
without delay.
Jim placed the battered suit-case and the tattered bag beneath the seat,
and drew the rug over his mother's knees. Then he went to Lark's side,
and tucked it carefully about her feet.
"It's awfully dusty," he said. "You shouldn't have dolled up so. Shall I
put your purse in my pocket? Don't forget you promised to feed the
chickens--I'm counting on you to do it for me."
Then he stepped in beside Carol, laughing into her bright face, and the
good-bys rang back and forth as the car rolled away beneath the heavy
arch of oak leaves that roofed in Maple Avenue.
The twins fairly reveled in the glories of the country through the
golden days that followed, and enjoyed every minute of every day, and
begrudged the hours they spent in sleep. The time slipped by "like
banana skins," declared Carol crossly, and refused to explain her
comparison. And the last day of their visit came.
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