"Oh—oh—It isn't true—it can't be true! But father says it is, and father doesn't lie. I'm to go to Sunbridge. Sunbridge! I think Sunbridge is the loveliest name in the world—for a town, I mean, of course.
"Dear Genevieve:—There! this is actually the first minute I could bring myself to begin this letter properly. Really, a thing like this can't just begin, you know! And to think that I'm going to see Paul Revere's grave and Bunker Hill and you just next September! Oh, how can I ever thank you and dear Mrs. Kennedy? I love her, love her, love her—right now! And all the Happy Hexagons—I love them, too. I love everybody and everything—I'm going to Sunbridge!
"All day I've been saying over and over to myself that song in the 'Lady of the Lake,' only I've changed the words a little to fit my case; like this:
"That 'more' is poetry, but a fib; for of course I haven't been East at all yet. But that's just poetic license, you know—fibs like that.
"Oh, I just can't wait for September!
"My, but won't she be a picnic when she gets here?" chuckled Tilly, as soon as she could stop laughing long enough to find her voice.
"What in the world is the matter with you girls?" demanded Charlie Brown, sauntering up to them, arm in arm with O. B. J. Holmes.
Tilly turned merrily.
"Matter! I guess you'll think something is the matter when Quentina Jones gets here," she laughed.
"Who is Quentina Jones?"
"She is a new girl who is coming to school next year," explained Elsie.
"She's from Texas, and she's never been East before," chimed in Bertha.
"Yes, and as for you, Mr. Obejay Holmes," teased Tilly, "just you wait! There's no telling what she will do with your name!"
"What do you mean?"
O. B. J. spoke to Tilly, but he threw a merry glance into Genevieve's understanding eyes.
"Nothing, only she's a regular walking rhyming dictionary, and I can just fancy how those mysterious initials of yours will fire her up. My poor little 'O Be Joyful' won't be in it, then. You'll see!"
"I don't worry any," laughed O. B. J. Holmes, with another merry glance at Genevieve.
"You don't have to," interposed Genevieve, promptly. "Quentina is everything that is sweet and lovely, and you'll all like her; I know you will," she finished, as the bell rang and the boys turned laughingly away.
The June days sped so rapidly that Genevieve wondered where they went, sometimes. School was to close the twenty-third. Mr. Hartley was to arrive on the twentieth. Meanwhile examinations and the prize contest were uppermost in every one's thoughts. Graduation exercises were to come in the evening. The winner of the prize was to be announced at that time, also.
"And really, you know, the announcement of the prize-winner is all we care about specially," Elsie said one day, in the presence of a group of her friends on the schoolhouse steps.
"Just you wait till you graduate," laughed back Bertha's brother, Charlie, "and then I guess the evening exercises will be of some consequence."
"Of course—but that won't be till two years from now," cried Genevieve.
"Then you girls will be thinking more of frills and furbelows than you will of prizes," laughed Harold Day.
"I've got a new white dress for Graduation night," said Elsie in a low voice to Genevieve, "and I don't believe I could have a prettier one, even then."
"Another new white dress?" demanded Tilly, who had heard the aside. "Why, Elsie Martin, you had one for Miss Sally's wedding!"
Elsie laughed happily.
"I know—but this is a muslin. Aunt Kate seemed to want me to have it—and of course I'd love to have it, myself!"
Genevieve, for some reason, looked suddenly very happy, so much so that Harold, watching her, said quietly a minute later:
"Well, young lady, what's gone specially right with your world to-day?"
Genevieve laughed and blushed. She shook her head roguishly. Then suddenly she rejoined:
"I reckon one of my awfully bad things has turned out all good—that's all!"
True to his word, Mr. Hartley came on the twentieth. He was to be Mrs. Kennedy's guest until the start for Texas after school had closed.
"My, dearie! how fine and tall we are growing," he greeted his daughter affectionately. "Looks like Mr. Tim and the boys won't know you, I'm thinking!"
"Nonsense! Of course they will—and I can't hardly wait to see them, either," cried Genevieve.
It is doubtful if, on Graduation night, Cordelia Wilson herself listened to the announcement of the prize-winner any more anxiously than did Genevieve. It seemed as if she could not bear it—after what had happened—if Cordelia did not get the prize. And Cordelia got it.
"'When Sunbridge went to Texas,'" read Mr. Jackson, "Cordelia Wilson." And it was Genevieve who clapped the loudest.
Cordelia, certainly, was beatifically happy. And when Genevieve saw her amazed, but joyously happy face, she wondered why she should suddenly want to cry—for, surely, she had never felt happier in her life.
Graduation day, for the Happy Hexagons, was not, after all, quite the last meeting together; for Mrs. Kennedy gave Genevieve a porch party the night before she was to start back to Texas with Mr. Hartley.
A very merry crowd of boys and girls it was that sang college songs and told stories that night on the Kennedys' roomy, electric-lighted veranda.
"It seems just as if I couldn't have you go away," sighed Cordelia, at last, to Genevieve.
"But I'm coming back next year."
"Mercy! We couldn't stand it if you weren't," cried Tilly.
"And just think—last year we all went back with you," murmured Elsie.
"I wish you were going this year," declared Genevieve.
"I guess you aren't the only one that wishes that," cut in several longing voices.
"Well, we'll take you all now—if you'll go," retorted Genevieve, merrily.
"All—did you say?" challenged Harold Day.
"Yes, all," nodded Genevieve, emphatically. "We'd be glad to have you, every one of you."
"Well, I begin to think you would—now that I've seen Texas," sighed Tilly. "But I suppose we shall have to content ourselves till you come back this time."
"And this wonderful little rhyming dictionary, as Miss Tilly calls her—does she come back with you?" asked O. B. J. Holmes.
"Maybe. She comes next fall, anyway, before school begins," smiled Genevieve.
"Well, what I want to know is, if you are going to do any more Texas missionary work," suggested Charlie Brown.
"Pooh! She doesn't do that there—she does that here," cut in Tilly.
"There isn't any more to do, anyway," declared the exact Cordelia, happily. "She's got everything fixed even down to Elsie's—" She stopped just in time, but already Genevieve had interposed hurriedly:
"Oh, but it wasn't I that did anything. It was Cordelia. She found them to begin with, you know—Reddy, and Hermit Joe's son."
Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Jane, together with Nancy appeared just then with great plates of ice cream and delicious cake; and after that, all too soon, came the time for good-nights. The good-nights were not quite finished, however, until at the foot of the walk, five members of the Hexagon Club turned, and all together gave their Texas yell with a lusty "Genevieve" at the end that brought the tears to the real Genevieve's eyes.
"Mercy! What will the neighbors say—at this time of night!" protested Miss Jane Chick, feebly; but her eyes, too, were moist.
Being three "Little Colonel" stories in the Cosy Corner Series, "The Little Colonel," "Two Little Knights of Kentucky," and "The Giant Scissors," in a single volume.
These 12 volumes, boxed as a set, $18.00.
New plates, handsomely illustrated with eight full-page drawings in color, and many marginal sketches.
There has been a constant demand for publication in separate form of these six stories which were originally included in six of the "Little Colonel" books.
A story of the time of Christ, which is one of the author's best-known books.
| Uniform in size with the Little Colonel Series | $1.50 |
| Bound in white kid (morocco) and gold | 3.00 |
Published in response to many inquiries from readers of the Little Colonel books as to where they could obtain a "Good Times Book" such as Betty kept.
A series of "Little Colonel" dolls. There are many of them and each has several changes of costume, so that the happy group can be appropriately clad for the rehearsal of any scene or incident in the series.
"'Asa Holmes; Or, At the Cross-Roads' is the most delightful, most sympathetic and wholesome book that has been published in a long while."—Boston Times.
With an introduction by Bliss Carman, and a frontispiece by E. H. Garrett.
"Mrs. Johnston's . . . are of the character that cause the mind to grow gravely meditative, the eyes to shine with tender mist, and the heart strings to stir to strange, sweet music of human sympathy."—Los Angeles Graphic.
A story of a party of typical American lads, courageous, alert, and athletic, who spend a summer camping on an island off the Maine coast.
This book is a continuation of the adventures of "The Rival Campers" on their prize yacht Viking.
"As interesting ashore as when afloat."—The Interior.
"Just the type of book which is most popular with lads who are in their early teens."—The Philadelphia Item.
"The book's heroine Blue Bonnet has the very finest kind of wholesome, honest lively girlishness and cannot but make friends with every one who meets her through the book as medium."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
A Sequel to "A Texas Blue Bonnet." By Caroline Elliott Jacobs and Edith Ellerbeck Read.
The new story begins where the first volume leaves off and takes Blue Bonnet and the "We Are Seven Club" to the ranch in Texas. The tables are completely turned: Blue Bonnet is here in her natural element, while her friends from Woodford have to learn the customs and traditions of another world.
This is a book that will gladden the hearts of many girl readers because of its charming air of comradeship and reality. It is a very interesting group of girls who live on Friendly Terrace and their good times and other times are graphically related by the author, who shows a sympathetic knowledge of girl character.
A Sequel to "The Girls of Friendly Terrace." By Harriet Lummis Smith.
Readers who made the acquaintance of Peggy Raymond and her bevy of girl chums in "The Girls of Friendly Terrace" will be glad to continue the acquaintance of these attractive young folks.
Several new characters are introduced, and one at least will prove a not unworthy rival of the favorites among the Terrace girls.
Any girl of any age who is fond of outdoor life will appreciate this fascinating tale of Genevieve Hartley's summer vacation house-party on a Texas ranch. Genevieve and her friends are real girls, the kind that one would like to have in one's own home, and there are a couple of manly boys introduced.
"It is one of those exquisitely simple and truthful books that win and charm the reader, and I did not put it down until I had finished it—honest! And I am sure that every one, young or old, who reads will be proud and happy to make the acquaintance of the delicious waif.
"I cannot think of any better book for children than this. I commend it unreservedly."—Cyrus T. Brady.
'Tilda Jane is the same original, delightful girl, and as fond of her animal pets as ever.
"There is so much to this story that it is almost a novel—in fact it is better than many novels, although written for only young people. Compared with much of to-day's juveniles it is quite a superior book."—Chicago Tribune.
Here we have the haps and mishaps, the trials and triumphs, of a delightful New England family.
This is a delightful little story of animal life, written in this author's best vein, dealing especially with Pussy Black-Face, a little Beacon Street (Boston) kitten, who is the narrator.
Obvious punctuation errors corrected.
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