The dreadful regent's examination was to come the next week, and Peggy
wanted to study for it. She had once thought of asking Arna to help
her, but Arna seemed so tired.
In the afternoon Esther came to see her chum, and to take her home with
her to spend the night. The babies, fretful with
after-Christmas-crossness, were tumbling over their aunt, and sadly
interrupting confidences, while Peggy explained that she could not go
out that evening. All the family were going to the church sociable, and
she must put the babies to bed.
"I think it's mean," Esther broke in. "Isn't it your vacation as well
as theirs? Do make that child stop pulling your hair!"
If Esther's words had only not echoed through Peggy's head as they did
that night! "But it is so mean of me, so mean of me, to want my own
vacation!" sobbed Peggy in the darkness. "I ought just to be glad
they're all at home."
Her self-reproach made her readier than ever to wait on them all the
next morning. Nobody could make such buckwheat cakes as could Mrs.
Brower; nobody could turn them as could Peggy. They were worth coming
from New York and Baltimore and Ohio to eat. Peggy stood at the griddle
half an hour, an hour, two hours. Her head was aching. Hazen, the
latest riser, was joyously calling for more.
At eleven o'clock Peggy realized that she had had no breakfast herself,
and that her mother was hurrying her off to investigate the lateness of
the butcher.
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