Chapter XXXV
The Last Redmond Year Opens
“Here we are, all back again, nicely sunburned and rejoicing as a strong man
to run a race,” said Phil, sitting down on a suitcase with a sigh of pleasure. “Isn’t
it jolly to see this dear old Patty’s Place again—and Aunty—and the cats? Rusty
has lost another piece of ear, hasn’t he?”
“Rusty would be the nicest cat in the world if he had no ears at all,” declared
Anne loyally from her trunk, while Rusty writhed about her lap in a frenzy of
welcome.
“Aren’t you glad to see us back, Aunty?” demanded Phil.
“Yes. But I wish you’d tidy things up,” said Aunt Jamesina plaintively,
looking at the wilderness of trunks and suitcases by which the four laughing,
chattering girls were surrounded. “You can talk just as well later on. Work first
and then play used to be my motto when I was a girl.”
“Oh, we’ve just reversed that in this generation, Aunty. OUR motto is play
your play and then dig in. You can do your work so much better if you’ve had a
good bout of play first.”
“If you are going to marry a minister,” said Aunt Jamesina, picking up Joseph
and her knitting and resigning herself to the inevitable with the charming grace
that made her the queen of housemothers, “you will have to give up such
expressions as ‘dig in.’”
“Why?” moaned Phil. “Oh, why must a minister’s wife be supposed to utter
only prunes and prisms? I shan’t. Everybody on Patterson Street uses slang—
that is to say, metaphorical language—and if I didn’t they would think me
insufferably proud and stuck up.”
“Have you broken the news to your family?” asked Priscilla, feeding the
Sarah-cat bits from her lunchbasket.
Phil nodded.
“How did they take it?”
“Oh, mother rampaged. But I stood rockfirm—even I, Philippa Gordon, who