Chapter 11

“Oh, I see, I see!” said Mrs. Peterkin; “and we did get into a muddle at the station!”

Mr. Atwood met them at the porch. “I beg pardon,” he said. “I hope you have found it comfortable here, and shall be glad to have you stay till Mr. Peters’ family comes.”

At this moment wheels were heard. Mr. Sylvester had arrived, with an open wagon, to take the Peterkins to the “Old Farm.”

Martha was waiting within the door, and said to Elizabeth Eliza, “Beg pardon, miss, for thinking you was one of the inmates, and putting you in that room. We thought it so kind of Mrs. Peters to take you off every day with the other gentlemen, that looked so wandering.”

Elizabeth Eliza did not know whether to laugh or to cry.

Mr. Peterkin and the little boys decided to stay at the farm till Friday. But Agamemnon and Solomon John preferred to leave with Mr. Sylvester, and to take their electrical machine and camera when they came for Mr. Peterkin.

Mrs. Peterkin was tempted to stay another night, to be wakened once more by the guinea-hens. But Elizabeth Eliza bore her off. There was not much packing to be done. She shouted good-by into the ears of the deaf old lady, and waved her hand to the foreign one, and glad to bid farewell to the old men with their pipes, leaning against the porch.

“This time,” she said, “it is not our trunks that were lost”

“But we, as a family,” said Mrs. Peterkin.