all the girls' friends came to see them off at the station that fifth of july.

"mercy! it would never do to spring our texas yell to-day," chuckled tilly, eyeing the assembled crowd; "but wouldn't i like to, though!"

"there's nothing dead about sunbridge now, sure," laughed genevieve.

"i should say not," declared harold day, who had begged the privilege of going to boston to see them aboard their train for washington.

"for you see," he had argued, "it's to my state, after all, that you are going, so i ought to be allowed to do the honors at this end of the trip as long as i can't at the other!"

they were off at last, mrs. kennedy, mr. hartley, the six girls, and harold. but what a scrambling it was, and what a confusion of chatter, laughter, "good-byes," and "write soons"!

in boston there was a thirty-minute wait in the south station before their train was due to leave; but long before the thirty minutes were over, the usually serene face of mrs. kennedy began to look flushed and worried.

"genevieve, my dear," she expostulated at last, "can't you keep those flutterbudget girls somewhere near together? it will be time, soon, to take our train, and only cordelia is in sight. not even harold and your father are here!"

genevieve laughed soothingly.

"i know, aunt julia; but they'll be here, i'm sure. there's still lots of time," she added, glancing proudly at her pretty new watch.

"but where are they all?"

"tilly and elsie have gone for some soda water, and bertha for a sandwich at the lunch counter. she said she just couldn't eat a thing before she left home. alma lane has gone to a drug store across the street. i don't know where father and harold are. they went off together, and—oh, here they are!" she broke off in relief, as the two wanderers appeared.

"and now," summoned mr. hartley, "we'll be off to our car! why, where are the rest of us?"

"well, they—they aren't all here," frowned genevieve, a little anxiously.

as at sunbridge, it was a rush and a scramble at the last. tilly, elsie, and bertha came back, but genevieve went to look for alma lane; and when alma returned without having seen genevieve, harold had to run post-haste for her.

"sure, dearie," said mr. hartley to his daughter, laughingly, when at last he had his charges all in the car, "this is a little worse than trying to corral a bunch of bronchos!"

"oh, but we won't be so bad again," promised the girl, waving her hand to harold, who stood alone outside the window, watching them a little wistfully.

they had a merry time getting settled, and more than one tired countenance in the car brightened at sight of the six eager young faces.

"i couldn't get all five sections together," frowned mr. hartley. "i got three here, but the other two are down near the end of the car—you know the porter showed you. do you think we can make them go, some way?" he questioned mrs. kennedy, anxiously. "i planned for you to have one of the sections down there by yourself, perhaps, with two of the young ladies in the other. will that do?"

"of course it will—and finely, too," declared the lady. "genevieve, you and i will go down there and take one of the girls with us—perhaps bertha. that will leave your father for one up here, elsie and alma for another, and tilly and cordelia for the third."

"i knew she'd put you with cordelia," chuckled bertha to tilly, under cover of their scramble to pick out their suit-cases from the pile in which the porter had left them. "and i'm sure you ought to be," she laughed. "there'll be some hopes then that you'll be kept in order!"

"just look to yourself," retorted tilly, serenely. "mrs. kennedy put you down there near her—remember that!"

"i declare, i felt just like an orange," giggled elsie, "with all that talk about 'sections.'"

"i don't see where the shelves are," whispered cordelia, craning her short little neck to its full extent.

"you'll see them all right," promised tilly. "just wait till it's dark, then—'the goblins'll get ye if ye don't watch out!'" she quoted, with mock impressiveness.

"i feel as if i were ten years old, and playing house," chirped alma lane, as she happily frowned over just the proper place for her bag.

"i feel as if it were all a dream, and that i shall wake up right at home," breathed cordelia. "seems as if it just couldn't be true—that we're really going to texas! oh, genevieve, we can't ever thank you and your father enough," she finished, as genevieve came up the aisle.

"as if we wanted thanks, after what you've done for me!" cried genevieve. "besides, you girls can't be half so glad to go as i am to have you!"

some time later the porter began to make up the berths.

tilly nudged cordelia violently.

"there's shelf number one, cordy. how do you think you'll like it?" she asked.

cordelia was too absorbed even to notice the hated "cordy." with wide-eyed, breathless interest she was watching the porter.

"i think—it's the most wonderful thing—i ever saw," she breathed in an awestruck voice.

it was after the car was quiet that night that genevieve, in her upper berth, pulled apart the heavy curtains and peeped out into the long narrow aisle between the swaying draperies.

the train was moving very rapidly. the air was heavy and close. the night was an uncomfortably warm one. genevieve had been too excited to sleep. even yet it did not seem quite real—that the happy hexagons were all there with her, and that they were going to her far-away texas home.

with a sigh the girl fell back on her pillow, and tried to coax sleep to come to her. but sleep refused to come. instead, the whole panorama of her eastern winter unrolled itself before her, peopled with little fairy sprites, who danced with twinkling feet and smiled at her mockingly.

"oh, yes, i know you," murmured genevieve, drowsily. "i know you all. you—you little black one—you're the cake i forgot in the oven, and let burn up. and you're the lessons i didn't learn—there are heaps of you! and you—you're those[49] horrid scales i never could catch up with. my, how you run now! and you—you little shamed one over in the corner—you're the prank i played on miss jane. . . . oh, you can dance now—but you won't, by and by! next year there won't be any of you—not a one left. i'm going to be so good, so awfully good; and i'm not going to ever forget, or to cause anybody any trouble, or—"

with a start genevieve sat erect in her berth, fully awake.

"mercy! what a jounce that was!" she cried, just above her breath. "but we seem to be going all right now."

cautiously she parted her curtains and peeped out again. the next instant she almost gave a little shriek: she was looking straight into bertha brown's upraised, startled eyes, just below her.

"was that an accident?" chattered bertha. "i told you there'd be one! i'm all dressed, anyhow—if 'tis!"

"sh-h! no, goosey," chuckled genevieve.

she would have said more but, at that moment, from up the aisle sounded a sibilant "s-s-s-s!" they turned to see a somewhat untidy fluff of red hair above a laughing, piquant face.

"it's tilly! she's motioning to us. say, let's go," whispered genevieve. and cautiously she began to let herself down from her perch.

the next moment bertha, fully dressed, and genevieve in her long, dark blue kimono, were tripping softly up the aisle.

"why, you're both down here," exulted genevieve, as she climbed into the lower berth.

"yes; cordelia was afraid," giggled tilly, "so i came down."

"tilly!—i was not," disputed cordelia, in an indignant whisper. "you came of your own accord."

"pooh! tilly's fooling, and we know it," soothed bertha, climbing into the berth after genevieve.

"why, bertha brown, you've got your shoes on!" gasped tilly, forgetting to whisper.

"of course i have," retorted bertha. "do you suppose—sh!"

there was a tug at the curtains, and elsie martin's round, good-natured face peered in.

"well, i like this," she bridled. "a special meeting of the hexagon club, and me not notified! i heard genevieve and bertha giggling in the aisle. are you all here?"

"all but alma," rejoined tilly, in an exultant whisper. "say, get her, too!"

"well, now, if this isn't just a lark," crowed bertha, gleefully, when the last of the six girls had crowded themselves into the narrow berth.

"ouch! my head," groaned genevieve, as a soft thud threw the other girls into stifled laughter.

"pooh! i've been hitting my head against the up-stairs flat ever since i went to bed," quoth elsie. "isn't it fun! now let's talk."

"what about?"

"texas, of course," cut in tilly. "girls, girls, wouldn't it be glorious to give our texas yell, though, and see what happened!"

"tilly!" gasped the shocked cordelia.

"oh, i wasn't going to, of course," chuckled tilly, softly. "i was just imaginin', you know."

"but even this—i'm not sure we ought—" began cordelia.

"no, of course not; you never are, cordy," agreed tilly, smoothly.

"but let's talk texas—we can whisper, you know. tell us about texas, genevieve," cut in pacifier alma, hurriedly. "what's it like—the ranch?"

genevieve drew a happy sigh.

"why, it's like—it's like nothing in texas, we think," she breathed. "of course we don't think any other ranch could come up to the six star!"

tilly gave a sudden cry.

"the what?"

"the six star—our ranch, you know."

"you mean it's named the 'six star ranch'?" demanded tilly.

"sure! didn't i ever tell you?" retorted genevieve in plain surprise.

tilly clapped her hands softly.

"did you! well, i should say not! you've always called it just 'the ranch.' and now—why, girls, don't you see?—it's our ranch. it couldn't have had a better name if we'd had it built to order. it's the six star ranch—and we're the six star girls—the happy hexagons. and to think we never knew it before!"

there was a chorus of half-stifled exclamations of delight; then cordelia demanded anxiously:

"but, genevieve, will they be glad to see us, really—all your people out there?"

"glad! i reckon they will be," averred genevieve, warmly. "the boys will give us a rousing welcome, and there won't be anything too good for mr. tim and mammy lindy to do."

"who are they?" asked tilly.

"mr. tim is the ranch foreman, 'the boss,' the boys call him. he's been with us ever since i can remember, and he's so good to me! mammy lindy is—well, mammy lindy is a dear! you'll love ol' mammy. she's been just a mother to me ever since my own mother died eight years ago." genevieve's voice faltered a little, then went on more firmly. "she's a negro woman, you know. her people were slaves, once."

"and—the—boys?" asked cordelia, dubiously. "are they your—brothers, genevieve?"

genevieve laughed—a little more loudly than perhaps she realized.

"brothers!—well, hardly! the boys are the cowboys—on the ranch, you know. my, but they'll give us a welcome! i reckon they'll ride into town to give it, too, in all their war paint. just you wait till you see the boys—and hear them!" and genevieve laughed again.

all in the dark cordelia looked distinctly shocked; but, being in the dark, nobody noticed it.

"well, i for one just can't wait," began tilly, hugging herself with her arms about her knees. "only think, it'll be whole days now before we get there, and—"

"young ladies!"

tilly stopped with a little cry of dismay. a man's voice had spoken close to her ear.

"young ladies," came the mellow tones again. "i begs yo' pardon, but de lady what belongs down in number ten says maybe you done forgot dat dis am a sleepin' car."

"aunt julia!" breathed genevieve. "she's number ten."

"she sent the porter," gasped cordelia. "how—how awful!—and you're in my house, too," she almost sobbed.

"now i know we're playing house," tittered alma lane, hysterically, as she followed genevieve out of the berth.

once more in her own quarters, genevieve lay back on her pillow with a remorseful sigh.

"i don't see why it's so much easier to say you'll never give anybody any trouble than 'tis to do it," she lamented, as she turned over with a jerk.

the girls began the "chronicles of the hexagon club" the next morning. genevieve made the first entry. she dwelt at some length on the confusion of the train-taking, both at sunbridge and boston. she also had something to say of tilly mack. she gave a full account, too, of the midnight session of the hexagon club in cordelia's berth.

"and i'm ashamed that aunt julia had to be ashamed of me so soon," she wrote contritely.

cordelia wilson had agreed to make the second entry in the book; but the heat, the loss of sleep, and the strangeness and excitement added to her distress that "her house" should have been made to seem a disgrace in the eyes of the whole car, all conspired to make her feel so ill that she declared she could not think of writing for a day or two.

"very well, then, you sha'n't write; we'll hand the book to tilly," said genevieve, "and then we'll give it to some of the others. but i'll tell you what we will do, cordelia; you shall make the last entry in the book just before we leave the train at bolo. and you can make it a sort of retrospect—a 'review lesson' of the whole, you know."

"but i thought the others—won't they each tell their day?"

"that's just what they'll tell—their day," retorted genevieve, whimsically. "you know what most of them are. alma lane would be all right, and would give a true description of everything; only she would go into particulars so, that she would tell everything she saw from the windows, and just what she had to eat all day, down to the last olive."

"i know," nodded cordelia, with a faint smile.

"as for tilly—you can't get real sense, of course, from her part. if there's any nonsense going, tilly mack will find it and trot it out. bertha brown will take up the most of her space by saying 'i always said that—' etc., etc. bertha is a dear—but you know she does just love to say 'i told you so.' elsie will write clothes, of course. we shall find out what everybody has on when elsie writes."

cordelia laughed aloud—then clapped her hand to her aching head.

"you poor dear! what a shame," sympathized genevieve. "but, cordelia, why does elsie think so much of clothes? mercy! for my part i think they're the most tiresome sort of things to bother with; and it's such a waste of time to be having to change your dress always!"

cordelia smiled; then her face sobered.

"poor elsie! i'm sorry for elsie. she does have such an unhappy time over clothes."

"why? how?—or isn't it fair to tell?" added genevieve, with quick loyalty.

"oh, yes, it's fair. everybody knows it, 'most, and i supposed you did. elsie herself tells of it. you know she lives with her aunt, mrs. gale. well, mrs. gale has three daughters, fannie, about twenty-one, i guess, and the twins, nineteen; and she just loves to make over their things for elsie—so she does it."

"are they so very—poor, then?"

"oh, no; they aren't poor at all. i don't think she really has to do it. aunt mary says she's just naturally thrifty, and that she loves to make them over. but you see, poor elsie almost never has a new dress—of new material, i mean. now elsie loves red; but fannie wears blue a lot, and the twins like queer shades like faded-out greens and browns which elsie abhors. poor elsie—no wonder she's always looking at clothes!"

"hm-m; no wonder," nodded genevieve, her pitying eyes on elsie far down the aisle—elsie, who, in a mustard-colored striped skirt and pongee blouse, was at that moment trying to perk up the loppy blue bows on a somewhat faded tan straw hat. "well, anyhow," added genevieve, with a sigh, "just remember, cordelia, that you're to do the last day of the trip in the chronicles. now lie down and give your poor head a rest."

long before the last day of the journey came, cordelia had quite recovered from her headache; but, in accordance with genevieve's plan, she did not add her share to the chronicles until the appointed time. then, with almost a reverent air, she accepted the book and pen from genevieve's hands, and returned to the seclusion of her seat, rejoicing that tilly was playing checkers with bertha, and so would not, presumably, disturb her—for a time, at least.

"to-day, at noon, we are to arrive at bolo," she wrote a little unevenly; then with a firmer hand she went on. "genevieve says this ought to be a retrospect, and touch lightly upon the whole trip; so i will try to make it so.

"it has been a beautiful journey. nothing serious has happened, though bertha has worn her shoes all the time expecting it. the best thing, so far, was our lovely day in washington that mr. hartley gave us, and the president. (i mean, we saw him and he smiled.) and the worst thing (except that first night in my berth that genevieve wrote of) was the time we lost tilly for three whole hours, and mrs. kennedy got so nervous and white and frightened. we supposed, of course, she had fallen off, or jumped off, or got left off at some station. but just as we were talking with the porter about telegraphing everywhere, she danced in with two very untidy, unclean little armenian children. it seems she had been in the emigrant car all the time playing with the children and trying to make the men and women talk their queer english. i never knew that gentle mrs. kennedy could speak so sharply as she did then to tilly.

"and now—since tuesday, some time—we have really been in texas. some things look just like eastern things, but others are so strange and queer. it is very hot—i mean, very warm, too. but then, we have just as warm days in sunbridge, i guess. the windmills look so queer—there are such a lot of them; but they look pretty, too. some of the towns are very pretty, also, with their red roofs and blue barns and houses. genevieve says lots of them are german villages.

"in some places lots of things are growing, but in others it is all just gray and bare-looking with nothing much growing except those queer prairie-dog cities with the funny little creatures sitting on top of their houses, or popping down into their holes only to turn around and look at you out of their bright little eyes. we had a splendid chance to see them once when our train stopped right in the middle of a prairie for a long time. we got off and walked quite a way with mr. hartley. i saw a rattlesnake, and i'm afraid i screamed. i screamed again when the horrid thing wiggled into one of the dog houses. mr. hartley says they live together sometimes, but if i were that dog he wouldn't live with me!

"we have seen lots of cattle and goats and hogs—though tilly says she hasn't seen any of the latter under any gate yet. i have seen a mesquite tree (so i have done one of my things), and it does have thorns. we are on another prairie now, and oh, how big it is, and such a lot of grass as there is on it—just as far as you can see, grass, grass, grass! i guess there won't be any danger of my not having plenty of that to take home. i have seen lots of men on horseback, but i don't know whether they were cowboys or not. they did not shoot, anyway, but some of them did yell.

"genevieve says cowboys are to meet us, and that probably they will come away to bolo in full war paint. i thought it was only indians who painted—except silly ladies, of course—and i was going to say so; but tilly was there, so i didn't like to. of course i ought not to mind the cowboys—if genevieve likes them, and they are her friends; but i can't help remembering what mrs. miller told me about their 'shooting up towns' in a very dreadful way when they were angry. i hope none of the men i want to find will turn out to be cowboys." (here there were signs of an attempted erasure, but the words still stood, and immediately after them came another sentence.) "that is, i mean i should hate to find that any friends of mine had become cowboys.

"i have just been reading over what i have written, and i am disappointed in it. i am sure i ought to have mentioned a great many things about which i have been silent. but there were so many things, and they all crowded at once before me, so that i had to just touch on the big things and the tall things—like windmills, for instance.

"we are getting nearer bolo now, and i must stop and eat some luncheon, genevieve says, as we sha'n't have anything else till supper on the ranch. oh, i am so excited! seems as if i couldn't draw a breath deep enough. and the idea of trying to eat when i feel like this!"