The Little Colonels Hero | Page 5

say how much your
wonder-ball can hold, but somewhere near the centre of it will be a
meeting with Betty and Eugenia, and perhaps a glimpse of the Gate of
the Giant Scissors that you are always talking about."
As Lloyd listened a look of utter astonishment crept over her face. Then
she suddenly sprang from her chair, and running to her father put a
hand on each shoulder. "Papa Jack," she cried, breathlessly, "look me
straight in the eyes! Are you in earnest? You don't mean that we are
going abroad, do you? It _couldn't_ be anything so lovely as that, could
it?"
For answer he drew an envelope from his pocket and shook it before
her eyes. "Look for yourself," he said. "This is to show that we are
listed for passage on a steamer going to Antwerp the first of June. You
may begin to pack your trunk next week, if you wish."
It was impossible for Lloyd to eat any more after that. She was too
excited and happy, and there were countless questions she wanted to
ask. "It's bettah than a hundred house pahties," she exclaimed, as she
blew out the last birthday candle. "It's the loveliest wondah-ball that
evah was, and I'm suah that nobody in all Kentucky is as happy as I am
now."
CHAPTER II.

THE WONDER-BALL BEGINS TO UNWIND
Lloyd's wonder-ball began to unroll the morning that her father took
her to town to choose her own steamer trunk, and some of the things
that were to go in it. She packed and unpacked it many times in the two
weeks that followed, although she knew that Mom Beck would do the
final packing, and probably take out half the things which she insisted
upon crowding into it.
Every morning it was a fresh delight to waken and find it standing by
her dressing-table, reminding her of the journey they would soon begin
together, and, when the journey was actually begun, she settled back in
her seat with a happy sigh.
"Now, I'll commence to count my packages as they fall out," she said.
"I think I ought to count what I see from the car windows as one, for I
enjoy looking out at the different places we pass moah than I evah
enjoyed my biggest pictuah books."
"Then count this number two," said her father, putting a flat, square
parcel in her lap. Lloyd looked puzzled as she opened it. There was
only a blank book inside, bound in Russia leather, with the word
"Record" stamped on it in gilt.
"I thought it would be a good idea to keep a partnership diary," he said.
"We can take turns in writing in it, and some day, when you are grown,
and your mother and I are old and gray, it will help us to remember
much of the journey that otherwise might pass out of our memories. So
many things happen when one is travelling, that they are apt to crowd
each other out of mind unless a record is kept of them."
"We'll begin as soon as we get on the ship," said Lloyd. "Mothah shall
write first, then you, and then I. And let's put photographs in it, too, as
Mrs. Walton did in hers. It will be like writing a real book. Package
numbah two is lovely, Papa Jack."
It happened that Mr. Sherman was the only one who made an entry in
the record for more than a week. Mrs. Sherman felt the motion of the

vessel too much to be able to do more than lie out on deck in her
steamer-chair. The Little Colonel, while she was not at all seasick, was
afraid to attempt writing until she reached land.
"The table jiggles so!" she complained, when she sat down at a desk in
the ship's library. "I'm afraid that I'll spoil the page. You write it, Papa
Jack." She put back the pen, and stood at his elbow while he wrote.
"Put down about all the steamah lettahs that we got," she suggested,
"and the little Japanese stove Allison Walton sent me for my muff, and
the books Rob sent. Oh, yes! And the captain's name and how long the
ship is, and how many tons of things to eat they have on board. Mom
Beck won't believe me when I tell her, unless I can show it to her in
black and white."
After they had explored the vessel together, her father was ready to
settle down in his deck-chair in a sheltered corner, and read aloud or
sleep. But the Little Colonel grew tired of being wrapped like a
mummy in her steamer rug. She did not care to read long at a time, and
she grew tired of looking at nothing