all of her girl friends Ruth had promised to write every single
thing that happened, and Mark had promised so many alligator
teeth, and other trophies of the chase, that, if he kept all his
promises, there would be a decided advance in the value of Florida
curiosities that winter.

As the little house was stripped of all its furniture, except some
few things that had been sold with it, they were all to go to Dr.
Wing's to sleep that night, and Mrs. Wing had almost felt hurt
that they would not take tea with her; but both Mr. and Mrs. Elmer
wanted to take this last meal in their own home, and persuaded her
to let them have their way. The good woman must have sent over
most of the supper she had intended them to eat with her, and
this, together with the good things sent in by other neighbors, so
loaded the table that Mark declared it looked like a regular
surprise-party supper.

A surprise-party it proved to be, sure enough, for early in the
evening neighbors and friends began to drop in to say good-bye,
until the lower rooms of the little house were filled. As the
chairs were all gone, they sat on trunks, boxes, and on the
kitchen table, or stood up.

Mark and Ruth had their own party, too, right in among the grown
people; for most of the boys and girls of the village had come
with their parents to say good-bye, and many of them had brought
little gifts that they urged the young Elmers to take with them as
keepsakes. Of all these none pleased Ruth so much as the album,
filled with the pictures of her school-girl friends, that Edna May
brought her.