There was some suspicion among the other dwellers at Santa Felisa that Kentucky Bob had once been employed about a real circus, else how had he acquired that intimate knowledge of the “rules and regulations of the ring” which he so constantly quoted for their benefit or reproval?
Into this “ring” of theirs, the boxes, hurdles, and other such things which the riders had been accustomed to use were soon gathered, and the labor of arranging these gave a wholly pleasant diversion to their feelings. A card of invitation, beautifully engrossed by a vaquero who had passed from the halls of Harvard to the great solitudes of the Sierras, was issued to Lord Plunkett, and a seat of honor erected for him on the southern side of the campus, while a spreading canvas wall on the north was to serve as a screen for the preparatory operations of the various actors.
Needless to say, maybe, that having once been won over to the project of an “extra show,” an enthusiastic determination was roused among the Santa Felisans to make this farewell entertainment of their beloved “mascot” eclipse everything which had ever gone before.
Nor did the interest end at this ranch; for mounted messengers were dispatched to invite the people of the neighboring estates to be present at the exhibition, and the invitations were as generally as promptly accepted.
But, of course, all this preparation took time to accomplish, so the hour had been appointed for one o’clock of the following day; and during the interval Steenie’s thoughts were so full of the matter, her tongue so busy discussing it, that she neither felt the time long nor permitted others to do so.
Indeed, so affected was everybody by the pleasant excitement of “getting ready,” that evening came before Lord Plunkett and his manager were finally seated with their books before them and a secretary at hand, to examine into the business which had brought them together. Even then his lordship would gladly have waived the matter, had he been allowed. “For ten years. No, twelve. Ship-shape. Paid well. Prompt. What more, eh? I’m satisfied. Why not you?”
“But, my lord, I cannot be. Any new manager will have enough to learn, even without all that I can do for him. It is a great responsibility; and, my lord, I would respectfully suggest that in the future you visit this part of your property oftener than once in a dozen years.”
“Hm-m! maybe; don’t know. Planned to stay a year now. Girl going away. Give it up. Consider. She comes back; so ’ll I. Like her. Credit to you; so’s the ranch.” Then the nobleman looked up as Sutro entered, bringing the “new manager’s” card. “Hello, Mexican! Well, where? Indigestion? Missed you. Say you’ve character? Born here? Eh? What?”
Sutro bowed profoundly, but a malicious grin overspread his wrinkled face. “En verdad! Thy Excellency honors his humble servant. Ten thousand thanks. But the señor stranger is arrived.”
Mr. Calthorp rose and advanced carefully in the direction of the door, extending his hand toward the new-comer, whom he immediately presented to Lord Plunkett; and, while these gentlemen were exchanging civilities, he turned sharply upon old Vives, whom he could hear rustling about near him. “Where have you been so long, Sutro? We have not seen you since dinner. His lordship has inquired for you several times.”
“Si? He does the least of his household too great respect,” answered the Spaniard, with haughty accent.
“Come, come, Sutro, don’t be foolish! It would be wiser of you to conciliate both him and the new ‘boss.’ They can easily turn you adrift, and you are an old man. From the tone of your voice, I judge that you are angry. That is senseless, and I am sorry. I wish to feel that one as fond of my little daughter as you are will be quite happy and comfortable when we are gone.”
“I bow myself in obligation to thee, Señor Calthorp,” responded the old Castilian, servilely. But his mood was neither servile nor happy; and, as the retiring manager turned once more toward his successor, he sought the cozy corner of the office which Steenie called her own, and where she sat by her pretty shaded lamp, sorting her picture-books.
“Hola, my Little Un! But I have put a thorn in his shirt, no? Trust old Sutro!”
“How? What do you mean? And surely I can trust you to do ’most anything hateful when you look such a way! What have you done now, Sutro Vives? Tell me that!”
“Hi, hi, hi! maybe no. Si? Dost thou wish to go from San’ Felisa to the land of snow and ice and no sunshine? Answer thou me that!”
“You know I don’t wish it; but I must, that is all. But, wait, how do you happen to know anything at all about it? You ran away directly after dinner, and now you’ve just come in!”
“Pouf! thinkest thou an old caballero knows nothing but what a baby tells him? I have known for—this—long—time all that has been planned for the little señ’rita. Si! Lo dicho dicho [what I have said I have said].”
For a moment Steenie was silent, unable to answer this argument. Then she cried triumphantly: “But you need not tell me that. A ‘long time’ may be from this very mid-day that ever was, but from no longer. Does anybody at San’ Felis’ ever tell Sutro Vives secrets? In verity, no; for Suzan´ says you are a sieve that holds nothing. At the Natividad, poor dear old caballero, with a word they don’t want spoken? Why, nobody. And if you’d known about my father’s eyes and all, you’d have told me the very first minute! You would so, my Sutro, you couldn’t have helped it!” clapping her hands.
It was the señor’s turn to look crestfallen. What his little lady declared against him was quite true; but this had never prevented his adopting an air of great mystery and secrecy whenever the slightest occasion offered. Poor old Sutro Vives was not the only one in this world bigger in his own estimation than in that of anybody else.
But he rallied as swiftly as she had done. “Tente! what of that? He will not stay at San’ Felisa—yes? In verity, no; I have taken care about that.”
“Sutro, you look, you truly do look, naughty! What badness have you been doing now, señor? Answer me that.”
“Is the truth badness? Then have I been bad,” retorted the other, bridling. “I have told him the truth, this not-wanted, unmannerly, new director-manager. Thou belongest to us,—to the vaqueros and caballeros, and everybody who dwells at San’ Felisa. It is in thee the ‘good luck’ lives; and thou wilt never be allowed to go away from us, so I tell thee! There will be mutiny, uprising; what Connecticut Jim calls ‘strike.’ But go from Santa Felisa, thou? No!—a thousand times no!”
Unperceived by them, Lord Plunkett had forsaken the other table and the business talk, which he found tiresome, for that of the pair in the cozy corner, which appeared to be interesting; and he had thrown himself upon a lounge which the back of Steenie’s big chair hid from view, to play the part of eavesdropper; only in this case it seemed not ignoble, for the two animated disputants spoke quite loudly enough to be heard by anybody in the room who had chosen to listen. He had, therefore, enjoyed the whole dialogue, and he now leaned forward to watch Steenie’s bright face and to catch her reply.
“But I answer you and Jim and everybody—yes! Where my father goes I will go, and all this silly talk won’t stop me! Next Saturday morning, Sutro Vives, the noisy black engine will stop at San’ Felisa station, and Papa Calthorp and I will get into one of those big cars, and will go whizz, away, away!—where you nor Bob nor Jim nor nobody can do wicked, hateful things to the Little Un, never again!”
Wrought up by the pathos of her own picture, Steenie’s self-control gave way at this juncture, and bounding toward her father, who seemed at that moment to be a cruel enemy, and yet her only friend, she astonished him by a torrent of tears and embraces which effectually stopped all further conversation.
“Sutro!” called Mr. Calthorp, sternly.
“Si, señor; how can I serve thee?”
“Here, go with Miss Steenie and find Suzan´. Daughter, let me see no more of this childishness. Such rebellion is unworthy of you and most distressing to me. Good-night.”
Poor Steenie! her tears ceased instantly, and her grief turned to anger. At that moment she felt that she had not a friend in the world, and her proud little heart resented the apparent want of sympathy she met with everywhere. With a very decided stamp of her little boot-heels, she marched out of the room,—“eyes front, right face,” as Bob would have commanded, though not in a spirit to be commended.
“Lastima es [it is a pity], my Little Un!” cried old Sutro, hurrying after his darling, only to have her turn fiercely upon him, and order him to “keep his pity to himself. And I want no Suzan´! I want nobody,—nobody at all!”
Ten minutes later a very wet and heated little face was buried in the white pillows, and Steenie Calthorp had settled herself in bed, convinced that she was the most ill-treated child in the world, and resolved to enjoy her misery to the utmost. Only unfortunately for her doleful plans, she was by nature very sunny and hopeful, and she was also perfectly healthy. In about two winks she happened to think of the next day’s “circus,” and before she knew it she was asleep, with a smile upon her lips.
Suzan´ entered softly and stood by the bed for a moment, shading her lamp with her hand and lovingly regarding the little maid. “Bless her dear heart! she’s shed more tears this day than in all her little life before. But she’s happy now,—happier ’n anybody else at San’ Felisa. My, my! what’ll ever we do without the Little Un? But master, he’s worried about her crying; though, sure, if he’d bothered less about books and business, and more about his own pretty flesh and blood, maybe his eyes’d a been better the now, poor man!”
Then she went away as gently as she had come; and when next Steenie awoke, the brilliant California sunshine streaming in at her window was not brighter than that within her own heart.
“Such a day, such a day! Will it ever come noon!”
“True. And all too soon, Miss Steenie, for that I’ve to do. Because, what has his lordship done but give orders for a big feed for all the people who are coming to see you show off?”
“To see—me, Suzan´? Why, not me, but all the boys. I’m not to do a thing till the very last, Bob says; and then only just ride and drive a little. Maybe they will get tired, and won’t stay till the end, so I won’t get a chance to do anything; ’cause Bob says he’s ’ranged a dreadful long program. I think that’s what he called it.”
“In verity, querida [my darling]! I believe you are the only one worth seeing, Lord Plunkett says. I heard one of the fellows giving him some talk about you, and he kept rubbing his fat little hands, and saying things so odd. Sounds like water coming out of a bottle. ‘Wonderful!’ ‘Strange!’ ‘Hm-m!’ ‘What?’ till I had to laugh. Think of—him—for a lord! Much I care to read stories about ’ristocratics any more! He hasn’t any ‘raving locks,’ nor ‘coal black eyes,’ nor nothing. Isn’t half as handsome as a’most any of the boys.”
“Well, well! Never mind him! Hurry up with my hair, won’t you, please? My! how you do pull! I wish my father’d let me wear it short, like his; don’t you?”
“Caramba! No. Your hair is the prettiest thing about you, except your eyes, and maybe—”
“Stuff! who cares for pretty? If I had to twist my hair up in rags every night, like you do, dear Suzan´, I’d be mis’able. But I s’pose you can’t help it. You’re grown up. It must be dreadful to get grown up, and as old as you are, poor, nice Suzan´!”
“Si? Humph! And me only twenty-five my last birthday. If it was Ellen, now—”
“Never mind Ellen. And I love you, dear Suzan´, if you are old; and I’m sorry ever’ time I’m fidgety ’bout my hair. You won’t ’member it against me, will you, after I’m gone? ’Cause I don’t mean any badness; it’s only this quick temper and can’t-keep-stillness of mine. I just want to run, run, or something, all the time. And keeping tidy, like my father says, is a bother. There! you’ve done, haven’t you? Can I go? Kiss me, Suzan´!”
Away danced Steenie, leaving her kind attendant feeling already heavy-hearted in anticipation of the time when there would be no restless little creature for her fond fingers to attire, and no little outbursts of impatience to correct.
But presently, all other thoughts save those connected with the immediate affairs of the day were banished by the tasks which Suzan´ found to do. There were chickens to roast, cakes to bake, biscuits by the hundred to be made, and pies—such rows of pies! that the arms of cook Ellen and her assistants, Win Sing and Lun Hoy, ached with the rolling of pastry.
But they were not dismayed. Not they! Didn’t they always cook just as much when the sheep were sheared, or the feast after the “roundup” was held? A pity if Santa Felisa couldn’t respond to any demand made upon her larder,—especially by order of her owner, a real live British lord!
So the great ovens were fired, both in the house-kitchen and in the old adobe cooking-sheds outside; and a corps of white-aproned helpers attended the roasting and stewing and baking of all the good things which Mistress Ellen and her aids prepared. While under the eucalyptus-trees bordering the arroyo, Suzan´ gayly directed the spreading of the long tables that would seat, if need be, full two hundred guests.
“Oh, isn’t it fun!” cried Steenie, darting about from one point to another of the gay and busy scene; and always having in tow the perspiring Lord Plunkett, who found no breath left for even his short sentences, but contented himself by beaming graciously upon each and every one he met.
“Tug an’ a canawl-boat!” said Bob, regarding the pair somewhat jealously. “Don’t see why the Little Un need stick to him so closet, even if he is a bloated lord!”
“Never you mind, Bob! Let the Little Un alone. Ain’t she happy? Ain’t she a purty sight? Brim full o’ smiles an’ chipper as a wren? What more do ye want?”
“Nothin’. But ’pears ter me she needn’t be so powerful glad ’bout leavin’ us. I—don’t feel much like laughin’. And she’d oughter be practisin’.”
“Don’t worrit. It’ll be all right. Little Un’s square. She won’t ferget us, you bet! An’ she’ll do the ‘great act’ all the better fer bein’ light-hearted. Land! I only hope them cold-blooded Easterners’ll make her half as glad as she’s always be’n at San’ Felis’! But—ain’t it gittin’ nigh dinner-time? Folks air beginnin’ ter come a’ready. Understan’ the spread, general, ain’t ter be till afterwards?”
“No. An’ the one ’t carries off first prize is ter perside. Well. I hope it’ll be our ‘Mascot.’ Do me prouder ’n if it was myself.”
“Me, too,” echoed his comrade, and departed to snatch a hasty luncheon.
At the same moment, Lord Plunkett announced, breathlessly: “I—I can’t. Stop. Wait. Hungry. As—a—grizzly. Ever since—I came. Beats everything. Appetite. Come. Eat.”
“Oh, you dear, funny man! However can you think about eating—now? Why, I just want one o’clock to come so much I can’t wait!”
“Eh? What? Not afraid? Ride—same’s nobody here?”
“Why—yes,” answered Steenie, slowly, as this new idea presented itself. “Why shouldn’t I? Indeed, I ought to do a great, great deal better; ’cause I wouldn’t like to dis’point dear old Bob. Nor you,” she added politely.
“Hm-m. Bob first. Then—me. Hm-m. You’re no—Anglomaniac. See that. Plain.”
“Wh-a-t, sir?” asked the little girl, astonished by the long, strange word he had used.
“No matter. Nice child. Spunky—but good. The way I like them. See here?” He held up a small purse in which were displayed six glittering double eagles. “Prizes. Eh? Win ’em? Highest—three; next—two; last—one.”
But Steenie was a little California girl, and her eyes were not dazzled by the sight of gold. Of its intrinsic value she had no idea; for in the course of her short life she had had no occasion to use any money. The prizes, therefore, represented nothing to her beyond themselves; and as playthings she did not care for them.
“Are they? Then I hope the boys will get them all. ’Specially Jim. He’s got a mother, an’ she’s got a consumption, or something. And he’s going to bring her out to live in California, sometime. It’s ter’ble cold where she stays now, my father says; and he ’vises Jim to fetch her. They’re money; and they would help, wouldn’t they?”
“Hm-m. Yes. And you—don’t want them?”
“If he can’t win them I do. I’d rather he’d get them himself, ’cause he’s so pleased when he beats anybody; but if he can’t—why, I will—I hope. Now I know ’bout them, he must have them.”
“Hm-m,” said Lord Plunkett again, grimly. “Oddest child. Like her. Immensely.”
“Steenie!” called Mr. Calthorp; and she darted toward him. “Are you sure that you wish to ride in this exhibition, darling? Are you timid? Because there are a great many here, it seems; and you need not if you do not like. It will be different from an ordinary occasion.”
“But I do wish, Papa dear, if you don’t mind; because Bob would break his heart if I didn’t. He told me so. And I’m going to win, too. Then I’ll get a lot of money to give poor old Jim, for his mother. Yes, yes! I want to ride! And I will—win!”
