CHAPTER XI
LETTERS OF INTEREST
The girls had reached home just in time, for hardly had they removed their sombreros when there arose a shouting without and a pounding of horses’ feet.
“Good, the boys are back,” Babs cried running to throw open the wide front door.
“Ohee, what a bulging mail bag,” Betsy who had closely followed shouted gleefully. “There must be a million letters or more in it.”
Malcolm swung from his tired horse and giving it a friendly slap, bade it go to the corral with its companions. Lucky and Slim, as he knew, would attend to its needs.
“We had a close call.” Malcolm tossed his sombrero on the table, placing the mail bag beside it, then sank wearily in his favorite grandfather chair.
“What happened?” Virg inquired with interest. “Did that wild steer try to lead a stampede even with the drag on?”
“No, not that,” her brother replied. “The poor creature seemed to have lost all desire to make a break for freedom. The close call was that when we drove the herd into the corral at the station, Mr. Wells came running up and said that he had just received a wire that the cars were to be taken on by a freighter that was due to arrive two hours sooner than scheduled, and didn’t we work though.
“Then was the time the young steer might have made trouble had he but known. However, he didn’t attempt it, but walked up into his prison as meekly as a sheep would have done.” Then the boy laughed, “I suppose you’ll think I’m foolish, but I certainly had a decided impulse at that moment to give him his freedom. It came over me how I would rejoice, were I in his place, if I once again found myself roaming where I would, out on the range with only the blue sky above me and the distant mountains for walls. Luckily the freighter came along before I had carried out my sentimental inclination, else our check would have been that much less, Virg, when it comes from Chicago.”
Margaret, remembering what Virginia had said about hating to raise cattle just to have their freedom taken from them, realized that something of the same sentiment was in the heart of the brother, although he had not fully realized it as the girl had.
“You look just too weary for words, Malcolm,” Megsy said, leaping up from the window seat. “I’m going to make you some lemonade.”
“Make enough for Lucky too, will you? Slim won’t need any. He’ll be dead to the world before you could get a lemon squeezed. He hasn’t had an hour’s sleep in two nights and a day.”
“I’ll help.” Babs skipped by the side of her friend kitchenward.
“And while you’re gone, I’ll sort the mail.” Virginia was emptying the contents of the leather pouch out on the long library table as she spoke.
Betsy watched eagerly. Suddenly she pounced on a large envelope addressed in a boy’s hand writing. “It’s from Cousin Bob, sure certain! I wonder if they’re still quarantined. If so I ’spect this letter has been—what do you call it—fumigated.”
“Two for Babs and two for me and not one for Megsy. That’s too bad. I hope she will not feel left out,” the youngest said, but Virg glanced up smilingly. “No indeed! Margaret is too generous and loving to ever feel neglected or left out. That is a form of selfishness. Then, more-over, all of Megsy’s home people are right here, for, you know, Betsy, she belongs to us. Malcolm is her guardian and I am her adopted sister.”
“I hear a jingle approaching,” Malcolm rose as the little pitcher bearer entered the room. He went forward ostensibly to carry it, but he took the opportunity to say softly, “I’m mighty glad my little ward is home again.”
The flush which always mounted to the quiet girl’s cheeks when this lad addressed her made her unusually pretty, but, as yet Malcolm had given it no thought. Virg had been the only girl he had ever known intimately and he supposed a certain reserve, which Margaret surely had, was responsible for the pretty flush.
“Any mail for me?” Babs was following with a tray on which were five tumblers.
“Two letters and both from boys or I miss my guess.” Betsy was peering at the letters that lay side by side on the table.
“Then it is easy to know who they are from.” Babs having passed the tumblers, picked them up and looked at them curiously. “This one is from dear old brother Peyton.” Then lifting an eager face she addressed her hostess. “Virg, I hope you won’t think I’m lacking in appreciation of your hospitality if I say that I’d like to ride over to my brother’s ranch tomorrow. I’ve made you a real long visit.”
“Three days isn’t an eternity!” Betsy put in, but Megsy said: “It seems like one sometimes, when one is separated from home folks.”
“You are right,” Virg said, slipping a loving arm around the waist of the pretty friend who was sometimes called “The Dresden China girl.” “We would love to have you stay longer with us, but I know you must be ever so eager to see Peyton.” To herself the thought came, unbidden. “And so too am I.” Then to her brother. “Why isn’t Peyton here Malcolm? I thought surely he would be at the train to meet us with you.”
The boy drank the lemonade gratefully before he replied. “I don’t know, sister. I have been expecting to hear from him for a week. I did hear in a round-about way, that is one of Mr. Slater’s cowboys passing V. M. last Friday week, stopped and took dinner with us. He said Peyton was having some trouble with his Mexican herders and didn’t think best to leave them, although he was inclined to believe that a new one, who had recently arrived, might prove more trustworthy than the others had. But suppose you read your letter, Babs. That may tell us what you want to know.”
It did, for in it Peyton told his sister that he had deeply regretted not having been at the station and then he related his reason, which was much the same as that which had been reported by the Slater cowboy.
But it was the last part of the letter which caused a stir in the little group.
“Much as I want to see you, dear sister, I’m going to ask you to remain at V. M. a short time longer or until I am sure whether or no there is going to be an outbreak among these Mexican herders. I am writing Virginia today to ask her to permit my little sister to be her guest a few days, perhaps a week longer. By that time I will know how much I can rely on my new overseer. You understand, Sis, I wouldn’t want to ride over to V. M. and find, when I return, that these peons had driven my prize cattle across the border, nor would I want you and your friends to come here until I am sure that my herders are not of the bandit class.
“I hope you are disappointed, however, for selfishly I very much want my sister to come and open up the old house that she is to make into a home for her loving brother.
PEYTON.”
Virginia looked at Malcolm with an expression of anxiety. “Do you feel that Peyton is in any real danger?” she asked. “If an outbreak of any kind should occur, I mean.”
“No, I think not,” Malcolm replied. Then Virg read her own little letter from Peyton whom she had once known as “Trusty Tom,” but that former time was never referred to by any of them.
Megsy noticed that her adopted sister did not read aloud her letter from the brother of Barbara, and she believed that she knew why. It was not hard for even a casual observer to notice how sincerely the lad admired Virginia.
“Well, then that’s settled,” the hostess smiled lovingly at Babs. “Now we may keep with us a certain little girl whom we all love.”
“Why Barbara,” Margaret then exclaimed as she noted a look of real concern on the pretty face, “what has Benjy written to make you seem so troubled? Has he found his mother worse?”
“He didn’t know when he wrote this. It’s just a few lines that he scribbled at the station in Red Riverton. You know he expected his brother Harry Wilson to meet him, and he wasn’t there but his own horse had been sent for him. Benj is just ever so sure that means his mother is not so well. I do hope she will live. I never knew two boys to care more for a mother than they do.”
“She is such a lovable, motherly woman,” Virginia said earnestly. “Everyone who knows her, loves her. She always reminds me of a hen with a brood and even when the chickens are away, she is sort of spreading her wings with a welcome for any one in trouble who needs their comforting shelter, but it’s nearly a year now that she has not been well.”
“It’s too bad that Harry doesn’t seem to care to marry. If only Mrs. Wilson had a nice daughter to take the responsibility of home-making for a time, she could get a real rest.”
Virginia astonished the others by saying, “Girls, surely you know that Harry does care for someone, but I’m afraid his mother would never willingly accept that someone for a daughter.”
Margaret said. “I, too, have felt sure that Harry cares for our wonderful Winona, as who, knowing her well, does not. She is one of the noblest characters I have ever met, and I know you think so too, Virg.”
“Indeed I do,” was the emphatic reply, “but one can understand how a mother might feel that a member of the Papago tribe would not be a suitable wife for her idolized son, but Winona would. They are more nearly kin, mentally and—and what shall I say, in their love for the wide spaces of the desert, than any two I ever knew. You know Harry likes nothing better than to ride far away into the mountains studying the rocks and trying to read the messages of the ages in the different formations. Had he been able to leave home, he would have studied along those lines. Of course he is, even now, and what is more, our Winona is the very first girl who has ever appealed to him as a companion.”
“Isn’t it about time Winona finished that course of practical nursing that she was taking when she left us at boarding school?” It was Barbara who asked the question.
Virg nodded, then for the first time glanced at the second letter that she held. “Oh, good, this is from our Winona and since it was written on the train, she may be in her walled-in village home this very minute.”
“May we all hear what she has written?” Babs asked.
“Of course,” Virginia made herself comfortable on the window seat and then began to read. Malcolm, having excused himself, had retired to his own room for a much needed nap.
Dear White Lily:
At last I am homeward bound glad, deep in the heart of me, that I have learned a way to be of real service to my father’s people, who, having lost faith in their old Medicine Man, had no one to whom they could take their little ones when they were hurt or ill.
I shall be there in two days, and, dear friend, I am not alone. With me is a comrade of my childhood, but I must tell you how it all happened.
One day when I went on duty, I found in the ward much excitement for a lad who was being called brave had been brought in and no one knew who he was. He was too exhausted to be conscious it seemed, for he had no real illness and so could not tell about himself.
The story was that in one of the city tenements a plague broke out which terrorized the neighborhood. Many became ill and those who were not strong died. It was so terrible a plague that few volunteered to help. Kind old Doctor Quinton gave his services and risked his life but alone he could do little. It was when he was completely worn out that this youth, who said that he was a medical student, volunteered to take the place of the good doctor while he took a much needed rest. Nor would the lad leave his post when the older physician returned. They were too much occupied with real service to ask who he might be or from where he had come, but, at last, he too had succumbed, not to the plague but to weariness and they had brought him to the hospital.
I listened to the story and said that I would like to see the lad who had been willing to sacrifice his life for humanity.
White Lily, when I saw him, so thin and tired, lying on a cot in the ward, I knew him at once. It was Fleet Foot, one of the Papago boys who accompanied the kindly missionary who had taken three of our lads as you recall, to a school for Indian boys. I had not seen him since that long ago day, but he had changed little.
You, White Lily, will know what finding Fleet Foot meant to me, for is he not one of my father’s people? I cared for him as tenderly as a sister might. Then the good doctor took him to his country home, that he might grow strong away from the noise of the city, but, when I had finished my course, Fleet Foot wished to return with me to our village and so together we are now nearing the end of our long journey. Will you not soon ride north to our village and remain with me as long as you wish.
My friendliest thoughts I send to Margaret and Barbara if they are with you.
Your\ \ \ \ WINONA.
At the close of the letter, the four girls were all thinking the same thing but it was the quiet Margaret who voiced it. “Poor Harry!” she said. “For of course this Papago lad, who is of her own people, will be the one Winona will love and eventually marry.”
“I shall be sorry if this is true,” Virginia remarked, “for Harry Wilson is so unlike other boys. He may never again find just the companion he wishes.”
Then, as the dinner gong was sounding, the girls sprang up to hastily remove their khaki suits and don their house-dresses.
Meanwhile what of the neighbors farther north?