“Where, Oh where shall we take my brother for a complete rest?” Virginia had softly closed the door of Malcolm’s bedroom, having told that giant of a lad that he must sleep all of the afternoon.
He had laughed at the suggestion. It did indeed seem preposterous. In all of his nineteen years, he had never slept in the day-time. When his sister had left him, he determined to rise, dress and steal out of the window and down to the corral, but when he had tried to stand, he found that he was not as strong as he had supposed, and he was actually glad to lie down again, and, being truly weak and weary, he was soon asleep.
Margaret looked up from her sewing. She and Virginia were planning to cut over two of their dresses that were still pretty, but which they had outgrown. Megsy’s was to be for six year old Jane Wallace, while Virg was to make one for ten year old Sari.
“Are we really going to take my guardian somewhere?” she asked eagerly, adding at once. “I do hope so, Virg! What a heavy burden of responsibility he has had since your father died. I don’t know where you would find another boy, only sixteen as he was then, who would have the courage to attempt to run a big ranch and compete with men old enough to be his father.” Margaret’s voice had a ring of enthusiasm in which there was mingled much of admiration and perhaps something more.
But no praise of her brother seemed to the listener to be more than he deserved. Seating herself on the window seat, she took from a basket, (which had been made in the Indian village), a pretty gold brown dress. Holding it up, she asked: “Megsy, don’t you think this especially suits little Sari? There’s a glint of gold in that brown hair of hers and I’m not at all sure but that there is in her thoughtful eyes as well.” Her companion nodded. “I’m glad I have outgrown this rose colored muslin,” Margaret added. “Janey will just love it, and she’ll look like a little wild rose-bud in it. I think she’s the sweetest child, and Oh Virg, now since that nice Gordon Traylor helped Mr. Wallace to perfect his water locating device that forlorn family in Hog Canon won’t be so poor, will they?”
But Virginia shook her head as though she were not at all sure that immediate prosperity would follow. “Of course they have water now on their place, but water won’t buy cattle, nor food, nor clothes. I fear that prosperity is still far removed. Unless,” Virg had dropped her sewing on her lap and was gazing thoughtfully out of the window, “unless Mr. Wallace can induce some rich men to be pardners with him. Without capital, he cannot make his invention of much value to him.”
“Hark, what’s all the shouting?” Margaret looked up to inquire. “It sounds like wild Indians let loose. Isn’t it a shame, whatever it is, for it surely will waken Malcolm and we did so want him to sleep.”
Virginia had leaped to the door to see who was coming. “Oh, good,” she cried. “It’s Babs and Betsy and Peyton no less. Of course they don’t know about brother and so would not think of being quiet.”
Skipping out on the wide veranda, Megsy and Virg waved to the three who were galloping down the mesa trail, but they had ceased their shouting, having correctly interpreted Virg’s signal when she put her fingers to her lips.
“Is anyone sick?” Barbara inquired as she dismounted and gave the mistress of V. M. a girlish hug.
The other two listened anxiously. “Yes, that is, not exactly sick, but I’ll tell you all about it when you come in. There’s Patsy Mahoy.” The small Irish boy came on a run when Virg beckoned, and he was proud indeed when she asked him to take the three ponies to the corral. “Now we’ll go in and I’ll tell you what has happened. My, Betsy, you and Babs look flushed and warm. It’s pretty hot riding so far in the sun. Sit down, everybody, and I’ll go to our cooling cellar and bring up some nice lemonade that Megsy and I made only an hour ago, thinking that brother might like some every now and then.”
“Let me get it,” Margaret was on her feet as she spoke. “You can tell the story of the mine much better than I can.” And so Virg took the chair her adopted sister had vacated and told to anxious listeners how, when she and Margaret had returned from the Three Cross Ranch, there had been no one at all at V. M. Then from poor frightened Mrs. Mahoy they had learned of the cave-in over at the mine.
“Oh Virg!” Babs cried in alarm. “Your brother wasn’t hurt, was he?”
“No, thank heaven, not really hurt,” the girl replied with fervent gratitude, “but he was buried in that smothering place for several hours. Uncle Tex thinks there must have been an air current somewhere, or Malcolm could not have lived until they blasted.”
“Blasted!” Peyton repeated in surprise. “That was taking a big chance, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed! I shudder to think of it now, but then, when it was the only thing that could possibly save my brother, it had to be done of course.”
“And you say he wasn’t hurt in the least?”
“Not hurt, but he is so weak that he cannot stand alone, or rather he could not then, and now he is asleep I am sure.” Then turning to the listening lad, Virginia asked, “Peyton, where would you suggest that brother be taken to have as complete a rest as he needs. I would like to go to some place where even the scenery would be different and where he couldn’t see a cow or a cowboy or anything that would suggest his own occupation.”
For a thoughtful moment the lad looked steadily into the questioning eyes of the girl he loved. “Virginia,” he said at last, “if I were as tired as Malcolm is, I know where I would want you to take me.”
If there was an emphasis on the pronoun, it was unnoticed by the others, but a sudden flush in the cheeks of Virginia and a tender light in the eyes of the lad told more than mere words could.
But when the girl spoke, it was as though her only thought had been her brother’s welfare, as, indeed, it really had been.
“Once, in the days of my rambling life,” it was the first time that Peyton had ever referred to the time when he had run away from home because his father was unkindly severe, “I boarded the train in Boston and went to the end of the line, so to speak, and found myself in paradise, if ever there was one on this earth of ours.”
“Oh, then you must have been in California,” Margaret leaned forward to exclaim. “That, of course, would be the end of the line if you were crossing the continent, for there is nothing beyond but ocean. I went there once with Mother when she was trying to get well, and Oh, how wonderful it is! I’ve often hoped that I might go again, although I would not want to revisit the same place, not where little Mother and I were together.”
“Of course not, dear,” the thoughtful Virginia had slipped an arm about her adopted sister. Then glancing again at the lad who seldom looked at anything or anyone but her, she asked. “Then you think California the best place for us to take brother for a vacation and to get back his strength?”
“I do indeed. That’s where I’d want to go. Hark!” the lad lifted a finger and listened. “I think I hear Malcolm calling.”
“Oh yes, he must have awakened.” Virginia was skipping toward the closed door at the opposite end of the long living room. “If he is awake Peyton, I will call you.” Then the door opened and closed again. The lad walked to the window and looked out. How all of the brightness of the room had seemed to vanish when Virginia left it, he was thinking. Then he rebuked himself, for dearly he loved his pretty little “Dresden China” sister. He had heard the girls call her that, because she seemed so breakable and withal so exquisitely pink and blue and gold, with her fluffy sunlit curls, her eyes that were like June skies and her rose-bud complexion which the winds of the desert did not seem to want to tan. He did indeed, love her, but his love for Virginia was different, so very different! But God had planned it that way. Such love indeed was a gift from the Father of them all and was to be treated reverentially, although, who could treat it otherwise? It was with a start that the lad whirled when he heard his name called. Virginia had returned and was standing by the table pouring lemonade into a glass. “Brother has awakened and I have propped him up on two pillows,” she was saying. “Will you take this to him, Peyton, but don’t tell him as yet that we are planning to take him away from his beloved ranch, for, if you do, he will declare that everything will go to pieces if he isn’t here to hold it together. We’ve got to plan a way to make him think, that, for a time, V. M. will be better off, under different management.” Virg’s smile, as she handed the brimming glass to the lad, was so frank and friendly that he wondered, if, after all, it was merely comradeship that she felt for him. Well, he could wait. He had promised never again to mention his love for her until she was eighteen and she was but seventeen now. However hard it might be, he meant to keep that promise. Of one thing he was sure. Even though Virg might not care for him in the big way yet, neither did she love any other lad. When the door had closed behind Peyton, Betsy cried. “Oh good, here comes Slim from the station and he has the Mail Bag.”