“Letters!! Letters! Who wants a letter?” Betsy Clossen had skipped out to the wide veranda to receive the mail bag from the good-looking young cowboy Slim.
“I do!”
“I’ll take three!” Megsy and Babs cried in chorus.
“Oh Barbara, what a piggy-wig you are. Three indeed! Now, just to punish you, it’s Virg who shall have the three and you only one.” Betsy had poured the contents of the bag on the big library table and was looking it over. Margaret and Virginia had returned to their sewing. That latter maid found herself strangely indifferent to whether or no there would be a letter for her. This she could easily understand since, was she not at home with Uncle Tex and Malcolm, and the girls she liked best were right then in the room with her, and Peyton would not need to write her the weekly letter she had received while she had been away at boarding school. Betsy interrupted her thoughts by saying: “I was a prophet! Here are three letters for Miss Virginia Davis. Guess, Virg, if you can, who they may be from?”
That tall slender maiden, being addressed, dropped her sewing in her lap, as she replied, “I’d like to hear from dear Mrs. Martin. Is there a foreign stamp on any of them, Betsy? Our beloved principal must be in Japan, I suppose, about now, on her around the world tour.”
“Nary a foreign stamp. Well, since you can’t guess, I’ll give them to you and when you open them up you will know who they are from.”
“What a brilliant remark!” Barbara teased, but Virg having accepted the letters Betsy had handed her, attracted the attention of them all by exclaiming, “Well, if this isn’t the queerest! I’m just ever so sure that the handwriting on this envelope is Winona’s, but it is postmarked Red Riverton. What can she be doing up there? Ever since she wrote that she was back on the desert with that nice Indian lad, Fleet Foot, I have been hoping that she would come over to see us.”
As she talked, Virginia was opening the envelope. The first line in the letter caused her to cry joyfully, “Girls! Girls! Listen to this!”
“Dear White Lily,” the letter began. “I was married yesterday—”
“What! Winona married to Fleet Foot?” Margaret and Betsy exclaimed in excited chorus.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Virg told them. “Just wait a minute and we’ll find out.” Her eyes went rapidly down the sheet and then turning she gave Margaret an ecstatic little hug. “Oh, what glorious news! Think of it! Our wonderful Winona has married that splendid Harry Wilson. It seems that his mother has been ill for a long time and Winona has been there as nurse ever since we came from school. That’s why we haven’t seen her.” Then, turning a page, Virg read aloud:
“I had never even thought of marrying anyone. Of course I knew that most of all I admired Harry, but I believed that his mother would want him to marry one of his own kind, but, Virginia, can you think how great is my happiness when I tell you that his mother loves me, really loves me, and asked me to be her daughter.
“I have always been so alone, for my father, Chief Grey Hawk, and my brother, Strong Heart, were much away, that it seems strange to me that anyone should care.
“I told Harry that much as I love him, I feared that it would be hard for me to be as domestic as his wife should be, for there are times when I feel that I am kin to the wind that sweeps over the desert or to the bird that flies where it will. Then it was that Harry told me his own good news. He has received an appointment as state geologist and we are soon to start on horseback (our honeymoon we call it) and travel all over Arizona that he may obtain specimens of rock to send to Smithsonian Institute.
“We would not go were it not that Mrs. Wilson is rapidly regaining her strength and that her recently widowed sister in the East is coming to keep house, and to make this her home.
“I am sorry not to see my school-mates before we depart, but that cannot be, as we leave on horseback at dawn tomorrow and journey north.”
There were tears in the eyes of Virginia as she lifted them from the letter to look at her friends.
“How happy they are going to be,” she said, “I am glad for them both.”
“We were wondering who among us would be the first bride,” Betsy remarked. “We little thought, did we, that it would be Winona?”
Betsy Clossen had recognized her aunt’s handwriting on one of her letters and so when Margaret asked which was to be read next, that maiden eagerly announced, “Mine, please, for I do want to know what Aunt Laura has to say. If the quarantine has been lifted, she will want me to be coming home, and, although I have had the most wonderful time here on the desert, and I am endlessly grateful to you, Virginia, for having invited me, for you saved me from a most desolate month all alone in school, still, of course, if the twins have recovered, I do want to spend part of my vacation at my mother-aunt’s Cape Cod home.”
“I know dear,” Virginia replied, as she clasped her friend’s hand. “Although other places may be interesting, there is no place quite like the one that shelters our own home people. Read your letter and tell us about it.”
The missive did not take long to read.
“Darling girl,” it began. “I rejoice to be able to tell you that the quarantine has been lifted and that the twins are wild to see their best loved cousin Bettykins, and, as for me, my heart is yearning for my sister’s motherless little daughter, so come, dear, just as soon as the fastest train bound for the East can bring you to three people who so dearly love you.
“One of them being, Your AUNT LAURA.”
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Betsy told them. “I’m so glad somebody loves me that way. Mother and Aunt Laura were twins, and she seems more like a mother to me than my other two aunts, although, they, too, are nice.” Then putting her arms impulsively about her hostess, she exclaimed, “Virginia, how can I thank you for having been so kind, and you, too, Margaret.” She reached out and clasped the hand of her other friend. Then she asked eagerly: “Virg, shall you mind if I begin to pack at once and take the next train East?”
“Of course not, dear, I know just how you feel and we will help you, but if you really take the next train, we will all have to rush to get you ready.”
“My letters can wait,” Margaret said unselfishly. “They are from members of our Lucky Thirteen Club, and although I know that they will be filled with jolly news items, they will be just as interesting later.”
As Megsy spoke, she placed her unopened letters between the pages of a magazine on the table for safe keeping and then she joined the other girls who were already opening Betsy’s trunk, preparing to pack.
That maiden had skipped to Malcolm’s room to tell him the news, but she had found him asleep and, knowing that rest was one thing required to restore his strength, she had tiptoed out. Three hours later, she went again to his door, this time her hat and coat on.
The lad had been informed by his sister of Betsy’s sudden and unexpected departure and was prepared to say goodbye.
“Miss Cossen,” he said as he held out his hand, “I hear that you are a wonderful detective, and so, if we ever have need of your services, may we send for you?”
Betsy laughed. “Indeed yes, and don’t forget,” she replied, “for I know that I will be just as wild to come back as I am now to go home to Aunt Laura and the twins.”
Another three hours had passed and Margaret and Virginia were again in the living room having escorted Betsy to Silver Creek Junction, where the train, being on time, had borne her away.
“Well,” Virginia remarked as she sank down in a big easy chair, “what a whirl of a day we have had. I am almost dizzy-tired. First there was that exciting news about Winona’s marriage and then for the last six hours we have rushed madly to get that dear girl started for the place that is home to her. Now the next thing for us to do is to decide where we shall take Malcolm for a complete rest.”