OPEN SPACES
"On, Nan!" cried Bess, squeezing her chum's arm, "what do you think
of it?"
"It is more beautiful than I had any idea of! And Rhoda had to come
away from all this just to go to school," answered the equally
excited Nan.
Here Grace Mason's usual timidity showed itself, as she said:
"But there is so much of it! We must have come twenty miles from
the railroad station."
"More than that," put in her brother, from his seat in the saddle.
"I don't care!" cried Bess. "It's wonderful."
"Oh, it is wonderful, I grant you," said Grace. "But--but
everything is so big--and open--and lonesome."
"Cheer up, Sis," said Walter. "We are all here to keep you company,
to say nothing of the cows and the horses," and he laughed.
Mrs. Janeway's opinion was practical to say the least, for her
first words were, as the buckboard reached the house: "I certainly
shall be glad to get a bath."
Rhoda had thrown herself from her pony and rushed up the steps of
the veranda to greet two persons who, later, the visitors found
were Mr. and Mrs. Hammond. The former was a rather heavily built,
shaggy-bearded man, his face burned to a brick-red and such part as
the beard did not hide covered with fine lines like a veil. His
wife was a tall and graceful woman who showed nothing in her clear,
wide-open eyes of her blindness which for so many years had set her
apart from other people.
The blind woman stepped with assurance to the edge of the veranda
to greet the visitors, and it was Mrs. Janeway she first met and
embraced.
"Marian Janeway! How I wish I could see you, to know if you have
really changed!" cried Mrs. Hammond in the heartiest and most
cheerful voice imaginable. It was easy to see from whom Rhoda had
got her voice.
"I've grown fat--I can tell you that," sighed the Chicago woman.
"And you--why, you are still as graceful as you were when you were
a girl."
"Flatterer!" exclaimed Rhoda's mother, laughing. Then she seized
upon Nan who chanced to come up the steps directly behind Mrs.
Janeway.
"Who is this?" she cried. "Wait!" Her fingers ran quickly but
lightly over Nan's countenance. She even felt her ears, and the
hair where it fluffed over her brow, and traced the line of her
well marked eyebrows. "Why!" she added with decision, "this is Nan
Sherwood that I have heard so much about."
"Oh, Mrs. Hammond," gasped the girl, "how did you know?"
She looked up into the shining face of the blind woman and could
scarcely believe that she was so afflicted. Mrs. Hammond's laugh
was deep-throated and hearty, like Rhoda's own.
"I know you, my dear, because Rhoda has told me so much about you.
She has explained your character, I see, very truthfully. Your
features bear out all she has said. You see, my dear, I am a
witch!" and she kissed Nan warmly.
She welcomed the others with grace and that wide hospitality which
is only found, perhaps, in the West and among people of the great
outdoors. It arises from old times, when the wanderer, seeing a
campfire, was sure of a welcome if he approached, and a welcome
without questioning.
Mr. Hammond was equally glad to see the young folk. He spoke with a
pleasant drawl, and aside from his gray hair and beard revealed few
marks of age. His vigorous frame carried too much flesh, perhaps;
but that was, he said, "because he took it easy and let the boys
run things to suit themselves."
This last statement, however, Nan, who was observant, took with the
proverbial pinch of salt. The expression of his countenance was
kindly, but his character was firm and he spoke at times with a
decision that made the servants, for instance, hurry to obey him.
He was, indeed, a very forceful man; but Nan Sherwood liked him
immensely.
The rambling ranch house covered a deal of ground and was two
stories high. The rooms were low-ceilinged, the upper rooms
especially so. The girls who had come to visit Rhoda had a big,
plainly furnished, airy room on the upper floor, beside Rhoda's own
chamber. Walter had his choice of a bed or a hammock in a room
across the hall. The adults of the household were disposed below,
while the servants occupied quarters away from the main dwelling.
There was a water system which afforded plenty of baths, the clank
of the pump being heard in a steady murmur from somewhere behind
the house. It was too late, when they were freshened after the
ride, for any exploration outside the house on this evening. All
the visitors were ready for dinner when the Mexican waiter
announced it.
The servants included a Chinese cook, Mexican houseboys, and
negroes for the outside work. The life at Rose Ranch was evidently
a rather free and easy existence. The standards of etiquette were
not just the same as at the Mason house in Chicago; but the
Hammonds knew well how to make their guests feel at home. The
quality of the hospitality of the ranchman and his wife was not
strained.
The party lingered long at dinner, under the glow of a hanging lamp
that illuminated the table but left the corners and sides of the
great room in shadow. Now and then somebody would lounge in at the
doorway and speak to Mr. Hammond.
"Ah say, Boss, where'd you say Dan's outfit was goin'? I plumb
forgot."
"You'd forget your head, Carey, if it wasn't screwed on tight,"
declared the ranchman, without glancing at the big figure slouching
in the doorway. "Dan and his bunch light out for Beller's Gulch
come mornin'."
A little later it was a lighter step, and the jingle of spurs on
the veranda floor.
"Tumbleweed done sprung his knee, Mist' Ham-mon'. Kyan't use him
nohow fo' a while."
"My lawsy!" ejaculated Rhoda's father, "seems to me most of you
fellers ain't fitted to take care of a saw horse, let alone a sure
enough pony. Some of you will have to ride mules if you don't stop
ruinin' my horseflesh."
"Wal, Tumbleweed is right fidgety," complained the cowboy.
"What do you want to ride--somethin' broke to a side-saddle?"
demanded the ranchman in disgust. "Go rope a new pony out of that
band Hesitation's just brought up. And be mighty careful not to get
an outlaw. Hess says there's two or three in that band that are
fresh out of the hills."
These side remarks excited Walter. The girls, too, were interested.
Grace said she hoped there was not any horse as bad as the pony
that ran away at Lakeview, and which Rhoda had stopped so
dexterously.
"My _dear_!" laughed Rhoda, "that wasn't a bad pony. She was
only frisky. But Hess shall find you a perfectly safe mount."
"I hope you will extend that promise to me," said Nan, laughing.
"If I am to ride I want something I can stay on."
"No bucking broncos for me, either," cried Bess. "At least, not
until I have learned to ride better than I do at present."
They went to bed that night wearied after traveling so far, but
much excited as to what the next day would bring forth.