Produced by Al Haines.
_THE GIRLS_
_OF_
_SILVER SPUR RANCH_
BY
GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE
AND
ANNE MCQUEEN
THE GOLDSMITH PUBLISHING COMPANY
_Chicago_
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
*LIST OF CHAPTERS*
I. A Question of Names
II. Roy Rides to Silver Spur
III. A Package and a Leather-Brown Phaeton
IV. A Jewel of Great Price
V. The Silver Spur Bakery
VI. A Shiny Black Box
VII. The Wire Cutter
VIII. A Partner of the Sun
IX. The Rose by Another Name
_*THE GIRLS OF*_*
*_*SILVER SPUR RANCH*_
*CHAPTER I*
*A Question of Names*
The girls of Silver Spur ranch were all very busy helping Mary, the
eldest, with her wedding sewing. Silver Spur was rather a pretentious
name for John Spooner's little Texas cattle-farm, but Elizabeth, the
second daughter, who had an ear attuned to sweet sounds, had chosen it;
as a further confirmation of the fact she had covered an old spur with
silver-leaf and hung it over the doorway. The neighboring ranchers had
laughed, at first, and old Jonah Bean, the one cowboy left in charge of
the small Spooner herd, always sniffed scornfully when he had occasion
to mention the name of his ranch, declaring that The Tin Spoon would
suit it much better. However, in time everybody became used to it, and
Silver Spur the ranch remained--somehow Elizabeth always had her own
way.
This young lady sat by the window in the little living-room where they
were all at work, and carefully embroidered a big and corpulent "B" on a
sofa-pillow for Mary, who was to marry, in a few days, a young man from
another state who owned the euphonious name of Bellamy--a name Elizabeth
openly envied him.
"I do think Spooner is such a horrid, commonplace sort of name," she
declared with emphatic disapproval. "Aren't you glad you'll soon be rid
of it, Mary?"
"Um-m," murmured Mary, paying scant heed to Elizabeth's query; she was
hemming a ruffle to trim the little muslin frock which was the last
unfinished garment of her trousseau, and she was too busy for argument.
"As if," continued Elizabeth, "the name wasn't odious enough, father
must needs go and choose a _spoon_ for his brand! And he might so
easily have made it a _fleur-de-lys_--fairly rubbing it in, as if it was
something to be proud of!"
Just then Mary, finding that the machine needle kept jabbing in one
place, looked about for a cause, and perceived Elizabeth tranquilly
rocking upon one of the unhemmed breadths of her ruffle.
"I'll be much obliged if you'll take your chair off my ruffle, Saint
Elizabeth," she laughed, tugging at the crumpled cloth, "and just don't
worry over the name--try and live up to your looks."
Elizabeth blushed a little as she stooped to disentangle the cloth from
her rocker; she was a very handsome girl, altogether unlike her sisters,
who were all rather short and dark, and plump looking, Cousin Hannah
Pratt declared, as much alike as biscuits cut out of the same batch of
dough. Elizabeth was about sixteen, tall and fair and slim, with large,
serious blue eyes and long, thick blond hair, which she wore plaited in
the form of a coronet or halo about her head--privately, she much
preferred the halo, as best befitting the character of her favorite
heroine, Saint Elizabeth, a canonized queen whom she desired to resemble
in looks and deportment.
"One would have to be a saint to bear with the name of Spooner," she
said, rather crossly, as she tossed Mary her ruffle.
Cousin Hannah Pratt, rocking in the biggest chair, which she filled to
overflowing, lifted her eyes from her work and regarded Elizabeth
meditatively. "How'd you like to swap it for Mudd, Libby?" she asked
tranquilly.
Elizabeth shuddered--she hated to be called Libby, it was so
commonplace; and Cousin Hannah persisted in calling her that when she
knew how it annoyed her. Elizabeth was thankful that Cousin Hannah--who
kept a boarding-house in Emerald, the near-by village, and had kindly
come over to help with the wedding--was only kin-in-law, which was bad
enough; to have such an uncultured person for a blood relation would
have been worse.
"Mudd! O, poor Elizabeth!" giggled Ruth, the third of the Spooner
sisters, a merry-hearted girl of fifteen, who looked on all the world
with mirthful eyes. "Cousin Hannah, what made you think of such an
_awful_ name?"
"Don't be so noisy, Ruth," cautioned Mary, with what seemed unnecessary
severity. "Mother's neuralgia is bad to day. You can hear every sound
right through in her room. Cousin Hannah, won't you please make her a
cup of tea? I think it would do her good; you make such nice tea."
"Sure and certain!" agreed Cousin Hannah, heartily. Rising ponderously
from her chair, she moved on heavy tiptoes out into the kitchen, the
thin boards creaking as she walked.
"I might also remark that a person would have to be a saint to bear with
Cousin Hannah," said Elizabeth, "she doesn't intend it, maybe, but she
does rile me so!"
"I don't see why anybody would want to be a saint; I'd heap rather be a
knight," spoke up little Harvie, nicknamed by her family "the Babe."
She lay curled up on a lounge in the corner, ostensibly pulling out
bastings, but really reading a worn old copy of Ivanhoe, which was the
book of her heart. There were no children living near the lonely little
ranch, and the Babe, who was only ten, solaced herself with the company
of heroes and heroines of romance--much preferring the heroes.
"I'd rather be 'most anything than a 'mover'," declared Elizabeth,
emphatically. "And if you want to know the reason, just look out of the
window and watch this procession coming up from the road."
Ruth and the Babe ran to the window; Mary, leaving her machine, slipped
quietly out of the room to see about her mother. Also Mary desired to
have a little private talk with Cousin Hannah.
It was a pitifully ludicrous spectacle that the girls beheld. Up the
driveway leading to the house came a dreary procession of those
unfortunates known in western parlance as "movers," family tramps who
follow the harvests in hope of getting a little work in the fields;
always moving on when the crops are gathered, or planted, as the case
may be--movers never became dwellers in any local territory.
These movers were, in appearance, even more wretched than usual. In a
little covered cart drawn by a diminutive donkey, sat a pale woman with
a baby in her arms, and two small and pallid children crouching beside
her. Behind the cart the father of the family pushed valiantly, in a
kindly endeavor to help along the donkey, while just ahead of that
overburdened animal walked a small boy, holding, as further inducement,
an alluring ear of corn just out of reach of the donkey's nose.
Certainly the family justified Elizabeth's declaration that 'most
anything was preferable to being a mover!
Ruth and Elizabeth both laughed at the comical procession, but the
Babe's eyes were full of pity. "The poor things are coming up for
water," she said sorrowfully. "Father always let them get water at our
well--I'll go show them the way." And she ran out to meet the movers
and show them the well at the back of the house, where they filled their
water-jugs and quenched the thirst of the patient and unsatisfied
donkey.
"I wish to goodness Father never had gone to Cuba," sighed Ruth, as she
turned from the window to take up her button-holes, "it is so awfully
lonesome without him."
"I think it was splendid," said Elizabeth, with shining eyes, "to be
among the very first of the volunteers. And maybe he'll do some deed of
daring and be made an officer. Think how nice it will be to say, when
the war is over, that our father figures in history--maybe as one of the
foremost heroes of the Spanish-American war."
"You're always dreaming of things that never happen, Elizabeth," scoffed
practical Ruth. "Of course he won't be made a big officer. If he comes
back just a plain Captain I'll be mighty glad."
"O, well, the world's greatest men and women have always been dreamers,"
asserted Elizabeth, cheerfully, "I can't help being born different from
the rest of you, can I?"
"H'm, I reckon not--but you can start a fire in the stove. People must
eat, no matter how great they are. It's your time to get supper."
"O, dear, it's bad to be born poor!" sighed Elizabeth, as she arose
reluctantly. "Especially when there's a longing within you to do
perfectly fine things, and not mere drudgery. I wish I were a
princess--it seems to me I was born to rule. I'm sure I would be a wise
and capable sovereign. Well, even queens stoop to minister to the lowly,
like Saint Elizabeth, so _I'll_ go get supper for the Spooners!"
And with her head in the clouds, the throneless queen marched
majestically kitchenward, to engage in the humble occupation of cooking
supper for her family.
Voices from her mother's closed door reached her ears as she passed.
Elizabeth would have scorned eavesdropping, but--the ranch being located
in the prairie region of Texas, where lumber is so scarce that just as
little as possible is used in building, and the walls being merely board
partitions, she could not help hearing Cousin Hannah's voice, always
strident, rising above her mother's and Mary's lower tones.
"Fiddle-diddle! What's the use of mincin' matters anyway? She's bound
to know, sooner or later--ought to know without--tellin', if she had a
grain o' common sense. Ain't a single, solitary thing about her favors
the rest of you all."
The words sounded very clearly in Elizabeth's startled ears, arousing a
train of troubled thoughts in her mind, as she moved mechanically about
the kitchen. She felt quite certain that they were talking about her,
and that Cousin Hannah wanted to tell her something that Mrs. Spooner
and Mary didn't want known.
"I wonder what it can be," pondered Elizabeth, as she slowly stirred the
hominy pot. "Whether Cousin Hannah thinks so or not, I've always known
I wasn't like the rest."
This was quite true; Elizabeth, though she dearly loved the parents and
sisters who had always, Cousin Hannah declared, spoiled her, yet could
not help feeling that she was, mentally and physically superior to them,
"made of finer clay," she would have put it. People often remarked on
this lack of resemblance to the others, and when they did so in Mrs.
Spooner's presence she always hastily changed the subject. Elizabeth
had often wondered why. Somehow there seemed always to have been a
mystery surrounding her--something that, if explained, would prove very
thrilling indeed.
Occupied with these thoughts, she moved from cupboard to table, and from
table to fire, preparing the evening meal with deft skill, for anything
Elizabeth Spooner did she did a little better than other people.
Outside the window stretched a vast brown-green plain, bounded by a
horizon line like a ring. There was monotony in the prospect, and yet a
curious sense of adventure and romance, as there is about the sea.
Elizabeth delighted in the mystic beauty of the prairie, yet to-day her
fine eyes studied the level unseeingly as she glanced through the
window, looking to see if Jonah Bean was in sight; the glories of sunset
that flooded the plain passed almost unnoticed. She was thinking too
earnestly on her own problem to observe the outside world.
"If I were by chance adopted, I certainly have a right to know who I
am," Elizabeth pondered, as she set the table beautifully, with certain
artistic touches that the clumsier hands of the other girls somehow
could never manage. "It won't make any difference in my feelings for
father and mother and the girls if I should happen to be born in a
higher station of life than theirs--though I can easily see how poor
mother could think it might; I trust I'm above being snobbish--"
Elizabeth's eyes began to glow with a resolute purpose--"I'm going to
find out, that's what! I'll make Cousin Hannah tell me. She's so big
it's awful to sleep with her, and she snores like thunder. Mary knows
how bad it is, and how I hate it, that's the reason she made me sleep
with Ruth, when one of us had to give up our place. To-night I'll make
Mary take the Babe's place with Mother, who might need her in the night,
and I'll sleep with Cousin Hannah--and find out what she knows about
me!"
Jonah Bean came stamping up the steps just then to wash up for supper at
the water-shelf just outside the kitchen door; informing anybody who
chose to listen that he was mighty tired--there was two men's work to do
on the Spooner ranch, anyhow, and he was gittin' old, same's other
folks. Glancing in at the open door he observed who was the cook.
"Humph! So it's your night for gittin' supper? Well, I hope the
truck'll taste as fancy as that air table looks."
"Sure, Jonah," answered Elizabeth, critically observing the effect of
her handiwork. "If you'll just step outside and get me a big bunch of
those yellow cactus-blooms to put in this brown pitcher it'll be
perfect, and I'll see that you get a big painted cup full of coffee."
"Never could see no use in weeds--full o' stickers at that," grumbled
Jonah, as he turned to go out for the flowers that were growing on the
great cactus in the fence corner. "Hope that air coffee'll be strong
and hot, though."
The coffee was strong and hot, and the hominy was white and well-cooked;
the bacon was brown and crisp and the biscuits light as feathers.
Elizabeth dished the supper in the flowered dishes kept for company,
because she could not bear the heavy earthenware they used every day.
She filled the squatty brown pitcher with the big bunch of golden blooms
old Jonah bore gingerly, careful of the thorns, and then lighted the
lamp with the red shade. Really they didn't need a lamp, but the glow
from the red shade was so pretty that she lighted it anyway--she so
loved beautiful things.
She arranged her mother's tray daintily, laying a cactus-bloom, freed of
its thorns, beside the plate--somehow she felt as if she was preparing
for some extra occasion.
"I declare Libby always cooks like she was fixin' for company," said
Cousin Hannah, admiringly, as she sat at the gracefully arranged table.
"Oughter keep boarders, and she wouldn't find no time for extra kinks."
Elizabeth shuddered a little as she poured Jonah's coffee in the biggest
cup, with the painted motto on it--how she would hate to do such a
sordid thing as keep boarders!
But she smiled very affably on Cousin Hannah, and asked if she wouldn't
tell her how to make spice cake--she always noticed that Cousin Hannah's
cake was so good. She wished to get the recipe to write in her
scrap-book.
"Shore and certain," said Cousin Hannah, amiably, pleased at Elizabeth's
praise, "I'll be glad to write it off. You're 'bout as good a cook as
Ruth, though I always did say she was the born cook o' the family--you
seemin' to be a master hand at managin'."
That she was indeed a master hand at the art, Elizabeth proved that
night, when with a few energetic commands, she sent Mary obediently to
her mother's room, to take the Babe's place, who in turn was put to
sleep with Ruth.
"Why in the world don't you let Ruth sleep with Cousin Hannah?" argued
Mary, "you know how you hate to--and she doesn't mind."
"Because it isn't fair that I shouldn't have my turn as well as the
others--it's disagreeable to all of us. Now you just let me have my
way, and say nothing else about it!" declared Elizabeth with authority,
and as usual, she was allowed to have her way.
While Cousin Hannah undressed, moving ponderously about the little room,
Elizabeth sat on the side of the bed, brushing her long blond hair,
watching with critical admiration of the beautiful, the gleams of red
and gold the lamplight cast upon its glittering strands, and formulating
in her mind a plan to find out the secret of her birth--if secret there
was.
She finally decided that plain speech was better than beating about the
bush, and spoke in a carefully suppressed tone.
"Cousin Hannah," she said, with whispering decisiveness, "I want to know
what you, and Mother and Mary were talking about in her room."
"Why, Libby!" exclaimed Cousin Hannah, plumping down upon the bed in her
astonishment, "did you go and listen to what we was sayin'?"
"Indeed I didn't! But I couldn't help hearing you--and I think it's my
right to know, if you were talking about me."
"But your Ma--but Jennie said she didn't _want_ you should know," argued
the bewildered Cousin Hannah, "land o' livin', girl, ain't you got a
home, and people to care for you? Why in tunket can't you be satisfied
with _that_?"
Certainty made Elizabeth calmly triumphant.
"I have felt, for a long time--ever since I can remember, that I was
different from the rest of my family, though you didn't give me credit
for having sense enough to see it. Of course, I love them all dearly
but I can't help feeling that it's my right to know the truth, whatever
it is. Cousin Hannah, is or is not my name Spooner?"
"Well," Cousin Hannah evaded the question, "what would you get out of it
if your name wasn't Spooner?"
Elizabeth leaped up softly, she held her hairbrush as though it were a
scepter; her long hair flowed and billowed about her as she walked with
majestic tread, up and down the tiny room--she was seeing visions!
If her name was not Spooner! That would mean that her birth was, she
felt sure, indefinitely illustrious some way. Of course she would never
desert the people who loved her, and whom she would always love,
but--might not something come of it that would be grand for them all?
"Libby," Cousin Hannah's eyes followed the moving figure with a
distressed look in them, "your ma--Jennie Spooner--your true ma, if love
and tenderness count for anything, never wanted you told. Mary knows,
and she don't want you should know. When I watch your uppity ways I tell
'em it's high time they explained the situation to you."
"The situation--" Elizabeth hung breathlessly on her words with shining
eyes, and an eager tremble of her lips.
"Yes, the situation," repeated Cousin Hannah heavily. "Jennie Spooner
had a tough time raisin' you--a troublesome young'un as ever I see. You
teethed so hard that it looked like she never knew what a night's rest
was till you got 'em through the gums. I used to come over here many a
time and help her; what with Ruth bein' so nigh the same age, she had
her hands full. It was kept from you for fear of hurtin' your feelin's,
if you must know."
"How could it hurt my feelings?" questioned Elizabeth, a little puzzled.
"I love them all--but they should have told me. They ought to have known
they couldn't change--" a swan to a duckling had been on the tip of her
tongue, but she stopped in time, "me to a Spooner, even by their love
and kindness."
"Change you to a Spooner?" slow wrath mounted to Cousin Hannah's face.
She caught Elizabeth's arm as the girl passed by. "I reckon they
couldn't make a Spooner out o' you, that's a fact. The Spooners, bein',
so far's known to me, respectable householders--"
"But not what _my_ people were," suggested Elizabeth, her whole face
alight, her eyes shining with eagerness. "You must tell me who they
were--what my rightful name is."
Cousin Hannah groaned. "Looks like I've let the cat out of the
bag--don't it? Well, what I've got to tell ain't nigh what you think
I've got to tell," she asserted doggedly. "You'll be sorry for askin'."
Through Elizabeth's mind flashed visions of a wonderful ancestry; to do
her justice these dream parents did not in any way displace the father
and mother she really loved with all her young heart--they were only
that vision which comes to us all in some shape when we feel we are
misunderstood--different.
Mary's step was heard approaching in the little corridor. She had
undoubtedly been disturbed by the sound of their voices, and was uneasy
for fear Cousin Hannah would be teased into making in judicious
revelations.
"Tell me--tell me quick--" whispered Elizabeth, shaking her room-mate's
arm. "Tell me before Mary gets here."
"Well, I will," gasped Cousin Hannah. "You ought to know it--but I warn
you it's not what you're expectin'!"
*CHAPTER II*
*Roy Rides to Silver Spur*
When Mary stepped into the little bedroom Cousin Hannah Pratt had
already spoken.
"Your pa and ma was movers that come here sixteen years ago--movers,
like the folks you seen to-day and made such fun of. The name was Mudd."
These whispered words sounded in Elizabeth's ears, and the girl crumpled
up on the bed sobbing just as Mary opened the door. Mrs. Pratt pulled
the elder sister into the room.
"I've told Libby--she ought to have been told long ago--with you
marryin' and goin' away and Ruth not havin' a bit of faculty and her
bein' the one to take your place I think she was obliged to know it."
Mary came across the room with a rush, and took slim Elizabeth in loving
arms.
"Go away, Cousin Hannah, please," she said. "You can sleep with Ruth
and I'll stay with Elizabeth."
Mrs. Pratt, glad enough to be relieved from sight of the misery she had
caused, hurried away and the two sisters were alone together. Mary knew
very little of what Cousin Hannah had seen fit to reveal, a child
herself at the time, she had but vague remembrances of it, and indeed
Elizabeth asked no questions--she only needed to be comforted, and this
Mary did as best she could.
The next day but one was the wedding day, Mr. Bellamy was expected in
the morning and they would probably have no other chance for private
talk, but Mary urged Elizabeth to go to their mother for comfort when
the wedding was over, and some time late in the night they both fell
asleep.
In the days that followed the wedding, when everything was strange, and
they were settling slowly back into the usual routine Elizabeth found no
opportunity to speak with her mother of that trouble which had come now
to haunt every waking hour, and even pursued her into dreams.
Mary and her euphoniously named Mr. Bellamy had gone on their way to
Oklahoma, where the bridegroom owned a ranch. Cousin Hannah Pratt,
having helped with the wedding sewing and the packing, had gone back to
Emerald and her own overflowing boarding-house. Mrs. Spooner, the three
girls, and old Jonah were left alone, face to face with the problem of
getting along.
Everything had settled into the usual routine at the Silver Spur; Mrs.
Spooner, rather weak from her neuralgia and the strain of the wedding,
sat on the front porch in a big chair which Elizabeth had endeavored to
make comfortable with rugs and pillows.
"Are you perfectly sure I can't do anything else for you, Mother?" she
asked anxiously. "Mary always waited on you so beautifully, while--it
seems to me I've never done one little thing for you, when you've done
so much for me!"
A big tear slipped from the long lashes and splashed on Mrs. Spooner's
little hand, fluttering among the cushions. In a minute the mother-arms
had pulled the girl's head down to the mother-breast, the thin fingers
patting the blond braids and the mother-voice crooning comfort into the
crumpled little ear buried upon the maternal shoulder.
"Don't cry, daughter, Mother loves you just the same! Haven't you been
our own since you were, O, such a _wee_ baby! It was cruel of Cousin
Hannah to tell you, but we won't let it make one bit of difference.
You're ours and we are yours. A thing like that can't matter to people
who love each other as we do."
"It--it doesn't matter, Mother," gasped Elizabeth, as she mopped her
reddened eyes, "if I can just take Mary's place to you. I am going to
try, my very level best."
"Then you'll be sure to succeed," said her mother, confidently. "You
always succeed in everything you undertake--hadn't you noticed that,
dear? Now, really, I'm just as comfortable as hands can make me, so you
run on down to the corral and help Ruth and the Babe with the ponies.
You ride with them to Emerald, and get the mail--it'll do you good. And
be sure you bring me a letter from father."
Cheered by her mother's words, Elizabeth gave one more pat and pull to
the pillows, kissed her, and ran down to the corral, where the girls
were roping the ponies. She and Ruth could each rope a little, missing
about three out of five throws, but the Babe usually flourished so
reckless a loop that she entangled herself, and had to be helped out; in
spite of which old Jonah Bean insisted that she was the only one who
showed any signs of learning the art.
Poor Elizabeth! Her castle of dreams had fallen, leaving her wide awake
to the fact that she was no princess of romance but the humble offspring
of miserable movers, such as had always been the objects of her
shuddering contempt. Even Cousin Hannah's heart was touched with pity,
and she tried with clumsy but hearty kindness to make amends for the
grief she had caused by her disclosure. Nothing had been said to Ruth
and the Babe, of course--they still believed her to be their born
sister. However, deep down in her heart, Elizabeth was walking in the
Valley of Humiliation amid the dust and ashes of dead hopes; and, as
most people know, when one enters the Valley it is very, very hard to
find the way out again!
Mrs. Spooner, watching the girls ride down the road, sighed softly.
"Poor child," she murmured pityingly, "I can hardly forgive Cousin
Hannah. But in the end it may prove the best thing. I'm afraid we were
spoiling her. This may bring out the fine nature that I know she
possesses."
Texas is a land of far horizons; Mrs. Spooner could see all the vast,
brown-green circling plain until it lost itself in the hazy distance.
Away up the trail that led to her brother's distant ranch, twenty miles
further from Emerald, she noticed a moving cloud of dust which resolved
itself into an oscillating speck--two--a man on a pony, with a led
horse.
For some reason which she could not have explained, Mrs. Spooner felt
that the approaching rider was going to turn in at the Silver Spur.
There was no pleasant feeling between herself and Harvey Grannis. John
Spooner had bought the Silver Spur ranch from his brother-in-law when he
came to this part of Texas, and there had been trouble over the
transaction, due, Mrs. Spooner felt, to Harvey's disposition to take too
much authority. He was a bachelor, and the rich man of the
community--excepting the English rancher, McGregor, who did not live so
far away. He would have liked to do a good deal for the family of his
only sister, but he wanted to do it in his own way, asserting that John
Spooner couldn't take care of them, and treating them, Elizabeth fireily
said like paupers. A hard man, with his good qualities, yet full of the
"rule or ruin" spirit, and liable to go to great lengths to make his
point.
The approaching rider was now seen to be a young fellow, scarcely more
than a big boy. He came up the long bare drive, stopped at the porch
edge and took off his hat before he spoke to the woman in the
rocking-chair. She noted that the pony he rode stumbled with weariness,
while the led horse trotted briskly, unencumbered with saddle or rider.
She saw, too, that while the tired pony bore a brand unfamiliar to her,
the led one was marked with a G in a horse-shoe--Harvey Grannis's brand.
"Good morning, ma'am," the newcomer greeted her. He was a handsome lad
of perhaps sixteen, but just now in a woeful plight, dusty, shaking,
haggard with weariness. "I stopped to ask if you'd like to buy a pony
at a big bargain."
Mrs. Spooner leaned forward in her chair with a little gasp. She was
afraid of what was coming.
"I don't know," she replied evasively. "Which one of them do you want to
sell?"
"O, mine's played out," the boy returned never noticing the admission
his words contained. "I've ridden pretty hard, and besides I've got to
have her to carry me to Emerald, so I can take the train there. It's
the other one. He's a mighty fine pony, and I'll let him go for enough
to buy me a ticket back home."
"Won't you come in and rest a minute?--you look tired," said Mrs.
Spooner, sympathetically. Somehow she could not bring herself to ask if
he was from her brother's ranch, though she felt quite sure something
was wrong about the pony that would go so cheap.
"I am tired, but I've got to go on so as to catch the six o'clock
train," the boy smiled wanly. "I guess I can stop in for a drink,
anyhow."
He dropped the lines, and the two ponies stood, cattle country fashion,
as though they had been tied.
Mrs. Spooner got up from her chair, forgetting, in her excitement, any
weakness or weariness.
"Just come right in and lie down on the lounge," she invited him. "It's
cool and shady. I'll make you a pitcher of lemonade in a minute.
You'll gain time by resting."
She smiled that reassuring mother-smile of hers as she opened the door
of the quiet living-room. The boy followed in, his spurs clinking on
the boards, and dropped wearily down upon the lounge. When she came
back he was sitting with his head in his hands, but he drank the cool
lemonade thirstily, finally draining the pitcher.
"It's awfully good," he sighed, his eyes speaking his gratitude.
"Mother always made us lemonade in the summer time at home. You--you
make me think of her, someway."
As if the resemblance had been too much for him, he turned from her with
an inarticulate sound, and buried his face in the cushions. Mrs.
Spooner sat down beside him, and after awhile his groping hand caught
hers. She spoke to him in whispers, though there was nobody in the
house to hear.
"I'm afraid you're in trouble, my poor boy," she said gently. "Don't
you want to tell me all about it? Maybe I can help you."
After a time he found strength to face her, and tell the poor, pitiful
little story.
His name was Roy Lambert. He was, indeed, one of Harvey Grannis's
cowboys, and had come west fascinated by the stories of frontier life.
He had made a contract with Grannis to work for him for one year. Then
came a letter, telling him that his mother was desperately ill, and he
must hurry to her. Grannis refused to advance him money or to annul the
contract. He treated the matter with contempt, pretending to believe
that the boy was simply homesick, and the letter a ruse to get away. At
last, frantic at the treatment he received, and determined to reach his
mother, Roy got up before daylight, took his own pony and one of
Grannis's which he hoped to sell for enough money to get home, and set
out for Emerald and the railroad.
"I couldn't walk it, it would take too long to get to Emerald that way,"
he said, "besides, Grannis owes me more than the chestnut's worth, if I
sold it for full value. I didn't expect to get only just enough to buy
my ticket."
"Two wrongs won't make a right, Roy," said Mrs. Spooner, gravely. "Mr.
Grannis was wrong--very wrong, not to advance you the money, or let you
off your contract. But did you stop to think he could have you arrested
for horse-stealing when you took his pony?"
"No!" blazed Roy, "I didn't steal it. If I had, I don't care. He's a
hard-hearted old skinflint. I'd like to wring his neck, but even Harvey
Grannis can't say I'm a horse thief. And I _must_ get home!"
"Of course you must," soothed Mrs. Spooner, well aware as she looked at
his flushed face, that Roy himself disapproved of what he had done. "I
have a little money, and I will try and manage it, someway."
"Would you?" cried the boy. "I'll pay you--I'll send you a check as
soon as I get home."
"Jonah Bean, the only cowboy I keep now, can ride on with you to
Emerald, and bring your pony back. I'll try to sell it for enough to
repay myself, or I might keep it--I think we could use one more gentle
animal."
"You're awfully good," choked the poor fellow. "If all the folks in the
world were like you--such a man as Grannis makes me distrust everybody.
Do you know him?"
"Yes. I think you're a little mistaken," said gentle little Mrs.
Spooner. "Harvey Grannis isn't really a villain, he's just a
hard-headed, high-tempered man, that was spoiled by having his own way
when he was a boy."
"You don't know--" Roy was beginning, when she interrupted him.
"I think I do. Harvey Grannis is my only brother. My baby child is
named after him--little Harvie."
"Your brother?" Roy Lambert leaped to his feet, looking about with
terrified eyes.
Mrs. Spooner divined his thought at once.
"I'm not going to give you up to Harvey," she said firmly. "But I'm
going to make you let me lend you the money, and leave Harvey's pony
here. The laws calls what you've done horse-stealing, and you can't
make laws for yourself. You lie down and try to get a little sleep,
now, my child. I'll wake you in an hour."
He thanked her with trembling lips, turned on his side, and, secure in
his trust of her, fell at once asleep. When she saw that he really
slept, Mrs. Spooner once more took her seat on the porch, this time to
look for her brother, being quite certain that Harvey would follow
hot-foot on the trail of his stolen pony.
She didn't have long to wait; in less than an hour a buckboard drawn by
a pair of good sized grade horses turned in at the gate; in it sat
Harvey Grannis and one of his men. They were tracking the lost pony.
She saw them long before they reached the house, recognize it, as it
grazed on the bit of sunburned pasture which Elizabeth hopefully called
a lawn.
"Hello, Jennie," her brother called out, ignoring any coldness there had
been between them, as Mrs. Spooner walked rapidly out to meet him.
Grannis was a loud-spoken individual, and she did not care to have the
boy awakened. "I'm after the thief that stole this pony of mine. Is he
on your place?"
"He's asleep in the house," said Mrs. Spooner, quietly, though her voice
was shaking a little. "He's very tired, and he's going to ride to
Emerald tonight. I don't want him disturbed."
"You bet he's going to ride to Emerald!" blustered the ranchman. "I'll
have him in jail there before supper-time! Come on, Tom, we'll go in
and wake the young gentleman. Fetch your rope. Keep your gun handy.
You never know what a young, dime-novel-crazy idiot like that will do."
He sprang from the buckboard, and both men were starting for the house
when Mrs. Spooner barred their way.
"You can't go in there, Harvey," she told him. And now she was
trembling so that Tom, of the rope and gun, was sorry for her, and
heartily sick of his errand. No doubt Harvey Grannis was too, which
merely made him talk louder and more harshly.
"Well, I'd like to know why I can't?" he demurred, pretending to laugh
at her a bit. "Who's going to stop me? Now see here, Jennie, you
always were a simple-hearted, soft-natured little goose. Anybody can
bamboozle you. Look at the way John Spooner--"
"We won't go into that," warned Mrs. Spooner, with a flash in her eyes
that made Grannis's cowboy chuckle inwardly.
"What's your reason for defending this boy?" Grannis argued. "He's a
thief."
"I'm not defending Roy Lambert alone," said Mrs. Spooner. "I'm
defending my brother--a brother I used to be very fond of--from doing a
thing he'll be sorry for all the days of his life."
Grannis flushed redly through the deep tan of his sunburned skin, while
Tom, standing by and listening, enjoyed himself thoroughly over his
employer's discomfiture.
"These boys come west crazy for ranch life," Grannis said dogmatically.
"They soon get sick of honest work, and invent any kind of story to get
away. This boy's lying to you, and he's stolen a pony from me. Move
out of the way, Jennie, and let me handle him."
The men had been standing with their backs to the trail. Mrs. Spooner
noted a little figure on a gaunt pony whose gaits were familiar to her
approaching from the direction of Emerald. Now small Harvey rose in her
stirrups and shouted, waving an envelope above her head. Mrs. Spooner
was sorry she had not got rid of her brother before the girls returned.
Grannis looked over his shoulder, and feeling unwilling that his beloved
namesake should see him doing anything unkind rushed the matter hastily.
"Get out of the way, Jennie," he repeated. "Come on, Tom."
A figure appeared in the ranch-house door, Roy Lambert, flushed and
trembling with the fever that Mrs. Spooner had been fearing for him. He
carried his belt in his hand, and was fumbling at the holster to get his
pistol.
"I won't go back alive," he said.
"Rope him, Tom," prompted Grannis in a low tone. "I don't want to shoot
the crazy kid."
"Uncle Harvey--Uncle Harvey," came the Babe's thin, sweet pipe, "I'm
glad you're here, 'cause I've got a telegram for somebody out at your
ranch. Jonah was to take it on but now he won't have to."
The child's eyes saw nothing amiss. The three men were warily watching
each other, Roy tugging desperately at the holster to get his weapon
which had caught, and Tom half sullenly loosening and coiling his rope.
"It's for Mr. Roy Lambert," sang out the little girl, triumphant in her
ability to read even bad handwriting.
*CHAPTER III*
*A Package and a Leather-Brown Phaeton*
The men stood rigid at little Harvey's announcement. Mrs. Spooner took
the envelope from the child's hands, opened it and read aloud:
"Mother died last night. Funeral over before you can get here.
Sister."
The boy on the steps wheeled and ran into the house. Grannis turned
unwillingly.
"Well--that looks genuine," he muttered with the obstinacy of a
high-tempered man. "I won't prosecute him for lifting my pony--But I
want you to understand that it's on your account Jennie. I tell you to
turn him out. He's a bad lot. If ever he sets foot on the Circle G
he'll have me to settle with. If you insist on having him around your
place I'll--I'll--" His eye fell on Harvie. "Take the halter there,
Tom and tie Baldy on behind. He leads all right."
"Aren't you going to pay him the money you owe him," Mrs. Spooner asked
as she saw the men preparing to depart.
Grannis would have paid the money if it had not been for the presence of
Tom. He could not let one of his cowboys see a loosening of discipline.
"No, I'll not," he said bluntly and whipped his team around into the
drive. "He can't collect a cent off me, and I'm done making concessions
on your account."
"Where are the girls?" Mrs. Spooner asked as she and the Babe stood
watching the Circle G rig depart.
"They're coming," answered the Babe. "I rode ahead 'cause they were
carrying so many things and I could go faster. The man at the telegraph
office paid us for bringing the message out. Are you going to keep Roy
Lambert here, like Uncle Harvey said you ought not, mother?"
Mrs. Spooner nodded as she went back into the living-room, leaving
little Harvie to start the fire in the stove. There she did her best to
comfort the poor fellow, facing his first big sorrow.
"I won't go home now--there's no use," he declared, when he could speak.
"But I'll never go back to Grannis! If you let me I'll stay here and
work for you. And I'd do my best to do for you what a son would.
Outside of heaven, I've got no mother now." And once more his grief
overwhelmed him.
"I'll be happy to treat a good boy like you as a son," said Mrs.
Spooner. "My husband is away with the troops, and we've had a pretty
hard time to get along without him. I'm sure my girls will be glad to
take you into our household as a brother. Maybe providence sent you to
us, to-day. Maybe we need you as much as you need us."
With the relaxing of the terrible strain, and the exhaustion of his
grief, the boy seemed to become really ill. She sat beside him, trying
to soothe him with tenderly wise words, and bathing his hot forehead hi
cool water till at last he slept, and she stole softly out to warn old
Jonah, who came stumping in with a basket of cobs for the kitchen fire.
"Make as little noise as you can, Jonah," she whispered. "We have a boy
in the house asleep--one of Harvey's cowboys--I'm afraid he has fever."
"O Lord!" groaned Jonah, in a doleful whisper. "Trouble comes
double--never knowed it to fail yit! 'T ain't 'nough that you ain't
right peart, and the boss gone, and me with the rheumatiz a-ticklin' my
right foot ag'in, but we got to have a no-'count cowboy, sweater an'
shirk, of course, laid up on us. Poor gals, I feel for 'em!--an' you've
got nothin' but gals. Ef you'd 'a' had a right smart mess o' boys,
now-- They'll have all the work to do--like enough have to ride and
rope and brand, 'fore they are done, besides nussin' this here boy, and
me'n you throwed in for good measure. Whyn't Grannis tend to his own
sick cowboys? Plenty o' folks at his ranch."
"He's not Harvey's cowboy any longer, Jonah--he's ours, if we need
him--and according to that, we do. Now don't say a word, just listen to
me--" as the old man opened his mouth to remonstrate very forcibly on
the utter folly of taking an unknown person into her home. Then,
speaking in subdued tones, she told him the story of the boy from the
Grannis ranch.
At the end old Jonah Bean, being tender-hearted if cantankerous, took
out his bandanna and blew his nose with hushed vigor.
"If I warn't in the presence of a lady what's his sister, Mis' Spooner,"
he said with elaborate politeness, "I'd up an' say--_Dad rat_ Harvey
Grannis's hide! Manners an' behavior is all prevents me from usin' them
same cuss-words."
"Thank you for _not_ saying them, Jonah," approved Mrs. Spooner,
gravely, but with twinkling eyes. "Now I'll go out and meet the
girls--I hear them coming, and they'll be sure to wake him with their
noise, if I don't warn them."
The two girls were riding up the path, and both shouted:
"A letter from _Cuba Libre_!"
"A _fat_ letter--and we want to see what's in it so bad!"
Of course the precious letter was immediately read--that came before
anything else; the girls, dismounting, the Babe running out, dish-towel
in hand, with Jonah hobbling in the rear, and all grouping around Mrs.
Spooner, to hear the news from Cuba.
It was a bravely cheerful letter, containing the best of all news; their
father was well, the health of the army was good, there was no prospect
of a battle. Then followed long messages to each member of the family,
loving and jolly; advice to Jonah Bean about the ranch, winding up with
impressive charges to everybody to be "sure and take good care of
mother!"
"Three cheers for _Cuba Libre_--she's taking good care of our boys!"
exulted Elizabeth, and Ruth declared fervently: "It's such good news
that it makes me right hungry! Let's make muffins for supper Elizabeth,
and celebrate."
"Maybe there won't ever be a real truly sure-enough battle like Ivanhoe
and King Richard Sour-de-lion and Jonah Bean used to fight," suggested
the Babe, hopefully, and Jonah added, sagely:
"I don't know nothin' 'bout them two folks you named over, honey, but I
lay you the war o' the sixties was some punkin's! I misdoubt this here
Cuban scrimmage is jest a play war."
"Truly, I hope so, Jonah," said Mrs. Spooner. "Now listen, children, I
have some more news for you. We can't have father with us, but I
believe I have found a 'real, truly sure-enough' brother--a regular big
brother, like other girls have."
"O, Mother," put in the Babe, excitedly, "I didn't know _that_! Is he
named after us, if he's going to be our own brother?"
"No, his name is Roy Lambert--but we don't care what it is," she added,
hastily, remembering how poor Elizabeth had loved fine-sounding names,
"if he is only a good boy, and I think he is."
Then she told them the story of poor Roy.
"I do think Uncle Harvey is the meanest old--" began Ruth, indignantly,
but her mother's hand was laid lightly upon her lips, stopping further
outburst.
"That's enough, daughter" she said, quietly, "they both did wrong, and I
think they're both sorry. It is all over now, and we must try and think
as kindly of Uncle Harvey and be as good to poor Roy as ever we can."
"Yes, and I'll lend him my own pony, if his is too bad off for him to
ride," added the Babe generously--her own Rosinante being the joke of
the ranch. "Uncle Harvey didn't mean to be bad, Ruth--he looked just as
_sorry_ when you read the telegram--didn't he, Mother?"
"I think he is sorry," agreed her mother, who wished her children to
think as well of their uncle as possible, but Jonah, with a scornful
snort, ejaculated: "Sorry--Harvey Grannis? O, Lord, that _is_ a joke!"
And muttering his opinion of Harvey Grannis pretty audibly, went
stumping away, to his work.
Elizabeth said nothing, only she slipped her hand in that of her
foster-mother and whispered: "I think the Lord sent him to you, Mother,
because he was in trouble and needed you."
"Well, I hope he'll be a nice boy, and I hope he won't be sick. I'll go
in and make up the muffin batter, Elizabeth, while you set the table. I
bet he didn't get any muffins at Uncle Harvey's ranch," said Ruth, who
believed in ministering to the sick by giving them good things to eat.
They had a very good supper, and the muffins were really gems, but Roy
could not touch the dainty tray, saying that it looked awfully good, but
he was too tired to eat--he'd be all right in the morning.
But next morning he was in a raging delirium, and Jonah Bean had to ride
to Emerald and fetch the doctor, who said the boy was in for a pretty
bad spell of fever.
For two weeks the Spooner household nursed him, then came a day of
rejoicing when the patient was able to move shakily about, gaunt and
hollow-eyed, but cheerfully assuring them he felt dandy! Recovery was
swift after that, and it was not long before the boy from the Circle G,
the outcast horse-thief, was a valued and almost indispensable member of
the Silver Spur household.
"I don't see how we ever got along without him," declared Ruth,
positively, as she poked the clothes that were beginning to bubble in
the big wash-kettle out in the back yard.
"Particularly now that Jonah's laid up with the rheumatism," agreed
Elizabeth, rubbing the white clothes on the wash-board with rhythmic
strokes that, somehow, seemed to take a lot of the drudgery away from
the task.
Ruth and Elizabeth were doing the week's washing; it wasn't a very hard
thing to do, when one went about it with the right spirit--the
determination to try, with cheerful energy, to get the clothes as clean
as possible in as little time as possible:
"To sweep a room as for God's cause
Makes that and the action fine."
The Spooner girls had never heard these words of the old poet, but they
practiced the spirit of them a good deal in their work.
It was astonishing how much Roy had helped to lighten the work for them,
as well as for old Jonah Bean, who declared him to be nothing less than
a God-send. For instance, he had filled the kettles and tubs with
water, and fetched a big basket of cobs to make a fire under the
wash-kettle, all before he had gone to Emerald on what he declared to be
a very particular errand of his own.
"I wonder what it is," mused Ruth, curiously, "last week he went--said
he had something very particular to do, you remember, and he came back
late. He never brought anything back, that I could see."
"My private opinion is," said Elizabeth, confidentially, "that he is
fixing up some sort of a surprise for mother's birthday, He heard us say
we were looking for a package from father, and that we hoped it would
get here in time for her birthday. I noticed it was right after that he
went to town on business of his own."
"It would be just like him--he's always trying to think up something to
do for us. Say, Elizabeth, I certainly appreciate this shelter he built
for us, don't you?"
"I don't see how we ever got along without it: he's certainly a handy
boy," declared Elizabeth, gratefully.
Heretofore the girls had washed with the glaring sun beating down upon
their unprotected heads, but now Roy had built a shelter for the tubs.
Timber was scarce, but he had managed to find enough for the posts and
cross-pieces, and there were plenty of tin shingles left from
re-shingling the house, so that he had managed to make a very neat job
of it, and one that added greatly to their comfort.
"Have you all seen the Babe anywhere?" asked Mrs. Spooner, coming out of
the kitchen. "I want her to hunt some eggs for me; I think I'll make
some tea-cakes for supper."
"She's down at Jonah's shack--I'll call her," offered Elizabeth, but
Mrs. Spooner demurred, saying she would rather go herself.
"I haven't enquired about Jonah's foot, today, and he may think I'm
neglecting him," said the gentle mistress of the ranch, who never was
known to neglect a living thing upon it, and was particularly solicitous
about the welfare of her ancient cowboy.
Jonah Bean was a veteran of the sixties, much given to narrating tales
of his own marvelous exploits; he was also a bachelor, who declared
himself independent of the whole female sex, inasmuch as he could, if
necessary, sew, cook, and "do for himself" generally. Though inclined
to be a grumbler, he was really devoted to all the Spooner family,
particularly little Harvie, whom he had been the first to nickname "the
Babe," and he always found her an eager listener to the tales of
adventure he delighted in telling.