tall as I am. Stay all night and I'll lend you either one of them you
want. I'd like to have you stay, too--the girls here are so common."
Elizabeth's cheeks flushed redly. Evidently Cousin Hannah had made no
further disclosures. To Maudie, Elizabeth was still her cousin, and a
Spooner--the name that had once seemed so commonplace and now so
beautiful compared to that of the despised movers.
"O, but really I can't stay, Maudie; it's good of you to want me, and to
offer to lend me your beautiful clothes, but mother can't spare us both
very well, and Mary and I came last year, you know!"
"O, well, if you won't you won't. But I should think you'd jump at the
chance of going to a party," said Maudie, who did not bother over
consideration for her own mother.
Just then Cousin Hannah poked her head in at the door. "Maudie, honey,"
she asked, conciliatingly, "can't you just run in and set the table when
dinner's ready, so's I can stay up town with your Cousin Jennie and the
girls? And if the telegraph operator comes in give him his dinner? You
know he has to have it early."
"Why on earth can't the cook give him his dinner?" frowned Maudie,
petulantly. "I hate that old operator, anyway. Isn't the cook hired to
set the table? I ain't feeling well, and I don't want to overdo so's I
can't go to the hall to-night."
"O, well," said her mother, resignedly, "I reckon I'll hurry back and
'tend to it myself, if you ain't feelin' well."
But Ruth spoke up eagerly: "Let me do it, Cousin Hannah. I don't care
about going up town--and I'd love to do it for you."
"Bless your heart--you're a reg'lar little help-all!" beamed Cousin
Hannah, gratefully, and with Mrs. Spooner and Elizabeth, went on her way
in great content, knowing that everything would go on well at home.
Maudie stayed in her room and spent her time deciding on her party
finery, while busy Ruth swept and dusted the big dining room, that was
always in a state of more or less disorder, laid the table carefully and
had the operator's dinner ready punctually.
"Have a good time, little daughter," Mrs. Spooner said to Ruth, when at
the close of a long day of sightseeing she and the Babe were once more
seated in the phaeton. And Ruth replied happily that she would--she was
certain of having a perfectly beautiful time.
That night she wiped the supper dishes for the cook, and, after she had
dressed, helped to button Cousin Hannah into her own tight and
unaccustomed dress-up clothes.
Maudie, who declared that she never liked to be among the first because
it was more genteel to be late, took a long time to dress but really
looked quite pretty in her pale blue frock; Ruth, with heartily sincere
appreciation, told her so.
"Thank you," acknowledged Maudie, languidly, eyeing Ruth's laundered
white dress and pink girdle with tolerant pity. Then her eyes falling on
Elizabeth's fan her expression changed to eager covetousness.
"Where in the world did you get that fan?" she asked. "Do you--do you
really think it matches your dress? It seems to me a fan like that is
out of place with a wash dress. I haven't one. I lost mine when I was
at grandmother's."
"This is Elizabeth's; father sent it from Cuba."
Ruth spoke rather hesitatingly; she would have offered to lend the
ornament at once, if it had been her own, for she was a generous little
soul, but she did not feel like risking Elizabeth's property.
"I say," spoke Maudie abruptly, "lend me the fan, Ruth, and I'll let you
wear my diamond ring."
"O, Maudie!" gasped Ruth, hesitation in her heart but delight in her
eyes, "I couldn't--I oughtn't to wear your ring. Something might
happen."
"Not a thing'll happen," declared Maudie impatiently. "Here, let me put
it on your finger. No it isn't too loose, either; my finger's just as
small as yours. I wish this fan was mine. It would have cost a lot
over here, but in Cuba it's different--or of course your father couldn't
have afforded it."
She had coolly appropriated Elizabeth's fan, waving it to and fro with
complacent admiration. All Emerald had seen the diamond, but the fan
was entirely new, and she realized that it would be greatly admired.
Poor little Ruth, dazzled by the flashing ring, forgot her mother's
disapproval of borrowing, and went to the hall with a light heart.
The Spooner girls had gone to school in Emerald when their father was at
home, and they could be spared from the ranch, so she knew all the boys
and girls who were present, and was soon having a very jolly and
sociable time, while Maudie, as befitting a person accustomed to city
life, was moving about among the crowd with a rather bored air,
displaying her finery to the admiring eyes of her neighbors, and waving
Elizabeth's fan languidly.
Still, for all her indifferent air, Maudie felt aggrieved that Ruth, in
her shabby white lawn, should receive so much attention, while she in
her blue silk was comparatively neglected.
As she sat beside her mother and watched Ruth dancing merrily to the
music of the band, Maudie felt a growing rancor towards her unoffending
cousin, finally deciding that she would put an end to the enjoyment she
could not take part in.
"I want to go home, I'm tired of it all--it is so stupid," she
complained to her mother. "Besides, I don't feel very well. Call Ruth
and let's go right away."
"No use disturbing Ruth, she seems to be enjoying herself, if you
ain't," remarked Mr. Pratt, mildly. "Any of the young folks'll see her
home safe."
But Maudie flatly refused to go without Ruth, who was hastily summoned
from her dance by Cousin Hannah, and hustled unceremoniously away from
the hall.
"O, I _did_ have such a good time!" said Ruth, radiantly. "I'm so sorry
we had to come away so soon, Maudie."
"It takes mighty little to give some folks a good time," said Maudie,
tartly. "I thought the crowd was awfully coarse and common, even for
Emerald. I hope you took good care of my ring," she continued, sharply,
for Ruth uttering an exclamation, of fear, had stopped and was groping
wildly about in the sand at her feet.
"O, Maudie!" Ruth's voice quavered with fear, "O, Maudie--I've _lost_
it!"
"Lost my diamond ring!" Maudie shrilled wrathfully, "O, why was I such a
goose as to lend it to you!"
"What's that? Your diamond ring that Grandma Pratt gave you? O, my me!
Was Ruth wearing it? How'd that come? Whatever made you go and lose it,
Ruth?" groaned Cousin Hannah, not waiting for a reply to any of her
questions.
"It--it was too large," faltered Ruth, "it must have slipped off my
finger. We'll find it in a minute. I know I had it on when we left the
hail; I kept feeling of it because it didn't fit me very well."
"Then you'd no business to borrow it," scolded Cousin Hannah. "What
made you wear it, if it was too loose?"
"Maudie wanted Elizabeth's fan," explained Ruth, miserably. "And--and
she lent me the ring in place of it. I told her then it was too large."
"Yes, blame it all on me!" reproached Maudie, bitterly. "Here--take
your old fan! I reckon it didn't cost more than a few cents, but at
least I took care of it!"
"Think where you had it last, Ruth--think _hard_!" implored Cousin
Hannah, distractedly, "I'd hate so for that expensive ring to be
lost--just throwed away, you might say. I don't know what we could say
to Grandma Pratt."
"I had it in the hall, I'm certain," said Ruth, dull with woe. "Of
course I don't remember where or when it came off my finger."
"Then we'll go right back to the hall and search for it," decided Mr.
Pratt. "Come along. No use in making so much fuss, Maudie. Wait till
you're plumb certain it's gone for good."
Back to the still crowded hall they went, and poor Ruth, in bitter
mortification, had to listen to Maudie's shrill announcement to all and
sundry of the fact that Ruth had borrowed her diamond, and then lost it.
Which came, she explained loudly, of lending things to people who
weren't used to them, and couldn't understand their value.
"O," thought poor Ruth, in her despairing heart, "if I'd only listened
to mother I never would have been in all this trouble--if I'd only
listened to mother!"
Mr. Pratt, going to the young men who had charge of the hall, made known
to them the loss, and there was much searching, but all without
result--Maudie's ring was indeed gone!
Downheartedly the party trailed along home; Maudie in tears, sobbing
wrathfully that she would never, never lend her things again--no matter
if people did beg and pray her to do it. No indeed, she had learned a
lesson!
And Cousin Hannah, with torturing insistence, kept asking over and over
again if Ruth couldn't remember where she had lost the ring. She ought
to try and remember, seeing that it was her own fault. She oughtn't to
have worn a ring she knew was too loose for her finger.
To these questions Ruth could only answer, over and again, that she
didn't know--she didn't know! Indeed she was fast becoming hysterical
with fright and worry.
Then mild little Mr. Pratt astonished them all by speaking with
authority that commanded attention.
"That's quite enough, Hannah," he said sharply. "Maudie, don't let's
have any more noise from _you_! If your ring's gone it's gone, that's
all there is to it. I told mother, when she asked me about it, that it
was foolish to give you a diamond when you was so young. I don't know
if I ain't glad it's lost, if you want my opinion. Now understand, I
want an end to all this talk. No use in badgerin' poor Ruth to death,
either, Hannah."
"For pity's sake, Jim!" exclaimed Cousin Hannah, "I didn't aim to badger
the child. There, honey, don't cry over it--accidents will happen. I
didn't aim to hurt your feelin's, no mor'n _you_ aimed to lose the ring.
I was jest sorter flustered-like." And she patted Ruth's hand
soothingly.
Maudie, though sniffing dolefully, said no more at the moment, being
warned by a certain unaccustomed note in her father's voice that his
commands must be obeyed. But in the privacy of their room that night she
turned the thumbscrews on poor Ruth with savage pressure.
"Of course people who are just a little above paupers can lose other
people's property without worrying much about it," she remarked
sarcastically.
And Ruth, in a burst of indignation at such aspersions on her family,
answered spiritedly: "No such thing, Maudie Pratt! I intend to pay you
for your ring, of course."
"Pay me?" Maudie jeered, scornfully. "O yes, it's likely you'll ever be
able to pay me a hundred dollars for my diamond!"
Ruth gasped--the amount was so far above her calculation. But her
fighting blood was up, for the honor of her family was at stake.
"I haven't the money on hand, but I'll certainly pay you by next
Thanksgiving," she said, with proud resolution.
And the green cardboard box at home, containing all the money she
possessed in the world, held just thirty-five cents!
*CHAPTER V*
*The Silver Spur Bakery*
"Elizabeth," whispered Ruth, tragically, "I have done something too
awful to tell--and I've got to tell it."
"I just knew you were dreadfully worried," whispered back Elizabeth,
sympathetically. "I knew it as soon as you came back this morning.
Mother thought you were just plain tired, but I felt in my bones that
there was worse. What is it?"
The two girls were in their room getting ready for bed, tiptoeing and
whispering to avoid waking Mrs. Spooner, who was sleeping in the next
room.
"It's this, Elizabeth--" Ruth's whisper was a wail of despair--"I've
lost Maudie Pratt's--diamond--ring: And I've promised to pay her for it
by Thanksgiving! Elizabeth, it cost--a hundred--dollars! And you know
I've got just thirty-five cents in all the world!"
Then, Elizabeth remaining dumb from astonishment, she went on to tell
the whole story.
"And, O, Elizabeth, how _will_ I ever get the money?" she ended,
despairingly.
"You mustn't tell mother, Ruth," warned Elizabeth, with that sweet,
elder-sister air that had grown on her since Mary went away; "she's got
worries enough already with father away, and everybody afraid it's going
to be a dry year. I can't think just now of any way to earn a hundred
dollars quick. I'll sleep on it--maybe I'll dream of a way. One
thing's certain; you've got to keep your word, for the credit of the
family."
"I was just sure you'd feel that way about it, Elizabeth. What on earth
would we do without you!" sighed Ruth, gratefully.
Secure in Elizabeth's ability to find a way, she nestled down among her
pillows and went peacefully to sleep. And indeed she needed it sorely,
after the miserably wakeful night she had spent with Maudie Pratt.
Elizabeth did not dream at all. She lay awake so long trying to think
up some miraculous way by which Ruth and she might earn a hundred
dollars, that when she did fall asleep her slumber was entirely too deep
for dreams to enter--so deep indeed that it took the warning rattle of
the alarm-clock to wake her in time to get the early breakfast necessary
for Roy and Jonah.
"Did you think of anything, Elizabeth?" asked Ruth anxiously, as she,
too, sprang out of bed at the alarm-clock's warning. And Elizabeth was
obliged to confess that she hadn't yet.
"But don't you worry," she soothed, "I'll think of a way. Let's ask
Roy, as soon as we get a chance; somehow I feel sure he could help."
It was evening before they found an opportunity to take Roy into their
confidence, down at the milk-pen. Milking had been one of the girls'
recognized duties before he came, since then he had forbidden them to
interfere with the chores, declaring them to be men's work.
Roy set the foaming pails on the fence, turned out the little bunch of
milk-pen calves kept to lure home the cows from the open range, and
regarded the girls with a grave face.
"I should call that a tough proposition," he said thoughtfully, "but not
impossible. In fact it seems that 'most anything's possible if you work
hard enough for it. How about cooking, Ruth? You're a dandy on 'pie'n
things'. Every ranch round here would buy your truck if it was properly
advertised."
"That's just it!" jubilated Elizabeth, "advertise! Ruth, we'll put up a
sign-board at the road gate: 'Bread, Doughnuts and Pies for Sale.'
Every cowboy that passes will see it, and every single one will buy. I
never saw a boy or man that wasn't hungry."
"Elizabeth has a great head," nodded Roy, approvingly, "that's the
ticket, Ruth. I'll paint the sign-board to-night and to-morrow you begin
baking--money!"
Ruth breathed a sigh of relief. "I just can't thank you enough, Roy,"
she declared gratefully. "I'll bake day and night if I can just pay
Maudie Pratt for that hateful ring!"
Mrs. Spooner was rather bewildered when her young folks--the Babe
excepted, begged earnestly for permission to make some money by going
into the bakery business.
"We can't tell you just now what it's for, mother," explained Ruth.
"Only that it's for something important. You'll know all about it when
the right time comes."
"It seems to me that every one of you does as much work as possible,
now," doubted Mrs. Spooner. "But as Ruth's heart seems to be set upon
this extra labor, I promise not to interfere. And I won't ask any
questions about it until you see fit to tell me of your own accord."
The Babe, who had listened carefully to this conversation, beamed
hopefully upon them, seeing in the plan certain possibilities.
"_I'll_ help you, Ruth," she volunteered magnanimously. "And maybe if
you make a whole heap of money, you _might_ have enough left over to buy
a new Ivanhoe. Mine's got seven leaves lost out, right at the most
exciting part."
"Done!" agreed Roy heartily, "I promise that you shall have a new
Ivanhoe if you help. The bargain's between you and me, Baby. We'll
leave the girls out of it."
"Except to see that you earn your book," laughed Elizabeth.
That night when they were all gathered around the evening lamp, Roy
painted the sign on a smooth white board, with some of the brown paint
left over from the phaeton. Bread, he declared, was Ruth's "long suit,"
but as cowboys would scarcely like dry bread, it was cut out of the
list. Pies, however, were always acceptable. Custard being objected to
as too "squshy," they decided on mince and apple as being best for cooks
and customers. Doughnuts, of course, because everybody liked the little
fried cakes, and they could be conveniently handled. Completed, the
sign read:
"HOME-MADE DOUGHNUTS.
APPLE PIES.
MINCE PIES.
FOR SALE AT
SILVER SPUR RANCH."
"Now," decided Roy, after all the family had duly admired his handiwork,
"I'm going to Emerald early in the morning, and I'll fetch back all your
necessary supplies, down to the paper bags to hold 'em, by noon. The
McGregor ranch is shipping cattle--they'll pass here Thursday, one of
their punchers told me; that'll be day after to-morrow. You can spend
the afternoon baking and be ready for them, for I'm certain they'll buy
you out. Their range-cook's quit, and Chunky Bill's cooking for the
outfit, so they're about starved for something good to eat."
"We'll be obliged to have the first groceries charged to you, mother,"
apologized Ruth, "but we promise to pay for them ourselves."
"Very well--only don't buy too much at a time," warned Mrs. Spooner, who
was doubtful of the success of the enterprise, "until you are sure of
making sales."
"We'll succeed all right, never you fear, mumsy," asserted Roy, with
cheerful confidence. "I'll drum up trade, and Ruth's good cooking'll do
the rest."
Fuel in that woodless country was quite an item; Roy, realizing this,
brought home the next day a load of coke along with the other supplies,
all, it was agreed, to be paid for out of the proceeds of the sales.
Also he brought good news from Emerald, where he had met one of the
cowboys from the McGregor ranch, who not only confirmed the report of
the cattle passing next day, but told him that the ranch cook had quit
out there, as well as the man hired to go with the shipping outfit. He
offered to get Ruth the job of baking for the ranch until a new cook
could be procured.
"Of course I said Ruth would take the job, so he's to bring along the
order in the morning. How's that for a beginning for The Silver Spur
Bakery?"
"I see land ahead!" exulted Elizabeth, joyfully waving her big
cook-apron. "Allow me to invest you with your uniform, Mademoiselle
Chef: You will now proceed to mix the magic potions, while the Babe
kindles the fire on the Altar of Cookery known to mere mortals as the
kitchen range, and I complete the rites by rolling out the crust and
filling the tins. Know all men by these greetings, the Silver Spur
Bakery is ready for business, and Roy may go tack up the sign."
Inspired by the hope of reward, they made a frolic of the baking working
with such zeal and enthusiasm that when evening came and the chief cook
doffed her floury apron with a sigh of weary content, there were shelves
full of pies and pans full of doughnuts as a result of their labors.
Delicate pies, with crisply melting covers and toothsome "inwards," and
doughnuts that were deliciously tender and flavory.
"Just for this once we'll let everybody have a treat," decided Ruth,
generously. "We'll just make a big pot of coffee and have doughnuts and
pie for supper. I want Roy and Jonah to have a taste; they'll relish
sweets for a change."
"And I think we'd better let them fix the price, too," suggested
Elizabeth. "Men always know more about such things than we do."
Roy and Jonah were most appreciative judges, declaring that twenty-five
cents apiece was dirt-cheap for the apple, and--mincemeat costing so
much more than dried apples--fifty cents for the mince pies. The
doughnuts, being superlatively excellent, were valued at five cents
apiece, or fifty cents a dozen.
The Babe could not be kept off the porch next morning, hovering there to
watch for the McGregor outfit. Soon, like Bluebeard's sister-in-law,
she reported a cloud of dust rising--the customers were coming!
Far ahead of the herd rode a single horseman who turned in at the gate
and came galloping up to the house. The futile chuck-wagon, with its
incompetent cook, slid past unnoticed while the message from Mrs.
McGregor was delivered. She had sent a tin bread-box of ample size, and
she wanted it filled with so much bread, cake and pie, that the Silver
Spur Bakery was rather startled. She thought the amount she specified
might last them for half the week, the messenger said, and at the end of
that time she would return the empty tin box to be refilled. And the
Spooner girls were to put their own prices on their wares.
While these things were being settled two other riders from the shipping
herd came up for sample orders, and hurried into the kitchen with the
Babe and Mrs. Spooner, eager to buy something to satisfy the pangs of
hunger to which Chunky Bill's cooking had delivered them.
The stocky little Englishman who had brought Mrs. McGregor's note, and
said he would be back from Emerald on his return trip next morning for
the box, if they would have it ready for him, paused at the edge of the
porch and negotiated a more personal errand.
"And I've a little order of my own, Miss," grinned he cowboy genially.
"You see, I'm from the old country, myself, and I'm fairly longing for a
taste of plum-pudding once more. Think you're equal to making one? I'm
willing to pay your own price."
There was a note of wistful eagerness in his voice that touched Ruth's
sympathies, but a plum-pudding was, she feared, beyond her powers.
Elizabeth, seeing her hesitation, spoke promptly. "Certainly, we'll be
pleased to fill your order," she said, with business like briskness.
"And if it isn't as good as any you ever ate in England you needn't pay
for it."
"I'm sure it'll be rippin' good pudding, if you make it, miss," politely
assured the cowboy, and, with a sweeping bow, he mounted his pony and
galloped away to join the approaching herd.
As the hundreds of cattle tramped slowly by, one after another of the
attending punchers turned in at the Spooner's gate, a purchaser to the
full extent of his pocketbook.
Doughnuts and pies fairly melted away; Mrs. Spooner and the Babe filling
the bags in the kitchen while Ruth and Elizabeth delivered the goods and
received the money.
And, when they counted up the receipts that night, they found that,
deducting all expenses, there would be five dollars profit!
"_And_ the McGregor ranch to bake for!" crowed Elizabeth, joyously.
"Ruth, I plainly see land ahead!"
"I'm so relieved!" sighed Ruth, "But Elizabeth, are you sure you can
manage the pudding?"
"'In the bright lexicon of youth there's no such word as fail', little
sister," laughed Elizabeth. "_Of course_ I can bake--or boil--or steam
a pudding as well as a born Britisher! In fact, being an American
citizen, I don't see why I can't make even a better one. Let me take a
look at that old cook-book of mother's."
All the next day they baked for the McGregor ranch, besides boiling the
pudding for the Englishman. Elizabeth declared she wanted him to try it
before he paid for it, but after one glance and a hearty sniff, he
decided to pay in advance the two dollars and fifty cents which
Elizabeth had figured out as a fair price.
That it was satisfactory was fully proven when he returned for the next
baking, with orders for half-dozen more.
"I poured brandy over it and set it afire, like they do in England," he
said. "And every bloomin' puncher that tasted it is wild for more!
They call it 'The Perishin' Martyr Pie.' O, it's made a hit, all
right."
After that there was quite a run on puddings, and hardly a day passed
that the girls did not make a "Perishin' Martyr Pie"--a name that
tickled them immensely. Even the Babe learned to mix the batter, and Roy
declared he was quite an expert at boiling martyrs.
Money flowed into the little green pasteboard box, so that now there was
plenty of company for the lonely thirty-five cents it had originally
contained, when Ruth rashly decided she would pay Maudie Pratt for the
lost diamond ring. It must be admitted that as the money tide rose
Ruth's spirits fell.
"O, it would be so lovely if we were earning it for ourselves," she
lamented. "Think of the things we could buy: If we could only give it
to mother to help with the living I should be perfectly satisfied--but
to go and hand it over to Maudie Pratt for a ring she just made me put
on--"