MEETING WITH NEW PEOPLE
"Jean Bruce, if you add one more item to that everlasting old list of
yours, we will have to give up our trip," Jack Ralston remarked crossly.
"Even if Jim has given us a few precious dollars to invest in our
going-away outfits, we can't buy the entire town of Laramie and cart it
across the state to the Yellowstone Park." Jack was standing in front of
her mirror trying to fasten down her shirtwaist in the back, and as a
pin had just pricked her finger, she was irritable.
"What was that funny thing you advised our buying last night, Olive?"
Jean called into the next room, ignoring her cousin's protest in the
serenest possible manner. Miss Bruce was dressed for a journey of some
sort in a pretty, dark blue suit and a cream straw hat with a pair of
jaunty blue wings atop of it. Her expression was one of demure readiness
for any great event, yet she was seated quietly at a table with a
half-filled memorandum book before her and a much-used pencil in her
hand.
Olive flitted in from the adjoining chamber with her new frock half
buttoned. "Oh, never mind, if we can't afford the thing I suggested,"
she said soothingly. "I am afraid it will cost an awful lot, but I read
that every traveler across a desert ought to have a sleeping bag to take
along. We can wrap up in our old blankets and comforts, but I thought it
would be fine to get a bag for Ruth if we could, for you know she is
such a chilly person, and if she isn't comfortable at night she will lie
awake and listen to the strange sounds of the desert that we love and
she fears."
Jack looked instantly penitent. She was never impatient with Olive, as
she sometimes was with Jean; and, besides, she had about finished
dressing and the reflection in the glass was gratifying. The ranch girls
had new spring suits sent from the East. Jack's was brown, and her
little straw toque had in it a curling feather that matched the bronze
tones in her hair.
"We will have the sleeping bag if we have to go without shoes," she
answered amiably. "But, Jean, dear, why do you have to have a bottle of
violet perfume to take with you across the plains when you have lived
for some sixteen years without one?"
"That's just the reason, Jack Ralston," Jean returned uncompromisingly.
"I wonder when you'll learn that we are not tomboys any longer and ought
to have the things other girls have. You know you are as vain of your
appearance in that suit Cousin Ruth made you get, as you can be. I must
say you do look rather well in it."
Jack kissed Jean quickly. "I am an interfering old thing," she confessed
meekly. "But please don't talk about our being nearly grown up, for it
frightens me; I am not going to be grown for years and years. Promise me
you won't say a word about my remembering that I am a girl and a fairly
elderly one the whole time we are on our caravan trip and I'll agree to
do whatever _you_ wish while we are in Laramie."
"All right. Here comes Frieda and Cousin Ruth, so it must be almost time
for us to start," Jean consented, stuffing her paper and pencil into her
shiny new traveling bag.
Jean, Jack and Olive were about to leave for the city of Laramie to
purchase the supplies for their caravan trip to the Yellowstone Park.
Several weeks had passed since Jean originated her wonderful idea, and
most of the arrangements for the journey had been completed. The Harmons
had signed the contract to rent Rainbow Lodge for the summer, and Frank
Kent had gone to Colorado, after a short visit at the ranch, threatening
to meet the girls again in some out-of-the-way place before their
holiday was over.
The girls were trying not to appear perturbed, though they were really
in a great state of excitement. For the first time in their lives they
were to spend two nights alone in a hotel. Jim could not leave the
ranch, on account of some special business; Ruth could not accompany
them, because she would not leave Frieda, who had a bad cold and was not
well enough to go. However, Mrs. Peterson, the proprietress of a
boarding place where the girls were to stay, was an acquaintance of
Jim's and had promised to act as their chaperon.
Frieda tumbled into the room at this instant, with her big blue eyes
more aggrieved than usual and her small nose distinctly pink around the
edges. It was her first experience in being left at home and she was
not happy over it. She flung her arms about her sister, and Jack leaned
over to whisper pleadingly, "Promise you won't cry when we go, baby, and
we'll bring you and Ruth the funniest surprise presents in town."
While Ruth was rearranging Jean's hat, which had slipped to one side in
the flurry of departure, and straightening Olive's long coat, the
rattling of the horses' harness and Jim's voice telling the girls to
hurry could be distinctly heard.
"Don't forget my list of medicines, Jean, and don't forget the new
toothbrushes," Ruth advised hastily. "And, Jack, please, for goodness'
sake, don't fail to keep your appointment with the Harmons at their
hotel to-morrow afternoon. As they have been good enough to wait in town
an extra week for us to give up the Lodge to them after their long trip
from New York, you ought to be willing to meet them if they wish it."
"Well, I'm not willing, Ruth," Jack demurred; "though we promise to keep
our words like ladies. I confess I am horribly embarrassed at having to
call on entire strangers with no one even to introduce us. I do devoutly
hope the men of the family won't think they have to appear, because I
am afraid enough of the mother and daughter. I suppose it is this poor
Elizabeth Harmon who is curious to see what we are like, so I presume we
will have to give her the pleasure. Imagine us, Ruth, at five to-morrow
afternoon making our bows to the rich New Yorkers. It is silly of me,
but I have taken a dislike to the entire Harmon family simply because
they are going to live in our home for a while, I suppose, though I am
anxious enough for their money for our holiday."
During Jack's monologue the girls had gone into the yard, and a few
minutes later Ruth and Frieda were almost overpowered by the fervor of
their farewell embraces. The last glimpse they had of the travelers,
Jack was standing up in their wagon, with Jean and Olive clutching at
her skirts and entirely unmindful of the grandeur of her new attire,
waving both hands and giving the familiar, long-drawn-out call of the
cowboys of the Rainbow Ranch.
The trip to Laramie was uneventful, and though the ranch girls slept
three in a bed, and talked till almost morning that they might enjoy to
the full the novelty of the experience, their first night at Mrs.
Peterson's boarding house was equally without excitement.
By eight o'clock the following morning the girls set out on their first
regular shopping expedition, and by four in the afternoon Jean sank
dejectedly down on a stool in a grocery store. "Girls," she declared
wearily, "we have shopped all day and shopped all night and shopped
again until broad daylight. At least, I feel as if we had, and if you
don't take me somewhere to rest I shall surely die." But the girls had
scrimped and saved pennies all day in order to buy the sleeping bags for
Ruth and Freida, and would not give up until they were purchased.
Poor Jean was forcibly dragged from her resting place by Olive and Jack,
and the three girls set out down the street again, gazing in all the
shop windows. "For mercy's sake, what kind of a store would keep a
sleeping bag, Olive?" Jean inquired mournfully, leaning heavily upon
Jack, who walked next her. "I have seen a punching bag in Jim's room at
the rancho, and I have heard somewhere of carpet-bags, but I have no
more idea of what a sleeping bag is like than the old man in the moon."
"Well, I don't know exactly either, Jean," Olive confessed, walking a
little in advance of her friends, with her eyes on the ground. Her
frightened "Oh!" and stumble against Jack brought the entire party to a
standstill. A young man had been marching along the street toward them
in an entirely abstracted state of mind and had run into Olive.
"I beg your pardon," he stammered apologetically. "I am not a native of
this place and----"
Jack's eyes flashed with indignation and Olive flushed, with the soft
color that was peculiar to her rising in delicate waves from her throat
to her forehead, but mischievous Jean giggled. "Is it the custom to bump
into people in the place you do come from?" she inquired innocently.
"Because, crude as we are, it isn't the custom here."
Jack frowned at Jean's frivolity, indicating very plainly that Miss
Bruce was not to enter into a conversation with a stranger, but she need
not have worried, because the young man was not paying the least
attention either to her or Jean. He was staring at Olive, not rudely,
but with a curious, questioning gaze that made her drop her dark eyes
until her long, straight lashes touched her cheeks.
"I hope I didn't hurt you," the young fellow protested awkwardly. Olive
shook her head without glancing up, but the other two girls got a good
look at him. He was almost as dark as Olive herself, although he had
none of her foreign appearance, and was big and broad-shouldered, and
seemed to be an eastern college fellow, twenty or twenty-one years old.
Jack engineered her party into a near-by department store, leaving the
young man still staring after them with his hat in his hand.
"Great Scott, what a boor I was!" he exclaimed to himself a second
later. "But I never had anything strike me so all of a heap as that
girl's face in my life." And he strode away looking tremendously
puzzled.
Fortunately the brown woolen sleeping bag for Ruth was discovered in
this first shop, but by the time a smaller one was bought for Frieda, it
occurred to Jack to ask the time, as no one of them possessed a watch,
and Jean and Olive had wandered off to make new investments in motor
veils. "Ten minutes to five o'clock," the shopkeeper announced, and
Jack's heart sank to zero. All day she had been wishing that she had not
promised Ruth to keep the appointment with the Harmons, but what would
Jean and Olive do when they found they had no time to dress before their
engagement?
"Girls," a sepulchral voice whispered suddenly in Jean's ear, "we have
just ten minutes to get to the hotel to call on those dreadful Harmons,
if we rush off this minute."
Jean caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror which happened to be just
before her on the counter. Her stylish appearance of the morning had
disappeared; her hat was on one side and a smudge decorated the tip of
her piquant nose. Then she gazed disapprovingly at Jack, who was almost
as much wilted and whose hair was anything but neat. Olive's appearance
was the best, but she was unusually pale, with violet shadows under her
eyes and a soft droop to her whole body.
"Behold the Three Graces!" Jean remarked disdainfully. "Jack Ralston,
I'll not go a step to call on those people until we have had a chance to
fix ourselves up. I know they will talk all summer about how dreadful we
are if they see us first looking such frights."
"But, Jean," Jack argued, as much depressed as her cousin, "if we go
back to our boarding place and dress before we make our call we shall be
so horribly late that Mrs. Harmon probably won't see us and she may be
so offended that she will refuse to come to the Lodge this summer. Then
good-by to our caravan trip."
Jean's rebellious attitude slowly altered. "But what shall I do about
the smut on my nose, Jack?" she objected faintly.
"Rub it off with your handkerchief," Jack replied cruelly, as the three
girls made a hurried rush for a car.
"But we may meet the son of the family, and I think Donald Harmon is a
dream of a name," Jean continued mournfully, "and I did hope that one of
us would be able to make an impression on him."
Olive laughed and gave Jack's hand a conciliatory squeeze, for Jack's
face had flushed as it usually did when Jean made any such teasing
suggestion. The truth of the matter was that Jack hated to think there
was any real difference between friendship with a boy or a girl, and
Jean, though she only joked about the subject at present, cherished a
very different idea.
"It is much more important that we make ourselves agreeable to Mrs.
Harmon and her daughter," Jack answered, with her nose in the air, as
she sat down in the car, but Jean merely lifted her pretty shoulders
and gave a sly glance at Olive. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Ralston,"
she apologized. "I forgot you were a man-hater, unless one leaves Frank
Kent out of the question." This was a hateful speech of Jean's and she
deserved the speedy punishment she received.
The three ranch girls found the hotel they sought and were given the
number of Mrs. Harmon's sitting room. They hesitated for a minute
outside her door. "I don't know why I feel so nervous about going in,
just as though something dreadful was going to happen," Jack whispered
softly. "I don't even like to knock."
"I know what is troubling you, Jack," Olive murmured gently. "None of us
has confessed it to the other, but I believe we are nervous about
meeting Elizabeth Harmon. We don't know how ill she is or whether she is
even able to walk, and we are afraid we may do or say the wrong thing."
"I am sure you won't, Olive," Jack returned, as she summoned courage to
knock at the closed door. The girls thought they heard a faint response
from the inside, and walked slowly into the room, hesitating for a
moment because of the sudden change from daylight to almost complete
darkness. The blinds at the windows were drawn closely down, and there
was no light except that which shone from two rose-colored candles that
burned on the tall mantel-piece. No one seemed to be in the room as Jean
started blindly forward. Olive put out her hand to stop her, but she was
not in time, for at the same instant Jean plunged blindly into a small
table loaded with teacups, and the quiet room echoed with the noise of
crashing china and embarrassed exclamations from poor Jean.
The next moment Jack and Olive saw a fragile figure rise up from an
immense leather chair and swing herself toward them on a single crutch.
She was so thin and delicate and dressed in such an exquisite clinging
white gown that she looked like the ghost of a girl, the only color
about whom was the mass of shining red-gold hair that hung in a loose
cloud over her shoulders.
"Oh, I am so sorry and ashamed!" Jean murmured miserably, her brown eyes
filling with tears, as she surveyed the havoc she had wrought.
"Please don't mind; it was all my fault." Elizabeth Harmon put out a
small, hot hand and touched Jean's fingers shyly. "I know I ought not
to have had the room so dark when you came in, but I have a fancy for
meeting people for the first time in the soft candle light."
Elizabeth spoke the last words gently and Jack tried to conceal it, but
her hostess knew that the girl with the sympathetic warm gray eyes
understood why she preferred to meet strangers in a semi-darkness.
Elizabeth was not a pretty girl. Her eyes were too pale a blue and she
looked too ill for beauty; besides, her face had a wilful and unhappy
expression, and yet, in spite of these defects, she had a curious kind
of grace and charm.
Jean and Olive were trying vainly to pick up the shattered teacups, so
it was Jack who first saw Elizabeth Harmon's dilemma. She had walked
across the room toward them, but she was not strong enough to get back
to her chair alone and she was too sensitive to ask for help. Jack put
her arm about her hostess, without waiting for her permission, and led
her to a chair, then she sat down on a little spindle-legged stool near
her, feeling shy and confused.
"You shouldn't have helped me; I hate to have people do things for me,"
Elizabeth remarked rudely. "I could have walked back to my chair
perfectly well by myself. Please do sit down, everybody; you make me
feel dreadfully nervous. Mother would join us if she knew you were
here."
The ranch girls were embarrassed by their hostess' ungracious manner,
but they could not be really angry with her. Jean and Olive wondered why
she didn't let her mother know of their arrival. Again Jack guessed the
truth. Elizabeth could not get across the room to the bell and would not
ask one of them to ring it for her. After a few moments of uncomfortable
silence, Elizabeth bent over toward Jack, whispering softly: "Forgive my
being so hateful, and thank you for helping me. I have wanted dreadfully
to know you girls, but I'm afraid you'll think I am so spoiled you won't
have anything to do with me. Will you please ring the bell?"
Jack moved quietly across the room, but before she reached the bell the
door flew open, admitting a big fellow with flashing white teeth. He
stopped in amazement at the sight of the three visitors. Jean and Jack
recognized him at once as the young man who had stared at Olive so
curiously after running into her on the street.