BY THE WAYSIDE TENT
Hardly had the three more adventurous members of the caravan party
turned their backs on their wayside tent for their trip to the far-off
gold mine, when Ruth, Jean, Olive and Frieda were seized with a furious
attack of housewifely energy. Everything was routed out of the tent and
wagon. A flapping line of blankets hung on Jim's best lasso, which was
stretched from a tree to a tent pole. Then the girls collected their
laundry and carried it down to the brook. The water of the stream was so
clear that every pebble shone under it like a jewel, and the sand was as
white as the sand of the sea. Over a shimmering pool a broad, flat rock
formed a comfortable platform.
Jean and Ruth got down on their knees on this stone, swashing their
clothes up and down and smearing them with big bars of soap, like the
laundresses in Holland, until the clear water of the brook was a mass
of iridescent soap bubbles.
Olive and Frieda rinsed and squeezed and spread the clothes out on the
grass or hung them picturesquely over the low bushes. At the end of
their labors, Frieda and Jean started a shadow dance with a big red
tablecloth which Ruth had washed none too clean. Jean flapped it from
one end, Frieda swirled it from the other; it flew up in the air like a
red balloon and collapsed just as suddenly. Ruth and Olive rested in a
patch of sunshine watching them. Suddenly Jean attempted to twist her
unwieldy scarf into graceful curves about Frieda, but instead, tripped
her up, and the little girl lay in a heap of helpless laughter on the
grass. Straightway, Jean flung herself down beside her, beginning to
unwind her long braids of hair.
"Ruth, make Frieda let me wash her hair," Jean urged. "She doesn't look
like our pretty blond baby any more, but a poor, neglected 'orfling.' I
am sure if she lies down flat on the rock, I can manage so she won't
tumble into the brook."
Frieda crawled out of Jean's embrace, looking quite unresigned to the
experience ahead of her. "You shan't do any such thing, Jean Bruce,"
she protested; "you'll get gallons of soap in my eyes and make me all
sandy."
Jean struck a dramatic attitude. "Frieda Ralston, if you will let me
make you beautiful, I will give you all my share of the gold that Jim
and Jack bring back from the mine," she exclaimed.
Frieda shook her head. "They won't bring any gold," she said firmly.
"But you'll feel lots better, Frieda," Ruth begged.
Frieda saw that the weight of opinion was against her, and, besides, she
was vain of her hair and did wish it to look pretty again, so she gave
in graciously.
"All right, Jean, if you will ride horseback with me all day to-morrow
and make Olive and Jack ride in the wagon, I guess I will let you," she
conceded.
Jean had the sleeves of her shirtwaist rolled up past her dimpled elbows
and the collar of her white blouse tucked in at the neck. She felt as
much at home by the wayside pool as she did in Rainbow Lodge. Frieda was
wrapped in a white towel like a shawl. Only once, toward the end of the
washing operation, did she utter a squeal of indignation, and Ruth and
Olive immediately ran to her rescue.
"Jean's caught a minnow in my hair," she insisted wrathfully, with her
face very red. "I saw the tiniest one sailing down the brook by me, and
then all at once it disappeared, and I am sure I can feel it wriggling
on my neck."
Ruth made a careful examination of the clean yellow hair before Frieda
would be reconciled. Then she led the small girl away to a sunshiny
spot, spreading her hair over her shoulders to dry, until she looked
like the original "Miss Goldilocks" in the old fairy tale. Frieda was
given a piece of scalloping, which she had been working on for weeks, to
keep her quiet.
"Jean," Ruth called a minute later, "do you mind staying here with
Frieda for a little while? Olive and I have to go foraging for some
chips before we can make the fire burn for luncheon, naughty Carlos
having deserted us. Do you think you can make yourself lovely and keep
an eye on things at the same time?"
Jean nodded peacefully from her throne of rocks, though a minute before
she had been hot from her exertions and angry at Frieda's ingratitude.
"Sure, as my name is Jean Bruce, I can," she answered cheerfully,
letting down the masses of her dark-brown hair. She made such a pretty
picture that Ruth watched her smilingly for a few minutes. She thought
she loved all the girls alike now, but Jack and Olive were her friends
and Jean and Frieda her children. She guessed her business of playing
chaperon to the ranch girls would not be an easy one, if ever Jean got
away from their western life into the gay society world of which she
dreamed and talked.
But no frivolous ideas of a society existence now engaged Miss Bruce's
attention, and she had no more idea of being disturbed than if she had
been the original lady in the Garden of Eden. Jean was indeed the
nut-brown maid of whom old-fashioned poets loved to write. Her hair had
no golden tones in it; only the rich browns of the autumn woods, and her
eyes matched it in color. She was paler than the other ranch girls, with
a soft, healthy pallor, although to-day a little tanned and rosier than
usual from her week's trip in the caravan.
Frieda glanced around to see Jean leaning over the water with her hair
covering her face. It did not seem worth while to disturb her, so
without a word, Frieda slipped away to their tent to search for more
thread for her sewing.
Jean could not hear very well at this time had she spoken, for the brook
made a roary, gurgling noise of its own in her ears, and her head swam
from being held upside down so long.
"Crunch, crunch, crunch." Some one was marching along the side of the
stream right in her direction. Jean did not trouble to take her hair out
of the water or to look around. Of course it could be no one but Frieda!
"Well, I never in all my life!" she heard a perfectly strange masculine
voice exclaim. "I know I have walked straight into fairy land, and you
must be the queen who has brought all this magic to pass over night, for
I passed this stream just two days ago and there wasn't a sign of a tent
or a caravan or a princess anywhere around."
Jean flung back her long, brown hair with a gasp of sheer surprise, and
the drops of crystal water showered around her like the diamonds that
fell from the mouth of the good sister in the fairy story.
"I have been washing my hair," she announced to the strange youth, and
then because her explanation was so obvious, they both laughed. "You
see, I hadn't the faintest idea anybody could turn up in this wilderness
except us," she explained, not very grammatically. "We are making a
caravan trip through the state."
"I suppose I ought to say I am awfully sorry I intruded," the young
fellow answered. "Of course, you know, I would say it if I had bobbed
into a lady's boudoir unexpectedly, but I am so glad to see some one in
this out-of-the-way place that I haven't a social fib at my disposal.
Don't you think you could let me stop to rest and perhaps talk to you a
few minutes?"
Jean drew herself up in an effort to look as dignified and
unapproachable as she felt sure Jack and Olive would have done under the
same circumstances. Far be it from either of them to engage in a
friendly conversation with a stranger, even in a trackless waste; but to
save her life Jean couldn't keep her eyes from shining mischievously.
The water was trickling down her back until her shoulders were damp
through her shirtwaist. Knowing she looked dreadfully foolish, she
could not make up her mind to do anything so unattractive as
deliberately to squeeze the water out of her hair or roll up her head in
a towel before this handsome young fellow.
He was somewhat older than Donald Harmon or Frank Kent, and his eyes
were as blue and his hair as golden as Siegfried's, thought romantic
Jean, if only he were dressed in a suit of silver armor instead of
dust-covered corduroys. The traveler had a knapsack strapped over his
shoulders and a gun in his hand; his whole appearance suggested a long
tramp.
Jean gazed at him meaningly. Ordinary intelligence might suggest to him
that he turn his back for a few minutes while she repaired her damaged
toilet, but the young fellow evidently had no such amiable intention. He
seated himself by the edge of the brook a few feet from Jean. "My name
is Ralph Merrit. I'm a mining engineer," he announced briefly.
Jean slightly inclined her wet head. "If you don't mind, I must beg you
to excuse me?" she returned as haughtily as even Jack could have
desired. Suddenly she made up her mind to snub this uncomfortably stupid
acquaintance. Off she marched in as stately a fashion as possible, when
one considers her damp, flowing locks and the fact that she had to pick
her way through their various articles of laundry spread on the grass.
Inside the security of the tent Jean rubbed her hair vigorously and
waved it energetically through the opening at the door, so it might dry
as soon as possible. Frieda stationed herself outside the tent so as to
communicate all possible information about the intruder to Jean.
"Has he gone yet?" Jean inquired for the fifth time in ten minutes.
Frieda shook her head. "He isn't going for a long time, Jeanie, I
believe," she returned. "He is sitting by our brook just as though he
never means to leave it. Now he has gotten up and is drinking some
water. Now he is washing his face," she whispered excitedly, "and is
taking a mirror out of his pocket to prink."
Jean and Frieda giggled and Jean joined her little cousin out of doors.
She had piled her hair in a loose, damp mass on top of her head, for she
was now determined, with Frieda for a chaperon, gently but firmly to
persuade the young man to leave their Adamless Eden.
"Oh," said Jean, as, holding fast to Frieda's hand, she got within
speaking distance of the stranger, "are you still here?" As there was
nothing in the world to interrupt Miss Bruce's vision of the young man,
even if she had been hopelessly near-sighted, he was obliged to
understand her meaning. Coloring hotly under his already rosy skin, he
got up.
"I thought you wouldn't mind if I rested a bit," he explained. "I have
been tramping around this neighborhood for the last two days and I was
counting on slowing up when I got back to this place. I need to fill my
water bottles. And look here, I wonder if you would give me something to
eat. You don't know it, but it is a custom for travelers of the open
road to help each other out."
Ralph Merrit knew he had never seen a girl whose expression changed as
swiftly as Jean's. A minute before, her eyes had been cool and reserved,
and now they were brimming pools of kindness.
"Oh, I am so sorry you are hungry. I'll get you something to eat right
away," she replied sympathetically. "If you will stay until Cousin Ruth
and Olive come back I know they will invite you to lunch. I am sure you
will tell how you happened to turn up here, and, of course, I can see
you are a gentleman," she ended.
Ralph's face flushed gratefully, "You are awfully kind," he murmured,
and then all at once Frieda saved the situation from further
embarrassment. Suddenly she thrust into the young man's hand a large,
red apple and a cracker, which she had concealed in her apron pocket.
She had been foraging on her own account inside their tent, but had
forgotten her provisions in the interest of Jean's discovery.
Ten minutes later Ruth and Olive appeared on the scene, swinging a large
basket of chips and pine cones between them. In amazement they set down
their basket and stared at a three cornered group composed of Jean,
Frieda and a strange young man, seated comfortably on the ground,
laughing and talking and lunching on their best jam and pickles and
bread.