Work and play were inextricably entangled upon Ganado, the play being
of a nature that fitted them better for their work, while the work,
always in the open and usually from the saddle, they enjoyed fully
as much as the play. While the tired business man of the city was
expending a day’s vitality and nervous energy in an effort to escape
from the turmoil of the mad rush-hour and find a strap from which to
dangle homeward amid the toxic effluvia of the melting pot, Colonel
Pennington plunged and swam in the cold, invigorating waters of his
pool, after a day of labor fully as constructive and profitable as
theirs.
“One more dive!” he called, balancing upon the end of the springboard,
“and then I’m going out. Eva ought to be here by the time we’re
dressed, hadn’t she? I’m about famished.”
“I haven’t heard the train whistle yet, though it must be due,” replied
Mrs. Pennington. “You and Boy make so much noise swimming that we’ll
miss Gabriel’s trump if we happen to be in the pool at the time!”
The colonel, Custer, and Grace Evans dived simultaneously, and, coming
up together, raced for the shallow end, where Mrs. Evans and her
hostess were preparing to leave the pool. The girl, reaching the hand
rail first, arose laughing and triumphant.
“My foot slipped as I dived,” cried the younger Pennington, wiping the
water from his eyes, “or I’d have caught you!”
“No alibis, Boy!” laughed the colonel. “Grace beat you fair and
square.”
“Race you back for a dollar, Grace!” challenged the young man.
“You’re on,” she cried. “One, two, three--go!”
They were off. The colonel, who had preceded them leisurely into the
deep water, swam close to his son as the latter was passing, a yard
in the lead. Simultaneously the young man’s progress ceased. With a
Comanche-like yell he turned upon his father, and the two men grappled
and went down. When they came up, spluttering and laughing, the girl
was climbing out of the pool.
“You win, Grace!” shouted the colonel.
“It’s a frame-up!” cried Custer. “He grabbed me by the ankle!”
“Well, who had a better right?” demanded the girl. “He’s referee.”
“He’s a fine mess for a referee!” grumbled Custer good-naturedly.
“Run along and get your dollar, and pay up like a gentleman,”
admonished his father.
“What do you get out of it? What do you pay him, Grace?”
They were still bantering as they entered the house and sought their
several rooms to dress.
Guy Evans strolled from the walled garden of the swimming pool to the
open arch that broke the long pergola beneath which the driveway ran
along the north side of the house. Here he had an unobstructed view of
the broad valley stretching away to the mountains in the distance.
Down the center of the valley a toy train moved noiselessly. As he
watched it, he saw a puff of white rise from the tiny engine. It rose
and melted in the evening air before the thin, clear sound of the
whistle reached his ears. The train crawled behind the green of trees
and disappeared.
He knew that it had stopped at the station, and that a slender,
girlish figure was alighting, with a smile for the porter and a gay
word for the conductor who had carried her back and forth for years
upon her occasional visits to the city a hundred miles away. Now the
chauffeur was taking her bag and carrying it to the roadster that she
would drive home along the wide, straight boulevard that crossed the
valley--utterly ruining a number of perfectly good speed laws.
Two minutes elapsed, and the train crawled out from behind the trees
and continued its way up the valley--a little black caterpillar with
spots of yellow twinkling along its sides. As twilight deepened, the
lights from ranch houses and villages sprinkled the floor of the
valley. Like jewels scattered from a careless hand, they fell singly
and in little clusters; and then the stars, serenely superior, came
forth to assure the glory of a perfect California night.
The headlights of a motor car turned in at the driveway. Guy went to
the east porch and looked in at the living room door, where some of the
family had already collected.
“Eva’s coming!” he announced.
She had been gone since the day before, but she might have been
returning from a long trip abroad, if every one’s eagerness to greet
her was any criterion. Unlike city dwellers, these people had never
learned to conceal the lovelier emotions of their hearts behind a mask
of assumed indifference. Perhaps the fact that they were not forever
crowded shoulder to shoulder with strangers permitted them an enjoyable
naturalness which the dweller in the wholesale districts of humanity
can never know; for what a man may reveal of his heart among friends
he hides from the unsympathetic eyes of others, though it may be the
noblest of his possessions.
With a rush the car topped the hill, swung up the driveway, and stopped
at the corner of the house. A door flew open, and the girl leaped from
the driver’s seat.
“Hello, everybody!” she cried.
Snatching a kiss from her brother as she passed him, she fairly leaped
upon her mother, hugging, kissing, laughing, dancing, and talking all
at once. Espying her father, she relinquished a disheveled and laughing
mother and dived for him.
“Most adorable pops!” she cried, as he caught her in his arms. “Are you
glad to have your little nuisance back? I’ll bet you’re not. Do you
love me? You won’t when you know how much I’ve spent, but oh, popsy,
I had _such_ a good time! That’s all there was to it, and oh, momsie,
who, who, _who_ do you suppose I met? Oh, you’d never guess--never,
never!”
“Whom did you meet?” asked her mother.
“Yes, little one, _whom_ did you meet?” inquired her brother.
“And he’s perfectly _gorgeous_,” continued the girl, as if there
had been no interruption; “and I danced with him--oh, such _divine_
dancing! Oh, Guy Evans! Why how do you do? I never saw you.”
The young man nodded glumly.
“How are you, Eva?” he said.
“Mrs. Evans is here, too, dear,” her mother reminded her.
The girl curtsied before her mother’s guest, and then threw her arm
about the older woman’s neck.
“Oh, Aunt Mae!” she cried. “I’m _so_ excited; but you should have
_seen_ him, and, momsie, I got the _cutest_ riding hat!” They were
moving toward the living room door, which Guy was holding open. “Guy, I
got you the splendiferousest Christmas present!”
“Help!” cried her brother, collapsing into a porch chair. “Don’t you
know that I have a weak heart? Do your Christmas shopping early--do it
in April! Oh, Lord, can you beat it?” he demanded of the others. “Can
you beat it?”
“I think it was mighty nice of Eva to remember me at all,” said Guy,
thawing perceptibly.
“What is it?” asked Custer. “I’ll bet you got him a pipe.”
“How ever in the world did you guess?” demanded Eva.
Custer rocked from side to side in his chair, laughing.
“What are you laughing at? Idiot!” cried the girl. “How did you guess I
got him a pipe?”
“Because he never smokes anything but cigarettes.”
“You’re horrid!”
He pulled her down onto his lap and kissed her.
“Dear little one!” he cried. Taking her head between his hands, he
shook it. “Hear ’em rattle!”
“But I love a pipe,” stated Guy emphatically. “The trouble is, I never
had a really nice one before.”
“There!” exclaimed the girl triumphantly. “And you know _Sherlock
Holmes_ always smoked a pipe.”
Her brother knitted his brows.
“I don’t quite connect,” he announced.
“Well, if you need a diagram, isn’t Guy an author?” she demanded.
“Not so that any one could notice it--yet,” demurred Evans.
“Well, you’re going to be!” said the girl proudly.
“The light is commencing to dawn,” announced her brother. “_Sherlock
Holmes_, the famous author, who wrote Conan Doyle!”
A blank expression overspread the girl’s face, to be presently expunged
by a slow smile.
“You are perfectly horrid!” she cried. “I’m going in to dapper up a bit
for dinner--don’t wait.”
She danced through the living room and out into the patio toward her
own rooms.
“Rattle, rattle, little brain; rattle, rattle round again,” her brother
called after her. “Can you beat her?” he added, to the others.
“She can’t even be approximated,” laughed the colonel. “In all the
world there is only one of her.”
“And she’s ours, bless her!” said the brother.
The colonel was glancing over the headlines of an afternoon paper that
Eva had brought from the city.
“What’s new?” asked Custer.
“Same old rot,” replied his father. “Murders, divorces, kidnapers,
bootleggers, and they haven’t even the originality to make them
interesting by evolving new methods. Oh, hold on--this isn’t so bad!
‘Two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of stolen whisky landed on coast,’
he read. ‘Prohibition enforcement agents, together with special agents
from the Treasury Department, are working on a unique theory that may
reveal the whereabouts of the fortune in bonded whisky stolen from
a government warehouse in New York a year ago. All that was known
until recently was that the whisky was removed from the warehouse in
trucks in broad daylight, compassing one of the boldest robberies ever
committed in New York. Now, from a source which they refuse to divulge,
the government sleuths have received information which leads them to
believe that the liquid loot was loaded aboard a sailing vessel, and
after a long trip around the Horn, is lying somewhere off the coast of
southern California. That it is being lightered ashore in launches and
transported to some hiding place in the mountains is one theory upon
which the government is working. The whisky is eleven years old, was
bottled in bond three years ago, just before the Eighteenth Amendment
became a harrowing reality. It will go hard with the traffickers in
this particular parcel of wet goods if they are apprehended, since
the theft was directly from a government bonded warehouse, and all
government officials concerned in the search are anxious to make an
example of the guilty parties.’
“Eleven years old!” sighed the colonel. “It makes my mouth water! I’ve
been subsisting on home-made grape wine for over a year. Think of
it--a Pennington! Why, my ancestors must be writhing in their Virginia
graves!”
“On the contrary, they’re probably laughing in their sleeves. They died
before July 1, 1919,” interposed Custer. “Eleven years old--eight years
in the wood,” he mused aloud, shooting a quick glance in the direction
of Guy Evans, who suddenly became deeply interested in a novel lying on
a table beside his chair, notwithstanding the fact that he had read it
six months before and hadn’t liked it. “And it will go hard with the
traffickers, too,” continued young Pennington. “Well, I should hope it
would. They’ll probably hang ’em, the vile miscreants!”
Guy had risen and walked to the doorway opening upon the patio.
“I wonder what is keeping Eva,” he remarked.
“Getting hungry?” asked Mrs. Pennington. “Well, I guess we all are.
Suppose we don’t wait any longer? Eva won’t mind.”
“If I wait much longer,” observed the colonel, “some one will have to
carry me into the dining room.”
As they crossed the library toward the dining room the two young men
walked behind their elders.
“Is your appetite still good?” inquired Custer.
“Shut up!” retorted Evans. “You give me a pain.”
They had finished their soup before Eva joined them, and after the
men were reseated they took up the conversation where it had been
interrupted. As usual, if not always brilliant, it was at least
diversified, for it included many subjects from grand opera to
the budding of English walnuts on the native wild stock, and from
the latest novel to the most practical method of earmarking pigs.
Paintings, poems, plays, pictures, people, horses, and home-brew--each
came in for a share of the discussion, argument, and raillery that ran
round the table.
During a brief moment when she was not engaged in conversation, Guy
seized the opportunity to whisper to Eva, who sat next to him.
“Who was that bird you met in L.A.?” he asked.
“Which one?”
“Which one! How many did you meet?”
“Oodles of them.”
“I mean the one you were ranting about.”
“Which one was I ranting about? I don’t remember.”
“You’re enough to drive anybody to drink, Eva Pennington!” cried the
young man disgustedly.
“Radiant man!” she cooed. “What’s the dapper little idea in that
talented brain--jealous?”
“I want to know who he is,” demanded Guy.
“Who who is?”
“You know perfectly well who I mean--the poor fish you were raving
about before dinner. You said you danced with him. Who is he? That’s
what I want to know.”
“I don’t like the way you talk to me; but if you must know, he was the
most dazzling thing you ever saw. He----”
“I never saw him, and I don’t want to, and I don’t care how dazzling he
is. I only want to know his name.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? His name’s Wilson
Crumb.” Her tone was as of one who says: “Behold Alexander the Great!”
“Wilson Crumb! Who’s he?”
“Do you mean to sit there and tell me that you don’t know who Wilson
Crumb is, Guy Evans?” she demanded.
“Never heard of him,” he insisted.
“Never heard of Wilson Crumb, the famous actor-director? Such
ignorance!”
“Did you ever hear of him before this trip to L.A.?” inquired her
brother from across the table. “I never heard you mention him before.”
“Well, maybe I didn’t,” admitted the girl; “but he’s the most dazzling
dancer you ever saw--and such eyes! And maybe he’ll come out to the
ranch and bring his company. He said they were often looking for just
such locations.”
“And I suppose you invited him?” demanded Custer accusingly.
“And why not? I had to be polite, didn’t I?”
“You know perfectly well that father has never permitted such a
thing,” insisted her brother, looking toward the colonel for support.
“He didn’t ask father--he asked me,” returned the girl.
“You see,” said the colonel, “how simply Eva solves every little
problem.”
“But you know, popsy, how perfectly superb it would be to have them
take some pictures right here on our very own ranch, where we could
watch them all day long.”
“Yes,” growled Custer; “watch them wreck the furniture and demolish
the lawns! Why, one bird of a director ran a troop of cavalry over one
of the finest lawns in Hollywood. Then they’ll go up in the hills and
chase the cattle over the top into the ocean. I’ve heard all about
them. I’d never allow one of ’em on the place.”
“Maybe they’re not all inconsiderate and careless,” suggested Mrs.
Pennington.
“You remember there was a company took a few scenes at my place a year
or so ago,” interjected Mrs. Evans. “They were very nice indeed.”
“They were just wonderful,” said Grace Evans. “I hope the colonel lets
them come. It would be piles of fun!”
“You can’t tell anything about them,” volunteered Guy. “I understand
they pick up all sorts of riffraff for extra people--I.W.W.’s and all
sorts of people like that. I’d be afraid.”
He shook his head dubiously.
“The trouble with you two is,” asserted Eva, “that you’re afraid to let
us girls see any nice-looking actors from the city. That’s what’s the
matter with you!”
“Yes, they’re jealous,” agreed Mrs. Pennington, laughing.
“Well,” said Custer, “if there are leading men there are leading
ladies, and from what I’ve seen of them the leading ladies are
better-looking than the leading men. By all means, now that I consider
the matter, let them come. Invite them at once, for a month--wire
them!”
“Silly!” cried his sister. “He may not come here at all. He just
mentioned it casually.”
“And all this tempest in a teapot for nothing,” said the colonel.
Wilson Crumb was forthwith dropped from the conversation and forgotten
by all, even by impressionable little Eva.
As the young people gathered around Mrs. Pennington at the piano in the
living room, Mrs. Evans and Colonel Pennington sat apart, carrying on a
desultory conversation while they listened to the singing.
“We have a new neighbor,” remarked Mrs. Evans, “on the ten-acre orchard
adjoining us on the west.”
“Yes--Mrs. Burke. She has moved in, has she?” inquired the colonel.
“Yesterday. She is a widow from the East--has a daughter in Los
Angeles, I believe.”
“She came to see me about a month ago,” said the colonel, “to ask my
advice about the purchase of the property. She seemed rather a refined,
quiet little body. I must tell Julia--she will want to call on her.”
“I insisted on her taking dinner with us last night,” said Mrs. Evans.
“She seems very frail, and was all worn out. Unpacking and settling is
trying enough for a robust person, and she seems so delicate that I
really don’t see how she stood it all.”
Then the conversation drifted to other topics until the party at the
piano broke up and Eva came dancing over to her father.
“Gorgeous popsy!” she cried, seizing him by an arm. “Just one dance
before bedtime--if you love me, just one!”
Colonel Pennington rose from his chair, laughing.
“I know your one dance, you little fraud--five fox-trots, three
one-steps, and a waltz.”
With his arms about each other they started for the ballroom--really
a big play room, which adjoined the garage. Behind them, laughing and
talking, came the two older women, the two sons, and Grace Evans. They
would dance for an hour and then go to bed, for they rose early and
were in the saddle before sunrise, living their happy, care-free life
far from the strife and squalor of the big cities, and yet with more of
the comforts and luxuries than most city dwellers ever achieve.