The February sunshine lay warm and bright and still over Las Plumas
and the sky bent low and blue and cloudless above the town. Bright
feathered birds were darting through the orchards and trilling their
nesting songs, the peach tree buds were showing their pink noses, and
the promise of spring was everywhere. In the big, wide hall of Pierre
Delarue's house Marguerite stood beside the door of her room, talking
with Emerson Mead, while he clumsily buttoned her gloves. She was
dressed in a traveling gown, and as his glance wandered over her
figure his eyes shone with admiration. Tall though he was and superb
of physique, her head reached his shoulder and her figure matched his
in its own strength and beauty.
"Tom and Nick look as forlorn as two infant orphans," he was saying to
her. "You would think I had died instead of getting married. Nick has
hinted that he means to go on a spree, and Tom says he'll lock him up
in their room and sit on his chest for a week if he tries to make that
kind of a break."
"Do you think he will?" Marguerite asked.
"Sit on him? Yes, I think likely. He's done it before, and it's about
the only thing that will keep Nick sober when he has made up his mind
that he wants to get drunk. It's a good plan to keep Nick sober, too,
for when he gets drunk most anything's likely to happen."
"No, I meant, do you think he will get drunk?"
Emerson shrugged his shoulders. "I reckon that will depend on whether
Tom goes to sleep or not."
"Where are they?"
"Out on the porch with Bye-Bye."
They went out on the veranda where Tom and Nick were standing, and
Marguerite put a hand on the arm of each, looking up in their faces
with smiling earnestness. "I wonder," she said, "if I could ask you
boys to do something for me while we are gone?"
They turned toward her eagerly. "You bet we'll do anything you-all
want us to, Mrs.--Mrs.--" Nick tried to say "Mrs. Mead," choked a
little, and ended with "Mrs. Emerson." And "Mrs. Emerson" she was to
him and Tom from that time forth.
"What can we-all do?" asked Tom.
"Why, I've been hoping you wouldn't mind looking after Paul a little
bit for me. I am so afraid he will miss me, because I've always been
with him. The housekeeper will take good care of him, of course, but I
know he will be lonely if there is nothing to distract his mind. And I
couldn't be happy, even on my wedding journey, if I thought my little
Bye-Bye was crying for me."
"Don't you worry, Mrs. Emerson," Nick exclaimed. "We'll give him so
much fun he won't know you're gone. I'll bring my horse and take him
to ride every day."
"We'll buy all the playthings in town for him."
"We'll tote him around all the time. It'll give us something to do and
keep us out of mischief. He shan't shed a tear while you're gone."
"Here, Bye-Bye," called Tom, "come and ride on my shoulder." And
mounted on that big, high pedestal the child was marched up and down
the porch, laughing and clapping his hands. "We'll stay and amuse him
while you-all go to the depot, so he won't cry after you."
"I'll make him some reins out of my Chiny pigtail," said Nick.
"You-all go right along, Mrs. Emerson, and don't you worry once. He
shan't whimper while you're gone, and he'll have such a good time
he'll be sorry to see you come home."
Marguerite looked back from the carriage window as they drove away and
saw little Paul holding fast to the middle of Nick's precious queue,
laughing and shouting, while two tall figures attached to its ends
pranced and kicked and cavorted up and down the veranda.
THE END
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A BACHELOR HUSBAND
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WINDS OF THE WORLD
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WEBSTER: MAN'S MAN
In a little Jim Crow Republic in Central America, a man and a woman,
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CAPTAIN SCRAGGS
This sea yarn recounts the adventures of three rapscallion sea-faring
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THE LONG CHANCE
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DESERT VALLEY
A college professor sets out with his daughter to find gold. They meet
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MAN TO MAN
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THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN
Dr. Virginia Page is forced to go with the sheriff on a night journey
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JUDITH OF BLUE LAKE RANCH
Judith Sanford part owner of a cattle ranch realizes she is being
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THE SHORT CUT
Wayne is suspected of killing his brother after a violent quarrel.
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THE JOYOUS TROUBLE MAKER
A reporter sets up housekeeping close to Beatrice's Ranch much to her
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SIX FEET FOUR
Beatrice Waverly is robbed of $5,000 and suspicion fastens upon Buck
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WOLF BREED
No Luck Drennan had grown hard through loss of faith in men he had
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JUST DAVID
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THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING
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OH, MONEY! MONEY!
Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his
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SIX STAR RANCH
A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star
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DAWN
The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of
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ACROSS THE YEARS
Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of
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THE TANGLED THREADS
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THE TIE THAT BINDS
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"STORM COUNTRY" BOOKS BY GRACE MILLER WHITE
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JUDY OF ROGUES' HARBOR
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TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY
It was as Tess, beautiful, wild, impetuous, that Mary Pickford made
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THE SECRET OF THE STORM COUNTRY
The sequel to "Tess of the Storm Country," with the same wild
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FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING
A haunting story with its scene laid near the country familiar to
readers of "Tess of the Storm Country."
ROSE O' PARADISE
"Jinny" Singleton, wild, lovely, lonely, but with a passionate
yearning for music, grows up in the house of Lafe Grandoken, a
crippled cobbler of the Storm Country. Her romance is full of power
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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetters's errors;
otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's
words and intent.
End of Project Gutenberg's With Hoops of Steel, by Florence Finch Kelly