disappeared into her own room and locked the door. She did not care even
to face her daughter just then. Soon she heard the front-door close,
and, peering between the window-curtains, she saw the station-wagon roll
away, and she was indeed glad that Mr. Dearman was taking Eva without
further ado. The girl, she noted, was dressed as she had been when she
came from the orphanage, and her own belongings were in the satchel
which had been her father’s.
Adele, having galloped home at top speed, had told the wonderful news to
her mother.
“Of course I am sorry to lose my new sister,” she ended, “but it never
would have been the same as own folks for Eva. And, just think of it,
mumsie, her very own uncle has come for her and is going to take her
back west with him.”
“I am so glad for the poor child,” Mrs. Doring replied. “And now,
Adele,” she added, “suppose you ride back and invite Eva and her uncle
to come here and stay until they leave for the west.”
“Oh, mumsie,” the girl cried with shining eyes, as she gave her mother a
bear-hug. “What nice things you do think of! I will go at once, for I am
sure they will not be long at Mrs. Green’s, and the hotel is such a
dismal place.”
Once more the girl mounted Firefly and galloped up the Lake Road. Before
long she saw the station-wagon approaching, and she waved her hat
joyously.
“Here comes Adele!” Eva exclaimed, as she looked up at her uncle with
shining eyes. Her face, which had been pale an hour before, was glowing
with rosy color. “You just can’t think how kind she has been to me,” Eva
continued. “She found me crying one day soon after I came to the
orphanage, and she has been just like a sister to me ever since, haven’t
you, Adele?” she asked gayly, as Firefly whirled around beside the
carriage.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Adele replied, not knowing in the least what her
friend was talking about. “Oh, Eva!” she cried. “I’m so happy because
now you have some own folks, and so is mumsie, and she sent me to ask
you and your uncle to come to our house and stay until you go west.”
“How nice that will be!” Eva exclaimed. “When are we going west, Uncle
Dick?”
“Just as soon as I can arrange to get a section through to Chicago.
Probably by to-morrow noon.”
“Oh, so soon?” Adele asked dolefully, as she suddenly realized what
losing Eva would mean to her. Mr. Dearman saw the troubled expression,
and he was pleased to know that his niece had so good a friend, so he
hastened to say, “Miss Adele, I do hope that you will be able to come
west and make us a long visit. We have an attractive old ranch-house and
I am sure that you would enjoy it, and, since you ride so well, perhaps
you and Eva would like to be my cow-girls.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I love that life!” Adele replied. “If mumsie will allow me
to, I will visit you next vacation.” Then she looked up anxiously as she
asked, “Would that be too soon?”
“No, indeed!” laughed Uncle Dick. “The sooner the better. The ranch
needs just such company.”
Mrs. Doring was at the front gate to greet Eva, and she repeated the
invitation which Adele had already given.
“Thank you, Mrs. Doring,” Mr. Dearman replied. “My suit-case is at the
hotel, and so I will remain there to-night, but I will gladly leave Eva
with you until morning.”
What a happy visit the two girls had that evening, as they sat in the
pretty wild-rose room! “Adele,” Eva exclaimed, as she put her arm about
her friend, “I’m almost glad now that I was sent to the orphanage, for
if I hadn’t been I would never have known you, and I do love you just as
much as I could if you were my very own sister, I do believe.”
“And we’ll never, never lose each other, will we?” Adele replied.
“Of course not!” Eva exclaimed. “How could we? We’ll write letters
often, and next summer you are to come to visit me. Your mother told
Uncle Dick that she thought that you might, if some friend happened to
be traveling west at that time.”
“Good!” Adele cried. “How I’d love to play cow-girl and dress in khaki,
with a red handkerchief about my neck! Oh, Eva, won’t it be glorious to
gallop across the desert trails?”
“It will be glorious to have you with me,” Eva replied, “but since I
have never ridden horseback, I am not sure how much I shall enjoy that.”
“You’ll love it, I know,” Eva exclaimed. Then a tender light appeared in
her eyes as she said, “Oh, Adele, just to think that I am going to have
a real home with an own relative in it; and the best, the very best, of
it is that Uncle Dick looks just as father did when he was younger. Why,
Adele, I’m so happy, so happy, that it seems as though those dreadful
days at Mrs. Green’s must have been just a dream.” Then, taking Adele’s
hand, she added, “There is one request which I have to make, and that
is, please be kind to poor Amanda.”
“I promise,” Adele replied. Then for a time the two girls, hand in hand,
sat quietly in the gathering twilight, and then Eva said softly, “I’m
thinking of my mother and of how happy she must be if she knows that at
last her little girl is to have a real home and some one to love her.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
FAREWELL TO THE ORPHANAGE
The next morning the girls woke up early. Soon after breakfast the
station-wagon appeared, and in it was Uncle Dick, who said that he would
drive Eva over to the orphanage, that she might say good-by to the
matron and to the orphans.
Mrs. Friend, they were told upon arriving, was with a sick child, but
would be down as soon as possible.
“You wait here in the office, Uncle Dick,” Eva said, “and I will go and
find poor Amanda.”
How Eva dreaded telling her friend that she was going away to the Far
West, for well she knew how deep and sincere the girl’s grief would be.
It was Saturday morning, and the orphans were busy about their tasks,
Amanda, as usual, cleaning the study-hall. When the door opened, she
looked up, and then, with an exclamation of joy, fairly flew across the
room, and, throwing her arms about Eva, she cried: “Oh, you dear, dear
Eva! Have you come back to stay? Please say that you have! I can’t live
here without you! I had made up my mind that if I couldn’t be with you
any more, I would run away.”
“Oh, Mandy!” Eva exclaimed anxiously. “You mustn’t run away! Promise me
that you will not. Mrs. Friend is so kind, and—and, I can’t stay with
you, Mandy, because I am going far away to the West.”
Then Eva drew her friend to a bench and told her the story of her
uncle’s coming.
“I’m so glad for you,” Amanda said, and then, putting her head down on
her friend’s shoulder, she burst into a torrent of tears.
“Oh, Eva!” she sobbed. “Please don’t think I am selfish enough to want
you to stay here now, but when I think that I am never, never to see you
again, and there’s _no one_ else in the whole world whom I love, I guess
it’s more than I can bear.”
“Do try to be brave, Mandy,” Eva said, tears brimming her eyes. “I’ll
write to you every week, and Adele said that she would be a friend to
you. She likes you, really she does. But come; I want you to meet my
dear Uncle Dick.”
Amanda dried her eyes and permitted her friend to lead her to the
office. There she took Mr. Dearman’s offered hand, and, looking up into
his face with a pitiful expression, she said brokenly, “I’m so glad that
Eva has an own relation.”
Then the tears came with a rush, and the girl hurried out of the room.
Going to the dormitory, she threw herself on her cot and sobbed and
sobbed.
Eva looked at her uncle with brimming eyes. “I’m the only friend Amanda
has,” she said simply, and then she told the story of the lonely
orphan’s life. “It doesn’t seem right for me to go and leave her,” Eva
added sadly.
Then all of a sudden a bright smile lighted the face of Uncle Dick, and
he exclaimed, “We won’t leave her, Eva. We’ll take her with us! The
ranch-house is big, and it will be splendid for you to have a girl
companion, for our nearest neighbor is eight miles away.”
“Uncle Dick,” Eva cried, scarcely able to believe her ears. “Do you
really mean that? Truly, may Amanda go with us? Oh, you can’t guess how
happy she will be!”
Then Eva, entirely forgetting that Mrs. Friend ought first to be
consulted, flew up-stairs to the dormitory, where she felt sure she
would find the heart-broken orphan. “Amanda!” she called joyously.
“Don’t you cry another tear. Something wonderful has happened. Uncle
Dick is going to take you, too. He suggested it all himself.”
Amanda, springing to her feet, caught her friend’s hands as she
exclaimed, “Eva Dearman, am I dreaming, or is it really true?”
“It’s really true,” the other replied. “And do hurry, dear, for we are
to take the noon train.”
Hastily Amanda washed, combed her hair, and donned her best blue alpaca
dress, and then, all of a sudden, she thought of something. “Why, Eva,”
she said, “won’t I have to ask Mrs. Friend if I may go?”
Before the other girl could reply, the matron herself appeared with such
a bright smile that the girls knew that everything must be all right.
“Eva and Amanda!” she said as she kissed one and then the other. “I am
so happy for you both. It is not customary to dismiss a child from the
Home without the approval of the board of directors, but this time I
myself will assume the responsibility.”
A few moments later the station-wagon drove away, and Eva and Amanda
waved to the matron and her remaining children until they were out of
sight. They were beginning a new life.
Adele, at the Doring gate, was surprised to see Amanda’s shining face.
Then, all at once, the truth dawned upon her, and, with a cry of joy,
she ran forward and caught the orphan’s hand as she stepped from the
carriage. “Oh, Mandy!” she cried. “You are going, too. I just know that
you are, and I’m so glad for you.”
Mrs. Doring came out, and she, too, rejoiced to hear the wonderful good
news. Then, turning to Mr. Dearman, she said: “I want you all three to
come in and have a good dinner before you start on your journey. It is
only eleven, two full hours before your train leaves. My son Jack is
here, and he will take you to the station in our car.”
Mr. Dearman, knowing that this had been planned to give Eva pleasure,
readily consented, and, paying the driver of the station-wagon
generously, with a pleasant word he dismissed him.
Jack Doring was eager to meet this man from the West about whom he had
heard so much.
Eva and Adele visited merrily as they ate the good dinner which Kate had
prepared, but Amanda was so overcome with her new joy that she could
hardly eat at all, but her black eyes were shining like stars at
midnight. Mrs. Doring, noticing this, slipped out and asked Kate to put
up a bountiful lunch that the girls might eat later on the train.
“Do tell that kind Madge Peterson all about our great good fortune,” Eva
was saying to Adele. “She was so nice to us, and I am sure that she will
be glad to hear about it. Tell her that I hope, some day, she will be in
the West and that we may meet her again.”
“Eva,” Jack said solemnly, “here you are inviting everybody else to
visit you and leaving me out. Haven’t I been nice to you? Why, the very
first evening I ever met you, I invited you to a fudge party.”
“So you did,” Eva laughingly replied. “And if it were my house, I would
surely invite you to visit us when Adele comes next summer.”
“Then you may consider yourself invited, Master Jack,” Mr. Dearman
exclaimed, “for Eva is going to be the mistress of the Bar-X Ranch, and
she may invite there whomever she pleases. Indeed, we shall be able to
find bunks for any number of young people.”
“If my sister goes West I surely ought to escort her,” Jack exclaimed,
“and protect her from train-robbers and scalping Indians!”
“Oh-h!” sighed Adele. “It will be nine whole months before next summer.
It doesn’t seem as though I could wait so long.”
“Time flies,” her mother smilingly assured her. “Before you realize it,
you will be packing your trunk and buying a ticket for—where, Mr.
Dearman?” she inquired, turning to their guest.
“Douglas is the nearest station, although some of the trains stop at
Silver Creek,” he replied. Then they all arose, and soon were seated in
the big touring-car, with Jack driving them to the station.
Adele was almost as excited as were Eva and Amanda when the shrill
whistle of the approaching engine was heard, and when the train slowed
up and stopped, there were tears in their eyes as they kissed each other
good-by, promising to write often.
“Oh, Adele,” Eva whispered in a last embrace. “You have been so good to
me, and you will never know what it has meant, because you have not lost
your mother.”
Then Uncle Dick helped the two girls into the car nearest, and they
waved from the window while the train was slowly leaving the station.
Adele turned away with a sense of loneliness, but through her tears she
saw her mother waiting for her, and, nestling close to that loved one on
the back seat of the car, she said softly, “Mumsie, dear, I feel as if I
were living in a story-book, and that one chapter was finished, and now
I am so eager to know what the next chapter will be.”
If you are also interested, you can learn the “next chapter” by reading
“Adele Doring on a Ranch.”
THE END