“Where, Oh where shall we take my brother for a complete rest?”
Virginia had softly closed the door of Malcolm’s bedroom, having
told that giant of a lad that he must sleep all of the afternoon.
He had laughed at the suggestion. It did indeed seem preposterous.
In all of his nineteen years, he had never slept in the day-time.
When his sister had left him, he determined to rise, dress and steal
out of the window and down to the corral, but when he had tried to
stand, he found that he was not as strong as he had supposed, and he
was actually glad to lie down again, and, being truly weak and
weary, he was soon asleep.
Margaret looked up from her sewing. She and Virginia were planning
to cut over two of their dresses that were still pretty, but which
they had outgrown. Megsy’s was to be for six year old Jane Wallace,
while Virg was to make one for ten year old Sari.
“Are we really going to take my guardian somewhere?” she asked
eagerly, adding at once. “I do hope so, Virg! What a heavy burden of
responsibility he has had since your father died. I don’t know where
you would find another boy, only sixteen as he was then, who would
have the courage to attempt to run a big ranch and compete with men
old enough to be his father.” Margaret’s voice had a ring of
enthusiasm in which there was mingled much of admiration and perhaps
something more.
But no praise of her brother seemed to the listener to be more than
he deserved. Seating herself on the window seat, she took from a
basket, (which had been made in the Indian village), a pretty gold
brown dress. Holding it up, she asked: “Megsy, don’t you think this
especially suits little Sari? There’s a glint of gold in that brown
hair of hers and I’m not at all sure but that there is in her
thoughtful eyes as well.” Her companion nodded. “I’m glad I have
outgrown this rose colored muslin,” Margaret added. “Janey will just
love it, and she’ll look like a little wild rose-bud in it. I think
she’s the sweetest child, and Oh Virg, now since that nice Gordon
Traylor helped Mr. Wallace to perfect his water locating device that
forlorn family in Hog Canon won’t be so poor, will they?”
But Virginia shook her head as though she were not at all sure that
immediate prosperity would follow. “Of course they have water now on
their place, but water won’t buy cattle, nor food, nor clothes. I
fear that prosperity is still far removed. Unless,” Virg had dropped
her sewing on her lap and was gazing thoughtfully out of the window,
“unless Mr. Wallace can induce some rich men to be pardners with
him. Without capital, he cannot make his invention of much value to
him.”
“Hark, what’s all the shouting?” Margaret looked up to inquire. “It
sounds like wild Indians let loose. Isn’t it a shame, whatever it
is, for it surely will waken Malcolm and we did so want him to
sleep.”
Virginia had leaped to the door to see who was coming. “Oh, good,”
she cried. “It’s Babs and Betsy and Peyton no less. Of course they
don’t know about brother and so would not think of being quiet.”
Skipping out on the wide veranda, Megsy and Virg waved to the three
who were galloping down the mesa trail, but they had ceased their
shouting, having correctly interpreted Virg’s signal when she put
her fingers to her lips.
“Is anyone sick?” Barbara inquired as she dismounted and gave the
mistress of V. M. a girlish hug.
The other two listened anxiously. “Yes, that is, not exactly sick,
but I’ll tell you all about it when you come in. There’s Patsy
Mahoy.” The small Irish boy came on a run when Virg beckoned, and he
was proud indeed when she asked him to take the three ponies to the
corral. “Now we’ll go in and I’ll tell you what has happened. My,
Betsy, you and Babs look flushed and warm. It’s pretty hot riding so
far in the sun. Sit down, everybody, and I’ll go to our cooling
cellar and bring up some nice lemonade that Megsy and I made only an
hour ago, thinking that brother might like some every now and then.”
“Let me get it,” Margaret was on her feet as she spoke. “You can
tell the story of the mine much better than I can.” And so Virg took
the chair her adopted sister had vacated and told to anxious
listeners how, when she and Margaret had returned from the Three
Cross Ranch, there had been no one at all at V. M. Then from poor
frightened Mrs. Mahoy they had learned of the cave-in over at the
mine.
“Oh Virg!” Babs cried in alarm. “Your brother wasn’t hurt, was he?”
“No, thank heaven, not really hurt,” the girl replied with fervent
gratitude, “but he was buried in that smothering place for several
hours. Uncle Tex thinks there must have been an air current
somewhere, or Malcolm could not have lived until they blasted.”
“Blasted!” Peyton repeated in surprise. “That was taking a big
chance, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed! I shudder to think of it now, but then, when it was
the only thing that could possibly save my brother, it had to be
done of course.”
“And you say he wasn’t hurt in the least?”
“Not hurt, but he is so weak that he cannot stand alone, or rather
he could not then, and now he is asleep I am sure.” Then turning to
the listening lad, Virginia asked, “Peyton, where would you suggest
that brother be taken to have as complete a rest as he needs. I
would like to go to some place where even the scenery would be
different and where he couldn’t see a cow or a cowboy or anything
that would suggest his own occupation.”
For a thoughtful moment the lad looked steadily into the questioning
eyes of the girl he loved. “Virginia,” he said at last, “if I were
as tired as Malcolm is, I know where I would want you to take me.”
If there was an emphasis on the pronoun, it was unnoticed by the
others, but a sudden flush in the cheeks of Virginia and a tender
light in the eyes of the lad told more than mere words could.
But when the girl spoke, it was as though her only thought had been
her brother’s welfare, as, indeed, it really had been.
“Once, in the days of my rambling life,” it was the first time that
Peyton had ever referred to the time when he had run away from home
because his father was unkindly severe, “I boarded the train in
Boston and went to the end of the line, so to speak, and found
myself in paradise, if ever there was one on this earth of ours.”
“Oh, then you must have been in California,” Margaret leaned forward
to exclaim. “That, of course, would be the end of the line if you
were crossing the continent, for there is nothing beyond but ocean.
I went there once with Mother when she was trying to get well, and
Oh, how wonderful it is! I’ve often hoped that I might go again,
although I would not want to revisit the same place, not where
little Mother and I were together.”
“Of course not, dear,” the thoughtful Virginia had slipped an arm
about her adopted sister. Then glancing again at the lad who seldom
looked at anything or anyone but her, she asked. “Then you think
California the best place for us to take brother for a vacation and
to get back his strength?”
“I do indeed. That’s where I’d want to go. Hark!” the lad lifted a
finger and listened. “I think I hear Malcolm calling.”
“Oh yes, he must have awakened.” Virginia was skipping toward the
closed door at the opposite end of the long living room. “If he is
awake Peyton, I will call you.” Then the door opened and closed
again. The lad walked to the window and looked out. How all of the
brightness of the room had seemed to vanish when Virginia left it,
he was thinking. Then he rebuked himself, for dearly he loved his
pretty little “Dresden China” sister. He had heard the girls call
her that, because she seemed so breakable and withal so exquisitely
pink and blue and gold, with her fluffy sunlit curls, her eyes that
were like June skies and her rose-bud complexion which the winds of
the desert did not seem to want to tan. He did indeed, love her, but
his love for Virginia was different, so very different! But God had
planned it that way. Such love indeed was a gift from the Father of
them all and was to be treated reverentially, although, who could
treat it otherwise? It was with a start that the lad whirled when he
heard his name called. Virginia had returned and was standing by the
table pouring lemonade into a glass. “Brother has awakened and I
have propped him up on two pillows,” she was saying. “Will you take
this to him, Peyton, but don’t tell him as yet that we are planning
to take him away from his beloved ranch, for, if you do, he will
declare that everything will go to pieces if he isn’t here to hold
it together. We’ve got to plan a way to make him think, that, for a
time, V. M. will be better off, under different management.” Virg’s
smile, as she handed the brimming glass to the lad, was so frank and
friendly that he wondered, if, after all, it was merely comradeship
that she felt for him. Well, he could wait. He had promised never
again to mention his love for her until she was eighteen and she was
but seventeen now. However hard it might be, he meant to keep that
promise. Of one thing he was sure. Even though Virg might not care
for him in the big way yet, neither did she love any other lad. When
the door had closed behind Peyton, Betsy cried. “Oh good, here comes
Slim from the station and he has the Mail Bag.”