The next morning before daylight Margaret was conscious that someone
was stirring in the room next to hers. Becoming more fully awake,
she rose, drew on her kimono and slippers and tiptoed to the door
which stood open between the bedrooms of the two girls.
In the dim grey light she saw Virginia dressing. She was donning her
riding khakis.
“Why, Virg!” Megsy exclaimed in surprise, “where away so early? You
aren’t going to ride to the Three Cross Ranch, are you, to tell Babs
and Peyton about the invitation?”
“Not this morning, dear. I want to wait until we receive the
telegram from Eleanor that I may be more definite in what I have to
tell them.”
“Then, where are you going? I might guess the Papago Village, only I
know that Winona is not there.”
Virginia smiled brightly. “It’s an odd fancy, this of mine,” she
confessed, “but last night I had a dream; one of those wonderfully
realistic dreams when you feel sure that you are awake and that the
something is actually happening. I dreamed that you and I had ridden
over to Hog Canon to see the Wallace family. You know, Megsy, my
conscience has troubled me because, after our first visit, I never
went again and that was at least three weeks ago. Mrs. Wallace and
the children have so little to interest them that even a visit from
their neighbors seems like a treat.”
Megsy, seated on the edge of the bed, remarked, “I don’t believe
they feel that way about neighbors in general, but just about
Virginia Davis in particular.”
The girl, who was lacing her high riding boots, looked up with a
smile. “My friends spoil me, don’t they, Megsy. It’s well that I
know myself as I am not as they try to picture me. While I’m gone,
will you take good care of my brother? I want him to stay in bed all
morning, though you may have Sing Long make him some nice broth at
ten if you will. However, I expect to be back long before that.”
Virginia had not asked her friend to accompany her and Margaret,
though she had thought of requesting to be allowed do so, believed
that for some reason Virg wished to be alone, nor was she wrong.
It was still the grey of early dawn when the girl ran down the trail
leading to the small pasture where the ponies remained at night.
Some of them were lying down and others were tugging at an enclosed
haystack which was kept filled with the long desert grass that grew
in the valley pasture, a mile from the house. But one among them
whinnied as the girl approached and, kicking up frolicsome heels, he
cantered to the bars, knowing well that his mistress was about to
let them down. And he was right.
“Good morning, Comrade,” Virginia said as she smoothed his nose
affectionately. “Would you like to take me for a ride this morning?”
Again the pony whinnied. “Of course, I knew you would, and if you
won’t tell, I’ll tell you a secret. I wanted to be all alone just
once more before I go away. There’s something I want to think about.
It doesn’t have to be decided just yet; not until I’m nearer
eighteen, but I do want to be thinking about it.”
Then kissing the flipping ear of her apparently interested
companion, the girl started on a light run to the shed near the
great windmill where the saddles hung. Comrade, with colt-like
antics, followed. It was evident that he was trying to express the
joy that he, too, felt at being the only companion his loved
mistress desired.
They had crossed the dry creek bed and had climbed up on the high
opposite bank before a flush of rose appeared in the eastern skies.
Virginia drew rein and sat for one long silent moment watching the
loveliness of the dawning day. A fleecy white cloud near the horizon
became opalescent with first one exquisitely delicate color and then
another. Then with a burst of glory, the sun rose in sheets of
flaming gold and the desert, which had been like a gloomy waste of
desolation but a moment before, was transformed to a wide billowing
expanse of shimmering silvery-grey.
Jack rabbits fearlessly gamboled about the girl and pony; birds sang
and a wren darted from its nest in the top of a choya cactus to
contentedly return again to its wee young when it knew that the one
who was passing by was a friend of all things that live.
The trail dipped into a hollow where mesquite grass grew. Instantly
there was a whirring rush of wings and a flock of quail soared high
into the air, to whirl, a moment later, and settle back to their
former feeding place. It made the heart of the girl rejoice because
her wild neighbors seemed to know that she was one of them.
“We’re all kin folks, somehow, though we can’t understand, and why
try, since the sages of all time have not yet been able to tell how
a wee seed can fashion a flower. After all, Comrade, if we’re just
kind to every form of life we meet on this wonderful earth, I think
we will have done the best we know.”
There was a long stretch of sand to be crossed before the Seven Peak
Range would be reached and the girl, watching the trail ahead,
gradually became unconscious of all about her and was once again on
the rock in the moonlight with the lad who loved her at her side.
“I might think that I care enough to marry Peyton,” she was
thinking, “but would it be quite fair to others? There are Barbara,
and Malcolm and Margaret to consider. I just couldn’t leave my
wonderful brother all alone on V. M. My adopted sister I might take
to Three Cross with me, if I went to live there, but Malcolm—I just
can’t leave him! First he lost the mother whom he so idolized, and
then our father, and never did a boy have a closer pal than Dad was,
and now if I go, he will lose his only sister and be so lonely and
so all alone. I only wish he might meet some nice girl for whom he
could care as Peyton cares for me, but he does not seem to feel the
need of love; I mean, not that way.”
Then it was that another thought suggested. “Perhaps it is just
because he has you that he has not thought of bringing another
mistress to V. M. Perhaps he would care for someone, if he knew you
were going away.”
Suddenly there was a rush of tears in the violet eyes, and
impulsively leaning her cheek against her pony’s head, Virginia said
with a little half sob, “Oh Comrade, I don’t believe after all that
I really care for Peyton as much as I should, for I can’t bear the
thought of leaving my very own home where Mother and Dad were so
happy and where I have been so loved. I can’t think of any other
girl I would want there, but just Margaret, and, of course, she
would want to go with me.”
Then looking up with a smile that flashed through the tears she held
out her arms to the shining sky. “Little Mother,” she said softly,
as though she were really addressing someone, “I am forgetting that
you told me to let my life blossom as quietly and trustingly as a
flower unfolds, knowing that the right thing will come at the right
time.” Then again the girl ruminated, “How topsy-turvy would be this
universe of ours if the flowers said to themselves, ‘Dear me, I
wonder now if I’d better open up my petals to the sun; no telling
how soon clouds may come and my bloom spoiled in a storm.’
“Comrade, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to trust, and let
my life blossom as it will. What would Brother Malcolm think if he
knew that I am trying to marry him to someone whom as yet he doesn’t
know?” Then as the canon trail had been reached, Virg turned her
pony’s head that way and slowly began the ascent.