Dorothy on a Ranch

Dolly and Alfy came across to sit on Helena’s bed and watch her dainty, slow preparations for retiring. Molly was already perched in the middle of her own white bed, hugging her knees and proclaiming for the twentieth time, at least:

“Oh! I am such a thankful girl! After I fired that rifle and saw that purple mass of stuff lying on the ground I thought I was a murderer! I did so. Yet I was mad, too, to think Wun Sing had been such an idiot as to go between me and the target.”

“Herbert claims the safest place for others, when a girl shoots, is right behind the target. But it wasn’t when Alfy hit the bull’s-eye. How did you do it, child? It was wonderful and at that distance – which Captain Lemuel fixed for himself!” said Helena, brushing out her hair preparatory to loosely braiding it.

“Oh! Nell, you’re lovely that way! In that soft nightie – you do have such lovely, lacey things. I wish Aunt Betty would buy me some like them, but she won’t. She’s too sensible, and oh! dear! I wish I had my arms around her neck this minute!”

“Put them around mine, Dolly Doodles, and quit wishin’ for things you can’t get. Do you s’pose I’ll ever do it again?” asked Alfaretta, drawing one of Dorothy’s arms about her own shoulder.

“Do what again, child?”

“Child, yourself. I mean fire right into the middle of the thing, and ‘honest Injun’, I did do it with my eyes shut. I wonder if that ain’t the rightest way to sharpshoot, anyway. The rest of you couldn’t hit it anywheres near, with your eyes open. What say?”

Molly yawned and stretched herself luxuriously, and Helena remarked:

“Molly, you make me think of a Persian kitten! She does just that when she feels particularly good.”

“Well, I ought to feel good. I didn’t kill Wun Sing. I just made a hole in his old purple blouse and I can give him another new one. If I can find one like it, and have money enough, and – and other things. If I had shot him instead of his clothes what would they have done to me? Would I have been hung by the neck till you are dead and the Lord have mercy on your soul? Would I?”

“Oh! Molly, how horrible and how wicked! That’s swearing!” cried indignant Dorothy.

“Well, I like that! I mean I don’t! I never swore a swore in my life and you’re horrid, just horrid, Dorothy Calvert, to say so,” retorted Molly, suddenly sitting up and flashing a look of scorn at her beloved chum.

“It was really swearing, you know, though you didn’t mean it.”

“It’s what the Judge says – my poor father’s one – when a man is condemned to death.”

“Aunt Betty says that any taking of the Lord’s name in vain is swearing and – ”

Foreseeing a childish squabble, due to over-excitement and fatigue, Helena gently interposed:

“That’s enough. Neither of you knows what she is talking about. They don’t hang people nowadays, they electrocute them, and Wun Sing wasn’t hurt. He was only badly scared and will keep a good distance from our rifle-range hereafter. Alfy did hit the bull’s-eye, no matter whether she meant to do it or not. We’ve had a perfectly lovely evening and a perfectly lovely summer is before us. I mean to get up, to-morrow, and see the sun rise, so – off with you, girls. Molly and I are sleepy. Good night to both of you. What friends we shall be before this summer ends!”

“Why, I thought we was now. I’m sure I don’t feel much above any of you, even if I can shoot better ’n the rest,” said practical Alfaretta, moving slowly toward the door.

A shout of laughter greeted her words and Molly indignantly retorted:

“You aren’t one bit smarter than I am. You only hit an old target and I hit a man, and we didn’t either of us mean to do it. But good night, good night. Wake early, ’cause Leslie says we’ve a great doin’s before us, to-morrow. Something better than waking up to see the sun rise. Helena’ll get over that, though. Such fine resolutions don’t last.”

“You’ll see. I – I think I shall keep a diary. Take notes of what happens up here on the Rockies. If I succeed I may – I may write a book, sometime,” said Helena.

Molly and Dolly stared, seized with sudden awe of this ambitious young person, and Alfy stared, too; but she was not impressed and her comment was a not unkindly but perfectly sincere remark:

“Why, Nell, you couldn’t do that. It takes brains to – ”

“Young ladies! I am amazed at your disturbing the house like this, after retiring hours! Lights out, or off, silence at once!” ordered Miss Milliken, appearing in their midst. And at this apparition silence did follow.

Back in their own room, Dorothy and Alfaretta pushed their little beds close together and knelt down to say their prayers. In the heart of each was an earnest petition for “poor Jim,” Dolly’s ending with the words: “And let me see his face the first thing in the morning.”

But Alfy reproved this.

“We haven’t any right to set times for things to be done and prayers to be answered, Dolly Doodles, and don’t say no more. It’s sort of saucy seems if, to ask for things and then keep thinkin’ in your insides that they won’t be give. You’ve asked and the Lord’s heard you – now get up and go to bed.”

“Oh! Alfy! I wish you had – had – a little more spiritually!” wailed Dorothy, rather stumbling over the long word but obediently rising from her knees and creeping between the snowy sheets. “And I don’t feel as if there was any use going to bed, any way. I know I shan’t sleep a wink.”

“Fiddlesticks! You just do beat the Dutch! As if great Jim Barlow hadn’t a decent head on his shoulders and needed the use o’ your ’n! He wouldn’t thank you for makin’ him out such a fool. Good night. I’m goin’ to sleep.”

Dorothy felt that this was simply heartless and sighed:

“I wish I could! But I can’t!”

Then she drew the covers about her shoulders, stared through the open window at the moonlit ground, felt the scene a trifle dazzling, and closed her lids just to rest her eyes a minute.

When she opened them again Alfaretta’s bed was empty and neatly spread. Except her own belongings the room was in perfect order for the day, the sun shone where the moonlight had been, and the cathedral clock on the cloister wall was striking —

“Oh! Oh! It’s morning! It’s late morning, too, that’s six, seven, nine o’clock! Oh! how could I sleep so? I never did before in all my life – except – well, sometimes, but I’m ashamed, I’m awfully ashamed of myself.”

As she sprang to her feet there was a tap at the door and a white-capped, white-aproned maid appeared, saying:

“Good morning, Señorita. The Señora sent me to serve you and help you about your bath. It is ready, yes, and the other señoritas have breakfasted and gone out, si. By my Lady’s orders you were not to be awakened till you roused yourself.”

“Oh! but I am sorry. I didn’t mean to do this, for I know one of Mr. Ford’s rules is early rising. I found that out at El Paraiso and – yes, yes, please do help me. But tell me, what shall I call you?”

“Anita, niña. Anita Mantez I am, from the dear City of the Angels, si. This way, carita, do not fear displeasure. They are all beloved, the fair young things, but you are nearest, dearest, so my Lady tells. For you will never be blamed, believe me.”

Dorothy made short work of her toilet and felt so refreshed by her night of sound sleep and her delightful morning bath, that the world outside seemed even lovelier than she remembered it. Also, she was hungry – so hungry! It was quite as Mr. Ford had said; that the mountain air made people almost ravenous, at first. Afterwards, one’s appetite sank to the normal and to be out and doing was the one great desire of life.

Anita led her to the refectory and served her with a dainty breakfast, disposed on exquisite “individual” dishes, and oddly enough, bearing the initial “D.” Dolly lifted a cup and stared at it, wondering while Anita glibly explained in her patois of Spanish-English, that yes, indeed, it was the Señorita’s own.

Dorothy’s heart was touched and grateful. Charming as her hosts were to all their guests, in many little ways they had singled her out as in this; and she understood without explanation from them that it was because of the part she had played in bringing together the once divided family. Very humbly and gravely she accepted these attentions, thankful in her deepest heart that she had been “inspired,” on that past winter day, to lead the father and son across the mesa to the little cabin where Gray Lady dwelt alone. It had been a daring thing to do – an “assisting Providence” – such as wise Aunt Betty wholly disapproved; but that time it had been a fortunate one for all concerned.

Now as the girl sipped her cocoa, turning the egg-shell like cup to catch the light, she wondered what she could still do to help her dear Gray Lady and to prove her own love. Then her dreaming was cut short by a hubbub of merry voices without, and, a moment later, a crowd of young folks tumbled through the big window, laughing, teasing, exhorting:

“Lazy girl! Just eating breakfast and it’s nearly time for lunch, seems if!”

“Oh! The loveliest thing in the world!” cried Molly, clapping her hands.

“Thank you,” said Dolly, demurely, lifting her face for the other to kiss.

“Oh! not you, Miss Vanity, but a beautiful thing on four legs!”

“We’re to take our choice and the white one’s mine, for – ” declared Alfaretta.

“No white one for me! Dad says we’re to do our own grooming and white ones have to be washed just like a poodle dog and – ” began Leslie.

“I had one once. His name was ‘Goodenough,’ and he was good enough, too. Could walk on its hind legs – ” interrupted Herbert.

“Oh, Dorothy! If you aren’t going to finish that buttered toast, do give it to me! I never was so hungry in all my life. I simply can’t get filled up, and – ”