Therewas no sign of the other trampers when Blue Bonnet and Knight reached the little grotto; and descending to the Big Spring they found even that charming spot deserted.
Blue Bonnet looked around in surprise.
"Do you suppose we've missed them on the way down?" Raising her voice she gave her ranch-call—"Ho, ye ho, ho!"
"—ho ho!" the hill sent back; but no feminine or masculine voice answered the well-known notes.
Blue Bonnet, child of the open, then looked at the sun and the shadows and gave an exclamation of astonishment. "It's past noon! They've gone back to camp. My, I'll have to hurry—it's my turn to cook lunch."
She darted impetuously down the hillside, and Knight found himself compelled to move briskly in order to keep up with her. They went too fast for conversation, but once Blue Bonnet paused long enough to say over her shoulder—"You'll come to lunch, won't you?"
"Catch me refusing now I know who the cook is!" he replied gaily.
The path opened at last on the open space beforePoco Tiempo. There was sound of voices and laughter, and yes—the clink of dishes! Blue Bonnet turned a rueful face to Knight—"Do you hear that? They won't say a thing to me!"
"I am armed,—trust me to protect you," he declaimed theatrically.
They had to pass through the "kitchen" first, and there the clutter of empty pots and pans told their own story. From the dining-room the others caught sight of the tardy pair and a wild hubbub at once arose.
"Tramps!"
"Set the dogs on them!"
"Why don't you work for a living?"
Knight's eyes twinkled as he looked from Blue Bonnet's amazed countenance to the teasing faces about the table. Lunch was evidently not only ready but largely consumed.
"What are you eating so early for?" Blue Bonnet demanded.
"Early!"
"Twenty minutes past one!"
"No—!" Blue Bonnet gasped, subsiding on the end of the bench and fanning her hot face with her hat. "Now, isn't that the funniest thing?"
"I'm glad you see the point of your own joke," retorted Kitty. "We have decided to give you a week's notice to get a new place."
"I engage her on the spot," said Knight. "It's all my fault."
"We won't give her a reference," said Kitty.
"You needn't—if you'll just give me food," said Blue Bonnet. "Alec, make room for Knight beside you, will you? We're both starved. Who made the muffins?"
"Guess," said Kitty, relenting and passing her the nearly empty plate.
Sarah intercepted it. "I'll get you some hot ones." And she rose hastily.
Blue Bonnet laughed. "Now I know! Grandmother, did you help Sarah?"
Mrs. Clyde nodded. "The girls came back so hungry I thought we had better not wait for the chief cook. No one knew where you were."
"I'm going to wear a cow-bell after this," Blue Bonnet declared. "Sarah, if I could make such muffins I'd insist upon cooking every meal."
"I reckon you don't need any protection," Knight said in an undertone.
"Oh, there's safety in numbers. Wait till Amanda catches me alone! We two will have to get dinner now." She buttered her third muffin and then glanced happily around the table. "I've a lovely scheme," she hinted.
"Did you ever see any one so bowed down with penitence?" asked Kitty; adding promptly, "What's the scheme?"
"It's to invite Alec and Knight to get down logs, make us a huge bonfire and—"
"That's just like Blue Bonnet," Kitty broke in, "—she'll let you do the work and she'll do therest!"
"—and then invite them to a party," Blue Bonnet went on imperturbably.
"'She'll do the grand with a lavish hand,'" quoted Alec. "We're your men. A Party—with a big P—is what our souls have been pining for. Where shall we build the festive pyre?"
"In the open space between the two camps. There'll be no danger to the trees there and plenty of room to sit around it. I'll tell Miguel to bring up one of the wagon horses to drag logs,—I want a perfectly mammoth fire."
"You ought to have been a man, Blue Bonnet," Debby remarked, "—you would have made such a wonderful general. Your ability to put other people to work amounts to positive genius."
But Blue Bonnet had already gone in search of Miguel, with Alec and Knight in her train. For the rest of the afternoon the "General" demonstrated that she could not only put other people to work, but could work herself, to advantage. While the boys—whose forces had been augmented by the addition of Sandy, Smith, Brown and Jones—got down logs and built them into a miniature log cabin, Blue Bonnet made great preparations for theParty. She spread all her Indian blankets at a proper distance from the bonfire-to-be; distributed the buck-board seats judiciously, planning to add the dining-room benches as soon as supper was out of the way; whittled great quantities of long willow wands to a sharp point, maintaining great secrecy as to the use to which the latter were to be put; and stacked many boxes of the delectable pinoche in a convenient spot.
Hardly had these preparations been completed when Amanda announced that it was time to begin cooking dinner. Blue Bonnet looked at her aghast.
"I think it's maddening," she declared. "We are in a continual state of washing up after one meal and getting ready for another. And this is what Grandmother calls 'simplicity'—! It would be a heap—much—simpler if I could just say—'Lisa, we'll have dinner at six.' That would end it,—and what could be simpler?"
"What shall we have?" asked Amanda, considering that subject more to the point.
"Baked potatoes, then we won't have to peel them,—I'd as soon skin a rabbit. And Gertrudis cooked a leg of lamb, so that we'll only have to warm it up."
"Shall we try hot bread?" asked Amanda.
"Certainly not! Hot bread twice to-day already—we'll all have indigestion. We've stacks of loaves, and bread and maple syrup is good enoughcamp fare for any one. If we're going in for the simple life, let's be simple."
"That reminds me of something we translated in the German class," said Amanda. "'Man ist was er isst'—and it means 'one is what one eats.' And another German said 'Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are.'"
"Do you mean to tell me that if I live on angel-cake I'll grow to be angelic?" demanded Blue Bonnet.
"Hardly!" laughed Amanda. "It would take a good deal more than that! No offence, Blue Bonnet,—I like you best when you're—the other thing. The Germans are always arguing about something or other. We used to take sides in class and nearly come to blows."
"You should have taken French," said Blue Bonnet, before she thought.
"You didn't think that last March!" Amanda teased; and the next moment could have bitten her tongue out for the thoughtless speech. Blue Bonnet did not smile; it was evident that the memory of the day when all the members of the French class except herself had "cut" was still a bitter one.
"I'll wash the potatoes," Amanda offered in amend for having touched a painful chord.
"All right!" Blue Bonnet beamed acceptance of the kind intention and handed over the pan without hesitation. "I'll make up a hot fire, and we'll geteverything started and the table set,—then you and I are going to the Spring."
"Oh, are we?" asked Amanda blankly. One never knew what scheme lurked in the back of Blue Bonnet's head.
"For table decorations. I saw some ferns and wild honeysuckle near the bank, and it won't take much time to gather enough for the table."
"Decorating the table isn't 'simple,' is it?" Amanda asked rather provokingly.
"If you know anything simpler than a wildflower, I'd like to be shown it," retorted Blue Bonnet. "Come on, we must do some tall hustling."
The "tall hustling" got the table set in a rather sketchy fashion; hurried the potatoes into a scorching oven; placed the already cooked roast in the top of the same oven at the same time; and saw Blue Bonnet and Amanda headed for the Spring, bearing a fruit-jar and the camp's only carving-knife, just as Uncle Joe came up the bank with a fine string of speckled trout.
"All ready to fry, Honey," he said, holding them up proudly.
"Hide them quick!" cried Blue Bonnet in alarm, "shooing" him back towards the creek.
Used as he was to Blue Bonnet's impetuosity, this move of hers filled him with amazement. "What's the matter,—they're perfectly good trout!" he urged.
"They're lovely. But I wouldn't fry one for ten million dollars! Keep them for breakfast, Uncle Joe,—Sarah will know how to do them beautifully."
With an understanding chuckle, Uncle Joe went off to cache his string of beauties in a cool place along the creek; and Blue Bonnet and Amanda continued their quest for ferns.
As they were returning, crowned with success, they met the Señora just back from a stroll with Mrs. Judson. The three other girls were already sitting suggestively about the board.
"There," said Blue Bonnet triumphantly, as she deposited the fruit-jar in the centre of the table with its graceful ferns and honeysuckle trailing over the oil-cloth, "feast on that!"
"I call that a pretty slim dinner," said Kitty.
Blue Bonnet, disdaining the insinuation, departed rather hastily to the kitchen, drawn thither by a strong odor and a still stronger suspicion of disaster. The sheet-iron stove was red-hot. Catching up a cloth she flung open the oven door, and then backed abruptly away from the cloud of acrid yellow smoke that rolled thickly into her face.
"Oh, Blue Bonnet!" wailed Amanda. "Everything's burned to a cinder! We shouldn't have gone off."
Blue Bonnet's only reply was a violent fit of coughing. The smoke continued to pour in densebillows from the oven. "Grab the pans, quick!" she managed to choke out.
Amanda made a valiant dive through the smoke, and had just time to seize the pans from the top and bottom of the oven, when she, too, was overcome, and in the paroxysm of coughing that followed threatened to burst a blood-vessel. Finally with crimson faces and streaming eyes, both cooks gazed ruefully down on the black marbles that had been potatoes, and the charred drum-stick that had once been a leg of spring lamb.
"Keep back—no trespassing!" called Blue Bonnet as the other girls, scenting fun as well as the odor of burning things, came running from the dining-room. "This is our funeral and we don't want any mourners!" She waved them back peremptorily, at the same time screening the ruins with her apron.
The discomfited We are Sevens returned to their seats, and a moment later there came the sound of spoons being vigorously thumped on the table.
"We want dinner!" came imperiously from the hungry girls.
Amanda looked imploringly at her partner. "What shall we do?"
Blue Bonnet thought hard for a moment. All at once her brow cleared. "Here, take the meat, go find a gopher-hole and push that bone down into it as far as it will go. The potatoes can't be burnedall the way through,—we'll scrape what's left into a bowl. And I'll tell Uncle Joe I've changed my mind,—we'll have the trout for dinner. And, Amanda, you'll hurry back, won't you, and put the fish in the pan—I simply can't touch 'em!"
Each sped to fulfil her allotted task, and in an incredibly short space of time a family of gophers was sniffing about a strange object blocking their front door; and a pan of fragrant trout sputtered on top of the little stove. As Blue Bonnet set the great platter of perfectly browned fish in front of her grandmother, there was a flattering "ah!" of anticipation that repaid—almost repaid, her for the previous bad quarter of an hour. Canned pears and the cookies that should have been saved for future emergencies, completed a dinner which was voted "not half bad" by the other girls, who secretly marvelled at getting any dinner at all. No one noticed that neither Blue Bonnet nor Amanda partook of potatoes, and there proved to be ample for the rest.
"I'll wash the dishes, Amanda," Blue Bonnet offered, when at last that night-mare of a dinner was over. "I ought to walk over red-hot plowshares, or wear a hair-shirt or something as a penance for my sins of this day. Lacking both plowshares and shirt, I'll substitute dish-washing. And you may bear me witness—I'd take the hair-shirt if I had my choice!"
It was a very weary Blue Bonnet who turned the dishpan upside down and hung the dish-cloth on a bush to dry. The long tramp of the morning, the preparations for the bonfire party, and then the exhausting experience of getting dinner, had tired even her physique, which had seldom known fatigue.
"I wish we could dis-invite the company," she said to Amanda.
"So do I," groaned her partner. "Fancy having to sit around a bonfire and sing 'merrily we roll along'—! It makes me ache all over."
Later, when the inmates of both camps were gathered in a great circle about the fire, singing, jesting and story-telling, both girls forgot their weariness and might have been heard singing the same "merrily we roll along" with great zest and vocal strength.
The bonfire did its builders proud and without any preparatory sulking or coaxing burst almost at once into pillars of soaring flame. There was a backing away at first on the part of the spectators as the intense heat began to scorch the circle of faces; then a gradual drawing near again. It was not until the flames had died down and the logs were a mass of glowing coals that Blue Bonnet handed around her willow-wands. Each one was now tipped with a white ball, puffy, round and mysterious.
To most of the boys this was an innovation, and they had to be shown how to hold the white globules over the coals until they spluttered and swelled to bursting.
"Now eat them!" she commanded. There was a chary tasting and then an ecstatic cry—"Marshmallows!"
The rapidity with which the tin boxes were emptied might have appalled a less generous provider than Blue Bonnet; but she had relied upon Uncle Cliff to fill her order for marshmallows, and consequently felt no fear of "going short."
When little Bayard had consumed his ninth "moth-ball" as he persisted in calling the sweets, his mother rose to take her brood home. Mr. Judson bent to lift Joe who had fallen asleep in Sarah's arms, and then turned to Blue Bonnet. "Good-night," he said, holding out his free hand and smiling down into the girl's tired face; "this is the first time I ever partook of toasted moonshine, and I've enjoyed my initiation."
Carita kissed her impulsively. "It's the loveliest party I've ever been to," she whispered.
Blue Bonnet looked wistfully after the departing group. "Aren't families the nicest things in all the world?" she asked Sarah, as she sank on the blanket beside this member of a numerous clan.
"The very nicest." And Sarah, whose arms stillfelt the warmth of little Joe, stared into the fire with eyes that saw in the coals the picture of a family in far-off Woodford.
There were a few more songs; an eighth or ninth rendition of
"Meet me, dearest Mandy,By the water-melion vine"—
for the benefit of Amanda, who hated it, and then the rest rose reluctantly to depart.
"It's the swellest thing in the bonfire line I've ever attended," Sandy assured Mrs. Clyde; and she could excuse the phrase because of the undoubted enthusiasm of the speaker.
Half a dozen of the boys tramped away in a bunch, and there floated back to the group about the fire the rhythmic refrain of "Good-night, ladies!" until it finally died away in a sleepy murmur.
Only the older boys had lingered and they, after making arrangements for a horse-back ride on the morrow, slowly straggled away.
"Where's Blue Bonnet?" asked Alec; he was one of the last, loitering for a final word with his hostess.
"She was sitting by me a little while ago," said Sarah, looking towards the Navajo.
The spot was in shadow, but as they looked in that direction, a log fell, and a slender flame sprangup. In the light they saw Blue Bonnet, curled up on the bright blanket, with her head pillowed on her arm.
She was fast asleep.
"How'sthe Sleeping Beauty this morning?" was Alec's salutation to Blue Bonnet, when he appeared early next day in advance of the other picnickers. Blue Bonnet asleep at her own party had been a spectacle he would not soon forget; it was almost as funny as being absent from her first tea, on that memorable day in Woodford.
"The Sleeping Beauty could find it in her heart to envy Rip Van Winkle; a nap like his is just what I crave. But no,—Sarah must needs have breakfast at cock-crow," Blue Bonnet complained.
"Why, Blue Bonnet, it was after eight o'clock when I called you," returned Sarah in a grieved tone.
"Sarah didn't want breakfast mistaken for lunch again," said Amanda.
"My prophetic soul tells me that we are going to conduct ourselves like a model Sunday-school class to-day," Blue Bonnet remarked.
"What makes you think so?" asked Amanda, in whom the memory of yesterday's trials was still undimmed.
"'Well begun is half done,' you know. And thisbeginning is obnoxiously perfect." Blue Bonnet was wiping off the oil-cloth as she spoke; dishes were already washed, beds done, and all without a hitch.
"I hope our picnic won't prove to be of the Sunday-school variety," said Kitty.
"I'm sure our Sunday-school picnics at home are always very nice," Sarah said reprovingly.
"Every one to his taste!" was Kitty's airy rejoinder.
"You can make up your mind that this picnic won't be like any other you ever attended," Alec assured them. "Knight has a scheme up his sleeve that will bear watching. I wonder, Blue Bonnet, if Mrs. Clyde would mind letting us take coffee?"
Blue Bonnet reflected. "To-morrow is Sunday and we're privileged to have it for breakfast. If we have it to-day instead I'm sure she won't object. What else shall we take?"
"Only some bread, some lump sugar and a tin of milk, please," said Alec modestly.
Amanda gave a sudden exclamation of joy. "Then we won't be back to lunch,—oh, Blue Bonnet, that lets us out to-day!"
They fell upon each other rapturously.
"I think we are the ones who should rejoice," said Kitty; but her remark met with the silent scorn it deserved.
They mustered a troop of twelve, all mounted,for Knight's picnic. Riding by twos, they cantered decorously as long as the eyes of their elders followed their course; but when a turn in the road freed them from observation, there was a spurring and an urging of the wiry ponies, and away they went, recking little of the grade whether up or down.
It became a game of follow-my-leader, with Knight and Blue Bonnet heading the procession and putting their horses through a performance that would have lamed anything but a Western cow-pony. Knight finally led the way to one of the "race-paths" that abound in the hilly regions of Texas, and there began a tournament that for years lived in Sarah's memory as the most reckless exhibition of daring ever seen outside a circus-ring.
"Who made this race-track?" she asked Knight in one of the infrequent pauses in the performance.
"Nature!" He laughed at the look of incredulity with which Sarah met this assertion. In truth she had good reason to doubt his word; the smooth broad road encircling the hill, a full quarter of a mile long, edged on either side by a dense growth of cedars, seemed unmistakably to show the hand of man in its creation.
"It's the solemn truth I'm telling you," Knight insisted, "—I swear it by the mane of my milk-white steed!"
Sarah gave one glance at the dark yellow buckskinpony he rode, and then clucked impatiently to Comanche. She objected to having her faith in people imposed upon.
Knight was still laughing when Blue Bonnet came up and challenged him to a race. "My reputation for truth-telling is forever lost in Señorita Blake's estimation," he told her.
"What do you think of Sarah, anyway?" It would be curious to know just how a Western boy regarded Old Reliable.
"She's very nice," he said, with an utter absence of enthusiasm, "—but not exciting."
Blue Bonnet smiled. "And Kitty?" she continued. Perhaps it wasn't polite in a hostess to discuss her guests, but she just had to ask that.
"She's very pretty and vivacious," he replied with an increase of warmth. "She lacks only one thing to make her irresistible."
"And that?"
"Having been brought up in Texas!"
If Knight had expected a blush to follow his outspoken compliment he was disappointed. Blue Bonnet's hearty laugh showed a very healthy absence of self-consciousness in her make-up.
"My Aunt Lucinda thinks that is my very worst drawback," she declared; and then chirping to Firefly, she was off at a break-neck pace, hat bobbing, brown braid flying, her eyes alight with the excitement of the race.
"THEY ALL GATHERED GYPSY-FASHION ABOUT THE FIRE.""THEY ALL GATHERED GYPSY-FASHION ABOUT THE FIRE."
The climax of the day was the gypsy picnic. When Blue Bonnet beheld the camp-fire with the pail of coffee steaming away over the bed of coals, and saw the feast spread out informally on the ground, with wild grape leaves for plates, she gave an exclamation of delight.
"Isn't it heavenly?" she cried.
Alec laughed. "I believe, Blue Bonnet, that your idea of heaven is to live in a wickiup and subsist on mustang grapes and wild berries indefinitely,—now isn't it?"
"Exactly—except that I'd add some of the bacon Knight is preparing to give us. That's the way the cowboys cook it."
Knight had cut a dozen or more twigs having a forked branch at the tip; on the end of each he placed a slice of bacon and then handed around the "forks" ceremoniously. "I'm not going to offer you anything so dainty as toasted moonshine," he explained, "but it's a heap more substantial."
They all gathered gypsy-fashion about the fire, toasting the bacon and their faces impartially; then transferring the crisp curly brown strips to the big slices of bread, devoured them with exclamations of approval that were most grateful to the arranger of the feast. Even canned cream failed to detract from the flavor of the coffee, and they consumed great quantities of the fragrant beverage, even Sarah partaking most intemperately.
Only a lot of ponies inured to the hardships of the round-up would have remained patient through the frolics of that day, and some of these wiry ponies looked rather drooping when the picnickers turned towards camp.
Mrs. Clyde, who had been watching the road rather anxiously as the shadows began to lengthen, brightened at once when Blue Bonnet's cheery call sounded through the trees.
"Oh, Grandmother, we've had the most gorgeous time in the world!" Blue Bonnet cried, as she flung herself out of the saddle. "Did you ever see such a beautifully mussed-up crowd in all your life?"
"If that is an evidence of a 'gorgeous time' you must certainly have had one," Mrs. Clyde smiled as her glance travelled from one rumpled and spotted We are Seven to another.
"These are the only skirts we brought and mine is all spluttered up with bacon," mourned Sarah.
"I think you will all have to go to bed while I wash them," the Señora suggested laughingly.
"Grandmother, please don't let Sarah play upon your sympathies. She doesn't appreciate how becoming a little dirt is to her peculiar style of beauty. She looks almost—human." The look of pained surprise Sarah turned on her sent Blue Bonnet off in a fit of merriment. "Oh, for a picture of thatexpression!" she cried. "And that reminds me,—I told all the boys to be at the Spring in fifteen minutes. There is plenty of light for a snap-shot and I've just a few films left."
"Oh, Blue Bonnet, haven't you done enough tramping to-day?" her grandmother exclaimed. "You ought to rest."
Blue Bonnet shook her head. "I can't rest till I get that picture. I want the boys and the We are Sevens on the little rustic bridge. Now, Sarah, don't you dare tidy up till I get you just as you are. I want you to pose as Terrible Tom the Texas Terror."
That Sarah had her own opinion as to who the Texas Terror might be was shown by her expression as she relinquished her design of brushing her hair, and followed the other girls up the hill to the Big Spring.
The boys were already assembled and were now grouped on the bridge in attitudes meant to be artistic and fetching.
The rustic bridge—rather more rustic than substantial—was suspended just over a pretty waterfall, which slipped down a smooth runway of eight or ten feet into a pool all foam and spray; a charming spot for a group-picture. It required both skill and patience to get every one posed and the camera focussed; Blue Bonnet had just completed these preliminaries, when Alec upset everything by insistingthat he should be the photographer and she a member of the group. The rest supported his contention that she should be in the picture, and in the argument that followed, the chances for any picture at all grew slim.
Just then Uncle Joe appeared, and was at once pressed into service. Blue Bonnet gave explicit directions as to the precise moment at which the bulb was to be pressed, and then proceeded to join the rest who were in the agonies of trying to look pleasant.
"Do hurry, Blue Bonnet," urged Sarah nervously, "I can hear the bridge creaking."
A roar of derision followed this declaration and some of the smaller boys began stamping on the old timbers for the sheer joy of seeing poor Sarah quake. At the precise moment that Blue Bonnet stepped from the bank to her place by the rail, there was a loud report, followed by a scream.
Uncle Joe, looking up from the reflector, saw the bridge parted neatly in the middle, and the entire party shooting the chutes in a most informal manner. By the time the first boy had finished the descent, Uncle Joe was in the water fishing out the gasping victims. The pool was not deep, but the swift fall carried the smaller lads under the surface, and they came up too dazed to see the hands held out to seize them. Knight and Sandy found theirfeet at once, and with Uncle Joe formed a dam against which the others were caught like salmon in a river-trap.
Sarah was fished up by her blond braids and came up gasping, "I told you so!" before she opened her eyes.
"That's about as busy a spell as I've had for some time," Uncle Joe declared as he hauled out the last of the small boys and then clambered up the steep bank.
"You showed great presence of mind, Uncle Joe—except for one thing," said Blue Bonnet. "If you had just taken a snap-shot when the bridge broke I'd be quite happy."
"And if a few of us had drowned while he was doing it—" Kitty began ironically.
"You'd have missed being in the picture, poor souls! Well, since we're all alive, let's go break the news gently to the grown-ups." Blue Bonnet looked around the drenched, shivering group and then burst into peals of laughter.
In truth they were a sorry looking lot. Soaked to the skin, with hair and clothes dripping and bedraggled, they all looked at each other as if surprised and grieved to find themselves part of so undignified a company.
Grandmother's expression when the We are Sevens hove into sight, sent Blue Bonnet off into another gale of merriment.
"We've been shooting the chutes, Grandmother," she said with dancing eyes.
"Without a boat," added Kitty.
It took Sarah to tell the story in all its harrowing details, and at its conclusion Mrs. Clyde looked sober.
"Were you really in danger?" she asked Blue Bonnet.
"Not a bit," Blue Bonnet declared. "Sarah was the only one who came near drowning and that was because shewouldtalk under water."
Fifteen minutes later the little sheet-iron stove was red-hot, and on a hastily strung clothes-line about it hung an array of dripping garments that almost hid it from view.
"There's one comfort about all this," said Kitty, "our skirts and middies have had a much-needed bath."
"I'm afraid they won't be very clean,—cold water won't take grease out," said Sarah mournfully. "And I'd like to know—how are we going to iron them?"
They were all sitting in a circle about a blazing bonfire of Uncle Joe's building, with their streaming hair spread out to dry. Dressing-gowns and bedroom slippers had made it unnecessary to go to bed while their wardrobe hung on the line, and now that they were warm and comfortable, they weredisposed to look on the adventure of the afternoon as more of a lark than a misfortune.
"Do you recall a prophecy you made this morning, Blue Bonnet?" asked Kitty.
Blue Bonnet shook her head.
"Your 'prophetic soul' told you, if I remember rightly, that we were going to conduct ourselves like a model Sunday-school class to-day."
"Well, if anybody would promise me as much fun in Sunday-school as I've had this day, I'd never be absent or tardy!" laughed Blue Bonnet.
Sarah looked pained. "It's Sunday to-morrow," she remarked. "I wonder what Dr. Judson will take as the text of his sermon."
Blue Bonnet gave her a long, curious glance. "Do you really wonder, Sarah, about things like that?"
Sarah raised honest, serious eyes. "Why, of course, Blue Bonnet. Don't you?"
"No," she confessed, "but I do wonder—at you!"
As they sat silent for a moment about the blazing logs, Blue Bonnet had an inspiration.
"Grandmother," she asked abruptly, "are you very hungry?"
"Why—is it your turn to get dinner?" Mrs. Clyde smiled; she was shaking the water from her granddaughter's long hair, and spreading it in the warm rays of the fire.
"No, Amanda and I were to get lunch. But are you?"
"Not at all. Mrs. Judson and I had an excellent dinner at noon."
"Well, I've a splendid idea. There are heaps of hot ashes down under the logs. We can bury some potatoes there,—the cowboys cook them that way and they are delicious. Then with some devilled-ham sandwiches we could sit right here and eat, and have no tiresome dishes to wash up afterwards."
"Hear, hear!" cried Kitty and Debby.
"It's easy to see whose turn it is to wash dishes," laughed Amanda.
"It's right handsome of you, Blue Bonnet," Kitty remarked gratefully, "—especially when it wasn't your turn to officiate. I'll make the sandwiches and Debby—you get the potatoes."
That buffet supper was later pronounced the most successful meal ever prepared inPoco Tiempo.
"This is truly Bohemian," remarked Mrs. Clyde, as with a newspaper for both plate and napkin, she joined the group about the fire, "—much more so than the studio-luncheons they call Bohemian in Boston."
"Fancy anything trying to be Bohemian in Boston!" exclaimed Blue Bonnet. "They haven't a thing in common."
"They both begin with a B," said Sarah.
The girls were too surprised to laugh.
"Is that a joke, Sarah?" asked Kitty in an awestruck tone.
"Of course not,—they do, don't they?" she returned.
As the girls collapsed at this, she looked up in puzzled surprise. "I'd like to know what's so funny about that," she remarked plaintively.
"There comes Mrs. Judson," exclaimed Debby.
There was a hasty wiping of blackened fingers on newspaper napkins as the girls rose to greet this unexpected guest. The little figure approaching them seemed slighter than ever, and the gingham dress fairly trailed over the long grass. The face was hidden in the inevitable sunbonnet.
"Hello, everybody, are you dry yet?" called a cheerful voice.
"Carita!" exclaimed Blue Bonnet. "We thought you were your mother."
Carita looked down at her loosely fitting garment and laughed. "I had to wear this while my dress dried. Knight said I ought to hang out a sign—'room to let.' Mother made me wear the sunbonnet because my hair is still wet. But I said I could dry it by your fire as well as anywhere else." She tossed away the cavernous bonnet and the chestnut locks fell in a cloud about her shoulders. With her dark eyes and skin framed by the long straight hair she looked like a young Indian.
"Have a potato?" asked Blue Bonnet, spearing one with a stick and presenting it to the guest.
"Thank you." Carita took it as if this were the usual fashion of serving this vegetable, and ate it with the ease born of long experience. Suddenly she gave an exclamation. "Oh, I nearly forgot. Alec sent over something. The boys couldn't come for they've nothing to wear but blankets—they're rolled up like a lot of mummies around the fire. But Alec and Knight and Sandy have been writing something,—I think it's a letter."
"It's a poem!—oh, Blue Bonnet, you read it aloud." Kitty handed over the verses and in the flickering light they gathered close about Blue Bonnet as she read:
THE BRIDGE"We stood on a bridge in Texas,Near a camp far, far from town;We stood there in broad daylight,—'Cause there wasn't room to sit down."We posed on that bridge so rustic,To be snapped by Uncle Joe,And we smiled and looked real pleasant,Yet one heart was filled with woe."For a stream, both swift and deadly,Flowed beneath the bridgelet there,And the creaking of the timbersGave this timid maid a scare."As sweeping eddying 'neath usThe deep, dark waters rolled,She could seem to see our finish—Dashed beneath the waters cold."Yet the bridge still held, but trembled,—Gleamed the torrent chilly, vast,—And the weight of one Blue BonnetBroke the camel's back at last!"
"Who did it?" cried Blue Bonnet.
"All three helped," said Carita. "But I think Sandy did most."
"He must be cleverer than he looks," said Blue Bonnet.
"Why, don't you think he looks clever?" exclaimed Kitty, "I do."
"It wasn't clever of him to have sandy hair," Blue Bonnet declared perversely.
"As if he could help it!" said Sarah.
"We must write a 'pome,' too," said Blue Bonnet.
"We?" exclaimed Debby. "I never found two words to rhyme in all my life. You and Kitty are the only ones who ever 'drop into poetry.'"
"The muse must be partial to red hair," said Amanda. And though Kitty sniffed insultedly at this insinuation, her bright head was soon bent over a pad beside Blue Bonnet's, and after much chewing of their pencils and shrieks of laughter at impossiblerhymes, the two of them finally evolved the following:
WE ARE SEVEN"You marvel that a simple bandOf maidens, young and fair,Should linger ever on the land,Nor for the water care?"If you should ask in dulcet toneWhy for the earth they sigh,They'll weep, they'll shriek, they'll give a groan,—But they will answer why."'Last night we were a happy bunch,Last night about eleven—'Quoth you—'But why this sorry lot?How many members have you got?'They'll answer—'We Are Seven.'"'But seven are not all alive?''Yea, yea, thou trifling varlet,Though here we number only five,—Two caught a fever scarlet."'And o'er us five whose courage greatBrought us to far-off Texas,There seems to brood an awful fate,And trials sore to vex us."'To-day the bridge on which we stoodAnd posed above the rippling wave,Alas! was made of rotten woodAnd plunged us in a watery grave.'"'Then ye are dead! All five are dead!Their spirits are in heaven!''Tis throwing words away, for stillThese maidens five will have their will,And answer—'We Are Seven!'"
"I wonder what Mr. Wordsworth would say to that?" said Debby, when this effort had been heard and elaborately praised.
"He's dead," remarked Sarah. Then, ignoring Debby's snicker she continued: "It's very good, Blue Bonnet,—but you shouldn't have said that two had the scarlet fever. There's only one, really."
"Poetic license!" Kitty claimed fiercely.
"I think you are the cleverest girls I ever heard of!" Carita exclaimed. "I'm going to run right over with that poem—I can't wait for the boys to see it."
Snatching up her bonnet Carita ran back to the other camp; while the girls, quite tired out by the excitement and varied adventures of the day, prepared to go to bed. As they neared the tents there came a familiar sound from the direction of Camp Judson. It was the loud jangle of cowbells.
"Do you suppose those boys are going to eat at this time of night?" asked Sarah.
"Of course not, Sallykins," said Debby. "Don't you understand?—that's the boys applauding our poets!"
"Foronce in my life," said Blue Bonnet, with a long-drawn sigh, "I'm ready for a day of rest."
"Please don't begin to rest till you've done the dishes," begged Kitty.
Blue Bonnet tossed her head scornfully. "I wouldn't trouble trouble till trouble troubles you, Kitty-Kat. If you can go to church with as clear a conscience as mine, I'll take off my hat to you. One lapse doesn't make a sinner!"
"One?" Kitty echoed, and would have continued scathingly had not Sarah interrupted with—
"I don't see how we can go to church with such looking clothes."
"Sarah's regretting the whitepiquéskirt you wouldn't let her bring," said Kitty.
"Why, Sarah," Blue Bonnet turned a pained look on the serious young person, "I would never have believed you would be one to stay away from church for lack of an Easter bonnet."
"I didn't mention Easter—nor bonnets either," Sarah declared indignantly. "The idea,—to hearyou girls talk any one would think I was completely wrapped up in clothes!"
"Everybody is, you know—except savages," returned Blue Bonnet.
Sarah's expression at this caused Mrs. Clyde to rise hurriedly and vanish within her tent. Freed from this restraint Kitty went on wickedly:
"Anyway, Dr. Judson has been a missionary in Africa and I'm sure he'd excuse you if—"
Sarah left the table with great dignity, leaving the other girls weak with laughter.
Carita appeared a little later with her denim dress looking fresh, clean, and wrinkleless.
"It looks as if it had just been ironed," Sarah silently commented. When Mrs. Clyde called to the girls that it was time to go over to Camp Judson, Miss Blake was nowhere to be found.
The church service was held in the "Druid's Grove," a place of mingled shade and sunshine, where a little tumbling creek was the only accompaniment to the hymns, and the birds trilled an obligato. An old tree-stump served as pulpit, and here Dr. Judson talked rather than preached to his youthful congregation.
Blue Bonnet, listening to him, unconsciously let her eyes wander, as they always did in the church at Woodford, in search of the memorial window 'Sacred to the memory of Elizabeth Clyde Ashe' that was inseparably linked in her mind with religiousservice. Instead of the figure of the Good Shepherd with the lamb in his arms, the branches of the live oaks here formed a Gothic arch, in the shadow of which sat Mrs. Judson with little Joe asleep on her lap. The look on the mother's face was full of the same brooding tenderness that the artist had given to the eyes of the Shepherd of Old.
When they rose to sing, the young voices rang out clear and joyous, quite unlike the droning that too often passes for singing in a grown-up congregation.