Jenny clasped her hands, as she exclaimed: “No one knows how I have always longed to have a sister. I have never had friends—girl friends, I mean—I have been Miss Dearborn’s only pupil, but often and often I have pretended that I had a sister about my own age. I would wake up in the night, the way girls do in books, and confide my secrets to a make-believe sister. Then, when I went on long tramps alone up in the foothills, I pretended that my sister was with me and we made plans together.”
The girl hesitated and glanced at her listener, suddenly abashed, fearing that the older woman would think her prattling foolish. She was amazed at the changed expression. Mrs. Poindexter-Jones was ashen gray and her face was drawn as though she were suffering. “Dear,” she said faintly, “call Miss Dane, please! I would like to go in. It was a great wrong, a very great wrong—and yet, every one meant well.”
Puzzled, indeed, the girl arose and hastened toward the house. Mrs. Poindexter-Jones must have become worse, and suddenly she was even wandering in her mind. Jenny found the nurse not far away lying in a hammock, just resting.
She hurried to her patient. The woman leaned heavily on her companion as she walked toward the house. The girl, fearing that her chattering had overtired Harold’s mother, followed penitently.
At the steps the woman turned and held out a frail hand. There were tears on her cheeks and in her eyes. “Jeanette,” she said, almost feebly, “I am very tired. Do not come again until I send for you. I want to think. I must decide what to do.”
Then, noting the unhappy expression on the sweet face of the girl, she said, ever so tenderly, “You have not tired me, dear, dear Jeanette. Don’t think that. It is something very different.” Puzzled and troubled, Jenny returned to the farm.
The news from the big house on the day following was that Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had had a relapse and was again very weak and ill. The same doctor who visited Lenora was the physician at Poindexter Arms. The son, Harold, had been sent for, and, as his examinations at the military academy were over, he would not return. That, the doctor confided to Susan Warner, was indeed fortunate, as his patient had longed to see her boy. “The most curious thing about it all,” he concluded, “is that she has not sent for her daughter, who is so near that she could reach her mother’s bedside in half an hour.”
“Not yet,” Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had said. “I wish to talk with my son. He will know what is best to do.”
Harold, arrived and went at once to his mother’s room. With infinite tenderness they greeted each other. “My dearest mother,” the lad’s tone expressed deep concern, “I was so happy when your nurse wrote that you were rapidly recovering. What has happened to cause the relapse? Have you been overdoing? Now that I am home, mother, I want you to lean on me in every way. Just rest, dearest, and let whatever burdens there are be on my broad shoulders.” With joy and pride the sick woman gazed at her boy.
“Dear lad,” she said, “you know not what you ask. The cause of my relapse is a mental one. I have done a great wrong to two people, a very great wrong, and it is too late to right it. No, I am not delirious.” She smiled up into his troubled, anxious face and her eyes were clear, even though unusually bright.
Then the nurse glided in to protest that Mrs. Poindexter-Jones would better rest before talking more with her son. But the sick woman was obstinate. “Miss Dane,” she said, “please let me do as I wish in this matter. I will take the responsibility with the doctor. I want to be alone with my boy for fifteen minutes. Then he will go away and you may come.”
The nurse could do nothing but retire, though much against her better judgment. Harold seated himself close to the bed and held one of his mother’s hands in his cool, firm clasp.
“What is it, dearest?” he asked. “What is troubling you?”
Then she told the story, the whole of it, not sparing her own wrong training of the girl, concluding with her disappointment in her adopted daughter. The lad leaned over and kissed his mother tenderly. “You meant so kindly,” he said, “when you took an orphan into your home and gave her every opportunity to make good.”
He hesitated and the woman asked: “Harold, did you know? Did you ever guess? You do not seem surprised.”
“Yes, dearest. Long ago. Not just at first, of course, for I was only five when Gwynette came into our home and she was three, but later, when I was grown, I knew that she was not my own little sister, or she would have come to us as a wee baby.”
“Of course, I might have known that you would reason it out when you were older. I wish now that you had spoken to me about it, then I could have asked your advice sooner.”
“My advice, mother?”
“Yes, dear lad. It is often very helpful to talk a problem over with someone whose point of view naturally would be different. You might have saved me from many mistakes. What I wish to ask now is this: If I can obtain the permission of the Warners (we made an agreement long years ago that the secret was never to be revealed by any of us), but if now they think it might be best, would you advise me to tell Gwynette the truth?”
The lad looked thoughtfully out of the window near. His mother waited eagerly. She had decided to abide by his advice whatever it might be. At last he turned toward her. “Knowing Gwynette’s supreme selfishness, I fear that whatever love she may have for you, mother, would be turned to very bitter hatred. She would feel that you were hurling her from a class, of which she is snobbishly proud, down into one that she considers very little better than serfdom. I hardly know how she would take it. She might do something desperate.” The boy regretted these words as soon as they were spoken. The woman’s eyes were startled and because of her great weakness she began to shiver as though in a chill. The repentant lad knelt and held her close. “Mother, dear, leave it all to me, will you? Forget it and just get well for my sake.” Then with a break in his voice, “I wouldn’t want to live withoutyou, dearest.” A sweet calm stole into the woman’s soul. Nothing else seemed to matter. She rested her cheek against her son’s head as she said softly: “My boy! For your sake I will get well.”
Harold, upon leaving his mother, went at once to his room, and, throwing himself down in his comfortable morris-chair, with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, he sat staring out of a wide picture-window. He did not notice, however, the white-capped waves on the tossing, restless sea. He was remembering all that had happened from his little boyhood, especially all that associated him with the girl he had long realized could not be his own sister.
Had he been to her the companion that he might have been, indeed that he should have been, even though he knew she was not his father’s child? No, he had really never cared for her and he had avoided her companionship whenever it was possible. Many a time he had known that she was hurt at his lack of devotion. Only recently, when he had so much preferred taking Sunday dinner at the farm, and had actually forgotten Gwyn until the haughty girl had reminded him that it was his duty to take her wherever she would like to dine, he had recalled, almost too late, that it would be his mother’s wish, and now, that his father was gone, his mother was the one person whom he loved above all others. His conclusion, after half an hour of relentless self-examination, was that he was very much to blame for Gwynette’s selfishness. If he had long ago sought her confidence, long ago in the formative years, they might have grown up in loving companionship as a sister and brother should. This, surely, would have happened, a thought tried to excuse him to himself, if she had been an own sister. But he looked at it squarely. “If my mother wanted Gwynette enough to adopt her and have her share in all things with her own son, that son should have accepted her as a sister.” Rising, he walked to the window, and, for a few moments, he really saw the wind-swept sea. Then, whirling on his heel, he snapped his fingers as he thought with a new determination. “I shall ask our mother (he purposely said ‘our’) to give me a fortnight to help Gwyn change her point of view, before the revelation is made to her. The fault, I can see now, has not been wholly her own. Mother has shown in a thousand ways that I am the one she really loves. Not that she has neglected Gwyn, but there has been a difference.” He was putting on his topcoat and cap as he made the decision to take a run up to the seminary and see how his sister was getting on.
As he neared his mother’s room, the nurse appeared, closing the door behind her so softly that the lad knew, without asking, that the invalid was asleep. Miss Dane smiled at the comely youth.
“My patient is much better since you came home. I believe you were the tonic, or the narcotic rather, that she needed, for she seems soothed and quieted.”
The lad’s brightening expression told the nurse how great was his love for his mother. She went her way to the kitchen to prepare a strengthening broth for the invalid to be given her when she should awaken, and all the while she was wondering why a son should be so devoted and a daughter seem to care so little. It was evident to the most casual observer that Gwynette cared for no one but herself.
Harold was soon in his little gray speedster and out on the highway. He thought that, first of all, he would dart into town and buy a box of Gwyn’s favorite chocolates. She could not but greet him graciously when he appeared with a gift for her. On the coast highway, near Santa Barbara, there was a roadside inn where motoring parties lunched and where the best of candies could be procured. As he was about to complete his purchase, a tall, broad-shouldered young man, with the build of a college athlete, entered carrying a suitcase. He inquired when the next bus would pass that way, and, finding that he would have to wait at least an hour, he next asked how far it was to the farm of Silas Warner. Harold stepped forward, before the clerk could reply, and said, “I am going in that direction. In fact I shall pass the farm. May I give you a lift?”
“Thanks.”
Together they left the shop and were soon speeding along the highway, neither dreaming of all that this meeting was to mean to them.
Harold was frankly curious. He had not heard of the guest at the Warner’s. Indeed, having arrived but that day he had heard nothing except his mother’s anxiety about Gwynette. Could it be possible that the fine-looking chap at his side was a friend of Jenny’s? He could easily understand that anyone, man or woman, who had once met her would, ever after, wish to be counted as one of her friends.
When they were well out in the country, the lad at the wheel turned and smiled in his frank, friendly way. “Stranger hereabouts?” he inquired.
“Yes and no,” the young man replied. “This is my third visit, though the other two could hardly be called that. I came here when the rainy season began up north to put my sister, who is not strong, in the seminary here. I hoped that your more even climate might help restore her strength. Dakota is our home state. We have a ranch there, but the winters are very severe. Sister, I am sorry to say, was not happy at the seminary, and, when she did take a severe cold, she did not recover, and so I made my second flying trip with the intention of taking her to Arizona if that seemed best, but, when I arrived her nurse told me that she believed a pleasant home atmosphere would do more for my sister than a dry air. This, I was glad to find, had already been offered to Lenora. She had met a girl, Jenny Warner is her name, and the two had become fast friends. On the very day that I arrived Miss Jenny was also going to the seminary with an invitation from her grandmother which was to make my sister a guest in their home until she should be strong enough to travel. That was two weeks ago. This, my third visit, is for the purpose of determining if Lenora is well enough to accompany me to our home in Dakota. My name is Charles Gale, and I have just completed the agricultural course connected with the state college at Berkeley.”
Harold reached out a strong brown hand which was grasped heartily by another equally strong and brown.
“Great! I’d like well to take that course. Harold Jones is my name. Mother and Sis put a Poindexter and a hyphen in the middle. Women like that sort of thing. It was mother’s maiden name. Well, here we are at the long lane that leads up to the farm.”
Charles leaned over to pick up his suitcase. “Don’t turn in. I can hike up to the house.”
“Nothing doing.” Harold swung into the narrow dirt lane. “I was planning to pay a visit to Susan Warner. She took care of me when I was a small kid, you see, and so I claim her as sort of a foster grandmother, and, as for Silas Warner, there’s no finer example of the old school farmer living, or I miss my bet.”
Charles looked interested. “I’d like to meet him. I was here such a short time on my last visit that, although I met Mrs. Warner, I did not see her good spouse.”
Harold, eager to create some sort of a stir, caused his sport siren to announce their arrival with shrill staccato notes. It had the desired effect. First of all dear old Susan Warner bustled out of the kitchen door, then from around the front corner of the house came Jenny with her friend, frail and white, leaning on her arm. Lenora’s face brightened when she saw her brother and she held out both arms to him as he leaped from the low car. Harold chivalrously sprang up on the side porch to shake hands first of all with his one time nurse, then he went to Jenny, and although he did not really frame his thought in words, he was conscious of feeling glad that it washisarrival and not that of Charles Gale which was causing her liquid brown eyes to glow with a welcome which, at least, was most friendly.
“Come in, all of you, do, and have a glass of milk and a cookie.” Grandma Sue thought of them as just big children, and, by the eagerness with which they accepted the invitation, she was evidently not far wrong.
Jenny skipped to the cooling cellar to soon return with a blue crockery pitcher brimming with creamy milk. Susan Warner heaped a plate with cookies. Charles led his sister to Grandpa Si’s comfortable armed chair near the stove. When they were all seated and partaking of the refreshments, the older of the lads said, “Sister, you are not yet strong enough to travel, I fear.”
“O, I think that I am! We could have a drawing room all of the way and I could lie down most of the time.” But even the excitement of her brother’s arrival had tired her.
Jenny went to her friend’s side and, sitting on the broad arm of the chair, she pleaded: “Don’t leave me so soon, Lenora! Aren’t you happy here with us? You’ve been getting stronger every day, and only yesterday Grandma Sue told the doctor that she hoped you would be here another fortnight, and he said, didn’t he, Grandma Sue, that it would be at least that long before you would be able to travel.”
Lenora looked anxiously at her brother. She knew that he was eager to get back to their Dakota ranch home, knowing that their father needed him and was lonely for both of them. But the young man said at once, “I believe the doctor is right. I will wire Dad tonight when I go back to the hotel that we will remain two weeks longer.” Then, turning toward the nodding, smiling old woman, he asked: “Mrs. Warner, you are quite sure that we are not imposing upon you? I could take my sister with me if——”
Susan Warner’s reply was sincerely given. “Mr. Gale,” she said, her ruddy face beaming, “I reckon there’s three of us in this old farmhouse as wishes your sister Lenora was goin’ to stay all summer. Jenny, here,” how fondly the faded blue eyes turned toward her girl, “has allays had a hankering for an own sister, and since it’s too late now for that, next best is to adopt one, and Lenora is her choice and mine, too, and Si’s as well, I reckon.”
The young man’s relief and appreciation were warmly expressed. Then he said, “Father will want us to stay under the circumstances. I will remain at the hotel——” Grandma Sue interrupted with, “I do wish we had another bedroom here. It’s a powerful way from the farm to town and Lenora will want to see you every day.”
Harold had been thoughtfully gazing at the floor. He now spoke. “Charles,” then with his half whimsical, wholly friendly smile he digressed, “you won’t mind if I call you that, will you, since we are merely boys of a larger growth,” then continued with, “Don’t decide where you will bunk, please, until I have had an opportunity to talk the matter over with my invalid mother. I’d like bully well to have you for my guest. I have a plan, a keen one if I can carry it out. I’ll not reveal it until I know.” Harold stood up, suddenly recalling that he had a duty to fulfill which was being neglected for his own pleasure. That had always been his way, he feared, when he had to choose between Gwynette and someone who really interested him.
To Mrs. Warner he said, “I’m on my way over to the seminary to see my sister. Poor kid! There are two more days of prison life for her, or so she considers it. Mother requested that she remain at the seminary until the term is over and it’s being hard for her.” Then to the taller lad, “Charles, you want to stay here with your sister until evening anyway, don’t you?”
The girl quickly put out a detaining hand, as she said, “O please do stay. I haven’t asked you a single question yet. It will take you until dark to answer half that I want to know.” The big brown hand closed over the frail one. To Harold he replied, “Yes, I’ll be here if I can get a bus to town in the evening.”
“You won’t need the bus, not if my little gray bug is in working order.” They had all risen except Lenora, and Susan Warner said hospitably, “Harry-lad, if your ma don’t need you over to the big house, come back in time for supper. I’ll make the corn bread you set such a store by.”
“Thanks, I’ll be here with bells,” the lad called as he leaped into his waiting car.
Harold’s little gray “bug,” as he sometimes called the car which he boasted was the speediest of its kind, made the long upgrade in high, and that, being a feat it had not accomplished on its last ascent, so gratified the youthful owner that he swung into the seminary grounds with a flourish. Upon seeing his sister sitting moodily in the summer-house with a novel, unread, on her knee, he ran in that direction, waving his cap gleefully.
“Hello, there, Sis!” he called. “Get on your bonnet and come for a ride. The bug is outdoing itself today.”
The girl, whose eyes were suspiciously red, turned toward him coldly. “Harold, how many times have I asked you not to call me Sis. It savors of kitchen mechanics, and, what is more, I do not wear a bonnet. Finally, I most certainly do not wish to ride in that racer of yours.”
The boy dropped down on the bench on the opposite side of the summer-house and gave a long whistle which equally aggravated his companion. Then, stretching out to be comfortable, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets, as he inquired: “Well, then, Sister Gwynette, will you enlighten me as to why your marblesque brow is darkly clouded?”
The girl’s frown deepened and she turned away from him petulantly. “You know just as well as I do that you care nothing whatever about my troubles,” she flung at him. “You wouldn’t be here now if Mother hadn’t sent you, and I’m sure I can’t see why she did. She cares no more for me than you do, or she would not force me to stay in this prison until the close of the term just for appearance sake. I’m not taking the final tests, so why should I pretend that I am?”
The boy drew himself upright and, leaning on the rustic table which was between them, he said, trying not to let his indignation sound in his voice: “Gwynette, do you know that our mother is very, very ill? She is again in bed and I could only be with her for a few moments.”
Harold paused, hoping that his announcement would cause his listener some evident concern, but there was no change in her expression, and so more coldly he continued:
“Mother said nothing whatever about her reason for asking you to remain here until the term is over, but it is my private opinion that when she did send for you, some sort of a scene was stirred up which made Mother’s fever worse. The nurse probably thought best for Mums to be undisturbed as long as possible.” Suddenly the lad sprang up, rounded the table and sat on the side toward which his petulant sister was facing. Impulsively he took her hand as he asked, not unkindly, “Gwyn, don’t you care at all whether our mother lives or dies?”
There was a sudden, startled expression in the girl’s tear-filled eyes, but, as the lad knew, the tears were there merely because of self-pity.
“Dies?” she repeated rather blankly. No one whom she had ever known had died, and she had seemed to think that those near her were immune. “Is Ma Mere going to die?”
The boy followed up what he believed to be an advantage by saying gently, “We would be all alone in the world, Gwyn, if our mother left us, and, oh, it would be so lonely.”
Suddenly and most unexpectedly the girl put her arms on the table and, burying her head upon them, she sobbed bitterly. Harold was moved to unusual tenderness. He put his arm lovingly about his sister as he hastened to say, reassuringly, “Miss Dane, the nurse, told me this morning that Mother’s one chance of recovery lay in not being excited in any way. Her fever must be kept down. We’ll help, won’t we, Gwyn?”
The girl sat up and wiped her eyes with her dainty handkerchief.
“I suppose so,” she said dully. The boy, watching her, could not tell what emotion had caused the outburst of grief. He decided not to follow it up, but to permit whatever seeds had been sown to sprout as they would.
Springing up, he exclaimed: “Snapping turtles! I forgot something I brought for you. It’s in the car.” He ran back, found the box of choice candies, returned and presented them. Gwyn was still gazing absently ahead of her. “Thanks,” she said, but without evidence of pleasure.
The boy stood in the vine-hung doorway gazing down at her. “Gwyn,” he said, “if you want to come home, I’ll be over after you tomorrow. Just say the word.”
“I prefer to wait until my mother sends for me,” was the cold answer. The lad went away, fearing that he had accomplished little.
It was five-thirty when the “bug” again turned into the long lane that led to the farmhouse near Rocky Point.
“Here comes Harold,” Jenny turned from the window to inform the other occupants of the kitchen. Grandma Sue was opening the oven to test her corn bread. Lenora was again in the comfortable armchair near the stove. For the past hour she had been asleep in the hammock out in the sun, and she felt stronger and really hungry. Charles, having been told that there was nothing that he could do to help, sat on the bench answering the questions his sister now and then asked.
Grandpa Si had not yet returned from a neighbor’s where he had gone to help repair fences.
Jenny, dressed in her white Swiss with the pink dots, had a pink butterfly bow in her hair. Her cheeks were flushed and her liquid brown eyes glowing. She was wonderfully happy. Her dear friend Lenora was to remain with her another two weeks. She was convinced that this was the sole reason for her joy. It did not remotely enter her thought that perhaps the return of Harold might be adding to her happiness.
Charles, hearing the siren call, leaped to the porch and the boys again shook hands like old friends who had not met in many a day.
Harold was plainly elated. He detained Charles on the porch long enough to tell his plan.
“I’ve been over to see Mother since I left and she is quite willing that I open up the little cabin on the cliff that used to belong to my Dad when he was young. It’s been closed since he died and I didn’t know how Mother would feel about having it occupied. But when she heard about you, she said she was glad indeed that I was to have a companion, as she knew the big house would seem lonely while she is ill, so we’ll move right over there after supper.”
“That’s great!” the Dakota boy was equally pleased. “Honest, I’ll confess it now; I did dread going to that barren Commercial Hotel, and I couldn’t afford to spend more than ten minutes at The Palms, not if I had to pay for the privilege.”
“Come on, let’s tell our good news.” Harold led the way into the kitchen where his jubilant enthusiasm was met with a like response. Lenora clapped her hands. “Oh, won’t you two boys have the nicest time! Tell us about that cabin. How did your father happen to build it?”
“I don’t believe I ever really knew. Gwyn and I were such little things when he died.” Turning to the older woman, who had dropped on the bench to rest, he asked, “Grandma Sue, you, of course, know all that happened. You were living near here, weren’t you, when my father was a boy?”
“Indeed I was. My folks had the overseein’ of a lemon grove up Live Oak Canyon way. First off I did fine sewin’ for your Grandma Jones. That’s how I come to know your family so well. But she didn’t live long arter I went there, and your grandpa was so broke up, he went to pieces sort of, right arter the funeral an’ pined away, slow like, for two years about. Your pa, Harry, was the only child, and he give up his lawin’ in the big city and come home to stay and be company for his pa. I never saw two folks set a greater store by each other, but the old man (your grandpa wasn’t really old, but grievin’ aged him), even his boy seemed like couldn’t cheer him up, he missed his good woman so. ’Twant long afore he followed her into the great beyond. That other Harold, your pa, was only twenty-two or thereabouts and he was all broke up. He didn’t seem to want to go back to the lawin’ and it was too lonesome for him to stay in the big house, so he sent the help all away, giving ’em each a present of three months’ pay. That is, he sent ’em all but Sing Long. Sing was a young Chinaman then, and he wanted to stay with your pa. That’s when he had the cabin on the cliff built. He was allays readin’, your pa was, so he filled one big room with books and with Sing Long to cook for him and take care of him, there he stayed until he was twenty-five. Then he went ’round the world and came back with a wife.”
Grandpa Si’s entrance interrupted the story. The old man was surprised to find company in the kitchen. “Wall, wall, I swan to glory!” He took off his straw hat and rubbed his forehead with his big red bandanna handkerchief. “If ’tisn’t my helper come so soon. Harry-lad, it’s good for sore eyes to see you lookin’ so young, like there wa’n’t no sech thing ahead as old age.”
Harold shook hands heartily as he exclaimed with his usual enthusiasm: “Old age! Indeed, sir, I don’t believe in it. All I have to do is to look at you and Grandma Sue to know that it doesn’t exist.” Then turning toward the young visitor, he continued: “Silas Warner, may I make you acquainted with Charles Gale?” The weather-bronzed face wrinkled into even a wider smile as the old man held a hand toward the young stranger.
“Wall, now, you’re a size bigger’n our little Lenora here, ain’t you? Tut, tut. We’ve allays boasted about how big we can grow things down here in Californy, but I reckon Dakota’s got us plumb beat. Harry, you’ll have to eat a lot to catch up with your friend.”
That youth laughingly replied that he was afraid that eating a lot would make him grow round instead of high. The old man good naturedly commented, “Wall, Harry-lad, you ain’t so much behind or below whichever ’tis, not more’n half a head, an’ you may make that up. Though ’tain’t short you be now.”
Then he began to sniff, beaming at his spouse, whose cheeks, from the heat of baking, were as ruddy as winter apples. “Ma,” he said, wagging his head from side to side and smacking his lips in anticipation, “that there smell oozin’ out of the oven sort of hits the empty spot. Cream gravy on that thick yellar cornmeal bread! Wall, boys, if there’s rich folks with finer feed ’n that I dunno what ’tis.”
He was washing at the sink pump as he talked.
“Neither do I,” Harold agreed as he sprang to help Jenny place the chairs around the table. Their eyes met and Harold found himself remembering that this lovely girl was own sister to his adopted sister. What relation then was he to Jenny? But before this problem could be solved, Grandma Sue was placing the two plates of cornbread on the table and Jenny had skipped to the stove to pour the steaming gravy into its pitcher-like bowl.
Charles led Lenora to her place, although she protested that she really could walk alone. Harold leaped to the head to draw Grandma Sue’s chair out, and then Jenny’s, while Charles did the same for his sister. Then the merry meal began. Grandpa Si told all that had happened during the day to Susan, as was his custom. Never an evening meal was begun without that query, “Wall, Si, what happened today. Anythin’ newsy?”
It didn’t matter how unimportant the event, if it interested the old man enough to tell it, he was sure of an interested listener. Indeed, two, for Jenny having been brought up to this evening program, was as eager as her grandmother to hear the chronicalings of the day, which seldom held an event that a city dweller would consider worth the recounting.
“Wall, I dunno as there’s much, ’cept Pete says the lemon crop over on that ranch whar you lived when you was a gal, Ma, is outdoin’ itself this year. Tryin’ to break its own record, Pete takes it. He’s workin’ over thar mornin’s and loafin’ arternoons, lest be he can pick up odd jobs like fence-mendin’.” Then, when the generous slices of corn bread had been served and were covered with the delicious cream gravy, there was not one among them who did not do justice to it and consider it a rare treat. After the first edge of hunger was appeased, the old man asked what kind of a year ranchers were having in Dakota. This answered, he smiled toward the frail girl. “Lenora,” he said, “yo’ ain’t plannin’ to pull out ’f here soon, air yo’? It’ll be powerful lonely for Jenny-gal, her havin’ sort of got used to havin’ a sister.” Then, turning to the smiling Charles, the old man said facetiously: “Ma an’ me sort o’ wish you an’ your Pa didn’t want Lenora. We’d like to keep her steady. Wouldn’t we, Ma?” The old woman nodded, “I reckon we would, but there’s others have the first right an’ we’ll be thankful for two weeks more.”
Directly after supper Harold said to his hostess: “Please forgive us if we eat and run. I want to move into the cabin before dark.” Then, to the old man: “I’ll be ready to start work early in the morning.”
It was just before sunset when the two boys reached the cabin on the cliff close to the high hedge which separated the farm from the rest of the estate. It was a rustic affair with wide verandas on three sides. From the long front windows there was an unobstructed view of the coast line circling toward the Rincon Mountain which extended peninsula-wise out into the ocean.
Sing Long opened the front door and beamed at them. He greeted Harold and his friend, saying good naturedly, “Me showee. Alle done.” He led the way at once upstairs. A very large bedroom was most comfortably furnished with severe simplicity. The Chinaman opened a closet door and showed Harold his clothes hanging there.
“Great!” the boy was indeed pleased to find that he was being so well cared for. “You may sleep up at the big house, just as you have been doing, Sing,” Harold told him, “but be back to prepare our breakfast by five tomorrow morning.”
The Chinaman grinned, showing spaces between yellowed teeth. “Belly early, him. Fibe ’clock.” It was quite evident that he was recalling former days when it had been hard to awaken his young master at a much later hour.
Harold laughed. “Oh, times have changed, Sing. No more late sleeping for me. Tomorrow I’m going to begin to be a farmer.”
They could hear the Chinaman chuckling as though greatly amused until he was out of the cabin. Harold at once became the thoughtful host. “I’ll budge my things along and make room for yours in the closet,” he said. “We’ll have your trunk brought over from The Commercial tomorrow.” Then, going to the window, he stood, hands thrust in pockets, looking out at the surf plunging against the rocks. For some moments he was deep in thought. Silently Charles unpacked the few things he had with him. Harold turned as the twilight crept into the room. “Dear old Dad loved this place,” he said, which showed of what he had been thinking.
“Even after he and Mother were married, when there was a crowd of gay folk up at the big house, one of Mother’s week-ends, Dad would come here and stay with his books for company most of the time. I suppose the guests thought him queer. I’m inclined to think that at first Mother did not understand, for she has often told me how deeply she regrets that she had persuaded him to give up coming down here. She wishes that instead she had given up the house parties. Oh, well, there’s a lot to regret in this old world.” Charles, knowing nothing of his new friend’s self-reproach because of having neglected his adopted sister, wondered at a remark so unlike the enthusiastic conversation of the earlier evening. The truth was that Harold was saddened by this first visit to his father’s cabin. Suddenly he clapped a friendly hand on the older lad’s shoulder and said, “But come, the prize room is downstairs. I don’t wonder Dad liked to be in it more than in any room over at the big house. I used to visit him when I was a little shaver, but the place has been locked since his death. I was ten when Dad died.”
They had descended a circling open stairway which led directly into the large room, a fleeting glance at which Charles had had on their entering.
It was indeed an ideal den for a man who loved to read. A great stone fireplace was at one end with bookcases ceiling high, on either side.
There were Indian rugs on the floor, low wall lamps that hung over comfortable wicker chairs with basket-like magazine holders at the side. A wide divan in front of the blazing fire on the hearth invited Charles, and he threw himself full length, his hands clasped under his head. “Harold, this is great,” he exclaimed. “I’ve been in such a mad rush these last days getting the finals over, packing and traveling down here, that it seems mighty good to stretch out and let go for awhile.”
“Do you smoke?” Harold asked. “If you want to, go ahead. I never learned. Dad was much opposed to smoking and even though I was so young I promised I wouldn’t, at least not until I was twenty-one.” Then, after a moment of thought, the younger lad concluded: “In memory of Dad, I shall never begin.”
“Glad to hear it, old man! If a chap doesn’t start a bad habit, he won’t have to struggle to break it when it begins to pull down his health. I much prefer to breathe fresh air myself.” Charles changed the subject. “What’s this about getting up at five o’clock to start in being a farmer? Don’t tell me, though, if you’d rather not.”
“Oh, there’s no secret to it. Sort of thought I’d like to learn how to run a farm since I am to own one.”
“Surely! But I didn’t know you were to inherit a farm. Where’s it located?”
It was evident that Charles did not know that the Rocky Point farm belonged to Harold’s mother and the boy hesitated to tell, not knowing but that the older lad would think less of the Warners and Jenny if he knew that they were what Gwyn called his “mother’s servants.” A second thought assured him that this would be very unlikely.
Simply Harold said, “Silas Warner is my mother’s overseer.”
“Oho, I understand. You’re lucky to have such a splendid man to look after your interests.” Then, “I like ranching mighty well. Dad suggested that I take up law, thought I might need it later, when—” Charles never finished that sentence, and, if Harold thought it queer, he made no comment.
They talked of college, of ambitions and plans for the future, until bed time. For the first time in his life Charles was lulled to sleep by the rhythmic breaking of the waves as the tide went out.
Grandpa Si and Grandma Sue were alone at a five o’clock breakfast. They did not wish Jenny to get up that early as there was really nothing to do, but make the morning coffee, fry the bacon and flapjacks, which constituted the farmer’s breakfast menu every day in the year.
Silas Warner often tried to persuade his good wife to sleep later, telling her that he could well enough prepare his own breakfast, but he had long since desisted, realizing that he would be depriving her of one of their happiest hours together. It was then, when they were quite alone, that they talked over many things, and this morning Susan found her hands trembling as she poured the golden brown coffee into her husband’s large thick china cup. Silas had asked for three days to meditate on the serious question of whether or not they should tell Jenny that she was not their own child, and Susan well knew that this morning she would hear his decision.
It was not until the cakes were fried and she was seated opposite him that he looked over at her with his most genial smile, and yet the silent watcher knew him so well that she could sense that he was not happy in the decision which he evidently had reached. “Pa, you think it’s best to tell, don’t you? I can sort o’ see it comin’.”
“I reckon that’s about what my ruminatin’ fetched me to, Susan. You’n me know how our gal’s hankerin’ for an own sister, and now that Lenora is goin’, she’ll be lorner ’n ever, Jenny will.” He glanced toward the closed door which led to the living room where their “gal” slept since she had given her bed to her guest. “I cal’late we’d better keep it dark though till Lenora’s gone, then sort of feel our way as how best to tell it. Thar’s time enough. While Lenora’s here, there ain’t no need for any other sister for our gal.”
Susan Warner sighed, even while she smiled waveringly. “Wall, Si, if you think it’s best, I reckon ’tis. But it’ll be powerful hard to have Jenny thinkin’ the less of us.”
The good man rose and walked around the table and placed a big gnarled hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Tut! Tut! Susy,” that was the name he had used in the courtin’ days, “our gal ain’t made of no sech clay as that. She’ll stick by us all the tighter, you see if ’taint so.”
Further conversation on the subject was prevented by the arrival of Harold and Charles decked in overalls, which the former lad had obtained from his mother’s gardener.
Silas Warner stepped out on the side porch to greet them and his grin was at its widest. “Wall, I swan to glory, if here ain’t my two helpers. Ready to milk the cow, Harry-lad?”
Mrs. Warner appeared in the open door, her blue checked apron wound about her hands. She smiled and nodded. “Speak quietly, boys. We like Lenora to sleep as late as she can,” was her admonition.
The farmer led the way to the barn and there he again stood grinning his amusement. The boys laughed good naturedly. “Say, them overalls of your’n, Harry, are sort o’ baggy, ’pears like to me. You could get one o’ Ma’s best pillars in front thar easy.”
The younger lad agreed. “Charles has the best of it. Our gardener is just about his size. Now if only we had a couple of wide straw hats with torn brims, we’d look the part.”
Shaking with mirth, the old man led the boys to a shed adjoining the barn, where on a row of nails were several hats ragged and tattered enough to suit the most exacting comedian. “Great!” the younger lad donned one and seizing the milk pail from the farmer’s hand, he struck an attitude, exclaiming dramatically “Lead me to the cow.” But he was to find that a college education did not help one to milk, and after a few futile efforts he rose, and, with a flourish, offered the bench to Charles, who, having often milked, had the task done in short order. Harry watched the process closely, declaring that in the evening he would show them.
That same morning Mrs. Poindexter-Jones awakened feeling better than she had in a long time.
While Miss Dane was busying herself about the room, the older woman lay thoughtfully gazing at a double frame picture on the wall. It contained photographs of two children, one about eight and the other about five. How beautiful Gwynette had been with her long golden curls and what a manly little chap Harold. She sighed deeply. The boy had not changed but the girl——.
Another thought interrupted: “Now that you and Harold both believe that it may be partly your fault, you may feel differently toward Gwynette.”
“I do love her,” the woman had to acknowledge. “One cannot bring up anything from babyhood and not care, but I was not wise. I overindulged the child because she was so beautiful, and I was proud to have people think her my own, and, later, when she was so heartlessly selfish, I was hurt. Poor Gwynette.”