CHAPTER XXI
BLUE BONNET DECIDES
"ALEC SURVEYED HER PROUD LITTLE PROFILE."
"I say, Blue Bonnet, wait for a fellow, won't you?"
Blue Bonnet waited, none too eagerly, while Alec caught up with her, and then, whistling to Don and Solomon, turned to resume her walk along the grassy bank of San Franciscito.
Alec surveyed her proud little profile for a few minutes in a sort of puzzled wonder, and finally as she kept on in the same unsociable manner, he began with determined friendliness:
"We've never yet taken the walk we planned, along the rio. Feel equal to it this morning?"
"There isn't time to go far. I told Grandmother I'd not be gone long," she returned carelessly.
"Another tea-party on?" This time he succeeded in bringing the old sparkle of laughter to her eyes.
"Not this time," she answered.
"Your parties have been a sort of continuous performance this summer, haven't they?" he persisted, hoping to win her to a more conversational mood.
"And the summer is almost over,—did you ever know such a short vacation?"
"It's been the jolliest one I've ever had. And it is going to mean a lot to me all my life, Blue Bonnet."
They walked on in silence for a few minutes. Then Alec asked—"Do you remember the morning we first spoke of following this stream?"
"Yes,—and do you remember how we wondered what we would talk about on our next jaunt by the Woodford brook?"
He nodded. "I remember everything; that was the first day I told you I wasn't likely to be in Woodford next spring. It was only a day-dream then,—isn't it funny how things have come out?"
"Funny? Alec, you are the queerest boy. You've taken to talking in riddles lately, and I—I reckon I'm pretty slow at guessing riddles. We may as well have it out right now. I've been wanting to have a talk with you."
"Same here," returned Alec. "What's the matter, anyway? You've not been a bit like yourself the last few days."
"Don't you really know, Alec?" Blue Bonnet met his puzzled eyes very soberly.
"I honestly don't, Blue Bonnet."
"And haven't you felt the least little bit guilty about letting me write that letter to your grandfather?"
"Guilty?" Alec's tone expressed unaffected amazement. "Do you mean I ought to have written it myself? I'd have done it if you had hinted that you'd rather have me. Why didn't you say so?"
"You seemed so anxious to have me do it."
"And so I was. It seemed only right and proper that you should be the first to suggest the proposition. You're the owner of the Blue Bonnet ranch."
"What has that to do with it?"
"Well, I should think it had everything to do with it. I couldn't very well invite myself, could I?"
"Invite yourself? Oh, dear, now you're talking in riddles again."
"Well, Blue Bonnet, after you had invited me to spend two months on the ranch, it certainly took more courage than I possessed to suggest extending my visit for a year or two. You can see how much better it was for the suggestion to come from you. Grandfather has fallen right in with it and is making all arrangements with Mr. Ashe right now."
Blue Bonnet's eyes grew round with astonishment. "Do you mean to tell me that you are going to stay on the ranch a year or two?"
"If you and Mr. Ashe will stand for it. I want to stay till I outgrow being a weakling and grow into a real man. Till I'm as broad as a fellow my age should be and have a muscle bigger than a girl's. The two months here have already shown what two years is likely to do for me." Alec squared his shoulders and drew himself up as if already the example of brawn he longed to be.
"And do you mean to tell me that when you said you might not go back to Woodford, and that there was no college in store for Alec Trent you only meant—"
"Till I had the strength to go through with it, yes. I've had enough breakdowns. Why, what—"
"I wish you were a girl so that I could shake you!" Blue Bonnet's look was a queer mixture of relief and indignation. "Why couldn't you say so in the first place? When you kept making all those mysterious hints, I was wasting good, honest pity on you because I thought you were preparing for an early grave!"
Alec's peal of laughter showed how far from pitiable his state was. "Oh, Blue Bonnet, I wish I could tell that to Knight!"
"But didn't you hint?" she demanded.
"Of course I did. I was fishing for an invitation to make a good long visit to the Blue Bonnet ranch. Hardly likely, was it, that I was going to demand it boldly as a right?"
"Well, it would have saved me a heap of worry if you had. Why, Alec!" Blue Bonnet sank down on the bank to think it over. "What are you going to do on the ranch all winter?"
He threw himself on the grass beside her.
"I'm going to live, as far as possible, like Pinto Pete and Shady. I'm going to ride the range, go on the round-up this fall and next spring,—spend about fifteen hours a day in the open. And if I'm not as husky as a Texas cowboy by next summer, it won't be my fault. You know it's been my one wish, Blue Bonnet, and this, I'm convinced is the way to get it."
"And college?"
"College can wait. I'd rather have biceps like Knight's than be a walking encyclopædia!"
"Think of all the sympathy I've wasted!" Blue Bonnet laughed at herself.
"Oh, I don't know that it's all been wasted. I've deserved a good deal. I've been afraid Grandfather would be against the scheme—he's never been willing to admit that I wasn't as strong as I ought to be. I've only just begun myself to realize how good-for-nothing I used to feel most of the time. There's nothing like feeling able to shake your fist at all out-doors!"
Blue Bonnet smiled. "Then I needn't regret my letter?"
"Regret?—well, I should say not! You builded better than you knew. Getting Grandfather worried was just the right thing, though it sounds rather heartless to say it. Being worried, he came and saw and—I conquered!"
"Now I won't have to ask for an explanation of a very rude speech of yours."
"Was I rude—to you?" Alec looked up hastily.
"It sounded—rather queer, for you to rejoice over my not going back to Woodford," she answered.
"Meant purely as a compliment," he assured her. "It would be mighty jolly to have you here, Blue Bonnet."
She rose hurriedly. "Let's not go into that, please. Every time I get pretty near a decision, some new argument bobs up on the other side. I'm dreadfully worried, Alec. But, thank goodness, you're off my mind!"
"I'll try to stay off, Blue Bonnet," he laughed as he followed her along the narrow path. "If you go back you'll write often, won't you? I shall depend on you—"
She made a movement of impatience. "I'm not going to cross bridges, Alec, till I come to them."
"I beg your pardon. I forgot that bridges are a touchy subject with you!"
They found Uncle Cliff and the General still absorbed in what appeared to be an interminable conversation. The General rose with old-fashioned courtesy as Blue Bonnet came up the veranda steps.
"What do you think of your new cowboy?" he asked, laying his hand affectionately on Alec's shoulder.
"We've just been exchanging opinions with each other," she said, with a sidelong glance at Alec.
"I'm going to miss the boy," General Trent continued. "The old house will be very dull and empty,—unless you make up your mind to be particularly neighborly, Miss Blue Bonnet."
Blue Bonnet colored and looked way. "I—I'll do my best if—"
"Will you walk down to the stable with me, Grandfather?" Alec asked quickly. "I've not shown you the little coyotes yet."
As the General walked away with his hand still on Alec's shoulder, Blue Bonnet turned to her uncle.
"Read this, will you please, Uncle? It came to-day."
He took Aunt Lucinda's letter, an odd expression growing around his mouth. But he opened it without speaking. Blue Bonnet sank into the hammock and watched him narrowly,—much as Grandmother had watched her as she read the same pages. She saw his lower teeth close on his mustache when he came to the significant part.
He lifted his eyes at last. "Well, Honey?"
"Well, Uncle?"
He sighed deeply. "Are you putting this up to me?"
She raised her shoulders in an expressive shrug. "I reckon you ought to have the deciding vote. I'm on the fence."
"Do you want to be a musician, Blue Bonnet?"
"I'd love to—if it weren't for all the practising!"
"Seems to me you play mighty well now."
"I'm very careless in my methods, Aunt Lucinda says."
Uncle Cliff winced. "None of the girls play as well as you do, Honey."
"I—I don't believe they do. But maybe, Uncle Cliff, that is a very good reason why I should go on with it. Maybe I really have talent."
"Wouldn't it be very lonesome off there in Boston? And won't it be mostly work and very little play?"
"I'm afraid it will. But, somehow, it's chiefly because it will be so much easier to stay on the ranch and be—desultory, as Aunt Lucinda says,—that I think I ought to go."
"I see, Honey. You are developing a New England conscience!"
"I wonder?" she pondered.
"I don't want you to do anything just because it's easier, Blue Bonnet," Uncle Cliff continued. "That wasn't your father's way."
"Nor your way, Uncle Cliff."
"I hope not, Blue Bonnet. That's why I'm going to stop arguing right here. It's my natural inclination to say 'stay with me, Honey, I need you.' But I know I don't,—I just want you. But what I want more is to have you do the thing that's best for Blue Bonnet Ashe,—the thing that will make you say in the end, 'I'm glad I did it!'" More moved than he cared to show, Clifford Ashe rose, and running down the veranda steps, strode off in the direction of the stable.
"Oh, dear!" thought Blue Bonnet, gazing after him. "In the language of the cowboys,—it's certainly up to me!"
When she went into her grandmother's room that night—the room that had been her mother's—Blue Bonnet found Benita acting as lady's maid, brushing Mrs. Clyde's long hair. The old nurse enjoyed nothing so much as waiting on the little Señora's mother,—unless it was babying the little Señora's daughter. As she stood in the doorway silently watching the two, the sight of the rippling gray locks, fast whitening into snow, did more to sway Blue Bonnet than all the other array of arguments. Uncle Cliff wanted her; it was Grandmother who really needed her.
She tiptoed up back of Benita, but her grandmother had caught sight of her in the mirror and turned at her approach. Something in the expression of Blue Bonnet's eyes as she bent for the good-night kiss made Mrs. Clyde say hastily—
"What is it, dear?"
And Blue Bonnet, her tone reflecting the happiness her words gave, replied: "It isn't mañana yet, but I can't wait to tell you—I'm going when you go, Grandmother."
When they looked up, Benita stood with her apron thrown over her face.
