“This the ranch? Why, Pearsall, I didn’t suppose there was such a green place in all the Panhandle.”
“Well, there’s not another like the Three Sorrows, I can tell you,” answered the old man, busy with bags and valises; and as they moved toward the house Miss Valeria murmured that it was better than could have been expected.
Hilda, hanging back, saying nothing, gazed about at the new home with eyes that loved every stone in its walls. Its pleasant rustle of leaves and lisp of water, after all those miles of splendid, arid plain, made her eyes smart with happy tears. The beautiful wing-like, curving sweep in which the line of young cottonwoods, following the happy course of a tiny irrigating ditch, flung away around one corner of the building—here was a world where anything—lovely—might happen. Those willows over yonder by the little lake (the old man called it a watering tank), they looked just like Nixies crouching down in their long green hair. There was mystery in the very appearance of the plain about them. When a Chinaman came to the door she could have shouted with delight.
He was a strange, limp effigy of a Chinaman, like a badly made rag doll, his slant eyes and pigtail giving the impression that he had lately been hung up on a line with other such toys. Apparently he was young, though the Oriental never looks to our eyes either exactly young or old, and certainly he was morose. The queue on his head, the dull blue blouse he wore, his funny black-and-white boat-shaped shoes, all charmed Hilda.
The first thing she saw that looked like the old home back in New York was a familiar rug spread out at the foot of the stairs in the hall.
“I s’pose your full-sized carpets ain’t come yet,” Pearsall explained, as he showed his employer the living-room on one side, the ranch office on the other. “These mats looked a good deal worn,” he indicated the dull bloom of Turkish rugs disposed here and there, “but of course they’ll be nice and soft for the children to play on.”
Van Brunt assented kindly, and neither he nor Miss Valeria offered any explanation. It was near supper time. The open door at the end of the hall showed a shouldering group of masculine forms, ranch riders, heretofore familiar to the eyes of the newcomers only in pictures. The foremost of these detached himself, came forward, and was presented as O’Meara—“One of your boys, Mr. Van Brunt.” Hilda liked the look of him, and was more pleased when he spoke.
“We didn’t know where you’d want your things,” he said modestly. “We took everybody’s opinion—even the Chink’s—but at that we couldn’t make out what some of ’em was intended for. We just put the trunks around here and there to make it seem home-like.”
Hilda wondered that her aunt’s response to this should be so faint. Shorty O’Meara’s ideas on furnishing and interior decoration had immediate success with her. The open door of the office room showed a big desk, some chairs, and a pile or two of books on the floor. The little girl left that without further inquiry, and went into the living-room where a spindle-legged, inlaid dressing table, with its sweep of mirror, neighbored a trunk and several dining-room chairs. There were more books here, on the floor, the chairs, the window-sills. These latter were very deep. They might well have been specially designed for sitting in of rainy afternoons to look at picture books or play with dolls. The grown-ups walked about and looked somewhat unhappy. She had forgotten them almost in her survey of her new home. She presently got Burch and lugged him about, talking to him, since he was the only individual present sensible enough to really appreciate the attractiveness of the place. The roughcast plastered walls looked so sheltering and strong. The open doorway into the dining-room showed a great long table. All of those men were going to eat there. She groped vaguely for a line in a ballad with which her mother used to sing her to sleep—something about the baron sitting in his hall and his retainers being blithe and gay. The table wasn’t in the hall, of course, but otherwise it was just the same.
Then came Aunt Valeria’s voice calling to her from upstairs; she followed that weary lady, and she and Burch were washed and made seemly for the table.