CHAPTER XXV
THE DANCE AT GRAINGER’S
The big room they went into was a roil of confusion; two large beds covered with great cocoons—each one a baby, wrapped in its own quilt or shawl; several mothers of somewhat older children—though babies still—trying to convince their offspring that it was time to go to sleep—and not being very successful at it.
Jammed in anyway, were girls and women getting out of riding skirts and into dancing trim, excited, laughing, squabbling over pins or a chance at the mirror. Mrs. Marchbanks pushed through with the big box that held the things for Maybelle and Hilda. She helped them to dress, calling back and forth to the others, introducing Hilda to every one, hardly taking her gaze off her, even while she hooked up Maybelle’s waist. Hilda’s glimpse in the glass had shown her that her color was flaming high. How big and bright it made her eyes look! She was almost as beautiful in the party dress as she had dreamed of being.
“There, you’re both all right now,” said Mrs. Marchbanks at last, and whispered in Hilda’s ear as she pushed them toward the door, “Mabs looks nice—but you’re a beauty!”
Maybelle, who had certainly heard her stepmother’s words, didn’t seem to mind. It appeared that she had something to think about that pleased her.
Outside, the big room was full of people. Maybelle had been right; surely everybody within twenty miles was there. It was a very big room indeed, with an earthen floor. The Grainger place, like the house at the Alamositas, was adobe, and the canvas ceiling, tacked to beams that were unpeeled logs, bulged with every draft. The deep window-seats were occupied by young couples. Some of the girls wore shirt waists and one or two from Juan Chico, or visitors bringing the fashions of the larger towns, had evening gowns of silk or chiffon. Hilda was very sure that her own dress, made by Mrs. Johnnie, would bear comparison with any of them. Mothers were still hurrying youngsters across the corner of the room. Occasionally these held back and had to be lifted and carried, protesting, away from the lights and the music which was beginning to tune up.
Alessandro Galindro’s sheep-shearer musicians were softly touching the great harp, a violin and two guitars. The lamps were already beginning to make the room hot. There would be no lack of partners, for the young men outnumbered the girls almost two to one. They were riders from the ranges, in full cowboy regalia, young fellows from town, in clothing nearer ball-room usage. Hilda knew a good many of them—had cared a lot for their admiration and their liking. If Maybelle hadn’t said that about Pearse—this afternoon when they were trying on the party dresses—she felt that this would have been a proud and happy moment. As it was, most that might have been enjoyment was swallowed up in the thought that if she met Pearse to-night—and saw when she met him that what Maybelle said was true—she must show him—
What was it Hilda was going to show Pearse Masters? At thought of it, whatever it was, her head went up, her face glowed till she shone out among the other girls as though they were pictures on a canvas, and she one that had been painted on something transparent so that the moving, rising, bending fires of life itself shone through. Oh,—she was likely to show Pearse Masters!
“The J I C crowd hasn’t come yet,” Maybelle whispered, after a quick glance around, “but will you look at old Mr. Hipp?”
A sun-baked ancient with a wrinkled frock coat ambled out into the open of the dancing floor, displaying the horseman’s bowed legs.