CHAPTER VII
THE NORTHER
So Hilda, alone at the ranch with Uncle Hank, Sam Kee in the kitchen, the cowboys out in their own place, came up to the first Christmas since her father’s death. There’d been Christmas cards from Aunt Val and Burchie, at the Sanitarium, and some talk of their trying to be at the Three Sorrows for the week; but in the end Miss Valeria sent a blue silk party dress for her niece, and a letter saying she could not risk having Burch exposed to changes of weather at this time. There was a Miss Wingfield, of Kentucky, in the Sanitarium, who played a very fair game of cribbage. She had found some rather good society in Fort Worth itself—and so on, and so on.
Uncle Hank puckered his lips as though he might be going to whistle when they unpacked the expensive-looking little frock, so utterly unsuited to any of Hilda’s uses or needs. And when they came to try it on, they found it too tight in some places and too big in others. Miss Valeria’s letter said, just as she would have said it if she had been there, that, since she didn’t have Hilda’s measurements, there might be changes to be made, but that a local seamstress could probably attend to it.
“Well,” said Uncle Hank doubtfully, “there’s a Mrs. Johnnie DeLisle at Mesquite that’s a crackerjack at sewing—sewing and cutting out things. I reckon Miss Valeria would call her a seamstress. She ain’t very local—not to us. We’ll have to go sixty miles to her. But as we was going in to-morrow—weather permitting—to do a—er—a little Christmas buying, why we can take it along, and have her fix it.”
They were to start before sunrise and make the trip in one day. He sent Hilda off to bed early; and twice before going to bed himself stepped from the front door to study the weather. They drove away in the buckboard next morning in the dark after a hasty breakfast; Hilda had never seen him push the ponies so. Neither of them seemed in a humor for talking; she was sure Uncle Hank was worried—or anyhow he was absent-minded, and Hilda had absorbing affairs of her own to think of. She carried in a little pasteboard box one carefully saved whole quarter, two silver dimes and seven pennies, that were to buy at Brann’s store the finest necktie to be had for Uncle Hank’s Christmas present. She couldn’t trust any of the boys to get the exact shade of Uncle Hank’s blue eyes. She must select it herself. And Uncle Hank had finally agreed to take her.
The air seemed very still. The thud-thud of the ponies’ hoofs sounded dull. When it was time for the sun to come up, things just got a little lighter; the gray began to turn blue. Suddenly Uncle Hank spoke, looking down at her, still pushing his team hard.
“Better get your other coat out of your war-bag, honey.”
Hilda couldn’t trust the situation to words. She drew from under the seat a very small bundle, opened it and showed that the largest and heaviest garment it contained was a cambric nightgown.
“Pettie! Is that all you took for a trip like this? Where’s the big bundle I saw Sam Kee toting down the stairs just before we left? I thought that was your coat and things.” She shook her head.
“I guess that was the washing, Uncle Hank,” she faltered. “I guess he was just taking it into the kitchen. He said he’d get it done while we were gone, don’t you remember?”