“It’s getting very late, Mr.—er—Pearsall—isn’t it?” Miss Valeria asked unhappily from the back seat. “Isn’t there danger of our being lost if we try to travel in the dark?”
“No, ma’am—not with me—you wouldn’t git lost, day or night,” Uncle Hank, as the little girl already called him in her own mind, turned a smiling face over his shoulder to answer. “But we’re most there now. See them willers where the moon’s a-risin’? That’s our camp.”
“Willers where the moon’s a-risin’.” It jingled in the little head like poetry; it still sang there as they swung in beside a small creek that was just a succession of water holes with dry rocks between, and she was lifted out. For, oh, the moon was rising, and so beautiful! It came up, a great shield of white in the pink that had somehow crept around from the sunset in the west; it looked over the willows and turned them black on one side and silver on the other; it shone on the little girl very knowingly, as if to say, “I’m not the same moon at all that I was back in New York—you and I know that.” And every bit of beauty, whether it was in the sky or on the earth, everything that was dear and lovely in this new life—and so much was—she attributed to the new friend whom she was going to call Uncle Hank forever and ever.
The others had climbed out very gladly; Miss Valeria was established on the cushions from the seats with the baby beside her. Hilda was allowed to help—or to think she helped—Uncle Hank, when he came back from unharnessing, watering and picketing the horses, and set about getting the evening meal. She ranged as far as the creek bank for little sticks, and fed them into the side of the fire where the coffee-pot was. Hank had brought a box from the back of the ambulance which seemed to hold a whole pantry, and was broiling steaks on the other side of the fire. Bread was cut, canned milk and jam and other things opened, butter brought out, with knives, forks and plates—tin plates, and funny knives and forks and spoons such as you generally saw in the kitchen; one or two little stew-pots simmered on their own beds of coals; Hilda looked from them all to the shadowy earth, the moon-filled sky, quite overwhelmed with the magic she saw in both. Above them was such a great space of silver light as she had never seen before; down here, right in the center of it, burned their single point of fire; she watched its flame go up and up, saw pieces of it break off to fly away to the big white stars and the moon. She almost forgot to eat her supper when it was put out for her on its plate. (Supper was a new word to Hilda. It was dinner, at home, in the house. It must be supper when you cooked it and ate it like this out-of-doors.)
Aunt Val ate hers, and seemed to like it pretty well; but afterward she looked uneasy, and said anxiously:
“I’m afraid this night air will bring on my neuralgia.”
Hilda looked at her in wonder. This lovely, wandering air that was turning over the willow leaves as though it wanted to look at the dark under-sides of them, that came touching her cheeks, softly fingering her hair; it seemed to Hilda that if it really “brought on” anything that thing must be mysterious and delightful.
But Uncle Hank got up quickly, saying:
“I’ll fix your bed for you right now, ma’am; you’ll be as snug there as if you was in your own room,” and went over to the ambulance. When Hilda followed him a little later, there was a bed all made up in it, with sheets and pillow-cases and everything, just like a bed at home. Aunt Val made haste to get into it, and Hilda drifted back to the fire. She wished she had got Aunt Val to show her how to fix Burchie’s food. Papa was tending to it now. When Burch had had it, he went right off to sleep, and was carried over and put in beside Aunt Val.
The new proprietor of the Three Sorrows, when he had laid the baby in the ambulance, walked on past the vehicle and was lost in the shadows down by the creek. Pearsall began to clear up and wash the dishes. Hilda asked if she might help, and was given a towel for drying. Uncle Hank began to make cheerful conversation.