CHAPTER XIV
THE POOR LITTLE CALF
Nan awoke when it was still utterly dark. Nothing had frightened her, and yet she felt that something really important was about to happen—something wonderful! What it could be, she had no idea. Her imagination was not at all spurring her mind. She only knew that she was on the verge of a new and surprising experience.
There were three beds in the big room, and she could hear Bess and
Grace breathing calmly in their own cots. But she was wide awake.
Without speaking, or making any more sound than she could help, Nan Sherwood crept out of bed. The air from the open windows was chill, so she knew it must be near dawn.
She slipped her feet into slippers and shrugged her robe about her. Then she crept to the nearest casement. She had to kneel to see out, for the window, which looked to the east, was under the eaves of the ranch house. The sill was only a foot above the floor.
Nan folded her arms on this sill and looked out into the velvety darkness. A great silence seemed to brood over the country which she could not see. She remembered how lonely the ranch house seemed to be when she had first seen it the previous afternoon. Even the bunk houses where the help slept were at some distance, and not in this easterly direction.
Blackness seemed to have shut down all about the great dwelling, like a curtain. The roses weighted the air with their delicious scent. She even had to reach forth and separate the prickly vines carefully so as to make an opening through which she hoped soon to see.
For she knew now what it was that had awakened her—what it was that was about to happen. Dawn was coming! The sun would soon appear! A new day was in the making just below the horizon which she could not see.
A haze had been drawn over the stars; therefore there was absolutely no light in the world. Not yet. But—