“Oh, Uncle Henry,” Mary smiled toward him brightly, “I see a twinkle in your eye. Now confess, isn’t that a sand-story?”
“No, it’s true enough,” the cowman replied, when Jerry exclaimed: “Dad, I know a bigger one than that. You remember that man from the East, tenderfoot if ever there was one, who started to build him a house on the Neal crossroad? He heard the storm coming so he jumped on his horse and rode into Neal as though demons were after him. When the wind stopped blowing, he went back to look for his house and there, where it had been, stood the beginning of a sand hill. The adobe walls of his unfinished house had caught so much sand, they were completely covered. That was years ago. Now there’s a good-sized sand hill on that very spot with yucca growing on it.”
“Poor man, it was the burial of his dreams,” Dora said sympathetically.
“He left for the East the next day,” Jerry finished his tale, “and—”
“Lived happily ever after, I hope,” Mary put in.
Mrs. Newcomb said pleasantly, “If you young people have finished your meal, don’t wait for us. Jerry told me you’re going out to the loft in the old barn for a secret meeting about something.”
“We’d like to help you, Aunt Mollie, if—”
“No ‘ifs’ to it, Mary dear.” The older woman gazed lovingly at the girl. “Your Uncle Henry and I visit quite a long spell evenings over our tea. It’s the only leisure time that we have together.”
Jerry lighted a couple of lanterns, and the girls, after having gone to their room for their sweater coats, joined the boys on the wide, back, screened-in porch.
“I’ll go ahead,” Jerry said, “and Dick will bring up the rear. We’ll be the lantern bearers. Now, don’t you girls leave the path.”