Into the old man’s faded eyes crept a look of wonder. “Texas! That do be a long ways off! More’n a day’s journey, I guess?”
“More than that,” Blue Bonnet laughed.
“Come on, Elizabeth,” Kitty urged in an undertone.
But Blue Bonnet lingered a moment; understanding, as Kitty did not, the little touch of interest their stopping had brought into the old man’s lonely day.
“That was Mr. Peters,” Kitty said, when at length Blue Bonnet had yielded to her repeated nudgings. “How could you stay so, Elizabeth?”
“I think he liked it. Kitty, mustn’t it be awful to be so old and—outside of everything?”
“He was outside of the house,” Kitty laughed. “What do you mean by everything?”
“I reckon you know all right,” Blue Bonnet answered.
Kitty glanced about her. “My, isn’t it the dreariest place!”
Blue Bonnet looked at the broad stretch of open fields, backed in the distance by a low range of hills. For the moment the sun had gone behind a cloud, and the fields lay gray and bleak in the sombre light. To Blue Bonnet, the broad, level stretch had an attraction all its own.