“My gracious!” cried Eva. “You’re getting almost as bad as popsy, and you’ve been here only half a week; but how radiant, if you really love it!”
“I do love it, dear, though I didn’t mean to be quite so tragic; but the thought that I shall have to go away and can never enjoy it again is tragic.”
“I hope you won’t have to go,” said Eva simply, slipping an arm about the other’s waist. “We all hope that you won’t have to.”
They walked down the hill, past the saddle horse barn, and along the graveled road that led to the upper end of the ranch. The summer sun beat hotly upon them, making each old sycamore and oak and walnut a delightful oasis of refreshing shade. In a field at their left two mowers were clicking merrily through lush alfalfa. At their right, beyond the pasture fence, gentle Guernseys lay in the shade of a wide-spreading sycamore, a part of the pastoral allegory of content that was the Rancho del Ganado; and over all were the blue California sky and the glorious sun.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” breathed Shannon, half to herself. “It makes one feel that there cannot be a care or sorrow in all the world!”
They soon reached the pens and houses where sleek, black Berkshires dozed in every shaded spot. Then they wandered farther up the cañon, into the pasture where the great brood sows sprawled beneath the sycamores, or wallowed in a concrete pool shaded by overhanging boughs. Eva stooped now and then to stroke a long, deep side.
“How clean they are!” exclaimed Shannon. “I thought pigs were dirty.”
“They are when they are kept in dirty places—the same as people.”
“They don’t smell badly; even the pens didn’t smell of pig. All I noticed was a heavy, sweet odor. What was it—something they feed them?”
Eva laughed.