"I always feel like a leader in a Sunday school," commented Aunt Mary, "when we entertain them. It is surely a good work, and they are so appreciative."
"And I always feel like--well, as if I belonged to the idle rich, when the boys pay us a visit. It is so narrow to have to make class distinction, and feed them in the kitchen," Jane objected with a note of scorn in her voice.
"Now, Janie," insisted Judith, "didn't Woo Nah say something about Bolshevism and the Girl? Your sentiments sound rather extreme. Can you imagine Dingo Joe among forks?"
"Boy all samee too much grub," objected Willie Wing the cook. "Likee big cow."
The above is an excerpt from the conversation that sifted through the Allen home on the morning following the "doin's" catalogued as the Cowboys' Serenade. Jane and Judith both made copious notes of the occasion in their diaries, but in spite of these records the real story was not to be told in mere words. It required the language of the boys themselves to give the affair its actual color. This was, however, plentifully supplied all over the ranch for at least a day after, and the consensus of opinion seemed to be, "that Miss Allen was a peach," and her friend "some girl." Also "that Chief Allen ought to be president of the United States, and the little sister woman would be all right for the first lady of the land."
The boys had rehearsed for their concert for more than a week, and consequently what was not given in perfection was supplied in enthusiasm, and the memory of that performance, for actors and audience, would not soon be obliterated by the everyday work of life and its prosaic demands.
So it was that the last day at home for Jane Allen had arrived.
The presence of her friend, Judith, softened the usual sadness of the hour of parting. Mr. Allen was both father and companion to his high-strung, brave little daughter, and the separation was necessarily momentous. Judith, alert to the situation, bubbled around, blowing in and out, on all the little love scenes, managing adroitly to curtail Jane's meditation before the reverenced picture of "Dearest," Jane's departed mother.
"I can imagine what will happen when we take up our New York quarters," she prophesied as Jane was all velvet-eyed and unnaturally quiet after a "word" with Aunt Mary. "I am so glad I can go with you, and not be required to report home first. Our folks will be resting until Kingdom Come after that Coast tour. We had so many delays and mixups."
"Oh, I could never go to housekeeping without you, Judy," Jane replied brightening. "I dream of the shopping tours and the hunting trips, and I match colors with my Polish girl's eyes, and take samples of her hair to bed with me. I have not really decided on her hair, although I rather incline to blonde."