“It is only to say that the sewing-machines will not be here until next month. I sha’n’t wait for them; the women are coming to-morrow, and there’s plenty of hand sewing for the present,” and she entered the little house with quite a different air from that of the plum thicket.
Certainly the Indian agent, at his first interview some weeks earlier, had not to complain of any lack of dignity in the young field matron.
“You understand that suitable quarters will be provided for you, Miss—ah!—Miss Waring,” he had drawled, keeping his heavy-lidded eyes upon her face with a persistency that was not altogether pleasant.
(“First Indian girl I ever Miss’d,” he acknowledged later to his grinning cronies in the office, “and it came sort of hard. Nothing else for it, though. She’s considerable of a lady, she is!”
“Considerable to look at, too, I sh’d say,” Jack Pepper mumbled under his breath.)
“I expect to stay with my friend, Young Eagle’s wife, in her house on Cherry Creek,” Stella had replied, simply. “Her grandmother will live with us.”
“Hum-ha … Miss—ah!—Waring, if you have quite made up your mind to that, we shall have to make some improvements on the house. It’s an ordinary log cabin, isn’t it, Mr. Pepper? … one room? … Two? That’s good. Well, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We will build a frame addition 16 by 20 feet, for the field matron’s private apartment, with three windows and a good floor; lay floors in the other two rooms and put on a good, shingled roof. With these additions, I think you ought to be fairly comfortable.”
“Thank you, Major; that will be quite satisfactory,” Stella had answered, calmly.
“And about the furniture” (still keeping a furtive eye upon her face)—“Mr. Pepper, will you take this—ah!—this young lady to the warehouse and help her make out a list of her needs in that line? We supply only the necessaries, of course: iron beds with mattress and blankets, tables, kitchen chairs, stoves, dishes and so forth. If there is anything more that I can do for you, Miss Waring, I shall be happy to see you at any time.”
Possibly the “Little Father” would not have been quite so bland and accommodating if he had not had in his desk at that moment a letter from Washington, containing very plain instructions as to the conveniences to be supplied and the official courtesies to be extended to the newly appointed field matron, Miss Stella Waring. The good Doctor’s precautions were already justified.