“And Rowena,” I added, “you will grow up after a while—you will grow up to be a wholesome, useful American woman, precisely like your Maw.”
“Precisely?” said Rowena, smiling.
But I saw how soft her eye was, after all, when I mentioned Maw—her Maw, who came out of another day; who has worked so hard she is uncomfortable now without her knitting when Old Faithful plays.
“Come, Rowena,” said I, and held out my hand to her. “Let us go.”
“Land sakes!” exclaimed Maw, just then emerging into the firelight of the sagebrush camp. “I almost got a turn. One of them two bears, Teddy and Eymogene, is always hanging round us begging for doughnuts, and here it was standing on its hind legs and mooching its nose, and I stepped right into it. I declare, I can't hardly get used to bears. There ain't none in Ioway. But if Eymogene gets into my bed again tonight I declare I'll bust her on the snoot, no matter what the park regulations is. People has got to sleep. Not that you girls seem to be troubled about sleeping. Where were you going?”
She spoke as Rowena and I stood hand in hand, after so brief an acquaintance as might not elsewhere have served us, except in these vacation hills.
“I was going,” said I, “to take Rowena up past the camp and beyond the hotel and the electric light to the curio store. I was going to get something for Rowena to bring to you—a sort of present from a nice old man, you know.”
“As which?” said Maw.
“I was going with Rowena, Maw,” said I, “to get you a present.”
“As which?”