“That George Cromarty is as likely a youth as ever I knew. He’s that good to his old mother, back in the East, I tell my own son John, he ought to profit by such an example. I should hate to have anything happen to him. Yes, indeedy, I should hate to have a single bad thing happen to poor George Cromarty.”
A little nervous shiver ran through Mrs. Trent’s slender frame, yet she turned upon her companion, as she threaded her needle, with a laugh, exclaiming:
“Oh! you dear old croaker! Why can’t you let well enough alone, without mentioning more evil? 97 You know the old saying that to speak of trouble is to invite its visitation. Surely, there was nothing about to-day’s postman to suggest disaster. George is a typical ranchman, and my husband used to point him out to visitors as what a man might be, who grew up, or old, where ‘there was room enough.’ Big-hearted, full of fun, tender as a woman, but intolerant of meanness and evil doing. It would be a dark day for Sobrante if ill befell our ‘Marty.’”
“Well, I don’t know. Something’s going to go wrong somewhere. I feel it in my bones, seems if. There, I told you so! Yonder comes that lazy boy of mine and Jessie. There’s more things needing him here on this place than you could shake a stick at, yet off he’ll go traipsing just at a nod from his captain.”
“Don’t begrudge them their happiness, Aunt Sally. Certainly, after grief, it is their due. Well, John, will you act escort for the little lady of Sobrante?” asked its mistress.
“Will I not? And do me proud. She ain’t to be trusted with any of the flighty ones, Samson now, or–––”
Mrs. Trent’s laughter––that morning as heart-whole and free as a girl’s––interrupted the ranchman’s disparaging comments on his fellows, sedate grayheads as most of them were; for well she understood the universal devotion of all to their darling captain.
“Oh, John, I can scarcely associate the idea of frivolity or carelessness with our big Samson; but wait a moment, please, before you start. There’s such a store of good things left, though in fragments, that I’d like to pack a basket for Pedro. I 98 wish he did not insist upon living so alone. He is so old and I feel, as the native Californians used, that the older a person grew the more precious. I wish you’d try to persuade him to let somebody else take his place with the sheep, and to arrange his small affairs so that when he comes down for his Navidad he will remain. There’s enough to keep him busy and happy here.”
“I’ll try, mistress. But he’ll not be persuaded. Old Pedro wouldn’t think he could breathe down here in the valley, for long at a time. Well, good-by. Ready, captain?”
“Ready, John, as soon as mother gets the basket. Quiet, Buster. I believe you’re more eager for a canter than I am, even.”