"I'll be happy to treat a good boy like you as a son," said Mrs. Spooner. "My husband is away with the troops, and we've had a pretty hard time to get along without him. I'm sure my girls will be glad to take you into our household as a brother. Maybe providence sent you to us, to-day. Maybe we need you as much as you need us."
With the relaxing of the terrible strain, and the exhaustion of his grief, the boy seemed to become really ill. She sat beside him, trying to soothe him with tenderly wise words, and bathing his hot forehead hi cool water till at last he slept, and she stole softly out to warn old Jonah, who came stumping in with a basket of cobs for the kitchen fire.
"Make as little noise as you can, Jonah," she whispered. "We have a boy in the house asleep--one of Harvey's cowboys--I'm afraid he has fever."
"O Lord!" groaned Jonah, in a doleful whisper. "Trouble comes double--never knowed it to fail yit! 'T ain't 'nough that you ain't right peart, and the boss gone, and me with the rheumatiz a-ticklin' my right foot ag'in, but we got to have a no-'count cowboy, sweater an' shirk, of course, laid up on us. Poor gals, I feel for 'em!--an' you've got nothin' but gals. Ef you'd 'a' had a right smart mess o' boys, now-- They'll have all the work to do--like enough have to ride and rope and brand, 'fore they are done, besides nussin' this here boy, and me'n you throwed in for good measure. Whyn't Grannis tend to his own sick cowboys? Plenty o' folks at his ranch."
"He's not Harvey's cowboy any longer, Jonah--he's ours, if we need him--and according to that, we do. Now don't say a word, just listen to me--" as the old man opened his mouth to remonstrate very forcibly on the utter folly of taking an unknown person into her home. Then, speaking in subdued tones, she told him the story of the boy from the Grannis ranch.
At the end old Jonah Bean, being tender-hearted if cantankerous, took out his bandanna and blew his nose with hushed vigor.
"If I warn't in the presence of a lady what's his sister, Mis' Spooner," he said with elaborate politeness, "I'd up an' say--Dad rat Harvey Grannis's hide! Manners an' behavior is all prevents me from usin' them same cuss-words."
"Thank you for not saying them, Jonah," approved Mrs. Spooner, gravely, but with twinkling eyes. "Now I'll go out and meet the girls--I hear them coming, and they'll be sure to wake him with their noise, if I don't warn them."
The two girls were riding up the path, and both shouted:
"A letter from Cuba Libre!"