The Babe, being the only idle inmate of the Silver Spur, continued to devour unchecked her books of romance, until an incident occurred that made Mrs. Spooner decide that the time had come for her reading to be a little more varied. It happened one day in the following summer, when old Jonah, with a worried look on his face, sought her for a little private conversation.
"It's about the Babe, ma'am. Have you noticed anything pertickler wrong with her lately?" he asked anxiously.
"Why no, Jonah; what makes you think there's anything wrong? What has she been doing?" asked Mrs. Spooner in alarm. She arose from her seat hastily. "I must go and find her--where is she?"
"Jest down at the corral, unsaddlin' of her pony," soothed Jonah. "No need to be skeered--at the present. You set down, Mis' Spooner, and I'll tell ye. A while ago I come acrost her out on the range, a-gallopin' along on that little rat-tailed cayuse o' her'n, and I'm blest if she didn't have a broom-handle over her shoulder, and a old fire-shovel helt out right straight in front! She looked out'n her eyes like--well, like she was seein' things. I calls to her: 'Babe, whar ye gwine?' But law, she looks at me pine-black like I was a stranger, hits Queen Beren-jerry, as she calls that reedic'lous cayuse, and hollers back over her shoulder: 'Avaunt thee, villain!' and a heap o' other lingo I couldn't make sense outer."
Mrs. Spooner's face relaxed, she dropped back in her rocking-chair and began to laugh. The old man seemed to resent her mirth.
"Now Mis' Spooner, you may take it that-a-way, but 'tain't like the Babe to be miscallin' nobody, let alone me what's raised her. My opinion is the child's comin' down with fever, or got a tetch o' the sun, and you better go to dosin' her mighty quick!"
"No, Jonah," laughed Mrs. Spooner, much relieved, "it's just Ivanhoe gone to her head--not the sun. She reads too much, and is too much alone, I'm afraid. She was only playing she was a knight--a person out of that book she's always reading. But thank you for telling me, all the same."
"I'd be glad to think it was no wuss; but--" Jonah shook his head doubtfully, "a-misscallin' me a villian don't seem natchul. I'll go send her in to you, so's you can look at her tongue. My notion is she needs doctor's truck."
As he hobbled out in quest of the Babe, Mrs. Spooner sighed a little, feeling that she had a problem to cope with. The lonely child was living too much in a world of dreams. "I'll speak to Elizabeth," the mother mused, thankful that she had Elizabeth's wise young head and Ruth's willing hands to rely upon. The older pair must take little Harvie more into their hearts. "What on earth would I do without my girls to help me!"
Both girls were spending the day in Emerald, with Cousin Hannah Pratt, who--now that Maudie was away in Chicago, studying music, and Mr. Pratt up in Wyoming with a herd of fattening cattle--was very lonely, and begged earnestly for some of the Spooners to come in whenever it was possible, and keep her company.