She smiled her sweetest at her irate sister, whose wrath softened, for little Carolina was so like their beautiful mother. Even at eight years of age she had the languid manner of the South, and spoke with a musical drawl.
But there was no envy in the heart of the older girl. She was passionately glad that one of them was so like that adored mother who had died soon after the birth of her youngest child, who now was four years old.
The father, an honest, hardy Nevada mountaineer, had been killed in a raid two years later, and since then Dixie, aged twelve, had been little mother and home-maker for the other three children.
Before Dixie could rebuke the younger sister, a door below opened and a baby voice called shrilly, “Oh, Dix, do come quick! Suthin’s a-runnin’ over on the stove.”
“It’s the porridge.” The older girl sniffed the air, which conveyed to her the scent of something burning. Down the ladder she scrambled.
“Well, lucky stars!” she exclaimed a moment later as she removed the kettle and gave the contents a vigorous stirring.
“’Tisn’t stuck to the bottom, that’s one comfort.” Then, whirling about, she caught the little four-year-old boy in her arms as she exclaimed, “And so our Jimmikins is going to school to-day for the very first time.”
The small head, covered with sunny curls, nodded, and his eyes twinkled as he proudly prattled: “I’ll stan’ up front and I’ll spell c-a-t, and ever’thin’, won’t I, Dixie?”
“Of course you will, pet lamb, and maybe the teacher will ask you to recite, and won’t she be surprised to find that you know seven speaking pieces?”
While Dixie talked she was dishing up the porridge. She glanced at the ladder and sighed. Would she have to climb it again? What could be keeping Carolina? But just then a foot appeared and slowly there descended the member of the family who was always late. She had been brushing her soft golden-brown curls in front of their one mirror. A pretty circling comb held them in place.