Dixie did not say what the lesson was to be, but she glanced at her sister and thought, “If Carol only knew that I am to have a lesson in making her a blue-silk dress, wouldn’t she be the happiest girl that ever was?”
The younger girl had no desire to accompany Dixie to Miss Bayley’s cabin. The very word “lesson” did not appeal to her on a glorious Saturday. After taking the kittens back to the shed and making them a softer bed, the girls finished the washing; then at two o’clock they donned their best gingham dresses and started out together, but soon parted, as Carol was going to the Valley Ranch to visit Sue Piggins, to hear what had happened during the week at the girls’ boarding-school over in Reno, which Sue attended.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DIXIE’S LESSON IN DRESSMAKING
Miss Josephine Bayley was anticipating with real pleasure the coming of the little girl who was to have her first lesson in dressmaking.
The door of the small cabin stood welcomingly open, for it was one of those wonderful, balmy days known as Indian summer, and in Nevada they seem lovelier than elsewhere.
“See these beautiful ruddy leaves that I found this morning, Dixie, dear,” said the young teacher, who stood at the center-table arranging them, as the small girl appeared in the doorway. “I climbed a little lost trail, or, it was almost lost, it was so overgrown with tangled vines and scraggly dwarf pines.”
The great bowl of flaming-leaved branches was placed in one corner of the room, the table swept clear of books and magazines, and then the paper pattern was opened while Josephine Bayley continued, smiling across at her little visitor: “Dixie, how I wish that trails could talk. I’d love to know whose feet trod it so many times that a path was beaten there. Perhaps you have heard, have you, dear?”
Dixie shook her red-gold head. “Not ’zactly heard, Miss Bayley,” she replied, “but most likely ’twas the year of the big strike over at Silver City. My dad said that over-night, almost, these lonely, silent mountains were swarmed with men from everywhere, and they climbed all about with their pickaxes, hunting for other veins, but they didn’t find them. Maybe it’s selfish, but I’m glad, glad they didn’t.”
“So am I, Dixie,” the girl-teacher agreed, “for they would have dug ugly holes in these mountains and cut down the wonderful old pines. I would rather have nature at its wildest for my home than a castle of glistening white marble surrounded with artificial parks, however beautiful.”
“Oh, teacher, so would I.” The small girl had drawn close to the table, and her gold-brown eyes looked as though they were seeing a vision. “Miss Bayley,” she said, “I keep remembering. I can’t forget it. That violin music, I mean. And this morning, early, when I was up before the others, out under the pines, getting ready to do the washing, the sun came up over old Piney Peak, and it was just like a fairy shower of gold. Then a lark sang, and a little breeze stirred in the pine trees. Teacher, Miss Bayley, I think I could play it on a violin, if I had one.”