“Here comes Harold,” Jenny turned from the window to inform the other occupants of the kitchen. Grandma Sue was opening the oven to test her corn bread. Lenora was again in the comfortable armchair near the stove. For the past hour she had been asleep in the hammock out in the sun, and she felt stronger and really hungry. Charles, having been told that there was nothing that he could do to help, sat on the bench answering the questions his sister now and then asked.
Grandpa Si had not yet returned from a neighbor’s where he had gone to help repair fences.
Jenny, dressed in her white Swiss with the pink dots, had a pink butterfly bow in her hair. Her cheeks were flushed and her liquid brown eyes glowing. She was wonderfully happy. Her dear friend Lenora was to remain with her another two weeks. She was convinced that this was the sole reason for her joy. It did not remotely enter her thought that perhaps the return of Harold might be adding to her happiness.
Charles, hearing the siren call, leaped to the porch and the boys again shook hands like old friends who had not met in many a day.
Harold was plainly elated. He detained Charles on the porch long enough to tell his plan.
“I’ve been over to see Mother since I left and she is quite willing that I open up the little cabin on the cliff that used to belong to my Dad when he was young. It’s been closed since he died and I didn’t know how Mother would feel about having it occupied. But when she heard about you, she said she was glad indeed that I was to have a companion, as she knew the big house would seem lonely while she is ill, so we’ll move right over there after supper.”
“That’s great!” the Dakota boy was equally pleased. “Honest, I’ll confess it now; I did dread going to that barren Commercial Hotel, and I couldn’t afford to spend more than ten minutes at The Palms, not if I had to pay for the privilege.”
“Come on, let’s tell our good news.” Harold led the way into the kitchen where his jubilant enthusiasm was met with a like response. Lenora clapped her hands. “Oh, won’t you two boys have the nicest time! Tell us about that cabin. How did your father happen to build it?”
“I don’t believe I ever really knew. Gwyn and I were such little things when he died.” Turning to the older woman, who had dropped on the bench to rest, he asked, “Grandma Sue, you, of course, know all that happened. You were living near here, weren’t you, when my father was a boy?”
“Indeed I was. My folks had the overseein’ of a lemon grove up Live Oak Canyon way. First off I did fine sewin’ for your Grandma Jones. That’s how I come to know your family so well. But she didn’t live long arter I went there, and your grandpa was so broke up, he went to pieces sort of, right arter the funeral an’ pined away, slow like, for two years about. Your pa, Harry, was the only child, and he give up his lawin’ in the big city and come home to stay and be company for his pa. I never saw two folks set a greater store by each other, but the old man (your grandpa wasn’t really old, but grievin’ aged him), even his boy seemed like couldn’t cheer him up, he missed his good woman so. ’Twant long afore he followed her into the great beyond. That other Harold, your pa, was only twenty-two or thereabouts and he was all broke up. He didn’t seem to want to go back to the lawin’ and it was too lonesome for him to stay in the big house, so he sent the help all away, giving ’em each a present of three months’ pay. That is, he sent ’em all but Sing Long. Sing was a young Chinaman then, and he wanted to stay with your pa. That’s when he had the cabin on the cliff built. He was allays readin’, your pa was, so he filled one big room with books and with Sing Long to cook for him and take care of him, there he stayed until he was twenty-five. Then he went ’round the world and came back with a wife.”