Virg pretending not to have seen his gestures, caught his hardened hand as she leaped up on the veranda, calling, “Uncle Tex, you come too, and be my advisor. It’s so long since I have cooked, maybe I have forgotten how.”
Virginia felt sure that another of the old man’s surprises awaited her in the kitchen, nor was she wrong.
CHAPTER III
MALCOLM’S RETURN
It was four in the afternoon and the girls, having had a long siesta after their lunch, had donned their muslin dresses (for the station master had arrived soon after noon with their trunks), and, taking Barbara’s cherished tea set, without which she never traveled, they had hied them to the summer house. Virg gathered a few of the scarlet blossoms that grew wild after the rains. Nearly all of them dried up but one clump had remained to welcome the girls. These she placed on the yucca table. Margaret was carrying a plate of small cakes. Betsy had a tray on which were five cups and saucers and tiny spoons. Babs, at the end of the line, held the fragile pot of delicate blue which was brimming with weak but hot tea.
Virg stood back to admire the table when it was set. Then laughingly she exclaimed: “I just can’t get over it. I never was more surprised in all my life. When I opened the kitchen door and saw that dear old Sing Long fussing around the stove, as though he weren’t expecting us, I just had to rush up and hug him.”
“Whizzle, but you certainly took the wind out of my sails, as Cousin Bob says,” Betsy declared, “I’ve always been scared of Chinamen and to see you actually embracing one! I dunno as I’ll ever recover from the shock.”
“I don’t believe there’s a kinder, nobler, more faithful race of people on this earth,” Margaret championed, “and Sing Long is just like home folks to Virginia, isn’t he Virg?”
The shining-eyed girl nodded. “He surely is. Why, Betsy, Sing was here before mother came as a bride. I’m so glad he wanted to come back. I wouldn’t have Uncle Tex know it, not for worlds, but I was rather dreading the responsibility of cooking for so many people, and now we won’t have anything to do, but plan—”
“Mysteries,” Betsy cut in. Then she asked: “Virg, I may be slow as a detective, but I certainly do think the way you keep looking in first one direction and then another is most mysterious.”
The young hostess sat down in one of the comfortable yucca chairs. “Have you noticed it?” she inquired, “Well, then, I’ll explain. I’m not really worried, but I’ll confess I am puzzled.”