“I think it was half an excuse to coax us west, his illness,” laughed Mrs. Robbins, “and I told him so. But, oh, my chicks, if you could only see the ranch and live out there for a while. It took me back so to my girlhood, the freedom and sweep of it all. There is something about the west and its mountains you never get out of your system once you have known and loved them. I want you all to go out there some day.”
“Isn’t it a pity that one of us isn’t a boy,” said Kit meditatively. “Just because we are all girls, we can’t go in for that sort of a life, and I’d love it. At least for a little while. I’d like my life to be a whole lot of experiences, one after the other.”
“Piney says she’s going to live in the wilds anyway, whether she’s a girl or not,” Helen put in, leaning her chin on her palms on the edge of the table, her feet up in the big old red rocker. “She’s going to study forestry and be a government expert, and maybe take up a big claim herself. She says she’s bound she’ll live on a mountain top.”
“Well, she can if she likes,” Jean said. “I like Mother Nature’s cosy corners, don’t you, Motherie? When you get up as high as you can on any old mountain top, what’s the use? You only realize how much you need wings.”
“Go on to bed, all of you,” ordered Kit, briskly. “Jean, don’t you dare talk Mother to death now.”
“Let me brush your hair,” coaxed Jean after it was all quiet. So they sat downstairs together in the quiet living-room, the fire burning low, Mrs. Robbins in the low willow rocker, her long brown hair unbound, falling in heavy ripples below her waist. She looked almost girlish sitting there in the half light, the folds of her pretty grey crepe kimono close about her like a twilight cloud, Jean thought, and the glow of the fire on her face. Jean remembered that hour often in the weeks that followed. After she had brushed out her hair and braided it in soft, wide plaits, she sat on the hassock at her feet and talked of the trip west and all the things that had happened at Greenacres during that time.
“One thing I really have learned, Mother dear,” she finished. “Nothing is nearly as bad as you expect it to be. It was very discouraging when the pump was frozen, and Mrs. Gorham got lonesome, but Cousin Roxy came down and I declare, she seemed to thaw out everything. We got a plumber up from Nantic, and Cousin Roxy took Mrs. Gorham over to a meeting of the Ladies’ Aid Society, and it was over in no time.”
“Remember the old king who offered half of his kingdom to whoever would give him a saying that would always banish fear and care? And the one that he chose was this, ‘This too shall pass away.’ ”
“It’s comforting, isn’t it,” agreed Jean. “But another thing, Mother, you know I’ve never been very patient. I mean with little things. You’ll never know how I longed to stay down in New York with Bab this winter and go to art school. I can tell you now, because it’s all over, and the winter has done me good. But I was honestly rebellious.”
Mrs. Robbins’ hand rested tenderly on the smooth dark head beside her knee. Kit always said that Jean’s head make her think of a nice, sleek brown partridge’s crest, it was so smooth and glossy.