“I don’t believe that any of you girls ever asked, did you?” Jean’s blue eyes looked quizzically at Polly. Then she, too, sat down on the window seat, and looked out towards the West, where the sun was reddening the distant hills, and her face caught some of its radiance, as she went on, quietly. “My home is yonder, Polly, west of the hills. It is away, ’way out West in Wyoming, up in the northeastern corner, under the shoulder of Bear Lodge.”
“Is there a large family?” asked Polly, wistfully. “I love lots and lots of children in a family.”
“We think it is large. Let’s count up. There’s mother and father, first of all. Then I am the eldest, and I am twenty-eight. Neil is next to me. He is taking a post-graduate course at the State University. Then come Archie and Don. Arch is in his Soph year, and Don is only sixteen, so he helps father on the ranch, and goes to school winters. Then Margaret is the baby. She is twelve, and we call her Peggie. That is all of the real family, but besides there is old Sally Lost Moon, a half-breed Shoshone woman that mother took in one winter, and she has stayed ever since. Then father has about five men who work for him. They are mostly out on the range with the cattle. That is all the humans we have, as Sally would say. But there are horses, and dogs, and Prometheus, Don’s pet bear—”
“A real live one?”
“Yes, indeed, he is very much alive. I guess you would think so if you lived there. He is only a youngster now, but so full of mischief, you never can tell where it will crop out next. We have called him ‘Prometheus Unbound’ ever since the Sunday when the Missionary Bishop came to the ranch to dinner, and to hold service. That bear got loose somehow, Polly, and found his way into the cook house, and ate up everything in sight, and when Sally and mother went to set the table for dinner, you should have seen their faces!” Jean stopped and looked at her watch. “Child of mortality, as Miss Calvert would say,” she cried, “do you know the time of day? It’s after six now. Don’t ask me another question about home or Mrs. Sandy. I must hurry down to dinner, or I’ll be late for grace, and Miss Calvert never forgives that.”
“May I come and hear some more after school Monday?” asked Polly, as she followed the figure in white downstairs.
“Why, of course you may, and I shall be ever so glad to have you, Polly. Sometimes, this winter, I’ve wondered whether you girls really liked me or not.”
“We’ll like you better if you give us a chance to get acquainted,” said Polly, with her merry frankness. “I think the ranch is the most interesting place I’ve heard about in a long time. Oh, I forgot all about Crullers, Miss Murray.” She stopped short outside the dormitory door. “What did she do this time, please?”
“Broke her parole. She must stay in bed until to-morrow as a punishment. Just at noon to-day, she was found climbing out of the back hall window to the porch roof, and she dropped down to the other side of the garden wall, and made for the side street. Oh, she confessed. It was for pickled limes and doughnuts. Good-bye, Polly.” She went down the staircase, and turned to wave her hand at the bottom. And all at once an idea occurred to Polly.
“Couldn’t you come down to Glenwood to-morrow, and have dinner with grandfather and me, Miss Murray?” she asked eagerly. “We’d love to have you.”