Jean stayed awake longer than the girls, thinking of the coming vacation on the ranch, and what it would mean to them. What a surprise it would be to Mrs. “Sandy,” when they all rode over to the Alameda ranch to call; girls from her own home town, and Calvert Hall, Virginia. She wondered what Peggie would think of Polly’s merry club—shy, low-voiced Peggie, who was shy even with her own family, and only seemed to feel at ease with dumb animals. Most of all, she thought of her mother, quiet, and gentle like Peggie, but always the one who saw farthest ahead down the trail, as Captain Sandy said. She had assented willingly to the coming of the girls. Practically, it would help Jean, she knew, to have them with her, and financially it would also benefit the ranch where every dollar seemed like five, with the growing brood of hearty youngsters, and never-ending expenses.
“And it will do the poor lassies a deal of good, too, Jeanie,” she had written East, “just to be seeing how people manage to live happily and wholesomely away out here in the hill country. It is not best always to sit on a cushion, and sew a fine seam, and feed upon strawberries, sugar and cream. How you always wanted to be Curly Locks when you were a bairnie, though. And you may be yet. But even if you should you will make a better mother and wife, dear, for having lived here at the Crossbar year after year. Bring your Virginia roses out West here, and we’ll show them prairie flowers, and mountain wild-pinks that God’s hand tends as lovingly as he does his roses.
“I kiss you good-night, daughter.
“Mother.”
Sometimes, when Jean read over those home letters, it made her more tender towards Polly, brought up between the Admiral’s happy indulgence and Aunty Welcome’s frantic admonitions. She looked forward with interest and some curiosity to watching the effect of life at the Crossbar on all of the girls, but mostly on Polly herself.
CHAPTER X
TOURIST NEIGHBORS
The crying of the baby across the aisle awakened Polly at dawn the next morning. At first she could hardly think where she was, with the motion of the train still lulling her, and her body somewhat cramped from the night’s reclining on the seat.
The other girls were still sleeping, but she met Jean coming from the wash-room.
“I found out from the conductor that we stop at Fort Wayne long enough to get some cocoa and fresh fruit, if you girls want it,” Jean told her. “We can get more in Chicago, when we change cars.”