“I just wish I had a chance to go West like Sally,” Kit said suddenly. “When I’m old enough, I’m going to take up a homestead claim and live on it with a wonderful horse and some dogs, wolf dogs. I wish Sally’d wait till we were both old enough, and had finished school. She could be a forest ranger and I’d raise—”
“Ginseng,” Jean suggested mischievously. “Dopey. It takes far more courage than that just to stick it out on one of these old barren farms, all run-down and fairly begging for somebody to take them in hand. What do you want to hunt a western claim for? Besides, I don’t think there are any left anymore.”
“Space,” Kit answered with feeling. “I don’t want to see my neighbors’ chimney pots sticking up all around me through the trees. I want to gaze off at a hundred hilltops, and not see somebody’s scarecrow waggling empty sleeves at me. Sally and I have the spirits of eagles.”
“Isn’t that nice,” said Doris pleasantly. “It’ll make such a good place to spend our vacations, kids. While Sally and Kit are out soaring, we can fish and ride and have really swell times.”
“Cut it out,” Jean whispered, as Kit’s ire started to rise. “It’s getting late, really, and I have to get up while it is still night, you know. Good night all.”
The start next morning was made at seven, before the sun was up. The tears were wet on Jean’s cheeks as she climbed into the seat beside Kit, and turned to wave goodbye to the group on the porch. She had not realized before what this first trip away from home meant.
“Write us everything,” called Doris, waving both hands to her.
“Come back soon,” yelled Tommy.
But her mother went back into the house in silence, away from the living room into the study where Jean had kept her own bookcase, desk, and a few choice pictures. A few old paintbrushes lay beside Jean’s worn pigskin gloves on the table. Mrs. Craig picked up both, laid her cheek against the gloves and closed her eyes. The years were racing by so fast, so fast, she thought, and mothers must be wide-eyed and generous and fearless, when the children suddenly begin to top heads with one, and feel impatient to be out on their own.
Ready to try it alone, she thought. If it had been Kit now, she would not have felt this curious little pang. Kit was self-sufficient and full of buoyancy that was bound to carry her over obstacles, but Jean was sensitive and dependent on her environment for spur and stimulation. She heard a step behind her and turned eagerly as Mr. Craig came into the room, looking for her. He saw the brushes and the gloves in her hand, and the look in her eyes uplifted to his own. Very gently he folded his arms around her, his cheek pressed close to her brown hair.