Supper was served on the uncovered veranda. A stream of late afternoon sunshine filtered through the trees, and, with the lengthening shadows, cast a sunflecked pattern of branch and foliage on the white linen tablecloth and shining glass and silver. Some of Chicken Little’s own clove pinks, mingled 183with feathery larkspur and ribbon grass, filled a silver bowl in the center of the table.
“How did you keep them fresh so long?” Chicken Little asked curiously.
“Wing Fan performed some kind of an incantation over them. You’ll have to ask him.”
Wing was delighted to have Jane notice them. “Velly easy keep–put some away in box with ice all same butter.”
Captain Clarke had been the first person on the creek to put up ice for summer use and Wing was the proud possessor of a roomy ice box.
“It seems like home to have ice again.” Katy was stirring the sugar in her tea for the sheer satisfaction of hearing the ice tinkle against the sides of the glass. A sudden thought disturbed her. “Though there couldn’t be anything nicer than your spring house for keeping things. I don’t believe our melons at home ever got so nice and cold all through as yours do down in the spring stream.”
“That’s a wonderful spring you have over on the place.” Captain Clarke came to Katy’s rescue. “And that big oak above it is the finest tree in this part of the country. I’ll venture it has a history if we only knew it.”
“Yes, Father is very proud of the old oak. He says it is at least two hundred years old. He wouldn’t take anything for it,” Ernest replied.
184“Everybody calls Kansas a new country,” said Sherm, “but I guess it is pretty old in some ways. Kansas had a lot of history during the war.”
“Yes, and lots of the people who helped make the history are living down at Garland now. The old Santa Fe trail runs clear across our ranch. You can tell it still–though it hasn’t been traveled for almost twenty years–by the ruts and washouts. And even where the ground wasn’t cut up by the countless wheels, it was packed so hard the blue stem has never grown there since. It is all covered with that fuzzy buffalo grass. In winter this turns a lighter brown than the prairie grass and you can see the trail for miles, distinctly.” Ernest loved history and politics.