Jack felt a singing in her heart and in her ears as she saw the wide meadows now blossoming with purple clover and heard the western larks rising high over the land, dipping toward it again, then soaring higher up, as if they threw aside the call of the earth for the loftier one of the air.
Jim and Ruth with their children, and Jean and Ralph Merritt and their little girl, when they were at the ranch, lived in the great house which the Ranch girls had built after coming into their fortune through the discovery of the mine on their place. But the old Rainbow Lodge, where they had all lived as little girls when it was rather hard to make expenses in the dry seasons in Wyoming, had never been torn down. Indeed, as a special request from Jack it had been kept in perfect repair and still remained simply and comfortably furnished.
Whenever there were too many guests at the big house, some of them were sent down here, and more often, when he could bear the ways of high society no longer, Jim escaped to the old lodge for a quiet smoke and perhaps an hour to himself. Now and then Ruth, his wife, would come to join him, and they would talk of the early days at the ranch and their first meeting, when Ruth was a prim New England schoolmarm.
So, as a favor, Jack had asked that the old Lodge be given over to her use while she was at home. She and the babies would come up to the big house for their meals, except at night when the babies could be better taken care of at the Lodge. This would give all the more room for the others.
So, as Ruth, Jim and Jean, realized that Jack sincerely wished this arrangement, they had agreed with her desire. Jack had married so soon after the building of the house, which Frieda had named "The Rainbow Castle," that she had never learned to feel any particular affection for it. So in coming home she wished to return to the house she had loved and remembered.
On either side of the old Lodge, Frieda's violet beds were still carefully tended and today were a mass of bloom.
Olive and Frieda and the Professor insisted on getting out first at the Lodge with Jack and Jim. When they entered the old living room it was so like the one they recalled that the three women, who were girls no longer, felt a sudden catching of their breath.
But of course Jim and Jean had arranged the old room to look as much like it formerly did as possible. They had the Indian rugs on the floor, the old shelves of books, with just the books the Ranch girls had owned long before, the great open fireplace and the tall brass candlesticks on the mantel.
Then before leaving for the station Jean had filled the room with bunches of violets, as Frieda had once been accustomed to do.
"It is still just the loveliest, homiest place in the world!" Frieda exclaimed.