THERE WERE THREE CRIES OF “OH,” FOLLOWED BY A MOMENT’S SILENCE
“They are the loveliest things I ever saw in my life and the grandest, and now Jean won’t be able to pretend we are poor any more,” Frieda announced.
“Ah, but maybe Jack is a fairy godmother, and even poor girls may have fairy godmothers,” Jean teased.
“I think none of us have guessed yet what Jack intends our gifts to suggest,” Olive added slowly, her eyes still resting on the glowing colors of the jeweled pins. “Don’t you see, Mr. Drummond, that our pins represent rainbows? I have been repeating the rainbow colors to myself—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. And here are seven jewels of the same colors in our pins.”
Peter Drummond took Olive’s pin in his own hand. “Right you are, and Jack has beaten me at my own game. For I have been collecting jewels all my life and never thought of so pretty an idea as this. Here is a garnet to start with for the red, then a topaz for the orange, a yellow diamond next, an emerald for the green, a sapphire for blue, a blue opal for indigo and last of all an amethyst for the last shade of violet.”
“They are to make us think of the ranch and the lodge and the mine and all the good things that have come to us through a rainbow,” Jean said thoughtfully and then more huskily, “I guess Jack is pretty homesick.” Frieda made a dive toward the floor at this moment, rising up with a piece of paper in her hand. “This fell out of the jewel case when I opened it, but I hadn’t time to pick it up then,” she announced. “Oh, goodness gracious, Jack, of all people, has written us a poem!” And Frieda read:
“Here are seven colors in nature and art,
What I think they mean I wish you from my heart;
Here’s red, that good courage may fill you each day
And orange and yellow to shine on your way.