Here’s green for the ocean to bear us afar
To some lovely blue land ’neath an opal star.
And yet to the end shall we ever forget
Our own prairie fields of pale violet?”
“It is a rather hard poem to understand, but it rhymes pretty well,” Frieda ended doubtfully.
Olive’s loyalty left no room for criticism. “It’s beautiful, I think. And I know what Jack means at the end. If we ever do go to Europe, as we sometimes have planned, we must never forget the Rainbow Ranch. You know, Frieda dear, that the alfalfa clover is violet and not pink and white like the clover in the east.”
But the poem could not be further unraveled because Mr. Drummond had now to tear himself away in order to catch his train back to New York. Hurrying out into the hall, with the three ranch girls close behind him, he suddenly came to an abrupt stop. He had nearly run into a young woman, who also stood still, staring at him with reproachful blue eyes and a haughtily held head.
“Peter, that is, Mr. Drummond, how could you come down here when I told you not to?” the girls heard Jessica Hunt say with the least little nervous tremor in her voice.
Mr. Drummond bowed to her coldly. “I am very sorry, Jessica, Miss Hunt,” he returned coldly, “but I had not the faintest idea of seeing you at Primrose Hall. You do not know it, but the ranch girls are my very dear friends and my visit was solely to them.” Peter was moving majestically away when a hand was laid for the briefest instant on his coat sleeve. This time a humbler voice said, “Forgive me, Peter, I might have known you would never trouble to come to see me again.”
That evening as the ranch girls were dressing for dinner Jean poked her head in Olive’s room. “Olive Ralston, has it ever occurred to you that Peter Drummond may have recommended Primrose Hall to us because a certain young woman named Jessica Hunt taught here? Men folks is deep, child, powerful deep, but as the book says, ‘we shall see what we shall see.’ I wonder, though, why girls and men can’t fall in love and get married without such a lot of fussing and misunderstanding. Think how Ruth is treating poor Jim! When I fall in love I am not going to be so silly and tiresome. I am just going to say yes and thank you too and let’s get married next week.” Jean’s face was very serious for the moment and also very bewitching.