Indiana met his eyes bent enquiringly upon her, then burst into laughter.
"Well, you've phazed me this time," she said. Then she installed herself on his knee. "Oh, I don't mean a specialist at all. I mean a consulting physician—an authority."
"Now you're talking," answered Stillwater, with a beaming smile.
Indiana jumped off his knee. "An ordinary doctor isn't good enough for my father!" She gave a very good imitation of a cowboy's swagger. "I'm hungry, pa."
"Well, where are you going to have lunch?"
"I'd like mine brought up," said Mrs. Stillwater. "Are the trunks unlocked, Kitty?" as a young, bright-looking girl appeared at the door.
"Yes ma'am. Come right in and I'll make you comfortable."
"I'll have my lunch up here with ma," said Mr. Stillwater. "What's the rest of you going to do?"
"Oh, we'll go down and hear the band play," said Mrs. Bunker with exuberant spirits. "Come along, Indiana!"
Stillwater was one of the men who had risen rapidly in the West. He had married at a boyish age, a very young, gentle girl, and had emigrated from the East soon after marriage, with his wife and her mother, Mrs. Chazy Bunker. He built a house on government land in Indiana. The first seven years meant hard and incessant toil, but in that time he and the two women saw some very happy days. His marriage had been a boy and girl affair, dating from the village school. One of those lucky unions, built neither upon calculation or judgment, which terminate happily for all concerned. Stillwater was only aware that the eyes of Mary Bunker were blue and sweet as the wild violets that he picked and presented to her, and that she never spelt above him. His manliness won her respect, and his gentleness her love. Their immature natures thus thoughtlessly and happily united, like a pair of birds at nesting time, grew together as the years went on until they became one. After seven years of unremitting work, Stillwater could stand and look proudly as far as the eye could reach, on acre after acre of golden wheat tossing blithely in the breeze. He had been helped to this result by the women who had lived with the greatest economy and thrift putting everything into the land. His young and inexperienced wife acted under the direction of her mother, a splendid manager and a woman of great shrewdness and sense. He could look, also, on the low, red-painted house, which could boast now of many additions, and realize that his marriage had been a success. In that low red house Indiana first saw the light, and, simultaneously, oil was struck on the land. The child became the prospective heiress of millions.