That afternoon Elk Creek Valley lay bathed in June sunshine. It had never seemed so beautiful—at least to a certain boy and girl, who rested their horses on the brow of the Mine, and looked off across a creek bordered by cottonwoods and merry, laughing quaking-asps, across a blue-green sea of waving grain, to the distant, snow-furrowed mountain peaks. Some magpies flew chattering over the prairie and among the quaking-asps; a meadow lark sang from a near-by tree-stump; and two cotton-tail rabbits chased each other across the open space between the creek and the foot-hills, and played hide-and-seek behind the sage-brush.
“Isn’t it the loveliest place in all the world, Don?” the girl almost whispered. “I know I’ll not be any happier when I get to Heaven. And some way the mountains are friendlier than ever. Perhaps because I love them better now I’m home again.”
“It is lovely,” the boy answered. “The finest country anywhere! I’m mighty glad you’re home again, Virginia; but the thing I’m most glad about is, that you aren’t a young lady after all!”
THE END
SIX STAR RANCH
Another success by the author of the wonderful GLAD Books
“Pollyanna: The GLAD Book”