The Girl from the Big Horn Country

by Mary Ellen Chase

Then the Winthrops must be introduced, and the Williamses and Anne and Dorothy, together with Miss King and Miss Wallace, until the Colonel declared that he felt quite at home. It seemed about a minute to Virginia before he said that he must go, in spite of entreaties and cordial invitations to share the festivities of the afternoon. But he should come again, he said, and the next time he would bring his grandson. Virginia watched the big car as it disappeared below the hill; and later, as they drove together in the early evening to the station, she told Aunt Nan that the Colonel’s coming had made her day complete.

“Give my love to grandmother, Aunt Nan,” she said, as they told each other good-by, “and kiss her twice for me, if you think she’d like it.”

“I’m sure she would, Virginia,” answered Aunt Nan. “She’s counting the days until Christmas.” And the train that carried Aunt Nan northward left a very happy girl on the station platform.

But of all the happiness which Thanksgiving brought, the loveliest was the opportunity it gave her to know Miss Wallace better. Miss Green had gone to Boston for the holidays, and since The Hermitage was filled to overflowing, Priscilla and Virginia stayed in her room, giving their own to the Winthrops. Miss Green’s room was next to Miss Wallace’s; and since Priscilla was constantly with her father and mother, Virginia, though always asked with Dorothy to join the party, seized the privilege afforded her of being with Miss Wallace. Miss Wallace was also glad, for she loved Virginia. Policy, when school was in session, forbade, with total disregard for a teacher’s preferences, a greater intimacy with one girl than with another; but in the vacation days following Thanksgiving, when Virginia was more or less alone, their friendship grew and ripened into a close understanding between them.

Virginia discovered that Miss Wallace loved her best book friends—“Pollyanna,” Pip in “Great Expectations,” poor Smike in “Nicholas Nickleby,” David Balfour, Sydney Carton, Sohrab, and dear Margaret in “The Cloister and the Hearth.” They spent two lovely long evenings reading together before the open fire in Miss Wallace’s cheery room, and some hours out-of-doors. Also, to Virginia’s great delight, Miss Wallace expressed a desire to learn to ride; and thereupon followed a lesson with Miss Wallace on Napoleon, who, to her inexperienced eyes, was a veritable war-horse.

She was doubly glad and thankful for Miss Wallace’s interest and friendship on the Monday following Thanksgiving. It was the last day of the vacation, and golden like the others. The Winthrop family and the Williamses, together with Anne and Dorothy, had motored to Riverside, twenty miles distant, to take their homeward bound train from there instead of Hillcrest. Virginia had been asked to join the party, but had declined, preferring to ride, and secretly hoping that Miss Wallace might be able to ride also. But Miss Wallace had papers to correct, sorry as she was, and Virginia tried to be content with the sunshine, the black horse, and a thick letter from her father, which the postman gave her as she rode past him down the hill.

Securing her reins to the horn of her saddle, she tore open her letter. So motionless did she sit while she read its contents that the black horse quite forgot he had a rider, and stopped to nibble at the bare, wayside bushes. A few moments later he must have been surprised to feel a pair of arms about his neck, and a head against his mane; but he still nibbled on unconscious that the girl on his back was sobbing, and saying between her sobs,

“Oh, if you were Pedro, you might understand, but you haven’t any heart at all!”

Still he chewed the alder bushes. It was not often that he was allowed to take refreshment when this girl rode him, and he intended to make the best of his advantages. He felt her raise her head after some long moments; but as yet there was no signal for departure. Virginia was reading her letter again through blinding tears.

“I have something to tell you, my clear little daughter, which I know will grieve you deeply,” her father had written. It was this that had at first made her heart stand still. “Still, I feel that I should tell you, for sooner or later you must know. Dear old Jim left us last night to begin life over again Somewhere Else. He had been gradually failing for weeks, but he would not give up his work. Yesterday morning Pedro was taken ill, and Jim refused to leave him, saying over and over again that you had always trusted Pedro to him. He worked over him all day, undoubtedly saving Pedro’s life, and refusing to leave him, even though the other men insisted upon his giving place to them. At night the men left him to eat supper, for he still would not leave his post; and when they had finished and went back to the stable, Pedro was quite himself again, but they found Jim—asleep.