"Isn't he lovely—lovely?" Jean was murmuring as though unable to tear herself from his side. "Mrs. Alton, I am sure you have placed us all under a debt of gratitude. This community simply had to have a baby."
After that, conversation came easier, and we found ourselves talking about farm life, and the problems of the homesteader. Mrs. Alton drank in every word with avidity; she was eager for information on the most casual affairs.
"I am so frightfully stupid!" she exclaimed. "You see, I know nothing about farming, and I suppose it was a very wild notion that I should take a homestead. I did it on Gerald's account. I shall manage some way, and in three years—by the time he must start to school—the farm will be mine. Then I shall sell it or mortgage it to give him an education."
Here was pluck for you. It was apparent from her language that she was a woman of some refinement; possibly a woman who had never known hard work or privation. A turn in the wheel of fortune, and she was without the money for the education of her boy. A free farm in Canada offered the solution, and the wilds of the West could not deter her.
"By that time we may have a school next door," I suggested. "People will flow in here in crowds, once they make a start. Have you plans for carrying on the work of the farm?"
"I have two men following with boards to build a house; just a very tiny house, in keeping with my purse. Then I hope to hire a neighbor to do some plowing, and I will plant some corn next spring. I shall raise chickens, and have a great garden—I know all about gardening," she added, naively, with a sudden return of confidence. "You should have seen my English roses!"
We had not the heart to tell her that there lay a great gulf between English roses and a Canadian cabbage patch, and she rattled on, evidently glad of some one to watch with sympathy the mirage castles which she was building on her horizon.
"For myself, I am quite penniless," she confessed, thrusting her upturned palms towards us with a little impulsive gesture. "Gerald is my resource, as well as my responsibility. He has a hundred pounds a year. We shall invest it in this farm. I am sure we are going to prosper wonderfully.
"All the world seems to circle around Gerald," she added, as though it were an after-thought.
She made Jean and Marjorie sit down on a box on which she had spread a steamer rug. Jack and I stood at the door of the tent, where the setting sun blazoned our wind-tanned faces a ruddy red.