Mark lifted them down from the carriage, one by one, and presented them to her, and the tears started in her eyes as Elinor kissed her fondly, called her sister Alice, and appeared to overlook the shabby apartments which had so distressed the housewife a few minutes before.
The little boy bounded and capered in the joy of freedom as he looked at the boundless prairie, and Tibby Waring’s eyes glowed with tender moistness as she feasted upon the beauty of the expanse before her.
“Oh, Mrs. Wylie, how lovely it is to breathe freely again,� she murmured as, after removing her wraps with the dust and stain of travel, she stood, later in the day, outside the cabin door and watched the red sun touch the prairie’s distant rim.
“Yes, Tibby, you will be a child again with all these country wilds about you. You will have chickens, cows, and horses to your heart’s content. Mark, do you remember how we youngsters used to go out to grandpa’s?�
“Indeed I do. I remember how you tried to walk a log across Willow brook and fell in.�
“And I remember when grandpa whipped you for taking eggs from under his sitting hen.�
“Because a little girl about your size—you haven’t grown much—told me to do it.�
“Yes, and I ran and hid in the dry-house and fell asleep there. What a time they had finding me.� And Elinor laughed at the recollection.
“’Twas old Tige that found you. We never could understand how he opened the dry-house door,� responded Mark.
“Ah, those happy, happy days,� sighed Elinor. “Look yonder, Tibby, what a lovely group of ponies.�