The children, catching her jubilant spirit, began to clap their hands and dance.
“Now, Lizzie Isabel, we will clean up the house and get everything ready. You girls can wear your gingham dresses, and Henry Clay can—well, he can wear his pa’s light shirt, and his trousers, too; they will be too long, of course, but he can roll them up, and we can girt them in at the waist. We’ll all dress up and go after Grandma Clark. She’s all alone. We couldn’t be so selfish as to sit down and eat all our good things alone.”
So they all worked with a will; but there was not much to do.
“You children don’t know how lucky you are to be poor,” said Mrs. Culberson. “If we’d been rich enough to have a floor, we would have to scrub; and if we had a glass window, we’d have that to wash. But as it is, we can get this room in order in a jiffy.”
Through all her ups and downs, Mrs. Culberson had kept her “settin’ out”; she had her feather bed, the ten beautiful patchwork quilts given her by different members of her family; the Yancy sheets and the lovely Culberson tablecloth, all homespun and woven.
It was a proud little group that later in the day left the freshly decked cabin and started for Grandma Clark’s. All the girls’ dresses were a year too small, their sleeves were too short and their waists too tight; but the children had pressed their worn ribbons, and their hair was neatly braided, and they were all so happy that only an unfeeling critic could have seen anything except beauty and sweetness about them. Henry Clay’s trousers were many sizes too large, but they were rolled up at the bottom and well “girt in” at the waist. His shirt was caught up and tacked and pinned in so many places that it had almost lost all resemblance to a shirt; but if his fourteen year old body was too small to fill his father’s clothes, his pride overflowed, and made him seem large and important in his own eyes.
They had laid poles upon the running gear of the wagon and wired them firmly, in order to have a safe place for Grandma Clark to ride. Mrs. Culberson took a last satisfied look round the neat room, warned the children once more to mind their manners, and not to let the company see that they did not have bread every meal, and to remember how fortunate they were to have a good warm cabin, plenty of wood, and friends to share their comforts, “and them friends rale close neighbors, not more’n six miles away.”
So they clambered on their odd carryall and drove off, with the donkeys belly-deep in the soft snow.
******
Miles away, up in the mountains near Burnt Fork, lay the ranch of Jack Nevin. He was an “old-timer” without kith or kin, but he never lived alone, for he was always taking some one in to share his home. At that time he had living with him old John Enderby, who had a special fondness for making fun of others. Once a year Jack Nevin made a trip to Green River for supplies, but, oddly enough, he would never permit anyone to go with him.