“You think I won’t make it grow, and I’ll lose money?” she asked.
“Why, yes, ma’am. I hate to say so, but that’s sure how it looks to me.”
She gave him her vivid smile. “You’re going to live to take off your hat and apologize humbly, Mr. Jennings,” she prophesied.
“I sure hope so.”
Ruth made her preparations to go ahead and assumed that the foreman was as enthusiastic as she was. She did not have to assume that he was loyal and would support her project with a whole heart when it once got under way.
Though she had a healthy interest in making the most of the ranch, Ruth’s real absorption was in the baby. He was a continuous joy and delight.
Rowan, junior, was king of the Circle Diamond from his birth. He ruled imperiously over the hearts of the three women. It was natural that Ruth should love him from the moment that they put him in her arms and his little heel kicked her in the side. He was the symbol of the love of Rowan that glowed so steadfastly in her soul. So she worshipped him for his own sake and for the sake of the man she had married. The small body that breathed so close to her, so helpless and so soft, filled her with everlasting wonder and delight.
His daily bath was a function. Ruth presided over it herself, but Norma, and often Mrs. Stovall, too, made excuses to be present. His plump legs wrinkled into such kissable creases as he lay on his back and waved them in the air, his smiling little mouth was such an adorable Cupid’s bow that the young mother vowed in her heart there never had been such a boy since time began.
But she did not coddle him. His mother had read the latest books on the care of babies, and she intended to bring him up scientifically. He spent a large part of his time sleeping on a screened porch, and, as he grew older, Ruth took him with her when she drove over the place on business.
In every letter she wrote Rowan the baby held first place, but she was careful to show him that the boy was his son as well as hers, a bond between them from the past and a promise for the future. In one letter she wrote: