In addition to the business of the Circle Diamond and superintending the care of a year-old baby, Ruth had other claims upon her time that she could not ignore. One of these was her promise to Sam Yerby to look after Missie and the boy. It was her custom to have them down for a day every other month and to visit the Yerby place between times.
On a day in mid-November, with Rowan, junior, beside her, Ruth set out in the car for the little mountain ranch. It was a cool crisp morning. The sting of frost was in the air, and the indigo mountains were ribbed with white in the snow-filled gulches. To the nostrils came the tang of sage and later of pine.
After she had driven from the foothills into the cañon, Ruth stopped to wrap an extra blanket around the baby, for the sun was painting only the upper walls as yet, and down by the creek there was an inch-thick ice at the edges. The early fall snows were melting on the sunny slopes above, and Hill Creek was pouring down in a flood. The road crossed the creek twice, but after she was on it Ruth discovered that the second bridge was very shaky. The car got over safely, but she decided to take the high-line road home, even though it was a few miles longer.
Robert E. Lee Yerby came running down to the gate to meet them.
“Oh, Auntie Rufe!” he shouted. “Mumma’s peelin’ a chicken for dinner.”
Ruth caught the youngster up and hugged him. He was an attractive little chap, with the bluest of eyes and the most ingenuous of smiles.
“I like you, Auntie Rufe. You always smell like pink woses,” he confided with the frankness of extreme youth.
His r’s were all w’s, but the young woman understood him. She gave him another hug in payment for the compliment.
“I’ve brought budda to play with you, Bobbie.” “Budda” was the nearest Robert could come to the word brother at the time Rowan was born, and the word had stuck with him, as is the way with children. “Now let me go. I must get out and shut the gate.”
“No, it don’t hurt if it’s open. Mumma said so, tos everyfing’s in the pasture.”