Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party

by Lillian Elizabeth Roy

  CHAPTER VIII

  CONSEQUENCES

  BLUE BONNET came in from an early morning romp with Don and Solomonlooking even more rosy and debonair than usual. It was surprising howmuch easier it was to rise early at the ranch than it had been atWoodford. She liked to steal quietly out of the nursery and goadventuring before breakfast; she felt then like Blue Bonnet thefourteen-year-old, full of the joy of life, untroubled by fears of anysort or desires for the great unknown. She and Don in those days hadhad many a ramble before the dew was off the grass. Hat-less andshort-skirted she had climbed fences, brushed through mesquite andbuffalo grass; hunted nests of chaparral-birds; sat on the top bar ofthe old pasture fence and watched the little calves gambolling; or,earlier in the spring, had gathered great armfuls of blue bonnets fromover in the south meadow. Now when she found herself away from thehouse, skirting San Franciscito in an eager chase for a butterfly, shecould have thought the past ten months all a dream,--except for acertain small brown dog tearing madly from one gopher-hole to another,while Don, in the veteran's scorn for the novice, refused to beenticed from his mistress' side.

  "Where's Grandmother?" she asked as she entered the dining-room.Grandmother always sat at the head of the breakfast table, and hersweet "homey" face over the teacups, was the first thing Blue Bonnetlooked for.

  "Benita says the Senora is not well," replied Juanita.

  The brightness all went out of the morning. Grandmother breakfastingin bed! It was unheard of. In her impetuous rush from the room BlueBonnet almost collided with Benita. "Is Grandmother awake--can I go toher?" she asked, impatiently.

  "It is better not. The Senora prefers to rest," said Benita.

  "What's the matter with her, Benita? I never knew Grandmother to beill before," Blue Bonnet asked miserably.

  "It is the shock, I think. The Senora is not so young as she once was,Senorita."

  Blue Bonnet turned away, sick at heart. In the nursery she foundnothing to improve her spirits. Kitty lay languid and pale among herpillows, saying that her head ached and she didn't care for anybreakfast. Debby, too, had kept her bed, declaring that she couldn'tbear shoes on her poor lacerated feet. Amanda and Sarah only appearedas usual, and these two had their spirits dampened immediately by thesight of Blue Bonnet's gloomy countenance.

  The three of them had the table to themselves, the men havingbreakfasted earlier than usual and Alec and Knight having hurriedthrough the meal and ridden off, no one knew where. Blue Bonnet wasnot conversational; everything in her world seemed topsy-turvy, andshe felt that she must have an hour of hard thinking to sort thingsout and put them in their places.

  Amanda and Sarah, respecting Blue Bonnet's mood, were silent. Duringthis period of unusual restraint, a resolution was forming in Amanda'smind, and at the conclusion of the meal she made an announcement thatwould have petrified the rest had it come at any other time.

  "I'm going to study," she said.

  Sarah looked her approval of this decision. "I'll help you,--let's doit in my room."

  Relief on Blue Bonnet's part quite crowded out surprise. "Then youdon't mind if I leave you to yourselves?" she asked.

  "We wouldn't get much done if you didn't," Amanda replied with morefrankness than tact.

  Blue Bonnet had found solitude glorious in the half-hour beforebreakfast, but now it had lost its charm: joy in her heart had givenplace to hate. Not hatred of the old life, such as had driven her topastures new; not hatred of Texas and "all it stood for"--as she hadonce passionately declared to Uncle Cliff. This time the object of herdeep and bitter feeling was--herself. She had been rude to a guest inher own house. She had seen one of her best friends risk her life andhad made no move to prevent it. She had been the cause of hergrandmother's receiving a shock which, at her time of life, mightprove very serious. And all this in spite of having lived for nearly ayear with two such perfect gentlewomen as Aunt Lucinda and GrandmotherClyde. In spite of her boasted loyalty to the "We are Sevens." Inspite of her promise to her aunt to care tenderly for her grandmotherand bring her back safely to Woodford.

  She had wandered aimlessly outdoors and now flung herself face down onthe Navajo under the big magnolia. "It's no use,--I reckon it's thesame old thing. I'm not an Ashe clear through." With the thought cameswift tears.

  Her head lay against something hard and unyielding; and after herfirst grief had spent itself, she put up her hand to push away theobject--but grasped it instead. It was a book; opening her tear-wetreddened eyes Blue Bonnet saw that it was a volume of hergrandmother's favorite Thoreau. It lay just where Mrs. Clyde haddropped it the day before when she had sprung up at Debby's frightenedcry.

  She dried her eyes and sat up. Leaning against the low, wicker chair,that was her grandmother's chosen seat, she slowly turned the leavesof the well-worn volume, her thoughts more on the owner of the bookthan on its author. All at once her glance was caught and held bysomething that seemed an echo of the cry that kept welling up from herown unhappy heart. It was a prayer, only ten short lines, and she readthem with growing wonder:

  "Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself; That in my striving I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye. That my weak hand may equal my firm faith, And my life practise more than my tongue saith. That my low conduct may not show, Nor my relenting lines, That I thy purpose did not know Or over-rated thy designs."

  How could any one, and that a grown man and a poet, have so exactlyvoiced the thoughts of a young girl on a far-off Texas ranch?

  " . . . . I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself."

  That was just it--she had disappointed herself, grievously, bitterly.So absorbed was she that she did not hear a foot-fall, nor did shelook up until Uncle Cliff exclaimed, "All alone, Honey? That doesn'toften happen these days!" His cheerful voice expressed no regret forthe absence of the others.

  She looked up, and then quickly down again; but not soon enough forthe traces of tears to escape his watchful eye.

  "What's up, Blue Bonnet?" he asked anxiously. He was on the rug besideher now, and with a hand under her quivering chin tilted her face andscanned it closely.

  She winked fast for a moment. "Uncle Cliff, do you find it terriblyhard to be good?"

  "Thundering hard, Honey." He thought whimsically that it was lucky noone else had heard that question. "So hard that my success at ithasn't been remarkable!"

  "Oh, Uncle, it has!" she declared. "And it always seems so easy foryou to 'live as you ride--straight and true.' I was so proud lastwinter when you said I'd proved I was an Ashe, clear through. But Ireckon you spoke too soon. I've been showing what Alec calls 'a yellowstreak.'"

  "Don't you say that of my girl! I'll wager our best short-horn againsta prairie-dog that if you've a yellow streak it's pure gold!" Hecaressed the brown head that nestled against his arm.

  She wriggled away and faced him firmly. "You may as well know theworst, Uncle Cliff. It was my fault that Kitty was hurt yesterday.It's my fault Grandmother is ill and Debby's feet hurt. I was meanand thoughtless and selfish and--"

  He put his hand over her mouth. "Look here, no Ashe is going to hearone of his race called all those ugly names. Remember whom you'retalking to! Things always seem to come in bunches, Honey, but you haveto dispose of them one at a time. Why, it's hardly a year since a girlabout your size--a bit younger she was, but she had blue eyes justlike yours,--was saying she reckoned she'd never make a Westerner, andshe hated the ranch and was going to sell it as soon as she came ofage--"

  "Don't!" came in a smothered tone from Blue Bonnet. Her face wasburied again. "Don't remind me how downright horrid I was."

  "And six months later that same little girl--blue eyes same asyours--was telling me how she reckoned that three hundred years wouldnever make an Easterner of her, and she loved the ranch and wanted tobe a Texas Blue Bonnet as long as she lived!"
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br />   "And so I do, Uncle."

  "Well, I'm just running over a few items in order to remind you thatmost troubles aren't half as black as your feelings paint them at thetime. It's best not to worry over spilt milk till you see it's made agrease-spot. Ten to one the cat will lick it up,--and it's an ill windthat blows nobody good. There,--that figure of speech is as mixed asa plum-pudding, but it has a heap of sound philosophy!"

  Blue Bonnet was smiling now. "I wish all the preachers would say thekind of things you do. Most of the sermons I've heard sound like thatlast piece of mine--'variations on one theme'--and the theme is Dutywith a big D. Sarah was brought up on those. And they must be prettysuccessful, for Sarah is awfully good. Isn't she?"

  "Just that--awfully good."

  She looked up quickly, struck by something odd in his tone; but he wasperfectly sober.

  "She's the salt of the earth," he added, "and you--"

  "And what am I?"

  He smiled down at her. "Do you remember how the south pasture lookswhen the blue bonnets bloom in March,--how fresh and sweet, a skyturned upside down--? It's the glory of the ranch, Honey. And whatthey are to the ranch, you are to me. Please don't be trying to besomething you can't be, Blue Bonnet!"

  She laughed outright. "That sounds like the Duchess in 'Alice inWonderland.' Don't you remember?"

  "I confess I don't. You've been neglecting my education, young lady,since you began your own. What does the Duchess say?"

  "'Be what you would seem to be'--or, if you want it put moresimply--'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it mightappear to others that what you were or might have been was nototherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to beotherwise.'" The face she turned to him as she finished was cloudless,and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  "That's quite plain," he said, "and I hope you'll take the lesson toheart!"

  She smiled as she rose. Glancing up he was surprised to see how tallshe looked,--quite as tall, he thought, as her mother had been whenshe came a bride to the ranch. Well, she was almost sixteen,--theother Elizabeth was only eighteen.

  "You've done me a lot of good, Uncle Cliff," she was saying. "I thinkmy 'indigo fit,' as Alec calls the blues, has faded to a pale azure,and I can go to Grandmother. She will be wondering where I am."

  "Next time I see a fit coming on, I shall quote the Duchess!" hewarned her.

  Blue Bonnet was delighted to find her grandmother awake and ready fora "heart to heart" talk. Snuggled cosily on the bed at her feet thepenitent poured out all her discouragement of the morning, andreceived the balm, which like the milk in the magic pitcher, bubbledconstantly in Grandmother's heart.

  In Sarah's room the two students were diligently at work, Sarah in therole of preceptress, hearing Amanda's French verbs, or helping todiscover the perplexing value of X in an algebraic equation. Onlyoccasionally did the thoughts of either wander.

  "This is the second time," remarked Amanda, "that Blue Bonnet andKitty have had a tiff. The 'third time never fails,' you know."

  "Do you really think that after the third falling-out they'd stay--"

  "Out?--indeed I do think so," Amanda declared. "I've seen it come truetoo many times to doubt it. There are always three fires--the last theworst; three spells of illness, three shipwrecks, three--everything!"

  "It sounds rather--superstitious to me," observed Sarah, doubtfully."I shouldn't like to believe it anyway, for it keeps you alwayslooking out for the third time, and that is _so_ uncomfortable."

  "It's true as gospel," Amanda insisted.

  From that time onward, in spite of her better judgment, Sarah lived inperpetual dread of Blue Bonnet's third falling-out with Kitty; and herattitude was continually that of the pacifier, pouring the oil oftactful words on troubled waters, or averting the wrath of either by awatchfulness that never relaxed. Just how much was due Sarah for thecordial spirit that prevailed for a long time following this betweenthe two girls, neither realized; and Sarah asked no reward for herpains, save peace.