Raymond Evelyn
Jessica Trent: Her Life on a Ranch

“I–I don’t really care–I mean–ought we not to be going, Jessica?” cried Mr. Hale, hopelessly, foreseeing another exhibition of “trash,” as he considered it.

But Elsa could not conceive that everybody should not be interested in all that concerned everybody else; and, besides, this was quite another matter. One for pride, indeed, beyond the accomplishment of the most difficult “lacework” or “overshot” stitch.

From the same chest in which her precious half-dozen plated spoons had reposed she now drew forth a buckskin sack; and, from this, with radiant eyes fixed on Mr. Hale’s own, another bag, knitted, of course, and seemingly heavy. Sitting before him she spread her own apron over her guest’s knees and poured therein a goodly pile of gold and silver coins. With a little catching of his own breath the lawyer realized that among these were many eagles and double eagles.

“Why, this is wealth. This is money. I can see now, after our paper bills and ‘checks’ how real this seems. You are a fortunate woman, Dame Elsa. Now, I begin to respect your ‘tidies’ and notions as things of moment. Did you earn it all?”

“Ach! wait. There is more already. This but begins; and it is for the child. Some day, when there is enough, he shall this mine buy and the machinery hire, and the workmen. Then he will repay to the mistress of Sobrante, and our Lady Jess, all that their dead man spent for us. More. He will make the great money–this but leads the way. Wait.”

Trustful and eager of appreciation, which came so rarely into her isolated life, the woman thrust her hand again into the buckskin sack, her shining eyes still fixed upon the stranger’s face, and her fingers fumbling nervously in the depths of the narrow bag. Her excitement and delight communicated itself to him, and he found himself watching her broad, beaming face with intense curiosity.

But–the face was changing. The light was dying out of the sparkling eyes, an ashy color succeeding the ruddy hue of the fat cheeks. Bewilderment, then anxiety, then terror.

“Why, good Elsa, what is it?”

“Gone–gone–but I am robbed, I am ruined! Mein Gott, man! Little one–lost, lost, lost!”

With a shriek the poor creature sprang up, and in so doing scattered far and wide the coins she had already poured into her apron, but heeded nothing of this as she rushed frantically out of doors.

CHAPTER IX
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SHAFT

While Elsa had been entertaining the stranger within doors Jessica had sought Wolfgang and compelled him, by her coaxing, to admit that Ephraim Marsh had been there and, also, that Antonio Bernal had ridden up that morning to give orders about the coal.

“None of it is to be sent down to the ranch, he said, no matter who calls for it, till he comes back. He was going away for a time and–How will you get on at Sobrante without him, Lady Jess?”

“Wolfgang, better than with him. Listen. Look at me. I’m the ‘manager’ now. The captain. The ‘boys’ all elected me or made me, whatever way they fixed it. I’m to be the master. I, just Jessica. Guess I’m proud? Guess I’ll do the very, very best ever a girl can do? Nobody is to be any different, though. You’re to go on mining just the same and John Benton says, quite often, it’s high time you had another hand to help up here. He says with coal fifteen dollars a ton there’s money in it, even if it is a weeny little mine. So, if you want a man, any time, just let me know. Ha!”

With an amusing little strut that was mostly affectation the girl passed up and down before the miner, and ended her performance by a hearty hug. It was impossible for her to withhold her caresses from anybody who loved her; and who did not, at Sobrante, save Antonio and Ferd, the dwarf? But she sobered quickly enough and at Wolfgang’s petition to “Tell me all about it already,” gave him a vivid picture of the changes at her home.

“But now Antonio has gone for a month, things will get straightened all out again. When he comes back I’ll have that deed to show him, and once he gets it out of his vain head that he is owner and not my mother, he’ll get sensible and good again, as he used to be. I wish I liked him better. That would make it easier for me to give up being ‘captain’ when the time comes. What makes one love some people and not others, Wolfgang? You ought to know, you’ve lived a long time.”

“The good God.”

“He wouldn’t make us dislike anybody. That can’t be the right reason.”

“Then I know not. Though I am getting old I’m not so wise, little one. But–ought I? Ought I not?”

“What?”

“Now you hark me. This Ephraim–guess you what that Antonio said of him?”

“How should I? Yes, that’s not the truth. But what he said was so dreadful I wouldn’t even tell my mother.”

“Ach! A child should tell the mother all things. Heed that. It is so we train our Otto.”

Jessica laughed.

“Otto is no child. He is a grown man. He is bigger than you. You should not shame him by keeping him a boy always.”

“Pst! girl! I would not he heard you, for my life.”

“He’ll not hear. Elsa is talking. But what did Antonio say about my old ‘Forty-niner’?”

“That much went with that old man besides his boots.”

“Of course. The feet that were in them, I suppose. Silly Wolfgang, to be so impressed by a sillier Antonio. The boys say his Spanish maxims have little sense in them. That proves it.”

“This deed of yours. He said: ‘Where Ephraim, the wicked, goes, goes their deed to the land.’ And more.”

“What more? The cruel, cruel man!”

“That it mattered not already. He would come back, the master. It was his, had always been. My friend–your father–well, it was not we who listened. Nor for once would Elsa make the cup of coffee she was asked. Not a morsel got he here, save that the little boy ran after him and gave him his own bit swiebach lest he faint by the way. And that was the last word of Antonio Bernal.”

Jessica’s laughter was past. On her face there was a trouble it grieved her old friend to see, and he hastened to comfort her.

“If one goes, some are left already. Come now to one whose eyes will be cured by a sight of your pretty face.”

“To Ephraim?”

“Even so.”

He took her hand to lead her, like the tender babe he still considered her, and they passed behind the cabin, toward the rickety shaft leading into the mine. At its very mouth stood old Stiffleg, and in her delight the girl gave him, too, one of her abounding hugs, which called a comment from the miner.

“Beasts or humans, all one to your lips. Well, no matter. It’s nature. Some are made that foolish way. As for me–old horses–”

“Wolfgang Winkler, shame! Now, sir, you’ll wait till you ask before I kiss you again!”

“Then I ask right quick. Now! Eh? No? Well, before you go then, to prove you bear no malice; and because I’ll show you a new vein I didn’t show Antonio. Ach! He’ll mine his own coal when once he comes–‘the master’–as he said! And so I think, though I know not, will all the others say. Sobrante will not be Sobrante with us all gone. So?”

“You’ll not be gone. It is my mother’s.”

“He is big and strong. He can plot evil, I believe.”

Wolfgang spoke as if he were disclosing a mystery and not a fact well known to all who really knew the Senor Bernal.

“I will be stronger. He shall not hurt my mother. I will fight the world for her and for my brother!”

The miner had been arranging the rope upon the windlass and now held the rude little car steady with his foot.

“Step in.”

“Is he below? Down in the mine?”

“Already.”

Jessica needed no second bidding, but leaped lightly into the car and Wolfgang followed her more cautiously. He knew that was a forbidden delight to her, for Mrs. Trent was nervously timid concerning such visits, but, like her, felt that the present circumstances justified the proceeding. Was not one below in the darkness, nursing a broken heart? And was not it the supreme business of each and all at Sobrante to comfort the sorrowing? How else had he and his been there, so happy and comfortable? So rich, also. Why, Elsa had–

“Lady Jess! Get Elsa to show you the buckskin bag! It has grown as fat as herself since you last saw it. The child will own the mine some day, believe me!”

Moved by the thought he swiftly lowered away, and as the car touched the bottom, the girl sprang out and ran calling in the narrow tunnel:

“Ephraim! My Ephraim! Where are you? I’ve come for you, I, Jessica! It’s a dreadful mistake. My mother–ah! here you are! Why down in this horrid hole, Ephraim Marsh? You’re all shivering, it’s so damp and dismal. For shame! To run away from your best friends and never give them a chance to tell you. Whoever wrote that note and sent you off from your own home, it never was my mother. Never! She said so, and it’s almost broken her heart.”

“It’s quite broken mine,” said the old frontiersman, sobbing in his relief at having been thus promptly sought and found by his beloved “lady.” For he did not know it was quite by accident that she had stumbled on this trace of him, nor did anybody enlighten him. Whether she would have set him right or not she had no chance, for, at that instant, they heard a hoarse cry at the mouth of the shaft and saw the car, their only means of ascent, moving swiftly out of reach.

“Heart of grace! Why that? Hark the woman! ’Tis the child! It is the little boy! Harm has befallen and I–the father–I below in the ground!”

In his alarm Wolfgang danced about the narrow space and wrung his hands, gazing frantically up the shaft, catching hold of his companions and conducting himself altogether like one bereft of common sense. Which behavior was sufficient to restore Ephraim Marsh to his own self-command, and none too soon; for the anxious father had already begun to try the ascent by climbing up the timbered sides when, suddenly, as if propelled by some extraordinary force the car shot downward again. Before it really touched bottom the shrieks had become deafening, and when Elsa jumped out and rushed upon her husband, he clapped his hands to his ears and retreated as far as the chamber permitted.

“She has gone mad, already! The woman is dement! Hark, the clamor!”

Then he remembered his first fear and clutched his wife’s arm, which promptly went around his neck and threatened him with suffocation.

“Well, well, I never had no wife, but if I’d had I wouldn’t cared to have her choke me to death a-loving me, nor split my ears a-telling me of it,” commented “Forty-niner,” dryly.

At which Elsa’s screams instantly ceased, and she turned her attention upon him.

“Where is it, thief? Give it up, this minute! How could you rob me of my hard-earned money? That was to buy the mine–and the vein runs deep–for my little boy, my child! ’Twas Antonio Bernal, the great man, told us already of the deed you stole! But I believed him not–I. Now, give me my money, my money–money!”

Overcome by her own violent emotion, rather than by any opposition of poor Ephraim’s, her hands slid from his shoulders, which she had been shaking as if she would jingle the cash from his pockets, and her plump person settled limply against him for support.

“Hello, here, woman! This is a drop too much! Take the creature, Winkler, and find out if you can what in misery ails her. She’s clean out of her wits.”

Instinctively, Jessica had placed herself at the old sharpshooter’s side. He should feel that she did not believe this terrible accusation, which recalled to her, with painful significance, the parting words of Antonio Bernal as he had ridden away from her window that morning. These had practically accused him of stealing the missing deed, and now came Elsa with this talk of “money, money.” She brushed her hand across her eyes as if to waken herself from some frightful dream and then smiled up into Ephraim’s eyes, now bent inquiringly upon her. Dim as the light was, there was yet sufficient descending through the shallow shaft to reveal each troubled face to the other, and the old man’s own frightened at the confiding trust of his beloved pupil’s.

“Never mind her. Let her scream and loll around, if she wants to. What matters it? Little lady, am I or am I not a–a–that pizen thing she called me?”

“Never!”

“Then come on. Let’s get out of this.”

But he was not to be permitted to escape so easily. Elsa had now recovered her full strength and, oddly enough, her composure. She waved her husband toward the waiting car and he obeyed her gesture without protest, gently lifting Jessica into it, for she would not otherwise have been removed from Ephraim’s side.

“Go with him, lady. Elsa won’t want to live down here and we’ll follow presently. Never had a woman seem so fond of my company, not in all my eighty years. H-m-m!”

Commonly, the most genial of men, the sharpshooter’s spirits had fully regained their normal poise. Since he had not been dismissed by Mrs. Trent, and since his little Jessica believed in him, everything was all right. Elsa had been hoarding so long for her overgrown “child” that she had lost her wits. He wasn’t surprised. She was a woman.

So, with a smile, he was able to watch the car disappear upward, and he even began to whistle, lest Elsa should improve this opportunity and resume her racket.

“No disrespect to you, ma’am, remembering the good victuals you’ve often given me, but kind of to keep my courage up, like the boy going through the woods.”

Elsa vouchsafed no reply, beyond grasping his sleeve firmly, as if to assure herself that he should not vanish through the solid wall behind them; and he, at least, was relieved when the little car came rolling downward again, empty.

Elsa, who understood its management as well as her husband, grasped its side and motioned Ephraim forward.

“Ladies first,” he objected, gallantly.

“Get in, wretch, already.”

“Oh! I’m not loath to get in, now. Even your sweet presence doesn’t make this hole a paradise. And I came down here a heavy-hearted man, yet I’ve going up light as a feather. Glad I’ve got you along to ballast, else I’d likely shoot clean up to the sky.”

Poor Elsa thought his hilarity ill-timed. She glared at him first, then began to weep, and her tears sobered him as no frowns could do.

“Look, here, old girl, cheer up! Likely it’s only a passing fit of madness has got you in tow. Women are kittle cattle, I’ve been told. Except Lady Jess and the madam. But they’re quality. It’s in their blood to be noble just as ’tis in–well, let that go. If you’ve lost any of your money, as you ’pear to think, you’ll find it again. Why, you’re bound to. Who is there to steal it save your own selves? Likely you’ve got up some dark night in your sleep and hid it away so careful you’ve forgot the place. Good! The top and fresh air again, thank Heaven!”

Mr. Hale had left the cabin immediately after Elsa, and though inclined to stoop and gather up her scattered coins had refrained from doing so, restrained by that prudence which becomes second nature to lawyers.

“She thinks somebody has robbed her and would probably accuse me of pocketing some of these. Too much money for anybody to keep in a house,” he reflected, forgetting that banks were not accessible to everybody. “But it’s an ill wind, etc. Now I shall be apt to escape that promised visit to an amateur coal mine, and not endanger my life in their rickety car.”

Elsa’s conduct upon reaching home was as curious and contradictory as ever. Instead of collecting her scattered treasure, she merely said, with a shrug of her fat shoulders:

“What good? let it lie. When the much is gone who cares for the little?”

Then she dropped into a chair and began again to cry, disconsolately.

Jessica could not endure the scene.

“Oh! I hate this! Elsa, stop. Be happy. Nobody has robbed you. If there has ’tis nobody here. I’m going home. I was having such a good time and I’ve found dear Ephraim. I’ll ask leave to come again to-morrow, maybe, and you’ll have it by then. Just as I shall the title. ’Tis only that you’ve been careless, as–as somebody else was. Good-by. We’re going. Say good-by, won’t you?”

Elsa’s good-by was to seize Ephraim’s coat and hold it with all her force, but he was now too happy to object to this.

“Certain, ma’am. If you’ve took a notion to it, I’ll leave it with you. Coats don’t matter, when hearts are light. Yes, look in the pockets. Like enough ’twill ease your mind a bit. I’d give her a dose of sagebrush tea, Wolfgang. Catnip ’d be better, but ain’t so handy. Good-by, all. I’ll be ’round again, myself, soon, if the lady can spare me,” and with this remark, “Forty-niner” quietly slipped out of the loose garment and made his escape.

There was no more talk of inspecting the ranch. The little party of three rode thoughtfully homeward. Even Ephraim’s gayety had ebbed and the strange accusation Elsa had made began at last to claim his serious attention. Thieving was a new matter at Sobrante, though he, along with all the other “boys,” had thought for many months that the manager was dealing unfairly by his mistress and employer. This affair would have to be sifted to the bottom, and he didn’t like it. He was glad to be going back to his familiar quarters, glad of many things, yet his light-heartedness was quite gone.

Mr. Hale was equally silent and self-absorbed. Every hour he spent among these people, like innocent children all they seemed to him, but interested him the more in them. Their unhappiness disturbed him and yet his own mission was to make them more unhappy still.

Jessica was angry, indignant, and amused by turns; but these troubles were changing her swiftly from a careless little girl to a sadly perplexed captain, and she rode along in silence, for most of the way, forgetting entirely that she had meant to take quite another route, or that her present errand was to exhibit the wonders of her beloved Sobrante.

They cantered peacefully downward across the valley, old Stiffleg himself leading the way, till they struck upon the main road and saw in the distance a vehicle crawling forward upon it.

“Oh! oh!” cried Jessica, who had been first to observe this object.

“Heigho! What’s that–a circus?” asked Mr. Hale, gazing curiously at the strange wagon.

Ephraim shaded his eyes with his hand and peered into the distance. Then he dropped it, and drooping ridiculously, groaned:

“Oh! my fathers!”

“Looks like a circus. All the colors of the rainbow,” persisted Mr. Hale, glad of any diversion to his perturbed thoughts.

“’Tis a circus, temperance union, a salvation army, a woman’s rights convention, what Samson calls a Mother Carey’s chicken, an Amazon, a wild Indian, a–a–shucks! There isn’t anything on earth that yonder doesn’t try a hand at. Land of Goshen! I’d almost rather turn and go back to be jawed by the Dutchwoman. And I’ve come home–just for this!”

But Jessica was laughing as she had not laughed all day, and if the person driving along in front was objectionable to Ephraim it was evidently not the fact in her case.

“Oh! how glad I am!” she cried, and touched Buster to his swiftest gallop, while the sharpshooter grimaced and groaned:

“To have come back to this!”

CHAPTER X
AUNT SALLY

“Aunt Sally! Aunt Sally, wait for me!”

At the shrill cry and the clatter of Buster’s feet the crawling vehicle came to a standstill, and from under its canvas cover peered the smiling face of a hale, elderly woman, whose gray head was bare save for its abundant crown of curling hair. A straw Shaker bonnet, with green curtains, hung over her shoulders. Her print gown was of brilliant pink and her capacious apron of blue gingham. She was collarless and her sleeves were tucked above her round elbows, but she was clean, as if just from a laundry. Indeed, at that moment, her conveyance suggested such an institution on wheels, for well-strung clotheslines were taut against its sides, and from these fluttered freshly washed garments and scraps of cloth.

Aunt Sally saw Jessica’s eyes, fasten upon these articles and explained:

“Met a little water comin’ along and used it. Never know where you’ll be when you need water next–in Californy. How’s all?”

“Well, thank you. I’m so glad you’ve come.”

“That’s a word to cure deafness. Here.”

The woman pulled a gigantic cookie from her apron pocket and held it toward the girl, who had now come alongside. The cake was in the shape of a doll, with flaring skirt, and was promptly nibbled.

“Well, I declare! Eat your playmates, do you?”

“Yes, indeed, when you make them!”

“Who’s that loping along behind?”

“Ephraim, of course. Oh! yes. A Mr. Hale, from New York.”

“What’s he at here?”

“Just staying. Lost his way and making a visit.”

“H-m-m! Don’t look wholesome. Needs picra.”

“I doubt it. He has a great row of bottles in his room and takes medicine every time he eats, or doesn’t. That is, since he’s been at Sobrante, which isn’t long.”

When the wagon had halted on the road before them Ephraim had turned to his companion, with a whimsical smile, suggested:

“Better ride along as if we was glad to see her. It’s like a dose of that bitter stuff she makes everybody take, whether or no–get it over with. And she isn’t so bad as–H-m-m.”

Mr. Hale was not sorry to do this, for his curiosity was roused. The wagon box was long and narrow, and contained as many articles as would have sufficed a family “crossing the plains” in the olden times. A kerosene cooking stove, a cat in a parrot cage, a hencoop, with mother and brood inside it, a trunk, a blanket and pillow, a pail for watering the animals, and a box of tin dishes. The cover, like a small “prairie schooner,” was patriotic in extreme, shining with the national colors, newly applied by Aunt Sally herself, and with no stingy hand. The arrangement was also her own, and as she considered, an improvement upon the flag; for she made the whole top a field of stars, and the sides of the stripes.

“Instead of a little weeny corner full of stars, that you can count on your fingers, I’ve made a skyful right overhead. I always thought if I’d had the designin’ of Old Glory, I’d have made it regular, like a patchwork quilt–and nobody ever pieces a ‘block’ that way. Things must compare even, and so they would be if women had had a hand in the business.”

This decorative turnout was drawn by a tandem team, consisting of a milch cow and a burro, with the cow in front. Which, after due introduction to the stranger, she explained, regulated the behavior of both animals.

“With Balaam in the middle, and him inclinin’ to balk, and Rosetty in front, it works double-action. Them that use their wits is twice served. If he stops, the wagon runs onto him, and if she’s in a movin’ mood, that drags him. If she gets lazy, he butts her and thus, why–I’ve tried it both ways, changing their places more’n once. This is the best. How you like Californy?”

“Very much.”

“Come for your health?”

“Partly, for that.”

“H-m-m. Folks with you?”

“No. I’m alone.”

“Maybe you’ve got no folks. Some hasn’t. Ephraim, yonder, is one. He’d be in a fix if ’twasn’t for Jessie and me. I come about once in so often and straighten out all the crooks. Took them pills, Ephy?”

Mr. Hale tried to repress a smile and failed, but “Forty-niner” burst into a loud laugh, and replied:

“No, Aunt Sally, and what’s more I’m not going to. Why should I? Who never have an ache or pain–that medicine will cure,” he added, looking tenderly upon Lady Jess and remembering his grief of the past night.

“Well, you ought to have. ’Tisn’t human nature to live to eighty and not have. I’m twenty years younger’n you are and I ache from head to foot, some days.”

“Asking questions sort of wears you out, I reckon.”

“Now, Ephy, don’t get playful. Not at your age. It’s not a good sign. Besides, my hen chicken’s been crowing more’n once this trip. That’s a sign of death–somewhere.”

“Giddap, Stiffleg!”

Ephraim urged his horse forward, meaning to forewarn the “boys” of who and what was coming. Jessica comprehended and quickly followed, but her object was to bespeak a different kind of welcome from that he intended. Neither knew, then, just how heartily glad they would be before many hours were over of the helpful, yet disturbing, presence of this same masterful woman.

The Easterner was left to jog alongside the curious team and its more curious mistress, who, even, while she held the rope reins in one hand, was threading her needle and sewing that patchwork which was as characteristic of her as the ceaseless knitting was of Elsa.

In fact, when one came to look at her closely, there were seen assorted bits of cloth, fragments of some “block,” pinned here and there about her person; and as he watched her nimble fingers fly from one seam to another the gentleman’s amazement found expression.

“How can you manage to drive and sew at the same time? And is it necessary?”

“I guess you’re a Yankee yourself, aren’t you? Well, if I hadn’t been able to manage how do you s’pose I’d ever have got my quilt done in time for the State fair? Fifty-five thousand five hundred and fifty pieces there’s in it, and I’ve willed it to Jessica Trent when I’m done exhibitin’ it. None of ’em bigger ’n a finger nail, and all done over paper. That’s a piece of work, I ’low. What’s your complaint?”

“I–I don’t know as I have any. They’ve made me very comfortable and welcome.”

“Dare say. They couldn’t do otherwise. Giddap there, Balaam. Rosetty smells alfalfa, and you’ll have to step out to keep up with a cow ’at does that. I mean what’s your disease?”

“Oh! well–it’s of no consequence.”

“Man alive, don’t neglect yourself. You’re yallar. You’ve got the janders. Sure’s I’m a living woman that’s what it is.”

“I think not. I hope not,” said the poor man, but rather feebly.

“Sure. Or shingles. I’ve never seen a real likely case of shingles, and if it should be that, I’d just admire to nurse you. What victuals you been eating?”

The dyspeptic winced. This sounded truly professional, for all his numerous physicians had prefaced their treatment by a similar question.

“I’ve been able to eat almost anything and everything since I came into this country of open-air living. The last thing was some of Elsa Winkler’s swiebach and honey-sweetened coffee.”

“You don’t say! Oh! oh! Poison, sir, rank poison. You may as well count yourself dead and laid out–”

The unfortunate stranger shivered and turned pale. For some half hour past, he had been suffering various qualms which he had attributed to Elsa’s hospitality, but to tell a nervous invalid that he has been poisoned is to increase his misery a hundredfold. If Aunt Sally had desired a patient she was now in a fair way to secure one; but her words were without any significance to herself beyond the fact that she favored neither Elsa nor her cookery. Elsa’s knitting work had crowded her own patchwork pretty closely at that famous fair, and the handsome money prize, which she felt belonged of rights to herself, had been halved between the pair. Because, though their skill lay along different lines, they had both signed their exhibits: “From Sobrante,” and, manifestly, the judges could not give two first premiums to one estate.

This memory served to change her thoughts from disease to a detailed history of the wonderful quilt, during which they arrived at Mrs. Trent’s cottage and dinner.

But this could not yet be served. Aunt Sally must needs first see her son, and after the fondest of greetings, cautiously consign to him the care of her personal outfit. She even ran after him–as he walked away, grinning and leading the now obstreperous cow–with a vial in her hand, begging:

“Now son, please me, before you eat that ‘mess’ of men’s cooking by taking one spoonful of this dandelion relish. Made it myself, purposely for you, and I’ll warrant no alcohol in it, either.”

Experience had proved that protestation was worse than useless; so, with another grin, but a really affectionate “Thank you,” John accepted the vial and once more started stableward.

“Now, Aunt Sally, come! You must be hungry yourself, after your long ride,” urged Mrs. Trent, hospitably, and with sincere pleasure lighting her gentle face. Living so far from other women made the presence of even this uncouth one a comfort, and experience had proved that Mrs. Benton was, in time of need, that “rough diamond” which she claimed herself to be.

“All right, honey; in a minute. I’ll just step out to the kitchen and pass the time of day with Wun Lung. Besides–”

Jessica caught Aunt Sally around her waist–as far as she could reach–and tried to prevent her leaving the room, but was lightly set aside, with the remark:

“Face is next door to the mouth. Guess I want to see what sort of food that heathen’s got ready for us, ’fore I touch it!”

“Oh, Aunt Sally! In my house–can’t you trust me?” asked the hostess, with mild protest. Though she knew before she spoke that her will as opposed to Mrs. Benton’s, at least in minor matters, was powerless. So she quietly brought a book and offered it to Mr. Hale, with the suggestion that he make himself content for the present.

“The dinner will be delayed and there will be a rumpus in the kitchen. But the dinner will be all the better for waiting and the rumpus will end in Wun Lung taking another rest while Aunt Sally does his work. Fortunately, she is a prime cook, and we shall fare sumptuously every day. I’d be glad to keep her here, always, if I could.”

“Old Ephraim Marsh did not appear to share your sentiments,” and he described “Forty-niner’s” behavior and remarks at first sighting Mrs. Benton’s wagon.

“Then you found him. He’s come back with you? Oh! I am so thankful. Sobrante wouldn’t seem itself without that straightforward, honest old man.”

“You are certain he is that?” asked, rather than asserted, the other.

“As certain as that there is honesty anywhere. What can you mean? Why do you seem so doubtful?”

“I don’t wish to be a talebearer, but another of your adoring proteges is in dire trouble. Elsa has been robbed and accuses this unfortunate person of being the culprit.”

“Such a thing would be impossible.”

“So it seemed to me. Yet that old Wolfgang finally got it through his head–he appeared duller of wit than his wife–that to lose sight of Ephraim was to lose the money forever. Your little daughter promised to produce him when needed, and after considerable opposition they allowed him to come away. I fancy they began to suspect me even. I fear, madam, I have visited Sobrante at an unfortunate time.”