CHAPTER V—ON THEIR WAY

“But I am sort of perplexed,” Jane admitted to Judith. “It was lovely, of course, for the boys to serenade us, and I think Fedario quite a sport to give us the ukelele, but how can we return the—compliment? I feel we ought to thank them, somehow.”

“Couldn’t we give them a straw ride?”

Jane burst out laughing. “Oh, Judy, you poor pale-face! Can you fancy giving cowboys a straw ride?”

“Now, Jane Allen, I did not mean to pack them all into one hay-rick or anything as grotesque as that,” answered Judith in pique. “But couldn’t we give them the picnic that goes at the end of the ride, and eliminate the ride?”

Another gale of laughter followed this suggestion. Judith plainly knew very little of the joys of ranch life.

“I really think,” said Jane, “if we want to give them a good time we would have to make it a good game of poker, and that is altogether out of the question. Most of the ranch men think joy and gambling synonymous, and dad has all he can do to keep the sporting tendency within bounds. No, I guess we will just have to let them know somehow, how much we appreciated their concert. Then we must start seriously to prepare for our journey.”

Judith’s face darkened. She had had a wonderful time at El Capitan, and the thought of leaving was not a signal of joy.

“I shall hate to go,” she sighed. “It has been divine, Janie.”

“And glorious for me to have you, Judy.” Jane twined her arm around the good friend. “I am not going to forget Woo Nah’s prophecy. My good friend for always has the midnight hair.” She touched Judith’s dark tresses softly.

“Now, wasn’t it the skylight eyes?” teased Judith.

“At any rate, I lined up Marian Seaton with the corn-silk hair,” recalled Jane.

“And we are to be beautiful if we make a tea of the wild cinnamon and wash in it! Don’t forget that.”

“Oh, no,” Jane corrected. “We wash in the silver solution. Old lady Woo Nah must know a little about chemistry, for that liquid is a solution of silver, and it certainly would bleach. I have tried it on Fliver and his nice brown coat has now a whitish patch. Fancy trying that on the skin of natural girls!”

It was one of the “last days” at El Capitan. Jane and Judith were exchanging opinions on so many topics, that they called the occasion their mental cleaning period. True, the matter of the cowboys’ serenade, a musical event of importance in the ranch season, had not been satisfactorily disposed of, for the boys had really furnished a very creditable program with their ukes, banjoes, mouth organs, clippers and Dingo Joe’s concertina. Fedario acted as leader, and Judith declared New York could furnish no greater thrill, even on a roof garden, than that which she experienced when the cyclone of sound broke loose under her window. Then, when she and Jane (chaperoned by Aunt Mary) appeared on the rose-vined balcony in their silken robes, the only regret expressed was that the moonlight would not give enough glare for focussing a picture on Jane’s camera.

It was midnight when the Jap “cleany yupped” after the spread furnished the serenaders, but no dance at its best, could have been more novel or enjoyable. The girls remained on their second floor balcony, while Mr. Allen descended to entertain in the big, roomy kitchen, but even from that distance Jane and Judith heard the “pieces spoke” and joined in the laughter following some of the ludicrous attempts at histrionic feats.

“After all,” philosophized Mr. Allen, “living near to Nature makes children of us all, and our boys are mere kindergartners when it comes to home sports.”

“I always feel like a leader in a Sunday school,” commented Aunt Mary, “when we entertain them. It is surely a good work, and they are so appreciative.”

“And I always feel like—well, as if I belonged to the idle rich, when the boys pay us a visit. It is so narrow to have to make class distinction, and feed them in the kitchen,” Jane objected with a note of scorn in her voice.

“Now, Janie,” insisted Judith, “didn’t Woo Nah say something about Bolshevism and the Girl? Your sentiments sound rather extreme. Can you imagine Dingo Joe among forks?”

“Boy all samee too much grub,” objected Willie Wing the cook. “Likee big cow.”

The above is an excerpt from the conversation that sifted through the Allen home on the morning following the “doin’s” catalogued as the Cowboys’ Serenade. Jane and Judith both made copious notes of the occasion in their diaries, but in spite of these records the real story was not to be told in mere words. It required the language of the boys themselves to give the affair its actual color. This was, however, plentifully supplied all over the ranch for at least a day after, and the consensus of opinion seemed to be, “that Miss Allen was a peach,” and her friend “some girl.” Also “that Chief Allen ought to be president of the United States, and the little sister woman would be all right for the first lady of the land.”

The boys had rehearsed for their concert for more than a week, and consequently what was not given in perfection was supplied in enthusiasm, and the memory of that performance, for actors and audience, would not soon be obliterated by the everyday work of life and its prosaic demands.

So it was that the last day at home for Jane Allen had arrived.

The presence of her friend, Judith, softened the usual sadness of the hour of parting. Mr. Allen was both father and companion to his high-strung, brave little daughter, and the separation was necessarily momentous. Judith, alert to the situation, bubbled around, blowing in and out, on all the little love scenes, managing adroitly to curtail Jane’s meditation before the reverenced picture of “Dearest,” Jane’s departed mother.

“I can imagine what will happen when we take up our New York quarters,” she prophesied as Jane was all velvet-eyed and unnaturally quiet after a “word” with Aunt Mary. “I am so glad I can go with you, and not be required to report home first. Our folks will be resting until Kingdom Come after that Coast tour. We had so many delays and mixups.”

“Oh, I could never go to housekeeping without you, Judy,” Jane replied brightening. “I dream of the shopping tours and the hunting trips, and I match colors with my Polish girl’s eyes, and take samples of her hair to bed with me. I have not really decided on her hair, although I rather incline to blonde.”

“Oh, of course. I never saw a Polish girl other than a blonde,” declared Judith. “But, Janie, I cannot help wondering how your daddy trusts you with so much—money. This will be very expensive.”

“You forget, Judy dear, that I am his confidential clerk. I could run this entire ranch if daddy were incapacitated. He misses Dearest so much I feel I must be more than just plain daughter to him,” and her soft gray eyes became suspiciously misty again.

“Well, I’m packed. Thank goodness my trunks went on from the coast! Do you remember how I packed someone’s dress in my bag at Wellington? It may be funny to one’s friends, to do absurd things through absent mindedness, but it simply terrifies me to think of what I may do with others’ money and such trifles. Aren’t you afraid, Janie dear, I will run off with some of your family plate?”

“Not the leastest bit,” and Jane swung around to give her chum a punctuating hug. “Judy, haven’t you promised to keep your failing for your enemies, and never to work it off on your friends?” she reminded the girl, who was fairly dancing around the spacious room, as if wanting to cover every inch of it before bidding good bye to El Capitan.

“Yes, I know, Janie. But I have a horror of certain things,” and she glanced quizzically at the wonderful silver set on Jane’s mahogany dresser. “Then, too, I might walk in my sleep and—go right down stairs and talk sweetly to Fedario on one of his serenade sprees. But, Janie, I shall never forget—to—love—you.”

The journey East began next morning.

“It must be the quiet of the country that gives you such a wonderful set of nerves,” Judith ruminated when they had reached their compartment. “I always feel I must explode, even when there is no chance of combustion. Here we are, without a hair lost, and I felt ten minutes ago we would never make this train.”

“Perhaps it is sort of self reliance,” Jane ventured. “We ranchers never miss a train—wouldn’t dare to, we would have to wait too long for the next; but neither would we feel justified in getting all ruffled up in excitement. That is bad for—georgette crepe,” she finished, smoothing the texture mentioned, in her dainty little blouse, that had brushed up the least bit in the final good byes.

“Now we can think of Wellington,” proposed Judith, settling back comfortably.

“I just can’t bear to see Montana running away from me, so I refuse to look,” and she wheeled her chair around, back to window.

“As you like,” agreed Jane. “But I am so fond of all the high spots of Yellowstone I want a very ‘lastest’ look. But let’s to Wellington. I do wonder how many of the old set will be back? The war has changed so many homes, we may have to take over an entirely new contingent.”

“Best luck,” commented Judith. “We may thus eliminate the undesirables.”

“And get a lot very much worse,” feared Jane.

“How could we, with Marian Seaton?”

“But we had Adrienne, and Norma and Dorothy—they more than outbalanced the rebels.”

“Well, I claim,” and Judith produced the inevitable box of chocolates from her Indian beaded bag, “I claim that a girl who does not love—me or you, is not normal, for it is perfectly evident and obvious, and other synonyms, that we are simply—charming.” When Judith “went in the movies” even so far as to act a scene in the drawing room car, she never failed to “register” strong emotion.