Part 8

She spoke with assurance, but she had as little idea how the thing was to be accomplished as Ruth had when she offered to pay Maudie Pratt a hundred dollars--with only thirty-five cents at home in her pasteboard box! Perhaps the memory of the triumphant conclusion that matter worked up to, put confidence in Elizabeth's voice. Anyway, Harvey Grannis went storming away, informing nobody in particular that his sister's family were an ungrateful lot, declaring that he had washed his hands of them--all except little Harvie.

That night when the chores were over and supper ended, the Silver Spur household gathered on the porch and resolved itself into a committee of ways and means, with Elizabeth holding the floor.

"I've been thinking of a plan," she said cheerfully. "As Ruth claims, I've a head on my shoulders--whether there's anything in the head, or the plan, is for the rest of you to decide."

"I have a great deal of confidence in your ability and common-sense, daughter," said Mrs. Spooner faintly from her rocker. Her head was better, but it left her spent and white.

"Your scheme'll be a good one--I'll back it," Roy followed.

"Of course--we'll all back what Elizabeth says," agreed Ruth.

"'Cause Elizabeth _knows_," chimed in the Babe, loyally.

"Well, she ain't so foolish--for a gal," old Jonah put in last.

Elizabeth was fairly overwhelmed by their trust in her. "You see we can't stay here, and we _won't_ go to the Circle G," she began, flushed with her family's praise, "of course we may hear from father any day, but we'd have had to get rid of the cattle--anyhow that bunch Uncle Harvey shut out from the tank. It seems to me the best thing we can do is to go into Emerald to live. There isn't a sign of a photographer in the place; everybody says my work is worth paying for, and Ruth would have a chance of earning something. Besides, there'd be school for the Babe, and we'd be near Cousin Hannah."

"Say, don't think you're the only worker in this family hive!" protested Roy, "I haven't a profession, but I _can_ get a job any day. Mr. Pell's son Joe has gone away to school, and he needs a clerk in the grocery the worst kind. I reckon I'll earn money enough to pay rent, and a little bit over."

"They's jobs a-waitin' for young folks to pick up, but 'tain't easy when you're gettin' on in years," sighed Jonah, dolefully. "Nothin' _I_ kin do in town, I reckon. Maybe the Old Soldiers' Home'll take keer o' me."

There was a chorus of indignant protests from the whole family. Jonah knew they couldn't get along without him! Wherever they went he should go to--that was settled. The tender-hearted Babe, with her arms around the old man's neck, cheered him further by adding: "Me'n you'll help mother, Jonah--she'll need us."

"Bless your heart, honey, if that ain't the gospel truth!" agreed Jonah, now quite cheerful. "They's a gyarden to make, an' a cow to milk--we can't get along without one, and wood to chop. Maybe the ole man _will_ earn his salt, after all."

Early the next morning after this decision Elizabeth and Ruth rode into town to see about getting a house. The only vacant one in the place was an old adobe, rather dilapidated, but with plenty of room, and enough ground fenced in to keep a cow, besides having the garden and small patches they would be obliged to plant for vegetables and cow-feed. It belonged to Mr. Rouse, the station agent who boarded with Cousin Hannah, and he was so glad of the chance of getting it occupied that he told the girls if they would agree to make the necessary repairs, he would let them have it rent-free for the first six months.

This was joyfully agreed to, and the very next day Jonah and Roy went to town to see about making the repairs--mending the roof, putting in window panes, and whitewashing the interior, so that at last it was converted into a very respectable and comfortable habitation--really more comfortable than the ranch-house, for the adobe walls were thick, and would keep out the cold in winter and the heat in summer as well.

During the days that the men worked on the adobe Ruth and Elizabeth were busy packing up, while the Babe and her mother drove about in the phaeton, making arrangements for the keeping of the cattle and ponies, for Mrs. Spooner determined that she would not sell them--it would be like admitting her husband was dead.

Mr. Munson, a man with a big ranch and a big heart, readily agreed to graze the cattle, scoffing at the idea of taking a third of the increase for his share, until Mrs. Spooner declared that, unless he did, she could not allow him to be burdened with them.

"Then I hope for your sake it won't be long, ma'am," said the rancher heartily. "No news is good news, I've always heard say, and there's no tellin' when John may come."

Another neighbor agreed to graze the ponies, and the Babe earnestly begged that he would be very, very kind to Queen Berengaria, who was a good pony, if she wasn't so very pretty!

With everybody working like beavers, it was only a few days before the Spooners closed the doors of the lonely little ranch-house, striving bravely to think that it would only be for a little while, and took up their abode in the old adobe in Emerald.

If there had been, just at this time, a voting contest for the most unpopular man in the district, Harvey Grannis would undoubtedly have won the prize by a big majority. Everybody was so indignant at his treatment of the Spooners that they vied with each other in showing their sympathy and friendship for the family, sending them such loads of vegetables from their gardens and choice cuts of fresh meat when a beef was killed, that it was a long time before they had need of anything else; while Cousin Hannah came over on the first day, laden with trays of good things for the first meal.

Everybody tried to be very cheerful as they gathered around the brightly-lighted supper table that evening, eating the good things Cousin Hannah had provided with, it must be confessed, scant appetite; their hearts were full, but each tried bravely to see only the bright side, and, because they tried so hard, at last became really cheerful, discussing their plans for the future with some enthusiasm. Only the Babe wiped away tears, as she thought of Queen Berengaria out in strange pastures without a soul to think of taking her lumps of sugar at feeding-time!

"I'll plow up the land and sew it down in rye for cow-feed," said Jonah, "before I git ready to go to gyardenin'. I got to hustle, too, for time's a-flyin'."

"I won't set into work at the store till next week," said Roy, "for I want to fix up that shack out in the yard for a studio--with _two_ display windows, if you please, one for cakes and one for 'takes'. A skylight in the roof, and a little curtained-off dark room, and there you are, all ready for business, Misses Spooner!"

"O, Roy, that _will_ be lovely--I simply couldn't get along without you--none of us could, in fact. And I'm expecting my enlarging camera any day. I reckon I'll spoil some pictures before I get used to it; anyway, I can experiment on the family first."

"I'm so glad we've got a good cook-stove," said Ruth, contentedly. "I expect to make money on bread. Cousin Hannah says she'll get me all the orders I can fill."

"And what are me'n you going to do, mother?" enquired the Babe, with interest.

"Well, I'm going down town to the store tomorrow and buy some pretty gingham for cutting out into school dresses which you're to stitch up on the machine, if you'll try to run the seams straight. Then, as soon as they're made, we'll get some school-books, and a little girl about your size will put on one of the new dresses, take the new books in her new book-bag, and go right straight to school--where she'll be a credit to us all, I'm sure."

"I'll learn to read so good that I'll be able to read all the books in the whole round world!" sighed the Babe, happy in the promised fulfillment of her highest earthly desire.

By the time the new studio was finished Elizabeth had quite a display of photographs, having 'taken' the family and all the neighbors who were handy, finding Maudie Pratt a willing and excellent subject, while Ruth in her own show-window set forth a tempting array of tarts and pies and doughnuts, in token that the bakery was in operation.

Mrs. Pell, the wife of Roy's employer, was their first customer, bringing her twin boys of seven to be photographed.

"Their pa says if anybody can make 'em stand still long enough to get a picture, they'll sure deserve a prize," declared the twins' mother frankly, as she arranged Wilfred's big, smothering collar, and tied anew the huge red bow under Wilmot's chin. "I taken 'em to the finest picture-taker in Houston, last summer, and the best he could do was a proof that had three heads apiece on it!"

"I think I can manage them, Mrs. Pell," said Elizabeth, confidently, seeing more orders ahead if she could succeed where the city photographer had failed. "They are such cute little fellows. Now, boys, if you'll be real quiet I'll give you a doughnut apiece, in just one minute," she promised the squirming twins, who brightened amazingly, keeping expectant eyes upon the doughnuts which Elizabeth had placed at just the proper elevation.

They were muffled and choked in stiff white pique suits, not a bit comfortable, and their mother insisted that they should be posed in a very stiff position, with their arms about each other. However, in the end Elizabeth secured a very good negative, "at least it has only one head apiece," she laughed. "But send them over when they have on their everyday clothes, and let me take a picture for my window, if you don't mind."

Mrs. Pell didn't mind--indeed she was highly gratified, and she sent Wilfred and Wilmot over promptly, as soon as they had changed to their old collarless and tieless play overalls. Then, while the Babe told them a fairy story to excite the proper amount of interest in their faces, and Elizabeth bade them eat doughnuts at will, to promote happiness that "showed through," she snapped her camera on a most excellent likeness--so good, in fact, that their proud father ordered a bromide enlargement to be made, and advised all his customers to go by the studio and see that cute picture in the window--the cutest thing in the shape of a photograph he'd ever seen took.

Trade increased, and both girls soon had all they could do--indeed Mrs. Spooner, in her heart, often sighed to think of the free young souls doomed to have so much work and so little play in their busy lives.

It was plain from the first that the Spooner girls and Roy Lambert could maintain the family, though it took every bit of strength and every ounce of energy the three young people could bring to bear on it. Mrs. Spooner drew a breath of relief when one day she saw her brother Harvey turn in at the gate and calmly walk across to the studio as though he were an ordinary customer, coming on an ordinary errand.

"Be nice to him, dear," she cautioned Elizabeth, when she informed her of the unexpected customer in the studio. "I'm proud of your independence, but it breaks my heart to have you girls working so hard, and getting none of the pleasure nor the education that you ought to have."

"I think we're getting lots of education, if you ask me," laughed Elizabeth, as she put on her business apron and prepared to go out. "As for pleasure--I never was so happy in my life--except for worrying a little bit about father--and he may come home any day of course, and stop _that_."

She ran across the yard to the little building, where she found her uncle gravely inspecting the photographs in the window, having come to a decision as to the style he preferred for a dozen cabinet portraits of himself, which he announced to be the errand that had brought him to Emerald.

It was to Elizabeth like a little play to keep up her business manner with Uncle Harvey all through the sitting. She was urbane and impressive. She told about it gleefully at the supper table that evening.

"How much? And when can I have 'em?" the customer had asked as he arose from his sitting. Elizabeth got his tone exactly in telling of it.

"One dollar down, five dollars when they are finished, a week from to-day, I'm pretty well rushed with orders, and can't promise them any sooner!" reported the photographer to her family.

"Then he took up his hat, and stood twirling it 'round and 'round, as if he intended to say something else. I suppose he changed his mind, for he went away without another word. I was glad; I wonder what he really wanted. Something more than pictures, I'll bet. Anyway, I think I got a good picture."

On the day appointed Harvey Grannis put in an appearance at the little studio at nine o'clock in the morning. He took the filled envelope Elizabeth handed him without a word, paid his money and lingered a moment, never looking at the pictures.

"Hadn't you better see whether you like them?" asked Elizabeth. "We all think them very good. I took the liberty of giving mother one, because she liked it so much."

"O, er--by the way, how is Jennie?" asked Grannis, uneasily.

"I'll call her if you'd like to see her," returned Elizabeth promptly, and there was a mischievous light in her eyes.

"No, no--not at all," stammered the ranchman. "That is, I have a little matter to talk over later--never mind now."

They were crossing the side yard between the house and the studio. Without waiting for further Instructions Elizabeth called blithely:

"Mumsy--Uncle Harvey wants to see you!"

She was sure that Mrs. Spooner was just inside by the window, anxiously waiting for what her brother might see fit to say or do. The call was responded to with unexpected, and so far as Grannis was concerned, unwelcome promptness. Mrs. Spooner came out on the front porch and walked down the steps to greet her brother. The Babe, always eager for peace, though still shy of the man who had thought of shooting Queen Berengaria, followed. Ruth advanced from her bakery as the two left the studio. Old Jonah came around the house, wheeling a barrow, and to complete the family picture Roy just then drove up in a grocer's delivery wagon and stopped at the curb.

"Well, we all seem to be here," remarked Harvey Grannis, rather feebly.

A bicycle-mounted boy wheeled up perilously close between the delivery-wagon and the gate, Roy turned with a little annoyance, then he saw that the messenger held a yellow envelope in his hand, and was approaching Mrs. Spooner.

The little woman's breath came in gasps, since the ceasing of her Cuban letters she was always afraid of the sight of a telegram.

"Don't let her have it--I want to say something first," Grannis protested, getting between the messenger and his sister.

"I'll open it for her--she would want me to," declared Elizabeth, snatching the envelope from the messenger's hand.

"Why, it isn't addressed to mother--it's addressed to--to--_father_!" And she let the yellow envelope flutter to the ground, where the messenger regarded it with lack-luster eyes, then picked it up and prepared to depart with it.

"Party ain't living here?" he asked, snapping together his receipt book, which he had opened for signature.

"This here lady's his late wife," asserted Jonah, lugubriously, getting things rather mixed in his excitement to see what the telegram contained. "Give it to her--she's the proper person to open it."

Once more Grannis put himself between the messenger and his sister, protesting again that he had something to say before she read the message. And, at this second protest, there came an unexpected interruption.

*CHAPTER IX*

*A Rose by Another Name*

In at the gate walked a tall, bronzed soldier in khaki, who reached forward an authoritative hand, saying calmly to the messenger, "Give it to me--it's mine."

Everything about them seemed suddenly unreal. Mrs. Spooner, catching sight of the newcomer, quietly crumpled down in a dead faint at his feet!

Elizabeth found herself running into the house for a glass of water--moving like a person in a dream, making a desperate amount of effort without advancing an inch. Then, all at once, she was back to find her father kneeling on the gravel beside his wife, resisting Harvey Grannis's efforts to raise her.

"Keep her head low, Harve--never raise a fainting person's head," he cautioned.

The Babe was crying and snuggling in under her father's elbow, Roy had rushed into the house and brought back the afghan from the couch.

"She's all right," said Captain Spooner, confidently. "She's coming round now. What made her faint, do you suppose?"

"O, Father! Because you came back so suddenly," said Ruth.

"We hadn't heard from you in months, you know," Elizabeth added in a low tone. "We've been horribly uneasy, daddy."

The captain turned and kissed his tall girl, then he slipped a careful arm under his wife's shoulders. Ruth and the Babe, pushing for their share of attention, had to be cautioned.

"Quiet, girls!" he warned. "We'll lift mother in to the couch, and then I'll count you chickens and see how you look. Help me, Harve."

Harvey Grannis had been edging away with a very curious expression on his face; now he had no other course left open but to come forward, lift his sister's limp form and assist in carrying her into the house. On the way she regained consciousness enough to protest lovingly, assuring them that she was all right, and ashamed of being so silly as to faint.

"O, Father, why didn't you telegraph, so it wouldn't have scared mother?" the Babe voiced the general wonder.

"I did," said Captain Spooner. "But Mr. Rouse was away on his vacation, and the new man they had in the office sent the telegram out to the ranch, because it was addressed to Silver Spur. You see, I'd got no letters, and didn't know of your moving. The boy had it along with one from Harve to me, re-sent from Havana. I'll read it now." And he tore open the yellow envelope.

"O, Daddy," begged the Babe, frantically trying to smother him. "Don't you ever, ever go to war again--no matter if that's a telegram from the president for you to go back--don't you do it: And _what_ did you bring us from Cuba?"

"Wait and see, you little rascal," laughed her father, lifting her in his arms, and forgetting, for the moment, his telegram. "My! What a big girl you are, to be sure! And how well you are all looking--except mother. We must try and get some roses to grow in her cheeks. Jonah, you old sinner--shake! We'll swap war stories to beat the band, winter evenings out at the ranch. And Harve," slapping Grannis jovially on the shoulder, "glad to see you, too. I'll read your telegram now. Why in the world didn't you let the folks know long ago?"

"I--I was a little delayed," said Harvey nervously. "In fact, I just came over to-day to tell 'em."

"And the interest money? I suppose you got that all right? O, yes--you say so in this telegram. Got it right on the dot. No chance to act the hard-hearted landlord and turn 'em out, hey?" and he laughed genially. The world seemed bigger and warmer and sweeter to the children, now that their father was at home; in the fullness of their joy they had no thought of Harvey Grannis and the wrongs he had caused them to suffer.

Their uncle had been nervously turning his hat in his hand, going to the door and coming back during the greetings between the re-united family. It spoke well for his courage that he had not made his escape unnoticed.

"I--I just wanted a chance to speak about that, John," he began, clearing his throat nervously. "Your check was all right, of course, but I haven't banked it yet. In fact, I just came over this morning to tell the folks, as I said."

Elizabeth realized in a flash that Harvey's telegram announcing Captain Spooner's approaching arrival had come just before he came to order the photographs. He was trying them for some decent way of explaining his conduct. She remembered his peculiar manner, and parted her lips to speak when some impulse of kindness made her close them again. Harvey Grannis had done them all an injury, this was an opportunity for her to forgive an enemy. The next moment she had reason to be glad.

"Then you did get the interest money all right?" the captain persisted.

The red blood flamed in Grannis's tanned and bearded face. His confusion was painful.

"O, yes--O, yes, I got that," he admitted with an entreating glance toward his sister. "I--there was something connected with that that I had intended explaining to Jennie. In fact--if you'll let me, I'd like to make you a deed to the ranch."

"Let you?" echoed Captain Spooner, his keen blue eyes on his brother-in-law's face. "Make a deed to the ranch? Why, I only sent you the interest money. The last payment remains to be met."

"Yes, I know," Grannis hurried to say, "but Jennie's my only sister, and we had a little misunderstanding--she'll tell you all about it later, no doubt. I feel myself to blame--that is, I was mistaken. I'd like to make it up to--of course, I know there's some of your family that'll never forgive me."

Then Elizabeth did a beautiful thing, and one which endeared her to all of them. She marched across the room to Grannis, put out a slim hand and said:

"I hope you don't mean me, Uncle Harvey,"--with a very distinct emphasis--"for if I have anything to forgive--it's forgotten."

Harvey took the girl's hand with a fervor that was pathetic.

"We mustn't talk about disagreeable things when John's just got back," said Mrs. Spooner decidedly. "Harvey, you'll stay to dinner. Somebody ought to go for Roy--he went right away, without giving John a chance to meet him--he wanted us to be uninterrupted at our first meeting. I'm sure Mr. Pell will let him off for the rest of the day, if we ask him."

"I'll go for him," offered Harvey, hastily, and before the eyes of the astonished Spooners, he put his hat on his head and walked away in search of Roy--the boy he had insisted upon regarding as a horse-thief!

While he was gone Captain Spooner was put in possession of all the facts. He was inclined to be indignant over his brother-in-law's conduct, but the girls joined their mother in excusing Grannis's behavior, insisting that it came from an excess of zeal for their welfare. When Harvey and Roy returned together, apparently on the best of terms, Captain Spooner was ready to let by-gones be by-gones with his brother-in-law, and to welcome Roy to the family circle with heart-felt cordiality.

"I've heard all about you from mother," he said as he gripped the lad's hand. "Only she says that he never can make me know just what you've been to them all, and how very proud she is of her adopted son."

Roy blushed--praise was sweet, but embarrassing. "I bet they didn't tell you a word about their goodness to me, sir," he returned, "I never could make that up, no matter what I do."

Everything was satisfactorily explained over a good dinner. When you come to think of it, a good dinner makes many things seem more satisfactory. Ruth and Elizabeth cooked this one, the Babe set the table, and all three girls kept jumping up from their places to run around and hug the tall soldier father, to be sure that he was real, and not just a beautiful dream. Mrs. Spooner sat at the head of the table, with a color and radiance in her face that had long been absent. Harvey Grannis talked more than anybody had ever heard him. He made good his promise of the blue-eyed pinto pony to little Harvie--though he offered no further suggestion as to the shooting of Queen Berengaria.

"Pinto's half Arab," he urged, "I broke him myself--wouldn't let the broncho-buster touch him--he's as gentle as a dog."