CHAPTER XVII

THE LANGUAGE OF THE FLOWERS

All that was possible of geyserland was seen by the ranch girls and their friends during the long day: geysers alive and dead, spouting and silent, great and small, and all the magic, shining pools in the neighborhood, until there seemed no words left for wonderment and no strength for further admiration. The coaching party had brought with them the clothes and supplies they would need for several days and nights, as they meant to make the tour of the Park before returning to their starting place, spending the nights in the various hotels along their route.

Mr. Drummond had intended to return to the Lake the same evening, but this was before he spent a picnic day with the ranch girls. After a hurried consultation with Jim he decided to go on with the travelers.

It was late in the afternoon of the first day, when Mrs. Harmon and Ruth found a bit of wild woodland and declared they must rest and not see another sight. They were in walking distance of the hotel where they were to spend the night, and Jim and Mr. Drummond went ahead with the horses and coach to see what arrangements had been made for their comfort.

The two older women were getting out the tea basket and lighting their alcohol lamp, when Jean and Donald insisted on trying to boil the water at one of the hot springs in the neighborhood. Olive, Frieda and Carlos followed them, Frieda anxious to avert a tragedy. Having read in her guidebook that a small dog, leaping into the pool for a stick, had been boiled and sizzled to death, she was determined that no one of them should meet the same fate.

As Elizabeth was tired, Jack stayed behind with her, letting the sick girl rest her head in her lap while they talked of the day's experiences.

Suddenly Elizabeth sat up. "Let me do your hair for you, Jack," she begged. "I want to see it over your shoulders. I know it is prettier than mine; and for once I won't be jealous." Instead of two long braids Jack, in honor of her ride with Mr. Drummond, had twisted her hair into a coronet. Slowly Elizabeth began to unwind it.

"Of course my hair isn't prettier than yours," Jack protested. "It is not so lovely and shiny. Nobody thinks it is even half so nice as Frieda's or Jean's or Olive's, and I don't care a bit, neither do you, you goose."

Elizabeth sighed. "Yes, I do, Jack," she confessed honestly. "You don't care because you have so much, but I have so little I am awfully jealous and envious."

Jack's frank face clouded. She did not know exactly what to say to so queer a girl as Elizabeth Harmon. The ranch girls never preached, and Jack was not inclined to be critical, always preferring action to speech, so that now she found herself in deep water.

"Look here, Elizabeth," she said a moment later, with a wisdom greater than she dreamed, "I believe you make yourself sicker by thinking so much about your illness and worrying about the things you _can't_ do. I know it is awfully hard, but if you'll promise me while you are out west to try every day to see if you can walk a little farther and eat more and not be cross, why, I'll do most anything in the world for you."

"Will you come and stay with me at Rainbow Lodge and let the others go on with their holiday?" Elizabeth begged.

Jack laughed and shook her head. "I couldn't do that, dear. I should feel too queer and homesick to be visiting in my own home."

"Then you'll come to New York next winter to stay with me?" Elizabeth demanded. "That will be best of all. It seems so funny to me that you've never been in a theater or to a big restaurant or to any large city!"

"I'd love to come, Elizabeth," Jack agreed, "but you mustn't expect me, for you know we ranch girls haven't any money except just enough to live on, and I couldn't possibly take more than my share for such a trip."

Elizabeth pouted. "You don't know what it means not to be rich, Elizabeth," Jack explained. "Here come the others, thank goodness! I am nearly starved."

When Frieda, Carlos and Olive appeared, their hands were filled with every variety of lovely wild flower. They had been searching the woods and hills for them, while Jean and Donald hung over the boiling pool with their kettle swung in the water by a long string. Olive and the two children flung their flowers in a heap in Ruth's lap. "Give us a botany lesson on the Park flowers when tea is over, Ruth," Olive suggested. "I wish I knew as much about them as you do."

It was a beautiful afternoon, warm even for July in this part of the country, although the whole month had been such a mild one that the peaks of the snow-capped Yellowstone mountains were less white than usual, from the melting of the snow. Nobody seemed inclined to stir when tea was over. Ruth was idly twining a wreath of the wild flowers, when Jean flung herself down by her.

"Don't give us a real botany lesson, Ruth," Jean exclaimed. "I have thought of a much prettier idea. Suppose you tell us our characters in flowers. Give each one of us a special posy and then tell us the names and habits of the flower, and say why you think we are like them."

Ruth laughed. "That's a small order, Miss Bruce," she answered; "but if Mrs. Harmon doesn't mind our foolish ways of having a good time together, I'll do my best."

Elizabeth sat up and a faint sparkle came into her eyes and a color in her face. "I should dearly love to hear our flower natures," Mrs. Harmon returned, as eager and interested as any one of the company.

Ruth surveyed her bouquet critically. From the center of the tangled mass in her lap she carefully selected a thick cluster of deep blue forget-me-nots, and with a perfectly serious face leaned over and stuck them into Jean's brown hair.

"Here, Jean, suppose we begin with you," she suggested. "I believe a forget-me-not is your flower."

Jean blushed a soft rose color that no one saw except Ruth. "I don't see why you select a forget-me-not for my flower, Ruth, dear," Jean remarked innocently. "I haven't forget-me-not eyes, like Elizabeth and Frieda, and I'm not a wonderful, unforgettable person, like Olive or Jack."

"Never mind, Jean, I have my own reasons for the choice," Ruth returned, and Jean suddenly flung her arms around Frieda and drew her to her lap, so that no one should see her face.

"Olive, dear, you are an evening primrose," Ruth declared, smiling at her own fancy. "I have an idea that part of the time you close up your real feelings inside you, just as this flower hides its blossoms in the daytime. It's almost sunset now and time for it to show its delicate, pink petals. Don't let yourself grow too reserved, dear. Jack has your confidence now, but some day it may be best for the rest of us to know your real dreams and desires." Ruth handed a spray of the blossoms to Olive, with a smile as an apology for her little sermon, though it was well meant and timely.

"Can't you find a flower for me?" Beth asked wistfully, her thin face looking whiter than usual from her fatigue and in contrast with the brilliant, glowing health of the ranch girls.

Ruth looked at the spoiled girl tenderly. Like Jack, she had taken more of a fancy to her than to any member of the Harmon family.

"Here is a flower for you, Beth?" she returned gently. "I hope you will like it. See, it's pure white and like velvet, and though it looks fragile and delicate it keeps its beauty longer than any of the other flowers. Out here in the West they call it an 'immortelle.' It is a prettier name than our eastern title of 'everlasting.'"

Elizabeth's eyes swam with tears of pleasure, and Jack, reaching over, found the white buds in Ruth's lap and made them into a crown for her friend's flowing gold hair, until in the soft light the pale girl looked like a mythical princess in an old Scandinavian legend.

Frieda's eyes were big and wistful and her lips trembled slightly, for she was not accustomed to being overlooked while a strange girl was made much of by her own sister; indeed both Olive and Frieda had to stifle many pangs of jealousy at Jack's interest in Elizabeth Harmon.

But fortunately Ruth caught Frieda's expression. "Dear me, baby, I haven't forgotten you," she announced. "Won't you be a bitter-root blossom? The flower hasn't a pretty name, but you remember it was the first you gathered when we entered the park yesterday, and the reason I select it for you is because the old gypsy fortune teller said you were sweet and good enough to eat, and this flower is used for food by the Indians, isn't it, Carlos?"

Frieda now smiled placidly, not understanding Ruth's meaning nor any of the other nonsense they were talking, but just the same not wishing to be ignored.

"Now we all have our flowers except Jack," Olive remarked fondly.

"Oh, Ruth hasn't a flower for me. She has exhausted the whole collection," Jack answered. "It is just as well, for I am the most prosaic and unflowerlike character in the entire assembly."

"I don't believe that, Miss Ralston," Mrs. Harmon exclaimed, breaking unexpectedly into the conversation. "You are not like the other girls--I never saw girls so unlike as you ranch girls. I suppose you mean that you are more matter-of-fact and have less sentiment than they have, but you would do anything for a person you loved and you would never turn back from what you thought to be right. You'd face danger, like--well, like we ought all to face it," she ended seriously.

Olive kissed her hand to Jack. "She has done _all that_ for me," she murmured, but Jack shook her head, not wishing the Harmons to know anything of Olive's past, and no questions were asked.

"Oh, no, I haven't forgotten Jack. I have purposely saved the columbine for her," Ruth replied. "I must agree with Mrs. Harmon, for it is an aspiring flower and grows taller than any of the other wild flowers. And I am sure it has deep, ardent impulses; for see all its beautiful colors from pure white to rich purple!"

Jack blushed uncomfortably. "Hear, hear!" Jean exclaimed half in fun and half in earnest. "For goodness' sake, don't shower any more compliments on Jacqueline Ralston or we won't be able to live with her. I don't see why you find so many marvelous virtues in her. Consider what an angel I am, and yet nobody is devoting her time to mentioning my noble qualities."

Jack extracted a sofa cushion from Elizabeth's pile, flinging it with accurate aim straight at her cousin's head. Jean returned it with interest and then the girls chased one another around the trees until they were out of breath.

A little later Mr. Drummond and Jim Colter were seen walking toward them, summoning them to the hotel. The entire company gathered up their belongings, and Donald carried his sister to a rolling chair which they had brought along in the stage.

Jean lingered a little in the background, putting her arm about Ruth's waist to draw her away from the others.

"Ruth, dear," she said, with a far-away expression in her eyes, "you've a tiny flower in your buttonhole which has been there all day. I wonder if Jim gave it to you?"

Ruth nodded. "Why do you ask?" she inquired.

"Oh, for no particular reason," Jean answered, "only I happen to know that Jim got up soon after daylight this morning, and climbed for miles and miles up a steep hill. Why don't you choose that flower, Ruth, as appropriate to your character?" Jean proposed, and her expression was so innocent that Ruth began to guess at her meaning.

"The flower is called Indian Paint Brush," Jean continued; "but the name has nothing to do with you. It is only that it grows on the peaks of high, cold mountains and one has to climb and climb and struggle and struggle to reach it. Poor old Jim!"

Ruth made no reply to her saucy companion, but hurried on to join the rest of the party.