Part 2 (1/2)
”About next Wednesday.”
”Very well, girlie. Just so long as I know how many signed checks to get ready, and how many men to a.s.sign to the baggage.”
Jane looked relieved. Her father plainly had come to the same conclusion she had managed to confine her reasoning to, namely: since she couldn't bring the Eastern college to El Capitan, she would have to go to the college, and that protesting against the details of separation from her beloved ranch home, simply threw a shadow over the prospect of a joyful year at school.
”We are getting educated, Janie,” Mr. Allen said, as they pulled up to the waiting groom. ”Old dad takes the school term as a matter of course now. Not that I don't miss my little girl as much as ever, but because I have taken the home course in economics-the grade that gives us all the discipline and the self control,” he laughed at this attempt to qualify his change of mental att.i.tude. He was a wonderful father, a perfectly adorable pal, and withal a business man whose name spelled power and prosperity.
”Dad, all the same I'm a weakling,” admitted Jane. ”Because I just hate to leave you-and--”
”There's a special messenger boy all the way from Copper Hill Turn,”
interrupted the father. ”Now what do you suppose he is bringing us in the way of good news?”
The Mexican boy slipped off his burro and with an indescribable salute (something between a military motion and an acrobatic finish to some remarkable star act) he handed the message to Mr. Allen.
”Yours, daughter. Whoever is writing you from over the hills and what can be so very important as to fetch Santos?” asked Mr. Allen.
”All our wonders seem to come by post,” commented Jane. She was scanning the few words on the telegram sent in from the nearest railway station. Suddenly she gave a jump, and seemed too overcome with emotion to express herself in words.
”Daddy!” she exclaimed, finally. ”Judy is on her way back from the coast and is looking for us. She is at the Hill Turn. Oh, can you imagine Judy Stearns getting way out here, and being with me on the trip to college!”
”Rare luck indeed, daughter. At the station did you say? Well, let us get to her at once. Can't take a chance on her getting into that famous stage coach of Curly Bill's. You run in and tell Aunt Mary the glad news, and I'll get the tandem hitched. Don't you think it will be nice to show her our best style?”
”Oh, lovely, Daddy. But I am so excited. I never could have dreamed of such luck. To have dear old Judy visit me here until I go back, and then to have her travel with me! Yes, get the tandem. Pedro!” she called to the man just losing himself in the trees towards the big stable. ”Come over here! Daddy, don't you slick up a single bit. I want Judy to see you as a ranch chief. And I think I'll get into my Bronco Billie outfit just to show off. No, that wouldn't go with tandem, would it? Yes, it would too,” she changed her mind and decided again, too excited to act rationally.
”Now, I'll dress and be ready in five minutes,” announced the girl.
”Oh, I forgot I haven't told you the message,” she had it crumbled in her brown hand. ”'Am at the Hill Turn Station. Tell me how to reach you.' There, we will show her how we reach her,” and she skipped off leaving her father to arrange about the tandem and the high red-wheel cart.
CHAPTER III-OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY
With that efficiency so marked in large establishments (for El Capitan was large and really an establishment) the new arrangements of driving over the hills for Judith Stearns, Jane's college room-mate, and the preparations Aunt Mary was wont to add to the already splendidly planned guest entertainment, were all perfected and carried out without so much as exciting Pedro to complain of his delayed supper, and its consequent effect on ”the game” that was to follow.
”I am so glad,” Aunt Mary murmured. ”Now I shall have a chance to see Jane's most intimate companion, and it will afford me such an opportunity of studying the dear girls, and thus being better able to understand them. I have always wished that Jane might have had some playmate of her own kind, and she is so very fond of Judith, I shall be delighted to know her also.”
It seemed to the busy little woman that Jane and her father were scarcely gone when a shrill blast of the trumpet announced their return.
With a flourish the coaching party drew up to the porch. The delight of the girls was so evident Mr. Allen and his sister hurried through the formalities of welcome to leave the chums alone together.
”Now, we will just leave you all to yourselves,” he concluded, when Aunt Mary had directed the man to carry in the bags, and ordered the maid to announce dinner in twenty minutes, that length of time being demanded by Jane as necessary for Judith's freshening up. Arms twined around shoulders, eyes reflecting each other's very thoughts, chatting and laughing over happenings absolutely foreign to those outside the charmed circle of college interests, the chums entered upon their period of pre-school and post-vacation days.
”And to think I might have missed all this if I had not thought of you and the copper mines,” Judith was saying as Jane fastened the snaps on her light silk ”freshen up” gown. ”You know, Janie, I am just as forgetful as ever, only I have a new system: I don't forget the things I love best.”
”I will agree you may indulge that habit to the limit, Judy, if you stick to your professed plan. Then I know I shall never get in the jumble of mixups with things you don't love,” Jane affectionately a.s.sured her.
”I don't wonder you hated to leave home for school, Jane,” said the visitor, surveying the rustic beauty of the rambling house, built unlike a California bungalow, and unlike an Eastern mansion, but exactly like what should be the home of Jane Allen. ”This is absolutely charming.”
”What?” asked Jane teasing. ”Our j.a.p boy cook, or our Mexican boy valet? We have a queer household. Quite cosmopolitan, to put it mildly.
Sometimes, when they get excited, I fancy the Tower of Babel has fallen anew. Come on, that means dinner,” as the big Indian gong pealed softly its m.u.f.fled announcement.