Part 8 (1/2)
But nothing did. All the untoward incidents of this journey to the Rockies had happened during its first stage. ”Tenderfoot Sorrel” was left behind, of course, but he did not greatly regret that. He felt that he could more easily endure physical pain than the chaffing of his fellows at San Leon.
As before, the start was made with a flourish of whip and horn, amid good wishes and farewells from the hosts of the Wayside Inn, and a sure promise to ”come again!” Then a day's journey steadily onward and upward, through river-fed valleys and rocky ravines, with a mid-day stop at another little hostelry, for a change of horses and a plain dinner.
Then on again, following the sun till it sank behind a mountain range and they had climbed well nigh to the top. Here Mr. Ford ordered a brief halt, that the travellers might look behind them at the glorious landscape. When they had done so, till the scene was impressed upon their memories forever, again the order came:
”Eyes front! but shut! No peeping till I say--Look!”
Laughing, finding it ever so difficult to obey, but eager, indeed, the last ascent was made. Then the wheels seemed to have found a level stretch of smoother travelling and again came Mr. Ford's cry:
”All eyes front and--open! Welcome to San Leon!”
Open they did. Upon one of the loveliest homes they had ever beheld. A long, low, roomy building, modelled in the Mission style that Lady Gray so greatly admired; whose s.p.a.cious verandas and cloistered walks invited to delightful days out of doors; while everywhere were flowers in bloom, fountains playing, vine-clad arbors and countless cosy nooks, shadowed by magnificent trees. A lawn as smooth as velvet, dotted here and there by electric light poles whose radiance could turn night into day.
For a moment n.o.body spoke; then admiration broke forth in wondering exclamations, while the host helped his wife to alight, asking:
”Well, Erminie, does it suit you?”
”Suit? Dear, I never dreamed of anything better than a plain shack on a mountain side. That's what you called it--but this--this is no shack.
It's more like a palace!”
”Well, the main thing is to make it a home.”
”Is it as good as the 'cabin,' father?” asked Leslie, coming up and laying his hand on Mr. Ford's shoulder.
”Let us hope it will be! If the first inmates are peace and good will.
Peace and good will,” he repeated, gravely. Then his accustomed gayety replaced his seriousness and he waved his hand toward the entrance, saying:
”Queen Erminie, enter in and possess your kingdom! Your maids of honor with you!”
”My heart!” cried Alfaretta, following her hostess, like a girl in a dream. ”I thought 'twould be just another up-mounting sort of place, not near so nice as Deerhurst or the Towers, but it's splendid more 'n they are, either one or both together.”
”Wonderful, what money can do in this land of the free!” remarked Herbert, critically estimating the establishment. ”Think of a man having his own electric light plant away up here! Why, if it weren't for the mountains yonder one could fancy this is Newport or Long Branch.”
”Without the sea, Bert. Even money can't bring the sea to the mountain-tops,” said Helena, though her own face was aglow with admiration.
”It can do the next best thing to it. Look yonder,” said Monty, pointing where a glimmer of sunset-tinted water showed through a hedge of trees.
”Let's go there. It certainly is water,” urged Jim Barlow.
”Well, Leslie told me there was a strange waterfall near San Leon and I suppose the same money has pressed that into service. To think! That 'Railroad Boss' earned his first quarter selling papers on the train! He was talking about the 'cabin' as we came along. It had two rooms and he lived in it alone with his mother. By his talk they hadn't always been so poor and she belonged to an old family, as 'families go in America.'
That was the way he put it, and it was his ambition to see his mother able to take 'the place where she belonged.' That's how he began; and now, look at this!”
All the young people had now gathered around the pond, or lake, that had been made in a natural basin on the mountain side, for thinking that their host and hostess would better like to enter their new home with no strangers about them, Dorothy had suggested:
”Let's follow the boys! Jim's arm ought to be looked after, first thing, and I'll remind him of it. He'd no business to come on horseback all that long way, but he never would take care of himself.”
”Has Leslie ever been here before?” asked Molly Breckenridge.
”No. It is as much a surprise to him as to his mother. But he's mighty proud of his father,” answered Dorothy. ”Look, here he comes now.”
He came running across the sward and down the rocky path to the edge of the lake and clapped a hand on the shoulders of Herbert and Montmorency.