Meg of Mystery Mountain

  CHAPTER XIX. A NEW COOK

  Such a pleasant half hour was spent by these two who seemed content justto be together, Jane, with a twinge of regret, realized that the youthwas idealizing her. He constantly attributed to her qualities that shewell knew that she did not possess. He told her that he could understandwhy she had not learned to cook simply because for years she had beenaway at a fashionable seminary. "But now is your golden opportunity, andI am indeed lucky to be your first teacher." That he was pleased wasquite evident. "I am sure you agree with me, Miss Abbott, that cooking isas essential in a young woman's education as painting or singing." Thenhe laughed boyishly. "I'm afraid, when I am hungry that I would farrather have a beautiful girl cook for me than sing to me. Now, what isthe menu to be?"

  Jane looked about the kitchen helplessly. She did not wish to confess toJean Sawyer that she had not before been in there except to pass throughit to their outdoor dining-room.

  "Julie and Dan were planning the meal. I really don't know." Thesituation was relieved by Jean's asking: "May I prepare anything I canfind?"

  "Oh, yes, do please! It really doesn't matter which of our supplies areused first." The girl was glad to have the problem thus easily solved.After a few moments of ransacking, the lad looked up from a box as heasked: "Miss Jane, will you pare the potatoes?"

  She shrank away before she realized what she was doing. "Oh, wouldn'tthey stain my hands terribly?" Then, with her most winning smile, sheheld them both out to him. "You see, they haven't a stain on them yet,and I did hope they never would have." The boy made a move as though totake the hands in his. But he stooped quickly over the box of potatoesand said earnestly: "Right you are, Miss Abbott. They are far too lovelyto mar."

  Perhaps because of associated ideas it was that he recalled a poem thatwent somewhat in this way: "Beautiful hands are those that do work thatis useful, kind and true." What he said was: "Suppose you set the table.I'll make the fire and have a pot of goulash in no time. That is myfavorite camp menu, perhaps because it is the simplest."

  Everything was in readiness when merry voices were heard without, andJulie, evidently believing they were unheard, said in a stage whisper:"Don't tell Jane that we've been up to see Meg Heger's hospital, willyou, Dan? She'd be mad as anything." The older lad was opening thekitchen door at that moment, and the two, who had been keeping so stillin the kitchen that the surprise might be complete, could not but hear.Vaguely Jean Sawyer wondered why Jane would be "mad" because the rest ofher family had been to call upon a neighbor. Glancing at her proud,beautiful face, he saw a scornful curl to the mouth which he had thoughtso lovely, and it was not pleasant to behold. But a moment later he hadforgotten it, in the excitement that followed his discovery. Dan advancedwith glowing eyes and outstretched hand. "Jean Sawyer! How glad we are tohave you with us. These are the youngsters, Julie and Gerald." The littlegirl made a pretty curtsy and Gerry thrust out a chubby, freckled hand,smiling his widest as he looked admiringly at the cowboy's costume."Gee!" he confided, "I'd like awful well to have one of those rigs. Dan,don't you s'pose they make 'em small enough for boys?"

  But it was Jean who answered. "They do, indeed, and what is more, thereis one over at the Packard ranch more typical than mine, which I ampretty sure will fit you. A grandson of Mr. Packard's was with us lastsummer, but he isn't coming this year and he'd be glad to have you wearit." Then, smiling at the older girl, he said to Dan: "Your sister, MissJane, has agreed to bring you all over to our place to spend next Sunday.That is a week from today." Julie, upon hearing this, was about to blurtout her disappointment by saying, "How can she, if she's going back Easton Tuesday?" But a cold glance from her sister's eyes made the small girlturn away with quivering lips. After all Jane was going to stay and theirsummer would be spoiled. Jean Sawyer had also witnessed this by-play andhe felt a sense of great disappointment.

  It was quite evident that Jane Abbott's beauty was only skin deep.

  When Jean Sawyer took his departure that afternoon, Dan accompanied himpart way "cross-lots," as the former lad had called it.

  They crossed the brook and after climbing many a jagged boulder, beganthe descent on the side of the mountain nearest the wide valley in whichwas located the fertile Packard ranch.

  These two lads, so near of an age, found that they were most congenial.When Dan confessed that his dearest desire was to become a writer ofpurpose fiction, Jean heartily applauded. "Great! I'd give anything if Ihad the ability to do something fine for this old world of ours, but,just at present, I believe I will continue being Mr. Packard's foreman.Really, Dan, reading and studying with that man is as good as having apost-graduate course at college."

  Then apropos of nothing (or so it seemed), Jean said: "What a beautifulgirl your sister is. What a pity that she has not had the love anddirection of a mother. I had such a wonderful mother myself, Dan, I wellknow what girls and boys have missed when they lost their mothers whilethey were very young."

  Dan grew serious at once. Then he confessed:

  "Jean, I feel as though I had known you for a long time, and so I amgoing to tell you my greatest problem. My sister Jane is beautiful, andbefore she went away to that fashionable Highacres Seminary she was assweet and lovable a girl as any you could find, but for some reason shelearned there much that was not in the curriculum. Pride of family,snobbishness, and because of our father's position, many of hercompanions were so differential to her that she has come to expect itfrom everyone. How I wish I knew how to save Jane from herself."

  It was just as Jean had feared. He surprised himself by saying: "If shewould chum with Meg Heger a while, I believe it would help her toovercome those artificially acquired qualities, for Meg is sincerelynatural. But your sister would have to make the advances. Meg never will.She keeps apart by herself, and will probably continue doing so until itis proven that she is not that Ute Indian's daughter. I know that youhave met Meg, for I overheard your little sister saying that you had beenthere this morning."

  "Yes, we were. The children pleaded so hard that I go and see their babylions."

  Then he told the story of the death of the mother lion to an interestedlistener. "I wondered why Meg Heger disappeared directly after havingsaved my life. Nor would she come to her home while she know that I wasthere. It is too bad that she shuts herself away from people who wouldgladly be her friends."

  Jean nodded. "That is just what she does. Last year, as I was tellingGerald, Mr. Packard's daughter, Mrs. Delbert, and her young son were withus. When Mrs. Delbert heard the story of Meg's devotion to herfoster-parents and how she is trying to become a teacher that she mightmake life easier and pleasanter for them, she at once wished to makeMeg's acquaintance. We hiked up to the Heger cabin one Saturday morning,and although Meg willingly showed Mrs. Delbert her botany gardens, andher hurt animal hospital, she was so reserved and shut away from us, thatwe realized at once that she did not wish our friendship. Mrs. Delbertinvited Meg to spend a day with her at the ranch, but the girl nevercame, nor have I seen her since."

  The other lad understood.

  "With me she is also distant and reserved," he said, "but when she talksto Julie and Gerald she is very different."

  Then, returning to a remark made earlier, he concluded: "My sister Janewould be greatly helped if she could see how much more naturalness isadmired than cultivated poses, but she will never learn from Meg Heger,whom she considers greatly beneath her." Then, stopping, he held out hishand. "Jean," he said seriously, "I hope I have not given you a wrongopinion of my beautiful sister. I honestly believe that the girl she usedto be still lives beneath all this artificial veneer that she hasacquired at the fashionable seminary and my most earnest wish is to finda way by which that other girl, who was my dearly loved sister-pal, canbe returned to me. I would not have spoken of this were it not that I amas greatly troubled for Jane's sake as my own."

  "I am glad you told me, Dan. I, too, have faith in her. Goodbye till ne
xtSunday."

  Dan walked slowly back to the cabin, pleased, indeed, with his newfriend.

  Dan found his sister Jane alone with her book on the front porch of theircabin. She looked up with a smile of welcome. "I was agreeably surprisedin our guest," she began at once, "and so, before you tease me for havingdescribed him as raw-boned and illiterate, I will make the confessionthat I never met a better looking or nicer mannered youth."

  "Tut! Tut!" her brother, sinking to the doorstep where earlier in the dayJean had sat, merrily shook a finger at his sister, "That is extremepraise, and I may take offense, since I consider myself good looking andnice mannered."

  The girl laughed happily. Her brother reflected that, not in many a day,had he seen her brow unclouded with frown or fretfulness.

  Suddenly he said: "Jane, have you changed your mind about going East nextTuesday?" He looked up inquiringly, eagerly.

  The girl flushed, then said with an effort at indifference: "I thoughtperhaps it is hardly fair to decide that I do not like the mountain life,after having been here for such a few days. Shall you mind if I postponemy departure until a week from Tuesday?" The lad caught the hand thathung near him and pressed it with sudden warmth to his cheek. "Jane," hesaid, "I'm desperately lonesome for the comrade that my sister used tobe. Won't you give up all thought of going away and try once again to bethat other girl?"

  Jane looked puzzled, then she drew her hand away, saying coldly: "You areevidently not satisfied with me. I suppose that you also admire a girlwho prefers to pare potatoes and stain her hands, than you do one whokeeps herself attractive."

  Dan was astonished at the outburst, but wisely made no comment, thoughhis thoughts were busy. Evidently Jean Sawyer had told his sister that headmired a girl who could be useful as well as ornamental. What would theresult be, he wondered. But on the following day Jane permitted the otherthree to do all of the work of the cabin while she idled hours away atletter writing to her many girl friends in the East; finished her book,and started a bit of lace making which had been the popular pastime atthe seminary.

  At nine o'clock on Monday the stage drew up in front of their stonestairway and the discordant sound from a horn seemed to be calling them,and so Gerald hopped down to receive from Mr. "Sourface" Wallace a packetof newspapers and letters. "Oh, thanks a lot, Mr. Wallace!" the boyshouted, knowing that the stage driver was deaf, and then up the stairwayhe scrambled to distribute the mail. There was a letter for each of theAbbotts from their father and a tiny note inclosed from grandmother withgood advice for each, not excluding Jane, whose lips took their favoritescornful curve when it was read.

  But a glance at her other two letters sent her to her own room, where shecould read them undisturbed. One was from Merry Starr and, instead ofcontaining enthusiastic descriptions of the gay life at Newport, which itwas her good fortune to be living, the epistle was crammed full oflonging to see the wonderful West.

  "Tastes are surely different!" Jane thought as she opened the secondepistle, which was from Esther Ballard. In it she read a news item whichpleased her exceedingly. "Jane, old dear"--was the very informalbeginning.

  "Put on your remembering cap and you will recall that you told me, ifever I could find another string of those semi-precious cardinal gemsthat you so greatly admired, to buy them at once, notify you and youwould send me the money. Well, the deed is done. I have found thenecklace, and, honestly, Jane, it holds all of the glory of the sunsetand sunrise melted into one. They will set off your dark beauty toperfection. But I'll have to confess that I haven't a penny. Alwaysbroke, as you know, and so, if you want them, you'll have to mail metwenty-five perfectly good dollars by return post.

  "Yours in great haste, E. B."

  Jane sat looking thoughtfully out of the window. In about two weeks shewould have a birthday, and on that occasion her aunt, after whom she wasnamed, always sent her the amount needed for the gems, but in apostscript Esther had said that she had asked to have the chain held oneweek, feeling sure that by that time Jane would have sent the money.

  Taking from her purse two bills, she put them in an envelope addressed toEsther, added a hurried little letter, stamped it and was just wonderinghow she would get it to the post when she saw Meg Heger coming down theroad on her pony. Although she herself would not ask a favor of themountain girl, she called Julie and requested that she hail Meg and askher to mail the letter. Not until it was done did Jane face herconscience. Had she any right to use the tax money for a necklace? Sheshrugged her shoulders. What would two weeks more or less matter?