CHAPTER IV
THE ROUND ROBIN
"WHAT'S the program for this morning?" asked Uncle Cliff, as the ranchparty assembled on the veranda after a very late breakfast.
"I don't know what the others are going to do," said Sarah, "but I'mgoing to write letters."
The other girls exchanged amused glances: it was evident that Sarahwished to forestall suggestions of another ride. Kitty was beginningto show symptoms of sauciness when Mrs. Clyde interrupted kindlywith--"I think Sarah's suggestion quite in order. Every one at homewill be looking for letters."
"Uncle Cliff telegraphed," said Blue Bonnet, loath to settle down toso prosaic a pursuit.
"But a telegram isn't very satisfying to mothers and fathers, dear,"replied her grandmother. "And think of poor Susy and Ruth."
"I intend to write them, too," remarked Sarah.
"Let's all write them!" exclaimed Blue Bonnet.
"That's the right spirit," said Senora with an approving nod. "A'round-robin' letter will cheer the poor girls wonderfully."
"You hear the motion, are all in favor?" asked Alec.
"Will you write a 'robin,' too?" bargained Kitty, who loved to tormentthe youth.
"Sure!" he agreed at once, thus taking the wind out of her sails.
"Aye, aye, then!" they all exclaimed, and the motion was declaredcarried.
There was a scattering for paper and ink, after which every onesettled down for an hour's scribbling, some using the broad rail ofthe veranda as a table, others repairing to desks in the house. BlueBonnet doubled up jack-knife fashion on one of the front steps, usingher knees for a pad; while Sarah, complaining that she could not thinkwith so many people about her, took herself off to the window-seat inthe nursery.
"The idea of wanting to think!" exclaimed Kitty. "I never stop tothink when I write letters."
"You don't need to tell that to any one who has ever heard from you,"remarked Blue Bonnet. "The one letter I had from you in New York tookme an hour to puzzle out,--it began in the middle and ended at the topof the first page, and there were six 'ands' and four 'ifs' in onesentence."
"That's quite an accomplishment--I'll wager you couldn't get in halfso many," retorted Kitty. And then for a while there was silence,broken only by the scratching of pens and the query from Blue Bonnetas to whether there were two s's or two p's in "disappoint."
"TO SUSY AND RUTH DOYLE, WOODFORD, MASSACHUSETTS. "THE BLUE BONNET RANCH, "July the fifth.
"YOU POOR DEARS: You'll never know if you live to be a thousand years old what a fearful disappointment it was when Doctor Clark told me the awful news. Where did you get it? Is it very bad? And do you have to gargle peroxide of hydrogen? Amanda says she just lived on it when her throat was bad. Are you honestly as red as lobsters? It's a perfect shame you should have to be sick--and in vacation, too. There might be some advantages if it should happen--say at examination time. Grandmother says it is very unusual to have scarlet fever in warm weather,--it just seems as if you must have gone out of your way to get it--or it went out of its way to get you.
"The ranch party isn't a bit complete without you. I'm going to take pictures of everything and everybody so as to show you when we get back. That sounds as if I meant to go back again next fall, when really it isn't decided yet. I'm more in love with the ranch than ever and feel as if I never wanted to leave it again. It's so fine and big out here. There's so much air to breathe and such a long way to look, and you can throw a stone as far as you like without 'breaking a window or a tradition'--as Alec says. We have our traditions, too, but they can stand any amount of stone-throwing--in fact that's part of them.
"It's worth crossing the continent to see Sarah on horseback, riding across the saddle in a wild Western way that would shock her reverend father out of a whole paragraph. Kitty dared her and I must say she showed pluck--Comanche can go _some_ when he gets started, and Sarah stayed with him to the finish. But you can imagine why she wanted to write letters to-day instead of riding again. You can thank her for the round robin. There, I've reached the bottom of the page before I've begun to tell you anything. But the others will make up for it, I reckon. No more now--I must save strength for a letter to Aunt Lucinda. Do hurry and get well and out of quarantine so that you can write to
"Your devoted "BLUE BONNET."
"DEAR SUSY AND RUTH: We arrived on Monday evening after a very pleasant journey. The name of the station where you get off is Jonah--isn't that odd? We had to drive twenty miles in a very queer kind of vehicle in order to reach Blue Bonnet's home, and this letter will have to go back over the same road in order to be posted. I think I had better go back to the beginning and tell you all about our trip from the time we left Woodford.
"The private car we came in is called The Wanderer and it is really a pity you could not have shared it with us. It is much grander than Mrs. Clyde's drawing-room at home,--the mahogany shone till you could see your face in it, and wherever there was not mahogany there was a mirror, and Slivers, the porter, dusted everything about twenty times a day. If you could see Slivers I should not have to explain why he is called by that name. I am sure he is the tallest and slimmest man I have ever seen. And that is odd, too, for you always think of them as plump and fat. He is a negro, you know, and doesn't seem to mind it a bit, but is as jolly as if he were white and as fat as you think he ought to be, and sang and played his banjo in the evenings quite like a civilized person. He waited on table, too, while the chief--the cook, you know--prepared our meals in the most cunning little kitchen you can imagine.
"It was a very interesting trip. Sometimes we would begin our breakfast in one state and before we had finished we would be in another, and yet there would seem to be no difference. I think travelling is a very interesting way to learn Geography, for you forget to think of Kansas as yellow and Oklahoma as purple, and think of them as _real_ places with trees and farms and other things like Massachusetts. I knew already that Texas is as big as all the New England states put together, but I never really _grasped_ it before. I am learning new things every day, some Spanish, though not as much as I could wish. Yesterday I learned to ride astride. That is, nearly learned. I don't feel entirely at home that way yet and it has tired me considerably, but I dare say it will come easier after a while. My horse is named Comanche, and he looks just that way. There is more white to his eyes than anything else.
"Benita is Blue Bonnet's old nurse. She does the most exquisite drawn-work and is going to teach me (it would be as well for you not to mention this when you write) the spider-web stitch and the Maltese cross, so that I can do a waist for Blue Bonnet. She is doing so much for us all that I want to make some return for her hospitality. Blue Bonnet, I mean, not Benita.
"I do hope you will soon be better. I felt so mean at leaving without even saying good-bye. But I had to think of all my brothers and sisters and the girls--I couldn't expose them to the fever, you know. I hope you liked the postals we sent. Amanda and I came very near being left once when we couldn't find the post-box at Kansas City,--we had to run a block, while Alec and Kitty stood on the back platform and laid bets on the winner. (Amanda won.)
"We are all well and hope
you are the same,--I mean I hope you are better and will soon be well.
"With best love, "SARAH JANE BLAKE."
"Oh, girls, I am simply speechless and can't find a word to say when I try to describe our grand trip and this perfect peach of a place, and the glorious time we have had and are having ever since we left pokey old Woodford and arrived at the Blue Bonnet ranch. I keep pinching myself to see if I'm really me, but it isn't at all convincing, and I suppose I'll simply go on treading air and not believe in the reality of a thing till I come to earth in time to hear the Jolly Good say--'Miss Kitty, you may take problem number ninety-four'--and wake up to the monotonous old grind again--oh, if you could only see this darling old house and the picturesque Mexicans--rather dirty some of them (I suppose that's why they are called greasers) and the perfectly dear way they adore Blue Bonnet and their deference to her 'amigos'--I tell you I feel like a princess when they call me 'Senorita' with a musical accent that makes you downright sick with envy. Why anybody on earth ever left the West to go and settle up the East I don't see,--you may think I mean that the other way about but I don't, for anybody can see at half a glance that this country is as old as Methusalem--the live-oaks look as if they'd been here forever and ever and would stay as much longer--they're all 'hoary with moss' and all that sort of thing like that poem of Tennyson's--or maybe it is Longfellow's--it doesn't matter which in vacation, thank goodness. I don't like to seem to be rubbing it in about our good times, for it's just too hateful that you can't be here, too, and ride like mad for miles without coming to a fence and wear the adorable riding-suits Mr. Ashe got for us in New York--all seven alike and as becoming as anything--and have the best things to eat, wear, do, and see every minute of the day.
"This won't go into the envelope with the rest if I run on any longer so I'll close,--with a fat hard hug and lots of love to you both,
"KITTY."
"DEAR GIRLS: Don't you ever go and get conditioned at school; take my solemn warning. That awful thing hanging over me is going to do its best to spoil my grand summer in Texas. I intended to do a lot of studying as soon as we arrived here, so that I might have a few weeks perfectly free from worry; but goodness me, how can anybody open a book when there's something going on every blessed minute of the day? It's a pity it wasn't Sarah who was conditioned. She actually likes to study and if it came to a choice between a horseback ride and doing ten pages of grammar, she'd jump at the grammar. Sometimes I think Sarah isn't made like other girls. Not quite normal, you know.
"Now that I've seen Blue Bonnet at home, I realize what a hard time she must have had in Woodford, at first especially. She's treated like a perfect _queen_ here, and doesn't have to mind a soul except Senora--that's what we call Mrs. Clyde. Fancy having run the ranch all your life and then at fifteen having to start in and obey Miss Clyde, and Mr. Hunt, and the rest of those mighty ones! I think she's a brick to have done it at all, and I take back every criticism I ever made of her. She must be terribly rich, but doesn't put on any airs at all.
"How is little old Woodford getting along without us? I'm almost ashamed to write Mother and Father, for I can't say I'm homesick and parents always expect you to be. Debby wants to finish my page, so no more now from
"Your loving AMANDA."