"Oh, Uncle, it has!" she declared. "And it always seems so easy for you to 'live as you ride--straight and true.' I was so proud last winter when you said I'd proved I was an Ashe, clear through. But I reckon you spoke too soon. I've been showing what Alec calls 'a yellow streak.'"

"Don't you say that of my girl! I'll wager our best short-horn against a prairie-dog that if you've a yellow streak it's pure gold!" He caressed the brown head that nestled against his arm.

She wriggled away and faced him firmly. "You may as well know the worst, Uncle Cliff. It was my fault that Kitty was hurt yesterday.

It's my fault Grandmother is ill and Debby's feet hurt. I was mean and thoughtless and selfish and--"

He put his hand over her mouth. "Look here, no Ashe is going to hear one of his race called all those ugly names. Remember whom you're talking to! Things always seem to come in bunches, Honey, but you have to dispose of them one at a time. Why, it's hardly a year since a girl about your size--a bit younger she was, but she had blue eyes just like yours,--was saying she reckoned she'd never make a Westerner, and she hated the ranch and was going to sell it as soon as she came of age--"

"Don't!" came in a smothered tone from Blue Bonnet. Her face was buried again. "Don't remind me how downright horrid I was."

"And six months later that same little girl--blue eyes same as yours--was telling me how she reckoned that three hundred years would never make an Easterner of her, and she loved the ranch and wanted to be a Texas Blue Bonnet as long as she lived!"

"And so I do, Uncle."

"Well, I'm just running over a few items in order to remind you that most troubles aren't half as black as your feelings paint them at the time. It's best not to worry over spilt milk till you see it's made a grease-spot. Ten to one the cat will lick it up,--and it's an ill wind that blows n.o.body good. There,--that figure of speech is as mixed as a plum-pudding, but it has a heap of sound philosophy!"

Blue Bonnet was smiling now. "I wish all the preachers would say the kind of things you do. Most of the sermons I've heard sound like that last piece of mine--'variations on one theme'--and the theme is Duty with a big D. Sarah was brought up on those. And they must be pretty successful, for Sarah is awfully good. Isn't she?"

"Just that--awfully good."

She looked up quickly, struck by something odd in his tone; but he was perfectly sober.

"She's the salt of the earth," he added, "and you--"

"And what am I?"

He smiled down at her. "Do you remember how the south pasture looks when the blue bonnets bloom in March,--how fresh and sweet, a sky turned upside down--? It's the glory of the ranch, Honey. And what they are to the ranch, you are to me. Please don't be trying to be something you can't be, Blue Bonnet!"

She laughed outright. "That sounds like the d.u.c.h.ess in 'Alice in Wonderland.' Don't you remember?"

"I confess I don't. You've been neglecting my education, young lady, since you began your own. What does the d.u.c.h.ess say?"

"'Be what you would seem to be'--or, if you want it put more simply--'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'" The face she turned to him as she finished was cloudless, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's quite plain," he said, "and I hope you'll take the lesson to heart!"

She smiled as she rose. Glancing up he was surprised to see how tall she looked,--quite as tall, he thought, as her mother had been when she came a bride to the ranch. Well, she was almost sixteen,--the other Elizabeth was only eighteen.

"You've done me a lot of good, Uncle Cliff," she was saying. "I think my 'indigo fit,' as Alec calls the blues, has faded to a pale azure, and I can go to Grandmother. She will be wondering where I am."

"Next time I see a fit coming on, I shall quote the d.u.c.h.ess!" he warned her.

Blue Bonnet was delighted to find her grandmother awake and ready for a "heart to heart" talk. Snuggled cosily on the bed at her feet the penitent poured out all her discouragement of the morning, and received the balm, which like the milk in the magic pitcher, bubbled constantly in Grandmother's heart.

In Sarah's room the two students were diligently at work, Sarah in the role of preceptress, hearing Amanda's French verbs, or helping to discover the perplexing value of X in an algebraic equation. Only occasionally did the thoughts of either wander.

"This is the second time," remarked Amanda, "that Blue Bonnet and Kitty have had a tiff. The 'third time never fails,' you know."

"Do you really think that after the third falling-out they'd stay--"

"Out?--indeed I do think so," Amanda declared. "I've seen it come true too many times to doubt it. There are always three fires--the last the worst; three spells of illness, three shipwrecks, three--everything!"

"It sounds rather--superst.i.tious to me," observed Sarah, doubtfully.

"I shouldn't like to believe it anyway, for it keeps you always looking out for the third time, and that is _so_ uncomfortable."

"It's true as gospel," Amanda insisted.

From that time onward, in spite of her better judgment, Sarah lived in perpetual dread of Blue Bonnet's third falling-out with Kitty; and her att.i.tude was continually that of the pacifier, pouring the oil of tactful words on troubled waters, or averting the wrath of either by a watchfulness that never relaxed. Just how much was due Sarah for the cordial spirit that prevailed for a long time following this between the two girls, neither realized; and Sarah asked no reward for her pains, save peace.

CHAPTER IX

TEXAS AND Ma.s.sACHUSETTS

AT supper-time all the invalids were up; Kitty appearing rather "interestingly pale," as Amanda remarked; Debby hobbling about in padded bedroom slippers; and Grandmother Clyde looking somewhat older and grayer than usual, but calm and contained once more.

"Where are the boys?" asked the Senora, noting Alec's absence with some anxiety.

"They went off early this morning loaded for big game," said Uncle Joe with a twinkle in his eye.

"Do you mean they carried guns?" Mrs. Clyde spoke with a shade of worry in her tone; she had missed the twinkle.

"Shady had a shotgun, I believe, but the boys carried nothing deadlier than lariats. I believe young Trent takes one to bed with him. He's been practising on the snubbing-post in the corral for hours every day,--he's got so he catches it about once in so often, and he's tickled to death." Uncle Joe chuckled.

"Knight Judson can beat any of the Mexicans at la.s.soing," Blue Bonnet declared. "He must be a wonder when he has both hands free."

"He doesn't seem in any hurry to discard his sling, I notice," Uncle Joe remarked, winking at Blue Bonnet ostentatiously.

"His wrist isn't well yet," she insisted, ignoring the teasing glance.

"Here they come, now," exclaimed Kitty. "Alec looks as excited as if he'd killed a bear at the very least!"

"We've had a wonderful day," Alec declared, full of enthusiasm, when he and Knight had greeted every one and slipped into their places.

Both boys were ravenous; Blue Bonnet and her grandmother exchanged a significant glance as Alec pa.s.sed his plate for a second generous helping. He looked already a different boy from the pale student who had left Woodford only a few weeks before.

"Guess what we bagged to-day?" he asked.

"A bear!" Kitty said immediately.

"Quail!" Blue Bonnet guessed.

"Shady got some quail, but we didn't do any shooting," replied Alec.

"Maybe you and Knight la.s.soed some prairie-hens," suggested Uncle Joe, laughing at his own joke.