It was her grand-niece whom she greeted first.

"My dear!" she cried, holding the tall, gray-eyed girl at arms' length.

"How you grow! John, she's grown an inch since she rode over a month ago.

I believe upon my soul she has. And looks more like you every day! Kiss your old aunt, dear! She's plum proud of you!"

Then she turned to the others, whom Virginia proudly introduced one by one.

"It's a blessed sight--all these young folks together," she said, shaking hands with them all. "Except for Pioneer Reunions, I haven't seen so many all to once for fifty years. And so you all come from away back East--the place we used to call home? It ain't that any longer to us old folks--but the memories are dear all the same!"

She stepped briskly upon the porch and toward the chair Virginia had placed for her. The Vigilantes and Aunt Nan watched her, fascinated.

Virginia had told them of her wedding journey across the plains in '64; of the hardships and dangers she had withstood; of lonely winter days in a sod hut, and of frightful perils from Indians. She seemed so little someway sitting there, so frail and wrinkled in the big chair. It was almost incredible that she had lived through such terrible things. They longed to hear the story of it all from her own lips. Virginia's recital was thrilling enough! What then must Aunt Deborah's be?

But Aunt Deborah was in no haste to talk about herself! She was far more interested in Virginia's friends--their respective homes and families--their school life and their plans and dreams for the future.

Somehow the Vigilantes found it the easiest thing in the world to tell Aunt Deborah their ambitions. Aunt Nan found it easy, too, to speak of Virginia's mother to this dear old lady who had known and loved her.

Virginia held Aunt Nan's hand close in her own as they heard Aunt Deborah tell of Mary Webster's coming to Wyoming; then a far rougher land than now; of her brave fight against homesickness; of her transformation of the Buffalo Horn School; and, finally, of the fierce struggle within herself over whether she should return to Vermont or stay to marry a Wyoming ranchman.

"My nephew John," finished Aunt Deborah proudly. "A good man. None other than a good man could have won Mary Webster."

"Oh, I'm so glad she stayed!" cried Aunt Nan, a big lump in her throat and her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. "I'm so glad--Aunt Deborah!" She took one of the little old lady's hands in hers. "We're all together now," she said, "New England and the West. There's no difference any longer, is there, Virginia?"

"No, Aunt Nan," said Virginia, choking down the lump in her own throat.

"There's not a bit of difference. And somehow I'm sure Mother knows.

Aren't you, Aunt Deborah?"

"Something inside of me says that she does," said Aunt Deborah softly.

"You see, dears, even Heaven can't blot out the lovely things of earth! At least, that's how it seems to me!"

A moment later, and Mr. Hunter came around the corner of the porch.

"John," cried Aunt Deborah gayly, "don't let's worry one bit about this old world! With these young folks to write the books, and teach the schools, and take care of the homeless babies, we're safe for years to come! Come and tell me all about the wheat."

So the morning pa.s.sed, and at noon Malcolm and Donald, Jack and Carver rode over for dinner, and for Aunt Deborah's stories, which Virginia had promised them. Aunt Deborah's talent for listening won them also, and they told her their ambitions quite as eagerly as the Vigilantes had done. All but Malcolm--he was strangely silent! Dinner was served on the lawn beneath the cottonwoods. Joe and d.i.c.k brought out the large table, which was soon set by Hannah and her four eager a.s.sistants. It was a jolly meal, quite the merriest person being Aunt Deborah.

"It wouldn't be so bad to grow old if you could be sure of being like that, would it?" whispered Carver Standish III to Malcolm.

"No," said Malcolm absent-mindedly, looking at Aunt Nan. "No, it wouldn't!"

"Now, Aunt Deborah," began Virginia, when the things were cleared away, "you know you promised you'd tell stories. You will, won't you?"

Aunt Deborah's gray eyes swept the circle of interested faces raised to her own.

"Why, of course I will, Virginia," she said. "Where shall I begin?"

"At the very beginning," suggested Carver and Jack together. "We want it all, please."

"I'm glad William put marigolds on the table," Aunt Deborah began. "They make it easy for me to get started. They take me back fifty years ago to the day before I was married back in Iowa. Robert came up that evening, and saw me with a brown dress on and marigolds at my waist. 'Wear them to-morrow, Deborah,' says he. 'They're so bright and sunny and a good omen. You see, _we're_ going to need sunshine on our wedding journey.' So the next day, when I was married, I wore some marigolds against my white dress. Some folks thought 'twas an awful queer thing to do. They said roses would have been much more _weddingy_, but Robert and I knew--and it didn't matter about other folks.

"The very next day we started for our new home across the plains. That was to be our wedding journey. 'Twas in July, 1864. We went to Council Bluffs to meet the others of our train. That was just a small town then. In about three days they'd all collected together, ready to start. We didn't have so large a party as some. There were about seventy-five wagons in all, and two hundred persons, counting the children.

"I'll never forget how I felt when I saw the last house go out of sight. I was sitting in the back of our wagon--we were near the end of the train that day--and Robert was ahead driving the oxen. But I guess he knew how I was feeling, for he came back and comforted me. There was comfort, too, in the way other folks besides me were feeling. There wasn't many dry eyes on the day we swung into the plains, and yet we wouldn't have turned back--no, not for worlds!"

Aunt Deborah paused now and then for the eager questions which her interested listeners asked. Yes, she told them, the wagons were great, white-covered prairie schooners--real houses on wheels. Yes, the oxen were powerfully slow, but good, kind beasts. No, they were not all. There were mules in the train and a few horses. Most of those were ridden by scouts--men who received their food and bed for giving protection against the Indians. Yes, there were small children and tiny babies--whole families seeking new homes in this great land. Two babies were born on the journey. One lived to reach Montana and to grow into a strong, stout man; the other, a little girl, died on the way, and was buried somewhere in Nebraska.

"Yes, there were many hard things like that," she said, "but we expected sadness and trouble and sorrow when we started out. We were not the first who had crossed the plains. There were pleasures, too. Nights when we stopped to camp there was a whole village of us. The men placed the wagons in a great circle, and within the circle was our fire and supper. We forgot to be lonely when the stars came out and looked down upon us--the only human things for miles around. We told stories and visited one another's wagons, and were thankful to be together. Friends were made then--real friends that always stuck!"

"Indians?" she asked in response to Jack's interested questions. "Oh, yes, we found plenty of those to our sorrow! The first real hostile ones we met in Nebraska, six weeks after we started. Two days before they came I'd somehow felt as though we were having too smooth sailing for pioneers. One morning four of our men took horses and rode out searching for water. We never saw three of them again. At noon the only one left came riding up, half-dead from exhaustion and from wounds which the Indians had given him.

He gave the alarm and soon we were ready for them, our wagons in a circle, and every man armed. Some women, too." Aunt Deborah's head rose proudly.

"I shot my first shot that day, and I killed an Indian. Robert was proud of me that night!"

So the journey went on, she told them. The long, hot days of mid-summer on the plains shortened into the cooler ones of September and October. All were wearying, of course, but few actually dangerous. The attacks from Indians were rare. They seemed to have learned that more could be gained by friendly bartering. By October the train had left the plains and was going higher into the mountains. The air grew more exhilarating. There was less sickness in the village on wheels. One October morning they found a light covering of snow.

"I can't tell you how that snow made me feel," said Aunt Deborah. "It made me afraid somehow. I thought of the days I must stay alone that coming winter while Robert was away. But my fears went later in the day when the sun once more made the land like summer.

"It was early November when we reached our journey's end in a Montana valley. A few sod huts were there to welcome us, and the day after our arrival other pioneers drifted in from the south. The spot was chosen because it was near water, and because there seemed to be plenty of wild game. Some of our train pushed on to the gold mines, another day's journey and more, but it was the gravel beds of the creek where we were promised gold, and we decided to stay in the valley.

"We built a sod hut like those around us, and began to get settled. Our poor cows and horses were glad enough to rest and crop the gra.s.s in among the sagebrush. It was a forlorn-looking village enough when all our huts were done. I wish you could have seen it! There we spent our first winter--the happiest one of my whole life. Yes, my dears," she said, looking into their doubtful, surprised faces, "it _was_ the happiest.

There were dangers, of course, and all kinds of hardships, but those made no difference. Of course there were lonely days when I longed for home.

When Robert was there, I didn't mind the smoky, crowded hut, but on the days when he had to be away I felt as though I couldn't stand it much longer. We lived on meat and milk that winter. The flour gave out and there was no way to get more, so we had no bread. All the provisions had been used before February came, and we could get no more before spring.

Buffalo meat and elk, we ate mostly. Yes, Virginia, what is it?"

"The story, Aunt Deborah, about the Indian coming into the hut?"

"Oh, yes," said Aunt Deborah, "Virginia always must have that. It happened on one day that Robert was away. He had ridden to the mining camp to try to get flour. I was all alone in the hut. There had been no news of Indians around, so imagine my surprise when the door was pushed open and an Indian walked in. I knew by his signs that he wanted food, so I gave him all I had. He drank all the milk in the hut, and some oat cakes which I had made from our last bit of oat-meal. I remember how angry I was, for I had been saving them especially for Robert, but I dared not refuse. Then he began admiring a rug which we had brought from home. It was on the bed in the corner. He asked me for it, and I refused. Then he insisted, and I still refused. But he wanted that rug, and was going to have it. At last he just grabbed it, and made for the door. That was too much for me. My grandmother had given Robert and me that rug for a wedding gift, and no Indian was going to take it away. I s.n.a.t.c.hed Robert's gun from the corner and raised it.

"'Drop it, or I shoot you!" I screamed.

"I guess he knew I meant what I said, for he dropped the rug and hurried out of the cabin. I don't know how long I sat there facing the door. I was afraid he would bring others back, but he never came again. When Robert came that night, I was still facing the door with the gun. When I saw him, I burst out crying, and cried and cried. The strain had been too much for me."

So Aunt Deborah's stories went on--of the village attacked by night, and her fearful ride to the little fort for protection; of the Vigilantes and their determined hunting-down of robbers and road-agents; of a sickness which broke out in the town toward spring; of hunger and privations--the varied, fascinating, almost incredible tales of pioneer life. Then, like oases, would come stories of Christmas festivities, and of merry, laughing times all together. The minutes, half-hours, and hours flew by as they listened.

"My Thought Book will never hold them all," Priscilla whispered to Virginia.

"But in the spring," Aunt Deborah finished, casting an anxious glance at the sun, "all was different. A trail to Salt Lake had been opened and provisions came through by stage. I'll never forget the morning the first stage train came. Men had use for their money then, though many of them used gold weighed out in little scales. Flour was a dollar and a half a pound, calico fifty cents a yard, and eggs five dollars a dozen. Shoes were priceless. One man bought a pair for thirty dollars. I remember that Robert and I wanted to give our neighbor's little girl a birthday present.

After much thought we decided on an apple, and paid a dollar for it."

"I don't see how you did it," said Vivian, who had not spoken a word since Aunt Deborah began. "I don't believe girls of to-day could live through such terrible things!"

"Yes, they could, dear," affirmed Aunt Deborah, "only the need hasn't come. When it does, you'll all be ready. Of course, the Pioneer Days are over, but there is always need of pioneers--for Vigilantes, like yourselves."

A half hour later and Aunt Deborah was again in the wagon beside Alec--again very straight and very stiff. She had had a beautiful day, she said, smiling upon them all. She had gathered thoughts and memories enough for another year.

William came up to the carriage just as Alec lifted the reins. His hands were filled with marigolds--brown and orange and yellow.

"I thought you might like 'em, ma'am," he said shyly.

A light came into Aunt Deborah's gray eyes.

"Like them, William!" she cried. "Like them! They'll give me even more memories--the very sweetest of my life."