A Girl of the Plains Country

								

it and ate it like this out-of-doors.)
Aunt Val ate hers, and seemed to like it pretty well; but afterward
she looked uneasy, and said anxiously:
“I’m afraid this night air will bring on my neuralgia.”
Hilda looked at her in wonder. This lovely, wandering air that was
turning over the willow leaves as though it wanted to look at the
dark under-sides of them, that came touching her cheeks, softly
fingering her hair; it seemed to Hilda that if it really “brought
on” anything that thing must be mysterious and delightful.
But Uncle Hank got up quickly, saying:
“I’ll fix your bed for you right now, ma’am; you’ll be as snug there
as if you was in your own room,” and went over to the ambulance.
When Hilda followed him a little later, there was a bed all made up
in it, with sheets and pillow-cases and everything, just like a bed
at home. Aunt Val made haste to get into it, and Hilda drifted back
to the fire. She wished she had got Aunt Val to show her how to fix
Burchie’s food. Papa was tending to it now. When Burch had had it,
he went right off to sleep, and was carried over and put in beside
Aunt Val.
The new proprietor of the Three Sorrows, when he had laid the baby
in the ambulance, walked on past the vehicle and was lost in the
shadows down by the creek. Pearsall began to clear up and wash the
dishes. Hilda asked if she might help, and was given a towel for
drying. Uncle Hank began to make cheerful conversation.
“This was a mighty long trip for a little girl like you—all the way
from New York to Texas. Didn’t you get tired?”
“Oh, no,” said Hilda, earnestly drawing her towel between the tines
of the iron fork she was wiping. “You see, there was a boy on the
train that had blue eyes, like Burchie’s and mothers, and—and—”
blushing furiously—“like yours, some. He was a big boy. At least he
was a good deal bigger than me. His father and mother were there,
too; they came all the way from New York to Denver in the train with
us. And, oh, he was most interesting! When my mother got sick, the
boy’s mother wouldn’t go on and leave us. They all stayed. And
he—The-Boy-On-The-Train—he took care of Burchie and me when—when the
funeral was. Aunt Val hadn’t got there, then.”
“That’s all, honey; we’re done, now,” said Pearsall. He saw that the
child’s lips trembled as she stood fumblingly but determinedly
rubbing dry the last cup. So he added, cheerfully, “We’ll set by the
fire a spell before you go tuck yourself into bed.”
There was neither sound nor movement within the ambulance. Van Brunt
did not return from his stroll downstream. These two, man and child,
sat beside the camp-fire. Hilda’s big black eyes looked long into
the great swallowing darkness of the plain, then she turned to her
companion, who was filling his pipe.
“I don’t think I’d be afraid here,” she said, a little doubtfully.
“Sure not!” heartily. He skipped a coal lightly up in his bare