plunged downward into a barrel of some cold slippery stuff. Here he was soused vigorously up and down, until every portion of his skin was smeared with the stick mess; after which he was placed on his feet and once more commanded:
“Now, son, just you stand there and dreen a spell. Lucky I made that barrel of soft soap last week. It’s just the stuff to take this paint off, and what drips from you to the old adobe floor won’t hurt. Pasqual’s a master hand at scrubbin’, and I’ll give him the job of you and the floor both. Reckon you’ll wish you hadn’t ever seen paint pots time he gets through. Now–where’s your clothes?”
Ned was silent, but Luis “guessed they’s under a tree.”
“Well, son, Garcia, knowing it better than guessing ’bout now. Me and Santa Claus is sort of partners, and he’s due here soon. ’Twon’t take me a jerk of a lamb’s tail to write and tell him how things stand at Sobrante, and whose stockings’d better have switches ’stead of goodies in ’em. Hear me? Where’s your clothes?”
A laugh caused Aunt Sally to glance through the window, where Jessica was an amused spectator of the scene within. She now begged:
“Don’t be hard on the little tackers, auntie, dear. That was Prince, Mr. Hale’s horse, that Pedro has tended on the mesa all these days. I’ll find out how they came by it, and their clothes at the same time. Tell mother, please,” and with a merry nod to the unhappy urchins, so shamfacedly “dreening” at Mrs. Benton’s pleasure, she disappeared.
Disappeared not only from the window, but, apparently, from life, as suddenly and completely as if the earth had opened and engulfed her.
CHAPTER II.
THE HUSH OF ANXIETY
Mrs. Trent and Aunt Sally sat down alone to dinner. The little lads were in their beds, recovering from the sound scrubbing Pasqual had given them. Clothed in fresh nightgowns, and refreshed by generous bowls of bread and milk, they had been left in a darkened room to reflect upon the hard ways of transgressors. But reflection was unusual work for their active brains, and they had promptly fallen asleep; hence the profound peace which rested upon the house.
“I wonder where Jessica is? She was to have written my letters for me, but I haven’t seen her since breakfast,” said the mother, somewhat anxiously.
“Oh! she’s around somewhere. Was at the laundry window while I was tending to the children, and said she’d go find their clothes. In all my born days I never saw two small heads could hatch the mischief Ned’s and Luis’ can. It’s out of one scrape into another, and seems if they must break their necks some day.”
“Oh! don’t forecast evil. Their pranks keep my nerves on tension all the time, yet I shouldn’t worry so. They always escape from harm. But I’d like to know how they got that horse.”
“So would I. They must have had help painting it. Stands to reason two midgets like them couldn’t have kept a high-spirited creatur’ quiet while they wasted enough good paint on him to cover a meeting house.”
“John won’t be pleased. He’s so careful of his belongings, even I never touch them without permission,” said the ranch mistress, smiling afresh at the memory of the ridiculous picture the boys had made.
“Don’t surprise me’t you laugh, Gabriella, but you’d ought to put the reins on tighter to them chaps, lest first you know they’ll be driving you, not you them. Do it already, seems if.”
“How can I be stern with Cassius’ little son? Every day I see more resemblance to his father in the childs face; yes, and in his nature, too. Nobody was ever fonder of fun than my husband, yet surely there never was a better man.”
“Oh! Neddy’s all right. Trouble is to keep him from thinkin’ so himself. But, there. Why don’t you eat your dinner? You haven’t more’n half touched it. It’s a shame to waste good victuals, and these are good. I fixed ’em myself.”
The other smiled again at the complacency visible upon her friend’s face, which so innocently dsplayed the same feeling that had just been deplored in Ned. However, Aunt Sally was too busy with her own food to notice anything else, and it seemed long to her companion before she had finished and risen, to call, sharply:
“Pas-qual! Oh, Pasqual-ly! Why aren’t you on hand to clear the table? Don’t you know I’ve got–and here followed a long list of things to be done, more than many could accomplish in several days.” Each had some reference to the coming holidays, and the house boy understood this. He entered, more willingly than usual, grinning with the anticipation of the raisins he would have to stone, the nuts he must crack, and the goodly samples of each that he would surreptitiously procure.
Mrs. Trent asked him to put aside Miss Jessica’s dinner, till she came in, and to be sure that it was also kept nice and warm.
“All right, lady. I’ll do that good enough. Don’t mind what I has to do for ‘Lady Jess’;” and immediately seized the plate, which Aunt Sally had already filled, to place it in the warming oven.
Then the mother went out, and among the adobe buildings, which formed the “boys” quarters and the business part of the ranch, calling gently, as she went, in the brooding sort of note which had long been a signal between her and her child. But no Jessica responded; and, to her fancy, it seemed that the whole place was strangely silent.
“After all, that is not to be wondered at. The men are done with dinner, and gone about their work. The boys are asleep, and only Jessica would be anywhere near. What can keep her, I wonder?” and with this thought the lady again uttered the tender call which would summon her daughter, if she were within hearing.
Then she returned to the house and tried to accept Aunt Sally’s theory that, likely some of them ‘boys’ is in trouble about his job, and wants his ‘captain’ to go oversee. ’Mazin’ strange, Gabriella, what a influence that child has over ’em. “They ’pear to think, the whole lot of ’em, that she can straighten out all the kinks that get into brains or business.”
“She is quick to understand,” said the mother, proudly.
“Course. Nothin’ strange, is it, seeing who her folks was? Best go take a nap, honey.”
“Oh, no! Thank you for suggesting it, but I’m too wakeful.”
“Well, then, I’ll fetch them kerns and citron right out here on the kitchen porch. The sun’s off it now, and there ain’t a prettier spot on earth where to prepare Christmas fixin’s. I’ll fetch the raisins and stone ’em myself. That Pasky boy’d eat more’n half of ’em, if I left ’em to him. Then we can visit right sociable; and I can free my mind. The truth is, Gabriella Trent, that I ought to be harnessin’ Rosetty an’ Balaam this minute, and be startin’ for ‘Boston.’”
“Oh, Aunt Sally!” protested the ranch mistress, in real distress.
“There, dearie, hush! Don’t worry. I said ‘I ought,’ I didn’t say I was goin’. Seem’s if I couldn’t just tear myself away from Sobrante. If Sarah Ma’sh, she that was a Harrison, and married Methuel, hasn’t got gumption enough to bile her own plum puddin’, I ’most feel as if she’d ought to go without. Though I don’t know as that’s real Christian in me.”
“Dear Mrs. Benton, I wish everybody was as sincere a Christian as you are.”
In her surprise, Aunt Sally tipped her rocker so far back that she just escaped upset.
“Why,
