the storm was followed by the thaw; a very thorough-going thaw, which gave blue bonnet her first experience of what country roads can be like under such conditions.

“we can’t skate, we can’t coast, we can’t ride, and the walking is—”

“that’s just what it is!” boyd agreed.

“then what can we do?” blue bonnet looked at alec, as if expecting him to solve the difficulty.

“you might meditate and invite your soul,” he suggested.

it was a saturday morning, and the three were sitting on the clyde’s back porch in the sunshine. blue bonnet had explained that she could stay only “a moment”—that she was dusting; but blue bonnet’s minutes were apt to prove elastic.

“i don’t want to invite my soul!” she protested now. on the whole, the past fortnight had been very tiresome; what she wanted, more than anything at this moment, was to have some fun—fun spelled with a capital f.

lying alone in the twilight that saturday evening two weeks ago, she had made all manner of good resolutions, among which, being in early had289 taken prominent place. then the thaw had come, and there had been no excuse for staying out.

worst of all, the warm february wind, with its touch of spring softness, blowing the last few days, would keep sending her thoughts back to the great open sweep of the prairie. oh, for one long ride across it with uncle cliff! one glimpse of the old familiar ranch life! of uncle joe and old benita!

“woodford is dull,” boyd was saying,—“at least for us outsiders. there’s no use denying it.”

blue bonnet flicked her duster; that was what had brought her out to the porch in the first place, and whenever the thought that she ought to go in grew too insistent, she flicked it again.

“that makes ten times,” alec laughed. “i’ve kept tally.”

“i suppose,” blue bonnet said, slowly, “that aunt lucinda would say, that neither was there any use in asserting it.”

“without doubt,” boyd agreed.

“maybe it’s just me.” blue bonnet looked at alec; and somehow, he couldn’t help feeling glad that she had not used boyd’s “us.”

“i’m afraid not,” he answered, “though it’s very kind of you to be willing to shoulder all the responsibility. we might get up a crowd and go in town this afternoon.”

“museum!” boyd scoffed. “botanical gardens! library! i don’t see myself.”

290 “it’s club day,” blue bonnet said.

“chuck it!” boyd advised.

and suddenly, blue bonnet felt a strange desire to follow his suggestion. it would be an indoor meeting; they would all bring their work. she could see the six bags ranged in a circle about the table, could see sarah taking small, precise stitches in the apron she was making for the third youngest blake, could hear kitty teasing them all, and ruth trying to keep peace.

while between now and club time lay dusting, and mending, and lessons to get.

she was tired of being “good” and “behaving properly”! she might as well have been born sarah blake and done with it.

“isn’t there anything new to do?” she turned imploring eyes to alec. “something exciting and out of the everlasting old rut!”

“what’s the use of asking him?” boyd said. “he’s already made two suggestions.”

for a moment, alec said nothing; then he got up. “may i have ten minutes—to make quite sure it is feasible in?”

blue bonnet’s face brightened. “will it happen in ten minutes?”

“happen, if it happens at all, it won’t happen until this afternoon. come along, boyd—there’ll be work enough for two.”

blue bonnet slipped from the porch railing to her291 feet. “did you bring that horrid word in on purpose? and, alec, you know, i can’t really ‘chuck’ the club—wouldn’t aunt lucinda love that word! it wouldn’t do.”

“who wants you to?”

“will the club be in it?”

“if i have to use a club to get them there!”

boyd whistled softly; collectively, he did not find the “we are seven’s” so interesting.

ten minutes later, blue bonnet, down on her knees giving the final finish to the spindle legs of the oldest mahogany card table, heard alec calling to her from one of the side windows. “all serene,” he said. “mind, you show up at three o’clock, promptly! take the side door and make straight for the attic! by the way, there’ll be supper afterwards. norah’s grumbling beautifully about it right now.”

“and the club?” blue bonnet asked, joyfully.

“boyd and i’ll look out for them. so long!”

blue bonnet flew to tell grandmother the good news, cheerfully ignoring the fact that she and her work-basket had been for some time overdue up there.

“do you suppose it’s charades?” she asked.

“shall we two have a tableau now?” grandmother suggested. “‘the mending-hour’?”

“we played charades at the doyles’ one night,” blue bonnet went on, as she settled herself in the292 low sewing-chair beside her grandmother. “they were lots of fun! this isn’t.” blue bonnet dropped the darning egg into the toe of a stocking rather impatiently. “it would be a whole lot easier just to run a draw string ’round the holes and tie them up.”

“until you came to walking on them,” mrs. clyde laughed. “careful, dear—remember, ‘the more haste, the less speed.’”

“that’s one of the things i never can remember; and that reminds me—grandmother, i’ve never answered carita judson’s christmas-box letter.”

“then isn’t it about time you did?”

“uncle joe—when he’s away from the ranch—just wires every little while,—he says it saves time and trouble.”

“i hardly think i should adopt that plan with carita, dear.”

“no, but i’ll write to her to-morrow afternoon, after i’ve written uncle cliff.”

promptly at quarter to three the other members of the club appeared in a body, and the seven went across to the trent’s side door, where several pairs of rubbers showed that they were not the first arrivals.

up the two flights of stairs to the attic they hurried. “what are they doing!” kitty exclaimed. “it sounds like steam rollers!”

293 “who says we can’t go skating?” alec laughed, coming to meet them, as they reached the head of the second flight.

“alec!” blue bonnet cried, joyfully. “oh, you are the cleverest boy!”

“roller skating!” kitty clapped her hands, delightedly. “that will be fun! alec, blue bonnet’s right!”

a wide space had been cleared from end to end of the big attic, and the stairway opening protected by a line of trunks; over other trunks bits of curtain stuff had been thrown for seats; before the windows, alec had fastened heavy draperies, shutting out the daylight, while from the rafters hung lighted chinese lanterns, left over from some garden party.

“isn’t it pretty!” susy cried—“we never dreamed of anything like this!”

“ladies’ day at the new trent rink!” boyd said. “we have made rather a tidy job of it, haven’t we?—considering what short notice we had.”

“step this way, ladies—for your skates!” billy slade cried, from the corner where the table stood piled with skates.

“we’re all here now—so the party can begin,” alec agreed.

“just we girls and a boy apiece,” debby was counting heads.

294 “but,” blue bonnet questioned, as alec fastened her skates for her, “whatever made you think of it?”

“it was pretty well up to me to think of something—mighty quick; and i had an inward conviction that what you wanted was something with more or less movement to it.”

“one thing,” billy slade announced, one eye on kitty,—“if anybody should dare anybody to go to the end of the pond, they could get back all right before—”

“billy’s thinking of his supper already!” kitty cut in; at which billy, who certainly had a weakness in that direction, colored hotly, and immediately after, by way of adding to his ease of mind, sat down with more abruptness than grace.

“you don’t mean to say that you’re too faint to stand!” kitty held out a mocking hand.

but billy was not the only one to sit down in like fashion, poor sarah being especially active in that line. indeed, kitty declared it made her positively dizzy, trying to decide whether sarah was going down, or getting up.

“i—i’ve never had on roller skates before,” sarah explained rather breathlessly, and the look in her eyes seemed to imply that she hoped never to have them on again.

“‘ladies’ day at the trent rink’ proved a thorough success.”

“but it’s fun—isn’t it?” blue bonnet caught her enthusiastically about the waist. “to think295 that, if it hadn’t been for alec, we girls would have been sitting poked up over our work!”

this time, sarah’s look implied that in her opinion there were worse ways of passing an afternoon than sitting comfortably around a bright fire with one’s sewing.

“i—” she began, then went down, taking blue bonnet with her.

“that’s right!” kitty called, “just sit down together and talk it over,” and promptly followed their example, thanks to a gentle shove from billy slade.

but if there were frequent tumbles, there were no serious ones; as debby put it, they fell to rise again.

“we’ll start a roller-skating club, and call ourselves the ‘phoenix club,’” one of the boys declared.

all in all, “ladies’ day at the trent rink” proved a thorough success. it proved, too, an excellent outlet for the superfluous energies of at least one member there.

“i don’t know when i’ve had such a good time, or been so tired!” blue bonnet confided to amanda, as they sat resting on a low steamer trunk.

for the afternoon had been by no means confined to skating—in the exact sense of the word; everything which could be done on roller skates, and some—which, as it proved, could not,—had296 been tried. tag, blind-man’s buff, hide and seek; and as the grand finale, the virginia reel, to the tune of alec’s whistling.

downstairs in the kitchen, norah paused more than once in her work to wonder if the old house was coming down about her ears.

“let’s do it every week!” kitty urged, as they dropped down, breathless and happy, to take off their skates—while from below came the appetizing odor of hot chocolate.

“i’ve never seen you so beautifully untidy before in all my life, sarah blake,” debby assured sarah, as the girls went down to the best room to freshen up for supper.

“i am afraid we have been very boisterous,” sarah said, soberly, “and yet—it has been rather enjoyable.”

“it’s a good thing the general wasn’t home,” susy laughed; “though i suppose if he had been alec wouldn’t have planned such a lively party.”

they had a picnic supper, instead of the regulation sit-down-to-the-table affair; fresh graham bread sandwiches, apple-pie and cheese, doughnuts, and the hot chocolate with whipped cream.

and the appetites!

“sure ’tis a comfort to know none of you do be pinin’ like,” norah laughed, as she refilled the sandwich plate for the third time.

297 “you shouldn’t make them so good,” one of the boys told her.

“and you should have seen how hard we worked,” ruth added.

“i’m not sayin’ i’ve not been hearin’ you!” norah retorted. she smiled to herself as she glanced at alec’s face—the boy was a boy for sure nowadays,—thanks mainly to “that there” blue bonnet.

after supper, they told stories—not being inclined to anything more active in the way of amusement; and when presently the general appeared, he found his dining-room given up to a very contented set of young people.

“we’re having a beautiful time!” blue bonnet went to meet him. “don’t you want to come tell stories, too? but it hasn’t been all story-telling.”

“and what has it all been?” general trent asked, as alec helped him off with his overcoat, and drew forward a chair.

“the great and only trent roller-skating rink opened its doors to the public this afternoon, sir,” boyd explained.

“isn’t that something new?” his grandfather asked.

“it had to be something new, sir; our neighbor,” boyd glanced towards blue bonnet, “insisted upon that. i think we more than fulfilled expectations.298 but it was certainly impromptu. wasn’t it, old chap?” he smiled good-naturedly at alec.

“rather,” alec answered, dryly.

“well! well!” the general said. and blue bonnet felt that he was giving credit for the idea, where credit was not due; and that boyd had meant him to.

“one would think——” she began.

alec looked up quickly. “have you any strength left for thinking?”

“attention!” boyd commanded. “general trent has the floor. he is going to tell us a story.”

the general looked gratified, though he protested that his stories were all old. he liked to tell of those early days of his at west point; but he had got out of the habit of speaking of them to alec; he didn’t want the boy to feel how disappointed he was that he was not to be a west pointer, too. lately, however, since boyd’s coming, he had been led more than once to draw upon his memories of cadet life. boyd had suddenly decided that he should like to take his chance at being “general trent” some day. “someone ought to keep the old name up in the old line,” he explained to alec, “and since it doesn’t appear to be your line, i may as well make it mine.”

and he listened, really interested now, to the stories his grandfather told, taking care not to hide299 his interest; conscious, as the general was, that alec had drawn a little back from the circle of light thrown by the fire.

blue bonnet noticed it too, and forgot to listen with this new feeling of indignant sympathy crowding out all other ideas except the fear that alec had overtired himself on her account. he had managed not to take too active a share in the afternoon’s merrymaking; all the same, she was afraid that it had proved rather too vigorous an affair for him.

“i don’t believe we will do it every week,” she said as they crossed the lawn together; “it might not be such fun again—second times are a bit risky—and i don’t want to spoil the thought of this.”

“then the trent rink is to be a short-lived affair?”

“as far as i have any say about it.”

“it was opened in your honor, and it shall be closed at your command,” alec laughed.

“you’re getting to be as accommodating as uncle cliff! i couldn’t put it stronger. but, alec, how could you—”

“how could i what?”

“let your grandfather think it was all—”

“see here,” alec interposed. “i thought we were not to spoil—anything. truly, blue bonnet, he did a lot of the work; and i daresay it may have looked to him as if he had pulled it off.”

300 “i don’t care how it looked to him! and if he is your cousin—i don’t like him—one bit! and i’ve had a splendid time—but it’s you i’m thanking for it!”

“you don’t expect me to find fault with you for that,” alec laughed. “good night, my lady.”

“good night,” blue bonnet answered, and went on into the sitting-room to give grandmother and aunt lucinda an account of the afternoon’s doings.

“maybe i’m not tired,” she said, curling herself up among the pillows on the lounge, “and maybe we haven’t had a good time!”

“doing what, my dear?” aunt lucinda asked, laying down her book, and suddenly realizing that the evening had seemed rather longer than usual.

“‘acting up,’” norah called it. “she said it sounded to her like there were forty instead of fourteen up attic, and that we weren’t one of us a day over four.”

“poor norah!” mrs. clyde laughed. “but what did ‘acting up’ consist of?”

“falling down and getting up, mostly,” blue bonnet answered; “that is, for some of us. alec rented a lot of roller-skates and turned the attic into the jolliest rink. wasn’t it the cutest idea? and that horrid boyd—”

“blue bonnet!” miss lucinda began.

“well, he is horrid, aunt lucinda! taking all the credit! i wish he’d never come—and i think301 alec wishes it, too, though he’d die, rather than let on that—” blue bonnet paused to slip another pillow behind her back. “please don’t let’s talk about him, aunt lucinda!”

“my dear, i am not aware that we were talking about him.”

“he makes me feel cross all over—the same as making crocheted shawls does.”

“i thought we were not to talk about him,” miss lucinda suggested, while grandmother asked, laughingly, how many such shawls blue bonnet had made.

whereupon, blue bonnet subsided. gradually the little pucker of irritation the thought of boyd had called up disappeared; the vague feeling of discontent and longing of the morning had disappeared, too, by now. she felt very grateful to alec. she had been just in the mood for—almost anything in the way of mischief; and then—to-night, it would have been like that saturday night, two weeks ago, all over again. only this time, how could grandmother and aunt lucinda have believed her honestly in earnest, have felt that she was ever to be depended on?

she was glad now that she had done her dusting and mending—so long as grandmother and aunt lucinda were so keen about it. and at the same time, somewhere in the back of her mind was the dim remembrance of something that had been left302 undone, a remembrance which, in her present drowsy condition, she was perfectly willing should remain in the back of her mind.

and when, presently, grandmother spoke to her, blue bonnet was fast asleep.

“she should be in bed,” miss lucinda said, as mrs. clyde got up to lay a light afghan over the curled-up figure among the cushions.

“she will probably rouse up in a few moments,” mrs. clyde answered. “i remember how i used to enjoy such a little nap before the fire at her age.”

“what is blue bonnet’s age?” miss lucinda asked, half gravely, half laughingly. “it would seem to be as variable as the weather, ranging all the way from six years to normal, but striking the latter point very seldom.”

“are you in a hurry to have her grow up, lucinda?”

miss lucinda was rather long in answering this question. “not to grow up—as you put it,” she said at last. “i should like to see her become more responsible. she will be sixteen in june.”

mrs. clyde glanced at the sleeping face. “we must trust to time, and—the grace of god.”

miss lucinda glanced also at the flushed face in its frame of tangled hair. blue bonnet asleep looked more childish than ever; and yet—

303 “she should really be in bed,” miss lucinda said. “she is likely to take cold sleeping there.”

but at that moment, blue bonnet sat up, facing them with eyes almost tragic.

“do you know!” she brought each word out with emphatic distinctness, “i haven’t prepared my lessons for monday! i knew there was something i’d forgotten—i just couldn’t study last evening; i hated the mere sight of those tiresome books! and to-day, i forgot all about them!”

blue bonnet slipped to her feet and started for the closet where she kept her school-books. “that’s what comes of having a place for things and putting them in it! if they’d only been laying ’round—”

“not to-night, blue bonnet,” her aunt said. “it is altogether too late for studying. you must get an early start monday morning.”

“all right,” blue bonnet agreed with a readiness miss lucinda found discouraging; “only you’ll have to call me, aunt lucinda.”

“i don’t suppose,” she confided to solomon, as she tucked his warm blanket about him, “i don’t suppose sarah blake ever forgets to get her lessons, do you?”

she put the question to sarah herself, on the way home from church the next morning.

“why, no,” sarah answered, wonderingly. “i don’t think one ought—”

304 “how many oughts make a must?” blue bonnet interrupted.

sarah colored slightly. “i am afraid i do use that word too often.” she stood a moment, her hand on the parsonage gate. there seemed to be so many more oughts in her life than in blue bonnet’s; and yet, everyone liked blue bonnet. dr. clark had said only the other day that she was as refreshing as one of the breezes from off her own prairies. sarah had no desire to be called breezy, but of late she was conscious that she didn’t want to be thought—the word came hard—priggish. that was the exact term kitty had used yesterday. “i—i don’t want to seem to be—preaching at you,” she added.

“you weren’t! you’re just a dear, good old sarah!” in spite of the fact that they were standing right on the main street, blue bonnet gave her companion a hearty hug.

sarah colored considerably more than slightly this time; no one had ever hugged her on main street before.

“i think,” blue bonnet announced later, at the dinner-table, “that, when you remember her bringing up, sarah isn’t half bad!”

grandmother’s eyes twinkled. “it is very kind of you to make proper allowances for her bringing up, though i had not supposed there was anything out of the way about it.”

305 “there is—from the texas point of view,” blue bonnet laughed. “anyhow, i mean to try and be more like her. that would suit you right down to the ground, wouldn’t it, aunt lucinda?”

“how soon do you begin, blue bonnet?” miss lucinda’s smile was most expressive.

“why, right away!” the girl answered.

she wrote to uncle cliff and carita that afternoon, was in early from her run with solomon, and after supper was found by miss lucinda standing before one of the tall bookcases in the back parlor, studying the titles inside with dubious eyes.

“aren’t there any one-volume lives, aunt lucinda?” she asked. “sarah’s sunday evening reading was always devoted to ‘lives.’”

“certainly, blue bonnet; but just now, i think your grandmother is waiting for you to sing for her.”

blue bonnet relinquished her pursuit of a one-volume life that should look fairly tempting from the outside, most willingly. singing hymns to grandmother in the twilight, with a break now and then into the old spanish ave maria learned from benita, seemed a far pleasanter way of passing the time.

“grandmother,” she asked, when the singing was over, and aunt lucinda had lighted the low reading-lamp on the center table, “did you like reading306 dull books when you were my age? lives, you know, and—?”

“but they are not necessarily dull reading, blue bonnet. my mother used to read them with me of a sunday evening; i got to think it one of the most enjoyable evenings of the whole week. it was she who gave me my fondness for reading about things that had really happened, and of people who had really lived and struggled.”

“the persons in the books one loves best do seem alive,” blue bonnet said.

“so they do,” grandmother agreed. she got up and, going over to the bookcase, which to blue bonnet had seemed likely to yield very little in the way of fruit, came back presently with helen keller’s “the story of my life.”

“suppose we begin this, blue bonnet. i shall be much mistaken if you find it ‘dull.’”

blue bonnet established herself in a big chair opposite; solomon pressed close against her skirts,—solomon meant to insinuate himself into the chair beside his mistress so soon as grandmother’s attention had become sufficiently diverted. solomon appeared to enjoy being read to quite as much as blue bonnet did.

very far from dull the latter found the story of the deaf, dumb, and blind girl—as told by herself. “shall we go on with it next sunday evening,307 blue bonnet?” grandmother asked, as she closed the book.

“mayn’t we go on with it right now, grandmother, please?”

mrs. clyde pointed to the clock on the mantel. “there is studying to be done to-morrow morning before breakfast, you remember; which must mean an early start to-night.”

blue bonnet shoved solomon gently to the floor—solomon had accomplished his intention. “i am not at all sure that i approve of studying before breakfast,” she sighed.

she was quite sure that she did not when aunt lucinda tapped at her door the next morning, punctual to the moment. it seemed to blue bonnet that woodford people carried their love of punctuality to an unnecessary extreme.

“i surely would like,” she told herself, sleepily, “to live for one while where there were no clocks!” then she snuggled comfortably down under the warm blankets for “just one minute more.”

the next thing blue bonnet knew, delia was tapping at her door with—“half past seven, miss!”

“half past seven!” blue bonnet tumbled out of bed, very wide awake. she had been asleep a whole hour!

being in a hurry, it naturally followed that everything308 went wrong. it was an extremely flushed blue bonnet that slipped into her place at the breakfast table five minutes late.

“did you get through all right, dear?” grandmother asked.

“i didn’t begin! i—fell asleep again! i just know the ‘jolly good—’”

“who, blue bonnet?” her aunt interposed.

“miss fellows will be anything but a ‘jolly—’ i beg your pardon, aunt lucinda—will be tiresome.” blue bonnet added an extra spoonful of sugar to her porridge, as if she felt that her day was likely to prove far from sweet. grandmother looked disappointed, and aunt lucinda looked—; yet when you came to think of it, she was the one who would have to face the music.

“something’s happened to somebody!” kitty chanted, as her fellow club member came upstairs to the dressing-room that morning.

blue bonnet swung her strap of books impatiently. “i haven’t prepared a single lesson—except what i did in study hour friday—i forgot to do them!”

“but i thought you intended getting up early,” sarah began.

“i thought so, too—yesterday,” blue bonnet interrupted. she didn’t feel in the least inclined to adopt sarah for a model this morning. just at present the sight of sarah’s placid face, framed309 in smooth plaits of blond hair, roused a sudden unreasoning desire in her to shake sarah blake. sarah would answer every question put to her in her slow, correct way.

“you’ll have to bluff for all you’re worth,” debby advised,—debby was an authority in the gentle art of bluffing teachers.

“yes,” kitty chimed in. “when you forget to ‘do’ your lessons, you must remember to ‘do’ the teacher.”

blue bonnet turned away; they were very unsympathetic! uncle cliff would have cared—and alec.

miss fellows was at her desk; her smile, as she said good morning, sent a warm glow to the girl’s heart. she was sorry things would have to be horrid, they had got on beautifully—so far.

all at once she turned, coming up to the desk. “you might as well know the worst beforehand, miss fellows,” she said, impulsively. “i expect i’ll have a lot of failures to-day.”

“dear me, are you quite sure?” miss fellows asked, sympathetically.

“quite—and it’s all my own fault,” blue bonnet went on to explain the situation; when she reached the “one minute more” part, her listener felt suddenly for her pocket handkerchief. “it isn’t very easy getting up early these mornings,”310 she observed; “but we won’t give up hope so soon, blue bonnet.”

it was after morning exercises, that miss fellows announced, most unexpectedly, that the latin lesson that morning would be in the nature of a general review.

“why couldn’t she have told us friday, instead of giving out a lesson the same as usual?” kitty whispered to amanda.

blue bonnet came home that afternoon at the usual time and quite her usual light-hearted self. balancing on the arm of a chair, she gleefully explained the turn affairs had taken at school that day.

“wasn’t it the luckiest thing that the ‘jolly good’—please, aunt lucinda, i must call her that this time!—should have hit on to-day for a review all along the line?”

“including english, blue bonnet?” miss lucinda suggested.

blue bonnet laughed. “including everything—except french—she doesn’t have that; but i managed all right there, i’d been over the ground at home. as it happened, i needn’t have told her what i did this morning.”

“and what did you tell her?” grandmother asked.

“why all about what kitty calls—my sleep and311 a forgetting. i thought she might as well be prepared for what was coming.”

“lucinda,” mrs. clyde remarked, when blue bonnet had gone out. “suppose we were to invite miss fellows to tea some evening? she strikes me as being a woman of a—singularly sympathetic disposition.”

miss lucinda smiled—a little unwillingly.

“please, aunt lucinda,” blue bonnet came back just then to say, “i forgot to tell you—i’m so sorry i got you up unnecessarily this morning. i reckon getting out early to study isn’t much in my line.”