But the return trip was not to be made yet; there was Thanksgiving—only a matter of days now—to come first, not to mention Christmas.

“A real New England Thanksgiving!” Blue Bonnet checked the words off on her fingers. “I’ve never had one of that kind, have I? The Boston relatives are coming! I’m rather scared of the Boston relatives; I’ve an idea they’ll be rather like Aunt Lucinda—only more so.”

She and her uncle were walking up and down the veranda in the twilight,—Mr. Ashe seemed to dislike going indoors quite as much as Blue Bonnet did. Delia had lighted up, and as they passed and re-passed the long windows they caught pleasant glimpses of mingled gas and firelight, and through the wide doorway, leading from sitting to dining-room, the table laid ready for supper.

Mr. Ashe, taking in half unconsciously all the quiet, homely touches, glanced down at his companion a little anxiously. “I reckon you’ll be having a lot of new experiences right along, Honey.”

Blue Bonnet felt the thought underlying the words, and the hand resting lightly on his arm185 tightened its pressure. “Don’t you worry, Uncle Cliff! Three hundred years—much less three—couldn’t make an Easterner of me for keeps. And after Thanksgiving, Christmas’ll be here in no time. You’d never have the heart to go back before Christmas?”

“Not back, Blue Bonnet, but away for a bit. There’s considerable business waiting on me right now in New York.”

“I wonder how it’ll seem on Christmas morning not to have Benita come tiptoeing ever so early into my room with the Christmas cake, baked just for me? Uncle Cliff, wouldn’t it be nice to send them a box?”

“We’ll do it, Honey! It’ll take a pretty big box, won’t it?”

“If you knew how perfectly lovely it is to have you agreeing to things first time round! I’d like to pass a law making it illegal to ‘but’ people.”

Mr. Ashe laughed. “I reckon I do spoil you a bit, Honey! See here, suppose you come along to New York with me? We’ll manage to worry in a good time or so, between business appointments.”

“And school?”

“Looks to me like you’d earned a holiday.”

“If you’re going to talk that way, I’ll have to go indoors. There’ll be nearly two weeks’ holiday at Christmas. Only first come those horrid exams! Uncle Cliff, if I don’t pass, will you disown me?”

186 “I’d be likely to, wouldn’t I? I reckon if the others get through you will.”

The thought of those mid-year examinations was giving Blue Bonnet a good deal of uneasiness; she had found out that most decidedly she did not want her class to go on without her. And promotion would not altogether depend upon the result of the examinations, either; the regular class record counted for much—and she had done so poorly all the fall!

She needed little reminding to get at her studies these evenings, shutting herself up alone in the back parlor with a fortitude that Aunt Lucinda found most encouraging, and Mr. Ashe inwardly deplored. Surely all those long hours spent at the academy each day were enough. He felt that Uncle Joe would never approve of Blue Bonnet’s being so tied down.

“You wouldn’t like to go back to a tutor, Honey?” he asked, the next morning during the walk to school. “I reckon we could get our pick of them back here.”

“I don’t believe I would—even if I could. School isn’t half bad—once you’re used to it; there’s lots of fun going, though there are some tiresome things mixed up in it. Aunt Lucinda says,” Blue Bonnet’s eyes danced, “that I need the discipline of school life more than any girl she has ever known. There, I’d nearly forgotten! Please187 lend me your knife a moment, Uncle Cliff,—I’ve lost mine.”

“It appears to me,” Mr. Ashe commented, opening his knife for her, “that that pencil ought to be placed on the retired list.”

“It isn’t as bad as the rest,” she held out her pencil box; “I do chew them up, or down, so.”

“How about buying more?”

“I—” Blue Bonnet hesitated. Why had she called his attention to them? “I’m—going to, the first of the month.”

“‘The first of the month,’” her uncle repeated. “Is that one of the school regulations?”

“Hardly!” Blue Bonnet laughed. “You see, I’m—allowanced nowadays. Aunt Lucinda started in allowancing me—after the first week. She said I must learn to distinguish between the use and abuse of money.”

Mr. Ashe pulled at his moustache. “And—”

“It hasn’t been such an easy lesson for me. Just now I’m being given a practical illustration.”

“You don’t mean, Blue Bonnet—” Mr. Ashe’s hand went to his pocket.

Blue Bonnet drew back. “I can’t take anything, Uncle Cliff! It wouldn’t be exactly—square, under the circumstances. There’s the bell! Good-bye, and thank you just as much.”

Mr. Ashe waited until, with a final wave of the hand, she had disappeared around the bend in the188 stairs; then he paid a visit to the stationer’s on the corner.

There he made a record-breaking purchase of the plump little woman, whom everybody in Woodford called “Aunt Polly,” and whose tiny shop was as much one of the institutions of the place as the academy itself.

It left Aunt Polly feeling rather breathless and bewildered. Was that the way they did things out in Texas?

In the meantime, quite unconscious of the excitement he had left behind him, Mr. Ashe was strolling leisurely back to the Clyde place, stopping here and there to pass the time of day with various small Woodfordites—notably among them the “Palmer baby,” once more on its travels.

Solomon was watching for him from the gate. It was a delightful morning for a tramp, Solomon said,—as plainly as dog may.

But Mr. Ashe shook his head, and went on indoors to the sitting-room, where Miss Lucinda sat sewing.

“Are you too busy for a little chat—what we might call a business talk?” he asked, depositing his bundle on the table and taking his stand on the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire.

Miss Lucinda assured him that she was quite at his service.

“I’ve been doing a little shopping,” Mr. Ashe189 nodded towards the parcel. “I happened to find out—accidentally—that Blue Bonnet was pretty well reduced in the matter of school supplies.”

Inwardly, Miss Lucinda sighed; she knew it, and she had hoped,—but now—

“What’s Blue Bonnet getting for an allowance, Miss Clyde?” Mr. Ashe asked.

“Three dollars a month.”

“I didn’t know until this morning that she had been put on an allowance.”

“It was the only thing to do. Blue Bonnet has no idea whatever as to the value of money.”

“I should judge she ought to have by now.”

“I am hoping she will have—a little. She gave her purse and its entire contents away—to say nothing of a new winter gown—on a moment’s impulse. Had there been thirty dollars in her purse instead of three, it would probably have been just the same.”

“I reckon it would,” Mr. Ashe agreed so cheerfully that again Miss Lucinda sighed inwardly.

“She would give her head, Blue Bonnet would, if it wasn’t fastened on, and anyone asked her for it.”

“She certainly loses it with deplorable frequency,” Miss Lucinda remarked.

Mr. Ashe chuckled, then said soberly—“Three dollars!”

He was thinking of the generous mail orders, which had been one of the diversions of the long190 winter evenings; of the occasional visits to the little country town.

Those had been gala days on the ranch for the little Mexicans,—those days after the return from town. As for Benita, her ribbons were the envy of all the other women on the ranch; while Uncle Joe’s stock of silk neckerchiefs was famous.

Come to think of it, Blue Bonnet’s buying had mostly been for other folks.

And they had tried to pin her down to three dollars a month!

Mr. Ashe looked across at Miss Lucinda. “You wouldn’t call three dollars a remarkably big allowance, Miss Lucinda?”

“It is three times what several of her companions have,” Miss Clyde answered; “and they are expected to keep themselves in gloves and ribbons. Blue Bonnet is only required to provide for her school supplies and small personal expenses.”

“But you see Blue Bonnet will have—”

Miss Lucinda glanced up quickly. “Should that make any difference—now?”

“I should have thought it might,” Mr. Ashe replied candidly.

There was a short silence, then Miss Lucinda said slowly, “I know, Mr. Ashe, that I have no right to dictate, that you are Blue Bonnet’s legal guardian,”—Miss Lucinda would not say rightful; she had her own opinion on that point; “and yet—”

191 Mr. Ashe put up a protesting hand. “I think you have the right; I daresay you are right and that I am wrong. I’ll try not to butt in again. I reckon we’ve both got the same end in view, and that maybe your road is the best.”

“It is not always the easiest—for either side, I will admit.”

“Only you’ll let me—for this time?” Mr. Ashe’s hand went to his pocket again. “After all, I am a visiting uncle, and the position carries with it certain time-honored privileges.”

So it was that when Blue Bonnet ran up to her room that noon, she found a good-sized paper parcel on her dressing-table, and on top of the parcel a little old-fashioned beaded purse, and in the purse a bright five-dollar gold piece.

For a moment, Blue Bonnet stood looking down at the purse and its contents with sober eyes; she had seen the little purse before, when the private drawer of her aunt’s desk had chanced to be left open.

Blue Bonnet went in search of Miss Lucinda, finding her in the garden with Denham.

“I came to thank you, Aunt Lucinda,” she held out the purse; “I sha’n’t give this one away.”

“That is what I hoped. A very dear old friend made it for your mother, when she was about your age.”

192 “It was mamma’s?” Blue Bonnet’s face flushed; then she asked—“You know what is inside?”

“You must thank your uncle for that,” Miss Lucinda said; “I am not at all sure that I approve,” but she smiled as she said it.

Mr. Ashe was on the veranda. “I got permission,” he laughed, as Blue Bonnet held the purse up before him. “Honey, I’ve been cogitating matters. I reckon your aunt’s right; the Blue Bonnet Ranch wouldn’t be what it is to-day if your father hadn’t taught himself to look ahead a bit. It isn’t an easy lesson for an Ashe to learn, I’ll grant you.”

“I reckon Aunt Lucinda is generally right,” Blue Bonnet admitted; “that’s the worst of it sometimes.”

“Alec,” she questioned that afternoon, as he overtook her on her way from school, “have you ever tried for this ‘Sargent prize’ they’re all beginning to talk about now?”

“Won it—last year.”

“You’ve never told me about it?”

“N-no; I didn’t think you were much interested in such things.”

“Was it hard?”

“Not very. I didn’t go in with any expectation of winning. It’s only a glorified compo; you can choose your own subject, but it must be something connected more or less with local history.”

193 “Has Woodford a local history? The real history-book kind?”

“Shades of my ancestors! And yours! Has Woodford any local history!!”

“Bother. I hate writing compos anyway.”

“It’s a Woodford tradition—trying for it.”

“Who started such a tiresome business?”

“An old chap named John Sargent—years and years ago. He left a fund to be used for that express purpose.”

“I hope he’s repented since; he’s had time to. Why didn’t he leave his money for something sensible—a gym, for instance?”

“Perhaps in his time they went in more for high thinking than high swinging. You can’t compete until you’ve reached a certain grade—the one you’ll be in, after the coming exams.”

“If—”

“After that you can try each grade. There’s one for the girls and one for the boys; conditions the same.”

“Are you going to try this time?”

“Grandfather will expect me to. Besides, when you are in Woodford, do as—”

“You like,” Blue Bonnet cut in.

“I’m afraid that is hardly a Woodford sentiment.”

“As if I didn’t know that! Will you come for a ride? I suppose Uncle Cliff’s gone in town.”

194 “It’ll have to be a short ride,” she said, as, a few moments later, Victor and Darrel’s mare started off. “I wish Aunt Lucinda wasn’t so fond of saying, just as one’s starting off, ‘Remember, Blue Bonnet, in before dark!’ It does get dark so early now.”

“But if she didn’t say it—would you remember?” Alec laughed.

“I don’t see why a forgettory isn’t just as desirable as a memory,” Blue Bonnet protested. “I’ve got such a good one.”

“Aunt Lucinda,” she asked at supper that evening, “did you ever try for the ‘Sargent prize?’”

“Won it three years running,” Mrs. Clyde answered for her daughter.

“Oh, me!” Blue Bonnet buttered her biscuit thoughtfully. “Wasn’t that mighty hard on the others, Grandmother?”

“I am afraid it was, dear.”

It seemed to Blue Bonnet that she could see the long line of unsuccessful aspirants drawn up on one side, and on the other, Aunt Lucinda—successful, triumphant. And, oh, dear, she felt sure that they would expect her to try. It would be so stupid! All the “We are Seven’s” fussing over a tiresome prize—everybody talking, dreaming, thinking compos!

“If people will go in for such things there ought to be consolation prizes, too. Aunt Lucinda,195 I’ve the loveliest plan—I mean to give the ‘We are Seven’s’ the time of their lives on Saturday.”

“To do what—Blue Bonnet!”

“The ‘rankin’ off—’ Miss Rankin says—when we’re writing our papers, to first find out what we want to say—and then say it. Just snippy little words—like treat, or good time—wouldn’t half express what I mean, Aunt Lucinda. You see,” Blue Bonnet went on rather hurriedly, “getting this five dollars was like what Uncle Joe calls finding money; and it has only got to last me until the first of the month, so I can—”

“Elizabeth!” Miss Lucinda exclaimed; and at her tone, Mrs. Clyde suddenly dropped her napkin—not on Blue Bonnet’s side of the table—and was rather slow about picking it up.

“I’ve had to be so skimpy lately,” Blue Bonnet explained. “Grandmother, why didn’t you tell me? It’ll feel good to be able to cut loose again!”

“In what direction were you thinking of ‘cutting loose,’ Blue Bonnet?” Mrs. Clyde asked.

“I beg your pardon, Grandmother! I didn’t know how horrid that was, until you said it! I—I thought, if we seven could go in town—Uncle Cliff would take us. And that perhaps, we might go ............