Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party

d Uncle Cliff, as the ranch party assembled

re going to do," said Sarah, "b

of another ride. Kitty was beginning to show symptoms of sauciness when Mrs. Clyde interrupted kin

d Blue Bonnet, loath to settle

others and fathers, dear," replied her gra

ite them, too,"

e them!" exclai

th an approving nod. "A 'round-robin' let

ion, are all in f

too?" bargained Kitty, who

once, thus taking the

ll exclaimed, and the mo

da as a table, others repairing to desks in the house. Blue Bonnet doubled up jack-knife fashion on one of the front steps, using her knees f

exclaimed Kitty. "I never stop

e one letter I had from you in New York took me an hour to puzzle out,-it began in the middle a

Kitty. And then for a while there was silence, broken only by the scratching of pens an

d Ruth Doyl

achu

ue Bonn

the

roxide of hydrogen? Amanda says she just lived on it when her throat was bad. Are you honestly as red as lobsters? It's a perfect shame you should have to be sick-and in vacation, too. There might be some advantages if

y it isn't decided yet. I'm more in love with the ranch than ever and feel as if I never wanted to leave it again. It's so fine and big out here. There's so much air to breathe and such a long way to look,

can go some when he gets started, and Sarah stayed with him to the finish. But you can imagine why she wanted to write letters to-day instead of riding again. You can thank her for the round robin. There, I've reached the bottom

r de

e Bo

d? We had to drive twenty miles in a very queer kind of vehicle in order to reach Blue Bonnet's home, and this letter will have to go back over t

er, dusted everything about twenty times a day. If you could see Slivers I should not have to explain why he is called by that name. I am sure he is the tallest and slimmest man I have ever seen. And that is odd, too, for you always think of them as plump and fat. He is a negro, you know, and doesn't se

a as purple, and think of them as real places with trees and farms and other things like Massachusetts. I knew already that Texas is as big as all the New England states put together, but I never really grasped it before. I am learning new things every day, some Spanish, though not as much as I could

r you not to mention this when you write) the spider-web stitch and the Maltese cross, so that I can do a waist for Blue Bo

girls-I couldn't expose them to the fever, you know. I hope you liked the postals we sent. Amanda and I came very near being left once when we could

re the same,-I mean I hope you

best

Jane

u could only see this darling old house and the picturesque Mexicans-rather dirty some of them (I suppose that's why they are called greasers) and the perfectly dear way they adore Blue Bonnet and their deference to her 'amigos'-I tell you I feel like a princess when they call me 'Se?orita' with a musical accent that makes you downright sick with envy. Why anybody on earth ever left the West to go and settle up the East I don't see,-you may think I mean that the other way about but I don't, for anybody can see at half a glance that this country is as old as Methusalem-the live-oaks look

st if I run on any longer so I'll close,-wit

it

arrived here, so that I might have a few weeks perfectly free from worry; but goodness me, how can anybody open a book when there's something going on every blessed minute of the day? It's a pity it wasn't Sarah who was condi

nd a soul except Se?ora-that's what we call Mrs. Clyde. Fancy having run the ranch all your life and then at fifteen having to start in and obey Miss Clyde, and Mr. Hunt, and the rest

to write Mother and Father, for I can't say I'm homesick and parents al

oving A

criptive genius like Robert Louis Stevenson so that I could describe this wonderful Texas. But descrip

t of them de-horned. All the cowboys except two are Mexicans, and they are so picturesque and-different. Mr. Ashe says Texas is filling up with negroes but he won't have any on the ranch,-he sticks to the Mexicans, and I'm mighty glad, for they seem just to suit the atmosphe

room to s

, with

eb

phy probably looks out of place in this epistolary triumph-ahem!-but you can thank Kitty Clark for it. I don't know whether or not this is intended as

ith the mail. Just a little matter of twenty miles, a trifle out here! Kitty says she doesn't see how we can expect

and say 'King's Ex.' for you're missing the time of your young lives. As a place of residence, Texas c

bounded

ou

c Tr

tallments from each of the different a

ridge," she remarked. "I hope Susy and Ru

rm greeting, I fancy," said Mrs. Clyde, gathering up all the other

en relatives and ask them to bring our letters. Reading and passing them

u dare suggest such a horrible thing to your father, S

know what a scatter-brain I am, but it's a famil

in?" asked Alec i

astening the bag and handing it to him with

along this trip, S

asked Blue Bonnet; "i

t this time, dear," she returned to Blue Bonnet. "So far you have had

esistibly to her restless, roving spirit. And vacation had been so long in coming! If grandmother were going to be like Aunt Lucinda-Again there flashed into her mind the wish so often voiced in Woodford: that there might be two of her, so that one might stay at home a

ssion that my coming to the ranch was to see that Blue Bonnet A

sincere. Straightening up she met the questioning looks of the other girls with a resolute glanc

as we like until dinner-time. I've been longing to sit in the shade of the big magnolia ever since I c

lder and his whole bearing expressive of the importance of his mission. The sun and the wind of the prairie had already tanned his smooth skin

de on a hot day?" she asked tactfull

to rest there until it is cool again," he replie

d Blue Bonnet, waving him good-by

ade the tree a rendezvous. From the open windows of the living-room came a conscientious rendering of a "Czerny" exercise, enlivened now and then by a bar or two of a rollicking dance, with which Blue Bonnet sugar-coated her pill. In the kitchen Debby a