Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party Part 27

"That's about as busy a spell as I've had for some time," Uncle Joe declared as he hauled out the last of the small boys and then clambered up the steep bank.

"You showed great presence of mind, Uncle Joe--except for one thing,"

said Blue Bonnet. "If you had just taken a snap-shot when the bridge broke I'd be quite happy."

"And if a few of us had drowned while he was doing it--" Kitty began ironically.

"You'd have missed being in the picture, poor souls! Well, since we're all alive, let's go break the news gently to the grown-ups." Blue Bonnet looked around the drenched, shivering group and then burst into peals of laughter.

In truth they were a sorry looking lot. Soaked to the skin, with hair and clothes dripping and bedraggled, they all looked at each other as if surprised and grieved to find themselves part of so undignified a company.

Grandmother's expression when the We are Sevens hove into sight, sent Blue Bonnet off into another gale of merriment.

"We've been shooting the chutes, Grandmother," she said with dancing eyes.

"Without a boat," added Kitty.

It took Sarah to tell the story in all its harrowing details, and at its conclusion Mrs. Clyde looked sober.

"Were you really in danger?" she asked Blue Bonnet.

"Not a bit," Blue Bonnet declared. "Sarah was the only one who came near drowning and that was because she _would_ talk under water."

Fifteen minutes later the little sheet-iron stove was red-hot, and on a hastily strung clothes-line about it hung an array of dripping garments that almost hid it from view.

"There's one comfort about all this," said Kitty, "our skirts and middies have had a much-needed bath."

"I'm afraid they won't be very clean,--cold water won't take grease out," said Sarah mournfully. "And I'd like to know--how are we going to iron them?"

They were all sitting in a circle about a blazing bonfire of Uncle Joe's building, with their streaming hair spread out to dry.

Dressing-gowns and bedroom slippers had made it unnecessary to go to bed while their wardrobe hung on the line, and now that they were warm and comfortable, they were disposed to look on the adventure of the afternoon as more of a lark than a misfortune.

"Do you recall a prophecy you made this morning, Blue Bonnet?" asked Kitty.

Blue Bonnet shook her head.

"Your 'prophetic soul' told you, if I remember rightly, that we were going to conduct ourselves like a model Sunday-school cla.s.s to-day."

"Well, if anybody would promise me as much fun in Sunday-school as I've had this day, I'd never be absent or tardy!" laughed Blue Bonnet.

Sarah looked pained. "It's Sunday to-morrow," she remarked. "I wonder what Dr. Judson will take as the text of his sermon."

Blue Bonnet gave her a long, curious glance. "Do you really wonder, Sarah, about things like that?"

Sarah raised honest, serious eyes. "Why, of course, Blue Bonnet. Don't you?"

"No," she confessed, "but I do wonder--at you!"

As they sat silent for a moment about the blazing logs, Blue Bonnet had an inspiration.

"Grandmother," she asked abruptly, "are you very hungry?"

"Why--is it your turn to get dinner?" Mrs. Clyde smiled; she was shaking the water from her granddaughter's long hair, and spreading it in the warm rays of the fire.

"No, Amanda and I were to get lunch. But are you?"

"Not at all. Mrs. Judson and I had an excellent dinner at noon."

"Well, I've a splendid idea. There are heaps of hot ashes down under the logs. We can bury some potatoes there,--the cowboys cook them that way and they are delicious. Then with some devilled-ham sandwiches we could sit right here and eat, and have no tiresome dishes to wash up afterwards."

"Hear, hear!" cried Kitty and Debby.

"It's easy to see whose turn it is to wash dishes," laughed Amanda.

"It's right handsome of you, Blue Bonnet," Kitty remarked gratefully, "--especially when it wasn't your turn to officiate. I'll make the sandwiches and Debby--you get the potatoes."

That buffet supper was later p.r.o.nounced the most successful meal ever prepared in _Poco Tiempo_.

"This is truly Bohemian," remarked Mrs. Clyde, as with a newspaper for both plate and napkin, she joined the group about the fire, "--much more so than the studio-luncheons they call Bohemian in Boston."

"Fancy anything trying to be Bohemian in Boston!" exclaimed Blue Bonnet. "They haven't a thing in common."

"They both begin with a B," said Sarah.

The girls were too surprised to laugh.

"Is that a joke, Sarah?" asked Kitty in an awestruck tone.

"Of course not,--they do, don't they?" she returned.

As the girls collapsed at this, she looked up in puzzled surprise.

"I'd like to know what's so funny about that," she remarked plaintively.

"There comes Mrs. Judson," exclaimed Debby.

There was a hasty wiping of blackened fingers on newspaper napkins as the girls rose to greet this unexpected guest. The little figure approaching them seemed slighter than ever, and the gingham dress fairly trailed over the long gra.s.s. The face was hidden in the inevitable sunbonnet.

"h.e.l.lo, everybody, are you dry yet?" called a cheerful voice.

"Carita!" exclaimed Blue Bonnet. "We thought you were your mother."

Carita looked down at her loosely fitting garment and laughed. "I had to wear this while my dress dried. Knight said I ought to hang out a sign--'room to let.' Mother made me wear the sunbonnet because my hair is still wet. But I said I could dry it by your fire as well as anywhere else." She tossed away the cavernous bonnet and the chestnut locks fell in a cloud about her shoulders. With her dark eyes and skin framed by the long straight hair she looked like a young Indian.

"Have a potato?" asked Blue Bonnet, spearing one with a stick and presenting it to the guest.

"Thank you." Carita took it as if this were the usual fashion of serving this vegetable, and ate it with the ease born of long experience. Suddenly she gave an exclamation. "Oh, I nearly forgot.

Alec sent over something. The boys couldn't come for they've nothing to wear but blankets--they're rolled up like a lot of mummies around the fire. But Alec and Knight and Sandy have been writing something,--I think it's a letter."

"It's a poem!--oh, Blue Bonnet, you read it aloud." Kitty handed over the verses and in the flickering light they gathered close about Blue Bonnet as she read: