see that the girl gets it. You go to see Kate in the morning, and I'll go with you. Tell her you want Elnora's pattern, that you are going to make her a dress, for helping us. And sort of hint at a few more things. If Kate balks, I'll take a hand and settle her. I'll go to law for Elnora's share of that land and sell enough to educate her.”
“Why, Wesley Sinton, you're perfectly wild.”
“I'm not! Did you ever stop to think that such cases are so frequent there have been laws made to provide for them? I can bring it up in court and force Kate to educate Elnora, and board and clothe her till she's of age, and then she can take her share.”
“Wesley, Kate would go crazy!”
“She's crazy now. The idea of any mother living with as sweet a girl as Elnora and letting her suffer till I find her crying like a funeral. It makes me fighting mad. All uncalled for. Not a grain of sense in it. I've offered and offered to oversee clearing her land and working her fields. Let her sell a good tree, or a few acres. Something is going to be done, right now. Elnora's been fairly happy up to this, but to spoil the school life she's planned, is to ruin all her life. I won't have it! If Elnora won't take these things, so help me, I'll tell her what she is worth, and loan her the money and she can pay me back when she comes of age. I am going to have it out with Kate Comstock in the morning. Here we are! You open up what you got while I put away the horses, and then I'll show you.”
When Wesley came from the barn Margaret had four pieces of crisp gingham, a pale blue, a pink, a gray with green stripes and a rich brown and blue plaid. On each of them lay a yard and a half of wide ribbon to match. There were handkerchiefs and a brown leather belt. In her hands she held a wide-brimmed tan straw hat, having a high crown banded with velvet strips each of which fastened with a tiny gold buckle.
“It looks kind of bare now,” she explained. “It had three quills on it here.”
“Did you have them taken off?” asked Wesley.
“Yes, I did. The price was two and a half for the hat, and those things were a dollar and a half apiece. I couldn't pay that.”
“It does seem considerable,” admitted Wesley, “but will it look right without them?”
“No, it won't!” said Margaret. “It's going to have quills on it. Do you remember those beautiful peacock wing feathers that Phoebe Simms gave me? Three of them go on just where those came off, and nobody will ever know the difference. They match the hat to a moral, and they are just a little longer and richer than the ones that I had taken off. I was wondering whether I better sew them on to-night while I remember how they set, or wait till morning.”
“Don't risk it!” exclaimed Wesley anxiously. “Don't you risk it! Sew them on right now!”
“Open your bundles, while I get the thread,” said Margaret.
Wesley unwrapped the shoes. Margaret took them up and pinched the leather and stroked them.
“My, but they are fine!” she cried.
Wesley picked up one and slowly turned it in his big hands. He glanced at his foot and back to the shoe.
“It's a little bit of a thing, Margaret,” he said softly. “Like as not I'll have to take it back. It seems as if it couldn't fit.”
“It seems as if it didn't dare do anything else,” said Margaret. “That's a happy little shoe to get the chance to carry as fine a girl as Elnora to high school. Now what's in the other box?”
Wesley looked at Margaret doubtfully.
“Why,” he said, “you know there's going to be rainy days, and those things she has now ain't fit for anything but to drive up the cows——”
“Wesley, did you get high shoes, too?”
“Well, she ought to have them! The man said he would make them cheaper if I took both pairs at once.”
Margaret laughed aloud. “Those will do her past Christmas,” she exulted. “What else did you buy?”
“Well sir,” said Wesley, “I saw something to-day. You told me about Kate getting that tin pail for Elnora to carry to high school and you said you told her it was a shame. I guess Elnora was ashamed all right, for to-night she stopped at the old case Duncan gave her, and took out that pail, where it had been all day, and put a napkin inside it. Coming home she confessed she was half starved because she hid her dinner under a culvert, and a tramp took it. She hadn't had a bite to eat the whole day. But she never complained at all, she was pleased that she hadn't lost the napkin. So I just inquired around till I found this, and I think it's about the ticket.”
Wesley opened the package and laid a brown leather lunch box on the table. “Might be a couple of books, or drawing tools or most anything that's neat and genteel. You see, it opens this way.”
It did open, and inside was a space for sandwiches, a little porcelain box for cold meat or fried chicken, another for salad, a glass with a lid which screwed on, held by a ring in a corner, for custard or jelly, a flask for tea or milk, a beautiful little knife, fork, and spoon fastened in holders, and a place for a napkin.
Margaret was almost crying over it.
“How I'd love to fill it!” she exclaimed.
“Do it the first time, just to show Kate Comstock what love is!” said Wesley. “Get up early in the morning and make one of those dresses to-morrow. Can't you make a plain gingham dress in a day? I'll pick a chicken, and you fry it and fix a little custard for the cup, and do it up brown. Go on, Maggie, you do it!”
“I never can,” said Margaret. “I am slow as the itch about sewing, and these are not going to be plain dresses when it comes to making them. There are going to be edgings of plain green, pink, and brown to the bias strips, and tucks and pleats around the hips, fancy belts and collars, and all of it takes time.”
“Then Kate Comstock's got to help,” said Wesley. “Can the two of you make one, and get that lunch to-morrow?”
“Easy, but she'll never do it!”
“You see if she doesn't!” said Wesley. “You get up and cut it out, and soon as Elnora is gone I'll go after Kate myself. She'll take what I'll say better alone. But she'll come, and she'll help make the dress. These other things are our Christmas gifts to Elnora. She'll no doubt need them more now than she will then, and we can give them just as well. That's yours, and this is mine, or whichever way you choose.”
Wesley untied a good brown umbrella and shook out the folds of a long, brown raincoat. Margaret dropped the hat, arose and took the coat. She tried it on, felt it, cooed over it and matched it with the umbrella.
“Did it look anything like rain to-night?” she inquired so anxiously that Wesley laughed.
“And this last bundle?” she said, dropping back in her chair, the coat still over her shoulders.
“I couldn't buy this much stuff for any other woman and nothing for my own,” said Wesley. “It's Christmas for you, too, Margaret!” He shook out fold after fold of soft gray satiny goods that would look lovely against Margaret's pink cheeks and whitening hair.
“Oh, you old darling!” she exclaimed, and fled sobbing into his arms.
But she soon dried her eyes, raked together the coals in the cooking stove and boiled one of the dress patterns in salt water for half an hour. Wesley held the lamp while she hung the goods on the line to dry. Then she set the irons on the stove so they would be hot the first thing in the morning.
CHAPTER III
WHEREIN ELNORA VISITS THE BIRD WOMAN, AND OPENS A BANK ACCOUNT
Four o'clock the following morning Elnora was shelling beans. At six she fed the chickens and pigs, swept