The Girl from Sunset Ranch: or, Alone in a Great City. Marlowe Amy Bell

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СКАЧАТЬ find in a day’s ride, livin’ with his wife an’ kids in what he called a flat. Be-lieve me! It was some perpendicular to git into, an’ no flat.

      “When we gits inside and inter what he called his parlor, he looks around like he was proud of it (By jo! I’d be afraid ter shrug my shoulders in it, ’twas so small) an’ says he: ‘What d’ye think of the ranch, Hen?’

      “‘Ranch,’ mind yeh! I was plumb insulted. I says: ‘It’s all right – what there is of it – only, what’s that crack in the wall for, Kellup?’

      “‘Sufferin’ tadpoles!’ yells Kellup – jest like that! ‘Sufferin’ tadpoles! That ain’t no crack in the wall. That’s our private hall.’

      “Great jumping Jehosaphat!” exclaimed Hen, roaring with laughter. “Yuh don’t wanter git inter no place like that in New York. Can’t breathe in the house.”

      “I guess Uncle Starkweather lives in a little better place than that,” said Helen, after laughing with the old foreman. “His house is on Madison Avenue.”

      “Don’t care where it is; there natcherly won’t be no such room in a city dwelling as there is here at Sunset Ranch.”

      “I suppose not,” admitted the girl.

      “Huh! Won’t be room in the yard for a cow,” growled Big Hen. “Nor chickens. Whatter yer goin’ to do without a fresh aig, Snuggy?”

      “I expect that will be pretty tough, Hen. But I feel like I must go, you see,” said the girl, dropping into the idiom of Sunset Ranch. “Dad wanted me to.”

      “The Boss wanted yuh to?” gasped the giant, surprised.

      “Yes, Hen.”

      “He never said nothin’ to me about it,” declared the foreman of Sunset Ranch, shaking his bushy head.

      “No? Didn’t he say anything about my being with women folk, and under different circumstances?”

      “Gosh, yes! But I reckoned on getting Mis’ Polk and Mis’ Harry Frieze to take turns coming over yere and livin’ with yuh.”

      “But that isn’t all dad wanted,” continued the girl, shaking her head. “Besides, you know both Mrs. Polk and Mrs. Frieze are widows, and will be looking for husbands. We’d maybe lose some of the best boys we’ve got, if they came here,” said Helen, her eyes twinkling.

      “Great jumping Jehosaphat! I never thought of that,” declared the foreman, suddenly scared. “I never did like that Polk woman’s eye. I wouldn’t, mebbe, be safe myse’f; would I?”

      “I’m afraid not,” Helen gravely agreed. “So, you see, to please dad, I’ll have to go to New York. I don’t mean to stay for all time, Hen. But I want to give it a try-out.”

      She sounded Dud Stone a good bit about the big city. Dud had to stay several days at Sunset Ranch because he couldn’t ride very well with his injured foot. And finally, when he did go back to Badger’s, they took him in a buckboard.

      To tell the truth, Dud was not altogether glad to go. He was a boyish chap despite the fact that he was nearly through law school, and a sixteen-year-old girl like Helen Morrell – especially one of her character – appealed to him strongly.

      He admired the capable way in which she managed things about the ranch-house. Sing obeyed her as though she were a man. There was a “rag-head” who had somehow worked his way across the mountains from the coast, and that Hindoo about worshipped “Missee Sahib.” The two or three Greasers working about the ranch showed their teeth in broad smiles, and bowed most politely when she appeared. And as for the punchers and wranglers, they were every one as loyal to Snuggy as they had been to her father.

      The Easterner realized that among all the girls he knew back home, either of her age or older, there was none so capable as Helen Morrell. And there were few any prettier.

      “You’re going right to relatives when you reach New York; are you, Miss Morrell?” asked Dud, just before he climbed into the buckboard to return to his friend’s ranch.

      “Oh, yes. I shall go to Aunt Eunice,” said the girl, decidedly.

      “No need of my warning you against bunco men and card sharpers,” chuckled Dud, “for your folks will look out for you. But remember: You’ll be just as much a tenderfoot there as I am here.”

      “I shall take care,” she returned, laughing.

      “And – and I hope I may see you in New York,” said Dud, hesitatingly.

      “Why, I hope we shall run across each other,” replied Helen, calmly. She was not sure that it would be the right thing to invite this young man to call upon her at the Starkweathers’.

      “I’d better ask Aunt Eunice about that first,” she decided, to herself.

      So she shook hands heartily with Dud Stone and let him ride away, never appearing to notice his rather wistful look. She was to see the time, however, when she would be very glad of a friend like Dud Stone in the great city.

      Helen made her preparations for her trip to New York without any advice from another woman. To tell the truth she had little but riding habits which were fit to wear, save the house frocks which she wore around the ranch.

      When she had gone to school in Denver, her father had sent a sum of money to the principal and that lady had seen that Helen was dressed tastefully and well. But all these garments she had outgrown.

      To tell the truth, Helen had spent little of her time in studying the pictures in fashion magazines. In fact, there were no such books about Sunset Ranch.

      The girl realized that the rough and ready frocks she possessed were not in style. There was but one store in Elberon, the nearest town, where ready-to-wear garments were sold. She went there and purchased the best they had; but they left much to be desired.

      She got a brown dress to travel in, and a shirtwaist or two; but beyond that she dared not go. Helen was wise enough to realize that, after she arrived at her Uncle Starkweather’s, it would be time enough to purchase proper raiment.

      She “dressed up” in the new frock for the boys to admire, the evening before she left. Every man who could be spared from the range – even as far as Creeping Ford – came in to the “party.” They all admired Helen and were sorry to see her go away. Yet they gave her their best wishes.

      Big Hen Billings rode part of the way to Elberon with her in the morning. She was going to send the strawberry roan back hitched behind the supply wagon. Her riding dress she would change in the station agent’s parlor for the new dress which was in the tray of her small trunk.

      “Keep yer eyes peeled, Snuggy,” advised the old foreman, with gravity, “when ye come up against that New York town. ’Tain’t like Elberon – no, sir! ’Tain’t even like Helena.

      “Them folks in New York is rubbing up against each other so close, that it makes ’em moughty sharp – yessir! Jumping Jehosaphat! I knowed a feller that went there onct and he lost ten dollars and his watch before he’d been off the train an hour. They can do ye that quick!”

      “I believe that fellow must have been you, Hen,” declared Helen, laughing.

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