THE
SAN ROSARIO RANCH
BY
MAUD HOWE
BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1884
_Copyright, 1884_,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
TO
My Beloved Sister,
LAURA E. RICHARDS.
SAN ROSARIO RANCH.
CHAPTER I.
"Welcome her, all things youthful and sweet,
Scatter the blossoms under her feet!"
The house was a large square building, simple and hospitable in
appearance. A wide veranda ran about the four sides, heavily draped by
climbing roses and clematis. There were indisputable evidences that
visitors were expected. Old Tip, the dog, knew it as well as everybody
else about the house. He had been routed out from his favorite spot on
the sunny side of the piazza, by Ah Lam, who had given him a shower-bath
of water and soap-suds, because he did not move away to make room for
the scrubbing-brush which the white-clad Celestial plied vigorously.
From earliest morning the inhabitants of the simple house had been
busied in making it ready. The very kittens which played about the
steps of the piazza had licked an extra gloss upon their shining coats
in honor of the expected guest. Only Tip, the old hunting-dog, the
spoiled child of the household, showed no interest in what was going on,
and with a cynical growl trotted off to the woods behind the house,
where he might sleep safe from all fear of interruption.
From the wide doorway, which stood hospitably open, stepped a lady. At
the first sight of Barbara Deering, strangers were always strongly
impressed with the indisputable fact that she was above and before all
else a lady. A second look,--and people were sure to take one,--and it
appeared that she was a young lady and a beautiful one. She was tall,
above the height of ordinary women, and her carriage was remarkably
erect and commanding. She walked with a quick, light step to the edge
of the piazza, and raising one hand to shade her eyes from the rays of
the setting sun, stood looking out across the wide garden. Her figure
was like that of a Greek Diana, muscular and graceful, indicating great
strength and endurance. The limbs were rounded but not languidly, as
one saw by the arm, from which the sleeve had slipped back: it was
white, firm, and hard. Her hands were large and shapely, the tips of
the fingers red, and the texture of the skin showed that they were used
to other work than that of the broidery-frame. Her head, with its crown
of pretty, curling flaxen hair, was habitually held rather high, and her
face wore an expression in which a certain natural hauteur and
imperiousness seemed at war with a gentleness which was more the result
of education than a natural trait. The forehead was wide and unlined,
the eyes brown and clear, the nose straight, and the mouth small and
rosy. The soft, white woollen gown, with its breast-knot of red roses,
suited the young woman perfectly; and as she stood in the sunset light,
a spray of climbing rose hanging overhead from the roof of the piazza,
she made an unconscious picture of grace and loveliness.
At the sound of a wagon on the driveway a warm flush mantled her cheek
and throat, and stepping to the door of the house she called out in a
sweet, high voice, "Mamma, mamma! they are coming!"
A moment later and a large open vehicle came into sight, drawn by two
swift mules, which were urged forward by the driver, a young man in
whose face the traits of the girl on the piazza were reproduced, but
somewhat roughly. On the seat behind the driver was seen a female
figure closely enveloped in heavy travelling wraps, her features
concealed by a thick veil. As the mules stopped before the entrance, the
young woman on the piazza came forward with both hands outstretched,
saying cordially but half shyly,--
"Dear Millicent, welcome to San Rosario! Are you very, very tired? Let
me help you out."
So saying, Barbara Deering almost lifted the new arrival from the wagon,
and with her strong arm supported her to a chair.
"Thank you so much!" said the new-comer, speaking with a slightly
foreign accent, and lifting her veil; "and you are Barbara? I know you
from your picture, only you are much prettier."
"Poor child, you must be terribly tired; you shall come and speak to
mamma, and then you must go directly to your room and lie down. Hal, you
will go down for Millicent's luggage?"
The young man nodded an assent, touched up his steeds, and the wagon
disappeared down the red dusty road. The two young girls entered the
house, Barbara leading the stranger to a large room on the upper story.
In a low chair sat a small woman, with a face which must have once been
beautiful, and which now shone with an expression of simple sincerity
and kindliness. She held out her hand to Millicent, kissed her on both
cheeks, and warmly bade her welcome to San Rosario. Millicent Almsford
acknowledged the greeting with a courteous grace, and immediately after
accepted Barbara's offer to show her to her room.
When the door was shut upon her, and she was for the first time in many
days alone, she seated herself at the window, and leaning her head upon
her hand, remained wrapped in thought. She had travelled from the coast
of the Adriatic Sea to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, with no
companion save her maid and her own painful thoughts. And now the long
journeying was at an end, and she found herself in the far West, in
California, amidst her kindred, all strangers to her save by tradition
and some slight correspondence. She looked about the strange room. It
was exquisitely neat and fresh, with its clean whitewashed walls and new
blue Kidderminster carpet, its black-walnut "bedroom set," and
comfortable lounge, which had been newly covered in her honor. On the
bureau were blue and white mats and cushions, a toilet-set which
Barbara's busy fingers had stolen time to make.
She marked all these little details, not one of which escaped her eyes,
even to the embroidered towel-rack with her initials, and the worked
motto, "Welcome home." Again she looked out from the window over a wide
pleasant orchard, filled with heavily fruited peach and plum trees; over
a garden gay with bright-hued flowers, and beyond to the everlasting
hills which close about the happy valley wherein stands the house of the
San Rosario Ranch. Numbers of oxen and cows were straying over the
hills, with here and there groups of sheep cropping the sun-dried grass
of the hills.
The landscape was a perfect symphony in brown. The round shiny hills
were golden in color; the warm-hued earth in the ploughed fields and the
meadows, whose crop of grass had long since been mowed, was of a deeper
tint. The house stood in an oasis of green. A great hedge of
rose-trees blushing with red blossoms marked the boundary of the
flower-garden, irrigated with great care through the long summer months.
The sun, low-hanging over the hilltops, suddenly dropped from sight; and
as the room grew dim, Millicent shivered slightly, and turning from the
window threw herself on the couch and lay there quite still, too tired
even to weep out the pain and homesickness in her heart. A tap on the
door was followed by the entrance of one of her trunks, brought in by
two strong Chinamen, at whose coppery faces Millicent stared curiously.
Six large boxes were placed in a row and unstrapped by the younger
Chinaman, who, when he had completed his task, approached the stranger
land said in a sympathetic voice, "Me solly you sick; Ah Lam bring
tea-cup?" The white Celestial smiled benignantly and vanished, quickly
reappearing with the promised cup of tea, which proved most grateful to
the girl's tired nerves. The creature's sympathy and attention brought
tears to her eyes; and when Barbara came in a few minutes later, to help
her in unpacking, she found the traces of these tears on Millicent's
cheeks.
"Do not try to dress for tea, dear; you are too tired. Where shall I
find your dressing-case? You must let me take the place of your maid,
now that she has left you so cruelly."
So talking pleasantly, Barbara unpacked the guest's dressing-bag, looked
admiringly at the silver-topped bottles with "M. A." engraven upon them,
the ivory brushes, and all the dainty _et ceteras_ which were
necessities to the foreign girl, with the long white hands and
finger-nails which shone like pale pink conch-pearls.
"Thank you, if you would help me a little to-night, I shall quickly
learn to do for myself. If you will look in that largest trunk, you may
give me whatever gown lies at the top."
Barbara unfolded as she was bid a sea-green cashmere dress, in which the
stranger quickly clad her slender figure. Manifold strings of tiny
seed-pearls she wound about her white throat and wrists, performing all
the details of her dressing with a careful precision which seemed part
of her nature. The pink nails received an extra polish, though the
tea-bell had twice summoned the inmates of the house to the evening
repast. With a peculiarly graceful motion, like the undulation of a
swift but quiet stream, she moved about the room and finally down the
stairway to the dining-room below.
"Millicent, will you sit here, on my right? Hal shall have the pleasure
of occupying the place beside you."
The speaker was the lady whose gentle, firm hand swayed the small realm
of the San Rosario Ranch during the long absence of its master, Mr.
Ralph Almsford.
Mr. Almsford had been a widower for the past ten years. On the death of
his beloved wife, her mother Mrs. Deering had continued at his earnest
request to make his house her home. Her two younger children, Barbara
and Henry Deering, remembered no other home, and it seemed but natural
to them that they should continue to live with their brother-in-law.
The family life was a particularly happy one, and the tie between Ralph
Almsford and the Deerings was closer than that which exists between many
blood relations.
The advent of the young heiress Millicent Almsford, the half-sister of
Ralph, was an event of great importance in the household, and had been
eagerly anticipated by Mrs. Deering and her daughter for several weeks.
Henry Deering--or as he was always called Hal--displayed an absolute
indifference concerning the "strange girl" who was coming to make her
home among them for a year. What Ralph Almsford felt about his guest no
one of the household could divine. He was a quiet, reticent man,
entirely absorbed in his business, which of late had often taken him
from home for months at a time. He had written to his half-sister,
urging her to visit the ranch; and his letter, the first one of the kind
she had ever received, had so moved the girl that she had telegraphed
her departure, and forthwith started on her long journey.
Her brother met her in San Francisco, where they passed one day
together,--a business engagement calling him away on the morrow, as he
hoped for a few days only.
Millicent took the place assigned her by Mrs. Deering, and supper was
enlivened by conversation about the journey she had just achieved, which
she described as the most terrible ordeal that it was possible for a
human being to undergo. The guest was entirely at her ease, though her