A Summer in a Canyon | Page 5

It was a bright day, and the gracious June sunshine flooded the room
with yellow light. Three young girls, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years
old, were seated in different parts of the large room, plying industrious
crochet needles and tatting shuttles. Three pairs of bright eyes were
dancing with fun and gladness; and another pair, the softest and clearest
of all, looked out from a broad white bed in the corner,--tired eyes, and
oh, so patient, for the health-giving breezes wafted in from the blue
ocean and carried over mountain tops and vine-covered slopes had so
far failed to bring back Elsie Howard's strength and vigour.
The graceful, brown-haired girl with the bright, laughter-loving face,
was Bell Winship. She of the dancing blue eyes, pink cheeks, and
reckless little sun-bonnet was Pauline, otherwise Polly Oliver. Did you
ever know a Polly without some one of these things? Well, my Polly
had them all, and, besides, a saucy freckled nose, a crown of fluffy,

reddish-yellow hair, and a shower of coaxing little pitfalls called
dimples round her pretty mouth. She made you think of a sunbeam, a
morning songbird, a dancing butterfly, or an impetuous little crocus just
out after the first spring shower. Dislike her? You couldn't. Approve of
her? You wouldn't always. Love her? Of course; you couldn't help
yourself,--I defy you.
To be sure, if you prefer a quiet life, and do not want to be led into
exploits of all kinds, invariably beginning with risk, attended with
danger, and culminating in despair, you had better not engage in an
intimate friendship with Miss Pauline Oliver, but fix your affections on
the quiet, thoughtful, but not less lovable girl who sits by the bedside
stroking Elsie Howard's thin white hand. Nevertheless, I am obliged to
state that Margery Noble herself, earnest, demure, and given to
reflection, was Polly's willing slave and victim. However, I've forgotten
to tell you that Polly was as open and frank as the daylight, at once
torrid and constant in her affections, brave, self-forgetting as well as
self-willed; and that though she did have a tongue just the least bit
saucy, she used it valiantly in the defence of others. 'She'll come out all
right,' said a dear old-fashioned grandfather of hers whom she had left
way back in a Vermont farmhouse. 'She's got to be purged o'
considerable dross, but she'll come out pure gold, I tell you.'
Pretty, wise, tender Margery Noble, with her sleek brown braids, her
innocent, questioning eyes, her soft voice, willing hands, and shy, quiet
manners! 'She will either end as the matron of an orphan asylum or as
head-nurse in a hospital.' So Bell Winship often used to say; but then
she was chiefly celebrated for talking nonsense, and nobody ever paid
much attention to her. But if you should crave a breath of fresh air, or
want to believe that the spring has come, just call Bell Winship in, as
she walks with her breezy step down the street. Her very hair seems
instinct with life, with its flying tendrils of bronze brightness and the
riotous little curls on her brow and temples. Then, too, she has a
particularly jaunty way of putting on her jacket, or wearing a flower or
a ribbon; and as for her ringing peal of laughter, it is like a chime of
silver bells.

Elsie Howard, the invalid friend of the girls, was as dear to them as
they were to each other. She kept the secrets of the 'firm'; mourned over
their griefs and smiled over their joys; was proud of their talents and
tenderly blind to their faults. The little wicker rocking-chair by the
bedside was often made a sort of confessional, at which she presided,
the tenderest and most sympathetic little priestess in the universe; and
every afternoon the piazza, with its lattice of green vines, served as a
mimic throne-room, where she was wont to hold high court, surrounded
by her devoted subjects. Here Geoffrey Strong used often to read to the
assembled company David Copperfield, Alice in Wonderland, or
snatches from the magazines, while Jack Howard lazily stretched
himself under the orange-trees and braided lariats, a favourite
occupation with California boys. About four o'clock Philip Noble
would ride up from his father's fruit ranch, some three miles out on the
San Marcos road, and, hitching his little sorrel mare Chispa at the gate,
stay an hour before going to the post-office.
This particular afternoon, however, was not one of Elsie's bright ones,
and there was no sign of court or invalid queen on the piazza. The
voices of the girls floated out from Elsie's bedroom, while the boys, too,
seemed to be somewhere in the vicinity, for there was a constant
stirring about as of lively preparation, together