Purple Springs | Page 3

all this as she stood at the window and looked out on the bare farm yard, swept clean of beast or fowl by the bitter cold which had driven them all indoors. A bright fire burned in the Klondike heater, and from the kitchen came the cheerful song of a canary. The house was in a state of great tidiness, with its home made lounge in front of the fire, piled high with gaily flowered cushions, and the brightly striped rag carpet which was the culmination of the united efforts of the family the winter before, and before the fire a tiger-striped cat with her paws stretched out to the heat.
Pearl was alone in the room, for all the children were at school, her father and Teddy out, and her mother in the kitchen making the last of the mincemeat into pies, which sent out a real baking odor of cinnamon and cloves; a roast of pork that had been "doing too fast," was now sitting on the top of the high oven, its angry, sparking, sizzling trailing off into a throaty guttering. Some sound or smell of it seemed to have penetrated Nap's dreams, for he wakened suddenly and sat up, licking his lips and pounding the floor with his tail.
Suddenly the telephone rang, the three short and one long, which indicated that it was the Watson family who were wanted. Pearl's heart thrilled with expectation. Of course he would phone before he came to make sure she was at home. The receiver was in her hands in a moment.
"Hello!" she called, almost choking with excitement.
"Will you tell your father," called back a man's voice at the end of the wire, "that the cattle are coming home from the range. Last night's snow was too much for them, and Jim Fidler has just phoned through to warn us. They're comin' on mad for feed, tramplin' and bawlin', and they'll hit your place first--mos' likely--tho' they may turn south at Beckers--better phone Beckers and see."
"All right!" said Pearl, in a steady voice, "all right, and thank you."
Pearl hastily put on a coat and went to the barn to give the unwelcome news to her father and Teddy, who were busy fanning out the weed seeds from the seed grain.
"They're comin' airly," said John Watson, slowly, as he shook down the bag of seed wheat that he had just filled; "but I guess they are the best judge of whether they can make a livin' outside any longer. Well, what we have we'll share, anyway. There's no use in contradictin' a bunch of hungry steers. Keep a watch on the phone, Pearlie dear, and find out which way they turn at Beckers'. We'll open up an oat stack for them, anyway--so if they come rampin' in in the middle of the night there'll be something ready."
Pearl ran back across the wind-swept yard to the house, for the one thought in her mind was that a message might come over the phone for her! Ordinarily the home-coming of the hungry cattle would have been an event of such importance that it would have driven out all others; but there was only one consuming thought in her mind today.
When she came in the phone was ringing, and her mother, with her hands in the pie-crust, said: "Pearlie, dear, run in to the phone--that's twice it's rung since you were out, and sure I couldn't go--and me this way."
Pearl took the receiver down and found a conversation in progress. She had no thought of listening in--for at once she surmised it might be a message regarding the cattle going to one of the other houses. The first sentence, however, held her in its grip, and all thought of what she was doing was driven from her mind.
"They are going to offer the doctor the nomination tomorrow--he'll make the best run of any one in these parts."
It was a man's voice, far away and indistinct.
"That will please Miss Morrison--she always wanted to get into politics;" it was a woman who replied--"but I'm not so sure she has any chance, the doctor is a pretty cautious chap. I often think he has a girl somewhere--he goes to Hampton pretty often."
"He's not worried over women, believe me," the man's voice cut in. "I think he likes that young Watson girl as well as any one, and she has them all skinned for looks--and brains too, I guess."
The woman's voice came perceptibly nearer, and seemed to almost hiss in her ear--unconsciously she felt the antagonism. "That's absurd," she said, with sudden animation; "why, these people are nobody, the mother used to wash for me a few years ago. They are the very commonest sort--the father was only a section man. The doctor enjoys her cute speeches, that's all,