I was aroused from my contemplation of the miracle by a feminine voice, the speaker saying half to herself and half to me:
“It took me most two hours to iron Nell’s dress this mornin’, but I sure got a pretty ‘do’ on it.” Following her beaming glance, I found that it rested on a mass of ruffles, which adorned the dress of “Birdie” of that first quadrille. Just then the music began again, and I saw Ed Lay ask her to dance. I trusted, after all that work, the ‘do’ wouldn’t be undone by his spurs; still the effort had not been wasted, for this was the fifth time he had danced with her.
No doting mother could have taken more pride in the debut of an only child, than this work-worn sister whose eyes sparkled as they followed “Birdie’s” whirling figure held firmly by the encircling arm of the cow-puncher, and she murmured softly with a half sigh, “Ain’t it grand?” To me it was “grand” indeed, that even an embryo romance could bring a new light to those tired eyes.
It was six o’clock Sunday morning when one most thoughtful person suggested that “they’d orter be goin’”; and by seven the last guest had departed. Then Owen and I, weary and heavy-eyed, donned our wraps, climbed into the wagon, and started on a sixteen-mile drive to the railroad to meet his brother, who was coming from California to see “how we were making it.”
I was almost too tired to speak, but one thought was struggling for expression, and as we started up the first long hill, I had to say:
“Anyone who ever spoke of the ‘peace and quiet of ranch life’ lived in New York and dreamed about it. In twenty-four hours I have discovered that we have an ex-convict for a trusted cook, and have received as guests a man with his wife and resident affinity. We have had a surprise party and I have danced with all the blemished characters the country boasts of, until six o’clock in the morning of the Sabbath day, with never a qualm of conscience. What do you suppose has become of my moral standards?”
Owen was amused. He asked me, quizzically, what I thought they would be by the end of a year.
“Mercy!” I replied, “at the rate they are being overthrown, there won’t be enough left to consider, unless”—I thought a moment—“unless I can reconstruct a more enduring set from parts of the old.”