CHAPTER XIV. DEAREST DESIRES
On the day following the meeting of the two girls on the rustic bridgeover Maiden Hair Falls, Jenny, true to her promise, drove to the seminaryostensibly to deliver an order of honey and eggs, but a girl in brownrode with her on the high front seat when Dobbin turned out of the schoolgates. Another girl was watching them from her wide, upper window.Turning back into the room, she remarked to two others who were trying tostudy: "That Lenora Gale must belong to the bourgeoise. She is actuallygoing for a ride with the granddaughter of my mother's servants."
Patricia Sullivan turned a page in the book she was conning and remarkedwithout looking up: "Gwyn, how can you expect to win honors if you neveropen your books?"
The girl addressed sank languidly into a comfortable chair, picked up hernovel and replied, as she found her place: "_Me_, win honors? _Why shouldI_, pray? Does it make one a more winsome debutante? You must know thatthis is to be my last year of confinement within the walls of a seminary.Ma Mere has promised to give me a coming-out party when I am eighteenwhich will dazzle even blase San Francisco."
Beulah arose, as she said rather impatiently: "Well, Gwyn, just because_you_ do not wish to learn is no reason why Pat and I should follow inyour footsteps. I'm going to our own room where I can studyuninterrupted."
"I'll go with you." Patricia arose to accompany her friend. "_Aurevoir!_"
Gwynette, having found her place, was too absorbed in her story to reply.
Meanwhile Jenny and Lenora were having the happiest kind of time ridingdown the gently sloping hill, now in the sunlight and again in the shadowof great overhanging trees.
"Has anything pleasant happened since yesterday?" Lenora asked with aside glance at the beaming face of the driver.
"Yes, indeed," the other girl nodded gleefully. "I passed 100 per cent intwo subjects and over 90 per cent in all the others."
The brown eyes of her companion were questioning. "Why, I didn't know youwere going to have examination. In fact, I didn't know anything aboutyour school. Is there one near or do you have to go to Santa Barbara?"
Jenny told the story of her schooling from its beginning to a mostinterested listener. "Oh, how I do envy you." Lenora exclaimed. "If I hadhad a teacher like your Miss Dearborn, I would be wiser than I am. Wealways lived too far away from a school for me to attend one. Dad hastutored me when he had time and so has Brother during his vacations."Then the girl's face brightened. "But my best teachers have been booksthemselves. How I have enjoyed them! Dad ordered all of the books in agraded reading course for me, and I have shelf after shelf filled withthem around the walls of my room. I especially like nature poetry."
Jenny flashed a bright smile at her companion. "Oh, I am so glad!" shecried. "Miss Dearborn is teaching me to love it. She wants me to be ableto quote some poem that will describe every beautiful thing in naturethat I see. Of course, I can't always think of one, but then I store thescene away in my memory and ask Miss Dearborn what poem it would suggestto her."
"I would love to know your teacher," Lenora said. "I believe I couldlearn rapidly if I had her to teach me."
"It's almost the end of the school year," Jenny commented, as she lookedup and down the Coast Highway before crossing it, "and, anyway, I supposeit would hardly do for a pupil of the seminary to be taught by someoneoutside when they have special teachers there for all subjects."
"No, of course not," her companion agreed. Then, as they started down thelong narrow lane leading to the farmhouse, the girl in brown exclaimed:"Oh, Jenny, do you live in that picturesque old adobe house so near thesea? I adore the ocean and I haven't been real close to it since I came.It's so very warm today, don't you think we might go down to the veryedge of the water and sit on the sand?"
Jenny nodded brightly: "We'll go out on Rocky Point," she said. "You'lllove it, I'm sure." Then impulsively, "Oh, Lenora Gale, you don't knowwhat it means to me to have a girl friend who likes the same things thatI like."
"Yes, I do know," the other girl replied sincerely, "for it means thesame to me."
Grandma Warner was delighted with Jenny's new friend, and, as for Lenora,she was most enthusiastic about everything around the farm. She thoughtthe old adobe house with its heavy beams simply fascinating, and when shesaw Jenny's very own room with its windows opening out toward the pointof rocks and the sea, she declared that she knew, if only she could sleepin a room like that, she would not be troubled with long hours ofwakefulness as she had been since her last illness. "The ocean sings alullabye to you all of the time, doesn't it?" she turned to say.
Jenny, who was indeed pleased with her friend's phrase, nodded, then shelaughingly confessed that sometimes, when there was a high wind or astorm, the song of the sea was a little too wild and loud to lull one toslumber. But her listener's eyes glowed all the more. "How I would loveto hear it then. I would want to stay awake to listen to the crashing ofthe waves." Then she said: "I suppose you think me foolishly enthusiasticabout it, but when one has lived for years and years on an inlandprairie, the sea is very strange and wonderful."
Jenny nodded understandingly. "I don't believe I could live far away fromthe coast," she commented. "I would feel as though a very important partof my life had been taken from me. I have always lived within sound ofthe sea, but come, I want to take you down to the Rocky Point." The girlswent again through the kitchen, and Jenny said to the dear little oldlady who was sitting on the vine-hung side porch, busy, as always, withher sewing, "Grandma Sue, please let Lenora and me get the supper. Wewon't be gone more than an hour and after that will be plenty of time."
Lenora's face brightened. "Oh, Mrs. Warner, how I wish you would let us.It would be such a treat to me. I love to cook, but it has been perfectages since I have been allowed in a kitchen, and yours is so homey anddifferent."
Susan Warner nodded a pleased consent. "I reckon you may, if it's whatyou're wantin' to do," she said. Then she dropped her sewing in her lap,pushed her spectacles up among the lavender ribbons of her cap and gazedafter the two girls as they went hand in hand down the path that ledtoward the Rocky Point. "It's a pleasant sight," the old woman thought,"Jenny having a friend of her own kind at last, and her, being a farmer'sgal, makes our darlin' feel right at home wi' her. Not one of theupstandin' sort like Gwynette Poindexter-Jones." There was seldom a hardexpression on the loving old face, but there was one at that moment. Thespectacles had been replaced and Susan Warner began to stab her needleinto the blue patch she was putting on a pair of overalls in a mannerthat suggested that her thoughts were of no gentle nature.
"What _right_ has _one_ of 'em to be puttin' on airs over the other of'em? That's what I'd like to be told. They bein' flesh and blood sisterseven if one of 'em has been fetched up grand. But I reckon there's ajustice in this world, an' I can trust it to take keer o' things."
Having reached this more satisfactory state of mind, the old woman againglanced toward the point and saw the two girls climbing out on thehighest rock. Jenny was carefully holding her friend's hand and leadingher to a wide boulder against which the waves had crashed in many a stormuntil they had cut out a hollow resembling a canopy-covered chair wideenough for two to sit comfortably.
It was low tide at that hour, and, when they were seated, Lenoraexclaimed joyfully: "Oh, isn't this the nicest place for confidences?Let's tell each other a secret, shall we? That will make us intimatefriends."
Jenny smiled happily. "I don't believe I have any secrets, that is, noneof my own that I could share." Miss Dearborn's secret was the only oneshe knew.
"Then let's tell our dearest desires," Lenora suggested, "and I willbegin."
Then she laughingly confessed: "It will not take long to tell, however. Iwant to grow strong and well that I may become father's housekeeper. Itis desperately lonely for him with both Mother and me away, and yet,since his interests are all bound up in our Dakota farm, he cannot leaveit, and so, you see, I must get well as soon as e
ver I can."
Jenny nodded understandingly. "My dearest desire is to find a way bywhich I can help Grandpa Si buy Rocky Point farm. I have thought andthought, but, of course, just thinking doesn't help much. There are tenacres in it, from the sea back to the highway, and then to the tall hedgeyou can see over there. That is where the Poindexter-Jones' groundsbegin, and in the other direction to where the canyon brook runs into theocean."
"It is a beautiful little farm. I wish you could buy it. How much do yousuppose it will sell for?" Lenora asked, but Jenny did not know. Then shesighed as she added that she supposed they would know soon, for thedaughter of Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had said that it was to be sold in thesummer when her mother returned from France. But, as it was not naturalfor Jenny to be long depressed, she smilingly announced that she had twoother desires that were very dear. One was that she did so want herwonderful teacher to remain in California another winter. "If shedoesn't, if Miss Dearborn goes back East, I will have to go to the SantaBarbara High School next year, and no one knows how I would dread that. Ieven dread going there for a few days next month to take the writtenexaminations."
Jenny had one more desire, which she did not mention, but, as she glancedacross the green field and saw the turrets of the desertedPoindexter-Jones home, she thought of Harold and wondered when he wouldcome again. He had said that he would run down some time soon and havedinner with them. Then, surely, she would have an opportunity to be alonewith him long enough to ask about the farm.
Arousing herself from her thoughts, Jenny glanced at her companion andsaw, on the sweet face, an expression of infinite sadness. Impulsivelyshe reached out a strong brown hand and placed it lovingly over the frailone near her.
"Lenora, aren't you happy, dear?"
The brown eyes that were lifted were filled with tears. "There issomething sad about the ocean and Tennyson's poem makes me think of mydear mother. No one can ever know how I miss her. We were more like twosisters, even though I was so very young. Mother died when I was twelve."
"What poem is it, dear? Shall you mind repeating it to me? I haven't hadany of Tennyson's poetry yet." Then Jenny added hastily, "but don't, ifyou would rather not."
"I would like to." In a voice that was almost tearful, Lenora began:
"Break, break, break On thy cold gray stones, O Sea. And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman's boy That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill! But O for the touch of a vanished hand And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me."
Then, before Jenny could comment on the poem, Lenora said, smilingthrough her tears, "That is what the poets do for us: they express ouremotions better than we could ourselves." Not wishing to depress herfriend, she arose, held out a hand as she entreated: "Please help me downto that shining white sand."
Such a happy half hour as they spent and when at last they started backtoward the house, Jenny, in the shelter of the rocky point, impulsivelykissed her companion. "I love you," she whispered. "I have always wishedthat I had a sister. I'd like to adopt you if you will let me."
"Of course I will let you. I would rather have you for a sister thananyone I ever knew." Then, mischievously, Lenora inquired, "Now, whatrelation is my brother Charles to you?" "We'll let _him_ decide when hecomes," was Jenny's practical answer. "He may not want to be adopted."Then, as the house had been reached, she added impulsively, "but GrandmaSue and Grandpa Si would love to be, so I will let you share them. Now,Sister Lenora, it's time for us to get supper."