A Texas Blue Bonnet

Blue Bonnet came up the steps of the long, low ranch house, and threw herself listlessly back in one of the deep veranda chairs.

“Tired, Honey?” Mr. Ashe asked, laying down his paper.

“Yes, Uncle Cliff. I--hate walking!”

“Then why not ride?”

Blue Bonnet was smoothing the ears of Don, the big collie who had followed her up on to the veranda, and now stood resting his fine head on her knee. “I--didn’t want to,” she answered, slowly, without looking up.

“See here, Honey,” said Mr. Ashe, leaning toward her, a note of inquiry in his deep, pleasant voice; “come to think of it, you haven’t been riding lately.”

“No, Uncle Cliff.” Blue Bonnet’s eyes were turned now out over the wide stretch of prairie before the house.

“Any reason, Honey?”

The girl hesitated. “Yes, Uncle Cliff.”

“Don’t you want to tell me it, Blue Bonnet?”

“No,” Blue Bonnet answered, slowly, “I don’t want to tell it to you. I--it’s because I’m--afraid.”

“_Afraid!_ Blue Bonnet! That’s an odd word for an Ashe to use!”

“I know, Uncle Cliff; I reckon I’m not an Ashe--clear through.” Blue Bonnet rose hurriedly and ran down the steps. Around the house she went, and in through the back way to her own room. There she brushed the hot tears from her eyes with an impatient movement. “Oh, it is true,” she said to herself, “and I can’t help it. Oh, if I could only go away--I hate it here! Hate it! Hate it!”

Later, swinging in the hammock on the back veranda, she looked up suddenly as her uncle came to sit on the railing beside her. Something in his face and manner made her wonder.

“Blue Bonnet,” he said, abruptly, “we might as well have it out--right here and now--it’ll be the best thing for us both.”

Blue Bonnet sat up, pushing back her soft, thick hair. “Have it out?” she repeated.

“Blue Bonnet,” he answered, bending nearer, “suppose you tell me just what it is you would like to do? It wouldn’t take much insight to see that you aren’t very happy nowadays; and--well, I reckon your father wouldn’t want things going on as they’ve been--lately.”

The girl’s face changed swiftly. “Oh, I have been horrid, Uncle Cliff! But I--oh, I do so--hate it--here!”

“Hate it here! Hate the Blue Bonnet Ranch--the finest bit of country in the whole state of Texas!”

“I--hate the whole state of Texas!”

“Blue Bonnet!”

“I do. I want to go East to live. I--my mother was an Easterner. I want to live her life.”

“But, Honey, your mother chose to come West. Why, child,”--there was a quick note of triumph in the man’s voice--“it was your mother who named you Blue Bonnet.”

“I wish she hadn’t. It’s a--ridiculous sort of name--I would like to have been called Elizabeth--it is my name, too.”

“Elizabeth?” Mr. Ashe repeated. “It doesn’t seem to suit you nearly as well, Honey. All the same, if you like it. But Blue--Elizabeth, you know that this is your ranch, and that your father wanted you brought up to know all about it, so as to be able to manage things for yourself a bit--at a pinch.”

“I shall sell--as soon as I come of age.”

Mr. Ashe rose. “I reckon we’d best not talk any more now.”

“Uncle Clifford.” Blue Bonnet looked up. “Uncle Clifford, please don’t think it’s just--temper. I mean it, truly--I sha’n’t ever make a Westerner. I’m sorry--on your account. Still, it’s true--I hate it all--now,--everything the life out here stands for--and I want to go East. I--I don’t see why I shouldn’t choose my own life--for myself.”

Her uncle looked down into the upturned, eager face. “You seem to have gone over this pretty thoroughly in your own mind, Bl--Elizabeth.”

“I have, Uncle Cliff.”

“Well, you and I’ll talk things over another time; I’ve some business to see to now. I suppose things’ll have to go on, even if you do intend to sell--in six years.”

“I wish you’d try to see my side of it, Uncle Cliff.”

“I’m going to--after a while. Just now, I can’t get beyond the fact that you hate the Blue Bonnet Ranch. I hope your father doesn’t know it!” And Mr. Ashe turned away.

Below the house, leaning against the low fence enclosing the oblong piece of ground called “the garden,” Mr. Ashe found Uncle Joe Terry, ranch foreman, and his chief adviser in the difficult task of bringing up his orphan niece.

Uncle Joe was smoking placidly, his eyes on the wild riot of color which was one of the principal characteristics of Blue Bonnet’s garden. “Tell you what,” he said, as Mr. Ashe came up, “this here place needs weeding. Blue Bonnet ain’t been keeping an eye on Miguel lately.”

Blue Bonnet’s uncle stood a moment looking down at the neglected garden. “Yes,” he said, “and it’s not only the garden, Joe, that’s been left to itself lately.”

“She ain’t been out on Firefly this two weeks,” Uncle Joe commented. “What’s wrong, Cliff?”

“She wants to go East.”

“So that’s it? Well, I reckon it’s natural--wants to run with the other young folks, I suppose?”

“But--Joe, she says she hates--the ranch.”