The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-21
3 u : Y
The Story Of a Wait.
BIZ BREr HARrE.
Copyright, 1892, by Bret Hsrte.
CHAPTER w.


After the chill of devices night the
morning sun was apt to look ardently
upon the Robes rancho. If so strong an
expression could describe the dry. oven
like heat OF q California Coast Range
valley. Before 10 o'clock the adobe wall
of the patio was warm enough to permit
lingering vaqueros and idle poems to lean
against it. and the exposed annexe was
filled with sharp, resinous odors from the
oozing sap of unseasoned redwood"
boards. warped and drying in the hot sum
shine. Even at that early hour the climb
ing Castilian roses were dropping against
the wooden columns of the new veranda,
scarcely older than themselves, and min
Cling an already faded spice with the
aroma of baking wood and the more ma
terial fragrance of steaming coffee that
seemed dominant everywhere.
In fact, the pretty breakfast-room,
whose three broad windows, always open
TO the veranda. gave an al fresco effect to
every meal. was pathetic endeavor OF the
Southern-bred Peyton to emulate the soft
luxurious and open-air Incidence of his
native South in . climate that was not
only tropical, but even austere in its most
fervid moments. Yet, although cold drafts
luNdueu ~ lTOU Tic rear tDaI morning,
Judge Peyton sat alone between the open
doors and windows awaiting the slow COM
ing of his wife and the young ladies. He
was not in an entirely comfortable mood
that morning. Things were not going on
we'll at Robes. That truculent vagabond,
Pedro, had the night before taken himself
off with O curse that had frightened even
the vaqueros who most hated him as
companion, but who now seemed to re-
gard his absence as an injury done to their
race. Peyton, uneasily conscious that his
own anger had been excited by an exag-
gerated conception of the accident, was
now like most obstinate men, inclined to
exaggerate the importance of Pedro's
insolence. He was well out of it to get
rid of this quarrelsome hanger-on whose
presumption and ill-humor threatened the
discipline of the rancho, yet he could not
entirely forget that he had employed him
on account of his family claims and from
desire to placate racial jealousy and
settle local differences. For the inferior
Mexicans and Indian half-breeds still re-
garded their old masters with affection,
were In fact more concerned for the in
tegrity of their caste than the masters
were themselves-and the old Spanish
families who had made alliances with
Americans and shared their land with
them. had rarely succeeded in alternating
their retainers with their lands. Certain
experiences in the proving of his grant
before the land commission had taught
Peyton that they were not to be depended
upon. And lately there had been unpleas-
ant rumors of the discovery of some I'M
looked-for claimants to a division of the
grant itself, which might affect his own
title.
He looked up quickly as voices and
light steps on the veranda at last heralded
the approach of his tardy household from
the corridor. But in spite of his pre-occu-
patton he was startled and even awk-
wardly impressed with a change in Susys
appearance. She was wearing for the first
time long skirt, and this sudden matur-
ing of her figure struck him as a man
much more forcibly than it would prob
ably have impressed . woman more famil-
lar with details. He had not noticed GER
tain indications of womanhood as signlfi-
cant perhaps in her carriage as her
outlines, which had been lately perfectly
apparent to her mother and Mary, but
which were to him now for the first time
indicated by few inches of skirt. She
not only looked taller to his masculine
eyes, but these few inches had added to
the mystery az well as to the drapery of
the goddess: they were not so much the
revelation of maturity as the suggestion
that 1t was hidden. So impressed was he
that half serious lecture on her vester-
days childishness-the outcome of his
irritated reflections that morning-died
upon his lips. He felt he was no longer
dealing with child.
He welcomed them with that smile of
bantering approbation-supposed to keep
down inordinate vanity-Which for some