Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1923-08-16
CHAPTER vIl.-continued.


Sometimes she thought of her par
ents, sister, friends, of how they had
. persistently refused to believe she
could or would stay in the West. They
were always asking her to come home.
She wrote that she would return to
her old home some time, of course, for
a visit; and letters such as this
brought returns that amused Made
line, sometimes saddened her. Her
fathers business had been such that
he could not leave it for the time re-
quired for a western trip, or else,
according to his letter, he would have
come for her. Mrs. Hammond could
not have been driven to cross the
Hudson river; her un-American' idea
of the wilderness westward was that
Indians still chased buffalo on the out
skirts of Chicago. Madeline's sister
Helen had long been eager to come, as
much from curiosity, Madeline
thought, as from sisterly regard. And
at length Madeline concluded that the
proof of her breaking permanent ties
tives and friends before she went back
East. With that in mind she invited
Helen to visit her during the summer,
and bring as many friends as she
liked.
: {. .
! No slight task indeed was it to over
see the many business details Of Her
Majesty's Rancho and to keep rec
ord Of them. Madeline found the
course of business training upon which
her father had insisted to be invalu-
able to her now. 1t helped her to as
simulate and arrange the practical
details of cattle-raising as put forth
by the blunt Stillwell. She established
an extensive vegetable farm, and she
planted orchards. The climate was
superior to that of California, and,
with abundant water, trees and plants
and gardens flourished and bloomed
In a way wonderful to behold Here
In the farming section of the ranch
Madeline found employment for the
little colony Of Mexicans Their lives
bad been as hard and barren as the
dry valley where they had lived, But
as the valley had been transformed
by the soft, rich touch of water, so
their lives had been transformed by
help and sympathy and work. The
children were wretched no more, and
many that had been blind could now
see, and Madeline had become to them
q new and blessed Virgin.
Madeline looked abroad over these
lands and likened the change in them
and those who lived by them to the
change in her heart. 1t may have been
fancy, but the sun seemed to be
brighter, the sky bluer, the wind
sweeter. Certain it was that the deep
green of grass and garden was not
fancy, nor the white and pink of bios
som, nor the blaze and perfume of
flower, nor the sheen of lake and the
fiuttering Of newborn leaves. Where
there had been monotonous gray there
was now vivid and changing color.
Formerly there had been silence both
day and night; now during the sunny
hours there was music. The whistle
Of prancing stations pealed in from
the grassy ridges. Innumerable birds
had come and, like the northwsru-
journeying ducks, they had tarried to
stay. The song Of meadow-lark and
blackbird and robin, familiar to Made
line from childhood, mingled with the
new and strange heart-throbbing song
OF the mocking-bird and the piercing
blast of the desert eagle and the mel
ancholy moan of the turtle-dove.
CHAPTER VIII