Blue Bonnets Ranch Party | Page 2

for the
summer.
"I reckon Sarah Blake and Kitty Clark aren't very used to travelling?"
suggested Uncle Cliff, more to draw out Blue Bonnet than with any
consuming desire for information.
"Used to travelling! Why, Uncle Cliff--" Blue Bonnet shook her head
emphatically--"not one of the other We are Sevens has ever so much as
seen the inside of a Pullman in all her life!"
Mr. Ashe hid a smile under his moustache. The fact that Blue Bonnet's
own introduction to a Pullman car had occurred just nine months before,
seemed to have escaped the young lady's mind.

"Well, well," ejaculated Blue Bonnet's uncle, "they've some
experiences ahead of them, to be sure!"
"Oh, Uncle,"--Blue Bonnet was struck with a sudden fear,--"do you
suppose they will all be ready to go? We're two whole days earlier than
we said we'd be--"
"They'll be ready, don't you worry. Your grandmother is not one of the
unprepared sort, and the girls don't need much of a wardrobe for the
ranch. Besides, I wired them explicit directions--to meet The Wanderer
and be ready to come aboard immediately. We shall have only a few
minutes in Woodford."
Blue Bonnet settled back in her red velvet reclining chair and shut her
eyes. Slowly a smile wreathed her lips.
"What's the joke, Honey?"
Blue Bonnet looked up with dancing eyes. "Benita!" she laughed.
"Won't she be just--petrified, when she sees seven girls instead of one?
And can't you imagine the boys--"
"Benita had better not get petrified this summer," interrupted Uncle
Cliff. "She has to do some tall hustling. I've wired Uncle Joe to get
extra help while the ranch party is in session. If they can get old
Gertrudis from the Lone Star Ranch--she's the finest cook in the state of
Texas. And her granddaughter might wait on table."
"Oh, I do think a ranch party is the grandest thing in the world," cried
Blue Bonnet. "I've read of house parties, but they must be downright
tame compared with this kind of a party. And it's not to last just over a
week-end either, but two whole months! Why, Uncle Cliff, any
ordinary man would be scared to pieces at the prospect."
"But I'm not an ordinary man, eh?" Mr. Ashe looked pleased as a boy
as he put the question.
"Well, I reckon not! You're a fairy godfather. You grant my wishes

before they're fairly out of my mouth. And I seem to have plenty of
wishes. Just think, Uncle, how many things I've wished for since my
last birthday!"
"First," said Uncle Cliff, "you wished to go away from the ranch."
Blue Bonnet nodded assent. "Because I was--afraid--to ride. Doesn't it
seem ridiculous, now I'm over that silliness? But oh, how I did wish I
could get over being afraid! That was about the only wish you couldn't
grant, Uncle Cliff."
"That wish was never expressed, Honey--don't forget that. Maybe I
could have helped even there," Mr. Ashe suggested gently.
"I know, it was my own fault. But I was--ashamed, Uncle Cliff. You
don't suppose--" Blue Bonnet's face clouded, "you don't think, do you,
that the fear will come again when I get back where I saw
José--dragged?" She shut her eyes and shuddered.
"Nonsense, Honey. That fear died and was buried the day you rode
Alec's horse, Victor. A good canter on Firefly over the Blue Bonnet
country will make you wonder that such a feeling was ever born."
"Dear old Firefly! Won't I make it up to him though! Isn't it queer how
many of my wishes have come true? It makes me feel
almost--breathless. I no sooner got through wishing I could leave the
ranch and go East and be with Grandmother--than I woke up in
Woodford. And I wanted--thought I wanted--to be called Elizabeth.
Blue Bonnet became Elizabeth!"
"A real lightning change artist," murmured Uncle Cliff.
"And I wanted to go to school. Granted. I wanted to know a lot of girls,
and behold the We are Sevens!"
"And when was it you changed names again?" Uncle Cliff asked slyly.
"When I got tired of being Elizabethed. Everybody thinks Blue Bonnet

suits me better, except Aunt Lucinda--on occasions."
"And the next wish? They're stacking up."
"I reckon it was about the Sargent prize in school. I wanted Alec Trent
to win it--and he did. And next I wished to pass my school
examinations--"
"And even that miracle was achieved!" said Uncle Cliff, pinching her
cheek.
"And, finally, I wanted to go back to Texas, and, at the same time, I
wished I didn't have to leave Grandmother and Alec and the girls. That
might seem a contrary pair of wishes, but it doesn't daunt Godfather
Ashe. He straightway makes a private car arise from--from what, Uncle
Cliff?"
"Tobacco smoke," promptly supplied Mr.