John, ten now, gave evidence of being a replica of his father, quiet, serious, uncomplaining, reminding Abbie of Will when he was a boy. Isabelle gave promise of becoming the family beauty, for although only seven, she was attractive with her reddish-brown curls, her brown eyes and her fair skin,—and always singing at her play in a clear childish voice. “My little ‘lovely lady,’ ” Abbie used to say to herself. “How glad I am I named her Isabelle.”

It had been thirteen years since Abbie and Will had followed the trail behind old Red and Baldy, and Abbie had not been back home.

“You can come back to visit whenever you want to, I promise you that, Abbie,” Will had said. And she had not gone back once. But she did not blame Will. He had been helpless to keep that promise. And now this summer he said that she must go. All the plans were made, with a new brown cashmere dress in the process of construction. Abbie sang at her work, that after all these years she was to go back home and see her mother and Belle, Janet and Mary and the boys.

And then, Mack did not feel well. Dr. Hornby came and after some time decided it was to be a run of fever,—typhoid. Abbie put away the unfinished dress and hung over Mack’s bed for weeks. He pulled through, but by the time he was strong enough to be up, the fall had come and the rains, so that the roads to Lincoln and Nebraska City were impassable, and Abbie’s plan for a trip back home had gone into nothing.

It was only a few weeks later that Will came in from putting up the team after a trip to Weeping Water and said: “Abbie, you can get out your old paints. There’s a woman in Weeping Water just come from some place back east and they say she’s a real artist. They say she’ll take some pupils and I told ’em my wife was always wanting to try her hand . . .”

Abbie was already on her way to the calf-skin box under the bed, with Margaret close behind her. When she had come out with the chest and opened it, Margaret was still at her elbow, her gray eyes wide with anticipation.

“Oh, Mother,—I didn’t know you had any paints now. You just said you used to . . . Oh, Mother, why did you never tell me?”

“Why did you want to know?”

The young girl’s eyes were bright gray lights. “Oh, Mother . . . I want to use them . . . I want to go and see that woman . . . Oh, Mother . . . something in me . . .”

Will was cross. “That’ll do, Margaret. You don’t understand. Before you were born, when your mother came out here, she wanted to . . .”

“Will,” said Abbie sternly, “hush! Of course you may try them, Margaret. And we’ll take you over to Weeping Water some time to see the artist.”