Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/225

Rh populous, very busy, very conversational, with wise-looking but foolish chickens, and foolish-looking but wise ducks, and apoplectic turkey gobblers scraping the stiffened ends of their wings on the ground. An old sailor, twisted with rheumatism, had charge of the feathered creatures; and he was always eager to show the young people the latest squabs or hatchings, or to talk as long as they would listen about the remarkable examples of intelligence displayed by his charges. The dogs, who followed them everywhere else, were here rigidly barred. They sat outside the wire in a reproachful row conscious of being misjudged.

The half of the ranch has not been described. It would be interesting to follow our young people to the main stables, to the cook shack and the bunk houses, to the miniature village across the ravine where dwelt all the Spanish families, retainers of the ranch. And the hogs and the pigs, who had a self-sufficient air of competent wisdom, and liked to have their backs scratched. On the paddocks where roamed the colts and young horses, free as deer, gentle as dogs. But we can only enumerate them. And in the end they always arrived at the great wide-flung oak known as Dolman's House, where they climbed into the low branches and swung their legs for a good talk. Here, fancifully, seemed the central abiding place of the soul of the ranch, a soul born through the slow mellowing and blending of these many activities into one relationship. The ranch had a personality of its own: it was a single thing, to be loved and remembered. Daphne used to believe in Dolman implicitly. Through the haze gathering across her childhood memories she thought still to discern his face, to hear his voice. At times even yet it seemed to her that she felt a great beneficent presence that wished her well. She joked with herself about it, and told of it to Kenneth in a playful fashion that he considered charmingly fanciful. It would be, of course, absurd to believe such a thing literally: the imagination is a powerful agent in proper circumstances. Yet at times something overpowering swept through Daphne's soul that left her wondering.

As their intimacy progressed they joked a good deal about Dolman, making believe, as children do, inventing legends and possibilities. The degree to which their intimacy had uncon-