Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/319

Rh "I leave it to you, Manuelo. You know better than I do; and you will do for the best."

It was the same way about the place. The gardener gradually took things over and did as he pleased: Sing Toy ran the house. As a consequence the garden ran down, and the house took within itself a rigid Chinese formality of arrangement. These things distressed Daphne and Kenneth at first; but they found that any mention of them to the Colonel merely bothered him; while any attempt at direct regulation would arouse instant resentment on the part of those in charge. After all, if the Colonel did not notice these externals, why should it matter?

The Colonel walked and rode much about the ranch, to be sure; but it was in no superintending capacity. He knew its every hill and dale, almost its every bush and tree, and he went about loving them. Since his wife's death the earthly part of affection for her seemed to have transferred itself to Corona del Monte. His days took on a rough sort of routine. Except on the few occasions when he drove to town to visit Main Street, he rode or drove far afield all the morning—sometimes all day. In the afternoon he wandered about the nearer parts of the ranch, peering here and there, standing for long periods staring at the pigs, the ducks, the horses, or across the paddocks, poking into odd corners, testing hasps and well covers and bin-traps but never apparently with any purpose of suggestion or repair, greeting and chatting with the men and women and children of the ranch. Always he managed to keep up his supply of peppermint lozenges, which he distributed gravely. At evening he returned to eat his solitary dinner, after which he repaired to the sitting room where he sat down by the oil lamp and picked up his paper. Across the low table stood the old, worn wooden Boston rocker, just where it had always stood. From time to time the Colonel would glance across at it over the top of his bowed spectacles. Then he resumed his reading.