“How pleasant for your wife. I hope that in that long, long time to come, when you are judge and have found the right girl, your mother will still feel the same way. I shall probably have been married years by that time, and I will come to your wedding and say, ‘Law, I remember when Blythe Van Dorn was a snip of a boy and used to tell me what he meant to do when he was a man. He hasn’t married a girl a bit like what he thought he would.’” At this final shot the boy of twenty grew suddenly moody, arose from his place in the oak tree’s cool shade and went to where his horse was picketed. “Good-bye,” he said. “Going?” called Alison cheerily. “If you see Hannah Maria as you are passing, tell her I shall be home in time for supper.” CHAPTER X A RAFFLE While matters were going on quietly at home John and his friends had been in the thick of battle, and the desperate fighting at Monterey had left John with his arm in a sling, Ira with a bullet in his shoulder and Neal with a sabre cut across his forehead. The Texan Rangers, under Major Ben McCullough, having been discharged at this point, John and Ira made ready to return home while Neal reentered service under Colonel John Hay. “That’s what I call a soldier,” said Alison, when the news was brought that Neal would not return with the others, “for all that, I am glad enough that John is coming back, and Ira, too. They have won their discharge, for both are wounded.” “I am glad to say not seriously,” said Christine, putting down the letter just received from her brother. “Now Alison, we must get back home and make ready for our hero.” There was some of Christine’s old brightness in her manner as she said this, and Alison gave her a hug. “Won’t it be good to get back again? If we can get hold of some flour we’ll have some biscuits first thing, and if not I shall certainly go to making tortillas, for I am sick of soggy corn-bread.” “We don’t have to have it soggy,” said Christine cheerfully. “We can make some good egg pone like we used to have at home, and if we can’t eat that we must be fastidious.” They took their news to Hannah Maria, who voiced her regrets at their departure as she stood at the door watching Pedro pile their “tricks” into his queer little Mexican cart. “Now do be sociable,” was her parting word, “and come over often. I’ll be fa’r achin’ for news. I’ll let ye hev Dally ef ye want her to he’p,” she added as an afterthought. “Me an’ Bud kin git along without her fo’ awhile, till ye git fixed.” “No indeed, we wouldn’t take her from you for the world,” said Alison, decidedly, visions of Daily’s greasy cooking rising before her. “We are going to look out for some one to do the kitchen work. Lon Davis knows of a girl some one wants to hire out, some new people who have just come down from Virginia.” “Well, they do say them Ferginny cooks is good,” said Hannah Maria, “though fer my part I like plenty of sop for my wittles and they cook too dry fer me.”