“Oh, but it is, the real west of the last forty years, as it is grown up to success and prosperity. Ned lives out there still, runs for the State Legislature now and then, keeps a couple of automobiles, and his girls can tell you all that’s going on in the world just as easily as they can bake and keep house if they have to. If I keep you here talking any longer to an old fellow like myself, the boys won’t be responsible for their action. You’re a novelty, you know, Piper’s glaring at me.” He rose leisurely, and went over beside Aunt Win’s chair, and Piper Pearson hurried to take his place. “I thought he’d keep you talking here all night. And you sat there drinking it all in as if you liked it.” “I did,” said Jean, flatly. “I loved it. I haven’t been here at all. I’ve been way out on the Kansas prairie.” “Stuff,” said Piper calmly. “Say, got any good dogs up at your place?” “No, why?” Jean looked at him with sudden curiosity. “Nothing, only you remember when you were moving from the Cove, Doris sold me her Boston bull pup Jiggers?” “Oh, I know all about it.” As if she could ever forget how they had all felt when Doris parted with her dearest treasure and brought the ten dollars in to add to the family fund. “We’ve got some dandy puppies. I was wondering whether you’d take one home to Doris from me if I brought it in.” “I’d love to,” said Jean, her face aglow. It was just like a boy to think of that, and how Doris would love it, one of Jiggers’ own family. “I think we’ll call it Piper, if you don’t mind.” Piper didn’t mind in the least. In fact, he felt it would be a sign of remembrance, he said. And he would bring in the puppy as soon as Jean was ready to go home. “But you needn’t hurry her,” Bab warned, coming to sit with them. “She’s only been down a week, and I’m hoping if I can just stretch it along rather unconsciously, she’ll stay right through the term, the way she should.” Jean felt almost guilty, as her own heart echoed the wish. How she would study, if only it could happen. Yet there came the tug of homesickness too, along the end of the second week. Perhaps it was Kit’s letter that did it, telling how the house was at sixes and sevens without her, and Mother had to be in fifty places at once. Jean had to laugh over that part though, for Kit was noted for her ability to attend to exactly one thing at a time. “Now, Shad, I can’t attend to more than one thing at a time, you know.” “Can’t you?” Shad had responded, meditatively. “Miss Roxy can tend to sixty-nine and a half things at the same time with her eyes shut and one hand tied.” Then suddenly, out of the blue sky came the bolt. It was a telegram signed “Mother.” “Come at once. Am leaving for California.” Jean never stopped to think twice. It was the call to duty, and she caught the noon train back to Gilead Center. CHAPTER VIII SEEKING HER GOAL