Rest and Be Thankful Read Online Free PDF

Friday Night. One of her most faithful guests and bitter friends (he was European import, vintage 1939, to give New York its due) had named it “Maggie’s Saloon.” That had been rather hard to take.
    * * *
    “Now what’s holding them up?” Mrs. Gunn asked the alarum clock on the kitchen window sill, as she finished preparations for noon dinner and began mopping the floor. Outside her morning’s laundry was bleaching nicely on a rope strung between two linden-trees.
    Bert, riding back from the creek with a spade over his shoulder, stopped for a cup of coffee at the kitchen door.
    “You’ll get plenty of water now,” he said. “And the car is out of the ditch. That dark-faced fellow is tinkering with it and muttering to himself. Hasn’t stopped to pick a flower yet.”
    “Did any of you find the hats?”
    “No. Guess them feathers took wing.”
    “Well now, I did want to see a Paris hat,” Mrs. Gunn said disappointedly. “In fact, I haven’t seen a new hat in five years since I visited my husband’s folks in Omaha.”
    “You’ll see plenty now,” Bert said, out of the side of his mouth, as the two visitors appeared at the hall entrance to the kitchen. Mrs. Peel, in beige tweed, was armed with sun-glasses, a large-brimmed hat, an umbrella (to be used as a sunshade), a raincoat (rescued from the bottom of her suitcase so that she might sit on a specially nice piece of grass), her pocketbook, and a camera. Miss Bly thought she was equally suitably dressed for the West. To her neat wool suit she had added a heavy silver bracelet and a gay silk scarf over which red horses leaped appropriately.
    “We are just going out,” Mrs. Peel called gaily, and startled Bert, who had scarcely thought they were dressed for going in. “When should we return for luncheon?”
    Bert handed the coffee-cup back to Mrs. Gunn, and they avoided catching each other’s eye. For a moment his gaze flickered over the camera. Then he gravely touched his hat and left. This, he figured, was something for Ma Gunn to handle by herself. He’d take bulldogging any day.

4
INSPECTION
    That morning Rest and be Thankful set out to please. The miseries of last night had only served to make today’s joys all the more enchanting. The two visitors returned from their leisurely walk not only filled with enthusiasm, but with their interest quickened. Mrs. Peel was conquered even as Sarah had been. The house itself was built of stone, which was unusual, and yet appropriate; for the stones had come from the road through the valley, where the Stoneyway Trail had once led towards the Oregon Trail. Mrs. Peel yesterday, in her little jokes about covered wagons, had not been very far wrong historically. And the house was built well, with charm and dignity and strength. Around it were stretches of green grass bordered by the tall cottonwood-trees that followed the branching arms of Crazy Creek. And, once the creek had encircled the house and its grounds, it joined again to go rushing through Stoneyway Valley down to Sweetwater in the plains.
    After midday dinner was over there was a short pause for irresistible sleep (to be blamed entirely on six thousand five hundred feet of altitude, Mrs. Peel hoped). And then there was more talk, more discussion; and they went out to walk under the shade of the cottonwood-trees to talk and discuss still more. By this time they had discarded coats and sweaters; and Sarah undid the top buttons of her silk shirt and rolled up its sleeves, while Mrs. Peel kept the umbrella-sunshade over her head. But it wasn’t very long before all talking ceased. The peace of the valley and the deep silence of the hills enfolded them.
    As Mrs. Gunn sprinkled the laundry and rolled it into neat packages to await ironing she could see the two visitors every now and again from her kitchen window. They were strolling round the house, pausing to look at the vegetable garden, then the flower garden, now overgrown with weeds, then the creek,