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Vanguards of the Plains by Margaret Hill McCarter
page 17 of 367 (04%)
All that afternoon while Mat Nivers sang about her tasks Beverly and I
tried to play together among the elm and cottonwood trees about our
little home, but evening found us wide awake and moping. Instead of the
two tired little sleepy-heads that could barely finish supper, awake,
when night came, we lay in our trundle-bed, whispering softly to each
other and staring at the dark with tear-wet eyes--our spiritual
barometers warning us of a coming change. Something must have happened
to us that night which only the retrospect of years revealed. In that
hour Beverly Clarenden lost a year of his life and I gained one. From
that time we were no longer little and big to each other--we were
comrades.

It must have been nearly midnight when I crept out of bed and slipped
into the big room where Uncle Esmond and Jondo sat by the fireplace,
talking together.

"Hello, little night-hawk! Come here and roost," Jondo said, opening his
arms to me.

I slid into their embrace and snuggled my head against his broad
shoulder, listening to all that was said. Three months later the little
boy had become a little man, and my cuddling days had given place to
the self-reliance of the fearless youngster of the trail.

"Why do you make this trip now, Esmond?" Jondo asked at length, looking
straight into my uncle's face.

"I want to get down there right now because I want to get a grip on
trade conditions. I can do better after the war if I do. It won't last
long, and we are sure to take over a big piece of ground there when it
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