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A fleshy woman with a very ruddy face under her sunbonnet came eagerly out into the road, leading the group of evidently much worried women. "Have you folks seen anything of " "Abby!" shrieked the woman Ruth had found, and she struggled to get out of the car. "Well, I declare, Mary Marsden!" gasped the sunbonneted woman, who was plainly Abby Drake. "If you ain't a sight!"
"How's Thomas Catt today?" continued the boy, swinging his feet dangerously near the tattered sunbonnet, which half concealed the angry little face below. Still she deigned no reply, though her eyes blazed furiously and her breath came quick and short.
And this went on until a pale opal glow came into the sky, followed by a still paler pink on the summit of the white Sierras, when she rose and hurriedly began to dress. Still so sanguine was her hope of meeting him, that she lingered yet a moment to select the brown holland skirt and yellow sunbonnet she had worn when she first saw him. And she had only seen him twice! Only twice!
When Tom climbed into his seat and they drove away, the store-porch seemed quite crowded with those who watched their triumphant departure. Sheba looked back and saw Mornin showing her teeth and panting for breath, while Molly Hollister waved the last baby's sunbonnet, holding its denuded owner in her arms. The drive was a long one, but the travellers enjoyed it from first to last.
"I too " she began, and paused as if startled at what she was about to say. She went on: "I never heard any one say things like these. I did not know that any one else had thoughts like these except myself." "And have you thought these things?" said Ralph, with a quick joy in his heart. "Yes," replied Winsome, looking down on the ground and playing with the loose string of the lilac sunbonnet.
They have got no enterprise in the world, and they are the most dilatory, slowest gang I ever ran across in my life." A dimple deepened in the soft fairness of her cheek under the white sunbonnet. "They got enterprise enough ter want a road," she drawled, fixing her eyes upon him for a moment, then reverting to her former outlook. He was a trifle embarrassed, and lost his balance.
But as the Yankees stole my bonnet, I am reduced to wearing my black straw walking-hat with its curled brim, trimmed in black ribbon with golden sheaves of wheat. Two years ago this fall, father threw me a banknote at table, and I purchased this with it. Now it is my only headgear, except a sunbonnet.
"Sally," he cried, "I have visions of you gracing the board at which we sat to-day, patting journey-cakes on the hearth, stewing squirrel broth with the same pride that you once planned a rout. Cleaning the pots and pans, and standing anxious at the doorway staring through a sunbonnet for your lord and master."
The old woman turned around, her arms falling to her sides with a sort of flounce of triumph, her eyes twinkling beneath the shining spectacles set upon her brow among the limp ruffles of her thrust-back sunbonnet, a laugh of satisfaction widening her wrinkled face. "Thar now!" she chuckled, "Nar'sa jes' set it down she wouldn't testify, an' crossed her heart an' hoped she'd fall dead fust.
She, too, was straight and strong; her dark face was framed by a blue-checked sunbonnet; she carried a large basket filled with blackberries, and her lips as well as her hands were stained. She saw the man lying in a shaft of the sunset, and started back, then, tiptoeing past, bent forward slightly to examine his face. In that lingering gaze a twig cracked beneath her foot.