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Updated: June 25, 2025
Virginia caught her breath as a great sob rose in her throat. This was all so like the old Thaine mansion house of her childhood years. "It's only the mirage," she said aloud. "But it was so like what?" She held Juno back as she looked afar at the receding painting of the plains. "It's like the house we'll have some day on that slope beyond the Sunflower Inn. The mountains are misty.
Such days come sometimes in a Kansas August. The young people of the Grass River neighborhood had made merry half of the morning in the grove, and as they gathered for the picnic lunch someone called out: "Jo Bennington, where's Thaine Aydelot? Great note for him to disappear when this Charity Ball was executed mainly for him." "Better ask Todd Stewart.
"Leigh is a leech when she has the chance," Jo said jokingly, as the two sat in the Aydelot buggy at last. When one has grown up from babyhood the ruling spirit in a neighborhood, her opinions are to be accepted. Thaine gave Jo a quick look but said nothing. "By the way, papa says Jim isn't very well this summer. Says he still grieves over the farm he lost.
Between Thaine and the bridge was a stretch of dusty road, flanked on one side by nipa huts. On the other side were scattered dwellings, tall shrubbery, and low-lying rice fields, beyond which lay the jungle. Before the young sentinel the road made a sharp bend, cutting off the view and giving no hint to the enemy around this bend of how strong a force might be filling the road toward the bridge.
Thaine Aydelot looked like a gypsy beside her, he was so brown, and his big dark eyes and heavy mane of dark hair, and ruddy cheeks made the contrast striking. From the first day of their meeting, the children were playmates and companions as often as opportunity offered.
It's so hot I expect there'll be a storm before night," Thaine suggested, wondering the while what Leigh's business in Wykerton might be. Darley Champers was in a fever when he came from his conference with Thomas Smith. Smith had played large sums into his hands in the first years of their partnership. Of late the sums had all gone the other way.
He lifted his head bravely, as if to throw off all doubt, and tightening the reins on his horses he swung away down the trail toward the home lights shining in the gathering gloom. As he neared the house Thaine Aydelot leaped from the side porch and hurried toward him. Climbing into the moving wagon, he put one hand affectionately on his father's shoulder.
"Oh, you are too good. Yes, I'll go, of course," Jo exclaimed. "Can't we go down to the grove and see the lilies this afternoon, too?" "Yes, we can go to China if we want to," Thaine declared. "Wait here in the shade until I drive up." Teams were being backed away from the hitching-rack, and much chatting of neighbors was everywhere.
"Oh, come over here and tell me how you happened," Leigh cried eagerly. Grass River people blamed the two years of the University life for breaking Thaine Aydelot's interest in Jo Bennington. Not that Jo lacked for admirers without him. Life had been made so pleasant for her that she had not gone away to any school, even after her father's election to office.
"What little seed to be worth so much, but it's the beginning of conquest," Leigh said as Thaine took the bills from her hand. "And it's a much more hopeful business to reclaim from booms and weeds than from this lonely old prairie as it was when Uncle Jim and your father first came here."
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