Chapter 9

A MIDNIGHT RIDE

"Mary V, what are you doing in the kitchen? Remember, I told you you shouldn't make any more fudge for a week. I don't want any more sessions with Bedelia like I had last time you left the kitchen all messed up with your candy. What are you doing?"

Mary V licked a dab of loganberry jelly from her left thumb and answered with her face turned toward the open window nearest the porch where her mother sat rocking peacefully.

"Oh, for gracious sake, mom! I'm only putting up a little lunch before I go to bed. I'm going to take my rides earlier, after this, and it wouldn't be kind for me to wake the whole house up at daybreak, getting my lunch ready--"

"If you're going at daybreak, why do you need a lunch? If you think I'll permit you to stay out in the heat all day without any breakfast--"

"Well, mom! I can't take pictures at daybreak, can I? I've got to stay out till the light is strong enough. And there's a special place I want, and if I go early, I can get back early; before lunch, at the very latest. Do you want me to go without anything to eat?"

"Seems to me you're running them 'Desert Glimpses' into the ground," her mother grumbled comfortably. "You've got a stack higher than your head, now. And some of these days you'll get bit with a snake or a centipede or--"

"Centipedes don't bite. They grab with their toes. My goodness, mom! A person's got to do something! I don't see what harm there is in my riding horseback in the early morning. It's a healthful form of exercise--"

"It's a darn fad, and you'll go back to school looking like a squaw--and serve you right. It's getting along towards the time when snakes go blind. You want to be careful, Mary V--"

"Oh, piffle! I've lived here all my life, just about, and I never saw a person bitten with a snake. And neither did you, mom, and you know it. But, of course, if you insist on making me sit in the house day in and day out--" Mary V cut two more slices of bread and began spreading them liberally with butter. She looked very grieved, and very determined.

"Oh, nobody ever made you sit in the house yet. They'd have to tie you hand and foot to do it," came the placid retort. "Don't you go helping yourself to that new jelly, Mary V. The old has got to be used up first. And you wipe off the sink when you're through messing around. Bedelia's hinting that she's going to quit when her month is up. It don't help me a mite to keep her calmed down when you leave a mess for her every time you go near the kitchen. She says she's sick and tired of cleaning up after you. You know what'll happen if she does quit, Mary V. You'll be getting your 'Desert Glimpses' out the kitchen window for a month or so, washing dishes while we scurrup around after another cook. Bedelia--"