Читать книгу Jessica Trent's Inheritance онлайн

3 страница из 51

A big crowd it certainly was. Mainly a happy and eager one as well; its winter’s outing and sight-seeing over, and home-going at hand. A few, indeed, were sad. Those who had come to California seeking health for some beloved one and failing to find it; leaving the helpless one to take his last sleep in that sunny land, or to carry him eastward to die under native skies.

But amid all the bustle and haste the group from Sobrante was quiet and separate, only Aunt Sally and Samson now and then breaking out into exclamations to relieve their overwrought emotions, and thereby attracting more attention than Mrs. Trent quite enjoyed.

Indeed, she would have preferred to keep these last moments to herself and Jessica alone, but could not. All the “boys” who could possibly be spared from the ranch had come to Los Angeles to see their little “Captain” depart; although John Benton, the carpenter, emphatically declared:

“It’s all a downright mistake. As if our ‘Lady Jess’ didn’t know more now than any ‘finished’ boardin’ school miss could even guess at. Figures? Huh! What does she need more’n to add up a few wages now an’ again, and she’s a likely head at that already. Sent ’way off to New York after an education that she could get right here in Californy if her mother’d only think so. I don’t hold with no such unnatural separations, I don’t.”