Ma Pettengill

Excerpt

From the Arrowhead corrals I strolled up the poplar-bordered lane that leads past the bunk house to the castle of the ranch’s chatelaine.  It was a still Sunday afternoon—­the placid interlude, on a day of rest, between the chores of the morning and those of evening.  But the calm was for the ear alone.  To the eye certain activities, silent but swift, were under way.  On the shaded side piazza of the ranch house I could discern my hostess, Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill; she sat erect, even in a rocking-chair, and knitted.  On the kitchen steps, full in the westering sun, sat the Chinese chef of the Arrowhead, and knitted—­a yellow, smoothly running automaton.  On a shaded bench by the spring house, a plaid golfing cap pushed back from one-half the amazing area of his bare pate, sat the aged chore-boy, Boogles, and knitted.  The ranch was on a war basis.