文档介绍：Jean of the Lazy A
Jean of the Lazy A
By B. M. BOWER
1
Jean of the Lazy A
CHAPTER I
HOW TROUBLE CAME TO THE LAZY A
Without going into a deep, psychological discussion of the elements
in men's souls that breed events, we may say with truth that the Lazy A
ranch was as other ranches in the smooth tenor of its life until one day in
June, when the finger of fate wrote bold and black across the face of it the
word that blotted out prosperity, content, warm family ties,--all those
things that go to make life worth while.
Jean, sixteen and a range girl to the last fiber of her being, had gotten
up early that morning and had washed the dishes and swept, and had
shaken the rugs of the little living-room most vigorously. On her knees,
with stiff brush and much soapy water, she had scrubbed the kitchen floor
until the boards dried white as kitchen floors may be. She had baked a
loaf of gingerbread, that came from the oven with a most delectable odor,
and had wrapped it in a clean cloth to cool on the kitchen table. Her dad
and Lite Avery would show cause for the baking of it when they sat down,
fresh washed and ravenous, to their supper that evening. I mention Jean
and her scrubbed kitchen and the gingerbread by way of proving how the
Lazy A went unwarned and unsuspecting to the very brink of its disaster.
Lite Avery, long and lean and silently content with life, had ridden
away with a package of sandwiches, after a full breakfast and a smile from
the slim girl who cooked it, upon the business of the day; which happened
to be a long ride with one of the Bar Nothing riders, down in the breaks
along the river. Jean's father, big Aleck Douglas, had saddled and ridden
away alone upon business of his own. And presently, in mid- forenoon,
Jean closed the kitchen door upon an immaculately clean house filled with
the warm, fragrant odor of her baking, and in fresh shirt waist and her best
riding-skirt and Stetson, went whistling away down the pat