When assured that I would gladly go on Saturday, but was unwilling to leave in grandma’s absence, she did not urge further, simply inquired the way to Georgia, and left me.

I was nursing my disappointment and watching the disappearing carriage, when Mr. Knipp, the brewer, with his load of empty kegs drew up, and asked what I was thinking about so hard.  It was a relief to see his jolly, good-natured face, and I told him briefly that our people were in town and wished to take us home with them.  He got down from his wagon to say confidentially: 

“Thou must not leave grandpa and grandma, because the old man is always kind to thee, and though she may sometimes wag a sharp tongue, she means well.  Be patient, by-and-by thou wilt have a nice property, the country will have more people for hire, and thou wilt not have so hard to work.”

When I told him that I did not want the property, and that there were other things I did care for, he continued persuasively: 

“Women need not so much learning from books.  Grandma would not know how to scold so grandly if she remembered not so many fine words from ‘Wilhelm Tell’ and the other books that she knoweth by heart.”  And he climbed back and drove off, believing that he had done me a good turn.

To my great satisfaction, Georgia arrived about dark, saying that Benjamin had brought her and would call for us later to spend the evening with them.  When we reached the hotel, Elitha received us affectionately, and did not refer to the disappointments of the afternoon.  The time was given up to talk about plans for our future, and that night when we two crept into bed, I felt that I had been eased of a heavy burden, for Benjamin was willing to await grandma’s return.

He also told us that early next morning he would go to Santa Rosa, the county seat, and apply to be made our guardian in place of Hiram Miller, and would also satisfy any claim grandma might have to us, or against us, adding that we need not take anything away with us, except our keepsakes.

CHAPTER XXXII

GRANDMA’S RETURN—­GOOD-BYE TO THE DUMB CREATURES—­GEORGIA AND I ARE OFF FOR SACRAMENTO.

Meanwhile, grandma and her friends had reached Bodego and spent the night there.  She had not learned anything more terrible that I had said about her, and at breakfast told Mrs. Stein that she had had a dream foreboding trouble, and would not continue the journey to the Stein home.  The widow coaxed and insisted that she go the few remaining miles to see her children.  Then she waxed indignant and let slip the fact that she considered it an outrage that American, instead of European born children should inherit the Brunner property, and that she had hoped that grandma would select two of her daughters to fill the places from which Georgia and I should be expelled.

Grandma took a different view of the matter, and started homeward immediately after breakfast.