They greeted Virginia and me with warm handclasps and hearty inquiries after our welfare; and we were passing on, when Grandma Thorndyke headed us off and looked me fairly in the face.

“Why,” said she, “you’re that boy!  Wait a minute.”

She stepped over and spoke to her husband, who seemed quite in the dark as to what she was talking about.  She pointed to us—­and then, in despair, she came back to us and asked us if we wouldn’t wait until the people were gone, as she wanted us to meet her husband.

“Oh, yes,” said Virginia, “we’ll be very glad to.”

“Let us walk along together,” said grandma, after the elder had joined us.  “Ah—­this is my husband, Mr. Thorndyke, Miss—­”

“Royall,” said Virginia, “Virginia Royall.  And this is Jacob Vandemark.”

“Where do you live?” asked grandma.

“I’m going out to my farm in Monterey County,” I said; “and Virginia is—­is—­riding with me a while.”

“We are camping,” said Virginia, smiling, “down by the river.  Won’t you come to dinner with us?”

3

Grandma ran to some people who were waiting, I suppose, to take them to the regular minister’s Sunday dinner, and seemed to be making some sort of plea to be excused.  What it could have been I have no idea; but I suspect it must have been because of the necessity of saving souls; some plea of duty; anyhow she soon returned, and with her and the elder we walked in silence down to the grove where our wagon stood among the trees, with my cows farther up-stream picketed in the grass.

“Just make yourselves comfortable,” said I; “while I get dinner.”

“And,” said the elder, “I’ll help, if I may.”

“You’re company,” I said.

“Please let me,” he begged; “and while we work we’ll talk.”

In the meantime Grandma Thorndyke was turning Virginia inside out like a stocking, and looking for the seamy side.  She carefully avoided asking her about our whereabouts for the last few days, but she scrutinized Virginia’s soul and must have found it as white as snow.  She found out how old she was, how friendless she was, how—­but I rather think not why—­Virginia had run away from Buck Gowdy; and all that could be learned about me which could be learned without entering into details of our hiding from the world together all those days alone on the trackless prairie.  That subject she avoided, though of course she must have had her own ideas about it.  And after that, she came and helped me with the dinner, talking all the time in such a way as to draw me out as to my past.  I told her of my life on the canal—­and she looked distrustfully at me.  I told her of my farm, and of how I got it; and that brought out the story of my long hunt for my mother, and of my finding of her unmarked grave.  Of my relations with Virginia she seemed to want no information.  By the time our dinner was over—­one of my plentiful wholesome meals, with some lettuce and radishes and young onions I had bought the night before—­we were chatting together like old friends.