“She’s very quiet and undemonstrative,” said Patsy musingly.
“Naturally, being a trained nurse. I liked her face,” said Louise, “but her eyes puzzle me.”
“They are her one unfortunate feature,” Beth agreed.
“They’re cold,” said Patsy; “that’s the trouble. You never get into her eyes, somehow. They repel you.”
“I never look at them,” said Beth. “Her mouth is sweet and sensitive and her facial expression pleasant. She moves as gracefully and silently as – as – ”
“As a cat,” suggested Patsy.
“And she is acquainted with all the modern methods of nursing, although she’s done a lot of hospital work, too.”
“Well,” said Louise, reflectively, “I’ll talk it over with Arthur and see what we can do. Perhaps baby needs two nurses. We can’t discharge Inez, for Toodlums is even more contented with her than with me; but I admit it will be a satisfaction to have so thoroughly competent a nurse as Miss Travers at hand in case of emergency. And, above all else, I don’t want to hurt dear Uncle John’s feelings.”
She did talk it over with Arthur, an hour later, and her boy husband declared he had “sized up the situation” the moment he laid eyes on Mildred at the depot. They owed a lot to Uncle John, he added, and the most graceful thing they could do, under the circumstances, was to instal Miss Travers as head nurse and retain Inez as her assistant.
“The chances are,” said Arthur laughingly, “that the Mexican girl will have most of the care of Toodlums, as she does now, while the superior will remain content to advise Inez and keep a general supervision over the nursery. So fix it up that way, Louise, and everybody will be happy.”
Uncle John was thanked so heartily for his thoughtfulness by the young couple that his kindly face glowed with satisfaction, and then Louise began the task of reconciling the two nurses to the proposed arrangement and defining the duties of each. Mildred Travers inclined her head graciously and said it was an admirable arrangement and quite satisfactory to her. But Inez listened sullenly and her dark eyes glowed with resentment.
“You not trust me more, then?” she added.
“Oh, yes, Inez; we trust you as much as ever,” Louise assured her.
“Then why you hire this strange woman?”
“She is a present to us, from my Uncle John, who came this morning. He didn’t know you were here, you see, or he would not have brought her.”
Inez remained unmollified.
“Miss Travers is a very skillful baby doctor,” continued Louise, “and she can mend broken bones, cure diseases and make the sick well.”
Inez nodded.
“I know. A witch-woman,” she said in a whisper. “You can trust me señora, but you cannot trust her. No witch-woman can be trusted.”
Louise smiled but thought best not to argue the point farther. Inez went back to the nursery hugging Toodlums as jealously as if she feared some one would snatch the little one from her arms.
Next morning Mildred said to Beth, in whom she confided most:
“The Mexican girl does not like me. She is devotedly attached to the baby and fears I will supplant her.”
“That is true,” admitted Beth, who had conceived the same idea; “but you mustn’t mind her, Mildred. The poor thing’s only half civilized and doesn’t understand our ways very well. What do you think of little Jane?”
“I never knew a sweeter, healthier or more contented baby. She smiles and sleeps perpetually and seems thoroughly wholesome. Were she to remain in her present robust condition there would be little need of my services, I assure you. But – ”
“But what?” asked Beth anxiously, as the nurse hesitated.
“All babies have their ills, and little Jane cannot escape them. The rainy season is approaching and dampness is trying to infants. There will be months of moisture, and then – I shall be needed.”
“Have you been in California before?” asked Beth, impressed by Mildred’s positive assertion.
The girl hesitated a moment, looking down.
“I was born here,” she said in low, tense tones.
“Indeed! Why, I thought all the white people in California came from the east. I had no idea there could be such a thing as a white native.”
Mildred smiled with her lips. Her imperturbable eyes never smiled.
“I am only nineteen, in spite of my years of training and hard work,” she said, a touch of bitterness in her voice. “My father came here nearly thirty years ago.”
“To Southern California?”
“Yes.”
“Did you live near here, then?”
Mildred looked around her.
“I have been in this house often, as a girl,” she said slowly. “Señor Cristoval was – an acquaintance of my father.”
Beth stared at her, greatly interested.
“How strange!” she exclaimed. “You cannot be far from your own family, then,” she added.
Mildred shivered a little, twisting her fingers nervously together. She was indeed sensitive, despite that calm, repellent look in her eyes.
“I hope,” she said, evading Beth’s remark, “to be of real use to this dear baby, whom I already love. The Mexican girl, Inez, is well enough as a caretaker, but her judgment could not be trusted in emergencies. These Mexicans lose their heads easily and in crises are liable to do more harm than good. Mrs. Weldon’s arrangement is an admirable one and I confess it relieves me of much drudgery and confinement. I shall keep a watchful supervision over my charge and be prepared to meet any emergency.”
Beth was not wholly satisfied with this interview. Mildred had told her just enough to render her curious, but had withheld any information as to how a California girl happened to be in New York working as a trained nurse. She remembered the girl’s fervent exclamation: “Thank heaven!” when asked if she would go to Southern California, to a ranch called El Cajon, to take care of a new baby. Beth judged from this that Mildred was eager to get back home again; yet she had evaded any reference to her family or former friends, and since her arrival had expressed no wish to visit them.
There was something strange and unaccountable about the affair, and for this reason Beth refrained from mentioning to her cousins that Mildred Travers was a Californian by birth and was familiar with the scenes around El Cajon ranch and even with the old house itself. Perhaps some day the girl would tell her more, when she would be able to relate the whole story to Patsy and Louise.
Of course the new arrivals were eager to inspect the orange and olive groves, so on the day following that of their arrival the entire party prepared to join Arthur Weldon in a tramp over the three hundred acre ranch.
A little way back of the grounds devoted to the residence and gardens began the orange groves, the dark green foliage just now hung thick with fruit, some green, some pale yellow and others of that deep orange hue which denotes full maturity. “They consider five acres of oranges a pretty fair ranch, out here,” said the young proprietor; “but I have a hundred and ten acres of bearing trees. It will take a good many freight cars to carry my oranges to the eastern markets.”
“And what a job to pick them all!” exclaimed Patsy.
“We don’t pick them,” said Arthur. “I sell the crop on the trees and the purchaser sends a crew of men who gather the fruit in quick order. They are taken to big warehouses and sorted into sizes, wrapped and packed and loaded onto cars. That is a separate branch of the business