" A boy was walking
through the filaria. He was carrying a hatchet and an ax, and he
looked tired, though it was early in the day.
"I guess Cousin Harriet doesn't know how hard working on the alkali
patch is," he murmured softly. "She isn't like mother:"
The boy's head dropped, and a sob escaped him.
"I wish mother hadn't died;" he said chokingly. "Most every boy has
a mother."
He tried to stop crying, but it was hard, for he was overworked, and
he was only twelve years old.
Six months before this, his mother had died. Several weeks alter her
death, Claude's father had been called East on business; and had
left the boy and his younger sisters Rose and Daisy on a ranch owned
by Cousin Harriet, several miles from the children's former home. It
had been very hard for the children to part from their father so
soon after their mother's death, but he told them that while the
business that called him East would take a number of months, yet
there was some prospect that their mother's own sister, Aunt Jennie,
with her husband and little boy, would come with Claude's father on
his return. Then they could all live together at the dear home
place. So the stay at Cousin Harriet's would not probably be
perpetual.
Cousin Harriet was a widow. She looked after her ranch with great
diligence. She had several hired men and women, and the ranch was a
very busy place.
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