Chapter Four
The visitors from Laramie followed Gordy as he led the way to the second floor carrying Daisy's luggage. The rest of it was piled in the front hallway. Slim and Jess grabbed their bags, and Mike's, and followed their host up the stairs where he showed them to the rooms they would occupy during their visit.
Their first stop was a room papered in dark green, with cream colored curtain at the windows. There was a four poster bed with a cream colored canopy, a large dresser with a white pitcher and basin sitting on it and a small table with two chairs next to the front window. A painting of a large flower garden hunt on the wall and there was a big closet for Daisy's dresses to hang in.
"Mother insisted on this room being decorated for female company," Gordy told her. "We hope you'll be comfortable in it."
"I'm sure I'll be quite comfortable in here," Daisy smiled. "It's lovely."
The men, and Mike, left her to get settled as Gordon McAllister took them to the room they would share. It was a large room, furnished with a set of bunk beds and a single camp bed, all with good feather mattresses. There was a full sized dresser and a small chest of drawers.
Seeing their raised eyebrows Gordy explained, "My sister, Aileen, has three boys between the ages of nine and thirteen. The usually share this room when they visit so Mother tends to keep it set up like this."
The walls were cream colored with royal blue drapes at the windows. A picture of snow covered mountains hung on one wall. There were identical wash basins and pitchers on each dresser. Thick blue towels hung on racks attached to the walls near them. Each bed had a dark blue bedspread on it. Blue rugs were on the floor next to the beds as protection for bare feet during cold weather.
"Looks nice, Gordy," Slim said as they put their bags down near the dressers. "Your mother always did have good taste."
"Good, and simple besides," McAllister agreed "There's nothing fancy or pretentious about her decorations or furniture. Simple and serviceable. She always said it wouldn't have been practical to have a lot of fancy stuff in the house with so many kids running around."
"I can believe that," Slim chuckled. "Besides you and your siblings there was me and a bunch of other kids from the area in and out all the time."
"Yep. Running. Jumping. Chasing the girls with whatever creatures we could get our hands on."
"Except snakes," The tall blond said. "She like to have taken the hide off us for picking up snakes. Seems to me we had to settle for worms."
"Yes, we did," the redhead agreed. "Never bothered Cam though. She was just so much one of the boys that she was more apt to get revenge somehow than run screaming to my mother."
Jess listened carefully hoping to hear something to hold over his partner's head later. Mike just listened wide eyed. He found these stories to be more in keeping with his image of his new friend than the girl he'd seen down in the kitchen.
"I'll leave you three - and Mrs. Cooper - to unpack and clean up. Lunch will be ready in about thirty minutes at this point. I'll see you downstairs."
With that Gordon McAllister took his leave and went to his own room, down the hall, to clean up before going back downstairs.
Automatically Jess gravitated to the upper bunk and boosted himself up. Slim oversaw Mike's unpacking before tending to his own clothes and such.
"Jess."
"Yeah."
"Don't you think you should unpack and clean up before we go down for lunch?"
"I reckon." The dark haired cowboy came awake at that. "For a bunk bed that sure is comfortable."
"Mrs. McAllister wouldn't have it any other way," his partner responded.
"Slim." Mike's voice was plaintive.
"Yeah Mike?"
"I'm hungry!"
"Lunch will be ready soon. Why don't you go see if Daisy's ready to go down?"
"Okay."
"How could he possibly be hungry?" Jess wondered. "He just had cookies and milk less than an hour ago."
"I could ask you the same thing some days," Slim joked. "You're like a bottomless pit that food just disappears into."
"Very funny," Jess groused with a sour look at his friend.