en at the
whole business." She rested her chin in her cupped palms and stared
disconsolately at the high-piled hills behind which the sun was setting
gloriously. "He's going to pipe water into the house, mommie," she
observed, after a silence. "I wish--"

"Well, he's welcome. I don't want no water piped in here, Billy
Louise, and tastin' of the pipe. I'd rather carry it and have it sweet
and fresh. Don't you go worrying because you can't do everything
Charlie Fox does. Likely as not he's pilin' up the debts instead of
payin' 'em off as you're doing."

"I don't know; I don't believe he is, though. I think he's just
managing right and making every dollar count. He got calves from
Seabeck, up the river, cheaper than I did from Johnson, mommie. He
rode all over the country and looked up range conditions and prices.
He didn't say so, but he made me feel foolish because I just bought the
first ones I saw, without waiting to look around first. But--Ward said
it was a good buy, and he ought to know; only, the fact remains that
Charlie has done better. I guess it isn't experience that counts,
altogether. Charlie Fox has got brains!"

"Land alive! I guess he ain't the only one, Billy Louise. You're
doing better than your father done, and he wasn't any Jase Meilke kind
of a man, but a good, hard worker always. You don't want to get all
outa conceit with yourself just because Charlie Fox is gitting along
all right. I don't know as it's so wonderful. Marthy was always
forehanded, and she made money there and never spent any to speak of.
Though I shouldn't carry the idea she's stingy, after the way she--"

If Billy Louise had not been so absorbed with her own discontent, she
might have wondered at her mother's sudden silence. But she did not
even notice it. She was comparing two young men and measuring them
with certain standards of her own, and she was not quite satisfied with
the result. She had seen Charlie Fox spring up with a perfectly
natural courtesy and hand Marthy a chair when she entered the room
where he had been discussing books with Billy Louise. She had seen him
stand beside his own chair until Marthy was seated and then had heard
him deftly turn the conversation into a channel wherein Marthy had also
an interest. Parlor politeness--and something more; something
infinitely finer and better than mere obedience to certain conventional
rules.

She had seen that and more, and she had a vivid pic