ato. I could see that I'd hurt him, and
hurt him a lot. My first impulse was to run to him with a shower of
repentant kisses, as one usually does, the same as one sprinkles salt on
claret stains. But in him I beheld the original and entire cause--and I
just couldn't do it. He called me a high-spirited devil with a
hair-trigger temper. But he left me alone to think things out.

_Tuesday the Ninth_

I've started to say my prayers again. It rather frightened Dinky-Dunk,
who sat up in bed and asked me if I wasn't feeling well. I promptly
assured him that I was in the best of health. He not only agreed with
me, but said I was as plump as a partridge. When I am alone, though, I
get frightened and fidgety. So I kneel down every night and morning now
and ask God for help and guidance. I want to be a good woman and a
better wife. But I shall never let Duncan know--never!

_Wednesday the Seventeenth_

Do you remember Aunt Harriet who always wept when she read _The Isles of
Greece_? She didn't even know where they were, and had never been east
of Salem. But all the Woodberrys were like that. Dinky-Dunk came in and
found me crying to-day, for the second time in one week. He made such
valiantly ponderous efforts to cheer me up, poor boy, and shook his head
and said I'd soon be an improvement on the Snider System, which is a
system of irrigation by spraying overnight from pipes! My nerves don't
seem so good as they were. The winter's so long. I'm already counting
the days to spring.

_Thursday the Twenty-fifth_

Dinky-Dunk has concluded that I'm too much alone; he's been worrying
over it. I can tell that. I try not to be moody, but sometimes I simply
can't help it. Yesterday afternoon he drove up to Casa Grande, proud as
Punch, with a little black and white kitten in the crook of his arm.
He'd covered twenty-eight miles of trail for that kitten! It's to be my
companion. But the kitten's as lonesome as I am, and has been crying,
and nearly driving me crazy.

_Tuesday the Second_

The weather has been bad, but winter is slipping away. Dinky-Dunk has
been staying in from his work, these mornings, helping me about the
house. He is clumsy and slow, and has broken two or three of the dishes.
But I hate to say anything; his eyes get so tragic. He declares that as
soon as the trails are passable he's going to have a woman to help me,
that this sort of thing can't go on any longer. He imagines it's mer