ters, which he is going
through for the second or third time. These adventures, I find, he later
recounts to Olie, who is slowly but surely succumbing to the poison of
the penny-dreadful and the virus of the shilling-shocker! I even caught
Dinky-Dunk sitting up over one of these blood-curdling romances the
other night, though he laughed a little as I dragged him off to bed, at
the absurdity of the situations. Terry's eyes lighted up when he saw my
books and magazines. When I told him he could take anything he wanted,
he beamed and said it would sure be a glorious winter he'd be having,
with all that book-reading when the long nights came. But before those
long nights are over I'm going to try to pilot Terry into the channels
of respectable literature.

_Saturday the Sixteenth_

I love the milky smell of my Dinky-Dink better than the perfume of any
flower that ever grew. He's so strong now that he can almost lift
himself up by his two little hands. At least he can really and actually
give a little _pull_. Two days ago our touring-car arrived. It is a
beauty. It skims over these smooth prairie trails like a yacht. From now
on we can run into Buckhorn, do our shopping, and run out again inside
of two or three hours. We can also reach the larger towns without
trouble and it will be so much easier to gather up what we need for Casa
Grande. Dinky-Dink seems to love the car. Ten minutes after we have
started out he is always fast asleep. Olga, who holds him in the back
seat when I get tired, sits in rapt and silent bliss as we rock along at
thirty miles an hour. And no wonder, for it's the next best thing to
sailing out on the briny deep!

I can't help thinking of Terry's attitude toward Olga. He doesn't
actively dislike her, but he quietly ignores her, even more so than Olie
does. I've been wondering why neither of them has succumbed to such
physical grandeur. Perhaps it's because they're physical themselves. And
then I think her largeness oppresses Terry, for no man, whether he's
been a soldier or not, likes to be overtopped by a woman.

The one exception, of course, is Percy. But Percy is a man of
imagination. He can realize that Olga is more than a mere type. He
agrees with me that she's a sort of miracle. To Terry she's only a mute
and muscular Finnish servant-girl with an arm like a grenadier's. To
Percy she is a goddess made manifest, a superhuman body of superhuman
vigor and beauty and at the same time a bo