bout the bare wooden walls--and decided that before the
winter came those walls would be painted and papered, or I'd know the
reason why. Then I aired the bedding and mattress, and unpacked my
brand-new linen sheets and the ridiculous hemstitched pillow-slips that
I'd scurried so frenziedly about the city to get, and stowed my things
away on the box-shelves, and had Olie pound the life out of the
well-sunned pillows, and carefully remade the bed.

And then I went at the living-room. And it was no easy task,
reorganizing those awful shelves and making sure I wasn't throwing away
things Dinky-Dunk might want later on. But the carnage was great, and
all afternoon the smoke went heavenward from my fires of destruction.
And when it was over I told Olie to go out for a good long walk, for I
intended to take a bath. Which I did in the wash-tub, with much joy and
my last cake of Roger-and-Gallet soap. And I had to shout to poor
ambulating Olie for half-an-hour before I could persuade him to come in
to supper. And even then he came tardily, with countless hesitations and
pauses, as though a lady temerarious enough to take a scrub were for all
time taboo to the race of man. And when he finally ventured in through
the door, round-eyed and blushing a deep russet, he gaped at my white
middy and my little white apron with that silent but eloquent admiration
which couldn't fail to warm the cockles of the most unimpressionable
housewife's heart.

_Monday the Twenty-third_

My Dinky-Dunk is back--and oh, the difference to me! I kept telling
myself that I was too busy to miss him. He came Saturday night as I was
getting ready for bed. I'd been watching the trail every now and then,
all day long, and by nine o'clock had given him up. When I heard him
shouting for Olie, I made a rush for him, with only half my clothes on,
and nearly shocked Olie and some unknown man, who'd driven Dinky-Dunk
home, to death. How I hugged my husband! My husband--I love to write
that word. And when I got him inside we had it all over again. He was
just like a big overgrown boy. And he put the table between us, so he'd
have a chance to talk. But even that didn't work. He smothered my
laughing in kisses, and held me up close to him and said I was
wonderful. Then we'd try to get down to earth again, and talk sensibly,
and then there'd be another death-clinch. Dinky-Dunk says I'm worse
than he is. "Of course it's all up with a man," he confessed, "when h