isfied. More, she's comfortable. She was always on thorns with me.
Isn't that enough about Jo?"

"Well?" Leigh queried.

"No, nothing is well yet. Leigh, let me go away to the University. Let me
make a name for myself, a world-wide name, maybe, let me fight on my
frontier line and then come back and lift the burden you carry now. I want
to do big things somewhere away from the Kansas prairies, away from the
grind of the farm and country life. Oh, Leigh, you are the only girl I
ever can really love."

He leaned forward and took her hands in his own, his dark eyes, beautiful
with the light of love, looking down into hers, his face aglow with the
ambition of undisciplined youth.

"Let me help you," he pleaded.

"It is only sympathy you offer, Thaine, and I don't want sympathy. You
said that game wouldn't win with Jo. Neither would it with me. I am happy
in my work. I'm not afraid of it. The harder part is to get enough money
to buy seed and pay interest, and Uncle Jim and I will earn that. I tell
you the mortgage must be lifted by alfalfa roots just as Coburn's book
says it will be."

There was a defiant little curve on her red lips and the brave hopefulness
of her face was inspiring.

"Go and do your work, Thaine. Fight your battles, push back your frontier
line, win your wilderness, and make a world-wide name for yourself. But
when all is done don't forget that the fight your father and mother made
here, and are making today, is honorable, wonderful; and that the winning
of a Kansas farm, the kingdom of golden wheat, bordered round by golden
sunflowers, is a real kingdom. Its sinews of strength uphold the nation."

"Why, you eloquent little Jayhawker!" Thaine exclaimed. "You should have
been an orator on the side, not an artist. But all this only makes me care
the more. I'm proud of you. I'd want you for my chum if you were a boy. I
want you for my friend, but down under all this I want you for my girl
now, and afterwhile, Leigh, I want you for my own, all mine. Don't you
care for me? Couldn't you learn to care, Leigh? Couldn't you go with me to
a broader life somewhere out in the real big world? Couldn't we come some
time to the Purple Notches and build a home for just our summer days,
because we have seen these headlands all our lives?"

Leigh's head was bowed, and the pink blooms left her cheeks.

"Thaine," she said in a low voice that thrilled him with its sweetness, "I
do care. I have always cared so much