CHAPTER VIII

JEAN SPOILS SOMETHING

Jean found the padlock key where she had hidden it under a rock ten
feet from the door, and let herself into her room. The peaceful
familiarity of its four walls, and the cheerful patch of sunlight lying
warm upon the faded rag carpet, gave her the feeling of security and of
comfort which she seldom felt elsewhere.

She wandered aimlessly around the room, brushing the dust from her
books and straightening a tiny fold in the cradle quilt. She ran an
investigative forefinger along the seat of her father's saddle, brought
the finger away dusty, pulled one of the stockings from the overflowing
basket and used it for a dust cloth. She wiped and polished the
stamped leather with a painstaking tenderness that had in it a good
deal of yearning, and finally left it with a gesture of hopelessness.

She went next to her desk and fumbled the quirt that lay there still.
Then she pulled out the old ledger, picked up a pencil, and began to
write, sitting on the arm of an old, cane-seated chair while she did
so. As I told you before, Jean never wrote anything in that book
except when her moods demanded expression of some sort; when she did
write, she said exactly what she thought and felt at the time. So if
you are permitted to know what she wrote at this time, you will have
had a peep into Jean's hidden, inner life that none of her world save
Lite knew anything about. She wrote rapidly, and she did not always
take the trouble to finish her sentences properly,--as if she never
could quite keep pace with her thoughts. So this is what that page
held when finally she slammed the book shut and slid it back into the
desk:

I don't know what's the matter with me lately. I feel as if I wanted
to shoot somebody, or rob a bank or run away--I guess it's the old
trouble nagging at me. I KNOW dad never did it. I don't know why, but
I know it just the same--and I know Uncle Carl knows it too. I'd like
to take out his brain and put it into some scientific machine that
would squeeze out his thoughts--hope it wouldn't hurt him--I'd give him
ether, maybe. What I want is money--enough to buy back this place and
the stock. I don't believe Uncle Carl spent as much defending dad as
he claims he did--not enough to take the whole ranch anyway. If I had
money I'd find Art Osgood if I had to hunt from Alaska to Africa--don't
believe he went to Alaska at all. Uncle Carl thinks so.... I'd like
the p