rice of that machine I helped drag out of the sand--some people
can have anything they want but all I want is dad back, and this place
the way it was before....

If I had any brains I could write something wonderful and be rich and
famous and do the things I want to do--but there's no profit in just
feeling wonderful things; if I could make the world see and feel what I
see and feel--when I'm here, or riding alone....

If I could find Art Osgood I believe I could make him tell--I know he
knows something, even if he didn't do it himself. I believe he
did--But what can you do when you're a woman and haven't any money and
must stay where you're put and can't even get out and do the little you
might do, because somebody must have you around to lean on and tell
their troubles to.... I don't blame Aunt Ella so much--but thank
goodness, I can do without a shoulder to weep on, anyway. What's life
for if you've got to spend your days hopping round and round in a cage.
It wouldn't be a cage if I could have dad back--I'd be doing things for
him all the time and that would make life worth while. Poor dad--four
more years is--I can't think about it. I'll go crazy if I do--

It was there that she stopped and slammed the book shut, and pushed it
back out of sight in the desk. She picked up her hat and gloves, and
went out with blurred eyes, and began to climb the bluff above the
little spring, where a faint, little-used trail led to the benchland
above. By following a rock ledge to where it was broken, and climbing
through the crevice to where the trail marked faintly the way to the
top, one could in a few minutes leave the Lazy A coulee out of sight
below, and stand on a high level where the winds blew free from the
mountains in the west to the mountains in the east.

Some day, it was predicted, the benchland would be cut into squares and
farmed,--some day when the government brought to reality a
long-talked-of irrigation project. But in the meantime, the land lay
unfenced and free. One could look far away to the north, and at
certain times see the smoke of passing trains through the valley off
there. One could look south to the distant river bluffs, and east and
west to the mountains. Jean often climbed the bluff just for the wide
outlook she gained. The cage did not seem so small when she could
stand up there and tire her eyes with looking. Life did not seem quite
so purposeless, and she could nearly always find litt