The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prairie Child, by Arthur Stringer

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Title: The Prairie Child

Author: Arthur Stringer

Illustrator: E. F. Ward

Release Date: April 6, 2009 [EBook #28514]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: We gathered wood and made a fire]

THE PRAIRIE CHILD

By ARTHUR STRINGER

Author of

"Are All Men Alike and the Lost Titian," "The Prairie Mother,"
"The Prairie Wife," "The Wine of Life," "The Door of Dread,"
"The Man Who Couldn't Sleep," etc.

[Illustration]

With Frontispiece by

E. F. WARD

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with The Bobbs-Merrill Company

Printed in U. S. A.

Copyright 1922

The Pictorial Review Company

Copyright 1922

The Bobbs-Merrill Company

Printed in the United States of America

THE PRAIRIE CHILD

_Friday the Eighth of March_

"But the thing I can't understand, Dinky-Dunk, is how you ever
_could_."

"Could what?" my husband asked in an aerated tone of voice.

I had to gulp before I got it out.

"Could kiss a woman like that," I managed to explain.

Duncan Argyll McKail looked at me with a much cooler eye than I had
expected. If he saw my shudder, he paid no attention to it.

"On much the same principle," he quietly announced, "that the Chinese
eat birds' nests."

"Just what do you mean by that?" I demanded, resenting the fact that
he could stand as silent as a December beehive before my morosely
questioning eyes.

"I mean that, being married, you've run away with the idea that all
birds' nests are made out of mud and straw, with possibly a garnish
of horse hairs. But if you'd really examine these edible nests you'd
find they were made of surprisingly appealing and succulent tendrils.
They're quite appetizing, you may be sure, or they'd never be eaten!"

I stood turning this over, exactly as I've seen my Dinkie turn over an
unexpectedly rancid nut.

"Aren't you, under the circumstances, being rather st