n is going to insist on
a revision of all our ranch names, the names so tangled up with love
and good-natured laughter and memories of the past. Take our horses
alone: Tumble-weed and timeless Tithonus, Buntie and Briquette,
Laughing-gas and Coco the Third, Mudski and Tarzanette. I'd hate now
to lose those names. They are the register of our friendly love for
our animals.

It begins to creep through this thick head of mine that my husband no
longer nurses any real love for either these animals or prairie life.
And if that is the case, he will never get anything out of prairie
living. It will be useless for him even to try. So I may as well do
what I can to reconcile myself to the inevitable. I am not without my
moments of revolt. But in those moods when I feel a bit uppish I
remember about my recent venture into astronomy. What's the use of
worrying, anyway? There was one ice age, and there is going to be
another ice age. I tell myself that my troubles are pretty trivial,
after all, since I'm only one of many millions on this earth and
since this earth is only one of many millions of other earths which
will swing about their suns billions and billions of years after I and
my children and my children's children are withered into dust.

It rather takes my breath away, at times, and I shy away from it the
same as Pauline Augusta shies away from the sight of blood. It reminds
me of Chaddie's New York lady with whom the Bishop ventured to discuss
ultimate destinies. "Yes, I suppose I shall enter into eternal bliss,"
responded this fair lady, "but would you mind not discussing such
disagreeable subjects at tea-time?"

Speaking of disagreeable subjects, we seem to have a new little
trouble-maker here at Casa Grande. It's in the form of a brindle pup
called Minty, which Dinkie--I mean, of course, which Elmer, acquired
in exchange for a jack-knife and what was left of his _Swiss Family
Robinson_. But Minty has not been well treated by the world, and was
brought home with a broken leg. So Whinnie and I made splints out of
an old cigar-box cover, and padded the fracture with cotton wool and
bound it up with tape. Minty, in the moderated spirits of invalidism,
was a meek and well behaved pup during the first few days after his
arrival, sleeping quietly at the foot of Elmer's bed and stumping
around after his new master like a war veteran awaiting his discharge.
But now that Minty's leg is getting better and he finds himself in a