ht."

"Oh, yes," says she placid, "Nelson Lindholm. We had Sanskrit together."

"Eh?" says I. "Sans-which? What kind of a disease is that?"

"It's a language," explains Ruby. "We were in the same class. I thought
it might help me in my foreign mission work. I'm sure I don't know why
Nelson took it, though. He was studying electrical engineering."

"Maybe it was catchin', at that," says I. "Where was all this?"

"At the Co-ed," says Ruby. "But then I'd known Nelson before. He's from
Naukeesha too."

"Come again," says I. "From what?"

"Naukeesha," repeats Ruby, just as if it was some common name like
Patchogue or Hoboken.

"Is that an island somewhere," says I, "or just a mixed drink?"

"Why," says she, "it's a town; in Wisconsin, you know."

"Think of that!" says I. "How they do mess up the map! What's it like,
this Naukeesha?"

And for the first time Ruby shows some traces of life. "It's nice," says
she, "real nice. Not at all like New York."

"Ah come, not so rough!" says I. "What you got special against our burg
here?"

Ruby lapses back into her vacant stare and sort of shivers. "It's so big
and--and whirly!" says she. "I don't like things to be whirly. Then the
people are so strange, and their faces so hard. If--if I should fall
down in one of those crowds, I'm sure they would walk right over me,
trample on me, without caring."

"Pooh!" says I. "You'll work up a rush-hour nerve in a month or so. Of
course, havin' always lived in a place like Naukeesha----"

"But I haven't," corrects Ruby. "I was born in Kansas."

"As bad as that!" says I. "And your folks moved up there later, eh?"

"No," says she. "They--they--I lost them there. A cyclone, you know."

"You don't mean," says I, "that--that----"

"Yes," says she, "Mother, Father, and my two brothers. We were all
together when it struck; that is, I was just coming in from the kitchen.
I'd been shutting the windows. I saw them all go--whirled off, just like
that. The chimney fell, big beams came down, then it was all smoky and
dark. I must have been blown through a window. My face was cut a little.
I never knew. Neighbors found me in a field by a stump. They found the
others too--laid them side by side in the wagon shed. Nothing else was
left standing. It's dreadful, being in a cyclone--the roar, you know,
and things coming at you in the dark, and that feeling of being lifted
and whirled. I was only twelve; but I--I can't forget. And when I'm in
b