at with its promise of harvest, and I am surrounded by
people who love and respect me. But it doesn't seem enough. Coiled in
my heart is one small disturbing viper which I can neither scotch nor
kill. Yet I decline to be the victim of anything as ugly as jealousy.
For jealousy is both poisonous and pathetic. But I'd like to choke
that woman!

Yesterday Lady Alicia, who is now driving her own car, picked up Peter
from his fire-guard work and carried him off on an experimental ride
to see what was wrong with her carbureter--the same old carbureter!
She let him out at the shack, on her way home, and Struthers witnessed
the tail end of that _enlevement_. It spoilt her day for her. She
fumed and fretted and made things fly--for Struthers always works
hardest, I've noticed, when in a temper--and surrendering to the
corroding tides which were turning her gentle nature into gall and
wormwood, obliquely and tremulously warned the somewhat startled Peter
against ungodly and frivolous females who 'ave no right to be
corrupting simple-minded colonials and who 'ave no scruples against
playing with men the same as a cat would play with a mouse.

"So be warned in time," I sternly exclaimed to Peter, when I
accidentally overheard the latter end of Struthers' exhortation.

"And there are others as ought to be warned in time!" was Struthers'
Parthian arrow as she flounced off to turn the omelette which she'd
left to scorch on the cook-stove.

Peter's eye met mine, but neither of us said anything. It reminded me
of cowboy honor, which prompts a rider never to "touch leather," no
matter how his bronco may be bucking. And _omelette_, I was later
reminded, comes from the French _alumelle_, which means ship's
plating, a bit of etymology well authenticated by Struthers' skillet.

_Wednesday the Twenty-third_

Summer is here, here in earnest, and already we've had a few scorching
days. Haying will soon be upon us, and there is no slackening in the
wheels of industry about Alabama Ranch. My Little Alarm-Clocks have me
up bright and early, and the morning prairie is a joy that never grows
old to the eye. Life is good, and I intend to be happy, for

I'm going alone,
Though Hell forefend,
By a way of my own
To the bitter end!

And our miseries, after all, are mostly in our own minds. Yesterday I
came across little D