the Twenty-sixth_

I've got Struthers in jumpers, and she's learning how to handle a
team. Whinnie laughed at her legs, and said they made him think
a-muckle o' a heron. But men are scarce in this section, and it looks
as though Alabama Ranch was going to have a real wheat crop. Whinnie
boasts that we're three weeks ahead of Casa Grande, which, they tell
me, is taking on a neglected look.

I've had no message from my Dinky-Dunk, and no news of him. All day
long, at the back of my brain, a nervous little mouse of anxiety keeps
nibbling and nibbling away. Last night, when she was helping me get
the Twins ready for bed, Struthers confided to me that she felt sure
Lady Alicia and my husband had been playmates together in England at
one time, for she's heard them talking, and laughing about things that
had happened long ago. But it's not the things that happened long ago
that are worrying me. It's the things that may be happening now.

I wonder what the fair Lady Alicia intends doing about getting her
crop off. Sing Lo will scarcely be the man to master that problem....
The Lord knows I'm busy enough, but I seem to be eternally waiting for
something. I wonder if every woman's life has a larval period like
this? I've my children and Bobs. Over my heart, all day long, should
flow a deep and steady current of love. But it's not the kind I've a
craving for. There's something missing. I've been wondering if
Dinky-Dunk, even though he were here at my side, would still find any
"kick" in my kisses. I can't understand why he never revealed to me
the fact that he and Lady Allie were playmates as children. In that
case, she must be considerably older than she looks. But old or young,
I wish she'd stayed in England with her croquet and pat-tennis and
broom-stick-cricket, instead of coming out here and majestically
announcing that nothing was to be expected of a country which had no
railway porters!

_Wednesday the First_

The departed Peter has sent back to us a Victrola and a neatly packed
box of records. Surely that was kind of him. I suppose he felt that I
needed something more than a banjo to keep my melodious soul alive. He
may be right, for sometimes during these long and hot and tiring days
I feel as though my spirit had been vitrified and macadamized. But I
haven't yet had time to unpack the music-box and get it in
working-order, though I've had a look through the records. There are
quit