Rowena
sat in her ragged dress, her burst shoes drawn in under her skirt,
looking at her family with an expression of unconcealed scorn. When she
got a chance to speak to me, she did so in a very friendly manner.
"Did you ever see," said she, "such a set of darned infarnal fools as we
are?"
Before the evening was over, however, and she had hidden herself away in
her clothes under a thin and ragged comforter in their wagon, she had
joined in the discussion of their castle in Spain in a way that showed
her to be a legitimate Fewkes. She spoke for a white saddle horse, a
beautiful side-saddle, a long blue riding-habit with shot in the seam,
and a man to keep the horse in order. She wanted to be able to rub the
horse with a white silk handkerchief without soiling it. Ah, well!
dreams hovered over all our camps then. The howling of the wolves
couldn't drive them away. Poor Rowena!
CHAPTER VIII
MY LOAD RECEIVES AN EMBARRASSING ADDITION
I still had some corn for my cattle, of the original supply which I had
got from Rucker in Madison. Hay was fifteen dollars a ton, and all it
cost the producer was a year's foresight and the labor of putting it up;
for there were millions of acres of wild grass going to waste which made
the sweet-smelling hay that old horsemen still prefer to tame hay. It
hadn't quite the feeding value, pound for pound, that the best timothy
and clover has; but it was a wonderful hay that could be put up in the
clear weather of the fall when the ground is dry and warm, and cured so
as to be free from dust.
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