She still was ready to flare up and fight at the drop of the
hat--because, I suppose, she felt that everybody looked down on her and
her family; but to Magnus and me she was always gentle and sometimes I
thought she was going to talk confidentially to me.
After she had had one of her lessons one evening she said to me, "I
wish I wa'n't so darned infarnal ignorant. I wish I could learn enough
to teach school!"
"We're all ignorant here," I said.
"Magnus ain't," said she. "He went to a big school in the old country.
He showed me the picture of it, and of his father's house. It's got four
stone chimneys."
"I wonder," said I, "if what they learn over there is real learning."
And that ended our confidential talk.
About the time I began wondering how long they were to stay with me,
Buck Gowdy came careering over the prairie, driving his own horse, just
as I was taking my nooning and was looking at the gun which Rowena had
used to drive back the Settlers' Club, and which we had brought along
with us. I thought I remembered where I had seen that gun, and when Buck
came up I handed it to him.
"Here's your shotgun," I said. "It's the one you shot the geese with
back toward the Mississippi."
"Good goose gun," said he. "Thank you for keeping it for me. I see you
have caught me out getting acquainted with Iowa customs. If you had
needed any help that night, you'd have got it."
"I came pretty near needing it," I said; "and I had help.
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