As she sat in the barn door running the straps back and forth through her hands she cast smiling eyes out at her field of corn.
“It’s going to be a big crop, Bud,” she said, “there’ll be three ears on every stalk and they’re mighty strong. We’ll pull the suckers next week and cultivate it again in ten days more—and you just watch it grow and wave its green banners.”
“It’s already waving them,” said Bud working beside her, “it sure looks fine.”
There was the pride of possession in the two young faces, the quiet joy of satisfaction in simple work well done and its reward.
“I hope,” said the girl dreamily, “I hope, Bud, that there’ll be enough left over after we pay McKane to get the carpet woven. Mammy’s got nearly enough balls already, and we can take it in to Bement in the early fall and go back after it about two weeks later.”
Bud’s eyes sparkled.
“Gee! But that would be good,” he said wistfully, “a regular holiday. I’d like to see a town again.”
“One trip I’d go with you and the next we’d make Mammy go. It’d set her up, give her something to think about all winter,” planned Nance, “she don’t get out like we do.”
So they looked ahead to the meagre joys of their poor life and were happy.
Two days later Nance again rode Buckskin to the cañon, and this time she went in the afternoon.