o more windows and
built on an addition with a porch, if you please. And he has a
bookcase he made himself, just stuffed with books and magazines. And
he made Marthy a rocking-chair, mommie, and--she wears a white apron,
and has her hair combed, and sits and rocks! Honest to goodness, you
wouldn't think she was the same woman."

"Marthy always seemed to me more like a man than a woman," said her
mother. "She didn't have nothing domestic in her whole make-up, far as
I could see. Her cooking--"

"Well, mommie, Marthy cooks real well now. Charlie praises up her
bread, and she takes lots of pains with it. And she just fusses with
her flowers and lets him run the ranch; and, mommie, she just worships
Charlie! The way she sits and looks at him when he's talking--you can
see she almost says prayers to him. She does let her dishpan stay
greasy--I don't suppose you can change a person completely--but
everything is lots cleaner than it used to be before Charlie came.
He's going to buy more cattle, too, he says. Young stock, mostly. He
says there's no sense in anybody being poor, in such a country as this.
He says he intends to make Marthy rich; Aunt Martha, he calls her. I'm
certainly going to take you over to see her, mommie, the very first
nice day when I don't have a million other things to do." Billy Louise
sighed and pushed her hair back impatiently. "I wish I were a man and
as smart as Charlie Fox," she added, with the plaintive note that now
sometimes crept into her voice when she realized of a sudden how great
a load she was carrying.

"A man can get out and do things. And a woman--why, even Ward seems to
think it's perfectly wonderful, mommie, that we don't just about
starve, with me running the ranch! I know he does. Every time I do a
thing right or pay off a note or anything, he looks as if--"

"I wouldn't be a mite surprised, Billy Louise," said her mother, with a
flash of amused comprehension, "if you kinda misread Ward sometimes.
Them eyes of his are pretty keen, and they see a whole lot; but they
ain't easy to read, for all that. I guess Ward don't think it's
anything surprising that you're getting along so well, Billy Louise. I
surmise he knows you're a better manager than a lot of men are."

"I'm not the manager Charlie Fox is, though." Billy Louise was frankly
envious.

"He didn't have any more to do with than I've got, and he's
accomplished a lot more. And, besides, he started in gre