re are stories and pictures in them."

"No, I don't want none. We-alls cain't read, 'cept Ma, an' she's got a
book--an' a bible, too," she added, with a touch of pride. "Davey, he
kin mos' read, an' he kin drawer pitchers, too. Reckon he'll be a
preacher when he's grow'd up, like Preacher Christie. He done read
outen a book when he babitized us-uns. I don't like to read. Ma, she
aimed to learn me onct, but I'd ruther shuck beans."

"Maybe you didn't keep at it long enough," suggested Patty.

"Yes, we did! We kep' at hit every night fer two nights 'til hit come
bedtime. I cain't learn them letters--they's too many diffe'nt ones,
an' all mixed up."

Patty smiled, but she did not toss the magazines into the fire.
Instead she laid them aside with the resolve that when opportunity
afforded, she would carry on the interrupted education.

Microby's literary delinquency in no wise impaired her willingness to
work. She had inherited none of her father's predilection toward
eternal rest, and all day, side by side with Patty, she scraped, and
scoured, and scrubbed, and washed, until the little cabin and its
contents fairly radiated cleanliness. The moving in was great fun for
the mountain girl. Especially the unpacking of the two trunks that
resisted all efforts to lift them until their contents had been
removed. But at last the work was finished even to the arrangement of
dishes and utensils, the stowing of supplies, and the blowing up of
the air mattress that replaced the musty hay of the sheep herder. And
as the long shadows of mountains crept slowly across the little valley
and began to climb the opposite slope, Patty stood in the door of her
cabin and watched Microby mount the superannuated Indian pony and
proceed slowly down the creek, her bare feet swinging awkwardly in the
loops of rope that served as stirrups of her dilapidated stock saddle.

When horse and rider disappeared into a grove of cottonwoods, Patty's
gaze returned to her immediate surroundings--her saddle-horse
contentedly snipping grass, the waters of the shallow creek burbling
noisily over the stones, the untidy scattering of tin cans, and the
leaning panels of the old sheep corral. She frowned at the panels.
"I'll just use you for firewood," she muttered. "And that reminds me
that I've got to wake up to my responsibility as head of the
household--even if the household does only consist of one bay cayuse,
named Dan, and a tiny one-room cabin, and two fu