inkie lamenting audibly over a scratch on his hand
at least seven days old. He insisted that I should kiss it, and, after
witnessing that healing touch, was perfectly satisfied. And there's no
reason why grown-ups should be more childish than children themselves.

One thing that I've been missing this year, more than ever before, is
fresh fruit. During the last few days I've nursed a craving for a tart
Northern-Spy apple, or a Golden Pippin with a water-core, or a juicy
and buttery Bartlett pear fresh from the tree. Those longings come
over me occasionally, like my periodic hunger for the Great Lakes and
the Atlantic, a vague ache for just one vision of tumbling beryl
water, for the plunge of cool green waves and the race of foam. And
Peter overheard me lamenting our lack of fruit and proclaiming I could
eat my way right across the Niagara Peninsula in peach time. So when
he came back from Buckhorn this afternoon with the farm supplies, he
brought on his own hook two small boxes of California plums and a
whole crate of oranges.

It was very kind of him, and also very foolish, for the oranges will
never keep in this hot weather, and the only way that I can see to
save them is to make them up into marmalade. It was pathetic to see
little Dinkie with his first orange. It was hard to persuade him that
it wasn't a new kind of ball. But once the flavor of its interior
juices was made known to him, he took to it like a cat to cream.

It brought home to me how many things there are my kiddies have had to
do without, how much that is a commonplace to the city child must
remain beyond the reach of the prairie tot. But I'm not complaining. I
am resolved to be happy, and in my prophetic bones is a feeling that
things are about to take a turn for the better, something better than
the humble stewed prune for Dinkie's little tummy and something better
than the companionship of the hired help for his mother. Not that both
Peter and Whinnie haven't a warm place in my heart! They couldn't be
better to me. But I'm one of those neck-or-nothing women, I suppose,
who are silly enough to bank all on a single throw, who have to put
all their eggs of affection in one basket. I can't be indiscriminate,
like Dinkie, for instance, whom I found the other day kissing every
picture of a man in the Mail-Order Catalogue and murmuring "Da-da!"
and doing the same to every woman-picture and saying "Mummy." To be
lavish with love is, I suppose, the prero