d
be no wheat for that binder to cut and no sheaves for that carrier to
bear, that the extent of what had befallen Alabama Ranch once more
came fully home to me. It takes time to digest such things, just as it
takes time to reorganize your world. The McKails, for the second time,
have been cleaned to the bones. We ought to be getting used to it, for
it's the second time we've gone bust in a year!

It wasn't until yesterday morning that any kind of perspective came
back to us. I went to bed the night before wondering about Dinky-Dunk
and hoping against hope that he'd come galloping over to make sure his
family were still in the land of the living. But he didn't come. And
before noon I learned that Casa Grande had not been touched by the
hail. That at least was a relief, for it meant that Duncan was safe
and sound.

In a way, yesterday, there was nothing to do, and yet there was a
great deal to do. It reminded me of the righting up after a funeral.
But I refused to think of anything beyond the immediate tasks in hand.
I just did what had to be done, and went to bed again dog-tired. But I
had nightmare, and woke up in the middle of the night crying for all I
was worth. I seemed alone in an empty world, a world without meaning
or mercy, and there in the blackness of the night when the tides of
life run lowest, I lay with my hand pressed against my heart, with the
feeling that there was nothing whatever left in existence to make it
worth while. Then Pee-Wee stirred and whimpered, and when I lifted him
into my bed and held him against my breast, the nearness of his body
brought warmth and consolation to mine, and I remembered that I was
still a mother....

It was this morning (Sunday) that Dinky-Dunk appeared at Alabama
Ranch. I had looked for him and longed for him, in secret, and my
heart should have leapt up with gladness at the sight of him. But it
didn't. It couldn't. It was like asking a millstone to pirouette.

In the first place, everything seemed wrong. I had a cold in the head
from the sudden drop in the temperature, and I was arrayed in that
drab old gingham wrapper which Dinkie had cut holes in with Struthers'
scissors, for I hadn't cared much that morning when I dressed whether
I looked like a totem-pole or a Stoney squaw. And the dregs of what
I'd been through during the last two days were still sour in the
bottom of my heart. I was a Job in petticoats, a mutineer against man
and God, a nihilist and an I. W