with the returns I am going to buy me a
rug and a table and some tools to work with, so I won't have to clutter
up my bedroom with my lessons and things I bring in that I want to save.
And then I am going to sell the technical stuff from the library and use
that money where it will be of greatest advantage to me. And then, Katy,
I am going to manicure the Bear Cat and I am going to drive it again."

Linda hesitated. Katy stood very still, thinking intently, but finally
she said: "That's all right; ye have got good common sense; your nerves
are steady; your pa drilled ye fine. Many's the time he has bragged to
me behind your back what a fine little driver he was making of ye. I
don't know a girl of your age anywhere that has less enjoyment than ye.
If it would be giving ye any happiness to be driving that car, ye just
go ahead and drive it, lambie, but ye promise me here and now that
ye will be mortal careful. In all my days I don't think I have seen a
meaner-looking little baste of a car."

"Of course I'll be careful, Katy," said Linda. "That car was not bought
for its beauty. Its primal object in this world was to arrive. Gee, how
we shot curves, and coasted down the canyons, and gassed up on the level
when some poor soul went batty from nerve strain! The truth is, Katy,
that you can't drive very slowly. You have got to go the speed for which
it was built. But I have had my training. I won't forget. I adore that
car, Katy, and I don't know how I have ever kept my fingers off it
this long. Today it gets a bath and a facial treatment, and when I have
thought up some way to meet my big problem, you're going to have a ride,
Katy, that will quite uplift your soul. We'll go scooting through the
canyons, and whizzing around the mountains, and roaring along the beach,
as slick as a white sea swallow."

"Now, easy, lambie, easy," said Katy. "Ye're planning to speed that
thing before ye've got it off the jacks."

"No, that was mere talk," said Linda. "But, Katy, this is my great day.
I feel in my bones that I shall have enough money by night to get me
some new tires, which I must have before I can start out in safety."

"Of course ye must, honey. I would just be tickled to pieces to let ye
have what ye need."

Linda slid her hand across Katy's lips and gathered her close in her
arms.

"You blessed old darling," she said. "Of course you would, but I don't
need it, Katy. I can sit on the floor to work, if I must, and instea