the new place too modestly. “The ranchers out there are all
high-fliers. If we go to squeezing nickels, they won’t think we
mean business.”
The country neighbours, who were always amused at the Wheelers’
doings, got almost as much pleasure out of Ralph’s lavishness as
he did himself. One said Ralph had shipped a new piano out to
Yucca county, another heard he had ordered a billiard table.
August Yoeder, their prosperous German neighbour, asked grimly
whether he could, maybe, get a place as hired man with Ralph.
Leonard Dawson, who was to be married in October, hailed Claude
in town one day and shouted;
“My God, Claude, there’s nothing left in the furniture store for
me and Susie! Ralph’s bought everything but the coffins. He must
be going to live like a prince out there.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Claude answered coolly. “It’s
not my enterprise.”
“No, you’ve got to stay on the old place and make it pay the
debts, I understand.” Leonard jumped into his car, so that Claude
wouldn’t have a chance to reply.
Mrs. Wheeler, too, when she observed the magnitude of these
preparations, began to feel that the new arrangement was not fair
to Claude, since he was the older boy and much the steadier.
Claude had always worked hard when he was at home, and made a
good field hand, while Ralph had never done much but tinker with
machinery and run errands in his car. She couldn’t understand why
he was selected to manage an undertaking in which so much money
was invested.
“Why, Claude,” she said dreamily one day, “if your father were an
older man, I would almost think his judgment had begun to fail.
Won’t we get dreadfully into debt at this rate?”
“Don’t say anything, Mother. It’s Father’s money. He shan’t think
I want any of it.”
“I wish I could talk to Bayliss. Has he said anything?”
“Not to me, he hasn’t.”
Ralph and Mr. Wheeler took another flying trip to Colorado, and
when they came back Ralph began coaxing his mother to give him
bedding and table linen. He said he wasn’t going to live like a
savage, even in the sand hills. Mahailey was outraged to see the
linen she had washed and ironed and taken care of for so many
years packed into boxes. She was out of temper most of the time
now, and went about muttering to herself.
The only possessions Mahailey brought with her when she came to
live with the Wheelers, were a feather bed and three patchwork
quilts, interlined with wool off the backs of Virginia sheep,
washed and carded by hand. The quilts had been made by her old
mother, and given to her for a marriage portion. The patchwork on
each was done in a different design; one was the popular
“log-cabin” pattern, another the “laurel-leaf,” the third the
“blazing star.” This quilt Mahailey thought too good for use, and
she had told Mrs. Wheeler that she was saving it “to give Mr.
