Western news and the Libby times. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1920-1933, 1931-08-20

the matter of her own custuming and
found herself arriving In Wichita with
trunk containing the very clothes
with which she had departed from il
almost four years earier Prominent
among these WIS a green nuns yelling
with pink ruehings Size had had
little enough use for il in these past
years.
The visit was not success. The
very things she had expected TO enjoy
fell somehow. fiat She missed the
pace. the exhilarating uncertainty Of
the Oklahoma life tfhe teaeup con-
versatinn of her girIhood friends
seemed to lack tang and meaning.
Their existence was orderly, calm. ac-
cepted. For herself and The other
women of Usage there WIS everything
still 10 do. There lay city. coun-
try. a whole vast territory to be swept
and garnished by an army OF silnbon-
nets. Paradnxically enough. she WAS
trying to impant In the red clay OF
Usage the very forms and institutions
that now bored her in Wichita. Yet 1t
was. perhaps "A very human trait. 1t
was illustrated literally by the fact
that she was. on her return. more
thrilled to find that the scrawny elm,
no larger than baby's arm. which
she had planted outside the doorway
in Usage. actually had found some
moisture for its thirsty roots, and was
at sight Of the cool glossy canopy OF
cedar. arbor vitae, sweet locust, and
crepe myrtle that shaded the Kansas
garden.
Then the children. The visiting
Venables insisted on calling CHM By
his full name-Cimarron. Sabra had
heard 1t so rarely since the day OF his
birth that she now realized, for the
first time. how foolish she had been
to yield to Yaneav's. within In the NAM
Ing OF the boy. Cimarron. Spanish;
wild, or unruly. The boy had made
such an obstreperous entrance into
the world. and Yancey had shouted. In
delight, Look at him See him kick
with his feet and strike out with his
fists! He's Wild one Heb, Cimar-
ron. Peceno Gitano."
Cinarron was almost eight now. II
it Is possible for boy OF eight to be
romantic In aspect, Cimarron Cravat
was that. His head was not large,
like Yancey's, bur long and fine, like
Sabra 's-a Venable head His eyes
were Sabra's, too. dark and large, but
they had the ardent look OF Yancey's
gray ones. and he had Yancey's alb
surdly long and curling lashes, like q
beautiful girls.
His speech was strangely adult.
This, perhaps. because of his close as
ISOLATION with his elders In those first
formative years In Usage His skin
was bronzed the color OF his fathers
He looked like a little patrician
Spaniard or perhaps 1.-THE Venables
thought privately part Indian. Then,
too, there had been few children OF
his age In the towns beginning. Sa-
bra had been. at first, too suspicious
Of such as there were. He would,
probably, have seemed rather I'M
pleasant and priggish little boy II his
voice and manner had not been en-
lowed miraculously with all the charm
and magnetism that his father pos
sessed in such disarming degree
Even little Donna was not much OF
success. The baby was an eerie
little elf. as plain as the boy was
handsome. She resembied her grand
mother, Felice venable, without
trace OF that redoubtabe matron's for
mer beauty. All In all, Sabra found
herself joyously returning TO the bar
rem burning country to which, four
years earlier. she had gone in such
dread and terror. She resented her
mothers do-this, do-that. She saw
Felice venable now, no longer as a
power, an authority In all matters of
Importance, but as sallow old lady
who tottered ON heels that were too
high and who, as she sat talking,
pleated and implicated with tremulous
fingers the many ruffles of her white
dimity wrapper. The matriarch had
lost her crown. Sabra was matriarch
now Of her own little kingdom and
already she was planning to extend
that realm beyond and beyond its
present confines into who knows what
vastness OF demesne.
She had meant, at the last, to find
occasion to inform her mother and
the minor venables that 1t was she
who ironed Yancey's fine white linen
shirts. But she was not spiteful
woman. And she reflected that this
might be construed as criticism OF
her husband.
So. gladly, eagerly. Sabra went back
to the wilds she once had despised.
ITO hp continued