The Coolidge examiner., 1931-08-07

an echo. You hea. q ii above the
woman's shrill clamor. mo, she
isn't Felice. She's more like you
this minute than you are yourself.
She favors those pioneer women
Yancey was telling about in the old
days. Look at her"
The Venable eye, from one end
of the table to the other. turned
like a single orb in its socket to-
ward the young woman facing them
with defiance in her bearing. Not
defiance, perhaps. so much as re-
solve. Seeing her. head up, stand
ing there beside her husband. one
arm about the child. you saw that
what her father said was indeed
true. She was her mother, the
Felice Venable of two decades ago +;
she was the woman in sunbOnnet
and calico to whom Yancey had
given his cup of water; she was
the woman jOlting endless miles in
covered wagons, spinning in log
cabins, cooking over crude fires :
she was all women who have trav-
eled American prairie and deser.
and mountain and plain. The pio-
neer type. as Yancey had said. PO-
tentially a more formidable woman
than her mother.
Seeing something of this. Felice
Venable said again, more loudly, as
though to convince herself. "She's
not to 60"
Looking more than ever like her
mother. Sabra met this stubbornly.
But want TO go, mamma"
81 forbid it. You don't know
what you want. You don't know
what you're talking about. say
you'll stay here with your mother
and father in decent civilization
I've heard enough. I hope this will
serve a lesson to you, Yancey."
Tin going back to the Nation. -
said Yancey. quite pleasantly.
Sabra stiffened. "Pm going with
him" The combined Venables
nerves on edge. Ieaped in their
chairs and then looked at each 9th
er with some hostility.
"And | say you're not"
"But ! want TO go.'
"You don't"
Perhaps Sabra had not realized
until now how terribly she had
counted on her husbands return as
marking the time when she would
be free TO leave the Venable board
to break away from the Venable
clan; no more to be handled. talked
! over. peered at by the Venable eye
and most of all by the maternal
Venable eye. Twenty-one, and the
yoke Of her mothers dominance was
beginning to gall her. Now. at heT
own inner rage and sickening dis
appointment, all the iron in heT
fused and hardened. 1t had gone
less often TO the fire than the older
woman's had. For the first time
| this quality in her met that of hel
mother. and the metal of the Older
women bent.
Il will 60" said Sabra Cravat.
If anyone had been looking al
Lewis Venable at that moment
(Which no one ever thought of do
ing) he could have seen a ghostly
smile mOmentarily irradiating the
transparent ivory face. But now II
was Yancey Cravat who held their
fascinated eye. With cowboy yiI
he swung the defiant Sabra and the
boy Cim high in the air in his great
arms-tossed them up, so thai
Sabra screamed, and Cim squealeC
in mingled terror and delight.
week from tomorrow. an
nounced Yancey. in something like
shout. so exulting it seemed
"We1l start on Monday. fresh and
fair. Two wagons. One with the
printing outfit-yOu'll drive that
Sabra-and one with the household
goods and bedding and camp stuff
and the rest. We ought to make il
in nine days. Wichita (" His
glance went round the room, and
in that glance you saw not only
Wichita ! but Venables 'Ive had
enough Of it, Sabra. my girl, we'll
leave all the middle-class respecta-
bility of Wichita. Kan. behind us
We're going out. by Cd, to 9
brand new, twO-fsted, rip-snortine
country, full of Injuns and rattle
snakes and twO-gun tOters and gyp
water and desper-ah- dos Whoop-ee y
CHAPTER q