The Coolidge examiner., 1932-06-10
The Good Gift
By ALICE ROUNDY

IA OLO-NOD MOANANAS, young, Well
n born, well-bred, prettily blond
and extremely conventional, sat on
a tuft of Buffalo grass gazing over
the broad Montana plains. She was
awaiting the coming of Eric Will
oughby, a young ranchman of Eng
lish descent, who was the only man
in the world who dared to shorten
her distinguished name to Nora. He
had requested her to await him here
in the shade of a windmill not far
from the ranch house. From his,
manner she believed that he was
going to ask her to marry him. This
she knew to be impossible because
she was the only and adored child
of wealthy parents who believed
that no man was quite good enough
for her.
Presently she beheld him ap-
preaching at a gallop on his superb,
horse, the pick Of the range
Reaching her side, he threw him.
self off the horse, leaving him to.
Craze, and seated himself on the.
ground near her. Without prelim-
inaries, as if he were continuing
a line of thought, he said, Marriage
seems to me the grave of freedom"
$50 is everything in life, if one
allows it to be-" replied Autonoe,
dOgmatically. 1--WE are chained to.
ourselves"
81 have been interested in you,
ever since your Uncle Johnnie first
told me about you and said that he
was going East to rescue YOU"
AutOnOe gazed at him in amaze
ment. HE said that you were like
a lizard waiting to cast its skin.
Eyes shut. The whole of you en-
cased In the dead cuticle of your
parents prejudices and fears and
culture. And unless you could be
freed. you would have no life of
your own"
At the smack of his words, his
manner of uttering them, Autonoe-
felt the lizard skin crack from top.
to bottom.
II cannot understand" she re-
marked plaintively, why a man'
when he proposes, should make him
self so disagreeable."
II am not proposing to you," as
serted Eric sharply.
Certainly you are. And the an
swer is (very plumply) no."
He smiled acridly.
"At least you are alive" he said,
land 1 sometimes have doubtedl
that. l do not wish to hurt your
vanity, but my thoughts at pres
ent are occupied by very different
type of woman. A Mexican, a dancer
in a cafe. superbly dark-I prefer
brunettes."
Since he loathed poetry, Autonoe-
began to quote from a poem as
Greek as her name.
Eric, as If stung unendurably,
sprang to his feet and began to-
tighten Polimino's cinch.
Eric yanked on his horses head;
and threw himself into the saddle.
Surprised, Polimino reared to his
full height, an appalling wall Of
flesh. Eric sat like rock, fearless.
in perfect control.
The horses feet once more on
earth, Eric said fiercely, with a
swift glance at AutonOe's useless
hands:
"A ranchman's wife must be up,
at dawn, and put in fourteen hour
day. She must scrub, cook, laun-
der her mans clothes, mend them.
feed the dogs and serve every
stranger that hallos the house"
Then, with a lift of the rein and
a touch of the spur, he sent Poll
mino forward in a swift gallop.
Autonoe, turning her back upon
him, returned to the house to find
her Uncle Johnnie. A middle-aged,
prosperous ranchman, with peculiar
ly steady eyes, he was resting from'
labor on the wide piazza in COM
Portable chair and watching O dis
tant scene. One of his men in a.
flivver, rounding up straying cattle,
and another flying overhead in q
small airplane, surveying fences.
HIS Mexican wife, not older than.
he but deplorably wrinkled, was.
waiting on him slavishly.
Sinking into chair beside him.
Autonoe said soberly:
"Uncle Johnnie, l want Aunty
Pepita to teach me to cook, and
scrub, and feed the dOgs-and
and"
Her uncle looked at her with
perfect understanding.
"You mustn't mind anything that
Eric says at present" he said, sooth-
ing. ''He is awfully stirred up by
the ideas which you represent be-
cause they are like those which he
himself had when he first came out
here. But he seems to have LOST
them in this rough life and he has
been in danger of marrying at low
level" with fitting glance at his
own wife). But if he has begun to-
quarrel with you, he is saved. And