"Guess I'll quirl me a brownie and git into the feathers," glumly. "I thought I'd go into town in the mornin', I want to do me some buyin'."
Wallie nodded, and Pinkey added as he unhooked his heels: "You want to ride herd pretty clost on Aunt Lizzie. She's bound and determined to go outside the fence huntin' moss-agates. The cattle are liable to hook her. Canby throwed them long-horns in there on purpose."
"I'm sure of it," Wallie said, grimly. "Yes, I'll watch Aunt Lizzie. But she isn't worse than Appel, who was over there catching grasshoppers because he said they were fatter."
"Dudes is aggravatin'," Pinkey admitted. "But," philosophically, "they're our meal-tickets, so we got to swaller 'em."
As Wallie watched his partner go up the path to the bunk-house he wondered vaguely what purchase he had to make that was so important as to induce him to make a special trip to Prouty. But since Pinkey had not chosen to tell him and Wallie had a talent for minding his own business, he dismissed it; besides, he had more vital things to think about at that moment.
It had hurt him that Helene Spenceley had not been over. Obviously he had taken too much for granted, for he had thought that when she saw he was in earnest once more and in a fair way to make a success of his second venture, things would be different between them. He had imagined she would express her approval in some way, but she seemed to take it all as a matter of course. She was the most difficult woman to impress that he ever had known, but, curiously, the less she was impressed the more eager he was to impress her. Yet her casualness only spurred him to further effort and strengthened his determination to make her realize that there was a great deal in him worth while and that some day he would stand for something in the community.
But somehow he did not seem to make much progress, and now he asked himself grumpily why in the dickens he couldn't have fallen in love with Mattie Gaskett, who followed him like his shadow and had her own income, with wonderful prospects.
He scuffed at the bark on the corral pole with his foot and thought sourly of the rot he had read about love begetting love. He had not noticed it. It more often begot laughter, and his case was an instance of it. Helene Spenceley laughed at him--he was sure of it--and fool that he was--imbecile--it did not seem to make any difference. There was just one girl for him and always would be--he was like that and it was a misfortune.