“To all of you!” he said with a valiant air of finality.
I told him it was useless, but he retorted that he didn’t propose to have that stop him. I explained to him that it would be embarrassing, but he parried that claim by protesting that sacrifice was good for the soul. I asserted that it would be a good deal of a theatricality, under the circumstances, but he attempted to brush this aside by stating that what he had endured for years might be repeated by patience.
So Dinky-Dunk is coming back to Alabama Ranch! It sounds momentous, and yet, I know in my heart, that it doesn’t mean so very much. He will sleep under the same roof with me as remote as though he were reposing a thousand miles away. He will breakfast and go forth to his work, and my thoughts will not be able to go with him. He will return with the day’s weariness in his bones, but a weariness which I can neither fathom nor explain in my own will keep my blood from warming at the sound of his voice through the door. Being still his wife, I shall have to sew and mend and cook for him. That is the penalty of prairie life; there is no escape from propinquity.
But that life can go on in this way, indefinitely, is unthinkable. What will happen, I don’t know. But there will have to be a change, somewhere. There will have to be a change, but I am too tired to worry over what it will be. I’m too tired even to think of it. That’s something which lies in the lap of Time.
Saturday the Twenty-fifth
Dinky-Dunk is back. At least he sleeps and breakfasts at home, but the rest of the time he is over at Casa Grande getting his crop cut. He’s too busy, I fancy, to pay much attention to our mutual lack of attention. But the compact was made, and he seems willing to comply with it. The only ones who fail to regard it are the children. I hadn’t counted on them. There are times, accordingly, when they somewhat complicate the situation. It didn’t take them long to get re-acquainted with their daddy. I could see, from the first, that he intended to be very considerate and kind with them, for I’m beginning to realize that he gets a lot of fun out of the kiddies. Pee-Wee will go to him, now, from anybody. He goes with an unmistakable expression of “Us-men-have-got-to-stick-together” satisfaction on his little face.
But Dinky-Dunk’s intimacies, I’m glad to say, do not extend beyond the children. Three days ago, though, he asked me about turning his hogs in on my land. It doesn’t sound disturbingly emotional. But if what’s left of my crop, of course, is any use to Duncan, he’s welcome to it....
I looked for that letter which I wrote to Dinky-Dunk several weeks ago, looked for it for an hour and more this morning, but haven’t succeeded in finding it. I was sure that I’d put it between the pages of the old ranch journal. But it’s not there.
Last night before I turned in I read all of Meredith’s Modern Love. It was nice to remember that once, at Box Hill, I’d felt the living clasp of the hand which had written that wonderful series of poems. But never before did I quite understand that elaborated essay in love-moods. It came like a friendly voice, like an understanding comrade who knows the world better than I do, and brought me comfort, even though the sweetness of it was slightly acidulated, like a lemon-drop. And as for myself, I suppose I’ll continue to