I told Dinky-Dunk I wanted two new window-frames, beaverboard for inside lining, and two gallons of paint. I have also demanded a lean-to, to serve as an extra bedroom and nursery, and a brand-new bunk-house for the hired “hands” when they happen to come along. I have also insisted on a covered veranda and sleeping porch on the south side of the shack, and fly-screens, and repairs to the chimney to stop the range from smoking. And since the cellar, which is merely timbered, will have to be both my coal-hole and my storage-room, it most assuredly will have to be cemented. I explained to Dinky-Dunk that I wanted eave-troughs on both the shack and the stable, for the sake of the soft-water, and proceeded to point out the need of a new washing-machine, and a kiddie-coop for Poppsy and Pee-Wee as soon as the weather got warm, and a fence, hog-tight and horse-high, about my half-acre of kitchen garden.
Dinky-Dunk sat staring at me with a wry though slightly woebegone face.
“Look here, Lady-Bird, all this sort of thing takes ‘rhino,’ which means ready money. And where’s it going to come from?”
“I’ll use that six hundred, as long as it lasts,” I blithely retorted. “And then we’ll get credit.”
“But my credit is gone,” Dinky-Dunk dolorously acknowledged.
“Then what’s the matter with mine?” I demanded. I hadn’t meant to hurt him, when I said that. But I refused to be downed. And I intended to make my ranch a success.
“It’s still quite unimpaired, I suppose,” he said in a thirty-below-zero sort of voice.
“Goose!” I said, with a brotherly pat on his drooping shoulder. But my lord and master refused to be cheered up.
“It’s going to take more than optimism to carry us through this first season,” he explained to me. “And the only way that I can see is for me to get out and rustle for work.”
“What kind of work?” I demanded.