She blushes rose color sometimes when Percy comes in. I think he finds a secret joy in sensing that reaction in anything so colossal. But he defends himself behind that mask of cool impersonality which is the last attribute of the mental aristocrat, no matter what his feelings may be. His attitude toward Terry, by the way, is a remarkably companionable one in view of the fact of their earlier contentions. They can let by-gones be by-gones and talk and smoke and laugh together. It is Terry, if any one, who is just a wee bit condescending. And I imagine that it is the aura of Olga which has brought about this oddly democratizing condition of affairs. She seems to give a new relationship to things, softening a point here and illuminating a point there as quietly as moonlight itself can do.
Monday the Seventeenth
Yesterday Olga carried home a whole pailful of mushrooms, for an Indian summer seems to have brought on a second crop of them. They were lovely. But she refused to eat any. I asked her why. She heaved her huge shoulders and said she didn't know. But she does, I feel sure, and I've been wondering why she's afraid of anything that can taste so good, once they are creamed and heaped on a square of toast. As for me
I love 'em, I love 'em, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that mushroom fare?
Wednesday the Nineteenth
I found myself singing for all I was worth as I did my work this morning. Dinky-Dunk came and stood in the door and said it sounded like old times. I feel strong again and have ventured to ask my lord and master if I couldn't have the weentiest gallop on Paddy once more. But he's made me promise to wait for a week or two. The last two or three nights have been quite cold, and away off, miles and miles across the prairie, we can see the glow of fires where different ranchers are burning their straw, after the wind-stackers have blown it from the threshing machines. Sometimes it burns all night long.