“In Marchton, that’s a little town near the Atlantic Ocean,” she replied.
“What’s an ocean?” he wanted to know.
“Why an ocean is a--um--a big body of water,” she said.
“Somethin’ like a lake, huh?”
“Something like it, only much bigger,” she assured him. “Don’t you learn about oceans in school?”
“I don’t go to school,” he replied.
“Why not?” Gale asked.
“Cause my Mother hasn’t any money for my clothes or books,” he answered brightly. “Anyway, I’m goin’ to be a cowboy when I get big and I don’t haveta know much for that.”
“Wouldn’t you like to go to school?” she persisted.
He bent over his knife and the wood he was whittling. “Aw, shucks,” he said. “Course I would. But I can’t. I talk to the riders a lot an’ Tom and Virginia too. They tell me stories and Virginia teaches me ’rithmetic sometimes.”