Sam Pardee came out of his abstraction long enough to emit a roar of laughter and an unsatisfactory explanation. "I was thinking of oil in wells, not in cruets. Millions of barrels of oil, not a spoonful. Crude, not olive."
She saw her child, her peace, her linen closet threatened. "Sam Pardee, you don't mean——"
"Oklahoma. That's what I meant by oil. It's oozing with it."
Real terror leaped into Milly Pardee's eyes. "Not Oklahoma. Sam, I couldn't stand——" Suddenly she stiffened with resolve. Maxine's report card had boasted three stars that week. Oklahoma! Why, there probably were no schools at all in Oklahoma. "I won't bring my child up in Oklahoma. Indians, that's what! Scalped in our beds."
Above Sam Pardee's roar sounded Maxine's excited treble. "Oo, Oklahoma! I'd love it."
Her mother turned on her, almost fiercely. "You wouldn't."
The child had thrown out her arms in a wide gesture. "It sounds so far away and different. I like different places. I like any place that isn't here."
Milly Pardee had stared at her. It was the father talking in the child. Any place that isn't here. Different.
Out of years of bitter experience she tried to convince the child of her error; tried, as she had striven for years to convince Sam Pardee.
"Places are just the same," she said, bitterly, "and so are people, when you get to 'em."