“I live in them. It’s so hot,” shrugged Mrs. Hardin.
“However do you manage to get them washed?”
Mrs. Hardin did not think it necessary to relate her struggles, nor her chagrin to find that no one thought important the delivery of her weekly wash to Yuma. Only because she would resent possible comment did she refrain from recounting her trials with Indian washerwomen. She recalled some tattered experiments that she had made—
“I’ll look like your maid, Gerty!” Innes’ exclamation was rueful. “I didn’t bring anything but khakis.”
“If that isn’t just like you, Innes Hardin!”
“Why, I thought of you as living in the most primitive way; as roughing it! Oh, yes! I remember throwing in, the last minute, two piqués to fill up space. But I never dreamed I’d need them.”
“Why, we have dances on the Delta, and Sunday evening concerts; you’ll be surprised how gay we are. You knew the work at Laguna Dam is being held up? The government men of the Reclamation Service are down here all the time. But it’s time to be getting ready.”
“You’ll be ashamed of your sister. Tom’s going, of course?”
“There’s no ‘of course’ about Tom, he does just as he feels like.”
Later, Tom flatly refused to accompany them.