"Really, Rob, I don't know what you mean." Her tone showed that her pride was hurt. "I thought I was very economical."
"It's not very economical to throw out a tin of milk that's only been used twice—and to cut fresh bacon for fry fat, when there's an old rind hanging on the wall. It's those little things that count up in the long run. I'm not kicking, but since you said you'd like to help, that's as good a way as any."
"And yet you suggest my staying out here. Really, if I'm such a poor manager as you say, I think I'd better go back at once."
"What's the use of talking like that? I guess it's lonesomeness that makes you grouchy. You ought to get out and see some of the other ranchwomen. Why don't you go over to Robinson's. It's only three miles from here, and she'd be tickled to death to have you go to see her."
"Why doesn't she come first? She's been here longer than I have."
"They don't pay much attention to that formal sort of nonsense out here," said Rob. "If you were sick they'd come and nurse you for a week; but most of them have a raft of children, and chores to do besides."
Whistling cheerfully, he went out to his work. Harriet flushed with anger. How rude Rob was! But what could be expected when he had lived so long among these rough Westerners?
Yet under her mortification she felt that he was right and that she was wrong. She had not realized it before. At home her mother and elder sister had provided for the household; and what Harry earned she had, quite as a matter of course, spent upon herself; of course she had had to go without many things that other girls had, and so had thought herself very economical. Rob's economy was not like that. She saw now how often he saved money by fashioning something that she would have thought it necessary to buy—or by getting further use out of something that she would have thrown away. She knew that his was the real spirit of economy.
Nevertheless, she was angry with him, and began to write a homesick letter to her mother. She was deep in a recital of her woes, when a voice interrupted her.
"This Holliday's ranch?" it inquired.