“I know it, Jim. I told you this morning, I’m broke. I was going to sell out, move out. I was going to try to teach school, or something, over East somewhere. Jim, it’s awful to be poor.”
“It’s awfuler when you ain’t been always, Miss Taisie.”
“But I’ll not be, now! We’re going to drive!”
“You say so, ma’am. It sounds so easy!”
“Why can’t we? Tell me? Haven’t I got cow hands working for me? Haven’t I got fifty thousand cows in the T. L.? You say sixty-five thousand. Isn’t the world full of grass and water north of here? Didn’t you hear what he told you—hasn’t my father told you—that there’s a whole other world waiting up north, not a man nor a cow nor a horse in it, hardly; just waiting? Jim, the time to make money is when times are bad. If we haven’t got cash we’ve got sand. This may be a time of despair or a time of opportunity. It’s always been that way, all over the world. When some despair others win—if they’ve sand to do it.”
“You talk like a book I read oncet, ma’am. It was full of maximuns.”
Taisie stamped her foot.
“We’ll put up a herd and trail it! I’ll go along! We’ll be utterly broke—or else we’ll win!”
“You can’t go along, Miss Taisie. No woman could.”
“But I will!”