“Might be,” said Linda carelessly. “For why?”
“Haven’t you heard of the big sensation that is being made in feminine circles by the new department in Everybody’s Home?” inquired Donald. “Mother and Mary Louise were discussing it the other day at lunch, and they said that some of the recipes for dishes to be made from stuff the Indians used sounded delicious. One reminded them of cress, and when we saw the cress I wondered if I could get them some of the other.”
“Might,” said Linda drily, “if you could give me a pretty good idea of what it is that you want.”
“When you know cress, it’s queer that you wouldn’t know other things in your own particular canyon,” said Donald.
Linda realized that she had overdone her disinterestedness a trifle.
“I suspect it’s miners’ lettuce you want,” she said. “Of course I know where there’s some, but you will want it as fresh as possible if you take any, so we’ll finish our day first and gather it the last thing before we leave.”
How it started neither of them noticed, but they had not gone far before they were climbing the walls and hanging to precarious footings. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes brilliant, her lips laughing, Linda was showing Donald thrifty specimens of that Cotyledon known as “old hen and chickens,” telling him of the rare Echeveria of the same family, and her plunge down the canyon side while trying to uproot it, exulting that she had brought down the plant without a rift in the exquisite bloom on its leaves.
Linda told about her fall, and the two men who had passed at that instant, and how she had met them later, and who they were, and what they were doing. Then Donald climbed high for a bunch of larkspur, and Linda showed him how to turn his back to the canyon wall and come down with the least possible damage to his person and clothing. When at last both of them were tired they went back to the car. Linda spread an old Indian blanket over the least flower-grown spot she could select, brought out the thermos bottles and lunch case, and served their lunch. With a glass of fruit punch in one hand and a lettuce sandwich in the other, Donald smiled at Linda.
“I’ll agree about Katy. She knows how,” he said appreciatively.
“Katy is more than a cook,” said Linda quietly. “She is a human being. She has the biggest, kindest heart. When anybody’s sick or in trouble she’s the greatest help. She is honest; she has principles; she is intelligent. In her spare time she reads good books and magazines. She knows what is going on in the world. She can talk intelligently on almost any subject. It’s no disgrace to be a cook. If it were, Katy would be unspeakable. Fact is, at the present minute there’s no one in all the world so dear to me as Katy. I always talk Irish with her.”