"Fancy living there!" exclaimed Esther, "in a nice little bungalow, with a rustic summer-house, and a tennis lawn, and a swimming pool, and a few perfectly darling——"
"Kids to feed, and mend for, and wash," snapped her mother.
"——Lambs, I was going to say, mamma," corrected Esther. She was blushing like a rose. "Oh, how can people exist in cities!"
"How can they exist out here; that's what I want to know. Someone who is clever"—casting a sidelong, scornful look at her husband—"kindly tell me that. This isn't a page in a novelette, my girl, if you think it is. Day after day money going out, and nothing coming in; it's wicked."
Sam guided the horses round a clump of Saskatoon brush, and rose brush, which screened some freshly-excavated badger holes.
"You've 'it the blinkin' nyle on the 'ead, missis. People can't eat trees, an' sloughs, an' lawn tennis"—and observing the gladsome pair on the rear seat basking in each other's presence, Sam added mischievously—"nor love, neither."
Presently, after choosing a few more ideal building sites; and after murdering some of the more ravenous of the mosquitoes; and after Martha Trailey had lectured at considerable length to a very unsympathetic audience on the disagreeable topic of first getting hold of some money before they could spend it, they found themselves emerging into a different kind of country.
Swamps became less frequent; trees more scattered; wide stretches of undulating prairie spread out all round them; and, instead of the skyline being limited to a view over the top of smudges of budding red willow, it occasionally extended to enormous distances.
"I'm sure we've gone far enough," complained Trailey for the twentieth time. He was examining his watch again, and wondering, seemingly, what was preventing the hands from moving.
"All right, guv'ner," said Sam; "there ain't much daht abaht it nah. We've bin travellin' four 'ours and an' 'alf, ter myke up fer dodgin' rahnd them sloughs back there," and the little man pulled his own watch out and exposed it to the gaze of his admiring friends. "Hinglish lever," he explained, proudly, "made in Switzerland—bought it orff'n a Rushin' Jew fer thirty bob; runs like a blinkin' top, not 'alf, it don't. Lissen to it tickin'!"