“We’ve forgotten to write Mr. McRae and tell him how much we like the house,” Doris said a few days later.
“He doesn’t know anything about the house, or care either,” protested Kit, struggling with some raspberry bushes that needed disentangling and tying back against the woodshed boards. “He’s never even seen it. Do you suppose he has the least bit of sentiment for it the way we have or Sally has? I wouldn’t bother to write to him.”
“Oh, I would,” Doris answered serenely. She was down on her knees hunting for four-leaf clovers. “It isn’t his fault that he’s never seen the place. Maybe we could coax him back.”
“We don’t want to coax him back. It must be our one endeavor to keep him right out there in Saskatoon forever. We must tell him the cellar’s damp and the roof leaks and the whole place has gone to rack and ruin. If we don’t he may come East and take it away from us, and we want to save up and buy it and give it back to Sally and her Mother and Buzzy.”
“What’s Buzzy’s real name?” asked Tommy irrelevantly. “I never thought to ask him.”
“He wants to study electrical engineering or else be a rancher,” Kit said. “I never asked him what his real name is. You’re awfully inquisitive, Tommy.”
“What do all boys see in ranches, I wonder,” put in Doris. “Back at the Cove, Dave Phelps always wanted to be a cowboy and he’s got to be a lawyer, his father says.”
“Maybe he’ll escape West some day and be whatever he likes. I think one of the very worst things in life is to have to be something you don’t want to be.” Kit surveyed her work. “Of course, in the ups and downs and uncertainties, as Becky would remark, we must be prepared for all things, but if you can decide what you’re best fitted for, then you ought to aim everything at that mark. If Buzzy wants to be an electrical engineer, he ought to get books now, and study them hard, and if he wants to be a rancher, he ought to go West—”
A voice came from midair apparently, overhead on the woodshed roof which Buzzy was patching with waterproof paint and tar. It was a mild and cheerful voice and showed plainly that Buzzy was personally interested in the conversation.
“I can’t go West just now, Mom needs me. But I’m going as soon as I can.”