“Take the lines, Aydelot, and let me visit with Thaine,” Horace Carey said, giving Asher the reins.
He was fond of children and children were more than fond of him. Thaine idolized him and snuggled up in his lap now with complete contentment of soul.
“Tell me all about it now, Thaine. Where have you been so long? I might have missed you down on the Sunflower Ranch this morning if I had driven faster and headed off the through train as it came in.”
“Oo-o!” Thaine groaned at the possible disaster to himself. “We’ve been to Topeka, a very long way off.”
“And you saw so many fine things?” Carey questioned.
“Yes, a big, awful big river. And a bridge made of iron. And it just rattled when we went across. And there were big pieces of the Statehouse lying around in the tall weeds. And such greeny green grass just everywhere. And, and, oh, the biggest trees. So many, all close together. Papa said it was like Ohio. Oh, so big. I 142 never knew trees could grow so big, nor so many of them all together.”
Little Thaine spread his short arms to show how wondrous large these trees were.
“He has never seen a tree before that was more than three inches through, except two or three lonesome cottonwoods. The forests of his grandfather’s farm in Ohio would be gigantic to him. How little the prairie children know of the world!” Asher declared.
Dr. Carey remembered what Jim Shirley had told him of that lost estate in Ohio, and refrained from comment.
“You’d like to live in Topeka where the big Kaw river is, and the big trees along its banks, and so much green grass, wouldn’t you, Thaine?”