After that there had been no houses of any sort. There was a barbed-wire fence stretching away and away until the posts were mere pencil lines against the blue, where the fence dipped over the last hill before the sky bent down and kissed the earth.
The length of that fence was appalling in a vague, wordless way, Val unconsciously drew closer to her husband when she looked at it, and shivered in spite of the midsummer heat.
“You're getting tired.” Manley put his arm around her and held her there.
“We're over half-way now. A little longer and we'll be home.” Then he bethought him that she might want some preparation for that home-coming. “You mustn't expect much, little wife. It's a bachelor's house, so far. You'll have to do some fixing before it will suit you. You don't look forward to anything like Fern Hill, do you?”
Val laughed, and bent solicitously over the suitcase, which her feet had marred. “Of course I don't. Nothing out here is like Fern Hill. I know our ranch is different from anything I ever knew--but I know just how it will be, and how everything will look.”
“Oh! Do you?” Manley looked at her a bit anxiously.
“For three years,” Val reminded him, “you have been describing things to me. You told me what it was like when you first took the place. You described everything, from Cold Spring Coulee to the house you built, and the spring under the rock wall, and even the meadow lark's nest you found in the weeds. Of _course_ I know.”
“It's going to seem pretty rough, at first,” he observed rather apologetically.
“Yes--but I shall not mind that. I want it to be rough. I'm tired to death of the smug smoothness of my life so far. Oh, if you only knew how I have hated Fern Hill, these last three years, especially since I graduated. Just the same petty little lives lived in the same petty little way, day in and day out. Every Sunday the class in Sunday school, and the bells ringing and the same little walk of four blocks there and back. Every Tuesday and Friday the club meeting--the Merry Maids, and the Mascot, both just alike, where you did the same things. And the same round of calls with mamma, on the same people, twice a month the year round. And the little social festivities--ah, Manley, if you only knew how I tong for something rough and real in my life!” It was very nearly what she said to the tired-faced teacher on the train.
