Accustomed to cleanliness and a well-ordered household, both Christine and Alison had long held out against the suggestion that they should go to the Haleys’, for a slip-shod, down-at-heel condition, such as often obtained in Texas, characterized the place which Bud called his. Two or three negroes served to perform all the labor Bud required. For about one month in the year he devoted himself to his stock, driving his cattle into the pen, marking the calves after they were roped in, and so on. But this performance was generally made the occasion of a frolic, the neighbors flocking to the different ranchos and assisting one another when spring brought around this duty. Bud raised a little corn, a little cotton, no more than it pleased him to look after, and enough hogs to supply the family with all the pork they wanted. The house required little attention from Hannah Maria, one negro woman doing the work in her own fashion. The daily fare of corn-bread, bacon and muddy coffee was supplemented infrequently by sweet potatoes, a little milk and poor butter, a bill of fare not requiring great skill in its preparation, and a very different sort of diet from that considered necessary by the Rosses. Alison especially rebelled against it, and declared to Christine that she would rather eat Lolita’s frijoles and tortillas. “I get so desperately tired of it all,” she said. “Pone and fry and coffee, coffee and fry and pone. Nowhere to sleep but in the room where we can see the sky through the rafters. Nothing to do but to listen to Hannah Maria’s incessant chatter. It may amuse you, Tina, to talk to her and to Cynthia Thompson and Laura Van Dorn, when they come in, but as for me I get tired of them. I enjoy Lolita much more. She is really entertaining and far more lovable. Besides we teach each other many things.” So off Alison would go to spend the morning with Lolita, while Christine would turn her attention to whatever she could find to occupy her. The place was not very attractive, she was forced to agree with Alison, and though she expostulated with her sister upon her frequent abscondings, she did not blame the girl.