“Does happen to be up, honey. Also, I wouldn’t have to sell a steer to git you what you need. But if I did, and beef was down to half price—and it would take the price of a herd—I’d sell. Uncle Hank’s little girl needs a new set of harness, complete—and she’s going to have it, too.” CHAPTER X THE CARRIAGE After that visit to Mesquite there was never any reason for complaint of Hilda’s neatness at school. The Mrs. Johnnie, that Uncle Hank had thought might be classed as a “local seamstress,” had made up the stuff they took her into plenty of dresses and undergarments, while as to stockings and shoes, now when she ran out of an evening to ride with Uncle Hank she had on such as even a rattlesnake might respect. These rides in of an evening, on the front of Uncle Hank’s saddle, with Buckskin going very slowly and soberly, were still the times best worth while out of all the day. Hilda always came primed with her day’s news, small happenings about the ranch or at school. But there arrived an evening when she burst forth somewhat incoherently, and quite breathlessly, while she was yet climbing on the boot-toe. “We can get it—can’t we, Uncle Hank?” “I ’spect so,” the old man agreed, looking down into the flushed, eager little face as he hauled her up cautiously into his arms. Then he added, as a casual afterthought, “Get what, Pettie?” “Oh—I forgot you didn’t know.” Hilda squirmed herself into a comfortable position. “Clarkie Capadine says the Three C’s is going to try. Kennie Tazewell, he says it’s every fellow for himself. And so we can get it—you just now said we could.” She sat astride the high-pommeled saddle in front of the old man, her head against his chest. He smiled and slipped his left hand under the pointed chin. “What you think you’re talking about, honey?” he inquired. Hilda tipped her head back further and glanced briefly up at him. “The carriage,” she said. “Clarkie told us about it at recess. It’s got sea springs—sea springs, like waves, Uncle Hank.” (The small brown hands paddled about in the air to piece out a vocabulary that failed to undulate in the required luxurious manner.) “Sea springs, and ‘the best of material everywhere in its construction.’” (Smooth going here on a direct quotation from some manufacturer’s catalogue.) “Honey,” said Hank with a little drop in his tone, “I’d love to buy a carriage for the Sorrows—land knows, we need it, with the ambulance a staggering cripple like it is—one leg broke, an arm in a sling, both eyes blacked and an ear chawed off—but we ain’t got the money. You see, Capadine’s fixed differently, Pettie. He could buy a carriage for his folks any day.” Hilda had hung in rapt silence upon that fascinating description of the ambulance, a characterization whose every feature she recognized perfectly; but now she broke in: