"Mother put the flag in my trunk when I was leaving home. She said we'd need it to remind us of--well, days like this, when we were too busy to observe them any other way. I'm afraid if she hadn't we'd have had the big dinner and nothing else." "That's something to have, these hard times, lemme tell you," put in Pa Robinson from the rear of the wagon, where he was unloading small Robinsons. "Too late to look for rain now, and there's no more snow water to come down into the river. Looks to me like we'd all be glad to get red beans and side meat next winter." "Say! That's true, too," his wife chimed in. "What's more, pretty near every truck patch on the flat got froze down that last freeze. I tell you, I'm glad us folks live up here on the bench; even if they do laugh at us for campin' on the rim rock." "It don't look like you had any June freeze up here," said Robinson, turning to Rob, who had come up from the barn. "I ain't seen no finer stand of alfalfa on the prairie." "It would be a long sight better if the cattle that are running loose in these hills hadn't broken in so often," Rob told him. "Them scabby critters!" Robinson exclaimed in deep disgust. "I tell you right now, there's got to be something done to get rid of them scrubs." "Well, that's certainly so! We've come to the end of our patience." "It's time!" Mrs. Robinson exclaimed. "I'm to the end of mine long ago, watchin' you men folks pomper up yours and string it out to the last breath before you'll git a move on." "Oh, we know you," said Pa Robinson. "You'd be for pullin' the fuse out by the tail just as she's goin' off." "Let them have it out alone," Harry begged Mrs. Robinson. "I want you to come and look at my wool. I've washed and picked it, but it doesn't begin to look so nice as yours." When the older woman had felt the creamy strands that Harry had kept tied in a sheet, she said, "It ain't the same sort of fleece. Mine's that long, wavy Merino, and this is Southdown. Goin' to card and quilt it yourself?" "I did want to. I wanted to have a quilting bee this fall and have my quilts made up in the old-time patterns--sun flower or morning star. Like our grandmothers.' You remember, don't you?" "Do I! Ain't I seen 'em back home on the spare-room bed? But it seems we ain't got the time to do that sort of work out here." "Let's make the time, then. Start the fashion, you and I."