“I could make us some boots.” He said that undoubtedly there was a place for a man like him who could make leather things. Cowboys were particular about their clothes, he had heard; that is, not dandified, but they liked expensive wool shirts and Stetson hats and since they hadn’t for the most part any family to support, they could spend all their wages on clothes and Schnaps. He dwelt for a long time on their emancipation and prosperity; sometimes, for variety, he called them “the punchers” until I became quite breathless and pleaded to go at once.

I returned him from his rapture. He looked down at me through the sad gloom. “Well, now, Mädchen, when will you be ready to go?”

“Now!” It did not occur to me that we could not go the moment we had agreed on our destination, for, being altogether unacquainted with travel, I was not aware that it cost anything. I supposed, moreover, that if we needed money for our dinner on the train (I already saw myself eating a pork chop and as many bananas as I wanted) he, like Betty Brunson’s father, the dentist, could “sell a bond.” For this, I believed was the prerogative of a father. Whenever anyone said, “I wish I had a ukulele,” or “I wish I had a solid gold barrette,” Betty would reply, “Why don’t you ask your father to sell a bond? Daddy always does.” I had always had the vague idea that my father’s bonds would be German and therefore less easily disposed of but that in an emergency he could market them.

“I am thinking,” he said with a sigh, “that it might be better if I went on first and got things lined up, you might say, and then sent for you. By that time I would have the corral built and have you a nice little palomino horse. It’s a long way out there. You would get sleepy.”

“How far?”

“Maybe as far as two thousand miles. I expect it’s five days or so on the train. A long, long way, Sonie girl.”

“I want to go with you, Papa. Now.”