Dessie changed the subject, forced the change. “You know, I had quite a time at the last,” she said. “Mother wanted to come. Have you ever seen Mother cry, Tom?”

“No, not that I can remember. No, she’s not a crier.”

“Well, she cried. Not much, but a lot for her—a choke and two sniffles and a wiped nose and polished her glasses and snapped shut like a watch.”

Tom said, “Oh, Lord, Dessie, it’s good to have you back! It’s good. Makes me feel I’m well from a sickness.”

The horses spanked along the county road. Tom said, “Adam Trask has bought a Ford. Or maybe I should say Will sold him a Ford.”

“I didn’t know about the Ford,” said Dessie. “He’s buying my house. Giving me a very good price for it.” She laughed. “I put a very high price on the house. I was going to come down during negotiations. Mr. Trask accepted the first price. It put me in a fix.”

“What did you do, Dessie?”

“Well, I had to tell him about the high price and that I had planned to be argued down. He didn’t seem to care either way.”

Tom said, “Let me beg you never to tell that story to Will. He’d have you locked up.”

“But the house wasn’t worth what I asked!”

“I repeat what I said about Will. What’s Adam want with your house?”

“He’s going to move there. Wants the twins to go to school in Salinas.”

“What’ll he do with his ranch?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

Tom said, “I wonder what would have happened if Father’d got hold of a ranch like that instead of Old Dry and Dusty.”

“It isn’t such a bad place.”

“Fine for everything except making a living.”

Dessie said earnestly, “Have you ever known any family that had more fun?”

“No, I don’t. But that was the family, not the land.”

“Tom, remember when you took Jenny and Belle Williams to the Peachtree dance on the sofa?”

“Mother never let me forget it. Say, wouldn’t it be good to ask Jenny and Belle down for a visit?”

“They’d come too,” Dessie said. “Let’s do it.”

When they turned off the county road she said, “Somehow I remember it differently.”

“Drier?”

“I guess that’s it. Tom, there’s so much grass.”

“I’m getting twenty head of stock to eat it.”

“You must be rich.”

“No, and the good year will break the price of beef. I wonder what Will would do. He’s a scarcity man. He told me. He said, ‘Always deal in scarcities.’ Will’s smart.”

The rutty road had not changed except that the ruts were deeper and the round stones stuck up higher.

Dessie said, “What’s the card on that mesquite bush?” She picked it off as they drove by, and it said, “Welcome Home.”

“Tom, you did it!”

“I did not. Someone’s been here.”

Every fifty yards there was another card sticking on a bush, or hanging from the branches of a madrone, or tacked to the trunk of a buckeye, and all of them said, “Welcome Home.” Dessie squealed with delight over each one.