The carriage streamed dust as they picked up speed, approaching the town’s center. They rumbled across a plank bridge above a river the width of a street, then made a quick turn to the right. They were in the business district now. Businessmen and workingmen and lady shoppers in long skirts and shirtwaists with gigantic leg-of-mutton sleeves, traversing the boardwalks in front of wood and stone buildings, turned their heads to watch as Gust sped by. Upon a closer look at the people, she spotted Native women in simple skirts and tunics and Native men, too, which surprised her. “There’s the bank,” John shouted, pointing at a two-story red stone structure with a corner door and cupola. “For God’s sake, Gust, you’re scaring Wilma to death!”

Wilma felt her sleeve brush Gust’s, and he turned to grin at her as they raced away from downtown, following the path of the river. Looking up at her brother-in-law, she was not quite conscious of the few frame houses built upon the rising hill on the left side of the dusty street, and hardly noticed a hopeful row of maple saplings. But suddenly she saw the house upon the highest hill, overlooking a bend in the river. It was majestic: three stories tall, painted a tender dove-gray and trimmed in white. In contrast to the rugged town, this house was surrounded by an immaculate lawn, flower beds, and several small trees, including a line of firs that had been planted at the western edge of the yard. It was a house fit for a prince. Someone like Gust.

“Is that—your house?” she asked him.

He laughed. “No, it’s yours,” he said.

“It’s Pa’s,” John said, and Wilma felt her breath leave her, as Gust turned the horses up the street that ran to the side of the house. He reined them in at the bottom of the driveway that led up to the carriage house.

“Now, don’t disappoint her,” Gust said. “It’s most certainly yours. All you got to do is let Pa live on the third floor. Now that Ma’s gone, it’s what he decided.”

“Really?” Wilma said.

“And there’s a whole staff that comes with it for you—two maids and a cook and a yard man,” Gust said.

John broke in. “What about the little house he was building for us?”

“I’m living in it,” Gust said. “I think Pa took a liking to Wilma, you know, when you sent her picture.”

Wilma sensed rather than saw John climb down out of the carriage.