“Centipedes don’t bite.  They grab with their toes.  My goodness, mom!  A person’s got to do something!  I don’t see what harm there is in my riding horseback in the early morning.  It’s a healthful form of exercise—­”

“It’s a darn fad, and you’ll go back to school looking like a squaw—­and serve you right.  It’s getting along towards the time when snakes go blind.  You want to be careful, Mary V—­”

“Oh, piffle!  I’ve lived here all my life, just about, and I never saw a person bitten with a snake.  And neither did you, mom, and you know it.  But, of course, if you insist on making me sit in the house day in and day out—­” Mary V cut two more slices of bread and began spreading them liberally with butter.  She looked very grieved, and very determined.

“Oh, nobody ever made you sit in the house yet.  They’d have to tie you hand and foot to do it,” came the placid retort.  “Don’t you go helping yourself to that new jelly, Mary V. The old has got to be used up first.  And you wipe off the sink when you’re through messing around.  Bedelia’s hinting that she’s going to quit when her month is up.  It don’t help me a mite to keep her calmed down when you leave a mess for her every time you go near the kitchen.  She says she’s sick and tired of cleaning up after you.  You know what’ll happen if she does quit, Mary V. You’ll be getting your ‘Desert Glimpses’ out the kitchen window for a month or so, washing dishes while we scurrup around after another cook.  Bedelia—­”

“Oh, plague take Bedelia!” snapped Mary V. But she nevertheless spent precious minutes wiping the butcher knife on Bedelia’s clean dish towel, and putting away the butter and the bread, and mopping up the splatters of loganberry jam.  Getting her “Desert Glimpses” through the kitchen window formed no part of Mary V’s plans or desires.

They seemed to Mary V to be precious minutes, although they would otherwise have been spent in the wearisome task of waiting until the ranch was asleep.  She took her jam sandwiches and pickles and cake to her room, chirping a blithe good-night to her unsuspecting parents.  Then, instead of going to bed as she very plainly indicated to those guileless parents that she meant to do, she clothed herself in her riding breeches, shirt, and coat, and was getting her riding shoes and puttees out of the closet when she heard her mother coming.

A girl can do a good deal in a minute, if she really bestirs herself.  Her mother found Mary V sitting before her dressing table with her hair hanging down her back.  She was enfolded in a very pretty pink silk kimono, and she was leisurely dabbing cold cream on her chin and cheeks with her finger tips.

“Be sure you take your goggles with you, Mary V. I notice your eyelids are all red and inflamed lately when you come in from your rides.  And do put them on and wear them if the wind comes up.  It’s easier to take a little trouble preventing sore eyes and sunburn than it is to cure them.  And don’t stay out late in the heat.”