Page:Good Sports (1919).djvu/139

130 know, too, what the effect is, on a woman, of years and years of hardship with mighty few good times sprinkled in, and mighty few kind words, and kind looks to warm 'em up. Flowers don't grow very plenty up in the Arctic regions, where the wind blows hard, and the sun don't shine much.

After a minute I asked, "What are you goin' to do with your fifteen dollars, Isabel?"

"I'm goin' to spend it," she spat at me, spiteful-like.

"What on?"

"On myself," she said and she was awful savage about it. "On fifteen dollars' worth of pleasure for myself."

"What sort of pleasure?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"Well," I told her, "if I can help select something for you, when I'm in the city sometime—"

"Oh, the kind of stuff you know about is nothin' I'm interested in," she said. "Jewelry, and stuff to rig myself up in would be a lot of use to me up here in this hole, wouldn't it?"

Isabel had always been awful indifferent towards the things in my suit-cases. Once I'd given her as a present a comb with rhinestones in it. Thought she might like it for her hair.