Page:So Big (1924).djvu/214

 “But why should he? It’s a little twenty-five-acre truck farm, and half of it under water a good deal of the time.”

“Pa’ll find a use for it, never fear. He won't say much, but he’ll think of things. And then everything will be all right.”

“It’s miles. Miles. Way out in High Prairie.”

“Well, if you could make it with those horses, Selina, I guess we can with Pa’s two grays that hold a record for a mile in three minutes or three miles in a minute, I forget which. Or in the auto, though Pa hates it. Michael is the only one in the family who likes it.”

A species of ugly pride now possessed Selina. “I don’t need help. Really I don’t, Julie dear. It’s never been like to-day. Never before. We were getting on very well, Pervus and I. Then after Pervus’s death so suddenly like that I was frightened. Terribly frightened. About Dirk. I wanted him to have everything. Beautiful things. I wanted his life to be beautiful. Life can be so ugly, Julie. You don’t know. You don’t know.”

“Well, now, that’s why I say. We'll be out to-morrow, Pa and I. Dirk’s going to have everything beautiful. We'll see to that.”

It was then that Selina had said, “But that’s just it. I want to do it myself, for him. I can. I want to give him all these things myself.”

“But that’s selfish.”

“I don’t mean to be. I just want to do the best thing for Dirk.”