whirled into a chilly rain, whipped along by a raw wind. The skies were
black and all the spring verdure was turned to a sickish gray-green.

"Weather always fit the times," Aunty Boone commented as she heaped my
plate with the fat buckwheat cakes that only she could ever turn off a
griddle. "You packin' up for somepin' now. What you goin' to get is
fo'casted in this here nasty day."

"Why, we _are_ going away!" I cried, suddenly recalling the day before.
"I wish, though, that Mat could go. Wouldn't you like to go, too, Aunty?
Only, Bev says there's deserts, where there's just rocks and sand and
everything, and no water sometimes. You and Mat couldn't stand that
'cause you are women-folks."

I stiffened with importance and clutched my knife and fork hard.

"Couldn't!" Aunty Boone gave a scornful grunt. "Women-folks stands
double more 'n men. You'll see when you get older. I know about you
freightin' off to Santy Fee. _You_ don't know what desset is. _You_
never _see sand_. You never _feel_ what it is to _want watah_. Only
folks 'cross the ocean in the real desset knows that. Whoo-ee!"

I remembered the weird tales she had told us of her girlhood--tales that
had thrilled me with wonder--told sometimes in the twilight, sometimes
by the kitchen fire on winter nights, sometimes on long, still,
midsummer afternoons when the air quivered with heat and the Missouri
hung about hot sand-bars, half asleep.

"What do you know about this trip, Aunty Boone?" I asked, eagerly; for
although she could neither read nor write, she had a sponge-like