succession of slatternly, independent young women in her kitchen,
but she found her freedom strangely flat. She detested the women
of Red Creek. Cherry went to market, to buy prunes and lard and
apples and matches again, but this took little time, and otherwise
she had nothing to do.

Now and then a play, straight from "a triumphant year on Broadway"
came to town for one night; then Martin took his wife, and they
bowed to half the men and women in the house, lamenting as they
streamed out into the sharp night air that Red Creek did not see
more such productions.

The effect of these plays was to make Cherry long vaguely for the
stage; she really did not enjoy them for themselves. But they
helped her to visualize Eastern cities, lighted streets,
restaurants full of lights and music, beautiful women fitly
gowned. After one of these performances she would not leave her
flat for several days, but would sit dreaming over the thought of
herself in the heroine's role.

One day she had a letter from Alix; it gave her a heartache, she
hardly knew why. She began to dream of her own home, of the warm,
sweet little valley whose breezes were like wine, of Tamalpais
wreathed in fog, and of the ridges where buttercups and poppies
powdered a child's shoes with gold and silver dust. Alix had been
ill, and she and Peter had been away--a few brief weeks--to
Honolulu and return. Cherry crushed the letter in her hand; she
knew suddenly that she had always been jealous of Alix. Alix wrote
gaily that she had asked Peter if he did not want to send Cherry a
kiss, and he had said that his face was too dirty; he was moving