there usually got rough and mannish after
they went to herding. But Lena asked Jake
and me to get off our horses and stay awhile,
and behaved exactly as if she were in a house
and were accustomed to having visitors. She
was not embarrassed by her ragged clothes,
and treated us as if we were old acquaintances.
Even then I noticed the unusual color of her
eyes -- a shade of deep violet -- and their soft,
confiding expression.

Chris Lingard was not a very successful
farmer, and he had a large family. Lena was
always knitting stockings for little brothers
and sisters, and even the Norwegian women,
who disapproved of her, admitted that she
was a good daughter to her mother. As
Tony said, she had been talked about. She
was accused of making Ole Benson lose the
little sense he had -- and that at an age
when she should still have been in pinafores.

Ole lived in a leaky dugout somewhere at the
edge of the settlement. He was fat and lazy
and discouraged, and bad luck had become a
habit with him. After he had had every other
kind of misfortune, his wife, "Crazy Mary,"
tried to set a neighbor's barn on fire, and was
sent to the asylum at Lincoln. She was kept

[[188]]

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v?