She would once again have to adjust herself to
the dull male perceptions which saw and heard nothing that was not
visible and audible. She would have to shut herself in with her own
problems, getting no support or sympathy unless she asked for it, and
then, before its sources could be tapped, she would have to explain why
she wanted it and demonstrate that she was a deserving object.
And it was hard to break the budding friendship with Lucy and Bella,
for friendships were not long making on the Emigrant Trail. One day's
companionship in the creaking prairie schooner had made the three women
more intimate than a year of city visiting would have done. They made
promises of meeting again in California. Neither party knew its exact
point of destination--somewhere on that strip of prismatic color, not
too crowded and not too wild but that wanderers of the same blood and
birth might always find each other.
In the evening the two girls sat in Susan's tent enjoying a last
exchange of low-toned talk. The rain had stopped. The thick, bluish
wool of clouds that stretched from horizon to horizon was here and
there rent apart, showing strips of lemon-colored sky.
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