The treacherous April showers came on us when we got into the country and drove us into a deserted cabin on an abandoned weed-grown farm. I built a fire in the old fireplace. We found a couple of homemade three-legged stools in a corner and in a box nailed to the wall there was the greasiest pack of cards I ever saw. We got a board that we put on the stools, making a table, and played casino. The roof leaked in a hundred places, the cabin was full of smoke, the rain beat in from all sides, and Julia won every game. She chattered away through it all, and hoped there would be “a regular cyclone.” Discouraged, I threw the cards in the fire. We were half wet and watery-eyed from the smoke, the horses pawed restlessly in the leaky shed behind the cabin. Julia laughed at me and accused me of being a bad loser. I couldn’t think of anything else, so I said: “Oh, I’m half starved, and there’s nothing to eat within miles of here.”

She was just a healthy young animal, always hungry like myself, and the thought of food, especially when it was so far away, started her to raving. Nothing would do but we must head for home. The afternoon was half gone, the rain let up, and the sun shone again. I stamped and beat out the fire.