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Domestic existence at the Three Sorrows was, in those days, a very unsettled affair. Came the day that sullen Chinaman left. Charles Van Brunt had ridden to Mesquite. All the boys were out on the range and the baby was asleep upstairs. Hilda and Aunt Val were alone with the problem. The little girl stood by, while to Miss Van Brunt’s protests, which finally came to be almost hysterical, the yellow man made brief response: “No can do. Velly lonesome.” And though the lady pleaded with him for quite a distance down the long avenue of box elder and black locust, he walked stolidly away in those boat-shaped shoes of his. His lips were tightly shut, his blouse tightly buttoned across a resolute bosom, and his queue tightly coiled around a skull which housed the working machinery of a mind with which poor Aunt Val had never been able to establish communication, nor Hilda to get upon friendly terms.

Uncle Hank himself got supper that evening, but he remarked somewhat humorously that he couldn’t spare himself to cook. He persuaded Missouri into donning an apron and going to work in the kitchen.