Lize was touched by this action of her proud daughter, and smiled sadly. "This is no place for you. It's nothin' but a measly little old cow-town gone to seed--and I'm gone to seed with it. I know it. But what is a feller to do? I'm stuck here, and I've got to make a living or quit. I can't quit. I ain't got the grit to eat a dose, and so I stagger along."
"I've come back to help you, mother. You must let me relieve you of some of the burden."
"What can you do, child?" Lize asked, gently.
"Well, there's a terrible prejudice against--well, against me. And, besides, the places are all filled for the next year. The Wetherfords ain't among the first circles any more."
This daunted the girl more than she could express, but she bravely made advance. "But there must be other schools in the country."
"There are--a few. But I reckon you better pull out and go back, at least, to Sulphur; they don't know so much about me there, and, besides, they're a little more like your kind."
Lee Virginia remembered Gregg's charge against her mother. "What do you mean by the prejudice against you?" she asked.
Lize was evasive. "Since I took to running this restaurant my old friends kind o' fell off--but never mind that to-night. Tell me about things back East. I don't s'pose I'll ever get as far as Omaha again; I used to go with Ed every time I felt like it. He was good to me, your father. If ever there was a prince of a man, Ed Wetherford was him."
The girl's thought was now turned into other half-forgotten channels. "I wish you would tell me more about father. I don't remember where he was buried."
"Neither do I, child--I mean I don't know exactly. You see, after that cattle-war, he went away to Texas."
"Well, he never came back and never wrote, and by-and-by word came that he had died and was buried; but I never could go down to see where his grave was at."
"Yes; but it was a new place away down in the Pan Handle, and nobody I knew lived there. And I never knew anything more."
Lee sighed hopelessly. "I hate to think of him lying neglected down there."
"'Pears like the whole world we lived in in them days has slipped off the map," replied the older woman; and as the room was darkening, she rose and lighted a dusty electric globe which dangled from the ceiling over the small table. "Well, I must go back into the restaurant; I hain't got a girl I can trust to count the cash."