Kit’s eyes signaled to Jean, and Jean’s to Doris and Tommy. A fleeting vision of that “handy” trip to high school in the dead of winter appeared before them.
“What do you think of it, dear?” asked Mr. Craig, looking longingly up at the face of his wife. “It would be a great comfort and relief to me to get back to those old hills, but it doesn’t seem fair to you or the children. The sacrifice is too great. They do need the right kind of environment, as you say. Suppose we left Jean where she could keep up her studies, and perhaps put Kit into a private school. Then I might go up home with Becky, and you and the two younger ones could go out to California to Benita Ranch—”
But Mrs. Craig laid her fingers on his lips.
“You’re not going to banish us to Benita Ranch. If you think it is the best thing to do, Tom, we’ll all go with you. Wherever you go, I’m going.”
Doris laid her hand over Jean’s, and they stepped out softly. Their mother, they saw, needed to be alone with their father. They fled downstairs to the study back of the living room and were followed by Kit and Tommy who were already deep in an argument about the entire situation.
“I don’t think it’s right to move up there,” Doris said, judicially. “We may not like it at all, and there we’d be just the same, stuck in a rut, and maybe we never could get out of it, and we’d grow old and look just like Becky and talk like her and everything.”
“Take it easy, kid, be careful of what you say,” Kit said sharply. “Becky is odd in some ways but she influences a lot of people in her home town. And here too. I wish I had half her common sense.”
“I hate common sense,” Jean cried passionately. “I suppose it’s the only thing to do but did you see Mom’s face? It was utterly tragic. Dad’s been a country boy, and he’s going back home where he knows all about everything and loves it, but Mother’s so different.”
“I think Mom’s a darling, but she’s adaptable too, and she’ll go, you see if she doesn’t. And it won’t kill any of us. The really great mind should rise superior to its environment.”
“Let’s tell Kit that the first time she gripes about dishwashing,” Doris said. “I didn’t hear anything about Lydia going along, did you, Jean?”
“You’ll do your share all right, Kathleen, and when the gray dawn is breaking at that,” laughed Jean. “Farm life’s no snap and really, while I wouldn’t disagree with Dad and Becky about it, I think that those who have special gifts—”