"
Helen May bit her lip. "Then I'll tell him," she said, still more
demurely.
Secretly she hoped that he would rise to the bait, but he apparently
accepted her words in good faith and went on telling her just how to
range goats far afield in good weather so that the grazing in the Basin
itself would be held in reserve for storms. It was a very grave error,
said Holman Sommers, to exhaust the pasturage immediately contiguous to
the home corral. It might almost be defined as downright improvidence.
Then he forestalled any resentment she might feel by apologizing for his
seeming presumption. But he apprehended the fact that she and her brother
were both inexperienced, and he would be sorry indeed to see them suffer
any loss because of that inexperience. His practical knowledge of the
business was at her service, he said, and he should feel that he was
culpably negligent of his duty as a neighbor if he failed to point out to
her any glaring fault in their method.
Helen May had felt just a little resentful of the words downright
improvidence. Had she not walked rather than spend money and grass on a
horse? Had she not daily denied herself things which she considered
necessities, that she might husband the precious balance of Peter's
insurance money? But she swallowed her resentment and thanked him quite
humbly for his kindness in telling her how to manage.
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