Harry Peterson hung on her every word.
"Really? You busted broncs?!"
"Well, only once. But I was quite good. Only my Pa slaughtered me. He locked me in my room and said I had to wear dresses and work in the house."
"And what's wrong with wearing dresses?"
"I loathed it. I still don't like it much, although I will wear one for things like this."
"Why, when you look so beautiful in one?"
"Oh, stop it. I'm not beautiful."
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And this beholder thinks you are."
"You are rather forward, sir," she said, although her heart skipped a beat.
"I apologize, Miss. Although I cannot help but tell the truth. I expect all the other beholders think the same."
"I wish you wouldn't tease."
"I'm not teasing. As for working in the house, don't you do that anyway?"
"No, I help my brothers."
"What doing?"
"Everything they do. You see, I'm strong. I'm good with the horses and learned all the skills they had. My brother, Adam, says I work twice as hard as anyone else. I'm very bad in the house. I can't do anything. I break things, burn things, and Hop Sing is always yelling at me. Pa says it's because I don't try but that's only partly true. I have tried in the past but I'm just useless. Anyway, I hate it so much."
"You are a very unusual young woman."
"That's been said. I don't know how it happened, I guess it was growing up with three brothers. I always did everything Little Joe did and Pa forgot I was a girl half the time. By the time he remembered it was too late although he did try to make me more feminine." She laughed. "It didn't work, though."
"So you didn't go to school?"
"You mean finishing school? No. I'd've died. It means I couldn't have re-roofed the lean-to by the barn the other day and wonderful jobs like that."
"You re-roofed the barn?!"
"No, the lean to. And I only helped. But then Hoss got called away so I did quite a bit of it on my own. I kinda got roped into it. I was working with the horses and Hoss got me to give him a hand."
"You shouldn't josh people, Miss Cartwright."
"I ain't joshing!"
"Girls don't do jobs like that."
"Well, I do!" she said indignantly.
"I find it hard to believe. Unless I saw it for myself."
She was getting angry. "I'll show you if you like."
"I would love to see."
She innocently led him out into the yard. Guests had spilled out onto the verandah and mingled among the twinkling lights that shone out into the night. She did not realize she was leading him away from the crowd toward the darkness of the barn. Her brothers were preoccupied with their dance partners and had taken their eyes off her. She forgot her father's strictures about being alone with a man. As far as she was concerned, Harry was a buddy she was showing her work to. She started showing him the smart new roof, rounding the corner so he could see the more complicated construction of the gable at the back. It was too late for her to realize it had all been pre-planned.
