Her Man of the Desert, she remembered, had not given her advice, though he must have seen how badly she needed it.  He had asked her where her dog was, taking it for granted, apparently, that she would have one.  But when she had told him about not buying the dog, he had not said another word about it.  And he had not said anything about their letting the goats eat up all the grass in the Basin, first thing, instead of saving it for bad weather.  This Holman Sommers, she decided, was awfully kind, even if he did talk like a professor or something; kinder than her desert man.  No, not kinder, but perhaps more truly helpful.

At the house he told her just how to fix a “coolereupboard” under the lone mesquite tree which stood at one end of the adobe cabin.  It was really very simple, as he explained it, and he assured her, in his scientific terminology, that it would be cool.  He went to the spring and showed her where she could have Vic dig out the bank and fit in a rock shelf for butter.  He assured her that she was fortunate in having a living spring so near the house.  It was, he said, of incalculable importance in that country to have cold, pure water always at hand.

When he discovered that she was a stenographer, and that she had her typewriter with her, he was immensely pleased, so pleased that his eyes shone with delight.

“Ah! now I see why the fates drove me forth upon the highway this morning,” said he.  “Do you know that I have a large volume of work for an expert typist, and that I have thus far felt that my present isolation in the desert wastes was an almost unsurmountable obstacle to having the work done in a satisfactory manner?  I have been engaged upon a certain work on sociological problems and how they have developed with the growth of civilization.  You will readily apprehend that great care must be exercised in making the copy practically letter perfect.  Furthermore, I find myself constantly revising the manuscript.  I should want to supervise the work rather closely, and for that reason I have not as yet arranged for the final typing.

“Now if you care to assume the task, I can assure you that I shall feel tremendously grateful, besides making adequate remuneration for the labor involved.”

That is the way he put it, and that is how it happened that Helen May let herself in for the hardest piece of work she had ever attempted since she sold gloves at Bullocks’ all day and attended night school all the evening, learning shorthand and typewriting and bookkeeping, and permitting the white plague to fasten itself upon her while she bent to her studies.

She let herself in for it because she believed she had plenty of time, and because Holman Sommers was in no hurry for the manuscript, which he did not expect to see completed for a year or so, since a work so erudite required much time and thought, being altogether different from current fiction, which requires none at all.