"Think of seeing whole fields of California poppies, Carrie!"
"No, Kate, I've made up my mind." But presently she was saying: "Do you think my cocoa suit dyed black would do to travel in?" And at night she couldn't sleep for thinking of the unknown person who would have the upper berth, of deserts with cactus plants on them, and maybe cowboys, of changing at Chicago—suppose the taxi driver took her to some dreadful house?
She had to press her hands against her stomach whenever she realized that after all these years she was going to plunge into adventure. Her manner became a trifle patronizing toward acquaintances who were not going to California, but she still hardly believed she was going herself on the day they saw her off, with Joe's violets wabbling on her coat and Hoagland's chocolates under her arm.
The first thing Kate did was to clean her old palette and put her brushes to soak. And then she made a long list beginning:
Rose madder
Raw sienna"
But before she began to paint, the studio must be cleared out; and the bathroom, that still was haunted by Aunt Sarah. The hot-water bottles, the dangling red rubber tubes, the boxes and bottles and jars with
