`` Real reckless , Phil . Anyhow , let 's put on our despised rubber boots and sally out for a wade . '' `` Here 's Jim Nash coming on horseback down the trail , '' I said . `` Let 's wait and see if he 's got the mail . '' We hurried down , Kate humming , `` Somewhere the sun is shining , '' solely , I believe , because she knew it aggravated me . At any other time I should probably have thrown a pillow at her , but just now I was too eager to see if Jim Nash had brought any mail . I had come from Ontario , the first of September , to visit Uncle Kenneth Morrison 's family . I had been looking forward to the trip for several years . My cousin Kate and I had always corresponded since they had `` gone west '' ten years before ; and Kate , who revelled in the western life , had sung the praises of her adopted land rapturously and constantly . It was quite a joke on her that , when I did finally come to visit her , I should have struck the wettest autumn ever recorded in the history of the west . A wet September in Saskatchewan is no joke , however . The country was almost `` flooded out . '' The trails soon became nearly impassable . All our plans for drives and picnics and inter-neighbour visiting -- at that time a neighbour meant a man who lived at least six miles away -- had to be given up . Yet I was not lonesome , and I enjoyed my visit in spite of everything . Kate was a host in herself . She was twenty-eight years old -- eight years my senior -- but the difference in our ages had never been any barrier to our friendship . She was a jolly , companionable , philosophical soul , with a jest for every situation , and a merry solution for every perplexity . The only fault I had to find with her was her tendency to make parodies . Kate 's parodies were perfectly awful and always got on my nerves .
She was dreadfully ashamed XXXXX the way the Saskatchewan weather was behaving after all her boasting .
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