Lydia carefully unbuckled the leather strap of the wicker basket propped on her lap. Just as carefully she removed two white porcelain cups, two saucers, two sterling demitasse spoons, and two white linen napkins, which she placed on the hatbox squeezed between herself and Charlotte. With the same care she lit the kerosene wick under the teapot.

This activity provided a distraction from the sameness of the landscape, which had grown less and less verdant. Soon after leaving Kansas City that morning, Lydia had begun to feel disoriented. The flatness, the vastness, was too strange, not of this world.

Charlotte definitely did not understand the difficulty involved in preparing an adequate cup of tea under such adverse circumstances. She could go on forever watching the hawks and the eagles swoop over the herds of antelope-more antelope than they had known existed.

"No, no," Lydia commanded, "you must talk to me. I haven't gone to the trouble of preparing tea only to have you go dreamy again."

"I'm not dreamy, Lydia. I'm trying to take in our new home. It's quite the most extraordinary sight I've ever seen - as mesmerizing as looking at the sea."

Then Charlotte let out a sigh. "Right now the outside is pretty overwhelming. I feel the way I did on the ship when the terror and the thrill kept crashing into each other. Don't you?"

"More so now than then," Lydia admitted. "But, this vastness is tedious. For that matter, so is the Atlantic Ocean."

Charlotte shook her head in disagreement. "Neither bores me," she replied as they continued to sway with the train; "but both make me uneasy. They seem to have no limits."

"I'm in a state of confusion," Lydia admitted.

"It is bewildering," Charlotte replied as their train pulled into a small station.

"Another tiny town," Lydia commented, "but they do break up the landscape." So far, they'd come across none that appealed to them enough to investigate to any extent.

Charlotte suggested that they stretch their legs.

"We haven't finished our tea," Lydia reminded her.

"Oh, Lydia, come! I'll make you a fresh cup when we get back."

Charlotte was already standing and Lydia followed, but her early suspicions had been confirmed: Charlotte did not fully appreciate the efforts she had put into making the tea. How could she? She might be the daughter of a countess, but things like making tea and looking at grasses came much more easily to Charlotte. On the other hand, Lydia could think of nothing that came easily to her, so many wars she waged inside herself.

Still feeling the movement of the train, Charlotte looked around the depot. "Look, Lydia, the sidewalks are built high off the ground."

"To protect the ladies' dresses from the dust and mud," explained the conductor, who had overheard.

"What a civilized idea!" Lydia responded. She then pointed out to Charlotte an opera house and a newspaper office.

"You can see the latest New York entertainment in that opera house," the conductor told them. "Well, almost the latest. The railroads encourage new towns on the rail lines to be ready-grown from day one. This one got a real good start."

The women agreed that the village looked prosperous, and it was not as windy as Chicago.

The conductor laughed. "You've caught western Kansas on a good day. Wind, it's got. And dust. In the spring you can hang your hat on the barn without a nail, and the wind will hold it there all summer." He laughed at his own joke, and they smiled politely, hoping it was meant as one. "But this place has got a river, which makes it a pretty good location, and there's stone in the ground, which makes for some fine buildings."

"You know the area?" Lydia asked him.

"I know the stationmaster, who knows everybody. This town didn't exist ten years ago, but almost from the beginning, a newspaper has made it easy to keep up with the goings-on around here." A man named Carl Huddleston, he explained, had bought the land from the railroad and marked the street corners with buffalo bones. The he banned cattle trains from coming through because he didn't want a Wild West cattle town.

Lydia and Charlotte looked at each other. "How long is our stop?" Lydia asked.

"A good hour. There's a pretty nice hotel in the next block if you ladies want a decent cup of coffee. Might even serve you supper."

Lydia raised her eyebrows, "At four-thirty?"

"Ma'am, supper comes early in these parts."

As Lydia and Charlotte strolled toward the hotel, they noticed "real buildings" the first they had seen since Wichita.

"Charlotte, do you suppose any other town will be as nice as this?"

"We've definitely gone through an awful lot of Kansas towns, and this one is definitely the most progressive. Do you suppose it will be too…you know…too refined, Lydia?

This question made Lydia laugh out loud. "Look around you." Together they took in the buildings. A few were made of the handsome local stone, but most were one-story constructions which, to Charlotte, resembled nothing so much as the sheds on her family's estate, except that there were no trees, no grass, not even as many people as there had been in her part of the French countryside.

Lydia nudged her. "See, even those stylish women over there are a good two years behind the fashion."

Charlotte, her old instinct winning out, critically scrutinized the hats, gloves, and the parasols of three women getting into a carriage. "More than two years, I'd say."

"I wasn't speaking Paris fashion, goose. I mean mopey old New York style or even Chicago."

Charlotte smiled triumphantly. "And that's because they don't care about such trivia here. You were right, Lydia, Kansas is where we belong." She was about to say more when they came upon a creek that was bounded on both sides by newly planted willow trees. They stopped walking and stared at the water, the trees, and then at each other. "Do you think this is a sign?"

"A good one." Lydia confirmed.

"It's too bad we've only just begun to look and can't stay." Charlotte shook her head.

"But we can," Lydia replied, clutching her friend's arm. "If we're to change, we should be spontaneous in our responses. You said so yourself."

"That was in Paris. We now have a plan."

"Our adventure is our plan, and Huddleston is part of our adventure."

Charlotte concurred, and the two women walked resolutely back to the depot.

George Akers, the stationmaster, assured them that Huddleston was a most progressive town. Outhouses were placed far enough away from the homes to prevent water contamination, and an ordinance required landowners to fence in livestock. Lydia, having noticed pigs and chickens and mules wandering at will in other towns, was relieved to hear that last bit of information.

He also let it be known that he was a dowser and could find underground water with the aid of his very reliable forked branch. The women looked at each other knowingly.

"I think we'll find underground springs here. This is another mystical pulling, I feel it," Charlotte whispered to Lydia, who nodded assent. Both had come to accept the notion that some mysterious force was drawing civilization westward - a theory to which many in Chicago, subscribed.

The women insisted on taking a wagon ride with George Akers before nightfall. The warning that rain was coming because the hotelkeeper's leg ached alarmed them enough to journey forth even if it meant returning after dark.

"These are sand hills," George told them. "Only ones around Huddleston. Real good for grazing, if you're serious about raising sheep…" His voice trailed off.

The hills, more like small mounds, really, interrupted the flat land, and for that Lydia was grateful. Lovely in the austerity outlined against the staccato clouds, these hills were different from anything else around.

"Turn in here," Charlotte instructed.

"No road there, ma'am."

"No brush, either. This wagon can do it," she said with authority. Reluctantly he turned to go where Charlotte had pointed between the two hills.

"A tree!" Lydia said, clapping her hands. "Charlotte, how did you know?"

"I spotted it before we came in the last hill. Now, Mr. Akers, fetch your divining rod. We shall go in search of water."

"Forgot it," he said.

"Then fashion another. There has to be a suitable branch on that cottonwood," Charlotte replied in her most polite voice, which brooked no disagreement.

Reluctantly Akers stopped his wagon and fumbled around until finally with extravagant surprise, he produced his dowsing implement. In a state of awed agitation, Charlotte and Lydia scrambled down. Within minutes and within a few yards of the wagon his stick dipped down and George Akers announced that he had discovered water.

Lydia pointed toward the north: "Let's try over there in that direction, just to be sure we aren't missing something."

This time he was insistent. "Rattlesnakes out there," he said, possibly thinking to scare them. "Can't se'em good this time of day."

"If we sing, they'll go away," Charlotte told him, then turned to Lydia. "That's what Odile taught me when I was a little girl."

"Wolves, too," George stated.

"You have a gun, don't you?" Lydia asked.

"We forgot to bring the guns," Charlotte said.

"I'm sure Mr. Akers can find us some tomorrow."

"Ladies, we have got to get back. They'll be sending folks out after us soon. It's way past suppertime and I'm hungry."

The last remark registered. Of course they would return. Of course they must go.

"In one more minute," Charlotte added.

"As soon as we have come to some conclusions," Lydia put in.

They three sat hushed, waiting. As the night sky spread over them, the wind stilled to a low hum with only a high-reed sound coming from the cottonwood. The horses shuffled and a fox howled while frogs and crickets set about the night's business.

Finally Charlotte raised her arms. "The hill on the right is mine. The hill on the left is yours."

Lydia nodded in agreement as she faced her hill and Charlotte faced hers. "You may take us back now," Lydia told Mr. Akers.

Satisfied, she leaned back. "Won't our gardens be lovely? People will come from all over to see such unusual gardens," she declared. "And twin houses with a walkway between them."

"To 'protect us from the dust and mud'," Charlotte mimicked the train conductor.

"And any demons that might stray across our land," Lydia finished somberly. After that, they contented themselves with staring hard at the landscape whenever the half-moon slipped out from behind the clouds.

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