"I guess if he comes, one light will be as good as a dozen.

You better do as your mother tells you.

The kid's got more sense than to tackle flying from Tucson after sundown.

If I thought he didn't have, I'd kick him off the ranch!" This perfectly heartless statement served to distract Mary V's mind from her mother's lack of feeling.

She obediently turned out the lights,--all the lights, since they meant to kill Johnny in cold blood!--and wept anew upon the darkened porch, while swarms of mosquitoes hummed just without the screen, sending a slim scout through now and then to torment Mary V, who spatted her chiffon-covered arms viciously and wished that she were dead, since no one had any feelings or any heart or any conscience on that ranch.
It was midnight before healthy youth demanded sleep and dulled her half-feigned agonies of self-pity.