CHAPTER EIGHTMargaret Thackrey
Coming across the endless stretches of New Mexico in midsummer would have been a trial, back in the pre-air-conditioning days. Margaret remembered the Great Adventure of her childhood, when she was twelve and her grandparents had driven to California for the wedding of Gram’s sister.
She couldn’t recall her Aunt Ida at all. The wedding was a blank. But she remembered every detail of the trip across the desert. They had driven a lot at night. By day they would pick up dry ice and keep it in a bucket. It hadn’t worked well, but it had helped.
“O, Pioneers!” she said. “What we’ve come down to! I wonder what will happen to all of us who have become softies, when the system breaks down.”
She entered Texas at its westernmost edge, knowing she had the better par
