Read "Lonesome Dove, Volume 1" by Larry McMurtry online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
JULY JOHNSON PROPOSED to Clara in the first week of the new year. He had been trying to stop himself from doing just that for months, and then he did it one day when, at her request, he brought in a sack of potatoes. It had been very cold and the potatoes were frozen-Clara wanted them in the warm kitchen to thaw. His son Martin was crawling on the kitchen floor when he came in and Clara was stirring batter for one of the cakes she couldn't live without. As soon as he sat the frozen potatoes on the table, he did it. "Would you ever marry me? " was the way he put it, and immediately felt a terrible fool for having uttered the words. In the months he had worked for her their relations had been unchanged, and he supposed she would think him drunk or out of his head for raising such a thought.
Instead, Clara did a thing that amazed him-she stuck a finger in the sweet cake batter and held her hand out to him, as if he were just supposed to eat the glob of uncooked cake right off her finger.