Cimarron by Edna Ferber

Dixie Lee's girls were riding by on their daily afternoon parade. Sabra recognized their laughter and the easy measured clatter of their horses' hoofs before they came into view. She knew it was Dixie Lee's girls. Somehow, the virtuous women of Osage did not laugh much, though Sabra did not put this thought into words, ever in her mind. She glanced up now as they drove by. She was seated at her desk by the window in the front office of the Oklahoma Wigwam. Their plumes, their parasols, their brilliant-hued dresses made a gay garden of color in the monotony of Pawhuska Avenue. They rode in open phaetons, but without the usual top, so that they had only their parasols to shade their brightly painted faces from the ardent Southwest sun. The color of the parasols and plumes and dresses was changed from day to day, but they always were done in ensemble effect. One day the eyes of Osage's male population were dazzled (and its female population's eyes affronted) by a burst of rosy splendor shading from pale pink to scarlet. The next day they would shade from palest lavender to deepest purple. The next, from delicate lemon to orange; the day following they ran the gamut of green. They came four by four, and usually one in each carriage handled the reins, though occasionally a Negro driver occupied the front seat alone. They were not boisterous. Indeed, they conducted themselves in seemly enough fashion except perhaps for the little bursts of laughter and for the fact that they were generous with the ankles beneath the ruffled skirts. Often they carried dolls in their arms. Sometimes -- rarely -- they called to each other. Their voices were high and curiously unformed, like the voices of little children, and yet with a metallic note in them.

"Madge, looka! When we get to the end of Pawhuska we'll race you to Coley's Gulch and back. " These afternoon races became almost daily sporting events, and the young bloods of Osage got into the habit of stationing themselves along the road to bet on the pale pink plumes or the deep rose plumes.