cows are mucusy, muddy, shitty, slobbery things

In grade school, it's O.K. to do well. But by high school, being smart gives people ideas. Science teachers start bugging her in the halls. They tell her Eastern schools have Montana quotas, places for ranch girls who are good at math. She could get scholarships, they say. But she knows, as soon as they suggest it, that if she went to one of those schools she'd still be a ranch girl—not the Texas kind who are débutantes and just happen to have a ranch in the family, and not the horse-farm kind who ride English. Horse people are different, because horses are elegant and clean. Cows are mucusy, muddy, shitty, slobbery things, and it takes another kind of person to live with them. Even her long, curled hair won't help at a fancy college, because prep-school girls don't curl their hair. The rodeo boys like it, but there aren't any rodeo boys out East. So she comes up with a plan: she has to start flunking. She has two and a half years of straight A's, and she has to flunk quietly, not to draw attention. Western Montana College, where Andy Tyler wants to go, will take anyone who applies. She can live cheap in Dillon, and if things don't work out with Andy she already knows half the football team.