Kit Carson's socks

Went to see a showing of Kit Carson last week. Filmed in the 40's in Monument Valley, UT. A good old-fashioned western, it was.

Kit is asked to guide the US Cavalry through Indian territory to CA, with a group of settlers in tow. He's only just got back from a long trapping excursion, at the end of which they were set upon by the natives (I forget which tribe) and lost all their furs, and a couple of his "boys", so he's not anxious to get back out there just yet. He refuses, and settles in for a rest at the fort. The obligatory Beautiful Rich Girl comes to beg him to change his mind, and finds him barefoot on the porch. Somehow his buddies talk him 'round, and a few minutes later he's slipping those huge bare feet into his boots.

One evening on the trail, sitting 'round the campfire, eating dinner, talking, etc., Beautiful Rich Girl is knitting a sock. (It's a bit dim to see if the actress was actually knitting, but the work is on double-points, she's holding it the right way, and doing something with it, so let's say she's knitting, okay?) It's a fairly large sock, in a good hefty sock yarn, with at least 2" of ribbing at the top of 10" or so of leg. Definitely a manly sock. Kit and his buddies take off to scout the perimeter, and Rich Girl turns to her lady friend and says, "well, this is as far as I can go until I know what size shoes he wears", while holding up the leg portion of one sock. Lady Friend tells her she figures she'd know that by now, to which Rich Girl replies that it seems kind of a personal question. Whereupon Lady Friend tells her that Ape (one of Kit's buddies) is a size 12. They laugh, she stows the sock in her knitting basket, and the shot changes to Kit and his buddies.

Now, at this point, I'm seriously interested, because I'm knitting a sock myself at that moment, so I'm on the alert for more news of this sock. I want to know his shoe size, and my mind starts to think of how she could work this into conversation with him, and what she could do in the meantime, until she knows what size to make the foot. She could turn the heel and knit most of the foot. She could put the first leg on waste yarn and knit the other one to the same point. She could sneak a look at his boots. She could ask Ape if he knows Kit's size. Every time she manages a moment alone with Kit, I'm waiting for her to ask him. Or to present the socks to him and explain how she found out his size without him knowing.

And, you know what? Even though they are on the trail for weeks, months, I don't know, FOREVER...

The socks are NEVER mentioned again!

SERIOUSLY!

It's enough to drive a knitter out of her mind.