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diff --git a/21850-h/21850-h.htm b/21850-h/21850-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..134c4ba --- /dev/null +++ b/21850-h/21850-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5921 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + +<title> +The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Little Norsk, Or, +Ol' Paps Flaxen, by Hamlin Garland +</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + body {margin-left: 12%; + margin-right: 12%;} + + p {text-indent: 1em; + line-height: 120%; + text-align: justify;} + + blockquote {text-align: justify; + font-size:97%; + margin-left: 2%; margin-right: 2%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em;} + + .head {text-align: center; + margin-bottom: 2em; + font-weight: bold; + font-size: 103%; + text-indent: 0em;} + +a {text-decoration:none;} + + /* simple function classes */ + .italic { font-style:italic;} + .caps { text-transform:uppercase;} + .small { font-size:small; } + .no-space-top { margin-top:0em;} + .no-space-bottom { margin-bottom:0em;} + .space-top { margin-top:1em;} + .space-bottom { margin-bottom:1em;} + .double-space-top { margin-top:2em;} + .quad-space-top { margin-top:4em;} + .quad-space-bottom { margin-bottom:4em;} + .neat-left-margin { margin-left:2.5em;} + .sincerely-yours-pad { padding-right:2.5em;} + .noindent {text-indent: 0em;} + .sig {text-align:right;} + .xl {font-size:x-large;} + .bold {font-weight:bold;} + .sc {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .ctr {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} + + .chp {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1.5em; + margin-bottom: -.75em;} + + .title {text-align: center; + font-size: 160%; + font-weight:bold; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em;} + + h1,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + + h2 {text-align: center; + margin-top: 5em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + font-size: 110%;} + + hr {width: 80%;} + hr.break {width: 65%;} + hr.tiny { width: 10%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;} + + .img {text-align: center; + margin-top: 1.5em; + margin-bottom: 1.5em;} + + /* Page Number class */ +.pagenum { right: 1%; font-size:x-small; background-color:inherit; color:gray; + text-indent:0em; text-align:center; position:absolute; + /* To remove the page-numbers, use the hidden visibilty feature */ + /* visibility:hidden; */ + border: 1px solid silver; padding: 1px 2px; + font-style:normal; + font-variant:normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;} + + div.box { + margin:0 .5em; + padding-bottom: 1em; + padding-top: 1em;} + + div.box p {margin-top: 0em; + margin-bottom: .5em; + font-size: 95%; + line-height: 1em; + text-indent: 2em;} + + div.box p.book-info + {text-indent:0; + text-align: justify; + margin-top: 1.85em; + margin-bottom: .85em; + line-height: 1.25em;} + + div.box p.book-info:first-letter, p.head + p.noindent:first-letter + { float: left; padding-right:.25em; + line-height: 0.8em; font-size: 2em; + font-weight:bold;} + +/* Titlepage classes */ +div#titlepage { padding-top:5%; padding-bottom:5%; + margin-right:15%; margin-left:15%; + text-align: center;} +div#titlepage p {text-indent:0em; text-align:center;} + + + + .img {text-align: center; + margin-top: 1.5em; + margin-bottom: 1.5em;} + +.author { font-weight:bold; font-size:large; + margin-bottom:2em;} + + +/* boilerplate */ + div.boilerplate { margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em;} + div.boilerplate p { text-indent:0em; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em;} +/* Detailed Notes (section of transcriber Notes) styling */ + div#notes { text-indent:0em; text-align:justify; + font-size:medium;} + div#notes h4 { text-align: left; font-weight:bold; font-size:small; + font-variant: normal; + margin:1em 0 0; } + div#notes p {text-indent:0;} + /* poem classes */ +p.poem1 { margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; font-size:small; + text-indent:-3em; padding-left:15%; font-style:italic;} + +div.poem1 {margin-left:3em; } +/* Table of Contents styling */ +table.toc {margin:0 auto;} +table.toc caption {font-variant:small-caps; font-weight:bold; + padding-bottom:1.5em;} +table-toc td {vertical-align:top;} +table.toc tbody tr:nth-child(odd) td + {text-align:center; padding-top:1.5em;} +table.toc tbody tr:nth-child(even) td:first-child + {padding-right:2em;} +table.toc tbody tr:nth-child(even) td:last-child + {text-align:right;} +</style> + </head> + <body> + + + + +<div class="boilerplate"> +<p> + The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Little Norsk; + Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen, by Hamlin Garland. +</p> + +<p> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org +</p> + +<p> + Title: A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen<br /> + Author: Hamlin Garland<br /> + Posting Date: June 18, 2007 [EBook #21850]<br /> + Last Updated: May 16, 2017<br /> + Character set encoding: utf-8 +</p> +<p> + Produced by Robert Homa, David Yingling and the Online + Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + (This book was produced from scanned images of public + domain material from the Google Print project.) +</p> +<br /> +<p> +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE NORSK *** +</p> +</div> + + + +<div id="titlepage"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">i</a></span> + <h1>A Little Norsk<br /> + <small>Or</small><br /> + Ol' Paps' Flaxen</h1> + <p class="author ctr">By<br/> Hamlin Garland</p> + <p> + <i>Author of</i><br /> + Main Traveled Roads, A Member of the Third House, + A Spoil of Office, Jason Edwards, etc.<br /> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="img"> + <img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="Publisher's logo" width="111" height="125" /> + </p> + <p class="caps"> + <br /><br /> + New York<br /> + D. Appleton and Company<br /> + 1892 + </p> + <p><br /><br /><br /></p> + <p class="small"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">ii</a></span> + </p> + <hr class="tiny" /> + <p class="small sc"> + Copyright, 1892, <br /> + By D. Appleton and Company. <br /><br /> + Printed at the Appleton Press, U.S.A. + </p> +</div> + + +<h2>On the Plain.</h2> +<div class="poem1"> +<p class="poem1"> +My cabin cowers in the pathless sweep</p> +<p class="poem1"> +Of the terrible northern blast;</p> +<p class="poem1"> +Above its roof the wild clouds leap</p> +<p class="poem1"> +And shriek as they hurtle past.</p> +<p class="poem1"> +The snow-waves hiss along the plain,</p> +<p class="poem1"> +Like spectral wolves they stretch and strain</p> +<p class="poem1"> +And race and ramp—with hissing beat,</p> +<p class="poem1"> +Like stealthy tread of myriad feet,</p> +<p class="poem1"> +I hear them pass; upon the roof</p> +<p class="poem1"> +The icy showers swirl and rattle;</p> +<p class="poem1"> +At times the moon, from storms aloof,</p> +<p class="poem1"> +Shines white and wan within the room—</p> +<p class="poem1"> +Then swift clouds drive across the light</p> +<p class="poem1"> +And all the plain is lost to sight,</p> +<p class="poem1"> +The cabin rocks, and on my palm</p> +<p class="poem1"> +The sifted snow falls, cold and calm.</p> +<br /> +<p class="poem1"> +God! What a power is in the wind!</p> +<p class="poem1"> +I lay my cheek to the cabin side</p> +<p class="poem1"> +To feel the weight of his giant hands—</p> +<p class="poem1"> +A speck, a fly in the blasting tide</p> +<p class="poem1"> +Of streaming, pitiless, icy sands;</p> +<p class="poem1"> +A single heart with its feeble beat—</p> +<p class="poem1"> +A mouse in the lion's throat—</p> +<p class="poem1"> +A swimmer at sea—a sunbeam's mote</p> +<p class="poem1"> +In the grasp of a tempest of hail and sleet!</p> +</div> + + + + +<p> + <a name="contents" id="contents"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">v</a></span> + <br /> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h2>Table of Contents.</h2> +<table class="toc" summary="Table of Contents for A Little Norsk"> +<caption>A Little Norsk</caption> +<thead> +<tr> + <th></th> + <th>Page</th> +</tr> +</thead> +<tbody> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#I">CHAPTER I</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Her Adoptive Parents</td> + <td>1</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#II">CHAPTER II.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Her First Trip in a Blizzard</td> + <td>9</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#III">CHAPTER III.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>The Burial of her Dead Mother</td> + <td>22</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Flaxen Adopts Anson as "Pap"</td> + <td>32</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#V">CHAPTER V.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Flaxen Becomes Indispensable to the Two Old Bachelors</td> + <td>38</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>A Question of Dress</td> + <td>46</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>After Harvest</td> + <td>69</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>An Empty House</td> + <td>78</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>"Baching" it Again</td> + <td>86</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#X">CHAPTER X.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Flaxen Comes Home on a Vacation</td> + <td>105</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Flaxen Grows Restless</td> + <td>113</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Flaxen Says Good-bye</td> + <td>124</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Flaxen's Great Need</td> + <td>133</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Kendall Steps Out</td> + <td>148</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td colspan="2"><a href="#XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td>Bert Comes Back</td> + <td>153</td> +</tr> +</tbody> +</table> + +<p class="quad-space-top"> + <br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p class="quad-space-top"> + <br /> +</p> + + + + + +<div> +<p class="xl bold ctr"> +<a name="I"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_001" id="Page_001">1</a></span> +A LITTLE NORSK. +</p> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER I.</a> +</h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +HER ADOPTIVE PARENTS. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +"Ans, the next time you twist hay f'r the fire, I wish't you'd +dodge the damp spots," said the cook, rising from a prolonged +scrutiny of the stove and the bread in the oven. His pose was threatening. +</p> +<p> +"Cooks are always grumblin'," calmly remarked Anson, drawing +on his gloves preparatory to going out to the barn; "but seein' 's +this is Chris'mus, I'll go out an' knock a barrel to pieces. I want +them biscuit to be O. K. See?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes: I see." +</p> +<p> +"Say, Bert!" +</p> +<p> +"Well?" +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_002" id="Page_002">2</a></span> +"Can't we have some sugar-'lasses on our biscuits, seein' it's Chris'mus?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I s'pose we can, Ans; but we're gittin' purty low on the thing + these days, an' they ain't no tellin' when we'll be able to git more." +</p> +<p> +"Well, jes' as you say, not as I care." Anson went out into the +roaring wind with a shout of defiance, but came back instantly, as if to +say something he had forgotten. "Say, wha' d'ye s'pose is the trouble +over to the Norsk's? I hain't seen a sign o' smoke over there f'r two 'r +three days." +</p> +<p> +"Well, now you speak of it, Ans, I've be'n thinkin' about that myself. +I'm afraid he's out o' coal, 'r sick, 'r somethin'. It 'u'd be mighty tough +f'r the woman an' babe to be there without any fire, an' this blizzard +whoopin' her up. I guess you'd better go over an' see what's up. I was +goin' to speak of it this mornin', but f'rgot it. I'm cook this week, +so I guess the job falls on you." +</p> +<p> +"All right. Here goes." +</p> +<p> +"Better take a horse." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_003" id="Page_003">3</a></span> +"No: I guess not. The snow is driftin' purty bad, an' he couldn't git +through the drifts, anyway." +</p> +<p> +"Well, lookout f'r y'rself, ol' man. It looks purty owly off in the +west. Don't waste any time. I'd hate like thunder to be left alone on a +Dakota prairie f'r the rest o' the winter." +</p> +<p> +Anson laughed back through the mist of snow that blew in the open door, +his great-coat and cap allowing only a glimpse of his cheeks. +</p> +<p> +The sky was bright overhead, but low down around the horizon it looked +wild. The air was frightfully cold—far below zero—and the +wind had been blowing almost every day for a week, and was still strong. +The snow was sliding fitfully along the sod with a stealthy, menacing +motion, and far off in the west and north a dense, shining cloud of +frost was hanging. +</p> +<p> +The plain was almost as lone and level and bare as a polar ocean, where +death and silence reign undisputedly. There was not a tree in sight, the +grass was mainly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_004" id="Page_004">4</a></span> +burned, or buried by the snow, and the little shanties of the three +or four settlers could hardly be said to be in sight, half sunk, as +they were, in drifts. A large white owl seated on a section stake +was the only living thing to be seen. +</p> +<p> +The boom had not yet struck Buster County. Indeed, it did not seem to +Bert Gearheart at this moment that it would ever strike Buster County. +It was as cold, dreary, and unprofitable an outlook as a man could face +and not go utterly mad. If any of these pioneers could have forecast + the winter, they would not have dared to pass it on the plains. +</p> +<p> +Bert watched his partner as he strode rapidly across the prairie, now +lost to sight as a racing troop of snow-waves, running shoulder-high, +shot between, now reappearing as the wind lulled. +</p> +<p> +"This is gittin' pretty monotonous, to tell the honest truth," +he muttered as he turned from the little window. "If that railroad +don't show up by March, in some shape or other, I'm goin' to give it up. +Gittin' free land like this is a little too +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_005" id="Page_005">5</a></span> +costly for me. I'll go back to Wiscons', an' rent land on shares." +</p> +<p> +Bert was a younger-looking man than his bachelor companion; perhaps +because his face was clean-shaven and his frame much slighter. He was +a silent, moody young fellow, hard to get along with, though of great +good heart. Anson Wood succeeded in winning and holding his love even +through the trials of masculine housekeeping. As Bert kept on with the +dinner, he went often to the little window facing the east and looked +out, each time thawing a hole in the frost on the window-panes. +</p> +<p> +The wind was rising again, and the night promised to be wild, as the two +preceding nights had been. As he moved back and forth setting out their +scanty meal, he was thinking of the old life back in Wisconsin in the +deeps of the little <i>coulée</i>; of the sleigh-rides with the +boys and girls; of the Christmas doings; of the damp, thick-falling +snow among the pines, where the wind had no terrors; of musical bells on +swift horses in the fragrant +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_006" id="Page_006">6</a></span> +deeps, where the snowflakes fell like caresses through the tossing +branches of the trees. +</p> +<p> +By the side of such a life the plain, with its sliding snow and +ferocious wind, was appalling—a treeless expanse and a +racing-ground for snow and wind. The man's mood grew darker while +he mused. He served the meal on the rude box which took the place +of table, and still his companion did not come. He looked at his +watch. It was nearly one o'clock, and yet there was no sign of the +sturdy figure of Anson. +</p> +<p> +The house of the poor Norwegian was about two miles away, and out of +sight, being built in a gully; but now the eye could distinguish a +house only when less than a mile away. A man could not at times be +seen at a distance of ten rods, though occasional lulls in the wind +permitted Bert to see nearly to the "First Moccasin." +</p> +<p> +"He may be in the swale," muttered the watcher as he stood +with his eye to the loop-hole. But the next time he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_007" id="Page_007">7</a></span> +looked the plain was as wild and lone as before, save under the +rising blast the snow was beginning to ramp and race across the +level sod till it looked at times like a sea running white with +foam and misty with spray. +</p> +<p> +At two o'clock he said: "Well, I s'pose Ans has concluded to +stay over there to dinner, though what the Norsk can offer as +inducement I swear I don't know. I'll eat, anyhow; he can have +what's left." +</p> +<p> +He sat down to his lonely meal, and ate slowly, getting up two or +three times from his candle-box in a growing anxiety for Ans, +using the heated poker now to clear a spot on the pane. He +expressed his growing apprehension, manlike, by getting angry. +</p> +<p> +"I don't see what the darn fool means by stayin' so late. +It'll be dark by four o'clock, er jest as soon as that cloud +over there strikes us. You couldn't beat sense into some men's +heads with a club." +</p> +<p> +He had eaten his dinner now, and had taken to pacing up and down the +little room, which was exactly six paces long +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_008" id="Page_008">8</a></span> +and three wide, and just high enough to permit Anson to walk erect +in the highest part. +</p> +<p> +"Nice fix to leave a man in, ain't it? All alone here, an' a blizzard +comin' on! If I ever git out o' this country alive, I'll bet I'll know +enough not to come back," he broke out, stamping his foot in a rage. +"I don't see what he means by it. If he's caught in that blow, +his life ain't worth a cent." +</p> +<div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_009" id="Page_009">9</a></span> +<a name="II"></a> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER II.</a> +</h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +HER FIRST TRIP IN A BLIZZARD. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +At half-past two the feelings of the silent watcher began to change. +He thought more about his partner out there in the rising wind and +thickening snow. The blast roared round the little cabin with a deep, +menacing, rising moan, and laid to the stove-pipe a resounding lip, +wailing and shouting weirdly. Bert's nervous walk quickened, and he +looked so often through the pane that the frost had not time to close up. +</p> +<p> +Suddenly, out of the blinding, sweeping snow, not ten rods distant, +the burly form of Anson burst, head down, blindly staggering forward +into the teeth of the tempest. He walked like a man whose strength was +almost gone, and he carried a large bundle in his arms. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_010" id="Page_010">10</a></span> +Gearhart flung the door open, and called in a cheery voice to guide +the struggling man to the house. He knew what it was to face such a wind. +</p> +<p> +"Here ye are, ol' man! Right this way! Keep y'r head down!" +</p> +<p> +Then, seeing that Anson hardly made headway against the terrible blast, +he rushed out, bare-headed as he was, and caught and hurried him in and +shut the door. +</p> +<p> +Reeling blindly, his breath roaring like a furnace, his eyebrows hung with +icicles, his face masked with crusted snow, Anson staggered in, crying +hoarsely, "Take her!" then slid to the floor, where he lay panting +for breath. +</p> +<p> +Bert caught the bundle from his arms. A wailing, half-smothered cry +came from it. +</p> +<p> +"What is it, Ans?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"A kid; warm it," said the giant, trying with his numbed fingers +to undo the shawl which wrapped the bundle. Bert hurriedly unwound the +shawl, and a frightened child, blue-eyed and flaxen-haired—flossy +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_011" id="Page_011">11</a></span> +as unfrosted corn-silk—was disclosed like a nubbin of corn +after the husks are stripped off. +</p> +<p> +"Why, it's little Flaxen Hair! Wha' d'ye bring her over for?" +</p> +<p> +"'Sh!" said Anson hoarsely. "Mind how y' git her warm! +Don't y' see she's froze?" +</p> +<p> +The little creature was about five, or possibly six years old, +scantily clad, but neat and pretty. As her feet began to get warm before +the fire, she wailed with pain, which Bert tried to stop by rubbing. +</p> +<p> +"Put her hands in y'r hair, hold her feet in y'r hands—don't +rub 'em," commanded Ans, who was stripping the ice from his eyelashes +and from his matted beard, which lay like a shield upon his breast. +"Stir up the fire; give her some hot coffee an' some feed. She +hain't had anything to eat." +</p> +<p> +Bert tried to do all these things at once, and could not, but managed +finally to get the child a piece of bread and a cup of coffee, and to +allay her fears. Ans began +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_012" id="Page_012">12</a></span> +to recover from his horrible journey and was able to speak, though his +lungs were still painful. +</p> +<p> +"Ol' man," he said solemnly and tenderly, "I came jest as +near stayin' in that last gully down there as a man could an' not. The +snow was up to my armpits, an' let me down wherever the weeds was. I +had to waller; if it hadn't be'n for her, I guess I'd 'a' give up; +but I jest grit m' teeth an' pulled through. There, guess y' hadn't +better let her have any more. I guess she'll go to sleep now she's fed +an' warmed. Jest le' me take her now, ol' man." +</p> +<p> +"No: you git rested up." +</p> +<p> +"See here, it'll rest me to hold that little chap. I'm all right. +My hands is frosted some, an' my ears, that's all, but my breath is +gittin' back. Come on, now," he pleaded. +</p> +<p> +Bert surrendered the child, who looked up into the bearded face of the +rough fellow, then rested her head on his breast, and went to sleep at +last. It made his heart thrill as he felt her little head +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_013" id="Page_013">13</a></span> +against his breast. He never had held a child in his arms before. +</p> +<p> +"Say, Bert, reckon I'm a purty fair picture of a fam'ly man, now, +eh? Throw in a couple o' twists more o' hay—" +</p> +<p> +Bert stirred up the fire. +</p> +<p> +"Well, now the little one is off, what's up over to the Norsk's? +Wha' d'ye bring the child for?" he asked at last. +</p> +<p> +"Because she was the only livin' soul in the shanty." +</p> +<p> +"What?" His face was set in horror. +</p> +<p> +"Fact." +</p> +<p> +"Where's the Norsk?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know. On the prairie somewhere." +</p> +<p> +"An' the mother?" +</p> +<p> +"She's—" Here the little one stirred slightly as he +leaned forward, and Ans said, with a wink, "She's <em>asleep</em>." +He winked significantly, and Bert understood what the sleep was. +"Be a little careful what y' say—jes' now; the little rat is +listenin'. Jest say <em>relative</em> when y' mean her—the woman, +y' know." +</p> +<p> +"Yes, sir," he resumed after a moment; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_014" id="Page_014">14</a></span> +"I was scart when I saw that house—when I knocked, an' no one +stirred 'r come to the door. They wasn't a track around, an' the barn +an' house was all drifted up. I pushed the door open; it was cold as a +barn, an' dark. I couldn't see anythin' f'r a minute, but I heard a +sound o' cryin' from the bed that made my hair stand up. I rushed over +there, an' there lay the mother on the bed, with nothin' on but some +kind of a night-dress, an' everythin'—dress, shawl, an' +all—piled on an' around that blessed child." +</p> +<p> +"She was sleepin'?" +</p> +<p> +"Like a stone. I couldn't believe it at first. I raved around +there, split up a chair an' the shelves, an' made a fire. Then I +started to rub the woman's hands an' feet, but she was cold an' hard +as iron." Bert shuddered in sympathy. "Then I took the child +up an' rubbed her; tried to find somethin' f'r her to eat—not +a blessed thing in that house! Finally I thought I better bolt +f'r home—" +</p> +<p> +"Lucky you did. Hear that wind! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_015" id="Page_015">15</a></span> +Great heavens! We are in for another two-days' blow of it. That woman, +of course, stripped herself to save the child." +</p> +<p> +"Yes: she did." +</p> +<p> +"Jes' like a woman! Why didn't she rip down the shelf an' split +up the chairs for fuel, or keep walkin' up an' down the room?" +</p> +<p> +"Now, there it is! She <em>had</em> burnt up a lot o' stuff, +then took to bed with the child. She rolled her up in all the +quilts an' shawls an' dresses they was in the house; then laid +down by the side of her, an' put her arm over her—an' +froze—jes' like a mother—no judgment!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, lay her down now, an' eat somethin' y'rself, while I go +out an' look after the chores. Lord! it makes me crawl to think of +that woman layin' there in the shanty all alone!" he turned and +said in a peculiar hesitating voice. He shivered a little as he spoke. +"Say, did y' shut the door?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes: an' it shuts hard. The wind n'r wolves can't open it." +</p> +<p> +"That's good. I couldn't sleep nights +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_016" id="Page_016">16</a></span> +if I thought the coyotes could get in." Bert's imagination seized +upon that lonely cabin and the figure lying cold as iron upon the +bed. It appealed to him more than to Anson. +</p> +<p> +By four o'clock it was dark, and the lamp was lighted when Bert came +in, bringing an immense load of hay-twists. The ferocious wind, as if +exulting in its undisputed sway over the plain, raved in ceaseless +fury around the cabin, and lashed the roof with a thousand stinging +streams of snow. The tiny shanty did not rock; it shuddered as if +with fright. The drifts rose higher on the windows, and here and there +through some unseen crevice the snow, fine as bolted flour, found its +way like oil, seeming to penetrate the solid boards; and to the +stove-pipe the storm still laid hoarse lip, piping incessantly, +now dolorously, now savagely, now high, now low. +</p> +<p> +While the two men sat above the fire that night, discussing the sad case +of the woman, the child slept heavily, muttering and sobbing in her sleep. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_017" id="Page_017">17</a></span> +"The probabilities are," said Anson, in a matter-of-fact way, +"the Norsk took his oxen an' started f'r Summit f'r provisions, +an' got caught in this blizzard an' froze to death + somewhere—got lost in some gully, probably." +</p> +<p> +"But why didn't he come an' tell us to look after his fam'ly?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I s'pose he was afraid to trust us. I don't wonder, +as I remember the treatment their women git from the Yankees. +We look a good 'eal worse than we are, besides; an' then the +poor cuss couldn't talk to us, anyhow, an' he's be'n shy ever +since he came, in October." +</p> +<p> +After a long silence, in which Gearheart went over and studied +the face of the sleeper, Anson said: "Well, if he's dead, +an' the woman's dead too, we've got to look after this child +till some relative turns up. An' that woman's got to be buried." +</p> +<p> +"All right. What's got to be done had better be done right off. +We've only one bed, Ans, an' a cradle hasn't appeared necessary +before. How about the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_018" id="Page_018">18</a></span> +sleepin' to-night? If you're goin' into the orphan-asylum business, +you'll have to open up correspondence with a furniture store." +</p> +<p> +Ans reddened a little. "It ain't mine any more'n yours. +We're pardners in this job." +</p> +<p> +"No: I guess not. You look more like a dad, an' I guess I'll shift +the responsibility of this thing off onto you. I'll bunk here on the +floor, an' you take the child an' occupy the bed." +</p> +<p> +"Well, all right," answered Anson, going over in his turn and +looking down at the white face and tow-coloured hair of the little +stranger. "But say, we ain't got no night-clothes f'r the little +chap. What'll we do? Put her to sleep jes' as she is?" +</p> +<p> +"I reckon we'll have to to-night. Maybe you'll find some more +clothes over to the shanty." +</p> +<p> +"Say, Bert," said Ans later. +</p> +<p> +"Well?" +</p> +<p> +"It's too darn cold f'r you to sleep on the floor there. +You git in here on the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_019" id="Page_019">19</a></span> +back side, an' I'll take the child on the front. She'd be smashed +flatter'n a pancake if she was in the middle. She ain't bigger'n +a pint o' cider, anyway." +</p> +<p> +"No, ol' man. I'll lay here on the floor, an' kind o' heave a +twist in once in a while. It's goin' to be cold enough to freeze +the tail off a brass bull by daylight." +</p> +<p> +Ans bashfully crept in beside the sleeping child, taking care not to +waken her, and lay there thinking of his new responsibility. At every +shiver of the cowering cabin and rising shriek of the wind, his heart +went out in love toward the helpless little creature whose dead mother +lay in the cold and deserted shanty, and whose father was wandering +perhaps breathless and despairing on the plain, or lying buried in the +snow in some deep ravine beside his patient oxen. He tucked the clothing +in carefully about the child, felt to see if her little feet were cold, +and covered her head with her shawl, patting her lightly with his great paw. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_020" id="Page_020">20</a></span> +"Say, Bert!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, Ans, what now?" +</p> +<p> +"If this little chap should wake up an' cry f'r its mother, what +in thunder would I do?" +</p> +<p> +"Give it up, ol' boy," was the reply from the depths of the +buffalo-robes before the fire. "Pat her on the back, an' tell +her not to cry, or somethin' like that." +</p> +<p> +"But she can't tell what I say." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, she'll understand if y' kind o' chuckle an' gurgle like a +fam'ly man." But the little one slept on, and when, about midnight, +Bert got up to feed the fire, he left the stove door open to give light, +and went softly over to the sleepers. Ans was sleeping with the little +form close to his breast, and the poor, troubled face safe under his +shaggy beard. +</p> +<hr class="break" /> +<p> +And all night long the blasting wind, sweeping the sea of icy sands, +hissed and howled round the little sod cabin like surf beating on a +half-sunken rock. The wind and the snow and the darkness possessed +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_021" id="Page_021">21</a></span> +the plain; and Cold (whose other name is Death) was king of the +horrible carnival. It seemed as though morning and sunlight could +not come again, so absolute was the sway of night and death. +</p> +<div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_022" id="Page_022">22</a></span> +<a name="III"></a> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER III.</a></h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +THE BURIAL OF HER DEAD MOTHER. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +When Anson woke the next morning, he found the great flower-like eyes +of the little waif staring straight into his face with a surprise too +great for words or cries. She stared steadily and solemnly into his open +eyes for a while, and when he smiled she smiled back; but when he lifted +his large hand and tried to brush her hair she grew frightened, pushing +her little fists against him, and began to cry "Mor! Mor Kom!" +</p> +<p> +This roused Gearheart, who said: +</p> +<p> +"Well, Ans, what are y' goin' to do with that child? This is your +mornin' to git breakfast. Come, roll out. I've got the fire goin' good. +I can't let y' off; it'll break up our system." +</p> +<p> +Anson rolled out of the bunk and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_023" id="Page_023">23</a></span> +dressed hurriedly in the cold room. The only sound was the roar of +the stove devouring the hay-twist. Anson danced about. +</p> +<p> +"Thunder an' black cats, ain't it cold! The wind has died down, +or we'd be froze stiffer'n a wedge. It was mighty good in you, ol' +man, to keep the stove goin' durin' the night. The child has opened +her eyes brighter'n a dollar, but I tell you I don't like to let her +know what's happened to her relatives." +</p> +<p> +The little one began to wail in a frightened way, being alone in the +dim corner. +</p> +<p> +"There she goes now; she's wantin' to go home! That's what she's +askin', jes' like's not. Say, Bert, what the devil can I do?" +</p> +<p> +"Talk to her, Ans; chuckle to her." +</p> +<p> +"Talk! She'll think I'm threatenin' to knock her head off, or +somethin'. There there, don't ee cry! We'll go see papa +soon.—Confound it, man, I can't go on with this thing! +There, there! See, child, we're goin' to have some nice hot +pancakes now; goin' to have breakfast +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_024" id="Page_024">24</a></span> +now. See, ol' pap's goin' to fry some pancakes. Whoop—see!" +He took down the saucepan, and flourished it in order to make his +meaning plainer. Bert laughed. +</p> +<p> +"That's as bad as your fist. Put that down, Ans. You'll scare the +young one into a fit; you ain't built f'r a jumpin'-jack." +</p> +<p> +The child did indeed set up a louder and more distracting yell. +Getting desperate, Anson seized her in his arms, and, despite her +struggles, began tossing her on his shoulder. The child understood +him and ceased to cry, especially as Gearheart began to set the +table, making a pleasant clatter, whistling the while. +</p> +<p> +The glorious light of the morning made its way only dimly through +the thickly frosted window-panes; the boards snapped in the horrible +cold; out in the barn the cattle were bellowing and kicking with pain. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know," said Bert, impressively, "I couldn't keep +that woman out o' my mind. I could see her layin' there without +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_025" id="Page_025">25</a></span> +any quilts on her, an' the mice a-runnin' over her. God! it's tough, +this bein' alone on a prairie on such a night." +</p> +<p> +"I knew I'd feel so, an' I jest naturally covered her up an' tucked +the covers in, the child a-lookin' on. I thought she'd feel better, +seein' her ma tucked in good an' warm. Poor little rat!" +</p> +<p> +"Did you do that, ol' man?" +</p> +<p> +"You bet I did! I couldn't have slep' a wink if I hadn't." +</p> +<p> +"Well, why didn't y' tell me, so't <em>I</em> could sleep?" +</p> +<p> +"I didn't think you'd think of it that way, not havin' seen her." +</p> +<p> +The child now consented to sit in one of the chairs and put her feet +down by the stove. She wept silently now, with that infrequent, +indrawn sob, more touching than wails. She felt that these strangers +were her friends, but she wanted her mother. She ate well, and soon +grew more resigned. She looked first at one and then at the other of +the men as they talked, trying to understand their strange language. +Then she fell to watching +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_026" id="Page_026">26</a></span> +a mouse that stole out from behind the flour-barrels, snatching a crumb +occasionally and darting back, and laughed gleefully once, and clapped +her hands. +</p> +<p> +"Now, the first thing after the chores, Ans, is that woman over +there. Of course it's out o' the question buryin' her, but we'd better +go over an' git what things there is left o' the girl's, an' fasten up +the shanty to keep the wolves out." +</p> +<p> +"But then—" +</p> +<p> +"What?" +</p> +<p> +"The mice. You can't shut them out." +</p> +<p> +"That's so. I never thought o' that. We've got to make a box, I +guess; but it's goin' to be an awful job for me, Ans, to git her +into it. I thought I wouldn't have to touch her." +</p> +<p> +"Le' me go; I've seen her once an' you hain't. I'd just as soon." +</p> +<p> +"Heaven an' earth! what could I do with the babe? She'd howl like +a coyote, an' drive me plumb wild. No: you're elected to take care o' +the child. I ain't worth a picayune at it. Besides, you had your share +yesterday." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_027" id="Page_027">27</a></span> +And so, in the brilliant sunshine of that bitterly cold morning, +Gearheart crunched away over the spotless snow, which burned under +his feet—a land mocking, glorious, pitiless. Far off some +slender columns of smoke told of two or three hearth-fires, but +mainly the plain was level and lifeless as the Polar Ocean, +appallingly silent, no cry or stir in the whole expanse, no tree +to creak nor bell to ring. +</p> +<p> +It required strong effort on the part of the young man to open the +door of the cottage, and he stood for some time with his hand on the +latch, looking about. There was perfect silence without and within, +no trace of feet or hands anywhere. All was as peaceful and unbroken +as a sepulchre. +</p> +<p> +Finally, as if angry with himself, Gearheart shook himself and pushed +open the door, letting the morning sun stream in. It lighted the bare +little room and fell on the frozen face and rigid, half-open eyes of +the dead woman with a strong, white glare. The thin face and worn, +large-jointed hands lying outside the quilt told +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_028" id="Page_028">28</a></span> +of the hardships which had been the lot of the sleeper. Her clothing +was clean and finer than one would expect to see. +</p> +<p> +Gearheart stood looking at her for a long time, the door still open, +for he felt re-enforced in some way by the sun. If any one had come +suddenly and closed the door on him and the white figure there, he +would have cried out and struggled like a madman to escape, such was +his unreasoning fear of the dead. +</p> +<p> +At length, with a long breath, he backed out and closed the door. Going +to the barn, he found a cow standing at an empty manger, and some hens +and pigs frozen in the hay. Looking about for some boards to make a coffin, +he came upon a long box in which a reaper had been packed, and this he +proceeded to nail together firmly, and to line with pieces of an old +stove-pipe at such places as he thought the mice would try to enter. +</p> +<p> +When it was all prepared, he carried the box to the house and managed +to lay it down beside the bed; but he could not bring himself to +touch the body. He +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_029" id="Page_029">29</a></span> +went out to see if some one were not coming. The sound of a human +voice would have relieved him at once, and he could have gone on +without hesitation. But there was no one in sight, and no one was +likely to be; so he returned, and summoning all his resolution, +took one of the quilts from the bed and placed it in the bottom of +the box. Then he removed the pillow from beneath the head of the +dead woman and placed that in the box. Then he paused, the cold +moisture breaking out on his face. +</p> +<p> +Like all young persons born far from war, and having no knowledge of +death even in its quiet forms, he had the most powerful organic +repugnance toward a corpse. He kept his eye on it as though it were +a sleeping horror, likely at a sudden sound to rise and walk. More +than this, there had always been something peculiarly sacred in the +form of a woman, and in his calmer moments the dead mother appealed +to him with irresistible power. +</p> +<p> +At last, with a sort of moan through +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_030" id="Page_030">30</a></span> +his set teeth, he approached the bed and threw the sheet over +the figure, holding it as in a sling; then, by a mighty effort, +he swung it stiffly off the bed into the box. +</p> +<p> +He trembled so that he could hardly spread the remaining quilts +over the dead face. The box was wide enough to receive the stiff, +curved right arm, and he had nothing to do but to nail the cover on, +which he did in feverish haste. Then he rose, grasped his tools, +rushed outside, slammed the door, and set off in great speed across +the snow, pushed on by an indescribable horror. +</p> +<p> +As he neared home, his fresh young blood asserted itself more and +more; but when he entered the cabin he was still trembling, and +dropped into a chair like a man out of breath. At sight of the +ruddy face of Anson, and with the aid of the heat and light of +the familiar little room, he shook off part of his horror. +</p> +<p> +"Gi' me a cup o' coffee, Ans. I'm kind o' chilly an' tired." +</p> +<p> +Before drinking he wiped his face and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_031" id="Page_031">31</a></span> +washed his hands again and again at the basin in the corner, as though +there were something on them which was ineffably unclean. The little +one, who had been weeping again, stared at him with two big tears +drying on her hollow cheeks. +</p> +<p> +"Well?" interrogated Anson. +</p> +<p> +"I nailed her up safe enough for the present. But what're we +goin' to do next?" +</p> +<p> +"I can't see 's we can do anythin' as long as such weather as +this lasts. It ain't safe f'r one of us to go out an' leave the +other alone. Besides, it's thirty below zero, an' no road, Moccasin's +full of snow, an' another wind likely to rise at any time. It's +mighty tough on this little one, but it can't be helped. As soon +as it moderates a little, we'll try to find a woman an' a preacher, +an' bury that—relative." +</p> +<p> +"The only woman I know of is ol' Mrs. Cap Burdon, down on the +Third Moccasin, full fifteen miles away." +</p> + +<div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_032" id="Page_032">32</a></span> +<a name="IV"></a> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER IV.</a></h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +FLAXEN ADOPTS ANSON AS "PAP." +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +For nearly two weeks they waited, while the wind alternately raved and +whispered over them as it scurried the snow south or east, or shifted +to the south in the night, bringing "the north end of a south +wind," the most intolerable and cutting of winds. Day after day +the restless snow sifted or leaped across the waste of glittering +crust; day after day the sun shone in dazzling splendor, but so +white and cold that the thermometer still kept down among the +thirties. They were absolutely alone on the plain, except that now +and then a desperate wolf or inquisitive owl came by. +</p> +<p> +These were long days for the settlers. They would have been longer had +it not been for little Elga, or "Flaxen," +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_033" id="Page_033">33</a></span> +as they took to calling her. They racked their brains to amuse her, +and in the intervals of tending the cattle and of cooking, or of +washing dishes, rummaged through all their books and pictures, +taught her "cat's cradle," played "jack-straws" +with her, and with all their resources of song and pantomime +strove to fill up the little one's lonely days, happy when they +succeeded in making her laugh. +</p> +<p> +"That settles it!" said Bert one day, whanging the basin +back into the empty flour-barrel. +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter?" +</p> +<p> +"Matter is, we've reached the bottom o' the flour-barrel, an' +it's got to be filled; no two ways about that. We can get along +on biscuit an' pancakes in place o' meat, but we can't put anythin' +in the place o' bread. If it looks favorable to-morrow, we've got +to make a break for Summit an' see if we can't stock up." +</p> +<p> +Early the next morning they brought out the shivering team and piled +into the box all the quilts and robes they had, and bundling little +Flaxen in, started across +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_034" id="Page_034">34</a></span> +the trackless plain toward the low line of hills to the east, +twenty-five or thirty miles. From four o'clock in the morning till +nearly noon they toiled across the sod, now ploughing through the +deep snow where the unburned grass had held it, now scraping across +the bare, burned earth, now wandering up or down the swales, seeking +the shallowest places, now shovelling a pathway through. +</p> +<p> +The sun rose unobscured as usual, and shone down with unusual warmth, +which afforded the men the satisfaction of seeing little Flaxen warm +and merry. She chattered away in her own tongue, and clapped her little +hands in glee at sight of the snowbirds running and fluttering about. +As they approached the low hills the swales got deeper and more +difficult to cross, but about eleven o'clock they came to Burdon's +Ranch, a sort of half-way haven between their own claim and Summit, +the end of the railway. +</p> +<p> +Captain Burdon was away, but Mrs. Burdon, a big, slatternly +Missourian, with all the kindliness of a universal mother in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_035" id="Page_035">35</a></span> +her swarthy face and flaccid bosom, ushered them into the cave-like +dwelling set in the sunny side of Water Moccasin. +</p> +<p> +"Set down, set right down. Young uns, git out some o' them cheers +an' let the strangers set. Purty tol'able tough weather? A feller +don't git out much such weather as this 'ere 'thout he's jes' naturally +'bleeged to. Suse, heave in another twist, an' help the little un to +take off her shawl." +</p> +<p> +After Mrs. Burdon's little flurry of hospitality was over, Anson found +time to tell briefly the history of the child. +</p> +<p> +"Heavens to Betsey! I wan' to know!" she cried, her fat hands +on her knees and her eyes bulging. "Wal! wal! I declare, it beats +the Dutch! So that woman jest frizzed right burside the babe! Wal, I +never! An' the ol' man he ain't showed up? Wal, now, he ain't likely to. +I reckon I saw that Norsk go by here that very day, an' I says to Cap'n, +says I, 'If that feller don't reach home inside an hour, he'll go through +heaven a-gittin' home,' says I to the Cap'n." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_036" id="Page_036">36</a></span> +"Well, now," said Anson, stopping the old woman's garrulous flow, +"I've got to be off f'r Summit, but I wish you'd jest look after this +little one here till we git back. It's purty hard weather f'r her to be +out, an' I don't think she ought to." +</p> +<p> +"Yaas; leave her, o' course. She'll enjoy playin' with the young +uns. I reckon y' did all y' could for that woman. Y' can't burry her +now; the ground's like linkum-vity." +</p> +<p> +But as Anson turned to leave, the little creature sprang up with a +torrent of wild words, catching him by the coat, and pleading +strenuously to go with him. Her accent was unmistakable. +</p> +<p> +"You wan' to go with Ans?" he inquired, looking down into the +little tearful face with a strange stirring in his bachelor heart. +"I believe on my soul she does." +</p> +<p> +"Sure's y're born!" replied Mrs. Burdon. "She'd rather go +with you than to stay an' fool with the young uns; that's what she's +tryin' to say." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_037" id="Page_037">37</a></span> +"Do y' wan' to go?" asked Ans again, opening his arms. She sprang +toward him, raising her eager little hands as high as she could, and when +he lifted her she twined her arms around his neck. +</p> +<p> +"Poor little critter! she ain't got no pap ner mam now," the +old woman explained to the ring of children, who still stared silently +at the stranger almost without moving. +</p> +<p> +"Ain't he her pa-a-p?" drawled one of the older girls, sticking +a finger at Anson. +</p> +<p> +"He is now," laughed Ans, and that settled the question over +which he had been pondering for days. It meant that as long as she +wanted to stay she should be his Flaxen and he would be her "pap." +"And you can be Uncle Bert, hey?" he said to Bert. +</p> +<p> +"Good enough," said Bert. +</p> + +<div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_038" id="Page_038">38</a></span> +<a name="V"></a> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER V.</a></h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +FLAXEN BECOMES INDISPENSABLE TO THE TWO OLD BACHELORS. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +They never found any living relative, and only late in the spring was +the fate of the poor father revealed. He and his cattle were found side +by side in a deep swale, where they had foundered in the night and tempest. +</p> +<p> +As for little Flaxen, she soon recovered her cheerfulness, with the +buoyancy natural to childhood, and learned to prattle in broken English +very fast. She developed a sturdy self-reliance that was surprising in +one so young, and long before spring came was indispensable to the two +"old baches." +</p> +<p> +"Now, Bert," said Ans one day, "I don't wan' to hear you talk +in that slipshod way any longer before Flaxen. You +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_039" id="Page_039">39</a></span> +know better; you've had more chance than I have—be'n to school +more. They ain't no excuse for you, not an ioty. Now, I'm goin' to +say to her, 'Never mind how I talk, but talk like Bert does.'" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, say, now, look here, Ans, I can't stand the strain. Suppose +she'd hear me swearin' at ol' Barney or the stove?" +</p> +<p> +"That's jest it. You ain't goin' to swear," decided Anson; and +after that Bert took the education of the little waif in hand, for he +was a man of good education; his use of dialect and slang sprang mainly +from carelessness. +</p> +<p> +But all the little fatherly duties and discipline fell to Anson, and +much perplexed he often got. For instance, when he bought her an outfit +of American clothing at the store they were strange to her and to him, +and the situation was decidedly embarrassing when they came to try them. +</p> +<p> +"Now, Flaxie, I guess this thing goes on this side before, so's you can +button it. If it went on so, you <em>couldn't</em> reach around to button +it, don't you see? I guess +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_040" id="Page_040">40</a></span> +you'd better try it so. An' this thing, I judge, is a shirt, an' goes on +under that other thing, which I reckon is called a shimmy. Say, Bert, +shouldn't you call that a shirt?" holding up a garment. +</p> +<p> +"W-e-l-l, yes" (after a close scrutiny). "Yes: I should." +</p> +<p> +"And this a shimmy?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, now, you've got me, Ans. It seems to me I've heard the women +folks home talk about shimmies, but they were always kind o' private +about it, so I don't think I can help you out. That little thing goes +underneath, sure enough." +</p> +<p> +"All right, here goes, Flax; if it should turn out to be hind side +before, no matter." +</p> +<p> +Then again little Flaxen would want to wear her best dress on week-days, +and Ans was unable to explain. Here again Bert came to the rescue. +</p> +<p> +"Git her one dress fer ev'ry day in the week, an' make her wear +'em in rotation. Hang 'em up an' put a tag on each one—Sunday, +Monday, an' so on." +</p> +<p> +"Good idea." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_041" id="Page_041">41</a></span> +And it was done. But the embarrassments of attending upon the child +soon passed away; she quickly grew independent of such help, dressed +herself, and combed her own hair, though Anson enjoyed doing it +himself when he could find time, and she helped out not a little +about the house. She seemed to have forgotten her old life, awakening +as she had from almost deathly torpor into a new home—almost a +new world—where a strange language was spoken, where no woman was, +and where no mention of her mother, father, or native land was ever made +before her. The little waif was at first utterly bewildered, then +reconciled, and by the time spring came over the prairie was almost +happy in the touching way of a child deprived of childish things. +</p> +<p> +Oh, how sweet spring seemed to those snow-weary people! Day after day +the sun crept higher up in the sky; day after day the snow gave way a +little on the swells, and streams of water began to trickle down under +the huge banks of snow, filling the ravines; and then at last +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_042" id="Page_042">42</a></span> +came a day when a strange, warm wind blew from the northwest. Soft and sweet +and sensuous it was, as if it swept some tropic bay filled with a thousand +isles—a wind like a vast warm breath blown upon the land. Under +its touch the snow did not melt; it vanished. It fled in a single day +from the plain to the gullies. Another day, and the gullies were rivers. +</p> +<p> +It was the "chinook," which old Lambert, the trapper and surveyor, +said came from the Pacific Ocean. +</p> +<p> +The second morning after the chinook began to blow, Anson sprang to his +feet from his bunk, and standing erect in the early morning light, yelled: +"Hear that?" +</p> +<p> +"What is it?" asked Bert. +</p> +<p> +"There! Hear it?" Anson smiled, holding up his hand +joyfully as a mellow "Boom—boom—boom" broke +through the silent air. "Prairie-chickens! Hurrah! Spring +has come! That breaks the back o' winter short off." +</p> +<p> +"Hurrah! de 'pring ees come!" cried little Flaxen, gleefully +clapping her hands in imitation. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_043" id="Page_043">43</a></span> +No man can know what a warm breeze and the note of a bird can mean +to him till he is released, as these men were released, from the +bondage of a horrible winter. Perhaps still more moving was the +thought that with the spring the loneliness of the prairie would +be broken, never again to be so dread and drear; for with the +coming of spring came the tide of land-seekers pouring in: teams +scurried here and there on the wide prairie, carrying surveyors, +land agents, and settlers. At Summit trains came rumbling in by +the first of April, emptying thousands of men, women, and children +upon the sod, together with cattle, machinery, and household +articles, to lie there roofed only by the blue sky. Summit, from +being a half-buried store and a blacksmith's shop, bloomed out +into a town with saloons, lumber-yards, hotels, and restaurants; +the sound of hammer and anvil was incessant, and trains clanged +and whistled night and day. +</p> +<p> +Day after day the settlers got their wagons together and loaded up, +and then +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_044" id="Page_044">44</a></span> +moved down the slope into the fair valley of the sleepy James. Mrs. +Cap Burdon did a rushing business as a hotel-keeper, while Cap sold +hay and oats at rates which made the land-seekers gasp. +</p> +<p> +"I'm not out here f'r my health," was all the explanation +he ever made. +</p> +<p> +Soon all around the little shanty of Anson and Bert other shanties +were built and filled with young, hopeful, buoyant souls. The railway +surveyors came through, locating a town about three and another about +twelve miles away, and straightway the bitter rivalry between Boomtown +and Belleplain began. Belleplain being their town, Bert and Anson +swore by Belleplain, and correspondingly derided the claims of +Boomtown. +</p> +<p> +With the coming of spring began the fiercest toil of the +pioneers—breaking the sod, building, harvesting, ploughing; +then the winter again, though not so hard to bear; then the same +round of work again. So the land was settled, the sod was turned +over; sod shanties gave way to little frame houses; the tide of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_045" id="Page_045">45</a></span> +land-seekers passed on, the boom burst, but the real workers, like +Wood and Gearheart, went patiently, steadily on, founding a great State. +</p> +<div> +<a name="VI"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_046" id="Page_046">46</a></span> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER VI.</a></h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +A QUESTION OF DRESS. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +One morning eight years later Flaxen left the home of Gearheart and +Wood with old Doll and the buggy, bound for Belleplain after groceries +for harvest. She drove with a dash, her hat on the back of her head. +She was seemingly intent on getting all there was possible out of a +chew of kerosene gum, which she had resolved to throw away upon +entering town, intending to get a new supply. +</p> +<p> +She had thriven on Western air and gum, and though hardly more than +fourteen years of age, her bust and limbs revealed the grace of +approaching womanhood, however childish her short dress and +braided hair might still show her to be. Her face was large and +decidedly of Scandinavian type, fair in spite of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_047" id="Page_047">47</a></span> +wind and sun, and broad at the cheekbones. Her eyes were as blue and +clear as winter ice. +</p> +<p> +As she rode along she sang as well as she could without neglecting +the gum, sitting at one end of the seat like a man, the reins held +carelessly in her left hand, notwithstanding the swift gait of the +horse, who always knew when Flaxen was driving. She met a friend on +the road, and said, "Hello!" pulling up her horse with one +strong hand. +</p> +<p> +"Can't stop," she explained; "got to go over to the city +to get some groceries for harvest. Goin' to the sociable to-morrow?" +</p> +<p> +"You bet," replied the friend, "You?" +</p> +<p> +"I d'know; mebbe, if the boys'll go. Ta-ta; see ye later." +And away she spun. +</p> +<p> +Belleplain had not thriven, or, to be more exact, it had had a rise +and fall; and as the rise had been considerable, so the fall was +something worth chronicling. It was now a collection of wooden +buildings, mostly empty, graying under the storms and suns of +pitiless winters and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_048" id="Page_048">48</a></span> +summers, and now, just in mid-summer, surrounded by splendid +troops and phalanxes of gorgeous sunflowers, whose brown crowns, +gold-dusted, looked ever toward the sun as it swung through the +wide arch of cloudless sky. The signs of the empty buildings +still remained, and one might still read the melancholy decline +from splendours of the past in "emporiums," "palace +drug stores," and "mansion-houses." +</p> +<p> +As Flaxen would have said, "Belleplain's boom had bu'sted." +Her glory had gone with the C., B. and Q., which formed the junction +at Boomtown and left the luckless citizens of Belleplain "high +and dry" on the prairie, with nothing but a "spur" to +travel on. However, a few stores yet remained in the midst of +desolation. +</p> +<p> +After making her other purchases, Flaxen entered the "red-front +drug store" to secure the special brand of gum which seemed most +delectable and to buy a couple of cigars for the "boys." +</p> +<p> +The clerk, who was lately from the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_049" id="Page_049">49</a></span> +East, and wore his moustache curled upward like the whiskers of a cat, +was "gassing" with another young man, who sat in a chair +with his heels on the counter. +</p> +<p> +"Well, my dear, what can I do for you to-day?" he said, +winking at the loafer, as if to say, "Now watch me." +</p> +<p> +"I want some gum." +</p> +<p> +"What kind, darling?" he asked, encouraged by the +fellow in the chair. +</p> +<p> +"I ain't your darling.—Kerosene, shoofly, an' ten cents' worth." +</p> +<p> +"Say, Jack," drawled the other fellow, "git onto the ankles! +Say, sissy, you picked your dress too soon. She's goin' to be a daisy, +first you know. Ain't y', honey?" he said, leaning over and +pinching her arm. +</p> +<p> +"Let me alone, you great, mean thing! I'll tell ol' pap on you, +see if I don't," cried Flaxen, her eyes filling with angry tears. +And as they proceeded to other and bolder remarks she rushed out, +feeling vaguely the degradation of being so spoken to and so touched. +It seemed to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_050" id="Page_050">50</a></span> +become more atrocious the more she thought upon it. +</p> +<p> +When she reached home there were still signs of tears on her face, +and when Anson came out to help her alight, and noticing it asked, +"What's the matter?" she burst out afresh, crying, and +talking incoherently. Anson was astonished. +</p> +<p> +"Why, what's the matter, Flaxie? Can't you tell ol' pap? +Are ye sick?" +</p> +<p> +She shook her head, and rushed past him into the house and into +her bedroom, like a little cyclone of wrath. Ans slowly followed +her, much perplexed. She was lying face downward on the bed, sobbing. +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter, little one? Can't y' tell ol' pap? +Have the girls be'n makin' fun o' yeh again?" +</p> +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> +<p> +"Have the boys be'n botherin' yeh?" No reply. "Who was +it?" Still silence. He was getting stern now. "Tell me right +now." +</p> +<p> +"Jack Reeves—an'—an' another feller." +</p> +<p> +"Wha' d' they do?" Silence. "Tell me." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_051" id="Page_051">51</a></span> +"They—pinched me, an'—an'—talked mean to me," +she replied, breaking down again with the memory of the insult. +</p> +<p> +Anson began to understand. +</p> +<p> +"Wal, there! You dry y'r eyes, Flaxie, an' go an' git supper; +they won't do it again—not +<em> +this +</em> +harvest," he added grimly as he marched to the door to enter the buggy. +</p> +<p> +Bert, coming along from the barn and seeing Anson about to drive away, +asked where he was going. Anson tried to look indifferent. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I've got a little business to transact with Reeves and +some other smart Aleck downtown." +</p> +<p> +"What's up? What have they be'n doing?" asked Gearheart, +reading trouble in the eyes of his friend. +</p> +<p> +"Well, they have be'n a little too fresh with Flaxen to-day, +an' need a lesson." +</p> +<p> +"They're equal to it. Say, Anson, let me go," laying his +hand on the dasher, ready to leap in. +</p> +<p> +"No: you're too brash. You wouldn't know when to quit. No: +you stay right +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_052" id="Page_052">52</a></span> +here. Don't say anything to Flaxen about it; if she wants to know +where I'm gone, tell her I found I was out o' nails." +</p> +<p> +As Anson drove along swiftly he was in a savage mood and thinking +deeply. Two or three times of late some of his friends had touched +rather freely upon the fact that Flaxen was becoming a woman. +"Girls ripen early out in this climate," one old chap had +said, "and your little Norsk there is likely to leave you one +of these days." He felt now that something deliberately and +inexpressibly offensive had been said and done to his little girl. +He didn't want to know just what it was, but just who did it; +that was all. It was time to make a protest. +</p> +<p> +Hitching his horse to a ring in the sidewalk upon arrival, he +walked into the drug store, which was also the post-office. +Young Reeves was inside the post-office corner giving out the +mail, and Anson sauntered about the store waiting his chance. +</p> +<p> +He was a dangerous-looking man just now. Ordinarily his vast frame, +huge, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_053" id="Page_053">53</a></span> +grizzled beard, and stern, steady eyes would quell a panther; but +now as he leaned against the counter a shrewd observer would have +said, "Lookout for him; he's dangerous." +</p> +<p> +His gray shirt, loose at the throat, showed a neck that resembled +the spreading base of an oak tree, and his crossed limbs and +half-recumbent pose formed a curious opposition to the look in his eyes. +</p> +<p> +Nobody noticed him specially. Most comers and goers, being occupied +with their mail, merely nodded and passed on. +</p> +<p> +Finally some one called for a cigar, and Reeves, having finished in +the post-office department, came jauntily along behind the counter +directly to where Anson stood. As he looked casually into the giant's +eyes he started back, but too late; one vast hand had clutched him +by the collar, and he was jerked over the counter and cuffed from +hand to hand, like a mouse in the paws of a cat. Though Ans used +his open palm, the punishment was fearful. Blood burst from his +victim's nose and mouth; he yelled with fright and pain. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_054" id="Page_054">54</a></span> +The rest rushed to help. +</p> +<p> +"Stand back! This is a private affair," said Ans, throwing up +a warning hand. They paused; all knew his strength. +</p> +<p> +"It wasn't me!" screamed Reeves as the punishment increased; +"it was Doc Coe." +</p> +<p> +Coe, his hands full of papers and letters, horrified at what had +overtaken Reeves, stood looking on. But now he tried to escape. +Flinging the battered, half-senseless Reeves back over the counter, +where he lay in a heap, Anson caught Coe by the coat just as he was +rushing past him, and duplicated the punishment, ending by kicking +him into the street, where he lay stunned and helpless. Ans said +then, in a voice that the rest heard, "The next time you insult +a girl, you'd better inquire into the qualities of her guardeen." +</p> +<p> +This little matter attended to, he unhitched his horse from the +sidewalk, and refusing to answer any questions, rode off home, +outwardly as calm as though he had just been shaking hands. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_055" id="Page_055">55</a></span> +Supper was about ready when he drove up, and through the open door +he could see the white-covered table and could hear the cheerful +clatter of dishes. Flaxen was whistling. Eight years of hard work +had not done much for these sturdy souls, but they had managed to +secure with incredible toil a comfortable little house surrounded +with outbuildings. Calves and chickens gave life to the barn-yard, +and fields of wheat rippled and ran with swash of heavy-bearded +heads and dapple of shadow and sheen. +</p> +<p> +Flaxen was now the housewife and daughter of these hard-working +pioneers, and a cheery and capable one she had become. No one had +ever turned up with a better claim to her, and so she had grown up +with Ans and Bert, going to school when she could spare the time, +but mainly being adviser and associate at the farm. +</p> +<p> +Ans and Bert had worked hard winter and summer trying to get ahead, +but had not succeeded as they had hoped. Crops had failed for three +or four years, and money was scarce with them; but they +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_056" id="Page_056">56</a></span> +had managed to build this small frame house and to get a little stock +about them, and this year, with a good crop, would "swing clear," +and be able to do something for Flaxen—perhaps send her to +Belleplain to school, togged out like a little queen. +</p> +<p> +When Anson returned to the house after putting out the horse, he found +Bert reading the paper in the little sitting-room and Flaxen putting the +tea on the stove. +</p> +<p> +"Wha' d' y' do to him, pap?" laughed she, all her anger gone. +Bert came out to listen. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, nothin' p'tic'lar," answered Ans, flinging his hat at a +chicken that made as though to come in, and rolling up his sleeves +preparatory to sozzling his face at the sink. "I jest cuffed 'em +a little, an' let 'em go." +</p> +<p> +"Is that all?" said Flaxen, disappointedly, a comical +look on her round face. +</p> +<p> +"Now, don't you worry," put in Bert. "Anson's cuffin' a man +is rather severe experience. I saw him cuff a man once; it ain't anythin' +to be desired a second time." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_057" id="Page_057">57</a></span> +They all drew about the table. Flaxen looked very womanly as she sat +cutting the bread and pouring the tea. She had always been old in her +ways about the house, for she had very early assumed the housewife's +duties and cares. Her fresh-coloured face beamed with delight as she +watched the hungry men devouring the fried pork, potatoes, and cheese. +</p> +<p> +"When y' goin' to begin cuttin', boys?" Collectively they were +boys to her, but when addressing them separately they were "Bert" +and "Pap." +</p> +<p> +"To-morrow 'r nex' day, I guess," answered Anson, looking out of +the open door. "Don't it look fine—all yeller an' green? I tell +ye they ain't anything lays over a ripe field o' wheat in my eyes. You +jest take it when the sun strikes it right, an' the wind is playin' on +it—when it kind o' sloshes around like water—an' the clouds +go over it, droppin' shadders down on it, an' a hawk kind o' goes skimmin' +over it, divin' into it once in a while—" +</p> +<p> +He did not finish; it was not necessary. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_058" id="Page_058">58</a></span> +"Yes, sir!" adjudged Gearheart, after a pause, leaning his +elbows on the table and looking out of the door on the far-stretching, +sun-glorified plain. +</p> +<p> +"The harvest kind o' justifies the winter we have out here. +That is, when we have a harvest such as this. Fact is, we fellers +live six months o' the year lookin' ahead to harvest, an' t'other +six months lookin' back to it. Well, this won't buy the woman a +dress, Ans. We must get that header set up to-night if we can." +</p> +<p> +They pushed their chairs back noisily and rose to go out. Flaxen said: +</p> +<p> +"Say, which o' you boys is goin' to help me churn to-night?" +</p> +<p> +Anson groaned, while she laughed. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know, Flax; ask us an easier one." +</p> +<p> +"We'll attend to that after it gets too dark to work on the +machine," added Bert. +</p> +<p> +"Well, see 't y' do. I can't do it; I've got bread to mix an' a +chicken to dress. Say, if you don't begin cuttin' till day after +to-morrow, we can go down to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_059" id="Page_059">59</a></span> +sociable to-morrow night. Last one o' the season." +</p> +<p> +"I wish it was the last one before the kingdom come," growled +Bert as he "stomped" out the door. "They're a bad lot. +The idea o' takin' down four dollars' worth o' grub an' then payin' +four dollars for the privilege of eatin' half of it! I'll take my +chicken here, when I'm hungry." +</p> +<p> +"Bert ain't partial to sociables, is he, pap?" laughed Flaxen. +</p> +<p> +"I should hate to have the minister dependin' on Bert for a livin'." +</p> +<p> +"Sa-ay, pap!" +</p> +<p> +"Wal, babe?" +</p> +<p> +"I expect I'll haf t' have a new dress one o' these days." +</p> +<p> +"Think so?" +</p> +<p> +"You bet." +</p> +<p> +"Why, what's the matter with the one y' got on? Ain't no holes in +it that I can see," looking at it carefully and turning her around +as if she were on a pivot. +</p> +<p> +"Well, ain't it purty short, pap?" she said suggestively. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_060" id="Page_060">60</a></span> +"I swear, I don't know but it is," conceded Anson, scratching +his head; "I hadn't paid much 'tention to it before. It certainly +is a lee-tle too short. Lemme see: ain't no way o' lettin' it down, +is they?" +</p> +<p> +"Nary. She's clean down to the last notch now," replied +Flaxen convincingly. +</p> +<p> +"Couldn't pull through till we thrash?" he continued, +still in a tentative manner. +</p> +<p> +"Could, but don't like to," she answered, laughing again, +and showing her white teeth pleasantly. +</p> +<p> +"I s'pose it'll cost suthin'," he insinuated in a dubious tone. +</p> +<p> +"Mattie Stuart paid seven dollars fer her'n, pap, an' I—" +</p> +<p> +"Seven how manys?" +</p> +<p> +"Dollars, pap, makin' an' everythin'. An' then I ought to have a +new hat to go with the dress, an' a new pair o' shoes. All the girls +are wearin' white, but I reckon I can git along with a good coloured +one that'll do fer winter." +</p> +<p> +"Wal, all right. I'll fix it—some way," Ans said, turning +away only to look back +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_061" id="Page_061">61</a></span> +and smile to see her dancing up and down and crying: +</p> +<p> +"Oh, goody, goody!" +</p> +<p> +"I'll do it if I haf to borrow money at two per cent a month," +said he to Bert, as he explained the case. "Hear her sing! Why, +dern it! I'd spend all I've got to keep that child twitterin' like +that. Wouldn't you, eh?" +</p> +<p> +Bert was silent, thinking deeply on a variety of matters suggested by +Anson's words. The crickets were singing from out the weeds near by; +a lost little wild chicken was whistling in plaintive sweetness down +in the barley-field; the flaming light from the half-sunk sun swept +along the green and yellow grain, glorifying as with a bath of gold +everything it touched. +</p> +<p> +"I wish that grain hadn't ripened so fast, Ans. It's blightin'." +</p> +<p> +"Think so?" +</p> +<p> +"No: I know it. I went out to look at it before supper, an' every +one of those spots that look so pretty are just simply burnin' up! +But, say, ain't it a little singular that Flaxen should blossom out +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_062" id="Page_062">62</a></span> +in a desire for a new dress all at once? Ain't it rather sudden?" +</p> +<p> +"Wal, no: I don't think it is. Come to look it all over, up one side +an' down the other, she's been growin' about an inch a month this summer, +an' her best dress is gittin' turrible short the best way you can fix it. +She's gittin' to be 'most a woman, Bert." +</p> +<p> +"Yes: I know she is," said Bert, significantly. "An' +something's got to be done right off." +</p> +<p> +"Wha' d' ye mean by that, ol' man?" +</p> +<p> +"I mean jest this. It's time we did something religious for that +girl. She ain't had much chance since she's been here with us. She +ain't had no chance at all. Now I move that we send her away to school +this winter. Give her a good outfit an' send her away. This ain't no +sort o' way for a girl to grow up in." +</p> +<p> +"Wal, I've be'n thinkin' o' that myself; but where'll we send her?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, back to the States somewhere; Wisconsin or +Minnesota—somewhere." +</p> +<p> +"Why not to Boomtown?" +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_063" id="Page_063">63</a></span> +"Well, I'll tell yeh, Ans. I've been hearing a good 'eal off an' on +about the way we're bringin' her up here 'alone with two rough old +codgers,' an' I jest want to give her a better chance than the Territory +affords. I want her to git free of us and all like us, for a while; let +her see something of the world. Besides, that business over in Belleplain +to-day kind o' settled me. The plain facts are, Ans, the people are a +little too free with her because she is growin' up here—" +</p> +<p> +"I know some fellers that won't be again." +</p> +<p> +"Well, they are beginnin' to wink an' nudge each other an' to +say—" +</p> +<p> +"Go on! What do they say?" +</p> +<p> +"They say she's goin' to be a woman soon; that this fatherly +business is bound to play out." +</p> +<p> +"I'd like to see anybody wink when I'm around. I'd smash 'em!" +said Anson through his set teeth. "Why, she's our little babe," +he broke out, as the full significance of the matter came to him. +"My little un; I'm her ol' pap. Why—" +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_064" id="Page_064">64</a></span> +He ended in despair. "It's none o' their darn business." +</p> +<p> +"There ain't no use o' howlin', Ans. You can't smash a whole +neighborhood." +</p> +<p> +"But what are we goin' to do?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'll tell ye what we mustn't do. We mustn't tog her out +jest yet." +</p> +<p> +"Why not?" asked Anson, not seeing these subtle distinctions +of time and place. +</p> +<p> +"Because, you tog her out this week or next, without any apparent +reason, in a new hat an' dress an' gloves, an' go down to one o' these +sociables with her, an' you'd have to clean out the whole crowd. They'd +all be winkin' an' nudgin' an' grinnin'—see?" +</p> +<p> +"Wal, go on," said the crushed giant. "What'll we do?" +</p> +<p> +"Just let things go on as they are for the present till we git +ready to send her to school." +</p> +<p> +"But I promised the togs." +</p> +<p> +"All right. I've stated the case," Gearheart returned, with the +air of a man who washed his hands of the whole affair. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_065" id="Page_065">65</a></span> +Anson rose with a sudden gesture. "Jest hear her! whistlin' away +like a lark. I don't see how I'm goin' to go in there an' spoil all +her fun; I can't do it, that's all." +</p> +<p> +"Well, now, you leave it all to me. I'll state the case to her +in a way that'll catch her—see if I don't. She ain't no common +girl." +</p> +<p> +It was growing dark as they went in, and the girl's face could not +be seen. +</p> +<p> +"Well, Bert, are y' ready to help churn?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, I guess so, if Ans'll milk." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, he'll milk; he jest loves to milk ol' Brindle when the +flies are thick." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you bet," said Ans, to make her laugh. +</p> +<p> +"Now, Flaxen," coughed Gearheart in beginning, "we've been +discussin' your case, an' we've come to the conclusion that you ought +to have the togs specified in the indictment" (this to take away +the gravity of what was to follow); "but we're kind o' up a tree +about just what we'd better do. The case is this. We've +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_066" id="Page_066">66</a></span> +got to buy a horse to fill out our team, an' that's a-goin' to take +about all we can rake an' scrape." +</p> +<p> +"We may have to git our groceries on tick. Now, if you could only +pull through till after—" Anson broke in. +</p> +<p> +"It's purty tough, Flaxie, an' pap's awful sorry; but if you could +jest pull through—" +</p> +<p> +It was a great blow to poor little Flaxen, and she broke down and cried +unrestrainedly. +</p> +<p> +"I—I—don't see why I can't have things like the rest o' +the girls." It was her first reproach, and it cut to the heart. +Anson swore under his breath, and was stepping forward to say something +when Gearheart restrained him. +</p> +<p> +"But, y' see, Flaxie, we ain't askin' you to give up the dress, +only to wait on us for a month or so, till we thrash." +</p> +<p> +"That's it, babe," said Anson, going over to where she sat, +with her arms lying on the table and her face hidden upon them. +"We could spend dollars then where we couldn't cents now." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_067" id="Page_067">67</a></span> +"And they won't be any more thingumyjigs at the church, anyhow, +an' the wheat's blightin' on the knolls, besides." +</p> +<p> +But the first keen disappointment over, she was her brave self once +more. +</p> +<p> +"Well, all right, boys," she said, her trembling voice +curiously at variance with her words; "I'll get along somehow, +but I tell you I'll have something scrumptious to pay for +this—see if I don't." She was smiling again faintly, +"It'll cost more'n <em>one</em> ten dollars for my togs, as +you call 'em. Now, pap, you go an' milk that cow! An', Bert, you +glue yerself to that churn-dasher, an' don't you stop to breathe +or swear till it's done." +</p> +<p> +"That's the girl to have—that's our own Flaxie! She knows +how hard things come on a farm," cheered Anson. +</p> +<p> +"I bet I do," she said, wiping away the last trace of her +tears and smiling at her palpable hit. And then began the thump of +the dasher, and out in the dusk Anson was whistling as he milked. +</p> +<p> +She went down to the sociable the next night in her old dress, +and bravely looked +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_068" id="Page_068">68</a></span> +happy for pap's sake. Bert did not go. Anson was a rather handsome +old fellow. Huge, bearded like a Russian, though the colour of his +beard was a wolf brindle, resembling a bunch of dry buffalo-grass, +Bert was accustomed to say that he looked the father of the girl, +for she had the same robust development, carried herself as erect, +and looked everybody in the eye with the same laughing directness. +</p> +<p> +There were some sly remarks among a ribald few, but on the whole +everything passed off as usual. They were both general favorites, +and as a matter of fact few people remarked that Flaxen's dress +was not good enough. She certainly forgot all about it, so +complete was her absorption in the gayety of the evening. +</p> +<p> +"Wal, now for four weeks' hard times, Flaxen," said Anson, +as they were jogging homeward about eleven o'clock. +</p> +<p> +"I can stand <em>my</em> share of it, pap," she stoutly +replied. "I'm no chicken." +</p> + +<div> +<a name="VII"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_069" id="Page_069">69</a></span> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER VII.</a></h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +AFTER HARVEST. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +All through those four or five weeks, at every opportunity, the +partners planned the future of their waif. In the harvest-field, +when they had a moment together, one would say to the other: +</p> +<p> +"We'll let her stay two years if she likes it, eh?" +</p> +<p> +"Certainly; she needn't come back till she wants to. We may +be rich enough to sell out then, and move back ourselves. I'm +gittin' tired o' this prairie myself. If we could sell, we'd +put her through a whole course o' sprouts." +</p> +<p> +"You bet! Sell when you can find a buyer. I'll sign the deed." +</p> +<p> +"All right." +</p> +<p> +And then they would go to work again toiling and planning for +the future. Every +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_070" id="Page_070">70</a></span> +day during August these men worked with the energy of demons, up early +in the morning and out late at night, harvesting their crop. All day +the header clattered to and fro with Bert or Ans astride the rudder, +a cloud of dust rolling up from the ground, out of which the painted +flanges of the reel flashed like sword-strokes. All day, and day after +day; while the gulls sailed and soared in the hazy air and the larks +piped from the dun grass, these human beings, covered with grime and +sweat, worked in heat and parching wind. And never for an hour did they +forget their little waif and her needs. And she did her part in the +house. She rose as early as they and worked almost as late. It was +miraculous, they admitted. +</p> +<p> +One night toward the last of the harvest they were returning along +the road from a neighboring farm, where they had been to head some +late wheat. The tired horses with down-hung heads and swinging +traces were walking sullenly but swiftly along the homeward road, the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_071" id="Page_071">71</a></span> +wagon rumbling sleepily; the stars were coming out in the east, while +yet the rose and amethyst of the fallen sun lighted the western sky. +Through the air, growing moist, came the sound of reapers still going. +Men were shouting blithely, while voices of women and children came +from the cabins, where yellow lights began to twinkle. +</p> +<p> +Anson and Bert, blackened with dust and perspiration and weary to the +point of listlessness, sat with elbows on knees, talking in low, slow +tones on the never-failing topic, crops and profits. Their voices +chimed with the sound of the wagon. +</p> +<p> +"There's the light," broke out Ans, rousing himself and the team; +"Flaxen's got supper all ready for us. She's a regular little Trojan, +that girl is. They ain't many girls o' fourteen that 'u'd stay there +contented all day alone an' keep all the whole business in apple-pie +order. She'll get her pay some day." +</p> +<p> +"We'll try to pay her; but say, ol' man, ain't it about time to +open up our plans to her?" +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_072" id="Page_072">72</a></span> +"Wal, yes; it is. You kind o' start the thing to-night, an' we'll +have it over with." +</p> +<p> +As they drove up, Flaxen came to the door. "Hello, boys! +What makes ye so late?" +</p> +<p> +"Finishin' up a field, babe. All done." +</p> +<p> +She clapped her hands and danced up and down. +</p> +<p> +"Goody! all done at last. Well, yank them horses out o' their +harnesses an' come to biscuits. They're jest sizzlin' hot." +</p> +<p> +"All right. We'll be there in about two jerks of a lamb's tail +in fly-time. Bert, grab a tug; I'm hungry as a wolf." +</p> +<p> +It was about the first of September and the nights were getting +cool, and the steaming supper seemed like a feast to the chilled +and stiffened men coming in a little later and sitting down with +the sound of the girl's cheery voice in their ears. The tea was +hot; so were the biscuits. The pyramid of hot mashed potato had +a lump of half-melted butter in the hollow +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_073" id="Page_073">73</a></span> +top, and there were canned peaches and canned salmon. +</p> +<p> +"Yes: we're about finished up harvestin'," said Bert, as +they settled themselves at the table, "an' it's about time to +talk about gittin' you off to school." +</p> +<p> +"Don't worry about that. It ain't no great job, I reckon. I +can git ready in about seventeen jiffies, stop-watch time." +</p> +<p> +"Not if you are goin' away off to some city in the +East—" +</p> +<p> +"Yes: but I ain't, y' see." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, you are. Bert an' I've be'n talkin' it all over f'r +the last three weeks. We're goin' to send you back to St. Peter +to the seminary." +</p> +<p> +"I guess not, pap. I'd like to know what you think you're a-doin' +sendin' me 'way back there. Boomtown's good enough fer me." +</p> +<p> +"There, there, Flaxie; don't git mad. Y' see, we think they ain't +anythin' good enough for you. Nothin' too good for a girl that stays +to home an' cooks f'r two old cusses—" +</p> +<p> +"You ain't cusses! You're jest as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_074" id="Page_074">74</a></span> +good as you can be; but I ain't a-goin'—there!" +</p> +<p> +"Why not?" +</p> +<p> +"'Cause I ain't; that's why." +</p> +<p> +"Why, don't y' wan' to go back there where the people have nice +houses, an' where they's a good—" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I don't know enough; that's why. I ain't goin' back to no +seminary to be laughed at 'cause I don't know beans." +</p> +<p> +"But you do," laughed Bert, with an attempt to lighten the +gloom—"you know canned beans." +</p> +<p> +"They'd laff at me, I know, an' call me a little Norsk." +She was ready to cry. +</p> +<p> +"I'll bet they won't, not when they see our new dress an' our +new gold watch—dress jest the color o' crow's-foot grass, +watch thirty carats fine. I'd laugh to see 'em callin' my babe +names then!" +</p> +<p> +And so by bribing, coaxing, and lying they finally obtained her +tearful consent. They might not have succeeded even then had it +not been for a young lady in Boomtown who was going back to the +same school, and who offered to take her in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_075" id="Page_075">75</a></span> +charge. But there was hardly a day that she did not fling herself +down into a chair and cry out: +</p> +<p> +"I jest ain't goin'. I'm all right here, an' I don't see why you +can't let me stay here. <em>I</em> ain't made no fuss. Seems as if +you thought it was fun f'r me to go 'way off there where I don't +know anythin' an' where I don't know anybody." +</p> +<p> +But having come to a conclusion, the men were relentless. They hired +sewing-girls, and skirmished back and forth between Boomtown and the +farm like mad. Their steady zeal made up for her moody and fitful +enthusiasm. However, she grew more resigned to the idea as the days +wore on toward the departure, though her fits of dark and unusual +musing were alarming to Anson, who feared a desperate retreat at +the last moment. +</p> +<p> +He took her over to see Miss Holt one day, but not before he had +prepared the way. +</p> +<p> +"I s'pose things are in purty good shape around this +seminary?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, indeed. There are three +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_076" id="Page_076">76</a></span> +large buildings; libraries, picture-galleries, and music-rooms. +The boarding-halls are carpeted and the parlors are really elegant." +</p> +<p> +"Uh-hum!" commented Anson. "Well, now, I'm goin' to bring +my girl over to see you, an' I guess it 'u'd be jest as well if you +didn't mention these fineries an' things. Y' see, she's afraid of all +such things. It 'u'd be better to tell her that things weren't very +gorgeous there—about like the graded school in Boomtown, say. +She ain't used to these music-halls an' things. Kind o' make her +think St. Peter ain't no great shakes, anyhow." +</p> +<p> +"I see," laughed the quick-witted girl. And she succeeded in +removing a good deal of Flaxen's dread of the seminary. +</p> +<p> +"Wal, babe, to-morrow," said Anson, as they were eating supper, +and he was astonished to see her break out in weeping. +</p> +<p> +"Why don't you keep harpin' away on that the whole while?" she +exclaimed. "Can't you leave me alone a minute? Seems to me you're +jest crazy to git rid o' me." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_077" id="Page_077">77</a></span> +"Oh, we are," put in Bert. "We're jest lickin' our chops to +git back to sour flapjacks an' soggy bread. Jest seems as though we +couldn't wait till to-morrow noon, to begin doing our own cookin' again." +</p> +<p> +This cleared the air a little, and they spent the rest of the evening +without saying very much directly upon the departure. The two men sat +up late after Flaxen had gone to bed. There was the trunk and valise +which would not let them forget even for a moment what was coming on +the morrow. Every time Anson looked at her he sighed and tried to +swallow the lump in his throat. +</p> +<p> +"Say, Bert, let's let her stay if she wants to," he said suddenly +after they had been in silence for a long time. +</p> +<p> +"Don't make a cussed fool of yourself, Ans," growled Bert, who +saw that heroic measures were necessary. "Go to bed an' don't you +say another word; we've got to take our medicine like men." +</p> +<div> +<a name="VIII"></a> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER VIII.</a> +</h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +AN EMPTY HOUSE. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +Anson was the more talkative of the two next morning, however. +</p> +<p> +"Come, come, brace up, babe! Anybody 'u'd think we'd lost all the +rest of our family, when we're only doin' the square thing by our +daughter. That's all. Why, you'll be as happy as a canary in less'n +two weeks. Young folks is about the same everywhere, an' you'll git +acquainted in less'n two jiffies." +</p> +<p> +They were on the road to Boomtown to put Flaxen on the train. It was +about the tenth of September, early in the cold, crisp air of a perfect +morning. In the south there was a vast phantom lake, with duplicate +cities here and there along the winding shores, which stretched from +east to west. The grain-stacks stood around +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_079" id="Page_079">79</a></span> +so thickly that they seemed like walls of a great, low-built town, +the mirage bringing into vision countless hundreds of them commonly +below the horizon. +</p> +<p> +The smoke of steam threshing-machines mounted into the still air here +and there, and hung long in a slowly drifting cloud above the land. +The prairie-lark, the last of the singing birds, whistled softly and +infrequently from the dry grass. The gulls were streaming south from +the lakes. +</p> +<p> +They were driving her to Boomtown to avoid the inquisitive eyes of the +good people of Belleplain. "I may break down an' blubber," +said Anson to Bert; "an' if I do, I don't want them cussed idiots +standin' around laughin'—it's better to go on the +C., B. and Q., anyhow." +</p> +<p> +Notwithstanding his struggle to keep talk going, Anson was unsuccessful +from the very moment that Belleplain faded to an unsubstantial group of +shadows and disappeared from the level plain into the air, just as +Boomtown correspondingly wavered into sight ahead. Silence so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_080" id="Page_080">80</a></span> +profound was a restraint on them all, and poor Flaxen with wide eyes +looked wistfully on the plain that stretched away into unknown regions. +She was thinking of her poor mother, whom she dimly remembered in the +horror of that first winter. Naturally of a gay, buoyant disposition, +she had not dwelt much upon her future or her past; but now that the +familiar plain seemed slipping from her sight entirely, she was +conscious of its beauty, and, rapt with the associated emotions which +came crowding upon her, she felt as though she were leaving the tried +and true for the unknown and uncertain. +</p> +<p> +"Boys," she said finally, "do you s'pose I've got any +folks?" +</p> +<p> +"I shouldn't wonder if y' had, babe, somewhere back in the ol' +country." +</p> +<p> +"They couldn't talk with me if I could find 'em, could they?" +</p> +<p> +"I reckon not, 'less you study so hard that you can learn their +lingo," said Ans, seeing another opportunity to add a reason for +going to school. +</p> +<p> +"Well, boys, that's what I'm goin' to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_081" id="Page_081">81</a></span> +do, an' by an' by we'll go over there an' see if we can't find 'em, +won't we?" +</p> +<p> +"That's the talk; now you're gittin' down to business," rejoined Ans. +</p> +<p> +"I s'pose St. Peter is a good 'eal bigger'n Boomtown," she said +sighfully, as they neared the "emporium of the sleepy James." +</p> +<p> +"A little," said the astute Gearheart. +</p> +<p> +The clanging of the engines and the noise of shouting gave her a +sinking sensation in the chest, and she clung to Anson's arm as +they drove past the engine. She was deafened by the hiss of the +escaping steam of the monster standing motionless, headed toward +the east, ready to leap on its sounding way. +</p> +<p> +On the platform they found Miss Holt and a number of other friends +waiting. There was a great deal of clanging and whanging and +scuffling, it seemed to the poor, overwrought girl. Miss Holt took +her in charge at once and tried to keep her cheerful. When they +had checked her trunk and the train was about ready to start, Ans +looked uneasy and fidgeted +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_082" id="Page_082">82</a></span> +about. Bert looked on, silent and dark. Flaxen, with her new long +dress and new hat, looked quite the woman, and Miss Holt greeted +her as such; indeed, she kept so close to her that Anson looked +in vain for a chance to say something more which was on his mind. +Finally, as the train was about going, he said hesitatingly: +</p> +<p> +"Elga, jest a minute." She stared for a moment, then +came up to him. +</p> +<p> +"I didn't want to call y' Flaxen afore her," he explained; +"but you—ain't—kissed us good-bye." He ended +hesitatingly. +</p> +<p> +The tears were already streaming down her cheeks, and this was too +much. She flung her arms about his neck and sobbed on his bosom +with the abandon of girlish grief. +</p> +<p> +"I don't wan' to go 't all, pap." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, y' do, Elga; yes; y' do! Don't mind us; we'll be all +right. I'll have Bert writin' a full half the time. There, kiss me +good-bye an' git on—Bert here, too." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_083" id="Page_083">83</a></span> +She kissed him twice through his bristling moustache, and going to Bert +offered her lips, and then came back to Anson and threw herself against +his broad, strong breast. She had no one to love but these two. It +seemed as if she were leaving everything in the world. Anson took her +on his firm arm and helped her on the car, and followed her till she + was seated beside Miss Holt. +</p> +<p> +"Don't cry, babe; you'll make ol' pap feel turrible. He'll break +right down here afore all these people, an' blubber, if y' don't cheer +up. Why, you'll soon be as happy as a fly in soup. Good-bye, good-bye!" +</p> +<p> +The train started, and Anson, brushing his eyes with his great brown +hand, swung himself off and stood looking at her. As the train passed +him she rushed to the rear end of the car, and remained there looking +back at the little station till the sympathetic Miss Holt gently led +her back to her seat. Then she flattened her round cheek against the +pane and tried to see the boys. When the last house of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_084" id="Page_084">84</a></span> +town passed by her window she sank back in her seat and sobbed silently. +</p> +<hr class="break" /> +<p> +"I feel as if I'd be'n attendin' my own funeral," said Anson, +after they had got into their wagon and the train had gone out of +sight in the haze of the prairie. +</p> +<p> +"Well, it's pretty tough on that child to go off that way. To her +the world is all a great mystery. When you an' I go to heaven it won't +be any greater change for us than this change for Flaxen—every +face strange, every spot new." +</p> +<p> +"Wal, she ain't far away but we can look out for her. She ain't +poor n'r fatherless as long as we live, hey?" +</p> +<p> +And then silence fell on them. As they were jogging homeward they saw +the gray gulls rise from the sod and go home to the lake for the night. +They heard the crickets' evening chorus broaden and deepen to an +endless and monotonous symphony, while behind fantastic, thin, and +rainless clouds the sun sank in unspeakable glory of colour. The air, +perfectly still, was cool almost to frostiness, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_085" id="Page_085">85</a></span> +and, far above, the fair stars broke from the lilac and gold of the +sun-flushed sky. Lights in the farm-houses began to appear. +</p> +<p> +Once or twice Anson said: "She's about at Summit now. I hope +she's chirked up." +</p> +<p> +They met threshing-crews going noisily home to supper. Once they +met an "outfit," engine, tank, separator, all moving along +like a train of cars, while every few minutes the red light from +the furnace gleamed on the man who was stuffing the straw into the +furnace-door, bringing out his face so plainly that they knew him. +As the night grew deeper, an occasional owl flapped across the +fields in search of mice. +</p> +<p> +"We're bound to miss her like thunder, Bert; no two ways about +that. Can't help but miss her on the cookin', hey?" +</p> +<p> +Bert nodded without looking up. As they came in sight of home at last, +and saw the house silhouetted against the faintly yellow sky, Ans said +with a sigh: +</p> +<p> +"No light an' no singin' there to-night." +</p> + +<div> +<a name="IX"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_086" id="Page_086">86</a></span> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER IX.</a> +</h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +"BACHING" IT AGAIN. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +"The fact is, Flaxen has sp'iled us," laughed Anson, a couple +of days later, when Bert was cursing the soggy biscuit. "We've got +so high-toned that we can't stand common cookin'. Time was we'd 'a' +thought ourselves lucky to git as good as that. Rec'lect them flapjacks +we ust to make? By mighty! you could shoe a horse with 'em. Say, I wish +I could jest slip in an' see what she's a-doin' about now, hey?" +</p> +<p> +"She's probably writin' a letter. She won't do much of anythin' +else for the first week." +</p> +<p> +"I hope you're right," said Anson. +</p> +<p> +They got a queer little letter every Wednesday, each one for several +weeks pitifully like the others. +</p> +<blockquote> +<p class="no-space-bottom"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_087" id="Page_087">87</a></span> +Dear boys i thought i would take my pen in hand to tell you i dont like +it one bit the school is just as mene as it can be the girls do laugh +at me they call me toe-head. if i catch em right i will fix their heads. +They is one girl who i like she is from pipestone she dont know no +moren i do she says my dress is pritty—ol nig an the drake all +rite i wish i was home.</p> +<p class="no-space-top sig sc">Elga. +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +The wish to be home was in all these letters like a sob. The men read them +over carefully and gravely, and finally Anson would put them away in the +Bible (bought on Flaxen's account) for safe-keeping. +</p> +<p> +As the letters improved in form their exultation increased. +</p> +<p> +"Say, Bert, don't you notice she writes better now? She makes big I's +now in place o' little ones. Seems 's if she runs the sentence all +together, though." +</p> +<p> +"She'll come out all right. You see, she goes into the preparatory +department, where they teach writin' an' spellin'. You'll see her hand +improve right along now." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_088" id="Page_088">88</a></span> +And it did, and she ceased to wail for home and ceased to say that +she hated her studies. +</p> +<p> +"I am getting along splendid," she wrote some weeks after this. +"I like my teacher; her name is Holt. She is just as nice as she +can be. She is cousin to the one who came with me; I live with her +uncle, and I can go to soshibles whenever I want to; but the other +girls cant. I am feeling pretty good, but I wish you boys was here." +</p> +<p> +She did not wish to be at home this time! +</p> +<p> +Winter shut down on the broad land again with that implacable, +remorseless brilliancy of fierce cold which characterises the +northern plain, stopping work on the farm and bolting all doors. +Hardly a day that the sun did not shine; but the light was hard, +white, glittering, and cold, the winds treacherous, the snow wild +and restless. There was now comparatively little danger of being +lost even in the fiercest storms, but still life in one of these +little cabins had an isolation almost +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_089" id="Page_089">89</a></span> +as terrible as that of a ship wedged amid the ice-floes of the +polar regions. +</p> +<p> +Day after day rising to feed the cattle, night after night bending +over the sooty stove listening to the ceaseless voice of the wind +as it beat and brushed, whispered, moaned, and piped or screamed +around the windows and eaves—this was their life, varied with +an occasional visit to the store or the post-office, or by the call +of a neighbour. It is easy to conceive that Flaxen's bright letters +were like bursts of bird-song in their loneliness. Many of the young +men, their neighbours, went back East to spend the winter—back +to Michigan, Iowa, New York, or elsewhere. +</p> +<p> +"Ans, why don't you go back an' visit your folks?" asked Bert, +one day. "I'll take care o' things." +</p> +<p> +"Wal, the fact is, I've be'n away so long they don't care whether +I'm alive er dead. I ain't got no near relatives except a sister, an' +she's got all the fam'ly she can 'tend to." +</p> +<p> +"Same here. We ain't very affectionate, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_090" id="Page_090">90</a></span> +anyway; our fam'ly and I don't write. Still I'd like to go back, +just to see how they all are." +</p> +<p> +"Why not go?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I don't know. I guess I must one o' these days. I've kind +o' be'n waitin' till we got into a little better shape. I hate to go +back poor." +</p> +<p> +"So do I. It's hard work f'r me to give up beat; I ain't goin' +to do it yet awhile." +</p> +<p> +Sometimes a neighbour dropped in during the middle of the day, and +on pleasant days they would harness up the team and take a drive +down to the store and the post-office; but mainly they vegetated +like a couple of huge potatoes in a cellar, as did most of the +settlers. There was nothing else to do. +</p> +<p> +It was the worst winter since the first that they had spent in the +country. The snow seemed never still. It slid, streamed, rose in +the air ceaselessly; it covered the hay, drifted up the barn door, +swept the fields bare, and, carrying the dirt of the ploughed +fields with it, built huge black + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_091" id="Page_091">91</a></span> +drifts wherever there was a wind-break, corn-field, or other obstruction. +</p> +<p> +There were moments when Bert was well-nigh desperate. Only contact with +hard work and cold winds saved him. He was naturally a more ambitious, +more austere man than Anson. He was not content to vegetate, but longed +to escape. He felt that he was wasting his life. +</p> +<p> +It was in December that the letter first came from Flaxen which +mentioned Will Kendall. +</p> +<blockquote> +<p> +O boys! I had the best time. We had a party at our house and lots of +boys came and girls too, and they were nice, the boys, I mean. Will +Kendall he is the nicest feller you ever seen. He has got black eyes +and brown hair and a gold watch-chain with a locket with some girl's +hair in it, and he said it was his sister's hair, but I told him I +didn't believe it, do you? We had cake and popcorn and lasses candy; +and Will he took me out to supper. +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +Bert was reading the letter, and at this point he stopped and raised +his eyes, and the two men gazed at each other without + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_092" id="Page_092">92</a></span> +a word for a long time. Then Anson laughed. +</p> +<p> +"She's gittin' over her homesickness. She's all right now she's got +out to a sociable." +</p> +<p> +After that there was hardly a letter that did not mention Kendall in some +innocent fashion among the other boys and girls who took part in the +sleigh-rides, parties, and sociables. But the morbidly acute Bert, if he +saw, said nothing, and Anson did not see. +</p> +<p> +"Who d' y' s'pose this Kendall is?" asked Anson, one night late +in the winter, of Gearheart, who was reading the paper while his +companion reread a letter from Flaxen. "Seems to me she's writin' +a good 'eal about him lately." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, some slick little dry-goods clerk or druggist," said Bert, +with unwarrantable irritation. +</p> +<p> +"She seems to have a good 'eal to say about him, anyway," repeated Anson, in a meditative way. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, that's natural enough. They are two young folks together," +replied Bert, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_093" id="Page_093">93</a></span> +with a careless accent, to remove any suspicion which his hasty utterance +might have raised in Anson's mind. +</p> +<p> +"Wal, I guess you're right," agreed Anson, after a pause, relieved. +This relief was made complete when in other letters which came she said +less and less about Kendall. If they had been more experienced, they would +have been disturbed by this suspicious fact. +</p> +<p> +Then again, when Anson wrote asking "What has become of that Kendall +you wrote so much about?" she replied that he was there, and began +writing of him again in a careless sort of way, with the craft of woman +already manifest in the change of front. +</p> +<p> +Spring came again, and that ever-recurring miracle, the good green grass, +sprang forth from its covering of ice and snow, up from its hiding-place +in the dark, cold sod. +</p> +<p> +Again the two men set to work ferociously at the seeding. Up early in +the wide, sweet dawn, toiling through the day behind harrow and seeder, +coming in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_094" id="Page_094">94</a></span> +at noon to a poor and badly cooked meal, hurrying back to the field +and working till night, coming in at sundown so tired that one leg +could hardly be dragged by the other—this was their daily life. +</p> +<p> +One day, as they were eating their supper of sour bread and canned +beans, Gearheart irritatedly broke out: "Ans, why don't you git +married? It 'u'd simplify matters a good 'eal if you should. +'Old Russ' is no good." +</p> +<p> +"What's the matter with <em>your</em> gittin' married?" replied +Anson, imperturbably pinching off the cooked part of the loaf, skilfully +leaving the doughy part. +</p> +<p> +"I ain't on the marry; that's all." +</p> +<p> +"Neither am I." +</p> +<p> +"Well, you ought to be." +</p> +<p> +"Don't see it." +</p> +<p> +"Well, now, let me show it. We can't go on this way. I'm gittin' +so poor you can count my ribs through my shirt. Jest think how +comfortable it would make things! No more awful coffee; no more +canned baked beans; no more cussed, infernal, everlastin', leathery +flapjacks; no +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_095" id="Page_095">95</a></span> +more soggy bread—confound it!" Here he seized the round +inner part of the loaf, from which the crust had been flaked, and +flung it through the open door far down toward the garden. +</p> +<p> +"Bert! that's the last bit of bread we've got in the house." +</p> +<p> +"What's the odds? We couldn't eat it." +</p> +<p> +"We could 'a' baked it over." +</p> +<p> +"We <em>could</em> eat dog, but we don't," replied Bert gloomily. +His temper was getting frightful of late. +</p> +<p> +"We'll be all right when Flaxen comes back," said Ans, laughing. +</p> +<p> +"Say, now, you've said that a thousand times this winter. You +know well enough Flaxen's out o' this. We ain't countin' on her," +blurted Gearheart, just in the mood to say disagreeable things. +</p> +<p> +"Wha' d' y' mean? Ain't she comin' back in June?" +</p> +<p> +"Probably; but she won't stay." +</p> +<p> +"No: that's so. She'll have to go back in September; but that's three +months, an' we may sell out by that time if we have a good crop. +Anyway, we'll live +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_096" id="Page_096">96</a></span> +high fer a spell. We ought to have a letter from her to-night, hadn't we?" +</p> +<p> +"I'm goin' down to see, if you'll wash the dishes." +</p> +<p> +"All right. Take a horse." +</p> +<p> +"No: the horses are tired. I'll foot it." +</p> +<p> +"Wal, ain't you too?" +</p> +<p> +"Want anythin' from the store?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes: git a hunk o' bacon an' some canned corn, tomatoes, an' some +canned salmon; if y' think we can stand the pressure, bring home a can +o' peaches." +</p> +<p> +And so Gearheart started off for town in the dusk, afoot, in order to spare +the horse, as though he had not himself walked all day long in the soft, +muddy ground. The wind was soft and moist, and the light of the stars +coming out in the east fell upon his upturned eyes with unspeakable majesty. +Yet he saw them but dimly. He was dreaming of a face which was often in his +mind now—a face not unlike Flaxen's, only older, more glorified, more +womanly. He was asking himself some searching questions to-night +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_097" id="Page_097">97</a></span> +as his tired limbs dragged themselves over the grassy road. +</p> +<p> +What was he toiling for, anyway? What mattered all this terrible +tramping to and fro—was it an end or only a means? Would +there ever come anything like satisfaction of desire? Life for +him had been a silent, gloomy, and almost purposeless struggle. +He had not looked forward to anything very definite, though +vaguely he had hoped for something better. +</p> +<p> +As his eyes fell upon the twinkling, yellow lights of the village +his thoughts came back to Flaxen and to the letter which he +expected to receive from her. He quickened his steps, though his +feet were sore and his limbs stiff and lame. +</p> +<p> +The one little street presented its usual Saturday-night appearance. +Teams were hitched to the narrow plank walk before the battlemented +wooden stores. Men stood here and there in listless knots, smoking, +talking of the weather and of seeding, while their wives, surrounded +by shy children, traded within. Being +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_098" id="Page_098">98</a></span> +Saturday night, the saloons were full of men, and shouts and the +clink of beer-mugs could be heard at intervals. But the larger +crowd was gathered at the post-office: uncouth farmers of all +nationalities, clerks, land-sharks, lawyers, and giggling girls +in couples, who took delight in mingling with the crowd. +</p> +<p> +Judge Sid Balser was over from Boomtown, and was talking expansively +to a crowd of "leading citizens" about a scheme to establish +a horse-car line between Boomtown and Belleplain. +</p> +<p> +Colonel Arran, of the Belleplain <i>Argus</i>, in another corner, not +ten feet away, was saying that the judge was "a scoundrel, a +blow-hard, and would down his best lover for a pewter cent," to +all of which the placid judge was accustomed and gave no heed. +</p> +<p> +Bert paid no attention to the colonel or to the judge, or to any of this +buzzing. "They are just talking to hear themselves make a noise, +anyway. They talk about building up the country—they who are a +rope and a grindstone around the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_099" id="Page_099">99</a></span> +necks of the rest of us, who do the work." +</p> +<p> +When Gearheart reached his box he found a large, square letter in it, +and looking at it saw that it was from Flaxen directed to Anson. +"Her picture, probably," he said as he held it up. As he was +pushing rapidly out he heard a half-drunken fellow say, in what he +thought was an inaudible tone: +</p> +<p> +"There's Gearheart. Wonder what's become of his little Norsk." +</p> +<p> +Gearheart turned, and pushing through the crowd, thrust his eyes +into the face of the speaker with a glare that paralysed the poor fool. +</p> +<p> +"What's become o' your sense?" he snarled, and his voice +had in it a carnivorous note. +</p> +<p> +With this warning he turned contemptuously and passed out, leaving +the discomfited rowdy to settle accounts with his friends. But +there was a low note in the ruffian's voice, an insinuating +inflection, which stayed with him all along the way home, like a +bad taste in the mouth. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> +He saw by the aid of a number of these side-lights of late that Flaxen +never could come back to them in the old relation; but how could she +come back? +</p> +<p> +Gearheart stopped and gazed thoughtfully upward. She must come back +as the wife of Ans or himself. "Pooh! she is only a child," +he said, snapping his finger and walking on. But the insistence +remained. "She is not a child—she is a maiden, soon to be +a woman; she has no relatives, no home to go to but ours after her +two or three years of schooling are over. It must still be her home; +no breath of scandal shall touch her if I can prevent it; and after +her two years are up"—after a long, motionless reverie he +strode forward—"she shall choose between us." +</p> +<p> +There had grown up between the two friends of late a constraint, or, +to be more exact, Gearheart had held himself in before his friend, +had not discussed these problems with him at all. "Ans is just +like a boy," he had said to himself; "he don't seem to +understand the case, and I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> +don't know as it's my duty to enlighten him; he either feels very sure +about her, or he has not understood the situation." +</p> +<p> +He was thinking this now as he strode across the spongy sod toward the +lighted windows of the shanty. The air was damp and chill, for the ice +was not yet out of the ponds or swamps of tall grasses. An occasional +prairie-cock sent forth a muffled, drowsy "boom"; low-hung +flights of geese, gabbling anxiously, or the less-orderly ducks, with +hissing wings, swept by overhead, darkly limned against the stars. +There was a strange charm in the raw air. The weary man almost forgot +his pain as he drew deep breathings of the night. +</p> +<p> +It was significant of the restraint that had grown up between him and +Anson that he held the letter from Flaxen unopened in his hand simply +because it was directed to his friend. He knew that it was as much to +him as to Anson, and yet, feeling as he had of late, he would not open +it, for he would have been angry if Anson had opened one directed to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> +him. He simply judged Anson by himself. +</p> +<p> +The giant was asleep when he entered. His great, shaggy head lay beside +the lamp on his crossed arms. Bert laid the letter down beside him and +shook him. +</p> +<p> +"Hello! got back, hey?" the sleeper said, rousing up sluggishly. +"Anything?" Then he caught sight of the letter. "Oh, bless +her little heart! Wonder what it is? Picture, bet my hat!" Here he +opened it. +</p> +<p> +"Gee whittiker, thunder and turf, gosh-all—Friday!—look +a-there! Ain't she growed!" he yelled, holding the picture by the +corner and moving it into all sorts of positions. "That's my little +girl—our Flaxen; she can't grow so purty but what I'd know her. +See that hair done up on the top of her head! Look at that dress, an' +the thingumajigs around her neck! Oh, she's gittin' there, Smith, hey?" +</p> +<p> +"She's changing pretty fast," said Bert listlessly. +</p> +<p> +"Changin' fast! Say, ol' man, what's the matter with you? Are y' sick?" +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> +"I'm played out, that's all." +</p> +<p> +"Darn my skin! I should think y' would be, draggin' all day, an' then +walkin' all o' four mile to the post-office. Jest lay down on the bed +there, ol' boy, while I read the letter to yeh. Say, ol' man, don't you +git up in the mornin' till you please. I'll look after the breakfast," +insisted Anson, struck with remorse by the expression on Bert's face. +"But here's the letter. Short an' sweet." +</p> +<blockquote> +<p class="noindent no-space-bottom"> +<span class="sc"> +Dear Boys +</span> +[Bless the little fist that wrote that!]. I send my picture. I think it +is a nice one. The girls say it flatters me, but Will says it don't +[What the devil do we care what Will says?]—I guess it does, +don't you? I wish I had a picture of you both; I want to show the +girls how handsome you are [she means me, of course. No, confound it] +how handsome you are both of you. I wish you would send me your +pictures both of you. I ain't got much to say. I will write again +soon. +</p> +<p class="no-space-top sig sc"> +Elga. +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +Bert looked at the picture over Anson's shoulder, but did not seem to +pay much attention to it. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> +"Wal, I'll go out an' shut the barn door. Nights git cold after the +sun goes down. You needn't peel the 'taters to-night. We'll bake 'em, +brussels an' all, to-morrow mornin'." +</p> +<p> +When Anson had gone, Bert snatched up the picture with great eagerness +and gazed upon it with a steady, devouring glance. How womanly she +looked with her hair done up so, and the broad, fair face and full +bosom. +</p> +<p> +He heard Anson returning from the barn, and hastily laid the picture +down, and when Anson entered was apparently dropping off to sleep. +</p> + +<div> +<a name="X"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER X.</a></h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +FLAXEN COMES HOME ON A VACATION. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +It was in June, just before the ending of the school, that Flaxen +first began to write about delaying her return. Anson was wofully +disappointed. He had said all along that she would make tracks +for home just as soon as school was out, and he had calculated +just when she would arrive; and on the second day after the close +of school for the summer he drove down to the train to meet her. +She did not come, but he got a letter which said that one of her +friends wanted her to stay two weeks with her, until after the +Fourth of July. +</p> +<p> +"She's an awful nice girl, and we will have a grand time; she +has a rich father and a piano and a pony and a buggy. It will just +be grand." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> +"I don't blame her none," sighed Anson to Bert. "I don't +want her to come away while she's enjoyin' herself. It'll be a big +change for her to come back an' cook f'r us old mossbacks after +bein' at school an' in good company all these months." +</p> +<p> +He was plainly disturbed. Her vacation was going to be all too short +at the best, and he was so hungry for the sight of her! Still, he +could not blame her for staying, under the circumstances; as he told +Bert, his feelings did not count. He just wanted her to get all she +could out of life; "there ain't much, anyway, for us poor devils, +but what little there is we want her to have." +</p> +<p> +The Fourth of July was the limit of her stay, and on the sixth, +seventh, and eighth Anson drove regularly to the evening train +to meet her. +</p> +<p> +On the third day another letter came, saying that she would reach +home the next Monday. With this Anson rode home in triumph. During +the next few days he went to the barber's and had his great +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> +beard shaved off. "Made me look so old," he explained, seeing +Bert's wild start of surprise. "I've be'n carryin' that mop o' +hair round so long I'd kind o' got into the notion o' bein' old +myself. Got a kind o' crick in the back, y' know. But I ain't; +I ain't ten years older'n you be." +</p> +<p> +And he was not. His long blond moustache, shaved beard, and clipped +hair made a new man of him, and a very handsome man, too, in a large +way. He was curiously embarrassed by Bert's prolonged scrutiny, and +said jocosely: +</p> +<p> +"We've got to brace up a little now. Company boarders comin', young +lady from St. Peter's Seminary, city airs an' all that sort o' thing. +Don't you let me see you eatin' pie with y'r knife. I'll break the +shins of any man that feeds himself with anythin' 'cept the +silver-plated forks I've bought." +</p> +<p> +Flaxen had been gone almost a year, and a year counts for much at her +age. Besides, Anson had exaggerated ideas of the amount of learning +she could absorb in a year at a boarding-seminary, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> +he had also a very vague idea of what "society" was in St. +Peter, although he seemed suddenly to awake to the necessity of +"bracing up" a little and getting things generally into +shape. He bought a new suit of clothes and a second-hand two-seated +carriage, notwithstanding the sarcastic reflection of his partner, +who was making his own silent comment upon this thing. +</p> +<p> +"The paternal business is <i>auskerspeelt</i>," he said to +himself. "Ans is goin' in on shape now. Well, it's all right; +nobody's business but ours. Let her go, Smith; but they won't be no +talk in this neighbourhood when they get hold of what's goin' +on—oh, no!" He smiled grimly. "We can stand it, I +guess; but it'll be hard on her. Ans is a little too previous. +It's too soon to spring this trap on the poor little thing." +</p> +<p> +They stood side by side on the platform the next Monday when the +train rolled into the station at Boomtown, panting with fatigue +from its long run. Flaxen caught sight of Bert first as she +sprang off +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> +the train, and running to him, kissed him without much embarrassment. +Then she looked around, saying: +</p> +<p> +"Where's ol' pap? Didn't he—" +</p> +<p> +"Why, Flaxen, don't ye know me?" he cried out at her elbow. +</p> +<p> +She knew his voice, but his shaven face, so much more youthful, was +so strange that she knew him only by his eyes laughing down into hers. +Nevertheless she kissed him doubtfully. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, what've you done? You've shaved off your whiskers; you don't +look a bit natural. I—" +</p> +<p> +She was embarrassed, almost frightened, at the change in him. He +"looked so queer"; his fair, untroubled, smiling face and +blond moustache made him look younger than Bert. +</p> +<p> +"Nev' mind that! She'll grow again if y' like it better. Get int' +this new buggy—it's ours. They ain't no flies on us to-day; not +many," said Ans in high glee, elaborately assisting her to the +carriage, not appreciating the full meaning of the situation. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> +As they rode home he was extravagantly gay. He sat beside her, and she +drove, wild with delight at the prairie, the wheat, the gulls, everything. +</p> +<p> +"Ain't no dust on our clo'es," said Ans, coughing, winking at Bert, +and brushing off with an elaborately finical gesture an imaginary fleck +from his knee and elbow. "Ain't we togged out? I guess nobody said +'boo' to us down to St. Peter, eh?" +</p> +<p> +"You like my clo'es?" said Flaxen, with charming directness. +</p> +<p> +"You bet! They're scrumptious." +</p> +<p> +"Well, they ought to be; they're my best, except my white dress. +I thought you'd like 'em; I wore 'em a-purpose." +</p> +<p> +"Like 'em? They're—you're jest as purty as a red lily er a +wild rose in the wheat—ahem! Ain't she, Bert, ol' boy? We're +jest about starvin' to death, we are." +</p> +<p> +"I knew you'd be. What'll I stir up for supper? Biscuits?" +</p> +<p> +"Um, um! Say, what y' s'pose I've got to go with 'em?" +</p> +<p> +"Honey." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you're too sharp," wailed Ans, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> +while Flaxen went off into a peal of laughter. "Say, Bert's be'n in +the <em>damnedest</em>—excuse me—plaguedest temper fer the +last two munce as you ever did see." +</p> +<p> +While this chatter was going on Bert sat silent and unsmiling on +the back seat. He was absorbed in seeing the exquisite colour that +played in her cheek and the equally charming curves of her figure. +She was well dressed and was wonderfully mature. He was saying to +himself: "Ans ain't got no more judgment than a boy. We can't +keep that girl here. More'n that, the girl never'll be contented +again, unless—" He did not allow himself to go farther. +He dared not even think farther. +</p> +<p> +They had a merry time that night, quite like old times. The biscuits +were light and flaky, the honey was delightsome, and the milk and +butter (procured specially) were fresh. They shouted in laughter as +Flaxen insisted on their eating potatoes with a fork, and opposed +the use of the knife in scooping up the honey from their plates! +Even the saturnine +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> +Bert forgot his gloom and laughed too, as Ans laboriously dipped his +honey with a fork, and, finally growing desperate, split a biscuit in +half, and in the good old boyish way sopped it in the honey. +</p> +<p> +"There, that's the Christian way of doing things!" he exulted, +while Flaxen laughed. How bright she was—how strange she acted! +There were moments when she embarrassed them by some new womanly grace +or accomplishment, some new air which she had caught from her +companions or teachers at school. It was truly amazing how much she +had absorbed outside of her regular studies. She indeed was no longer +a girl; she was a young woman, and to them a beautiful one. +</p> +<p> +Not a day passed without some added surprise which made Anson exult +and say, "She's gettin' her money's worth down there—no +two ways about that." +</p> + +<div> +<a name="XI"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER XI.</a></h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +FLAXEN GROWS RESTLESS. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +But as the excitement of getting back died out, poor Flaxen grew +restless, moody, and unaccountable. Before, she had always been +the same cheery, frank, boyish creature. As Bert said, +"You know where to find her." Now she was full of strange +tempers and moods. She would work most furiously for a time, and +then suddenly fall dreaming, looking away out on the shimmering +plain toward the east. +</p> +<p> +At Bert's instigation, a middle-aged widow had been hired, at a +fabulous price, to come and do the most of the work for them, +thus releasing Flaxen from the weight of the hard work, which +perhaps was all the worse for her. Hard work might have prevented +the unbearable, sleepless pain within. She hated +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span> +the slatternly Mrs. Green at once for her meddling with her affairs, +though the good woman meant no offence. She was jocose in the broad +way of middle-aged persons, to whom a love-affair is legitimate +food for raillery. +</p> +<p> +But Gearheart's keen eye was on Flaxen as well. He saw how eagerly she +watched for the mail on Tuesdays and Fridays, and how she sought a +quiet place at once in order to read and dream over her letters. +She was restless a day or two before a certain letter came, with an +eager, excited, expectant air. Then, after reading it, she was +absent-minded, flighty in conversation, and at last listlessly uneasy, +moving slowly about from one thing to another, in a kind of restless +inability to take continued interest in anything. +</p> +<p> +All this, if it came to the attention of Anson at all, was laid to the +schooling the girl had had. +</p> +<p> +"Of course it'll seem a little slow to you, Flaxie, but harvestin' +is comin' on soon, an' then things'll be a little more lively." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> +But Gearheart was not so slow-witted. He had had sisters and girl +cousins, and knew "the symptoms," as Mrs. Green would have +put it. He noticed that when Flaxen read her letters to them there +was one which she carefully omitted. He knew that this was the +letter which meant the most to her. He saw how those letters +affected her, and thought he had divined in what way. +</p> +<p> +One day when Flaxen, after reading her letters, sprang up and ran +into her bedroom, her eyes filled with sudden tears, Gearheart +crooked his finger at Ans, and they went out to the barn together. +</p> +<p> +It was nearly one o'clock on an intolerable day peculiar to the +Dakota plain. A frightfully hot, withering, and powerful wind was +abroad. The thermometer stood nearly a hundred in the shade, and +the wind, so far from being a relief, was suffocating because of +its heat and the dust it swept along with it. +</p> +<p> +The heavy-headed grain and russet grass writhed and swirled as if +in agony, and dashed high in waves of green and + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> +yellow. The corn-leaves had rolled up into long cords like the lashes +of a whip, and beat themselves into tatters on the dry, smooth spot +their blows had made beneath them; they seemed ready to turn to flame +in the pitiless, furnace-like blast. Everywhere in the air was a +silver-white, impalpable mist, which gave to the cloudless sky a +whitish cast. The glittering gulls were the only living things that +did not move listlessly and did not long for rain. They soared and +swooped, exulting in the sounding wind; now throwing themselves upon +it, like a swimmer, then darting upward with miraculous ease, to dip +again into the shining, hissing, tumultuous waves of the grass. +</p> +<p> +Along the roads prodigious trains of dust rose hundreds of feet in +the air, and drove like vast caravans with the wind. So powerful +was the blast that men hesitated about going out with carriages, +and everybody watched feverishly, expecting to see fire break +out on the prairie and sweep everything before it. Work in the +fields had stopped long before dinner, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> +the farmers waited, praying or cursing, for the wheat was just at +the right point to be blighted. +</p> +<p> +As the two men went out to the shed side by side, they looked out on +the withering wheat-stalks and corn-leaves with gloomy eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Another day like this, an' they won't be wheat enough in this +whole county to make a cake," said Anson, with a calm intonation, +which after all betrayed the anxiety he felt. They sat down in the +wagon-shed near the horses' mangers. They listened to the roar of +the wind and the pleasant sound of the horses eating their hay, a +good while before either of them spoke again. Finally Bert said sullenly: +</p> +<p> +"We can't put up hay such a day as this. You couldn't haul it home +under lock an' key while this infernal wind is blowin'. It's gittin' +worse, if anythin'." +</p> +<p> +Anson said nothing, but waited to hear what Bert had brought him out +here for. Bert speared away with his knife at a strip of board. +Anson sat on a wagon-tongue, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span> +his elbows on his knees, looking intently at the grave face of his +companion. The horses ground cheerily at the hay. +</p> +<p> +"Ans, we've got to send Flaxen back to St. Peter; she's so homesick +she don't know what to do." +</p> +<p> +Ans' eyes fell. +</p> +<p> +"I know it. I've be'n hopin' she'd git over that, but it's purty +tough on her, after bein' with the young folks in the city f'r a year, +to come back here on a farm." He did not finish for a moment. +"But she can't stand it. I'd looked ahead to havin' her here till +September, but I can't stand it to see her cryin' like she did to-day. +We've got to give up the idee o' her livin' here. I don't see any other +way but to sell out an' go back East somewhere." +</p> +<p> +Bert saw that Anson was still ignorant of the real state of +affairs, but thought he would say nothing for the present. +</p> +<p> +"Yes: that's the best thing we can do. We'll send her right back, +an' take our chances on the crops. We can git enough to live on an' +keep her at school, I guess." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> +They sat silent for a long time, while the wind tore round the shed, +Bert spearing at the stick, and Anson watching the hens as they +vainly tried to navigate in the wind. Finally Anson spoke: +</p> +<p> +"The fact is, Bert, this ain't no place f'r a woman, anyway—such +a woman as Flaxen's gittin' to be. They ain't nothin' goin' on, nothin' +to see 'r hear. You can't expect a girl to be contented with this +country after she's seen any other. No trees; no flowers; jest a lot o' +little shanties full o' flies." +</p> +<p> +"I knew all that, Ans, a year ago. I knew she'd never come back here, +but I jest said it's the thing to do—give her a chance, if we don't +have a cent; now let's go back to the house an' tell her she needn't +stay here if she don't want to." +</p> +<p> +"Wha' d' ye s'pose was in that letter?" +</p> +<p> +"Couldn't say. Some girl's description of a pic-nic er somethin'." +Bert was not yet ready to tell what he knew. When they returned to the +house the girl was still invisible, in her room. Mrs. Green was busy +clearing up the dinner-dishes. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> +"I don't know's I ever see such a wind back to Michigan. Seems as if +it 'u'd blow the hair off y'r head." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, this ain't nothin'. This is a gentle zephyr. Wait till y' see +a wind." +</p> +<p> +"Wal, I hope to goodness I won't never see a wind. Zephyrs is all +I can mortally stand." +</p> +<p> +Anson went through the little sitting-room and knocked on Flaxen's door. +</p> +<p> +"Flaxie, we want to talk to yeh." There was no answer, and he +came back and sat down. Bert pointed to the letter which Flaxen had +flung down on the table. The giant took it, folded it up, and called, +"Here's y'r letter, babe." +</p> +<p> +The door opened a little, and a faint, tearful voice said: +</p> +<p> +"Read it, if ye want to, boys." Then the door closed tightly +again, and they heard her fling herself on the bed. Anson handed the +letter to Bert, who read it in a steady voice. +</p> +<blockquote> +<p class="no-space-bottom"> +<span class="sc"> +Dear Darling</span>: I have good news to tell you. My uncle was out +from Wisconsin to see me, and he was pleased with what I had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> +done, and he bought out Mr. Ford, and gave me the whole half interest. +I'm to pay him back when I please. Ain't that glorious? Now we can +get married right off, can't we, darling? So you just show this +letter to your father, and tell him how things stand. I've got a +good business. The drug store is worth $1,200 a year—my +half—but knock off fifty per cent and we could live nicely. +Don't you think so? I want to see you so bad, and talk things over. +If you can't come back soon, I will come on. Write soon. +</p> +<p class="no-space-top no-space-bottom sig sincerely-yours-pad"> +Yours till death, +</p> +<p class="no-space-top sig sc"> +Will. +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +From the first word Anson winced, grew perplexed, then suffered. His +head drooped forward on his hands, his elbows rested on his vast, +spread knees. He drew his breath with a long, grieving gasp. Bert +read on steadily to the end, then glanced at his companion with a +deep frown darkening his face; but he was not taken by surprise. +He had not had paternal affection change to the passion of a lover +only to have it swept down like a half-opened flower. For the +first time in his life Anson writhed in mental agony. He saw it +all. It meant eternal +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> +separation. It meant a long ache in his heart which time could +scarcely deaden into a tolerable pain. +</p> +<p> +Gearheart rose and went out, unwilling to witness the agony of +his friend and desiring himself to be alone. Anson sat motionless, +with his hands covering his wet eyes, going over the past and +trying to figure the future. +</p> +<p> +He began in that storm: felt again the little form and face of the +wailing child; thought of the frightful struggle against the wind +and snow; of the touch of the little hands and feet; of her pretty +prattle and gleeful laughter; then of her helpful and oddly-womanish +ways as she grew older; of the fresh, clear voice calling him +"pap" and ordering him about with a roguish air; of her +beauty now, when for the first time he had begun to hope that she +might be something dearer to him. +</p> +<p> +How could he live without her? She had grown to be a part of him. +He had long ceased to think of the future without her. As he sat +so, the bedroom door +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> +opened, and Flaxen's tearful face looked out at him. He did not +seem to hear, and she stole up to him and, putting her arm around +his neck, laid her cheek on his head—a dear, familiar, +childish gesture, used when she wished to propitiate him. He +roused himself and put his arm about her waist, tried to speak, and +finally said in a sorry attempt at humor, wofully belied by the +tears on his face and the choking in his throat: +</p> +<p> +"You tell that feller—if he wants ye, to jest come +an'—git ye—that's all!" +</p> + + +<div> +<a name="XII"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER XII.</a> +</h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +FLAXEN SAYS GOOD-BYE. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +Elga went back to her friends, the Holts, in the course of a week. +It hurt Anson terribly to see how eager she was to get away, and +he grew a little bitter—a quality of temper Bert did not know +he possessed. +</p> +<p> +"What's that little whipper-snapper ever done for her, that she +should leave us in the shade f'r him—f'rget us an' all we've +done f'r her, an' climb out an' leave us just at his wink? It beats +me, but it's all right. I don't blame her if she feels so—only +it does seem queer, now don't it?" +</p> +<p> +"It does, that's a fact—'specially the idea of leaving us +for a thing like that." +</p> +<p> +After arriving at a complete understanding +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> +of the matter, they said no more about it, but went to work to make +everything as pleasant for Flaxen as possible. Again they rode down +to the station with her, down past the wide, level fields of grain +which the blazing sun had ripened prematurely. Again they parted from +her at the train, but this time the girl was eager to go; and yet a +peculiar feeling of sadness was mixed with her eagerness to be off. +</p> +<p> +"Now, boys, you'll come down just as soon as you can this fall, +won't you?" she said, tearfully, as they stood in the aisle of +the car. "I wish't you'd sell out an' come back there an' +live—I want you to." +</p> +<p> +"Well, we'll try," Anson said, speaking with difficulty, the +lump in his throat was so big and so dry. +</p> +<p> +They rode home in silence again, but this time there was something +darker and more sullen in their thoughts. +</p> +<p> +"Well, Ans, that settles it. We're orphaned again, sure." He +tried to give a little touch of jocoseness to it, but failed miserably. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> +"Yes," Anson sighed deeply, "we'll haf t' stand it, I s'pose, +but it's tough." +</p> +<p> +It was hard, but it would have been harder had not the rush and push of +the harvest come upon them just as it did. They never spoke of the matter +again, except as a matter settled, till they received a letter from the +young people asking their consent to an early marriage. +</p> +<p> +They both read the letter, and then Anson said, without raising his eyes: +</p> +<p> +"Well, what d' you think of it?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, we might as well say yes," replied Bert irritably. +</p> +<p> +"But she's so young." +</p> +<p> +"She seems so to us, but my mother was married at fifteen. If she's +going to leave us, why, the sooner she has a home the better, I s'pose." +</p> +<p> +"I s'pose you're right. But I'd rather have 'em put it off a year." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, a year wouldn't make any difference, and besides, you can't +stop the thing now. She's out of our hands." +</p> +<p> +They wrote giving their consent, and the wedding was fixed for late +September +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> +to enable the fall's work to be put out of the way. For Elga's sake +they bought new suits and hats before starting on their trip, though +the harvest hardly justified any extravagance. +</p> +<p> +Under other circumstances they would have rejoiced over the trip, +for it was carrying them back to the gleam of leaf-dappled streams +and waving trees and deep, cool forests. It made their nostrils +dilate with pleasure as they whirled past fern-filled ravines, out +of which the rivulets stole with stealthy circuits under mossy rocks. +They were both forest-born, and it was like getting back home out of +a strange desert country to come back into "the States." +</p> +<p> +St. Peter was a small town, situated on the steep bank of a broad +river—that is to say, the business street was there, but the +seminary and the residence part of the town was on a high and +beautiful plateau. The country was well diversified with wood and +prairie. +</p> +<p> +Kendall and Elga met them at the station. Elga with flushed face was searching +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span> +the car-windows with eager glance, when Anson appeared on the +platform. The quick rush she made for him drove out all his +bitterness. It made him understand that she loved him as if +he were her father. +</p> +<p> +She greeted Bert with a little less warmth, and chattering with +joy she led the way up the street with Anson. She had a hundred +things to tell him, and he listened in a daze. She seemed so +different from his Flaxen. Bert walked behind with Kendall, who +did not impress him favourably. +</p> +<p> +He was a harmless little creature enough—small, a little +inclined to bow-legs, and dudish in manner and dress. His hair +was smoothed till it shone like ebony, and he wore the latest +designs in standing collars, high on his slim neck. His hands +were beautifully small and white and held several rings. He had +the manners of a dry-goods clerk. +</p> +<p> +"He can't abuse her, that's one good thing about the whelp," +thought Bert as he crushed the young bridegroom's hand +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> +in his brown palm, just to see him cringe. +</p> +<p> +As for Kendall, he was a little afraid of these big fellows, so +sullen and strong; and he tried his best to please them, chirping +away brightly upon all kinds of things, ending up by telling them +his business plans. +</p> +<p> +"We're one o' the best cities on the river. Couldn't be a better +place fer a business stand, don't you see? And we're getting to the +front with our wholesale department (of course—ha! ha! my wife's +father ought to know how I'm getting on), so you're welcome to look +over my books. Our trade is a cash trade so far as our retail trade +goes, and we're mighty careful who gets tick from us on the wholesale +trade. We're developing a great business." +</p> +<p> +Bert and Anson made no replies to his chatter, and he pattered along +by Anson's side like a small boy, showing them the town and its beauties. +Anson inwardly despised the little man, but held it a sort of treason +to think so, and tried to look upon him kindly. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> +The wedding took place in the house of the Holt family, and was +in charge of Miss Holt, Elga's teacher. Kendall's parents could +not be present, which was a great disappointment to Elga, but +Will was secretly glad of it. His father was a very crusty and +brutal old fellow, and he would not have fitted in smoothly beside +Bert and Anson, who were as uncomfortable as men could well be. +Both wished to avoid it, but dared not object. +</p> +<p> +Anson stood bravely through the ceremony as the father of the bride, +and bore himself with his usual massive, rude dignity. But he inwardly +winced as he saw Elga, looking very stately and beautiful in her +bride's veil, towering half a head above the sleek-haired little +clerk. Not a few of the company smiled at the contrast, but she had no +other feeling than perfect love and happiness. +</p> +<p> +When the ceremony was over and Anson looked around for Bert, he was +gone. He couldn't stand the pressure of the crowd and the whispered +comments, and had slipped away early in the evening. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> +Among the presents which were laid on the table in the dining-room was +a long envelope addressed to Mrs. Will Kendall. It contained a deed for +a house and lot in one of the most desirable parts of the suburbs. +It was from Gearheart, but there was no other written word. This gift +meant the sale of his claim in Dakota. +</p> +<p> +When Anson got back to the hotel that night, wondering and alarmed at +his partner's absence, he found a letter from him. It was savage and +hopeless. +</p> +<blockquote> +<p> +This climate is getting too frigid for my lungs. I'm going to emigrate +to California. I made a mistake: I ought to have gone in for stand-up +collars, shiny hair, and bow-legs. You'd better skip back to Dakota +and sell your claim. Keep my share of the stock and tools; it ain't +worth bothering about. Don't try to live there alone, old man. If you +can't sell, marry. Don't let that girl break you all up too. We are all +fools, but some can get over it quicker than others. +</p> +<p> +If that little bow-legged thing gets under your feet or abuses her, +jest get your toe under him and hoist him over into the alley. +</p> +<p class="no-space-bottom"> +Good-bye and good luck, old man. +</p> +<p class="no-space-top sig sc"> +Bert. +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> +And the next day the doubly bereaved man started on his lonely +journey back to the Dakota claim, back to an empty house, with +a gnawing pain in his heart and a constriction like an iron band +about his throat; back to his broad fields to plod to and fro alone. +</p> +<p> +As he began to realize it all and to think how terrible was this +loss, he laid his head down on the car-seat before him and cried. +His first great trial had come to him, and meeting it like a man, +he must now weep like a woman. +</p> + +<div> +<a name="XIII"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER XIII.</a> +</h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +FLAXEN'S GREAT NEED. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +Flaxen wrote occasionally, during the next year, letters all too +short and too far between for the lonely man toiling away on his +brown farm. These letters were very much alike, telling mainly of +how happy she was, and of what she was going to do by and by, on +Christmas or Thanksgiving. Once she sent a photograph of herself +and husband, and Anson, after studying it for a long time, took a +pair of shears and cut the husband off, and threw him into the fire. +</p> +<p> +"That fellow gives me the ague," he muttered. +</p> +<p> +Bert did not write, and there was hardly a night that Ans lay down on +his bed that he did not wonder where his chum was, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> +especially as the winter came on unusually severe, reminding him of +that first winter in the Territory. Day after day he spent alone in +his house, going out only to feed the cattle or to get the mail. The +sad wind was always in his ears. But with the passage of time the +pain in his heart lost its intensity. +</p> +<p> +One day he got a letter from Flaxen that startled and puzzled him. +It was like a cry for help, somehow. +</p> +<p> +"Dear old pap, I wish you was here," and then in another place +came the piteous cry, "Oh, I wish I had some folks!" +</p> +<p> +All night long that cry rang in the man's head with a wailing, falling +cadence like the note of a lost little prairie-chicken. +</p> +<p> +"I wonder what that whelp has been doin' now. If he's begun to +abuse her I'll wring his neck. She wants me an' da'sn't ask me to +come. Poor chick, I'll be pap an' mam to ye, both," he said at +last, with sudden resolution. +</p> +<p> +The day after the receipt of this letter a telegram was handed to him +at the post-office, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> +which he opened with trembling hands: +</p> +<blockquote> +<p class=" no-space-bottom"> +<span class="sc"> +Anson Wood</span>: Your daughter is ill. Wants you. Come at once. +</p> +<p class="no-space-top sig sc"> +Dr. Dietrich. +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +He got into his wagon mechanically and lashed his horses into a run. +He must get home and arrange about his stock and catch the seven +o'clock train. His mind ran the round of the possibilities in the +case until it ached with the hopeless fatigue of it. When he got +upon the train for an all-night ride, he looked like a man suffering +some great physical pain. +</p> +<p> +He sat there all night in a common seat—he could not afford to +pay for a sleeper; sat and suffered the honest torture that can come +to a man—to sit and think the same dread, apprehensive wondering +thoughts; to strain at the seat as if to push the train faster, and to +ache with the desire to fly like the eagle. He tried to be patient, +but he could only grow numb with the effort. +</p> +<p> +A glorious winter sun was beginning to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> +light up the frost foliage of the maples lining St. Peter's streets +when Anson, stiff with cold and haggard with a night of sleepless +riding, sprang off the train and looked about him. The beauty of +the morning made itself felt even through his care. These rows of +resplendent maples, heavy with iridescent frost, were like +fairy-land to him, fresh from the treeless prairie. As he walked on +under them, showers of powdered rubies and diamonds fell down upon +him; the colonnades seemed like those leading to some enchanted +palace, such as he had read of in boyhood. Every shrub in the +yards was similarly decked, and the snug cottages were like the +little house which he had once seen at the foot of the Christmas-tree +in a German church years before. +</p> +<p> +Feet crunched along cheerily on the sidewalks, bells of dray-teams +were beginning to sound, and workmen to whistle. +</p> +<p> +Anson was met at the door by a hard-faced, middle-aged woman. +</p> +<p> +"How's my girl?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, she's nicely. Walk in." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> +"Can I see her now?" +</p> +<p> +"She's sleepin'; I guess you better wait a little while till +after breakfast." +</p> +<p> +"Where's Kendall?" was his next question. +</p> +<p> +"I d'n' know. Hain't seen 'im sence yesterday. He don't amount +to much, anyway, and in these cases there ain't no dependin' on a +boy like that. It's nachel fer girls to call on their mothers an' +fathers in such cases." +</p> +<p> +Anson was about to ask her what the trouble was with his girl, when +she turned away. She could not be dangerously ill; anyway, there was +comfort in that. +</p> +<p> +After he had eaten a slight breakfast of bad coffee and yellow biscuits, +Mrs. Stickney came back. +</p> +<p> +"She's awake an' wants to see yeh. Now don't get excited. She +ain't dangerous." +</p> +<p> +Anson was alarmed and puzzled at her manner. Her smile mystified him. +</p> +<p> +"What is the matter?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +Her reply was common enough, but it stopped him with his foot on +the threshold. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> +He understood at last. The majesty and mystery of birth was like a light +in his face, and dazzled him. He was awed and exalted at the same time. +</p> +<p> +"Open the door; I want to see her," he said in a new tone. +</p> +<p> +As they entered the darkened chamber he heard his girl's eager cry. +</p> +<p> +"Is that you, pap?" wailed her faint, sweet voice. +</p> +<p> +"Yes: it's me, Flaxie." He crossed the room and knelt by +the bed. She flung her arms round his neck. +</p> +<p> +"O pappy! pappy! I wanted you. Oh, my poor mamma! O pap, I don't +like her," she whispered, indicating the nurse with her eyes. +"O pap, I hate to think of mother lying there in the snow—an' +Bert—where is Bert, pap? Perhaps he's in the blizzard too—" +</p> +<p> +"She's a little flighty," said the nurse in her matter-of-fact tone. +</p> +<p> +Anson groaned as he patted the pale cheek of the sufferer. +</p> +<p> +"Don't worry, Flaxie; Bert's all right. He'll come home soon. +Why don't you +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> +send for the doctor?" he said to the nurse. +</p> +<p> +"He'll be here soon. Don't worry over that," indicating +Flaxen, who was whispering to herself. "They of'n do that." +</p> +<p> +"Do you s'pose I can find my folks if I go back to Norway?" +she said to Anson a little after. +</p> +<p> +"Yes: I guess so, little one. When you get well, we'll try an' +see." +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps if I found my aunt she'd look like mamma, an' I'd know then +how mamma looked, wouldn't I? Perhaps if the wheat is good this year we +can go back an' find her, can't we?" Then her words melted into a +moan of physical pain, and the nurse said: +</p> +<p> +"Now I guess you'd better go an' see if you can't hurry the doctor up. +Yes: now he's got to go," she went on to Flaxen, drowning out her +voice and putting her imploring hands back upon the bed. +</p> +<p> +Anson saw it all now. In her fear and pain she had turned to him—poor, +motherless little bird—forgetting her boy-husband or feeling the need +of a broader +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> +breast and stronger hand. It was a beautiful trust, and as the great, +shaggy man went out into the morning he was exalted by the thought. +"My little babe—my Flaxen!" he said with unutterable love +and pity. +</p> +<p> +Again his mind ran over the line of his life—the cabin, the dead +woman, the baby face nestling at his throat, the girl coming to him +with her trials and triumphs. His heart swelled so that he could not +have spoken, but deep in his throat he muttered a dumb prayer. And how +he suffered that day, hearing her babble mixed with moanings every +time the door opened. Once the doctor said: +</p> +<p> +"It's no use for you to stand here, Wood. It only makes you suffer +and don't help her a particle." +</p> +<p> +"It <em>seems</em> 's if it helped her, an' so—I guess I'll +stay. She may call for me, an' if she does," he said resolutely, +"I'm goin' in, doctor. How is she now?" +</p> +<p> +"She's slightly delirious now, but still she knows you're here. +She now and then speaks of you, but doesn't call for you." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> +But she did call for him, and he went in, and kneeling by her side he +talked to her and held her hands, stroked her hair and soothed her as +he used to when a little child unable to speak save in her pretty +Norseland tongue, and at last when opiates were given, and he rose and +staggered from the room, it seemed as though he had lived years. +</p> +<p> +So weary was he that, when the doctor came out and said, "You may +go to sleep now," he dropped heavily on a lounge and fell asleep +almost with the motion. Even the preparations for breakfast made by +the hoarse-voiced servant-girl did not wake him, but the drawling, +nasal tone of Kendall did. He sat up and looked at the oily little +clerk. It was after seven o'clock. +</p> +<p> +"Hello!" said Kendall, "when d' you get in?" +</p> +<p> +"Shortly after you went out," said Anson in reply. +</p> +<p> +Kendall felt the rebuke, and as he twisted his cuffs into place said, +"Well, y' see I couldn't do no good—a man ain't +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> +any good in such cases, anyway—so I just thought I'd run down +to St. Paul an' do a little buying." +</p> +<p> +Anson turned away and went into the kitchen to wash his face and to +comb his hair, glad to get rid of the sight of Kendall for a moment. +Mrs. Stickney was toasting some bread. +</p> +<p> +"She's awake an' wants to see you when you woke up. It's a +girl—thought I'd tell ye—yes: she's comfortable. Say, +'tween you an' me, a man 'at 'u'd run off—waal—" +she ended, expressively glancing at Kendall. +</p> +<p> +Once more Anson caught his breath as he entered the darkened chamber. +He was a rough, untaught man, but there was something in him that +made that room holy and mysterious. But the figure on the bed was +tranquil now, and the voice, though weak and low, was Flaxen's own. +</p> +<p> +He stopped as his eyes fell on her. She was no longer a girl. The +majesty of maternity was on her pale face and in her great eyes. +A faint, expectant smile +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span> +was on her lips; her eyes were fixed on his face as she drew the cover +from the little red, weirdly-wrinkled face at her throat. +</p> +<p> +Before he could speak, and while he was looking down at the mite of +humanity, Kendall stepped into the room. +</p> +<p> +"Hello, Ellie! How are—" +</p> +<p> +A singular revulsion came out on her face. She turned to Anson. +"Make him go 'way; I don't want him." +</p> +<p> +"All right," said Kendall cheerfully, glad to escape. +</p> +<p> +"Isn't she beautiful?" the mother whispered. "Does she +look like me?" she asked artlessly. +</p> +<p> +"She's beautiful to me because she's yours, Flaxie," replied +Anson, with a delicacy all the more striking because of the contrast +with his great frame and hard, rough hands. "But there, my girl, +go to sleep like baby, an' don't worry any more." +</p> +<p> +"You ain't goin' away while I'm sick?" she asked, following +him with her eyes, unnaturally large. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span> +"I won't never go 'way again if you don't want me to," +he replied. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she sighed restfully. +</p> +<p> +He was turning to go when she wailed reproachfully, +"Pap, you didn't kiss baby!" +</p> +<p> +Anson turned and came back. "She's sleepin', an' +I thought it wasn't right to kiss a girl without she +said so." +</p> +<p> +This made Flaxen smile, and Anson went out with a lighter +heart than he had had for two years. Kendall met him +utside and said confidentially: +</p> +<p> +"I don't s'pose it was just the thing for me to do; +but—confound it! I never could stand a sick-room, +anyway. I couldn't do any good, anyway—just been +in the way. She'll get over her mad in a few days. +Think so?" +</p> +<p> +But she did not. Her singular and sudden dislike of him continued, +and though she passively submitted to his being in the room, she +would not speak a word to him nor look at him as long as she could +avoid it; and when he approached +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> +the baby or took it in his arms a jealous frown came on her face. +</p> +<p> +As for Anson, he grew to hate the sound of that little chuckle +of Kendall's; the part in the man's hair and the hang of his +cut-away coat made him angry. The trim legs, a little bowed, +the big cuffs hiding the small, cold hands, and the peculiar +set of his faultless collar, grew daily more insupportable. +</p> +<p> +"Say, looky here, Kendall," said he in desperation one +day, "I wish you didn't like me quite so well. We don't +hitch first rate—at least, I don't. Seems to me you're +neglectin' your business too much." +</p> +<p> +He was going to tell him to keep away, but he relented as he +looked down at the harmless little man, with his thin, boyish face. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, my business is all right. Gregory looks after it mostly, +anyhow. But, I say, if you wanted to go into the dray business, +there's a first-class opening now. Clark wants to sell." +</p> +<p> +It ended in Anson seeing Clark and buying out his line of drays, +turning in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> +his claim toward the payment—a transaction which made +Flaxen laugh for joy, for she had not felt certain before +that he would remain in St. Peter. She was getting about the +house now, looking very wifely in her long, warm wraps, her +slow motions contrasting strongly with the old restless, +springing steps Anson remembered so well. +</p> +<p> +Night after night, as he sat beside the fire and held baby, +listening to the changed voice of his girl and watching the +grave, new expressions of her face, the tooth of time took +hold upon him powerfully, and he would feel his shaggy head +and think, "I'll soon be gray, soon be gray!" while +the little one cooed, and sprang, and pulled at his beard, +which had grown long again and had white hairs in it. +</p> +<p> +Kendall spent most of his time at the store, or downtown somewhere, +and so all of those long, delicious winter evenings were Flaxen's +and Anson's. And his enjoyment of them was pathetic. The cheerful +little sitting-room, the open +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> +grate, the gracious, ever-growing womanliness of Elga, the pressure +of soft little limbs, and the babble of a liquid baby language, were +like the charm of an unexpected Indian-summer day between two gray +November storms. +</p> + +<div> +<a name="XIV"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER XIV.</a> +</h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +KENDALL STEPS OUT. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +One night Kendall did not come home, but as he had been talking of +going to St. Paul they were not disturbed about it—in fact, +they both took but very mild interest in his coming or going. In +the morning, while they were at breakfast, there came a knock at the door. +</p> +<p> +"Come in," shouted Anson in the Western way, not rising. +</p> +<p> +McDaniel, the county sheriff, entered. +</p> +<p> +"Where's Kendall?" he asked without ceremony. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know; went away yesterday." +</p> +<p> +The sheriff looked at his companion. "Skipped between two days." +</p> +<p> +"What's up?" asked Anson, while Elga +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> +stared and baby reached slyly for the sugar-bowl. +</p> +<p> +"Nothing," the sheriff said in a tone which meant everything. +"Come out here," he said to Anson. Anson went out with him, +and he told him that Kendall had purchased goods on credit and +gambled the money away, and was ruined. +</p> +<p> +His stock of goods was seized, and the house was saved only through +the firmness of Anson. +</p> +<p> +Flaxen shut her lips and said nothing, and he could not read her +silence. One day she came to him with a letter. +</p> +<p> +"Read that!" she exclaimed scornfully. He saw that it was +dated from Eau Claire, Wisconsin: +</p> +<blockquote> +<p class="no-space-bottom noindent"> +<span class="sc"> +Dear Darling Wife</span>: I'm all right here with father. It was +all Gregory's fault—he was always betting on something. +I'm coming back as soon as the old man can raise the money to pay +Fitch. Don't worry about me. They can't take the house, anyway. +You might rent the house, sell the furniture on the sly, and come +back here. The old man will give me another show. I don't owe more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> +than a thousand dollars, anyway. Write soon. Your loving +</p> +<p class="no-space-top sig sc"> +Will. +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +She did not need to say what she thought of the advice the little villain gave. +</p> +<p> +Anson went quietly on with his work, making a living for himself and +Flaxen and baby. It never occurred to either of them that any other +arrangement was necessary. Kendall wrote once or twice a month for +a while, saying each time, "I'll come back and settle up," +and asking her to come to him; but she did not reply, and never +referred to him outside her home, and when others inquired after him +she replied evasively: +</p> +<p> +"He's in Wisconsin somewhere; I don't know where." +</p> +<p> +"Is he coming back?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know." +</p> +<p> +She often spoke of Bert, and complained of his silence. Once she said: +</p> +<p> +"I guess he's forgot us, pap." +</p> +<p> +"I guess not. More likely he's thinkin' we've fergot him. +He'll turn up some +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> +bright mornin' with a pocketful o' rocks. He ain't no spring chicken, +Bert ain't." ("All the same, I wish't he'd write," Anson +said to himself.) +</p> +<hr class="break" /> +<p> +The sad death of Kendall came to them without much disturbing force. +He had been out of their lives so long that when Anson came in with +the paper and letter telling of the accident, and with his instinctive +delicacy left her alone to read the news, Flaxen was awed and saddened, +but had little sense of personal pain and loss. +</p> +<p> +"Young Kendall," the newspaper went on under its scare-heads, +"was on a visit to La Crosse, and while skating with a party on +the bayou, where the La Crosse River empties into the Father of Waters, +skated into an air-hole. The two young ladies with him were rescued, +but the fated man was swept under the ice. He was the son," etc. +</p> +<p> +When Anson came back Flaxen sat with the letter in her hand and the +paper on her lap. She was meditating deeply, but +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span> +what was in her mind Anson never knew. She had grown more and more +reticent of late. She sighed, rose, and resumed her evening tasks. +</p> + +<div> +<a name="XV"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> +<h2><a href="#contents">CHAPTER XV.</a> +</h2> +</div> +<p class="head"> +BERT COMES BACK. +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +One raw March evening, when the wind was roaring among the gray +branches of the maples like a lion in wrath, some one knocked +on the door. +</p> +<p> +"Come in!" shouted Anson, who was giving baby her regular +ride on his boots. +</p> +<p> +"Come in!" added Flaxen. +</p> +<p> +Gearheart walked in slowly, closed the door behind his back, +and stood devouring the cheerful scene. He was poorly dressed +and wore a wide, limp hat; they did not know him till he bared +his head. +</p> +<p> +"Bert!" yelled Anson, tossing the baby to his shoulder +and leaping toward his chum, tramping and shaking and clapping +like a madman, scaring the child. +</p> +<p> +"My gosh-all-hemlock! I'm glad to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> +see ye! Gimme that paw again. Come to the fire. This is Flaxie" +(as though he had not had his eyes on her face all the time). +"Be'n sick?" +</p> +<p> +Bert's hollow cough prompted this question. +</p> +<p> +"Yes. Had some kind of a fever down in Arizony. Oh, I'm all right +now," he added in reply to an anxious look from Flaxen. +</p> +<p> +"An' this is—" +</p> +<p> +"Baby—Elsie," she replied, putting a finishing touch +to the little one's dress, mother-like. +</p> +<p> +"Where's he?" he asked a little later. +</p> +<p> +Anson replied with a little gesture, which silenced Bert at the same +time that it explained. And when Flaxen was busy a few moments later, +Anson said: +</p> +<p> +"Gone up the spout." +</p> +<p> +At the table they grew quite gay, talking over old times, and Bert's +pale face grew rosier, catching a reflection of the happy faces opposite. +</p> +<p> +"Say, Bert, do you remember the time you threw that pan o' +biscuits I made +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> +out into the grass an' killed every dog in the township?" +Then they roared. +</p> +<p> +"I remember your flapjacks that always split open in the middle, +an' no amount o' heat could cook 'em inside," Bert replied. +</p> +<p> +Then they grew sober again when Bert said with a pensive cadence: +"Well, I tell you, those were days of hard work; but many's +the time I've looked back at 'em these last three years, wishin' +they'd never ended an' that we'd never got scattered." +</p> +<p> +"We won't be again, will we, pap?" +</p> +<p> +"Not if I can help it," Anson replied. +</p> +<p> +"But how are you, Bert? Rich?" +</p> +<p> +Bert put his hand into his pocket and laid a handful of small coins on the table. +</p> +<p> +"That's the size o' my pile—four dollars," he said, +smiling faintly; "the whole o' my three years' work." +</p> +<p> +"Well, never mind, ol' man. I've got a chance fer yeh. +Still an ol' bach?" +</p> +<p> +"Still an old bach." He looked at Flaxen, irresistibly +drawn to her face. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> +She dropped her eyes; she could not have told why. +</p> +<p> +And so "Wood & Gearheart" was painted on the sides of +the drays, and they all continued to live in the little yellow +cottage, enjoying life much more than the men, at least, had ever +dared to hope; and little Elsie grew to be a "great girl," +and a nuisance with her desire to "yide" with "g'an'pap." +</p> +<p> +There is no spot more delightful in early April than the sunny side +of the barn, and Ans and Bert felt this, though they did not say it. +The eaves were dripping, the doves cooing, the hens singing their +harsh-throated, weirdly suggestive songs, and the thrilling warmth +and vitality of the sun and wind of spring made the great, rude +fellows shudder with a strange delight. Anson held out his palm to +catch the sunshine in it, took off his hat to feel the wind, and mused: +</p> +<p> +"This is a great world—and a great day. I wish't it was +always spring." +</p> +<p> +"Say," began Bert abruptly, "it seems +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span> +pretty well understood that you're her father—but where do I come in?" +</p> +<p> +"You ought to be her husband." A light leaped into the younger +man's face. "But go slow," Anson went on gravely. "This +package is marked 'Glass; handle with care.'" +</p> + +<p class="quad-space-top ctr sc"> +The End. +</p> + + +<div> + <a name="Publications"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA1" id="Page_DA1">DA1</a></span> + <br /> <br /> <br /> +</div> +<h2> + <a href="#contents">D. Appleton & Co's Publications.</a> +</h2> + + + + + +<div class="box"> +<h3>Appleton's Summer Series, 1891</h3> + +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +TOURMALIN'S TIME CHEQUES.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">F. Anstey</span>, author of "Vice Versâ," +"The Giant's Robe," etc. +</p> +<p> +"Its author has struck another rich vein of whimsicality and +humor."—<i>San Francisco Argonaut.</i> +</p> +<p> +"His special gift is in making the impossible appear +probable."—<i>St. Louis Republic</i> +</p> +<p> +"A curious conceit and very entertaining story."—<i>Boston Advertiser</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Each cheque is good for several laughs."—<i>New York Herald</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Certainly one of the most diverting books of the +season."—<i>Brooklyn Times</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Sets a handsome example for the 'Summer Series,' with its +neat and portable style of half cloth binding and good paper and +typography."—<i>Brooklyn Eagle</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +FROM SHADOW TO SUNLIGHT.</big> +</i> +By the <span class="sc">Marquise of Lorne</span>. +</p> +<p> +"In these days of princely criticism—that is to say, criticism of +princes—it is refreshing to meet a really good bit of aristocratic +literary work, albeit the author is only a prince-in-law.… +The theme chosen by the Marquis makes his story attractive to +Americans."—<i>Chicago Tribune</i>. +</p> +<p> +"A charming book."—<i>Cincinnati Enquirer</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Kate Sanborn</span>. +</p> +<p> +"It may be mythical, but it reads like a true narrative taken from a +strong memory that has been re-enforced by a diary and corrected by the +parish register. It is not only as natural as life, but, as Josh Billings +used to say, 'even more so.'"—<i>New York Journal of Commerce</i>. +</p> +<p> +"A sunny, pungent, humorous sketch.… A bright, amusing book, +which is thoughtful as well as amusing, and may stimulate, somewhere, +thinking that shall bear fruit in some really effective remedial +action."—<i>Chicago Times</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +ON THE LAKE OF LUCERNE, AND OTHER STORIES.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Beatrice Whitby</span>. +</p> +<p> +"Six short stories carefully and conscientiously finished, and told with +the graceful ease of the practiced <i>raconteur</i>."—<i>Literary +Digest</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The stories are pleasantly told in light and delicate vein, and are sure +to be acceptable to the friends Miss Whitby has already made on this side +of the Atlantic."—<i>Philadelphia Bulletin</i>. +</p> + <p> +"Very dainty, not only in mechanical workmanship but in matter and +manner."—<i>Boston Advertiser</i>. +</p> +<hr /> +<p class="noindent"> +Each, 16mo, half cloth, with specially designed cover, 50 cents. +</p> +<hr /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA2" id="Page_DA2">DA2</a></span> +<h3>Recent Issues in Appletons' Town and Country Library</h3> + +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +STEPHEN ELLICOTT'S DAUGHTER.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Mrs. J. H. Needell</span>, +author of "The Story of Philip Methuen." +12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"I am desirous to bear my humble testimony to the great ability and +high aim of the work."—Hon. <span class="sc">W. E. Gladstone</span>. +</p> +<p> +"From first to last an exceptionally strong and beautiful +story."—<i>London Spectator</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +ONE REASON WHY.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Beatrice Whitby</span>, +author of "The Awakening of Mary Fenwick," +"Part of the Property," etc. +12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"A remarkably well-written story.… The author makes her people +speak the language of every-day life, and a vigorous and attractive +realism pervades the book, which provides excellent entertainment +from beginning to +end."—<i>Boston Saturday Evening Gazette</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">W. Clark Russell</span>, +author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc. +12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"The best sea-story since 'The Wreck of the Grosvenor.' It shows a +determination to abandon the well-worn tracks of fiction and to evolve +a new and striking plot.… There is no sign of exhausted +imagination in this strong tale."—<i>Philadelphia Public +Ledger.</i> +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +THE JOHNSTOWN STAGE AND OTHER STORIES.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Robert H. Fletcher</span>, +author of "A Blind Bargain," etc. +12mo. Paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"A collection of as charming short stories as one could wish to find, +most of them Western in scene."—<i>San Francisco +Argonaut</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Nine real stories, not studies of character, but narratives of +interest … vivaciously and pleasantly +told."—<i>Boston Pilot</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +A WIDOWER INDEED.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Rhoda Broughton</span> and +<span class="sc">Elizabeth Bisland.</span> +12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"Done with masterly skill. The whole work is strong and well worth +reading."—<i>New York Journal of Commerce.</i> +</p> +<p> +"The story is written with great strength, and possesses a +powerful interest that never flags."—<i>Boston Home +Journal</i>. +</p> + +<p class="book-info"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA3" id="Page_DA3">DA3</a></span> +<i> +<big> +THE FLIGHT OF THE SHADOW.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">George MacDonald</span>, +author of "Malcolm," "Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood," etc. +12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"It is extremely entertaining, contains a charming love-story, +and is beautifully written, like everything from Mr. MacDonald's +pen."—<i>St. Paul Pioneer-Press</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +LOVE OR MONEY.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Katharine Lee</span>, +author of "A Western Wildflower," "In London Town," etc. +12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"In point of cleverness this novel is quite up to the standard +of the excellent Town and Country Library in which it appears. Most +of the characters are well drawn, and there are some singularly +strong scenes in the book."—<i>Charleston News and +Courier</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +NOT ALL IN VAIN.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Ada Cambridge</span>, +author of "The Three Miss Kings," "My Guardian," etc. +12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"A worthy companion to the best of the author's former efforts, +and in some respects superior to any of them."—<i>Detroit +Free Press</i>. +</p> +<p> +"A better story has not been published in many +moons."—<i>Philadelphia Inquirer</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +IT HAPPENED YESTERDAY.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Frederick Marshall</span>, +author of "Claire Brandon." +12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"An odd, fantastic tale, whose controlling agency is an occult +power which the world thus far has doubted and wondered at alternately +rather than studied."—<i>Chicago Times</i>. +</p> +<p> +"A psychological story of very powerful +interest"—<i>Boston Home Journal</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +MY GUARDIAN.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Ada Cambridge</span>, +author of "The Three Miss Kings," "Not All in Vain," etc. +12mo. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"A story which will, from first to last, enlist the sympathies of the +reader by its simplicity of style and fresh, genuine feeling.… +The author is <i>au fait</i> at the delineation of +character.—<i>Boston Transcript</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The <i>dénoûment</i> is all that the most ardent +romance-reader could desire."—<i>Chicago Evening Journal.</i> +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA4" id="Page_DA4">DA4</a></span> +<i> +<big> +ELINE VERE.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Louis Couperus.</span> +Translated from the Dutch by <span class="sc">J. T. Grein</span>. +With an Introduction by <span class="sc">Edmund Gosse</span>. +Holland Fiction Series. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"The established authorities in art and literature retain their +exclusive place in dictionaries and hand-books long after the claim +of their juniors to be observed with attention has been practically +conceded at home. For this reason, partly, and partly also because +the mental life of Holland receives little attention in this country, +no account has yet been taken of the revolution in Dutch taste which +has occupied the last six or seven yean. I believe that the present +occasion is the first on which it has been brought to the notice of +any English-speaking public.… 'Eline Vere' is an admirable +performance."—<span class="sc">Edmund Gosse</span>, +<i>in Introduction</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Most careful in its details of description, most picturesque in its +coloring."—<i>Boston Post</i>. +</p> +<p> +"A vivacious and skillful performance, giving an evidently faithful +picture of society, and evincing the art of a true +story-teller."—<i>Philadelphia Telegraph</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Those who associate Dutch characters and Dutch thought with ideas +of the purely phlegmatic, will read with astonishment and pleasure +the oft-times stirring and passionate sentences of this +novel."—<i>Public Opinion</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The <i>dénoûment</i> is tragical, thrilling, and +picturesque."—<i>New York World</i>. +</p> +<p> +"If modern Dutch literature has other books as good as this to offer, +we hope that they will soon find a +translator."—<i>Chicago Evening Journal</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +A PURITAN PAGAN.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Julien Gordon,</span> +author +of "A Diplomat's Diary," etc. 12mo. Cloth, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Van Rensselaer Cruger grows stronger as she writes.… The +lines in her story are boldly and vigorously +etched."—<i>New York Times</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The author's recent books have made for her a secure place in current +literature, where she can stand fast.… Her latest production, +'A Puritan Pagan,' is an eminently clever story, in the best sense of +the word clever."—<i>Philadelphia Telegraph</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Has already made its mark as a popular story, and will have an +abundance of readers.… It contains some useful lessons that +will repay the thoughtful study of persons of both +sexes."—<i>New York Journal of Commerce</i>. +</p> +<p> +"This brilliant novel will without doubt add to the repute of the writer +who chooses to be known as Julien Gordon.… The ethical purpose +of the author is kept fully in evidence through a series of intensely +interesting situations."—<i>Boston Beacon</i>. +</p> +<p> +"It is obvious that the author is thoroughly at home in illustrating the +manner and the sentiment of the best society of both America and +Europe."—<i>Chicago Times.</i> +</p> + +<p class="book-info"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA5" id="Page_DA5">DA5</a></span> +<i> +<big> +THE FAITH DOCTOR.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Edward Eggleston,</span> +author of "The Hoosier Schoolmaster," "The Circuit Rider," etc. +12mo. Cloth, $1.50. +</p> +<p> +"An excellent piece of work.… With each new novel the author of +'The Hoosier Schoolmaster' enlarges his audience, and surprises old +friends by reserve forces unsuspected. Sterling integrity of character +and high moral motives illuminate Dr. Eggleston's fiction, and assure +its place in the literature of America which is to stand as a worthy +reflex of the best thoughts of this age."—<i>New York World</i>. +</p> +<p> +"One of <em>the</em> novels of the decade."—<i>Rochester Union and +Advertiser</i>. +</p> +<p> +"It is extremely fortunate that the fine subject indicated in the title +should have fallen into such competent hands."—<i>Pittsburgh +Chronicle-Telegraph</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Much skill is shown by the author in making these 'fads' the basis of +a novel of great interest.… One who tries to keep in the current +of good novel-reading must certainly find time to read 'The Faith +Doctor.'"—<i>Buffalo Commercial</i>. +</p> +<p> +"A vivid and life-like transcript from several phases of society. Devoid +of literary affectation and pretense, it is a wholesome American novel +well worthy of the popularity which it has won."—<i>Philadelphia +Inquirer</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The author of 'The Hoosier Schoolmaster' has enhanced his reputation +by this beautiful and touching study of the character of a girl to +love whom proved a liberal education to both of her +admirers."—<i>London Athenæum</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +AN UTTER FAILURE.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Miriam Coles Harris,</span> +author of "Rutledge." +12mo. Cloth, $1.25. +</p> +<p> +"A story with an elaborate plot, worked out with great cleverness and +with the skill of an experienced artist in fiction. The interest is +strong and at times very dramatic.… Those who were attracted +by 'Rutledge' will give hearty welcome to this story, and find it +fully as enjoyable as that once immensely popular novel."—<i>Boston +Saturday Evening Gazette</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The pathos of this tale is profound, the movement highly dramatic, the +moral elevating."—<i>New York World</i>. +</p> +<p> +"In this new story the author has done some of the best work that she +has ever given to the public, and it will easily class among the most +meritorious and most original novels of the year."—<i>Boston Home +Journal</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The author of 'Rutledge' does not often send out a new volume, but +when she does it is always a literary event.… Her previous books +were sketchy and slight when compared with the finished and trained +power evidenced in 'An Utter Failure.'"—<i>New Haven Palladium</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Exhibits the same literary excellence that made the success of the +author's first book."—<i>San Francisco Argonaut</i>. +</p> +<p> +"American girls with a craving for titled husbands will find instructive +reading in this story."—<i>Boston Traveller</i>. +</p> + + +<p class="book-info"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA6" id="Page_DA6">DA6</a></span> +<i> +<big> +ON THE PLANTATION.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Joel Chandler Harris,</span> +author of "Uncle Remus." +With 23 Illustrations by <span class="sc">E. W. Kemble</span>, +and Portrait of the Author. +12mo. Cloth, $1.50. +</p> +<p> +"The book is in the characteristic vein which has made the author so +famous and popular as an interpreter of plantation +character."—<i>Rochester Union and Advertiser</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Those who never tire of Uncle Remus and his stories—with whom we +would be accounted—will delight in Joe Maxwell and his +exploits."—<i>London Saturday Review</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Altogether a most charming book."—<i>Chicago Times</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Really a valuable, if modest, contribution to the history of the civil +war within the Confederate lines, particularly on the eve of the +catastrophe. Two or three new animal fables are introduced with effect; +but the history of the plantation, the printing-office, the black +runaways, and white deserters, of whom the impending break-up made +the community tolerant, the coon and fox hunting, forms the serious +purpose of the book, and holds the reader's interest from beginning +to end."—<i>New York Evening Post</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA7" id="Page_DA7">DA7</a></span> +<i> +<big>UNCLE REMUS:</big> His Songs and his Sayings.</i> +The Folk-lore of the Old Plantation. +By <span class="sc">Joel Chandler Harris.</span> +Illustrated from Drawings by <span class="sc">F. S. Church</span> +and <span class="sc">J. H. Moser</span>, of Georgia. +12mo. Cloth, $1.50. +</p> +<p> +"The idea of preserving and publishing these legends, in the form in +which the old plantation negroes actually tell them, is altogether one of the +happiest literary conceptions of the day. And very admirably is the work +done.… In such touches lies the charm of this fascinating little +volume of legends, which deserves to be placed on a level with <i>Reincke +Fuchs</i> for its quaint humor, without reference to the ethnological +interest possessed by these stories, as indicating, perhaps, a common +origin for very widely severed races."—<i>London Spectator</i>. +</p> +<p> +"We are just discovering what admirable literary material there is at +home, what a great mine there is to explore, and how quaint and peculiar +is the material which can be dug up. Mr. Harris's book may be looked on +in a double light—either as a pleasant volume recounting the +stories told by a typical old colored man to a child, or as a valuable +contribution to our somewhat meager folk-lore.… To Northern +readers the story of Brer (Brother—Brudder) Rabbit may be novel. To +those familiar with plantation life, who have listened to these quaint +old stories, who have still tender reminiscences of some good old mauma +who told these wondrous adventures to them when they were children, +Brer Rabbit, the Tar Baby, and Brer Fox come back again with all the +past pleasures of younger days."—<i>New York Times</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Uncle Remus's sayings on current happenings are very shrewd and +bright, and the plantation and revival songs are choice specimens +of their sort."—<i>Boston Journal</i>. +</p> + +<p class="book-info"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA8" id="Page_DA8">DA8</a></span> +<i> +<big> +THE LAST WORDS OF THOMAS CARLYLE.</big> +</i> +Including <i>Wotton Reinfred</i>, Carlyle's only essay in +fiction; the <i>Excursion (Futile Enough) to Paris</i>; and +letters from Thomas Carlyle, also letters from Mrs. +Carlyle, to a personal friend. With Portrait. +12mo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.75. +</p> +<p> +"The interest of 'Wotton Reinfred' to me is considerable, from the +sketches which it contains of particular men and women, most of whom +I knew and could, if necessary, identify. The story, too, is taken +generally from real life, and perhaps Carlyle did not finish it, from +the sense that it could not be published while the persons and things +could be recognized. That objection to the publication no longer exists. +Eveybody is dead whose likenesses have been drawn, and the incidents +stated have long been +forgotten."—<span class="sc">James Anthony Froude</span>. +</p> +<p> +"'Wotton Reinfred' is interesting as a historical document. It gives +Carlyle before he had adopted his peculiar manner, and yet there are some +characteristic bits—especially at the beginning—in the Sartor +Resartus vein. I take it that these are reminiscences of Irving and of the +Thackeray circle, and there is a curious portrait of Coleridge, not very +thinly veiled. There is enough autobiography, too, of interest in its +way."—<span class="sc">Leslie Stephen</span>. +</p> +<p> +"No complete edition of the Sage of Chelsea will be able to ignore these +manuscripts."—<i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i><big>MEN, MINES, AND ANIMALS IN SOUTH AFRICA.</big></i> +By <span class="sc">Lord Randolph S. Churchill.</span> +With Portrait, Sixty-five Illustrations, and a Map. +8vo. 337 pages. Cloth, $5.00. +</p> +<p> +"The subject-matter of the book is of unsurpassed interest to all who +either travel in new countries, to see for themselves the new +civilizations, or follow closely the experiences of such travelers. +And Lord Randolph's eccentricities are by no means such as to make his +own reports of what he saw in the new states of South Africa any the +less interesting than his active eyes and his vigorous pen naturally +make them."—<i>Brooklyn Eagle</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Lord Randolph Churchill's pages are full of diversified adventures and +experience, from any part of which interesting extracts could be +collected.… A thoroughly attractive book."—<i>London +Telegraph</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Provided with amusing illustrations, which always fall short of +caricature, but perpetually suggest mirthful +entertainment."—<i>Philadelphia Ledger</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The book is the better for having been written somewhat in the line of +journalism. It is a volume of travel containing the results of a +journalist's trained observation and intelligent reflection upon +political affairs. Such a work is a great improvement upon the ordinary +book of travel. Lord Randolph Churchill thoroughly enjoyed his +experiences in the African bush, and has produced a record of his +journey and exploration which has hardly a dull page in +it."—<i>New York Tribune</i>. +</p> + + + +<p class="book-info"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA9" id="Page_DA9">DA9</a></span> +<i> +<big> +LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ASSYRIA.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">G. Maspéro,</span> +late Director of Archæology in Egypt, +and Member of the Institute of France. +Translated by <span class="sc">Alice Morton</span>. +With 188 Illustrations. +12mo. Cloth, $1.50. +</p> +<p> +"A lucid sketch, at once popular and learned, of daily life in Egypt in +the time of Rameses II, and of Assyria in that of Assurbanipal.… +As an Orientalist, M. Maspéro stands in the front rank, and his learning +is so well digested and so admirably subdued to the service of popular +exposition, that it nowhere overwhelms and always interests the +reader."—<i>London Times</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Only a writer who had distinguished himself as a student of Egyptian +and Assyrian antiquities could have produced this work, which has none +of the features of a modern book of travels in the East, but is an +attempt to deal with ancient life as if one had been a contemporary +with the people whose civilization and social usages are very largely +restored."—<i>Boston Herald</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The ancient artists are copied with the utmost fidelity, and verify the +narrative so attractively presented."—<i>Cincinnati Times-Star</i>. +</p> + +<p class="book-info"> +<i><big>THE THREE PROPHETS:</big> +Chinese Gordon; Mohammed-Ahmed; Araby Pasha.</i> +Events before, during, and after the Bombardment of Alexandria. +By Colonel <span class="sc">Chaille-Long,</span> +ex-Chief of Staff to Gordon in Africa, ex-United States Consular +Agent in Alexandria, etc. With Portraits. 16mo. Paper, 50 cents. +</p> +<p> +"Comprises the observations of a man who, by reason of his own military +experience in Egypt, ought to know whereof he +speaks."—<i>Washington Post</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Throws an entirely new light upon the troubles which have so long +agitated Egypt, and upon their real +significance."—<i>Chicago Times</i>. +</p> + + +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +THE MEMOIRS OF AN ARABIAN PRINCESS.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Emily Ruete,</span> +<i>née</i> Princess of Oman and Zanzibar. +Translated from the German. 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents. +</p> +<p> +"A remarkably interesting little volume.… As a picture of Oriental +court life, and manners and customs in the Orient, by one who is to the +manner born, the book is prolific in entertainment and +edification."—<i>Boston Gazette</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The interest of the book centers chiefly in its minute description of +the daily life of the household from the time of rising until the time +of retiring, giving the most complete details of dress, meals, +ceremonies, feasts, weddings, funerals, education, slave service, +amusements, in fact everything connected with the daily and yearly +routine of life."—<i>Utica (N. Y.) Herald</i>. +</p> + +<p class="book-info"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA10" id="Page_DA10">DA10</a></span> +<i> +<big> +THE SOVEREIGNS AND COURTS OF EUROPE.</big> +</i> +The Home and Court Life and Characteristics of the Reigning Families. +By <span class="sc">"Politikos."</span> +With many Portraits. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. +</p> +<p> +"A remarkably able book.… A great deal of the inner history of +Europe is to be found in the work, and it is illustrated by admirable +portraits."—<i>The Athenæum</i>. +</p> +<p> +"Its chief merit is that it gives a new view of several +sovereigns.… The anonymous author seems to have sources of +information that are not open to the foreign correspondents who +generally try to convey the impression that they are on terms of +intimacy with royalty."—<i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The anonymous author of these sketches of the reigning sovereigns of +Europe appears to have gathered a good deal of curious information about +their private lives, manners, and customs, and has certainly in several +instances had access to unusual sources. The result is a volume which +furnishes views of the kings and queens concerned far fuller and more +intimate than can be found elsewhere."—<i>New York Tribune</i>. +</p> +<p> +"… A book that would give the truth, the whole truth, +and nothing but the truth (so far as such comprehensive accuracy +is possible), about these exalted personages, so often heard about +but so seldom seen by ordinary mortals, was a desideratum, and this +book seems well fitted to satisfy the demand. The author is a +well-known writer on questions indicated by his +pseudonym."—<i>Montreal Gazette</i>. +</p> +<p> +"A very handy book of reference."—<i>Boston Transcript</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +MY CANADIAN JOURNAL, 1872-'78.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">Lady Dufferin.</span> +Extracts from letters home written while Lord Dufferin was +Governor-General of Canada. With Portrait, Map, and Illustrations +from sketches by Lord Dufferin. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. +</p> +<p> +"A graphic and intensely interesting portraiture of out-door life in the +Dominion, and will become, we are confident, one of the standard works +on the Dominion.… It is a charming +volume."—<i>Boston Traveller</i>. +</p> +<p> +"In every place and under every condition of circumstances the +Marchioness shows herself to be a true lady, without reference to her +title. Her book is most entertaining, and the abounding good-humor of +every page must stir a sympathetic spirit in its +readers."—<i>Philadelphia Bulletin</i>. +</p> +<p> +"The many readers of Lady Dufferin's Journal of 'Our Vice-Regal +Life in India' will welcome this similar record from the same vivacious +pen, although it concerns a period antecedent to the other, and takes +one back many years. The book consists of extracts from letters written +home by Lady Dufferin to her friends (her mother chiefly) while her +husband was Governor-General of Canada; and describes her experiences +in the same chatty and charming style with which readers were before +made familiar."—<i>Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette</i>. +</p> + + +<hr /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_DA11" id="Page_DA11">DA11</a></span> +<h3>HAND-BOOKS OF SOCIAL USAGES.</h3> + +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +SOCIAL ETIQUETTE OF NEW YORK.</big> +</i> +Rewritten and enlarged. +18mo. Cloth, gilt, $1.00. +</p> +<p> +Special pains have been taken to make this work represent accurately +existing customs in New York society. The subjects treated are of +visiting and visiting-cards, giving and attending balls, receptions, +dinners, etc., débuts, chaperons, weddings, opera and theatre +parties, costumes and customs, addresses and signatures, and funeral +customs, covering so far as practicable all social usages. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<big> +<i>DON'T;</i> or, Directions for avoiding Improprieties in +Conduct and Common Errors of Speech. </big> +By <span class="sc">Censor</span>. +<i>Parchment-Paper Edition</i>, square l8mo, 30 cents. +<i>Vest-Pocket Edition</i>, cloth, flexible, gilt edges, +red lines, 30 cents. <i>Boudoir Edition</i> (with a new chapter +designed for young people), cloth, gilt, 30 cents. +130th thousand. +</p> +<p> +"Don't" deals with manners at the table, in the drawing-room, and in +public, with taste in dress, with personal habits, with common mistakes +in various situations in life, and with ordinary errors of speech. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +WHAT TO DO.</big> +</i> +A Companion to "Don't." +By <span class="sc">Mrs. Oliver Bell Bunce</span>. +Small 18mo, cloth, gilt, uniform with <i>Boudoir Edition</i> of +"Don't," 30 cents. +</p> +<p> +A dainty little book, containing helpful and practical explanations of +social usages and rules. It tells the reader how to entertain and how to +be entertained, and it sets forth the etiquette of engagements and +marriages, introductions and calls. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<i> +<big> +"GOOD FORM" IN ENGLAND.</big> +</i> +By <span class="sc">An American</span>, +resident in the United Kingdom. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. +</p> +<p> +"The <i>raison d'être</i> of this book is to provide +Americans—and especially those visiting England—with +a concise, comprehensive, and comprehensible hand-book which will +give them all necessary information respecting 'how things are' +in England."—<i>From the Preface</i>. +</p> +<p class="book-info"> +<big> +<i>HINTS ABOUT MEN'S DRESS:</i> Right Principles Economically Applied.</big> +By a <span class="sc">New York Clubman</span>. +18mo. Parchment-paper, 30 cents. +</p> +<p> +A useful manual, especially for young men desirous of dressing +economically and yet according to the canons of good taste. +</p> +<hr /> +<p class=" noindent ctr"> +New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, and 5 Bond Street. +</p> +</div> + + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <br /> + <a name="transNotes" id="transNotes"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#contents">Transcriber's Notes.</a></h2> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>Introduction.</h3> +</div> + + +<p> +Welcome to <span class="smcap">Project Gutenberg's</span> edition of +<i>A Little Norsk, or Ol' Pap's Flaxen</i> by Hamlin Garland. This +novel was published in 1892, and it was not reprinted. A scanned +copy of this book is available through Hathitrust, courtesy +of the University of California. </p> + +<h3>Emendations.</h3> +<p>We have made the following emendations to the text: +</p> + +<div id="notes"> + +<p><br /></p> +<h4>Chapter 9.</h4> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_102">Page 102</a>: The mark in the book between + <strong>Gee whittiker</strong> is assumed to be an imperfection + in the page. +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<h4>Chapter 11.</h4> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_121">Page 121</a>: The mark in the book between + <strong>drug store</strong> is assumed to be an imperfection + in the page. There are three other occurrences of drug store + in the novel without the hyphen, and none with. +</p> +<h4>D. Appleton and Co.</h4> +<p> + <a href="#Page_DA11">Page DA11</a>: removed single quote before + ending double quote (after England) in + <strong>'how things are' in England.'</strong> +</p> +<p><br /></p> + +</div> + + +<p class="quad-space-bottom"><br /></p> + + + +<div class="boilerplate"> +<p class="bold"> +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE NORSK *** +</p> + +<p class="double-space-top"> +***** This file should be named 21850-h.htm or 21850-h.zip ***** +</p> + +<p> +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<span class="neat-left-margin"> + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/8/5/21850/</span> +</p> + +<p> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions +will be renamed. +</p> + +<br /> +<p> +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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