Hamlin Garland

“ 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. ”

“ I'd hate like thunder to be left alone on a Dakota prairie f'r the rest o' the winter."
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.
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. ”

“ 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 140 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.
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. ”

“ 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.
"Say, Bert, let's let her stay if she wants to," he said suddenly after they had been in silence for a long time.
"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." ”

“ 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.
"Can't stop," she explained; "got to go over to the city to get some groceries for harvest. Goin' to the sociable to-morrow?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
He was a dangerous-looking man just now. Ordinarily his vast frame, huge, 53 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." ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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 114 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.
But Gearheart's keen eye was on Flaxen as well. ”

“ 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.
"Do you know," said Bert, impressively, "I couldn't keep that woman out o' my mind. I could see her layin' there without 25 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." ”

“ Then she flattened her round cheek against the pane and tried to see the boys. When the last house of the 84 town passed by her window she sank back in her seat and sobbed silently.
"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.
"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." ”

“ 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.
"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." ”

“ 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."
They pushed their chairs back noisily and rose to go out. Flaxen said:
"Say, which o' you boys is goin' to help me churn to-night?"
Anson groaned, while she laughed.
"I don't know, Flax; ask us an easier one."
"We'll attend to that after it gets too dark to work on the machine," added Bert.
"Well, see 't y' do. I can't do it; I've got bread to mix an' a chicken to dress. ”

“ 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.
"Ans, why don't you go back an' visit your folks?" asked Bert, one day. "I'll take care o' things."
"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."
"Same here. We ain't very affectionate, 90 anyway; our fam'ly and I don't write. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Up early in the wide, sweet dawn, toiling through the day behind harrow and seeder, coming in 94 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. ”

“ 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. 100 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?
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 ”

“ 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."
"He may be in the swale," muttered the watcher as he stood with his eye to the loop-hole. But the next time he 7 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. ”

“ 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."
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.
130 The wedding took place in the house of the Holt family, and was in charge of Miss Holt, Elga's teacher. ”

“ He "looked so queer"; his fair, untroubled, smiling face and blond moustache made him look younger than Bert.
"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.
110 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 117 the farmers waited, praying or cursing, for the wheat was just at the right point to be blighted. ”

“ 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."
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 34 the trackless plain toward the low line of hills to the east, twenty-five or thirty miles. ”

“ Bert came out to listen.
"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."
"Is that all?" said Flaxen, disappointedly, a comical look on her round face.
"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." ”

“ 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."
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." ”

“ You 39 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.'"
"Oh, say, now, look here, Ans, I can't stand the strain. Suppose she'd hear me swearin' at ol' Barney or the stove?"
"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 ”

“ 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."
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.
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 107 beard shaved off. "Made me look so old," he explained, seeing Bert's wild start of surprise. ”

“ 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 13 against his breast. He never had held a child in his arms before.
"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—"
Bert stirred up the fire.
"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.
"Because she was the only livin' soul in the shanty." ”

“ 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."—New York Times. ”

“ But, say, ain't it a little singular that Flaxen should blossom out 62 in a desire for a new dress all at once? Ain't it rather sudden?"
"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."
"Yes: I know she is," said Bert, significantly. "An' something's got to be done right off." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Biscuits?"
"Um, um! Say, what y' s'pose I've got to go with 'em?"
"Honey."
"Oh, you're too sharp," wailed Ans, 111 while Flaxen went off into a peal of laughter. "Say, Bert's be'n in the damnedest—excuse me—plaguedest temper fer the last two munce as you ever did see."
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. ”

“ Anson handed the letter to Bert, who read it in a steady voice.
Dear Darling: I have good news to tell you. My uncle was out from Wisconsin to see me, and he was pleased with what I had 121 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. ”

“ Finally Anson spoke:
"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. ”