Hamlin Garland

“ Each day the sky waxed warmer. The snow disappeared from the ravines. The ice broke up on the Moggason. The ponds disappeared. Plover flew over with wailing cry. Buffalo birds, prairie pigeons, larks, blackbirds, sparrows, joined their voices to those of the cranes and geese and ducks, and the prairie piped and twittered and clacked and chuckled with life. The gophers emerged from their winter-quarters, the foxes barked on the hills, the skunk hobbled along the ravines, and the badger raised mounds of fresh soil as if to aid the boomer by showing how deep the black loam was. ”

“ Its voices seemed to enter Blanche Burke's soul, filling it with hunger never felt before. Day after day it moaned in her ears and wailed about the little cabin, rousing within her formless desires and bitter despairs. Obscure emotions, unused powers of reason and recollection came to her. She developed swiftly in sombre womanhood.
Sometimes Mrs. Bussy came across the prairie, sometimes a load of land-seekers asked for dinner, but mainly she was alone all the long, long days. ”

“ The stove came in, and the flour-barrel, and the few household articles which they had brought followed, and as the sun was setting they all sat down to supper in her new home.
The smell of the fresh pine was round them. Geese were flying over. Cranes were dancing down by the ponds, prairie-chickens were booming. The open doorway—doorless yet—looked out on the sea-like plain glorified by the red sun just sinking over the purple line of treeless hills to the west. ”

“ The light of the lamp, and the sight of Blanche standing in the doorway of the cabin at the back of the store-room, was a beautiful sight to Burke. Set over against the wet, dark prairie, with its boundless sweep of unknown soil, the shanty seemed a radiant palace.12
"Supper's all ready, Willard!" called Blanche, and the tired man's heart leaped with joy to hear the tender, familiar cadence of her voice. It was her happy voice, and when she used it men were her slaves.
Bailey came out with one of the land-seekers.
"Go in to supper, boys; we'll take care of the teams," was his hearty command. ”

“ His eyes were like those of a man who sees a world at its birth.
Hour after hour they moved across the swelling land. Hour after hour, while the yellow sun rolled up the slope, putting to flight the morning shapes on the horizon—striking the plain into level prose again, and warming the air into5 genial March. Hour after hour the horses toiled on till the last cabin fell away to the east, like a sail at sea, till the road faded into a trail almost imperceptible on the firm sod. ”

“ There was little for Blanche to do, and there was nothing for her to say to Willard, who came and went aimlessly between the barn and house. His poor old team could no longer face the cold wind without danger of freezing, and so he walked to the store for the mail and the groceries. They lived on boiled potatoes and bacon, suffering like prisoners—jailed innocently. He hovered about the stove, feeding it twisted bundles of hay till he grew yellow with the tanning effect of the smoke, while Blanche cowered in her chair, petulant and ungenerous. ”

“ Her lips turned blue and she cowered back against the side of the cabin, holding her shawl like a shield before her bosom. "I can't do it! It's too cold! I'd freeze to death. You'll have to go alone."
Burke was relieved. "Yes, you'd better stay," he said, and drove off.
Blanche crept back into the shanty and bent above the stove, shivering violently. She drew a long breath now and then like a grieving child. Life was over for her. She had reached the point where nothing mattered. She sat there until the sound of bells aroused her. "It's Jim!" ”

“ At noon, when Rivers went out to feed the team, Bailey went over toward the wretched woman. His face was kind but firm:
"Mrs. Burke, I hope you've decided not to do this thing."
She looked at him with shrinking eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you can't afford to go away with Jim this way."
"What else can I do? I can't live without him, and I can't go back."
"Well, then, go away alone. Go back to your folks."
"Oh, I can't do that! Can't you see," she said, finding words with effort—"can't you see, I must go? Jim is my real husband. I must be true to him now. ”

“ He gathered her close in his arm, holding the robe about her, and urged on his brave team. They were hardly five miles from the shanty,99 and yet the storm was becoming frightful, even to his resolute and experienced brain. The circle of his vision had narrowed till it was impossible at times to see fifty rods away. The push of the wind grew each moment mightier. A multitudinous, soft, rushing, whispering roar was rising round them, mixed with a hissing, rustling sound like the passing of invisible, winged hosts. ”

“ Next morning Estelle went with her while she did a little shopping—pitifully little, for she only had a dollar or two to spend—while Bailey loaded up his team. At last, and all too soon, her outing ended, and she faced the west with heavy heart.78
Poor Willard also felt the menace of the desolate, wild prairie, but he had no conception of the tumult of regret and despair which filled his wife's mind as she climbed into the wagon for their return journey. She was like a prisoner whose parole had ended. ”

“ One by one the novelties and beauties of the plain had passed away or grown familiar. The plover and blackbird fell silent. The prairie-chicken's piping cry ceased as the flocks grew toward maturity,68 and the lark and cricket alone possessed the russet plain, which seemed to snap and crackle in the midnight frost, and to wither away in the bright midday sun.
Many of the squatters by this time had spent their last dollar, and there was little work for them to do. Each man, like his neighbor, was waiting to "prove up." ”

“ Blanche burst out: "Oh, Jim, don't! Please don't!"
The men did not hear her. They saw no one, heard no one. They were facing each other in utter disregard of time or place.
Bailey's tone grew sad and tender, but he did not move: "All right, Jim. If you want to go to hell as the murderer of your best friend, as well as for stealing another man's wife, do it. But you sha'n't go out of this door with that woman while I live. ”

“ Burke looked at his wife; she replied, eagerly:
"I should like to go, Mr. Bailey, very much. Our old team is so feeble we daren't drive so far. I'm afraid every time old Dick stumbles he'll fall down on the road."
"We'll have to get back to-morrow night," Burke said.
"Oh, we'll do that all right," replied Bailey.
As she planned the trip with tremulous eagerness, Bailey studied her. She was paler than he had ever seen her, and more refined and thoughtful, scarcely recognizable as the high-colored, powerful woman for whom he had helped build the shanty in March. ”

“ To Bailey's mind Jim was too well attended. He seemed to see less and less of his partner as the season wore on. They seldom sat down to talk in the good old fashion, wearing out half the night smoking, listening to the slumber-song of the night plain, for Rivers got into the habit of walking home with some of the girls after the mail was distributed, leaving his partner to do the trading. Sometimes he went away with Mrs. Burke, if she were alone; sometimes with Estelle Clayton, whom Bailey thought37 the finest woman in the world. ”

“ Under their hands the straddle-bug multiplied. He is short-lived, this prairie insect. He usually dies in thirty days—by courtesy alone he lives. He expresses the settlers' hope and sense of justice. In these spring days of good cheer he lived at times to sixty days—but only on stony ground or fire-scarred, peaty lowlands.
He withered—this strange, three-legged, voiceless insect—but in his stead arose a beetle. ”

“ The advancing wall of rain struck the building with terrific force. The lightning broke forth, savage as the roar of siege-guns. The noise of the wind and thunder was deafening. The plain grew black as night, save when the lightning flamed in countless streams across the58 clouds. The cabin shook like a frightened hound. Bailey looked around.
"We must move the goods!" he shouted above the tumult. "See, the rain is beating in!"
Rivers, with Blanche encircled by his arm, pressed her to his side reassuringly. "Don't be afraid. It can't blow down," he repeated. ”

“ Only the Alsatians settled in groups, alien and unapproachable. All others met at odd30 times and places, breathing in the promiseful air of the clean sod, resolute to put the world of hopeless failure behind them.
Spring merged magnificently into summer. The grass upthrust. The waterfowl passed on to the northern lake-region. The morning symphony of the prairie-chickens died out, but the whistle of the larks, the chatter of the sparrows, and the wailing cry of the nesting plover came to take its place. ”

“ For the poor, weak fool of a husband he cared nothing; but this woman was his, and the child to come was his. Birth—of which many men make a jest—suddenly took on majesty and terror,127 and the little life seemed about to enter a world of storm which filled him with a sense of duty new to him. ”

“ May keep some poor devil from wandering around all night on the prairie."
Rivers said, with an abrupt change in his voice:
"Mrs. Burke is a hummer, isn't she? How'd his flat-chested nibs manage to secure a 'queen' like that? I must get married, Bailey—no use."
Bailey took his friend's declaration more lightly than it deserved. He laughed. "Wish you would, Jim, and relieve me of the cookin'."
Blanche could hardly compose herself to sleep. "Isn't it wonderful," she whispered. "It's all so strange, like being out of the world, someway." ”

“ In this unsheltered land, where coal was high and doctors far away, winter was a dreaded enemy.
The depopulation of the newly claimed land began. Some of the girls went back never to return; others settled in Boomtown, with intent to visit their claims once a month through the winter; but a few, like the Burkes, remained in their little shanties, which looked still more like dens when sodded to the eaves. The70 Clayton girls flitted away to Wheatland, leaving the plain desolately lonely to Bailey. ”

“ Bailey contrived to look very stern and very busy whenever she came in, but she was wise in ways of men, and treated him as if he were a good comrade, and so gradually he came to talk to38 her almost as freely as with Blanche Burke.
He did not know that Jim almost invariably went over to Burke's shanty—even when he walked home with Miss Clayton. Rivers did not impress Estelle favorably. She was not one to be moved by flattery, nor by dimples in male cheeks. ”

“ Burke, for they were having a jolly time together over by the table, where he was helping to wash the dishes. He had laughing, brown eyes, and a pleasant voice, and was one of the most popular of the lawyers and land-agents in Boomtown. There was a boyish quality in him which kept him giving and taking jocular remarks.
Bailey sometimes said: "Rivers would shine up to a seventy-year-old Sioux squaw if she was the only woman handy, but he don't mean anything by it—it's just his way. ”

“ And so at last they came to the land of "the straddle-bug"—the squatters' watch dog—three boards nailed together (like a stack of army muskets) to mark a claim. Burke resembled a man taking his first sea-voyage. ”

“ He perceived that she was in earnest. "All right—only it does no good, and delays us. Every minute is valuable now. The outlook is owly."
The plain was getting gray as they came out of the door, and the woman shrank and shivered with an instant chill, but Rivers tenderly tucked the robe about her and leaped into the sleigh.
"Now boys, git!" he shouted to the humped and wind-ruffled team, and they sprang away into the currents of powdered snow, which were running along the ground in streams as smooth as oil and almost as silent.
The sleigh rose and fell over the ridges97 like a ship. ”

“ The tired freighters gladly did as they were bid, and, scooping up some water from a near-by hollow on the sod, hurriedly washed their faces and sat down to a supper of chopped potatoes, bacon and eggs, and tea (which Blanche placed steaming hot upon the table) , in such joy as only the weary worker knows.
Mrs. Burke was in high spirits. The novelty of the trip, the rude shanty, with13 its litter of shavings, and its boxes for chairs, the bundles of hay for beds, gave her something like the same pleasure a picnic might have done. ”

“ They lighted the oil lamps, which hung in brackets on the wall, and then Rivers said to Blanche: "Won't you go into the57 other room? We must stay here and look after the goods."
"No, no! I'd rather be here with you; it's going to be terrible."
"Hark!" said Bailey, with lifted hands; "there she comes!"
Far away was heard a continuous, steady, low-keyed, advancing hum, like the rushing of wild horses, their hoofbeats lost in one mighty, throbbing, tumultuous roar; then a deeper darkness fell upon the scene, and swift as the swoop of an eagle the tornado was upon them. ”

“ Rivers leered comically, sighed, and looked at his partner. "Bailey, I didn't know what we needed before; I know now. We need a woman."
Bailey smiled. "Go get one. Don't20 ask a clumsy old farmer like me to provide a cook."
"I'll get married to-morrow," said Rivers, with a droll inflection. They all laughed, and Burke clucked at the team. "Well, good-bye, boys; see you later."
After leaving the ranch they struck out over the prairie where no wagon-wheel but theirs had ever passed. Here were the buffalo trails, deep-worn ruts all running from northwest to southeast. ”