O Pioneers!

did unless there were visitors. He slipped into his empty place at his sister's right. The three pretty young Swedish girls who did Alexandra's housework were cutting pies,

rs-inlaw, it was to hear them giggle that she kept three young things in her kitchen; the work she could do herself, if it were necessary. These girls, with their

e six men at the dinner-table, is courting Signa, though he has been so careful not to commit himself that no one in the house, least of all Signa, can tell just how far the matter has progressed. Nelse watches her glumly as she waits upon the table, and in the evening he sits on a bench behind the stove w

n, and he has been a member of her household ever since. He is too old to work in the fields, but he hitches and unhitches the work-teams and looks after the health of the stock. Sometimes of a winter evening Alexandra calls him into the sitting-room to read the Bible aloud to her, for he still reads very well. He dislikes human habitations, so Alexandra has fitted him up a room in the

her hair in two braids wound round her head. It is so curly that fiery ends escape from the braids and make her head look like one of the big double sunflowers that fringe her vegetable garden. Her face is always tanned in summer, for her sunbonnet is oftene

ouraged her men to talk, and she always listened atte

such title, was grumbling about the new silo she had put up that spring. It happened to be the first silo on the Divide, and Alexandra's neig

silo on his place if you'd give it to him. He says the feed outen it gives the stoc

ave different notions about feeding stock, and that's a good thing. It's bad if all the members of a family thi

o much expense into it. Maybe Emil will come out an' have a look at it wid me." He pushed back his chair, took his hat from the nail, and marched out with Emil, who, with his university ideas, was supposed to have instigated the

Alexandra asked as she rose from th

d for him to speak. He stood looking at the carpet, his bushy head bowed, his hands clasped in front of him. Ivar's bandy le

lexandra asked after she ha

of the more old-fashioned people. He always addressed Alexandra in terms of the deepest respect,

his eyes, "the folk have been looking coldly

out what

g me away; to

o me with such talk," she said decidedly. "Why need you

ur brothers complain to the authorities. They say that your brothers are afraid - God forbid! - that I may do you some injury when my spells

uch nonsense. I am still running my own house, and other people have nothing to do

yes and beard. "But I should not wish you to keep me if, as they say, it is ag

ture, but the old man put out h

had been touched by God, or who had seen things in the graveyard at night and were different afterward. We thought nothing of it, and let them alone. But here, if a man is different in his feet or in his head, they put him in the asylum. Look at Peter Kralik; when he was a boy, drinking out of a creek, he swallowed a snake, and always after that he could eat only such food as the creature liked, for when he ate anything else, it became enraged and gnawed him. When he fe

s fasts and long penances by talking to him and letting him pour out the thoughts t

me. But at present I need you here. Only don't come to me again telling me what people say. Let people go on talking as they like, and we will go on living as w

again. And as for my feet, I have observed your wishes all these years, tho

lf our neighbors went barefoot in summer. I expect old Mrs. Lee would love to sli

nt me over with the strawberries, they were all in town but the old woman Lee and the baby. She took me in and showed me the thing, and she told me it was impossible to wash yourself clean in it, because, in so much water,

ther. Never mind; when she comes to visit me, she can do all the old things in the old w

mistress. I come to you sorrowing, and you send me away with a light heart. And will you be so good as

am going to drive up to the north quarter to meet the ma