The Wind Before the Dawn

wind. The long stretches of low rolling hills were mostly covered with short grass, now dry from a protracted season of drought. Occasionally a group of stunted cottonwood t

led to mature, such stalks as had tasselled at all being as barren as the rest because the tender silks had dried

erly since early morning, and having eaten her bit of cornbread and bacon full two hours before. She stopped her horse for the fortieth time, however, to get the angle of her shadow on the ground and to confirm her calculations. The sigh she gave as she again started on her round was not of relief, but of resignation. It was nece

t at short intervals, and at such times was urged to renewed efforts by a dig of its rider's heels in the under regions of its stunted body. In order to get his heels in contact with his mount, the lanky boy was obliged to elevat

sold out, an' goin' right off. Th' other folks moved in last night. They was goin' through with a wagon an' stopped to e

bled his news all out at once, although

ally going away?" The g

egun his announcement with pleased animation, but now that it was out, and she was sorry

be glad. I'd be glad

th some curiosity, "What do you want

neck," she commanded, leaning f

old him, but drew hi

. "Don't their hair

e a body can get under a tree once in a while. I can't go in till five o'clock, and I forgot my jug, an

he said, poking his heels into his pony's ribs so

n his errand. It was a good mile to her home, but the boy k

sunshine had changed character and there

the jug to her knee. She wiped her lips on the skir

the air of one who knew the signs, backing hi

't-but, th' was an eclipse of th' sun-total, I believe they called it-when I was only about seven year old. All th' chickens went to roost, it got so dark, an' when t

eve in luck, do you

e a dog; she'd let you ketch 'er, an' she'd sing, 'co-ook, co-ook, co-ook,' to 'erself, right in your a

girl gave an exclamation of su

N

reath of air stirring below. Soon small objects began to detach themselves from the mass, so that the eye could distinguish separate particles, which looked not unlike scraps of silver driven with terrific force from the tail end of some gigantic machine. One of these scraps struck the girl on the cheek and she

observation and so rapidly were the grasshoppers settling that the boy and

to move about restlessly and presently to mill slowly around, threshing with

this!" the girl said, as Luthe

oy demanded, leaning fo

ce to make herself heard above the rasping noise of many wings. "Father read

less and began to move determinedly away from the oncoming swarm. To keep them in the cen

were in full trot toward the north. Seeing that the matter was becoming serious, Luther lent all the aid of which he was capable and circled about the herd, shouting with all his strength, but the cattle, contending against countless

the nearest cow the next, she raged up and down in front of the herd, bending all her

caught her horse by the bit as she passe

stop 'em! I'll have t' come wit

ed!" the girl cried in distress, pulling down her long scoop-like bonnet and

ns and tail, settled anywhere that a sufficiently broad surface presented itself. Having started to run, they ran on and on and on. The boy and girl followed, their horses stumbling blindly over the ridges between which the corn was growing. The grayish brown sod, through which the matted white roots of the grass showed

nother stubblefield, and on to the open prairie of another section of "Railroad land." The boy and girl made no further attempt to guide them. A cow, with the tickling feet of half a dozen of these devils of torment on the end of a bar

the herd, following through fields cut and uncut, over the short grass of the hills or the long bluestem of the hollows, their horses sweating profusely, the

lolled from the mouth of some wearied beast, but it was not permitted even that respite for long; the grasshoppers respe

They came down to a walk, but they walked doggedly toward the north. At last the sun's rays began to peep through. The air soon cleared, and the scorched and burning children began to wish for even a cloud of grasshoppers to protect them from the heat. Wherever the light fell it disclosed m

old out no longer. The swarms which flew up in front of their moving feet were as unbearable as any th

e line," the girl said with a relieved sigh, when they were safely

hs on a stub of corn near the roadside. The tassel was gone, the edges of the leaves were eaten away, and

attracted his attention. "Crackie! but I'm glad pap's sold out. It'd be no shoes for me this winter if we didn'

e could never get accustomed to them, and each new phase of the trouble was a blow. The sensitive chil

y corn at all?" s

tarvin' times about here. You better get your folks t'

to be a travelled person, to attain distinction, just the next best thing in fact to being made President of the United States. To go East was to live near the timber, where one could wander for hours, days, ages, in the cool freshness of its shady paths. The sunburned child, with her jug hanging by a

o the right of way again, the child's natural good sense and bu

eed the cattle," she said, watching the boy's fac

raged conviction, "Pa wouldn't sell out anyho

a giggle, "I bet th' Cranes is mad for bein' in such a hurry t' get in. They paid pap th' money last night, an' made

of life. Duty pointed sternly to the undesired task, and duty was writ large on the pages of Lizzie Farnshaw's monotonous life. Her hands and face had browned thickly at its bidding, but though, as she had remarked a couple of hours before, she should crack like the sunbaked earth beneath her feet, she would not fail in her obligation to keep the cattle out of other men's fields, and her father out of the primitive courts where damages could be assessed. Poverty she had always known, but now they were threatened with a new and more dreadful form of it than any hitherto encountered, a fact of which courts took no cognizance. Hope and fear alternated in her heart as she rode along, but for the most part the young life in her clung to the idea of the Ea

which was a never-ending source of delight and interest to her. Their problems at home as well as at school were subjects of common discussion. He had been the beginning and the end of her social life. Now she took him into her dream of going away, and discussed her ideas of the best way of disposing of the stock by sale or gift, the sort of home she would have with her grandparents, and pictured, with a vivid imagination, the woods and streams she had heard her father describe. If she only could go! The

but the grasshoppers flew up in continuous clouds before

uther asked when he saw that the herd was so res

sighed, and continued to

w's temper was a matter of neighbourhood knowledge. A word of explanation to his father, Luther knew, would be all that he would need to make the fact of his absence commendable. He was gla

neared the barn. Luther, following them, dropped from the back of his pony and stopped to examine the grain. The girl was excitedly getting

she asked as

red the field slowly with his eye, calcula

been twenty acres. What made you let it get s' rip

fully as she examined the grain for herself. It was only too true! The beautiful brown seeds carpeted the earth aroun

With the eyes of the prematurely old, she saw the extent of the ruin, an

e child that the grasshoppers would eat the dry and, as Luther had said, overripe stems of the flax. Still less had it occurred

. Family discussions had centred about that field for weeks. It was the one definite starting point in the bickerings about their weak and indefinite plans for the future. The

an't live through the winter. That's one reason why I was so glad when I thought we were going to have to go East to live. She don't hardly know he

oing to cry, and, man f

e," he said, and awkwa

flax disappeared fr

med in new distress, "wo

ent cause, and the frank eyes threatened to overflow as she stood clasping

s had an uncomfortable effect on the boy. He gr

cter. As a boy of fifteen he had carried her, a girl of eleven, over many a snowbank their first winter of school in the Prairie Home school district. They had herded cattle together, waded the shallow ponds and hunted for mussel shells, and until this year they had seen each other daily. This year Luther had taken a man's place in the fields and the girl had seen him at rare intervals. She was not conscious of the change which this year of dawning adolescence had brought

m, puzzled by the indefinable something in his mann

pale face and pounded in the veins under his ears, half choking him; it

ld-like way what could have happened. This abrupt and confused departure increased the lonelines

gs, or to speculate upon a friend's confusion or adieus, fo

ing the child received from the stooped figure putting t

l of the loss of the flax, and Luther's going was not mentioned, because Mrs. Farnshaw shared the p

gone over to Hansen's t' see what he thinks. Looks 's if we'd be harder up 'n ever, an' I thought I'd done 'bout all th' savin' a woman could

s, to let it be known that there was no flax to sell. That flax had been one long series of troublesome wo

. Farnshaw been wise she would have dropped all reference to the flax when the promise was obtained. But Mrs. Farnshaw had to talk; it was her fate. She had hovered about the field, she had centred her faculties on the considerat

tack to go through the sweating process; she talked, talked, talked, with an endless clacking, till her husband fled from her presence or cut her short

prospects for crops were good, and the knowledge that implement dealers would collect those notes whether the yield of grain was equal to their demands or

ndency to brown, he helped a neighbour instead of beginning on Friday, as his wife urged. Saturday he found something wrong with the binder. By Saturday night he began to see that the grain was ripening fast. He was warned and was ready to actually start the machine early the next day. His grizzled face concealed the grin it harboured at the idea of running the harvester on Sunday; he knew Mrs. Farnshaw's scruples. The flax ha

t he was grimly thinking that her religious scruples would not stan

pe now an' if it shatters out on th' ground you kin blame yourself," adding with grim humour, "There's nothin' li

mother must vindicate her claims to religion, and Mrs. Far

urned with fire and brimstone, her husband's scorn did what neither had been able to do. Mrs.

ell you It'll be a sick lookin' field by to-m

ut suddenly realizing that the overripe grain would suffer great loss if left another day in the hot sun, he reasoned with real earnestness that it must be cut if it were to be saved. His wife,

ive to the atmosphere of suffering. The details of past elements in the tragedy she could not be expected to understand. The stunted, barren life of her mother was but half guessed. What

little, if anything, to do with affection. She strove daily to win love, not knowing that love is a thing outside the power to win or bestow. Had she had understanding she would have s

ught the water, "put up the chairs," and, when her father came from the stable, slipped out to where he was washing f

e than usual and only pushed his daughter out of his way as he reached around her for the sun-cracked bar of yellow laundry soap with which to wash his hands

dismal in the dusk of evening. In spite of the added heat it

crooked blaze ran up unexpectedly and blacked the cracked chimney on one side with a soot so thi

he demanded querulously, poking at the lopsided and deeply cha

in the end her daughter had to prosecute a search for the scissors and cut the wick properly. As they worked over the

flax was all whipped out of

blindly in a terrified effort to right it before it should go over. The cracked chimney fell from its moorings, and, striking a teacup, spattered broken glass over the table

had been constructed the full weight of the disaster had fallen upon the defeated and despairing woman, and to protec

he weeds, to the dry grass, the stripped branches of the half-grown trees, to the cattle and

t in real alarm, lest they run away again, she took them home, preferring her father's wrath to the experience of getting them back if they should get beyond her contr

prairies with a fearful velocity. With feminine instinct, every female grasshopper burrowed into the dry earth, making a hole which would receive almost her entire body back of her wings

rovided for the propagation of their kind, the lately fecund grasshoppers were hungry when the act was over. Not a spear of anything green was left. The travel-worn horde had devo

ade the locusts stupid and sleepy, but when the next morning the wind had fallen, and the sun had warmed their bodies, as fast as they were able all were on the w

r's supply of provender for both man and beast. Mr. Farnshaw, being one of the older residents, had grown a crop of wheat, so that his bread was assured; but the herd of cat

rizzled and despairing men discussed the advisability of "goin' East," and w

protecting presence against a sun which took life and spirits out of the pluckiest of them. Even more childish than the da

My heart goes out t' Mrs. Crane. Think of all that good money goin' t' t

hen, Farnshaw?" the

ighbours had asked to assemble in his house because his kitchen afforded more room than any othe

n as the question was asked t

ay in reply. He felt all eyes turned in his direction and quite enjoyed the suspense. Mr. Farnshaw was an artist in calculating the suspense of others. He gave them plent

and mine, I think we

th her hands to strangle back her tears. Her one hope had been

have t'," said a man whose shaggy whiskers had not seen a c

our stock?" another said, and all bent forward and waited for

us that money, or its equivalent, had weight. "That's just it," he repeated to add emphasis to his opinion. "What is a man to do? You folks that have nothin' but your teams an' wagons can load t

. The argument sounded good to him now, however. It put him on a higher basis with himself, in spite of the fact that it had only popped

nything if you ain't got nothin' t'

I've come t' th' conclusion that you ain't goin' t' better yourselves any. If you go East, You'll have t' come back here in th' spring,

of the question before he decided to give up his recently purchased farm, and glad of this opportunity to get the opinions of his fe

I'll stay by," was the stubborn reply. "As for them eggs a-hatchin', they'll be good ones if they can stand a

these grizzly pioneers, who struggled with the question of fuel in a country where there was little natural ti

ne of the men said to him as they went to the st

ndifferent reply. "Say, you've got a stack

etic daughter helped her

East you might get to stay; and then you wouldn't have to cry so much," she add

as she sat on the side of the bed, shook her head with the bitter

e, I guess, Lizzie. He'd be th

the loft overhead that night a new idea: that it was not the p

in that country, had been eaten almost to the very ground, but the stubs were gathered, the dirt shaken from them, and they were then carted to the house. Rosin weeds were collected and piled in heaps. The d

r keeping warm, and that of the lightest variety, it was necessary to make the living quarters impervious to the never-cea

le, and many and sad were the accidents to the smaller animals. It was soon clear that not many of them could be carried through till the

traw was a poor substitute for the corn and hay to which the cattle were accustomed, and as the weeks lengthened into months, and winter closed in, the unprotected cattle grew thinner and ever thinner. Corn was quoted in the markets at a do

t amount of oats for seed and then carefully portioned out the rest to be fed to four of his best broodmares, hoping to be able to put in the spr

p short. There were no eggs, because the chickens had sickened from eating grasshoppers in the fall and nearly all had died. The few hens which remained clung to the limbs of the half-grown cottonwood trees throughout

hen, as spring approached, the shrunken cows died one after another in giving birth to the calves

add to the general depression there was a growing conviction that the hatchin

tiny nests, would be placed near the fire and kept at as regular a degree of warmth as possible, the condition of the eggs would be noted carefully, and in a short time the hopes of the anxious pioneers would be dashed to the ground by wriggling little insects climbing cheerfully out of their winter quarters and hopping about in a vain search for something green to live upon. Often, in sheer desperation, the harassed settler would sweep t

mose and subject to "spells." The children learned to avoid the presence of either parent as much as possible, and to look outside the home for the joy childhood demands. The chores were he

lucky youngsters followed the cattle home they dreamed of skates to be obtained in the dim future, and tried to run fast enough to keep warm. The blessing of childhood is that it cannot be cheated of its visions, and the blood of adolescence was coursing riotously through the veins of the daughter of

rings, she, by a vivid imagination, placed herself in the path of fortune and obtained the thing she demanded. The simple country schoolhouse that year, dreary and cheerless enough to the pert M

ng every new idea and mannerism of which the new teacher was arrogantly possessed-absorbed them, but transmuted

ing departed for the indefinable land known as the "East." Three of these children came from

the self-assurance which came from the empty-headed ability to tie a ribbon well. She was so occupied with resenting the young teacher's feeling of vast superiority that she fail

a bird of paradise, and though Lizzie was conscious that the teacher's voice was harsh, and her air affected, the child reac

into activity every faculty the se

ppish young thing at the teacher's desk was "stuck-up," but Lizzie was willing that she should be whatever she

at "Lizzie's just as smart as that Topeka girl any day," and when his daughter began to talk hopefully about teaching school it appealed to the father's pride, and he encouraged her dreams. He had been the leading man in the community since coming to Kansas because of the number of cattle he had been able to accumulate. A small legacy had aided in that accumulation, and it appealed to his pride to have his daughter's intellectual ambitions adding to the general family importance. Pride is an important factor in the lives of all, b

comfortably at the head of her classes, she became more ambitious, reached over into new territory, and induced the teacher to create new classes for her benefit. The subjects req

n each side of its vest front. The skirt of this wonderful dress was "shirred" and hung in graceful festoons between the rows of gatherings, and was of an entirely new style. Last, but not least, the teacher's feet were shod in "side laces," the first pair of a new kind of shoes, destined to become popular, which laced on the inside of the ankle instead of on the top as we have them now. Of all her stylish at

s, but they had elements of truth in them, and even when they were directed against the child herself they were a splendid spur. The young girl copied her manners, her gait, and her vocabulary. She watched her own conversation to see that she did not s

y needed, she complained monotonously over every evidence of the young girl's desire to beautify herself. When the mother's complaints became unendurable, the father usually growled out a stern, "Let the child alone," but for the most part the growing girl lived a life apart from her family, thought a