All this, if it came to the attention of Anson at all, was laid to the schooling the girl had had.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

The heavy-headed grain and russet gra.s.s writhed and swirled as if in agony, and dashed high in waves of green and 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 gra.s.s.

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

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.

"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:

"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'."

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, his elbows on his knees, looking intently at the grave face of his companion. The horses ground cheerily at the hay.

"Ans, we've got to send Flaxen back to St. Peter; she's so homesick she don't know what to do."

Ans' eyes fell.

"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."

Bert saw that Anson was still ignorant of the real state of affairs, but thought he would say nothing for the present.

"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."

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:

"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."

"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."

"Wha' d' ye s'pose was in that letter?"

"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.

"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."

"Oh, this ain't nothin'. This is a gentle zephyr. Wait till y' see a wind."

"Wal, I hope to goodness I won't never see a wind. Zephyrs is all I can mortally stand."

Anson went through the little sitting-room and knocked on Flaxen's door.

"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."

The door opened a little, and a faint, tearful voice said:

"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.

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 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.

Yours till death,

WILL.

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 pa.s.sion 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 separation. It meant a long ache in his heart which time could scarcely deaden into a tolerable pain.

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.

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.

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 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:

"You tell that feller--if he wants ye, to jest come an'--git ye--that's all!"

CHAPTER XII.

FLAXEN SAYS GOOD-BYE.

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.

"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?"

"It does, that's a fact--'specially the idea of leaving us for a thing like that."

After arriving at a complete understanding 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.

"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."

"Well, we'll try," Anson said, speaking with difficulty, the lump in his throat was so big and so dry.

They rode home in silence again, but this time there was something darker and more sullen in their thoughts.