[This electronic book is being released at this time in the hopes 
that people will "Read More About It!" when they see the Hallmark 
Hall of Fame production, Sunday evening, February 2, 1992 on CBS 
television, 9:00 P.M. (8:00 P.M. Central Time).]

                           O Pioneers!
                                by
                           Willa Cather
 
 
                              PART I
 
                          The Wild Land
 

                                I
 
 
     One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of 
Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not 
to be blown away.  A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and 
eddying about the cluster of low drab buildings huddled on the 
gray prairie, under a gray sky.  The dwelling-houses were set 
about haphazard on the tough prairie sod; some of them looked as 
if they had been moved in overnight, and others as if they were 
straying off by themselves, headed straight for the open plain.  
None of them had any appearance of permanence, and the howling 
wind blew under them as well as over them.  The main street was a 
deeply rutted road, now frozen hard, which ran from the squat red 
railway station and the grain "elevator" at the north end of the 
town to the lumber yard and the horse pond at the south end.  On 
either side of this road straggled two uneven rows of wooden 
buildings; the general merchandise stores, the two banks, the 
drug store, the feed store, the saloon, the post-office.  The 
board sidewalks were gray with trampled snow, but at two o'clock 
in the afternoon the shopkeepers, having come back from dinner, 
were keeping well behind their frosty windows.  The children were 
all in school, and there was nobody abroad in the streets but a 
few rough-looking countrymen in coarse overcoats, with their long 
caps pulled down to their noses.  Some of them had brought their 
wives to town, and now and then a red or a plaid shawl flashed 
out of one store into the shelter of another.  At the hitch-bars 
along the street a few heavy work-horses, harnessed to farm 
wagons, shivered under their blankets.  About the station 
everything was quiet, for there would not be another train in 
until night. 
 
     On the sidewalk in front of one of the stores sat a little 
Swede boy, crying bitterly.  He was about five years old.  His 
black cloth coat was much too big for him and made him look like 
a little old man.  His shrunken brown flannel dress had been 
washed many times and left a long stretch of stocking between the 
hem of his skirt and the tops of his clumsy, copper-toed shoes.  
His cap was pulled down over his ears; his nose and his chubby 
cheeks were chapped and red with cold.  He cried quietly, and the 
few people who hurried by did not notice him. He was afraid to 
stop any one, afraid to go into the store and ask for help, so he 
sat wringing his long sleeves and looking up a telegraph pole 
beside him, whimpering, "My kitten, oh, my kitten!  Her will 
fweeze!"  At the top of the pole crouched a shivering gray 
kitten, mewing faintly and clinging desperately to the wood with 
her claws.  The boy had been left at the store while his sister 
went to the doctor's office, and in her absence a dog had chased 
his kitten up the pole.  The little creature had never been so 
high before, and she was too frightened to move.  Her master was 
sunk in despair.  He was a little country boy, and this village 
was to him a very strange and perplexing place, where people wore 
fine clothes and had hard hearts. He always felt shy and awkward 
here, and wanted to hide behind things for fear some one might 
laugh at him.  Just now, he was too unhappy to care who laughed.  
At last he seemed to see a ray of hope: his sister was coming, 
and he got up and ran toward her in his heavy shoes. 
 
     His sister was a tall, strong girl, and she walked rapidly 
and resolutely, as if she knew exactly where she was going and 
what she was going to do next.  She wore a man's long ulster (not 
as if it were an affliction, but as if it were very comfortable 
and belonged to her; carried it like a young soldier), and a 
round plush cap, tied down with a thick veil.  She had a serious, 
thoughtful face, and her clear, deep blue eyes were fixed 
intently on the distance, without seeming to see anything, as if 
she were in trouble.  She did not notice the little boy until he 
pulled her by the coat.  Then she stopped short and stooped down 
to wipe his wet face. 
 
     "Why, Emil!  I told you to stay in the store and not to come 
out.  What is the matter with you?" 
 
     "My kitten, sister, my kitten!  A man put her out, and a dog 
chased her up there."  His forefinger, projecting from the sleeve 
of his coat, pointed up to the wretched little creature on the 
pole. 
 
     "Oh, Emil!  Didn't I tell you she'd get us into trouble of 
some kind, if you brought her? What made you tease me so?  But 
there, I ought to have known better myself."  She went to the 
foot of the pole and held out her arms, crying, "Kitty, kitty, 
kitty," but the kitten only mewed and faintly waved its tail.  
Alexandra turned away decidedly.  "No, she won't come down.  
Somebody will have to go up after her.  I saw the Linstrums' 
wagon in town.  I'll go and see if I can find Carl.  Maybe he can 
do something.  Only you must stop crying, or I won't go a step.  
Where's your comforter?  Did you leave it in the store?  Never 
mind.  Hold still, till I put this on you." 
 
     She unwound the brown veil from her head and tied it about 
his throat.  A shabby little traveling man, who was just then 
coming out of the store on his way to the saloon, stopped and 
gazed stupidly at the shining mass of hair she bared when she 
took off her veil; two thick braids, pinned about her head in the 
German way, with a fringe of reddish-yellow curls blowing out 
from under her cap.  He took his cigar out of his mouth and held 
the wet end between the fingers of his woolen glove.  "My God, 
girl, what a head of hair!" he exclaimed, quite innocently and 
foolishly.  She stabbed him with a glance of Amazonian fierceness 
and drew in her lower lip--most unnecessary severity.  It gave 
the little clothing drummer such a start that he actually let his 
cigar fall to the sidewalk and went off weakly in the teeth of 
the wind to the saloon.  His hand was still unsteady when he took 
his glass from the bartender.  His feeble flirtatious instincts 
had been crushed before, but never so mercilessly.  He felt cheap 
and ill-used, as if some one had taken advantage of him.  When a 
drummer had been knocking about in little drab towns and crawling 
across the wintry country in dirty smokingcars, was he to be 
blamed if, when he chanced upon a fine human creature, he 
suddenly wished himself more of a man? 
 
     While the little drummer was drinking to recover his nerve, 
Alexandra hurried to the drug store as the most likely place to 
find Carl Linstrum.  There he was, turning over a portfolio of 
chromo "studies" which the druggist sold to the Hanover women who 
did chinapainting.  Alexandra explained her predicament, and the 
boy followed her to the corner, where Emil still sat by the pole. 
 
     "I'll have to go up after her, Alexandra.  I think at the 
depot they have some spikes I can strap on my feet.  Wait a 
minute."  Carl thrust his hands into his pockets, lowered his 
head, and darted up the street against the north wind.  He was a 
tall boy of fifteen, slight and narrow-chested.  When he came 
back with the spikes, Alexandra asked him what he had done with 
his overcoat. 
 
     "I left it in the drug store.  I couldn't climb in it, 
anyhow.  Catch me if I fall, Emil," he called back as he began 
his ascent.  Alexandra watched him anxiously; the cold was bitter 
enough on the ground.  The kitten would not budge an inch.  Carl 
had to go to the very top of the pole, and then had some 
difficulty in tearing her from her hold.  When he reached the 
ground, he handed the cat to her tearful little master.  "Now go 
into the store with her, Emil, and get warm."  He opened the door 
for the child.  "Wait a minute, Alexandra.  Why can't I drive for 
you as far as our place?  It's getting colder every minute.  Have 
you seen the doctor?" 
 
     "Yes.  He is coming over to-morrow.  But he says father 
can't get better; can't get well." The girl's lip trembled.  She 
looked fixedly up the bleak street as if she were gathering her 
strength to face something, as if she were trying with all her 
might to grasp a situation which, no matter how painful, must be 
met and dealt with somehow.  The wind flapped the skirts of her 
heavy coat about her. 
 
     Carl did not say anything, but she felt his sympathy.  He, 
too, was lonely.  He was a thin, frail boy, with brooding dark 
eyes, very quiet in all his movements.  There was a delicate 
pallor in his thin face, and his mouth was too sensitive for a 
boy's.  The lips had already a little curl of bitterness and 
skepticism.  The two friends stood for a few moments on the windy 
street corner, not speaking a word, as two travelers, who have 
lost their way, sometimes stand and admit their perplexity in 
silence.  When Carl turned away he said, "I'll see to your team." 
Alexandra went into the store to have her purchases packed in the 
egg-boxes, and to get warm before she set out on her long cold 
drive. 
 
     When she looked for Emil, she found him sitting on a step of 
the staircase that led up to the clothing and carpet department.  
He was playing with a little Bohemian girl, Marie Tovesky, who 
was tying her handkerchief over the kitten's head for a bonnet.  
Marie was a stranger in the country, having come from Omaha with 
her mother to visit her uncle, Joe Tovesky.  She was a dark 
child, with brown curly hair, like a brunette doll's, a coaxing 
little red mouth, and round, yellow-brown eyes.  Every one 
noticed her eyes; the brown iris had golden glints that made them 
look like gold-stone, or, in softer lights, like that Colorado 
mineral called tiger-eye. 
 
     The country children thereabouts wore their dresses to their 
shoe-tops, but this city child was dressed in what was then 
called the "Kate Greenaway" manner, and her red cashmere frock, 
gathered full from the yoke, came almost to the floor.  This, 
with her poke bonnet, gave her the look of a quaint little woman.  
She had a white fur tippet about her neck and made no fussy 
objections when Emil fingered it admiringly.  Alexandra had not 
the heart to take him away from so pretty a playfellow, and she 
let them tease the kitten together until Joe Tovesky came in 
noisily and picked up his little niece, setting her on his 
shoulder for every one to see.  His children were all boys, and 
he adored this little creature.  His cronies formed a circle 
about him, admiring and teasing the little girl, who took their 
jokes with great good nature.  They were all delighted with her, 
for they seldom saw so pretty and carefully nurtured a child.  
They told her that she must choose one of them for a sweetheart, 
and each began pressing his suit and offering her bribes; candy, 
and little pigs, and spotted calves.  She looked archly into the 
big, brown, mustached faces, smelling of spirits and tobacco, 
then she ran her tiny forefinger delicately over Joe's bristly 
chin and said, "Here is my sweetheart." 
 
     The Bohemians roared with laughter, and Marie's uncle hugged 
her until she cried, "Please don't, Uncle Joe!  You hurt me."  
Each of Joe's friends gave her a bag of candy, and she kissed 
them all around, though she did not like country candy very well.  
Perhaps that was why she bethought herself of Emil.  "Let me 
down, Uncle Joe," she said, "I want to give some of my candy to 
that nice little boy I found."  She walked graciously over to 
Emil, followed by her lusty admirers, who formed a new circle and 
teased the little boy until he hid his face in his sister's 
skirts, and she had to scold him for being such a baby. 
 
     The farm people were making preparations to start for home.  
The women were checking over their groceries and pinning their 
big red shawls about their heads.  The men were buying tobacco 
and candy with what money they had left, were showing each other 
new boots and gloves and blue flannel shirts.  Three big 
Bohemians were drinking raw alcohol, tinctured with oil of 
cinnamon.  This was said to fortify one effectually against the 
cold, and they smacked their lips after each pull at the flask. 
Their volubility drowned every other noise in the place, and the 
overheated store sounded of their spirited language as it reeked 
of pipe smoke, damp woolens, and kerosene. 
 
     Carl came in, wearing his overcoat and carrying a wooden box 
with a brass handle.  "Come," he said, "I've fed and watered your 
team, and the wagon is ready."  He carried Emil out and tucked 
him down in the straw in the wagonbox.  The heat had made the 
little boy sleepy, but he still clung to his kitten. 
 
     "You were awful good to climb so high and get my kitten, 
Carl.  When I get big I'll climb and get little boys' kittens for 
them," he murmured drowsily.  Before the horses were over the 
first hill, Emil and his cat were both fast asleep. 
 
     Although it was only four o'clock, the winter day was 
fading.  The road led southwest, toward the streak of pale, 
watery light that glimmered in the leaden sky.  The light fell 
upon the two sad young faces that were turned mutely toward it: 
upon the eyes of the girl, who seemed to be looking with such 
anguished perplexity into the future; upon the sombre eyes of the 
boy, who seemed already to be looking into the past. The little 
town behind them had vanished as if it had never been, had fallen 
behind the swell of the prairie, and the stern frozen country 
received them into its bosom.  The homesteads were few and far 
apart; here and there a windmill gaunt against the sky, a sod 
house crouching in a hollow.  But the great fact was the land 
itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human 
society that struggled in its sombre wastes.  It was from facing 
this vast hardness that the boy's mouth had become so bitter; 
because he felt that men were too weak to make any mark here, 
that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce 
strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its uninterrupted 
mournfulness. 
 
     The wagon jolted along over the frozen road. The two friends 
had less to say to each other than usual, as if the cold had 
somehow penetrated to their hearts. 
 
     "Did Lou and Oscar go to the Blue to cut wood to-day?" Carl 
asked. 
 
     "Yes.  I'm almost sorry I let them go, it's turned so cold.  
But mother frets if the wood gets low."  She stopped and put her 
hand to her forehead, brushing back her hair.  "I don't know what 
is to become of us, Carl, if father has to die.  I don't dare to 
think about it.  I wish we could all go with him and let the 
grass grow back over everything." 
 
     Carl made no reply.  Just ahead of them was the Norwegian 
graveyard, where the grass had, indeed, grown back over 
everything, shaggy and red, hiding even the wire fence.  Carl 
realized that he was not a very helpful companion, but there was 
nothing he could say. 
 
     "Of course," Alexandra went on, steadying her voice a 
little, "the boys are strong and work hard, but we've always 
depended so on father that I don't see how we can go ahead.  I 
almost feel as if there were nothing to go ahead for." 
 
     "Does your father know?" 
 
     "Yes, I think he does.  He lies and counts on his fingers 
all day.  I think he is trying to count up what he is leaving for 
us.  It's a comfort to him that my chickens are laying right on 
through the cold weather and bringing in a little money.  I wish 
we could keep his mind off such things, but I don't have much 
time to be with him now." 
 
     "I wonder if he'd like to have me bring my magic lantern 
over some evening?" 
 
     Alexandra turned her face toward him.  "Oh, Carl!  Have you 
got it?" 
 
     "Yes.  It's back there in the straw.  Didn't you notice the 
box I was carrying?  I tried it all morning in the drug-store 
cellar, and it worked ever so well, makes fine big pictures." 
 
     "What are they about?" 
 
     "Oh, hunting pictures in Germany, and Robinson Crusoe and 
funny pictures about cannibals.  I'm going to paint some slides 
for it on glass, out of the Hans Andersen book." 
 
     Alexandra seemed actually cheered.  There is often a good 
deal of the child left in people who have had to grow up too 
soon.  "Do bring it over, Carl.  I can hardly wait to see it, and 
I'm sure it will please father.  Are the pictures colored?  Then 
I know he'll like them.  He likes the calendars I get him in 
town.  I wish I could get more.  You must leave me here, mustn't 
you?  It's been nice to have company." 
 
     Carl stopped the horses and looked dubiously up at the black 
sky.  "It's pretty dark. Of course the horses will take you home, 
but I think I'd better light your lantern, in case you should 
need it." 
 
     He gave her the reins and climbed back into the wagon-box, 
where he crouched down and made a tent of his overcoat.  After a 
dozen trials he succeeded in lighting the lantern, which he 
placed in front of Alexandra, half covering it with a blanket so 
that the light would not shine in her eyes.  "Now, wait until I 
find my box.  Yes, here it is.  Good-night, Alexandra. Try not to 
worry."  Carl sprang to the ground and ran off across the fields 
toward the Linstrum homestead.  "Hoo, hoo-o-o-o!" he called back 
as he disappeared over a ridge and dropped into a sand gully.  
The wind answered him like an echo, "Hoo, hoo-o-o-o-o-o!"  
Alexandra drove off alone.  The rattle of her wagon was lost in 
the howling of the wind, but her lantern, held firmly between her 
feet, made a moving point of light along the highway, going 
deeper and deeper into the dark country. 
 
 
 
                                II 
 
 
     On one of the ridges of that wintry waste stood the low log 
house in which John Bergson was dying.  The Bergson homestead was 
easier to find than many another, because it overlooked Norway 
Creek, a shallow, muddy stream that sometimes flowed, and 
sometimes stood still, at the bottom of a winding ravine with 
steep, shelving sides overgrown with brush and cottonwoods and 
dwarf ash.  This creek gave a sort of identity to the farms that 
bordered upon it.  Of all the bewildering things about a new 
country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most 
depressing and disheartening. The houses on the Divide were small 
and were usually tucked away in low places; you did not see them 
until you came directly upon them. Most of them were built of the 
sod itself, and were only the unescapable ground in another form.  
The roads were but faint tracks in the grass, and the fields were 
scarcely noticeable. The record of the plow was insignificant, 
like the feeble scratches on stone left by prehistoric races, so 
indeterminate that they may, after all, be only the markings of 
glaciers, and not a record of human strivings. 
 
     In eleven long years John Bergson had made but little 
impression upon the wild land he had come to tame.  It was still 
a wild thing that had its ugly moods; and no one knew when they 
were likely to come, or why.  Mischance hung over it.  Its Genius 
was unfriendly to man.  The sick man was feeling this as he lay 
looking out of the window, after the doctor had left him, on the 
day following Alexandra's trip to town. There it lay outside his 
door, the same land, the same lead-colored miles.  He knew every 
ridge and draw and gully between him and the horizon.  To the 
south, his plowed fields; to the east, the sod stables, the 
cattle corral, the pond, --and then the grass. 
 
     Bergson went over in his mind the things that had held him 
back.  One winter his cattle had perished in a blizzard.  The 
next summer one of his plow horses broke its leg in a prairiedog 
hole and had to be shot.  Another summer he lost his hogs from 
cholera, and a valuable stallion died from a rattlesnake bite.  
Time and again his crops had failed.  He had lost two children, 
boys, that came between Lou and Emil, and there had been the cost 
of sickness and death.  Now, when he had at last struggled out of 
debt, he was going to die himself.  He was only forty-six, and 
had, of course, counted upon more time. 
 
     Bergson had spent his first five years on the Divide getting 
into debt, and the last six getting out.  He had paid off his 
mortgages and had ended pretty much where he began, with the 
land.  He owned exactly six hundred and forty acres of what 
stretched outside his door; his own original homestead and timber 
claim, making three hundred and twenty acres, and the halfsection 
adjoining, the homestead of a younger brother who had given up 
the fight, gone back to Chicago to work in a fancy bakery and 
distinguish himself in a Swedish athletic club.  So far John had 
not attempted to cultivate the second half-section, but used it 
for pasture land, and one of his sons rode herd there in open 
weather. 
 
     John Bergson had the Old-World belief that land, in itself, 
is desirable.  But this land was an enigma.  It was like a horse 
that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and 
kicks things to pieces.  He had an idea that no one understood 
how to farm it properly, and this he often discussed with 
Alexandra.  Their neighbors, certainly, knew even less about 
farming than he did.  Many of them had never worked on a farm 
until they took up their homesteads.  They had been HANDWERKERS 
at home; tailors, locksmiths, joiners, cigarmakers, etc.  Bergson 
himself had worked in a shipyard. 
 
     For weeks, John Bergson had been thinking about these 
things.  His bed stood in the sittingroom, next to the kitchen.  
Through the day, while the baking and washing and ironing were 
going on, the father lay and looked up at the roof beams that he 
himself had hewn, or out at the cattle in the corral.  He counted 
the cattle over and over.  It diverted him to speculate as to how 
much weight each of the steers would probably put on by spring.  
He often called his daughter in to talk to her about this.  
Before Alexandra was twelve years old she had begun to be a help 
to him, and as she grew older he had come to depend more and more 
upon her resourcefulness and good judgment.  His boys were 
willing enough to work, but when he talked with them they usually 
irritated him.  It was Alexandra who read the papers and followed 
the markets, and who learned by the mistakes of their neighbors.  
It was Alexandra who could always tell about what it had cost to 
fatten each steer, and who could guess the weight of a hog before 
it went on the scales closer than John Bergson himself.  Lou and 
Oscar were industrious, but he could never teach them to use 
their heads about their work. 
 
     Alexandra, her father often said to himself, was like her 
grandfather; which was his way of saying that she was 
intelligent.  John Bergson's father had been a shipbuilder, a man 
of considerable force and of some fortune.  Late in life he 
married a second time, a Stockholm woman of questionable 
character, much younger than he, who goaded him into every sort 
of extravagance.  On the shipbuilder's part, this marriage was an 
infatuation, the despairing folly of a powerful man who cannot 
bear to grow old. In a few years his unprincipled wife warped the 
probity of a lifetime.  He speculated, lost his own fortune and 
funds entrusted to him by poor seafaring men, and died disgraced, 
leaving his children nothing.  But when all was said, he had come 
up from the sea himself, had built up a proud little business 
with no capital but his own skill and foresight, and had proved 
himself a man.  In his daughter, John Bergson recognized the 
strength of will, and the simple direct way of thinking things 
out, that had characterized his father in his better days.  He 
would much rather, of course, have seen this likeness in one of 
his sons, but it was not a question of choice.  As he lay there 
day after day he had to accept the situation as it was, and to be 
thankful that there was one among his children to whom he could 
entrust the future of his family and the possibilities of his 
hard-won land. 
 
     The winter twilight was fading.  The sick man heard his wife 
strike a match in the kitchen, and the light of a lamp glimmered 
through the cracks of the door.  It seemed like a light shining 
far away.  He turned painfully in his bed and looked at his white 
hands, with all the work gone out of them.  He was ready to give 
up, he felt.  He did not know how it had come about, but he was 
quite willing to go deep under his fields and rest, where the 
plow could not find him.  He was tired of making mistakes.  He 
was content to leave the tangle to other hands; he thought of his 
Alexandra's strong ones. 
 
     "DOTTER," he called feebly, "DOTTER!"  He heard her quick 
step and saw her tall figure appear in the doorway, with the 
light of the lamp behind her.  He felt her youth and strength, 
how easily she moved and stooped and lifted.  But he would not 
have had it again if he could, not he!  He knew the end too well 
to wish to begin again.  He knew where it all went to, what it 
all became. 
 
     His daughter came and lifted him up on his pillows.  She 
called him by an old Swedish name that she used to call him when 
she was little and took his dinner to him in the shipyard. 
 
     "Tell the boys to come here, daughter.  I want to speak to 
them." 
 
     "They are feeding the horses, father.  They have just come 
back from the Blue.  Shall I call them?" 
 
     He sighed.  "No, no.  Wait until they come in.  Alexandra, 
you will have to do the best you can for your brothers.  
Everything will come on you." 
 
     "I will do all I can, father." 
 
     "Don't let them get discouraged and go off like Uncle Otto.  
I want them to keep the land." 
 
     "We will, father.  We will never lose the land." 
 
     There was a sound of heavy feet in the kitchen.  Alexandra 
went to the door and beckoned to her brothers, two strapping boys 
of seventeen and nineteen.  They came in and stood at the foot of 
the bed.  Their father looked at them searchingly, though it was 
too dark to see their faces; they were just the same boys, he 
told himself, he had not been mistaken in them. The square head 
and heavy shoulders belonged to Oscar, the elder.  The younger 
boy was quicker, but vacillating. 
 
     "Boys," said the father wearily, "I want you to keep the 
land together and to be guided by your sister.  I have talked to 
her since I have been sick, and she knows all my wishes.  I want 
no quarrels among my children, and so long as there is one house 
there must be one head.  Alexandra is the oldest, and she knows 
my wishes.  She will do the best she can.  If she makes mistakes, 
she will not make so many as I have made.  When you marry, and 
want a house of your own, the land will be divided fairly, 
according to the courts.  But for the next few years you will 
have it hard, and you must all keep together.  Alexandra will 
manage the best she can." 
 
     Oscar, who was usually the last to speak, replied because he 
was the older, "Yes, father. It would be so anyway, without your 
speaking. We will all work the place together." 
 
     "And you will be guided by your sister, boys, and be good 
brothers to her, and good sons to your mother?  That is good.  
And Alexandra must not work in the fields any more.  There is no 
necessity now.  Hire a man when you need help.  She can make much 
more with her eggs and butter than the wages of a man.  It was 
one of my mistakes that I did not find that out sooner.  Try to 
break a little more land every year; sod corn is good for fodder.  
Keep turning the land, and always put up more hay than you need.  
Don't grudge your mother a little time for plowing her garden and 
setting out fruit trees, even if it comes in a busy season.  She 
has been a good mother to you, and she has always 
 
     When they went back to the kitchen the boys sat down 
silently at the table.  Throughout the meal they looked down at 
their plates and did not lift their red eyes.  They did not eat 
much, although they had been working in the cold all day, and 
there was a rabbit stewed in gravy for supper, and prune pies. 
 
     John Bergson had married beneath him, but he had married a 
good housewife.  Mrs. Bergson was a fair-skinned, corpulent 
woman, heavy and placid like her son, Oscar, but there was 
something comfortable about her; perhaps it was her own love of 
comfort.  For eleven years she had worthily striven to maintain 
some semblance of household order amid conditions that made order 
very difficult.  Habit was very strong with Mrs. Bergson, and her 
unremitting efforts to repeat the routine of her old life among 
new surroundings had done a great deal to keep the family from 
disintegrating morally and getting careless in their ways.  The 
Bergsons had a log house, for instance, only because Mrs. Bergson 
would not live in a sod house.  She missed the fish diet of her 
own country, and twice every summer she sent the boys to the 
river, twenty miles to the southward, to fish for channel cat.  
When the children were little she used to load them all into the 
wagon, the baby in its crib, and go fishing herself. 
 
     Alexandra often said that if her mother were cast upon a 
desert island, she would thank God for her deliverance, make a 
garden, and find something to preserve.  Preserving was almost a 
mania with Mrs. Bergson.  Stout as she was, she roamed the 
scrubby banks of Norway Creek looking for fox grapes and goose 
plums, like a wild creature in search of prey.  She made a yellow 
jam of the insipid ground-cherries that grew on the prairie, 
flavoring it with lemon peel; and she made a sticky dark conserve 
of garden tomatoes.  She had experimented even with the rank 
buffalo-pea, and she could not see a fine bronze cluster of them 
without shaking her head and murmuring, "What a pity!"  When 
there was nothing more to preserve, she began to pickle. The 
amount of sugar she used in these processes was sometimes a 
serious drain upon the family resources.  She was a good mother, 
but she was glad when her children were old enough not to be in 
her way in the kitchen.  She had never quite forgiven John 
Bergson for bringing her to the end of the earth; but, now that 
she was there, she wanted to be let alone to reconstruct her old 
life in so far as that was possible.  She could still take some 
comfort in the world if she had bacon in the cave, glass jars on 
the shelves, and sheets in the press.  She disapproved of all her 
neighbors because of their slovenly housekeeping, and the women 
thought her very proud.  Once when Mrs. Bergson, on her way to 
Norway Creek, stopped to see old Mrs. Lee, the old woman hid in 
the haymow "for fear Mis' Bergson would catch her barefoot." 
 
 
 
                               III 
 
 
     One Sunday afternoon in July, six months after John 
Bergson's death, Carl was sitting in the doorway of the Linstrum 
kitchen, dreaming over an illustrated paper, when he heard the 
rattle of a wagon along the hill road.  Looking up he recognized 
the Bergsons' team, with two seats in the wagon, which meant they 
were off for a pleasure excursion.  Oscar and Lou, on the front 
seat, wore their cloth hats and coats, never worn except on 
Sundays, and Emil, on the second seat with Alexandra, sat proudly 
in his new trousers, made from a pair of his father's, and a 
pink-striped shirt, with a wide ruffled collar.  Oscar stopped 
the horses and waved to Carl, who caught up his hat and ran 
through the melon patch to join them. 
 
     "Want to go with us?" Lou called.  "We're going to Crazy 
Ivar's to buy a hammock." 
 
     "Sure."  Carl ran up panting, and clambering over the wheel 
sat down beside Emil.  "I've always wanted to see Ivar's pond.  
They say it's the biggest in all the country.  Aren't you afraid 
to go to Ivar's in that new shirt, Emil? He might want it and 
take it right off your back." 
 
     Emil grinned.  "I'd be awful scared to go," he admitted, "if 
you big boys weren't along to take care of me.  Did you ever hear 
him howl, Carl?  People say sometimes he runs about the country 
howling at night because he is afraid the Lord will destroy him.  
Mother thinks he must have done something awful wicked." 
 
     Lou looked back and winked at Carl.  "What would you do, 
Emil, if you was out on the prairie by yourself and seen him 
coming?" 
 
     Emil stared.  "Maybe I could hide in a badger-hole," he 
suggested doubtfully. 
 
     "But suppose there wasn't any badger-hole," Lou persisted.  
"Would you run?" 
 
     "No, I'd be too scared to run," Emil admitted mournfully, 
twisting his fingers.  "I guess I'd sit right down on the ground 
and say my prayers." 
 
     The big boys laughed, and Oscar brandished his whip over the 
broad backs of the horses. 
 
     "He wouldn't hurt you, Emil," said Carl persuasively.  "He 
came to doctor our mare when she ate green corn and swelled up 
most as big as the water-tank.  He petted her just like you do 
your cats.  I couldn't understand much he said, for he don't talk 
any English, but he kept patting her and groaning as if he had 
the pain himself, and saying, 'There now, sister, that's easier, 
that's better!'" 
 
     Lou and Oscar laughed, and Emil giggled delightedly and 
looked up at his sister. 
 
     "I don't think he knows anything at all about doctoring," 
said Oscar scornfully.  "They say when horses have distemper he 
takes the medicine himself, and then prays over the horses." 
 
     Alexandra spoke up.  "That's what the Crows said, but he 
cured their horses, all the same.  Some days his mind is cloudy, 
like.  But if you can get him on a clear day, you can learn a 
great deal from him.  He understands animals.  Didn't I see him 
take the horn off the Berquist's cow when she had torn it loose 
and went crazy?  She was tearing all over the place, knocking 
herself against things.  And at last she ran out on the roof of 
the old dugout and her legs went through and there she stuck, 
bellowing.  Ivar came running with his white bag, and the moment 
he got to her she was quiet and let him saw her horn off and daub 
the place with tar." 
 
     Emil had been watching his sister, his face reflecting the 
sufferings of the cow.  "And then didn't it hurt her any more?" 
he asked. 
 
     Alexandra patted him.  "No, not any more. And in two days 
they could use her milk again." 
 
     The road to Ivar's homestead was a very poor one.  He had 
settled in the rough country across the county line, where no one 
lived but some Russians,--half a dozen families who dwelt 
together in one long house, divided off like barracks.  Ivar had 
explained his choice by saying that the fewer neighbors he had, 
the fewer temptations.  Nevertheless, when one considered that 
his chief business was horsedoctoring, it seemed rather short-
sighted of him to live in the most inaccessible place he could 
find.  The Bergson wagon lurched along over the rough hummocks 
and grass banks, followed the bottom of winding draws, or skirted 
the margin of wide lagoons, where the golden coreopsis grew up 
out of the clear water and the wild ducks rose with a whirr of 
wings. 
 
     Lou looked after them helplessly.  "I wish I'd brought my 
gun, anyway, Alexandra," he said fretfully.  "I could have hidden 
it under the straw in the bottom of the wagon." 
 
     "Then we'd have had to lie to Ivar.  Besides, they say he 
can smell dead birds.  And if he knew, we wouldn't get anything 
out of him, not even a hammock.  I want to talk to him, and he 
won't talk sense if he's angry.  It makes him foolish." 
 
     Lou sniffed.  "Whoever heard of him talking sense, anyhow!  
I'd rather have ducks for supper than Crazy Ivar's tongue." 
 
     Emil was alarmed.  "Oh, but, Lou, you don't want to make him 
mad!  He might howl!" 
 
     They all laughed again, and Oscar urged the horses up the 
crumbling side of a clay bank. They had left the lagoons and the 
red grass behind them.  In Crazy Ivar's country the grass was 
short and gray, the draws deeper than they were in the Bergsons' 
neighborhood, and the land was all broken up into hillocks and 
clay ridges.  The wild flowers disappeared, and only in the 
bottom of the draws and gullies grew a few of the very toughest 
and hardiest: shoestring, and ironweed, and snow-on-the-mountain. 
 
     "Look, look, Emil, there's Ivar's big pond!" Alexandra 
pointed to a shining sheet of water that lay at the bottom of a 
shallow draw. At one end of the pond was an earthen dam, planted 
with green willow bushes, and above it a door and a single window 
were set into the hillside.  You would not have seen them at all 
but for the reflection of the sunlight upon the four panes of 
window-glass.  And that was all you saw.  Not a shed, not a 
corral, not a well, not even a path broken in the curly grass.  
But for the piece of rusty stovepipe sticking up through the sod, 
you could have walked over the roof of Ivar's dwelling without 
dreaming that you were near a human habitation.  Ivar had lived 
for three years in the clay bank, with-out defiling the face of 
nature any more than the coyote that had lived there before him 
had done. 
 
     When the Bergsons drove over the hill, Ivar was sitting in 
the doorway of his house, reading the Norwegian Bible.  He was a 
queerly shaped old man, with a thick, powerful body set on short 
bow-legs.  His shaggy white hair, falling in a thick mane about 
his ruddy cheeks, made him look older than he was.  He was 
barefoot, but he wore a clean shirt of unbleached cotton, open at 
the neck.  He always put on a clean shirt when Sunday morning 
came round, though he never went to church.  He had a peculiar 
religion of his own and could not get on with any of the 
denominations.  Often he did not see anybody from one week's end 
to another.  He kept a calendar, and every morning he checked off 
a day, so that he was never in any doubt as to which day of the 
week it was.  Ivar hired him-self out in threshing and corn-
husking time, and he doctored sick animals when he was sent for.  
When he was at home, he made ham-mocks out of twine and committed 
chapters of the Bible to memory. 
 
     Ivar found contentment in the solitude he had sought out for 
himself.  He disliked the litter of human dwellings: the broken 
food, the bits of broken china, the old wash-boilers and tea-
kettles thrown into the sunflower patch. He preferred the 
cleanness and tidiness of the wild sod.  He always said that the 
badgers had cleaner houses than people, and that when he took a 
housekeeper her name would be Mrs. Badger.  He best expressed his 
preference for his wild homestead by saying that his Bible seemed 
truer to him there.  If one stood in the doorway of his cave, and 
looked off at the rough land, the smiling sky, the curly grass 
white in the hot sunlight; if one listened to the rapturous song 
of the lark, the drumming of the quail, the burr of the locust 
against that vast silence, one understood what Ivar meant. 
 
     On this Sunday afternoon his face shone with happiness.  He 
closed the book on his knee, keeping the place with his horny 
finger, and He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run 
     among the hills; They give drink to every beast of the 
field; the wild 
     asses quench their thirst. The trees of the Lord are full of 
sap; the cedars of 
     Lebanon which he hath planted; Where the birds make their 
nests: as for the stork, the 
     fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the 
wild goats; and the 
     rocks for the conies. repeated softly:--
 
     Before he opened his Bible again, Ivar heard the Bergsons' 
wagon approaching, and he sprang up and ran toward it. 
 
     "No guns, no guns!" he shouted, waving his arms 
distractedly. 
 
     "No, Ivar, no guns," Alexandra called reas-suringly. 
 
     He dropped his arms and went up to the wagon, smiling 
amiably and looking at them out of his pale blue eyes. 
 
     "We want to buy a hammock, if you have one," Alexandra 
explained, "and my little brother, here, wants to see your big 
pond, where so many birds come." 
 
     Ivar smiled foolishly, and began rubbing the horses' noses 
and feeling about their mouths behind the bits.  "Not many birds 
just now. A few ducks this morning; and some snipe come to drink.  
But there was a crane last week. She spent one night and came 
back the next evening.  I don't know why.  It is not her sea-son, 
of course.  Many of them go over in the fall.  Then the pond is 
full of strange voices every night." 
 
     Alexandra translated for Carl, who looked thoughtful.  "Ask 
him, Alexandra, if it is true that a sea gull came here once.  I 
have heard so." 
 
     She had some difficulty in making the old man understand. 
 
     He looked puzzled at first, then smote his hands together as 
he remembered.  "Oh, yes, yes!  A big white bird with long wings 
and pink feet.  My! what a voice she had!  She came in the 
afternoon and kept flying about the pond and screaming until 
dark.  She was in trouble of some sort, but I could not 
understand her. She was going over to the other ocean, maybe, and 
did not know how far it was.  She was afraid of never getting 
there.  She was more mournful than our birds here; she cried in 
the night.  She saw the light from my window and darted up to it.  
Maybe she thought my house was a boat, she was such a wild thing.  
Next morning, when the sun rose, I went out to take her food, but 
she flew up into the sky and went on her way."  Ivar ran his 
fingers through his thick hair.  "I have many strange birds stop 
with me here.  They come from very far away and are great 
company.  I hope you boys never shoot wild birds?" 
 
     Lou and Oscar grinned, and Ivar shook his bushy head.  "Yes, 
I know boys are thoughtless. But these wild things are God's 
birds.  He watches over them and counts them, as we do our 
cattle; Christ says so in the New Testa-ment." 
 
     "Now, Ivar," Lou asked, "may we water our horses at your 
pond and give them some feed?  It's a bad road to your place." 
 
     "Yes, yes, it is."  The old man scrambled about and began to 
loose the tugs.  "A bad road, eh, girls?  And the bay with a colt 
at home!" 
 
     Oscar brushed the old man aside.  "We'll take care of the 
horses, Ivar.  You'll be finding some disease on them.  Alexandra 
wants to see your hammocks." 
 
     Ivar led Alexandra and Emil to his little cave house.  He 
had but one room, neatly plas-tered and whitewashed, and there 
was a wooden floor.  There was a kitchen stove, a table cov-ered 
with oilcloth, two chairs, a clock, a calen-dar, a few books on 
the window-shelf; nothing more.  But the place was as clean as a 
cup-board. 
 
     "But where do you sleep, Ivar?" Emil asked, looking about. 
 
     Ivar unslung a hammock from a hook on the wall; in it was 
rolled a buffalo robe.  "There, my son.  A hammock is a good bed, 
and in winter I wrap up in this skin.  Where I go to work, the 
beds are not half so easy as this." 
 
     By this time Emil had lost all his timidity. He thought a 
cave a very superior kind of house.  There was something 
pleasantly unusual about it and about Ivar.  "Do the birds know 
you will be kind to them, Ivar?  Is that why so many come?" he 
asked. 
 
     Ivar sat down on the floor and tucked his feet under him.  
"See, little brother, they have come from a long way, and they 
are very tired. From up there where they are flying, our coun-try 
looks dark and flat.  They must have water to drink and to bathe 
in before they can go on with their journey.  They look this way 
and that, and far below them they see something shining, like a 
piece of glass set in the dark earth.  That is my pond.  They 
come to it and are not disturbed.  Maybe I sprinkle a little 
corn.  They tell the other birds, and next year more come this 
way.  They have their roads up there, as we have down here." 
 
     Emil rubbed his knees thoughtfully.  "And is that true, 
Ivar, about the head ducks falling back when they are tired, and 
the hind ones taking their place?" 
 
     "Yes.  The point of the wedge gets the worst of it; they cut 
the wind.  They can only stand it there a little while--half an 
hour, maybe. Then they fall back and the wedge splits a little, 
while the rear ones come up the middle to the front.  Then it 
closes up and they fly on, with a new edge.  They are always 
changing like that, up in the air.  Never any confusion; just 
like soldiers who have been drilled." 
 
     Alexandra had selected her hammock by the time the boys came 
up from the pond.  They would not come in, but sat in the shade 
of the bank outside while Alexandra and Ivar talked about the 
birds and about his housekeeping, and why he never ate meat, 
fresh or salt. 
 
     Alexandra was sitting on one of the wooden chairs, her arms 
resting on the table.  Ivar was sitting on the floor at her feet.  
"Ivar," she said suddenly, beginning to trace the pattern on the 
oilcloth with her forefinger, "I came to-day more because I 
wanted to talk to you than be-cause I wanted to buy a hammock." 
 
     "Yes?"  The old man scraped his bare feet on the plank 
floor. 
 
     "We have a big bunch of hogs, Ivar.  I wouldn't sell in the 
spring, when everybody advised me to, and now so many people are 
losing their hogs that I am frightened.  What can be done?" 
 
     Ivar's little eyes began to shine.  They lost their 
vagueness. 
 
     "You feed them swill and such stuff?  Of course!  And sour 
milk?  Oh, yes!  And keep them in a stinking pen?  I tell you, 
sister, the hogs of this country are put upon!  They be-come 
unclean, like the hogs in the Bible.  If you kept your chickens 
like that, what would hap-pen?  You have a little sorghum patch, 
maybe? Put a fence around it, and turn the hogs in. Build a shed 
to give them shade, a thatch on poles.  Let the boys haul water 
to them in bar-rels, clean water, and plenty.  Get them off the 
old stinking ground, and do not let them go back there until 
winter.  Give them only grain and clean feed, such as you would 
give horses or cattle.  Hogs do not like to be filthy." 
 
     The boys outside the door had been listening. Lou nudged his 
brother.  "Come, the horses are done eating.  Let's hitch up and 
get out of here.  He'll fill her full of notions.  She'll be for 
having the pigs sleep with us, next." 
 
     Oscar grunted and got up.  Carl, who could not understand 
what Ivar said, saw that the two boys were displeased.  They did 
not mind hard work, but they hated experiments and could never 
see the use of taking pains.  Even Lou, who was more elastic than 
his older bro-ther, disliked to do anything different from their 
neighbors.  He felt that it made them conspicuous and gave people 
a chance to talk about them. 
 
     Once they were on the homeward road, the boys forgot their 
ill-humor and joked about Ivar and his birds.  Alexandra did not 
propose any reforms in the care of the pigs, and they hoped she 
had forgotten Ivar's talk.  They agreed that he was crazier than 
ever, and would never be able to prove up on his land because he 
worked it so little.  Alexandra privately resolved that she would 
have a talk with Ivar about this and stir him up.  The boys 
persuaded Carl to stay for supper and go swimming in the pasture 
pond after dark. 
 
     That evening, after she had washed the sup-per dishes, 
Alexandra sat down on the kitchen doorstep, while her mother was 
mixing the bread.  It was a still, deep-breathing summer night, 
full of the smell of the hay fields.  Sounds of laughter and 
splashing came up from the pasture, and when the moon rose 
rapidly above the bare rim of the prairie, the pond glittered 
like polished metal, and she could see the flash of white bodies 
as the boys ran about the edge, or jumped into the water.  
Alexandra watched the shimmering pool dreamily, but eventually 
her eyes went back to the sorghum patch south of the barn, where 
she was planning to make her new pig corral. 
 
 
 
                                IV 
 
 
     For the first three years after John Bergson's death, the 
affairs of his family prospered.  Then came the hard times that 
brought every one on the Divide to the brink of despair; three 
years of drouth and failure, the last struggle of a wild soil 
against the encroaching plowshare.  The first of these fruitless 
summers the Bergson boys bore courageously.  The failure of the 
corn crop made labor cheap.  Lou and Oscar hired two men and put 
in bigger crops than ever before.  They lost everything they 
spent.  The whole country was discouraged.  Farmers who were 
already in debt had to give up their land.  A few foreclosures 
demoralized the county.  The settlers sat about on the wooden 
sidewalks in the little town and told each other that the country 
was never meant for men to live in; the thing to do was to get 
back to Iowa, to Illinois, to any place that had been proved 
habitable.  The Bergson boys, certainly, would have been happier 
with their uncle Otto, in the bakery shop in Chicago.  Like most 
of their neighbors, they were meant to follow in paths already 
marked out for them, not to break trails in a new country.  A 
steady job, a few holidays, nothing to think about, and they 
would have been very happy.  It was no fault of theirs that they 
had been dragged into the wilderness when they were little boys.  
A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the 
idea of things more than the things themselves. 
 
     The second of these barren summers was passing.  One 
September afternoon Alexandra had gone over to the garden across 
the draw to dig sweet potatoes--they had been thriving upon the 
weather that was fatal to everything else.  But when Carl 
Linstrum came up the garden rows to find her, she was not 
working. She was standing lost in thought, leaning upon her 
pitchfork, her sunbonnet lying beside her on the ground.  The dry 
garden patch smelled of drying vines and was strewn with yellow 
seed-cucumbers and pumpkins and citrons. At one end, next the 
rhubarb, grew feathery asparagus, with red berries.  Down the 
middle of the garden was a row of gooseberry and cur-rant bushes.  
A few tough zenias and marigolds and a row of scarlet sage bore 
witness to the buckets of water that Mrs. Bergson had carried 
there after sundown, against the prohibition of her sons.  Carl 
came quietly and slowly up the garden path, looking intently at 
Alexandra. She did not hear him.  She was standing per-fectly 
still, with that serious ease so character-istic of her.  Her 
thick, reddish braids, twisted about her head, fairly burned in 
the sunlight. The air was cool enough to make the warm sun 
pleasant on one's back and shoulders, and so clear that the eye 
could follow a hawk up and up, into the blazing blue depths of 
the sky. Even Carl, never a very cheerful boy, and con-siderably 
darkened by these last two bitter years, loved the country on 
days like this, felt something strong and young and wild come out 
of it, that laughed at care. 
 
     "Alexandra," he said as he approached her, "I want to talk 
to you.  Let's sit down by the gooseberry bushes."  He picked up 
her sack of potatoes and they crossed the garden.  "Boys gone to 
town?" he asked as he sank down on the warm, sun-baked earth.  
"Well, we have made up our minds at last, Alexandra.  We are 
really going away." 
 
     She looked at him as if she were a little fright-ened.  
"Really, Carl?  Is it settled?" 
 
     "Yes, father has heard from St. Louis, and they will give 
him back his old job in the cigar factory.  He must be there by 
the first of November.  They are taking on new men then. We will 
sell the place for whatever we can get, and auction the stock.  
We haven't enough to ship.  I am going to learn engraving with a 
German engraver there, and then try to get work in Chicago." 
 
     Alexandra's hands dropped in her lap.  Her eyes became 
dreamy and filled with tears. 
 
     Carl's sensitive lower lip trembled.  He scratched in the 
soft earth beside him with a stick.  "That's all I hate about it, 
Alexandra," he said slowly.  "You've stood by us through so much 
and helped father out so many times, and now it seems as if we 
were running off and leaving you to face the worst of it.  But it 
isn't as if we could really ever be of any help to you. We are 
only one more drag, one more thing you look out for and feel 
responsible for.  Father was never meant for a farmer, you know 
that. And I hate it.  We'd only get in deeper and deeper." 
 
     "Yes, yes, Carl, I know.  You are wasting your life here.  
You are able to do much better things.  You are nearly nineteen 
now, and I wouldn't have you stay.  I've always hoped you would 
get away.  But I can't help feeling scared when I think how I 
will miss you--more than you will ever know."  She brushed the 
tears from her cheeks, not trying to hide them. 
 
     "But, Alexandra," he said sadly and wist-fully, "I've never 
been any real help to you, beyond sometimes trying to keep the 
boys in a good humor." 
 
     Alexandra smiled and shook her head.  "Oh, it's not that.  
Nothing like that.  It's by under-standing me, and the boys, and 
mother, that you've helped me.  I expect that is the only way one 
person ever really can help another. I think you are about the 
only one that ever helped me.  Somehow it will take more courage 
to bear your going than everything that has happened before." 
 
     Carl looked at the ground.  "You see, we've all depended so 
on you," he said, "even father. He makes me laugh.  When anything 
comes up he always says, 'I wonder what the Bergsons are going to 
do about that?  I guess I'll go and ask her.'  I'll never forget 
that time, when we first came here, and our horse had the colic, 
and I ran over to your place--your father was away, and you came 
home with me and showed father how to let the wind out of the 
horse.  You were only a little girl then, but you knew ever so 
much more about farm work than poor father. You remember how 
homesick I used to get, and what long talks we used to have 
coming from school?  We've someway always felt alike about 
things." 
 
     "Yes, that's it; we've liked the same things and we've liked 
them together, without any-body else knowing.  And we've had good 
times, hunting for Christmas trees and going for ducks and making 
our plum wine together every year. We've never either of us had 
any other close friend.  And now--"  Alexandra wiped her eyes 
with the corner of her apron, "and now I must remember that you 
are going where you will have many friends, and will find the 
work you were meant to do.  But you'll write to me, Carl?  That 
will mean a great deal to me here." 
 
     "I'll write as long as I live," cried the boy impetuously.  
"And I'll be working for you as much as for myself, Alexandra.  I 
want to do something you'll like and be proud of.  I'm a fool 
here, but I know I can do something!"  He sat up and frowned at 
the red grass. 
 
     Alexandra sighed.  "How discouraged the boys will be when 
they hear.  They always come home from town discouraged, anyway. 
So many people are trying to leave the country, and they talk to 
our boys and make them low-spirited.  I'm afraid they are 
beginning to feel hard toward me because I won't listen to any 
talk about going.  Sometimes I feel like I'm getting tired of 
standing up for this country." 
 
     "I won't tell the boys yet, if you'd rather not." 
 
     "Oh, I'll tell them myself, to-night, when they come home.  
They'll be talking wild, any-way, and no good comes of keeping 
bad news. It's all harder on them than it is on me.  Lou wants to 
get married, poor boy, and he can't until times are better.  See, 
there goes the sun, Carl.  I must be getting back.  Mother will 
want her potatoes.  It's chilly already, the moment the light 
goes." 
 
     Alexandra rose and looked about.  A golden afterglow 
throbbed in the west, but the coun-try already looked empty and 
mournful.  A dark moving mass came over the western hill, the Lee 
boy was bringing in the herd from the other half-section.  Emil 
ran from the windmill to open the corral gate.  From the log 
house, on the little rise across the draw, the smoke was curling.  
The cattle lowed and bellowed.  In the sky the pale half-moon was 
slowly silvering. Alexandra and Carl walked together down the 
potato rows.  "I have to keep telling myself what is going to 
happen," she said softly. "Since you have been here, ten years 
now, I have never really been lonely.  But I can remember what it 
was like before.  Now I shall have nobody but Emil.  But he is my 
boy, and he is tender-hearted." 
 
     That night, when the boys were called to supper, they sat 
down moodily.  They had worn their coats to town, but they ate in 
their striped shirts and suspenders.  They were grown men now, 
and, as Alexandra said, for the last few years they had been 
growing more and more like themselves.  Lou was still the 
slighter of the two, the quicker and more intelligent, but apt to 
go off at half-cock.  He had a lively blue eye, a thin, fair skin 
(always burned red to the neckband of his shirt in summer), 
stiff, yellow hair that would not lie down on his head, and a 
bristly little yellow mustache, of which he was very proud.  
Oscar could not grow a mus-tache; his pale face was as bare as an 
egg, and his white eyebrows gave it an empty look.  He was a man 
of powerful body and unusual endur-ance; the sort of man you 
could attach to a corn-sheller as you would an engine.  He would 
turn it all day, without hurrying, without slow-ing down.  But he 
was as indolent of mind as he was unsparing of his body.  His 
love of routine amounted to a vice.  He worked like an insect, 
always doing the same thing over in the same way, regardless of 
whether it was best or no.  He felt that there was a sovereign 
virtue in mere bodily toil, and he rather liked to do things in 
the hardest way.  If a field had once been in corn, he couldn't 
bear to put it into wheat.  He liked to begin his corn-planting 
at the same time every year, whether the season were backward or 
forward.  He seemed to feel that by his own irreproachable 
regularity he would clear himself of blame and reprove the 
weather.  When the wheat crop failed, he threshed the straw at a 
dead loss to demon-strate how little grain there was, and thus 
prove his case against Providence. 
 
     Lou, on the other hand, was fussy and flighty; always 
planned to get through two days' work in one, and often got only 
the least important things done.  He liked to keep the place up, 
but he never got round to doing odd jobs until he had to neglect 
more pressing work to attend to them.  In the middle of the wheat 
harvest, when the grain was over-ripe and every hand was needed, 
he would stop to mend fences or to patch the harness; then dash 
down to the field and overwork and be laid up in bed for a week.  
The two boys balanced each other, and they pulled well together.  
They had been good friends since they were children.  One seldom 
went anywhere, even to town, without the other. 
 
     To-night, after they sat down to supper, Oscar kept looking 
at Lou as if he expected him to say something, and Lou blinked 
his eyes and frowned at his plate.  It was Alexandra herself who 
at last opened the discussion. 
 
     "The Linstrums," she said calmly, as she put another plate 
of hot biscuit on the table, "are going back to St. Louis.  The 
old man is going to work in the cigar factory again." 
 
     At this Lou plunged in.  "You see, Alex-andra, everybody who 
can crawl out is going away.  There's no use of us trying to 
stick it out, just to be stubborn.  There's something in knowing 
when to quit." 
 
     "Where do you want to go, Lou?" 
 
     "Any place where things will grow." said Oscar grimly. 
 
     Lou reached for a potato.  "Chris Arnson has traded his 
half-section for a place down on the river." 
 
     "Who did he trade with?" 
 
     "Charley Fuller, in town." 
 
     "Fuller the real estate man?  You see, Lou, that Fuller has 
a head on him.  He's buy-ing and trading for every bit of land he 
can get up here.  It'll make him a rich man, some day." 
 
     "He's rich now, that's why he can take a chance." 
 
     "Why can't we?  We'll live longer than he will.  Some day 
the land itself will be worth more than all we can ever raise on 
it." 
 
     Lou laughed.  "It could be worth that, and still not be 
worth much.  Why, Alexandra, you don't know what you're talking 
about.  Our place wouldn't bring now what it would six years ago.  
The fellows that settled up here just made a mistake.  Now 
they're beginning to see this high land wasn't never meant to 
grow no-thing on, and everybody who ain't fixed to graze cattle 
is trying to crawl out.  It's too high to farm up here.  All the 
Americans are skinning out.  That man Percy Adams, north of town, 
told me that he was going to let Fuller take his land and stuff 
for four hundred dollars and a ticket to Chicago." 
 
     "There's Fuller again!" Alexandra ex-claimed.  "I wish that 
man would take me for a partner.  He's feathering his nest!  If 
only poor people could learn a little from rich people! But all 
these fellows who are running off are bad farmers, like poor Mr. 
Linstrum.  They couldn't get ahead even in good years, and they 
all got into debt while father was getting out. I think we ought 
to hold on as long as we can on father's account.  He was so set 
on keeping this land.  He must have seen harder times than this, 
here.  How was it in the early days, mother?" 
 
     Mrs. Bergson was weeping quietly.  These family discussions 
always depressed her, and made her remember all that she had been 
torn away from.  "I don't see why the boys are always taking on 
about going away," she said, wiping her eyes.  "I don't want to 
move again; out to some raw place, maybe, where we'd be worse off 
than we are here, and all to do over again.  I won't move!  If 
the rest of you go, I will ask some of the neighbors to take me 
in, and stay and be buried by father.  I'm not going to leave him 
by himself on the prairie, for cattle to run over."  She began to 
cry more bitterly. 
 
     The boys looked angry.  Alexandra put a soothing hand on her 
mother's shoulder. "There's no question of that, mother.  You 
don't have to go if you don't want to.  A third of the place 
belongs to you by American law, and we can't sell without your 
consent.  We only want you to advise us.  How did it use to be 
when you and father first came?  Was it really as bad as this, or 
not?" 
 
     "Oh, worse!  Much worse," moaned Mrs. Bergson.  "Drouth, 
chince-bugs, hail, every-thing!  My garden all cut to pieces like 
sauer-kraut.  No grapes on the creek, no nothing. The people all 
lived just like coyotes." 
 
     Oscar got up and tramped out of the kitchen. Lou followed 
him.  They felt that Alexandra had taken an unfair advantage in 
turning their mother loose on them.  The next morning they were 
silent and reserved.  They did not offer to take the women to 
church, but went down to the barn immediately after breakfast and 
stayed there all day.  When Carl Linstrum came over in the 
afternoon, Alexandra winked to him and pointed toward the barn.  
He under-stood her and went down to play cards with the boys.  
They believed that a very wicked thing to do on Sunday, and it 
relieved their feelings. 
 
     Alexandra stayed in the house.  On Sunday afternoon Mrs. 
Bergson always took a nap, and Alexandra read.  During the week 
she read only the newspaper, but on Sunday, and in the long 
evenings of winter, she read a good deal; read a few things over 
a great many times.  She knew long portions of the "Frithjof 
Saga" by heart, and, like most Swedes who read at all, she was 
fond of Longfellow's verse,--the ballads and the "Golden Legend" 
and "The Spanish Stu-dent."  To-day she sat in the wooden 
rocking-chair with the Swedish Bible open on her knees, but she 
was not reading.  She was looking thoughtfully away at the point 
where the up-land road disappeared over the rim of the prairie.  
Her body was in an attitude of perfect repose, such as it was apt 
to take when she was thinking earnestly.  Her mind was slow, 
truth-ful, steadfast.  She had not the least spark of cleverness. 
 
     All afternoon the sitting-room was full of quiet and 
sunlight.  Emil was making rabbit traps in the kitchen shed.  The 
hens were cluck-ing and scratching brown holes in the flower 
beds, and the wind was teasing the prince's feather by the door. 
 
     That evening Carl came in with the boys to supper. 
 
     "Emil," said Alexandra, when they were all seated at the 
table, "how would you like to go traveling?  Because I am going 
to take a trip, and you can go with me if you want to." 
 
     The boys looked up in amazement; they were always afraid of 
Alexandra's schemes.  Carl was interested. 
 
     "I've been thinking, boys," she went on, "that maybe I am 
too set against making a change.  I'm going to take Brigham and 
the buckboard to-morrow and drive down to the river country and 
spend a few days looking over what they've got down there.  If I 
find anything good, you boys can go down and make a trade." 
 
     "Nobody down there will trade for anything up here," said 
Oscar gloomily. 
 
     "That's just what I want to find out.  Maybe they are just 
as discontented down there as we are up here.  Things away from 
home often look better than they are.  You know what your Hans 
Andersen book says, Carl, about the Swedes liking to buy Danish 
bread and the Danes liking to buy Swedish bread, because people 
always think the bread of another country is better than their 
own.  Anyway, I've heard so much about the river farms, I won't 
be satisfied till I've seen for myself." 
 
     Lou fidgeted.  "Look out!  Don't agree to anything.  Don't 
let them fool you." 
 
     Lou was apt to be fooled himself.  He had not yet learned to 
keep away from the shell-game wagons that followed the circus. 
 
     After supper Lou put on a necktie and went across the fields 
to court Annie Lee, and Carl and Oscar sat down to a game of 
checkers, while Alexandra read "The Swiss Family Robinson" aloud 
to her mother and Emil.  It was not long before the two boys at 
the table neglected their game to listen.  They were all big 
children together, and they found the adventures of the family in 
the tree house so absorbing that they gave them their undivided 
attention. 
 
 
 
                                V 
 
 
     Alexandra and Emil spent five days down among the river 
farms, driving up and down the valley.  Alexandra talked to the 
men about their crops and to the women about their poul-try.  She 
spent a whole day with one young farmer who had been away at 
school, and who was experimenting with a new kind of clover hay.  
She learned a great deal.  As they drove along, she and Emil 
talked and planned.  At last, on the sixth day, Alexandra turned 
Brig-ham's head northward and left the river behind. 
 
     "There's nothing in it for us down there, Emil.  There are a 
few fine farms, but they are owned by the rich men in town, and 
couldn't be bought.  Most of the land is rough and hilly. They 
can always scrape along down there, but they can never do 
anything big.  Down there they have a little certainty, but up 
with us there is a big chance.  We must have faith in the high 
land, Emil.  I want to hold on harder than ever, and when you're 
a man you'll thank me."  She urged Brigham forward. 
 
     When the road began to climb the first long swells of the 
Divide, Alexandra hummed an old Swedish hymn, and Emil wondered 
why his sister looked so happy.  Her face was so radiant that he 
felt shy about asking her.  For the first time, perhaps, since 
that land emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face 
was set toward it with love and yearning.  It seemed beautiful to 
her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth 
of it, until her tears blinded her.  Then the Genius of the 
Divide, the great, free spirit which breathes across it, must 
have bent lower than it ever bent to a human will before.  The 
history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. 
 
     Alexandra reached home in the afternoon. That evening she 
held a family council and told her brothers all that she had seen 
and heard. 
 
     "I want you boys to go down yourselves and look it over.  
Nothing will convince you like seeing with your own eyes.  The 
river land was settled before this, and so they are a few years 
ahead of us, and have learned more about farm-ing.  The land 
sells for three times as much as this, but in five years we will 
double it.  The rich men down there own all the best land, and 
they are buying all they can get.  The thing to do is to sell our 
cattle and what little old corn we have, and buy the Linstrum 
place.  Then the next thing to do is to take out two loans on our 
half-sections, and buy Peter Crow's place; raise every dollar we 
can, and buy every acre we can." 
 
     "Mortgage the homestead again?" Lou cried. He sprang up and 
began to wind the clock furiously.  "I won't slave to pay off 
another mortgage.  I'll never do it.  You'd just as soon kill us 
all, Alexandra, to carry out some scheme!" 
 
     Oscar rubbed his high, pale forehead.  "How do you propose 
to pay off your mortgages?" 
 
     Alexandra looked from one to the other and bit her lip.  
They had never seen her so ner-vous.  "See here," she brought out 
at last. "We borrow the money for six years.  Well, with the 
money we buy a half-section from Linstrum and a half from Crow, 
and a quarter from Struble, maybe.  That will give us up-wards of 
fourteen hundred acres, won't it? You won't have to pay off your 
mortgages for six years.  By that time, any of this land will be 
worth thirty dollars an acre--it will be worth fifty, but we'll 
say thirty; then you can sell a garden patch anywhere, and pay 
off a debt of sixteen hundred dollars.  It's not the principal 
I'm worried about, it's the interest and taxes. We'll have to 
strain to meet the payments.  But as sure as we are sitting here 
to-night, we can sit down here ten years from now independent 
landowners, not struggling farmers any longer. The chance that 
father was always looking for has come." 
 
     Lou was pacing the floor.  "But how do you KNOW that land is 
going to go up enough to pay the mortgages and--" 
 
     "And make us rich besides?" Alexandra put in firmly.  "I 
can't explain that, Lou.  You'll have to take my word for it.  I 
KNOW, that's all. When you drive about over the country you can 
feel it coming." 
 
     Oscar had been sitting with his head lowered, his hands 
hanging between his knees.  "But we can't work so much land," he 
said dully, as if he were talking to himself.  "We can't even 
try. It would just lie there and we'd work ourselves to death."  
He sighed, and laid his calloused fist on the table. 
 
     Alexandra's eyes filled with tears.  She put her hand on his 
shoulder.  "You poor boy, you won't have to work it.  The men in 
town who are buying up other people's land don't try to farm it.  
They are the men to watch, in a new country.  Let's try to do 
like the shrewd ones, and not like these stupid fellows.  I don't 
want you boys always to have to work like this.  I want you to be 
independent, and Emil to go to school." 
 
     Lou held his head as if it were splitting. "Everybody will 
say we are crazy.  It must be crazy, or everybody would be doing 
it." 
 
     "If they were, we wouldn't have much chance.  No, Lou, I was 
talking about that with the smart young man who is raising the 
new kind of clover.  He says the right thing is usu-ally just 
what everybody don't do.  Why are we better fixed than any of our 
neighbors? Because father had more brains.  Our people were 
better people than these in the old coun-try.  We OUGHT to do 
more than they do, and see further ahead.  Yes, mother, I'm going 
to clear the table now." 
 
     Alexandra rose.  The boys went to the stable to see to the 
stock, and they were gone a long while.  When they came back Lou 
played on his DRAGHARMONIKA and Oscar sat figuring at his 
father's secretary all evening.  They said no-thing more about 
Alexandra's project, but she felt sure now that they would 
consent to it. Just before bedtime Oscar went out for a pail of 
water.  When he did not come back, Alexandra threw a shawl over 
her head and ran down the path to the windmill.  She found him 
sitting there with his head in his hands, and she sat down beside 
him. 
 
     "Don't do anything you don't want to do, Oscar," she 
whispered.  She waited a moment, but he did not stir.  "I won't 
say any more about it, if you'd rather not.  What makes you so 
discouraged?" 
 
     "I dread signing my name to them pieces of paper," he said 
slowly.  "All the time I was a boy we had a mortgage hanging over 
us." 
 
     "Then don't sign one.  I don't want you to, if you feel that 
way." 
 
     Oscar shook his head.  "No, I can see there's a chance that 
way.  I've thought a good while there might be.  We're in so deep 
now, we might as well go deeper.  But it's hard work pulling out 
of debt.  Like pulling a threshing-machine out of the mud; breaks 
your back.  Me and Lou's worked hard, and I can't see it's got us 
ahead much." 
 
     "Nobody knows about that as well as I do, Oscar.  That's why 
I want to try an easier way. I don't want you to have to grub for 
every dollar." 
 
     "Yes, I know what you mean.  Maybe it'll come out right.  
But signing papers is signing papers.  There ain't no maybe about 
that." He took his pail and trudged up the path to the house. 
 
     Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning 
against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which 
glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air.  She always 
loved to watch them, to think of their vastness and distance, and 
of their ordered march.  It fortified her to reflect upon the 
great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that 
lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security.  That 
night she had a new conscious-ness of the country, felt almost a 
new relation to it.  Even her talk with the boys had not taken 
away the feeling that had overwhelmed her when she drove back to 
the Divide that afternoon.  She had never known before how much 
the country meant to her.  The chirping of the insects down in 
the long grass had been like the sweetest music.  She had felt as 
if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail 
and the plover and all the lit-tle wild things that crooned or 
buzzed in the sun.  Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the 
future stirring. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                             PART II 
 
                        Neighboring Fields 
 
 
                                I 
 
 
     IT is sixteen years since John Bergson died. His wife now 
lies beside him, and the white shaft that marks their graves 
gleams across the wheat-fields.  Could he rise from beneath it, 
he would not know the country under which he has been asleep.  
The shaggy coat of the prairie, which they lifted to make him a 
bed, has van-ished forever.  From the Norwegian graveyard one 
looks out over a vast checker-board, marked off in squares of 
wheat and corn; light and dark, dark and light.  Telephone wires 
hum along the white roads, which always run at right angles.  
From the graveyard gate one can count a dozen gayly painted 
farmhouses; the gilded weather-vanes on the big red barns wink at 
each other across the green and brown and yellow fields.  The 
light steel windmills trem-ble throughout their frames and tug at 
their moorings, as they vibrate in the wind that often blows from 
one week's end to another across that high, active, resolute 
stretch of country. 
 
     The Divide is now thickly populated.  The rich soil yields 
heavy harvests; the dry, bracing climate and the smoothness of 
the land make labor easy for men and beasts.  There are few 
scenes more gratifying than a spring plowing in that country, 
where the furrows of a single field often lie a mile in length, 
and the brown earth, with such a strong, clean smell, and such a 
power of growth and fertility in it, yields itself eagerly to the 
plow; rolls away from the shear, not even dimming the brightness 
of the metal, with a soft, deep sigh of happiness.  The wheat-
cutting sometimes goes on all night as well as all day, and in 
good seasons there are scarcely men and horses enough to do the 
harvesting. The grain is so heavy that it bends toward the blade 
and cuts like velvet. 
 
     There is something frank and joyous and young in the open 
face of the country.  It gives itself ungrudgingly to the moods 
of the season, holding nothing back.  Like the plains of Lom-
bardy, it seems to rise a little to meet the sun. The air and the 
earth are curiously mated and intermingled, as if the one were 
the breath of the other.  You feel in the atmosphere the same 
tonic, puissant quality that is in the tilth, the same strength 
and resoluteness. 
 
     One June morning a young man stood at the gate of the 
Norwegian graveyard, sharpening his scythe in strokes 
unconsciously timed to the tune he was whistling.  He wore a 
flannel cap and duck trousers, and the sleeves of his white 
flannel shirt were rolled back to the elbow. When he was 
satisfied with the edge of his blade, he slipped the whetstone 
into his hip pocket and began to swing his scythe, still 
whistling, but softly, out of respect to the quiet folk about 
him.  Unconscious respect, probably, for he seemed intent upon 
his own thoughts, and, like the Gladiator's, they were far away. 
He was a splendid figure of a boy, tall and straight as a young 
pine tree, with a hand-some head, and stormy gray eyes, deeply 
set under a serious brow.  The space between his two front teeth, 
which were unusually far apart, gave him the proficiency in 
whistling for which he was distinguished at college. (He also 
played the cornet in the University band.) 
 
     When the grass required his close attention, or when he had 
to stoop to cut about a head-stone, he paused in his lively air,-
-the "Jewel" song,--taking it up where he had left it when his 
scythe swung free again.  He was not think-ing about the tired 
pioneers over whom his blade glittered.  The old wild country, 
the struggle in which his sister was destined to suc-ceed while 
so many men broke their hearts and died, he can scarcely 
remember.  That is all among the dim things of childhood and has 
been forgotten in the brighter pattern life weaves to-day, in the 
bright facts of being captain of the track team, and holding the 
interstate record for the high jump, in the all-suffusing 
brightness of being twenty-one.  Yet some-times, in the pauses of 
his work, the young man frowned and looked at the ground with an 
intentness which suggested that even twenty-one might have its 
problems. 
 
     When he had been mowing the better part of an hour, he heard 
the rattle of a light cart on the road behind him.  Supposing 
that it was his sister coming back from one of her farms, he kept 
on with his work.  The cart stopped at the gate and a merry 
contralto voice called, "Almost through, Emil?"  He dropped his 
scythe and went toward the fence, wiping his face and neck with 
his handkerchief.  In the cart sat a young woman who wore driving 
gauntlets and a wide shade hat, trimmed with red poppies.  Her 
face, too, was rather like a poppy, round and brown, with rich 
color in her cheeks and lips, and her dancing yellow-brown eyes 
bubbled with gayety.  The wind was flap-ping her big hat and 
teasing a curl of her chestnut-colored hair.  She shook her head 
at the tall youth. 
 
     "What time did you get over here?  That's not much of a job 
for an athlete.  Here I've been to town and back.  Alexandra lets 
you sleep late.  Oh, I know!  Lou's wife was telling me about the 
way she spoils you.  I was going to give you a lift, if you were 
done."  She gath-ered up her reins. 
 
     "But I will be, in a minute.  Please wait for me, Marie," 
Emil coaxed.  "Alexandra sent me to mow our lot, but I've done 
half a dozen others, you see.  Just wait till I finish off the 
Kourdnas'.  By the way, they were Bohemians. Why aren't they up 
in the Catholic grave-yard?" 
 
     "Free-thinkers," replied the young woman laconically. 
 
     "Lots of the Bohemian boys at the Univer-sity are," said 
Emil, taking up his scythe again. "What did you ever burn John 
Huss for, any-way?  It's made an awful row.  They still jaw about 
it in history classes." 
 
     "We'd do it right over again, most of us," said the young 
woman hotly.  "Don't they ever teach you in your history classes 
that you'd all be heathen Turks if it hadn't been for the 
Bohemians?" 
 
     Emil had fallen to mowing.  "Oh, there's no denying you're a 
spunky little bunch, you Czechs," he called back over his 
shoulder. 
 
     Marie Shabata settled herself in her seat and watched the 
rhythmical movement of the young man's long arms, swinging her 
foot as if in time to some air that was going through her mind.  
The minutes passed.  Emil mowed vigorously and Marie sat sunning 
herself and watching the long grass fall.  She sat with the ease 
that belongs to persons of an essentially happy nature, who can 
find a comfortable spot almost anywhere; who are supple, and 
quick in adapting themselves to circumstances.  After a final 
swish, Emil snapped the gate and sprang into the cart, holding 
his scythe well out over the wheel.  "There," he sighed.  "I gave 
old man Lee a cut or so, too.  Lou's wife needn't talk.  I never 
see Lou's scythe over here." 
 
     Marie clucked to her horse.  "Oh, you know Annie!"  She 
looked at the young man's bare arms.  "How brown you've got since 
you came home.  I wish I had an athlete to mow my orchard.  I get 
wet to my knees when I go down to pick cherries." 
 
     "You can have one, any time you want him. Better wait until 
after it rains."  Emil squinted off at the horizon as if he were 
looking for clouds. 
 
     "Will you?  Oh, there's a good boy!"  She turned her head to 
him with a quick, bright smile.  He felt it rather than saw it.  
Indeed, he had looked away with the purpose of not see-ing it.  
"I've been up looking at Angelique's wedding clothes," Marie went 
on, "and I'm so excited I can hardly wait until Sunday.  Ame-dee 
will be a handsome bridegroom.  Is any-body but you going to 
stand up with him?  Well, then it will be a handsome wedding 
party." She made a droll face at Emil, who flushed. "Frank," 
Marie continued, flicking her horse, "is cranky at me because I 
loaned his saddle to Jan Smirka, and I'm terribly afraid he won't 
take me to the dance in the evening.  Maybe the supper will tempt 
him.  All Angelique's folks are baking for it, and all Amedee's 
twenty cousins.  There will be barrels of beer.  If once I get 
Frank to the supper, I'll see that I stay for the dance.  And by 
the way, Emil, you mustn't dance with me but once or twice.  You 
must dance with all the French girls.  It hurts their feelings if 
you don't.  They think you're proud because you've been away to 
school or something." 
 
     Emil sniffed.  "How do you know they think that?" 
 
     "Well, you didn't dance with them much at Raoul Marcel's 
party, and I could tell how they took it by the way they looked 
at you--and at me." 
 
     "All right," said Emil shortly, studying the glittering 
blade of his scythe. 
 
     They drove westward toward Norway Creek, and toward a big 
white house that stood on a hill, several miles across the 
fields.  There were so many sheds and outbuildings grouped about 
it that the place looked not unlike a tiny village. A stranger, 
approaching it, could not help notic-ing the beauty and 
fruitfulness of the outlying fields.  There was something 
individual about the great farm, a most unusual trimness and care 
for detail.  On either side of the road, for a mile before you 
reached the foot of the hill, stood tall osage orange hedges, 
their glossy green marking off the yellow fields.  South of the 
hill, in a low, sheltered swale, surrounded by a mulberry hedge, 
was the orchard, its fruit trees knee-deep in timothy grass.  Any 
one there-abouts would have told you that this was one of the 
richest farms on the Divide, and that the farmer was a woman, 
Alexandra Bergson. 
 
     If you go up the hill and enter Alexandra's big house, you 
will find that it is curiously unfinished and uneven in comfort.  
One room is papered, carpeted, over-furnished; the next is almost 
bare.  The pleasantest rooms in the house are the kitchen--where 
Alexandra's three young Swedish girls chatter and cook and pickle 
and preserve all summer long--and the sitting-room, in which 
Alexandra has brought together the old homely furniture that the 
Bergsons used in their first log house, the fam-ily portraits, 
and the few things her mother brought from Sweden. 
 
     When you go out of the house into the flower garden, there 
you feel again the order and fine arrangement manifest all over 
the great farm; in the fencing and hedging, in the windbreaks and 
sheds, in the symmetrical pasture ponds, planted with scrub 
willows to give shade to the cattle in fly-time.  There is even a 
white row of beehives in the orchard, under the walnut trees. You 
feel that, properly, Alexandra's house is the big out-of-doors, 
and that it is in the soil that she expresses herself best. 
 
 
 
                                II 
 
 
     Emil reached home a little past noon, and when he went into 
the kitchen Alexandra was already seated at the head of the long 
table, having dinner with her men, as she always 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, refilling coffee-cups, placing 
platters of bread and meat and potatoes upon the red tablecloth, 
and continu-ally getting in each other's way between the table 
and the stove.  To be sure they always wasted a good deal of time 
getting in each other's way and giggling at each other's 
mistakes.  But, as Alexandra had pointedly told her sisters-in-
law, 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 long letters from home, their 
finery, and their love-affairs, afforded her a great deal of 
entertainment, and they were com-pany for her when Emil was away 
at school. 
 
     Of the youngest girl, Signa, who has a pretty figure, 
mottled pink cheeks, and yellow hair, Alexandra is very fond, 
though she keeps a sharp eye upon her.  Signa is apt to be 
skittish at mealtime, when the men are about, and to spill the 
coffee or upset the cream.  It is sup-posed that Nelse Jensen, 
one of the 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 
with his DRAGHARMONIKA, playing mournful airs and watching her as 
she goes about her work.  When Alexandra asked Signa whether she 
thought Nelse was in earnest, the poor child hid her hands under 
her apron and murmured, "I don't know, ma'm.  But he scolds me 
about everything, like as if he wanted to have me!" 
 
     At Alexandra's left sat a very old man, bare-foot and 
wearing a long blue blouse, open at the neck.  His shaggy head is 
scarcely whiter than it was sixteen years ago, but his little 
blue eyes have become pale and watery, and his ruddy face is 
withered, like an apple that has clung all winter to the tree.  
When Ivar lost his land through mismanagement a dozen years ago, 
Alexandra took him in, and he has been a mem-ber 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 barn, where he is very comfortable, 
being near the horses and, as he says, further from tempta-tions.  
No one has ever found out what his temptations are.  In cold 
weather he sits by the kitchen fire and makes hammocks or mends 
harness until it is time to go to bed.  Then he says his prayers 
at great length behind the stove, puts on his buffalo-skin coat 
and goes out to his room in the barn. 
 
     Alexandra herself has changed very little. Her figure is 
fuller, and she has more color.  She seems sunnier and more 
vigorous than she did as a young girl.  But she still has the 
same calmness and deliberation of manner, the same clear eyes, 
and she still wears 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 oftener on her arm than on her head.  But where 
her collar falls away from her neck, or where her sleeves are 
pushed back from her wrist, the skin is of such smoothness and 
whiteness as none but Swedish women ever possess; skin with the 
freshness of the snow itself. 
 
     Alexandra did not talk much at the table, but she encouraged 
her men to talk, and she always listened attentively, even when 
they seemed to be talking foolishly. 
 
     To-day Barney Flinn, the big red-headed Irishman who had 
been with Alexandra for five years and who was actually her 
foreman, though he had no such title, was grumbling about the new 
silo she had put up that spring.  It hap-pened to be the first 
silo on the Divide, and Alexandra's neighbors and her men were 
skep-tical about it.  "To be sure, if the thing don't work, we'll 
have plenty of feed without it, indeed," Barney conceded. 
 
     Nelse Jensen, Signa's gloomy suitor, had his word.  "Lou, he 
says he wouldn't have no silo on his place if you'd give it to 
him.  He says the feed outen it gives the stock the bloat.  He 
heard of somebody lost four head of horses, feedin' 'em that 
stuff." 
 
     Alexandra looked down the table from one to another.  "Well, 
the only way we can find out is to try.  Lou and I have different 
notions about feeding stock, and that's a good thing. It's bad if 
all the members of a family think alike.  They never get 
anywhere.  Lou can learn by my mistakes and I can learn by his.  
Isn't that fair, Barney?" 
 
     The Irishman laughed.  He had no love for Lou, who was 
always uppish with him and who said that Alexandra paid her hands 
too much. "I've no thought but to give the thing an honest try, 
mum.  'T would be only right, after puttin' so 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 univer-sity ideas, was supposed to 
have instigated the silo.  The other hands followed them, all 
except old Ivar.  He had been depressed throughout the meal and 
had paid no heed to the talk of the men, even when they mentioned 
cornstalk bloat, upon which he was sure to have opinions. 
 
     "Did you want to speak to me, Ivar?" Alex-andra asked as she 
rose from the table.  "Come into the sitting-room." 
 
     The old man followed Alexandra, but when she motioned him to 
a chair he shook his head.  She took up her workbasket and waited 
for him to speak.  He stood looking at the car-pet, his bushy 
head bowed, his hands clasped in front of him.  Ivar's bandy legs 
seemed to have grown shorter with years, and they were com-
pletely misfitted to his broad, thick body and heavy shoulders. 
 
     "Well, Ivar, what is it?" Alexandra asked after she had 
waited longer than usual. 
 
     Ivar had never learned to speak English and his Norwegian 
was quaint and grave, like the speech of the more old-fashioned 
people.  He always addressed Alexandra in terms of the deepest 
respect, hoping to set a good example to the kitchen girls, whom 
he thought too fam-iliar in their manners. 
 
     "Mistress," he began faintly, without raising his eyes, "the 
folk have been looking coldly at me of late.  You know there has 
been talk." 
 
     "Talk about what, Ivar?" 
 
     "About sending me away; to the asylum." 
 
     Alexandra put down her sewing-basket. "Nobody has come to me 
with such talk," she said decidedly.  "Why need you listen?  You 
know I would never consent to such a thing." 
 
     Ivar lifted his shaggy head and looked at her out of his 
little eyes.  "They say that you can-not prevent it if the folk 
complain of me, if your brothers complain to the authorities.  
They say that your brothers are afraid--God forbid!--that I may 
do you some injury when my spells are on me.  Mistress, how can 
any one think that?--that I could bite the hand that fed me!"  
The tears trickled down on the old man's beard. 
 
     Alexandra frowned.  "Ivar, I wonder at you, that you should 
come bothering me with such nonsense.  I am still running my own 
house, and other people have nothing to do with either you or me.  
So long as I am suited with you, there is nothing to be said." 
 
     Ivar pulled a red handkerchief out of the breast of his 
blouse and wiped his eyes and beard.  "But I should not wish you 
to keep me if, as they say, it is against your interests, and if 
it is hard for you to get hands because I am here." 
 
     Alexandra made an impatient gesture, but the old man put out 
his hand and went on earnestly:--
 
     "Listen, mistress, it is right that you should take these 
things into account.  You know that my spells come from God, and 
that I would not harm any living creature.  You believe that 
every one should worship God in the way revealed to him.  But 
that is not the way of this country.  The way here is for all to 
do alike. I am despised because I do not wear shoes, because I do 
not cut my hair, and because I have visions.  At home, in the old 
country, there were many like me, who had been touched by God, or 
who had seen things in the grave-yard 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 
felt it whipping about in him, he drank alcohol to stupefy it and 
get some ease for himself.  He could work as good as any man, and 
his head was clear, but they locked him up for being different in 
his stomach.  That is the way; they have built the asylum for 
people who are dif-ferent, and they will not even let us live in 
the holes with the badgers.  Only your great pros-perity has 
protected me so far.  If you had had ill-fortune, they would have 
taken me to Has-tings long ago." 
 
     As Ivar talked, his gloom lifted.  Alexandra had found that 
she could often break his fasts and long penances by talking to 
him and let-ting him pour out the thoughts that troubled him.  
Sympathy always cleared his mind, and ridicule was poison to him. 
 
     "There is a great deal in what you say, Ivar. Like as not 
they will be wanting to take me to Hastings because I have built 
a silo; and then I may take you with 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 we think best.  You have been with me now for twelve 
years, and I have gone to you for advice oftener than I have ever 
gone to any one.  That ought to satisfy you." 
 
     Ivar bowed humbly.  "Yes, mistress, I shall not trouble you 
with their talk again.  And as for my feet, I have observed your 
wishes all these years, though you have never questioned me; 
washing them every night, even in winter." 
 
     Alexandra laughed.  "Oh, never mind about your feet, Ivar.  
We can remember when half our neighbors went barefoot in summer.  
I ex-pect old Mrs. Lee would love to slip her shoes off now 
sometimes, if she dared.  I'm glad I'm not Lou's mother-in-law." 
 
     Ivar looked about mysteriously and lowered his voice almost 
to a whisper.  "You know what they have over at Lou's house?  A 
great white tub, like the stone water-troughs in the old country, 
to wash themselves in.  When you sent 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, you could not make a strong suds.  So when they fill it up 
and send her in there, she pretends, and makes a splashing noise.  
Then, when they are all asleep, she washes herself in a little 
wooden tub she keeps under her bed." 
 
     Alexandra shook with laughter.  "Poor old Mrs. Lee!  They 
won't let her wear nightcaps, either.  Never mind; when she comes 
to visit me, she can do all the old things in the old way, and 
have as much beer as she wants. We'll start an asylum for old-
time people, Ivar." 
 
     Ivar folded his big handkerchief carefully and thrust it 
back into his blouse.  "This is always the way, mistress.  I come 
to you sor-rowing, and you send me away with a light heart.  And 
will you be so good as to tell the Irishman that he is not to 
work the brown gelding until the sore on its shoulder is healed?" 
 
     "That I will.  Now go and put Emil's mare to the cart.  I am 
going to drive up to the north quarter to meet the man from town 
who is to buy my alfalfa hay." 
 
 
 
                               III 
 
 
     Alexandra was to hear more of Ivar's case, however.  On 
Sunday her married brothers came to dinner.  She had asked them 
for that day because Emil, who hated family parties, would be 
absent, dancing at Amedee Chevalier's wedding, up in the French 
country.  The table was set for company in the dining-room, where 
highly varnished wood and colored glass and useless pieces of 
china were conspicuous enough to satisfy the standards of the new 
prosperity. Alexandra had put herself into the hands of the 
Hanover furniture dealer, and he had conscien-tiously done his 
best to make her dining-room look like his display window.  She 
said frankly that she knew nothing about such things, and she was 
willing to be governed by the general conviction that the more 
useless and utterly unusable objects were, the greater their 
virtue as ornament.  That seemed reasonable enough. Since she 
liked plain things herself, it was all the more necessary to have 
jars and punch-bowls and candlesticks in the company rooms for 
people who did appreciate them.  Her guests liked to see about 
them these reassuring emblems of prosperity. 
 
     The family party was complete except for Emil, and Oscar's 
wife who, in the country phrase, "was not going anywhere just 
now." Oscar sat at the foot of the table and his four tow-headed 
little boys, aged from twelve to five, were ranged at one side.  
Neither Oscar nor Lou has changed much; they have simply, as 
Alexandra said of them long ago, grown to be more and more like 
themselves.  Lou now looks the older of the two; his face is thin 
and shrewd and wrinkled about the eyes, while Oscar's is thick 
and dull.  For all his dullness, however, Oscar makes more money 
than his brother, which adds to Lou's sharpness and uneasiness 
and tempts him to make a show.  The trouble with Lou is that he 
is tricky, and his neighbors have found out that, as Ivar says, 
he has not a fox's face for nothing.  Politics being the nat-ural 
field for such talents, he neglects his farm to attend 
conventions and to run for county offices. 
 
     Lou's wife, formerly Annie Lee, has grown to look curiously 
like her husband.  Her face has become longer, sharper, more 
aggressive.  She wears her yellow hair in a high pompadour, and 
is bedecked with rings and chains and "beauty pins."  Her tight, 
high-heeled shoes give her an awkward walk, and she is always 
more or less preoccupied with her clothes.  As she sat at the 
table, she kept telling her young-est daughter to "be careful 
now, and not drop anything on mother." 
 
     The conversation at the table was all in Eng-lish.  Oscar's 
wife, from the malaria district of Missouri, was ashamed of 
marrying a foreigner, and his boys do not understand a word of 
Swedish.  Annie and Lou sometimes speak Swedish at home, but 
Annie is almost as much afraid of being "caught" at it as ever 
her mother was of being caught barefoot.  Oscar still has a thick 
accent, but Lou speaks like anybody from Iowa. 
 
     "When I was in Hastings to attend the con-vention," he was 
saying, "I saw the superin-tendent of the asylum, and I was 
telling him about Ivar's symptoms.  He says Ivar's case is one of 
the most dangerous kind, and it's a wonder he hasn't done 
something violent before this." 
 
     Alexandra laughed good-humoredly.  "Oh, nonsense, Lou!  The 
doctors would have us all crazy if they could.  Ivar's queer, 
certainly, but he has more sense than half the hands I hire." 
 
     Lou flew at his fried chicken.  "Oh, I guess the doctor 
knows his business, Alexandra.  He was very much surprised when I 
told him how you'd put up with Ivar.  He says he's likely to set 
fire to the barn any night, or to take after you and the girls 
with an axe." 
 
     Little Signa, who was waiting on the table, giggled and fled 
to the kitchen.  Alexandra's eyes twinkled.  "That was too much 
for Signa, Lou.  We all know that Ivar's perfectly harm-less.  
The girls would as soon expect me to chase them with an axe." 
 
     Lou flushed and signaled to his wife.  "All the same, the 
neighbors will be having a say about it before long.  He may burn 
anybody's barn.  It's only necessary for one property-owner in 
the township to make complaint, and he'll be taken up by force.  
You'd better send him yourself and not have any hard feelings." 
 
     Alexandra helped one of her little nephews to gravy.  "Well, 
Lou, if any of the neighbors try that, I'll have myself appointed 
Ivar's guardian and take the case to court, that's all.  I am 
perfectly satisfied with him." 
 
     "Pass the preserves, Lou," said Annie in a warning tone.  
She had reasons for not wishing her husband to cross Alexandra 
too openly. "But don't you sort of hate to have people see him 
around here, Alexandra?" she went on with persuasive smoothness.  
"He IS a disgrace-ful object, and you're fixed up so nice now.  
It sort of makes people distant with you, when they never know 
when they'll hear him scratch-ing about.  My girls are afraid as 
death of him, aren't you, Milly, dear?" 
 
     Milly was fifteen, fat and jolly and pompa-doured, with a 
creamy complexion, square white teeth, and a short upper lip.  
She looked like her grandmother Bergson, and had her comfortable 
and comfort-loving nature.  She grinned at her aunt, with whom 
she was a great deal more at ease than she was with her mother. 
Alexandra winked a reply. 
 
     "Milly needn't be afraid of Ivar.  She's an especial 
favorite of his.  In my opinion Ivar has just as much right to 
his own way of dressing and thinking as we have.  But I'll see 
that he doesn't bother other people.  I'll keep him at home, so 
don't trouble any more about him, Lou.  I've been wanting to ask 
you about your new bathtub.  How does it work?" 
 
     Annie came to the fore to give Lou time to recover himself.  
"Oh, it works something grand!  I can't keep him out of it.  He 
washes himself all over three times a week now, and uses all the 
hot water.  I think it's weakening to stay in as long as he does.  
You ought to have one, Alexandra." 
 
     "I'm thinking of it.  I might have one put in the barn for 
Ivar, if it will ease people's minds. But before I get a bathtub, 
I'm going to get a piano for Milly." 
 
     Oscar, at the end of the table, looked up from his plate.  
"What does Milly want of a pianny? What's the matter with her 
organ?  She can make some use of that, and play in church." 
 
     Annie looked flustered.  She had begged Alexandra not to say 
anything about this plan before Oscar, who was apt to be jealous 
of what his sister did for Lou's children.  Alexandra did not get 
on with Oscar's wife at all.  "Milly can play in church just the 
same, and she'll still play on the organ.  But practising on it 
so much spoils her touch.  Her teacher says so," Annie brought 
out with spirit. 
 
     Oscar rolled his eyes.  "Well, Milly must have got on pretty 
good if she's got past the organ. I know plenty of grown folks 
that ain't," he said bluntly. 
 
     Annie threw up her chin.  "She has got on good, and she's 
going to play for her commence-ment when she graduates in town 
next year." 
 
     "Yes," said Alexandra firmly, "I think Milly deserves a 
piano.  All the girls around here have been taking lessons for 
years, but Milly is the only one of them who can ever play 
anything when you ask her.  I'll tell you when I first thought I 
would like to give you a piano, Milly, and that was when you 
learned that book of old Swedish songs that your grandfather used 
to sing.  He had a sweet tenor voice, and when he was a young man 
he loved to sing.  I can remember hearing him singing with the 
sailors down in the shipyard, when I was no bigger than Stella 
here," pointing to Annie's younger daughter. 
 
     Milly and Stella both looked through the door into the 
sitting-room, where a crayon por-trait of John Bergson hung on 
the wall.  Alex-andra had had it made from a little photograph, 
taken for his friends just before he left Sweden; a slender man 
of thirty-five, with soft hair curl-ing about his high forehead, 
a drooping mus-tache, and wondering, sad eyes that looked forward 
into the distance, as if they already beheld the New World. 
 
     After dinner Lou and Oscar went to the orchard to pick 
cherries--they had neither of them had the patience to grow an 
orchard of their own--and Annie went down to gossip with 
Alexandra's kitchen girls while they washed the dishes.  She 
could always find out more about Alexandra's domestic economy 
from the prat-tling maids than from Alexandra herself, and what 
she discovered she used to her own advan-tage with Lou.  On the 
Divide, farmers' daugh-ters no longer went out into service, so 
Alex-andra got her girls from Sweden, by paying their fare over.  
They stayed with her until they married, and were replaced by 
sisters or cousins from the old country. 
 
     Alexandra took her three nieces into the flower garden.  She 
was fond of the little girls, especially of Milly, who came to 
spend a week with her aunt now and then, and read aloud to her 
from the old books about the house, or listened to stories about 
the early days on the Divide.  While they were walking among the 
flower beds, a buggy drove up the hill and stopped in front of 
the gate.  A man got out and stood talking to the driver.  The 
little girls were delighted at the advent of a stranger, some one 
from very far away, they knew by his clothes, his gloves, and the 
sharp, pointed cut of his dark beard.  The girls fell behind 
their aunt and peeped out at him from among the castor beans.  
The stranger came up to the gate and stood holding his hat in his 
hand, smiling, while Alexandra advanced slowly to meet him. As 
she approached he spoke in a low, pleasant voice. 
 
     "Don't you know me, Alexandra?  I would have known you, 
anywhere." 
 
     Alexandra shaded her eyes with her hand. Suddenly she took a 
quick step forward.  "Can it be!" she exclaimed with feeling; 
"can it be that it is Carl Linstrum?  Why, Carl, it is!" She 
threw out both her hands and caught his across the gate.  "Sadie, 
Milly, run tell your father and Uncle Oscar that our old friend 
Carl Linstrum is here.  Be quick!  Why, Carl, how did it happen?  
I can't believe this!"  Alexan-dra shook the tears from her eyes 
and laughed. 
 
     The stranger nodded to his driver, dropped his suitcase 
inside the fence, and opened the gate.  "Then you are glad to see 
me, and you can put me up overnight?  I couldn't go through this 
country without stopping off to have a look at you.  How little 
you have changed!  Do you know, I was sure it would be like that.  
You simply couldn't be different. How fine you are!"  He stepped 
back and looked at her admiringly. 
 
     Alexandra blushed and laughed again.  "But you yourself, 
Carl--with that beard--how could I have known you?  You went away 
a little boy."  She reached for his suitcase and when he 
intercepted her she threw up her hands.  "You see, I give myself 
away.  I have only women come to visit me, and I do not know how 
to behave.  Where is your trunk?" 
 
     "It's in Hanover.  I can stay only a few days. I am on my 
way to the coast." 
 
     They started up the path.  "A few days? After all these 
years!"  Alexandra shook her finger at him.  "See this, you have 
walked into a trap.  You do not get away so easy."  She put her 
hand affectionately on his shoulder.  "You owe me a visit for the 
sake of old times.  Why must you go to the coast at all?" 
 
     "Oh, I must!  I am a fortune hunter.  From Seattle I go on 
to Alaska." 
 
     "Alaska?"  She looked at him in astonish-ment.  "Are you 
going to paint the Indians?" 
 
     "Paint?" the young man frowned.  "Oh!  I'm not a painter, 
Alexandra.  I'm an engraver.  I have nothing to do with 
painting." 
 
     "But on my parlor wall I have the paint-ings--" 
 
     He interrupted nervously.  "Oh, water-color sketches--done 
for amusement.  I sent them to remind you of me, not because they 
were good. What a wonderful place you have made of this, 
Alexandra."  He turned and looked back at the wide, map-like 
prospect of field and hedge and pasture.  "I would never have 
believed it could be done.  I'm disappointed in my own eye, in my 
imagination." 
 
     At this moment Lou and Oscar came up the hill from the 
orchard.  They did not quicken their pace when they saw Carl; 
indeed, they did not openly look in his direction.  They advanced 
distrustfully, and as if they wished the distance were longer. 
 
     Alexandra beckoned to them.  "They think I am trying to fool 
them.  Come, boys, it's Carl Linstrum, our old Carl!" 
 
     Lou gave the visitor a quick, sidelong glance and thrust out 
his hand.  "Glad to see you." 
 
     Oscar followed with "How d' do."  Carl could not tell 
whether their offishness came from unfriendliness or from 
embarrassment.  He and Alexandra led the way to the porch. 
 
     "Carl," Alexandra explained, "is on his way to Seattle.  He 
is going to Alaska." 
 
     Oscar studied the visitor's yellow shoes. "Got business 
there?" he asked. 
 
     Carl laughed.  "Yes, very pressing business. I'm going there 
to get rich.  Engraving's a very interesting profession, but a 
man never makes any money at it.  So I'm going to try the gold-
fields." 
 
     Alexandra felt that this was a tactful speech, and Lou 
looked up with some interest.  "Ever done anything in that line 
before?" 
 
     "No, but I'm going to join a friend of mine who went out 
from New York and has done well.  He has offered to break me in." 
 
     "Turrible cold winters, there, I hear," re-marked Oscar.  "I 
thought people went up there in the spring." 
 
     "They do.  But my friend is going to spend the winter in 
Seattle and I am to stay with him there and learn something about 
prospecting before we start north next year." 
 
     Lou looked skeptical.  "Let's see, how long have you been 
away from here?" 
 
     "Sixteen years.  You ought to remember that, Lou, for you 
were married just after we went away." 
 
     "Going to stay with us some time?" Oscar asked. 
 
     "A few days, if Alexandra can keep me." 
 
     "I expect you'll be wanting to see your old place," Lou 
observed more cordially.  "You won't hardly know it.  But there's 
a few chunks of your old sod house left.  Alexandra wouldn't 
never let Frank Shabata plough over it." 
 
     Annie Lee, who, ever since the visitor was announced, had 
been touching up her hair and settling her lace and wishing she 
had worn another dress, now emerged with her three daughters and 
introduced them.  She was greatly impressed by Carl's urban 
appearance, and in her excitement talked very loud and threw her 
head about.  "And you ain't married yet?  At your age, now!  
Think of that!  You'll have to wait for Milly.  Yes, we've got a 
boy, too.  The youngest.  He's at home with his grandma.  You 
must come over to see mother and hear Milly play.  She's the 
musician of the family.  She does pyrography, too.  That's burnt 
wood, you know.  You wouldn't believe what she can do with her 
poker.  Yes, she goes to school in town, and she is the youngest 
in her class by two years." 
 
     Milly looked uncomfortable and Carl took her hand again.  He 
liked her creamy skin and happy, innocent eyes, and he could see 
that her mother's way of talking distressed her.  "I'm sure she's 
a clever little girl," he murmured, looking at her thoughtfully.  
"Let me see--Ah, it's your mother that she looks like, Alex-
andra.  Mrs. Bergson must have looked just like this when she was 
a little girl.  Does Milly run about over the country as you and 
Alex-andra used to, Annie?" 
 
     Milly's mother protested.  "Oh, my, no! Things has changed 
since we was girls.  Milly has it very different.  We are going 
to rent the place and move into town as soon as the girls are old 
enough to go out into company.  A good many are doing that here 
now.  Lou is going into business." 
 
     Lou grinned.  "That's what she says.  You better go get your 
things on.  Ivar's hitching up," he added, turning to Annie. 
 
     Young farmers seldom address their wives by name.  It is 
always "you," or "she." 
 
     Having got his wife out of the way, Lou sat down on the step 
and began to whittle.  "Well, what do folks in New York think of 
William Jennings Bryan?"  Lou began to bluster, as he always did 
when he talked politics.  "We gave Wall Street a scare in ninety-
six, all right, and we're fixing another to hand them.  Silver 
wasn't the only issue," he nodded mysteriously. "There's a good 
many things got to be changed. The West is going to make itself 
heard." 
 
     Carl laughed.  "But, surely, it did do that, if nothing 
else." 
 
     Lou's thin face reddened up to the roots of his bristly 
hair.  "Oh, we've only begun.  We're waking up to a sense of our 
responsibilities, out here, and we ain't afraid, neither.  You 
fellows back there must be a tame lot.  If you had any nerve 
you'd get together and march down to Wall Street and blow it up.  
Dyna-mite it, I mean," with a threatening nod. 
 
     He was so much in earnest that Carl scarcely knew how to 
answer him.  "That would be a waste of powder.  The same business 
would go on in another street.  The street doesn't matter. But 
what have you fellows out here got to kick about?  You have the 
only safe place there is. Morgan himself couldn't touch you.  One 
only has to drive through this country to see that you're all as 
rich as barons." 
 
     "We have a good deal more to say than we had when we were 
poor," said Lou threateningly. "We're getting on to a whole lot 
of things." 
 
     As Ivar drove a double carriage up to the gate, Annie came 
out in a hat that looked like the model of a battleship.  Carl 
rose and took her down to the carriage, while Lou lingered for a 
word with his sister. 
 
     "What do you suppose he's come for?" he asked, jerking his 
head toward the gate. 
 
     "Why, to pay us a visit.  I've been begging him to for 
years." 
 
     Oscar looked at Alexandra.  "He didn't let you know he was 
coming?" 
 
     "No. Why should he?  I told him to come at any time." 
 
     Lou shrugged his shoulders.  "He doesn't seem to have done 
much for himself.  Wander-ing around this way!" 
 
     Oscar spoke solemnly, as from the depths of a cavern.  "He 
never was much account." 
 
     Alexandra left them and hurried down to the gate where Annie 
was rattling on to Carl about her new dining-room furniture.  
"You must bring Mr. Linstrum over real soon, only be sure to 
telephone me first," she called back, as Carl helped her into the 
carriage.  Old Ivar, his white head bare, stood holding the 
horses.  Lou came down the path and climbed into the front seat, 
took up the reins, and drove off without saying anything further 
to any one.  Oscar picked up his youngest boy and trudged off 
down the road, the other three trotting after him.  Carl, holding 
the gate open for Alexandra, began to laugh.  "Up and coming on 
the Divide, eh, Alexandra?" he cried gayly. 
 
 
 
                                IV 
 
 
     Carl had changed, Alexandra felt, much less than one might 
have expected.  He had not become a trim, self-satisfied city 
man.  There was still something homely and wayward and definitely 
personal about him.  Even his clothes, his Norfolk coat and his 
very high collars, were a little unconventional.  He seemed to 
shrink into himself as he used to do; to hold him-self away from 
things, as if he were afraid of being hurt.  In short, he was 
more self-con-scious than a man of thirty-five is expected to be.  
He looked older than his years and not very strong.  His black 
hair, which still hung in a triangle over his pale forehead, was 
thin at the crown, and there were fine, relentless lines about 
his eyes.  His back, with its high, sharp shoulders, looked like 
the back of an over-worked German professor off on his holiday. 
His face was intelligent, sensitive, unhappy. 
 
     That evening after supper, Carl and Alex-andra were sitting 
by the clump of castor beans in the middle of the flower garden.  
The gravel paths glittered in the moonlight, and below them the 
fields lay white and still. 
 
     "Do you know, Alexandra," he was saying, "I've been thinking 
how strangely things work out.  I've been away engraving other 
men's pictures, and you've stayed at home and made your own."  He 
pointed with his cigar toward the sleeping landscape.  "How in 
the world have you done it?  How have your neighbors done it?" 
 
     "We hadn't any of us much to do with it, Carl.  The land did 
it.  It had its little joke.  It pretended to be poor because 
nobody knew how to work it right; and then, all at once, it 
worked itself.  It woke up out of its sleep and stretched itself, 
and it was so big, so rich, that we sud-denly found we were rich, 
just from sitting still. As for me, you remember when I began to 
buy land.  For years after that I was always squeez-ing and 
borrowing until I was ashamed to show my face in the banks.  And 
then, all at once, men began to come to me offering to lend me 
money--and I didn't need it!  Then I went ahead and built this 
house.  I really built it for Emil.  I want you to see Emil, 
Carl.  He is so different from the rest of us!" 
 
     "How different?" 
 
     "Oh, you'll see!  I'm sure it was to have sons like Emil, 
and to give them a chance, that father left the old country.  
It's curious, too; on the outside Emil is just like an American 
boy,--he graduated from the State University in June, you know,--
but underneath he is more Swed-ish than any of us.  Sometimes he 
is so like father that he frightens me; he is so violent in his 
feel-ings like that." 
 
     "Is he going to farm here with you?" 
 
     "He shall do whatever he wants to," Alex-andra declared 
warmly.  "He is going to have a chance, a whole chance; that's 
what I've worked for.  Sometimes he talks about studying law, and 
sometimes, just lately, he's been talk-ing about going out into 
the sand hills and tak-ing up more land.  He has his sad times, 
like father.  But I hope he won't do that.  We have land enough, 
at last!"  Alexandra laughed. 
 
     "How about Lou and Oscar?  They've done well, haven't they?" 
 
     "Yes, very well; but they are different, and now that they 
have farms of their own I do not see so much of them.  We divided 
the land equally when Lou married.  They have their own way of 
doing things, and they do not alto-gether like my way, I am 
afraid.  Perhaps they think me too independent.  But I have had 
to think for myself a good many years and am not likely to 
change.  On the whole, though, we take as much comfort in each 
other as most brothers and sisters do.  And I am very fond of 
Lou's oldest daughter." 
 
     "I think I liked the old Lou and Oscar better, and they 
probably feel the same about me.  I even, if you can keep a 
secret,"--Carl leaned forward and touched her arm, smiling,--"I 
even think I liked the old country better.  This is all very 
splendid in its way, but there was something about this country 
when it was a wild old beast that has haunted me all these years.  
Now, when I come back to all this milk and honey, I feel like the 
old German song, 'Wo bist du, wo bist du, mein geliebtest Land?'-
-Do you ever feel like that, I wonder?" 
 
     "Yes, sometimes, when I think about father and mother and 
those who are gone; so many of our old neighbors."  Alexandra 
paused and looked up thoughtfully at the stars.  "We can remember 
the graveyard when it was wild prairie, Carl, and now--" 
 
     "And now the old story has begun to write itself over 
there," said Carl softly.  "Isn't it queer: there are only two or 
three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as 
fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in 
this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for 
thousands of years." 
 
     "Oh, yes!  The young people, they live so hard.  And yet I 
sometimes envy them.  There is my little neighbor, now; the 
people who bought your old place.  I wouldn't have sold it to any 
one else, but I was always fond of that girl.  You must remember 
her, little Marie Tovesky, from Omaha, who used to visit here? 
When she was eighteen she ran away from the convent school and 
got married, crazy child! She came out here a bride, with her 
father and husband.  He had nothing, and the old man was willing 
to buy them a place and set them up.  Your farm took her fancy, 
and I was glad to have her so near me.  I've never been sorry, 
either.  I even try to get along with Frank on her account." 
 
     "Is Frank her husband?" 
 
     "Yes.  He's one of these wild fellows.  Most Bohemians are 
good-natured, but Frank thinks we don't appreciate him here, I 
guess.  He's jeal-ous about everything, his farm and his horses 
and his pretty wife.  Everybody likes her, just the same as when 
she was little.  Sometimes I go up to the Catholic church with 
Emil, and it's funny to see Marie standing there laughing and 
shaking hands with people, looking so ex-cited and gay, with 
Frank sulking behind her as if he could eat everybody alive.  
Frank's not a bad neighbor, but to get on with him you've got to 
make a fuss over him and act as if you thought he was a very 
important person all the time, and different from other people.  
I find it hard to keep that up from one year's end to another." 
 
     "I shouldn't think you'd be very successful at that kind of 
thing, Alexandra."  Carl seemed to find the idea amusing. 
 
     "Well," said Alexandra firmly, "I do the best I can, on 
Marie's account.  She has it hard enough, anyway.  She's too 
young and pretty for this sort of life.  We're all ever so much 
older and slower.  But she's the kind that won't be downed 
easily.  She'll work all day and go to a Bohemian wedding and 
dance all night, and drive the hay wagon for a cross man next 
morn-ing.  I could stay by a job, but I never had the go in me 
that she has, when I was going my best. I'll have to take you 
over to see her to-morrow." 
 
     Carl dropped the end of his cigar softly among the castor 
beans and sighed.  "Yes, I suppose I must see the old place.  I'm 
cow-ardly about things that remind me of myself. It took courage 
to come at all, Alexandra.  I wouldn't have, if I hadn't wanted 
to see you very, very much." 
 
     Alexandra looked at him with her calm, deliberate eyes.  
"Why do you dread things like that, Carl?" she asked earnestly.  
"Why are you dissatisfied with yourself?" 
 
     Her visitor winced.  "How direct you are, Alexandra!  Just 
like you used to be.  Do I give myself away so quickly?  Well, 
you see, for one thing, there's nothing to look forward to in my 
profession.   Wood-engraving is the only thing I care about, and 
that had gone out before I began.  Everything's cheap metal work 
now-adays, touching up miserable photographs, forcing up poor 
drawings, and spoiling good ones.  I'm absolutely sick of it 
all."  Carl frowned.  "Alexandra, all the way out from New York 
I've been planning how I could de-ceive you and make you think me 
a very envi-able fellow, and here I am telling you the truth the 
first night.  I waste a lot of time pre-tending to people, and 
the joke of it is, I don't think I ever deceive any one.  There 
are too many of my kind; people know us on sight." 
 
     Carl paused.  Alexandra pushed her hair back from her brow 
with a puzzled, thoughtful gesture.  "You see," he went on 
calmly, "mea-sured by your standards here, I'm a failure. I 
couldn't buy even one of your cornfields. I've enjoyed a great 
many things, but I've got nothing to show for it all." 
 
     "But you show for it yourself, Carl.  I'd rather have had 
your freedom than my land." 
 
     Carl shook his head mournfully.  "Freedom so often means 
that one isn't needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you 
have a back-ground of your own, you would be missed.  But off 
there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like 
me.  We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own 
nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury 
him.  Our landlady and the delicatessen man are our mourners, and 
we leave nothing behind us but a frock-coat and a fiddle, or an 
easel, or a typewriter, or whatever tool we got our living by.  
All we have ever managed to do is to pay our rent, the exorbitant 
rent that one has to pay for a few square feet of space near the 
heart of things.  We have no house, no place, no people of our 
own.  We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theatres.  We 
sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the 
hundreds of our own kind and shudder." 
 
     Alexandra was silent.  She sat looking at the silver spot 
the moon made on the surface of the pond down in the pasture.  He 
knew that she understood what he meant.  At last she said slowly, 
"And yet I would rather have Emil grow up like that than like his 
two brothers. We pay a high rent, too, though we pay differ-
ently.  We grow hard and heavy here.  We don't move lightly and 
easily as you do, and our minds get stiff.  If the world were no 
wider than my cornfields, if there were not something beside 
this, I wouldn't feel that it was much worth while to work.  No, 
I would rather have Emil like you than like them.  I felt that as 
soon as you came." 
 
     "I wonder why you feel like that?" Carl mused. 
 
     "I don't know.  Perhaps I am like Carrie Jensen, the sister 
of one of my hired men.  She had never been out of the 
cornfields, and a few years ago she got despondent and said life 
was just the same thing over and over, and she didn't see the use 
of it.  After she had tried to kill herself once or twice, her 
folks got wor-ried and sent her over to Iowa to visit some 
relations.  Ever since she's come back she's been perfectly 
cheerful, and she says she's con-tented to live and work in a 
world that's so big and interesting.  She said that anything as 
big as the bridges over the Platte and the Missouri reconciled 
her.  And it's what goes on in the world that reconciles me." 
 
 
 
                                V 
 
 
     Alexandra did not find time to go to her neighbor's the next 
day, nor the next.  It was a busy season on the farm, with the 
corn-plowing going on, and even Emil was in the field with a team 
and cultivator.  Carl went about over the farms with Alexandra in 
the morning, and in the afternoon and evening they found a great 
deal to talk about.  Emil, for all his track prac-tice, did not 
stand up under farmwork very well, and by night he was too tired 
to talk or even to practise on his cornet. 
 
     On Wednesday morning Carl got up before it was light, and 
stole downstairs and out of the kitchen door just as old Ivar was 
making his morning ablutions at the pump.  Carl nodded to him and 
hurried up the draw, past the gar-den, and into the pasture where 
the milking cows used to be kept. 
 
     The dawn in the east looked like the light from some great 
fire that was burning under the edge of the world.  The color was 
reflected in the globules of dew that sheathed the short gray 
pasture grass.  Carl walked rapidly until he came to the crest of 
the second hill, where the Bergson pasture joined the one that 
had belonged to his father.  There he sat down and waited for the 
sun to rise.  It was just there that he and Alexandra used to do 
their milking together, he on his side of the fence, she on hers. 
He could remember exactly how she looked when she came over the 
close-cropped grass, her skirts pinned up, her head bare, a 
bright tin pail in either hand, and the milky light of the early 
morning all about her.  Even as a boy he used to feel, when he 
saw her coming with her free step, her upright head and calm 
shoulders, that she looked as if she had walked straight out of 
the morning itself.  Since then, when he had happened to see the 
sun come up in the country or on the water, he had often remem-
bered the young Swedish girl and her milking pails. 
 
     Carl sat musing until the sun leaped above the prairie, and 
in the grass about him all the small creatures of day began to 
tune their tiny instruments.  Birds and insects without num-ber 
began to chirp, to twitter, to snap and whistle, to make all 
manner of fresh shrill noises.  The pasture was flooded with 
light; every clump of ironweed and snow-on-the-mountain threw a 
long shadow, and the golden light seemed to be rippling through 
the curly grass like the tide racing in. 
 
     He crossed the fence into the pasture that was now the 
Shabatas' and continued his walk toward the pond.  He had not 
gone far, how-ever, when he discovered that he was not the only 
person abroad.  In the draw below, his gun in his hands, was 
Emil, advancing cautiously, with a young woman beside him.  They 
were moving softly, keeping close together, and Carl knew that 
they expected to find ducks on the pond.  At the moment when they 
came in sight of the bright spot of water, he heard a whirr of 
wings and the ducks shot up into the air.  There was a sharp 
crack from the gun, and five of the birds fell to the ground.  
Emil and his companion laughed delightedly, and Emil ran to pick 
them up.  When he came back, dangling the ducks by their feet, 
Marie held her apron and he dropped them into it.  As she stood 
looking down at them, her face changed.  She took up one of the 
birds, a rumpled ball of feathers with the blood dripping slowly 
from its mouth, and looked at the live color that still burned on 
its plumage. 
 
     As she let it fall, she cried in distress, "Oh, Emil, why 
did you?" 
 
     "I like that!" the boy exclaimed indignantly. "Why, Marie, 
you asked me to come yourself." 
 
     ":Yes, yes, I know," she said tearfully, "but I didn't 
think.  I hate to see them when they are first shot.  They were 
having such a good time, and we've spoiled it all for them." 
 
     Emil gave a rather sore laugh.  "I should say we had!  I'm 
not going hunting with you any more.  You're as bad as Ivar.  
Here, let me take them."  He snatched the ducks out of her apron. 
 
     "Don't be cross, Emil.  Only--Ivar's right about wild 
things.  They're too happy to kill. You can tell just how they 
felt when they flew up.  They were scared, but they didn't really 
think anything could hurt them.  No, we won't do that any more." 
 
     "All right," Emil assented.  "I'm sorry I made you feel 
bad."  As he looked down into her tearful eyes, there was a 
curious, sharp young bitterness in his own. 
 
     Carl watched them as they moved slowly down the draw.  They 
had not seen him at all. He had not overheard much of their 
dialogue, but he felt the import of it.  It made him, some-how, 
unreasonably mournful to find two young things abroad in the 
pasture in the early morn-ing.  He decided that he needed his 
breakfast. 
 
 
 
                                VI 
 
 
     At dinner that day Alexandra said she thought they must 
really manage to go over to the Shabatas' that afternoon.  "It's 
not often I let three days go by without seeing Marie.  She will 
think I have forsaken her, now that my old friend has come back." 
 
     After the men had gone back to work, Alex-andra put on a 
white dress and her sun-hat, and she and Carl set forth across 
the fields.  "You see we have kept up the old path, Carl.  It has 
been so nice for me to feel that there was a friend at the other 
end of it again." 
 
     Carl smiled a little ruefully.  "All the same, I hope it 
hasn't been QUITE the same." 
 
     Alexandra looked at him with surprise. "Why, no, of course 
not.  Not the same.  She could not very well take your place, if 
that's what you mean.  I'm friendly with all my neighbors, I 
hope.  But Marie is really a com-panion, some one I can talk to 
quite frankly. You wouldn't want me to be more lonely than I have 
been, would you?" 
 
     Carl laughed and pushed back the triangular lock of hair 
with the edge of his hat.  "Of course I don't.  I ought to be 
thankful that this path hasn't been worn by--well, by friends 
with more pressing errands than your little Bohe-mian is likely 
to have."  He paused to give Alexandra his hand as she stepped 
over the stile. "Are you the least bit disappointed in our com-
ing together again?" he asked abruptly.  "Is it the way you hoped 
it would be?" 
 
     Alexandra smiled at this.  "Only better. When I've thought 
about your coming, I've sometimes been a little afraid of it.  
You have lived where things move so fast, and every-thing is slow 
here; the people slowest of all.  Our lives are like the years, 
all made up of weather and crops and cows.  How you hated cows!" 
She shook her head and laughed to herself. 
 
     "I didn't when we milked together.  I walked up to the 
pasture corners this morning. I wonder whether I shall ever be 
able to tell you all that I was thinking about up there.  It's a 
strange thing, Alexandra; I find it easy to be frank with you 
about everything under the sun except--yourself!" 
 
     "You are afraid of hurting my feelings, per-haps."  
Alexandra looked at him thoughtfully. 
 
     "No, I'm afraid of giving you a shock. You've seen yourself 
for so long in the dull minds of the people about you, that if I 
were to tell you how you seem to me, it would startle you.  But 
you must see that you astonish me. You must feel when people 
admire you." 
 
     Alexandra blushed and laughed with some confusion.  "I felt 
that you were pleased with me, if you mean that." 
 
     "And you've felt when other people were pleased with you?" 
he insisted. 
 
     "Well, sometimes.  The men in town, at the banks and the 
county offices, seem glad to see me.  I think, myself, it is more 
pleasant to do business with people who are clean and healthy-
looking," she admitted blandly. 
 
     Carl gave a little chuckle as he opened the Shabatas' gate 
for her.  "Oh, do you?" he asked dryly. 
 
     There was no sign of life about the Shabatas' house except a 
big yellow cat, sunning itself on the kitchen doorstep. 
 
     Alexandra took the path that led to the orchard.  "She often 
sits there and sews.  I didn't telephone her we were coming, 
because I didn't her to go to work and bake cake and freeze ice-
cream.  She'll always make a party if you give her the least 
excuse.  Do you recognize the apple trees, Carl?" 
 
     Linstrum looked about him.  "I wish I had a dollar for every 
bucket of water I've carried for those trees.  Poor father, he 
was an easy man, but he was perfectly merciless when it came to 
watering the orchard." 
 
     "That's one thing I like about Germans; they make an orchard 
grow if they can't make anything else.  I'm so glad these trees 
belong to some one who takes comfort in them.  When I rented this 
place, the tenants never kept the orchard up, and Emil and I used 
to come over and take care of it ourselves.  It needs mowing now.  
There she is, down in the corner.  Ma-ria-a-a!" she called. 
 
     A recumbent figure started up from the grass and came 
running toward them through the flickering screen of light and 
shade. 
 
     "Look at her!  Isn't she like a little brown rabbit?" 
Alexandra laughed. 
 
     Maria ran up panting and threw her arms about Alexandra.  
"Oh, I had begun to think you were not coming at all, maybe.  I 
knew you were so busy.  Yes, Emil told me about Mr. Linstrum 
being here.  Won't you come up to the house?" 
 
     "Why not sit down there in your corner? Carl wants to see 
the orchard.  He kept all these trees alive for years, watering 
them with his own back." 
 
     Marie turned to Carl.  "Then I'm thankful to you, Mr. 
Linstrum.  We'd never have bought the place if it hadn't been for 
this orchard, and then I wouldn't have had Alexandra, either." 
She gave Alexandra's arm a little squeeze as she walked beside 
her.  "How nice your dress smells, Alexandra; you put rosemary 
leaves in your chest, like I told you." 
 
     She led them to the northwest corner of the orchard, 
sheltered on one side by a thick mul-berry hedge and bordered on 
the other by a wheatfield, just beginning to yellow.  In this 
corner the ground dipped a little, and the blue-grass, which the 
weeds had driven out in the upper part of the orchard, grew thick 
and luxu-riant.  Wild roses were flaming in the tufts of 
bunchgrass along the fence.  Under a white mulberry tree there 
was an old wagon-seat. Beside it lay a book and a workbasket. 
 
     "You must have the seat, Alexandra.  The grass would stain 
your dress," the hostess in-sisted.  She dropped down on the 
ground at Alexandra's side and tucked her feet under her. Carl 
sat at a little distance from the two wo-men, his back to the 
wheatfield, and watched them.  Alexandra took off her shade-hat 
and threw it on the ground.  Marie picked it up and played with 
the white ribbons, twisting them about her brown fingers as she 
talked.  They made a pretty picture in the strong sunlight, the 
leafy pattern surrounding them like a net; the Swedish woman so 
white and gold, kindly and amused, but armored in calm, and the 
alert brown one, her full lips parted, points of yel-low light 
dancing in her eyes as she laughed and chattered.  Carl had never 
forgotten little Marie Tovesky's eyes, and he was glad to have an 
opportunity to study them.  The brown iris, he found, was 
curiously slashed with yel-low, the color of sunflower honey, or 
of old amber.  In each eye one of these streaks must have been 
larger than the others, for the effect was that of two dancing 
points of light, two little yellow bubbles, such as rise in a 
glass of champagne.  Sometimes they seemed like the sparks from a 
forge.  She seemed so easily ex-cited, to kindle with a fierce 
little flame if one but breathed upon her.  "What a waste," Carl 
reflected.  "She ought to be doing all that for a sweetheart.  
How awkwardly things come about!" 
 
     It was not very long before Marie sprang up out of the grass 
again.  "Wait a moment.  I want to show you something."  She ran 
away and disappeared behind the low-growing apple trees. 
 
     "What a charming creature," Carl mur-mured.  "I don't wonder 
that her husband is jealous.  But can't she walk? does she always 
run?" 
 
     Alexandra nodded.  "Always.  I don't see many people, but I 
don't believe there are many like her, anywhere." 
 
     Marie came back with a branch she had broken from an apricot 
tree, laden with pale-yellow, pink-cheeked fruit.  She dropped it 
be-side Carl.  "Did you plant those, too?  They are such 
beautiful little trees." 
 
     Carl fingered the blue-green leaves, porous like blotting-
paper and shaped like birch leaves, hung on waxen red stems.  
"Yes, I think I did.  Are these the circus trees, Alex-andra?" 
 
     "Shall I tell her about them?" Alexandra asked.  "Sit down 
like a good girl, Marie, and don't ruin my poor hat, and I'll 
tell you a story. A long time ago, when Carl and I were, say, 
sixteen and twelve, a circus came to Hanover and we went to town 
in our wagon, with Lou and Oscar, to see the parade.  We hadn't 
money enough to go to the circus.  We followed the parade out to 
the circus grounds and hung around until the show began and the 
crowd went inside the tent.  Then Lou was afraid we looked 
foolish standing outside in the pasture, so we went back to 
Hanover feeling very sad. There was a man in the streets selling 
apricots, and we had never seen any before.  He had driven down 
from somewhere up in the French country, and he was selling them 
twenty-five cents a peck.  We had a little money our fathers had 
given us for candy, and I bought two pecks and Carl bought one.  
They cheered us a good deal, and we saved all the seeds and 
planted them.  Up to the time Carl went away, they hadn't borne 
at all." 
 
     "And now he's come back to eat them," cried Marie, nodding 
at Carl.  "That IS a good story.  I can remember you a little, 
Mr. Lin-strum.  I used to see you in Hanover some-times, when 
Uncle Joe took me to town.  I re-member you because you were 
always buying pencils and tubes of paint at the drug store. Once, 
when my uncle left me at the store, you drew a lot of little 
birds and flowers for me on a piece of wrapping-paper.  I kept 
them for a long while.  I thought you were very romantic be-cause 
you could draw and had such black eyes." 
 
     Carl smiled.  "Yes, I remember that time. Your uncle bought 
you some kind of a mechani-cal toy, a Turkish lady sitting on an 
ottoman and smoking a hookah, wasn't it?  And she turned her head 
backwards and forwards." 
 
     "Oh, yes!  Wasn't she splendid!  I knew well enough I ought 
not to tell Uncle Joe I wanted it, for he had just come back from 
the saloon and was feeling good.  You remember how he laughed?  
She tickled him, too.  But when we got home, my aunt scolded him 
for buying toys when she needed so many things.  We wound our 
lady up every night, and when she began to move her head my aunt 
used to laugh as hard as any of us.  It was a music-box, you 
know, and the Turkish lady played a tune while she smoked.  That 
was how she made you feel so jolly.  As I remember her, she was 
lovely, and had a gold crescent on her turban." 
 
     Half an hour later, as they were leaving the house, Carl and 
Alexandra were met in the path by a strapping fellow in overalls 
and a blue shirt.  He was breathing hard, as if he had been 
running, and was muttering to himself. 
 
     Marie ran forward, and, taking him by the arm, gave him a 
little push toward her guests. "Frank, this is Mr. Linstrum." 
 
     Frank took off his broad straw hat and nod-ded to Alexandra.  
When he spoke to Carl, he showed a fine set of white teeth.  He 
was burned a dull red down to his neckband, and there was a heavy 
three-days' stubble on his face.  Even in his agitation he was 
handsome, but he looked a rash and violent man. 
 
     Barely saluting the callers, he turned at once to his wife 
and began, in an outraged tone, "I have to leave my team to drive 
the old woman Hiller's hogs out-a my wheat.  I go to take dat old 
woman to de court if she ain't careful, I tell you!" 
 
     His wife spoke soothingly.  "But, Frank, she has only her 
lame boy to help her.  She does the best she can." 
 
     Alexandra looked at the excited man and offered a 
suggestion.  "Why don't you go over there some afternoon and hog-
tight her fences? You'd save time for yourself in the end." 
 
     Frank's neck stiffened.  "Not-a-much, I won't.  I keep my 
hogs home.  Other peoples can do like me.  See?  If that Louis 
can mend shoes, he can mend fence." 
 
     "Maybe," said Alexandra placidly; "but I've found it 
sometimes pays to mend other people's fences.  Good-bye, Marie.  
Come to see me soon." 
 
     Alexandra walked firmly down the path and Carl followed her. 
 
     Frank went into the house and threw himself on the sofa, his 
face to the wall, his clenched fist on his hip.  Marie, having 
seen her guests off, came in and put her hand coaxingly on his 
shoulder. 
 
     "Poor Frank!  You've run until you've made your head ache, 
now haven't you?  Let me make you some coffee." 
 
     "What else am I to do?" he cried hotly in Bohemian.  "Am I 
to let any old woman's hogs root up my wheat?  Is that what I 
work myself to death for?" 
 
     "Don't worry about it, Frank.  I'll speak to Mrs. Hiller 
again.  But, really, she almost cried last time they got out, she 
was so sorry." 
 
     Frank bounced over on his other side. "That's it; you always 
side with them against me.  They all know it.  Anybody here feels 
free to borrow the mower and break it, or turn their hogs in on 
me.  They know you won't care!" 
 
     Marie hurried away to make his coffee. When she came back, 
he was fast asleep.  She sat down and looked at him for a long 
while, very thoughtfully.  When the kitchen clock struck six she 
went out to get supper, closing the door gently behind her.  She 
was always sorry for Frank when he worked himself into one of 
these rages, and she was sorry to have him rough and quarrelsome 
with his neighbors. She was perfectly aware that the neighbors 
had a good deal to put up with, and that they bore with Frank for 
her sake. 
 
 
 
                               VII 
 
 
     Marie's father, Albert Tovesky, was one of the more 
intelligent Bohemians who came West in the early seventies.  He 
settled in Omaha and became a leader and adviser among his people 
there.  Marie was his youngest child, by a second wife, and was 
the apple of his eye.  She was barely sixteen, and was in the 
graduating class of the Omaha High School, when Frank Shabata 
arrived from the old coun-try and set all the Bohemian girls in a 
flutter. He was easily the buck of the beer-gardens, and on 
Sunday he was a sight to see, with his silk hat and tucked shirt 
and blue frock-coat, wearing gloves and carrying a little wisp of 
a yellow cane.  He was tall and fair, with splendid teeth and 
close-cropped yellow curls, and he wore a slightly disdainful 
expression, proper for a young man with high connections, whose 
mother had a big farm in the Elbe valley.  There was often an 
interesting discontent in his blue eyes, and every Bohemian girl 
he met imagined herself the cause of that unsatisfied expression. 
He had a way of drawing out his cambric hand-kerchief slowly, by 
one corner, from his breast-pocket, that was melancholy and 
romantic in the extreme.  He took a little flight with each of 
the more eligible Bohemian girls, but it was when he was with 
little Marie Tovesky that he drew his handkerchief out most 
slowly, and, after he had lit a fresh cigar, dropped the match 
most despairingly.  Any one could see, with half an eye, that his 
proud heart was bleeding for somebody. 
 
     One Sunday, late in the summer after Marie's graduation, she 
met Frank at a Bohemian pic-nic down the river and went rowing 
with him all the afternoon.  When she got home that even-ing she 
went straight to her father's room and told him that she was 
engaged to Shabata.  Old Tovesky was having a comfortable pipe 
before he went to bed.  When he heard his daughter's 
announcement, he first prudently corked his beer bottle and then 
leaped to his feet and had a turn of temper.  He characterized 
Frank Shabata by a Bohemian expression which is the equivalent of 
stuffed shirt. 
 
     "Why don't he go to work like the rest of us did?  His farm 
in the Elbe valley, indeed! Ain't he got plenty brothers and 
sisters?  It's his mother's farm, and why don't he stay at home 
and help her?  Haven't I seen his mother out in the morning at 
five o'clock with her ladle and her big bucket on wheels, putting 
liquid manure on the cabbages?  Don't I know the look of old Eva 
Shabata's hands?  Like an old horse's hoofs they are--and this 
fellow wearing gloves and rings!  Engaged, indeed! You aren't fit 
to be out of school, and that's what's the matter with you.  I 
will send you off to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in St. 
Louis, and they will teach you some sense, ~I~ guess!" 
 
     Accordingly, the very next week, Albert Tovesky took his 
daughter, pale and tearful, down the river to the convent.  But 
the way to make Frank want anything was to tell him he couldn't 
have it.  He managed to have an in-terview with Marie before she 
went away, and whereas he had been only half in love with her 
before, he now persuaded himself that he would not stop at 
anything.  Marie took with her to the convent, under the canvas 
lining of her trunk, the results of a laborious and satisfying 
morning on Frank's part; no less than a dozen photographs of 
himself, taken in a dozen differ-ent love-lorn attitudes.  There 
was a little round photograph for her watch-case, photographs for 
her wall and dresser, and even long nar-row ones to be used as 
bookmarks.  More than once the handsome gentleman was torn to 
pieces before the French class by an indignant nun. 
 
     Marie pined in the convent for a year, until her eighteenth 
birthday was passed.  Then she met Frank Shabata in the Union 
Station in St. Louis and ran away with him.  Old Tovesky forgave 
his daughter because there was nothing else to do, and bought her 
a farm in the country that she had loved so well as a child.  
Since then her story had been a part of the history of the 
Divide.  She and Frank had been living there for five years when 
Carl Linstrum came back to pay his long deferred visit to 
Alexandra.  Frank had, on the whole, done better than one might 
have expected.  He had flung himself at the soil with savage 
energy.  Once a year he went to Hastings or to Omaha, on a spree.  
He stayed away for a week or two, and then came home and worked 
like a demon.  He did work; if he felt sorry for himself, that 
was his own affair. 
 
 
 
                               VIII 
 
 
     On the evening of the day of Alexandra's call at the 
Shabatas', a heavy rain set in.  Frank sat up until a late hour 
reading the Sunday newspa-pers.  One of the Goulds was getting a 
divorce, and Frank took it as a personal affront.  In printing 
the story of the young man's mar-ital troubles, the knowing 
editor gave a suffi-ciently colored account of his career, 
stating the amount of his income and the manner in which he was 
supposed to spend it.  Frank read English slowly, and the more he 
read about this divorce case, the angrier he grew.  At last he 
threw down the page with a snort.  He turned to his farm-hand who 
was reading the other half of the paper. 
 
     "By God! if I have that young feller in de hayfield once, I 
show him someting.  Listen here what he do wit his money."  And 
Frank began the catalogue of the young man's reputed 
extravagances. 
 
     Marie sighed.  She thought it hard that the Goulds, for whom 
she had nothing but good will, should make her so much trouble.  
She hated to see the Sunday newspapers come into the house.  
Frank was always reading about the doings of rich people and 
feeling outraged.  He had an inexhaustible stock of stories about 
their crimes and follies, how they bribed the courts and shot 
down their butlers with impunity whenever they chose.  Frank and 
Lou Bergson had very similar ideas, and they were two of the 
political agitators of the county. 
 
     The next morning broke clear and brilliant, but Frank said 
the ground was too wet to plough, so he took the cart and drove 
over to Sainte-Agnes to spend the day at Moses Mar-cel's saloon.  
After he was gone, Marie went out to the back porch to begin her 
butter-making.  A brisk wind had come up and was driving puffy 
white clouds across the sky.  The orchard was sparkling and 
rippling in the sun.  Marie stood looking toward it wistfully, 
her hand on the lid of the churn, when she heard a sharp ring in 
the air, the merry sound of the whetstone on the scythe.  That 
invitation decided her.  She ran into the house, put on a short 
skirt and a pair of her husband's boots, caught up a tin pail and 
started for the orchard.  Emil had already be-gun work and was 
mowing vigorously.  When he saw her coming, he stopped and wiped 
his brow. His yellow canvas leggings and khaki trousers were 
splashed to the knees. 
 
     "Don't let me disturb you, Emil.  I'm going to pick 
cherries.  Isn't everything beautiful after the rain?  Oh, but 
I'm glad to get this place mowed!  When I heard it raining in the 
night, I thought maybe you would come and do it for me to-day.  
The wind wakened me. Didn't it blow dreadfully?  Just smell the 
wild roses!  They are always so spicy after a rain. We never had 
so many of them in here before. I suppose it's the wet season.  
Will you have to cut them, too?" 
 
     "If I cut the grass, I will," Emil said teas-ingly.  "What's 
the matter with you?  What makes you so flighty?" 
 
     "Am I flighty?  I suppose that's the wet sea-son, too, then.  
It's exciting to see everything growing so fast,--and to get the 
grass cut! Please leave the roses till last, if you must cut 
them.  Oh, I don't mean all of them, I mean that low place down 
by my tree, where there are so many.  Aren't you splashed!  Look 
at the spider-webs all over the grass.  Good-bye. I'll call you 
if I see a snake." 
 
     She tripped away and Emil stood looking after her.  In a few 
moments he heard the cher-ries dropping smartly into the pail, 
and he began to swing his scythe with that long, even stroke that 
few American boys ever learn. Marie picked cherries and sang 
softly to herself, stripping one glittering branch after another, 
shivering when she caught a shower of rain-drops on her neck and 
hair.  And Emil mowed his way slowly down toward the cherry 
trees. 
 
     That summer the rains had been so many and opportune that it 
was almost more than Shabata and his man could do to keep up with 
the corn; the orchard was a neglected wilder-ness.  All sorts of 
weeds and herbs and flowers had grown up there; splotches of wild 
larkspur, pale green-and-white spikes of hoarhound, plantations 
of wild cotton, tangles of foxtail and wild wheat.  South of the 
apricot trees, cor-nering on the wheatfield, was Frank's alfalfa, 
where myriads of white and yellow butterflies were always 
fluttering above the purple blos-soms.  When Emil reached the 
lower corner by the hedge, Marie was sitting under her white 
mulberry tree, the pailful of cherries beside her, looking off at 
the gentle, tireless swelling of the wheat. 
 
     "Emil," she said suddenly--he was mowing quietly about under 
the tree so as not to disturb her--"what religion did the Swedes 
have away back, before they were Christians?" 
 
     Emil paused and straightened his back.  "I don't know.  
About like the Germans', wasn't it?" 
 
     Marie went on as if she had not heard him. "The Bohemians, 
you know, were tree wor-shipers before the missionaries came.  
Father says the people in the mountains still do queer things, 
sometimes,--they believe that trees bring good or bad luck." 
 
     Emil looked superior.  "Do they?  Well, which are the lucky 
trees?  I'd like to know." 
 
     "I don't know all of them, but I know lindens are.  The old 
people in the mountains plant lindens to purify the forest, and 
to do away with the spells that come from the old trees they say 
have lasted from heathen times. I'm a good Catholic, but I think 
I could get along with caring for trees, if I hadn't anything 
else." 
 
     "That's a poor saying," said Emil, stooping over to wipe his 
hands in the wet grass. 
 
     "Why is it?  If I feel that way, I feel that way.  I like 
trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to 
live than other things do.  I feel as if this tree knows 
everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to 
it, I never have to re-mind it of anything; I begin just where I 
left off." 
 
     Emil had nothing to say to this.  He reached up among the 
branches and began to pick the sweet, insipid fruit,--long ivory-
colored ber-ries, tipped with faint pink, like white coral, that 
fall to the ground unheeded all summer through.  He dropped a 
handful into her lap. 
 
     "Do you like Mr. Linstrum?" Marie asked suddenly. 
 
     "Yes.  Don't you?" 
 
     "Oh, ever so much; only he seems kind of staid and school-
teachery.  But, of course, he is older than Frank, even.  I'm 
sure I don't want to live to be more than thirty, do you?  Do you 
think Alexandra likes him very much?" 
 
     "I suppose so.  They were old friends." 
 
     "Oh, Emil, you know what I mean!"  Marie tossed her head 
impatiently.  "Does she really care about him?  When she used to 
tell me about him, I always wondered whether she wasn't a little 
in love with him." 
 
     "Who, Alexandra?"  Emil laughed and thrust his hands into 
his trousers pockets. "Alexandra's never been in love, you 
crazy!" He laughed again.  "She wouldn't know how to go about it.  
The idea!" 
 
     Marie shrugged her shoulders.  "Oh, you don't know Alexandra 
as well as you think you do!  If you had any eyes, you would see 
that she is very fond of him.  It would serve you all right if 
she walked off with Carl.  I like him because he appreciates her 
more than you do." 
 
     Emil frowned.  "What are you talking about, Marie?  
Alexandra's all right.  She and I have always been good friends.  
What more do you want?  I like to talk to Carl about New York and 
what a fellow can do there." 
 
     "Oh, Emil!  Surely you are not thinking of going off there?" 
 
     "Why not?  I must go somewhere, mustn't I?"  The young man 
took up his scythe and leaned on it.  "Would you rather I went 
off in the sand hills and lived like Ivar?" 
 
     Marie's face fell under his brooding gaze.  She looked down 
at his wet leggings.  "I'm sure Alexandra hopes you will stay on 
here," she murmured. 
 
     "Then Alexandra will be disappointed," the young man said 
roughly.  "What do I want to hang around here for?  Alexandra can 
run the farm all right, without me.  I don't want to stand around 
and look on.  I want to be doing something on my own account." 
 
     "That's so," Marie sighed.  "There are so many, many things 
you can do.  Almost any-thing you choose." 
 
     "And there are so many, many things I can't do."  Emil 
echoed her tone sarcastically.  "Some-times I don't want to do 
anything at all, and sometimes I want to pull the four corners of 
the Divide together,"--he threw out his arm and brought it back 
with a jerk,--"so, like a table-cloth.  I get tired of seeing men 
and horses going up and down, up and down." 
 
     Marie looked up at his defiant figure and her face clouded.  
"I wish you weren't so restless, and didn't get so worked up over 
things," she said sadly. 
 
     "Thank you," he returned shortly. 
 
     She sighed despondently.  "Everything I say makes you cross, 
don't it?  And you never used to be cross to me." 
 
     Emil took a step nearer and stood frowning down at her bent 
head.  He stood in an attitude of self-defense, his feet well 
apart, his hands clenched and drawn up at his sides, so that the 
cords stood out on his bare arms.  "I can't play with you like a 
little boy any more," he said slowly.  "That's what you miss, 
Marie.  You'll have to get some other little boy to play with." 
He stopped and took a deep breath.  Then he went on in a low 
tone, so intense that it was almost threatening: "Sometimes you 
seem to understand perfectly, and then sometimes you pretend you 
don't.  You don't help things any by pretending.  It's then that 
I want to pull the corners of the Divide together.  If you WON'T 
understand, you know, I could make you!" 
 
     Marie clasped her hands and started up from her seat.  She 
had grown very pale and her eyes were shining with excitement and 
distress. "But, Emil, if I understand, then all our good times 
are over, we can never do nice things to-gether any more.  We 
shall have to behave like Mr. Linstrum.  And, anyhow, there's 
nothing to understand!"  She struck the ground with her little 
foot fiercely.  "That won't last.  It will go away, and things 
will be just as they used to.  I wish you were a Catholic.  The 
Church helps people, indeed it does.  I pray for you, but that's 
not the same as if you prayed yourself." 
 
     She spoke rapidly and pleadingly, looked entreatingly into 
his face.  Emil stood defiant, gazing down at her. 
 
     "I can't pray to have the things I want," he said slowly, 
"and I won't pray not to have them, not if I'm damned for it." 
 
     Marie turned away, wringing her hands. "Oh, Emil, you won't 
try!  Then all our good times are over." 
 
     "Yes; over.  I never expect to have any more." 
 
     Emil gripped the hand-holds of his scythe and began to mow.  
Marie took up her cherries and went slowly toward the house, 
crying bitterly. 
 
 
 
                     IX 
 
 
     On Sunday afternoon, a month after Carl Linstrum's arrival, 
he rode with Emil up into the French country to attend a Catholic 
fair. He sat for most of the afternoon in the base-ment of the 
church, where the fair was held, talking to Marie Shabata, or 
strolled about the gravel terrace, thrown up on the hillside in 
front of the basement doors, where the French boys were jumping 
and wrestling and throwing the discus.  Some of the boys were in 
their white baseball suits; they had just come up from a Sunday 
practice game down in the ball-grounds.  Amedee, the newly 
married, Emil's best friend, was their pitcher, renowned among 
the country towns for his dash and skill. Amedee was a little 
fellow, a year younger than Emil and much more boyish in 
appearance; very lithe and active and neatly made, with a clear 
brown and white skin, and flashing white teeth.  The Sainte-Agnes 
boys were to play the Hastings nine in a fortnight, and Amedee's 
lightning balls were the hope of his team.  The little Frenchman 
seemed to get every ounce there was in him behind the ball as it 
left his hand. 
 
     "You'd have made the battery at the Univer-sity for sure, 
'Medee," Emil said as they were walking from the ball-grounds 
back to the church on the hill.  "You're pitching better than you 
did in the spring." 
 
     Amedee grinned.  "Sure!  A married man don't lose his head 
no more."  He slapped Emil on the back as he caught step with 
him.  "Oh, Emil, you wanna get married right off quick! It's the 
greatest thing ever!" 
 
     Emil laughed.  "How am I going to get mar-ried without any 
girl?" 
 
     Amedee took his arm.  "Pooh!  There are plenty girls will 
have you.  You wanna get some nice French girl, now.  She treat 
you well; always be jolly.  See,"--he began checking off on his 
fingers,--"there is Severine, and Alphosen, and Josephine, and 
Hectorine, and Louise, and Malvina--why, I could love any of them 
girls!  Why don't you get after them? Are you stuck up, Emil, or 
is anything the matter with you?  I never did know a boy twenty-
two years old before that didn't have no girl.  You wanna be a 
priest, maybe?  Not-a for me!"  Amedee swaggered.  "I bring many 
good Catholics into this world, I hope, and that's a way I help 
the Church." 
 
     Emil looked down and patted him on the shoulder.  "Now 
you're windy, 'Medee.  You Frenchies like to brag." 
 
     But Amedee had the zeal of the newly mar-ried, and he was 
not to be lightly shaken off. "Honest and true, Emil, don't you 
want ANY girl?  Maybe there's some young lady in Lin-coln, now, 
very grand,"--Amedee waved his hand languidly before his face to 
denote the fan of heartless beauty,--"and you lost your heart up 
there.  Is that it?" 
 
     "Maybe," said Emil. 
 
     But Amedee saw no appropriate glow in his friend's face.  
"Bah!" he exclaimed in disgust. "I tell all the French girls to 
keep 'way from you.  You gotta rock in there," thumping Emil on 
the ribs. 
 
     When they reached the terrace at the side of the church, 
Amedee, who was excited by his success on the ball-grounds, 
challenged Emil to a jumping-match, though he knew he would be 
beaten.  They belted themselves up, and Raoul Marcel, the choir 
tenor and Father Duchesne's pet, and Jean Bordelau, held the 
string over which they vaulted.  All the French boys stood round, 
cheering and hump-ing themselves up when Emil or Amedee went over 
the wire, as if they were helping in the lift. Emil stopped at 
five-feet-five, declaring that he would spoil his appetite for 
supper if he jumped any more. 
 
     Angelique, Amedee's pretty bride, as blonde and fair as her 
name, who had come out to watch the match, tossed her head at 
Emil and said:--
 
     "'Medee could jump much higher than you if he were as tall.  
And anyhow, he is much more graceful.  He goes over like a bird, 
and you have to hump yourself all up." 
 
     "Oh, I do, do I?"  Emil caught her and kissed her saucy 
mouth squarely, while she laughed and struggled and called, 
"'Medee! 'Medee!" 
 
     "There, you see your 'Medee isn't even big enough to get you 
away from me.  I could run away with you right now and he could 
only sit down and cry about it.  I'll show you whether I have to 
hump myself!"  Laughing and pant-ing, he picked Angelique up in 
his arms and began running about the rectangle with her. Not 
until he saw Marie Shabata's tiger eyes flashing from the gloom 
of the basement door-way did he hand the disheveled bride over to 
her husband.  "There, go to your graceful; I haven't the heart to 
take you away from him." 
 
     Angelique clung to her husband and made faces at Emil over 
the white shoulder of Amedee's ball-shirt.  Emil was greatly 
amused at her air of proprietorship and at Amedee's shameless 
submission to it.  He was delighted with his friend's good 
fortune.  He liked to see and to think about Amedee's sunny, 
natural, happy love. 
 
     He and Amedee had ridden and wrestled and larked together 
since they were lads of twelve. On Sundays and holidays they were 
always arm in arm.  It seemed strange that now he should have to 
hide the thing that Amedee was so proud of, that the feeling 
which gave one of them such happiness should bring the other such 
despair.  It was like that when Alexandra tested her seed-corn in 
the spring, he mused. From two ears that had grown side by side, 
the grains of one shot up joyfully into the light, projecting 
themselves into the future, and the grains from the other lay 
still in the earth and rotted; and nobody knew why. 
 
 
 
                     X 
 
 
     While Emil and Carl were amusing them-selves at the fair, 
Alexandra was at home, busy with her account-books, which had 
been ne-glected of late.  She was almost through with her figures 
when she heard a cart drive up to the gate, and looking out of 
the window she saw her two older brothers.  They had seemed to 
avoid her ever since Carl Linstrum's arrival, four weeks ago that 
day, and she hurried to the door to welcome them.  She saw at 
once that they had come with some very definite purpose. They 
followed her stiffly into the sitting-room. Oscar sat down, but 
Lou walked over to the window and remained standing, his hands 
be-hind him. 
 
     "You are by yourself?" he asked, looking toward the doorway 
into the parlor. 
 
     "Yes.  Carl and Emil went up to the Catho-lic fair." 
 
     For a few moments neither of the men spoke. 
 
     Then Lou came out sharply.  "How soon does he intend to go 
away from here?" 
 
     "I don't know, Lou.  Not for some time, I hope."  Alexandra 
spoke in an even, quiet tone that often exasperated her brothers.  
They felt that she was trying to be superior with them. 
 
     Oscar spoke up grimly.  "We thought we ought to tell you 
that people have begun to talk," he said meaningly. 
 
     Alexandra looked at him.  "What about?" 
 
     Oscar met her eyes blankly.  "About you, keeping him here so 
long.  It looks bad for him to be hanging on to a woman this way.  
People think you're getting taken in." 
 
     Alexandra shut her account-book firmly. "Boys," she said 
seriously, "don't let's go on with this.  We won't come out 
anywhere.  I can't take advice on such a matter.  I know you mean 
well, but you must not feel responsible for me in things of this 
sort.  If we go on with this talk it will only make hard 
feeling." 
 
     Lou whipped about from the window.  "You ought to think a 
little about your family. You're making us all ridiculous." 
 
     "How am I?" 
 
     "People are beginning to say you want to marry the fellow." 
 
     "Well, and what is ridiculous about that?" 
 
     Lou and Oscar exchanged outraged looks. "Alexandra!  Can't 
you see he's just a tramp and he's after your money?  He wants to 
be taken care of, he does!" 
 
     "Well, suppose I want to take care of him? Whose business is 
it but my own?" 
 
     "Don't you know he'd get hold of your property?" 
 
     "He'd get hold of what I wished to give him, certainly." 
 
     Oscar sat up suddenly and Lou clutched at his bristly hair. 
 
     "Give him?" Lou shouted.  "Our property, our homestead?" 
 
     "I don't know about the homestead," said Alexandra quietly.  
"I know you and Oscar have always expected that it would be left 
to your children, and I'm not sure but what you're right.  But 
I'll do exactly as I please with the rest of my land, boys." 
 
     "The rest of your land!" cried Lou, growing more excited 
every minute.  "Didn't all the land come out of the homestead?  
It was bought with money borrowed on the homestead, and Oscar and 
me worked ourselves to the bone paying interest on it." 
 
     "Yes, you paid the interest.  But when you married we made a 
division of the land, and you were satisfied.  I've made more on 
my farms since I've been alone than when we all worked together." 
 
     "Everything you've made has come out of the original land 
that us boys worked for, hasn't it?  The farms and all that comes 
out of them belongs to us as a family." 
 
     Alexandra waved her hand impatiently. "Come now, Lou.  Stick 
to the facts.  You are talking nonsense.  Go to the county clerk 
and ask him who owns my land, and whether my titles are good." 
 
     Lou turned to his brother.  "This is what comes of letting a 
woman meddle in business," he said bitterly.  "We ought to have 
taken things in our own hands years ago.  But she liked to run 
things, and we humored her.  We thought you had good sense, 
Alexandra.  We never thought you'd do anything foolish." 
 
     Alexandra rapped impatiently on her desk with her knuckles.  
"Listen, Lou.  Don't talk wild.  You say you ought to have taken 
things into your own hands years ago.  I suppose you mean before 
you left home.  But how could you take hold of what wasn't there?  
I've got most of what I have now since we divided the prop-erty; 
I've built it up myself, and it has nothing to do with you." 
 
     Oscar spoke up solemnly.  "The property of a family really 
belongs to the men of the family, no matter about the title.  If 
anything goes wrong, it's the men that are held responsible." 
 
     "Yes, of course," Lou broke in.  "Everybody knows that.  
Oscar and me have always been easy-going and we've never made any 
fuss. We were willing you should hold the land and have the good 
of it, but you got no right to part with any of it.  We worked in 
the fields to pay for the first land you bought, and what-ever's 
come out of it has got to be kept in the family." 
 
     Oscar reinforced his brother, his mind fixed on the one 
point he could see.  "The property of a family belongs to the men 
of the family, because they are held responsible, and because 
they do the work." 
 
     Alexandra looked from one to the other, her eyes full of 
indignation.  She had been impa-tient before, but now she was 
beginning to feel angry.  "And what about my work?" she asked in 
an unsteady voice. 
 
     Lou looked at the carpet.  "Oh, now, Alex-andra, you always 
took it pretty easy!  Of course we wanted you to.  You liked to 
manage round, and we always humored you.  We realize you were a 
great deal of help to us.  There's no woman anywhere around that 
knows as much about business as you do, and we've always been 
proud of that, and thought you were pretty smart.  But, of 
course, the real work always fell on us.  Good advice is all 
right, but it don't get the weeds out of the corn." 
 
     "Maybe not, but it sometimes puts in the crop, and it 
sometimes keeps the fields for corn to grow in," said Alexandra 
dryly.  "Why, Lou, I can remember when you and Oscar wanted to 
sell this homestead and all the im-provements to old preacher 
Ericson for two thousand dollars.  If I'd consented, you'd have 
gone down to the river and scraped along on poor farms for the 
rest of your lives.  When I put in our first field of alfalfa you 
both opposed me, just because I first heard about it from a young 
man who had been to the University. You said I was being taken in 
then, and all the neighbors said so.  You know as well as I do 
that alfalfa has been the salvation of this coun-try.  You all 
laughed at me when I said our land here was about ready for 
wheat, and I had to raise three big wheat crops before the neigh-
bors quit putting all their land in corn.  Why, I remember you 
cried, Lou, when we put in the first big wheat-planting, and said 
everybody was laughing at us." 
 
     Lou turned to Oscar.  "That's the woman of it; if she tells 
you to put in a crop, she thinks she's put it in.  It makes women 
conceited to meddle in business.  I shouldn't think you'd want to 
remind us how hard you were on us, Alexandra, after the way you 
baby Emil." 
 
     "Hard on you?  I never meant to be hard. Conditions were 
hard.  Maybe I would never have been very soft, anyhow; but I 
certainly didn't choose to be the kind of girl I was.  If you 
take even a vine and cut it back again and again, it grows hard, 
like a tree." 
 
     Lou felt that they were wandering from the point, and that 
in digression Alexandra might unnerve him.  He wiped his forehead 
with a jerk of his handkerchief.  "We never doubted you, 
Alexandra.  We never questioned any-thing you did.  You've always 
had your own way.  But you can't expect us to sit like stumps and 
see you done out of the property by any loafer who happens along, 
and making yourself ridiculous into the bargain." 
 
     Oscar rose.  "Yes," he broke in, "every-body's laughing to 
see you get took in; at your age, too.  Everybody knows he's 
nearly five years younger than you, and is after your money.  
Why, Alexandra, you are forty years old!" 
 
     "All that doesn't concern anybody but Carl and me.  Go to 
town and ask your lawyers what you can do to restrain me from 
disposing of my own property.  And I advise you to do what they 
tell you; for the authority you can exert by law is the only 
influence you will ever have over me again."  Alexandra rose.  "I 
think I would rather not have lived to find out what I have to-
day," she said quietly, closing her desk. 
 
     Lou and Oscar looked at each other ques-tioningly.  There 
seemed to be nothing to do but to go, and they walked out. 
 
     "You can't do business with women," Oscar said heavily as he 
clambered into the cart. "But anyhow, we've had our say, at 
last." 
 
     Lou scratched his head.  "Talk of that kind might come too 
high, you know; but she's apt to be sensible.  You hadn't ought 
to said that about her age, though, Oscar.  I'm afraid that hurt 
her feelings; and the worst thing we can do is to make her sore 
at us.  She'd marry him out of contrariness." 
 
     "I only meant," said Oscar, "that she is old enough to know 
better, and she is.  If she was going to marry, she ought to done 
it long ago, and not go making a fool of herself now." 
 
     Lou looked anxious, nevertheless.  "Of course," he reflected 
hopefully and incon-sistently, "Alexandra ain't much like other 
women-folks.  Maybe it won't make her sore. Maybe she'd as soon 
be forty as not!" 
 
 
 
                     XI 
 
 
     Emil came home at about half-past seven o'clock that 
evening.  Old Ivar met him at the windmill and took his horse, 
and the young man went directly into the house.  He called to his 
sister and she answered from her bedroom, behind the sitting-
room, saying that she was lying down. 
 
     Emil went to her door. 
 
     "Can I see you for a minute?" he asked.  "I want to talk to 
you about something before Carl comes." 
 
     Alexandra rose quickly and came to the door. "Where is 
Carl?" 
 
     "Lou and Oscar met us and said they wanted to talk to him, 
so he rode over to Oscar's with them.  Are you coming out?" Emil 
asked impatiently. 
 
     "Yes, sit down.  I'll be dressed in a mo-ment." 
 
     Alexandra closed her door, and Emil sank down on the old 
slat lounge and sat with his head in his hands.  When his sister 
came out, he looked up, not knowing whether the interval had been 
short or long, and he was surprised to see that the room had 
grown quite dark.  That was just as well; it would be easier to 
talk if he were not under the gaze of those clear, deliber-ate 
eyes, that saw so far in some directions and were so blind in 
others.  Alexandra, too, was glad of the dusk.  Her face was 
swollen from crying. 
 
     Emil started up and then sat down again. "Alexandra," he 
said slowly, in his deep young baritone, "I don't want to go away 
to law school this fall.  Let me put it off another year. I want 
to take a year off and look around.  It's awfully easy to rush 
into a profession you don't really like, and awfully hard to get 
out of it. Linstrum and I have been talking about that." 
 
     "Very well, Emil.  Only don't go off looking for land."  She 
came up and put her hand on his shoulder.  "I've been wishing you 
could stay with me this winter." 
 
     "That's just what I don't want to do, Alex-andra.  I'm 
restless.  I want to go to a new place. I want to go down to the 
City of Mexico to join one of the University fellows who's at the 
head of an electrical plant.  He wrote me he could give me a 
little job, enough to pay my way, and I could look around and see 
what I want to do. I want to go as soon as harvest is over.  I 
guess Lou and Oscar will be sore about it." 
 
     "I suppose they will."  Alexandra sat down on the lounge 
beside him.  "They are very angry with me, Emil.  We have had a 
quarrel. They will not come here again." 
 
     Emil scarcely heard what she was saying; he did not notice 
the sadness of her tone.  He was thinking about the reckless life 
he meant to live in Mexico. 
 
     "What about?" he asked absently. 
 
     "About Carl Linstrum.  They are afraid I am going to marry 
him, and that some of my property will get away from them." 
 
     Emil shrugged his shoulders.  "What non-sense!" he murmured.  
"Just like them." 
 
     Alexandra drew back.  "Why nonsense, Emil?" 
 
     "Why, you've never thought of such a thing, have you?  They 
always have to have something to fuss about." 
 
     "Emil," said his sister slowly, "you ought not to take 
things for granted.  Do you agree with them that I have no right 
to change my way of living?" 
 
     Emil looked at the outline of his sister's head in the dim 
light.  They were sitting close to-gether and he somehow felt 
that she could hear his thoughts.  He was silent for a mo-ment, 
and then said in an embarrassed tone, "Why, no, certainly not.  
You ought to do whatever you want to.  I'll always back you." 
 
     "But it would seem a little bit ridiculous to you if I 
married Carl?" 
 
     Emil fidgeted.  The issue seemed to him too far-fetched to 
warrant discussion.  "Why, no. I should be surprised if you 
wanted to.  I can't see exactly why.  But that's none of my busi-
ness.  You ought to do as you please.  Certainly you ought not to 
pay any attention to what the boys say." 
 
     Alexandra sighed.  "I had hoped you might understand, a 
little, why I do want to.  But I suppose that's too much to 
expect.  I've had a pretty lonely life, Emil.  Besides Marie, 
Carl is the only friend I have ever had." 
 
     Emil was awake now; a name in her last sen-tence roused him.  
He put out his hand and took his sister's awkwardly.  "You ought 
to do just as you wish, and I think Carl's a fine fel-low.  He 
and I would always get on.  I don't believe any of the things the 
boys say about him, honest I don't.  They are suspicious of him 
because he's intelligent.  You know their way. They've been sore 
at me ever since you let me go away to college.  They're always 
trying to catch me up.  If I were you, I wouldn't pay any 
attention to them.  There's nothing to get upset about.  Carl's a 
sensible fellow.  He won't mind them." 
 
     "I don't know.  If they talk to him the way they did to me, 
I think he'll go away." 
 
     Emil grew more and more uneasy.  "Think so?  Well, Marie 
said it would serve us all right if you walked off with him." 
 
     "Did she?  Bless her little heart!  SHE would." Alexandra's 
voice broke. 
 
     Emil began unlacing his leggings.  "Why don't you talk to 
her about it?  There's Carl, I hear his horse.  I guess I'll go 
upstairs and get my boots off.  No, I don't want any supper.  We 
had supper at five o'clock, at the fair." 
 
     Emil was glad to escape and get to his own room.  He was a 
little ashamed for his sister, though he had tried not to show 
it.  He felt that there was something indecorous in her proposal, 
and she did seem to him somewhat ridiculous.  There was trouble 
enough in the world, he reflected, as he threw himself upon his 
bed, without people who were forty years old imagining they 
wanted to get married.  In the darkness and silence Emil was not 
likely to think long about Alexandra.  Every image slipped away 
but one.  He had seen Marie in the crowd that afternoon.  She 
sold candy at the fair.  WHY had she ever run away with Frank 
Shabata, and how could she go on laughing and working and taking 
an interest in things?  Why did she like so many people, and why 
had she seemed pleased when all the French and Bohe-mian boys, 
and the priest himself, crowded round her candy stand?  Why did 
she care about any one but him?  Why could he never, never find 
the thing he looked for in her playful, affectionate eyes? 
 
     Then he fell to imagining that he looked once more and found 
it there, and what it would be like if she loved him,--she who, 
as Alexandra said, could give her whole heart.  In that dream he 
could lie for hours, as if in a trance.  His spirit went out of 
his body and crossed the fields to Marie Shabata. 
 
     At the University dances the girls had often looked 
wonderingly at the tall young Swede with the fine head, leaning 
against the wall and frowning, his arms folded, his eyes fixed on 
the ceiling or the floor.  All the girls were a little afraid of 
him.  He was distinguished-looking, and not the jollying kind.  
They felt that he was too intense and preoccupied.  There was 
some-thing queer about him.  Emil's fraternity rather prided 
itself upon its dances, and some-times he did his duty and danced 
every dance. But whether he was on the floor or brooding in a 
corner, he was always thinking about Marie Shabata.  For two 
years the storm had been gathering in him. 
 
 
 
                               XII 
 
 
     Carl came into the sitting-room while Alex-andra was 
lighting the lamp.  She looked up at him as she adjusted the 
shade.  His sharp shoul-ders stooped as if he were very tired, 
his face was pale, and there were bluish shadows under his dark 
eyes.  His anger had burned itself out and left him sick and 
disgusted. 
 
     "You have seen Lou and Oscar?" Alexandra asked. 
 
     "Yes."  His eyes avoided hers. 
 
     Alexandra took a deep breath.  "And now you are going away.  
I thought so." 
 
     Carl threw himself into a chair and pushed the dark lock 
back from his forehead with his white, nervous hand.  "What a 
hopeless posi-tion you are in, Alexandra!" he exclaimed 
feverishly.  "It is your fate to be always sur-rounded by little 
men.  And I am no better than the rest.  I am too little to face 
the criticism of even such men as Lou and Oscar.  Yes, I am going 
away; to-morrow.  I cannot even ask you to give me a promise 
until I have something to offer you.  I thought, perhaps, I could 
do that; but I find I can't." 
 
     "What good comes of offering people things they don't need?" 
Alexandra asked sadly.  "I don't need money.  But I have needed 
you for a great many years.  I wonder why I have been permitted 
to prosper, if it is only to take my friends away from me." 
 
     "I don't deceive myself," Carl said frankly. "I know that I 
am going away on my own account.  I must make the usual effort.  
I must have something to show for myself.  To take what you would 
give me, I should have to be either a very large man or a very 
small one, and I am only in the middle class." 
 
     Alexandra sighed.  "I have a feeling that if you go away, 
you will not come back.  Some-thing will happen to one of us, or 
to both. People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in 
this world.  It is always easier to lose than to find.  What I 
have is yours, if you care enough about me to take it." 
 
     Carl rose and looked up at the picture of John Bergson.  
"But I can't, my dear, I can't! I will go North at once.  Instead 
of idling about in California all winter, I shall be getting my 
bearings up there.  I won't waste another week. Be patient with 
me, Alexandra.  Give me a year!" 
 
     "As you will," said Alexandra wearily.  "All at once, in a 
single day, I lose everything; and I do not know why.  Emil, too, 
is going away." Carl was still studying John Bergson's face and 
Alexandra's eyes followed his.  "Yes," she said, "if he could 
have seen all that would come of the task he gave me, he would 
have been sorry.  I hope he does not see me now.  I hope that he 
is among the old people of his blood and country, and that 
tidings do not reach him from the New World." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                             PART III 
 
                         Winter Memories 
 
 
 
 
                                I 
 
 
     Winter has settled down over the Divide again; the season in 
which Nature recuperates, in which she sinks to sleep between the 
fruitful-ness of autumn and the passion of spring.  The birds 
have gone.  The teeming life that goes on down in the long grass 
is exterminated.  The prairie-dog keeps his hole.  The rabbits 
run shivering from one frozen garden patch to an-other and are 
hard put to it to find frost-bitten cabbage-stalks.  At night the 
coyotes roam the wintry waste, howling for food.  The variegated 
fields are all one color now; the pastures, the stubble, the 
roads, the sky are the same leaden gray.  The hedgerows and trees 
are scarcely per-ceptible against the bare earth, whose slaty hue 
they have taken on.  The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises 
the foot to walk in the roads or in the ploughed fields.  It is 
like an iron country, and the spirit is oppressed by its rigor 
and melancholy.  One could easily believe that in that dead 
landscape the germs of life and fruit-fulness were extinct 
forever. 
 
     Alexandra has settled back into her old routine.  There are 
weekly letters from Emil. Lou and Oscar she has not seen since 
Carl went away.  To avoid awkward encounters in the presence of 
curious spectators, she has stopped going to the Norwegian Church 
and drives up to the Reform Church at Hanover, or goes with Marie 
Shabata to the Catholic Church, locally known as "the French 
Church." She has not told Marie about Carl, or her dif-ferences 
with her brothers.  She was never very communicative about her 
own affairs, and when she came to the point, an instinct told her 
that about such things she and Marie would not understand one 
another. 
 
     Old Mrs. Lee had been afraid that family misunderstandings 
might deprive her of her yearly visit to Alexandra.  But on the 
first day of December Alexandra telephoned Annie that to-morrow 
she would send Ivar over for her mother, and the next day the old 
lady arrived with her bundles.  For twelve years Mrs. Lee had 
always entered Alexandra's sitting-room with the same 
exclamation, "Now we be yust-a like old times!"  She enjoyed the 
liberty Alex-andra gave her, and hearing her own language about 
her all day long.  Here she could wear her nightcap and sleep 
with all her windows shut, listen to Ivar reading the Bible, and 
here she could run about among the stables in a pair of Emil's 
old boots.  Though she was bent almost double, she was as spry as 
a gopher.  Her face was as brown as if it had been varnished, and 
as full of wrinkles as a washerwoman's hands.  She had three 
jolly old teeth left in the front of her mouth, and when she 
grinned she looked very knowing, as if when you found out how to 
take it, life wasn't half bad.  While she and Alex-andra patched 
and pieced and quilted, she talked incessantly about stories she 
read in a Swedish family paper, telling the plots in great 
detail; or about her life on a dairy farm in Gottland when she 
was a girl.  Sometimes she forgot which were the printed stories 
and which were the real stories, it all seemed so far away. She 
loved to take a little brandy, with hot water and sugar, before 
she went to bed, and Alexandra always had it ready for her.  "It 
sends good dreams," she would say with a twinkle in her eye. 
 
     When Mrs. Lee had been with Alexandra for a week, Marie 
Shabata telephoned one morning to say that Frank had gone to town 
for the day, and she would like them to come over for coffee in 
the afternoon.  Mrs. Lee hurried to wash out and iron her new 
cross-stitched apron, which she had finished only the night 
before; a checked gingham apron worked with a design ten inches 
broad across the bottom; a hunting scene, with fir trees and a 
stag and dogs and huntsmen. Mrs. Lee was firm with herself at 
dinner, and refused a second helping of apple dumplings. "I ta-
ank I save up," she said with a giggle. 
 
     At two o'clock in the afternoon Alexandra's cart drove up to 
the Shabatas' gate, and Marie saw Mrs. Lee's red shawl come 
bobbing up the path.  She ran to the door and pulled the old 
woman into the house with a hug, helping her to take off her 
wraps while Alexandra blan-keted the horse outside.  Mrs. Lee had 
put on her best black satine dress--she abominated woolen stuffs, 
even in winter--and a crocheted collar, fastened with a big pale 
gold pin, con-taining faded daguerreotypes of her father and 
mother.  She had not worn her apron for fear of rumpling it, and 
now she shook it out and tied it round her waist with a conscious 
air.  Marie drew back and threw up her hands, exclaiming, "Oh, 
what a beauty!  I've never seen this one before, have I, Mrs. 
Lee?" 
 
     The old woman giggled and ducked her head. "No, yust las' 
night I ma-ake.  See dis tread; verra strong, no wa-ash out, no 
fade.  My sis-ter send from Sveden.  I yust-a ta-ank you like 
dis." 
 
     Marie ran to the door again.  "Come in, Alexandra.  I have 
been looking at Mrs. Lee's apron.  Do stop on your way home and 
show it to Mrs. Hiller.  She's crazy about cross-stitch." 
 
     While Alexandra removed her hat and veil, Mrs. Lee went out 
to the kitchen and settled herself in a wooden rocking-chair by 
the stove, looking with great interest at the table, set for 
three, with a white cloth, and a pot of pink geraniums in the 
middle.  "My, a-an't you gotta fine plants; such-a much flower.  
How you keep from freeze?" 
 
     She pointed to the window-shelves, full of blooming fuchsias 
and geraniums. 
 
     "I keep the fire all night, Mrs. Lee, and when it's very 
cold I put them all on the table, in the middle of the room.  
Other nights I only put newspapers behind them.  Frank laughs at 
me for fussing, but when they don't bloom he says, 'What's the 
matter with the darned things?'--What do you hear from Carl, 
Alexandra?" 
 
     "He got to Dawson before the river froze, and now I suppose 
I won't hear any more until spring.  Before he left California he 
sent me a box of orange flowers, but they didn't keep very well.  
I have brought a bunch of Emil's letters for you."  Alexandra 
came out from the sitting-room and pinched Marie's cheek play-
fully.  "You don't look as if the weather ever froze you up.  
Never have colds, do you? That's a good girl.  She had dark red 
cheeks like this when she was a little girl, Mrs. Lee.  She 
looked like some queer foreign kind of a doll. I've never forgot 
the first time I saw you in Mieklejohn's store, Marie, the time 
father was lying sick.  Carl and I were talking about that before 
he went away." 
 
     "I remember, and Emil had his kitten along. When are you 
going to send Emil's Christmas box?" 
 
     "It ought to have gone before this.  I'll have to send it by 
mail now, to get it there in time." 
 
     Marie pulled a dark purple silk necktie from her workbasket.  
"I knit this for him.  It's a good color, don't you think?  Will 
you please put it in with your things and tell him it's from me, 
to wear when he goes serenading." 
 
     Alexandra laughed.  "I don't believe he goes serenading 
much.  He says in one letter that the Mexican ladies are said to 
be very beauti-ful, but that don't seem to me very warm praise." 
 
     Marie tossed her head.  "Emil can't fool me. If he's bought 
a guitar, he goes serenading. Who wouldn't, with all those 
Spanish girls dropping flowers down from their windows! I'd sing 
to them every night, wouldn't you, Mrs. Lee?" 
 
     The old lady chuckled.  Her eyes lit up as Marie bent down 
and opened the oven door. A delicious hot fragrance blew out into 
the tidy kitchen.  "My, somet'ing smell good!"  She turned to 
Alexandra with a wink, her three yel-low teeth making a brave 
show, "I ta-ank dat stop my yaw from ache no more!" she said con-
tentedly. 
 
     Marie took out a pan of delicate little rolls, stuffed with 
stewed apricots, and began to dust them over with powdered sugar.  
"I hope you'll like these, Mrs. Lee; Alexandra does.  The 
Bohemians always like them with their coffee. But if you don't, I 
have a coffee-cake with nuts and poppy seeds.  Alexandra, will 
you get the cream jug?  I put it in the window to keep cool." 
 
     "The Bohemians," said Alexandra, as they drew up to the 
table, "certainly know how to make more kinds of bread than any 
other peo-ple in the world.  Old Mrs. Hiller told me once at the 
church supper that she could make seven kinds of fancy bread, but 
Marie could make a dozen." 
 
     Mrs. Lee held up one of the apricot rolls between her brown 
thumb and forefinger and weighed it critically.  "Yust like-a 
fedders," she pronounced with satisfaction.  "My, a-an't dis 
nice!" she exclaimed as she stirred her coffee.  "I yust ta-ake a 
liddle yelly now, too, I ta-ank." 
 
     Alexandra and Marie laughed at her fore-handedness, and fell 
to talking of their own affairs.  "I was afraid you had a cold 
when I talked to you over the telephone the other night, Marie.  
What was the matter, had you been crying?" 
 
     "Maybe I had," Marie smiled guiltily. "Frank was out late 
that night.  Don't you get lonely sometimes in the winter, when 
every-body has gone away?" 
 
     "I thought it was something like that.  If I hadn't had 
company, I'd have run over to see for myself.  If you get down-
hearted, what will become of the rest of us?" Alexandra asked. 
 
     "I don't, very often.  There's Mrs. Lee without any coffee!" 
 
     Later, when Mrs. Lee declared that her powers were spent, 
Marie and Alexandra went upstairs to look for some crochet 
patterns the old lady wanted to borrow.  "Better put on your 
coat, Alexandra.  It's cold up there, and I have no idea where 
those patterns are.  I may have to look through my old trunks."  
Marie caught up a shawl and opened the stair door, run-ning up 
the steps ahead of her guest.  "While I go through the bureau 
drawers, you might look in those hat-boxes on the closet-shelf, 
over where Frank's clothes hang.  There are a lot of odds and 
ends in them." 
 
     She began tossing over the contents of the drawers, and 
Alexandra went into the clothes-closet.  Presently she came back, 
holding a slender elastic yellow stick in her hand. 
 
     "What in the world is this, Marie?  You don't mean to tell 
me Frank ever carried such a thing?" 
 
     Marie blinked at it with astonishment and sat down on the 
floor.  "Where did you find it? I didn't know he had kept it.  I 
haven't seen it for years." 
 
     "It really is a cane, then?" 
 
     "Yes.  One he brought from the old coun-try.  He used to 
carry it when I first knew him. Isn't it foolish?  Poor Frank!" 
 
     Alexandra twirled the stick in her fingers and laughed.  "He 
must have looked funny!" 
 
     Marie was thoughtful.  "No, he didn't, really. It didn't 
seem out of place.  He used to be awfully gay like that when he 
was a young man.  I guess people always get what's hard-est for 
them, Alexandra."  Marie gathered the shawl closer about her and 
still looked hard at the cane.  "Frank would be all right in the 
right place," she said reflectively.  "He ought to have a 
different kind of wife, for one thing.  Do you know, Alexandra, I 
could pick out exactly the right sort of woman for Frank--now. 
The trouble is you almost have to marry a man before you can find 
out the sort of wife he needs; and usually it's exactly the sort 
you are not.  Then what are you going to do about it?" she asked 
candidly. 
 
     Alexandra confessed she didn't know. "However," she added, 
"it seems to me that you get along with Frank about as well as 
any woman I've ever seen or heard of could." 
 
     Marie shook her head, pursing her lips and blowing her warm 
breath softly out into the frosty air.  "No; I was spoiled at 
home.  I like my own way, and I have a quick tongue.  When Frank 
brags, I say sharp things, and he never forgets.  He goes over 
and over it in his mind; I can feel him.  Then I'm too giddy.  
Frank's wife ought to be timid, and she ought not to care about 
another living thing in the world but just Frank!  I didn't, when 
I married him, but I suppose I was too young to stay like that." 
Marie sighed. 
 
     Alexandra had never heard Marie speak so frankly about her 
husband before, and she felt that it was wiser not to encourage 
her.  No good, she reasoned, ever came from talking about such 
things, and while Marie was think-ing aloud, Alexandra had been 
steadily search-ing the hat-boxes.  "Aren't these the pat-terns, 
Maria?" 
 
     Maria sprang up from the floor.  "Sure enough, we were 
looking for patterns, weren't we?  I'd forgot about everything 
but Frank's other wife.  I'll put that away." 
 
     She poked the cane behind Frank's Sunday clothes, and though 
she laughed, Alexandra saw there were tears in her eyes. 
 
     When they went back to the kitchen, the snow had begun to 
fall, and Marie's visitors thought they must be getting home.  
She went out to the cart with them, and tucked the robes about 
old Mrs. Lee while Alexandra took the blanket off her horse.  As 
they drove away, Marie turned and went slowly back to the house.  
She took up the package of letters Alexandra had brought, but she 
did not read them.  She turned them over and looked at the 
foreign stamps, and then sat watching the fly-ing snow while the 
dusk deepened in the kitchen and the stove sent out a red glow. 
 
     Marie knew perfectly well that Emil's letters were written 
more for her than for Alexandra. They were not the sort of 
letters that a young man writes to his sister.  They were both 
more personal and more painstaking; full of descrip-tions of the 
gay life in the old Mexican capital in the days when the strong 
hand of Porfirio Diaz was still strong.  He told about bull-
fights and cock-fights, churches and FIESTAS, the flower-markets 
and the fountains, the music and dan-cing, the people of all 
nations he met in the Italian restaurants on San Francisco 
Street.  In short, they were the kind of letters a young man 
writes to a woman when he wishes himself and his life to seem 
interesting to her, when he wishes to enlist her imagination in 
his behalf. 
 
     Marie, when she was alone or when she sat sewing in the 
evening, often thought about what it must be like down there 
where Emil was; where there were flowers and street bands 
everywhere, and carriages rattling up and down, and where there 
was a little blind boot-black in front of the cathedral who could 
play any tune you asked for by dropping the lids of blacking-
boxes on the stone steps.  When everything is done and over for 
one at twenty-three, it is pleasant to let the mind wander forth 
and follow a young adventurer who has life before him.  "And if 
it had not been for me," she thought, "Frank might still be free 
like that, and having a good time making peo-ple admire him.  
Poor Frank, getting married wasn't very good for him either.  I'm 
afraid I do set people against him, as he says.  I seem, somehow, 
to give him away all the time.  Per-haps he would try to be 
agreeable to people again, if I were not around.  It seems as if 
I always make him just as bad as he can be." 
 
     Later in the winter, Alexandra looked back upon that 
afternoon as the last satisfactory visit she had had with Marie.  
After that day the younger woman seemed to shrink more and more 
into herself.  When she was with Alexan-dra she was not 
spontaneous and frank as she used to be.  She seemed to be 
brooding over something, and holding something back.  The weather 
had a good deal to do with their seeing less of each other than 
usual.  There had not been such snowstorms in twenty years, and 
the path across the fields was drifted deep from Christ-mas until 
March.  When the two neighbors went to see each other, they had 
to go round by the wagon-road, which was twice as far.  They 
tele-phoned each other almost every night, though in January 
there was a stretch of three weeks when the wires were down, and 
when the post-man did not come at all. 
 
     Marie often ran in to see her nearest neigh-bor, old Mrs. 
Hiller, who was crippled with rheumatism and had only her son, 
the lame shoemaker, to take care of her; and she went to the 
French Church, whatever the weather.  She was a sincerely devout 
girl.  She prayed for her-self and for Frank, and for Emil, among 
the temptations of that gay, corrupt old city.  She found more 
comfort in the Church that winter than ever before.  It seemed to 
come closer to her, and to fill an emptiness that ached in her 
heart.  She tried to be patient with her hus-band.  He and his 
hired man usually played Cal-ifornia Jack in the evening.  Marie 
sat sew-ing or crocheting and tried to take a friendly interest 
in the game, but she was always thinking about the wide fields 
outside, where the snow was drifting over the fences; and about 
the orchard, where the snow was falling and packing, crust over 
crust.  When she went out into the dark kitchen to fix her plants 
for the night, she used to stand by the window and look out at 
the white fields, or watch the currents of snow whirling over the 
orchard. She seemed to feel the weight of all the snow that lay 
down there.  The branches had be-come so hard that they wounded 
your hand if you but tried to break a twig.  And yet, down under 
the frozen crusts, at the roots of the trees, the secret of life 
was still safe, warm as the blood in one's heart; and the spring 
would come again!  Oh, it would come again! 
 
 
 
                                II 
 
 
   If Alexandra had had much imagination she might have guessed 
what was going on in Marie's mind, and she would have seen long 
before what was going on in Emil's.  But that, as Emil himself 
had more than once reflected, was Alexandra's blind side, and her 
life had not been of the kind to sharpen her vision.  Her 
training had all been toward the end of making her proficient in 
what she had undertaken to do. Her personal life, her own 
realization of herself, was almost a subconscious existence; like 
an underground river that came to the surface only here and 
there, at intervals months apart, and then sank again to flow on 
under her own fields. Nevertheless, the underground stream was 
there, and it was because she had so much per-sonality to put 
into her enterprises and suc-ceeded in putting it into them so 
completely, that her affairs prospered better than those of her 
neighbors. 
 
     There were certain days in her life, out-wardly uneventful, 
which Alexandra remem-bered as peculiarly happy; days when she 
was close to the flat, fallow world about her, and felt, as it 
were, in her own body the joyous germination in the soil.  There 
were days, too, which she and Emil had spent together, upon which 
she loved to look back.  There had been such a day when they were 
down on the river in the dry year, looking over the land.  They 
had made an early start one morning and had driven a long way 
before noon.  When Emil said he was hungry, they drew back from 
the road, gave Brigham his oats among the bushes, and climbed up 
to the top of a grassy bluff to eat their lunch under the shade 
of some little elm trees.  The river was clear there, and 
shallow, since there had been no rain, and it ran in ripples over 
the sparkling sand.  Under the overhanging willows of the 
opposite bank there was an inlet where the water was deeper and 
flowed so slowly that it seemed to sleep in the sun.  In this 
little bay a single wild duck was swimming and diving and 
preening her feathers, disporting herself very happily in the 
flickering light and shade.  They sat for a long time, watching 
the solitary bird take its pleasure.  No living thing had ever 
seemed to Alexandra as beautiful as that wild duck.  Emil must 
have felt about it as she did, for afterward, when they were at 
home, he used sometimes to say, "Sister, you know our duck down 
there--"  Alexandra remembered that day as one of the happiest in 
her life.  Years afterward she thought of the duck as still 
there, swimming and diving all by herself in the sun-light, a 
kind of enchanted bird that did not know age or change. 
 
     Most of Alexandra's happy memories were as impersonal as 
this one; yet to her they were very personal.  Her mind was a 
white book, with clear writing about weather and beasts and 
growing things.  Not many people would have cared to read it; 
only a happy few.  She had never been in love, she had never 
indulged in sentimental reveries.  Even as a girl she had looked 
upon men as work-fellows.  She had grown up in serious times. 
 
     There was one fancy indeed, which persisted through her 
girlhood.  It most often came to her on Sunday mornings, the one 
day in the week when she lay late abed listening to the familiar 
morning sounds; the windmill singing in the brisk breeze, Emil 
whistling as he blacked his boots down by the kitchen door.  
Some-times, as she lay thus luxuriously idle, her eyes closed, 
she used to have an illusion of being lifted up bodily and 
carried lightly by some one very strong.  It was a man, 
certainly, who car-ried her, but he was like no man she knew; he 
was much larger and stronger and swifter, and he carried her as 
easily as if she were a sheaf of wheat.  She never saw him, but, 
with eyes closed, she could feel that he was yellow like the 
sunlight, and there was the smell of ripe corn-fields about him.  
She could feel him approach, bend over her and lift her, and then 
she could feel herself being carried swiftly off across the 
fields.  After such a reverie she would rise has-tily, angry with 
herself, and go down to the bath-house that was partitioned off 
the kitchen shed.  There she would stand in a tin tub and 
prosecute her bath with vigor, finishing it by pouring buckets of 
cold well-water over her gleaming white body which no man on the 
Divide could have carried very far. 
 
     As she grew older, this fancy more often came to her when 
she was tired than when she was fresh and strong.  Sometimes, 
after she had been in the open all day, overseeing the brand-ing 
of the cattle or the loading of the pigs, she would come in 
chilled, take a concoction of spices and warm home-made wine, and 
go to bed with her body actually aching with fatigue. Then, just 
before she went to sleep, she had the old sensation of being 
lifted and carried by a strong being who took from her all her 
bodily weariness. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                             PART IV 
 
                     The White Mulberry Tree 
 
 
 
 
                                I 
 
 
     The French Church, properly the Church of Sainte-Agnes, 
stood upon a hill.  The high, nar-row, red-brick building, with 
its tall steeple and steep roof, could be seen for miles across 
the wheatfields, though the little town of Sainte-Agnes was 
completely hidden away at the foot of the hill.  The church 
looked powerful and triumphant there on its eminence, so high 
above the rest of the landscape, with miles of warm color lying 
at its feet, and by its position and setting it reminded one of 
some of the churches built long ago in the wheat-lands of middle 
France. 
 
     Late one June afternoon Alexandra Bergson was driving along 
one of the many roads that led through the rich French farming 
country to the big church.  The sunlight was shining di-rectly in 
her face, and there was a blaze of light all about the red church 
on the hill.  Beside Alexandra lounged a strikingly exotic figure 
in a tall Mexican hat, a silk sash, and a black vel-vet jacket 
sewn with silver buttons.  Emil had returned only the night 
before, and his sister was so proud of him that she decided at 
once to take him up to the church supper, and to make him wear 
the Mexican costume he had brought home in his trunk.  "All the 
girls who have stands are going to wear fancy costumes," she 
argued, "and some of the boys.  Marie is going to tell fortunes, 
and she sent to Omaha for a Bohemian dress her father brought 
back from a visit to the old country.  If you wear those clothes, 
they will all be pleased.  And you must take your guitar.  
Everybody ought to do what they can to help along, and we have 
never done much.  We are not a talented family." 
 
     The supper was to be at six o'clock, in the basement of the 
church, and afterward there would be a fair, with charades and an 
auction. Alexandra had set out from home early, leaving the house 
to Signa and Nelse Jensen, who were to be married next week.  
Signa had shyly asked to have the wedding put off until Emil came 
home. 
 
     Alexandra was well satisfied with her brother. As they drove 
through the rolling French coun-try toward the westering sun and 
the stalwart church, she was thinking of that time long ago when 
she and Emil drove back from the river valley to the still 
unconquered Divide.  Yes, she told herself, it had been worth 
while; both Emil and the country had become what she had hoped.  
Out of her father's children there was one who was fit to cope 
with the world, who had not been tied to the plow, and who had a 
per-sonality apart from the soil.  And that, she reflected, was 
what she had worked for.  She felt well satisfied with her life. 
 
     When they reached the church, a score of teams were hitched 
in front of the basement doors that opened from the hillside upon 
the sanded terrace, where the boys wrestled and had jumping-
matches.  Amedee Chevalier, a proud father of one week, rushed 
out and embraced Emil.  Amedee was an only son,--hence he was a 
very rich young man,--but he meant to have twenty children 
himself, like his uncle Xavier.  "Oh, Emil," he cried, hugging 
his old friend rapturously, "why ain't you been up to see my boy?  
You come to-morrow, sure? Emil, you wanna get a boy right off!  
It's the greatest thing ever!  No, no, no!  Angel not sick at 
all.  Everything just fine.  That boy he come into this world 
laughin', and he been laughin' ever since.  You come an' see!"  
He pounded Emil's ribs to emphasize each announcement. 
 
     Emil caught his arms.  "Stop, Amedee. You're knocking the 
wind out of me.  I brought him cups and spoons and blankets and 
mocca-sins enough for an orphan asylum.  I'm awful glad it's a 
boy, sure enough!" 
 
     The young men crowded round Emil to ad-mire his costume and 
to tell him in a breath everything that had happened since he 
went away.  Emil had more friends up here in the French country 
than down on Norway Creek. The French and Bohemian boys were 
spirited and jolly, liked variety, and were as much pre-disposed 
to favor anything new as the Scandi-navian boys were to reject 
it.  The Norwegian and Swedish lads were much more self-centred, 
apt to be egotistical and jealous.  They were cautious and 
reserved with Emil because he had been away to college, and were 
prepared to take him down if he should try to put on airs with 
them.  The French boys liked a bit of swagger, and they were 
always delighted to hear about anything new: new clothes, new 
games, new songs, new dances.  Now they car-ried Emil off to show 
him the club room they had just fitted up over the post-office, 
down in the village.  They ran down the hill in a drove, all 
laughing and chattering at once, some in French, some in English. 
 
     Alexandra went into the cool, whitewashed basement where the 
women were setting the tables.  Marie was standing on a chair, 
building a little tent of shawls where she was to tell fortunes.  
She sprang down and ran toward Alexandra, stopping short and 
looking at her in disappointment.  Alexandra nodded to her 
encouragingly. 
 
     "Oh, he will be here, Marie.  The boys have taken him off to 
show him something.  You won't know him.  He is a man now, sure 
enough. I have no boy left.  He smokes terrible-smelling Mexican 
cigarettes and talks Spanish.  How pretty you look, child.  Where 
did you get those beautiful earrings?" 
 
     "They belonged to father's mother.  He always promised them 
to me.  He sent them with the dress and said I could keep them." 
 
     Marie wore a short red skirt of stoutly woven cloth, a white 
bodice and kirtle, a yellow silk turban wound low over her brown 
curls, and long coral pendants in her ears.  Her ears had been 
pierced against a piece of cork by her great-aunt when she was 
seven years old.  In those germless days she had worn bits of 
broom-straw, plucked from the common sweeping-broom, in the lobes 
until the holes were healed and ready for little gold rings. 
 
     When Emil came back from the village, he lingered outside on 
the terrace with the boys. Marie could hear him talking and 
strumming on his guitar while Raoul Marcel sang falsetto. She was 
vexed with him for staying out there. It made her very nervous to 
hear him and not to see him; for, certainly, she told herself, 
she was not going out to look for him.  When the supper bell rang 
and the boys came trooping in to get seats at the first table, 
she forgot all about her annoyance and ran to greet the tall-est 
of the crowd, in his conspicuous attire.  She didn't mind showing 
her embarrassment at all. She blushed and laughed excitedly as 
she gave Emil her hand, and looked delightedly at the black 
velvet coat that brought out his fair skin and fine blond head.  
Marie was incapable of being lukewarm about anything that pleased 
her.  She simply did not know how to give a half-hearted 
response.  When she was de-lighted, she was as likely as not to 
stand on her tip-toes and clap her hands.  If people laughed at 
her, she laughed with them. 
 
     "Do the men wear clothes like that every day, in the 
street?"  She caught Emil by his sleeve and turned him about.  
"Oh, I wish I lived where people wore things like that!  Are the 
buttons real silver?  Put on the hat, please. What a heavy thing!  
How do you ever wear it?  Why don't you tell us about the bull-
fights?" 
 
     She wanted to wring all his experiences from him at once, 
without waiting a moment.  Emil smiled tolerantly and stood 
looking down at her with his old, brooding gaze, while the French 
girls fluttered about him in their white dresses and ribbons, and 
Alexandra watched the scene with pride.  Several of the French 
girls, Marie knew, were hoping that Emil would take them to 
supper, and she was relieved when he took only his sister.  Marie 
caught Frank's arm and dragged him to the same table, managing to 
get seats opposite the Bergsons, so that she could hear what they 
were talking about.  Alexandra made Emil tell Mrs. Xavier 
Chevalier, the mother of the twenty, about how he had seen a 
famous matador killed in the bull-ring.  Marie listened to every 
word, only taking her eyes from Emil to watch Frank's plate and 
keep it filled.  When Emil finished his account,--bloody enough 
to satisfy Mrs. Xavier and to make her feel thankful that she was 
not a matador,--Marie broke out with a volley of questions.  How 
did the women dress when they went to bull-fights?  Did they wear 
man-tillas?  Did they never wear hats? 
 
     After supper the young people played char-ades for the 
amusement of their elders, who sat gossiping between their 
guesses.  All the shops in Sainte-Agnes were closed at eight 
o'clock that night, so that the merchants and their clerks could 
attend the fair.  The auction was the liveliest part of the 
entertainment, for the French boys always lost their heads when 
they began to bid, satisfied that their extravagance was in a 
good cause.  After all the pincushions and sofa pillows and 
embroidered slippers were sold, Emil precipitated a panic by 
taking out one of his turquoise shirt studs, which every one had 
been admiring, and handing it to the auc-tioneer.  All the French 
girls clamored for it, and their sweethearts bid against each 
other recklessly.  Marie wanted it, too, and she kept making 
signals to Frank, which he took a sour pleasure in disregarding.  
He didn't see the use of making a fuss over a fellow just because 
he was dressed like a clown.  When the turquoise went to Malvina 
Sauvage, the French banker's daughter, Marie shrugged her 
shoulders and betook herself to her little tent of shawls, where 
she began to shuffle her cards by the light of a tallow candle, 
calling out, "Fortunes, for-tunes!" 
 
     The young priest, Father Duchesne, went first to have his 
fortune read.  Marie took his long white hand, looked at it, and 
then began to run off her cards.  "I see a long journey across 
water for you, Father.  You will go to a town all cut up by 
water; built on islands, it seems to be, with rivers and green 
fields all about.  And you will visit an old lady with a white 
cap and gold hoops in her ears, and you will be very happy 
there." 
 
     "Mais, oui," said the priest, with a melan-choly smile.  
"C'est L'Isle-Adam, chez ma mere.  Vous etes tres savante, ma 
fille."  He patted her yellow turban, calling, "Venez donc, mes 
garcons!  Il y a ici une veritable clairvoyante!" 
 
     Marie was clever at fortune-telling, indulg-ing in a light 
irony that amused the crowd.  She told old Brunot, the miser, 
that he would lose all his money, marry a girl of sixteen, and 
live happily on a crust.  Sholte, the fat Russian boy, who lived 
for his stomach, was to be disap-pointed in love, grow thin, and 
shoot himself from despondency.  Amedee was to have twenty 
children, and nineteen of them were to be girls.  Amedee slapped 
Frank on the back and asked him why he didn't see what the 
fortune-teller would promise him.  But Frank shook off his 
friendly hand and grunted, "She tell my fortune long ago; bad 
enough!"  Then he withdrew to a corner and sat glowering at his 
wife. 
 
     Frank's case was all the more painful because he had no one 
in particular to fix his jealousy upon.  Sometimes he could have 
thanked the man who would bring him evidence against his wife.  
He had discharged a good farm-boy, Jan Smirka, because he thought 
Marie was fond of him; but she had not seemed to miss Jan when he 
was gone, and she had been just as kind to the next boy.  The 
farm-hands would always do anything for Marie; Frank couldn't 
find one so surly that he would not make an effort to please her.  
At the bottom of his heart Frank knew well enough that if he 
could once give up his grudge, his wife would come back to him.  
But he could never in the world do that.  The grudge was 
fundamental.  Perhaps he could not have given it up if he had 
tried.  Perhaps he got more satisfaction out of feeling himself 
abused than he would have got out of being loved.  If he could 
once have made Marie thoroughly un-happy, he might have relented 
and raised her from the dust.  But she had never humbled her-
self.  In the first days of their love she had been his slave; 
she had admired him abandonedly. But the moment he began to bully 
her and to be unjust, she began to draw away; at first in tear-
ful amazement, then in quiet, unspoken dis-gust.  The distance 
between them had widened and hardened.  It no longer contracted 
and brought them suddenly together.  The spark of her life went 
somewhere else, and he was always watching to surprise it.  He 
knew that some-where she must get a feeling to live upon, for she 
was not a woman who could live without loving.  He wanted to 
prove to himself the wrong he felt.  What did she hide in her 
heart? Where did it go?  Even Frank had his churlish delicacies; 
he never reminded her of how much she had once loved him.  For 
that Marie was grateful to him. 
 
     While Marie was chattering to the French boys, Amedee called 
Emil to the back of the room and whispered to him that they were 
going to play a joke on the girls.  At eleven o'clock, Amedee was 
to go up to the switchboard in the vestibule and turn off the 
electric lights, and every boy would have a chance to kiss his 
sweetheart before Father Duchesne could find his way up the 
stairs to turn the current on again.  The only difficulty was the 
candle in Marie's tent; perhaps, as Emil had no sweet-heart, he 
would oblige the boys by blowing out the candle.  Emil said he 
would undertake to do that. 
 
     At five minutes to eleven he sauntered up to Marie's booth, 
and the French boys dispersed to find their girls.  He leaned 
over the card-table and gave himself up to looking at her. "Do 
you think you could tell my fortune?" he murmured.  It was the 
first word he had had alone with her for almost a year.  "My luck 
hasn't changed any.  It's just the same." 
 
     Marie had often wondered whether there was anyone else who 
could look his thoughts to you as Emil could.  To-night, when she 
met his steady, powerful eyes, it was impossible not to feel the 
sweetness of the dream he was dreaming; it reached her before she 
could shut it out, and hid itself in her heart.  She began to 
shuffle her cards furiously.  "I'm angry with you, Emil," she 
broke out with petu-lance.  "Why did you give them that lovely 
blue stone to sell?  You might have known Frank wouldn't buy it 
for me, and I wanted it awfully!" 
 
     Emil laughed shortly.  "People who want such little things 
surely ought to have them," he said dryly.  He thrust his hand 
into the pocket of his velvet trousers and brought out a handful 
of uncut turquoises, as big as marbles. Leaning over the table he 
dropped them into her lap.  "There, will those do?  Be careful, 
don't let any one see them.  Now, I suppose you want me to go 
away and let you play with them?" 
 
     Marie was gazing in rapture at the soft blue color of the 
stones.  "Oh, Emil!  Is everything down there beautiful like 
these?  How could you ever come away?" 
 
     At that instant Amedee laid hands on the switchboard.  There 
was a shiver and a giggle, and every one looked toward the red 
blur that Marie's candle made in the dark.  Immediately that, 
too, was gone.  Little shrieks and currents of soft laughter ran 
up and down the dark hall. Marie started up,--directly into 
Emil's arms. In the same instant she felt his lips.  The veil 
that had hung uncertainly between them for so long was dissolved.  
Before she knew what she was doing, she had committed herself to 
that kiss that was at once a boy's and a man's, as timid as it 
was tender; so like Emil and so unlike any one else in the world.  
Not until it was over did she realize what it meant.  And Emil, 
who had so often imagined the shock of this first kiss, was 
surprised at its gentleness and naturalness.  It was like a sigh 
which they had breathed together; almost sorrowful, as if each 
were afraid of wakening something in the other. 
 
     When the lights came on again, everybody was laughing and 
shouting, and all the French girls were rosy and shining with 
mirth.  Only Marie, in her little tent of shawls, was pale and 
quiet.  Under her yellow turban the red coral pendants swung 
against white cheeks.  Frank was still staring at her, but he 
seemed to see nothing.  Years ago, he himself had had the power 
to take the blood from her cheeks like that.  Perhaps he did not 
remember--perhaps he had never noticed!  Emil was already at the 
other end of the hall, walking about with the shoulder-motion he 
had acquired among the Mexicans, studying the floor with his 
intent, deep-set eyes.  Marie began to take down and fold her 
shawls.  She did not glance up again. The young people drifted to 
the other end of the hall where the guitar was sounding.  In a 
mo-ment she heard Emil and Raoul singing:--
 
 
     "Across the Rio Grand-e 
      There lies a sunny land-e, 
      My bright-eyed Mexico!" 
 
 
     Alexandra Bergson came up to the card booth.  "Let me help 
you, Marie.  You look tired." 
 
     She placed her hand on Marie's arm and felt her shiver.  
Marie stiffened under that kind, calm hand.  Alexandra drew back, 
perplexed and hurt. 
 
     There was about Alexandra something of the impervious calm 
of the fatalist, always discon-certing to very young people, who 
cannot feel that the heart lives at all unless it is still at the 
mercy of storms; unless its strings can scream to the touch of 
pain. 
 
 
 
                                II 
 
 
      Signa's wedding supper was over.  The guests, and the 
tiresome little Norwegian preacher who had performed the marriage 
cere-mony, were saying good-night.  Old Ivar was hitching the 
horses to the wagon to take the wedding presents and the bride 
and groom up to their new home, on Alexandra's north quarter. 
When Ivar drove up to the gate, Emil and Marie Shabata began to 
carry out the presents, and Alexandra went into her bedroom to 
bid Signa good-bye and to give her a few words of good counsel.  
She was surprised to find that the bride had changed her slippers 
for heavy shoes and was pinning up her skirts.  At that moment 
Nelse appeared at the gate with the two milk cows that Alexandra 
had given Signa for a wedding present. 
 
     Alexandra began to laugh.  "Why, Signa, you and Nelse are to 
ride home.  I'll send Ivar over with the cows in the morning." 
 
     Signa hesitated and looked perplexed.  When her husband 
called her, she pinned her hat on resolutely.  "I ta-ank I better 
do yust like he say," she murmured in confusion. 
 
     Alexandra and Marie accompanied Signa to the gate and saw 
the party set off, old Ivar driving ahead in the wagon and the 
bride and groom following on foot, each leading a cow. Emil burst 
into a laugh before they were out of hearing. 
 
     "Those two will get on," said Alexandra as they turned back 
to the house.  "They are not going to take any chances.  They 
will feel safer with those cows in their own stable.  Marie, I am 
going to send for an old woman next.  As soon as I get the girls 
broken in, I marry them off." 
 
     "I've no patience with Signa, marrying that grumpy fellow!" 
Marie declared.  "I wanted her to marry that nice Smirka boy who 
worked for us last winter.  I think she liked him, too." 
 
     "Yes, I think she did," Alexandra assented, "but I suppose 
she was too much afraid of Nelse to marry any one else.  Now that 
I think of it, most of my girls have married men they were afraid 
of.  I believe there is a good deal of the cow in most Swedish 
girls.  You high-strung Bohemian can't understand us.  We're a 
ter-ribly practical people, and I guess we think a cross man 
makes a good manager." 
 
     Marie shrugged her shoulders and turned to pin up a lock of 
hair that had fallen on her neck. Somehow Alexandra had irritated 
her of late. Everybody irritated her.  She was tired of 
everybody.  "I'm going home alone, Emil, so you needn't get your 
hat," she said as she wound her scarf quickly about her head.  
"Good-night, Alexandra," she called back in a strained voice, 
running down the gravel walk. 
 
     Emil followed with long strides until he over-took her.  
Then she began to walk slowly.  It was a night of warm wind and 
faint starlight, and the fireflies were glimmering over the 
wheat. 
 
     "Marie," said Emil after they had walked for a while, "I 
wonder if you know how un-happy I am?" 
 
     Marie did not answer him.  Her head, in its white scarf, 
drooped forward a little. 
 
     Emil kicked a clod from the path and went on:--
 
     "I wonder whether you are really shallow-hearted, like you 
seem?  Sometimes I think one boy does just as well as another for 
you.  It never seems to make much difference whether it is me or 
Raoul Marcel or Jan Smirka.  Are you really like that?" 
 
     "Perhaps I am.  What do you want me to do?  Sit round and 
cry all day?  When I've cried until I can't cry any more, then--
then I must do something else." 
 
     "Are you sorry for me?" he persisted. 
 
     "No, I'm not.  If I were big and free like you, I wouldn't 
let anything make me unhappy.  As old Napoleon Brunot said at the 
fair, I wouldn't go lovering after no woman.  I'd take the first 
train and go off and have all the fun there is." 
 
     "I tried that, but it didn't do any good. Everything 
reminded me.  The nicer the place was, the more I wanted you."  
They had come to the stile and Emil pointed to it persuasively. 
"Sit down a moment, I want to ask you some-thing."  Marie sat 
down on the top step and Emil drew nearer.  "Would you tell me 
some-thing that's none of my business if you thought it would 
help me out?  Well, then, tell me, PLEASE tell me, why you ran 
away with Frank Sha-bata!" 
 
     Marie drew back.  "Because I was in love with him," she said 
firmly. 
 
     "Really?" he asked incredulously. 
 
     "Yes, indeed.  Very much in love with him. I think I was the 
one who suggested our run-ning away.  From the first it was more 
my fault than his." 
 
     Emil turned away his face. 
 
     "And now," Marie went on, "I've got to remember that.  Frank 
is just the same now as he was then, only then I would see him as 
I wanted him to be.  I would have my own way. And now I pay for 
it." 
 
     "You don't do all the paying." 
 
     "That's it.  When one makes a mistake, there's no telling 
where it will stop.  But you can go away; you can leave all this 
behind you." 
 
     "Not everything.  I can't leave you behind. Will you go away 
with me, Marie?" 
 
     Marie started up and stepped across the stile.  "Emil!  How 
wickedly you talk!  I am not that kind of a girl, and you know 
it.  But what am I going to do if you keep tormenting me like 
this!" she added plaintively. 
 
     "Marie, I won't bother you any more if you will tell me just 
one thing.  Stop a minute and look at me.  No, nobody can see us.  
Every-body's asleep.  That was only a firefly.  Marie, STOP and 
tell me!" 
 
     Emil overtook her and catching her by the shoulders shook 
her gently, as if he were trying to awaken a sleepwalker. 
 
     Marie hid her face on his arm.  "Don't ask me anything more.  
I don't know anything except how miserable I am.  And I thought 
it would be all right when you came back.  Oh, Emil," she 
clutched his sleeve and began to cry, "what am I to do if you 
don't go away?  I can't go, and one of us must.  Can't you see?" 
 
     Emil stood looking down at her, holding his shoulders stiff 
and stiffening the arm to which she clung.  Her white dress 
looked gray in the darkness.  She seemed like a troubled spirit, 
like some shadow out of the earth, clinging to him and entreating 
him to give her peace.  Be-hind her the fireflies were weaving in 
and out over the wheat.  He put his hand on her bent head.  "On 
my honor, Marie, if you will say you love me, I will go away." 
 
     She lifted her face to his.  "How could I help it?  Didn't 
you know?" 
 
     Emil was the one who trembled, through all his frame.  After 
he left Marie at her gate, he wandered about the fields all 
night, till morning put out the fireflies and the stars. 
 
 
 
                               III 
 
 
     One evening, a week after Signa's wedding, Emil was kneeling 
before a box in the sitting-room, packing his books.  From time 
to time he rose and wandered about the house, picking up stray 
volumes and bringing them listlessly back to his box.  He was 
packing without enthusi-asm.  He was not very sanguine about his 
fu-ture.  Alexandra sat sewing by the table.  She had helped him 
pack his trunk in the afternoon. As Emil came and went by her 
chair with his books, he thought to himself that it had not been 
so hard to leave his sister since he first went away to school.  
He was going directly to Omaha, to read law in the office of a 
Swedish lawyer until October, when he would enter the law school 
at Ann Arbor.  They had planned that Alexandra was to come to 
Michigan--a long journey for her--at Christmas time, and spend 
several weeks with him.  Nevertheless, he felt that this 
leavetaking would be more final than his earlier ones had been; 
that it meant a definite break with his old home and the begin-
ning of something new--he did not know what.  His ideas about the 
future would not crystallize; the more he tried to think about 
it, the vaguer his conception of it became.  But one thing was 
clear, he told himself; it was high time that he made good to 
Alexandra, and that ought to be incentive enough to begin with. 
 
     As he went about gathering up his books he felt as if he 
were uprooting things.  At last he threw himself down on the old 
slat lounge where he had slept when he was little, and lay 
looking up at the familiar cracks in the ceiling. 
 
     "Tired, Emil?" his sister asked. 
 
     "Lazy," he murmured, turning on his side and looking at her.  
He studied Alexandra's face for a long time in the lamplight.  It 
had never occurred to him that his sister was a handsome woman 
until Marie Shabata had told him so.  Indeed, he had never 
thought of her as being a woman at all, only a sister.  As he 
studied her bent head, he looked up at the picture of John 
Bergson above the lamp. "No," he thought to himself, "she didn't 
get it there.  I suppose I am more like that." 
 
     "Alexandra," he said suddenly, "that old walnut secretary 
you use for a desk was father's, wasn't it?" 
 
     Alexandra went on stitching.  "Yes.  It was one of the first 
things he bought for the old log house.  It was a great 
extravagance in those days.  But he wrote a great many letters 
back to the old country.  He had many friends there, and they 
wrote to him up to the time he died. No one ever blamed him for 
grandfather's dis-grace.  I can see him now, sitting there on 
Sun-days, in his white shirt, writing pages and pages, so 
carefully.  He wrote a fine, regular hand, almost like engraving.  
Yours is some-thing like his, when you take pains." 
 
     "Grandfather was really crooked, was he?" 
 
     "He married an unscrupulous woman, and then--then I'm afraid 
he was really crooked. When we first came here father used to 
have dreams about making a great fortune and going back to Sweden 
to pay back to the poor sailors the money grandfather had lost." 
 
     Emil stirred on the lounge.  "I say, that would have been 
worth while, wouldn't it? Father wasn't a bit like Lou or Oscar, 
was he? I can't remember much about him before he got sick." 
 
     "Oh, not at all!"  Alexandra dropped her sewing on her knee.  
"He had better opportuni-ties; not to make money, but to make 
some-thing of himself.  He was a quiet man, but he was very 
intelligent.  You would have been proud of him, Emil." 
 
     Alexandra felt that he would like to know there had been a 
man of his kin whom he could admire.  She knew that Emil was 
ashamed of Lou and Oscar, because they were bigoted and self-
satisfied.  He never said much about them, but she could feel his 
disgust.  His brothers had shown their disapproval of him ever 
since he first went away to school.  The only thing that would 
have satisfied them would have been his failure at the 
University. As it was, they resented every change in his speech, 
in his dress, in his point of view; though the latter they had to 
conjecture, for Emil avoided talking to them about any but family 
matters.  All his interests they treated as affectations. 
 
     Alexandra took up her sewing again.  "I can remember father 
when he was quite a young man.  He belonged to some kind of a 
musical society, a male chorus, in Stockholm.  I can remember 
going with mother to hear them sing. There must have been a 
hundred of them, and they all wore long black coats and white 
neck-ties.  I was used to seeing father in a blue coat, a sort of 
jacket, and when I recognized him on the platform, I was very 
proud.  Do you remember that Swedish song he taught you, about 
the ship boy?" 
 
     "Yes.  I used to sing it to the Mexicans. They like anything 
different."  Emil paused. "Father had a hard fight here, didn't 
he?" he added thoughtfully. 
 
     "Yes, and he died in a dark time.  Still, he had hope.  He 
believed in the land." 
 
     "And in you, I guess," Emil said to himself. There was 
another period of silence; that warm, friendly silence, full of 
perfect understanding, in which Emil and Alexandra had spent many 
of their happiest half-hours. 
 
     At last Emil said abruptly, "Lou and Oscar would be better 
off if they were poor, wouldn't they?" 
 
     Alexandra smiled.  "Maybe.  But their chil-dren wouldn't.  I 
have great hopes of Milly." 
 
     Emil shivered.  "I don't know.  Seems to me it gets worse as 
it goes on.  The worst of the Swedes is that they're never 
willing to find out how much they don't know.  It was like that 
at the University.  Always so pleased with them-selves!  There's 
no getting behind that con-ceited Swedish grin.  The Bohemians 
and Ger-mans were so different." 
 
     "Come, Emil, don't go back on your own people.  Father 
wasn't conceited, Uncle Otto wasn't.  Even Lou and Oscar weren't 
when they were boys." 
 
     Emil looked incredulous, but he did not dis-pute the point.  
He turned on his back and lay still for a long time, his hands 
locked under his head, looking up at the ceiling.  Alexandra knew 
that he was thinking of many things.  She felt no anxiety about 
Emil.  She had always believed in him, as she had believed in the 
land.  He had been more like himself since he got back from 
Mexico; seemed glad to be at home, and talked to her as he used 
to do. She had no doubt that his wandering fit was over, and that 
he would soon be settled in life. 
 
     "Alexandra," said Emil suddenly, "do you remember the wild 
duck we saw down on the river that time?" 
 
     His sister looked up.  "I often think of her. It always 
seems to me she's there still, just like we saw her." 
 
     "I know.  It's queer what things one re-members and what 
things one forgets."  Emil yawned and sat up.  "Well, it's time 
to turn in."  He rose, and going over to Alexandra stooped down 
and kissed her lightly on the cheek.  "Good-night, sister.  I 
think you did pretty well by us." 
 
     Emil took up his lamp and went upstairs. Alexandra sat 
finishing his new nightshirt, that must go in the top tray of his 
trunk. 
 
 
 
                                IV 
 
 
     The next morning Angelique, Amedee's wife, was in the 
kitchen baking pies, assisted by old Mrs. Chevalier.  Between the 
mixing-board and the stove stood the old cradle that had been 
Amedee's, and in it was his black-eyed son.  As Angelique, 
flushed and excited, with flour on her hands, stopped to smile at 
the baby, Emil Bergson rode up to the kitchen door on his mare 
and dismounted. 
 
     "'Medee is out in the field, Emil," Angelique called as she 
ran across the kitchen to the oven. "He begins to cut his wheat 
to-day; the first wheat ready to cut anywhere about here.  He 
bought a new header, you know, because all the wheat's so short 
this year.  I hope he can rent it to the neighbors, it cost so 
much.  He and his cousins bought a steam thresher on shares.  You 
ought to go out and see that header work.  I watched it an hour 
this morning, busy as I am with all the men to feed.  He has a 
lot of hands, but he's the only one that knows how to drive the 
header or how to run the engine, so he has to be everywhere at 
once.  He's sick, too, and ought to be in his bed." 
 
     Emil bent over Hector Baptiste, trying to make him blink his 
round, bead-like black eyes. "Sick?  What's the matter with your 
daddy, kid?  Been making him walk the floor with you?" 
 
     Angelique sniffed.  "Not much!  We don't have that kind of 
babies.  It was his father that kept Baptiste awake.  All night I 
had to be get-ting up and making mustard plasters to put on his 
stomach.  He had an awful colic.  He said he felt better this 
morning, but I don't think he ought to be out in the field, 
overheating him-self." 
 
     Angelique did not speak with much anxiety, not because she 
was indifferent, but because she felt so secure in their good 
fortune.  Only good things could happen to a rich, energetic, 
hand-some young man like Amedee, with a new baby in the cradle 
and a new header in the field. 
 
     Emil stroked the black fuzz on Baptiste's head.  "I say, 
Angelique, one of 'Medee's grand-mothers, 'way back, must have 
been a squaw. This kid looks exactly like the Indian babies." 
 
     Angelique made a face at him, but old Mrs. Chevalier had 
been touched on a sore point, and she let out such a stream of 
fiery PATOIS that Emil fled from the kitchen and mounted his 
mare. 
 
     Opening the pasture gate from the saddle, Emil rode across 
the field to the clearing where the thresher stood, driven by a 
stationary engine and fed from the header boxes.  As Amedee was 
not on the engine, Emil rode on to the wheatfield, where he 
recognized, on the header, the slight, wiry figure of his friend, 
coatless, his white shirt puffed out by the wind, his straw hat 
stuck jauntily on the side of his head.  The six big work-horses 
that drew, or rather pushed, the header, went abreast at a rapid 
walk, and as they were still green at the work they required a 
good deal of management on Amedee's part; especially when they 
turned the corners, where they divided, three and three, and then 
swung round into line again with a movement that looked as 
complicated as a wheel of artillery.  Emil felt a new thrill of 
admiration for his friend, and with it the old pang of envy at 
the way in which Amedee could do with his might what his hand 
found to do, and feel that, whatever it was, it was the most 
important thing in the world.  "I'll have to bring Alexandra up 
to see this thing work," Emil thought; "it's splendid!" 
 
     When he saw Emil, Amedee waved to him and called to one of 
his twenty cousins to take the reins.  Stepping off the header 
without stopping it, he ran up to Emil who had dis-mounted.  
"Come along," he called.  "I have to go over to the engine for a 
minute.  I gotta green man running it, and I gotta to keep an eye 
on him." 
 
     Emil thought the lad was unnaturally flushed and more 
excited than even the cares of manag-ing a big farm at a critical 
time warranted.  As they passed behind a last year's stack, 
Amedee clutched at his right side and sank down for a moment on 
the straw. 
 
     "Ouch!  I got an awful pain in me, Emil. Something's the 
matter with my insides, for sure." 
 
     Emil felt his fiery cheek.  "You ought to go straight to 
bed, 'Medee, and telephone for the doctor; that's what you ought 
to do." 
 
     Amedee staggered up with a gesture of despair.  "How can I?  
I got no time to be sick. Three thousand dollars' worth of new 
machin-ery to manage, and the wheat so ripe it will begin to 
shatter next week.  My wheat's short, but it's gotta grand full 
berries.  What's he slowing down for?  We haven't got header 
boxes enough to feed the thresher, I guess." 
 
     Amedee started hot-foot across the stubble, leaning a little 
to the right as he ran, and waved to the engineer not to stop the 
engine. 
 
     Emil saw that this was no time to talk about his own 
affairs.  He mounted his mare and rode on to Sainte-Agnes, to bid 
his friends there good-bye.  He went first to see Raoul Marcel, 
and found him innocently practising the "Gloria" for the big 
confirmation service on Sunday while he polished the mirrors of 
his father's saloon. 
 
     As Emil rode homewards at three o'clock in the afternoon, he 
saw Amedee staggering out of the wheatfield, supported by two of 
his cousins. Emil stopped and helped them put the boy to bed. 
 
 
 
                                V 
 
 
     When Frank Shabata came in from work at five o'clock that 
evening, old Moses Marcel, Raoul's father, telephoned him that 
Amedee had had a seizure in the wheatfield, and that Doctor 
Paradis was going to operate on him as soon as the Hanover doctor 
got there to help. Frank dropped a word of this at the table, 
bolted his supper, and rode off to Sainte-Agnes, where there 
would be sympathetic dis-cussion of Amedee's case at Marcel's 
saloon. 
 
     As soon as Frank was gone, Marie telephoned Alexandra.  It 
was a comfort to hear her friend's voice.  Yes, Alexandra knew 
what there was to be known about Amedee.  Emil had been there 
when they carried him out of the field, and had stayed with him 
until the doctors operated for appendicitis at five o'clock.  
They were afraid it was too late to do much good; it should have 
been done three days ago.  Amedee was in a very bad way.  Emil 
had just come home, worn out and sick himself.  She had given him 
some brandy and put him to bed. 
 
     Marie hung up the receiver.  Poor Amedee's illness had taken 
on a new meaning to her, now that she knew Emil had been with 
him.  And it might so easily have been the other way--Emil who 
was ill and Amedee who was sad! Marie looked about the dusky 
sitting-room. She had seldom felt so utterly lonely.  If Emil was 
asleep, there was not even a chance of his coming; and she could 
not go to Alexandra for sympathy.  She meant to tell Alexandra 
every-thing, as soon as Emil went away.  Then what-ever was left 
between them would be honest. 
 
     But she could not stay in the house this evening.  Where 
should she go?  She walked slowly down through the orchard, where 
the evening air was heavy with the smell of wild cotton.  The 
fresh, salty scent of the wild roses had given way before this 
more powerful per-fume of midsummer.  Wherever those ashes-of-
rose balls hung on their milky stalks, the air about them was 
saturated with their breath. The sky was still red in the west 
and the even-ing star hung directly over the Bergsons' wind-mill.  
Marie crossed the fence at the wheatfield corner, and walked 
slowly along the path that led to Alexandra's.  She could not 
help feeling hurt that Emil had not come to tell her about 
Amedee.  It seemed to her most unnatural that he should not have 
come.  If she were in trou-ble, certainly he was the one person 
in the world she would want to see.  Perhaps he wished her to 
understand that for her he was as good as gone already. 
 
     Marie stole slowly, flutteringly, along the path, like a 
white night-moth out of the fields. The years seemed to stretch 
before her like the land; spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; 
always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the 
patient lives; always the same yearn-ing, the same pulling at the 
chain--until the instinct to live had torn itself and bled and 
weakened for the last time, until the chain secured a dead woman, 
who might cautiously be released.  Marie walked on, her face 
lifted toward the remote, inaccessible evening star. 
 
     When she reached the stile she sat down and waited.  How 
terrible it was to love people when you could not really share 
their lives! 
 
     Yes, in so far as she was concerned, Emil was already gone.  
They couldn't meet any more. There was nothing for them to say.  
They had spent the last penny of their small change; there was 
nothing left but gold.  The day of love-tokens was past.  They 
had now only their hearts to give each other.  And Emil being 
gone, what was her life to be like?  In some ways, it would be 
easier.  She would not, at least, live in perpetual fear.  If 
Emil were once away and settled at work, she would not have the 
feeling that she was spoiling his life.  With the memory he left 
her, she could be as rash as she chose.  Nobody could be the 
worse for it but herself; and that, surely, did not matter. Her 
own case was clear.  When a girl had loved one man, and then 
loved another while that man was still alive, everybody knew what 
to think of her.  What happened to her was of little con-
sequence, so long as she did not drag other people down with her.  
Emil once away, she could let everything else go and live a new 
life of perfect love. 
 
     Marie left the stile reluctantly.  She had, after all, 
thought he might come.  And how glad she ought to be, she told 
herself, that he was asleep.  She left the path and went across 
the pasture.  The moon was almost full.  An owl was hooting 
somewhere in the fields.  She had scarcely thought about where 
she was going when the pond glittered before her, where Emil had 
shot the ducks.  She stopped and looked at it.  Yes, there would 
be a dirty way out of life, if one chose to take it.  But she did 
not want to die.  She wanted to live and dream--a hundred years, 
forever!  As long as this sweetness welled up in her heart, as 
long as her breast could hold this treasure of pain!  She felt as 
the pond must feel when it held the moon like that; when it 
encircled and swelled with 
 
     In the morning, when Emil came down-stairs, Alexandra met 
him in the sitting-room and put her hands on his shoulders.  
"Emil, I went to your room as soon as it was light, but you were 
sleeping so sound I hated to wake you.  There was nothing you 
could do, so I let you sleep.  They telephoned from Sainte-Agnes 
that Amedee died at three o'clock this morning." 
 
 
 
                                VI 
 
 
     The Church has always held that life is for the living.  On 
Saturday, while half the vil-lage of Sainte-Agnes was mourning 
for Ame-dee and preparing the funeral black for his burial on 
Monday, the other half was busy with white dresses and white 
veils for the great confirmation service to-morrow, when the 
bishop was to confirm a class of one hundred boys and girls.  
Father Duchesne divided his time between the living and the dead.  
All day Saturday the church was a scene of bustling activity, a 
little hushed by the thought of Amedee.  The choir were busy 
rehearsing a mass of Rossini, which they had studied and 
practised for this occasion.  The women were trimming the altar, 
the boys and girls were bringing flowers. 
 
     On Sunday morning the bishop was to drive overland to 
Sainte-Agnes from Hanover, and Emil Bergson had been asked to 
take the place of one of Amedee's cousins in the cavalcade of 
forty French boys who were to ride across coun-try to meet the 
bishop's carriage.  At six o'clock on Sunday morning the boys met 
at the church. As they stood holding their horses by the bridle, 
they talked in low tones of their dead comrade. They kept 
repeating that Amedee had always been a good boy, glancing toward 
the red brick church which had played so large a part in Amedee's 
life, had been the scene of his most serious moments and of his 
happiest hours.  He had played and wrestled and sung and courted 
under its shadow.  Only three weeks ago he had proudly carried 
his baby there to be christened. They could not doubt that that 
invisible arm was still about Amedee; that through the church on 
earth he had passed to the church triumph-ant, the goal of the 
hopes and faith of so many hundred years. 
 
     When the word was given to mount, the young men rode at a 
walk out of the village; but once out among the wheatfields in 
the morning sun, their horses and their own youth got the better 
of them.  A wave of zeal and fiery enthusiasm swept over them.  
They longed for a Jerusalem to deliver.  The thud of their gal-
loping hoofs interrupted many a country break-fast and brought 
many a woman and child to the door of the farmhouses as they 
passed.  Five miles east of Sainte-Agnes they met the bishop in 
his open carriage, attended by two priests. Like one man the boys 
swung off their hats in a broad salute, and bowed their heads as 
the handsome old man lifted his two fingers in the episcopal 
blessing.  The horsemen closed about the carriage like a guard, 
and whenever a rest-less horse broke from control and shot down 
the road ahead of the body, the bishop laughed and rubbed his 
plump hands together.  "What fine boys!" he said to his priests.  
"The Church still has her cavalry." 
 
     As the troop swept past the graveyard half a mile east of 
the town,--the first frame church of the parish had stood there,-
-old Pierre Seguin was already out with his pick and spade, 
digging Amedee's grave.  He knelt and un-covered as the bishop 
passed.  The boys with one accord looked away from old Pierre to 
the red church on the hill, with the gold cross flaming on its 
steeple. 
 
     Mass was at eleven.  While the church was filling, Emil 
Bergson waited outside, watching the wagons and buggies drive up 
the hill.  After the bell began to ring, he saw Frank Shabata 
ride up on horseback and tie his horse to the hitch-bar.  Marie, 
then, was not coming.  Emil turned and went into the church.  
Amedee's was the only empty pew, and he sat down in it. Some of 
Amedee's cousins were there, dressed in black and weeping.  When 
all the pews were full, the old men and boys packed the open 
space at the back of the church, kneeling on the floor.  There 
was scarcely a family in town that was not represented in the 
confirmation class, by a cousin, at least.  The new communicants, 
with their clear, reverent faces, were beautiful to look upon as 
they entered in a body and took the front benches reserved for 
them.  Even before the Mass began, the air was charged with 
feeling.  The choir had never sung so well and Raoul Marcel, in 
the "Gloria," drew even the bishop's eyes to the organ loft.  For 
the offertory he sang Gounod's "Ave Maria,"--always spoken of in 
Sainte-Agnes as "the Ave Maria." 
 
     Emil began to torture himself with questions about Marie.  
Was she ill?  Had she quarreled with her husband?  Was she too 
unhappy to find comfort even here?  Had she, perhaps, thought 
that he would come to her?  Was she waiting for him?  Overtaxed 
by excitement and sorrow as he was, the rapture of the service 
took hold upon his body and mind.  As he listened to Raoul, he 
seemed to emerge from the con-flicting emotions which had been 
whirling him about and sucking him under.  He felt as if a clear 
light broke upon his mind, and with it a conviction that good 
was, after all, stronger than evil, and that good was possible to 
men. He seemed to discover that there was a kind of rapture in 
which he could love forever with-out faltering and without sin.  
He looked across the heads of the people at Frank Shabata with 
calmness.  That rapture was for those who could feel it; for 
people who could not, it was non-existent.  He coveted nothing 
that was Frank Shabata's.  The spirit he had met in music was his 
own.  Frank Shabata had never found it; would never find it if he 
lived beside it a thousand years; would have destroyed it if he 
had found it, as Herod slew the innocents, as Rome slew the 
martyrs. 
 
          SAN--CTA MARI-I-I-A, 
 
wailed Raoul from the organ loft; 
 
          O--RA PRO NO-O-BIS! 
 
And it did not occur to Emil that any one had ever reasoned thus 
before, that music had ever before given a man this equivocal 
revelation. 
 
     The confirmation service followed the Mass. When it was 
over, the congregation thronged about the newly confirmed.  The 
girls, and even the boys, were kissed and embraced and wept over.  
All the aunts and grandmothers wept with joy.  The housewives had 
much ado to tear themselves away from the general rejoicing and 
hurry back to their kitchens.  The country parishioners were 
staying in town for dinner, and nearly every house in Sainte-
Agnes enter-tained visitors that day.  Father Duchesne, the 
bishop, and the visiting priests dined with Fabien Sauvage, the 
banker.  Emil and Frank Shabata were both guests of old Moise 
Marcel. After dinner Frank and old Moise retired to the rear room 
of the saloon to play California Jack and drink their cognac, and 
Emil went over to the banker's with Raoul, who had been asked to 
sing for the bishop. 
 
     At three o'clock, Emil felt that he could stand it no 
longer.  He slipped out under cover of "The Holy City," followed 
by Malvina's wistful eye, and went to the stable for his mare. He 
was at that height of excitement from which everything is 
foreshortened, from which life seems short and simple, death very 
near, and the soul seems to soar like an eagle.  As he rode past 
the graveyard he looked at the brown hole in the earth where 
Amedee was to lie, and felt no horror.  That, too, was beautiful, 
that simple doorway into forgetfulness.  The heart, when it is 
too much alive, aches for that brown earth, and ecstasy has no 
fear of death.  It is the old and the poor and the maimed who 
shrink from that brown hole; its wooers are found among the 
young, the passionate, the gallant-hearted. It was not until he 
had passed the graveyard that Emil realized where he was going.  
It was the hour for saying good-bye.  It might be the last time 
that he would see her alone, and to-day he could leave her 
without rancor, without bitterness. 
 
     Everywhere the grain stood ripe and the hot afternoon was 
full of the smell of the ripe wheat, like the smell of bread 
baking in an oven.  The breath of the wheat and the sweet clover 
passed him like pleasant things in a dream.  He could feel 
nothing but the sense of diminishing dis-tance.  It seemed to him 
that his mare was fly-ing, or running on wheels, like a railway 
train. The sunlight, flashing on the window-glass of the big red 
barns, drove him wild with joy.  He was like an arrow shot from 
the bow.  His life poured itself out along the road before him as 
he rode to the Shabata farm. 
 
     When Emil alighted at the Shabatas' gate, his horse was in a 
lather.  He tied her in the stable and hurried to the house.  It 
was empty. She might be at Mrs. Hiller's or with Alexan-dra.  But 
anything that reminded him of her would be enough, the orchard, 
the mulberry tree. . .  When he reached the orchard the sun was 
hanging low over the wheatfield.  Long fingers of light reached 
through the apple branches as through a net; the orchard was rid-
dled and shot with gold; light was the reality, the trees were 
merely interferences that reflected and refracted light.  Emil 
went softly down between the cherry trees toward the wheatfield. 
When he came to the corner, he stopped short and put his hand 
over his mouth.  Marie was lying on her side under the white 
mulberry tree, her face half hidden in the grass, her eyes 
closed, her hands lying limply where they had happened to fall.  
She had lived a day of her new life of perfect love, and it had 
left her like this. Her breast rose and fell faintly, as if she 
were asleep.  Emil threw himself down beside her and took her in 
his arms.  The blood came back to her cheeks, her amber eyes 
opened slowly, and in them Emil saw his own face and the orchard 
and the sun.  "I was dreaming this," she whis-pered, hiding her 
face against him, "don't take my dream away!" 
 
 
 
                               VII 
 
 
     When Frank Shabata got home that night, he found Emil's mare 
in his stable.  Such an impertinence amazed him.  Like everybody 
else, Frank had had an exciting day.  Since noon he had been 
drinking too much, and he was in a bad temper.  He talked 
bitterly to him-self while he put his own horse away, and as he 
went up the path and saw that the house was dark he felt an added 
sense of injury.  He ap-proached quietly and listened on the 
doorstep. Hearing nothing, he opened the kitchen door and went 
softly from one room to another. Then he went through the house 
again, up-stairs and down, with no better result.  He sat down on 
the bottom step of the box stairway and tried to get his wits 
together.  In that un-natural quiet there was no sound but his 
own heavy breathing.  Suddenly an owl began to hoot out in the 
fields.  Frank lifted his head. An idea flashed into his mind, 
and his sense of injury and outrage grew.  He went into his 
bedroom and took his murderous 405 Winches-ter from the closet. 
 
     When Frank took up his gun and walked out of the house, he 
had not the faintest purpose of doing anything with it.  He did 
not believe that he had any real grievance.  But it gratified him 
to feel like a desperate man.  He had got into the habit of 
seeing himself always in desperate straits.  His unhappy 
temperament was like a cage; he could never get out of it; and he 
felt that other people, his wife in particular, must have put him 
there.  It had never more than dimly occurred to Frank that he 
made his own unhappiness.  Though he took up his gun with dark 
projects in his mind, he would have been paralyzed with fright 
had he known that there was the slightest probability of his ever 
carry-ing any of them out. 
 
     Frank went slowly down to the orchard gate, stopped and 
stood for a moment lost in thought.  He retraced his steps and 
looked through the barn and the hayloft.  Then he went out to the 
road, where he took the foot-path along the outside of the 
orchard hedge. The hedge was twice as tall as Frank himself, and 
so dense that one could see through it only by peering closely 
between the leaves.  He could see the empty path a long way in 
the moonlight.  His mind traveled ahead to the stile, which he 
always thought of as haunted by Emil Bergson.  But why had he 
left his horse? 
 
     At the wheatfield corner, where the orchard hedge ended and 
the path led across the pasture to the Bergsons', Frank stopped.  
In the warm, breathless night air he heard a murmuring sound, 
perfectly inarticulate, as low as the sound of water coming from 
a spring, where there is no fall, and where there are no stones 
to fret it.  Frank strained his ears.  It ceased.  He held his 
breath and began to tremble.  Resting the butt of his gun on the 
ground, he parted the mulberry leaves softly with his fingers and 
peered through the hedge at the dark figures on the grass, in the 
shadow of the mulberry tree. It seemed to him that they must feel 
his eyes, that they must hear him breathing.  But they did not.  
Frank, who had always wanted to see things blacker than they 
were, for once wanted to believe less than he saw.  The woman 
lying in the shadow might so easily be one of the Bergsons' farm-
girls. . . .  Again the murmur, like water welling out of the 
ground.  This time he heard it more distinctly, and his blood was 
quicker than his brain.  He began to act, just as a man who falls 
into the fire begins to act.  The gun sprang to his shoulder, he 
sighted mechani-cally and fired three times without stopping, 
stopped without knowing why.  Either he shut his eyes or he had 
vertigo.  He did not see any-thing while he was firing.  He 
thought he heard a cry simultaneous with the second report, but 
he was not sure.  He peered again through the hedge, at the two 
dark figures under the tree. They had fallen a little apart from 
each other, and were perfectly still--  No, not quite; in a white 
patch of light, where the moon shone through the branches, a 
man's hand was pluck-ing spasmodically at the grass. 
 
     Suddenly the woman stirred and uttered a cry, then another, 
and another.  She was living! She was dragging herself toward the 
hedge! Frank dropped his gun and ran back along the path, 
shaking, stumbling, gasping.  He had never imagined such horror.  
The cries fol-lowed him.  They grew fainter and thicker, as if 
she were choking.  He dropped on his knees beside the hedge and 
crouched like a rabbit, listening; fainter, fainter; a sound like 
a whine; again--a moan--another--silence.  Frank scrambled to his 
feet and ran on, groaning and praying.  From habit he went toward 
the house, where he was used to being soothed when he had worked 
himself into a frenzy, but at the sight of the black, open door, 
he started back.  He knew that he had murdered somebody, that a 
woman was bleeding and moaning in the or-chard, but he had not 
realized before that it was his wife.  The gate stared him in the 
face. He threw his hands over his head.  Which way to turn?  He 
lifted his tormented face and looked at the sky.  "Holy Mother of 
God, not to suffer!  She was a good girl--not to suffer!" 
 
     Frank had been wont to see himself in dra-matic situations; 
but now, when he stood by the windmill, in the bright space 
between the barn and the house, facing his own black doorway, he 
did not see himself at all.  He stood like the hare when the dogs 
are approaching from all sides.  And he ran like a hare, back and 
forth about that moonlit space, before he could make up his mind 
to go into the dark stable for a horse.  The thought of going 
into a doorway was terrible to him.  He caught Emil's horse by 
the bit and led it out.  He could not have buckled a bridle on 
his own.  After two or three attempts, he lifted himself into the 
sad-dle and started for Hanover.  If he could catch the one 
o'clock train, he had money enough to get as far as Omaha. 
 
     While he was thinking dully of this in some less sensitized 
part of his brain, his acuter faculties were going over and over 
the cries he had heard in the orchard.  Terror was the only thing 
that kept him from going back to her, terror that she might still 
be she, that she might still be suffering.  A woman, mutilated 
and bleeding in his orchard--it was because it was a woman that 
he was so afraid.  It was incon-ceivable that he should have hurt 
a woman.  He would rather be eaten by wild beasts than see her 
move on the ground as she had moved in the orchard.  Why had she 
been so careless? She knew he was like a crazy man when he was 
angry.  She had more than once taken that gun away from him and 
held it, when he was angry with other people.  Once it had gone 
off while they were struggling over it.  She was never afraid.  
But, when she knew him, why hadn't she been more careful?  Didn't 
she have all summer before her to love Emil Bergson in, without 
taking such chances?  Probably she had met the Smirka boy, too, 
down there in the orchard.  He didn't care.  She could have met 
all the men on the Divide there, and welcome, if only she hadn't 
brought this horror on him. 
 
     There was a wrench in Frank's mind.  He did not honestly 
believe that of her.  He knew that he was doing her wrong.  He 
stopped his horse to admit this to himself the more directly, to 
think it out the more clearly.  He knew that he was to blame.  
For three years he had been trying to break her spirit.  She had 
a way of making the best of things that seemed to him a 
sentimental affectation.  He wanted his wife to resent that he 
was wasting his best years among these stupid and unappreciative 
people; but she had seemed to find the people quite good enough.  
If he ever got rich he meant to buy her pretty clothes and take 
her to California in a Pullman car, and treat her like a lady; 
but in the mean time he wanted her to feel that life was as ugly 
and as unjust as he felt it.  He had tried to make her life ugly.  
He had refused to share any of the little pleasures she was so 
plucky about making for herself.  She could be gay about the 
least thing in the world; but she must be gay!  When she first 
came to him, her faith in him, her adoration--  Frank struck the 
mare with his fist.  Why had Marie made him do this thing; why 
had she brought this upon him?  He was overwhelmed by sickening 
mis-fortune.  All at once he heard her cries again--he had 
forgotten for a moment.  "Maria," he sobbed aloud, "Maria!" 
 
     When Frank was halfway to Hanover, the motion of his horse 
brought on a violent attack of nausea.  After it had passed, he 
rode on again, but he could think of nothing except his physical 
weakness and his desire to be com-forted by his wife.  He wanted 
to get into his own bed.  Had his wife been at home, he would 
have turned and gone back to her meekly enough. 
 
 
 
                               VIII 
 
 
     When old Ivar climbed down from his loft at four o'clock the 
next morning, he came upon Emil's mare, jaded and lather-stained, 
her bridle broken, chewing the scattered tufts of hay outside the 
stable door.  The old man was thrown into a fright at once.  He 
put the mare in her stall, threw her a measure of oats, and then 
set out as fast as his bow-legs could carry him on the path to 
the nearest neighbor. 
 
     "Something is wrong with that boy.  Some misfortune has come 
upon us.  He would never have used her so, in his right senses.  
It is not his way to abuse his mare," the old man kept muttering, 
as he scuttled through the short, wet pasture grass on his bare 
feet. 
 
     While Ivar was hurrying across the fields, the first long 
rays of the sun were reaching down between the orchard boughs to 
those two dew-drenched figures.  The story of what had hap-pened 
was written plainly on the orchard grass, and on the white 
mulberries that had fallen in the night and were covered with 
dark stain. For Emil the chapter had been short.  He was shot in 
the heart, and had rolled over on his back and died.  His face 
was turned up to the sky and his brows were drawn in a frown, as 
if he had realized that something had befallen him.  But for 
Marie Shabata it had not been so easy.  One ball had torn through 
her right lung, another had shattered the carotid artery.  She 
must have started up and gone toward the hedge, leaving a trail 
of blood.  There she had fallen and bled.  From that spot there 
was another trail, heavier than the first, where she must have 
dragged herself back to Emil's body. Once there, she seemed not 
to have struggled any more.  She had lifted her head to her 
lover's breast, taken his hand in both her own, and bled quietly 
to death.  She was lying on her right side in an easy and natural 
position, her cheek on Emil's shoulder.  On her face there was a 
look of ineffable content.  Her lips were parted a little; her 
eyes were lightly closed, as if in a day-dream or a light 
slumber.  After she lay down there, she seemed not to have moved 
an eyelash.  The hand she held was covered with dark stains, 
where she had kissed it. 
 
     But the stained, slippery grass, the darkened mulberries, 
told only half the story.  Above Marie and Emil, two white 
butterflies from Frank's alfalfa-field were fluttering in and out 
among the interlacing shadows; diving and soaring, now close 
together, now far apart; and in the long grass by the fence the 
last wild roses of the year opened their pink hearts to die. 
 
     When Ivar reached the path by the hedge, he saw Shabata's 
rifle lying in the way.  He turned and peered through the 
branches, falling upon his knees as if his legs had been mowed 
from under him.  "Merciful God!" he groaned; 
 
     Alexandra, too, had risen early that morning, because of her 
anxiety about Emil.  She was in Emil's room upstairs when, from 
the window, she saw Ivar coming along the path that led from the 
Shabatas'.  He was running like a spent man, tottering and 
lurching from side to side.  Ivar never drank, and Alexandra 
thought at once that one of his spells had come upon him, and 
that he must be in a very bad way indeed.  She ran downstairs and 
hurried out to meet him, to hide his infirmity from the eyes of 
her household.  The old man fell in the road at her feet and 
caught her hand, over which he bowed his shaggy head.  "Mistress, 
mistress," he sobbed, "it has fallen!  Sin and death for the 
young ones!  God have mercy upon us!" 
 
 
 
 
                             PART  V 
 
                            Alexandra 
 
 
 
 
                                I 
 
 
     Ivar was sitting at a cobbler's bench in the barn, mending 
harness by the light of a lantern and repeating to himself the 
101st Psalm.  It was only five o'clock of a mid-October day, but 
a storm had come up in the afternoon, bring-ing black clouds, a 
cold wind and torrents of rain.  The old man wore his buffalo-
skin coat, and occasionally stopped to warm his fingers at the 
lantern.  Suddenly a woman burst into the shed, as if she had 
been blown in, accompanied by a shower of rain-drops.  It was 
Signa, wrapped in a man's overcoat and wearing a pair of boots 
over her shoes.  In time of trouble Signa had come back to stay 
with her mistress, for she was the only one of the maids from 
whom Alexandra would accept much personal service.  It was three 
months now since the news of the terrible thing that had happened 
in Frank Shabata's orchard had first run like a fire over the 
Divide.  Signa and Nelse were staying on with Alexandra until 
winter. 
 
     "Ivar," Signa exclaimed as she wiped the rain from her face, 
"do you know where she is?" 
 
     The old man put down his cobbler's knife. "Who, the 
mistress?" 
 
     "Yes.  She went away about three o'clock.  I happened to 
look out of the window and saw her going across the fields in her 
thin dress and sun-hat.  And now this storm has come on.  I 
thought she was going to Mrs. Hiller's, and I telephoned as soon 
as the thunder stopped, but she had not been there.  I'm afraid 
she is out somewhere and will get her death of cold." 
 
     Ivar put on his cap and took up the lantern. "JA, JA, we 
will see.  I will hitch the boy's mare to the cart and go." 
 
     Signa followed him across the wagon-shed to the horses' 
stable.  She was shivering with cold and excitement.  "Where do 
you suppose she can be, Ivar?" 
 
     The old man lifted a set of single harness carefully from 
its peg.  "How should I know?" 
 
     "But you think she is at the graveyard, don't you?" Signa 
persisted.  "So do I.  Oh, I wish she would be more like herself!  
I can't believe it's Alexandra Bergson come to this, with no head 
about anything.  I have to tell her when to eat and when to go to 
bed." 
 
     "Patience, patience, sister," muttered Ivar as he settled 
the bit in the horse's mouth. "When the eyes of the flesh are 
shut, the eyes of the spirit are open.  She will have a message 
from those who are gone, and that will bring her peace.  Until 
then we must bear with her.  You and I are the only ones who have 
weight with her.  She trusts us." 
 
     "How awful it's been these last three months."  Signa held 
the lantern so that he could see to buckle the straps.  "It don't 
seem right that we must all be so miserable.  Why do we all have 
to be punished?  Seems to me like good times would never come 
again." 
 
     Ivar expressed himself in a deep sigh, but said nothing.  He 
stooped and took a sandburr from his toe. 
 
     "Ivar," Signa asked suddenly, "will you tell me why you go 
barefoot?  All the time I lived here in the house I wanted to ask 
you.  Is it for a penance, or what?" 
 
     "No, sister.  It is for the indulgence of the body.  From my 
youth up I have had a strong, rebellious body, and have been 
subject to every kind of temptation.  Even in age my tempta-tions 
are prolonged.  It was necessary to make some allowances; and the 
feet, as I understand it, are free members.  There is no divine 
pro-hibition for them in the Ten Commandments. The hands, the 
tongue, the eyes, the heart, all the bodily desires we are 
commanded to sub-due; but the feet are free members.  I indulge 
them without harm to any one, even to tramp-ling in filth when my 
desires are low.  They are quickly cleaned again." 
 
     Signa did not laugh.  She looked thoughtful as she followed 
Ivar out to the wagon-shed and held the shafts up for him, while 
he backed in the mare and buckled the hold-backs.  "You have been 
a good friend to the mistress, Ivar," she murmured. 
 
     "And you, God be with you," replied Ivar as he clambered 
into the cart and put the lan-tern under the oilcloth lap-cover.  
"Now for a ducking, my girl," he said to the mare, gather-ing up 
the reins. 
 
     As they emerged from the shed, a stream of water, running 
off the thatch, struck the mare on the neck.  She tossed her head 
indignantly, then struck out bravely on the soft ground, slipping 
back again and again as she climbed the hill to the main road.  
Between the rain and the darkness Ivar could see very little, so 
he let Emil's mare have the rein, keeping her head in the right 
direction.  When the ground was level, he turned her out of the 
dirt road upon the sod, where she was able to trot without 
slipping. 
 
     Before Ivar reached the graveyard, three miles from the 
house, the storm had spent itself, and the downpour had died into 
a soft, dripping rain.  The sky and the land were a dark smoke 
color, and seemed to be coming together, like two waves.  When 
Ivar stopped at the gate and swung out his lantern, a white 
figure rose from beside John Bergson's white stone. 
 
     The old man sprang to the ground and shuf-fled toward the 
gate calling, "Mistress, mis-tress!" 
 
     Alexandra hurried to meet him and put her hand on his 
shoulder.  "TYST!  Ivar.  There's nothing to be worried about.  
I'm sorry if I've scared you all.  I didn't notice the storm till 
it was on me, and I couldn't walk against it.  I'm glad you've 
come.  I am so tired I didn't know how I'd ever get home." 
 
     Ivar swung the lantern up so that it shone in her face.  
"GUD!  You are enough to frighten us, mistress.  You look like a 
drowned woman. How could you do such a thing!" 
 
     Groaning and mumbling he led her out of the gate and helped 
her into the cart, wrapping her in the dry blankets on which he 
had been sitting. 
 
     Alexandra smiled at his solicitude.  "Not much use in that, 
Ivar.  You will only shut the wet in.  I don't feel so cold now; 
but I'm heavy and numb.  I'm glad you came." 
 
     Ivar turned the mare and urged her into a sliding trot.  Her 
feet sent back a continual spatter of mud. 
 
     Alexandra spoke to the old man as they jogged along through 
the sullen gray twilight of the storm.  "Ivar, I think it has 
done me good to get cold clear through like this, once.  I don't 
believe I shall suffer so much any more.  When you get so near 
the dead, they seem more real than the living.  Worldly thoughts 
leave one. Ever since Emil died, I've suffered so when it rained.  
Now that I've been out in it with him, I shan't dread it.  After 
you once get cold clear through, the feeling of the rain on you 
is sweet. It seems to bring back feelings you had when you were a 
baby.  It carries you back into the dark, before you were born; 
you can't see things, but they come to you, somehow, and you know 
them and aren't afraid of them.  Maybe it's like that with the 
dead.  If they feel anything at all, it's the old things, before 
they were born, that comfort people like the feeling of their own 
bed does when they are little." 
 
     "Mistress," said Ivar reproachfully, "those are bad 
thoughts.  The dead are in Paradise." 
 
     Then he hung his head, for he did not believe that Emil was 
in Paradise. 
 
     When they got home, Signa had a fire burn-ing in the 
sitting-room stove.  She undressed Alexandra and gave her a hot 
footbath, while Ivar made ginger tea in the kitchen.  When 
Alexandra was in bed, wrapped in hot blankets, Ivar came in with 
his tea and saw that she drank it.  Signa asked permission to 
sleep on the slat lounge outside her door.  Alexandra endured 
their attentions patiently, but she was glad when they put out 
the lamp and left her. As she lay alone in the dark, it occurred 
to her for the first time that perhaps she was actually tired of 
life.  All the physical operations of life seemed difficult and 
painful.  She longed to be free from her own body, which ached 
and was so heavy.  And longing itself was heavy: she yearned to 
be free of that. 
 
     As she lay with her eyes closed, she had again, more vividly 
than for many years, the old illu-sion of her girlhood, of being 
lifted and carried lightly by some one very strong.  He was with 
her a long while this time, and carried her very far, and in his 
arms she felt free from pain. When he laid her down on her bed 
again, she opened her eyes, and, for the first time in her life, 
she saw him, saw him clearly, though the room was dark, and his 
face was covered.  He was standing in the doorway of her room.  
His white cloak was thrown over his face, and his head was bent a 
little forward.  His shoulders seemed as strong as the 
foundations of the world.  His right arm, bared from the elbow, 
was dark and gleaming, like bronze, and she knew at once that it 
was the arm of the mighti-est of all lovers.  She knew at last 
for whom it was she had waited, and where he would carry her.  
That, she told herself, was very well. Then she went to sleep. 
 
     Alexandra wakened in the morning with nothing worse than a 
hard cold and a stiff shoulder.  She kept her bed for several 
days, and it was during that time that she formed a resolution to 
go to Lincoln to see Frank Sha-bata.  Ever since she last saw him 
in the court-room, Frank's haggard face and wild eyes had haunted 
her.  The trial had lasted only three days.  Frank had given 
himself up to the police in Omaha and pleaded guilty of kill-ing 
without malice and without premeditation. The gun was, of course, 
against him, and the judge had given him the full sentence,--ten 
years.  He had now been in the State Peni-tentiary for a month. 
 
     Frank was the only one, Alexandra told her-self, for whom 
anything could be done.  He had been less in the wrong than any 
of them, and he was paying the heaviest penalty.  She often felt 
that she herself had been more to blame than poor Frank.  From 
the time the Shabatas had first moved to the neighboring farm, 
she had omitted no opportunity of throwing Marie and Emil 
together.  Because she knew Frank was surly about doing little 
things to help his wife, she was always sending Emil over to 
spade or plant or carpenter for Marie.  She was glad to have Emil 
see as much as possible of an intelli-gent, city-bred girl like 
their neighbor; she no-ticed that it improved his manners.  She 
knew that Emil was fond of Marie, but it had never occurred to 
her that Emil's feeling might be dif-ferent from her own.  She 
wondered at herself now, but she had never thought of danger in 
that direction.  If Marie had been unmarried, --oh, yes!  Then 
she would have kept her eyes open.  But the mere fact that she 
was Sha-bata's wife, for Alexandra, settled everything. That she 
was beautiful, impulsive, barely two years older than Emil, these 
facts had had no weight with Alexandra.  Emil was a good boy, and 
only bad boys ran after married women. 
 
     Now, Alexandra could in a measure realize that Marie was, 
after all, Marie; not merely a "married woman."  Sometimes, when 
Alex-andra thought of her, it was with an aching tenderness.  The 
moment she had reached them in the orchard that morning, 
everything was clear to her.  There was something about those two 
lying in the grass, something in the way Marie had settled her 
cheek on Emil's shoulder, that told her everything.  She wondered 
then how they could have helped loving each other; how she could 
have helped knowing that they must.  Emil's cold, frowning face, 
the girl's content--Alexandra had felt awe of them, even in the 
first shock of her grief. 
 
     The idleness of those days in bed, the relax-ation of body 
which attended them, enabled Alexandra to think more calmly than 
she had done since Emil's death.  She and Frank, she told 
herself, were left out of that group of friends who had been 
overwhelmed by disaster. She must certainly see Frank Shabata.  
Even in the courtroom her heart had grieved for him. He was in a 
strange country, he had no kins-men or friends, and in a moment 
he had ruined his life.  Being what he was, she felt, Frank could 
not have acted otherwise.  She could understand his behavior more 
easily than she could understand Marie's.  Yes, she must go to 
Lincoln to see Frank Shabata. 
 
     The day after Emil's funeral, Alexandra had written to Carl 
Linstrum; a single page of note-paper, a bare statement of what 
had happened. She was not a woman who could write much about such 
a thing, and about her own feelings she could never write very 
freely.  She knew that Carl was away from post-offices, prospect-
ing somewhere in the interior.  Before he started he had written 
her where he expected to go, but her ideas about Alaska were 
vague.  As the weeks went by and she heard nothing from him, it 
seemed to Alexandra that her heart grew hard against Carl.  She 
began to wonder whether she would not do better to finish her 
life alone. What was left of life seemed unimportant. 
 
 
 
                                II 
 
 
     Late in the afternoon of a brilliant October day, Alexandra 
Bergson, dressed in a black suit and traveling-hat, alighted at 
the Burlington depot in Lincoln.  She drove to the Lindell Hotel, 
where she had stayed two years ago when she came up for Emil's 
Commencement. In spite of her usual air of sureness and self-
possession, Alexandra felt ill at ease in hotels, and she was 
glad, when she went to the clerk's desk to register, that there 
were not many people in the lobby.  She had her supper early, 
wearing her hat and black jacket down to the dining-room and 
carrying her handbag.  After supper she went out for a walk. 
 
     It was growing dark when she reached the university campus.  
She did not go into the grounds, but walked slowly up and down 
the stone walk outside the long iron fence, looking through at 
the young men who were running from one building to another, at 
the lights shin-ing from the armory and the library.  A squad of 
cadets were going through their drill behind the armory, and the 
commands of their young officer rang out at regular intervals, so 
sharp and quick that Alexandra could not understand them.  Two 
stalwart girls came down the library steps and out through one of 
the iron gates.  As they passed her, Alexandra was pleased to 
hear them speaking Bohemian to each other.  Every few moments a 
boy would come running down the flagged walk and dash out into 
the street as if he were rushing to announce some wonder to the 
world.  Alexandra felt a great tenderness for them all.  She 
wished one of them would stop and speak to her.  She wished she 
could ask them whether they had known Emil. 
 
     As she lingered by the south gate she actually did encounter 
one of the boys.  He had on his drill cap and was swinging his 
books at the end of a long strap.  It was dark by this time; he 
did not see her and ran against her.  He snatched off his cap and 
stood bareheaded and panting.  "I'm awfully sorry," he said in a 
bright, clear voice, with a rising inflection, as if he expected 
her to say something. 
 
     "Oh, it was my fault!" said Alexandra eagerly. "Are you an 
old student here, may I ask?" 
 
     "No, ma'am.  I'm a Freshie, just off the farm.  Cherry 
County.  Were you hunting somebody?" 
 
     "No, thank you.  That is--"  Alexandra wanted to detain him.  
"That is, I would like to find some of my brother's friends.  He 
gradu-ated two years ago." 
 
     "Then you'd have to try the Seniors, wouldn't you?  Let's 
see; I don't know any of them yet, but there'll be sure to be 
some of them around the library.  That red building, right 
there," he pointed. 
 
     "Thank you, I'll try there," said Alexandra lingeringly. 
 
     "Oh, that's all right!  Good-night."  The lad clapped his 
cap on his head and ran straight down Eleventh Street.  Alexandra 
looked after him wistfully. 
 
     She walked back to her hotel unreasonably comforted.  "What 
a nice voice that boy had, and how polite he was.  I know Emil 
was always like that to women."  And again, after she had 
undressed and was standing in her nightgown, brushing her long, 
heavy hair by the electric light, she remembered him and said to 
herself, "I don't think I ever heard a nicer voice than that boy 
had.  I hope he will get on well here. Cherry County; that's 
where the hay is so fine, and the coyotes can scratch down to 
water." 
 
     At nine o'clock the next morning Alexandra presented herself 
at the warden's office in the State Penitentiary.  The warden was 
a Ger-man, a ruddy, cheerful-looking man who had formerly been a 
harness-maker.  Alexandra had a letter to him from the German 
banker in Hanover.  As he glanced at the letter, Mr. Schwartz put 
away his pipe. 
 
     "That big Bohemian, is it?  Sure, he's gettin' along fine," 
said Mr. Schwartz cheer-fully. 
 
     "I am glad to hear that.  I was afraid he might be 
quarrelsome and get himself into more trouble.  Mr. Schwartz, if 
you have time, I would like to tell you a little about Frank 
Shabata, and why I am interested in him." 
 
     The warden listened genially while she told him briefly 
something of Frank's history and character, but he did not seem 
to find anything unusual in her account. 
 
     "Sure, I'll keep an eye on him.  We'll take care of him all 
right," he said, rising.  "You can talk to him here, while I go 
to see to things in the kitchen.  I'll have him sent in.  He 
ought to be done washing out his cell by this time.  We have to 
keep 'em clean, you know." 
 
     The warden paused at the door, speaking back over his 
shoulder to a pale young man in convicts' clothes who was seated 
at a desk in the corner, writing in a big ledger. 
 
     "Bertie, when 1037 is brought in, you just step out and give 
this lady a chance to talk." 
 
     The young man bowed his head and bent over his ledger again. 
 
     When Mr. Schwartz disappeared, Alexandra thrust her black-
edged handkerchief nervously into her handbag.  Coming out on the 
street-car she had not had the least dread of meeting Frank.  But 
since she had been here the sounds and smells in the corridor, 
the look of the men in convicts' clothes who passed the glass 
door of the warden's office, affected her unpleasantly. 
 
     The warden's clock ticked, the young con-vict's pen 
scratched busily in the big book, and his sharp shoulders were 
shaken every few seconds by a loose cough which he tried to 
smother.  It was easy to see that he was a sick man.  Alexandra 
looked at him timidly, but he did not once raise his eyes.  He 
wore a white shirt under his striped jacket, a high collar, and a 
necktie, very carefully tied.  His hands were thin and white and 
well cared for, and he had a seal ring on his little finger.  
When he heard steps approaching in the corridor, he rose, blotted 
his book, put his pen in the rack, and left the room without 
raising his eyes.  Through the door he opened a guard came in, 
bringing Frank Shabata. 
 
     "You the lady that wanted to talk to 1037? Here he is.  Be 
on your good behavior, now.  He can set down, lady," seeing that 
Alexandra remained standing.  "Push that white button when you're 
through with him, and I'll come." 
 
     The guard went out and Alexandra and Frank were left alone. 
 
     Alexandra tried not to see his hideous clothes.  She tried 
to look straight into his face, which she could scarcely believe 
was his.  It was already bleached to a chalky gray.  His lips 
were colorless, his fine teeth looked yellowish. He glanced at 
Alexandra sullenly, blinked as if he had come from a dark place, 
and one eye-brow twitched continually.  She felt at once that 
this interview was a terrible ordeal to him. His shaved head, 
showing the conformation of his skull, gave him a criminal look 
which he had not had during the trial. 
 
     Alexandra held out her hand.  "Frank," she said, her eyes 
filling suddenly, "I hope you'll let me be friendly with you.  I 
understand how you did it.  I don't feel hard toward you.  They 
were more to blame than you." 
 
     Frank jerked a dirty blue handkerchief from his trousers 
pocket.  He had begun to cry.  He turned away from Alexandra.  "I 
never did mean to do not'ing to dat woman," he mut-tered.  "I 
never mean to do not'ing to dat boy. I ain't had not'ing ag'in' 
dat boy.  I always like dat boy fine.  An' then I find him--"  He 
stopped.  The feeling went out of his face and eyes.  He dropped 
into a chair and sat looking stolidly at the floor, his hands 
hanging loosely between his knees, the handkerchief lying across 
his striped leg.  He seemed to have stirred up in his mind a 
disgust that had para-lyzed his faculties. 
 
     "I haven't come up here to blame you, Frank.  I think they 
were more to blame than you."  Alexandra, too, felt benumbed. 
 
     Frank looked up suddenly and stared out of the office 
window.  "I guess dat place all go to hell what I work so hard 
on," he said with a slow, bitter smile.  "I not care a damn."  He 
stopped and rubbed the palm of his hand over the light bristles 
on his head with annoyance. "I no can t'ink without my hair," he 
com-plained.  "I forget English.  We not talk here, except 
swear." 
 
     Alexandra was bewildered.  Frank seemed to have undergone a 
change of personality.  There was scarcely anything by which she 
could recognize her handsome Bohemian neighbor. He seemed, 
somehow, not altogether human. She did not know what to say to 
him. 
 
     "You do not feel hard to me, Frank?" she asked at last. 
 
     Frank clenched his fist and broke out in excitement.  "I not 
feel hard at no woman.  I tell you I not that kind-a man.  I 
never hit my wife.  No, never I hurt her when she devil me 
something awful!"  He struck his fist down on the warden's desk 
so hard that he afterward stroked it absently.  A pale pink crept 
over his neck and face.  "Two, t'ree years I know dat woman don' 
care no more 'bout me, Alex-andra Bergson.  I know she after some 
other man.  I know her, oo-oo!  An' I ain't never hurt her.  I 
never would-a done dat, if I ain't had dat gun along.  I don' 
know what in hell make me take dat gun.  She always say I ain't 
no man to carry gun.  If she been in dat house, where she ought-a 
been--  But das a foolish talk." 
 
     Frank rubbed his head and stopped suddenly, as he had 
stopped before.  Alexandra felt that there was something strange 
in the way he chilled off, as if something came up in him that 
extinguished his power of feeling or thinking. 
 
     "Yes, Frank," she said kindly.  "I know you never meant to 
hurt Marie." 
 
     Frank smiled at her queerly.  His eyes filled slowly with 
tears.  "You know, I most forgit dat woman's name.  She ain't got 
no name for me no more.  I never hate my wife, but dat woman what 
make me do dat--  Honest to God, but I hate her!  I no man to 
fight.  I don' want to kill no boy and no woman.  I not care how 
many men she take under dat tree.  I no care for not'ing but dat 
fine boy I kill, Alexan-dra Bergson.  I guess I go crazy sure 
'nough." 
 
     Alexandra remembered the little yellow cane she had found in 
Frank's clothes-closet.  She thought of how he had come to this 
country a gay young fellow, so attractive that the pretti-est 
Bohemian girl in Omaha had run away with him.  It seemed 
unreasonable that life should have landed him in such a place as 
this.  She blamed Marie bitterly.  And why, with her happy, 
affectionate nature, should she have brought destruction and 
sorrow to all who had loved her, even to poor old Joe Tovesky, 
the uncle who used to carry her about so proudly when she was a 
little girl?  That was the strangest thing of all.  Was there, 
then, some-thing wrong in being warm-hearted and impul-sive like 
that?  Alexandra hated to think so. But there was Emil, in the 
Norwegian grave-yard at home, and here was Frank Shabata. 
Alexandra rose and took him by the hand. 
 
     "Frank Shabata, I am never going to stop trying until I get 
you pardoned.  I'll never give the Governor any peace.  I know I 
can get you out of this place." 
 
     Frank looked at her distrustfully, but he gathered 
confidence from her face.  "Alexan-dra," he said earnestly, "if I 
git out-a here, I not trouble dis country no more.  I go back 
where I come from; see my mother." 
 
     Alexandra tried to withdraw her hand, but Frank held on to 
it nervously.  He put out his finger and absently touched a 
button on her black jacket.  "Alexandra," he said in a low tone, 
looking steadily at the button, "you ain' t'ink I use dat girl 
awful bad before--" 
 
     "No, Frank.  We won't talk about that," Alexandra said, 
pressing his hand.  "I can't help Emil now, so I'm going to do 
what I can for you.  You know I don't go away from home often, 
and I came up here on purpose to tell you this." 
 
     The warden at the glass door looked in in-quiringly.  
Alexandra nodded, and he came in and touched the white button on 
his desk.  The guard appeared, and with a sinking heart Alexandra 
saw Frank led away down the cor-ridor.  After a few words with 
Mr. Schwartz, she left the prison and made her way to the street-
car.  She had refused with horror the warden's cordial invitation 
to "go through the institution."  As the car lurched over its un-
even roadbed, back toward Lincoln, Alexandra thought of how she 
and Frank had been wrecked by the same storm and of how, al-
though she could come out into the sunlight, she had not much 
more left in her life than he. She remembered some lines from a 
poem she had liked in her schooldays:--
 
     Henceforth the world will only be 
     A wider prison-house to me,--
 
and sighed.  A disgust of life weighed upon her heart; some such 
feeling as had twice frozen Frank Shabata's features while they 
talked together.  She wished she were back on the Divide. 
 
     When Alexandra entered her hotel, the clerk held up one 
finger and beckoned to her.  As she approached his desk, he 
handed her a telegram. Alexandra took the yellow envelope and 
looked at it in perplexity, then stepped into the ele-vator 
without opening it.  As she walked down the corridor toward her 
room, she reflected that she was, in a manner, immune from evil 
tid-ings.  On reaching her room she locked the door, and sitting 
down on a chair by the dresser, opened the telegram.  It was from 
Hanover, and it read:--
 
 
     Arrived Hanover last night.  Shall wait 
     here until you come.  Please hurry. 
                              CARL LINSTRUM. 
 
     Alexandra put her head down on the dresser and burst into 
tears. 
 
 
 
                               III 
 
 
     The next afternoon Carl and Alexandra were walking across 
the fields from Mrs. Hiller's.  Alexandra had left Lincoln after 
mid-night, and Carl had met her at the Hanover station early in 
the morning.  After they reached home, Alexandra had gone over to 
Mrs. Hiller's to leave a little present she had bought for her in 
the city.  They stayed at the old lady's door but a moment, and 
then came out to spend the rest of the afternoon in the sunny 
fields. 
 
     Alexandra had taken off her black traveling-suit and put on 
a white dress; partly because she saw that her black clothes made 
Carl un-comfortable and partly because she felt op-pressed by 
them herself.  They seemed a little like the prison where she had 
worn them yester-day, and to be out of place in the open fields. 
Carl had changed very little.  His cheeks were browner and 
fuller.  He looked less like a tired scholar than when he went 
away a year ago, but no one, even now, would have taken him for a 
man of business.  His soft, lustrous black eyes, his whimsical 
smile, would be less against him in the Klondike than on the 
Divide.  There are always dreamers on the frontier. 
 
     Carl and Alexandra had been talking since morning.  Her 
letter had never reached him. He had first learned of her 
misfortune from a San Francisco paper, four weeks old, which he 
had picked up in a saloon, and which con-tained a brief account 
of Frank Shabata's trial. When he put down the paper, he had 
already made up his mind that he could reach Alexandra as quickly 
as a letter could; and ever since he had been on the way; day and 
night, by the fastest boats and trains he could catch.  His 
steamer had been held back two days by rough weather. 
 
     As they came out of Mrs. Hiller's garden they took up their 
talk again where they had left it. 
 
     "But could you come away like that, Carl, without arranging 
things?  Could you just walk off and leave your business?" 
Alexandra asked. 
 
     Carl laughed.  "Prudent Alexandra!  You see, my dear, I 
happen to have an honest partner. I trust him with everything.  
In fact, it's been his enterprise from the beginning, you know. 
I'm in it only because he took me in.  I'll have to go back in 
the spring.  Perhaps you will want to go with me then.  We 
haven't turned up millions yet, but we've got a start that's 
worth following.  But this winter I'd like to spend with you.  
You won't feel that we ought to wait longer, on Emil's account, 
will you, Alexandra?" 
 
     Alexandra shook her head.  "No, Carl; I don't feel that way 
about it.  And surely you needn't mind anything Lou and Oscar say 
now.  They are much angrier with me about Emil, now, than about 
you.  They say it was all my fault.  That I ruined him by sending 
him to college." 
 
     "No, I don't care a button for Lou or Oscar.  The moment I 
knew you were in trou-ble, the moment I thought you might need 
me, it all looked different.  You've always been a triumphant 
kind of person."  Carl hesitated, looking sidewise at her strong, 
full figure.  "But you do need me now, Alex-andra?" 
 
     She put her hand on his arm.  "I needed you terribly when it 
happened, Carl.  I cried for you at night.  Then everything 
seemed to get hard inside of me, and I thought perhaps I should 
never care for you again.  But when I got your telegram 
yesterday, then--then it was just as it used to be.  You are all 
I have in the world, you know." 
 
     Carl pressed her hand in silence.  They were passing the 
Shabatas' empty house now, but they avoided the orchard path and 
took one that led over by the pasture pond. 
 
     "Can you understand it, Carl?" Alexandra murmured.  "I have 
had nobody but Ivar and Signa to talk to.  Do talk to me.  Can 
you un-derstand it?  Could you have believed that of Marie 
Tovesky?  I would have been cut to pieces, little by little, 
before I would have betrayed her trust in me!" 
 
     Carl looked at the shining spot of water before them.  
"Maybe she was cut to pieces, too, Alexandra.  I am sure she 
tried hard; they both did.  That was why Emil went to Mexico, of 
course.  And he was going away again, you tell me, though he had 
only been home three weeks.  You remember that Sunday when I went 
with Emil up to the French Church fair? I thought that day there 
was some kind of feel-ing, something unusual, between them.  I 
meant to talk to you about it.  But on my way back I met Lou and 
Oscar and got so angry that I forgot everything else.  You 
mustn't be hard on them, Alexandra.  Sit down here by the pond a 
minute.  I want to tell you something." 
 
     They sat down on the grass-tufted bank and Carl told her how 
he had seen Emil and Marie out by the pond that morning, more 
than a year ago, and how young and charming and full of grace 
they had seemed to him.  "It hap-pens like that in the world 
sometimes, Alexan-dra," he added earnestly.  "I've seen it 
before. There are women who spread ruin around them through no 
fault of theirs, just by being too beautiful, too full of life 
and love.  They can't help it.  People come to them as people go 
to a warm fire in winter.  I used to feel that in her when she 
was a little girl.  Do you remem-ber how all the Bohemians 
crowded round her in the store that day, when she gave Emil her 
candy?  You remember those yellow sparks in her eyes?" 
 
     Alexandra sighed.  "Yes.  People couldn't help loving her.  
Poor Frank does, even now, I think; though he's got himself in 
such a tangle that for a long time his love has been bitterer 
than his hate.  But if you saw there was any-thing wrong, you 
ought to have told me, Carl." 
 
     Carl took her hand and smiled patiently. "My dear, it was 
something one felt in the air, as you feel the spring coming, or 
a storm in summer.  I didn't SEE anything.  Simply, when I was 
with those two young things, I felt my blood go quicker, I felt--
how shall I say it?--an acceleration of life.  After I got away, 
it was all too delicate, too intangible, to write about." 
 
     Alexandra looked at him mournfully.  "I try to be more 
liberal about such things than I used to be.  I try to realize 
that we are not all made alike.  Only, why couldn't it have been 
Raoul Marcel, or Jan Smirka?  Why did it have to be my boy?" 
 
     "Because he was the best there was, I sup-pose.  They were 
both the best you had here." 
 
     The sun was dropping low in the west when the two friends 
rose and took the path again. The straw-stacks were throwing long 
shadows, the owls were flying home to the prairie-dog town.  When 
they came to the corner where the pastures joined, Alexandra's 
twelve young colts were galloping in a drove over the brow of the 
hill. 
 
     "Carl," said Alexandra, "I should like to go up there with 
you in the spring.  I haven't been on the water since we crossed 
the ocean, when I was a little girl.  After we first came out 
here I used to dream sometimes about the ship-yard where father 
worked, and a little sort of inlet, full of masts."  Alexandra 
paused.  After a moment's thought she said, "But you would never 
ask me to go away for good, would you?" 
 
     "Of course not, my dearest.  I think I know how you feel 
about this country as well as you do yourself."  Carl took her 
hand in both his own and pressed it tenderly. 
 
     "Yes, I still feel that way, though Emil is gone.  When I 
was on the train this morning, and we got near Hanover, I felt 
something like I did when I drove back with Emil from the river 
that time, in the dry year.  I was glad to come back to it.  I've 
lived here a long time. There is great peace here, Carl, and 
freedom. . . . I thought when I came out of that prison, where 
poor Frank is, that I should never feel free again.  But I do, 
here."  Alexandra took a deep breath and looked off into the red 
west. 
 
     "You belong to the land," Carl murmured, "as you have always 
said.  Now more than ever." 
 
     "Yes, now more than ever.  You remember what you once said 
about the graveyard, and the old story writing itself over?  Only 
it is we who write it, with the best we have." 
 
     They paused on the last ridge of the pasture, overlooking 
the house and the windmill and the stables that marked the site 
of John Bergson's homestead.  On every side the brown waves of 
the earth rolled away to meet the sky. 
 
     "Lou and Oscar can't see those things," said Alexandra 
suddenly.  "Suppose I do will my land to their children, what 
difference will that make?  The land belongs to the future, Carl; 
that's the way it seems to me.  How many of the names on the 
county clerk's plat will be there in fifty years?  I might as 
well try to will the sunset over there to my brother's children.  
We come and go, but the land is always here.  And the people who 
love it and understand it are the people who own it--for a little 
while." 
 
     Carl looked at her wonderingly.  She was still gazing into 
the west, and in her face there was that exalted serenity that 
sometimes came to her at moments of deep feeling.  The level rays 
of the sinking sun shone in her clear eyes. 
 
     "Why are you thinking of such things now, Alexandra?" 
 
     "I had a dream before I went to Lincoln--But I will tell you 
about that afterward, after we are married.  It will never come 
true, now, in the way I thought it might."  She took Carl's arm 
and they walked toward the gate.  "How many times we have walked 
this path together, Carl.  How many times we will walk it again! 
Does it seem to you like coming back to your own place?  Do you 
feel at peace with the world here?  I think we shall be very 
happy.  I haven't any fears.  I think when friends marry, they 
are safe.  We don't suffer like--those young ones." Alexandra 
ended with a sigh. 
 
     They had reached the gate.  Before Carl opened it, he drew 
Alexandra to him and kissed her softly, on her lips and on her 
eyes. 
 
     She leaned heavily on his shoulder.  "I am tired," she 
murmured.  "I have been very lonely, Carl." 
 
     They went into the house together, leaving the Divide behind 
them, under the evening star.  Fortunate country, that is one day 
to receive hearts like Alexandra's into its bosom, to give them 
out again in the yellow wheat, in the rustling corn, in the 
shining eyes of youth! 
 
 
 
       End of the Project Gutenberg Edition of O Pioneers!


Version of 12-26-91 (revised 1-20-92)
BY: CHARLES B. KRAMER, ESQ.
NY and IL Bars
CompuServe:  72600,2026
  Internet:  72600.2026@compuserve.com
       Tel:  (212) 254-5093

This is the January 1992 Project Gutenberg release of:
 
                           O Pioneers!
                                by
                           Willa Cather
 
 
We are rushing this edition a little because we had been under 
the impression this would be happening a few months from now, and 
only found out yesterday a change had been made in the schedule. 
 
All donations should be made to Project Gutenberg/IBC. (Illinois 
Benedictine College is tax deductible) (Subscriptions to our 
paper newsletter go to IBC, too) And sent to: 
 
David Turner, c/o IBC
Illinois Benedictine College
5700  College  Road
Lisle, IL 60532-0900
 
More information about Project Gutenberg electronic texts can be 
received by sending a stamp and mailing label to: 
 
Prof Michael S. Hart
Post Office Box 2782
Champaign, IL  61825
 
We would prefer to send you this information by email (Internet,
Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).  Email requests to:
 
hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (Internet)
hart@uiucvmd          (Bitnet)
>internet:hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu  (Compuserve)
internet!vmd.cso.uiuc.edu!HART   (Attmail)
 
If you have and FTP program (or emulator), please:
 
FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
ftp mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu
login:  anonymous
password:  anything
cd etext
dir [to see files]
get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
GET INDEX
for a list of books
and
GET NEW GUT for general information
and
MGET GUT* for newsletters.
 
**START****The small print!**For public domain etexts****START**
 
*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
 
By using or reading any part of the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext
that follows this statement, you indicate that you agree and
accept the following terms, conditions and disclaimers.  If you
do not understand them, or do not agree to and accept them, you
may not read or use the etext, and, upon request you will (if
applicable) return of the physical medium on which you received
this etext within 30 days of receiving it, whereupon you shall
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for the etext.
 
ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
 
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association (the
"Project").  Among other things, this means no one owns a United
States copyright in this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy
and distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying royalties.  Special rules, set forth below, apply
if you wish to copy and distribute this etext under the Project's
"PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
 
To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable efforts
to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain works.
Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any medium they
may be on may contain errors and defects (collectively, the
"Defects").  Among other things, such Defects may take the form
of incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors,
unauthorized distribution of a work that is not in the public
domain, a defective or damaged disk or other etext medium, or an
etext that contains codes that damage or cannot be read by your
equipment.
 
DISCLAIMER
 
As to every real and alleged Defect in this etext and any medium 
it may be on, and but for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" 
described below, (1) the Project (and any other party you may 
receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) dis-
claims *any* liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, 
including legal fees, and (2) YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE 
OR UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, 
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, AND CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNI-
TIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE 
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. 
 
RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND
 
If you received this etext in a physical medium, and the medium
was physically damaged when you received it, you may return it
within 90 days of receiving it to the person from whom you
received it with a note explaining such Defects.  Such person
shall give you, in his or its discretion, a replacement copy of
the etext or a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it.  If
you received it electronically and it is incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt, you may send notice within 90 days of receiving it to
the person from whom you received it describing such Defects.
Such person shall give you, in his or its discretion, a second
opportunity to receive it electronically, or a refund of the
money (if any) you paid to receive it.  In each case, if you
received the etext from the Project Gutenberg Association, its
address is ATT: Professor Michael Hart at either
hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (Internet) or 405 West Elm St.,
Urbana, IL 61801.
 
Aside from this limited warranty, THIS ETEXT IS PROVIDED TO YOU
"AS-IS".  NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
ARE MADE TO YOU AS TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
 
IF YOU DISTRIBUTE THIS ETEXT
 
You agree that if you distribute this etext or a copy of it to
anyone, you shall indemnify and hold the Project, its officers,
members and agents harmless from all liability, cost and expense,
including legal fees, that arise by reason of your distribution
and either a Defect in the etext, or any alteration, modification
or addition to the etext by you or for which you are responsible.
This provision applies to every distribution of this etext by
you, whether or not for profit or under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG"
trademark.
 
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" *OTHER* THAN IN A
PHYSICAL MEDIUM
 
You agree that if you distribute one or more copies of this etext
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark electronically (or
otherwise without distributing a disk, book or other physical
medium), you will:
 
*    Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this re-
     quires that you do not alter or modify its generic etext or
     ASCII, EBCDIC etc. format, or remove, alter or modify this  
   "small print!" statement; and
 
*    Honor the terms and conditions applicable to distributors
     under the "RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND" set forth above.
 
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" IN A PHYSICAL MEDIUM
 
If you wish to distribute one or more copies of this etext under
the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark on a disk, book or other
physical medium, you are required to (1) honor all of the above
conditions for distribution (except that the "ASCII" requirement
only applies to distribution in machine readable form), and (2)
make certain payments to the Project Gutenberg Association.
Please direct your inquiries for details to the Association, ATT:
Professor Michael Hart at either hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (Internet)
or 405 West Elm St., Urbana, IL 61801.
 
**END******The small print!**For public domain etexts******END**
