The Wind Before the Dawn. Dell H. Munger

in low tones, avoiding the young girl’s presence, and were evidently puzzled and uneasy. It was Elizabeth’s way to make the troubles of those about her her own. Longing to help, it was impossible to be indifferent. Gradually she got bits of indirect light upon the subject. From little things dropped accidentally, and often from explanations which circumstances forced upon them, Elizabeth learned that money was scarce. This came as a shock, and with all the hurt and heartsick worry which the mention of finances always brought to the girl. Why must people have money? she asked herself daily. And mixed with dreams of “The Unknown” came speculations as to the part which money played in the game of life, and the bondage of men to it, and a longing to be free from its withering grasp. In her childish mind the matter of freedom became slightly mixed and she dreamed dreams of being free by owning unlimited amounts of it, and she coveted marvellous bank accounts, acquired in some mystical way, with which the woes of humanity could be relieved by giving. Along with this new idea of dispensing charity grew a desire to know why the crop of cash was short in Nathan Hornby’s home. In her innocent way she led up to the subject of expenses in general, but Aunt Susan kept family affairs strictly in the family and vouchsafed no explanations, unaware that the example she set in that way was to bear strange and unexpected fruit. But though Elizabeth carried the reflex of the anxiety of those about her, she was scarcely sixteen, and youth and joy and life claimed her attention and the affairs of her stage in life’s span crowded out the affairs of others.

      These were days of transition. The child was becoming a woman. The love which was flowing out of her heart like a spring freshet toward one who, because she saw him less often was the more often in her thoughts, was making Elizabeth Farnshaw more observant of those who professed love. Desiring mutual relations, she became sensitive to the communications of those about her who had to do with mutual relations.

      Elizabeth saw that the more trouble clouded the brow of Nathan Hornby the cheerier and closer Aunt Susan drew to him. There was none of the quarrels here to which Elizabeth had become accustomed when things went wrong at home. The contrast between her father’s and mother’s daily life and that of Nathan and Susan Hornby in times of trouble was the subject of constant thought. Nathan and Susan Hornby were to be guide-posts along the highway of Elizabeth Farnshaw’s domestic affairs. Love pointed her thoughts toward marriage, and here was a worthy model after which to build. Her natural affection and gratitude were enhanced by the fact that this couple with whom she lived, and who were otherwise very dear to her, were the immediate example of all that was noble in the world of her present dreams.

      The fact that the harmony between Aunt Susan and her mate was of stern stuff and not matured solely upon success and pleasure added to the strength of that example. Elizabeth had not been taken into the confidence of either; their private affairs were kept screened from the gaze of any but themselves. By a word dropped here and there, however, she learned that Nathan had speculated and lost much money; also that he had favoured measures advanced by butter-tongued lobbyists, and that he had lost the good-will of many of his constituents.

      While Elizabeth watched the tender association of Nathan Hornby and his wife and found such glowing tribute in her heart toward the life they lived together, a tragedy, in spite of the support and affection lavished by a faithful wife, was to leave the sunny, cordial man a broken, half-suspicious one.

      Nathan Hornby was to learn that legislative assemblies were death-traps to those whom providence had failed to coach in diplomacy and judgment, that legislation was a game at which none but gamesters might successfully play, a devouring flame singeing the wings of all who failed to distinguish between the light of a common candle and that of a real sun, that it was a nightmare to most, and ticklish business for all. Unable to distinguish between the good and the bad intentions of those who advocated the passage of bills, convinced long before the end of the legislative session that a bill looking innocent and direct in its wording might be evil and indirect in its outworking, Nathan became more and more confused and less and less able to withstand the attacks made upon him.

      Nathan Hornby was a leaden figure in the legislative assembly. He was honest, but slow of wit, and apt to become passive if pushed beyond his power to understand. This man who could throw the earth up to a hill of corn with skill and precision, who could build a haystack which would turn the rains and snows of winter, and break a colt to the harness without breaking its spirit, who had handled successfully the problems to which he had been trained, was not able to throw arguments up to the legislative hill or protect his reputation against the floods of criticism and accusation to which his actions were subjected either here in the Capitol or at home among his constituents. His spirit was broken: he recognized that he was totally unfit for the position into which fortune had thrust him. Nathan sat back in his chair, in the House, with few books and papers on the desk before him, and these unopened, his manner, like his wrinkled boots, indicative of the farm, his whole attitude that of the unsophisticated. He listened to the speeches made around him, but had no ideas to express. He was a pathetic figure. Only the accidents of Grasshopper Year, when legislative timber was scarce, could have placed him in such a position. His tough, shaven cheeks grew thinner day by day as he pulled at the brush of grizzled chin-whiskers and tried to understand what went on before him.

      During those days Susan was both his refuge and the cross of his crucifixion. The deeper his difficulties became the more he turned to her for help, certain not only that she understood better than he the measures about which his colleagues argued, but that she understood him and his failures, as well as his needs. It was because Susan understood that the cross was so heavy. If his wife had been a dull woman, if she had been a woman without ambitions of her own, if she could have been hoaxed into thinking him the equal of his associates, it would have been easier; but Nathan was aware that Susan Hornby knew to the finest detail the nature of his failure as well as she understood and loved the best in him. During those gloomy days the man marvelled at the gentleness of her solicitations for his cheering and encouragement, not realizing that woman is by nature faithful where man is appreciative of her devotion. Appreciation! that had been the keynote of Nathan Hornby’s attitude toward his wife. Susan had always known what she ought to do, what she wanted to do, and what it was best for her to do, and in all matters where her individual affairs were concerned Nathan had never interposed coercion nor advice. If Susan made mistakes, her husband knew that they were the mistakes of the head and not of the heart, and left her to correct them in her own way.

      Susan Hornby had always been free, and now the walls of love and trust which Nathan Hornby had builded about their home for nearly twenty years were to be a flawless rampart behind which he could take refuge from foes without and receive help from within. At Nathan’s request his wife came day after day and listened to the discussions toward the end of the session. Nathan sat before her dumb, but she was the anchor to his drifting soul as the political landslide took the ground out from under his feet.

      “I only wisht I’d ’a’ taken you in on this thing sooner,” he said on one occasion, and remembered those first weeks when he had felt self-sufficient, and had made false moves at the State House, and had also let himself be inveigled into buying “a few margins.” That was the bitterest drop in his cup. Wheat had dropped steadily from the very day he had begun buying. A steady decline in prices was unthinkable, and it was not till their land was endangered that the trusting man began to take alarm, and even then he let the speculators who profited by the sales induce him to make one more wild investment to save that which he had already lost.

      His certainty that his neighbors would take revenge upon him for political differences by sly prods regarding speculation was of slight importance, but Susan was to be humiliated before them!—Susan, who had tried to help him to see the dangers—Susan, who did not complain when she was called upon to sign the deeds to the land she had helped to win from the Indians and the wilderness of uncultivated things. Nathan remembered on that bitter day that but for her adventurous spirit he would have been working at day’s wages in old Indiana, instead of having a home and being an active member of his community and a member of the legislature of his state, with opportunities to prove himself a man in the world of men. He had failed, and his failure reacted upon her. It was not the loss of money and political prestige alone which bit. Another phase of their life in Topeka added its humiliation. Nathan had wanted his wife to share his political honours and had found himself ignorant