The Wind Before the Dawn. Dell H. Munger

“TILL DEATH DO YOU PART” CONSIDERED

CHAPTER I

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CASTLES IN SPAIN

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      The unclouded sun of a burning August day had driven bird and beast to shelter wherever a bit of shade could be found. The Kansas prairie afforded little refuge from sun or wind. The long stretches of low rolling hills were mostly covered with short grass, now dry from a protracted season of drought. Occasionally a group of stunted cottonwood trees surrounded an equally stunted looking hut, or dugout, but the blazing sunshine had browned all to a monotonous tone in keeping with the monotonous life it represented. The only corn to be seen was of the variety called sod-corn, which, unwashed by rain for a full month now, had failed to mature, such stalks as had tasselled at all being as barren as the rest because the tender silks had dried too rapidly and could furnish no fertilizing moisture to the pollen which sifted down from the scanty bloom above.

      The sun’s rays beat down upon the head of a fourteen-year-old girl who rode slowly around a herd of cattle, the members of which lay in the unavailing shade of the rosin weeds or browsed drowsily on the short grass. The day had been long and hard. The child knew that it was not later than two o’clock, having counted the hours eagerly since early morning, and having eaten her bit of cornbread and bacon full two hours before. She stopped her horse for the fortieth time, however, to get the angle of her shadow on the ground and to confirm her calculations. The sigh she gave as she again started on her round was not of relief, but of resignation. It was necessary to keep on the move or she was likely to fall asleep in her saddle, and then the cattle would escape to the nearby fields, and there would be a neighbourhood altercation over the matter, whether the fields held crops of value or not, farmers being jealous of their territorial rights, and ready to resent intrusion upon them.

      Another horseback rider was moving across the prairie toward her, and the girl smiled when she saw him and stopped to watch his calico pony lope unevenly across the grass-covered slope. The pony was prone to drop into a rough trot at short intervals, and at such times was urged to renewed efforts by a dig of its rider’s heels in the under regions of its stunted body. In order to get his heels in contact with his mount, the lanky boy was obliged to elevate his knees slightly, and when it was over his feet dropped languidly and his heavy plow-shoes dangled loosely, with several inches of bare ankle in evidence before the faded overalls concealed further stretches of the hairy legs.

      “Howdie, Lizzie!” he said with a pleasant smile as he drew his pony up beside her. “I’ve got something to tell you. We’ve sold out, an’ goin’ right off. Th’ other folks moved in last night. They was goin’ through with a wagon an’ stopped to eat. They found out that pap wanted to sell an’ go back to Minnesoty, an’ took th’ land quick. I’ve come to say good-bye.”

      It had been so exciting that he had tumbled his news all out at once, although he was a quiet boy and slow of speech.

      “Oh, Luther! Are you really going away?” The girl exclaimed in dismay.

      “Yass,” the boy replied, falling back unconsciously into Swedish pronunciation. He had begun his announcement with pleased animation, but now that it was out, and she was sorry, the going did not seem so pleasing. “I wisht I wasn’t!” he added with quick dejection.

      “I should think you’d be glad. I’d be glad, if I was going too.”

      The boy looked surprised and asked with some curiosity, “What do you want to go for? I thought you liked Kansas.”

      “Put your hand on your horse’s neck,” she commanded, leaning forward and setting the example.

      The boy did as she told him, but drew his hand back suddenly.

      “Gosh!” he exclaimed. “Don’t their hair get hot in this sun!”

      “Well, I’m just as hot as that all over,” she replied emphatically, “and I want to go to a country where a body can get under a tree once in a while. I can’t go in till five o’clock, and I forgot my jug, and I’m so thirsty I feel as if I’d crack like this ground,” she said, pointing to the earth between them.

      “Jimminy! I’ll ride back and fetch you a drink,” he said, poking his heels into his pony’s ribs so suddenly that the little beast kicked spitefully.

      The girl called after him to “never mind,” but he was off on his errand. It was a good mile to her home, but the boy knew what it meant to forget the water-jug on a day like this.

      When he returned half an hour later the sunshine had changed character and there was a peculiar dimming of its brilliancy.

      “Is it going to rain?” the girl asked as she lowered the jug to her knee. She wiped her lips on the skirt of the faded sunbonnet she wore and looked up again.

      “Rain!” Luther Hansen swept the horizon with the air of one who knew the signs, backing his horse about to see on all sides as he did so.

      “Th’ don’t seem t’ be any clouds,” he said in surprise. “Ain’t it queer! Looks’s if it might be some kind of eclipse,” he said. “Do you remember—no, of course you don’t—but, th’ was an eclipse of th’ sun—total, I believe they called it—when I was only about seven year old. All th’ chickens went to roost, it got so dark, an’ when th’ cover come off they crowed’s if ’twas mornin’. We had a blue hen an’ she crowed too. Pap killed ’er. He said it was bad luck t’ have a hen crowin’ about th’ place.”

      “You all don’t believe in luck, do you?” the child asked.

      “I don’t, but pap does,” the boy answered apologetically. “I cried about th’ blue hen; she was just like a dog; she’d let you ketch ’er, an’ she’d sing, ‘co-ook, co-ook, co-ook,’ to ’erself, right in your arms, an’ wasn’t afraid. She wouldn’t never set though. I guess that’s why pap was so ready with his axe.”

      Happening to look up again, the girl gave an exclamation of surprise. “Is it snow?” she asked.

      “No!”

      They sat with their faces turned skyward, studying the upper air intently. The sun was completely obscured now and the rapidly moving mass, not unlike snow indeed, was being driven straight toward the north. Whatever it was, it was driving fiercely ahead, as if impelled by a strong wind, though there was not a breath of air stirring below. Soon small objects began to detach themselves from the mass, so that the eye could distinguish separate particles, which looked not unlike scraps of silver driven with terrific force from the tail end of some gigantic machine. One of these scraps struck the girl on the cheek and she put her hand up quickly to feel the spot. While examining the place she received a similar blow on the forehead and another on the back of her hand. Drawing her bonnet down tight over her face for protection, she shaded her eyes and again looked up. The whole moving cloud had lowered to a distinguishable distance.

      “Why, they’re all grasshoppers!” she exclaimed; and indeed so true was the observation and so rapidly were the grasshoppers settling that the boy and girl were obliged to turn their backs and shield their faces from the storm.

      The cattle also, annoyed by the myriads of insects settling upon them, began to move about restlessly and presently to mill slowly around, threshing with their heads from side to side while they whipped their flanks with their tails.

      “I didn’t know they came like this!” the girl said, as