The Wind Before the Dawn. Dell H. Munger

and the coming of the young grass, the handful of cattle that had not died of starvation began to look healthier. A shipment of seed corn for planting, and even a stinted amount for feed, had been sent from the East in March. But for that donation even the work horses must have succumbed. Josiah Farnshaw had the best horses in the country and was suspected of having had far more help than he had really received. The two teams he had favoured all winter against the seeding season were the envy of all. Some of the old neighbours, after a winter spent with the wife’s relatives in the East, had decided to return and take the chances of the grasshopper-ridden Middle West, and had come with horses able to drag the plow, but, worn from travel, most of them were practically useless.

      There was a lull after the small grain was in the ground. The menacing eggs of the grasshoppers began to hatch as the sun warmed the earth. It was a period of intense anxiety. So many months had been spent in alternate intervals of hope and fear that now, since the test was actually and immediately to be made, the tension was terrific. Men rose as soon as the first light of day appeared and went to examine the tender grain, without which they could not remain upon the land which had cost so dear in the suffering of the winter just past.

      A surprise was in store for them. The young insects matured rapidly. While they appeared in swarms, it was noticed that they disappeared immediately upon hatching.

      Kansas began to get its breath.

      Never was promise of crops more encouraging. There was a distinct note of reassurance and hopefulness in the air. What became of the grasshoppers nobody knew exactly, but they went almost as fast as they hatched. Some shook their heads and said, “Wait till hot weather.”

      Josiah Farnshaw moved steadily ahead with his planting. He announced that he had faith in Kansas—had always had—he’d stand on the burning deck! While others hesitated, he took advantage of wind and weather to get his crops in the ground. He had been right all along. He did not propose “to be run off of the land he had homesteaded and set with trees by any durned little bugs he’d ever come across.” It was necessary to be up and doing if a man was going to provide for a family.

      Now this assertion proved to be true, for the agent of the harvester company visited him and requested payment of the notes given the year before. The agent was gracious when the inability to pay was explained. He would renew the paper if it could be secured by the land. There was no hurry about payment, but it was necessary for the details to be finished up in a business-like manner. The thing looked simple enough. It was a just debt and Mr. Farnshaw intended to pay it. He’d as soon it was secured by the land as any other way. The details were soon arranged.

      Mr. Farnshaw agreed to meet the agent in Colebyville, the nearest town, the next day, and have the papers made out. After the agent was gone Mr. Farnshaw went to the house to inform his wife that she was to go to town and attach her name to the document.

      The storm of protest was expected, and when Mrs. Farnshaw broke out with:

      “Now, pa, you ain’t never goin’ t’ mortgage th’ farm, are you?” he answered surlily:

      “Yes, I be, an’ I don’t want no words about it neither,” and walked determinedly out of the house, leaving his wife to cry out her fears with her children.

      “We won’t have where to lay our heads, soon,” she announced bitterly. “I’ve seen somethin’ of th’ mortgage business an’ I ain’t never seen any of ’em free from payin’ interest afterward.” This was no mere personal quarrel. Her children distinguished that. This was real, definite trouble.

      Accustomed as the child was to her mother’s woes, Lizzie Farnshaw was moved to unusual demonstrations by the quality of the outburst of tears which followed the words, and said impulsively:

      “Never you mind, ma, I’m going to teach school in another year, and I’ll help pay the interest; and we’ll get out of debt, too, somehow.”

      Mrs. Farnshaw brightened.

      “I hadn’t thought of that!” she said. “I’m glad you’re willin’ t’ help out. I had thought maybe you’d get me one of them new nubies after you got some money of your own.” She went into the other room to lay out the black dress, which death had sanctified some months before, for use on the morrow. The opportunity to wear the emblems of mourning turned her childish mind away from the object of her journey, and left her as unconscious as the young girl herself that the mortgage had extended from the land to the lives of herself and her husband, and that in that promise it had laid its withering hand on the future of her child as well.

      The promise of assistance had been lightly given; unearned money is always easily spent; besides, a teacher’s salary seemed rolling wealth to the girl who had never had a whole dollar in her life. The question of paying the next year’s interest was for the time settled. The next morning the healthy young mind was much more largely concerned with the appearance of her mother in the new black dress than with either the mourning it represented or the mortgage which occasioned its presence. She sensed dimly that a mortgage was a calamity, but her vigorous youth refused to concern itself for long with a disaster so far removed as the next year.

      But though calamity might pursue Lizzie Farnshaw on one hand, true to her innate nature she handled fate in so masterful a manner that even poverty could not cheat her youth of all its prerogatives. In order to sufficiently nourish the teams which must be used in seeding, Josiah Farnshaw had been obliged to use a part of his seed corn for feed. In despair at the thought of not being able to plant all the land under cultivation, he was overjoyed to hear that a farmer by the name of Hornby, who lived twenty miles or more to the south, had a new and desirable variety which he was trying to exchange for cows with young calves by their sides. A calf was selected from their diminished herd, its mother tied behind the wagon which held it, and Lizzie taken along to assist in driving. The journey, though begun in early morning, was a tedious one, for the cow fretted, the day was hot, and the footsore and weary child was worn out long before the Hornby place was reached. It was after nine o’clock when they did arrive, the last five miles having been made with the added burden of a horse which seemed not at all well. Mr. Farnshaw would not even go into the house to eat supper, but asked the farmer to see that Lizzie was put to bed at once, while he remained with the sick horse. The best team had been chosen for this trip, in spite of the near approach of foaling time for one of the mares, because the other horses were too reduced by lack of food to drive so far.

      After eating a bowl of bread and milk the tired child was taken to her room by Mrs. Hornby, and in spite of the ruffled curtains which adorned the windows and the other evidences of taste and refinement about her, she was soon fast asleep.

      The next morning at daybreak the household of Nathan Hornby was astir. The first object upon which Lizzie’s eyes fell was Susan Hornby herself, who had come to call her to breakfast.

      “Your father took one of our horses and started right off home this morning. The one that was sick last night died and left a little colt. He said he thought he had better get the other one home at once, so he took ours. Come right into our room to wash and comb.”

      Lizzie was on her feet instantly and followed her hostess into the next room, making love to the neat white bows of her hostess’ apron-strings as she went. What did she care about her father’s departure without her when she could wash her face in a white bowl whose pitcher stood beside the washstand, and comb her hair before a looking-glass “where you could see your head and your belt at the same time?” But the combing was destined to be a lengthy process, for before the child had pulled her comb through the first lock attacked she saw reflected beside her face in that mirror an old-fashioned, black walnut secretary full of books! Lizzie Farnshaw had never seen a dozen books in one house in her life except school books, and here were rows of books that didn’t look like any she had ever seen. She took her comb and walked over to the bookcase where she could read the titles and comb at the same time, the spacious mirror, two whole feet in length, being forgotten in this much more desirable gift of fortune.

      Susan Hornby’s eyes twinkled with delight. In the five years she had been in Kansas she had never been able to persuade any one to read