IC-NRLF 
 
 MS S33 
 
 LITTLE 
 
 NORSK 
 
 &&>3r<& 
 
H tattle IRorsh 
 
 OR 
 
 V pap Iflayen 
 
 BY 
 
 HAMLIN GARLAND 
 
 AUTHOR OF MAIN TRAVELED ROADS 
 
 A MEMBER OF THE THIRD HOUSE, A SPOIL OF OFFICE 
 JASON EDWARDS, ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1892 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1892, 
 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 PRINTED AT THE 
 APPLETON PRESS, U. S. A. 
 

 LS 
 
 On tbe plain. 
 
 Mi/ cabin cowers in the pathless sweep 
 
 Of the terrible northern blast; 
 
 Above its roof the wild clouds leap 
 
 And shriek as they hurtle past. 
 
 The snow-waves hiss along the plain, . 
 
 Like spectral ivolves they stretch and strain 
 
 And race and ramp with hissing beat, 
 
 Like stealthy tread of myriad feet, 
 
 I hear them pass; upon the roof 
 
 The icy showers sivirl and rattle; 
 
 At times the moon, from storms aloof, 
 
 Shines white and wan within the room 
 
 Then swift clouds drive across the light 
 
 And all the plain is lost to sight, 
 
 The cabin rocks, and on my palm 
 
 The sifted snow falls, cold and calm. 
 
 God ! What a power is in the wind ! 
 
 I lay my cheek to the cabin side 
 
 To feel the weight of his giant hands 
 
 A speck, a fly in the blasting tide 
 
 Of streaming, pitiless, icy sands; 
 
 A single heart with its feeble beat 
 
 A mouse in the lion s throat 
 
 A swimmer at sea a sunbeam s mote 
 
 In the grasp of a tempest of hail and sleet ! 
 
 627109 
 
Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Her Adoptive Parents, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Her First Trip in a Blizzard, . . .9 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Burial of her Dead Mother, . 22 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Flaxen Adopts Anson as " Pap, " 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Flaxen Becomes Indispensable to the Two 
 Old Bachelors, . .38 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A Question of Dress, . .46 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 After Harvest, - 69 
 
Contente, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 An Empty House, 78 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 "Baching" it Again, ... 86 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Flaxen Comes Home on a Vacation, . 105 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Flaxen Grows Restless, . . . .113 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Flaxen Says Good-bye, . . .. . .124 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Flaxen s Great Need, . . . .133 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Kendall Steps Out, 148 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Bert Conies Back, . .153 
 
A LITTLE NORSK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HER ADOPTIVE PARENTS. 
 
 NS, the next time you twist hay 
 f r the fire, I wish t you d 
 dodge the damp spots," said 
 the cook, rising from a pro 
 longed scrutiny of the stove and the bread 
 in the oven. His pose was threatening. 
 
 "Cooks are always grumblin ," calmly 
 remarked Anson, drawing on his gloves 
 preparatory to going out to the barn; 
 " but seein s this is Chris mus, I ll go 
 out an knock a barrel to pieces. I want 
 them biscuit to be 0. K. See?" 
 "Yes: I see." 
 "Say, Bert!" 
 "Well?" 
 
B 3Little 
 
 " Can t we have some sugar- lasses on 
 our biscuits, seein it s Chris mus?" 
 
 "Well, I s pose we can, Ans; but we re 
 gittin purty low on the thing these days, 
 an they ain t no tellin when we ll be 
 able to git more." 
 
 "Well, jes as you say, not as I care." 
 Anson went out into the roaring wind 
 with a shout of defiance, but came back 
 instantly, as if to say something he had 
 forgotten. " Say, wha d ye s pose is the 
 trouble over to the Norsk s? I hain t 
 seen a sign o smoke over there f r two r 
 three days." 
 
 "Well, now you speak of it, Ans, I ve 
 be n thinkin about that myself. I m 
 afraid he s out o coal, r sick, r some- 
 thin . It u d be mighty tough f r the 
 woman an babe to be there without any 
 fire, an this blizzard whoopin her up. 
 I guess you d better go over an see what s 
 up. I was goin to speak of it this 
 mornin , but f rgot it. I m cook this 
 week, so I guess the job falls on you." 
 
 "All right. Here goes." 
 
 " Better take a horse." 
 
1ber parents. 
 
 " No : I guess not. The snow is drif tin 
 purty bad, an he couldn t git through 
 the drifts, anyway." 
 
 " Well, lookout f r y rself, oP man. It 
 looks purty owly off in the west. Don t 
 waste any time. I d hate like thunder 
 to be left alone on a Dakota prairie f r 
 the rest o the winter." 
 
 Anson laughed back through the mist 
 of snow that blew in the open door, his 
 great-coat and cap allowing only a glimpse 
 of his cheeks. 
 
 The sky was bright overhead, but low 
 down around the horizon it looked 
 wild. The air was frightfully cold 
 far below zero and the wind had been 
 blowing almost every day for a week, and 
 was still strong. The snow was sliding 
 fitfully along the sod with a stealthy, men 
 acing motion, and far off in the west and 
 north a dense, shining cloud of frost was 
 hanging. 
 
 The plain was almost as lone and level 
 and bare as a polar ocean, where death 
 and silence reign undisputedly. There was 
 not a tree in sight, the grass was mainly 
 
Xfttle morsfc. 
 
 burned, or buried by the snow, and the 
 little shanties of the three or four settlers 
 could hardly be said to be in sight, half 
 sunk, as they were, in drifts. A large 
 white owl seated on a section stake was the 
 only living thing to be seen. 
 
 The boom had not yet struck Buster 
 County. Indeed, it did not seem to Bert 
 Gearheart at this moment that it would 
 ever strike Buster County. It was as 
 cold, dreary, and unprofitable an outlook 
 as a man could face and not go utterly 
 mad. If any of these pioneers could have 
 forecast the winter, they would not have 
 dared to pass it on the plains. 
 
 Bert watched his partner as he strode 
 rapidly across the prairie, now lost to 
 sight as a racing troop of snow-waves, 
 running shoulder-high, shot between, 
 now reappearing as the wind lulled. 
 
 " This is gittin pretty monotonous, to 
 tell the honest truth," he muttered as he 
 turned from the little window. " If that 
 railroad don t show up by March, in some 
 shape or other, I m goin to give it up. 
 Gittin free land like this is a little too 
 
fber 
 
 costly for me. I ll go back to Wiscons , 
 an rent land on shares." 
 
 Bert was a younger-looking man than 
 his bachelor companion; perhaps because 
 his face was clean-shaven and his frame 
 much slighter. He was a silent, moody 
 young fellow, hard to get along with, 
 though of great good heart. Anson Wood 
 succeeded in winning and holding his 
 love even through the trials of masculine 
 housekeeping. As Bert kept on with the 
 dinner, he went often to the little window 
 facing the east and looked out, each time 
 thawing a hole in the frost on the window- 
 panes. 
 
 The wind was rising again, and the 
 night promised to be wild, as the two 
 preceding nights had been. As he moved 
 back and forth setting out their scanty 
 meal, he was thinking of the old life back 
 in Wisconsin in the deeps of the little 
 coulee; of the sleigh-rides with the boys 
 and girls; of the Christmas doings; of 
 the damp, thick-falling snow among the 
 pines, where the wind had no terrors; of 
 musical bells on swift horses in the fra- 
 
Hittle Worsfc. 
 
 grant deeps, where the snowflakes fell like 
 caresses through the tossing branches of 
 the trees. 
 
 By the side of such a life the plain, 
 with its sliding snow and ferocious wind, 
 was appalling a treeless expanse and a 
 racing-ground for snow and wind. The 
 man s mood grew darker while he mused. 
 He served the meal on the rude box which 
 took the place of table, and still his com 
 panion did not come. He looked at his 
 watch. It was nearly one o clock, and 
 yet there was no sign of the sturdy figure 
 of Anson. 
 
 The house of the poor Norwegian was 
 about two miles away, and out of sight, 
 being built in a gully; but now the eye 
 could distinguish a house only when less 
 than a mile away. A man could not at 
 times be seen at a distance of ten rods, 
 though occasional lulls in the wind per 
 mitted Bert to see nearly to the " First 
 Moccasin." 
 
 "He may be in the swale," muttered 
 the watcher as he stood with his eye to 
 the loop-hole. But the next time he 
 
1ber parents. 
 
 looked the plain was as wild and lone as 
 before, save under the rising blast the 
 snow was beginning to ramp and race 
 across the level sod till it looked at times 
 like a sea running white with foam and 
 misty with spray. 
 
 At two o clock he said : " Well, I s pose 
 Ans has concluded to stay over there to 
 dinner, though what the Norsk can offer 
 as inducement I swear I don t know. 
 I ll eat, anyhow; he can have what s left." 
 
 He sat down to his lonely meal, and ate 
 slowly, getting up two or three times from 
 his candle-box in a growing anxiety for 
 Ans, using the heated poker now to clear 
 a spot on the pane. He expressed his 
 growing apprehension, manlike, by get 
 ting angry. 
 
 " I don t see what the darn fool means 
 by stayin so late. It ll be dark by four 
 o clock, er jest as soon as that cloud over 
 there strikes us. You couldn t beat sense 
 into some men s heads with a club." 
 
 He had eaten his dinner now, and had 
 taken to pacing up and down the little 
 room, which was exactly six paces long 
 
Xittle morsfe. 
 
 and three wide, and just high enough 
 to permit Anson to walk erect in the 
 highest part. 
 
 "Nice fix to leave a man in, ain t it? 
 All alone here, an a blizzard comin on! 
 If I ever git out o this country alive, I ll 
 bet I ll know enough not to come back," 
 he broke out, stamping his foot in a rage. 
 " I don t see what he means by it. If he s 
 caught in that blow, his life ain t worth 
 a cent." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HER FIRST TRIP IN" A BLIZZARD. 
 
 T half-past two the feelings of 
 the silent watcher began to 
 change. He thought more 
 about his partner out there in 
 the rising wind and th ickening snow. The 
 blast roared round the little cabin with a 
 deep, menacing, rising moan, and laid to 
 the stove-pipe a resounding lip, wailing 
 and shouting weirdly. Bert s nervous 
 walk quickened, and he looked so often 
 through the pane that the frost had not 
 time to close up. 
 
 Suddenly, out of the blinding, sweep 
 ing snow, not ten rods distant, the burly 
 form of Anson burst, head down, blindly 
 staggering forward into the teeth of the 
 tempest. He walked like a man whose 
 strength was almost gone, and he carried 
 a large bundle in his arms. 
 2 9 
 
10 B Xfttle IKorsfe. 
 
 Gearhart flung the door open, and 
 called in a cheery voice to guide the 
 struggling man to the house. He knew 
 what it was to face such a wind. 
 
 "Here ye are, oP man! Right this 
 way! Keep y r head down!" 
 
 Then, seeing that Anson hardly made 
 headway against the terrible blast, he 
 rushed out, bare-headed as he was, and 
 caught and hurried him in and shut the 
 door. 
 
 Reeling blindly, his breath roaring 
 like a furnace, his eyebrows hung with 
 icicles, his face masked with crusted 
 snow, Anson staggered in, crying hoarsely, 
 "Take her!" then slid to the floor, where 
 he lay panting for breath. 
 
 Bert caught the bundle from his arms. 
 A wailing, half-smothered cry came from 
 it. 
 
 "What is it, Ans?" he asked. 
 
 "A kid; warm it," said the giant, try 
 ing with his numbed fingers to undo the 
 shawl which wrapped the bundle. Bert 
 hurriedly unwound the shawl, and a 
 frightened child, blue -eyed and flaxen- 
 
11 
 
 haired flossy as unfrosted corn-silk 
 was disclosed like a nubbin of corn after 
 the husks are stripped off. 
 
 "Why, it s little Flaxen Hair! Wha 
 d ye bring her over for?" 
 
 " Sh!" said Anson hoarsely. "Mind 
 how y git her warm! Don t y see she s 
 froze?" 
 
 The little creature was about five, or 
 possibly six years old, scantily clad, but 
 neat and pretty. As her feet began to get 
 warm before the fire, she wailed with 
 pain, which Bert tried to stop by rub 
 bing. 
 
 " Put her hands in y r hair, hold her 
 feet in y r hands don t rub em," com 
 manded Ans, who was stripping the ice 
 from his eyelashes and from his matted 
 beard, which lay like a shield upon his 
 breast. " Stir up the fire ; give her some 
 hot coffee an some feed. She hain t had 
 anything to eat." 
 
 Bert tried to do all these things at once, 
 and could not, but managed finally to get 
 the child a piece of bread and a cup of 
 coffee, and to allay her fears. Ans began 
 
12 a Xittlc 
 
 to recover from his horrible journey and 
 was able to speak, though his lungs were 
 still painful. 
 
 " 01 man," he said solemnly and ten 
 derly, " I came jest as near stayin in that 
 last gully down there as a man could an 
 not. The snow was up to my armpits, 
 an let me down wherever the weeds was. 
 I had to waller; if it hadn t be n for her, 
 I guess I d a give up ; but I jest grit m 
 teeth an pulled through. There, guess 
 y hadn t better let her have any more. 
 I guess she ll go to sleep now she s fed an 
 warmed. Jest le me take her now, oP 
 man." 
 
 "No: you git rested up." 
 
 " See here, it ll rest me to hold that lit 
 tle chap. I m all right. My hands is 
 frosted some, an my ears, that s all, but my 
 breath is gittin back. Come on, now," 
 he pleaded. 
 
 Bert surrendered the child, who looked 
 up into the bearded face of the rough fel 
 low, then rested her head on his breast, 
 and went to sleep at last. It made his 
 heart thrill as he felt her little head 
 
a JBlf3ar&. is 
 
 against his breast. He never had held a 
 child in his arms before. 
 
 " Say, Bert, reckon I m a purty fair pic 
 ture of a fam ly man, now, eh? Throw in 
 a couple o twists more o hay " 
 
 Bert stirred up the fire. 
 
 " Well, now the little one is off, what s 
 up over to the Norsk s? Wha d ye bring 
 the child for?" he asked at last. 
 
 " Because she was the only livin soul in 
 the shanty." 
 
 " What?" His face was set in horror. 
 
 "Fact." 
 
 "Where s the Norsk?" 
 
 " I don t know. On the prairie some 
 where." 
 
 "An the mother?" 
 
 " She s " Here the little one stirred 
 
 slightly as he leaned forward, and Ans 
 said, with a wink, "She s asleep." He 
 winked significantly, and Bert understood 
 what the sleep was. " Be a little careful 
 what y say jes now; the little rat is 
 listenin . Jest say relative when y mean 
 her the woman, y know." 
 
 "Yes, sir," he resumed after a mo- 
 
14 a xtttle 1Kor8fe, 
 
 ment ; " I was scart when I saw that 
 house when I knocked, an no one 
 stirred r come to the door. They wasn t 
 a track around, an the barn an house 
 was all drifted up. I pushed the door 
 open; it was cold as a barn, an dark. I 
 couldn t see anythin f r a minute, but I 
 heard a sound o cryin from the bed that 
 made my hair stand up. I rushed over 
 there, an there lay the mother on the 
 bed, with nothin on but some kind of a 
 night-dress, an everythin dress, shawl, 
 an all piled on an around that blessed 
 child." 
 
 " She was sleepin ?" 
 
 " Like a stone. I couldn t believe it at 
 first. I raved around there, split up a 
 chair an the shelves, an made a fire. 
 Then I started to rub the woman s hands 
 an feet, but she was cold an hard as iron." 
 Bert shuddered in sympathy. " Then I 
 took the child up an rubbed her ; tried 
 to find somethin f r her to eat not a 
 blessed thing in that house! Finally I 
 thought I better bolt f r home " 
 
 " Lucky you did. Hear that wind ! 
 
15 
 
 Great heavens! We are in for another 
 two-days blow of it. That woman, of 
 course, stripped herself to save the child." 
 
 "Yes: she did." 
 
 "Jes like a woman! Why didn t she 
 rip down the shelf an split up the chairs 
 for fuel, or keep walkin up an down 
 the room?" 
 
 " Now, there it is ! She had burnt up 
 a lot o stuff, then took to bed with the 
 child. She rolled her up in all the quilts 
 an shawls an dresses they was in the 
 house ; then laid down by the side of her, 
 an put her arm over her an froze jes 
 like a mother no judgment!" 
 
 "Well, lay her down now, an eat 
 somethin y rself, while I go out an look 
 after the chores. Lord! it makes me 
 crawl to think of that woman layin there 
 in the shanty all alone!" he turned and 
 said in a peculiar hesitating voice. He 
 shivered a little as he spoke. " Say, did 
 y shut the door?" 
 
 "Yes: an it shuts hard. The wind 
 n r wolves can t open it." 
 
 " That s good. I couldn t sleep nights 
 
16 a Xittle 
 
 if I thought the coyotes could get in." 
 Bert s imagination seized upon that lonely 
 cabin and the figure lying cold as iron 
 upon the bed. It appealed to him more 
 than to Anson. 
 
 By four o clock it was dark, and the 
 lamp was lighted when Bert came in, 
 bringing an immense load of hay-twists. 
 The ferocious wind, as if exulting in its 
 undisputed sway over the plain, raved in 
 ceaseless fury around the cabin, and lashed 
 the roof with a thousand stinging streams 
 of snow. The tiny shanty did not rock ; 
 it shuddered as if with fright. The drifts 
 rose higher on the windows, and here and 
 there through some unseen crevice the 
 snow, fine as bolted flour, found its way 
 like oil, seeming to penetrate the solid 
 boards; and to the stove-pipe the storm 
 still laid hoarse lip, piping incessantly, 
 now dolorously, now savagely, now high, 
 now low. 
 
 "While the two men sat above the fire 
 that night, discussing the sad case of the 
 woman, the child slept heavily, muttering 
 and sobbing in her sleep. 
 
B ;JBlf33arD. 17 
 
 " The probabilities are," said Anson, in 
 a matter-of-fact way, " the Norsk took his 
 oxen an started f r Summit f r provisions, 
 an got caught in this blizzard an froze 
 to death somewhere got lost in some 
 gully, probably." 
 
 "But why didn t he come an tell us 
 to look after his fam ly?" 
 
 " Well, I s pose he was afraid to trust 
 us. I don t wonder, as I remember the 
 treatment their women git from the 
 Yankees. We look a good eal worse than 
 we are, besides; an then the poor cuss 
 couldn t talk to us, anyhow, an he s be n 
 shy ever since he came, in October." 
 
 After a long silence, in which Gearheart 
 went over and studied the face of the 
 sleeper, Anson said: "Well, if he s dead, 
 an the woman s dead too, we ve got to 
 look after this child till some relative 
 turns up. An that woman s got to be 
 buried." 
 
 "All right. What s got to be done 
 had better be done right off. We ve only 
 one bed, Ans, an a cradle hasn t ap 
 peared necessary before. How about the 
 
18 B Xittle 
 
 sleepin to-night? If you re goin into 
 the orphan-asylum business, you ll have 
 to open up correspondence with a furni 
 ture store." 
 
 Ans reddened a little. " It ain t mine 
 any more n yours. We re pardners in 
 this job." 
 
 " No : I guess not. You look more like 
 a dad, an I guess I ll shift the responsi 
 bility of this thing off onto you. I ll 
 bunk here on the floor, an you take the 
 child an occupy the bed." 
 
 "Well, all right," answered Anson, go 
 ing over in his turn and looking down at 
 the white face and tow-coloured hair of 
 the little stranger. "But say, we ain t 
 got no night-clothes f r the little chap. 
 What 11 we do? Put her to sleep jes as 
 she is?" 
 
 "I reckon we ll have to to-night. 
 Maybe you ll find some more clothes over 
 to the shanty." 
 
 " Say, Bert," said Ans later. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " It s too dam cold f r you to sleep on 
 the floor there. You git in here on the 
 
B 3BU33arD, 19 
 
 back side, an I ll take the child on the 
 front. She d be smashed flatter n a pan 
 cake if she was in the middle. She ain t 
 bigger n a pint o cider, anyway." 
 
 "No, ol man. I ll lay here on the 
 floor, an* kind o heave a twist in once in 
 a while. It s goin to be cold enough to 
 freeze the tail off a brass bull by day 
 light." 
 
 Ans bashfully crept in beside the sleep 
 ing child, taking care not to waken her, 
 and lay there thinking of his new re 
 sponsibility. At every shiver of the 
 cowering cabin and rising shriek of the 
 wind, his heart went out in love toward 
 the helpless little creature whose dead 
 mother lay in the cold and deserted shanty, 
 and whose father was wandering perhaps 
 breathless and despairing on the plain, 
 or lying buried in the snow in some deep 
 ravine beside his patient oxen. He 
 tucked the clothing in carefully about 
 the child, felt to see if her little feet were 
 cold, and covered her head with her 
 shawl, patting her lightly with his great 
 paw. 
 
20 B Xittle IKorsfe. 
 
 "Say, Bert!" 
 
 "Well, Ans, what now?" 
 
 " If this little chap should wake up an 
 cry f r its mother, what in thunder would 
 I do?" 
 
 " Give it up, ol boy," was the reply 
 from the depths of the buffalo-robes be 
 fore the fire. " Pat her on the back, an 
 tell her not to cry, or somethin like 
 that." 
 
 " But she can t tell what I say." 
 
 " Oh, she ll understand if y kind o 
 chuckle an gurgle like a fam ly man." 
 But the little one slept on, and when, 
 about midnight, Bert got up to feed the 
 fire, he left the stove door open to give 
 light, and went softly over to the sleepers. 
 Ans was sleeping with the little form close 
 to his breast, and the poor, troubled face 
 safe under his shaggy beard. 
 
 And all night long the blasting wind, 
 sweeping the sea of icy sands, hissed and 
 howled round the little sod cabin like 
 surf beating on a half -sunken rock. The 
 wind and the snow and the darkness pos- 
 
21 3Blf33ar&. 21 
 
 sessed the plain; and Cold (whose other 
 name is Death) was king of the horrible 
 carnival. It seemed as though morning 
 and sunlight could not come again, so 
 absolute was the sway of night and death. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BUEIAL OF HER DEAD MOTHER. 
 
 HEN Anson woke the next morn 
 ing, he found the great flower- 
 like eyes of the little waif 
 staring straight into his face 
 with a surprise too great for words or 
 cries. She stared steadily and solemnly 
 into his open eyes for a while, and when 
 he smiled she smiled back ; but when he 
 lifted his large hand and tried to brush 
 her hair she grew frightened, pushing her 
 little fists against him, and began to cry 
 "Mor! Mor Kom!" 
 
 This roused Gearheart, who said : 
 " Well, Ans, what are y goin to do with 
 that child? This is your mornin to git 
 breakfast. Come, roll out. I ve got the 
 fire goin good. I can t let y off; it ll 
 break up our system." 
 
 Anson rolled out of the bunk and 
 
ffiurial. 23 
 
 dressed hurriedly in the cold room. The 
 only sound was the roar of the stove de 
 vouring the hay-twist. Anson danced 
 about. 
 
 "Thunder an black cats, ain t it cold! 
 The wind has died down, or we d be froze 
 stiffer n a wedge. It was mighty good 
 in you, ol man, to keep the stove goin 
 durin the night. The child has opened 
 her eyes brighter n a dollar, but I tell 
 you I don t like to let her know what s 
 happened to her relatives." 
 
 The little one began to wail in a fright 
 ened way, being alone in the dim corner. 
 
 "There she goes now; she s wan tin to 
 go home! That s what she s askin , jes 
 like s not. Say, Bert, what the devil can 
 I do?" 
 
 " Talk to her, Ans; chuckle to her." 
 
 " Talk ! She ll think I m threatenin to 
 knock her head oft 3 , or somethin . There 
 there, don t ee cry! We ll go see papa 
 soon. Confound it, man, I can t go on 
 with this thing! There, there! See, 
 child, we re goin to have some nice hot 
 pancakes now; goin to have breakfast 
 
24 21 Xfttle 
 
 now. See, ol pap s goin to fry some 
 pancakes. Whoop see!" He took down 
 the saucepan, and flourished it in order 
 to make his meaning plainer. Bert 
 laughed. 
 
 " That s as bad as your fist. Put that 
 down, Ans. You ll scare the young one 
 into a fit; you ain t built f r a jumpin - 
 jack." 
 
 The child did indeed set up a louder 
 and more distracting yell. Getting des 
 perate, Anson seized her in his arms, and, 
 despite her struggles, began tossing her on 
 his shoulder. The child understood him 
 and ceased to cry, especially as Gearheart 
 began to set the table, making a pleasant 
 clatter, whistling the while. 
 
 The glorious light of the morning made 
 its way only dimly through the thickly 
 frosted window-panes ; the boards snapped 
 in the horrible cold ; out in the barn the 
 cattle were bellowing and kicking with 
 pain. 
 
 <k Do you know," said Bert, impressively, 
 " I couldn t keep that woman out o my 
 mind. I could see her layin there with- 
 
Burial. 25 
 
 out any quilts on her, an the mice a-run- 
 nin over her. God! it s tough, this bein 
 alone on a prairie on such a night." 
 
 " I knew I d feel so, an I jest naturally 
 covered her up an tucked the covers in, 
 the child a-lookin on. I thought she d 
 feel better, seein her ma tucked in good 
 an warm. Poor little rat!" 
 
 "Did you do that, ol man?" 
 
 " You bet I did ! I couldn t have slep 
 a wink if I hadn t." 
 
 " Well, why didn t y tell me, so t / 
 could sleep?" 
 
 "I didn t think you d think of it that 
 way, not havin seen her." 
 
 The child now consented to sit in one 
 of the chairs and put her feet down by 
 the stove. She wept silently now, with 
 that infrequent, indrawn sob, more touch 
 ing than wails. She felt that these stran 
 gers were her friends, but she wanted her 
 mother. She ate well, and soon grew 
 more resigned. She looked first at one 
 and then at the other of the men as they 
 talked, trying to understand their strange 
 language. Then she fell to watching a 
 
Xittte IKorsfc. 
 
 mouse that stole out from behind the flour- 
 barrels, snatching a crumb occasionally 
 and darting back, and laughed gleefully 
 once, and clapped her hands. 
 
 " Now, the first thing after the chores, 
 Ans, is that woman over there. Of course 
 it s out o the question buryin her, but 
 we d better go over an git what things 
 there is left o the girl s, an fasten up 
 the shanty to keep the wolves out." 
 
 " But then " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " The mice. You can t shut them out. " 
 
 " That s so. I never thought o that. 
 We ve got to make a box, I guess; but 
 it s goin to be an awful job for me, Ans, 
 to git her into it. I thought I wouldn t 
 have to touch her." 
 
 " Le me go; I ve seen her once an you 
 hain t. I d just as soon." 
 
 " Heaven an earth ! what could I do 
 with the babe? She d howl like a coy 
 ote, an drive me plumb wild. No: 
 you re elected to take care o the child. 
 I ain t worth a picayune at it. Besides, 
 you had your share yesterday." 
 
Cbe Burial. 27 
 
 And so, in the brilliant sunshine of 
 that bitterly cold morning, Gearheart 
 crunched away over the spotless snow, 
 which burned under his feet a land mock 
 ing, glorious, pitiless. Far off some slen 
 der columns of smoke told of two or three 
 hearth-fires, but mainly the plain was level 
 and lifeless as the Polar Ocean, appallingly 
 silent, no cry or stir in the whole expanse, 
 no tree to creak nor bell to ring. 
 
 It required strong effort on the part of 
 the young man to open the door of the 
 cottage, and he stood for some time with 
 his hand on the latch, looking about. 
 There was perfect silence without and 
 within, no trace of feet or hands any 
 where. All was as peaceful and unbroken 
 as a sepulchre. 
 
 Finally, as if angry with himself, Gear- 
 heart shook himself and pushed open the 
 door, letting the morning sun stream in. 
 It lighted the bare little room and fell on 
 the frozen face and rigid, half-open eyes 
 of the dead woman with a strong, white 
 glare. The thin face and worn, large- 
 jointed hands lying outside the quilt told 
 
28 B Xittle 
 
 of the hardships which had been the lot 
 of the sleeper. Her clothing was clean 
 and finer than one would expect to see. 
 
 Gearheart stood looking at her for a 
 long time, the door still open, for he felt 
 re-enforced in some way by the sun. If 
 any one had come suddenly and closed the 
 door on him and the white figure there, 
 he would have cried out and struggled 
 like a madman to escape, such was his 
 unreasoning fear of the dead. 
 
 At length, with a long breath, he backed 
 out and closed the door. Going to the 
 barn, he found a cow standing at an empty 
 manger, and some hens and pigs frozen in 
 the hay. Looking about for some boards 
 to make a coffin, he came upon a long box 
 in which a reaper had been packed, and 
 this he proceeded to nail together firmly, 
 and to line with pieces of an old stove 
 pipe at such places as he thought the 
 mice would try to enter. 
 
 When it was all prepared, he carried 
 the box to the house and managed to lay 
 it down beside the bed; but he could not 
 bring himself to touch the body. He 
 
Cbe Burial, 29 
 
 went out to see if some one were not com 
 ing. The sound of a human voice would 
 have relieved him at once, and he could 
 have gone on without hesitation. But 
 there was no one in sight, and no one was 
 likely to be; so he returned, and sum 
 moning all his resolution, took one of the 
 quilts from the bed and placed it in the 
 bottom of the box. Then he removed the 
 pillow from beneath the head of the dead 
 woman and placed that in the box. Then 
 he paused, the cold moisture breaking out 
 on his face. 
 
 Like all young persons born far from 
 war, and having no knowledge of death 
 even in its quiet forms, he had the 
 most powerful organic repugnance to 
 ward a corpse. He kept his eye on it as 
 though it were a sleeping horror, likely 
 at a sudden sound to rise and walk. More 
 than this, there had always been some 
 thing peculiarly sacred in the form of a 
 woman, and in his calmer moments the 
 dead mother appealed to him with irre 
 sistible power. 
 
 At last, with a sort of moan through 
 
30 & xittle 
 
 his set teeth, he approached the bed and 
 threw the sheet over the figure, holding 
 it as in a sling ; then, by a mighty effort, 
 he swung it stiffly off the bed into the 
 box. 
 
 He trembled so that he could hardly 
 spread the remaining quilts over the dead 
 face. The box was wide enough to re 
 ceive the stiff, curved right arm, and he 
 had nothing to do but to nail the cover 
 on, which he did in feverish haste. Then 
 he rose, grasped his tools, rushed outside, 
 slammed the door, and set off in great 
 speed across the snow, pushed on by an 
 indescribable horror. 
 
 As he neared home, his fresh young 
 blood asserted itself more and more; but 
 when he entered the cabin he was still 
 trembling, and dropped into a chair like 
 a man out of breath. At sight of the 
 ruddy face of Anson, and with the aid of 
 the heat and light of the familiar little 
 room, he shook off part of his horror. 
 
 "Gi me a cup o coffee, Ans. I m 
 kind o chilly an tired." 
 
 Before drinking he wiped his face and 
 
Burial, 31 
 
 washed his hands again and again at the 
 basin in the corner, as though there were 
 something on them which was ineffably 
 unclean. The little one, who had been 
 weeping again, stared at him with two 
 big tears drying on her hollow cheeks. 
 
 "Well?" interrogated Anson. 
 
 " I nailed her up safe enough for the 
 present. But what re we goin to do 
 next?" 
 
 " I can t see s we can do anythin as 
 long as such weather as this lasts. It 
 ain t safe f r one of us to go out an leave 
 the other alone. Besides, it s thirty be 
 low zero, an no road, Moccasin s full of 
 snow, an another wind likely to rise at 
 any time. It s mighty tough on this lit 
 tle one, but it can t be helped. As soon 
 as it moderates a little, we ll try to find 
 a woman an a preacher, an bury that 
 relative." 
 
 " The only woman I know of is ol Mrs. 
 Cap Burdon, down on the Third Mocca 
 sin, full fifteen miles away." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OR nearly two weeks they wait 
 ed, while the wind alternate 
 ly raved and whispered over 
 them as it scurried the snow 
 south or east, or shifted to the south in 
 the night, bringing " the north end of 
 a south wind," the most intolerable and 
 cutting of winds. Day after day the rest 
 less snow sifted or leaped across the waste 
 of glittering crust; day after day the sun 
 shone in dazzling splendor, but so white 
 and cold that the thermometer still kept 
 down among the thirties. They were ab 
 solutely alone on the plain, except that 
 now and then a desperate wolf or inquisi 
 tive owl came by. 
 
 These were long days for the settlers. 
 They would have been longer had it not 
 been for little Elga, or " Flaxen," as they 
 
 32 
 
aflajen BDopts Bnecm. 33 
 
 took to calling her. They racked their 
 brains to amuse her, and in the intervals 
 of tending the cattle and of cooking, or 
 of washing dishes, rummaged through all 
 their books and pictures, taught her " cat s 
 cradle," played "jack-straws" with her, 
 and with all their resources of song and 
 pantomime strove to fill up the little one s 
 lonely days, happy when they succeeded 
 in making her laugh. 
 
 "That settles it!" said Bert one day, 
 whanging the basin back into the empty 
 flour-barrel. 
 
 "What s the matter?" 
 
 "Matter is, we ve reached the bottom 
 o the flour-barrel, an it s got to be filled; 
 no two ways about that. We can get 
 along on biscuit an pancakes in place o 
 meat, but we can t put anythin in the 
 place o bread. If it looks favorable to 
 morrow, we ve got to make a break for 
 Summit an see if we can t stock up." 
 
 Early the next morning they brought 
 out the shivering team and piled into the 
 box all the quilts and robes they had, and 
 bundling little Flaxen in, started across 
 
34 B xtttle IKorsfe. 
 
 the trackless plain toward the low line of 
 hills to the east, twenty-five or thirty 
 miles. From four o clock in the morn 
 ing till nearly noon they toiled across the 
 sod, now ploughing through the deep snow 
 where the unburned grass had held it, now 
 scraping across the bare, burned earth, 
 now wandering up or down the swales, 
 seeking the shallowest places, now shovel 
 ling a pathway through. 
 
 The sun rose unobscured as usual, and 
 shone down with unusual warmth, which 
 afforded the men the satisfaction of see 
 ing little Flaxen warm and merry. She 
 chattered away in her own tongue, and 
 clapped her little hands in glee at sight 
 of the snowbirds running and fluttering 
 about. As they approached the low hills 
 the swales got deeper and more difficult 
 to cross, but about eleven o clock they 
 came to Burdon s Eanch, a sort of half 
 way haven between their own claim and 
 Summit, the end of the railway. 
 
 Captain Burdon was away, but Mrs. 
 Burdon, a big, slatternly Missourian, with 
 all the kindliness of a universal mother in 
 
3flajcn B&opts Bnson, 35 
 
 her swarthy face and flaccid bosom, ush 
 ered them into the cave-like dwelling set 
 in the sunny side of Water Moccasin. 
 
 " Set down, set right down. Young 
 uns, git out some o them cheers an let 
 the strangers set. Purty tol able tough 
 weather? A feller don t git out much 
 such weather as this ere thout he s jes 
 naturally bleeged to. Suse, heave in an 
 other twist, an help the little un to take 
 off her shawl." 
 
 After Mrs. Burden s little flurry of 
 hospitality was over, Anson found time 
 to tell briefly the history of the child. 
 
 " Heavens to Betsey ! I wan to know !" 
 she cried, her fat hands on her knees and 
 her eyes bulging. " Wai ! wal ! I declare, 
 it beats the Dutch ! So that woman jest 
 frizzed right burside the babe! Wal, I 
 never! An the ol man he ain t showed 
 up? Wal, now, he ain t likely to. I 
 reckon I saw that Norsk go by here that 
 very day, an I says to Cap n, says I, 4 If 
 that feller don t reach home inside an 
 hour, he ll go through heaven a-gittin 
 home, says I to the Cap n." 
 
36 B Xittle IRorsfe, 
 
 "Well, now," said Anson, stopping the 
 old woman s garrulous flow, " I ve got 
 to be off f r Summit, but I wish you d 
 jest look after this little one here till we 
 git back. It s purty hard weather f r 
 her to be out, an I don t think she ought 
 to." 
 
 "Yaas; leave her, o course. She ll 
 enjoy playin with the young uns. I 
 reckon y did all y could for that woman. 
 Y can t burry her now; the ground s 
 like linkum-vity." 
 
 But as Anson turned to leave, the little 
 creature sprang up with a torrent of wild 
 words, catching him by the coat, and 
 pleading strenuously to go with him. 
 Her accent was unmistakable. 
 
 "You wan to go with Ans?" he in 
 quired, looking down into the little tear 
 ful face with a strange stirring in his 
 bachelor heart. " I believe on my soul 
 she does." 
 
 "Sure sy re born!" replied Mrs. Bur- 
 don. " She d rather go with you than to 
 stay an fool with the young uns; that s 
 what she s try in to say." 
 
Bfcopts Bnson. 37 
 
 "Do y wan to go?" asked Ans again, 
 opening his arms. She sprang toward 
 him, raising her eager little hands as high 
 as she could, and when he lifted her she 
 twined her arms around his neck. 
 
 "Poor little critter! she ain t got no 
 pap ner mam now," the old woman ex 
 plained to the ring of children, who still 
 stared silently at the stranger almost with 
 out moving. 
 
 "Ain t he her pa-a-p?" drawled one of 
 the older girls, sticking a finger at Anson. 
 
 "He is now," laughed Ans, and that 
 settled the question over which he had 
 been pondering for days. It meant that 
 as long as she wanted to stay she should 
 be his Flaxen and he would be her" pap." 
 "And you can be Uncle Bert, hey?" he 
 said to Bert. 
 
 " Good enough," said Bert. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FLAXEN BECOMES INDISPENSABLE TO THE 
 TWO OLD BACHELORS. 
 
 HEY never found any living 
 relative, and only late in the 
 spring was the fate of the poor 
 father revealed. He and his 
 cattle were found side by side in a deep 
 swale, where they had foundered in the 
 night and tempest. 
 
 As for little Flaxen, she soon recovered 
 her cheerfulness, with the buoyancy natu 
 ral to childhood, and learned to prattle 
 in broken English very fast. She devel 
 oped a sturdy self-reliance that was sur 
 prising in one so young, and long before 
 spring came was indispensable to the two 
 "old baches." 
 
 "Now, Bert," said Ans one day, "I 
 don t wan to hear you talk in that slip 
 shod way any longer before Flaxen. You 
 
 38 
 
tflajen Becomes ITnfcispensable, 39 
 
 know better; you ve had more chance 
 than I have be n to school more. They 
 ain t no excuse for you, not an ioty. Now, 
 I m goin to say to her, Never mind 
 how I talk, but talk like Bert does. 
 
 " Oh, say, now, look here, Ans, I can t 
 stand the strain. Suppose she d hear me 
 swearin at ol Barney or the stove?" 
 
 " That s jest it. You ain t goin to 
 swear," decided Anson; and after that 
 Bert took the education of the little waif 
 in hand, for he was a man of good edu 
 cation ; his use of dialect and slang sprang 
 mainly from carelessness. 
 
 But all the little fatherly duties and 
 discipline fell to Anson, and much per 
 plexed he often got. For instance, when 
 he bought her an outfit of American 
 clothing at the store they were strange 
 to her and to him, and the situation was 
 decidedly embarrassing when they came to 
 try them. 
 
 " Now, Flaxie, I guess this thing goes 
 on this side before, so s you can button 
 it. If it went on so, you couldn t reach 
 around to button it, don t you see? I guess 
 
40 B Xittle 
 
 you d better try it so. An this thing, 
 I judge, is a shirt, an goes on under that 
 other thing, which I reckon is called a 
 shimmy. Say, Bert, shouldn t you call 
 that a shirt?" holding up a garment. 
 
 "W-e-1-1, yes" (after a close scrutiny). 
 "Yes: I should." 
 
 " And this a shimmy?" 
 
 "Well, now, you ve got me, Ans. It 
 seems to me I ve heard the women folks 
 home talk about shimmies, but they were 
 always kind o private about it, so I don t 
 think I can help you out. That little 
 thing goes underneath, sure enough." 
 
 "All right, here goes, Flax; if it 
 should turn out to be hind side before, 
 no matter." 
 
 Then again little Flaxen would want to 
 wear her best dress on week-days, and Ans 
 was unable to explain. Here again Bert 
 came to the rescue. 
 
 " Git her one dress fer ev ry day in the 
 week, an make her wear em in rotation. 
 Hang em up an put a tag on each one 
 Sunday, Monday, an so on." 
 
 "Good idea." 
 
3FIajen JSecomee ITnDispensable. 41 
 
 And it was done. But the embarrass 
 ments of attending upon the child soon 
 passed away ; she quickly grew independent 
 of such help, dressed herself, and combed 
 her own hair, though Anson enjoyed doing 
 it himself when he could find time, and 
 she helped out not a little about the house. 
 She seemed to have forgotten her old life, 
 awakening as she had from almost deathly 
 torpor into a new home almost a new 
 world where a strange language was 
 spoken, where no woman was, and where 
 no mention of her mother, father, or na 
 tive land was ever made before her. The 
 little waif was at first utterly bewildered, 
 then reconciled, and by the time spring 
 came over the prairie was almost happy in 
 the touching way of a child deprived of 
 childish things. 
 
 Oh, how sweet spring seemed to those 
 snow-weary people! Day after day the 
 sun crept higher up in the sky ; day after 
 day the snow gave way a little on the 
 swells, and streams of water began to 
 trickle down under the huge banks of 
 snow, filling the ravines ; and then at last 
 
 4 
 
43 B Xittle 
 
 came a day when a strange, warm wind 
 blew from the northwest. Soft and sweet 
 and sensuous it was, as if it swept some 
 tropic bay filled with a thousand isles a 
 wind like a vast warm breath blown upon 
 the land. Under its touch the snow did 
 not melt; it vanished. It fled in a single 
 day from the plain to the gullies. An 
 other day, and the gullies were rivers. 
 
 It was the "chinook," which old Lam 
 bert, the trapper and surveyor, said came 
 from the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 The second morning after the chinook 
 began to blow, Anson sprang to his feet 
 from his bunk, and standing erect in the 
 early morning light, yelled : " Hear that?" 
 
 " What is it?" asked Bert. 
 
 "There! Hear it?" Anson smiled, hold 
 ing up his hand joyfully as a mellow 
 " Boom boom boom" broke through the 
 silent air. " Prairie-chickens ! Hurrah ! 
 Spring has come ! That breaks the back 
 o winter short off." 
 
 "Hurrah! de pring ees come!" cried 
 little Flaxen, gleefully clapping her hands 
 in imitation. 
 
fflajen JSSecomes 1Tn5f6pen6able. 43 
 
 No man can know what a warm breeze 
 and the note of a bird can mean to 
 him till he is released, as these men 
 were released, from the bondage of a 
 horrible winter. Perhaps still more mov 
 ing was the thought that with the spring 
 the loneliness of the prairie would be 
 broken, never again to be so dread and 
 drear ; for with the coming of spring came 
 the tide of land-seekers pouring in : teams 
 scurried here and there on the wide 
 prairie, carrying surveyors, land agents, 
 and settlers. At Summit trains came 
 rumbling in by the first of April, empty 
 ing thousands of men, women, and chil 
 dren upon the sod, together with cattle, 
 machinery, and household articles, to lie 
 there roofed only by the blue sky. Sum 
 mit, from being a half-buried store and 
 a blacksmith s shop, bloomed out into a 
 town with saloons, lumber-yards, hotels, 
 and restaurants; the sound of hammer 
 and anvil was incessant, and trains 
 clanged and whistled night and day. 
 
 Day after day the settlers got their 
 wagons together and loaded up, and then 
 
44 B Xittte 
 
 moved down the slope into the fair valley 
 of the sleepy James. Mrs. Cap Burdon 
 did a rushing business as a hotel-keeper, 
 while Cap sold hay and oats at rates which 
 made the land-seekers gasp. 
 
 " I m not out here f r my health," was 
 all the explanation he ever made. 
 
 Soon all around the little shanty of 
 Anson and Bert other shanties were built 
 and filled with young, hopeful, buoyant 
 souls. The railway surveyors came 
 through, locating a town about three and 
 another about twelve miles away, and 
 straightway the bitter rivalry between 
 Boomtown and Belleplain began. Belle- 
 plain being their town, Bert and Anson 
 swore by Belleplain, and correspondingly 
 derided the claims of Boomtown. 
 
 With the coming of spring began the 
 fiercest toil of the pioneers breaking 
 the sod, building, harvesting, ploughing; 
 then the winter again, though not so 
 hard to bear; then the same round of 
 work again. So the land was settled, the 
 sod was turned over; sod shanties gave 
 way to little frame houses; the tide of 
 
3flajen Becomes ITnDfspensable. 45 
 
 land-seekers passed on, the boom hurst, 
 but the real workers, like Wood and Gear- 
 heart, went patiently, steadily on, found 
 ing a great State. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A QUESTION OF DKESS. 
 
 NE morning eight years later 
 Flaxen left the home of Gear- 
 heart and Wood with old Doll 
 and the buggy, bound for 
 Belleplain after groceries for harvest. 
 She drove with a dash, her hat on the 
 back of her head. She was seemingly in 
 tent on getting all there was possible out 
 of a chew of kerosene gum, which she had 
 resolved to throw away upon entering 
 town, intending to get a new supply. 
 
 She had thriven on Western air and 
 gum, and though hardly more than four 
 teen years of age, her bust and limbs 
 revealed the grace of approaching woman 
 hood, however childish her short dress 
 and braided hair might still show her to 
 be. Her face was large and decidedly 
 of Scandinavian type, fair in spite of 
 
B (Sluestfon of Dress. 47 
 
 wind and sun, and broad at the cheek 
 bones. Her eyes were as blue and clear 
 as winter ice. 
 
 As she rode along she sang as well as 
 she could without neglecting the gum, 
 sitting at one end of the seat like a man, 
 the reins held carelessly in her left hand, 
 notwithstanding the swift gait of the 
 horse, who always knew when Flaxen was 
 driving. She met a friend on the road, 
 and said, " Hello !" pulling up her horse 
 with one strong hand. 
 
 "Can t stop," she explained; "got to 
 go over to the city to get some groceries 
 for harvest. Goin to the sociable to 
 morrow?" 
 
 " You bet," replied the friend. " You?" 
 
 "I d know; mebbe, if the boys ll go. 
 Ta-ta; see ye later." And away she spun. 
 
 Belleplain had not thriven, or, to be 
 more exact, it had had a rise and fall; 
 and as the rise had been considerable, so 
 the fall was something worth chronicling. 
 It was now a collection of wooden build 
 ings, mostly empty, graying under the 
 storms and suns of pitiless winters and 
 
48 a Xittle 
 
 summers, and now, just in mid-summer, 
 surrounded by splendid troops and pha 
 lanxes of gorgeous sunflowers, whose brown 
 crowns, gold-dusted, looked ever toward 
 the sun as it swung through the wide arch 
 of cloudless sky. The signs of the empty 
 buildings still remained, and one might 
 still read the melancholy decline from 
 splendours of the past in "emporiums," 
 "palace drug stores," and "mansion- 
 houses." 
 
 As Flaxen would have said, " Belle- 
 plain s boom had bu sted." Her glory 
 had gone with the 0., B. and Q., which 
 formed the junction at Boomtown and left 
 the luckless citizens of Belleplain " high 
 and dry" on the prairie, with nothing but 
 a " spur" to travel on. However, a few 
 stores yet remained in the midst of deso 
 lation. 
 
 After making her other purchases, 
 Flaxen entered the " red-front drug store" 
 to secure the special brand of gum which 
 seemed most delectable and to buy a 
 couple of cigars for the " boys." 
 
 The clerk, who was lately from the 
 
Question of 2>re0s. 
 
 East, and wore his moustache curled up 
 ward like the whiskers of a cat, was 
 " gassing" with another young man, who 
 sat in a chair with his heels on the coun 
 ter. 
 
 " Well, my dear, what can I do for you 
 to-day?" he said, winking at the loafer, 
 as if to say, " Now watch me." 
 
 u I want some gum." 
 
 "What kind, darling?" he asked, en 
 couraged by the fellow in the chair. 
 
 " I ain t your darling. Kerosene, shoo- 
 fly, an ten cents worth." 
 
 " Say, Jack," drawled the other fellow, 
 "git onto the ankles! Say, sissy, you 
 picked your dress too soon. She s goin 
 to be a daisy, first you know. Ain t y , 
 honey?" he said, leaning over and pinch 
 ing her arm. 
 
 " Let me alone, you great, mean thing ! 
 I ll tell ol pap on you, see if I don t," 
 cried Flaxen, her eyes filling with angry 
 tears. And as they proceeded to other 
 and bolder remarks she rushed out, feel 
 ing vaguely the degradation of being so 
 spoken to and so touched. It seemed to 
 
so a xtttle IKorafc. 
 
 become more atrocious the more she 
 thought upon it. 
 
 When she reached home there were still 
 signs of tears on her face, and when An- 
 son came out to help her alight, and no 
 ticing it asked, "What s the matter?" 
 she burst out afresh, crying, and talking 
 incoherently. Anson was astonished. 
 
 "Why, what s the matter, Elaxie? 
 Can t you tell ol pap? Are ye sick?" 
 
 She shook her head, and rushed past 
 him into the house and into her bedroom, 
 like a little cyclone of wrath. Ans slowly 
 followed her, much perplexed. She was 
 lying face downward on the bed, sobbing. 
 
 " What s the matter, little one? Can t 
 y tellol pap? Have the girls be nmak- 
 in fun o yeh again?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "Have the boys be n botherin yeh?" 
 No reply. " Who was it?" Still silence. 
 He was getting stern now. " Tell me 
 right now." 
 
 " Jack Keeves an an another feller." 
 
 "Wha d they do?" Silence. "Tell 
 me." 
 
B Question of Bress, 51 
 
 " They pinched me, an an talked 
 mean to me," she replied, breaking down 
 again with the memory of the insult. 
 
 Anson began to understand. 
 
 " Wai, there ! You dry y r eyes, Flaxie, 
 an go an git supper; they won t do it 
 again not this harvest," he added grimly 
 as he marched to the door to enter the 
 buggy. 
 
 Bert, coming along from the barn and 
 seeing Anson about to drive away, asked 
 where he was going. Anson tried to look 
 indifferent. 
 
 " Oh, I ve got a little business to trans 
 act with Reeves and some other smart 
 Aleck downtown." 
 
 "What s up? What have they be n 
 doing?" asked Gearheart, reading trouble 
 in the eyes of his friend. 
 
 " Well, they have be n a little too fresh 
 with Flaxen to-day, an need a lesson." 
 
 " They re equal to it. Say, Anson, let 
 me go," laying his hand on the dasher, 
 ready to leap in. 
 
 "No: you re too brash. You wouldn t 
 know when to quit. No: you stay right 
 
52 a xtttle morefe, 
 
 here. Don t say anything to Elaxen about 
 it; if she wants to know where I m gone, 
 tell her I found I was out o nails." 
 
 As Anson drove along swiftly he was in 
 a savage mood and thinking deeply. Two 
 or three times of late some of his friends 
 had touched rather freely upon the fact 
 that Flaxen was becoming a woman. 
 " Girls ripen early out in this climate," 
 one old chap had said, "and your little 
 Norsk there is likely to leave you one of 
 these days." He felt now that something 
 deliberately and inexpressibly offensive 
 had been said and done to his little girl. 
 He didn t want to know just what it was, 
 but just who did it; that was all. It was 
 time to make a protest. 
 
 Hitching his horse to a ring in the 
 sidewalk upon arrival, he walked into the 
 drug store, which was also the post-office. 
 Young Reeves was inside the post-office 
 corner giving out the mail, and Anson 
 sauntered about the store waiting his 
 chance. 
 
 He was a dangerous-looking man just 
 now. Ordinarily his vast frame, huge, 
 
H Question of Drees, 53 
 
 grizzled beard, and stern, steady eyes 
 would quell a panther; but now as he 
 leaned against the counter a shrewd ob 
 server would have said, " Lookout for 
 him; he s dangerous." 
 
 His gray shirt, loose at the throat, 
 showed a neck that resembled the spread 
 ing base of an oak tree, and his crossed 
 limbs and half-recumbent pose formed a 
 curious opposition to the look in his eyes. 
 
 Nobody noticed him specially. Most 
 coiners and goers, being occupied with 
 their mail, merely nodded and passed on. 
 
 Finally some one called for a cigar, and 
 Reeves, having finished in the post-office 
 department, came jauntily along behind 
 the counter directly to where Anson stood. 
 As he looked casually into the giant s eyes 
 he started back, but too late; one vast 
 hand had clutched him by the collar, and 
 he was jerked over the counter and cuffed 
 from hand to hand, like a mouse in the 
 paws of a cat. Though Ans used his 
 open palm, the punishment was fearful. 
 Blood burst from his victim s nose and 
 mouth; he yelled with fright and pain. 
 
54 a Xittte 
 
 The rest rushed to help. 
 
 " Stand back ! This is a private affair," 
 said Ans, throwing up a warning hand. 
 They paused ; all knew his strength. 
 
 "It wasn t me!" screamed Reeves as 
 the punishment increased ; " it was Doc 
 Coe." 
 
 Coe, his hands full of papers and let 
 ters, horrified at what had overtaken 
 Reeves, stood looking on. But now he 
 tried to escape. Flinging the battered, 
 half -senseless Reeves back over the coun 
 ter, where he lay in a heap, Anson caught 
 Coe by the coat just as he was rushing 
 past him, and duplicated the punishment, 
 ending by kicking him into the street, 
 where he lay stunned and helpless. Ans 
 said then, in a voice that the rest heard, 
 " The next time you insult a girl, you d 
 better inquire into the qualities of her 
 guardeen." 
 
 This little matter attended to, he un 
 hitched his horse from the sidewalk, and 
 refusing to answer any questions, rode 
 off home, outwardly as calm as though he 
 had just been shaking hands. 
 
H Question of Bress. 55 
 
 Supper was about ready when he drove 
 up, and through the open door he could 
 see the white-covered table and could 
 hear the cheerful clatter of dishes. 
 Flaxen was whistling. Eight years of 
 hard work had not clone much for these 
 sturdy souls, but they had managed to 
 secure with incredible toil a comfortable 
 little house surrounded with outbuildings. 
 Calves and chickens gave life to the barn 
 yard, and fields of wheat rippled and ran 
 with swash of heavy-bearded heads and 
 dapple of shadow and sheen. 
 
 Flaxen was now the housewife and 
 daughter of these hard-working pioneers, 
 and a cheery and capable one she had be 
 come. No one had ever turned up with a 
 better claim to her, and so she had grown 
 up with Ans and Bert, going to school 
 when she could spare the time, but mainly 
 being adviser and associate at the farm. 
 
 Ans and Bert had worked hard winter 
 and summer trying to get ahead, but had 
 not succeeded as they had hoped. Crops 
 had failed for three or four years, and 
 money was scarce with them; but they 
 
56 B Xittlc IKorsfe. 
 
 had managed to build this small frame 
 house and to get a little stock about them, 
 and this year, with a good crop, would 
 "swing clear," and be able to do some 
 thing for Flaxen perhaps send her to 
 Belleplain to school, togged out like a 
 little queen. 
 
 "When Anson returned to the house after 
 putting out the horse, he found Bert read 
 ing the paper in the little sitting-room 
 and Flaxen putting the tea on the stove. 
 
 " Wha d y do to him, pap?" laughed 
 she, all her anger gone. Bert came out 
 to listen. 
 
 " Oh, nothin p tic lar," answered Ans, 
 flinging his hat at a chicken that made 
 as though to come in, and rolling up his 
 sleeves preparatory to sozzling his face at 
 the sink. " I jest cuffed em a little, an 
 let em go." 
 
 " Is that all?" said Flaxen, disappoint 
 edly, a comical look on her round face. 
 
 "Now, don t you worry," put in Bert. 
 " Anson s cuffin a man is rather severe ex 
 perience. I saw him cuff a man once; it 
 ain t anythin to be desired a second time. " 
 
21 (SUtestfon of Bress. 57 
 
 They all drew about the table. Flaxen 
 looked very womanly as she sat cutting 
 the bread and pouring the tea. She had 
 always been old in her ways about the 
 house, for she had very early assumed the 
 housewife s duties and cares. Her fresh- 
 coloured face beamed with delight as she 
 watched the hungry men devouring the 
 fried pork, potatoes, and cheese. 
 
 " When y goin to begin cuttin , boys?" 
 Collectively they were boys to her, but 
 when addressing them separately they were 
 " Bert" and " Pap." 
 
 "To-morrow r nex day, I guess," 
 answered Ansou, looking out of the open 
 door. "Don t it look fine all yeller 
 an green? I tell ye they ain t anything 
 lays over a ripe field o wheat in my eyes. 
 You jest take it when the sun strikes it 
 right, an the wind is playin on it when 
 it kind o sloshes around like water an 
 the clouds go over it, droppin shadders 
 down on it, an a hawk kind o goes 
 skimmin over it, divin into it once in 
 a while " 
 
 He did not finish ; it was not necessary. 
 
 5 
 
58 B Xittle IKorsfc. 
 
 "Yes, sir!" adjudged Gearheart, after 
 a pause, leaning his elbows on the table 
 and looking out of the door on the far- 
 stretching, sun-glorified plain. 
 
 " The harvest kind o justifies the win 
 ter we have out here. That is, when we 
 have a harvest such as this. Fact is, we 
 fellers live six months o the year lookin 
 ahead to harvest, an t other six months 
 lookin back to it. Well, this won t buy 
 the woman a dress, Ans. We must get 
 that header set up to-night if we can." 
 
 They pushed their chairs back noisily 
 and rose to go out. Flaxen said : 
 
 " Say, which o you boys is goin to help 
 me churn to-night?" 
 
 Anson groaned, while she laughed. 
 
 "I don t know, Flax; ask us an easier 
 one." 
 
 " We ll attend to that after it gets too 
 dark to work on the machine," added 
 Bert. 
 
 "Well, see t y do. I can t do it; I ve 
 got bread to mix an a chicken to dress. 
 Say, if you don t begin cuttin till day 
 after to-morrow, we can go down to the 
 
B (Question of Dress. 59 
 
 sociable to-morrow night. Last one o 
 the season." 
 
 " I wish it was the last one before the 
 kingdom come," growled Bert as he 
 " stomped" out the door. " They re a bad 
 lot. The idea o takin down four dol 
 lars worth o grub an then payin four 
 dollars for the privilege of eat in half of 
 it! I ll take my chicken here, when I m 
 hungry." 
 
 " Bert ain t partial to sociables, is he, 
 pap?" laughed Flaxen. 
 
 " I should hate to have the minister 
 dependin on Bert for a livin ." 
 
 "Sa-ay, pap!" 
 
 "Wai, babe?" 
 
 " I expect I ll haf t have a new dress 
 one o these days." 
 
 "Think so?" 
 
 "You bet." 
 
 " Why, what s the matter with the one 
 y got on? Ain t no holes in it that I 
 can see," looking at it carefully and turn 
 ing her around as if she were on a pivot. 
 
 "Well, ain t it purty short, pap?" she 
 said suggestively. 
 
GO a xittle 
 
 "I swear, I don t know but it is," con 
 ceded Anson, scratching his head ; " I 
 hadn t paid much tention to it before. 
 It certainly is a lee-tie too short. 
 Lemme see: ain t no way o lettin it 
 down, is they?" 
 
 " Nary. She s clean down to the last 
 notch now," replied Flaxen convincingly. 
 
 " Couldn t pull through till we thrash?" 
 he continued, still in a tentative manner. 
 
 "Could, but don t like to," she an 
 swered, laughing again, and showing her 
 white teeth pleasantly. 
 
 " I s pose it ll cost suthin ," he insin 
 uated in a dubious tone. 
 
 " Mattie Stuart paid seven dollars fer 
 her n, pap, an I -- " 
 
 " Seven how manys?" 
 
 "Dollars, pap, makin an everythin . 
 An then I ought to have a new hat to go 
 with the dress, an a new pair o shoes. 
 All the girls are wearin white, but I 
 reckon I can git along with a good col 
 oured one that ll do fer winter." 
 
 " Wai, all right. I ll fix it some way," 
 Ans said, turning away only to look back 
 
B Question of Dress, 61 
 
 and smile to see her dancing up and down 
 and crying: 
 
 "Oh, goody, goody!" 
 
 " I ll do it if I haf to borrow money at 
 two per cent a month," said he to Bert, 
 as he explained the case. " Hear her 
 sing! Why, dern it! I d spend all I ve 
 got to keep that child twitterin like that. 
 Wouldn t you, eh?" 
 
 Bert was silent, thinking deeply on a 
 variety of matters suggested by Anson s 
 words. The crickets were singing from 
 out the weeds near by; a lost little wild 
 chicken was whistling in plaintive sweet 
 ness down in the barley-field; the flaming 
 light from the half-sunk sun swept along 
 the green and yellow grain, glorifying as 
 with a bath of gold everything it touched. 
 
 " I wish that grain hadn t ripened so 
 fast, Ans. It s blightin ." 
 
 "Think so?" 
 
 " Xo : I know it. I went out to look 
 at it before supper, an every one of those 
 spots that look so pretty are just simply 
 burnin up! But, say, ain t it a little 
 singular that Flaxen should blossom out 
 
62 a xfttle 
 
 in a desire for a new dress all at once? 
 Ain t it rather sudden?" 
 
 "Wai, no: I don t think it is. Come 
 to look it all over, up one side an down 
 the other, she s been growin about an 
 inch a month this summer, an her best 
 dress is gittin turrible short the best way 
 you can fix it. She s gittin to be most 
 a woman, Bert." 
 
 "Yes: I know she is," said Bert, sig 
 nificantly. "An something s got to be 
 done right off." 
 
 " Wha d ye mean by that, oP man?" 
 
 "I mean jest this. It s time we did 
 something religious for that girl. She 
 ain t had much chance since she s been 
 here with us. She ain t had no chance 
 at all. Now I move that we send her 
 away to school this winter. Give her a 
 good outfit an send her away. This ain t 
 no sort o way for a girl to grow up in." 
 
 "Wai, I ve be n thinkin o that my 
 self; but where ll we send her?" 
 
 " Oh, back to the States somewhere ; 
 Wisconsin or Minnesota somewhere." 
 
 " Why not to Boomtown?" 
 
21 (Question of Bress. 63 
 
 " Well, I ll tell yeh, Ans. I ve been 
 hearing a good eal off an on about the 
 way we re bringin her up here alone with 
 two rough old codgers, an I jest want 
 to give her a better chance than the Ter 
 ritory affords. I want her to git free of 
 us and all like us, for a while; let her 
 see something of the world. Besides, that 
 business over in Belleplain to-day kind 
 o settled me. The plain facts are, Ans, 
 the people are a little too free with her 
 because she is growin up here " 
 
 " I know some fellers that won t be 
 again." 
 
 " Well, they are beginnin to wink an* 
 nudge each other an to say " 
 
 " Go on ! What do they say?" 
 
 " They say she s goin to be a woman 
 soon ; that this fatherly business is bound 
 to play out." 
 
 "I d like to see anybody wink when 
 I m around. I d smash em!" said An- 
 son through his set teeth. " Why, she s 
 our little babe," he broke out, as the full 
 significance of the matter came to him. 
 " My little un ; I m her ol pap. Why " 
 
64 a xtttic 
 
 He ended in despair. " It s none o their 
 darn business." 
 
 " There ain t no use o howl in , Ans. 
 You can t smash a whole neighborhood." 
 
 " But what are we goin to do?" 
 
 " Well, I ll tell ye what we mustn t do. 
 We mustn t tog her out jest yet." 
 
 "Why not?" asked Anson, not seeing 
 these subtle distinctions of time and 
 place. 
 
 " Because, you tog her out this week or 
 next, without any apparent reason, in a 
 new hat an dress an gloves, an go down 
 to one o these sociables with her, an 
 you d have to clean out the whole crowd. 
 They d all be winkin an nudgin an 
 grinnin see?" 
 
 "Wai, go on," said the crushed giant. 
 "What 11 we do?" 
 
 " Just let things go on as they are for 
 the present till we git ready to send her 
 to school." 
 
 " But I promised the togs." 
 
 " All right. I ve stated the case," Gear- 
 heart returned, with the air of a man who 
 washed his hands of the whole affair. 
 
B (Sluestton of H>res0. 65 
 
 Anson rose with a sudden gesture. 
 " Jest hear her! whistlin away like a lark. 
 I don t see how I m goin to go in there 
 an spoil all her fun; I can t do it, that s 
 all." 
 
 " Well, now, you leave it all to me. I ll 
 state the case to her in a way that ll catch 
 her see if I don t. She ain t no common 
 girl." 
 
 It was growing dark as they went in, 
 and the girl s face could not be seen. 
 
 "Well, Bert, are y ready to help 
 churn?" 
 
 "Yes, I guess so, if Ans ll milk." 
 
 "Oh, he ll milk; he jest loves to milk 
 ol Brindle when the flies are thick." 
 
 "Oh, you bet," said Ans, to make her 
 laugh. 
 
 "Now, Flaxen," coughed Gearheart in 
 beginning, "we ve been discussin your 
 case, an we ve come to the conclusion 
 that you ought to have the togs specified 
 in the indictment" (this to take away the 
 gravity of what was to follow); "but 
 we re kind o up a tree about just what 
 we d better do. The case is this. We ve 
 
66 B Xittle morsfc. 
 
 got to buy a horse to fill out our team, an* 
 that s a-goin to take about all we can 
 rake an scrape." 
 
 " We may have to git our groceries on 
 tick. Now, if you could only pull through 
 till after " Anson broke in. 
 
 " It s purty tough, Flaxie, an pap s 
 awful sorry; but if you could jest pull 
 through " 
 
 It was a great blow to poor little Flaxen, 
 and she broke down and cried unrestrain 
 edly. 
 
 " I I don t see why I can t have 
 things like the rest o the girls." It was 
 her first reproach, and it cut to the heart. 
 Anson swore under his breath, and was 
 stepping forward to say something when 
 Gearheart restrained him. 
 
 "But, y see, Flaxie, we ain t askin 
 you to give up the dress, only to wait on us 
 for a month or so, till we thrash." 
 
 "That s it, babe," said Anson, going 
 over to where she sat, with her arms lying 
 on the table and her face hidden upon 
 them. " We could spend dollars then 
 where we couldn t cents now." 
 
B (Question of Bress. 67 
 
 "And they won t be any more thing- 
 umyjigs at the church, anyhow, an the 
 wheat s blightin on the knolls, besides." 
 
 But the first keen disappointment over, 
 she was her brave self once more. 
 
 "Well, all right, boys," she said, her 
 trembling voice curiously at variance with 
 her words; "I ll get along somehow, but 
 I tell you I ll have something scrumptious 
 to pay for this see if I don t." She was 
 smiling again faintly. " It ll cost more n 
 one ten dollars for my togs, as you call 
 em. Now, pap, you go an milk that 
 cow! An , Bert, you glue yerself to that 
 churn-dasher, an don t you stop to 
 breathe or swear till it s done." 
 
 "That s the girl to have that s our 
 own Flaxie ! She knows how hard things 
 come on a farm," cheered Anson. 
 
 " I bet I do," she said, wiping away the 
 last trace of her tears and smiling at her 
 palpable hit. And then began the thump 
 of the dasher, and out in the dusk Anson 
 was whistling as he milked. 
 
 She went down to the sociable the next 
 night in her old dress, and bravely looked 
 
Xittle 
 
 happy for pap s sake. Bert did not go. 
 Anson was a rather handsome old fellow. 
 Huge, bearded like a Russian, though the 
 colour of his beard was a wolf brindle, re 
 sembling a bunch of dry buffalo-grass, 
 Bert was accustomed to say that he looked 
 the father of the girl, for she had the 
 same robust development, carried herself 
 as erect, and looked everybody in the eye 
 with the same laughing directness. 
 
 There were some sly remarks among a 
 ribald few, but on the whole everything 
 passed off as usual. They were both gen 
 eral favorites, and as a matter of fact few 
 people remarked that Flaxen s dress was 
 not good enough. She certainly forgot 
 all about it, so complete was her absorp 
 tion in the gayety of the evening. 
 
 " Wai, now for four weeks hard times, 
 Flaxen," said Anson, as they were jogging 
 homeward about eleven o clock. 
 
 "I can stand my share of it, pap," she 
 stoutly replied. " I m no chicken." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AFTER HARVEST. 
 
 LL through those four or five 
 weeks, at every opportunity, 
 the partners planned the fu 
 ture of their waif. In the 
 harvest-field, when they had a moment 
 together, one would say to the other : 
 
 "We ll let her stay two years if she 
 likes it, eh?" 
 
 "Certainly; she needn t come back till 
 she wants to. We may be rich enough to 
 sell out then, and move back ourselves. 
 I m gittin tired o this prairie myself. 
 If we could sell, we d put her through a 
 whole course o sprouts." 
 
 " You bet ! Sell when you can find a 
 buyer. I ll sign the deed." 
 "All right." 
 
 And then they would go to work again 
 toiling and planning for the future. Ev- 
 
70 a xittle IRorsfc. 
 
 ery day during August these men worked 
 with, the energy of demons, up early in 
 the morning and out late at night, har 
 vesting their crop. All day the header 
 clattered to and fro with Bert or Ans 
 astride the rudder, a cloud of dust rolling 
 up from the ground, out of which the 
 painted flanges of the reel flashed like 
 sword-strokes. All day, and day after 
 day, while the gulls sailed and soared in 
 the hazy air and the larks piped from the 
 dun grass, these human beings, covered 
 with grime and sweat, worked in heat and 
 parching wind. And never for an hour 
 did they forget their little waif and her 
 needs. And she did her part in the 
 house. She rose as early as they and 
 worked almost as late. It was miraculous, 
 they admitted. 
 
 One night toward the last of the har 
 vest they were returning along the road 
 from a neighboring farm, where they had 
 been to head some late wheat. The tired 
 horses with down-hung heads and swing 
 ing traces were walking sullenly but 
 swiftly along the homeward road, the 
 
Bfter 1barvc0t 71 
 
 wagon rumbling sleepily; the stars were 
 coming out in the east, while yet the rose 
 and amethyst of the fallen sun lighted the 
 western sky. Through the air, growing 
 moist, came the sound of reapers still go 
 ing. Men were shouting blithely, while 
 voices of women and children came from 
 the cabins, where yellow lights began to 
 twinkle. 
 
 Anson and Bert, blackened with dust 
 and perspiration and weary to the point 
 of listlessness, sat with elbows on knees, 
 talking in low, slow tones on the never-fail 
 ing topic, crops and profits. Their voices 
 chimed with the sound of the wagon. 
 
 "There s the light," broke out Ans, 
 rousing himself and the team; "Flaxen s 
 got supper all ready for us. She s a reg 
 ular little Trojan, that girl is. They 
 ain t many girls o fourteen that u d stay 
 there contented all day alone an keep all 
 the whole business in apple-pie order. 
 She ll get her pay some day." 
 
 "We ll try to pay her; but say, ol 
 man, ain t it about time to open up our 
 plans to her?" 
 
72 a Xfttle Borsfc, 
 
 "Wai, yes; it is. 
 the thing to-night, an we ll have it over 
 with." 
 
 As they drove up, Flaxen came to the 
 door. " Hello, boys ! What makes ye so 
 late?" 
 
 " Finishin up afield, babe. All done." 
 
 She clapped her hands and danced up 
 and down. 
 
 " Goody ! all done at last. Well, yank 
 them horses out o their harnesses an 
 come to biscuits. They re jest sizzlin 
 hot." 
 
 "All right. We ll be there in about 
 two jerks of a lamb s tail in fly-time. 
 Bert, grab a tug; I m hungry as a 
 wolf." 
 
 It was about the first of September 
 and the nights were getting cool, and the 
 steaming supper seemed like a feast to the 
 chilled and stiffened men coming in a lit 
 tle later and sitting down with the sound 
 of the girl s cheery voice in their ears. 
 The tea was hot; so were the biscuits. 
 The pyramid of hot mashed potato had a 
 lump of half-melted butter in the hollow 
 
Bfter 1barv>est. 73 
 
 top, and there were canned peaches and 
 canned salmon. 
 
 "Yes: we re about finished up har 
 vesting" said Bert, as they settled them 
 selves at the table, " an it s about time to 
 talk about gittin you off to school." 
 
 " Don t worry about that. It ain t no 
 great job, I reckon. I can git ready in 
 about seventeen jiffies, stop-watch time." 
 
 " Not if you are goin away off to some 
 city in the East " 
 
 "Yes: but I ain t, y see." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you are. Bert an I ve be n 
 talkin it all over f r the last three weeks. 
 We re goin to send you back to St. Peter 
 to the seminary." 
 
 " I guess not, pap. I d like to know 
 what you think you re a-doin sendin 
 me way back there. Boomtown s good 
 enough fer me." 
 
 "There, there, Flaxie; don t git mad. 
 Y see, we think they ain t any thin good 
 enough for you. Nothin too good for 
 a girl that stays to home an cooks f r 
 two old cusses " 
 
 "You ain t cusses! You re jest as 
 
74 a xittle morsfc. 
 
 good as you can be; but I ain t a-goin 
 there!" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Cause I ain t; that s why." 
 
 " Why, don t y wan to go back there 
 where the people have nice houses, an 
 where they s a good " 
 
 "Well, I don t know enough; that s 
 why. I ain t goin back to no seminary to 
 be laughed at cause I don t know beans." 
 
 "But you do," laughed Bert, with an 
 attempt to lighten the gloom "you 
 know canned beans." 
 
 " They d laff at me, I know, an call 
 me a little Norsk." She was ready to cry. 
 
 "I ll bet they won t, not when they see 
 our new dress an our new gold watch 
 dress jest the color o crow s-foot grass, 
 watch thirty carats fine. I d laugh to 
 see em callin my babe names then!" 
 
 And so by bribing, coaxing, and lying 
 they finally obtained her tearful consent. 
 They might not have succeeded even then 
 had it not been for a young lady in Boom- 
 town who was going back to the same 
 school, and who offered to take her in 
 
Bfter 1ban>est. 75 
 
 charge. But there was hardly a day that 
 she did not fling herself down into a chair 
 and cry out : 
 
 " I jest ain t goin . I m all right here, 
 an I don t see why you can t let me stay 
 here. I ain t made no fuss. Seems as if 
 you thought it was fun f r me to go way 
 off there where I don t know any thin 
 an where I don t know anybody." 
 
 But having come to a conclusion, the 
 men were relentless. They hired sewing- 
 girls, and skirmished back and forth be 
 tween Boomtown and the farm like mad. 
 Their steady zeal made up for her moody 
 and fitful enthusiasm. However, she grew 
 more resigned to the idea as the days wore 
 on toward the departure, though her fits 
 of dark and unusual musing were alarm 
 ing to Anson, who feared a desperate re 
 treat at the last moment. 
 
 He took her over to see Miss Holt one 
 day, but .not before he had prepared the 
 way. 
 
 " I s pose things are in purty good shape 
 around this seminary?" he asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes, indeed. There are three 
 
76 a Xittte morsfe. 
 
 large buildings; libraries, picture-galler 
 ies, and music-rooms. The boarding- 
 halls are carpeted and the parlors are 
 really elegant." 
 
 " Uh-hum !" commented Anson. " "Well, 
 now, I m goin to bring my girl over to 
 see you, an I guess it u d be jest as well 
 if you didn t mention these fineries an 
 things. Y see, she s afraid of all such 
 things. It u d be better to tell her that 
 things weren t very gorgeous there about 
 like the graded school in Boomtown, say. 
 She ain t used to these music-halls an 
 things. Kind o make her think St. 
 Peter ain t no great shakes, anyhow." 
 
 " I see," laughed the quick-witted girl. 
 And she succeeded in removing a good 
 deal of Flaxen s dread of the seminary. 
 
 "Wai, babe, to-morrow," said Anson, 
 as they were eating supper, and he was 
 astonished to see her break out in weeping. 
 
 " Why don t you keep harpin away on 
 that the whole while?" she exclaimed. 
 "Can t you leave me alone a minute? 
 Seems to me you re jest crazy to git rid 
 
Bfter 1barve0t. 77 
 
 "Oh, we are," put in Bert. "We re 
 jest lickin our chops to git back to sour 
 flapjacks an soggy bread. Jest seems as 
 though we couldn t wait till to-morrow 
 noon, to begin doing our own cookin 
 again." 
 
 This cleared the air a little, and they 
 spent the rest of the evening without say 
 ing very much directly upon the depart 
 ure. The two men sat up late after 
 Flaxen had gone to bed. There was the 
 trunk and valise which would not let 
 them forget even for a moment what 
 was coming on the morrow. Every time 
 Anson looked at her he sighed and tried 
 to swallow the lump in his throat. 
 
 " Say, Bert, let s let her stay if she 
 wants to," he said suddenly after they had 
 been in silence for a long time. 
 
 " Don t make a cussed fool of yourself, 
 Ans," growled Bert, who saw that heroic 
 measures were necessary. " Go to bed an 
 don t you say another word; we ve got to 
 take our medicine like men." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AN EMPTY HOUSE. 
 
 NSON was the more talkative 
 of the two next morning, how 
 ever. 
 
 " Come, come, brace up, babe! 
 Anybody u d think we d lost all the rest 
 of our family, when we re only doin the 
 square thing by our daughter. That s all. 
 Why, you ll be as happy as a canary in 
 less n two weeks. Young folks is about 
 the same everywhere, an you ll git ac 
 quainted in less n two jiffies." 
 
 They were on the road to Boomtown to 
 put Flaxen on the train. It was about 
 the tenth of September, early in the cold, 
 crisp air of a perfect morning. In the 
 south there was a vast phantom lake, with 
 duplicate cities here and there along the 
 winding shores, which stretched from east 
 to west. The grain-stacks stood around 
 
 78 
 
Bn Bmptg Ibouse. 79 
 
 so thickly that they seemed like walls of 
 a great, low-built town, the mirage bring 
 ing into vision countless hundreds of them 
 commonly below the horizon. 
 
 The smoke of steam threshing-machines 
 mounted into the still air here and there, 
 and hung long in a slowly drifting cloud 
 above the land. The prairie-lark, the last 
 of the singing birds, whistled softly and 
 infrequently from the dry grass. The 
 gulls were streaming south from the 
 lakes. 
 
 They were driving her to Boomtown to 
 avoid the inquisitive eyes of the good peo 
 ple of Belleplain. " I may break down 
 an blubber," said Anson to Bert; "an 
 if I do, I don t want them cussed idiots 
 standin around laughin it s better to 
 go on the C., B. and Q., anyhow." 
 
 Notwithstanding his struggle to keep 
 talk going, Anson was unsuccessful from 
 the very moment that Belleplain faded to 
 an unsubstantial group of shadows and 
 disappeared from the level plain into the 
 air, just as Boomtown correspondingly 
 wavered into sight ahead. Silence so 
 
80 a tittle IKorsfc, 
 
 profound was a restraint on them all, and 
 poor Flaxen with wide eyes looked wist 
 fully on the plain that stretched away into 
 unknown regions. She was thinking of 
 her poor mother, whom she dimly remem 
 bered in the horror of that first winter. 
 Naturally of a gay, buoyant disposition, 
 she had not dwelt much upon her future 
 or her past; but now that the familiar 
 plain seemed slipping from her sight 
 entirely, she was conscious of its beauty, 
 and, rapt with the associated emotions 
 which came crowding upon her, she felt 
 as though she were leaving the tried and 
 true for the unknown and uncertain. 
 
 " Boys," she said finally, " do you s pose 
 I ve got any folks?" 
 
 "I shouldn t wonder if y had, babe, 
 somewhere back in the ol country." 
 
 " They couldn t talk with me if I could 
 find em, could they?" 
 
 " I reckon not, less you study so hard 
 that you can learn their lingo," said Ans, 
 seeing another opportunity to add a reason 
 for going to school. 
 
 " Well, boys, that s what I m goin to 
 
Ibou0e. 81 
 
 do, an by an by we ll go over there an 
 see if we can t find em, won t we?" 
 
 "That s the talk; now you re gittin 
 down to business," rejoined Ans. 
 
 " I s pose St. Peter is a good eal bigger n 
 Boomtown," she said sighfully, as they 
 neared the " emporium of the sleepy 
 James." 
 
 "A little," said the astute Gearheart. 
 
 The clanging of the engines and the 
 noise of shouting gave her a sinking sen 
 sation in the chest, and she clung to An- 
 son s arm as they drove past the engine. 
 She was deafened by the hiss of the escap 
 ing steam of the monster standing motion 
 less, headed toward the east, ready to leap 
 on its sounding way. 
 
 On the platform they found Miss Holt 
 and a number of other friends waiting. 
 There was a great deal of clanging and 
 whanging and scuffling, it seemed to the 
 poor, overwrought girl. Miss Holt took 
 her in charge at once and tried to keep 
 her cheerful. When they had checked 
 her trunk and the train was about ready 
 to start, Ans looked uneasy and fidgeted 
 
82 a 3ltttle 
 
 about. Bert looked on, silent and dark. 
 Flaxen, with her new long dress and new 
 hat, looked quite the woman, and Miss 
 Holt greeted her as such; indeed, she 
 kept so close to her that Anson looked in 
 vain for a chance to say something more 
 which was on his mind. Finally, as the 
 train was about going, he said hesitat 
 ingly: 
 
 " Elga, jest a minute." She stared for 
 a moment, then came up to him. 
 
 " I didn t want to call y Flaxen afore 
 her," he explained; "but you ain t 
 kissed us good-bye." He ended hesitat 
 ingly. 
 
 The tears were already streaming down 
 her cheeks, and this was too much. 
 She flung her arms about his neck and 
 sobbed on his bosom with the abandon of 
 girlish grief. 
 
 " I don t wan to go t all, pap." 
 
 "Oh, yes, y do, Elga; yes, y do! 
 Don t mind us; we ll be all right. I ll 
 have Bert writin a full half the time. 
 There, kiss me good-bye an git on Bert 
 here, too." 
 
Bn JEmptg Ibouae, 
 
 She kissed him twice through his bris 
 tling moustache, and going to Bert offered 
 her lips, and then came back to Anson 
 and threw herself against his broad, strong 
 breast. She had no one to love but these 
 two. It seemed as if she were leaving every 
 thing in the world. Anson took her on 
 his firm arm and helped her on the car, 
 and followed her till she was seated beside 
 Miss Holt. 
 
 "Don t cry, babe; you ll make oP pap 
 feel turrible. He ll break right down 
 here afore all these people, an blubber, 
 if y don t cheer up. Why, you ll soon 
 be as happy as a fly in soup. Good-bye, 
 good-bye!" 
 
 The train started, and Anson, brushing 
 his eyes with his great brown hand, swung 
 himself off and stood looking at her. As 
 the train passsed him she rushed to the 
 rear end of the car, and remained there 
 looking back at the little station till the 
 sympathetic Miss Holt gently led her back 
 to her seat. Then she flattened her round 
 cheek against the pane and tried to see 
 the boys. When the last house of the 
 
84 a SLittle Borefe. 
 
 town passed by her window she sank back 
 in her seat and sobbed silently. 
 
 " I feel as if I d be n attendin my own 
 funeral," said Anson, after they had got 
 into their wagon and the train had gone 
 out of sight in the haze of the prairie. 
 
 " Well, it s pretty tough on that child 
 to go off that way. To her the world is 
 all a great mystery. When you an I go 
 to heaven it won t be any greater change 
 for us than this change for Flaxen every 
 face strange, every spot new." 
 
 " Wai, she ain t far away but we can 
 look out for her. She ain t poor n r fa 
 therless as long as we live, hey?" 
 
 And then silence fell on them. As 
 they were jogging homeward they saw the 
 gray gulls rise from the sod and go home 
 to the lake for the night. They heard 
 the crickets evening chorus broaden and 
 deepen to an endless and monotonous 
 symphony, while behind fantastic, thin, 
 and rainless clouds the sun sank in un 
 speakable glory of colour. The air, per 
 fectly still, was cool almost to frostiness, 
 
Bn Empts Ifoouse. 85 
 
 and, far above, the fair stars broke from 
 the lilac and gold of the sun-flushed sky. 
 Lights in the farm-houses began to ap 
 pear. 
 
 Once or twice Anson said: "She s 
 about at Summit now. I hope she s 
 chirked up." 
 
 They met threshing-crews going noisily 
 home to supper. Once they met an " out 
 fit," engine, tank, separator, all moving 
 along like a train of cars, while every few 
 minutes the red light from the furnace 
 gleamed on the man who was stuffing the 
 straw into the furnace-door, bringing out 
 his face so plainly that they knew him. As 
 the night grew deeper, an occasional owl 
 flapped across the fields in search of mice. 
 
 " We re bound to miss her like thunder, 
 Bert; no two ways about that. Can t 
 help but miss her on the cookin , hey?" 
 
 Bert nodded without looking up. As 
 they came in sight of home at last, and 
 saw the house silhouetted against the 
 faintly yellow sky, Ans said with a sigh : 
 
 " No light an no singin there to 
 night." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HE fact is, Flaxen has sp iled 
 us," laughed Anson, a couple 
 of days later, when Bert was 
 cursing the soggy biscuit. 
 " We ve got so high-toned that we can t 
 stand common cookin . Time was we d 
 a thought ourselves lucky to git as good 
 as that. Rec lect them flapjacks we ust 
 to make? By mighty! you could shoe a 
 horse with em. Say, I wish I could jest 
 slip in an see what she s a-doin about 
 now, hey?" 
 
 " She s probably writin a letter. She 
 won t do much of anythin else for the 
 first week." 
 
 " I hope you re right," said Anson. 
 They got a queer little letter every 
 Wednesday, each one for several weeks 
 pitifully like the others. 
 
" it Bgafn. 87 
 
 Dear boys i thought i would take my pen 
 in hand to tell you i dont like it one bit the 
 school is just as mene as it can be the girls 
 do laugh at me they call me toe-head, if i 
 catch em right i will fix their heads. They 
 is one girl who i like she is from pipestone 
 she dont know no moren i do she says my 
 dress is pritty ol nig an the drake all rite i 
 wish i was home. ELGA. 
 
 The wish to bo home was in all these 
 letters like a sob. The men read them 
 over carefully and gravely, and finally An- 
 son would put them away in the Bible 
 (bought on Flaxen s account) for safe 
 keeping. 
 
 As the letters improved in form their 
 exultation increased. 
 
 " Say, Bert, don t you notice she writes 
 better now? She makes big I s now in 
 place o little ones. Seems s if she runs 
 the sentence all together, though. " 
 
 " She ll come out all right. You see, 
 she goes into the preparatory department, 
 where they teach writin an spellin . 
 You ll see her hand improve right along 
 now." 
 
83 B Xittle IKorsfe. 
 
 And it did, and she ceased to wail for 
 home and ceased to say that she hated her 
 studies. 
 
 "I am getting along splendid," she 
 wrote some weeks after this. " I like my 
 teacher; her name is Holt. She is just 
 as nice as she can be. She is cousin to 
 the one who came with me ; I live with 
 her uncle, and I can go to soshibles when 
 ever I want to ; but the other girls cant. 
 I am feeling pretty good, but I wish you 
 boys was here." 
 
 She did not wish to be at home this 
 time! 
 
 Winter shut down on the broad land 
 again with that implacable, remorseless 
 brilliancy of fierce cold which character 
 ises the northern plain, stopping work 
 on the farm and bolting all doors. Hardly 
 a day that the sun did not shine ; but the 
 light was hard, white, glittering, and 
 cold, the winds treacherous, the snow 
 wild and restless. There was now com 
 paratively little danger of being lost even 
 in the fiercest storms, but still life in one 
 of these little cabins had an isolation al- 
 
"JBacbing" it again. 89 
 
 most as terrible as that of a ship wedged 
 amid the ice-floes of the polar regions. 
 
 Day after day rising to feed the cattle, 
 night after night bending over the sooty 
 stove listening to the ceaseless voice of 
 the wind as it beat and brushed, whis 
 pered, moaned, and piped or screamed 
 around the windows and eaves this was 
 their life, varied with an occasional visit 
 to the store or the post-office, or by the 
 call of a neighbour. It is easy to conceive 
 that Flaxen s bright letters were like 
 bursts of bird-song in their loneliness. 
 Many of the young men, their neighbours, 
 went back East to spend the winter back 
 to Michigan, Iowa, New York, or else 
 where. 
 
 " Ans, why don t you go back an visit 
 your folks?" asked Bert, one day. " I ll 
 take care o things." 
 
 " Wai, the fact is, I ve be n away so long 
 they don t care whether I m alive er dead. 
 I ain t got no near relatives except a sis 
 ter, an she s got all the fam ly she can 
 tend to." 
 
 " Same here. We ain t very affection- 
 
90 B Xittle IKorsfc. 
 
 ate, anyway; our fam ly and I don t 
 write. Still I d like to go back, just to 
 see how they all are." 
 
 "Why not go?" 
 
 " Well, I don t know. I guess I must 
 one o these days. I ve kind o be n 
 waitin till we got into a little better 
 shape. I hate to go back poor." 
 
 "So do I. It s hard work f r me to 
 give up beat; I ain t goin to do it yet 
 awhile." 
 
 Sometimes a neighbour dropped in dur 
 ing the middle of the day, and on pleas 
 ant days they would harness up the team 
 and take a drive down to the store and the 
 post-office; but mainly they vegetated 
 like a couple of huge potatoes in a cellar, 
 as did most of the settlers. There was 
 nothing else to do. 
 
 It was the worst winter since the first 
 that they had spent in the country. The 
 snow seemed never still. It slid, streamed, 
 rose in the air ceaselessly; it covered the 
 hay, drifted up the barn door, swept the 
 fields bare, and, carrying the dirt of the 
 ploughed fields with it, built huge black 
 
" ffiacbing " it Bgam. 91 
 
 drifts wherever there was a wind-break, 
 corn-field, or other obstruction. 
 
 There were moments when Bert was 
 well-nigh desperate. Only contact with 
 hard work and cold winds saved him. He 
 was naturally a more ambitious, more 
 austere man than Anson. He was not 
 content to vegetate, but longed to escape. 
 He felt that he was wasting his life. 
 
 It was in December that the letter first 
 came from Flaxen which mentioned Will 
 Kendall. 
 
 O boys ! I had the best time. We had a 
 party at our house and lots of boys came and 
 girls too, and they were nice, the boys, I 
 mean. Will Kendall he is the nicest feller 
 you ever seen. He has got black eyes and 
 brown hair and a gold watch-chain with a 
 locket with some girl s hair in it, and he said 
 it was his sister s hair, but I told him I didn t 
 believe it, do you? We had cake and pop 
 corn and lasses candy ; and Will he took me 
 out to supper. 
 
 Bert was reading the letter, and at this 
 point he stopped and raised his eyes, and 
 the two men gazed at each other without 
 
92 & xittle Worsfc. 
 
 a word for a long time. Then Anson 
 laughed. 
 
 " She s gittin over her homesickness. 
 She s all right now she s got out to a so 
 ciable." 
 
 After that there was hardly a letter that 
 did not mention Kendall in some inno 
 cent fashion among the other boys and 
 girls who took part in the sleigh-rides, 
 parties, and sociables. But the morbidly 
 acute Bert, if he saw, said nothing, and 
 Anson did not see. 
 
 "Who d y s pose this Kendall is?" 
 asked Anson, one night late in the winter, 
 of Gearheart, who was reading the paper 
 while his companion reread a letter from 
 Flaxen. " Seems to me she s writin a 
 good eal about him lately." 
 
 " Oh, some slick little dry-goods clerk 
 or druggist," said Bert, with unwarrant 
 able irritation. 
 
 " She seems to have a good eal to say 
 about him, anyway," repeated Anson, in 
 a meditative way. 
 
 " Oh, that s natural enough. They are 
 two young folks together," replied Bert, 
 
" it B0atm 93 
 
 with a careless accent, to remove any sus 
 picion which his hasty utterance might 
 have raised in Anson s mind. 
 
 "Wai, I guess you re right," agreed 
 Anson, after a pause, relieved. This relief 
 was made complete when in other letters 
 which came she said less and less about 
 Kendall. If they had been more experi 
 enced, they would have been disturbed by 
 this suspicious fact. 
 
 Then again, when Anson wrote asking 
 " What has become of that Kendall you 
 wrote so much about?" she replied that 
 he was there, and began writing of him 
 again in a careless sort of way, with the 
 craft of woman already manifest in the 
 change of front. 
 
 Spring came again, and that ever- 
 recurring miracle, the good green grass, 
 sprang forth from its covering of ice and 
 snow, up from its hiding-place in the 
 dark, cold sod. 
 
 Again the two men set to work fero 
 ciously at the seeding. Up early in the 
 wide, sweet dawn, toiling through the 
 day behind harrow and seeder, coming in 
 
94 21 Xfttlc IKorsfe, 
 
 at noon to a poor and badly cooked meal, 
 hurrying back to the field and working till 
 night, coming in at sundown so tired that 
 one leg could hardly be dragged by the 
 other this was their daily life. 
 
 One day, as they were eating their sup 
 per of sour bread and canned beans, Gear- 
 heart irritatedly broke out: "Ans, why 
 don t you git married? It u d simplify 
 matters a good eal if you should. Old 
 Russ is no good." 
 
 " What s the matter with your gittin 
 married?" replied Anson, imperturbably 
 pinching off the cooked part of the loaf, 
 skilfully leaving the doughy part. 
 
 " I ain t on the marry; that s all." 
 
 "Neither am I." 
 
 "Well, you ought to be." 
 
 "Don t see it." 
 
 " Well, now, let me show it. We can t 
 go on this way. I m gittin so poor you 
 can count my ribs through my shirt. 
 Jest think how comfortable it would make 
 things! No more awful coffee; no more 
 canned baked beans; no more cussed, in 
 fernal, everlastin , leathery flapjacks; no 
 
"JSacbing" it again. 95 
 
 more soggy bread confound it!" Here 
 he seized the round inner part of the loaf, 
 from which the crust had been flaked, and 
 flung it through the open door far down 
 toward the garden. 
 
 "Bert! that s the last bit of bread 
 we ve got in the house." 
 
 "What s the odds? We couldn t eat it." 
 "We could a baked it over." 
 "We could eat dog, but we don t," re 
 plied Bert gloomily. His temper was 
 getting frightful of late. 
 
 " We ll be all right when Flaxen comes 
 back," said Ans, laughing. 
 
 " Say, now, you ve said that a thousand 
 times this winter. You know well enough 
 Flaxen s out o this. We ain t countin 
 on her," blurted Gearheart, just in the 
 mood to say disagreeable things. 
 
 "Wha d y mean? Ain t she comiu 
 back in June?" 
 
 " Probably; but she won t stay." 
 
 " No : that s so. She ll have to go back 
 
 in September; but that s three months, 
 
 an we may sell out by that time if we 
 
 have a good crop. Anyway, we ll live 
 
96 B Xittle Iftorsfe. 
 
 high fer a spell. We ought to have a let 
 ter from her to-night, hadn t we?" 
 
 " I m goin down to see, if you ll wash 
 the dishes." 
 
 " All right. Take a horse. " 
 
 "No: the horses are tired. I ll foot 
 it." 
 
 "Wai, ain t you too?" 
 
 "Want anythin from the store?" 
 
 "Yes: git a hunk o bacon an some 
 canned corn, tomatoes, an some canned 
 salmon; if y think we can stand the 
 pressure, bring home a can o peaches." 
 
 And so Gearheart started off for town 
 in the dusk, afoot, in order to spare the 
 horse, as though he had not himself 
 walked all day long in the soft, muddy 
 ground. The wind was soft and moist, 
 and the light of the stars coming out in 
 the east fell upon his upturned eyes with 
 unspeakable majesty. Yet he saw them 
 but dimly. He was dreaming of a face 
 which was often in his mind now a face 
 not unlike Flaxen s, only older, more 
 glorified, more womanly. He was asking 
 himself some searching questions to-night 
 
" JBacbfng " it Bgain. 97 
 
 as his tired limbs dragged themselves 
 over the grassy road. 
 
 What was he toiling for, anyway? 
 What mattered all this terrible tramping 
 to and fro was it an end or only a means? 
 Would there ever come anything like 
 satisfaction of desire? Life for him had 
 been a silent, gloomy, and almost pur 
 poseless struggle. He had not looked 
 forward to anything very definite, though 
 vaguely he had hoped for something bet 
 ter. 
 
 As his eyes fell upon the twinkling, 
 yellow lights of the village his thoughts 
 came back to Flaxen and to the letter 
 whicl^he expected to receive from her. 
 He quickened his steps, though his feet 
 were sore and his limbs stiff and lame. 
 
 The one little street presented its usual 
 Saturday-night appearance. Teams were 
 hitched to the narrow plank walk before 
 the battlemented wooden stores. Men 
 stood here and there in listless knots, 
 smoking, talking of the weather and of 
 seeding, while their wives, surrounded 
 by shy children, traded within. Being 
 
93 B Xittle 
 
 Saturday night, the saloons were full of 
 men, and shouts and the clink of beer- 
 mugs could be heard at intervals. But 
 the larger crowd was gathered at the 
 post-office : uncouth farmers of all nation 
 alities, clerks, land-sharks, lawyers, and 
 giggling girls in couples, who took delight 
 in mingling with the crowd. 
 
 Judge Sid Balser was over from Boom- 
 town, and was talking expansively to a 
 crowd of "leading citizens" about a, 
 scheme to establish a horse-car line be 
 tween Boomtown and Belleplain. 
 
 Colonel Arran, of the Belleplain Ar 
 gus, in another corner, not ten feet 
 away, was saying that the judge ^as " a 
 scoundrel, a blow-hard, and would down 
 his best lover for a pewter cent," to all of 
 which the placid judge was accustomed 
 and gave no heed. 
 
 Bert paid no attention to the colonel or 
 to the judge, or to any of this buzzing. 
 " They are just talking to hear them 
 selves make a noise, anyway. They talk 
 about building up the country they who 
 are a rope and a grindstone around the 
 
" JBacbing " it Bgain. 99 
 
 necks of the rest of us, who do the 
 work." 
 
 When Gearheart reached his box he 
 found a large, square letter in it, and 
 looking at it saw that it was from Flaxen 
 directed to Anson. " Her picture, prob 
 ably," he said as he held it up. As he 
 was pushing rapidly out he heard a half- 
 drunken fellow say, in what he thought 
 was an inaudible tone : 
 
 " There s Gearheart. Wonder what s 
 become of his little Norsk." 
 
 Gearheart turned, and pushing through 
 the crowd, thrust his eyes into the face of 
 the speaker with a glare that paralysed 
 the poor fool. 
 
 "What s become o your sense?" he 
 snarled, and his voice had in it a carniv 
 orous note. 
 
 With this warning he turned contempt 
 uously and passed out, leaving the dis 
 comfited rowdy to settle accounts with his 
 friends. But there was a low note in the 
 ruffian s voice, an insinuating inflection, 
 which stayed with him all along the way 
 home, like a bad taste in the mouth. 
 
ioo B Xfttle 
 
 He saw by the aid of a number of these 
 side-lights of late that Flaxen never could 
 come back to them in the old relation; 
 but how could she come back? 
 
 Gearheart stopped and gazed thought 
 fully upward. She must come back as 
 the wife of Ans or himself. " Pooh ! she 
 is only a child," he said, snapping his 
 finger and walking on. But the insist 
 ence remained. " She is not a child she 
 is a maiden, soon to be a woman ; she has 
 no relatives, no home to go to but ours 
 after her two or three years of schooling 
 are over. It must still be her home; 
 no breath of scandal shall touch her if I 
 can prevent it ; and after her two years 
 are up" after a long, motionless reverie 
 he strode forward " she shall choose be 
 tween us." 
 
 There had grown up between the two 
 friends of late a constraint, or, to be more 
 exact, Gearheart had held himself in be 
 fore his friend, had not discussed these 
 problems with him at all. " Ans is just 
 like a boy," he had said to himself; "he 
 don t seem to understand the case, and I 
 
" it B^in. 
 
 don t know as it s my duty to enlighten 
 him ; he either feels very sure about her, 
 or he has not understood the situation." 
 
 He was thinking this now as he strode 
 across the spongy sod toward the lighted 
 windows of the shanty. The air was 
 damp and chill, for the ice was not yet 
 out of the ponds or swamps of tall grasses. 
 An occasional prairie-cock sent forth a 
 muffled, drowsy " boom" ; low-hung flights 
 of geese, gabbling anxiously, or the less- 
 orderly ducks, with hissing wings, swept 
 by overhead, darkly limned against the 
 stars. There was a strange charm in the 
 raw air. The weary man almost forgot 
 his pain as he drew deep breathings of the 
 night. 
 
 It was significant of the restraint that 
 had grown up between him and Anson 
 that he held the letter from Flaxen un 
 opened in his hand simply because it was 
 directed to his friend. He knew that it 
 was as much to him as to Anson, and 
 yet, feeling as he had of late, he would 
 not open it, for he would have been angry 
 if Anson had opened one directed to 
 
xmie IKorsfe. 
 
 him. He simply judged Anson by him 
 self. 
 
 The giant was asleep when he entered. 
 His great, shaggy head lay beside the lamp 
 on his crossed arms. Bert laid the letter 
 down beside him and shook him. 
 
 "Hello! got back, hey?" the sleeper 
 said, rousing up sluggishly. " Anything?" 
 Then he caught sight of the letter. " Oh, 
 bless her little heart! Wonder what it is? 
 Picture, bet my hat!" Here he opened 
 it. 
 
 " Gee-whittiker, thunder and turf, gosh- 
 all Friday! look a- there! Ain t she 
 growed!" he yelled, holding the picture 
 by the corner and moving it into all sorts 
 of positions. " That s my little girl our 
 Flaxen; she can t grow so purty but what 
 I d know her. See that hair done up on 
 the top of her head ! Look at that dress, 
 an the thingumajigs around her neck! 
 Oh, she s gittin there, Smith, hey?" 
 
 "She s changing pretty fast," said 
 Bert listlessly. 
 
 "Changin fast! Say, ol man, what s 
 the matter with you? Are y sick?" 
 
" it Baim 103 
 
 " I m played out, that s all." 
 
 "Darn my skin! I should think y 
 would be, draggin all day, an then 
 walkin all o four mile to the post-office. 
 Jest lay down on the bed there, oP boy, 
 while I read the letter to yeh. Say, ol 
 man, don t you git up in the mornin till 
 you please. I ll look after the breakfast," 
 insisted Anson, struck with remorse by 
 the expression on Bert s face. " But here s 
 the letter. Short an sweet." 
 
 DEAR BOYS [Bless the little fist that wrote 
 that !] . I send my picture. I think it is a 
 nice one. The girls say it flatters me, but 
 Will says it don t [What the devil do we care 
 what Will says?] I guess it does, don t you? 
 I wish I had a picture of you both ; I want to 
 show the girls how handsome you are [she 
 means me, of course. No, confound it] how 
 handsome you are both of you. I wish you 
 would send me your pictures both of you. I 
 ain t got much to say. I will write again 
 soon. ELGA. 
 
 Bert looked at the picture over Anson s 
 shoulder, but did not seem to pay much 
 attention to it. 
 
104 & xittle Worsfc. 
 
 " Wai, I ll go out an shut the barn door. 
 Nights git cold after the sun goes down. 
 You needn t peel the taters to-night. 
 We ll bake em, brussels an all, to-mor 
 row mornin ." 
 
 When Anson had gone, Bert snatched 
 up the picture with great eagerness and 
 gazed upon it with a steady, devouring 
 glance. How womanly she looked with 
 her hair done up so, and the broad, fair 
 face and full bosom. 
 
 He heard Anson returning from the 
 barn, and hastily laid the picture down, 
 and when Anson entered was apparently 
 dropping off to sleep. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FLAXEN COMES HOME ON A VACATION. 
 
 T was in June, just before the 
 ending of the school, that 
 Flaxen first began to write 
 about delaying her return. 
 Anson was wofully disappointed. He 
 had said all along that she would make 
 tracks for home just as soon as school was 
 out, and he had calculated just when she 
 would arrive; and on the second day af 
 ter the close of school for the summer he 
 drove down to the train to meet her. 
 She did not come, but he got a letter 
 which said that one of her friends wanted 
 her to stay two weeks with her, until after 
 the Fourth of July. 
 
 " She s an awful nice girl, and we will 
 have a grand time ; she has a rich father 
 and a piano and a pony and a buggy. It 
 will just be grand." 
 
 8 105 
 
106 B Xtttle IRorsfc. 
 
 " I don t blame her none," sighed An- 
 son to Bert. " I don t want her to come 
 away while she s enjoyin herself. It ll 
 be a big change for her to come back an 
 cook f r us old mossbacks after bein at 
 school an in good company all these 
 months." 
 
 He was plainly disturbed. Her vaca 
 tion was going to be all too short at the 
 best, and he was so hungry for the sight 
 of her ! Still, he could not blame her for 
 staying, under the circumstances; as he 
 told Bert, his feelings did not count. He 
 just wanted her to get all she could out of 
 life; "there ain t much, anyway, for us 
 poor devils, but what little there is we 
 want her to have." 
 
 The Fourth of July was the limit of her 
 stay, and on the sixth, seventh, and eighth 
 Anson drove regularly to the evening train 
 to meet her. 
 
 On the third day another letter came, 
 saying that she would reach home the next 
 Monday. With this Anson rode home in 
 triumph. During the next few days he 
 went to the barber s and had his great 
 
tflajen Comes Ibome. 107 
 
 beard shaved off. " Made me look so old," 
 he explained, seeing Bert s wild start of 
 surprise. " I ve be n carryin that mop 
 o hair round so long I d kind o got into 
 the notion o bein old myself. Got a 
 kind o crick in the back, y know. But 
 I ain t; I ain t ten years older n you be." 
 
 And he was not. His long blond mous 
 tache, shaved beard, and clipped hair 
 made a new man of him, and a very hand 
 some man, too, in a large way. He was 
 curiously embarrassed by Bert s prolonged 
 scrutiny, and said jocosely: 
 
 "We ve got to brace up a little now. 
 Company boarders comin , young lady 
 from St. Peter s Seminary, city airs an 
 all that sort o thing. Don t you let me 
 see you eatin pie with y r knife. I ll 
 break the shins of any man that feeds 
 himself with anythin cept the silver- 
 plated forks I ve bought." 
 
 Flaxen had been gone almost a year, 
 and a year counts for much at her age. 
 Besides, Anson had exaggerated ideas of 
 the amount of learning she could absorb 
 in a year at a boarding-seminary, and 
 
108 u TLittle IKorefe. 
 
 he had also a very vague idea of what 
 " society " was in St. Peter, although he 
 seemed suddenly to awake to the necessi 
 ty of " bracing up" a little and getting 
 things generally into shape. He bought 
 a new suit of clothes and a second-hand 
 two-seated carriage, notwithstanding the 
 sarcastic reflection of his partner, who 
 was making his own silent comment upon 
 this thing. 
 
 "The paternal business is ausk&rspeelt^ 
 he said to himself. " Ans is goin in on 
 shape now. Well, it s all right; nobody s 
 business but ours. Let her go, Smith; 
 but they won t be no talk in this neigh 
 bourhood when they get hold of what s 
 goin on oh, no!" He smiled grimly. 
 "We can stand it, I guess; but it ll be 
 hard on her. Ans is a little too previous. 
 It s too soon to spring this trap on the 
 poor little thing." 
 
 They stood side by side on the platform 
 the next Monday when the train rolled 
 into the station at Boomtown, panting 
 with fatigue from its long run. Flaxen 
 caught sight of Bert first as she sprang off 
 
fflajen Comes 1bome, 109 
 
 the train, and running to him, kissed him 
 without much embarrassment. Then she 
 looked around, saying: 
 
 " Where s oP pap? Didn t he " 
 
 " Why, Flaxen, don t ye know me?" he 
 cried out at her elbow. 
 
 She knew his voice, but his shaven 
 face, so much more youthful, was so 
 strange that she knew him only by his 
 eyes laughing down into hers. Never 
 theless she kissed him doubtfully. 
 
 Oh, what ve you done? You ve 
 shaved off your whiskers; you don t look 
 a bit natural. I " 
 
 She was embarrassed, almost frightened, 
 at the change in him. He " looked so 
 queer " ; his fair, untroubled, smiling face 
 and blond moustache made him look 
 younger than Bert. 
 
 "Nev* mind that! She ll grow again 
 if y like it better. Get int this new 
 buggy it s ours. They ain t no flies on 
 us to-day; not many," said Ans in high 
 glee, elaborately assisting her to the car 
 riage, not appreciating the full meaning 
 of the situation. 
 
no B Xittle IRorsfc, 
 
 As they rode home he was extravagantly 
 gay. He sat beside her, and she drove, 
 wild with delight at the prairie, the 
 wheat, the gulls, everything. 
 
 " Ain t no dust on our clo es," said Ans, 
 coughing, winking at Bert, and brushing 
 off with an elaborately finical gesture an 
 imaginary fleck from his knee and elbow. 
 "Ain t we togged out? I guess nobody 
 said boo to us down to St. Peter, eh?" 
 
 "You like my clo es?" said Flaxen, 
 with charming directness. 
 
 "You bet! They re scrumptious." 
 
 "Well, they ought to be; they re my 
 best, except my white dress. I thought 
 you d like em; I wore ein a-purpose." 
 
 " Like em? They re you re jest as 
 purty as a red lily er a wild rose in the 
 wheat ahem! Ain t she, Bert, ol boy? 
 We re jest about starvin to death, we are. " 
 
 "I knew you d be. What 11 I stir up 
 for supper? Biscuits?" 
 
 " Urn, urn ! Say, what y s pose I ve got 
 to go with em?" 
 
 "Honey." 
 
 "Oh, you re too sharp," wailed Ans, 
 
3FIajen Comes 1bome, in 
 
 while Flaxen went off into a peal of laugh 
 ter. " Say, Bert s be n in the damnedest 
 excuse me plaguedest temper fer the 
 last two munce as you ever did see." 
 
 While this chatter was going on Bert 
 sat silent and unsmiling on the back seat. 
 He was absorbed in seeing the exquisite 
 colour that played in her cheek and the 
 equally charming curves of her figure. 
 She was well dressed and was wonderfully 
 mature. He was saying to himself : " Ans 
 ain t got no more judgment than a boy. 
 We can t keep that girl here. More n 
 that, the girl never ll be contented again, 
 
 unless " He did not allow himself to 
 
 go farther. He dared not even think 
 farther. 
 
 They had a merry time that night, 
 quite like old times. The biscuits were 
 light and flaky, the honey was delight 
 some, and the milk and butter (procured 
 specially) were fresh. They shouted in 
 laughter as Flaxen insisted on their eating 
 potatoes with a fork, and opposed the use 
 of the knife in scooping up the honey 
 from their plates! Even the saturnine 
 
112 B Xittle IKorsfe, 
 
 Bert forgot his gloom and laughed too, 
 as Ans laboriously dipped his honey with 
 a fork, and, finally growing desperate, 
 split a biscuit in half, and in the good old 
 boyish way sopped it in the honey. 
 
 "There, that s the Christian way of 
 doing things!" he exulted, while Flaxen 
 laughed. How bright she was how 
 strange she acted! There were moments 
 when she embarrassed them by some new 
 womanly grace or accomplishment, some 
 new air which she had caught from her 
 companions or teachers at school. It was 
 truly amazing how much she had absorbed 
 outside of her regular studies. She indeed 
 was no longer a girl ; she was a young wo 
 man, and to them a beautiful one. 
 
 Not a day passed without some added 
 surprise which made Anson exult and say, 
 " She s gettin her money s worth down 
 there no two ways about that." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 FLAXEN GROWS RESTLESS. 
 
 UT as the excitement of getting 
 back died out, poor Flaxen 
 grew restless, moody, and un 
 accountable. Before, she had 
 always been the same cheery, frank, boy 
 ish creature. As Bert said, ** You know 
 where to find her." Now she was full of 
 strange tempers and moods. She would 
 work most furiously for a time, and then 
 suddenly fall dreaming, looking away out 
 on the shimmering plain toward the east. 
 At Bert s instigation, a middle-aged 
 widow had been hired, at a fabulous 
 price, to come and do the most of the 
 work for them, thus releasing Flaxen 
 from the weight of the hard work, which 
 perhaps was all the worse for her. Hard 
 work might have prevented the unbear 
 able, sleepless pain within. She hated 
 
 113 
 
114 a Xittle 
 
 the slatternly Mrs. Green at once for her 
 meddling with her affairs, though the 
 good woman meant no offence. She was 
 jocose in the broad way of middle-aged 
 persons, to whom a love-affair is legiti 
 mate food for raillery. 
 
 But Gearheart s keen eye was on Flaxen 
 as well. He saw how eagerly she watched 
 for the mail on Tuesdays and Fridays, 
 and how she sought a quiet place at once 
 in order to read and dream over her let 
 ters. She was restless a day or two be 
 fore a certain letter came, with an eager, 
 excited, expectant air. Then, after read 
 ing it, she was absent-minded, flighty in 
 conversation, and at last listlessly uneasy, 
 moving slowly about from one thing to 
 another, in a kind of restless inability to 
 take continued interest in anything. 
 
 All this, if it came to the attention of 
 Anson at all, was laid to the schooling the 
 girl had had. 
 
 " Of course it ll seem a little slow to 
 you, Flaxie, but harvestin is comin on 
 soon, an then things ll be a little more 
 lively." 
 
fflajen Grows IRestlees. us 
 
 But Gearheart was not so slow-witted. 
 He had had sisters and girl cousins, and 
 knew "the symptoms," as Mrs. Green 
 would have put it. He noticed that when 
 Flaxen read her letters to them there was 
 one which she carefully omitted. He 
 knew that this was the letter which meant 
 the most to her. He saw how those let 
 ters affected her, and thought he had 
 divined in what way. 
 
 One day when Flaxen, after reading 
 her letters, sprang up and ran into her 
 bedroom, her eyes filled with sudden tears, 
 Gearheart crooked his finger at Ans, and 
 they went out to the barn together. 
 
 It was nearly one o clock on an intoler 
 able day peculiar to the Dakota plain. 
 A frightfully hot, withering, and power 
 ful wind was abroad. The thermometer 
 stood nearly a hundred in the shade, and 
 the wind, so far from being a relief, was 
 suffocating because of its heat and the 
 dust it swept along with it. 
 
 The heavy-headed grain and russet 
 grass writhed and swirled as if in agony, 
 and dashed high in waves of green and 
 
no a Xittle 
 
 yellow. The corn-leaves had rolled up 
 into long cords like the lashes of a whip, 
 and beat themselves into tatters on the 
 dry, smooth spot their blows had made 
 beneath them ; they seemed ready to turn 
 to flame in the pitiless, furnace-like blast. 
 Everywhere in the air was a silver-white, 
 impalpable mist, which gave to the cloud 
 less sky a whitish cast. The glittering 
 gulls were the only living things that did 
 not move listlessly and did not long for 
 rain. They soared and swooped, exult 
 ing in the sounding wind ; now throwing 
 themselves upon it, like a swimmer, then 
 darting upward with miraculous ease, to 
 dip again into the shining, hissing, tu 
 multuous waves of the grass. 
 
 Along the roads prodigious trains of 
 dust rose hundreds of feet in the air, and 
 drove like vast caravans with the wind. 
 So powerful was the blast that men hesi 
 tated about going out with carriages, and 
 everybody watched feverishly, expecting 
 to see fire break out on the prairie and 
 sweep everything before it. Work in the 
 fields had stopped long before dinner, and 
 
3Plajen Grows IRestlesa. in 
 
 the farmers waited, praying or cursing, 
 for the wheat was just at the right point 
 to be blighted. 
 
 As the two men went out to the shed 
 side by side, they looked out on the 
 withering wheat-stalks and corn-leaves 
 with gloomy eyes. 
 
 " Another day like this, an they won t 
 be wheat enough in this whole county to 
 make a cake," said Anson, with a calm 
 intonation, which after all betrayed the 
 anxiety he felt. They sat down in the 
 wagon-shed near the horses mangers. 
 They listened to the roar of the wind 
 and the pleasant sound of the horses eat 
 ing their hay, a good while before either 
 of them spoke again. Finally Bert said 
 sullenly : 
 
 " We can t put up hay such a day as 
 this. You couldn t haul it home under 
 lock an key while this infernal wind is 
 blowin . It s gittin worse, if anythin ." 
 
 Anson said nothing, but waited to hear 
 what Bert had brought him out here for. 
 Bert speared away with his knife at a strip 
 of board. Anson sat on a wagon-tongue, 
 
118 a TLittle 
 
 his elbows on his knees, looking intently 
 at the grave face of his companion. The 
 horses ground cheerily at the hay. 
 
 " Ans, we ve got to send Flaxen hack to 
 St. Peter; she s so homesick she don t 
 know what to do." 
 
 Ans eyes fell. 
 
 " I know it. I ve he n hopin she d git 
 over that, but it s purty tough on her, 
 after bein with the young folks in the 
 city f r a year, to come back here on a 
 farm." He did not finish for a moment. 
 " But she can t stand it. I d looked ahead 
 to havin her here till September, but I 
 can t stand it to see her cryin like she 
 did to-day. We ve got to give up the 
 idee o her livin here. I don t see any 
 other way but to sell out an go back East 
 somewhere." 
 
 Bert saw that Anson was still ignorant of 
 the real state of affairs, but thought he 
 would say nothing for the present. 
 
 " Yes: that s the best thing we can do. 
 We ll send her right back, an take our 
 chances on the crops. We can git enough 
 to live on an keep her at school, I guess." 
 
jflajen Grows IRestlees. no 
 
 They sat silent for a long time, while 
 the wind tore round the shed, Bert spear 
 ing at the stick, and Anson watching the 
 hens as they vainly tried to navigate in 
 the wind. Finally Anson spoke: 
 
 " The fact is, Bert, this ain t no place 
 f r a woman, anyway such a woman as 
 Flaxen s gittin to be. They ain t noth- 
 in goin on, nothin to see r hear. You 
 can t expect a girl to be contented with 
 this country after she s seen any other. 
 No trees; no flowers; jest a lot o little 
 shanties full o flies." 
 
 " I knew all that, Ans, a year ago. I 
 knew she d never come back here, but I 
 jest said it s the thing to do give her a 
 chance, if we don t have a cent; now let s 
 go back to the house an tell her she 
 needn t stay here if she don t want to." 
 
 " Wha d ye s pose was in that letter?" 
 
 " Couldn t say. Some girl s description 
 of a pic-nic er somethin ." Bert was not 
 yet ready to tell what he knew. When 
 they returned to the house the girl was 
 still invisible, in her room. Mrs. Green 
 was busy clearing up the dinner-dishes. 
 
120 B Xittle IRorefe. 
 
 " I don t know s I ever see such a wind 
 back to Michigan. Seems as if it Vd 
 blow the hair off y r head." 
 
 " Oh, this ain t nothin . This is a gen 
 tle zephyr. Wait till y see a wind." 
 
 " Wai, I hope to goodness I won t never 
 see a wind. Zephyrs is all I can mortally 
 stand." 
 
 Anson went through the little sitting- 
 room and knocked on Flaxen s door. 
 
 " Flaxie, we want to talk to yeh. " There 
 was no answer, and he came back and sat 
 down. Bert pointed to the letter which 
 Flaxen had flung down on the table. The 
 giant took it, folded it up, and called, 
 " Here s y r letter, babe." 
 
 The door opened a little, and a faint, 
 tearful voice said : 
 
 "Bead it, if ye want to, boys." Then 
 the door closed tightly again, and they 
 heard her fling herself on the bed. An 
 son handed the letter to Bert, who read 
 it in a steady voice. 
 
 DEAR DARLING : I have good news to tell 
 you. My uncle was out from Wisconsin to 
 see me, and he was pleased with what I had 
 
fflay.cn rows IRestless. 
 
 done, and he bought out Mr. Ford, and gave 
 me the whole half interest. I m to pay him 
 back when I please. Ain t that glorious? 
 Now we can get married right off, can t we, 
 darling? So you just show this letter to your 
 father, and tell him how things stand. I ve 
 got a good business. The drug-store is worth 
 $1,200 a year my half but knock off fifty 
 per cent and we could live nicely. Don t 
 you think so? I want to see you so bad, and 
 talk things over. If you can t come back soon, 
 I will come on. Write soon. 
 
 Yours till death, 
 
 WILL. 
 
 From the first word Anson winced, grew 
 perplexed, then suffered. His head 
 drooped forward on his hands, his elbows 
 rested on his vast, spread knees. He 
 drew his breath with a long, grieving 
 gasp. Bert read on steadily to the end, 
 then glanced at his companion with a deep 
 frown darkening his face; but he was not 
 taken by surprise. He had not had pa 
 ternal affection change to the passion of a 
 lover only to have it swept down like a 
 half-opened flower. For the first time 
 in his life Anson writhed in mental 
 
 agony. He saw it all. It meant eternal 
 y 
 
122 B Xittle morsfc, 
 
 separation. It meant a long ache in his 
 heart which time could scarcely deaden 
 into a tolerable pain. 
 
 Gearheart rose and went out, unwilling 
 to witness the agony of his friend and 
 desiring himself to be alone. Anson sat 
 motionless, with his hands covering his 
 wet eyes, going over the past and trying 
 to figure the future. 
 
 He began in that storm: felt again 
 the little form and face of the wailing 
 child; thought of the frightful struggle 
 against the wind and snow; of the 
 touch of the little hands and feet; of 
 her pretty prattle and gleeful laughter; 
 then of her helpful and oddly-womanish 
 ways as she grew older ; of the fresh, clear 
 voice calling him "pap" and ordering 
 him about with a roguish air; of her 
 beauty now, when for the first time he 
 had begun to hope that she might be 
 something dearer to him. 
 
 How could he live without her? She 
 had grown to be a part of him. He had 
 long ceased to think of the future with 
 out her. As he sat so, the bedroom door 
 
fflajen 0rows IRestless. 123 
 
 opened, and Flaxen s tearful face looked 
 out at him. He did not seem to hear, 
 and she stole up to him and, putting her 
 arm around his neck, laid her cheek on 
 his head a dear, familiar, childish gest 
 ure, used when she wished to propitiate 
 him. He roused himself and put his 
 arm about her waist, tried to speak, and 
 finally said in a sorry attempt at humor, 
 wofully belied by the tears on his face 
 and the choking in his throat : 
 
 " You tell that feller if he wants ye, 
 to jest come an git ye that s all!" 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 FLAXEN SAYS GOOD-BYE. 
 
 LGA went back to her friends, 
 the Holts, in the course of a 
 week. It hurt Anson terribly 
 to see how eager she was to 
 get away, and he grew a little bitter a 
 quality of temper Bert did not know he 
 possessed. 
 
 "What s that little whipper-snapper 
 ever done for her, that she should leave us 
 in the shade f r him f rget us an all 
 we ve done f r her, an climb out an leave 
 us just at his wink? It beats me, but 
 it s all right. I don t blame her if she 
 feels so only it does seem queer, now 
 don t it?" 
 
 "It does, that s a fact specially the 
 idea of leaving us for a thing like that." 
 After arriving at a complete understand- 
 
 124 
 
125 
 
 ing of the matter, they said no more 
 about it, but went to work to make every 
 thing as pleasant for Flaxen as possible. 
 Again they rode down to the station with 
 her, down past the wide, level fields of 
 grain which the blazing sun had ripened 
 prematurely. Again they parted from 
 her at the train, but this time the girl 
 was eager to go ; and yet a peculiar feel 
 ing of sadness was mixed with her eager 
 ness to be off. 
 
 "Now, boys, you ll come down just as 
 soon as you can this fall, won t you?" she 
 said, tearfully, as they stood in. the aisle of 
 the car. " I wish t you d sell out an come 
 back there an live I want you to." 
 
 "Well, we ll try," Anson said, speaking 
 with difficulty, the lump in his throat was 
 so big and so dry. 
 
 They rode home in silence again, but 
 this time there was something darker and 
 more sullen in their thoughts. 
 
 " Well, Ans, that settles it. We re or 
 phaned again, sure." He tried to give 
 a little touch of jocoseness to it, but failed 
 miserably. 
 
126 B Xittle IKorsfe, 
 
 "Yes," Anson sighed deeply, "we ll 
 haf t stand it, I s pose, but it s tough." 
 
 It was hard, but it would have been 
 harder had not the rush and push of the 
 harvest come upon them just as it did. 
 They never spoke of the matter again, 
 except as a matter settled, till they re 
 ceived a letter from the young people 
 asking their consent to an early marriage. 
 
 They both read the letter, and then An 
 son said, without raising his eyes : 
 
 "Well, what d you think of it?" 
 
 " Oh, we might as well say yes," re 
 plied Bert irritably. 
 
 " But she s so young." 
 
 " She seems so to us, but my mother 
 was married at fifteen. If she s going to 
 leave us, why, the sooner she has a home 
 the better, I s pose. " 
 
 " I s pose you re right. But I d rather 
 have em put it off a year." 
 
 " Oh, a year wouldn t make any differ 
 ence, and besides, you can t stop the thing 
 now. She s out of our hands." 
 
 They wrote giving their consent, and 
 the wedding was fixed for late September 
 
fflajen Sa^s <3oo^bge. 127 
 
 to enable the fall s work to be put out of 
 the way. For Elga s sake they bought new 
 suits and hats before starting on their trip, 
 though the harvest hardly justified any 
 extravagance. 
 
 Under other circumstances they would 
 have rejoiced over the trip, for it was 
 carrying them back to the gleam of leaf- 
 dappled streams and waving trees and 
 deep, cool forests. It made their nostrils 
 dilate with pleasure as they whirled past 
 fern-filled ravines, out of which the rivu 
 lets stole with stealthy circuits under 
 mossy rocks. They were both forest-born, 
 and it was like getting back home out 
 of a strange desert country to come back 
 into "the States." 
 
 St. Peter was a small town, situated on 
 the steep bank of a broad river that is 
 to say, the business street was there, but 
 the seminary and the residence part of 
 the town was on a high and beautiful 
 plateau. The country was well diversified 
 with wood and prairie. 
 
 Kendall and Elga met them at the sta 
 tion. Elga with flushed face was search- 
 
128 B Xlttle 
 
 ing the car-windows with eager glance, 
 when Anson appeared on the platform. 
 The quick rush she made for him drove 
 out all his bitterness. It made him un 
 derstand that she loved him as if he were 
 her father. 
 
 She greeted Bert with a little less 
 warmth, and chattering with joy she led 
 the way up the street with Anson. She 
 had a hundred things to tell him, and 
 he listened in a daze. She seemed so 
 different from his Flaxen. Bert walked 
 behind with Kendall, who did not impress 
 him favourably. 
 
 He was a harmless little creature 
 enough small, a little inclined to bow- 
 legs, and dudish in manner and dress. 
 His hair was smoothed till it shone like 
 ebony, and he wore the latest designs in 
 standing collars, high on his slim neck. 
 His hands were beautifully small and 
 white and held several rings. He had 
 the manners of a dry-goods clerk. 
 
 "He can t abuse her, that s one good 
 thing about the whelp," thought Bert as 
 he crushed the young bridegroom s hand 
 
Sa^s <3oo&*bBC, 129 
 
 in his brown palm, just to see him 
 cringe. 
 
 As for Kendall, he was a little afraid 
 of these big fellows, so sullen and strong ; 
 and he tried his best to please them, 
 chirping away brightly upon all kinds of 
 things, ending up by telling them his 
 business plans. 
 
 "We re one o the best cities on the 
 river. Couldn t be a better place fer a 
 business stand, don t you see? And we re 
 getting to the front with our wholesale 
 department (of course ha! ha! my wife s 
 father ought to know how I m getting on), 
 so you re welcome to look over my books. 
 Our trade is a cash trade so far as our re 
 tail trade goes, and we re mighty careful 
 who gets tick from us on the wholesale 
 trade. We re developing a great business. " 
 
 Bert and Anson made no replies to his 
 chatter, and he pattered along by An 
 son s side like a small boy, showing them 
 the town and its beauties. Anson in 
 wardly despised the little man, but held 
 it a sort of treason to think so, and tried 
 to look upon him kindly. 
 
130 B Xittle IKorsfe. 
 
 The wedding took place in the house 
 of the Holt family, and was in charge 
 of Miss Holt, Elga s teacher. Kendall s 
 parents could not be present, which was a 
 great disappointment to Elga, but Will 
 was secretly glad of it. His father was a 
 very crusty and brutal old fellow, and he 
 would not have fitted in smoothly beside 
 Bert and Anson, who were as uncomfort 
 able as men could well be. Both wished 
 to avoid it, but dared not object. 
 
 Anson stood bravely through the cere 
 mony as the father of the bride, and bore 
 himself with his usual massive, rude dig 
 nity. But he inwardly winced as he saw 
 Elga, looking very stately and beautiful 
 in her bride s veil, towering half a head 
 above the sleek-haired little clerk. Not 
 a few of the company smiled at the con 
 trast, but she had no other feeling than 
 perfect love and happiness. 
 
 When the ceremony was over and An 
 son looked around for Bert, he was gone. 
 He couldn t stand the pressure of the 
 crowd and the whispered comments, and 
 had slipped away early in the evening. 
 
3flajen Sags <Soo&*bge, 131 
 
 Among the presents which were laid on 
 the table in the dining-room was a long 
 envelope addressed to Mrs. Will Kendall. 
 It contained a deed for a house and lot in 
 one of the most desirable parts of the 
 suburbs. It was from Gearheart, but 
 there was no other written word. This 
 gift meant the sale of his claim in Dakota. 
 
 When Anson got back to the hotel that 
 night, wondering and alarmed at his part 
 ner s absence, he found a letter from him. 
 It was savage and hopeless. 
 
 This climate is getting too frigid for my 
 lungs. I m going to emigrate to California. 
 I made a mistake : I ought to have gone in 
 for stand -up collars, shiny hair, and bow-legs. 
 You d better skip back to Dakota and sell 
 your claim. Keep my share of the stock and 
 tools ; it ain t worth bothering about. Don t 
 try to live there alone, old man. If you can t 
 sell, marry. Don t let that girl break you all 
 up too. We are all fools, but some can get 
 over it quicker than others. 
 
 If that little bow-legged thing gets under 
 your feet or abuses her, jest get your toe un 
 der him and hoist him over into the alley. 
 
 Good-bye and good luck, old man. 
 
 BERT. 
 
132 a Ufttle 
 
 And tho next day tlio doubly bereaved 
 man started on his lonely journey back 
 to the Dakota claim, back to an empty 
 house, with a gnawing pain in his heart 
 and a constriction like an iron band about 
 his throat; back to his broad fields to plod 
 to and fro alone. 
 
 As he began to realize it all and to 
 think how terrible was this loss, he laid 
 his head down on the car-seat before him 
 and cried. His first great trial had come 
 to him, and meeting it like a man, he 
 must now weep like a woman. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 FLAXEN S GREAT NEED. 
 
 LAXEN wrote occasionally, dur 
 ing the next year, letters all 
 too short and too far between 
 for the lonely man toiling 
 away on his brown farm. These letters 
 were very much alike, telling mainly of 
 how happy she was, and of what she was 
 going to do by and by, on Christmas or 
 Thanksgiving. Once she sent a photo 
 graph of herself and husband, and Anson, 
 after studying it for a long time, took a 
 pair of shears and cut the husband off, 
 and threw him into the fire. 
 
 "That fellow gives me the ague," he 
 muttered. 
 
 Bert did not write, arid there was hardly 
 a night that Ans lay down on his bed that 
 he did not wonder where his chum was, 
 
 133 
 
134 B Xftttc IRorsfe. 
 
 especially as the winter came on unusually 
 severe, reminding him of that first winter 
 in the Territory. Day after day he spent 
 . alone in his house, going out only to feed 
 the cattle or to get the mail. The sad 
 wind was always in his ears. But with 
 the passage of time the pain in his heart 
 lost its intensity. 
 
 One day he got a letter from Flaxen 
 that startled and puzzled him. It was 
 like a cry for help, somehow. 
 
 " Dear old pap, I wish you was here," 
 and then in another place came the pit 
 eous cry, " Oh, I wish I had some folks!" 
 
 All night long that cry rang in the 
 man s head with a wailing, falling ca 
 dence like the note of a lost little prairie- 
 chicken. 
 
 " I wonder what that whelp has been 
 doin now. If he s begun to abuse her 
 I ll wring his neck. She wants me an 
 da sn t ask me to come. Poor chick, I ll 
 be pap an mam to ye, both," he said at 
 last, with sudden resolution. 
 
 The day after the receipt of this letter 
 a telegram was handed to him at the post- 
 
s Great IReeD, 135 
 
 office, which he opened with trembling 
 hands: 
 
 ANSON WOOD : Your daughter is ill. Wants 
 you. Come at once. 
 
 DR. DIETRICH. 
 
 He got into his wagon mechanically and 
 lashed his horses into a run. He must 
 get home and arrange about his stock and 
 catch the seven o clock train. His mind 
 ran the round of the possibilities in the 
 case until it ached with the hopeless 
 fatigue of it. When he got upon the 
 train for an all-night ride, he looked like 
 a man suffering some great physical pain. 
 
 He sat there all night in a common 
 seat he could not afford to pay for a 
 sleeper; sat and suffered the honest tor 
 ture that can come to a man to sit and 
 think the same dread, apprehensive won 
 dering thoughts; to strain at the seat as 
 if to push the train faster, and to ache 
 with the desire to fly like the eagle. He 
 tried to be patient, but he could only grow 
 numb with the effort. 
 
 A glorious winter sun was beginning to 
 
136 a xtttle morsfc. 
 
 light up the frost foliage of the maples 
 lining St. Peter s streets when Anson, 
 stiff with cold and haggard with a night 
 of sleepless riding, sprang off the train 
 and looked about him. The beauty of 
 the morning made itself felt even through 
 his care. These rows of resplendent ma 
 ples, heavy with iridescent frost, were 
 like fairy-land to him, fresh from the 
 treeless prairie. As he walked on under 
 them, showers of powdered rubies and 
 diamonds fell down upon him ; the colon 
 nades seemed like those leading to some 
 enchanted palace, such as he had read of 
 in boyhood. Every shrub in the yards 
 was similarly decked, and the snug cot 
 tages were like the little house which he 
 had once seen at the foot of the Christ 
 mas-tree in a German church years before. 
 
 Feet crunched along cheerily on the 
 sidewalks, bells of dray-teams were begin 
 ning to sound, and workmen to whistle. 
 
 Anson was met at the door by a hard- 
 faced, middle-aged woman. 
 
 "How s my girl?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh, she s nicely. Walk in." 
 
Great IFleeO. 137 
 
 " Can I see her now?" 
 
 " She s sleepin ; I guess you better 
 wait a little while till after breakfast." 
 
 "Where s Kendall?" was his next ques 
 tion. 
 
 " I d n know. Hain t seen im sence 
 yesterday. He don t amount to much, 
 anyway, and in these cases there ain t no 
 dependin on a boy like that. It s nachel 
 fer girls to call on their mothers an fa 
 thers in such cases." 
 
 Anson was about to ask her what the 
 trouble was with his girl, when she 
 turned away. She could not be danger 
 ously ill; anyway, there was comfort in 
 that. 
 
 After he had eaten a slight breakfast of 
 bad coffee and yellow biscuits, Mrs. Stick- 
 ney came back. 
 
 " She s awake an wants to see yeh. Now 
 don t get excited. She ain t dangerous." 
 
 Anson was alarmed and puzzled at her 
 manner. Her smile mystified him. 
 
 " What is the matter?" he demanded. 
 
 Her reply was common enough, but it 
 stopped him with his foot on the thresh- 
 10 
 
138 a Xfttle 
 
 old. He understood at last. The maj 
 esty and mystery of birth was like a light 
 in his face, and dazzled him. He was 
 awed and exalted at the same time. 
 
 "Open the door; I want to see her," 
 he said in a new tone. 
 
 As they entered the darkened chamber 
 he heard his girl s eager cry. 
 
 "Is that you, pap?" wailed her faint, 
 sweet voice. 
 
 "Yes: it s me, Flaxie." He crossed 
 the room and knelt by the bed. She 
 flung her arms round his neck. 
 
 " pappy ! pappy ! I wanted you. Oh, 
 my poor mamma! pap, I don t like 
 her," she whispered, indicating the nurse 
 with her eyes. " pap, I hate to think 
 of mother lying there in the snow an 
 Bert where is Bert, pap? Perhaps he s 
 in the blizzard too - " 
 
 "She s a little flighty," said the nurse 
 in her matter-of-fact tone. 
 
 Anson groaned as he patted the pale 
 cheek of the sufferer. 
 
 " Don t worry, Flaxie; Bert s all right. 
 He ll come home soon. Why don t you 
 
fflar.en 8 Great meefc. 139 
 
 send for the doctor?" he said to the 
 nurse. 
 
 " He ll be here soon. Don t worry over 
 that," indicating Flaxen, who was whis 
 pering to herself. " They of n do that." 
 
 " Do you s pose I can find my folks if I 
 go back to Norway?" she said to Anson a, 
 little after. 
 
 "Yes: I guess so, little one. When 
 you get well, we ll try an see." 
 
 "Perhaps if I found my aunt she d 
 look like mamma, an I d know then how 
 mamma looked, wouldn t I? Perhaps if 
 the wheat is good this year we can go back 
 an find her, can t we?" Then her words 
 melted into a moan of physical pain, and 
 the nurse said : 
 
 " Now I guess you d better go an see if 
 you can t hurry the doctor up. Yes : now 
 he s got to go," she went on to Flaxen, 
 drowning out her voice and putting her 
 imploring hands back upon the bed. 
 
 Anson saw it all now. In her fear and 
 pain she had turned to him poor, mother 
 less little bird forgetting her boy-hus 
 band or feeling the need of a broader 
 
140 a 
 
 breast and stronger hand. It was a beau 
 tiful trust, and as the great, shaggy man 
 went out into the morning he was exalted 
 by the thought. "My little babe my 
 Flaxen!" he said with unutterable love 
 and pity. 
 
 Again his mind ran over the line of his 
 life the cabin, the dead woman, the baby 
 face nestling at his throat, the girl com 
 ing to him with her trials and triumphs. 
 His heart swelled so that he could not 
 have spoken, but deep in his throat he 
 muttered a dumb prayer. And how he 
 suffered that day, hearing her babble 
 mixed with meanings every time the door 
 opened. Once the doctor said : 
 
 " It s no use for you to stand here, 
 Wood. It only makes you suffer and 
 don t help her a particle." 
 
 " It seems s if it helped her, an so I 
 guess I ll stay. She may call for me, an 
 if she does," he said resolutely, " I m goin 
 in, doctor. How is she now?" 
 
 " She s slightly delirious now, but still 
 she knows you re here. She now and then 
 speaks of you, but doesn t call for you." 
 
Great 1Ree&. 141 
 
 But she did call for him, and he went 
 in, and kneeling by her side he talked 
 to her and held her hands, stroked her 
 hair and soothed her as he used to when 
 a little child unable to speak save in her 
 pretty Norseland tongue, and at last when 
 opiates were given, and he rose and stag 
 gered from the room, it seemed as though 
 he had lived years. 
 
 So weary was he that, when the doctor 
 came out and said, " You may go to sleep 
 now," he dropped heavily on a lounge 
 and fell asleep almost with the motion. 
 Even the preparations for breakfast made 
 by the hoarse-voiced servant-girl did not 
 wake him, but the drawling, nasal tone of 
 Kendall did. He sat up and looked at 
 the oily little clerk. It was after seven 
 o clock. 
 
 "Hello!" said Kendall, "when d you 
 get in?" 
 
 " Shortly after you went out," said An- 
 son in reply. 
 
 Kendall felt the rebuke, and as he 
 twisted his cuffs into place said, " Well, 
 y see I couldn t do no good a man ain t 
 
142 a Xittle morsfc. 
 
 any good in such cases, anyway so I just 
 thought I d run down to St. Paul an do 
 a little buying." 
 
 Anson turned away and went into the 
 kitchen to wash his face and to comb his 
 hair, glad to get rid of the sight of Ken 
 dall for a moment. Mrs. Stickney was 
 toasting some bread. 
 
 " She s awake an wants to see you when 
 you woke up. It s a girl thought I d 
 tell ye yes: she s comfortable. Say, 
 tween you an me, a man at u d run 
 
 off waal " she ended, expressively 
 
 glancing at Kendall. 
 
 Once more Anson caught his breath as 
 he entered the darkened chamber. He 
 was a rough, untaught man, but there 
 was something in him that made that 
 room holy and mysterious. But the fig 
 ure on the bed was tranquil now, and the 
 voice, though weak and low, was Flaxen s 
 own. 
 
 He stopped as his eyes fell on her. She 
 was no longer a girl. The majesty of 
 maternity was on her pale face and in 
 her great eyes. A faint, expectant smile 
 
fflajen s Great IReefc. 143 
 
 was on her lips; her eyes were fixed on 
 his face as she drew the cover from the 
 little red, weirdly-wrinkled face at her 
 throat. 
 
 Before he could speak, and while he 
 was looking down at the mite of humanity, 
 Kendall stepped into the room. 
 
 " Hello, Ellie ! How are " 
 
 A singular revulsion came out on her 
 face. She turned to Anson. " Make him 
 go way; I don t want him." 
 
 "All right," said Kendall cheerfully, 
 glad to escape. 
 
 "Isn t she beautiful?" the mother 
 whispered. "Does she look like me?" 
 she asked artlessly. 
 
 " She s beautiful to me because she s 
 yours, Flaxie," replied Anson, with a deli 
 cacy all the more striking because of the 
 contrast with his great frame and hard, 
 rough hands. " But there, my girl, go 
 to sleep like baby, an don t worry any 
 more." 
 
 "You ain t goin away while I m sick?" 
 she asked, following him with her eyes, 
 unnaturally large. 
 
144 B Xittlc IRorsfc. 
 
 " I won t never go way again if you 
 don t want me to," he replied. 
 
 "Oh, I m so glad!" she sighed rest- 
 fully. 
 
 He was turning to go when she wailed 
 reproachfully, " Pap, you didn t kiss 
 baby!" 
 
 Anson turned and came back. " She s 
 sleepin , an I thought it wasn t right to 
 kiss a girl without she said so." 
 
 This made Flaxen smile, and Anson 
 went out with a lighter heart than he had 
 had for two years. Kendall met him out 
 side and said confidentially : 
 
 " I don t s pose it was just the thing for 
 me to do; but confound it! I never 
 could stand a sick-room, anyway. I 
 couldn t do any good, anyway just been 
 in the way. She ll get over her mad in a 
 few days. Think so?" 
 
 But she did not. Her singular and 
 sudden dislike of him continued, and 
 though she passively submitted to his be 
 ing in the room, she would not speak a 
 word to him nor look at him as long as 
 she could avoid it; and when he ap- 
 
fflajen s (Breat IKlceO, 145 
 
 preached the baby or took it in his arms 
 a jealous frown came on her face. 
 
 As for Anson, he grew to hate the 
 sound of that little chuckle of Kendall s; 
 the part in the man s hair and the hang 
 of his cut-away coat made him angry. 
 The trim legs, a little bowed, the big 
 cuffs hiding the small, cold hands, and 
 the peculiar set of his faultless collar, 
 grew daily more insupportable. 
 
 "Say, looky here, Kendall," said he in 
 desperation one day, " I wish you didn t 
 like me quite so well. We don t hitch 
 first rate at least, I don t. Seems to me 
 you re neglectin your business too much." 
 
 He was going to tell him to keep away, 
 but he relented as he looked down at the 
 harmless little man, with his thin, boyish 
 face. 
 
 " Oh, my business is all right. Gregory 
 looks after it mostly, anyhow. But, I say, 
 if you wanted to go into the dray busi 
 ness, there s a first-class opening now. 
 Clark wants to sell." 
 
 It ended in Anson seeing Clark and 
 buying out his line of drays, turning in 
 
146 21 Xittle IRorsfc. 
 
 his claim toward the payment a trans 
 action which made Flaxen laugh for joy, 
 for she had not felt certain before that he 
 would remain in St. Peter. She was get 
 ting about the house now, looking very 
 wifely in her long, warm wraps, her slow 
 motions contrasting strongly with the old 
 restless, springing steps Anson remem 
 bered so well. 
 
 Night after night, as he sat beside the 
 fire and held baby, listening to the 
 changed voice of his girl and watching 
 the grave, new expressions of her face, the 
 tooth of time took hold upon him power 
 fully, and he would feel his shaggy head 
 and think, " I ll soon be gray, soon be 
 gray!" while the little one cooed, and 
 sprang, and pulled at his beard, which 
 had grown long again and had white 
 hairs in it. 
 
 Kendall spent most of his time at the 
 store, or downtown somewhere, and so 
 all of those long, delicious winter even 
 ings were Flaxen s and Anson s. And 
 his enjoyment of them was pathetic. The 
 cheerful little sitting-room, the open 
 
jflajen s Great meefc. 147 
 
 grate, the gracious, ever-growing woman 
 liness of Elga, the pressure of soft little 
 limbs, and the babble of a liquid baby 
 language, were like the charm of an un 
 expected Indian-summer day between two 
 gray November storms. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 KENDALL STEPS OUT. 
 
 NE night Kendall did not come 
 home, but as he had been 
 talking of going to St. Paul 
 they were not disturbed about 
 it in fact, they both took but very mild 
 interest in his coming or going. In the 
 morning, while they were at breakfast, 
 there came a knock at the door. 
 
 " Come in," shouted Anson in the West 
 ern way, not rising. 
 
 McDaniel, the county sheriff, entered. 
 " Where s Kendall?" he asked without 
 ceremony. 
 
 "I don t know; went away yester 
 day." 
 
 The sheriff looked at his companion. 
 Skipped between two days." 
 
 " What s up?" asked Anson, while Elga 
 
 148 
 
Steps ut. 149 
 
 stared and baby reached slyly for the 
 sugar-bowl. 
 
 "Nothing," the sheriff said in a tone 
 which meant everything. " Come out 
 here," he said to Anson. Anson went out 
 with him, and he told him that Kendall 
 had purchased goods on credit and gam 
 bled the money away, and was ruined. 
 
 His stock of goods was seized, and the 
 house was saved only through the firmness 
 of Anson. 
 
 Flaxen shut her lips and said nothing, 
 and he could not read her silence. One 
 day she came to him with a letter. 
 
 " Read that!" she exclaimed scornfully. 
 He saw that it was dated from Eau Claire, 
 Wisconsin : 
 
 DEAR DARLING WIFE : I m all right here 
 with father. It was all Gregory s fault he 
 was always betting on something. I m com 
 ing back as soon as the old man can raise the 
 money to pay Fitch. Don t worry about me. 
 They can t take the house, anyway. You 
 might rent the house, sell the furniture on the 
 sly, and come back here. The old man will 
 give me another show. I don t owe more 
 
150 a xfttle 
 
 than a thousand dollars, anyway. Write 
 soon. Your loving 
 
 WILL. 
 
 She did not need to say what she 
 thought of the advice the little villain 
 gave. 
 
 Anson went quietly on with his work, 
 making a living for himself and Flaxen 
 and baby. It never occurred to either of 
 them that any other arrangement was nec 
 essary. Kendall wrote once or twice a 
 month for awhile, saying each time, " I ll 
 come back and settle up," and asking her 
 to come to him; but she did not reply, 
 and never referred to him outside her 
 home, and when others inquired after 
 him she replied evasively : 
 
 " He s in Wisconsin somewhere ; I don t 
 know where." 
 
 " Is he coming back?" 
 
 "I don t know." 
 
 She often spoke of Bert, and complained 
 of his silence. Once she said : 
 
 " I guess he s forgot us, pap." 
 
 " I guess not. More likely he s thinkin 
 we ve f ergot him. He ll turn up some 
 
Steps <Smt 
 
 bright mornin with a pocketful o rocks. 
 He ain t no spring chicken, Bert ain t." 
 ("All the same, I wish t he d write," 
 Anson said to himself.) 
 
 The sad death of Kendall came to them 
 without much disturbing force. He had 
 been out of their lives so long that when 
 Anson came in with the paper and letter 
 telling of the accident, and with his in 
 stinctive delicacy left her alone to read 
 the news, Flaxen was awed and saddened, 
 but had little sense of personal pain and 
 
 "Young Kendall," the newspaper went 
 on under its scare-heads, " was on a visit 
 to La Crosse, and while skating with a 
 party on the bayou, where the La Crosse 
 River empties into the Father of Waters, 
 skated into an air-hole. The two young 
 ladies with him were rescued, but the 
 fated man was swept under the ice. He 
 was the son," etc. 
 
 When Anson came back Flaxen sat with 
 the letter in her hand and the paper on 
 her lap. She was meditating deeply, but 
 
152 B Xittle IRorsft. 
 
 what was in her mind Anson never knew. 
 She had grown more and more reticent of 
 late. She sighed, rose, and resumed her 
 evening tasks. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BERT COMES BACK. 
 
 NE raw March evening, when 
 the wind was roaring among 
 the gray branches of the ma 
 ples like a lion in wrath, some 
 one knocked on the door. 
 
 "Come in!" shouted Anson, who was 
 giving baby her regular ride on his boots. 
 " Come in!" added Flaxen. 
 Gearheart walked in slowly, closed the 
 door behind his back, and stood devour 
 ing the cheerful scene. He was poorly 
 dressed and wore a wide, limp hat; they 
 did not know him till he bared his head. 
 "Bert!" yelled Anson, tossing the baby 
 to his shoulder and leaping toward his 
 chum, tramping and shaking and clap 
 ping like a madman, scaring the child. 
 "My gosh-all-hemlock ! I m glad to 
 
 11 153 
 
154 B Xittle morsfc. 
 
 see ye ! Gimme that paw again. Come 
 to the fire. This is Flaxie" (as though he 
 had not had his eyes on her face all the 
 time). "Be n sick?" 
 
 Bert s hollow cough prompted this 
 question. 
 
 " Yes. Had some kind of a fever down 
 in Arizony. Oh, I m all right now," he 
 added in reply to an anxious look from 
 Flaxen. 
 
 " An this is " 
 
 "Baby Elsie," she replied, putting a 
 finishing touch to the little one s dress, 
 mother-like. 
 
 " Where s he?" he asked a little later. 
 
 Anson replied with a little gesture, 
 which silenced Bert at the same time that 
 it explained. And when Flaxen was busy 
 a few moments later, Anson said : 
 
 " Gone up the spout." 
 
 At the table they grew quite gay, talk 
 ing over old times, and Bert s pale face 
 grew rosier, catching a reflection of the 
 happy faces opposite. 
 
 Say, Bert, do you remember the time 
 you threw that pan o biscuits I made 
 
JBert Comes JBacft, 155 
 
 out into the grass an killed every dog in 
 the township?" Then they roared. 
 
 " I remember your flapjacks that always 
 split open in the middle, an no amount 
 o heat could cook em inside," Bert re 
 plied. 
 
 Then they grew sober again when Bert 
 said with a pensive cadence: "Well, I 
 tell you, those were days of hard work; 
 but many s the time I ve looked back at 
 em these last three years, wishin they d 
 never ended an that we d never got scat 
 tered." 
 
 "We won t be again, will we, pap?" 
 
 "Not if I can help it," Anson replied. 
 
 " But how are you, Bert? Rich?" 
 
 Bert put his hand into his pocket and 
 laid a handful of small coins on the 
 table. 
 
 " That s the size o my pile four dol 
 lars," he said, smiling faintly ; " the whole 
 o my three years work." 
 
 " Well, never mind, ol man. I ve got 
 a chance fer yeh. Still an ol bach?" 
 
 "Still an old bach." He looked at 
 Flaxen, irresistibly drawn to her face. 
 
156 B xittle 
 
 She dropped her eyes; she could not have 
 told why. 
 
 And so "Wood & Gearheart" was paint 
 ed on the sides of the drays, and they all 
 continued to live in the little yellow cot 
 tage, enjoying life much more than the 
 men, at least, had ever dared to hope; 
 and little Elsie grew to be a "great girl," 
 and a nuisance with her desire to :< yide" 
 with "g an pap." 
 
 There is no spot more delightful in 
 early April than the sunny side of the 
 barn, and Ans and Bert felt this, though 
 they did not say it. The eaves were 
 dripping, the doves cooing, the hens sing 
 ing their harsh-throated, weirdly suggest 
 ive songs, and the thrilling warmth and 
 vitality of the sun and wind of spring 
 made the great, rude fellows shudder with 
 a strange delight. Anson held out his 
 palm to catch the sunshine in it, took off 
 his hat to feel the wind, and mused: 
 
 "This is a great world and a great 
 day. I wish t it was always spring." 
 
 " Say," began Bert abruptly, " it seems 
 
3Sert Gomes Sacfc, 157 
 
 pretty well understood that you re her fa 
 ther but where do I come in?" 
 
 "You ought to be her husband." A 
 light leaped into the younger man s face. 
 "But go slow," Anson went on gravely. 
 "This package is marked Glass; handle 
 with care. " 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 with the skill of an experienced artist in fiction. The interest is strong and 
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 give hearty welcome to this story, and find it fully as enjoyable as that once 
 immensely popular novel." Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 
 
 " The pathos of this tale is profound, the movement highly dramatic, the 
 moral elevating." New York World. 
 
 " In this new story the author has done some of the best work that she 
 has ever given to the public, and it will easily class among the most meri 
 torious and most original novels of the year." Boston Home Journal. 
 
 " The author of Rutledge does not often send out a new volume, but 
 when she does it is always a literary event. . . . Her previous books were 
 sketchy and slight when compared with the finished and trained power 
 evidenced in An Utter Failure. " New Haven Palladium. 
 
 "Exhibits the same literary excellence that made the success of the 
 author s first book." San Francisco Argonaut. 
 
 "American girls with a craving for titled husbands will find instructive 
 reading in this story." Boston Traveller. 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
o 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO. S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 N THE PLANTATION. By JOEL CHANDLER 
 HARRIS, author of " Uncle Remus." With 23 Illus 
 trations by E. W. KEMBLE, and Portrait of the Author. 
 I2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "The book is in the characteristic vein which has mnde the author so 
 famous and popular as an interpreter of plantation character." Rochester 
 Union and A dvertiser. 
 
 "Those who never tire of Uncle Remus and his stories with whom we 
 would be accounted will delight in Joe Maxwell and his exploits." 
 London Satitrday Review. 
 
 "Altogether a most charming book." Chicago Times. 
 
 "Really a valuable, if modest, contribution to the history of the civil 
 war within the Confederate lines, particularly on the eve of the catastrophe. 
 Two or three new animal fables are introduced with effect ; but the history 
 of the plantation, the printing-office, the black runaways, and white de 
 serters, of whom the impending break-up made the community tolerant, the 
 coon and fox hunting, forms the serious purpose of the book, and holds the 
 reader s interest from beginning to end." New York Evening Post. 
 
 T TNCLE REMUS: His Songs and his Sayings. The 
 ^ Folk-lore of the Old Plantation. By JOEL CHANDLER 
 HARRIS. Illustrated from Drawings by F. S. CHURCH 
 and J. H. MOSER, of Georgia. I2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " The idea of preserving and publishing these legends, in the form in 
 which the old plantation negroes actually tell them, is altogether one of the 
 happiest literary conceptions of the day. And very admirably is the work 
 done. ... In such touches lies the charm of this fascinating little volume 
 of legends, which deserves to be placed on a level with Reincke Fuclis for 
 its quaint humor, without reference to the ethnological interest possessed 
 by these stories, as indicating, perhaps, a common origin for very widely 
 severed races." London Spectator. 
 
 " We are just discovering what admirable literary material there is at 
 home, what a great mine there is to explore, and how quaint and peculiar 
 is the material which can be dug up. Mr. Harris s book may be looked on 
 in a double light either as a pleasant volume recounting the stories told by 
 a typical old colored man to a child, or as a valuable contribution to our 
 somewhat meager folk-lore. ... To Northern readers the story of Brer 
 (Brother Brudder) Rabbit may be novel. To those familiar with planta 
 tion life, who have listened to these quaint old stories, who have still tender 
 reminiscences of some good old mauma who told these wondrous adventures 
 to them when they were children, Brer Rabbit, the Tar Baby, and Brer Fox 
 come back again with all the past pleasures of younger days." New York 
 Times. 
 
 " Uncle Remus s sayings on current happenings are very shrewd and 
 bright, and the plantation and revival songs are choice specimens of their 
 sort. " Boston Journal, 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO. S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 n~HE LAST WORDS 6F THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 * Including Wotton Reinfred, Carlyle s only essay in 
 
 fiction ; the Excursion (Futile Enough} to Paris ; and 
 
 letters from Thomas Carlyle, also letters from Mrs. 
 
 Carlyle, to a personal friend. With Portrait. I2mo. 
 
 Cloth, gilt top, $1-75. 
 
 "The interest of Wotton Reinfred to me is considerable, from the 
 sketches which it contains of particular men and women, most of whom I 
 knew and could, if necessary, identify. The story, too, is taken generally 
 from real life, and perhaps Carlyle did not finish it, from the sense that it 
 could not be published while the persons and things could be recognized. 
 That objection to the publication no longer exists. Everybody is dead 
 whose likenesses have been drawn, and the incidents stated have long been 
 forgotten." JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 
 
 " Wotton Reinfred is interesting as a historical document. It gives 
 Carlyle before he had adopted his peculiar manner, and yet there are some 
 characteristic bits especially at the beginning in the Sartor Resartus 
 vein. I take it that these are reminiscences of Irving and of the Thackeray 
 circle, and there is a curious portrait of Coleridge, not very thinly veiled. 
 There is enough autobiography, too, of interest in its way." LESLIE 
 STEPHEN. 
 
 "No complete edition of the Sage of Chelsea will be able to ignore these 
 manuscripts." Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 N, MINES, AND ANIMALS IN SOUTH 
 AFRICA. By Lord RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL. 
 With Portrait, Sixty-five Illustrations, and a Map. 
 8vo. 337 pages. Cloth, $5.00. 
 
 "The subject-matter of the book is of unsurpassed interest to all who 
 either travel in new countries, to see for themselves the new civilizations, 
 or follow closely the experiences of such travelers. And Lord Randolph s 
 eccentricities are by no means such as to make his own reports of what he 
 saw in the new states of South Africa any the less interesting than his active 
 eyes and his vigorous pen naturally make them." Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 "Lord Randolph Churchill s pages are full of diversified adventures and 
 experience, from any part of which interesting extracts could be collected. 
 ... A thoroughly attractive book." London Telegraph. 
 
 " Provided with amusing illustrations, which always fall short of cari 
 cature, but perpetually suggest mirthful entertainment." Philadelphia 
 Ledger. 
 
 " The book is the better for having been written somewhat in the line of 
 journalism. It is a volume of travel containing the results of a journalist s 
 trained observation and intelligent reflection upon political affairs. Such 
 a work is a great improvement upon the ordinary book of travel. Lord 
 Randolph Churchill thoroughly enjoyed his experiences in the African bush, 
 and has produced a record of his journey and exploration which has hardly 
 a dull page in it." New York Tribune. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO. S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 T IFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ASSYRIA. 
 
 -^ By G. MASPERO, late Director of Archaeology in Egypt, 
 
 and Member of the Institute of France. Translated 
 
 by ALICE MORTON. With 188 Illustrations. I2mo. 
 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " A lucid sketch, at once popular and learned, of daily life in Egypt in 
 the time of Rameses II, and of Assyria in that of Assurbanipal. ... As an 
 Orientalist, M. MaspeYo stands in the front rank, and his learning is so well 
 digested and so admirably subdued to the service of popular exposition, that 
 it nowhere overwhelms and always interests the reader." London Times. 
 
 " Only a writer who had distinguished himself as a student of Egyptian 
 and Assyrian antiquities could have produced this work, which has none of 
 the features of a modern book of travels in the East, but is an attempt to 
 deal with ancient life as if one had been a contemporary with the people 
 whose civilization and social usages are very largely restored." Boston 
 Herald. 
 
 " The ancient artists are copied with the utmost fidelity, and verify the 
 narrative so attractively presented." Cincinnati Times-Star. 
 
 H^IIE THREE PROPHETS: Chinese Gordon; Mo- 
 hammed- A hmed ; Araby Pasha. Events before, dur 
 ing, and after the Bombardment of Alexandria. By 
 Colonel CHAILLE-LONG, ex-Chief of Staff to Gordon 
 in Africa, ex-United States Consular Agent in Alex 
 andria, etc. With Portraits. i6mo. Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 " Comprises the observations of a man who, by reason of his own military 
 experience in Egypt, ought to know whereof he speaks." Washington 
 Post. 
 
 " Throws an entirely new light upon the troubles which have so long 
 agitated Egypt, and upon their real significance." Chicago Times. 
 
 rpHE MEMOIRS OF AN ARABIAN PRINCESS. 
 
 * By EMILY RUETE, ne e Princess of Oman and Zanzibar. 
 
 Translated from the German. I2mo. Cloth, 75 cents. 
 
 "A remarkably interesting little volume. . . . As a picture of Oriental 
 court life, and manners and customs in the Orient, by one who is to the 
 manner born, the book is prolific in entertainment and edification." Boston 
 Gazette. 
 
 "The interest of the book centers chiefly in its minute description of the 
 daily life of the household from the time of rising until the time of retiring, 
 giving the most complete details of dress, meals, ceremonies, feasts, wed 
 dings, funerals, education, slave service, amusements, in fact everything 
 connected with the daily and yearly routine of life." Utica (N. Y.) Herald. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
D. APPLETON & CO. S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE SOVEREIGNS AND COURTS OF EUROPE. 
 * The Home and Court Life and Characteristics of the 
 
 Reigning Families. By " POLITIKOS." \Vith many 
 
 Portraits. I2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "A remarkably able book, ... A great deal of the inner history of 
 Europe is to be found in the work, and it is illustiated by admirable por 
 traits." The Athenceum. 
 
 " Its chief merit is that it gives a new view of several sovereigns. . . . 
 The anonymous author seems to have sources of information that are not 
 open to the foieign correspondents who generally try to convey the im 
 pression that they are on terms of intimacy with royalty." San Francisco 
 Chronicle. 
 
 " The anonymous author of these sketches of the reigning sovereigns of 
 Europe appears to have gathered a good deal of curious information about 
 their private lives, manners, and customs, and has certainly in several in 
 stances had access to unusual sources. The result is a volume which 
 furnishes views of the kings and queens concerned far fuller and more 
 intimate than can be found elsewhere." New York Tribune. 
 
 "... A book that would give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
 but the truth (so far as such comprehensive accuracy is possible), about 
 these exalted personages, so often heard about but so seldom seen by ordi 
 nary mortals, was a desideratum, and this book seems well fitted to satisfy 
 the demand. The author is a well-known writer on questions indicated by 
 his pseudonym." Montreal Gazette. 
 
 " A very handy book of reference." Boston Transcript. 
 
 Y CANADIAN JOURNAL, 1872-78. By LADY 
 DUFFERIN. Extracts from letters home written while 
 Lord Dufferin was Governor-General of Canada. 
 With Portrait, Map, and Illustrations from sketches 
 by Lord Dufferin. I2mo. Cloth, $2.co. 
 
 "A graphic and intensely interesting portraiture of out-door life in the 
 Dominion, and will become, we are confident, one of the standard works on 
 the Dominion. ... It is a charming volume." Boston Traveller. 
 
 " In every place and under every condition of circumstances the Mar 
 chioness shows herself to be a true lady, without reference to her title. Her 
 book is most entertaining, and the abounding good-humor of every page 
 must stir a sympathetic spirit in its readers." Philadelphia Bulletin. 
 
 "The many readers of Lady Dufferin s Journal of Our Vice-Regal 
 Life in India will welcome this similar record from the same vivacious 
 pen, although it concerns a period antecedent to the other, and takes one 
 back many years. The book consists of extracts from letters written home 
 by Lady Dufferin to her friends (her mother chiefly) while her husband 
 was Governor-General of Canada; and describes her experiences in the 
 same chatty and charming style with which readers were before made 
 familiar. "Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette. 
 
 M 
 
 New York: D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
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 D. APPLETON & CO. S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 HAND-BOOKS OF SOCIAL USAGES. 
 (^OCIAL ETIQUETTE OF NEW YORK. Re- 
 ^ written and enlarged. i8mo. Cloth, gilt, $1.00. 
 
 Special pains have been taken to make this work represent accurately 
 existing customs in New York society. The subjects treated are of visiting 
 and visiting-cards, giving and attending balls, receptions, dinners, etc., 
 debuts, chaperons, weddings, opera and theatre parties, costumes and cus 
 toms, addresses and signatures, and funeral customs, covering so far as 
 practicable all social usages, 
 
 ON T; or, Directions for avoiding Improprieties in 
 Conduct and Common Errors of Speech. By CENSOR. 
 Parchment- Paper Edition, square iSmo, 30 cents. 
 Vest-Pocket Edition, cloth, flexible, gilt edges, red 
 lines, 30 cents. Boudoir Edition (with a new chapter 
 designed for young people), cloth, gilt, 30 cents. 
 i3Oth thousand. 
 
 "Don t" deals with manners at the table, in the drawing-room, and in 
 public, with taste in dress, with personal habits, with common mistakes in 
 various situations in life, and with ordinary errors of speech. 
 
 HAT TO DO. A Companion to "Don t." By 
 Mrs. OLIVER BELL BUNCE. Small i8mo, cloth, gilt, 
 uniform with Boudoir Edition of " Don t," 30 cents. 
 
 A dainty little book, containing helpful and practical explanations ot 
 social usages and rules. It tells the reader how to entertain and how to be 
 entertained, and it sets forth the etiquette of engagements and marriages, 
 introductions and calls. 
 
 FORM" IN ENGLAND. By AN AMERICAN, 
 ^ resident in the United Kingdom. I2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " The raison d etre of this book is to provide Americans and especially 
 those visiting England with a concise, comprehensive, and comprehensible 
 hand-book which will give them all necessary information respecting how 
 things are in England. "From the Preface. 
 
 TTINTS ABOUT MEN S DRESS: Right Principles 
 Economically Applied. By a NEW YORK CLUBMAN. 
 i8mo. Parchment-paper, 30 cents. 
 
 A useful manual, especially for young men desirous of dressing eco 
 nomically and yet according to the canons of good taste. 
 
 New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL PINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
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 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 
 
 
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 SEVENTH 
 

 S27109 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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