The First Four Years (8 page)

Later they learned that there had been a prairie fire during the sixty-five mile an hour
wind, a terrible raging fire that hardly hesitated at firebreaks, for the wind tore flames
loose and carried them far ahead of the burning grass. In places the fire leaped, leaving unburned prairie, the flame going ahead and the wind blowing out
the slower fire in the grass as a candle is blown out.

Houses and barns with good firebreaks around them were burned. Stock was caught and
burned. At one place a new lumberwagon stood in a plowed field a hundred yards from the
grass. It was loaded with seed wheat just as the owner had left it when he had gone from
the field because of the wind. When he went back, there was nothing left of the wagon and
its load except the wagon irons. Everything else had burned.

There was no stopping such a fire and no fighting it in such a wind.

It went across the country, leaving a blackened prairie behind until it reached the river,
and then the wind went down with the sun. There it stopped, somewhere between fifty and
one hundred miles from where it began.

There was nothing to do but to re-seed the fields, for the seed was blown away or buried
in the drifts of soil around the edges of the plowed land.

So Manly bought more seed wheat and oats at the elevator in town, and at last the seeding was finished.

Then the sheep were sheared and the selling of the wool cheered them all, for wool was
worth twenty-five cents a pound and the sheep averaged ten pounds of wool apiece. Each
sheep had paid for itself and fifty cents more with its wool alone. By the last of May,
the lambs had all arrived, and there were so many twins that the flock was more than
doubled. Lambing time was a busy time, both day and night, for the sheep must be watched
and the lambs cared for. Among the hundred sheep there were only five ewes who could not
or would not care for their lambs. These five lambs were brought into the house and warmed
and fed milk from a bottle and raised by hand.

Rose spent her time playing in the yard now, and Laura tried to watch her as the little
pink sunbonnet went busily bobbing here and there.

Once Laura was just in time to see Rose struggle upright in the tub of water that stood
under the pump spout; and with water running down her face and from her spread fingers at
each side,

Rose said without a whimper, “I want to go to bed.”

One afternoon, just after Rose had been washed and combed and dressed in fresh, clean
clothes, Laura heard her shrieking with laughter, and going to the door, saw her running
from the barn. “O-o-o,” Rose called. “Barnum did just like this.” And down she dropped in
the dusty path, and with arms and legs waving, rolled over and over on the ground. She was
such a comical sight that Laura could only laugh too, in spite of the wreck of the clean
dress, the dirt on her face and hands and the dust in her hair.

Another time, Laura missed her from the yard and with fear in her heart ran to the barn
door. Barnum was lying down in his stall and Rose sat on his side, kicking her heels
against his stomach.

Carefully, so as not to disturb his body, the horse raised his head and looked at Laura
and she was positive Barnum winked one eye.

After that Laura tried to watch Rose closer, but she couldn't bear to keep her in the
house with the spring so fresh and gay outside. The work must be done between moments of looking at Rose through door and window.

Once again she was just in time to see Rose miss an accident by a narrow margin. She had
evidently gone farther afield than usual and was just coming back around the corner of
the barn. Then Kelpie, Trixy's latest colt, came running around the same corner with
another colt chasing her. Kelpie saw Rose too late to turn, too late to stop, so she put
an extra spring in her muscles and sailed over Rose's head, while Susan, the other colt,
proving, as she always tried to, that she could do anything Kelpie did, followed behind,
going neatly over Rose's head.

Then Laura was there, and snatching Rose up, carried her to the house. Rose had not been
frightened, but Laura was, and she felt rather sick. How could she ever keep up the daily
work and still go through what was ahead. There was so much to be done and only herself to
do it. She hated the farm and the stock and the smelly lambs, the cooking of food and the dirty dishes. Oh, she hated it all, and especially the
debts that must be paid whether she could work or not.

But Rose
hadn't
been hurt and now she was wanting a bottle to feed one of the pet lambs. Laura would do
the same; she'd be darned if she'd go down and stay down and howl about it. What was it
someone had said in that story she read the other day? “The wheel goes round and round and
the fly on the top'll be the fly on the bottom after a while.” Well, she didn't care what
became of the fly, but she did wish the bottom one could crawl up a little way. She was
tired of waiting for the wheel to turn. And the farmers were the ones at the bottom, she
didn't care what Manly said. If the weather wasn't right they had nothing, but whether
they had anything or not they must find it somehow to pay interest and taxes and a
profit to the businessmen in town on everything they bought, and they must buy to live.
There was that note at the bank Manly had to give to get the money to buy the grain for
the re-seeding after the wind storm. He was paying three percent a month on that note.
That was where the wool money would have to go. No one could pay such interest as that.
But there was all the summer's living before another harvest. Her head spun when she tried to figure it out.

Would there be enough money to pay it? Their share of the wool money was only $125, and
how much was that note? A bushel to the acre of seed wheat and $1 a bushel for the seed:
$100. Sixty acres of oats and two bushels to the acre of seed: 120 bushels. At 42c a
bushel, that would be $50.40. Added to the $100 for wheat the note must be for $150.40.

It seemed to make a great difference in the price whether they were selling wheat or
buying it. To be sure, as Manly said, there were freight charges out and back and elevator
charges. But it didn't seem fair even so.

Anyway, they should pay the note at the bank as soon as possible. If they had to do so
they could buy a book of coupons at the grocery store and give a note for that at only two
percent a month. It was rather nice that the merchants had got those books with coupons
from 25c to $5 in twentyfiveor fifty-dollar books. It was convenient and it was
cheaper interest. They had not bought any yet, and she had hoped they would not have to.

Somehow the thought of it hurt her pride worse than a note at the bank. But pride must not
stand in the way of a saving of one percent. She wouldn't think about it anymore. Manly
would do as he thought best about it. It was his business and he wasn't worrying.

As spring turned the corner into summer, the rains stopped and the grains began to suffer
for lack of moisture. Every morning Manly looked anxiously for signs of rain, and seeing
none, went on about his work.

And then the hot winds came. Every day the wind blew strongly from the south. It felt on
Laura's cheek like the hot air from the oven when she opened the door on baking day. For a
week, the hot winds blew, and when they stopped, the young wheat and oats were dried,
brown and dead.

The trees on the ten acres were nearly all killed too. Manly decided there was no hope
of replanting to have the trees growing to fulfill the law for the claims.

It was time to prove up and he could not.

There was only one way to save the land. He could file on it as a pre-emption. If he did
that he must prove up in six months and pay the United States $1.25 an acre. T h e
continuous residence would be no trouble, for they were already there. The two hundred
dollars cash at the end ofthe six months would be hard to find, but there was no other
way. If Manly did not file on the land someone else would, for if he failed to prove up,
the land would revert to the government and be open to settlement by anyone.

So Manly pre-empted the land. There was one advantage: Manly did not have to work among
the trees anymore. Here and there one had survived and those Manly mulched with manure
and straw from the barn. The mulching would help to keep the land moist underneath and so
help the trees to live. The cottonwood tree before Laura's pantry window, being north of
the house, had been protected from the full force of the hot winds and from the sun. It
was growing in spite of the drought. Laura loved all its green branches that waved just
the other side of the glass as she prepared food on the broad shelf before the window and washed the dishes there.

No rain followed the windstorm, but often after that cyclone clouds would form in the
sky and then drift away. It was cyclone weather.

One sultry afternoon, Manly was in town and Peter gone with the sheep. Laura finished her
work and she and Rose went out in the yard. Rose was playing with her play dishes under
the cottonwood tree on the shady side of the house while Laura idly watched the clouds more from
force of habit than a real fear, for she had become used to the danger of storms.

The wind had been from the south strongly in the morning, but had died down, and now Laura
noticed clouds piling up in the north. There was a solid bank of blackness and before it
clouds rolled. Now the wind rose, blowing hard from the south, and watching, Laura saw the
dreaded funnel-shaped cloud drop its point toward the ground from the wall of black. T h e light turned a greenish color, and seizing
Rose, Laura ran with her into the house. She quickly shut all the doors and windows before
she ran into the pantry to look again, from its window, toward the storm.

T h e point of the funnel had touched the ground and she could see the dust rise up. It
passed over a field of new breaking and the strips of sod were lifted up out of sight.
Then it struck an old haystack. There was a blur and the stack disappeared. The
funnel-shaped cloud was moving toward the house. Laura lifted the trap door in the
pantry floor and taking Rose with her went quickly through it into the cellar, dropping
the door shut behind her. Holding Rose tightly, she cowered close in a corner in the
darkness and listened to the wind shriek above them, expecting every second that the
house would be lifted and carried away.

But nothing happened, and after what seemed hours but was really only a few minutes she
heard Manly's voice calling.

Lifting the cellar door Laura carried Rose up the stairs. She found Manly standing by his
team in the yard, watching the storm as it passed eastward less than a quarter of a mile
north from where they stood. It went on blowing away buildings and haystacks, but only a sprinkle of rain fell on the parched earth. Manly, in town, had seen
the storm cloud and hurried home so Laura and Rose should not be alone.

There were no more cyclones, but the weather continued hot and dry, and August the fifth
was especially warm.

In the afternoon Manly sent Peter to bring Laura's Ma, and at four o'clock he sent Peter
again to town, this time on his running pony for the doctor. But their son was born before
the doctor could get there.

Laura was proud of the baby, but strangely she wanted Rose more than anything. Rose had
been kept away from her mother for the sake of quiet, and a hired girl was taking
indifferent care of her. When Laura insisted, the girl brought Rose in, a shy little thing
with a round baby face herself, to see her little brother.

After that Laura rested easily and soon could take an interest in the sounds from outside,
knowing well, from them, what was going on.

One day Peter came to the bedroom door to bid her good morning. He had stuck a long feather in his hatband and as it nodded above his goodnatured face he looked so comical that
Laura had to laugh.

Then she heard him talking to his pony and calling his dog and knew he was taking the
sheep out. He was singing:

“Oh, my! but ain't she handsome! Dear me! she's the sweetest name! Ky! yi! to love her is
my dooty, My pretty, little, posy-pink Jenny Jerusha Jane.”

And Peter and the sheep were gone until night.

T h e n she heard Rose playing with her pet lambs. They were so large now that three of
them went out with the sheep, but the two smallest still hung around the back door and
yard to be fed and played with. Often they pushed Rose over, but it was all in the game.
Then she heard the hired girl refuse to give Rose a piece of bread and butter, speaking
crossly to her, and that Laura could not bear. Calling from her bed, she settled the ques
tion in Rose's favor.

Laura felt she must hurry and get her strength back. Rose shouldn't be meanly treated by
any hired girl; and besides, there were the wages of five dollars a week. They must be
stopped as soon as possible for the time would come soon enough to pay a note.

Laura was doing her own work again one day three weeks later when the baby was taken with
spasms, and he died so quickly that the doctor was too late.

To Laura, the days that followed were mercifully blurred. Her feelings were numbed and
she only wanted to restto rest and not to think.

But the work must go on. Haying had begun and Manly, Peter, and the herd boy must be fed.
Rose must be cared for and all the numberless little chores attended to.

The hay was going to be short of what was needed, for it had been so dry that even the
wild prairie grass had not grown well. There were more sheep and cattle and horses to
feed, so there must be more hay instead of less.

Manly and Peter were putting up hay on some land two miles away a week later. Laura started the fire for supper in the kitchen stove. The summer fuel was old, tough, long, slough
hay, and Manly had brought an armful into the kitchen and put it down near the stove.

After lighting a fire and putting the tea kettle on, Laura went back into the other part
of the house, shutting the kitchen door.