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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 21, 1921)
THE SUNDAY OltEGOXIAN", PORTLAND, AUGUST 21, 1921 How Lon Baxter, Pioneer, Confront ed the Fate of Lovers Who Wait Too Long. THE eun, dwarfted to a hard red ball, had dropped behind the level, sharp-cut line where sky and prairie stopped. Grain fields lay spread out, a dark, flat monotone un der a sheet of cold, gray cloud. Close reefed poplars shivered sibilantly in a chill breeze.- Yet the boy. and girl, merged into one dim blot on the steps of the shallow porch, in front of a bis, square, mud tinted house, were caught into a romance world as soft and warm and entrancingly beautiful as love ever finds. But. presently, Lon Baxter broke its pell. "I can't ask you to marry me, yet, Edna not until I have a home ready. If you will wait T' "Oh, Lon," Edna came back to Grin don. Ia., with protest in her luminous face. "Why should we wait for that? Why shouldn't I do my share in mak Ins the home?" "Because I will never let my wife po through what my mother did. I can never get away from that " The boyish face, already shadowed by pain-breeding experience, set in hard lines. "I can see it now the day she died. Thw little bedroom off the kitchen like an overa she'd cooked for threshers all day and her gasp ing and fighting for breath! And my father bending over, twisting his hands and moaning. It's the cu'ssed xoor'gage that's killed her!"' Biting tears stood in the boy's eyes. Not even the clasp of Edna's tender hands, the brush of her fresh cheek, could take the sting from that mem ory. The rasping chant of frogs filled their ears; moonless dark wrapped them close; for the first time, Lon's brooding passion found speech: "I hated that mortgage as if it was a. living thing! I wanted to tear it to torture it like a cat does a mouse! I hated my father, too. He always worked like a horse you know. Edna and he expected me and my mother sometimes I felt that he was down right cruel." The wisdom of womanhood was strong in Edna, though she was but IS. She. knew words would draw out buried! bitterness. Gently she led him on to speak. "Only the year after ma died he came home one night and showed us children a long, dirty paper, covered with figures and blots. .It was the mortgage, he said. The last cent was paid. He lifted the stove lid and dropped it on to the, coals and we all atood by and watched it burn. Then he almost whispered, 'I wish mother could a seen that!' I couldn't hold in then. I told him I'd never mortgage anything o' mine I'd -die first. And the old mad sat down and spoke quiet almost as if he was apologizing to me said he borrowed money first when ma was sick and had to h,ve a doctor, and medicine, and nourishing food. Then the grasshoppers come three years runnin', and he had to borrow to keep us all from starvjng and freezing, and after that, little Emmy died and that meant another loan. I could see there hadn't been nothing else for hlra to do. I hadn't ought to have blamed him so and I did feel different after that but " His voice was hard with determina tion. "But I made up my mind right then that I'd never let myself be trapped the way he was. I'd never have a wife and children until I was fixed so I'd- never need to borrow or mortgage " With the sweet, clear sense that was hers Edna spoke: Yes, Lon. But that can t be you know. Things happen, good and bad, and married folks just have to take the chances together." "A man ought to have his farm clear and a comfortable bouse before be asks a woman to begin to take chances," Lon, boy sure, pronounced. "That will take a long time years, perhaps." Edna's voice had lost some of its Joy trill. "No, I am young and strong, and I can work. God. How I'll work for you, Edna!" "I know. I understand how you feel," she admitted. "But," shyly, am young and strong, too. Lon. And I am not afraid of work, either with you." His arms tight about her, hepe and gladness pulsing high in the swift rebound of youth, he told -her confi dently. "ThereH be work enough for yon when I have the farm and the house ready that won't be long." Brave words easily said. But how were these words to be made good? That was the question with which young Baxter wrestled all through the rushing days of har vesting and threshing the crops of Edna's father he was only a hired man on the Goodrich place. How was he to secure a farm of his own? How was he to prepare a home fit for Edna Goodrich he, with only his two hands and the great urge of love in his heart? The problem was in his mind when he dropped into the deep sleep compelled by long days of hard work, and it was with hini when he tumbled into his clothes in the pale light of early dawn. In their snatches of talk at noontime and after the chores were done he and Edna discussed it. They knew well that or man Goodrich," who was popularly called "the richest, the nighest, and the meanest man In four counties. would never give his consent to Lon as a son-in-law. As children in the little white schoolhouse on the cor ner of "24," Lon and Edna had spelled one another down and fig ured the same sums on the! scratched slates. As a boy and girl, Lon had seen Edna home from even ing services, escorted her to th skating rink and church socials. Only the girl's own tact, with friendly connivance on the part of "ma Good rich," had kept "pa" from discover ing what every one else knew that "Lon Baxter was goin' with Edn Goodrich." It was in sheer bravado that th boy had offered his services to Good rich His own father, to the amaze ment of his son. his neighbors, and, very possibly, of himself, had sud denly married the Widow Graves, who came in occasionally to "red up" and do the family mending. Lon, though he saw that his father and the younger children were sorely in need of a woman's hand, resented the presence of the new wife as a dese cration of his mother's memory. With a tactiturn understanding, Sam Bax ter spoke: ' " Ye worked well for me, Lon, in the days when I needed help the most. Ye shall have your time from ow on an' thls'll give ye a start," e put a hundred dollars into the boy's hands. "Don't throw it away!" Lon had worked his way through high school Edna was attending it, too. Then he had hunted a Job. The nsuspecting Goodrich, blind through selfishness, thinking only of the sturdy, brawn of the lad who had one a man's work since his tenth ear. hired the young man at once. Twenty-five dollars a month seemed. t first, a fortune to Lon, who had worked so many years at home for is "keeps." Yet, it was such a oy to live underthe same roof with Edna that he would ' gladly have labored for that alone had the "ol' man" but known it. And now, before the summer had fairly begun, Lon ad spoken his love and Edna con fessed hers . We won't say anything to any ne but mother," Edna decided. "Of course, pa'll object." Yes, I s'pose he will," Lon agreed. 'But he'll have to give in, when he sees that I am going to give you a good home and living." Still, as the months slipped by, Lon began to realize that it would take ears as a hired man to save money enough to buy a good farm in their wn neighborhood. "And I won't buy on time that would mean a mort gage," he declared. "And renting is ust putting money in the other fel low's pockets," he finished with a sober face. "Yes," Edna answered. "Still, If crops were good, we a save some thing, too, wouldn't we?" 1 tell you. Edna," Lon spoke with sidden decision, "I've about made up my mind that I'll have to go to a newer country there's good govern ment land, yet, in Dakota and Ne braska I'll Just have to do what our lathers did, strike out and pioneer. And I'll go along " she cried csgerly. "Our mothers pioneered, too," she reminded him, thinking only ot her own strong, brave-spirited mother. His face darkened. "Yes, they did, And it killed my mother. No, Edna, you must stay here and wait until I getk a good start." All through the long winter months they studied the possibilities and made plans. Lon was buoyantly con fident now. He would locate a good homestead a crop, or at most two crops, would build the house then And Edna, with wistful eyes, listened and suggested and gave him the en couragement of her love and faith. One Sunday afternoon, when he found his father alone, feet upon the stove-hearth, paper and pipe finished, Lon with a yearning for the sym pathy of his own haltingly flung cut his new purpose and its reason. The response was a surprise levelation, indeed. "So ye've picked cl' man Goodrich fer a father-in law?" Sam Baxter chuckled under his tongue. "Well, ye must think a heap o" the girl! But, ye're right. Ye'll have to go out to Dakoty an' take your turn at pioneerin' in a new country. There'll be hardships but there's advantages, too. I can't do what Td like fer ye, Lonnle," his rough voice Boftened. "But the roan celts is yours, ye know, an' they ain't a finer span in the country " Lon's chair . dropped to four feet. He had thought his father bad for gotten a promise made long ago to his mother. "Then, there's the Toledo wagon 'taint new, but it's in good condition. When your year is up, come home, Lon, and ye shan't start out empty landed." "I should say not," the youth ex 'jlted. "And when I sell my pigs, I'll hive nigh $400 cash, too. I ought to make it all right!" "Yes," the older man assented. "Ye'll have a fair start, an' ye've got a head on your shoulders. With the help of a good girl like Edna, ye'll make it all right 'f the hand o" God don t fall on ye, like it done on us in 'hopper times." In the fullness of untried courage the youngster asserted: "I'll not take Edna's help until I Lave a good house ready for 'her- and I'll be ready for the 'hoppers,' too." "Ye don't know much about wim men, then an' ye can't forestall natur. my boy," his father comment ed dryly. But Lon was still certain of his own wisdom and ready to defy nature her self. When Goodrich, as spring ap proached, proposed a renewal of their Its come over. His voice contract for another year, Lon told him: "I have decided to go out to Da ota, Mr. Goodrich, and locate a homestead." "Ye- have? Well, that may be a good move," grudgingly, "fer a young tallow like you. Still there's lots o' chances in farming, ye know. Ye'd probably have more money at the tud o' the year staying right here at good wages and found. I'll hire ye. if ye want to stay ye ain't so dum triflin' as most o' the help nowadays." Lon's tanned face reddened with pleasure. Even this acknowledg ment from "ol' man Goodrich" was encouraging. On the strength of it be ventured: And, Mr. Goodrich, when I've got my land and a comfortable house on it I am coming back for Edna." '.Like hell ye are!" The father sprang to his feet in a rage. "So that's it! That's the foolishness that's Ireen going on right under my nose! Put it right out o' your heads, I tell ye Do you think I'll let my girl go out to Dakoty to live in a sod hut and wash overalls? What do ye reckon I paid her school and music bills fer? She will stay right here with her par ccts until she marries a man that can give her a good livin" in a civilized country!" "I'm not asking her to marry me until. I can give her a good living," Lon spoke proudly. "Ye'll both be gray headed before. that time!" "Pa'll never consent." Ma Goodrich said when Lon reported this inter view. "Not that he has a thing agains ye, Lonny, except that you're poor. But as fer me," with a consol ing smile, "I never knew a finer woman than your mother was an' you are like her in ways 't ye are a boy." When the time for the parting came it was harder than Lon had counted on. Now, at the last, he had to argue against his own heart cry as well as Edna's wistful eyes and unspoken plea. v "I couldn't bear to see you working too hard and, maybe breaking down." he told her as be took her into the last embrace. "You know it's be cause I love you so much, Edna, tHat I can't'' "Yes. But it seems wrong to me," she protested. "I'm ready I want to help you get started, Lon. Our par ents and our grandpartents started out in life together, with nothing. Why should not we? When you find the right place then you'll let me come, won't you, Lon?" Just as soon as I can get a good crop and build a house I'll come back for you maybe," with a wild hope. it'll be before next Christmas." Traveling at the slow pace of farm horses, Lon spentthree months in prospecting He went through freez ing nights, blinding rains, and teas ing winas. e neara tales of poor crops and disappointed hopes to say nothing, of actual suffering. Yet on every hand, he saw untitled lands, carrying untold promise in its vir ginity. At last he struck a claim that suited him 160 acres of flowing green, spattered with patches of bril liant wild flowers. A gentle elop'e would protect buildings from the north winds and a strip of slough was lush with waist-high wild hay. It was August before he had cut and stacked an ample supply of hay for the coming winter and finished a dugout for himself and a shack for his team. Then he turned the first sod. As he looked back down the long black bands that fell away from the plow he saw fields of grain, promising rich harvests next year. He picked out the Bite for the house and set out rows of poplar switches to form a windbreak. And as he worked he visioned the home complete, with Edna waiting in the door for his homecoming another year. Long before he was ready for it the first blizzard stopped his work One morning, he awoke, shivering; the dry winds retarded growth; then a shrieking of the wind drowned his heavy hailstorm beat down the head senses; swirling snow and frost-(ins grain. Long before fall Lon knew was wtvery "It's son, toward homcT laden windows dimmed daylight to thick fog.. "It's come," Lon thought as he started a fire in his little cookstove. "I did hope it would hold off until 1 got to town again I'm short on pro visions and coal, too." He had seen blizzards back home, but he bad never before been alone in one. Now, as his dugout walls trembled and the wild keening of the wind enaompassed him, he was home sick and lonely. "Sounds like all the wind in the world was trying to bu'st in that door," he muttered as he swallbwed hot coffee and assured himself that it could not last long. For three days he huddled over the stove and listened and waited, while the storm raged on with no signs of a let-up. To the lonesome, heart sick boy it seemed as though all the furies of hell had been turned loose upon that defenseless little sod hut. Over and over again he assured him self that he was glad Edna was not here that he would' not have her pass through such an experience. And still, a long winter of storms here aloDe how was he to stick it out? On the fourth morning when he opened his door he looked upward to depth upon depth of blue stillness; he looked outward over billows of frost-crested snow, blinding in its glittering brilliance; and then he turned and saw a thread of smoke rising above the nearest cabin, two miles away, and his heart thrilled to the feel of human companionship After he had dug out his well and barn he harnessed his team and struck across fields to the Prosser a young couple who had come from an eastern city the year before. They had known little of the difficulties to be overcome in homesteadlng a Da kota claim. The philosophic good cheer with which they met privations and discomforts had already won Lon's admiration. Today Molly was singing as she set her one room in order, though she was still pale and confessed that she had stayed in bed during the storm, "with the covers over my head to keep out the roaring. Daniel, sitting in a nice warm den. with a few lions around, wasn't a circumstance to a Dakota blizzard she announced. When the men had excavated the hayrack Molly Joined them. The air was still sharp and the snowdrifts treacherous; yet the three turned the hay hauling into a frolic that Lon wished Edna might have shared. As he looked about at the homelike com fort Molly had created in the rough floored, mud walled room and re membered the awful loneliness of his own shack, resolution wavered. An other year of waiting alone seemed unbearable; perhaps his father and Edna were right, after all. There were no more such fierce or deals but Lon spent many days shut In by cold and storm, thinking, as He twisted prairie hay into knots that burned fiercely while they lasted many thoughts. He knew that Edna would come to him if he but Bpoke the word. She, too, could make a home out of a dugout; she was better fitted for frontier life than Molly Prosser. Yet visions of his mother's folded, toil-worn hands and recollec tions of her father's whiplash tongue mingled and Jarred In his mind. And the terror of debt obsessed him. He could not speak the words that would bring Edna and possible debt. Almost before the fro6t was out of the ground the new homesteader was in the field with his plow. By the end of spring he had prepared and seeded nearly 100 acres of ground. He and his team were alike hollow ribbed and Jaded. With exultant an ticipation he watched his corn and wheat push through the soil and be gin to count the returns they would bring. Once more he figured the cost of lumber, then sent the plans he had drawn to Edna, writing, "I'll come for you by next Christmas be ready." But as the season advanced cold, she questioned anxiously. that building a house this year was out of the question. After he had paid for necessary Implements and provisions and bought a cow and brood sow there was nothing left even a trip home was not to be thought of. Edna's disappointment when she learned that he would not be at home for Christmas tempted young Baxter, for the first time, to consider asking for a loan. He was half way to the railroad station, 20 miles away, with the letter to his father, before he tors it up and turned back, telling him self sharply: "I won't begin borrowing, even with pa first thing I know I'll b asking 'ol' man Goodrich to help me out or mortgaging my team." And he hugged the belief that be was suffering in a righteous cause, in spite of Edna's wounded plea: "I believe I'd sooner you'd st;s.i the money, if you won't borrow it, rf.th er than not to have you come home at all." His Christmas box and the Pros sers' turkey did not wipe out his keen sense of failure over the year's results. Yet the sturdy, boyish spirit could not be long depressed. Soon sure that the coming year would bring better luck, Lo -was making plans for tilling all his acreage ex cept the slough. A first omen of good fortune came through Saul Prewltt, an old neighbor, who was now the chief merchant and stock buyer at the railway station. He of fered transportation to Chicago, with a fewT days' stopover at home, in re turn for piloting a carload of hogs to the stockyards. Lon Jumped at this chance. He had never before seen a large city but no sights could hold him when his business was ended. He was impatiently eager; the train crawled until the station names grew familiar. Two stops from Grlndon the banker's wife from home he had known her all his life entered the car. As he started to speak to her he caught sight of his bare, chapped wrist. He was wearing the same suit of clothes he had worn away from Grlndon, now shabby and outgrown A glance told him his hat still bore marks of his freight car journey; his overcoat was soiled and frayed. He sank back into his seat, pulling at his coat sleeves, awkward, miserable. Edna might well be ashamed of him She was meeting well dressed men mfen who could give her comforts and pleasures; while he, after two years. was coming back to her with nothing but unfilled promises. Panic stricken. he was the last to leave the car when the train pulled into his station As he came slowly down the steps he vaguely saw familiar faces. Then Edna was in front of him, her arm wire about his neck, her lips on his. Doubt and misery were sponged ou in a great, throbbing heartbeat as he gathered her close. When he let her go, his father gripped his hand: "A welcome like that is wuth comih' home to, eh, son?" "You bet your sweet life." It was the spontaneous outburst of a full heart. Edna laughed in sheer joy at the words. Later, as she dabbed at the lines above ,his eyes, she said tenderly, "You're growing old too fast, Lon. You work too hard. It isn't fair I ought to be out there, looking after you." Let me go back with you." "If only I could if I dared," he groaned, looking at her with hungry longing. She was round and supple, his Edna, with flashing lights in her cjes and flushing colors in her face. Yet there was a suggestion of fra gility about "her that reminded him of his mother. He shook His head. "No, Edna, I can't take you out there to that dug-out." "You don't think I am as brave as Molly Prosser and Annie Lane?" He had written her of Molly's gay expedients and of Nick Lane's bride who had brought her piano with her. It so filled their single room that Nick swore he slept doubled up, and Atnie boasted that she could sit on the stool and play "Little Buttercup" and fry potatoes at the same time. "I know you'd stand fire better than any of 'em," he cried- "It's me that's the coward! You see. I know how it might end and they don't, yet." ' "Oh, she broke out. "if only my father were like other men! He could Just as well give us the money to build a house now, as let it all wait until he is gone!" "Yes. But I'd rather build my own house. I don't want to give him any show for thinking I'm marrying you for his money! And if things go right this year, I'll be ready to come for you by New Year's," ha promised oiice again. At home. Sam Baxter led the way to the little cubicle off the kitchen and opened the old black trunk where tee family treasures had always been kept. Lon watched him lift out a dress and a shawl his mother had wcrn, and take out soma heavy sheets.. "Give1 these to Edna," his father said, "and tell her your ma wove 'em with her own hands and this," he added a brooch that was one of Lon's earliest recollections. Then he took up a daguerreotype and opened its embossed case. The two men locked together at the clean-cut, girlish face with smooth band of hair laid over her ears. "Ye're the eldest, son," Baxter said in a hushed voice. "Sometime thls'll come to ye but I can't spare it. et-" With new comprehension, the son laid his hand upon his father's shoul der. Presently he spoke low: "I guess mother'd be glad if she knew I was going to marry Edna.' Yes," the older man, agreed, as he shut the trunk. "Edna's a fine worn an, in spite o' her relationship to the old man." Then, clutching his son's arm, he spoke out: "What are ye waitin' so long fer, Lon? Whyn't ye take her back with ye now? Is she afraid o" beln' a poor man's wife?" 'It's me that's afraid not her,' Lon acknowledged. "She was ready tc- go, first off. She's offering to go now. But, I ain't ready for her, yet. Mebbe ye're right mebbe ye won't have so much to regret " Sam Bax ter's voice was unsteady. "But It's a mighty hard thing to know when W6 are ready to live." I don't guess I'll have any trouble telling when I'm ready," Lon stated fervently, still blind to the wisdom of age. "Only I'm not going into debt for it." And though Edna, once more pat ting reserve aside, urged, pleaded even, that she was ready to go back with him, he refused to listen and left her with a renewed promise, 'I'll have the house done and ready for you by New Year's." Another spring was come and Lon with high hopes In his heart, again walked step by step, hour after hour, day succeeding day, week in and week out, over his fields, ploughing, harrowing, seeding going through all the infinite motions, performed with blind faith in forces beyond human control, that makes up the gi gantic game called farming. " Again he saw the gentle mist of green creeping over black loam; th delicate curling fingers of corn reach ing upward; the ethereal blueness o flax blossoms, bending and blending in the breeze. And later on he saw the sun rise higher and higher, shin ing each day with a pitiless hea from a -cloudless sky. He kept th plough going while the parched soil burned his soles and clouds of dus choked his lungs. But the dry wind and the blazing grain, the half-grown corn blades wilted and the flax stalk bec'ame dry straw. Lon watched It all. at times with a heavy, dead feeling of despair an again In a blaze of resentment. "It tough," he cried out to Jim Prosser, "it's damned tough after all the rest And there's my well water without end you know how it nearly got away with me before I could get th curb in. If I " Yes," Prosser nodded, "that's it. We must have irrigation in this coun try. There is plenty of water under ground we've got to get it on top, where we can use it when we need it But you can't do anything this year, We'll Just have to lose this crop." T wonder " Lon began. With sudden desperate hope he set him self to rigging up a crude flume an opening up furrows. Then he began pumping water by hand on to his cornfield. The greedy sun and thirsty soil snatched up the little streams al most before they reached the field. After pumping steadily for two day to put a flow through two furrows h decided: "I'll pump at night the su won't eat it up so fast then." "It's no use, Lon," Prosser object ed. ''You can't beat the drought this year. But we'll go the thing right ana dc reaay xur ni ary spell. "I can't wait, man," Lon burst out "I've got to have a crop, or at least part of a crop, this year!" Despite the protests of his friend he started in to pump at sunset. Hour after hour he stood, steadily moving the pump handle up and down with a dogged persistence from which all spring of youth and faith had been drained. ' He kept' on pumping until it seemed as though his very heart would be torn out by the strain. Pros ser, Lane and other neighbors came to watch, to offer to spell him, to ad monish and to ridicule; but Lon kept on pumping, first with one hand, then with the other, until at moonset he crept away with bleeding hands and sore muscles for a few hours of ex hausted sleep. He succeeded in saving a portion of his corn before be sank down one night, unknowing, uncaring. The cool of morning air brought his to con sciousness of racking pains and burn ing flesh. He managed to crawl into the house and to bed. There Prosser found him tossing with fever. For three weeks he lay helpless with a low fever that left him weak and despondent. But through it all he would not permit the Prossers to write to his father or Edna. Molly rebelliously asserted that she would take the responsibility on her own shoulders and wrote Edna a long letter. But her husband refused to mail It without Lon's consent. "But he's too sick to know what is right." Molly scolded. "He's weak as a baby in mind as well as in body." "Forget It!" Jim scoffed. "Lonax ter may be as wobbly as a kitten on his legs, bt his head Is all right. He knows what's what talks Irriga tion plant all the time." And still no rain came. Lon wu p and about. As he saw months of ard labor for man and for beast- turned into useless wisps of straw nd all his carefully matured plana changed Into 'Idle dreams, the subtls ardening of character and softening t judgment that turns the boy into the man went on within him. It was the man who sat down one unday afternoon before the rough board table of his shack and wrote: "I made a big mistake when I Icked out my homestead. It seems there Is liable to be one dry year out of three in this section of the coun try. I'll have to put in a windmill nd an irrigation plant before I can build the house. I can't ask you to wait any logger, Edna, I s'pose your father was right I hadn't ought to avs asked you to marry me. And ou ought to have said 'No' first off. dear girl, you are free. Try to forget me, and forgive me for taking o much out of your life you know how it has been with me " He sent the letter and. as he picked his stunted corn he brooded deapair- ngly over his failure. When Prosser houted: "Here, old man! Your girl hasn't forgotten you it's a fat one!" he took the envelope in a hand that shook. Alone he read: "Unless you mads a mistake In picking me out. too, Lon. we will keep, on waiting .together if ou insist on waiting." In spite of her loyalty he looked - ahead that dismal winter with deter mination rather than the confidence hat had carried him forward thus far. The firm conviction and the courage that had counted each hin drance simply as a delay almost went out of him. "Perhaps I havs been wrong from the start maybe I'd ought to have borrowed the money and married Edna, that first year," he ruminated. I might not have made such a flat failure that way, though everything was against me." He had taken out his final papers now and could easily place a mort gage on his land. Edna, knowing this, wrote: 'The way is open now, Lon. By borrowing $500 you can build a house that will be plenty good to start with, and I am sure I can save you $500 in a year or two. It's business, dear. Everybody borrows In order to make. know how you feel but be rea sonable." Yet, thoug-h Lon acknowledged that he was unreasonable; though he knew In his own soul that his fear was cow ardly; though he felt that his desire for happiness matched Edna's own. the dread of debt and the obstinacy bred of the long struggle were so unyielding that he could not bring himself to act upon her counsel. There was a difference after that. No complaints, no reproaches ap peared' In Edna's letters; but there was less of the cheerful expectation and of details of her dally living. And Lon, toiling winter and summer now. from day-wake to the last streak of light, was too engrossed in his fight to give much heed to anything not present and tangible. Sometimes weeks elapsed between their letters. - A new year's crop was promising well. If the harvest, threshing and marketing all went through without disasted Lon would be able to set up his windmill and be ready for the next dry season. It was now harvest time. By exchanging work with Pros ser and Lane, Baxter had their aid in cutting and stacking his wheat. He v.as driving the moving machine one scorching August forenoon. Ae he looked back over the even rifts of straw he was thinking: "If nothing happens I'll come out ahead at last this season. Edna'll be glad." And then he began to think. When had Edna's last letter come? "Why," In sudden realization, "that letter was before haying! She hasn't answered my last letter It wasn't really worth answering just a note. I maybe she's got tired at last. I couldn't blame her." He drove on, conscious now of the heat, the dust, the sting of chaff and perspiration. What was the use of all this grinding work if it were not for Edna? He tried to think of life without Edna what would happen if she had really changed her mind? At last he could stand this new fear no longer. He was ahead of the rake. He left his team standing and went to the house. He found her last let tar and read It over. It was brief. It answered none of the questions in his mind. "Edna darling," he wrote, "It's a long time since your last letter; you haven't answered my last note. I know you can't be sick or my father would let me know. I am afraid maybe you have made up your mind not to wait any longer. I couldn't blame you for that. I know I haven't done right keeping you waiting for me so long. And I haven't even writ ten to you like I ought. Somehow I couldn't tell you how hard things were. Sometimes it has seemed as if it was no use. I'd have to give up and go back to hiring out. It looks like a fair yield this year, and then but I don't dare make any more promises, I have broken so many I want you to be happy, Edna. More than any thing else I want that. If you have found seme other man who can make you happier than I can I won't say a word. Only, I shall always love. you I'll try to stand it but I can't" think about it." That night, when the last ehore was done, Lon Baxter started for the nearest postofficej nine miles away. . He would not put this added burden on his faithful horses. Wearily he plodded on through soft darkness, thinking messages of love and longing which he had not put on the paper perhaps they reached Edna's heart just the same. The long years of waiting had not been easy for Edna. Her father had never ceased his reviling of Lon and ugly comments upon her foolishness. As time went on his anger became constant and harassing. At first Edna, living In her own world of happy dreams, heard him indifferently. She spent her spare hours In preparing against her bridal days the dainty things no real girl will give up. She pieced quilts, sewed carpet rags, she saved feathers for her pillows and bed. with her mother's aid she accu mulated bed and table linen. Gradu ally her trunk and box were filled to overflowing. After the third year her father in sisttd that he would have no more of (Continued. On. Fa S,i Ik
