A Daughter of the Middle Border | Page 8

my cares
and all my years of city life had fallen from me.
"Well, here I am!" I called, "ready for the spring's work."
With a silent laugh, as preface, she replied, "You'll get a-plenty. Your
father is all packed, impatient to leave for Ordway."
The old soldier, who came in from the barn a few moments later,
confirmed this. "I'm no truck farmer," he explained with humorous
contempt. "I turn this onion patch over to you. It's no place for me. In
two days I'll be broad-casting wheat on a thousand-acre farm. That's my
size"--a fact which I admitted.
As we sat at breakfast he went on to say that he found Wisconsin
woefully unprogressive. "These fellows back here are all stuck in the
mud. They've got to wake up to the reform movements. I'll be glad to
get back to Dakota where people are alive."
With the spirit of the seed-sower swelling within him he took the noon
train, handing over to me the management of the Homestead.
An hour later mother and I went out to inspect the garden and to plan
the seeding. The pie-plant leaves were unfolding and slender asparagus
spears were pointing from the mold. The smell of burning leaves
brought back to us both, with magic power, memories of the other
springs and other plantings on the plain. It was glorious, it was
medicinal!
"This is the life!" I exultantly proclaimed. "Work is just what I need. I

shall set to it at once. Aren't you glad you are here in this lovely valley
and not out on the bleak Dakota plain?"
Mother's face sobered. "Yes, I like it here--it seems more like home
than any other place--and yet I miss the prairie and my Ordway
friends."
As I went about the village I came to a partial understanding of her
feeling. The small dark shops, the uneven sidewalks, the rickety
wooden awnings were closely in character with the easy-going citizens
who moved leisurely and contentedly about their small affairs. It came
to me (with a sense of amusement) that these coatless shopkeepers who
dealt out sugar and kerosene while wearing their derby hats on the
backs of their heads, were not only my neighbors, but members of the
Board of Education. Though still primitive to my city eyes, they no
longer appeared remote. Something in their names and voices touched
me nearly. They were American. Their militant social democracy was
at once comical and corrective.
O, the peace, the sweetness of those days! To be awakened by the
valiant challenge of early-rising roosters; to hear the chuckle of
dawn-light worm-hunting robins brought a return of boy-hood's
exultation. Not only did my muscles harden to the spade and the hoe,
my soul rejoiced in a new and delightful sense of establishment. I had
returned to citizenship. I was a proprietor. The clock of the seasons had
resumed its beat.
Hiring a gardener, I bought a hand-book on Horticulture and announced
my intent to make those four fat acres feed my little flock. I was now a
land enthusiast. My feet laid hold upon the earth. I almost took root!
With what secret satisfaction I planned to widen the front porch and
build a two-story bay-window on the north end of the sitting room--an
enterprise of such audacity that I kept it strictly to myself! It meant the
extravagant outlay of nearly two hundred dollars--but above and
beyond that, it involved cutting a hole in the wall and cluttering up the
yard; therefore I thought it best to keep my plot hidden from my mother
till mid-summer gave more leisure to us all.

My notebook of that spring is crowded with descriptions, almost lyrical,
of the glory of sunsets and the beauty of bird-song and budding
trees--even the loud-voiced, cheerful democracy of the village was
grateful to me.
"Yesterday I was deep in the tumult of Chicago," runs the entry,
"to-day, I am hoeing in my sun-lit garden, hearing the mourning-dove
coo and the cat-birds cry. Last night as the sun went down the hill-tops
to the west became vividly purple with a subtle illusive deep-crimson
glow beneath, while the sky above their tops, a saffron dome rose
almost to the zenith. These mystical things are here joined: The trill of
black-birds near at hand, the cackle of barn-yard fowls, the sound of
hammers, a plowman talking to his team, the pungent smoke of burning
leaves, the cool, sweet, spring wind and the glowing down-pouring
sunshine--all marvelous and satisfying to me and mine. This is home!"
On the twelfth of April, however, a most dramatic reversal to winter
took place. "The day remained beautifully springlike till about two
o'clock when a gray haze came rushing downward from the north-west.
Big black clouds developed with portentous rapidity.