Dust | Page 5

bargain, but one that Wade could afford to take up, for if
the wheat were to freeze out, or if the grasshoppers should eat it, or the
chinch bugs ruin it, or a hail storm beat it down into the mud, or if any
of the many hatreds Stepmother Nature holds out toward those trusting
souls who would squeeze a living from her hard hands--if any of these
misfortunes should transpire, he would be out nothing but labor, and
that was the one thing he and Martin could afford to risk.
The seed deal was arranged, and Martin made the trip six times back
and forth, for the wagon could hold only fifty bushels. Perry lived
twenty miles from the Wades and a whole day was consumed with each
load. It was evening when Martin, hungry and tired, reached home with
the last one; and, as he stopped beside the tent, he noticed with surprise
that there was no sign of cooking. Nellie was huddled against her
mother, who sat, idle, with little Benny in her arms. The tragic yearning
her whole body expressed, as she held the baby close, arrested the boy's
attention, filled him with clamoring uneasiness. His father came to help
him unhitch.
"What's the matter with Benny?"
Wade looked at Martin queerly. "He's dead. Died this mornin' and your
ma's been holding him just like that. I want you should ride over to
Peter's and see if you can fetch his woman."
"No!" came from Mrs. Wade, brokenly, "I don't want no one. Just let
me alone."
The shattering anguish in his mother's voice startled Martin, stirred
within him tumultuous, veiled sensations. He was unaccustomed to
seeing her show suffering, and it embarrassed him. Restless and
uncomfortable, he was glad when his father called him to help decide
where to dig the grave, and fell the timber from which to make a rough
box. From time to time, through the long night, he could not avoid
observing his mother. In the white moonlight, she and Benny looked as
if they had been carved from stone. Dawn was breaking over them
when Wade, surrendering to a surge of pity, put his arms around her
with awkward gentleness. "Ma, we got to bury 'im."
A low, half-suppressed sob broke from Mrs. Wade's tight lips as she
clasped the tiny figure and pressed her cheek against the little head.
"I can't give him up," she moaned, "I can't! It wasn't so hard with the
others. Their sickness was the hand of God, but Benny just ain't had

enough to eat. Seems like it'll kill me."
With deepened discomfort, Martin hurried to the creek to water the
horses. It was good, he felt, to have chores to do. This knowledge shot
through him with the same thrill of discovery that a man enjoys when
he first finds what an escape from the solidity of fact lies in liquor. If
one worked hard and fast one could forget. That was what work did. It
made one forget--that moan, that note of agony in his mother's voice,
that hurt look in her eyes, that bronze group in the moonlight. By the
time he had finished his chores, his mother was getting breakfast as
usual. With unspeakable relief, Martin noticed that though pain haunted
her face, she was not crying.
"I heard while I was over in Missouri, yesterday," he ventured, "of a
one-room house down in the Indian Territory. The fellow who built it's
give up and gone back East. Maybe we could fix a sledge and haul it up
here."
"I ain't got the strength to help," said Wade.
Martin's eyes involuntarily sought his mother's. He knew the power in
her lean, muscular arms, the strength in her narrow shoulders.
"We'd better fetch it," she agreed.
The pair made the trip down on horseback and brought back the shack
that was to be home for many years. Eighteen miles off a man had
some extra hand-cut shingles which he was willing to trade for a
horse-collar. While Mrs. Wade took the long drive Martin, under his
father's guidance, chopped down enough trees to build a little lean-to
kitchen and make-shift stable. Sixteen miles south another neighbor
had some potatoes to exchange for a hatching of chickens. Martin rode
over with the hen and her downy brood. The long rides, consuming
hours, were trying, for Martin was needed every moment on a farm
where everything was still to be done.
Day by day Wade was growing weaker, and it was Mrs. Wade who
helped put in the crop, borrowing a plow, harrow, and extra team, and
repaying the loan with the use of their own horses and wagon. Luck
was with their wheat, which soon waved green. It seemed one of life's
harsh