The Desert of Wheat | Page 5

is all."
Self-possessed, aloof, and kind, Miss Anderson now became an
impenetrable mystery to Dorn. But that only accentuated the distance
she had intimated lay between them. Her kindness stung him to recover
his composure. He wished she had not been kind. What a singular
chance that had brought her here to his home--the daughter of a man
who came to demand a long-unpaid debt! What a dispelling of the
vague thing that had been only a dream! Dorn gazed away across the
yellowing hills to the dim blue of the mountains where rolled the
Oregon. Despite the color, it was gray--like his future.
"I heard you tell father you had studied wheat," said the girl, presently,
evidently trying to make conversation.
"Yes, all my life," replied Kurt. "My study has mostly been under my
father. Look at my hands." He held out big, strong hands, scarred and
knotted, with horny palms uppermost, and he laughed. "I can be proud
of them, Miss Anderson.... But I had a splendid year in California at the
university and I graduated from the Washington State Agricultural
College."
"You love wheat--the raising of it, I mean?" she inquired.
"It must be that I do, though I never had such a thought. Wheat is so
wonderful. No one can guess who does not know it!... The clean,
plump grain, the sowing on fallow ground, the long wait, the first
tender green, and the change day by day to the deep waving fields of
gold--then the harvest, hot, noisy, smoky, full of dust and chaff, and the
great combine-harvesters with thirty-four horses. Oh! I guess I do love
it all.... I worked in a Spokane flour-mill, too, just to learn how flour is
made. There is nothing in the world so white, so clean, so pure as flour
made from the wheat of these hills!"
"Next you'll be telling me that you can bake bread," she rejoined, and

her laugh was low and sweet. Her eyes shone with soft blue gleams.
"Indeed I can! I bake all the bread we use," he said, stoutly. "And I
flatter myself I can beat any girl you know."
"You can beat mine, I'm sure. Before I went to college I did pretty well.
But I learned too much there. Now my mother and sisters, and brother
Jim, all the family except dad, make fun of my bread."
"You have a brother? How old is he?"
"One brother--Jim, we call him. He--he is just past twenty-one." She
faltered the last few words.
Kurt felt on common ground with her then. The sudden break in her
voice, the change in her face, the shadowing of the blue eyes--these
were eloquent.
"Oh, it's horrible--this need of war!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," he replied, simply. "But maybe your brother will not be called."
"Called! Why, he refused to wait for the draft! He went and enlisted.
Dad patted him on the back.... If anything happens to him it'll kill my
mother. Jim is her idol. It'd break my heart.... Oh, I hate the very name
of Germans!"
"My father is German," said Kurt. "He's been fifty years in
America--eighteen years here on this farm. He always hated England.
Now he's bitter against America.... I can see a side you can't see. But I
don't blame you--for what you said."
"Forgive me. I can't conceive of meaning that against any one who's
lived here so long.... Oh, it must be hard for you."
"I'll let my father think I'm forced to join the army. But I'm going to
fight against his people. We are a house divided against itself."
"Oh, what a pity!" The girl sighed and her eyes were dark with

brooding sorrow.
A step sounded behind them. Mr. Anderson appeared, sombrero off,
mopping a very red face. His eyes gleamed, with angry glints; his
mouth and chin were working. He flopped down with a great, explosive
breath.
"Kurt, your old man is a--a--son of a gun!" he exclaimed, vociferously;
manifestly, liberation of speech was a relief.
The young man nodded seriously and knowingly. "I hope, sir--he--he--"
"He did--you just bet your life! He called me a lot in German, but I
know cuss words when I hear them. I tried to reason with him--told him
I wanted my money--was here to help him get that money off the farm,
some way or other. An' he swore I was a capitalist--an enemy to labor
an' the Northwest--that I an' my kind had caused the war."
Kurt gazed gravely into the disturbed face of the rancher. Miss
Anderson had wide-open eyes of wonder.
"Sure I could have stood all that," went on Anderson, fuming. "But he
ordered me out of the house. I got mad an' wouldn't go. Then--by
George! he pulled my nose an' called me