The Desert of Wheat | Page 6

a bloody Englishman!"
Kurt groaned in the disgrace of the moment. But, amazingly, Miss
Anderson burst into a silvery peal of laughter.
"Oh, dad!... that's--just too--good for--anything! You met your--match
at last.... You know you always--boasted of your drop of English
blood.... And you're sensitive--about your big nose!"
"He must be over seventy," growled Anderson, as if seeking for some
excuse to palliate his restraint. "I'm mad--but it was funny." The
working of his face finally set in the huge wrinkles of a laugh.
Young Dorn struggled to repress his own mirth, but unguardedly he
happened to meet the dancing blue eyes of the girl, merry, provocative,

full of youth and fun, and that was too much for him. He laughed with
them.
"The joke's on me," said Anderson. "An' I can take one.... Now, young
man, I think I gathered from your amiable dad that if the crop of wheat
was full I'd get my money. Otherwise I could take over the land. For
my part, I'd never do that, but the others interested might do it, even for
the little money involved. I tried to buy them out so I'd have the whole
mortgage. They would not sell."
"Mr. Anderson, you're a square man, and I'll do--" declared Kurt.
"Come out an' show me the wheat," interrupted Anderson. "Lenore, do
you want to go with us?"
"I do," replied the daughter, and she took up her hat to put it on.
Kurt led them through the yard, out past the old barn, to the edge of the
open slope where the wheat stretched away, down and up, as far as the
eye could see.


CHAPTER II
"We've got over sixteen hundred acres in fallow ground, a half-section
in rye, another half in wheat--Turkey Red--and this section you see, six
hundred and forty acres, in Bluestem," said Kurt.
Anderson's keen eyes swept from near at hand to far away, down the
gentle, billowy slope and up the far hillside. The wheat was two feet
high, beginning to be thick and heavy at the heads, as if struggling to
burst. A fragrant, dry, wheaty smell, mingled with dust, came on the
soft summer breeze, and a faint silken rustle. The greenish, almost blue
color near at hand gradually in the distance grew lighter, and then
yellow, and finally took on a tinge of gold. There was a living spirit in

that vast wheat-field.
"Dorn, it's the finest wheat I've seen!" exclaimed Anderson, with the
admiration of the farmer who aspired high. "In fact, it's the only fine
field of wheat I've seen since we left the foot-hills. How is that?"
"Late spring and dry weather," replied Dorn. "Most of the farmers'
reports are poor. If we get rain over the Bend country we'll have only
an average yield this year. If we don't get rain--then flat failure."
Miss Anderson evinced an interest in the subject and she wanted to
know why this particular field, identical with all the others for miles
around, should have a promise of a magnificent crop when the others
had no promise at all.
"This section lay fallow a long time," replied Dorn. "Snow lasted here
on this north slope quite a while. My father used a method of soil
cultivation intended to conserve moisture. The seed wheat was
especially selected. And if we have rain during the next ten days this
section of Bluestem will yield fifty bushels to the acre."
"Fifty bushels!" ejaculated Anderson.
"Bluestem? Why do you call it that when it's green and yellow?"
queried the girl.
"It's a name. There are many varieties of wheat. Bluestem is best here
in this desert country because it resists drought, it produces large yield,
it does not break, and the flour-mills rate it very high. Bluestem is not
good in wet soils."
Anderson tramped along the edge of the field, peering down, here and
there pulling a shaft of wheat and examining it. The girl gazed with
dreamy eyes across the undulating sea. And Dorn watched her.
"We have a ranch--thousands of acres--but not like this," she said.
"What's the difference?" asked Dorn.

She appeared pensive and in doubt.
"I hardly know. What would you call this--this scene?"
"Why, I call it the desert of wheat! But no one else does," he replied.
"I named father's ranch 'Many Waters.' I think those names tell the
difference."
"Isn't my desert beautiful?"
"No. It has a sameness--a monotony that would drive me mad. It looks
as if the whole world had gone to wheat. It makes me think--oppresses
me. All this means that we live by wheat alone. These bare hills!
They're too open to wind and sun and snow. They look like the toil of
ages."
"Miss Anderson, there is such a thing as love for