Desert of Wheat by Zane Grey
Author:Zane Grey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun
* * *
Next day Lenore did not go out to the harvest fields. She expected Dorn might arrive at any time, and she wanted to be there when he came. Yet she dreaded the meeting. She had to keep her hands active that day, so in some measure to control her mind. A thousand times she felt herself on the verge of thrilling and flushing. Her fancy and imagination seemed wonderfully active. The day was more than usually golden, crowned with an azure blue, like the blue of the Pacific. She worked in her room, helped her mother, took up her knitting, and sewed upon a dress, and even lent a hand in the kitchen. But action could not wholly dull the song in her heart. She felt unutterably young, as if life had just opened, with haunting, limitless, beautiful possibilities. Never had the harvest-time been so sweet.
Anderson came in early from the fields that day. He looked like a farm-hand, with his sweaty shirt, his dusty coat, his begrimed face. And when he kissed Lenore he left a great smear on her cheek.
“That’s a harvest kiss, my lass,” he said, with his big laugh. “Best of the whole year!”
“It sure is, dad,” she replied. “But I’ll wait till you wash your face before I return it. How’s the harvest going?”
“We had trouble to-day,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Nothin’ much, but it was annoyin’. We had some machines crippled, an’ it took most of the day to fix them.… We’ve got a couple of hundred hands at work. Some of them are I.W.W.’s, that’s sure. But they all swear they are not an’ we have no way to prove it. An’ we couldn’t catch them at their tricks.… All the same, we’ve got half your big wheat-field cut. A thousand acres, Lenore!… Some of the wheat ‘ll go forty bushels to the acre, but mostly under that.”
“Better than last harvest,” Lenore replied, gladly. “We are lucky.… Father, did you hear any news from the Bend?”
“Sure did,” he replied, and patted her head. “They sent me a message up from Vale.… Young Dorn wired from Kilo he’d be here to-day.”
“To-day!” echoed Lenore, and her heart showed a tendency to act strangely.
“Yep. He’ll be here soon,” said Anderson, cheerfully. “Tell your mother. Mebbe he’ll come for supper. An’ have a room ready for him.”
“Yes, father,” replied Lenore.
“Wal, if Dorn sees you as you look now—sleeves rolled up, apron on, flour on your nose—a regular farmer girl—an’ sure huggable, as Jake says—you won’t have no trouble winnin’ him.”
“How you talk!” exclaimed Lenore, with burning cheeks. She ran to her room and made haste to change her dress.
But Dorn did not arrive in time for supper. Eight o’clock came without his appearing, after which, with keen disappointment, Lenore gave up expecting him that night. She was in her father’s study, helping him with the harvest notes and figures, when Jake knocked and entered.
“Dorn’s here,” he announced.
“Good. Fetch him in,” replied Anderson.
“Father, I—I’d rather go,” whispered Lenore.
“You stay right along by your dad,” was his reply, “an’ be a real Anderson.
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