In Camp, August 28. Dear Mrs. Coney,— We are almost across the desert, and I am really becoming interested. The difficulties some folks work under are enough to make many of us ashamed. In the very center of the desert is a little settlement called Eden Valley. Imagination must have had a heap to do with its name, but one thing is certain: the serpent will find the crawling rather bad if he attempts to enter this Eden, for the sand is hot; the alkali and the cactus are there, so it must be a serpentless Eden. The settlers have made a long canal and bring their water many miles. They say the soil is splendid, and they don’t have much stone; but it is such a flat place! I wonder how they get the water to run when they irrigate. We saw many deserted homes. Hope’s skeletons they are, with their yawning doors and windows like eyeless sockets. Some of the houses, which looked as if they were deserted, held families. We camped near one such. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and I went up to the house to buy some eggs. A hopeless-looking woman came to the door. The hot winds and the alkali dust had tanned her skin and bleached her hair; both were a gray-brown. Her eyes were blue, but were so tired-looking that I could hardly see for the tears. “No,” she said, “we ain’t got no eggs. We ain’t got no chickens. You see this ground is sandy, and last year the wind blowed awful hard and all the grain blowed out, so we didn’t have no chance to raise chickens. We had no feed and no money to buy feed, so we had to kill our chickens to save their lives. We et ’em. They would have starved anyway.” Then we tried for some vegetables. “Well,” “Pa hated as bad as we did to lose our “When spring came the kids and me gathered all the bones and hair we could find of our good old team, and buried ’em where you see that green spot. That’s grass. We scooped all the trash out of the mangers, and spread it over the grave, and the timothy and the redtop seed in the trash came up and growed. I’d liked to have put some flowers there, but we had no seed.” She wiped her face on her apron, and gathered “Why don’t you leave this place? Why not go away somewhere else, where it will not be so hard to start?” I asked. “Oh, ’cause pa’s heart is just set on making a go of it here, and we would be just as pore anywhere else. We have tried a heap of times to start a home, and we’ve worked hard, but we were never so pore before. We have been here three years and we can prove up soon; then maybe we can go away and work somewhere, enough to get a team anyway. Pa has already worked out his water-right,—he’s got water for all his land paid for, if we only had a team to plough with. But we’ll get it. Pa’s been workin’ all summer in the hay, and he ought to have a little stake saved. We gathered up as much of the vegetables as we could carry. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy paid, and we started homeward, promising to send for the rest of the beets and potatoes. On the way we met two children, and knew them at once for “Johnny and Eller.” They had pails, and were carrying water from the stream and pouring it on the green spot that covered Nick and Fan. We promised them each a dime if they would bring the vegetables we had left. Their little faces shone, and we had to hurry all we could to get supper ready We told the men before the little tykes came. So Mr. Struble let Johnny shoot his gun and both youngsters rode Chub and Antifat to water. They were bright little folks and their outlook upon life is not so flat and colorless as their mother’s is. A day holds a world of chance for them. They were saving their money, they told us, “to buy some house plants for ma.” Johnny had a dollar which a sheep-man had given him for taking care of a sore-footed dog. Ella had a dime which a man had given her for filling his water-bag. They both hoped to pull wool off dead sheep and make some more money that way. They had quite made up their minds about what they wanted to get: it must be house plants for ma; but still they both wished they could get some little thing for pa. They were not pert or forward in any way, but they answered readily and we all drew them out, even the newly-weds. After supper the men took their guns and went out to shoot sage-hens. Johnny went with Mr. Haynes and Mr. Struble. Miss Hull walked back with Ella, and we sent Mrs. Sanders a few cans of fruit. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and I washed the dishes. We were talking of the Sanders family. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy was disgusted with me because I wept. “You think it is a soft heart you have, but it is only your head that is soft. Of course they are having a hard time. What of it? The very root of independence is hard times. That’s the way America was founded; that is why it stands so firmly. Hard times is what makes sound characters. And them kids are getting a new hold on character that was very near run to seed in the parents. Johnny will be tax-assessor yet, I’ll bet you, and you just watch that Eller. It won’t surprise me a bit to see her county superintendent of schools. The parents most likely never would make anything; but having just only a pa and a ma and getting the very hard licks them kids are Mrs. O’Shaughnessy is very wise, but sometimes she seems absolutely heartless. The men didn’t bring back much game; each had left a share with Mrs. Sanders. Next morning we were astir early. We pulled out of camp just as the first level rays of the sun shot across the desolate, flat country. We crossed the flat little stream with its soft sandy banks. A willow here and there along the bank and the blue, distant mountains and some lonesome buttes were all there was to break the monotony. Yet we saw some prosperous-looking places with many haystacks. I looked back once toward the Sanders cabin. The blue smoke was just beginning to curl upward from the stove pipe. The green spot looked vividly green against the dim prospect. Poor pa and poor ma! Even if they could be nothing more, I wish at least that they need not have given up Nick and Fan! Mr. Haynes told us at breakfast that we would camp only one more night on the desert. I am so glad of that. The newly-weds will leave us in two more days. I’m rather sorry; they are much nicer than I thought they would be. They have invited us to stay with them on our way back. Well, I must stop. I wish I could put some of this clean morning air inside your apartments. With much love, |