The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-11-21

Nathan had thought of his barren
waste fields, and gasped inwardly.
Well, crops, then, if crops it must be;
but what?
"Corn." the oracle had declared.
There's money in sweet-corn, now't
them factories arerunnin' full tilt over
to Easton. They want all they can
git. You won't make no mistake if
you plant your fields full of it, an |
calc'late you'll find than the highest
road to your gold-mine. I calc'late
SO. But you'll have to hustle con-
siderable, an make your hoe fly real
stiddy. You can't make corn crop
payin' without you do everything
thorough. You've got to hustle, my
boy, early'n' late"
And how Nathan Thacher hustled
those long, hot summer days How,
from daylight to sunsetting, he del
we'd and toiled in his fields, working
mir acles in them with slow stubborn
couragel He lost courage once or
twice, but Militia never knew if. She
watched his eager, determined face
steadily, and always read quiet reso-
luton in it, and, as the weeks multi
piled to months, new expression of
self-respect that delighted her soul.
''Thanny's losing his old down
spirited looks" she would muse hap
| PLY over her work. He holds up
his head straight and kind of proud
now; but, my goodness me, how he
is workingw
And Militia, too, worked. She hur-
ried through with her house duties,
and went out to the fields with Ma
than to do whatever lighter work he
would let her do out there. Side by
side the brother and sister toiled,
seeing the waste places bloom under
their eyes, and gradually the rough
acres smooth out into beautiful,
thrifty corn rows.
Militia walked between them in cool
evenings, and let her skirts flip the
tiny stalks gently. They grew tall,
and she could nudge them in friendly
greeting as she passed down and up
between them.
Of course all this success came only
out of the hardest possible wrestling
with nature. There went before it
weeks of mighty work with drag and
pick, wrestling out rocks and uproot.
ing stumps and weeds. Only Grand
father Thacher's grim persistence
descended like mantle on Nathan's
aching young shoulders, carried those
hard days. The neighbors helped
at odd times, and Nathan repaid them
in rainy intervals. So at last the two
big fields were smooth and ready for
the ploughing, that left them scanned
with long ridges wavering gently
away into perspective. How good
the upturned earth had smelled to
Militia! She stood outside and drew
in long satisfying whffs of it.
1t was so good to see the old place
thriving at last-to smell it and watch
it and be proud of it. Militia forgot
all about the goldmine some days.
Nathan never did. He repaired
the fences to keep intruders out. He
drew out loads upon loads of dress
ing for his land from stores of hither-
to wasted fertility beneath the old
barns. He nurtured and tended and
worked unstintingly, but always with
with the glitter of the gold grains in
his rocks before his eyes. Nathan
never forgot. He studied books on
mining in the evenin until his tired
head nodded over the blurring let
tiers. Once. when the corn was all
planted, and there was a little inter
val of rest, he went to city, days
trip distant, and had his little samp-
les of glistening rock assayed. 1t
was when he came home from that
journey that Militia thought she could
detect little look of disappointment
in his face, and perhaps a faint crest
fallen note in his voice. But she for
got about it soon, because they were
SO busy wedding the corn rows.
One evening, when the green stalks
lowered more than elbow high
around them, Thanny and Milly
walked through the rows, talking to
each other across them. They both
looked happy. Milly's small thin
face had rounded out a little, and
turned to golden brown. She walked
with little quick jubilant steps. The
old farm looked so beautiful tonight!
What would father say9
Suddenly she began to laugh. In
front of her dangled her scarecrow
the work of her own hands-minc-
ing and bowling to her ludicrously.