Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1899-12-07
Observation-Disclosures
Cupid in a Cyclone
17LAsTA looked wistfully out of her

IILASTA looked wistfully out of her
Y small-paned window, deep-set in
the heavy sod wall, and sighed.
The piles of unwashed dinner dishes
over which she was at work hardly ac-
counted for that sigh and the view
without was pleasant rather than 9TH
erwise.
1t was Sunday afternoon in the late
June, hot and unusually still for that
windy country, but the rolling
stretches of prairie grass and the green
fields of young wheat and corn still
held the freshness of early spring.
But the cloud, mo larger than a
mans hand" is always present in some
form or other.
One was at that moment rising lazily
on the western horizon, over the low
green hills, just as faint summer
cloud, unseen by the girl, whose eyes
were fixed on nearer, and, to her,
much more attractive object. This, as
is apt to be the case when maidens sigh,
was a young man, who, on the other
side of barbed wire fence some little
distance away, was busily engaged in
washing his buggy, which was rolled in
front of his own little sod house.
He was of middle size, dark haired
and featured like herself, and clad in
the careless costume of overalls and
jacket of blue denim, and dingy from
exposure to sun and weather, and the
battered sombrero of light felt, which
were usual in his everyday occupation
Of farming.
AS anyone familiar with that part of
the country could tell at glance, they
were young Bohemians, members of
that great army of hardy settlers who
have made homes for themselves in the
previously untitled west.
But hearts will be hearts in every
place, and Juliet may pine for her
Romeo in ancient castle no more than
in humble sod house, as did this COM
monplace little heroine, with her plain
but kindly face.
Now, by custom immemorial Sunday
is the rural holiday everywhere, and it
is especially so among our foreign-born
citizens, who on that day sally forth,
clad in their best, ready for visiting
and merrymaking and seeing no incon-
gruity between church and mass in the
morning and dance in the afternoon
and evening.
So, considering this, it seemed that
the young settler, Albrecht Hollub,
should be on pleasure bent, and the
signs indicated that so he was, or
soon should be. Herein lay the sting
which changed for her the sunshine of
that glorious June day to gloom.
For Albrecht was "going riding" in
his new buggy going without her,
and, no doubt, with some other girl
when it was really her place on that
seat beside him.
And had she not proudly occupied it
until that unlucky night not yet two
weeks ago, but seeming half life
time, as girls short lifetime goes?
Such little thing, too, as is general
~ the case, to have caused all this
trouble. She was not sure how Albrecht
felt. Perhaps he was glad to get rid of
her-here two great tears dropped into
the dishpan at the thought. Just a
dance at a young friends wedding-it
being their custom for bridal party
to go to a justice or county judge to
have the ceremony performed and then
to return to the brides home for grand
celebration, which usually lasted all
night. Then foolish quarrel, when
Albrecht, heated by excitement and
beer, had insisted that she danced too
often with the brides elder brother.
She had refused to listen to him, of
course, with the result that he had
walked out into the darkness and had
never seen her since.
Perhaps she had sought covertly, and,
NO doubt, awkwardly, to find an oppor-
tunity of making amends, but he had ig-
nored or avoided her, though they lived
on adjacent claims; hence, for her, at
least, bitter days and nights. She felt
vaguely, in her simple fashion, the hard
ness of the woman's code which bids
her swat and weep in silence, a rule
that has broken many besides country
hearts like hers. And all this time the
cloud in the west was rising. 1t looked
much like puff of black smoke now,
and there were others, not so dark,
climbing up beside it.
The dishes were finished and put away
in the kitchen ''safe," or cupboard, and
the girl sat down by her window-she
was very fond of that window in those
6ays-and gazed absently out. The
landscape was left desolate to her, for
Albrecht had disappeared, probably to
attire himself for his outing.
Her father nodded in the shady door
way over his long, curved pipe. In the
inner room her mother discoursed
volubly1to her second daughter in her
natiye,tongue, which is never forgotten
II the sold people" at least. The shouts
the numerous younger children came
from without, where they romped
among the farm wagons and machinery,
and tk1S horses and cattle grazed con-
tentedly on the fenced-in prairie that
formed the pasture. It was all homely,
but peaceful, and presently the girls
eyes, heavy with un3ccustomed vigils,
closed. She did natsee the cloud rapid