The Aberdeen Democrat. (Aberdeen, South Dakota) 1???-1909, 1903-03-13

Cacti flourish. One kind gets as large
as flour barrel nearly, and twenty
to thirty feet high. Animal life is
armed with sting and venom. The
rattler, Gila monster, tarantula, scor-
pion, centipede, and more feared than
all the hydrophobic skunk, are ready
for deadly aggression or defense. On
these sands when the hot season is
burning there will be dead calm for
awhile and then little whirls will move
around circle enclosing space twen-
ty or thirty yards across. The wind
will blow in varying directions for ten
or fifteen minutes and all will subside
to a calms again. But it does not al.
ways end $50 mildly. Sometimes, per-
haps once a day, a strong down rush
will drive the dust outward in all d.
rections. The air will become thick
with it, the wind blow fiercely for an
hour or two and subsiding the atmos-
phere is cleared and refreshed.
But presto! When Uncle Sam comes
to himself this will become delecta-
BILE valley in fact. Close by is river
whose waterg in flood time go to
waste. Impound it, turn it on this
valley and thorny shrub and poison
Gus life in contact with better forms
will disappear.
Homes will be built, orchards -four
ish, and grain and alfalfa fields fur
nsh feed for horses, beef and dairy
cattle that will never need shelter ex-
cept shade during the hottest weather
At noontime had a good appetite
a picnic hunger for lunch. Ordinarily
crackers and dried beef are not ap-
petizing but now were very good, and.
iced tea was nectar in the hot desert.
Hers was a fiction, but this was real
Helen,
Here was fiction, but this was real
ity."
+ loitered in the canon and on the
mountain until it was time to start
home. The pony had been restive for
some time and when hitched him to
the buggy and turned his head towards
home he started off with ears pricked
forward and quickened steps.
Back across the irrigating canals
again my road was bordered with
bitches, shade trees. On either hand
were grain or alfalfa fields. In those
that were cut for hay there were big
stacks built high by the aid of der
ricks and horse hay forks. In the
pastures were fine dairy COWS of Jer-
sey, ShofShofh, Holstein and common
stock and fat steers of Shorthorn and
Hereford breeds. Well to do ranchers
took life more leisurely than farmers
in the north who must provide in the
short growing season for long winters.
Nearly everybody slept out of doors.
The houses heat up during the day
to degree that makes sleeping in
them uncomfortable, but out in the
dewless nights sleep is more refresh
ing than in the stuffy bedrooms of the
north Cots and bedding curing the
summer stand out in the shade around
nearly every house.
The sun was nearly down when
4 reached my little home and not even
q a. dog was there to welcome me.
got and ate a hungry mans supper
i picketed the pony, watched the chick
\ ems to roost and shut them fast in
their coops, for coyotes sometimes
came around in the night with vast
q appetites for chicken and love o1
\ slaughter SURPRISING that of mans.
Under the trees in my door yard
= = sat in reclining chair and watched
4 the days light passing in the north
A west The clouds thai a:s Gay hat
q tempered the heat still covered th'
& sky with a circling rim just above th'
q tree tops. Below was a sea of colder
g light that drifted slowly away. Lone
illness and the gloom of a cloudy nigh
crept over me and depressed my spi1
: tbs yet l knew that light would soo1
return in the freshness and beauty Q
morning, and that far away there wer
those who would wait for me. Tire
| went to my cot under the trees an
slept the sleep Of age and wearines'
B. Abbott