, 1925-04-15

beginning OF April TO the nrSt or NO
vember. but Selma fought savagely
for his schooling, and won.
"Sobig isn't a truck farmer"
"Well, he will be pretty Time
l was fifteen | was running our place"
Verbally Selma did not combat this.
But within her every force was gather
ing to fight it when the time should
come. Her Sobig a truck farmer, a
slave to he soil. bent by 1t, beaten by
it, blasted by it. so that he, in time,
like the other men of High Prairie,
would taxi on the very look of the
rocks and earth among which they
toiledi
Dirk. at eight, was a none too hand
some child. considering his father and
mother-or his father and mother as
they had been. 1t was not until he
was or eighteen that he was
to metamorphose suddenly into a
graceful and aristocratic youngster
with an indefinable look about him of
distinction and actual elegance.
Selma was n farm woman now, near
ing thirty. The work rode her as it
had ridden Maartje Pool. In the De-
obhS ydIu there was always d uduo u
washing. Faded overalls, n shirt,
socks, a boys drawers grotesQuely
patched n mended, towels Of rough
sacking. She, too, rose at four. snatched
up slapeless garments, invested her
self with them, seized her great coil of
fine cloudy hair, twisted it into a
utilitarian knob and skewered it with
a hairpin from which the varnish had
long departed, leaving 1t a dull gray;
thrust her slim feet into shapeless
shoes, dabbed her face with old water.
hurried to the kitchen stove. The work
was always at her heels, Its breath hot
on her neck.
Seeing her thus one would have
thought that the Selma Peake of the
wine-red cashmere, the ~fun-loving dis
position. the high-spirited courage, had
departed forever. But these things
still persisted. For that matter, even
the wine-red cashmere chung TO ex-
istence. So hopelessly ~old-fashioned
now as to be almost picturesque, 1t
hung in Selina's closet like a rose
memory. Sometimes when she came
upon it in an orgy of cleaning she
"phih pass i'i ohSh ~ offi u
soft folds and by that magic process
Mrs. Pervus DeJong vanished in a
pouf and in her place was the girl
Selma Peake perched a-tiptoe on a
soap box in Adam Ooms' hall while all
High Prairie, open-mouthed, looked on
as the impecunious Pervus DeJong
threw ten hard-earned dollars ut her
feet.
IL would be gratifying TO be able to
record that in these eight or nine years
Selma had been able to work wonders
on the DeJong farm; that the house
gllttered, the crops tlirlved richly. the
barr housed sleek cattle. But 1t could
not be tr%uthfully said. True, she had
achieved some changes, but at the cost
Of terrific effort. A less lndomitable
woman would have sunk into apathy
years before. The house had a coat Of
palnt-lead-gray, because 1t was cheap
est. There were two horses-the sec
ond n brokOsl-down old mare, blind In
eye, that they had picked up for
FIVE dollars after 1t had been turned
out to pasture for future sale as horse
carcass. A month Of rest and pastur-
g restored the mare to usefulness.
Selma had mad the bargain. and Per
vus had scolded her roundly for 1t.
Now he drove the mare to market. saw
that she pulled more sturdily than the
other horse, but had never retracted.
II was no quality OF meanness in him.
Pervus merely was like that.
But the west sixteen! That had
been Selina's most heroic achievement.