The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1936-01-30

half way down to the yard. Sud
denly every fiber Of her being was
alert to a sound in the air that was
more than the burning flow of the
wind. She knew at once that the
sound had been present from the
moment when she had gone up the
hill, that her pre-occupation with
her own thoughts had shut it out
It was a brisk drone, muffled and
yet somehow sharp, as keep sound
might strike on the ear of person
partly deaf. Silver glanced appre-
hensively about her, then upward
at the sun. It seemed now that the
hot chatter in the air was increas-
ing in volume with every second.
She saw Roddy and Steve drive
in from the highway in the truck
and stop in the shadow of the
barns. She hurried back down the
hill and into the yard. On the hard,
level ground in front Of the barn,
where a tarpaulin had been spread,
Roddy and Steve had dumped a
quantity of bran. In a large tin con-
tainer, old Roderick was mixing
water, arsenic and molasses. So
phronia was standing to one side,
! watching the men
Phronie!" Silver cried. "What are
you doing out here?"
"Bein' out here won't do me as
much harm as sittin' in the house
and worryin'," Sophronia retorted.
"Steve, you old galoot. you're let
tin that bran run off on the ground,
there"
Silver stepped forward and lifted
the edge of the tarpaulin and shook
the bran back into place. Then old
Roderick poured the arsenic mix
ture over the pile of bran while
Rody and Steve turned the mash
over and over with scoop shovels.
Each then took a corner of the
tarpaulin and lifted it into the
truck. Roddy climbed up and seated
himself at the wheel.
''You get into the house and lie
down, Phronie," Silver commanded
severely. "I'm going out and help
spread it."
She climbed into the seat beside
Roddy, while Steve and old Rod
derrick stood up on the truck floor
behind them.
you'd better put these gloves on
then," Roddy said, tossing a pair of
white cotton gloves into her lap. He
did not look at her as he started the
engine and drove the truck down
over the bunny slope.
Silver drew the gloves over her
hands.
"And don't let any of this stuff
get on your skin," he admonished
further. ut burns"
'I'Il be careful" she promised.
They bumped along for some dis
lance in silence.
els there something I have to
learn-about scattering the bran?o
Silver ventured finally.
There's right way and wrong
way" Roddy told her. Scatter it in
dakes-not in Jumps. We don't want
the cattle to get dose of it. They
might uncover it in the fall and
cattle don't thrive on poison, as a
usual thing. Just watch the way
Steve does it."
"Cripes!" Steve exclaimed in an
awed voice as they came to the
edge of the field. 1.-THE little devels
are on the job. for sure!"
l. For more than three hours, Rod
dy drove slowly over the fallow
fields and the wild-hay meadows,
over sod land and weedy ground,
and back and forth at regularly
spaced intervals across the great
cornfeld, crushing down stalks that
must be sacrificed. Old Roderick,
Steve and. Silver, standing up in the
truck, cast the fakes of mash into
the wind with a sharp snap Of the
wrist as Roddy had cautioned them
to do.
The air had become infested as
though by swift, green-brown hail
which swept horizontally along the
earth. The hysterical sound Of the
advancing hordes of insects indi.
vdualized itself hideously on the
senses, and in the scorching heat
seemed, to Silver, to be burrowine
into her brain. The grasshoppers, in
their insane, headlong fight, bat.