Often they lifted in the west
with fine promise, only to go muttering and bellowing by to the north or
south, leaving the sky and plain as beautiful, as placid, and as dry as
before. The people grew anxious, and some of them became bitter, but the
most of them kept up good courage, feeling certain that this was an
unusual season.
One sultry day, while Rivers was on his way out to the store, he fell to
studying the sky and air. On the prairie, as on the sea, one studies
little else. There was something formidable in every sign. In the west a
prodigious dome of blue-black cloud was rising, ragged at the edge, but
dense and compact at the horizon.
"That means business," Rivers said to himself, and chirped to his team.
The air was close and hot. The southern wind had died away. There was
scarcely a sound in all the landscape save the regular clucking of the
wagon-wheels, the soft, rhythmical tread of the horses' feet, and the
snapping buzz of the grasshoppers rising from the weeds. Far away to the
west lay the blue Coteaux, thirty miles distant, long, low, without
break, like a wall.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46