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“You didn’t get over to Mrs. Bradley’s this afternoon, then?” Burke said, at supper.

“No,” she replied, shortly, “I had some sewin’ to do.”

“Wal, go to-morrow. That’s an awfully cute little chap–that baby,” he went on, after a little. “Mrs. Bradley let him set on my knee to-day.” Then he sighed. “I wisht we had one like ‘im, Blanche.” After a pause, he said, “Mebbe God will send one some day.”

She didn’t appear to hear, and her face was dark with passion.

IV

AUGUST

Now the settlers began to long for rain. Day after day vast clouds rose above the horizon, swift and portentous, domed like aerial mountains, only to pass with a swoop like the flight of silent, great eagles, followed by a trailing garment of dust. 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. The sun was hidden by the cloud, and as he passed a shanty Rivers saw the family eating their supper outside the door to escape the smothering heat.

He smiled as he saw the gleam of white dresses about the door of the store. As he drove up, a swarm of impatient folk came out to meet him. The girls waved their handkerchiefs at him, and the men raised a shout.

“You’re late, old man.”

“I know it, but that makes me all the more welcome.” He heaved the mail-bag to Bailey. “There’s a letter for every girl in the crowd, I know, for I wrote ’em.”

“We’ll believe that when we see the letters,” the girls replied.

He dismounted heavily. “Somebody put my team up. I’m hungry as a wolf and dry as a biscuit.”

“The poor thing,” said one of the girls. “He means a cracker.”

Estelle Clayton came out of the store. “Supper’s all ready for you, Mr. Mail-Carrier. Come right in and sit down.”

“I’m a-coming–now watch me,” he replied, with intent to be funny.

The girls accompanied him into the little living-room.

“Oh, my, don’t some folks live genteel? See the canned peaches!”

“And the canned lobster!”

“And the hot biscuit!”

“Sit down, Jim, and we’ll pour the tea and dip out the peaches.”

Rivers seated himself at the little pine table. “I guess you’d better whistle while you’re dipping the peaches,” he said, pointedly.

Miss Thompson dropped the spoon. “What impudence!”

“Oh, let him go on–don’t mind him,” said Estelle. “Let’s desert him; I guess that will make him sorry.”

Upon the word they all withdrew, and Rivers smiled. “Good riddance,” said he.

Miss Baker presently opened the door, and, shaking a letter, said, “Don’t you wish you knew?”

He pretended to hurl a biscuit at her, and she shut the door with a shriek of laughter.

Mrs. Burke slipped in. Her voice was low and timid, her face sombre.

“I cooked the supper, Jim.”

“You did? Well, it’s good. The biscuits are delicious.” He looked at her as only a husband should look–intimate, unwaveringly, secure. “You’re looking fine!”