CHAPTER XII

There was very little crop that fall. The settlers learned that sod-corn never amounts to much. What few ears formed, Will fed on the stalk.

“I don’t care. I’m not disappointed,” he said, “I knew it would take a year to get a start.”

But Abbie knew it was not so. Abbie knew that Will cared.

The stubble and roots, rotting all winter in the newly broken fields, fertilized the ground, and so it was with high hopes that Will went into the field the first spring of the ’seventies.

Abbie’s summer was one of fighting sickness, in addition to her many tasks. Both children had the measles and the whooping cough later, as did the Reinmuellers’ three and Sarah Lutz’s new baby daughter, Emma. The mothers doctored them as well as they could with simple remedies, catnip tea and Indian herbs, hanging over their beds, watching anxiously for every change. When her children came out from under the cloud of illness, Abbie felt that it was like coming out of a dark cavern into the sunshine. Once more she sang at her tasks.

The crop of 1870 was only fair. So much hard work for so little results! Nothing but the cottonwoods seemed to thrive luxuriantly. Already after their second summer, some of those which they had brought from the sand-bars were as tall as Will. Their little shimmering, dancing leaves were a solace to Abbie. They seemed courageous and cheerful, undaunted by the hot sun, undisturbed by cold rains, unafraid of the rushing winds.

Will had set out an orchard now. Oscar and Henry Lutz had sent east to their brother for nursery stock, and the Reinmuellers and Deals ordered fruit trees, too. The spindling whips of apples and cherries with their names still tied upon them, looked a rather hopeless lot rambling row upon row over the raw prairie.

There was always so much to be done. One never could satisfy the demands of Work, that taskmaster which drove every one in the new country before the lash.

Sometimes Abbie would stand at the door of the soddie and look across the unshaded prairie where the sunflowers added their brilliant yellow to the blinding yellow of the sun, and standing so for a few moments, she would think of the lovely lady with the bronze tints in her reddish hair. She had wanted to be like her. But how could one be a lovely lady when there was not always enough water to keep immaculately clean?

Will was her strength and her courage. In one of her hours of depression she had only to confide her mood to him, to have it lifted by his optimism.

“Everything is going to be all right,” he would assure her. “Think of the Burlington road reaching Lincoln last week. Think of it! Building right up,—everything is.”

“Yes, but Will,—there are so many things we need. And I want, . . . Oh, Will . . . I want an organ so bad. I’ll be twenty-four this fall . . . and my music . . .”