"And what does that mean?" I asked.

"That means," they explained, "It will be dry."

"Jupiter" said John, as he leisurely rolled a cigarette, "circumnavigates the sun once while the earth goes around it twelve times. In Russia Jupiter's position got between the sun and the constellation Pisces, Aries, Taurus and Gemini, it was invariably wet and cool and small grain crops were good, but as it passed on and got between the sun and the constellations Libra and Scorpio it was always followed by a minimum of rainfall and a maximum heat, which caused a severe drouth."

They had hoped it would be different in America, but explained further that when they had lived in Russia it commenced to get dry around St. Petersburg, Warsaw and all northern Russia a year or so before it did in southern Russia.

They had relatives living around Menno, in Hutchinson County, South Dakota, who had witnessed the disastrous drouth during Cleveland's administration. Jupiter was nearing the position it had then occupied and would, in sixty days, be at the same position it had been at that time.

While few people pay any attention to weather "dopsters," I did a little thinking and remembered it had been dry in southern Illinois at that time, and I began to feel somewhat uneasy. According to their knowledge, if the same in southern America as it had been in southern Russia, it would begin to get dry about a year before the worst drouth, then a very dry year, the third year would begin to improve, and after the fourth year conditions would again become normal, but the concensus of their opinion was there would be a drouth.

CHAPTER XLI

Table of Contents

THE DROUTH

A CLOUDY and threatening day in May, there came an inch of rainfall. I had completed sowing two hundred and fifty acres of flax a few days before, and soon everything looked beautiful and green. I felt extremely hopeful.

During the six years I had been farming in Dakota, I had raised from fair to good crops every year. The seasons had been favorable, and if a good crop had not been raised, it was not the fault of the soil or from lack of rainfall. The previous year had not been as wet as others, but I had raised a fair crop, and at this time had four hundred and ten acres in crop and one hundred and ten acres rented out, from which I was to receive one third of the crop. I had come west with hopes of bettering my financial condition and had succeeded fairly well.

Around me at this time others had grown prosperous, land had advanced until some land adjoining Megory had brought one hundred dollars per acre, and land a few miles from town sold for fifty to eighty dollars per acre.