The wheat harvest was over,
and here and there along the horizon I could see black puffs of smoke from
the steam threshing-machines. The old pasture land was now being broken up
into wheatfields and cornfields, the red grass was disappearing, and the
whole face of the country was changing. There were wooden houses where the
old sod dwellings used to be, and little orchards, and big red barns; all
this meant happy children, contented women, and men who saw their lives
coming to a fortunate issue. The windy springs and the blazing summers,
one after another, had enriched and mellowed that flat tableland; all the
human effort that had gone into it was coming back in long, sweeping lines
of fertility. The changes seemed beautiful and harmonious to me; it was
like watching the growth of a great man or of a great idea. I recognized
every tree and sandbank and rugged draw. I found that I remembered the
conformation of the land as one remembers the modelling of human faces.
When I drew up to our old windmill, the Widow Steavens came out to meet me.
She was brown as an Indian woman, tall, and very strong. When I was
little, her massive head had always seemed to me like a Roman senator's. I
told her at once why I had come.
`You'll stay the night with us, Jimmy? I'll talk to you after supper.
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