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TITLE: DUST
AUTHOR: HALDEMAN-JULIUS
EBOOK: E01845 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius

CONTENTS

I.    THE DUST IS STIRRED
II.   OUT OF THE DUST
III.  DUST IN HER HEART
IV.   A ROSE-BUD IN THE DUST
V.    DUST BEGETS DUST
VI.   DUST IN HIS EYES
VII.  MARTIN BATTLES WITH DUST
VIII. THE DUST SMOTHERS
IX.   MARTIN'S SON SHAKES OFF THE DUST
X.    INTO THE DUST-BIN
XI.   THE DUST SETTLES

I

THE DUST IS STIRRED

DUST was piled in thick, velvety folds on the weeds and grass of
the open Kansas prairie; it lay, a thin veil on the scrawny black
horses and the sharp-boned cow picketed near a covered wagon; it
showered to the ground in little clouds as Mrs. Wade, a tall,
spare woman, moved about a camp-fire, preparing supper in a
sizzling skillet, huge iron kettle and blackened coffee-pot.

Her husband, pale and gaunt, the shadow of death in his weary
face and the droop of his body, sat leaning against one of the
wagon wheels trying to quiet a wailing, emaciated year-old baby
while little tow-headed Nellie, a vigorous child of seven,
frolicked undaunted by the August heat.

"Does beat all how she kin do it," thought Wade, listlessly.

"Ma," she shouted suddenly, in her shrill, strident treble, "I
see Martin comin'."

The mother made no answer until the strapping, fourteen-year-old
boy, tall and powerful for his age, had deposited his bucket of
water at her side. As he drew the back of a tanned muscular hand
across his dripping forehead she asked shortly:

"What kept you so long?"

"The creek's near dry. I had to follow it half a mile to find
anything fit to drink. This ain't no time of year to start
farmin'," he added, glum and sullen.

"I s'pose you know more'n your father and mother," suggested
Wade.

"I know who'll have to do all the work," the boy retorted,
bitterness and rebellion in his tone.

"Oh, quit your arguin'," commanded the mother. "We got enough to
do to move nearer that water tonight, without wastin' time
talkin'. Supper's ready."

Martin and Nellie sat down beside the red-and-white-checkered
cloth spread on the ground, and Wade, after passing the still
fretting baby to his wife, took his place with them.

"Seems like he gets thinner every day," he commented, anxiously.

With a swift gesture of fierce tenderness, Mrs. Wade gathered
little Benny to her. "Oh, God!" she gasped. "I know I'm goin' to
lose him. That cow's milk don't set right on his stomach."

"It won't set any better after old Brindle fills up on this
dust," observed Martin, belligerency in his brassy voice.

"That'll do," came sharply from his father. "I don't think this
is paradise no more'n you do, but we wouldn't be the first who've
come with nothing but a team and made a living. You mark what I
tell you, Martin, land ain't always goin' to be had so cheap and
I won't be living this time another year. Before I die, I'm goin'
to see your mother and you children settled. Some day, when
you've got a fine farm here, you'll see the sense of what I'm
doin' now and thank me for it."

The boy's cold, blue eyes became the color of ice, as he
retorted: "If I ever make a farm out o' this dust, I'll sure 'ave
earned it."

"I guess your mother'll be doin' her share of that, all right.
And don't you forget it."

As he intoned in even accents, Wade's eyes, so deep in their
somber sockets, dwelt with a strange, wistful compassion on his
faded wife. The rays of the setting sun brought out the drabness
of her. Already, at thirty-five, grey streaked the scanty, dull
hair, wrinkles lined the worn olive-brown face, and the tendons
of the thin neck stood out. Chaotically, he compared her to the
happy young girl--round of cheek and laughing of eye--he had
married back in Ohio, fifteen years before. It comforted him a
little to remember he hadn't done so badly by her until the war
had torn him from his rented farm and she had been forced to do a
man's work in field and barn. Exposure and a lung wound from a
rebel bullet had sent Wade home an invalid, and during the five
years which had followed, he had realized only too well how
little help he had been to her.

It is not likely he would have had the iron persistency of
purpose to drag her through this new stern trial if he had not
known that in her heart, as in his, there gnawed ever an
all-devouring hunger to work land of their own, a fervent
aspiration to establish a solid basis of self-sustentation upon
which their children might build. From the day a letter had come
from Peter Mall, an ex-comrade in Wade's old regiment, saying the
quarter-section next his own could be bought by paying annually a
dollar and twenty-five cents an acre for seven years, their hopes
had risen into determination that had become unshakable. Before
the eyes of Jacob and Sarah Wade there had hovered, like a
promise, the picture of the snug farm that could be evolved from
this virgin soil. Strengthened by this vision and stimulated by
the fact of Wade's increasing weakness, they had sold their few
possessions, except the simplest necessities for camping, had
made a canvas cover for their wagon, stocked up with smoked meat,
corn meal and coffee, tied old Brindle behind, fastened a coop of
chickens against the wagon-box and, without faltering, had made
the long pilgrimage. Their indomitable courage and faith,
Martin's physical strength and the pulling power of their two
ring-boned horses --this was their capital.

It seemed pitifully meager to Wade at that despondent moment,
exhausted as he was by the long, hard journey and the sultry
heat. Never had he been so taunted by a sense of failure, so torn
by the haunting knowledge that he must soon leave his family. To
die--that was nothing; but the fears of what his death might mean
to this group, gripped his heart and shook his soul.

If only Martin were more tender! There was something so ruthless
in the boy, so overbearing and heartless. Not that he was ever
deliberately cruel, but there was an insensibility to the
feelings of others, a capacity placidly to ignore them, that made
Wade tremble for the future. Martin would work, and work hard; he
was no shirk, but would he ever feel any responsibility toward
his younger brother and sister? Would he be loyal to his mother?
Wade wondered if his wife ever felt as he did--almost afraid of
this son of theirs. He had a way of making his father seem
foolishly inexperienced and ineffectual.

"I reckon," Wade analysed laboriously, "it's because I'm gettin'
less able all the time and he's growing so fast--him limber an'
quick, and me all thumbs. There ain't nothing like just plain
muscle and size to make a fellow feel as if he know'd it all."

Martin had never seemed more competent than this evening as,
supper over, he harnessed the horses and helped his mother set
the little caravan in motion. It was Martin who guided them to
the creek, Martin who decided just where to locate their camp,
Martin who, early the next morning, unloaded the wagon and made a
temporary tent from its cover, and Martin who set forth on a
saddleless horse in search of Peter Mall. When he returned, the
big, kindly man came with him, and in Martin's arms there
squealed and wriggled a shoat.

"A smart boy you've got, Jacob," chuckled Peter, jovially, after
the first heart-warming greetings. "See that critter! Blame me if
Martin, here, didn't speak right up and ask me to lend 'er to
you!" And he collapsed into gargantuan laughter.

"I promised when she'd growed up and brought pigs, we'd give him
back two for one," Martin hastily explained.

"That's what he said," nodded Peter, carefully switching his navy
plug to the opposite cheek before settling down to reply, "and
sez I, 'Why, Martin, what d'ye want o' that there shoat? You
ain't got nothin' to keep her on!' 'If I can borrow the pig,' sez
he, 'I reckon I can borrow the feed somewheres.' God knows, he'll
find that ain't so plentiful, but he's got the right idea. A new
country's a poor man's country and fellows like us have to stand
together. It's borrow and lend out here. I know where you can get
some seed wheat if you want to try puttin' it in this fall.
There's a man by the name of Perry--lives just across the
Missouri line--who has thrashed fifteen hundred bushel and he'll
lend you three hundred or so. He's willing to take a chance, but
if you get a crop he wants you should give him back an extra
three hundred."

It was a hard bargain, but one that Wade could afford to take up,
for if the wheat were to freeze out, or if the grasshoppers
should eat it, or the chinch bugs ruin it, or a hail storm beat
it down into the mud, or if any of the many hatreds Stepmother
Nature holds out toward those trusting souls who would squeeze a
living from her hard hands--if any of these misfortunes should
transpire, he would be out nothing but labor, and that was the
one thing he and Martin could afford to risk.

The seed deal was arranged, and Martin made the trip six times
back and forth, for the wagon could hold only fifty bushels.
Perry lived twenty miles from the Wades and a whole day was
consumed with each load. It was evening when Martin, hungry and
tired, reached home with the last one; and, as he stopped beside
the tent, he noticed with surprise that there was no sign of
cooking. Nellie was huddled against her mother, who sat, idle,

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