Every morning the sun came up a red ball, quickly drank the dew, and started a quivering excitement in all living things. In great harvest seasons like that one, the heat, the intense light, and the important work in hand draw people together and make them friendly. Neighbours helped each other to cope with the burdensome abundance of man-nourishing grain; women and children and old men fell to and did what they could to save and house it. Even the horses had a more varied4 and sociable5 existence than usual, going about from one farm to another to help neighbour horses drag wagons6 and binders7 and headers. They nosed the colts of old friends, ate out of strange mangers, and drank, or refused to drink, out of strange water-troughs. Decrepit8 horses that lived on a pension, like the Wheelers’ stiff-legged Molly and Leonard Dawson’s Billy with the heaves — his asthmatic cough could be heard for a quarter of a mile — were pressed into service now. It was wonderful, too, how well these invalided9 beasts managed to keep up with the strong young mares and geldings; they bent10 their willing heads and pulled as if the chafing11 of the collar on their necks was sweet to them.
The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated12 and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted13 world. Horses and men and women grew thin, seethed14 all day in their own sweat. After supper they dropped over and slept anywhere at all, until the red dawn broke clear in the east again, like the fanfare15 of trumpets16, and nerves and muscles began to quiver with the solar heat.
For several weeks Claude did not have time to read the newspapers; they lay about the house in bundles, unopened, for Nat Wheeler was in the field now, working like a giant. Almost every evening Claude ran down to the mill to see Enid for a few minutes; he did not get out of his car, and she sat on the old stile, left over from horse-back days, while she chatted with him. She said frankly17 that she didn’t like men who had just come out of the harvest field, and Claude did not blame her. He didn’t like himself very well after his clothes began to dry on him. But the hour or two between supper and bed was the only time he had to see anybody. He slept like the heroes of old; sank upon his bed as the thing he desired most on earth, and for a blissful moment felt the sweetness of sleep before it overpowered him. In the morning, he seemed to hear the shriek18 of his alarm clock for hours before he could come up from the deep places into which he had plunged19. All sorts of incongruous adventures happened to him between the first buzz of the alarm and the moment when he was enough awake to put out his hand and stop it. He dreamed, for instance, that it was evening, and he had gone to see Enid as usual. While she was coming down the path from the house, he discovered that he had no clothes on at all! Then, with wonderful agility20, he jumped over the picket21 fence into a clump22 of castor beans, and stood in the dusk, trying to cover himself with the leaves, like Adam in the garden, talking commonplaces to Enid through chattering23 teeth, afraid lest at any moment she might discover his plight24.
Mrs. Wheeler and Mahailey always lost weight in thrashing time, just as the horses did; this year Nat Wheeler had six hundred acres of winter wheat that would run close upon thirty bushels to the acre. Such a harvest was as hard on the women as it was on the men. Leonard Dawson’s wife, Susie, came over to help Mrs. Wheeler, but she was expecting a baby in the fall, and the heat proved too much for her. Then one of the Yoeder daughters came; but the methodical German girl was so distracted by Mahailey’s queer ways that Mrs. Wheeler said it was easier to do the work herself than to keep explaining Mahailey’s psychology25. Day after day ten ravenous26 men sat down at the long dinner table in the kitchen. Mrs. Wheeler baked pies and cakes and bread loaves as fast as the oven would hold them, and from morning till night the range was stoked like the fire-box of a locomotive. Mahailey wrung27 the necks of chickens until her wrist swelled28 up, as she said, “like a puff-adder.”
By the end of July the excitement quieted down. The extra leaves were taken out of the dining table, the Wheeler horses had their barn to themselves again, and the reign29 of terror in the henhouse was over.
One evening Mr. Wheeler came down to supper with a bundle of newspapers under his arm. “Claude, I see this war scare in Europe has hit the market. Wheat’s taken a jump. They’re paying eighty-eight cents in Chicago. We might as well get rid of a few hundred bushel before it drops again. We’d better begin hauling tomorrow. You and I can make two trips a day over to Vicount, by changing teams, — there’s no grade to speak of.”
Mrs. Wheeler, arrested in the act of pouring coffee, sat holding the coffee-pot in the air, forgetting she had it. “If this is only a newspaper scare, as we think, I don’t see why it should affect the market,” she murmured mildly. “Surely those big bankers in New York and Boston have some way of knowing rumour30 from fact.”
“Give me some coffee, please,” said her husband testily31. “I don’t have to explain the market, I’ve only got to take advantage of it.”
“But unless there’s some reason, why are we dragging our wheat over to Vicount? Do you suppose it’s some scheme the grain men are hiding under a war rumour? Have the financiers and the press ever deceived the public like this before?”
“I don’t know a thing in the world about it, Evangeline, and I don’t suppose. I telephoned the elevator at Vicount an hour ago, and they said they’d pay me seventy cents, subject to change in the morning quotations32. Claude,” with a twinkle in his eye, “you’d better not go to mill tonight. Turn in early. If we are on the road by six tomorrow, we’ll be in town before the heat of the day.”
“All right, sir. I want to look at the papers after supper. I haven’t read anything but the headlines since before thrashing. Ernest was stirred up about the murder of that Grand Duke and said the Austrians would make trouble. But I never thought there was anything in it.”
“There’s seventy cents a bushel in it, anyway,” said his father, reaching for a hot biscuit.
“If there’s that much, I’m somehow afraid there will be more,” said Mrs. Wheeler thoughtfully. She had picked up the paper fly-brush and sat waving it irregularly, as if she were trying to brush away a swarm33 of confusing ideas.
“You might call up Ernest, and ask him what the Bohemian papers say about it,” Mr. Wheeler suggested.
Claude went to the telephone, but was unable to get any answer from the Havels. They had probably gone to a barn dance down in the Bohemian township. He event upstairs and sat down before an armchair full of newspapers; he could make nothing reasonable out of the smeary34 telegrams in big type on the front page of the Omaha World Herald35. The German army was entering Luxembourg; he didn’t know where Luxembourg was, whether it was a city or a country; he seemed to have some vague idea that it was a palace! His mother had gone up to “Mahailey’s library,” the attic36, to hunt for a map of Europe, — a thing for which Nebraska farmers had never had much need. But that night, on many prairie homesteads, the women, American and foreign-born, were hunting for a map.
Claude was so sleepy that he did not wait for his mother’s return. He stumbled upstairs and undressed in the dark. The night was sultry, with thunder clouds in the sky and an unceasing play of sheet-lightning all along the western horizon. Mosquitoes had got into his room during the day, and after he threw himself upon the bed they began sailing over him with their high, excruciating note. He turned from side to side and tried to muffle37 his ears with the pillow. The disquieting38 sound became merged39, in his sleepy brain, with the big type on the front page of the paper; those black letters seemed to be flying about his head with a soft, high, sing-song whizz.
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1
belching
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| n. 喷出，打嗝 动词belch的现在分词形式 | |
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lumbered
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| 砍伐（lumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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3
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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6
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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7
binders
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| n.（司机行话）刹车器；（书籍的）装订机( binder的名词复数 )；（购买不动产时包括预付订金在内的）保证书；割捆机；活页封面 | |
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decrepit
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| adj.衰老的，破旧的 | |
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9
invalided
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| 使伤残（invalid的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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11
chafing
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| n.皮肤发炎v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的现在分词 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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12
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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13
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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14
seethed
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| （液体）沸腾( seethe的过去式和过去分词 )； 激动，大怒； 强压怒火； 生闷气(~with sth|~ at sth) | |
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15
fanfare
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| n.喇叭；号角之声；v.热闹地宣布 | |
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16
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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20
agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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picket
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| n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫 | |
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22
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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23
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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24
plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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25
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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ravenous
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| adj.极饿的，贪婪的 | |
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27
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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28
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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29
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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30
rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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31
testily
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| adv. 易怒地, 暴躁地 | |
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32
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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33
swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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34
smeary
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| 弄脏的 | |
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35
herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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36
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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37
muffle
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| v.围裹；抑制；发低沉的声音 | |
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38
disquieting
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| adj.令人不安的，令人不平静的v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的现在分词 ) | |
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39
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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