XXXIII

There was no rippling water or shimmering moonlight to aid romance when Asa Seagers went courting Melissa Croft. Asa only knew that water, unknown on his dry farm, was a scarce and precious article for miles around. That the full moon sometimes saved him the price of a lantern as he plodded over belated chores. His courtship was act vated by the knowledge that dryfarmers need wives-a man cannot grub sagebrush and cook beans and rice at the same time. In all his twenty-six years Asa had known no romance; no thrills, no rapturous, rose-hued youth. Life to him was toil and he accepted his portion with apathetic stoicism.

Yet with far seeing insight he chose Melissa Croft because she was young, strong, and accustomed to work. The eldest of ten, Melissa knew how to cook, how to harness a team, how to cut wood. She knew

how to cut and brine fresh pork, how to weather all the hardships of dry farm life.

On a cool October evening, when the shadows changed to purple as they enveloped the sagebrush flats, Asa sat and courted Melissa on the little bench outside the Croft home. They could not sit indoors, as sleep. ing accomodations for the other nine Croft children occupied all available

space.

No. 2

"What do you say, Meliss', to going over to Susoon with me next Tuesday and gettin' married?" Asa looked at Melissa as though there were nothing unusual in so abrupt a proposal of matrimony. "I gotta

go," he continued in a matter-of-fact tone, "I got a load of cedar posts to deliver to Martin and purty soon the reads will get too blamed cut up for travelin.' I gotta check up on my wheat-I took over ten loads you know-and I want to order my poison for next spring, and I guess I'll pay my taxes while I'm there, too. I'm a goin' to look at some double disc harrows, and I calculated I might as well take you along and make the one trip do. I don't figure I can spare the time to make a special trip just to get spliced. Might as well get my jobs all done at once, 'fore the winter sets in. What do you say, Meliss'?"

Melissa did not demur or feign surprise. She knew what it meant when dry farmers took the time to call on marriageable girls. She knew no future other than marriage, she was prepared for no other career. The women of the valley all married young, bore children, toiled, drudged, and died before their alloted years. Her people expected her to marry; there were other children growing up in the

family who needed the scant portion which was now hers.

"Might as well be then as any time I guess," answered Melissa, who had had no other suitors, who had never indulged in day dreams or pictured a Prince Charming. "Ma can spare me easy. Tillie's big 'nough now to take my jobs.".

"I'll be goin' on home then," answered Asa, rising stiffly for the night was cool. "Takes considerabl' time to cover them five miles, an' I gotta get three barrels of water down to the spring. I won't be comin' over agin 'fore Tuesday-wastes too much time. You come down to the main road Tuesday morning, and I'll pick you up. Be sure you get there by six, for it'll be a long 'nough day as 'tis." He took up his hat to leave, and then, as if impelled by the ghost of some chivalric ancestor, he added:

"You can make a list of the things you'll need for the house. Necessary things," he emphasized, "like cups and plates and a stew kettle or two. There's a stove over there to the house, an' three chairs and bed, besides some hit and miss things to eat out of, so you won't be needin' much of a list. I know I got a good price for my wheat, but 'twasn't 'nough to buy a disc harrow and gewgaws for the house. So don't put down no trimmings," he cautioned, as he strode off into the darkness, his corduroy trousers creaking as he walked. There was no lovers' embrace, no farewell kiss, for Asa and Melissa were children of toil to whom romance was yet unknown.

On the following Tuesday morning Melissa stood by the gate waiting for Asa. She was early. She did not intend to delay his progress, inevitably slow, due to the heavy load of posts and the almost impassable reads. Long before it was light

enough to see his outfit, Melissa knew Asa was coming. The lurching, creaking noise of the wagon wheels over the frozen, rutty ground carried far in the morning silence, and mingled with the howl of a hungry coyote and the angry answer of a watch dog. The gray mists rose slowly from the sagebrush stretches, revealing lone cedar trees and patches of fallowed ground. From distant cabins faint curls of smoke rose skyward, while Melissa waited and shivered in the penetrating mist.

As he reached the gate Asa stopped his steaming horses, slapped his numb hands together and made room for Melissa on the folded sheep skin atop the load.

"It's a good thing you're here so as not to keep me waitin'," was his commonplace greeting. "We'll be late gettin' home tonight anyhow, the roads is so cut up. Climb up, so we can make the dugway 'fore the frost. leaves the ground." He did not offer to help her up; he did not even cramp the front wheels for her convenience, and Melissa, unaccustomed to courtesy, was not disappointed. By the aid of the front hub, the standard, and the logging chain she climbed to her place on the high load. "All ready?" inquired Asa. "Get up!" he commanded, and the strange bridal party moved slowly along the frozen, uneven, high centered road.

When the sun had finally conquered the shadows and lingering fog Asa passed the reins to Melissa. "It's level here and easy drivin'," he said, "so you can guide the team while I read that list of things we'll have to get for the house. Watch where you turn 'em-mighty easy to tip over this big load."

He took the little piece of paper Melissa handed him and laboriously studied its contents, while his body

swayed to the lurching of the wagon. "Holy Machinaw!" he muttered, a look of concern marking his unshaven face. "What do you aim to do, girl, with all them things? Do you think these cedars are sacks o' gold? Where's my harrow comin' off at, and the poison and taxes? Won't be nuthing left for nuthin' else, if I buy all them things you've writ down," he finished.

"There ain't nuthin there we don't need," defended Melissa, steering from a deep rut. There ain't a single bit of bedding-I got all we need," she added modestly. "Four quilts filled with wool pickings and four sugar sack sheets. Mrs. Watson give me the sacks from her store for doin' her washin'," she added, "and I set 'em together good."

"Well you ask for six cups with saucers," contended Asa, "and two water buckets. And I don't see how any woman needs a dish pan and wash boiler both to once. If she's got one she can make it do for the other."

"We might have company," replied Melissa, still clinging to her standards of household efficiency, "and we'd need saucers to cups."

"An' we might not have company," replied Asa. "We're goin' to work till I get my whole claim cleared and broke. There won't be no time for visitin' in our life now.

We'll get the cups, but saucers is trimmings. Guess we can stand for one bucket and one large dish pan too. You can boil your clothes in that. Looks like we'll have to get the other things you got down, but saucers is nuthin' but plain trimmings. Guess that school teacher woman put such fancy notions in your head last winter, eh?" As he finished speaking Asa drew his pencil through the word "saucers," pocketed the list and appropriated the reins.

Arrived at Susoon Asa delivered his posts, put his team in the feed yard and guided his bride-to-be to the courthouse. He reluctantly parted with three dollars for a marriage license, only to learn that the judge was in court and could not perform the ceremony until court adjourned.

"You sit here and wait for me, Meliss'," directed Asa, indicating a bench in the uninviting hall. "I can do most of my errands while we wait. Then we'll get married and start right home."

"O let me go with you to the stores, Asa," there was a note of hopeful pleading in Melissa's voice. "I love to look at the pretty things. They don't ever have real nice things in the store back home."

"You'd want to look and look and buy," Asa seemed to know the accredited failing of womankind. "I know how women folks do. They get a feller in a place where he can't say no and then they ask for things. Buckets is buckets and cups is cups. I'll do the shopping quick," he added doggedly, "order all my things an come back here to pay the taxes. I guess the judge will be through by then."

Left alone Melissa gazed about her in wonderment. The stained, smoky walls told a tale of ancient neglect and silent dreams; the linoleum covered floor suggested possibilities for the little ranch house, if only Asa had let her go along with him, perhaps

came

She drew herself up sharply at the sound of voices. A door had opened, revealing a room partly filled with people. A man through the doorway, plainly amused over some incident. Melissa, soulhungry, yet uncomprehending, quickly determined that her wedding day should know some diversion. If she

could not window shop, she could at least see the life of the courthouse.

"Can I go in there and listen?" she asked the man with sudden bravery.

"I guess you can, Miss," he replied still smiling. "There's no law against your listening same as the other folks in there. It's an eye opener though, I'll tell you that to start with," he added, "a regular family row. Better'n a movie. Some talker, that woman. She's sure putting up a scrap for her kid!" he finished.

Melissa slipped quietly into the court room. It was not as diverting as the stores would have been, but more attractive than the bleak hall. The Judge, a middle aged man with a face seamed with lines of sympathy and patience, was listening to the complaints of the two parties to a divorce suit.

"Every time I buy a piece of farm machinery," grumbled the man, big, stolid, and unkempt; "she complains about what she ain't got in the house. She's always wanting dishes, or blinds, or screen doors, or something like they have in city houses. Money can't go two ways to once, I tells her, but she won't let up, and this last time she fussed over a wash boiler. When I tells her no, she up and sues fur divorce. Give it to her says I, but not the kid, and no alimony nuther. She'll soon come back. She can't make her own livin'!"

"I can! I will!" The woman interrupted in her eagerness to be heard. "I've worked side by side with him for goin' on ten year; I've guided his plow, chopped wood, and hauled water. I've herded sheep and cooked for threshers. I reckon I can turn my hand to most anything to make a livin' for us two. I'm strong and well and willin' to work, and I want the boy. He's mine! I'll take

as

him where he can learn something besides how to dry coyote skins and catch squirrels. I'll keep him in school; I'll make him a man to respect women folks. I can cook and wash and sew. I don't want no money from him. Just to be free, and to have the law's word that the boy is mine. O judge, give him to me! Flesh of my flesh, I've worked for him for 'em both. But he" indicating her husband, "he don't care what we have in the house so long there's 'nough food to eat. He don't care that I pack water most a block with only one bucket, when I might as well carry two. We only got two teacups-the boy ain't never been to school, but his dad don't care. Give him to me Judge, and I'll raise him right! I swear I will!" She held out two calloused, toiledscarred hands in supplication; then suddenly lapsed into silence, her shoulders drooping into accustomed lines of hopeless despair. Her figure was prematurely old, her face parched, drawn, and brown; her scanty drab hair twisted into a hard knot. Only her eyes seemed to retain youth. They gleamed with a subtle fire of determination, while one arm subconsciously tightened around the wondering boy at her side.

Melissa Melissa sat spellbound. Water buckets, teacups, and boilers! Did all men object to household furnishings? Could woman never have the little things which brighten the monotony of household tasks? Her brain seemed struggling in a maze of saucers, water barrels, buckets, and trimmings. She seemed to look into a horoscope of her own life. The faded, yet belligerent woman was her own self in the not far distant future. The resentful, stolid, self-absorbed man was Asa incarnate-perhaps there might be a child over whose