rose into the air,--the creaking of axles, the
jolt of iron tires over the dry clods, the click of brittle stubble
under the horses' hoofs, the barking of dogs, the shouts of conversation
and laughter.

The entire line, horses, buggies, wagons, gigs, dogs, men and boys on
foot, and armed with clubs, moved slowly across the fields, sending up
a cloud of white dust, that hung above the scene like smoke. A brisk
gaiety was in the air. Everyone was in the best of humor, calling
from team to team, laughing, skylarking, joshing. Garnett, of the
Ruby Rancho, and Gethings, of the San Pablo, both on horseback, found
themselves side by side. Ignoring the drive and the spirit of the
occasion, they kept up a prolonged and serious conversation on an
expected rise in the price of wheat. Dabney, also on horseback, followed
them, listening attentively to every word, but hazarding no remark.

Mrs. Derrick and Hilma sat in the back seat of the carry-all, behind
young Vacca. Mrs. Derrick, a little disturbed by such a great concourse
of people, frightened at the idea of the killing of so many rabbits,
drew back in her place, her young-girl eyes troubled and filled with
a vague distress. Hilma, very much excited, leaned from the carry-all,
anxious to see everything, watching for rabbits, asking innumerable
questions of Annixter, who rode at her side.

The change that had been progressing in Hilma, ever since the night of
the famous barn-dance, now seemed to be approaching its climax; first
the girl, then the woman, last of all the Mother. Conscious dignity, a
new element in her character, developed. The shrinking, the timidity of
the girl just awakening to the consciousness of sex, passed away from
her. The confusion, the troublous complexity of the woman, a mystery
even to herself, disappeared. Motherhood dawned, the old simplicity
of her maiden days came back to her. It was no longer a simplicity of
ignorance, but of supreme knowledge, the simplicity of the perfect, the
simplicity of greatness. She looked the world fearlessly in the eyes.
At last, the confusion of her ideas, like frightened birds, re-settling,
adjusted itself, and she emerged from the trouble calm, serene,
entering into her divine right, like a queen into the rule of a realm of
perpetual peace.

And with this, with the knowledge that the crown hung poised above
her head, there came upon Hilma a gentleness infinitely beautiful,
infinitely pathetic; a sweetness that to