lay like dams along the fences) and vanished, leaving the
corn-rows littered with huge blocks of ice. Often we came in from the
pond, wet to the middle, our boots completely soaked with water. They
often grew hard as iron during the night, and we experienced the
greatest trouble in getting them on again. Greasing them with hot
tallow was a regular morning job.

Then came the fanning mill. The seed grain had to be fanned up, and that
was a dark and dusty "trick" which we did not like anything near as well
as we did skating or even piling wood. The hired man turned the mill, I
dipped the wheat into the hopper, Franklin held sacks and father scooped
the grain in. I don't suppose we gave up many hours to this work, but it
seems to me that we spent weeks at it. Probably we took spells at the
mill in the midst of the work on the chip pile.

Meanwhile, above our heads the wild ducks again pursued their northward
flight, and the far honking of the geese fell to our ears from the
solemn deeps of the windless night. On the first dry warm ridges the
prairie cocks began to boom, and then at last came the day when father's
imperious voice rang high in familiar command. "Out with the drags,
boys! We start seeding tomorrow."

Again we went forth on the land, this time to wrestle with the tough,
unrotted sod of the new breaking, while all around us the larks and
plover called and the gray badgers stared with disapproving bitterness
from their ravaged hills.

Maledictions on that tough northwest forty! How many times I harrowed
and cross-harrowed it I cannot say, but I well remember the maddening
persistency with which the masses of hazel roots clogged the teeth of
the drag, making it necessary for me to raise the corner of it--a
million times a day! This had to be done while the team was in motion,
and you can see I did not lack for exercise. It was necessary also to
"lap-half" and this requirement made careful driving needful for father
could not be fooled. He saw every "balk."

As the ground dried off the dust arose from under the teeth of the
harrow and flew so thickly that my face was not only coated with it but
tears of rebellious rage stained my cheeks with comic lines. At such
times it seemed unprofitable to be the twelve-year-old son of a western
farmer.

One day, just as the early sown wheat was beginning to throw a tinge of
green over the brown earth, a tremendous wind arose from the southwest
and blew with such devas