He was a type of the average prairie farmer, and his whole surrounding
was typical of the time. He had a quarter-section of fine level land,
bought with incredible toil, but his house was a little box-like
structure, costing, perhaps, five hundred dollars. It had three rooms
and the ever-present summer kitchen at the back. It was unpainted and
had no touch of beauty,--a mere box.

His stable was built of slabs and banked and covered with straw. It
looked like a den, was low and long, and had but one door in the end.
The cow-yard held ten or fifteen cattle of various kinds, while a few
calves were bawling from a pen near by. Behind the barn, on the west
and north, was a fringe of willows forming a "wind-break." A few broken
and discouraged fruit trees, standing here and there among the weeds,
formed the garden. In short, he was spoken of by his neighbors as "a
hard-working cuss, and tol'ably well fixed."

No grace had come or ever could come into his life. Back of him were
generations of men like himself, whose main business had been to work
hard, live miserably, and beget children to take their places when they
died.

His courtship had been delayed so long on account of poverty that it
brought little of humanizing emotion into his life. He never mentioned
his love-life now, or if he did, it was only to sneer obscenely at it.
He had long since ceased to kiss his wife or even speak kindly to her.
There was no longer any sanctity to life or love. He chewed tobacco and
toiled on from year to year without any very clearly defined idea of the
future. His life was mainly regulated from without.

He was tall, dark, and strong, in a flat-chested, slouching sort of way,
and had grown neglectful of even decency in his dress. He wore the
American farmer's customary outfit of rough brown pants, hickory shirt,
and greasy wool hat. It differed from his neighbors' mainly in being a
little dirtier and more ragged. His grimy hands were broad and strong as
the clutch of a bear, and he was a "terrible feller to turn off work,"
as Councill said. "I'd ruther have Sim Burns work for me one day than
some men three. He's a linger." He worked with unusual speed this
morning, and ended by milking all the cows himself as a sort of savage
penance for his misdeeds the previous evening, muttering in
self-defence:--

"Seems 's if ever' cussid thing piles on to me at once. That corn, the
road-tax, and hayin' comin' on, and now _she_ gits her b