d bright, burning over the darkened
wheat-fields, when Kurt and Jerry reached home. Kurt had never seen the
farm look like that--ugly and black and bare. But the fallow ground,
hundreds of acres of it, billowing away to the south, had not suffered
any change of color or beauty. To Kurt it seemed to smile at him, to bid
him wait for another spring.

And that thought was poignant, for he remembered he must leave at once
for "Many Waters."

He found, when he came to wash the blood and dirt from his person, that
his bruises were many. There was a lump on his head, and his hands were
skinned. After changing his clothes and packing a few things in a
valise, along with his papers, he went down to breakfast. Though
preoccupied in mind, he gathered that both the old housekeeper and Jerry
were surprised and dismayed to see him ready to leave. He had made no
mention of his intentions. And it struck him that this, somehow, was
going to be hard.

Indeed, when the moment came he found that speech was difficult and his
voice not natural.

"Martha--Jerry--I'm going away for good," he said, huskily. "I mean to
make over the farm to Mr. Anderson. I'll leave you in charge here--and
recommend that you be kept on. Here's your money up to date.... I'm
going away to the war--and the chances are I'll never come back."

The old housekeeper, who had been like a mother to him for many years,
began to cry; and Jerry struggled with a regret that he could not speak.

Abruptly Kurt left them and hurried out of the house. How strange that
difficult feelings had arisen--emotions he had never considered at all!
But the truth was that he was leaving his home forever. All was
explained in that.

First he went to the graves of his father and mother, out on the south
slope, where there were always wind and sun. The fire had not desecrated
the simple burying-ground. There was no grass. But a few trees and
bushes kept it from appearing bare.

Kurt sat down in the shade near his mother's grave and looked away
across the hills with dim eyes. Something came to him--a subtle
assurance that his mother approved of his going to war. Kurt remembered
her--slow, quiet, patient, hard-working, dominated by his father.

The slope was hot and still, with only a rustling of leaves in the wind.
The air was dry. Kurt missed the sweet fragrance of wheat. What odor
there was seemed to be like that of burning weeds. The great, undulating
open of the Bend extended on t