CHAPTER XXVI 

DROUGHT 

The wheat was growing tall and changing to a darker shade; when the wind swept through it, it undulated like the waves of a vast green sea, rippling silver and white where the light played on the bending blades. 

Harding lay among the dusty grass in a dry sloo, and Hester sat beside him in the blue shadow of the big hay wagon. Since six o'clock that morning Harding and Devine had been mowing prairie hay. They had stopped long enough to eat the lunch Hester had brought them; and now Devine had returned to his work, and sat jolting in the driving-seat of a big machine as he guided three powerful horses along the edge of the grass. It went down in dry rows, ready for gathering, before the glistening knife, and a haze of dust and a cloud of flies followed the team across the sloo. Harding's horses stood switching their tails in the sunshine that flooded the plain with a dazzling glare. 

"It was rough on Fred that you wouldn't let him finish his pipe," Harding said. 

"He went obediently," Hester answered with a smile. "I wanted to talk to you." 

"I suspected something of the kind; but I can't see why you must stop me now." 

"You are away at daybreak and come home late." 

"Very well," said Harding resignedly. "But I've got to clean up this sloo by dark." 

"Then you're not going to the Grange? You haven't been since Sunday." 

"Beatrice understands that I'm busy." 
Was his machine large or small?
and sat jolting in the driving-seat of a big machine 