The little town behind them had vanished as if it had never been, had fallen behind the swell of the prairie, and the stern frozen country received them into its bosom. The homesteads were few and far apart; here and there a wind-mill gaunt against the sky, a sod house crouch-ing in a hollow. But the great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes. It was from facing this vast hardness that the boy's mouth had become so bitter; because he felt that men were too weak to make any mark here, that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its uninterrupted mournfulness.
The wagon jolted along over the frozen road.
The two friends had less to say to each other than usual, as if the cold had somehow pene-trated to their hearts.
"Did Lou and Oscar go to the Blue to cut wood to-day?" Carl asked.
"Yes. I'm almost sorry I let them go, it's turned so cold. But mother frets if the wood gets low." She stopped and put her hand to her forehead, brushing back her hair. "I don't know what is to become of us, Carl, if father has to die. I don't dare to think about it. Iwish we could all go with him and let the grass grow back over everything."Carl made no reply. Just ahead of them was the Norwegian graveyard, where the grass had, indeed, grown back over everything, shaggy and red, hiding even the wire fence. Carl real-ized that he was not a very helpful companion, but there was nothing he could say.