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The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki
The Black Death
The Dust Bowl
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871
The Hindenburg Disaster of 1937
Hurricane Katrina
The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919
The Johnstown Flood of 1889
The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
of 1906
The Sinking of the Titanic
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Ronald A. Reis
The Dust Bowl

Copyright © 2008 by Infobase Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without
permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact:

Chelsea House
An imprint of Infobase Publishing
132 West 31st Street
New York, NY 10001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reis, Ronald A., 1941-
The Dust Bowl / Ronald A. Reis.
p. cm.—(Great historic disasters)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7910-9737-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Great Plains—History—20th century. 2. Dust Bowl Era, 1931–1939.
3. Great Plains—Social conditions—20th century. 4. Great Plains—Rural
conditions. 5. Depressions—1929—Great Plains. 6. Droughts—Great
Plains—History—20th century. 7. Dust storms—Great Plains—History—
20th century. I. Title.
F595.R365 2008
978'.032--dc22 2008004952

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Contents
Introduction: Blown in the Wind 7
1 Where the Buffalo Roam 11
2 Wheat Fields Rising 22
3 The Good Times and the Bad 33
4 Down and Dusty 44
5 Black Sunday 55
6 Home on the Plains 66
7 California Dreaming 77
8 Nightmares in the Promised Land 88
9 Thunder in the Sky 101
Chronology and Timeline 112
Glossary 114
Bibliography 117
Further Reading 120
Picture Credits 121
Index 122
About the Author 128
introduction:
Blown in the Wind

I
n the 1930s, housewives living on the Great Plains
hung wet sheets and blankets over their windows and
struggled to seal every crack and gap with gummed paper
strips. They fought a daily battle against the wind-howling
Dust Bowl in which they lived.
Still, dust filtered in, penetrating wherever air could go.
In pots and pans, in baby cribs, in food on the table, dust was
everywhere—dust to eat, dust to drink, dust to breathe. Fan-
ning dust left ripples on kitchen floors. By day’s end, a scoop
shovel was needed to clear a house. Farmers, sitting at their
windows, could, in a manner of speaking, count their neigh-
bors’ farms “flying by.”
Outside, folks tied handkerchiefs or wore surgical masks
over their faces and used goggles to cover their eyes. They put
Vaseline in their nostrils to block abrasive particles. In some
locations, the dust was strong enough to scrape paint off a
farmer’s buildings. People avoided shaking hands; the static
electricity gathered from the storm could knock a greeter flat.
People tied themselves to ropes before going to a barn only
dozens of yards away. Children’s tears turned to mud. Farm-
ers and townsfolk alike feared choking to death on a blast of

7
 The Dust Bowl

Bad weather and poor farming techniques resulted in the tragic

Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Huge dust storms destroyed crops and
property in communities in five U.S. states, fueling the country’s
economic problems and leaving people hungry and homeless.

dust-filled air. The simplest thing in life, taking a breath,

became life-threatening.
Animals wandered lost, literally blinded by the storm.
Birds, helpless to escape the onrushing tidal wave of grit,
screeched in fright as they desperately sought to outfly advanc-
ing dust storms. Horses chewed hay filled with dust particles
that sandpapered their gums raw. Sheep choked to death on
dust. Dead cattle, when cut open, were found to be filled with
pounds of gut-clogging dirt.
On May 9, 1934, a particularly vicious dust storm, simi-
lar to the type just described, burst forth from a high-pres-
sure zone over eastern Montana and the Dakotas. Given the
prevailing northwest winds out of the Rocky Mountains, the
 Introduction 

huge wave front blustered eastward, enveloping the vast Great

Plains. This one was a duster to remember.
Normally, such an air mass would raise little concern.
Crops in the field would pitch and sway with the tempest.
Trees would bend and submit to the pressing gales. Folks
would seek shelter indoors for the duration, while animals,
both wild and domesticated, would simply hunker down.
On this blistering May day, however, as the violent Chi-
nook thrust out of the west, few, if any, crops stood in its path.
Prolonged drought had shriveled, killed, or prevented growth
of the wheat, barley, and corn plants. In the spring of 1934,
much of the treeless Great Plains lay barren and fallow, the soil
pulverized and exposed from previous weather torment.
As mighty drafts “harvested” dust from parched fields,
the resulting profusion of dirt rose to 15,000 feet, nearly three
miles high. Airplane pilots reported having trouble climbing
fast enough to escape the onslaught. Eventually, the 900-mile-
wide, 1,800-mile-long duster had gathered in its devastating
path an estimated 300 million tons of farmland—3 tons for
every man, woman, and child alive in the United States. Upon
reaching Chicago, 6,000 tons of dirt descended on rooftops,
streets, and bewildered nighttime pedestrians.
The rolling air mass spread to the East Coast—and
beyond. In New York City, day turned to dusk, as only half the
Sun’s normal brightness penetrated. Baseball players even had
trouble tracking fly balls.
Over Boston, dust fell like snow. Sailors, up to 300 miles
out on the Atlantic, stood perplexed as dust, mixed with fog,
turned their air a hazy, murky orange. By the time “The great-
est dust storm in United States history,” according to the New
York Times, had ended, more than half the nation had been del-
uged with its “droppings.” Many people were convinced that
Armageddon was at hand—that Judgment Day had arrived.
This storm brought the plight of Midwest farmers to the
attention of eastern urban dwellers. Yet it was not the first
10 The Dust Bowl

Dust Bowl duster. Nor was a similar storm that arose in South
Dakota and reached Albany, New York, on Armistice Day,
November 11, 1933. Considered, nonetheless, an omen of the
hundreds of windblown miseries to come, the tortured tempest
was “a wall of dirt one’s eyes could not penetrate, but it could
penetrate the eyes and ears and nose,” R.D. Lusk reported
in the Saturday Evening Post. “It could penetrate to the lungs
until it coughed up black.”
Then, on April 14, 1935, the “mother of all dusters,”
referred to simply as “Black Sunday,” rained its ruin through-
out a vast expanse, particularly the high southern Great
Plains, centered on the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles. A
man could not see his own hand in front of his face, so black
had day turned into night.
Black Sunday, where, according to Timothy Egan in The
Worst Hard Times, “The storm carried away twice as much
dirt as was dug out of the earth to create the Panama Canal,”
was not the last of the horrors. No blind stroke of nature, the
Dust Bowl dusters of the “Dirty Thirties” had their origins
in human error: the misuse of a precious resource, the land.
What happened, why it happened, how those affected coped,
and what can be learned from the tragedy is the story of the
Dust Bowl, considered by many to be America’s worst pro-
longed environmental disaster.
 where the
buffalo roam

T
wo bull bison, each weighing a ton and each
about six feet tall and ten feet long, are going
head-to-head, their curved horns butting in angry
confrontation. It is mating season in mid-nineteenth-century
Montana on the upper reaches of the Great Plains, and it is
late August.
Moments earlier, each bull had attempted, through a show
of bravado, to avoid direct physical contact. Nine-out-of-ten
times it would have worked—one bull backing down in the
face of huffing-and-puffing dominance. Not now, however.
The younger of the two bulls makes a tactical blunder,
exposing his flank to his older, more experienced antagonist.
His opponent takes advantage of his position and delivers a
fatal blow. In a week or two, the younger bull, weakened, will
likely die. The victorious bull, of course, has won “his” cow. In
approximately 40 weeks, a calf will be born. The bison herd
survives and multiplies.
Bison, also known as American buffalo, have their natu-
ral enemies. Wolves will attack calves, at times consuming
up to half a small herd’s offspring. Grizzly bears can pose a

11
12 The DusT Bowl

sporadic threat. And bloodsucking ticks use bison as a place

to grow. But in this time and place, the bison have few wor-
ries. As they travel in massive herds over the vast plains, they
reign supreme. Able to withstand temperatures from 20˚F
below zero to 120˚F above, the awesome creatures dominate
and grow. And though with their shaggy brown coats, and
massive heads and forequarters, buffalo look cumbersome
and slow to move, they can jump up to 6 feet high and run up
to 40 miles per hour. They are not to be trifled with. Bison
are the Great Plains’s keystone breed. Shortly before the Civil

hunting buffalo—
a matter of survival

Hunting buffalo may have been sport for the white man,
but it was a matter of survival for Native Americans. For the
Plains Indian hunters, the buffalo was the largest source of
food, decorations, and crafting tools. Hide, hair, tail, hoof
and feet, horns, meat, skin of hindleg, rawhide—not a single
part of the animal was wasted.
Riding horses, Native Americans could overtake a
buffalo, shooting the beasts at point-blank range with a
specially designed, reduced-size bow. Even with the intro-
duction of rifles, most Plains Indians preferred to stick to
bows and arrows, finding guns too heavy and difficult to
load on a moving horse.
Only the bravest men were allowed to hunt buffalo. They
followed strict rules, keeping quiet and advancing only in
groups. It was not an easy task to kill a buffalo, but, to sustain
a tribe, it had to be done.
 Where the Buffalo Roam 13

War, they were the most numerous single species of large,

wild animal on Earth.
Just how expansive these beasts became in their heyday is
open to some debate. One authority, the late Dale Lott (author
of American Bison), put the number at nearly 30 million, though
less-informed investigators are often willing to double that fig-
ure. Even when split into numerous herds, a sea of brown pre-
vailed. An earlier traveler could spend days moving cautiously
among the plodding mammals. Some herds stretched for mile
upon mile over the flat, near-empty Great Plains.
To survive and multiply, such an animal needed to
minimize contact with predators, and also to find plenty to
consume in its typical 18- to 20-year life span. The Great
Plains provided buffalo with abundance. The buffalo ate buf-
falo grass, or prairie sod—“God’s grass, the native carpet of
plenty,” as author Timothy Egan called it.

The Lone Prairie

Early maps of the Great Plains referred to it as “The Great
American Desert.” Late-seventeenth- and early eighteenth-
century explorers were little impressed with the land that
stretched from southern Canada on the north to northern
Mexico on the south, with the Rocky Mountains to the west
and the Mississippi River on the east. All they saw of the little
ground they actually traversed was a featureless flatland—
except for an unending mass of grass.
Today, the Great Plains is known as “America’s Breadbas-
ket”—a cornucopia of wheat, barley, and corn. It was not always
so. Up until recently, the Great Plains was thought good for
only one thing—feeding buffalo. The one-million-plus square
miles of Great Plains began forming about 20 million years
ago. As the uplifted Rocky Mountains in the west drained
their snowpacks, deposits of rock and debris flowed eastward.
Eventually, over millions of years, the huge basin that is the
Great Plains was filled in. Glacier rubble, too, contributed to
14 The Dust Bowl

the earth mass, as periodic waves of ice fields, in some cases

two miles thick, expanded and contracted.
With the Rocky Mountains acting as a “rain shadow” par-
tially blocking moist air from the Pacific, the western part of
the prairie dried out to become semi-arid. Today, the region is,
in some locations, a virtual desert.
Then there is the wind, continuous and intense, with its
ever-present gusts and gales. Winter, spring, summer, or fall,
the winds are there. In the winter, freezing “northers,” as they
are called, can put ice on parts of Texas and Oklahoma. Dur-
ing summer, warm air from the Gulf of Mexico and hot, dry
air from the Southwest can turn parts of the Great Plains into
an outdoor oven.
Thus the climate and weather patterns of the Great Plains
contributed to a soil-rich land that, above all else, favored
grasses. In the easternmost third of the plains, where rains
are more plentiful (up to 40 inches a year), tallgrasses, such
as Indian grass and switchgrass, are found. Big bluestem
grass can grow 12 feet high and at a rate of half an inch a day.
(Mothers would worry that their playful children would get
hopelessly lost in its fibers, trapped as in a maze.)
West of the tallgrass belt are the mixed grasses. Rainfall here
is diminished, from 23 to 30 inches a year, and the soil is less
productive than farther east. Mixed grasses, such as little blue-
stem, green needlegrass, and prairie dropseed, grow waist-high.
The shortgrass plains, westward, in the reflection (rain
shadow) of the Rockies, has an annual rainfall of less than 15
inches. Plants grow 6 to 12 inches high. Buffalo grass dominates
the region. It is, for the most part, where the millions of bison,
before their near extermination by humans, chose to roam.

America’s Serengeti
Even as humans arrived and eventually spread on to the
Great Plains by way of the “Bering Land Bridge,” the bison
continued to multiply. Indians, dressed to deceive in buffalo
 Where the Buffalo Roam 15

skins, successfully scared small herds into snowdrifts and

onto ice sheets, and then killed them with bladed spears. But
such hunting methods, developed over the centuries, hardly
made a dent in bison numbers. The bison had been living on
the land for at least 5,000 years.
Things changed significantly for Native People, however,
when Spaniards reintroduced horses in the late-sixteenth
century. By 1700, Plains Indians were racing horses along-
side stampeding buffalo, thrusting lances into their bellies
or launching arrows from their sinew-strung bows. The kill
count went up considerably. But still the buffalo herds grew.
When the Civil War ended in 1865, however, the hunt
for buffalo took on a new, deadlier twist. The white man had
found sport in killing bison. Aided by the development of a
new, powerful killing tool, the Sharps Sporting Rifle, hunt-
ers descended on the Great Plains for the fun of the kill. This
weapon provided a breech mechanism strong enough to handle
the large cartridges needed to kill buffalo at great range. The
vast American prairie quickly became the “new” Serengeti; it
was the place to hunt large, wild animals.
Perhaps the most famous of such buffalo hunters was Buf-
falo Bill Cody. In January 1872, he took Grand Duke Alexis of
Russia on a safari rivaling anything East Africa had ever seen.
Preparation for the hunt included six ambulances, 20 extra
saddle horses, and a company of cavalry soldiers led by none
other than General George Armstrong Custer. In just one day,
the hunt yielded 56 bison trophies.
Still, even with the killing of American buffalo as sport,
buffalo continued to roam, continued to find pasture, and, if
not to increase, to at least sustain themselves.
It was the post–Civil War government policy of moving
Plains Indians off the plains and onto reservations in order to
promote cattle ranching that first took a serious toll on buffalo
numbers. The reasoning was simple: If you killed the buffalo,
you destroyed the Indians’ source of sustenance.
16 The Dust Bowl

In an attempt to displace Native Americans, the new Americans

settling in the Great Plains aggressively hunted buffalo, the
Indians’ primary food source. Buffalo Bill Cody (above left)
worked with the U.S. government to establish hunting seasons
as a means to protect the animals from extinction, as well as
advocating for the fair treatment of Native Americans.

General Philip Sheridan, of the United States Army, sum-

marized the “unofficial” government view on extermination,
both animal and man, when he told the Texas legislature in
1875: “These men (the buffalo hunters) have done more in
two years, and will do more in the next two years, to settle
the vexed Indian question, than the entire regular army has
done in thirty years. . . . Let them kill, skin, and sell until
the buffaloes are exterminated. . . . Then your prairie can be
 Where the Buffalo Roam 17

covered with speckled cattle and the festive cowboy. . . fore-

runner of an advanced civilization.”
That said, there is no question about what finally brought
the American buffalo to near extinction in a matter of a
decade—the discovery, in the early 1870s, of a method of tan-
ning buffalo hides. Commercial hunting for buffalo skins, now
used for everything from luggage to industrial conveyer belts,
was the final, devastating development that did the bison in.
The herds could not withstand the big, commercial enter-
prises organized to take them out. According to The American
People: Creating a Nation and a Society, Volume II, “Teams of
one or two professional hunters, backed by a team of skinners,
gun cleaners, cartridge reloaders, cooks, wranglers, black-
smiths, security guards, teamsters, and numerous horses and
wagons, took to the plains. Men were even employed to recover
and re-cast lead bullets taken from the carcasses.”
In a single two-year period, 1872–1873, government agents
estimated that nearly 25 million buffalo were killed. By
decade’s end, the job was done. The country was lucky if in
the mid-1880s there were a thousand wild buffalo left on the
Great Plains.

American Cowboy
With the buffalo gone, and the Indians killed or driven onto
reservations in places such as the Oklahoma Territory, the
Great Plains’s ecology was torn asunder. Buffalo and sod had
existed in a symbiotic relationship for thousands of years. Now
that one element, the buffalo, had been removed, there needed
to be a replacement. Cattle seemed to be a good substitute. The
demand for beef was there. With cities expanding in the East,
the market for cattle products, food and otherwise, exploded.
Getting steers to their destination was the problem, however.
In some cases, herds had to be driven up to 1,200 miles
to railheads, such as the one in Kansas City, Missouri. There,
cattle were loaded onto railroad stock cars and transported
18 The Dust Bowl

live (“on-the-hoof”) to regional processing centers. Cattle that

were not then slaughtered for local markets were smoked and
shipped east in barrels of salt. The cattle drive was a wasteful,
draining process, with cattle losing precious pounds along the
way or dying prematurely. With the invention of refrigerated
railcars in the early 1870s, however, cattle could be dressed, or
prepared, locally and sent east under cold storage. If done cor-
rectly, cattle ranching on the Great Plains in the last quarter of
the nineteenth century could be quite profitable.
Enter the American cowboy, or, more to the point, the
Texas cattleman.
In 1879, the Texas legislature, wanting to build the biggest
state capital in the nation, appropriated 3 million acres of land
to finance its construction. A Capitol Syndicate of investors
was formed that would construct the capital for around $3 mil-
lion in exchange for the agreed-upon acreage in the western
part of the Texas Panhandle.
Known as the XIT Ranch, because the initials formed a
brand that was hard to alter and thus would thwart rustlers,
the vast spread would, in time, become the largest ranch under
fence in the world. By 1887, the XIT employed 150 cowboys,
riding 1,000 horses and branding 35,000 calves a year. Cow-
boys lived at various stations on the ranch but went into the
local towns, extensions of rail feeder lines, to whoop it up
on weekends. It was the Wild West of the twentieth-century
American imagination.
But the XIT had trouble making money. In fact, it never
had a profitable year. Cattle, unlike buffalo, are fragile crea-
tures. In particular, they do not like cold weather. The winter
of 1885–1886 nearly wiped out cattle herds throughout the
southern plains. The following season, the same thing hap-
pened up north. According to Timothy Egan, “Cowboys joked
that they could walk the drift line, where snow piled up along
fences north of the Canadian River, for 400 hundred miles,
into New Mexico, and never step off a dead animal.”
 Where the Buffalo Roam 19

XIT investors became nervous. Maybe it was time to put

their original game plan into action, one that envisioned sell-
ing off the ranch in parcels for agriculture use. To do that, of
course, they would need to promote settlement. The public
would need to be convinced that the miles and miles of prairie
sod, which had never been turned over to any extent, could be
farmed. Sodbusters would have to be lured into the southern
Great Plains.

Drought, Wind, and Fire

Droughts, blizzards, hailstorms, flash floods, tornadoes, grass
fires—living on the Great Plains, particularly the high, south-
ern plains, meant exposure to such varied weather moods (and
natural disasters), which were rarely found elsewhere on Earth.
Add unrelenting winds, with few if any natural barriers to
inhibit their flow, and it was a tough place to make a go of it.
When wind and drought combined with lack of vegetation, the
latter resulting from prairie fires, there existed a phenomenon
that, while not unique to the Great Plains, was, nonetheless, a
dominant naturally occurring characteristic—the dust storm.
In 1855, the (Lawrence) Kansas Free State newspaper
reported: “The dust, which is most annoying, is a resultant
of the burning of the prairies, and will not exist after the
annual fires have abated. Neither will they harm us after the
grass shall get high enough to prevent the wind from taking
up the surface, and hurling it with so much force through
the atmosphere.”
In the spring of 1893, a Nebraska farmer recalled, as
reported in Douglas Hurt’s The Dust Bowl, “Every time we
went out of doors in this storm, it was necessary to wear rags
of some kind over our faces to keep the sand from literally cut-
ting the skin off our bodies.”
Drought, wind, and fire were what made the “dust-
ers.” However, in spite of droughts (some lasting years), the
unplowed grasslands of the Great Plains were not subject to
20 The Dust Bowl

After buffalo were hunted to near extinction, cattle were brought

in to supply the rising demand for beef in the growing cities of
the eastern United States. Cattle ranches like Texas’s XIT (above)
proved a tremendous drain on natural land resources.

major soil erosion. The deep, interconnecting roots of prairie

sod grasped the soil. And the roots reached down for the little
water there was.
XIT cowboys had to dig down for water, too. The cattle,
unlike the buffalo they replaced, needed more to drink than
what the heavens could provide. Throughout the huge ranch
expanse, no less than 325 water-pumping windmills were
required to suck liquid from the huge Ogallala Aquifer, one of
the world’s largest underground lakes. For cattle to survive on
the Great Plains, human intervention was required.
To grow crops, however, would require pure luck. Late-
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century technology did not
allow for bringing an aquifer’s water up in significant quan-
tities for irrigation purposes. For farmers to succeed on the
 Where the Buffalo Roam 21

southern plains, they would have to look skyward for water. It

was a chancy proposition, something XIT cowboys knew only
too well. As their way of life retreated and the cowhands saw
sodbusters moving in, they had a warning for their new neigh-
bors: “The Panhandle is no place to break sod! The Panhandle
is good for only one thing—growing grass.”
 wheat
Fields rising

“N
o Man’s land” they called it—a strip of
flat prairie, 35 miles wide and 210 miles long,
lying between the Texas Panhandle on the
south and Kansas on the north. The name was a legal descrip-
tion, since the land was not attached to any state or territory
until 1890. “Miles to water, miles to wood, and only six inches
to hell,” XIT ranch hands described it, as reported in The
Worst Hard Time. It was the most wind-raked, least arable part
of the Great Plains. “No Man’s Land” became the epicenter of
the Dust Bowl dusters to come.
The Homestead Act of 1862 brought settlers west at the
close of the Civil War, slowly at first, then in a virtual stam-
pede. Passed by Congress to stimulate settlement of the plains,
the act offered each head of a household a quarter section (160
acres) and free ownership after five years. The appeal was irre-
sistible to those seeking the Jeffersonian dream, where every
man is a rural landowner. Homesteaders would eventually
turn over 400 million acres of prairie sod into farmland.
If folks did not come to the plains of their own volition,
they would be drawn there by those eager to sell them what free
homesteading failed to provide. Railroads required settlers,

22
 Wheat Fields Rising 23

Eager to settle Americans into the Plains area, the U.S.

government passed the Homestead Act of 1862, providing land
and ensuring ownership to would-be farmers who were unfamiliar
with the area’s land and climate. Encouraged by the bumper
crops, people moved west to find their fortunes in farming.

customers, and freight to make a profit. Towns needed

growth and development. And land speculators demanded
profits. All combined to lure poor, land-hungry dirt farmers
into what they were promised would be a Garden of Eden in
the “last-chance” West.
There was that problem of water, however, or the lack
thereof. But promoters assured the skeptical that plowing,
planting, and tending the crops would bring on the water. And
sure enough, during the first large-scale agricultural settle-
ment of the Great Plains, particularly the southern plains,
24 The Dust Bowl

during the last decades of the nineteenth century, the rains did
come. From 1880 to 1900 (a short, severe, late-1880s drought
not withstanding), precipitation was above average, and the
first crops flourished. Settlers were encouraged. More and
more of them trekked west.
Indeed, the common wisdom of the time claimed that as
such “nesters” settled in, the better the climate would actu-
ally become. The Timber Culture Act of 1873 was based on
the bizarre belief that if folks planted trees, doing so would
encourage rainfall. It would not be the last time promoters
would claim that “rain followed the plow.”
Yet turning a profit, taking the land beyond subsistence,
would prove difficult. “I tell you Auntie no one can depend
on farming for a living in this country,” a Kansas home-
steader wrote in a letter, as reported in The American People.
“We have sold our small grain. . . and it come to $100; now
deduct $27.00 for cutting, $16.00 for threshing, $19.00 for
hired help. . . and where is your profit? . . . If one wants trials,
let them come to Kansas.”
Still, in spite of it all, that is what they did. “No Man’s
Land” witnessed the greatest land boom in its history. By the
time Oklahoma became a state in 1907, 32,000 settlers had
moved into the Panhandle. By 1910, farmers claimed almost the
entire southern plains, with wheat the cash crop of choice.

Living Where the Living Ain’t Easy

“So here I am, away out in that narrow strip of Oklahoma
between Kansas and the Panhandle of Texas, ‘holding down’
one of the prettiest claims in the Beaver County strip,” began
homesteader Caroline Henderson in a letter to a friend, repub-
lished in Letters from the Dustbowl. “I wish you could see this
wide, free western country, with its great stretches of almost
level prairie, covered with the thick, short buffalo grass, the
marvelous glory of its sunrises and sunsets, the brilliancy of
its starlit sky at night.”
 Wheat Fields Rising 25

Such optimism and hope often turned to anxiety and

despair, however, when prairie farmers began to understand
what few resources were at their disposal. Everything, it would
seem, had to be brought in, so little did nature provide. And if
one did not live within a half-day’s buggy ride of a train depot,
the only recourse was to look downward, to make do with what
was at your feet.
At no time was this more apparent than when it came to
building a house, a dwelling to provide protection against
the cruel world of blizzards, hailstorms, snow, rain, blistering
heat, and the perennial winds.
With no forests on the plains, there was no wood for
construction. In frustration and resignation, poor farmers
turned to the only asset available in abundance. In order to
make bricks, they broke up the very earth they were there to
farm. Such farmers constructed their homes from sod, dirt,
and grass.
Tearing sod out of the ground in the last half of the nine-
teenth century was not an easy task. Sod, the top layer of earth,
includes grass, its roots, and the dirt clinging to the roots.
Tough and tenacious, having evolved to hang on, the roots
gripped the soil and held moisture. Jokingly called “Nebraska
marble,” it took more than a hoe and rake to take sod up.
What was required, of course, was a plow. But not just any
plow. The prairie farmer, it soon became apparent, needed
a “singing plow,” a type developed by John Deere in 1837.
Given its nickname because of the whine the plow made as it
cut through roots and earth, the steel-tipped moldboard did
the job.
House construction began with the cutting of sod bricks 18
inches wide and 24 inches long. Each brick weighed around 50
pounds. It took approximately 3,000 bricks to build a 16 X 20-
foot dwelling. Bricks were laid root-side up so the roots would
continue to grow into the brick above it. Over time, the bricks
grew together to form a strong, tightly bound wall.
26 The Dust Bowl

Without the typical resources ordinarily used to build houses,

like concrete, lumber, and stone, settlers were forced to dig up
the midwestern sod to construct their homes. The Chrisman
sisters, seen here in 1886 in front of their sod house, held three
homestead claims among them and used the land to establish
their family in Nebraska state history.

It took time, lots of it, to build such a house because home-

steaders soon realized that they should not cut more bricks
than they could use in a day. If not stacked soon after cutting,
sod quickly dried, cracked, and crumbled.
The roof was the most difficult and chancy home-con-
struction phase. Layers of brush tied into bundles, along
with mud and sod, were supported by a series of cedar poles.
Such roofs were a constant source of concern and irritation.
According to the National Museum of American History, “Dirt
or water, depending on the weather, fell from the ceiling
most of the time. People hung muslin sheets from the ceiling
 Wheat Fields Rising 27

to keep dirt from dropping into their food or an occasional

snake from falling on to their beds. Roofs that became too wet
sometimes collapsed.”
And, yet, still the farmers came, determined to succeed,
even though 50 percent of all homesteaders would eventually
fail.

Plow, Plant, and Harvest

Success, however, did not mean merely surviving, subsisting
on what varied garden crops could be coaxed out of the ground
and what a few farm animals might provide. The prairie farm-
ers had come to make a living from the land. They sought to
raise crops to sell, to earn money. Farmers wanted to be busi-
nessmen and to be commercial farmers who sold a commodity
to local and distant markets. For the vast majority of them,
from the 1880s on, that product would be wheat.
Cultivation of wheat as a food grain goes back a long way,
9,000 years, to the Middle East. But it was Russian immi-
grants, settling in Kansas in the mid-nineteenth century, who
got wheat growing in America. They brought with them Tur-
key red wheat, a hardy variety that is planted in the fall and
harvested in the spring. In good times, when the rains came,
the Great Plains loved and nurtured it.
While wheat straw will provide livestock bedding, and the
green forage is there for grazing, it is the wheat kernel that is
turned into food for humans. There are approximately 50 ker-
nels in a head of wheat. Each kernel, in turn, consists of bran,
endosperm, and germ. When the kernel is ground into flour,
the flour can be used to make bread.
Taking wheat from seed kernel to breakfast toast involves
many steps and processes. The farmer’s job is to plow the land,
plant the seed, and harvest the wheat. A man marching on foot
behind a horse was lucky if an acre got plowed in a day. With
the introduction of the riding plow, in the late 1870s, however,
the acreage plowed leaped sevenfold.
2 The DusT Bowl

Then, on large farms in the last two decades of the nine-

teenth century, the horse glimpsed his eventual replacement
when steam-powered “road locomotives,” or tractors, appeared.
Bulky and too expensive for all but the wealthiest farmers,
the “traction steam engine,” as it was referred to at the time,
could easily plow 45 acres in a day. When the steam monsters
began to be replaced by gas-powered “automobile plows” in
the second decade of the twentieth century, the acreage farmed
increased even more.
With new, improved farm implements such as tractors,
reapers, threshers, and combines (harvesting machines that
clean grain while moving across a field) coming on the mar-
ket one after the other, as the nineteenth turned into the

The invention of barbed wire

“Don’t fence me in,” is a common phrase identified with

the free-roaming, free-spirited cowboy of the late nineteenth
century. But the truth is, fences were needed throughout
the Great Plains to keep cattle in their place and away from
cultivated farmland. Yet with little wood to construct exten-
sive barriers, somebody had to come up with a fencing that
would work, while leaving the few precious trees there were
for posts. Joseph F. Glidden, of Dekalb, Illinois, was the man
who did it—the man who invented barbed wire.
Eventually, what Glidden patented in 1874 morphed into
more than 570 versions of a wire fashioned with barbs at fixed
intervals. When livestock first encountered the new barrier, it
was usually a painful experience. Some religious groups took
to calling it “The Devil’s Rope.”
 Wheat Fields Rising 29

twentieth century, a Great Plains farmer discovered he could

make a decent living. That is, as long as moisture-laden
clouds watered his fields.

Boom or Bust on
the Southern Plains
Clouds, their presence forever questionable, did not always
deliver. In fact, in the 20-year period from 1895 to 1915,
major droughts occurred throughout the 5-state southern
plains—from Nebraska south into Texas, and west to east
from Colorado to Arkansas.
In 1885, the dry fall and winter killed much of the Okla-
homa wheat crop. When farmers began to plow the crop under,
fierce winds blew much of the pulverized soil away. And on
March 28, 1896, the first major dust storm of the season struck
Dickinson County, Kansas. Drought was followed by wind-
carrying plowed-up dirt—a bad omen.
In the first few years of the twentieth century, more droughts,
followed by more dust storms, spread throughout the southern
plains. From 1910 to 1914, Kansas was as dry as it would be in
the 1930s, when dusters created the Dust Bowl. In the spring of
1912, farmers in Thomas County, Kansas, reported that a 15-
mile-long and 5-mile-wide strip of land simply blew out. Robert
Hurt, writing in The Dust Bowl, declared, “Not a sprig of vegeta-
tion remained to hold the soil, and the ground was as hard as a
city street. . . . The dust storm which this blowout created lasted
only several hours, but it was severe enough to make travel haz-
ardous and it forced residents to light lamps.”
Drought and then dust storms; it was becoming a pattern.
Land left exposed by farmers plowing up every bit of sod
they could was creating real problems. It was causing topsoil
to fly away.
Yet still they came.
There was money to be made in growing wheat. And the
more land a farmer plowed, the more he could earn, given the
30 The Dust Bowl

economics of scale provided by new, powered farm machinery.

If one bought a tractor, a huge expense, it needed to be used.
Land must be cultivated, torn up.
Many farms, however, remained too small to be eco-
nomically viable. Even a half-section (320 acres) was often not
enough. As a result, some farmers gave up and left; they went
back to where they came from. “In God we trusted, in Kansas
we busted,” the saying went. Nonetheless, the reverse flow of
the Great Plains boom-bust cycle never approached the incom-
ing waves of settlers. Drought or not, optimism prevailed.
“Last year was rather disappointing to us in some ways,”
Caroline Henderson wrote to a friend on January 20, 1912.
“Our farm often reminds me of a man who when asked to
embark upon some rather doubtful business venture replied
that if he wanted to gamble he would prefer roulette, I believe,
where the chances were only 32 to 1 against him…. But we are
hoping that the years to come may prove that our faith in the
future of our big lonely country was not mistaken.”

Blockade at the Dardanelles

In 1914, halfway around the world, in a place most Midwest-
erners, in fact most Americans, could not find on a map, there
occurred an event that would serve American wheat farmers
well. It would restore, in a perverted way, their faith in farm-
ing the Great Plains. The Turks blockaded the Dardanelles.
A narrow strait in northwestern Turkey, separating Europe
and the Asian mainland, the Dardanelles—a name derived
from Dardania, an ancient Greek city—is 38 miles long and
only three-quarters of a mile wide at its narrowest point. The
strait empties into the Aegean Sea on the south, which in turn
spills into the vast Mediterranean. On the north, the Dar-
danelles flows into the Sea of Marmara and on through the
Bosporus, into the larger Black Sea. The Mediterranean Sea
provides agricultural product distribution for most of southern
Europe. The Black Sea is an embarkation point for ships car-
 Wheat Fields Rising 31

Many people saw the Homestead Act as their ticket to

prosperity, home ownership, and a future for their family. Above,
homesteaders gather in Oklahoma in 1901 to make land claims.
Under homestead laws, farmers and other settlers could file a
claim on designated public land, live on it, and cultivate the land
to make it their own.

rying goods from parts of Russia. Prior to 1914, one such com-
modity was Russian wheat, grown on the vast western steppes.
With the outbreak of World War I in late 1914, the Turks,
one of the Central Powers in the conflict, sought to block
Allied ships, particularly those of Britain and France, from
entering the Dardanelles at its southern point. They blockaded
the narrow passageway with more than 350 mines. The block-
ade was successful in keeping the Allied Powers at bay, and
it also kept Russian wheat from entering the Mediterranean
Sea. With no Russian wheat to feed the millions of soldiers
32 The Dust Bowl

fighting in the heart of Europe, the desperate Western Allies

turned to farmers in the Midwestern United States. As a result,
American wheat prices rose significantly, and they stayed up
throughout the war, from 1914 to 1918.
In 1910, the price of wheat in the United States stood at
80 cents a bushel. Five years later, thanks to the war, it had
doubled. All of a sudden, farming the Great Plains, dry spells
aside, looked profitable. According to Timothy Egan, “In less
than ten years, [farmers] went from subsistence living to small
business-class wealth, from working a few hard acres with
horses and hand tools to being masters of wheat estates, direct-
ing harvests with wondrous new machines, at a profit margin
in some cases that was ten times the cost of production.”
With Russian shipments blocked, when the United States
entered the war in 1917, the government issued a proclama-
tion to the farmers: “Plant more wheat; wheat will win the
war!” Furthermore, the government was willing to guarantee
grain prices, at two dollars a bushel, throughout the conflict.
“Wheat,” as Egan pointed out, “was no longer a staple of a
small family farmer but a commodity with a price guarantee
and a global market.”
The farmers, to be sure, promptly grew more wheat. By
1917, about 45 million acres of wheat were harvested through-
out the country, most of it from the Great Plains. By 1919, at
the close of the war, that number had shot up to 75 million
acres, an increase of 70 percent in just two short years.
Could it last? Could farmers continue to tear up marginal
lands, those never intended to grow anything but wild grass?
Could dry farming on lands with little rain remain viable?
And what of the effects of the war, the war that was now over.
What would happen to wheat prices as a new decade dawned?
What would the 1920s bring to the self-anointed “wheat kings”
of the Great Plains?
 The good
Times and
the bad

W
orld war I had devastated and destroyed.
Europe was crippled and exhausted. More than
65 million men had been mobilized, of which
more than 10 million died and 20 million were wounded. Of
those numbers, approximately 4.7 million Americans served,
with 53,402 dying in battle and another 63,114 succumbing
to various diseases and related causes. No less than 204,002
Americans were injured.
As American doughboys (infantrymen) returned home in
the spring of 1919, citizens greeted them with enthusiasm and
lavish victory parades. As Frederick Lewis Allen reported in
Only Yesterday: “Not yet disillusioned, the nation welcomes its
heroes—and the heroes only wished the fuss were all over and
they could get into civilian clothes and sleep late in the morn-
ings and do what they please, and try to forget.”
But with World War I over, a new trauma was just begin-
ning. Soldiers, fresh from the trenches of Europe, brought back
with them something that had actually originated at home, in
the heart of the Great Plains. On March 11, 1918, a young army
private named Albert Mitchell had reported to the army hospi-
tal at Fort Riley, Kansas, complaining of fever, sore throat, and

33
34 The Dust Bowl

a headache. By noon, more than a 100 soldiers had come down

with the same symptoms. In a week, 500 were sick. Forty-eight
would eventually die. The recruits had the flu—a killer flu.
Thus began the devastating worldwide influenza pandemic
of 1918–1919. The death toll would eventually reach 50 million.
In the United States, an estimated 675,000 perished, almost six
times the dead the country had suffered in the Great War. As
a new decade dawned, America was still recovering from war
and disease. It desperately wanted normalcy; it wanted to live
and let live in the decade to come.
In all manner of invention, style, and pleasure, Ameri-
cans now embraced the “Roaring Twenties” with gusto. By
1921, radio broadcasts were a reality. That same year, the
World Series broke records for gate receipts and attendance.
Babe Ruth hit 59 home runs. In the summer of 1921, Atlantic
City held its first beauty pageant. “For the time being, the
censor ban on bare knees and skin-tight bathing suits was
suspended,” wrote a bug-eyed reporter, as noted by Allen.
“Thousands of spectators gasped as they applauded the girls.”
Indeed, women’s skirts were rising ever higher and revealing
ever more as the 1920s charged on. The hemline was soon to
reach an alarming nine inches above the ground. “Flappers
wore thin dresses, short-sleeved and occasionally (in the eve-
ning) sleeveless,” the New York Times reported. “Some of the
wilder young things rolled their stockings below the knees,
revealing to the shocked eyes of virtue a fleeting glance of
shin-bones and knee-cap.”
On the dance floor, with couples moving ever closer to
each other, the Catholic Telegraph of Cincinnati reported, “No
longer did even an inch of space separate them; they danced as
if glued together, body to body, cheek to cheek.”
As the 1920s pressed forward, Americans began to enjoy
a standard of living unimagined at the dawn of the century.
With family income averaging $1,500 per year nationwide, the
tide of prosperity was in full flood. Or so it would seem. Farm
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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out of the Mulligan Guards to wreck a personal spite, and all this in
our enlightened age, our democratic age.”
“How did Sir Lancelot get his title?” I asked.
“He lent the Prince—”
“That be blowed for a story!” broke in Mr. Bang. “He carried a
speculative account for one of Laurier’s Ministers, an old reprobate,
and the game ended up two hundred thousand dollars to the bad.
Pill accepted a knighthood as the only thing to be had in the
premises. There is nothing in the white charger—Prince story.”
“I suppose,” ventured Uncle, meekly, “it is quite on the cards the
knighthood was a complete ‘quid pro quo’?”
“Quite, oh quite,” agreed Mr. Bang, “most useful for stock market
purposes.”
The bazaar, I found just like bazaars at home, only larger; and
Lord and Lady Saffron had nothing remarkable about them, while
Ladies Margaret, Muriel and Millicent were dressed quite dowdily. To
me the three girls seemed ordinary, and one of them, Lady Muriel,
stood talking to Mr. Bang before everybody for quite a long time. I
know the people of Ottawa did not like it, from a conversation I
overheard.
During the evening Mr. Bang went off by himself to play roulette
and evidently after this had palled on him, wandered among the
booths and soon met Lady Muriel, who was selling tickets for a
lottery. I happened to see them meet, for Mumsie, who had fallen in
with an old acquaintance was engaged, and so I had nothing to do
but to see everything and hear everything I could. Two ladies were
conversing in the most English of accents.
“I don’t know why their Excellencies allow their daughters to take
so much interest in a beastly bazaar. Bazaars are all the same,
wretched things. I came of course, because of the vice-regals.”
“I quite agree with you. Look at Lady Muriel, selling tickets just
like any common girl! And who is that she is talking with? Oh, really
this is too much.”
“I don’t know, really. Ask Montie.”
The other called to a man, evidently their cavalier, and asked him
who Mr. Bang was.
“Oh that fellow,” was the ready response in contemptuous tones,
“he comes to Ottawa often. He is a railway navvy, contractor, or
something like that. I’ve seen him about the hotels.”
“How dreadful! Just a common navvy. I suppose he’s made
money some way. I’ll—”
At this point in the conversation the ladies had sauntered beyond
my hearing.
January 11th.
At breakfast this morning I said to Mr. Bang, “You had quite a
long conversation with Lady Muriel Saffron last evening.”
“Did I? I was not aware of the fact,” he responded coldly.
“Why, you were standing talking to her for five or ten minutes: I
heard one lady ask another who you were.”
“Not really?” In saying this Mr. Bang’s voice seemed more
affected than natural. Possibly it was an expression of sarcasm.
“Indeed you did,” I affirmed.
“I did not know it was Lady Muriel I was talking to, but I am not
surprised, as her manners were very good, and her sentiments
worthy and gracious.”
Never have I known Mr. Bang to talk with greater assurance. I
felt snubbed.
“Do you mean to say Lady Muriel talked with you all that time,
without knowing who you were, or anything about you, and without
a formal introduction?”
“Certainly, why not?”
 I looked from Mumsie to Uncle, but the former was abstracted,
and the latter deep in the columns of the Citizen.
“Auntie, who were the females my Little Partner heard talking
about me last evening?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Mumsie.
Mr. Bang’s voice was such that it seemed as if he were imitating
the ladies who had complained. I smiled expectantly.
“Did they use the English accent?” asked he.
“I believe they did,” I replied.
“They were probably members of the Government House set—”
“I thought them English,” I ventured.
“Which shows only that you lack experience.” That was rather
blunt.
A moment’s pause and then Mr. Bang continued, “You know there
are lots of old maids in Ottawa.”
“Now, Jack, leave the ladies alone,” protested Mumsie. But
unfortunately my curiosity got the better of my dignity and my
loyalty to my sex.
“Ottawa young ladies won’t look at men of their own class, the
sons of civil servants, but set their caps towards Government
House.”
“Yes,” I said weariedly.
“To them the aides are the only fish in the matrimonial sea.”
“Have they caught many?”
“In this particular they remind me of the Irishman at sea, who
fell asleep on the look-out. ‘Ahoy’ called the mate. No answer. ‘Ahoy’
again called the mate, and this time the awakened salt replied:
—‘Shoo! Shoo! Sir, whist! I’m ketchin’ rats.’ ‘How many have you
caught?’ asked the mate. ‘When I ketch this one and two more I’ll
have three.’ Now when Ottawa society ketches one aide and then—”
“Hush Jack, somebody may hear you,” pleaded Mumsie, and our
breakfast ended in silence. I wonder if Mr. Bang has proposed to
some Ottawa girl and been refused!
After breakfast we wandered into the lounge, where we found
Mr. Fraser. Mr. Bang led us to him saying,
“You have been in Ottawa off and on, over many years, what is
the origin of the English accent here?”
Mr. Fraser looked up from his paper, rose to his feet, and after we
were seated answered, “It’s barrack-room English, that’s what it is.”
“Barrack-room English!—surely not?”
“Yes it is: I lived in Halifax for thirty years and I know.”
“But it’s not the voice of Tommy Atkins—”
“No, it is the voice in which the senior Major’s wife calls over the
back fence to the neighbouring officer’s lady to know if she can have
the loan of some hair-pins. Lord! how I hate it!”
“The English accent as an affectation,” interposed Uncle, “has
been handed down for generations.”
“If it is of ancient lineage here, it has died out in England,” said
Mr. Bang with his usual assurance. “One does not hear it in Piccadilly
or on the promenade at Eastbourne.”
“They take it as the correct thing, here in Ottawa.”
Mr. Fraser was interrupted by Mr. Bang, who said: “I often
thought—when in England I noticed its absence—that it would be a
good thing if Ottawa were to send a delegation to London to furnish
instruction in the English accent. Now here’s an idea for you:
introduce a Bill in Parliament bearing out this suggestion. You’d
make a name for yourself.”
 “I’d make an ass of myself. Leave the society people alone, if it
amuses them it cannot do us much harm—”
“They should be sat upon,” said Mr. Bang. “What are English
people to think of us when they hear such whinings uttered in all
earnestness—”
“A visitor who would draw his estimate of a people after merely a
survey of the court circle, would show such disregard for history and
such general shallowness, that it would not matter what he
thought.”
I felt this remark would appeal to Mr. Bang. His only comment
was:
“Yes, and the Government House set of Ottawa corresponds to a
court circle.”
“Exactly, and you know the stories they tell about our
Government House set. One is that a visitor one day found a number
of young ladies in the drawing-room playing a game with one of the
aides. The young gallant would sit on a chair and a damsel would sit
on his knee, another on her knee, and so on with the others until
the line of damsels on the young aide’s knee would stretch across
the room. Then he would stand up and all of them would fall amid
shrieks of laughter.”
Mr. Fraser told this with such satisfaction that he angered me; I
was still more angered when Uncle remarked:—
“Sounds as if it were an incident culled from memoirs of Charles
the Second.”
“Do you know whether the story is true or not,” I asked.
“No! I told it as current gossip to be taken for what it is worth,”
replied Mr. Fraser.
“Quite likely it’s true: it’s not much worse than the ‘What-a-liar-
you-are’ story,” said Mr. Bang.
 I was so annoyed that I would not give Mr. Bang an opportunity
to exercise his bitterness, so I held my tongue and did not ask the
perhaps expected question. Mumsie was not so wise, and gave him
the opening.
“This is of a maiden from the prairies, who went to dinner at
Government House. An aide was commissioned to take her in to
dinner and she asked him whether she should wear her gloves at
the table. The aide replied, ‘Yes,’ but when the young lady found she
had been deceived, she immediately tore off her gloves, remarking,
as she did so, ‘What a liar you are.’ This story has become an Ottawa
classic.”
“How could such a girl get an invitation to Government House?” I
demanded, “surely———”
“She had de beeg pull wid Laurier,” replied Uncle.
Mr. Fraser smiled and remarked.
“You Tories will never forget that story.”
“Please tell it to me,” I was glad of a change.
“You tell it, Bang,” requested Fraser.
“No, you tell it,” and so requests and protests were bandied. At
last Mr. Fraser complied.
“A French-Canadian, a habitant farmer, met a compatriot one
January day some years ago, and remarked:
“ ‘Queen Victoria shees dead.’
“ ‘Queen Victoria shees dead! who get shees job?’
“ ‘Prince of Wales gets shees job.’
“ ‘By gosh, dat Prince of Wales feller mus’ have beeg pull wid
Laurier.’
“From what I have seen and heard,” then said Mr. Bang, “I
believe Ottawa society would accept a Hottentot lady and swear she
was Diana, so long as she came as a Minister’s wife.”
 “I hope you don’t refer to the heroine of the ‘What-a-liar-you-are’
story, for she is quite a friend of mine,” said Mr. Fraser.
“Do you find her amusing?”
“Quite.”
I felt satisfied that the young lady referred to had snubbed Mr.
Bang at some time. His rancour must have been born of personal
spite. So I made some remark to that effect, smiling sweetly.
Mr. Bang ignored my jibe for a moment; and then he told the
following story:
“Once I was staying at Ottawa for some days. Some person told
me it was the custom for visitors to call upon the wives of Ministers.
Why people should desire to call, or why the obligation to receive all
and sundry should be thrown upon Ministers’ wives, I don’t know;
but, being idle, I called upon one of them. I knew the daughter of
the house and talked to her for the regulation five minutes, and then
made a motion to leave. The girl begged me to stay, and I stayed.
From my corner of the room, the constant stream of frivolity in and
out amused me, it was a novelty. I stayed, making myself useful,
until the ebb set in and then I went away. I attended the rink that
evening and the first thing I heard was that I had visited at a
Minister’s house that afternoon and stayed over an hour. This girl
had asked me to overstay custom for the sole purpose of having
something to gossip about. Knowing that she and her people were a
source of innocent merriment, she planned to make me, in turn, an
object of ridicule. But can any civilized being understand the mind
that would stoop to such folly? Yet Ottawa accepted these people, as
‘so quaint don’t you know?’ They were quaint indeed.”
To-day was not as cold as yesterday, and we went for a drive. We
drove about Rockcliffe and through the grounds of Government
House—Rideau Hall. At dinner Uncle announced that he had secured
tickets for an exhibition of skating to be held this evening.
Such skating as I saw I had never before pictured in the wildest
flights of fancy. There was skating free, and skating in pairs, and
there were figures done by fours. Such grace, such rhythmic motion,
such ease, such exactness! And the music, the band helped one to
ecstasy. One would think to watch the skating that those people had
been bred to it, they swung from circle to circle with such marvellous
ease and assurance.
The dance of the fairies will ever live in my memory. The rink was
darkened and a shaft of green light was thrown upon the ice. Over
the ice came a band of maidens led by a most beautiful skater of
delightful form, swaying and flitting, their white draperies responding
to their motions which were tuned to the music. The leader came
down the middle of the ice, her followers filed at the sides. They
were as sprites. I’m sure nothing so lovely was ever seen before.
They filled the rink, swayed, marked time, as it were, and then
retreated. They went as they came, rhythmic, beautiful.
There were other scenes, pageants, call them what you will, but
I paid little heed to them. The dance of the fairies had appealed to
me so strongly that the others made little impression. And then
when the lights went up after the dance of the fairies, I saw among
the spectators Charlie Lien. It made me sick at heart. I had decided,
as the vulgar say, to cut him out; and now—I found my heart
pounding. All my resolutions faded as a fog-bank dissolves before
the rising sun. Oh dear!
January 12th.
Charlie Lien met me in a corridor this morning. He is staying at
this hotel. He says he came down to play in a hockey match this
evening. Had it been possible I would have avoided him. He had
evidently planned to give me no such opportunity. He addressed me
with: “Hello, old girl.” And then protested life was no good without
me, he must have someone on whom to spend his money. He
invited me to drive out in the afternoon with him to Aylmer. I
declined. He drew me into a recess and used his every art to break
my resolve. I allowed him to kiss me, to put his arm about me, but I
held to my determination and made no response. To give the devil
his due, as Dad would say, he did not tell me he loved me. But then,
perhaps, he knew that if he told me he loved me I would ask him if
he desired to marry me. So perhaps I am more than just to him. In
any case these reflections helped me to gather my wits together and
I calmly walked away from him. From first to last I had not uttered a
word.
Away from him at first I felt sorry I had not accepted his
invitation—and then glad. How strangely are we, am I, constituted.
There is something attractive and something offensive about that
young man.
This evening there was a concert in the drawing-room. Like the
bazaar, it was in aid of charity; and like the bazaar was under vice-
regal patronage. There were songs and a speech from His
Excellency. Then a painting by Lady Muriel was to be auctioned. The
gathering was all very grand and interesting. Ministers high in the
Government and their wives were present. The dresses were
gorgeous.
The picture Lady Muriel had painted and which was to be sold
was a log cabin in the forest with a mountain towering in the
background. Mr. Bang, I noticed, regarded it with a critical eye. I
could notice that Lady Muriel had her mind on it; and when it was
put on sale became visibly interested. She was standing with her
mother and sisters, and with them also was a good-looking man,
who I afterwards learned was generally known as Dapper Dicky.
“How much am I offered for the picture?” asked the auctioneer.
“Seventy-five dollars,” replied Dapper Dicky over his shoulder. He
was deep in conversation with Her Excellency.
“One hundred dollars,” bid a voice at my side. It was Mr. Bang.
“One hundred and twenty-five,” came from Dapper Dicky.
“One hundred and fifty,” bid Mr. Bang.
“One hundred and seventy-five,” responded the other, glancing
again over his shoulder in an endeavour to see who was opposing
him.
 “And fifty would be a big price for it,” Uncle whispered in his
nephew’s ear.
“Two hundred dollars,” offered Mr. Bang.
“Two hundred and fifty,” cried Dapper Dicky.
“Three hundred,” came from Mr. Bang.
Those present became interested and stared at Mr. Bang.
Evidently he alone was the object of curiosity.
Dapper Dicky was evidently known to them. And he evidently
was curious also. He gazed at Mr. Bang in a wondering sort of way
and with an expression, which told that he did not exactly know
where he was.
“Four hundred dollars,” he bid.
“Five hundred dollars,” bid Mr. Bang.
Good Lord I thought, can it be that Mr. Bang has had his head
turned by Lady Muriel and is going to ruin himself?
Dapper Dicky became visibly confused.
“Six hundred dollars.”
“Six hundred and twenty-five,” bid Mr. Bang.
“Ah,” I thought, “Mr. Bang is becoming more cautious.”
“Six hundred and fifty.”
“Seven hundred.”
Mr. Bang offering seven hundred dollars for a picture not worth,
as Uncle said, fifty!
“Eight hundred dollars,” retorted Dapper Dicky, whose full
attention was now devoted to his opponent. His eyes were flashing
in anger.
“Nine hundred,” bid Mr. Bang.
 “One thousand dollars,” spluttered his opponent, while the
company was lost in wonderment. No further word came from Mr.
Bang.
“Any advance on one thousand dollars?” questioned the
auctioneer. There was a silence as if of the tomb.
“Sold,” called the auctioneer.
“Come and have some supper, all of you, and I’ll invite Fraser.”
Mr. Fraser was gathered in and Mr. Bang marshalled us all
towards the dining-room.
“Will you tell me what in the name of goodness you mean, by
offering nine hundred dollars for a picture, not much better than I
could do myself?” demanded Mumsie.
“Now Auntie! do give me credit for a little sense—common sense
—and sense of humour! I had no intention of buying the thing.”
“What did you bid for then?”
“Don’t you know who that was I was bidding against?” Mr. Bang
in turn demanded.
“Your nephew was bidding against Dapper Dicky,” explained Mr.
Fraser, in matter of fact tones.
“It was amusing to see the expression on his face, when he
found he had opposition. He is accustomed to have it all his own
way. Now if you only knew Dapper Dicky—”
“He is not half a bad fellow, in fact a very decent fellow, I’ve
found,” said Mr. Fraser.
“Who is he, what is he?” demanded Mumsie.
“Up till a few short months ago, he was a staunch supporter of
the Liberal Government. He sold us many things, and made much
money and then—”
“And then the Government changed, and so did Dicky,”
interjected Mr. Bang. “ ‘You know,’ he said as he shook hands with
one of Borden’s ministers, ‘I always was with you. I really never did
care for these damned Grits.’ ”
“I believe, now, to make doubly sure, he has taken into
partnership Colonel Nimble. Colonel Nimble is a life-long supporter of
the party in power and will be able on that score, to command
inordinate profits from them,” said Mr. Fraser.
“By the way, what is the Government going to do with Tom and
Jerry,” asked Mr. Bang, looking into the Member’s eyes.
“Give ’em a hundred million or more I suppose, what else can
they do?”
“Let ’em bust,” suggested Mr. Bang savagely.
“It would bring ruination to Canada, spoil our credit,” said Mr.
Fraser.
“Bosh! it would do us good, shake things down to rock bottom,
make us quit gambling and go to work. In this country, the net result
of most people losing their money is that they begin to lead useful
lives.”
“It would never do, you are joking. The banks, the money of the
widows and orphans.”
“What most politicians and financiers are concerned about is their
own money and their own speculations,” suggested Mr. Bang.
“The Canadian is a gambler no doubt,” said Uncle, “but when he
loses in the gamble he cheerfully faces the issue.”
“But the trouble is that while he will cheerfully face adverse
fortune himself, he expects others to accept the fate he brings them
with equal nonchalance,” objected the disagreeable one.
“You Tories are to blame for Tom and Jerry’s road, the ‘Poverty,
Distress and Want’,” claimed Mr. Fraser.
“I deny the allegation,” retorted Uncle with affected heat.
 “Laurier wasted over two hundred million dollars on the
Transcontinental,” said Mr. Bang. “The road was built to win the
support of Quebec. So the price we pay for the honour of having
Laurier Prime Minister for two extra terms is at least two hundred
million dollars.”
“The road will pay some day and be regarded as a blessing.”
“That is a delightful possibility. But I know, know with a big ‘K,’
that the reason the Transcontinental was built was to hold Laurier in
power. Quebec is always ready for public expenditure—within
Quebec. The habitant makes his own whiskey, grows his own
tobacco, pays no taxes. If debt is heaped up he can look on with
indifference.”
“My man,” thought I, “you certainly have your knife out for the
Canadian French.”
“Do you think,” asked Uncle, looking at Mr. Fraser, “that the
Government of to-day is any improvement on that constituted by the
Family Compact in Ontario?”
“Certainly, our present Government is by the people.”
“But as a Government, I mean, are officials more conscientious,
more honest, does the man in the street fare better, is there less
waste of public money?”
“I think so! Yes.”
“Is working a graft less pernicious when carried out by an elected
representative, than when it is done by a member of an autocracy
like the Family Compact?”
“They call it graft here; while in England it is known as ‘family
influence’,” cut in Mr. Bang. “This was a distinction framed by an
Englishman I knew in Dawson City.”
“There is no difference,” acknowledged Mr. Fraser in reply to
Uncle’s question.
“What was the Family Compact?” I asked.
 “As its name implies, a compact that lorded over Ontario in the
old days.”
“It came to an end after the William Lyon MacKenzie rebellion.
MacKenzie, with a bunch of Scotch Grits and devil-dodgers, set out
to be the father of a Northern Revolution. The scheme failed after a
little bloodshed. Since that time, the descendants of the leaders
have used so much ink in trying to show how the rebellion was
justified and its results meritorious, that the poor old Family
Compact has suffered badly.”
“Poor Family Compact,” murmured Mr. Fraser in mock tones of
condolence.
“People who use doubtful means invariably complain that their
opponents were the first to be unfair,” continued Mr. Bang, who was
quite unruffled. “This is a process much used by the Yankees since
their revolution, and it apparently has secured them peace of mind.”
And so banter was indulged in and our supper ended pleasantly.
I learned what a devil-dodger is. “There are those who tread the
straight and narrow way from love of God; others from fear of the
devil,—and these are the devil-dodgers. Scotch Grits are mostly
devil-dodgers,” said Mr. Bang.
“It requires the highest type of patriotism to prompt an honest
Canadian to devote his life to politics,” so said Uncle.
“That ‘the Government of a people is as good as they deserve’ is
an old saying, and Canada is no exception. Our press panders to the
rich. Our Governments confer knight-hoods on grafters, financial
adventurers, and corruptionists—” this from Mr. Bang.
Uncle chimed in, “Democracy is an experiment to which the
regent has yet to be applied.”
“Man is a mean and vicious animal, and the process of ‘trusting
the people’ must bring trouble to the world.”—Mr. Bang.
“Virtue is an abnormal development.”—Uncle.
 “Society is the folly of the day.”—Mr. Fraser.
“Class prejudice is the strongest lever in politics.”—Mr. Bang.
Clatter! Clatter! Clatter!
January 13th.
I sat through the Opening of Parliament without a word. Gossip,
comment, praise, and ridicule, bombarded my ears from four sides. I
was lost in reverie. I once more reviewed my experiences, aims, and
aspirations, the workings of my mind, and my schemings, since I
came to Mumsie; and while my ways have been devious I seem to
have journeyed from nowhere to—the same no—place. My first
effort towards making friends with Mrs. Mount has, as Mr. Bang
would say, “petered out.” This ambition was lost in those newer
impulses that came from contact with Charlie Lien. How can I
analyze them? Coming like a thought, a visitation from space, from
infinity, I do not recognize them and I may not ask. Had I now a
mother—Ah! Mumsie is a dear—it is with that sentence I began this
diary—but I am not of her; flesh of her flesh, mind of her mind. Had
I a mother, I could ask her and she could explain to me this
development of what Uncle and Mr. Bang call the “social bug.”
And then the rest!
Mr. Bang’s fairy tale to little Jessie, the story of Ambition, really
does not parallel my case, for I have not climbed. I have not had
even the fleeting breath of happiness enjoyed by the “beautiful
young lady,” while still she was amid the flowers of Friendship and
Truth. Perhaps had I never met Charlie Lien and really had luck in
securing somebody like Mrs. Mount to take an interest in me, I
might have enjoyed that fleeting measure of reward. And the flowers
of Friendship and Truth!—I had uprooted and trod them under foot
that is true. But it is this blowing hot and cold over Charlie Lien that
mystifies me—I seem to control myself so little, where he is
concerned.
In his court dress, His Excellency, standing before his Senators,
their wives and daughters, the High Court officials with their wives
and daughters, and the Members of Parliament; the reading of his
words of commendation and hope, all appealed to me, as being of a
world to which I truly belonged. To me the assembled officials in
their robes, spoke of a world with which my ancestors were intimate.
Perhaps such thoughts are in keeping with the inherent process of
ancestor worship—that Mr. Bang and Uncle say is ours. In any case,
as I have before set down, I can find in it nothing but good.
It was an impressive scene, a pageant of far more potency than
any mere form would cause. It spoke of great loyalty, a rule of faith
and love. Altogether it was elevating and ennobling. I thank His
Excellency for it: I thank Mr. Bang for it. I must not forget, or rather
I must try and remember the extent of my indebtedness to him. I
am certain that my mind was widened and broadened by this great
experience.
There is quite a lot of ceremony about the Opening of
Parliament. It always starts at three in the afternoon, and there are
those who can get entree to the floor of the Senate Chamber by way
of the entrance behind the dais. That is if they have enough “pull.”
But I won’t bother with that.
The drowsiness developed by my musings, and the heat of the
Senate Chamber, was quickly dispelled on our return to the Hotel by
meeting Mrs. Mount.
“Why Mrs. Mount,” exclaimed Mumsie, on finding her in the
rotunda.
Mrs. Mount looked at us coldly, said: “How do you do,” and
started away on a long tirade.
“I got so beastly tired of home and, do you know, I said to Doris
that I really thought we must have a change. Doris has never yet
attended a Drawing-room,” etc., etc. It was a long dissertation about
her habits and doings. She was evidently a guest of the Hotel, so
was not the guest of Lady Matthews. Nor did she offer any
explanation of the difference from what she had led us to expect.
Probably she had forgotten the account she gave us a week or so
ago, wherein Lady Matthews,—“Clair as I always call her”—had
invited her to the opening. Mrs. Mount I’m afraid, has lost her
novelty for me, and I’m with Uncle in putting her beyond the pale.
Mr. Bang was most attentive to-day. Probably my latest mood has
attracted him. Still I cannot reconcile myself to the thought of
inscribing on my visiting card, “Mrs. Bang.”
After the opening I fell into a long conversation with Mr. Fraser.
He is a pleasant man to talk to. And I can quite understand how his
chief is the charming personality everybody says he is.
“It is not wonderful,” said he, “that you find Mr. Bang a strange
character. He is of the school of many years ago. Changes of
temperament, like fashions, develop in the great centres, the
capitals of Europe. Jack’s tricks of mind are of another age handed
down from generation to generation, true to its parent culture, that
culture which took life seriously and whose chief diversion was
controversy. His ideals are of that school and have been impervious
to change.”
“Oh! I see,” I agreed, in no positive tone.
“I don’t know if I have made myself clear,” continued Mr. Fraser,
“but perhaps you may better understand what I mean when I tell
you, that French scholars say they find in Quebec phrases and
expressions that have been dead for ages in France. So old habits of
thought are still with us. Jack is, however, one of the best of
fellows.”
Mr. Fraser’s tone in speaking of Mr. Bang is most sympathetic
which reconciles me somewhat to the man, if not to his name.
January 14th.
“Oh, Mrs. Somers,” blustered Mrs. Mount to Mumsie when I was
with her in the drawing-room this morning, “I have had such a
shock, such a shock and do you know, really, I don’t exactly know
how I am to get over it.”
 “Why, what can the matter be?” asked Mumsie, responding to
the evidences of distress with measurable interest.
“Oh! I have had a shock, such a dreadful shock———”
“What is it?” again demanded Mumsie, apprehensively, while I
felt like quoting: “Oh dear! what can the matter be?”
“Do you know, really, I have always understood that my Doris
was to have the most expensive dress at the Opening, and now, do
you know what I have discovered? I have found out that a horrid
American creature, a Miss Spruce from New York, has arrived and is
to wear a dress costing no less than ten thousand dollars—ten
thousand dollars—think of that! Dear! dear! dear!” and the good
lady stamped her foot and protruded her chin.
“That is too bad, it must be a great disappointment,” said Mumsie
in the most sympathetic tones, “but then Doris may be—I have no
doubt is—a very much better-looking girl than Miss Spruce.”
“Yes, yes, yes; no, no, no; that is, Doris is much the better-
looking girl, certainly. Doris is so sweet, so graceful, so everything
don’t you know, really, but then you know these American creatures
make up so wonderfully ———”
“Can’t you have Doris make up too?” suggested Mumsie with
innocence sublime.
“But everybody will know Miss Spruce’s dress has cost ten
thousand dollars, they do already, you know. I’ve heard it from half
a dozen people and she has been in the hotel only one hour—only
one hour—just fancy!”
Mumsie affected a fitting expression of amazement, which I
copied to the best of my ability.
“Only one hour!” repeated Mumsie in doleful tones, and then
pitching her voice to a key of joyousness cried: “Don’t tell anybody
and they will never know Doris’s did not cost ten thousand dollars—
nobody will know the difference ———”
 Mrs. Mount gazed at Mumsie as if she were deciding whether to
shriek or cry. She did not do either, but in a voice sepulchral
murmured:
“Mrs. Somers, I’ve already told twenty people that Doris’s dress
cost one thousand dollars. As a matter of fact, it really only cost six
hundred and fifty, but I said a thousand as I always like to deal in
round figures. All Ottawa has heard of Doris’s thousand dollar dress,
and that I cabled to Paris for it. There is nothing for it; I’m beat, I’m
beat. And, by a beastly Yankee whose father made his money out of
chewing-gum. Chewing gum! just fancy!” Mrs. Mount wore an air of
complete defeat as she walked away.
As Mrs. Mount left us, Uncle and Mr. Bang came up, and Mumsie
recounted the scene with admirable skill. Uncle was highly amused
and laughed immoderately; Mr. Bang being in a less doleful frame of
mind than usual, became almost gleeful. Dear old Mumsie!
Uncle then informed us that he must leave for home by the
Sunday morning train. This was a disappointment to us, of course,
and then Mr. Bang said:
“Auntie, I learn that Norway Lake Hotel is the last word of
comfort and—as Elsie will be pleased to hear—fashion. We can leave
here Sunday morning and be there at three in the afternoon. And,
do you know—I won’t add the ‘really,’ unless my ears or
understanding played me false—Mrs. Mount is also——”
“If Mrs. Mount is going that fact will give Norway Lake its
certificate,” cut in Mumsie.
I stood limp—Norway Lake!—not Mrs. Mount or her daughter
was the person to whom my mind flew, but Charlie Lien. But what
could I say—do? For a healthy debutante to decline to go to a winter
resort, such a winter resort as Norway House, would be suspicious. I
said nothing.
January 15th.
 It is all over; I have made my bow. I am really in society. In a
great, gloomy corridor hundred and hundreds of us stood for hours,
trampling on each other. The human sand ran very slow, but at long
last we—I—filed in. Battered and bruised I passed up the aisle
underneath the gallery and handed my card to an aide. In stentorian
tones he announced my name, but although his voice was good and
strong, I felt it falling on an indifferent world. I passed into the
limelight, curtesied to His Excellency and then to Her Excellency. It
was over. Only a moment, and it was done.
The faces of their Excellencies, as I paid tribute, were smiling
kindly. Standing to the left of their Excellencies were their daughters.
We passed, the procession passed, in front of them, and out: and
then upstairs into the gallery, where I took my stand and watched
those coming after. This is all there is to making one bow, except
getting one’s bouquet crushed; and yet as a ceremony it means
much. I am in Society.
After it was over, back to the hotel we went. This as a dress
parade was a greater success than the Drawing-room, for the really
grand dresses simply swarmed in, and a better look was to be had of
them.
Mrs. Mount, Doris and Miss Spruce were included in one party.
Our own was very happy, in fact, I felt more genuinely happy than I
have been since my first advent to Mumsie’s home. Of course, Mr.
Bang abused the Scotch Grits and the Yankees, but not to excess
this time.
Mumsie asked Mr. Bang what practical good there was in abusing
the Yankees, to which he replied:
“Auntie, if one believes the Yankee version of their Revolution,
and the causes thereof, he must conclude the Loyalists, our
ancestors, were a people lacking in virility. To the everlasting harm
of our country our own schools teach that twaddle. British schools
teach it, because it is the essence of Whig doctrine, and the Whigs
and the Liberals are fully alive to the policy of catching recruits
young.”
“But what harm does it do?” persisted Mumsie.
“Simply that the English youth emigrating to America choses
Yankee-land instead of Canada. And here in Canada, our young
men, having been taught to despise their fathers, and respect the
Yankees, have left their homes for the mammon of unrighteousness.
But now a change is at hand. To-day Canada is the land of
opportunity. The United States has reached the apex of its
prosperity, it is becoming a tired people. The tide is flowing with us
and our young men are staying at home.”
Were this diary a novel, I should now bring it to a close. What a
sorry tale it is, telling only of failure, at least on my part. And what a
halting lover Mr. Bang would make, providing he is a lover; I cannot
help thinking. And Charlie Lien is tame even as a villain, but then he
might be doctored up. A little bit of melodrama! What a pity the
mock-marriage and the abduction is so worn out. Surely I can invent
at least a new staging for the old theme. Perhaps if I can do so, all
this, my writing, will not have been in vain. Indeed in a month I
have felt the impelling force of ambition, and all the pangs that
come from humiliation.
A strange mixing will take place at Norway House—Mrs. Lien, the
women of wealth, in whom ennui is a genuine complaint; Mrs.
Mount, who envies Mrs. Lien, but cannot command courage enough
to affect her pose; Mumsie, dear old Mumsie! Mr. Bang, Charlie Lien
and—. Here is a setting for an inventive mind, scope for the villain’s
villainy, field for a hero’s heroism. Who might be the hero? Could Mr.
Bang be a hero? He hasn’t quite the name.
January 17th.
Jack Bang has saved my life and I hate him! How I hate him! I
know now the meaning of “a consuming hate.” My heart seems of
lead. I am frightened because I hate him so much.
 Charlie Lien was taking me down the toboggan slide when it
happened. Mrs. Lien and Mrs. Mount were there, each with a
cavalier; and Mumsie with Mr. Bang. Charlie and I had reached the
head of the stairs and had placed our toboggan ready and I had just
seated myself. Mrs. Mount was next in turn and was talking to
Charlie.
“Do you know, really, Mr. Lien, I think you are the nicest young
man I ever met. You are such a good sport, and so good to
everybody, even if they don’t amount to anything ———”
At this point I felt the toboggan move, and a moment after a
number of shrieks, and then a great thump behind and then—a
hundred sensations. The toboggan skidded this way and that, first
on one side of the slide and then on the other, till it settled down to
its arrow-like course, by which time I was exhausted through fright.
To fortify myself I put my arm behind me and with it encircled what
I thought was the head of Charlie Lien, murmuring, “Oh, Charlie, oh!
Charlie.”
Imagine my feelings when I found I had the head of Mr. Bang. At
the moment I would willingly have severed my right hand to have
retrieved my mishap. Oh! oh! how can I express my mortification?
No words of mine can tell.
I suppose Mumsie, and Uncle, and other old-fashioned people
would say that it was noble of Mr. Bang to say “It was nothing,” and
to ignore the fact that I had put my arm about his neck and called
him Charlie. If he had only appeared one whit more self-satisfied
after the occurrence, I believe I could almost love him. But, possibly,
for him to feel more self-satisfied than he does is beyond his
capacity. And then if he had only smiled even cynically when our
eyes met at the bottom of the slide, I could forgive him much—the
beast!
It all happened through that wretched woman, Mrs. Mount, who
wants him for a son-in-law, trying to win him, I know. Charlie let go
the handles of the toboggan just a moment to look at this audacious
creature when the toboggan slid off. Of course, without its
steersman it would have run over the side of the run-way and I
would have been killed. But Mr. Bang, who was watching everything
as usual, made a spring as I passed him and landed, where Charlie
should have been, behind me. He certainly did well after he gained
the steersman’s seat. Had he been unable to steady the toboggan
and we had both gone over the run-way, we would have been killed
—wouldn’t we?
Of course, it broke up the tobogganning for the morning.
Everybody crowded round us. Mumsie was almost as white as the
snow when she came up. Mrs. Lien was most sympathetic. Others
said nice things and then Mrs. Mount, having reserved her fire until
the last, said: “Oh! Miss Travers, it was all so melographic. We shall
expect a romance to grow out of this, shan’t we, Mrs. Somers?”
I was so angry I nearly fainted through the effort I made in
restraining myself. Of course, too, I had no fitting retort ready. It
would be so nice if we would only have a stock of retorts ready for
use on emergency. And I don’t believe there is any such word as
melographic.
I know Mrs. Mount wants Charlie Lien for her Doris, and this
knowledge came through a conversation I heard last night. Norway
House has wonderful acoustic properties. Sounds come from
everywhere, anywhere, and last night as I lay in bed, I heard the
following:
“But, Mother, the Travers girl is quite good-looking, and I don’t
see why Charlie Lien should not marry her.”
“Doris,” came Mrs. Mount’s voice in the severest tones, “You must
not contradict your mother. I say the Travers girl is not nearly as
good-looking as you are—you who are all grace and beautiful as a
cowslip in the morning dew—”
“Oh, Mother!”
“Now, don’t contradict—”
 “But, Mother, Charlie has had Miss Travers to lunch at the Hunt
Club, and they’ve been seen together several times.”
“Now, now, Doris, you should know young men will be young
men. But it’s time Charlie Lien began to look around serious-like—”
“But why should he fancy me?”
“That’s it, that’s it, that’s why I want you to put your best foot
forward, don’t you know, really———”
“But Mother, if Mrs. Somers did not think there was something in
the affair between Charlie and Miss Travers———”
“Now, Doris, I don’t want any more back answerings. To show I
ain’t a fool, I may tell you that I’ve sounded Mrs. Somers and have
found out it’s the big fellow who has put up the coin, so now! It’s all
very plain—”
“But Mother, Mr. Bang is not paying Miss Travers any attention.”
“Now, Doris, I have told you already I don’t want any back
answerings. You’re my daughter, and I want to see you well married.
When I’m dying I don’t want to be thinking of you sitting round a
boarding-house about the time you should be a grandmother.”
“There’s lots of time, Mother.”
“There ain’t lots of time, and you know it. Don’t you know, really,
there ain’t a Charlie Lien to be picked up every day.”
“But, Mother, I can’t pick him—”
“Doris,” the mother’s voice was rising in anger, “what did I say
about back answerings?”
“Well, Mother, do please give me time to think. Assuming Charlie
is having a harmless flirtation—”
“Harmless flirtation, indeed, with a hussy that has no money, and
no good clothes to set off what few good looks she has got—”
At this point I heard a door slam. Evidently Doris had left her
mamma whose voice was getting coarser every second the
controversy continued. “Hussy indeed!” I thought. Her Doris! Bah!
But how in the name of fortune did Doris learn of my doings with
Charlie Lien. Of course, no mention was made of the Palm-room,
which is a comfort. And how coarse the mother’s voice became as it
gained in heat. Her “ain’ts” and her “back answerings”—Oh! to think
of my having toadied to her! I painted her picture at my age, a
buxom slattern, that is what she was, a slattern, the butt of every
jolly cavalier who felt a budding wit; bare feet, possibly, and dirty
petticoats, tattered and torn! And her home, the tavern at the dusty
corner, the long intervals between the coming and going of guests;
the wild acclaim, the shouted jest, the latest news from the seat of
war, political, or otherwise.
And to think that I, Elsie Travers, toadied to her!
The conversation I have recorded I heard on Sunday night. Of
course, there has been nothing else to record—beyond the fact that
we travelled by the same train as the Mounts.
And now to return to the thread of my narrative. After the first
flutter of excitement and Mrs. Mount’s stab at matchmaking, I had a
fit of nerves and went to my room. I had my lunch sent to me; I
wished to think. And I thought and thought; and then I realized that
all my effort could not hit upon a line of action. What to do? Would
that a fairy would speak!
But a demon spoke—a demon, a hell-cat’s words with the
philosophy of Satan!
Shortly after lunch I heard the Mounts at it again.
“I’m sure she’ll never marry him now. What girl would marry a
man who would imperil her life so?”
“What do you know of diplomacy? Will you answer me that now,
you who was so fond of back answering last night?”
“I—”
“I tell you, you know nothing. The girl’s gone to bed, and her no
more scared than you be.”
 “But, Mother, her nerves—”
“Her nerves, her nothing, all bunkum! She’s gone to bed to ketch
him. She’s going to ketch him if you don’t look out. That’s what I’m
frightened of.”
“But how?”
“How—how—how? Don’t you know how the chorus girls ketch
the lordlings? Why, keep him at a distance, you bet. I’ll tell you she’s
no fool, that girl is no fool. That fledgling is a wise bird, as wise as
the ‘chicken[5] wid de big eye.’ ”
“Will keeping a lordling at a distance catch him?”
“Ketch him? Certainly, didn’t I say so before. Keep him chasing,
chasing, chasing and never satisfy him until he pops.”
“Pops, Mother?”
“Pops the question, of course. Now mark my words, see if the
hussy does not pout, squirm, and lally gag; make out she’s mortal
offended and play him to a finish. That is, she would do it if she
knew enough—”
Of course, I could not see Mrs. Mount as she spoke; but her
voice—her words and expression were totally different from what
she used in society. But her words gave a stimulus to my thoughts. I
was very angry. To be called a “hussy.” And the slurs the women
made against me! I hated her for it, even more than I hated Jack.
And so I thought again. And then I reached a decision. I would fulfil
Mrs. Mount’s prophecy. I would repulse Charlie Lien and flirt with
Jack Bang. But I would revenge myself on both the woman and the
man, I mean Charlie Lien. If Charlie proposes to me I shall say “NO.”
So bids the spirit of my ancestors.
I appeared at dinner and was the sensation of the moment. I
smiled, oh so sweetly, on Mr. Bang, and after dinner settled down to
a book at the side of Mumsie in the fireside circle. Mrs. Lien and
Mumsie fell to talking. Out of the vast amount of small talk that I
heard, the following remains in my memory:
 “Do you know, Mrs. Somers, my cook absolutely refused to cook
a dinner if Lady Billings was to be a guest. I reasoned with her—it
was no use. ‘Mrs. Lien,’ said she, ‘I refuse to cook a dinner for Molly
Fenton.’ ‘But, Kate,’ I pleaded, ‘I don’t ask you to serve it. All I ask
you to do is to cook it.’ ‘I don’t care,’ she answered. ‘I’ll walk out of
your house before I’ll cook a dinner for Molly Fenton, even if she
now is Lady Billings. When we were children together, Mother would
not allow me to play with her, and I won’t cook a dinner for her
now.’ ”
 [5]
An Italian navvy once shot and ate an owl, and when he
was asked what he had eaten, he replied: “De chicken wid de big
eye.”

January 18th.
I arranged it all most successfully. I really believe I am
diplomatic. Mr. Bang asked me to go snow-shoeing with him this
morning. We went. The sky was bright, the wind was up and it was
very cold, almost numbing. We crossed Norway Lake, and down into
the forest, and then we felt no wind, and as we walked and walked,
I felt a gentle glow come over me.
I soon found I lost myself in the interest I gained in Mr. Bang’s
conversation, just as I did one day long ago. He told me of the
forest wilds of British Columbia, and trappers’ tales of the deer, and
the martin, and the fisher, and the beaver, and that strange creature,
the Canada-Jay, or Whiskey Jack.
“You talk like an animal story book,” I remarked.
“Do I?” he asked. “I’m sorry. The animal story men are fakers,
and I would not like you to think me a faker. There is not a trapper
in the West who is not more or less conversant with the writings of
this class of authors. All I have heard speak of them, damn them up
and down. Even I dislike them, and wonder at the public taste. But
then the public is an ass.”
Wapoose is the rabbit of the North. His tracks were everywhere
about. In the North everybody, everything lives on the rabbit. The
Indians, trappers, the owls, the fox, the wolf, all feast upon poor
wapoose. And like many another faithful friend he is despised.
But the silence of the forest is oppressive. Stepping into it one
feels as if one entered the realm of nature. One feels the temporary
guest of the world where a ceaseless war is being waged, in which
the fittest only survive, where animal life is maintained by the death
of animal life. Nature is as cruel as a steel-trap that the fur-hunter
sets for the fox.
 And the trees stand about spectral in the silence; the firs and
spruces with their branches laden with snow-droop as if in shame.
They picture modesty. The clatter of a squirrel, or the squeak of a
tom-tit, or the hammer, hammer of the woodpecker come at long
intervals. They merely announce the great oppressive silence, each
striking his own note.
All the region round about Norway Lake is a Government game
and timber reserve. The streams are filled with beaver and the
woods with other fur-bearing animals.
We came to a beaver-dam, Mr. Bang recognizing the rounded
ridge in the snow marking the dam and domes of snow marking the
houses. He told me of the strange family huddled in these humble
homes and the superstitions they have engendered.
And after two hours tramp we came to Napoleon’s cabin.
Napoleon is one of the game wardens, and by a strange chance was
known to Mr. Bang. Mr. Bang had planned our tramp that we might
call on his friend. Napoleon was at home. I really believe Mr. Bang
had sent him word we were coming, as everything about the cabin
was so neat, and the warm air that greeted us at the open door was
in itself hospitable. It told me I might take off my wraps and rest
and be comfortable.
Napoleon was a grim customer whose broken English was that of
the Canadian French. His grin was expansive. He asked question
after question of mutual friends in the Kootenays, but his eye was
continually on me; that is, in a sly way, he was continually glancing
at me.
As I sat perfectly happy and lazy it struck me I was in an odd
position, deep in the forest, in the cabin of a good-natured savage.
But somehow I felt safe, and I felt I was absorbing local colour by
the bucket-full, and could now feel superior to the mere reader of
books. I fancied my two companions fighting wolves, and bears, and
wild Indians, all most exciting. This shows only that in some ways I
have not yet ceased being a child.
 Just as Napoleon was putting the finishing touches on the laying
of the lunch table, his accumulating admiration burst its bounds.
“By gosh! shees look for nice leetle girl, some day maybe shees
Messus Bang, uh?”
Of course, I blushed crimson. Fortunately Mr. Bang’s face was
turned away from me, and, of course, he could not turn to look at
me, and so could not measure, my confusion. But I saw his—his
confusion. He flushed a moment and admonished Napoleon not to
take things too seriously. But I had heard it, the spoken words, “Mrs.
Bang.” Really, they did not sound so very awful. I think the
pleasurable anticipation I felt for the savory lunch must have made
them less objectionable.
I did enjoy that lunch!

January 20th.
I am to be Mrs. Bang and am reconciled. Fate has spoken and all
sensibilities have been matched by Fate. And oh! what an adventure
was ours. Has all history such another tale to tell? I know now what
my hate for Jack meant; it was the fight my spirit put up against his
spirit. But his has now the mastery and I love him. After all, I believe
a woman’s greatest privilege is to love. It is so much more blessed
to give than to receive. How infinite is the philosophy of the Bible!
As I held his poor, lacerated head in my lap in the depths of the
forest last night, I gave up my soul. He murmured, “You have saved
my life,” and I felt it was true. It was all so tragic, so terrible, so
glorious.
As I lie in bed propped up in pillows, my own head bandaged, I
can see them now, savage, furious, bristling beasts—the World, the
Flesh and the Devil. What power they held, what fury, hate, and
passion! How vast is the scope of nature.
Jack and I went to Napoleon’s cabin and had lunch and then it
began to snow and we tarried. And then the snow stopped and we
set out, and the wolves came. How my blood ran chill as I heard