Part 1 (1/2)
Two Boy Gold Miners.
by Frank V. Webster.
CHAPTER I
HARD TIMES
”What's the matter, Enos?” asked a rather elderly and careworn looking woman, as she stood in the kitchen door of a small farmhouse.
The man to whom she had spoken was gazing up at the sky. His clothes were patched in places, the trousers so much so that there seemed to be very little of the original material left. He did not appear to hear his wife's question, so she repeated it.
”What's the matter, Enos? What are you looking up at the sky that way for?”
”I was looking for a sign of rain, Debby. We need some terribly bad.”
”Do you see any?”
”Nope. There isn't a cloud in sight, and the wind has hung in the east for nigh on to a week. Seems so it ought to bring a shower, but it don't come.”
”Things are pretty dry around here, aren't they, Enos?”
”That's what they are, Debby, and if they don't get wet soon I don't know what we're going to do.”
”Is it as bad as that?”
”It's liable to be. The potatoes won't amount to much, and the corn is just shriveling up with the heat. There'll be a short crop of everything but weeds, I'm thinking.”
”I wouldn't worry, Enos, if I was you. Maybe things will come out all right.”
”How can they, Debby, if we don't get rain? Things can't grow unless they get some moisture, and we haven't had a drop going on four weeks now. I declare, farming is the hardest kind of a life, I don't care what the books say!”
”Well, we'll have to do the best we can, I suppose,” said the woman, with a sigh, as she went back into the house.
”What's the matter, mother?” asked a tall, pretty girl, who was was.h.i.+ng the breakfast dishes. ”You look worried.”
”I am, Nettie.”
”What about?”
”Everything; but your father in particular.”
”Is he sick, mother?”
”No; but he's fretting himself to death because there isn't any rain, and he's afraid the crops will be ruined.”
”That would be too bad.”
”Yes; times are hard enough as it is, without having a short crop of everything. We depended on a good season this year to finish paying off the mortgage, but the way it looks now we'll be deeper in debt than ever. I declare! it's too bad, just as your father was getting on his feet, after a lot of bad luck, to have this dry spell come.”
The girl did not reply, but there came a more serious look on her pretty face. She was a farmer's daughter, and she knew what it meant if there was a long period without rain.