r eyes wide and earnest. She was
breathing hard and she lowered her voice as she answered.

"True as cross my heart to die," she said, "we caught sixty; but this
was all the string I could get. 'Cause--'cause--there's a new kind of
gophers in the timothy meadow,--_and they ain't got tails!_"

VIII

A HARVEST WEDDING

THE wedding of one of the Dutchman's seven stout daughters to a young
farmer who lived in a dugout on the West Fork was an event in the little
girl's life only second in importance to the christening. Two trips to
Yankton on the wheat-wagon with the biggest brother shrank into
insignificance before it, and she looked forward to its celebration so
anxiously that time dragged as slowly as a week before Christmas.

The morning of the notable day she was unable to eat anything through
sheer excitement. She passed the hours after breakfast in restless
riding over the barley stubble, where the sheep, led by a black
bell-wether who sought the fields because they were forbidden ground,
were mincing and picking their way. At eleven she happily welcomed a
gallop to the farthest end of the farm to carry doughnuts and
ginger-beer to the big brothers. At dinner-time her appetite was again
poor, but later, after making enough hay-twists for her mother's
baking, she scraped the cake-batter dish clean and partook freely of
several yards of red apple peelings.

The big brothers came in early from the fields to rest and get ready,
and, one by one, spent half an hour in the kitchen, where the big wooden
wash-tub held the center of the room. When it came time for the little
girl to take a bath, the kitchen floor looked like a duck pond, for the
tub was almost floating, and the well outside was noticeably low. At
sunset the family sat down to a supper suggestive of the wedding feast
to come. But though there were toothsome sandwiches on the table and
cream popovers, not to speak of a heaping dish of watermelon
sweet-pickles, the little girl again did not feel like eating, and only
nibbled at a piece of raisin-pie when her mother, not realizing how
satisfying the batter and peelings had been, threatened her with staying
at home. After supper the big brothers hitched the gray team to the
light wagon, fastened up the chicken-coops, latched the barn door and
chained the dogs; and, having finished the chores, blacked each other's
boots, brushed their hair slick with water, changed their clothes and
resigned themselves