ept as by a
prairie fire. And for the labor of the fields, nothing remained. The
cottonwood trees and wild plum bushes belonged to a mid-winter landscape,
and of the many young catalpa groves, only stubby sticks stood up, making
a darker spot on the face of the bare plains.

For three days the Saint Bartholomew of vegetation continued. Then the
pest, still hungry, rose and passed to the southeast, leaving behind it
only a honey-combed soil where eggs were deposited for future hatching,
and a famine-breeding desolation.

In days of great calamity or sorrow, sometimes little things annoy
strangely, and it is not until after the grief has passed that the memory
recalls and the mind wonders why trifles should have had such power amid
such vastly important things. While the grasshopper was a burden, one loss
wore heavily on Virginia Aydelot's mind. She had given up hope for vines
and daintier flowers in the early summer, but one clump of coarse
sunflowers she had tended and watered and loved.

"It is our flower," she said to Asher, who laughed at her care. "I won't
give them up. I can get along without the other blooms this year, but my
sunflowers are my treasure here--the only gold till the wheat turns yellow
for us."

"You are a sentimental sister," Asher declared. But he patiently carried
water from the dwindling well supply to keep the drouth from searing them.
When they fell before the ravenous grasshoppers, foolish as it was,
Virginia mourned their loss above the loss of crops--so scanty were the
joys of these women state builders.

The day after the pests left was the Sabbath. When Asher Aydelot read the
morning lesson in the Sunday school, his voice was deep and unfaltering.
He had chosen the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, with its sublime promises
to a wilderness-locked people.

Then Pryor Gaines offered prayer.

"Although the figtree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the
vines"--the old, old chant of Habakkuk on Mount Shigionoth--"the labor of
the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall
be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I
will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord
God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hind's feet, and He will
make me to walk upon mine high places."

So the scholarly man, crippled and held to the land, prayed; and comfort
came with his words.

Then Jim Shirley stood up