cultivated to try to build up stores for all possible emergencies of the
following winter.

When the time came for making the first work assignments on the farms,
Professor Maddox and Professor Larsen appeared to receive theirs.
Sheriff Johnson was in the office at the time. "What are you two doing
here? You can get back to your regular business," he stormed. "We aren't
that hard up for farmers!"

"We have no regular business," said Professor Maddox. "The projector
work is being taken care of. Mayfield will probably not be the site of a
university again during our lifetimes. We want to be assigned some acres
to plow. By the way, did you hear Art Matthews has got three more
tractors in operation this week? If we can find enough gasoline we may
be able to do the whole season's plowing by machine."

"You're sure you want to do this?" said Sheriff Johnson.

"Quite sure. Just put our names down as plain dirt farmers."

* * * * *

Ken clung to the radio for reports of the outside world. The batteries
were all but exhausted, but a motor generator could be allotted to the
station as soon as other work was out of the way.

In Pasadena, they told him a diesel railway engine had been successfully
decontaminated and put into operation. Airtight packing boxes had been
designed for the wheels to keep them from being freshly affected by the
dust remaining in the air. It was planned to operate a train from the
metropolitan area to the great farming sections to the east and north. A
few essential manufactures had also been revived, mostly in the form of
machine shops to decontaminate engine parts.

Negotiations were under way to try to move the great wheat and other
grain stocks of the Midwest down the Mississippi River to New Orleans
and through the Panama Canal to the Pacific Coast cities. Oldtime
sailing vessels, rotting from years of disuse, were being rebuilt for
this purpose.

Ken found it hard to envision the Earth stirring with this much life
after the destruction that had passed over it. In the civilized areas,
it was estimated that fully two-thirds of the population had perished.
Only in the most primitive areas had the comet's effect been lightly
felt. Yet, around the world, the cities were stirring again. Food for
the surviving was being found. The hates and the terrors were being put
away and men were pulling together again to restore their civilization.

Maria came to the radio sh