r cap on
his head that concealed his ears and most of his face. He wore a ragged
coat that was generally gray, but had white lines along the seams.
Under this he wore another coat still more ragged, and the whole was
belted at the waist with an old surcingle. Like his father, he was
possessed of vast physical strength, and took pride in his powers of
endurance.

"Wal, here goes," he said, stripping off his outside coat. "It's tough,
but it aint no use dreadin' it."

Bradley smiled back at him in his wordless way, and caught hold of the
first ear. It sent a shiver of pain through him. His fingers, worn to
the quick, protruded from his stiff, ragged gloves, and the motions of
clasping and stripping the ear were like the rasp of a file on a naked
nerve. He shivered and swore, but his oath was like a groan.

The horses, humped and shivering, looked black and fuzzy, by reason of
their erected hair. They tore at the corn-stalks hungrily. Their tails
streamed sidewise with the force of the wind, which had a wild and
lonesome sound, as it swept across the sear stretches of the corn. The
stalks towered far above the heads of the huskers, but did little to
temper the onslaught of the blast.

Occasional flocks of geese drifted by in the grasp of the inexorable
gale, their necks out-thrust as if they had already caught the gleam of
their warm southern lagoons. Clouds of ducks, more adventurous, were
seen in irregular flight, rising and falling from the lonely fields
with wild clapping of wings. Only the sparrows seemed indifferent to
the cold.

There was immensity in the dome of the unbroken, seamless, gray
threatening sky. There was majesty in the dim plain, across which the
morning light slowly fell. The plain, with its dark blue groves, from
which thin lines of smoke rose and hastened away, and majesty in the
wind that came from the illimitable and desolate north. But the lonely
huskers had no time to feel, much less to think, upon these things.

They bent down to their work and snatched the red and yellow ears bare
of their frosty husks with marvelous dexterity. The first plunge over,
Bradley found as usual that the sharpest pain was over. The wind cut
his face, and an occasional driving flake of snow struck and clung to
his face and stung. His coat collar chafed his chin, and the frost wet
his gloves through and through. But he warmed to it and at last almost
forgot it. He fell into thought again, so deep that his work