'm a grass widow. My Duncan is awa'. He scooted for Calgary
as soon as his threshing-work was finished up. But that tumult is over
and once more I've a chance to sit down and commune with my soul.
Everything here is over-running with wheat. Our bins are bursting. The
lord of the realm is secretly delighted, but he has said little about
it. He has a narrow course to steer. He is grateful for the money that
this wheat will bring in to him, yet he can see it would never do to
harp too loudly on the productiveness of our land--on _my_ land, I
ought to say, for Casa Grande has now been formally deeded to me. I
find no sense of triumph, however, in that transfer. I am depressed,
in fact, at the very thought of it. It seems to carry a vague air of
the valedictory. But I refuse to be intimidated by the future.

Gershom and I, indeed, have been indulging in the study of astronomy.
The air was crystal clear last night, so that solemn youth suggested
that we take out the old telescope and study the stars. Which we did.
And which was much more wonderful than I had imagined. But Gershom had
no reflector, so after getting a neck-ache trying to inspect the
heavens while on our feet we took the old buffalo-robe and a couple of
rugs out to a straw-pile that had been hauled in to protect our winter
perennials. There we indecorously reposed on our backs and went
stargazing in comfort. And Gershom even forgot that painful
bashfulness of his when he fell to talking about the planets. He
slipped out of his shell and spoke with genuine feeling.

He suggested that we begin with the Big Dipper, which I could locate
easily enough well up in the northern sky. That, Gershom told me, was
sometimes called the Great Bear, though it was only a part of the real
_Ursa Major_ of the astronomers. Then he showed me Benetnasch at the
end of the Dipper's handle, and Mizar at the bend in the handle, then
Alioth, and then Megrez, which joins the handle to the bowl. Then he
showed me Phaed and Merak, which mark the bottom of the bowl, and then
Dubhe at the bowl's outer rim.

I tried hard, but I was very stupid about getting the names right.
Then Gershom asked me to look up at Mizar, and see if I could make
out a small star quite close to it. I did so, without much trouble,
and Gershom thereupon condescended to admit that I had exceptionally
good eyes. For that star, he explained, was Alcor, and Alcor was
Arabic for "the proof," and for centuries and centuries