THE DROUTH
A cloudy and threatening day in May, there came an inch of rainfall. I
had completed sowing two hundred and fifty acres of flax a few days
before, and soon everything looked beautiful and green. I felt extremely
hopeful.
During the six years I had been farming in Dakota, I had raised from
fair to good crops every year. The seasons had been favorable, and if a
good crop had not been raised, it was not the fault of the soil or from
lack of rainfall. The previous year had not been as wet as others, but I
had raised a fair crop, and at this time had four hundred and ten acres
in crop and one hundred and ten acres rented out, from which I was to
receive one third of the crop. I had come west with hopes of bettering
my financial condition and had succeeded fairly well.
Around me at this time others had grown prosperous, land had advanced
until some land adjoining Megory had brought one hundred dollars per
acre, and land a few miles from town sold for fifty to eighty dollars
per acre.
Before settling in the west I had read in real estate advertisements all
about the wheat land that could be bought from ten to twenty-five
dollars per acre, that would raise from twenty-five to forty bushels of
wheat to the acre. While all this was quite possible I had never raised
over twenty-five bushels per acre, and mostly harvested from ten to
twenty. I had wondered, before I left Chicago, how, at a yield of thirty
bushels per acre (and for the last seven or eight years prices had
ranged from seventy cents to one dollar per bushel for wheat) the
farmers could spend all the money. Of course, I had learned, in six
years, that twenty-five to forty or fifty bushels per acre, while
possible, was far from probable, and considerably above the average.
The average yield for all wheat raised in the United States is about
fourteen bushels per acre, but crops had averaged from fair to good all
over the northwest for some fifteen or sixteen years, with some
exceptions, and the question I had heard asked years before, "Will the
drouth come again," was about forgotten.
During the three years previous to this time, poor people from the east,
and around Megory and Calias as well, who were not able to pay the
prices demanded for relinquishments and deeded lands in Megory, Tipp
county, or the eastern states, had flocked by thousands to the western
part of the state and taken free homesteads. At the beginning of this,
my seventh season in Dakota, the agricultural report showed an
exceedingly large number of acres had been seeded, and the same report
which was issued June eighth, reported the condition of all growing
crops to be up to the ten-year average and some above.
It was on Sunday. I had quit breaking prairie on account of the ground
being too dry, and while going along the road, I noticed a field of
spelt that looked peculiar. Going into the field, I dug my fingers into
the soil, and found it dry. I could not understand how it had dried out
so quickly; but thinking it would rain again in a few days, it had been
but ten days since the rain, I thought no more about it. The following
week, although it clouded up and appeared very threatening, the clouds
passed and no rain fell. On Saturday I drove into Ritten, and on the way
again noticed the peculiar appearance of the growing plants. It was the
topic of discussion in the town, but no one seemed willing to admit that
it was from the lack of moisture. The weather had been very hot all week
and the wind seemed to blow continually from the south.
In past years, after about two days of south winds, we were almost sure
to have rain. The fact that the wind had blown from the south for nearly
two weeks and no rain had fallen caused everybody to be anxious. That
night was cloudy, the thunder and lightning lasted for nearly two hours,
but when I went to the door, I could see the stars, and the next day the
heat was most intense.
The Wesinbergers had said the heavens would be ablaze with lightning and
resound with peals of thunder but that they were only solstice storms,
coming up in unusual directions, and that such storms were
characteristic of a dry season. Furthermore, that heavy, abnormal rains
would occur in scattered localities, at the same time, but they would be
few and far apart.
June fifteenth I took my sister to Victor to make proof on her
homestead, and from there drove to Megory, stopping in Calias to send my
wife a telegram to the effect that I felt I was going to be sick and
for her to draw a draft on the Bank of Calias, and come home. The
telegram was not answered.
Next morning my sister left for Kansas, and that afternoon a heavy
downpour of rain fell all over Megory county and as far west as Victor,
but north of Ritten, where I had my flax crop, there was scarcely
sufficient rain to lay the dust. On that day the hot winds set in and
lasted for seven weeks, the wind blowing steadily from the south all the
while.
I had never before, during the seven years, suffered to any extent from
the heat, but during that time I could not find a cool place. The wind
never ceased during the night, but sounded its mournful tune without a
pause. Then came a day when the small grain in Tipp county was beyond
redemption, and rattled as leaves in November. The atmosphere became
stifling, and the scent of burning plants sickening.
My flax on the sod, which was too small to be hurt at the beginning of
the drouth, began to need rain, and reports in all daily papers told
that the great heat wave and the drouth in many places were worse than
in Tipp county. All over the western and northern part of the state,
were localities where it had not rained that season. Potatoes, wheat,
oats, flax, and corn, in the western part of the state, had not
sprouted, and, it was said, in a part of Butte county, where seed had
been sown four inches deep the year before, there had not been enough
rain since to make it sprout.
The government had spent several million dollars damming the Belle
Fourche river for the purpose of irrigation, and the previous autumn,
when it had been completed, the water in it had been run onto the land,
to see how it would work, and since had been dry. No snow had fallen in
the mountains during the winter, and all the rivers were as dry as the
roads; while all the way from the gulf, to Canada, the now protracted
drouth was burning everything in its wake.
At Kansas City, where the treacherous Kaw empties its waters into the
Missouri, and had for years wrought disaster with its notorious floods,
drowning out two and sometimes three crops in a single spring, was
nearly dry, and the crops were drying up throughout its valley.
I spent the Fourth of July in Victor, where the people shook their heads
gravely and said, "Tipp county will never raise a crop." The crops had
dried up in Tipp county the year before. I read that the railroad men
who run from Kansas City to Dodge City reported that the pastures
through Kansas were so dry along the route, that a louse could be seen
crawling a half mile away. In parts of Iowa the farmers commenced to put
their stock in pens and fed them hay from about the middle of June,
there being no feed in the pastures. Through eastern Nebraska, western
Iowa and southern Minnesota, the grasshoppers began to appear by the
millions, and proceeded to head the small grain. To save it, the farmers
cut and fed it to stock, in pens.
[Illustration: The crops began to wither. (page 289.)]
The markets were being over-run with thin cattle from the western
ranges, where the grass had never started on account of lack of
moisture. I watched my flax crop and early in July noticed it
beginning to wilt, then millions of army worms began cutting it down.
On the eleventh I left for Megory county, with my stock, to harvest the
winter wheat there. It had been partially saved by the rain in June. The
two hundred and eighty-five acres of flax was a brown, sickly-looking
mess, and I was badly discouraged, for outside of my family trouble, I
had borrowed my limit at the bank, and the flax seed, breaking, and
other expenses, had amounted to eleven hundred dollars.
About this time the settlers all over the western highlands began to
desert their claims. Newspapers reported Oklahoma burned to a crisp, and
Kansas scorched, from Kansas City to the Colorado line. Homesteaders to
the north and west of us began passing through the county, and their
appearance presented a contrast to that of a few years before. Fine
horses that marched bravely to the land of promise, drawing a prairie
schooner, were returning east with heads hanging low from long, stringy
necks, while their alkalied hoofs beat a slow tattoo, as they wearily
dragged along, drawing, in many cases, a dilapidated wagon over which
was stretched a tattered tarpaulin; while others drew rickety hacks or
spring wagons, with dirty bedding and filthy looking utensils. These
people had not made a dollar in the two years spent on their homesteads.
At Pierre, it was said, seven hundred crossed the the Missouri in a
single day, headed east; while in the settlements they had left, the few
remaining settlers went from one truck patch to another, digging up the
potatoes that had been planted in the spring, for food.
One day I crossed the White river and went to visit the Wisenbergers,
who lived seventeen miles to the north. On the way, out of forty-seven
houses I passed, only one had an occupant. The land in that county is
underlaid with a hardpan about four inches from the surface, and had not
raised a crop for two years. The settlers had left the country to keep
from starving. As I drove along the dusty road and gazed into the empty
houses through the front doors that banged to and fro with a monotonous
tone, from the force of the hot south winds, I felt lonely and faraway;
the only living thing in sight being an occasional dog that had not left
with his master, or had returned, but on seeing me, ran, with tucked
tail, like a frightened coyote.
Merchants were being pressed by the wholesale houses. The recent years
had been prosperous, and it is said prosperity breeds contempt and
recklessness. The townspeople and many farmers had indulged lavishly in
chug-chug cars. Bankers and wholesale houses, who had always criticised
so much automobilism, were now making some wish they had never heard the
exhaust of a motor. In addition to this the speculators were loaded to
the guards, with lands carrying as heavy mortgage as could be had--which
was large--for prosperity had caused loan companies to increase the
amount of their loans. No one wanted to buy. Every one wanted to sell.
The echo of the drouth seventeen years before and the disaster which
followed, rang through the country and had the effect of causing prices
to slump from five to fifteen dollars per acre less than a year before.
Now what made it worse for Tipp county was, that it had been opened when
prosperity was at its zenith. The people were money mad. Reckless from
the prosperity which had caused them to dispense with caution and good
judgment, they were brought suddenly to a realization of a changed
condition. The new settlers, all from eastern points, came into Tipp
county, seeing Tipp county claims worth, not six dollars per acre, the
price charged by the Government, but finding ready sales at prices
ranging from twenty-five to forty-five dollars, and even fifty dollars
per acre. They had spent money accordingly. And now, when the parched
fields frowned, and old Jupiter Pluvius refused to speak, the community
faced a genuine panic.
* * * * *
Came a day, sultry and stifling with excessive heat, when I drove back
to the claims. Everywhere along the way were visible the effects of the
drouth. Vegetation had withered, and the trails gave forth clouds of
dust.
Late in the afternoon clouds appeared in the northwest and the earth
trembled with the resounding peals of thunder. The lightning played
dangerously near, and then, like the artillery of a mighty battle, the
storm broke loose and the rain fell in torrents, filling the draws and
ravines, and overflowing the creeks, which ran for days after. All over
the north country the drouth was broken and plant life began anew.
My wheat threshed about eight hundred bushels, and when marketed, the
money received was not sufficient to pay current expenses. Therefore, I
could not afford the outlay of another trip to Chicago, but wrote many
letters to Orlean, imploring her to return, but all in vain.
During the summer I had received many letters from people in Chicago and
southern Illinois, denouncing the action of the Elder, in preventing my
wife from returning home. The contents of these letters referred to the
matter as an infamous outrage, and sympathized with me, by hoping my
wife would have courage to stand up for the right. I rather anticipated,
that with so much criticism of his action by the people belonging to the
churches in his circuit, he would relent and let her return home; but he
remained obstinate, the months continued to roll by, and my wife stayed
on.
I had not written her concerning the drouth, which had so badly impaired
crops. I knew her people read all the letters she received, and felt
that with the knowledge in their possession that my crop had been cut
short, along with the rest, would not help my standing. They would be
sure to say to her, "I told you so." The last letter that I received
from my wife, that year, was written early in the fall, in answer to a
letter that I wrote her, and in which I had sent her some money, with
which to buy some things for my grandmother. When Orlean had been in
Dakota, she had been very fond of my grandmother, and had asked about
her in every letter, whether the letter was kind or abusive, as regarded
me. My wife's letter, stated that she had received the money, and
thanked me also stated that she would get the things for "Grandma" that
day. Neither grandmother or I received the things.
I was so wrought up over it all, yet saw no place where I could get
justice. In order to show the Reverend that he was being criticized by
friends of the family, I gathered up some half dozen or more letters,
including the last one from Claves and one from Mrs. Ewis, and sent them
to him. The one from Mrs. Ewis related how he had written to her, just
before he took my wife away, saying that she was in dire need, and
wanted to borrow twenty-five dollars to bring her home. Needless to say,
she had not sent it, nor assisted him in any other way, in helping to
break up the home. As a result, she said, he had not spoken to her
since.
I learned later that the letters I had sent had made him terribly angry.
I received a letter from him, the contents of which were about the same
as his conversation had been, excepting, that he did not profess any
love for me, which at least was a relief; but, from the contents, I
derived that he had expected his act to give him immortality, and
expressed surprise that he should be criticized for coming to Dakota and
saving the life of his child--as he put it--from the heartless man, that
was killing her in his efforts to get rich.
He seemed to forget to mention any of the facts which had occurred
during his last trip, namely; his many declarations of undying love for
us; of how glad he was that we were doing so much toward the development
of the great west; and his remarks that if he was twenty-five years
younger it was where he would be. He also suggested that he would try to
be transferred to the Omaha District, so that he might be nearer us.