Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1914 — WAITING FOR HILDA [ARTICLE]

WAITING FOR HILDA

By NORMAN H. CROWELL.

It was evening on the Dakota prairie. Before the door of his sod shanty a young man whose flaxen hair, proclaimed his Scandinavian lineage stood, engaged in the engrossing duty of feeding his shepherd dog. As he tossed the crumbs the dog would leap nimbly upward and catch them neatly sb they descended. “Ah, Jim,” he ejaculated, presently, "a week—maybe two weeks and she ban here!” He gazed straight at the dying sun and murmured the word "Hilda” in' a subdued-voice. Then he walked to a bench beside the door and sat down, folding his strong young arms across his breast, while the dog crept up and buried his nose in his master's Jap. , It had been a year of reverses with Lundquist. He had labored hard —no man could put more honest toil into the struggle with a penurious Boil than he —and it seemed now as if all was for naught. Beginning with a wet, disheartening spring, the season had crept on, piling up against him its mute but potent protests in a manner that had discouraged many a less hardy man. His best horse, becoming entangled in the only wire fence within 20 miles', had been sacrificed to the casualty list of a frontiersman’s life. By mortgaging his crop he had secured another. He was now facing his annual interest payment, while the storekeeper in the town a dozen miles away was growing suspicious and was demanding payment of an open account. His crops—only punk stacks of discolored wheat straw standing limply awaiting the threshing. But Lundquist was forgetting all this as he sat on the bench before his abode. Hilda was coming to him. Hilda, from far-off Norway. Six years it had been since he had gazed into her eyes—Bix years since he had stolen aside in the crush at the embarking and kissed her many times on her willing lips. The thought of it brought a snfile to Lundquist’B suntanned visage. The dog saw it and wagged his tail in recognition of his master’s mood. Two years ago she would have cbme, but he set his teeth firmly and sefit her that letter which had wrung his heart. "Wait!” he had told her. Wait till Fortune smiles more brightly on these bleak Dakota prairies! It was a bitter thing v to do, but Lundquist saw no other course. Only last year she was prevented from coming by the sickness of her mother. Nothing, not even poor crops, now stood in the way of her coming, and she was now m midocean on the steamer that was bearing her westward —to Carl. In a little box under his bunk he had every letter that Hilda had written him. They were good reading during the long winter evenings. The steamer agent had said that she would reach Quebec on the 14th. It was the 9th. « —On the 16th Lundquist went to town. He walked up and down the single street, keeping close watch on the depot until the afternoon train had passed. He rode the 12 miles home in moody silence. The following day he went to town again and in the evening, when he went back toward home, his face was haggard and wan from his day’s vigil. He was getting worried. What could be keeping Hilda? Hfcd something gone wrong? Lundquist slept little that night. Old Jim, for the first time in months, barked piteously, and his master, starting guiltily, made haste to throw Borne bread to the animal. “Pore Jim!” said he, “Ay forget yo’ eh?” Lundquist essayed a laugh, but it died away hollowly. The next day he had stalked by the post office five times in sulky silence when he heard some one call his name. 'He paused and entered. Banks, the postmaster,. had a letter in his hand. “Letter for you, Carl!” be said. "Came this morning.” Lundquist took it in his hand and edged away to a corner of the little office. It was a queer letter —all in print, like's newspaper. Lundquist bent over it and wrinkled his brow. “Read it tar you?" suggested the postmaster, expectantly. “Ja! Yo read hem,” assented Lundquist, perplexedly. The letter was a cruel stab to the eager listener. Hilda was detained,in Quebec. The medical authorities had examined her and found her suffering with an affliction of the eyes that would prohibit' her entry unless Bpeedlly cured. To do this a sufficient amount of money must be advanced by Lundquist to Insure payment of the medical expense incident to the treatment. The postmaster, hearing a suspicious sound, paused in his translation and glanced up. The listener was staring at him wide-eyed, his whole sotil pouring out through his blue orbs. It confused him and he crumpled the paper nervously. Lundquist brought himself together with a Jerk. v “How much money hem say?” “A hundred dollars!” was the postmaster’s response. “Von hunderd dollars!” repeated the stricken youth. “Von hunderd —” He reached out and took the sheet from Bank's fingers and placed it In his pocket Then he went out, old

Jim close at his beds, with his tail down dejectedly. An hour later the two emerged from the door of the bank. Aimlessly they strolled along the dismal street until -they came to where the team was tied. A mile out on the open prairie the youth turned in his seat and shook his clenched fist at the receding town. Once be glanced upward —then settled firmly in a straight stare ahead, and bo remained till the cabin was reached. ' That night he did not go to bed. He sat and walked and babbled to the dog till daybreak. In the morning he eyed the rising sun with bloodshot eyes. His body quivered with the protests of abused nerves and- his cheeks were sunken from lack of nourishment • “Von hunderd dollars!” he said bitterly. , i/ That day be visited the bank three different times. The last time he stood in the doorway and told the banker a few of the hot that rankled in his brain. stood aside and snarled. He visited the store and asked for food. When the storekeeper suggested pay, he cursed beneath bis breath and left the place. He went to the post office with a letter he had written to Hilda—a letter filled with scalding tears and heart burnings. The postmaster spoke to him, asking if he was sending ttye money on to the girl. Lundquist clenched his teeth tightly and rushed out to conceal the tears that stole unrepressed down his cheeks. Two days later a letter came. It was cold and formal. Hilda had returned to Norway. Lundquist stumbled awkwardly when Banks read the letter and thrust his elbow through a pane of glass. Banks, glancing up, made light oljw accident. “Don’t worry about that, Carl!” he remarked. “I’ll fix that.” “Ay get yo glass!” said Lundquist, hoarsely, as he went out. At the hardware store,he brought forth his paltry store of silver —four _ dollars in all. The glass took one of these. Inside the case something caught his eye—something shiny and cold. He inquired Its price. "Two-fifty,” said the man. “and It's a 38!” Lundquist Blid the money hesitatingly across the glass counter and took the object gingerly in his hand. Flushed and trembling he started for the door. “Wait! You want you’ll need some of these!” called the proprietor as he slid out some little boxes. “Ja! Von box!” said Lundquist. It was late that night when the two reached the lone cabin on the prairie. The dog sat on the floor before his master, and licked his lips expectantly, but his master heeded him not—he was reading, reading, reading Hilda’B letters. Two weeks later the newspaper at the county seat priiited the following: “A party of sportsmen made a gruesome find in a sod shanty 12 miles north of E last week. Attracted by the mournful howling of a shepherd dog they drew up and entered. The body of a young Scandinavian lay upon the earth floor with a bullet wound in his-forehead. Numerous letters scattered about created the impression that he committed the deed in a fit of homesickness or despondency. The dog refused 4o leave the spot, although wasted to a skeleton by hunger and exposure.” (Copyright, by Dally Story Pub. Co.)