When Ole was cultivating his corn that summer, he used to
get discouraged in the field, tie up his team, and wander off to wherever
Lena Lingard was herding. There he would sit down on the draw-side and
help her watch her cattle. All the settlement was talking about it. The
Norwegian preacher's wife went to Lena and told her she ought not to allow
this; she begged Lena to come to church on Sundays. Lena said she had n't
a dress in the world any less ragged than the one on her back. Then the
minister's wife went through her old trunks and found some things she had
worn before her marriage.
The next Sunday Lena appeared at church, a little late, with her hair done
up neatly on her head, like a young woman, wearing shoes and stockings,
and the new dress, which she had made over for herself very becomingly.
The congregation stared at her. Until that morning no one--unless it were
Ole--had realized how pretty she was, or that she was growing up. The
swelling lines of her figure had been hidden under the shapeless rags she
wore in the fields. After the last hymn had been sung, and the
congregation was dismissed, Ole slipped out to the hitch-bar and lifted
Lena on her horse. That, in itself, was shocking; a married man was not
expected to do such things. But it was nothing to the scene that followed.
Crazy Mary darted out from the group of women at the church door, and ran
down the road after Lena, shouting horrible threats.
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