After that, I scarcely knew how
to put in the time until the night express was due.
I took a long walk north of the town, out into the pastures where the land
was so rough that it had never been ploughed up, and the long red grass of
early times still grew shaggy over the draws and hillocks. Out there I
felt at home again. Overhead the sky was that indescribable blue of
autumn; bright and shadowless, hard as enamel. To the south I could see
the dun-shaded river bluffs that used to look so big to me, and all about
stretched drying cornfields, of the pale-gold color I remembered so well.
Russian thistles were blowing across the uplands and piling against the
wire fences like barricades. Along the cattle paths the plumes of
golden-rod were already fading into sun-warmed velvet, gray with gold
threads in it. I had escaped from the curious depression that hangs over
little towns, and my mind was full of pleasant things; trips I meant to
take with the Cuzak boys, in the Bad Lands and up on the Stinking Water.
There were enough Cuzaks to play with for a long while yet. Even after the
boys grew up, there would always be Cuzak himself! I meant to tramp along
a few miles of lighted streets with Cuzak.
As I wandered over those rough pastures, I had the good luck to stumble
upon a bit of the first road that went from Black Hawk out to the north
country; to my grandfather's farm, then on to the Shimerdas' and to the
Norwegian settlement.
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