The Plow-Woman

To Robert Underwood Johnson, Esq.




The coulée was a long, scarlet gash in the brown level of the Dakota prairie, for the sumach, dyed by the frosts of the early autumn, covered its sides like a cloth whose upper folds were thrown far over the brinks of the winding ravine and, southward, half-way to the new cottonwood shack of the Lancasters. Near it, a dark band against the flaming shrub, stretched the plowed strip, narrow, but widening with each slow circuit of the team as the virgin, grass-grown land was turned by the mould-board to prepare for the corn-planting of the coming spring.
The sun, just risen, shone coldly upon the plain, and a wind, bearing with it a hint of raw weather and whirling snow, swept down the Missouri valley from the north, marshalling in its front hosts of gabbling ducks and honking geese that were taking noisy flight from a region soon to be buried and already bleak. Yet with all the chill in the air, Ben and Betty, the mules, steamed as they toiled to and fro, and lolled out their tongues with the warmth of their work and the effort of keeping straight in the furrow; and Dallas, following in their wake with the reins about her shoulders and the horns of the plow in a steadying grasp, took off her slouch hat at the turnings to bare her damp forehead, drew the sleeve of her close-fitting jersey across her face every few moments, and, at last, to aid her in making better progress, as well as to cool her ankles, brought the bottom of her skirt through the waistband, front and back, and walked in her red flannel petticoat. As she travelled, she looked skyward occasionally with a troubled face, and, resting but seldom, urged the team forward. Clear weather and sunshine would not long continue, and the first field on the claim must be turned up and well harrowed before the opening of winter.
Come, Ben, come, she called coaxingly to the nigh mule. If you don't dig in now, how d' you expect to have anything to eat next winter? Betty, Betty, don't let Ben do it all; I'm talking to you, too. Come along, come along.