She was in the back yard, taking her “white clothes” off the line, when the special came puffing slowly into town. To emphasize her disapproval of the whole system of politics, she turned her back square toward it, and laid violent hold of a sheet. There was a smudge of cinders upon its white surface, and it crushed crisply under her thumb with the unmistakable feel of burned grass.
“Now, what in time—” began Arline aloud, after the manner of women whose tongues must keep pace with their thoughts. “That there feels fresh and”—with a sniff at the spot—“smells fresh.”
With the wisdom of much experience she faced the hot wind and sniffed again, while her eyes searched keenly the sky line, which was the ragged top of the bluff marking the northern boundary of the great prairie land. A trifle darker it was there, and there was a certain sullen glow discernible only to eyes trained to read the sky for warning signals of snow, fire, and flood.
“That's a fire, and it's this side of the river. And if it is, then the railroad set it, and there ain't a livin' thing to stop it. An' the wind's jest right—” A curdled roll of smoke showed plainly for a moment in the haze. She crammed her armful of sheets into the battered willow basket, threw two clothespins hastily toward the same receptacle, and ran.
The special had just come to a stop at the depot. The cattlemen, cowboys, and townspeople were packed close around the rear of the train, their backs to the wind and the disaster sweeping down upon them, their browned faces upturned to the sleek, carefully groomed man in the light-gray suit, with a flaunting, prairie sunflower ostentatiously displayed in his buttonhole and with his campaign smile upon his lips and dull boredom looking out of his eyes.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he was saying, as he smiled, “you favoured ones whose happy lot it is to live in the most glorious State of our glorious union, I greet you, and I envy you—”
Arline, with her soiled kitchen apron, her ragged coil of dust-brown hair, her work-drawn face and faded eyes which blazed with excitement, pushed unceremoniously through the crowd and confronted him undazzled.
“Mister Candidate, you better move on and give these men a chancet to save their prope'ty,” she cried shrilly. “They got something to do besides stand around here and listen at you throwin' campaign loads. The hull country's afire back of us, and the wind bringin' it down on a long lope.”
She turned from the astounded candidate and glared at the startled crowd, every one of whom she knew personally.
“I must say I got my opinion of a bunch that'll stand here swallowin' a lot of hot air, while their coat tails is most ready to ketch afire!” Her voice was rasping, and it carried to the farthest of them. “You make me tired! Political slush, all of it—and the hull darned country a-blazin' behind you!”