XII
On an August afternoon, Mary walked languidly up the street to her father's house. She was bare-headed, dressed in a plain white muslin, and carried a small parasol, though the sun was hidden in a thick haze. It was about four o'clock. All day the heat had been intense, the air was thick, motionless, stifling. The greyish haze hung low and heavy, and darkened steadily.
It was as though all the heat of the summer, of all the long monotonous summer days, had been gathered up, concentrated in that one day; as if it hung there between the baked earth and the thick blanket of cloud sinking lower and lower, pressing down.
There was no feeling of space. The prairie was stagnant, torpid—nothing stirred on it, except the small ant-like motions of men. The horizons of the vast plain had disappeared....
Day follows day, each with its little occupations, orderly, monotonous, peaceful. Some little corner of the world seems a safe place to live in—shut in upon itself, shut out from disturbance—perhaps too safe. Life may grow dull and languid, sometimes, even when new pulses are stirring in it, grow faint. Long summer days, one like another, each with its weight of humid heat, pile up a burden....
Vast unbroken spaces are dangerous. Beyond that curtain of sullen mist, who knows what is brewing? Unknown forces, long gathering and brooding, strike suddenly out of darkness. That infinite monotony of the prairie breeds violence—long suppressed, breaking at last....
Mary found her mother sitting on the porch, gasping, fanning herself with a palm-leaf.
"What a day—the worst yet," moaned Mrs. Lowell. "Have a glass of lemonade, Mary? I made some for your father. It's on the dining-room table."
"Where is Father?"
Mary dropped into the hammock, panting.