The Homesteader: A Novel

by Oscar Micheaux

So according to this man's prediction, the country of our story would experience a severe drought soon, preceded by a slight one as a forerunner. For two years the crops would be inferior but the following year would see it normal again.

So be it.

It had been dry the year before, and had been just a little bit so the year before that. We know by the shortage of crops Jean Baptiste had raised that such had been so. So, with hundreds of acres, and the sun shining hot, and the wind blowing from the south, it was no surprise when he became now, an altogether different person. (For you see the life—that life that makes men strong and fearless and cheerful had gone from the body of Jean Baptiste.) Then he began to grow uneasy. It is, perhaps, somewhat difficult to portray a drought and its subsequent disasters. We beg of you, however, that you go back to the early years in the peaceful, hopeful, vigorous country of our story: In the years that had been before when everything had pointed to success. Rainfall had been abundant; frost had waited until October before it showed his white coat upon the window sill. Land values had climbed and climbed, and had gone so high until only the moneyed could even reckon to own land. And Jean Baptiste controlled a thousand acres.

Over all the country, the pounding of steam and gasoline tractors filled the air with an incessant drumming; the black streaks everywhere told the story of conquest. The prairie was giving place to the inevitable settler, and hope was high in the hearts of all. So the wind had blown hot many days before the settlers became apprehensive of anything really serious.

Never since they had come to this country had they experienced such intense heat; such regular heat; such continued heat. A week passed and the heat continued. It blew a gale, and then a blast; but always it was hot, hot, hot!

Two weeks passed, and still it blew. Before this it had at least subsided at night, although it did begin afresh in the morning. But now it blew all night and all day, and each day it became hotter, the soil became dryer, and presently the crops began to fire.

"Oh, for a rain!" every settler cried. "For a rain, a rain, a rain!" But no rain came.

So every day there was the continual firing of the crops.

The corn had been too small in the beginning to require much moisture, and the dry weather had enabled the farmer to kill the weeds, so it stood the gaft quite well, for a time, and grew like gourd vines in the meantime. It was the wheat, the oats, the rye and the barley that were first to suffer. These were at their most critical stage, the time when tiny little heads must dare seek the light. And as they did so, the cruel heat met and burned them until thereupon they cried and died from grief. And still the drought continued.

No showers fell. The crops needed water. After the third week of such intense heat, the people groaned and said "'93" had returned with all its attendant disaster. And still the wind kept blowing. The air grew hot, hotter; almost to stifling with the odor of the burning plants. The aroma mixed with the intense heat was suffocating. The grass upon the prairie gave up, turned its tiny blades to the sun and died to the roots, while all the grain of the land, slowly became shorter. It struggled, it bent, and at last turned what had pointed upward, downward, and also died of thirst.