It was days before he passed the plains, the place of the sleepless winds where wan white skies bent above the grass of the hot dry pulse, the lifeless grass that wailed into the ceaseless wind its dirge of death and decay.
It was weeks before he reached Kansas City, the city of hills, with lights hung high and lights hung low. Here he found a place as brakeman and worked his way into Missouri.
Here it was as if an ocean steamer had suddenly stopped the whir of its wheels at the approach of the pilot come out from shore to tug it in.
The wind had stopped blowing.
The position was only temporary. Another brakeman taking his place, Seth walked.
He was not sorry to walk in this quiet land. How tenderly green the shrubbery was, how beautiful! Mingled with the darker green of the cedar and pine, the brown green of the cone.
How sweet the slow green trees! Not windswept! Not torn by the wild, wet fingers of the wind, not lashed with hot and scathing fingers gone dry with drought, but still and peaceful.
A sleepy world of streams it was, a sleepy world of streams and sweet green trees among whose leaflets gentle zephyrs breathed scarcely perceptible sighs of pure contentment.
Patiently, contentedly, he walked mile after mile through this beautiful Missouri which was so like home, among these tall, sighing trees, under the protection of their great still umbrella-like heads, thinking of his dream Celia, whom he was so soon to see.
The absence of the wind had left his brain clear. Since it was so short a time until his dream was to become a reality, no longing or heartache served to set his brain afire with the agony of despair. Calmly he walked in the white straight rain among the tender trees, his tired brain clear, thinking of her.