Perhaps it came to him in reality across the intervening miles of wind-blown prairie. Perhaps the wind blew it to him. Who knows? Our Mother Earth often sends us help in our sorest need in her own way, a way which oftentimes partakes of mystery.
Perhaps it came only in memory.
However, it served.
He opened his eyes, and the madness had passed.
He pulled himself together dazedly, unfastened the hitch rein of the mule, mounted awkwardly into the high and ungainly blue cart and started off in the direction of the cry.
The wind which on the coming trip had appeared to take fiendish delight in trying to tear Celia's garments to ribbons, now suddenly died down, for the wind loved Seth.
It had done with Celia. She was gone. But not by one breath would it add to the grief of Seth. On the contrary, it spent its most dulcet music in the effort to soothe him. Tenderly as the cooing of a dove it whispered in his ear, reminding him of the child.
He answered aloud.
"I know," he said. "I had forgotten him. The po' little mothahless chile!"
And the wind kissed his cheek, its breath sweet as a girl's, caressing him, urging him over the vastness of the prairie to the child.