It was all he could do to keep warmth in the boy's body and his own, to get food for their nourishment.
And as for homesickness!
There were nights when he looked at the silver moon, half effaced by wind-blown clouds, and fought back the tears, thinking how that same moon was shining down on home and her.
Nights when he fell into very pleasant dreams of that tranquil beauteous and pleasant country where the wind did not blow. Dreams in which he beheld flowers, not ragged wind-torn flowers of a parched and ragged prairie, odorless, colorless flowers and tumbleweeds tossing weirdly over dusty plains, but flowers of his youth, Four o'Clocks, Marguerites and Daffy-Down-Dillies, nodding bloomily on either side of an old brick walk leading from door to gate, Jasmine hanging redolently from lattice, Virginia Creeper and Pumpkin-vine.
And oh!
A radiant dream! Celia, walking out through vine and flower in all her fresh young beauty to meet him as in the old days, to open wide the door and welcome him.
Then as she had done, he waked sobbing, man though he was, but he hushed his sobs for fear of waking the child.
Homesickness!
He dared not dwell on the word lest his few ideas, scattered already by the sough of the wind, the incessant moan and sob and wail of the wind, might blow away altogether; lest he throw to those winds his pride of independence, his resolute determination to make a home for her and himself and their child in the West, and go back to her.
This, whatever dreams assailed him, he resolved not to do.