True, a cyclone or two had grazed this town.
One had even taken off a wing. But, though a trifle disabled by each, it had continued to thrive, showing such evident and robust signs of life and strength that the cyclones, presently giving up in despair of making a wreck of it, had gone on by as Seth has said they would do once they found their master.
Then this town had been by way of premium for stanchness and courage made the capital of this State of tornadoes and whirlwinds.
But this was as far as it went or seemed to intend to go. Further south and west an attempt or two had been made to plant towns, but their cellars had not been dug deep enough or their foundations had not been sufficiently firm, or the cyclones had not yet become reconciled to the sight of them. At any rate, the cyclones had come along and swept them away without a word of warning, and they had not been heard of since, neither cyclone nor town.
And so, altogether, Seth lost heart and came to the conclusion that his Magic City, if it was ever to be built would be built after his time and he would never have the happiness of gazing upon it. The hope of seeing it was all that had kept him in the West. Now that he had lost it, an uncontrollable longing came over him to go back home, to see the wife who had deserted him, throw himself at her feet and beg her forgiveness for his madness which had resulted in their separation.
From dreaming dreams of the Magic City he took to dreaming dreams of her.
It was years since he had seen her, but the absent, like the dead, remain unchanged to us. To him she was the same as when last he saw her.
How beautiful she had been with her great blue eyes and her hair the color of Charlie's, tawny, like sunshine! And right, too, in her scorn of his visions. And how foolish he had been to dream of training the wind-blown West into a fit place for human beings to inhabit, or for great cities to be built! It would take a stronger hand than his to do that, he had come to believe. It would take the hand of God.
He had tried to find a tree that would grow so swiftly that the wind could have no effect upon it. He had planted slim switches of one kind after another and the wind had blown each to leaflessness, until now there stood a slim row of cottonwoods that he had tried as a last resort, but the same thing would happen to them, perhaps. He had lost faith in trees. But he would not say yet that he had lost faith in God.
He watched the same train trailing so far away as to seem a toy train and longed as she had done to take it and go back home.