From the Improvement Era, August 1933 –

Promise of the Wheat

By Isabelle Neill

Fay Morgan was city bred. She never could learn to love the unending acres of wheat as her husband did. She longed for city things — parties and fine clothes and city comforts — but Fay was right at hearty as right as the waving wheat.

As the light wind stirred it, the great field of young wheat rustled softly, as if it were whispering secrets. It rippled and shimmered in folds like a green sea.

Fay Morgan, walking at the edge of the wheat on her way to the mailbox by the road, looked at it with no appreciation of its fresh beauty. She hated the wheat with a strange and jealous hatred. The wheat came first with Frank. She was only second.

When she had come to the ranch, five years earlier, she, too, had thought the wheat beautiful. She had watched it eagerly that year. Her expectant eyes had caught the first glimpse of the sharp green spears stretching up through the brown loam. During the spring and summer she had seen the spears advance steadily, growing straight and strong. She had thrilled with the first touch of gold in the green. Then the field had become a yellow sea, bright as the sun; a sea that had faded, after a few days, to a taffy paleness. Then there had been hubbub of reapers and threshers, and the stubble, bleached and full of memories of what had been and what was to be when the brown waiting days of the winter were over.

Fay had been sure of herself that first year and sure of Frank. She saw the wheat as a means to an end. In another year or two, those golden harvests would take her and Frank back to the city, where she had always lived, and where she wished to live again.

They had been so prosperous, those first easy years. Wheat had been in demand, and Frank had made plenty of money.

At the end of the second year, with a comfortable balance in the bank, Fay had broached her plan.

“Let’s go home to Mayville,” she had begged Frank. “We’ve plenty of money. You could start in business, and we could buy a lovely little place in some nice residential district. Do, Frank. We’d be so happy.”

But Frank had not answered at once. His eyes had strayed out to the stubble, lying pale and bare in the October sunlight. And his eyes were the eyes of a lover.

“No, Fay,” he had answered slowly. “I can’t do it. I had thought that I could, but I can’t. These years have done something to me. Growing wheat makes me feel that I am really worth while in the world. I am helping to stay its hunger. I must stay here. You don’t mind, do you. Fay? They have been such good years. We’ve been so happy here, working together.”

But Fay did mind, and said so. She spoke bitterly of her loneliness, of the drudgery the keeping of a home entailed. She wasn’t used to it, and didn’t like it. She wanted to be back in Mayville, among the lights and glitter of the busy town, with her friends about her and a constant movement of gayety swinging on every side.

She pleaded with Frank. She wept. She lapsed into sullen silences. But Frank was adamant. He bought more land, and improved the strains of wheat he was planting. But Frank was not ungenerous. He gave her a large check, and told her to go back to Mayville for a visit, to spend a good part of the long winter there.

This Fay refused to do.

“It would only make me dissatisfied,” she told Frank. “If I were to go there for the winter, I might never want to come back.”

She had stayed on. In time, Frank hoped, she would become reconciled to living there and would love the land and the wheat as he did. Fay tried to be cheerful, but a shadow lay between them. The shadow of the wheat.

The next fall she admitted that Frank might have been wise. He had sold his wheat crop at a fair price just before the great financial debacle. The Morgans had money enough to see them through several difficult years. And they had the land.

Wheat prices were descending the next year, but Frank sowed and cared for his acres as before.

“You can’t make anything out of it,” Fay had told him rather bitterly.

“Perhaps not. But someone might need my wheat. At least I can raise seed enough for some of these struggling chaps on the dry lands, and enough to feed anyone who is hungry and needs it in this part of the country.”

Fay had indulged in a sniff. It was well enough to have such philanthropic ideas, but it was rather silly to spend all one’s time and effort on them.

The next year wheat prices were lower, but Frank was loyal to his fields and planted them. Hard times had struck the farming country. Frank frequently gave away great bags of wheat, and Fay suspected that money occasionally went with it, but she said no word.

This spring prospects were no better, but the wheat evidently had not heard of the depression. It had come up lustily, and was growing like mad — strong, sturdy young plants, promising much in the way of harvest.

The mail carrier’s little car was whirling away in the distance in a cloud of dust when Fay reached the mail box. It was the day on which she received her favorite magazine. She pulled it out of the box, and a letter dropped at her feet.

She picked it up. From Grace Dawson, who had been her best friend in high school days. Grace, married and living in Mayville, was often in Fay’s thoughts, but Grace was busy, and didn’t write often.

Fay tore open the letter and scanned it hurriedly.

“Fay, dear, you must come down to Mayville as soon as you can,” Grace had written. “I have a charming friend here from New York, and there are so many parties. We’re having a glorious time, but we do miss you. Tear yourself away from Frank for a week or two or more, and join us. We’ll have so much fun. Write me at once when to meet you.”

There was more. Fay read it again, more slowly. Her fingers shook as she placed the letter back in the envelope. She would go. She still had the money Frank had given her so long ago when he urged her to spend a winter there. She would use part. of it on her trip. There would be plenty with which to buy some pretty new clothes and accessories.

She told Frank about it when he came in for his lunch.

“Do go, honey,” he urged. “It would do you good. I worry sometimes about the way you stay here, month after month, with so little pleasure. Go to Mayville, and have a good time. I can handle everything at this end. You send Grace a telegram, and tell her you’re coming right away.”

Fay agreed, and spent the rest of the day in happy preparations for her going. She baked Frank a ham and a huge cake, and put the little house in shining order.

They rose in the early morning and drove along the silent, dewy country to the station.

“I’ll be back in a week or maybe two — ” she promised Frank.

“Don’t hurry, honey. Make a real vacation of this. Stay as long as you like, and have a fine time,” he had urged her.

On the train she thought of Frank. How good he was to her! His life was harder than hers. He worked so long, and so uncomplainingly, and was so generous to everyone, even in his thoughts. He had not had a vacation since they had been married. She might have suggested that he accompany her, or that they take a trip together. But it was too late for that.

It was late afternoon when she reached Mayville, but Fay did not seem tired. She was eagerly joyous, and so bubbling over with laughter that Grace was enchanted with her.

“You’re just what we needed,” Grace assured her. “Really, you’re the first happy person I’ve seen in months. Everyone is complaining about lost jobs and bank failures and low wages until it is so tiresome. That’s all Charles talks about any more. Really, it’s tiresome.”

At the house Fay met Cynthia Weatherell, the friend from New York of whom Grace had written. She had expected the friend to be young and gay, but saw, to her surprise, that Mrs. Weatherell was a middle-aged woman, not at all smartly-gowned, who spoke quietly. But she had a sweet smile, and Fay felt drawn to her from the first.

“And what do you want to do, Fay?” Grace asked when they were alone in Fay’s room.

“Oh — everything! I can’t begin soon enough. Shops, and a hair-dresser’s, and theaters and parties! I’ve been living with wheat so long I’ve forgotten some of the delights of civilization, but I want to be reminded of them as quickly as possible.”

“Lucky girl, to have money to spend on shops and hair-dressers,” said Grace lightly. “Charles is getting terribly stingy. He’s been cutting my allowance until it’s a real effort to stretch it over absolute necessities.”

Fay’s bright happiness was somewhat dimmed that evening. When, bathed and refreshed and clad in a pretty blue frock, she went down for dinner, she was delighted to see that Grace had invited several of her school friends and their husbands to dine. The table, bright with flowers and sparkling with crystal and silver, looked festive, but the faces about it were not in keeping. Most of the men looked tired, and their faces were strained. The women talked quickly and brightly, but there was a sense of something wrong in the air. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t natural. Fay realized. When the men broke the silence that seemed to surround them to speak, their voices sounded hollow.

Now and then some one of them would mention business, but some laughing remark from his wife would cause him to be silent again.

“I don’t suppose you feel the depression much out in the country?” Charles asked Fay in a little pause.

“Perhaps not as you do in Mayville,” Fay answered. “But some of the small farmers have been badly hit by it.” She went on to speak of taxes and mortgages.

“Frank has been helping a few of them for a couple of years,” she said.

A clamor of protest broke out.

“He shouldn’t do it,” exclaimed Iris Graham, a pretty blonde who was beautifully dressed. “A person should hold tight to everything he has in times like these. I call it wicked to give like that. Why, you may need it yourself.”

Fay’s face flushed. She felt suddenly angry. In her heart she had, at times, questioned Frank’s generosity to others, but she viewed it in a different light now. She rose to defend him.

“A man should look after his own interests first,” Iris insisted, “if people did that, there wouldn’t be so many demanding charity at this time.”

Surprisingly, several of the men spoke In support of sharing with others. One of them, who had scarcely spoken all evening, began to tell with animation of the soup kitchen his service club was sponsoring.

“You should visit it. Iris,” he said, smiling at Mrs. Graham, “and watch the faces of some of the people who are obliged to go there for food to keep body and soul together. Their faces arc pictures of desperation and despair, at times. And how good it is when one can see a bit of hope dawn in such a face!”

Mrs. Weatherell, who had been listening interestedly, began to tell of the relief work done in her own town. The men asked many questions. The women remained, in general, in discontented silence.

After dinner Fay found herself by Mrs. Weatherell.

“I’d like to talk to you for a little while, if you don’t mind,” she invited. “The game places are filled without us, and if you don’t mind a little conversation, you’d be doing me a favor to talk to me.” Fay expressed her pleasure in the opportunity. Mrs. Weatherell’s interest in the farm and life there amazed Fay. She talked on and on, and found herself growing enthusiastic about the great hills that sheltered the valley, the vast stretches of clean air, the everchanging pageant of color.

“And your husband — tell me more of him,” Mrs. Weatherell urged.

Fay didn’t need much urging. It was easy to talk of Frank, to tell of his hard work, his cheery nature, his thought for others.

“I think you are a very fortunate woman,” Mrs. Weatherell said gently when the recital was ended. “I’m just learning how fortunate,” Fay confessed. “And now I’m wondering how I can be sufficiently grateful and appreciative.” “I don’t believe you’ll find that too hard.” Mrs. Weatherell smiled. In the morning Grace took Fay shopping.

“I thought you were going to buy out the town,” Grace laughed over luncheon. “Of course you’ve bought things, but not what I had gathered you meant to buy.”

For Fay had hesitated to spend her money on things she could not use at home. She had bought a couple of simple dresses and a sweater for herself. But the rest of her purchases had been material for curtains and drapes, a pretty tea set, and gifts for Frank. It seemed she could think of nothing else but Frank. She bought books that she was sure would delight him, a new tie, shirts, a fish pole, and a number of little gifts that she believed he would enjoy. During the next few days Fay was thoughtful and rather preoccupied. She went to parties dutifully enough, but she didn’t enjoy them.

“It seems like dancing while Rome burns,” she remarked to Mrs. Weatherell, with whom she had struck up a firm friendship.

Mrs. Weatherell answered with a smile.

The next day Fay told Grace she was going to start home the next morning.

“Why, I thought you were going to stay for a real visit,” Grace objected. “We haven’t seen half of the girls yet, and there are ever so many parties planned. Why are you going, Fay?”

“Well, Grace, I must confess it’s a childish ailment.”

“Ailment?”

“I’ll tell you all. To be truthful, I’m homesick. For the ranch. For Frank.”

Grace laughed whole-heartedly.

“I suspected as much. Fay, Frank must be a marvel. We’re coming up this summer to learn just what the attraction is.”

“Do. And you won’t feel hurt if I dash away tomorrow?”

“No, angel. I understand. But you must promise to come back
soon.”

Fay couldn’t promise.

“I will promise that next time I’ll bring Frank,” she said.

“That will be perfect. Then we may be able to persuade you to stay.”

So Fay set out for home, after a farewell talk with Mrs. Weatherell, and a promise from the easterner to visit the ranch for a genuine taste of western life. It seemed to her that the train moved slowly and stopped at every crossing along the way. Her thoughts kept flying ahead. Perhaps Frank had not received her telegram! Perhaps he would not be there to meet her!

She was trembling with excitement when the train drew to a stop at her station. The brakeman helped her out with her bundles and bags. She stood alone on the platform. Frank hadn’t come! Perhaps something had happened to him, and she could never tell him how wrong she had been, how badly she had behaved. A car was speeding down the road to the station, its headlights flashing through the darkness. Fay held her breath. It might be someone coming for her, bringing her bad news.

The car pulled up, stopped. A familiar voice shouted.

Her weak knees carried her to it. Frank was there, well, smiling, real!

“Why, honey, what’s the matter?” he was concerned. “You’re crying.”

“Just so glad to be home,” she sobbed.

“Didn’t you have a nice time?” “Lovely. But I was homesick, Frank— homesick for you, and the ranch.”

It seemed hard for her to explain what had happened to her on the visit. She tried to tell him, over the supper that celebrated her return.

“I knew how wrong I had been all this time, Frank,” she said. “I’m so glad you had more sense than I, and more character, and didn’t let me persuade you to move to Mayville. I brought back most of my money, and I want you to use it to help the people who need It.

“But it’s yours. Fay, and I want you to enjoy it.”

“Then spend it. That would give me more pleasure than anything else. Frank, what time does it get light in the morning now?”

“Quite early. About a quarter to six, I should say.”

“I’m going to set the alarm, so I can get up then.”

“But why, honey? You’re tired. Better get a good rest.”

“No, I want to see the wheat.”

“See the wheat?”

“Yes, Frank. You see, I’ve never really seen it before, and in the morning I shall. I understand it now.”