prompt:
Chapter: For the first three years after John Bergson's death, the affairs
of his family prospered. Then came the hard times that brought
every one on the Divide to the brink of despair; three years of
drouth and failure, the last struggle of a wild soil against the
encroaching plowshare. The first of these fruitless summers the
Bergson boys bore courageously. The failure of the corn crop made
labor cheap. Lou and Oscar hired two men and put in bigger crops
than ever before. They lost everything they spent. The whole
country was discouraged. Farmers who were already in debt had to
give up their land. A few foreclosures demoralized the county.
The settlers sat about on the wooden sidewalks in the little town
and told each other that the country was never meant for men to live
in; the thing to do was to get back to Iowa, to Illinois, to any
place that had been proved habitable. The Bergson boys, certainly,
would have been happier with their uncle Otto, in the bakery shop
in Chicago. Like most of their neighbors, they were meant to follow
in paths already marked out for them, not to break trails in a new
country. A steady job, a few holidays, nothing to think about, and
they would have been very happy. It was no fault of theirs that
they had been dragged into the wilderness when they were little
boys. A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy
the idea of things more than the things themselves.

The second of these barren summers was passing. One September
afternoon Alexandra had gone over to the garden across the draw to
dig sweet potatoes--they had been thriving upon the weather that
was fatal to everything else. But when Carl Linstrum came up the
garden rows to find her, she was not working. She was standing
lost in thought, leaning upon her pitchfork, her sunbonnet lying
beside her on the ground. The dry garden patch smelled of drying
vines and was strewn with yellow seed-cucumbers and pumpkins and
citrons. At one end, next the rhubarb, grew feathery asparagus,
with red berries. Down the middle of the garden was a row of
gooseberry and currant bushes. A few tough zenias and marigolds
and a row of scarlet sage bore witness to the buckets of water
that Mrs. Bergson had carried there after sundown, against the
prohibition of her sons. Carl came quietly and slowly up the garden
path, looking intently at Alexandra. She did not hear him. She was
standing perfectly still, with that serious ease so characteristic
of her. Her thick, reddish braids, twisted about her head, fairly
burned in the sunlight. The air was cool enough to make the warm
sun pleasant on one's back and shoulders, and so clear that the
eye could follow a hawk up and up, into the blazing blue depths of
the sky. Even Carl, never a very cheerful boy, and considerably
darkened by these last two bitter years, loved the country on days
like this, felt something strong and young and wild come out of
it, that laughed at care.

"Alexandra," he said as he approached her, "I want to talk to you.
Let's sit down by the gooseberry bushes." He picked up her sack
of potatoes and they crossed the garden. "Boys gone to town?" he
asked as he sank down on the warm, sun-baked earth. "Well, we have
made up our minds at last, Alexandra. We are really going away."

She looked at him as if she were a little frightened. "Really,
Carl? Is it settled?"

"Yes, father has heard from St. Louis, and they will give him back
his old job in the cigar factory. He must be there by the first
of November. They are taking on new men then. We will sell the
place for whatever we can get, and auction the stock. We haven't
enough to ship. I am going to learn engraving with a German engraver
there, and then try to get work in Chicago."

Alexandra's hands dropped in her lap. Her eyes became dreamy and
filled with tears.

Carl's sensitive lower lip trembled. He scratched in the soft earth
beside him with a stick. "That's all I hate about it, Alexandra,"
he said slowly. "You've stood by us through so much and helped
father out so many times, and now it seems as if we were running
off and leaving you to face the worst of it. But it isn't as if
we could really ever be of any help to you. We are only one more
drag, one more thing you look out for and feel responsible for.
Father was never meant for a farmer, you know that. And I hate
it. We'd only get in deeper and deeper."

"Yes, yes, Carl, I know. You are wasting your life here. You are
able to do much better things. You are nearly nineteen now, and
I wouldn't have you stay. I've always hoped you would get away.
But I can't help feeling scared when I think how I will miss
you--more than you will ever know." She brushed the tears from her
cheeks, not trying to hide them.

"But, Alexandra," he said sadly and wistfully, "I've never been
any real help to you, beyond sometimes trying to keep the boys in
a good humor."

Alexandra smiled and shook her head. "Oh, it's not that. Nothing
like that. It's by understanding me, and the boys, and mother,
that you've helped me. I expect that is the only way one person
ever really can help another. I think you are about the only one
that ever helped me. Somehow it will take more courage to bear
your going than everything that has happened before."

Carl looked at the ground. "You see, we've all depended so on you,"
he said, "even father. He makes me laugh. When anything comes up
he always says, 'I wonder what the Bergsons are going to do about
that? I guess I'll go and ask her.' I'll never forget that time,
when we first came here, and our horse had the colic, and I ran
over to your place--your father was away, and you came home with me
and showed father how to let the wind out of the horse. You were
only a little girl then, but you knew ever so much more about farm
work than poor father. You remember how homesick I used to get,
and what long talks we used to have coming from school? We've
someway always felt alike about things."

"Yes, that's it; we've liked the same things and we've liked them
together, without anybody else knowing. And we've had good times,
hunting for Christmas trees and going for ducks and making our plum
wine together every year. We've never either of us had any other
close friend. And now--" Alexandra wiped her eyes with the corner
of her apron, "and now I must remember that you are going where
you will have many friends, and will find the work you were meant
to do. But you'll write to me, Carl? That will mean a great deal
to me here."

"I'll write as long as I live," cried the boy impetuously. "And
I'll be working for you as much as for myself, Alexandra. I want
to do something you'll like and be proud of. I'm a fool here, but
I know I can do something!" He sat up and frowned at the red grass.

Alexandra sighed. "How discouraged the boys will be when they
hear. They always come home from town discouraged, anyway. So
many people are trying to leave the country, and they talk to our
boys and make them low-spirited. I'm afraid they are beginning to
feel hard toward me because I won't listen to any talk about going.
Sometimes I feel like I'm getting tired of standing up for this
country."

"I won't tell the boys yet, if you'd rather not."

"Oh, I'll tell them myself, to-night, when they come home. They'll
be talking wild, anyway, and no good comes of keeping bad news.
It's all harder on them than it is on me. Lou wants to get married,
poor boy, and he can't until times are better. See, there goes the
sun, Carl. I must be getting back. Mother will want her potatoes.
It's chilly already, the moment the light goes."

Alexandra rose and looked about. A golden afterglow throbbed in
the west, but the country already looked empty and mournful. A dark
moving mass came over the western hill, the Lee boy was bringing in
the herd from the other half-section. Emil ran from the windmill
to open the corral gate. From the log house, on the little rise
across the draw, the smoke was curling. The cattle lowed and
bellowed. In the sky the pale half-moon was slowly silvering.
Alexandra and Carl walked together down the potato rows. "I have
to keep telling myself what is going to happen," she said softly.
"Since you have been here, ten years now, I have never really been
lonely. But I can remember what it was like before. Now I shall
have nobody but Emil. But he is my boy, and he is tender-hearted."

That night, when the boys were called to supper, they sat down
moodily. They had worn their coats to town, but they ate in their
striped shirts and suspenders. They were grown men now, and, as
Alexandra said, for the last few years they had been growing more
and more like themselves. Lou was still the slighter of the two,
the quicker and more intelligent, but apt to go off at half-cock.
He had a lively blue eye, a thin, fair skin (always burned red to
the neckband of his shirt in summer), stiff, yellow hair that would
not lie down on his head, and a bristly little yellow mustache,
of which he was very proud. Oscar could not grow a mustache; his
pale face was as bare as an egg, and his white eyebrows gave it an
empty look. He was a man of powerful body and unusual endurance;
the sort of man you could attach to a corn-sheller as you would
an engine. He would turn it all day, without hurrying, without
slowing down. But he was as indolent of mind as he was unsparing
of his body. His love of routine amounted to a vice. He worked
like an insect, always doing the same thing over in the same way,
regardless of whether it was best or no. He felt that there was
a sovereign virtue in mere bodily toil, and he rather liked to
do things in the hardest way. If a field had once been in corn,
he couldn't bear to put it into wheat. He liked to begin his
corn-planting at the same time every year, whether the season were
backward or forward. He seemed to feel that by his own irreproachable
regularity he would clear himself of blame and reprove the weather.
When the wheat crop failed, he threshed the straw at a dead loss
to demonstrate how little grain there was, and thus prove his case
against Providence.

Lou, on the other hand, was fussy and flighty; always planned to
get through two days' work in one, and often got only the least
important things done. He liked to keep the place up, but he never
got round to doing odd jobs until he had to neglect more pressing
work to attend to them. In the middle of the wheat harvest, when
the grain was over-ripe and every hand was needed, he would stop
to mend fences or to patch the harness; then dash down to the
field and overwork and be laid up in bed for a week. The two boys
balanced each other, and they pulled well together. They had been
good friends since they were children. One seldom went anywhere,
even to town, without the other.

To-night, after they sat down to supper, Oscar kept looking at Lou
as if he expected him to say something, and Lou blinked his eyes
and frowned at his plate. It was Alexandra herself who at last
opened the discussion.

"The Linstrums," she said calmly, as she put another plate of hot
biscuit on the table, "are going back to St. Louis. The old man
is going to work in the cigar factory again."

At this Lou plunged in. "You see, Alexandra, everybody who can
crawl out is going away. There's no use of us trying to stick it
out, just to be stubborn. There's something in knowing when to
quit."

"Where do you want to go, Lou?"

"Any place where things will grow," said Oscar grimly.

Lou reached for a potato. "Chris Arnson has traded his half-section
for a place down on the river."

"Who did he trade with?"

"Charley Fuller, in town."

"Fuller the real estate man? You see, Lou, that Fuller has a head
on him. He's buying and trading for every bit of land he can get
up here. It'll make him a rich man, some day."

"He's rich now, that's why he can take a chance."

"Why can't we? We'll live longer than he will. Some day the land
itself will be worth more than all we can ever raise on it."

Lou laughed. "It could be worth that, and still not be worth
much. Why, Alexandra, you don't know what you're talking about.
Our place wouldn't bring now what it would six years ago. The
fellows that settled up here just made a mistake. Now they're
beginning to see this high land wasn't never meant to grow nothing
on, and everybody who ain't fixed to graze cattle is trying to
crawl out. It's too high to farm up here. All the Americans are
skinning out. That man Percy Adams, north of town, told me that
he was going to let Fuller take his land and stuff for four hundred
dollars and a ticket to Chicago."

"There's Fuller again!" Alexandra exclaimed. "I wish that man
would take me for a partner. He's feathering his nest! If only
poor people could learn a little from rich people! But all these
fellows who are running off are bad farmers, like poor Mr. Linstrum.
They couldn't get ahead even in good years, and they all got into
debt while father was getting out. I think we ought to hold on as
long as we can on father's account. He was so set on keeping this
land. He must have seen harder times than this, here. How was it
in the early days, mother?"

Mrs. Bergson was weeping quietly. These family discussions always
depressed her, and made her remember all that she had been torn
away from. "I don't see why the boys are always taking on about
going away," she said, wiping her eyes. "I don't want to move
again; out to some raw place, maybe, where we'd be worse off than
we are here, and all to do over again. I won't move! If the rest
of you go, I will ask some of the neighbors to take me in, and stay
and be buried by father. I'm not going to leave him by himself
on the prairie, for cattle to run over." She began to cry more
bitterly.

The boys looked angry. Alexandra put a soothing hand on her mother's
shoulder. "There's no question of that, mother. You don't have
to go if you don't want to. A third of the place belongs to you
by American law, and we can't sell without your consent. We only
want you to advise us. How did it use to be when you and father
first came? Was it really as bad as this, or not?"

"Oh, worse! Much worse," moaned Mrs. Bergson. "Drouth, chince-bugs,
hail, everything! My garden all cut to pieces like sauerkraut. No
grapes on the creek, no nothing. The people all lived just like
coyotes."

Oscar got up and tramped out of the kitchen. Lou followed him.
They felt that Alexandra had taken an unfair advantage in turning
their mother loose on them. The next morning they were silent and
reserved. They did not offer to take the women to church, but went
down to the barn immediately after breakfast and stayed there all
day. When Carl Linstrum came over in the afternoon, Alexandra
winked to him and pointed toward the barn. He understood her and
went down to play cards with the boys. They believed that a very
wicked thing to do on Sunday, and it relieved their feelings.

Alexandra stayed in the house. On Sunday afternoon Mrs. Bergson
always took a nap, and Alexandra read. During the week she read
only the newspaper, but on Sunday, and in the long evenings of
winter, she read a good deal; read a few things over a great many
times. She knew long portions of the "Frithjof Saga" by heart,
and, like most Swedes who read at all, she was fond of Longfellow's
verse,--the ballads and the "Golden Legend" and "The Spanish Student."
To-day she sat in the wooden rocking-chair with the Swedish Bible
open on her knees, but she was not reading. She was looking
thoughtfully away at the point where the upland road disappeared
over the rim of the prairie. Her body was in an attitude of perfect
repose, such as it was apt to take when she was thinking earnestly.
Her mind was slow, truthful, steadfast. She had not the least
spark of cleverness.

All afternoon the sitting-room was full of quiet and sunlight.
Emil was making rabbit traps in the kitchen shed. The hens were
clucking and scratching brown holes in the flower beds, and the
wind was teasing the prince's feather by the door.

That evening Carl came in with the boys to supper.

"Emil," said Alexandra, when they were all seated at the table,
"how would you like to go traveling? Because I am going to take
a trip, and you can go with me if you want to."

The boys looked up in amazement; they were always afraid of
Alexandra's schemes. Carl was interested.

"I've been thinking, boys," she went on, "that maybe I am too set
against making a change. I'm going to take Brigham and the buckboard
to-morrow and drive down to the river country and spend a few days
looking over what they've got down there. If I find anything good,
you boys can go down and make a trade."

"Nobody down there will trade for anything up here," said Oscar
gloomily.

"That's just what I want to find out. Maybe they are just as
discontented down there as we are up here. Things away from home
often look better than they are. You know what your Hans Andersen
book says, Carl, about the Swedes liking to buy Danish bread and
the Danes liking to buy Swedish bread, because people always think
the bread of another country is better than their own. Anyway,
I've heard so much about the river farms, I won't be satisfied till
I've seen for myself."

Lou fidgeted. "Look out! Don't agree to anything. Don't let them
fool you."

Lou was apt to be fooled himself. He had not yet learned to keep
away from the shell-game wagons that followed the circus.

After supper Lou put on a necktie and went across the fields to
court Annie Lee, and Carl and Oscar sat down to a game of checkers,
while Alexandra read "The Swiss Family Robinson" aloud to her mother
and Emil. It was not long before the two boys at the table neglected
their game to listen. They were all big children together, and they
found the adventures of the family in the tree house so absorbing
that they gave them their undivided attention.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: A few years have passed, and the Bergson family is struggling through a period of drought and crop failure. Everyone has started to wonder whether the Nebraskan plains were ever even meant to be inhabited. Lou and Oscar would probably be happier with a regular job in the city, like their Uncle Otto, who's a baker in Chicago. In that way, they're a lot like their neighbors. A true pioneer, though, the narrator tells us, "should have imagination" and not be afraid to persevere . The chapter begins in September, just after the second in a row of bad summers. Alexandra is digging up sweet potatoes when Carl shows up. He catches her lost in thought. Despite all the depression surrounding the drought, Carl is happy to catch a glimpse of Alexandra, with her long, reddish braid that "fairly burned in the sunlight" . Carl asks to speak with Alexandra. Without much beating around the bush, he tells her that his family has decided to move away. Carl says his father will go back to working in a cigar factory in St. Louis and that Carl himself will train to become an engraver. They're both on the verge of tears at this point. Carl says it's for the best; this way, Alexandra will have one less thing to worry about. Plus, his father was never really cut out to be a farmer. Alexandra agrees that it's best for them to go. But she's still scared to think how much she will miss him. She doesn't try to hide her tears. Carl insists that he's never really been all that much help to Alexandra. She reminds him that he's helped her whole family, and her especially, by understanding them. Then Carl and Alexandra get all sentimental on us, talking about the old times when Carl had just arrived with his poor father, who knew nothing about farming, about hunting for Christmas trees, making plum wine, etc. We get it--they're best friends forever, and now one of them is moving away. Bummer. Carl promises to write to Alexandra "as long as I live," and says he'll work for her as much as for himself. Alexandra say she fears telling her brothers, who she thinks are already cross with her for refusing to move away like almost everyone else. Alexandra notices it's getting dark and says she needs to go inside. As they walk together, she mentions that she'll have no friends after he leaves, except for her little brother, Emil. Later on, the narrator describes the dinner scene with Alexandra, her mother and her brothers. Lou and Oscar are full-grown now, and their personalities have finally taken shape. Lou is the thinner and cleverer one, with a tendency to be impulsive and flighty. His brother, Oscar, is much bigger and stronger, and values routine above all, whether or not he gets the best outcome. The two are good friends and are rarely apart from one another. At dinner, Alexandra calmly announces that the Linstrums, Carl's family, are moving back to St. Louis. Lou and Oscar start grumbling, saying it's a sign of the times. Their own family had better move while they still can. Alexandra, on the other hand, is convinced that the land they own will one day be worth a fortune, so there's no use in selling it now. Lou scoffs at this. He's convinced that the people who first decided to settle this country made a big ol' mistake. It's time to move on, like the others, who've been selling off their property to Charly Fuller, a wealthy real estate investor. The fact that a wealthy man is buying up the land tells Alexandra that there's something worth holding onto, and that the people who are selling and leaving now are probably just bad farmers. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bergson has begun to weep quietly. She doesn't want to move again and risk being worse off than they already are. Alexandra reminds her mother that they can't sell their property without her consent, according to American law. She asks Mrs. Bergson what the country was like when they first arrived, and Mrs. Bergson exclaims that it was much, much worse. The boys get up and storm off. The next day, a Sunday, the boys decide to play cards in the barn instead of going to church. When Carl comes by, Alexandra sends him over to talk to them about his departure. Alexandra sits inside and reads. She likes to read a few things over and over again, such as the "Frithjof Saga," a Scandinavian epic poem, and poems by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Her mind is slow and deliberate, the narrator tells us, without "the least spark of cleverness" . At supper time, Carl comes in with Lou and Oscar. They're all surprised when Alexandra asks Emil if he'd like to accompany her on a trip. Alexandra tells them she's decided to take a trip to the river country, to see whether it's worth settling down there instead of on staying on the Divide . When Lou doubts whether anyone there would be willing to trade their property with the Bergsons, Alexandra isn't so sure--the grass is always greener. Lou just hopes she won't get fooled, though, as the narrator informs us, Lou happens to be into gambling and often gets fooled himself. After dinner, Lou goes off to woo Annie Lee, a local girl, and Alexandra sits down to read "The Swiss Family Robinson" to Emil. Soon, the whole family is sitting around her, listening.


prompt:
Chapter: Alexandra and Emil spent five days down among the river farms,
driving up and down the valley. Alexandra talked to the men about
their crops and to the women about their poultry. She spent a
whole day with one young farmer who had been away at school, and
who was experimenting with a new kind of clover hay. She learned
a great deal. As they drove along, she and Emil talked and planned.
At last, on the sixth day, Alexandra turned Brigham's head northward
and left the river behind.

"There's nothing in it for us down there, Emil. There are a few
fine farms, but they are owned by the rich men in town, and couldn't
be bought. Most of the land is rough and hilly. They can always
scrape along down there, but they can never do anything big. Down
there they have a little certainty, but up with us there is a big
chance. We must have faith in the high land, Emil. I want to hold
on harder than ever, and when you're a man you'll thank me." She
urged Brigham forward.

When the road began to climb the first long swells of the Divide,
Alexandra hummed an old Swedish hymn, and Emil wondered why his
sister looked so happy. Her face was so radiant that he felt shy
about asking her. For the first time, perhaps, since that land
emerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward
it with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and
strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until
her tears blinded her. Then the Genius of the Divide, the great,
free spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than
it ever bent to a human will before. The history of every country
begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

Alexandra reached home in the afternoon. That evening she held
a family council and told her brothers all that she had seen and
heard.

"I want you boys to go down yourselves and look it over. Nothing
will convince you like seeing with your own eyes. The river land
was settled before this, and so they are a few years ahead of us,
and have learned more about farming. The land sells for three
times as much as this, but in five years we will double it. The
rich men down there own all the best land, and they are buying
all they can get. The thing to do is to sell our cattle and what
little old corn we have, and buy the Linstrum place. Then the next
thing to do is to take out two loans on our half-sections, and buy
Peter Crow's place; raise every dollar we can, and buy every acre
we can."

"Mortgage the homestead again?" Lou cried. He sprang up and began
to wind the clock furiously. "I won't slave to pay off another
mortgage. I'll never do it. You'd just as soon kill us all,
Alexandra, to carry out some scheme!"

Oscar rubbed his high, pale forehead. "How do you propose to pay
off your mortgages?"

Alexandra looked from one to the other and bit her lip. They had
never seen her so nervous. "See here," she brought out at last.
"We borrow the money for six years. Well, with the money we buy
a half-section from Linstrum and a half from Crow, and a quarter
from Struble, maybe. That will give us upwards of fourteen hundred
acres, won't it? You won't have to pay off your mortgages for six
years. By that time, any of this land will be worth thirty dollars
an acre--it will be worth fifty, but we'll say thirty; then you
can sell a garden patch anywhere, and pay off a debt of sixteen
hundred dollars. It's not the principal I'm worried about, it's
the interest and taxes. We'll have to strain to meet the payments.
But as sure as we are sitting here to-night, we can sit down here
ten years from now independent landowners, not struggling farmers
any longer. The chance that father was always looking for has
come."

Lou was pacing the floor. "But how do you KNOW that land is going
to go up enough to pay the mortgages and--"

"And make us rich besides?" Alexandra put in firmly. "I can't
explain that, Lou. You'll have to take my word for it. I KNOW,
that's all. When you drive about over the country you can feel it
coming."

Oscar had been sitting with his head lowered, his hands hanging
between his knees. "But we can't work so much land," he said
dully, as if he were talking to himself. "We can't even try. It
would just lie there and we'd work ourselves to death." He sighed,
and laid his calloused fist on the table.

Alexandra's eyes filled with tears. She put her hand on his
shoulder. "You poor boy, you won't have to work it. The men in
town who are buying up other people's land don't try to farm it.
They are the men to watch, in a new country. Let's try to do
like the shrewd ones, and not like these stupid fellows. I don't
want you boys always to have to work like this. I want you to be
independent, and Emil to go to school."

Lou held his head as if it were splitting. "Everybody will say we
are crazy. It must be crazy, or everybody would be doing it."

"If they were, we wouldn't have much chance. No, Lou, I was talking
about that with the smart young man who is raising the new kind
of clover. He says the right thing is usually just what everybody
don't do. Why are we better fixed than any of our neighbors? Because
father had more brains. Our people were better people than these
in the old country. We OUGHT to do more than they do, and see
further ahead. Yes, mother, I'm going to clear the table now."

Alexandra rose. The boys went to the stable to see to the stock,
and they were gone a long while. When they came back Lou played on
his DRAGHARMONIKA and Oscar sat figuring at his father's secretary
all evening. They said nothing more about Alexandra's project,
but she felt sure now that they would consent to it. Just before
bedtime Oscar went out for a pail of water. When he did not come
back, Alexandra threw a shawl over her head and ran down the path
to the windmill. She found him sitting there with his head in his
hands, and she sat down beside him.

"Don't do anything you don't want to do, Oscar," she whispered.
She waited a moment, but he did not stir. "I won't say any more
about it, if you'd rather not. What makes you so discouraged?"

"I dread signing my name to them pieces of paper," he said slowly.
"All the time I was a boy we had a mortgage hanging over us."

"Then don't sign one. I don't want you to, if you feel that way."

Oscar shook his head. "No, I can see there's a chance that way.
I've thought a good while there might be. We're in so deep now, we
might as well go deeper. But it's hard work pulling out of debt.
Like pulling a threshing-machine out of the mud; breaks your back.
Me and Lou's worked hard, and I can't see it's got us ahead much."

"Nobody knows about that as well as I do, Oscar. That's why I want
to try an easier way. I don't want you to have to grub for every
dollar."

"Yes, I know what you mean. Maybe it'll come out right. But signing
papers is signing papers. There ain't no maybe about that." He
took his pail and trudged up the path to the house.

Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against
the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so
keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch
them, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered
march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations
of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them,
she felt a sense of personal security. That night she had a new
consciousness of the country, felt almost a new relation to it.
Even her talk with the boys had not taken away the feeling that had
overwhelmed her when she drove back to the Divide that afternoon.
She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The
chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the
sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down
there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little
wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. Under the long
shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.

PART II. Neighboring Fields

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The chapter begins just as Emil and Alexandra are done with their trip to the river territory and are heading back to the Divide. They spent five days there, and Alexandra has learned a lot from talking to the farmers. But she doesn't see any reason for her family to move there. Emil wonders why his sister looks so cheerful on the ride home. The narrator comments that this might be the first time anyone looked upon this country with "love and yearning" . The "Genius of the Divide" has begun to bend to Alexandra's will. Later, Alexandra meets with her whole family to report on what she's seen in the river country. She tells them her new idea: rather than selling their property and moving, they should mortgage their farm and buy up as much property as possible, starting with the Linstrum land. Lou flips out when he hears Alexandra suggests that they work to pay off another mortgage. Oscar is bewildered. Alexandra starts to get nervous, but stands her ground. She insists that the land will pay for itself in time. When Lou doesn't believe her, she tells him that she knows the land will make them rich. She can "feel it coming" . Call it Farmer ESP. Oscar, sounding defeated, says he doesn't know how they're supposed to work all that land. Alexandra assures him that they won't have to work the land themselves; none of the rich landowners farm their own land. She wants her brothers to be independent landowners, not farm laborers, and she hopes Emil will be able to go to college. When Lou still thinks she's crazy, and asks her why no one else is doing what she suggests, Alexandra reminds him that they descend from better people than their neighbors, and that they owe it to themselves to try. Dinner ends, and they all go their separate ways. A while later, Alexandra finds Oscar looking down in the dumps by the windmill. She tells him he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want. His biggest hang-up is agreeing to take on more debt. After Oscar takes off, Alexandra stays and looks at the stars, thinking about how much this land is part of her, and she is part of it.


prompt:
Chapter: IT is sixteen years since John Bergson died. His wife now lies
beside him, and the white shaft that marks their graves gleams
across the wheat-fields. Could he rise from beneath it, he would
not know the country under which he has been asleep. The shaggy coat
of the prairie, which they lifted to make him a bed, has vanished
forever. From the Norwegian graveyard one looks out over a vast
checker-board, marked off in squares of wheat and corn; light and
dark, dark and light. Telephone wires hum along the white roads,
which always run at right angles. From the graveyard gate one can
count a dozen gayly painted farmhouses; the gilded weather-vanes
on the big red barns wink at each other across the green and brown
and yellow fields. The light steel windmills tremble throughout
their frames and tug at their moorings, as they vibrate in the wind
that often blows from one week's end to another across that high,
active, resolute stretch of country.

The Divide is now thickly populated. The rich soil yields heavy
harvests; the dry, bracing climate and the smoothness of the land
make labor easy for men and beasts. There are few scenes more
gratifying than a spring plowing in that country, where the furrows
of a single field often lie a mile in length, and the brown earth,
with such a strong, clean smell, and such a power of growth and
fertility in it, yields itself eagerly to the plow; rolls away
from the shear, not even dimming the brightness of the metal, with
a soft, deep sigh of happiness. The wheat-cutting sometimes goes
on all night as well as all day, and in good seasons there are
scarcely men and horses enough to do the harvesting. The grain is
so heavy that it bends toward the blade and cuts like velvet.

There is something frank and joyous and young in the open face
of the country. It gives itself ungrudgingly to the moods of the
season, holding nothing back. Like the plains of Lombardy, it
seems to rise a little to meet the sun. The air and the earth are
curiously mated and intermingled, as if the one were the breath
of the other. You feel in the atmosphere the same tonic, puissant
quality that is in the tilth, the same strength and resoluteness.

One June morning a young man stood at the gate of the Norwegian
graveyard, sharpening his scythe in strokes unconsciously timed to
the tune he was whistling. He wore a flannel cap and duck trousers,
and the sleeves of his white flannel shirt were rolled back to
the elbow. When he was satisfied with the edge of his blade, he
slipped the whetstone into his hip pocket and began to swing his
scythe, still whistling, but softly, out of respect to the quiet
folk about him. Unconscious respect, probably, for he seemed
intent upon his own thoughts, and, like the Gladiator's, they were
far away. He was a splendid figure of a boy, tall and straight
as a young pine tree, with a handsome head, and stormy gray eyes,
deeply set under a serious brow. The space between his two front
teeth, which were unusually far apart, gave him the proficiency
in whistling for which he was distinguished at college. (He also
played the cornet in the University band.)

When the grass required his close attention, or when he had to
stoop to cut about a head-stone, he paused in his lively air,--the
"Jewel" song,--taking it up where he had left it when his scythe
swung free again. He was not thinking about the tired pioneers
over whom his blade glittered. The old wild country, the struggle
in which his sister was destined to succeed while so many men broke
their hearts and died, he can scarcely remember. That is all among
the dim things of childhood and has been forgotten in the brighter
pattern life weaves to-day, in the bright facts of being captain
of the track team, and holding the interstate record for the high
jump, in the all-suffusing brightness of being twenty-one. Yet
sometimes, in the pauses of his work, the young man frowned and
looked at the ground with an intentness which suggested that even
twenty-one might have its problems.

When he had been mowing the better part of an hour, he heard the
rattle of a light cart on the road behind him. Supposing that it
was his sister coming back from one of her farms, he kept on with
his work. The cart stopped at the gate and a merry contralto voice
called, "Almost through, Emil?" He dropped his scythe and went
toward the fence, wiping his face and neck with his handkerchief.
In the cart sat a young woman who wore driving gauntlets and a wide
shade hat, trimmed with red poppies. Her face, too, was rather
like a poppy, round and brown, with rich color in her cheeks and
lips, and her dancing yellow-brown eyes bubbled with gayety. The
wind was flapping her big hat and teasing a curl of her chestnut-colored
hair. She shook her head at the tall youth.

"What time did you get over here? That's not much of a job for
an athlete. Here I've been to town and back. Alexandra lets you
sleep late. Oh, I know! Lou's wife was telling me about the way
she spoils you. I was going to give you a lift, if you were done."
She gathered up her reins.

"But I will be, in a minute. Please wait for me, Marie," Emil
coaxed. "Alexandra sent me to mow our lot, but I've done half a
dozen others, you see. Just wait till I finish off the Kourdnas'.
By the way, they were Bohemians. Why aren't they up in the Catholic
graveyard?"

"Free-thinkers," replied the young woman laconically.

"Lots of the Bohemian boys at the University are," said Emil, taking
up his scythe again. "What did you ever burn John Huss for, anyway?
It's made an awful row. They still jaw about it in history classes."

"We'd do it right over again, most of us," said the young woman
hotly. "Don't they ever teach you in your history classes that
you'd all be heathen Turks if it hadn't been for the Bohemians?"

Emil had fallen to mowing. "Oh, there's no denying you're a spunky
little bunch, you Czechs," he called back over his shoulder.

Marie Shabata settled herself in her seat and watched the rhythmical
movement of the young man's long arms, swinging her foot as if
in time to some air that was going through her mind. The minutes
passed. Emil mowed vigorously and Marie sat sunning herself and
watching the long grass fall. She sat with the ease that belongs
to persons of an essentially happy nature, who can find a comfortable
spot almost anywhere; who are supple, and quick in adapting themselves
to circumstances. After a final swish, Emil snapped the gate and
sprang into the cart, holding his scythe well out over the wheel.
"There," he sighed. "I gave old man Lee a cut or so, too. Lou's
wife needn't talk. I never see Lou's scythe over here."

Marie clucked to her horse. "Oh, you know Annie!" She looked at
the young man's bare arms. "How brown you've got since you came
home. I wish I had an athlete to mow my orchard. I get wet to my
knees when I go down to pick cherries."

"You can have one, any time you want him. Better wait until after
it rains." Emil squinted off at the horizon as if he were looking
for clouds.

"Will you? Oh, there's a good boy!" She turned her head to him
with a quick, bright smile. He felt it rather than saw it. Indeed,
he had looked away with the purpose of not seeing it. "I've been
up looking at Angelique's wedding clothes," Marie went on, "and
I'm so excited I can hardly wait until Sunday. Amedee will be
a handsome bridegroom. Is anybody but you going to stand up with
him? Well, then it will be a handsome wedding party." She made a
droll face at Emil, who flushed. "Frank," Marie continued, flicking
her horse, "is cranky at me because I loaned his saddle to Jan
Smirka, and I'm terribly afraid he won't take me to the dance in
the evening. Maybe the supper will tempt him. All Angelique's
folks are baking for it, and all Amedee's twenty cousins. There
will be barrels of beer. If once I get Frank to the supper, I'll
see that I stay for the dance. And by the way, Emil, you mustn't
dance with me but once or twice. You must dance with all the French
girls. It hurts their feelings if you don't. They think you're
proud because you've been away to school or something."

Emil sniffed. "How do you know they think that?"

"Well, you didn't dance with them much at Raoul Marcel's party, and
I could tell how they took it by the way they looked at you--and
at me."

"All right," said Emil shortly, studying the glittering blade of
his scythe.

They drove westward toward Norway Creek, and toward a big white
house that stood on a hill, several miles across the fields. There
were so many sheds and outbuildings grouped about it that the
place looked not unlike a tiny village. A stranger, approaching
it, could not help noticing the beauty and fruitfulness of the
outlying fields. There was something individual about the great
farm, a most unusual trimness and care for detail. On either side
of the road, for a mile before you reached the foot of the hill,
stood tall osage orange hedges, their glossy green marking off
the yellow fields. South of the hill, in a low, sheltered swale,
surrounded by a mulberry hedge, was the orchard, its fruit trees
knee-deep in timothy grass. Any one thereabouts would have told
you that this was one of the richest farms on the Divide, and that
the farmer was a woman, Alexandra Bergson.

If you go up the hill and enter Alexandra's big house, you will
find that it is curiously unfinished and uneven in comfort. One
room is papered, carpeted, over-furnished; the next is almost
bare. The pleasantest rooms in the house are the kitchen--where
Alexandra's three young Swedish girls chatter and cook and pickle
and preserve all summer long--and the sitting-room, in which
Alexandra has brought together the old homely furniture that the
Bergsons used in their first log house, the family portraits, and
the few things her mother brought from Sweden.

When you go out of the house into the flower garden, there you feel
again the order and fine arrangement manifest all over the great
farm; in the fencing and hedging, in the windbreaks and sheds, in
the symmetrical pasture ponds, planted with scrub willows to give
shade to the cattle in fly-time. There is even a white row of
beehives in the orchard, under the walnut trees. You feel that,
properly, Alexandra's house is the big out-of-doors, and that it
is in the soil that she expresses herself best.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Let's move right along to Part 2, shall we? This one's called "Neighboring Fields." It's been sixteen years since John Bergson died. In the meantime, Mrs. Bergson has also passed away. And neither of them would be able to recognize the Divide now. Instead of the punishing landscape we got to know in Part I, the Divide is flourishing, the fields are brimming with lush rows of wheat and corn, and the population is booming. The chapter begins on a summery day in June. A tall, athletic young man, who turns out to be Emil, is using a scythe to cut the grass growing in the Norwegian graveyard. As he cuts the grass, he whistles a tune to himself. He can hardly remember the old days, when his sister struggled to make it while all the others chose to abandon the land. Though he seems happy and carefree, occasionally he pauses, with a frown on his face, which seems to indicate that something is weighing on his mind. A cart rolls up and a voice calls out to Emil. It's Marie Tovesky, now Marie Shabata, the little girl Emil meets in Chapter 1. She offers to give him a lift, but she sees he hasn't finished up mowing yet. They strike up a conversation as Emil mows. They talk about the freethinking Bohemians who, despite being from a Catholic country, are buried in the Norwegian graveyard and the upcoming marriage of their friend Amedee Chevalier. Marie asks Emil to come mow her orchard, and reminds him to dance with the French girls at the wedding, so they don't get their feelings hurt. It sounds like he spends most of the time dancing with Marie. In the course of the conversation, we find out that Emil is studying at the university, and that Marie is married to a man named Frank. Marie mentions that her husband's mad at her for lending their saddle to another man. Talk about tension. Marie appears openly flirtatious, while Emil seems to be ignoring it. Emil finishes and they ride together toward a large white house that belongs to Alexandra, now a wealthy farmer. The narrator clues us in that this is one of the richest farms on the Divide. We also get some details on the house: though stately, the house is only partially finished, with some rooms with wallpaper and filled with furniture, while others are still bare. The kitchen is the nicest room, where three Swedish girls work for Alexandra, and where many of the original things from the Bergson homestead remain. The garden around the house is orderly and productive, unlike the unevenly furnished home. As the narrator says, we get the feeling that "it is in the soil that expresses herself best" .


prompt:
Chapter: Emil reached home a little past noon, and when he went into the
kitchen Alexandra was already seated at the head of the long table,
having dinner with her men, as she always did unless there were
visitors. He slipped into his empty place at his sister's right.
The three pretty young Swedish girls who did Alexandra's housework
were cutting pies, refilling coffeecups, placing platters of bread
and meat and potatoes upon the red tablecloth, and continually
getting in each other's way between the table and the stove. To be
sure they always wasted a good deal of time getting in each other's
way and giggling at each other's mistakes. But, as Alexandra had
pointedly told her sisters-in-law, it was to hear them giggle that
she kept three young things in her kitchen; the work she could
do herself, if it were necessary. These girls, with their long
letters from home, their finery, and their love-affairs, afforded
her a great deal of entertainment, and they were company for her
when Emil was away at school.

Of the youngest girl, Signa, who has a pretty figure, mottled pink
cheeks, and yellow hair, Alexandra is very fond, though she keeps
a sharp eye upon her. Signa is apt to be skittish at mealtime, when
the men are about, and to spill the coffee or upset the cream. It
is supposed that Nelse Jensen, one of the six men at the dinner-table,
is courting Signa, though he has been so careful not to commit
himself that no one in the house, least of all Signa, can tell
just how far the matter has progressed. Nelse watches her glumly
as she waits upon the table, and in the evening he sits on a bench
behind the stove with his DRAGHARMONIKA, playing mournful airs
and watching her as she goes about her work. When Alexandra asked
Signa whether she thought Nelse was in earnest, the poor child hid
her hands under her apron and murmured, "I don't know, ma'm. But
he scolds me about everything, like as if he wanted to have me!"

At Alexandra's left sat a very old man, barefoot and wearing a long
blue blouse, open at the neck. His shaggy head is scarcely whiter
than it was sixteen years ago, but his little blue eyes have become
pale and watery, and his ruddy face is withered, like an apple that
has clung all winter to the tree. When Ivar lost his land through
mismanagement a dozen years ago, Alexandra took him in, and he has
been a member of her household ever since. He is too old to work
in the fields, but he hitches and unhitches the work-teams and
looks after the health of the stock. Sometimes of a winter evening
Alexandra calls him into the sitting-room to read the Bible aloud
to her, for he still reads very well. He dislikes human habitations,
so Alexandra has fitted him up a room in the barn, where he is very
comfortable, being near the horses and, as he says, further from
temptations. No one has ever found out what his temptations are.
In cold weather he sits by the kitchen fire and makes hammocks
or mends harness until it is time to go to bed. Then he says his
prayers at great length behind the stove, puts on his buffalo-skin
coat and goes out to his room in the barn.

Alexandra herself has changed very little. Her figure is fuller,
and she has more color. She seems sunnier and more vigorous than
she did as a young girl. But she still has the same calmness and
deliberation of manner, the same clear eyes, and she still wears
her hair in two braids wound round her head. It is so curly that
fiery ends escape from the braids and make her head look like one
of the big double sunflowers that fringe her vegetable garden.
Her face is always tanned in summer, for her sunbonnet is oftener
on her arm than on her head. But where her collar falls away from
her neck, or where her sleeves are pushed back from her wrist, the
skin is of such smoothness and whiteness as none but Swedish women
ever possess; skin with the freshness of the snow itself.

Alexandra did not talk much at the table, but she encouraged her
men to talk, and she always listened attentively, even when they
seemed to be talking foolishly.

To-day Barney Flinn, the big red-headed Irishman who had been with
Alexandra for five years and who was actually her foreman, though
he had no such title, was grumbling about the new silo she had put
up that spring. It happened to be the first silo on the Divide,
and Alexandra's neighbors and her men were skeptical about it. "To
be sure, if the thing don't work, we'll have plenty of feed without
it, indeed," Barney conceded.

Nelse Jensen, Signa's gloomy suitor, had his word. "Lou, he says
he wouldn't have no silo on his place if you'd give it to him.
He says the feed outen it gives the stock the bloat. He heard of
somebody lost four head of horses, feedin' 'em that stuff."

Alexandra looked down the table from one to another. "Well,
the only way we can find out is to try. Lou and I have different
notions about feeding stock, and that's a good thing. It's bad if
all the members of a family think alike. They never get anywhere.
Lou can learn by my mistakes and I can learn by his. Isn't that
fair, Barney?"

The Irishman laughed. He had no love for Lou, who was always uppish
with him and who said that Alexandra paid her hands too much. "I've
no thought but to give the thing an honest try, mum. 'T would be
only right, after puttin' so much expense into it. Maybe Emil will
come out an' have a look at it wid me." He pushed back his chair,
took his hat from the nail, and marched out with Emil, who, with
his university ideas, was supposed to have instigated the silo.
The other hands followed them, all except old Ivar. He had been
depressed throughout the meal and had paid no heed to the talk of
the men, even when they mentioned cornstalk bloat, upon which he
was sure to have opinions.

"Did you want to speak to me, Ivar?" Alexandra asked as she rose
from the table. "Come into the sitting-room."

The old man followed Alexandra, but when she motioned him to a chair
he shook his head. She took up her workbasket and waited for him
to speak. He stood looking at the carpet, his bushy head bowed,
his hands clasped in front of him. Ivar's bandy legs seemed to
have grown shorter with years, and they were completely misfitted
to his broad, thick body and heavy shoulders.

"Well, Ivar, what is it?" Alexandra asked after she had waited
longer than usual.

Ivar had never learned to speak English and his Norwegian was quaint
and grave, like the speech of the more old-fashioned people. He
always addressed Alexandra in terms of the deepest respect, hoping
to set a good example to the kitchen girls, whom he thought too
familiar in their manners.

"Mistress," he began faintly, without raising his eyes, "the folk
have been looking coldly at me of late. You know there has been
talk."

"Talk about what, Ivar?"

"About sending me away; to the asylum."

Alexandra put down her sewing-basket. "Nobody has come to me with
such talk," she said decidedly. "Why need you listen? You know
I would never consent to such a thing."

Ivar lifted his shaggy head and looked at her out of his little
eyes. "They say that you cannot prevent it if the folk complain of
me, if your brothers complain to the authorities. They say that
your brothers are afraid--God forbid!--that I may do you some
injury when my spells are on me. Mistress, how can any one think
that?--that I could bite the hand that fed me!" The tears trickled
down on the old man's beard.

Alexandra frowned. "Ivar, I wonder at you, that you should come
bothering me with such nonsense. I am still running my own house,
and other people have nothing to do with either you or me. So long
as I am suited with you, there is nothing to be said."

Ivar pulled a red handkerchief out of the breast of his blouse and
wiped his eyes and beard. "But I should not wish you to keep me
if, as they say, it is against your interests, and if it is hard
for you to get hands because I am here."

Alexandra made an impatient gesture, but the old man put out his
hand and went on earnestly:--

"Listen, mistress, it is right that you should take these things
into account. You know that my spells come from God, and that
I would not harm any living creature. You believe that every one
should worship God in the way revealed to him. But that is not
the way of this country. The way here is for all to do alike. I
am despised because I do not wear shoes, because I do not cut my
hair, and because I have visions. At home, in the old country,
there were many like me, who had been touched by God, or who had
seen things in the graveyard at night and were different afterward.
We thought nothing of it, and let them alone. But here, if a man
is different in his feet or in his head, they put him in the asylum.
Look at Peter Kralik; when he was a boy, drinking out of a creek,
he swallowed a snake, and always after that he could eat only
such food as the creature liked, for when he ate anything else, it
became enraged and gnawed him. When he felt it whipping about in
him, he drank alcohol to stupefy it and get some ease for himself.
He could work as good as any man, and his head was clear, but they
locked him up for being different in his stomach. That is the way;
they have built the asylum for people who are different, and they
will not even let us live in the holes with the badgers. Only
your great prosperity has protected me so far. If you had had
ill-fortune, they would have taken me to Hastings long ago."

As Ivar talked, his gloom lifted. Alexandra had found that she
could often break his fasts and long penances by talking to him
and letting him pour out the thoughts that troubled him. Sympathy
always cleared his mind, and ridicule was poison to him.

"There is a great deal in what you say, Ivar. Like as not they
will be wanting to take me to Hastings because I have built a silo;
and then I may take you with me. But at present I need you here.
Only don't come to me again telling me what people say. Let people
go on talking as they like, and we will go on living as we think
best. You have been with me now for twelve years, and I have gone
to you for advice oftener than I have ever gone to any one. That
ought to satisfy you."

Ivar bowed humbly. "Yes, mistress, I shall not trouble you with
their talk again. And as for my feet, I have observed your wishes
all these years, though you have never questioned me; washing them
every night, even in winter."

Alexandra laughed. "Oh, never mind about your feet, Ivar. We can
remember when half our neighbors went barefoot in summer. I expect
old Mrs. Lee would love to slip her shoes off now sometimes, if
she dared. I'm glad I'm not Lou's mother-in-law."

Ivar looked about mysteriously and lowered his voice almost to a
whisper. "You know what they have over at Lou's house? A great
white tub, like the stone water-troughs in the old country, to wash
themselves in. When you sent me over with the strawberries, they
were all in town but the old woman Lee and the baby. She took me
in and showed me the thing, and she told me it was impossible to
wash yourself clean in it, because, in so much water, you could
not make a strong suds. So when they fill it up and send her in
there, she pretends, and makes a splashing noise. Then, when they
are all asleep, she washes herself in a little wooden tub she keeps
under her bed."

Alexandra shook with laughter. "Poor old Mrs. Lee! They won't let
her wear nightcaps, either. Never mind; when she comes to visit
me, she can do all the old things in the old way, and have as much
beer as she wants. We'll start an asylum for old-time people,
Ivar."

Ivar folded his big handkerchief carefully and thrust it back into
his blouse. "This is always the way, mistress. I come to you
sorrowing, and you send me away with a light heart. And will you
be so good as to tell the Irishman that he is not to work the brown
gelding until the sore on its shoulder is healed?"

"That I will. Now go and put Emil's mare to the cart. I am going
to drive up to the north quarter to meet the man from town who is
to buy my alfalfa hay."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: When Emil gets home, his sister is at the kitchen table, eating with her farmhands. The three Swedish girls are running around, servingthe men, but also getting in each other's way and giggling. Alexandra could do their work herself, if she had too, but she likes having the girls around to keep her company when Emil is off at school. One of the girls, Signa, seems to be the object of affection for one of Alexandra's farmhands, Nelse Jensen. But since he makes no sign of it to anyone, it's anyone's guess what whether he'll ever propose to her. Old man Ivar is also sitting at Alexandra's table. He lost his land through mismanagement, and Alexandra took him in. He looks after the livestock. Since he doesn't like living the way most people do, Alexandra has given him space in the barn, where he feels more comfortable with the horses. That way, as he says in his characteristic way, he's "further from temptations" . Alexandra hasn't changed much in all these years. She is just as levelheaded as she was as a young girl. Her face is suntanned, but when she pushes back her sleeves, her skin is smooth and fair. Two of the farmhands are unhappy about the silo Alexandra had installed, saying that her brother Lou is also against it. Alexandra insists calmly that everything is worth a try. One of the farmhands, an Irishman, heads out with Emil to inspect the silo. Alexandra and Ivar move to the sitting room, because he has something to tell her. He still doesn't speak English, and addresses Alexandra in his old-fashioned Norwegian. Ivar complains to her that people have been talking about him, saying that Alexandra should send him away to an insane asylum. They hate them because they fear him, he is different and because he has "visions." They fear that he might do someone harm during one of his "spells" . In the Old Country, he tells her, there were many people like him who had been "touched by God" . But here, people like him get locked away. As Ivar talks, he seems to feel better. Alexandra knows from experience that listening to what Ivar has to say often brings him out of one of his spells. Alexandra really gets how Ivar feels. She jokes that, especially after the recent incident with the silo, the locals might be taking her off to the asylum, too. But seriously, she tells him, ignore the haters. Be true to you. Ivar humbly agrees not to bring this up with her again. He promises to keep washing his feet, as Alexandra has instructed him. Because he refuses to wear shoes, they get pretty dirty. Alexandra laughs and tells him not to worry so much about his feet. Back when times were tough, a lot of people went around barefoot. Old Mrs. Lee, mother of Annie , probably wishes she could still go around barefoot. Ivar tells Alexandra a story about old Mrs. Lee. In fact, he almost whispers it. Last time he was at Lou's place, old Mrs. Lee showed him their huge porcelain tub, for bathing. The woman hates the thing, and still washes herself secretly in a little wooden tub she keeps under her bed. Alexandra laughs again, and says she should bring Mrs. Lee over to her place and start an asylum for old people who prefer the old ways. Ivar takes off, saying how happy he is to have gotten this off his chest. Alexandra asks him to hitch a horse up to her carriage so she can go into town to meet a potential customer for her alfalfa hay.


prompt:
Chapter: Alexandra was to hear more of Ivar's case, however. On Sunday her
married brothers came to dinner. She had asked them for that day
because Emil, who hated family parties, would be absent, dancing
at Amedee Chevalier's wedding, up in the French country. The table
was set for company in the dining-room, where highly varnished
wood and colored glass and useless pieces of china were conspicuous
enough to satisfy the standards of the new prosperity. Alexandra
had put herself into the hands of the Hanover furniture dealer, and
he had conscientiously done his best to make her dining-room look
like his display window. She said frankly that she knew nothing
about such things, and she was willing to be governed by the general
conviction that the more useless and utterly unusable objects
were, the greater their virtue as ornament. That seemed reasonable
enough. Since she liked plain things herself, it was all the more
necessary to have jars and punchbowls and candlesticks in the company
rooms for people who did appreciate them. Her guests liked to see
about them these reassuring emblems of prosperity.

The family party was complete except for Emil, and Oscar's wife
who, in the country phrase, "was not going anywhere just now."
Oscar sat at the foot of the table and his four tow-headed little
boys, aged from twelve to five, were ranged at one side. Neither
Oscar nor Lou has changed much; they have simply, as Alexandra said
of them long ago, grown to be more and more like themselves. Lou
now looks the older of the two; his face is thin and shrewd and
wrinkled about the eyes, while Oscar's is thick and dull. For all
his dullness, however, Oscar makes more money than his brother,
which adds to Lou's sharpness and uneasiness and tempts him to
make a show. The trouble with Lou is that he is tricky, and his
neighbors have found out that, as Ivar says, he has not a fox's face
for nothing. Politics being the natural field for such talents,
he neglects his farm to attend conventions and to run for county
offices.

Lou's wife, formerly Annie Lee, has grown to look curiously like
her husband. Her face has become longer, sharper, more aggressive.
She wears her yellow hair in a high pompadour, and is bedecked with
rings and chains and "beauty pins." Her tight, high-heeled shoes
give her an awkward walk, and she is always more or less preoccupied
with her clothes. As she sat at the table, she kept telling her
youngest daughter to "be careful now, and not drop anything on
mother."

The conversation at the table was all in English. Oscar's wife,
from the malaria district of Missouri, was ashamed of marrying a
foreigner, and his boys do not understand a word of Swedish. Annie
and Lou sometimes speak Swedish at home, but Annie is almost as
much afraid of being "caught" at it as ever her mother was of being
caught barefoot. Oscar still has a thick accent, but Lou speaks
like anybody from Iowa.

"When I was in Hastings to attend the convention," he was saying,
"I saw the superintendent of the asylum, and I was telling him about
Ivar's symptoms. He says Ivar's case is one of the most dangerous
kind, and it's a wonder he hasn't done something violent before
this."

Alexandra laughed good-humoredly. "Oh, nonsense, Lou! The doctors
would have us all crazy if they could. Ivar's queer, certainly,
but he has more sense than half the hands I hire."

Lou flew at his fried chicken. "Oh, I guess the doctor knows his
business, Alexandra. He was very much surprised when I told him
how you'd put up with Ivar. He says he's likely to set fire to the
barn any night, or to take after you and the girls with an axe."

Little Signa, who was waiting on the table, giggled and fled to
the kitchen. Alexandra's eyes twinkled. "That was too much for
Signa, Lou. We all know that Ivar's perfectly harmless. The girls
would as soon expect me to chase them with an axe."

Lou flushed and signaled to his wife. "All the same, the neighbors
will be having a say about it before long. He may burn anybody's
barn. It's only necessary for one property-owner in the township
to make complaint, and he'll be taken up by force. You'd better
send him yourself and not have any hard feelings."

Alexandra helped one of her little nephews to gravy. "Well, Lou,
if any of the neighbors try that, I'll have myself appointed Ivar's
guardian and take the case to court, that's all. I am perfectly
satisfied with him."

"Pass the preserves, Lou," said Annie in a warning tone. She had
reasons for not wishing her husband to cross Alexandra too openly.
"But don't you sort of hate to have people see him around here,
Alexandra?" she went on with persuasive smoothness. "He IS a
disgraceful object, and you're fixed up so nice now. It sort of
makes people distant with you, when they never know when they'll
hear him scratching about. My girls are afraid as death of him,
aren't you, Milly, dear?"

Milly was fifteen, fat and jolly and pompadoured, with a creamy
complexion, square white teeth, and a short upper lip. She
looked like her grandmother Bergson, and had her comfortable and
comfort-loving nature. She grinned at her aunt, with whom she was
a great deal more at ease than she was with her mother. Alexandra
winked a reply.

"Milly needn't be afraid of Ivar. She's an especial favorite of
his. In my opinion Ivar has just as much right to his own way of
dressing and thinking as we have. But I'll see that he doesn't
bother other people. I'll keep him at home, so don't trouble any
more about him, Lou. I've been wanting to ask you about your new
bathtub. How does it work?"

Annie came to the fore to give Lou time to recover himself. "Oh,
it works something grand! I can't keep him out of it. He washes
himself all over three times a week now, and uses all the hot water.
I think it's weakening to stay in as long as he does. You ought
to have one, Alexandra."

"I'm thinking of it. I might have one put in the barn for Ivar,
if it will ease people's minds. But before I get a bathtub, I'm
going to get a piano for Milly."

Oscar, at the end of the table, looked up from his plate. "What
does Milly want of a pianny? What's the matter with her organ?
She can make some use of that, and play in church."

Annie looked flustered. She had begged Alexandra not to say
anything about this plan before Oscar, who was apt to be jealous
of what his sister did for Lou's children. Alexandra did not get
on with Oscar's wife at all. "Milly can play in church just the
same, and she'll still play on the organ. But practising on it
so much spoils her touch. Her teacher says so," Annie brought out
with spirit.

Oscar rolled his eyes. "Well, Milly must have got on pretty good
if she's got past the organ. I know plenty of grown folks that
ain't," he said bluntly.

Annie threw up her chin. "She has got on good, and she's going to
play for her commencement when she graduates in town next year."

"Yes," said Alexandra firmly, "I think Milly deserves a piano.
All the girls around here have been taking lessons for years, but
Milly is the only one of them who can ever play anything when you
ask her. I'll tell you when I first thought I would like to give
you a piano, Milly, and that was when you learned that book of old
Swedish songs that your grandfather used to sing. He had a sweet
tenor voice, and when he was a young man he loved to sing. I can
remember hearing him singing with the sailors down in the shipyard,
when I was no bigger than Stella here," pointing to Annie's younger
daughter.

Milly and Stella both looked through the door into the sitting-room,
where a crayon portrait of John Bergson hung on the wall. Alexandra
had had it made from a little photograph, taken for his friends
just before he left Sweden; a slender man of thirty-five, with
soft hair curling about his high forehead, a drooping mustache,
and wondering, sad eyes that looked forward into the distance, as
if they already beheld the New World.

After dinner Lou and Oscar went to the orchard to pick cherries--they
had neither of them had the patience to grow an orchard of their
own--and Annie went down to gossip with Alexandra's kitchen girls
while they washed the dishes. She could always find out more about
Alexandra's domestic economy from the prattling maids than from
Alexandra herself, and what she discovered she used to her own
advantage with Lou. On the Divide, farmers' daughters no longer
went out into service, so Alexandra got her girls from Sweden, by
paying their fare over. They stayed with her until they married,
and were replaced by sisters or cousins from the old country.

Alexandra took her three nieces into the flower garden. She was
fond of the little girls, especially of Milly, who came to spend
a week with her aunt now and then, and read aloud to her from the
old books about the house, or listened to stories about the early
days on the Divide. While they were walking among the flower beds,
a buggy drove up the hill and stopped in front of the gate. A man
got out and stood talking to the driver. The little girls were
delighted at the advent of a stranger, some one from very far away,
they knew by his clothes, his gloves, and the sharp, pointed cut
of his dark beard. The girls fell behind their aunt and peeped out
at him from among the castor beans. The stranger came up to the
gate and stood holding his hat in his hand, smiling, while Alexandra
advanced slowly to meet him. As she approached he spoke in a low,
pleasant voice.

"Don't you know me, Alexandra? I would have known you, anywhere."

Alexandra shaded her eyes with her hand. Suddenly she took a quick
step forward. "Can it be!" she exclaimed with feeling; "can it be
that it is Carl Linstrum? Why, Carl, it is!" She threw out both
her hands and caught his across the gate. "Sadie, Milly, run tell
your father and Uncle Oscar that our old friend Carl Linstrum is
here. Be quick! Why, Carl, how did it happen? I can't believe
this!" Alexandra shook the tears from her eyes and laughed.

The stranger nodded to his driver, dropped his suitcase inside
the fence, and opened the gate. "Then you are glad to see me, and
you can put me up overnight? I couldn't go through this country
without stopping off to have a look at you. How little you have
changed! Do you know, I was sure it would be like that. You
simply couldn't be different. How fine you are!" He stepped back
and looked at her admiringly.

Alexandra blushed and laughed again. "But you yourself, Carl--with
that beard--how could I have known you? You went away a little
boy." She reached for his suitcase and when he intercepted her
she threw up her hands. "You see, I give myself away. I have only
women come to visit me, and I do not know how to behave. Where is
your trunk?"

"It's in Hanover. I can stay only a few days. I am on my way to
the coast."

They started up the path. "A few days? After all these years!"
Alexandra shook her finger at him. "See this, you have walked
into a trap. You do not get away so easy." She put her hand
affectionately on his shoulder. "You owe me a visit for the sake
of old times. Why must you go to the coast at all?"

"Oh, I must! I am a fortune hunter. From Seattle I go on to
Alaska."

"Alaska?" She looked at him in astonishment. "Are you going to
paint the Indians?"

"Paint?" the young man frowned. "Oh! I'm not a painter, Alexandra.
I'm an engraver. I have nothing to do with painting."

"But on my parlor wall I have the paintings--"

He interrupted nervously. "Oh, water-color sketches--done for
amusement. I sent them to remind you of me, not because they were
good. What a wonderful place you have made of this, Alexandra."
He turned and looked back at the wide, map-like prospect of field
and hedge and pasture. "I would never have believed it could be
done. I'm disappointed in my own eye, in my imagination."

At this moment Lou and Oscar came up the hill from the orchard.
They did not quicken their pace when they saw Carl; indeed, they
did not openly look in his direction. They advanced distrustfully,
and as if they wished the distance were longer.

Alexandra beckoned to them. "They think I am trying to fool them.
Come, boys, it's Carl Linstrum, our old Carl!"

Lou gave the visitor a quick, sidelong glance and thrust out his
hand. "Glad to see you."

Oscar followed with "How d' do." Carl could not tell whether their
offishness came from unfriendliness or from embarrassment. He and
Alexandra led the way to the porch.

"Carl," Alexandra explained, "is on his way to Seattle. He is
going to Alaska."

Oscar studied the visitor's yellow shoes. "Got business there?"
he asked.

Carl laughed. "Yes, very pressing business. I'm going there to
get rich. Engraving's a very interesting profession, but a man
never makes any money at it. So I'm going to try the goldfields."

Alexandra felt that this was a tactful speech, and Lou looked up
with some interest. "Ever done anything in that line before?"

"No, but I'm going to join a friend of mine who went out from New
York and has done well. He has offered to break me in."

"Turrible cold winters, there, I hear," remarked Oscar. "I thought
people went up there in the spring."

"They do. But my friend is going to spend the winter in Seattle and
I am to stay with him there and learn something about prospecting
before we start north next year."

Lou looked skeptical. "Let's see, how long have you been away from
here?"

"Sixteen years. You ought to remember that, Lou, for you were
married just after we went away."

"Going to stay with us some time?" Oscar asked.

"A few days, if Alexandra can keep me."

"I expect you'll be wanting to see your old place," Lou observed
more cordially. "You won't hardly know it. But there's a few
chunks of your old sod house left. Alexandra wouldn't never let
Frank Shabata plough over it."

Annie Lee, who, ever since the visitor was announced, had been
touching up her hair and settling her lace and wishing she had worn
another dress, now emerged with her three daughters and introduced
them. She was greatly impressed by Carl's urban appearance, and
in her excitement talked very loud and threw her head about. "And
you ain't married yet? At your age, now! Think of that! You'll
have to wait for Milly. Yes, we've got a boy, too. The youngest.
He's at home with his grandma. You must come over to see mother
and hear Milly play. She's the musician of the family. She does
pyrography, too. That's burnt wood, you know. You wouldn't believe
what she can do with her poker. Yes, she goes to school in town,
and she is the youngest in her class by two years."

Milly looked uncomfortable and Carl took her hand again. He liked
her creamy skin and happy, innocent eyes, and he could see that her
mother's way of talking distressed her. "I'm sure she's a clever
little girl," he murmured, looking at her thoughtfully. "Let me
see--Ah, it's your mother that she looks like, Alexandra. Mrs.
Bergson must have looked just like this when she was a little
girl. Does Milly run about over the country as you and Alexandra
used to, Annie?"

Milly's mother protested. "Oh, my, no! Things has changed since
we was girls. Milly has it very different. We are going to rent
the place and move into town as soon as the girls are old enough
to go out into company. A good many are doing that here now. Lou
is going into business."

Lou grinned. "That's what she says. You better go get your things
on. Ivar's hitching up," he added, turning to Annie.

Young farmers seldom address their wives by name. It is always
"you," or "she."

Having got his wife out of the way, Lou sat down on the step and
began to whittle. "Well, what do folks in New York think of William
Jennings Bryan?" Lou began to bluster, as he always did when he
talked politics. "We gave Wall Street a scare in ninety-six, all
right, and we're fixing another to hand them. Silver wasn't the
only issue," he nodded mysteriously. "There's a good many things
got to be changed. The West is going to make itself heard."

Carl laughed. "But, surely, it did do that, if nothing else."

Lou's thin face reddened up to the roots of his bristly hair. "Oh,
we've only begun. We're waking up to a sense of our responsibilities,
out here, and we ain't afraid, neither. You fellows back there
must be a tame lot. If you had any nerve you'd get together and
march down to Wall Street and blow it up. Dynamite it, I mean,"
with a threatening nod.

He was so much in earnest that Carl scarcely knew how to answer
him. "That would be a waste of powder. The same business would
go on in another street. The street doesn't matter. But what have
you fellows out here got to kick about? You have the only safe
place there is. Morgan himself couldn't touch you. One only has
to drive through this country to see that you're all as rich as
barons."

"We have a good deal more to say than we had when we were poor,"
said Lou threateningly. "We're getting on to a whole lot of things."

As Ivar drove a double carriage up to the gate, Annie came out in
a hat that looked like the model of a battleship. Carl rose and
took her down to the carriage, while Lou lingered for a word with
his sister.

"What do you suppose he's come for?" he asked, jerking his head
toward the gate.

"Why, to pay us a visit. I've been begging him to for years."

Oscar looked at Alexandra. "He didn't let you know he was coming?"

"No. Why should he? I told him to come at any time."

Lou shrugged his shoulders. "He doesn't seem to have done much
for himself. Wandering around this way!"

Oscar spoke solemnly, as from the depths of a cavern. "He never
was much account."

Alexandra left them and hurried down to the gate where Annie was
rattling on to Carl about her new dining-room furniture. "You
must bring Mr. Linstrum over real soon, only be sure to telephone
me first," she called back, as Carl helped her into the carriage.
Old Ivar, his white head bare, stood holding the horses. Lou came
down the path and climbed into the front seat, took up the reins,
and drove off without saying anything further to any one. Oscar
picked up his youngest boy and trudged off down the road, the other
three trotting after him. Carl, holding the gate open for Alexandra,
began to laugh. "Up and coming on the Divide, eh, Alexandra?" he
cried gayly.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: But, first things first. The narrator tells us a little about the setting and the characters present at Alexandra's dinner. Alexandra had her dining room designed by a Hanover furniture dealer. It looks like a display window, and has enough useless objects and china to satisfy the expectations of society. Alexandra doesn't really see the point, though. Oscar's there with his four boys. Oscar and Lou are pretty much unchanged. Lou looks older than his brother and Oscar still doesn't look too bright, even though he makes more money than Lou. Something about Lou seems untrustworthy, and people tend to think he's "tricky" . Of course, the narrator notes dryly, that makes him perfect for politics, and he's gotten himself quite involved on that front. Lou's wife, Annie, is preoccupied with her appearance and her fine clothes. She's come to look sharper and more aggressive, just like her husband. They all speak English at the table, since Oscar's wife doesn't speak Swedish and is ashamed of having married a foreigner. Annie is herself ashamed of speaking the old language. Oscar has an accent, but Lou sounds native. Lou says he has spoken with the superintendent of an insane asylum, who claims that Ivar could become dangerous if he's not committed. Alexandra dismisses this, saying Ivar probably has "more sense" than her farmhands . Lou isn't satisfied with that. He still thinks Ivar could set fire to the barn, or come after the girls with an axe. Alexandra laughs this off. Lou reminds her that if one of their neighbors complains, he'll be taken away by force. In that case, Alexandra tells him, she'll take them to court. Annie takes it up with Alexandra, saying that Ivar makes people keep their distance from Alexandra. Her daughter, Milly, is scared of Ivar. Milly, who resembles old Mrs. Bergson, smiles at Alexandra and Alexandra winks back at her. Ivar, says Alexandra, has as much a right as anyone to dress and act as he wishes. But she agrees to keep him at home from now on. She changes the subject by asking them about their new bathtub. After Annie raves about the tub, Alexandra says she's thinking about getting one for Ivar and putting it in the barn. But not before she buys Milly a piano. Oscar gets angry, saying she can just continue playing the organ in church. He's often jealous of the things Alexandra does for Lou's children. Alexandra explains that playing the organ all the time is bad news for Milly's technique. So says her piano teacher. When Oscar scoffs at this again, Annie announces that Milly wants to play piano at her commencement next year. Alexandra agrees that Milly deserves a piano, and remembers when Milly learned all the old Swedish songs that her father used to sing. Milly and her younger sister, Stella, both look at a picture of John Bergson hanging on the wall in the sitting room. Alexandra had it made from a photograph taken of her father just before he left Sweden. Dinner's over. Lou and Oscar go out to pick cherries (they don't bother to grow an orchard themselves, the narrator tells us) and Annie goes to talk with the maids, to see if she can find out more about how Alexandra keeps up her household. Alexandra goes with her three nieces into the flower garden. Just as they're walking among the flowerbeds, a horse drawn buggy pulls up. A smartly dressed man steps out and the young girls are delighted. The stranger approaches and asks Alexandra whether she recognizes him or not. When Alexandra realizes that it's Carl Linstrum, she throws out her hands and runs toward him. Carl steps through the gate. He tells her how little she's changed, and asks for a place to stay overnight. It turns out he's left his stuff in Hanover and is only staying for a few days, before he heads off again for the coast. Alexandra "blushes" when she remarks how much different Carl seems with a beard . When Alexandra asks whether it's possible for him to stay a bit longer, he admits that he's in a bit of a hurry to find his fortune in Alaska. She asks him if he's going to Alaska to "paint the Indians." When he reminds her that he's an engraver, not a painting, she recalls the paintings she has of his hanging on her walls. He interrupts her, calling those painting "water-color sketches" . As he surveys her rich property, he tells Alexandra how disappointed he is in himself and his lack of imagination, for leaving Nebraska all those years ago. Lou and Oscar come up the hill and Alexandra calls them over. They're in no hurry to see who's there. When they see that it's Carl, they're hardly any friendlier, and frankly, seem suspicious. Alexandra explains that Carl's on his way to Alaska to strike it rich. The brothers ask whether he's gone into business before. Carl hasn't, but he's definitely fed up with the engraver's life. He's planning to meet up with a friend of his from New York who's had some success in Alaska. As the conversation continues, we find out that Carl is planning to spend the winter in Seattle before heading up to Alaska in the spring. It's been sixteen years since Carl left, and Marie Shabata now lives on his family's old property with her husband Frank. Alexandra never let them plow over the Linstrums' old sod house. Annie Lee comes out from the house, wishing she was wearing something nicer, and is excited to see such an urban visitor. She talks loudly and embarrasses Milly by telling Carl he'd better wait to marry her. Carl likes Milly, and notices that how much she resembles Mrs. Bergson, her grandmother. He asks whether Milly has the run of the land, like Annie and Alexandra did when they were young. Annie explains that Milly has it very different, that she goes to school and that the family is planning to rent the farm and move into town as soon as the girls are old enough to look for husbands. Annie leaves to gather up her things. Lou turns to Carl and asks him what his thoughts are on William Jennings Bryan, a politician from the era who championed the wisdom of common people. (See "Shout Outs" for more on this guy.) He starts to get flustered as he talks politics, saying, "the West is going to make itself heard" . Carl laughs Lou's seriousness off, but Lou only gets angrier, saying that city people like Carl ought to go down to Wall Street and "dynamite it" . At first, Carl is at a loss for words. He asks Lou what he has to complain about, with all the success they're experiencing now. Lou sounds threatening but vague when he says that they have a lot more to say now than when they were poor. Annie returns with Ivar and a double carriage, and Carl goes to help. Lou asks Alexandra why Carl has returned. She figures it's just to pay them a visit, and she admits that he didn't let her know ahead of time. Both Lou and Oscar agree that he doesn't seem to have made much of himself. Alexandra leaves them to see Annie off. Lou joins her in the wagon and Oscar takes off, too.