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.

 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.

