Everything he needed was neatly arranged on the plush seat; shirt, collar, tie, brushes, even a handkerchief.  Those in his pockets were black from dusting off the cinders that blew in all night, and he threw them down and took up the clean one.  There was a damp spot on it, and as he unfolded it he recognized the scent of a cologne Enid often used.  For some reason this attention unmanned him.  He felt the smart of tears in his eyes, and to hide them bent over the metal basin and began to scrub his face.  Enid stood behind him, adjusting her hat in the mirror.

“How terribly smoky you are, Claude.  I hope you don’t smoke before breakfast?”

“No.  I was in the smoking car awhile.  I suppose my clothes got full of it.”

“You are covered with dust and cinders, too!” She took the clothes broom from the rack and began to brush him.

Claude caught her hand.  “Don’t, please!” he said sharply.  “The porter can do that for me.”

Enid watched him furtively as he closed and strapped his suitcase.  She had often heard that men were cross before breakfast.

“Sure you’ve forgotten nothing?” he asked before he closed her bag.

“Yes.  I never lose things on the train,—­do you?”

“Sometimes,” he replied guardedly, not looking up as he snapped the catch.

Book Three; Sunrise on the Prairie

I

Claude was to continue farming with his father, and after he returned from his wedding journey, he fell at once to work.  The harvest was almost as abundant as that of the summer before, and he was busy in the fields six days a week.

One afternoon in August he came home with his team, watered and fed the horses in a leisurely way, and then entered his house by the back door.  Enid, he knew, would not be there.  She had gone to Frankfort to a meeting of the Anti-Saloon League.  The Prohibition party was bestirring itself in Nebraska that summer, confident of voting the State dry the following year, which purpose it triumphantly accomplished.

Enid’s kitchen, full of the afternoon sun, glittered with new paint, spotless linoleum, and blue-and-white cooking vessels.  In the dining-room the cloth was laid, and the table was neatly set for one.  Claude opened the icebox, where his supper was arranged for him; a dish of canned salmon with a white sauce; hardboiled eggs, peeled and lying in a nest of lettuce leaves; a bowl of ripe tomatoes, a bit of cold rice pudding; cream and butter.  He placed these things on the table, cut some bread, and after carelessly washing his face and hands, sat down to eat in his working shirt.  He propped the newspaper against a red glass water pitcher and read the war news while he had his supper.  He was annoyed when he heard heavy footsteps coming around the house.  Leonard Dawson stuck his head in at the kitchen door, and Claude rose quickly and reached for his hat; but Leonard came in, uninvited, and sat down.  His brown shirt was wet where his suspenders gripped his shoulders, and his face, under a wide straw hat which he did not remove, was unshaven and streaked with dust.