The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer

by Oscar Micheaux

  CHAPTER XLI

  THE DROUTH

  A cloudy and threatening day in May, there came an inch of rainfall. Ihad completed sowing two hundred and fifty acres of flax a few daysbefore, and soon everything looked beautiful and green. I felt extremelyhopeful.

  During the six years I had been farming in Dakota, I had raised fromfair to good crops every year. The seasons had been favorable, and if agood crop had not been raised, it was not the fault of the soil or fromlack of rainfall. The previous year had not been as wet as others, but Ihad raised a fair crop, and at this time had four hundred and ten acresin crop and one hundred and ten acres rented out, from which I was toreceive one third of the crop. I had come west with hopes of betteringmy financial condition and had succeeded fairly well.

  Around me at this time others had grown prosperous, land had advanceduntil some land adjoining Megory had brought one hundred dollars peracre, and land a few miles from town sold for fifty to eighty dollarsper acre.

  Before settling in the west I had read in real estate advertisements allabout the wheat land that could be bought from ten to twenty-fivedollars per acre, that would raise from twenty-five to forty bushels ofwheat to the acre. While all this was quite possible I had never raisedover twenty-five bushels per acre, and mostly harvested from ten totwenty. I had wondered, before I left Chicago, how, at a yield of thirtybushels per acre (and for the last seven or eight years prices hadranged from seventy cents to one dollar per bushel for wheat) thefarmers could spend all the money. Of course, I had learned, in sixyears, that twenty-five to forty or fifty bushels per acre, whilepossible, was far from probable, and considerably above the average.

  The average yield for all wheat raised in the United States is aboutfourteen bushels per acre, but crops had averaged from fair to good allover the northwest for some fifteen or sixteen years, with someexceptions, and the question I had heard asked years before, "Will thedrouth come again," was about forgotten.

  During the three years previous to this time, poor people from the east,and around Megory and Calias as well, who were not able to pay theprices demanded for relinquishments and deeded lands in Megory, Tippcounty, or the eastern states, had flocked by thousands to the westernpart of the state and taken free homesteads. At the beginning of this,my seventh season in Dakota, the agricultural report showed anexceedingly large number of acres had been seeded, and the same reportwhich was issued June eighth, reported the condition of all growingcrops to be up to the ten-year average and some above.

  It was on Sunday. I had quit breaking prairie on account of the groundbeing too dry, and while going along the road, I noticed a field ofspelt that looked peculiar. Going into the field, I dug my fingers intothe soil, and found it dry. I could not understand how it had dried outso quickly; but thinking it would rain again in a few days, it had beenbut ten days since the rain, I thought no more about it. The followingweek, although it clouded up and appeared very threatening, the cloudspassed and no rain fell. On Saturday I drove into Ritten, and on the wayagain noticed the peculiar appearance of the growing plants. It was thetopic of discussion in the town, but no one seemed willing to admit thatit was from the lack of moisture. The weather had been very hot all weekand the wind seemed to blow continually from the south.

  In past years, after about two days of south winds, we were almost sureto have rain. The fact that the wind had blown from the south for nearlytwo weeks and no rain had fallen caused everybody to be anxious. Thatnight was cloudy, the thunder and lightning lasted for nearly two hours,but when I went to the door, I could see the stars, and the next day theheat was most intense.

  The Wesinbergers had said the heavens would be ablaze with lightning andresound with peals of thunder but that they were only solstice storms,coming up in unusual directions, and that such storms werecharacteristic of a dry season. Furthermore, that heavy, abnormal rainswould occur in scattered localities, at the same time, but they would befew and far apart.

  June fifteenth I took my sister to Victor to make proof on herhomestead, and from there drove to Megory, stopping in Calias to send mywife a telegram to the effect that I felt I was going to be sick andfor her to draw a draft on the Bank of Calias, and come home. Thetelegram was not answered.

  Next morning my sister left for Kansas, and that afternoon a heavydownpour of rain fell all over Megory county and as far west as Victor,but north of Ritten, where I had my flax crop, there was scarcelysufficient rain to lay the dust. On that day the hot winds set in andlasted for seven weeks, the wind blowing steadily from the south all thewhile.

  I had never before, during the seven years, suffered to any extent fromthe heat, but during that time I could not find a cool place. The windnever ceased during the night, but sounded its mournful tune without apause. Then came a day when the small grain in Tipp county was beyondredemption, and rattled as leaves in November. The atmosphere becamestifling, and the scent of burning plants sickening.

  My flax on the sod, which was too small to be hurt at the beginning ofthe drouth, began to need rain, and reports in all daily papers toldthat the great heat wave and the drouth in many places were worse thanin Tipp county. All over the western and northern part of the state,were localities where it had not rained that season. Potatoes, wheat,oats, flax, and corn, in the western part of the state, had notsprouted, and, it was said, in a part of Butte county, where seed hadbeen sown four inches deep the year before, there had not been enoughrain since to make it sprout.

  The government had spent several million dollars damming the BelleFourche river for the purpose of irrigation, and the previous autumn,when it had been completed, the water in it had been run onto the land,to see how it would work, and since had been dry. No snow had fallen inthe mountains during the winter, and all the rivers were as dry as theroads; while all the way from the gulf, to Canada, the now protracteddrouth was burning everything in its wake.

  At Kansas City, where the treacherous Kaw empties its waters into theMissouri, and had for years wrought disaster with its notorious floods,drowning out two and sometimes three crops in a single spring, wasnearly dry, and the crops were drying up throughout its valley.

  I spent the Fourth of July in Victor, where the people shook their headsgravely and said, "Tipp county will never raise a crop." The crops haddried up in Tipp county the year before. I read that the railroad menwho run from Kansas City to Dodge City reported that the pasturesthrough Kansas were so dry along the route, that a louse could be seencrawling a half mile away. In parts of Iowa the farmers commenced to puttheir stock in pens and fed them hay from about the middle of June,there being no feed in the pastures. Through eastern Nebraska, westernIowa and southern Minnesota, the grasshoppers began to appear by themillions, and proceeded to head the small grain. To save it, the farmerscut and fed it to stock, in pens.

  The crops began to wither. (page 289.)]

  The markets were being over-run with thin cattle from the westernranges, where the grass had never started on account of lack ofmoisture. I watched my flax crop and early in July noticed itbeginning to wilt, then millions of army worms began cutting it down.On the eleventh I left for Megory county, with my stock, to harvest thewinter wheat there. It had been partially saved by the rain in June. Thetwo hundred and eighty-five acres of flax was a brown, sickly-lookingmess, and I was badly discouraged, for outside of my family trouble, Ihad borrowed my limit at the bank, and the flax seed, breaking, andother expenses, had amounted to eleven hundred dollars.

  About this time the settlers all over the western highlands began todesert their claims. Newspapers reported Oklahoma burned to a crisp, andKansas scorched, from Kansas City to the Colorado line. Homesteaders tothe north and west of us began passing through the county, and theirappearance presented a contrast to that of a few years before. Finehorses that marched bravely to the land of promise, drawing a prairieschooner, were returning east with heads hanging low from long, stringynecks, while their alkalied hoofs beat a slow tattoo, as they wearilydragged along, drawing
, in many cases, a dilapidated wagon over whichwas stretched a tattered tarpaulin; while others drew rickety hacks orspring wagons, with dirty bedding and filthy looking utensils. Thesepeople had not made a dollar in the two years spent on their homesteads.At Pierre, it was said, seven hundred crossed the the Missouri in asingle day, headed east; while in the settlements they had left, the fewremaining settlers went from one truck patch to another, digging up thepotatoes that had been planted in the spring, for food.

  One day I crossed the White river and went to visit the Wisenbergers,who lived seventeen miles to the north. On the way, out of forty-sevenhouses I passed, only one had an occupant. The land in that county isunderlaid with a hardpan about four inches from the surface, and had notraised a crop for two years. The settlers had left the country to keepfrom starving. As I drove along the dusty road and gazed into the emptyhouses through the front doors that banged to and fro with a monotonoustone, from the force of the hot south winds, I felt lonely and faraway;the only living thing in sight being an occasional dog that had not leftwith his master, or had returned, but on seeing me, ran, with tuckedtail, like a frightened coyote.

  Merchants were being pressed by the wholesale houses. The recent yearshad been prosperous, and it is said prosperity breeds contempt andrecklessness. The townspeople and many farmers had indulged lavishly inchug-chug cars. Bankers and wholesale houses, who had always criticisedso much automobilism, were now making some wish they had never heard theexhaust of a motor. In addition to this the speculators were loaded tothe guards, with lands carrying as heavy mortgage as could be had--whichwas large--for prosperity had caused loan companies to increase theamount of their loans. No one wanted to buy. Every one wanted to sell.The echo of the drouth seventeen years before and the disaster whichfollowed, rang through the country and had the effect of causing pricesto slump from five to fifteen dollars per acre less than a year before.

  Now what made it worse for Tipp county was, that it had been opened whenprosperity was at its zenith. The people were money mad. Reckless fromthe prosperity which had caused them to dispense with caution and goodjudgment, they were brought suddenly to a realization of a changedcondition. The new settlers, all from eastern points, came into Tippcounty, seeing Tipp county claims worth, not six dollars per acre, theprice charged by the Government, but finding ready sales at pricesranging from twenty-five to forty-five dollars, and even fifty dollarsper acre. They had spent money accordingly. And now, when the parchedfields frowned, and old Jupiter Pluvius refused to speak, the communityfaced a genuine panic.

  * * * * *

  Came a day, sultry and stifling with excessive heat, when I drove backto the claims. Everywhere along the way were visible the effects of thedrouth. Vegetation had withered, and the trails gave forth clouds ofdust.

  Late in the afternoon clouds appeared in the northwest and the earthtrembled with the resounding peals of thunder. The lightning playeddangerously near, and then, like the artillery of a mighty battle, thestorm broke loose and the rain fell in torrents, filling the draws andravines, and overflowing the creeks, which ran for days after. All overthe north country the drouth was broken and plant life began anew.

  My wheat threshed about eight hundred bushels, and when marketed, themoney received was not sufficient to pay current expenses. Therefore, Icould not afford the outlay of another trip to Chicago, but wrote manyletters to Orlean, imploring her to return, but all in vain.

  During the summer I had received many letters from people in Chicago andsouthern Illinois, denouncing the action of the Elder, in preventing mywife from returning home. The contents of these letters referred to thematter as an infamous outrage, and sympathized with me, by hoping mywife would have courage to stand up for the right. I rather anticipated,that with so much criticism of his action by the people belonging to thechurches in his circuit, he would relent and let her return home; but heremained obstinate, the months continued to roll by, and my wife stayedon.

  I had not written her concerning the drouth, which had so badly impairedcrops. I knew her people read all the letters she received, and feltthat with the knowledge in their possession that my crop had been cutshort, along with the rest, would not help my standing. They would besure to say to her, "I told you so." The last letter that I receivedfrom my wife, that year, was written early in the fall, in answer to aletter that I wrote her, and in which I had sent her some money, withwhich to buy some things for my grandmother. When Orlean had been inDakota, she had been very fond of my grandmother, and had asked abouther in every letter, whether the letter was kind or abusive, as regardedme. My wife's letter, stated that she had received the money, andthanked me also stated that she would get the things for "Grandma" thatday. Neither grandmother or I received the things.

  I was so wrought up over it all, yet saw no place where I could getjustice. In order to show the Reverend that he was being criticized byfriends of the family, I gathered up some half dozen or more letters,including the last one from Claves and one from Mrs. Ewis, and sent themto him. The one from Mrs. Ewis related how he had written to her, justbefore he took my wife away, saying that she was in dire need, andwanted to borrow twenty-five dollars to bring her home. Needless to say,she had not sent it, nor assisted him in any other way, in helping tobreak up the home. As a result, she said, he had not spoken to hersince.

  I learned later that the letters I had sent had made him terribly angry.I received a letter from him, the contents of which were about the sameas his conversation had been, excepting, that he did not profess anylove for me, which at least was a relief; but, from the contents, Iderived that he had expected his act to give him immortality, andexpressed surprise that he should be criticized for coming to Dakota andsaving the life of his child--as he put it--from the heartless man, thatwas killing her in his efforts to get rich.

  He seemed to forget to mention any of the facts which had occurredduring his last trip, namely; his many declarations of undying love forus; of how glad he was that we were doing so much toward the developmentof the great west; and his remarks that if he was twenty-five yearsyounger it was where he would be. He also suggested that he would try tobe transferred to the Omaha District, so that he might be nearer us.