Ah! Christina was a wonderful legal fiction, as N.V. calls it. How many
times Virginia's ears must have burned as we tenderly discussed the poor
yellow-haired peasant girl far off there by the foaming fjords.
One trouble with all of us Vandemark Township settlers was that we had
no money. I had long since stopped going to church or to see anybody,
because I was so beggarly-looking. Going away from our farms to earn
wages put back the development of the farms, and made the job of getting
started so much slower. It is so to-day in the new parts of the country,
and something ought to be done about it. With us it was hard to get
work, even when we were forced to look for it. I hated to work for Buck
Gowdy, because there was that thing between us, whether he knew it or
not; but when Magnus came to me one day after we had got our oats sowed,
and said that Mr. Gowdy wanted hands, I decided that I would go over
with Magnus and work out a while.
4
I was astonished, after we had walked the nine miles between the edge of
the Gowdy tract and the headquarters, to see how much he had done. There
were square miles of land under plow, and the yards, barns, granaries
and houses looked almost as much like a town as Monterey Centre. We went
straight to Gowdy's office. His overseer was talking with us, when
Gowdy came in.
"Hello, Thorkelson," said he; "you're quite a stranger. Haven't seen you
for a week."
Magnus stole a look at me and blushed so that his face was as red as his
hair.
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