Napoleon Pompey used to bring up a wheelbarrow full from the melon patch each morning for the day’s consumption. He, like a true negro, was inordinately fond of melons, or “millions” as he called them, and would have sucked them all day long if left to his own devices. Whenever he had to go anywhere in the waggon, as occasionally happened, he would lay in a store of “millions,” and lay himself beside them, and suck them, just as if he were a black caterpillar of unlimited capacity. The horses meantime, far too oppressed with the heat to require much attention, would plod along with their eyes shut, trying to keep out the glaring light. There was nothing to stumble over or fall into, so the driving became of the most elementary pattern, requiring only an occasional rattle of the reins and a comment or two, such as: “Yo’, Reb, g’ ’long will yer, g’ out o’ dat.” Olive during this period found the heat stifling, and used to sit out of doors on the shady side of the house, until the terrible wind blew up from the Plains, when she would flee as before the breath of a volcano, and shutting herself tight up in her room with closed doors and windows, would gasp through the visitation as best she might. She was no worse off than anyone else, and the nights were always cool and refreshing. That was an unspeakable blessing. All this heat dried up the thick prairie grass until it was like a vast plain of dry hay standing erect. The corn crop at Perfection City had turned out exceptionally good. There was ample for all the needs of the Community and a good surplus which was to be sold at Mapleton in order to enable them to buy some farm-machinery that was greatly needed. Consequently the whole Community worked hard at getting in the corn so as to be early in the market. The heavy ears of corn with their twenty rows of golden yellow grains were stripped off the tall stalks by hand: a most limb-lacerating job, for the “shucks,” or coverings to the ear, are masses of fibrous leaves with sawlike edges. These edges have the power of cutting an exposed finger in a most painful manner, and they are by no means loath to use the power. All this hurry and concentration of the workers upon the cornfield was possible only if every other sort of work was neglected for the moment. It seemed the wisest plan to hasten off with their harvest in spite of the risk, and, unused as they were to prairie life, yet even they realized that there was some risk in thus leaving their farms unprotected. Ezra was perfectly aware of it, but like so many people he shut his eyes and hoped for good luck. He spoke to Olive on the subject. “If anyone so much as drops a lighted match on the prairie we shall be lost,” he said.