THE LOOM OF THE DESERT To the courtesy of the editors of the “Argonaut,” “Out West,” “Criterion,” “Arena” and “Munsey’s”--in which publications many of these sketches have already seen print--is due their reappearance in more permanent form. [Illustration: “The boy swayed backward--backward.”--Page 10] The Loom of the Desert by Idah Meacham Strobridge LOS ANGELES MCMVII Copyright, 1907, by Idah Meacham Strobridge Printed by the Baumgardt Publishing Company Los Angeles, California Of this autographed edition of “The Loom of the Desert,” one thousand copies were made; this one being number 351 Idah M. Strobridge MARRIED: In Newark, New Jersey, Thursday, evening, June the Second, 1852, Phebe Amelia Craiger of Newark, to George Washington Meacham of California. To these--my dearest; the FATHER and MOTHER who are my comrades still, I dedicate these stories of a land where we were pioneers. [Illustration] FOREWORD There, in that land set apart for Silence, and Space, and the Great Winds, Fate--a grim, still figure--sat at her loom weaving the destinies of desert men and women. The shuttles shot to and fro without ceasing, and into the strange web were woven the threads of Light, and Joy, and Love; but more often were they those of Sorrow, or Death, or Sin. From the wide Gray Waste the Weaver had drawn the color and design; and so the fabric’s warp and woof were of the desert’s tone. Keeping this always well in mind will help you the better to understand those people of the plains, whose lives must needs be often sombre-hued. [Illustration] MESQUITE Miss Glendower sat on the ranch-house piazza, shading her eyes from the white glare of the sun by holding above them--in beautiful, beringed fingers--the last number of a Boston magazine. It was all very new and delightful to her--this strange, unfinished country, and each day developed fresh charm. As a spectacle it was perfect--the very desolation and silence of the desert stirred something within her that the Back Bay had never remotely roused. Viewed from the front row of the dress circle, as it were, nothing could be more fascinating to her art-loving sense than this simple, wholesome life lived out as Nature teaches, and to feel that, for the time, the big, conventional world of wise insincerities was completely shut away behind those far purple mountains out of which rose the desert sun.