She looked out the window to where a tall lank farmer was tying a mule to the hitching post. Over the high wheel of the old blue cart he turned big hollow eyes her way. "I hope he won't come before the train gets in," she sighed. "There ain't no letter for him, I hope he won't come. Sometimes I feel like I just can't tell him there ain't no letter for him." "Who is it?" asked the Professor. "Seth Lawson," she answered. The Professor elevated his eyebrows. "The man who owns the ground on which they are to build the Magic City?" he asked laughingly. "It may happen," declared the Post Mistress tartly. "Anything is liable to happen in Kansas, the things you least expect." "Everything in the way of cyclones, you mean," put in the Professor. "Cyclones and everything else," affirmed the Post Mistress. "No matter what it is, Kansas goes other States one better. She raises the tallest corn--they have to climb stepladders to reach the ears--and the biggest watermelons in the world." "When she raises any at all," the Professor inserted. "They say," began the Post Mistress, "that in the Eastern part of the State, where they are beginning to be civilized, when a farmer plants his watermelon seed, he hitches up his fastest team and drives into the next county for the watermelon, it grows so fast. Even then, unless he has a pretty fast team somebody else gets it. If you find one on your claim, you know, it's yours." "I've heard that story," the Professor politely reminded her. "They do say," remembered the Post Mistress, "that the Indians tell that yarn, that a cyclone never came to Seth's ranch. It may be a fool notion and it may not.... Look at him," leaning forward and gazing out the window. "See how gaunt and haggard and wistful he looks. I don't believe he gets enough to eat. There ain't a sadder sight on these prairies than Seth Lawson. How many months has she been away from him now? May, June, July, August, September, November," counting on her fingers. "Seven months and one little letter from her to say she got home safe. A dozen from him to her. More. You could almost see the love and sadness through the envelope. And none from her in answer. "Look at him now. Walkin' up and down, up and down, to pass away the time till the train comes. Waitin' for a letter. It won't come. It never will come. And him waitin' and waitin'. He'd as well wait for the dead to come to life or for that wife of his to leave her Kentucky home she's so much fonder of than she is of him or the baby or anything else in the world, to come back to him. What sort of woman can she be anyway to leave a little nursing baby?" "Some cats leave their kittens before their eyes are open," the Professor said.