P1

A TETAGEDY or -.'..1»::m3 13122190 by O.T_‘;'.

' Over the fields of rippling gold,

Bright the Alberta sun

. . a O . Lmgered above the ripening gm.‘-.111, The farmer's work, well. done.

Thick as a forest, smooths and strong, Stood the marvellous wheat, Restlesslyj stirring and'seer::ing to-sway

'Under the summer heat.

Yfide spreading: fields to the skyline stretched,

Over a prairie clean,

ne'er such a crop in all of the years, Had come to this land,I ween.

sent was her back and gray was her head,

Rough her hands and diaffed,

But she looked at the wheat‘ md her eyes were bright, As she softly, pr oudly laughed; '

Out in the fields the ‘cinder whir led;

The harvest had just ‘begun. ' : '

Like music, the grind of the blithe, sharp ltlades, ,.__‘ Whistling under that sun.

Suddenly out of a bright, blue s1:*, . Like an evil sprite, there sprung

A great black harrl, that shut out the sun,

And over the fields it hung.

Still and suspended in the sky,

The black cloud paused space,

And thm with -fury, its i‘ingers- spread, In a vast vindictive race.

Donn seat the hail, in a bitingst orm, bullets oi‘ ice and snow,

And over the trembling, shaking vheat, The iirozen rocks plunged low. .

Shivering: and trapped the sensitive grain,

- Cringed and crouched to the gt,-round,’

While the storm hissed over the slender stalks, And covered them in a mound.

oh: never was crop more gracious or strong, or nor}: that was betterrxdene

Than under that false and smiling sky

And bright Alberta sun.

And new in the fields Where the grain had been