We joined long wagon trains moving south; we met hundreds of wagons going north; the roads east and west were crawling lines of fa...milies traveling under canvas, looking for work, for another foothold somewhere on the land.... The country was ruined, the whole world was ruined; nothing like this had ever happened before. There was no hope, but everyone felt the courage of despair.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We hold on to hopes for next year every year in western Dakota: hoping that droughts will end; hoping that our crops won't be hail...ed out in the few rainstorms that come; hoping that it won't be too windy on the day we harvest, blowing away five bushels an acre; hoping ... that if we get a fair crop, we'll be able to get a fair price for it. Sometimes survival is the only blessing that the terrifying angel of the Plains bestows.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The prairies were dust. Day after day, summer after summer, the scorching winds blew the dust and the sun was brassy in a yellow s...ky. Crop after crop failed. Again and again the barren land must be mortgaged for taxes and food and next year's seed. The agony of hope ended when there was not harvest and no more credit, no money to pay interest and taxes; the banker took the land. Then the bank failed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A good story is one that isn't demanding, that proceeds from A to B, and above all doesn't remind us of the bad times, the cardboa...rd patches we used to wear in our shoes, the failed farms, the way people you love just up and die. It tells us instead that hard work and perseverance can overcome all obstacles; it tells lie after lie, and the happy ending is the happiest lie of all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... it is the desert's grimness, its stillness and isolation, that bring us back to love. Here we discover the paradox of the cont...emplative life, that the desert of solitude can be the school where we learn to love others.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »