The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack

by Emily Cheney Neville

  At once Sayre’s attention and thought leaped away from the man himself to what he was uttering.

  “I have in my hand—” the speaker held high a fluttering bit of white—“a copy of the message just received from Mr. Kitchell by Mr. Swain, our high school principal. Mr. Swain has forwarded that message at once to me. For the benefit of you people who have shown your eager interest in what is going on at Laramie by gathering here tonight, I shall first read that message aloud. Then, I shall letter the chief statistics of its contents with white paint on the inner glass of my store’s big front window, where I am sure they will be sufficiently illuminated from the lights within to be visible in the semi-darkness of the street.”

  The crowd seemed to creep in closer to the speaker like a big, slow-moving wave.

  “As you all know, this is the first year the Upham High School has sent a stock-judging team to the state’s high schools’ judging contests at Laramie. The Upham stock-judging team, therefore, was the dark horse of the recent state meet.”

  Sayre was straining a little now to hear. Had the crowd grown noisier, or had Mr. Hoskins lowered his voice? Suddenly that voice rang out high over the massed street in clear, dramatic increase of volume. “That team is a dark horse no longer. It has won almost a sweepstakes.”

  One second of silence, so impressive it almost hurt. Then, thundering applause. Surprisingly short-lived, though. The crowd was too eager for more news.

  “That team as a whole has placed first, and well first, in the judging of every kind of livestock except dairy cattle. That last could not be expected; this is not a dairy country. Our boys did not need that victory. They have won without it. The beautiful, large, engraved silver cup, which annually becomes the possession of the state’s leading stock-judging team, will all next year be the outstanding adornment of the main hall of our own Upham High School.”

  Sayre heard clearly now, even though the crowd was growing noisier. Mr. Hoskins seemed to know how to pause at just the right times to keep their noise from drowning out his words.

  “Is not that honor enough for a new team?”

  Obedient responses of “Yes” from here and there, interspersed by an occasional, expectant “No.”

  “No it is!” came from the speaker triumphantly. “It is not enough for such a team as ours.

  “One of our boys is high point man of the whole contest.

  “One of our boys is the individual high point man for the judging of beef cattle.

  “One of our boys is the individual high point man for the judging of sheep.

  “One of our boys is the individual high point man for the judging of horses.

  “One of our boys is the individual high point man for the judging of hogs.

  “For each of these honors the state’s award is a personal permanent gift of a silver cup But even winning five of these personal cups is not enough for Upham High School. As you all know, the award for the second man in each of the just-mentioned contests is an engraved medal. Four of these medals, also, have been won by pupils of Upham High School. The boys of the Upham stock-judging team will return to their home laden with trophies of achievement.”

  “Who are they? We want their names!”

  Mr. Hoskins leaned forward genially, listening as if in obedience to the demands of the crowd. Then Sayre caught his voice again, but far less distinctly. “Who are these individual winners?” he was repeating rhetorically.

  “That high-point man is—”

  Sayre could no longer distinguish Mr. Hoskins’ words. He had lost control of the crowd’s reactions. Each announcement he had made had been greeted with more deafening cheers. Now the full significance of what he had been saying had penetrated his listeners’ consciousness to the point where they were giving way to their feelings with shouts, hat-tossings, back-slappings and the general uproar of delight. Through it, Sayre could catch nothing of what the speaker was still trying to say.

  She turned to her companion. “Let’s get down and go over there.” Without waiting she suited her action to her words. She lost all track of Mr. Hansen’s slow-moving form as she wormed her own wiry, persistent way through the press. By the time she had gained the farther side of the street and sidled well across the walk, Mr. Hoskins was inside the store, fulfilling his promise of recording statistics on his front window.

  She stood very close, at one outer corner of the big pane, watching intently each stroke of the man’s brush within as it left its mark of white upon the glass. For the moment she had completely forgotten Mr. Hansen. In the same abstracted way she knew, without having stopped to realize it, that every here and there during her penetration through the crowd she had been spoken to by somebody—received a hand-shake, or a word of congratulation. She had a grateful feeling that the crowd was friendly to her, but until she knew more details she could not bother to feel anything more. She watched the white writing grow in extent letter by letter until its first announcements were on the big pane.

  Results of Wyoming High School Stock-judging Contest

  Teams (Possible total perfect score—1950)

  1. Upham High School, Winner of State Cup: 1778

  2. Stewart High School: 1638

  3. Oatland High School: 1625

  Individual First Award (Possible perfect score—650)

  High Point Man—F. Hoskins, U.H.S.,

  Winner of State Cup: 617

  So it was Frank, not Charley, who had won the greatest honor. Well, she might have known it; she had known it from the triumphant radiance of Mr. Hoskins’ behavior. But Charley must have played an important part. Or the team would never—

  She kept her gaze fixed upon the growing letters.

  Separate Contests (Possible perfect score—150)

  Beef Cattle: F. Hoskins, U.H.S., Winner of State Cup: 145

  Dairy Cattle: G. Evans, S.H.S., Winner of State Cup: 140

  Would Charley’s name never come? Oh, there it was! Mr. Hoskins was following that C initial by a capital M.

  Hogs: C. Morgan, U.H.S., Winner of State Cup: 144

  But only once. Wasn’t it coming again? No, not in the next two items.

  (Possible perfect score—100)

  Horses: F. Hoskins, U.H.S., Winner of State Cup: 98

  Sheep: F. Hoskins, U.H.S., Winner of State Cup: 99

  All the window space easily visible to the street throng was filled now. There remained nothing but the lower strip. Only those people on the same level and directly in front of it could see what was being put there. Mr. Hoskins was still working zealously, however, his long, angular figure squatting in what must be an awfully uncomfortable position. He continued to dip his brush every minute or so into the tiny brown crockery pot he held in his left hand, and to crowd into the fast diminishing space letter after letter in ever smaller and none too straight lines, which Sayre’s troubled eyes swept swiftly ahead to read.

  Individual Second Awards

  Second High Point Man—C. Morgan, U.H.S. (Winner of State Medal): 616

  Dairy Cattle: R. Atkinson, O.H.S.: 138

  Beef Cattle: C. Morgan, U.H.S.: 143

  Hogs: G. Evans, S.H.S.: 140

  Horses: C. Morgan, U.H.S.: 95

  Sheep: C. Morgan, U.H.S.: 97

  Well, that was all, she guessed. She drew a long sigh. What was it she felt, now that she knew everything? Triumph or disappointment? She did not have time to find out, so rapidly was she caught up by the crowd in a spirit of friendliness such as she had not known for months. It lasted until Mr. Hansen came in search of her. On the way home, too, she could not really think; her companions kept up such a run of comment.

  “Ain’t dat Sharley a smart boy?” Mr. Hansen droned. “He ain’t yet a farm boy two years, and look at him!”

  “Frank Hoskins hasn’t been a farm boy much longer than Charley. The Hoskinses only moved out on their home farm about three years ago.”

  “Yess, but he ain’t been a city von. He grew up out here. His pa and his pa’s pa va
s range stockmen before de Gover’ment made dis country irrigated. Frank, he ain’t no fool, but he ain’t so smart as dat Sharley. Look at it vonce ven it’s hogs, vat’s new to ’em bot’.”

  A little later the man drifted into another strain. “Sayre, I t’ank, mebbe, t’angs could not have turned out better. Frank lick Sharley a leetle, but not lick him very much. Really bot’ lick, you see, ’cause dey two make deir team lick. Mebbe, now, dey two vill not fight togedder so much.”

  A few days later Sayre recalled Mr. Hansen’s words with new bitterness. Certainly the community did not look upon the situation then as the Morgans’ neighbor had done that night.

  16

  The Storm

  From the time when the boys left until the night of the contest returns the weather had been perfect—sunny days with just the right tang in the air, and with none of the winds that sweep so much of the time over Wyoming’s half-desert plains.

  But late on the morning after the contest returns, the sky grew swiftly overcast, and a few flakes began to fall. By afternoon their number had increased with a sudden, pelting fury, which in a quarter of an hour had smothered all the country about Upham in the howling desolation of a wild, blind, raging Wyoming blizzard.

  Snow Sayre had seen in plenty, but never in her life before anything like this. She was aghast at the marvel of it, such a winter furor of the elements coming the middle of April after days of spring’s balmy promise! Surely the calendar must have taken a long leap backward.

  To Sayre and her father the rest of that day was one continuous struggle to do what must be done in the face of the mounting storm. Inside the house there was the fire to be kept up. The way that fire ate fuel with the gale roaring down the chimney was amazing. Every fifteen minutes or so it demanded attention. Yet every minute one gave to it was a precious minute taken from the work outside, where somehow the stock must be sheltered and fed.

  Fearful lest eating the snow would retard their laying, Sayre shooed and shut her poultry into their respective houses early in the afternoon. But the steady increase in the fall of snow brought new problems: first, that of ventilation; second, that of access. The lower hatchways of the houses Sayre closed at the beginning of the storm. Shortly after, every inch of them was lost to sight by the piling snow, which in places, as if the obstruction of buildings invited its lodging, was forming into huge drifts that climbed with almost perceptible speed up the front panes of the houses and even across the main doorways. The roofs, too, though swept clean by the wind in spots, in other places began to assume great loads. How long could they stand up under such weight?

  Worried by that thought Sayre, shovel in hand, mounted to a precarious footing on top of the chicken house, and for a few foolish moments tried at desperate speed to cope with the snow’s cumulative power. Even could she have endured the strain of bracing her body against the force of the wind, the undertaking was hopeless. A day or two of weather like this, and the very houses themselves would be completely submerged! Some way of ventilation she’d have to figure out and dig to later. Now she’d better help Dad. For the risk of being buried was even greater with Charley’s stock, housed as it was out in those open pastures and alfalfa fields where there was nothing to interfere with the wind’s freakish sweep.

  It wasn’t as if they had a real barn to drive the stock into for shelter. There was nothing but that old tarpaper shack which served them as best it could in a barn’s capacity. The heifer and the young Holstein cow with her little bull calf were housed in it in makeshift stalls at one end. But every bit of the rest of the shack’s crowded space was stored with feed. Well, that would have to come out. She and Dad had already agreed to that and he had gone to work at the task. Two could make a quicker job of it than one. Sayre joined him.

  Among the stored feed father and daughter worked frantically, as if against time, dragging and lifting bags and boxes of wheat, bran and barley out of the barn into the back part of the shed which housed the ‘Shake, and even hoisting what they could into the ‘Shake’s wagon box. They must save the best of what was left of Charley’s good pea-straw. Much of it would be needed now for warm bedding. What was left of Charley’s rutabagas, the Morgans’ only succulent winter feed, so essential to the ewes after lambing time, was fortunately crowded safely into one side of the root cellar.

  The ‘Shake’s shed, open in front as it was, was no place in which to house stock. But by squeezing into that shed what feed they could from the feed house (and covering it as best they could, too, for protection), space in the feed house was obtained in which to shelter the youngest stock: the latest-born lambs and their mothers; and those two last beautiful litters of eighteen Hampshire pigs, both of which had been born only two days before Charley had left.

  Making a place to receive them, Sayre found, was not nearly so hard, after all, as getting the young animals into it. The rosy little pigs she managed by carrying them in three loads in a basket, snuggled warm in old rags and quilts, while Dad, behind her on the last trip, drove through the stinging snow and sleet the nervous, distressed young sows.

  The lambs were even harder to stow in safety. It was amazing, Sayre thought, how heavy a few weeks’ old lamb could grow when one was carrying it across uneven fields, with pitfalls hidden by snow, plowing through drifts, when need be, above one’s knees, in the face of cutting wind which drove continuously into one’s face blinding sheets of flying snowflakes edged with ice!

  It was the way her heart warmed to the poor, little shivering creatures that carried her through the ordeal. Each time she picked up a lamb she took pains to lift it as Mr. Kitchell had taught her, so as to prevent, on its part, any struggle which might do it harm. Stooping nearly at its rear and slightly to the right, she slipped her right hand back of the lamb’s right front leg to place it on the brisket between the two front legs. Then she lifted the lamb slightly from the ground to prevent its attempting to go forward, while with her left hand she took hold of the left hind leg just above the hock, and lifted the soft woolly little creature up snugly against her own breast. Somehow the quiet security with which it lay there, while all the rest of the world was howling and raving about her, made her feel that as long as an ounce of strength remained in her body she could not fail in her trust to these little creatures.

  As for the older stock, both pigs and sheep, they would have to fare as best they could in the shelters Charley had provided for them in the fields where they were pastured. Fortunately the openings to the low hog houses, as they were now placed, and the entrance to the flimsy sheep shed were all away from the general drift of the wind. If the wind piled the snow high against the backs of the structures, well and good. Those drifts would furnish warmth to the shivering creatures within. And perhaps if she and Dad could keep those creatures well fed, they might not shiver so much after all. How long, Sayre found herself speculating while her active efforts never ceased, could a blizzard and the bitter cold that inevitably followed it last in northwestern Wyoming in April?

  To keep the animals fed enough to insure them warmth while such weather did last, though, there had to be paths of some sort between dwelling house, store house and the animals themselves. Upon these paths Sayre and her father spent their almost ceaseless efforts not only during the rest of that day, but also by lantern light well on into the evening. Wherever they could, in choosing their lines of path, they took advantage of the sweeping power of the wind. But there were spots where persistent drifting added all its force to the falling depth of the snow to make their most strenuous exertions seem useless against any real accomplishment.

  Early in the afternoon father and daughter, working outside, lost all glimpse of Hitty’s little, watching face inside the house behind the now frosted kitchen window-pane. They had been forced to entrust to the child, with careful warnings, the keeping up of the inside fire; making, themselves, only infrequent swift visits of inspection. Early in the afternoon, too, father and daughter had realized that, outside, they must
keep and work close together not only to be able to hear one another’s shouts of necessary talk, but even to keep sight of each other at all. To both of them came several experiences of panic when it seemed momentarily as if all sense of location and direction had been lost. Yet on the whole they managed well.

  At ten o’clock, as together they dug doggedly at the persistent drift that kept forming just below the back step, the blade of Mr. Morgan’s homemade snow shovel, long since split, fell into two pieces. He leaned on the long handle and shouted into Sayre’s ear, “We’ll have to give up for tonight, Sayre, and rest, so we can renew the fight tomorrow, if we must.”

  All Sayre’s aching, exhausted muscles cried out in consent. For all that, the great unspoken worry of the day kept her mind still keen. Was Dad worried, too? He had been as silent as she, had given no evidence that on his mental vision, also, was stamped a picture that refused to fade, that of the vast sweeps of uninhabited half-desert land that lay between Laramie and their own corner of Wyoming. There was no sign of civilization anywhere on those huge arid plains except the smooth, wide ribbons of cross section state and federal roads, over which an automobile could travel for hours at a good rate of speed without meeting any touch or evidence of humanity.

  She knew, when as they sat at the kitchen table eating great bowls of bread and milk, Mr. Morgan broke the weary silence by remarking, “Of course, this storm may be only local—or not so sudden in its coming in other sections.”