Prairie Gold Part 18

_Nourmahal._ And for the daughter of the King of the East, give thanks, O King Nasrulla. It is said that she is very beautiful, and many wooers have sought her vainly. She has been kept for the joy and the splendor and the growing greatness of My Lord the King.

_King Nasrulla._ Announce my coming to my Prime Minister, Huseyn.

_Messenger (rising)._ Your n.o.ble Majesty is most gracious. I fly with your words to Huseyn.

_King Nasrulla._ As a king I go, but my thoughts are not a king's thoughts, and they stay here. It may be I shall look for them again, as one looks for love in his friend's heart at the home-returning.

Farewell!

_Nourmahal._ I shall keep your thoughts forever, My Lord Nasrulla, but for the King and the ways of the King--farewell!

The two lantern carriers who have come with the messenger turn to the right to light the way for the King, and, as they pa.s.s off, he follows them. Nourmahal watches them until they are gone, while Mehrab, Nourmahal's father, comes forward slowly.

_Mehrab._ He threatened you, did he?

_Nourmahal._ Threaten! No, father, he did not threaten me.

_Mehrab._ Does he not mean to make you queen whether you wish to be or not?

_Nourmahal._ He will not dare.

_Mehrab._ I am only a merchant, only a dealer in figs and olives. I am not to be feared or considered by him or by those that are about him.

It is the way of his kind to think that you are to be taken as he would take a pomegranate from the garden of one of his satraps.

_Nourmahal._ He will not take me.

_Mehrab._ They despise me because I go with the caravans, but I have learned something. I know the world. My camels have tracked the sands hundreds of miles from Saranazett, and there are places where the words of Nasrulla the King mean less than the words of Mehrab the merchant.

_Nourmahal._ They will have horses to follow us. Horses are swifter than camels.

_Mehrab._ We shall have horses too, and ours shall be the fleetest.

The riders of the King's horses will put out their palms for my silver. They will know how to make their whips fall lightly.

_Nourmahal (eagerly)._ Let us go to-morrow. Let us go before the daughter of the King of the East is carried in her palanquin to the palace. I want to see all the places where you have been. I want to know something of the strange things that you have seen.

_Mehrab._ The women of Saranazett have never traveled.

_Nourmahal._ But I will not be a woman of Saranazett. There are other worlds and other ways for me than the ways of Saranazett.

_Mehrab._ You shall not be queen one day and someone else queen in your place the next. I was not born to live in the world's high places, but also I was not born to bend the knee. You shall not suffer because you are not a king's daughter, and because those that are kings' daughters smile at you behind their curtains.

_Nourmahal (more dreamily reluctant)._ If we could make Saranazett over into a new world.

_Mehrab._ A new world somewhere else, Nourmahal. The packs are being made ready for the camels. Have your women tie up your clothes as if they were bundles of figs. Day after to-morrow or the next day or the next, we shall take horse and follow. We shall go to a world that is an old, old world, wiser than our world, a world where men's thoughts are free and their women's eyes look wherever they will.

_Nourmahal (pa.s.sing to the gate)._ The women shall make ready.

_Mehrab._ At once, and tell Zuleika she goes with you.

_Nourmahal._ Zuleika shall make ready.

She pa.s.ses out through the gate into the garden. Mehrab turns and sees the spikes driven into the wall by the tower. For a moment he looks at them in astonishment, observing that they pa.s.s down to the ground slopingly, and then, one by one, he pulls them out and flings them down on the ground violently.

The Old Cane Mill

_By Nellie Gregg Tomlinson_

"What's sorghum?" Don't you know sorghum?

My gran'son nigh sixteen, Don't boys know nothin' nowadays?

Beats all I ever seen.

Why sorghum's the bulliest stuff Wuz ever made ter eat.

You spread it thick on homemade bread; It's most oncommon sweet.

"Come from?" Wall yer jist better bet It don't come from no can.

Jus' b'iled down juice from sorghum cane, Straight I'way 'la.s.ses bran'.

"What's cane?" It's some like corn, yer know, An' topped with plumes o' seed.

Grows straight an' tall on yaller clay That wouldn't grow a weed.

Long in September when 'twuz ripe, The cane-patch battle field Wuz charged by boys with wooden swords, Good temper wuz their s.h.i.+eld.

They stripped the stalks of all their leaves, Then men, with steel knives keen Slashed off the heads and cut the stalks An' piled them straight an' clean.

The tops wuz saved ter feed the hens, Likewise fer nex' year's seed.

The farmer allus has ter save Against the futur's need.

The neighbors c.u.m from miles erbout An' fetched the cane ter mill.

They stacked it high betwixt two trees, At Gran'dads, on the hill.

An' ol' hoss turned the cane mill sweep, He led hisself erroun.

The stalks wuz fed inter the press, From them the sap wuz groun'.

This juice run through a little trough Ter pans beneath a shed; There it wuz b'iled an' skimmed and b'iled, Till it wuz thick an' red.

Then it wuz cooled an' put in bar'ls An' toted off to town While us kids got ter lick the pan, Which job wuz dun up brown.

Gee whiz! but we did hev good times At taffy pullin' bees.

We woun' the taffy roun' girls' necks-- Bob wuz the biggest tease.

Inside the furnace, on live coals, We het cane stalks red hot, Then hit 'em hard out on the groun'-- Yer oughter hear 'em pop!

Sometimes a barefoot boy would step Inter the skimmin's hole, Er pinch his fingers in the mill, Er fall off from the pole.

When winter winds went whis'lin' through The door an' winder cracks, An' piled up snow wuz driftin'

Till yer couldn't see yer tracks, Then we all drawed roun' the table An' pa.s.sed the buckwheat cakes, Er mebbe it wuz good corn bread.

"What's sorghum?" Good lan' sakes.

Wall, son, yer hev my symperthy; Yer've missed a lot, I swan.

Oh, sure yer dance an' joy-ride Frum ev'nin' untel dawn, Yer've football, skates an' golf ter he'p The pa.s.sin' time ter kill, But give me mem'ry's boyhood days, Erroun' the ol' cane mill.