The Desert of Wheat: A NovelHarper & Brothers, 1919 - 376 pages In the midst of World War I, Kurt Dorn cannot agree with his German-born father that America is making a mistake by siding with Great Britain. Meanwhile area farmers come into conflict with the IWW, which doesn't want the area's wheat to go to support the troops. |
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Common terms and phrases
ain't alfalfa American asked bayonet Bend blood burned burst comrades cowboy cried dark desert of wheat Dorn's drive dust exclaimed eyes face farmers father feel fields fight fire flash gazed German girl Glidden goin Golden Valley gray hand hard harvest hate heard heart heerd hills horses Huns hurried Jake Jerry Kathleen kill knew Kurt Dorn Kurt's labor laugh Lenore Anderson Lenore felt Lenore's Listen look mind mother Nash Neuman never night old Dorn Olsen passion queried rain rancher reckon replied Anderson replied Dorn replied Kurt replied Lenore road roar seemed shot slope smile smoke smut smut fungus soldier soul Spokane spores strange sure sweet talk tell terrible There's thet thing thought thrilled told vigilante band voice wheat wheat-fields whispered wind wonderful yelled ZANE GREY
Popular passages
Page 373 - For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of the wheat.
Page 145 - Bible, (the law spoken of in the text,) declared that, if he had his life to live over again, he would spend it in the study of the Word of God.
Page 369 - Although he recommends courage and a brave battle, still he knows where we are — "For we are here as on a darkling plain, Swept by confused alarms of struggle and flight Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Page 42 - They seek to make converts not by argument, but by threats and intimidation. "We read that Western towns are seeking to deport these rebels. In the old days we can imagine more drastic measures would have been taken. The Westerners were handy with the rope and the gun in those days. We are not counseling lynch law, but we think deportation is too mild a punishment. "We are too 'civilized...
Page 327 - His immense and terrible joy bridged the ages between the past and this moment when he leaped light and swift, like a huge cat, upon them. They fired and they hit, but Dorn sprang on, tigerishly, with his loud and nameless laugh. Bayonets thrust at him were straws. The enemy gave way, appalled .... An instant of pause, a...
Page 2 - Here was grown the most bounteous, the richest and finest wheat in all the world. Strange and unfathomable that so much of the bread of man, the staff of life, the hope of civilization in this tragic year 1917, should come from a vast, treeless, waterless, dreary desert! This wonderful place was an immense valley of considerable altitude called the Columbia Basin, surrounded by the Cascade Mountains on the west, the...
Page 3 - Upon a morning in early July, exactly three months after the United States had declared war upon Germany, a sturdy young farmer strode with darkly troubled face from the presence of his father. At the end of a stormy scene he had promised his father that he would abandon his desire to enlist in the army. Kurt Dorn walked away from the gray old clapboard house, out to the fence, where he leaned on the gate.
Page 1 - LATE IN JUNE THE VAST northwestern desert of wheat began to take on a tinge of gold, lending an austere beauty to that endless, rolling, smooth world of treeless hills, where miles of fallow ground and miles of waving grain sloped up to the far-separated homes of the heroic men who had conquered over sage and sand.
Page 20 - ... entirely prevented, while the per cent, of smut in barley, sorghum, and rye can be very greatly lessened. While the hot-water treatment is effective, it is a rather laborious treatment to employ. The result is that it has been very largely superseded in this country by some of the chemical treatments. The principle of the chemical treatment is to use a poison which will kill the spores of the smut and not materially injure the germinating power of the seed. Out of many different chemicals tried...
Page 154 - If there was German blood in him, poisoning the very wells of his heart, he could have spilled it, and so, whether living or dead, have repudiated the taint. That was now clear in his consciousness. But a baser spark had ignited all the primitive passion of the forbears he felt burning and driving within him. He felt no noble fire. He longed to live. ... to beat with iron mace and cut with sharp bayonet and rend with hard hand - to kill and kill and kill the hideous thing that was German.