A Prairie Courtship by Harold Bindloss

Florence Hunter sat in her wagon in front of the grocery store at Graham's Bluff waiting until the man who kept it should bring out various goods she had ordered. Though a fresh breeze swept the surrounding prairie the little town was very hot, and it looked singularly unattractive with the dust blowing through its one unpaved street. In one place a gaily striped shade, which flapped and fluttered in the wind, had been stretched above the window of an ambitious store; but with this exception the unlovely wooden buildings boldly fronted the weather, with the sun-glare on their thin, rent boarding and the roofing shingles crackling overhead, as they had done when they had borne the scourge of snow-laden gales and the almost Arctic frost. They were square and squat, as destitute, most of them, of paint as they were of any attempt at adornment; and in hot weather the newer ones were permeated with a pungent, resinous smell.

Where Florence sat, however, the odors that flowed out of the store were more diffuse, for the fragrance of perspiring cheese was mingled with that of pork which had gained flavor and lost its stiffness in the heat, and the aroma of what was sold as coffee at Graham's Bluff. Florence, indeed, had been glad to escape from the store, which resembled an oven with savory cooking going on, though after all it was not a great deal better in the wagon. The dust was beginning to gather in the folds of her dainty dress, the wind plucked at her veil, and the fierce sun smote her face.