A Prairie Courtship by Harold Bindloss

It was about the middle of the afternoon when Alison reached the Hunter homestead, and she was slightly astonished when, on inquiring for Florence, a maid informed her that the latter was busy and could not be with her for some minutes. Alison had imagined from what she had seen on previous visits that in the warm weather Florence invariably spent her afternoons reclining in a canvas chair on the veranda. A couple of chairs stood on it when she arrived, and after the maid had gone she drew one back into the shadow, and sitting down looked out across the great stretch of grain in front of the house.

All round the edge of it there were scattered men and teams, but they were moving very slowly, and almost every minute the clatter of one or another of the binders ceased and she saw stooping figures busy in front of the machine. Though she could not make out exactly what they were doing, the state of the harvest-field seemed to explain why the delays were unavoidable. Great patches of the wheat lay prone; the part that stood upright looked tangled and torn, and there were wide stretches from which it had partially disappeared, leaving only ragged stubble mixed with crumpled straw. Alison had, however, seen other crops that had been wholly wiped out by the scourging hail. She waited about a quarter of an hour before Florence appeared, looking rather hot and dressed with unusual plainness.