This was the day, he remembered, when the wealthy rancher of Ruxton was to look over old Chris Dorn's wheat-fields. Dorn owed thirty-thousand dollars and interest for years, mostly to Anderson. Kurt hated the debt and resented the visit, but he could not help acknowledging that the rancher had been lenient and kind. Long since Kurt had sorrowfully realized that his father was illiterate, hard, grasping, and growing worse with the burden of years. "If we had rain now-or soon-that section of Bluestem would square father," ...
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This was the day, he remembered, when the wealthy rancher of Ruxton was to look over old Chris Dorn's wheat-fields. Dorn owed thirty-thousand dollars and interest for years, mostly to Anderson. Kurt hated the debt and resented the visit, but he could not help acknowledging that the rancher had been lenient and kind. Long since Kurt had sorrowfully realized that his father was illiterate, hard, grasping, and growing worse with the burden of years. "If we had rain now-or soon-that section of Bluestem would square father," soliloquized young Dorn, as with keen eyes he surveyed a vast field of wheat, short, smooth, yellowing in the sun. But the cloudless sky, the haze of heat rather betokened a continued drought. There were reasons, indeed, for Dorn to wear a dark and troubled face as he watched the motor-car speed along ahead of its stream of dust, pass out of sight under the hill, and soon reappear, to turn off the main road and come toward the house. It was a big, closed car, covered with dust. The driver stopped it at the gate and got out.
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Add this copy of The Desert of Wheat to cart. $12.77, new condition, Sold by Ingram Customer Returns Center rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from NV, USA, published 2017 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Add this copy of The Desert of Wheat to cart. $34.88, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2017 by CreateSpace Independent Publis.
Whether you are an old hand, or a greenhorn who has heard of Zane Grey and willing to try one of his books, The Desert of Wheat will not disappoint....unless you are expecting cowboys on horses or shoot-outs in the streets. This book has neither, but it does give us a taste of the conditions which existed during the period of years surrounding the 1st World War--especially the activity and philosophy of a group called the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World-a socialist, communist organization espousing destruction of the United States. There is espionage, arson, murder, and intrigue all set in the wheat growing district of Washington state known as the Columbia Basin. Also, as with any Zane Grey book the vivid descriptions of landscape and his fully rounded and well developed characters are there, as well as the romance, all heightened amid the backdrop of the War--a German father who hates America; the son who wants to fight for American; the daughter of a rich banker who will do anything to keep the man she loves from going to war. The theme, the intense interaction of the characters involved make for one of the best of Zane Grey. A note of reminder: This was a contemporary novel, written and set and published during the time period it displays, so some of the language may seem dated in places, but true to the period and times. Zane Grey has often been charged with his broad use of colloquialisms, and in some of his later novels it does seem over used, but Zane Grey wrote the way he heard people speak. I highly recommend this version if you cannot find or afford the unexpurgated version recently published in 2012 War Comes to the Big Bend.
