September 2, 2025 • 8 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The house that was not bart Fleming took his bride
out to his ranch on the plains when she was
but seventeen years old, and the two set up housekeeping
in three hundred and twenty acres of corn and rye
off toward the west. There was an unbroken sea of
tossing corn at that time of the year when the
bride came out, and as her sowing window was on
(00:23):
the side of the house which faced the sunset, she
passed a good part of each day looking into the
great rustling mass, breathing in its succulent odors, and listening
to its sibilant melody. It was her picture Gowery, her opera,
her spectacle, and being sensible, or perhaps being merely happy,
she made the most of it. When harvesting time came
(00:44):
and the corn was cut, she had much entertainment in
discovering what lay beyond. The town was east, and it
chanced that she had never ridden west. So when the
rolling hills of this newly beholden land lifted themselves for
her contemplation, and the Harvey sun, all in an angry
and sanguinary glow, sank in the veiled horizon, and at
(01:05):
noon a scarf of golden vapor wavered up and down
along the earth line. It was as if a new
world had been made for her. Sometimes, at the coming
of a storm, a whiplash of purple cloud full of
electric agility, snapped along the western horizon. Oh you'll see
a lot of queer things on these hair planes, her
(01:27):
husband said, when she spoke to him of these phenomena.
I guess what you see is the wind. The wind,
cried Flora. You can't see the wind, Bart, Now look here,
Flora returned Bart with benevolent emphasis. You're a smart one,
but you don't know all I know about this here country.
I've lived here three mortal years waiting for you to
get up out of your mother's arms and come out
(01:49):
to keep me company. And I know what there is
to know. Some things out here is queer, so queer
folks wouldn't believe them unless they saw, And some so
pig headed they don't believe their own eyes. As for
the wind, if you lay down flat and squint toward
the west, you can see it blowing along near the
ground like a big ribbon. And sometimes it's the color
(02:12):
of air, and sometimes it's silver and gold, and sometimes
when a storm is coming, it's purple. If you got
so tired looking at the wind, why didn't you marry
some other girl Bart instead of waiting for me. Flora
was more interested in the first part of Bart's speech
than in the last. Oh, come on, protested Bart, And
he picked her up in his arms and jumped her
(02:33):
toward the ceiling of the low shack, as if she
were a little girl. But then, to be sure, she
wasn't much more. Of all the things Flora saw when
the corn was cut down, nothing interested her so much
as a low cottage, something like her own, which lay
away in the distance. She could not guess how far
it might be, because distances are deceiving out there, where
(02:54):
the altitude is high and the air is as clear
as one of those mystic balls of glass in which
the sallow mystics of India see the moving shadows of
the future. She had not known there were neighbors so near,
and she wandered for several days about them before she
ventured to say anything to Bart on the subject. Indeed,
(03:15):
for some reason which she did not attempt to explain
to herself, she felt shy about broaching the matter. Perhaps
Bart did not want her to know the people. The
thought came to her, as naughty thoughts were come, even
to the best of persons, that some handsome young men
might be batching it out there by themselves, And Bart
didn't wish her to make their acquaintance. Bart had flattered
(03:37):
her so much that she had actually begun to think
herself beautiful. There was a matter of fact, she was
only a nice little girl with a lot of reddish
brown hair and a bright pair of reddish brown eyes
and a white face. Bart. She ventured one evening as
a sun at its fiercest, rushed toward the great black
hollow of the west. Who lives over there in that shack?
(03:59):
She turned away away from the window where she had
been looking at the incarnadined disk, and she thought she
saw Bart turn pale. But then her eyes were so
blurred with the glory she had been gazing at that
she might easily have been mistaken. I say, Bart, why
don't you speak? If there's anyone around to associate with,
I should think you'd let me have the benefit of
(04:19):
their company. It isn't as funny as you think, staying
here alone days and days. You ain't getting homesick. Bee
a sweetheart, cried Bart, putting his arms around her. You
ain't getting tired of my society, be you. It took
some time to answer this question in a satisfactory manner,
but at length Flora was able to return to her
original topic. But the shack, Bart, who lives there? Anyway?
(04:42):
I'm not acquainted with them, said Bart, sharply, ain't them
biscuits done? Flora? Then, of course she grew obstinate. Those
biscuits will never be done, Bart, till I know about
that house and why you never spoke of it, and
why nobody ever comes down the road from there. Someone
lives there. I know, for in the mornings and at night,
I see the smoke coming out of the chimney, do
(05:02):
you now, cried Bart, opening his eyes and looking at
her with unfeigned interest. Well do you know? Sometimes I
fancied I've seen that too. Well why not, cried Flora
in half anger. Why shouldn't you see here? Flora? Take
them biscuits out and listen to me. There ain't no
house there. Hello, I didn't know you'd go for to
(05:23):
drop the biscuits. Wait, I'll help you pick em up,
by cracky. They're hot, ain't they what you putting a
towel over em for? Well, you set down here on
my knees. So now you look over at that there house.
You see it, don't you? Well, it ain't there. No,
I saw it. The first week I was out here,
I was just half dying thinking of you and wondering
(05:44):
why you didn't write That was the time you was
mad at me. So I rode over there one day,
looking up company, so to speak. And there want no
house there. I spent all one Sunday looking for it,
and I spoke to Jim Geary about it. He laughed
and got a little white about the gills, and he
said he guessed I'd have to look a good while
before I found it. He said that that there shack
(06:07):
was an old joke. Why what, Well, this here's the
story he told me. He said, a man and his
wife came out here to live and put up that
there little place. And she was young, you know, and
kind of scary, and she got lonesome. It worked on
her and worked on her. One day she up and
(06:27):
killed the baby and her husband and herself. The folks
found him and buried him right there on their own ground.
Well about two weeks after that the house was burned down.
Don't know how, tramps maybe anyhow, it burned, at least
I guess it burned. You guess it burned. Well, it
ain't there, you know. But if it burned, the ashes
(06:48):
are there, all right, girley, they're there. Then now let's
have tea. This they proceeded to do, and were happy
and cheerful all evening. That didn't keep Flora from rising
at the first flush of dawn, Stealing out of the house.
She looked away over the west as she went to
the barn, and there, dark and firm against the horizon,
stood the little house against the pelucid sky of morning.
(07:10):
She got on Ginger's back, Ginger being her own yellow broncho,
and set off at a hard pace for the house.
It didn't appear to come any nearer by the objects
which had seemed to be beside. It came closer into view,
and Flora pressed on with her mind stealed for anything.
But as she approached the poplar windbreak, which stood to
the north of the house, the little shack waned like
(07:33):
a shadow before her. It faded and dimmed before her eyes.
She slapped Ginger's flanks and kept him going, and she
at last got him up to the spot, but there
was nothing there. The bunch grass grew tall and rank,
and in the midst of it lay a baby's shoe.
Flora thought of picking it up, but something cold in
(07:54):
her veins withheld her. Then she grew angry and set
Ginger's head toward the place, and tried to drive him over.
But the yellow broncho gave one snort of fear, gathered
himself in a bunch, and then all tense, leaping muscles
made for home, as only a broncho can end of
the house that was not by Elia Wilkinson Petey
The house that was not bart Fleming took his bride
out to his ranch on the plains when she was
but seventeen years old, and the two set up housekeeping
in three hundred and twenty acres of corn and rye
off toward the west. There was an unbroken sea of
tossing corn at that time of the year when the
bride came out, and as her sowing window was on
(00:23):
the side of the house which faced the sunset, she
passed a good part of each day looking into the
great rustling mass, breathing in its succulent odors, and listening
to its sibilant melody. It was her picture Gowery, her opera,
her spectacle, and being sensible, or perhaps being merely happy,
she made the most of it. When harvesting time came
(00:44):
and the corn was cut, she had much entertainment in
discovering what lay beyond. The town was east, and it
chanced that she had never ridden west. So when the
rolling hills of this newly beholden land lifted themselves for
her contemplation, and the Harvey sun, all in an angry
and sanguinary glow, sank in the veiled horizon, and at
(01:05):
noon a scarf of golden vapor wavered up and down
along the earth line. It was as if a new
world had been made for her. Sometimes, at the coming
of a storm, a whiplash of purple cloud full of
electric agility, snapped along the western horizon. Oh you'll see
a lot of queer things on these hair planes, her
(01:27):
husband said, when she spoke to him of these phenomena.
I guess what you see is the wind. The wind,
cried Flora. You can't see the wind, Bart, Now look here,
Flora returned Bart with benevolent emphasis. You're a smart one,
but you don't know all I know about this here country.
I've lived here three mortal years waiting for you to
get up out of your mother's arms and come out
(01:49):
to keep me company. And I know what there is
to know. Some things out here is queer, so queer
folks wouldn't believe them unless they saw, And some so
pig headed they don't believe their own eyes. As for
the wind, if you lay down flat and squint toward
the west, you can see it blowing along near the
ground like a big ribbon. And sometimes it's the color
(02:12):
of air, and sometimes it's silver and gold, and sometimes
when a storm is coming, it's purple. If you got
so tired looking at the wind, why didn't you marry
some other girl Bart instead of waiting for me. Flora
was more interested in the first part of Bart's speech
than in the last. Oh, come on, protested Bart, And
he picked her up in his arms and jumped her
(02:33):
toward the ceiling of the low shack, as if she
were a little girl. But then, to be sure, she
wasn't much more. Of all the things Flora saw when
the corn was cut down, nothing interested her so much
as a low cottage, something like her own, which lay
away in the distance. She could not guess how far
it might be, because distances are deceiving out there, where
(02:54):
the altitude is high and the air is as clear
as one of those mystic balls of glass in which
the sallow mystics of India see the moving shadows of
the future. She had not known there were neighbors so near,
and she wandered for several days about them before she
ventured to say anything to Bart on the subject. Indeed,
(03:15):
for some reason which she did not attempt to explain
to herself, she felt shy about broaching the matter. Perhaps
Bart did not want her to know the people. The
thought came to her, as naughty thoughts were come, even
to the best of persons, that some handsome young men
might be batching it out there by themselves, And Bart
didn't wish her to make their acquaintance. Bart had flattered
(03:37):
her so much that she had actually begun to think
herself beautiful. There was a matter of fact, she was
only a nice little girl with a lot of reddish
brown hair and a bright pair of reddish brown eyes
and a white face. Bart. She ventured one evening as
a sun at its fiercest, rushed toward the great black
hollow of the west. Who lives over there in that shack?
(03:59):
She turned away away from the window where she had
been looking at the incarnadined disk, and she thought she
saw Bart turn pale. But then her eyes were so
blurred with the glory she had been gazing at that
she might easily have been mistaken. I say, Bart, why
don't you speak? If there's anyone around to associate with,
I should think you'd let me have the benefit of
(04:19):
their company. It isn't as funny as you think, staying
here alone days and days. You ain't getting homesick. Bee
a sweetheart, cried Bart, putting his arms around her. You
ain't getting tired of my society, be you. It took
some time to answer this question in a satisfactory manner,
but at length Flora was able to return to her
original topic. But the shack, Bart, who lives there? Anyway?
(04:42):
I'm not acquainted with them, said Bart, sharply, ain't them
biscuits done? Flora? Then, of course she grew obstinate. Those
biscuits will never be done, Bart, till I know about
that house and why you never spoke of it, and
why nobody ever comes down the road from there. Someone
lives there. I know, for in the mornings and at night,
I see the smoke coming out of the chimney, do
(05:02):
you now, cried Bart, opening his eyes and looking at
her with unfeigned interest. Well do you know? Sometimes I
fancied I've seen that too. Well why not, cried Flora
in half anger. Why shouldn't you see here? Flora? Take
them biscuits out and listen to me. There ain't no
house there. Hello, I didn't know you'd go for to
(05:23):
drop the biscuits. Wait, I'll help you pick em up,
by cracky. They're hot, ain't they what you putting a
towel over em for? Well, you set down here on
my knees. So now you look over at that there house.
You see it, don't you? Well, it ain't there. No,
I saw it. The first week I was out here,
I was just half dying thinking of you and wondering
(05:44):
why you didn't write That was the time you was
mad at me. So I rode over there one day,
looking up company, so to speak. And there want no
house there. I spent all one Sunday looking for it,
and I spoke to Jim Geary about it. He laughed
and got a little white about the gills, and he
said he guessed I'd have to look a good while
before I found it. He said that that there shack
(06:07):
was an old joke. Why what, Well, this here's the
story he told me. He said, a man and his
wife came out here to live and put up that
there little place. And she was young, you know, and
kind of scary, and she got lonesome. It worked on
her and worked on her. One day she up and
(06:27):
killed the baby and her husband and herself. The folks
found him and buried him right there on their own ground.
Well about two weeks after that the house was burned down.
Don't know how, tramps maybe anyhow, it burned, at least
I guess it burned. You guess it burned. Well, it
ain't there, you know. But if it burned, the ashes
(06:48):
are there, all right, girley, they're there. Then now let's
have tea. This they proceeded to do, and were happy
and cheerful all evening. That didn't keep Flora from rising
at the first flush of dawn, Stealing out of the house.
She looked away over the west as she went to
the barn, and there, dark and firm against the horizon,
stood the little house against the pelucid sky of morning.
(07:10):
She got on Ginger's back, Ginger being her own yellow broncho,
and set off at a hard pace for the house.
It didn't appear to come any nearer by the objects
which had seemed to be beside. It came closer into view,
and Flora pressed on with her mind stealed for anything.
But as she approached the poplar windbreak, which stood to
the north of the house, the little shack waned like
(07:33):
a shadow before her. It faded and dimmed before her eyes.
She slapped Ginger's flanks and kept him going, and she
at last got him up to the spot, but there
was nothing there. The bunch grass grew tall and rank,
and in the midst of it lay a baby's shoe.
Flora thought of picking it up, but something cold in
(07:54):
her veins withheld her. Then she grew angry and set
Ginger's head toward the place, and tried to drive him over.
But the yellow broncho gave one snort of fear, gathered
himself in a bunch, and then all tense, leaping muscles
made for home, as only a broncho can end of
the house that was not by Elia Wilkinson Petey
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