What is the mood of "Under the Lion's Paw" by Hamlin Garland?

The mood (also called atmosphere) of the short story
"Under the Lion's Paw" is set in the very first lines of the story. Interestingly
enough, an opposing counter-mood is also set. Mood in literary terms is defined as the
emotional or even psychological (as with Dostoevsky) feeling that the reader enters into
upon reading a literary work. Mood is created and developed--and sometimes changed in
various scenes--through the author's choices in the use of diction, setting (time and
place) and setting description, character description, and characterization. These are
the elements that Hamlin Garland draws upon in creating mood in this
story.

The mood is first established by the strong first sentence: "It
was the last of autumn and first day of winter coming together." Autumn and winter are
classic metaphors for, among other things, trouble, struggle, and hardship. By setting
the story at the time in the year when they meet, the reader is instantly transported
into a gloomy, despondent mood that anticipates more struggle than the story opens
with.

The place of the setting is identified as prairie farmland where
the narrator introduces "the ploughmen on their prairie farms." That they are prairie
farms, where autumn meets winter, adds to the gloomy mood because of the American
historical allusion that associates prairie farms with struggle and
hardship.

The descriptions of the horses which--with dripping
harnesses--are swinging "to and fro silently with that marvellous uncomplaining
patience," and the description of the weather, with its "frequent squalls of snow, the
dripping, desolate clouds," further add to the mood of gloom and despondent anticipation
of deeper struggle.

The characterization of the farmers heightens
these aspects of mood while ironically introducing a counter-mood of optimism that
proves to be important to the resolution of the story. One farmer described as having

on his ragged
great-coat, … [where] the cold clinging mud rose on his heavy boots, fettering him like
gyves, ....

The countering
mood is established in the phrase that ends the quotation above: “[Yet he] whistled in
the very beard of the gale.” This adds a counter-mood of optimism and undaunted spirit
and greatness of heart.

Interestingly, this optimistic
phrase of description also serves as foreshadowing of the upcoming resolution of the
story. In complex literary structuring in a short space, Garland establishes two
strongly felt moods, then, in accord with his theory that stories should illustrate what
is and what may be (called veritism), he uses the same elements to
establish foreshadowing for the resolution.