DROUGHT
The wheat was growing tall and changing to a darker shade; when the wind
swept through it, it undulated like the waves of a vast green sea,
rippling silver and white where the light played on the bending blades.
Harding lay among the dusty grass in a dry sloo, and Hester sat beside
him in the blue shadow of the big hay wagon. Since six o'clock that
morning Harding and Devine had been mowing prairie hay. They had stopped
long enough to eat the lunch Hester had brought them; and now Devine had
returned to his work, and sat jolting in the driving-seat of a big
machine as he guided three powerful horses along the edge of the grass.
It went down in dry rows, ready for gathering, before the glistening
knife, and a haze of dust and a cloud of flies followed the team across
the sloo. Harding's horses stood switching their tails in the sunshine
that flooded the plain with a dazzling glare.
"It was rough on Fred that you wouldn't let him finish his pipe,"
Harding said.
"He went obediently," Hester answered with a smile. "I wanted to talk to
you."
"I suspected something of the kind; but I can't see why you must stop me
now."
"You are away at daybreak and come home late."
"Very well," said Harding resignedly. "But I've got to clean up this
sloo by dark."
"Then you're not going to the Grange? You haven't been since Sunday."
"Beatrice understands that I'm busy."
"That's fortunate. It's not nice to feel neglected. Can't you take your
mind off your farming for a little while, Craig?"
"It's my job. What's more, sticking to it seems the best way of making
things easier for Beatrice. I'm an outsider at Allenwood and have got to
justify my unorthodox notions by success. I haven't much polish and I'm
not a good talker, but I can grow wheat--and luckily that comes into the
scheme."
"It may, perhaps. When are you to be married, Craig?"
"I don't know. Beatrice puts it off. I had hoped it might be after
harvest, but nothing's settled yet."
"Then you ought to be firm and insist upon fixing the wedding soon."
"I wish I could. But why?"
"Because it might be better not to leave Beatrice among her friends too
long."
Harding looked surprised.
"Since the Colonel's given in, and Gerald's gone, I don't think there is
anybody who would try to turn her against me."
"No," agreed Hester. "Her parents would be angry if she broke her
engagement. Now that they have accepted you, you can count on their
support, even if they're not quite satisfied with the match. The trouble
is that you and they belong to very different schools. They'll try to
make the best of you, but Beatrice will see how hard they find it."
"Hurrying on the wedding won't help much."
"It might. Beatrice will try to accept her husband's views, and she'll
probably find it easier than she thinks; but at present all she sees and
hears will remind her of the changes she will have to make. Things you
do will not seem right; some of your ideas will jar. Then the other
women will let her see that they feel sorry for her and think she's
throwing herself away. She'll deny it, but it will hurt."
"Perhaps that's true," said Harding. "But talking of the wedding raises
another question. I want a better house, and when I build I may as well
locate at Allenwood."
"Then you are still determined on getting control there?"
"I don't want control, but I may have to take it," Harding answered.
"The settlement will fall to bits if it's left alone, and I suspect that
I'm the only man who can hold it up. I'm glad you have talked to me.
What you've said makes it clear that I've not time to lose. Now,
however, this hay must be cut."
He led his team into the grass when Hester went away, but although he
worked hard until dark fell, his mind was busy with many things beside
the clattering machine.
A few days later he had occasion to visit Winnipeg, and after some talk
with his agent there, he asked him:
"Do you know how Davies is fixed just now, Jackson?"
"I don't know much about him personally, but men in his line of business
are feeling the set-back. They've bought options on land there's no
demand for, and can't collect accounts; farmers with money seem to have
stopped coming in; and the small homesteaders are going broke. Doesn't
seem to be any money in the country, and credit's played out."
"Then it ought to be a good time to pick up land cheap, and I want you
to find a broker who'll ask Davies what he'll take for two or three
mortgages he holds on Allenwood. My name's not to be mentioned; you must
get a man who can handle the matter cautiously."
"I know one; but, if you don't mind my asking, could you put a deal of
that kind through?"
"I must," said Harding. "It will be a strain, but the crop's coming on
well and I ought to have a surplus after harvest."
"Isn't the dry weather hurting you?"
"Not yet. We can stand for another week or two if the wind's not too
bad. Anyhow, you can find out whether Davies is inclined to trade."
When Harding went out into the street, he was met by a cloud of swirling
dust. He wiped the grit from his eyes and brushed it off his clothes
with an annoyance that was not accounted for by the slight discomfort it
caused him. The sun was fiercely hot, the glare trying, and the plank
sidewalks and the fronts of the wooden stores had begun to crack. Sand
and cement from half-finished buildings were blowing down the street;
and when Harding stopped to watch a sprinkler at work on a lawn at the
corner of an avenue where frame houses stood among small trees, the
glistening shower vanished as it fell. There were fissures in the hard
soil and the grass looked burnt. But it was the curious, hard
brightness of the sky and the way the few white clouds swept across it
that gave Harding food for thought.
The soil of the Western prairie freezes deep, and, thawing slowly,
retains moisture for the wheat plant for some time; but the June rain
had been unusually light. Moreover, the plains rise in three or four
tablelands as they run toward the Rockies, and the strength of the
northwest wind increases with their elevation. It was blowing fresh in
the low Red River basin, but it would be blowing harder farther west,
where there are broken, sandy belts. After a period of dry weather, the
sand drives across the levels with disastrous consequences to any crops
in the neighborhood. This, however, was a danger that could not be
guarded against.
The next day Jackson reported about the mortgages.
"Davies was keen on business and offered my man improved preemptions in
a dozen different townships," he said. "Pressed him to go out and take a
look at them; but when he heard the buyer wanted an Allenwood location
he wouldn't trade."
"What do you gather from that?"
"The thing seems pretty plain, and what I've found out since yesterday
agrees with my conclusions. Davies is pressed for money, but he means to
hold on to Allenwood as long as he can. A good harvest would help him
because he'd then be able to get in some money from his customers."
"A good harvest would help us all; but there's not much hope of it
unless the weather changes. In the meanwhile, we'll let the matter drop,
because I don't want to give the fellow a hint about my plans."
Nearing home on the following evening, Harding pulled up his horse on
the edge of the wheat as he saw Devine coming to meet him.
"What's the weather been like?" he asked, getting down from the rig.
"Bad," said Devine gloomily. "Hot and blowing hard."
Harding looked about as they crossed a stretch of grass that had turned
white and dry. The sunset was red and angry, but above the horizon the
sky was a hard, dark blue that threatened wind. Everything was very
still now, but the men knew the breeze would rise again soon after
daybreak. They said nothing for a time after they stopped beside the
wheat.
The soil was thinly covered with sand, and the tall blades had a yellow,
shriveled look, while the stems were bent and limp. Harding gathered a
few and examined them. They were scored with fine lines as if they had
been cut by a sharp file.
"Not serious yet, but the grain won't stand for much more of this."
"That's so," Devine agreed. "The sand hasn't got far in, but I guess it
will work right through unless we have a change. If not, there'll be
trouble for both of us this fall."
"Sure," said Harding curtly. "Bring the horse, Fred, and we'll drive on
to the rise."
They presently alighted where the plain merged into a belt of broken
country, dotted with clumps of scrub birch and poplar. It rolled in
ridges and hollows, but the harsh grass which thinly covered its surface
had shriveled and left bare banks of sand, which lay about the slopes in
fantastic shapes as they had drifted. Harding stooped and took up a
handful. It was hot and felt gritty. The broken ground ran on as far as
he could see, and the short, stunted trees looked as if they had been
scorched. Glowing red in the dying sunset, the desolate landscape had a
strangely sinister effect.
"The stuff's as hard and sharp as steel," he said, throwing down the
sand. "There's enough of it to wipe out all the crops between Allenwood
and the frontier if the drought lasts."
"What we want is a good big thunderstorm. This blamed sand-belt's a
trouble we never reckoned on."
"No," said Harding. "I took a look at it when I was picking my location,
but there was plenty of grass, and the brush was strong and green. Guess
they'd had more rain the last two or three years. I figured out things
pretty carefully--and now the only set-back I didn't allow for is going
to pull me up! Well, we must hope for a change of weather; there's
nothing else to be done."
He turned away with a gloomy face, and they walked back to the rig.
Harding had early seen that Beatrice would not be an easy prize. It was
not enough, entrancing as it was, to dream over her beauty, her
fastidious daintiness in manners and thought, her patrician calm, and
the shy tenderness she now and then showed for him. The passionate
thrill her voice and glance brought him--spurred him rather--to action.
First of all, he must work and fight for her, and he had found a keen
pleasure in the struggle. One by one he had pulled down the barriers
between them; but now, when victory seemed secure, an obstacle he could
not overcome had suddenly risen. All his strength of mind and body
counted for nothing against the weather. Beatrice could not marry a
ruined man; it was unthinkable that he should drag her down to the
grinding care and drudgery that formed the lot of a broken farmer's
wife. He was helpless, and could only wait and hope for rain.
When he had finished his work the next evening he drove over to the
Grange, feeling depressed and tired, for he had begun at four o'clock
that morning. It was very hot: a fiery wind still blew across the plain,
although the sun had set, and Beatrice was sitting on the veranda with
her mother and Mowbray. They had a languid air, and the prairie, which
had turned a lifeless gray, looked strangely dreary as it ran back into
the gathering dark.
"Not much hope of a change!" Mowbray remarked.
Beatrice gave Harding a sympathetic glance, and unconsciously he set his
lips tight. She looked cool and somehow ethereal in her thin white dress
and her eyes were gentle. It was horrible to think that he might have to
give her up; but he knew it might come to this.
"You're tired; I'm afraid you have been working too hard," Beatrice said
gently.
"The weather accounts for it, not the work," he answered. "It's
depressing to feel that all you've done may lead to nothing."
"Very true," Mowbray assented. "You're fortunate if this is the first
time you have been troubled by the feeling. Many of us have got used to
it; but one must go on."
"It's hard to fight a losing battle, sir."
"It is," said Mowbray grimly. "That it really does not matter in the end
whether you lose or not, so long as you're on the right side, doesn't
seem to give one much consolation. But your crop strikes me as looking
better than ours."
"I plowed deep; the sub-soil holds the moisture. Of course, with
horse-traction----"
Harding hesitated, but Mowbray smiled.
"I can't deny that your machines have their advantages," the Colonel
said. "They'd be useful if you could keep them in their place as
servants; the danger is that they'll become your masters. When you have
bought them you must make them pay, and that puts you under the yoke of
an iron thing that demands to be handled with the sternest economy. The
balance sheet's the only standard it leaves you--and you have to make
some sacrifices if you mean to come out on the credit side. Your finer
feelings and self-respect often have to go."
"I'm not sure they need go; but, in a way, you're right. You must strike
a balance, or the machines that cost so much will break you. For all
that, it's useful as a test; the result of bad work shows when you come
to the reckoning. I can't see that to avoid waste must be demoralizing."
"It isn't. The harm begins when you set too high a value on economical
efficiency."
Harding did not answer, and there was silence for a time. Mrs. Mowbray
had a headache from the heat, and Beatrice felt limp. She noticed the
slackness of Harding's pose and felt sorry for him. He differed from her
father, and she could not think he was always right, but he was honest;
indeed, it was his strong sincerity that had first attracted her. She
liked his strength and boldness; the athletic symmetry of his form had
its effect; but what struck her most was his freedom from what the
Canadians contemptuously called meanness. Beatrice was fastidiously
refined in some respects, and she thought of him as clean. Unconsciously
she forgave him much for this, because he jarred upon her now and then.
Her father's old-fashioned ideals were touched with a grace that her
lover could not even admire, but, watching him as he sat in the fading
light, she felt that he was trustworthy.
Mosquitos began to invade the veranda, and Mrs. Mowbray was driven into
the house. The Colonel presently followed her, and Beatrice, leaving her
chair, cuddled down beside Harding on the steps.
"Craig," she said, "you're quiet to-night."
"This dry weather makes one think; and then there's the difference
between your father and myself. He wants to be just, but there's a
natural antagonism between us that can't be got over."
"It isn't personal, dear."
"No," said Harding; "we're antagonistic types. The trouble is that you
must often think as he does--and I wouldn't have you different."
"That's dear of you, Craig. But, even if we don't agree always, what
does it matter? I like you because you're so candid and honest. You
would never hide anything you thought or did from me."
They sat there in the gathering gloom. An early owl ventured out and
hooted from his sheltered tree-top; a chorus of frogs down in the lake
sent back an indignant reply; a honeysuckle vine that climbed over the
veranda flaunted its perfumed blossoms to the hot, night air, luring
pollen-bearers.
To Harding, the worries of the day were, for the moment, forgotten: a
great peace filled him. And over the girl, as she felt his strong arm
around her, there rested a deep, satisfying sense of security and
trust.