1
Shortly after midnight Peter was awakened with lantern light in his
eyes, and he sprang out of bed, smelling the fog and knowing that
case weather had come.
He stumbled into his overalls and followed his father and Gus down
the stairs and out into the yard where Vern Barton, Dutchy Bloom
and others were waiting. The fog was so thick that a man might have
lost his way in his own barnyard. The lanterns looked like fox fire
at twenty feet.
Stud led the way and the others followed, Indian file, down the
slushy lane to the tobacco sheds. The mist, which had rolled
northward flooding the valley from hilltop to hilltop, enveloped
them in a thick, white blanket, muffled their footsteps, and
drowned their voices with its weight of silence. Once when the fog
lifted momentarily Peter could see lights at other farm houses,
other lanterns moving, the whole countryside astir.
Stud rolled back the doors of the tobacco shed on creaking rollers
and the men flowed in through the wide, dark opening, went up
among the beams, began methodically and rapidly to lower the
heavily-laden laths of tobacco to the men below who piled them
log-cabin fashion on the dirt floor. Not a moment could be lost.
Tobacco leaves which had been as brittle as spun glass five hours
before were now as pliable as brown satin. Before a cold wind
could lift the fog, again freezing the leaves, the men must pile
and protect tons of tobacco. Later it would be stripped from the
stalk, bundled and hauled to the warehouses of the tobacco buyers
in Brailsford Junction.
There was a breath of false spring in the air. The huge shadows
cast by the men sprang up the walls and fell noiselessly. And
Peter, surefooted as a cat among the beams, was jousting with
shadows while he worked. Would he come back to the farm if this ten
day layoff were extended, or would he catch a train for Chicago?
Where would he forget Maxine the more easily? Where would he find
happiness again?
On this night of fog, smelling of oak woods, of thawing earth and
maple sap; surrounded by men he had known since childhood; watching
his father moving gigantically in lantern light, he wrestled
with his problems. What if the "Trailer" shut down for good as it
easily might? Would he come back to this farm where his father and
grandfather had labored before him, inherit these woods and fields,
and marshes? Hunt ducks in the fall, plow the land in the spring,
help at the birthing of calves and lambs and foals? He would
introduce new machinery, build a new house, perhaps, high on one of
the hills. Almost he was resigned to the idea. He thought his fate
could have been worse.
Shortly before dawn, Early Ann came with black coffee and thick
sausage sandwiches and slabs of buttered coffee cake. The men ate
greedily after the hard night's work. They paid crude compliments
to the girl who stood with graniteware coffeepot waiting to refill
their cups.
Early Ann had brought something special for Peter. When none of the
others were looking she slipped a little white hickorynut cake with
white frosting into Peter's dirty hand.
"You take the first bite," he said, holding the cake to her lips.
* * * * *
When his ten days were up Peter almost wished that he did not have
to go back to the factory again. He had been tinkering around with
the thrashing machine, oiling the parts and tightening a nut here
and there. He hoped that he might be thrashing boss again next
summer.
2
"You might at least think of Early Ann," Stud's wife had said. He
_had_ thought of her until his spirit was tired, argued the problem
with himself, tossed in his sleep.
Now he was almost happy to have another grievance to occupy his
mind. Momentarily Early Ann was forgotten.
The Percheron had been grained too heavily and had not been given
sufficient exercise. What else might be the matter with the great
beast, the Lord alone knew.
"You and me, both!" Stud said to the sick stallion. "I wish all I
had the matter with me was a belly ache."
Doc Carlyle was out of town, so it was up to Brailsford to save the
horse,--no easy task. Teddy Roosevelt's head drooped almost to the
floor; his big, shining barrel was blown, and his eyes were dull
and lifeless. As Stanley and Gus stood watching the unfortunate
animal he suddenly jerked up his head, pawed the floor, and tried
to climb into the manger with his front feet.
"Poor old bastard," said Gus.
"Run get the pig bladder and elder shoot," Stanley said. "I'll fix
some turpentine and linseed oil."
The turpentine made the stallion frantic. He broke into a cold
sweat, plunged around and around his pen, threw himself down with
a crash, rolled over and got up again, dashed headlong into the
planks of his stall, stood on his hind legs pawing the air wildly,
screamed and foamed at the mouth, fell to the floor--his gigantic
muscles contracting spasmodically under his gleaming black hide.
There was a mad, frightened light in his eyes.
"It'd be like losing a member of the family," Gus said.
"We've got to save him," Brailsford cried. "Get Sarah to put over a
boiler of water. And bring the cayenne pepper and baking soda and
barbadoes aloes off the medicine shelf."
All night Stanley Brailsford worked over the Percheron, carried
steaming blankets to cover the heaving body, forced whiskey down
the terrified animal's throat, tried to soothe the brute by
petting him and talking to him as he would a sick child. He fixed
himself a bed on the feed box and tried to snatch a few winks of
sleep.
Shortly after midnight a cold wind made the lantern flicker.
Stud Brailsford looked up to see Early Ann with coffee pot and
sandwiches.
"I couldn't sleep," she said. "How's the stallion?"
"Ain't kicking around so bad."
Early Ann gazed thoughtfully at the horse for several moments.
"Probably stomach staggers," she said.
"How'd you know?"
"I've taken care of 'em before."
The man wolfed his sandwiches and drank his scalding black coffee.
Early Ann went into the stall, dropped to her knees beside the
stallion and began to pet his quivering shoulder. His coat was
rumpled and full of straw, his heavy legs listless. The girl got
the curry comb and began to curry very gently. She put a gunny-sack
over the Percheron's head to shade his eyes from the lantern light.
"You're quite a hand with a sick stallion."
"Got to pamper 'em like you do all males."
"You'll make a great wife for some lucky farmer."
"I'm going to try," the girl said earnestly. "I'm sewing things
against the day."
"Wish I was twenty years younger."
"That'd be two years before I was born."
They were silent for several minutes, Early Ann currying the
stallion, Stanley brooding and munching his sandwiches. Once the
Percheron tried to get to his knees, then sank back wearily in the
straw.
"You'll be all right," Stanley told the big animal. "You ain't
going to die. You're a big husky critter that can stand all kinds
of belly aches."
The girl picked up the coffee pot and started for the door.
"Wait," the man said. He came quickly to her side and put his arm
around her. Trembling and frightened she tried to get away. The
rasping breath of the stallion, the strange light, and the huge arm
around her waist made her feel faint.
"I can't," she said.
"Why not?"
"I can't do anything like that to Sarah, and to you and me."
"No," the man said. "I suppose you can't."
After she had gone Stud tried to sleep, but could not. Mice
ventured out into the ring of light and nibbled at kernels of
corn. The wind shoved at the door and rattled the black window
panes. The animals stirred in their sleep, sighed deeply, dreamed
of lush green pastures.
At half past three in the morning the stallion had another bad
spell, and Stud thought he was going to die. He wished that he had
a hypodermic needle so that he could puncture the gut at the spot
where it had become the most distended. He felt helpless in the
face of death. He pleaded with the stallion not to die.
Strange how big male things could die so easily. They were so
strong and fiery and full of life one moment and dead the next.
You could breed them to size, color, speed or endurance but you
couldn't breed them against death. It made Stud Brailsford think
of his own mortality watching the stallion hour by hour. He wished
again that he could leave a dozen boys to propagate his kind.
"Don't die," he said. "Don't die, big fellow."
* * * * *
All day they tended the stallion, and the next night Stanley again
insisted upon watching throughout the night. This time Early Ann
brought coffee and sandwiches before the rest of the family went
to bed. Stanley said nothing but pulled the girl roughly to him.
"No, no," she whispered. "Don't, Mr. Brailsford, please. I ain't
strong enough to fight you, Stanley, please."
She began to cry, so he let her go, unharmed. She did not leave
immediately, but waited to pour him another cup of coffee.
She wondered if he were asking too much, if other girls were so
virtuous. She wondered if she should be kind to this unhappy man.
But before she could answer these questions they saw the first
flames and caught the smell of burning hay.
3
Looking back upon that night of wind and gusty rain when the
Brailsford barn burned like a pile of dry shavings in a forest
fire, Sarah sometimes wondered what blind impulse had sent her
through the smoke and flames to save the twin Percheron colts. She
thought that perhaps it was her feeling of protection for young
things. She couldn't bear to think of the colts being burned.
"Save yourself, Mother," Brailsford had cried above the roaring
fire, struggling vainly to save the stallion; pleading, whipping
and cajoling. At last he left the inert sire, rushed to the box
stall of Napoleon and led the bull to safety.
"Help Gus with the cows down at the other end," Stud shouted to his
wife. "I'll get the horses."
He went in among the fire-crazed mares and geldings, old work
horses who were faithful and quiet in the field but who were now
leaping, terrified, wild animals, straining at their halter ropes,
pawing the floor, and shying like unbroken yearlings at the thunder
of the flames. Early Ann led the three ponies into the tobacco
shed, then ran like the wind to the telephone in the kitchen.
"Hurry, it's the Brailsford barn," she cried. "Take the short cut
over Barton's hill."
Vern Barton, Ole Oleson and Dutchy Bloom were carrying water from
the stock tanks. Sarah and Gus were leading out the cows.
The big flames ran in sheets up the curving walls of the wooden
silo, burst like a volcano through the peaked roof, cracked and
thundered like a kettle drum in the half-empty cylinder. The
resinous siding of the barn burned like a fire of pine knots,
kindling the hand-hewn oak and hickory timbers cut from the forest
with axe and adz fifty years before.
Cows bawled. Pigeons and sparrows shot out like flaming rockets and
fell into the fields. Chickens squawked as they tumbled from the
building, ran around in circles like fighting cocks, or flew back
crazily into the scorching flames. A mother cat carrying a singed
kitten in her mouth stalked out of the barn, her eyes gleaming like
green coals. Ganders added their hiss to the hiss of the fire, men
shouted and women screamed.
In the hub-bub that went on about him Stud alone kept a clear head.
He ordered the men to form a bucket line, sent others for the spray
wagon which was used to throw a small stream on the adjoining
buildings, rushed in again and again after horses. It was while
he was leading out the last, maddened gelding that he was all but
caught in the passageway by the rearing, screaming beast. He could
hear Sarah calling him, beside herself with fear. He could see the
flame licking at the edges of the doorway and eating at the lintel.
"Steady, boy. Steady."
He patted the nervous shoulder, talked quietly to the frantic
animal. Slowly the horse subsided, seemed to listen, followed Stud
in a dash through the door not a moment too soon as the flaming
lintel came crashing down behind them.
When the fire reached the haymow there was a flare and flash almost
like an explosion as the dust and loose hay ignited. All the colors
from blue-white to crimson played across the surface of the hay.
Then the fifty tons of timothy, alfalfa, and clover settled down
to a forty-eight hour blaze. Flame and smoke sucked and twisted up
the hay chutes like dust in a tornado. These blasts cut through
the shingled roof like a dozen blow-torches and spurted their
yellow pennants skyward. The flames licked and bellied in the wind,
belched from the open door of the loft with the hollow intonation
of a big gun.
"Help pull the hayfork down," cried Gus. He said in after years
that he had intended to fasten barrels of water to the fork, run
them down the fork track, and dump them on the flame. Before he
could attempt the impractical scheme the ropes had burned and the
fork had fallen with a crash, imbedding itself in the snow and mud.
Finally the fire department arrived. The big dapple grays had
run four miles dragging the heavy fire engine through the slushy
snow. They galloped into the barnyard lathered and panting, the
red wheels and brass mountings of their engine flashing in the
fire-light, steam and smoke belching from the funnel.
"Unwind the hose, boys," shouted Hank Vetter. "Where's the water,
Stud?"
"We'll use the tanks and then the cistern," Stud roared. "I got the
gasoline engine pumping from the well."
But all these sources were soon insufficient for the two inch hose
through which the fire engine forced its stream. They led the hose
to the creek, chopped a hole through the ice, and began to pump
from the deep hole beside the mill. The water sprayed upon the
burning roof, was shot in through the loft door; hissed into the
inferno leaving scarcely a trace.
"Look out!" cried Stud. "There goes the roof!" It fell with a
mighty crash throwing embers high into the air, shooting flames
seventy-five feet above the barn: blue, yellow, and red against
the inky sky; lighting up the countryside from Cottonwood Hill to
Charley's Bluff. Another fire was burning on the frozen lake, the
flames pointing downward toward the center of the earth.
Then the timbers holding up the hay collapsed and half-a-hundred
tons of burning grass fell into the stables. The great stallion
screamed once and then was still.
Sarah came over to comfort Stud.
"We've got each other and most of the stock," she said.
"We'll make it somehow, Mother. We'll start all over."
"I'll go to the house now and fix something for the firemen."
"I guess you might as well."
Hank Vetter, chief of the volunteers, left his engine and came over
to where Stud was listening to the condolences of his neighbors.
"How'd it start?" yelled Hank.
"Darned if I know," said Stud, scratching his singed head. "I was
tending a sick stallion and...."
"Was you smoking?" asked Hank.
"Never smoked around the barns in my life."
"Didn't tip over the lantern?"
"Lantern was hanging from a peg. Never touched the lantern."
"Well, it couldn't have started by itself," said Hank. "Let's look
around."
They had taken less than a dozen steps down the lane when a figure
started up from behind a stump, jumped the fence, crashed down the
hill toward the lake, and began to skirt the bay.
"It's Joe Valentine," shouted Early Ann.
"This is my job," Stud cried, dashing after the fleeing figure.
Hearing shouts, Joe Valentine decided to risk the shortest way
to Lake House Point. He leaped onto the melting ice and ran and
stumbled two hundred yards out from the shore. They saw him clearly
in the light of the burning barn as he crashed through into the
black water and went down; and although they watched the dark hole
in the ice for twenty minutes he did not come up again.
BOOK FIVE