It was Mrs. Sharp, making her laborious way slowly up the path.
"Why," said Nora, in a low voice, "it's Mrs. Sharp, the wife of our
neighbor. Whatever brings her here on foot! She never walks a step if
she can help it."
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Sharp," she called.
Mrs. Sharp had apparently come on some sudden impulse. Usually, well as
they knew each other by this time, she always made more or less of a
toilet before having her husband drive her over. But to-day she had
evidently come directly from her work. She wore a battered old skirt and
a faded shirt-waist, none too clean. On her head was an old sunbonnet,
the strings of which were tied in a hard knot under her fat chin.
"Come right in," said Nora cordially. "You _do_ look warm."
"Good afternoon to you, Mrs. Taylor. Yes, I'm all in a perspiration.
I've not walked so far--well, goodness alone knows when!"
"This is my brother," said Nora, presenting Eddie.
"Your brother? Is _that_ who it is!"
"Why, you seem surprised."
Mrs. Sharp forbore any explanation for the moment. Sinking heavily into
the rocking chair, she accepted with a grateful nod the fan that Nora
offered her. There was nothing to do but to give her time to recover her
breath. Nora and Eddie sat down and waited.
"I was so anxious," Mrs. Sharp at length managed to say, still
panting--whether with exhaustion or emotion, Nora could not
tell--between her sentences, "I simply couldn't stay indoors--another
minute. I went out to see if I--could catch a sight of Sid. And I walked
on, and on. And then I saw the rig what's--outside. And it gave me such
a _turn_! I thought it was the inspector. I just had to come--I was that
nervous----!"
"But why? Is anything the matter?" asked Nora, completely puzzled.
"You're not going to tell me you don't _know_ about it? When Sid and
Frank haven't been talking about anything else since Frank found it?"
"Found it? Found what?"
"The weed," said Mrs. Sharp simply.
"You've got it then," said Marsh, with a slight gesture of his head
toward the table where Nora's flowers made a bright spot of color.
"It's worse here, at Taylor's. But we've got it, too."
"What does she mean?" Nora addressed herself to Eddie, abandoning all
hope of getting anything out of her friend.
"We can't make out who reported us. It isn't as if we had any enemies,"
went on Mrs. Sharp gloomily, as if Nora wasn't present, or at least
hadn't spoken. "It isn't as if we had any enemies," she repeated.
"Goodness knows we've never done anything to anybody."
"Oh, there's always someone to report you. After all, it's not to be
wondered at. No one's going to run the risk of letting it get on his own
land."
"And she has them in the house as if they were flowers!" exclaimed Mrs.
Sharp, addressing the ceiling.
"Eddie, I insist that you tell me what you two are talking about,"
demanded Nora hotly.
"My dear," said her brother, "these pretty little flowers which you've
picked to make your shack look bright and--and homelike, may mean ruin."
"Eddie!"
"You must have heard--why, I remember telling you about it myself--about
this mustard, this weed. We farmers in Canada have three enemies to
fight: frost, hail and weed."
Mrs. Sharp confirmed his words with a despairing nod of her head.
"We was hailed out last year," she said. "Lost our whole crop. Never got
a dollar for it. And now! If we lose it this year, too--why, we might
just as well quit and be done with it."
"When it gets into your crop," Marsh explain for Nora's benefit, "you've
got to report it. If you don't, one of the neighbors is sure to. And
then they send an inspector along, and if _he_ condemns it, why you just
have to destroy the whole crop, and all your year's work goes for
nothing. You're lucky, in that case, if you've got a bit of money laid
by in the bank and can go on till next year when the next crop comes
along."
"We've only got a quarter-section and we've got five children. It's not
much money you can save then."
"But----" began Nora.
"Are they out with the inspector now?" asked Marsh.
"Yes. He came out from Prentice this morning early."
"This will be a bad job for Frank."
"Yes, but he hasn't got the mouths to feed that we have. I can't think
what's to become of us. He can hire out again."
Nora's face flushed.
"I--I wonder why he hasn't told me anything about it. I asked him, only
this morning, what was troubling him. I was sure there was something,
but he said not," she said sadly.
"Oh, I guess he's always been in the habit of keeping his troubles to
himself, and you haven't taught him different yet."
Nora was about to make a sharp retort, but realizing that her good
neighbor was half beside herself with anxiety and nervousness, she said
nothing. A fact which the unobservant Eddie noted with approval.
"Well," he said as cheerfully as he could, "you must hope for the best,
Mrs. Sharp."
"Sid says we've only got it in one place. But perhaps he's only saying
it, so as I shouldn't worry. But you know what them inspectors are; they
don't lose nothin' by it. It don't matter to _them_ if you starve all
winter!"
Suddenly she began to cry. Great sobs wracked her heavy frame. The big
tears rolled down her cheeks. Nora had never seen her give way before,
even when she talked of the early hardships she had endured, or of the
little one she had lost. She was greatly moved, for this good, brave
woman who had already suffered so much.
"Oh, don't--don't cry, dear Mrs. Sharp. After all, it may all turn out
right."
"They won't condemn the whole crop unless it's very bad, you know,"
Marsh reminded her. "Too many people have got their eyes on it; the
machine agent and the loan company."
Mrs. Sharp had regained her self-control in sufficient measure to permit
of her speaking. She still kept making little dabs at her eyes with a
red bandanna handkerchief, and her voice broke occasionally.
"What with the hail that comes and hails you out, and the frost that
kills your crop just when you're beginning to count on it, and now the
weed!" She had to stop again for a moment. "I can't bear any more. If we
lose this crop, I won't go on. I'll make Sid sell out, and we'll go back
home. We'll take a little shop somewhere. That's what I wanted to do
from the beginning. But Sid--Sid always had his heart set on farming."
"But you couldn't go back now," said Nora, her face aglow, "you
couldn't. You never could be happy or contented in a little shop after
the life you've had out here. And think; if you'd stayed back in
England, you'd have always been at the beck and call of somebody else.
And you own your land. You couldn't do that back in England. Every time
you come out of your door and look at the growing wheat, aren't you
proud to think that it's all yours? I know you are. I've seen it in your
face."
"You don't know all that I've had to put up with. When the children
came, only once did I have a doctor. All the rest of the times, Sid was
all the help I had. I might as well have been an animal! I wish I'd
never left home and come to this country, that I do!"
"How can you say that? Look at your children, how strong and healthy
they are. And think what a future they will have. Why, they'll be able
to help you both in your work soon. You've given them a chance; they'd
never have had a chance back home. You know that."
"Oh, it's all very well for them. They'll have it easy, I know that.
Easier than their poor father and mother ever had. But we've had to pay
for it all in advance, Sid and me. They'll never know what we paid."
"Ah, but don't you see that it is because you were the first?" said
Nora, going over to her and laying a friendly hand upon her arm. Mrs.
Sharp was, of course, too preoccupied with her own troubles to realize,
even if she had known that the question of Nora's return to England had
come up, that her friend was doing some special pleading for herself,
against herself. But to her brother, who years before had in a lesser
degree gone through the same searching experience, the cause of her
warmth was clear. He nodded his approval.
"It's bitter work, opening up a new country, I realize that," Nora went
on, her eyes dark with earnestness.
Unknown to herself, she had a larger audience, for Hornby and Frank
stood silently in the open door. Marsh saw them, and shook his head
slightly. He wanted Nora to finish.
"What if it is the others who reap the harvest? Don't you really believe
that those who break the ground are rewarded in a way that the later
comers never dream of? I do."
"She's right there," broke in Marsh. "I shall never forget, Mrs. Sharp,
what I felt when I saw my first crop spring up--the thought that never
since the world began had wheat grown on that little bit of ground
before. Oh, it was wonderful! I wouldn't go back to England now, to
live, for anything in the world. I couldn't breathe."
"You're a man. You have the best of it, and all the credit."
"Not with everyone," said Nora. She fell on her knees beside the elder
woman's chair and stroked her work-roughened old hand.
"The outsiders don't know. You mustn't blame them, how could they? It's
only those who've lived on the prairie who _could_ know that the chief
burden of the hardships of opening up a new country falls upon the
women. But the men who are the husbands, they know, and in their hearts
they give us all credit."
"I guess they do, Mrs. Sharp," said Marsh earnestly.
Mrs. Sharp smiled gratefully on Nora through her tears.
"Thank you for speaking so kindly to me, my dear. I know that you are
right in every blessed thing you've said. You must excuse me for being a
bit downhearted for the moment. The fact is, I'm that nervous that I
hardly know _what_ I'm saying. But you've done me no end of good."
"That's right." Nora got slowly to her feet. "Sid and Frank will be here
in a minute or two, I am sure."
"And you're perfectly right, both of you," Mrs. Sharp repeated. "I
couldn't go back and live in England again. If we lose our crop, well,
we must hang on some way till next year. We shan't starve, exactly. A
person's got to take the rough with the smooth; and take it by and
large, it's a good country."
"Ah, now you're talking more like yourself, the self that used to cheer
me up when----"
Turning, she saw her husband standing in the doorway.
"Frank!"
He was looking at her with quite a new expression. How long had he been
there? Had he heard all she had been saying to Mrs. Sharp, carried away
by the emotion aroused by the secret conflict within her own heart? She
both hoped and feared that he had.
"Where's Sid?" said Mrs. Sharp, starting to her feet.
"Why, he's up at your place. Hulloa, Ed. Saw you coming along in the rig
earlier in the morning. But I was surprised to find Reg here. Didn't
recognize him so far away in his store clothes."
"Must have been a pleasant surprise for you," said Hornby with
conviction.
"What's happened? Tell me what's happened."
"Mrs. Sharp came on here because she was too anxious to stay at home,"
Nora explained.
"Oh, you're all right."
"We are?" Mrs. Sharp gave a sobbing gasp of relief.
"Only a few acres got to go. That won't hurt you."
"Thank God for that! And it's goin' to be the best crop we ever had.
It's the finest country in the world!" Her face was beaming.
"You'd better be getting back," warned Taylor. "Sid's taken the
inspector up to give him some dinner."
"He hasn't!" said Mrs. Sharp indignantly. "If that isn't just like a
man." She made a gesture condemning the sex. "It's a mercy there's
plenty in the house. But I must be getting along right away," she
bustled.
"But you mustn't think of walking all that way back in the hot sun,"
expostulated Nora. "There's Eddie's rig. Reggie, here, will drive you
over."
"Oh, thank you, kindly. I'm not used to walking very much, you know, and
I'd be all tuckered out by the time I got back home. Good-by, all. Good
afternoon, Mrs. Taylor."
"Good afternoon. Reggie, you won't mind driving Mrs. Sharp back. It's
only just a little over a mile."
"Not a bit of it," said Hornby good-naturedly.
"I'll come and help you put the mare in," said Marsh, starting to follow
Hornby and Mrs. Sharp down the path.
"I guess it's a relief to you, now you know," he called back to his
brother-in-law.
"Terrible. I want to have a talk with you presently, Ed. I'll go on out
with him, I guess," he said, turning to his wife.
She nodded silently. She was grateful to him for leaving her alone for a
time. They would have much to say to each other a little later.
"Hold on, Ed, I'm coming."
"Right you are!"
He ran lightly down the path where his brother-in-law stood waiting for
him.
She stood for a long moment looking down at the innocent-looking little
blossoms on her table. And they could cause such heartbreak and
desolation, ranking, as engines of destruction, with the frost and the
hail! Could make such seasoned and tried women as Mrs. Sharp weep and
bring the gray look of apprehension into the eyes of a man like her
husband. Those innocent-looking little flowers!
What must he have felt as he saw her arranging them so light-heartedly
in her pudding-dish that morning. And yet, rather than mar her pleasure,
he had choked back the impulse to speak. Yes, that was like him. For a
moment they blurred as she looked at them. She checked her inclination
to throw them into the stove, to burn them to ashes so that they could
work their evil spells no more. Later on, she would do so. But she
wanted them there until he returned.
She looked about the little room. Yes, it _was_ pretty and homelike,
deserving all the nice things people said about it. And what a real
pleasure she had had in transforming it, from the dreadful little place
it was when she first saw it, into what it was now. Not that she could
ever have worked the miracle alone.
She smiled sadly to herself. How all her thoughts, like homing pigeons,
had the one goal!
And how proud he was of it all. With what delighted, almost childlike
interest, he had watched each little change. And how he had acquiesced
in every suggestion and helped her to plan and carry out the things she
could not have done alone.
She lived again those long winter evenings when, snug and warm, the grim
cruelty of the storms shut out, she had read aloud to him while he
worked on making the chairs.
How long would it keep its prettiness with no woman's eye to keep its
jealous watch on it? The process of reversion to its old desolation
would be gradual. The curtains, the bright ribands, the cushions would
slowly become soiled and faded. And there would be no one here to renew
them. For a moment, the thought of asking Mrs. Sharp to look after them
came into her mind. But, no. She certainly had enough to do. And,
besides--the thought thrilled her with delight--_he_ would not like
having anyone else to touch them!
And she? She would be back in that old life where such simple little
things were a commonplace, a matter of course. And what interest would
they be to her? She could see herself ripping the ribands from an old
hat to tie back curtains for Mrs. Hubbard! Certainly that excellent lady
would be astonished if she suggested doing anything of the sort, and
small wonder. She hired the proper people to keep her house in order
just as she was going to hire her.
She found it in her heart to be sorry for Mrs. Hubbard. She had always
had her money. The joy of these little miracles of contrivance had never
been hers. She had bought her home. She had never, in all her pampered
life, made one.
Home! What a desolating word it could be to the homeless. She knew.
Since her far-off childhood, she had never called a place 'home' till
now. And just as the word began to take on a new meaning, she was going
to leave it! Had anyone told her a few short months ago, on the night
that she had first seen what she had inwardly called a hovel, that she
would ever leave it with any faintest feeling of regret, she would have
called him mad. Regret! why the thought of leaving tore her very
heartstrings.
What if it had been only a few short months that had passed since then?
One's life is not measured by the ticking of a clock, but by emotion and
feeling. She had crowded more emotion into these few short months than
in all the rest of her dull, uneventful life put together.
Fear, terror, hatred, murderous rage, bitter humiliation, she had felt
them all within the small compass of these four walls. And greatest of
all--why try to deceive her own heart any longer--here she had known
love. She had fought off the acknowledgment of this the crowning
experience and humiliation as long as she could. She had called on her
pride, that pride which had never before failed her. And now, to
herself, she had to acknowledge that she was beaten.
They were all against her. Her own brother had spoken, only a few
moments ago, of her marriage as horrible. "A girl like you and a hired
man!" She could hear him now. And _he_ had spoken of her leaving as a
matter of course. He couldn't have done it if he had cared. He liked the
comforts that a woman brings to a house, the little touches that no
man's hand can give, that a woman, even as unskillful as she, brings
about instinctively, that was all. Almost any other woman could do as
well. He did not prize her for herself.
And she would go back to England and, as Hornby had gleefully said, no
one need ever know. She would have a place, on sufferance, in other
people's homes. The only change that the year would have made in her
life would be that the check in her pocket, safely invested, might save
her eventually, when she was too old to serve as a companion, from being
dependant on actual charity. And to all outward intents and purposes,
the year would be as if it had never been.
"In six months, all you've gone through here will seem nothing but a
hideous dream," her brother had promised her. Was there ever a man since
the world began that understood a woman! A dream! The only time in her
life that she had really lived. No, all the rest of her life might be of
the stuff that dreams are made on, but not this. And like a
sleep-walker, dead to all sensation, she must go through with it.
And she was not yet thirty. All of her father's family--and she was
physically the daughter of her father, not of her mother--lived to such
a great age. In all human probability there would be at least fifty
years of life left to her. Fifty years with all that made life worth
living behind one!
She supposed he would eventually get a divorce. She remembered to have
heard that such things were easy out here, not like it was in England.
And he was a man who would be sure to marry again, he would want a
family.
And it was some other woman who would be the mother of his children!
The wave of passion that swept her now, made up of bitter regret, of
longing and of jealousy, overwhelmed her as never before.
She had been pacing the room up and down, up and down, stopping now and
then to touch some little familiar object with a touch that was a
caress.
But at this last thought, she sank into a chair and buried her face in
her hands.
The storm of weeping which shook her had nearly spent itself, when she
heard steps coming toward the house, a step that her heart had known for
many a day. Drying her eyes quickly, she went to the window and made a
pretense of looking out that he might not see her tear-stained face. She
made a last call on her pride and strength to carry her through the
coming interview. He should never know what leaving cost her; that she
promised herself.