"THE LAND OF PROMISE"
It was a dismal afternoon in early spring when I lounged disconsolately
about the streets of Winnipeg. The prairie metropolis had not then
attained its present magnitude, but it was busy and muddy enough; for when
the thaw comes the mire of a Western town is indescribable. Also odd
showers of wet snow came down, and I shivered under my new skin coat,
envying the busy citizens who, with fur caps drawn low down, hurried to
and fro. One and all wore the stamp of prosperity, and their voices had a
cheerful ring that grated on me, for I of all that bustling crowd seemed
idle and without a purpose. So, feeling utterly forlorn, a stranger in a
very strange and, at first sight, a forbidding land, I trudged up and
down, waiting for the evening train which was to bear me west, and
pondering over all that had happened during the past few weeks.
There was the parting with my uncle, who laid a strong hand on my shoulder
and lapsed into the speech of the country as he said, "I need not tell
thee to set thy teeth and hang on through the first few years, lad. Thy
father played out a losing game only too staunchly; and it's stey work at
the beginning. I mind when I started the mill--but that's an old story.
It's the man who can grin and bear it, coming up smiling after each fall,
who wins in the end. And thou hast all the world before thee. Still,
remember there are staunch friends behind thee here in Lancashire."
I think his fingers shook a little, but Martin Lorimer was not addicted to
much display of sentiment, and with a cough he hurried away; though I
remember that the old cashier, who had served him since he started,
putting a sealed envelope in my hand, said:
"It's a draft for one hundred pounds on the Bank of Montreal, and it's a
secret; but I'm not debiting the estate with it. Thou'rt a gradely fool
for thy trouble, Ralph Lorimer. But I knew thy father, and, like him, thou
mun go thy own way. Well, maybe it's for the best; and good luck go with
thee."
Next came my farewell from cousin Alice, who blushed as, laying before me
a fine Winchester repeating rifle, which must have cost her some trouble
to obtain in England then, she said:
"It's only a little keepsake, but I thought you would like it--and you
will remember your cousin when you use it. Ralph, you have chosen to work
out your own destiny, and for many a night your uncle fumed over it until
at last he said that the child who fought for scraps in the gutter grew to
be worth any two of the spoon-fed. You know how fond he is of forcible
simile, and he frowned when I suggested that Canada was not a gutter.
Still, it is too late to consider whether you did well, and I ask, as a
last favor, if you are ever unfortunate, if only for the sake of old
times, you will let us know. And now I wish you all prosperity. Good-bye,
Ralph dear, and God bless you."
Her eyes were dim, and she looked so small and fragile that I stooped and
kissed her, while though she drew herself suddenly away with the crimson
mantling upward from her neck, I felt that whatever happened I had a
friend for life in Alice Lorimer.
Now all of that had faded into the past that I had left behind across the
sea, and henceforward I knew there must be no more glancing back. I had
chosen my own path, and must press forward with eyes turned steadfastly
ahead, although at present I could see no further than the prairie station
that I would reach some time before dawn the next day. A wheat-grower's
dwelling thirty miles back from the railroad was registered as wanting
assistance, the immigration officer said. Slowly, with more snow and a
freshening of the bitter wind, the afternoon wore itself away, and I was
glad when that evening I boarded the west-bound train. It was thronged
with emigrants of many nationalities, and among them were Scandinavian
maidens, tow-haired and red-cheeked, each going out to the West to be
married. Their courtship would be brief and unromantic, but, as I was
afterward to learn, three-fourths of the marriages so made turned out an
unqualified success. Still, I found a corner in the smoking end of a long
Colonist car, and, with the big bell clanging and a storm of voices
exchanging farewells in many tongues, the great locomotive hauled us out
into the whirling snow.
Thick flakes beat on the windows, and icy draughts swept through the car,
while the big stove in a boxed-in corner hummed with a drowsy roar. With
half-closed eyes I leaned back against the hard maple while the preceding
scenes of the long journey rolled like a panorama before me. Twelve days
it took the ancient steamer, which swarmed like a hive, to thrash through
mist and screaming gale across the Atlantic, while fifteen hundred
emigrants below wished themselves dead. Then there followed an apparently
endless transit in the lurching cars, where we slept as best we could on
uncushioned seats and floor, through dark pine forests, with only an
occasional tin-roofed hamlet to break the monotony. After that there were
wooden cities in Ontario very much like the hamlets of a larger growth;
and when at last sickened by the vibration, we sped out on to the
long-expected prairie, the prospect was by no means inviting. Spring, I
was told, was very late that year, and the plains rolled before us to the
horizon a dreary white wilderness streaked by willow-swale, with at first
many lonely lakes rippling a bitter steely-blue under the blasts, while
crackling ice fringed their shores. Then several of my companions, who
were young and romantic Britons with big revolvers strapped about them
under their jackets, grew suspiciously quiet, and said no more about the
strange adventures they had looked for in the West. There was nothing
romantic about this land, which lacked even the clear skies Grace
Carrington spoke of. It looked a hard country, out of which only a man
with the power of stubborn endurance could wrest a living.
So with a rhythmic beat of whirring wheels, and now and again a clash of
couplings as we slid down some hollow of the track, we rolled on through
the night, while the scream of wind grew louder outside the rattling cars.
I was nearly asleep when there came a sudden shock, and the conductor's
voice rang out warning us to leave the train. At slackened speed we had
run into a snow block, and the wedge-headed plow was going, so he said, to
plug the drifts under a full pressure, and butt her right straight
through.
Shivering to the backbone, I dropped from the platform into two feet of
snow, and after floundering through it I halted among a group of excited
men behind the two huge locomotives. For a newcomer it was a striking
scene. The snow had ceased, and watery moonlight lit up the great white
plain, in the midst of which, with the black smoke of the engines drifting
across under a double column of roaring steam, stood the illuminated
train. There was nothing else to show that man had ever been there before,
except the spectral row of telegraph posts that dwindled in long
perspective to the horizon. Ahead a billowy drift which filled a hollow
rose level with the wedge-shape framing on the snow-plow front. They run
both better plows and more luxurious Colonist cars now.
"Will they get through?" I asked a tall man in fur robes with whom I had
chatted.
"Oh, yes, you just bet they will," he answered cheerfully. "Jim Grant and
Number Sixty are a very bad pair to beat; he'll either jump the track or
rush her through it. He's backing her out now for the first lead."
With a clang of the bell to warn us off the line, the coupled engines
slowly shoved the long train back the way they had come. Then the roar of
blown-off steam grew still, and with loud blasts from the funnels that
rapidly quickened they swept again down the slight grade like snorting
giants, the huge head-lamp casting a blaze of radiance before them. It
went out suddenly; I heard the thud of a soft but heavy shock, and long
waves of whiteness curled up, while above it there was a hurling aloft of
red sparks from the twin funnels. Then the tail-light glimmered more
brightly as it returned again, and we looked into the steep hollow with
rammed-back slopes out of which the engines backed slowly.
"She'll do it sure next time," said the passenger. "Grant's going right
back to Winnipeg to get on speed enough;" and under an eddying blast of
steam the massive locomotives charged past us once more, while I felt a
thrill as I watched them, and envied Grant, the engineer. It was something
to hold that power in the hollow of one's hand. Thick white powder whirled
aloft like smoke before them, a filmy wavy mass that seemed alive rolled
aside, while presently the whistle boomed in triumph, and there was an
exultant shout from the passengers, for steam had vanquished the snow, and
the road lay open before us. Blundering down the gap they had made I
climbed on board the train, colder than ever. As my new friend seemed a
native of the neighborhood, I asked him whether he knew the farmer to whom
I was going to offer my services.
He laughed as he answered: "I ought to. Beat me badly over a deal in stock
he did. Old Coombs is a Britisher, and a precious low-grade specimen. Dare
say he'll take you, but stick him for half as much again as he offers you,
and bargain _ex_ harvest--you'll get double wages anywhere then--see? How
does this great country strike you--don't think much of it?--well, go slow
and steady and it will grow on you. It's good enough for me, and I was
raised on the best land in Ontario."
This was not encouraging, but I knew that most beginnings are unpleasant,
and I went shivering to sleep until in the gray twilight of what might
have been a mid-winter dawn a blast of the whistle awakened me and the
brakes began to scream. The train ran slowly past an edifice resembling a
sod stable with one light in it, stopped, and the conductor strode into
the car. Even now the Western railroad conductor is a personage, but he
might have been an emperor then, and this particular specimen had lorded
it over the Colonist passengers in a manner that for several days had made
me long to rebuke him. It was foolish, of course, but I was as yet new to
the ways of the country, and I fear we were always a somewhat combative
family.
"Any one for Elktail? Jump off; we can't wait all night with the
west-bound mail," he said. "Say you," looking at me, "you had an Elktail
ticket. Why aren't you getting off?"
"It's Vermont I am bound for," I answered sleepily. "You will see it on my
ticket if you look in your wallet;" but this, of course, the magnate
refused to do, and when another hoot of the whistle announced the
engineer's impatience he called a brakeman, saying:
"You are bound for Elktail, and we've no time for fooling. Won't get off?
Well, we'll soon put you," and, grasping my shoulder, he hustled me toward
the platform of the car.
Now, though Martin Lorimer sometimes gave way to outbreaks of indignation,
he was fond of impressing the fact on me that if forced into a quarrel one
should take the first steps deliberately. Also, even then I remembered
that Coombs' homestead lay almost as near Elktail, and a happy thought
struck me. So I offered but little resistance until, as we stood on the
platform, the brakeman or some one waved a lantern; then, while with a
shock of couplings the cars commenced to move, I gripped the guard-rail
with one hand and held the other ready, for I had determined if I left
that train before I reached Vermont the conductor should certainly leave
it too.
"Off with you!" he shouted, and shook me by the shoulder; but I seized him
by the waist--the cars were moving faster now--and then flung myself off
backward into the snow. I fell softly for as it happened the conductor
fell under me, and, profiting by experience hardly earned in several
colliery disputes, I took the precaution of sitting on him before he could
get up.
"It won't be my fault if you get hurt because you don't keep still," I
said.
Then there was a roar of laughter close by, and staring breathless down
the track I saw the tail-light of the train grow dimmer across the prairie
until it stopped and came swinging toward us again.
"I'd rather have lost five dollars than missed that," said my new friend,
rubbing his hands. "Not bad for a raw Britisher--put the boss conductor
off his own train and held up the Vancouver mail! Say, what are you going
to do with him, sonny?"
"He can get up, and learn to be civil," I answered grimly; and when the
man did so, sullenly, the other said:
"Well, I don't want any mess-up with the brakeman, so we may as well walk
out now that they're coming back for him. Only one man in this shanty, and
he wouldn't turn out unless it were a director. Leave your baggage where
they dumped it--can't move it until daylight--and come along with me!"
I did so somewhat regretfully, for I felt just then that if this was the
way they welcomed the emigrant in that country it would be a relief to do
battle with the whole of them. Afterward I learned that when one
understands his ways, which is difficult to do at first, there are many
good qualities in the Western railroad-man. Still, I always wondered why
the friendless newcomer should be considered a fair mark for petty
hostility, especially by those who formerly were poor themselves--all of
which applies only to city-bred men who hold some small office, for those
who live by hard labor in forest and prairie would share their last crust
with the stranger.
We trudged away from the station, with a square block of wooden houses
rising nakedly in front of us from the prairie, and two gaunt elevators
flanking it to left and right beside the track, which is one's usual first
impression of a Western town. The rambling wooden building which combined
the callings of general store and hotel was all in darkness, for the owner
expected no guests just then, and would not have got up for any one but my
companion if he had. So, after pounding long on the door, a drowsy voice
demanded, with many and vivid expletives, who was there, and then added:
"Oh, it's you, Jasper; what in the name of thunder are you making all that
row about? And what are you doing waking up a man this time o' night! Hold
on! You're an obstinate man, and I guess you'll bust my door unless I let
you in."
The speaker did so, and when he had ushered us into a long bare room with
a stove still twinkling in the midst of it, he explained that his
subordinates would not serve an ambassador before the regulation breakfast
hour, and lighting a kerosene lamp immediately withdrew. Jasper, however,
took it all as a matter of course, and when, rolled in his long coat, he
stretched himself on a settee and went to sleep, I followed suit. Still
they gave us a good breakfast--porridge, steak, potatoes, corn-cakes and
molasses--at which I wondered, because I had not discovered as yet that
there is no difference on the prairie between any of the three meals of
the day.
When it was finished, my companion, who gave me directions as to how to
find Coombs' homestead, added:
"Remember what I told you about harvest, and, if you strike nothing
better, when the wheat is ripe come straight back to me. I'm Long Jasper
of Willow Creek, and every one knows me. I like your looks, and I'll give
you double whatever Coombs pays you. Guess he'll have taught you
something, and I'm not speculating much when I stake on that. You'll fetch
Jackson's crossing on the flat; go in and borrow a horse from him. Tell
him Jasper sent you. Your baggage? When the station agent feels energetic
he'll dump it into his shed, but I guess there's nothing that would hurry
him until he does. Now strike out; it's only thirty miles, and if you go
on as you've begun you'll soon feel at home in this great country!"
I thanked him sincerely and departed; and, as I passed the station, I saw
that the agent evidently had not felt energetic yet, for my two boxes lay
just where they had been flung out beside the track. As a preliminary
experience it was all somewhat daunting, and the country forbidding, raw,
even more unfinished than smoke-blackened Lancashire, and very cold; but I
had found that every one seemed contented, and many of them proud of that
new land, and I could see no reason why I too should not grow fond of it.
At least I had not seen a hungry or a ragged person since I landed in
Canada. Besides, Carrington Manor was less than fifty miles away, though
it was evident now that a great gulf lay between Ralph Lorimer, the
emigrant seeking an opportunity to learn his business as farm-servant, and
the heiress of Carrington.