THE FIRST CROP
Each day brought much the same tasks at Fairmead until the disc-harrows
had rent up the clods, and with a seeder borrowed from a neighbor ten
miles away we drilled in the grain. While we worked the air above us was
filled with the beat of wings, as in skeins, wedges, and crescents the
wild fowl, varying from the tiny butter-duck to the brant goose and
stately crane, went by on their long journey from the bayous by the sunny
gulf to the newly thawn tundra mosses beside the Polar Sea. Legion by
legion they came up from the south and passed, though some folded their
weary pinions to rest on the way, and for a few short weeks every sloo was
dotted with their plumage. Then they went on, and we knew we should see no
more of them until the first blasts of winter brought them south again.
All this appealed to our sporting instincts, but time was precious then,
and though I glanced longingly at Harry's double-barrel, I did not lift it
from the wall. Every moment had its duties, and the thought of the
mortgage held us to our task.
Then there followed an interlude of building and well-digging, when we
sank down some thirty feet or so, and rammed the shaft sides with
nigger-head stones, while occasionally some of our scattered neighbors
rode twenty miles to lend us assistance. Meantime, a tender flush of
emerald crept across the crackling sod, and the birches unfolded their
tiny leaves until the bluff shimmered with tender verdure silver inlaid,
while the jack-rabbits, which had not as yet wholly put off their winter
robes of ermine, scurried, piebald and mottled, through its shadows. Then,
while the wheat grew taller, and the air warmer every day, the prairie
assumed an evanescent beauty which it presently put off again, for the
flush faded from the grasses, and only the birch bluff remained for a
refuge filled with cool neutral shadow in a sun-parched land. It was now
time for the hay cutting, and we drove the rusty mower here and there
across the dazzling plain, upon which willow grove and bluff stood cut off
from the levels beneath by glancing vapor, like islands rising out of a
shimmering sea. On much of it the grasses grew only to a few inches in
length, and we had therefore to seek winter food for our beasts in each
dried-up sloo, where they stood sometimes waist-high and even higher. No
making was needed; the sun already had done that better than we could, and
we merely drove the mower through, after which I went back with the loaded
wagon, while Harry rode further out on to the prairie in search of another
sloo.
The mosquitoes came down in legions and bit us grievously, until it was
necessary to anoint our hair with kerosene. Our dwelling was stifling, so
that as a matter of necessity we always cooked outside; but the
temperature changed at sundown, and, lying full length on the
peppermint-scented hay, we rode home content across the darkening prairie,
which faded under the starlight into the semblance of a limitless dusky
sea, while the very stillness voiced its own message of infinity. Neither
of us would speak at such times. Harry had a turn for emotional sentiment,
I knew, but I too could feel that it was good to lie there motionless and
silent, and try to grasp its meaning. Then the strained sense of
expectancy would fade at the sight of the approaching homestead, or a
bronco blundering into a badger-hole would call us back to a work-a-day
world.
Harvest came, and that year there was neither drought nor untimely frost,
and our hearts grew light when the binders piled up a splendid crop.
Still, when we proposed to prepare a thanksgiving feast for all our
neighbors, Jasper, who had ridden over, grinned as he said, "Better lie
low and pay off that mortgage. You're only starting, and they wouldn't
expect it of you. Besides, you'll have had your fill of cooking before you
have finished with the thrashers."
This proved correct enough, for when the men came in with the thrasher and
the homestead vibrated to its hum, others whose harvests were garnered
came too, out of good-will, and Harry was cooking and baking all day long.
Sometimes for hours together they kept me busy beheading and plucking
fowls--we turned a steam jet on them from the engine to make the feathers
come off; and it amused me to wonder what Alice would think if she saw me
sitting, flecked all over with down, among the feathers, or Harry standing
grimed with dust and soot, peeling potatoes by the bucketful beside his
field kitchen. When the thrashers departed our larder and our henhouse
were empty, and the grocery bill long; but we were only sorry that we
could not entertain them more royally, for the men who worked for money at
so much the bushel and the men who worked for friendship vied with one
another in their labor, and there was no one among them but rejoiced at
our success.
Wheat was in good demand at remunerative prices that year, and I remember
the day we hauled the last load to the elevators. Winter had set in early,
and wrapped in long skin coats we tramped beside the wagons across the
waste of crackling sod, while the steam from the horses rose like smoke
into the nipping air. We started long before the wondrous green and
crimson dawn, for it was nearly a twelve hours' journey to the railway
town. We reached it finally, after a tiresome ride; and then for two
hours we waited shivering among kicking and biting teams under the gaunt
elevators before we could haul in our wagons, and for perhaps fifteen
minutes there was a great whirring of wheels. Then they were drawn forth
empty, and presently we came out of the office with sundry signed papers
readily convertible into coin at Winnipeg, and marched exultant to the
hotel, scarcely feeling the frozen earth beneath us in spite of our
weariness. No spirituous liquor might be sold there, but for once we meant
to enjoy an ample meal which we had not cooked ourselves, served on clean
plates and a real white tablecloth.
It was a simple banquet, but we felt like feasting kings, and though since
then we have both sat at meat among railroad magnates, deputations from
Ottawa, and others great in the land, we never enjoyed one like it. Harry,
forgetting he was in Western Canada, tried to slip a silver half-dollar
into the waitress' hand, who dropped it on the floor, perhaps because in
that region wages are such that the hireling is neither dependent on nor
looks for a stranger's generosity. I stooped to raise the coin and hand it
her, and then started as for the first time our eyes met, while a wave of
color suffused the face of the girl who stepped backward, for it was
Minnie Lee.
"Harry," I said, stretching out my hand to her. "This is the lady I told
you about. You remember the letter. Now go along, and settle matters with
the proprietor. Sit down, Minnie, I want to talk to you. Tell me how you
came here, and why you left England, won't you?"
The girl had lost her pink-and-white prettiness. Her face was pale, and
she was thinner than before, while there was a hard, defiant look in her
eyes. Besides, she seemed ill at ease and startled when I drew out a chair
for her, and I too was singularly ill at ease. We had the long room to
ourselves, however, for on the prairie meals are served at a definite
hour, and usually despatched in ten minutes or so. Few men there waste
time lounging over the table.
"I hardly knew you, Ralph--you have changed so much," she said, and I only
nodded, for I was impatient to hear her story; and she had surely changed
far more than I. The Minnie I used to know was characterized by a love of
mischief and childish vanity, but the present one wore rather the air of a
woman with some knowledge of life's tragedy.
"It's almost an old story now," she said bitterly. "Father had a craze for
religion, mother was always sighing, and there was no peace at home for
me. Then I met Tom Fletcher again--you remember him--and when he took me
to concerts and dances I felt at last that I had begun to live. The
endless drudgery in the mill, the little house in the smoky street, and
the weary chapel three times each Sunday, were crushing the life out of
me. You understand--you once told me you felt it all, and you went out in
search of fortune; but what can a woman do? Still, I dare not tell father.
All gaiety was an invention of the devil, according to him. We were
married before the registrar--Tom had reasons. I cannot tell you them; but
we were married," and she held up a thin finger adorned by a
wedding-ring.
I remembered Fletcher as a good-looking clerk with a taste for betting and
fanciful dress, who had been discharged from the Orb mill for inattention
to his duties, and I wondered that Minnie should have chosen him from
among her many other admirers of more sterling character.
"I said nothing to any one," she continued. "Tom was disappointed about
something on which he had counted. He'd got into trouble over his
accounts, too. There had been a scene with father, who said I was a child
of the devil, and when Tom told me there was false accusation against him,
and nobody must know we were going, we slipped away quietly. I was too
angered to write to father, and it might have put the police on Tom. Tom
was innocent, he said. We had very little money, work was hardly to be
had--and our child died soon after we settled in Winnipeg."
"Go on," I said gently, and she clenched her hands with a gesture that
expressed fierce resentment as well as sorrow as she added:
"The poor little innocent thing had no chance for its life--we were short
of even bare necessities, for Tom could pick up only a few dollars now and
then--and I think that all that was good in me died with it. So when he
found work watching the heater of a store a few hours each night, and the
wages would not keep two, I had to go out and earn my bread here--and I
sometimes wish I had never been born."
I made no answer for a space. There was nothing I could say that might
soften such trouble as was stamped on her face; although I remembered
having heard Jasper say that a weight clerk was wanted at the new elevator
further down the line. Then, blundering as usual, I said:
"Do you know, Minnie, they blame me at home for bringing you out here, and
I heard that your father had sworn to be revenged upon me?"
There was sullen fury in the girl's eyes--she was very young after
all--but she kept herself in hand, and answered bitterly:
"It was like their lying tongues. Envy and malice, and always some one's
character to be taken away. No; it was Tom--and Tom, God help us both, has
lost his head and drinks too much when he can. But I must not keep you,
Ralph Lorimer, and henceforward you have nothing to do with me."
A voice called "Minnie," and I had only time to say, "Perhaps I can find
some better work for him; and you will write home and tell them the truth
for your own and my sake, won't you?" before she hurried away.
Then Harry and I walked down to the freight-siding, where the big box cars
hauled out ready from under the elevators were waiting. Two huge
locomotives were presently coupled on, there followed a clanging of bells,
and we watched the twinkling tail-lights grow dimmer across the prairie.
Part of our harvest, we knew, was on board that train, starting on the
first stage of its long journey to fill with finest flour the many hungry
mouths that were waiting for it in the old land we had left behind. The
lights died out in a hollow far away on the prairie's rim, and Harry
slipped his arm through mine, perhaps because his heart was full. With
much anxiety, ceaseless toil, and the denying ourselves of every petty
luxury, we had called that good grain forth from the prairie, and the sale
of it meant at least one year free from care.
Before we turned away, straight as the crow flies a cavalcade came
clattering up out of the silent prairie, while, after a jingle of harness,
merry clear-pitched voices filled the station, and something within me
stirred at the sound. There was no trace of Western accent here, though
the prairie accent is rarely unpleasant, for these were riders from
Carrington who spoke pure English, and were proud of it. Two, with a
certain courtliness which also was foreign to that district, helped an
elderly lady down from a light carriage luxuriously hung on springs, which
must have been built specially at the cost of many dollars, and the rest
led their well-groomed horses toward the store stables, or strolled beside
the track jesting with one another. None of them wore the skin coats of
the settlers. Some were robed in furs, and others in soft-lined deerskin,
gaily fringed by Blackfoot squaws, which became them; but except for this
they were of the British type most often met with gripping the hot
double-barrel when the pheasants sweep clattering athwart the wood, or
sitting intent and eager with tight hand on the rein outside the fox
cover.
Still, no one could say they had suffered by their translation to a new
country, which was chiefly due to Colonel Carrington. He had been
successful hitherto at wheat-growing on an extensive scale, and though few
of the settlers liked him they could not help admiring the bold far-seeing
way in which he speculated on the chances of the weather, or hedged
against a risky wheat crop by purchasing western horses. Still, not
content with building up the finest property thereabout, he aspired to
rule over a British settlement, and each time that he visited the old
country at regular intervals several young Englishmen of good family and
apparently ample means returning with him commenced breaking virgin
prairie. They were not all a success as farmers, the settlers said, and
there were occasional rumors of revolt; but if they had their differences
with the grim autocrat they kept them loyally to themselves, and never
spoke in public of their leader save with respect. Now it was evident that
his daughter was expected; they had come to escort her home in state, and
no princess could have desired a finer bodyguard. They were the pick of
the old country's well-born youth when they came out, and now they had
grown to a splendid manhood in the wide spaces of the prairie.
Though they answered our greetings with good fellowship, I am afraid we
regarded them a little enviously, for the value of some of their horses
would have sown us a crop, and even Harry seemed unkempt beside them. We
lived and dressed very plainly at Fairmead that year. Then amid a grinding
of brakes, with lights flashing, a long train rolled in, and the group
stood, fur cap in hand, about the platform of a car from which a dainty
figure looked down at them. It was Grace Carrington, and as I stood a
little apart from the rest my heart leaped at the sight of her. Yet,
either from bashfulness or foolish pride, I would not move a step nearer.
"What a picture!" said Harry softly. "A princess of the prairie and her
subjects doing homage to her! Ralph, I say, you must not stare at the girl
like that. But, by Jove, she's smiling this way--yes, she is really
beckoning you!"
It was true, for a stripling who wore his deerskin jacket as though it
were the dolman of a cavalry officer strode forward, and inclining his
head said:
"If you are Mr. Lorimer, Miss Carrington desires to speak with you."
For some reason I drew Harry with me. It may have been that I felt the
company of a comrade of my own kind would be comforting in that assembly;
and then I forgot everything as, fixing her bright eyes on me, Grace held
out her hand.
"It was kind of you to meet me, and this is an unexpected pleasure," she
said. "You must come over to Carrington and tell me where you have
settled. Oh stay, Raymond, this is Mr. Lorimer--he was kind to me in
England, and I want you to invite him to your approaching festivities. You
will come, won't you, and bring your friend--very pleased to see you Mr.
Lorraine, too; then I shall have an opportunity for talking with you."
"Delighted, of course, to please you," said a tall bronzed man of maturer
years, bowing. "Met Mr. Lorimer already; pulled my wagon up most kindly
when the team was stalled in a ravine. If I'd known you were from the old
country would have ridden over already to ask you."
Further introductions followed, all effected in a queenly way, and with a
last pleasant glance toward us Grace moved toward the carriage, while I
fancied that some of the younger among her bodyguard regarded us
jealously. Harry and I stood silent until the cavalcade vanished into the
dimness, and then, while the last beat of hoofs died away, the blood
surged through every artery as he said:
"Wasn't she splendid! When she held out her hand to me I felt that I ought
to go down on one knee and kiss it, and all that kind of thing, you know.
Ralph, you stalked up like a bear; must have been dazed by too much
brightness, because you never even raised your hat. Well, one can
understand it; but I think some of the others would have liked to cut your
big solid throat for you."
Harry was both enthusiastic and impressionable, though I did not think so
then, and the whole scene could scarcely have lasted five minutes, but it
filled my mind for days afterward, and I can recall it clearly still.