HARVEST HOME
It was a bitter night when Harry and I rode into the red glow of light
that beat out through the windows of Lone Hollow, the furthest outlying
farm of the Carrington group, where, now that the last bushel of his wheat
had been sold in Winnipeg, Raymond Lyle was celebrating a bounteous
harvest. Round about it, drawn up in ranks, stood vehicles--or rigs, as we
call them--of every kind, for it seemed as if the whole country-side had
driven in. Most of them were of better make than those we and the majority
of the poorer settlers used, and it was hard not to covet when we managed
to find a stall for our beasts.
When one has wasted precious time that in the whole season can scarcely be
made up again, by riding behind oxen at the exhilarating pace of some two
miles an hour, or hauling in grain with half-tamed horses which jib at
every hill, it is easy to realize the advantages of an efficient team, and
any of those we saw in the Lone Hollow stables would have saved us many
dollars each year. Even in the West the poor man is handicapped from the
beginning, and must trust to ready invention and lengthened hours of labor
to make up for the shortcomings of indifferent tools.
Lyle, who had heard the trampling of hoofs, met us at the door. "It was
kind of you to come, and I hope you will enjoy yourselves," he said. "We
have tried to make things homely, but, as you know, this isn't England."
We shook off our wrappings and entered the long lamp-lit hall, partly
dazed by the sudden glare and warmth after the intense cold. It certainly
was different from anything I had seen at home, for here in place of paint
and gilding the decoration was in harmony with the country, bizarre and
bountiful, with a beauty that was distinctly its own. Few oat-heads grown
from English furrows might compare with the pale golden tassels that
drooped in graceful festoons from the wall, while among the ruddier
wheat-ears and bearded barley, antelope heads peeped out beside the great
horns of caribou which the owner of Lone Hollow had shot in the muskegs of
the north. Rifles and bright double-bitted axes of much the same pattern
as those with which our forbears hewed through Norman mail caught the
light of the polished brass lamps and flashed upon the wainscot, while
even an odd cross-cut saw had been skillfully impressed into the scheme of
ornamentation. But there was nothing pinchbeck or tawdry about them.
Whirled high by sinewy hands, or clenched in hard brown fingers while a
steady eye stared down the barrel, that a bridge might span a ravine where
no bridge had been, or venison help to cut down the grocery bill and leave
the more for the breaking of virgin soil, that steel had played its part
in the opening up of a wide country. Yet, the suggestion of strict utility
even enhanced its effectiveness, and I remembered with a smile the
trophies of weapons stamped out by the gross in Birmingham which I had
seen adorning our suburban villas at home.
The majority of the guests were English--one could see that at a glance,
and the mother country had small reason to be ashamed of her outland sons.
The clear skin showed through the snow-blink's tan, and the eyes were
bright with a steadfastness that comes from gazing into wide distance.
Sun, wind, and snow, the dust of parched earth and the stinging smoke of
the drifts, had played their part in hardening them, but still, a little
deeper in color, a little stronger in limb, they were the same men one
finds dwelling in many an English home. Standing beside a great open
hearth, on which to aid the stove a huge pile of birch logs crackled
joyously, the representative of an alien race drew a cunning bow across
the strings of a dingy violin. He sprang from Gallic stock, a descendant
of the old _coureurs_ who for two centuries wandered in search of furs
across the wilderness, even as far as the northern barrens, before the
Briton came to farm. It was a waltz he played--at least, that was the
time; but the music seemed filled with the sighing of limitless pines, and
the air was probably known in France three hundred years ago. Still,
weather-beaten men, and fair women who were considerably less numerous,
swept light-heartedly round to it, and when, declining refreshment then,
we found a corner, Harry and I sat staring with all our eyes at the scene
before us.
After the monotonous labor of the past two years the swish of light
dresses and the rhythmic patter of feet, with the merry faces and joyous
laughter, moved me strangely. All this seemed to belong to a different
world from the one in which we had been living, and I wondered whether any
of those dainty daughters of Carrington would deign to dance with me. They
might have been transplanted like English roses from some walled garden at
home, and their refined beauty had grown to a fuller blossom on the
prairie. Still, I knew they would have faded in the dry heat of the
dwellings in an Eastern town.
"How do those French-Canadians learn to play like that?" said Harry. "No
one taught them; inherited it, I suppose. I know that air; it's very old,
and he's taking liberties with it masterfully; now it's like the cypress
singing in the big coulee. Of course, it wasn't learned in one generation,
but why does a waltz of that kind unsettle one so, with a suggestion of
ancient sorrow sighing through its gladness? But I'm forgetting, and
vaporing again. We are ox-drivers, you and I."
I nodded silently, for I had not the gift of ready speech, and it was
Harry who most often put my thoughts into words for me. Then I grew intent
as he said:
"There she is. Who!--Miss Carrington--is there any one else to look at
when she is in the room?"
Grace floated past us dressed as I had somewhere seen her before and could
not recall it, though the memory puzzled me. Neither do I know what she
wore, beyond that the fabric's color was of the ruddy gold one sees among
the stems of ripening grain, while wheat ears nestled between her neck and
shoulder, and rustled like barley rippling to the breeze, as with the
music embodied in each movement of her form she whirled by us on Ormond's
arm. He looked as he did when I last saw him, placidly good-humored, with
the eyeglass dangling this time loosely by its cord.
Then I drew in my breath as the music ceased, and Raymond Lyle approached
us, saying: "As usual, men are at a discount, but you have not had a
dance, and most of the others have. Come, and I'll find you partners. Ah,
if you are not tired, Miss Carrington, will you take pity on an old friend
of yours? I have many duties, and you will excuse me."
He withdrew quickly, and Grace smiled. "One must never be too tired to
dance with an old friend at a prairie feast," she said, running her pencil
through the initials on a program which had traveled several hundred miles
from Winnipeg. Then I felt uncomfortable, for I guessed the letters
R. L. represented my host, who had good-naturedly made way for me. It
was a kindly thought, but Raymond Lyle, who was a confirmed bachelor
living under his self-willed sister's wing, had evidently guessed my
interest and remembered the incident of the jibbing team. It was a square
dance, and Harry with a laughing damsel formed my _vis-a-vis_, but having
eyes only for my partner I saw little but a moving mixture of soft colors
and embroidered deerskin, for some of the men were dressed in prairie
fashion. I felt her warm breath on my neck, the shapely form yielding to
my arm, and it was small wonder that I lost myself in the glamour of it,
until with the crash of a final chord from the piano the music stopped.
"And you have not danced for four years!" she said as I led her through
the press. "Well, it has all come back to you, and out here there is so
much more than dancing for a man to do. Yes, you may put down another,
there toward the end, and fill in the next one two. I have been looking
forward to a quiet talk with you."
I was left alone with pulses throbbing. There was very little in what she
said, but her face showed a kindly interest in our doings, and it was no
small thing that the heiress of Carrington should place me on the level of
an old friend. Harry was chatting merrily with his late partner, who
seemed amused at him, and this was not surprising, for Harry's honest
heart was somewhat strangely united with a silver tongue, and all women
took kindly to him. I found other partners and he did the same, so it was
some time before we met again, and I remember remarking that all this
gaiety and brightness seemed unreal after our quarters at Fairmead, and
ended somewhat lamely:
"I suppose it's out of mere pity she danced with me. As you said, we are
of the soil, earthy, and a princess of the prairie is far beyond our
sphere. Yet she seemed genuinely pleased to see me. If it were even you,
Harry!"
He laughed as he pointed to a large mirror draped in cypress, saying,
"Look into that. You are slow at understanding certain matters, Ralph. Not
seen the whole of your noble self in a glass for two years? Neither have
I. And it hasn't dawned upon you that you came out in the transition
stage--a grub, or shall we say a chrysalis? No, don't wrinkle your
forehead; it's only an allegory. Now you have come out of the
chrysalis--see?"
Part of this was certainly true, for at Coombs' we had the broken half of
a hand-glass to make our simple toilet, and at Fairmead a whole one of
some four inches diameter which cost two bits, tin-backed, at the store,
and I remember saying that it was an extravagance. Now I stared into the
long glass, standing erect in my one gala garment of fringed deerskin.
"A little too bull-necked," Harry remarked smiling, "but, except for
Raymond Lyle, the stiffest-framed man in the room. Solid and slow from
shoulders to ankles; head--shall we say that of a gladiator, or a
prize-fighter? Good gracious, Ralph, remember you're in a ball room, not
trying on your trousseau."
His remarks were not exactly flattering, but for the first time I felt
glad to stand a strong man among those who had other advantages behind
them, though I fumed inwardly when presently I heard Harry's partner say:
"What a curious man your friend is! I saw him standing before the big
glass actually admiring himself."
And Harry had the mendacity to assure her that this was a favorite habit
of mine.
Afterward I chatted for a time with the giver of the feast. We had much in
common, for he was a stalwart plainly spoken man whose chief concern was
the improvement of his holding, and from what he said it was clear that
taking season by season his bank account increased but little, while he
mentioned that several of his neighbors lost a certain sum yearly. There
are two ways of farming in the West, and it seemed that after all Harry
and I had chosen the better, the creeping on from acre to acre, living
frugally, and doing oneself whatever is needed, then investing each dollar
hardly saved in better implements.
Nevertheless, I saw that the men of Carrington who followed the other
plan, spending and hiring freely, were doing a good work for the country,
because even if they lost a small sum each year most of them could afford
it, and their expenses would have been much greater at home. They helped
to maintain a demand for good horses and the product of clever workmen's
skill; they supported the storekeepers of the wooden towns; and the poorer
settlers could always earn a few dollars by working for them. So it dawned
upon me that it is well for the nation that some are content to take their
pleasure, as these men did, in an occupation that brought them small
profit, sinking their surplus funds for the benefit of those who will
follow them. Neither does the mother country lose, because she reaps the
fruit of their labors in the shape of cheap and wholesome food.
At last the conversation drifted around to the founder of Carrington.
"An austere man," said Lyle, "and he's somewhat different from the rest of
us--ready to gather in wherever he can, very hard to get ahead of at a
deal; but if he is keen it's all for the sake of his daughter. There are
two things Carrington is proud of, one is this settlement, and the other
his heiress. He's not exactly an attractive personage, but there are
whispers that some painful incident in her mother's life soured him, and
one learns to respect him. His word is better than most other men's bond,
and if his will is like cast iron his very determination often saves
trouble in the end."
Silence succeeded, for bold chords of music held the assembly still, and I
saw Harry seated at the piano, which apparently had escaped serious damage
in its long transit across the prairie. This was a surprise, for I had
not suspected Harry of musical proficiency. There was power in his
fingers, hardened as they were, and when the ringing prelude to an English
ballad filled the room more than his partner felt that he could call up a
response to his own spirit from the soul of the instrument. The lad beside
him also sang well, perhaps because he was young and sentiment was strong
within him, but sturdy labor under the open heaven seems inimical to the
development of hypercritical cynicism, and the men who at home would
probably have applauded that song with an indulgent smile listened with
kindling eyes and then made the long room ring with their bravos. Here,
far away from the land that bred them, they were Britons still, and proud
of their birthright.
Then Grace Carrington sang, and I would have given years of my life for
Harry's skill, which seemed a bond between them as she smiled gratefully
upon him. The words were simple, as became the work of a master who loved
the open, and the music flowed with them like the ripple of a glancing
water; so a deeper silence settled upon all, and I was back in England
where a sparkling beck leaped out from the furze of Lingdale and sped in
flashing shallows under the yellow fern, while somewhere beyond the
singer's voice I could almost hear the alders talking to the breeze. When
it ceased the sound grew louder, but it was only a bitter blast that came
from the icy Pole moaning about the homestead of Lone Hollow.
Raymond Lyle stepped forward to express the wish of the rest, and Grace
bent her fair head to confer with Harry, who nodded gravely, after which
she stood still, while a stately prelude that was curiously familiar awoke
old memories. Then the words came, and from the lips of others they might
have seemed presumptuous or out of place, but Grace Carrington delivered
them as though they were a message which must be hearkened to, and there
was an expectant hush when the first line, "A sower went forth sowing,"
rang clearly forth. Later some of those about me breathed harder, and I
saw that big Raymond's eyes were hazy, while one hard brown hand was
clenched upon his knee, as in sinking cadence we heard again, "Within a
hallowed acre He sows yet other grain."
Then after the last note died away and there was only the moaning of the
wind, he said simply, "Thank you, Miss Carrington. I am glad you sang it
at the Lone Hollow harvest home."
"I would never have played it here for any one else," said Harry
presently. "These things are not to be undertaken casually, but she--well,
I felt they had to listen, and I did the best that was in me. I think it
was her clean-hearted simplicity."
It was some time afterward when I led Grace out and spent a blissful ten
minutes swinging through the mazes of a prairie dance, before we found a
nook under dark spruce branches from the big coulee, where Grace listened
with interest while I told her of our experiences in the Dominion. The
background of somber sprays enhanced her fair beauty, and her dress,
which, though there was azure about it, was of much the same color, melted
into the festoon of wheat stalks below. The French-Canadian was playing
another of his weird waltzes, and it may have been this that reminded me,
for now I remembered how I had seen her so before.
"You will not laugh, I hope, when I tell you that all this seems
familiar," I said hesitatingly. "Sometimes in a strange country one comes
upon a scene that one knows perfectly, and we feel that, perhaps in
dreams, we have seen it all before. Why it is so, I cannot tell, but once
in fancy I saw you with a dress exactly like the one you are wearing now,
and the tall wheat behind you. Of course, it sounds ridiculous, but, as
Harry says, we do not know everything, and you believe me, don't you?"
Grace's face grew suddenly grave, and there was a heightened color in it
as she answered: "Your friend is a philosopher, besides a fine musician,
and I quite believe you. I have had such experiences--but I think these
fancies, if fancies they are, are best forgotten. Still, tell me, did you
dream or imagine anything more?"
"Yes," I said, still puzzled as a dim memory came back, "I saw your father
too. He seemed in trouble, and I was concerned in it. This I think was on
the prairie, but there were tall pines too; while across the whole dream
picture drove an alternate haze of dust and snow."
Grace shivered as though the relation troubled her, and was silent until
she said with a smile:
"It must be that ghostly music. Louis of Sapin Rouge has missed his
vocation. We will talk no more of it. You once did me a kindness; I wonder
whether you would repeat it."
"I would go to the world's end," I commenced hotly, but stopped abashed as
she checked me with a gesture, though I fancied that she did not seem so
displeased at my boldness as she might have been. Then she answered,
smiling:
"I thought you were too staid and sensible for such speeches, and they
hardly become you, because of course you do not mean it. It is nothing
very serious. There are signs of bad weather, and my aunt is not strong,
so, as Miss Lyle presses us, we shall stay here until to-morrow noon, and
I want you to ride over and tell my father. He might grow uneasy about
me--and for some reason I feel uneasy about him, while, as he has been
ailing lately, I should not like for him to venture across the prairie. It
seems unfair to ask you, but you are young and strong; and I should like
you to meet him. He has his peculiarities, so our neighbors say, but he
has ever been a most indulgent parent to me, and he can be a very firm
friend. You will do this, as a favor, won't you?"
She gave me her hand as she rose, and, mastering a senseless desire to do
more than this, I bowed over it and hurried away, feeling that hers was
the favor granted, for Ormond and many others would gladly have ridden
fifty miles through a blizzard to do her bidding. It was for this reason
that I made my excuses to our host quietly, and Harry laughed as he said:
"I'll ride over with the others for you when the dance is finished, but
that won't be until nearly dawn. The length of these prairie festivities
is equaled only by their rarity. But beware, Ralph. You are a poor
wheat-grower, and too much of those bright eyes is not good for you."
I was glad of the skin coat and fur cap before I even reached the stables,
and Jasper's horse made trouble when I led him out. He knew the signs of
the weather and desired to stay there, because they were not promising.
Now, though winter is almost Arctic in that region, the snow-fall is
capricious and generally much lighter than that further east, though it
can come down in earnest now and then. Thus, swept by the wind, the grass
was bare on the levels, or nearly so, and there was no passage for steel
runners, while our poor wagon, which would have carried us much more
snugly swathed in wrappings, had broken down, as when wanted it usually
did. So, shivering to the backbone, I swung myself into the saddle and
hardened my heart to face the bitter ride.