A DELICATE ERRAND
There was a sharp frost outside, and the prairie was white with a thin
sprinkle of snow, when a little party sat down to supper in the Hastings
homestead, one Saturday evening. Hastings sat at the head of the table,
Mrs. Hastings at the foot with her little daughters, and Agatha,
Sproatly, and Winifred between them. Sproatly and Winifred had just
driven over from the railroad settlement, as they did now and then, and
that was why the meal, which was usually served early in the evening,
had been delayed an hour or so. The two hired men, whom Mrs. Hastings
had not kept waiting, had gone out to some task in the barn or stables.
Sproatly took a bundle of papers out of his pocket and laid them on the
table. There had been a remarkable change in his appearance, for he now
wore store clothes, and the skin coat he had taken off when he came in
was a new one. It occurred to Mrs. Hastings that there was a certain
significance in this, though Sproatly had changed his occupation some
time before, and now drove about the prairie as an agent for certain
makers of agricultural implements.
"I called for your mail and Gregory's before we left," he said. "I had
to go around to see Hawtrey, which is partly what made us so late,
though Winifred couldn't get away as soon as she expected. They have
floods of wheat coming in to the elevators and I understand that the
milling people can't take another bushel in."
Mrs. Hastings glanced at Agatha, who understood what the look meant, for
Sproatly had hitherto spoken of Winifred circumspectly as Miss
Rawlinson.
Hastings took the papers which Agatha handed to him and laid them aside.
"We'll let them wait until supper's over. I don't expect any news that's
particularly good," he said. "The bottom's apparently dropping out of
the wheat market."
"Mr. Hamilton can't get cars enough, and we'll have to shut down in
another day or two unless they turn up," remarked Winifred. "It's much
the same all along the line. The Winnipeg traffic people wired us that
they haven't an empty car in the yards. Why do you rush the grain in
that way? It's bound to break the market."
Hastings smiled. "Well," he explained, "a good many of us have bills to
meet. For another thing, they've had a heavy crop in Manitoba, Dakota
and Minnesota, and I suppose some folks have an idea they'll get in
first before the other people swamp the Eastern markets. I think they're
foolish. It's a temporary scare. Prices will stiffen by and by."
"That's what Mr. Hamilton says, but I suppose the thing is natural. Men
are very like sheep, aren't they?"
Mr. Hastings laughed. "Well," he admitted, "we are, in some respects.
When prices break a little we generally rush to sell. One or two of my
neighbors are holding on, and it's hardly likely that very much of my
wheat will be flung on to a falling market."
"We have been getting a good deal from the Range."
There was displeasure in Hastings' face. "Gregory's selling largely on
Harry's account?"
"They've been hauling wheat in to us for the last few weeks," said
Winifred.
Agatha noticed that Hastings glanced at his wife significantly, but Mrs.
Hastings interposed and forbade any further conversation on the subject
until supper was over. After the table had been cleared Hastings opened
his papers. The others sat expectantly silent, while he turned the pages
over one after another.
"No," he said, "there's no news of Harry, and I'm afraid it's scarcely
possible that we'll hear anything of him this winter."
Agatha was conscious that Mrs. Hastings' eyes were upon her, and she sat
very still, though her heart was beating faster than usual. Hastings
went on again:
"The _Colonist_ has a line or two about a barque from Alaska which put
into Victoria short of stores. She was sent up to an A. C. C. factory,
and had to clear out before she was ready. The ice, it seems, was
closing in unusually early. A steam whaler at Portland reports the same
thing, and from the news brought by a steamer from Japan all
communication with Northeastern Asia is already cut off."
No one spoke for a moment or two, and Agatha, leaning back in her chair,
glanced around the room. There was not much furniture in it, but, though
this was unusual on the prairie, door and double casements were guarded
by heavy hangings. The big brass lamp overhead shed a cheerful light,
and birch wood in the stove snapped and cracked noisily, and the
stove-pipe, which was far too hot to touch, diffused a drowsy heat. One
could lounge beside the fire contentedly, knowing that the stinging
frost was drying the snow to dusty powder outside. The cozy room
heightened the contrast that all recognized in thinking of Wyllard.
Agatha pictured the little schooner bound fast in the Northern ice, and
then two or three travel-worn men crouching in a tiny tent that was
buffeted by an Arctic gale. She could see the poles bend, and the
tricings strain.
After that, with a sudden transition, her thoughts went back to the
early morning when Wyllard had driven away, and every detail of the
scene rose up clearly in her mind. She saw him and the stolid Dampier
sitting in the wagon, with nothing in their manner to suggest that they
were setting out upon a perilous venture, and she felt his hand close
tight upon her fingers, as it had done just before the vehicle jolted
away from the homestead. She could once more see the wagon growing
smaller and smaller on the white prairie, until it dipped behind the
crest of a low hill, and the sinking beat of hoofs died away. Then, at
least, she had realized that he had started on the first stage of a
journey which might lead him through the ice-bound gates of the North to
the rest that awaits the souls of sailors. She could not, however,
imagine him shrinking from any ordeal. Gripping helm, or hauling in the
sled traces, he would gaze with quiet eyes steadfastly ahead, even if he
saw only the passage from this world to the next. Once more a curious
thrill ran through her, and there was pride as well as regret in it.
Presently she became conscious that Hastings was speaking.
"What took you around by the Range, Jim?" he asked.
"Collecting," answered Sproatly. "I sold Gregory a couple of binders
earlier in the season, but I couldn't get a dollar out of him." He
laughed. "Of course, if it had been anybody else I'd have stayed until
he handed over the money, but I couldn't press Gregory too hard after
quartering myself upon him as I did last winter, though I'm rather
afraid my employers wouldn't appreciate that kind of delicacy."
Mrs. Hastings looked thoughtful. "Gregory should have been able to pay.
He thrashed out a moderately good crop."
"About two-thirds of what it should have been, and I've reason for
believing that he has been putting up a mortgage. Interest's heavy.
There's another matter. I wonder if you've heard that he's getting rid
of two of Harry's hands? I mean Pat and Tom Moran."
"You're sure of that?" Hastings asked sharply.
"Tom told me."
Mrs. Hastings leaned forward suddenly in her chair. "Then," she said,
"I'm going to drive across on Monday, and have a few words with Gregory.
Did Moran tell you that Harry had decided to keep the two of them on
throughout the year?"
"He wasn't very explicit, but he seemed to feel he had a grievance
against Gregory. Of course, in a way, you can't blame Gregory. He's in
charge, and it isn't in him to carry out Harry's policy. This fall in
wheat is getting on his nerves, and in any case he'd probably have held
his hand and cut down the crop next year."
"I do blame him." Mrs. Hastings turned to Agatha. "You will understand
that in a general way there's not much that can be done when the snow's
upon the ground, and as one result of it the hired man prefers to engage
himself for the year. To secure himself from being turned adrift when
harvest is over he frequently makes a concession in wages. Now I know
Harry intended to keep those two men on, and Tom Moran, who has a little
half-cleared ranch back somewhere in the bush of Ontario, came out here
tempted by higher wages. I understand he had to raise a few dollars or
give the place up, and he left his wife behind. Many of the smaller
ranch men can't live upon their holdings. Well, I'm going over on Monday
to tell Gregory he has got to keep these two men, and you're coming with
me."
Agatha made no reply. In the first place, she knew that if Mrs. Hastings
had made any plan she would gain nothing by objecting, and in addition
to this she was conscious of a certain desire to go. She felt that if
Wyllard had let the men understand that he would not dismiss them, the
promise, implied or explicit, must be redeemed. Wyllard would not have
attempted to release himself from it--she was sure of that--and it
appeared intolerable to her that another man should be permitted to do
anything that would unfavorably reflect on him. Somewhat to her relief,
Hastings started another topic.
"You have sold quite a few binders and harrows one way or another,
haven't you, Jim?" he asked.
Sproatly laughed. "I have," he answered. "As I told the Company's
Western representative some time ago, a man who could sell patent
medicine to the folks round here could do a good trade in anything. He
admitted that my contention sounded reasonable, but I didn't wear store
clothes then, and he seemed very far from sure of me. Anyway, he gave me
a show, and now I've got two or three complimentary letters from the
Company. They've added a few dollars to my salary, and hint that it's
possible they may put me in charge of an implement store."
"And you're satisfied?"
"Well," said Sproatly, with an air of reflection, "in some respects, I
suppose I am. In others, the thing's galling. You have to report who
you've called upon, and, if you couldn't do business, why they bought
somebody else's machines. If you can't get a farmer to take you in you
have to put up at a hotel. There's no more camping in a birch bluff
under your wagon. Besides, you have to wear store clothes."
Hastings glanced at Winifred, and Agatha fancied that she understood
what was in his mind.
"Some folks would sooner sleep in a hotel," he remarked, with a twinkle
in his eyes.
"Then," declared Sproatly, "they don't know very much. They're the kind
of men who'd spend an hour every morning putting their clothes on, and
they haven't found out that there's no comfort in any garment until
you've had to sew two or three flour bag patches on to it. Then think of
the splendid freeness of the other way of living. You get your supper
when you want it and just as you like it. No tea tastes as good as the
kind with the wood smoke in it that you drink out of a blackened can.
You can hear the little birch leaves and the grasses whispering about
you when you lie down at night, and you drive on in the glorious
freshness--just when it pleases you--every morning. Now the Company has
the whole route and programme plotted out for me. Their clerks write me
letters demanding most indelicately why I haven't done this and that."
Winifred looked at him disapprovingly. "Civilization," she said,
"implies responsibility. You can't live just as you like without its
being detrimental to the community."
"Oh, yes," returned Sproatly with a rueful gesture, "it implies no end
of giving up. You have to fall into line, and that's why I kept outside
it just as long as I could. I don't like standing in a rank, and," he
glanced down at his cloth, "I've an inborn objection to wearing
uniform."
Agatha laughed as she caught Hastings' eye. She guessed that Sproatly
would be sorry for his candor afterwards, but to some extent she
understood what he was feeling. It was a revolt against cramping customs
and conventionalities, and she partly sympathized with it, though she
knew that such revolts are dangerous. Even in the West, those who cannot
lead must march in column with the rank and file or bear the
consequences of their futile mutiny. It is a hard truth that no man can
live as he pleases.
"Restraint," asserted Winifred, "is a wholesome thing, but it's one most
of the men I have met are singularly deficient in. That's why they can't
be left alone, but must be driven, as they are, in companies. It's their
own fault if they now and then find it a little humiliating."
There was a faint gleam in her eyes, at which Sproatly apparently took
warning, for he said no more upon that subject, and they talked about
other matters until he took his departure an hour or two later. It was
the next afternoon when he appeared again and Mrs. Hastings smiled at
Agatha as he and Winifred drove away together.
"Thirty miles is a long way to drive in the frost. I suppose you have
noticed that she calls him Jim?" Mrs. Hastings commented. "Anyway,
there's a good deal of very genuine ability in that young man. He isn't
altogether wild."
"His appearance rather suggested it when I first met him," replied
Agatha with a laugh. "Was it a pose?"
"No," said Mrs. Hastings reflectively. "I think one could call it a
reaction, and it's probable that some very worthy people in the Old
Country are to blame for it. Sproatly is not the only young man who has
suffered from having too many rules and conventions crammed down his
throat. In fact, they're rather plentiful."
Agatha said nothing further, for the little girls appeared just then,
and it was not until the next afternoon that she and Mrs. Hastings were
again alone together. Then as they drove across the prairie the older
woman spoke of the business they had in hand.
"Gregory must keep those men," she said. "There's no doubt that Harry
meant to do it, and it would be horribly unfair to turn them loose now
when there is absolutely nothing going on. Besides, Tom Moran is a man
I'm specially sorry for. As I told you, he left a young wife and a very
little child behind him when he came out here."
"One would wonder why he did it," responded Agatha.
"He had to. There seems to be a notion in the Old Country that we earn
our money easily, but it's very wrong. We'll take that man's case as an
example. He has a little, desolate holding up in the bush of Ontario, a
hole chopped out of the forest and studded all over with sawn-off
fir-stumps. On it is a little two-roomed log shack. In all probability
there isn't a settlement within two or three leagues of the spot. Now,
as a rule, a place of that kind won't produce enough to keep a man for
several years after he has partially cleared it, and unless he can earn
something in the meanwhile he must give it up. Moran, it seems, got
heavily into debt with the nearest storekeeper, and had to choose
between selling the place or coming out here where wages are higher.
Well, you can probably imagine what it must be to the woman who stayed
behind in the desolate bush, seeing nobody for weeks together, though
I've no doubt that she'd bear it uncomplainingly believing that her
husband would come back with enough to clear the debt."
Agatha could imagine the state of affairs in the little home, and a
certain indignation against Gregory crept into her heart. She had once
liked to think of him as pitiful and chivalrous, and now, it seemed, he
was quite willing that this woman should make her sacrifice in vain.
"But why have you taken the trouble to impress this on--me?" she asked.
Mrs. Hastings smiled. "I want you to plead that woman's cause. Gregory
may do what you ask him gracefully. That would be much the nicest way
out of it."
"The nicest way?"
"Yes," answered Mrs. Hastings, "there is another one. Gregory is going
to keep Tom Moran, anyway. Harry has one or two friends in this
neighborhood who feel it more or less of an obligation on them to
maintain his credit."
Agatha felt the blood rise to her face. It was an unpleasant thing to
admit, but she fancied that Gregory might yield to judicious pressure
when he would not be influenced by either compassion or a sense of
equity. It flashed upon her that had Mrs. Hastings believed that she
still retained any tenderness for the man, the story of Moran would not
have been told to her. The whole situation was horribly embarrassing,
but Agatha had courage in her.
"Well," she promised simply, "I will speak to him."
They said nothing more until they approached the Range, and as they
drove by the outbuildings Agatha glanced about her curiously. It
occurred to her that the homestead did not look quite the same as it
appeared when Wyllard was there. A wagon without one wheel stood near
the straw pile. A door of the barn hung awkwardly open in a manner which
suggested that it needed mending, and the snow had blown inside the
building. In the side of one sod and pole structure there was a gap
which should have been repaired. Several other things suggested
slackness and indifference. She saw Mrs. Hastings frown.
"There is a change in the place already," said her friend. They alighted
in another minute or two, and when they entered the house the
gray-haired Swedish woman greeted them moodily. She seemed to notice the
glance Mrs. Hastings cast around her, and her manner became deprecatory.
"I can't keep things straight now. It is not the same," she complained.
Mrs. Hastings asked if Hawtrey was in, and hearing that he was, turned
to Agatha. "Go along and talk to him. I've something to say to Mrs.
Nansen," she said.