"All ready. Hurrah, there!" said David in his soft but resonant bass
voice that always had a laugh in it. "Come, come, every sucker of yeh
git hold o' something. All ready!" He waved his hand at the driver, who
climbed upon his platform. Everybody scrambled into place.
The driver began to talk:
"Chk, chk! All ready, boys! Stiddy there, Dan! Chk, chk! All ready,
boys! Stiddy there, boys! All ready now!" The horses began to strain at
the sweeps. The cylinder began to hum.
"Grab a root there! Where's my band-cutter? Here, you, climb on here!"
And David reached down and pulled Shep Watson up by the shoulder with
his gigantic hand.
Boo-oo-oo-oom, Boo-woo-woo-oom-oom-ow-owm, yarr, yarr! The whirling
cylinder boomed, roared, and snarled as it rose in speed. At last, when
its tone became a rattling yell, David nodded to the pitchers and rasped
his hands together. The sheaves began to fall from the stack; the
band-cutter, knife in hand, slashed the bands in twain, and the feeder
with easy majestic movement gathered them under his arm, rolled them out
into an even belt of entering wheat, on which the cylinder tore with its
smothered, ferocious snarl.
Will was very happy in a quiet way. He enjoyed the smooth roll of his
great muscles, the sense of power in his hands as he lifted, turned, and
swung the heavy sheaves two by two upon the table, where the band-cutter
madly slashed away. His frame, sturdy rather than tall, was nevertheless
lithe, and he made a fine figure to look at, so Agnes thought, as she
came out a moment and bowed and smiled.
This scene, one of the jolliest and most sociable of the Western farm,
had a charm quite aside from human companionship. The beautiful yellow
straw entering the cylinder; the clear yellow-brown wheat pulsing out at
the side; the broken straw, chaff, and dust puffing out on the great
stacker; the cheery whistling and calling of the driver; the keen, crisp
air, and the bright sun somehow weirdly suggestive of the passage of
time.
Will and Agnes had arrived at a tacit understanding of mutual love only
the night before, and Will was powerfully moved to glance often toward
the house, but feared as never before the jokes of his companions. He
worked on, therefore, methodically, eagerly; but his thoughts were on
the future--the rustle of the oak-tree near by, the noise of whose sere
leaves he could distinguish sifting beneath the booming snarl of the
machine, was like the sound of a woman's dress; on the sky were great
fleets of clouds sailing on the rising wind, like merchantmen bound to
some land of love and plenty.
When the Dingmans first came in, only a couple of years before, Agnes
had been at once surrounded by a swarm of suitors. Her pleasant face and
her abounding good-nature made her an instant favorite with all. Will,
however, had disdained to become one of the crowd, and held himself
aloof, as he could easily do, being away at school most of the time.
The second winter, however, Agnes also attended the seminary, and Will
saw her daily, and grew to love her. He had been just a bit jealous of
Ed Kinney all the time, for Ed had a certain rakish grace in dancing and
a dashing skill in handling a team, which made him a dangerous rival.
But, as Will worked beside him all the Monday, he felt so secure in his
knowledge of the caress Agnes had given him at parting the night before
that he was perfectly happy--so happy that he didn't care to talk, only
to work on and dream as he worked.
Shrewd David McTurg had his joke when the machine stopped for a few
minutes. "Well, you fellers do better'n I expected yeh to, after bein'
out so late last night. The first feller I see gappin' has got to treat
to the apples."
"Keep your eye on me," said Shep Wilson.
"You?" laughed one of the others. "Anybody knows if a girl so much as
looked crossways at you, you'd fall in a fit."
"Another thing," said David. "I can't have you fellers carryin' grain
goin' to the house every minute for fried cakes or cookies."
"Now you git out," said Bill Young from the straw pile. "You ain't goin'
to have all the fun to yerself."
Will's blood began to grow hot in his face. If Bill had said much more,
or mentioned Agnes by name, he would have silenced him. To have this
rough joking come so close upon the holiest and most exquisite evening
of his life was horrible. It was not the words they said, but the tones
they used, that vulgarized it all. He breathed a sigh of relief when the
sound of the machine began again.
This jesting made him more wary, and when the call for dinner sounded
and he knew he was going to see her, he shrank from it. He took no part
in the race of the dust-blackened, half-famished men to get at the
washing-place first. He took no part in the scurry to get seats at the
first table.
Threshing-time was always a season of great trial to the housewife. To
have a dozen men with the appetites of dragons to cook for, in addition
to their other everyday duties, was no small task for a couple of women.
Preparations usually began the night before with a raid on a hen-roost,
for "biled chickun" formed the pièce de resistance of the dinner. The
table, enlarged by boards, filled the sitting room. Extra seats were
made out of planks placed on chairs, and dishes were borrowed from
neighbors, who came for such aid in their turn.
Sometimes the neighboring women came in to help; but Agnes and her
mother were determined to manage the job alone this year, and so the
girl, in a neat dark dress, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed with
the work, received the men as they came in, dusty, coatless, with grime
behind their ears, but a jolly good smile on every face.
Most of them were farmers of the neighborhood, and her schoolmates. The
only one she shrank from was Bill Young, with his hard, glittering eyes
and red, sordid face. She received their jokes, their noise, with a
silent smile which showed her even teeth and dimpled her round cheek.
"She was good for sore eyes," as one of the fellows said to Shep. She
seemed deliciously sweet and dainty to these roughly dressed fellows.
They ranged along the table with a great deal of noise, boots thumping,
squeaking, knives and forks rattling, voices bellowing out.
"Now hold on, Steve! Can't hev yeh so near that chickun!"
"Move along, Shep! I want to be next to the kitchen door! I won't get
nothin' with you on that side o' me."
"Oh, that's too thin! I see what you're--"
"No, I won't need any sugar, if you just smile into it." This from
gallant David, greeted with roars of laughter.
"Now, Dave, s'pose your wife 'ud hear o' that?"
"She'd snatch 'im bald-headed, that's what she'd do."
"Say, somebody drive that ceow down this way," said Bill.
"Don't get off that drive! It's too old," criticised Shep, passing the
milk-jug.
Potatoes were seized, cut in halves, sopped in gravy, and taken one,
two! Corn cakes went into great jaws like coal into a steam-engine.
Knives in the right hand cut meat and scooped gravy up. Great, muscular,
grimy, but wholesome fellows they were, feeding like ancient Norse, and
capable of working like demons. They were deep in the process,
half-hidden by steam from the potatoes and stew, in less than sixty
seconds after their entrance.
With a shrinking from the comments of the others upon his regard for
Agnes, Will assumed a reserved and almost haughty air toward his
fellow-workmen, and a curious coldness toward her. As he went in, she
came forward smiling brightly.
"There's one more place, Will." A tender, involuntary droop in her voice
betrayed her, and Will felt a wave of hot blood surge over him as the
rest roared.
"Ha, ha! Oh, there'd be a place for him!"
"Don't worry, Will! Always room for you here!"
Will took his seat with a sudden, angry flame.
"Why can't she keep it from these fools?" was his thought. He didn't
even thank her for showing him the chair.
She flushed vividly, but smiled back. She was so proud and happy she
didn't care very much if they did know it. But as Will looked at her
with that quick, angry glance, she was hurt and puzzled. She redoubled
her exertions to please him, and by so doing added to the amusement of
the crowd that gnawed chicken-bones, rattled cups, knives, and forks,
and joked as they ate with small grace and no material loss of time.
Will remained silent through it all, eating his potato, in marked
contrast to the others, with his fork instead of his knife, and drinking
his tea from his cup rather than from his saucer--"finnickies" which did
not escape the notice of the girl nor the sharp eyes of the other
workmen.
"See that? That's the way we do down to the Sem! See? Fork for pie in
yer right hand! Hey? I can't do it? Watch me."
When Agnes leaned over to say, "Won't you have some more tea, Will?"
they nudged each other and grinned. "Aha! What did I tell you?"
Agnes saw at last that for some reason Will didn't want her to show her
regard for him--that he was ashamed of it in some way, and she was
wounded. To cover it up, she resorted to the natural device of smiling
and chatting with the others. She asked Ed if he wouldn't have another
piece of pie.
"I will--with a fork, please."
"This is 'bout the only place you can use a fork," said Bill Young,
anticipating a laugh by his own broad grin.
"Oh, that's too old," said Shep Watson. "Don't drag that out agin. A man
that'll eat seven taters--"
"Shows who does the work."
"Yes, with his jaws," put in Jim Wheelock, the driver.
"If you'd put in a little more work with soap 'n water before comin' in
to dinner, it 'ud be a religious idee," said David.
"It ain't healthy to wash."
"Well, you'll live forever, then."
"He ain't washed his face sence I knew 'im."
"Oh, that's a little too tough! He washes once a week," said Ed Kinney.
"Back of his ears?" inquired David, who was munching a doughnut, his
black eyes twinkling with fun.
"Yep."
"What's the cause of it?"
"Dade says she won't kiss 'im if he don't."
Everybody roared.
"Good fer Dade! I wouldn't if I was in her place."
Wheelock gripped a chicken-leg imperturbably, and left it bare as a
toothpick with one or two bites at it. His face shone in two clean
sections around his nose and mouth. Behind his ears the dirt lay
undisturbed. The grease on his hands could not be washed off.
Will began to suffer now because Agnes treated the other fellows too
well. With a lover's exacting jealousy, he wanted her in some way to
hide their tenderness from the rest, but to show her indifference to
men like Young and Kinney. He didn't stop to inquire of himself the
justice of such a demand, nor just how it was to be done. He only
insisted she ought to do it.
He rose and left the table at the end of his dinner without having
spoken to her, without even a tender, significant glance, and he knew,
too, that she was troubled and hurt. But he was suffering. It seemed as
if he had lost something sweet, lost it irrecoverably.
He noticed Ed Kinney and Bill Young were the last to come out, just
before the machine started up again after dinner, and he saw them pause
outside the threshold and laugh back at Agnes standing in the doorway.
Why couldn't she keep those fellows at a distance, not go out of her way
to bandy jokes with them?
In some way the elation of the morning was gone. He worked on doggedly
now, without looking up, without listening to the leaves, without seeing
the sunlighted clouds. Of course he didn't think that she meant anything
by it, but it irritated him and made him unhappy. She gave herself too
freely.
Toward the middle of the afternoon the machine stopped for some
repairing; and while Will lay on his stack in the bright yellow
sunshine, shelling wheat in his hands and listening to the wind in the
oaks, he heard his name and her name mentioned on the other side of the
machine, where the measuring-box stood. He listened.
"She's pretty sweet on him, ain't she? Did yeh notus how she stood
around over him?"
"Yes; an' did yeh see him when she passed the cup o' tea down over his
shoulder?"
Will got up, white with wrath, as they laughed.
"Someway he didn't seem to enjoy it as I would. I wish she'd reach her
arm over my neck that way."
Will walked around the machine, and came on the group lying on the chaff
near the straw-pile.
"Say, I want you fellers to understand that I won't have any more of
this talk. I won't have it."
There was a dead silence. Then Bill Young got up.
"What yeh goin' to do about ut?" he sneered.
"I'm going to stop it."
The wolf rose in Young. He moved forward, his ferocious soul flaming
from his eyes.
"W'y, you damned seminary dude, I can break you in two!"
An answering glare came into Will's eyes. He grasped and slightly shook
his fork, which he had brought with him unconsciously.
"If you make one motion at me, I'll smash your head like an egg-shell!"
His voice was low but terrific. There was a tone in it that made his own
blood stop in his veins. "If you think I'm going to roll around on this
ground with a hyena like you, you've mistaken your man. I'll kill you,
but I won't fight with such men as you are."