"Along this main-travelled road trailed an endless line of prairie
schooners, coming into sight at the east, and passing out of sight over
the swell to the west. We children used to wonder where they were going
and why they went."
I
It was the last of autumn and first day of winter coming together. All
day long the ploughmen on their prairie farms had moved to and fro in
their wide level fields through the falling snow, which melted as it
fell, wetting them to the skin--all day, notwithstanding the frequent
squalls of snow, the dripping, desolate clouds, and the muck of the
furrows, black and tenacious as tar.
Under their dripping harness the horses swung to and fro silently, with
that marvellous uncomplaining patience which marks the horse. All day
the wild geese, honking wildly, as they sprawled sidewise down the wind,
seemed to be fleeing from an enemy behind, and with neck outthrust and
wings extended, sailed down the wind, soon lost to sight.
Yet the ploughman behind his plough, though the snow lay on his ragged
great-coat, and the cold clinging mud rose on his heavy boots, fettering
him like gyves, whistled in the very beard of the gale. As day passed,
the snow, ceasing to melt, lay along the ploughed land, and lodged in
the depth of the stubble, till on each slow round the last furrow stood
out black and shining as jet between the ploughed land and the gray
stubble.
When night began to fall, and the geese, flying low, began to alight
invisibly in the near corn-field, Stephen Council was still at work
"finishing a land." He rode on his sulky plough when going with the
wind, but walked when facing it. Sitting bent and cold but cheery under
his slouch hat, he talked encouragingly to his four-in-hand.
"Come round there, boys!--Round agin! We got t' finish this land. Come
in there, Dan! Stiddy, Kate,--stiddy! None o' y'r tantrums, Kittie. It's
purty tuff, but got a be did. Tchk! tchk! Step along, Pete! Don't let
Kate git y'r single-tree on the wheel. Once more!"
They seemed to know what he meant, and that this was the last round, for
they worked with greater vigor than before.
"Once more, boys, an' then, sez I, oats an' a nice warm stall, an' sleep
f'r all."
By the time the last furrow was turned on the land it was too dark to
see the house, and the snow was changing to rain again. The tired and
hungry man could see the light from the kitchen shining through the
leafless hedge, and he lifted a great shout, "Supper f'r a half a
dozen!"
It was nearly eight o'clock by the time he had finished his chores and
started for supper. He was picking his way carefully through the mud,
when the tall form of a man loomed up before him with a premonitory
cough.
"Waddy ye want?" was the rather startled question of the farmer.
"Well, ye see," began the stranger, in a deprecating tone, "we'd like
t' git in f'r the night. We've tried every house f'r the last two miles,
but they hadn't any room f'r us. My wife's jest about sick, 'n' the
children are cold and hungry--"
"Oh, y' want 'o stay all night, eh?"
"Yes, sir; it 'ud be a great accom--"
"Waal, I don't make it a practice t' turn anybuddy way hungry, not on
sech nights as this. Drive right in. We ain't got much, but sech as it
is--"
But the stranger had disappeared. And soon his steaming, weary team,
with drooping heads and swinging single-trees, moved past the well to
the block beside the path. Council stood at the side of the "schooner"
and helped the children out--two little half-sleeping children--and then
a small woman with a babe in her arms.
"There ye go!" he shouted jovially, to the children. "Now we're all
right! Run right along to the house there, an' tell Mam' Council you
wants sumpthin' t' eat. Right this way, Mis'--keep right off t' the
right there. I'll go an' git a lantern. Come," he said to the dazed and
silent group at his side.
"Mother," he shouted, as he neared the fragrant and warmly lighted
kitchen, "here are some wayfarers an' folks who need sumpthin' t' eat
an' a place t' snooze." He ended by pushing them all in.
Mrs. Council, a large, jolly, rather coarse-looking woman, took the
children in her arms. "Come right in, you little rabbits. 'Most asleep,
hey? Now here's a drink o' milk f'r each o' ye. I'll have s'm tea in a
minute. Take off y'r things and set up t' the fire."
While she set the children to drinking milk, Council got out his lantern
and went out to the barn to help the stranger about his team, where his
loud, hearty voice could be heard as it came and went between the
haymow and the stalls.
The woman came to light as a small, timid, and discouraged-looking
woman, but still pretty, in a thin and sorrowful way.
"Land sakes! An' you've travelled all the way from Clear Lake t'-day in
this mud! Waal! waal! No wonder you're all tired out. Don't wait f'r the
men, Mis'--" She hesitated, waiting for the name.
"Haskins."
"Mis' Haskins, set right up to the table an' take a good swig o' tea
whilst I make y' s'm toast. It's green tea, an' it's good. I tell
Council as I git older I don't seem to enjoy Young Hyson n'r Gunpowder.
I want the reel green tea, jest as it comes off'n the vines. Seems t'
have more heart in it, some way. Don't s'pose it has. Council says it's
all in m' eye."
Going on in this easy way, she soon had the children filled with bread
and milk and the woman thoroughly at home, eating some toast and
sweet-melon pickles, and sipping the tea.
"See the little rats!" she laughed at the children. "They're full as
they can stick now, and they want to go to bed. Now, don't git up,
Mis' Haskins; set right where you are an' let me look after 'em. I know
all about young ones, though I'm all alone now. Jane went an' married
last fall. But, as I tell Council, it's lucky we keep our health. Set
right there, Mis' Haskins; I won't have you stir a finger."
It was an unmeasured pleasure to sit there in the warm, homely kitchen,
the jovial chatter of the housewife driving out and holding at bay the
growl of the impotent, cheated wind.
The little woman's eyes filled with tears which fell down upon the
sleeping baby in her arms. The world was not so desolate and cold and
hopeless, after all.
"Now I hope Council won't stop out there and talk politics all night.
He's the greatest man to talk politics an' read the Tribune--How old is
it?"
She broke off and peered down at the face of the babe.
"Two months 'n' five days," said the mother, with a mother's exactness.
"Ye don't say! I want 'o know! The dear little pudzy-wudzy!" she went
on, stirring it up in the neighborhood of the ribs with her fat
forefinger.
"Pooty tough on 'oo to go gallivant'n' 'cross lots this way--"
"Yes, that's so; a man can't lift a mountain," said Council, entering
the door. "Mother, this is Mr. Haskins, from Kansas. He's been eat up
'n' drove out by grasshoppers."
"Glad t' see yeh!--Pa, empty that wash-basin 'n' give him a chance t'
wash."
Haskins was a tall man, with a thin, gloomy face. His hair was a reddish
brown, like his coat, and seemed equally faded by the wind and sun, and
his sallow face, though hard and set, was pathetic somehow. You would
have felt that he had suffered much by the line of his mouth showing
under his thin, yellow mustache.
"Hadn't Ike got home yet, Sairy?"
"Hadn't seen 'im."
"W-a-a-l, set right up, Mr. Haskins; wade right into what we've got;
'taint much, but we manage to live on it--she gits fat on it," laughed
Council, pointing his thumb at his wife.
After supper, while the women put the children to bed, Haskins and
Council talked on, seated near the huge cooking-stove, the steam rising
from their wet clothing. In the Western fashion Council told as much of
his own life as he drew from his guest. He asked but few questions, but
by and by the story of Haskins' struggles and defeat came out. The story
was a terrible one, but he told it quietly, seated with his elbows on
his knees, gazing most of the time at the hearth.
"I didn't like the looks of the country, anyhow," Haskins said, partly
rising and glancing at his wife. "I was ust t' northern Ingyannie, where
we have lots o' timber 'n' lots o' rain, 'n' I didn't like the looks o'
that dry prairie. What galled me the worst was goin' s' far away acrosst
so much fine land layin' all through here vacant."
"And the 'hoppers eat ye four years, hand runnin', did they?"
"Eat! They wiped us out. They chawed everything that was green. They
jest set around waitin' f'r us to die t' eat us, too. My God! I ust t'
dream of 'em sittin' 'round on the bedpost, six feet long, workin' their
jaws. They eet the fork-handles. They got worse 'n' worse till they jest
rolled on one another, piled up like snow in winter. Well, it ain't no
use. If I was t' talk all winter I couldn't tell nawthin'. But all the
while I couldn't help thinkin' of all that land back here that nobuddy
was usin' that I ought 'o had 'stead o' bein' out there in that cussed
country."
"Waal, why didn't ye stop an' settle here?" asked Ike, who had come in
and was eating his supper.
"Fer the simple reason that you fellers wantid ten 'r fifteen dollars an
acre fer the bare land, and I hadn't no money fer that kind o' thing."
"Yes, I do my own work," Mrs. Council was heard to say in the pause
which followed. "I'm a gettin' purty heavy t' be on m' laigs all day,
but we can't afford t' hire, so I keep rackin' around somehow, like a
foundered horse. S' lame--I tell Council he can't tell how lame I am,
f'r I'm jest as lame in one laig as t'other." And the good soul laughed
at the joke on herself as she took a handful of flour and dusted the
biscuit-board to keep the dough from sticking.
"Well, I hain't never been very strong," said Mrs. Haskins. "Our folks
was Canadians an' small-boned, and then since my last child I hain't got
up again fairly. I don't like t' complain. Tim has about all he can bear
now--but they was days this week when I jest wanted to lay right down
an' die."
"Waal, now, I'll tell ye," said Council, from his side of the stove,
silencing everybody with his good-natured roar, "I'd go down and see
Butler, anyway, if I was you. I guess he'd let you have his place purty
cheap; the farm's all run down. He's ben anxious t' let t' somebuddy
next year. It 'ud be a good chance fer you. Anyhow, you go to bed and
sleep like a babe. I've got some ploughing t' do, anyhow, an' we'll see
if somethin' can't be done about your case. Ike, you go out an' see if
the horses is all right, an' I'll show the folks t' bed."
When the tired husband and wife were lying under the generous quilts of
the spare bed, Haskins listened a moment to the wind in the eaves, and
then said, with a slow and solemn tone,
"There are people in this world who are good enough t' be angels, an'
only haff t' die to be angels."