At Haying Time
Jane and Blue Pete were doing their best. Their massive bodies were a
sumptuous feeding-ground for the swarming mosquitoes, which transformed
their cheerful roan coats into something drab and dismal. The air was
hot and heavy in the depths of the slough, but the grass was luxuriant,
and the hay cut was heavy.
Perched on the iron saddle of the mower, Lightning had no complaint
to make against the conditions of his work, or the result of his
labours. The heat, and the flies, and the mosquitoes, left the
man unheeding. The toughened pores of his skin refused to exude a
perspiration that could cause him discomfort. As for the flies, they
made no more impression on him than if he had been a brass image. Even
the blood-lust of the mosquitoes was little enough likely to obtain
satisfaction from his hardening veins. But his temper was more than
usually uncertain, and it found expression in a wealth of invective
which he hurled at the heads of his devoted team. He sat there like
some ragged, bewhiskered vulture, lean, aggressive, alternately
cursing and coaxing. Lightning was worried. He was irritated. He was
desperately unhappy.
Lightning’s ill mood had been steadily growing for three weeks, ever
since the night of Molly’s party. It seemed like an eternity to the old
man since that night which was only three weeks ago. He seemed to have
lived through an age of disquiet and anxiety. And the depression of it
had long since passed the stage when explosive blasphemy could afford
him any relief.
With Molly’s unremitting assistance he had been cutting, and hauling,
and stacking hay for days. But he had found in the work none of his
customary satisfaction. In happier times each accomplished item in
the round of his seasonal labours signified something achieved in the
interests of the girl. Every detail of improvement in the progress of
the Marton homestead had been a source of complete satisfaction to
him. But that was when he knew it was all for Molly. That was before
the thought of Andy McFardell had become the disturbing element of his
intolerant mind.
But now that disturbing element had given place to something a
hundredfold worse. It was Molly who had become his gravest anxiety.
Again he knew that it was the man who was the source of the trouble.
But it was in a different fashion. Hitherto Lightning had deplored and
hated the man’s presence anywhere near the farm. Now he was desperately
concerned at his absence from it. Andy McFardell had not been near the
farm since the night of the party.
The change in the girl immediately following the dance had been bad
enough. Whatever his regard for Andy, Lightning had felt that the
girl’s distress, her obvious unhappiness, was altogether wrong and
unaccountable. She was going to be married. It was her own choice. She
was crazy about the wretched man. Well?
The first day had passed without relief. But with the second day it
seemed that the work of time and youth would surely tell. Molly’s
silence was less unbroken; her work was carried on less feverishly;
even a shadow of her smile returned. Then came the moment when he
discovered her returning from the trail by the creek, and he knew
she had been there watching for the coming of her lover. His relief
developed into something like joy, and he was amazed to find the
contemplated coming of Andy McFardell could so affect him.
But the man did not come. Neither the next day, nor the next, nor the
next. And now three weeks had passed without his having put in an
appearance. Each day the old man had seen the girl move out down the
trail looking for his coming. And each day the time she remained seemed
to lengthen.
The change in Molly had become almost calamitous. She rarely left
the house except at Lightning’s express call for her assistance. She
laboured silently in the hay corral when the old man brought in a load
of newly-cut hay. But she always returned to the house the moment the
work was finished. Her eyes had the look of sleepless nights. Her
cheeks had lost their happy roundness, and a pathetic down-drooping of
the corners of her mouth told the troubled old man their own tale of
dreary unhappiness.
Then came that memorable night when Lightning had recklessly ventured.
Molly had eaten little at midday. She was eating less at the supper
she was sharing with him. He had been observing her closely while he
noisily consumed his hash with an appetite wholly unimpaired. Molly was
gazing out of the window, her food scarcely touched, watching the play
of the evening sunlight upon the foliage of a distant bluff. It was
realisation of unshed tears in the girl’s eyes that robbed the old man
of his caution, and flung him headlong.
“Ain’t you eatin’ your hash, Molly, gal?” he asked kindly, although at
the moment his own mouth was filled to overflowing. “It’s real good,”
he went on, with a smack of his lips as he swallowed. “You surely hev
got the onions good in it. You didn’t eat at midday. An’ you ain’t
eatin’ now. There’s a heap o’ work around this layout needs swell
muscle, even in a gal like you. Best eat.”
Molly shook her head without withdrawing her gaze. And Lightning could
restrain his impulse no longer.
“He ain’t been round, Molly, gal,” he said. “Ain’t you lookin’ fer him
to come along?”
Molly sighed pathetically. Her gaze was studiously held to the window.
Lightning realised the struggle she was making. Then, when she spoke,
her voice was low and unsteady.
“I guess he isn’t through,” she said. “He’ll be haying, too. He’ll
surely be haying. You see, he’s such a boy for getting back of his
work.”
Lightning could have shouted blasphemy when Molly spoke of her lover’s
devotion to work. But, instead, his voice came very gently.
“Sure, he’ll be haying. That’s so. That’s why he ain’t been around.
You couldn’t want him to get around when the grass is ripe, and the
season’s good. Say”--he passed his plate for another portion of the
hash he approved--“why not get your pinto out an’ get a breath of good
air, gal? You sure need it. I guess it won’t worry me stackin’ the
grass I haul. Beat it over to that boy’s place an’ see the way he’s
makin’ out.”
Lightning needed no better reward than the look that responded to his
grin. He watched Molly pass to the stove to replenish his plate. And
as she passed it back to him, he listened to the reacting hope which
sounded in her voice.
“I surely could do that,” she said eagerly. “Maybe it would help him,
too. You see, he’s alone. It isn’t the same with him as it is with us.
You don’t need to haul to-morrow, anyway. Just cut. That way I could
ride out and----”
Lightning felt he had really done a wonderful thing.
“Don’t say a thing, Molly, gal,” he cried. “I’ll fix all that. You
get your pinto an’ ride over to-morrow mornin’. Guess you’ll tickle
that boy to death comin’ along. An’, say, quit this foolishness with
your food, gal. You got me so worried I don’t feel I could swaller a
mouthful right. An’ ther’s Jane an’ Pete worried about it, too,” he
grinned. “That’s it,” he cried, as Molly made a serious attempt to obey
him. “You don’t know the thing you’re missin’ in this darn hash.”
That night had been the one bright spot in the whole of the three
weeks. But it was only the forerunner of darker days. Molly went off
the next morning. She went off in spirits she had not displayed for a
week. She returned in less than three hours. It was her return that
brought Lightning’s structure of hope crashing about his unfortunate
ears.
He encountered her at the barn as she rode up. Her pinto was blowing,
as though the tireless creature had been flogged every mile of the
journey home. But all hope had fled at sight of the distracted girl,
and his heart sank to zero.
“Wal?”
Lightning’s voice had never rasped so harshly.
But there was no reply. It is doubtful even if Molly heard. Her mare
propped to a standstill and she leapt from the saddle. The next moment
she was gone. She had fled to the house, leaving the pinto to its own
devices.
Since that time another two weeks had passed--two weeks of worry which
the old man had hardly known how to endure.
After Molly’s return he had contemplated having the whole thing out
with her at the first opportunity. But the girl settled the matter
herself that very night. She met him in the doorway as he went up to
the house for his supper.
He was astonished and further alarmed at the sight of her waiting for
him. Her eyes contained not a sign of that which had filled them on
her return at midday. They were calm--quite calm--like the eyes of the
dead father he so well remembered. But they had a coldness in them that
utterly forbade the intrusion he had contemplated.
As he came to the door the girl spoke.
“You fixed my mare?” she said sharply. “That’s all right,” she went on,
as the old man reassured her. “We’ll get right on with the haying. The
seasons don’t wait around for any foolishness. Do you get me? There’s
going to be no more foolishness. Not a thing more, and not a word about
it.”
So the evening had been passed without any explanation. He was never
likely to forget that evening. Molly seemed suddenly to have grown
years older. She ate her food and went about her work silently,
deliberately. When he spoke to her, she replied sufficiently, in
unemotional fashion. She never once smiled. It seemed as if all her
youth had gone from her, as though an icy coldness had frozen up the
last drop of the warm springs of her young heart.
Now Lightning was engaged upon the last of the haying. He was also
engaged upon something else. At long last he had determined to discover
the thing that had happened between the lovers from the other end of
the affair--that end where no delicacy or scruple need be displayed.
He was perfecting his plans. He had thought them out in detail, and the
result, in his view, was all he desired. This was the last cut of hay.
To-morrow he would announce to Molly that the team must be re-shod. He
would take them into Hartspool, and, on his way, he would call in at
Andy McFardell’s homestead, and be prepared to deal with the man as he
saw fit. He would certainly discover the thing that had happened.
* * * * *
It was nearly noon the next day when Lightning drove his team into the
clearing of Andy McFardell’s homestead. He had had no difficulty in
putting his plans into operation. Molly had agreed, after inspection of
the lengthened hoofs of the team. So the old man had driven off, with
his treasured guns carefully concealed in the wagon-box. Once beyond
all chance of Molly’s observation, the weapons were taken from their
place of concealment and adjusted about his lean body.
He gazed eagerly about him as he dodged the tree-stumps at the entrance
to the clearing. The thing he expected to find had never been clear
to him. But that which he did find was certainly the last thing he
expected. Andy McFardell’s homestead was derelict. It was abandoned.
He drove his team right up to the miserable barn and got out of the
wagon. The door of the building was nailed up. He stood for a moment
considering it. Then he raised one heavily-booted foot, and launched
it, sole first, against the crazy boarding. It gave on the instant,
splintering and cracking. A second effort flung it open by the simple
process of tearing it from its rusted hinges. He passed within.
A few moments later he returned into the full sunlight. Just for one
moment he glanced at his drowsy team. Then he glanced round at the
other buildings, all of which had been lightly boarded up. Finally
he sought the hay corral. There was a small scattering of loose hay
littering it, otherwise the place was empty.
He collected an armful of the hay. It was the best offering he could
make to his team. He had tried the barn for feed, but had drawn a
blank. So he came back to his horses, removed their bits, and, leaving
them busily devouring the hay, passed on to complete his investigations.
He spent a full hour at his task, and when he returned to his wagon to
water his horses, and feed them from the reserve of oats he carried
with him, it was in the full knowledge that Andy’s farm was abandoned
for good.
There was not a living thing to be discovered anywhere. The man’s
horses were gone. His two cows. His spring wagon, harness, and even the
wealth of implements he had acquired from the machine agent. There was
not a spade, or fork, or axe, or saw, about the place. The house, too,
was similarly bare. Such items of furnishing as the place had possessed
had vanished. Blankets, pots, and crocks--all had been swept away. And
the answer to it came to him without even an effort. The man had given
up, and either sold up, or been sold up--the man who had promised to
marry Molly before the summer was out.
He had fixed his team and seated himself in the shade of his wagon,
prepared to eat such food as he had brought with him.
The full significance of the thing he had discovered slowly took
possession of him. And he found in it the looked-for answer to the
latest change in Molly. Oh, yes, it was clear enough to him now. The
whole thing must have been in contemplation, even exactly planned, at
the time when--yes, that was it. Molly had found the same as he had
found. What did it signify? Was it that the man reckoned he would no
longer need the place with Molly as his wife? It looked that way. Then
why had he not shown up in three weeks?
The old man sat there eating, and labouring heavily with thought. He
saw the whole thing in its own light. He contemplated it from the
viewpoint of his own experiences of men. Deliberately, definitely, his
mind fixed itself on the night of the dance, and his whole focus became
preoccupied with the girl’s breakdown after McFardell’s departure on
that night.
Why? Why? Why that flood of tears? All the rest receded into the
background. That one detail stood out above all others. And as he
considered it, as he translated it in the only fashion possible to him,
a sickening horror took possession of him.