We worked for Mr. Keefer until the last sheaf of his six hundred acre
crop was in stook. Not all of the time were we speeded up as on that
first day in the barley field; we had seasons of comparative calm,
particularly while waiting for the wheat to ripen, but whatever advances
of leisure our employer may have made us during that period were more
than repaid when, in the last week of August, two hundred acres of wheat
came in with a rush, and a moon in its second quarter threatened frost
every night. Keefer brought up four more horses from a ranch which he
owned somewhere nearby, and by relaying his teams he was able to keep
his binders going during the noon hour. This did not make it any easier
for his stookers, but we were now thoroughly hardened to the work, and
we had learned, as well, that even in such a simple operation as
stooking there may be acquired a knack which saves many a step and many
an ounce of effort. We no longer tried to keep four rounds behind the
binders; we could look on with equanimity while they obtained a lead of
a half day's cutting, and then we worked along the windrows of sheaves,
at right angles to the standing grain, instead of parallel with it.
This saved a great amount of walking, and we found that what had been a
terribly hard day's work at first could now be done without leading us
to the brink of exhaustion.
During that last week in August Mr. Keefer hung a thermometer on a
clothes-line post in the yard, and notwithstanding his long days in the
field he would get out of bed two or three times in the night, and
particularly just before dawn, to study the temperature.
"Full moon Friday night," he said to us on Tuesday. "I want this wheat
in stook before we sleep Friday."
"Do you think the moon has anything to do with the temperature?" I asked
him, not in an argumentative mood, but because I wanted to know.
"Can't say," he answered. "I'm not an astronomer, or whatever it is that
could give scientific reasons, but I know we always reckon that if we
get by the full moon at the end of August or the beginning of September
without frost we're safe for another fortnight. It's like the chicken
from an egg; I can't explain it, but there it is."
"But is there really much danger of frost, anyway?"
"Not as bad as it used to be, and it will disappear altogether as more
land comes under cultivation, but at present it has to be reckoned with.
When the whole profit or loss on the year's operations hangs on a few
degrees of temperature, do you wonder that I get up in the night to
look at the thermometer?"
Perhaps it was this little insight which Keefer gave us into his anxiety
and the reason for it that keyed us up to the effort we were to make
during the next three days. I have always held that any man who is worth
his pay works for something more than his pay, and certainly for the
next seventy-two hours pay was the last thing in our minds. We had to
beat the frost-fiend that was crouching somewhere in the low mists of a
moonlit night, waiting to sweep down and ruin this vast, defenceless
field of wheat that stood nodding complacently in the harvest sun, all
unconscious of the enemy that threatened it. That was before the days of
the general use of the tractor, and the horses could not work day and
night, or I am sure we should have followed them, stooking by the white
light of the moon that filled the heavens with a brilliance almost like
that of the day.
In the middle of the afternoon Nellie Keefer would drive out with a
horse and buggy and bring us a lunch of sandwiches and tea, and the few
minutes during which we would sit in the shade of a stook piled high for
that purpose while Nellie helped us from her basket and filled and
refilled our cups were occasions to be remembered. She was a rather
winsome girl, was Nellie; quite without the idealism which made Jean one
girl in a million, but possessed of a sturdy and practical ability and a
very adequate supply of self-confidence.
"Nellie's a chip off the old block," her mother had said one day when
the girl had wrestled a refractory mustang into submission. We had stood
by and watched the fight, keeping out of it at Nellie's express command.
We were left to infer that, in Mrs. Keefer's figure of speech, Mr.
Keefer was the old block.
Well, we won. It was stark moonlight on Friday night, possibly ten
o'clock or later, when the binder blades at last ran free at the end of
the last remaining ribbon of yellow wheat. For a day and a half, by
superhuman efforts, we had been overtaking the lead which we had allowed
the binders for the sake of efficiency in stooking, and once again when
the packers clattered idly above the last half sheaf Jack yanked it from
the knotter and flung it to me where I stood waiting to receive it. Then
we trudged homeward, tired but victorious.
And it didn't freeze, after all. By eleven o'clock a cloud loomed up in
the west, and a wind began to lash the oat field. By twelve the rays of
the moon struggled but faintly through a curtain of mist. At dawn the
thermometer still showed two degrees above freezing.
When we had finished with Mr. Keefer he paid us off and told us where we
would be sure to get a job threshing. We shook hands all round, and I
think I shook hands with Nellie twice, and I remember she said something
about calling in if ever I passed that way, and even suggested that she
and Harry might drive over to Fourteen next summer and pay us a visit,
for I had told her, of course, of Jean and Marjorie. Oh, well, these
things happen. . . . .
We found Mr. Alec Thomson with his body half inside the boiler of his
threshing engine. As we came up his position reminded me of Jake's
figure about a hound after garbage. He was so engaged in his work, and
making so much of a clatter, that he didn't hear our approach, and it
was not until Jack banged the boiler with a hammer which had been lying
nearby that he jumped from his position as though he had been shot in
his remaining exposure.
"Good morning, Mr. Thomson," we said when we could get our faces
straight. "We came to join your gang."
"You'll join a bigger gang than mine if you give me another scare like
that," said Mr. Thomson, looking us over. "Where are you from?"
"Been working for Keefer," we explained.
"Get fired?"
"No."
"Through?"
"Through to the last sheaf."
Mr. Thomson's eyes showed a growing interest. "All right," he said,
after a moment. "Any man that can finish a season with Keefer is good
enough for me. Put the bulls in the stable and give me a hand with this
expander."
Thomson was a bachelor who did a little farming while he was putting in
his residence duties on a homestead, but his principal industry and
interest in life was in his threshing machine. He must have it perfect
to the last bolt and belt-lace, although his shack was a musty affair
that gave me the creeps after Marjorie's immaculate cleanliness and even
after our own housekeeping performances in Keefer's granary. We stayed
with him for a number of days at a nominal rate of wages, helping with
the repairs to his engine and separator while waiting for the wheat to
harden in the stook.
When at last we were ready for the field Thomson's homestead presented a
scene of great animation. He had gathered a gang of men and horses about
him; had hired a cook and stocked the cook-car, and had laid in a supply
of oil and repairs. Thomson was his own engineer, and it had been
decided that I should be fireman, while Jack drove the oxen on a bundle
team. After the first day or two I found the work not so hard as
stooking although the hours were even longer. I would be in the field at
four o'clock in the morning firing up that old straw-burner in order to
have enough steam to whistle at six, and I was the last to leave the
outfit at night.
Thompson had impressed me with my duties at the start. "Keep one eye on
the steam gauge and the other on the water glass, and both on the
lookout for fire," he said, "and that's about all you need to know."
I soon found there was more than that to know about firing a
straw-burner, but these were the essentials. At times when the straw was
still damp after rain I had my troubles, and some mornings, until I
could raise enough steam to use the forced draft, Sally, as I called
our engine, would be as cantankerous as any kitchen stove when the wind
swirls over the roof the wrong way. But I soon learned how to take her
moods, and before the season was half gone I began to feel a strange
sort of affection for this great, greasy lump of metal as the drone of
its exhaust played a monotonous lullabye in my ears and the whiff of
steam and tallow lent an additional tang to the edge of my fireman's
appetite. The goddess of steam began in some subtle way to draw me into
her embrace, and I came to understand how it is that once a steam
engineer, always a steam engineer.
"None of those temperamental things for me," said Thompson one day when
the first gasoline tractor I had ever seen went slowly coughing by.
"Sally may be a bit mussy and old fashioned, but she has a hell of a
punch in her elbow." Just then a damp sheaf from the bottom of a stook
went in crosswise, and the automatic governor valve flew open. Sally
snorted in indignation and the force of her exhaust drew my fire up into
the flues as she threw double her normal horse-power into her
driving-rod.
"Humph!" said Alec, patting the throttle lever affectionately. "I'd like
to see one of those coughin' critters chew on a cud like that!"
So the threshing season wore on. We ate in a cook-car, slept in a
"caboose," and worked from dawn until dark. Sometimes, to finish a "set"
we would burn a straw pile and work by its light after the stars were
out in the heavens. Although the work was hard and dirty it was the
sort of dirt that is neither offensive nor unhealthful, and there was a
certain reckless good-fellowship among the gang that made the time pass
pleasantly enough. There were fights on a couple of occasions, when some
one brought liquor out from town; one of the men had an arm broken under
a belt, and all of us had a scare one day when the field we were working
in caught fire from a spark from the engine, but these were mere
incidents in a routine of hard work from dawn until dark, and
afterwards. At nights the prairie was lit up with the orange-red glow of
burning straw piles, their fan-shaped reflections thrust high in the
heavens, while the jingle of trace-chains, the rumble of wagons, and the
plaintive steam whistles which came through the gloaming from other
outfits than our own brought a strange sense of the worthiness of work
well done. Tired and prodigiously hungry we would attack the cook-car,
and then presently crawl to our bunks and to sleep.
It was the middle of October, and there was a crisp tang in the air
night and morning, before we again hit the trail for Fourteen and
Twenty-two. During all this time we had had no word from our homes, as
there was no one to carry mail in or out, and it was with anxious and
eager hearts that we hurried Buck and Bright along the homeward winding
trail.
On the second day, as we were bowling along at the two-and-a-half mile
an hour clip which Buck and Bright considered the limit of furious
driving Jack drew my attention to a speck on the horizon ahead of us. It
grew rapidly, and although there was no mirage this time to bring our
visitor down from heaven, we soon were able to discern the scarlet
uniform of the Mounted Police. It came along at the smart trot to which
the police horse is educated, and in half an hour Harold Brook drew up
beside us.
"Hello, Lane and Hall!" the policeman greeted us. "Getting back from
your harvest excursion?"
So it was evident he knew we had been away, and why. But Jack, whether
he thought of this or not, answered him cordially.
"We're on the home stretch," he admitted, "and old Fourteen and
Twenty-two will look pretty good to us, after cook-cars and cabooses."
The lightest kind of a smile flickered about Brook's lips. "And so it
should," he agreed, "with two fine girls such as adorn your respective
homesteads. I was in the district last night."
"Were the girls well?" I forced myself to say, partly because I felt my
silence was beginning to shout, and partly because of a real anxiety
about them.
"I believe so. I didn't see them, myself; came in by the south and
landed first with your neighbour, Spoof. Capital chap; I stayed over
night with him, and smoked up nearly all of his English tobacco. At
breakfast I finished his last jar of marmalade, so if Spoof is flying a
flag of distress when you reach home you will know the cause of it.
Imagine an Englishman without marmalade--breakfast without marmalade!
My dear fellow, I'm English myself, and I--I assure you it isn't
done."
"But the girls?----" I persisted.
"Oh, yes. Spoof has been keeping a neighbourly eye on them. I meant to
call on you, of course, but when Spoof told me you were away I stayed
with him. He assured me that everyone is fit at Fourteen and
Twenty-two."
This was good news, and a weight off our minds. Besides, it was evidence
that in the twinges of my jealousy toward Brook I fell somewhat short of
doing him justice. Brook was a decent fellow, and was playing the game.
"Just a suggestion," said the policeman, after a moment. "This is your
first autumn on the prairies, and you can't be too careful about fire.
These warm days and frosty nights are the most dangerous time of the
year. I found Spoof had no fire guards, so I showed him how to make
them, and I took the liberty of hinting that he go over to Fourteen and
Twenty-two and see that the buildings are properly protected."
We thanked Brook, and he saluted and rode away, his red tunic slowly
fading out of view in the cloud of dust which his horse kicked up from
the bone-dry trail.
"Very decent chap, Brook," said Jack, after a while, and I said "Yes."
It was with a strange pounding of the heart that we at last discerned
the outlines of the shacks of our little settlement. Mrs. Alton's came
first into view, then Spoof's, then, together, the buildings on Fourteen
and Twenty-two. A gust of homesickness swept up and took sudden
possession of me, and I realized for the first time how much I had
become attached to the little square on the thousand-mile fabric of the
prairies which I had already learned to think of as home. Gaunt and bare
they may be, but the prairies have a way of winding themselves about the
heart with bands that are stronger than steel.
If we had been anxious, we were eager, too; eager with the news of our
successful season's work; with anticipation of the bright faces which
would greet the roll of crisp new bank bills that Jack carried in an
inside vest pocket; eager to display the load of provisions and supplies
which had been bought with part of our earnings.
We must have been fully a mile from the houses when we discerned the
first evidences of life. A little figure darted out of the shack on
Twenty-two to the edge of the gully; then for a few minutes sank from
sight; then reappeared on our side of the stream and rushed into the
shack on Fourteen. Almost instantly two figures appeared at the door;
paused for a moment, then swooped like wild things down the trail toward
us. And we stood up on the top of the wagon and waved our hats and
yelled like mad, until even Spoof down on section Two must have heard
us. And old Buck and Bright, their phlegmatic souls at last awakened by
that strange power that lies at the root of all creation and which is
friendship and love and all the shadings of affection which lie between
-- or perhaps it was by the smell of the haystack at their own
stables--joined in the spirit of the occasion and broke forth in a most
surprising gallop, their hoofs click-clacking and their trace-chains
lashing the whiffle-trees as they ran.
Soon we came up, and there were the girls, wonderful, lithe, sunburned,
radiant, hatless, golden hair streaming in the golden light at the end
of day, arms extended, white teeth gleaming, measureless, ineffable, in
the beauty and wonder of their young womanhood! We sprang from the wagon
and--I don't know how it happened--Jean ran straight into my arms. Not
Marjorie--I didn't see what became of her--I didn't stop to look;--Jean
ran straight into my arms! I held her there, held her with the strength
of ten weeks' harvesting in my muscles and of all my young hot boyhood
in my veins; held her and kissed her and would not let her go. . . For
the first time since we had been little children together, playing by
the dam where the water-wheel across the river tossed its dancing
diamonds in the air, I held her and kissed her and would not let her go.
Across the fields of crisp and brittle grass we trudged together,
disregarding the trail and the measureless swoon of that sunset world as
we swept homeward on the flood-tide of our happiness. Her firm little
arm pressed tight against mine and our limbs swung together in the
rhythm of our stride. And when I looked down in her face I saw a light
that was not altogether the glint of the setting sun.
But in that most poetic moment of her life Jean forgot to be poetic.
Once more she slipped her arm about me.
"Gee, it's good to have you home again," she said.
And in what should have been my supreme hour I found myself wondering
whether Jean's passion was love or just plain loneliness.