We did as Spoof suggested. Early the next afternoon we hitched Buck and
Bright to the wagon and wended our slow way south-westward, Jack and I
taking turns in the exclamatory exercises by means of which the oxen
were kept in motion. The prairie now was very brown and bare, and only
the more hardy gophers remained about to whistle saucily at our
carry-all lumbering by. The dazzling sunshine seemed to have lost its
force, and there was a presage of coming winter in the air. We dropped
into silence save for the noises of our locomotion.
"The world seems to have died," said Jean after a long period of
thoughtfulness.
The expression was an appropriate one. The world was, actually, dead.
Every blade of grass was a stark little corpse, swaying ghostily to the
stir of the cold air. Soon the shroud of Winter would be woven about
them, flake by flake, mantling them all in its cold, white tomb.
"But in the spring it will live again," Jean continued, after a pause.
"That is the life eternal."
Jean was a strange girl. Her thoughts went on and on, reaching out, and
out. She seemed to live always on the verge of the infinite. . . .
At length we were at Brown's. The rickety shack, smaller than either of
ours, presented a sad and forlorn appearance. Three little faces were
crowded in the single window that covered our approach. Brown himself
was busy building a stable of sods, and succeeding very badly in his
work. He could scarcely be distinguished from his building material, but
when he saw us he shook himself, as a dog shakes off water, and came up,
touching his cap.
"We are your neighbours from Fourteen," we announced ourselves. "May we
go in?"
"You may, and welcome," he said. "The wife will be a bit fuddled. I'm
not the most presentable, myself."
Then Jean did a great thing; one of those wonderful things that no one
but Jean seemed to think of. She clambered to the side of the wagon and
held out her arms.
"I'm all dirt, Miss," Brown protested. "I'm all earth and sand." But he
came slowly forward to her outstretched arms, and when his hands reached
hers he took her and gently helped her down.
"Thank you, Mr. Brown," she said.
But Brown was looking at her and at us with eyes that had suddenly gone
misty with a mist not of the sods or of the sand. Two little pools of
water gathered and streaked a slow, dusty course across his grimy face.
. . .
Inside we found Mrs. Brown 'a bit fuddled,' as her husband had
predicted. At first she merely stood wringing her hands, but when Jean
and Marjorie kissed her, and then kissed the little Browns, the veil
suddenly lifted and she was all kindness and hospitality. What a day it
was, after we began to get acquainted! Marjorie and Jean had brought
some home-made candy, and in a few minutes the little Browns were
smeared and happy and slipping gently about looking into the faces of
our girls as though they verily believed them angels.
After awhile Marjorie and Jean managed to explain that it was quite the
thing in Canada, when visiting a neighbour, to carry your eatables with
you, and produced a well packed basket out of our wagon. We had to saw
up a board which Mr. Brown was using in his building operations in order
to make an extension of the table so that all might sit down together.
And when we had done that Mrs. Brown surprised us all by covering it
with a cloth of the finest Irish linen, and producing from somewhere a
setting of hand-painted china, aided and abetted by a tea service of
real silver. And after supper Brown showed us his fire-arms. He had a
perfect arsenal of them, when he was in much greater need of a cow. And
Mrs. Brown, I know, was showing the girls wonderful things out of boxes.
And when it was all dark and starry we hitched the oxen to the wagon,
and shook hands all round, and kissed the children all round, and the
girls kissed Mrs. Brown, and Mr. Brown forgot himself and kissed the
girls, and Jack and I almost kissed Mrs. Brown, and we drew slowly
away, waving our hands and watching the five figures framed in the
doorway against the yellow light of the oil lamp on the opposite wall.
And we knew that in some way we had brought the hedges and lanes and
rose-gardens of England down to that crude shanty on section Four and
had woven them about another little sentry-box on the most skyward
trenches of civilization. . . . And the next day Jack and I drove over
again and showed Brown how to build a sod stable.
Our experience with the Browns encouraged us to cultivate the
acquaintance of our other neighbours, and as the short, bright days of
November wore by the low-hanging sun often saw our ox-wagon wending
slowly across the prairies, and the North Star and the Great Dipper were
the silent witnesses of its return to Fourteen. Sometimes, too, the
great magician of the North would light his mimic candles, and we would
creak homeward in the weird light of their flickering battalions
minueting on the stage of the universe. Smith, the Scotsman, and Burke,
the American, received us with undivided hospitality and that strange
sense of common interest which is the most priceless thing about pioneer
life; one of the rich qualities of human nature which seems inevitably
to dry up in the more complex civilisations. Ole Hansen entertained us
for a full hour in the stable before his buxom Olga consented to admit
us into the house. When at last we were granted that privilege there
were evidence of hurried scrubbing of floors and faces.
"My wife bane all the time yust on the yump," Ole explained
apologetically. "Some time Ay tank by damn we have too many kids, eh?"
It appeared that Ole was beginning to harbor some modern ideas about the
size of families. His opinion that six was "yust a nice commence" was
being shaken. The housing problem was coming home to him and bearing its
inevitable fruit.
No such radicalism had yet filtered into the mind of the Russian, who,
for the sake of convenience, we continued to call Sneezit. He met us
stolidly where the trail wound down the bank of the gully near to his
dug-out. He wore a long sheepskin coat, with the wool still on it, high
boots drawn well up on the thigh, and a brushy black beard. He regarded
us in silence, and at length Jack spoke.
"We are your neighbours. We have come to call on you. We hope you are
well."
The lips under the black mustache parted slowly, showing a set of
strong, regular, teeth.
"No much Angleesh," he remarked.
We clambered down and shook hands. This seemed to assure him of our
friendly intentions, and when we managed to make it clear that we wanted
to visit his house he led us to it without hesitation.
It was merely a cave dug out of the side of the gully. The front was
roughly built up with stones and sods, and a crude door, made of pieces
of packing boxes, afforded admittance. The only light was from an
opening in the door, which could be closed when the weather was too
severe.
Sneezit went first and addressed some words in Russian into the gloom.
We followed, encountering in the door the fumes of the place's bad
ventilation. It was some time before our eyes became accustomed to the
darkness, but presently we discerned a woman stooping, indicating a long
bench which had been set for us. Across the cave was a drove of
children, their eyes peering and shining like those of wild animals.
Indeed, it seemed that eyes were the most noticeable thing in that very
humble little home. Presumably there were mouths as well; no doubt
Sneezit and his wife had reason to know that there were mouths as well
as eyes.
The Russian talked "no much Angleesh," and his wife none, so our
conversation was somewhat restrained. Presently, however, we became
aware that the woman was performing some operation on a little rusty
stove which sat near the front of the cave, so that its crooked
stove-pipe might find exit through the roof. After a little she brought
out some tin cups and served tea. Sneezit, wiser than our friend Brown,
had provided himself with a cow, and the strong tea, well diluted with
milk, made a very good drink indeed. She served also a kind of dark,
flat bread which bore more witness to her hospitality than to her skill
in domestic science. There were no other dainties.
When we had eaten and drunk we prepared to go, but not until Jean and
Marjorie had distributed some of their home-made candy among the
children. We had hoped during this process to take a census but the
sudden commotion which it created made our statistics unreliable.
Marjorie said there were eight; Jean, ten; Jack made no estimate. I was
disposed to agree with Jean's figures.
After we came out of the cave our host, apparently wishing to give
evidence of his friendship, led us to a shed which he had built close to
the edge of the little stream that meandered along the bottom of the
gully. He had covered it with a stack of prairie hay, so that it was
quite warm. Inside were a yoke of oxen, a cow, two pigs, and a number of
hens and ducks. The pride of the Russian's face as he showed them was
something to behold and afterwards go away, humbled and thinking.
Sneezit was on the road to independence! The drab curtain of oppression
which had hung about the Sneezits since the beginning of their race he
had torn in two, and through the rent his grizzled face beheld a world
of hope and promise, a world in which he was as good as his neighbour!
As soon after our return from harvesting as our duties permitted it we
paid another visit to Mrs. Alton. Sandy saw us afar off and swept down
upon us like a tornado. Apparently he had known us at the first glimpse,
or the first sniff, whichever was his source of information, for there
was no question this time about our welcome. His barking and
tail-wagging accompanied us all the remainder of the way to the little
box that Mrs. Alton called home.
The widow had had time to dress since we hove in view--that is one of
the advantages of prairie life not set out in the immigration
booklets--and it was a dainty and spick-and-span Mrs. Alton that greeted
us when our wagon lumbered up to her door.
"I said, 'It's our friends from Fourteen and Twenty-two'--you see how I
am picking up your prairie way of numbering your farms instead of naming
them--I said, 'It's our friends from Fourteen and Twenty-two' as soon
as I heard Sandy's first bark. That was before you were in sight, so far
as my poor eyes could see. But Jerry, who was up in the wagon playing
teamster cried, 'I see dem, Mudder; oxes and Mith Lane.' He's crazy
about Miss Lane."
"Jerry is a young man of discrimination," I said, scoring for once. But
my wit was lost in the wild and panting hug which Jean was bestowing
upon my rival.
"So he's Jerry now," said Jean, releasing her embrace enough for speech.
"That sounds like getting down to earth. Ever so much more chummy than
Gerald."
"Do you think so?" Mrs. Alton queried. "And I had vowed that, _whatever_
came, I never would call him Jerry. Too reminiscent of Jeremiah, and
lamentations, and all that sort of thing that I wanted to get away
from." Mrs. Alton stopped short, as though she had said more than she
intended, then brightly took up the thread again. "I vowed I would leave
my lamentations behind," she continued. "I take it that this is a
country where there is room for everything but regrets."
It was evident that Mrs. Alton's bereavement was filling a good part of
her mind, so Jean deftly switched the conversation back to the boy, and
presently was conducting a foot-race to the chicken shed with herself,
Jerry, and Sandy as the competitors. Sandy won.
We had tea, of course, and after Jerry had gone to bed and Sandy had
lain down with his chops on the floor between his paws and his tail
thumping the boards occasionally in approbation Jack got out our much
worn deck of cards and we initiated Mrs. Alton into the mysteries of
pedro. With a beginner's luck she and Jack were much too successful for
Jean and me, and when it was time for us to go we insisted that she must
visit Fourteen some night soon and give us a chance to return the
drubbing.
"I should _so_ like to, but I can't leave Jerry," Mrs. Alton explained.
"But Jerry must come, too," we countered. "Jerry and Sandy, and, if
necessary, the cow and the chickens. Now you simply must, or some night
we will come over and kidnap you by force." But Mrs. Alton would give us
no definite answer.
There was no such hesitation at Jake's. Jake met us in the yard,
hatless, coatless, vestless, although the temperature was flirting with
the freezing point.
"Welcome, Sittin' Crow!" he exclaimed. "And all the other little crows.
I suppose you've come to condole with me in my affliction?"
"What affliction?" we inquired, half misled by Jake's manner, for he was
an expert in simulation.
"She's inside--an' in possession. It's fort'nate fer me this country
runs so much to outside, fer that's all I've any claim on."
But by this time Jake's wife appeared in the door. "Come on in, girls,"
she cried, "and never mind that blatherskite. He goes around half
dressed, keeping himself warm thinking up nonsense. I tell him some day
he'll freeze his hair, and that's his finish, for I won't stay married
to a bald man, whatever happens."
"Tut, tut," returned her spouse. "Where Bella Donna is put, she stays.
That's her strong point."
It was an afternoon of much badinage we spent at Jake's, but under the
surface there were evidences that our former land guide regarded his
wife with a sort of awe which he tried to obscure from public view by a
smoke screen of raillery. Bella, it was apparent, was a woman of
character, and although Jake could scarcely be described as plastic in
her hands, his recasting was only the harder on him on that account. He
was in the mills of the gods, and they proposed to make a job of it.
"I don' know whether she'll make me a good wife or not," he confided in
me, "but I reckon she's set on makin' me a good husband."
But Bella's house was clean, and Bella's table was well set, as pioneer
tables go, and Bella was a living concentration of energy such as Jake
needed to spur him into purposeful activity. It was Jake's weakness that
he would drop a job any day to perpetrate a joke.
"He thinks he's a joker," said Bella, acidly, anent this characteristic
of her husband, "whereas he's only a joke. There's a big difference."
"I admit the joke's on me," Jake returned meekly. "I should never ha'
showed that telegram."
This, of course, brought up the version of Jake's matrimonial adventure
with which he had entertained us that August noonday on the prairie, and
the totally contrary version which his wife now took occasion to
present. Block by block she knocked the underpinning from under Jake's
carefully prepared explanation of how he had fallen from the ranks of
the unwed.
"Admitted that the telegram was a forgery," said I, at length. "What
about the advertisement?"
"That was the only genuine thing about it," Bella returned. "And I've
been thinking seriously that Jake missed his calling; he should have
been an advertisement writer. When I read that notice I said to myself,
'Here's something out of the ordinary.' . . . I was right."
We left that night with assurances from Jake and Bella that they would
visit us twice a week all winter--a promise which they almost kept.
But not all our visiting was with our new neighbours. Most of it, as you
may suppose, was back and forth between Fourteen and Twenty-two. Spoof
we counted on to make a fifth spoke in our circle every Sunday, and the
banjo lessons, neglected during our absence, were now taken up in
earnest. It gave me a little orthodox shiver to think what my strict
Presbyterian parents would have said to Jean picking so perverted an
instrument as a banjo on a Sunday afternoon, and blending her voice with
Spoof's in "The Road to Mandalay". But I was little happier when they
abandoned the secular for such old airs as "Abide With Me" and "Blest be
the Tie that Binds".
Toward the end of the month we had our first snowfall. Old Sol that
morning had a mimic sun on either side, and there was a frosty glitter
in the air in which our neighbours' shanties gradually faded out of
sight as though hidden behind a veil of crystal tapestry. By noon a grey
pall shrouded the sky and the snow began to shake down as gently as
feathers fluttering from the bosom of some mammoth bird which had taken
the world to be her nest, and in spring would hatch again the ancient
miracle of life. Marjorie and I stood in our door and watched the big
flakes descending, slowly, silently, resistlessly, settling on wagon and
hay rack and every blade of grass. Across the gully, as through a slowly
falling curtain of ivory lace, we saw the vague forms of Jack and Jean
watching them, too. By mid-afternoon the ground was white.
Next morning we looked upon a new world. The snow had ceased falling,
the sky was clear and bright, and the stars were still visible at our
rising hour. Then up came the sun, splashing the heavens amber and
orange and blood red, and suddenly setting a million tons of diamonds
ablaze with his own brilliance.
After the snow came we seemed to cling to each other's company even more
than before. It's a solemn thing to lie alone in a world of snow.
Perhaps its coldness, its stark whiteness, its vast silence suggest that
which makes the heart reach out for some warm pulse of friendship.
Perhaps its peace and beauty stir something in our nature that insists
on being shared.