The corn hardened, and the wheat ripened, and was harvested in truly
primeval fashion. Adam cut the wheat with a scythe, and Robin followed
him, binding it as best she could. They shocked it together, and then
began hauling it to the barn with the horses and bob-sleds, their only
vehicle. The stacking was weary work and progressed slowly. Adam
watched his co-worker toil over the sheaves, and then took them from
her and pitched them on the stack haphazard.
"You shall not bother over it any more," he said, "not if we live on
hominy all winter. Have you ever been in Mexico? Well, Hawaii was
called the land of poco tempo, but Mexico was the land of mañana.
There isn't any work there for the work's sake. I mean there wasn't,
and we can take a lesson from them. We need not hurry; the legislature
will not meet this winter, and there will be no grand opera before
spring. Daisy and Lily shall do our work for us. We will find a bit of
hard, smooth ground, and then we will not muzzle the cows that tread
out the grain."
"Willingly," gasped Robin, climbing down from her slippery eminence on
top of the load of grain; "but do you think we are going to have any
winter?"
"That is pre-eminently one of the things that no fellow can find out,"
he answered. "In a dream you are likely to have any kind of weather,
and on a submerged planet we have no precedents at hand to tell us
what to expect. By replanting the vegetables right along we have had a
perpetual crop. As long as we have this kind of weather things will
grow, and I suppose we would better let them. Shut in as we are, it
doesn't seem likely that any very fearful winds are apt to trouble us;
and if there is a wet season, on this slope we shall have good
drainage. If the worst comes to the worst, there's the tunnel. Could
you make that cheerful and homelike?"
Robin smiled rather sadly. "It will do to put the grain in," she said,
and they walked on silently.
The spot finally selected for the threshing floor was brushed as clean
as twig brooms would make it, and the wheat spread out upon it. Adam
and Lassie drove the cows over it leisurely, and between times Adam
experimented on a flail. When he finally had one that answered the
purpose, and found he could use it without fracturing his skull, the
cows were released, and he went on with the work. Seated on a boulder
close by, her sombrero tipped well over her eyes, Robin fanned the
grain, and converted it into a coarse cracked wheat with a venerable
coffee-mill.
"I will make you a Mexican mill, when I get through with this," said
Adam, "but you cannot use it, because it is too hard work; I shall
have to be the miller. It is a rather simple affair, and dates from
before the days of Noah; it is made with two stones, sandstone
preferred, the lower of which is hollowed out bowl-fashion, with a
hole in the centre; the upper stone is rounding, and fits in the bowl,
and has a hole in it about four inches from the edge, in which a stout
wooden handle is inserted, with which to turn it. The two stones are
ground together until they become smooth. Then they are placed on four
other stones as rests, and a blanket or cloth is spread underneath to
catch the meal. The grain is poured around the edge of the upper
stone, and works down. It makes a very tolerable flour."
"How handy you are!" she said. "Isn't it a good thing we hadn't
civilized the whole world to such a degree that only patent high-grade
flour was used? Where should we be now without the simple devices of
the good people of the Stone Age, and their survivors on whom we
looked down with so much scorn?"
The snapping of the corn was an easier matter, and it was piled in the
tunnel till they should be ready to shell it. Then Adam did what he
called his "fall plowing," and left the bare brown sod to lie fallow.
So far as possible, they had retained the manners and customs of the
world that had left them. There was a tolerable supply of clothing,
and a good deal more household linen than could have been expected.
Robin concluded that the owners of the cabin had not been long
married, and the bride, knowing to what kind of a place she was
coming, had thought more of her house than of herself. All the
feminine garments had to be re-fashioned. Robin made her skirts short
enough for mountain climbing, and dreading the time when her one pair
of shoes should give out, she wore sandals fashioned from yucca leaves
by Adam's clever fingers. As the hair-pins lost themselves, she
braided her hair in a long queue, the curling ends of which fell far
below her waist.
The little house was kept as neat and clean as if it were headquarters
for all the labor-saving inventions in the world, and their meals were
as well served as if a corps of servants had been in attendance. They
were simple, and often a little monotonous, as meals must be where
there is nothing save what grows on one's own plantation. They had no
tea, coffee, sugar, spices, or foreign fruits. However, the hardship
of manual labor and plain food would cure most cases of dyspepsia, and
they did not suffer.
One day early in December, Robin woke to the consciousness of a steady
drip, drip of rain, accompanied by an indescribably mournful wind. In
the other room she heard Adam piling on the logs, and shivered.
Perhaps the winter had come. It had been hard enough when there was
plenty of work, and the free outdoor life; if they should become
prisoners, how should they, how would _he_ endure it? She dressed
quickly, and met his cheery "good-morning" in kind, and over their
breakfast they discussed the possibility of this storm being the first
of many. They decided that they must get the corn into such shape that
the tunnel would be available for the hapless cattle, or even for
themselves, if need be.
"We will go up there and shell corn all day," said Adam. "It isn't
really cold, and you can wrap up a bit. I wish I had thought to take a
lot of stone into the tunnel to build a bin at the end to put the corn
in. I don't know how we are to manage it."
She disappeared into the bedroom and came back presently with a few
grain sacks. When Adam opened the door he was nearly ready to abandon
his plan.
"You will be wet through," he said; "I cannot let you go."
"Then you cannot go either," she answered.
"But I must," he said. She was standing by him, hardly reaching his
shoulder, the sacks over her head. Catching her up in his arms, he
banged the door behind them, and ran up the slope to the tunnel, where
he deposited her laughing, and shaking the water from her curly hair.
As he had said, it was not cold, and they sat down near the mouth of
the tunnel, turned the tops of their sacks back over corncobs, and
shelled the corn in silence. At last a little sigh from Robin made
Adam look up quickly. Her hands were bleeding.
"Robin," he cried angrily, "how can you be so cruel! I don't want you
to do this work; there is no need. I forgot to watch you; besides, I
know you are tired. You did not sleep last night; I heard you moving
about."
"Then you did not sleep either," she responded quickly.
He flushed through the tan, and scooping some dry leaves together into
a bed, took off his coat and folded it for a pillow.
"Lie down and rest a little now," he said, "while I go down to the
house and see what I can find for lunch. Then you can have a good
sleep this afternoon."
He was gone several minutes, and when he came back with some
sandwiches in a tin bucket, and a dozen scarlet radishes dripping in
his hand, he stopped appalled. Robin was at the extreme end of the
tunnel, sitting on the ground, laughing and crying and talking
extravagant nonsense. Had she really gone mad, at last? Adam put down
the bucket, and walked toward her unsteadily. She did not stir, but
went on chattering in the same absurd way, until she saw him; then she
cried excitedly, "Oh, look! it's kittens, real little tame kittens,
though their mother won't come near me yet. She is over in that
corner."
Adam saw her green eyes, and though distrustful she was not
unfriendly. Emptying the bucket, he ran down to the sheds, and came
back with some milk which he poured into the top of the pail, and set
down before the kittens. They lapped it eagerly, and as the two human
beings withdrew discreetly, the cat crept out of her corner and joined
in the feast. When it was over, Robin took possession of one tiny ball
of fur, and Adam of another, while they made their own meal. Then
Robin curled up among the dead leaves, and slept like a child.
It was growing dusk when Adam awoke from his day-dreams. The tunnel
looked like a small grain elevator. On one side Robin still slept, but
the old cat was nestled contentedly at her feet, and the kittens were
playing sleepily over her.
"What is she dreaming?" Adam asked wearily. "All day I have sat here
and dreamed dreams that can never come true. I know it; I feel it. I
told her a year, but I am as sure now as I shall be in six years, that
there is no hope. The watch-fire is out to-night,--the first night in
eight months. I shall re-light it for her sake; not that she is any
more deceived than I, but she will be happier to believe me still
hopeful. What will be the end of it all? How can it end?"
"The same old way," came a sleepy voice from the leaves, "with the
'got married and lived happily ever after' formula." She sat up and
rubbed her eyes, and stretched lazily, to the discomfort of the
kittens, who retreated hastily. As she struggled to her feet and a
knowledge of her surroundings, her face changed pitifully, and she sat
down again and cried miserably.
"Oh, it was so real!" she sobbed. "I can see it now. We were back in
the old house, in the library, don't you remember it? and Walter was
at the piano, and Louis had just asked me how to finish his last
story. Did I answer out loud? Oh, which is the dream, for that was as
real as this!"
Adam stood and watched her. He tried not to think of that apropos
answer. He heard the beating, steady patter of the rain, and the
lowing of the cows, and there was not even a star in heaven to look at
him from its accustomed place with a friendly, twinkling promise for
the future. There was nothing left. So far as he was concerned, the
earth was without form and void. There was nothing to wait or hope
for. There was nothing to live for, neither cheerful yesterdays nor
confident to-morrows. What was the use in living? He looked down at
the slender creature lying outstretched almost at his feet, shaken
with the agony of long-repressed grief, and then at his long, muscular
hands. How little it would take to end it all for both of them! A mist
came over his eyes and he stooped, his hands outstretched toward her
white throat. They fell on the rounded curve of her shoulder. He
checked the caress as he checked the other impulse and shook her
instead.
"Let us go home," he said.
They went into the storm.
V
Why wilt thou take a castle on thy back
When God gave but a pack?
With gown of honest wear, why wilt thou tease
For braid and fripperies?
Learn thou with flowers to dress, with birds to feed,
And pinch thy large want to thy little need.