SEEDTIME
The snow had gone, and the frost-bleached prairie lay steaming under the
warm April sun, when Carrie Leland pulled her team up on the crest of a
low rise. The waggon she drove, a light vehicle of four high wheels with
a shallow, box-like body, had been made especially for her. It was hung
on comfortable springs, and the harness and horses matched it. There
were few broncho teams on the prairie to compare with hers. They were
young, but Carrie liked a mettlesome beast, and Leland had carefully
chosen and broken them.
It was the same with everything he had given her. Only the best that
could be had seemed good enough for her, and at times she almost
resented his generosity. Save when he lost his temper, which happened
not infrequently, she could not put him in the wrong, and she often felt
that it would be easier for her if she could charge him with neglect, or
had something to forgive him. He was gravely considerate for her
comfort, but it was very seldom that he went any further. While this
should have pleased her, she was not quite sure that it did.
On the morning in question, Eveline Annersly, who had been at Prospect
a month now, sat beside her rejoicing in the sunshine and rush of warm
wind. She had reached the age when one looks for little and makes the
most of what comes, and the warmth and freshness of the morning
delighted her. The prospect would also in all probability have had its
attractions for any one with eyes to see and a nature that could respond
to the reawakening pulse of life in the land.
Round three-fourths of the horizon the bleached prairie, tinged now with
sunny ochre, melted into the sweep of lustrous blue, but in the
foreground the sod was gemmed with little crocus-like flowers and
already flecked here and there with creeping green. All this was waste
and virgin, but on the fourth side tall bands of golden stubble, and
belts of ashes where golden stubble had once been, were narrowed down by
the steaming chocolate-tinted clods of the plough's upturning. Grain ran
up in long rippled ridges from Prospect, where the birches gleamed
silver, across the wide dip of basin and over its fringing rise, into
the luminous blueness of the sky. That was man's work, and man at
Prospect worked unusually hard, for it was not his part there to plough
where others had also sown, but to grapple with the wilderness, and
subdue it, in fulfilment of the charge given him when the waters dried.
The wilderness was there, leagues of it, but it required a stout heart
and a steadfast toil to break it and cover it with red-gold wheat when
wheat was a drug upon a falling market.
Eveline Annersly, faded and frail, was dainty still. As she sat smiling
in the waggon, with the sunlight lying warm on her beautiful hands, she
was a part of the colour scheme in her soft, grey-tinted draperies.
Some women of the cities would have been a blotch on it. She was the
figure of tranquil autumn when the wealth of fruits had gone, but her
companion with the crimson lips and dusky eyes was spring, when as yet
Nature is only stirring and has not awakened to riotous life at the
burning kiss of the sun. Eveline Annersly realised this vaguely, and at
times felt a thrill of concern, for she knew there was fire beneath that
cold exterior. When the awakening should come, much would depend upon
whether the sudden untrammelled growth of the girl's nature would cling
for warmth and shelter to the man who was her husband.
In the meanwhile, she watched the toiling teams coming on across grey
grass and golden stubble in echelon. Men sat above the horses' heads on
the driving-seats of the big gang-ploughs, and from amidst the curling
brown clods came the twinkling flash of steel. The men had brown faces,
and some of them bare, brown arms. Sun and wind had burned and beaten
them and their garments to the colour of the soil they sprang from. They
seemed almost a part of it, as they and the patient beasts did their
share in the great, harmonious scheme which in return for the sweat of
effort gives man bread to eat. This was not English farming, mixed and
variable, but an unlocking of Nature's long-stored wealth in mile-long
furrows that should fling the golden wheat by trainload and shipload on
the markets of the world. Even Eveline Annersly, who was not greatly
interested in agriculture, could realise that.
"It is a tremendous farm," she said. "We have nothing like it in
England. The length of those furrows appeals to one's imagination. How
big is it, Carrie?"
The girl smiled a trifle languidly. "I really don't know," she said.
"Charley has told me, but I never could remember things like that. He
seems rather proud of having broken--I believe that is the right
word--most of it out of the prairie. In fact, he is easily content. To
break so many acres every year seems his one object in life. I don't
think it's anybody's. Presumably, it's a question of temperament. My
husband appears to like his occupation, and absorbs himself in it."
"Which, of course, is just as you would have it?"
The girl made a little half-petulant gesture. "Oh," she said, "I suppose
so. I naturally did not expect Charley Leland and I would have many
mutual interests when I married him. It would have been in several
respects a trifle ridiculous. Still, he is, in his own way, very good to
me."
"So I should have fancied"; and Eveline Annersly's eyes twinkled. "Did
it ever occur to you that he might have expected a good deal from you?"
A flicker of colour showed in Carrie's cheek. "In that case, he, at
least, shows no sign that he misses anything. As you know, we scarcely
see him for two or three days together every now and then. I believe
these teams are in the field by six in the morning, and it usually is
dark when he comes in again."
"I wonder if you quite realise the restraint and self-denial implied by
a life of that kind? After all, your husband is probably no fonder of
wearing himself out than most other men. Presumably he has a purpose, or
finds it necessary."
She stopped a moment, and smiled in a curious fashion as she glanced at
her companion. "I suppose you have heard that they are building a new
peach-house and vinery at Barrock-holme?"
A bright crimson spot burned for a moment in Carrie's cheek. "I hadn't,"
she said, with a trace of bitterness. "Jimmy, of course, never writes,
and even Alice seems to have forgotten me. In fact, I don't suppose
there is one of them who ever gives me a thought now. Aunt Eveline, you
are to stay here for ever so long."
Mrs. Annersly nodded reassuringly. "Of course, my dear," she said. "As
you perhaps know, it is a good deal your father's fault that I am
reduced to living on my friends, and I really think some of the money he
is spending on the peach-houses should have come to me. I have been
inclined to wonder where he got it."
Carrie Denham was usually reposeful, but a trace of the confusion she
felt showed itself in her face. Eveline Annersly understood her as well
as she understood herself, and, being aware of this, she stood less upon
her guard.
"Oh," she said, "I think you know. It is a little hard to bear, isn't
it? Have they always been the same?"
"One would almost fancy so. Henry Annersly was well off when he married
me, and everybody knows I have scarcely a penny. Where the rest has gone
only Branscombe Denham knows, though I'm not even sure that he does. No
doubt he didn't intend to lose it, but money won't stay with him. And he
never even writes to you?"
Carrie laid a hand upon her arm. "Aunt," she said, "stay with us
altogether. Charley likes you--and I can't let you go."
The little lady's eyes grew gentle, but there was a faint smile in them.
"My dear, I think I know what you are feeling, but, after all, you
deserve it, and I'm not so very sorry for you. I'm going to make your
husband stop and speak to me."
Their team stood stamping impatiently on the virgin sod, as Leland came
up foremost of the long line of men and beasts. He was sitting upright
on the driving-seat of a great machine, dressed in an old blue-jean
shirt that was open at his sunburnt throat, with a wide grey hat on his
head. His arms were bare to the elbow, corded, hard, and brown, and his
face was the deep colour of the clods that rolled away in long waves
beneath the three-fold shares. Four splendid horses plodded in front of
him, and the stain of the soil and the same stamp of enduring strength
was on him and them. He pulled the team up, and, springing down, came
towards the waggon with his hat in his hand.
"You are going to the railroad?" he said.
"Yes," said Mrs. Annersly. "Carrie wants some things, but I understand
we are to stay the night at Mrs. Custer's on the way."
"Well," said Leland, "I may see you there. There are some new harrows
and seeders I have to wire about, but I don't expect to get in until
daylight to-morrow."
"You are going to drive all night?"
"I may get an hour's sleep before I go. You see, I have to be back by
noon to-morrow. Our summer is short, and there is a good deal to do.
The grain that goes in late is quite often frozen."
He pointed as if in explanation to the great sweep of furrows that ran
back narrowing all the way to where Prospect nestled like a doll's house
beneath its bluff. With a great trampling, two other teams came up just
then. They went by amidst a ripping and crackling of fibres as the
prairie opened up beneath the gleaming shares, and Leland nodded with a
little quiet smile.
"Oh, yes," he said; "little time to do it in, and a good deal to do.
Some of us were born to feel that way."
"Not all," said Eveline Annersly. "There are, as you know, men who waste
their substance to while the day away. You are not that sort. Perhaps
it's fortunate for you."
Leland smiled again. "I don't quite know. There's a great order and
system that runs things, though I can't quite get the hang of it--I
haven't time. Every man works in this country, as all Nature does. Those
little grasses have been ten thousand years building up the black loam
I'm making wheat of. The mallard, the brent goose, and the sandhill
crane--you can see them coming up from the south in their skeins and
wedges all day long--have to hunt their food from the shores of the
Caribbean to the Pole. Well, one feels there must be a balance struck
some day, and the men who don't do anything are having the soft things
now."
He laughed good-humouredly, and stroked one of the horses that turned
its head to nibble affectionately at his shoulder. "I'll be sorry for
this by and by, but you have a habit of making me give myself away."
"Then we will be practical. Are you going to sow all that ploughing?"
"I am. I expect to break two hundred acres more. There are folks who
want the wheat, and we'll feed the world some day."
"But wheat is going down."
"It is," and Leland's face grew a trifle hard. "No bottom to the market,
apparently. That's why I'm buying new machines and cutting things down
and down. We must have everything that can save or earn a dollar at
Prospect now."
Carrie Leland was struck by something in her husband's face. It was a
comely face, as well as forceful, clean-skinned in spite of its deepness
of tint, and there was a clearness in the steady eyes that is only seen
in those of such men as he. There was also in his features a suggestion
of endurance and optimism that, in fact, was strongest in the time of
stress and struggle. Sun and wind, fruitful soil and barren, nipping
frosts, drought and devastating hail, all these were things to be
grappled with or profited by with equal willingness. He and his kind in
new countries give without stint all they have been given, from the
sweat of tense effort each and every day to the smiling courage that
cuts down hours of rest and goes on sowing when seasons are adverse and
markets fall away; and there is, in turn, usually set upon them plainly
the symbol of man's dominion over the material world. The patient beasts
that toiled with him recognised it, and again one of them muzzled his
shoulder and caught at his arm.
"And," said Mrs. Annersly, "if the market still goes down?"
Leland laughed an optimist's soft laugh. "Then we will go under, I and
the rest. That is, for a time. Nothing can stop us long, and we will
start again. Carrie, I am thankful, is provided for."
He struck the horse with the palm of his hand. "I have been keeping you,
and there is a good deal to do."
The big team stamped and strained; he swung himself into the
driving-seat, and, with a crackling of fibres, the great plough rolled
away. Mrs. Annersly smiled as Carrie shook the reins.
"If I were twenty years younger, I almost think I should fall in love
with your husband," she said. "There is a breadth of view and
forcefulness Reggie Urmston could never attain even in his simplicity,
and his egotism becomes him. It's the quiet assurance of a man who knows
what he can do, and rather thinks that he is doing a good bit. He takes
all the risk, and you are provided for. Carrie, do you know what that
man gave, or lent--it's much the same thing--to your father?"
"No," said Carrie, with the spot of colour once more in her cheek. "He
would never tell me, and how could I ask him? It is a hateful
subject--why should you mention it?"
Mrs. Annersly looked out over the prairie, a curious smile in her eyes.
"Your husband is cutting down even his hours of sleep," she said. "He is
driving in forty miles to the railroad when his work is done to-night,
while Branscombe Denham is building peach-houses at Barrock-holme."
Carrie flushed crimson, and flicked the team with the whip. "You," she
said, "are the only friend I have, and yet you sometimes take a curious
pleasure in tormenting me. Do you expect me to turn against my own flesh
and blood?"
"We have it on good authority that the wife should cleave to her
husband, and they are one. There are, of course, people nowadays, and
probably always have been, who think they know better."
The girl caught her breath. "Ah," she said, "you don't quite understand.
If he were in difficulties I would face them with him cheerfully, but he
would never let me. It was not said in bitterness, but when he told you
I was provided for, it hurt me. Why should I be safe, who helped to ruin
him?"
Eveline Annersly glanced at her with gravely questioning eyes. "My dear,
I rather fancy you have almost thrown a great treasure away."
"Whether the thing was of great value I do not know, and it is scarcely
likely I shall ever know. I certainly threw it just as far as I was able
to, and, though I do not know whether I was wise or not, it is done, and
there is no use in being sorry."
Then she swung the whip again, and sent the light waggon flying headlong
down a long grassy slope. Mrs. Annersly found it advisable to hold on,
and in any case she had said her say. Her words must lie with the rest
she had dropped, until in due time they should bear their fruit. Eveline
Annersly was old enough to be somewhat of an optimist too.
In the meanwhile, Leland went on with his ploughing, and, save for an
hour's halt at noon to rest the teams, and for the six o'clock supper,
toiled until a wondrous green transparency, through which the pale stars
peeped, hung over the prairie. Then, when the cold clear air was
invigorating as wine, he led the weary beasts to the stables, and, after
walking stiffly to the homestead, flung himself into a chair, aching and
drowsy.
"Jake," he said to the man who was busy in the room, "I'll want some
coffee in an hour or so. Make it black and strong."
Then Gallwey came in, and they sat for an hour going over a file of
accounts from which Leland made extracts on a sheet. He laid it down at
last, and pointed to a bundle of papers on a dusty shelf.
"I was worrying over them before I slept last night, and I'm no wiser
now," he said. "The one thing certain is that wheat is going down, and
what it will touch next harvest is rather more than any man can tell.
One has too many climates from California to New Zealand to reckon with.
If we stop right now and sow, we'd come out just clear as the market
stands. I had expected to have quite a pile in hand, but with the drop
in values the bank balance against me needed considerable meeting."
"It certainly did. I was a trifle astonished when you cabled me to
arrange for the credit at Winnipeg. You were, in view of your usual
habits, singularly extravagant for once."
"I was," and Leland laughed somewhat harshly. "Still, under the
circumstances, it wasn't quite unnatural. Anyway, we have wiped it out,
and it has crippled me for the next campaign."
Gallwey asked no injudicious questions, but he wondered how his comrade,
who had distinctly inexpensive tastes, had got rid of all the money he
had apparently spent in England. Mrs. Leland was not an extravagant
woman, so far as he was aware.
"The question is, how we should meet a further drop," he said.
"That's not very difficult, unless the drop is too big. We have for
fixed charges the upkeep of this homestead, besides wages, and the
feeding of the boys we can't do without, and the working horses. That's
not going to alter more than a little, anyway. Well, we have the seed,
and there are broken horses on the run, so it's going to cost us just a
few teamsters' wages, and the threshing to put oats in on as many extra
acres as we can break. You see, we get a bigger crop on much the same
cost."
"And the fall breaking?"
"Wheat," said Leland. "Every acre."
Gallwey drew in his breath. He knew his comrade's boldness, but this was
almost incredible. Cautious men were already holding their hand, but
Leland purposed to sow more freely than ever.
"It will be a huge crop," he said. "About the biggest that was ever
raised in this country. Now, of course, within a margin, there's a good
deal in your notion in increasing the ratio of production to dead
charges, but, after all, you can't sow a third as much again without its
costing you something. Well, if the price drops far enough to make that
a loss?"
Leland laughed again. "Then," he said, "it will be one of the biggest
smashes ever known in this country; but nobody's going to lose very much
when they've taken the land and stock from me. It's tolerably steep
chances, but they're all on me."
Gallwey's uneasiness showed itself in his face. The magnitude of the
risk almost dismayed him, but while he sat silent Leland made a little
gesture.
"Tell Jake to bring that coffee in, and see the waggon's ready," he
said. "I'll be off, and let the team go easy. They'll put me on to the
wire at the depot at five o'clock when the stopping freight comes
through. I should be back by noon. You'll start every man as usual."
He drank the bitter coffee to keep himself awake, and climbed into his
waggon, while Gallwey shook his head as he watched him jolt away into
the shadowy prairie.
"It's a big thing, almost too big for any other man," he said. "It was
the confounded bank balance against him that drove him into it. I wonder
how he spent all that money, or if Mrs. Leland knows."