HARVEST
There was no longer any fierceness in the sunshine, and the day was
cloudless and pleasantly cool when Carrie Leland and Eveline Annersly
strolled through the harvest field at the middle of afternoon. The
aspect of things had changed since the morning Leland had fallen from
his binder, for, though there was a little breeze, the wheat no longer
rolled before it in rippling waves. It stood piled in long rows of
sheaves that gleamed with bronze and gold in a great sweep of
ochre-tinted stubble, beyond which the prairie stretched back, dusty
white, to the cold blueness of the northern horizon.
The sheaves were, however, melting fast, for waggons piled high with
them moved towards a big machine that showed up dimly against a cloud of
smoke and dust in the foreground. A long spout rose high above it,
pouring down a golden cascade of straw upon a shapeless mound, and a
swarm of half-seen figures toiled amidst the dust. The threshers are
usually paid by the bushel in that country, and since they have, as they
would say, no use for anything but the latest and most powerful engine
and mill, it was only by fierce, persistent effort the men of Prospect
kept the big machine fed. Its smoke trail drifted far down the prairie,
and through the deep hum it made there rose the thud of hoofs and the
sounds of human activity, which, it seemed to Carrie Leland as she stood
in the bright sunshine under the cloudless sky, had a glad, exultant
note in them. It stirred her curiously with its vague suggestion of
faith that had proved warranted. Once more there had been a fulfilment
of the promise made when the waters dried, and, in spite of drought and
scourging hail, the harvest had not failed.
"Ah," she said, "it is easy to be an optimist to-day. It is the looking
forward when everything appears against one that is difficult; but, when
I remember the springtime, I feel I shall never have any reason to be
proud of myself again."
Eveline Annersly's eyes twinkled. "I'm not sure the time you mentioned
could have been particularly pleasant to Charley, either."
"Still," said Carrie, with a little sigh, "he held fast to his optimism
and worked, while I let the gloom of it overmaster me."
"And now, as the result of it, that machine is threshing out I don't
know how many thousand bushels of splendid wheat."
Carrie's eyes grew gentle, and there was a little thrill in her voice.
"We have both of us ever so much more than the wheat to be thankful
for," she said.
Then she changed the subject abruptly. "Aunt, if you want to catch the
New York mail, you will have to answer that letter to-night. You know
that neither of us wants you to go."
"Would you like to go back to England?"
Carrie looked at the wheat and great sweep of prairie with glowing
eyes. "I think I should be content wherever my husband went. There was a
time when I fancied that if we had several good harvests and he sold
Prospect, it would be nice to go back with him to the old country, but
now I do not know. I seem to have grown since I came out here, and the
prairie has, as he would say, got hold of me. It is so big and
strenuous, there is so much in this country that is worth doing, and I
think Charley is like it in many ways. No, I scarcely fancy he would
ever be quite happy in England. But, after all, that is not the
question. We want you. Do you feel you must go back again?"
Her companion smiled a little. "I am not altogether sure that I do, but
one has to consider a good many things. The house Florence writes about
at Cransly is pretty and convenient, and, by sharing expenses, we could
live there comfortably enough. Still, you know the life two elderly
ladies would lead at Cransly, and after Barrock-holme--and
Prospect--there are ways in which it would not appeal to me very
strongly."
"Oh, I know," and Carrie laughed. "You would be expected to set
everybody a model of propriety, and to rule with the vicar's wife such
society as there is in the place. You would have to know the exact shade
of graciousness to bestow upon the wife of the local doctor, and how to
check the presumptuous advances of the retired tradesman or the
daughters of the stranger who settled within your borders. Isn't it all
a little small and petty?"
She turned once more to the prairie with a gesture of pride. "Ah," she
said, "out here it's only what is essential that comes first. We open
our gates to the stranger and give him our best, even when he comes on
foot in dusty jean. It's manhood that counts for everything, and Charley
and the others are always opening the gates a little wider. We take all
who come, the poor and the outcast, and ask no questions. One has only
to look round and see what the prairie has made of them. Aunt, I think
the greatest thing in human nature is the faith of the optimist. No, I
shall stay here, and you will stay with me."
"I think a little would naturally depend upon what Charley wants."
Carrie laughed. "Well," she said, "we will ascertain his views. He is
not as a rule very diffident about expressing them."
Tom Gallwey, somewhat lightly dressed, drove up just then in a waggon
piled with grain bags.
"Where is Charley?" she asked.
Gallwey smiled. "Lifting four-bushel wheat sacks into a waggon. He has
been doing it most of the afternoon, too, and I almost think it would be
wise if you looked after him."
He drove on, and Carrie attempted to frown. "Isn't he exasperating?" she
said. "The doctor told him he was to take it very easy for at least
another month, and he promised me he would do nothing hard."
They went on towards the thresher, walking delicately among the flinty
stubble, until they reached the edge of the whirling dust. Overhead the
straw was rushing down through a haze of smoke. Below, half-naked men
toiled savagely about the big machine. Steam was roaring from the
engine, for the threshers were firing recklessly, and the thudding clank
of the engine and hum of the clattering mill were almost deafening.
There was a constant passing upwards of golden sheaves, a constant
downward stream of straw, and the dusty air seemed filled with toiling
men and kicking teams.
Then Carrie went forward into the midst of the press, for it was
naturally where the activity was fiercest that she expected to find her
husband. He was with another harvester pitching up big sacks into a
waggon. As a bushel of wheat weighs approximately sixty pounds, it was
an occupation that demanded much from the man engaged in it. She touched
him on the shoulder, looking at him reproachfully when he swung round
and let the bag drop.
"Charley," she said, "you remember your promise?"
The twinkle crept into Leland's eyes. "Oh, yes," he said, "I told you
I'd do nothing hard. When you know the trick of it, this thing's quite
easy."
It did not appear so to Carrie. "Come away at once," she said. "You are
to do no more this afternoon."
Leland made a little whimsical gesture of resignation, but it is
possible that he was not altogether sorry; for, though he had recovered
rapidly since the affair with the whisky boys, his full strength had not
come back, and he had been lifting grain bags for several hours. In any
event, he put on his jacket, and, brushing a little of the dust off his
person, went away with her. They sat down together with Eveline
Annersly, beneath one of the straw-pile granaries that stood in a row
amidst the stubble.
"Aunt Eveline is thinking of going away," said Carrie.
Leland started, and there was no doubt that his concern was genuine.
"Oh," he said, "the thing's quite out of the question. She told me she
was going to stay with us as long as we wanted her."
"I did," said Eveline Annersly. "Still, I really think you can do
without me now."
Both Carrie and her husband knew exactly what she meant, but it was the
latter who had the courage to admit it.
"Madam--" he began.
Eveline Annersly checked him with a smile. "The title has gone out of
fashion, with a few other old-fashioned things you still seem to cling
to in the newest West. I do not like it--from you."
Leland made her a bow that included Carrie. "Well," he said, "Aunt
Eveline--and that, because of the humanity in it, is, perhaps, a finer
title--I'm talking now, and you are going to listen to me. You were kind
to me at Barrock-holme, where I was what you call an outsider, and you
gave me the greatest thing I ever had, or that ever could come to me.
You didn't find it easy. Things were far from promising when you were
half-way through, but you stood by me, and now do you think there is
anything that would be too much for me to do for you?"
There was a little silence. It was the first time the fact that all
three recognised had been put into words, and a faint flush mantled
Eveline Annersly's cheeks. Still, her eyes were gentle, and there was no
doubt that the bond between the little faded lady, upon whom the stamp
of station was plain, and the gaunt prairie farmer, with the hard hands
and the bronzed face, sprinkled with the dust of toil, was a wondrous
strong one. In England it would, perhaps, have seemed incomprehensible,
an anachronism; but amidst the long rows of sheaves he had called up out
of the prairie there was nothing strange in their communion. After all,
it is manhood that counts in the new Northwest.
"Well," she said, quietly, "it was a great responsibility, and there
were times when I was horribly afraid. Still, events have proved me
right, and I think it is the greatest compliment I could pay you when I
say that it was to make Carrie safe I did it."
Carrie said nothing, but there was faith and confidence in her eyes when
she turned them for a moment upon her husband as he spoke again.
"And now you talk of going away," he said. "Aunt Eveline, we want you
here always, both of us. You stood by us through the struggle, for it
has been a hard one this year, and now I want you to share in the result
of it. Oh, I know, in some ways it's a hard country for a woman brought
up like you, but things will be different at Prospect with wheat going
up, and there's one great argument you can't get over--what Carrie
Leland is content with is sufficient for any woman on this earth."
They had just decided that she was to stay, when Sergeant Grier rode up.
He swung himself out of the saddle, and tossed Leland a bundle of
papers.
"I got one or two at the settlement, and Custer asked me to hand you the
rest," he said. "I guess you'll be glad to see that wheat is jumping up.
It seems as if everybody was buying. Still, that wasn't what I came to
talk about."
"You don't want me at the trial of the rustlers' friends?" asked Leland,
impatiently.
Grier laughed. "I guess we'll fix them without you. It's quite easy to
find out things, now the gangs are broken up. I heard from Regina the
other day, and the man who got the bullet in his leg is already doing
something useful--making roads, I think. The other fellow is going out
with the work gang as soon as he's strong enough."
"But if they let them out, won't they run away?" asked Carrie.
"I guess not," said the Sergeant, drily. "They hitch a nice little
weight to their ankles when it appears advisable, and a warder with a
shot-gun keeps his eye on them." Then he turned to Leland. "I want a few
particulars about that last fire you had."
"You'll get them after supper. In the meanwhile there's something Tom
Gallwey wants to talk to you about. Hadn't you better put up your
horse?"
Sergeant Grier appeared willing to do so, for the fare at Prospect was
proverbially good. Presently he moved off to the stables. Carrie then
remembered that she had several matters to attend to. The commissariat
required supervision when there were threshers about. She, however, made
Leland promise that he would do nothing further, and left him with
Eveline Annersly. He turned to the latter with an apologetic smile as he
took up one or two of the papers the Sergeant had brought.
"I'm rather interested in the markets. You don't mind?" he said.
Eveline Annersly said she didn't, and watched him with pleasure as he
glanced at the papers in turn, for it was evident that the news was
reassuring.
"They've got the bears this time--screwed up tight," he said. "Two of
the big men gone under--couldn't get the wheat to cover, and it looks to
me as if there is a bull movement everywhere. I can't remember prices
ever stiffening this way before when the wheat was pouring in, and, if
the bulls can swing the thing over harvest, there's no saying what they
may go to."
"I'm glad you're satisfied," said Eveline Annersly. "Still, your
observations are not very clear to me."
Leland looked at her with a smile. "The fact is that it seems quite
likely I'm going to be comparatively rich. I'm 'most where I stood this
time last year already, and if the market doesn't break away under the
harvest, prices are going up and up. One thing's certain--Carrie's going
to have a month in New York."
He stopped a moment and looked at his companion steadily. "It's rather a
curious thing that, when I suggested she might like a run over to
Barrock-holme, she didn't seem to want to go. And there's another point
that's puzzling me. When I mention the crescent or the pearls, why does
she want to change the subject?"
Eveline Annersly decided to tell him. "The two things go together. It
happens now and then that a woman has to choose between her relations
and her husband. Carrie chose you. Those jewels are, you know, worth a
good deal of money, and, while they belong to her, there is reason for
believing that, unless she had shown herself resolute, Jimmy would have
had them instead. In fact, I have a notion that her father found it
distressingly inconvenient to send them. One can raise money on such
things in England."
A deeper hue crept into Leland's sun-darkened face. "I understand
now--that is, some of it," he said. "It would be better if you made the
whole thing clear."
"Well, there was a time when you were rather hard pressed for a thousand
pounds. Carrie, if I remember, found you a much larger sum. But she
evidently did not tell you where her jewels went."
The man's eyes glowed. When at last he spoke, there was a thrill in his
voice.
"It hurts me, in a way, to think of it--but what does that matter?" he
said. "Her jewels, everything she had . . . when I was in a tight place,
she brought them all to me. . . . It was the two thousand pounds that
saved me. . . . Shall I have time enough to get even with her in all my
life, Aunt Eveline?"
Eveline Annersly smiled reassuringly. "One ought to do a good many
little things in a lifetime, and, after all, it is deeds of gratitude
that please us most."
They went in some little time afterwards. While they sat at supper
together, one of Leland's distant neighbours came in.
"I've ridden straight from the settlement. Macartney had a wire from
Winnipeg just before I left," he said. "Wheat jumped up another cent
to-day."
Leland looked across the table at Gallwey. "Tom," he said, "before I
fell sick, my broker sent along an offer for about half the crop. I
wouldn't sell. But I have wondered once or twice if the other man made
another bid."
"He did," said Gallwey, with a quiet smile. "There were, as you may
remember, two or three weeks when we told you very little, and you
wouldn't have understood anything during the first of them. At the time
everybody round here was anxious to sell--that is, except Mrs. Leland.
By her instructions, I wrote your broker that you meant to hold on to
every bushel."
Leland said nothing, for there were others present, but Carrie felt her
face grow hot when he looked at her. It was also significant that soon
after the meal was over the others seemed to feel they would be excused
if they went out to watch the threshing. Gallwey, whose face beamed,
surmised that the impression was conveyed to them by Eveline Annersly,
though he could not be sure how she had accomplished it.
The dusk came early now, but a full moon was rising above the prairie,
and men still toiled about the big machine, whose hum rang through the
stillness. Loaded waggons lurched through the crackling stubble. Outside
the homestead, Leland sat with his wife, watching them.
"The first wheat we sell will get that crescent back," he said. "The
next will take us for two months to New York. We'll start when the snow
is on the ground, but it will not be like that first drive we had."
There was a curious little tremor in Carrie Leland's voice. "Charley,"
she said, "everything is different now. You have driven out the rustlers
and you have saved your wheat."
Leland laughed.
"That isn't quite what you mean, and, after all, it wouldn't go very far
by itself. The thing that counts the most is that Carrie Leland is
content with her prairie farmer."
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Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the
original text have been corrected.
In Chapter II, "Branscome Denham is usually at his wits' end" was
changed to "Branscombe Denham is usually at his wits' end".
In Chapter VII, "Galgary" was changed to "Calgary" in two places.
In Chapter XXII, "I hadn't meant to memtion it" was changed to "I hadn't
meant to mention it".
In Chapter XXX, "conveyed to them by Eveline Annersley" was changed to
"conveyed to them by Eveline Annersly".
The spelling of some words, such as "depot" and "depot", or "flap-jacks"
and "flapjacks", is inconsistent in the original text.