In the Rush
“OH, if the days were a little longer, what a comfort it would be!”
sighed Bertha, as she hurried to and fro setting out a supper for the
harvest helpers on the veranda.
“So far as you are concerned, I think that it is a pity that they are
quite so long,” said Grace, who could do no more to help in the rush of
work than to tell Bertha when a saucepan was going to boil over. Yet
even that was a help, and Bertha toiled through the hard days all the
more easily for knowing how genuinely sorry for her Grace was.
The wheat was almost all cut. For a week past the binder had been driven
round and round the waving squares of wheat, until now it stood in
stooks ripening in the sun. But to-night a threshing machine had puffed
and panted its way across the uneven trails from Pentland Broads,
drawing behind the engine the various parts of machinery necessary for
sacking the grain and disposing of the straw. While it was at Duck Flats
the men who came with it would have to be boarded, and hence the extra
work which made Bertha long for the days to be more stretchable in the
matter of time.
From morning to night no one thought or talked of anything but wheat,
how it was coming down, how it was ripening in the stooks, and how it
would thresh out. Bertha went even a little further than this, and
dreamed of wheatfields night after night; but they were always covered
with snow in her dreams, just as they had been when she first came to
Manitoba. She had keyed herself up for the extra work of the harvest
time, while Grace from her couch, like a good general, planned the
campaign. Both of them knew that, when the threshing was over, and the
grain had been drawn to the depot at Rownton, the days would be long and
silent, and to a certain extent full of leisure; but if only a few hours
of that future leisure could have been mortgaged for the needs of the
present, how glad they would both have been.
Then one morning Bertha got up with one of the worst headaches that she
had ever known, and was wondering however she would manage to get
through the long, hard day of baking, boiling, and stewing for the
hungry men who were working so hard afield. The numbers were to be
reinforced to-day by a party of neighbours from Pentland Broads and
another engine; so there would be double the number to provide for, and
meals would have to be duplicated, as the men would feed in relays.
“But I must get through, I must,” she said to herself, as she leaned
over a basin of the coldest water she could get, and tried what bathing
her head would do towards lessening the pain.
But the headache was due to overstrain, and it was not a matter of cold
water that was going to cure it. She was still slopping the cold water
on to her face, when she heard a wagon drive past the window and stop
before the door.
“The Pentland Broads lot, I expect,” she said to herself in a languid
tone, and, wiping her face with a towel, she went out to receive them;
for she was not quite sure where Tom was just then, and the second
engine was to work over on the farther section of the Duck Flats land.
Then she saw that there was a little woman seated among the men, and she
gave a glad cry as she recognized Eunice Long.
“Oh, I wonder if you can even faintly guess how glad I am to see you!”
she cried, and suddenly the long, hard day looked as if it might be not
only bearable, but to a certain sense enjoyable.
“That is good hearing. I like to be sure of my welcome when I go
anywhere,” said Eunice, with a laugh, as she submitted to the vigorous
hugging which Bertha bestowed upon her. “But you look about tired out
before the day begins, child! What have you been doing to yourself?”
“I don’t know,” said Bertha, radiant content in her tone. “My head was
aching pretty badly awhile ago, but it is going to get better now that
you have come.”
“I suppose that you were a bit daunted by having so many to feed; but it
is wonderful how easy it is to provide for hungry men. They are certain
to appreciate everything that is set before them, and they are not very
particular, as a rule, provided there is no shortage. What is to do
first? Have you enough bread?” asked Eunice, who was tying on a
businesslike apron.
“I did a big baking of cakes and pies yesterday, as well as bread,”
replied Bertha, opening the pantry door and proudly displaying the
stores within. “In fact, I was making and baking the whole day long; but
there are all the vegetables to get ready, and they will want a great
lot, because it is so hot that they will not be able to eat so much
meat.”
“Then I will set to work on the vegetables straight away,” said Eunice.
“And look here, Bertha, don’t you think that it would be a good thing if
I cooked some of them now, so that there are dishes of cold vegetables
as well as hot? The poor fellows do love cold things when they are
working in the heat and the dust at threshing times.”
“That would be a good idea,” said Bertha, sighing with relief to think
how it would lessen the rush of work later on to have some of the things
cooked now. “I will come and help you, and we can soon have a lot of
them on to boil.”
“No, you won’t,” said Eunice, with decision. “You will just drop
everything and lie down on your bed for an hour and half. I can do
without you for so long, and it will make all the difference to the
comfort with which you can get through the day. Don’t worry about the
time to get up; I will call you, I promise, so you can go to sleep with
a clear conscience.”
“Oh, but it seems too bad to do that when you are here! I want to be
with you all the time,” said Bertha; but her objections to resting were
only half-hearted, and five minutes after she had put her head on the
pillow of her unmade bed she was fast asleep, and did not wake until she
roused to see Eunice standing beside her holding a steaming cup of
coffee just ready for drinking.
“Have I slept too long?” asked Bertha, in alarm, for it seemed to her
that she had been lying there for a very long time.
“No, dear, the time I gave you is barely up yet; but Mrs. Ellis wanted
you to go into her room when you did wake, so I thought that you would
be easier in your mind to be wakened in good time,” said Eunice, who
looked very warm from her active exertions at the stove.
“Isn’t she so well?” asked Bertha, in alarm. Grace stayed in her room
this morning, because that would leave the kitchen a little freer for
all the bustle of feeding that had to be got ready there.
“I think that she is all right; but she had a letter that she wanted you
to see, and you need not hurry her if she wants to talk it out with you,
for I can manage very well for a little longer,” said Eunice, in the
unflurried tone which always made her seem such a restful person.
Bertha jerked her head in token that she understood, but she was
scalding herself too badly with the coffee for speech just then.
Grace had a twinkle of fun in her eyes, for even the tragedy of her
condition could not wholly dim the brightness of her spirit. There was
an open letter fixed in one of her helpless hands, and she was looking
at it when Bertha came in at the door.
“Are you better, poor thing?” asked Grace, who found it so much more
natural to be sorry for other people than for herself.
“Yes, thank you; I feel much more fit now that I have been to sleep.
What have you there? Something that you wish me to read to you?” asked
Bertha, pointing to the letter.
“I think that you had better read it to yourself and tell me what you
make of it,” said Grace, with a low laugh. “It is from your old man,
Tom’s beautiful Uncle Joe.”
Bertha took the letter, but at first was troubled to understand the
queer, crabbed handwriting, which was plainly characteristic of the
writer, then finally this is what she made it out to be—
“DEAR NEPHEW TOM,
“I am sorry that I could not wait to see you on the day a
little while ago when I called at your house. I should doubtless
have made time to come if your wife had held out to me any
reasonable hope that you would be able to lend me money. I will
admit that she offered for me to share your home if my funds
would not keep me in food and shelter. But happily I am not
quite penniless yet, though there is no saying how soon I may
be, unless my luck soon turns. My greatest trouble has been that
I have been openly robbed of some extremely valuable property
that, in view of some recent losses, I had determined to raise
money upon. For months I was unable to track the thief, but, to
my amazement, I came face to face with him a few days ago, and
although he promptly disappeared, I have every hope of running
him down before very long. If I succeed in recovering my
property, I may come to see you some time during the winter or
the spring, for I rather like your wife, although she must be a
very heavy burden to you in your struggle to get on.
—Your affec. uncle,
J. ELLIS.”
“What a horrid letter!” cried Bertha, a wrathful light coming into her
eyes, when she thought how it must have cut Grace.
“Do you think so?” said the invalid, and again there was a twinkle in
her eyes. “Now, I have been lying here pluming myself on the conquest
that I have made; for, just reflect, the poor old fellow says that he
rather likes me, and think what an admission that is, seeing that I am
plainly not a good investment from a money point of view.”
“Is he poor?” asked Bertha, whose lip curled at the thought of the pity
and the care she had lavished on the frail old man who had seemed so
lonely and so friendless. But if he were lonely he had only himself to
thank for it, and a man who would have friends must himself show a
friendly spirit.
“Tom thinks not, although of course he cannot be sure. He says that
perhaps this great loss which seems to be preying on the old man’s mind
may be nothing after all, while, on the other hand, he may have flung
away almost everything that he has got in foolish speculation,” replied
Grace.
“What is he, or what was he? I mean, what was his trade when he was in
business?” asked Bertha.
“Nothing very dignified, I am sorry to say,” answered Grace, smiling
broadly. “He bought old clothes, old furniture, or anything else that
seemed to offer a fair chance of being turned into money again very
quickly. One of his grievances against Tom was that my poor dear refused
to wear secondhand garments just as soon as he could earn the money to
buy something brand new. Have you not noticed how fond Tom is of things
that are quite new?”
“That is not wonderful under the circumstances,” said Bertha, with a
laugh, and then she put the letter back into the fingers of Grace and
hurried out to the kitchen, where Eunice was doing valiant battle with a
great rush of work.
Bowls of peas and beans, great dishes of carrots, turnips, marrows stood
cooling on a side table, while a second lot were steaming away on the
stove, and outside on the veranda the table was already being laid for
the first lot of hungry men to come in and feed.
“I feel so much better, that work is quite a pleasure now,” said Bertha,
as she darted to and fro, filling jugs with lemonade and mint tea,
cutting bread into chunks and piling into little baskets which were
handy to pass about, and seeing that plates and knives and forks were
all in readiness.
“That is good hearing, especially seeing that the work has got to be
done somehow,” said Eunice, who was cutting pies into neat sections, so
that the busy workers should not be delayed by any work of carving the
food. Then she said quietly, “Have you noticed the change in Mrs.
Ellis?”
“What change?” Bertha dropped a whole handful of knives in her alarm and
agitation.
“Nothing to be frightened at, but rather something to rejoice in. She is
going to get better, Bertha, I am sure of it; and if she does, it will
be largely your doing. And oh, my dear, I think that you are to be
envied!” said Eunice, in a moved tone.
“What do you mean? I have done nothing, not for Grace, I mean,” said
Bertha, in a bewildered manner. She was thinking of massage and all the
elaborate rubbings and poundings which Dr. Benson had said would be done
to Grace if she were in hospital, but which the specialist had said were
of no use at the present time.
“My dear, you have done everything for her, for you have given her hope.
She sees you taking hold of things and running the house as well as she
could do it herself, so she gets rest of mind, and nature has a chance,
don’t you see,” said Eunice.
“But what makes you think that she is getting better?” asked Bertha, who
had seen no improvement.
“Her hands are not quite so helpless as they were, and she can move her
head a little. Oh, there is a decided improvement, and though it may
take a couple of years for the paralysis to wear off, just think how the
knowledge that she is getting better will help her.”
Bertha drew a long breath. “It seems too good to be true. Why, to see
Grace getting better would be like—like——”
“Like seeing the prison door come open at the end of a long term of
imprisonment, I think you mean,” said Eunice, with that rare sympathy
which seemed to divine the thoughts without any necessity for words.
“I am afraid that it has been dreadfully wicked to feel like that,” said
Bertha ruefully.
“I think it is very human. After all, we are human at the bottom, you
know, and what is in us will show out under stress of circumstances,”
Eunice answered, with a little laugh, and then the first batch of men
came trooping in for a meal, and for the next two hours there seemed to
be work enough for four people.
The men were desperately hungry, and they fed with the same zest of
endeavour with which they did their work, while Eunice and Bertha
flitted to and fro waiting upon them, filling jugs, dishing vegetables,
and bringing fresh provisions from the pantry, until they could eat no
more. Then in came another batch, the same process was repeated, and so
the long day went on.
The next day brought almost as great a rush, but with no Eunice to help
with the heavy end of the burden. Bertha, however, had got a tiny germ
of hope in her heart now, and it proved a plant of vigorous growth too.
If there was any likelihood of Grace recovering, why, immediately there
was a time limit to her bondage, and she could cheer her heart with
looking forward.
The third day brought Eunice over again, to the great relief of all
concerned; for there was another thresher at work, which meant another
set of hungry men to feed. Then Mrs. Smith, with real neighbourly
kindness, drove over from Blow End and carried off the five children, a
huge relief to Bertha, as with two threshing machines at work it was
extraordinarily difficult to keep the children out of danger.
While Mrs. Smith was loading up the children into her little one-horse
wagon, Bertha put the question which had been on her mind ever since the
day when the standing corn fired and they had to work so hard to put it
out.
“Who was that man you brought over to help fight the fire, Mrs. Smith?”
“Oh, that traveller from Brown & Smedley’s place? I don’t know his name,
but I understood him to say that he was leaving them next day. Nice
fellow, wasn’t he? I liked the way he took hold and did things; there
was no nonsense about him,” replied Mrs. Smith; then, having wedged the
last child in so that it could not possibly fall out, she clambered up
to the driving seat and started with her load, leaving Bertha standing
looking after the wagon.
“Whatever can I do?” she muttered. “How I wish that I had never seen
those horrible stones!”