KIT PLAYS FOR HIS SUPPER
In the morning Kit’s train stopped at a prairie station and he went
along the line to the baggage car. The door rolled back, and when he
jumped on the step a sack plunged out and rolled down the bank. Then a
box crashed on the ballast, and since Kit did not want to be knocked
off he moved along the step. Inside the car a muscular fellow pulled
down a pile of baggage and another waited to throw out the stuff.
Although Kit beckoned, the men did not stop.
“Have you got a small brown steamer trunk?” he inquired.
“We have not,” said one. “Get out of the light!”
“The trunk was loaded up at Montreal——”
The baggage man gave an order to his mate, and they dragged a box to
the door and pushed it from the ledge. In order to avoid a collision
Kit jumped down and when he climbed back his face was red.
“Where is my trunk?”
“Search me! You’re a sticker all right,” the railroad man remarked and
threw a bag as if he aimed at Kit.
Kit thought the next bag might hit him, and he got down. A man from
the office pushed past and, refusing to stop, climbed on board the
car. When the train started he gave Kit a careless glance.
“Are you wanting something?”
“I want my trunk. At Montreal your baggage clerk said I’d get it when
I arrived.”
“Sure!” remarked the agent. “Those fellows do talk like that; it’s in
the company’s folders. Have you got a check.”
Kit pulled out a check he got at Montreal.
“Well,” said the agent, “your trunk’s not on the train. She may come
along in the morning and she may be a week. Depends on your luck.”
He went off and shut his office. Nobody came for the baggage and Kit
sat down on the broken box. The cars had begun to melt into the plain
and the smoke that rolled across the grass got faint. Fifty yards off
a small frame hotel faced the track. The next building was a grocery,
and then six or seven little shiplap houses bordered the wagon trail.
There was no pavement, and the black soil was torn by wheels, but a
few planks went along the front of the houses. By the hotel, two light
wagons and a battered car were in the grass, and on the veranda a man
smoked his pipe. Harper’s Bar was obviously a tranquil spot.
Although the settlement had not much charm, the background pleased
Kit. The prairie was not the monotonous flat he had pictured. The
plain rolled, and the grass was dotted by tall red flowers like
lilies. Ponds shone in the hollows, poplar bluffs checkered the rises,
and at one spot yellow sandhills reflected the sun. A belt of trees,
marking a river, curved about a shallow valley, and in the distance
the green and ocher of the grass melted into ethereal blue.
The landscape was not like an English landscape, for the colors were
vivid and the outlines sharp. Although the sun was hot, a keen wind
rolled white clouds across the sky, and Kit got a sense of
spaciousness and freedom. For one thing, he saw no fences. Only a
skeleton windmill and a wooden homestead, a mile or two off, indicated
that the prairie was not a wilderness.
Kit pulled out his wallet. In England he had reckoned by shillings,
and now he had begun to reckon by dollars; his wad of paper money was
ominously thin. All the same, his last meal was the supper Alison
cooked on board the cars, and he glanced at the hotel. On the whole he
thought he would try the grocery and he crossed the track.
Although the skeleton door was covered by a mosquito net, flies
swarmed about the grocery. Dead flies stuck to the paper traps and
dotted the dusty floor. The room was very hot and Kit sat down on a
barrel. After he had knocked for some time, a man came in. The
storekeeper had no coat and his white shirt was crumpled and soiled.
“I was hoeing up my potato hills,” he said. “The boys expect me to sit
around and be sociable evenings.”
“Can you sell me something to eat?” Kit inquired.
“Crackers?” suggested the other. “Maybe some cheese? I might give you
butter, but you’d want to use a can.”
Kit bought cheese and crackers; and then asked: “How far is the new
bridge?”
“Eight miles. Sometimes a supply train stops at the station tank, but
if you want to ride, your plan’s to hire Cassidy’s flivver. I reckon
he’d take you out for three or four dollars.”
“It looks as if I’d have to walk,” said Kit. “Which way do you go?”
The storekeeper told him and resumed: “You talk like you was from the
Old Country. Are you looking for a job?”
Kit said it was so and the other smiled.
“I was raised in England; the orphanage shipped me out and a whiles
since they put a picture of my store in their little book. Two fellows
loading a wagon at the steps and a big freight train on the track in
front! Thomas Lightfoot, merchant. Another —— boy does well in Canada,
printed at the top. I don’t grumble, but if the boys would pay their
bills, I might do better. Well, the sun is pretty fierce and maybe
you’ll take a drink.”
He went off and came back carrying two glasses of pale green liquor in
which ice floated.
“Good luck!” he said. “I’m a lawful citizen; the stuff’s soft all
right.”
“Thank you! You’re a first-class sort,” said Kit, and drained his
glass, for the lemonade was cold and good.
“If the bridge bosses turn you down, you might go on to Jardine, where
the boys are putting up a tank,” Lightfoot resumed, and looking about
his shelves, gave Kit a small can of fruit. “Another on me! I reckon
it will help your lunch.”
Kit thanked him and started for the bridge. The storekeeper’s kindness
was encouraging, because he had begun to feel that Canada was a
foreign country. He did not know if the Canadians were antagonistic,
but they were not polite. Kit thought the baggage man’s ordering him
to get out was typical, but in a sense perhaps it was logical. The
fellow did not have his trunk and there was no use in talking. Kit
smiled and looked in front.
The trail went up a gentle slope, and where the wheels had torn the
sod the black soil reflected the light as if the stuff was greasy. The
wheel-marks were not straight; they curved about clumps of brush and
sloos where the grass was high. Near the top, a farmer turned the
clods in the summer fallow and dust rolled like smoke about indistinct
horses and sparkling steel.
By and by the soil got lighter and the grass was rather gray than
green. The black stuff was the _gumbo_ in which the wheat plant
thrives, but it looked as if the fertile belt followed the river, and
on the high ground the wheels plowed up sandy gravel. Although Kit had
thought to see homesteads, and fields of wheat rolling in the wind,
Manitoba was yet marked by spaces cultivation had not touched.
After a time he sat down in the grass by a sparkling pond. Behind the
pond was a poplar bluff, and cool shadows trembled on the grass. Kit,
pulling out the cheese and crackers, began his lunch. His violin was
all he carried, he did not know when he would get his trunk, and his
money was nearly gone. Then it was possible the bridge engineers would
have no use for him. Perhaps he had some grounds to be anxious, but he
was not.
The wind and the sunshine banished moody thought. The sky was blue and
to look across the spacious plain was bracing. One saw it melt in the
distance, and the distance called. If he did not get a job, he must
fiddle for his supper, and in the morning he would push on again.
Sometimes in England he had pictured humorously a minstrel’s life, and
now it looked as if the life might be his.
A gopher stole from the grass and plunged into a hole. A flock of
birds flew along the edge of the bluff. They were like English
blackbirds, but their wings were marked by golden bars. Splendid red
lilies dotted the plain, the tossing branches made a soothing noise
and the wind blew away the flies.
Kit opened the fruit can. He had meant to be frugal, but he was
hungry, and the acid currants helped the cheese and crackers. When he
had satisfied his appetite all was gone and he lighted his pipe. He
was not bothered by luggage and when one travelled light one went
farthest. To start with a fiddle and two or three small bills was
something of an adventure. Lying in the grass he smoked and mused.
He pictured Evelyn under the big oaks at Netherhall. Her white dress
cut the shadows and her voice harmonized with the river’s languid
splash. She was serene and graceful, and she carried herself proudly.
One felt the sweep of smooth grass, the flower borders, and the
dignified old house were proper. To see her at the tarn was harder,
and the picture got indistinct. On the bleak moor Evelyn was somehow
exotic, and Kit admitted he could not see her on board the emigrant
ship. When he thought about it, he smiled. To picture Evelyn’s singing
in the third-class saloon was ridiculous.
Kit let it go and pondered tranquilly. On the whole, he thought
temperament rather than circumstances accounted for one’s adventures.
In a sense he was not forced to start for Canada; were he another he
might have taken another line. He was resting by the Manitoba bluff
because he was Christopher Carson and had inherited qualities that
persuaded him to go; he did not see Evelyn in the third-class saloon
because she was Evelyn. Anyhow, it was something like that, but he was
not a philosopher, and he began to muse about Alison.
Although he knew her fastidious, when she cooked supper on the train
and occupied the bench at Winnipeg station, her surroundings did not
jar. One felt shabbiness and dreariness vanished when she was about.
It looked as if she had power to transmute the ugly things she touched
to something fine. Kit wondered whether he was romantic, but he did
not think he exaggerated much.
Yet Alison, so to speak, was not at all remarkable, and when one
speculated where her charm was one did not know. All the same, she had
charm; perhaps it was her frank, thoughtful look, her obvious
sincerity. Kit saw her, tired and forlorn but smiling, on the bench at
the marble waiting-hall; and the emigrants lying drearily about the
flags. Then the train rolled into the station and the passion of the
crowd was roused. Alison clung to him and they fought to reach the
gate. The rails went down, they sped across the platform and he pushed
her up the steps.
Perhaps it was strange, but Kit did not remember all he said.
Something about bracing up and looking in front. Well, he was a fool,
for now he thought about it, Alison had braced him. Anyhow, he kissed
her and the cars began to roll ahead. He wanted to jump on board, but
the train went faster and the lights got faint.... The dim reflections
melted ... and Kit was asleep.
When he looked up, the shadows had moved across the grass and he
pulled out his watch. If he wanted to reach the bridge for supper, he
must start, and picking up his violin case, he set off. The trail
dipped to hollows where the grass was tall, and curved round shady
bluffs. Gophers ran about, and a flock of prairie chickens sprang
noisily from the brush. Sometimes Kit saw a homestead and a belt of
dark green wheat; sometimes he labored across sandhills where stable
litter bound the road. In front the wheel-marks went across the
horizon.
At length a belt of trees began to get distinct and Kit saw smoke. The
smoke trailed far across the grass, and when he got nearer, was
pierced by a shining plume of steam. Hammers beat like chiming bells,
and he heard the musical clash of steel. Kit unconsciously went
faster. Where men hammered iron was the place for him.
After a time he reached a gap in the trees. The railroad pierced the
wood, and on one side the birches and poplars were chopped back. The
trunks lay beside a forking row of rails and Kit smelt sappy wood and
withering leaves. Following the branch track, he stopped at a river.
Log shacks, tents, and two or three iron shanties occupied the high
clay bank, and a wooden bridge carried the line across. A hundred
yards off, clusters of iron columns, strongly braced, broke the muddy
current. Steel girders and a network of tie-rods and wooden platforms
joined the columns to the bank.
Work had stopped and brown-skinned men swarmed about the tin basins on
the benches in front of the bunk-house. The men’s shirts and brown
overalls were stained by grease and clay. Kit thought them an athletic
lot, and he stopped one.
“Is your boss about?” he inquired.
“He’s not,” said the other and started for the washing bench.
Kit got in front of the fellow. “When will the boss arrive? I’m
looking for a job.”
“I sure don’t know. You might see the foreman. He’s by the shack.”
Kit steered for the spot, and the foreman looked at him thoughtfully.
“Are you a blacksmith?”
“I am not, but I can use a forge hammer and sharpen tools.”
“We want a blacksmith,” remarked the foreman, and began to move away.
“Can’t you give me a job of some sort?”
“Nothing doing; we’re full up. You might try the tank at Jardine. It’s
ten miles west,” said the foreman and went off.
Kit frowned. In twenty-four hours all he had eaten was a small can of
fruit and some crackers and cheese. He was young and his appetite was
good; he did not see himself walking to Jardine and waiting for
breakfast. Besides, he might not get breakfast. Then he began to
smile. After all, he might earn his supper by fiddling, and he tuned
his violin.
In two or three minutes a crowd of muscular workmen surrounded the
spot. Kit played Mendelssohn’s “Wings of Song,” but he felt calm and
stately music did not go, and since he did not know much ragtime, he
experimented with Scottish airs. A ranting, clanging reel captured his
audience, and Kit knew he was on the proper track, for he saw long
boots beat the ground and brown hands mark the time. He tried a
Strathspey, but Strathspeys are awkward music, unless one is a Scot,
and he began a Highland chieftain’s march. Then a man came from the
bunk-house and looked about.
“Wha’s playing?” he inquired.
The others indicated Kit, and the man signed him to advance.
“Yon reel was not bad; ye got the lilt and swing o’t,” he remarked.
“Ye cannot play a Strathspey; I dinna ken about the march. In a dance
tune a fiddle’s heartsome, but for real music ye need the pipes.”
“A fiddle has some limitations,” Kit agreed in a sober voice. “Its
line is melody. Where you want volume, perhaps an organ——”
“An organ canna’ beat the pipes,” the other rejoined, and the workmen
began to laugh.
“We like you, Jock, but we want our supper,” said one. “Quit talking
and set up the hash.”
The cook did not turn his head; he studied Kit.
“Ye’ll not have got supper yet?”
Kit said he had not, and the cook pointed to the bunk-house door.
“Ye ken something about music. Come away in.”
“Speed up! We want supper,” shouted the workmen, and the cook and Kit
started for the shack in front of a noisy mob.