LABOUR WITHOUT LOVE OR WAGE
JUST when Dora was resigning herself to the irksome but unavoidable duty
of carrying them about in the saddle; just when she had learned in this
state of her bondage to get from the plains she would cover, carrying
them, that finer sustenance which the soul requires; just when she had
learned to get all the happiness that it is possible to get in a
condition of physical encumbrance and spiritual domination by an
unshakable and hateful will, there came a change. The middle summer went
by and the winds that blew golden waves over oceans of ripe grain
ushered in the harvest season.
When heavy harness was placed upon her body, Queen showed her
displeasure but curbed her impulses. The collar and the hames choked and
oppressed her and the blinders on her bridle tormented and frightened
her. But for something they did which they did not do for her sake at
all, Queen would have fought as hard as she had fought when the saddle
was first placed upon her. They had led her out and tied her to a wagon
wheel between two of three horses and she found herself next to the
little bay mare. A few moments of sniffing noses and Queen would have
endured almost anything rather than be taken away from her old friend
again. She had been harnessed first and Queen was willing to tolerate
anything she tolerated so long as she could be there with her; and the
farmer wondered at the constant whinnying that went on between the two.
All the while, the big horse on the other side of Queen and the big
horse on the other side of the bay mare stood with their heads at the
same level, motionless, like the mere machines that they were, awaiting
orders to move.
They were hitched to a binder and ordered to move and Queen’s nerves
tingled with the strangeness of the situation. Every move she made
resulted in some disagreeable pull and the feeling of being trapped, of
being held in on every side was fast arousing her resentment and the
slumbering desire to rebel. But not only did the weight of the thing
they were dragging subdue that desire, but the horses on both sides of
her seemed to beat into her soul, with the beating of their hoofs, the
utter hopelessness of showing resentment or attempting to rebel.
When they reached the wheat fields, the thing grew many times heavier,
many times harder to pull and the deafening noise it made was
distracting to Queen. But the morning was delightful; the creatures of
her own kind beside her gave her the feeling of having companionship;
and though her muscles found pulling most arduous, they were still fresh
from a night’s rest. When the morning wore along toward noon her
strength was well nigh exhausted and the struggle to keep from going
under, stimulated by the whip, suffused her soul with agony. The day was
hot and her sides dripped with perspiration. The new harness rubbed her
skin in a thousand places and made her very bones ache. The dust of the
fields and the particles of broken straw filled the air she breathed and
settled down in her nose and eyes.
When her aching muscles began to wear out and the pain she felt
frightened her, she tried to lag a bit but the watchful eye of her owner
soon discovered her lagging and there was a threatening cry of “Dora!”
and the long whip came down upon her haunches without mercy.
Noon came at last. Queen limped on her way back home, moving along as if
the other horses were carrying her, seeing nothing before her, feeling
only her agony of soul and body. Painful sores, under rubbing leather
and iron, smarted with the touch of perspiration, and the hard collar
choked her unmercifully. The weight of the harness seemed to be pressing
her to the ground.
Her water she drank at once in great draughts, but her food she did not
touch for some time and though she stood next to the little bay mare all
through the noon-hour she did not turn to her once. Her misery was
overwhelming and in its salty waves she was alone.
Though she had not eaten a full meal, she went back to work just the
same and a thousand times the whip came down upon her back adding pain
as a stimulant, as if she had not experienced pain enough. When at last
the seemingly endless day came to its close and the harness was removed,
leaving red bloody sores with rims of black dirt exposed, Queen lay down
at the feet of the little bay mare and with her eyes closed, lay as if
in a stupor for half the night before she rose to feed her hunger.
Yet when the first few unspeakably torturous days went by, she seemed to
have become more able to endure the torment. The stolidity about the old
sorrel work-horse and other work-horses in Queen’s experience, which she
had so often wondered at in her limited way, now came down like a sort
of mask upon Queen’s head and put a strange dullness into her eyes.
But with the end of the harvest period came the autumn plowing. Had that
been her first experience she would hardly have lived through it. It was
not only harder work to drag the plow, that so often struck the rocks in
its path and fairly pulled them from their feet, but the dust rising in
clouds from under them added to labour and pain the last ounce of
endurable agony. Life to Queen, in its endless repetition of toil and
pain and abysmal discomfort, relieved periodically by a few hours’ rest,
was not only without purpose but without excuse. Queen did not reason
her way to such a conclusion, she just felt; and in this feeling there
was not even the light of illusionary hope. The knowledge that a given
labour will end at a certain time, gave the hope and the courage to her
master which the strange ruling of life denied to Queen.
So Queen lived through the days which she could not know were ever to
end, enduring labour without compensation, getting food and water that
was not as good as that which the wilds had lavishly bestowed upon her.
What it was to lead to, she did not know. She could not even ask. Death
was but a nameless fear and the relief of death was beyond her
understanding. The images of those she had known and loved in her
happier past came back often in dozing moments, coming into her dreamy
vision as imperceptibly as the evening comes into the day; and in going
they left in her soul something that resembled hope. That was all that
life offered her and it was as uncertain as were the whims of the
creatures who dominated and overshadowed her existence; yet never did
she reach a hilltop from which she caught a glimpse of the open prairie
spaces but the hope that freedom would come to her expressed itself like
a hazy light in the dark uncertainty that engulfed her.
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