AFTER HARVEST.
All through those four or five weeks, at every opportunity, the partners
planned the future of their waif. In the harvest-field, when they had a
moment together, one would say to the other:
"We'll let her stay two years if she likes it, eh?"
"Certainly; she needn't come back till she wants to. We may be rich
enough to sell out then, and move back ourselves. I'm gittin' tired o'
this prairie myself. If we could sell, we'd put her through a whole
course o' sprouts."
"You bet! Sell when you can find a buyer. I'll sign the deed."
"All right."
And then they would go to work again toiling and planning for the
future. Every day during August these men worked with the energy of
demons, up early in the morning and out late at night, harvesting their
crop. All day the header clattered to and fro with Bert or Ans astride
the rudder, a cloud of dust rolling up from the ground, out of which the
painted flanges of the reel flashed like sword-strokes. All day, and day
after day; while the gulls sailed and soared in the hazy air and the
larks piped from the dun grass, these human beings, covered with grime
and sweat, worked in heat and parching wind. And never for an hour did
they forget their little waif and her needs. And she did her part in the
house. She rose as early as they and worked almost as late. It was
miraculous, they admitted.
One night toward the last of the harvest they were returning along the
road from a neighboring farm, where they had been to head some late
wheat. The tired horses with down-hung heads and swinging traces were
walking sullenly but swiftly along the homeward road, the wagon rumbling
sleepily; the stars were coming out in the east, while yet the rose and
amethyst of the fallen sun lighted the western sky. Through the air,
growing moist, came the sound of reapers still going. Men were shouting
blithely, while voices of women and children came from the cabins, where
yellow lights began to twinkle.
Anson and Bert, blackened with dust and perspiration and weary to the
point of listlessness, sat with elbows on knees, talking in low, slow
tones on the never-failing topic, crops and profits. Their voices chimed
with the sound of the wagon.
"There's the light," broke out Ans, rousing himself and the team;
"Flaxen's got supper all ready for us. She's a regular little Trojan,
that girl is. They ain't many girls o' fourteen that 'u'd stay there
contented all day alone an' keep all the whole business in apple-pie
order. She'll get her pay some day."
"We'll try to pay her; but say, ol' man, ain't it about time to open up
our plans to her?"
"Wal, yes; it is. You kind o' start the thing to-night, an' we'll have
it over with."
As they drove up, Flaxen came to the door. "Hello, boys! What makes ye
so late?"
"Finishin' up a field, babe. All done."
She clapped her hands and danced up and down.
"Goody! all done at last. Well, yank them horses out o' their harnesses
an' come to biscuits. They're jest sizzlin' hot."
"All right. We'll be there in about two jerks of a lamb's tail in
fly-time. Bert, grab a tug; I'm hungry as a wolf."
It was about the first of September and the nights were getting cool,
and the steaming supper seemed like a feast to the chilled and stiffened
men coming in a little later and sitting down with the sound of the
girl's cheery voice in their ears. The tea was hot; so were the
biscuits. The pyramid of hot mashed potato had a lump of half-melted
butter in the hollow top, and there were canned peaches and canned
salmon.
"Yes: we're about finished up harvestin'," said Bert, as they settled
themselves at the table, "an' it's about time to talk about gittin' you
off to school."
"Don't worry about that. It ain't no great job, I reckon. I can git
ready in about seventeen jiffies, stop-watch time."
"Not if you are goin' away off to some city in the East--"
"Yes: but I ain't, y' see."
"Oh, yes, you are. Bert an' I've be'n talkin' it all over f'r the last
three weeks. We're goin' to send you back to St. Peter to the seminary."
"I guess not, pap. I'd like to know what you think you're a-doin'
sendin' me 'way back there. Boomtown's good enough fer me."
"There, there, Flaxie; don't git mad. Y' see, we think they ain't
anythin' good enough for you. Nothin' too good for a girl that stays to
home an' cooks f'r two old cusses--"
"You ain't cusses! You're jest as good as you can be; but I ain't
a-goin'--there!"
"Why not?"
"'Cause I ain't; that's why."
"Why, don't y' wan' to go back there where the people have nice houses,
an' where they's a good--"
"Well, I don't know enough; that's why. I ain't goin' back to no
seminary to be laughed at 'cause I don't know beans."
"But you do," laughed Bert, with an attempt to lighten the gloom--"you
know canned beans."
"They'd laff at me, I know, an' call me a little Norsk." She was ready
to cry.
"I'll bet they won't, not when they see our new dress an' our new gold
watch--dress jest the color o' crow's-foot grass, watch thirty carats
fine. I'd laugh to see 'em callin' my babe names then!"
And so by bribing, coaxing, and lying they finally obtained her tearful
consent. They might not have succeeded even then had it not been for a
young lady in Boomtown who was going back to the same school, and who
offered to take her in charge. But there was hardly a day that she did
not fling herself down into a chair and cry out:
"I jest ain't goin'. I'm all right here, an' I don't see why you can't
let me stay here. I ain't made no fuss. Seems as if you thought it was
fun f'r me to go 'way off there where I don't know anythin' an' where I
don't know anybody."
But having come to a conclusion, the men were relentless. They hired
sewing-girls, and skirmished back and forth between Boomtown and the
farm like mad. Their steady zeal made up for her moody and fitful
enthusiasm. However, she grew more resigned to the idea as the days wore
on toward the departure, though her fits of dark and unusual musing were
alarming to Anson, who feared a desperate retreat at the last moment.
He took her over to see Miss Holt one day, but not before he had
prepared the way.
"I s'pose things are in purty good shape around this seminary?" he
asked.
"Oh, yes, indeed. There are three large buildings; libraries,
picture-galleries, and music-rooms. The boarding-halls are carpeted and
the parlors are really elegant."
"Uh-hum!" commented Anson. "Well, now, I'm goin' to bring my girl over
to see you, an' I guess it 'u'd be jest as well if you didn't mention
these fineries an' things. Y' see, she's afraid of all such things. It
'u'd be better to tell her that things weren't very gorgeous
there--about like the graded school in Boomtown, say. She ain't used to
these music-halls an' things. Kind o' make her think St. Peter ain't no
great shakes, anyhow."
"I see," laughed the quick-witted girl. And she succeeded in removing a
good deal of Flaxen's dread of the seminary.
"Wal, babe, to-morrow," said Anson, as they were eating supper, and he
was astonished to see her break out in weeping.
"Why don't you keep harpin' away on that the whole while?" she
exclaimed. "Can't you leave me alone a minute? Seems to me you're jest
crazy to git rid o' me."
"Oh, we are," put in Bert. "We're jest lickin' our chops to git back to
sour flapjacks an' soggy bread. Jest seems as though we couldn't wait
till to-morrow noon, to begin doing our own cookin' again."
This cleared the air a little, and they spent the rest of the evening
without saying very much directly upon the departure. The two men sat up
late after Flaxen had gone to bed. There was the trunk and valise which
would not let them forget even for a moment what was coming on the
morrow. Every time Anson looked at her he sighed and tried to swallow
the lump in his throat.
"Say, Bert, let's let her stay if she wants to," he said suddenly after
they had been in silence for a long time.
"Don't make a cussed fool of yourself, Ans," growled Bert, who saw that
heroic measures were necessary. "Go to bed an' don't you say another
word; we've got to take our medicine like men."