THE SHORES OF THE INFINITE
The summer was a season of great activity and development. Harris did
not sow any crop after the 1st of June, but applied himself then to
the construction of his stable, which was built after the same
fashion as the house. The shelter of its cool walls and roof was
gratefully sought by the cows in the heat of the day, and its
comparative freedom from mosquitoes was a haven to the horses in the
evenings. Then there was more land to plough, and Harris's soul never
dulled to the delight of driving the ploughshare through the virgin
sod. There was something almost sacred in the bringing of his will to
bear upon soil which had come down to him through all the ages fresh
from the hand of the Creator. The blackbirds that followed at his
heel in long, respectful rows, solemnly seeking the trophies of their
chase, might have been incarnations from the unrecorded ages that had
known these broad fields for chase and slaughter, but never for
growth and production. The era of the near vision, demanding its
immediate reward, had passed away, and in its place was the day of
faith, for without faith there can be neither seed-time nor harvest.
But it was not only on Harris's homestead that development was taking
place. As McCrae had predicted, there was a considerable movement of
settlers into the district, and at several points their tents or rude
houses now broke the vast sweep of the horizon. Tom Morrison had
found land to the satisfaction of his heart within three miles of the
Harris homestead, and his big log-house, eighteen by twenty-four,
assumed the proportions of a castle by comparison with the smaller
homes springing up around. Some miles to the east Dick Matheson,
straight from the lumber camps of the Madawaski, had pitched his
tent, and a few miles farther on was his friend of the shanties, John
Burton. To the west were the Grants, and to the north Hiram Riles and
his wife, Eliza. A mixed community they were, drawn from many
corners, and all of them more or less under the heel of poverty; but
they were filled with enthusiasm, with resourcefulness, and an
indomitable determination to face and overcome all obstacles. A
missionary had in some way spied out the field, and held monthly
Sunday services at Morrison's house; and Dr. Blain, when not in one
of his unfortunate debauches, had his headquarters at the new town of
Plainville, which consisted of Sempter's general store and a
"stopping-place," and which had sprung up near the junction of two
streams in anticipation of the railway.
None of these pioneers was possessed of a complete farming equipment,
but each had something which his neighbour lacked, and they made
common cause together in their struggle with Nature. Thus Harris had
no mower, but when haying season came he was able to borrow
Morrison's, at the same time lending his plough to Riles, who
simultaneously accommodated Morrison with his hayrack. Among the
women exchanging became something of an exact science. Mrs. Grant was
the proud possessor of a very modern labour-saver in the shape of a
clothes-wringer, as a consequence of which wash-day was rotated
throughout the community, and it was well known that Mrs. Riles and
Mrs. Harris had to do their churning alternately. But it was Mrs.
Morrison's sewing-machine that was the great boon to the community,
and to it, perhaps, as much as the open-hearted hospitality of honest
Tom and his wife, was due the fact that their house became the social
centre of the district.
Nor was the settlement deprived of its share of sport and amusement.
On one of his periodical visits McCrae donated a baseball, and Harris
quickly shaped a bat from the trunk of a stout willow he found by the
river-bed. They had all outdoors to play in, and it was a simple
matter to mow the grass from a stretch of level prairie and turn over
the sod at points to mark the bases. Unfortunately, there were not
enough men in the community to make two baseball teams, but a species
of game was devised in which the players batted in turn, and when not
batting or base-running were always on the "out" side. Harris
developed considerable ability as a pitcher, throwing the powerful
straight ball which in those days was a greater menace to the bare
hands of the catcher than to the batter at the plate. On the occasion
of his monthly visits the missionary, who was an ardent ball-player,
generally contrived to reach Morrison's by Saturday afternoon, and so
was able to take part in the Saturday night game. And although he
never took advantage of his association with the young men to
"preach" to them, except on Sundays, a sense of comradeship sprang
up, and a standard of sport was established which bore fruit in the
community many years later.
And so the first summer wore away and the first harvest was at hand.
Any disappointment which had been occasioned by backward conditions
earlier in the season was effaced by the wonderful crop which now
crowned the efforts of the pioneers. On their finest Eastern farms
they had seen nothing to equal the great stand of wheat and oats
which now enveloped them, neck-high, whenever they invaded it. The
great problem before the settlers was the harvesting of this crop. It
was a mighty task to attempt with their scythes, but there was no
self-binder, or even reaper, within many miles.
Finally Morrison solved the problem for the whole community by
placing an order, at a fabulous figure, for a self-binder from the
United States. It was a cumbrous, wooden-frame contrivance, guiltless
of the roller bearings, floating aprons, open elevators, amid sheaf
carriers of a later day, but it served the purpose, and with its aid
the harvest of the little settlement was safely placed in sheaf. The
farmers then stacked their grain in the fields, taking care to plough
double fire-guards, with a burnt space between, as a precaution,
against the terrifying fires which broke over the prairie as soon as
the September frosts had dried the grass. A community some twenty
miles to the eastward boasted a threshing mill, and arrangements were
made for its use after it had discharged the duties of its own
locality. The machine was driven by horse-power, and in the dawn of
the crisp November mornings the crescendo of its metallic groan could
be heard for miles across the brown prairie. It, too, with its hand
feed, its open straw-carriers, its low-down delivery, which
necessitated digging a hole in the frozen earth to accommodate the
bags, and its possible capacity of six hundred bushels a day, bears
mean comparison with its modern successor; but it threshed grain at a
lower cost per bushel, and threw less into the straw than has ever
been accomplished by the mighty steam and gasoline inventions which
have displaced it.
When Harris's threshing was done he found he had six hundred bushels
of wheat and seven hundred bushels of oats in cone-shaped piles on
his fields. The roads were fine and hard, and no snow had yet fallen,
so he determined to begin at once with the marketing of his wheat.
His last cent had been spent months before; indeed, it had been only
through the courtesy of the storekeeper at Plainville, who was also
postmaster, and who had stretched the law to the point of accepting
hen eggs as legal tender in exchange for postage stamps, that Mary
Harris had been able to keep up the brave, optimistic series of
letters written "home." So Harris decided that he would at once
market some of his wheat. Most of the oats would be needed for his
horses and for seed, and what remained would command good prices from
new settlers the following spring, but some of the wheat must be
turned into money at once. During the latter part of the summer they
had lived exclusively on the produce of their farm; on vegetables
from the garden, fish and ducks from the stream, prairie chickens,
and an occasional rabbit from the fields. The wild geese had deserted
them early in the spring, and returned only after harvest. But now
they should have a change on their table. Mary had accepted the
pioneer fare of the summer without complaint, but of late Harris had
discovered a strange longing in her ryes, and more than once she had
arrested herself in the words "I wish we had--" Then two penitent
little tears would steal softly clown her cheeks, and she would bury
her head in his arms as he soothed her with loving words and promised
that "after threshing things would be different."
So now he set out for Emerson with the best load his horses could
draw. The first few miles he drove in silence, for there was a heavy
weight at his heart as he thought of the little wife alone with the
responsibilities of the farm...That she would be faithful to every
responsibility he knew beyond question...But he was not quite
satisfied. A strange moodiness had come over her, and even with him
at home she had at times given way to fits of downheartedness which
seemed altogether alien to her nature.
But this morning as he drove the well-worn trail, a burnished sun
mounted higher and higher ahead of him, and with it his own spirits
rose until he found himself whistling and boyishly building castles
in the air. But his castles, as he told himself, had solid
foundations; indeed, they were not even speculations, but already
might be accepted as assured accomplishments. Some things he
certainly must do for Mary. First of these was the purchase of a
glass window for the house, and next to that he promised enough
boards for a door, and perhaps enough to floor part of their little
room. Then there should be sugar, and tea, and flour, and warm boots,
and some much-needed kitchen utensils. True, he needed some things
himself, but his needs could wait. And then there were other things.
Oh, he knew what to get. He hadn't been having little conferences
with Mrs. Morrison for nothing...A tender smile gently suffused his
face, and his cheery whistle soared above the rumble of the
wagon-wheels on the hard lumps of the trail.
Ten days later he retraced his course in the teeth of a blinding
blizzard. A dozen times he had been lost in the last forty-eight
hours, but he had developed the prairie-dweller's sense of direction,
and had always been able again to locate the trail. The Arthurs would
have detained him, almost by force, but the thought of a pale,
patient face, wrung with an agony of anxiety not for itself, made him
adamant in his resolve to go home at whatever cost. The roads were
almost impassable; he left his lumber at Arthurs', but carried with
him his window, a few boards for a door, and a little bundle of
drygoods. Everything else had gone by the way, surrendered in
exchange for food and shelter for himself and horses.
It was not dreadfully cold, but the sky seemed only a vast turmoil of
snow. The north-west wind pelted the flakes in his face, where they
melted with the warmth of his skin and again drooped in tenacious
icicles from his eyebrows and moustache. The horses, too, were half
blinded with the storm, and the empty wagon dragged laboriously
through the deep drifts. Darkness came down very early, but at last
Harris began to recognize familiar landmarks close by the trail, and
just as night was settling in he drew into the partial shelter of the
bench on the bank of the coulee. The horses pulled on their reins
persistently for the stable, but Harris forced them up to the house.
His loud shout was whipped away by the wind and strangled in a
moment, so he climbed stiffly from the wagon and pulled with numbed
hands at the double thickness of carpet that did service for a door.
He fancied he heard a sound, but could be sure of nothing; he called
her name again and again, but could distinguish no answer. But at
last the fastenings which held the carpet gave way, and he half
walked, half fell, into the house.
The lantern burned dimly, but it was not at the lantern he looked. In
the farthest corner, scarcely visible in the feeble light, stood his
wife, and at her shoulder was the gun, trained steadily upon him.
"Mary, Mary, don't you know me?" he cried.
She dropped her weapon to the floor, where it went off, harmlessly
burying its charge in the sod wall.
"Thank God, oh, thank God!" she exclaimed.
He threw off his wet overcoat and rushed to her side. But she sat
silent on the bed, staring absently at the light flickering
uncertainly in the wind from the open door.
He hastily rearranged the carpet, then, returning to her, he took her
hands in his and rubbed them briskly. But she still stared vaguely at
the light.
Suddenly a thought came to him. He rushed outside, to find that the
horses, of their own accord, had taken shelter beside the stable.
Here from the wagon he drew a little bundle and hurried back to the
house.
She was sitting where he left her, shivering slightly and watching
the play of the light as it flickered up and down the wall. He tore
the package open and spread its contents before her.
At first she took no notice, but gradually her eyes found the outline
of soft cloth and dainty feminine devices. With a great joy he
watched the colour returning as her set face relaxed in a smile of
ineffable tenderness. She raised her face to his and slipped her arms
about his neck, and he knew that for the moment he had snatched her
out of the valley of the shadow.
Harris made no more attempts to market his wheat that winter. His
wife's health now became his first consideration, but, even had there
been no such problem, experience had shown that nothing was to be
gained by making the long and expensive trip to Emerson. The cost of
subsistence of man and team on the way devoured all the proceeds of
the wheat; indeed, there were instances on record in the settlement
where men who attempted such trips during the winter actually came
back poorer than they left, while those who could show a gain of a
bag of sugar, a sack of flour, or a box of groceries were considered
fortunate indeed.
"What shall we eat?" said Harris to his wife, when, after a full
discussion, it was decided that no more grain could be marketed until
spring.
"Oh, we shall not suffer," was her calm reply. "We have over five
hundred bushels of wheat."
"But we can't eat wheat!"
"I'm not so sure of that. I heard Mr. McCrae say that lots of
families had wintered on wheat. Indeed, boiled wheat is something of
a delicacy. Even the best city families rarely have it, although it
is more nutritious than flour and much easier to prepare."
Harris thrilled with joy over his wife's vivacity. The strange gloom
that oppressed her so much of late had cost him many anxious hours.
"Besides," she continued, "we are well off to what some of them are.
We have a good supply of vegetables, and one of the cows will milk
most of the winter, and we have half a dozen laying hens. Then you
will be able to shoot a rabbit now and again."
"Yes, we'll be all right," he agreed. "Perhaps I will get a day or
two out at the lake. They say there is fine fishing all winter where
some of the springs keep the ice open. And then, there's always a
chance to pick off a deer."
So, in high spirits, they planned for their winter. There were long
hours, and little diversion, and the desolation of bleak, snowbound
prairies on every side, but through it all they kept up their courage
and their hopefulness. Mary spent much time with her needle, from
which John, when he felt she was applying herself too closely,
beguiled her to a game of checkers or an hour with one of their few
but valued books. To supplement their reading matter Mrs. Morrison
sent over her little library, which consisted of "The Life of David
Livingstone" and a bound number of "The Gospel Tribune." And there
were frequent visits and long evenings spent about a cosy fire, when
the Morrisons, or the Grants, or the Rileses, dropped in to while
away the time. The little sod house was warm and snug, and as the men
played checkers while the women sewed, what cared the pioneers for
the snow and the cold and the wind whistling across the plains?
***
At last came the crisis. At four in the afternoon Harris kissed his
wife an affectionate farewell, hitched his horses to the sleigh, and
started out posthaste for Plainville. The sun, hanging low to the
western horizon, was banded by a great ring of yellow and gold,
bulging into two dull reflected glows at either side. A ground-drift
of snow whipped keenly across the hard crust, and the north-west wind
had a rip to it, but overhead the sky was clear and the blue
amazingly deep. Harris drove by way of the Morrisons, where a few low
words sent Tom to the stable at a trot to hitch his own team, while
the good wife bustled about in the "room," almost overwhelmed with
the importance of her mission.
"I will go for the doctor, Jack, and you go back and take the wife
with you," was Morrison's kindly offer, but Harris would not agree.
It was dark by this time, and he felt that he could trust no one else
to make the journey to Plainville. Besides, there was more than a
chance that Dr. Blain might be incapable, and in that case it meant a
drive of thirty miles farther.
"It's good of you, Morrison," he said, "but you are more used to your
wife's'bidding than I am, and you can be of good service there, if
you will." And without waiting to argue he sprang into his sleigh
again and was whipping his team into the darkness.
Dr. Blain, when at home, was to be found at the stopping-place.
Harris tied his team at the door and went in, shaking the snow and
frost from his great-coat. The air inside was close and stifling with
tobacco, not unmixed with stronger fumes. A much-smoked oil lamp,
hung by a wall-bracket, shed a certain sickly light through the thick
air, and was supplemented in its illumination by rays from the door
of a capacious wood stove which stood in the centre of the room, and
about which half a dozen men were sitting.
"Night, Harris," said the landlord, who had a speaking acquaintance
with every settler within twenty miles. "Ye're drivin' late. Ye'll
have a bite supper, an' stable the team?"
"No, Hank, not to-night, thanking you the same. But I'm after Dr.
Blain, and I'm in a hurry. Is he here, and--is he fit?" There was an
anxiety in the last words that did not escape the host.
"Nothin' ser'ous, I hope? Frost, or somethin'?" Then, without waiting
for reply, he continued: "Yes, doctor's here. Upstairs, bed to the
right as ye go up. Just got in a little back. As for fit--dig 'im out
an' judge for yourself."
Harris lost no time in scaling the ladder which led to the upper
half-storey of the building. It was a garret--nothing better--where
the cold stars looked through knot-holes in the poplar shingles, and
the ends of the shingle-nails were tipped with frost. Another
wall-lamp burned uncertainly here, flickering in the wind that
whistled through the cracks in the gables, and by its light Harris
found "the bed to the right." The form of a man lay diagonally across
it, face downward, with arms extended above the head, and so still
that Harris paused for a moment in a strange alarm. Then he slipped
his hand on the doctor's neck and found it warm.
"Come, Doctor," he said, "I want you with me." But the sleeping man
answered with not so much as a groan.
"Come, Dr. Blain," Harris repeated, shaking him soundly. "I want you
to go home with me." He might have been speaking to the dead.
In sudden exasperation he seized the doctor by the shoulders, and
with one heave of his mighty arms set him upright on the floor and
shook him vigorously.
Dr. Blain opened his eyes and blinked uncertainly at the light.
"Whatche doing, Harris?" he said at length, and the recognition
brought a thrill of hope. "'S no use...Gotta sleep it off. 'S no use,
Harris. 'S no use." And he crumpled up in the bed.
But Harris was desperate. "Now I'm not going to fool with you," he
said. "You get up and come with me or I'll take you. Which is it?"
But the doctor only mumbled "'S no use," and fell heavily to sleep.
Throwing open his coat to get free motion for his arms, Harris in a
moment wrapped the sleeping man in a couple of blankets from the bed,
threw him over his shoulder, carried him down the rickety ladder, and
deposited him, none too gently, in the sleigh. There was a mild cheer
from the men about the stove over these heroic measures, and one of
them thoughtfully threw the doctor's satchel into the sleigh. The
next moment all were lost in the darkness.
Harris drove for an hour, watching the trail keenly in the whitish
mist of the winter's night, and urging the horses to the limit of
their exertions. He had almost forgotten his passenger when he felt a
stir in the bottom of the sleigh. Looking down closely he found the
doctor trying to extricate a flask from one of his pockets. With a
quick wrench he took it from him, and would have thrown it into the
snow, but the thought struck him that it might be needed, and he put
it into his own pocket.
The doctor struggled to his feet. "Say, Harris, you're friend o'
mine, but don't take too many liberties, see? 'S no use tryin'
without it. Jush give me that bottle now, or I'll get out an' go
home."
Harris was so pleased at the signs of returning coherence that he
could have hugged the doctor, but he only said, "You've had enough
for to-night. And you won't get out, because if you try to I'll knock
you senseless in the bottom of the sleigh."
Then the doctor changed his tactics. He threw his arms about Harris's
neck, and genuine tears coursed down his cheeks.
"Say, Harris, you don' know anything about it. You don' know what I'm
up agains'. Jush got in from Wakopa to-day, and I haven't had my
closh off for week. 'S right! I tell you, Harris, you don' know...Oh,
I know I'm a fool--yes, don' tell me. But th' engineer knows it too
when he ties down th' shafety valve t' make th' grade. Dosh it jush
th' same. Thash jus' like me. Come on, Harris, hand it over. I got t'
have it, or I can't make the grade."
"Well, you'll make the grade first to-night," said Harris.
After that the doctor remained silent for some time. Then suddenly he
demanded: "Shay, Harris, where you takin' me to, anyway?"
"I'm taking you home."
"Home? What home? I got no home, jus'a--"
"I'm taking you to my home."
"Wha' for? You're all right, I guess..." Suddenly the doctor stood
erect. "Harris, is your wife sick?"
"That's why I came for you."
"Well, why the devil didn't you say so? Here, give me that whip.
Harris, Harris, what did you waste time arguing for?"
"I didn't waste much. The argument was mostly on your side."
"Harris," said the doctor, after a long silence, "you think I'm a
fool. You're right. It isn't as though I didn't know. I know the road
I'm going, and the end thereof... And yet, in a pinch, I can pull
myself together. I'm all right now. But it'll get me again as soon as
this is over... Any good I am, any good I do, is just a bit of
salvage out of the wreck. The wreck--yes, it's a good word
that--wreck."
***
Just as the dawn was breaking he knelt beside her. Her eyes were very
large and quiet, and her face was white and still. But she raised one
pale hand, and the thin fingers fondled in his hair. She drew his
face very gently down, and big silent tears stood in his eyes.
"We will call him Allan," he said.