CHAPTER VII
THE CALL OF THE FARTHER WEST
Notwithstanding Harris's late hours the household was early astir thefollowing morning. At five o'clock Jim was at work in the stables,feeding, rubbing down, and harnessing his horses, while Allan and hisfather walked to the engine, where they built a fresh fire and madesome minor repairs. Even at this early hour the sun shone brightly,its rays mellowing in a sheen of ground-mist that enveloped theprairie, but there is a tang in the Manitoba morning air even inmidsummer, and the men walked briskly through the crisp stubble. Alittle later Beulah came down to the corral with her milk-pails, andthe cows, comfortably chewing where they rested on their warm spotsof earth, rose slowly and with evident great reluctance at herapproach. A spar of light blue smoke ascended in a perpendicularcolumn from the kitchen chimney; motherly hens led their broods forthto forage; pigs grunted with rising enthusiasm from near-by pens, andcalves voiced insistent demands from their quarters. The Harris farm,like fifty thousand others, rose from its brief hush of rest andquiet to the sounds and energies of another day.
Breakfast, like the meal of the night before, was eaten hurriedly,and at first without conversation, but at length Harris paused longenough to remark, "Riles is talkin' o' goin' West."
"The news might be worse," said Beulah. Riles, although a successfulfarmer, had the reputation of being grasping and hard to a degree,even in a community where such qualities, in moderation, were by nomeans considered vices.
Harris paid no attention to his daughter's interruption. It wasevident, however, that his mention of Riles had a purpose behind it,and presently he continued:
"Riles has been writin' to the Department of the Interior, and itseems they're openin' a lot of land for homesteadin' away West, notfar from the Rocky Mountains. Seems they have a good climate there,and good soil, too."
"I should think Mr. Riles would be content with what he has," saidMary Harris. "He has a fine farm here, and I'm sure both him and hiswife have worked hard enough to take it easier now."
"Hard work never killed nobody," pursued the farmer. "Riles is goodfor many a year yet, and free land ain't what it once was. Thosehomesteads'll be worth twenty dollars an acre by the time they'reproved up."
"I wish I was sure of it--I wouldn't think long," said Allan. "Butthey say it's awful dry; all right for ranchin', but no good forfarmin'."
"Who says that?" demanded his father. "The ranchers. They know whichside their bread's buttered on. As long's they can get grazin' landfor two cents an acre, or maybe nothin', of course they don't wantthe homesteader. They tell me the Englishmen and Frenchmen that wentout into that country when us Canadians settled in Manitoba have morecattle now than they can count--they measure 'em by acres, Rilessays."
Breakfast and Harris's speech came to an end simultaneously, and thesubject was dropped for the time. In a few minutes Jim had his teamhitched to the tank wagon in the yard. The men jumped aboard, and thewagon rattled down the road to where the engine and ploughs sat inthe stubble-field.
"What notion's this father's got about Riles, do you suppose,mother?" asked Beulah, as the two women busied themselves with themorning work in the kitchen.
"Dear knows," said her mother wearily. "I hope he doesn't take it inhis head to go out there too."
"Who, Dad? Oh, he wouldn't do that. He's hardly got finished with thebuilding of this house, and you know for years he talked and lookedforward to the building of the new house. His heart's quite wrappedup in the farm here. I wish he'd unwrap it a bit and let it peek outat times."
"I'm not so sure. I'm beginning to think it's the money that's in thefarm your father's heart is set on. If the money was to be madesomewhere else his heart would soon shift."
"Mother!" exclaimed the girl. In twenty years it was the first wordapproaching disloyalty she had heard from her mother's lips, and shecould hardly trust her ears. It was nothing for Beulah to criticizeher father; that was her daily custom, and she pursued it with thewhole frankness of her nature. But her mother had always defended,sometimes mildly chiding, but never admitting either weakness orinjustice on the part of John Harris.
"Well, I just can't stand it much longer," said the mother, theemotions which she had so long held in check overcoming her. "HereI've slaved and saved until I'm an--an old woman, and what better arewe for it? We've better things to eat and more things to wear and abigger house to keep clean, and your father thinks we ought to besatisfied. But he isn't satisfied himself. He's slaving harder thanever, and now he's got this notion about going West. Oh, you'll seeit will come to that. He knows our life isn't complete, and he thinksmore money will complete it. All the experience of twenty yearshasn't taught him any better."
Beulah stood aghast at this outburst, and when her mother paused andlooked at her, and she saw the unbidden wells of water gathering inthe tender eyes, the girl could no longer restrain herself. With acry she flung her arms about her mother's neck, and for a few momentsthe two forgot their habitual restraint and were but naked soulsmingling together.
"It's a shame," exclaimed Beulah at length. "We're not living; we'rejust existing. When I get among people that are really living--likethe Grants, over there--you don't know how mortified and mean I feel.And it's not that alone--it's the sense of loss, the sense that lifeis going by and I'm not making the best of it. You know we aremissing the _real thing_; we are just living on the husks, and fatheris so blind he thinks the husks are the grain itself."
"Your father is hungry, too," said the mother. "Hungry--hungry, andhe thinks that more land, more money, more success, will fill him.And in the meantime he's forgetting the things that wouldsatisfy--the love that was ours, the little devo--Oh, child, what amI saying? What an unfaithful creature I am! You must forget, Beulah,you must forget these words--words of shame they are!"
"The shame is his," declared the girl, defiantly, "and I won't standthis nonsense about homesteading again--I just won't stand it. If hesays anything more about it I'll--I'll fly off, that's what I'll do.And I've a few remarks for him about Riles that won't keep muchlonger. The old badger--he's at the bottom of all this."
"You mustn't quarrel with your father, dearie, you mustn't do that."
"I'm not going to quarrel with him, but I'm going to say some thingsthat need saying. And if it comes to a show-down, and he mustgo--well, he must, but you and I will stay with the old farm, won'twe, mother?"
But the mother's thought now was for quelling the storm in theturbulent heart of her daughter. Beulah's nature was not one to lenditself to passive submission, nor yet passive resistance. She was thesoul of loyalty, but with that loyalty she combined a furiousintolerance of things as they should not be. She had not yet reachedthe philosophic age, but she was old enough to value life, and toknow that what she called the real things were escaping here. Atnight, as she looked up at the myriad stars spangling the heavens,the girl's heart was filled with an unutterable yearning; a sense ofrestriction, of limitation, of loss--a sense that somewhere lay aPurpose and a Plan, and that only by becoming part of that Plan couldlife be lived to the fullest. Her mother was of a different nature,not less brave, but more resigned; content to fill, without question,the niche to which fate assigned her; accepting conditions as amatter of course. Yet at times she had inklings of those deeperquestions which arose in persistent interrogations before her child,and she guessed that if Beulah once became convinced that she saw thePlan, not all her loyalty could dissuade her from following it. Soshe strove to control the sudden outburst in her own heart lest thefire lighted in Beulah's should break forth in conflagration.
"There, there now," she said, gently stroking her daughter's hair."Let us forget this, and remember how much we have to be thankfulfor. We have our health, and our home, and the bright sunshine,and--I declare," she interrupted, catching a glimpse of somethingthrough the window, "if the cows haven't broken from the lowerpasture and are all through the oat-field! You'll have to take Collieand get them back, somehow, or bring them up to the
corral."
Perhaps it was part of the Plan that the diversion should come atthat moment, but the rebellion in Beulah's heart was by no meanssuppressed. Pulling a sun-bonnet upon her head she called the dog,which came leaping upon her with boisterous affection, and hurrieddown the path to the field where the cows stood almost lost in ajungle of green oats. She soon located the breach in the fence, and,with the help of the dog, quickly turned the cows toward it. Butalack! just as victory seemed assured a rabbit was frightened fromits hiding-place in the green oats, and sailed forth in gracefulbounds across the pasture. The dog, of course, concluded that thecapture of the rabbit was of much more vital importance to the Harrishomestead than driving any number of stupid cattle, and darted acrossthe field in pursuit, wasting his breath in sharp, eager yelps as hewent. Whereupon the cows turned outward again, not boisterously norinsolently, but with a calm persistence that steadily wore out thegirl's strength and patience. They would not move a foot toward thepasture unless she drove them; they would move only one at a time; asshe drove one the others pushed farther into the oat-field, and whenshe turned to pursue them the one she had already driven followed ather heels. The sun was hot, the oats were rank, the wild buckwheattripped her as she ran; her appeals to the dog, now seated on a knolllooking somewhat foolishly for the rabbit which had given him theslip, and her commands to the cattle alike fell on unheeding ears.She was in no joyous mood at best, and the perverseness of thingsaggravated her beyond endurance. Her callings to the cattle becamemore and more tearful, and presently ended in a sob.
"There now, Beulah, don't worry; we will have them in a minute," saida quiet voice, and looking about she found Jim almost at her elbow,his omnipresent smile playing gently about his white teeth. "I wasdown at the creek filling the tank, when I saw you had a littlerebellion on your hands, and I thought reinforcements might be inorder."
"You might have hollered farther back," she said, half reproachfully,but there was a light of appreciation in her eye when she dared raiseit toward him. "I'm afraid I was beginning to be very--foolish."
She tripped again on the treacherous buckwheat, but he held her armin a strong grasp against which the weight of her slim figure seemedbut as a feather blown against a wall. The life of the plains hadbred in Beulah admiration for physical strength, and she acknowledgedhis firm grip with an admiring glance. Then they set about theirtask, but the sober-eyed cows had no thought of being easily deprivedof their feast, and it was some time before they were all turned backinto the pasture and the fence temporarily repaired behind them.
"I can't thank you enough," Beulah was saying. "You just keep pilingone kindness on top of another. Say, Jim, honest, what makes you doit?"
But at that moment the keen blast of an engine whistle came cuttingthrough the air--a long clear note, followed by a series of toots inrapid succession.
"I guess they're running short of water," said Jim. "I must hustle."So saying he ran to the ford of the creek where the tank-wagon wasstill standing, and in a minute his strong frame was swaying back andforth to the rhythmic clanking of the pump. But it was some minutesbefore the tank was full, and again the clarion call of the whistlecame insistently through the air. Hastily dragging up the hose, heuttered a sharp command to the horses; their great shoulders socketedinto the collars; the tugs tightened, quivering with the strain; thewheels grated in the gravel, and the heavily-loaded wagon swung itsway up the bank of the coulee.
Meanwhile other things were transpiring. Harris had returned fromtown the night before with the fixed intention of paying an earlyvisit to the Farther West. He and Riles had spent more time than theyshould breasting the village bar, while the latter drew a picture ofrising colour of the possibilities which the new lands afforded.Harris was not a man who abused himself with liquor, and Riles, too,rarely forgot that indulgence was expensive, and had to be paid forin cash. Moreover, Allan occasioned his father some uneasiness. Hewas young, and had not yet learned the self-control to be expected inlater life. More than once of late Allan had crossed the boundary ofmoderation, and John Harris was by no means indifferent to thewelfare of his only son. Indeed, the bond between the two was so realand so intense that Harris had never been able to bring himself tocontemplate their separation, and the boy had not even so much asthought of establishing a home of his own. Harris sometimes wonderedat this, for Allan was popular in the neighbourhood, where his goodappearance, strength, and sincere honesty made him something of afavourite. The idea of homesteading together assured further years ofclose relationship between father and son, and the younger man fellin whole-heartedly with it.
"We'll hurry up the ploughing, Dad, and run West before the harvestis on us," Allan said as they rode home through the darkness. "We canfile on our land and get back for the fall work. Then we will go outfor the winter and commence our duties. The only question is, Canthey grow anything on that land out there?"
"That's what they used to ask when we came to Manitoba," said hisfather. "And there were years when I doubted the answer myself. Someparts were froze out year after year, and they're among the best inthe country now, and never think of frost. The same thing'll happenout there, and we might as well be in the game."
To do him justice, it was not altogether the desire for more wealththat prompted Harris, It was the call of new land; the call he hadheard and answered in the early eighties; the old appetite that hadlain dormant for a quarter of a century, but was still in his blood,waiting only a suggestion of the open spaces, a whiff from dry grasson the wind-swept plains, the zigzag of a wagon-trail streaking afarinto the horizon, to set it tingling again. The thought ofhomesteading revived rich old memories--memories from which thekindly years had balmed the soreness and the privation and thehardship, and left only the joy and the courage and the comradeshipand the conquering. It was the call of the new land, which has ledthe race into every clime and flung its flag beneath every sky, andHarris's soul again leaped to the summons.
So this morning father and son were especially anxious that not amoment of their ploughing weather should be lost, and it wasparticularly aggravating when the hired man's long delay resulted ina bubbling sputter followed by a dry hiss from the injector, warningthe engineer that the water-tank was empty. Allan shot an anxiousglance down the road to the coulee, but the water team was not insight. Seizing the whistle cord, he sent its peremptory summons intothe air. Harris looked up from the ploughs, and the two exchangedfrowns of annoyance. But the water stood high in the glass, and Allandid not reduce the speed, although he cut the link action anothernotch to get every ounce of advantage from the expansion. Down thefield they went, the big iron horse shouldering itself irresistiblyalong, while the ploughs left their dozen furrows of moist, freshsoil, and the blackbirds hopped gingerly behind. But the water wentdown, down in the glass, and still there was no sign of a furthersupply. Allan again cut the air with his whistle, and at length, witha muttered imprecation, he slammed the throttle shut and jumped fromthe engine.
His father ran up from the ploughs. "What do you think of that?" theyounger man exclaimed. "Jim must have had trouble. Bogged, or broke atongue, or something. Never fell down like that before."
"Keep a keen eye on your fire," said Harris, "and I'll go down andsee what's wrong with him." So the farmer strode off across theploughed field. The delay annoyed him, and he felt unreasonably crosswith Travers. As he plodded on through the heavy soil his temper didnot improve, and he was talking to himself by the time he came uponTravers, giving his team their wind at the top of the hill leading upfrom the creek.
"What kept you?" he demanded when he came within a rod of the wagon."Here's the outfit shut down waiting for water, and you--"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Harris--"
"That ain't what I asked you. You can't make steam with sorrow. Whathave you been foolin' about?"
"I haven't been fooling. As to what delayed me--well, you're delayingme now. Better jump on and ride up with me."
"So you won't tell me, eh? You think you
can do what you like with myteam and my time, and it's none of my business. We'll see whosebusiness it is."
Harris came threateningly toward the wagon, but was met only by theimperturbable smile of his hired man. He thrust his foot on a spokeof the wheel and prepared to spring on to the tank, but at thatmoment the horses stirred and his foot slipped. Seeing that thefarmer was about to fall Travers seized him by the collar of hisshirt, but in so doing he leaned and lost his own balance, when theweight of the falling man came upon him, and the two tumbled on tothe grass in each other's arms.
Allan, having satisfied himself that the engine would take no harm,had followed his father, and came over the crest of the ridge abovethe coulee just in time to see Jim apparently strike his employer andthe two struggling on the grass together. In an instant the youngman's hot blood was in his head; he rushed forward, and just as Jimhad risen to his knees he struck him a stinging blow in the face thatmeasured him again in the grass.
It was only for an instant. Travers sprang to his feet, a red lineslowly stretching down his cheek as he did so. Allan came upon himswinging a tremendous blow at the jaw; but Jim guarded skilfully, andanswered with a smash from the shoulder straight on the chin, whichlaid his adversary's six feet prostrate before him.
Allan rose slowly, sober but determined, and for a moment it lookedas though a battle royal were to be fought on the spot, both menstrong, lean, rigid, hard as iron, and quick as steel; Allan angry,careful, furious; Jim calm, confident, and still smiling. But Harrisrushed between them and seized his son by the arms.
"Stop it, Allan; stop, I say. You mustn't fight. Jim didn't hitme--I'll say that for him. Now quit it. As for you" (turning to Jim),"I'm sorry for this, but you have yourself to blame. I'll give youone more chance to answer me--what kept you?"
"I don't choose to answer," was Jim's reply, spoken in the mostcasual tone. His eye was rapidly closing where Allan's blow hadfallen on it, but his white teeth still glistened behind a smile.
"All right," said Harris. "You can go to the house and tell Mrs.Harris to pay you what is coming." And the farmer climbed on to thewagon and took the reins himself.
When Jim entered the kitchen he was received with astonishment byMrs. Harris and Beulah. "Why, whatever has happened?" they exclaimed."Has there been an accident? You're hurt!"
But Jim smiled, and said: "No accident at all. I have merely decidedto go homesteading." And he went up the stairs to pack hisbelongings.