Harding of Allenwood Part 27

That's where many good farmers fail. Bank your surplus and you get market interest, but nothing for your knowledge and experience. The money ought to be put into new teams and the latest machines, and after that into breaking new land. If you make a profit on two hundred acres, you'll increase it by a third when you break a hundred acres more, not to mention what you save by working on a larger scale. Well, I see what could be done with a united Allenwood where every man worked jointly with the rest, but the settlement needs a head."

"It has one. Colonel Mowbray is not likely to give up his place," Hester answered.

"He may not be able to keep it. There's another claimant--this fellow Davies, and he's not a fool. I can't tell you yet whether I'll make a third. It wants thinking over."

The others did not reply. They agreed that the matter demanded careful thought. After a short silence, Hester changed the subject.

"I saw Mrs. Broadwood to-day, and she told me that Miss Mowbray had gone East for the summer. As she had spoken about staying at Allenwood all the year, Mrs. Broadwood was surprised."

Harding betrayed his interest by an abrupt movement, yet he made no answer. On the whole the news was encouraging. He would miss Beatrice, but, on the other hand, it looked as if she had gone away to avoid him, and she would not have done so had she been unmoved by what he said to her. He regretted that he had driven her away; of course he might be mistaken, but there was hope in the suspicion he entertained.

"Well," he said, after a minute or two, "I'll go along and fix that boiler."

CHAPTER XV

HARVEST HOME

It was a good summer at Allenwood, for the June rains were prolonged.

The mornings broke cool and breezy, but, as a rule, at noon the clouds which had sailed eastward singly began to gather in compact banks. Then would come a roll of thunder and a deluge that might last an hour, after which the prairie lay bright in the suns.h.i.+ne until evening fell. The gra.s.s rippled across the waste in waves of vivid green, with flowers tossing beneath the gusts like wreaths of colored foam. Wild barley raised its spiky heads along the trails, and in the hollows the natural hay grew rank and tall. No sand blew from the bare ridges to cut the tender grain, which shot up apace and belted the prairie with its darker verdure.

Harding found full scope for his energies. He worked late and early in the fierce July heat. He had bought heavy horses because he could not reap by steam, and he had to build barns and stables of s.h.i.+p-lap lumber.

Then there was prairie hay to cut, and after stripping the nearer hollows he must drive far across the plain to seek gra.s.s long enough in the sloos where the melted snow had run in the spring. This brought him into collision with Mowbray, who came upon him one morning driving a mower through dusty gra.s.s which the Colonel had marked down for his own.

Perhaps what annoyed the old man most was to see the American using an extra horse and a knife that would cut a wider swath than any at Allenwood. He thought this a sign of the grasping spirit of the times.

Mowbray contended that the gra.s.s was his, because it had long been cut for use at the Grange; and Harding replied that, as the land was unoccupied, neither had any prescriptive right and the hay could be harvested by the firstcomer. When the Colonel grew angry, Harding yielded the point and suggested that the sloos be mown turn about. To this Mowbray agreed reluctantly, because he saw he could not keep in front of a rival who had with perverse unfairness provided himself with better implements.

After the hay was gathered Harding's new buildings had to be roofed, and when the house grew insufferably hot Hester baked and cooked and washed in a lean-to shed.

In the meanwhile, the grain was ripening fast, and when the riotous Northwest wind began to die away the oats turned lemon and silver, and the wheat burnished gold. The mornings were now sharply cold, and as the green sunset faded the air grew wonderfully bracing.

Harding and Devine had been working steadily for fourteen hours a day, but they must nerve themselves for a last tense effort. After the great crop had been hauled to the elevators there would be time to rest, but until this was done the strain both were feeling must be borne. The new binders were got out when the Ontario harvesters, who had been engaged by Harding's agents, began to arrive, bringing with them a Chinese cook.

Western harvesters are generously fed, and Harding would not have his sister overtaxed.

Soon after he started his harvest, Beatrice returned from Toronto. It was late afternoon when she drew near Allenwood. She was tired with the long journey, but she did not object when Lance made a round which would take them past Harding's farm. He said the longer trail was smoother.

The sun hung large and red on the horizon; the air was clear; and the crimson light raked the great field of grain. In the foreground the stooked sheaves, standing in long ranks, cast blue shadows across the yellow stubble; farther back the tall wheat ran, it seemed, right across the plain, s.h.i.+ning in the sunset like burnished copper. Above the crimson on the prairie's edge the sky was coldly green.

At first it was the magnitude of the field and its glow of color that struck the girl. Harvest scenes were not new to her, and, indeed, she seldom gazed on one without feeling stirred; but she had never seen a harvest like this. It filled her with a sense of Nature's bounty and the fruitfulness of the soil, but as her eyes grew accustomed to the glaring light she noticed signs of human activity. The splendid crop had not sprung up of itself. It was the reward of anxious thought and st.u.r.dy labor, and she began to appreciate the bold confidence of the man who had planted it.

Along the wall of wheat moved a row of machines, marshaled in regular order and drawn by dusty teams. She could see by the raw paint that most of them were new; and, leaning back in her seat, she listened to their rhythmic clink. Noting their even distance, and the precision with which the sheaves they flung aside rose in stooks behind them, she saw that there was nothing haphazard here. The measured beat of this activity showed the firm control of a master mind. No effort was wasted: action had its destined result; and behind this thought she had a half-conscious recognition of man's working in harmony with Nature's exact but beneficent laws. Duly complied with, they had covered the waste with grain. Glancing across it, the girl felt a curious thrill.

The primeval curse had proved a blessing; seed-time and harvest had not failed; and here, paid for by the sweat of earnest effort, was an abundance of bread.

Moved as she was, she had a practical as well as an imaginative mind, and she noted the difference between Harding's and the Allenwood methods. What he had told her was true: her friends could not stand against such forces as he directed.

"It's worth looking at," Lance remarked. "I wanted you to see it because Harding's being talked about just now. I can't explain how he has broken so much ground with the means at his command, but it's a triumph of organization and ability."

"I suppose Father isn't pleased?"

Lance laughed as he flicked up his horses.

"That hardly expresses it. I rather think he regards our friend's industry as a dangerous example; but he's most of all surprised. He fully expected to see Harding ruined."

Just then one of the binders stopped, and its driver raised his hand.

The machines behind swung round him as they came up and fell into line again while he busied himself with his team. A few moments later he mounted a big, barebacked Clydesdale that came at a clumsy gallop through the stubble and pa.s.sed on down the trail.

"It's Harding," said Beatrice. "He must have run out of twine."

"I don't think so," Lance answered. "Harding's not the man to run out of anything. It's more likely a bolt has broken, and he's going for another; he'll have duplicates on hand."

Beatrice did not wish to appear curious about their neighbor, but she asked one or two cautious questions as they drove on.

"Well," said Lance, "though our experiments are not exactly popular, several of us are trying to copy him in a modest way, and I'm glad I let him do some breaking for me by steam. The Colonel was disagreeable about it, but he admitted my right to do as I liked; and the result is that I have a crop partly stooked up that will make it easy to pay Harding off, and leave me some money in hand."

"What do you mean by paying Harding off?" Beatrice asked sharply.

Lance looked confused.

"I didn't intend to mention it--you'll keep it to yourself. I'd got into a bit of a mess shortly before I was hurt at the ravine, and Harding paid up the money-lender I'd gone to in Winnipeg. What's more, he beat the fellow down, so that I only had to account for what I actually got."

"Ah!" said Beatrice. "Now I understand your restlessness when you were ill. But on what terms did Harding lend you the money?"

"He made only one condition: that I wouldn't take another bet until I was free again. Of course, I shall insist on paying him interest.

Harding's a remarkably fine fellow, and I mean to stick to him."

Beatrice felt troubled by the keenness of her grat.i.tude. She was fond of Lance, but she knew his weaknesses, and she saw that Harding had rendered him a great service. Moreover, she thought Lance's admiration for the man was justified. He had turned the lad out of a path that led through quagmires and set him on firm ground; his influence would be for good.

Lance gave her the news of the settlement; and when the lights of the Grange shone out through the creeping dark, everything else was forgotten in the pleasure of reaching home.

Three weeks later, when the thrasher had gone and the stooked sheaves had vanished, leaving only the huge straw wheat bins towering above the stubble, Harding drove to the Grange one evening with Hester and Devine.

He had not entered the house for several months, and felt diffident about the visit, but Lance had urged him to come. The Allenwood Harvest Home was, he said, a function which everybody in the neighborhood was expected to attend. Besides, they had been fortunate in getting a clergyman from a distant settlement to take the service, and he was worth hearing.

The days were shortening rapidly, and when the party reached the Grange a row of lamps were burning in the hall. The moose heads had gone, and in their place sheaves of grain adorned the walls. Between the sheaves were festoons of stiff wheat ears and feathery heads of oats, warm bronze interspersed with cadmium and silver, and garlands of dry, blue flax. All had been arranged with taste, and the new flag that draped the reading desk made a blotch of vivid crimson among the harmonies of softer color. A tall, silver lamp behind the desk threw its light on the ruddy folds, and Harding, glancing at it, felt a certain admiring thrill. That symbol was honored at Allenwood, standing as it did for great traditions, and peace and order and justice had followed it to the West, but it was not for nothing that the new country had quartered the Beaver of Industry on its crimson field.

He was shown a place with his companions, and Mowbray gave him a nod of recognition. Harding felt that the Colonel had proclaimed a truce while they met for thanksgiving. Lance and several others smiled at him as he quietly looked about in search of Beatrice, whom he could not see. The hall was filled with handsome, brown-skinned men, and there was something fine, but in a sense exotic, in their bearing and in the faces of the women.

All rose respectfully when a young man in white surplice and colored hood came in. He had a strong, clean-cut face, and carried himself well, but his manner was quietly reverent. Harding felt that these people from the Old Country knew how things should be done, and he had a curious sense of kins.h.i.+p with them. It was as if he were taking part in something familiar; though this was the first Anglican service he had attended.

A man at the rather battered grand piano struck a few chords, and Harding saw Beatrice when the opening hymn began. She stood a few yards away, but her voice reached him plainly. It was, he recognized, singularly sweet and clear, though he knew nothing of the training and study that had developed it. He could pick it out from the others, and as he listened his lips quivered and a mistiness gathered in his eyes.

Harding was not, as a rule, particularly imaginative or sensitive, but he was capable at times of a strange emotional stirring.

"The sower went forth sowing, The seed in secret slept."

He had heard it sung before, and it had meant little to him, but now he saw how true it was in a stern, practical sense.

"Through weeks of faith and patience!"