A Prairie Courtship

"What did you stop me for? Couldn't you get out of the way?" he asked.

"Why were you driving at that breakneck pace?"

"A jack-rabbit bolted right under Volador's feet. I'll get on again if you'll move your buggy."

Nevis sat still.

"Are you open to earn a few dollars?"

"It depends," replied Thorne, "on what I'm expected to do and whom they're coming from."

"I'm anxious to get hold of somebody who'll drive me to the settlement. This horse is played out."

"In that case I'm not open. I'm too busy."

"I'll give you your own price for your time. It will probably pay you better than – selling mirrors."

Thorne noticed the half-contemptuous stress upon the last words.

"You should have been content with the reason I offered," he retorted. "As you were not, I'll give you another; I'm not a very particular person, but I shouldn't like to touch your money."

Nevis stood up with a laugh of half-veiled malevolence.

"Do you think that kind of thing is wise?"

"I haven't troubled to ask myself the question. I've never been remarkably prudent, and when I saw that you meant to hold me up my first impulse was to drive smash into your buggy. It was only out of regard for the horses that I didn't do so."

"Is there any particular reason for this gratuitous insolence?"

"There are two," explained Thorne. "In the first place, I don't like being stopped on an open trail; and in the next, I've spent the last few days borrowing things for a friend of mine whom you pitched out on to the prairie with his wife and child."

Nevis smiled.

"I might have guessed it was something of that kind. You're rudimentary and haven't the crudest notion of what you have up against you. It would be about as sensible for one of your horses to start kicking because it didn't like your style of driving."

"That," returned Thorne, "is just where you're wrong. I've no complaint against human nature in general or the way this country's run. My dislikes are concentrated on a few particularly obnoxious people who live in it, of whom you're one. You're a discredit even to the profession which you follow."

"It's not as dangerous to the people I deal with as yours is," Nevis retorted.

"We'll let that pass. I've already stopped here talking with you longer than I care about. Will you pull your buggy out of the way?"

Nevis felt a strong inclination to let the buggy remain where it stood. It was galling to be spoken to in that fashion by a wandering pedler, and even more annoying to be left stranded nine miles from anywhere with a worn-out horse; but a glance at the lean, determined face of the man on the driving-seat of the wagon decided him, and he drew his rig aside. Then Thorne looked down again.

"There's one thing you can do, and that's to unyoke the beast and hobble it, and then strike for Taylor's on your feet," he advised. "The walk will probably do you good, if only by convincing you that it doesn't pay to drive a horse to the verge of exhaustion."

He swung his whip, and the team plunged forward down the declivity with the wagon jolting and rattling behind them. Two or three hours later he pulled up in front of Farquhar's homestead, where, as he informed its owner, he meant to stay the night; and when the dusk was closing in he sat with the others on the stoop.

"Did you meet anybody on the trail?" Mrs. Farquhar asked.

"Nevis," answered Thorne genially. "I believe I insulted him. Anyway, I meant to, but he's tough in the hide, and I'm half afraid I wasn't quite up to my usual form."

"But why did you want to insult him?"

"Well," replied Thorne, with an air of reflection, "I think it was his clothes that irritated me."

"His clothes?" Alison broke in.

Thorne turned to her with a smile.

"Yes," he said; "unreasonable, isn't it? Still, you see, the man was so immaculately neat, from his tie, which was a marvel, to his very elegant pointed shoes. I dare say he'll find them most uncomfortable before he has walked nine miles in them."

"But why should that annoy you?"

"If you mean the thought of his limping across the prairie for miles and getting very hot and dusty, it certainly didn't. If you mean his apparel, too much neatness always acts as a red rag on me, and in this case the manner in which he was got up seemed symbolical. It hinted that only the best of everything would content him, and that he meant to get it, no matter what it cost anybody else. There was his horse, for instance, played out, foul with dust, and thirsty – with a creek close by. He'd driven the poor brute almost to death the last few days sooner than cut out a single visit to any one he wanted to see about the creamery."

"We have got to head him off that scheme," declared Farquhar; and his wife joined in again.

"Haven't you some other grievance against him?"

"If another one is needed, there's Langton's case," answered Thorne. "The man's a crank, of course, which is partly why I like him, and he has some eccentric notions about farming; but he has paid Nevis his interest for quite a while, besides buying everything he used from him at double prices, and now the first time the money's not forthcoming he's sold up. Nevis turned him out, with his wife still ailing, and the child."

Mrs. Farquhar started with a flush of indignation in her face.

"It's the first I've heard of it. Why didn't you send us word?"

"Langton's rather out of your district, and the boys have fixed him up. They got a few things together, and he's camped in a tent on Government land. I believe they're going to build him a sod and birchpole house."

"I suppose," interjected Farquhar, "you were somewhere about?"

"That's certain," laughed his wife. "Who went round and got the tent and the other things you mentioned, Mavy?"

Thorne smiled.

"As soon as they heard of it, the boys brought them in."

Alison cast a quick glance at him. He was quite devoid of self-consciousness, and it was evident that he took the thing lightly; but she fancied that there were strong chivalrous impulses in this humorous vagabond which would on due occasion lead him to ride a reckless tilt against overwhelming odds in the cause of the helpless and oppressed. Her heart warmed toward him, as it had done once or twice before, but she said nothing, and it became evident that Mrs. Farquhar shared the thought that was in her mind.

"Mavy," she cautioned, "I'm afraid you'll get yourself hurt some day by doing more than is wise or needful. Nobody could find fault with you for helping Langton, but you should have stopped at that. Insulting men like Nevis just because they dress well, or for other reasons, is apt to lead to trouble."

Then Farquhar broke in, and Alison recognized that he meant to follow his wife's lead.

"It was Langton's misfortune that he wouldn't fall into line," he said. "If he had, he wouldn't have been forced to borrow money from Nevis. For instance, what has the electrical tension in the atmosphere he used to fret about to do with one's harrowing, anyway, unless it brings down rain, and why must he cut his prairie hay two or three weeks after all his neighbors have theirs in?"

"He says he likes it thoroughly ripened," Thorne answered with a laugh. "Still, I can't see why a man should be hounded down because he won't do exactly what everybody else does. What do you think, Miss Leigh?"

"It's rather a pity, but I'm afraid men of that kind generally have to pay," replied Alison. "That is, unless they're very strong and fortunate, and then they lead. What was supposed to be a craze of theirs becomes a desirable custom, and the others humbly copy them."

"And if the others won't?" questioned Farquhar.

"Even then, it's perhaps just as well there are a few men with the courage of their convictions who will couch the lance in the face of any opposition that can be brought against them, and ride right home. There must be something in their fancies, and the stir they make clears the air. Stagnation's unwholesome."

Mrs. Farquhar regarded her severely.

"You shouldn't encourage him. It's quite superfluous. He'd charge a locomotive any day with pleasure," she said.

"Well," laughed Thorne, "you will no doubt be consoled to hear that I've come into line. There are now one hundred and sixty acres of virgin prairie recorded in my name, and I believe a carload of sawed lumber and general fixings will arrive at the station in the next few days. When they do, I'll borrow your wagon and hired man to haul them out, though I'll have to camp in a tent until I get my first crop in."

Farquhar and his wife looked astonished, and both laughed when he gravely reproached them for not believing that he would carry out the project which he had already mentioned. Then the two men strolled away toward the barn together, and Alison was left with Mrs. Farquhar. The prairie was wrapped in shadow now, and a half-moon was rising above its eastern rim. It was very still, and there was a wonderful freshness in the chilly air. Looking out upon the vast sweep of dusky grass, it seemed to Alison that this wide country gave one clearness of vision and breadth of character.

"Does Thorne really mean to turn farmer?" she asked at length.

"It looks as if he does," answered Mrs. Farquhar. "Why shouldn't he?"

"I can't think of any reason," replied Alison. "Still, it isn't what I should have anticipated. What can have influenced him?"

"I have a suspicion that he means to get married. He couldn't expect his wife to set up housekeeping in a wagon, though, for that matter, I don't know whether he lives in the vehicle or camps on the ground beside it."

Alison knew, however, and on the whole she was glad that it was too dark for her companion to see her face clearly. It was, for no very ostensible reason, not exactly pleasant to think of Thorne's getting married at all. The idea of his being willing to contemplate marriage, so to speak, in the abstract, as the men who went to Winnipeg for their wives did, was repugnant to her, and the alternative possibility that he had somebody in particular in view already afforded her no great consolation.

"I suppose he wouldn't have very much trouble if that was his idea," she said with a trace of disdain.

"No," responded Mrs. Farquhar; "there would be very little trouble in Leslie Thorne's case. Whatever that man may lack it won't be the love of women."

It occurred to Alison that there was truth in this. She could even confess that the man's light-hearted manner, his whimsical generosity and his daring appealed to her.

"He doesn't seem to get on very well with Florence Hunter," she said reflectively.

Mrs. Farquhar laughed.

"I think I may tell you a secret which Mavy has never guessed. He could have got on a good deal better with Mrs. Hunter had he been anxious to, and she hasn't forgiven him because he didn't realize it."

Alison started, and a warmth crept into her face, but her hostess proceeded:

"I don't mean very much by that. Mrs. Hunter merely wished to – annex – him; to command his respectful homage, which he was quite ready to pay her as Elcot's wife, though that wasn't quite what she intended. There's an unpleasant streak in that woman's nature."

Alison sat silent a moment or two, for she was forced to confess that this sounded correct.

"But Florence can have no complaint against her husband," she objected. "He seems to indulge her and treat her generously."

"That's half the trouble," was the answer. "Some day she'll wear his patience out, and then he'll take the other way – and they'll get on better afterward. However, that's a matter that doesn't concern us." She paused a moment, with a smile. "Anyway, I'm glad you decided to come to me."

"Thank you," said Alison quietly.

She had never regretted her choice. The work she had undertaken was certainly not what she had expected to do when she came to Canada, and she smiled as she remembered the indignation her mother had expressed concerning it in her last letter; but her duties were not unpleasant, and she was growing fond of the unassuming but very sensible people with whom she dwelt. Their view was narrowed by no prejudices, and they disdained pretense; they toiled with cheerful courage and were as cheerfully willing to hold out an open hand to the stranger and the unfortunate. The latter fact was once more made evident when Farquhar, followed by Thorne, strolled up to the door.

"I think I'll start off at sunup and drive over to see how Langton's getting on," he said. "I couldn't very well be back the same night, but you'll have Miss Leigh with you."

"Of course," assented his wife, smiling. "It was only yesterday that you declared you didn't know how you were going to get through with the sowing. I suppose you'll want to take a few things along with you?"

Thorne produced a strip of paper and handed it to her.

"I can't always trust my memory," he explained.

They went into the house, where a light was already burning, and Mrs. Farquhar glanced at the paper with a smile.

"Well," she said, "I suppose I can manage to let you have about half of what you ask for." Then she turned to Alison. "As soon as he mentioned the matter I expected this."

CHAPTER IX

THE RAISING

One afternoon when the prairie was flooded with sunshine and sprinkled with a flush of tender green, Farquhar drove his wife and Alison up to Thorne's new holding. A tent with loose curtain flapping in the breeze stood on a slight rise, with sundry piles of boards and framed timber lying on the grass about it, while Thorne and a young lad stood beside a fire above which a four-gallon coal-oil can hung boiling. His face was smutted and there was grime on his hands; while near him smoke was issuing from a beehive-shaped mass of soil which Mrs. Farquhar informed Alison was an earth oven.

The girl waited behind a few moments when her companions greeted Thorne, looking about her with some curiosity. An oblong of shattered clods, almost hidden by the fresh green blades of oats, stretched across the foreground, and beyond it there was the usual vast sweep of grass. On one side of the plowed land, however, a thin birch bluff in full leaf straggled up the rise, and a little creek of clear water wound through a deep hollow not far away. The situation, she decided, was an attractive one. Then she glanced at the piles of timber, which seemed to be arranged in carefully planned order, and surmised from the quantity of sawdust strewed among the grass that a good deal of work had been done on it by somebody. There was also a row of birch logs, evidently obtained from the bluff, with notches cut in them, and a heap of thin strips of wood which had a sweet resinous smell. These were red-cedar roofing shingles from British Columbia.

Alison strolled forward and joined the group about the fire.

"It will be a couple of hours yet before the boys turn up; and, considering everything, it's just as well," Thorne was explaining. "Still, the bread ought to be ready, and I'd be glad if somebody would get it out to cool. I want the oven for the chickens."

"Where are they?" Mrs. Farquhar inquired.

Thorne suddenly stooped over the big coal-oil can.

"I was almost forgetting them; they're here. Dave should have fished them out some time ago."

Alison glanced into the improvised cauldron and saw to her astonishment what looked like a mass of bedraggled fowls.

"Oh," she cried, "have you boiled them with their feathers on?"

"Well," replied Thorne, somewhat ruefully, "I certainly didn't mean to. In fact, I put them in to bring their feathers off, though I've hitherto generally done it beneath the blow-down valve of a thrashing engine."

He turned to his young companion.

"Be quick! Fish them out!"

The lad did it with a strip of shingle, and when a number of dripping birds were strewed upon the grass Alison was more astonished still.

"Where have their heads gone?" she exclaimed.

"I'll leave Dave to tell you that; I believe it's his first attempt at dressing fowls," chuckled Thorne. "I just sent his employer word that I wanted chickens, and this is how they were brought."

The lad colored, for he was very young.

"Jackson drove off as soon as he'd told Stepney and me to get them," he explained. "We're both of us just out from Toronto, and we didn't know how to set about the thing." He paused and looked at Alison. "I don't mind admitting that neither of us enjoyed it, but it had to be done."

"I must add that he told me he made Stepney use the ax," laughed Thorne.

"I had to hold them, anyway – and that wasn't very much better," retorted the lad.

Thorne turned to Farquhar.

"You'll have to pluck; I dare say Mrs. Farquhar and Miss Leigh will get out the bread and what crockery there is. The boys will probably bring some plates and things along with them; that is, if they're wise."

He moved away and Alison sat down on the grass and laughed.

"I believe he can cook better than I can, but he's primitive in some respects," she commented. "Shall we all have to use the same things if the boys don't bring the cups?"

"Oh, no," Mrs. Farquhar assured her. "He'll no doubt provide a few old fruit cans. Anyway, you must not expect too much of him. He has been working his fingers off for the last six weeks, and as there has been moonlight lately it's very probable that he has cut himself down to an hour or two's sleep. Perhaps you haven't noticed that it shows on him."

As a matter of fact, Alison had done so. She had seen very little of Thorne for the last few weeks, and now it struck her that his face was leaner and browner than it had been and that there were signs of tension in his eyes. Then she glanced at the strip of plowed land and the piles of timber.

"Has he done all that?" she asked.

"Most of it, anyway. Some of the boys helped him when they could, which wasn't very often. I believe he has done about twice as much as Harry considered possible. I've an idea that Mavy is going to open his neighbors' eyes."

Alison glanced at the empty prairie and wondered where the neighbors lived; but just them Mrs. Farquhar called her to the oven, which she opened with a spade, and they raked out several big and somewhat blackened loaves. After that, they proceeded to the tent and busied themselves laying out the provisions it contained.

It was an hour or two later when the guests arrived in dusty rigs of various kinds and different stages of decrepitude, and Alison noticed that those who were accompanied by their wives and daughters also brought baskets with them. They were evidently acquainted with the limitations of bachelor housekeeping. For the most part, however, the new arrivals were young men, deeply bronzed and wiry, though one, whom they seemed to regard as leader, had a lined face and grizzled hair. He gathered them round him when the horses had been unyoked and tethered.

"Boys," he said, "you haven't come here just for fun, though you're going to get that later. In the first place you have to earn your supper." He turned to Thorne. "Will you send us to our places and tell us what to do?"

"No," replied Thorne; "I'd rather leave the thing to the best man on the ground. I'll take my orders from him and stand in among the crowd."

The elder man made a sign of acquiescence, for he now knew where he stood and etiquette was satisfied. He and Thorne walked round and examined the piles of timber. Then he sent the men to their places; one with a hammer here, two or three with long, steel-shod poles there, another with a saw at a corner, and the rest spread out in a row.

"Now," he directed, "if you're ready we'll get the house on end. The girls are watching you!"

They went at the work with a rush, and the little oblong marked out upon the prairie sod became alive with toiling figures. Tall birch posts rose as by magic, with struggling men thrusting with the long pike-poles beneath them; stringers, plates and ties seemed to fly into place; and Alison, sitting on the grass with Mrs. Farquhar, wondered as the skeleton of the house grew moment by moment before her eyes. She had never thought it possible that a dwelling could be built in a night; but the men were clearly on their mettle, and they worked with an almost bewildering activity. They were on the ground one minute, hauling ponderous masses of timber, and the next climbing among the framing; were standing with one foot on a slender beam, or crawling along another on hands and knees. There was a constant thudding of ax-heads on wooden pegs, a sharper ringing of hammers on heavy nails; curt orders broke through the clatter of boards and the persistent crunch of saws. Still, there seemed to be no confusion. Each man knew exactly what to do, for, though houses are by no means invariably raised in this fashion on the prairie, some of the men had learned their work in the bush of Michigan, and some in Ontario. When the hammers clattered more furiously and the skeleton became partly clothed, there were cries of encouragement from the women.

"Jake will have that plate pinned down before your spikes are in!" called one.

"Are you going to let the boys from across the creek get ahead of you?" protested another.

A third ran forward with both hands full of nails.

"They're catching you up!" she shouted. "Get them in! I can't have the laugh put on my man."

Husband, sweetheart and brother responded gallantly, and the pace became faster still, until at length Thorne shouted and waved his hand.

"We're through. It's time to quit," he said. "You've done 'most twice as much as I ever figured on your getting in to-night."

They had worked willingly, but it was evident that most of them were as willing to stop. Hammers, saws, and axes were flung together, and the men stood in groups, hot and gasping, in the early dusk. Thorne walked up to their leader.

"I can only say 'Thank you!' though that doesn't go far enough," he said. "What makes the thing seem more to me is that I haven't the least call on one of you."

There was a murmur of denial and then they waited until he turned to Mrs. Farquhar, though he addressed the company generally.

"Now," he invited, "I'll ask you to come in and look at my place."

He moved on ahead with Mrs. Farquhar, while the others fell in behind; but it seemed that the selection he had made did not satisfy all of them, for there was a laugh when somebody cried:

"She has got a good man already! It isn't a square deal!"

Then, and how it came about Alison was never sure, though she had a suspicion that her employer must have connived at it, Mrs. Farquhar either moved or was quietly pushed aside, and she and Thorne were left to cross the threshold together at the head of the company. This appeared to please his guests, for there was further laughter when another voice cried:

"It's the first time. Didn't they teach you manners in the old country, Mavy? What's the matter with giving her your arm?"

Alison was conscious of a certain embarrassment, but she moved on quietly and shot one swift glance at Thorne. He was looking up at the beams above him, of which she was glad, for she was wondering whether the others attached any particular significance to the fact that she was the first woman to enter his new house with him. Dismissing the question as troublesome, she glanced about her and saw the roof framing cutting black against the soft blue of the night overhead. The house, she supposed, would eventually contain four rooms, two on the ground floor and two above, and though only the principal supports had been placed in position yet, she once more wondered how the man and his companions had accomplished so much.

"What you have done is really astonishing!" she exclaimed. "I suppose you had everything ready, but even then you are not a carpenter or a builder."

Thorne laughed.

"The fact that I can sell patent medicines to people who haven't the least use for them ought to be a guaranty of my ability to do anything in reason."

"He's not quite right," interposed Farquhar, appearing from behind them. "In a general way, the man who's smart at business is good at nothing else. Most of those who are couldn't hammer a nail in. Anyway, Mavy hasn't the least bit of the true commercial instinct in him."

"Haven't I?" Thorne appealed to Mrs. Farquhar. "Is there another man round here who could start off for a month's drive and sell out most of a wagonload of mirrors and gramophones?"