The Homesteaders Part 13

"I explained that I had intended to drop in on them by surprise, but I had had no idea they lived so far from town.

"'Oh, that's not far,' he said. 'Can you ride?'

"Everybody here rides horseback. It's the standard means of locomotion. And the women ride astride. I was a bit shocked at first, but you soon get used to it. But twenty-five miles is different from a romp round the pasture-field, so I said I was afraid not.

"'Arthurs is coming down with the buck-board,' remarked the other man. 'I pa.s.sed him on the trail as I came in.'

"Sure enough, a little later Arthurs himself drew up at the hotel. I wouldn't have known him, but one of the young men pointed him out, and it would have done you good to see how he received me.

"'And you are Jack and Mary's daughter,' he said, taking both my hands in his, and holding me at arm's length for a moment. Then, before I knew it, he had drawn me up and kissed me. But I didn't care. All of a sudden it seemed to me that I had found a real father.

It seems hard to say it, but that is how I felt.

"Well, he just couldn't keep away from me all evening. He showered me with questions about you and father, which I answered as well as I could, but I soon found I couldn't keep my secret, so I just up and told him all. He was very grave, but not cross. 'You need time to think things over, and to get a right perspective,' he said, 'and our home will be yours until you do.'

"We drove home the next day, up a wonderful river valley, deep into the heart of the foothills, with the blue mountains always beckoning and receding before us. Mrs. Arthurs was as surprised and delighted as he had been, and I won't try to tell you all the things she said to me. She cried a little, too, and I'm afraid I came near helping her a bit. You know the Arthurs lost their little girl before they left Manitoba, and they have had no other children. They both seemed just hungry.

"There's nothing so very fine about their home, except the spirit that's inside it. I can't describe it, but it's there--a certain leisurely way of doing things, a sense that they have made work their servant instead of their master. And still they're certainly not lazy, and they've accomplished more than we have. When they left Manitoba in the early days, discouraged with successive frosts, they came right out here into the foothills with their few head of stock.

Now their cattle are numbered in thousands, and they have about a township of land. And still they seem to live for the pure happiness they find in life, and only to think of their property as a secondary consideration.

"Now I really must close. Mrs. Arthurs sends a note, and I'm quite sure it's an invitation. Oh, mother, what could be lovelier! Now don't say you can't. Father has plenty of money; let him hire a housekeeper for a while. The change will do him good.

"Love to you, dearest, and to Allan, if he still thinks of me.

"BEULAH.

"P.S.--I forgot to mention that Jim Travers left Plainville on the same train as I did. He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw me there. I told him I was going West on a visit, but I don't know how much he guessed. Said he was going West himself to take up land, but he wanted to call on some friends first, and he got off a few stations from Plainville. Between you and me, I believe he changed his plan so that the incident--our being on the train together, you know--could not be misunderstood if the neighbours got to know of it.

It would be just like Jim to do that."

With Beulah's letter was a short but earnest note from Lilian Arthurs, a.s.suring the mother of her daughter's welfare, and pressing an invitation to spend the autumn in the glorious scenery and weather of the foothill country. Mary Harris read both letters over again, with frequent rubbing of her gla.s.ses. Love for her daughter, desire to see her old friend once more, and growing dissatisfaction with conditions at home, all combined to give weight to the invitation so earnestly extended. "If I only could!" she said to herself. "If I only could! But it would cost so much."

The dinner was late that day, and Harris was in worse humour than usual. He had just broken a plough-beam, which meant an afternoon's delay and some dollars of expense. When he had started his meal his wife laid the full envelope before him. "A letter from Beulah," she said.

Without a word he rose from the table, took the letter in his hand, and thrust it into the kitchen range. A blue flame slowly cut round the envelope; the pages began to curl like dry leaves in autumn, and presently the withered ghost of the missive shrank away in the dull glare of the coal fire behind.

CHAPTER XI

THE PRICE OF "SUCCESS"

At last the ploughing was finished, and, although the rich smell of wheat in the milk filled the air, it still would be almost a month before the ripening crops were ready for the binder. Harris felt that he could now allow himself a breathing spell, and that the opportunity to investigate the rich lands of the Farther West was at hand. Many nights, while Mary milked the cows, he had walked over to Riles', and the two had discussed their forthcoming venture until they had grown almost enthusiastic over it. Riles, it must be said, was the leading spirit in the movement; although already possessed of sufficient land and means to keep him in comfort through his advancing years, the possibility of greater wealth, and particularly of wealth to be had without corresponding effort, was a lure altogether irresistible. And Harris fell in with the plan readily enough. A quarter of a century having elapsed since his former homesteading, he was now eligible again to file on free Government land; Allan could do the same, and, by also taking advantage of the purchase of script, it was possible to still further increase their holdings. In addition to all this, Riles had unfolded a scheme for staking two or three others on free homestead land: it would be necessary, of course, to provide them with "grub" and a small wage during the three years required to prove up, but in consideration of these benefactions the t.i.tles to the land, when secured, were to be promptly transferred to Riles and Harris. This was strictly against the law, but the two pioneers felt no sense of crime or shame for their plans, but rather congratulated themselves upon their cunning though by no means original scheme to evade the regulations.

Harris found the task of disclosing his intentions to his wife more unpleasant than he would have supposed, and it took him some days to make up his mind to broach the subject. He felt that he was doing what was for the best, and that his business judgment in the matter could hardly be challenged; and yet he had an uncomfortable feeling that his wife would not fall in with his plans. That, of course, would not be allowed to affect his plans; since Beulah's departure nothing but the most formal conversation had taken place in their household; yet it would certainly be easier for him if Mary should give her encouragement to his undertaking. He felt that he was ent.i.tled to this, for was it not for her that he was making the sacrifice? Was not all he had hers? And were not all his labours directed toward increasing her reserve against the rainy day? And yet instinctively he felt that she would oppose him.

It was the evening of a long day in July when, very much to Mary's surprise, her husband took the handle of the cream separator from her. To the sad-hearted woman it seemed that the breach was at length beginning to heal, and that happiness would shortly return to their hearthside. Below the din of the separator she actually found herself humming an old love-song of the 'eighties.

But her happiness was of short duration. When the milk had been run through, and the noise of the whirling bowl no longer prevented conversation, Harris immediately got down to business.

"Allan and me will be leavin' for the West in a day or two," he said.

"I suppose you can get along all right for a few weeks until harvest.

Bill (the hired man) will be here."

In an instant she saw the motive behind his apparent kindness, and the hopes she had just entertained only deepened the flood of resentment which swept over them. But she answered quietly and without apparent emotion: "That's unfortunate, as I was planning for a little trip myself."

"You!" he exclaimed. "You plannin' a trip! Where in the world do you want to go?" Such a thing as Mary going on a trip, and, above all, unaccompanied by himself, was unheard of and unthinkable.

"Yes, I thought I would take a little trip," she continued. "I've been working here pretty hard for something over twenty-five years, and you may say I've never been off the place. A bit of a holiday shouldn't do me any harm."

"Where do you think of goin'?" he demanded, a sudden suspicion arising in his mind. "Goin' to visit Jim and Beulah?"

"I think you might at least be fair to Beulah," she retorted. "If you had read her letter, instead of putting it in the stove, you would have known better."

"I ain't interested in anythin' Beulah may have to say, and any other letters that fall into my hands will go in the same direction. And what's more, she's not goin' to have a visit from any member of this family at the present time. I'm goin' out West to take up land, and Allan's goin' with me. It ain't fair or reasonable for you to try to upset our plans by a notion of this kind."

"It isn't a notion, John, it's a resolve. If you are bound to take up more land, with more work and more worry, why go ahead, but remember it's your own undertaking. I helped to make one home in the wilderness, and one home's enough for me."

"Don't be unreasonable," he answered. "There's a great opportunity right now to get land for nothin' that in a few years will be worth as much or more than this here. I'm ready to go through the hardship and the work for the sake of what it will do for us. We can be independently rich in five years, if we just stand together."

"Independent of what?" she asked.

"Why, independent of--of everything. Nothin' more to worry about and plenty laid up for old age. Ain't that worth a sacrifice?"

"John," she said, turning and raising her eyes to his face. "Answer me a straight question. What was the happiest time in your life?

Wasn't it when we lived in the one-roomed sod shanty, with scarcely a cent to bless ourselves? We worked hard then, too, but we had time for long walks together across the prairies--time to sit in the dusk by the water and plan our lives together. We have done well; we have land, horses, machinery, money. But have we the happiness we knew when we had none of these? On the contrary, are you not worried morning, noon, and night over your work and your property? Don't you complain about the kind of help the farmers have to hire nowadays, and the wages they have to pay? And if you get more land won't all your troubles be increased in proportion? John, sit down and think this thing over. We don't need more property; what we need is a chance to enjoy the property we already have. The one thing we haven't got, the one thing it seems we can't get, is time. Time to think, time to read, time for walks on the prairie, time for sunsets, and skies, and--and kindness, and all the things that make life real.

We have the chance to choose now between life and land; won't you think it all over again and let us seek that which is really worth while?"

"Now I know where Beulah got her nonsense," he retorted. "All this talk about real life is very fine, but you don't get much life, real or any other kind, unless you have the cash to pay down for it. You can't buy beefsteaks with long walks over the prairie, nor clothe yourself and family with sunsets. For my part I want some real success. We've done pretty well here, as you say, but it's only a beginnin' to what we can do, if we set about it, and don't wait until the cheap land is all gone. I don't see why you should go back on me at this time o' life, Mary. We've stood together for a long while, and I kinda figured I could count on you."

"So you can, John; so you can to the very last, for anything that is for your own good, but when you set your heart on something that means more trouble and hardship and won't add one iota to your happiness, I think it is my duty to persuade you if I can. We've been drifting apart lately; why not let us both go back to the beginning and start over again, and by kindness, and fairness, and liberality, and--and sympathy, try to recover something of what we have lost?"

"I have always thought I had been liberal enough," he said. "Didn't I build you a good house and buy furniture for it, and do I stint you in what you spend, either on the table or yourself? More than that, didn't I put the t.i.tle to the homestead in your name? And ain't I ready to do the same with the new homestead, if that's the sticker?"

"I never thought of such a thing," she protested. "And you shouldn't claim too much credit for putting the homestead quarter in my name.

You know when you bought the first railroad land you were none too sure how things would come out, and you thought it might be a wise precaution to have the old farm land in your wife's name."

"That's all the thanks I get," he said bitterly. "Well, I'll take the new one in my own name, but I'll take it just the same. If you don't want to share in it you won't have to. But for the present it's your duty to stay here and run things till we get back."

"What are you going to do after you get your new farm? You can't work two farms a thousand miles apart, can you?"

"Oh, I guess that won't worry us long. The Americans are comin' in now with lots o' good money. I was figurin' up that this place, as a goin' concern, ought to bring about forty thousand dollars, and I'll bet I could sell it inside of a week."

"Sell it?" she exclaimed. "You don't mean that you intend to sell this farm?"

"Why not? If somebody else wants it worse'n we do, and has the money to pay for it, why shouldn't I sell it?"