The Homesteaders Part 14

The tears stood in her eyes as she answered: "In all these years while we have been building up this home I never once thought of it as something to sell. It was too near for that--a part of ourselves, of our very life. It seemed more like--like one of the children, than a mere possession. And now you would sell it, just as you might sell a load of wheat or a fat steer. Is this place--this home where we have grown old and grey--nothing to you? Have you no sentiment that will save it from the highest bidder?"

"Sentiment is a poor affair in business," he answered. "Property was made t' sell; money was made t' buy it with. The successful man is the one who has his price for everythin', and knows how t' get it. As for growin' old and grey on this farm, why, that's a grudge I have against it, though I don't think I'm very grey and I don't feel very old. And if I get my price, why shouldn't I sell?"

"Very well," she answered. "I've nothing more to say. Sell it if you must, but remember one thing--I won't be here to see it pa.s.s into the hands of strangers." She straightened herself up, and there was a fire in her eye that it reminded him of the day when she had elected to share with him the hardships of the wilderness, and in spite of himself some of his old pride in her returned. "I leave to-morrow for a visit, and I may be gone some time. You reminded me of your liberality a few minutes ago; prove it now by writing me a cheque for my expenses. Remember I will expect to travel like the wife of a prosperous farmer, a man whose holdings are worth forty thousand dollars cash."

"So that's your decision, is it? You set me at defiance; you try t'

wreck my plans by your own stubbornness. You break up my family piece by piece, until all I have left is Allan. Thank G.o.d, the boy, at least, is sound. Well, you shall have your cheque, and I'll make it a big one that it may carry you the farther."

Even in the teeth of his bitterness the mention of Allan's name strained the mother's heart beyond her power of resistance, and she turned with outstretched arms towards her husband. For a moment he wavered, the flame of love, still smouldering in his breast, leaping up before the breath of her response. But it was for a moment only.

Weakness would have meant surrender, and surrender was the one thing of which Harris was incapable. He had laid out his course with a clear conscience; he was sincerely working for the greatest good to his family, and if his wife was determined to stand in her own light it was his duty to pursue the course in defiance of her. So he checked the impulse to take her in his arms and walked stolidly to his desk in the parlour.

He returned shortly and placed a cheque in her hands. She looked at it through misty eyes, and read that it was for two hundred dollars.

It represented a two-hundredth part of their joint earnings, and yet he thought he was dealing liberally with her; he half expected, in fact, that his magnanimity would break her down where his firmness had failed. But she only whispered a faint "Thank you," and slowly folded the paper in her fingers. He waited for a minute, suspecting that she was overcome, but as she said nothing more he at length turned and left the house, saying gruffly as he went out, "When that's done I'll send you more if you write for it."

It was now ten at night, and almost dark, but Harris's footsteps instinctively turned down the road toward Riles'. Riles' reputation in the community was that of a hardworking, money-grubbing farmer, with a big bony body, and a little shrivelled soul, if indeed the latter had not entirely dried up into ashes. A few years ago Harris had held his neighbour in rather low regard, but of late he had been more and more impressed with Riles' ability to make his farm pay, which was as great as or greater than his own, and what he had once thought to be hardness and lack of humanity he now recognized as simply the capacity to take a common-sense, business view of conditions.

At the gate he met Allan, returning from spending a social hour with the grant boys.

"Where going, Dad?" the younger man demanded.

"Oh, I thought I'd take a walk over t' Riles'. There's a lot o'

things t' talk about."

"What's the matter, Dad?" The strained composure of his father's voice had not escaped him.

"Nothin'...I might's well tell you now; you'll know it in a little while anyway...Your mother is goin' away--on a visit."

"Like Beulah's visit, I suppose. So it's come to this. I've seen it for some time, Dad, and you must 've seen it too. But you're not really goin' to let her go? Come back to the house with me--surely you two can get together on this thing, if you try."

"I have tried," said Harris, "and it's no use. She's got those notions like Beulah--quittin' work, and twilights and sunsets and all that kind o' thing. There's no use talkin' with her; reason don't count for anything. I gave her a good pocketful of money, and told her to write for more when she needed it. She'll get over her notions pretty soon when she gets among strangers. Go in and have a talk with her, boy; there's no use you bein' at outs with her, too. As for me, I can't do anything more."

"I suppose you know best," he answered, "but it seems--hang it, it's against all reason that you two--that this should happen."

"Of course it is. That's what I said a minute ago. But reason don't count just now. But you have your talk with her, and give her any help you can if she wants t' get away at once."

Allan found his mother in her room, packing a trunk and gently weeping into it. He laid his hand upon her, and presently he found her work-worn frame resting in his strong arms.

"You're not going to leave us, mother, are you?" he said. "You wouldn't do that?"

"Not if it could be helped, Allan. But there is no help. Your father has set his heart on more land, and more work, and giving up this home, and I might as well go first as last. More and more he is giving his love to work instead of to his family. I bear him no ill-will--nothing, nothing but love, if he could only come out of this trance of his and see things in their true light. But as time goes on he gets only deeper in. Perhaps when I am away for a while he'll come to himself. That's our only hope."

The boy stood helpless in this confliction. He had always thought of difficulties arising between people, between neighbours, friends, or members of a family, because one party was right and the other wrong.

It was his first experience of those far more tragic quarrels where both parties are right, or seem to be right. He knew something of the depth of the nature of his parents, and he knew that beneath an undemonstrative exterior they cherished in secret a love proportionate to the strength of their characters. But the long course down which they had walked together seemed now to be separating, through neither will nor power of their own; it was as though straight parallel lines suddenly turned apart, and neither lost its straightness in the turning.

So he comforted his mother with such words as he could. Loyalty to his father forbade laying any of the blame on those shoulders, and to blame his mother was unthinkable; so with unconscious wisdom he spoke not of blame at all. Presently it occurred to him to think of his mother's departure as temporary only, and with joy he found that she readily accepted the notion.

"Of course, while we are away, why shouldn't you have a visit?" he said. "Here you have been chained down to this farm ever since I can remember, and before. We can easy enough arrange about the cows; and Bill can board with one o' the neighbours, or batch, and you can just have a good trip and a good rest, and n.o.body needs it more. And then, when I get settled on my own homestead, you'll come and keep house for me, won't you?"

"You're sure you'll want me?" she asked, greatly comforted by his mood. "Perhaps you'll be getting your own housekeeper, too."

"Not while I can have you," he answered. "You'll promise, won't you?

Nothing that has happened, or can happen, will keep you from making my home yours, will it? And when Dad gets settled again, and gets all these worries off his mind, then things'll be different, and you'll come, even if he is there?"

"Yes, I'll come, even if he is there, if you ask me," she promised.

Harris did not come back that night. A light rain came up, and he accepted the excuse to sleep at Riles'. The truth was, he feared for his resolution if it should be attacked by both his wife and son.

Surrender now would be mere weakness, and weakness was disgrace, and yet he feared for himself if put to the test again. So he stayed at Riles', and the two farmers spent much of the night over their plans.

It had been decided that they were to leave within the next couple of days, but Harris broke the news that his wife was going on a visit, and that arrangements would have to be made for the care of the farm.

He carefully concealed the fact that Mary was leaving against his will, or as the result of any difference. Such an admission would have damaged him in the estimation of Riles, who would have put it down to weakness. In Riles' code no insubordination should be tolerated from man or beast, but least of all from a wife. He would have found ready means to suppress any such foolishness.

Riles took the suggestion of a few days' delay with poor grace.

"Yes, an' while you're chasing up an' down fer a housekeeper the Yankees get all the homesteads. They're comin' in right now by the trainload, grabbin' up everythin' in sight. We'll monkey round here till the summer's over, an' then go out an' get a sand farm, or something like. Couldn't your wife do her visitin' no other time?"

"I'll tell you, Riles," said Harris, who had no desire to pursue a topic which might lead him into deep water, "you go ahead out and get the lay of the land, and I'll follow you within a week. I'll do that, for sure, and I'll stand part of your expenses for going ahead, seein' you will be kind o' representin' me."

The last touch was a stroke of diplomacy. The suggestion that Harris should pay part of his expenses swept away Riles' bad humour, and he agreed to go on the date originally planned, and get what he called "a bede on the easy money," while Harris completed his arrangements at home.

He was to get "a bede on the easy money" in a manner which Harris little suspected.

When Harris returned home the next forenoon he found that Mary had already left for Plainville. He sat down and tried to think, but the house was very quiet, and the silence oppressed him...He looked at his watch, and concluded he had still time to reach Plainville before the train would leave. But that would mean surrender, and surrender meant weakness.

CHAPTER XII

A WHIFF OF NEW ATMOSPHERE

Riles found the journey westward a tiresome affair. His was a soul devoid of enthusiasm over Nature's wealth or magnitude, and the view of the endless prairie excited in him no emotion other than a certain vague covetousness. It was his first long rail journey in over twenty years, but his thoughts were on the cost of travel rather than on the wonderful strides which had been made in its comfort and convenience.

Riles indulged in no such luxuries as sleeping-car berths or meals served in the diner, and two nights in a crowded day-coach, with such hasty meals as could be bought for a quarter at wayside stations, made the journey a somewhat exhausting one. Back in the observation car, sleek commercial travellers, well groomed and well dressed and enveloped in comfortable self-satisfaction, gravely discussed politics, business or real estate, or exchanged the latest t.i.tbits of wit acc.u.mulated in their travels. Riles probably could have bought and paid for the worldly possessions of the whole group, and have still a comfortable balance in the bank. But a sleeper berth cost the price of two bushels of wheat, and even in a good year Riles' crop seldom exceeded ten thousand bushels.

As fate would have it, Riles selected as the base of his homestead operations the very foothill town to which Beulah Harris had come a few weeks before. He sought out the cheapest hotel, and having thrown his few belongings on the bed, betook himself to the bar-room, which seemed the chief centre of activity, not only of the hotel itself, but of the little town. Men were, lined three deep against the capacious bar, shouting, swearing, and singing, and spending their money with an abandon not to be found in millionaires. Riles was no great student of human nature; he had a keener eye for a horse than a fellow-man, but the motley crowd interested and, in a certain way, amused him. Land-seekers, some in overalls and flannel shirts, some in ready-mades with dirty celluloid collars and cheap, gaudy ties--big, powerful men with the muscles and manners of the horse--and others, lighter of frame, who apparently made an easier and a better living by the employment of their brains; cowboys in schaps and sun-burn and silk handkerchiefs; ranchers, stately English and French stock, gentlemen still five thousand miles from the place of their breeding; lumbermen and river-drivers, iron bodies set with quick, combative intellects; guides, locaters, freighters, land dealers, gamblers, sharks, and hangers-on wove back and forth plying the shuttle from which the fabric of a new nation must be wrought.

Riles debated with himself whether the occasion justified the expenditure of ten cents for a drink when a hand was placed on his shoulder, and a voice said, "Have one with me, neighbour." He found himself addressed by a man of about his own age, shorter and somewhat lighter of frame and with a growing hint of corpulence. The stranger wore a good pepper-and-salt suit, and the stone on his finger danced like real diamond.

"Don't mind if I do, since y' mention it," said Riles, with an attempted smile which his bad eye rendered futile. One of the bartenders put something in his gla.s.s which cut all the way down, but Riles speedily forgot it in a more exciting incident. The man in the pepper-and-salt suit had laid half a dollar on the bar, _and no change came back_. Riles congratulated himself on his own narrow escape.

"You'll be looking for land?" inquired the stranger, when both were breathing easily again.

"Well, maybe I am, and maybe I ain't," said Riles guardedly. He had heard something of the ways of confidence men, and was determined not to be taken for an easy mark.

"A man of some judgment, I see," said his new acquaintance, quite unabashed. "Well, I don't blame you for keeping your own counsel. The rush of people and money into the West has brought all kinds of floaters in its train. Why"--with growing confidence--"the other night--"