The Major Part 10

"He sent you to us," repeated Mrs. Gwynne, offering him her hand.

"Well, I donno but that He steered me to you. But all the same I guess the advantage is to me all right." Mr. Sleighter looked hard down the street, then turned and faced her squarely. "I want to say that it's done me a pile of good to have seen you, ma'am. It's made things look different."

"You are a good man, Mr. Sleighter," she said, looking at him with misty eyes.

"A good man!" Mr. Sleighter was seized with a cough. "A good man! Good Lord, ma'am! n.o.body never found it out but you--durn that cough anyway."

And still troubled by his cough, Mr. Sleighter hurried down the path to the gate and out on to the road.

Once resolved to break up their home in Eastern Canada, the Gwynnes lost no time in completing their arrangements for the transportation of themselves and their household G.o.ds and such of their household goods as Mr. Sleighter advised, to the new western country.

Mr. Sleighter appeared to regard the migration of the Gwynne family to the western country as an enterprise in which he had made an investment from which he was bound to secure the greatest possible return. The principle of exchange which had been the basis of the deal as far as the farms were concerned was made to apply as far as possible to farm implements and equipment, household goods and chattels.

"What's the use of your packin' a hull bunch of stuff West an' my packin' a hull bunch of stuff East. We'll just tote up the stock an'

stuff we have got and make a deal on it. I know all my stuff an' yours is here. We'll make a trade."

To this Mr. Gwynne gladly agreed. The arrangement would save trouble and useless expenditure. Hence the car was packed with such goods as Mr.

Sleighter considered especially useful in the new home, and with such household furniture as the new home lacked and such articles as were precious from family or personal a.s.sociations.

"What about the pictures and curtains?" inquired Mr. Gwynne. "We don't need them."

"Take 'em all," said Mr. Sleighter. "Pictures are like folks. They got faces an' looks. And curtains--my missis got hers all packed. Curtains are like clothes--they only fit them that owns them."

"And the piano?"

"Sure thing. Say, a piano in that country is like the village pump--the hull country gets about it. Take things to eat an' things to wear an'

things to make the shack look pretty an' interestin' and comfortable.

They don't take much room and they take the bareness off. That's what kills the women folk in the West, the bareness inside and outside.

Nothin' but chairs, table an' stove inside; nothin' but gra.s.s an' sand outside. That's what makes 'em go crazy."

So the car was filled with things to eat and to wear, and things "to take the bareness off." Somewhere in the car was found a place for Rosie, the cow, a remarkable milker and "worth her weight in b.u.t.ter," as Mr. Sleighter said, and for Rover, Larry's collie dog, who stood to him as comrade almost as a brother. A place in the car too was found for Joe Gagneau who from the first moment of the announced departure had expressed his determination to accompany Larry no matter at what cost or against whose opposition.

"A'm goin' be in dat car' me, by gar!" was his ultimatum, and the various authorities interested recognised the inevitable and accepted it, to the great delight of both boys. Joe had a mouth organ and so had Larry, and they were both in the same key. Joe too had an old fiddle of his father's on which he could sc.r.a.pe with joy to himself, and with more or less agony to others, the dance tunes of local celebrity, the "Red River Jig," picked up from his father, "Money Musk" and "The Deil Amang the Tailors," the two latter from Dan Monroe at the country dances.

In due time the car, packed with the Gwynne household goods and treasures and in charge of the two superlatively happy boys, with Rosie and Rover to aid in providing them with sustenance and protection, set forth, Westward Ho! Mr. Gwynne rode in the caboose of the train to which his car was attached. Mrs. Gwynne and the girls were to follow by pa.s.senger train and would doubtless be found awaiting them on their arrival at Winnipeg.

The journey westward was to the boys full of interest and adventure.

At Toronto they picked up a stowaway, who, taking advantage of their absence, boarded the car and made himself a bed behind some bales of hay. Upon discovery by Rover, he made so piteous an appeal for refuge from some pursuing terror which he declined to specify, that the boys agreed to conceal him a night and a day till they were well on their way along the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior. When Larry's conscience made further concealment a burden greater than could be borne, Mr. Gwynne was taken into the boys' confidence and, after protest, agreed to make arrangement with the railroad authorities whereby Sam--for that was the stowaway's name--might retain his place in the car.

He was a poor, wretched creature, reminding Larry of the scarecrow which he had put up in their garden the summer before. He was thin beyond anything the boys had ever seen. His face was worn and old and came to a peak at the nose, which gave him the appearance of a monster rat, a resemblance emphasised by the little blinking, red-rimmed eyes. His hair was closely cropped and of brilliant carrotty colour.

But he had seen life in a great city and had gathered a store of worldly wisdom, not all of which was for his good, and a repertoire of accomplishments that won him admiration and wonder from the simple country boys. He had all the new ragtime songs and dances, which he rendered to his own accompaniment on an old battered banjo. He was a contortionist of quite unusual cleverness, while his fund of stories never ran dry throughout the seven days' journey to Winnipeg. He set himself with the greatest a.s.siduity to impart his accomplishments to the boys, and by the time the party had reached the end of the first stage in their westward journey, Sam had the satisfaction of observing that his pupils had made very satisfactory progress, both with the clog dancing and with the ragtime songs. Besides this, he had made for himself an a.s.sured place in their affection, and even Mr. Gwynne had come to feel such an interest in the bit of human driftwood flung up against him, that he decided to offer the waif a chance to try his fortune in the West.

CHAPTER VI

JANE BROWN

Mr. Brown was a busy man, but he never failed to be in his place at the foot of the table every day punctually at half past twelve, solely because at that hour his little daughter, Jane, would show her grave and earnest and dark brown, almost swarthy, face at the head. Eight years ago another face used to appear there, also grave, earnest, but very fair and very lovely to look upon, to the doctor the fairest of all faces on the earth. The little, plain, swarthy-faced child the next day after that lovely face had been forever shut away from the doctor's eyes was placed in her high chair at the head of the table, at first only at the lunch hour, but later at all meal times before the doctor to look at. And it was an ever-recurring joy to the lonely man to discover in the little grave face before him fleeting glimpses of the other face so tenderly loved and so long vanished. These glimpses were to be discovered now in the deep blue eyes, deep in colour and in setting, now in the smile that lit up the dark, irregular features like the sudden break of sunlight upon the rough landscape, transforming it into loveliness, now in the knitting of the heavy eyebrows, and in the firm pressing of the lips in moments of puzzled thought. In all the moods and tenses of the little maid the doctor looked for and found reminiscences of her mother.

Through those eight lonely years the little girl had divided with his profession the doctor's days. Every morning after breakfast he stood to watch the trim, st.u.r.dy, round little figure dance down the steps, step primly down the walk, turn at the gate to throw a kiss, and then march away along the street to the corner where another kiss would greet him before the final vanishing. Every day they met at noon to exchange on equal terms the experiences of the morning. Every night they closed the day with dinner and family prayers, the little girl gravely taking her part in the reading during the last year from her mother's Bible. And so it came that with the years their friendship grew in depth, in frankness and in tenderness. The doctor was widely read beyond the literature of his profession, and every day for a half hour it was his custom to share with the little girl the treasures of his library. The little maid repaid him with a pa.s.sionate love and a quaint mothering care tender and infinitely comforting to the lonely man.

The forenoon had been hot and trying, and Dr. Brown, having been detained in his office beyond his regular hour, had been more than usually hurried in his round of morning calls, and hence was more than ordinarily tired with his morning's work. At his door the little girl met him.

"Come in, Papa, I know you're hot," she said, love and reproach in her face, "because I was hot myself, and you will need a nice, cool drink.

I had one and yours is in here." She led him into the study, hovering about him with little touches and pushes. "You ought not to have taken so long a round this morning," she said with gentle severity. "I know you went out to St. James to see Mrs. Kale, and you know quite well she doesn't need you. It would do in the afternoon. And it was awful hot in school."

"Awful?" said the doctor.

"Well, very exceedingly then--and the kids were very tired and Miss Mutton was as cross as anything."

"It was no wonder. How many kids were there for her to watch?"

"Oh, Papa, you said 'kids!'"

"I was just quoting my young daughter."

"And she said we were to get out this afternoon an hour earlier,"

continued Jane, ignoring his criticism, "and so I am going to take my bicycle and go with Nora and the girls down to the freight sheds."

"The freight sheds?"

"Yes, Larry and Joe have come in, and Rover and Rosie--she's the cow, and they milked her every day twice and drank the milk and they used to have their meals together in the car."

"Rosie, too? Very interesting indeed."

"Now, Papa, you must not laugh at me. It is very interesting. They all came for days and days together in the car from somewhere down East, Ontario, I think. And Mr. Gwynne says they are just like a circus. And they play instiments and dance."

"What, Rosie too? How clever of her!"

The child's laugh rang out joyously. "Oh, Papa, that's awfully funny.

And we're going down on our wheels. Nora can ride now, you know, and she's going to take Ethel May's wheel. It's awfully hard to ride, but Nora's as strong as Kathleen."

"Well, well," said her father, greatly interested in this exciting but somewhat confused tale. "Just wait until I wash my hands and then you shall tell me what it all means. Thank you for this deliciously cool lemonade. It is very refreshing. You will tell me all about it at lunch."

The lunch hour was devoted first of all to disentangling from the ma.s.s the individual members of the car party, which after an adventurous journey across half a continent had apparently made camp at the Winnipeg freight sheds. Then followed the elucidation of the details of the plan by which this camp was to be attacked and raided during the afternoon.

"Now that I have a fairly clear conception of whom Larry, Joe, Sam, Rosie and Rover are--I think I have them right--"

"Exactly, Papa."

"I wish to find out just who are to form the advance party, the scouting party."

"The scouting party? I don't know what you mean. But Nora--you know Nora?"

"Certainly, the little black-eyed Irish Terrier--terror, I mean."

"Oh, Papa, she's just lovely and she's my friend."