The Major Part 19

"Halt!" cried Nora, springing to her feet. "But seriously, Mother dear, I think we can weather this winter right enough. Our food supply is practically visible. We have oats enough for man and beast, a couple of pigs to kill, a steer also, not to speak of chickens and ducks. We shall have some cattle to sell, and if our crops are good we ought to be able to pay off those notes. Oh, why will Dad buy machinery?"

"My dear," said her mother with gentle reproach, "your father says machinery is cheaper than men and we really cannot do without machines."

"That's all right, Mother. I'm not criticising father. He is a perfect dear and I am awfully glad he has got that Inspectorship."

"Yes," replied her mother, "your father is suited to his new work and likes it. And Larry will be finishing his college this year, I think.

And he has earned it too," continued the mother. "When I think of all he has done and how generously he has turned his salary into the family fund, and how often he has been disappointed--" Here her voice trembled a little.

Nora dropped quickly to her knees, taking her mother in her arms. "Don't we all know, Mother, what he has done? Shall I ever forget those first two awful years, the winter mornings when he had to get up before daylight to get the house warm, and that awful school. Every day he had to face it, rain, sleet, or forty below. How often I have watched him in the school, always so white and tired. But he never gave up. He just would not give up. And when those big boys were unruly--I could have killed those boys--he would always keep his temper and joke and jolly them into good order. And all the time I knew how terribly his head was aching. What are you sniffling about, Kate?"

"I think it was splendid, just splendid, Nora," cried Kathleen, swiftly wiping away her tears. "But I can't help crying, it was all so terrible.

He never thought of himself, and year after year he gave up his money--"

"h.e.l.lo!" cried a voice at the door. "Who gave up his money and to whom and is there any more around?" His eye glanced around the group. "What's up, people? Mummie, are these girls behaving badly? Let me catch them at it!" The youth stood smiling down upon them. His years in the West had done much for him. He was still slight, but though his face was pale and his body thin, his movements suggested muscular strength and sound health. He had not grown handsome. His features were irregular, mouth wide, cheek bones prominent, ears large; yet withal there was a singular attractiveness about his appearance and manner. His eyes were good; grey-blue, humorous, straight-looking eyes they were, deep set under overhanging brows, and with a whimsical humour ever lingering about them; over the eyes a fore-head, broad, suggesting intellect, and set off by heavy, waving, dark hair.

"Who gave his money? I insist upon knowing. No reply, eh? I have evidently come upon a deep and deadly plot. Mother?--no use asking you.

Kathleen, out with it."

"You gave your money," burst forth Nora in a kind of pa.s.sion as she flew at him, "and everything else. But now that's all over. You are going to finish your college course this year, that's what."

"Oh, that's it, eh? I knew there was some women's scheme afloat.

Well, children," said the youth, waving his hand over them in paternal benediction, "since this thing is up we might as well settle it 'right here and n-a-o-w,' as our American friend, Mr. Ralph Waldo Farwell, would say, and a decent sort he is too. I have thought this all out.

Why should not a man gifted with a truly great brain replete with grey matter (again in the style of the aforesaid Farwell) do the thinking for his wimmin folk? Why not? Hence the problem is already solved. The result is hereby submitted, not for discussion but for acceptance, for acceptance you understand, to-wit and namely, as Dad's J. P. law books have it: I shall continue the school another year."

"You shan't," shouted Nora, seizing him by the arm and shaking him with all the strength of her vigorous young body.

"Larry, dear!" said his mother.

"Oh, Larry!" exclaimed Kathleen.

"We shall then be able to pay off all our indebtedness," continued Larry, ignoring their protests, "and that is a most important achievement. This new job of Dad's means an addition to our income. The farm management will remain in the present capable hands. No, Miss Nora, I am not thinking of the boss, but of the head, the general manager."

He waved his hand toward his mother. "The only change will be in the foreman. A new appointment will be made, one who will bring to her task not only experience and with it a practical knowledge, but the advantage of intellectual discipline recently acquired at a famous educational centre; and the whole concern will go on with its usual verve, swing, snap, toward another year's success. Then next year me for the giddy lights of the metropolitan city and the sacred halls of learning."

"And me," said Nora, "what does your high mightiness plan for me this winter, pray?"

"Not quite so much truculence, young lady," replied her brother. "For you, the wide, wide world, a visit to the seat of light and learning already referred to, namely, Winnipeg."

For one single moment Nora looked at him. Then, throwing back her head, she said with unsteady voice: "Not this time, old boy. One man can lead a horse to water but ten cannot make him drink, and you may as well understand now as later that this continual postponement of your college career is about to cease. We have settled it otherwise. Kathleen will take your school--an awful drop for the kids, but what joy for the big boys. She and I will read together in the evenings. The farm will go on.

Sam and Joe are really very good and steady; Joe at least, and Sam most of the time. Dad's new work will not take him from home so much, he says. And next year me for the fine arts and the white lights of Winnipeg. That's all that needs to be said."

"I think, dear," said the mother, looking at her son, "Nora is right."

"Now, Mother," exclaimed Larry, "I don't like to hear your foot come down just yet. I know that tone of finality, but listen--"

"We have listened," said Kathleen, "and we know we are right. I shall take the school, Mr. Farwell--"

"Mr. Farwell, eh?--" exclaimed Nora significantly.

"Mr. Farwell has promised me," continued Kathleen, "indeed has offered me, the school. Nora and I can study together. I shall keep up my music.

Nora will keep things going outside, mother will look after every thing as usual, Dad will help us outside and in. So that's settled."

"Settled!" cried her brother. "You are all terribly settling. It seems to me that you apparently forget--"

Once more the mother interposed. "Larry, dear, Kathleen has put it very well. Your father and I have talked it over"--the young people glanced at each other and smiled at this ancient and well-worn phrase--"we have agreed that it is better that you should finish your college this winter. Of course we know you would suggest delay, but we are anxious that you should complete your course."

"But, Mother, listen--" began Larry.

"Nonsense, Larry, 'children, obey your parents' is still valid," said Nora. "What are you but a child after all, though with your teaching and your choral society conducting, and your n.i.g.g.e.r show business, and your preaching in the church, and your popularity, you are getting so uplifted that there's no holding you. Just make up your mind to do your duty, do you hear? Your duty. Give up this selfish determination to have your own way, this selfish pleasing of yourself." Abruptly she paused, rushed at him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. "You darling old humbug," she said with a very unsteady voice. "There, I will be blubbering in a minute. I am off for the timber lot. What do you say, Katty? It's cooler now. We'll go up the cool road. Are you coming?"

"Yes; wait until I change."

"All right, I will saddle up. You coming, Larry?"

"No, I'll catch up later."

"Now, Mother," warned Nora, "I know his ways and wiles. Remember your duty to your children. You are also inclined to be horribly selfish. Be firm. Hurry up, Kate."

Left alone with his mother, Larry went deliberately to work with her.

Well he knew the immovable quality of her resolution when once her mind was made up. Patiently, quietly, steadily, he argued with her, urging Nora's claims for a year at college.

"She needs a change after her years of hard work."

Her education was incomplete; the ground work was sound enough, but she had come to the age when she must have those finishing touches that girls require to fit them for their place in life. "She is a splendid girl, but in some ways still a child needing discipline; in other ways mature, too mature. She ought to have her chance and ought to have it now." One never knew what would happen in the case of girls.

His mother sighed. "Poor Nora, she has had discipline enough of a kind, and hard discipline it has been indeed for you all."

"Nonsense, Mother, we have had a perfectly fine time together, all of us. G.o.d knows if any one has had a hard time it is not the children in this home. I do not like to think of those awful winters, Mother, and of the hard time you had with us all."

"A hard time!" exclaimed his mother. "I, a hard time, and with you all here beside me, and all so well and strong? What more could I want?" The amazed surprise in her face stirred in her son a quick rush of emotion.

"Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother," he whispered in her ear. "There is no one like you. Did you ever in all your life seek one thing for yourself, one thing, one little thing? Away back there in Ontario you slaved and slaved and went without things yourself that all the rest of us might get them. Here it has been just the same. Haven't I seen your face and your hands, your poor hands,"--here the boy's voice broke with an indignant pa.s.sion--"blue with the cold when you could not get furs to protect them? Never, never shall I forget those days." The boy stopped abruptly, unable to go on.

Quickly the mother drew her son toward her. "Larry, my son, my son, you must never think that a hard time. Did ever a woman have such joy as I?

When I think of other mothers and of other children, and then think of you all here, I thank G.o.d every day and many times a day that he has given us each other. And, Larry, my son, let me say this, and you will remember it afterwards. You have been a continual joy to me, always, always. You have never given me a moment's anxiety or pain. Remember that. I continually thank G.o.d for you. You have made my life very happy."

The boy put his face down on her lap with his arms tight around her waist. Never in their life together had they been able to open these deep, sacred chambers in their souls to each other's gaze. For some moments he remained thus, then lifting up his face, he kissed her again and again, her forehead, her eyes, her lips. Then rising to his feet, he stood with his usual smile about his lips. "You always beat me. But will you not think this all over again carefully, and we will do what you say? But will you promise, Mother, to think it over again and look at my side of it too?"

"Yes, Larry, I promise," said his mother. "Now run after the girls, and I shall have tea ready for you."

As Larry rode down the lane he saw the young German, Ernest Switzer, and his sister riding down the trail and gave them a call. They pulled up and waited.

"h.e.l.lo, Ernest; whither bound? How are you, Dorothea?"

"Home," said the young man, "and you?"

"Going up by the timber lot, around by the cool road. The girls are on before."

"Ah, so?" said the young man, evidently waiting for an invitation.