The Way of the Strong Part 40

"Won't I do?" suggested the young giant, sitting up promptly.

The girl nodded demurely.

"Perhaps, as--a subst.i.tute."

She bent over him, and placing her arms about his great neck kissed him very tenderly.

She sighed as she released him.

"Now let's be sensible," she said soberly. "Now tell it me all again."

She was promptly obeyed. But again Frank's enthusiasm took hold of him, and he poured out in a rapid flow all his hopes of their future. He ran over in brief review the many trifling schemes he had already worked out in conjunction with the running of their new farm. He rattled on over numberless developments he proposed. He told her of the beautiful red pine frame farm buildings, which must have cost as much to build as he was paying for the whole place. He spoke of the acres of splendid timber in glowing terms. Then there was the river frontage, and, yes--actually--the outcrop of a coal seam was jutting right out of its bank.

When he had finished, the girl's delight was shining in her eyes.

"And--and when am I going to see it all?" she asked, as he paused for breath.

The man's fair face flushed and beamed.

"Ah," he cried, "that's what I've been saving up. I never suggested your seeing it before, Phyl, because--because----" his eyes became thoughtful, "well--I didn't just want to take a risk. You see, I was 'most afraid something might happen to queer things. Guess I wouldn't disappoint you for worlds. I'd a notion to wait till there was no chance of anything going wrong with the deal. Say, you're going with me to pay the money--you and your mother. Then we're going on to see the farm."

The girl did not answer. She was gazing out at the barren sky-line, all her happy soul shining in the wonderful light of her eyes. Mutely she was thanking G.o.d for the love of this man, thanking Him for the wonderful blessings He was pouring upon her. Whatever else might come in the long years of life before her, the memory of this moment would live with her to her dying day. She was very--very happy.

After a while she drew a deep sigh, and, reaching out, pointed away to the distant lines where the sharp horizon of the prairie cut across the sky.

"Look!" she cried, in a thrilling voice. "Look, Frank, over there in the East! There's not a cloud anywhere. It's bright, bright. The sky's just blue with a wonderful color that shines down upon a thankful world, watching and waiting for the harvest. We're waiting for the harvest, too. Perhaps ours isn't just the same harvest other folks are waiting for. Maybe ours is the harvest of our souls. Let it be an omen to us. Just as it is the omen the farmer looks for. It kind of seems to me all blessings come from yonder. Guess that's where the sun rises, bringing with it the hope of the world. Hope and light. Yes, it kind of seems to me everything good comes out of the East. That's how the Bible tells us. We don't look west till afternoon, the afternoon of life.

That's because it's full of--decay. That's where a tired sun just hangs heavily in the sky. A poor old sun, looking kind of sad and weary. It's got so busy making folks happy in the morning that its plumb beat, and can't help itself against those banks of black cloud all fixed up with deep angry light, trying to deceive the poor old thing, and make it believe they aren't just going to swallow it right up, and stifle it, and put out its light. No, this is still our morning, so we'll look out east for all the good things to come. It's very, very bright."

Frank mechanically followed the direction of the girl's happy eyes. But his own feelings, though no less happy and thankful, had no such means of expression.

"Yes," he said lamely. "It is bright, isn't it?"

"Bright?" The shining eyes looked down into his handsome face, and again they smiled with that sweet, motherly tenderness. "Yes, dear."

Her simple agreement set the other racking his brains to let her understand that he appreciated her mood. He flushed as he reached for one of her hands and squeezed it.

"That's how I want to make it for you--always," he said, with clumsy sincerity. "Just sunshine. We mustn't have clouds."

The girl shook her head.

"But we must, dear," she said decidedly. "Say, Frank, just think what life would be without them." Her manner had once more drifted into that curious earnestness that sat so oddly upon one of her years and happy temperament. "Think of it. A whole long life spent in the glaring light of a summer's day. It couldn't be done, Frank. It sure couldn't. That way there'd be no sort of hope, no sort of ambition, and--and our hearts would be all wilted up with a terrible sickness. No, we want clouds, too--in their season. Do you know, Frank, it's just in the dark, dark clouds that hope hides itself. No clouds, no hope. And hope's just what we live on. Happiness helps to make us strong, but too much happiness would be the worst misery."

The youth beside her sat up.

"Phyl," he cried, helpless, "you do know an awful lot. Say----" But Phyllis laughed and shook her head.

"I know I'm dreadfully happy," she cried. Then she gazed seriously into his eyes. "Tell me, Frank, doesn't it make you think--notions when you're dreadful happy?"

The other shook his head.

"I just feel--happy," he said. "That's all."

"It does me," Phyllis cried rapturously. "And it's times like this that I just want to know--know--know, until there's not a thing left--to know. Do you know, sometimes I've a sort of crazy notion, there's some one--big--trying to teach me lots an lots. He often seems to be around--'specially when I'm not out plowing. I'm mostly happy then.

It's somebody very big--and wide--and he's always whispering to me--just as if he was in the air of these plains----"

Frank threw out one great hand to stay her. A sudden inspiration had penetrated his simple mind.

"I know," he cried, breaking in quickly. "That's not--somebody. That's you. That's you, Phyl." He drew himself up on to his knees in the excitement of his discovery. "That's your soul talking to you, Phyl.

It's feeling so good it must tell you 'bout things. I know. I've had it. And you sort of listen and listen, and you--you just know what it says is--is right. And you don't need any one to tell you it isn't, because--because you know it is----"

"Ho! you two folks, the stew's through!"

Frank swung round at the sound of Mrs. Raysun's voice calling, and he flushed self-consciously as he realized the ridiculousness of his att.i.tude. Phyl sprang from her seat and, catching hold of his great hand, helped him to his feet.

"Come along, dear," she cried, smiling merrily. "Momma's stews are too good to keep waiting, even if our souls want to tell us a whole heap that is good for us to know."

Then, as they walked side by side toward the house, she drew a deep breath.

"Heigho!" she sighed. "And to think in a few weeks we'll have left all this behind us for a lovely, lovely farm of our own--a beautiful frame house--folks working for us and--and money in the bank. Say, Frank, isn't it a beautiful world? It surely is--some world."

CHAPTER XVI

IN THE MOONLIGHT

Angus Moraine flung down his pen impatiently. Leaning back in his chair he turned toward the sunlit window, gazing through it at the distant view of golden wheat as a man will who seeks relief from intolerable thought.

His thought was intolerable. It was growing more and more intolerable as the days pa.s.sed and the time drew on when he must hand Deep Willows over to his successor.

All the best years of his life had been spent in the making of Deep Willows. All his energy, all that was best in him; these things had been given freely, without stint, without thought of sparing himself in the work, and he believed the result to be a worthy achievement.

But it was not yet finished. He doubted if it would ever be finished.

He had dreamed his dreams, and those dreams had carried him into realms of such colossal fancy that he knew, if he lived to a hundred, the time would be wholly inadequate for the fulfilment of his ambitions.

The wealth which must inevitably come in the process of the achievement he had set himself was not the goal he desired to win. He admitted the use of such wealth, and knew that without it the rest must fall to the ground. But his dream was of achievement alone. He had no desire to be remembered for the fortune he had ama.s.sed. His absorbing pa.s.sion was to be thought of, by coming generations, for an achievement unlike that of any other.

Deep Willows was the nucleus about which he had hoped to build his edifice. Vaguely he saw it the center of a world of wheat. He imagined the whole prairie lands of Canada clad in the golden raiment of a perfect wheat harvest. Not merely a farm, but a country of wheat, acknowledging a single control. Nor did it matter to him whose the control so long as _his was the making_.

This was his dream and now--he saw it fading before his very eyes at the whim of the man he had so long and so faithfully served. The thought of it was intolerable. Sometimes, even, rebellion choked all his friendship, all his loyalty to the man who had made something of the realization of his dreams possible.

But there was just one shadow of hope left to him. It was very slight, very vague, and he hardly understood whither it led, he hardly knew if it were worth serious consideration at all. But the feeling was there; nor would it be denied. If only he knew what far-reaching scheme, with regard to his wife, lay in the back of Hendrie's great head he might feel easier. But he did not know, and, until such schemes were put into practice, he was not likely to know. Still the fact remained; Mrs.

Hendrie had been appointed his successor, and, since that appointment, she had fallen from her high place in her husband's regard, or, at least, was tottering on her exalted pedestal.

The thought gave him some slight satisfaction. If--if only something would happen in time. If--only. He felt at that moment he would willingly give half his possessions to be able to search the hidden recesses of Hendrie's secret thought and find out for certain--what was going to happen.