The Homesteaders Read online

  "Oh, Jack, are you killed?" cried the girl, rushing in his direction.

  "Not even hurt," he answered; and she fainted in his arms.

  He carried her to the tent and applied water to her forehead. As he was engaged in restoring her his hand fell on his gun. The barrel was hot.

  He raised her face to his, and kissed her again and again.

  In the morning they found a few drops of blood on the grass at the top of the bank.

  Harris and his wife allowed themselves no time for nerve-strain over the experience of their first night on their homestead. It was fortunate for them there was so much to do, and that they were thrown entirely upon their own resources. Their little store of money was running very low, and they decided their house must be of the cheapest possible construction. Harris had already discussed his buildings with McCrae, who advised him to make use of sods, and gave general directions how to do so; and he now set about to put McCrae's suggestions into effect. Some fifteen miles north of the homestead was a valley in which grew trees of sufficient size for building purposes—poplars, cottonwoods, elms, and oaks. Farther down the valley, at the head of a lake, was a saw-mill, where boards and shingles might be bought—if one had money.

  So this morning, after caring for their cows, they hitched the horses to the wagon, took an axe, a saw, their gun, and a lunch, and set out for the valley, returning late at night with sufficient logs and poles for the framework of their house and stable. The next day construction was commenced. Four stout posts were set on end, enclosing a rectangle twelve by sixteen feet. The tops of the posts were connected by logs laid upon them, dovetailed at the corners after the fashion of woodsmen, and held in position by wooden pins driven in auger-holes. Lengthwise along the centre, to form a ridgepole, another stout log was laid and the whole framework supported by additional posts, among which were two on the east side to enclose the door. Small poles were then placed on end, sloping slightly inwards, and resting against the plate-logs. Similar poles were laid from the plate-logs to the ridge-pole to support the roof.

  Harris found a southern slope where the frost was out enough to admit of him ploughing some sods. He knew he would not get as good a sod here as later in the season might be found in some low-lying spot, but his first consideration was to get some kind of permanent shelter. So he ploughed the sods, three inches thick and fourteen inches wide, and cut them into two-foot lengths with his axe, to the sad injury of its cutting edge. These sods were then built into a wall like bricks, resting gently against the framework of poles, from which, however, they were separated by a padding of grass, which Harris cut in a sleugh with his scythe, and small willows from the ravine. This mattress of grass and willows prevented any earth shaking through into the house itself. A framework made of a hewn log was inserted in the south wall to leave space for a window, which should be bought when the family finances could afford such luxuries. For the time being it would be left open in fine weather and covered with canvas when the elements were gruff or unruly. The rag-carpet, when no longer needed as a tent, would be draped in the doorway, pending the purchase of boards to make a wooden door.

  For a roof grass was laid on the poles and covered tightly with sods. Then Harris found a sticky, yellow clay in the side of the ravine, and two or three inches of this he spread carefully over the sods, like icing on a great cake. The greasy clay soon hardened in the sun, and became so impervious to water that the heaviest rains of summer made no impression upon it.

  When, save for the missing door and window, the house was finished, they stood in the centre and admired. It was absolutely the product of their own labour, applied to such scanty resources as the prairie provided. But it was warm and snug, and, as they later on learned, the wall and roof of sod were almost perfect non-conductors of either heat or cold. The floor was of earth, but Mary Harris knew the difference between earth and dirt, although the words are frequently confounded, and her house was from the first a model of cleanliness and order.

  By this time the snow was all gone, except in north-facing nooks along the ravine, and the frost was out of the sod in all places deep enough to admit of plouging. As the stock were taking no harm from the open air, thanks to the shelter of the ravine, Harris decided to delay the construction of his stable until after seeding and to proceed at once with the ploughing of his land. He had also to make a trip to Arthurs' for seed grain, and to borrow a couple of sections of drag harrows. With it all, by the middle of May he had sown fifteen acres of wheat, and notwithstanding a heavy snowfall about the 23rd, by the 1st of June he had added ten acres of oats. With his help Mary had planted a small garden of potatoes and vegetables, and a few flowers were springing up at the door of the house.

  It was a life of hard, persistent work—of loneliness, privation, and hardship. But it was also a life of courage, of health, of resourcefulness, of a wild, exhilarating freedom found only in God's open spaces. They had learned to know the animals of the field—the cheeky gopher; the silent, over-industrious badger; the skunk, unchallenged monarch of his immediate circle; the sneaky coyote, whose terror is all in his howl; the red fox, softly searching amid the grass for the nests of ducks or prairie chicken; and the rabbit, curious but always gracefully elusive. Then there were the waterfowl, infinite in number. The stuffed ducks on the dinner-table were limited only by the amount of powder and shot which Harris cared to spend on the pond at their door. At night, when the horses had been unharnessed and dusk was setting in, he would slip his gun under his arm and walk down among the willows. It was necessary only to wait. Two graceful forms, feeding under a grassy bank, hearing a slight rustle above, would shove with quick, silent stroke into the supposed safety of their native element. Harris would peer through the dusk for the brighter markings of the male, for only a game-murderer shoots the female in the nesting season. Then, as they separated a little, his gun would speak; a sudden splashing of water; a sharp whistle of rapid wings cutting the air; a form, paddling an uncertain circle in the pond, then lying strangely flat upon the surface. Harris as yet had no dog, and often it meant stripping and a sharp plunge in the ice-cold water to bring in the trophy; but the strong, athletic young man counted that only part of the sport. At other times the nights were clamorous with the honking of wild geese, and in the morning Harris, slipping quietly over the bank of the coulee, would see the prairie white as from new-fallen snow with the backs of countless thousands of "wavies." Sometimes the geese, secure in the supposedly unsettled wilderness, relaxed the vigour of their military guard, and on such occasions he could get within range. But if there is one quality the goose lacks it is that which is most attributed to him—foolishness. On his marches through the unmapped desert of the air he moves with the precision of an army in the field, scouting out all the land, taking aerial observations before making camp, and immediately throwing out sentries around his feeding ground. But long-continued immunity from attack breeds carelessness, even in a goose, and the price of such neglect frequently adorned the table in Harris's cabin.

  The prairie flowers, too, were a never-ending delight to the heart of the young woman. She knew some of them by name, but many were peculiar to the prairie. The first few warm days of spring had clothed all the wilderness with a magic carpet of pale-purplish blossoms, and the advancing season brought new blooms to view with every passing week. On Sundays, when there was total relaxation from their regular labours, the two, arm in arm, would stroll along the bank of the ravine, or walk, ankle-deep in strawberry blossoms, far over the undulating plain to the west. Returning, they would find their way to the edge of the stream, where, in the shallow crossing, the suckers would dart in all directions in panic at their appearance. Here they would sit and listen to the gentle murmur of the water, while fleecy clouds mirrored themselves in its glassy depths, and plovers ran whistling up and down the bank, and a meadow-lark sent its limpid challenge from a neighbouring bush. And at night, when the moon rose in wonderful whiteness and purity, wrapping field and rav
ine in a riot of silver, the strange, irresistible, unanswerable longing of the great plains stole down upon them, and they knew that here indeed was life in its fulness—a participation in the Infinite, indefinable, but all-embracing, everlasting.

  CHAPTER V

  THE SHORES OF THE INFINITE

  The summer was a season of great activity and development. Harris did not sow any crop after the 1st of June, but applied himself then to the construction of his stable, which was built after the same fashion as the house. The shelter of its cool walls and roof was gratefully sought by the cows in the heat of the day, and its comparative freedom from mosquitoes was a haven to the horses in the evenings. Then there was more land to plough, and Harris's soul never dulled to the delight of driving the ploughshare through the virgin sod. There was something almost sacred in the bringing of his will to bear upon soil which had come down to him through all the ages fresh from the hand of the Creator. The blackbirds that followed at his heel in long, respectful rows, solemnly seeking the trophies of their chase, might have been incarnations from the unrecorded ages that had known these broad fields for chase and slaughter, but never for growth and production. The era of the near vision, demanding its immediate reward, had passed away, and in its place was the day of faith, for without faith there can be neither seed-time nor harvest.

  But it was not only on Harris's homestead that development was taking place. As McCrae had predicted, there was a considerable movement of settlers into the district, and at several points their tents or rude houses now broke the vast sweep of the horizon. Tom Morrison had found land to the satisfaction of his heart within three miles of the Harris homestead, and his big log-house, eighteen by twenty-four, assumed the proportions of a castle by comparison with the smaller homes springing up around. Some miles to the east Dick Matheson, straight from the lumber camps of the Madawaski, had pitched his tent, and a few miles farther on was his friend of the shanties, John Burton. To the west were the Grants, and to the north Hiram Riles and his wife, Eliza. A mixed community they were, drawn from many corners, and all of them more or less under the heel of poverty; but they were filled with enthusiasm, with resourcefulness, and an indomitable determination to face and overcome all obstacles. A missionary had in some way spied out the field, and held monthly Sunday services at Morrison's house; and Dr. Blain, when not in one of his unfortunate debauches, had his headquarters at the new town of Plainville, which consisted of Sempter's general store and a "stopping-place," and which had sprung up near the junction of two streams in anticipation of the railway.

  None of these pioneers was possessed of a complete farming equipment, but each had something which his neighbour lacked, and they made common cause together in their struggle with Nature. Thus Harris had no mower, but when haying season came he was able to borrow Morrison's, at the same time lending his plough to Riles, who simultaneously accommodated Morrison with his hayrack. Among the women exchanging became something of an exact science. Mrs. Grant was the proud possessor of a very modern labour-saver in the shape of a clothes-wringer, as a consequence of which wash-day was rotated throughout the community, and it was well known that Mrs. Riles and Mrs. Harris had to do their churning alternately. But it was Mrs. Morrison's sewing-machine that was the great boon to the community, and to it, perhaps, as much as the open-hearted hospitality of honest Tom and his wife, was due the fact that their house became the social centre of the district.

  Nor was the settlement deprived of its share of sport and amusement. On one of his periodical visits McCrae donated a baseball, and Harris quickly shaped a bat from the trunk of a stout willow he found by the river-bed. They had all outdoors to play in, and it was a simple matter to mow the grass from a stretch of level prairie and turn over the sod at points to mark the bases. Unfortunately, there were not enough men in the community to make two baseball teams, but a species of game was devised in which the players batted in turn, and when not batting or base-running were always on the "out" side. Harris developed considerable ability as a pitcher, throwing the powerful straight ball which in those days was a greater menace to the bare hands of the catcher than to the batter at the plate. On the occasion of his monthly visits the missionary, who was an ardent ball-player, generally contrived to reach Morrison's by Saturday afternoon, and so was able to take part in the Saturday night game. And although he never took advantage of his association with the young men to "preach" to them, except on Sundays, a sense of comradeship sprang up, and a standard of sport was established which bore fruit in the community many years later.

  And so the first summer wore away and the first harvest was at hand. Any disappointment which had been occasioned by backward conditions earlier in the season was effaced by the wonderful crop which now crowned the efforts of the pioneers. On their finest Eastern farms they had seen nothing to equal the great stand of wheat and oats which now enveloped them, neck-high, whenever they invaded it. The great problem before the settlers was the harvesting of this crop. It was a mighty task to attempt with their scythes, but there was no self-binder, or even reaper, within many miles.

  Finally Morrison solved the problem for the whole community by placing an order, at a fabulous figure, for a self-binder from the United States. It was a cumbrous, wooden-frame contrivance, guiltless of the roller bearings, floating aprons, open elevators, amid sheaf carriers of a later day, but it served the purpose, and with its aid the harvest of the little settlement was safely placed in sheaf. The farmers then stacked their grain in the fields, taking care to plough double fire-guards, with a burnt space between, as a precaution, against the terrifying fires which broke over the prairie as soon as the September frosts had dried the grass. A community some twenty miles to the eastward boasted a threshing mill, and arrangements were made for its use after it had discharged the duties of its own locality. The machine was driven by horse-power, and in the dawn of the crisp November mornings the crescendo of its metallic groan could be heard for miles across the brown prairie. It, too, with its hand feed, its open straw-carriers, its low-down delivery, which necessitated digging a hole in the frozen earth to accommodate the bags, and its possible capacity of six hundred bushels a day, bears mean comparison with its modern successor; but it threshed grain at a lower cost per bushel, and threw less into the straw than has ever been accomplished by the mighty steam and gasoline inventions which have displaced it.

  When Harris's threshing was done he found he had six hundred bushels of wheat and seven hundred bushels of oats in cone-shaped piles on his fields. The roads were fine and hard, and no snow had yet fallen, so he determined to begin at once with the marketing of his wheat. His last cent had been spent months before; indeed, it had been only through the courtesy of the storekeeper at Plainville, who was also postmaster, and who had stretched the law to the point of accepting hen eggs as legal tender in exchange for postage stamps, that Mary Harris had been able to keep up the brave, optimistic series of letters written "home." So Harris decided that he would at once market some of his wheat. Most of the oats would be needed for his horses and for seed, and what remained would command good prices from new settlers the following spring, but some of the wheat must be turned into money at once. During the latter part of the summer they had lived exclusively on the produce of their farm; on vegetables from the garden, fish and ducks from the stream, prairie chickens, and an occasional rabbit from the fields. The wild geese had deserted them early in the spring, and returned only after harvest. But now they should have a change on their table. Mary had accepted the pioneer fare of the summer without complaint, but of late Harris had discovered a strange longing in her ryes, and more than once she had arrested herself in the words "I wish we had—" Then two penitent little tears would steal softly clown her cheeks, and she would bury her head in his arms as he soothed her with loving words and promised that "after threshing things would be different."

  So now he set out for Emerson with the best load his horses could draw. The first few miles he drove in
silence, for there was a heavy weight at his heart as he thought of the little wife alone with the responsibilities of the farm…That she would be faithful to every responsibility he knew beyond question…But he was not quite satisfied. A strange moodiness had come over her, and even with him at home she had at times given way to fits of downheartedness which seemed altogether alien to her nature.

  But this morning as he drove the well-worn trail, a burnished sun mounted higher and higher ahead of him, and with it his own spirits rose until he found himself whistling and boyishly building castles in the air. But his castles, as he told himself, had solid foundations; indeed, they were not even speculations, but already might be accepted as assured accomplishments. Some things he certainly must do for Mary. First of these was the purchase of a glass window for the house, and next to that he promised enough boards for a door, and perhaps enough to floor part of their little room. Then there should be sugar, and tea, and flour, and warm boots, and some much-needed kitchen utensils. True, he needed some things himself, but his needs could wait. And then there were other things. Oh, he knew what to get. He hadn't been having little conferences with Mrs. Morrison for nothing…A tender smile gently suffused his face, and his cheery whistle soared above the rumble of the wagon-wheels on the hard lumps of the trail.