Fruits of the Earth (16 page)

“Never mind what others do. Four dollars a day for man or boy. Six for a man with rack and team.”

With that he was away. Similar scenes were enacted at Shilloe's, Hartley's, Nawosad's, Stanley's. Back to the farm in the grey of dawn.

Even now he did not go to the house for breakfast. He harnessed eight horses and hitched them to the racks in the yard. Daylight came, and with it the first helpers arrived.

Abe started them at once to gather sheaves, north of the yard. He drew a load of hay to the margin of the field and spread it on the ground. By half-past six the whole crew had arrived; eleven hayracks were gathering sheaves; Abe and Nicoll were stacking.

At seven, Charlie appeared beyond the fence. “Daddy, daddy!”

It was several minutes before Abe heard. “What is it?”

“Aren't you coming in for breakfast?”

“No. Bring me a cup of coffee and a slice of bread.”

The day was white and hazy, a distant, rayless sun lighting the world. At noon, they changed horses rather than give those they had been using time to digest. At night they went on till it was dark. Only then did it strike Abe that this was the night of the council meeting at Somerville. He had never yet missed a meeting. “Can't be helped,” he muttered, “I've got to save that crop.”

Two stacks had been finished, thirty feet in diameter, twenty high: giant stacks thatched with hay. The third one, just begun, Abe covered with a tarpaulin, working by lantern light.

But it did not rain next day. Hilmer reported that he had seen threshing south of the Line. Surely all was going to be well; there was no need for this extra expense? He meant kindly, wishing to save Abe money even though part of it flowed into his own pocket.

Abe knew that not a man in his crew approved of what
he was doing. They were glad to take his cash but thought him crazy to spend it.

At ten o'clock Wheeldon appeared in his rattling car. “What the hell–” he began.

Abe stared. They called Henry Topp the “runt” this man was a pigmy.

“Who's ever heard of such a thing?” Wheeldon asked. “In a semi-arid country as this claims to be.”

“Never mind,” Slim Topp shouted. “Come on. Lend a hand.”

“Be hanged if I do. What sort of wages are you fellows licking up?”

“I pay threshing wages,” Abe said.

“I'm going south,”

Wheeldon boasted. “I'll bring a fellow back to thresh me at once.”

“Nothing like trying.”

Wheeldon returned in the afternoon.

“What luck?” Horanski asked from where he was pitching sheaves to the fifth great stack that was rising into the air.

“Every doggone fellow laughs at the idea of coming up here.”

Abe heard what he said. “If you want a job–”

“By golly, I believe I do.”

“To-morrow morning at six. Bring a rack.”

The third day dawned grey and threatening. By eight o'clock Abe moved the scene of operations to a point west of the pasture. With the menace of a clouded sky overhead, the men worked feverishly, Horanski setting a frantic pace. In routine work nobody would have exerted himself; but this was so quixotic that work seemed sport or play.

That night, with a high wind from the east, slight drizzles
began to sweep over the prairie like painters' brushes, continuing for more than a day. Then a dry sunny spell; but it did not turn warm. As soon as the stooks dried in the fields, everybody went south, east, west, to induce a thresherman to come, using Abe's huge crop for a bait. Threshing fees were running high; there were reports of heavier rains in the south. Nicoll reported several engines to be stuck on the roads. Victor Lafontaine tried to get through; in vain.

Once more Abe sent word around. Four and a half dollars a day! Already a few doubted the wisdom of working for wages. Yet, when the Topp brothers and even Wheeldon came–the latter saying, “By gosh, four and a half is too good to miss!”–Nicoll and the others threw their misgivings to the wind.

And things looked brighter again. Soon frost would come. In freezing weather the crops would be safe. But Abe stacked.

The scene of operations had shifted to the Hudson's Bay section when one afternoon a large, new car appeared on the trail west of the field. A tall man in city clothes alighted. He climbed the fence and came to the stack where Abe and Nicoll were working.

“Well, well, well!” said Mr. Rogers, for it was he; “you must be anticipating foul weather, Mr. Spalding.”

“I am playing safe,” Abe replied and slipped to the ground.

“What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

“Threshing is beginning to be general again.”

“Some machines are stuck right now.”

“They were in too much of a hurry after the rain. I can understand a man stacking if he farms in a small way. But you–”

There was a pause. Then Abe asked, “Any business you came for?”

“Why, yes. Let's step aside. You know Mr. Eastham's term as reeve expires in December. There is a certain deal pending. Some of us have been waiting for just what is going on. We want an honest man for the place. In fact, we want you.”

“For reeve?”

“For reeve. Will you accept nomination?”

“I don't know.” Municipal honours were far from Abe's mind just now.

“It won't take more of your time than you are already giving to the public business. You are the only man from a north ward who can swing the south wards as well.”

“I wouldn't canvass.”

“One of the assets which we are counting on. The position you take on that point is known. It will win us more votes than anything else. One joint meeting, adroitly managed. You say a few words–”

“I am not a speaker.”

“Again, all the better.”

“I'll think it over.” Abe's eyes were on the horizon.

“I'd like to take your answer back.”

“All right,” Abe decided. “I'll run.”

“Good!” And, picking up a sheaf, “There's weight in that. Well, so long. I see why you were absent from the last meeting.”…

On 25th September Abe finished stacking his crop. Next day it began to rain; and, with low welts of cloud driven over the prairie by dismal winds, ever shifting, it went on raining, with few let-ups, till 20th October. The ditches ran full; water began to stand in the fields.

This fall of 1912, when farmers throughout the south of the province could not thresh, is still being used to date certain events. “You remember,” people will say, “that was the year before–or the year after–the fall when we could not thresh.” The stooks stood in water. Everywhere people prayed for frost. Ordinarily an early freeze-up is undesirable; even if the crops escape, it interferes with ploughing; which means that work will be late next spring. But that year it rained and rained; and when the rains began, it turned warm again.

Abe might have exulted. Instead, he felt like a man who has, without knowing it, crossed a lake covered with thin ice. The fact that he had been very near to losing the greatest crop he had ever raised drove home to him how much uncertainty there is even in the most fundamental industry of man. If he had not stacked!

Day after day, clad in a glistening slicker, he went into his drenched fields and, with the rain descending fitfully about him, reached into his stacks, extending a long arm, and made sure that no moisture was penetrating the sheaves. He had an old book on farming, printed in England, and re-read the chapters that treated of stacking. A good deal was said of the sweating of grain which improves its quality. He watched that process, rubbing a handful of grain from the ears, to look at the kernels and to compare them with the pictures in the book.

With nothing to do in field or yard, he took once more to going to town. The village was always crowded now; for everybody was, as to leisure, in the same position as Abe; what was the use of sitting at home and worrying? In town, they had at least company. Abe heard people describing what was happening to their crops: the grain sprouting in the stooks, the roots weaving the sheaves into a solid, cohering mass.

Of his own wheat Abe took handfuls to the elevators. Number One Northern. “Have you threshed?” the buyers asked. “I have stacked.” And the buyers whistled through their teeth. Abe's crop became famous.

Threshermen sought him out. The general disaster hit them as hard as any one else. “Say, Abe,” one would say; “Say, Spalding,” others; a few went as far as, “Say, Mr. Spalding–have you made arrangements for threshing yet?” “No.” And the men would underbid each other, coming down from sixteen cents a bushel which had been the peak to fifteen, twelve, ten cents. Abe listened; but suddenly, without giving an answer, he walked away. “Getting queer,” some said. “His good luck's affecting his mind.” A man who had spoken to him before drew him aside. “Abe, there's no chance of moving my outfit till after the freeze-up. But you've stacked. Good crop, they say. I wouldn't want this known. But I'll thresh you for six and a half.” And when Abe made a motion to leave him, he detained him by a finger on his arm. “Abe, listen. I'll knock another quarter of a cent off.” But Abe turned away, the thresherman staring after him. On forty thousand bushels a quarter of a cent meant a saving of a hundred dollars.

Mr. Diamond surpassed himself in smiles. “Some weather, Abe. But you can laugh. You were wise. How about a new fur coat for the winter?”

“We'll see.”

“Want to buy this store, Abe?”–with a broad laugh.

Abe was restless; it seemed incredible that he should have escaped.

On 21st October, a grey, chilly day, but without rain at last, Abe saw Nicoll at his stable as he drove past. Anxious for company, he turned into the yard, cutting a deep, sharp rut
into the ground which looked like the bottom of a freshly drained pool.

Nicoll came dejectedly and stood between the wheels of the buggy.

“How's your wheat?”

“Bad. Think the rain's over?”

“Hard to tell. I hope so.”

“Not that it matters.”

“Is it as bad as that?”

“It's as bad as can be.”

“I'm sorry. Thought I'd ask. So long.”

“So long, Abe.”

From the culvert bridging the ditch Abe looked down on the slow, yellow flood which ran even with the banks. He had done it! Next year he would build. But never again would he allow himself to be caught without a threshing outfit of his own!

In town he met Eastham, the reeve.

“Hello, Spalding,” the latter said. “Running against me?”

“I?” For in his preoccupation he had not thought of it again.

“So they say,” the squarely built man with the big, red moustache said ironically and grimly.

“Come to think of it, they did ask me.”

“When you ran for the council, you got in by the skin of your teeth.”

“That's a fact,” Abe said. “You know I don't do any campaigning. You'll have it all your own way. I won't stir a finger.”

“Well-l-l” Mr. Eastham said and raised a hand to the edge of his expensive hat of soft grey felt….

In the district, people were more excited over the fact that Abe had saved his crop than that they were losing theirs.

“What I'd like to know,” said Henry Topp, “is how he could tell.”

“He's a wise one,” Hartley replied. “If he hadn't stacked, we'd have threshed, I bet.”

“Nonsense!” Stanley exclaimed. “You'd have worked on a threshing crew while threshing lasted. But no outfit would have come in here. We're out of the way. He had the luck.”

“He has the luck every time!” Henry said.

But it was left to Mrs. Grappentin to find the true solution of the problem: Abe was in league with the devil, or he would never have thought of stacking. And Hartley and Henry laughed enough to split their sides.

On 25th October it rained again; but the rain turned into snow, and it froze up. The crops, half ruined by sprouting, froze to the ground: the fields looked like skating rinks. Not one of the farmers threshed that fall; and when they did, next spring, the yield was low; the grade was “no grade” the grain was sold for feed.

SUCCESS

I
ncidentally, Abe was, that winter, elected reeve of the municipality, “by acclamation” for his candidacy hotly contested for a while, remained unopposed at the last moment.

Rumours were afloat about a deal engineered by Mr. Eastham and his henchmen. At the meeting which Abe had missed, they had done a clever stroke. It had been moved that the council resolve itself into “committee of the whole.” The difference between an ordinary meeting and a meeting in committee consisted in the fact that the deliberations of the council were public, whereas, in committee, the members could be pledged to secrecy. Rogers and Bickert had connived at this move.

The matter which was up for discussion was the application of a foreign railway for permission to extend its yards so as to permit their being linked with certain territories on which the railway wished to erect repair shops. The scheme was in the interests of the town of Somerville; and the town council had given a favourable decision; but a piece of road needed belonged to the municipality; and the site of the future
shops was in private hands. The railway submitted two alternative plans. Both involved concessions from the municipality as well as the town; but which of two private holdings was to be acquired, depended on the previous decision of the municipality with regard to its roads. The council made its decision in committee. A few days later Rogers, who had seen through the scheme, found undeniable evidence of the fact that the farm which the railway would have to acquire had changed hands just before that meeting of the council in committee. Ostensibly, the buyer was a man unknown in the district; but Rogers suspected him to be a dummy. Shortly after, rumour insisted that an unheard-of price had been paid by the railway for the land. Rogers went on with his campaign for Spalding as though he knew nothing. But on the morning of nomination day he sprang a mine by dropping a casual hint of certain disclosures to be made shortly. The very vagueness of his threat, pronounced with the utmost urbanity, made the information on which it rested seem vastly more definite than it was; and he was careful not to make a positive statement which might betray how little he knew. Eastham was in town and showed a bold front; but at twelve o'clock, when nominations closed, a thrill went through the town: Mr. Eastham had declined renomination. Rogers boldly treated this as an admission of guilt and made his assertions specific. When, in the afternoon, friends of the reeve went to his house to plead with him about the necessity of a blunt denial, they were told that Eastham had gone to the city. Before the day was over, Rogers's guess that he had crossed the border was confirmed by a telegram addressed to Mrs. Eastham.