Fruits of the Earth (24 page)

But the campaign reached far beyond Spalding District. Seven schools were involved; three north of the Somerville Line, including the hamlet of Morley; and four south of it. The armistice had hardly been signed before nobody spoke of anything but consolidation.

It went without saying that in town there was a solid majority for the scheme. The town had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Every prairie town is anxious to secure any building to be put up without regard to the cost. Stores and residences are makeshifts; false fronts and shoddy work prevail. A large public building gives town or village tone and stability. Besides, though Morley was already the distributing centre of the territory, the daily concourse of children from many districts would concentrate certain trades in town, such as the candy trade, not to be despised. The construction work would bring in carpenters, masons, and other craftsmen who would leave money behind; and finally there would be at least four, probably five or six teachers who, paid in part by the provincial government, would live or board in town, to say nothing of the traffic and repair work brought by the vans that they were to convey the children to and from school.

Every townsman, with the exception of Dr. Vanbruik, who stood aloof, became a booster for the scheme, in true American fashion: not a farmer came to town but found himself tackled by three or four enthusiastic canvassers trying to
convince him of the superiority of a graded over an ungraded school. The inspector fanned the zeal of the townsmen; he was paid for that sort of work; it was considered a feather in his cap if he put the scheme through. The superiority of a graded over an ungraded school being granted, the chief argument was the acknowledged fact that the operation of a consolidated school involved no more expense for the individual district than the operation of their ungraded school had done. The excess in actual cost would be taken care of by provincial grants.

For a while Abe merely listened. He had never taken an active part in any campaign; this time he must: his whole nature revolted against the scheme. He saw the fallacies in the arguments advanced. He did not allow the fact that the cost of operation was bound to be in excess of former costs to be obscured by the fact that the distribution of that cost would be provincial instead of municipal. He saw that the district would lose control over what he considered its own affairs. He suspected that even such share of the cost as would remain incident upon each single farm would be greater than it had been in the separate districts. He knew from his own experience that children taken from the farm and transplanted into the environment of the town tended to grow away from the land and the control of their parents; ultimately they would look down on those parents and their ways, having themselves had the advantage of a surrounding which seemed more advanced. Above all, he felt in this innovation the approach of an order in which the control of the state over the individual would be strengthened through a conformity against which he rebelled. The scheme was in keeping with the spirit of the machine age: the imparting of information would be the paramount aim, not the building of character; spiritual values were going to be those of the intellect only. This he felt dimly; and
since he could not have clearly explained it, it crystallized into an all the more powerful instinctive aversion.

When he discussed the matter with Dr. Vanbruik, the latter seemed unwilling to commit himself. He had no experience with the scheme.

What Abe needed was clear-cut arguments that would appeal to the practical sense of the settlers: he knew he could never make them understand objections which he realized but faintly himself.

Early in the new year, he left home for several days. To do so was becoming a difficult matter; Horanski had to be coaxed before he agreed to ride over morning and night to attend to Abe's chores.

Abe went to Ferney and thence north. Torquay had a consolidated school. There was another purely rural consolidation sixteen miles north. He gathered facts and figures a-plenty and heard of other schools which he should visit. He went on to Balfour and to Minor, in the bush country of Manitoba. In the district of Minor he found that the cost of educating the children was the highest
per capita
in the province. When, in the middle of January, he came home, he was armed indeed.

For weeks on end he spent most of his time in town, waylaying settlers of his district as they came in: Shilloe, Nawosad, Hilmer, Baker, the Topps, John Elliot, Stanley, and even Nicoll. He used only arguments which they could understand. Shilloe, Nawosad, and Hilmer were easily convinced. Baker listened but would not give any promise; Baker was careful and thrifty; he had built a log-house on his place and worked in town as a carpenter: had he been promised employment?

Next Abe spoke to the Topp brothers who nodded to all
he said. Henry assured him almost too readily that he was opposed to the scheme. “I'm not going to pay a cent for all this tomfoolery. I'm a bachelor and intend to remain one, no matter what Wheeldon says.”

Stanley and Nicoll were the two who, in the immediate present, had most to gain from the scheme; they had children, the majority girls, of high-school age. Abe modified his arguments. Granting that consolidation was desirable, was it wise to enter upon it now? “You may think hard times are over. I tell you hard times are only beginning. The war has to be paid for. Prices will rise not fall, except for the products of the farm. It would have been wiser to build during the war.”

“Even so,” Nicoll replied, “it was a matter of duty not to take people away from essential industries. How long should we wait?”

“Hard to tell. Four, five years.”

Nicoll and Stanley laughed. “Till it's too late to do us any good.”…

John Elliot listened, but while doing so he kept shifting his sombrero; he was standing sideways, hand on hip, looking up askance at Abe's face as at the stars. He exaggerated most of his motions.

“Tell you frankly,” he said when Abe had finished, “I consider my own advantage only. I want my kids to attend high school and college. I've never gone to school much myself though I had the chance. I've come to see that I'm under a disadvantage.”

“Let them consolidate without us. We can come in any time.”

“Naw,” Elliot replied. “Can't tell what we'll do later. If my vote counts for anything, I'm going to make sure that we're in it.”…

Abe did not give up. Having exhausted his economic arguments, he began to hint at those underlying his opposition.

One day late in February Nicoll met Abe at the corner. “I'm sorry, Abe,” he said, “but you're backing the wrong horse. Consolidation is bound to carry. You are going to lose prestige by your defeat.”

“I don't care,” Abe replied with such a power of emphasis as almost to shake Nicoll's convictions. “I am right; you are wrong. I can't explain my real objections; but that makes them no less valid. I've been right before. If we hadn't had Blaine, there wouldn't be a child ready for high school now; we'd have had change after change; the kids would have stuck in grade five.”

“I know, Abe, I know. This is different.”

“In what way? You think one thing; I think another. If this district goes in, every settler will be sorry one day. That's why I fight the thing.”

Nicoll hesitated. “They attribute personal motives to you.”

“What personal motives could there be?”

“They say you want the distinction of being the only one who can send his children to high school.”

“Nicoll! If consolidation carries, my children will attend the local school. If I had my will, they'd be kept at home. But I leave that sort of thing to my wife.”…

Early in March Schweigel came to Abe's yard.

“Oh, Mis-ter Spalding,” he exclaimed, clasping his hands in front of his face, “what a place!” And he looked at house, barns, and wind-breaks. “The abode of kings!” He alighted from his wagon, grotesque in his long horse-hide coat which flapped about him like a tent. His face, hairless except for a furry little beard below the chin, beamed like the moon.
“This is farming indeed!” And his voice trailed off in a treble of admiration.

Abe stood towering at a distance. “Anything I can do for you?”

“Oh, mister, if you would! A little hay. Just a little. My poor horses have nothing to eat. I'll pay. I have brought my goods. A piece of print for your lady. Curtains for the house. Needles and thread. Whatever you wish. A pair of rubbers for yourself.”

“Never mind,” said Abe. “You needn't pay for a bit of feed.”

“Mister!” the Jew exclaimed; and it was hard to say whether he implored Abe to accept a trifle or adored him for refusing to do so.

“Help yourself!” Abe said with a sweep of his arm towards the haystack in the yard; and he made as if to turn away.

“You are like a king who commands,” the Jew cried rapturously; “and the rabble runs. You shall have my vote.”

Abe frowned. “As for your vote, you will do as you think best, I am not asking for support.”

“You don't need to ask, mister. Your wishes are known.”

“My wishes,” Abe said sharply, “have nothing to do with it. When I argue, I do so to give facts which the people may not know.”

“Who would dare to go against you, mister?”

“Help yourself,” Abe repeated and strode away.

When the Jew left the yard, his lame little horse could hardly draw the load, though the man lent all the help he could by pushing from behind….

During the next two weeks five of the seven districts concerned held their meetings to decide the question. Even into this matter of assigning the dates calculation entered. Next to Morley, Britannia District was most enthusiastically
in favour of the measure; and therefore it was the first to hold its meeting; the vote was unanimous. Morley held back. The promoters of the scheme knew that any movement gathers momentum by its own progress. The final stage of the campaign must be opened by a favourable vote; but had it been the vote of Morley itself, the example might have worked the wrong way. Followed three districts south of the Line. In all three the measure was carried. Then came Morley; and Spalding was next. Five districts, therefore, were pledged; a sixth one was sure to follow: Bays. Spalding was the only really doubtful one; and that only on account of Abe's influence. Whenever probabilities were weighed, the result seemed uncertain. But Wheeldon was confident. “Wait and see!” he said.

The night of the meeting came.

From half-past seven on the ratepayers and their women began to assemble at the school where a gasoline lamp was suspended from a hook in the ceiling: that lamp had once lighted Abe's old house.

Shortly before eight came a mild surprise. McCrae appeared accompanied by a young lady who presumably was his wife. He was little known in the district, and people looked curiously at the pair. The lady was young, pretty, bashful; smilingly she looked about from under a lowered brow. McCrae had just moved out; as a returned man he had received clear title to his land, in addition to financial help for the purchase of equipment. They sat next to the Schweigels who had so far drawn the lion's share of attention. Mrs. Schweigel was more than pretty; she was a beauty; and she was surprisingly well dressed.

Apart from these two all the women were middle-aged or elderly; in their apparel, fashion was strikingly disregarded.
The Ukrainian women were sitting together, separated from their men who lined the wall opposite the windows. One of these women looked jaundiced, in contrast to Shilloe, her husband, who was handsome in his Slavic way.

Then the two Elliots entered; and Mrs. Elliot was scanned with curiosity; she was delicate and carried herself in a haughty way. Her presence put a stop to the last whisper of conversation. A dead silence fell, broken only by a cough here and there.

Nicoll was sitting gravely alongside the teacher's desk.

Then, following each other in rapid succession, the protagonists of the occasion arrived. First Wheeldon, small, erect, filled with the sense of his own importance, accompanied by his wife, still smaller; in spite of the enormously high hat by which she sought to correct this deficiency of nature. Then Abe, huge, towering, reaching up, as he passed along the aisle, into the shadows above the cone of light shed by the lamp. Ruth waddled to the first seat from the door.

Abe went straight to the front where he nodded to Nicoll and, bending down, asked him a question. As he straightened, his glance swept over the assembly. Not a ratepayer was missing. To his surprise he saw Nicoll's two eldest daughters. Had they the vote?

The meeting was opened by the usual formula; Abe asked Nicoll to read the minutes of the last public meeting. While this was done, he sat down, his face expressive of the utmost indifference. Yet, as his eye alighted on Wheeldon, his lips straightened. The point at issue was not so much consolidation as the question who should, in future, determine the policy of the district. The discussion to follow was mere pretence; the vote would go as Abe or his opponent was favoured.

Nicoll finished. Abe called for a motion to adopt or amend the minutes. Mover and seconder rose so promptly that Abe felt at once he was merely taking part in a prearranged play. Yet, the formalities having been gone through, he rose and stated the purpose of the meeting, known to all. “The question is open for discussion.”

There was a minute's profound silence. A tension spread through the room, as though people knew what was to follow. All eyes were on Abe; through them the tension flowed into him.

Then the chief surprise was sprung. Wheeldon rose and, from a paper in his hand, read a motion to decide the question at issue by a poll. Elliot promptly rose and seconded the motion.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Abe said, “it has been moved and seconded that the question be decided by poll. We are assembled here to discuss that question. I have no objection to a poll, but–”