Settlers of the Marsh (9 page)
Niels looked out on the road, his eyes fixed on vacancy. Was this man his friend? He was glad that at least Olga had not been present.
W
HEN THEY ENTERED
the house, Nelson sang out, “Hello, girlie! Got a bite for your men?” And he stepped up to his wife, kissed her, and pinched her cheek.
Olga reddened; but she seemed pleased.
The conversation turned to Niels. What had he been doing?
N
IELS WAS GLAD
, after supper, to return outside where Nelson helped him to load his grain. It made a heavy load.
Meanwhile they spoke of common acquaintances, of their problems â¦
“I've got my patent,” Nelson said. “I'm getting a loan on the place. A thousand dollars. I want to buy stock and a pure-bred bull.”
“Clearing new land?”
“Don't know yet. Hope so. But a man doesn't seem to get any time when he's married. Need a lot of frills you never thought of before ⦔
N
EXT MORNING
, just before breakfast, Hahn came over on horseback. He was the German neighbour of Nelson's, a giant in stature and strength. The two friends were harnessing their horses in the stable.
“Heard the news?” Hahn shouted over to them as they came to the door.
“No. What?”
“Amundsen's dead.”
“What?” Niels fairly jumped. “I saw him well and alive only yesterday morning.”
“Yes,” the giant said, dismounting. “Chunk of ice fell on him in the creek. Crushed him right up, they say. Bobby Lund was over to tell me this morning. The girl didn't know what to do. He lived till noon. She rode over to Lund's to ask them to drive for a doctor. When the doctor came, after dark, Amundsen was dead; and the girl asked Bobby to let the people know. So he up and rode about, from midnight till daylight. I promised to tell you.”
Niels was white.
Nelson said thoughtfully. “There'll be a pretty good farm for sale ⦔
Olga stood in the door of the house, her apron thrown over shoulders and bare arms.
“Well, come in,” Nelson said. “Breakfast's ready.”
And they all went into the house. “My God,” Olga said.
“How did it happen, Mr. Hahn?”
And Hahn repeated as much as he knew.
“Poor Ellen!” Olga cried. “She mustn't be left alone. Couldn't we go down, Lars?”
Nelson frowned. “What could we do?”
And Olga subsided at once.
“There'll be lots of people about,” Nelson went on. “They'll do all that's needed. If I thought she'd be left alone, I'd go myself. But Lindstedt's going ⦠No doubt your mother's gone ⦠And all the others.”
Niels rose. “I'll hitch up,” he said.
N
IELS WAS RECLINING
on the bags that were piled on the grain while the horses slowly plodded along.
A sense of oppression was weighing on him ⦠The apparent futility of all endeavour was almost more than he could bear. Amundsen's impeccability in life, his trivial vanity, his slow deliberation and accuracy: where had all these taken him? To our common goal, the grave â¦
Niels thought of the girl, almost critically, without any personal bias: of her unquestioning obedience to him who was dead; of her youthful strength; of her inscrutable look which, in the light of yesterday's disaster, seemed to peer out into life and to reject it: where would her life take her?
He thought of himself and his great strength which had become a marvel to him; of his work on the homestead which he carried on without fathoming any longer the why and the wherefore. Inside of himself, in his mental make-up, he carried a spring which was tightly wound and which would keep the works of his life revolving till it had either unwound itself or spent its strength. Was it really best not to question and just to live on? But living onâwhat was the use of it if it led him ⦠There? Where?
That was the circle of his thought â¦
W
HEN AT LAST
he stopped at the gate where several other teams were tied, he felt vacant; his gloomy pessimism had exhausted itself; he was apathetic.
Slowly he crossed the yard. Ellen came out of the house. She wore sheep-skin and tam; apparently she was about to do her chores.
Niels looked at her, dully, uncomprehendingly. How could she be doing chores? ⦠Except for a slight pallour and a touch of weariness about her eyes she seemed perfectly composed.
She nodded briefly. “The body is inside,” she said. “There are others there.” And she proceeded, pulling on her mitts as she went.
At that moment the sound of singing struck Niel's ear. A hymn was being sung inside.
Not knowing what to do, he entered the house. The door to the room beyond the kitchen was open; and Niels caught a glimpse of a body which lay on a bed, rigid and still, covered with a sheet which revealed its form â¦
The German pastor from Odensee was standing in the centre of the kitchen. A dozen men and women were standing about him, singing. Among them Niels recognised Mrs. Lund and old man Sigurdsen. Their faces were solemn, as if cast in an unyielding mould.
Somehow their sight as well as that of the big, fat pastor was distasteful to him. He slipped out again before the singing was finished.
He crossed to the stable where he found Ellen feeding a strange team of horses, presumably those that had brought the pastor.
For a moment he looked on. Then he asked, “Anything I can do?”
“Thanks,” said Ellen without turning, though she had stopped in her work.
“I'm sorry,” he faltered. “I went to Nelson's yesterday. I did not hear about it till this morning.”
“I saw you going,” she replied, calm and indifferent.
“I wish ⦔ he began and hesitated.
“I know,” she nodded. “There is nothing ⦠The crowd has been here all day. They look after everything ⦔
“I'll be back in the morning ⦔
“Don't bother. They'll be sitting up with the body. I'll go to Lund's.”
A feeling of utter uselessness invaded Niels; and he resented it. For a moment longer he lingered; then he turned and went away.
Between him and the girl an abyss seemed to yawn which nothing could bridge ⦠He untied his horses, turned back to the road, and drove on.
When he got home, he went to work on the clearing of his yard as if he had to give vent to some pent-up powers within him in order to avoid an explosion â¦
N
IELS DID NOT GO
to the funeral. He saw the teams file out from the gap of the bridge and turn west, along the road at the edge of the bush, past Sigurdsen's. He came near succumbing to an impulse to run and to get his horses ready. But he caught himself and, swinging his axe high through the air, he gathered all the tremendous strength of his body into one single blow and brought it down with a vicious bite into the butt of a giant tree â¦
H
ENCEFORTH NIELS THOUGHT
of his former dreams with nothing but silent scorn. And yet there was only one excuse for his life in the present; and that excuse lay in the possible future. He had, in the past, planned a homestead with that future in view; and the plan persisted.
His only intercourse was with Sigurdsen now. The old man was slowly decaying. At best he had only a few years to live.
All through the winter Niels worked at clearing yard and field, at squaring and fitting timbers â¦
In the beginning of March he began to dig a well. He intended to get help as soon as he reached a depth of seven or eight feet. But when he reached that level, wild blizzards began to blow, wiping out all traces of the roads and throwing up trenches and bulwarks all about the entrance to his yard. Niels went on digging by himself.
On the fourth day the temperature fell to one of its lowest levels; and all through the night, while lying in his improvised house, the granary, Niels heard the frost booming in the big bluff â¦
Again he went at his well alone. He made a sort of ladder of poles and put it into the hole; and that way he carried the clay and
marl
out in pails. Then he struck gravel and sand; and before laying off for dinner he noticed a slight trickle of water from the upper edge of the sandy layer. Under ordinary circumstances this sight would have filled him with exultation. As it was, he heaved a sigh and worked on before eating till he had the proper depth below the spring. Next morning there were six feet of water in the well. He got the lumber for the cribbing ready.
In the evening, it being a clear, frosty night, he walked across to Sigurdsen's to bespeak the old man's help.
On the north side of Niel's yard, in the lee of the big bluff, lay the squared timbers, thirty-two feet long.
“What that?” Sigurdsen asked when he came in the forenoon of the following day.
“For the house,” Niels said briefly.
The old man whistled. “How big?”
“What?”
“The house.”
“Four rooms and kitchen.”
“Big rooms.”
“Fifteen by eighteen,” Niels said.
Again the old man whistled. “You going get married?” he asked while they crossed the yard.
“No,” Niels said; “don't think so.”
S
PRING CAME
. The breaking began; Niels had lumber to haul besides, for the house.
While breaking in daytime, he dug the basement of the house at night â¦
May went; June opened up. Blossoms broke out all around: plums,
pincherry,
chokecherry
, saskatoon,
cranberry
: the brief
saturnalian
summer of the north â¦
White mists crept over the Marsh at night, filling the hollows with snow-white pools.
A sort of intoxication came over Niels; work developed into an orgy â¦
One night Sigurdsen came over, driving.
“You done anything about hay?” he asked.
“Hm ⦠tya,” the old man ruminated. “Go together?”
“Like last year? If you want to. Who sells the permits?”
“The girl.”
“She staying on the farm?”
“The Amundsen girl? Tya. They all want buy. She say no. Get married, I say. She say, No; I can do the work.”
“All right,” said Niels. “You see about the hay.”
The old man looked at him, his toothless mouth tightly shut; his chin seemed to touch his nose.
“You come along,” he said at last. “Go now.”
“I don't mind,” Niels replied casually; but his heart was pounding.
The seemingly common-place phrases had been charged with electricity. A struggle was concealed in them. The old man carried the victory. Niels was like a son to him â¦
I
T WAS JUST BEFORE DARK
when they crossed the bridge.
Ahead of their own team they saw another wagon disappearing around a bend in the winding trail. Since there were barrels in the wagon-box, Niels had no doubt but that it was Ellen â¦
But when, on a straighter stretch of the road, they came once more within sight of the team; he saw somebody climbing over the front barrels into the back of the box. This somebody looked like a lad, not like a young woman.
“That Bobby?” Niels asked.
“Hi ⦠tya!” the old man laughed. “Naw. The girl. Wear overalls for work.”
Niels coloured; his heart beat faster again â¦
When, in a little less than an hour, they drew up at the gate, Niels saw the wagon with the barrels still standing on the yard. While Sigurdsen tied his horses, he saw a slim figure flitting into the house.
He felt strangely moved. Had it not been for his companion, he would have turned back â¦
From the barn across the yard the sullen, slow bark of an aged dog rang across â¦
Sigurdsen knocked at the door. For a moment no answer. Then the girl's voice rang out from within.
“That you, Mr. Sigurdsen?”
“Yea.”
“Go into the kitchen. I'll be out in a minute.”
The two men entered. It was very dark inside. But a line of light showed where the door led to the other room.
“There's a lamp on the table. Just light it,” Ellen's voice rang out for the third time. “You'll find matches on the shelf by the stove.”
The old man had matches in his pocket â¦
Niels stood by the door, in a dull and incomprehensible excitement. He had known, of course, that Ellen was living alone on the place; but for the first time he became aware of what that meant. Loneliness had weighed upon him at times; now it assailed him like a savage beast. He was a man!
The door to the next room opened. Ellen came out, carrying a second lamp.
Niels fastened his eyes upon her.
She had changed to a light print dress. She seemed taller, slenderer than she had looked; more girlish, younger even; above all, less impersonal.
There was still the same poise; the same level, critical look in her eyes. But something happened which destroyed the distancing effect of that look. For, as she caught sight of Niels by the door and recognised him, a scarlet flood suffused her face. Her lips parted as if about to smile â¦
Niels felt that his own head glowed.
She turned to the table and put her lamp upon it.
“Sit down, Mr. Sigurdsen,” she said with a steady voice; and, turning to Niels, she nodded and repeated, “Sit down.”
She avoided his name.
“We come about hay,” Sigurdsen said.
“Yes?”
“The south-west quarter of twenty-one, in the slough.”
“You can have it,” the girl said quickly, with a voice that was almost ingratiating.
“How much?”
“Thirteen fifty,” the girl replied, still speaking fast. “It's fifteen dollars with my commission. I am not going to let you pay for that.”
“But the stamps?”
The girl laughed lightly. “Oh, never mind ⦔
“We go together,” Sigurdsen explained. “Lindstedt and I.”
“Oh?”âwith a questioning inflection. “All right. Drop in when you want to start. I'll have the permits ready.”
