Arrived at the point where the culvert had lodged slantwise across the ditch, with the swirling current tugging at it, Abe stopped the horses, of which there were eighteen in all. To the south, Shilloe’s buildings seemed to float on a lake; to the north, Hartley’s shanty stood tilted up. Abe sent Nawosad with Stanley’s two horses to take the family out on Hartley’s hayrack. “Take them to my place. To the empty granary. Let them take their own beddings. Tell Bill to look after them in the line of food.” He glanced at Hartley, as much as to say he had better join his family for the moment; but Hartley did not stir from the floor of the wagon-box.
Abe, Bill Stanley, Shilloe, and Nicoll descended into the water which stood here nearly two feet deep.
Together they fastened a chain to a corner of the culvert, securing it to projecting timbers. To this chain they fastened two four-horse eveners, close to the corner; then, leading the chain forward, they fastened one evener to its end; and another, a matter of ten feet behind it, in such a way as to make Nicoll’s team straddle the chain. Abe and Shilloe gathered the lines of the last two teams, and Nicoll and Bill Stanley took charge of those in front.
At a signal from Abe, following the brisk question, “Ready there?” all the horses bent forward; and the culvert slipped to the northern bank of the ditch. A few timbers crashed with splintering sounds.
Abe shouted a signal to stop and to breathe the horses. Then they swung on to the trail to the west. The broken braces underneath stayed behind; and the sledding of the structure, buoyed up by the water, grew easier at once. Again Abe called a halt.
“You’d better unhook, Nicoll. We’ll manage with three teams. Go back for the wagon. We’ll need the chains.”
And forward again, the horses plunging wherever they met with soft footing. When the water was thrown aloft in sheets, Shilloe and Bill Stanley laughed. Abe’s broad face never moved under the projecting southwester; he took the brunt of it all; unlike the others, he stayed behind his horses, watching them closely, for Beaut, the leader, was with colt.
At last they had covered the mile and a half and came to the crossing. But the biggest piece of work remained to be done: the culvert, forty feet long, had to be manoeuvred across the swirling ditch; they waited for Nicoll. Nawosad passed them, with the Hartleys on the rack. Hartley himself had, after all, chosen to join them and was reclining on a miscellaneous assortment of bedding.
Abe frowned when he saw him. Was he going to be content to let others rescue him and his without lending a hand?
There followed three hours of titanic struggle. With poles and timbers they pushed the culvert into the wild current, often themselves in danger of slipping into deep water. The near corner was anchored, by a long chain, to Nicoll’s corner post, with enough slack to let the structure swing to the edge of the ditch. Another chain was fastened to the far corner which would be the forward one on the other bank. That chain lay coiled on the floating floor. Three times they almost succeeded in lodging the culvert against the far bank; one of them ran to pick up the coiled chain and to take the leap; but whenever the strength of a man was withdrawn, the culvert, caught broadside on by the current, swung back and frustrated all that had been done.
Meanwhile, at the school which faced them with its northern row of windows, there was a spectator. Old man Blaine, as people called him, stood on the cement stoop of the trim, white building, his trousers clasped at the bottom as if he expected to use the bicycle for his escape. He looked on but of haggard eyes, a soft felt hat on his grey hair, his sandy, grey-streaked beard reaching to his waist. He seemed to stoop under the weight of his head, unconscious of the cold drizzle which interposed a veil between him and the men, so that he looked like a creature of mist.
Nobody, so far, had thought of stopping for a meal when Nicoll proposed to fetch Tom, his oldest boy, to help. They must have another hand. But Abe shook his head and pointed to the south where a black spot was approaching out of the rain-dimmed distance, cleaving the surface of the huge lake. Hilmer had seen them from his place.
They rested, waiting.
When Hilmer arrived, Abe shouted directions. And once more they manoeuvred the culvert into the stream till its far point touched the submerged bank on the other side. Hilmer showed that he could at least carry out instructions. With a jump he landed on the raft, picked up the chain, and was back on the flooded prairie before the culvert had swung out again too far to take the leap. Heedless of the fact that he was getting drenched to his shoulders, he ran till the chain was taut and gave it two or three quick turns around the corner post of the school yard. But still the culvert lay at an angle. So Abe slackened the chain on the north side, allowing the culvert to drift till it bridged the ditch at right angles. Hilmer joined the other men.
The next problem was how to get a team across. But, Hilmer reporting that his culvert was still in place, though in need of being anchored, Abe changed his mind. “We’ll go down by and by,” he said. “Let’s have something to eat. You go home,” he added to Bill Stanley. “We won’t need you again. Take your team and get into dry clothes.”
“How about Blaine?” Nicoll asked.
“I’ll carry him over. Can you feed us all?”
Half an hour later, Abe, carrying the teacher on his back, entered Nicoll’s yard where the horses were munching hay and oats from the box of a wagon, up to their hocks in water.
At the house, dinner was ready. Two tall, slender girls and the enormous woman waited on the famished crew; three big boys and a host of smaller girls sat about in the dim room, devouring every word that was spoken. To them this was a red-letter day: the men were heroes and giants fighting the elements. Outside, the rain was thickening again.
It was past five o’clock when Abe, leaving his Clydes at Nicoll’s Corner, himself straddling the Percheron gelding, tackled the task of taking horses and wagon across a culvert which moved under foot. Two or three times he made the attempt; but when their feet touched the floating edge of the timbers, the horses reared and backed away. At last Nicoll, Shilloe, and Hilmer bestrode one each of the other horses; and though they still scattered water all about them, their riders forced them on.
At Hilmer’s Corner they anchored the bridge; it was dark by that time; but for fear that the worst might happen and they be cut off from the world, they did not give in till all was safe. It was midnight before Abe got home; and the rain was falling with that steady swish with which it falls on a sea becalmed.
ELECTION
The district needed a new man on the council. Davis, huge, bottle-shaped, the typical politician, could not be trusted. He abused his position for the sake of his “pickings.”
The trail town became a thing to be dreaded.
So far, the traveller had been able to avoid the worst spots by circling over the prairie. But the road-allowance was being fenced. Blaine had filed on the school quarter and was enclosing it. He had no intention of farming; but Abe had promised to haul his cottage over from Arkwright if he secured the land to place it on. It looked as if Blaine were permanently established in the district; Abe’s ascendancy in matters of local policy seemed assured.
The three quarter sections remaining between Nicoll’s and Hilmer’s Corners had been filed on by three brothers, young fellows who intended to farm in partnership. In imitation of a commercial firm they called themselves Topp Brothers Limited. They, too, started operations by fencing their long strip of land.
This made the problem of the road vital. Often one of the settlers got stuck on his way to town, especially after a rain, when the water stood yard-deep in the ruts.
Davis promised whatever was asked for. “I’ll do my best, fellows. I’ll see that you get what you need.” But he had disappointed them once too often. Besides, while it was known that the council had already discussed the situation in plenary session, Davis tried to create the impression that everything depended on him. At least he allowed it to be inferred when they were assembled in groups; by appointment he met
the settlers at Nicoll’s Corner and made a speech. But he overshot his mark. At a time when everybody was busy seeding, he kept dropping in on individual farmers. Who was looking after his place? He could not afford to hire help; how, then, could he neglect his fields unless his position–to which no salary was attached apart from mileage fees–yielded “pickings” enough to carry him through the year? He used his very need for money as a plea; and to such a plea most of the settlers were accessible enough; they all knew that need for money. Poor devil! The trouble was he could not be trusted.
The ward comprised, in addition to Spalding District, Davis’s own settlement and the village of Morley. Who was to take Davis’s place?
Abe’s prestige had grown enormously. He owned the biggest holding, not only in the ward but in the municipality. He paid the highest taxes. His progress was watched even at Somerville. He was buying a tractor. Hilmer, Nawosad, and Shilloe were fencing his new section. Abe, Bill Crane, and Nicoll had all they could do to get his seed into the ground: he seeded eight hundred acres.
Nicoll was sent to sound him as to his willingness to “run” for a seat on the council. Having long played with the idea, Abe did not decline; but he refused to canvass the ward. “Elect me if you want to,” he said. “I’ll act. But I won’t go around and beg for votes. If you think I can do something for you, it’s up to you. I won’t stir a finger.” He pleaded the urgency of his work; but it was known to be pride which prompted his refusal to do the usual thing. This gave a few men from Britannia District the material to work against him. “Give Spalding power,” they said, “and he’ll rule you with an iron rod.”
Among those, on the other hand, who were most active in the interest of Abe’s election was Blaine. As soon as the roads were dry, he straddled his bicycle every Saturday to go to town. His huge head with the long beard floated over the handle bar, trembling on a slender, corded neck; he did not go fast; but he pedalled along as though automatically.
Thus he passed the cottage which the Topp brothers were building in the centre of their long holding–a neat little thing twenty feet square, perched on a high foundation, with a porch in front. And next Hilmer’s shack where old Mrs. Grappentin followed his progress from a window or through the open door. “There he goes,” she would say in German, “to win votes for the duke and lord!” This name had stuck.
He would spend all day in town, talking to the farmers from the east half of the ward; he knew everybody who was not a new-comer to the prairie: years ago, he had taught in Britannia District.
One day, when Abe and Bill were disking the new breaking, such as there was of it, the rattling noise of a motor car running with exhausts wide open caught Abe’s ear. He was facing north and nearing the line of the Hudson’s Bay section; and soon he saw a curious vehicle lumbering over the prairie from the north-east: it was that once familiar sight of an ancient Ford car of the first vintage, covered in all sorts of places with tarnished brass. It jolted and tilted and tossed along, with an ever-increasing bellowing noise at which the horses pricked their ears; for, level as the prairie looked, it was by no means as smooth as it appeared to the eye. Everything about this car shook and rattled; the cloth of the top dangled behind in strips like a bunch of streamers; the fenders were suspended with binder-twine.
The car came to a stop in front of Abe’s horses which were prancing with fright. The driver alighted, vaulting briskly over the door without opening it; and he came at once to where Abe was sitting perched on his harrow. Small and clad in grey overalls, the man looked more like a schoolboy than an adult of forty years. His face was freckled; his eyes grey-blue; his hair reddish. Abe recognized the Yankee who had been “snooping about” in the district before Nicoll’s time.
“Hello, Spalding,” he greeted Abe informally and in a business-like way. “Running for councillor, I hear. Remember me? Wheeldon, in case you’ve forgotten. From Destouches, Iowa. I’ve filed on the north-west quarter of eleven.” He pointed over his shoulder towards Stanley’s place. “I’m thinking of moving out next spring. Provided you and I can come to terms.” This on a rising note.
“Come to terms?”–distantly; these two had disliked each other at sight.
“I want road work for two men and two teams for three months, at current rates. I’m willing to pay the usual rake-off.”
“I am not a councillor yet,” Abe said, stiffening.
Wheeldon laughed. “That’s all right. Subject to your being elected. I’ve fixed the other fellow. He’s O.K.”
Abe saw a lane of new vision opening up. “What’s your offer?” he asked, sitting motionless.
“The usual thing. Ten per cent.”
“The other fellow took it?”
“Like a shot.”
“How much down?”
Again Wheeldon laughed. “Thought you’d be all right. Trouble is I can’t afford a payment down. I’ll endorse the first cheque over to you. It’s between gentlemen.”
“You’ve got the horses?”
“I have.”
“What about buildings?”
“I’ve got the wherewithal to build this fall.”
“Why the road work, then?”
“A year’s living. Second year I’ll have a crop.”
“What are you doing at present? Farming?”
“I’m a tinsmith. Work’s falling off. What with mass production in the factories.”
Abe sat silent. Then he spoke. “As for the deal you propose, I don’t do that sort of thing. But we want the settlers. If you move in, we’ll look after you. There’ll be six or eight miles of road to be built next summer. If I’m road-boss, I’ll use local labour if I can get it. Some of us don’t want the job though we’ll keep a team on the road if it’s needed. You can figure out what your share will be.”
Wheeldon looked pensively at Abe. “The straight game, eh? That’s one way, of course. Something new. It’s as good as a promise?”
“It’s as good as a contract,” Abe said slowly.
“Fine. I’m in a hurry. Shake.”
And he returned to his car, abstracting a jack from the litter in the back seat. Having raised one of the rear wheels, he put the car in gear, cranked, and, as the engine started with a roar, adjusted the levers under the steering wheel. Having replaced the gears in neutral, he pushed the car off the jack and, a moment later, turned to the east.
Abe sat and looked. Instinctively he had wiped his hand on his trousers. Was that the way it was done? His contempt for the man had an undercurrent of pity for one who had to have recourse to such means of making a living. “A nice story to tell on the platform!” he muttered.
A week later Abe went to town to get some repairs done at the blacksmith shop. While Bigelow hobbled about between forge and vice, rotund, swarthy, and preoccupied, Abe sat on the frame of a plough.
Placing Abe’s broken guide-rod on the anvil, the blacksmith spoke between hammer-blows. “Fellow from south of the border. Name’s Wheeldon, I think. Davis says–got promise of road work from you. That right?”
“Quite right.”
“Looks bad, Abe.”
“Looks bad if local work’s to be done by local labour?”
“That all?”
“That’s all.”
“No promise in return?”
Abe hesitated and frowned. “Tell you. I’m not campaigning. But did Davis give you to understand that Wheeldon made me a promise?”
“He allowed that conclusion to be drawn.”
“Then he allowed himself to lie. Wheeldon offered me ten per cent. Same as he offered Davis. Davis took it. I didn’t.”
Bigelow remained silent till Abe had paid for the work. Then he added, “You’ll have my vote.”
“Not that I’m asking for it, you know….”
Before going home, Abe did some shopping at the Vanbruik store. As usual, Mr. Diamond came to meet him.
“Well,” he said, “the campaign is becoming interesting, with one of the candidates missing all me
etings!”
“Meetings being held?”
“Quite a few. Informal most of them. But Davis is always there.”
“He’ll have things all his way, I suppose?”
“That’s the funny part of it. The more meetings he holds, the less votes he has left. If he did all he promises, he’d beggar the county.”
When harvest began, Abe forgot about the election. Every settler worked on his place. He bought a third binder; and, long expected, the great tractor arrived at last. When it was driven over from Somerville, people came to their doors and stared. Henry Topp, oldest of the three brothers, acted as engineer. One of the difficulties had been to find a man who could operate such machinery; Henry Topp had moved in; and like other difficulties confronting Abe, this one had vanished. Two binders were hitched behind the huge engine which used kerosene for fuel. With Henry, who was small, his two brothers came to stook: David, second in age, medium-sized, quiet, efficient; and Slim, the youngest, barely nineteen years old but already six feet in height, boisterous, raw-boned, a youth who thought nothing of walking to town to meet a girl when the day’s work was finished.
Meanwhile a house went up on the north-west quarter of eleven, north of Stanley’s homestead, with two carpenters at work.
Thus, by the time harvest was finished, there were twelve resident ratepayers in the district, including Blaine. The ward comprised one hundred and five votes, so that Spalding District furnished, after all, only a small fraction of the electorate.
The decisive battle for which the ward had prepared itself during the summer was fought when all fall work was finished, on the third Tuesday of the month of December.
Two weeks before, Abe’s nomination had been duly recorded at the municipal office at Somerville, Nicoll acting as proposer and Bigelow as seconder. Davis being renominated, a poll was necessary. Anderson’s implement shed, north of his hardware store, was the polling place, with Dr. Vanbruik acting as deputy returning officer and Mr. Diamond as polling clerk. The shed was heated by a number of coal-oil stoves and lighted–for windows were small and scanty–by a gasoline lamp suspended above the table on which stood the ballot box.
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