Already, in certain districts, people spoke of a year in the early nineties when, in the settlements to the west, it had been impossible to thresh in the fall. The crops had stood in the fields through the winter, to be threshed in spring. Farmers had considered themselves lucky to save a fraction of their wealth. Could nothing be done to save all? In August Abe did what he had never done before. He went great distances into the districts to the west: to Ivy, eleven miles from Morley; and thence south-west, to Wheatland and Ferney, standing about in stores and listening to the gossip of farmers. Wherever he went, reports were the same: unless something went wrong at the last moment, it would be a bumper crop. One danger was pointed out: before this, an early killing frost had overtaken the west. When Abe reached home, he went into his fields and rubbed a sample of his wheat from ears here and there till he arrived at the conclusion that his crop was safe; frost might lower the grade; it could not ruin the whole.
Others who shook their heads in anticipation of what must go wrong were fatalists in spite of misgivings. What must come would come; no use trying to fight; no use worrying. Too bad if anything happened; but if it did, it could not be helped.
But Abe rebelled at that thought. He was changing. His ambitions had been material ones; but there were other things in life, dimly seen as in a mist. A happiness based on things not material was blindly emerging. Abe was a slave to the soil; till he had satisfied that soil which he himself had endowed with the power of enslaving him, he must postpone all other things; only when he had done what he must do, would he have time and energy for anything else. This crop he must have.
And cutting started. Abe began with two binders drawn by horses: the problem of help was acute. Harvest was general. Abe asked Nicoll for his boy Tom, seventeen years old. Nicoll was obstinate.
“I’ll hurry things along,” he said. “I’ll let the girls stook. Loan me a binder and a team, and I’ll let Tom drive my own outfit; I’ll drive yours. That way I’ll get through in half the time. When I finish I’ll come with three boys. But I can’t afford to let my sixty acres wait. With an additional binder it’s a question of two, three days.”
Abe went to see Henry Topp and received the same answer. It was late at night when he got home; he harnessed five horses to one of his binders and drove it over to Nicoll’s Corner. It was after midnight.
People had heard him for miles around; sounds carry far over the prairie. Next morning Stanley came to Abe’s asking for a repair part for his binder. He spoke in a peculiar vein. “You know, Spalding, I can drive a team; but I can’t stook with one arm. When such an affliction comes, you learn patience. When I look at you, I see myself as I used to be. I thought I could force things. I’ve learned to trust in the Lord. That’s what’s wrong with us all; we have lost our faith. You are going to have that crop or to lose it; and if you’re to lose it, nothing that you can do will save it for you.”
Abe looked at the man who had spoken with an insistence unusual between people who are not intimate. “That may be,” he said. “But it may also be that God helps them that help themselves.”
He could not afford to sit back and look on. A few days later, the weather remaining incredibly golden, Abe’s harvest got into its stride. He paid his stookers three dollars a day: wages unheard of except in threshing, and they drew every hand. Even Stanley sent Bill; and Harry Stobarn came from a distance of ten miles–a man who was to play a part in Abe’s destinies two years later.
On Sunday Abe went to Somerville to fetch a fifth binder: what was the cost of a binder when such a crop was at stake? Three acres of wheat would pay for the machine. Abe was still financing on last year’s crop; not a cent did he owe at the bank.
Twice, during the first day, there was trouble with the two oldest binders. Abe sent to town; the assistant to one of the grain buyers was a binder expert; henceforth this man, drawing five dollars a day, remained in the field, driving the bronchos hitched to a buggy, available wherever a binder stopped. A supply of repair parts lay in the box.
At noon, the whole crew was fed at Horanski’s where the woman seemed glad of this overflow of harvest joy lapping about her door. At five, a lunch was served to the men, with beer or coffee to drink as they preferred. The binder expert brought baskets full of sandwiches and jugs full of coffee and beer to the field. Abe’s driving power told; for two weeks, work in the fields became an orgy.
Then, just before the end, a slight rain fell like a warning. It was after dinner; by night they would have finished. The rain ceased almost as soon as it had begun; but work had to be suspended. Abe was in a panic. When, three days later, on 3rd September, the last sheaf was stooked, some of the binders and the tractor were at the northern line of the Hudson’s Bay section; the stooks stood so close together that it was impossible to take the machines across the field. In a buoyancy of exultation, Abe took a pair of pliers from the tool-box of the nearest binder and went to the fence to pull the staples holding the wires to the posts. The whole caravan crossed over to the wild land in the west and circled the farm in the dusk.
Two days later a heavy rain fell. But dry weather followed immediately and continued for several days. Yet signs began to multiply that more rain was to follow. Abe lived in a frenzy of worry. If all went well, there were forty thousand dollars’ worth of wheat in the stooks. Abe, full of forebodings, began to wish for an early frost.
On 11th September Abe was up at four in the morning, feeding the horses himself from sheer nervousness; for more than a year now he had left such chores entirely to Horanski who seemed famished for work; but Abe felt as though, by keeping himself even uselessly busy, he was doing his share to avert a disaster; nobody would be able to say that he had been sitting idly by while his crops were being ruined.
Always he had thought fastest and to the best effect when at work. He could never grasp all the bearings of a problem sitting down; at work, difficulties seemed to solve themselves as by magic.
Thus, having done the chores at the barn, all but the milking, he climbed into the loft, taking a lantern, to throw down hay for the day; and, happening to look into the grain bin, he saw that there was little oats left near the chute. He climbed in and, with a half-bushel scoop, shovelled the grain over from the talus-slopes of the margin.
Suddenly he straightened under the impact of a thought.
Yes, he would stack his crop!
Nobody throughout the length and breadth of the river valley had to his knowledge ever stacked his grain. In thirteen years he had not seen conditions which might make it necessary or desirable to do so. It would cost hundreds of dollars; he would have to pay threshing wages. Yet, since threshermen would not come into the district till the work in more densely settled parts was done, his crop would be safe.
He dropped his scoop, climbed out of the bin and down the ladder.
That moment Horanski entered the barn.
“Quick,” Abe said. “I’ve done the feeding. Take Pride. Make the round south of the ditch. Four dollars a day. Let the Topp brothers and Hilmer bring a hayrack each. Start at six. Hurry up now.”
Horanski was jumping. “Ya, ya. But what?”
“Never mind. Hurry. We stack.”
Abe had four ordinary wagons; only two of them were still fitted with hayracks; in threshing, boxes were needed. By almost superhuman exertion he managed to tilt the boxes of the other two to the ground and to replace them by flat racks lying near the shed. Having done so, he did not go to the house to light the fire in the kitchen but took Bay, Pride’s sister, from her stall, threw a blanket over her back, and in a minute was galloping east to see Nicoll.
Nicoll, harvest being done and threshing far afield, came down in his night-wear when he heard Abe’s frantic hammering. When Abe told him what he wanted, he was amazed. “Surely not. Nobody ever stacks here.”
“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.
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