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
Incidentally, 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.
It was a week before Abe heard of his election, for he was threshing. When he did, it did not mean much to him: he was planning beyond his boldest dreams.
The threshing was done by Victor Lafontaine who brought his old steam engine and the huge separator over the snow from St. Cecile. No bundle wagons were needed. The separator was drawn between two stacks, and Nicoll and Horanski pitched sheaves while a dozen teams hauled the grain away. There were three granaries in Abe’s yard, each holding seven thousand bushels. These were attended to by three teams; nine hauled directly to town. Even at that it was necessary at times to thresh on the ground. Huge sheets of tarpaulin were spread on the snow; the grain was shovelled into a pile and covered with other tarpaulins weighted down with whatever could be found in a country devoid of stones. If the indicator at the grain spout of the separator was correct, over seventeen thousand bushels of wheat were left in the fields. Twenty-one thousand bushels were waiting in the granaries; more than fourteen thousand had been sold outright, with the price of wheat rising sharply. Besides, there were barley and oats, vastly more than needed for feed and seed: these were stored in the loft of the barn.
Even Ruth gasped when she heard the figures from the children. She could not defend herself against a feeling of admiration for the man who had saved such a crop.
One night at last, coming home late and sitting down wearily at the table to have his belated supper, Abe said grimly, “That’s that!”
“Finished?” Ruth asked.
“Finished,” he replied.
He had recently bought a gasoline lamp which hung suspended above the table, shedding a cruel light on everything in the room. Abe felt this evening to mark an epoch in his life. He was awed by his own achievement. In the whole world there seemed nothing left for him to do.
He looked at Ruth who was waiting on him. For years they had lived side by side, speaking of nothing but the trivial matters of the day. They hardly knew whether they were in agreement on the fundamental questions of life. Were there such questions?
Abe had been dimly aware of changes going on about him. The years were piling up. He had given it no thought; it could not be helped. Slow work, the work of the farm! Every step took a year. But the last step had been taken. He could afford to look back.
Yes, there, in the door of the kitchen, stood Ruth. That was how she looked; not a sight to make a man’s glance linger. Between her heavy bust and her wide, massive hips, the last trace of a waistline had vanished. In the short, wide face, the wrinkles furrowing cheeks and forehead showed a thickness of skin such as to preclude any delicacy in the mouldings which increasing years were bound to bring. Her expression betrayed a sense of disappointment with life.
Abe was aware of a wave of distaste
flooding through him. This feeling he tried to hold down by sheer force. He averted his glance. He was afraid that anything he might say would widen the estrangement between them rather than bridge it; about her dress, for instance, with its heavy, cast-iron folds; or about the incomprehensibly unattractive, grey-brown cloth of which it was made; or about the way in which she tied her hair into a knot on top of her head.
And this room! Dingy and dismal. The inexorable light showed up its threadbare, worn-out fittings.
He pushed his cup back and, without looking up, said, “Well, all this is going to be changed at last!” It was meant as a consolation; as conveying a sense of his own shortcomings; he was sorry that he had left Ruth in such surroundings for so long. He had been an unconscionable time in fulfilling his promise. After all, she had had to live in the place; to him, it had been just a lair to go to at night.
Ruth sat down at the table. The silence was full of unexpected meanings. “Abe,” she said, looking first down then straight at him. “I don’t know–” And tears ran down her cheeks.
Uncomfortably he leaned back in his chair.
“This crop,” Ruth went on; “it means a fortune. Why build?”
Abe gasped. “Why build? What else?”
“We have enough to live on. Move to town.”
“Do you mean retire?”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you know that I am not yet fifty?”
“Well–” Ruth moved a dish with nervous fingers. “I feel sixty.”
Abe stared at her. She looked it, too. His fault? Partly. But he could not help himself. For years he had been careful not to touch on matters which might provoke a scene; he had done so for his own sake: in order not to be disturbed in his work and his plannings. All his energy had been claimed by the farm, summer and winter. In winter he had cleaned his seed three, four times; all his wheat had been hauled to town between fall and spring. No doubt, to be thus left alone had been hard for the woman.
“Abe,” Ruth began once more, trying to be considerate. “You work and work and work. What for?”
Abe felt he had reached the limit of his endurance. Yet he kept his temper under control. “What does any one work for? We work because we must, I suppose. We are all going to die one day if that’s what you mean. But before we die, we want to find some satisfaction. You ask me to give up when that satisfaction is within reach.”
Ruth hesitated. The sacrifice she demanded was beyond the man’s power to give. It was beyond her power to yield. Yet he was human; so was she. Was there no common ground between them? She made a last attempt. “Look what this life has made of me. When I am to talk to any one but the children, I am nervous. Rather than go to town and show myself, I stay at home, day in day out, year in and year out.”
Abe had risen. He felt shaken. He pitied the woman. Yet, was it his fault? A vague gesture preceded speech. “Isn’t that just where you are wrong? You should force yourself. Here’s a whole district, but nobody comes to see us. Why not? Because you don’t go to see anybody. They think you consider yourself better than they are. They say we’re stuck-up. I’ve got to mix with the men whether I want to or not. But are they wrong? I have wider ambitions and bolder aims than they. If you and Mary don’t pull together, there are other women. Make friends. For God’s sake try!”
“This life has taken the desire away.”
“This life! Do you realize that it’s the freest, most independent life on earth? Your part in it is your own making. I–” And he shook his head in utter disgust–“I can’t live in town. Years ago you bore me a grudge because you had to live in this patched-up shack. I want to raze it and give you a real house. If I’ve left you to live here, I’ve done so in order not to put up another makeshift. It would have been a waste of money. Sooner or later I was going to be in a position to do things right. I am in that position now.”
Ruth rose as if to break off. “Build if you must.”
But now he would not accept that verdict. “You act as if it were my fault that things are as they are. You act as if I were to blame because you’ve got stout. You make your whole life a silent reproach to me. I can only say there are other stout women. They can’t help it. But they try at least to remain a little attractive. I’ve never grudged you money; not when I was hardest up. Every year I’ve given you a few hundred dollars. I’ve promised not to ask you how you spend it. But I will ask. Have you spent it? Have you spent any of it?”
“No.”
“Why not? That’s what money is for. To be spent.”
“What should I spend money on myself for? Living as I do.”
“There you go. Turning around in a circle like a dog chasing his tail. For my sake. For the sake of the children.”
“Perhaps the children will thank me one day that there are a few pennies left when they’re needed.”
Abe threw up his hands. “Let me look after that. I’ll double what I’ve been giving you. I’ll treble it. I’ll write you a cheque for a thousand dollars to-night. But spend it! Spend at least part of it.”
“I will,” she challenged, “if you build.”
Abe stood as if struck speechless. “If I build! I’ll build. Of that you may be sure. I’d rather build with your co-operation than otherwise. But build I shall. What else should I do? Go to town? Open up a butchershop? Lick my fingers for other people’s dirty cash?” And, slamming the door behind him, he went to pace the frozen, snow-covered ground.
Shortly after the new year Abe left the farm to go to the city. Horanski was in charge; a crew had been hired to haul the grain. In thirteen years this was the first time that he had gone away. He had offered to take Ruth and the children. Ruth had declined.
When he returned towards the end of the month, he gave orders that every sleigh going to town with wheat was to bring home a load of red brick which was piled along the railway track. He put Horanski to work cleaning the seed. He himself was rarely at home. Many people asked for a job, from town and from south of the Line. He investigated their circumstances and gave work or denied it according to the urgency of the case. People learned to depend on him.
He spent long hours at Somerville, in conference with Duncan and Ferris, implement dealers. A contractor from the city came to measure the ground between the old house and the wind-break in front where the brick was being piled. Other supplies were brought out: rolls upon rolls of ornamental fence-wire; hardwood for floors, to be stored in the granaries as they were being emptied; windows and doors; cement for foundations and sills; parts of some complicated machinery to be assembled on the farm; coils upon coils of insulated copper wire; building paper; bundles of lath and green-stained shingles; shiplap and scantling; no end of things; the district buzzed with their list.
Abe was secretive; he had plans and papers; ground plans and elevations; he showed them to no one.
“Well, Abe,” Nicoll said, “I suppose you’ll do this thing as you do everything, on the large scale, won’t you?”
“Large enough for my family, if that’s what you mean.”
“Spalding Hall?”
Abe made neither answer nor motion.
“What’s all that machinery?”
“Motor and dynamo.”
“Electric light for the house?”
“Light and power.”
Nicoll nodded. “I see. I see.”…
“You would think,” said Mrs. Grappentin, “he’s building a village.”
“He gives bread to the district,” Hilmer replied. “Wenn die Koenige baun, haben die Kaerrner zu tun.–When kings build, the teamsters find work, Mrs. Mother.”…
Every load that went to Abe’s place was watched and discussed; and not only in the district, in town as well. Day after day load after load went out, throughout February and March.
Mr. Diamond was enthusiastic. “That’s the way, Abe. I’ve always believed in you. Show them how to farm.”…
The brick had been hauled; and still there was wheat. To the amazement of his
men Abe gave orders to bring lumber now. He did not explain; but carload after carload of lumber was shunted on to the siding at Morley–huge timbers such as are used for frame and flooring of barns. These he piled at the north end of the yard, in front of the granaries.
The thaws came, and the flood appeared. It ran out, and everywhere farmers began to thresh. Abe fretted; he could not get help. He had to be satisfied with a small acreage of wheat. By the time Henry Topp came to operate the tractor it was too late to seed anything but barley.
Then, in the beginning of June, a string of bunk wagons came from town, drawn by Abe’s horses: little houses on wheels, one of them fitted as a cook-house. Other things followed: an excavating machine with a steam engine; a concrete mixer; many things. All were put just inside the wind-break: a regular village with all sorts of shops.
Abe had to be everywhere: in the field where the spring work was still going on: in the yard where the exact location of the great house depended on his say-so. It was more than he could do. Often the foreman directing the work came out to the field; or he waited for Abe late at night to discuss this or that. The crew, forty-odd men, consisted almost entirely of “foreigners”–men willing to work, pleasant, obliging; but rough and wild-looking not a few of them were.
And the children had to be kept within bounds; there was danger among the machines where chains dangled and derricks swung while horses struggled with their loads of wet earth to be dumped on the trail past Horanski’s. Would that trail be mud, mud for ever after?
Yet when Abe, years hence, looked back on this summer of 1913, it seemed as if never in his life had he been happier than at that time. When the foreman asked a question, on Abe’s answer depended something akin to creation: for decades or centuries that spot of his yard would present itself to the world as he willed it.
Then, excavations being finished on the sites of both house and barn, the scene cleared itself up; and concrete was poured into moulds. This was the most important part of the work; there must be no water in cellar, engine room, and manure pit. Pitch was enclosed between two layers of concrete to make the foundations waterproof.
Fruits of the Earth Page 13