“That’s the crew boss,” Sayre recognized. By this time she was looking through the window. Up from the rear end of the field two or three men were hurrying to join a close-knit, gesticulating group near the piled bales at the front.
“Something’s wrong,” Sayre thought. Suddenly the vague outside sounds she had been hearing assumed new meaning. “Something’s been wrong since early this morning. I’m going to find out what.”
Grabbing up several cups, she sped out of the back door and down into the root cellar after the pitcher of cooling drink which she had mixed from a syrup of wild strawberry juice Mrs. Hansen had given her. (The wild fruit came from the green, park-like little valleys tucked away among those horizon-encircling mountains.) The girl had not meant to bestow her treat until after the baling was over. But now she hurried with it in the direction of the hay field.
All the while her mind was busy recalling the earlier seemingly insignificant incidents she had caught glimpses of. She remembered now an apparently heated conversation between Frank and Charley. She had given it little thought because she knew that many of Charley’s unavoidable conversations with Frank these days were more or less heated. Charley had driven away immediately afterward in the ‘Shake, and had come back just before his appearance in the kitchen door. She remembered now, too, how sharp Charley’s voice had sounded when at his return she had heard him summon Dad out from the shed they called the barn. After that had come the repeated passing of trucks in both directions down the corrugated, sage-tufted driveway at the side of the house.
Sayre neared the field to see the gnarly figure of the crew boss step between Charley and Frank. He looked sternly at each boy out of snapping black eyes, and said authoritatively: “All right. That settles it. Now you two get to the job I gave you, and work at it. Not one more yap out of either of you. It ain’t nine o’clock. Yet already this morning you two kids have had two rows, both of them big enough to hold up the whole works and change all our plans. I’m telling Mr. Hoskins it’s got to quit.”
Sayre began pouring out and passing around her beverage. Frank refused the extended cup rudely. Charley, too, waved his aside with a curt “No thanks.” The other men lounged against the piled bales and enjoyed the treat. To Sayre’s surprise she found Nels Hansen among them. The drink consumed, one after another of the balers turned back toward the work from which he had come. Only one big blond fellow lingered to approach Charley, who stood aloof from everybody not far from Sayre.
“He’s a mean cuss,” Sayre heard this loiterer murmur. “Hope you get even with him, Morgan.”
“Give me time.” Charley’s laugh was not at all his natural one. “Might happen sooner than you think.”
Sayre felt annoyed. How many such speeches was Charley making these days to that crew? When he didn’t really mean anything by them, either. She turned a little, her eye following the big man as he moved to join his co-workers at the other end of the field. Why, what were those men beginning to do down there? “Look,” she exclaimed. “Where are they taking the baler now?”
“Over to the two-acre corner.” Charley’s words ran together into a mutter.
“What for?”
In the hum of renewed activity all about her Sayre received no answer. Or was it that nobody wanted to answer her? Charley’s tone had already told her that he considered this no time for questions. Yet her mind was teeming with them.
What was Mr. Hansen doing there with the boys? He’d never had anything to do with the balers. His truck was here, too. That, though, she understood. He’d been letting Charley use it lately in payment for the work Charley had done in getting the old third-hand thing into running order. But why were Mr. Hansen and Frank Hoskins and Charley loading the little half-ton ‘Shake, a truck now for some time past, almost beyond capacity? And why was Dad turning into the driveway from the road to town in the big Hoskins truck at a speed Sayre would never have believed him capable of attempting?
There was not time to search out answers to her questions. She had not a minute to waste if she were to have a meal ready for those men at their regular eleven-thirty dinner hour. She set to work with the concentration of a high-tensioned speed that accomplished tasks rapidly. Yet all the while, as she worked, the background of her mind was conscious of other things. That Dad kept passing up and down the driveway every half-hour or so with a loaded or an unloaded truck, always at the same unusual speed. That Mr. Hansen and Charley out in the hay field were performing like veritable jugglers, keeping the air full of tossing bales which Frank Hoskins, mounted on one returning truck after another, was catching or steadying, and putting into place.
Dad, of course, was due at the Hoskins store at noon for the Saturday afternoon and evening trade. He entered the house to eat ahead of the others, just as Sayre was engrossed in those last few moments of preparation of the meal whose multiple demands every housekeeper knows. Still she managed to glean a little information.
“It’s been a hectic morning,” Mr. Morgan commented as he ate. “Charley would have it so after Mr. Hoskins’ message.”
“What message?”
“The one Frank brought. His father never sent that message the way Frank delivered it, I’m sure of that. Not after saying Charley and I could have the chance to earn extra by delivering the Parsons hay as we found time to do it. It must be just that Mr. Hoskins found out he has to have that hay delivered sooner than he thought. I don’t believe he ever accused Charley of deliberately trying to hold up his business. As if Charley could know about Mr. Hoskins’ expecting those freight cars in any day, or about his having this rush-delivery Kansas City order. Give me another cup of coffee, Sayre.”
As Sayre complied, her father continued: “It’s that Frank. He hasn’t a bit of his father’s tact. Then, too, it’s as Mr. Hansen says, Frank deliberately twists every situation he can into a chance to nettle Charley. And Charley isn’t as good-natured as he used to be, not, anyway, where Frank Hoskins is concerned.” Mr. Morgan drained his coffee-cup and set it down, shaking his head dubiously. “Still, there’s this other matter.”
“What other matter?”
The peremptory squawk of an automobile horn in the adjacent driveway drowned out Sayre’s question. Mr. Morgan bobbed to his feet. “I’ve got to go.”
Outside, the men were appearing in response to Sayre’s dinner call. They were jumping off a load of baled hay which Charley had brought to a stop. The squawk, however, had come from another load, on the driver’s seat of which sat a most impatient Frank Hoskins. He paused barely long enough to permit spry little Dad Morgan hop up beside him.
“Dinners for the crew are bargained for with the hay, Hoskins,” Sayre heard Charley call to Frank from the wash-bench at the back of the house. The speech excited suppressed amusement from Charley’s immediate companions.
But there was no answer from Frank except the diminishing rumble of a heavily laden truck. Its disappearance seemed to serve as lubricant for the tongues of the men.
“He’s afraid of Morgan grub. Might poison him.”
“Why didn’t he quit at ten? Always has before.”
“Wouldn’t. Not in the face of Nels’ and Charley’s gaff after the boss, here, had the nerve not only to put him and young Morgan on the same job, but to keep them there.”
“I’ll bet he’s wore out.”
“You’re a pretty hurler any time, Charley. And pairing with Nels sure makes a fellow a steady one. But this morning!”
“Look at them bales that ain’t there no more. How many loads took in? Ain’t that a morning’s work for you, even at starting early?”
“I snickered right out when I come up to speak to you that time, Charley, and heard you advising ‘im to lay off and save ‘imself for football, not let his muscles get stiffened up.”
Several guffaws greeted this remark. “I wisht I’d heard ya. I’ll bet the way ya did it was some comeback fer the way he’s been lordin’ it over you.”
“Well, he wasn’
t no quitter. Ye’ve got to give ‘im that. He even fixed it to get several squints in at our job. He’s learning one thing from his old man: he likes to see just a little of the poorest hay sneaked into all the top-notch bales.”
Such was the conversation at the dinner table. Charley joined in it but little. He ate hurriedly, and waited with obvious impatience until the men had risen and all but Mr. Hansen had filed out of doors. Then he turned to his sister.
“Guess we’ll have to have you haul for us this afternoon, Sayre. You’re a better driver than Dad is anyhow.”
Sayre stiffened in shut-mouth rebellion. She was standing at the stove, one hand on the tea-kettle handle. The coolness of that suggestion! Wasn’t it just like a man? Was Charley even aware that she had work of her own to do? Look at this kitchen. The clean-up dinner work all undone after this crowded morning of hasty and unexpected preparation. Dirty dishes piled high. The extra things she had borrowed from Mrs. Hansen in order to be able to feed the balers to be sorted out and returned. The floor filthy from the tramp of men’s boots. Nothing prepared to eat in the house for Sunday.
“You won’t have to help unload,” Charley continued, ignoring his sister’s manner. “Mr. Hoskins has got men at the warehouse to make quick work of that. You can send the kid up the road to Mrs. Hansen’s. She’ll keep her. All night, if you say so.”
“I vill take her ven I go get young Nels to take Lumpy Hoskins’ place.” Mr. Hansen nodded his faded towhead solemnly at Sayre, whom he stood watching with keen attention. “Yess, Sayre. It iss too bad. But you vill haul for us today?” Simple as the words were, there was something about the way they were uttered and about the expression of the shrewd, kindly eyes in the man’s emotionless face which spoke things that the words themselves did not say.
Whatever it was, Sayre’s quick intelligence caught its purpose. “He thinks I ought to go,” she said to herself. “And he’s trying to tell me not to bother Charley with questions just now.” The girl’s rigidity softened. She began to slip out of her apron, yielding to she knew not what, the sense of urge and strain in the air. “All right,” she assented curtly. “I’ll haul.”
11
Shippers of Hay
Sayre’s first trip to the warehouse was with the ‘Shake. Charley, Mr. Hansen, and Hitty rode away on the loaded Hansen truck. The two men returned separately after a time, Mr. Hansen in his own truck bringing young Nels; and Charley, driving the empty Hoskins truck. Straight toward the bales in the big hay field all the returning trucks traveled, where once again the frenzied loading began.
For a while from a distance farther away than during most of the morning still came the steady, explosive chug of the engine that ran the baler.
“Wonder how much of our own hay they’re having baled,” Sayre thought once or twice. “Surely not very much.”
When the chugging finally ceased and the baler, the engine, and all the crew but Charley made their lumbering exit from the Parsons acres, Sayre was in town awaiting the unloading of a truck.
All that afternoon Sayre, unquestioning, rumbled or rattled in a loaded or an empty truck over the seven miles of roadway between the Parsons eighty and the Hoskins warehouse. By six o’clock that warehouse held all but the last load of the hay grown on the main fifteen acres of the Parsons seventeen-acre field. And that last load was approaching town with Sayre on the driver’s seat.
“All right,” Sayre had said when she had mounted to the seat before leaving home. “I’ll take this last load in if you’ll do the chores while I’m gone, Charley. When I get back, we’ll eat some kind of snack, and then maybe you’ll help me get at that kitchen.”
Charley had made no answer at all. He certainly was in a queer humor today. Whatever this latest grudge of his was against Frank Hoskins, it wasn’t a bit like Charley to let its effects last like this.
At the warehouse door Sayre climbed wearily down from her perch. The men who had been doing the unloading were nowhere to be seen. Mr. Hoskins’ automobile was parked near by, and Mr. Hoskins himself was snapping the padlock on the warehouse’s big double doors.
“Just leave that load where it is, Miss Sayre,” he called. “And get into my car. I’ll drive you home.”
Sayre enjoyed the luxury of that ride. Tired from her hard day, she relaxed in the car’s smooth-traveling comfort, and listened to the pleasant flow of Mr. Hoskins’ talk. She was sick of that hay, and relieved that her companion did not even mention it. Instead he talked of other things in which she was deeply interested: the part-time course in the high school; and the projects of the vocational agriculture pupils. “I see now,” she thought, “why Dad feels as he does about Mr. Hoskins. Sometimes he can be almost nice.”
He let her out in front of the Parsons place, scanning the front yard hastily as he stopped. “I don’t see your brother anywhere about.”
“Probably doing chores. I’ll call him if you want.”
“No. Just give him my message. Tell him, please, that one lone freight car came in for me late this afternoon. I must get it off attached to the early morning train. By seven o’clock this evening it’ll be switched onto the side track under the big arc-light, he knows where. He’s to get another crew man to help him load that car. I’ll pay them, of course, for overtime. They’re to begin the loading with what’s left of the Parsons hay, and I’ll be on hand in time to open the warehouse for enough hay to finish the car.
“But there isn’t any more of the Parsons hay. It’s all been delivered.”
“There’s the three tons on my truck that you left in front of the warehouse.” Mr. Hoskins was turning the car around as he called. “And I’m sure at least as much more undelivered.”
Before Sayre could answer, the man was out of hearing.
The vague misgivings that Sayre had shed during the afternoon descended upon her anew. She went at once toward the back of the house in search of Charley. He was not there. The house itself was empty. And there was not a trace of him around the sheds. Not a single chore had been attended to, either. What did it all mean? She hurried out across the big hay field, now entirely empty of hay in any shape. Through the still evening air she could catch the sound of men’s voices coming from those two semi-detached acres beyond.
Yes, there Charley and Mr. Hansen and young Nels were, still loading hay. The sight angered Sayre. But her wrath was mixed with amazement at what she saw. For every bit of the hay on these, their own two acres, had been baled! She began to run.
“Charley Morgan.” She could not wait to get near enough for her words to carry. “I want an explanation of all this right away. It’s time you stepped down from your high horse and told me—”
But Charley had spied her from a distance, and was calling out a question of his own. “Warehouse still open, Sayre?”
Sayre stopped running, her knees suddenly weak. Something about that question smothered the flame of her anger until there were left of it only the glowing coals of consternation. “No. Mr. Hoskins locked it not a half-hour ago.”
Charley let drop to the ground the end he was lifting of a seventy-pound bale. Then he dropped himself into a sitting position upon it, weariness and defeat in every line of his body. “We can’t make it, Nels. I’ve got to sit up all night and watch this hay.”
“Oh, I t’ank not, Sharley. He don’t mean dat. He was yust mad.”
“Maybe,” Charley responded without animation. “Just the same I’m taking no chances. He hates me bad enough to burn up his own hay if he was sure the blame would land on me.”
“What are you two talking about?”
Mr. Hansen turned to the indignant, mystified Sayre. “Dat Frank Hoskins say for a yoke, ven he knows Sharley is hearing, dat if ve see a fire spit up tonight out here, it is Sharley, burning dese two acres of hay for spite.”
“What on earth would Charley burn his own hay for?” Sayre seated herself on a neighboring bale and went on: “It seems to me, Charles Morgan, it’s high time you took a few minutes o
ff to tell me what you’ve had this hay baled for, anyway. And what are you loading it for? And where are you going to haul it? It’s all our hay. We’re not going to sell any of it, before spring, anyway; and then only a little if we happen to have any left. And one thing’s dead certain: we haven’t any place to put any such quantity of baled hay in.”
“Neither have we any hay.” Charley’s tone was curt.
“Haven’t any hay!”
“Not according to Hoskins.”
“You know better. We have, too. Sam Parsons agreed—”
“What Sam Parsons agreed doesn’t seem to have anything to do with it. Frank let me know that the first thing this morning. All the hay produced on this place belongs legally to Franklin Hoskins, Senior.” Charley paused a moment, and his bitter tone had taken on a sneering irony when he proceeded: “But, because of what Parsons told us, it seems that Frank’s father was willing to let us have the south ditch field crop.”
“The south ditch field!”
Charley nodded. It was plain that he was getting a sort of satisfaction out of Sayre’s reception of his news. “Said his dad was giving it to us out of charity because he felt sorry for two kids like you and me. There was only one possible answer to an offer like that. I told Frank straight out that we wanted neither Hoskins pity nor Hoskins charity. If his dad owned that crop, he’d take that crop. That was after I found out for sure.”
“Found out?” Sayre seemed unable to do anything but repeat phrases.
But Charley’s tongue had loosened at last. “I went straight to Nels, here. He took me to a place that had a ‘phone. I called Mr. Hoskins up. He’s gone to Cody for the day. Then Nels called up that young lawyer he’s got chummy with lately. That settled it. The lawyer’d drawn the papers between Sam Parsons and Mr. Hoskins just before Sam went east.”
“So that’s what we get for trusting Sam Parsons a second time.”
Charley shrugged his shoulders with weary impatience. What was news to Sayre was old to him, the cause of a long day’s conflict. “Oh, I’m not blaming Sam much. He’s just a weakling and Hoskins’ dupe. He probably meant that agreement when he made it. Only he couldn’t work it against Mr. Hoskins’ shrewdness. And he didn’t have the face to stay here after those papers were drawn. I’ll bet that’s more’n half why he cleared out.”
The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack Page 113