The Project Gutenberg EBook of Other Main-Travelled Roads, by Hamlin Garland
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Title: Other Main-Travelled Roads
Author: Hamlin Garland
Release Date: March 1, 2007 [EBook #20714]
Language: English
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DADDY DEERING
* * *
OTHER
MAIN-TRAVELLED
ROADS
HAMLIN GARLAND
SUNSET EDITION
HARPER & BROTHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
* * *
COPYRIGHT, 1892, 1899, 1910, BY HAMLIN GARLAND
* * *
PRAIRIE FOLKS
PIONEERS.
They rise to mastery of wind and snow;
They go like soldiers grimly into strife,
To colonize the plain; they plow and sow,
And fertilize the sod with their own life
As did the Indian and the buffalo.
SETTLERS.
Above them soars a dazzling sky,
In winter blue and clear as steel,
In summer like an Arctic sea
Wherein vast icebergs drift and reel
And melt like sudden sorcery.
Beneath them plains stretch far and fair,
Rich with sunlight and with rain;
Vast harvests ripen with their care
And fill with overplus of grain
Their square, great bins.
Yet still they strive! I see them rise
At dawn-light, going forth to toil:
The same salt sweat has filled my eyes,
My feet have trod the self-same soil
Behind the snarling plough.
* * *
PREFACE
Nearly all the stories in this volume were written at the same time and under the same impulse as those which compose its companion volume, Main-Travelled Roads—and the entire series was the result of a summer-vacation visit to my old home in Iowa, to my father's farm in Dakota, and, last of all, to my birthplace in Wisconsin. This happened in 1887. I was living at the time in Boston, and had not seen the West for several years, and my return to the scenes of my boyhood started me upon a series of stories delineative of farm and village life as I knew it and had lived it. I wrote busily during the two years that followed, and in this revised definitive edition of Main-Travelled Roads and its companion volume, Other Main-Travelled Roads (compiled from other volumes which now go out of print), the reader will find all of the short stories which came from my pen between 1887 and 1889.
It remains to say that, though conditions have changed somewhat since that time, yet for the hired man and the renter farm life in the West is still a stern round of drudgery. My pages present it—not as the summer boarder or the young lady novelist sees it—but as the working farmer endures it.
Not all the scenes of Other Main-Travelled Roads are of farm life, though rural subjects predominate; and the village life touched upon will be found less forbidding in color. In this I am persuaded my view is sound; for, no matter how hard the villager works, he is not lonely. He suffers in company with his fellows. So much may be called a gain. Then, too, I admit youth and love are able to transform a bleak prairie town into a poem, and to make of a barbed-wire lane a highway of romance.
Hamlin Garland.
* * *
Contents
PAGE
Introductory Verse v
William Bacon's Man 3
Elder Pill, Preacher 25
A Day of Grace 65
Lucretia Burns 81
Daddy Deering 119
A Stop-Over at Tyre 143
A Division in the Coolly 203
A Fair Exile 245
An Alien in the Pines 263
Before the Low Green Door 293
A Preacher's Love Story 305
An Afterword: of Winds, Snows, and the Stars 350
* * *
WILLIAM BACON'S MAN
I
The yellow March sun lay powerfully on the bare Iowa prairie, where the ploughed fields were already turning warm and brown, and only here and there in a corner or on the north side of the fence did the sullen drifts remain, and they were so dark and low that they hardly appeared to break the mellow brown of the fields.
There passed also an occasional flock of geese, cheerful harbingers of spring, and the prairie-chickens had set up their morning symphony, wide-swelling, wonderful with its prophecy of the new birth of grass and grain and the springing life of all breathing things. The crow passed now and then, uttering his resonant croak, but the crane had not yet sent forth his bugle note.
Lyman Gilman rested on his axe-helve at the woodpile of Farmer Bacon to listen to the music around him. In a vague way he was powerfully moved by it. He heard the hens singing their weird, raucous, monotonous song, and saw them burrowing in the dry chip-dust near him. He saw the young colts and cattle frisking in the sunny space around the straw-stacks, absorbed through his bare arms and uncovered head the heat of the sun, and felt the soft wooing of the air so deeply that he broke into an unwonted exclamation:—
"Glory! we'll be seeding by Friday, sure."
This short and disappointing soliloquy was, after all, an expression of deep emotion. To the Western farmer the very word "seeding" is a poem. And these few words, coming from Lyman Gilman, meant more and expressed more than many a large and ambitious springtime song.
But the glory of all the slumbrous landscape, the stately beauty of the sky with its masses of fleecy vapor, were swept away by the sound of a girl's voice humming, "Come to the Saviour," while she bustled about the kitchen near by. The windows were open. Ah! what suggestion to these dwellers in a rigorous climate was in the first unsealing of the windows! How sweet it was to the pale and weary women after their long imprisonment!
As Lyman sat down on his maple log to hear better, a plump face appeared at the window, and a clear, girl-voice said:—
"Smell anything, Lime?"
He snuffed the air. "Cookies, by the great horn spoons!" he yelled, leaping up. "Bring me some, an' see me eat; it'll do ye good."
"Come an' get 'm," laughed the face at the window.
"Oh, it's nicer out here, Merry Etty. What's the rush? Bring me out some, an' set down on this log."
With a nod Marietta disappeared, and soon came out with a plate of cookies in one hand and a cup of milk in the other.
"Poor little man, he's all tired out, ain't he?"
Lime, taking the cue, collapsed in a heap, and said feebly, "Bread, bread!"
"Won't milk an' cookies do as well?"
He brushed off the log and motioned her to sit down beside him, but she hesitated a little and colored a little.
"Oh, Lime, s'pose somebody should see us?"
"Let 'em. What in thunder do we care? Sit down an' gimme a holt o' them cakes. I'm just about done up. I couldn't 'a' stood it another minute."
She sat down beside him with a laugh and a pretty blush. She was in her apron, and the sleeves of her dress were rolled to her elbows, displaying the strong, round arms. Wholesome and sweet she looked and smelled, the scent of the cooking round her. Lyman munched a couple of the cookies and gulped a pint of milk before he spoke.
"Whadda we
care who sees us sittin' side b' side? Ain't we goin' t' be married soon?"
"Oh, them cookies in the oven!" she shrieked, leaping up and running to the house. She looked back as she reached the kitchen door, however, and smiled with a flushed face. Lime slapped his knee and roared with laughter at his bold stroke.
"Ho! ho!" he laughed. "Didn't I do it slick? Ain't nothin' green in my eye, I guess." In an intense and pleasurable abstraction he finished the cookies and the milk. Then he yelled:—
"Hey! Merry—Merry Etty!"
"Whadda ye want?" sang the girl from the window, her face still rosy with confusion.
"Come out here and git these things."
The girl shook her head, with a laugh.
"Come out an' git 'm, 'r, by jingo, I'll throw 'em at ye! Come on, now!"
The girl looked at the huge, handsome fellow, the sun falling on his golden hair and beard, and came slowly out to him—came creeping along with her hand outstretched for the plate which Lime, with a laugh in his sunny blue eyes, extended at the full length of his bare arm. The girl made a snatch at it, but his left hand caught her by the wrist, and away went cup and plate as he drew her to him and kissed her in spite of her struggles.
"My! ain't you strong!" she said, half ruefully and half admiringly, as she shrugged her shoulders. "If you'd use a little more o' that choppin' wood, Dad wouldn't 'a' lost s' much money by yeh."
Lime grew grave.
"There's the hog in the fence, Merry; what's yer dad goin' t' say—"
"About what?"
"About our gitt'n married this spring."
"I guess you'd better find out what I'm a-goin' t' say, Lime Gilman, 'fore you pitch into Dad."
"I know what you're a-goin' t' say."
"No, y' don't."
"Yes, but I do, though."
"Well, ask me, and see, if you think you're so smart. Jest as like 's not, you'll slip up."
"All right; here goes. Marietty Bacon, ain't you an' Lime Gilman goin' t' be married?"
"No, sir, we ain't," laughed the girl, snatching up the plate and darting away to the house, where she struck up "Weevily Wheat," and went busily on about her cooking. Lime threw a kiss at her, and fell to work on his log with startling energy.
Lyman looked forward to his interview with the old man with as much trepidation as he had ever known, though commonly he had little fear of anything—but a girl.
Marietta was not only the old man's only child, but his housekeeper, his wife having at last succumbed to the ferocious toil of the farm. It was reasonable to suppose, therefore, that he would surrender his claim on the girl reluctantly. Rough as he was, he loved Marietta strongly, and would find it exceedingly hard to get along without her.
Lyman mused on these things as he drove the gleaming axe into the huge maple logs. He was something more than the usual hired man, being a lumberman from the Wisconsin pineries, where he had sold out his interest in a camp not three weeks before the day he began work for Bacon. He had a nice "little wad o' money" when he left the camp and started for La Crosse, but he had been robbed in his hotel the first night in the city, and was left nearly penniless. It was a great blow to him, for, as he said, every cent of that money "stood fer hard knocks an' poor feed. When I smelt of it I could jest see the cold, frosty mornin's and the late nights. I could feel the hot sun on my back like it was when I worked in the harvest-field. By jingo! It kind o' made my toes curl up."
But he went resolutely out to work again, and here he was chopping wood in old man Bacon's yard, thinking busily on the talk which had just passed between Marietta and himself.
"By jingo!" he said all at once, stopping short, with the axe on his shoulder. "If I hadn't 'a' been robbed I wouldn't 'a' come here—I never'd met Merry. Thunder and jimson root! Wasn't that a narrow escape?"
And then he laughed so heartily that the girl looked out of the window again to see what in the world he was doing. He had his hat in his hand and was whacking his thigh with it.
"Lyman Gilman, what in the world ails you to-day? It's perfectly ridiculous the way you yell and talk t' y'rself out there on the chips. You beat the hens, I declare if you don't."
Lime put on his hat and walked up to the window, and, resting his great bare arms on the sill, and his chin on his arms, said:—
"Merry, I'm goin' to tackle 'Dad' this afternoon. He'll be sittin' up the new seeder, and I'm goin' t' climb right on the back of his neck. He's jest got t' give me a chance."
Marietta looked sober in sympathy.
"Well! P'raps it's best to have it over with, Lime, but someway I feel kind o' scary about it."
Lime stood for a long time looking in at the window, watching the light-footed girl as she set the table in the middle of the sun-lighted kitchen floor. The kettle hissed, the meat sizzled, sending up a delicious odor; a hen stood in the open door and sang a sort of cheery half-human song, while to and fro moved the sweet-faced, lithe, and powerful girl, followed by the smiling eyes at the window.
"Merry, you look purty as a picture. You look just like the wife I be'n a-huntin' for all these years, sure's shootin'."
Marietta colored with pleasure.
"Does Dad pay you to stand an' look at me an' say pretty things t' the cook?"
"No, he don't. But I'm willin' t' do it without pay. I could just stand here till kingdom come an' look at you. Hello! I hear a wagon. I guess I better hump into that woodpile."
"I think so too. Dinner's most ready, and Dad 'll be here soon."
Lime was driving away furiously at a tough elm log when Farmer Bacon drove into the yard with a new seeder in his wagon. Lime whacked away busily while Bacon stabled the team, and in a short time Marietta called, in a long-drawn, musical fashion:—
"Dinner-r-r!"
After sozzling their faces at the well the two men went in and sat down at the table. Bacon was not much of a talker at any time, and at meal-time, in seeding, eating was the main business in hand; therefore the meal was a silent one, Marietta and Lime not caring to talk on general topics. The hour was an anxious one for her, and an important one for him.
"Wal, now, Lime, seedun' 's the nex' thing," said Bacon, as he shoved back his chair and glared around from under his bushy eyebrows. "We can't do too much this afternoon. That seeder's got t' be set up an' a lot o' seed-wheat cleaned up. You unload the machine while I feed the pigs."
Lime sat still till the old man was heard outside calling "Oo-ee, poo-ee" to the pigs in the yard; then he smiled at Marietta, but she said:—
"He's got on one of his fits, Lime; I don't b'lieve you'd better tackle him t'-day."
"Don't you worry; I'll fix him. Come, now, give me a kiss."
"Why, you great thing! You—took—"
"I know, but I want you to give 'em to me. Just walk right up to me an' give me a smack t' bind the bargain."
"I ain't made any bargain," laughed the girl. Then, feeling the force of his tender tone, she added: "Will you behave, and go right off to your work?"
"Jest like a little man—hope t' die!"
"Lime!" roared the old man from the barn.
"Hello!" replied Lime, grinning joyously and winking at the girl, as much as to say, "This would paralyze the old man if he saw it."
He went out to the shed where Bacon was at work, as serene as if he had not a fearful task on hand. He was apprehensive that the father might "gig back" unless rightly approached, and so he awaited a good opportunity.
The right moment seemed to present itself along about the middle of the afternoon. Bacon was down on the ground under the machine, tightening some burrs. This was a good chance for two reasons. In the first place, the keen, almost savage eyes were no longer where they could glare on him, and in spite of his cool exterior Lime had just as soon not have the old man looking at him.
Besides, the old farmer had been telling about his "river eighty," which was without a tenant; the man who had taken it, having lost his wife, had grown disheartened and had given it up.
"It's an almighty good chance for a man with a small family. Good house an' barn, good land. A likely young feller with a team an' a woman could do tiptop on that eighty. If he wanted more, I'd let him have an eighty j'inun'—"
"I'd like t' try that m'self," said Lime, as a feeler. The old fellow said nothing in reply for a moment.
"Ef you had a team an' tools an' a woman, I'd jest as lief you'd have it as anybody."
"Sell me your blacks, and I'll pay half down—the balance in the fall. I can pick up some tools, and as for a woman, Merry Etty an' me have talked that over to-day. She's ready to—ready to marry me whenever you say go."
There was an ominous silence under the seeder, as if the father could not believe his ears.
"What's—what's that!" he stuttered. "Who'd you say? What about Merry Etty?"
"She's agreed to marry me."
"The hell you say!" roared Bacon, as the truth burst upon him. "So that's what you do when I go off to town and leave you to chop wood. So you're goun' to git married, hey?"
He was now where Lime could see him, glaring up into his smiling blue eyes. Lime stood his ground.
"Yes, sir. That's the calculation."
"Well, I guess I'll have somethin' t' say about that," said Bacon, nodding his head violently.
"I rather expected y' would. Blaze away. Your privilege—my bad luck. Sail in ol' man. What's y'r objection to me fer a son-in-law?"
"Don't you worry, young feller. I'll come at it soon enough," went on Bacon, as he turned up another burr in a very awkward corner. In his nervous excitement the wrench slipped, banging his knuckle.
"Ouch! Thunder—m-m-m!" howled and snarled the wounded man.
"What's the matter? Bark y'r knuckle?" queried Lime, feeling a mighty impulse to laugh. But when he saw the old savage straighten up and glare at him he sobered. Bacon was now in a frightful temper. The veins in his great, bare, weather-beaten neck swelled dangerously.
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