“Who was that man you brought over to help fight the fire, Mrs. Smith?”
“Oh, that traveller from Brown & Smedley’s place? I don’t know his name, but I understood him to say that he was leaving them next day. Nice fellow, wasn’t he? I liked the way he took hold and did things; there was no nonsense about him,” replied Mrs. Smith; then, having wedged the last child in so that it could not possibly fall out, she clambered up to the driving seat and started with her load, leaving Bertha standing looking after the wagon.
“Whatever can I do?” she muttered. “How I wish that I had never seen those horrible stones!”
CHAPTER XV
Temptation
The rush of harvest work was over. The threshing machines had gone, and all the men were busy on some other farmer’s holding. Even Tom was away most days helping his neighbours, as they had helped him. When all the corn in that neighbourhood was threshed out, then would begin the task of carrying it to Rownton for storage in the grain elevator there, until the cars could distribute it to the markets of the world.
At first Bertha was so thankful for the cessation from driving toil and release from the constant preparation of meals, that she just sat still and enjoyed the quiet. Then, alas! it began to pall, and she would have given a great deal just for the privilege of driving off in the mornings to help some sorely pressed housewife, as Eunice had come to help her. But this was not possible, because someone must be at home to take care of poor helpless Grace, and all that Bertha could do in the way of returning or passing on the kindness which had been shown to her was to send for the Smith babies from Blow End, and keep them for the whole four days that the engines were at the Smiths’ place, which was a very real help indeed; for little children not old enough to know where danger lies are apt to be a considerable care at threshing times, when no one has a moment to spare for keeping them out of danger.
Even the babies had gone home now, and there were only their own five small people to look after, and with no machinery about to excite their curiosity, they required so little taking care of, that Bertha had no worries on their account. She sat out on the veranda every day when her housework was done, professedly sewing, but half the time with her hands at rest, whilst her hungry gaze roamed the wide stretches of dun-coloured stubble in search of something, anything, which would break the monotony of those level sweeps of land, reaching on every side to the horizon, from which the wheat had been harvested.
“Oh, what would it be to see a grove of trees, a hill, and a waterfall!” she murmured, with such a wave of homesickness for the dear old life at Mestlebury, that her eyes grew blurred with tears, and she had to sit winking her eyes very hard to keep them from falling. Grace could see through the open door to the place where Bertha was sitting, and it would have been cruel exceedingly to let the poor thing even guess the riot of misery which was going on in the heart of Bertha at that moment. Suddenly she stood up and shaded her eyes with her hands, flicking away the tears with her fingers as she did so.
“What can you see?” enquired Grace from her couch.
“There is a man riding along the trail from Pentland Broads. I wonder who he can be?” Bertha answered.