'I don't like such a lot of stumps being left in,' Bart said, the seventh time in an hour that the plough had gnashed on one. 'In the Journal there's a picture of a stump eradicator—a grand little machine. We'll have to save up and get it, dad.'
'Ay, ay,' said the father; 'still, I don't think the stumps will interfere very much. The corn can easily come up between them.'
'It would be easier ploughing,' sighed Bart, following the horse about in a waved line.
'You're tired out, lad; knock off for a spell,' Cameron said. 'I keep forgetting how young you are. We have been working here since eight—five hours.'
But Bart would work till he dropped rather than leave off a minute before his father. He took a long drink at the oatmeal water Miss Browne had made, and went on stooping, picking out the stones, digging spots the unfaithful plough had left untouched, following the horse while his father dug.
Cameron was thin as a rail. Ever since they had come here he had worked like a man possessed, for the spectacle that came to haunt his nights was of his children in actual need of bread. He had left debts behind him in the township—a hundred pounds' worth of them; there was a hundred and fifty yet to pay on the selection; and the patching-up of the house, rough as it had been, had taken money. There was seed to buy, there were tools to mend or replace, interest to pay on the money he had borrowed on the place—a thousand other things.
And not one word of all the changes did the letters carry across the secret seas.
'There is no need to worry mamma unnecessarily,' Cameron said to the children. 'When we have made a great success of the place and paid everything off, then we will tell her.'
Across the acres came the insistent sound of the dinner-bell.
'I don't think I'll stop,' Cameron said, 'I'm not hungry. Off you go, Bart, and don't come back for an hour.'