A Prairie Courtship

by Harold Bindloss

In the meanwhile Thorne was urging on his team, and dusk was closing in when he flung down the lumber from his wagon. After that, he drove through the soft darkness for two or three hours, and finally roused an outlying neighbor from his well-earned slumber. The man, descending, roundly abused him, but became a little mollified when he heard his story.

"The thing surely can't be done, and just now you can't count on much help, either. The Ontario boys are only just starting West, and the first of them will be snapped up before they get to Brandon. Anyway, I'll come along with you and do what I can." He moved toward a cupboard. "If you left Farquhar's when you said, you couldn't have got your supper."

"Now that you mention it," laughed Thorne, "I don't think I did."

His friend set food before him, and an hour later they drove off in the darkness, leaving Thorne's jaded team behind them. Eventually they reached his homestead in the early dawn, and Thorne, who had been on foot most of the time since sunrise on the previous morning, sat down wearily on the stoop and took out his pipe while he looked about him. Eager as he was to get to work, he could not begin just yet, for the night had been clear and cold, and the grain was dripping with the heavy dew.

He had his back to the house, which was at last almost ready for habitation, but the half-finished barn and the rude sod stable rose before him blackly against the growing light. Beyond these, the sweep of grain stretched back, a darker patch on the shadowy prairie, with another dusky oblong just discernible on the short grass some distance away. Determined as he was, his heart sank as he gazed at them. He had undertaken a task that looked utterly beyond his powers.

Had he been content to begin on his hundred-and-sixty-acre holding on the scale usual in the case of men with scanty means, he would probably have had no great trouble in harvesting all the crop he could have raised; but he had seen enough during his journeyings up and down the prairie to convince him that there was remarkably little to be made in this fashion. As a result he had staked boldly, breaking practically all his land, with hired assistance and the most modern implements that could be purchased, though this necessitated the borrowing of money. He had, in addition, secured the use of a neighboring holding, part of which had been under grain before, from a man who had worked it long enough to secure his patent and had then discovered that he could earn considerably more as a subcontractor on a new branch railroad.

In consequence of this, Thorne had a large crop to garner, and very little time in which to do it, for he was convinced that Nevis would press for payment immediately the note was due. It could not be met until the grain was thrashed and sold, and he realized that any delay would place him in the power of a man who would not fail to make the utmost use of the opportunity. Besides this, it would render it impossible for him to obtain any further loans, and he scarcely expected to finance his operations unassisted for some time yet. It was only Hunter's guarantee that had made the venture possible, and there was no doubt in his mind that unless he could satisfy Nevis's claim his career as a farmer would terminate abruptly before the next month was over.

Then he recalled the months of determined labor he had expended upon the house and holding, the noonday heat in which he had toiled, and the chilly dawns when he had gone out, aching all over after a very insufficient sleep, to begin his task again. Sixteen and often eighteen hours comprised his working day, and out of them he had spared very few minutes for cookery. His clothes had gone unmended, and it must be confessed that he had not infrequently slept in them when he was too weary to take them off, and that they were by no means regularly washed. In fact, once or twice when he was about to drive over to the Farquhar homestead he remembered with a slight shock that it was several days since he had made any attempt worth mentioning at a toilet. In the meanwhile, he had grown leaner and harder and browner, while there had by degrees crept into his face that curious look which one may see now and then in the faces of monks, highly trained athletes, and even of those who unconsciously practise asceticism from love of a calling that makes stern demands on them; a look which, though it does not always suggest the final triumph of the mind over the body, is never a characteristic of full-fed, ease-loving men. His eyes were strikingly clear and unwavering, his weather-darkened skin was singularly clean, and his whole face had grown, as it were, refined, though the man was as quickly moved to anger, impatience, or laughter as he had always been. It would seem that a good many purely human impulses usually survive the partial subjugation of the flesh, which is, after all, no doubt fortunate.

He rose stiffly, damp with the dew, when he had smoked one pipe out, and gazed toward where the sun was rising fiery red above the rim of the prairie. His expression was very resolute.

"A low dawn, Hall; we'll have all the heat we want by noon," he commented. "The oats will be drying by the time we're ready with the team. If you'll look after them I'll oil the binder."