"I guess you're going to be astonished," he said. "My wife, boys!"
Then the big fur caps came off, while the men with the hard brown faces clustered thicker about the pair, and awkwardly held out mittened hands. They were most of them speaking, and, though it was difficult to catch all they said, she heard from those at the back odd snatches which did not please her.
"Why didn't you let us know, and we'd have turned out the band? . . . It's a great country you have come to, ma'am. . . . She's a daisy. . . . Where'd he get her from? . . . You've married the whitest man on the prairie, Mrs. Leland. . . . Some tone about that one."
A little red spot burned in Carrie Leland's cheeks. She hovered between anger and humiliation. Social distinctions counted for much in the land of her birth, and it seemed to her that the man she had married might have spared her this vulgarity. It might have been different had she loved him, for she would then, perhaps, have found pleasure in his evident popularity; but, as it was, she felt merely the indignity of being exposed to the gaze and comments of these ox-drivers or ploughmen, as she took them to be. That she was apparently expected to shake hands with them struck her as ridiculous. The ovation, however, died away, and there was for a moment an uncomfortable silence, during which the crowd gazed at the cold, beautiful woman who regarded them with unsympathetic eyes, until her husband touched her arm again.
"Won't you say just a word to them? They mean to be kind," he said.
Carrie made no response. She felt she could not have done so had she wished, and Leland turned to the men again. "Mrs. Leland doesn't feel quite equal to thanking you, boys," he said. "She has just come off a long journey and is feeling a little strange."
The men murmured good-humouredly. One of them pushed his way through the crowd and shook hands with Leland.
"We sent your wheat on to Winnipeg, as you cabled, and your people have brought us another forty sledge-loads in," he said. "We're rather tightly fixed for room, and want to know if you're going to send much more along. No doubt you know wheat is two cents down."
"I do," said Leland drily. "Still, in the meanwhile I have got to sell."
The man appeared a little astonished, but he made a sign of comprehension. "Well," he said, "if you could have held back a month or two, it might have been better. They've been rushing a good deal on to the markets lately, but I guess you'll want to straighten up after your trip to the old country. Your sleigh's ready, as you wired."