By Right of Purchase

by Harold Bindloss

Mrs. Custer had borne hers patiently, but her face, which still showed traces of refinement, was worn, and her hands and wrists were rough and red. While Thomas Custer toiled out in the frost and sunshine from early dawn to dusk to profit by the odd fat year, or more often, if it might by feverish work be done, to make his losses good, she cooked and washed and baked for him and the boys, a term that locally signifies every male attached to the homestead. She had also made her own dresses, as well as some of her husband's clothes, and darned and patched the latter with cotton flour-bags. Yet the ceaseless struggle had not embittered her, though it had left her weary. Perhaps it is the sunshine, or something in the clean cold airs from the vast spaces of the wilderness, for man holds fast to his faith and courage in that land of cloudless skies.

It was the rich, dark curtains, the soft carpet one's feet sank into, the dainty furniture, the odds and ends of silver, and the few good etchings at which the faded woman glanced with wistful appreciation. She had been accustomed to such things once, but that was long ago, and she had never seen on the prairie anything like Carrie Leland's room. With a wee, contented smile she turned to the girl.

"It was so good of you to have me here, although if Tom's sister from Traverse hadn't promised to look after him I couldn't have come," she said. "It is three years since I have been away, and to know that one has nothing to do for a whole week is almost too delightful now."

Eveline Annersly's eyes twinkled. "I'm rather afraid that some of us have that consolation, if it is one, all our lives," she said. "They keep you busy at the Range?"

"From morning to night; and now we must work harder than ever, with one of the boys in Montreal and wheat going down. One feels inclined to wonder sometimes if the folks who buy our cheap flour would think so much of the quarter-dollar on the sack if they knew what it costs us."

She stopped a moment with a little wistful smile. "I'm afraid this is going to be a particularly lean year for a good many of us. Last year I was busy, though I had a Scandinavian maid, but I shall be single-handed now, and the grocery bill must come down, too. It's quite hard to pare it any closer when everything you take off means extra work, and, with it all, the boys must be fed."

Mrs. Annersly glanced at Carrie, who, for some reason, did not meet her gaze.

"I think you mentioned that you came from Montreal," she said. "You must have found it very different on the prairie."

"I certainly did. I had never done anything useful or been without all the money I wanted when I married Tom Custer, who had gone out a year earlier. My friends were against it, and they would probably have been more so had they seen the Range as it was then. The house had three rooms to it, and one was built of sod, while all the first summer the rain ran in. Still we made out together, and got on little by little, struggling for everything. A new stove or set of indurated ware meant weeks of self-denial. Now I seem to have been pinching a lifetime, though I am only forty; but Tom was always kind, and I do not think I have ever been sorry."

She lay still, nestling luxuriously in the softly padded chair, and through her worn face and hard hands the blurred stamp of refinement once more shone. It was twenty years since she had turned away from the brighter side of life, and, though she did not expect compassion, Eveline Annersly felt sorry for her. There was also a certain thoughtfulness in Carrie Leland's expression, which seemed to suggest that a comparison was forced upon her. Both of them realised that the wilderness is not subdued without a cost. Woman, it seemed, had her part in the tense struggle, too, and Mrs. Custer was one of the many of whom it can be said: "They also serve."