This was the woman Sidney Martin, idealist and dreamer, loved.
The days sped swiftly, the present lapsing into the past, the future flying forward with the unique tirelessness of time.
How wrong to typify Time with hoary head and tottering limbs. Crowned with the vigour of eternal youth, does he not leap forward triumphantly like the messenger of the gods fresh plumed with flame? Ah, he is not old, but young and swift. Strive if you will to stay his flight for but one single precious instant, stretch forth your hand while yet his wings brush your face, and ere the fingers may close upon his pinions, he is gone, leaving but the largesse of lost days.
The harvest was done, the ploughshare and the harrow were tossing the earthy bed for the new grain. Day after day, through the clear air, there came from different points the blowing of the traction engine which dragged the one threshing mill in the section from farm to farm.
It was the custom of the neighbourhood that the farmers should assist each other with the threshing. Sidney was charmed when he heard this—how idyllic it was this community of helpful effort! To be strictly truthful, this custom had its genesis in less worthy reasons than he imagined, the simple fact being that in the little hide-bound community there were no odd men left unemployed, therefore as labour could not be hired the farmers perforce clubbed their efforts.
“I say, girls,” said Lanty, rushing out from his uncle’s big barn to where the two girls and Sidney stood beside the engine, “I say, isn’t that engine exactly like Mrs. Ranger in church?” His face was begrimed with dust, thistle-down rested whitely upon his yellow hair, his blue eyes were alight with hope and happiness and that exaltation which a strong man feels in effort. The girls shook their heads warningly, but laughed.
The traction engine, its wheels shackled, puffed and panted with a ludicrous simulation of bottled-up energy, and to the minds of the three young people it was decidedly suggestive of the irate patience expressed in Mrs. Ranger’s attitude when placed in conditions where she could not answer back.
Nathan Peck, watching the engine, stored up the saying for Temperance’s delectation, and wished she had come out with the girls.
Above the rattle and hum of the threshing mill sounded the hoarse voices of the men shouting jokes at each other—threshing time being always a jovial season. A good or bad harvest meant often life or death to these people; but, having done their best, they could but accept the results. It was a point of honour to accept unflinchingly the verdict of a poor yield, yet many wives could tell of despairing hours when, after their neighbours had departed, husband and wife essayed to reconcile ways and means.