Was he angry with her? Ought she not to have spoken? She dared not ask him, but she touched his hand with her lips, and wet it with her tears before she rose. He took no notice, but said again: “We’ll go home to your grandmother;” and no word was spoken till they reached the house, and then Katie slipped away out of sight, lest her grandmother should see her tears.
But as the days went on she knew that he was not angry. He was very grave and silent, and grannie was never quite at rest when he was long out of sight. But summer wore on, and nothing happened to make one day different from another till haying-time came.
Chapter Twenty.
A Demonstration.
Mr Fleming’s failing strength, and the high rate of wages paid for farm labour, had for several years made it necessary for him to depart from what seemed to him the best mode of farming, in order to save both strength and wages. So there was a larger part of the place in hay and pasture-land than there had been at first, a larger proportion than there ought to be for really good farming on such land as his, he was willing to acknowledge. Haymaking was, therefore, the most important part of summer work at Ythan.
There was much to be done, both in the house and in the fields. Several men were required to help for a month or more, and if they were not of the right stamp, both as to character and capabilities, the oversight of them became a trouble to the grandfather, and that, of course, troubled them all. No choice could be exercised in the matter. They were usually men who came along from the French country, either before or after their own narrow fields were cut, in order to make a little money by helping their English-speaking neighbours, and those who hired them must take their chance.
As a general thing the men were good workers, and did well when their employers worked with them. But they were for the most part eye-servants, who took things easy when it might be done, and with eye-service Mr Fleming had less patience than with most things.
But the “good luck” that had followed Davie and his doings on the farm all the summer, followed him still. One night there came to Ythan a stranger, who introduced himself as Ira Hemmenway, an American, sole agent in Canada for the celebrated Eureka mowing-machine, and he “claimed the privilege” of introducing this wonderful invention to the notice of the discriminating and intelligent farmers of Gershom. He asked nothing better for his own share of profit than a chance to show what he could do with it on some of the smooth fields of Ythan.