They had a truly gigantic task before them, the putting in of over one hundred and fifty acres of grain—flax, barley, oats, wheat, green feed and rye.
As soon as the land was in condition to be worked, they began. For days they had been sorting over and mending harnesses and bridles, sharpening the implements and getting everything into shape. Eight work horses had been brought up from the pasture, and for a few days had been fed oats and given especial care. Nettie had regained her strength and was invaluable to the less experienced, though self-reliant Angella because of her long familiarity with farm work and horses too.
The baby went into the field with them, carried in a large box, where among its pillows, Nettie's child slept in blissful unconsciousness of the tragedy of his existence. In the latter weeks he had been gaining strength, and his roving blue eyes had smiled more than once at the adoring Angella.
Nettie went on the plow, the hardest of the implements to ride. There had been some argument between the girls as to which implement each should ride, Angella contending that Nettie was not yet in a fit condition to stand the rough shaking on the plow; and Nettie stubbornly insisting that she felt "strong as an ox," and that she had ridden the plow since she was a little girl. "Dad put me into the field when I was just ten," she told Angella. "You know he couldn't afford to stay home to work our quarter, because our land was so poor; he had to go out on other farms to make some wages, because we was such a hungry family, and it took sights of food to fill us all."
So Nettie rode the plow, and then the disc, while Angella took the harrow and the seeder. Angella only yielded the plow to Nettie when the girl pointed out that the seeder required "brains," of which she sadly admitted she had little. She had never seeded, not even at home; Dad had always come back in time to do that. So Angella, feeling the importance of her two seasons' experience in seeding, argued no more, and, seeded six inches deep, a precautionary measure, she told Nettie, against a dry year. The weather favored them; intermittent rains and flurries of snow kept the ground damp enough for fertilization, but not too wet for sowing. Nevertheless, said Angella, you never could tell about Alberta's climate. Drought might start with June, and then where would the careless farmers be?
This period of hard work diverted Nettie's mind from its obsession of sorrow; for mind and body are alike exhausted at the end of a day from sunrise to sunset. Intent upon being a first-rate helper, her mind ceased to dwell upon her troubles.
Having finished the preparation of the ground and the seeding, they spent the next few weeks bringing their few head of stock to the corrals and all alone they branded, dehorned and vaccinated them against blackleg. Nettie then went over to Cyril's quarter with the plow and broke new land, by no means an easy job, since the ground was rough virgin soil, where rocks and bushes and tree stumps abounded. Meanwhile Angella summer fallowed on her own quarter.
July came in on a wave of intense heat. There was haying to be done on Cyril's quarter; Angella's fields had been overpastured, and she proposed to let them lie fallow for that year. The two girls put up seventy-five tons of hay. Angella was on the rake, an easy implement to ride, Nettie on the mower. Then Angella ascended the buck, and Nettie did the stacking, and as the big golden pile grew from day to day under their hands, their pride and satisfaction in their work was great. Angella felt that she had something to show for her work at last and pinned her faith upon a sure crop—the first since her arrival in Alberta.
Before and after their field work, they had plenty of chores and housework to do. Nettie milked, looked after the sitting hens and spring chicks, and the great sow with her litter; she watered and fed the horses and cleaned the barns and stables. Meanwhile, Angella prepared the meals, made the butter, cleaned the house, and took full charge of the baby.
In Nettie's avoidance of her child there was fear rather than aversion. This child that had been forced upon her by the man she hated aroused strange tumults within her. At the thought of its father, she would shudder and tell herself she hated it because it was his; but there were moments when melting, passionate impulses consumed her, and then it took all her strength not to snatch her baby up and clasp it tightly to her breast.