"But are ye sure it has no been all ploughed some time?" persisted the woman, who could not bring herself to believe that Nature, unaided, had left great areas ready for the hand of the husbandman. A life of environment amid forests and rocks had sorely cramped her imagination.
"Ah'm no sayin' for sure, but whoever ploughed it took a man's order. It will be a thousand miles long, Ah'm thinkin', an' nobody knows how wide. Pioneers like you an' me ha' been workin' our hands off in Canada" (it was a trick of the old-timers to think only of the Eastern Provinces as Canada), "an' in a hundred years we have no cleared what'd be a garden patch to that farm out yonder. Ah'm thinkin' it was a bigger Hand than yours or mine that did that clearin'."
"Tell us about the crops," said one of the men passengers. "What like wheat can ye grow?"
"Like corn," said the narrator, with great deliberation. "Heads like ears o' corn. Wheat that grows so fast ye can hear it. Nothin' uncommon to walk into wheat-fields when they's knee-high, an' have to fight yer way out like a jungle."
"Is the Injuns werry big?" piped a little voice. "My pa's go'n'to make me a bone-arrow so I can kill 'em all up."
"That's a brave soldier," said the man, drawing the child to his knee. "But Ah know a better way to fight Indians than with bows an' arrows. D'ye want me to tell ye a story?"
"'S about Moses?"
"No, Ah ain't quite up-to-date on Moses, but Ah can tell ye a story about a better way to fight Indians than with arrows an' powder. Ah fight 'em with flour an' blankets an' badger-meat, an' it's a long way better."
The child climbed up on the friendly knee, and interested himself in the great silver watch-chain that looped convenient to his fingers. "Go on wif your story, man," he said. "I's listenin'."
And big Aleck McCrae forgot the immigrants crowded around, forgot the lurch of the train and the window-glimpse of forests heavy-blanketed with snow, as he ploughed his fertile imagination and spread a sudden harvest of wonderment before the little soul that clung to his great watch-chain.