A Prairie Courtship
"Are you quite sure you didn't mean a useful one?"
Alison felt uncomfortable, because this idea had been in her mind.
"I'll answer the question, anyway," continued Thorne. "These people and those in the wheat-growing lands across the frontier work twelve and fourteen hours every day. It's always the same unceasing toil with them – they have no diversions. We go round and carry the news from place to place, tell them the latest stories, and now and then sing to them. We don't tax them too much either – a supper when they're poor – a dollar for a mirror or a bottle of elixir, which it must be confessed most of them have no possible use for."
"Did you never do anything else?" Alison inquired; "that is, in Canada?"
"Oh, yes," replied her companion. "I was clerk in an implement store which I walked out of at its proprietor's request after an attack of injudicious candor. You see, a rather big farmer came in one day and spent most of the morning examining our seeders and pointing out their defects. Then he inquired why we had the assurance to demand so much for our implement when he could buy a very much better one several dollars cheaper. I asked him if he was sure of that, and when he said he was I suggested that it would be considerably wiser to go right away and buy it instead of wasting his time and mine. The proprietor desired to know how we expected him to make a living if we talked to customers like that, and I pointed out that we couldn't do so anyway by answering insane questions."
Alison laughed delightedly. She felt that this was not mere rodomontade, but that the man was perfectly capable of doing as he had said.
"Had you any more experiences of the same kind?" she asked.
"I was shortly afterward projected out of a wheat broker's office."
"Projected?"
Thorne grinned.
"I believe that describes it. You see, they were three to one; but I took part of the office fittings along with me. I must own that I lost my temper and insulted them."
"But why did you do so?"
"Well," answered Thorne reflectively, "I like the Colonial, and especially the Westerner, though he's rather fond of insisting on his superiority over the rest of mankind. One gets used to this, but it now and then grows galling when he compares himself with the folks who come out from the old country. On the day in question the trouble arose from a repetition of the usual formula that if it wasn't for the ocean they'd have the whole scum of Europe coming over. I, however, shook hands with the man who said it not long afterward, and he told me that after I had gone, which was how he expressed it, they sat down and laughed until they ached, thinking what the wheat broker, who was out on business, would say when he saw his office."
Alison was genuinely amused and she ventured another question.
"Did you leave your situations in England in the same fashion?"
The man's face darkened for a moment.
"As it happened, I hadn't any."
Alison turned the conversation into what promised to be a safer channel, and they drove along very slowly all morning. When they set out again after a lengthy stop at noon Thorne asked her if she would mind walking for a while, as Volador was becoming very lame. He added that he would make for an outlying homestead, where they would find entertainment, instead of Graham's Bluff, and that they should reach Mrs. Hunter's on the following day.
It was six o'clock in the evening when they arrived at a frame house which stood, roofed with cedar shingles, in the shelter of a big birch bluff. There was a very rude sod-built stable, a small log barn, and a great pile of straw, which appeared to be hollow inside and used as a store of some kind. A middle-aged man with a good-humored look met them at the door, and his wife greeted Alison in a kindly fashion when Thorne explained the cause of their visit. Indeed, Alison was pleased with the woman's face and manner, though, like many of the small wheat-growers' wives, she looked a little worn and faded. Though the men toil strenuously on the newly broken prairie, the heavier burden not infrequently falls to the woman's share.
Farquhar, their host, went out to work after supper but came back a little before dusk, and when they sat out on the stoop together, Thorne got his banjo and sang twice at Mrs. Farquhar's request; once some amusing jingle he had heard in Winnipeg, and afterward "Mandalay."
The song was not new to Alison, but she fancied that she had never heard it rendered as Maverick Thorne sang it then. It was not his voice, though that was a fine one, but the knowledge that had given him power of expression, which held her tense and still. This man knew and had indulged in and probably suffered for the longing for something that was strange and different from all that his experience had touched before. He was one of the free-lances who could not sit snugly at home; and in her heart Alison sympathized with him.
She had never seen the glowing, sensuous East and South, but the new West lay open before her in all its clean, pristine virility. A vast sweep of sky that was duskily purple eastward stretched overhead, a wonderful crystalline bluish green, until it changed far off on the grassland's rim to a streak of smoky red. Under it the prairie rolled back like a great silent sea. There was something that set the blood stirring in the dew-chilled air, and the faint smell of the wood smoke and the calling of the wild fowl on a distant sloo intensified the sense of the new and unfamiliar. One could be free in that wide land, she felt; and as she thought of the customs, castes, and conventions to which one must submit at home, she wondered whether they were needed guides and guards or mere cramping fetters. They seemed to have none of them in western Canada.
She said "Thank you!" when Thorne laid down his banjo, and felt that the spoken word had its limits, though she was careful not to look at him directly just then, and soon afterward she retired. This house was larger and much better furnished than the one she had last slept in, though she supposed that it would have looked singularly comfortless and almost empty in England. There was, for one thing, neither a curtain at a window nor a carpet on the floor.
When she joined the others at breakfast the next morning her host informed Thorne that if they could wait until noon he could lend him a horse to replace the lame Volador. He had, he explained, sent his hired man off with a team on the previous day for a plow which was being repaired by a smith who lived at a distance, and he had some work for the second pair that morning. The men went out together when breakfast was over, and Mrs. Farquhar sat down opposite Alison after she had cleared the table.
"Thorne tells me you are going to Mrs. Hunter's, though you don't know yet whether you will stay with her or not," she said.
It occurred to Alison that this was a tactful way of expressing it, though she was not sure that the delicacy was altogether Thorne's, for she had no doubt that her hostess had once been accustomed to a much smoother life in the Canadian cities.
"No," she replied, "I really can't tell until I get there."
"Then, in case you don't decide to stay, we should be glad to have you here."
Alison was astonished, but in spite of her usual outward calm there was a vein of impulsiveness in her, and she leaned forward in her chair.
"I don't suppose you know that I am quite useless at any kind of housework," she said. "I can't wash things, I can't cook, and I can scarcely sew."
Mrs. Farquhar smiled.
"When I first came out here from Toronto it was much the same with me, and there was nobody to teach me. It's fortunate that men are not very fastidious in this part of Canada. In any case I had, perhaps, better mention that while I would be glad to pay you at the usual rate and you would be required to help, you would live with us as one of the family. I want a companion. With my husband at work from sunup until dark, it's often lonely here. Besides, the arrangement would give you an opportunity for learning a little and finding out how you like the country."
Alison thought hard for a few moments. What she was offered was a situation as a servant, but she decided that it would be more pleasant here than she supposed it must generally be in England. She felt inclined to like this woman, and her husband's manner was reassuring. There was no doubt that they would treat her well.
"I'm afraid that in a little while you would be sorry you had suggested it," she said.
"The question is, would you like to try?"
"I'm quite sure of that," declared Alison impulsively. "I don't suppose you know what it is to be offered a resting-place when you arrive, feeling very friendless and forlorn, in a new country."
Mrs. Farquhar smiled.
"Then if you don't care to stay with Mrs. Hunter you must come straight back here. It would, perhaps, be better if you went to her in the first instance."
"But don't you want any references?"
"I don't think I do. In this case, your face is sufficient, and from experience we don't attach any great importance to vouchers of the other kind. Harry sometimes says that when a man is found to be insufferable in the old country they give him a walletful of letters of introduction, crediting him with all the virtues, and send him out to us. Besides, even if you were really quite dreadful, your friends wouldn't go back on you when I wrote to them."
Alison laughed, and as the hired man appeared at noon with Farquhar's team she drove away with Thorne soon after dinner. When they had left the house behind she turned to him.
"You have been talking about me to Mrs. Farquhar," she said.
"Yes," admitted Thorne with a smile, "I must confess that I have. Is there any reason why you should be angry?"
"I'm not," Alison informed him. "But why did you do it?"
"I'm far from sure that you will like Mrs. Hunter. In fact, I'd be a little astonished if you did; and if you were a relative of mine I'd try to make you stay with Mrs. Farquhar."
"I wonder whether that means that Mrs. Hunter doesn't like you?"
Thorne laughed good-humoredly.
"Oh, I'm much too insignificant a person to count either way. Mrs. Hunter is what you might call grande dame."
"Have you any of them in western Canada?"
"Well," answered Thorne, with an air of whimsical reflection, "there are certainly not many, and in spite of it the country gets along pretty well. We have, however, quite a few women of excellent education and manners who don't seem to mind making their children's dresses and washing their husband's clothes. Anyway, if she's at home, you can form your own opinion of Florence Hunter in an hour or two."
"Is she often away?"
"Not infrequently. Every now and then she goes off to Winnipeg, Toronto, or Montreal."
"But what about her husband? Can he leave his farm?"
"Hunter," Thorne replied dryly, "invariably stays at home."
His manner made it clear that he intended to say no more on that subject, and they talked about other matters while the wagon jolted on across the sunlit prairie.
CHAPTER V
THORNE GIVES ADVICE
It was early in the evening when they drove into sight of the Hunter homestead, and as they approached it Alison glanced about her with some curiosity. Long rows of clods out of which rose a tangle of withered grass tussocks stretched across the foreground. Thorne told her that this was the breaking, land won from the prairie too late for sowing in the previous year. Farther on, they skirted another stretch of more friable and cleaner clods, shattered and mellowed by the frost, and then they came to a space of charred stubble. Beyond that, a waste of yellow straw stood almost knee-high, and Thorne said that as the latter had no value on the prairie it was generally burned off to clear the ground for the following crop. He added that wheat was usually grown on the same land for several years without any attempt at fertilization.
Alison, however, knew nothing of farming, and it was the house at which she gazed with most interest. It stood not far from a broad shallow lake with a thin birch bluff on one side of it, a commodious two-storied building with a wide veranda. It was apparently built of wood, but its severity of outline was relieved by gaily picked-out scroll-work and lattice shutters; and in front of the entrance somebody had attempted to make a garden. The stables and barns behind it were new frame buildings, and there were wire fences stretching back from these. After her experience of the last few days, Alison had not expected to see anything like it in western Canada.
Then she began to wonder whether Florence Hunter's life in the West had made much change in her. She recollected her as a pretty but rather pallid girl, with a manner a little too suggestive of self-confidence, and a look of calculating tenacity in her eyes. Alison had continued to treat her as a friend after she had incurred the hostility of Mrs. Leigh, but she realized that it was chiefly Florence's courage and resourcefulness that had impressed her, and not her other qualities. She had not seen Florence's husband.
A few minutes later Thorne drove up to the front of the house, and Alison saw a woman, who hitherto had been hidden by one of the pillars, lying in a canvas chair on the veranda with a book in her hand. The sunlight that streamed in upon her called up fiery gleams in her red hair and shimmered on her long dress of soft, filmy green. Alison promptly decided that the latter had come from New York or Montreal. There was no doubt that Florence Hunter's appearance was striking, though her expression even in repose seemed to indicate a dissatisfied, exacting temperament. At length she heard the rattle of wheels, for she rose.
"Alison, by all that's wonderful!" she cried.
There was astonishment in the exclamation, but Alison could not convince herself that there was any great pleasure, and it was with a certain sense of constraint that she permitted Thorne to help her down. He walked with her up to the veranda, and acknowledged Mrs. Hunter's casual greeting by lifting his hat.
"Sit down," said the latter to Alison, pointing to another chair. "Where have you sprung from?"
"From Winnipeg. I came out to earn my living, and nobody seemed to want me there."
Florence laughed.
"You earn your living! It's clear that something very extraordinary must have happened; but we'll talk of that after supper. So you decided to come to me?"
It was, Alison realized, merely a question and nothing more.
"I'm afraid I was a little presumptuous," she replied. "There is, of course, no reason why you should have me."
Her companion looked at her with a curious smile.
"You are still in the habit of saying things of that kind? I suppose it runs in the family."
Alison winced, for she remembered that her mother could on occasion be painfully rude.
"You haven't said anything to convince me that I was wrong."
"Was it necessary?" Florence asked languidly. "I was never very effusive, as you ought to know. Of course, you'll stay here as long as it pleases you."
The invitation was clear enough, but there was no warmth in it; and Alison was relieved when a man came up the steps. He was rather short in stature, and there was nothing striking in his appearance. He had a quiet brown face and very brown hands, and he had evidently been working, for he wore long boots, a coarse blue shirt, and blue duck overalls. He shook hands with Thorne cordially, and then turned toward Alison.
"My husband," said Florence. "Miss Leigh, Elcot; I used to know her in England. She has just arrived."
Alison noticed that Hunter favored her with a glance of grave scrutiny, but he did not seem in the least astonished, nor did he glance at his wife. This indicated that he was in the habit of accepting without question anything that the latter did. Then he held out his hand.
"I'm very glad to see you, and we'll try to make you comfortable," he said with a smile which softened the girl's heart toward him. Then he turned to his wife.
"Is supper ready? I want to haul in another load of wood before it's dark."
"It should have been ready now. I don't know what they're doing inside," was the careless reply.
It occurred to Alison that her hostess might have gone to see, but she was half annoyed with Thorne when she noticed his badly dissembled grin. Then Hunter inquired if she had had a comfortable journey.
"Not very," she answered. "You see, I traveled Colonist."
"How dreadful!" Florence exclaimed.
Her husband smiled at Alison.
"It depends," he said. "It's good enough if you can wait until after the steamboat train. I used to travel that way myself once upon a time; I had to do it then."
"Elcot," his wife explained, "is one of the most economically minded men living. He grudges every dollar unless it's for new implements."
Hunter did not contradict her. He and Thorne left the veranda, and soon after they returned from leading the team to the stable, a trim maid appeared to announce that supper was ready. Hunter led Alison into a big and very simply furnished room. A long table ran down one side, and half a dozen men attired much as Hunter was took their places about the uncovered lower half of it. There was a cloth on the upper portion, with a gap of several feet between its margin and the nearest of the teamsters' seats. It occurred to Alison, who had been told that the hired man generally ate with his employer on the prairie, that this compromise was rather pitiful, though she did not know that Hunter had once or twice had words with his wife on the question. As the meal, which was bountiful, proceeded, he now and then spoke to the men; but Florence confined her attention to Alison, until at length she addressed Thorne.
"To what do we owe the pleasure of seeing you?" she inquired.
"In the first place, I came to bring Miss Leigh; she hired me."
Thorne laid a very slight stress upon the hired. It seemed to indicate that he recognized his station in relation to a guest of the house, and Alison felt a little uncomfortable. For one thing, though that did not quite account for her uneasiness, she remembered that she had not paid him.
"Then," he added, "I called in the usual course of business. I have for disposal a few tablets of very excellent English soap, a case of peach-bloom cosmetic, and one or two other requisites of the kind."
Alison regretted that she laughed, but she felt that Florence's attitude toward the man had rendered the thrust admissible, and she saw a faint smile in Hunter's eyes. Her hostess, however, was equal to the occasion.
"If they're not as rubbishy as usual, I'll buy a few things and give them to the maids. Is that the whole of your stock?"
"I've a box of new gramophone records."
Florence looked at her husband, and Alison fancied that she had noticed and meant to punish him for his smile.
"You'll buy them, Elcot."
"You haven't tried the other lot," Hunter protested. "Besides, the instrument seemed to have contracted bronchitis when I last had it out."
"It will do to amuse the boys when the nights get dark," replied Florence. Then she turned to Alison. "One could hardly get a dollar out of him with a lever."
"Doesn't it depend on the kind of lever you use?" Alison asked.
Thorne grinned, but Florence answered unhesitatingly.
"Oh, in the case of the average man it doesn't matter, so long as it's strong enough and you have a fulcrum. We'll admit that the type can be generous, but it's only when it throws a reflected luster on themselves. Otherwise judicious pressure is necessary."
"Are you going to camp with us to-night?" Hunter asked Thorne.
"No," answered the latter. "I have some business at the Bluff, and I want to get off again early to-morrow."
In a few more minutes the teamsters rose, and Hunter, making excuses to Alison, went out with them. Florence looked after them, and then turned to the girl with a disdainful lifting of her brows.
"Cormorants," she commented. "They've been very slow to-night. Eight minutes is about their usual limit. I don't think they even look at their food – it just goes down. I have once or twice suggested to Elcot that he is wasting his money by giving them the things he does. It's difficult, though, to make him listen to reason."
Alison said nothing, and after a while Florence rose.
"We'll have a talk on the veranda while they clear away."
She pointed to a chair when they reached the veranda, and then sank languidly into one close by.
"Tell me all about it," she said.
It was not a pleasant task to Alison, for it entailed the mention of her father's death and an account of the difficulties that had followed, but she spoke for a few minutes, and her companion casually expressed her sympathy.
"I can understand why you came out," she added with a bitter laugh. "When I first met you I was earning just enough to keep me on the border line between respectability and – the other thing – that is by the exercise of the most unpleasant self-denial. What I should have done without the extra twelve pounds your mother's guild paid me for playing the piano twice a week at the working girls' club I don't like to think. That is why I made no complaint when they added to my duties the teaching of a class on another evening and the collecting of the subscriptions to the sewing society. Your mother, I heard, informed the committee that in her opinion twelve pounds was a good deal too much, and I believe she added that such a rate of payment was apt to make a young woman of my class far too independent."
Alison's cheeks burned, for she knew that Florence had been correctly informed; but she had no thought of mentioning that she had expostulated with her mother on the subject.
"Well," said Florence, "it was not your fault, and I'm sorry for you. I suppose you had – difficulties – with some of your employers? No doubt one or two of them tried to make love to you?"
Alison made a little gesture of disgust.
"Oh," laughed Florence, "I know. You probably flared out at the offender, and either got your work found fault with or lost your situation. I didn't. After all, a smile costs nothing, though it's a little difficult now and then. In my case, it led to shorter hours, higher wages, an occasional Saturday afternoon trip to the country. I got what I could, and in due time it was generally easy to turn round upon and get rid of the provider. Still, it was just a little humiliating with a certain type of man, and it was a relief when Elcot took me out of it. I try to remember that I owe him that when he gets unusually wearisome, though one must do him the justice to admit that he never refers to it."
Alison sat silent, shrinking from her companion. She had faced a good many unpleasant things during the past few years, but they had wrought but little change in her nature. The part her hostess had played would have been a wholly hateful one to her.
"Where did you come across Thorne?" Florence asked.
Alison told her, and she looked thoughtful.
"When was that? I supposed you had come straight from the station."
"Four days ago," answered Alison unhesitatingly, though she would have much preferred not to mention it.
"Four days! And you have been driving round the country since then with Thorne?"
Alison felt her face grow hot, but her answer was clear and sharp.
"Of course; I couldn't help it. We should have been here earlier, only a horse went lame. In any case, after what you have told me, I cannot see why you should adopt that tone."
Florence raised her brows.
"My dear," she said, "I was a working woman of no account in England when I first met you – but things are rather different now. It doesn't exactly please me that a guest of mine should indulge in an escapade of this description. Doesn't it strike you as hardly fitting?"
Hunter, who had come up the steps unobserved, stopped beside them just then.
"Rubbish!" he said curtly. "It was unavoidable. I've had a talk with Leslie; he told me exactly what delayed him."
Florence waved her hand.
"Oh," she replied, "let it go at that. I couldn't resist the temptation of sticking a pin or two into Alison. What has brought you back?"
"We broke the wagon pole. It didn't seem worth while to put in a new one to-night."