The Project Gutenberg eBook of The field of amber gold
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Title: The field of amber gold
Author: William Bigelow Neal
Release date: January 1, 2025 [eBook #75009]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago, IL: The Consolidated Magazines Corporation, 1925
Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIELD OF AMBER GOLD ***
THE FIELD OF AMBER GOLD
By William Bigelow Neal
A remarkable story wherein the poignant drama of man’s eternal
battle with the forces of Nature is impressively brought out:
by the author of “Captain Jack” and “At Bay.”
John Grahame walked with shoulders stooped, head bent forward and down,
until he was peering out at the storm through the half-inch slit between
the visor of his cap and the top of a sheepskin collar. When he left the
little prairie town of Barliton, two hours before, the sun had been
shining, and although it was thirty below, he anticipated nothing worse
than a cold drive, ending as usual by the big coal stove where he rocked
and read the papers aloud to Jane as she prepared his supper. But he had
covered little more than half of the fifteen miles to his home when a
blue-gray wall of clouds arose in the west and came on with the
terrifying speed of the genuine Dakota blizzard. There were several
inches of loose snow on the ground, and John knew what the wind would do
to those powdery flakes.
He looked about him and considered. There were two or three farms within
sight, and he was minded to try and reach one ahead of the storm, but
then he thought of Jane. He could see her standing, as thousands of
pioneer women had stood before, her face pressed against the frost-laden
glass, looking anxiously out into the impenetrable wall of whirling
snow, and praying the God of Storms to guide her lover safely through;
he thought of the wind and the stoves that might burn all too fiercely,
and with this vision of fire came decision: he must go through.
Grahame settled his cap and pulled the earlaps well down over the sides
of his face; he unbuttoned his heavy double-breasted overcoat and
buttoned it again so that the opening would be downwind instead of
against it; he turned up the wide collar and buttoned the tab across the
front; and from a box of groceries and other supplies he took an extra
pair of knitted gloves and put them on under his mittens. When the storm
was almost upon him, he slipped from the load and began to walk. He was
ready, but none too soon. Little whirlwinds were already lifting the
light snow in small spirals which wandered aimlessly here and there, and
when the blue wall passed under and obscured the sun, it seemed to him
that the thermometer dropped ten degrees, so cold and piercing was the
wind. From ahead came a low moaning which grew louder and louder--and
then the storm struck.
The team at once stopped and began cramping the sled as they tried to
back into the wind. Stepping up onto the tongue, Grahame placed a hand
on the hip of either horse and spoke to them. His voice was lost in the
rush of the wind, but they felt his touch, and it steadied them. They
obeyed his pull on the line and turned into the wind again. There came a
rippling of mighty muscles beneath his hand. The sharp steel calks bit
deep into snow and ice, and the front runners were wrenched back into
the road, and again the long steel shoes took up their whining song of
protest against the cold.
* * * * *
For two long hours Grahame had been floundering beside the sled. Several
times when he felt himself becoming chilled, he walked in deep snow
until nearly exhausted; then he placed one hand on the box and allowed
the team to pull him forward. He could see little of the horses and
nothing on either side; nor did he look, for his eyes were fixed on the
silver-white ribbon of hard-packed snow beneath the runner at his feet.
The presence of that narrow sleigh track meant the difference between
life and death. If he held it, he was safe; if he lost it even for a
moment, it might mean the end.
The blinding white of late afternoon changed to the gray of sunset, and
still the big team fought on. Their breath came in rapid puffs of white
vapor, while long slender icicles hung from their nostrils. Grahame’s
eyelashes froze to the lower lids and he rubbed them apart with his
mitten. His collar had become a mass of ice, and a double handful of
snow had driven through the tiny opening to pack solidly around his
throat. Little by little the cold was driving through his clothing as
well. He felt it first in his fingers, and he beat them against his
sides, but the motion seemed to pump cold air up his sleeves for he felt
it under his arms. The team stopped, and Grahame went to investigate.
There was a dark shadow ahead, which as he approached resolved itself
into another team and sled, evidently going the same way as himself; but
the team had stopped and swung the tongue around until they stood back
to the storm. The spring seat had fallen from its place, and now dangled
from one clamp. In the bottom of the box was the huddled body of a
man--a man whom he vaguely recognized by his strangely scarred face as
Fred Kinear, a newcomer in the neighborhood.
A hasty examination convinced Grahame that life was not extinct, and he
set about the only course that might save the flickering spark. Working
as fast as was possible with half-numb fingers, he unharnessed and
turned loose the stranger’s team. Trying to force them against the storm
to a place they did not know would be worse than useless, and once free
from sled and harness, they would drift with the storm until they found
shelter in a coulee or behind a hill. Pulling the pin from the eveners,
he changed his own team to the other sled.
Even as he worked, the last vestige of daylight faded and the atmosphere
around him became a vast area of rushing, stinging, impenetrable gray.
But one hope remained. The horses, if left to themselves, might face the
blizzard and take him home. He knew it was not more than a mile and a
half or two miles at the most. It was only a chance, but at any rate
there was no alternative. In a few minutes the game would be played, and
won or lost.
Climbing into the sled, he sacrificed the last chance of life, should
the team fail him, by taking off his sheepskin-lined overcoat and
wrapping it around the unconscious man below. Grasping the lines, he
swung the free ends across the hips of his team with all the force the
wind allowed him. They wrenched the front runners around and headed into
the wind. Again the lines cut into the air, and the horses broke into a
trot. Once more came the stinging whistle of leather, and they broke
into a run. The wind seared Grahame’s flesh like hot iron, and he threw
one arm before his face. Realizing the futility of trying to guide his
horses over a road he could not see, he dropped the lines to the bottom
of the box and pinned them with his feet.
Time and again the horses floundered into deep snow and Grahame’s hopes
sank to zero, only to come up again as he felt the sled again lunge
forward on the hard-packed road. Gaining confidence as the minutes
passed, he leaned forward and talked to the team as a mother croons to
her child. Then he begged and cursed and cheered them by turns. In his
excitement he forgot the wind and the snow and the pain--forgot even the
menace of death itself. A thought flashed before his mind of the book he
had been reading only the night before. What in hell did Ben Hur know
about the real article? Here was a race against the forces of nature
when life itself was the stake. He laughed aloud, and with the laugh
came a lurch to one side, a crash and the wild scream of broken wire,
and splinters of a gate-post flew in his face. The sled slowed down on
bare ground, only to lunge forward toward a black shadow ahead. An
instant later he caught a fleeting vision of an orange glow, outlining
the figure of a woman.
* * * * *
Some fifteen years before and far to the south and east, Fred Kinear had
grown to early manhood. From one of the parental strains, he had
inherited length, breadth and a certain degree of thickness--not the
thickness of surplus flesh, but rather the depth of chest and shoulder
to which nature anchors the muscles of strong men. Another strain,
perhaps, had endowed him with a sunny disposition and the ability to
make friends and to hold fast to those he made. Socially he was a
success, because like most really strong men to whom the Creator has
given a level head as well, he regarded his muscular power as a trust
and drew from it the supreme confidence in himself that automatically
lifts men of his type above the bully class.
As a boy Kinear was one of those who must know how every mechanical
contrivance operates. His most cherished possessions were the alarm
clocks and the dollar watches other people had thrown away, for the
first stage of development in the natural mechanic is the desire to take
things apart, followed after a time by the second stage, wherein he
tries to put them together again. The purely analytic stage is common to
most boys, but the synthetic period is reached only by the genuine
mechanic. At the time his schoolmates were dreaming of laurels to be won
in the realms of poetry, Fred was out in the backyard monkeying with a
toy steam engine, and when they reached the period of vacations spent on
tennis court and lake with racket and banjo, Fred was shoveling coal
into a squat, puffy thing that was very hot and greasy, and had adopted
the monkey wrench and oilcan as constant companions.
After he was graduated from high school, he wanted to go to college.
Unfortunately for him, he was not a member of the banjo gang. What he
got he had to earn, and so he found a job firing in the boiler room of a
light plant. One day a boiler exploded and they carried him to a
hospital on a stretcher, with a white cloth over his face. Weeks
afterward, he was allowed to sit up; a little later he could move
around, and still later the bandages were taken from his head. The
surgeon who had patched up his face was very proud of his work, but his
pride was based on his accomplishment in light of the materials he had
to work with, and brought small consolation to Fred Kinear when they
first brought him a mirror. What he saw was a face, it was true, but not
his face nor did it bear a likeness to any face he had ever seen before.
One ear was little more than a gnarled button; cheeks and chin were a
series of white scars, ridged and seamed; his nose was partly gone; his
eyelids were too small and fiery red, and his upper lip was drawn up in
a snarl which would endure forever.
There came long hours when Kinear fought with all his might for courage
to face the world again--a long uphill fight; but in the end he found a
measure of peace, for he knew that after all, he was still Fred Kinear
in spite of what the mirror claimed. The steam might have seared his
face beyond recognition, but it had not touched his brain, and certainly
his soul was intact. He was still a human being, and as such would go
forth and take up his work where he had left off.
Finally one sunny day Fred left the hospital. At the corner where he
waited for a street-car, a small boy came along, to stop and gaze in awe
at the disfigured man. Others joined him, and soon a ring of young faces
surrounded him. Kinear had a sense of humor great enough to overcome, in
a measure, the bitterness of this experience, and he laughed, or at
least he intended to laugh, but it was only a matter of spirit and vocal
cords, because the lips did not respond, and he saw the young faces
shrink back in fear at what, to them, was merely a horrible noise.
Kinear never laughed again.
In the car, when he asked a question of the conductor, and under the
stimulus of a terrible effort to enunciate clearly, his face twisted
itself into a horrible caricature, someone laughed, and thenceforth he
spoke only when it became necessary. He sat down on the long seat, and a
young woman made an involuntary movement away from him. That cut deep,
and his self-consciousness now caused him to misinterpret smiles and
nods among the other passengers. The steam that scarred his face was as
nothing compared to the manifestations of fear and ridicule and scorn
that he saw, or imagined he saw; and a new process began within him.
Where before it had been only the flesh that had suffered, now his very
soul began to blight and shrivel, drawing in and away from the scarred
shell of his body until he became a machine, driven by his mentality
only. People who knew him said that from that day on, he became a
soulless automaton, with a heart of iron, an emotionless, heartless
creature of flesh and blood, asking sympathy of none and granting even
as he received. Whether these things were true or not, the fact remained
that Fred Kinear had ceased to exist as such, and from then on he was
known as Scarface, or sometimes as Ironheart.
* * * * *
In the home of John Grahame, the man whom they knew as Ironheart lay
under the care of Jane and the country doctor they had called in from
Barliton. During the days immediately following the blizzard there had
been times when it seemed they were waging a useless fight. This
strange, silent man who suffered without complaint and who received
their ministrations without thanks or comment, hovered very near the
shadows. Hour after hour, for many days and nights, Jane sat beside the
stricken man and did as the doctor or her own intuitions directed.
Sometimes the doctor took her place, and when he could not come and she
became exhausted from her long vigil, Grahame left his work and sat by
the sick man while she rested.
In the end their efforts were rewarded. Slowly but surely their patient
retraced his steps over the shadow trail and began his climb to health
and when the day came that he was well enough to leave them, they knew
no more of him than on the night Grahame had carried his unconscious
form into his house. Beyond the fact that he had been in the country
only a little time, their knowledge was limited to the scant gleanings
of their observations, and they were limited enough. Speaking only in
answer to their questions, and then in as few words as was possible, he
had invited no confidences and had given none. When he left, he thanked
Grahame with a nod of the head and turned to Jane. They both thought for
a moment that he was going to say something, for the merest trace of an
expression came to his eyes, but neither were able to read the message
they carried. It seemed that the tortured muscles of his face and
eyelids were incapable of transmitting whatever went on behind them.
Turning abruptly, he stepped into his sleigh and rode away.
Grahame’s face grew hard and angry.
“Talk about gratitude, there isn’t even decency in his make-up!”
Jane, with instinct guided by a woman’s intuition, felt vaguely that her
patient had tried to express a feeling of some kind. Why he had failed
she could not understand, but she answered John’s angry criticism
quietly:
“I am sure that is untrue, John. There is something we don’t
understand.” And as she saw John about to make another angry rejoinder:
“John, it isn’t worth our quarreling about. He is gone at any rate, and
we have done our duty. You know Mother would say that is all we should
think of, anyway--‘a sense of duty well done.’”
“Mighty poor reward, I should call that. What are you trying to do? Make
yourself out as sort of a saint?”
“No, John. But there is no need for you to be plain cross, is there? The
first minute we are alone, too! I’ll wish him back again if you keep
this up.”
“Jane, for heaven’s sake don’t wish that on us. I didn’t mean to be
cross. Come on out to the barn with me and have a look-see at the new
little bossies.”
“I’ll do it. I haven’t been out there for ages, seems to me.”
But the story went the round of the neighborhood that they had been
offered neither pay nor thanks for their care, and from then on the name
of Ironheart was used to the exclusion of any other. The name of Fred
Kinear was nearly forgotten.
* * * * *
John Grahame stood in a pile of wheat up to his knees. He had exhausted
every resource. The walls of the granary bulged until the nails were
popping. His stock could not get into the barn because the doors were
blocked with wheat, and now Jane had been driven from the house, and
wheat was flowing from the windows in amber streams. In desperation he
strove to extricate himself from the rapidly growing pile. It had
reached his waist and was still climbing. He tried to shout, and threw a
last frantic look around in search of help. Apparently he was doomed to
die under a deluge of prosperity, for there was no one in sight. And
then he saw something which brought to him a wave of consolation. From
the rollway of his root cellar he saw feet protruding, feet that waved
and threshed around in the wheat to no avail. He recognized them, pair
by pair, as the feet of his creditors buried headfirst in their own
collections. One pair he recognized as belonging to his grocery and dry
goods merchant, and he felt a tinge of sorrow; another belonged to his
banker, the man who had made him mortgage everything on the place,
excepting only his wife and dog; this time his gaze was coldly critical.
The third pair belonged to the hardware man who had sold Jane that
incubator that wouldn’t incubate and the separator that wouldn’t
separate, the man who had made him mortgage his milch cows to buy a
binder; and again his gaze was unsympathetic. Lastly he spied a fourth
pair, which belonged to a real-estate dealer, a man who had sold him one
hundred and sixty acres of gumbo, and he positively gloated over the
man’s predicament. But his joy was short-lived. The wheat had reached
his chin. He put forth all the strength he had in him, in a last frantic
effort. It was futile. Another rush of golden grain buried him ten feet
beneath its suffocating bulk, and he could breathe no more. There were
shooting stars and crimson fires and all the rest of that horrid crew,
even to the ringing of bells, but the bells sounded muffled and far
away, because the alarm clock was covered with a pillow. John Grahame
sat up in bed. It was five o’clock.
The transition from nightmare to actuality did not bring the relief he
had a right to expect. The room was cold, and a wind that spoke
eloquently of further discomforts out of doors moaned along the eaves. A
carefully shaded night lamp in another room cast an all-too-feeble ray
through the open door, and by its ineffective light, Grahame sat on the
edge of the bed and began to dress.
Kindling a fire in the range, he used the reservoir for a footrest and
laced his shoes while the fire was growing hot enough to ignite a bucket
of lignite. Pulling on overshoes, sheepskin overcoat, a fur cap and
gloves, he threaded the milk pail over his arm and took the lantern in
the same hand. Picking up the slop pail with the other, he stepped out
on the back stoop. A cold wind smote him, and the yard was a dirty gray
from drifting spirals of snow and dust. The windmill, apparently unable
to make up its mind which way the wind was blowing, swung from side to
side and reminded him that the turntable needed oil; the pull-out wire
clanged harshly against the angle iron frame. A rooster, resenting the
disturbance, crowed long and loud.
* * * * *
As Grahame crossed to the pigpen, he looked to the east, and the sun
seemed to be coming up under a canopy decorated with streamers of
crimson. The hogs were sluggish, and came forth doubtfully, one at a
time, but when he hung the pail and lantern on a post and opened the
granary door, they lost their indecision and came out with a rush.
Passing the windmill, he threw it into gear and went on to the barn,
where a long series of nickers and the lowing of a cow greeted him as he
entered. From the feed-bin, he carried oats until the nickering changed
to the crunching sound of horses eating, and the peculiar snapping,
sucking sound of feeding cows. He milked and hung the pail on a peg
while he walked to the edge of the field he was plowing. The ground was
a little stiff, but not enough, he decided, to stop his work; so he went
back to the barn and harnessed six horses.
When he was halfway back to the house, Jane opened the door and called
to breakfast. He detected the odor of frying ham and quickened his pace.
She met him at the door, anxious to know if it had frozen enough to
interfere with the plowing, but John reassured her.
“The ground is a little stiff, but the horses can make it all right. I
have no time to waste, you know, if I am to seed the whole hundred acres
to wheat.”
“If you should be a little late, don’t you suppose you could put the
rest into flax? It’s a better money crop anyway, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but there are too many weeds for flax. It’s got to be wheat, but
if we get even a fair crop of wheat we can meet the mortgage on the home
place anyway.”
“We are going to get a crop this year. I feel it in my bones.”
“Yep, your bones said the same thing last year, if I remember right; but
I didn’t see any crop, did you?”
“No, of course not; but listen, John: we can’t have a failure every
year. There’s got to be a change sometime.”
“True as preaching; but if you are talking to brace up my courage, honey
girl, you just don’t have to. My courage is up and coming. I’ll work
sixteen hours a day, but I’ll get that wheat in at the right time. Does
that make you feel easier?”
John sat down to a carefully prepared breakfast of ham, eggs and
pancakes. There was but little conversation at the table. The men who
raise the nation’s bread have but little time for talk. In twenty
minutes John was out again, hitching the six horses to the gang-plow,
four abreast across the tongue, and a lead team ahead.
Driving out through the yard, he came to the stubble; and half a mile to
the westward he could just see a small piece of fluttering white fixed
to a pole. Farther along was another, and at the end of a mile was a
third. Maneuvering his team until the three stakes were in line, he
drove to the edge of the field. Leaning to one side in his seat, he
could see the stakes in line between the horses; then he kicked a lever,
and the sharp lay-points dropped to the ground and slipped gently
beneath the surface. There came the popping sound of sharp lays in roots
and the whirring sound of knife-like coulters; and the stubble,
shivering slightly, rose along the moldboards, to turn smoothly and fall
bottom-side up, leaving a double furrow of black dirt behind the plow.
Half a mile down the field, Grahame stopped to throw the first stake
across the plow. Sighting by the remaining pair, he finally came to the
last one, and so out on to the section line. Behind him, a slender black
line stretched away into the distance as true as a steel tape.
The second round was easier, for one horse of the lead team and one on
the tongue were able to follow the furrow. Taking advantage of this,
Grahame hung his handful of lines on the plow-levers while he walked
behind and stamped some of the cold out of his joints. At his heels came
old Shep, his assistant herder, on the lookout for mice, while behind
the dog fluttered a flock of hardy blackbirds watching for worms turned
out by the plow.
Five times before dinner and five times in the afternoon Grahame’s plow
sliced its way out and back across the field. For the first few rounds
he was busy making minor adjustments in the plow and harness, but after
that there was nothing to do but ride until he was stiff and then to
walk until he was tired. Some days it rained--if not enough to stop the
plow, then just enough to make life miserable for horses and man.
Sometimes the field was half obscured by snow-squalls or sleet. More
often a hot sun started hard oil running from the axles and brought
flecks of foam under the horses’ collars.
* * * * *
When Grahame and Jane had put in their first crop, fortune had favored
them. A favorable season with steadily rising prices, enabled them to
put up a good set of buildings and buy another quarter section, although
purchasing the second, called for a mortgage on the first. A second good
crop paid up a part of the mortgage on the land, bought additional stock
and purchased the machinery they needed; and--then came the deluge.
First certain impractical men then in power at the State capitol caused
the golden stream of credit to be dammed--gold that had always flowed
from the East to carry the farms from crop to crop. People in the East
who had money to invest became frightened. They saw or thought they saw
a great State crumbling to pieces in the hands of long-haired dreamers.
Local banks, unable to borrow, could not lend; and worse yet, they had
to collect. Next came the war, with prices which looked high and felt
high, but still were below the cost of production. The Government
thoughtfully put a price limit on wheat but allowed the price of
machinery, twine and leather to climb as high as willing and able
profiteers could push them. Lastly came years of drouth, until at the
time when this story opens, Grahame had staked his last cent. One good
crop would go far toward saving him. Another failure meant the loss of
all he had.
Day after day he moved up and down the field, and the black streak grew
wider and wider. Sometimes he changed to the drill and seeded what he
had plowed, and meanwhile there came the soft rains of early spring,
soaking up the thirsty earth. In time the first land plowed became a
long band of blue-green. When the wheat was in, he changed to oats and
finally to a few acres of spelts for hog feed. June came, and half of it
passed, leaving the fields shimmering in the heat of the noonday sun or
waving in the cool breezes that followed the frequent showers. Grahame
greased the moldboards of the plow to prevent rusting and then went
fishing. He needed a few days of rest before haying began.
One afternoon toward the end of June, Grahame, who had just finished
cultivating the potatoes, was spraying them with Paris green. It had
been an unusually hot day, without a breath of wind, and the air hung
heavy and oppressive. Absorbed in his work, he noticed nothing unusual
until there came a faint tremor of the air, a low, vibrant thing, half
sound, half jar. Straightening up, he looked around to find the western
horizon a tumbled mass of threatening clouds. There was a long fork of
light, and again came the low murmur, although a little louder than
before.
* * * * *
Grahame had long ago learned to fear storms which came up on apparently
still air, and his first thought was of hail. He tried to dismiss the
fear as foolish, because it was too early in the season for hailstorms.
As a precautionary measure, however, he went to the pasture and drove in
his stock. As he came back, Jane was working with the turkeys and young
chickens. It took the combined efforts of both to find and drive in the
last turkey hen, and by that time the clouds were well above their
heads. On their crest was a long white billow rolling over and over,
from which shot out streamers of white vapor to fall behind in long
trailing lines. Behind the crests were the dreaded streaks of green,
crossed and recrossed by jagged lines of crimson fire. Then came a black
wall of water sweeping toward them across the fields, while the roar of
thunder had become continuous.
In the house they worked fast shutting windows and getting ready for
wind and rain if for nothing worse. The wall of water came on, shutting
out mile after mile of fields, crossed the section line on their west
and came up through the wheat. With awful force it struck. A roar, a
crash and darkness. The house writhed and groaned, but it held fast to
its foundation. Sheets of water ran from the eaves, and the yard became
an electrically illuminated lake. For ten minutes it continued unabated,
and then the roar fell away to little more than a whisper.
It was the crucial time, and Grahame held his breath. A glance had shown
him that the buildings were all intact, and his hopes began to rise.
Just then came the forerunner of doom. Something hit the roof like the
tap from a small sledge. Running to the window, they saw the water in
the yard spurting up as though from shells in a naval engagement. From
the lungs of Grahame came the sigh of a man who recognizes defeat.
Nothing on God’s green earth could save them now. All was lost, his
wheat, his home, his stock, everything gone. Pieces of ice from the size
of a pea to big three-cornered chunks larger than hens’ eggs were
splashing and bobbing about the yard. With no wind, they were doing
little harm, but Grahame drew no comfort from that, for he knew all too
well what was behind them, and soon it came. Another roar, another
crash. The battering on walls and roof, the splitting of siding and
shingles, the breaking of glass and roaring of wind produced
pandemonium.
Of the two west windows, they chose one and held pillows against the
glass. The other crashed in with a shower of splintered panes, leaving
an opening for icy projectiles that pounded across the room to pile up
on the opposite wall. For a time the screen on the window they were
guarding held, but in the end it gave way and only the pillows saved
them from another deluge. When the last pane of glass had been battered
out, they stuffed the pillows farther in and reinforced them with other
bedding. And then suddenly it seemed as though a divine Protector had
thrust forth a shield and covered the house. The tumult ceased as
abruptly as it had begun. The quiet was oppressive. The wind dropped to
a breeze and a burst of sunlight illuminated the field of wheat before
them. There was nothing but a sea of mud.
For many minutes Grahame stood leaning against the battered window. His
head rested against his arm, and his whole body sagged in an attitude of
utter despondency. Only those who have known what it is to have the
results of long hours of work and hope dashed to nothing by the lash of
fire or storm can realize the agony of this man who suddenly found
himself bereft of the foundation upon which all of his hopes were
builded, and face to face with ruin. He was a strong man, as all of his
kind must be who wrest a living from Mother Earth, but this last, the
greatest blow of all, had been a hard one. The spark of resistance had
been all but beaten out.
* * * * *
In the hour of supreme discouragement it is usually the woman who
revives first. Jane saw and understood the force of their calamity as
well as John himself; but within her she carried the indomitable faith
of the pioneer--the faith which endured, over mountains and deserts,
through bitter cold and choking dust, to build an empire under the
war-clubs of Apache and Sioux. Jane’s first thought was for the man at
the window, and soon Grahame felt her arm across his shoulder and the
gentle touch of her hand on his hair.
For a long time she too rested her elbow on the empty sash and gazed out
on the scene of desolation. Before her eyes stretched a hundred acres of
blue-gray mud. Not a living thing in sight, not a plant or weed! At the
last thought an expression of grim satisfaction flashed across her face.
At least the weeds had gone too. Behind the drill a drift of hailstones
was slowly melting in the sun, and the thawing ice brought a renewed
tang of spring to the air. It seemed as though the season was just
beginning again, and as she looked down along the pasture fence, she
almost expected to see a blue bank of wild crocus, just as she had less
than two months ago.
From the drill to the field and back to the drill again her eyes
wandered, and though she was hardly aware of seeing either, the laws of
suggestion came subconsciously into operation. Slowly at first, and then
with gathering force, an idea took possession of her mind, and with it
came a new expression of hope. She turned with an eager gasp to the man
at her side.
“John, I’ve thought of something.”
She saw his face then. It was gray and haggard, but she shook his arm
again.
“John, that field is as clean as summer fallowing. Why not put it into
flax and try once more?”
For a while Grahame revolved the idea in his head and then dismissed it
with: “Too late.”
“No, it isn’t. I know it isn’t too late. Lots of people put flax in the
last of June and win out. If we happened to have plenty of rain and no
early frost, we might make it too. It’s worth trying, anyway.”
For a moment Grahame toyed with the thought. He raised his head and
looked out over the field. Certainly there never was a finer seed-bed
than that looked. Flax sowed then would have a flying start of the weeds
even if the weeds started again, because it would germinate and grow
faster than any of them. With plenty of moisture it stood a good chance
to get ahead of the fall frosts. Gradually his face cleared, and he too
looked out upon the world with an expression of new hope. He
straightened and started to say something, but the words died in his
throat. He bowed his head again.
“No money, no credit!” he groaned.
“Oh, John, don’t say it. You have credit.”
“There isn’t a thing left on the place I could put up for security, and
who’d be fool enough to lend me money for seedflax so late in the
season? No--no use! We’re beaten, and that’s the end of it.”
For a while Jane returned to her study of the ice-swept field, but she
did not show the discouragement of her husband. Instead the light of a
strong resolution grew in her eyes, and soon he felt her hand on his arm
again.
“John, I’ve thought of something else. I still have the hundred dollars
you gave me so I could go to the hospital when--that is, this fall.
Let’s take that and buy the seed. It will be enough and some left over
for groceries. If we get a crop, there’ll be plenty of money for me, and
if we shouldn’t--well, I can get along just as so many other women do.
Come, John--come! We must hurry. There’s no time to lose.”
* * * * *
John’s head had come up again, and he turned to the indomitable little
woman beside him and gathered her into his arms. And so a woman did what
her pioneer sisters have done a thousand times before, and what women
will do a thousand times in years to come. She drew from that seemingly
inexhaustible well of courage, and inspired in her man the strength and
determination to try just once more--and then once again.
Long after dark, that same night, Jane heard the rumble of Grahame’s
wagon and went to the gate to meet him.
Climbing up on the wheel and holding her lantern down into the box, she
saw the light reflected on the oily amber surface of flax. Lifting a
handful, she watched it slip between her fingers. It felt cool and
smooth and clean. Somehow there came to her, with its velvety touch, a
new hope and faith, the faith which makes all things possible to those
who must win success only by trying again and again.
On the long ride home with the flax John had had ample time for thought,
and he came to realize what Jane’s faith and courage had meant to him
that day, and what it would mean in the anxious days to come, and he
tried to give expression to the thought.
“You sure are the best little crutch any lame man could have, honey
girl.”
“Lame man! Don’t say it! You’re not a lame man!”
“Not physically, I’ll admit but--Jane, where did you get all your
courage? You’re like a rubber ball. Punch you in one place, and you bob
out in another. Now, me, if I’m punched in, any place, I stay punched
in, I guess.”
Jane laughed, but she recognized his troubled thought under his levity.
“You’re unjust to yourself, John. This is the difference between us. You
have all the care and worry. You have the responsibility, not only of
your own future-- which, if you were alone, would bother you not at
all--but also the responsibility of my future and--our children’s
future. Don’t you know that the fear of failure is what takes the
courage out of a man? What you have to learn is how to forget to be
afraid; and you know you will never lose your crutch, so what does the
rest matter?”
“It doesn’t matter at all, honey. Nothing matters as long as we have
each other.... Get up on the seat with me and ride to the granary. I’m
tired and hungry too.”
“Oh, John, and I have kept you here gabbling all this time! No, I’ll run
into the house and have something nice and hot for your supper by the
time you’ve unhitched.”
* * * * *
Next morning Grahame went over the field and debated with himself
whether it would be better to disk or not before hitching on to the
drill, but in the end he decided that the disking would dry out the soil
and that with the additional time it would take, would do more to lessen
his chances than the few weeds that might survive.
In midafternoon of the fourth day Grahame was coming down the last lap
of the final round. Ahead of him the six big horses forged steadily on,
dragging the twelve-foot drill step by step toward home. From under his
feet he could hear the musical sound of thin disks cutting the surface,
and the jingle of many small chains dragging on the ground to cover the
tiny furrows, while from each spout of the machine a miniature cascade
of flax sifted down through a rubber pipe and dropped gently between the
disks. At the end of the field he lifted the disks from the ground and
turned for a last look over the field. There stretched an even hundred
acres of newly seeded grain. Whether or not he and Jane were to keep the
farm home in which they had staked so many golden dreams was a secret
locked in the bosom of the freshly sown field, but he would not worry,
would not be afraid: he would take Jane’s counsel to heart.
That night Jane awoke to hear the soft pattering of rain on the roof.
She touched her husband, and together they looked from each window in
turn. It was the same in every direction--not a star in sight, but just
a lowering canopy of slate-gray clouds from which came the long slanting
lines of life-giving moisture. John turned exultantly to his wife:
“Well, honey, we win the first round anyway.”
* * * * *
A few days later they saw the miracle of germinating grain. In seemingly
endless rows, and but a few inches apart, the soil was breaking and
lifting into tiny ridges, and in some places there were delicate leaves
showing under scale-like canopies of soil. Every morning and every
evening they made the same pilgrimage, watching the little plants break
through and stand erect, the long lines like so many miniature
evergreens. In two weeks the field was green again, and Grahame’s
flaxfield became the Mecca of neighbors and real-estate men who wished
to show a perfect stand.
There came now another lull during which Grahame and Jane replanted as
much of their garden as they thought would have time to mature before
the frost. Later came the haying, and in addition to the wild hay John
cut and stacked, before turning under the stubble, the scattering growth
of oats and spelts which had come up in wake of the storm. With no early
harvest to take up his time, he helped around the neighborhood, for
while there was no cash in it for him, there was always a day coming
when he would need help himself.
One day in early August, when Jane and Grahame went to the field, they
found the deep green was fading to a lighter shade, and the next
morning, under a warm burst of sunshine, the flax had turned to an ocean
of waving blue. Acre after acre, away into the West until their vision
was lost amid the dancing heat waves, were countless millions of tiny
blue blossoms nodding in the sun. Fleecy clouds threw light shadow-areas
which moved slowly across the field, and currents of air, passing here
and there, sent shimmering paths of alternating blue and green before
their eyes. Again Grahame’s arm tightened about his wife, and this time
he chuckled as he announced: “Round Number Two, and we’ve won again.”
“How long before it will be out of danger, John?”
“Depends on the weather. Say a month--six weeks, perhaps.”
“That’s a long time,” said Jane wistfully.
“Here, don’t you lose your grip, little wife. Where’d we land if you
gave up, I’d like to know?”
Jane laughed. “Oh, I’m not losing my grip. I’m only getting a fresh
start; but John, as the danger gets nearer and nearer, it takes a lot of
nerve never to be afraid, doesn’t it?”
“You bet it does, honey; but me--I’m learning a lot these days. A man
doesn’t have to flunk entirely because he is knocked out once. Let’s
forget it and go fishing.”
And there was no need for worry. September came without frost following
a season of ample moisture. The blue petals had withered long ago, and
in their place had come tiny green bolls. That was the danger period,
and night after night John had watched the thermometer, for the
slightest trace of frost would destroy the delicate bolls and plunge
their hopes once more into discouragement; but no frost came, and he
watched the little grains pass from milk to dough and at last harden to
the point where they were safe. Then came a time of windy weather and
clear skies when the field slowly turned to gold and then brown, and the
day arrived when Jane and Grahame stood and listened to the dry,
metallic, rasping sound of ripe grain. He took off his hat and threw it
out on the grain. The serried ranks of stems hardly bent, and the hat
rode buoyantly above the field. That was a sign of twenty bushels to the
acre! They returned to the house, too happy even to talk, and Grahame
went to work on the big “header” or “push-binder,” as it is sometimes
called by virtue of the fact that the horses are behind instead of in
front of the cutting and binding mechanism.
* * * * *
There are two ways of cutting flax. One is to take off the binder
attachment and allow the grain to pass to the carrier and be dumped in
windrows. The other is to cut it like other grain and shock it. Grahame
had decided to go to the additional expense of tying it, as he explained
to Jane:
“Because it is so late in the season, there is a chance of snow before
we can get it threshed. Even heavy rains would damage it. If it is
shocked, you can see how we can save more of it than we could if it’s
lying on the ground. It will cost more, but it’s worth it.”
“Yes, I see that; but--it’s a lot of work to put a hundred acres of
grain into shocks.”
“Well, I have the time, and I can work--none better.”
And so early next morning he hitched his six horses to the big binder
and drove to the field. When the sickle had almost reached the grain, he
tilted the platform so the knife would work five or six inches above the
ground. Then he kicked another lever, and the whole machine sprang to
life, and the twelve-foot knife began its tireless sawing motion through
the guards. The platform and elevator canvases began their endless
revolutions, to the accompaniment of much flapping of free ends, while a
multitude of chains and sprockets added their whirr and rumble to the
ensemble.
As the long knife touched and slipped beneath the flax, the slender
stems quivered, then leaped into the air, to be met by the impact of the
reel-slats and fall in a long line on the platform canvas, to be swept
to the left and in between the elevator canvases. Emerging at the top,
they fell forward and down until upraised arms stopped their progress.
The long ribbon of grain was fed into the binder, and the packer arms
drove it into a solid bundle. When the pressure become too great, a long
needle from below, carrying a piece of twine drew it tight through a
notch in a disk which already had carried the twine back, thus forming a
loop. Now three small steel fingers grasped the twine and revolved once,
tying a knot. An instant later another disk revolved and brought a small
knife uppermost, to cut the twine just beyond the knot. Then two more
arms whirred overhead and kicked the finished bundle down upon the
carrier.
On the last day of the cutting Grahame had not been feeling well, and
when the long obstinate streak of grain had finally dwindled to nothing
and he turned toward home, he realized that something was decidedly
wrong. He had dropped the traces and begun to unhitch when a wave of
dizziness sent him leaning against the binder frame for support. With a
strong man’s disregard and contempt for sickness, he attempted to go on
with his task, but his strength gave out altogether, and he slipped to
the ground in a heap.
After a while Jane, wondering at his long delay, came from the house in
search of him. Frightened, she dropped to her knees and holding his head
in her lap tried to coax him back to consciousness. Once he opened his
eyes and murmured something about being knocked out in the last round,
and lapsed again into unconsciousness.
* * * * *
It is not necessary to dwell on Jane’s ride to the nearest telephone nor
the long fight the doctor and the sympathetic neighbors helped her put
up before Grahame was out of danger. Influenza and pneumonia ran their
course day after day, sapping the last ounce of strength from the body
of a once strong man, until he lay a mere shadow of himself.
One evening Jane stood at the window, looking out over the field of
flax. It had never been shocked, for there had been no one to do the
work. Fortunately there had been no rain, and the bundles, remaining
dry, had not sprouted, but now Jane was worried. The wind had blown from
the east for several days, and now as she glanced toward the west she
saw a long, low, slate-colored cloud moving along the horizon. She could
not repress a shudder of fear. Of course it might pass with a shower or
two, but so late in the fall, she had little hope. Apparently the stage
was set for a genuine snowstorm, and if the flax were once covered, it
would probably remain covered until spring.
In spite of the extra work incident to John’s sickness, Jane had left no
stone unturned in her efforts to find a threshing rig. She had seen or
written every thresherman who ordinarily operated in their neighborhood,
only to meet with one disappointment after another. What little crop the
hailstorm had left, locally, had been stacked, and the men who owned the
big machines had moved farther away to get the cream of the threshing
before returning to do their own work. Meanwhile, time had worn on,
bringing nearer and nearer the inevitable day when storm clouds would
close in and drop a mantle of snow to enshroud the grave of their last
hope.
Sick at heart, Jane turned from the window. She had done all she could.
If snow came, they were out of luck, that was all. Once during the
evening she thought of Ironheart. She knew his rig was somewhere to the
north of them, and that it was one of the survivors of the big steam
rigs which had of late given way before the small neighborhood gas
outfits. With his twelve or fourteen teams and the big separator, he
could clean them up in one long day’s work. For a moment a ray of hope
dawned in her breast. She thought of the hours she had spent nursing
Ironheart back to health. If there were an ounce of gratitude left in
that shriveled shell, he would surely help. Then she saw him again as he
looked the morning he had left them, cold, cynical, apparently thankless
for all she had done; and the spark of hope flickered and died.
At last, worn out by work and worry, Jane went to bed, but just as she
was losing consciousness, an idea came to her. If it didn’t snow during
the night, she would go to the nearest rig and offer them half the crop
if they would come in and thresh it, at once. She woke Grahame, and they
discussed it, pro and con, finally deciding there was no other course
open to them. Meanwhile the night wind sang its melancholy way around
the house, and once the feeble light from the night lamp showed them a
single snowflake melting against the windowpane.
Sometime later Jane heard John’s voice calling to her; and awakening,
she saw him propped up on his elbow and straining his eyes out into the
darkness. As she moved slightly, he cautioned her: “Listen!”
From somewhere out of the night came a low rumbling sound that rose and
fell, accompanied by a steady _throb-throb_ as though some monster were
breathing fast and deep; far up the road they could see a slender
streamer of sparks drifting with the wind.
Minutes passed. The rumbling became louder, and now they could hear the
clatter of heavy gears running loose, on the downhill grade. Suddenly
they saw, illuminated by the sparks, three plumes of steam climb into
the air, and came the wild, high shriek of a steam whistle, once, twice,
thrice.
“Good God,” exclaimed Grahame, “it’s a threshing outfit calling for
water.”
There could be no doubt whatever. It was a threshing rig coming down the
road that passed their house. Could it be possible that someone was
coming to help them? The thought came to Grahame and Jane at the same
time, but it seemed too wildly impossible to mention. They could see
plainly now, for the engine was almost abreast of the house, and behind
it came the great bulk of a separator, lumbering along with its gaunt
arms outlined against the sky, while still farther back was the low
squat body of the cook-car, followed by an extra water tank and then a
long line of horses and racks stretching away into the gloom.
When the engine was almost to the gate, Grahame reached out and grasped
his wife’s hand. In a moment they would know, and they dared not
breathe. The front of the boiler was even with the gate. It was passing.
Then when their last wild hope seemed about to be dashed to the ground,
the engine swung in a wide turn and came straight toward them. The house
seemed to tremble on its foundation, and the exhaust echoed shrilly from
the empty hayloft. Now the big machine was passing beneath their window.
The fire door clanged; a lurid glow lit up the engine’s platform; and
Jane caught a momentary glimpse of the man at the throttle: it was
Ironheart the thankless.
* * * * *
Jane lighted a lantern and made ready to do her part, and there was much
to do. She must leave John alone while she rode about the neighborhood
to notify the men who had promised to help. She was nearly ready when a
knock sounded at the door and she opened it to find a young man on the
threshold.
“Is this Mrs. Grahame?” he inquired. At Jane’s nod, he continued:
“The boss told me to say that he had made all the arrangements and you
will have nothing to do. We have all had supper, and the cook-car will
be here for breakfast.”
“Thank you very much, and thank Mr. Kinear for me,” replied Jane. “And
please tell him I will have teams here to take the grain and--”
“I was supposed to tell you about that too,” he broke in. “The boss sent
his car down here ahead and notified everybody that we should start at
daybreak. He has two trucks himself, and there are two more working with
the rig, so he thought that maybe, as long as Mr. Grahame won’t be able
to do much work this winter, he had better send the flax right to the
elevator from the machine, leaving only what you will want for seed
here. Good night,” he said, and turned to go, then came back again:
“Another thing, I was to tell you that if enough teams turned up to help
on the long haul, he is going to thresh right here in the yards so you
can have the straw for feed and for windbreak this winter.”
Never in all her life had Jane experienced such a feeling of intense
gratitude as that which swept over her when she realized that there was
no worry, nothing for her to do but care for her husband; and back in
his room, she talked and watched by turns until the light in the haymow
was blown out and she knew the men were asleep--all but the man on the
water tank, who sat slouched forward in his seat, wrapped in the folds
of a heavy sheepskin coat.
A breeze came from the east, and she was thankful, for it meant the flax
would be dry enough to thresh at daybreak. Sometimes, after a quiet
night, it would be too tough to thresh until near noon the next day.
John reached out and took his wife’s hand.
“Kind of looks, honey, as though we might win the last round, after
all.”
* * * * *
An hour later Jane could hear the rattle of gears running loose on the
downhill slope, and in a few minutes the big engine turned in at the
gate. Halfway across the yard it stopped, and a man ran back to pull the
pin between separator and tender. Then the engine came on with only the
separator. At the expense of much snorting and chugging, the cumbersome
separator was finally wheeled into position, where it settled with a
thud into the holes already dug for its hind wheels. The engine then cut
loose, and turning so as to face the separator, backed toward the house
far enough to allow for the long drive-belt; there it stopped, and soon
the yard was quiet again except for the low whine of imprisoned steam.
Throughout the remainder of the night Grahame and Jane alternately
fought for sleep and watched from the window for the dreaded change in
the weather. Clouds were scudding across the sky, and there was a
feeling of rain or snow in the air. Rain so late in the season would in
all probability turn to snow, and so one was as bad as the other. Few
people can realize the suspense John and his wife were called upon to
bear during those hours of darkness, but there is an end to the longest
night, and an hour before daylight came the faint tinkle of an alarm
clock and a man from the cook-car went to the engine; reaching up into
the cab he grasped a cord, and there followed the long, clear blasts of
the whistle. As if in answer a feeble light flickered through the cracks
of the haymow door; another flashed in the cook-car, and far out on the
prairie other lights came out one by one, each marking the location of a
farm from which help was coming.
Presently from every direction across the field came wagons to join
those already in the flax. The first ones loaded, pulled in and ranged
themselves in a double line on each side of the engine. Ironheart
climbed the separator and gave a signal. The engineer opened the
cylinder cocks and eased his reverse back. Then he tapped lightly on the
throttle, and the big engine moved slowly, very slowly back, lifting and
stretching the drive-belt until it was drawn taut and hung in the air,
slapping and chafing itself where it crossed. Another signal, and the
reverse was pushed ahead, the throttle opened slowly again and the
engine glided into almost silent motion.
The quivering belt began to move back and forth. The separator too came
to life, starting reluctantly with many protesting groans and squeaks;
but gathering speed, these sounds gradually ceased, and it took up a
heaving, shaking motion that ejected spurts of dust from every joint and
crevice, filling the air with a yellow haze which hung in dense clouds
about the machine.
Beginning with a low hum, the separator’s tone arose gradually to a
whirr and thence in a crescendo to a high-pitched droning whine,
steadily, monotonously, on and on.
* * * * *
All through the day the big machine kept up its ceaseless whine. Several
times snow-squalls swept by, and one or two crossed the field, but it
had grown colder during the day and the dry snow did little or no
damage.
When darkness came, the field was clear, but still long lines of wagons
awaited their turn to unload. Under the magic touch of dusk men appeared
as grotesque shadows, gnomes, silhouetted against the skyline. Behind
the separator a veritable mountain of straw arose to pinnacled peaks and
towers, whose members occasionally toppled over and slid down the stack
only to be rebuilt higher than ever. The exhaust from the engine merged
into a steady roar, while a scarlet flame glowed steadily under the
spark-arrester on the smokestack. The separator became a vibrant,
roaring shadow. Its whine and moan were higher and louder than ever in
contrast to the silence of the night; above it still towered the figure
of a man, distorted almost beyond recognition by the darkness and dust
clouds, but still the directing genius of it all.
Finally, the last bundle passed into the hungry maw, and a moment later
the weigher tripped for the last time. The high whine began to fall
away--lower and lower until it became a gentle rumble, a purr, a
long-drawn-out sigh, and silence broken only by the gentle hiss of
steam.
Grahame expected Ironheart would come to the house for a settlement, but
an hour went by before the same young man who had talked to Jane the
night before came to the door. Up in Grahame’s room he took from his
pocket a bunch of storage-tickets and laid them on the bed.
“The boss says there are two thousand bushels at the elevator in
Barliton, and four hundred and eighty here in the granary.”
Grahame made a hasty mental calculation--two thousand, four hundred and
eighty bushels at two dollars and sixty-five a bushel--
When Grahame had collected his scattered senses, he turned to the young
man and said:
“Did Mr. Kinear tell you what the bill was? I can’t give him a check,
but I can indorse enough of these tickets over to him to meet it.”
Before Grahame had finished, his caller was through the door and his
voice came back as curt and terse as the voice of Ironheart himself:
“There is no bill.”
The wind moaned along the eaves, and the whistling rasp of snow sounded
against the siding, but within there were warmth and happiness, for
Grahame and Jane had won the last round.
Miles up the road, a great black hulk lumbered through the night, and as
it moved, occasional flashes of lurid light from the fire door illumined
the expressionless face of the strange, silent man who held his hand on
the throttle and watched the snow-swept road ahead.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the September 1925 issue of
The Blue Book Magazine.]
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