by Jon E. Lewis
She broke off and peered down at the face of the babe.
“Two months ’n’ five days,” said the mother, with a mother’s exactness.
“Ye don’t say! I want ’o know! The dear little pudzy-wudzy!” she went on, stirring it up in the neighborhood of the ribs with her fat forefinger.
“Pooty tough on ’oo to go gallivant’n’ ’cross lots this way—”
“Yes, that’s so; a man can’t lift a mountain,” said Council, entering the door. “Mother, this is Mr. Haskins, from Kansas. He’s been eat up ’n’ drove out by grasshoppers.”
“Glad e see yeh! – Pa, empty that wash-basin ’n’ give him a chance t’ wash.”
Haskins was a tall man, with a thin, gloomy face. His hair was a reddish brown, like his coat, and seemed equally faded by the wind and sun. And his sallow face, though hard and set, was pathetic somehow. You would have felt that he had suffered much by the line of his mouth showing under his thin, yellow mustache.
“Hain’t Ike got home yet, Sairy?”
“Hain’t seen ’im.”
“W-a-a-l, set right up, Mr. Haskins; wade right into what we’ve got; ’taint much, but we manage to five on it – she gits fat on it,” laughed Council, pointing his thumb at his wife.
After supper, while the women put the children to bed, Haskins and Council talked on, seated near the huge cooking-stove, the steam rising from their wet clothing. In the Western fashion Council told as much of his own life as he drew from his guest. He asked but few questions; but by and by the story of Haskins’ struggles and defeat came out. The story was a terrible one, but he told it quietly, seated with his elbows on his knees, gazing most of the time at the hearth.
“I didn’t like the looks of the country, anyhow,” Haskins said, partly rising and glancing at his wife. “I was ust t’ northern Ingyannie, where we have lots o’ timber ’n’ lots o’ rain, ’n’ I didn’t like the looks o’ that dry prairie. What galled me the worst was goin’ s’ far away acrosst so much fine land layin’ all through here vacant.”
“And the ’hoppers eat ye four years hand runnin’, did they?”
“Eat! They wiped us out. They chawed everything that was green. They jest set around waitin’ f’r us to die t’ eat us, too. My God! I ust t’ dream of ’em sittin’ ’round on the bedpost, six feet long, workin’ their jaws. They eet the fork-handles. They got worse ’n’ worse till they jest rolled on one another, piled up like snow in winter. Well, it ain’t no use. If I was t’ talk all winter I couldn’t tell nawthin’. But all the while I couldn’t help thinkin’ of all that land back here that nobuddy was usin’ that I ought ’o had ’stead o’ bein’ out there in that cussed country.”
“Wall, why didn’t ye stop an’ settle here?” asked Ike, who had come in and was eating his supper.
“Fer the simple reason that you febers wantid ten ’r fifteen dollars an acre fer the bare land, and I hadn’t no money fer that kind o’ thing.”
“Yes, I do my own work,” Mrs. Council was heard to say in the pause which followed. “I’m a gettin’ purty heavy t’ be on m’ laigs all day, but we can’t afford t’ hire, so I keep rackin’ around somehow, like a foundered horse. S’ lame – I tell Council he can’t tell how lame I am, f’r I’m jest as lame in one laig as t’ other.” And the good soul laughed at the joke on herself as she took a handful of flour and dusted the biscuit-board to keep the dough from sticking.
“Well, I hain’t never been very strong,” said Mrs. Haskins. “Our folks was Canadians an’ small-boned, and then since my last child I hain’t got up again fairly. I don’t like t’ complain. Tim has about all he can bear now – but they was days this week when I jest wanted to lay right down an’ die.”
“Waal, now, I’ll tell ye,” said Council, from his side of the stove, silencing everybody with his good-natured roar, “I’d go down and see Butler, anyway, if I was you. I guess he’d let you have his place purty cheap; the farm’s all run down. He’s ben anxious t’ let t’ somebuddy next year. It ’ud be a good chance fer you. Anyhow, you go to bed and sleep like a babe. I’ve got some ploughing t’ do, anyhow, an’ we’ll see if somethin’ can’t be done about your case. Ike, you go out an’ see if the horses is all right, an’ I’ll show the folks t’ bed.”
When the tired husband and wife were lying under the generous quilts of the spare bed, Haskins listened a moment to the wind in the eaves, and then said with a slow and solemn tone:
“There are people in this world who are good enough t’ be angels, an’ only haff t’ die to be angels.”
2
Jim Butler was one of those men called in the West “land poor.” Early in the history of Rock River he had come into the town and started in the grocery business in a small way, occupying a small building in a mean part of the town. At this period of his life he earned all he got, and was up early and late sorting beans, working over butter, and carting his goods to and from the station. But a change came over him at the end of the second year, when he sold a lot of land for four times what he paid for it. From that time forward he believed in land speculation as the surest way of getting rich. Every cent he could save or spare from his trade he put into land at forced sale, or mortgages on land, which were “just as good as the wheat,” he was accustomed to say.
Farm after farm fell into his hands, until he was recognized as one of the leading landowners of the county. His mortgages were scattered all over Cedar County, and as they slowly but surely fell in he sought usually to retain the former owner as tenant.
He was not ready to foreclose; indeed, he had the name of being one of the “easiest” men in the town. He let the debtor off again and again, extending the time whenever possible.
“I don’t want y’r land,” he said. “All I’m after is the int’rest on my money – that’s all. Now, if y’ want ’o stay on the farm, why, I’ll give y’ a good chance. I can’t have the land layin’ vacant.” And in many cases the owner remained as tenant.
In the meantime he had sold his store; he couldn’t spend time in it; he was mainly occupied now with sitting around town on rainy days smoking and “gassin’ with the boys,” or in riding to and from his farms. In fishing-time he fished a good deal. Doc Grimes, Ben Ashley, and Cal Cheatham were his cronies on these fishing excursions or hunting trips in the time of chickens or partridges. In winter they went to Northern Wisconsin to shoot deer.
In spite of all these signs of easy life Butler persisted in saying he “hadn’t enough money to pay taxes on his land,” and was careful to convey the impression that he was poor in spite of his twenty farms. At one time he was said to be worth fifty thousand dollars, but land had been a little slow of sale of late, so that he was not worth so much. A fine farm, known as the Higley place, had fallen into his hands in the usual way the previous year, and he had not been able to find a tenant for it. Poor Higley, after working himself nearly to death on it in the attempt to lift the mortgage, had gone off to Dakota, leaving the farm and his curse to Butler.
This was the farm which Council advised Haskins to apply for; and the next day Council hitched up his team and drove down to see Butler.
“You jest let me do the talkin’,” he said. “We’ll find him wearin’ out his pants on some salt barrel somew’ers; and if he thought you wanted the place he’d sock it to you hot and heavy. You jest keep quiet; I’ll fix ’im.”
Butler was seated in Ben Ashley’s store telling fish yarns when Council sauntered in casually.
“Hello, But; lyin’ agin, hey?”
“Heflo, Steve! How goes it?”
“Oh, so-so. Too dang much rain these days. I thought it was gon’ t’ freeze up f’r good last night. Tight squeak if I get m’ ploughin’ done. How’s farmin’ with you these days?”
“Bad. Ploughin’ ain’t half done.”
“It ’ud be a religious idee f’r you t’ go out an’ take a hand y’rself.”
“I don’t haff to,” said Butler, with a wink.
; “Got anybody on the Higley place?” “No. Know of anybody?”
“Waal, no; not eggsackly. I’ve got a relation back t’ Michigan who’s ben hot an’ cold on the idee o’ comin’ West f’r some time. Might come if he could get a good lay-out. What do you talk on the farm?”
“Well, I d’ know. I’ll rent it on shares or I’ll rent it money rent.”
“Wall, how much money, say?”
“Well, say ten per cent, on the price – two-fifty.”
“Wall, that ain’t bad. Wait on ’im till ’e thrashes?”
Haskins listened eagerly to this important question, but Council was coolly eating a dried apple which he had speared out of a barrel with his knife. Butler studied him carefully.
“Well, knocks me out of twenty-five dollars interest.”
“My relation’ll need all he’s got t’ git his crops in,” said Council, in the same, indifferent way.
“Well, all right; say wait,” concluded Butler.
“All right; this is the man. Haskins, this is Mr. Butler – no relation to Ben – the hardest-working man in Cedar County.”
On the way home Haskins said: “I ain’t much better off. I’d like that farm; it’s a good farm, but it’s all run down, an’ so ’m I. I could make a good farm of it if I had half a show. But I can’t stock it n’r seed it.”
“Waal, now, don’t you worry,” roared Council in his ear. “We’ll pull through somehow fill next harvest. He’s agreed t’ hire it ploughed, an’ you can earn a hundred dollars ploughin’ an’ y’ en git the seed o’ me, an’ pay me back when y’ can.”
Haskins was silent with emotion, but at last he said, “I ain’t got nothin’ t’ live on.”
“Now, don’t you worry ’bout that. You jest make your headquarters at ol’ Steve Council’s. Mother’ll take a pile o’ comfort in havin’ y’r wife an’ children ’round. Y’ see, Jane’s married off lately, an’ Ike’s away a good ’eal, so we’ll be darn glad t’ have y’ stop with us this winter. Nex’ spring we’ll see if y’ can’t git a start agin.” And he chirruped to the team, which sprang forward with the rumbling, clattering wagon.
“Say, looky here, Council, you can’t do this. I never saw—” shouted Haskins in his neighbor’s ear.
Council moved about uneasily in his seat and stopped his stammering gratitude by saying: “Hold on, now; don’t make such a fuss over a little thing. When I see a man down, an’ things all on top of ’m, I jest like t’ kick ’em off an’ help ’m up. That’s the kind of religion I got, an’ it’s about the only kind.”
They rode the rest of the way home in silence. And when the red fight of the lamp shone out into the darkness of the cold and windy night, and he thought of this refuge for his children and wife, Haskins could have put his arm around the neck of his burly companion and squeezed him like a lover. But he contented himself with saying, “Steve Council, you’ll git y’r pay f’r this some day.”
“Don’t want any pay. My religion ain’t run on such business principles.”
The wind was growing colder, and the ground was covered with a white frost, as they turned into the gate of the Council farm, and the children came rushing out, shouting, “Papa’s come!” They hardly looked like the same children who had sat at the table the night before. Their torpidity, under the influence of sunshine and Mother Council, had given way to a sort of spasmodic cheerfulness, as insects in winter revive when laid on the hearth.
3
Haskins worked like a fiend, and his wife, like the heroic woman that she was, bore also uncomplainingly the most terrible burdens. They rose early and toiled without intermission till the darkness fell on the plain, then tumbled into bed, every bone and muscle aching with fatigue, to rise with the sun next morning to the same round of the same ferocity of labor.
The eldest boy, now nine years old, drove a team all through the spring, ploughing and seeding, milked the cows, and did chores innumerable, in most ways taking the place of a man; an infinitely pathetic but common figure – this boy – on the American farm, where there is no law against child labor. To see him in his coarse clothing, his huge boots, and his ragged cap, as he staggered with a pail of water from the well, or trudged in the cold and cheerless dawn out into the frosty field behind his team, gave the city-bred visitor a sharp pang of sympathetic pain. Yet Haskins loved his boy, and would have saved him from this if he could, but he could not.
By June the first year the result of such Herculean toil began to show on the farm. The yard was cleaned up and sown to grass, the garden ploughed and planted, and the house mended. Council had given them four of his cows.
“Take ’em an’ run ’em on shares. I don’t want a milk s’ many. Ike’s away s’ much now, Sat’d’ys an’ Sund’ys, I can’t stand the bother anyhow.”
Other men, seeing the confidence of Council in the newcomer, had sold him tools on time; and as he was really an able farmer, he soon had round him many evidences of his care and thrift. At the advice of Council he had taken the farm for three years, with the privilege of re-renting or buying at the end of the term.
“It’s a good bargain, an’ y’ want ’ o nail it,” said Council. “If you have any kind ov a crop, you c’n pay y’r debts, an’ keep seed an’ bread.”
The new hope which now sprang up in the heart of Haskins and his wife grew almost as a pain by the time the wide field of wheat began to wave and rustle and swirl in the winds of July. Day after day he would snatch a few moments after supper to go and look at it.
“Have ye seen the wheat t’-day, Nettie?” he asked one night as he rose from supper.
“No, Tim, I ain’t had time.”
“Well, take time now. Let’s go look at it.”
She threw an old hat on her head – Tommy’s hat – and looking almost pretty in her thin, sad way, went out with her husband to the hedge.
“Ain’t it grand, Nettie? Just look at it.”
It was grand. Level, russet here and there, heavy-headed, wide as a lake, and full of multitudinous whispers and gleams of wealth, it stretched away before the gazers like the fabled field of the cloth of gold.
“Oh, I think – I hope we’ll have a good crop, Tim; and oh, how good the people have been to us!”
“Yes; I don’t know where we’d be t’-day if it hadn’t ben f’r Council and his wife.”
“They’re the best people in the world,” said the little woman, with a great sob of gratitude.
“We’ll be in the field on Monday, sure,” said Haskins, gripping the rail on the fences as if already at the work of the harvest.
The harvest came, bounteous, glorious, but the winds came and blew it into tangles, and the rain matted it here and there close to the ground, increasing the work of gathering it threefold.
Oh, how they toiled in those glorious days! Clothing dripping with sweat, arms aching, filled with briers, fingers raw and bleeding, backs broken with the weight of heavy bundles, Haskins and his man toiled on.
Tommy drove the harvester, while his father and a hired man bound on the machine. In this way they cut ten acres every day, and almost every night after supper, when the hand went to bed, Haskins returned to the field shocking the bound grain in the light of the moon. Many a night he worked till his anxious wife came out at ten o’clock to call him in to rest and lunch.
At the same time she cooked for the men, took care of the children, washed and ironed, milked the cows at night, made the butter, and sometimes fed the horses and watered them while her husband kept at the shocking. No slave in the Roman galleys could have toiled so frightfully and lived, for this man thought himself a free man, and that he was working for his wife and babes.
When he sank into his bed with a deep groan of relief, too tired to change his grimy, dripping clothing, he felt that he was getting nearer and nearer to a home of his own, and pushing the wolf of want a little farther from his door.
There is no despair so deep as the despair of a homeless man or woman. To roam the roads of t
he country or the streets of the city, to feel there is no rood of ground on which the feet can rest, to halt weary and hungry outside lighted windows and hear laughter and song within-these are the hungers and rebellions that drive men to crime and women to shame.
It was the memory of this homelessness, and the fear of its coming again, that spurred Timothy Haskins and Nettie, his wife, to such ferocious labor during that first year.
4
“ ’M, yes; ’m, yes; first-rate,” said Butler, as his eye took in the neat garden, the pig-pen, and the well-filled barnyard. “You’re gitt’n quite a stock around yeh. Done well, eh?”
Haskins was showing Butler around the place. He had not seen it for a year, having spent the year in Washington and Boston with Ashley, his brother-in-law, who had been elected to Congress.
“Yes, I’ve laid out a good deal of money durin’ the last three years. I’ve paid out three hundred dollars f’r fencin’.”
“Um – h’m! I see, I see,” said Butler, while Haskins went on.
“The kitchen there cost two hundred; the barn ain’t cost much in money, but I’ve put a lot o’ time on it. I’ve dug a new well, and I—”
“Yes, yes, I see. You’ve done well. Stock worth a thousand dollars,” said Butler, picking his teeth with a straw.
“About that,” said Haskins, modestly. “We begin to feel’s if we was gitt’n’ a home f’r ourselves; but we’ve worked hard. I tell ye we begin to feel it, Mr. Butler, and we’re goin’ t’ begin to ease up purty soon. We’ve been kind o’ plannin’ a trip back t’ her folks after the fall ploughin’s done.”
“Eggs-actly!” said Butler, who was evidently thinking of something else. “I suppose you’ve kine o’ kalklated on stayin’ here three years more?”
“Well, yes. Fact is, I think I c’n buy the farm this fall, if you’ll give me a reasonable show.”
