Settlers of the Marsh (11 page)

And silent they kept for another half hour.

Then Niels stirred. “Hadn't I better go?”

“If you wish.”

He did not wish; but he got up nevertheless.

“Well, good-by,” he said and hesitated.

Ellen held out her hand; and he touched it.

“Till to-morrow,” she said. “I shall have dinner ready at twelve.”

The hand he had touched was small and shapely; but it was hard and calloused from work.

W
HAT A FOOL
I have been! What a fool I have been! Niels said to himself as he drove home …

Next morning, Sigurdsen joined Niels in the meadow west of Lund's place only after he had taken Lund home. It was easily seen that he was out of sorts.

“Anything wrong?” Niels asked.

Sigurdsen grunted. “That man! He keep me awake till two in the morning.”

“Talking?”

“Yea,” Sigurdsen grumbled. “Begging.”

“He didn't ask you for money, I hope.”

“No? He ask you?”

“Yes,” Niels said. “He asked me for thirty-five dollars.”

“Get it?”

“No. I hope he got nothing from you.”

“Every cent. Twenty-two dollars.”

“What a shame!” Niels exclaimed.

He was angry with himself for having taken Lund over to the old man's …

The morning went by; they stacked a few loads in the field; by eleven o'clock they were ready to go; both had their
racks
filled again.

When they reached Ellen's yard, the girl stepped out of the house. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Come in and rest.” Her manner was that of a man to two friends.

A thought struck Niels. He spoke to Sigurdsen.

“Ellen!” He was surprised at the ease with which her name came from his lips. “How if we pitched these loads off? We'd have three racks. To-night we could each take a load of your hay home.”

“Why,” Ellen said. “I hadn't thought of that. It would save time, wouldn't it?”

“Sure,” Niels said. “Where do you want it?”

“In the loft,” Ellen called from the door.

I
N THE MEADOW
, a quarter of a mile north-west of the yard, Niels proposed that Ellen and the old man should
stay on the rack while he pitched to them
.

Ellen objected.

“Get up there,” Niels laughed. “I'll keep you busy.”

And when she obeyed, he pitched as he had never pitched before. The load was up in record time.

Niels stood leaning on his fork and shook the sweat from his head, laughing.

Ellen, too, laughed. She was flushed with exertion. It was very hot.

“You take the load home and pitch it off on the yard,” she said. “So you have a rest.”

“Rest, nothing!” he replied. “We want to get five or six loads in at least. You take it home. Meanwhile we'll get the next load up.”

The third load Sigurdsen drove. Niels pitched again.

“You are as good as a man,” he praised the girl.

“I can load,” she said. “I'm no good at pitching.”

“You shouldn't do it. That is a man's work.”

“But you said I was as good as a man.”

Both laughed. The
hay was in cocks
.
With every forkful

Niels lifted such a load as left only
gleanings
where the pile had been.

The girl's eyes widened in admiration of his strength. He, feeling it, was childishly happy in his exertions.

Sigurdsen returned; and again Niels was urged to take a load home. Again he declined. But this time he proposed to fill the three racks and to take them home in a body so they would be able to stack properly and to round off the top in case it should rain. Again it was done as he suggested.

The sun was sinking. The old man began to show signs of wear.

“Now we'll fill up for the last time,” Niels said. “To-morrow we'll be back. You'll have nine loads tonight. As many to-morrow and once again, and your hay will be in.”

When they returned, Ellen invited them for supper. But the old man declined. “Unload and feed … soon dark.”

“Well,” she said when they were ready to go, “I am sure I am grateful. How much do I owe you folks?”

“Hm …” Sigurdsen began, much embarrassed.

Niels laughed. “I haven't been working for wages. I've been working for the fun of it …”

Ellen frowned. “But that isn't right …”

“Oh, let a man do something for you once in a while,” Niels said lightly. “Come and help us to-morrow. We'll get a load more.”

Laughingly Ellen consented.

N
EXT DAY
, however, when Ellen appeared in their meadow, Niels absolutely refused to let her work. “I'll pitch three loads,” he said. “And then we'll stack. The next three loads go to your place. You take the first one home and get dinner. Then there's an odd load at night; you haul it; to Amundsen's to-day; to my place to-morrow.”

This was a deeply laid scheme of his to get her to look at his house …

T
HE SUN
was touching the horizon when they emerged from the bridge on the Marsh, next day, and parted from Sigurdsen who turned to the west.

Niels slipped off his load; his horses knew the road and needed no guiding.

Before them stood the bluff that sheltered his yard: a softly glistening dome. From the east beyond, dark shadows rose; overhead, the sky was still shot with polished beams.

“Look at that,” he called to the girl as he strode along beside her load and waved his arm aloft.

She nodded in silence.

Satisfaction with what he had, longing for what he had not were strangely mixed in him as he stepped out, his head erect, by the side of her wearily plodding horses.

Again the blood sang in his veins. He felt like an adventurer coming home with booty; he longed to shout to his house which lay hidden behind the trees. This girl that was reclining on her load should be there, should be waiting for him and look out as he rounded the bluff …

A moment later the vista opened on his yard.

The girl gave a little cry of surprise. Niels swelled with pride.

“Well,” she exclaimed as they turned. “I don't wonder that everybody talks of your house. It is a mansion.”

He opened the gate, and they drove in. Niels took her horses by the bridle and led them up to the stack.

“Come down,” he called. “I'll pitch the load off.”

She obeyed.

“Go in,” he said. “I want you to look at the house.”

She blushed. “I'd like to. But …”

“But nonsense,” he ruled. “Go in. There's a lamp on the table in the kitchen. The house isn't furnished yet. I use only one room. By the time you've looked it over I'll be through with your load.”

He watched her as she walked across the yard and opened the door and disappeared in the house. For a moment his old, familiar vision became so strong that it amounted to an illusion. Yes, such was his home; this was what he had wished and longed and worked for; and children running out to the gate to meet and greet him …

In thought he followed her through the house: now she was standing in the front room, a sort of hall: a wide, hardwood staircase, without banisters so far, led up into the upper story. Behind the front room lay the dining room from which a door led into the lean-to kitchen to the east. Would she go upstairs? To see the two rooms there, half joined, half parted by a little landing?

Ellen came out again. And when Niels had finished pitching her hay off, he sprang down from the rack.

“The house is lovely,” she said, her cheeks aglow. “But so large …”

“Did you go upstairs?”

“Yes, and even into the cellar.”

He longed to cry out, “I built it for you!” But his tongue was tied … He reached for the lines and turned her horses.

A moment later they stood by the gate in the dusk: the sun had sunk. She held out her hand.

“I don't know how to thank you …”

“May I come?” he asked. “To call? …”

“Of course,” she laughed as if his shyness put her at ease. “Come on Sundays. I am always sitting behind the house in the afternoon … Get up, Pete.”

And he found himself holding the gate for her to pass out …

T
HAT NIGHT
Niels did not sleep. A thousand times he repeated to himself, “What would she have said if I had asked her to-night?” … And then he answered himself, “No; not yet; I must have thirty acres cleared and broken before I can ask her.”

Next morning he went to work again with a will …

O
N SUNDAY
, in order to have the pretext for calling on Ellen that he was passing her yard, he went to Lund's to ask for his mail …

It was early; there were no guests yet.

For the first time he thought he detected a certain coolness of manner in Mrs. Lund. He attributed it to the fact that he had refused her husband the loan.

“What we are going to do for hay this year,” Mrs. Lund said at last in the course of a desultory conversation, “is beyond my guessing …”

“Mrs. Lund,” Niels said, “if you'd like me to loan you the money for the permit, I'd be glad to do so. That I refused the loan to your husband is an entirely different manner …”

“My husband? Did daddy ask you for a loan?”

“Did you not know?” Niels asked. He realised that he had blundered; he hesitated. But, after a moment's thought, he went on, determined not to shield the man; surely his wife had a right to know … “He asked me for thirty-five dollars to pay his fare to Minnesota so he could see his brother about that loan …”

“He did, eh?” Mrs. Lund said, stopping in her work of washing the dishes and fixing a cold eye on Niels. “Well, let me tell you, daddy has no brother in Minnesota; nor anywhere else; and don't you let him have any money.”

“Well,” Niels went on, “if that's the case, I suppose I'd better tell you that he borrowed twenty-two dollars from old man Sigurdsen; and it was all the money the old man had.”

Mrs. Lund laughed: a bitter, hollow laugh.

Niels understood that her coolness sprang merely from her exasperation with life.

“You going already?” she said as he reached for his mail. “Just as well, Mr. Lindstedt; just as well. This is no place for you any longer. I suppose daddy must be thinking of skipping the country. But where he'd go if he left us here, I don't know. Don't worry,” she went on. “Old Sigurdsen shall get his money back. Don't you worry.”

Niels hesitated. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Lund,” he stammered, feeling that he had touched on things beyond the remedy of words. “I didn't mean to give you pain … As for the hay …”

“Don't worry about the hay either,” she said. “Soon there will be no need for hay here any longer. You helped us last year, Mr. Lindstedt. It isn't forgotten.”

Niels left the house. On the yard, Lund was tinkering about at a mower, sitting on the seat of the rickety machine.

When he heard a football, he looked up and smiled his most artificial smile. “That you, Mr. Lindstedt?”

“Yes,” Niels replied.

“About that loan,” Lund went on, getting to his feet and whispering. “I'll pay you ten percent a month; and I need the money only for a week. I'll send it back as soon as I get to my brother's …”

“I'm sorry,” Niels interrupted him curtly. “I can't do a thing in the matter.”

And with that he went quickly to the gate to untie his horses.

Lund looked vacantly after him. Then he dropped back to the seat of the mower.

When Niels swung up on the dam, he heard Mrs. Lund's piercing call, “Dad-deee!”

I
T WAS HALF PAST TWO
when he reached Ellen's place in the bush. For a moment he hesitated. Then he saw the girl in the little clearing north of the house. She, too, had seen him and came to the gate.

“Come in,” she said, smiling. “Put your horses to the hay. You'll stay for a while, won't you?”

“If I may,” Niels said.

Instead of an answer she opened the gate …

S
OON AFTER
, Niels went south, with his team this time, as foreman of the threshing gang …

“It has been pleasant this summer,” Ellen said when he took leave. “I shall miss our Sundays.”

Niels had arranged with Sigurdsen to look after the harvesting and threshing of his own little crop.

It was a different man who joined the threshers this year. He was as quiet as ever; but he no longer treated his fellow workers with that silent contempt which had galled them …

Then, with the snow-up, he returned to his claim, carrying in his wagon things galore for his house …

Once more the old life began: work from dawn to dark: he was clearing the land that was to bear his crops … Was he making progress? He was. Last year his little store of grain had come from Nelson's place; this year he had twice as much; and it came from his own … Had Sigurdsen faithfully looked after cutting and threshing? He had. There were three hundred odd bushels of barley in his granary; and a hundred of them he took to Kelm's to get crushed. He thought of chickens and pigs for the following year: for then he would have a crop to sell, a crop of wheat …

He worked at the house again: the walls were to be finished with
plaster-board
inside …

On Sundays, he resumed his trips to Ellen's place. He told her, of course, how things were going: well indeed, but much, much too slow … They could not sit outside any longer; so they sat by the fire in the kitchen …

T
HOUGH BOBBY
was a strong lad now, things went badly with Lunds. Not even the crops of forty acres and the hard work of a woman and a boy can keep things going on a pioneer farm when it staggers along under debt …