A Prairie Courtship

The lad colored, for he was very young.

"Jackson drove off as soon as he'd told Stepney and me to get them," he explained. "We're both of us just out from Toronto, and we didn't know how to set about the thing." He paused and looked at Alison. "I don't mind admitting that neither of us enjoyed it, but it had to be done."

"I must add that he told me he made Stepney use the ax," laughed Thorne.

"I had to hold them, anyway – and that wasn't very much better," retorted the lad.

Thorne turned to Farquhar.

"You'll have to pluck; I dare say Mrs. Farquhar and Miss Leigh will get out the bread and what crockery there is. The boys will probably bring some plates and things along with them; that is, if they're wise."

He moved away and Alison sat down on the grass and laughed.

"I believe he can cook better than I can, but he's primitive in some respects," she commented. "Shall we all have to use the same things if the boys don't bring the cups?"

"Oh, no," Mrs. Farquhar assured her. "He'll no doubt provide a few old fruit cans. Anyway, you must not expect too much of him. He has been working his fingers off for the last six weeks, and as there has been moonlight lately it's very probable that he has cut himself down to an hour or two's sleep. Perhaps you haven't noticed that it shows on him."

As a matter of fact, Alison had done so. She had seen very little of Thorne for the last few weeks, and now it struck her that his face was leaner and browner than it had been and that there were signs of tension in his eyes. Then she glanced at the strip of plowed land and the piles of timber.

"Has he done all that?" she asked.

"Most of it, anyway. Some of the boys helped him when they could, which wasn't very often. I believe he has done about twice as much as Harry considered possible. I've an idea that Mavy is going to open his neighbors' eyes."

Alison glanced at the empty prairie and wondered where the neighbors lived; but just them Mrs. Farquhar called her to the oven, which she opened with a spade, and they raked out several big and somewhat blackened loaves. After that, they proceeded to the tent and busied themselves laying out the provisions it contained.

It was an hour or two later when the guests arrived in dusty rigs of various kinds and different stages of decrepitude, and Alison noticed that those who were accompanied by their wives and daughters also brought baskets with them. They were evidently acquainted with the limitations of bachelor housekeeping. For the most part, however, the new arrivals were young men, deeply bronzed and wiry, though one, whom they seemed to regard as leader, had a lined face and grizzled hair. He gathered them round him when the horses had been unyoked and tethered.

"Boys," he said, "you haven't come here just for fun, though you're going to get that later. In the first place you have to earn your supper." He turned to Thorne. "Will you send us to our places and tell us what to do?"

"No," replied Thorne; "I'd rather leave the thing to the best man on the ground. I'll take my orders from him and stand in among the crowd."

The elder man made a sign of acquiescence, for he now knew where he stood and etiquette was satisfied. He and Thorne walked round and examined the piles of timber. Then he sent the men to their places; one with a hammer here, two or three with long, steel-shod poles there, another with a saw at a corner, and the rest spread out in a row.

"Now," he directed, "if you're ready we'll get the house on end. The girls are watching you!"

They went at the work with a rush, and the little oblong marked out upon the prairie sod became alive with toiling figures. Tall birch posts rose as by magic, with struggling men thrusting with the long pike-poles beneath them; stringers, plates and ties seemed to fly into place; and Alison, sitting on the grass with Mrs. Farquhar, wondered as the skeleton of the house grew moment by moment before her eyes. She had never thought it possible that a dwelling could be built in a night; but the men were clearly on their mettle, and they worked with an almost bewildering activity. They were on the ground one minute, hauling ponderous masses of timber, and the next climbing among the framing; were standing with one foot on a slender beam, or crawling along another on hands and knees. There was a constant thudding of ax-heads on wooden pegs, a sharper ringing of hammers on heavy nails; curt orders broke through the clatter of boards and the persistent crunch of saws. Still, there seemed to be no confusion. Each man knew exactly what to do, for, though houses are by no means invariably raised in this fashion on the prairie, some of the men had learned their work in the bush of Michigan, and some in Ontario. When the hammers clattered more furiously and the skeleton became partly clothed, there were cries of encouragement from the women.

"Jake will have that plate pinned down before your spikes are in!" called one.

"Are you going to let the boys from across the creek get ahead of you?" protested another.

A third ran forward with both hands full of nails.

"They're catching you up!" she shouted. "Get them in! I can't have the laugh put on my man."

Husband, sweetheart and brother responded gallantly, and the pace became faster still, until at length Thorne shouted and waved his hand.

"We're through. It's time to quit," he said. "You've done 'most twice as much as I ever figured on your getting in to-night."

They had worked willingly, but it was evident that most of them were as willing to stop. Hammers, saws, and axes were flung together, and the men stood in groups, hot and gasping, in the early dusk. Thorne walked up to their leader.

"I can only say 'Thank you!' though that doesn't go far enough," he said. "What makes the thing seem more to me is that I haven't the least call on one of you."

There was a murmur of denial and then they waited until he turned to Mrs. Farquhar, though he addressed the company generally.

"Now," he invited, "I'll ask you to come in and look at my place."

He moved on ahead with Mrs. Farquhar, while the others fell in behind; but it seemed that the selection he had made did not satisfy all of them, for there was a laugh when somebody cried:

"She has got a good man already! It isn't a square deal!"

Then, and how it came about Alison was never sure, though she had a suspicion that her employer must have connived at it, Mrs. Farquhar either moved or was quietly pushed aside, and she and Thorne were left to cross the threshold together at the head of the company. This appeared to please his guests, for there was further laughter when another voice cried:

"It's the first time. Didn't they teach you manners in the old country, Mavy? What's the matter with giving her your arm?"

Alison was conscious of a certain embarrassment, but she moved on quietly and shot one swift glance at Thorne. He was looking up at the beams above him, of which she was glad, for she was wondering whether the others attached any particular significance to the fact that she was the first woman to enter his new house with him. Dismissing the question as troublesome, she glanced about her and saw the roof framing cutting black against the soft blue of the night overhead. The house, she supposed, would eventually contain four rooms, two on the ground floor and two above, and though only the principal supports had been placed in position yet, she once more wondered how the man and his companions had accomplished so much.

"What you have done is really astonishing!" she exclaimed. "I suppose you had everything ready, but even then you are not a carpenter or a builder."

Thorne laughed.

"The fact that I can sell patent medicines to people who haven't the least use for them ought to be a guaranty of my ability to do anything in reason."

"He's not quite right," interposed Farquhar, appearing from behind them. "In a general way, the man who's smart at business is good at nothing else. Most of those who are couldn't hammer a nail in. Anyway, Mavy hasn't the least bit of the true commercial instinct in him."

"Haven't I?" Thorne appealed to Mrs. Farquhar. "Is there another man round here who could start off for a month's drive and sell out most of a wagonload of mirrors and gramophones?"

"No," laughed Mrs. Farquhar; "I don't think there is; but that's not quite the point. The proof of commercial ability lies not in the sales but in the margin after them, and you never seemed to get much richer by your efforts. You don't sell your things because you're a smart business man, but because the boys like you."

The rest had evidently heard her, for there were cries of assent, and Alison was conscious of a little thrill of sympathy when Thorne turned to his other guests.

"I should be a proud man if I were quite convinced that that is right."

They assured him of it, and there was no doubt about their sincerity. A few minutes later they trooped out again, when somebody announced that supper was ready. There were neither chairs nor tables, and though the dew was falling they sat down on the grass, while a full moon that had sailed half-way up the heavens poured down a silver light on them. The crockery proved insufficient, and husbands and wives or sweethearts shared each other's cups, but they made an astonishing feast, for the inhabitants of that land eat with the same strenuous vigor with which they work and live.

In the meanwhile Alison became interested in watching the women. They were not very numerous, and one and all were dressed in garments that were obviously the work of their own fingers. They were not bronzed like the men, and even in the moonlight it struck her that their faces lacked the delicate bloom of the average Englishwoman's skin. Their hands were hard, and in most cases reddened; but for all that there was a brightness in their eyes and an optimistic cheerfulness in their manner which she fancied would hardly have characterized such an assembly in the old country.

Then she noticed that one young woman sat at Thorne's side not far away, and that they seemed to be talking confidentially. She could not be sure that they had not one cup between them, and this possibility irritated her. The girl, she confessed, was not ungraceful, although slighter and generally straighter in figure than most young Englishwomen, and she had rather fine hair. It shone lustrously in the moonlight, and there were golden gleams in it. There was also no doubt that she had fine eyes. Alison could think of no reason why Thorne should not talk to whom he liked, but she was, in spite of this, not pleased with what she had noticed.

After a while somebody tuned a fiddle, and when they began dancing on the grass, Alison realized that most of them danced very well. Thorne led her out once, but he seemed preoccupied, and soon afterward he and the girl she had already noticed once more drew apart from the rest. Alison watched them sitting out two dances in the shadow of the house, and she felt curious as to what they had to say to each other. As a matter of fact, Thorne was looking at his companion very thoughtfully just then.

"Lucy," he said, "I'm afraid what Jake has done is going to get him into trouble."

"I tried to make him see that, but he said as they'd seized his homestead he couldn't stay here, and he allowed that, one way or another, he'd paid off all he owed," the girl replied. "Nevis put up all kinds of charges on him and bled him dry the past few years."

"Of course he did," assented Thorne. "Still, that's not likely to count for a great deal in his favor. The trouble is that they could jail him for selling off those cattle after he got notice of foreclosure. What made him do it?"

Lucy looked down.