'My relation 'll need all he's got t' git his crops in,' said Council, in the safe, indifferent way. Well, all right; say wait,' concluded Butler. 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, 5 shouting. Papa's come!' They hardly looked like the same children who had sat at the table the night before. Their torman in Cedar pidity, 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. 'All right; this is the man. Haskins, this is Mr. Butler no relation to Ben the hardest-working County.' -- On the way home Haskins said: 'I 10 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 y' through somehow till next harvest. He's agreed t' hire it plowed, an' you can earn a hundred dollars plowin' an' y' c'n 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.' III Haskins worked like a fiend, and his 15 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. '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 30 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. The eldest boy drove a team all through the spring, plowing 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 35 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. Council moved about uneasily in his seat and stopped his stammering gratitude 40 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' 45 it's about the only kind.' They rode the rest of the way home in silence. And when the red light of the lamp shone out into the darkness of the cold and windy night, and he thought of 50 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 Coun- 55 cil, you'll git y'r pay f'r this some day.' 'Don't want any pay. My religion ain't sun on such business principles.' 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 plowed 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 'o milk s' many. Ike's away s' much now, Sat'd'ys an' Sundays, 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 rerenting 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 ye'r debts, an' keep seed an' bread.' The new hope which now sprang up in the heart of Haskins and his wife grew great almost as a pain by the time the wide field of wheat began to wave 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.' 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 5 and ironed, milked the cows at night made the butter, and sometimes fed the horses and watered them while her hus band kept at the shocking. No slave in the Roman galleys could To have toiled so frightfully and lived, fo: 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 dee 'Well, take time now. Let's go look 15 groan of relief, too tired to change his at it.' She threw an old hat on her headTommy's hat and looking almost pretty in her thin, sad way, went out with her husband to the hedge. 20 'Ain't it grand, Netty? 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 25 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 had n't been f'r Council and his wife.' 30 They're the best people in the world,' said the little woman, with a great sob of 35 gratitude. We'll be in the field on Monday, sure,' said Haskins, gripping the rail on the fence 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. grimy, dripping clothing, he felt that h was getting nearer and nearer to a home of his own, and pushing the wolf of wan: a little farther from his door. There is no despair so deep as the de spair of a homeless man or woman. T roam the roads of the country or the streets of the city, to feel there is no roo 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 re bellions that drive men to crime and women to shame. It was the memory of this homelessness and the fear of its coming again, the spurred Timothy Haskins and Nettie, his wife, to such ferocious labor during that first year. IV ''M, yes; 'm, yes; first-rate,' said Bu ler, as his eye took in the neat gar den, the pig-pen, and the well-filled bar 40 yard. You're gitt'n' quite a stock around yeh. Done well, eh?' 45 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 50 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 55 bed, Haskins returned to the field shocking the bound grain in the light of the moon. Many a night he worked till his an Haskins was showing Butler around the place. He had not seen it for a year, hav ing spent the year in Washington Boston with Ashley, his brother-in-law, who had been elected to Congress. 'Yes, I've laid out a good deal o money durin' the last three years. I'v 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, bu I've put a lot o' time on it. I've dug new well, and I' 'Yes, yes, I see. You've done well Stock worth a thousand dollars,' said Butder, picking his teeth with a straw. About that,' said Haskins, modestly. We begin to feel 's if we was get'n' a home fr ourselves; but we've worked hard. I tell you 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 plowin's done.' 'Eggs-actly!' said Butler, who was evidently thinking of something else. suppose you've kind o' calc'lated on stayin' here three years more?' Io Well, yes. Fact is, I think I c'n buy the farm this fall, if you'll give me a reasonable show.' 'Um-m! What do you call a reasonable show?' Well, say a quarter down and three years' time. let you carry off the improvements, nor that I'd go on renting the farm at twofifty. The land is doubled in value, it don't matter how; it don't enter into the 5 question; an' now you can pay me five hundred dollars a year rent, or take it on your own terms at fifty-five hundred, or - git out.' He was turning away when Haskins, the sweat pouring from his face, fronted him, saying again: 'But you've done nothing to make it so. You hain't added a cent. I put it all there myself, expectin' to buy. I worked an' 15 sweat to improve it. I was workin' for myself an' babes-' Butler looked at the huge stacks of 20 wheat, which filled the yard, over which the chickens were fluttering and crawling, catching grasshoppers, and out of which the crickets were singing innumerably. He smiled in a peculiar way as he 25 said, 'Oh, I won't be hard on yeh. But what did you expect to pay f'r the place?' Why, about what you offered it for before, two thousand five hundred, or possibly three thousand dollars,' he added 30 quickly, as he saw the owner shake his head. This farm is worth five thousand and five hundred dollars,' said Butler, in a careless and decided voice. 'What!' almost shrieked the astounded Haskins. What's that? Five thousand? Why, that's double what you offered it for three years ago.' 'Well, why did n't you buy when I offered to sell? What y' kickin' about?' 'I'm kickin' about payin' you twice f'r my own things,- my own fences, my own kitchen, my own garden.' Butler laughed. You're too green t' eat, young feller. Your improvements! The law will sing another tune.' But I trusted your word.' 'Never trust anybody, my friend. Besides, I did n't promise not to do this thing. Why, man, don't look at me like that. Don't take me for a thief. It's the The reg'lar thing. Everybody does. law. it.' 'I don't care if they do. It's stealin' jest the same. You take three thousand dollars of my money the work o' my 35 hands and my wife's.' He broke down at this point. He was not a strong man mentally. He could face hardship, ceaseless toil, but he could not face the cold and sneering face of Butler. 'Of course, and it's worth it. It was 40 all run down then; now it's in good shape. You've laid out fifteen hundred dollars in improvements, according to your own story.' 'But you had nothin' t' do about that. 45 It's my work an' my money.' 'You bet it was; but it's my land.' 'But what's to pay me for all my Ain't you had the use of 'em?' replied Butler, smiling calmly into his face. 50 Haskins was like a man struck on the head with a sandbag; he could n't think; he stammered as he tried to say: 'But --I never'd git the use — You'd rob me! More 'n that: you agreed - you 55 promised that I could buy or rent at the end of three years at ' 'That's all right. But I did n't say I'd But I don't take it,' said Butler, coolly. All you've got to do is to go on jest as you've been a-doin', or give me a thousand dollars down, and a mortgage at ten per cent on the rest.' Haskins sat down blindly on a bundle of oats near by, and with staring eyes and drooping head went over the situation. He was under the lion's paw. He felt a horrible numbness in his heart and limbs. He was hid in a mist, and there was no path out. Butler walked about, looking at the huge stacks of grain, and pulling now and again a few handfuls out, shelling the heads in his hands and blowing the chaff away. He hummed a little tune as he did so. He had an accommodating air of waiting. Haskins was in the midst of the terrible toil of the last year. He was walking again in the rain and the mud behind his plow: he felt the dust and dirt of the threshing. The ferocious husking-time, 5 with its cutting wind and biting, clinging snows, lay hard upon him. Then he thought of his wife, how she had cheerfully cooked and baked, without holiday and without rest. 'Well, what do you think of it?' inquired the cool, mocking, insinuating voice of Butler. eyes of the man he had a moment before despised — a man transformed into an avenging demon. But in the deadly hush between the lift of the weapon and its fall there came a gush of faint, childish laughter and then across the range of his vision, far away and dim, he saw the sunbright head of his baby girl, as, with the pretty, tottering run of a two-year-old, 10 she moved across the grass of the dooryard. His hands relaxed; the fork fell to the ground; his head lowered. I think you're a thief and a liar!' shouted Haskins, leaping up. A black- 15 hearted houn'!' Butler's smile maddened him with a sudden leap he caught a fork in his hands and whirled it in the air. 'You 'll never rob another man, damn ye!' he grated through his teeth, a look of piti- 20 less ferocity in his accusing eyes. Butler shrank and quivered, expecting the blow; stood, held hypnotized by the 'Make out y'r deed an' mor'gage, an' git of'n my land, an' don't ye never cross my line again; if y' do, I'll kill ye.' Butler backed away from the man in wild haste, and climbing into his buggy with trembling limbs drove off down the road, leaving Haskins seated dumbly on the sunny piles of sheaves, his head sunk into his hands. From Main Travelled Roads, 1891. RICHARD HOVEY (1864-1900) Richard Hovey was born in Normal, Illinois, but his life and his training were all of the East. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1885, and then studied at Union Theological Seminary, New York, with a view to entering the ministry. Art. however, had cast its spell over him. Leaving the seminary, he became journalist, dramatist, lecturer, actor, poet,excited, rhapsodic, impetuous. He went abroad and lived for a time with Maeterlinck the Belgian poet and dramatist, and, returning, published a translation of his works. Then he poured out volume after volume of poetry of his own, no less than ten volumes in all in less than fourteen years: The Quest of Merlin, The Marriage of Guinevere, Songs from Vagabondia, and others. At length he was given a lectureship at Barnard College, New York City, and then, just as he was entering upon his new work, death claimed him at the Byronic age of thirty-six. Undoubtedly Hovey was the most promising poet America produced after the Civil War. He gave, moreover, more than promise: his poetry is of distinctive quality, some of it of high distinction. In his later work he was beginning to break from the mannerism of his early period.' from Bohemianism and Swinburnism, and was striking. as in Taliesin, deeper and more significant notes. He was a singer of men, of comradeship, and masculine joy. Few of the poets of America have been so bubbling with song, so spontaneous, and genuinely lyrical. |