Robert J. C. Stead

“ Through his little window Burton watched it, and with the eye of faith and optimism saw all this boundless country checkered into farms; towns and cities rising where now were flag-stations and water-tanks, telephones and telegraphs where now were fences and buffalo runs; electric railways groaning with wheat across the now trailless prairie. Here was a chance to be in at the beginning; to lay new foundations of business, government, and society, unchecked by tradition, unhampered by convention, undaunted by the arrogance of precedent. ”

“ And to himself Burton confessed that to him she was a new relevation of womanhood. At times, out of the nightmare of the past, he would conjure up that face which, in all his wanderings and through all his associations, still hedged his soul about on every side, so that he could follow no emotion far until he met it. He saw her as she rode home on her pony along the pasture path, while the gathering dusk raised the willows very tall about them; he saw her as they sat by the water’s edge that never to-be-forgotten Sunday at the Crossing ”

“ It was the one subject she did not care to discuss with Gardiner. But she answered, in a quiet impersonal voice,
“Love is not peculiar to the prairies.”
“No, but the love of the prairies is peculiar. How can a soul, hemmed in by the works of man, seeing life in all the seaminess of man’s—and woman’s—depravity, and knowing that it is but one drop in the ocean of humanity, rise to the sublime heights experienced by the dweller on the prairie, where all the works of nature seem combined to elevate the individual? ”

“ Among the ladies was one whom Burton knew to be the guest of honour, even before he was told; a young woman his own age, or older, dressed in a creamy white, with a single real rose in her hair. Her dark, full eye-lashes, the finely shaped nose and ears, the firm but sympathetic mouth, electrically responsive to every wave of emotion of her alert brain, were not lost upon the country youth. ”

“ Burton walked slowly the length of the line, looking curiously into the faces of these patient waiters; men of all nationalities, Canadian, American, British Islanders, German, Russian, French, Austrian, Pole, Italian, Hungarian, Scandinavian, Chinamen—here they were gathered from the corners of the globe and waiting patiently through night and day, through heat and cold, through wind and rain, through any trial and any hazard for the God-sent privilege, born of a new country, of calling the land beneath their feet their own. ”

“ But in Burton’s eyes, at least, the arrival of the new clerk was much eclipsed by the arrival of the new “girl” for Mrs. Goode’s boarding-house. Polly Lester was a lithe, dark young thing, with black eyes accustomed to sleep dreamily through ordinary experiences, but they glowed like a flame-shot thundercloud when aroused. Her hair, black and luxuriant, her well-cut nose, thin but sensitive lips, and chin that sat in a square, feminine defiance made her a girl to demand a second glance. ”

“ The sun was an hour from the setting, and the golden glow of its oblique rays across the prairies and over the fast-greening wheatfields shed an amber radiance that danced along the trail. The shouts of men at their evening’s amusement, the lowing of cattle, the occasional bark of a dog, the far off drumming of prairie chicken, came through the quiet stillness of the air. When at last Burton spoke it was in a confidential note he had never used since he had helped lay his mother in the hillside.
“Harry,” he said, “men don’t often talk of these things, but you’ve guessed my great desire. ”

“ He had thought himself safe at McKay’s; he had fled from the farmer’s home like a frightened child from a whipping. He had thought to lose himself on a homestead; on the very threshold of his hew life the tale of his shame was thrust in his face. From somewhere a sentence came into his mind. “Be sure your sin will find you out.” But he had not sinned. That was the rub. He was innocent—yes, as innocent as the thoughtless correspondent who sent that despatch. But stay; does an innocent man jump his bail? Something seemed to say to Burton that at that moment an innocent man becomes a guilty one. ”

“ The little tricks of speech which distinguish between the intelligent and the well-educated; the little delicate courtesies which distinguish between the well-meaning and the well-bred; the inborn and self-effacing refinement which is the touchstone of true culture—these were evidenced in every word, every motion, every gesture. Burton forgot about dancing, forgot that he was expected to dance, as he drank in a music unheard by the less discerning ears about him, and revelled in an intoxication not of wine. ”

“ His eyes were as yet unaccustomed to distant objects, but he turned to the west and beheld the heavens a-seethe with lightning—not a vivid glare that blinds the beholder, but a bright silvery flush playing like the aurora behind a mass of dark-blue cloud. Burton knew the country well enough to read the menace at a glance; the heavy blue-black cloud riding ahead of the storm never hunts except for big game. ”

“ He had learned that life is not merely a battle to fill the belly, that the earth is not only for fighting and swearing in, that Love is a real thing, more powerful than hate. The slumbering germ of his spiritual life, deafened by a decade of London’s roar, had been wakened by a brief contact with kindness, and in the birth of imagination the world had taken on a new interest and a new possibility. All these hidden emotions, touched to sudden life, were clamouring for expression, for utterance, when he had come—to this.
The boy’s disillusionment was terrible and complete. ”

“ In such humble ways do common men leave their indelible impress upon a new country.
The road from Grant’s to the crossing lay through a well-settled farming district where almost every acre except the road allowances had come under the plough. At one time the country had been partly covered with shrub, and willows and poplars still grew along the road, affording cover for prairie chickens and resting roosts for their relentless enemy, the hawk. The air was laden with the smell of wild flowers, of bursting buds, of fragrant red willows and balm-of-Gileads. ”

“ A frost-bite and a burn are similar in their nature and their effect, and there is a point at which joy can scarce be distinguished from pain. A sense of loss may in itself become an asset; adversity and rejection, instead of crushing some men down, force them forward and upward. Such a spirit was Burton’s; as he walked along the prairie trail a resolution took shape in his heart that he yet would show “them”—meaning his little world—the stuff of which he was made. ”

“ The smell of ripe wheat filled the air, and where the binders clattered into fields of rusty oats a red cloud marked their pilgrimage as a modern people fought its slow way out of the land of bondage. The great, white, dangerous full moon of August had left the fields unharmed, and men and women and horses and steam and gasoline were deep in their pitched battle against time and the steadily shortening day and approaching winter.
Work on the Grant homestead was in full swing. ”

“ But you know who I mean, don’t you?”
“Ray Burton.”
“Yes. You may find him in that great country. If he lives I look for him back here to stand his trial. You can tell him that much, Wilfred. And if he does not live ... earth has lost another noble soul.”
They faced each other in the brightening dawn. Suddenly, as if almost overwhelmed by a great thought that had nearly escaped him, Wilfred staggered forward, clutching Miss Vane by the shoulders. ”

“ It was not until Gardiner came to his corner and, with a friendly slap, said, “Burton, old man, get up and dance. What are you moping for?” that he was recalled to his surroundings.
“I’m not moping; just dreaming,” he said, springing to his feet.
“Never dream while you are awake; it doesn’t pay. There’s Alice Goode; she has glanced your way a dozen times—and there’s worse girls than Alice.”
Burton took the hint, and in a few moments was threading his way through the meshes of a quadrille amid the pepsin aroma of the sweet Alice. ”

“ The public would refuse to pay your price. They would rather be cheated, and not know it, than pay an honest price, and know it. The public bring these things upon themselves. They place a premium upon dishonesty. They will actually coax a man to lie to them. Tell a man, or better still, a woman, that you are selling a two dollar article for a dollar, and she will fight her way to the counter; but tell her the truth, that you are selling an article worth a dollar for a dollar, and she will pass your store in search of a merchant who has fictions more to her liking. ”

“ Then, for the first time, came to Burton the realization that he too was armed; but while he feared no man with Nature’s weapons he was no expert with pistols, and he had sense enough to realise that a fight under such conditions would be suicide. Elton advanced slowly, gloating over the revenge that was now within his grasp, but suddenly his feet shot from under him and he again collapsed on the floor, the revolver flying from his grasp as he fell. ”

“ The young man stood on the sidewalk, in the momentary irresolution of the stranger. He had been in Plainville before, and knew Mr. Gardiner by sight; but then, he met him as a customer, and now it was to be as employee. Overcoming his bashfulness, he pushed open the store door and entered. The white glare of the gasoline lights revealed a boy of twenty-one, sturdy and well set up, although of somewhat smaller stature than the average in the country; with clean, weather-beaten face and eyes accustomed to look squarely before them. ”

“ But it’s a hardy rose that survives twenty years of pioneer life, and it’s a deep-rooted sentiment that can weather prosperity unelevated by culture and unsweetened by self-sacrifice. And in the Riles’ home culture had come to be a thing misunderstood, and self-sacrifice a thing unknown. There was only one end in life—to make money; and there was only one way this could be done—by labour which amounted to slavery, and stinginess which amounted to theft. Nothing which could not be expressed in dollars and cents had any value to Riles; no doctrine but mammon-worship had any part in his creed. ”

“ Some consciousness of human presence—strange element of the divine, which, like a sudden light on sleeping eyes can pass the gates of slumber without unbarring them—was calling the mind back to its vacated chambers. Wilfred remained kneeling, thrilled with the strange exaltation of triumph and humility. His presence was operating upon her, like the magnet upon steel. In a moment she would speak. She would call him by name.
His eyes, straining through the darkness, caught the outline of her face. One hand lay across the forehead, palm upward. ”

“ As Wilfred walked home through the wet grass his spirits were high with a new-born enthusiasm of youth. The drudgery, the hardship, the toil unlightened by a gleam of humour or a thought except of selfishness, with which the past years of his life had been surrounded, seemed now as an unreal dream. There were greater things in life than cows, and gardens, and fields of wheat ”

“ We women may be frail, and foolish, and unreasonable, but surely, surely we deserve the truth. And this morning, when I said I loved the country, it was, most of all, for its sincerity. I have sometimes thought I could, perhaps, love a man, if I found one who was not a liar.”
The hard word came out with a crash; the wonderful, electric mouth closed in a firmness that might have led men to battle, the deep eyes lit up with a blaze that was not from the setting sun.
Burton mumbled an apology. “But I meant what I said, Miss Vane!” ”

“ A roar of delight greeted Burton’s achievement, for, despite the weight of circumstantial evidence, many of the townspeople, and especially the young men, believed him innocent; and all were delighted to see this indignity heaped upon a bombastic bully who on several previous occasions had rendered himself obnoxious to the people of Plainville by his brutal arrogance. ”

“ Few who knew the mild-mannered farmer deemed him capable of such anger, nor of the vivid flow of sulphuric adjectives which he poured upon the now thoroughly cowed officer.
“Start a rough-house in Plainville, would you? Pull a revolver on this boy? Show these people how much of a fool can sometimes buy himself into a government salary? You, an officer of the law, attempting an unlawful act, and thoroughly trounced by a boy for doing it.” He emphasized every sentence with a vicious shake of the helpless head. “Burton would have submitted in a minute to a properly qualified officer. ”