Fruits of the Earth (11 page)

One day, when Abe and Bill were disking the new breaking, such as there was of it, the rattling noise of a motor car running with exhausts wide open caught Abe's ear. He was facing north and nearing the line of the Hudson's Bay section; and soon he saw a curious vehicle lumbering over the prairie from the north-east: it was that once familiar sight of an ancient Ford car of the first vintage, covered in all sorts of places with tarnished brass. It jolted and tilted and tossed
along, with an ever-increasing bellowing noise at which the horses pricked their ears; for, level as the prairie looked, it was by no means as smooth as it appeared to the eye. Everything about this car shook and rattled; the cloth of the top dangled behind in strips like a bunch of streamers; the fenders were suspended with binder-twine.

The car came to a stop in front of Abe's horses which were prancing with fright. The driver alighted, vaulting briskly over the door without opening it; and he came at once to where Abe was sitting perched on his harrow. Small and clad in grey overalls, the man looked more like a schoolboy than an adult of forty years. His face was freckled; his eyes grey-blue; his hair reddish. Abe recognized the Yankee who had been “snooping about” in the district before Nicoll's time.

“Hello, Spalding,” he greeted Abe informally and in a business-like way. “Running for councillor, I hear. Remember me? Wheeldon, in case you've forgotten. From Destouches, Iowa. I've filed on the north-west quarter of eleven.” He pointed over his shoulder towards Stanley's place. “I'm thinking of moving out next spring. Provided you and I can come to terms.” This on a rising note.

“Come to terms?”–distantly; these two had disliked each other at sight.

“I want road work for two men and two teams for three months, at current rates. I'm willing to pay the usual rake-off.”

“I am not a councillor yet,” Abe said, stiffening.

Wheeldon laughed. “That's all right. Subject to your being elected. I've fixed the other fellow. He's O.K.”

Abe saw a lane of new vision opening up. “What's your offer?” he asked, sitting motionless.

“The usual thing. Ten per cent.”

“The other fellow took it?”

“Like a shot.”

“How much down?”

Again Wheeldon laughed. “Thought you'd be all right. Trouble is I can't afford a payment down. I'll endorse the first cheque over to you. It's between gentlemen.”

“You've got the horses?”

“I have.”

“What about buildings?”

“I've got the wherewithal to build this fall.”

“Why the road work, then?”

“A year's living. Second year I'll have a crop.”

“What are you doing at present? Farming?”

“I'm a tinsmith. Work's falling off. What with mass production in the factories.”

Abe sat silent. Then he spoke. “As for the deal you propose, I don't do that sort of thing. But we want the settlers. If you move in, we'll look after you. There'll be six or eight miles of road to be built next summer. If I'm road-boss, I'll use local labour if I can get it. Some of us don't want the job though we'll keep a team on the road if it's needed. You can figure out what your share will be.”

Wheeldon looked pensively at Abe. “The straight game, eh? That's one way, of course. Something new. It's as good as a promise?”

“It's as good as a contract,” Abe said slowly.

“Fine. I'm in a hurry. Shake.”

And he returned to his car, abstracting a jack from the litter in the back seat. Having raised one of the rear wheels, he put the car in gear, cranked, and, as the engine started with a roar, adjusted the levers under the steering wheel. Having replaced the gears in neutral, he pushed the car off the jack and, a moment later, turned to the east.

Abe sat and looked. Instinctively he had wiped his hand on his trousers. Was that the way it was done? His contempt for the man had an undercurrent of pity for one who had to have recourse to such means of making a living. “A nice story to tell on the platform!” he muttered.

A week later Abe went to town to get some repairs done at the blacksmith shop. While Bigelow hobbled about between forge and vice, rotund, swarthy, and preoccupied, Abe sat on the frame of a plough.

Placing Abe's broken guide-rod on the anvil, the blacksmith spoke between hammer-blows. “Fellow from south of the border. Name's Wheeldon, I think. Davis says–got promise of road work from you. That right?”

“Quite right.”

“Looks bad, Abe.”

“Looks bad if local work's to be done by local labour?”

“That all?”

“That's all.”

“No promise in return?”

Abe hesitated and frowned. “Tell you. I'm not campaigning. But did Davis give you to understand that Wheeldon made me a promise?”

“He allowed that conclusion to be drawn.”

“Then he allowed himself to lie. Wheeldon offered me ten per cent. Same as he offered Davis. Davis took it. I didn't.”

Bigelow remained silent till Abe had paid for the work. Then he added, “You'll have my vote.”

“Not that I'm asking for it, you know….”

Before going home, Abe did some shopping at the Vanbruik store. As usual, Mr. Diamond came to meet him.

“Well,” he said, “the campaign is becoming interesting, with one of the candidates missing all meetings!”

“Meetings being held?”

“Quite a few. Informal most of them. But Davis is always there.”

“He'll have things all his way, I suppose?”

“That's the funny part of it. The more meetings he holds, the less votes he has left. If he did all he promises, he'd beggar the county.”

When harvest began, Abe forgot about the election. Every settler worked on his place. He bought a third binder; and, long expected, the great tractor arrived at last. When it was driven over from Somerville, people came to their doors and stared. Henry Topp, oldest of the three brothers, acted as engineer. One of the difficulties had been to find a man who could operate such machinery; Henry Topp had moved in; and like other difficulties confronting Abe, this one had vanished. Two binders were hitched behind the huge engine which used kerosene for fuel. With Henry, who was small, his two brothers came to stook: David, second in age, medium-sized, quiet, efficient; and Slim, the youngest, barely nineteen years old but already six feet in height, boisterous, raw-boned, a youth who thought nothing of walking to town to meet a girl when the day's work was finished.

Meanwhile a house went up on the north-west quarter of eleven, north of Stanley's homestead, with two carpenters at work.

Thus, by the time harvest was finished, there were twelve resident ratepayers in the district, including Blaine. The ward comprised one hundred and five votes, so that Spalding District furnished, after all, only a small fraction of the electorate.

The decisive battle for which the ward had prepared itself during the summer was fought when all fall work was finished, on the third Tuesday of the month of December.

Two weeks before, Abe's nomination had been duly recorded at the municipal office at Somerville, Nicoll acting as proposer and Bigelow as seconder. Davis being renominated, a poll was necessary. Anderson's implement shed, north of his hardware store, was the polling place, with Dr. Vanbruik acting as deputy returning officer and Mr. Diamond as polling clerk. The shed was heated by a number of coal-oil stoves and lighted–for windows were small and scanty–by a gasoline lamp suspended above the table on which stood the ballot box.

Davis was present as was his right; in addition, two farmers of his district acted as his authorized agents. Abe had not even come to town, but Nicoll was there to represent him. “One witness to the proceedings,” Abe had said. In a corner of the shed a space was curtained off where the electors were to mark their ballots.

The forenoon went by quietly, forty-two electors from the east half of the ward presenting themselves. All of them winked at or spoke to Davis and his agents. Occasionally Davis or one of his agents followed an elector into the store which served as a waiting-room. Such electors climbed into their buggies or wagons and left the village, going east; and an hour or so later they returned with a passenger. There was a crowd, it is true; but all remained quiet. Young Anderson improved the occasion by turning over a large stock of mechanical toys.

Several people presented themselves who were not resident in the ward though they owned land there. These voted “on certificate” that is, they had procured a certificate stating that they had the right to vote at this time and place. Their appearance gave the proceedings an air of importance unusual in municipal elections.

When, at noon, Davis left the polling station to have his dinner, Nicoll followed him. In the store, Davis became elatedly vocal. “Boys,” he said, “it's a walkover. Forty-two votes and none for the enemy!”

The crowd cheered.

They left the store. The whole north side of the street was lined with wagons, buggies, democrats.

From the west, along the sidewalk, came Aganeta, Mary Vanbruik's maid, carrying a tray with the doctor's luncheon. She was a big girl, high-bosomed, high-coloured. On her feet she wore a pair of man's goloshes. As she approached the crowd, she shouted, “Careful there!”

A young fellow veered about, jumped aside with exaggerated gallantry, and, as she faced him, laughing, pinched her cheek. She, unable to defend herself, stamped a foot, holding her tray aloft. Emboldened by the laughter of the crowd, the young fellow sidled in and tried to plant a kiss on the nape of her neck. She turned unexpectedly and, raising one of her heavy-booted feet, kicked him squarely in the pit of the stomach. He slipped and fell. This time the crowd cheered the girl.

That moment Nicoll stepped forward and relieved her of the tray.

The girl, enraged, abandoned it and threw herself on her assailant before he could rise. Under her weight he fell back; and, taking his head in both her hands, she knocked it repeatedly on the sidewalk. Then she ran to the door of the store where Nicoll had preceded her. Dazed, the young fellow picked himself up, laughing sheepishly.

Davis returned immediately after dinner. Aganeta had just gathered the doctor's dishes and left the room with a furious look, muttering something about the “Davis crowd.”

Davis, on the ground that an elector was present, at once objected to the latter's voting. The elector was Nicoll.

But Dr. Vanbruik overruled the protest. “Mr. Spalding's agent can hardly be presumed to be influenced by such a remark.”

Davis took note of the incident in a statement signed by his agents.

Not before three o'clock did the voting become brisk again. The new wave of electors was led by Shilloe. Davis “challenged” his vote. “I require the elector to be sworn.”

Dr. Vanbruik picked up a printed form and read the oath required from an elector whose right to vote is doubted or challenged. This formality took ten minutes.

Hartley came next and went unchallenged. Then followed half a dozen residents of Morley; and Davis challenged every one. It was nearly four when they had voted. A huge crowd was dammed back in the store.

Nicoll was worried. If Davis went on challenging votes, not half of Abe's supporters would get a chance at the poll before the closing hour. He turned to the doctor. “May I ask the opposing candidate a question?”

“I don't see what could prevent you.”

Nicoll turned to Davis. “Do you intend to challenge all voters opposed to you?”

Davis laughed. “I'll challenge as many as I see fit to challenge.”

The doctor, though ignoring Nicoll's silent appeal, yet spoke to the man guarding the door. “Call Mr. Anderson, please.”

When young Anderson looked in, the doctor asked him to get hold of Mr. Watt, the provincial constable.

“He's right at the door.”

“Ask him in, will you? Ready for the next voter.”

The elector entered and was challenged. The constable, handsomely filling his uniform, followed.

By this time there was tension inside and outside the room. The store was packed with those waiting. Even children had squeezed in when school had closed. Davis's tactics were transparent: he had had his henchmen vote in the morning, “rolling up” forty per cent of the total for himself. Now he was holding up his opponents. Such a proceeding did not fall under the heading of “corrupt practices” as defined by law. But even if it had done so, Abe would never have condescended to an appeal to the courts; and Davis knew it.

“Don't let the next man enter,” Dr. Vanbruik said. Then he raised his voice. “Mr. Watt, I, deputy returning officer of this polling place of the hamlet of Morley, charge you to swear in a sufficient number of deputies to handle the crowd. You will next, by telephone, get into touch with the clerk of the municipality and give him a message as coming from me. Please take the message in writing. It is this: ‘The vote polled at this station is so far fifty-one; there are fifty-four more votes to be cast. Since one of the candidates pursues the policy of challenging indiscriminately, I can at best handle six votes an hour. We need at once a number of deputy returning officers to handle the vote within the time required by law, with full equipment.”

The officer saluted and, admitting the next man, left the room.

Davis changed his tactics at once. Leaving one of his agents behind, he gave the other a signal and pushed his way through the now hostile crowd in the store. In the street, he crossed the driveway and the dry ditch to the fence of the right-of-way. There, nobody being near to overhear, he jotted a few names on a piece of paper. “Here,” he said to Searle, the agent. “I'll go back and send Armstrong out. Between you get hold of
every one on this list. You'll find the needful in my buggy at the livery stable. I rely on you that these fellows don't vote.”