Fruits of the Earth (17 page)

It was a week before Abe heard of his election, for he was threshing. When he did, it did not mean much to him: he was planning beyond his boldest dreams.

The threshing was done by Victor Lafontaine who brought his old steam engine and the huge separator over the snow from St. Cecile. No bundle wagons were needed. The separator was drawn between two stacks, and Nicoll and Horanski pitched sheaves while a dozen teams hauled the grain away. There were three granaries in Abe's yard, each holding seven thousand bushels. These were attended to by three teams; nine hauled directly to town. Even at that it was necessary at times to thresh on the ground. Huge sheets of tarpaulin were spread on the snow; the grain was shovelled into a pile and covered with other tarpaulins weighted down with whatever could be found in a country devoid of stones. If the indicator at the grain spout of the separator was correct, over seventeen thousand bushels of wheat were left in the fields. Twenty-one thousand bushels were waiting in the granaries; more than fourteen thousand had been sold outright, with the price of wheat rising sharply. Besides, there were barley and oats, vastly more than needed for feed and seed: these were stored in the loft of the barn.

Even Ruth gasped when she heard the figures from the children. She could not defend herself against a feeling of admiration for the man who had saved such a crop.

One night at last, coming home late and sitting down wearily at the table to have his belated supper, Abe said grimly, “That's that!”

“Finished?” Ruth asked.

“Finished,” he replied.

He had recently bought a gasoline lamp which hung suspended above the table, shedding a cruel light on everything in the room. Abe felt this evening to mark an epoch in his life. He was awed by his own achievement. In the whole world there seemed nothing left for him to do.

He looked at Ruth who was waiting on him. For years they had lived side by side, speaking of nothing but the trivial matters of the day. They hardly knew whether they were in agreement on the fundamental questions of life. Were there such questions?

Abe had been dimly aware of changes going on about him. The years were piling up. He had given it no thought; it could not be helped. Slow work, the work of the farm! Every step took a year. But the last step had been taken. He could afford to look back.

Yes, there, in the door of the kitchen, stood Ruth. That was how she looked; not a sight to make a man's glance linger. Between her heavy bust and her wide, massive hips, the last trace of a waistline had vanished. In the short, wide face, the wrinkles furrowing cheeks and forehead showed a thickness of skin such as to preclude any delicacy in the mouldings which increasing years were bound to bring. Her expression betrayed a sense of disappointment with life.

Abe was aware of a wave of distaste flooding through him. This feeling he tried to hold down by sheer force. He averted his glance. He was afraid that anything he might say would widen the estrangement between them rather than bridge it; about her dress, for instance, with its heavy, cast-iron folds; or about the incomprehensibly unattractive, grey-brown cloth of which it was made; or about the way in which she tied her hair into a knot on top of her head.

And this room! Dingy and dismal. The inexorable light showed up its threadbare, worn-out fittings.

He pushed his cup back and, without looking up, said, “Well, all this is going to be changed at last!” It was meant as a consolation; as conveying a sense of his own shortcomings; he was sorry that he had left Ruth in such surroundings for so
long. He had been an unconscionable time in fulfilling his promise. After all, she had had to live in the place; to him, it had been just a lair to go to at night.

Ruth sat down at the table. The silence was full of unexpected meanings. “Abe,” she said, looking first down then straight at him. “I don't know–” And tears ran down her cheeks.

Uncomfortably he leaned back in his chair.

“This crop,” Ruth went on; “it means a fortune. Why build?”

Abe gasped. “Why build? What else?”

“We have enough to live on. Move to town.”

“Do you mean retire?”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you know that I am not yet fifty?”

“Well–” Ruth moved a dish with nervous fingers. “I feel sixty.”

Abe stared at her. She looked it, too. His fault? Partly. But he could not help himself. For years he had been careful not to touch on matters which might provoke a scene; he had done so for his own sake: in order not to be disturbed in his work and his plannings. All his energy had been claimed by the farm, summer and winter. In winter he had cleaned his seed three, four times; all his wheat had been hauled to town between fall and spring. No doubt, to be thus left alone had been hard for the woman.

“Abe,” Ruth began once more, trying to be considerate. “You work and work and work. What for?”

Abe felt he had reached the limit of his endurance. Yet he kept his temper under control. “What does any one work for? We work because we must, I suppose. We are all going to die one day if that's what you mean. But before we die, we
want to find some satisfaction. You ask me to give up when that satisfaction is within reach.”

Ruth hesitated. The sacrifice she demanded was beyond the man's power to give. It was beyond her power to yield. Yet he was human; so was she. Was there no common ground between them? She made a last attempt. “Look what this life has made of me. When I am to talk to any one but the children, I am nervous. Rather than go to town and show myself, I stay at home, day in day out, year in and year out.”

Abe had risen. He felt shaken. He pitied the woman. Yet, was it his fault? A vague gesture preceded speech. “Isn't that just where you are wrong? You should force yourself. Here's a whole district, but nobody comes to see us. Why not? Because you don't go to see anybody. They think you consider yourself better than they are. They say we're stuck-up. I've got to mix with the men whether I want to or not. But are they wrong? I have wider ambitions and bolder aims than they. If you and Mary don't pull together, there are other women. Make friends. For God's sake try!”

“This life has taken the desire away.”

“This life! Do you realize that it's the freest, most independent life on earth? Your part in it is your own making. I–” And he shook his head in utter disgust–“I can't live in town. Years ago you bore me a grudge because you had to live in this patched-up shack. I want to raze it and give you a real house. If I've left you to live here, I've done so in order not to put up another makeshift. It would have been a waste of money. Sooner or later I was going to be in a position to do things right. I am in that position now.”

Ruth rose as if to break off. “Build if you must.”

But now he would not accept that verdict. “You act as if it were my fault that things are as they are. You act as if I
were to blame because you've got stout. You make your whole life a silent reproach to me. I can only say there are other stout women. They can't help it. But they try at least to remain a little attractive. I've never grudged you money; not when I was hardest up. Every year I've given you a few hundred dollars. I've promised not to ask you how you spend it. But I will ask. Have you spent it? Have you spent any of it?”

“No.”

“Why not? That's what money is for. To be spent.”

“What should I spend money on myself for? Living as I do.”

“There you go. Turning around in a circle like a dog chasing his tail. For my sake. For the sake of the children.”

“Perhaps the children will thank me one day that there are a few pennies left when they're needed.”

Abe threw up his hands. “Let me look after that. I'll double what I've been giving you. I'll treble it. I'll write you a cheque for a thousand dollars to-night. But spend it! Spend at least part of it.”

“I will,” she challenged, “if you build.”

Abe stood as if struck speechless. “If I build! I'll build. Of that you may be sure. I'd rather build with your co-operation than otherwise. But build I shall. What else should I do? Go to town? Open up a butchershop? Lick my fingers for other people's dirty cash?” And, slamming the door behind him, he went to pace the frozen, snow-covered ground.

Shortly after the new year Abe left the farm to go to the city. Horanski was in charge; a crew had been hired to haul the grain. In thirteen years this was the first time that he had gone away. He had offered to take Ruth and the children. Ruth had declined.

When he returned towards the end of the month, he gave orders that every sleigh going to town with wheat was to bring home a load of red brick which was piled along the railway track. He put Horanski to work cleaning the seed. He himself was rarely at home. Many people asked for a job, from town and from south of the Line. He investigated their circumstances and gave work or denied it according to the urgency of the case. People learned to depend on him.

He spent long hours at Somerville, in conference with Duncan and Ferris, implement dealers. A contractor from the city came to measure the ground between the old house and the wind-break in front where the brick was being piled. Other supplies were brought out: rolls upon rolls of ornamental fence-wire; hardwood for floors, to be stored in the granaries as they were being emptied; windows and doors; cement for foundations and sills; parts of some complicated machinery to be assembled on the farm; coils upon coils of insulated copper wire; building paper; bundles of lath and green-stained shingles; shiplap and scantling; no end of things; the district buzzed with their list.

Abe was secretive; he had plans and papers; ground plans and elevations; he showed them to no one.

“Well, Abe,” Nicoll said, “I suppose you'll do this thing as you do everything, on the large scale, won't you?”

“Large enough for my family, if that's what you mean.”

“Spalding Hall?”

Abe made neither answer nor motion.

“What's all that machinery?”

“Motor and dynamo.”

“Electric light for the house?”

“Light and power.”

Nicoll nodded. “I see. I see.”…

“You would think,” said Mrs. Grappentin, “he's building a village.”

“He gives bread to the district,” Hilmer replied. “Wenn die Koenige baun, haben die Kaerrner zu tun.–When kings build, the teamsters find work, Mrs. Mother.”…

Every load that went to Abe's place was watched and discussed; and not only in the district, in town as well. Day after day load after load went out, throughout February and March.

Mr. Diamond was enthusiastic. “That's the way, Abe. I've always believed in you. Show them how to farm.”…

The brick had been hauled; and still there was wheat. To the amazement of his men Abe gave orders to bring lumber now. He did not explain; but carload after carload of lumber was shunted on to the siding at Morley–huge timbers such as are used for frame and flooring of barns. These he piled at the north end of the yard, in front of the granaries.

The thaws came, and the flood appeared. It ran out, and everywhere farmers began to thresh. Abe fretted; he could not get help. He had to be satisfied with a small acreage of wheat. By the time Henry Topp came to operate the tractor it was too late to seed anything but barley.

Then, in the beginning of June, a string of bunk wagons came from town, drawn by Abe's horses: little houses on wheels, one of them fitted as a cook-house. Other things followed: an excavating machine with a steam engine; a concrete mixer; many things. All were put just inside the wind-break: a regular village with all sorts of shops.

Abe had to be everywhere: in the field where the spring work was still going on: in the yard where the exact location of the great house depended on his say-so. It was more than he could do. Often the foreman directing the work came out
to the field; or he waited for Abe late at night to discuss this or that. The crew, forty-odd men, consisted almost entirely of “foreigners”–men willing to work, pleasant, obliging; but rough and wild-looking not a few of them were.

And the children had to be kept within bounds; there was danger among the machines where chains dangled and derricks swung while horses struggled with their loads of wet earth to be dumped on the trail past Horanski's. Would that trail be mud, mud for ever after?

Yet when Abe, years hence, looked back on this summer of 1913, it seemed as if never in his life had he been happier than at that time. When the foreman asked a question, on Abe's answer depended something akin to creation: for decades or centuries that spot of his yard would present itself to the world as he willed it.

Then, excavations being finished on the sites of both house and barn, the scene cleared itself up; and concrete was poured into moulds. This was the most important part of the work; there must be no water in cellar, engine room, and manure pit. Pitch was enclosed between two layers of concrete to make the foundations waterproof.

Whenever Abe went to look at anything, the children came running; for holidays began and they were at home. Without him, they were not allowed to cross a certain line where he had stretched a rope. Jim was rapidly outgrowing Charlie; the latter putting all growth into mental and nervous development; Jim, into muscle and sinew. The girls, Marion and Frances, offered a similar contrast; Marion was tall, yet otherwise she resembled Charlie; Frances was short but resembled Jim in disposition. Both girls were exceptionally pretty in their individual ways.

On the building site, Charlie, now twelve years old,
showed by his questions that he was trying to visualize the building as a whole; and Abe showed him the elevations. Jim, less than a year his junior, was curious to see how the concrete mixer worked, how mortar was made, how it hardened between the bricks. The girls looked on.

New excavations began; trenches were dug across the yard, from the house and both barns; just east of the pool they united. In these, pipes were sunk below the frost-line, for the water supply. Before the floors were laid, all sorts of machines were set up in the basement: pumps, to be operated by electricity, a washing machine with a rotary drier; the furnace was installed, and sheet iron coal-bins fitted in.