Fruits of the Earth (30 page)

The girl, greeting him with a smile which seemed to surge forward in short little bursts of almost laughter, turned slowly, without releasing his hand, and introduced him to mother and sister.

To Abe it looked like a puppet-show. “So this,” he thought, “is the way such things are managed these days.”

Marion, at a loss, looked across to him; and he, feeling sorry for her, obeyed the appeal in her eye and relinquished the door of the car on which he had been leaning.

He and Mr. Harrison were introduced and shook hands.

Jim nodded familiarly in the background. “Hello, Bud! How are you?”

A general conversation ensued, guided by Marion and designed to bridge the awkwardness of the moment. Mr. Harrison was bringing news: the Saturday papers of the city had carried the results of the high-school examinations. Marion, Jim, and Frances had passed, though Jim with two “conditions” it was more than he had expected.

Oh yes, the weather was marvellous; not a bit too warm. No, it had been no trouble to find the place; how could one mistake it?

Abe's glance rested on Frances; the expression in her face startled him: a luring, greedy, jealous smile with which she watched her older sister and the young man.

Marion, though taking part in the conversation with fluent readiness, seemed far away. But whenever her eye met that of the young man, a radiance rose into her smile which was invariably followed by the glow of a blush. Again little bursts of laughter broke from her lips, revealing strong ivory teeth. Unconscious of the fact that she betrayed her whole heart, she yielded, body and soul, to a power that swayed her as the wind sways a tree, its leaves flashing silvery undersides. From the very day when she had come home a month ago Abe had half divined it; it had been ever present with him, disturbing the flow of his moods.

A moment later Marion executed an adroit manoeuvre by separating the two men from the group. “Father,” she said, “Mr. Harrison is dying to see the farm. Will you show him? We shall get dinner meanwhile.”

Abe led the way; and as he did so, he saw from the corner of his eye a significant little by-play between the girl and her brother. With a broad, teasing smile Jim made a motion as if to join the men; but Marion, in sudden alarm, detained him by a touch on his arm. Jim laughed, scratched his head, and stood back.

As Abe and young Mr. Harrison crossed the yard to the old barn, the latter kept up a patter of talk. It might seem strange that, living in an agricultural country as he did, he had never been on a farm; yet such was the fact. Born and raised in the city, having no relatives in the west, his father, the judge, having come from Nova Scotia, he had seen the open country
only from train or car. He had often felt it a handicap that he knew nothing of the work of his clients….

“Well,” Abe said as they reached the open door of the barn, “if you want to see stock, Sunday's a bad time. Horses and cows are out on pasture. They may be a mile or two north.”

“Anything. It's all new to me.” In the door he turned. “A world in itself,” he said. “The trees shut it off.” The wind-breaks with their lofty, rustling tops were at their best just then.

“It isn't as it used to be. We are more dependent on the town.”

“I suppose so. There is less isolation. The car has changed that.”

Abe did not answer.

Perhaps nothing on earth so reflects the Sunday spirit of rest as a large, high, and empty barn, with the light entering through the rows of dusty windows above the stalls.

The very smell of hay and musty straw contributes to it. The air, pervaded with the slightest taint of ammonia and impelled by the currents which enter through the doors as if it were cooled by them, moves in a leisurely, lazy way. The world of work and worry seems far removed, veiled by a curtain of unreality. Time stands still. The paths which the sunspots trace over floor and walls are deprived of their significance as indicating the flow of the hours. The rectangles of brilliant light lie like palpable flakes, their edges curved and curled up by the chaff.

Abe felt disturbed by the presence of this stranger which reminded him of the fact that life called for decisions binding on all time to come.

Nothing was said for a while as the two strolled along side by side, the one huge and powerful, but stiffened by work and advancing years; the other dwarfed by his side, but lithe and young.

“That is the cow barn,” Abe said as they recrossed the yard.

Again they passed through the building, Abe handling a lever here or pressing a button there to illustrate the working of the equipment.

A small door led from the stable into the milk room; and thence into the east half where the implements were stored.

Between the new barn and the granaries lay the cool shade of the towering structure. West of the lane, just inside the wind-break, glistened the pond, a smooth sheet of water.

“Nothing much to see,” Abe said; yet he unfastened the door of the last of the granaries through which a wave of intensely hot air, laden with the smell of sun-parched timbers, struck their faces. Inside, in the semi-darkness, they saw, suspended from the ridge of the roof, huge tins filled with binder-twine and other things which had to be protected from mice. Against the partitions dividing the bins from the aisle, garden tools leaned; bags were piled in lots of two dozen each.

“I have three granaries,” Abe said, pointing by a swing of his arm. “We use a trap in the roof to fill them. For the rough grains I have bins in the lofts of the barns.” And, after a short, frowning pause, he added, “Wel-l-l,” and led the way to the house….

The sight of Marion in the presence of her lover haunted Abe for weeks. He tried to define the change in her; and whenever he did, he seemed to see a grey-white cloud just before the dawn and suddenly turned into a roseate marvel by the rays of the rising sun.

But there were other moods, induced by critical thought. This thing had come upon him with amazing swiftness. Why? Because nature plays human beings a scurvy trick in allowing a blind instinct to mature before thought and
insight are sufficiently developed to act as a check. It was he, the father, who must counterbalance it.

Trifles changed in the day's routine. Abe still rose at half-past three; but instead of lighting the fire himself, he knocked at Jim's door and left it to him to do so. After a while Abe even proposed that Jim get breakfast for the two of them. Henceforth nobody stirred in the house till, all chores being done, the men had gone to the field.

McCrae was a small, wiry young fellow with a red, smiling face which impressed perhaps by reason of a striking ugliness rather than by reason of beauty, though the latter was not entirely missing. For two-thirds of its area, including nose, forehead, lips, and one cheek, its skin was glossy and of a silky texture, as if it had been scalded in his childhood. Nose and lips were slightly asymmetrical, giving him a look of evil boldness which might have been repulsive had it not been in such perfect harmony with the swaggering nonchalance of his bearing. As it was, his very deformity lent an additional attraction to him.

Jim and McCrae were on the most friendly terms; they never met in the meadow without a challenge of wits.

Abe worked harder than either. Whenever he stopped, the power of consecutive thought seemed to leave him. Yet, at every halt necessitated by the horses' need for a rest, he looked about over the prairie as if to verify that every landmark was still in its place. For miles around nothing stirred in the fields unnoticed by him. Wheeldon, Stanley, Nawosad, Nicoll, Shilloe, Horanski, Topp, Elliot, Hilmer, and Schweigel–all were ploughing; wherever they went in their fields, a dust cloud trailed after them; for the soil was excessively dry, cracked with dryness; too dry to plough. Only weeds thrived in such weather; and to keep them down, the
ploughing had to be done. As usual Abe was the only one who was haying so far.

Marion? No doubt Ruth expected him to agree to the projected match without hesitation. The young man seemed desirable enough. Perhaps he was as eligible a husband for the girl as he, her father, could have picked. But how know? The responsibility rested with him; and he felt singularly disinclined to take risks. Was he getting old? All his life consisted in taking risks.

At dinner Abe met his three children around the board; and with them McCrae; for Ruth, yielding to necessity, had offered to give him his meals. Even at table Abe was preoccupied. An occasional scrap of the conversation he caught caused him surprise; Jim, McCrae, and Frances had much to laugh about. Marion smiled in an absent way.

In the midst of haying Abe left the farm on Saturday at noon, three weeks after young Harrison's first visit to the place. The other settlers were waiting for a rain which would make the grass grow. Abe knew better; he even left the wind-rows on the ground over Sunday.

In town, he had a half-hour's consultation with his brother-in-law, and together they went to Somerville in the latter's car, to gather information about the young lawyer. Between them, they talked every angle of the matter over; and when Abe reached home late in the day, he had made up his mind to speak to his daughter.

After supper, he switched the light on in the den and lingered in the dining-room. Marion, too, stayed behind, as if anticipating what was to follow. Ruth and Frances were in the kitchen where Marion rarely helped now. Abe caught the girl's eye and nodded towards his little room. As they entered, he closed the door behind his back.

“Sit down,” he said in a kindly voice, pointing to a chair at the end of the library table; and on his heavy, broad forehead appeared his settled frown. He wished to say what was in his mind in such a way as to spare her. But no matter how he might put it, it was bound to hold a note of reproach. In the sharp light of an unshaded bulb black shadows came into his face. “I wish you had let me know about this sooner.”

“Everything happened within a few hours,” Marion said. “We met at a young people's club, and I wrote mother the next day.”

Abe could hardly ask why she had not written to him. “Everything?”

“Before I knew it, I was engaged to be married.”

“At seventeen years? There are laws; and those who made them were guided by the wisdom of the ages.”

“They put the age below which a girl may not marry at sixteen.”

“With the consent of the parents.”

“That consent…”

“I cannot give within a year.”

Pallor spread over the face of the girl; the look in her eyes became tragic. But her voice was tinged by a challenge. “In a year I won't need any one's consent.”

Abe placed a hand on the table between them as if he were reaching for hers. “You won't be without it.”

“Father,” the girl cried, rising in the ecstasy of her passion. “You don't understand. We cannot wait. We cannot live without each other. A year…. If you understood, you would not keep us apart. I felt so sure that all would be well as soon as I came home….”

“All will be well,” Abe said almost impatiently. “But you must wait. That is all there is to say.” And, with a shrug of his
shoulders, he left the room while the girl sank back on her chair….

At night, when the children had gone to bed, anxious to escape the charged atmosphere of the dining-room, Abe and Ruth confronted each other. It was she who spoke first.

“Just what is your objection to John, Abe?”

He stopped in his walk. “I have no objection to him. I have made inquiries. But the girl is too young to think of marriage.”

“Marion
is
rather young. But hardly too young to be happy.”

“Let her be happy in the way of her years.”

“It is too late to consider that.”

“That is not my fault.”

“You mean it was I who sent her to high school?”

“Exactly.”

“It proves that I was right. Whom could she meet in a place like this? Henry Topp? The time would have come when she would have wanted a home of her own. She would have had to take what she could get.”

“She would have had the maturity to make her choice.”

“When there would have been no choice to make.”

“She fell a victim to the first man bold enough to make love to her.”

“Do you think a girl like Marion could live in a town for three years without more than one man trying to make love to her?”

“And to that you were willing to expose your child?”

“You are old-fashioned, Abe.”

“That means I am sensible.”

“Marion has seen others. Young people have their meetings these days. She has chosen well.”

Abe took several turns through the room. “She is in her puberty,” he said at last. “Just ready to develop her inner life. Satisfy sexual instincts at that stage, and higher things cease.”

Ruth looked up. “Abe, I hear your brother-in-law through you.”

“My brother-in-law has seen much of life. I am not ashamed to admit that I learn from him.” Abe sat down. “Ruth! You speak as if you wished to hurt my pride. I have no pride left. I am anxious to do what seems right to me according to my lights. I will be frank. This comes at a time when it disturbs me greatly. I wish we could see eye to eye. Is it so much that I ask? I want her to wait a year, that is all.”

And for the moment, Ruth being under the influence of Abe's plea, it did not seem much. Ten years later it would seem a trifle. Yet she could hardly give in quite gracefully. “Since she needs your consent,” she said, “she will have to wait, I suppose.”

And there, for the time being, the matter rested.

CHANGES

N
ext day, Mr. Harrison arrived in the early afternoon and had a long interview with Abe from which he emerged frowning. Yet a formal engagement was recognized to exist between the lovers. Henceforth he came every Sunday and often, on weekdays, at night. Marion, Frances, he, and Jim played ball on the lawn east of the house; and Marion and he had long walks in the wind-breaks where regular footpaths were becoming established among the trees. In the evenings, Ruth went with them, allowing the young people to pair off by themselves. At ten or eleven, the patient lover returned to Somerville in his car.