Читать книгу The Yoke of Life - Frederick Philip Grove - Страница 5

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A VIEW OF THE FIELDS

Once more eighteen months had gone by. It was summer when, one morning about nine o'clock, Mr. Crawford's buggy drove into Kolm's yard and through the pole-gate, beyond, into the bush that surrounded the fields. Within a few minutes he reached the clearing where wheat stood five inches high: a good, even stand on cleared land, ten or fifteen acres of it, running north and south.

To the west, there was a newly-cleared strip freshly broken where four people were at work, a man, a woman, and two boys. At the edge, a baby sat on a blanket, propped up with pillows which lacked their slips. Near the northern end, where the man and one of the boys were working, stood a wagon hitched with two horses.

Mr. Crawford alighted and tied his drivers to a tree.

Kolm who had seen him went on with his work; and everybody took his clue from him. Like the rest, he was barefooted; but his head was covered with a cotton cap. His enormous chest showed its hairy skin, for the faded blue shirt, much patched on elbows and shoulder-blades, was open in front. His legs were encased in soiled and torn black-denim trousers.

Len who, in the meantime, had grown extraordinarily, as if he were going to make up for past neglect, looked all too slender; both he and Charlie were similarly attired. But Charlie, in spite of his smaller size, looked healthier, more resistant and robust than his brother. Len struggled with the stones which he lifted into the wagon-box, straining every muscle with the effort of desperation; Charlie pulled at the roots which he helped his mother to pile as a boy playing football calls to his aid every ounce of endeavour of which he is capable.

The woman wore a shawl over her head. She was ghastly pale. Her gingham dress was hanging unevenly about her bare legs. She had not seen the man who was approaching; and when he greeted her, she stopped, startled, and dropped her root. As if to suppress the sudden pounding of her heart by outward pressure, she raised a hand to her breast.

"You scared me," she said with a wan smile on her yellow face.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Crawford said, passing on with a nod.

Charlie sang out a pleasant "Hello!" But, without stopping, he pulled at his root with all his might, as though he were "showing off."

Next, Mr. Crawford passed Len who smiled as he lifted his thin face.

By this time Kolm who had been swinging his pick to loosen an enormous stone from the clinging soil had dropped his tool and was throwing the sweat off his forehead with a crooked finger of his left. His right hand he was wiping along the leg of his trousers.

"How are you?" he asked, looking at the caller out of his small and honest but cavernous eyes.

Mr. Crawford stopped as he shook hands, standing on one leg and supporting himself by his cane. "Clearing?" he asked.

"Breaking," the giant corrected. "The clearing is done in winter."

"What will that bring you up to?"

"Twenty-three acres, more or less."

"A nice field; and bush soil. Hard to break and so on; but it gives the yield. What with present prices, you should do well."

Kolm laughed. "High prices cut both ways. The farmer who is established and has his equipment is making money. But we beginners. . . . If there were no debt!"

"Well, it seems, even a small farm like yours should easily carry a thousand or so . . ."

Again Kolm laughed. "Tell you," he said. "Put a debt of a thousand on a raw bush farm, and you might just as well put a rope around the farmer's neck. Look how we work. The whole family's slaving away. From dawn till dark. What for? We work for the Jew. And the lawyer. To stave off foreclosure. . . . Of course," he went on, flinging an arm, "we are getting there. A few more years, and a little good luck! Once out of debt, never in again! I wouldn't buy a cup on credit."

"You have learned your lesson? . . . Now, Mr. Kolm, I came to speak to you about certain things. Do you mind if I see your wife and the boys before I do so?"

Kolm looked surprised; but he said readily enough, "Not at all. Go as far as you like."

During this short colloquy none of the other three members of the family had for a moment stopped work. All three had cast an occasional furtive glance on the group by the wagon, wondering what the men might be talking about. But even Charlie had gone on pulling up roots as if he were anxious to win a foreman's approval.

It was he to whom Mr. Crawford went first. "Well, you ride after the cows now, don't you?"

"Yes, sir," Charlie said with humorous mock alacrity.

"When do you get to bed at night?"

"Half past ten, eleven o'clock—if I find the cows right away."

"And if you don't?"

"It may be midnight before the milking's done."

"Do you find it hard to get up in the morning?"

The boy grinned roguishly.

"Bed feels good, eh?"

"You bet!" the boy replied with precocious emphasis.

Mr. Crawford passed on to the woman who lowered her eyes. Hers was not the bashfulness of a girl unused to being addressed by a stranger; rather that of a woman who has seen better days and is ashamed to be found in her poverty. She gave a flabby hand to the caller.

"You don't look well, Mrs. Kolm. This is heavy work."

"It's got to be done."

"Might I ask when you had your last child?"

A startled look came into the woman's eyes which evaded those of the man. Then she pointed to the margin of the field. "She's a little over a year old," she said.

"How many have you had altogether?"

"Five. Two are dead. And of course . . ." she added as if she were concealing something.

"Yes?"

"I've had several miscarriages since."

"When was the last?"

"Three days ago."

"You did not stay in bed very long?"

"In bed?" she repeated. The jaundiced colour of her face had given way to a glowing, unhealthy copper red. "It rained the next day; so I stayed at the house."

"But you did the housework and milked at night? . . . You have not always lived on the farm?"

"No. For the last ten years now." For a moment she stood silent. Then, as if a dam had been removed, "Yes. If only my first man had lived! He had a head on him. He could manage things. I never did any hard work. We had a hired man. It was he"—with a scarcely perceptible nod towards Kolm. "My first man built the house. If he had lived, it wouldn't be what it is. He was handy, you know. He could do all sorts of things. The stable, too, he built. This man can't do a thing but work like a brute."

"Don't be unjust," Mr. Crawford interrupted her. "I understand he had to take over debt and encumbrances."

"Yes," she replied with a sudden abandon. "There was debt. You can't run a farm without debt. I was a fool to marry this man. What could they have done except take the farm. I'd have gone back to the city and hired out."

"Perhaps," Mr. Crawford said. "But once you are established, where is there a life that can compare in independence and security with that of the farmer?"

The woman laughed. "Why are you not farming yourself?"

Mr. Crawford touched his foot with his cane. "The reason is there."

A few minutes later Mr. Crawford returned to the place where he had first spoken to Kolm. Kolm had meanwhile driven his wagon to the edge of the clearing and was unloading a perch or so of stone. While the teacher waited for him to return, Charlie and his mother were kindling a pile of roots and brush. Soon it flamed up in the morning sun, disengaging a thick, acrid column of smoke which, at the height of the tree-tops in the bush, blew away to the south like a plume.

As the wagon returned, Mr. Crawford nodded to the giant. "Could I speak to you alone for a few minutes?" he asked with a look at Len.

"Go and help Charlie," Kolm said to the boy.

"Mr. Kolm," the teacher went on when the boy was out of ear-shot, "before I say anything else, I should like to explain my visit to you. Len has not been in school for over a year now. Once in a life-time a teacher meets with a boy or a girl who convinces him that he is destined for the highest things if he is given a chance. Such a boy is Len. Not to give him the chance would be a crime if it were wilfully done. To give it would be the greatest service any man can do his country. That must explain why I am here. There is no other motive. Believe me, I am sincere."

Kolm cleared his throat. "I have no doubt about that."

"Mr. Kolm," the teacher went on, "you cannot but be aware of the fact that Len is not very strong."

Kolm laughed an embarrassed laugh and scratched his head.

"I don't mean only that he has no great muscular strength. But I understand that his father died of consumption. If you overwork the boy, he will go the same way."

"That so?" Kolm asked. "They say, it's hereditary."

"Not the disease. But the predisposition."

"And he's got that?"

"He is bound to have it."

"Well, now," Kolm said, "you are putting this thing up to me as if it were I who has to decide. I don't know that that's fair."

Mr. Crawford lifted himself to a sitting position in the rear of the wagon box.

"Do you know what I'm up against?" Kolm went on. "I married into this family, taking over the children and the debt. I did it because I saw that something had to be done for them. Some fools think I fell into a soft bed. That's nonsense. We are getting there, sure enough. But it takes every bit of the work of every one on the place. It will take years.

"How about other settlers here in the bush? There isn't one left out of every five that started. Where are they? They put in three, four years of their lives and then go back to the town to work for wages. New settlers come and take their places; and they, too, leave in their turn. It takes three, four settlers in succession before one can make it a go. Each profits from the labour the last one put in.

"Take Jackson. He bought his place; he had money, not made on the farm. There were forty acres cleared on the place when he took it over. He's the fourth to try his hand. The third one proved up. But the moment he did, he was lost because he owed money. Best thing for him, too. He could never have made a success. Hausman may pull through. He doesn't need to prove up till he's out of debt.

"How about the rest? Did you see the pile of lumber I've got in my yard? Do you know where it comes from? You've seen deserted clearings in the bush, with the remnants of buildings in ruins. That's where the lumber comes from. It's rotting there in the shade. I might as well have it.

"Money? I never see money from one end of the year to the other. When I take wheat to town, I take the ticket over to the implement agent without cashing it. Glad if it pays the interest. Cream cheques? They go to the store. Cord wood? We get what we need in clothes.

"To run this place so as to owe a little less at the end of every year takes all the work and planning a man and a woman and two children can do. And unless we have luck, we cannot do that."

"Mr. Kolm," the teacher said, "suppose things take a little more time if you let Len go to school in winter. Three more years, and he could teach in this school and make money for you."

"Perhaps," the giant said stolidly. "If we could wait. But we can never wait. Last year we had two hundred bushels of potatoes to sell. They went up to a dollar or so in spring. We needed flour in the fall and got forty cents. The man who can wait for a higher price is the man who doesn't need it. What does it say in the Bible? To him that has shall be given. That's the law of the world.

"I leave it to you. Here I sit in the bush. I want to do the right thing. By the family and by the country. I can make this homestead a go; or I can make a teacher out of the boy. Take your choice."

"Put it this way," Mr. Crawford said mercilessly, "you can make the boy happy; and you can kill him."

Kolm shrugged his shoulders. "This wilderness," he said, "eats us up. They tell us before we come to this country that they will give us free land. They don't tell us that what they really want is our free labour in clearing it and making it fit for human beings to live in. I don't complain, you know. I am merely stating facts as I see them. When I married this woman, I knew what I was letting myself in for. I preferred it to going back into wage slavery over there. I still think I can make it a go. But I need the help of the boy and—the woman."

"Since you mention the woman. . . . I won't put it harshly. But a pregnant woman should not work in the field. And during the last month she should do nothing that could be called work."

"That so?" Kolm asked. "How about the rest of the women around?"

"Exactly. Whence this appalling mortality among the children? Miscarriages outnumber the normal births. If that is a law, it is no law of God's. How is it that your wife looks a woman of fifty? I don't suppose she is more than . . ."

"Thirty-five," Kolm replied, throwing up his hands. "Don't tell me it's my fault. If you do, I'll do something desperate."

"It's the fault of the circumstances. But perhaps, Mr. Kolm, you could do something to mitigate the harshness of it."

The giant looked from the man to the woman who worked in the distance. With a sudden movement, as of rage, he straightened and shouted across the field. "Anna!" he called. And, when the woman looked up, "Go home! Go home, I say! Do the work at the house!" And, turning back to the caller whose look betrayed that the course of events rather frightened him, he added, "I don't want it said that I ruin the woman. As for the boy, if things go well this fall, I'll send him to school, in winter, when harvest is over."

Mr. Crawford sprang down from his seat. "Thanks," he said. "I know, Mr. Kolm, you are making a sacrifice; and I appreciate it."

The giant's movement was one of despair.