Читать книгу Fruits of the Earth - Frederick Philip Grove - Страница 9

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With the last year of the decade a series of three wet seasons began, bringing momentous developments.

Hilmer had built a frame shack of three rooms, a long, shed-like building facing the road. His mother, a woman of sixty or so, had joined him, bringing two children of ten and eleven respectively and a man much younger than herself to whom she had recently been married. This man, Grappentin by name, did not settle down on the place but appeared and disappeared periodically. Mrs. Grappentin owned another farm, in trust for the two children of her second marriage, south of the Somerville Line. This farm her third husband was supposed to work; but it was said that he allowed it "to go to the devil"; that, when the spirit moved him, he went and fetched horse or cow or a piece of equipment to sell and to spend the proceeds on drink or intercourse with loose women. Mrs. Grappentin became a frequent visitor to most farms in the district. Vigorously she strode over the prairie, a grotesque sight, for she was lean and ugly and resembled the idea which children have of a witch in the woods. She would sit about and gossip in broken English till she was given a trilling something--a piece of meat, a small bag of grain, or a handful of eggs; when, with fantastic praises of the givers, she would promptly take her leave. All of which she did, under protest of her son, as a means of paying for "her keep." There was only one place where she never called, and that was Abe's.

Abe, early in 1910, surprised the district by acquiring the whole of the Hudson's Bay section north of his place, for which he was variously reported to have paid from four to eight thousand dollars "spot cash." As a matter of fact, he paid three thousand six hundred--four hundred dollars more than the price quoted to him when he had made the first inquiry regarding the land. With values rising, he could not wait.

Spring opened with heavy rains. Just as the first great thaw had begun to honeycomb the deep snow which covered the prairie, a blinding snowstorm turned into a washing downpour--a thing unusual for the latitude. As a rule, the thaw proceeded by stages, interrupted by sharp frosts which stayed the waters; and the land would be bare of snow before the flood came from the hills. This year the rain condensed a process which ordinarily took a month into the short space of a week. The winter's snow melted within a few days; and the rain added to the flood. The sky remained clouded; and no check retarded the thaw.

Nor did the water seem to move for a day or two except in the ditches, whose presence was indicated by dirty-white foam-lines streaking the otherwise mud-coloured expanse. Underneath, the ground remained frozen. Nobody could leave his house except in hip-boots of rubber.

The first twenty-four hours Abe remained at home. Although the foundation of the barn was raised well above the ground, the flood stood two inches deep on its floor. One of the granaries still held grain. Throughout the first day Abe worked with Bill at the task of raising it, going from corner to corner, jacking the building up by a few inches, and forcing pieces of planking under it. The cellar of the house brimmed with water.

The second day, he walked over to Nicoll's, in hip-boots; and there he found a crowd assembled in the yard: Stanley, Nawosad, Shilloe, and Hartley. He heard of much damage done.

The bridge had been carried away; Hartley's shack had been swept from the railway ties and tilted up; wife and children were climbing about on a slanting floor; Shilloe had had to abandon his place; Blaine, who had converted what was meant to be a teacher's office in the school into a small bedroom, was a prisoner there, without food, for he had been boarding at Nicoll's.

"Where did you go?" Abe asked of Shilloe.

"To Mr. Stanley's. I am staying in his granary."

Stanley and Nicoll had no damage to report except that their cellars were flooded and the floors of their stables covered with water.

Abe assumed command. "We must get Blaine out."

"By golly!" Hartley exclaimed. "This isn't a country fit to live in, what with no roads--"

"We'll get the roads," Abe said briefly, and, turning to Shilloe, "Take one of Nicoll's horses and go to my place. Tell Bill to hitch up the Percherons and bring them along, with a wagon. Tie Nicoll's horse behind. You take the Clyde team. Put some eveners into the wagon, and all the chains and ropes you can find."

"All right." And the Ukrainian went to the stable, splashing.

"What are you going to do, Abe?" Nicoll asked.

"Get the culvert back into place. We can't leave Blaine there."

Shilloe and Hartley had turned their horses out to shift for themselves, for there were haystacks scattered through the meadows.

Abe sent Nawosad and Stanley to get a team and a wagon with which to rescue the Hartleys. Nicoll harnessed his horses.

An hour went by; then, splashing the water over their heads, plunging and all but beyond control--for the slippery ground made it hard for them to keep their feet--Abe's eight horses came from the west, with Bill standing in the wagon-box, dripping and drenched at every step with ice-cold water though he was hooded in canvas.

Abe, in hip-boots, short slicker coat, and wide-brimmed southwester, was the only one who had adequate protection against rain and spray. He took over the wagon and dismissed Bill. "Tell my wife," he said. "I may not be home before night."

Nicoll hooked his four horses together and, paying out their lines, climbed into the rear of the wagon. Shilloe rode one of the four Clydes.

"If it gets any worse--" Nicoll said dubiously.

"It won't," Abe replied. "But we've got to be able to get out. When we get this culvert into place, we must see about Hilmer's. Come on, Hartley. We need every hand we can get."

When all was ready, he swung his lines over the sleek backs of his Percherons; and they started with a rush, throwing the water house-high, for it covered their knees. As they left the wind-break behind, they saw Nawosad and Bill Stanley, a lad of fifteen now, coming from the north. Stanley himself had remained at home, for the boy had two arms. Without stopping, Abe waved to them to fall into line. This was an emergency in which his captaincy went unchallenged. None of those who saw him that day disputed his leadership for years to follow. He did not complain; he accepted things as they were and did what had to be done.

There had been trouble about the school. But nobody denied any longer that Blaine's work was more than satisfactory. Yet, had it not been for Abe, he would never have been called into the district; and Abe upheld him when a feeling, characteristic of the west, asserted itself that it was time for a change. After the work of this spring, opposition ceased; and this was going to be of importance shortly.

Davis, councillor and road-boss for the ward, had visited the district a year ago. He had promised to get these settlers a road to town; but last fall it had become known that he had used his influence to have his own outlet to the Somerville Line raised by a foot and surfaced with gravel. Abe was the only man who could be opposed to him with any chance of success; but when, during the winter, matters had been discussed at Nicoll's Corner, Hartley and one or two others had been afraid of entrusting Abe with power: he might use it too autocratically. Meanwhile Davis was offering inducements right and left to secure his own re-election. After this spring, there was only one feeling from which even Hartley dared not openly dissent. Abe might refuse to consult them; but he was the man to do the right thing.

Arrived at the point where the culvert had lodged slantwise across the ditch, with the swirling current tugging at it, Abe stopped the horses, of which there were eighteen in all. To the south, Shilloe's buildings seemed to float on a lake; to the north, Hartley's shanty stood tilted up. Abe sent Nawosad with Stanley's two horses to take the family out on Hartley's hayrack. "Take them to my place. To the empty granary. Let them take their own beddings. Tell Bill to look after them in the line of food." He glanced at Hartley, as much as to say he had better join his family for the moment; but Hartley did not stir from the floor of the wagon-box.

Abe, Bill Stanley, Shilloe, and Nicoll descended into the water which stood here nearly two feet deep.

Together they fastened a chain to a corner of the culvert, securing it to projecting timbers. To this chain they fastened two four-horse eveners, close to the corner; then, leading the chain forward, they fastened one evener to its end; and another, a matter of ten feet behind it, in such a way as to make Nicoll's team straddle the chain. Abe and Shilloe gathered the lines of the last two teams, and Nicoll and Bill Stanley took charge of those in front.

At a signal from Abe, following the brisk question, "Ready there?" all the horses bent forward; and the culvert slipped to the northern bank of the ditch. A few timbers crashed with splintering sounds.

Abe shouted a signal to stop and to breathe the horses. Then they swung on to the trail to the west. The broken braces underneath stayed behind; and the sledding of the structure, buoyed up by the water, grew easier at once. Again Abe called a halt.

"You'd better unhook, Nicoll. We'll manage with three teams. Go back for the wagon. We'll need the chains."

And forward again, the horses plunging wherever they met with soft footing. When the water was thrown aloft in sheets, Shilloe and Bill Stanley laughed. Abe's broad face never moved under the projecting southwester; he took the brunt of it all; unlike the others, he stayed behind his horses, watching them closely, for Beaut, the leader, was with colt.

At last they had covered the mile and a half and came to the crossing. But the biggest piece of work remained to be done: the culvert, forty feet long, had to be manoeuvred across the swirling ditch; they waited for Nicoll. Nawosad passed them, with the Hartleys on the rack. Hartley himself had, after all, chosen to join them and was reclining on a miscellaneous assortment of bedding.

Abe frowned when he saw him. Was he going to be content to let others rescue him and his without lending a hand?

There followed three hours of titanic struggle. With poles and timbers they pushed the culvert into the wild current, often themselves in danger of slipping into deep water. The near corner was anchored, by a long chain, to Nicoll's corner post, with enough slack to let the structure swing to the edge of the ditch. Another chain was fastened to the far corner which would be the forward one on the other bank. That chain lay coiled on the floating floor. Three times they almost succeeded in lodging the culvert against the far bank; one of them ran to pick up the coiled chain and to take the leap; but whenever the strength of a man was withdrawn, the culvert, caught broadside on by the current, swung back and frustrated all that had been done.

Meanwhile, at the school which faced them with its northern row of windows, there was a spectator. Old man Blaine, as people called him, stood on the cement stoop of the trim, white building, his trousers clasped at the bottom as if he expected to use the bicycle for his escape. He looked on out of haggard eyes, a soft felt hat on his grey hair, his sandy, grey-streaked beard reaching to his waist. He seemed to stoop under the weight of his head, unconscious of the cold drizzle which interposed a veil between him and the men, so that he looked like a creature of mist.

Nobody, so far, had thought of stopping for a meal when Nicoll proposed to fetch Tom, his oldest boy, to help. They must have another hand. But Abe shook his head and pointed to the south where a black spot was approaching out of the rain-dimmed distance, cleaving the surface of the huge lake. Hilmer had seen them from his place.

They rested, waiting.

When Hilmer arrived, Abe shouted directions. And once more they manoeuvred the culvert into the stream till its far point touched the submerged bank on the other side. Hilmer showed that he could at least carry out instructions. With a jump he landed on the raft, picked up the chain, and was back on the flooded prairie before the culvert had swung out again too far to take the leap. Heedless of the fact that he was getting drenched to his shoulders, he ran till the chain was taut and gave it two or three quick turns around the corner post of the school yard. But still the culvert lay at an angle. So Abe slackened the chain on the north side, allowing the culvert to drift till it bridged the ditch at right angles. Hilmer joined the other men.

The next problem was how to get a team across. But, Hilmer reporting that his culvert was still in place, though in need of being anchored, Abe changed his mind. "We'll go down by and by," he said. "Let's have something to eat. You go home," he added to Bill Stanley. "We won't need you again. Take your team and get into dry clothes."

"How about Blaine?" Nicoll asked.

"I'll carry him over. Can you feed us all?"

Half an hour later, Abe, carrying the teacher on his back, entered Nicoll's yard where the horses were munching hay and oats from the box of a wagon, up to their hocks in water.

At the house, dinner was ready. Two tall, slender girls and the enormous woman waited on the famished crew; three big boys and a host of smaller girls sat about in the dim room, devouring every word that was spoken. To them this was a red-letter day: the men were heroes and giants fighting the elements. Outside, the rain was thickening again.

It was past five o'clock when Abe, leaving his Clydes at Nicoll's Corner, himself straddling the Percheron gelding, tackled the task of taking horses and wagon across a culvert which moved under foot. Two or three times he made the attempt; but when their feet touched the floating edge of the timbers, the horses reared and backed away. At last Nicoll, Shilloe, and Hilmer bestrode one each of the other horses; and though they still scattered water all about them, their riders forced them on.

At Hilmer's Corner they anchored the bridge; it was dark by that time; but for fear that the worst might happen and they be cut off from the world, they did not give in till all was safe. It was midnight before Abe got home; and the rain was falling with that steady swish with which it falls on a sea becalmed.