WHITEOAK HARVEST
WHITEOAK
HARVEST
MAZO DE LA ROCHE
DUNDURN PRESS
TORONTO
Copyright © 2010 The Estate of Mazo de la Roche and Dundurn Press Limited
First published in Canada by Macmillan Company of Canada in 1936.
This 2010 edition of Whiteoak Harvest is published in a new trade paperback format.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Project Editor: Michael Carroll
Copy Editor: Jennifer McKnight
Design: Jennifer Scott
Printer: Marquis
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
De la Roche, Mazo, 1879-1961
Whiteoak harvest / Mazo de la Roche.
Originally publ.: Boston : Little Brown, 1936.
ISBN 978-1-55488-467-4
I. Title.
PS8507.E43W45 2009 C813’.52 C2009-903248-1
1 2 3 4 5 14 13 12 11 10
We acknowledge the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
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For Ted and Fritzi Weeks
CONTENTS
VI The Celibates
VII Renny and Clara and Pauline
VIII Return of the Uncles
IX The Return of Sarah and Finch
X Changing Winds
XI The Novice
XII Sale at the Fox Farm
XIII The End of Endurance
XIV Escape
XV The Adoring Wife
XVI His Own Room
XVII Early Autumn
XVIII A Day of Adeline
XIX Alayne and the New Life
XX The Coming of Winter
XXI Christmas
XXII Clara
XXIII Adeline’s First Journey
XXIV The House on the Hudson
XXV Miss Archer and Renny
XXVI How They Took the News
XXVII The Newcomers
XXVIII Spring
XXIX Harriet and Finch
XXX Paid in Full
XXXI Unravelling
THE OWNER OF the touring car was interested in the filling station from which he was getting a fresh supply of gasoline but his wife was more interested in the young man who was attending to their wants. She had studied art for a time and it seemed to her that she had never studied a model who had so stirred her imagination. She found herself wishing that she could see him on the models’ stand in an attitude that would best display his slender yet vigorous body, his handsome head covered with dark waving hair. She nudged her husband and with a glance drew his attention from the filling station to its owner.
“Streamline,” her husband said, out of the side of his mouth.
“Look at his hands,” she murmured.
“Hm — hm,” he grunted.
“And his eyelashes.”
“Too long.”
The youth turned off the fluid and addressed the driver of the car.
“That will be two dollars,” he said pleasantly. He added, as the motorist produced his wallet: “You have come quite a distance; it’s a Texas licence, isn’t it?”
“Yes, we’ve had a long trip but we’ve enjoyed it. This is a pretty country around here.”
The youth smiled as he pocketed the money. “I suppose it is,” he said, “though I am no judge. I’ve never been anywhere else.”
“Lived here all your life, eh?”
“All my life. I’ve always wanted to travel. But I have never been able to afford it.”
“Oh, well, there’s lots of time for you,” said the motorist, with a rather envious glance at the boy’s slender length.
His wife put in — “You ought to go on the films. You’d make lots of money there.”
“On the contrary, I am about to be married.”
“No!” she exclaimed. “You don’t say so! You’re certainly young.”
“I feel that an early marriage will be best for me,” he returned gravely.