CHAPTER IV
THE OPENING OF THE RIFT
A week after his meeting with Beatrice Mowbray, Harding went out one morning to plow. He was in a thoughtful mood, but it was characteristic that he did not allow his reflections to interfere with his work. His house was unfinished, and the nights were getting cold; but neither Hester nor he placed personal comfort first, and there was a strip of land that must be broken before the frost set in.
It was a calm morning and bright sunshine poured down upon the grass that ran back, growing faintly blue in the distance, until it faded into the mellow haze that shut in the wide circle of prairie. Here and there the smooth expanse was broken by small, gleaming ponds and wavy lines of timber picked out in delicate shades of indigo and gray, but the foreground was steeped in strong color. Where the light struck it, the withered grass shone like silver; elsewhere it was streaked with yellow and cinnamon. The long furrows traced across it were a rich chocolate-brown, and the turned-back clods had patches of oily brightness on their faces. The leaves in a neighboring bluff formed spots of cadmium; and even the big breaker plow, painted crude green and vermilion, did not seem out of place. It was a new implement, the best that Harding could buy, and two brawny red oxen hauled it along. Oxen are economical to feed and have some advantages in the first stages of breaking land, but Harding meant to change them for Clydesdale horses and experiment with mechanical traction. He used the old methods where they paid, but he believed in progress.
As he guided the slowly moving beasts and watched the clods roll back, his brown face was grave; for he had been troubled during the past seven days. When he looked up at Beatrice Mowbray on the river bank something strange and disturbing had happened to him. He was not given to indulgence in romantic sentiment and, absorbed as he had been, first by the necessity of providing for his sister and himself, and afterward by practical ambitions, he had seldom spared a thought to women. Marriage did not attract him. He felt no longing for close companionship or domestic comfort; indeed, he rather liked a certain amount of hardship. True, his heart had once or twice been mildly stirred by girls he had met. They were pretty and likable – otherwise he would not have been attracted, for his taste was good.
In some respects, Harding was primitive; but this, perhaps, tended to give him a clearer understanding of essential things, and he had a vague belief that he would some day meet the woman who was destined to be his true mate. What was more, he would recognize her when he saw her.
And when he had looked up at Beatrice in the moonlight, standing out, clear cut, against the somber background of poplars, the knowledge that she was the one woman had rushed over him, surging through him as strong as the swift-running river through which he had brought her. But, now that the thing had happened, he must grapple with a difficult situation. He knew his own value, and believed that he had abilities which would carry him far toward material success; but he also knew his limitations and the strength of the prejudices that would be arrayed against him. That he should hope to win this girl of patrician stock was, in a sense, ludicrous. Yet he had read courage in her, and steadfastness; if she loved him, she would not count too great any sacrifice she made for his sake. But this was only one side of the matter. Brought up as she had been, she might not stand the strain of such a life as his must be for a time. A deep tenderness awoke within him; he felt that she must be sheltered from all trouble and gently cared for.
Harding suddenly broke into a grim laugh. He was going much too fast – there was no reason to believe that the girl had given him a passing thought.
With a call to the oxen he went on with his plowing, and the work brought him encouragement. It was directly productive: next fall the prairie he ripped apart would be covered with ripening grain. He had found that no well-guided effort was lost: it bore fruit always – in his case, at the rate of twenty bushels of wheat, or fifty bushels of oats, to the acre. When the seed was wisely sown the harvest followed; and Harding had steadily enlarged his crop. Now he had made his boldest venture; and he looked forward to the time when his labor should change the empty plain into a fertile field.
A jolt of the plow disturbed him, and as he looked up the oxen stopped. The share had struck hard ground. On one side, a sinuous line of trail, rutted by wheels and beaten firm by hoofs, seamed the prairie; on the other, the furrows ran across and blotted it out. It was a road the Allenwood settlers used, and Harding knew well what he was doing when he plowed into it. Still, the land was his and must produce its proper yield of grain, while to clear the trail with his implements would entail much useless labor. He had no wish to be aggressive, but if these people took his action as a challenge, the fault would be theirs. It was with a quiet, determined smile that he called to the oxen and held down the share.
At noon he turned the animals loose, and going back to camp, felt his heart throb as he saw Beatrice Mowbray talking to Hester. A team stood near by, and the boy he had met in the bluff was stooping down beside a light four-wheeled vehicle. Beatrice gave Harding a smile of recognition and went on talking, but her brother came up to him.
"The pole came loose," he explained; "and I thought you might lend me something to fasten it with."
"Certainly," Harding said, stooping to examine the damaged pole. "It won't fasten," he added. "It's broken between the iron straps, and there's not wood enough to bolt them on again."
Lance frowned.
"That's a nuisance!"
"I will give you a pole," Harding said. "There is some lumber here that will do."
He picked up a small birch log as he spoke, and, throwing it upon two trestles, set to work with an ax. When he had it about the right size, Lance interrupted him.
"That's good enough. I'll get it smoothed off when the carpenter comes out from the settlement."
"That is not my plan," Harding smiled. "I like to finish a job."
He adjusted a plane, and Beatrice watched him as he ran it along the pole. It had not struck her hitherto that one could admire the simple mechanical crafts, but she thought there was something fine in the prairie farmer's command of the tool. She noticed his easy poise as he swung to and fro, the rhythmic precision of his movements, and the accurate judgment he showed. As the thin shavings streamed across his wrist the rough log began to change its form, growing through gently tapered lines into symmetry. Though he had only his eye to guide him, Beatrice saw that he was skilfully striking the balance between strength and lightness, and it was a surprise to find elements of beauty in such a common object as a wagon-pole. She felt that Harding had taught her something when he turned to Lance, saying:
"There! I guess we can put that in."
The irons were soon refitted, and while Lance harnessed the team, Beatrice came to Harding with a smile.
"Thank you!" she said. "It's curious that you should help me out of a difficulty twice within a week."
Harding flushed.
"If you should happen to meet with another, I hope I'll be near," he returned.
"You like helping people?"
He pondered this longer than she thought it deserved.
"I believe I like straightening things out. It jars me to see any one in trouble when there's a way of getting over it; and I hate to see effort wasted and tools unfit for work."
"Efficiency is your ideal, then?"
"Yes. I don't know that it ever struck me before, but you have hit it. All the same, efficiency is hard to attain."
Beatrice looked at him curiously.
"I don't believe you are really a carpenter," she said.
"Unless you have plenty of money when you start breaking prairie, you have to be a number of things," he answered, smiling. "Difficulties keep cropping up, and they must be attacked."
"Without previous knowledge or technical training?"
He gave her a quick, appreciative glance.
"You have a knack of getting at the heart of things!" he said in his blunt way. "It's not common."
Beatrice laughed, but she felt mildly flattered.