A Splendid Year For Corn.
We had just finished supper. Supper! dry bread and sugarless tea. Dad was tired out and was resting at one end of the sofa; Joe was stretched at the other, without a pillow, and his legs tangled up among Dad's. Bill and Tom squatted in the ashes, while Mother tried to put the fat-lamp into burning order by poking it with a table-fork.
Dad was silent; he seemed sad, and lay for some time gazing at the roof.
He might have been watching the blaze of the glorious moon or counting the stars through the gaps in the shingles, but he was n't--there was no such sentiment in Dad. He was thinking how his long years of toil and worry had been rewarded again and again by disappointment--wondering if ever there would be a turn in his luck, and how he was going to get enough out of the land that season to pay interest and keep Mother and us in bread and meat.
At last he spoke, or rather muttered disjointedly, "Plen-ty--to eat--in the safe." Then suddenly, in a strange and hollow voice, he shouted,"THEY' RE DEAD--ALL OF THEN! I STARVED THEM!"Mother DID get a fright. She screamed. Then Dad jumped up, rubbing his eyes, and asked what was the matter. Nothing was the matter THEN. He had dozed and talked in his sleep, that was all; he had n't starved anyone.
Joe did n't jump up when Mother screamed--not altogether; he raised himself and reached for Dad's pillow, then lay down and snored serenely till bed-time.
Dad sat gloomily by the fire and meditated. Mother spoke pleadingly to him and asked him not to fret. He ran his fingers uneasily through his hair and spat in the ashes. "Don't fret? When there's not a bit to eat in the place--when there's no way of getting anything, and when--merciful God!--every year sees things worse than they were before.""It's only fancy," Mother went on. "And you've been brooding and brooding till it seems far worse than it really is.""It's no fancy, Ellen." Then, after a pause--"Was the thirty acres of wheat that did n't come up fancy? Is it only fancy that we've lost nearly every beast in the paddock? Was the drought itself a fancy? No--no."And he shook his head sadly and stared again into the fire.
Dad's inclination was to leave the selection, but Mother pleaded for another trial of it--just one more. She had wonderful faith in the selection, had Mother. She pleaded until the fire burned low, then Dad rose and said: "Well, we'll try it once more with corn, and if nothing comes of it why then we MUST give it up." Then he took the spade and raked the fire together and covered it with ashes--we always covered the fire over before going to bed so as to keep it alight. Some mornings, though, it would be out, when one of us would have to go across to Anderson's and borrow a fire-stick. Any of us but Joe--he was sent only once, and on that occasion he stayed at Anderson's to breakfast, and on his way back successfully burnt out two grass paddocks belonging to a J.P.
So we began to prepare the soil for another crop of corn, and Dad started over the same old ground with the same old plough. How I remember that old, screwed and twisted plough! The land was very hard, and the horses out of condition. We wanted a furrow-horse. Smith had one--a good one.
"Put him in the furrow," he said to Dad, "and you can't PULL him out of it." Dad wished to have such a horse. Smith offered to exchange for our roan saddle mare--one we found running in the lane, and advertised as being in our paddock, and no one claimed it. Dad exchanged.
He yoked the new horse to the plough, and it took to the furrow splendidly--but that was all; it did n't take to anything else. Dad gripped the handles--"Git up!" he said, and tapped Smith's horse with the rein. Smith's horse pranced and marked time well, but did n't tighten the chains. Dad touched him again. Then he stood on his fore-legs and threw about a hundredweight of mud that clung to his heels at Dad's head. That aggravated Dad, and he seized the plough-scraper, and, using both hands, calmly belted Smith's horse over the ribs for two minutes, by the sun.
He tried him again. The horse threw himself down in the furrow. Dad took the scraper again, welted him on the rump, dug it into his back-bone, prodded him in the side, then threw it at him disgustedly. Then Dad sat down awhile and breathed heavily. He rose again and pulled Smith's horse by the head. He was pulling hard when Dave and Joe came up. Joe had a bow-and-arrow in his hand, and said!, "He's a good furrer 'orse, eh, Dad?
Smith SAID you could n't pull him out of it."Shall I ever forget the look on Dad's face! He brandished the scraper and sprang wildly at Joe and yelled, "Damn y', you WHELP! what do you want here?"Joe left. The horse lay in the furrow. Blood was dropping from its mouth. Dave pointed it out, and Dad opened the brute's jaws and examined them. No teeth were there. He looked on the ground round about--none there either. He looked at the horse's mouth again, then hit him viciously with his clenched fist and said, "The old ----, he never DIDhave any!" At length he unharnessed the brute as it lay--pulled the winkers off, hurled them at its head, kicked it once--twice--three times--and the furrow-horse jumped up, trotted away triumphantly, and joyously rolled in the dam where all our water came from, drinking-water included.
