Ordinarily two men are kept busy stocking the
sheaveswhich one binder cuts. As for Nicoll, he and Abe became more than neighbours
that summer;they became friends. He reported to Abethat the walls of a house twenty
by eighteen feet were going upthere.
Every now and then he tried to get Ruth to call on
his sister. But when Nicoll spokeas he had done, Abe felt something uncanny in that
landscape. It looked asthough all these settlers had picked their location with that
verything in view.
If all helpers were like Nicoll, it would not be
bad.
But Im coming; provided I can count ongetting
occasional work on your place for a year or two. I know its hard,living that way,
all by yourself. While you do your own work, farming is boundto pay. You feed two or
three teams instead of one. That was why,when one day he was taking his dinner at
the hotel at St.
It was done, he was told, to attract votes to
acertain party.
To-day, with settled districts all around,distress
takes the form of financial stringency.
I fanned a hundred and three bushels of wheat out
of that stack. Mary bent down, a pained look in her eyes.
When Ruth opened to the knock, her lips
tightened.
Was that the news your sister was to break to me?
There had been a time when both hadforeseen the coming estrangement and dreaded its
approach.
Ive only a few weeks to spare before harvest. A
peculiar development was the consequence.
It was a bright, crispmorning of the early fall. I
havent the time to feel tired, Abe replied. While Im here, what difference does it
make?
Ive got to have thatadditional seeder before the
work starts. There was another point of friction between him and Ruth:
thehouse.
Ruth, Abe said stormily, dont you see how Im fixed?
Listen here, Abe said for the third time.
She had become used to exhausting heremotional
powers on the children.
Ive all I want except what I need: a purpose in
life. If all helpers were like Nicoll, it would not be bad.
What do I know ofyour dream as Mary calls it? To
him, farming was an industry, not an occupation. You feed two or three teams instead
of one. Abe would have a square mile then; how couldhe farm it? It tookall I could
do last fall to make both ends meet.
But when it comes to what you call ahired
man!
As Abe entered, Mary mentioned the fact of her
husbands absence.