Main-Travelled Roads. Garland Hamlin

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СКАЧАТЬ the youth passed farmhouses, lights in the kitchen windows showed that the women were astir about breakfast, and the sound of voices and the tapping of curry-combs at the barn told that the men were at their morning chores.

      And the east bloomed broader! The dome of gold grew brighter, the faint clouds here and there flamed with a flush of red. The frost began to glisten with a reflected color. The youth dreamed as he walked; his broad face and deep earnest eyes caught and retained some part of the beauty and majesty of the sky.

      But his brow darkened as he passed a farm gate and a young man of about his own age joined him. The other man was equipped for work like himself.

      "Hello, Will!"

       "Hello, Ed!"

      "Going down to help Dingman thrash!"

      "Yes," replied Will, shortly. It was easy to see he did not welcome company.

      "So'm I. Who's goin' to do your thrashin'—Dave McTurg?"

      "Yes, I guess so. Haven't spoken to anybody yet."

      They walked on side by side. Will hardly felt like being rudely broken in on in this way. The two men were rivals, but Will, being the victor, would have been magnanimous, only he wanted to be alone with his lover's dream.

      "When do you go back to the Sem?" Ed asked after a little.

      "Term begins next week. I'll make a break about second week."

      "Le's see: you graduate next year, don't yeh?"

      "I expect to, if I don't slip up on it."

      They walked on side by side, both handsome fellows; Ed a little more showy in his face, which had a certain clear-cut precision of line, and a peculiar clear pallor that never browned under the sun. He chewed vigorously on a quid of tobacco, one of his most noticeable bad habits.

      Teams could be heard clattering along on several roads now, and jovial voices singing. One team coming along rapidly behind the two men, the driver sung out in good-natured warning, "Get out o' the way, there." And with a laugh and a chirp spurred his horses to pass them.

       Ed, with a swift understanding of the driver's trick, flung out his left hand and caught the end-gate, threw his fork in and leaped after it. Will walked on, disdaining attempt to catch the wagon. On all sides now the wagons of the ploughmen or threshers were getting out into the fields, with a pounding, rumbling sound.

      The pale-red sun was shooting light through the leaves, and warming the boles of the great oaks that stood in the yard, and melting the frost off the great gaudy, red and gold striped threshing machine standing between the stacks. The interest, picturesqueness, of it all got hold of Will Hannan, accustomed to it as he was. The horses stood about in a circle, hitched to the ends of the six sweeps, every rod shining with frost.

      The driver was oiling the great tarry cog-wheels underneath. Laughing fellows were wrestling about the yard. Ed Kinney had scaled the highest stack, and stood ready to throw the first sheaf. The sun, lighting him where he stood, made his fork-handle gleam like dull gold. Cheery words, jests, and snatches of song rose everywhere. Dingman bustled about giving his orders and placing his men, and the voice of big David McTurg was heard calling to the men as they raised the long stacker into place:

      "Heave ho, there! Up she rises!"

      And, best of all, Will caught a glimpse of a smiling girl-face at the kitchen window that made the blood beat in his throat.

      "Hello, Will!" was the general greeting, given with some constraint by most of the young fellows, for Will had been going to Rock River to school for some years, and there was a little feeling of jealousy on the part of those who pretended to sneer at the "seminary chaps like Will Hannan and Milton Jennings."

      Dingman came up. "Will, I guess you'd better go on the stack with Ed."

      "All ready. Hurrah, there!" said David in his soft but resonant bass voice that always had a laugh in it. "Come, come, every sucker of yeh git hold o' something. All ready!" He waved his hand at the driver, who climbed upon his platform. Everybody scrambled into place.

      The driver began to talk:

      "Chk, chk! All ready, boys! Stiddy there, Dan! Chk, chk! All ready, boys! Stiddy there, boys! All ready now!" The horses began to strain at the sweeps. The cylinder began to hum.

      "Grab a root there! Where's my band-cutter? Here, you, climb on here!" And David reached down and pulled Shep Watson up by the shoulder with his gigantic hand.

      Boo-oo-oo-oom, Boo-woo-woo-oom-oom-ow-owm, yarr, yarr! The whirling cylinder boomed, roared, and snarled as it rose in speed. At last, when its tone became a rattling yell, David nodded to the pitchers and rasped his hands together. The sheaves began to fall from the stack; the band-cutter, knife in hand, slashed the bands in twain, and the feeder with easy majestic movement gathered them under his arm, rolled them out into an even belt of entering wheat, on which the cylinder tore with its smothered, ferocious snarl.

      Will was very happy in a quiet way. He enjoyed the smooth roll of his great muscles, the sense of power in his hands as he lifted, turned, and swung the heavy sheaves two by two upon the table, where the band-cutter madly slashed away. His frame, sturdy rather than tall, was nevertheless lithe, and he made a fine figure to look at, so Agnes thought, as she came out a moment and bowed and smiled.

      This scene, one of the jolliest and most sociable of the Western farm, had a charm quite aside from human companionship. The beautiful yellow straw entering the cylinder; the clear yellow-brown wheat pulsing out at the side; the broken straw, chaff, and dust puffing out on the great stacker; the cheery whistling and calling of the driver; the keen, crisp air, and the bright sun somehow weirdly suggestive of the passage of time.

      Will and Agnes had arrived at a tacit understanding of mutual love only the night before, and Will was powerfully moved to glance often toward the house, but feared as never before the jokes of his companions. He worked on, therefore, methodically, eagerly; but his thoughts were on the future—the rustle of the oak-tree near by, the noise of whose sere leaves he could distinguish sifting beneath the booming snarl of the machine, was like the sound of a woman's dress; on the sky were great fleets of clouds sailing on the rising wind, like merchantmen bound to some land of love and plenty.

       When the Dingmans first came in, only a couple of years before, Agnes had been at once surrounded by a swarm of suitors. Her pleasant face and her abounding good-nature made her an instant favorite with all. Will, however, had disdained to become one of the crowd, and held himself aloof, as he could easily do, being away at school most of the time.

      The second winter, however, Agnes also attended the seminary, and Will saw her daily, and grew to love her. He had been just a bit jealous of Ed Kinney all the time, for Ed had a certain rakish grace in dancing and a dashing skill in handling a team, which made him a dangerous rival.

      But, as Will worked beside him all the Monday, he felt so secure in his knowledge of the caress Agnes had given him at parting the night before that he was perfectly happy—so happy that he didn't care to talk, only to work on and dream as he worked.

      Shrewd David McTurg had his joke when the machine stopped for a few minutes. "Well, you fellers do better'n I expected yeh to, after bein' out so late last night. The first feller I see gappin' has got to treat to the apples."

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