Settlers of the Marsh (2 page)

Nelson laughed. “Say,” he sang out once more, “tell us at least which way is east.”

The old man nodded a direction. “Follow the bush.”

When Nelson let go of the door, it slammed shut; and the bolt shot home. Again Nelson laughed his deep, throaty laugh and looked at Niels.

Through the window came the faint glimmer of the little lamp. In its light the two men looked like snowmen. On the lapels of their sheep-skins the snow had consolidated into sheets of ice.

The lamp in the shack went out; and they were left in utter darkness.

For a moment longer they stood, stamping their feet and swinging their arms against their bodies. The mere absence of the wind felt like actual, grateful warmth. They lingered.

But Nelson broke the silence at last. “So much for him. I guess we'll have to try to make Amundsen's. Five miles, he says.”

“All right,” Niels agreed.

They started out again, in the direction of the nod.

Here the snow fell without that furious, driving force which had made it a blinding torment on the open sand-flats. It fell in flakes, now. Still, progress was slow; for, where the wind found its way through openings in the bush, drifts had already been piled in the lee of the trees. Often the two men found themselves in knee-deep banks and fell. It took them an hour to make the first mile.

Then Nelson exclaimed, “Now I know.”

They turned north, crossed the huge trough of a creek or river on a bridge, and were engulfed in the winding chasm of a narrow logging trail.

The darkness was inky-black; but a faint luminosity in the clouds above showed the canyon of the swaying trees overhead.

They went on for a long, long while.

“There we are,” Nelson exclaimed at last; and the same moment a dog struck up a dismal howl from somewhere about the yard; but he did not come out to bark or snap at them.

Nelson found the house; and his vigorous knocking soon brought a response.

They were admitted by a scantily-dressed man and entered a large kitchen which occupied half the space of the house.

The man inside accepted the fact that Nelson had brought a partner without comment and donned overalls and sheep-skin to fetch straw from the stable, to spread on the floor of the low-ceilinged room. Then he brought blankets and left them alone.

A
MUNDSEN'S FARM
consisted of a quarter-section, heavily timbered except for thirty-six acres which were cleared. His buildings, encircling the yard, were of logs well plastered with clay, the dwelling being, besides, veneered with lumber and not only white-washed but painted.

The house held two rooms, a kitchen which also served as dining room; and a bed-room with three beds. Above the beamed ceiling stretched a huge attic. The stable was large enough for four horses and six cows. There were, further, a chicken house, harbouring also a number of geese, ducks, and turkeys;
a granary
, well-floored; a
smoke-house
; and a half-open shed for the very complete array of implements. Whatever Amundsen did, he did right.

Niels slept late on the morning of their arrival. It had been past three o'clock when they lay down.

The kitchen was empty. There was a good fire in the range; and he found all he needed for washing. The adjoining room was closed; but he saw through the window that the door to the stable was open; and since he expected to find Nelson and Amundsen there, he went out.

On the yard, the snow lay six inches deep; more was filtering down. It was pleasantly cold.

Niels found Nelson and Amundsen discussing the work to be done.

“Seventy-five cents a foot, down to twenty-five feet,” Nelson said in Swedish. “Beyond that a dollar and fifty. We go on till we get water. Unless you want us to stop …”

Amundsen laughed. “I must have water,” he said emphatically. “Melting snow is too slow. And in summer I have to haul four miles from the creek. However, whenever I want you to stop, I shall pay for what has been done.”

Niels looked the man over. Both he and Nelson had nodded to him.

There was something careful, particular, about Amundsen's whole appearance. He might be fifty years old. He did not wear overalls under his sheep-skin but a grey suit, the legs of his trousers being tucked into high leather boots which were well greased. About his neck he wore a neatly-tied, plaid-pattern sateen tie. His head was covered with a wedgeshaped cap of black fur. He had a small moustache, trimmed to a short, bristly brush; his cheeks and chin were freshly shaved. His eyes were small and blue and had a trick of avoiding those of his interlocutor. He shrugged his shoulders when he spoke and gesticulated with both hands. Before he spoke, he thought; and, having thought, he spoke with decision. He seemed to realise with great force and made others realise that thought could be changed and modified, but that a spoken word was binding. Every motion of his showed that he watched jealously over his dignity. But his voice was harsh and loud as if he were trying to give a special emphasis and significance to every word. When he listened, he bent his head to one side and looked at the ground, drawing up his thin brows and lending ear with all his might. That gave him the air of being constantly on his guard.

“If it please God,” Amundsen said at last decisively, “we shall find water … Well, shall we go in?” And he led the way to the house.

“Mrs. Amundsen still poorly?” Nelson asked.

“It has pleased God to confine her to her bed,” Amundsen replied with corresponding choice of words in Swedish. He shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands in a deprecatory gesture. “It is a visitation. One must be resigned.”

When they entered the house, Amundsen ceremoniously letting the two others precede, a girl of perhaps eighteen or nineteen years was busy at the range. The bed on the floor had been removed; the table was spread.

Niels looked at the girl and expected some kind of introduction; but none was vouchsafed. Neither did she seem to take any notice of the guests.

She was somewhat above medium height, taller than her father, with wide hips and a mature bust. Her hair was straw-yellow and neatly but plainly brushed back and gathered into a knot above the nape of her neck. Her dress was of dark-blue print, made with no view to prettiness or style, but spotlessly clean.

Her whole attitude, even to her father, spoke of self-centred repose and somewhat defiant aloofness.

It was not till the three men were seated at the table that Niels had a glimpse of her face. Her eyes were light-blue, her features round, and her complexion a pure, Scandinavian white. But it was the expression that held him: hers was the face of a woman; not of a girl. There was a great, ripe maturity in it, and a look as if she saw through pretences and shams and knew more of life than her age would warrant. No smile lighted her features; her eyes were stern and nearly condemnatory. But somehow, when Niels looked at her, a great desire came over him to make her smile.

Amundsen noticed his scrutiny and disapproved of it; for with his loud and matter-of-fact voice he cut it short.

“Well,” he said, “pray.” And, standing up, he spoke with a firm and insistent voice a prayer which sounded as if he were rather laying down the law to his creator than invoking his blessing.

Then, without looking up, he sat down. “Ellen, coffee.”

“Yes, father,” replied the girl with an unexpected note of obsequience oddly at variance with her preoccupied air.

Breakfast was eaten in silence. The girl did not sit down with the men but ate while standing at the range.

Nelson was the first to rise. “Well,” he said, “I guess we better get started.”

They went out.

Amundsen remained on the yard, busying himself with the sleighs to which apparently he intended to transfer the box from the wagon.

Soon after, when the two men had gathered their tools, picks and shovels, Niels saw to his surprise the girl, clad like a man in sheepskin and big overshoes, crossing the yard to the stable where she began to harness a team of horses. They were big, powerful brutes, young and unruly. But she handled them with calm assurance and unflinching courage as she led them out on the yard.

“They're famous run-aways,” Nelson said.

“And he lets the girl handle them!”

“Yea …” Nelson replied. “But they don't run away with her. It's him they smash up every once in a while.”

“Does she work on the farm?”

“Like a man,” Nelson said.

She tied the horses to a rail of the fence and went to join her father. Between them, the two lifted the wagon-box from the wheel-truck, in order to transfer it to the bob-sleighs.

Niels ran over and took hold of the girl's end; but she did not yield without reluctance. A frown settled between her brows. Without a word she went to get the horses.

Nelson had gone on with his work; and Niels rejoined him while Amundsen and his daughter placed two barrels into the wagon-box.

The girl drove away; Amundsen returned to the stable.

“Better not take too much notice of the girl,” Nelson said when the man had disappeared. “Amundsen might show you off the place.”

When Amundsen, after a while, emerged from the stable, he was leading a team of older, steadier horses which he hitched to a
hay-rack
still on wheels. He worked in his slow, deliberate way, without a lost motion, and giving to the veriest trifle an importance and a sort of dignity which seemed laughable or sublime.

Niels watched him covertly till he drove away.

Meanwhile he and Nelson worked silently, with the steady team-work peculiar to Swedes.

Then the girl returned from the creek. As she drove in on the yard, she happened to look at Niels. It was a level, quiet look, unswerving and irresponsive. It did not establish a bond; it held no message, neither of acceptance nor of disapproval; it was not meant to have any meaning for him; it was an undisguised, cool, disinterested scrutiny.

Niels coloured under the look. He lowered his eye and went on with his work, a little too eagerly perhaps: he was self-conscious. In order to shake off his embarrassment, and in an impulse of defiant self-assertion, he dropped his pick, straightened his back, wiped his forehead, and sang out, in Swedish, “A penny for your thoughts, miss.”

But he repented instantly; for the look of the girl assumed a critical, disapproving expression; the frown settled back between her brows. Thus she turned her attention to her horses and ignored the men at their work.

Nelson, too, had straightened and looked at Niels, grinning. “You've got your nerve,” he said admiringly.

Nelson felt still more embarrassed; but he laughed and fell to work again.

Some time during the afternoon Niels had an occasion to go into the house. When he entered the kitchen, the door to the second room stood open; and he had a glimpse of the bed in which the sick woman lay. Ellen was sitting on the edge of the bed and holding her mother's hand.

The woman's face seemed to be all eye: large, dark eyes in large, cavernous sockets. Ear, nose, and cheek had a waxy transparency.

Ellen was in sheep-skin and tam, as she had come in from the yard. When she heard a footfall, she looked back over her shoulder, rose, and closed the door.

Niels felt ashamed of his behaviour in the morning.

At night, after the day's work had reluctantly been brought to a close, the three men sat in the kitchen. Nelson smoked a pipe; Amundsen partook of a dram; Niels declined both tobacco and
“schnapps.”

“Done any breaking yet?” Amundsen asked.

“Yes,” said Nelson. “Three acres last summer. Too late for a crop, though. I'll clear enough to break four or five more in spring.”

“That's good,” said Amundsen in his slow, deliberate way. “You've bought horses. Where are they?”

“At Hahn's.”

“I know him,” Amundsen said with a peculiar smile. “He's German. He used to be a good, steady fellow till last year. Then he went crazy and joined the Baptists. As if the word of the Lord were not perfectly clear …” And he reached for a Bible on the windowshelf.

But Nelson forestalled him. “Do you intend to break next summer?”

“If I live and am well.” Amundsen's smile was deprecating. “I've brushed and cleared three acres in summer. So, if it please God …”

“You've surely done well in this country.”

“Yes,” Amundsen admitted. “It might have been better, of course. But I can't complain. God has blessed my labour.”

“You came only seven or eight years ago, didn't you?”

“Nine. But when I came I was in debt. I owe no man now.”

“Too bad about your wife,” Nelson said after a while. “Have you had the doctor in?”

“She is in the hand of God,” Amundsen replied sententiously. “What is to be will be. I am a sinner and a stricken man.” It sounded as if he boasted of the fact.

“Too bad,” Nelson repeated.

Once more Niels looked at the man. There was something repulsive about his self-sufficiency. His wife was lying at the point of death; but he had not even called in what help human skill and knowledge might give. He relied on God to do for him what could be done … And his daughter worked like a man …

N
EXT DAY
the sky was bright and clear. Not a wisp of cloud was visible anywhere. But it had been very cold overnight …

Work felt grateful: this country seemed to have been created to rouse man's energies to fullest exertion …

Again the girl was about the yard. She fetched water for the stock and fed cows, horses, and pigs; and when the chores were done, she went with her father to get hay from a stack in the meadow …

Without his being conscious of it she intrigued Niels. She was so utterly impersonal. The only softer feature she betrayed consisted in an absent-minded patting of the old dog that limped through the snow across the yard, wagging his tail whenever she came, to return to his lair in the straw-stack as soon as she left.