Neighbours Part 14

"'Madam,' says I, 'are you the lady o' the porous plaster?'

"I'll plaster you,' says she, 'if you give me any o' yer lip. But do you happen to know a Mr. Jake?' says she, gettin' out a paper; 'here's his address.'

"'Know him!' says I. 'I should say so. An' in case you're thinkin' o'

marryin' him let me tell you somethin', jus' between friends. Jake buries a wife once a year, reg'lar.'

"'He does, eh?' says she. 'Well, I'm promisin' I'll be a relic' before he's a widower,' says she. 'Relic' is what she said, but it didn't sound right to me.

"'That's bettin' on a cinch,' says I, meanin' that she would get the red ribbon for relics at Regina fair already, but my wit goes over her head, as it of'en does, an' she comes back at me with 'Wha'd' _you_ know 'bout anybody marryin' Mr. Jake?'

"'Everythin', says I, humpin' my wish-bone with importance. 'Jake tells me every thin'. I'm his spiritooal adviser, so to speak, which includes matrimony. The women that wants to marry Jake--lots of 'em rich, too, Madam,' I says. 'I'm steerin' him clear o' them every day,' I says, 'partly out o' sympathy fer them, on accoun' o' his--his _severe_ habits,' I says.

"'Who _are_ you, anyway?' says she, an' with that I flashes my telegram on her. 'I'm the party of the first part,' says I, as they say in the law offices.

"With that she fixes me with an eye that made me think o' Sittin' Crow, f'rocious an' blood-thirsty.

"'So you're Jake,' she says, pullin' herself up 'till all her angles stood out like the haunches of a starved mustang. 'Well, you got a h.e.l.l of a nerve,' she says.

"I begun to think maybe she was about right, but she gave me no time fer reflections.

"'Where's a preacher?' she says. 'You wanted speed, an' yer goin' to get it.' With that she hustled me over town an' had me married before I knew it, so I'd have to settle fer the supper, as I figgered it out afterward. Then after supper we go to my shack an' she climbs into my business papers like a hound after garbage.

"'Wha'd' you do fer a livin', may I ask?' she says, when she finds nothin' in my papers excep' receipts from the grocer's an' a bunch of letters in answer to my ad. 'This correspondence o' yours is interestin', but I wouldn't take it to be very fillin', she says, 'an'

anyway, if this is all you have to do you're out of a job,' she says, an' with that she gathers up my bundles o' letters, photos an' all, an'

throws 'em into the fire."

By this time the bacon and potatoes were sputtering in the frying pan and the smell of hot tea lent an extra tang to the prairie air, so Jack served the meal and for awhile Jake's account of his matrimonial exploit was lost in a hubbub of vigorous mastication. Bread and potatoes and bacon, washed down with strong tea, disappeared as though by magic, and in a few minutes Jake was in a mood to resume his narrative.

"'Do!' says I, musterin' all my dignity. 'I'm a specialist--a specialist in land. I know the sections with the weak lungs an' the broken knees an' the spavined joints, an' if a man pays me enough I put him wise, an'

if he don' I let him get wise at his own expense,' says I. 'I'm a specialist, an' I charge like a specialist,' I says.

"'Humph!' says she, jus' like that. 'Between your fine words I figger that you pick up a dollar now an' again by tottin' these tenderfoot sod-busters out over the bald-headed.' I dunno where she got it, but she had all the language necessary, an' more. 'Let me see your bank book,'

she says.

"So I dug it up, an' it showed a balance in my favor of forty-three dollars an' twenty cents. Fortunate there was nothin' in it about the hundred dollars I owed at the livery stable fer the board o' the flyin'

ants, but I let sleepin' dogs lie, as the sayin' is.

"'How old are you, Jake, dear?' she says, all of a sudden as smooth as oil.

"'Forty-three,' I says, perhaps because that was the figger in my mind at the moment, an' I was shavin' it a little, at that.

"'Then you've made a dollar a year--so far,' says she, droppin' back to her nat'ral voice that kind o' sounds like two mill-wheels an' you between 'em. 'You'll die before you're sixty,' she says; 'I can see it in your eyes,' although I wasn't lookin' at her, findin' that rather painful, 'an' leave an estate o' less than sixty dollars. Jake, that wouldn't buy me an outfit fer the funeral, fer believe me I'm goin' to do you justice when the time comes. We're goin' to take a homestead.'

"'Not me,' I says. 'The seat o' my democrat is as near as I want to get to a homestead. They're all right fer sod-busters, but fer a woman o'

culture----'

"I thought that would get her, but she was as imperv'ous to compliments as an ox to an oration, so to speak.

"'Very well,' says she. 'If you won't take a homestead, I will.'

"'You can't,' says I, with sudden boldness. 'You ain't a widow.'

"With that she gives me another o' those through-the-gizzard-and-nailed-to-the-wall looks o' hers. 'I will be, in about twenty seconds,' she says, 'if there's any more discussion,' she says. So here we are."

"Have you located?" I asked Jake, when he was silent for a minute, and seemed to have dropped off into meditation.

"Yep. It was easy fer me, knowin' as I do ev'ry willow between the Souris an' the Saskatch'wan. You remember section Sixteen, that you fellows were lookin' at? I didn't figger it was good enough fer you, bein' clients o' mine, but it would do me in a pinch, so I jus' filed on it myself."

"Aha!" said Jack, who was always a little shrewder than I. "So that is why we couldn't get Sixteen. Surely you weren't contemplating matrimony so far back as that?"

"Not exac'ly contemplatin' it, but takin' precautions." Jake admitted.

"Rather lets the wind out of your fine story," was Jack's comment. "How much do we take for gospel, and how much for romance?"

Jake clambered to his feet and struck a pose intended to be heroic.

"Behold in me a young bridegroom," he orated. "Would you expec' me, on an auspicious occasion like this, to stick stric'ly to the map? Out o'

the fullness o' my heart I have given you good measure."

We expressed the hope that Bella Donna would prove a sticker.

"She will," Jake prophesied. "Of course that ain't her real name; I jus'

gave you that fer--fer instance, an' her first name's Bella, so it's half true, which is a pretty good average in this country. Wait 'til you see us, a-chariotin' behind the flyin' ants over to Fourteen an'

Twenty-two! I'm figgerin' on organizin' a school distric' right away."

We gave Jake our blessing and watched him ride off in his wobbly democrat with its spring seat up-tilted to larboard and his fat figure settling down like a sack with a hat on it. But Jake was evidently in good spirits, for before he had gone beyond ear-shot we heard him singing,

"O my darling, O my darling, O my darling, Clementine,"

and we knew that all was well with him, at least for the present.

Sitting on the gra.s.sy knoll, digesting our lunch by the aid of the straws which each of us was unconsciously chewing, we watched Jake until he was a speck in the distance.

"What do you make of it?" said I at last.

"I'm not saying," was Jack's cautious rejoinder. "Either he's married, or he isn't." Jack had not forgotten the incident of Sittin' Crow.

But we had occasion to be thankful we had fallen in with Jake, for he had been able to direct us to a farmer within a day's drive who hired both us and our oxen for the harvest, or until the beginning of thres.h.i.+ng. His name was Keefer; a short, thick-set man of fifty-five, with a stubby whisker turning an iron grey. He received us in his stable yard, hatless and coatless, and with his thumbs hooked under his leather suspenders in the confident manner of one who is accustomed to rely on himself and is not likely to be disappointed.

"I'm a glutton for work," he said, when he had hired us, "and I expect my men to feed hearty at the same trough. I wouldn't put your bulls on a binder on a bet; there's too much side-play to their gait, but I can use 'em discing the summerfallow. You'll have to sleep in the granary, but we all eat together at the house. I'm starting two binders in the morning; I'll expect you to keep up to them, and I'll know by to-morrow night what you're made of."

Keefer was as good as his word. He called us at half past four, while the night was still hanging grey about the buildings, and the stronger stars looked down, cold and steely, through a temperature which had dropped dangerously close to the freezing point. He had an hour's work for us about the stables, and at six we went in to breakfast.

The table was set in the kitchen; Mrs. Keefer and her sixteen-year-old daughter Nellie must have been about almost as early as were we. The breakfast was of oatmeal porridge with milk--the belief that every prosperous farm abounds in cream, is, alas, a delusion;--following the porridge came salt pork and potatoes, with good bread and b.u.t.ter, both the latter the products of the housewifely skill of Mrs. Keefer and her daughter. The table was of boards, covered with oilcloth; Mr. Keefer sat at one end, with a husky chap he called George, his permanent hired man, at his right, and his fourteen-year-old son, Harry, at his left.

Jack and I sat opposite, and Mrs. Keefer occupied the seat at the other end of the table from her husband. Nellie did not sit down, but waited on the company until the first table had finished. Apparently there were younger children upstairs, as we heard her admonis.h.i.+ng them for their failure to get up; evidently she would eat with them.

"It's early for harvest," Keefer volunteered to us, when he had finished his porridge and was half way through a plate of potatoes and pork. "I didn't figure on it so soon, but the last few days have been hot, and my barley field has come along a-whoopin'. It gives me a chance to try out the binders--and the new hired men."

Keefer smiled as he spoke, but he had a way with him that made us aware that anyone who failed to come up to his standard as a workman would get short shrift around his establishment.