Purple Springs - Nellie L. McClung
"Great old boy, all right," Peter agreed heartily.
That afternoon Mr. Banks arranged with one of the partners of the law
firm to which Peter was attached to release him for an indefinite
period, and his salary could be charged to the Government under
"Professional Services, Mr. P.J. Neelands," and being a fair-minded
man, and persuaded that a laborer was worthy of his hire, he suggested
a substantial increase in salary for Mr. Neelands, considering the
delicate nature of the task he was undertaking, and who was paying for
it.
The spring, notwithstanding its early March smiles, delayed its coming
that year, and the grim facts of the scarcity of feed faced the
thriftiest farmers. The hungry cattle grew hungrier than ever, and
with threatening bellows and eyes of flame pushed and crowded around
the diminishing stacks. The cattle market went so low that it did not
pay to ship them to the city, though humane instincts prompted many
a farmer to do this to save their stock from a lingering death, and
their own eyes from the agony of seeing them suffer.
On April the first came the big storm, which settled forever the feed
problem for so many hungry animals. It was a deliberate storm, a
carefully planned storm, beginning the day before with a warm, soft
air, languorous, spring-like, with a pale yellow sun, with a cap of
silver haze around its head, which seemed to smile upon the earth with
fairest promises of an early spring. The cattle wandered far from
home, lured by the gentle air and the mellow sunshine.
It was on this fair day that Mr. P.J. Neelands took his journey to
the country to do it a service, and it is but fair to say that Mr.
Neelands had undertaken his new work with something related to
enthusiasm. It savored of mystery, diplomacy, intrigue, and there was
a thrill in his heart as he sat in the green plush-covered seat,
and leaning back, with his daintily shod feet on the opposite seat,
surveyed himself in the long mirror which filled the door of the
stateroom at the end. It was a very smartly dressed young man he saw,
smiling back engagingly, and the picture pleased him. Expenses and
salary paid, with a very delightful piece of work before him, which,
if handled tactfully and successfully, would bring him what he
craved--political promotion in the Young Men's Club. The fact in the
glass smiled again. "Diplomacy is the thing," said Peter to himself.
"It carries a man farther than anything--and I'm glad my first case
has a woman in it."
He buffed his nails on the palm of his other hand, and, looking at
them critically, decided to go over them again.
"There's nothing like personal neatness to impress a girl; and this
one, from her picture, will see everything at a glance."
Crossing the river at Poplar Ridge, he looked out of the window at the
pleasant farmyard of one of the old settlers on the Assiniboine; a
fine brick house, with wide verandahs, an automobile before the door,
a barnyard full of cackling hens, with a company of fine fat steers
in an enclosure--a pleasing picture of farm life, which filled his
imagination.
"What a country of opportunity," thought Peter, "a chance for every
one, and for women especially. Everything in life is done for them.
This house was built for some woman, no doubt. I hope she appreciates
it, and is contented and happy in it. Women were made to charm
us--inspire us--cheer us, but certainly not to rival us!"
Peter, with his hands on the knees of his well-creased trousers,
hitched them slightly, just enough to reveal a glimpse of his lavender
socks.
"Perhaps this girl needs only an interest--a love interest--" Peter
blushed as he thought it--"to quiet her. If her affection were
captured, localized, centralized, she would not be clamoring to take a
man's place. She might be quite willing to enter politics, indirectly,
and be the power behind a man of power."
He looked again at the newspaper picture of Pearl Watson, and again at
his own reflection in the long glass.
"And a girl like this," Peter meditated, "would be a help, too. She is
evidently magnetic and convincing." His mind drifted pleasantly into
the purple hills and valleys of the future, and in a delightfully
vague way plans began to form for future campaigns, where a brilliant
young lawyer became at once the delight of his friends and the despair
of his enemies, by his scathing sarcasm, his quick repartee, and still
more by his piercing and inescapable logic. Never had the Conservative
banner been more proudly borne to victory. Older men wept tears of joy
as they listened and murmured, "The country is safe--thank God!"
Ably assisting him, though she deferred charmingly to him, in all
things, was his charming young wife, herself an able speaker and
debater who had once considered herself a suffragette, but who was now
entirely absorbed in her beautiful home and her brilliant husband.
Peter flicked the dust from his tan shoes with a polka-dotted
handkerchief, while rosy dreams, full of ambition and success filled
his impressionable mind.
Through the snowy hills the train made its way cautiously, making long
and apparently purposeless stops between stations, as if haunted by
the fear of arriving too early. At such times Peter had leisure to
carefully study the monotonous landscape, and he could not help but
notice that the disparity in the size of the barn and that of the
house in many cases was very great. A huge red barn, with white
trimmings, surmounted by windmills, often stood towering over a tiny
little weather-beaten, miserable house, which across a mile or two of
snow, looked about the size of a child's block.
But small houses can be made very cosy, thought Peter complacently,
for the glamor of adventure was on him, and no shade of sadness could
assail his high spirits.
Some of the women who came to the train were disappointing in
appearance. They were both shabby and sad, he thought, and he wondered
why but looking closely at them he thought, with the fallacy of youth,
that they must be very old.
Peter tried to outline his course of action. He would take a room
at the hotel, making that his headquarters, and go out into the
country--and stop at the Watson home, to ask directions or on some
trivial errand, and meet her that way. But the thought would come back
with tiresome regularity--suppose the first person who came to the
door, gave him the directions he wanted--and shut the door. Well, of
course he could ask for a drink,... but even that might fail. Perhaps
he should have brought an egg-beater--or a self-wringing mop to
demonstrate, or some of the other things his friends had suggested.
However, that did not need to be decided at once. Peter prided himself
on his ability to leave tomorrow alone! So he made his way to the
hotel on the corner, facing the station, untroubled by what the morrow
might bring forth, and registered his name in the large book which the
clerk swung around in front of him, and quietly asked for a room with
a bath.
The clerk bit through the toothpick he had in his mouth, so great was
his surprise, but he answered steadily:
"All rooms with bath are taken--only rooms with bed left."
"Room with bed, then," said Peter, and he was given the key of No. 17,
and pointed to the black and red carpeted stairway.
CHAPTER XIII
THE STORM
It was a morning of ominous calm, with an hour of bright sun,
gradually softening into a white shadow, as a fleecy cloud of fairy
whiteness rolled over the sun's face, giving a light on the earth like
the garish light in a tent at high noon, a light of blinding whiteness
that hurts the eyes, although the sun is hidden. It was as innocent
a looking morning as any one would wish to see, still, warm, bright,
with a heavy brooding air which deadens sound and makes sleighs draw
hard and horses come out in foam.
James Crocks, of the Horse Repository, sniffed the air apprehensively,
bit a semi-circle out of a plug of tobacco, and gave orders that no
horse was to leave the barn that day, for "he might be mistaken, and
he might not," but he thought "we were in for it."
Other people seemed to think the same, for no teams could be seen on
any of the roads leading to the village. It was the kind of morning
on which the old timers say, "Stay where you are, wherever it is--if
there's a roof over you!"
Wakening from a troubled dream of fighting gophers that turned to
wild-cats, Mr. Neelands, in No. 17, made a hurried toilet, on account
of the temperature of the room, for although the morning was warm,
No. 17 still retained some of last week's temperature, and to Mr.
Neelands, accustomed to the steam heat of Mrs. Marlowe's "Select
Boarding House--young men a specialty"--it felt very chilly, indeed.
But Mr. Neelands had his mind made up to be unmoved by trifles.
After a good breakfast in the dining room, Mr. Neelands walked out to
see the little town--and to see what information he could gather. The
well-dressed young man, with the pale gray spats, who carried a cane
on his arm and wore a belted coat, attracted many eyes as he swung out
gaily across the street toward the livery stable.
His plans were still indefinite. Bertie, who was in charge of the
stable, gazed spell-bound on the vision of fashion which stood at the
door, asking about a team. Bertie, for once, was speechless--he seemed
to be gazing on his own better self--the vision he would like to see
when he sought his mirror.
"I would like to get a team for a short run," said Mr. Neelands
politely.
"Where you goin'," asked Bertie.
Mr. Neelands hesitated, and became tactful.
"I am calling on teachers," he said, on a matter of business,
"introducing a new set of books for school libraries."
It was the first thing Mr. Neelands could think of, and he was quite
pleased with it when he said it. It had a professional, business-like
ring, which pleased him.
"A very excellent set of books, which the Department of Education
desire to see in every school," Mr. Neelands elaborated.
Then Bertie, always anxious to be helpful and to do a good deed, leapt
to the door, almost upsetting Mr. Neelands in his haste. Bertie had
an idea! Mr. Neelands did not connect his sudden departure with his
recent scheme of enriching the life of the country districts with the
set of books just mentioned, and therefore waited rather impatiently
for the stableboy's return.
Bertie burst in, with the same enthusiasm.
"See, Mister, here's the teacher you want; I got her for you--she was
just going to school."
Bertie's face bore the same glad rapture that veils the countenance of
a cat when she throws a mouse at your feet with a casual "How's that."
Mr. Neelands found himself facing a brown-eyed, well-dressed young
lady, with big question marks in both eyes, question marks which in a
very dignified way demanded to know what it was all about.
In his confusion, Mr. Neelands, new in the art of diplomacy,
blundered:
"Is this Miss Watson?" he stammered.
The reply was definite.
"It is not, and why did you call me."
Icicles began to hang from the roof. Mr. Neelands would have been
well pleased if they had fallen on him, or a horse had kicked him--or
anything.
He blushed a ripe tomato red. Bertie, deeply grieved, reviewed the
situation.
"He said he wanted to see the teachers, and I just went and got
you--that's all--you were the nearest teacher."
"Awfully sorry," began Mr. Neelands, "I did not know anything about
it. I'm am just a stranger, you see."
There was something in Miss Morrison's eye which simply froze the
library proposition. He could not frame the words.
"If you have any business with me you may make an appointment at the
school. People who have business with the teachers generally do come
to the school--not to the livery stable," she added, in exactly the
tone in which she would have said "All who have failed to get fifty
per cent. in arithmetic will remain after four," a tone which would be
described as stern, but just.
Mr. Neelands leaned against a box-stall as Miss Morrison passed out.
He wiped his face with the polka-dot handkerchief, and the word which
the Cabinet Minister had used came easily to his lips.
"Why didn't you speak to her when you got a chance?" asked Bertie,
anxious to divert the blame and meet railing with railing. He was
always getting in wrong just trying to help people. Darn it all! Mr.
Neelands could still think of no word but the one.
"I wish it had been Pearl," said Bertie, "Gee! she wouldn't ha' been
so sore; she'd just laughed and jollied about it."
"So you know Pearl, do you?" Mr. Neelands could feel a revival of
interest in life; also the stiffness began to leave his lips, and his
tongue felt less like tissue paper.
"I guess everyone knows Pearl," said Bertie, with a consciousness of
superiority on at least one point. Whereupon he again fulfilled the
promises of youth, the leadings of his birth star and the promptings
of his spirit guides, and told all he knew about the whole Watson
family, not forgetting the roses he had taken to her, and Mrs. Crock's
diagnosis of it all.
He had an interested listener to it all, and under the inspiration
which a sympathetic hearing gives he grew eloquent, and touched with
his fine fancy the romantic part of it.
"Mrs. Crocks says she believes Pearl is pretty sweet on the Doctor.
Pearl is one swell girl, and all that, but Mrs. Crocks says the Doctor
will likely marry the Senator's daughter. Gee! I wouldn't if I was
him. She hasn't got the style that Pearl has--she rides a lot and has
nerve--and all that, but she's bow-legged!" His tone was indescribably
scornful.
Mr. Neelands gasped.
"Yep," went on Bertie complacently, "we see a lot here at the stable
and get to know a lot--one way'n another--we can't help it. They come
and go, you know."
"The doctor won't run for Parliament--he turned it down. Mrs. Crocks
thinks the Senator maybe persuaded him not to--the Senator is for the
Government, of course, and it is the other side wanted the doctor;
anyway, that suits old Steadman; he'll likely go in again on account
of the bridge at Purple Springs. Every one wants to get work on it
with the Spring hangin' back the way it is." "How about a horse? I
want to take a drive into the country," said Mr. Neelands.
"No horse can go out of here today," answered Bertie. "Mr. Crocks says
there'll be storm, and he won't take no chances on his horses. He says
people can judge for themselves and run risks if they want to, he'll
decide for the horses--and they can't go."
"O, all right," said Mr. Neelands. "How far is it to the Watson farm?"
"Are you going out?" asked Bertie. "Better phone and see if she's at
home. Here's the phone--I'll get her."
Mr. Neelands laid a restraining hand on Bertie's arm. "Easy there,
my friend," he said, his tone resembling Miss Morrison's in its
commanding chilliness, "How far is it to the Watson farm?"
"Five miles in summer, four in winter," Bertie answered a little
sulkily.
"You would call this winter, I suppose," said the traveller, looking
out at the darkening street.
"I'd call it--oh, well, never mind what I'd call it--I'm always
talking too much--call it anything you like." Bertie grew dignified
and reserved. "Call it the first of July if you like! I don't care."
That is how it came that Mr. Neelands took the out-trail when all the
signs were against travelling, but to his unaccustomed eye there
was nothing to fear in the woolly grayness of the sky, nor in the
occasional snowflake that came riding on the wind. The roads were
hard-packed and swept clean by the wind, and the sensation of space
and freedom most enjoyable.
Mr. Neelands as he walked filed away tidily in his mind the
information received. There were valuable clues contained in the
stable-boy's chatter, Which he would tabulate, regarding the lady
of his quest. She was popular, approachable, gifted with a sense of
humor, and perhaps disappointed in love. No clue was too small to be
overlooked--and so, feeling himself one of the most deadly of sleuths,
Mr. Neelands walked joyously on, while behind him there gathered one
of the worst blizzards that the Souris Valley has known.
The storm began with great blobbery flakes of snow, which came
elbowing each other down the wind, crossing and re-crossing, circling,
drifting, whirling, fluttering, so dense and thick that the whole air
darkened ominously, and the sun seemed to withdraw from the world,
leaving the wind and the storm to their own evil ways.
The wind at once began its circling motions, whipping the snow
into the traveller's face, blinding and choking him, lashing him
mercilessly and with a sudden impish delight, as if all the evil
spirits of the air had declared war upon him.
He turned to look back, but the storm had closed behind him, having
come down from the northwest and overtaken him as he walked. His only
hope was to go with it, for to face it was impossible, and yet it
seemed to have no direction, for it blew up in his face; it fell on
him; it slapped him, jostled him, pushed him, roared in his ears,
smothering him, drowning his cries with malicious joy. No cat ever
worried or harrassed a mouse with greater glee than the storm fiends
that frolicked through the valley that day, took their revenge on the
city man, with his pointed boots, his silk-lined gloves, his belted
coat and gray fedora, as he struggled on, slipping, choking, falling
and rising. It seemed to him like a terrible nightmare, in its sudden,
gripping fury.
It pounded on his eyeballs until he was not sure but his eyes were
gone; it filled his mouth and ears, and cold water trickled down his
back. His gloves were wet through, and freezing, for the air grew
colder every minute, and the terror of the drowning man came to him.
He struggled on madly, like a steer that feels the muskeg closing
around him. He did not think; he fought, with the same instinct that
drives the cattle blindly, madly on towards shelter and food, when the
storm lashes them and the hunger rage drives them on.
Sylvester Paine, shaking the snow from his clothes like a water
spaniel, and stamping all over the kitchen, was followed by his wife,
who vainly tried to sweep it up as fast as it fell. She made no
remonstrance, but merely swept, having long since earned that her
liege lord was never turned aside from his purpose by any word of
hers.
When he was quite done, and the snow was melting in pools on the
floor, he delivered his opinion of the country and the weather: "This
is sure a hell of a country," he said, "that can throw a storm like
this at the end of March."
She made no reply--she had not made either the country or the weather,
and would not take responsibility for them. She went on wiping up the
water from the floor, with rebellion, slumbering, hidden rebellion
in every movement, and the look in her eyes when she turned to the
window, was a strange blending of rage and fear.
"Why don't you answer me," he said, turning around quickly, "Darn you,
why can't you speak when your spoken to?"
"You did not speak to me," she said. "There was nothing for me to
say."
He looked at her for a moment--her silence exasperated him. She seemed
to be keeping something back--something sinister and unknown.
"Well, I can tell you one thing," he went on, in a voice that seemed
to be made of iron filings, "you may not answer when I speak to
you--you'll do what you're told. I'm not going to slave my life out
on this farm when there's easier money to be made. Why should you set
yourself above me, and say you won't go into a hotel? I have the right
to decide, anyway. Better people than you have kept hotels, for all
your airs. Are you any better than I am?"
"I hope so," she said, without raising her eyes from the floor. She
rose quietly and washed out her floorcloth, and stood drying her hands
on the roller towel which hung on the kitchen door. There was an air
of composure about her that enraged him. He could not make it out. The
quality which made the women call her proud kindled his anger now.
The storm tore past the house, shaking it in its grip like a terrier
shaking a rat. It seemed to mock at their trivial disputes, and seek
to settle them by drowning the sound of them.
His voice rang above the storm:--
"I'll sell the farm," he shouted. "I'll sell every cow and horse on
it. I'll sell the bed from under you--I'll break you and your stuck-up
ways, and you'll not get a cent of money from me--not if your tongue
was hanging out."
The children shrank into corners and pitifully tried to efface
themselves. The dog, with drooping tail, sought shelter under the
table.
Sylvester Paine thought he saw a shrinking in her face, and followed
up his advantage with a fresh outpouring of abuse.
"There's no one to help you--or be sorry for you--you haven't a friend
in this neighborhood, with your stuck-up way. The women are sore on
you--none of them ever come to see you or even phone you. Don't you
think I see it! You've no one to turn to, so you might as well know
it--I've got you!"
His last words were almost screamed at her, as he strove to make his
voice sound above the storm, and in a sudden lull of the storm, they
rang through the house.
At the same moment there was a sound of something falling against
the door and the dog, with bristling hair, ran out from his place of
shelter.
Mrs. Paine turned quickly to the door and opened it, letting in a
gust of blinding snow, which eddied in the room and melted on the hot
stove.
A man, covered with snow, lay where he had fallen, exhausted on the
doorstep.
"What's this," cried Paine, in a loud voice, as he ran forward; "where
did this fellow come from?"
In his excitement he asked it over and over again, as if Mrs. Paine
should know. She ventured no opinion, but busied herself in getting
the snow from the clothes of her visitor and placing him in the
rocking chair beside the fire. He soon recovered the power of speech,
and thanked her gaspingly, but with deep sincerity.
"This is a deuce of a day for any one to be out," began the man of the
house. "Any fool could have told it was going to storm; what drove you
out? Where did you come from, anyway?"
Mrs. Paine looked appealingly at him:--
"Let him get his breath, can't you, see, he is all in," she said
quietly, "he'll tell you, when he can speak."
In a couple of hours, Peter Neelands, draped in a gray blanket, sat
beside the fire, while his clothes were being dried, and rejoiced
over the fact that he was alive. The near tragedy of the bright young
lawyer found dead in the snow still thrilled him. It had been a close
squeak, he told himself, and a drowsy sense of physical well-being
made him almost unconscious of his surroundings. It was enough for him
to be alive and warm.
Mrs. Paine moved about the house quietly, and did all she could with
her crude means to make her guest comfortable, and to assure him of
her hospitality. She pressed his clothes into shape again, and gave
him a well-cooked dinner, as well served as her scanty supplies would
allow, asking no questions, but with a quiet dignity making him feel
that she was glad to serve him. There was something in her manner
which made a strong appeal to the chivalrous heart of the young man.
He wanted to help her--do something for her--make things easier for
her.
The afternoon wore on, with no loosening of the grip of the storm,
and Peter began to realize that he was a prisoner. He could have been
quite happy with Mrs. Paine and the children, even though the floor
of the kitchen was draughty and cold, the walls smoked, the place
desolate and poor; but the presence of his host, with his insulting
manners, soon grew unbearable. Mr. Paine sat in front of the
stove, smoking and spitting, abusing the country, the weather, the
Government, the church. Nothing escaped him, and everything was wrong.
A certain form of conceit shone through his words too, which increased
his listener's contempt. He had made many sharp deals in his time, of
which he was inordinately proud. Now he gloated over them. Fifteen
thousand dollars of horse notes were safely discounted in the bank,
so he did not care, he said, whether spring came or not. He had his
money. The bank could collect the notes.
Peter looked at him to see if he were joking. Surely no man with so
much money would live so poorly and have his wife and children so
shabbily dressed. Something of this must have shown in his face.
"I've made money," cried Sylvester Paine, spitting at the leg of the
stove; "and I've kept it--or spent it, just as I saw fit, and I did
not waste is on a fancy house. What's a house, anyway, but a place to
eat and sleep. I ain't goin' to put notions into my woman's head, with
any big house--she knows better than to ask it now. If she don't like
the house--the door is open--let her get out--I say. She can't take
the kids--and she won't go far without them."
He laughed unpleasantly: "That's the way to have them, and by gosh!
there's one place I admired the old Premier--in the way he roasted
those freaks of women who came askin' for the vote. I don't think much
of the Government, but I'm with them on that--in keepin' the women
where they belong."