The Wind Before the Dawn Part 38

"You will if you work for these yahoos around here much. Why don't you invest in land and have your own home right from the start? A man like you can't live in the kind of houses and do the kind of work You'll find in this country."

"I wouldn't work for myself--I've nothing to work for. When you take away a man's chances to marry and live the normal life, you make a sluggard of him. I've got to have a partner, and have his interests to serve as well as my own, or I won't work, and in the meantime I want to look about a bit before I pick up some one to go into business with. I won't be long finding some one."

"No whine in him," was the doctor's mental comment, but what he said was: "Well, You'll find life about here a bit dull. Come in, and make yourself at home in this office while you're in town, and I'll see what I can do about finding a place for you."

After he had watched his patient swing off up the street he considered the case seriously.

"College athletics do just about that sort of thing for a boy," he said aloud. "Now I believe Silas Chamberlain would take him for his board, and there ain't any children there. Children's the devil in a farmhouse: no manners, and they set right on top of you, and if you say anything the folks are hurt. He's a nice fellow, and I intend to hold on to him. It was like old times to talk for a while to a man that knows chemistry and things. I'll see more of him. I'm gettin' old altogether too fast in this blamed hole. I need some one to talk to that's more like a man ought to be."

CHAPTER XVI

REVIVIFYING FIRES

It was butchering day at Silas Chamberlain's and Liza Ann had the household astir early. Luther Hansen was master of ceremonies in the backyard, and relieved Silas of the heavy lifting. It was a day for visiting and neighbourly activity as well as hard work. Hugh Noland had been sent to Silas the week before by Doctor Morgan, and a.s.sisted in rolling the pork barrel from the cellar door to a convenient post near the out-of-door fire, where they sunk the bottom of it into the frozen earth and carefully tilted it to the proper angle for scalding purposes.

"It's fifteen years since I've been at 'a killing,' and I feel as if I were ten years old again," Noland said as he watched the hard earth give way under the mattock Luther wielded.

"Go hunt a straw in that case, and I'll see that you get the bladder.

Shall I save you the pig's tail?" Luther said as he settled the barrel into the cavity.

They swung the great iron kettle over the pile of kindling and corncobs laid ready for lighting, and then carried water to fill it.

As the last bucket was emptied into the kettle, Luther turned and swung his cap at John Hunter and Jake, who were pa.s.sing in the bobsled.

"Hunters," he explained. "Have you met them yet?"

"No," replied Noland. "Who are they? He drives a good team."

"Nearest neighbours on th' west over there," Luther said, pointing to the roofs of the Hunter place, plainly to be seen over the rise of land between. "They're th' folks for you t' know--th' only ones with book-learnin' around here. Goin' t' stay with th' Chamberlains long?"

"No," replied the other, with a look of reticence; "that is, only for a time. He don't hire much, he tells me. I'm just helping him till he gets his fencing tightened up and this work done. Why?"

"Well, I was just a thinkin' that that's th' place for you. Hunter hires a lot of work done, and--and you'd like each other. You're th' same kind of folks. I wonder how he come t' be takin' 'is man along t' town with 'im?

Th' was a trunk in th' back of the sled too, but that may 'a' been for Mrs. Hunter. That was 'is mother with 'im."

There was not much time to speculate about future work, there was much to be done in the present, and before noon five limp bodies had been dragged from the pens to the scalding barrel, plunged into the steaming water, turned, twisted, turned again, and after being churned back and forth till every inch of the black hides was ready to shed its coat of hair and scarf-skin, were drawn out upon the wheelbarrow. Then a gambol-stick was thrust through the tendons of the hind legs and the hogs were suspended from a cross pole about six feet from the ground, where they hung while the great corn-knives sc.r.a.ped and scratched and scrubbed and scoured till the black bodies gradually lost their coating and became pink and tender looking and perfectly clean. They were then drawn and left to cool and stiffen.

The sloppy, misty weather made the work hard because of the frozen earth under the melting snow, and the steaming, half foggy atmosphere was too warm for comfort of men working over an open fire and a steaming barrel of hot water, but by noon the butchering was finished. To the new man it was a journey back to childhood. How well he remembered the various features of preparation: the neighbours asked in to a.s.sist, the odours pleasant and unpleasant, the bustling about of his mother as she baked and boiled and stewed for the company, the magic circle about the pens from which he was excluded when the men went forth with the rifle, and the squeal which followed the rifle's crack, and the fear which gripped him when he thought the poor pig was hurt, but which was explained away by his father, who, proud of his marksmans.h.i.+p, a.s.sured him that "that pig never knew what hit it."

In addition to the fact that the man had spent his childhood on a farm, he had the happy faculty of entering into the life of the people among whom he found himself. He entertained the little group at the dinner table that day with a description of his mother's soap-making, and discussed the best ways of preparing sausage for summer use as if he himself were a cook; and as Luther listened he was convinced that the Hunter home was the proper place for him to settle down.

At two o'clock Luther started home with some spareribs, wrapped in one of Liza Ann's clean towels, under his arm. It was early, but nothing more could be done at Silas's house till the carca.s.ses were cold enough to cut and trim, and, besides, there was an ominous looking bank of dull gray cloud in the northwest. Luther swung along the road toward the west energetically.

The wind gave a little twisting flurry, and dropped completely when he was about halfway between Chamberlain's and the Hunter place. A few minutes later there was a puff of wind from the opposite direction, succeeded by a feeling of chill. Luther scanned the horizon and stepped faster. When the advance guard of fine snow began to sift down from the leaden sky above, he started to run. He had lived in the north, and knew the meaning of the rapidly darkening sky. The signs were unmistakable. Presently the fine flakes began to rush along toward the south with greater force. The wind came on steadily now. Luther looked about anxiously, making a note of the location of things. It was still a quarter of a mile to Hunter's. As he peered ahead, wis.h.i.+ng himself nearer protection, with a roar the blizzard fell upon him, blotting out the landscape before him as completely as if a curtain had fallen between.

With all his might Luther struggled forward. The wind came from the right side and almost carried him from his feet. He had been standing over a steaming kettle and scalding barrel most of the day, and the icy blast went through him, chilling his blood instantly. Luther knew his danger.

This was not a cyclone where men were carried away by the winds of summer; this was a winter's storm where men could freeze to death, and men froze quickly in blizzards. The driving particles of snow and ice made it impossible to look ahead. He s.h.i.+elded his face with his right arm, and tried, as he hurried forward, to keep in mind the exact direction of the Hunter house. If he could only reach that he would be safe. The road was a new one, recently opened, and not well defined. It was almost at once obliterated. Little needles of ice thrust themselves at him with stinging force, and he could not see; the blinding snow whirled and whistled about his feet, and in five minutes Luther Hansen realized that he had got out of the road. He stopped in alarm and, turning his back to the storm, tried to see about him. The gray wall of snow completely obscured every object from his sight. He had a sense of being the only thing alive in the universe; all else seemed to have been destroyed. His every nerve ached with the cold, but peer about as he would he could not possibly tell where he was. He remembered that there had been a cornfield on his right, and thought that he must have gone too far south, for he was certainly in the meadow now. The pressure of the wind, he reflected, would naturally carry him in that direction, so he faced around and started on, bearing stubbornly toward the north. Every fibre in him shook; no cold he had ever felt in Minnesota was equal to this; there was a quality in the pressure of this cold that was deadly. The wind pierced in spite of every kind of covering. Real fear began to lay hold upon him. He stumbled easily; the action of his limbs began to give him alarm. The package of spareribs fell from under his arm, and he stooped to pick it up. As he bent over the wind caught him like a tumble-weed and threw him in a s.h.i.+vering heap on the ground. He had worn no mittens in the morning, and his hands stung as if tortured by the lashes of many whips. To ease their hurt he remained huddled together with his back to the wind while he breathed on his freezing fingers, but remembered that that was the surest way to add to the nip of the cold in a blast which condensed the breath from his mouth into icicles before it had time to get away from his moustache. Staggering to his feet, he stumbled on toward the Hunter house, trying as hard as his fast benumbing senses would permit to bear toward the wind and the cornfield at the right. He had not picked up the package--had forgotten it in fact--and now he tried to beat his freezing hands across his shoulders as he ran. The bitter wind could not be endured, and he crossed his hands, thrusting them into his sleeves, hoping to warm them somehow on his wrists; but with eyes uncovered he could not gauge his steps, and stumbled and fell. Unable to get his hands out of his sleeves in time to protect himself, he tripped forward awkwardly and scratched his face on the cut stubs of the meadow-gra.s.s. Evidently he had not reached the road as yet.

He knew the road so well that he could have kept it with a bandage over his eyes but for the wind which thrust him uncertainly from his course. It was that which was defeating him. Try as he would, he could not keep his attention fixed upon the necessity of staying near that cornfield.

Determined to find it before he proceeded farther toward the west, he faced the wind squarely, and, bracing his body firmly, hurried as fast as he could toward the stalkfield.

After a time he seemed to wake up; he was not facing the wind, and he was aching miserably. Luther Hansen knew what that meant: he was freezing.

Already the lethargy of sleep weighted each dragging foot. He thought of the nest an old sow had been building in the pen next to the one where the killing had been done that day. With the instincts of her kind, the mother-pig had prepared for the storm by making a bed where it would be sheltered. Luther's mind dwelt lingeringly upon its cozy arrangement; every atom of his body craved shelter. Death by freezing faced him already, though he had been in the grip of the storm but one short quarter of an hour. He had lost consciousness of time: he only knew that he was freezing within sight of home. Nothing but action could save him. Nerving himself for another trial, the bewildered man turned toward the north and walked into the very teeth of the storm, searching for the lost trail.

Sometimes he thought his foot had found it; then it would be lost again.

He wandered on hours, days, weeks--he wandered s.h.i.+vering over the meadow, the road, the state of Kansas--over the whole globe and through all s.p.a.ce, till at last a great wall shut off the offending wind, the roar of the planets lessened, and the numb and frozen man fell forward insensible, striking his head against a dark obstruction thrusting its shoulder through a bank of dirty gray snow.

The sound of a heavy body falling on her doorstep brought Elizabeth Hunter to the door. She opened it cautiously. The snow swirled in as it was drawn back and the heated air of the sitting room rushed out, forming a cloud of steam which almost prevented her from seeing the helpless figure at her feet. She could not distinguish the features, but it was a man, and the significance of his presence was plain. Seizing him about the body, Elizabeth dragged him into the house, and shut the door behind him to keep out the blast.

"Luther Hansen!" she exclaimed.

Finding that she could not arouse him, she pulled the relaxed and nerveless form to the lounge, but when she attempted to lift the limp figure to the couch she found it almost more than all her woman's strength could accomplish. Luther stirred and muttered, but could not be awakened sufficiently to help himself, and it was only after some minutes and the putting forth of every ounce of strength that the girl had that he was at last stretched upon the lounge. Elizabeth brought blankets to cover the s.h.i.+vering, muttering, delirious man, and having heard that the frost must be drawn gradually from frozen extremities, and being unable to get his hands and feet into cold water, she brought and wrapped wet towels about them, and chafed his frozen face.

It was a long time before the white nose and cheeks began to show colour; then the ears became scarlet, and pain began to sting the man into consciousness. The chafing hurt, and Luther fought off the hands that rubbed so tenderly.

Gradually Luther Hansen awoke to his surroundings. Delirium and reality mixed helplessly for some moments. He remembered his struggles to reach the Hunter house, but the gap in the train of his affairs made him suspect that this was a phase of delirium and that he was in reality freezing. He was stinging all over. He wanted to find out where he was, and tried to get upon his feet.

"You are right here in my house, Luther," Elizabeth said, holding him on his pillow.

Luther relaxed and lay looking at her for some time before he asked:

"How did I get here, Lizzie?"

"I don't know, Luther," she replied. "I heard you fall on the doorstep. I never was so surprised. How did you come to be out--and without mittens too?"

She removed the wet towel from one of his hands, and he drew it away with a groan.

"I expect, Lizzie, it's frozen. You better rub it with snow."

The question of how he reached her house puzzled Luther throughout the long afternoon and evening, while they listened to the roar of the wind and talked of the unsheltered cattle in the many Kansas stalkfields.

"The only thing that kept our cattle from being out of doors was the fact that Jake had to go to Iowa and John had to take him to town," Elizabeth had said at one point.

"Has Jake left for good?" Luther asked hesitatingly. He knew John's unpopularity with the men who worked for him and was a little afraid to ask Elizabeth, who might be sensitive about it.

"No. Jake has lost his mother, but he'll come back for the spring seeding.

Jake's a good man; he and John seem to get along pretty well." It was Elizabeth's turn to speak hesitatingly. She did not know how much Luther knew of John's affairs with his men, nor what opinion Jake might have expressed to Luther.

"Jake's a curious cub! He's been your dog, Lizzie, ever since that school business. I've heard 'im tell it over twenty times."

"I wish we could find another like him," Elizabeth said wistfully. "John isn't able to take care of all this stock unless he gets a man in Colebyville to-day, and--and if he did, the man, as likely as not, wouldn't stay more than a week or two."

Luther Hansen looked up eagerly.

"Lizzie, I've found th' very man for you folks. He'll stay too. He's a fellow by th' name of Noland--workin' for Chamberlain, an' wants a job right soon--got a lot of book-learnin'--just your kind."