The Second Chance Part 24

"Impress this scene on our heart, to-day, dear Lord," he prayed; "this man cut down in his prime; this woman old with sorrow, not with years; this child, cheated of her father's love. Let us ask ourselves how long will we sit idly by, not caring. And oh, G.o.d, we pray Thee to bless the one man who, among us all, has said that as far as he is responsible this traffic shall cease; bless him abundantly, and may his troubled heart find peace. May he never forget that there is a fountain where all sin and uncleanness may be washed away. Remind our hearts this day of how He died to save us from the sins of selfishness and greed, and ever lives to cheer and guide us. Let us hear the call that comes to us to-day to do a man's part in protecting the weak, the helpless, and the young. Let the love of this woman for her husband call to our remembrance Thy unchanging love for us, and if it be in keeping with Thy divine laws, may the precious coin of her unfaltering devotion purchase for him a holding in the heavenly country. For the sake of Thy dear Son we ask it."

The funeral went slowly along the well-beaten road that skirts the sand-hills of the a.s.siniboine, and crawled like a long black snake through the winding valley of Oak Creek, whose banks were hanging with wild roses and columbine, while down in the shady aisles of the creek bed, under the stunted oak that gives it its name, pink and yellow lady's slippers gave out their honeyed fragrance.

"It is hard to die and leave all this behind," Thomas Perkins said; looking down the valley, where the breezes rippled the leaves. "I always think it must be hard to snuff out in June or July and have to pa.s.s out without knowin' how the crop'll turn out; but I guess now, from what I've heard, when the clock strikes quittin'time, a fellow won't be worryin' about the crops."

On the quiet hill, dotted with spruce, that looks down on the Souris, they laid Bill Cavers away. Very gently the coffin was lowered into its sandy bed as the minister read the beautiful words of the burial service and the neighbours and friends stood silent in the presence, the majestic presence of Death. Just before the sand was filled in, Ellen Cavers, tearless still, kissed the roses she held in her hand and dropped them gently on the coffin.

One by one the neighbours walked away, untied their horses, and drove slowly down the hill, until Libby Anne and her mother were left alone. Bud and Martha were waiting at the gate for them. Mrs. Cavers, looking up, noticed that one man stood with bowed head near the gate.

It was Sandy Braden, his face white and full of sadness.

Mrs. Cavers walked over to where he stood and held out her hand. "Mr.

Braden," she said, looking at him with a glimmer of tears in her gentle eyes.

He took her hand, so cruelly seamed and workworn; his was white and plump and well-kept. He tried to speak, but no words came.

Looking up she read his face with a woman's quick understanding. "I know," she said.

CHAPTER XXI

FROZEN WHEAT

For them 'at's here in airliest infant stages, It's a hard world; For them 'at gets the knocks of boyhood's ages, It's a mean world; For them 'at nothin's good enough they're gittin', It's a bad world; For them 'at learns at last what's right and fittin', It's a good world.

_----James Whitcomb Riley._

THE summer was over, and the harvest, a great, bountiful harvest, was gathered in. The industrious hum of the thres.h.i.+ng-machine was heard from many quarters, and the roads were dotted thick with teams bringing in the grain to the elevators.

In the quiet field on the hillside, where the spruce trees, straight and stiff, stand like faithful sentinels, the gra.s.s that had grown over Bill Cavers's grave was now sere and gray; only the hardy pansies were green still and gay with blossoms, mute emblems of the love that never faileth.

Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne were still living on the rented farm.

After Bill's death the neighbours, with true Western generosity, had agreed among themselves to harvest the crop for her. The season had been so favourable that her share of the crop would be a considerable amount.

It was a typical autumn day in middle September. The golden and purple flowers of the fall bespangled the roadside--wild sunflowers, brown-centred gaillardia, wild sage, and goldenrod. The bright blue of the cloudless sky set off the rich tints of autumn. The stubble fields still bore the golden-yellow tinge of the harvest, and although the maple leaves were fast disappearing before the l.u.s.ty winds of autumn, the poplars, yellow and rust-coloured, still flickered gaily, the wild rosehaws and frost-touched milkweed still gave a dash of colour to the shrubbery on the river-bank.

There had been an early frost that fall, which had caught the late wheat, and now the grain which was brought into the elevators had to be closely graded. The temptation to "plug" the wheat was strong, and so much of it was being done that the elevator men were suspicious of every one.

Young Tom Steadman was weighing wheat in the Farmers' Elevator while the busy time was on, and although there was no outward hostility between him and Bud Perkins, still his was too small a nature to forget the thras.h.i.+ng that Bud had given him at the school two years ago, and, according to Tom's code of ethics, it would be a very fine way to get even if he could catch Bud selling "plugged" wheat.

The first load that Bud brought in Tom asked him if he had plugged it. Bud replied quite hotly that he had not.

"I suppose," said Tom, "you stopped all that since you joined the Church."

Bud's face flushed, but he controlled his temper and answered: "Yes, that's what stopped me, and I'm not ashamed to say so."

The manager of the elevator, who was present, looked at him in surprise. "Were you ever caught?" he asked.

"No," said Bud; "I was not."

"Well, then, you're a fool to ever admit that you did it," he said severely.

"I can't help that," Bud said. "I am not going to lie about it."

"Well, it makes people suspicious of you to know you ever did it, that's all," Mr. Johnston said.

"You are welcome to watch me. I am not asking you to take my word for it," Bud replied.

"You're a queer lad," said the elevator man.

Bud's wheat was closely examined, and found to be of uniform quality.

The wheat went up to the dollar mark and Thomas Perkins decided to rush his in to the elevator at once. He stayed at home himself and filled the bags while Bud did the marketing.

All went well for a week. Contrary to his own words about being suspicious of Bud, the elevator "boss" was, in his own mind, confident of the boy's honesty.

One day, just as Bud's second last bag was thrown in, young Steadman gave a cry of delight, and picked out a handful. Number II Northern was the grading that Bud had been getting all the week. Young Steadman showed it triumphantly to the elevator "boss" who examined it closely. _It was frozen wheat!_

Bud was gathering up his bags when the elevator man called him over.

"Look at that," he said, holding the wheat before him.

Bud looked at it incredulously. "That's not mine," he said.

Young Steadman's eyes were on him exultingly. He had got even at last, he thought.

"We'll have to see about this, Bud," the elevator man said sternly.

The other bag was emptied, and Bud saw with his own eyes that the middle of the bag was filled with frozen wheat! He turned dizzy with shame and rage. The machinery in the elevator with its deafening, thump-thump-thump, seemed to be beating into his brain. He leaned against the wall, pale and trembling.

The same instinct which prompted Tom Steadman when he hit Libby Anne Cavers prompted him now. "I thought you said you wouldn't do such a thing since you joined the Church," he said, with an expression of shocked virtue.

Bud's cup of bitterness was overflowing, and at first he did not notice what had been said.

Tom took his silence to mean that he might with safety say more. "I guess you're not as honest as you'd like to have people think, and joinin' the Church didn't do you so much good after all."

Bud came to himself with a rush then, and young Tom Steadman went spinning across the floor with the blood spurting from his nose.

Bud was fined ten dollars for a.s.sault, and of course it became known in a few hours that the cause of the trouble was that Bud had been caught selling frozen wheat in the middle of his bags.

Through it all Bud made no word of defence. No one knew how bitter was the sting of disgrace in the boy's soul or how he suffered. When he went home that afternoon there was a stormy scene. "I told you I would not sell 'plugged' wheat," he said to his father, raging with the memory of it, "and, without letting me know, you put it in and made me out a thief and a liar."

The old man moistened his lips. "Say, Buddie," he said, "it was too bad you hit young Steadman; he's an overgrown slab of a boy, and I don't mind you lickin' him, but they'll take the 'law' on ye every time; and ten dollars was a terrible fine. Maybe they'd have let you off with five if you'd coaxed them."