The Girl from Keller's Part 12

She was silent for a moment or two, and then went on in a tone that made Festing's heart beat: "You gave him work and helped him to make a new start. He was too proud to tell us about his difficulties."

"It cost me nothing; there was a job waiting. Afterwards he got on by his own merits. I had nothing to do with that."

"But you gave him his chance. We can't forget this. George was younger than me. I have no other brother, and was very fond of him. Indeed, I think we owe you much, and my mother is anxious to give you her thanks."

"Is he all right now? I lost sight of him when they sent me to another part of the road. It was my fault--he wrote, but I'm not punctual at answering letters, and hadn't much time."

"He is in the chief construction office," Helen replied. "In his last letter he told us about the likelihood of his getting some new promotion." She paused and resumed with a smile: "I don't suppose you know you were a hero of his."

"I didn't know. As a rule, the young men we had on the road seemed to find their bosses amusing and rather patronized them. Of course, they were fresh from a scientific college or engineer's office, and, for the most part, we had learned what we knew upon the track."

"But you knew it well. George wrote long letters about the struggle you had at the canyon. Some fight, he called it."

"Well," said Festing quietly, "we were up against it then. The job was worth doing."

"I know. George told us how the snowslide came down and filled the head of the gorge with stones and broken trees, and wash-outs wrecked the line you built along its side. He said it was a job for giants; clinging to the face of the precipice while you blew out and built on--under-pinning, isn't it?--the first construction track. But he declared the leaders were fine. They were where the danger was, in the blinding rain and swirling snow--and the boys, as he called them, would always follow you."

Festing colored, but Helen went on: "We were glad, when the worst was over, that he had had this training. It was so clean a fight."

"We were dirty enough often," Festing objected with an effort at humor.

"When things were humming we slept in our working clothes, which were generally stained with mud and engine grease. Then I don't suppose you know how dissipated a man looks and feels when he has breathed the fumes of giant-powder."

She stopped him with a half imperious glance. "I know it's the convention to talk of such things as a joke; but you didn't feel that in the canyon. Then it was a stubborn fight of the kind that man was meant to wage. If you win in trade and politics, somebody must lose, but a victory over Nature is a gain to all. And when your enemies are storms and floods, cheating and small cunning are not of much use."

"That is so," Festing agreed, smiling. "When you're sent to cut through an icy rock or re-lay the steel across the gap a snowslide has made, it's obvious if you have done the job or not. This has some drawbacks, because if you don't make good, you often get fired."

"But that was not what drove you on. You must have had a better motive for making good."

Festing felt embarra.s.sed. The girl was obviously not indulging a sentimental vein. She felt what she frankly hinted at, and although he generally avoided imaginative talk, her remarks did not sound cheap or ridiculous.

"Well," he said, "the fear of getting fired is a pretty strong incentive to do one's best, but I suppose when one gets up against big things there is something else. After all, one hates to be beaten."

Helen's eyes sparkled and she gave him a sympathetic nod. "The hate of being beaten distinguishes man from the ape and puts him on the side of the angels."

Then Miss Jardine came in, somewhat to the relief of Festing, who felt he could not keep up long on Helen's plane. Besides, he was not altogether sure he understood her last remark.

"I heard," said Miss Jardine. "Helen's sometimes improving, but perhaps she was right just now. The ape is cunning but acquiescent and accepts things as they are. Man protests, and fights to make them better. At least, he ought to, though one can't say he always does."

Festing did not reply and she sat down and resumed: "But I suppose you haven't many s.h.i.+rkers in Canada?"

"I imagine we have as many wastrels as there are anywhere else, but as a rule one doesn't find them in the woods and on the plains. When they leave the cities they're apt to starve."

"You're a grim lot. Work or starve is a stern choice, particularly if one has never done either. It looks as if you hadn't much use for purely ornamental people. But what about the half-taught women who don't know how to work? What do you do with them?"

"They're not numerous. Then one can always learn, and I imagine every woman can cook and manage a house."

"You're taking much for granted, though yours seems to be the conventional view. But how did you learn railroad building, for example?"

"By unloading ties and shoveling ballast on the track. The trouble was that I began too late."

"What did you do before that?"

"Sometimes I worked in sawmills and sometimes packed--that means carrying things--for survey parties, and went prospecting."

"In the wilds? It sounds interesting. Won't you tell us about it?"

Festing complied; awkwardly at first, and then with growing confidence.

He did not want to make much of his exploits, but there was a charm in talking about things he knew to two clever and attractive girls, and they helped him with tactful questions. Indeed, he was surprised to find they knew something about the rugged country in which he wandered.

He told them about risky journeys up lonely rivers in the spring, adventurous thrusts into the wilderness where hards.h.i.+p was oftener to be found than valuable minerals, and retreats with provisions running out before the Arctic winter.

Something of the charm of the empty s.p.a.ces colored his narratives as he drew from memory half-finished pictures of the mad riot of primitive forces when the ice broke up and the floods hurled the thundering floes among the rocks; and of tangled woods sinking into profound silence in the stinging frost. Moreover, he unconsciously delineated his own character, and when he stopped, the others understood something of the practical resource and stubbornness that had supported him.

It was encouraging to see they were not bored, but he did not know that Miss Jardine had found him an interesting study and had skilfully led him on. He was a new type to both girls, although Helen was nearer to him than the other and sympathized where her companion was amused.

Festing's ideas were clean-cut, his honesty was obvious, and she noted that he did not know much about the lighter side of life. Yet she saw that, sternly practical as he was, he had a vague feeling for romance.

"Will you stay on the railroad when it's finished?" she asked presently.

"I've left it. I hadn't the proper training to carry me far, and as the road is opening up the country I've bought a prairie farm."

"But do you know much about farming?"

"I don't. As a matter of fact, not many of the boys do know much when they begin, but somehow they make progress. On the plains, it isn't what you know that counts, but the capacity for work and staying with your job. That's what one really needs, if you see what I mean."

"I think I do," Miss Jardine replied. "A Victorian philosopher, whose opinions you seem to hold, said something of the kind. He claims that genius takes many different forms, but is not different in itself. That is, if you have talent, you can do what you like. Build railroads, for example, and then succeed on a farm."

Festing laughed good-humoredly. "It's a pretty big thing to claim, but that man was near the mark; they live up to his theories on the plains, where shams don't count and efficiency's the test. I don't mean that the boys have genius, but gift and perseverance seem to be worth as much.

Anyhow, one can generally trust them to make good when they undertake a job they don't know much about."

Helen mused. Charnock, who knew something about farming, had tried it and failed, but she thought Festing would succeed. The man looked determined and, in a way, ascetic; he could deny himself and concentrate. Knowledge was not worth as much as character. But she was content to let Miss Jardine lead the talk.

"One understands," said the latter, "that farming's laborious and not very profitable work."

"It's always laborious," Festing agreed. "It may be profitable; that depends. You see----"

He went on, using plain words but with some force of imagination, to picture the wheat-grower's hopes and struggles; but he did more, for as he talked Helen was conscious of the romance that underlay the patient effort. She saw the empty, silent land rolling back to the West; the ox-teams slowly breaking the first furrow, and then the big Percheron horses and gasoline tractors taking their place. Wooden shacks dotted the white gra.s.s, the belts of green wheat widened, wagons, and afterwards automobiles, lurched along the rutted trails. Then the railroad came, brick homestead and windmills rose, and cities sprang up, as it were, in a night. Everything was fluid, there was no permanence; rules and customs altered before they got familiar, a new nation, with new thoughts and aims, was rising from the welter of tense activity.

Then Festing got up with an apologetic air. "I'm afraid I've stopped too long and talked too much. Still the big movement out there is fascinating and people in this country don't grasp its significance. I felt I'd like to make you understand. Then you didn't seem--"

"If we had been bored, it would have been our fault, but we were not bored at all," Miss Jardine replied. "At least, I wasn't, and don't think Helen was."

Helen added her denial and gave Festing her hand. When he had gone Miss Jardine looked at her with a smile.

"He was interesting," she remarked. "Talks better than he knows, and I suppose we ought to feel flattered, because he took our comprehension for granted. After all, it was rash to talk about Canadian progress to two English girls."

"You made him talk," Helen rejoined. "It's the first time I've known you interested in geography."

Miss Jardine laughed. "I was interested in the man. He told us a good deal about himself, although it would have embarra.s.sed him if he'd guessed. The curious thing is that he imagines he's practical, while he's really a reckless sentimentalist."