Chapter XIV

SECOND IMPRESSIONS.—AUNT ESTHER AND THE PLOUGHMEN.

THE Willards rested undisturbed, save that, semi-occasionally, a climax snore from the attic lodger caused momentary disquiet. But thunder does not kill, neither does snoring; and there is a frank outspokenness about the latter quite reassuring under certain circumstances. Certainly, so long as a man suspected of fell design so loudly proclaims his somnolence, so long you feel secure from harm at his hands. And Mr. Lodger blew bugle-blasts of peace till the glowing east announced the empire of darkness overthrown—for a few hours.

With composed and serious mien, the wayfarer descended from the low-roofed chamber, and kind Mrs. Willard, as he bade her "good morning," marvelled that they had been such cowards.

"Madam," said he, "I owe you an apology for my rudeness last evening. Here on the frontier the latch-string always hangs out, and the traveller is made welcome. You are not used to such unquestioning hospitality. I forgot to make allowance for the fact, and was irritated at your cold, New England ways.

"My name is Simmons. I hail from New York, where I own a snug property. Am what is termed an old bachelor; not from choice, but never chanced to meet just the person I fancied. Took a notion to the frontier. Have spent a year or two riding round. Think I shall open a large farm, stock it, build a comfortable house, if I can find a woman of the right stamp to look after me and the establishment,—none of your flyaway butterflies, but a sensible, pious lady, in whom a man can depend for comfort and happiness.

"There you have my story. And now I've been thinking, as your boys are young, and green in pioneering, and my horse is overdriven, that if they'll let the creature stand where he is in the shed, and cut a handful of grass for him, and give him water, just as if 'twas their own, I'll return the compliment with interest."

The two women critically regarded their guest while he spoke. To how much better advantage he appeared by morning than by firelight! They began to feel annoyed at the offensive distrust of him. His "language," too, how greatly improved! How much there is in one's manner!

Mrs. Willard did not at once reply.

"Believe me, I will not obtrude on your quiet. I shall not be here much myself, but when on the ground will gladly aid the lads in getting settled. My experience ought to be of service to them, and as for remuneration for the care of self and beast, I'll see that you don't lose by the operation."

The arrangement was entered into. Mr. Simmons, leaving his handsome horse, and crossing the prairie afoot, was lost to view.

"I hate his looks," said the dwarf, "and hope he'll die or the Indians will capture him, so that he'll never show his face in our house again."

"Why, Frankie," exclaimed Mrs. Willard, reprovingly, "what a wicked wish! I am sure the more I see of Mr. Simmons, the better he appears. Doesn't he, Esther?"

"He's hard to understand," replied the spinster.

At twilight of the third day ensuing, Mr. Simmons returned.

"Ferdie," said he, familiarly, "I have a capital idea for you boys. It is too late in the season, you know, to plant, but it is magnificent weather for haying. I'd like a little exercise at it myself. Suppose we spend several days working up the grass—untold acres wait for the scythe. It's easy making it in this dry Minnesota air, and these ceaseless breezes—cut and stack it the same hour almost. Why, your sons, Mrs. Willard, might put up tons of it; and in the fall and winter, the immigrants, flocking in too late to hay, would buy of you, and pay all you asked. They must have it for their cattle; don't you see? And I'd rather give the lads a lift at it than not."

"A most excellent idea," said Mrs. Willard.

"I've lugged a scythe ten miles on purpose," he continued. "Here it is." And he took it in from the side of the cabin, against which it leaned. "What say for a raid on the prairie grass to-morrow, boys?—If your mother will let me lunch on her nice corn-cake, and stretch my legs on a board in the attic."

"Certainly," replied that lady, with warmth. "Ferdie, some haying-tools came with the wagon—did they not?"

"Yes, mother," he answered; "two rakes, a large and small hayfork, and one scythe."

"How much will hay probably command next fall?" inquired the mother.

"It will be low, of course, compared with eastern prices; but the grass here grows wild, and it makes into hay vastly easier and faster. Your boys will dispose of it readily at from five to ten dollars per ton, and they can stack two tons a day, easily."

"That's the ticket," said Georgie, turning a summersault from the doorstep, where he sat listening. "We can pay for our claim that way. I'm in for it, for one. Hurrah for prairie hay!"

Mr. Simmons's suggestion was a good one, and commended itself even to calculating aunt Esther.

And next morning betimes, the pleasant and familiar sound of the mower sharpening his scythe resounded on the proximate prairie.

Mr. Simmons, with amazing ease, yet with hurry, cut great smooth swaths. Ferdie improved as he practised, abiding by Mr. Simmons's example and instructions. Willie and Frankie handled the rakes. Soon gigantic hay-mounds dotted the shorn plain, the man day by day stimulating the energies of the boys by his own disinterested efforts, and by assuring them that all the profits were to be theirs.

One noon, as they reclined eating their dinner, Mr. Simmons observed,—

"Boys, I move we vary our work this afternoon. I'm getting tired of that dark attic. Besides, the roof is so low that I can't get into bed without thumping my head against the rafters. Let us cut some light logs, and build a little hut between here and the cabin for me to occupy nights, and to store the tools in, and save carrying them so far."

So Fondle and Georgie fetched axes, and a miniature cabin arose, which, from that time forward, Mr. Simmons slept in.

The haying went on prosperously, Mr. Simmons working with the boys, or omitting it, as he chose, but when in the field directing all that was done. He proved an efficient overseer.

He now frequently called in at the Willard cabin for conversation with the ladies, his many thoughtful suggestions and apt offices causing them to depend somewhat on his aid. Towards Miss Esther, he became specially, but unostentatiously, attentive. And when, at times, he dwelt on the loneliness of his bleak bachelorhood, and pictured his idea of wifely qualifications, occasionally the blood would mount to her cheeks, as she fancied he had her in mind for the original.

"I declare, I believe the old bach is dead in love with you, sis," Mrs. Willard would assert, after he had left.

At which insinuation aunt Esther's ear-drops would indignantly vibrate, as she tossed her head, ejaculating, "What presumption!"

There was, however, one kindness that Mr. Simmons did aunt Esther that extorted her appreciative notice. She had—as who has not?—one infirmity: she was vain of her clear complexion—a charm she feared she should lose in the gloomy, begrimed loggery.

"I shall be black as Egypt," she sighed one day, as the gallant "bach" entered. "It's as dark and smoky here as Tartarus!"

Shortly after Mr. Simmons remarked,—

"Ladies, I've been on a voyage of discovery, and have hit on a chance to buy a cooking-stove and some glass windows, cheap. Now, you could have an aperture cut for a window, and one fitted in very easily—Ferdie and I could do it, as to that. A temporary addition might also be built against the cabin, near the door, to put the stove in till cool weather."

"What would they cost?" eagerly asked Mrs. Willard.

"Not over eighteen dollars. The stove is second-hand."

She did not answer, for she felt too poor to spare the money. But when her eyes were turned, aunt Esther followed the bachelor out of the cabin, and inquired, dignifiedly,—

"When could the stove and windows be procured?"

"To-morrow," was the reply.

"The money is ready when they arrive," she said. "Come to me for it; but let it remain a secret between you and me."

Immediately, to the astonishment of Mrs. Willard, the boys and the bachelor attacked the dwelling. They were chiselling, pounding, thumping, sawing, in a most unaccountable manner, the entire afternoon, till at length daylight streamed into the log house through a civilized glass window, and the tea-kettle sang a song of steam in a veritable stove.

Nevertheless, the dwarf was still sullen towards the benevolent Mr. Simmons. And aunt Esther, despite his clever compliments and kindnesses to the household, shook distrustingly, though less confidently, her well-poised head. But with Mrs. Willard, Ferdie, and Georgie, the bachelor was immensely popular.

"What is that?" exclaimed Mrs. Willard, a week later, as stentorian shouting smote her ear from the direction of the haystacks.

Georgie hurried round the grove, and more quickly hurried back, his blue eyes wide with wonder, reporting that two men were there with a "tremenjous" big team, ploughing.

"On our claim?"

"Yes," said Georgie.

Mrs. Willard and aunt Esther, with the three boys, went to see for themselves. Sure enough, in front of the hut in which considerate Mr. Simmons performed nocturnal music, was yoke on yoke of oxen, drawing a mammoth plough through the virgin sod. It was an animating spectacle. But why were they ploughing there? And by whose order?

The lads hastened to ascertain.

"It's another of Mr. Simmons's generous surprises," said confiding Mrs. Willard. "He's having that land broken up for the boys. He 'is' a good soul, there!"

"Mister," addressing the man of the whip, "who sent you to plough on our piece?"

"Hey?" blurted the driver, beginning a new furrow.

When he reached the end of it, Ferdie repeated the question.

"Git out of the way," he roared, flourishing the cruel lash, "or you'll git this round yer legs!"

Ferdinand retreated in consternation, and repairing to his mother, stated the brutal reception he had met.

"I'll inquire," said aunt Esther, her eyes flashing; "they'll not be impudent to me!"

The correctness of this conclusion, however, appeared doubtful as she neared the ploughmen. Their vociferous "gee-haw"-ing and terrible oaths discovered a determination, like Jeff Davis, to be "let alone."

But Miss Esther advanced, with undaunted intrepidity, directly in the path of the team, and there she stood immovable as a granite boulder. The cattle stopped, the men ceased swearing, at the unexpected interference.

"Sir," said she to the teamster, "I wish to be informed by whose authority you are here."

"Wall, I ruther suspects," returned the man, "it's by the authority of him as owns this strip o' land."

"Who is he?"

"Wall, miss, it's the person what occurpies that ere shanty, and forked up those ere stacks o' hay!"

"O, you've made a mistake," she observed. "'We' built that hut, and made that hay."

"Didn't no one else have a hand in it?"

"A man who boarded with us helped—a Mr. Simmons."

"I don't know no Mr. Simmons; nor you nuther, as to that. But the individual what occurpies that shanty employed us to turn over this soil, and we're just a going to do it. Gee! Git up!"

"Sir," interposed the lady, stepping to his side and laying her white hand on his bare, brown wrist, "'you' are a 'man,' and 'I' am a 'woman,' and of course you are 'gentleman' enough to hear what I've got to say. Come this way a moment," she added, authoritatively.

And ashamed to refuse, he followed her to the Willard cabin.

"Here's where we live," said she. "Which has been the longest built, this house or that hut, in which the one who sent you here slept a few nights?"

"This, in course," he answered.

"Then what right had that fellow—our 'guest'—to call this land his, and send you to break it up?"

"Have you preëmpted, miss?"

"Not yet."

"Well, miss, I'm hired to do this small job, an' I shell do it. Can't afford to lose the pay. All is, ye'll have ter be spry, or you'll have yer claim jumped—that's all!"

"Jumped! I don't understand you."

"Well, you're mighty green, then. It's done over and often. You see, the one what gits fust into the Land Office, and swears he's got a cabin, and some breaking on land what's unpaid for, gits it. Now, that's what this ere Mr. Shimmey—or whatsomdever's his name—is arter, 'you' bet!" And her blunt informant turned to go.

"One more question," said she. "You asserted that he owned that hay. What do you know about it?"

"Nothing much," was the answer; "only that I heard this ere man engage it to Edmonds at three dollars a ton. Edmonds is buying up all he can lay paws on, to hold agin it gits higher!"