Seeds of Pine. Emily F. Murphy
to wager you, even to the half of my kingdom, that he sells.
The woman is proud, I can see, and accordingly careful to enlarge on her man's good qualities, but it takes no acuteness to read through her assurances that he is a pessimist and one who always draws tails in the toss of life.
The readers who have come with me thus far may here swing off key, but, People Dear, you would be wrong; she is not chastising him; she is mothering him. It is a remarkable trait in the make-up of a good woman that she can, in critical junctures, not only be her own mother but may also act in this capacity to the husband of her children. It is this same office the Holy Ghost performs in the Trinity.
The newsy is giving the last call to breakfast. He is a full-lifed young man, with a cock-o'-my-walk air. I would not be surprised if he were hatched out of the egg of a pouter-pigeon. He serves meals as far as Edson, from whence we will be transferred to a construction train and trust to manna being rained down from heaven. His tables are crowded with guests, and we sit close like kernels on an ear of corn. For breakfast, there is tea; there is coffee; there are pork chops, and other fat foods which are made palatable by the sprightly addition of sour pickles. Indeed, you may credit me, this breakfast is not one to be sniffed at. I drink pannikins of tea that is very strong and green, and fearlessly ask for more. If there is a happier woman in the North than myself, I have never heard of her. I quite agree with you; our pouter-pigeon serves the public far more effectually than do the cabineteers, or even the bishops.
We are yet in the wheat belt and the wheat is at flood-tide. When I see a large stand of grain that is breast-high I say, "Well done, Good Fellows!" and "Haste to the in-gathering!" The field hears my salutation to the sowers and bows a million heads to me. And it says, shibboleth! shibboleth! (If you would pick up the talk of the fields you must be still and listen.)
The Hebrews, with ears a-tilt, caught this whisper, and so their word for an ear of wheat was "shibboleth." It was this word the Ephraimites lisped and so betrayed themselves to Jephthah. The difference was only one of an aspirate. What they said was sibboleth.
Now, while one can tell the sound of ripe wheat, no word is exactly descriptive of the odour thereof. When I am not tired my pen almost catches it. The odour is an intangible something between dryness and colour, and the sign that expresses it can only be revealed.
It is the mental habit of people to think of wheat as only so many bushels of inert matter that is bought and sold on margins by half-mad men, whereas, in all the world, wheat is the thing most richly alive. It won't die, not for thousands of years. We would put jars of wheat in the corner-stones of our state buildings, even as the Egyptians buried it in tombs of rock. It is the only food we could pass down the centuries to posterity, and apart from its scientific value, there is little doubt posterity would appreciate the gift infinitely more than those stupid name-lists of still stupider people. The grain should be of the highest grade, with the name of the grower and the exact location of his farm added thereto.
Yes! let us tuck away these northern wheat grains till England becomes a republic; the United States a kingdom; and until the yellow peril has turned white. Let us lay them safely aside for that day when labour and capital have become one, or till a still later epoch when instead of sex in soul, there shall be soul in sex. Then take them out, Posterity, and crush them into a sacramental wafer that all the world may eat of it as a loving pledge from the twentieth century.
If you think this too long to wait, perhaps you will recall that while the seven sleepers slept, Cæsar was superseded by Christ. Now, the time they slept was for the lives of three men.
In handling wheat, you have doubtless noticed that it is not only alive but possesses a markedly developed will-power. It is ever resisting conquest. They tell me that in the part of the exchange called the pit, you cannot beat back wheat. Some men have succeeded for a while, but always it has rolled in and smothered its erstwhile victors. Try to hold a handful and the task is well-nigh impossible. It slides through your fingers and causes your palm to open involuntarily. It wearies a man to hold wheat tightly for long. Oats may be held and other cereals, but not wheat. Its tendency is to fall to the ground and reproduce. Thus, it is age-old but still eternally young. It is the true Isis and no one has lifted its veil. I tell you men, there is something uncanny and almost wicked about a thing that refuses to die, and it so small as a grain of wheat.
As a whole, this country is not beautiful, but now and then, there come striking pictures. Here are pleasing lakelets a-flush with ducks; tall cotton-woods which I name the maidens because of their fluffy hair—these, and lush meadows, over which range regiments of asters, sunflowers, and yarrow. It is a magic lantern fantasia with an occasional muskeg to represent the waits between views. On the muskegs the trees are so thin and straight they fairly scratch your eyes.
Oh! but it is hot this day, and every leaf seems a green tongue thrust out with thirst. The sun is making amends for his insulting reticence of last winter. The Indians call him Great Grandfather Sun, but why, I do not know.
The houses of the homesteaders are built of poplar lumber, weather-stained and ugly. Others are of logs chinsed with mud and moss. All are small and favourable neither for hospitality nor reproduction. Some day, when a large acreage is under crop, pretty bungalows with brave red paint, will edit the scene as in the older and more settled districts of the north.
At every station, land seekers get out and disappear into the trees as if the country ate them up, and, indeed, I am not so sure but it does.
A baby gets off too—a new baby that has come from the city hospital is being brought home. You would fancy a baby was a miracle the way the men look at it and ask questions. Her name is Annette. She was born on duck-day. Her father works in a saw-mill. We crowd to the window to watch him meet Annette, for we would see the gladness on his face. He is an admirably strong man, with the hard sinews of a wolf. He has surely gone through the mill to some effect. I think he likes Annette, but he looks most at the small mother and he has the mate tone in his voice.
The women ask me concerning my husband, and I say, "Oh yes! I have a husband up here, somewhere—a big, fair man—I wonder if you have seen him."
They are discreetly silent, but I can see they are hoping I'll catch him. This is not a case of duplicity on my part but rather of kindness. It is one's stoutest duty to convey colour and snippets of gossip of women, who, for the long winter months to come, are to remain in these wilds. You must understand that gossip is not wicked up North. Besides, this word actually means a sponsor at baptism—an office recognized by all the world as one of unimpeachable respectability.
At Wabamun there is a great sweep of forest, but, a year ago, a great fire raged here and large patches of burnt trees assault the eyes. Hitherto, the homesteaders have had a two-handed harvest, one from their lovely lake and the other from the land, but, nowadays, their richest harvest comes from the summer tourists, who are building up a popular resort at this point. Summer girls are trespassing on the berry-patches, once the sole preserve of Indian maidens, and Ole Larsen's fishing grounds are full open to sailing yachts and electric launches. Such fish as Ole could catch, and such fish as his Frau could cook! Always, I bowed my head over my plate and said the Indian grace, "Spirit, partake." Ole can tell where the fish are to be found in certain seasons by the movements of the birds. The fish feed on flies and rise to the surface for them, whereupon a t gull or duck will fall with plummet-like pounce. White-fish bite in the autumn. "Yumping yiminy, dey yust do."
The remains of the railway construction camps have almost disappeared, and only the bleached bones of horses mark out the long trail of the grading gangs.
Here are the grades I descended a couple of years ago while prospecting over this ground. What slopes these are to put a horse down. They are like those described at St. Helena, upon which you might break your heart going up or your neck coming down, with the additional risk of being arrested as a trespasser. On this place where we once ranged for coal-rights, the real-estate agents have sub-divided the surface into desirable building lots, that sell from three to five hundred dollars the lot.
One day, this lake shore will be a hive of industry, for deep in her loins Mother Earth had hutched her riches of coal and fire-clay, and, mayhap,