O Pioneers! Page 23

  IV

  The next morning Angelique, Amedee's wife, was in the kitchen bakingpies, assisted by old Mrs. Chevalier. Between the mixing-boardand the stove stood the old cradle that had been Amedee's, and init was his black-eyed son. As Angelique, flushed and excited, withflour on her hands, stopped to smile at the baby, Emil Bergson rodeup to the kitchen door on his mare and dismounted.

  "'Medee is out in the field, Emil," Angelique called as she ranacross the kitchen to the oven. "He begins to cut his wheat to-day;the first wheat ready to cut anywhere about here. He bought a newheader, you know, because all the wheat's so short this year. Ihope he can rent it to the neighbors, it cost so much. He and hiscousins bought a steam thresher on shares. You ought to go out andsee that header work. I watched it an hour this morning, busy asI am with all the men to feed. He has a lot of hands, but he'sthe only one that knows how to drive the header or how to run theengine, so he has to be everywhere at once. He's sick, too, andought to be in his bed."

  Emil bent over Hector Baptiste, trying to make him blink his round,bead-like black eyes. "Sick? What's the matter with your daddy,kid? Been making him walk the floor with you?"

  Angelique sniffed. "Not much! We don't have that kind of babies.It was his father that kept Baptiste awake. All night I had to begetting up and making mustard plasters to put on his stomach. Hehad an awful colic. He said he felt better this morning, but Idon't think he ought to be out in the field, overheating himself."

  Angelique did not speak with much anxiety, not because she wasindifferent, but because she felt so secure in their good fortune.Only good things could happen to a rich, energetic, handsome youngman like Amedee, with a new baby in the cradle and a new header inthe field.

  Emil stroked the black fuzz on Baptiste's head. "I say, Angelique,one of 'Medee's grandmothers, 'way back, must have been a squaw.This kid looks exactly like the Indian babies."

  Angelique made a face at him, but old Mrs. Chevalier had beentouched on a sore point, and she let out such a stream of fieryPATOIS that Emil fled from the kitchen and mounted his mare.

  Opening the pasture gate from the saddle, Emil rode across the fieldto the clearing where the thresher stood, driven by a stationaryengine and fed from the header boxes. As Amedee was not on theengine, Emil rode on to the wheatfield, where he recognized, onthe header, the slight, wiry figure of his friend, coatless, hiswhite shirt puffed out by the wind, his straw hat stuck jauntilyon the side of his head. The six big work-horses that drew, orrather pushed, the header, went abreast at a rapid walk, and as theywere still green at the work they required a good deal of managementon Amedee's part; especially when they turned the corners, wherethey divided, three and three, and then swung round into line againwith a movement that looked as complicated as a wheel of artillery.Emil felt a new thrill of admiration for his friend, and with itthe old pang of envy at the way in which Amedee could do with hismight what his hand found to do, and feel that, whatever it was,it was the most important thing in the world. "I'll have to bringAlexandra up to see this thing work," Emil thought; "it's splendid!"

  When he saw Emil, Amedee waved to him and called to one of histwenty cousins to take the reins. Stepping off the header withoutstopping it, he ran up to Emil who had dismounted. "Come along,"he called. "I have to go over to the engine for a minute. I gottagreen man running it, and I gotta to keep an eye on him."

  Emil thought the lad was unnaturally flushed and more excited thaneven the cares of managing a big farm at a critical time warranted.As they passed behind a last year's stack, Amedee clutched at hisright side and sank down for a moment on the straw.

  "Ouch! I got an awful pain in me, Emil. Something's the matterwith my insides, for sure."

  Emil felt his fiery cheek. "You ought to go straight to bed,'Medee, and telephone for the doctor; that's what you ought to do."

  Amedee staggered up with a gesture of despair. "How can I? I gotno time to be sick. Three thousand dollars' worth of new machineryto manage, and the wheat so ripe it will begin to shatter nextweek. My wheat's short, but it's gotta grand full berries. What'she slowing down for? We haven't got header boxes enough to feedthe thresher, I guess."

  Amedee started hot-foot across the stubble, leaning a little to theright as he ran, and waved to the engineer not to stop the engine.

  Emil saw that this was no time to talk about his own affairs. Hemounted his mare and rode on to Sainte-Agnes, to bid his friendsthere good-bye. He went first to see Raoul Marcel, and found himinnocently practising the "Gloria" for the big confirmation serviceon Sunday while he polished the mirrors of his father's saloon.

  As Emil rode homewards at three o'clock in the afternoon, he sawAmedee staggering out of the wheatfield, supported by two of hiscousins. Emil stopped and helped them put the boy to bed.