O Pioneers! Read online

  IV

  For the first three years after John Bergson's death, the affairsof his family prospered. Then came the hard times that broughtevery one on the Divide to the brink of despair; three years ofdrouth and failure, the last struggle of a wild soil against theencroaching plowshare. The first of these fruitless summers theBergson boys bore courageously. The failure of the corn crop madelabor cheap. Lou and Oscar hired two men and put in bigger cropsthan ever before. They lost everything they spent. The wholecountry was discouraged. Farmers who were already in debt had togive up their land. A few foreclosures demoralized the county.The settlers sat about on the wooden sidewalks in the little townand told each other that the country was never meant for men to livein; the thing to do was to get back to Iowa, to Illinois, to anyplace that had been proved habitable. The Bergson boys, certainly,would have been happier with their uncle Otto, in the bakery shopin Chicago. Like most of their neighbors, they were meant to followin paths already marked out for them, not to break trails in a newcountry. A steady job, a few holidays, nothing to think about, andthey would have been very happy. It was no fault of theirs thatthey had been dragged into the wilderness when they were littleboys. A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoythe idea of things more than the things themselves.

  The second of these barren summers was passing. One Septemberafternoon Alexandra had gone over to the garden across the draw todig sweet potatoes--they had been thriving upon the weather thatwas fatal to everything else. But when Carl Linstrum came up thegarden rows to find her, she was not working. She was standinglost in thought, leaning upon her pitchfork, her sunbonnet lyingbeside her on the ground. The dry garden patch smelled of dryingvines and was strewn with yellow seed-cucumbers and pumpkins andcitrons. At one end, next the rhubarb, grew feathery asparagus,with red berries. Down the middle of the garden was a row ofgooseberry and currant bushes. A few tough zenias and marigoldsand a row of scarlet sage bore witness to the buckets of waterthat Mrs. Bergson had carried there after sundown, against theprohibition of her sons. Carl came quietly and slowly up the gardenpath, looking intently at Alexandra. She did not hear him. She wasstanding perfectly still, with that serious ease so characteristicof her. Her thick, reddish braids, twisted about her head, fairlyburned in the sunlight. The air was cool enough to make the warmsun pleasant on one's back and shoulders, and so clear that theeye could follow a hawk up and up, into the blazing blue depths ofthe sky. Even Carl, never a very cheerful boy, and considerablydarkened by these last two bitter years, loved the country on dayslike this, felt something strong and young and wild come out ofit, that laughed at care.

  "Alexandra," he said as he approached her, "I want to talk to you.Let's sit down by the gooseberry bushes." He picked up her sackof potatoes and they crossed the garden. "Boys gone to town?" heasked as he sank down on the warm, sun-baked earth. "Well, we havemade up our minds at last, Alexandra. We are really going away."

  She looked at him as if she were a little frightened. "Really,Carl? Is it settled?"

  "Yes, father has heard from St. Louis, and they will give him backhis old job in the cigar factory. He must be there by the firstof November. They are taking on new men then. We will sell theplace for whatever we can get, and auction the stock. We haven'tenough to ship. I am going to learn engraving with a German engraverthere, and then try to get work in Chicago."

  Alexandra's hands dropped in her lap. Her eyes became dreamy andfilled with tears.

  Carl's sensitive lower lip trembled. He scratched in the soft earthbeside him with a stick. "That's all I hate about it, Alexandra,"he said slowly. "You've stood by us through so much and helpedfather out so many times, and now it seems as if we were runningoff and leaving you to face the worst of it. But it isn't as ifwe could really ever be of any help to you. We are only one moredrag, one more thing you look out for and feel responsible for.Father was never meant for a farmer, you know that. And I hateit. We'd only get in deeper and deeper."

  "Yes, yes, Carl, I know. You are wasting your life here. You areable to do much better things. You are nearly nineteen now, andI wouldn't have you stay. I've always hoped you would get away.But I can't help feeling scared when I think how I will missyou--more than you will ever know." She brushed the tears from hercheeks, not trying to hide them.

  "But, Alexandra," he said sadly and wistfully, "I've never beenany real help to you, beyond sometimes trying to keep the boys ina good humor."

  Alexandra smiled and shook her head. "Oh, it's not that. Nothinglike that. It's by understanding me, and the boys, and mother,that you've helped me. I expect that is the only way one personever really can help another. I think you are about the only onethat ever helped me. Somehow it will take more courage to bearyour going than everything that has happened before."

  Carl looked at the ground. "You see, we've all depended so on you,"he said, "even father. He makes me laugh. When anything comes uphe always says, 'I wonder what the Bergsons are going to do aboutthat? I guess I'll go and ask her.' I'll never forget that time,when we first came here, and our horse had the colic, and I ranover to your place--your father was away, and you came home with meand showed father how to let the wind out of the horse. You wereonly a little girl then, but you knew ever so much more about farmwork than poor father. You remember how homesick I used to get,and what long talks we used to have coming from school? We'vesomeway always felt alike about things."

  "Yes, that's it; we've liked the same things and we've liked themtogether, without anybody else knowing. And we've had good times,hunting for Christmas trees and going for ducks and making our plumwine together every year. We've never either of us had any otherclose friend. And now--" Alexandra wiped her eyes with the cornerof her apron, "and now I must remember that you are going whereyou will have many friends, and will find the work you were meantto do. But you'll write to me, Carl? That will mean a great dealto me here."

  "I'll write as long as I live," cried the boy impetuously. "AndI'll be working for you as much as for myself, Alexandra. I wantto do something you'll like and be proud of. I'm a fool here, butI know I can do something!" He sat up and frowned at the red grass.

  Alexandra sighed. "How discouraged the boys will be when theyhear. They always come home from town discouraged, anyway. Somany people are trying to leave the country, and they talk to ourboys and make them low-spirited. I'm afraid they are beginning tofeel hard toward me because I won't listen to any talk about going.Sometimes I feel like I'm getting tired of standing up for thiscountry."

  "I won't tell the boys yet, if you'd rather not."

  "Oh, I'll tell them myself, to-night, when they come home. They'llbe talking wild, anyway, and no good comes of keeping bad news.It's all harder on them than it is on me. Lou wants to get married,poor boy, and he can't until times are better. See, there goes thesun, Carl. I must be getting back. Mother will want her potatoes.It's chilly already, the moment the light goes."

  Alexandra rose and looked about. A golden afterglow throbbed inthe west, but the country already looked empty and mournful. A darkmoving mass came over the western hill, the Lee boy was bringing inthe herd from the other half-section. Emil ran from the windmillto open the corral gate. From the log house, on the little riseacross the draw, the smoke was curling. The cattle lowed andbellowed. In the sky the pale half-moon was slowly silvering.Alexandra and Carl walked together down the potato rows. "I haveto keep telling myself what is going to happen," she said softly."Since you have been here, ten years now, I have never really beenlonely. But I can remember what it was like before. Now I shallhave nobody but Emil. But he is my boy, and he is tender-hearted."

  That night, when the boys were called to supper, they sat downmoodily. They had worn their coats to town, but they ate in theirstriped shirts and suspenders. They were grown men now, and, asAlexandra said, for the last few years they had been growing moreand more like themselves. Lou was still the slighter of the two,the quicker and more intelligent, but apt to go off at half-cock.He had a lively blue
eye, a thin, fair skin (always burned red tothe neckband of his shirt in summer), stiff, yellow hair that wouldnot lie down on his head, and a bristly little yellow mustache,of which he was very proud. Oscar could not grow a mustache; hispale face was as bare as an egg, and his white eyebrows gave it anempty look. He was a man of powerful body and unusual endurance;the sort of man you could attach to a corn-sheller as you wouldan engine. He would turn it all day, without hurrying, withoutslowing down. But he was as indolent of mind as he was unsparingof his body. His love of routine amounted to a vice. He workedlike an insect, always doing the same thing over in the same way,regardless of whether it was best or no. He felt that there wasa sovereign virtue in mere bodily toil, and he rather liked todo things in the hardest way. If a field had once been in corn,he couldn't bear to put it into wheat. He liked to begin hiscorn-planting at the same time every year, whether the season werebackward or forward. He seemed to feel that by his own irreproachableregularity he would clear himself of blame and reprove the weather.When the wheat crop failed, he threshed the straw at a dead lossto demonstrate how little grain there was, and thus prove his caseagainst Providence.

  Lou, on the other hand, was fussy and flighty; always planned toget through two days' work in one, and often got only the leastimportant things done. He liked to keep the place up, but he nevergot round to doing odd jobs until he had to neglect more pressingwork to attend to them. In the middle of the wheat harvest, whenthe grain was over-ripe and every hand was needed, he would stopto mend fences or to patch the harness; then dash down to thefield and overwork and be laid up in bed for a week. The two boysbalanced each other, and they pulled well together. They had beengood friends since they were children. One seldom went anywhere,even to town, without the other.

  To-night, after they sat down to supper, Oscar kept looking at Louas if he expected him to say something, and Lou blinked his eyesand frowned at his plate. It was Alexandra herself who at lastopened the discussion.

  "The Linstrums," she said calmly, as she put another plate of hotbiscuit on the table, "are going back to St. Louis. The old manis going to work in the cigar factory again."

  At this Lou plunged in. "You see, Alexandra, everybody who cancrawl out is going away. There's no use of us trying to stick itout, just to be stubborn. There's something in knowing when toquit."

  "Where do you want to go, Lou?"

  "Any place where things will grow," said Oscar grimly.

  Lou reached for a potato. "Chris Arnson has traded his half-sectionfor a place down on the river."

  "Who did he trade with?"

  "Charley Fuller, in town."

  "Fuller the real estate man? You see, Lou, that Fuller has a headon him. He's buying and trading for every bit of land he can getup here. It'll make him a rich man, some day."

  "He's rich now, that's why he can take a chance."

  "Why can't we? We'll live longer than he will. Some day the landitself will be worth more than all we can ever raise on it."

  Lou laughed. "It could be worth that, and still not be worthmuch. Why, Alexandra, you don't know what you're talking about.Our place wouldn't bring now what it would six years ago. Thefellows that settled up here just made a mistake. Now they'rebeginning to see this high land wasn't never meant to grow nothingon, and everybody who ain't fixed to graze cattle is trying tocrawl out. It's too high to farm up here. All the Americans areskinning out. That man Percy Adams, north of town, told me thathe was going to let Fuller take his land and stuff for four hundreddollars and a ticket to Chicago."

  "There's Fuller again!" Alexandra exclaimed. "I wish that manwould take me for a partner. He's feathering his nest! If onlypoor people could learn a little from rich people! But all thesefellows who are running off are bad farmers, like poor Mr. Linstrum.They couldn't get ahead even in good years, and they all got intodebt while father was getting out. I think we ought to hold on aslong as we can on father's account. He was so set on keeping thisland. He must have seen harder times than this, here. How was itin the early days, mother?"

  Mrs. Bergson was weeping quietly. These family discussions alwaysdepressed her, and made her remember all that she had been tornaway from. "I don't see why the boys are always taking on aboutgoing away," she said, wiping her eyes. "I don't want to moveagain; out to some raw place, maybe, where we'd be worse off thanwe are here, and all to do over again. I won't move! If the restof you go, I will ask some of the neighbors to take me in, and stayand be buried by father. I'm not going to leave him by himselfon the prairie, for cattle to run over." She began to cry morebitterly.

  The boys looked angry. Alexandra put a soothing hand on her mother'sshoulder. "There's no question of that, mother. You don't haveto go if you don't want to. A third of the place belongs to youby American law, and we can't sell without your consent. We onlywant you to advise us. How did it use to be when you and fatherfirst came? Was it really as bad as this, or not?"

  "Oh, worse! Much worse," moaned Mrs. Bergson. "Drouth, chince-bugs,hail, everything! My garden all cut to pieces like sauerkraut. Nograpes on the creek, no nothing. The people all lived just likecoyotes."

  Oscar got up and tramped out of the kitchen. Lou followed him.They felt that Alexandra had taken an unfair advantage in turningtheir mother loose on them. The next morning they were silent andreserved. They did not offer to take the women to church, but wentdown to the barn immediately after breakfast and stayed there allday. When Carl Linstrum came over in the afternoon, Alexandrawinked to him and pointed toward the barn. He understood her andwent down to play cards with the boys. They believed that a verywicked thing to do on Sunday, and it relieved their feelings.

  Alexandra stayed in the house. On Sunday afternoon Mrs. Bergsonalways took a nap, and Alexandra read. During the week she readonly the newspaper, but on Sunday, and in the long evenings ofwinter, she read a good deal; read a few things over a great manytimes. She knew long portions of the "Frithjof Saga" by heart,and, like most Swedes who read at all, she was fond of Longfellow'sverse,--the ballads and the "Golden Legend" and "The Spanish Student."To-day she sat in the wooden rocking-chair with the Swedish Bibleopen on her knees, but she was not reading. She was lookingthoughtfully away at the point where the upland road disappearedover the rim of the prairie. Her body was in an attitude of perfectrepose, such as it was apt to take when she was thinking earnestly.Her mind was slow, truthful, steadfast. She had not the leastspark of cleverness.

  All afternoon the sitting-room was full of quiet and sunlight.Emil was making rabbit traps in the kitchen shed. The hens wereclucking and scratching brown holes in the flower beds, and thewind was teasing the prince's feather by the door.

  That evening Carl came in with the boys to supper.

  "Emil," said Alexandra, when they were all seated at the table,"how would you like to go traveling? Because I am going to takea trip, and you can go with me if you want to."

  The boys looked up in amazement; they were always afraid ofAlexandra's schemes. Carl was interested.

  "I've been thinking, boys," she went on, "that maybe I am too setagainst making a change. I'm going to take Brigham and the buckboardto-morrow and drive down to the river country and spend a few dayslooking over what they've got down there. If I find anything good,you boys can go down and make a trade."

  "Nobody down there will trade for anything up here," said Oscargloomily.

  "That's just what I want to find out. Maybe they are just asdiscontented down there as we are up here. Things away from homeoften look better than they are. You know what your Hans Andersenbook says, Carl, about the Swedes liking to buy Danish bread andthe Danes liking to buy Swedish bread, because people always thinkthe bread of another country is better than their own. Anyway,I've heard so much about the river farms, I won't be satisfied tillI've seen for myself."

  Lou fidgeted. "Look out! Don't agree to anything. Don't let themfool you."

  Lou was apt to be fooled himself. He had not yet learned to keepaway from the shell-game wagons that followed the circ
us.

  After supper Lou put on a necktie and went across the fields tocourt Annie Lee, and Carl and Oscar sat down to a game of checkers,while Alexandra read "The Swiss Family Robinson" aloud to her motherand Emil. It was not long before the two boys at the table neglectedtheir game to listen. They were all big children together, and theyfound the adventures of the family in the tree house so absorbingthat they gave them their undivided attention.