Part 8 (2/2)
”Always mildly intoxicated, so Jake says, but those are not his words.
That's why Westerners are more optimistic--and more reckless--than Easterners. Always an atmosphere jag under their belts.”
”Here's to Jake,” she cried. ”Have one with me!” as she took a great chestful of fresh air. ”See you at breakfast--if I'm sober enough!”
That day, and those that followed, were busy, busy days. The oxen were tired and footsore with their long journey, and we decided to let them rest, but Jack and I took no holiday. I was determined that on the very first day I would plant some crop on my farm, so I started at once to spade up land for a garden. Have you ever turned the first sod on a quarter section with a spade, and then stopped and looked over the vast expanse before you? It made me humble, but not discouraged. There is something almost sacramental in turning over the fresh sod of the prairies--sod which no plow, no human hand, has ever turned before. If you have a mind for serious thinking it brings you very close to your Creator. Perhaps that is why I preferred to dig that first little plot with a spade instead of making use of Buck and Bright on the plow. Buck and Bright were not conducive to piety.
After all, it is remarkable how much prairie sod one can turn over in a day with a spade--sod with no stones nor tough, brushy roots to interrupt progress, but only the gentle sc.r.a.ping of steel against loam and the ripping of little gra.s.sy tendons to mark your time as, foot by foot, you throw the trenches of civilization one furrow farther west. By mid-afternoon I had spaded quite a sizable garden plot. Then I broke the clods as best I could and planted a few rows of potatoes. The following day I continued my digging, and that evening, with a.s.sistance from Jean and Marjorie, planted onions, carrots, beets, lettuce and radish.
We agreed that by the third day the oxen should be ready for the road again, and Jack was away soon after sunrise of the bright spring morning. He took the trail for the railway station some thirty miles to the south, and the sound of his wagon rumbling along over the soft earth came floating back on the breeze as a sort of accompaniment to the bellicose voice which Jack affected when he was ox-driving. The forenoon was well gone before the slow-moving speck faded out of sight on the skyline.
My next effort was the digging of a cellar. The location of our shack had to be decided upon, and for this I called Marjorie and Jean into council. We agreed that it should be close to one brow of the ravine, and that Jack should build his close to the other, so that each would command an unbroken view of his neighbour. Perhaps even then we had some premonition of the spectre of Loneliness creeping down upon us through the night-mists of the summer or the snow-wraiths of the blizzard, and already we were planning our lines of defence.
”How many rooms will there be?” asked Jean. ”Let me see--reception-room, living-room, parlor, dining-room--you must at least have that.”
”We shall,” I said, ”and one door will lead into them all. A room is anything you call it. We can change the name as we change the purpose.
One moment it is kitchen, the next, living-room, and so on.”
”Draw a plan of it,” said Marjorie, turning up the planed side of a h.o.a.rd. So I sat down and drew a plan, while the girls watched over my shoulders with as much intentness as though I were an architect designing a palace.
”The house will be one storey,” I explained, ”and long, and narrow, because that is the simplest as well as the cheapest way to build it, and we are to be our own carpenters. The walls will be of s.h.i.+plap, covered with matched siding, with tarpaper between. The roof will be of two thicknesses of boards, bent to a gentle oval over a stout ridge-pole, and again with tarpaper between. You have no idea how much the West owes to tarpaper. Wherever the new settler goes, goes tarpaper.
I would almost say,” I continued, warming up to my subject, ”that if a flag is ever needed for these western prairies it should be a banner of tarpaper, nailed between two laths. 'O say, does the tarpaper banner still wave?'--you see, it has possibilities.”
”But isn't it awfully smelly stuff?” said Jean, who had a strain of delicacy in her that at times conflicted with her surroundings.
”Ah, that is one of its chief virtues. You may not know yet, but you will learn--at least, so Jake a.s.sured me--that population is not nearly so scarce on the prairies as it seems. He says that the inmates of one of these little bachelor shacks in many cases number literally millions.
Millions. Well--they don't like tarpaper. Blessed be tarpaper!
”The house is to be fourteen feet wide, so that sixteen-foot boards will bend just the right length for the roof. The main room--which is to be all the rooms you mentioned, Jean, and the kitchen as well--will be in the centre of the building. It will be fourteen feet square--like that.
At the south end of the building, where the sun will s.h.i.+ne in spring and flowers will grow up the wall, will be a room eight by fourteen--Marjorie's. At the north end, where the winter winds will hit us first, will be a room eight by fourteen--Frank's. That's all.”
”And the windows?” said Marjorie.
”A window in the south for you, a window in the north for me, a window in the west for the living-room, and a door in the east for us all.”
”How simple--and delightful!” Jean trilled. ”And is Jack's house--our house--to be the same?”
”That is the intention. Of course, these plans are subject to approval or rejection by the feminine vote, but Jack and I talked it over with Jake, and we figured this was the best we could afford, and the most we could get for the money.”
Marjorie seemed to be studying deeply. ”Then your window will look across the valley into Jean's,” she said suddenly.
Now this was something which I had planned with, it seemed to me, consummate cleverness. I had thought that on dark nights and stormy nights, when the wind was whining dolefully about the gables, my light in my window might be--well, Jean might like to see it there. Still, it was surely right that Jean should occupy a south room, the same as Marjorie. I was provoked at Marjorie for--for finding me out.
”Why, Marjorie, I am surprised,” I began, as severely as I could, but Jean cut me short. ”I move the adoption of the plan,” she said.
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