THE
HARVESTER
BY
GENE STRATTON-PORTER
AUTHOR OF
A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST,
FRECKLES, ETC.
THIS PORTION
OF THE LIFE OF A MAN OF TO-DAY
IS OFFERED IN THE HOPE THAT IN CLEANLINESS,
POETIC TEMPERMENT, AND MENTAL FORCE,
A LIKENESS WILL BE SEEN
TO
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
CHAPTER
I. Belshazzar's Decision
II. The Effect of a Dream
III. Harvesting the Forest
IV. A Commission for the South Wind
V. When the Harvester Made Good
VI. To Labour and to Wait
VII. The Quest of the Dream Girl
VIII. Belshazzar's Record Point
IX. The Harvester Goes Courting
X. The Chime of the Blue Bells
XI. Demonstrated Courtship
XII. ``The Way of a Man with a Maid''
XIII. When the Dream Came True
XIV. Snowy Wings
XV. The Harvester Interprets Life
XVI. Granny Moreland's Visit
XVII. Love Invades Science
XVIII. The Better Man
XIX. A Vertical Spine
XX. The Man in the Background
XXI. The Coming of the Bluebird
CHARACTERS
DAVID LANGSTON, A Harvester of the Woods.
RUTH JAMESON, A Girl of the City.
GRANNY MORELAND, An Interested Neighbour.
DR. CAREY, Chief Surgeon of the Onabasha Hospital.
MRS. CAREY, Wife of the Doctor.
DR. HARMON, Who Concludes to Leave the City.
MOLLY BARNET, A Hospital Nurse with a Heart.
HENRY JAMESON, A Trader Without a Heart.
ALEXANDER HERRON, Who Made a Concession.
MRS. HERRON, A Gentle Woman.
THE KENNEDYS, Philadelphia Lawyers.
The Harvester
CHAPTER I
BELSHAZZAR'S DECISION
``Bel, come here!'' The Harvester sat in the hollow worn in the
hewed log stoop by the feet of his father and mother and his own
sturdier tread, and rested his head against the casing of the
cabin door when he gave the command. The tip of the dog's nose
touched the gravel between his paws as he crouched flat on earth,
with beautiful eyes steadily watching the master, but he did not
move a muscle.
``Bel, come here!''
Twinkles flashed in the eyes of the man when he repeated the order,
while his voice grew more imperative as he stretched a lean, wiry
hand toward the dog. The animal's eyes gleamed and his sensitive
nose quivered, yet he lay quietly.
``Belshazzar, kommen Sie hier!''
The body of the dog arose on straightened legs and his muzzle
dropped in the outstretched palm. A wind slightly perfumed with
the odour of melting snow and unsheathing buds swept the lake
beside them, and lifted a waving tangle of light hair on the brow
of the man, while a level ray of the setting sun flashed across
the water and illumined the graven, sensitive face, now alive
with keen interest in the game being played.
``Bel, dost remember the day?'' inquired the Harvester.
The eager attitude and anxious eyes of the dog betrayed that he
did not, but was waiting with every sense alert for a familiar
word that would tell him what was expected.
``Surely you heard the killdeers crying in the night,'' prompted
the man. ``I called your attention when the ecstasy of the first
bluebird waked the dawn. All day you have seen the gold-yellow
and blood-red osiers, the sap-wet maples and spring tracing announcements
of her arrival on the sunny side of the levee.''
The dog found no clew, but he recognized tones he loved in the
suave, easy voice, and his tail beat his sides in vigorous approval.
The man nodded gravely.
``Ah, so! Then you realize this day to be the most important of
all the coming year to me; this hour a solemn one that influences
my whole after life. It is time for your annual decision on my
fate for a twelve-month. Are you sure you are fully alive to the
gravity of the situation, Bel?''
The dog felt himself safe in answering a rising inflection ending
in his name uttered in that tone, and wagged eager assent.
``Well then,'' said the man, ``which shall it be? Do I leave home
for the noise and grime of the city, open an office and enter
the money-making scramble?''
Every word was strange to the dog, almost breathlessly waiting
for a familiar syllable. The man gazed steadily into the animal's
eyes. After a long pause he continued:
``Or do I remain at home to harvest the golden seal, mullein,
and ginseng, not to mention an occasional hour with the black
bass or tramps for partridge and cotton- tails?''
The dog recognized each word of that. Before the voice ceased,
his sleek sides were quivering, his nostrils twitching, his tail
lashing, and at the pause he leaped up and thrust his nose against
the face of the man. The Harvester leaned back laughing in deep,
full-chested tones; then he patted the dog's head with one hand
and renewed his grip with the other.
``Good old Bel!'' he cried exultantly. ``Six years you have decided
for me, and right----every time! We are of the woods, Bel, born
and reared here as our fathers before us. What would we of the
camp fire, the long trail, the earthy search, we harvesters of
herbs the famous chemists require, what would we do in a city?
And when the sap is rising, the bass splashing, and the wild geese
honking in the night! We never could endure it, Bel.
``When we delivered that hemlock at the hospital to-day, did you
hear that young doctor talking about his `lid'? Well up there
is ours, old fellow! Just sky and clouds overhead for us, forest
wind in our faces, wild perfume in our nostrils, muck on our feet,
that's the life for us. Our blood was tainted to begin with, and
we've lived here so long it is now a passion in our hearts. If
ever you sentence us to life in the city, you'll finish both of
us, that's what you'll do! But you won't, will you? You realize
what God made us for and what He made for us, don't you, Bel?''
As he lovingly patted the dog's head the man talked and the animal
trembled with delight. Then the voice of the Harvester changed
and dropped to tones of gravest import.
``Now how about that other matter, Bel? You always decide that
too. The time has come again. Steady now! This is far more important
than the other. Just to be wiped out, Bel, pouf! That isn't anything
and it concerns no one save ourselves. But to bring misery into
our lives and live with it daily, that would be a condition to
rend the soul. So careful, Bel! Cautious now!''
The voice of the man dropped to a whisper as he asked the question.
``What about the girl business?''
Trembling with eagerness to do the thing that would bring more
caressing, bewildered by unfamiliar words and tones, the dog hesitated.
``Do I go on as I have ever since mother left me, rustling for
grub, living in untrammelled freedom? Do I go on as before, Bel?''
The Harvester paused and waited the answer, with anxiety in his
eyes as he searched the beast face. He had talked to that dog,
as most men commune with their souls, for so long and played the
game in such intense earnest that he felt the results final with
him. The animal was immovable now, lost again, his anxious eyes
watching the face of the master, his eager ears waiting for words
he recognized. After a long time the man continued slowly and
hesitantly, as if fearing the outcome. He did not realize that
there was sufficient anxiety in his voice to change its tones.
``Or do I go courting this year? Do I rig up in uncomfortable
store-clothes, and parade before the country and city girls and
try to persuade the one I can get, probably----not the one I would
want----to marry me, and come here and spoil all our good times?
Do we want a woman around scolding if we are away from home, whining
because she is lonesome, fretting for luxuries we cannot afford
to give her? Are you going to let us in for a scrape like that,
Bel?''
The bewildered dog could bear the unusual scene no longer. Taking
the rising inflection, that sounded more familiar, for a cue,
and his name for a certainty, he sprang forward, his tail waving
as his nose touched the face of the Harvester. Then he shot across
the driveway and lay in the spice thicket, half the ribs of one
side aching, as he howled from the lowest depths of dog misery.
``You ungrateful cur!'' cried the Harvester. ``What has come over
you? Six years I have trusted you, and the answer has been right,
every time! Confound your picture! Sentence me to tackle the girl
proposition! I see myself! Do you know what it would mean? For
the first thing you'd be chained, while I pranced over the country
like a half-broken colt, trying to attract some girl. I'd have
to waste time I need for my work and spend money that draws good
interest while we sleep, to tempt her with presents. I'd have
to rebuild the cabin and there's not a chance in ten she would
not fret the life out of me whining to go to the city to live,
arrange for her here the best I could. Of all the fool, unreliable
dogs that ever trod a man's tracks, you are the limit! And you
never before failed me! You blame, degenerate pup, you!''
The Harvester paused for breath and the dog subsided to a pitiful
whimper. He was eager to return to the man who had struck him
the first blow his pampered body ever had received; but he could
not understand a kick and harsh words for him, so he lay quivering
with anxiety and fear.
``You howling, whimpering idiot!'' exclaimed the Harvester. ``Choose
a day like this to spoil! Air to intoxicate a mummy! Roots swelling!
Buds bursting! Harvest close and you'd call me off and put me
at work like that, would you? If I ever had supposed lost all
your senses, I never would have asked you. Six years you have
decided my fate, when the first bluebird came, and you've been
true blue every time. If I ever trust you again! But the mischief
is done now.
``Have you forgotten that your name means `to protect?' Don't
you remember it is because of that, it is your name? Protect!
I'd have trusted you with my life, Bell! You gave it to me the
time you pointed that rattler within six inches of my fingers
in the blood-root bed. You saw the falling limb in time to warn
me. You always know where the quicksands lie. But you are protecting
me now, like sin, ain't you? Bring a girl here to spoil both our
lives! Not if I know myself! Protect!''
The man arose and going inside the cabin closed the door. After
that the dog lay in abject misery so deep that two big tears squeezed
from his eyes and rolled down his face. To be shut out was worse
than the blow. He did not take the trouble to arise from the wet
leaves covering the cold earth, but closing his eyes went to sleep.
The man leaned against the door and ran his fingers through his
hair as he anathematized the dog. Slowly his eyes travelled around
the room. He saw his tumbled bed by the open window facing the
lake, the small table with his writing material, the crude rack
on the wall loaded with medical works, botanies, drug encyclopaedias,
the books of the few authors who interested him, and the bare,
muck-tracked floor. He went to the kitchen, where he built a fire
in the cook stove, and to the smoke-house, from which he returned
with a slice of ham and some eggs. He set some potatoes boiling
and took bread, butter and milk from the pantry. Then he laid
a small note-book on the table before him and studied the transactions
of the day.
10 lbs. wild cherry bark 6 cents $ .60 5 `` wahoo root bark 25
`` 1.25 20 `` witch hazel bark 5 `` 1.00 5 `` blue flag root 12
`` .60 10 `` snake root 18 `` 1.80 10 `` blood root 12 `` 1.20
15 `` hoarhound 10 `` 1.50 ----- $7.95
``Not so bad,'' he muttered, bending over the figures. ``I wonder
if any of my neighbours who harvest the fields average as well
at this season. I'll wager they don't. That's pretty fair! Some
days I don't make it, and then when a consignment of seeds go
or ginseng is wanted the cash comes in right properly. I could
waste half of it on a girl and yet save money. But where is the
woman who would be content with half? She'd want all and fret
because there wasn't more. Blame that dog!''
He put the book in his pocket, prepared and ate his supper, heaped
a plate generously, placed it on the floor beneath the table,
and set away the food that remained.
``Not that you deserve it,'' he said to space. ``You get this
in honour of your distinguished name and the faithfulness with
which you formerly have lived up to its import. If you hadn't
been a dog with more sense than some men, I wouldn't take your
going back on me now so hard. One would think an animal of your
intelligence might realize that you would get as much of a dose
as I. Would she permit you to eat from a plate on the kitchen
floor? Not on your life, Belshazzar! Frozen scraps around the
door for you! Would she allow you to sleep across the foot of
the bed? Ho, ho, ho! Would she have you tracking on her floor?
It would be the barn, and growling you didn't do at that. If I'd
serve you right, I'd give you a dose and allow you to see how
you like it. But it's cutting off my nose to spite my face, as
the old adage goes, for whatever she did to a dog, she'd probably
do worse to a man. I think not!''
He entered the front room and stood before a long shelf on which
were arranged an array of partially completed candlesticks carved
from wood. There were black and white walnut, red, white, and
golden oak, cherry and curly maple, all in original designs. Some
of them were oddities, others were failures, but most of them
were unusually successful. He selected one of black walnut, carved
until the outline of his pattern was barely distinguishable. He
was imitating the trunk of a tree with the bark on, the spreading,
fern-covered roots widening for the base, from which a vine sprang.
Near the top was the crude outline of a big night moth climbing
toward the light. He stood turning this stick with loving hands
and holding it from him for inspection.
``I am going to master you!'' he exulted. ``Your lines are right.
The design balances and it's graceful. If I have any trouble it
will be with the moth, and I think I can manage. I've got to decide
whether to use cecropia or polyphemus before long. Really, on
a walnut, and in the woods, it should be a luna, according to
the eternal fitness of things----but I'm afraid of the trailers.
They turn over and half curl and I believe I had better not tackle
them for a start. I'll use the easiest to begin on, and if I succeed
I'll duplicate the pattern and try a luna then. The beauties!''
The Harvester selected a knife from the box and began carving
the stick slowly and carefully. His brain was busy, for presently
he glanced at the floor.
``She'd object to that!'' he said emphatically. ``A man could
no more sit and work where he pleased than he could fly. At least
I know mother never would have it, and she was no nagger, either.
What a mother she was! If one only could stop the lonely feeling
that will creep in, and the aching hunger born with the body,
for a mate; if a fellow only could stop it with a woman like mother!
How she revelled in sunshine and beauty! How she loved earth and
air! How she went straight to the marrow of the finest line in
the best book I could bring from the library! How clean and true
she was and how unyielding! I can hear her now, holding me with
her last breath to my promise. If I could marry a girl like mother----great
Caesar! You'd see me buying an automobile to make the run to the
county clerk. Wouldn't that be great! Think of coming in from
a long, difficult day, to find a hot supper, and a girl such as
she must have been, waiting for me! Bel, if I thought there was
a woman similar to her in all the world, and I had even the ghost
of a chance to win her, I'd call you in and forgive you. But I
know the girls of to-day. I pass them on the roads, on the streets,
see them in the cafe's, stores, and at the library. Why even the
nurses at the hospital, for all the gravity of their positions,
are a giggling, silly lot; and they never know that the only time
they look and act presentably to me is when they stop their chatter,
put on their uniforms, and go to work. Some of them are pretty,
then. There's a little blue-eyed one, but all she needs is feathers
to make her a `ha! ha! bird.' Drat that dog!''
The Harvester took the candlestick and the box of knives, opened
the door, and returned to the stoop. Belshazzar arose, pleading
in his eyes, and cautiously advanced a few steps. The man bent
over his work and paid not the slightest heed, so the discouraged
dog sank to earth and fixedly watched the unresponsive master.
The carving of the candlestick went on steadily. Occasionally
the Harvester lifted his head and repeatedly sucked his lungs
full of air. Sometimes for an instant he scanned the surface of
the lake for signs of breaking fish or splash of migrant water
bird. Again his gaze wandered up the steep hill, crowned with
giant trees, whose swelling buds he could see and smell. Straight
before him lay a low marsh, through which the little creek that
gurgled and tumbled down hill curved, crossed the drive some distance
below, and entered the lake of Lost Loons.
While the trees were bare, and when the air was clear as now,
he could see the spires of Onabasha, five miles away, intervening
cultivated fields, stretches of wood, the long black line of the
railway, and the swampy bottom lands gradually rising to the culmination
of the tree-crowned summit above him. His cocks were crowing warlike
challenges to rivals on neighbouring farms. His hens were carolling
their spring egg-song. In the barn yard ganders were screaming
stridently. Over the lake and the cabin, with clapping snowy wings,
his white doves circled in a last joy-flight before seeking their
cotes in the stable loft. As the light grew fainter, the Harvester
worked slower. Often he leaned against the casing, and closed
his eyes to rest them. Sometimes he whistled snatches of old songs
to which his mother had cradled him, and again bits of opera and
popular music he had heard on the streets of Onabasha. As he worked,
the sun went down and a half moon appeared above the wood across
the lake. Once it seemed as if it were a silver bowl set on the
branch of a giant oak; higher, it rested a tilted crescent on
the rim of a cloud.
The dog waited until he could endure it no longer, and straightening
from his crouching position, he took a few velvet steps forward,
making faint, whining sounds in his throat. When the man neither
turned his head nor gave him a glance, Belshazzar sank to earth
again, satisfied for the moment with being a little closer. Across
Loon Lake came the wavering voice of a night love song. The Harvester
remembered that as a boy he had shrunk from those notes until
his mother explained that they were made by a little brown owl
asking for a mate to come and live in his hollow tree. Now he
rather liked the sound. It was eloquent of earnest pleading. With
the lonely bird on one side, and the reproachful dog eyes on the
other, the man grinned rather foolishly.
Between two fires, he thought. If that dog ever catches my eye
he will come tearing as a cyclone, and I would not kick him again
for a hundred dollars. First time I ever struck him, and didn't
intend to then. So blame mad and disappointed my foot just shot
out before I knew it. There he lies half dead to make up, but
I'm blest if I forgive him in a hurry. And there is that insane
little owl screeching for a mate. If I'd start out making sounds
like that, all the girls would line up and compete for possession
of my happy home.
The Harvester laughed and at the sound Belshazzar took courage
and advanced five steps before he sank belly to earth again. The
owl continued its song. The Harvester imitated the cry and at
once it responded. He called again and leaned back waiting. The
notes came closer. The Harvester cried once more and peered across
the lake, watching for the shadow of silent wings. The moon was
high above the trees now, the knife dropped in the box, the long
fingers closed around the stick, the head rested against the casing,
and the man intoned the cry with all his skill, and then watched
and waited. He had been straining his eyes over the carving until
they were tired, and when he watched for the bird the moonlight
tried them; for it touched the lightly rippling waves of the lake
in a line of yellow light that stretched straight across the water
from the opposite bank, directly to the gravel bed below, where
lay the bathing pool. It made a path of gold that wavered and
shimmered as the water moved gently, but it appeared sufficiently
material to resemble a bridge spanning the lake.
``Seems as if I could walk it,'' muttered the Harvester.
The owl cried again and the man intently watched the opposite
bank. He could not see the bird, but in the deep wood where he
thought it might be he began to discern a misty, moving shimmer
of white. Marvelling, he watched closer. So slowly he could not
detect motion it advanced, rising in height and taking shape.
``Do I end this day by seeing a ghost?'' he queried.
He gazed intently and saw that a white figure really moved in
the woods of the opposite bank.
``Must be some boys playing fool pranks!'' exclaimed the Harvester.
He watched fixedly with interested face, and then amazement wiped
out all other expression and he sat motionless, breathless, looking,
intently looking. For the white object came straight toward the
water and at the very edge unhesitatingly stepped upon the bridge
of gold and lightly, easily advanced in his direction. The man
waited. On came the figure and as it drew closer he could see
that it was a very tall, extremely slender woman, wrapped in soft
robes of white. She stepped along the slender line of the gold
bridge with grace unequalled.
From the water arose a shining mist, and behind the advancing
figure a wall of light outlined and rimmed her in a setting of
gold. As she neared the shore the Harvester's blood began to race
in his veins and his lips parted in wonder. First she was like
a slender birch trunk, then she resembled a wild lily, and soon
she was close enough to prove that she was young and very lovely.
Heavy braids of dark hair rested on her head as a coronet. Her
forehead was low and white. Her eyes were wide-open wells of darkness,
her rounded cheeks faintly pink, and her red lips smiling invitation.
Her throat was long, very white, and the hands that caught up
the fleecy robe around her were rose-coloured and slender. In
a panic the Harvester saw that the trailing robe swept the undulant
gold water, but was not wet; the feet that alternately showed
as she advanced were not purple with cold, but warm with a pink
glow.
She was coming straight toward him, wonderful, alluring, lovely
beyond any woman the Harvester ever had seen. Straightway the
fountains of twenty-six years' repression overflowed in the breast
of the man and all his being ran toward her in a wave of desire.
On she came, and now her tender feet were on the white gravel.
When he could see clearly she was even more beautiful than she
had appeared at a distance. He opened his lips, but no sound came.
He struggled to rise, but his legs would not bear his weight.
Helpless, he sank against the casing. The girl walked to his feet,
bent, placed a hand on each of his shoulders, and smiled into
his eyes. He could scent the flower-like odour of her body and
wrapping, even her hair. He struggled frantically to speak to
her as she leaned closer, yet closer, and softly but firmly laid
lips of pulsing sweetness on his in a deliberate kiss.
The Harvester was on his feet now. Belshazzar shrank into the
shadows.
``Come back!'' cried the man. ``Come back! For the love of mercy,
where are you?''
He ran stumblingly toward the lake. The bridge of gold was there,
the little owl cried lonesomely; and did he see or did he only
dream he saw a mist of white vanishing in the opposite wood?
His breath came between dry lips, and he circled the cabin searching
eagerly, but he could find nothing, hear nothing, save the dog
at his heels. He hurried to the stoop and stood gazing at the
molten path of moonlight. One minute he was half frozen, the next
a rosy glow enfolded him. Slowly he lifted a hand and touched
his lips. Then he raised his eyes from the water and swept the
sky in a penetrant gaze.
``My gracious Heavenly Father,'' said the Harvester reverently.
``Would it be like that?''