Main-Travelled Roads | Page 6

Dave
McTurg was heard calling to the men as they raised the long stacker
into place:
"Heave-ho, there! Up she rises!"
And, best of all, Will caught a glirnpse of a smiling girl face at the
kitchen window that made the blood beat m his throat.
"Hello, Will!" was the general greeting, given with some constraint by
most of the young fellows, for Will had been going to Rock River to
school for some years, and there was a little feeling of jealousy on the
part of those who pretended to sneer at the "seminary chaps like Will
Hannan and Milton Jennings."
Dingrnan came up. "Will, I guess you'd better go on the stack with Ed."
"All ready. Hurrah, there!" said David in his soft but resonant bass
voice that always had a laugh in it. "Come, come, every sucker of yeh
git hold o' something. All ready!" He waved his hand at the driver, who
climbed upon his platform. Everybody scrambled into place.
"Chk, chk! All ready, boys! Stiddy there, Dan! Chk, chkl All ready,

boys! Stiddy there, boys! All ready now!" The horses began to strain at
the sweeps. The cylinder began to hum.
"Grab a root there! Where's my band cutter? Here, you, climb on here!"
And David reached down and pulled Shep Watson up by the shoulder
with his gigantic hand.
Boo-oo-oom, Boo-woo-woo-oom-oom-ow-owm, yarryarr! The
whirling cylinder boomed, roared, and snarled as it rose in speed. At
last, when its tone became a rattling yell, David nodded to the pitchers,
rasped his hands together, the sheaves began to fall from the stack, the
band cutter, knife in hand, slashed the bands in twain, and the feeder
with easy majestic motion gathered them under his arm, rolled them out
into an even belt of entering wheat, on which the cylinder tore with its
frightful, ferocious snarl.
Will was very happy in Its quiet way. He enjoyed the smooth roll of his
great muscles, the sense of power he felt in his hands as he lifted,
turned, and swung the heavy sheaves two by two down upon the table,
where the band cutter madly slashed away. His frame, sturdy rather
than tall, was nevertheless lithe, and he made a fine figure to look at, so
Agnes thought, as she came out a moment and bowed and smiled to
both the young men.
This scene, one of the jolliest and most sociable of the western farm,
had a charm quite aside from human companionship. The beautiful
yellow straw entering the cylinder; the clear yellow-brown wheat
pulsing out at the side; the broken straw, chaff, and dust puffing out on
the great stacker; the cheery whistling and calling of the driver; the
keen, crisp air, and the bright sun somehow weirdly suggestive of the
passage of time.
Will and Agnes had arrived at a tacit understanding of mutual love only
the night before, and Will was power-fully moved to glance often
toward the house, but feared somehow the jokes of his companions. He
worked on, therefore, methodically, eagerly; but his thoughts were on
the future-the rustle of the oak tree nearby, the noise of whose sere
leaves he could distinguish beneath the booming snarl of the machine;

on the sky, where great fleets of clouds were sailing on the rising wind,
like merchantmen bound to some land of love and plenty.
When the Dingmans first came in, only a couple of years before, Agnes
had been at once surrounded by a swarm of suitors. Her pleasant face
and her abounding good nature made her an instant favorite with all.
Will, however, had disdained to become one of the crowd, and held
himself aloof, as he could easily do, being away at school most of the
time.
The second winter, however, Agnes also attended the seminary, and
Will saw her daily and grew to love her. He had been just a bit jealous
of Ed Kinney all the time, for Ed had a certain rakish grace in dancing
and a dashing skill in handling a team which made him a dangerous
rival.
But, as Will worked beside him all this Monday, he felt so secure in his
knowledge of the caress Agnes had given him at parting the night
before that he was perfectly happy-so happy that he didn't care to talk,
only to work on and dream as he worked.
Shrewd David McTurg had his joke when the machine stopped for a
few minutes. "Well, you fellers do better'n I expected yeh to, after bein'
out so late last night. The first feller I find gappin' has got to treat to the
apples."
"Keep your eye on me," said Shep.
"You?" laughed one of the others. "Anybody knows if a girl so much as
looked crossways at you, you'd fall in a