The Black Creek Stopping-House | Page 6

more to the deceitfulness of woman they
turned to another quarter for help, for they were, at this time,
"uncommonly low in funds."
It was Randolph who got the idea, one day when he was sitting on the
plow handle lighting his pipe.
"Wot's the matter with us gettin' out Fred for our farm pupil? He's got
some money--they say he married a rich man's daughter--and we've got
the experience!"
"He's only a 'alf-brother!" said Reginald, at last, reflectively.

"That don't matter one bit to me," declared Randolph, generously, "I'll
treat him just the same as I would you!"
Reginald shrugged his shoulders eloquently.
"What about his missus?" asked Reginald, after a silence.
"She can come," Randolph said, magnanimously. "We'll build a piece
to the house."
The more they talked about it the more enthusiastic they became.
Under the glow of this new project they felt they could hurl contempt
on Aunt Patience and her unnatural hold on life.
"I don't know but what I would rather take 'elp from the livin' than the
dead, anyway," Reginald said, virtuously, that night before they went to
bed.
"They're more h'apt to ask it back, just the same," objected Randolph.
"I was just goin' to say," Reginald began again, "that I'd just as soon
take 'elp from the livin' as the dead, especially when there ain't no
dead!"
They began at once to write letters to their long-neglected brother Fred,
enthusiastically setting forth the charms of this new country. They
dwelt on the freedom of the life, the abundance of game, and the view!
They made a great deal of the view, and certainly there was nothing to
obstruct it, for the prairie lay a dead level for ten miles north of them,
only dotted here and there with little weather-bleached warts of houses
like their own, where other optimists were trying to make a dint in the
monotony.
The letters which went east every mail were splendid productions in
their way, written with ease and eloquence, and utterly untrammeled by
any regard for facts.
Their brother responded just as they hoped he would, and the twins

were greatly delighted with the success of their plan.
Events of which the twins knew nothing favored their project and made
Fred and his wife glad to leave Toronto. Evelyn Grant had bitterly
estranged her father by marrying against his wishes. So the proposal
from Randolph and Reginald that they come West and take the
homestead near them seemed to offer an escape from much that was
unpleasant. Besides, it was just at the time when so many people were
hearing the call of the West.
At the suggestion of his brothers, Fred sent in advance the money to
build a house on his homestead. But the twins, not wishing to make any
mistake, or to have any misunderstanding with Fred, built it right
beside their own. Fred sent enough money to have a frame building put
up but the twins decided that logs were more romantic and cheaper. It
was a remarkable structure when they were through with it, stuck
against their own house, as if by accident, and resembling in its
irregularity the growth of a freak potato. Cables were freely used;
binder twine served as hinges on the doors and also as latches.
They gave as a reason for sticking the new part against their own
irregularly that they intended to use the alcoves for verandahs!
They agreed to put in Fred's crop for him--for a consideration; to put up
hay; to buy oxen. Indeed, so many kindly offices did they agree to
perform for him that Fred had advanced them, in all, nearly two
thousand dollars.
The preparations were watched with great interest by the neighbors,
and the probable outcome of it all was often a topic of conversation at
the Black Creek Stopping-House.
CHAPTER IV.
FARM PUPILS.
June in Manitoba, when the tender green of grass and leaf is bathed in
the sparkling sunshine; when the first wild roses are spilling their

perfume on the air, and the first orange lilies are lifting their glad faces
to the sun; when the prairie chicken, intent on family cares, runs
cautiously beside the road, and the hermit thrushes from the thickets
drive their sweet notes into the quiet evening. It is a time to remember
lovingly and with sweet gratitude; a time when the love of the open
prairie overtakes us, and binds us fast in golden fetters. There is no hint
of the cruel winter that is waiting just around the corner, or of the dull
autumn drizzle closer still; there is nothing but peace and warmth and
beauty.
As the old "Cheyenne," the only sidewheeler on the Assiniboine,
churning the muddy water into creamy foam, made its way to the green
shore at