The Harvester

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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?''

CHAPTER II

THE EFFECT OF A DREAM

Fully convinced at last that he had been dreaming,
the Harvester picked up his knives and
candlestick and entered the cabin. He placed
them on a shelf and turned away, but after a second's
hesitation he closed the box and arranged the sticks
neatly. Then he set the room in order and carefully
swept the floor. As he replaced the broom he thought
for an instant, then opened the door and whistled softly.
Belshazzar came at a rush. The Harvester pushed the
plate of food toward the hungry dog and he ate greedily.
The man returned to the front room and closed the door.

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