The traction engine, its wheels shackled, puffed and panted with a ludicrous simulation of bottled-up energy, and to the minds of the three young people it was decidedly suggestive of the irate patience expressed in Mrs. Ranger’s attitude when placed in conditions where she could not answer back.
Nathan Peck, watching the engine, stored up the saying for Temperance’s delectation, and wished she had come out with the girls.
Above the rattle and hum of the threshing mill sounded the hoarse voices of the men shouting jokes at each other—threshing time being always a jovial season. A good or bad harvest meant often life or death to these people; but, having done their best, they could but accept the results. It was a point of honour to accept unflinchingly the verdict of a poor yield, yet many wives could tell of despairing hours when, after their neighbours had departed, husband and wife essayed to reconcile ways and means.
Clouds of golden dust, starred here and there by a silver thistle-down, shimmered out of the barn door; there was an aroma of crushed straw, a scent of charred wood from the engine fire, a sense of eager, healthy life.
The swallows flew agitatedly above the barn, yearning over their clay nests beneath its eaves.
“Measuring,” said Lanty. “Uncle said he’d take the bushel for a little though when he saw your petticoats out here——”
“Ab Ranger is cutting bands, and he’s let my bone-handled pruning knife go through the mill; Tom Shinar is feeding; there’s three on the mow and four on the stack.”
“Splendidly, no straw to speak of, but finely headed—like you, Mabella,” he whispered, blushing through the dust.
“Come on here, Lanty,” roared a voice from the barn. “You can spark in the noon-spell if you want to.”
A laugh followed. Mabella blushed hotly, and as a maiden is expected to do under the circumstances, looked absently into vacancy.
“Well, you’ll be too busy eating in the noon-spell to notice,” Lanty called back to the unseen speaker. This, being the retort courteous, was received with applause.
“Well, I must go, girls; uncle’s back will be aching by this time toteing that bushel. I hope you’ve made heaps of good things for dinner, we’re all hungry as hunters.”