The Thirteenth Man

Eweretta was not destined to be so completely isolated after all, for one fine afternoon Mrs. Pickett took a sudden resolve, and putting on her “best things,” walked across the field and made a state call at the White House, where she was so kindly received, that she was emboldened to ask the whole party to take tea at the Farm on the following afternoon.

The invitation was accepted, so there was a grand “clean-up” of the big house-place (not that it seemed to need it!), and there was a great baking of cakes and fruit-pies. The best china and table-linen were got out, together with some really fine old silver, and when the guests arrived the table was already laid for tea.

Minnie had picked a huge bunch of dahlias and placed them in a beautiful old china jug in the center of the table, which was loaded with good things, for tea was a genuine meal at Pickett’s Farm.

Pickett was performing his ablutions in the big kitchen that joined the house-place, where there was a long sink with a pump at one end of it. Mrs. Pickett and Minnie were “dressed for company.”

A big log fire burned cheerfully in the old-fashioned fireplace, making the brass and copper utensils glitter and flash. The “settle” and some high-backed arm-chairs were drawn up near the fire. Altogether the place looked the picture of hospitality and comfort. A sweet scent of apples was perceptible in the air. A bob-tailed sheep-dog and a collie lay asleep upon a rug by the fender, and Alvin made friends with them while Mrs. Pickett conducted Eweretta and Mrs. Le Breton upstairs to remove their outer garments.

Soon Pickett appeared, and sat down with Alvin near the fire, and the two men began to discuss farming from the English and the Canadian point of view.

“I have been pulling and carting mangold to-day,” said Pickett, handing a tobacco-jar to Alvin, with an invitation to “fill up.” “I want to get them in while the weather is favorable.”

“Some believe in leaving them longer to improve,” said Alvin, “but I think you are right. A frost might come any time now. It is very cold to-day.”

“I see you know a bit about farming,” said Pickett with approval.

“I know a bit about most things,” said Alvin. “You have to, out in the North-West. But farming in Canada is very different from farming in England.”

“I suppose so,” answered Pickett with interest.

“And you want plenty of grit to stand the life,” went on Alvin.

“But it is cheap living, isn’t it?” inquired Pickett.

Alvin laughed. “It is double what it is here,” he said. “Animals, wagons, agricultural implements cost a lot out there. We depend a lot on salt pork, and our guns. Prairie chicken is good eating. It isn’t unlike partridge—and snipe—well, you can get as much snipe as you like.”

The entrance of the women stopped the conversation at this point, and a strapping maid having brought in the tea-pot, they all sat down to tea, and Philip’s name came up.

“You know Mr. Barrimore who lives in our bungalow?” said Mrs. Pickett.

“Of course they do, mother,” put in Minnie. “Why, you’ve seen him go in and out there yourself.”

“I said they knew him, didn’t I?” asked Mrs. Pickett. “You are a bit too sharp, Minnie. Pass the cream to Mrs. Le Breton.”

“He’s a bit stand-offish,” went on Mrs. Pickett. “He often comes up past our farm, but he doesn’t look in. He hasn’t been here since his stable was finished. He talks to Pickett now and again over the gate.”

“Oh, he’s right enough!” interrupted the farmer. “He’s taken up with his young lady. He’ll be getting married one of these days, and then he’ll soon find eyes for other people. Bless you! they’re all the same when they are courting.”

“Is he really engaged?” inquired Alvin.

“Well, sir, don’t it look like it? You have windows, and likewise eyes. Miss Lane’s always coming over to the bungalow on that cycle of hers.”

“Which to me don’t seem right and proper for a young lady to do,” put in Mrs. Pickett. “I wonder at Colonel Lane allowing it. If it was my Minnie, she’d hear about it! Why, it’s the talk of Hastings; my friend Mrs. Hannington says so. Miss Lane is staying at Hawk’s Nest now, while her father’s gadding off somewhere. There is talk that he has got another establishment near London. Of course, that being so, he wouldn’t look after his daughter properly, not having proper notions of right and wrong.”

“Mother!” broke out Pickett, pausing in the act of carving a chicken. “I wonder at your repeating tales like that! Every time Mrs. Hannington comes, there is some new yarn to somebody’s discredit. I can’t bear the sight of her!”

Eweretta ate her chicken, with her eyes cast down. She did not like this type of conversation. Mrs. Le Breton, too, looked uncomfortable.

Alvin, who noted this, began hastily to introduce a new topic. Naturally the topic was Canada, as he knew little about anything else. “There will be blizzards in Canada now,” he began. “You wouldn’t think it, that a great fire could rage there at this time of the year? Yet I remember one when I was on my way to Saskatoon. It was a line of fire six miles long, and the flames were seven feet high. It could be seen forty miles away; and that was in October.”

Farmer Pickett smiled discreetly. He would not contradict his guest, but he evidently believed him to be pulling the long bow.

“How perfectly awful!” exclaimed Minnie, who did believe the tale.

“It was a grand sight,” said Alvin.

Mrs. Le Breton shivered. She had seen such “grand sights” unpleasantly near.

Alvin pointed to the sleeping dogs. “Now I daresay you think your dogs good herders,” he said; “but I had a pony that would beat them hollow.”

“Indeed!” said Pickett, with the same incredulous smile.

“You should have seen her at work,” went on Alvin, “jumping over the badger and gopher holes and mounds. I had only to sit tight, and she would collect the strayed oxen better than any dog. She knew all their names as well as I did.”

“Perhaps she could talk?” suggested Pickett, winking at the company generally.

Alvin was annoyed, and said no more for some time, so Mrs. Pickett kept the ball rolling.

“I think Canada would be a bit too lively for me,” she said.

“Most people don’t think it lively,” put in Mrs. Le Breton.

“You are thinking of the prairie, mother,” said Eweretta, who had not before spoken. “The towns are quite different. Montreal is gay enough.”

“Do you keep chickens?” asked Mrs. Pickett.

“At Montreal?” demanded Eweretta.

“No, at the White House,” laughed Mrs. Pickett. “You ought to, for you have plenty of room.”

“We have none yet,” said Mrs. Le Breton.

“We could give you a bit of a start with some,” Pickett joined in. “Favorolles are good all-round fowls, and we could well spare some. What do you keep in the little wood, Mr. Alvin?”

The question was so sudden and unexpected, that Alvin could not at first reply.

At last he stammered out:

“Nothing—as yet.”

“You’re not offended at my asking, are you?” demanded the farmer. “No offence meant, you know; only seeing that the wood is wired in so finely, and you have built a high wall round something in the clearing, I wondered—”

Mrs. Le Breton caught Pickett’s eye and slightly shook her head.

A silence fell on the company, and even when at last a few remarks were exchanged, all felt a sense of strain, and it was a relief when tea was over and the two men sat by the fire to smoke.

Then it was that Minnie rather shyly offered to show Miss Le Breton round the rambling old house. There was not a great deal to show, but Eweretta was genuinely interested, because she had never seen anything of the sort before; also, the girls found plenty to say to each other when once the ice was broken.

Minnie was not reserved, nor did she perceive that Eweretta was so.

It was in the apple-room, where the winter fruit was stored, that Minnie confided to Eweretta that she had a sweetheart.

“He’s a clerk in the Gasworks,” she explained, “and he often comes over, and we meet in the rickyard; but I daren’t let father and mother know, because they say I shan’t have a young man till I’m turned twenty-one. Harry—his name is Henry Johnson—and I met in Hollington Wood in the spring. I had gone over to the churchyard to put some flowers on grandmother’s grave, and he came in from the wood, and we got talking, and he walked with me to the tram. That was the beginning. He is so nice, and quiet, and respectable. I am sure father and mother couldn’t dislike him. But, you see, they are so determined I shall turn twenty-one before I am engaged. We aren’t really engaged, Miss Le Breton, you know, but we both know we shall be. It’s a long time to wait, for I am only nineteen.”

“It is best to wait a long time,” said Eweretta. “Men change so.”

Minnie looked at her companion with incredulous round eyes.

“Some men, perhaps,” she said, as if grudgingly conceding something. “But not men who really and truly love,” she added.

“Yes,” rejoined Eweretta, “even those who love really and truly fall out of love sometimes. They don’t mean to do it. It is not a crime. No one ought to blame them for it. But I think love ought to be well tested before marriage. If the failing of love comes before marriage it is only very sad. If it comes after marriage, then it is tragic.”

Minnie looked at the speaker bewildered. To her love, once felt, was a thing eternal. At last, after a few moments of rapid thought, an explanation of the strange words she had just heard came to her, and she said with a sympathetic ring in her voice:

“Have you lost a lover, Miss Le Breton? If so, I am—oh! so sorry!”

Eweretta smiled an April smile, and gently laying her hand on Minnie’s said: “Yes, but don’t be sorry. I am glad, for it has saved me much worse pain.”

There were tears in Minnie’s bright eyes as she repeated: “Oh, but I am so sorry!”

The friendship of these two girls dated from this little scene in the apple-room.

Eweretta genuinely liked Minnie, and Minnie, with a young girl’s fresh enthusiasm, adored Miss Le Breton.

After the guests had departed that afternoon, Minnie said to her mother: “I know what made Miss Le Breton ‘queer in her head’ for a time. She had an unfortunate love affair, but you must not mention it.”

“Drat love affairs!” exclaimed Mrs. Pickett. “Don’t you get having any till you are old enough to know what you are about!”