old pride would be too much for 'em, and I would have to suffer. Now a chap who comes out here has to drop pride. If he's ignorant, he oughtn't to be above starting right at the bottom. I like hearing that lad whistling; he ain't too proud to earn an honest living, even if the job is what it is."
"Hallo!" he called, coming over to Joe some half-hour later and looking into the sty. "How're you doing?"
"Fine," said our hero, borrowing an expression somewhat common in the Dominion. "Almost finished."
"Then you've been mighty slippy," admitted Peter, his eyes opening when he saw that our hero had indeed almost finished the task. "This lad'll do for me," Peter said to himself. "He works, he does. He's the kind of fellow who likes to get ahead, whether he's working for another or for himself. My, if he ain't washing the place down now!"
Evidently his new hand was cleanly also, and that was pleasing. Peter began to think that in gaining Joe's services he had made quite a bargain.
"That'll fix it right, lad," he sang out. "You've made a fine job of it. Jest you hop out now, and put the fork and spade back where you found 'em. It's yer first lesson in farming and in other things."
Joe looked up smiling. "Eh?" he said.
"Yes," went on Peter, "Mrs. Strike's been pitching into me for giving you such a job first off; but I wanted to see for meself whether you'd kick, or whether you meant to get on whatever came along. Reckon you'll do – now come along in and feed the hosses."
When a month had passed, Joe found another ten dollars added to the fifty he had kept by him; also he had settled down wonderfully with the Strikes, and was already getting along with his farm work.
"He's a treasure is that lad," admitted Mrs. Strike warmly, when she and her husband were alone one evening. "It don't matter what it is that's wanted, he'll do it. If it's one of the children to mind, he'll smile and wink at the bairn. If it's water for the shack, he's willing. And if it's a log for the stove, he jest takes the saw and goes off whistling. That lad'll get along in the world."
"He's fine," agreed Peter. "He's the sort we want out from the Old Country."
Whether he was or not, Joe had taken kindly to the new life, without a shadow of doubt. His attentive mind was constantly absorbing details from the garrulous Peter or from his neighbours, and the end of that month's service on the farm had taught him quite a smattering of the profession he was to follow. As for being lonely, that he certainly was not; he was almost too busy even to have time for thinking of such a matter. Then, too, there were neighbours, while each shack actually possessed a telephone. However, if there were monotony in the life he was living, it was not long before an exciting incident occurred that would have aroused anyone even more lethargic than our hero.
CHAPTER VI
A Canadian Bad Man
"You jest put the hosses into the rig and make along to Hurley's," said Peter, Joe's employer, one early morning when the land was already ploughed, harrowed, and sown, and there was little to do but tend the animals and await the growth of the wheat crop, upon which Peter anticipated so much. "And don't stop longer than you need, lad. He's a bad man is Hurley, one of England's ne'er-do-weels, who came out years ago, and has now taken to farming. I've lent him a seeder this two seasons, and he hasn't returned it. Jest hitch it on to the back of the rig and bring it along."
"And you can take something from me along to Mrs. Hurley," said Peter's wife, who was one of those kind-hearted colonists one so often meets. "She's a poor, down-trodden thing, and most like she doesn't have too many of the good things. Here's butter for her, and eggs, and a leg of pork."
Joe was by now quite an adept at the management of the rig, and soon had his horses harnessed in, an operation of which he had been supremely ignorant before his arrival. He mounted into the cart, having placed Mrs. Strike's basket there already, cracked the whip, and went off across the prairie track between the ploughed acres already sprouting into greenness.
Hurley's quarter section was a matter of four miles away, and Joe had met the man only once before. But already something of his reputation had reached his ears, and Joe had gathered that amongst a farming class of industrious fellows this Hurley was looked at askance.
"He's a bully, and a sullen bully with it all," Peter had said once before. "He don't keep a hand more'n a month, as a general rule, while I reckon the boy as he has apprenticed to him has none too good a time. Hurley's a man I don't take to."
Bearing all this in mind, Joe whipped up his horses and took them at a smart pace across the fields. On every hand lay wooded country, with clearings to right and left, where the industry of the settlers had felled the trees, paying toll to the Government of Canada for them, and had then rooted the land, broken it, and placed therein the seed which was to spring into such bounteous growth. In every case a log hut was erected somewhere on the quarter section, consisting of one hundred and sixty acres; and these log huts often enough disclosed from their outward lines something of the character of the inmates, for in one case the shack was barely twelve feet by twelve.
"Jim Canning's," Joe told himself, for he had met Jim and liked him. "A confirmed old bachelor; been in Canada for ten years and more, and seems to like living by himself. He's a jovial fellow. Hallo, Jim!" he shouted, seeing that worthy crossing his section towards him. "How'dy."
Observe the expression, and gather the fact that even his own short residence in the Dominion had already caused Joe to copy those who lived about him. He was becoming quite a Canadian in his speech. Already one could detect something of that pleasant drawl that marks the sturdy colonial.
"Hallo, Joe!" shouted the stranger, beaming at our hero and disclosing handsome features, sunburned to a degree, while even his chest was of a deep brown; for Jim wore no collar, and had discarded the customary neckcloth. He was, in fact, a tattered-looking object – a huge patch in the seat of his trousers, a shirt which might have been blue or green or red in its palmy days, but which was now of a curious brown, evidently from much exposure to the sun. "How'dy," he cried. "Where away?"
"Hurley's, fetching a seeder."
"Huh! Then you look lively back agin," came the answer. "There's ructions down there. Hurley's been fighting with his hands, and though I believe they've settled the quarrel for the time bein', you never know when it won't break out again; he ain't no use ain't Hurley."
They waved to one another and then parted, Joe jogging along the rough track, now with the wheels on one side deep in an old rut, which threatened to upset the rig, and then bumping over boulders and tree stumps, which made riding anything but comfortable. But what cared Joe? He whistled shrilly; his face was rosy and tanned, his eyes clear, his broad-brimmed hat thrust back on his head, till a lock of hair showed to the front. Nor could his own clothing be very favourably contrasted with Jim's; for Joe's shirt had a large rent in it, made that very morning. A portion of the brim of his hat was missing, while the ends of his trousers were threadbare, to say the least of them.
"Clothing don't make the man, anyhow," Peter had said many a time. "You ain't any the wuss fer a rent in yer breeks."
"Hallo, Joe!" came a hail across from another quarter section. "How's the Strikes?"
Joe shouted back a greeting, and was soon exchanging others with farmers farther on. Indeed, he called at one of the shacks, a magnificent affair, showing the pluck and ability of its owner. It belonged to a city clerk from the city of London, one who had been ignorant of farming conditions, and when Joe was last in this direction it was not entirely finished.
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