r ~ ' ■ CHAPTER XXVI The First Fruits A light wind dried the dew and the oats shone like silver in the rising sun. Sometimes the tall stalks bent and where the slow ripple crossed the field the color changed and the feathery heads went yellow and gray. Across the chocolate brown fal low, the stiff wheat glimmered like red gold. The sky was calm and blue. Helen mechanically rioted the glowing color, but she would sooner be useful, and when Spiers fixed the spool of twiue she held the horses. The three big animals were harnessed to a new hinder and stamped im patiently. Another team and binder waited a few yards hack and Lawrence got into the iron saddle. Helen wondered why he did not start, particularly since Heath and an Ontario harvester loafed dhoitt. The men’s clothes were scanty. One saw their brown skin, red throats, and muscular arms. They were like athletes stripped for a race, and all knew they wiust use some speed. Autumn • A t. ... 1 __ 1 aa num t, tuc « *,v|J » na iai ^v, auu before the frost began the last, sheaf must be thrashed. By and by Spiers pulled a lever, and lifting her to the saddle gave her the reins. ./‘All’s ready, ma'am.” he said, swinging up his hand as if he saluted an officer. “We wait for von to lead us round- the field.” Helen smilod, for she liked his joke. ‘‘But I have not driven a binder, Geoff. I might keep you back.” “The horses know you. All you have got to do is to steer them straight along the edge* and use the full sweep of the knife,” sweep of the knife,” Spiers replied. ‘‘The crop is yours, my lady. But for you, 1 doubt if it, would have been sown, and we want you to out, the tirst swath.” He let the team go and the noisy machine rolled ahead. Dust blew from the horses’ feet, the knife sparkled, and the tall stalks bent and fell. The siuing wooden arms revolved like puddle wheels in breaking yel low waves, and strewed the bind er’s wake with silver tipped sheaves. For a time Helen con centrated, hut the horses went steadily and at the corner of the 11 • • i i . « vimuiik niig n.sKtMi « jinnee aiiour. Twenty yards off, Lawrence’s machine crashed through the filling grain; Helen saw his athletic figure sway behind the horses' heads. Farther back, Heath seized the sheaves. His short, thick body and legs were bent, and lurched about awk wardly in the tall stubble, for the western wheat grower does not cut much straw, llis mouth was firm and his face shone with sweat. Helen thought him marked by something of a bull dog’s clumsiness and tenacity. The Lancashire man was slow and raw, hut he meant to hold on. Sometimes the lean Ontario harvester took the sheaves Heath seized, and built them, for a model, in a compact stock. For a moment Heath studied the neat pite, and then frowned and plunged ahead. The clash of the knives was musical, the horses’ feet and the binders’ revolving arms beat a measured ryhthm. The sky was blue, the wheat was ruddy gold, and bracing wind and glowing color fired Helen’s blood. Be sides, Spiers' remark had moved her. She felt she triumphed and her mood was emotional. Helen’s habit was not to phil osophize, but facing the splendid crop, she reviewed her rash ad venture, of which the wheat was perhaps the consequence. To some extent, she was frankly primitive, aud she believed a woman’s business was to help 27 her mate and build a borne. She obeyed instinctive impulses, and since nobody in the old country wanted her, she took the plunge. Now she knew the risk she had run was daunting, but it looked as if the risk were gone. Her husband at length was really hers. She had not weakly humored him; where firmness was needed «he had been firm. Yet she had conquered. Perhaps it was strange, but Gooff re spected her. She liked his ban tering title, “My Lady.” Then she recaptured words and smiles that on the Canadian harvest field carried a signif icance she had not felt in smoky Lanoashier. One reaped where one had sowed; perhaps one was forced to reap all one sowed! At Pine Creek she had not sowed carelessly; she had used thought and effort, and effort, and al though sometimes the effort was not wusely planned, and was steadily vanquishing Geoff’s drawbacks and hers. Anyhow, the material rewards Was gen erous, and for a few moments Helen indulged a queer emo tional thrill. A phrase about the first fruits haunted her and when she looked up her eyes were wet. Ten yards behind her binder, Lawrcne, held his team. Heath stretched his arms and the On tario man rubbed the sweat and dust from his eyes. Helen saw that while she brooded she had kept them back, and at the corner she got down from the machine, • “Harvest has begun, Geoff, and until you carry the last sheaf I hope our luck will stand,” she said. “Well, I am not a harvest; my business is to cook for the men in the field, but you declared the crop was mine. Suppose I ask you for all my machine can cut on the first day!” “It is yours,” said Geoffrey, smiling. “If you claimed all both machines could cut, I would not grumble, and I expect Law rence will agree. Well, I’ll note my debt. How much do you reckon it stands for, Larry?” Lawrence caculated and named a sum. “I’m rather Geoff’s partner than his creditor, Mrs. Spiers, and I hope you will take the lot. It might perhaps help you fix your house.” “Thank you,” said Helen. “But you must make a note. I must not be generous with money that is not really ours, and I want nothing for the house.” She turned to Spiers and her voice was not altogether steadv she resumed: “We will send tne money to a hospital, Geoff; if , possible somewhere they help siek strangers and emigrants. Not long ago I was a stronger and it's hard to he alone.” Lawrence said he liked the plan, and when Geoffrey sent the cheek he hoped Mrs. Spiers would let. him know. He had come across in order to try the machine, and now he was glad his going justified his lifting his hat. He hated to he theatrical, hut Geoffrey’s wife commanded his respect. When he went for his horse Helen called the On tario man to take her hinder. “You must cut all a good team and machine can cut in a day, Sam.” “I certainly will, and then some.” said the fellow, and signed Heath. “Get to it, Lan cashire. This job is Mrs. Spiers’ job ami you have got to sweat!” He started the horses and waved his battered hat. “We’ll give you a square deal, ma’am. You watch us go!” The horses strained, the noisy machines rolled forward, and Helen went happily to the house. Obstacles that she had feared were vanishing and Geoffrey’s extravagance was not the handi cap she had thought. He hnd l queer, attractive qualities; the MEW COMET MAY BE OLD FRIEND, EXPERT OPINION B*ikrler. Oal.—The newly two romets might be identical It* thts case the perihelion, or point w.ien the comet Is nearest the sun. would be Decem ber 1ft, he said. Actually, It has been shown that the peril lion was De cember II. very close to that sug gested According to Dr Arntn O te«wh ner at the St'idem* ibservatory at the University at Ca «