Part 3

As the long knife touched and slipped beneath the flax, the slender stems quivered, then leaped into the air, to be met by the impact of the reel-slats and fall in a long line on the platform canvas, to be swept to the left and in between the elevator canvases. Emerging at the top, they fell forward and down until upraised arms stopped their progress. The long ribbon of grain was fed into the binder, and the packer arms drove it into a solid bundle. When the pressure become too great, a long needle from below, carrying a piece of twine drew it tight through a notch in a disk which already had carried the twine back, thus forming a loop. Now three small steel fingers grasped the twine and revolved once, tying a knot. An instant later another disk revolved and brought a small knife uppermost, to cut the twine just beyond the knot. Then two more arms whirred overhead and kicked the finished bundle down upon the carrier.

On the last day of the cutting Grahame had not been feeling well, and when the long obstinate streak of grain had finally dwindled to nothing and he turned toward home, he realized that something was decidedly wrong. He had dropped the traces and begun to unhitch when a wave of dizziness sent him leaning against the binder frame for support. With a strong man’s disregard and contempt for sickness, he attempted to go on with his task, but his strength gave out altogether, and he slipped to the ground in a heap.

After a while Jane, wondering at his long delay, came from the house in search of him. Frightened, she dropped to her knees and holding his head in her lap tried to coax him back to consciousness. Once he opened his eyes and murmured something about being knocked out in the last round, and lapsed again into unconsciousness.

* * * * *

It is not necessary to dwell on Jane’s ride to the nearest telephone nor the long fight the doctor and the sympathetic neighbors helped her put up before Grahame was out of danger. Influenza and pneumonia ran their course day after day, sapping the last ounce of strength from the body of a once strong man, until he lay a mere shadow of himself.

One evening Jane stood at the window, looking out over the field of flax. It had never been shocked, for there had been no one to do the work. Fortunately there had been no rain, and the bundles, remaining dry, had not sprouted, but now Jane was worried. The wind had blown from the east for several days, and now as she glanced toward the west she saw a long, low, slate-colored cloud moving along the horizon. She could not repress a shudder of fear. Of course it might pass with a shower or two, but so late in the fall, she had little hope. Apparently the stage was set for a genuine snowstorm, and if the flax were once covered, it would probably remain covered until spring.

In spite of the extra work incident to John’s sickness, Jane had left no stone unturned in her efforts to find a threshing rig. She had seen or written every thresherman who ordinarily operated in their neighborhood, only to meet with one disappointment after another. What little crop the hailstorm had left, locally, had been stacked, and the men who owned the big machines had moved farther away to get the cream of the threshing before returning to do their own work. Meanwhile, time had worn on, bringing nearer and nearer the inevitable day when storm clouds would close in and drop a mantle of snow to enshroud the grave of their last hope.

Sick at heart, Jane turned from the window. She had done all she could. If snow came, they were out of luck, that was all. Once during the evening she thought of Ironheart. She knew his rig was somewhere to the north of them, and that it was one of the survivors of the big steam rigs which had of late given way before the small neighborhood gas outfits. With his twelve or fourteen teams and the big separator, he could clean them up in one long day’s work. For a moment a ray of hope dawned in her breast. She thought of the hours she had spent nursing Ironheart back to health. If there were an ounce of gratitude left in that shriveled shell, he would surely help. Then she saw him again as he looked the morning he had left them, cold, cynical, apparently thankless for all she had done; and the spark of hope flickered and died.

At last, worn out by work and worry, Jane went to bed, but just as she was losing consciousness, an idea came to her. If it didn’t snow during the night, she would go to the nearest rig and offer them half the crop if they would come in and thresh it, at once. She woke Grahame, and they discussed it, pro and con, finally deciding there was no other course open to them. Meanwhile the night wind sang its melancholy way around the house, and once the feeble light from the night lamp showed them a single snowflake melting against the windowpane.

Sometime later Jane heard John’s voice calling to her; and awakening, she saw him propped up on his elbow and straining his eyes out into the darkness. As she moved slightly, he cautioned her: “Listen!”

From somewhere out of the night came a low rumbling sound that rose and fell, accompanied by a steady _throb-throb_ as though some monster were breathing fast and deep; far up the road they could see a slender streamer of sparks drifting with the wind.

Minutes passed. The rumbling became louder, and now they could hear the clatter of heavy gears running loose, on the downhill grade. Suddenly they saw, illuminated by the sparks, three plumes of steam climb into the air, and came the wild, high shriek of a steam whistle, once, twice, thrice.

“Good God,” exclaimed Grahame, “it’s a threshing outfit calling for water.”

There could be no doubt whatever. It was a threshing rig coming down the road that passed their house. Could it be possible that someone was coming to help them? The thought came to Grahame and Jane at the same time, but it seemed too wildly impossible to mention. They could see plainly now, for the engine was almost abreast of the house, and behind it came the great bulk of a separator, lumbering along with its gaunt arms outlined against the sky, while still farther back was the low squat body of the cook-car, followed by an extra water tank and then a long line of horses and racks stretching away into the gloom.

When the engine was almost to the gate, Grahame reached out and grasped his wife’s hand. In a moment they would know, and they dared not breathe. The front of the boiler was even with the gate. It was passing. Then when their last wild hope seemed about to be dashed to the ground, the engine swung in a wide turn and came straight toward them. The house seemed to tremble on its foundation, and the exhaust echoed shrilly from the empty hayloft. Now the big machine was passing beneath their window. The fire door clanged; a lurid glow lit up the engine’s platform; and Jane caught a momentary glimpse of the man at the throttle: it was Ironheart the thankless.

* * * * *

Jane lighted a lantern and made ready to do her part, and there was much to do. She must leave John alone while she rode about the neighborhood to notify the men who had promised to help. She was nearly ready when a knock sounded at the door and she opened it to find a young man on the threshold.

“Is this Mrs. Grahame?” he inquired. At Jane’s nod, he continued:

“The boss told me to say that he had made all the arrangements and you will have nothing to do. We have all had supper, and the cook-car will be here for breakfast.”

“Thank you very much, and thank Mr. Kinear for me,” replied Jane. “And please tell him I will have teams here to take the grain and--”

“I was supposed to tell you about that too,” he broke in. “The boss sent his car down here ahead and notified everybody that we should start at daybreak. He has two trucks himself, and there are two more working with the rig, so he thought that maybe, as long as Mr. Grahame won’t be able to do much work this winter, he had better send the flax right to the elevator from the machine, leaving only what you will want for seed here. Good night,” he said, and turned to go, then came back again: “Another thing, I was to tell you that if enough teams turned up to help on the long haul, he is going to thresh right here in the yards so you can have the straw for feed and for windbreak this winter.”

Never in all her life had Jane experienced such a feeling of intense gratitude as that which swept over her when she realized that there was no worry, nothing for her to do but care for her husband; and back in his room, she talked and watched by turns until the light in the haymow was blown out and she knew the men were asleep--all but the man on the water tank, who sat slouched forward in his seat, wrapped in the folds of a heavy sheepskin coat.

A breeze came from the east, and she was thankful, for it meant the flax would be dry enough to thresh at daybreak. Sometimes, after a quiet night, it would be too tough to thresh until near noon the next day.

John reached out and took his wife’s hand.

“Kind of looks, honey, as though we might win the last round, after all.”

* * * * *

An hour later Jane could hear the rattle of gears running loose on the downhill slope, and in a few minutes the big engine turned in at the gate. Halfway across the yard it stopped, and a man ran back to pull the pin between separator and tender. Then the engine came on with only the separator. At the expense of much snorting and chugging, the cumbersome separator was finally wheeled into position, where it settled with a thud into the holes already dug for its hind wheels. The engine then cut loose, and turning so as to face the separator, backed toward the house far enough to allow for the long drive-belt; there it stopped, and soon the yard was quiet again except for the low whine of imprisoned steam.

Throughout the remainder of the night Grahame and Jane alternately fought for sleep and watched from the window for the dreaded change in the weather. Clouds were scudding across the sky, and there was a feeling of rain or snow in the air. Rain so late in the season would in all probability turn to snow, and so one was as bad as the other. Few people can realize the suspense John and his wife were called upon to bear during those hours of darkness, but there is an end to the longest night, and an hour before daylight came the faint tinkle of an alarm clock and a man from the cook-car went to the engine; reaching up into the cab he grasped a cord, and there followed the long, clear blasts of the whistle. As if in answer a feeble light flickered through the cracks of the haymow door; another flashed in the cook-car, and far out on the prairie other lights came out one by one, each marking the location of a farm from which help was coming.

Presently from every direction across the field came wagons to join those already in the flax. The first ones loaded, pulled in and ranged themselves in a double line on each side of the engine. Ironheart climbed the separator and gave a signal. The engineer opened the cylinder cocks and eased his reverse back. Then he tapped lightly on the throttle, and the big engine moved slowly, very slowly back, lifting and stretching the drive-belt until it was drawn taut and hung in the air, slapping and chafing itself where it crossed. Another signal, and the reverse was pushed ahead, the throttle opened slowly again and the engine glided into almost silent motion.

The quivering belt began to move back and forth. The separator too came to life, starting reluctantly with many protesting groans and squeaks; but gathering speed, these sounds gradually ceased, and it took up a heaving, shaking motion that ejected spurts of dust from every joint and crevice, filling the air with a yellow haze which hung in dense clouds about the machine.

Beginning with a low hum, the separator’s tone arose gradually to a whirr and thence in a crescendo to a high-pitched droning whine, steadily, monotonously, on and on.

* * * * *

All through the day the big machine kept up its ceaseless whine. Several times snow-squalls swept by, and one or two crossed the field, but it had grown colder during the day and the dry snow did little or no damage.

When darkness came, the field was clear, but still long lines of wagons awaited their turn to unload. Under the magic touch of dusk men appeared as grotesque shadows, gnomes, silhouetted against the skyline. Behind the separator a veritable mountain of straw arose to pinnacled peaks and towers, whose members occasionally toppled over and slid down the stack only to be rebuilt higher than ever. The exhaust from the engine merged into a steady roar, while a scarlet flame glowed steadily under the spark-arrester on the smokestack. The separator became a vibrant, roaring shadow. Its whine and moan were higher and louder than ever in contrast to the silence of the night; above it still towered the figure of a man, distorted almost beyond recognition by the darkness and dust clouds, but still the directing genius of it all.

Finally, the last bundle passed into the hungry maw, and a moment later the weigher tripped for the last time. The high whine began to fall away--lower and lower until it became a gentle rumble, a purr, a long-drawn-out sigh, and silence broken only by the gentle hiss of steam.

Grahame expected Ironheart would come to the house for a settlement, but an hour went by before the same young man who had talked to Jane the night before came to the door. Up in Grahame’s room he took from his pocket a bunch of storage-tickets and laid them on the bed.

“The boss says there are two thousand bushels at the elevator in Barliton, and four hundred and eighty here in the granary.”

Grahame made a hasty mental calculation--two thousand, four hundred and eighty bushels at two dollars and sixty-five a bushel--

When Grahame had collected his scattered senses, he turned to the young man and said:

“Did Mr. Kinear tell you what the bill was? I can’t give him a check, but I can indorse enough of these tickets over to him to meet it.”

Before Grahame had finished, his caller was through the door and his voice came back as curt and terse as the voice of Ironheart himself:

“There is no bill.”

The wind moaned along the eaves, and the whistling rasp of snow sounded against the siding, but within there were warmth and happiness, for Grahame and Jane had won the last round.

Miles up the road, a great black hulk lumbered through the night, and as it moved, occasional flashes of lurid light from the fire door illumined the expressionless face of the strange, silent man who held his hand on the throttle and watched the snow-swept road ahead.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the September 1925 issue of The Blue Book Magazine.]