The Harvester. Stratton-Porter Gene
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Gene Stratton-Porter
The Harvester
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4057664652324
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. BELSHAZZAR'S DECISION
CHAPTER II. THE EFFECT OF A DREAM
CHAPTER III. HARVESTING THE FOREST
CHAPTER IV. A COMMISSION FOR THE SOUTH WIND
CHAPTER V. WHEN THE HARVESTER MADE GOOD
CHAPTER VI. TO LABOUR AND TO WAIT
CHAPTER VII. THE QUEST OF THE DREAM GIRL
CHAPTER VIII. BELSHAZZAR'S RECORD POINT
CHAPTER IX. THE HARVESTER GOES COURTING
CHAPTER X. THE CHIME OF THE BLUE BELLS
CHAPTER XI. DEMONSTRATED COURTSHIP
CHAPTER XII. “THE WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID”
CHAPTER XIII. WHEN THE DREAM CAME TRUE
CHAPTER XV. THE HARVESTER INTERPRETS LIFE
CHAPTER XVI. GRANNY MORELAND'S VISIT
CHAPTER XVII. LOVE INVADES SCIENCE
CHAPTER XX. THE MAN IN THE BACKGROUND
CHAPTER XXI. THE COMING OF THE BLUEBIRD
CHAPTER I. BELSHAZZAR'S DECISION
“Bel, come here!” The Harvester sat in the hollow worn in the hewed log stoop by the feet of his father and mother and his own sturdier tread, and rested his head against the casing of the cabin door when he gave the command. The tip of the dog's nose touched the gravel between his paws as he crouched flat on earth, with beautiful eyes steadily watching the master, but he did not move a muscle.
“Bel, come here!”
Twinkles flashed in the eyes of the man when he repeated the order, while his voice grew more imperative as he stretched a lean, wiry hand toward the dog. The animal's eyes gleamed and his sensitive nose quivered, yet he lay quietly.
“Belshazzar, kommen Sie hier!”
The body of the dog arose on straightened legs and his muzzle dropped in the outstretched palm. A wind slightly perfumed with the odour of melting snow and unsheathing buds swept the lake beside them, and lifted a waving tangle of light hair on the brow of the man, while a level ray of the setting sun flashed across the water and illumined the graven, sensitive face, now alive with keen interest in the game being played.
“Bel, dost remember the day?” inquired the Harvester.
The eager attitude and anxious eyes of the dog betrayed that he did not, but was waiting with every sense alert for a familiar word that would tell him what was expected.
“Surely you heard the killdeers crying in the night,” prompted the man. “I called your attention when the ecstasy of the first bluebird waked the dawn. All day you have seen the gold-yellow and blood-red osiers, the sap-wet maples and spring tracing announcements of her arrival on the sunny side of the levee.”
The dog found no clew, but he recognized tones he loved in the suave, easy voice, and his tail beat his sides in vigorous approval. The man nodded gravely.
“Ah, so! Then you realize this day to be the most important of all the coming year to me; this hour a solemn one that influences my whole after life. It is time for your annual decision on my fate for a twelve-month. Are you sure you are fully alive to the gravity of the situation, Bel?”
The dog felt himself safe in answering a rising inflection ending in his name uttered in that tone, and wagged eager assent.
“Well then,” said the man, “which shall it be? Do I leave home for the noise and grime of the city, open an office and enter the money-making scramble?”
Every word was strange to the dog, almost breathlessly waiting for a familiar syllable. The man gazed steadily into the animal's eyes. After a long pause he continued:
“Or do I remain at home to harvest the golden seal, mullein, and ginseng, not to mention an occasional hour with the black bass or tramps for partridge and cotton-tails?”
The dog recognized each word of that. Before the voice ceased, his sleek sides were quivering, his nostrils twitching, his tail lashing, and at the pause he leaped up and thrust his nose against the face of the man. The Harvester leaned back laughing in deep, full-chested tones; then he patted the dog's head with one hand and renewed his grip with the other.
“Good old Bel!” he cried exultantly. “Six years you have decided for me, and right——every time! We are of the woods, Bel, born and reared here as our fathers before us. What would we of the camp fire, the long trail, the earthy search, we harvesters of herbs the famous chemists require, what would we do in a city? And when the sap is rising, the bass splashing, and the wild geese honking in the night! We never could endure it, Bel.
“When we delivered that hemlock at the hospital to-day, did you hear that young doctor talking about his 'lid'? Well up there is ours, old fellow! Just sky and clouds overhead for us, forest wind in our faces, wild perfume in our nostrils, muck on our feet, that's the life for us. Our blood was tainted to begin with, and we've lived here so long it is now a passion in our hearts. If ever you sentence us to life in the city, you'll finish both of us, that's what you'll do! But you won't, will you? You realize what God made us for and what He made for us, don't you, Bel?”