rful and ever smiling tormentor. It did not
help matters much that apparently Mandy took no offense at Perkins'
insinuations; indeed, it gradually dawned upon Cameron that what to him
would seem a vulgar impertinence might to this uncultured girl appear no
more than a harmless pleasantry. At all costs he was resolved that under
no circumstances would he allow his self-control to be broken through.
He would finish out his term with the farmer without any violent
outbreak. It was quite possible that Perkins and others would take him
for a chicken-hearted fool, but all the same he would maintain this
attitude of resolute self-control to the very end. After all, what
mattered the silly gibes of an ignorant boor? And when his term was done
he would abandon the farm life forever. It took but little calculation
to make quite clear that there was not much to hope for in the way
of advancement from farming in this part of Canada. Even Perkins, who
received the very highest wage in that neighbourhood, made no more than
$300 a year; and, with land at sixty to seventy-five dollars per acre,
it seemed to him that he would be an old man before he could become the
owner of a farm. He was heart sick of the pettiness and sordidness of
the farm life, whose horizon seemed to be that of the hundred acres or
so that comprised it. Therefore he resolved that to the great West he
would go, that great wonderful West with its vast spaces and its vast
possibilities of achievement. The rumour of it filled the country side.
Meantime for two months longer he would endure.

A rainy day brought relief. Oh, the blessed Sabbath of a rainy day, when
the wheels stop and silence falls in the fields; and time tired harvest
hands recline at ease upon the new cut and sweet smelling hay on the
barn floor, and through the wide open doors look out upon the falling
rain that roars upon the shingles, pours down in cataracts from the
eaves and washes clean the air that wanders in, laden with those subtle
scents that old mother earth releases only when the rain falls. Oh,
happy rainy days in harvest time when, undisturbed by conscience, the
weary toilers stretch and slumber and wake to lark and chaff in careless
ease the long hours through!

In the Haleys' barn they were all gathered, gazing lazily and with
undisturbed content at the steady downpour that indicated an all-day
rest. Even Haley, upon whose crops the rain was teeming down, was
enjoying the rest from th