PAUL'S VICTORY by Hart Hall

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 28, 1903

PAUL'S VICTORY.

By Hart Hall

Paul flung his hoe over the fence and climbed upon the topmost rail and sat there. It was a beautiful day, yet oppressively warm, and hoeing was not the easiest of work. He mopped his brow with a red bandanna and sighed wearily; not on account of what he had done, but because of what lay before him,—a broad, blossoming potato field.

The last hill of corn was just finished, and Paul felt a sense of satisfaction and pride as he looked at the long, clean rows with the loamy soil hoed well up about the stalks. But when he looked at the potato patch he positively groaned, and the cause of his uneasiness was, that to join an excursion party to the city that was to leave in the morning he must have the patch all hoed by night.

“I can't do it, that's all,” he exclaimed in desperation. A sound of boyish laughter came to his ears wafted by the soft breeze across the pasture from the swimming pool down at the creek. The frown on Paul's face deepened as he listened. “They can go swimming,” he muttered, “and I have to work. It's been that way all the time. I wish they had to help me out on those potatoes, blast 'em.”

His heart was so full of his wrongs that he had no eyes for the beauty of the scene before him, but it was one of those pictures that are indelibly fixed in our minds without our knowledge, one that is best seen in after years when, with eyes closed and weary of strenuous life, we indulge in reveries and vain regrets.

Along the interspaces of the worn fence the red clover blossomed luxuriantly, and straggling branches of the wild rose, blooming heavily, and fragrant with perfume, clung to the oak rails. To the right of the potato patch a wheat field, like a sea of livid green, waved and rippled gently to and fro. Beyond the stone wall was the orchard, the high old apple trees nearly hiding the house, the long sloping roof with the queer gables alone discernable. Away to the left the barn loomed up, and through the large mow door the trapeze could be seen hanging, a place of amusement where many an hour before “chore time” had been hilariously spent with the boys.

“O what is so rare as a day in June, Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays.”

Paul's eye caught sight of his father with a pan and stick in his hand coming along the stone wall toward the potato patch, and grunting an unintelligible thankfulness that he would not have to “shake bugs” he slid down off the fence, and grabbing his hoe he attacked the patch furiously. The dirt flew in clouds about him, and ten minutes later he was at the end of the first row. Before beginning the next he rubbed his back restfully and looked toward his father. He saw the old man leaning over the plants rapping the potato-bugs into his pan. An idea came to Paul's mind, but it evidently was not an honorable one, as the red blood flushed his tanned cheeks as he thought of it.

“I'll do it,” he growled, “I can't miss that excursion.” Then the dirt flew again, but he was at the end of the next row in half the time. Desperation lent strength to his strong, young frame, and the rows rapidly diminished as the hours passed. Shortly before sundown he saw his father go toward the house and then the rows diminished faster than ever, and when he heard faithful Shep's barking, as he brought up the cows, the last row was just about finished.

His father was not strong, nor well, and the last remaining payment on the mortgage Paul knew depended on their summer's crop. He was the main stand-by of the family, and the knowledge of others' dependence upon him had developed his manliness and hardihood, and rarely did complaint fall from his lips. But this excursion to the city, where he was to spend his two weeks' vacation before haying and harvest, had been looked forward to for so long, it really was the event of his life. He had carefully brushed and laid out his best clothes in readiness; his best shoes were already shined, and his necktie that had been given him for a birthday present, together with his celluloid collar, lay on the bureau. His white shirts he had had “done up” at the village laundry expressly for this trip. No, he could not miss it for anything.

He hung his hoe in the tool-house, and after washing himself at the porch sink, took the milk pails from their pegs and set off for the barnyard.

He was unusually silent during supper, and his mother inquired if he had finished his work, and when he replied that he had, she feared he had worked too hard. His father was discreetly absorbed in his paper, and said nothing.

They retired early, as was their custom, and Paul tried hard to sleep, but tired tho he was, the drowsy Morpheus would not be wooed. The excitement of the coming day mingled with the uneasiness on his mind served to keep him wide awake. He could think of nothing but the potato patch and the bad work he had done on it; and as that was the “hilling up” process, the last work it was to receive, he knew it would cause vast difference in the yield, if nothing more. Finally he sat bolt upright in bed. The moon was shining almost as bright as day, and the rays streaming into the little room literally filled it with its silvery effulgence. He got up and went to the window. The night was gloriously beautiful; all the stars were out and everything was hushed in stillness, except the whippoorwill in the orchard calling to its mate, and from the marsh way down in the pasture came the musical chorus of the frogs.

With a determined but unexpected purpose in mind Paul dressed hurriedly, and, shoes in hand, stole softly downstairs and out the kitchen door. Putting on his shoes he went quietly to the tool house, and finding the hoe he had hung there a couple of hours before, made directly for the potato patch.

Beginning where he left off he worked hard and fast, hoeing deep and well. The afternoon's effort made the work somewhat easier than it would otherwise have been, but the ease of conscience was greater impetus than any physical rest. So he worked steadily with a grim determination spurring him on. As the hours went by and the work grew monotonous he got dreadfully sleepy; it seemed an age now before he finished a row, but he could see by the bright moonlight the unfinished part growing smaller and smaller. Finally when the last hill was done, and well done, he dragged himself to the house thoroughly tired out, but happy.

Satisfying his thirst at the well, he pulled off his shoes and tiptoed up to his room, and kicking off his clothes in the middle of the floor was asleep about as soon as his head touched the pillow, so soon in fact, that he did not hear the kitchen door open and close again, and some one come slowly up the stairs a little later.

“Paulie,” he heard his father calling, “you must get up if you are going to the excursion.” It seemed to Paul as tho he had just gotten into bed, but the sun was shining brightly into the room, and the birds were scolding and twittering about the eaves. Bounding out of bed he hurried into his clothes.

“Mother an' I have been talking it over of late, Paulie,” said his father at breakfast, “and we have made up our minds that you can stay three weeks at the city; the clover will stand that long all right, and if the pertater crop is good, an' I guess it will be,” he added, his eyes twinkling, “we'll have you go to college after corn huskin'.”

College was the dream of Paul's life, and this was a surprise that he had not anticipated. “O father!” he exclaimed, but the biscuit he was eating, or something, choked his utterance. HART HALL.

1420 Kearney Ave., Los Angeles, Calif.