54 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



The Indian summer followed the snowstorm, and 

 in three days back came the threshing outfit. The 

 little engine took things easily, and Guy Mazey had 

 decreased the number of his gang, so that it was 

 four days before they finished, but they were a 

 quiet, well-behaved group of men, although drawn 

 from many nations, and, barring the inevitable 

 drudgery attached to the washing-up as well as the 

 cooking of three heavy meals a day, they were no 

 trouble. 



It was on the last afternoon that I went down to 

 the Fort to replenish our store of sausages for the 

 final breakfast, and, taking the pace at the lazy will 

 of Charles Edward, I only reached home just before 

 supper. 



Hilaria met me on the veranda with cheeks 

 aflame, and wrath in her blue eyes, which always 

 seemed the bluer in the nearness of her blue 

 overall. 



" It is quite too bad of you not to have managed 

 to get home before," she said resentfully. " There 

 have been callers — troops of them ! The first 

 contingent arrived in quite the j oiliest car just after 

 I had finished laying the table for supper, and the 

 last just as I was hoping the others were intending 

 to depart. Cooking beefsteak for a dozen men is 

 hardly a merely temporary occupation. Oh, it was 

 humiliating ! This beastly country — how I loathe 

 it ! My feet are sore with walking over the stubble 

 last Sunday, and then standing for ever and ever on 

 that greasy kitchen floor. And I had put on the 

 hideous pair of shoes we bought at Lipton when we 

 were waiting for the lost baggage. That was not 

 enough — the threshers had left the basin that 



