ii4 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



and kept horses and cattle in the stable during the 

 winter. Experience taught me never to keep them 

 in a single day to obtain physical comfort through 

 the rigour of the Canadian winter ; the blood must 

 be kept in swift circulation, which is only obtainable 

 through physical motion. I was new enough to 

 feel very worried over everything, and my prede- 

 cessor naturally wanted his money. In those days 

 I was totally unaccustomed to being without suffi- 

 cient for the emergency of the hour, and by way of 

 carrying my own grievance into the camp of the 

 adversary produced the worn-out old argument 

 of the hayrick, which I had ignorantly and foolishly, 

 but quite freely, yielded at his request. It would 

 have been more just and more dignified to have 

 borne the burden of my own lack of foresight in 

 silence, but it is not easy to bear the knowledge 

 that your beasts are threatened with an insufficiency 

 of food in winter weather. The old man was hurt 

 and angry at the charge of injustice. He departed 

 with a cheque for eight hundred dollars, for which 

 I had obtained permission to overdraw my account, 

 and he no doubt carried with it a sense of injury. 

 On the 1 3th the money arrived from England. 

 I sent the balance, and being set free from imme- 

 diate worry, quickly forgot my grudge. But it 

 is never wise to risk making an enemy where one 

 may be glad to find friendship in an evil hour, 

 and if I had suffered in silence I should have been 

 spared some anxious days. 



It was on a January Sunday that I first met 

 Nancy. Her owner was a familiar friend of the 

 Millingtons, who came and went as he pleased. 

 As we were driving into church Nancy's charming 



