The dinner under the oaks

The dinner made a beautiful scene, the most idyllic in the farmer's life. The sun, now high noon, fell through the leaves in patches of quivering light upon the white table-cloth, spread out upon the planks, and it fell upon the fair hair of girls, and upon the hard knotted fingers of men and women grown old in toil. The rattle of dishes, the harsh-keyed, unwonted laughter of the women, and the sounding invitations to dinner given and taken filled the air. The long plank seats placed together made capital tables, and eager children squatted about wistfully watching the display of each new delicacy. The crude abundance of the Iowa farm had been brought out to make it a great dinner. The boys could hardly be restrained from clutching at each new dish.

The Councills and the Burns families took dinner together. Mrs. Burns, fretful and worn, cuffed the children back from the table while bringing out her biscuit and roast chicken. Some sat stolidly silent, but big-voiced Councill joked in his heavy way with everyone within earshot.

"Well, the Lord is on our side, neighbor Jennings, to-day, anyhow," he roared across the space of two or three tables.

"He's always on our side, brother Councill," smiled Jennings.

"Wal, I'd know about that. Sometimes I'm a leettle in doubt."

"Got something good to eat?" inquired Jennings of Mrs. Councill.

"Land sakes, no! We never have anything fit to eat since Jane's gone to havin' beaux; my cookin' aint fit for a hawg to eat."

"I aint a-goin' to eat it, then," roared Councill in vast delight at his joke on himself. "I'll go over and eat with Marm Jennings." They all laughed at this.

"Tell us so't we c'n laff," called Mrs. Smith, coming over to see what they did have.

"Where's Brad?" said Mrs. Councill, looking about her. "Aint he comin' to dinner?"

"I don't see him around anywheres. Mebbe he's out feed'n the horses," replied Councill, without concern.

"Say! that was a great speech that girl made," put in Brother Smith, coming over with a chicken leg in one hand and a buttered biscuit in the other. "But what we want is free trade"—

"What we want is a home market," said Milton, some distance away.

"Oh, go to—Texas with y'r home market!"

"Tut, tut, tut, no politics, brethren," interrupted Jennings.

Bradley, ignored by everybody, was standing over by the trunk of a large oak tree, watching from afar the young girl who had so stirred him. She was eating dinner with Deering, his wife, and daughter, and Milton, who was there, looking very bright and handsome, or at least he appeared so to Eileen Deering, a graceful little girl, his classmate at the seminary.

Miss Wilbur sat beside Deering, who was a large man with a type of face somewhat resembling Lincoln's. She was smiling brightly, but her smile had something thoughtful in it, and her eyes had unknown deeps like a leaf-bottomed woodland pool across which the sun fell. She was feeling yet the stress of emotion she had felt in speaking, and was a little conscious of the admiring glances of the people.

She saw once or twice a tall, roughly dressed young farmer, who seemed to be looking at her steadily, and there was something in his glance, a timid worshipful expression, that touched her and made her observe him more closely. He was very farmer-like, she noticed; his cheap coat fitted him badly, and his hat was old and shapeless. Yet there was something natively fine and chivalrous in his admiration. She felt that.

"You're a farmer's daughter yourself," said Deering, as if they had been speaking of somebody else who was.

"Yes, my father was a farmer. I'm a teacher. I only began a little while ago to speak in the interest of the farmer. It seems to me that everybody is looking out for himself except the farmer, and I want to help him to help himself. I expect to speak in every county in the State this winter."

Bradley crept nearer. He was eager to hear what she was saying. He grew furtive in his manner, when she observed him, and he felt as if he were doing something criminal. He saw Miss Wilbur say something to Mr. Deering, who looked up a moment later and said to Bradley, whom he did not know, "Why, certainly, come and have some dinner, plenty of it."

Bradley flushed hot with shame and indignation, and moved away deeply humiliated. They had taken him for a poor, friendless, lonely tramp, and there was just enough truth in his loneliness to make it sting.

"Say, Brad, don't you want some grub?" called Councill, catching sight of him.

"Quick, 'r'y lose it," said Burns.

He sat down and fell upon the dinner silently, but there was a hot flush still upon his face. He was not a beau. It had always been difficult for him to address a marriageable woman, and a joke on that subject threw him into dumb confusion. He had lived a dozen tender dreams of which no one knew a word. Indeed, he never acknowledged them to himself. He had admired in this way Eileen Deering whom he had seen with Milton a few times during the year. He now envied Milton his easy air of calm self-possession in the presence of two such beautiful girls. There was a bitter feeling of rebellion in his heart.

Miss Wilbur had stirred his unexplored self. Down where ambitions are born; where aspirations rise like sun-shot mists, her words and the light of her face had gone. Already there was something sacred and ineffably sweet about her voice and face. She had come to him as the right woman comes sometimes to a man, and thereafter his whole life is changed.

He walked away from the few people he knew, and tried to interest himself in the games they were playing but he could not. He drifted back to the grand stand and sought about till he could see Miss Wilbur once more. She was so pure, so beautiful to him.

The hour or two after dinner was spent in visiting and getting acquainted, and the time seemed all too short. Each granger took this opportunity of inquiring after the health of the other grangers of the county. The young people wandered in laughing, romping groups about the grounds, buying peanuts and sugar candy, and drinking the soda water and lemonade which the venders called with strenuous enterprise.

On the shadowed side of the stand the leading men of the grange gathered, consulting about plans and measures.

"Now, it seems to me that we're going on all right now," said Deering. "We're getting our goods cheap and we're cuttin' off the middleman."

"And we're getting hold of the railways."

"Yes, but it don't amount to nothin' compared to what ought to be done. We ought 'o oust them infernal blood-suckers that's in our court-house, and we want to do it as a grange."

"No," said Jennings in his placid way, "we can do that better. I've got a plan." "What we want," said Hobkirk, "is a party, a ticket of our own, then we can"—

"No, we can't do that. It won't be right to do that. We must stand by the party that has given us our railway legislation."

Milton and several of the younger farmers drew off one side and talked earnestly about the fall campaign.

"They'll beat us again unless we go in together," Milton said with emphatic gesticulation. Milton was a natural politician. His words found quick response in the erratic Hobkirk, who had good ideas but whose temperament made all his words jagged shot. He irritated where he meant to convince.

Bradley listened to it all without feeling that he had any part in it. It didn't seem to him that politics had anything to do with the beautiful words of the girl. On the stand the choir began to sing again and he walked toward them. They sang on and the people listened while they packed away the dishes. They sang "Auld Lang Syne," and "We'll Meet Beyond the River," with that characteristic attraction of the common people for wistful, sorrowful cadences which is a paradox not easily explained.

"All aboard!" called Councill from his wagon as Bradley drove the team up to the band stand. While the merry young people clambered in and paired off along the seats he was seeing Miss Wilbur shaking hands with the people who paused to say good-by. His heart ached for a glance of her brown eyes and a word, but he held the reins in his great hands and his face showed only his usual impassive reticence. He was only Councill's hired man.

The banners were taken up, the children loaded in, the boys looking back wistfully to the games and the candy-stands. Councill unfurled his flag to the wind, and Bradley swung the eager horses into the lane. On all sides the farmers' teams were getting out into the road; the work of the marshals was done. Each man went his own gait.

The young people behind Bradley began to sing:—

And so along each lane through the red sunset the farmers rolled home. Home through lanes bordered with velvet green wheat, across which the sunlight streamed in dazzling yellow floods. Home through wild prairies, where the birds nested and the gophers whistled. The dust rose up, transformed into gold by the light of the setting sun. The children fell asleep in their tired mothers' arms. The men shouted to each other from team to team, discussing the speakers and the crops.

Smiles were few as each wagon turned into its gateway and rolled up to the silent house. The sombre shadow of the farm's drudgery had fallen again on faces unused to smiling.

Only the lovers lingering on the road till the moon rose and the witchery of night came to make the girlish eyes more brilliant, softening their gayety into a wistful tenderness, only to these did the close of the day seem as sweet and momentous as the morning. While the trusty horse jogged on, impatient of the slow pace set by his driver, the lovers sat with little to say, but with hearts lit by the light that can glorify for a few moons, at least, even the life of ceaseless toil.