NEIGHBOURS
By
ROBERT STEAD
Author of "The Cow Puncher", "The Homesteaders","Dennison Grant", "The Empire Builders", etc.
TORONTO
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LIMITED
Copyright, Canada, 1922
HODDER & STOUGHTON, LIMITED
PUBLISHERS
PRINTED IN CANADA.
NEIGHBOURS
CHAPTER I.
My earliest recollection links back to a grey stone house by a roadentering a little Ontario town. Across the road was a mill-pond, andacross the mill-pond was a mill; an old-fashioned woolen mill which wasthe occasion and support of the little town. Beside the mill was awater-wheel; not a modern turbine, but a wooden wheel which, on sunshinydays, sprayed a mist of jewels into the river beneath with theprodigality of a fairy prince.
My father worked in the mill, as did most of the men and many of thewomen of the town. That was before Unionism had succeeded in any generalintroduction of the eight-hour day; my father started work at seven inthe morning and worked until six at night. His days were full of thelabor of the mill, but his evenings and the early, sun-bright summermornings belonged to his tiny farm at the border of the town. We had twocows, a pig or two, some apple and cherry trees, and little fields ofcorn and clover.
The mill-pond was held in check by a stone dam which crossed from theroad almost in front of our door to a point on the mill itself. Thestone crest of this dam rose about two feet above the level of thewater in the mill-pond, and was about two feet wide. Along this crest myfather walked on his way to and from the mill, but I had strict ordersnot to attempt the feat, with the promise that I would be thrashed"within an inch of my life" if I did.
And now I must introduce Jean Lane, daughter of our nearest neighbour,Mr. Peter Lane. Jean is to travel with us through most of the chaptersof this somewhat intimate account, and you may as well meet her at four,bare-footed and golden-haired and blue-eyed, with a wisp of white cottondress and a gleam of white teeth set between lips of rose-leaf. Demurelydown the road she came to where I lay sprawled on the river bankcontemplating the leisured precision of the water-wheel beyond. When shereached me she paused, sat down, and buried her feet in the soft sand ofthe bank.
"I want to go to the mill," she said, when her little toes were well outof sight.
"But you can't go to the mill," I said, with the mature authority ofsix. "You'd fall in."
"I wouldn't, neither,"—she glanced at me elfishly from under her yellowlocks—"not if you helped me."
It was a difficult situation. Here was I, a young man of six, honored bya commission of great responsibility from a young woman of four. Mynative gallantry, as well as a pleasant feeling of competence, urgedthat I immediately lead her across that two foot strip of masonry. Butthe parental veto, and the promise of being thrashed within an inch ofmy life, sorely, and, as it seemed to me, unfairly, curbed my chivalry.
"I'd like to take you over, Jean," I conceded, "but my father won't letme."
"Did you' father say you mustn't take me over?" With almost uncannyintuition she thrust at the vulnerable spot in the armor of my goodbehavior.
"No; he didn't say anything about you."
"Then you can