{"product_id":"2940013745032","title":"Fruits of the Earth","description":"When, in the summer of 1900, Abe Spalding arrived in the village of\u003cbr\u003eMorley, in the municipality of Somerville, Manitoba, he had been\u003cbr\u003etravelling in the caboose of a freight train containing a car with\u003cbr\u003efour horses and sundry implements and household goods which\u003cbr\u003ebelonged to him.  He came from the old Spalding homestead in Brant\u003cbr\u003eCounty, Ontario.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe had visited the open prairie a year before and, after careful\u003cbr\u003einvestigation, filed a claim on the south-west quarter of section\u003cbr\u003efive in the township beginning four miles north of Morley.  He had\u003cbr\u003ehad good and valid reasons for choosing that particular location.\u003cbr\u003eThe neighbourhood as such he had fixed on because his twin sister\u003cbr\u003eMary, who a few years ago had married a doctor by name of Vanbruik,\u003cbr\u003eand who up to 1897 had lived in the county seat, was at present,\u003cbr\u003efor somewhat obscure reasons, domiciled in this very village of\u003cbr\u003eMorley, where her husband, having sold his practice, was conducting\u003cbr\u003ethe business of a general merchant.  The particular quarter section\u003cbr\u003eon which Abe Spalding had filed seemed, to the casual observer, to\u003cbr\u003eoffer no advantage over any other that was available; but he had\u003cbr\u003efound that, while the water which covered the district in the\u003cbr\u003espring of the year stood for months on other parts, this quarter,\u003cbr\u003eand the whole section to which it belonged, as well as the sections\u003cbr\u003enorth and south of it, dried several weeks in advance of the rest\u003cbr\u003eof the prairie.  Further, he had been informed that the province\u003cbr\u003ewas on the point of drawing two gigantic ditches through the\u003cbr\u003edistrict, one of them being surveyed to pass exactly along the\u003cbr\u003esouth line of section five.  These ditches were not primarily\u003cbr\u003edesigned to drain a seemingly irreclaimable swamp, but rather to\u003cbr\u003erelieve an older settlement farther west, around the town of\u003cbr\u003eTorquay; but, while they were not meant to drain the land which he\u003cbr\u003ehad chosen, he had shrewdly seen that they could not help improving\u003cbr\u003ematters.  With his mind's eye he looked upon the district from a\u003cbr\u003epoint in time twenty years later; and he seemed to see a prosperous\u003cbr\u003esettlement there.  The soil was excellent, and there was no\u003cbr\u003efundamental farming problem except that of drainage.  Lastly, he\u003cbr\u003ewas not the first settler to make the venture; the two quarters\u003cbr\u003ecomposing the north half of the section had been taken up a decade\u003cbr\u003eago.  The men who owned them, it was true, had not been able to\u003cbr\u003emake a success; they had left after having wasted their substance\u003cbr\u003eand energy; but not before they had received their patents, which\u003cbr\u003ethey held on the chance that the land might in time become worth a\u003cbr\u003efew dollars per acre.  A third settler, a bachelor by name of Hall,\u003cbr\u003ewas actually in residence on the quarter adjoining Abe's claim to\u003cbr\u003ethe west.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAbe came from a small Ontario farm of eighty acres, half of which,\u003cbr\u003eon account of rock and sharp declivities in its formation, could\u003cbr\u003enot be tilled.  He was possessed by \"land hunger\"; and he dreamt of\u003cbr\u003ea time when he would buy up the abandoned farms from which all\u003cbr\u003ebuildings had been removed; and, who knows, perhaps even the\u003cbr\u003equarter where Hall was squatting in his sod-hut.  In his boldest\u003cbr\u003emoments he saw himself prosperous on so great a holding and even\u003cbr\u003ereaching out north; for the section there adjoining was No. 8,\u003cbr\u003eheld, as part of the purchase price paid by the Dominion for the\u003cbr\u003erights of sovereignty in the west, by that ancient institution, the\u003cbr\u003eHudson's Bay Company.  In any other place, where his land would\u003cbr\u003ehave been surrounded by crown land, any one might have limited\u003cbr\u003eAbe's expansion by settling next to him; for no settler could\u003cbr\u003eacquire more than a hundred and sixty acres by \"homesteading.\"\u003cbr\u003eHere, all things going well, Abe might hope one day to possess two\u003cbr\u003esquare miles; for the Hudson's Bay Company held its lands only in\u003cbr\u003eorder to sell them.  Abe was a man of economic vision.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the lumbering freight train banged and clattered to a stop near\u003cbr\u003ethe little station, in what was euphemistically called \"the yard\"--\u003cbr\u003edistinguished by nothing but a spur of the track running past a\u003cbr\u003eloading platform to the three grain elevators along its southern\u003cbr\u003eedge--Abe alighted from the caboose and stood for a moment\u003cbr\u003eirresolutely by its side.  The conductor had told him that the car\u003cbr\u003econtaining his chattels was going to be shunted to the loading\u003cbr\u003eplatform, where it would be ready in an hour or so.  Abe was not\u003cbr\u003eanxious to go to his sister's house; but his impulsive and\u003cbr\u003eimpatient temperament made him desirous, above all, to get over\u003cbr\u003ethat interval of waiting without being too conscious of his wasting\u003cbr\u003etime.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47156831912176,"sku":"2940013745032","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013745032_p0.jpg?v=1763589682","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013745032","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}