Part 2

Now Naie was playing. The young men and the girls were ready for the dance. Two of the older men, Stan and the blacksmith Gavril, sat down near Naie to beat the rhythm with their palms while he was playing the dance tunes. There were song and dance and loud laughter before the night was very old. Arms were locked in arms--the sinewy brown, hairy ones of the young men on the velvet-white, delicately veined ones of the girls.

Gay scarfs flashed in the air as they were turning round and round the fiddler sitting on top of an overturned barrel. Heels were thumping the ground so hard the windows shook and the rafters of the low ceiling trembled. And they laughed and sang and yodeled.

In the midst of all the gaiety appeared Boyar Robu. The youngsters continued to dance at his approach, but the older men became silent. Even the two old men who had been beating the rhythm with their palms ceased to do so. He was a tall man, Boyar Robu, and thin and wiry. A curly black beard framed his strong brownish face. He was a man of about thirty. He was dressed half peasant and half European.

He greeted everybody in a friendly manner, calling each one by name. But the answers to his greeting were, though respectful, anything but cordial or receptive on the part of the peasants. The priest, Popa Stancu, was standing talking to a peasant.

“Good evening, Popa,” Boyar Robu called out, and kissed the extended hand of the man of God, as he walked up to him. The priest followed almost reluctantly the Boyar to the table.

“And do please serve everybody,” the Boyar called to the innkeeper. “This has been a good year.”

The peasants were not much pleased by the Boyar’s generosity, and when he noticed their refusal a wild rage overpowered him. Standing up he smashed his empty glass on the floor.

Instantly Naie ceased playing. The Boyar stood and narrowed his eyes until they looked more like two slits from under which shot dark fire, as he called out:

“Am I a heathen that you refuse me? It is on my land that your wheat has grown! On mine! And it has been so for generations and generations. And while peasants were flogged daily, and beaten and robbed by other boyars a few miles from here your fathers and grandfathers and yourselves have lived freely on my land, long before the laws of the country had given you freedom!”

“It is not that, Boyar,” Stan, the oldest of the peasants, spoke up, after looking around to the other men. “But we do know what you want. None of the men would put their oxen or drive your oxen to these ungodly machines that you have brought from Nemtzia, or from other countries, to do the work God made man to do.”

“We’ll talk about that afterward,” the Boyar called.

Instantly glasses clinked. Blessings and good wishes were proffered. They were his friends; his peasants. He was their master. Their good master. But those machines ... that was a different story ... those things were the work of the devil.

The dance having stopped, some of the young people went out in couples to speak of things more important to them than what was being discussed at the inn. Naie hung his violin on the button under his coat, ready to go to sleep in the barn of the inn. The Boyar stopped him and called to the innkeeper.

“Give Naie food. I may want him to play tonight for us.”

The gypsy was served at the end of the room, while the peasants, standing on their feet, assured the Boyar of their devotion. When they had convinced him of that, they all sat down to talk. Gavril leaned over with his two hands on the table, and sticking his bearded face right under the eyes of the Boyar, said:

“We all love you. And your grandfather and father and you, yourself, have always been the best of Boyars to us. The rent of your land is cheaper than anywhere, and you have always been kind to us. But we would not, any of us, come near to any of the machines you have brought. This land here has been plowed with the plow pulled by oxen. We have sown the wheat with our own hands. We have harvested it with our scythes and threshed it on the threshing floor with our horses. That is what peasants are born for. To do all this work. It has been so since Adam. And if the Nemtzia Germans or the people from another part of the world want to do otherwise, let them do it.”

“Have I spoken right?” Gavril turned around, looking at the other peasants.

“He has spoken right,” they answered, nodding their heads. “He has spoken our own hearts.”

The whole night long Boyar Robu tried to convince his men that the binding machines he had from America, and which were rusting in the shed, were not the work of the devil, but the work of man’s brains. He explained to them how they worked, how the steel fingers of the binding apparatus were catching the Manila thread, and bringing it around the sheaf after it had been lifted from the cutting platform on the rolling canvas.

But it was all in vain. Stolid, obstinate, the men refused to believe it was so simple. The priest was silent, but the peasants knew he sided with them. And even after the Boyar had explained that their poverty was due to the fact that wheat and corn were sown and harvested in other countries in different ways, they refused to understand. If it was God’s will that they live in poverty it was God’s will.

Without the help of the peasants on his enormous wheatfields the Boyar’s desire to expand by cultivating all the land he owned was an empty dream. The peasants were tenants. They paid the rent for their land by so many days of work in the Boyar’s fields. He could not ask more days than was the custom for each acre. If one took more land he needed more time for his own fields. If one cultivated only a little land, he owed him fewer days.

Their own fields being comparatively small, it was easy for them to harvest their wheat in a few days, and thresh it leisurely on their threshing floors. But it was not so with his fields. The locusts not having spared him, he, too, had had many bad years.

Attracted by the odor of ripe wheat, the locusts might arrive before he had had a chance to harvest his 400 acres of wheat. He had sown so much, hoping to recoup his losses of former years. He had bought the machines to save himself from ruin. The only thing that could save him was speedy work. And yet he could not ask the peasants to go in with their scythes in his field before they had cut theirs. With the machines the work could be done in a few days.

But they were unwilling, and even when in the stress of pleading with them he, Robu, the son of the oldest of the Boyars in the neighborhood, cried before them, they wept together with him, but would not do as he asked them to.

“Why,” he said, “I’ll lend you my machines. They will cut your wheat, all of yours, in two days without much trouble. I can thresh your wheat and get half as much more out of the sheaves than you would get on the threshing floors. You would get more time and more money. More wheat.”

But the peasants shook their stubborn heads. Machines were the work of the devil. All the diseases and all the ills of the world were caused by the machines with which men wanted to do more work than God had ordained should be done.

Unable to convince them, although he had used the arguments that had been made to him at the time he had bought the machines at the capital of the country, Boyar Robu called Naie to him.

“Go to your homes. Leave me alone here with Naie.”

In the dim light of the oil lamp hanging from the low-beamed ceiling, the air heavy with the odors of boots and quarters of meat and blankets and chains and plowshares, the Boyar and the gypsy remained the whole night long.

The peasants were already going out into the fields singing the harvest song, holding the glittering blue steel of the scythes to the sun, with the girls beating the bottoms of empty pots and throwing water, from the pails they were carrying, at one another, when the Boyar and the gipsy went up the road toward his _curte_ at the end of the village.

Boyar Robu still repeated:

“Fools! Fools! You don’t want to work with my machines!”

Later, Boyar Robu rode out on his horse to see how the harvesting in the peasants’ fields was going on. The work was being done very rapidly. Everybody from every hut had turned out. Backs bent roundly as the swishing scythes rose and fell and left broad paths of gold on the ground. The smell of the wheat and the song of sharp steel against dried blades mingled with the chant of the men and the cuckoo calls from the forest.

Everywhere there was song. And everywhere Boyar Robu was greeted, “We shall get into your field tomorrow morning, Boyar. We’ll cut it ere the locusts will come, never fear!”

For they all loved him, though they regretted that he wanted to do what nobody had ever done before. It was all because of John Petrianu, the cruel Petrianu, whose fields were a few miles away. He had bought machines and compelled his men to work them at the point of a pistol.

The Boyar nodded his head, accepting their generosity and their mirthfulness. Yet, as he looked at the fields, he thought how easily the whole thing could be done with his two machines.

Having made the rounds, he returned to the shed to look at the rusting monsters on which the name of the harvesting company was lettered with gold upon red boards. It amused him to read the words in English and their translation below into Roumanian, “Harvesting Machine Company,” and, underneath, “Chicago, Illinois.”

He mused about the country they came from as he looked at them. He had seen such machines work in the fields of Petrianu, his neighbor. How pretty it was to see them run through and cut and bind and drop the sheaves of equal thickness, file by file, one after the other. How had Petrianu succeeded to get his men to work them? He was a hard man, Petrianu was.... He had ordered and it was done. Boyar Robu had heard tales of brutalities he did not believe ... yet.... It was all so simple! Why should these fools think there was any ungodly thing that made this iron and steel work?

Early the following morning, as soon as the heat of the sun had dried up the dew of the night on the fields, the peasants came singing down the road. Ranging themselves up on the outside of Boyar Robu’s wheatfield, they crossed themselves; then, bending their backs, their hundred or more glistening hard-steel scythes came down obliquely in one large movement into the wheatfield.

“Heigh! Ho! Heigh! Ho!” they sang loudly, marking the rhythm of the first strokes as they advanced breast deep into the gold. The women, their skirts held upon the side by the narrow red sash, followed in their bare feet, to glean and bind into sheaves what fell behind their men.

Boyar Robu arrived on horseback. The devotion of his peasants moved him deeply. His ancestral worship of field work stirred within him. There were several scythes lying idle at the edge of the field, prepared in case one should break or some mishap should happen to a handle. He threw off his black coat, the only garb that distinguished him from the peasants, and, taking one of the scythes after passing the oilstone over its edge, he went to work amongst his men.

They kept on working until late after sundown. Then they measured what they had done. It would take from eight to ten days to complete the harvest.

On arriving home, Boyar Robu, who was living alone with his sister and several house servants, found a slim young man sitting on his porch peacefully smoking a short pipe. The man was dressed in European garb, and because his face was cleanly shaven, a thing never seen in that part of the country, Boyar Robu was uncertain as to the age or the business of the man.

Ileana, Boyar Robu’s sister, twenty, full-bosomed and long-limbed, with big brown eyes and long black straight hair, rushed out to meet her brother.

“He came hours ago,” she told him, “this man there. And he asked about you in a language I do not understand, but which I think is English. He sits there and waits and waits.”

He smiled and remembered the “Ta Ra Ra, Boom De Ay” song, with “Oh, yes, Oh, yes.” These were the only English words, except “Mister,” he had ever heard. He approached, the man stood up, very much at his ease, and offered his hand saying, “James Allison.”

The two shook hands. Boyar Robu asked, “Oh, yes? Oh, yes?”

“You speak English?” James Allison wondered, hearing the two words.

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes,” Boyar Robu answered, and laughed broadly.

The clean-shaven man smiled at him and patted him patronizingly on the shoulder, and then launched into a long, loud speech, which the other did not understand, to explain that he was the demonstrator of the machines Boyar Robu had bought the year before.

The Boyar listened politely to the end and then raised his hands over his head and bowed as a sign that he had not understood a word. But he did manage to ask Mr. James Allison whether he was hungry and thirsty. James Allison understood. He was famished, having arrived hours before, after a long journey from the Constanza branch of the company, to find out why they had never heard from the Boyar after he had bought the machines.

The Boyar, his sister, and the stranger sat down at the table to eat. They ate in silence, the Boyar being too polite to talk to his sister in a language the other man did not understand. Finally Boyar Robu asked James Allison, “Français?”

The other man shook his head. “American.”

That single word shed considerable light on the situation. “Harvesting Machine Company, Chicago?” Robu Boyar questioned, mispronouncing every word.

“Yes,” James Allison answered gaily. “Harvesting Machine Company.”

Then they looked at one another and the three burst out in loud laughter. They sat on the veranda, laughing, smiling, with the tacit mutual understanding that the morrow was to bring some explanation between them.

Peasants passed back and forth, seemingly to say good evening or to report something to the Boyar, but in reality to have a look at this strange man of whose appearance they had heard at the inn.

When the village had quieted, the Boyar looked at his guest and looked at Ileana.

With sign language, he then turned to his guest and asked him whether he was ready to sleep. Allison picked up his big brown bag he had left outside the door and nodded his head. He was ready. He was shown to his room. Ileana remained on the veranda, thinking of the distant land from where that man came; a land where men sheared off the glory of their faces. And yet that face had clean lines of chin and nose, and the lips were firm.

How did he compare with John Petrianu? She was waiting for him. She expected him. He had been coming to see her almost daily and would tell her of the lands he had been in and the countries he had visited all over the continent. He had seen much. He knew much, Petrianu did.

John Petrianu was of a different kind from Boyar Robu. The Petrianus were not of peasant stock as the Robus were. Therefore, they did not have the same attitude toward the peasants. For generations the peasants had been serfs. Ordinarily they had been treated little better than cattle and, regarded as such, they were expected to do the bidding of a Boyar. It was one of the things Ileana held against Petrianu. He never spoke with love of his people.

Presently Ileana heard the gallop of his horse. It stopped in front of the house, and he came down to sit near her.

“John,” Ileana said, as soon as the greetings were over, “there is a man upstairs with a clean-shaven face who comes from America, from the land where they make the machines that are rusting in our shed. He does not understand our language. We do not understand his. We do not know what to make of the reason for his coming. Do talk to him in the morning, if you have time to come here.”

John was anxious to have occasion to prove his superiority. He knew a little English, having lived in England a short while.

“I shall come over in the morning,” John assured Ileana, “and I shall help that brother of yours come to his senses. There is no other way of dealing with peasants than forcing them to do what you want. Afterward they understand. Look at your farm! With three times as much ground as I cultivate, you do not produce half the amount. Just because Robu wants to be good to the peasants.”

They talked long into the night. John was explaining how one should deal with peasants in order to gain ascendancy over them. And as he talked and Ileana defended her people he slowly gained over her. His strength, his purpose, his decision were compelling. While he, realizing how he grew in her eyes, became stronger and more decided. It was not that he loved her so much. He needed someone of the other sex on whom to exercise his superiority. She became dearer to him when he felt he was convincing her.

When Boyar Robu arose the following morning he found James Allison in a pair of overalls and a cap which he wore with the visor on his neck. He had already found out the shed in which the two harvesting machines were housed and was pottering around them.

The two men greeted one another, each in his language. They smiled in understanding. Meanwhile, the peasants passed them by, going out to the distant fields. The scythes were hanging from their shoulders. And as he saw them, Boyar Robu raged that he shouldn’t be able to use the machines.

At that moment John Petrianu, dressed in his best riding garb, with waxed mustache, freshly shaven face, and oiled hair, came trotting down on his proudest horse. Ileana had heard him and was herself presently down among the three men. James Allison was so happy to find someone who understood him, he shook John Petrianu’s hand with both of his.

“Finally someone I can talk to,” he repeated over and over again. “Now tell me what is the trouble here. Why don’t they use these machines?”

“It is because his peasants refuse to handle them,” Petrianu answered. “I have some on my farm from your company, and they work well. I have had my troubles with them, but it is all over now.”

“Why,” Allison said, “all we have to do is to prove to them that they are easy to handle and more economical.”

He was a demonstrator, James Allison, and he had come down to demonstrate. Should he succeed in changing the opinion of the peasants, hundreds and hundreds of machines could be sold in that territory.

Petrianu, Ileana and James Allison looked at one another. Suddenly Petrianu spoke to Robu.

“You have been too soft with your men. It is why they would not listen to you. Go back to your room. Let them not see you at all. Let me deal with them.”

He stretched to his full height and looked for approval on Ileana’s side. He knew by the gesture of Robu that he had won him over. She looked admiringly at John. Yet, after a few moments, she paused to say:

“On condition, John Petrianu, that you should not be brutal to them. We have been hearing of the way you deal with your people occasionally.”

“It takes a strong hand; it takes a strong hand to handle them,” he answered, still flushed and drunk by his anticipation of being able to show his power over men.

Allison had been measuring up Ileana. In spite of the proffered assistance from Petrianu there was something about the man he did not like; a harshness of tone that went against the American’s grain.

Allison had seldom before seen the kind of beauty Ileana possessed. Strong, robust, kind, with brown eyes and a milky white face, the head set perfectly on wide shoulders.

“We go to the field,” Petrianu said.

Then he called to one of the servitors of the house, who had come with Ileana, to saddle two horses: one for the American and one for Ileana. Had Robu asked his man for a similar service he would have added some polite words. Petrianu’s words were shot out like crisp whip lashes. When the horses had been brought out saddled, and they were mounted, Petrianu again turned to the servitors.

“And let four oxen be yoked to each of the two machines in the shed,” he ordered.

The two servitors crossed themselves and bowed deeply, but they made no movement to execute the orders. They looked appealingly in the direction where Robu had disappeared.

“Do not look there!” Petrianu thundered. “I am the master here now! Do what I tell you!”

Ileana began to tremble. She looked with appealing eyes to James Allison, who did not understand what she meant, except that he knew that she was afraid something dreadful might take place. Petrianu was standing before the men with his nervous hand upon the short handle of the braided whip, forcing them to put the yokes on the necks of the oxen.

James Allison was mad with rage. But he had been sent there as a demonstrator. That man was helping him. If it needed a show of force to convince the peasants, well, let it be used.

Trembling and crossing themselves over and over again, the two servitors yoked the oxen. Still walking after them with his horse broadwise, Petrianu pushed oxen and men to the machines.

“Drive on!” Petrianu ordered.

The spiked wheels of the machines began to clatter down the road, one after the other, with Petrianu, Jim Allison, and Ileana riding back of them. Occasionally Petrianu would drive alongside of the men and talk to them harshly, twisting the lash of his whip as he talked.

Rumbling and clattering, the machines arrived at the wheatfield. The two drivers had no sooner seen their people than they plunged amongst them, crossing themselves and weeping. Instantly the song of the scythe against the ripe wheat ceased. The gleaning women, the colored beetles in the gold stubble, unbent their backs. There was silence. Why was Petrianu, the cruel Petrianu, of whom they had all heard, and this American, come with these machines now to the fields they were harvesting? And where was Boyar Robu?

Petrianu advanced toward the two men, who had abandoned the machines. Without a word his whip came down upon the shoulder of the first man, an elderly white-bearded peasant.

The peasant screamed in horror and withdrew a few paces. Petrianu’s whip had already come down upon the other man, and he raised it for the third time. Ileana cried out in anguish.

Jim Allison forgot that he was there to demonstrate the working of his machines. Suddenly, although the other man was much the heavier and taller, he sprang upon him like a cat. With one well-directed blow he sent him sprawling on the ground. Petrianu rolled over and, reaching into his riding boot, he jumped up with an open drawn dagger in his hand.

Jim Allison forgot everything. The sight of the weapon in the other man’s hand drove him almost insane with fury. He felt the warm drip of blood from a gash in his face; and, as they were fighting, he felt blood dripping down from the upper part of his arm.

Ileana screamed. The unarmed man, the boy from the other seas, faced the big and powerful Petrianu, who had a knife in his hand. The peasants stood aside watching the contest, all siding with the stranger, for they understood he had jumped to the rescue of one of their men. And they wondered how so light a man should dare fight so powerful a man who had a knife in his hand.

The two men were rolling over each other. Allison’s hands were not free to hit, for he was holding the wrist of the other man’s dagger hand. And as the fight went on an unspeakable hatred for Petrianu rose in the hearts of the peasants. Allison had succeeded in taking the weapon out of the other man’s hand. Petrianu lay there, bruised and beaten, fumbling in his hip pocket. Taking their scythes in hand the peasants advanced toward the man who was now slowly getting to his feet.