HEN it is recorded that James Strode, twenty-seven, single, landed as a steerage passenger in Canada with nothing more than ten dollars in his pocket, and a corresponding amount of hope in his breast, a good deal will be expected of him.
What else is Canada for, one may well ask, but to provide adventurous souls with the opportunity of landing penniless on her shores and ultimately becoming wheat, cattle or lumber kings, of taming wild horses on her illimitable plains, fighting and laying low camp bullies, or tracking evil-doers to the edge of beyond in the ranks of the North-West Mounted Police?
The question is unanswerable, and that Strode did none of these things must be admitted with regret, and excused, if excuse be possible, on the grounds that from the viewpoint of high romance the modern young man is a disappointing person, and present-day Canada a disappointing place.
Behold him, then, wandering the streets of a strange city in search of nothing less prosaic than work whereby he could live.
For the third time he paused before a blackboard outside an employment agency bearing the mystic legend in
Was he a swamper? Was he a choreboy? Strode rather doubted it, but as such appeared to be the sum total of Canada's requirements at the moment, he determined to find out.
The agent, a lean, rather depressed-looking man with a lower jaw listlessly revolving on a quid of tobacco, sprawled in a tilted chair before a red-hot box stove. He received his client without enthusiasm.
"Good morning," said Strode. "I see you want swampers and choreboys. Am I likely to be of any use?"
The agent directed a jet of auburn fluid with extraordinary accuracy at a brass receptacle about a yard distant. "What can you do?" he asked, as one without hope.
"I hardly know yet," said Strode, "but I'm fairly strong. I ought to be able to do something."
"You ought, all right," agreed the other; "the thing is, can you?"
"It depends. Give me a chance to find out," Strode suggested.
"Ever handled an axe?"
"No. But"
"Can you milk?"
"No."
"Well, then"
The agent turned his melancholy attention to the stove, and as there seemed nothing more to be said, Strode wandered towards the door, wondering vaguely what he ought to do next.
"Going?" suggested the agent, with the first hint of interest he had shown.
"That was the idea," Strode admitted. "There doesn't seem much to stay for, does there?"
The agent actually laughed. "You're a queer guy," he observed.
"Well, it's good to hear I'm something," said Strode. "The trouble is, I can't make a living by just being queer, can I?"
"I'm not so sure of that. Do you always take things this way?"
"What other way is there?"
"Plenty." The agent stared before him as though conjuring visions. "There's the feller with the notion that just because this is Canada he can go out and pick up dollars in the street. And the one that can do anything from river-driving to broncho-busting—until he comes to try. And the one that reckons he's been sent out here on a mission to teach the heathen just how they do things back home. And the one who's never done anything, and never will do anything if he can help it. Oh, I tell you, we get all sorts in here."
"I expect you do," said Strode, "but I don't seem to recognise myself yet."
"No," agreed the agent, "that's why I'm taking the trouble to talk to you."
Strode was encouraged into turning back from the door.
"Mind, I'm not raising any false hopes," warned the other, with a dolorous eye fastened on his victim like a poultice, "but if you're willing to do anything until you can do something, there's a mixed farmer out Lakeville, Ontario way, wanting a choreboy."
Strode's inward elation at the prospect of work took the mistaken form of inquiring as to wages.
"Wages?" The agent seemed offended at the word as at something indelicate. "I don't know what you mean."
After a pause, during which Strode preserved a discreet silence, the other explained that wages and choreboys were incompatible at the moment. This wasn't "harvesting," be begged leave to point out, when any poor fish could hold up his boss for three times what he was worth. This—in case Strode hadn't noticed it—was winter, and anyone who could bluff an employer into giving him board and lodging in return for what he could do might consider himself lucky.
Strode took the agent's word for it, and next morning a train for Lakeville, Ontario.