initial commit of ebook 2809HEADmain

1 files changed, 11537 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/2809-0.txt b/2809-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8fe861c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2809-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11537 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin Garland.
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this 
+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+Title: Main-Travelled Roads
+Author: Hamlin Garland
+Posting Date: April 11, 2010 [EBook #2809]
+Last Updated: May 1, 2017
+Character set encoding: utf-8
+
+Prepared by David Reed and Robert Homa
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS ***
+
+Books by Hamlin Garland
+
+Border Edition
+
+    Main-Travelled Roads
+    Other Main-Travelled Roads
+    Boy Life
+    Rose of Dutcher's Coolly
+    The Eagle's Heart
+    The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop
+    Hesper
+    Mart Haney's Mate
+    Cavanaugh, Forest Rangers
+    They of the High Trails
+    The Long Trail
+    The Forester's Daughter
+
+Regular Edition
+
+    The Light of the Star
+    Prarie Folks
+    The Shadow World
+    Trail of the Gold-Seekers
+    The Tyranny of the Dark
+    Victor Ollnee's Discipline
+
+Harper & Brothers
+Publishers
+
+
+
+Other Editions
+
+    Under the Wheel
+    Jason Edwards
+    A Member of the Third House
+    A Little Norsk
+    A Spoil of Office
+    Prairie Songs
+    Crumbling Idols
+    Wayside Courtships
+    The Spirit of Sweetwater
+    Ulysses S. Grant, his life and character
+    Her Mountain Lover
+    Witch's Gold
+    Money Magic
+    Moccassin Ranch
+    A Son of the Middle Border
+    A Daughter of the Middle Border
+    A Prairie Mother
+
+Main-Travelled Roads
+
+By
+Hamlin Garland
+
+Author of
+Other Main-Travelled Roads, etc.
+
+Border Edition
+
+
+
+Harper & Brothers
+Publishers
+New York and London
+
+
+
+
+Main-Travelled Roads
+
+Copyright, 1891, by The Arena Publishing Company
+Copyright, 1893, by The Century Co.
+Copyright, 1893, 1899, by Hamlin Garland
+
+
+
+
+To
+
+My Father and Mother
+
+Whose Half-Century Pilgrimage on the Main-Travelled Road of Life Has 
+Brought Them Only Toil and Deprivation, This Book of Stories Is 
+Dedicated By a Son to Whom Every Day Brings a Deepening Sense of His 
+Parents' Silent Heroism
+
+
+
+
+
+The main-travelled road in the West (as everywhere) is hot and dusty in 
+summer, and desolate and drear with mud in fall and spring, and in 
+winter the winds sweep the snow across it; but it does sometimes cross a
+rich meadow where the songs of the larks and bobolinks and blackbirds 
+are tangled. Follow it far enough, it may lead past a bend in the river
+where the water laughs eternally over its shallows.
+
+Mainly it is long and wearyful, and has a dull little town at one end 
+and a home of toil at the other. Like the main-travelled road of life it
+is traversed by many classes of people, but the poor and the weary
+predominate.
+
+
+
+
+Table of Contents.
+Main-Travelled Roads 
+Foreword                         xi
+Introduction                      1
+A Branch Road                     7
+Up the Coolly                    67
+Among the Corn-Rows             131
+The Return of a Private         167
+Under the Lion's Paw            195
+The Creamery Man                219
+A Day's Pleasure                245
+Mrs. Ripley's Trip              261
+Uncle Ethan Ripley              281
+God's Ravens                    301
+A "Good-Fellow's" Wife          327
+
+
+
+
+Foreword
+
+In the summer of 1887, after having been three years in Boston, and six
+years absent from my old home in northern Iowa, I found myself with
+money enough to pay my railway fare to Ordway, South Dakota, where my
+father and mother were living, and as it cost very little extra to go by
+way of Dubuque and Charles City, I planned to visit Osage, Iowa, and the
+farm we had opened on Dry Run prairie in 1871.
+
+Up to this time I had written only a few poems, and some articles
+descriptive of boy life on the prairie, although I was doing a good deal
+of thinking and lecturing on land reform, and was regarded as a very
+intense disciple of Herbert Spencer and Henry George--a singular
+combination, as I see it now. On my way westward, that summer day in
+1887, rural life presented itself from an entirely new angle. The
+ugliness, the endless drudgery, and the loneliness of the farmer's lot
+smote me with stern insistence. I was the militant reformer.
+
+The farther I got from Chicago the more depressing the landscape became.
+It was bad enough in our former home in Mitchell County, but my pity
+grew more intense as I passed from northwest Iowa into southern Dakota.
+The houses, bare as boxes, dropped on the treeless plains, the
+barbed-wire fences running at right angles, and the towns mere
+assemblages of flimsy wooden sheds with painted-pine battlement,
+produced on me the effect of an almost helpless and sterile poverty.
+
+My dark mood was deepened into bitterness by my father's farm, where I
+found my mother imprisoned in a small cabin on the enormous sunburned,
+treeless plain, with no expectation of ever living anywhere else.
+Deserted by her sons and failing in health, she endured the discomforts
+of her life uncomplainingly--but my resentment of "things as they are"
+deepened during my talks with her neighbors who were all housed in the
+same unshaded cabins in equal poverty and loneliness. The fact that at
+twenty-seven I was without power to aid my mother in any substantial way
+added to my despairing mood.
+
+My savings for the two years of my teaching in Boston were not
+sufficient to enable me to purchase my return ticket, and when my father
+offered me a stacker's wages in the harvest field I accepted and for two
+weeks or more proved my worth with the fork, which was still
+mightier--with me--than the pen.
+
+However, I did not entirely neglect the pen. In spite of the dust and
+heat of the wheat ricks I dreamed of poems and stories. My mind teemed
+with subjects for fiction, and one Sunday morning I set to work on a
+story which had been suggested to me by a talk with my mother, and a few
+hours later I read to her (seated on the low sill of that treeless
+cottage) the first two thousand words of Mrs. Ripley's Trip, the first
+of the series of sketches which became Main Travelled Roads.
+
+I did not succeed in finishing it, however, till after my return to
+Boston in September. During the fall and winter of '87 and the winter
+and spring of '88, I wrote the most of the stories in Main Travelled
+Roads, a novelette for the Century Magazine, and a play called "Under
+the Wheel." The actual work of the composition was carried on in the
+south attic room of Doctor Cross's house at 21 Seaverns Avenue, Jamaica
+Plain.
+
+The mood of bitterness in which these books were written was renewed and
+augmented by a second visit to my parents in 1889, for during my stay my
+mother suffered a stroke of paralysis due to overwork and the dreadful
+heat of the summer. She grew better before the time came for me to
+return to my teaching in Boston, but I felt like a sneak as I took my
+way to the train leaving my mother and sister on that bleak and
+sun-baked plain.
+
+"Old Paps Flaxen," "Jason Edwards," "A Spoil of Office," and most of the
+stories gathered into the second volume of Main Travelled Roads were
+written in the shadow of these defeats. If they seem unduly austere, let
+the reader remember the times in which they were composed. That they
+were true of the farms of that day no one can know better than I, for I
+was there--a farmer.
+
+Life on the farms of Iowa and Wisconsin--even on the farms of
+Dakota--has gained in beauty and security, I will admit, but there are
+still wide stretches of territory in Kansas and Nebraska where the
+farmhouse is a lonely shelter. Groves and lawns, better roads, the rural
+free delivery, the telephone, and the motor car have done much to bring
+the farmer into a frame of mind where he is contented with his lot, but
+much remains to be done before the stream of young life from the country
+to the city can be checked.
+
+The two volumes of Main Travelled Roads can now be taken to be what
+William Dean Howells called them, "historical fiction," for they form a
+record of the farmer's life as I lived it and studied it. In these two
+books is a record of the privations and hardships of the men and women
+who subdued the midland wilderness and prepared the way for the present
+golden age of agriculture.
+
+H. G.
+
+March 1, 1922.
+
+
+
+
+Introduction
+
+I
+
+An interesting phase of fiction, at present, is the material prosperity
+of the short story, which seems to have followed its artistic excellence
+among us with uncommon obedience to a law that ought always to prevail.
+Until of late the publisher has been able to say to the author, dazzled
+and perhaps deceived by his magazine success with short stories, and
+fondly intending to make a book of them, "Yes. But collections of short
+stories don't sell. The public won't have them. I don't know why; but it
+won't."
+
+This was never quite true of the short stories of Mr. Bret Harte, or of
+Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, or of Mr. T. B. Aldrich; but it was too true of
+the short stories of most other writers. For some reason, or for none,
+the very people who liked an author's short stories in the magazine
+could not bear them, or would not buy them, when he put several of them
+together in a volume. They then became obnoxious, or at least
+undesirable; somewhat as human beings, agreeable enough as long as they
+are singly domiciled in one's block, become a positive detriment to the
+neighborhood when gathered together in a boarding-house. A novel not
+half so good by the same author would formerly outsell his collection of
+short stories five times over. Perhaps it would still outsell the
+stories; we rather think it would; but not in that proportion. The hour
+of the short story in book form has struck, apparently, for with all our
+love and veneration for publishers, we have never regarded them as
+martyrs to literature, and we do not believe they would now be issuing
+so many volumes of short stories if these did not pay. Publishers, with
+all their virtues, are as distinctly made a little lower than the angels
+as any class of mortals we know. They are, in fact, a tentative and
+timid kind, never quite happy except in full view of the main chance;
+and just at this moment, this chance seems to wear the diversified
+physiognomy of the collected short stories. We do not know how it has
+happened; we should not at all undertake to say; but it is probably
+attributable to a number of causes. It may be the prodigious popularity
+of Mr. Kipling, which has broken down all prejudices against the form of
+his success. The vogue that Maupassant's tales in the original or in
+versions have enjoyed may have had something to do with it. Possibly the
+critical recognition of the American supremacy in this sort has helped.
+But however it has come about, it is certain that the result has come,
+and the publishers are fearlessly adventuring volumes of short stories
+on every hand; and not only short stories by authors of established
+repute, but by new writers, who would certainly not have found this way
+to the public some time ago.
+
+The change by no means indicates that the pleasure in large fiction is
+dying out. This remains of as ample gorge as ever. But it does mean that
+a quite reasonless reluctance has given way, and that a young writer can
+now hope to come under the fire of criticism much sooner than before.
+This may not be altogether a blessing; it has its penalties inherent in
+the defective nature of criticism, or the critics; but undoubtedly it
+gives the young author definition and fixity in the reader's knowledge.
+It enables him to continue a short-story writer if he likes, or it
+prepares the public not to be surprised at him if he turns out a
+novelist.
+
+II
+
+These are advantages, and we must not be impatient of any writer who
+continues a short-story writer when he might freely become a novelist.
+Now that a writer can profitably do so, he may prefer to grow his
+fiction on the dwarf stock. He may plausibly contend that this was the
+original stock, and that the novella was a short story many ages before
+its name was appropriated by the standard variety, the duodecimo
+American, or the three-volume English; that Boccaccio was a world-wide
+celebrity five centuries before George Eliot was known to be a woman. To
+be sure, we might come back at him with the Greek romancers; we might
+ask him what he had to say to the interminable tales of Heliodorus and
+Longus, and the rest, and then not let him say.
+
+But no such controversy is necessary to the enjoyment of the half dozen
+volumes of short stories at hand, and we gladly postpone it till we have
+nothing to talk about. At present we have only too much to talk about in
+a book so robust and terribly serious as Mr. Hamlin Garland's volume
+called Main-Travelled Roads. That is what they call the highways in the
+part of the West that Mr. Garland comes from and writes about; and these
+stories are full of the bitter and burning dust, the foul and trampled
+slush, of the common avenues of life, the life of the men who hopelessly
+and cheerlessly make the wealth that enriches the alien and the idler,
+and impoverishes the producer.
+
+If any one is still at a loss to account for that uprising of the
+farmers in the West which is the translation of the Peasants' War into
+modern and republican terms, let him read Main-Travelled Roads, and he
+will begin to understand, unless, indeed, Mr. Garland is painting the
+exceptional rather than the average. The stories are full of those
+gaunt, grim, sordid, pathetic, ferocious figures, whom our satirists
+find so easy to caricature as Hayseeds, and whose blind groping for
+fairer conditions is so grotesque to the newspapers and so menacing to
+the politicians. They feel that something is wrong, and they know that
+the wrong is not theirs. The type caught in Mr. Garland's book is not
+pretty; it is ugly and often ridiculous; but it is heart-breaking in its
+rude despair.
+
+The story of a farm mortgage, as it is told in the powerful sketch 
+"Under the Lion's Paw," is a lesson in political economy, as well as a
+tragedy of the darkest cast. "The Return of the Private" is a satire of
+the keenest edge, as well as a tender and mournful idyl of the unknown
+soldier who comes back after the war with no blare of welcoming trumpets
+or flash of streaming flags, but foot-sore, heart-sore, with no stake in
+the country he has helped to make safe and rich but the poor man's
+chance to snatch an uncertain subsistence from the furrows he left for
+the battle-field.
+
+"Up the Coolly," however, is the story which most pitilessly of all
+accuses our vaunted conditions, wherein every man has the chance to rise
+above his brother and make himself richer than his fellows. It shows us
+once for all what the risen man may be, and portrays in his good-natured
+selfishness and indifference that favorite ideal of our system. The
+successful brother comes back to the old farmstead, prosperous,
+handsome, well-dressed, and full of patronizing sentiment for his
+boyhood days there, and he cannot understand why his brother, whom hard
+work and corroding mortgages have eaten all the joy out of, gives him a
+grudging and surly welcome. It is a tremendous situation, and it is the
+allegory of the whole world's civilization: the upper dog and the under
+dog are everywhere, and the under dog nowhere likes it.
+
+But the allegorical effects are not the primary intent of Mr. Garland's
+work: it is a work of art, first of all, and we think of fine art;
+though the material will strike many gentilities as coarse and common.
+In one of the stories, "Among the Corn-Rows," there is a good deal of
+burly, broad-shouldered humor of a fresh and native kind; in "Mrs.
+Ripley's Trip" is a delicate touch, like that of Miss Wilkins; but Mr.
+Garland's touches are his own, here and elsewhere. He has a certain
+harshness and bluntness, an indifference to the more delicate charms of
+style, and he has still to learn that though the thistle is full of an
+unrecognized poetry, the rose has a poetry, too, that even over-praise
+cannot spoil. But he has a fine courage to leave a fact with the reader,
+ungarnished and unvarnished, which is almost the rarest trait in an
+Anglo-Saxon writer, so infantile and feeble is the custom of our art;
+and this attains tragical sublimity in the opening sketch, "A Branch
+Road," where the lover who has quarrelled with his betrothed comes back
+to find her mismated and miserable, such a farm wife as Mr. Garland has
+alone dared to draw, and tempts the broken-hearted drudge away from her
+loveless home. It is all morally wrong, but the author leaves you to say
+that yourself. He knows that his business was with those two people,
+their passions and their probabilities.
+
+W. D. HOWELLS
+(In the Editor's Study, "Harper's Magazine").
+
+
+
+
+A Branch Road
+
+"Keep the main-travelled road till you come to a branch leading
+off--keep to the right."
+
+I
+
+In the windless September dawn a voice went ringing clear and sweet, a
+man's voice, singing a cheap and common air. Yet something in the sound
+of it told he was young, jubilant, and a happy lover.
+
+Above the level belt of timber to the east a vast dome of pale
+undazzling gold was rising, silently and swiftly. Jays called in the
+thickets where the maples flamed amid the green oaks, with irregular
+splashes of red and orange. The grass was crisp with frost under the
+feet, the road smooth and gray-white in color, the air was indescribably
+pure, resonant, and stimulating. No wonder the man sang!
+
+He came into view around the curve in the lane. He had a fork on his
+shoulder, a graceful and polished tool. His straw hat was tilted on the
+back of his head; his rough, faded coat was buttoned close to the chin,
+and he wore thin buckskin gloves on his hands. He looked muscular and
+intelligent, and was evidently about twenty-two years of age.
+
+As he walked on, and the sunrise came nearer to him, he stopped his
+song. The broadening heavens had a majesty and sweetness that made him
+forget the physical joy of happy youth. He grew almost sad with the
+vague thoughts and great emotions which rolled in his brain as the
+wonder of the morning grew.
+
+He walked more slowly, mechanically following the road, his eyes on the
+ever-shifting streaming banners of rose and pale green, which made the
+east too glorious for any words to tell. The air was so still it seemed
+to await expectantly the coming of the sun.
+
+Then his mind flew back to Agnes. Would she see it? She was at work,
+getting breakfast, but he hoped she had time to see it. He was in that
+mood, so common to him now, wherein he could not fully enjoy any sight
+or sound unless sharing it with her. Far down the road he heard the
+sharp clatter of a wagon. The roosters were calling near and far, in
+many keys and tunes. The dogs were barking, cattle-bells were jangling
+in the wooded pastures, and as the youth passed farmhouses, lights in
+the kitchen windows showed that the women were astir about breakfast,
+and the sound of voices and the tapping of curry-combs at the barn told
+that the men were at their morning chores.
+
+And the east bloomed broader! The dome of gold grew brighter, the faint
+clouds here and there flamed with a flush of red. The frost began to
+glisten with a reflected color. The youth dreamed as he walked; his
+broad face and deep earnest eyes caught and retained some part of the
+beauty and majesty of the sky.
+
+But his brow darkened as he passed a farm gate and a young man of about
+his own age joined him. The other man was equipped for work like
+himself.
+
+"Hello, Will!"
+
+"Hello, Ed!"
+
+"Going down to help Dingman thrash!"
+
+"Yes," replied Will, shortly. It was easy to see he did not welcome
+company.
+
+"So'm I. Who's goin' to do your thrashin'--Dave McTurg?"
+
+"Yes, I guess so. Haven't spoken to anybody yet."
+
+They walked on side by side. Will hardly felt like being rudely broken
+in on in this way. The two men were rivals, but Will, being the victor,
+would have been magnanimous, only he wanted to be alone with his lover's
+dream.
+
+"When do you go back to the Sem?" Ed asked after a little.
+
+"Term begins next week. I'll make a break about second week."
+
+"Le's see: you graduate next year, don't yeh?"
+
+"I expect to, if I don't slip up on it."
+
+They walked on side by side, both handsome fellows; Ed a little more
+showy in his face, which had a certain clear-cut precision of line, and
+a peculiar clear pallor that never browned under the sun. He chewed
+vigorously on a quid of tobacco, one of his most noticeable bad habits.
+
+Teams could be heard clattering along on several roads now, and jovial
+voices singing. One team coming along rapidly behind the two men, the
+driver sung out in good-natured warning, "Get out o' the way, there."
+And with a laugh and a chirp spurred his horses to pass them.
+
+Ed, with a swift understanding of the driver's trick, flung out his left
+hand and caught the end-gate, threw his fork in and leaped after it.
+Will walked on, disdaining attempt to catch the wagon. On all sides now
+the wagons of the ploughmen or threshers were getting out into the
+fields, with a pounding, rumbling sound.
+
+The pale-red sun was shooting light through the leaves, and warming the
+boles of the great oaks that stood in the yard, and melting the frost
+off the great gaudy, red and gold striped threshing machine standing
+between the stacks. The interest, picturesqueness, of it all got hold of
+Will Hannan, accustomed to it as he was. The horses stood about in a
+circle, hitched to the ends of the six sweeps, every rod shining with
+frost.
+
+The driver was oiling the great tarry cog-wheels underneath. Laughing
+fellows were wrestling about the yard. Ed Kinney had scaled the highest
+stack, and stood ready to throw the first sheaf. The sun, lighting him
+where he stood, made his fork-handle gleam like dull gold. Cheery words,
+jests, and snatches of song rose everywhere. Dingman bustled about
+giving his orders and placing his men, and the voice of big David
+McTurg was heard calling to the men as they raised the long stacker into
+place:
+
+"Heave ho, there! Up she rises!"
+
+And, best of all, Will caught a glimpse of a smiling girl-face at the
+kitchen window that made the blood beat in his throat.
+
+"Hello, Will!" was the general greeting, given with some constraint by
+most of the young fellows, for Will had been going to Rock River to
+school for some years, and there was a little feeling of jealousy on the
+part of those who pretended to sneer at the "seminary chaps like Will
+Hannan and Milton Jennings."
+
+Dingman came up. "Will, I guess you'd better go on the stack with Ed."
+
+"All ready. Hurrah, there!" said David in his soft but resonant bass
+voice that always had a laugh in it. "Come, come, every sucker of yeh
+git hold o' something. All ready!" He waved his hand at the driver, who
+climbed upon his platform. Everybody scrambled into place.
+
+The driver began to talk:
+
+"Chk, chk! All ready, boys! Stiddy there, Dan! Chk, chk! All ready,
+boys! Stiddy there, boys! All ready now!" The horses began to strain at
+the sweeps. The cylinder began to hum.
+
+"Grab a root there! Where's my band-cutter? Here, you, climb on here!"
+And David reached down and pulled Shep Watson up by the shoulder with
+his gigantic hand.
+
+Boo-oo-oo-oom, Boo-woo-woo-oom-oom-ow-owm, yarr, yarr! The whirling
+cylinder boomed, roared, and snarled as it rose in speed. At last, when
+its tone became a rattling yell, David nodded to the pitchers and rasped
+his hands together. The sheaves began to fall from the stack; the
+band-cutter, knife in hand, slashed the bands in twain, and the feeder
+with easy majestic movement gathered them under his arm, rolled them out
+into an even belt of entering wheat, on which the cylinder tore with its
+smothered, ferocious snarl.
+
+Will was very happy in a quiet way. He enjoyed the smooth roll of his
+great muscles, the sense of power in his hands as he lifted, turned, and
+swung the heavy sheaves two by two upon the table, where the band-cutter
+madly slashed away. His frame, sturdy rather than tall, was nevertheless
+lithe, and he made a fine figure to look at, so Agnes thought, as she
+came out a moment and bowed and smiled.
+
+This scene, one of the jolliest and most sociable of the Western farm,
+had a charm quite aside from human companionship. The beautiful yellow
+straw entering the cylinder; the clear yellow-brown wheat pulsing out at
+the side; the broken straw, chaff, and dust puffing out on the great
+stacker; the cheery whistling and calling of the driver; the keen, crisp
+air, and the bright sun somehow weirdly suggestive of the passage of
+time.
+
+Will and Agnes had arrived at a tacit understanding of mutual love only
+the night before, and Will was powerfully moved to glance often toward
+the house, but feared as never before the jokes of his companions. He
+worked on, therefore, methodically, eagerly; but his thoughts were on
+the future--the rustle of the oak-tree near by, the noise of whose sere
+leaves he could distinguish sifting beneath the booming snarl of the
+machine, was like the sound of a woman's dress; on the sky were great
+fleets of clouds sailing on the rising wind, like merchantmen bound to
+some land of love and plenty.
+
+When the Dingmans first came in, only a couple of years before, Agnes
+had been at once surrounded by a swarm of suitors. Her pleasant face and
+her abounding good-nature made her an instant favorite with all. Will,
+however, had disdained to become one of the crowd, and held himself
+aloof, as he could easily do, being away at school most of the time.
+
+The second winter, however, Agnes also attended the seminary, and Will
+saw her daily, and grew to love her. He had been just a bit jealous of
+Ed Kinney all the time, for Ed had a certain rakish grace in dancing and
+a dashing skill in handling a team, which made him a dangerous rival.
+
+But, as Will worked beside him all the Monday, he felt so secure in his
+knowledge of the caress Agnes had given him at parting the night before
+that he was perfectly happy--so happy that he didn't care to talk, only
+to work on and dream as he worked.
+
+Shrewd David McTurg had his joke when the machine stopped for a few
+minutes. "Well, you fellers do better'n I expected yeh to, after bein'
+out so late last night. The first feller I see gappin' has got to treat
+to the apples."
+
+"Keep your eye on me," said Shep Wilson.
+
+"You?" laughed one of the others. "Anybody knows if a girl so much as
+looked crossways at you, you'd fall in a fit."
+
+"Another thing," said David. "I can't have you fellers carryin' grain
+goin' to the house every minute for fried cakes or cookies."
+
+"Now you git out," said Bill Young from the straw pile. "You ain't goin'
+to have all the fun to yerself."
+
+Will's blood began to grow hot in his face. If Bill had said much more,
+or mentioned Agnes by name, he would have silenced him. To have this
+rough joking come so close upon the holiest and most exquisite evening
+of his life was horrible. It was not the words they said, but the tones
+they used, that vulgarized it all. He breathed a sigh of relief when the
+sound of the machine began again.
+
+This jesting made him more wary, and when the call for dinner sounded
+and he knew he was going to see her, he shrank from it. He took no part
+in the race of the dust-blackened, half-famished men to get at the
+washing-place first. He took no part in the scurry to get seats at the
+first table.
+
+Threshing-time was always a season of great trial to the housewife. To
+have a dozen men with the appetites of dragons to cook for, in addition
+to their other everyday duties, was no small task for a couple of women.
+Preparations usually began the night before with a raid on a hen-roost,
+for "biled chickun" formed the pièce de resistance of the dinner. The
+table, enlarged by boards, filled the sitting room. Extra seats were
+made out of planks placed on chairs, and dishes were borrowed from
+neighbors, who came for such aid in their turn.
+
+Sometimes the neighboring women came in to help; but Agnes and her
+mother were determined to manage the job alone this year, and so the
+girl, in a neat dark dress, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed with
+the work, received the men as they came in, dusty, coatless, with grime
+behind their ears, but a jolly good smile on every face.
+
+Most of them were farmers of the neighborhood, and her schoolmates. The
+only one she shrank from was Bill Young, with his hard, glittering eyes
+and red, sordid face. She received their jokes, their noise, with a
+silent smile which showed her even teeth and dimpled her round cheek.
+"She was good for sore eyes," as one of the fellows said to Shep. She
+seemed deliciously sweet and dainty to these roughly dressed fellows.
+
+They ranged along the table with a great deal of noise, boots thumping,
+squeaking, knives and forks rattling, voices bellowing out.
+
+"Now hold on, Steve! Can't hev yeh so near that chickun!"
+
+"Move along, Shep! I want to be next to the kitchen door! I won't get
+nothin' with you on that side o' me."
+
+"Oh, that's too thin! I see what you're--"
+
+"No, I won't need any sugar, if you just smile into it." This from
+gallant David, greeted with roars of laughter.
+
+"Now, Dave, s'pose your wife 'ud hear o' that?"
+
+"She'd snatch 'im bald-headed, that's what she'd do."
+
+"Say, somebody drive that ceow down this way," said Bill.
+
+"Don't get off that drive! It's too old," criticised Shep, passing the
+milk-jug.
+
+Potatoes were seized, cut in halves, sopped in gravy, and taken one,
+two! Corn cakes went into great jaws like coal into a steam-engine.
+Knives in the right hand cut meat and scooped gravy up. Great, muscular,
+grimy, but wholesome fellows they were, feeding like ancient Norse, and
+capable of working like demons. They were deep in the process,
+half-hidden by steam from the potatoes and stew, in less than sixty
+seconds after their entrance.
+
+With a shrinking from the comments of the others upon his regard for
+Agnes, Will assumed a reserved and almost haughty air toward his
+fellow-workmen, and a curious coldness toward her. As he went in, she
+came forward smiling brightly.
+
+"There's one more place, Will." A tender, involuntary droop in her voice
+betrayed her, and Will felt a wave of hot blood surge over him as the
+rest roared.
+
+"Ha, ha! Oh, there'd be a place for him!"
+
+"Don't worry, Will! Always room for you here!"
+
+Will took his seat with a sudden, angry flame.
+
+"Why can't she keep it from these fools?" was his thought. He didn't
+even thank her for showing him the chair.
+
+She flushed vividly, but smiled back. She was so proud and happy she
+didn't care very much if they did know it. But as Will looked at her
+with that quick, angry glance, she was hurt and puzzled. She redoubled
+her exertions to please him, and by so doing added to the amusement of
+the crowd that gnawed chicken-bones, rattled cups, knives, and forks,
+and joked as they ate with small grace and no material loss of time.
+
+Will remained silent through it all, eating his potato, in marked
+contrast to the others, with his fork instead of his knife, and drinking
+his tea from his cup rather than from his saucer--"finnickies" which did
+not escape the notice of the girl nor the sharp eyes of the other
+workmen.
+
+"See that? That's the way we do down to the Sem! See? Fork for pie in
+yer right hand! Hey? I can't do it? Watch me."
+
+When Agnes leaned over to say, "Won't you have some more tea, Will?"
+they nudged each other and grinned. "Aha! What did I tell you?"
+
+Agnes saw at last that for some reason Will didn't want her to show her
+regard for him--that he was ashamed of it in some way, and she was
+wounded. To cover it up, she resorted to the natural device of smiling
+and chatting with the others. She asked Ed if he wouldn't have another
+piece of pie.
+
+"I will--with a fork, please."
+
+"This is 'bout the only place you can use a fork," said Bill Young,
+anticipating a laugh by his own broad grin.
+
+"Oh, that's too old," said Shep Watson. "Don't drag that out agin. A man
+that'll eat seven taters--"
+
+"Shows who does the work."
+
+"Yes, with his jaws," put in Jim Wheelock, the driver.
+
+"If you'd put in a little more work with soap 'n water before comin' in
+to dinner, it 'ud be a religious idee," said David.
+
+"It ain't healthy to wash."
+
+"Well, you'll live forever, then."
+
+"He ain't washed his face sence I knew 'im."
+
+"Oh, that's a little too tough! He washes once a week," said Ed Kinney.
+
+"Back of his ears?" inquired David, who was munching a doughnut, his
+black eyes twinkling with fun.
+
+"Yep."
+
+"What's the cause of it?"
+
+"Dade says she won't kiss 'im if he don't."
+
+Everybody roared.
+
+"Good fer Dade! I wouldn't if I was in her place."
+
+Wheelock gripped a chicken-leg imperturbably, and left it bare as a
+toothpick with one or two bites at it. His face shone in two clean
+sections around his nose and mouth. Behind his ears the dirt lay
+undisturbed. The grease on his hands could not be washed off.
+
+Will began to suffer now because Agnes treated the other fellows too
+well. With a lover's exacting jealousy, he wanted her in some way to
+hide their tenderness from the rest, but to show her indifference to
+men like Young and Kinney. He didn't stop to inquire of himself the
+justice of such a demand, nor just how it was to be done. He only
+insisted she ought to do it.
+
+He rose and left the table at the end of his dinner without having
+spoken to her, without even a tender, significant glance, and he knew,
+too, that she was troubled and hurt. But he was suffering. It seemed as
+if he had lost something sweet, lost it irrecoverably.
+
+He noticed Ed Kinney and Bill Young were the last to come out, just
+before the machine started up again after dinner, and he saw them pause
+outside the threshold and laugh back at Agnes standing in the doorway.
+Why couldn't she keep those fellows at a distance, not go out of her way
+to bandy jokes with them?
+
+In some way the elation of the morning was gone. He worked on doggedly
+now, without looking up, without listening to the leaves, without seeing
+the sunlighted clouds. Of course he didn't think that she meant anything
+by it, but it irritated him and made him unhappy. She gave herself too
+freely.
+
+Toward the middle of the afternoon the machine stopped for some
+repairing; and while Will lay on his stack in the bright yellow
+sunshine, shelling wheat in his hands and listening to the wind in the
+oaks, he heard his name and her name mentioned on the other side of the
+machine, where the measuring-box stood. He listened.
+
+"She's pretty sweet on him, ain't she? Did yeh notus how she stood
+around over him?"
+
+"Yes; an' did yeh see him when she passed the cup o' tea down over his
+shoulder?"
+
+Will got up, white with wrath, as they laughed.
+
+"Someway he didn't seem to enjoy it as I would. I wish she'd reach her
+arm over my neck that way."
+
+Will walked around the machine, and came on the group lying on the chaff
+near the straw-pile.
+
+"Say, I want you fellers to understand that I won't have any more of
+this talk. I won't have it."
+
+There was a dead silence. Then Bill Young got up.
+
+"What yeh goin' to do about ut?" he sneered.
+
+"I'm going to stop it."
+
+The wolf rose in Young. He moved forward, his ferocious soul flaming
+from his eyes.
+
+"W'y, you damned seminary dude, I can break you in two!"
+
+An answering glare came into Will's eyes. He grasped and slightly shook
+his fork, which he had brought with him unconsciously.
+
+"If you make one motion at me, I'll smash your head like an egg-shell!"
+His voice was low but terrific. There was a tone in it that made his own
+blood stop in his veins. "If you think I'm going to roll around on this
+ground with a hyena like you, you've mistaken your man. I'll kill you,
+but I won't fight with such men as you are."
+
+Bill quailed and slunk away, muttering some epithet like "coward."
+
+"I don't care what you call me, but just remember what I say: you keep
+your tongue off that girl's affairs."
+
+"That's the talk!" said David. "Stand up for your girl always, but don't
+use a fork. You can handle him without that."
+
+"I don't propose to try," said Will, as he turned away. As he did so, he
+caught a glimpse of Ed Kinney at the well, pumping a pail of water for
+Agnes, who stood beside him, the sun on her beautiful yellow hair. She
+was laughing at something Ed was saying as he slowly moved the handle up
+and down.
+
+Instantly, like a foaming, turbid flood, his rage swept out toward her.
+"It's all her fault," he thought, grinding his teeth. "She's a fool.
+If she'd hold herself in, like other girls! But no; she must smile and
+smile at everybody." It was a beautiful picture, but it sent a shiver
+through him.
+
+He worked on with teeth set, white with rage. He had an impulse that
+would have made him assault her with words as with a knife. He was
+possessed of a terrible passion which was hitherto latent in him, and
+which he now felt to be his worst self. But he was powerless to
+exorcise it. His set teeth ached with the stress of his muscular
+tension, and his eyes smarted with the strain.
+
+He had always prided himself on being cool, calm, above these absurd
+quarrels which his companions had indulged in. He didn't suppose he
+could be so moved. As he worked on, his rage settled into a sort of
+stubborn bitterness--stubborn bitterness of conflict between this evil
+nature and his usual self. It was the instinct of possession, the
+organic feeling of proprietorship of a woman, which rose to the surface
+and mastered him. He was not a self-analyst, of course, being young,
+though he was more introspective than the ordinary farmer.
+
+He had a great deal of time to think it over as he worked on there,
+pitching the heavy bundles, but still he did not get rid of the
+miserable desire to punish Agnes; and when she came out, looking very
+pretty in her straw hat, and came around near his stack, he knew she
+came to see him, to have an explanation, a smile; and yet he worked away
+with his hat pulled over his eyes, hardly noticing her.
+
+Ed went over to the edge of the stack and chatted with her; and
+she--poor girl!--feeling Will's neglect, could only put a good face on
+the matter, and show that she didn't mind it, by laughing back at Ed.
+
+All this Will saw, though he didn't appear to be looking. And when Jim
+Wheelock--Dirty Jim--with his whip in his hand, came up and playfully
+pretended to pour oil on her hair, and she laughingly struck at him with
+a handful of straw, Will wouldn't have looked at her if she had called
+him by name.
+
+She looked so bright and charming in her snowy apron and her boy's straw
+hat tipped jauntily over one pink ear, that David and Steve and Bill,
+and even Shep, found a way to get a word with her, and the poor fellows
+in the high straw-pile looked their disappointment and shook their forks
+in mock rage at the lucky dogs on the ground. But Will worked on like a
+fiend, while the dapples of light and shade fell on the bright face of
+the merry girl.
+
+To save his soul from hell-flames he couldn't have gone over there and
+smiled at her. It was impossible. A wall of bronze seemed to have arisen
+between them. Yesterday--last night--seemed a dream. The clasp of her
+hands at his neck, the touch of her lips, were like the caresses of an
+ideal in some revery long ago.
+
+As night drew on the men worked with a steadier, more mechanical action.
+No one spoke now. Each man was intent on his work. No one had any
+strength or breath to waste. The driver on his power, changed his weight
+on weary feet and whistled and sang at the tired horses. The feeder,
+his face gray with dust, rolled the grain into the cylinder so evenly,
+so steady, so swiftly that it ran on with a sullen, booming roar. Far up
+on the straw-pile the stackers worked with the steady, rhythmic action
+of men rowing a boat, their figures looming vague and dim in the flying
+dust and chaff, outlined against the glorious yellow and orange-tinted
+clouds.
+
+"Phe-e-eew-ee," whistled the driver with the sweet, cheery, rising notes
+of a bird. "Chk, chk, chk! Phe-e-eew-e! Go on there, boys! Chk, chk,
+chk! Step up there, Dan, step up! (Snap!) Phe-e-eew-ee! G'-wan--g'-wan, 
+g'-wan! Chk, chk, chk! Wheest, wheest, wheest! Chk, chk!"
+
+In the house the women were setting the table for supper. The sun had
+gone down behind the oaks, flinging glorious rose-color and orange
+shadows along the edges of the slate-blue clouds. Agnes stopped her work
+at the kitchen window to look up at the sky, and cry silently. "What was
+the matter with Will?" She felt a sort of distrust of him now. She
+thought she knew him so well; but now he was so strange.
+
+"Come, Aggie," said Mrs. Dingman, "they're gettin' 'most down to the
+bottom of the stack. They'll be pilin' in here soon."
+
+"Phe-e-eew-ee! G'-wan, Doll! G'-wan, boys! Chk, chk, chk! Phe-e-eew-ee!"
+called the driver out in the dusk, cheerily swinging the whip over the
+horses' backs. Boom-oo-oo-oom! roared the machine, with a muffled,
+monotonous, solemn tone. "G'-wan, boys! G'-wan, g'-wan!"
+
+Will had worked unceasingly all day. His muscles ached with fatigue. His
+hands trembled. He clenched his teeth, however, and worked on,
+determined not to yield. He wanted them to understand that he could do
+as much pitching as any of them, and read Cæsar's Commentaries beside.
+It seemed as if each bundle were the last he could raise. The sinews of
+his wrist pained him so; they seemed swollen to twice their natural
+size. But still he worked on grimly, while the dusk fell and the air
+grew chill.
+
+At last the bottom bundle was pitched up, and he got down on his knees
+to help scrape the loose wheat into baskets. What a sweet relief it was
+to kneel down, to release the fork, and let the worn and cramping
+muscles settle into rest! A new note came into the driver's voice, a
+soothing tone, full of kindness and admiration for the work his teams
+had done.
+
+"Wo-o-o, lads! Stiddy-y-y, boys! Wo-o-o, there, Dan. Stiddy, stiddy, old
+man! Ho, there!" The cylinder took on a lower key, with short, rising
+yells, as it ran empty for a moment. The horses had been going so long
+that they came to a stop reluctantly. At last David called, "Turn out!"
+The men seized the ends of the sweep, David uncoupled the tumbling-rods,
+and Shep slowly shoved a sheaf of grain into the cylinder, choking it
+into silence.
+
+The stillness and the dusk were very impressive. So long had the
+bell-metal cog-wheel sung its deafening song into Will's ear that, as he
+walked away into the dusk, Will had a weird feeling of being suddenly
+deaf, and his legs were so numb that he could hardly feel the earth. He
+stumbled away like a man paralyzed.
+
+He took out his handkerchief, wiped the dust from his face as best he
+could, shook his coat, dusted his shoulders with a grain-sack, and was
+starting away, when Mr. Dingman, a rather feeble, elderly man, came up.
+
+"Come, Will, supper's all ready. Go in and eat."
+
+"I guess I'll go home to supper."
+
+"Oh, no; that won't do. The women'll be expecting you to stay."
+
+The men were laughing at the well, the warm yellow light shone from the
+kitchen, the chill air making it seem very inviting, and she was
+there--waiting! But the demon rose in him. He knew Agnes would expect
+him, that she would cry that night with disappointment, but his face
+hardened. "I guess I'll go home," he said, and his tone was relentless.
+He turned and walked away, hungry, tired--so tired he stumbled, and so
+unhappy he could have wept.
+
+II
+
+On Thursday the county fair was to be held. The fair is one of the
+gala-days of the year in the country districts of the West, and one of
+the times when the country lover rises above expense to the extravagance
+of hiring a top-buggy, in which to take his sweetheart to the
+neighboring town.
+
+It was customary to prepare for this long beforehand, for the demand for
+top-buggies was so great the livery-men grew dictatorial, and took no
+chances. Slowly but surely the country beaux began to compete with the
+clerks, and in many cases actually outbid them, as they furnished their
+own horses and could bid higher, in consequence, on the carriages.
+
+Will had secured his brother's "rig," and early on Thursday morning he
+was at work, busily washing the mud from the carriage, dusting the
+cushions, and polishing up the buckles and rosettes on his horses'
+harnesses. It was a beautiful, crisp, clear dawn--the ideal day for a
+ride; and Will was singing as he worked. He had regained his real self,
+and, having passed through a bitter period of shame, was now joyous with
+anticipation of forgiveness. He looked forward to the day, with its
+chances of doing a thousand little things to show his regret and his
+love.
+
+He had not seen Agnes since Monday; Tuesday he did not go back to help
+thresh, and Wednesday he had been obliged to go to town to see about
+board for the coming term; but he felt sure of her. It had all been
+arranged the Sunday before; she'd expect him, and he was to call at
+eight o'clock.
+
+He polished up the colts with merry tick-tack of the brush and comb, and
+after the last stroke on their shining limbs, threw his tools in the box
+and went to the house.
+
+"Pretty sharp last night," said his brother John, who was scrubbing his
+face at the cistern.
+
+"Should say so by that rim of ice," Will replied, dipping his hands into
+the icy water.
+
+"I ought 'o stay home to-day and dig 'tates," continued the older man,
+thoughtfully, as they went into the woodshed and wiped consecutively on
+the long roller-towel. "Some o' them Early Rose lay right on top o' the
+ground. They'll get nipped, sure."
+
+"Oh, I guess not. You'd better go, Jack; you don't get away very often.
+And then it would disappoint Nettie and the children so. Their little
+hearts are overflowing," he ended, as the door opened and two sturdy
+little boys rushed out.
+
+"B'ekfuss, poppa; all yeady!"
+
+The kitchen table was set near the stove; the window let in the sun, and
+the smell of sizzling sausages and the aroma of coffee filled the room.
+
+The kettle was doing its duty cheerily, and the wife, with flushed face
+and smiling eyes, was hurrying to and fro, her heart full of
+anticipation of the day's outing.
+
+There was a hilarity almost like some strange intoxication on the part
+of the two children. They danced and chattered and clapped their chubby
+brown hands and ran to the windows ceaselessly.
+
+"Is yuncle Will goin' yide nour buggy?"
+
+"Yus; the buggy and the colts."
+
+"Is he goin' to take his girl?"
+
+Will blushed a little and John roared.
+
+"Yes, I'm goin'--"
+
+"Is Aggie your girl?"
+
+"H'yer! h'yer! young man," called John, "you're gettin' personal."
+
+"Well, set up!" said Nettie, and with a good deal of clatter they drew
+around the cheerful table.
+
+Will had already begun to see the pathos, the pitiful significance of
+his great joy over a day's outing, and he took himself a little to task
+at his own selfish freedom. He resolved to stay at home some time and
+let Nettie go in his place. A few hours in the middle of the day on
+Sunday, three or four holidays in summer; the rest of the year, for this
+cheerful little wife and her patient husband, was made up of work--work
+which accomplished little and brought them almost nothing that was
+beautiful.
+
+While they were eating breakfast, teams began to clatter by, huge
+lumber-wagons with three seats across, and a boy or two jouncing up and
+down with the dinner baskets near the end-gate. The children rushed to
+the window each time to announce who it was and how many there were in.
+
+But as Johnny said "firteen" each time, and Ned wavered between "seven"
+and "sixteen," it was doubtful if they could be relied upon. They had
+very little appetite, so keen was their anticipation of the ride and the
+wonderful sights before them. Their little hearts shuddered with joy at
+every fresh token of preparation--a joy that made Will say, "Poor little
+men!"
+
+They vibrated between the house and the barn while the chores were being
+finished, and their happy cries started the young roosters into a
+renewed season of crowing. And when at last the wagon was brought out
+and the horses hitched to it, they danced like mad sprites.
+
+After they had driven away, Will brought out the colts, hitched them in,
+and drove them to the hitching-post. Then he leisurely dressed himself
+in his best suit, blacked his boots with considerable exertion, and at
+about 7:30 o'clock climbed into his carriage and gathered up the reins.
+
+He was quite happy again. The crisp, bracing air, the strong pull of the
+spirited young team, put all thought of sorrow behind him. He had
+planned it all out. He would first put his arm round her and kiss
+her--there would not need to be any words to tell her how sorry and
+ashamed he was. She would know!
+
+Now, when he was alone and going toward her on a beautiful morning, the
+anger and bitterness of Monday fled away, became unreal, and the sweet
+dream of the Sunday parting grew the reality. She was waiting for him
+now. She had on her pretty blue dress, and the wide hat that always made
+her look so arch. He had said about eight o'clock.
+
+The swift team was carrying him along the cross-road, which was little
+travelled, and he was alone with his thoughts. He fell again upon his
+plans. Another year at school for them both, and then he'd go into a law
+office. Judge Brown had told him he'd give him--
+
+"Whoa! Ho!"
+
+There was a swift lurch that sent him flying over the dasher. A confused
+vision of a roadside ditch full of weeds and bushes, and then he felt
+the reins in his hands and heard the snorting horses trample on the hard
+road.
+
+He rose dizzy, bruised, and covered with dust. The team he held securely
+and soon quieted. The cause of the accident was plain; the right
+fore-wheel had come off, letting the front of the buggy drop. He
+unhitched the excited team from the carriage, drove them to the fence
+and tied them securely, then went back to find the wheel, and the burr
+whose failure to hold its place had done all the mischief. He soon had
+the wheel on, but to find the burr was a harder task. Back and forth he
+ranged, looking, scraping in the dust, searching the weeds.
+
+He knew that sometimes a wheel will run without the burr for many rods
+before coming off, and so each time he extended his search. He traversed
+the entire half mile several times, each time his rage and
+disappointment getting more bitter. He ground his teeth in a fever of
+vexation and dismay.
+
+He had a vision of Agnes waiting, wondering why he did not come. It was
+this vision that kept him from seeing the burr in the wheel-track,
+partly covered by a clod. Once he passed it looking wildly at his watch,
+which was showing nine o'clock. Another time he passed it with eyes
+dimmed with a mist that was almost tears of anger.
+
+There is no contrivance that will replace an axle-burr, and farm-yards
+have no unused axle-burrs, and so Will searched. Each moment he said: 
+"I'll give it up, get onto one of the horses, and go down and tell her."
+But searching for a lost axle-burr is like fishing; the searcher expects
+each moment to find it. And so he groped, and ran breathlessly,
+furiously, back and forth, and at last kicked away the clod that covered
+it, and hurried, hot and dusty, cursing his stupidity, back to the team.
+
+It was ten o'clock as he climbed again into the buggy, and started his
+team on a swift trot down the road. What would she think? He saw her now
+with tearful eyes and pouting lips. She was sitting at the window, with
+hat and gloves on; the rest had gone, and she was waiting for him.
+
+But she'd know something had happened, because he had promised to be
+there at eight. He had told her what team he'd have. (He had forgotten
+at this moment the doubt and distrust he had given her on Monday.) She'd
+know he'd surely come.
+
+But there was no smiling or tearful face watching at the window as he
+came down the lane at a tearing pace, and turned into the yard. The
+house was silent, and the curtains down. The silence sent a chill to his
+heart. Something rose up in his throat to choke him.
+
+"Agnes!" he called. "Hello! I'm here at last!"
+
+There was no reply. As he sat there the part he had played on Monday
+came back to him. She may be sick! he thought, with a cold thrill of
+fear.
+
+An old man came around the corner of the house with a potato fork in his
+hands, his teeth displayed in a grin.
+
+"She ain't here. She's gone."
+
+"Gone!"
+
+"Yes--more'n an hour ago."
+
+"Who'd she go with?"
+
+"Ed Kinney," said the old fellow, with a malicious grin. "I guess your
+goose is cooked."
+
+Will lashed the horses into a run, and swung round the yard and out of
+the gate. His face was white as a dead man's, and his teeth were set
+like a vice. He glared straight ahead. The team ran wildly, steadily
+homeward, while their driver guided them unconsciously without seeing
+them. His mind was filled with a tempest of rages, despairs, and shames.
+
+That ride he will never forget. In it he threw away all his plans. He
+gave up his year's schooling. He gave up his law aspirations. He
+deserted his brother and his friends. In the dizzying whirl of passions
+he had only one clear idea--to get away, to go West, to escape from the
+sneers and laughter of his neighbors, and to make her suffer by it all.
+
+He drove into the yard, did not stop to unharness the team, but rushed
+into the house, and began packing his trunk. His plan was formed. He
+would drive to Cedarville, and hire some one to bring the team back. He
+had no thought of anything but the shame, the insult, she had put upon
+him. Her action on Monday took on the same levity it wore then, and
+excited him in the same way. He saw her laughing with Ed over his
+dismay. He sat down and wrote a letter to her at last--a letter that
+came from the ferocity of the mediæval savage in him:
+
+"It you want to go to hell with Ed Kinney, you can. I won't say a word.
+That's where he'll take you. You won't see me again."
+
+This he signed and sealed, and then he bowed his head and wept like a
+girl. But his tears did not soften the effect of the letter. It went as
+straight to its mark as he meant it should. It tore a seared and ragged
+path to an innocent, happy heart, and he took a savage pleasure in the
+thought of it as he rode away in the cars toward the South.
+
+III
+
+The seven years lying between 1880 and 1887 made a great change in Rock
+River and in the adjacent farming land. Signs changed and firms went out
+of business with characteristic Western ease of shift. The trees grew
+rapidly, dwarfing the houses beneath them, and contrasts of newness and
+decay thickened.
+
+Will found the country changed, as he walked along the dusty road from
+Rock River toward "The Corners." The landscape was at its fairest and
+liberalest, with its seas of corn, deep-green and moving with a mournful
+rustle, in sharp contrast to its flashing blades; its gleaming fields of
+barley, and its wheat already mottled with soft gold in the midst of its
+pea-green.
+
+The changes were in the hedges, grown higher, in the greater
+predominance of cornfields and cattle pastures, and especially in the
+destruction of homes. As he passed on, Will saw the grass growing and
+cattle feeding on a dozen places where homes had once stood. They had
+given place to the large farm and the stock-raiser. Still the whole
+scene was bountiful and beautiful to the eye.
+
+It was especially grateful to Will, for he had spent nearly all his
+years of absence among the rocks, treeless swells, and bleak cliffs of
+the Southwest. The crickets rising before his dusty feet appeared to him
+something sweet and suggestive, and the cattle feeding in the clover
+moved him to deep thought--they were so peaceful and slow motioned.
+
+As he reached a little popple tree by the roadside, he stopped, removed
+his broad-brimmed hat, put his elbows on the fence, and looked hungrily
+upon the scene. The sky was deeply blue, with only here and there a
+huge, heavy, slow-moving, massive, sharply outlined cloud sailing like a
+berg of ice in a shoreless sea of azure.
+
+In the fields the men were harvesting the ripened oats and barley, and
+the sound of their machines clattering, now low, now loud, came to his
+ears. Flies buzzed near him, and a kingbird clattered overhead. He
+noticed again, as he had many a time when a boy, that the softened sound
+of the far-off reaper was at times exactly like the hum of a bluebottle
+fly buzzing heedlessly about his ears.
+
+A slender and very handsome young man was shocking grain near the fence,
+working so desperately he did not see Will until greeted by him. He
+looked up, replied to the greeting, but kept on until he had finished
+his last stook; then he came to the shade of the tree and took off his
+hat.
+
+"Nice day to sit under a tree and fish."
+
+Will smiled. "I ought to know you, I suppose; I used to live here years
+ago."
+
+"Guess not; we came in three years ago."
+
+The young man was quick-spoken and pleasant to look at. Will felt freer
+with him.
+
+"Are the Kinneys still living over there?" He nodded at a group of large
+buildings.
+
+"Tom lives there. Old man lives with Ed. Tom ousted the old man some
+way, nobody seems to know how, and so he lives with Ed."
+
+Will wanted to ask after Agnes, but hardly felt able. "I s'pose John
+Hannan is on his old farm?"
+
+"Yes. Got a good crop this year."
+
+Will looked again at the fields of rustling wheat over which the clouds
+rippled, and said with an air of conviction: "This lays over Arizony,
+dead sure."
+
+"You're from Arizony, then?"
+
+"Yes--a good ways from it," Will replied, in a way that stopped further
+question. "Good luck!" he added, as he walked on down the road toward
+the creek, musing.
+
+"And the spring--I wonder if that's there yet. I'd like a drink." The
+sun seemed hotter than at noon, and he walked slowly. At the bridge that
+spanned the meadow brook, just where it widened over a sandy ford, he
+paused again. He hung over the rail and looked at the minnows swimming
+there.
+
+"I wonder if they're the same identical chaps that used to boil and
+glitter there when I was a boy--looks so. Men change from one generation
+to another, but the fish remain the same. The same eternal procession of
+types. I suppose Darwin 'ud say their environment remains the same."
+
+He hung for a long time over the railing, thinking of a vast number of
+things, mostly vague, flitting things, looking into the clear depths of
+the brook, and listening to the delicious liquid note of a blackbird
+swinging on the willow. Red lilies starred the grass with fire, and
+golden-rod and chicory grew everywhere; purple and orange and
+yellow-green the prevailing tints.
+
+Suddenly a water-snake wriggled across the dark pool above the ford and
+the minnows disappeared under the shadow of the bridge. Then Will
+sighed, lifted his head and walked on. There seemed to be something
+prophetic in it, and he drew a long breath. That's the way his plans
+broke and faded away.
+
+Human life does not move with the regularity of a clock. In living there
+are gaps and silences when the soul stands still in its flight through
+abysses--and there come times of trial and times of struggle when we
+grow old without knowing it. Body and soul change appallingly.
+
+Seven years of hard, busy life had made changes in Will.
+
+His face had grown bold, resolute, and rugged; some of its delicacy and
+all of its boyish quality was gone. His figure was stouter, erect as of
+old, but less graceful. He bore himself like a man accustomed to look
+out for himself in all kinds of places. It was only at times that there
+came into his deep eyes a preoccupied, almost sad, look which showed
+kinship with his old self.
+
+This look was on his face as he walked toward the clump of trees on the
+right of the road.
+
+He reached the grove of popple trees and made his way at once to the
+spring. When he saw it, he was again shocked. They had allowed it to
+fill with leaves and dirt!
+
+Overcome by the memories of the past, he flung himself down on the cool
+and shadowy bank, and gave himself up to the bitter-sweet reveries of a
+man returning to his boyhood's home. He was filled somehow with a
+strange and powerful feeling of the passage of time; with a vague
+feeling of the mystery and elusiveness of human life. The leaves
+whispered it overhead, the birds sang it in chorus with the insects, and
+far above, in the measureless spaces of sky, the hawk told it in the
+silence and majesty of his flight from cloud to cloud.
+
+It was a feeling hardly to be expressed in words--one of those emotions
+whose springs lie far back in the brain. He lay so still the chipmunks
+came curiously up to his very feet, only to scurry away when he stirred
+like a sleeper in pain.
+
+He had cut himself off entirely from the life at The Corners. He had
+sent money home to John, but had concealed his own address carefully.
+The enormity of his folly now came back to him, racking him till he
+groaned.
+
+He heard the patter of feet and the half-mumbled monologue of a running
+child. He roused up and faced a small boy, who started back in terror
+like a wild fawn. He was deeply surprised to find a man there, where
+only boys and squirrels now came. He stuck his fist in his eye, and was
+backing away when Will spoke.
+
+"Hold on, sonny! Nobody's hit you. Come, I ain't goin' to eat yeh." He
+took a bit of money from his pocket. "Come here and tell me your name. I
+want to talk with you."
+
+The boy crept upon the dime.
+
+Will smiled. "You ought to be a Kinney. What is your name?"
+
+"Tomath Dickinthon Kinney. I'm thix and a half. I've got a colt," lisped
+the youngster, breathlessly, as he crept toward the money.
+
+"Oh, you are, eh? Well, now, are you Tom's boy, or Ed's?"
+
+"Tomth's boy. Uncle Ed heth got a little--"
+
+"Ed got a boy?"
+
+"Yeth, thir--a lil baby. Aunt Agg letth me hold 'im."
+
+"Agg! Is that her name?"
+
+"Tha'th what Uncle Ed callth her."
+
+The man's head fell, and it was a long time before he asked his next
+question.
+
+"How is she anyhow?"
+
+"Purty well," piped the boy, with a prolongation of the last words into
+a kind of chirp. "She'th been thick, though," he added.
+
+"Been sick? How long?"
+
+"Oh, a long time. But she ain't thick abed; she'th awful poor, though.
+Gran'pa thayth she'th poor ath a rake."
+
+"Oh, he does, eh?"
+
+"Yeth, thir. Uncle Ed he jawth her, then she crieth."
+
+Will's anger and remorse broke out in a groaning curse. "O my God! I see
+it all. That great lunkin houn' has made life a hell for her." Then that
+letter came back to his mind--he had never been able to put it out of
+his mind--he never would till he saw her and asked her pardon.
+
+"Here, my boy, I want you to tell me some more. Where does your Aunt
+Agnes live?"
+
+"At gran'pa'th. You know where my gran'pa livth?"
+
+"Well, you do. Now I want you to take this letter to her. Give it to
+her." He wrote a little note and folded it. "Now dust out o' here."
+
+The boy slipped away through the trees like a rabbit; his little brown
+feet hardly rustled. He was like some little wood-animal. Left alone,
+the man fell back into a revery which lasted till the shadows fell on
+the thick little grove around the spring. He rose at last, and taking
+his stick in hand, walked out to the wood again and stood there gazing
+at the sky. He seemed loath to go farther. The sky was full of
+flame-colored clouds floating in a yellow-green sea, where bars of faint
+pink streamed broadly away.
+
+As he stood there, feeling the wind lift his hair, listening to the
+crickets' ever-present crying, and facing the majesty of space, a
+strange sadness and despair came into his eyes.
+
+Drawing a quick breath, he leaped the fence and was about going on up
+the road, when he heard, at a little distance, the sound of a drove of
+cattle approaching, and he stood aside to allow them to pass. They
+snuffed and shied at the silent figure by the fence, and hurried by with
+snapping heels--a peculiar sound that made Will smile with pleasure.
+
+An old man was driving the cows, crying out:
+
+"St--boy, there! Go on there! Whay, boss!"
+
+Will knew that hard-featured, wiry old man, now entering his second
+childhood and beginning to limp painfully. He had his hands full of hard
+clods which he threw impatiently at the lumbering animals.
+
+"Good-evening, uncle!"
+
+"I ain't y'r uncle, young man."
+
+His dim eyes did not recognize the boy he had chased out of his plum
+patch years before.
+
+"I don't know yeh, neither," he added.
+
+"Oh, you will, later on. I'm from the East. I'm a sort of a relative to
+John Hannan."
+
+"I want 'o know if y' be!" the old man exclaimed, peering closer.
+
+"Yes. I'm just up from Rock River. John's harvesting, I s'pose?"
+
+"Yus."
+
+"Where's the youngest one--Will?"
+
+"William? Oh! he's a bad aig--he lit out f'r the West somewhere. He was
+a hard boy. He stole a hatful o' my plums once. He left home kind o'
+sudden. He! he! I s'pose he was purty well cut up jest about them days."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+The old man chuckled.
+
+"Well, y' see, they was both courtin' Agnes then, an' my son cut William
+out. Then William he lit out f'r the West, Arizony, 'r California, 'r
+somewhere out West. Never been back sence."
+
+"Ain't, heh?"
+
+"No. But they say he's makin' a terrible lot o' money," the old man said
+in a hushed voice. "But the way he makes it is awful scaly. I tell my
+wife if I had a son like that an' he'd send me home a bushel-basket o'
+money, earnt like that, I wouldn't touch finger to it--no sir!"
+
+"You wouldn't? Why?"
+
+"'Cause it ain't right. It ain't made right noway, you--"
+
+"But how is it made? What's the feller's trade?"
+
+"He's a gambler--that's his trade! He plays cards, and every cent is
+bloody. I wouldn't touch such money nohow you could fix it."
+
+"Wouldn't, heh?" The young man straightened up. "Well, look-a-here, old
+man: did you ever hear of a man foreclosing a mortgage on a widow and
+two boys, getting a farm f'r one quarter what it was really worth? You
+damned old hypocrite! I know all about you and your whole tribe--you old
+blood-sucker!"
+
+The old man's jaw fell; he began to back away.
+
+"Your neighbors tell some good stories about you. Now skip along after
+those cows, or I'll tickle your old legs for you!"
+
+The old man, appalled and dazed at this sudden change of manner, backed
+away, and at last turned and racked off up the road, looking back with a
+wild face, at which the young man laughed remorselessly.
+
+"The doggoned old skeesucks!" Will soliloquized as he walked up the
+road. "So that's the kind of a character he's been givin' me!"
+
+"Hullo! A whippoorwill. Takes a man back into childhood--No, don't 'whip
+poor Will'; he's got all he can bear now."
+
+He came at last to the little farm Dingman had owned, and he stopped in
+sorrowful surprise. The barn had been moved away, the garden ploughed
+up, and the house, turned into a granary, stood with boards nailed
+across its dusty, cobwebbed windows. The tears started into the man's
+eyes; he stood staring at it silently.
+
+In the face of this house the seven years that he had last lived
+stretched away into a wild waste of time. It stood as a symbol of his
+wasted, ruined life. It was personal, intimately personal, this decay of
+her home.
+
+All that last scene came back to him; the booming roar of the
+threshing-machine, the cheery whistle of the driver, the loud, merry
+shouts of the men. He remembered how warmly the lamp-light streamed out
+of that door as he turned away tired, hungry, sullen with rage and
+jealousy. Oh, if he had only had the courage of a man!
+
+Then he thought of the boy's words. She was sick, Ed abused her. She had
+met her punishment. A hundred times he had been over the whole scene. A
+thousand times he had seen her at the pump smiling at Ed Kinney, the sun
+lighting her hair; and he never thought of that without hardening.
+
+At this very gate he had driven up that last forenoon; to find that she
+had gone with Ed. He had lived that sickening, depressing moment over
+many times, but not times enough to keep down the bitter passion he had
+felt then, and felt now as he went over it in detail.
+
+He was so happy and confident that morning, so perfectly certain that
+all would be made right by a kiss and a cheery jest. And now! Here he
+stood sick with despair and doubt of all the world. He turned away from
+the desolate homestead and walked on.
+
+"But I'll see her--just once more. And then--"
+
+And again the mighty significance, responsibility of life, fell upon
+him. He felt, as young people seldom do, the irrevocableness of living,
+the determinate, unalterable character of living. He determined to begin
+to live in some new way--just how he could not say.
+
+IV
+
+Old man Kinney and his wife were getting their Sunday-school lessons
+with much bickering, when Will drove up the next day to the dilapidated
+gate and hitched his team to a leaning-post under the oaks. Will saw the
+old man's head at the open window, but no one else, though he looked
+eagerly for Agnes as he walked up the familiar path. There stood the
+great oak under whose shade he had grown to be a man. How close the
+great tree seemed to stand to his heart, someway! As the wind stirred
+in the leaves, it was like a rustle of greeting.
+
+In that old house they had all lived, and his mother had toiled for
+thirty years. A sort of prison after all. There they were all born, and
+there his father and his little sister had died. And then it passed into
+old Kinney's hands.
+
+Walking along up the path he felt a serious weakness in his limbs, and
+he made a pretence of stopping to look at a flower-bed containing
+nothing but weeds. After seven years of separation he was about to face
+once more the woman whose life came so near being a part of his--Agnes,
+now a wife and a mother.
+
+How would she look? Would her face have that old-time peachy bloom, her
+mouth that peculiar beautiful curve? She was large and fair, he
+recalled, hair yellow and shining, eyes blue--
+
+He roused himself. This was nonsense! He was trembling. He composed
+himself by looking around again.
+
+"The old scoundrel has let the weeds choke out the flowers and surround
+the bee-hives. Old man Kinney never believed in anything but a petty
+utility."
+
+Will set his teeth, and marched up to the door and struck it like a man
+delivering a challenge. Kinney opened the door, and started back in fear
+when he saw who it was.
+
+"How de do? How de do?" said Will, walking in, his eyes fixed on a woman
+seated beyond, a child in her lap.
+
+Agnes rose, without a word; a fawn-like, startled widening of the eyes,
+her breath coming quick, and her face flushing. They couldn't speak;
+they only looked at each other an instant, then Will shivered, passed
+his hand over his eyes and sat down.
+
+There was no one there but the old people, who were looking at him in
+bewilderment. They did not notice any confusion in Agnes's face. She
+recovered first.
+
+"I'm glad to see you back, Will," she said, rising and putting the
+sleeping child down in a neighboring room. As she gave him her hand, he
+said:
+
+"I'm glad to get back, Agnes. I hadn't ought to have gone." Then he
+turned to the old people:
+
+"I'm Will Hannan. You needn't be scared, Daddy; I was jokin' last
+night."
+
+"Dew tell! I want o' know!" exclaimed Granny. "Wal, I never! An, you're
+my little Willy boy who ust 'o he in my class? Well! Well! W'y, pa,
+ain't he growed tall! Grew handsome tew. I ust 'o think he was a dretful
+humly boy; but my sakes, that mustache--"
+
+"Wal, he give me a turrible scare last night. My land! scared me out of
+a year's growth," cackled the old man.
+
+This gave them all a chance to laugh, and the air was cleared. It gave
+Agnes time to recover herself, and to be able to meet Will's eyes. Will
+himself was powerfully moved; his throat swelled and tears came to his
+eyes every time he looked at her.
+
+She was worn and wasted incredibly. The blue of her eyes seemed dimmed
+and faded by weeping, and the old-time scarlet of her lips had been
+washed away. The sinews of her neck showed painfully when she turned her
+head, and her trembling hands were worn, discolored, and lumpy at the
+joints.
+
+Poor girl! She knew she was under scrutiny, and her eyes felt hot and
+restless. She wished to run away and cry, but she dared not. She stayed,
+while Will began to tell her of his life and to ask questions about old
+friends.
+
+The old people took it up and relieved her of any share in it; and Will,
+seeing that she was suffering, told some funny stories which made the
+old people cackle in spite of themselves.
+
+But it was forced merriment on Will's part. Once or twice Agnes smiled,
+with just a little flash of the old-time sunny temper. But there was no
+dimple in the cheek now, and the smile had more suggestion of an
+invalid--or even a skeleton. He was almost ready to take her in his arms
+and weep, her face appealed so pitifully to him.
+
+"It's most time f'r Ed to be gittin' back, ain't it, pa?"
+
+"Sh'd say 't was! He jest went over to Hobkirk's to trade horses. It's
+dretful tryin' to me to have him go off tradin' horses on Sunday. Seems
+if he might wait till a rainy day, 'r do it evenin's. I never did
+believe in horse-tradin' anyhow."
+
+"Have y' come back to stay, Willie?" asked the old lady.
+
+"Well--it's hard tellin'," answered Will, looking at Agnes.
+
+"Well, Agnes, ain't you goin' to git no dinner? I'm 'bout ready f'r
+dinner. We must git to church early to-day. Elder Wheat is goin' to
+preach, an' they'll be a crowd. He's goin' to hold communion."
+
+"You'll stay to dinner, Will?" asked Agnes.
+
+"Yes--if you wish it."
+
+"I do wish it."
+
+"Thank you; I want to have a good visit with you. I don't know when I'll
+see you again."
+
+As she moved about, getting dinner on the table, Will sat with gloomy
+face, listening to the "clack" of the old man. The room was a poor
+little sitting room, with furniture worn and shapeless; hardly a touch
+of pleasant color, save here and there a little bit of Agnes's
+handiwork. The lounge, covered with calico, was rickety; the
+rocking-chair matched it, and the carpet of rags was patched and darned
+with twine in twenty places. Everywhere was the influence of the
+Kinneys. The furniture looked like them, in fact.
+
+Agnes was outwardly calm, but her real distraction did not escape Mrs.
+Kinney's hawk-like eyes.
+
+"Well, I declare if you hain't put the butter on in one o' my blue
+chainy saucers? Now you know I don't allow that saucer to be took down
+by nobody. I don't see what's got into yeh! Anybody'd s'pose you never
+see any comp'ny b'fore--wouldn't they, pa?"
+
+"Sh'd say th' would," said pa, stopping short in a long story about Ed.
+"Seems if we couldn't keep anything in this house sep'rit from the rest.
+Ed he uses my curry-comb--"
+
+He launched out a long list of grievances, to which Will shut his ears
+as completely as possible, and was thinking how to stop him, when there
+came a sudden crash. Agnes had dropped a plate.
+
+"Good land o' Goshen!" screamed Granny. "If you ain't the worst I ever
+see. I'll bet that's my grapevine plate. If it is--Well, of all the
+mercies, it ain't! But it might 'a' ben. I never see your beat--never!
+That's the third plate since I came to live here."
+
+"Oh, look-a-here, Granny," said Will, desperately, "don't make so much
+fuss about the plate. What's it worth, anyway? Here's a dollar."
+
+Agnes cried quickly:
+
+"Oh, don't do that, Will! It ain't her plate. It's my plate, and I can
+break every plate in the house if I want to," she cried defiantly.
+
+"'Course you can," Will agreed.
+
+"Wal, she can't! Not while I'm around," put in Daddy. "I've helped to
+pay f'r them plates, if she does call 'em her'n--"
+
+"What the devul is all this row about? Agg, can't you get along without
+stirring up the old folks every time I'm out o' the house?"
+
+The speaker was Ed, now a tall and slouchily dressed man of thirty-two
+or three; his face still handsome in a certain dark, cleanly-cut style,
+but he wore a surly look as he lounged in with insolent swagger, clothed
+in greasy overalls and a hickory shirt.
+
+"Hello, Will! I heard you'd got home. John told me as I came along."
+
+They shook hands, and Ed slouched down on the lounge. Will could have
+kicked him for laying the blame of the dispute upon Agnes; it showed him
+in a flash just how he treated her. He disdained to quarrel; he simply
+silenced and dominated her.
+
+Will asked a few questions about crops, with such grace as he could
+show, and Ed, with keen eyes fixed on Will's face, talked easily and
+stridently.
+
+"Dinner ready?" he asked of Agnes. "Where's Pete?"
+
+"He's asleep."
+
+"All right. Let 'im sleep. Well, let's go out an' set up. Come, Dad,
+sling away that Bible and come to grub. Mother, what the devul are you
+snifflin' at? Say, now, look here! If I hear any more about this row,
+I'll simply let you walk down to meetin'. Come, Will, set up."
+
+He led the way out into the little kitchen where the dinner was set.
+
+"What was the row about? Hain't been breakin' some dish, Agg?"
+
+"Yes, she has," broke in the old lady.
+
+"One o' the blue ones?" winked Ed.
+
+"No, thank goodness, it was a white one."
+
+"Well, now, I'll git into that dod-gasted cubberd some day an' break the
+whole eternal outfit. I ain't goin' to have this damned jawin' goin'
+on," he ended, brutally unconscious of his own "jawin'."
+
+After this the dinner proceeded in comparative silence, Agnes sobbing
+under breath. The room was small and very hot; the table was warped so
+badly that the dishes had a tendency to slide to the centre; the walls
+were bare plaster, grayed with time; the food was poor and scant, and
+the flies absolutely swarmed upon everything, like bees. Otherwise the
+room was clean and orderly.
+
+"They say you've made a pile o' money out West, Bill. I'm glad of it.
+We fellers back here don't make anything. It's a dam tight squeeze.
+Agg, it seems to me the flies are devilish thick to-day. Can't you drive
+'em out?"
+
+Agnes felt that she must vindicate herself a little.
+
+"I do drive 'em out, but they come right in again. The screen-door is
+broken and they come right in."
+
+"I told Dad to fix that door."
+
+"But he won't do it for me."
+
+Ed rested his elbows on the table and fixed his bright black eyes on his
+father.
+
+"Say, what d' you mean by actin' like a mule? I swear I'll trade you off
+f'r a yaller dog. What do I keep you round here for anyway--to look
+purty?"
+
+"I guess I've as good a right here as you have, Ed Kinney."
+
+"Oh, go soak y'r head, old man. If you don't 'tend out here a little
+better, down goes your meat-house! I won't drive you down to meetin'
+till you promise to fix that door. Hear me!"
+
+Daddy began to snivel. Agnes could not look up for shame. Will felt
+sick. Ed laughed.
+
+"I c'n bring the old man to terms that way; he can't walk very well late
+years, an' he can't drive my colt. You know what a cuss I used to be
+about fast nags? Well, I'm just the same. Hobkirk's got a colt I want.
+Say, that reminds me: your team's out there by the fence. I forgot. I'll
+go out and put 'em up."
+
+"No, never mind; I can't stay but a few minutes."
+
+"Goin' to be round the country long?"
+
+"A week--maybe."
+
+Agnes looked up a moment, and then let her eyes fall.
+
+"Goin' back West, I s'pose?"
+
+"No. May go East, to Europe, mebbe."
+
+"The devul y' say! You must 'a' made a ten-strike out West."
+
+"They say it didn't come lawful," piped Daddy, over his blackberries and
+milk.
+
+"Oh, you shet up, who wants your put-in? Don't work in any o' your Bible
+on us."
+
+Daddy rose to go into the other room.
+
+"Hold on, old man. You goin' to fix that door?"
+
+"Course I be," quavered he.
+
+"Well see 't y' do, that's all. Now get on y'r duds, an' I'll go an'
+hitch up." He rose from the table. "Don't keep me waiting."
+
+He went out unceremoniously, and Agnes was alone with Will.
+
+"Do you go to church?" he asked. She shook her head. "No, I don't go
+anywhere now. I have too much to do; I haven't strength left. And I'm
+not fit anyway."
+
+"Agnes, I want to say something to you; not now--after they're gone."
+
+He went into the other room, leaving her to wash the dinner-things. She
+worked on in a curious, almost dazed way, a dream of something sweet and
+irrevocable in her eyes. Will represented so much to her. His voice
+brought up times and places that thrilled her like song. He was
+associated with all that was sweetest and most care-free and most
+girlish in her life.
+
+Ever since the boy had handed her that note she had been re-living those
+days. In the midst of her drudgery she stopped to dream--to let some
+picture come back into her mind. She was a student again at the
+Seminary, and stood in the recitation-room with suffocating beat of the
+heart; Will was waiting outside--waiting in a tremor like her own, to
+walk home with her under the maples.
+
+Then she remembered the painfully sweet mixture of pride and fear with
+which she walked up the aisle of the little church behind him. Her
+pretty new gown rustled, the dim light of the church had something like
+romance in it, and he was so strong and handsome. Her heart went out in
+a great silent cry to God--
+
+"Oh, let me be a girl again!"
+
+She did not look forward to happiness. She hadn't power to look forward
+at all.
+
+As she worked, she heard the high, shrill voices of the old people as
+they bustled about and nagged at each other.
+
+"Ma, where's my specticles?"
+
+"I ain't seen y'r specticles."
+
+"You have, too."
+
+"I ain't neither."
+
+"You had 'em this forenoon."
+
+"Didn't no such thing. Them was my own brass-bowed ones. You had your'n
+jest 'fore goin' to dinner. If you'd put 'em into a proper place you'd
+find 'em again."
+
+"I want 'o know if I would," the old man snorted.
+
+"Wal, you'd orter know."
+
+"Oh, you're awful smart, ain't yeh? You never have no trouble, and use
+mine--do yeh?--an' lose 'em so 't I can't--"
+
+"And if this is the thing that goes on when I'm here it must be hell
+when visitors are gone," thought Will.
+
+"Willy, ain't you goin' to meetin'?"
+
+"No, not to-day. I want to visit a little with Agnes, then I've got to
+drive back to John's."
+
+"Wal, we must be goin'. Don't you leave them dishes f'r me to wash,"
+she screamed at Agnes as she went out the door. "An' if we don't git
+home by five, them caaves orter be fed."
+
+As Agnes stood at the door to watch them drive away, Will studied her,
+a smothering ache in his heart as he saw how thin and bent and weary she
+was. In his soul he felt that she was a dying woman unless she had rest
+and tender care.
+
+As she turned, she saw something in his face--a pity and an agony of
+self-accusation--that made her weak and white. She sank into a chair,
+putting her hand on her chest, as if she felt a failing of breath. Then
+the blood came back to her face and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Don't--don't look at me like that," she said in a whisper. His pity
+hurt her.
+
+At sight of her sitting there pathetic, abashed, bewildered, like some
+gentle animal, Will's throat contracted so that he could not speak. His
+voice came at last in one terrible cry--
+
+"Oh, Agnes! for God's sake forgive me!" He knelt by her side and put his
+arm about her shoulders and kissed her bowed head. A curious numbness
+involved his whole body; his voice was husky, the tears burned in his
+eyes. His whole soul and body ached with his pity and remorseful,
+self-accusing wrath.
+
+"It was all my fault. Lay it all to me.... I am the one to bear it....
+Oh, I've dreamed a thousand times of sayin' this to you, Aggie! I
+thought if I could only see you again and ask your forgiveness, I'd--"
+He ground his teeth together in his assault upon himself. "I threw my
+life away an' killed you--that's what I did!"
+
+He rose, and raged up and down the room till he had mastered himself.
+
+"What did you think I meant that day of the thrashing?" he said, turning
+suddenly. He spoke of it as if it were but a month or two past.
+
+She lifted her head and looked at him in a slow way. She seemed to be
+remembering. The tears lay on her hollow cheeks.
+
+"I thought you was ashamed of me. I didn't know--why--"
+
+He uttered a snarl of self-disgust.
+
+"You couldn't know. Nobody could tell what I meant. But why didn't you
+write? I was ready to come back. I only wanted an excuse--only a line."
+
+"How could I, Will--after your letter?"
+
+He groaned, and turned away.
+
+"And Will, I--I got mad too. I couldn't write."
+
+"Oh, that letter--I can see every line of it! F'r God's sake, don't
+think of it again! But I didn't think, even when I wrote that letter,
+that I'd find you where you are. I didn't think. I hoped, anyhow, Ed
+Kinney wouldn't--"
+
+She stopped him with a startled look in her great eyes.
+
+"Don't talk about him--it ain't right. I mean it don't do any good. What
+could I do, after father died? Mother and I. Besides, I waited three
+years to hear from you, Will."
+
+He gave a strange, choking cry. It burst from his throat--that terrible
+thing, a man's sob of agony. She went on, curiously calm now.
+
+"Ed was good to me; and he offered a home, anyway, for mother--"
+
+"And all the time I was waiting for some line to break down my cussed
+pride, so I could write to you and explain. But you did go with Ed to
+the fair," he ended suddenly, seeking a morsel of justification for
+himself.
+
+"Yes. But I waited an' waited; and I thought you was mad at me, so when
+they came I--no, I didn't really go with Ed. There was a wagon-load of
+them."
+
+"But I started," he explained, "but the wheel came off. I didn't send
+word because I thought you'd feel sure I'd come. If you'd only trusted
+me a little more--No! It was all my fault. I acted like a crazy fool. I
+didn't stop to reason about anything."
+
+They sat in silence after these explanations. The sound of the snapping
+wings of the grasshoppers came through the windows, and a locust high in
+a poplar sent down his ringing whir.
+
+"It can't be helped now, Will," Agnes said at last, her voice full of
+the woman's resignation. "We've got to bear it."
+
+Will straightened up. "Bear it?" He paused. "Yes, I s'pose so. If you
+hadn't married Ed Kinney! Anybody but him. How did you do it?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," she answered, wearily brushing her hair back from
+her eyes. "It seemed best when I did it--and it can't be helped now." 
+There was infinite, dull despair and resignation in her voice.
+
+Will went over to the window. He thought how bright and handsome Ed used
+to be. "After all, it's no wonder you married him. Life pushes us into
+such things." Suddenly he turned, something resolute and imperious in
+his eyes and voice.
+
+"It can be helped, Aggie," he said. "Now just listen to me. We've made
+an awful mistake. We've lost seven years o' life, but that's no reason
+why we should waste the rest of it. Now hold on; don't interrupt me
+just yet. I come back thinking just as much of you as ever. I ain't
+going to say a word more about Ed; let the past stay past. I'm going to
+talk about the future."
+
+She looked at him in a daze of wonder as he went on.
+
+"Now I've got some money, I've got a third interest in a ranch, and I've
+got a standing offer to go back on the Sante Fee road as conductor.
+There is a team standing out there. I'd like to make another trip to
+Cedarville--with you--"
+
+"Oh, Will, don't!" she cried; "for pity's sake don't talk--"
+
+"Wait!" he exclaimed, imperiously. "Now look at it. Here you are in
+hell! Caged up with two old crows picking the life out of you. They'll
+kill you--I can see it; you're being killed by inches. You can't go
+anywhere, you can't have anything. Life is just torture for you--"
+
+She gave a little moan of anguish and despair, and turned her face to
+her chair-back. Her shoulders shook with weeping, but she listened. He
+went to her and stood with his hand on the chair-back.
+
+His voice trembled and broke. "There's just one way to get out of this,
+Agnes. Come with me. He don't care for you; his whole idea of women is
+that they are created for his pleasure and to keep house. Your whole
+life is agony. Come! Don't cry. There's a chance for life yet."
+
+She didn't speak, but her sobs were less violent; his voice growing
+stronger reassured her.
+
+"I'm going East, maybe to Europe; and the woman who goes with me will
+have nothing to do but get strong and well again. I've made you suffer
+so, I ought to spend the rest of my life making you happy. Come! My wife
+will sit with me on the deck of the steamer and see the moon rise, and
+walk with me by the sea, till she gets strong and happy again--till the
+dimples get back into her cheeks. I never will rest till I see her eyes
+laugh again."
+
+She rose flushed, wide-eyed, breathing hard with the emotion his vibrant
+voice called up, but she could not speak. He put his hand gently upon
+her shoulder, and she sank down again. And he went on with his appeal.
+There was something hypnotic, dominating, in his voice and eyes.
+
+On his part there was no passion of an ignoble sort, only a passion of
+pity and remorse, and a sweet, tender, reminiscent love. He did not love
+the woman before him so much as the girl whose ghost she was--the woman
+whose promise she was. He held himself responsible for it all, and he
+throbbed with desire to repair the ravage he had indirectly caused.
+There was nothing equivocal in his position--nothing to disown. How
+others might look at it, he did not consider, and did not care. His
+impetuous soul was carried to a point where nothing came in to mar or
+divert.
+
+"And then after you're well, after our trip, we'll come back--to
+Houston, or somewhere in Texas, and I'll build my wife a house that will
+make her eyes shine. My cattle will give us a good living, and she can
+have a piano and books, and go to the theatre and concerts. Come, what
+do you think of that?"
+
+Then she heard his words beneath his voice somehow, and they produced
+pictures that dazzled her. Luminous shadows moved before her eyes,
+drifting across the gray background of her poor, starved, work-weary
+life.
+
+As his voice ceased the rosy clouds faded, and she realized again the
+faded, musty little room, the calico-covered furniture, and looking down
+at her own cheap and ill-fitting dress, she saw her ugly hands lying
+there. Then she cried out with a gush of tears:
+
+"Oh, Will, I'm so old and homely now, I ain't fit to go with you now!
+Oh, why couldn't we have married then?"
+
+She was seeing herself as she was then, and so was he; but it deepened
+his resolution. How beautiful she used to be! He seemed to see her there
+as if she stood in perpetual sunlight, with a warm sheen in her hair and
+dimples in her cheeks.
+
+She saw her thin red wrists, her gaunt and knotted hands. There was a
+pitiful droop in the thin, pale lips, and the tears fell slowly from her
+drooping lashes. He went on:
+
+"Well, it's no use to cry over what was. We must think of what we're
+going to do. Don't worry about your looks; you'll be the prettiest
+woman in the country when we get back. Don't wait, Aggie; make up your
+mind."
+
+She hesitated, and was lost.
+
+"What will people say?"
+
+"I don't care what they say," he flamed out. "They'd say, stay here and
+be killed by inches. I say you've had your share of suffering. They'd
+say--the liberal ones--stay and get a divorce; but how do you know we
+can get one after you've been dragged through the mud of a trial? We can
+get one as well in some other state. Why should you be worn out at
+thirty? What right or justice is there in making you bear all your life
+the consequences of our--my schoolboy folly?"
+
+As he went on his argument rose to the level of Browning's philosophy.
+
+"We can make this experience count for us yet. But we mustn't let a
+mistake ruin us--it should teach us. What right has any one to keep you
+in a hole? God don't expect a toad to stay in a stump and starve if it
+can get out. He don't ask the snakes to suffer as you do."
+
+She had lost the threads of right and wrong out of her hands. She was
+lost in a maze, but she was not moved by passion. Flesh had ceased to
+stir her; but there was vast power in the new and thrilling words her
+deliverer spoke. He seemed to open a door for her, and through it
+turrets shone and great ships crossed on dim blue seas.
+
+"You can't live here, Aggie. You'll die in less than five years. It
+would kill me to see you die here. Come! It's suicide."
+
+She did not move, save the convulsive motion of her breath and the
+nervous action of her fingers. She stared down at a spot in the carpet.
+She could not face him.
+
+He grew insistent, a sterner note creeping into his voice.
+
+"If I leave this time of course you know I'll never come back."
+
+Her hoarse breathing, growing quicker each moment, was her only reply.
+
+"I'm done," he said with a note of angry disappointment. He did not give
+her up, however. "I've told you what I'd do for you. Now if you think--"
+
+"Oh, give me time to think, Will!" she cried out, lifting her face.
+
+He shook his head. "No. You might as well decide now. It won't be any
+easier to-morrow. Come, one minute more and I go out o' that
+door--unless--" He crossed the room slowly, doubtful himself of his
+desperate last measure. "My hand is on the knob. Shall I open it?"
+
+She stopped breathing; her fingers closed convulsively on the chair. As
+he opened the door she sprang up.
+
+"Don't go, Will! Don't go, please don't! I need you here--I--"
+
+"That ain't the question. Are you going with me, Agnes?"
+
+"Yes, yes! I tried to speak before. I trust you, Will; you're--"
+
+He flung the door open wide. "See the sunlight out there shining on that
+field o' wheat? That's where I'll take you--out into the sunshine. You
+shall see it shining on the Bay of Naples. Come, get on your hat; don't
+take anything more'n you actually need. Leave the past behind you--"
+
+The woman turned wildly and darted into the little bedroom. The man
+listened. He whistled in surprise almost comical. He had forgotten the
+baby. He could hear the mother talking, cooing.
+
+"Mommie's 'ittle pet! She wasn't goin' to leave her 'ittle man--no, she
+wasn't! There, there, don't 'e cry. Mommie ain't goin' away and leave
+him--wicked mommie ain't--'ittle treasure!"
+
+She was confused again; and when she reappeared at the door, with the
+child in her arms, there was a wandering look on her face pitiful to
+see. She tried to speak, tried to say, "Please go, Will."
+
+He designedly failed to understand her whisper. He stepped forward. "The
+baby! Sure enough. Why, certainly! to the mother belongs the child. Blue
+eyes, thank heaven!"
+
+He put his arm about them both. She obeyed silently. There was something
+irresistible in his frank, clear eyes, his sunny smile, his strong
+brown hand. He slammed the door behind them.
+
+"That closes the door on your sufferings," he said, smiling down at her.
+"Good-by to it all."
+
+The baby laughed and stretched out its hands toward the light.
+
+"Boo, boo!" he cried.
+
+"What's he talking about?"
+
+She smiled in perfect trust and fearlessness, seeing her child's face
+beside his own. "He says it's beautiful."
+
+"Oh, he does? I can't follow his French accent."
+
+She smiled again, in spite of herself. Will shuddered with a thrill of
+fear, she was so weak and worn. But the sun shone on the dazzling,
+rustling wheat, the fathomless sky, blue as a sea, bent above them--and
+the world lay before them.
+
+
+
+Up the Coolly
+
+"Keep the main-travelled road up the Coolly--it's the second house after
+crossin' the crick."
+
+I
+
+The ride from Milwaukee to the Mississippi is a fine ride at any time,
+superb in summer. To lean back in a reclining-chair and whirl away in a
+breezy July day, past lakes, groves of oak, past fields of barley being
+reaped, past hay-fields, where the heavy grass is toppling before the
+swift sickle, is a panorama of delight, a road full of delicious
+surprises, where down a sudden vista lakes open, or a distant wooded
+hill looms darkly blue, or swift streams, foaming deep down the solid
+rock, send whiffs of cool breezes in at the window.
+
+It has majesty, breadth. The farming has nothing apparently petty about
+it. All seems vigorous, youthful, and prosperous. Mr. Howard McLane in
+his chair let his newspaper fall on his lap, and gazed out upon it with
+dreaming eyes. It had a certain mysterious glamour to him; the lakes
+were cooler and brighter to his eye, the greens fresher, and the grain
+more golden than to any one else, for he was coming back to it all after
+an absence of ten years. It was, besides, his West. He still took pride
+in being a Western man.
+
+His mind all day flew ahead of the train to the little town, far on
+toward the Mississippi, where he had spent his boyhood and youth. As the
+train passed the Wisconsin River, with its curiously carved cliffs, its
+cold, dark, swift-swirling water eating slowly under cedar-clothed
+banks, Howard began to feel curious little movements of the heart, like
+those of a lover nearing his sweetheart.
+
+The hills changed in character, growing more intimately recognizable.
+They rose higher as the train left the ridge and passed down into the
+Black River valley, and specifically into the La Crosse valley. They
+ceased to have any hint of upheavals of rock, and became simply parts of
+the ancient level left standing after the water had practically given up
+its post-glacial scooping action.
+
+It was about six o'clock as he caught sight of the splendid broken line
+of hills on which his baby eyes had looked thirty-five years ago. A few
+minutes later, and the train drew up at the grimy little station set
+into the hillside, and, giving him just time to leap off, plunged on
+again toward the West. Howard felt a ridiculous weakness in his legs as
+he stepped out upon the broiling-hot, splintery planks of the station
+and faced the few idlers lounging about. He simply stood and gazed with
+the same intensity and absorption one of the idlers might show standing
+before the Brooklyn Bridge.
+
+The town caught and held his eyes first. How poor and dull and sleepy
+and squalid it seemed! The one main street ended at the hillside at his
+left, and stretched away to the north, between two rows of the usual
+village stores, unrelieved by a tree or a touch of beauty. An unpaved
+street, with walled, drab-colored, miserable, rotting wooden buildings,
+with the inevitable battlements; the same--only worse and more
+squalid--was the town.
+
+The same, only more beautiful still, was the majestic amphitheatre of
+green wooded hills that circled the horizon, and toward which he lifted
+his eyes. He thrilled at the sight.
+
+"Glorious!" he cried involuntarily.
+
+Accustomed to the White Mountains, to the Alleghanies, he had wondered
+if these hills would retain their old-time charm. They did. He took off
+his hat to them as he stood there. Richly wooded, with gently sloping
+green sides, rising to massive square or rounded tops with dim vistas,
+they glowed down upon the squat little town, gracious, lofty in their
+greeting, immortal in their vivid and delicate beauty.
+
+He was a goodly figure of a man as he stood there beside his valise.
+Portly, erect, handsomely dressed, and with something unusually winning
+in his brown mustache and blue eyes, something scholarly suggested by
+the pinch-nose glasses, something strong in the repose of the head. He
+smiled as he saw how unchanged was the grouping of the old loafers on
+the salt-barrels and nail-kegs. He recognized most of them--a little
+dirtier, a little more bent, and a little grayer.
+
+They sat in the same attitudes, spat tobacco with the same calm delight,
+and joked each other, breaking into short and sudden fits of laughter,
+and pounded each other on the back, just as when he was a student at the
+La Crosse Seminary and going to and fro daily on the train.
+
+They ruminated on him as he passed, speculating in a perfectly audible
+way upon his business.
+
+"Looks like a drummer."
+
+"No, he ain't no drummer. See them Boston glasses?"
+
+"That's so. Guess he's a teacher."
+
+"Looks like a moneyed cuss."
+
+"Bos'n, I guess."
+
+He knew the one who spoke last--Freeme Cole, a man who was the fighting
+wonder of Howard's boyhood, now degenerated into a stoop-shouldered,
+faded, garrulous, and quarrelsome old man. Yet there was something epic
+in the old man's stories, something enthralling in the dramatic power 
+of recital.
+
+Over by the blacksmith shop the usual game of "quaits" was in progress,
+and the drug-clerk on the corner was chasing a crony with the
+squirt-pump with which he was about to wash the windows. A few teams
+stood ankle-deep in the mud, tied to the fantastically gnawed pine
+pillars of the wooden awnings. A man on a load of hay was "jawing" with
+the attendant of the platform scales, who stood below, pad and pencil in
+hand.
+
+"Hit 'im! hit 'im! Jump off and knock 'im!" suggested a bystander,
+jovially.
+
+Howard knew the voice.
+
+"Talk's cheap. Takes money to buy whiskey," he said, when the man on the
+load repeated his threat of getting off and whipping the scales-man.
+
+"You're William McTurg," Howard said, coming up to him.
+
+"I am, sir," replied the soft-voiced giant, turning and looking down on
+the stranger, with an amused twinkle in his deep brown eyes. He stood as
+erect as an Indian, though his hair and beard were white.
+
+"I'm Howard McLane."
+
+"Ye begin t' look it," said McTurg, removing his right hand from his
+pocket. "How are yeh?"
+
+"I'm first-rate. How's mother and Grant?"
+
+"Saw 'm ploughing corn as I came down. Guess he's all right. Want a
+boost?"
+
+"Well, yes. Are you down with a team?"
+
+"Yep. 'Bout goin' home. Climb right in. That's my rig, right there,"
+nodding at a sleek bay colt hitched in a covered buggy. "Heave y'r grip
+under the seat."
+
+They climbed into the seat after William had lowered the buggy-top and
+unhitched the horse from the post. The loafers were mildly curious.
+Guessed Bill had got hooked onto by a lightnin'-rod peddler, or
+somethin' o' that kind.
+
+"Want to go by river, or 'round by the hills?"
+
+"Hills, I guess."
+
+The whole matter began to seem trivial, as if he had been away only for
+a month or two.
+
+William McTurg was a man little given to talk. Even the coming back of a
+nephew did not cause any flow of questions or reminiscences. They rode
+in silence. He sat a little bent forward, the lines held carelessly in
+his hands, his great lion-like head swaying to and fro with the movement
+of the buggy.
+
+As they passed familiar spots, the younger man broke the silence with a
+question.
+
+"That's old man McElvaine's place, ain't it?"
+
+"Yep."
+
+"Old man living?"
+
+"I guess he is. Husk more corn'n any man he c'n hire."
+
+In the edge of the village they passed an open lot on the left, marked
+with circus-rings of different eras.
+
+"There's the old ball-ground. Do they have circuses on it just the same
+as ever?"
+
+"Just the same."
+
+"What fun that field calls up! The games of ball we used to have! Do you
+play yet?"
+
+"Sometimes. Can't stoop as well as I used to." He smiled a little. "Too
+much fat."
+
+It all swept back upon Howard in a flood of names and faces and sights
+and sounds; something sweet and stirring somehow, though it had little
+of æsthetic charms at the time. They were passing along lanes now,
+between superb fields of corn, wherein ploughmen were at work. Kingbirds
+flew from post to post ahead of them; the insects called from the grass.
+The valley slowly outspread below them. The workmen in the fields were
+"turning out" for the night. They all had a word of chaff with McTurg.
+
+Over the western wall of the circling amphitheatre the sun was setting.
+A few scattering clouds were drifting on the west wind, their shadows
+sliding down the green and purpled slopes. The dazzling sunlight flamed
+along the luscious velvety grass, and shot amid the rounded, distant
+purple peaks, and streamed in bars of gold and crimson across the blue
+mist of the narrower upper Coollies.
+
+The heart of the young man swelled with pleasure almost like pain, and
+the eyes of the silent older man took on a far-off, dreaming look, as he
+gazed at the scene which had repeated itself a thousand times in his
+life, but of whose beauty he never spoke.
+
+Far down to the left was the break in the wall through which the river
+ran on its way to join the Mississippi. They climbed slowly among the
+hills, and the valley they had left grew still more beautiful as the
+squalor of the little town was hid by the dusk of distance. Both men
+were silent for a long time. Howard knew the peculiarities of his
+companion too well to make any remarks or ask any questions, and besides
+it was a genuine pleasure to ride with one who understood that silence
+was the only speech amid such splendors.
+
+Once they passed a little brook singing in a mournfully sweet way its
+eternal song over its pebbles. It called back to Howard the days when he
+and Grant, his younger brother, had fished in this little brook for
+trout, with trousers rolled above the knee and wrecks of hats upon their
+heads.
+
+"Any trout left?" he asked.
+
+"Not many. Little fellers." Finding the silence broken, William asked
+the first question since he met Howard. "Le' 's see: you're a show
+feller now? B'long to a troupe?"
+
+"Yes, yes; I'm an actor."
+
+"Pay much?"
+
+"Pretty well."
+
+That seemed to end William's curiosity about the matter.
+
+"Ah, there's our old house, ain't it?" Howard broke out, pointing to one
+of the houses farther up the Coolly. "It'll be a surprise to them, won't
+it?"
+
+"Yep; only they don't live there."
+
+"What! They don't!"
+
+"Who does?"
+
+"Dutchman."
+
+Howard was silent for some moments. "Who lives on the Dunlap place?"
+
+"'Nother Dutchman."
+
+"Where's Grant living, anyhow?"
+
+"Farther up the Coolly."
+
+"Well, then, I'd better get out here, hadn't I?"
+
+"Oh, I'll drive ye up."
+
+"No, I'd rather walk."
+
+The sun had set, and the Coolly was getting dusk when Howard got out of
+McTurg's carriage and set off up the winding lane toward his brother's
+house. He walked slowly to absorb the coolness and fragrance and color
+of the hour. The katydids sang a rhythmic song of welcome to him.
+Fireflies were in the grass. A whippoorwill in the deep of the wood was
+calling weirdly, and an occasional night-hawk, flying high, gave his
+grating shriek, or hollow boom, suggestive and resounding.
+
+He had been wonderfully successful, and yet had carried into his success
+as a dramatic author as well as actor a certain puritanism that made him
+a paradox to his fellows. He was one of those actors who are always in
+luck, and the best of it was he kept and made use of his luck. Jovial as
+he appeared, he was inflexible as granite against drink and tobacco. He
+retained through it all a certain freshness of enjoyment that made him
+one of the best companions in the profession; and now, as he walked on,
+the hour and the place appealed to him with great power. It seemed to
+sweep away the life that came between.
+
+How close it all was to him, after all! In his restless life, surrounded
+by the glare of electric lights, painted canvas, hot colors, creak of
+machinery, mock trees, stones, and brooks, he had not lost, but gained,
+appreciation for the coolness, quiet, and low tones, the shyness of the
+wood and field.
+
+In the farmhouse ahead of him a light was shining as he peered ahead,
+and his heart gave another painful movement. His brother was awaiting
+him there, and his mother, whom he had not seen for ten years and who
+had lost the power to write. And when Grant wrote, which had been more
+and more seldom of late, his letters had been cold and curt.
+
+He began to feel that in the pleasure and excitement of his life he had
+grown away from his mother and brother. Each summer he had said, "Well,
+now, I'll go home this year, sure." But a new play to be produced, or a
+new yachting trip, or a tour of Europe, had put the home-coming off; and
+now it was with a distinct consciousness of neglect of duty that he
+walked up to the fence and looked into the yard, where William had told
+him his brother lived.
+
+It was humble enough--a small white story-and-a-half structure, with a
+wing set in the midst of a few locust-trees; a small drab-colored barn
+with a sagging ridge-pole; a barnyard full of mud, in which a few cows
+were standing, fighting the flies and waiting to be milked. An old man
+was pumping water at the well; the pigs were squealing from a pen near
+by; a child was crying.
+
+Instantly the beautiful, peaceful valley was forgotten. A sickening
+chill struck into Howard's soul as he looked at it all. In the dim light
+he could see a figure milking a cow. Leaving his valise at the gate, he
+entered and walked up to the old man, who had finished pumping and was
+about to go to feed the hogs.
+
+"Good-evening," Howard began. "Does Mr. Grant McLane live here?"
+
+"Yes, sir, he does. He's right over there milkin'."
+
+"I'll go over there an--"
+
+"Don't b'lieve I would. It's darn muddy over there. It's been turrible
+rainy. He'll be done in a minute, anyway."
+
+"Very well; I'll wait."
+
+As he waited, he could hear a woman's fretful voice and the impatient
+jerk and jar of kitchen things, indicative of ill-temper or worry. The
+longer he stood absorbing this farm-scene, with all its sordidness,
+dullness, triviality, and its endless drudgeries, the lower his heart
+sank. All the joy of the home-coming was gone, when the figure arose
+from the cow and approached the gate, and put the pail of milk down on
+the platform by the pump.
+
+"Good-evening," said Howard, out of the dusk.
+
+Grant stared a moment. "Good-evening."
+
+Howard knew the voice, though it was older and deeper and more sullen.
+"Don't you know me, Grant? I am Howard."
+
+The man approached him, gazing intently at his face. "You are?" after a
+pause. "Well, I'm glad to see you, but I can't shake hands. That damned
+cow had laid down in the mud."
+
+They stood and looked at each other. Howard's cuffs, collar, and shirt,
+alien in their elegance, showed through the dusk, and a glint of light
+shot out from the jewel of his necktie, as the light from the house
+caught it at the right angle. As they gazed in silence at each other,
+Howard divined something of the hard, bitter feeling that came into
+Grant's heart, as he stood there, ragged, ankle-deep in muck, his
+sleeves rolled up, a shapeless old straw hat on his head.
+
+The gleam of Howard's white hands angered him. When he spoke, it was in
+a hard, gruff tone, full of rebellion.
+
+"Well, go in the house and set down. I'll be in soon's I strain the milk
+and wash the dirt off my hands."
+
+"But mother--"
+
+"She's 'round somewhere. Just knock on the door under the porch round
+there."
+
+Howard went slowly around the corner of the house, past a vilely
+smelling rain-barrel, toward the west. A gray-haired woman was sitting
+in a rocking-chair on the porch, her hands in her lap, her eyes fixed on
+the faintly yellow sky, against which the hills stood, dim purple
+silhouettes, and on which the locust trees were etched as fine as lace.
+There was sorrow, resignation, and a sort of dumb despair in her
+attitude.
+
+Howard stood, his throat swelling till it seemed as if he would
+suffocate. This was his mother--the woman who bore him, the being who
+had taken her life in her hand for him; and he, in his excited and
+pleasurable life, had neglected her!
+
+He stepped into the faint light before her. She turned and looked at him
+without fear. "Mother!" he said. She uttered one little, breathing,
+gasping cry, called his name, rose, and stood still. He bounded up the
+steps, and took her in his arms.
+
+"Mother! Dear old mother!"
+
+In the silence, almost painful, which followed, an angry woman's voice
+could be heard inside: "I don't care! I ain't goin' to wear myself out
+fer him. He c'n eat out here with us, or else--"
+
+Mrs. McLane began speaking. "Oh, I've longed to see yeh, Howard. I was
+afraid you wouldn't come till--too late."
+
+"What do you mean, mother? Ain't you well?"
+
+"I don't seem to be able to do much now 'cept sit around and knit a
+little. I tried to pick some berries the other day, and I got so dizzy I
+had to give it up."
+
+"You mustn't work. You needn't work. Why didn't you write to me how you
+were?" Howard asked, in an agony of remorse.
+
+"Well, we felt as if you probably had all you could do to take care of
+yourself. Are you married, Howard?" she broke off to ask.
+
+"No, mother; and there ain't any excuse for me--not a bit," he said,
+dropping back into her colloquialisms. "I'm ashamed when I think of how
+long it's been since I saw you. I could have come."
+
+"It don't matter now," she interrupted gently. "It's the way things go.
+Our boys grow up and leave us."
+
+"Well, come in to supper," said Grant's ungracious voice from the
+doorway. "Come, mother."
+
+Mrs. McLane moved with difficulty. Howard sprang to her aid, and,
+leaning on his arm, she went through the little sitting room, which was
+unlighted, out into the kitchen, where the supper table stood near the
+cook-stove.
+
+"How.--this is my wife," said Grant, in a cold, peculiar tone.
+
+Howard bowed toward a remarkably handsome young woman, on whose forehead
+was a scowl, which did not change as she looked at him and the old lady.
+
+"Set down anywhere," was the young woman's cordial invitation.
+
+Howard sat down next his mother, and facing the wife, who had a small,
+fretful child in her arms. At Howard's left was the old man, Lewis. The
+supper was spread upon a gay-colored oil-cloth, and consisted of a pan
+of milk, set in the midst, with bowls at each plate. Beside the pan was
+a dipper and a large plate of bread, and at one end of the table was a
+dish of fine honey.
+
+A boy of about fourteen leaned upon the table, his bent shoulders making
+him look like an old man. His hickory shirt, like Grant's, was still wet
+with sweat, and discolored here and there with grease, or green from
+grass. His hair, freshly wet and combed, was smoothed away from his
+face, and shone in the light of the kerosene lamp. As he ate, he stared
+at Howard, as though he would make an inventory of each thread of the
+visitor's clothing.
+
+"Did I look like that at his age?" thought Howard.
+
+"You see we live just about the same as ever," said Grant, as they began
+eating, speaking with a grim, almost challenging, inflection.
+
+The two brothers studied each other curiously, as they talked of
+neighborhood scenes. Howard seemed incredibly elegant and handsome to
+them all, with his rich, soft clothing, his spotless linen, and his
+exquisite enunciation and ease of speech. He had always been
+"smooth-spoken," and he had become "elegantly persuasive," as his
+friends said of him, and it was a large factor in his success.
+
+Every detail of the kitchen, the heat, the flies buzzing aloft, the poor
+furniture, the dress of the people--all smote him like the lash of a
+wire whip. His brother was a man of great character. He could see that
+now. His deep-set, gray eyes and rugged face showed at thirty a man of
+great natural ability. He had more of the Scotch in his face than
+Howard, and he looked much older.
+
+He was dressed, like the old man and the boy, in a checked shirt,
+without vest. His suspenders, once gay-colored, had given most of their
+color to his shirt, and had marked irregular broad bands of pink and
+brown and green over his shoulders. His hair was uncombed, merely pushed
+away from his face. He wore a mustache only, though his face was covered
+with a week's growth of beard. His face was rather gaunt, and was brown
+as leather.
+
+Howard could not eat much. He was disturbed by his mother's strange
+silence and oppression, and sickened by the long-drawn gasps with which
+the old man ate his bread and milk, and by the way the boy ate. He had
+his knife gripped tightly in his fist, knuckles up, and was scooping
+honey upon his bread.
+
+The baby, having ceased to be afraid, was curious, gazing silently at
+the stranger.
+
+"Hello, little one! Come and see your uncle. Eh? Course 'e will," cooed
+Howard, in the attempt to escape the depressing atmosphere. The little
+one listened to his inflections as a kitten does, and at last lifted its
+arms in sign of surrender.
+
+The mother's face cleared up a little. "I declare, she wants to go to
+you."
+
+"Course she does. Dogs and kittens always come to me when I call 'em.
+Why shouldn't my own niece come?"
+
+He took the little one and began walking up and down the kitchen with
+her, while she pulled at his beard and nose. "I ought to have you, my
+lady, in my new comedy. You'd bring down the house."
+
+"You don't mean to say you put babies on the stage, Howard," said his
+mother in surprise.
+
+"Oh, yes. Domestic comedy must have a baby these days."
+
+"Well, that's another way of makin' a livin', sure," said Grant. The
+baby had cleared the atmosphere a little. "I s'pose you fellers make a
+pile of money."
+
+"Sometimes we make a thousand a week; oftener we don't."
+
+"A thousand dollars!" They all stared.
+
+"A thousand dollars sometimes, and then lose it all the next week in
+another town. The dramatic business is a good deal like gambling--you
+take your chances."
+
+"I wish you weren't in it, Howard. I don't like to have my son--"
+
+"I wish I was in somethin' that paid better than farmin'. Anything under
+God's heavens is better 'n farmin'," said Grant.
+
+"No, I ain't laid up much," Howard went on, as if explaining why he
+hadn't helped them. "Costs me a good deal to live, and I need about ten
+thousand dollars leeway to work on. I've made a good living, but I--I
+ain't made any money."
+
+Grant looked at him, darkly meditative.
+
+Howard went on: "How'd ye come to sell the old farm? I was in hopes--"
+
+"How'd we come to sell it?" said Grant with terrible bitterness. "We had
+something on it that didn't leave anything to sell. You probably don't
+remember anything about it, but there was a mortgage on it that eat us
+up in just four years by the almanac. 'Most killed mother to leave it.
+We wrote to you for money, but I don't suppose you remember that."
+
+"No, you didn't."
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"When was it? I don't--why, it's--I never received it. It must have been
+that summer I went with Bob Manning to Europe." Howard put the baby down
+and faced his brother. "Why, Grant, you didn't think I refused to help?"
+
+"Well, it looked that way. We never heard a word from yeh, all summer,
+and when y' did write, it was all about yerself 'n plays 'n things we
+didn't know anything about. I swore to God I'd never write to you again,
+and I won't."
+
+"But, good heavens! I never got it."
+
+"Suppose you didn't. You might have known we were poor as Job's off-ox.
+Everybody is that earns a living. We fellers on the farm have to earn a
+livin' for ourselves and you fellers that don't work. I don't blame you.
+I'd do it if I could."
+
+"Grant, don't talk so! Howard didn't realize--"
+
+"I tell yeh I don't blame him! Only I don't want him to come the
+brotherly business over me, after livin' as he has--that's all." There
+was a bitter accusation in the man's voice.
+
+Howard leaped to his feet, his face twitching.
+
+"By God, I'll go back to-morrow morning!" he threatened.
+
+"Go, an' be damned! I don't care what yeh do," Grant growled, rising and
+going out.
+
+"Boys," called the mother, piteously, "it's terrible to see you
+quarrel."
+
+"But I'm not to blame, mother," cried Howard, in a sickness that made
+him white as chalk. "The man is a savage. I came home to help you all,
+not to quarrel."
+
+"Grant's got one o' his fits on," said the young wife, speaking for the
+first time. "Don't pay any attention to him. He'll be all right in the
+morning."
+
+"If it wasn't for you, mother, I'd leave now, and never see that savage
+again."
+
+He lashed himself up and down in the room, in horrible disgust and hate
+of his brother and of this home in his heart. He remembered his tender
+anticipations of the home-coming with a kind of self-pity and disgust.
+This was his greeting!
+
+He went to bed, to toss about on the hard, straw-filled mattress in the
+stuffy little best room. Tossing, writhing under the bludgeoning of his
+brother's accusing inflections, a dozen times he said, with a
+half-articulate snarl:
+
+"He can go to hell! I'll not try to do anything more for him. I don't
+care if he is my brother; he has no right to jump on me like that. On
+the night of my return, too. My God! he is a brute, a fool!"
+
+He thought of the presents in his trunk and valise, which he couldn't
+show to him that night after what had been said. He had intended to have
+such a happy evening of it, such a tender reunion! It was to be so
+bright and cheery!
+
+In the midst of his cursings--his hot indignation--would come visions of
+himself in his own modest rooms. He seemed to be yawning and stretching
+in his beautiful bed, the sun shining in, his books, foils, pictures,
+around him to say good-morning and tempt him to rise, while the squat
+little clock on the mantel struck eleven warningly.
+
+He could see the olive walls, the unique copper-and-crimson arabesque
+frieze (his own selection), and the delicate draperies; an open grate
+full of glowing coals, to temper the sea-winds; and in the midst of it,
+between a landscape by Enneking and an Indian in a canoe in a cañon, by
+Brush, he saw a sombre landscape by a master greater than Millet, a
+melancholy subject, treated with pitiless fidelity.
+
+A farm in the valley! Over the mountains swept jagged, gray, angry,
+sprawling clouds, sending a freezing, thin drizzle of rain, as they
+passed, upon a man following a plough. The horses had a sullen and weary
+look, and their manes and tails streamed sidewise in the blast. The
+ploughman, clad in a ragged gray coat, with uncouth, muddy boots upon
+his feet, walked with his head inclined toward the sleet, to shield his
+face from the cold and sting of it. The soil rolled away black and
+sticky and with a dull sheen upon it. Near by, a boy with tears on his
+cheeks was watching cattle; a dog seated near, his back to the gale.
+
+As he looked at this picture, his heart softened. He looked down at the
+sleeve of his soft and fleecy nightshirt, at his white, rounded arm,
+muscular, yet fine as a woman's, and when he looked for the picture it
+was gone. Then came again the assertive odor of stagnant air, laden with
+camphor; he felt the springless bed under him, and caught dimly a few
+soap-advertising lithographs on the walls. He thought of his brother, in
+his still more inhospitable bedroom, disturbed by the child, condemned
+to rise at five o'clock and begin another day's pitiless labor. His
+heart shrank and quivered, and the tears started to his eyes.
+
+"I forgive him, poor fellow! He's not to blame."
+
+II
+
+He woke, however, with a dull, languid pulse, and an oppressive
+melancholy on his heart. He looked around the little room, clean enough,
+but oh, how poor! how barren! Cold plaster walls, a cheap wash-stand, a
+wash-set of three pieces, with a blue band around each; the windows
+rectangular, and fitted with fantastic green shades.
+
+Outside he could hear the bees humming. Chickens were merrily moving
+about. Cow-bells far up the road were sounding irregularly. A jay came
+by and yelled an insolent reveille, and Howard sat up. He could hear
+nothing in the house but the rattle of pans on the back side of the
+kitchen. He looked at his watch, which indicated half-past seven. Grant
+was already in the field, after milking, currying the horses, and eating
+breakfast--had been at work two hours and a half.
+
+He dressed himself hurriedly, in a negligé shirt, with a Windsor scarf,
+light-colored, serviceable trousers with a belt, russet shoes, and a
+tennis hat--a knockabout costume, he considered. His mother, good soul,
+thought it a special suit put on for her benefit, and admired it through
+her glasses.
+
+He kissed her with a bright smile, nodded at Laura, the young wife, and
+tossed the baby, all in a breath, and with the manner, as he himself
+saw, of the returned captain in the war-dramas of the day.
+
+"Been to breakfast?" He frowned reproachfully. "Why didn't you call me?
+I wanted to get up, just as I used to, at sunrise."
+
+"We thought you was tired, and so we didn't--"
+
+"Tired! Just wait till you see me help Grant pitch hay or something.
+Hasn't finished his haying yet, has he?"
+
+"No, I guess not. He will to-day if it don't rain again."
+
+"Well, breakfast is all ready--Howard," said Laura, hesitating a little
+on his name.
+
+"Good! I am ready for it. Bacon and eggs, as I'm a jay! Just what I was
+wanting. I was saying to myself: 'Now if they'll only get bacon and eggs
+and hot biscuits and honey--' Oh, say, mother, I heard the bees humming
+this morning; same noise they used to make when I was a boy, exactly.
+Must be the same bees,--Hey, you young rascal! come here and have some
+breakfast with your uncle."
+
+"I never saw her take to any one so quick," Laura said, emphasizing the
+baby's sex. She had on a clean calico dress and a gingham apron, and she
+looked strong and fresh and handsome. Her head was intellectual, her
+eyes full of power. She seemed anxious to remove the impression of her
+unpleasant looks and words the night before. Indeed, it would have been
+hard to resist Howard's sunny good-nature.
+
+The baby laughed and crowed. The old mother could not take her dim eyes
+off the face of her son, but sat smiling at him as he ate and rattled
+on. When he rose from the table at last, after eating heartily and
+praising it all, he said, with a smile:
+
+"Well, now I'll just telephone down to the express and have my trunk
+brought up. I've got a few little things in there you'll enjoy seeing.
+But this fellow," indicating the baby, "I didn't take him into account.
+But never mind: Uncle How.'ll make that all right."
+
+"You ain't going to lay it up agin Grant, be you, my son?" Mrs. McLane
+faltered, as they went out into the best room.
+
+"Of course not! He didn't mean it. Now, can't you send word down and
+have my trunk brought up? Or shall I have to walk down?"
+
+"I guess I'll see somebody goin' down," said Laura.
+
+"All right. Now for the hay-field," he smiled, and went out into the
+glorious morning.
+
+The circling hills were the same, yet not the same as at night, a
+cooler, tenderer, more subdued cloak of color lay upon them. Far down
+the valley a cool, deep, impalpable, blue mist hung, beneath which one
+divined the river ran, under its elms and basswoods and wild grapevines.
+On the shaven slopes of the hill cattle and sheep were feeding, their
+cries and bells coming to the ear with a sweet suggestiveness. There was
+something immemorial in the sunny slopes dotted with red and brown and
+gray cattle.
+
+Walking toward the haymakers, Howard felt a twinge of pain and distrust. 
+Would Grant ignore it all and smile--
+
+He stopped short. He had not seen Grant smile in so long--he couldn't
+quite see him smiling. He had been cold and bitter for years. When he
+came up to them, Grant was pitching on; the old man was loading, and the
+boy was raking after.
+
+"Good-morning," Howard cried cheerily; the old man nodded, the boy
+stared. Grant growled something, without looking up. These "finical"
+things of saying good-morning and good-night are not much practised in
+such homes as Grant McLane's.
+
+"Need some help? I'm ready to take a hand. Got on my regimentals this
+morning."
+
+Grant looked at him a moment. "You look it."
+
+Howard smiled. "Gimme a hold on that fork, and I'll show you. I'm not so
+soft as I look, now you bet."
+
+He laid hold upon the fork in Grant's hands, who released it sullenly
+and stood back sneering. Howard struck the fork into the pile in the old
+way, threw his left hand to the end of the polished handle, brought it
+down into the hollow of his thigh, and laid out his strength till the
+handle bent like a bow. "Oop she rises!" he called laughingly, as the
+whole pile began slowly to rise, and finally rolled upon the high load.
+
+"Oh, I ain't forgot how to do it," he laughed, as he looked around at
+the boy, who was eyeing the tennis suit with a devouring gaze.
+
+Grant was studying him, too, but not in admiration.
+
+"I shouldn't say you had," said the old man, tugging at the forkful.
+
+"Mighty funny to come out here and do a little of this. But if you had
+to come here and do it all the while, you wouldn't look so white and
+soft in the hands," Grant said, as they moved on to another pile. "Give
+me that fork. You'll be spoiling your fine clothes."
+
+"Oh, these don't matter. They're made for this kind of thing."
+
+"Oh, are they? I guess I'll dress in that kind of a rig. What did that
+shirt cost? I need one."
+
+"Six dollars a pair; but then it's old."
+
+"And them pants," he pursued; "they cost six dollars, too, didn't they?"
+
+Howard's face darkened. He saw his brother's purpose. He resented it.
+"They cost fifteen dollars, if you want to know, and the shoes cost
+six-fifty. This ring on my cravat cost sixty dollars, and the suit I had
+on last night cost eighty-five. My suits are made by Breckstein, on
+Fifth Avenue, if you want to patronize him," he ended brutally, spurred
+on by the sneer in his brother's eyes. "I'll introduce you."
+
+"Good idea," said Grant, with a forced, mocking smile. "I need just such
+a get-up for haying and corn-ploughing. Singular I never thought of it.
+Now my pants cost eighty-five cents, s'spenders fifteen, hat twenty,
+shoes one-fifty; stockin's I don't bother about."
+
+He had his brother at a disadvantage, and he grew fluent and caustic as
+he went on, almost changing places with Howard, who took the rake out of
+the boy's hand, and followed, raking up the scatterings.
+
+"Singular we fellers here are discontented and mulish, ain't it?
+Singular we don't believe your letters when you write, sayin', 'I just
+about make a live of it'? Singular we think the country's goin' to hell,
+we fellers, in a two-dollar suit, wadin' around in the mud or sweatin'
+around in the hay-field, while you fellers lay around New York and smoke
+and wear good clothes and toady to millionaires?"
+
+Howard threw down the rake and folded his arms. "My God! you're enough
+to make a man forget the same mother bore us!"
+
+"I guess it wouldn't take much to make you forget that. You ain't put
+much thought on me nor her for ten years."
+
+The old man cackled, the boy grinned, and Howard, sick and weak with
+anger and sorrow, turned away and walked down toward the brook. He had
+tried once more to get near his brother, and had failed. Oh, God! how
+miserably, pitiably! The hot blood gushed all over him as he thought of
+the shame and disgrace of it.
+
+He, a man associating with poets, artists, sought after by brilliant
+women, accustomed to deference even from such people, to be sneered at,
+outfaced, shamed, shoved aside, by a man in a stained hickory shirt and
+patched overalls, and that man his brother! He lay down on the bright
+grass, with the sheep all around him, and writhed and groaned with the
+agony and despair of it.
+
+And worst of all, underneath it was a consciousness that Grant was right
+in distrusting him. He had neglected him; he had said, "I guess they're
+getting along all right." He had put them behind him when the invitation
+to spend summer on the Mediterranean or in the Adirondacks, came.
+
+"What can I do? What can I do?" he groaned.
+
+The sheep nibbled the grass near him, the jays called pertly, "Shame,
+shame," a quail piped somewhere on the hillside, and the brook sung a
+soft, soothing melody that took away at last the sharp edge of his pain,
+and he sat up and gazed down the valley, bright with the sun and
+apparently filled with happy and prosperous people.
+
+Suddenly a thought seized him. He stood up so suddenly that the sheep
+fled in affright. He leaped the brook, crossed the flat, and began
+searching in the bushes on the hillside. "Hurrah!" he said, with a
+smile.
+
+He had found an old road which he used to travel when a boy--a road that
+skirted the edge of the valley, now grown up to brush, but still
+passable for footmen. As he ran lightly along down the beautiful path,
+under oaks and hickories, past masses of poison-ivy, under hanging
+grapevines, through clumps of splendid hazel-nut bushes loaded with
+great sticky, rough, green burs, his heart threw off part of its load.
+
+How it all came back to him! How many days, when the autumn sun burned
+the frost of the bushes, had he gathered hazel-nuts here with his boy
+and girl friends--Hugh and Shelley McTurg, Rome Sawyer, Orrin McIlvaine,
+and the rest! What had become of them all? How he had forgotten them!
+
+This thought stopped him again, and he fell into a deep muse, leaning
+against an oak tree, and gazing into the vast fleckless space above. The
+thrilling, inscrutable mystery of life fell upon him like a blinding
+light. Why was he living in the crush and thunder and mental unrest of a
+great city, while his companions, seemingly his equals in powers, were
+milking cows, making butter, and growing corn and wheat in the silence
+and drear monotony of the farm?
+
+His boyish sweethearts! their names came back to his ear now, with a
+dull, sweet sound as of faint bells. He saw their faces, their pink
+sunbonnets tipped back upon their necks, their brown ankles flying with
+the swift action of the scurrying partridge. His eyes softened, he took
+off his hat. The sound of the wind and the leaves moved him almost to
+tears.
+
+A woodpecker gave a shrill, high-keyed, sustained cry, "Ki, ki, ki!" and
+he started from his revery, the dapples of the sun and shade falling
+upon his lithe figure as he hurried on down the path.
+
+He came at last to a field of corn that ran to the very wall of a large
+weather-beaten house, the sight of which made his breathing quicker. It
+was the place where he was born. The mystery of his life began there. In
+the branches of those poplar and hickory trees he had swung and sung in
+the rushing breeze, fearless as a squirrel. Here was the brook where,
+like a larger kildee, he with Grant had waded after crawfish, or had
+stolen upon some wary trout, rough-cut pole in hand.
+
+Seeing someone in the garden, he went down along the corn-row through
+the rustling ranks of green leaves. An old woman was picking berries, a
+squat and shapeless figure.
+
+"Good-morning," he called cheerily.
+
+"Morgen," she said, looking up at him with a startled and very red face.
+She was German in every line of her body.
+
+"Ich bin Herr McLane," he said, after a pause.
+
+"So?" she replied, with a questioning inflection.
+
+"Yah; ich bin Herr Grant's Bruder."
+
+"Ach, so!" she said, with a downward inflection. "Ich no spick Inglish.
+No spick Inglis."
+
+"Ich bin durstig," he said. Leaving her pans, she went with him to the
+house, which was what he really wanted to see.
+
+"Ich bin hier geboren."
+
+"Ach, so!" She recognized the little bit of sentiment, and said some
+sentences in German whose general meaning was sympathy. She took him to
+the cool cellar where the spring had been trained to run into a tank
+containing pans of cream and milk; she gave him a cool draught from a
+large tin cup, and at his request went with him upstairs. The house was
+the same, but somehow seemed cold and empty. It was clean and sweet, but
+it showed so little evidence of being lived in. The old part, which was
+built of logs, was used as best room, and modelled after the best rooms
+of the neighboring "Yankee" homes, only it was emptier, without the
+cabinet organ and the rag-carpet and the chromos.
+
+The old fireplace was bricked up and plastered--the fireplace beside
+which, in the far-off days, he had lain on winter nights, to hear his
+uncles tell tales of hunting, or to hear them play the violin, great
+dreaming giants that they were.
+
+The old woman went out and left him sitting there, the centre of a swarm
+of memories, coming and going like so many ghostly birds and
+butterflies.
+
+A curious heartache and listlessness, a nerveless mood came on him. What
+was it worth, anyhow--success? Struggle, strife, trampling on some one
+else. His play crowding out some other poor fellow's hope. The hawk eats
+the partridge, the partridge eats the flies and bugs, the bugs eat each
+other, and the hawk, when he in his turn is shot by man. So in the world
+of business, the life of one man seemed to him to be drawn from the life
+of another man, each success to spring from other failures.
+
+He was like a man from whom all motives had been withdrawn. He was sick,
+sick to the heart. Oh, to be a boy again! An ignorant baby, pleased with
+a block and string, with no knowledge and no care of the great unknown!
+To lay his head again on his mother's bosom and rest! To watch the
+flames on the hearth!--
+
+Why not? Was not that the very thing to do? To buy back the old farm?
+It would cripple him a little for the next season, but he could do it.
+Think of it! To see his mother back in the old home, with the fireplace
+restored, the old furniture in the sitting room around her, and fine new
+things in the parlor!
+
+His spirits rose again. Grant couldn't stand out when he brought to
+him a deed of the farm. Surely his debt would be cancelled when he had
+seen them all back in the wide old kitchen. He began to plan and to
+dream. He went to the windows, and looked out on the yard to see how
+much it had changed.
+
+He'd build a new barn and buy them a new carriage. His heart glowed
+again, and his lips softened into their usual feminine grace--lips a
+little full and falling easily into curves.
+
+The old German woman came in at length, bringing some cakes and a bowl
+of milk, smiling broadly and hospitably as she waddled forward.
+
+"Ach! Goot!" he said, smacking his lips over the pleasant draught.
+
+"Wo ist ihre goot mann?" he inquired, ready for business.
+
+III
+
+When Grant came in at noon Mrs. McLane met him at the door with a tender
+smile on her face.
+
+"Where's Howard, Grant?"
+
+"I don't know," he replied, in a tone that implied "I don't care."
+
+The dim eyes clouded with quick tears.
+
+"Ain't you seen him?"
+
+"Not since nine o'clock."
+
+"Where do you think he is?"
+
+"I tell yeh I don't know. He'll take care of himself; don't worry."
+
+He flung off his hat and plunged into the wash-basin. His shirt was wet
+with sweat and covered with dust of the hay and fragments of leaves. He
+splashed his burning face with the water, paying no further attention to
+his mother. She spoke again, very gently, in reproof:
+
+"Grant, why do you stand out against Howard so?"
+
+"I don't stand out against him," he replied harshly, pausing with the
+towel in his hands. His eyes were hard and piercing. "But if he expects
+me to gush over his coming back, he's fooled, that's all. He's left us
+to paddle our own canoe all this while, and, so far as I'm concerned, he
+can leave us alone hereafter. He looked out for his precious hide mighty
+well, and now he comes back here to play big gun and pat us on the head.
+I don't propose to let him come that over me."
+
+Mrs. McLane knew too well the temper of her son to say any more, but she
+inquired about Howard of the old hired man.
+
+"He went off down the valley. He 'n' Grant had s'm words, and he pulled
+out down toward the old farm. That's the last I see of 'im."
+
+Laura took Howard's part at the table. "Pity you can't be decent," she
+said, brutally direct as usual. "You treat Howard as if he was a--a--I
+do' know what."
+
+"Will you let me alone?"
+
+"No, I won't. If you think I'm going to set by an' agree to your
+bullyraggin' him, you're mistaken. It's a shame! You're mad 'cause he's
+succeeded and you hain't. He ain't to blame for his brains. If you and
+I'd had any, we'd 'a' succeeded too. It ain't our fault, and it ain't
+his; so what's the use?"
+
+A look came into Grant's face which the wife knew meant bitter and
+terrible silence. He ate his dinner without another word.
+
+It was beginning to cloud up. A thin, whitish, all-pervasive vapor which
+meant rain was dimming the sky, and Grant forced his hands to their
+utmost during the afternoon, in order to get most of the down hay in
+before the rain came. He was pitching from the load into the barn when
+Howard came by, just before one o'clock.
+
+It was windless there. The sun fell through the white mist with
+undiminished fury, and the fragrant hay sent up a breath that was hot as
+an oven-draught. Grant was a powerful man, and there was something
+majestic in his action as he rolled the huge flakes of hay through the
+door. The sweat poured from his face like rain, and he was forced to
+draw his drenched sleeve across his face to clear away the blinding
+sweat that poured into his eyes.
+
+Howard stood and looked at him in silence, remembering how often he had
+worked there in that furnace-heat, his muscles quivering, cold chills
+running over his flesh, red shadows dancing before his eyes.
+
+His mother met him at the door, anxiously, but smiled as she saw his
+pleasant face and cheerful eyes.
+
+"You're a little late, m' son."
+
+Howard spent most of the afternoon sitting with his mother on the
+porch, or under the trees, lying sprawled out like a boy, resting at
+times with sweet forgetfulness of the whole world, but feeling a dull
+pain whenever he remembered the stern, silent man pitching hay in the
+hot sun on the torrid side of the barn.
+
+His mother did not say anything about the quarrel; she feared to
+reopen it. She talked mainly of old times in a gentle monotone of
+reminiscence, while he listened, looking up into her patient face.
+
+The heat slowly lessened as the sun sank down toward the dun clouds
+rising like a more distant and majestic line of mountains beyond the
+western hills. The sound of cow-bells came irregularly to the ear, and
+the voices and sounds of the haying-fields had a jocund, pleasant sound
+to the ear of the city-dweller.
+
+He was very tender. Everything conspired to make him simple, direct, and
+honest.
+
+"Mother, if you'll only forgive me for staying away so long, I'll surely
+come to see you every summer."
+
+She had nothing to forgive. She was so glad to have him there at her
+feet--her great, handsome, successful boy! She could only love him and
+enjoy him every moment of the precious days. If Grant would only
+reconcile himself to Howard! That was the great thorn in her flesh.
+
+Howard told her how he had succeeded.
+
+"It was luck, mother. First I met Cook, and he introduced me to Jake
+Saulsman of Chicago. Jake asked me to go to New York with him, and--I
+don't know why--took a fancy to me some way. He introduced me to a lot
+of the fellows in New York, and they all helped me along. I did nothing
+to merit it. Everybody helps me. Anybody can succeed in that way."
+
+The doting mother thought it not at all strange that they all helped
+him.
+
+At the supper table Grant was gloomily silent, ignoring Howard
+completely. Mrs. McLane sat and grieved silently, not daring to say a
+word in protest. Laura and the baby tried to amuse Howard, and under
+cover of their talk the meal was eaten.
+
+The boy fascinated Howard. He "sawed wood" with a rapidity and
+uninterruptedness which gave alarm. He had the air of coaling up for a
+long voyage.
+
+"At that age," Howard thought, "I must have gripped my knife in my right
+hand so, and poured my tea into my saucer so. I must have buttered and
+bit into a huge slice of bread just so, and chewed at it with a smacking
+sound in just that way. I must have gone to the length of scooping up
+honey with my knife-blade."
+
+The sky was magically beautiful over all this squalor and toil and
+bitterness, from five till seven--a moving hour. Again the falling sun
+streamed in broad banners across the valleys; again the blue mist lay
+far down the Coolly over the river; the cattle called from the hills in
+the moistening, sonorous air; the bells came in a pleasant tangle of
+sound; the air pulsed with the deepening chorus of katydids and other
+nocturnal singers.
+
+Sweet and deep as the very springs of his life was all this to the soul
+of the elder brother; but in the midst of it, the younger man, in
+ill-smelling clothes and great boots that chafed his feet, went out to
+milk the cows,--on whose legs the flies and mosquitoes swarmed, bloated
+with blood,--to sit by the hot side of the cow and be lashed with her
+tail as she tried frantically to keep the savage insects from eating her
+raw.
+
+"The poet who writes of milking the cows does it from the hammock,
+looking on," Howard soliloquized, as he watched the old man Lewis racing
+around the filthy yard after one of the young heifers that had kicked
+over the pail in her agony with the flies, and was unwilling to stand
+still and be eaten alive.
+
+"So, so! you beast!" roared the old man, as he finally cornered the
+shrinking, nearly frantic creature.
+
+"Don't you want to look at the garden?" asked Mrs. McLane of Howard; and
+they went out among the vegetables and berries.
+
+The bees were coming home heavily laden and crawling slowly into the
+hives. The level, red light streamed through the trees, blazed along the
+grass, and lighted a few old-fashioned flowers into red and gold flame.
+It was beautiful, and Howard looked at it through his half-shut eyes as
+the painters do, and turned away with a sigh at the sound of blows where
+the wet and grimy men were assailing the frantic cows.
+
+"There's Wesley with your trunk," Mrs. McLane said, recalling him to
+himself.
+
+Wesley helped him carry the trunk in, and waved off thanks.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," he said; and Howard knew the Western man too
+well to press the matter of pay.
+
+As he went in an hour later and stood by the trunk, the dull ache came
+back into his heart. How he had failed! It seemed like a bitter mockery
+now to show his gifts.
+
+Grant had come in from his work, and with his feet released from his
+chafing boots, in his wet shirt and milk-splashed overalls, sat at the
+kitchen table reading a newspaper which he held close to a small
+kerosene lamp. He paid no attention to any one. His attitude, curiously
+like his father's, was perfectly definite to Howard. It meant that from
+that time forward there were to be no words of any sort between them. It
+meant that they were no longer brothers, not even acquaintances. "How
+inexorable that face!" thought Howard.
+
+He turned sick with disgust and despair, and would have closed his trunk
+without showing any of the presents, only for the childish expectancy of
+his mother and Laura.
+
+"Here's something for you, mother," he said, assuming a cheerful voice,
+as he took a fold of fine silk from the trunk and held it up. "All the
+way from Paris." He laid it on his mother's lap and stooped and kissed
+her, and then turned hastily away to hide the tears that came to his own
+eyes as he saw her keen pleasure.
+
+"And here's a parasol for Laura. I don't know how I came to have that in
+here. And here's General Grant's autobiography for his namesake," he
+said, with an effort at carelessness, and waited to hear Grant rise.
+
+"Grant, won't you come in?" asked his mother, quiveringly.
+
+Grant did not reply nor move. Laura took the handsome volumes out and
+laid them beside him on the table. He simply pushed them to one side and
+went on with his reading.
+
+Again that horrible anger swept hot as flame over Howard. He could have
+cursed him. His hands shook as he handed out other presents to his
+mother and Laura and the baby. He tried to joke.
+
+"I didn't know how old the baby was, so she'll have to grow to some of
+these things."
+
+But the pleasure was all gone for him and for the rest. His heart
+swelled almost to a feeling of pain as he looked at his mother. There
+she sat with the presents in her lap. The shining silk came too late for
+her. It threw into appalling relief her age, her poverty, her work-weary
+frame. "My God!" he almost cried aloud, "how little it would have taken
+to lighten her life!"
+
+Upon this moment, when it seemed as if he could endure no more, came the
+smooth voice of William McTurg:
+
+"Hello, folkses!"
+
+"Hello, Uncle Bill! Come in."
+
+"That's what we came for," laughed a woman's voice.
+
+"Is that you, Rose?" asked Laura.
+
+"It's me--Rose," replied the laughing girl, as she bounced into the room
+and greeted everybody in a breathless sort of way.
+
+"You don't mean little Rosy?"
+
+"Big Rosy now," said William.
+
+Howard looked at the handsome girl and smiled, saying in a nasal sort of
+tone, "Wal, wal! Rosy, how you've growed since I saw yeh!"
+
+"Oh, look at all this purple and fine linen! Am I left out?"
+
+Rose was a large girl of twenty-five or thereabouts, and was called an
+old maid. She radiated good-nature from every line of her buxom self.
+Her black eyes were full of drollery, and she was on the best of terms
+with Howard at once. She had been a teacher, but that did not prevent
+her from assuming a homely directness of speech. Of course they talked
+about old friends.
+
+"Where's Rachel?" Howard inquired. Her smile faded away.
+
+"Shellie married Orrin McIlvaine. They're 'way out in Dakota. Shellie's
+havin' a hard row of stumps."
+
+There was a little silence.
+
+"And Tommy?"
+
+"Gone West. Most all the boys have gone West. That's the reason there's
+so many old maids."
+
+"You don't mean to say--"
+
+"I don't need to say--I'm an old maid. Lots of the girls are. It don't
+pay to marry these days." "Are you married?"
+
+"Not yet." His eyes lighted up again in a humorous way.
+
+"Not yet! That's good! That's the way old maids all talk."
+
+"You don't mean to tell me that no young fellow comes prowling around--"
+
+"Oh, a young Dutchman or Norwegian once in a while. Nobody that counts.
+Fact is, we're getting like Boston--four women to one man; and when you
+consider that we're getting more particular each year, the outlook
+is--well, it's dreadful!"
+
+"It certainly is."
+
+"Marriage is a failure these days for most of us. We can't live on a
+farm, and can't get a living in the city, and there we are." She laid
+her hand on his arm. "I declare, Howard, you're the same boy you used to
+be. I ain't a bit afraid of you, for all your success."
+
+"And you're the same girl? No, I can't say that. It seems to me you've
+grown more than I have--I don't mean physically, I mean mentally," he
+explained, as he saw her smile in the defensive way a fleshy girl has,
+alert to ward off a joke.
+
+They were in the midst of talk, Howard telling one of his funny stories,
+when a wagon clattered up to the door, and merry voices called loudly:
+
+"Whoa, there, Sampson!"
+
+"Hullo, the house!"
+
+Rose looked at her father with a smile in her black eyes exactly like
+his. They went to the door.
+
+"Hullo! What's wanted?"
+
+"Grant McLane live here?"
+
+"Yup. Right here."
+
+A moment later there came a laughing, chattering squad of women to the
+door. Mrs. McLane and Laura stared at each other in amazement. Grant
+went outdoors.
+
+Rose stood at the door as if she were hostess.
+
+"Come in, Nettie. Glad to see yeh--glad to see yeh! Mrs. McIlvaine,
+come right in! Take a seat. Make yerself to home, do! And Mrs. Peavey!
+Wal, I never! This must be a surprise party. Well, I swan! How many more
+o' ye air they?"
+
+All was confusion, merriment, hand-shakings as Rose introduced them in
+her roguish way.
+
+"Folks, this is Mr. Howard McLane of New York. He's an actor, but it
+hain't spoiled him a bit as I can see. How., this is Nettie
+McIlvaine--Wilson that was."
+
+Howard shook hands with Nettie, a tall, plain girl with prominent teeth.
+
+"This is Ma McIlvaine."
+
+"She looks just the same," said Howard, shaking her hand and feeling how
+hard and work-worn it was.
+
+And so amid bustle, chatter, and invitations "to lay off y'r things an'
+stay awhile," the women got disposed about the room at last. Those that
+had rocking-chairs rocked vigorously to and fro to hide their
+embarrassment. They all talked in loud voices.
+
+Howard felt nervous under this furtive scrutiny. He wished that his
+clothes didn't look so confoundedly dressy. Why didn't he have sense
+enough to go and buy a fifteen-dollar suit of diagonals for everyday
+wear.
+
+Rose was the life of the party. Her tongue rattled on in the most
+delightful way.
+
+"It's all Rose and Bill's doin's," Mrs. McIlvaine explained. "They told
+us to come over and pick up anybody we see on the road. So we did."
+
+Howard winced a little at her familiarity of tone. He couldn't help it
+for the life of him.
+
+"Well, I wanted to come to-night because I'm going away next week, and I
+wanted to see how he'd act at a surprise-party again," Rose explained.
+
+"Married, I s'pose," said Mrs. McIlvaine, abruptly.
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"Good land! Why, y' mus' be thirty-five, How. Must 'a' dis'p'inted y'r
+mam not to have a young 'un to call 'er granny."
+
+The men came clumping in, talking about haying and horses. Some of the
+older ones Howard knew and greeted, but the younger ones were mainly too
+much changed. They were all very ill at ease. Some of them were in
+compromise dress--something lying between working "rig" and Sunday
+dress. Most of them had on clean shirts and paper collars, and wore
+their Sunday coats (thick woollen garments) over rough trousers. Most of
+them crossed their legs at once, and all of them sought the wall and
+leaned back perilously upon the hind legs of their chairs, eyeing Howard
+slowly.
+
+For the first few minutes the presents were the subjects of
+conversation. The women especially spent a good deal of talk upon them.
+
+Howard found himself forced to taking the initiative, so he inquired
+about the crops and about the farms.
+
+"I see you don't plough the hills as we used to. And reap! What a job it
+used to be. It makes the hills more beautiful to have them covered with
+smooth grass and cattle."
+
+There was only dead silence to this touching upon the idea of beauty.
+
+"I s'pose it pays reasonably?"
+
+"Not enough to kill," said one of the younger men. "You c'n see that by
+the houses we live in--that is, most of us. A few that came in early
+an' got land cheap, like McIlvaine, here--he got a lift that the rest of
+us can't get."
+
+"I'm a free-trader, myself," said one young fellow, blushing and looking
+away as Howard turned and said cheerily:
+
+"So'm I."
+
+The rest semed to feel that this was a tabooed subject--a subject to be
+talked out of doors, where a man could prance about and yell and do
+justice to it.
+
+Grant sat silently in the kitchen doorway, not saying a word, not
+looking at his brother.
+
+"Well, I don't never use hot vinegar for mine," Mrs. McIlvaine was heard
+to say. "I jest use hot water, and I rinse 'em out good, and set 'em
+bottom-side up in the sun. I do' know but what hot vinegar would be more
+cleansin'."
+
+Rose had the younger folks in a giggle with a droll telling of a joke on
+herself.
+
+"How d' y' stop 'em from laffin'?"
+
+"I let 'em laugh. Oh, my school is a disgrace--so one director says. But
+I like to see children laugh. It broadens their cheeks."
+
+"Yes, that's all hand-work." Laura was showing the baby's Sunday
+clothes.
+
+"Goodness Peter! How do you find time to do so much?"
+
+"I take time."
+
+Howard, being the lion of the evening, tried his best to be agreeable.
+He kept near his mother, because it afforded her so much pride and
+satisfaction, and because he was obliged to keep away from Grant, who
+had begun to talk to the men. Howard talked mainly about their affairs,
+but still was forced more and more into talking of life in the city. As
+he told of the theatre and the concerts, a sudden change fell upon them;
+they grew sober, and he felt deep down in the hearts of these people a
+melancholy which was expressed only illusively with little tones or
+sighs. Their gayety was fitful.
+
+They were hungry for the world, for life--these young people.
+Discontented, and yet hardly daring to acknowledge it; indeed, few of
+them could have made definite statement of their dissatisfaction. The
+older people felt it less. They practically said, with a sigh of
+pathetic resignation:
+
+"Well, I don't expect ever to see these things now."
+
+A casual observer would have said, "What a pleasant bucolic--this little
+surprise-party of welcome!" But Howard, with his native ear and eye, had
+no such pleasing illusion. He knew too well these suggestions of
+despair and bitterness. He knew that, like the smile of the slave, this
+cheerfulness was self-defence; deep down was another unsatisfied ego.
+
+Seeing Grant talking with a group of men over by the kitchen door, he
+crossed over slowly and stood listening. Wesley Cosgrove--a tall,
+raw-boned young fellow with a grave, almost tragic face--was saying:
+
+"Of course I ain't. Who is? A man that's satisfied to live as we do is a
+fool."
+
+"The worst of it is," said Grant, without seeing Howard, "a man can't
+get out of it during his lifetime, and I don't know that he'll have any
+chance in the next--the speculator 'll be there ahead of us."
+
+The rest laughed, but Grant went on grimly:
+
+"Ten years ago Wess, here, could have got land in Dakota pretty easy,
+but now it's about all a feller's life's worth to try it. I tell you
+things seem shuttin' down on us fellers."
+
+"Plenty o' land to rent," suggested some one.
+
+"Yes, in terms that skin a man alive. More than that, farmin' ain't so
+free a life as it used to be. This cattle-raisin' and butter-makin'
+makes a nigger of a man. Binds him right down to the grindstone and he
+gets nothin' out of it--that's what rubs it in. He simply wallers around
+in the manure for somebody else. I'd like to know what a man's life is
+worth who lives as we do? How much higher is it than the lives the
+niggers used to live?"
+
+These brutally bald words made Howard thrill with emotion like the
+reading of some great tragic poem. A silence fell on the group.
+
+"That's the God's truth, Grant," said young Cosgrove, after a pause.
+
+"A man like me is helpless," Grant was saying. "Just like a fly in a pan
+of molasses. There's no escape for him. The more he tears around the
+more liable he is to rip his legs off."
+
+"What can he do?"
+
+"Nothin'."
+
+The men listened in silence.
+
+"Oh, come, don't talk politics all night!" cried Rose, breaking in.
+"Come, let's have a dance. Where's that fiddle?"
+
+"Fiddle!" cried Howard, glad of a chance to laugh. "Well, now! Bring out
+that fiddle. Is it William's?"
+
+"Yes, pap's old fiddle."
+
+"O Gosh! he don't want to hear me play," protested William. "He's heard
+s' many fiddlers."
+
+"Fiddlers! I've heard a thousand violinists, but not fiddlers. Come,
+give us 'Honest John.'"
+
+William took the fiddle in his work-calloused and crooked hands and
+began tuning it. The group at the kitchen door turned to listen, their
+faces lighting up a little. Rose tried to get a "set" on the floor.
+
+"Oh, good land!" said some. "We're all tuckered out. What makes you so
+anxious?"
+
+"She wants a chance to dance with the New Yorker."
+
+"That's it, exactly," Rose admitted.
+
+"Wal, if you'd churned and mopped and cooked for hayin' hands as I have
+to-day, you wouldn't be so full o' nonsense."
+
+"Oh, bother! Life's short. Come quick, get Bettie out. Come, Wess, never
+mind your hobby-horse."
+
+By incredible exertion she got a set on the floor, and William got the
+fiddle in tune. Howard looked across at Wesley, and thought the change
+in him splendidly dramatic. His face had lighted with a timid,
+deprecating, boyish smile. Rose could do anything with him.
+
+William played some of the old tunes that had a thousand associated
+memories in Howard's brain, memories of harvest-moons, of melon-feasts,
+and of clear, cold winter nights. As he danced, his eyes filled with a
+tender light. He came closer to them all than he had been able to do
+before. Grant had gone out into the kitchen.
+
+After two or three sets had been danced, the company took seats and
+could not be stirred again. So Laura and Rose disappeared for a few
+moments, and returning, served strawberries and cream, which Laura said
+she "just happened to have in the house."
+
+And then William played again. His fingers, now grown more supple,
+brought out clearer, firmer tones. As he played, silence fell on these
+people. The magic of music sobered every face; the women looked older
+and more careworn, the men slouched sullenly in their chairs, or leaned
+back against the wall.
+
+It seemed to Howard as if the spirit of tragedy had entered this house.
+Music had always been William's unconscious expression of his
+unsatisfied desires. He was never melancholy except when he played. Then
+his eyes grew sombre, his drooping face full of shadows.
+
+He played on slowly, softly, wailing Scotch tunes and mournful Irish
+love songs. He seemed to find in these melodies, and especially in a
+wild, sweet, low-keyed negro song, some expression for his indefinable
+inner melancholy.
+
+He played on, forgetful of everybody, his long beard sweeping the
+violin, his toil-worn hands marvellously obedient to his will.
+
+At last he stopped, looked up with a faint, apologetic smile, and said
+with a sigh:
+
+"Well, folkses, time to go home."
+
+The going was quiet. Not much laughing. Howard stood at the door and
+said good-night to them all, his heart very tender.
+
+"Come and see us," they said.
+
+"I will," he replied cordially. "I'll try and get around to see
+everybody, and talk over old times, before I go back."
+
+After the wagons had driven out of the yard, Howard turned and put his
+arm about his mother's neck.
+
+"Tired?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"Well, now good night. I'm going for a little stroll."
+
+His brain was too active to sleep. He kissed his mother good-night, and
+went out into the road, his hat in his hand, the cool moist wind on his
+hair.
+
+It was very dark, the stars being partly hidden by a thin vapor. On each
+side the hills rose, every line familiar as the face of an old friend. A
+whippoorwill called occasionally from the hillside, and the spasmodic
+jangle of a bell now and then told of some cow's battle with the
+mosquitoes.
+
+As he walked, he pondered upon the tragedy he had rediscovered in these
+people's lives. Out here under the inexorable spaces of the sky, a deep
+distaste of his own life took possession of him. He felt like giving it
+all up. He thought of the infinite tragedy of these lives which the
+world loves to call peaceful and pastoral. His mind went out in the aim
+to help them. What could he do to make life better worth living? 
+Nothing.
+
+They must live and die practically as he saw them to-night.
+
+And yet he knew this was a mood, and that in a few hours the love and
+the habit of life would come back upon him and upon them; that he would
+go back to the city in a few days; that these people would live on and
+make the best of it.
+
+"I'll make the best of it," he said at last, and his thought came back
+to his mother and Grant.
+
+IV
+
+The next day was a rainy day; not a shower, but a steady rain--an
+unusual thing in midsummer in the West. A cold, dismal day in the
+fireless, colorless farmhouses. It came to Howard in that peculiar
+reaction which surely comes during a visit of this character, when
+thought is a weariness, when the visitor longs for his own familiar
+walls and pictures and books, and longs to meet his friends, feeling at
+the same time the tragedy of life which makes friends nearer and more
+congenial than blood-relations.
+
+Howard ate his breakfast alone, save Baby and Laura its mother going
+about the room. Baby and mother alike insisted on feeding him to death.
+Already dyspeptic pangs were setting in.
+
+"Now ain't there something more I can--"
+
+"Good heavens! No!" he cried in dismay. "I'm likely to die of dyspepsia
+now. This honey and milk, and these delicious hot biscuits--"
+
+"I'm afraid it ain't much like the breakfasts you have in the city."
+
+"Well, no, it ain't," he confessed. "But this is the kind a man needs
+when he lives in the open air."
+
+She sat down opposite him, with her elbows on the table, her chin in her
+palm, her eyes full of shadows.
+
+"I'd like to go to a city once. I never saw a town bigger'n La Crosse.
+I've never seen a play, but I've read of 'em in the magazines. It must
+be wonderful; they say they have wharves and real ships coming up to the
+wharf, and people getting off and on. How do they do it?"
+
+"Oh, that's too long a story to tell. It's a lot of machinery and paint
+and canvas. If I told you how it was done, you wouldn't enjoy it so well
+when you come on and see it."
+
+"Do you ever expect to see me in New York?"
+
+"Why, yes. Why not? I expect Grant to come on and bring you all some
+day, especially Tonikins here. Tonikins, you hear, sir? I expect you to
+come on you' forf birfday, sure." He tried thus to stop the woman's
+gloomy confidence.
+
+"I hate farm-life," she went on with a bitter inflection. "It's nothing
+but fret, fret, and work the whole time, never going any place, never
+seeing anybody but a lot of neighbors just as big fools as you are. I
+spend my time fighting flies and washing dishes and churning. I'm sick
+of it all."
+
+Howard was silent. What could he say to such an indictment? The ceiling
+swarmed with flies which the cold rain had driven to seek the warmth of
+the kitchen. The gray rain was falling with a dreary sound outside, and
+down the kitchen stove-pipe an occasional drop fell on the stove with a
+hissing, angry sound.
+
+The young wife went on with a deeper note:
+
+"I lived in La Crosse two years, going to school, and I know a little
+something of what city life is. If I was a man, I bet I wouldn't wear my
+life out on a farm, as Grant does. I'd get away and I'd do something. I
+wouldn't care what, but I'd get away."
+
+There was a certain volcanic energy back of all the woman said, that
+made Howard feel she would make the attempt. She did not know that the
+struggle for a place to stand on this planet was eating the heart and
+soul out of men and women in the city, just as in the country. But he
+could say nothing. If he had said in conventional phrase, sitting there
+in his soft clothing, "We must make the best of it all," the woman could
+justly have thrown the dish-cloth in his face. He could say nothing.
+
+"I was a fool for ever marrying," she went on, while the baby pushed a
+chair across the room. "I made a decent living teaching, I was free to
+come and go, my money was my own. Now I'm tied right down to a churn or
+a dish-pan, I never have a cent of my own. He's growlin' 'round half the
+time, and there's no chance of his ever being different."
+
+She stopped with a bitter sob in her throat. She forgot she was talking
+to her husband's brother. She was conscious only of his sympathy.
+
+As if a great black cloud had settled down upon him, Howard felt it
+all--the horror, hopelessness, imminent tragedy of it all. The glory of
+nature, the bounty and splendor of the sky, only made it the more
+benumbing. He thought of a sentence Millet once wrote:
+
+"I see very well the aureole of the dandelions, and the sun also, far
+down there behind the hills, flinging his glory upon the clouds. But not
+alone that--I see in the plains the smoke of the tired horses at the
+plough, or, on a stony-hearted spot of ground, a back-broken man trying
+to raise himself upright for a moment to breathe. The tragedy is
+surrounded by glories--that is no invention of mine."
+
+Howard arose abruptly and went back to his little bedroom, where he
+walked up and down the floor till he was calm enough to write, and then
+he sat down and poured it all out to "Dearest Margaret," and his first
+sentence was this:
+
+"If it were not for you (just to let you know the mood I'm in)--if it
+were not for you, and I had the world in my hands, I'd crush it like a
+puff-ball; evil so predominates, suffering is so universal and
+persistent, happiness so fleeting and so infrequent."
+
+He wrote on for two hours, and by the time he had sealed and directed
+several letters he felt calmer, but still terribly depressed. The rain
+was still falling, sweeping down from the half-seen hills, wreathing the
+wooded peaks with a gray garment of mist, and filling the valley with a
+whitish cloud.
+
+It fell around the house drearily. It ran down into the tubs placed to
+catch it, dripped from the mossy pump, and drummed on the upturned
+milk-pails, and upon the brown and yellow beehives under the maple
+trees. The chickens seemed depressed, but the irrepressible bluejay
+screamed amid it all, with the same insolent spirit, his plumage
+untarnished by the wet. The barnyard showed a horrible mixture of mud
+and mire, through which Howard caught glimpses of the men, slumping to
+and fro without more additional protection than a ragged coat and a
+shapeless felt hat.
+
+In the sitting room where his mother sat sewing there was not an
+ornament, save the etching he had brought. The clock stood on a small
+shell, its dial so much defaced that one could not tell the time of day;
+and when it struck, it was with noticeably disproportionate
+deliberation, as if it wished to correct any mistake into which the
+family might have fallen by reason of its illegible dial.
+
+The paper on the walls showed the first concession of the Puritans to
+the Spirit of Beauty, and was made up of a heterogeneous mixture of
+flowers of unheard-of shapes and colors, arranged in four different ways
+along the wall. There were no books, no music, and only a few newspapers
+in sight--a bare, blank, cold, drab-colored shelter from the rain, not a
+home. Nothing cozy, nothing heart-warming; a grim and horrible shed.
+
+"What are they doing? It can't be they're at work such a day as this,"
+Howard said, standing at the window.
+
+"They find plenty to do, even on rainy days," answered his mother.
+"Grant always has some job to set the men at. It's the only way to
+live."
+
+"I'll go out and see them." He turned suddenly. "Mother, why should
+Grant treat me so? Have I deserved it?"
+
+Mrs. McLane sighed in pathetic hopelessness. "I don't know, Howard. I'm
+worried about Grant. He gets more an' more down-hearted an' gloomy every
+day. Seems if he'd go crazy. He don't care how he looks any more, won't
+dress up on Sunday. Days an' days he'll go aroun' not sayin' a word. I
+was in hopes you could help him, Howard."
+
+"My coming seems to have had an opposite effect. He hasn't spoken a word
+to me, except when he had to, since I came. Mother, what do you say to
+going home with me to New York?"
+
+"Oh, I couldn't do that!" she cried in terror. "I couldn't live in a
+big city--never!"
+
+"There speaks the truly rural mind," smiled Howard at his mother, who
+was looking up at him through her glasses with a pathetic forlornness
+which sobered him again. "Why, mother, you could live in Orange, New
+Jersey, or out in Connecticut, and be just as lonesome as you are here.
+You wouldn't need to live in the city. I could see you then every day or
+two."
+
+"Well, I couldn't leave Grant an' the baby, anyway," she replied, not
+realizing how one could live in New Jersey and do business daily in New
+York.
+
+"Well, then, how would you like to go back into the old house?"
+
+The patient hands fell to the lap, the dim eyes fixed in searching
+glance on his face. There was a wistful cry in the voice.
+
+"Oh, Howard! Do you mean--"
+
+He came and sat down by her, and put his arm about her and hugged her
+hard. "I mean, you dear, good, patient, work-weary old mother, I'm going
+to buy back the old farm and put you in it."
+
+There was no refuge for her now except in tears, and she put up her
+thin, trembling old hands about his neck, and cried in that easy,
+placid, restful way age has.
+
+Howard could not speak. His throat ached with remorse and pity. He saw
+his forgetfulness of them all once more without relief,--the black thing
+it was!
+
+"There, there, mother, don't cry!" he said, torn with anguish by her
+tears. Measured by man's tearlessness, her weeping seemed terrible to
+him. "I didn't realize how things were going here. It was all my
+fault--or, at least, most of it. Grant's letter didn't reach me. I
+thought you were still on the old farm. But no matter; it's all over
+now. Come, don't cry any more, mother dear. I'm going to take care of
+you now."
+
+It had been years since the poor, lonely woman had felt such warmth of
+love. Her sons had been like her husband, chary of expressing their
+affection; and like most Puritan families, there was little of caressing
+among them. Sitting there with the rain on the roof and driving through
+the trees, they planned getting back into the old house. Howard's plan
+seemed to her full of splendor and audacity. She began to understand his
+power and wealth now, as he put it into concrete form before her.
+
+"I wish I could eat Thanksgiving dinner there with you," he said at
+last, "but it can't be thought of. However, I'll have you all in there
+before I go home. I'm going out now and tell Grant. Now don't worry any
+more; I'm going to fix it all up with him, sure." He gave her a parting
+hug.
+
+Laura advised him not to attempt to get to the barn; but as he persisted
+in going, she hunted up an old rubber coat for him. "You'll mire down
+and spoil your shoes," she said, glancing at his neat calf gaiters.
+
+"Darn the difference!" he laughed in his old way. "Besides, I've got
+rubbers."
+
+"Better go round by the fence," she advised, as he stepped out into the
+pouring rain.
+
+How wretchedly familiar it all was! The miry cow-yard, with the hollow
+trampled out around the horse-trough, the disconsolate hens standing
+under the wagons and sheds, a pig wallowing across its sty, and for
+atmosphere the desolate, falling rain. It was so familiar he felt a pang
+of the old rebellious despair which seized him on such days in his
+boyhood.
+
+Catching up courage, he stepped out on the grass, opened the gate and
+entered the barn-yard. A narrow ribbon of turf ran around the fence, on
+which he could walk by clinging with one hand to the rough boards. In
+this way he slowly made his way around the periphery, and came at last
+to the open barn-door without much harm.
+
+It was a desolate interior. In the open floor-way Grant, seated upon a
+half-bushel, was mending a harness. The old man was holding the trace in
+his hard brown hands; the boy was lying on a wisp of hay. It was a small
+barn, and poor at that. There was a bad smell, as of dead rats, about
+it, and the rain fell through the shingles here and there. To the right,
+and below, the horses stood, looking up with their calm and beautiful
+eyes, in which the whole scene was idealized.
+
+Grant looked up an instant, and then went on with his work.
+
+"Did yeh wade through?" grinned Lewis, exposing his broken teeth.
+
+"No, I kinder circumambiated the pond." He sat down on the little
+tool-box near Grant. "Your barn is good deal like that in 'The Arkansaw
+Traveller.' Needs a new roof, Grant." His voice had a pleasant sound,
+full of the tenderness of the scene through which he had just been.
+"In fact, you need a new barn."
+
+"I need a good many things more'n I'll ever get," Grant replied shortly.
+
+"How long did you say you'd been on this farm?"
+
+"Three years this fall."
+
+"I don't s'pose you've been able to think of buying--Now hold on,
+Grant," he cried, as Grant threw his head back. "For God's sake, don't
+get mad again! Wait till you see what I'm driving at."
+
+"I don't see what you're drivin' at, and I don't care. All I want you to
+do is to let us alone. That ought to be easy enough for you."
+
+"I tell you, I didn't get your letter. I didn't know you'd lost the old
+farm." Howard was determined not to quarrel. "I didn't suppose--"
+
+"You might 'a' come to see."
+
+"Well, I'll admit that. All I can say in excuse is that since I got to
+managing plays I've kept looking ahead to making a big hit and getting a
+barrel of money--just as the old miners used to hope and watch. Besides,
+you don't understand how much pressure there is on me. A hundred
+different people pulling and hauling to have me go here or go there, or
+do this or do that. When it isn't yachting, it's canoeing, or--"
+
+He stopped. His heart gave a painful throb, and a shiver ran through
+him. Again he saw his life, so rich, so bright, so free, set over
+against the routine life in the little low kitchen, the barren sitting
+room, and this still more horrible barn. Why should his brother sit
+there in wet and grimy clothing, mending a broken trace, while he
+enjoyed all the light and civilization of the age?
+
+He looked at Grant's fine figure, his great, strong face; recalled his
+deep, stern, masterful voice. "Am I so much superior to him? Have not
+circumstances made me and destroyed him?"
+
+"Grant, for God's sake, don't sit there like that! I'll admit I've been
+negligent and careless. I can't understand it all myself. But let me do
+something for you now. I've sent to New York for five thousand dollars.
+I've got terms on the old farm. Let me see you all back there once more
+before I return."
+
+"I don't want any of your charity."
+
+"It ain't charity. It's only justice to you." He rose. "Come now, let's
+get at an understanding, Grant. I can't go on this way. I can't go back
+to New York and leave you here like this."
+
+Grant rose, too. "I tell you, I don't ask your help. You can't fix this
+thing up with money. If you've got more brains'n I have, why, it's all
+right. I ain't got any right to take anything that I don't earn."
+
+"But you don't get what you do earn. It ain't your fault. I begin to see
+it now. Being the oldest, I had the best chance. I was going to town to
+school while you were ploughing and husking corn. Of course I thought
+you'd be going soon yourself. I had three years the start of you. If
+you'd been in my place, you might have met a man like Cook, you might
+have gone to New York and have been where I am".
+
+"Well, it can't be helped now. So drop it."
+
+"But it must be helped!" Howard said, pacing about, his hands in his
+coat-pockets. Grant had stopped work, and was gloomily looking out of
+the door at a pig nosing in the mud for stray grains of wheat at the
+granary door. The old man and the boy quietly withdrew.
+
+"Good God! I see it all now," Howard burst out in an impassioned tone.
+"I went ahead with my education, got my start in life, then father died,
+and you took up his burdens. Circumstances made me and crushed you.
+That's all there is about that. Luck made me and cheated you. It ain't
+right."
+
+His voice faltered. Both men were now oblivious of their companions and
+of the scene. Both were thinking of the days when they both planned
+great things in the way of an education, two ambitious, dreamful boys.
+
+"I used to think of you, Grant, when I pulled out Monday morning in my
+best suit--cost fifteen dollars in those days." He smiled a little at
+the recollection. "While you in overalls and an old 'wammus' was going
+out into the field to plough, or husk corn in the mud. It made me feel
+uneasy, but, as I said, I kept saying to myself, 'His turn'll come in a
+year or two.' But it didn't."
+
+His voice choked. He walked to the door, stood a moment, came back. His
+eyes were full of tears.
+
+"I tell you, old man, many a time in my boarding-house down to the city,
+when I thought of the jolly times I was having, my heart hurt me. But I
+said, 'It's no use to cry. Better go on and do the best you can, and
+then help them afterward. There'll only be one more miserable member of
+the family if you stay at home.' Besides, it seemed right to me to have
+first chance. But I never thought you'd be shut off, Grant. If I had, I
+never would have gone on. Come, old man, I want you to believe that."
+His voice was very tender now and almost humble.
+
+"I don't know as I blame you for that, How.," said Grant, slowly. It was
+the first time he had called Howard by his boyish nickname. His voice
+was softer, too, and higher in key. But he looked steadily away.
+
+"I went to New York. People liked my work. I was very successful, Grant;
+more successful than you realize. I could have helped you at any time.
+There's no use lying about it. And I ought to have done it; but some
+way--it's no excuse, I don't mean it for an excuse, only an
+explanation--some way I got in with the boys. I don't mean I was a
+drinker and all that. But I bought pictures and kept a horse and a
+yacht, and of course I had to pay my share of all expeditions, and--oh,
+what's the use!"
+
+He broke off, turned, and threw his open palms out toward his brother,
+as if throwing aside the last attempt at an excuse.
+
+"I did neglect you, and it's a damned shame! and I ask your forgiveness.
+Come, old man!"
+
+He held out his hand, and Grant slowly approached and took it. There was
+a little silence. Then Howard went on, his voice trembling, the tears on
+his face.
+
+"I want you to let me help you, old man. That's the way to forgive me.
+Will you?"
+
+"Yes, if you can help me."
+
+Howard squeezed his hand. "That's all right, old man. Now you make me a
+boy again. Course I can help you. I've got ten--"
+
+"I don't mean that, How." Grant's voice was very grave. "Money can't
+give me a chance now."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean life ain't worth very much to me. I'm too old to take a new
+start. I'm a dead failure. I've come to the conclusion that life's a
+failure for ninety-nine per cent of us. You can't help me now. It's too
+late."
+
+The two men stood there, face to face, hands clasped, the one
+fair-skinned, full-lipped, handsome in his neat suit; the other tragic,
+sombre in his softened mood, his large, long, rugged Scotch face bronzed
+with sun and scarred with wrinkles that had histories, like sabre-cuts
+on a veteran, the record of his battles.
+
+
+
+Among the Corn-Rows
+
+"But the road sometimes passes a rich meadow, where the songs of larks
+and bobolinks and blackbirds are tangled."
+
+I
+
+Rob held up his hands, from which the dough depended in ragged strings.
+
+"Biscuits," he said, with an elaborate working of his jaws, intended to
+convey the idea that they were going to be specially delicious.
+
+Seagraves laughed, but did not enter the shanty door. "How do you like
+baching it?"
+
+"Oh, don't mention it!" entreated Rob, mauling the dough again. "Come in
+an' sit down. What in thunder y' standin' out there for?"
+
+"Oh, I'd rather be where I can see the prairie. Great weather!"
+
+"Im-mense!"
+
+"How goes breaking?"
+
+"Tip-top! A leette dry now; but the bulls pull the plough through two
+acres a day. How's things in Boomtown?"
+
+"Oh, same old grind."
+
+"Judge still lyin'?"
+
+"Still at it."
+
+"Major Mullens still swearin' to it?"
+
+"You hit it like a mallet. Railroad schemes are thicker 'n
+prairie-chickens. You've got grit, Rob. I don't have anything but
+crackers and sardines over to my shanty, and here you are making
+soda-biscuit."
+
+"I have t' do it. Couldn't break if I didn't. You editors c'n take
+things easy, lay around on the prairie, and watch the plovers and
+medderlarks; but we settlers have got to work."
+
+Leaving Rob to sputter over his cooking, Seagraves took his slow way
+off down toward the oxen grazing in a little hollow. The scene was
+characteristically, wonderfully beautiful. It was about five o'clock
+in a day in late June, and the level plain was green and yellow, and
+infinite in reach as a sea; the lowering sun was casting over its
+distant swells a faint impalpable mist, through which the breaking teams
+on the neighboring claims ploughed noiselessly, as figures in a dream.
+The whistle of gophers, the faint, wailing, fluttering cry of the
+falling plover, the whir of the swift-winged prairie-pigeon, or the
+quack of a lonely duck, came through the shimmering air. The lark's
+infrequent whistle, piercingly sweet, broke from the longer grass in the
+swales nearby. No other climate, sky, plain, could produce the same
+unnamable weird charm. No tree to wave, no grass to rustle, scarcely a
+sound of domestic life; only the faint melancholy soughing of the wind
+in the short grass, and the voices of the wild things of the prairie.
+
+Seagraves, an impressionable young man (junior editor of the Boomtown
+Spike), threw himself down on the sod, pulled his hat-rim down over his
+eyes, and looked away over the plain. It was the second year of
+Boomtown's existence, and Seagraves had not yet grown restless under its
+monotony. Around him the gophers played saucily. Teams were moving here
+and there across the sod, with a peculiar noiseless, effortless motion,
+that made them seem as calm, lazy, and insubstantial as the mist through
+which they made their way; even the sound of passing wagons seemed a
+sort of low, well-fed, self-satisfied chuckle.
+
+Seagraves, "holding down a claim" near Rob, had come to see his
+neighboring "bach" because feeling the need of company; but now that he
+was near enough to hear him prancing about getting supper, he was
+content to lie alone on a slope of the green sod.
+
+The silence of the prairie at night was well-nigh terrible. Many a
+night, as Seagraves lay in his bunk against the side of his cabin, he
+would strain his ear to hear the slightest sound, and be listening thus
+sometimes for minutes before the squeak of a mouse or the step of a
+passing fox came as a relief to the aching sense. In the daytime,
+however, and especially on a morning, the prairie was another thing. The
+pigeons, the larks, the cranes, the multitudinous voices of the
+ground-birds and snipes and insects, made the air pulsate with sound--a
+chorus that died away into an infinite murmur of music.
+
+"Hello, Seagraves!" yelled Rob from the door. "The biscuit are 'most
+done."
+
+Seagraves did not speak, only nodded his head, and slowly rose. The
+faint clouds in the west were getting a superb flame-color above and a
+misty purple below, and the sun had pierced them with lances of yellow
+light. As the air grew denser with moisture, the sounds of neighboring
+life began to reach the ear. Children screamed and laughed, and afar off
+a woman was singing a lullaby. The rattle of wagons and the voices of
+men speaking to their teams multiplied. Ducks in a neighboring lowland
+were quacking sociably. The whole scene took hold upon Seagraves with
+irresistible power.
+
+"It is American," he exclaimed. "No other land or time can match this
+mellow air, this wealth of color, much less the strange social
+conditions of life on this sunlit Dakota prairie."
+
+Rob, though visibly affected by the scene also, couldn't let his
+biscuit spoil or go without proper attention.
+
+"Say, ain't y' comin' t' grub?" he asked impatiently.
+
+"In a minute," replied his friend, taking a last wistful look at the
+scene. "I want one more look at the landscape."
+
+"Landscape be blessed! If you'd been breakin' all day--Come, take that
+stool an' draw up."
+
+"No; I'll take the candle-box."
+
+"Not much. I know what manners are, if I am a bull-driver."
+
+Seagraves took the three-legged and rather precarious-looking stool and
+drew up to the table, which was a flat broad box nailed up against the
+side of the wall, with two strips of board spiked at the outer corners
+for legs.
+
+"How's that f'r a lay-out?" Rob inquired proudly.
+
+"Well, you have spread yourself! Biscuit and canned peaches and sardines
+and cheese. Why, this is--is--prodigal."
+
+"It ain't nothin' else."
+
+Rob was from one of the finest counties of Wisconsin, over toward
+Milwaukee. He was of German parentage, a middle-sized, cheery,
+wide-awake, good-looking young fellow--a typical claim-holder. He was
+always confident, jovial, and full of plans for the future. He had dug
+his own well, built his own shanty, washed and mended his own clothing.
+He could do anything, and do it well. He had a fine field of wheat, and
+was finishing the ploughing of his entire quarter-section.
+
+"This is what I call settin' under a feller's own vine an' fig
+tree"--after Seagraves' compliments--"an' I like it. I'm my own boss. No
+man can say 'come here' 'r 'go there' to me. I get up when I'm a min'
+to, an' go t' bed when I'm a min' to."
+
+"Some drawbacks, I s'pose?"
+
+"Yes. Mice, f'r instance, give me a devilish lot o' trouble. They get
+into my flour-barrel, eat up my cheese, an' fall into my well. But it
+ain't no use t' swear."
+
+Seagraves quoted an old rhyme:
+
+   "'The rats and the mice they made such a strife
+    He had to go to London to buy him a wife.'"
+
+"Don't blush. I've probed your secret thought."
+
+"Well, to tell the honest truth," said Rob, a little sheepishly, leaning
+across the table, "I ain't satisfied with my style o' cookin'. It's
+good, but a little too plain, y' know. I'd like a change. It ain't much
+fun to break all day, and then go to work an' cook y'r own supper."
+
+"No, I should say not."
+
+"This fall I'm going back to Wisconsin. Girls are thick as huckleberries
+back there, and I'm goin' t' bring one back, now you hear me."
+
+"Good! That's the plan," laughed Seagraves, amused at a certain timid
+and apprehensive look in his companion's eye. "Just think what a woman
+would do to put this shanty in shape; and think how nice it would be to
+take her arm and saunter out after supper, and look at the farm, and
+plan, and lay out gardens and paths, and tend the chickens!"
+
+Rob's manly and self-reliant nature had the settler's typical buoyancy
+and hopefulness, as well as a certain power of analysis, which enabled
+him now to say: "The fact is, we fellers holdin' down claims out here
+ain't fools clear to the rine. We know a couple o' things. Now I didn't
+leave Waupac County f'r fun. Did y' ever see Waupac? Well, it's one o'
+the handsomest counties the sun ever shone on, full o' lakes and rivers
+and groves of timber. I miss 'em all out here, and I miss the boys an'
+girls; but they wa'n't no chance there f'r a feller. Land that was good
+was so blamed high you couldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole from a
+balloon. Rent was high, if you wanted t' rent, an' so a feller like me
+had t' get out, an' now I'm out here, I'm goin' t' make the most of it.
+Another thing," he went on, after a pause--"we fellers workin' out back
+there got more 'n' more like hands, an' less like human beings. Y' know,
+Waupac is a kind of a summer resort, and the people that use' t' come in
+summers looked down on us cusses in the fields an' shops. I couldn't
+stand it. By God!" he said, with a sudden impulse of rage quite unusual,
+"I'd rather live on an iceberg and claw crabs f'r a livin' than have
+some feller passin' me on the road an' callin' me 'fellah!'"
+
+Seagraves knew what he meant, but listened in astonishment at his
+outburst.
+
+"I consider myself a sight better 'n any man who lives on somebody
+else's hard work. I've never had a cent I didn't earn with them hands."
+He held them up and broke into a grin. "Beauties, ain't they? But they
+never wore gloves that some other poor cuss earned."
+
+Seagraves thought them grand hands, worthy to grasp the hand of any man
+or woman living.
+
+"Well, so I come West, just like a thousand other fellers, to get a
+start where the cussed European aristocracy hadn't got a holt on the
+people. I like it here--course I'd like the lakes an' meadows of Waupac
+better--but I'm my own boss, as I say, and I'm goin' to stay my own boss
+if I have to live on crackers an' wheat coffee to do it; that's the kind
+of a hair-pin I am."
+
+In the pause which followed, Seagraves, plunged deep into thought by
+Rob's words, leaned his head on his hand. This working farmer had voiced
+the modern idea. It was an absolute overturn of all the ideas of
+nobility and special privilege born of the feudal past.
+
+"I'd like to use your idea for an editorial, Rob," he said.
+
+"My ideas!" exclaimed the astounded host, pausing in the act of filling
+his pipe. "My ideas! Why, I didn't know I had any."
+
+"Well, you've given me some, anyhow."
+
+Seagraves felt that it was a wild, grand upstirring of the modern
+democrat against the aristocrat, against the idea of caste and the
+privilege of living on the labor of others. This atom of humanity (how
+infinitesimal this drop in the ocean of humanity!) was feeling the
+nameless longing of expanding personality. He had declared rebellion
+against laws that were survivals of hate and prejudice. He had exposed
+also the native spring of the emigrant by uttering the feeling that it
+is better to be an equal among peasants than a servant before nobles.
+
+"So I have good reasons f'r liking the country," Rob resumed, in a quiet
+way. "The soil is rich, the climate good so far, an' if I have a couple
+o' decent crops you'll see a neat upright goin' up here, with a porch
+and a bay-winder."
+
+"And you'll still be living here alone, frying leathery slapjacks an'
+chopping 'taters and bacon."
+
+"I think I see myself," drawled Rob, "goin' around all summer wearin'
+the same shirt without washin', an' wipin' on the same towel four
+straight weeks, an' wearin' holes in my socks, an' eatin' musty
+ginger-snaps, mouldy bacon, an' canned Boston beans f'r the rest o' my
+endurin' days! Oh, yes; I guess not!" He rose. "Well, see y' later. Must
+go water my bulls."
+
+As he went off down the slope, Seagraves smiled to hear him sing:
+
+   "I wish that some kind-hearted girl
+    Would pity on me take,
+    And extricate me from the mess I'm in.
+    The angel--how I'd bless her,
+    If this her home she'd make,
+    In my little old sod shanty on the plain."
+
+The boys nearly fell off their chairs in the Western House dining room,
+a few days later, when Rob came in to supper with a collar and necktie
+as the finishing touch of a remarkable outfit.
+
+"Hit him, somebody!"
+
+"It's a clean collar!"
+
+"He's started f'r Congress!"
+
+"He's going to get married," put in Seagraves, in a tone that brought
+conviction.
+
+"What!" screamed Jack Adams, O'Neill, and Wilson, in one breath. "That
+man?"
+
+"That man," replied Seagraves, amazed at Rob, who coolly took his seat,
+squared his elbows, pressed his collar down at the back, and called for
+the bacon and eggs.
+
+The crowd stared at him in a dead silence.
+
+"Where's he going to do it?" asked Jack Adams. "Where's he going to find
+a girl?"
+
+"Ask him," said Seagraves.
+
+"I ain't tellin'," put in Rob, with his mouth full of potato.
+
+"You're afraid of our competition."
+
+"That's right; our competition, Jack; not your competition. Come, now,
+Rob, tell us where you found her."
+
+"I ain't found her."
+
+"What! And yet you're goin' away t' get married!"
+
+"I'm goin' t' bring a wife back with me ten days fr'm date."
+
+"I see his scheme," put in Jim Rivers. "He's goin' back East somewhere,
+an' he's goin' to propose to every girl he meets."
+
+"Hold on!" interrupted Rob, holding up his fork. "Ain't quite right.
+Every good lookin' girl I meet."
+
+"Well, I'll be blanked!" exclaimed Jack, impressively; "that simply lets
+me out. Any man with such a cheek ought to--"
+
+"Succeed," interrupted Seagraves.
+
+"That's what I say," bawled Hank Whiting, the proprietor of the house.
+"You fellers ain't got any enterprise to yeh. Why don't you go to work
+an' help settle the country like men? 'Cause y' ain't got no sand. Girls
+are thicker 'n huckleberries back East. I say it's a dum shame!"
+
+"Easy, Henry," said the elegant bank-clerk, Wilson, looking gravely
+about through his spectacles. "I commend the courage and the resolution
+of Mr. Rodemaker. I pray the lady may not
+
+   'Mislike him for his complexion,
+    The shadowed livery of the burning sun.'"
+
+"Shakespeare," said Adams, at a venture.
+
+Wilson turned to Rob. "Brother in adversity, when do you embark another
+Jason on an untried sea?"
+
+"Hay!" said Rob, winking at Seagraves. "Oh, I go to-night--night train."
+
+"And return?"
+
+"Ten days from date."
+
+"I'll wager a wedding supper he brings a blonde," said Wilson, in his
+clean-cut, languid speech compelling attention.
+
+"Oh, come, now, Wilson; that's too thin! We all know that rule about
+dark marryin' light."
+
+"I'll wager she'll be tall," continued Wilson. "I'll wager you, friend
+Rodemaker, she'll be blonde and tall."
+
+The rest roared at Rob's astonishment and confusion.
+
+The absurdity of it grew, and they went into spasms of laughter. But
+Wilson remained impassive, not the twitching of a muscle betraying that
+he saw anything to laugh at in the proposition.
+
+Mrs. Whiting and the kitchen-girls came in, wondering at the merriment.
+Rob began to get uneasy.
+
+"What is it? What is it?" said Mrs. Whiting, a jolly little matron.
+
+Rivers put the case. "Rob's on his way back to Wisconsin t' get married,
+and Wilson has offered to bet him that his wife will be a blonde and
+tall, and Rob dassent bet!" And they roared again.
+
+"Why, the idea! The man's crazy!" said Mrs. Whiting.
+
+The crowd looked at each other. This was hint enough; they sobered,
+nodding at each other commiseratingly.
+
+"Aha! I see; I understand."
+
+"It's the heat."
+
+"And the Boston beans."
+
+"Let up on him, Wilson. Don't badger a poor irresponsible fellow. I
+thought something was wrong when I saw the collar."
+
+"Oh, keep it up!" said Rob, a little nettled by their evident intention
+to have fun with him.
+
+"Soothe him--soo-o-o-o-the him!" said Wilson. "Don't be harsh."
+
+Rob rose from the table. "Go to thunder! You fellows make me tired."
+
+"The fit is on him again!"
+
+He rose disgustedly and went out. They followed him in single file. The
+rest of the town "caught on." Frank Graham heaved an apple at him, and
+joined the procession. Rob went into the store to buy some tobacco. They
+all followed, and perched like crows on the counters till he went out;
+then they followed him, as before. They watched him check his trunk;
+they witnessed the purchase of the ticket. The town had turned out by
+this time.
+
+"Waupac!" announced the one nearest the victim.
+
+"Waupac!" said the next man, and the word was passed along the street up
+town.
+
+"Make a note of it," said Wilson; "Waupac--a county where a man's
+proposal for marriage is honored upon presentation. Sight drafts."
+
+Rivers struck up a song, while Rob stood around, patiently bearing the
+jokes of the crowd:
+
+   "We're lookin' rather seedy now,
+    While holdin' down our claims,
+    And our vittles are not always of the best,
+    And the mice play slyly round us
+    As we lay down to sleep
+    In our little old tarred shanties on the claim.
+
+   "Yet we rather like the novelty
+    Of livin' in this way,
+    Though the bill of fare is often rather tame;
+    An' we're happy as a clam
+    On the land of Uncle Sam
+    In our little old tarred shanty on the claim."
+
+The train drew up at length, to the immense relief of Rob, whose stoical
+resignation was beginning to weaken.
+
+"Don't y' wish y' had sand?" he yelled to the crowd, as he plunged into
+the car, thinking he was rid of them at last.
+
+He was mistaken. Their last stroke was to follow him into the car,
+nodding, pointing to their heads, and whispering, managing in the
+half-minute the train stood at the platform to set every person in the
+car staring at the "crazy man." Rob groaned, and pulled his hat down
+over his eyes--an action which confirmed his tormentors' words and made
+several ladies click their tongues in sympathy--"Tlck! tlck! poor
+fellow!"
+
+"All abo-o-o-a-rd!' said the conductor, grinning his appreciation at the
+crowd, and the train was off.
+
+"Oh, won't we make him groan when he gets back!" said Barney, the young
+lawyer, who sang the shouting tenor.
+
+"We'll meet him with the timbrel and the harp. Anybody want to wager?
+I've got two to one on a short brunette," said Wilson.
+
+II
+
+"Follow it far enough and it may pass the bend in the river where the
+water laughs eternally over its shallows."
+
+A corn-field in July is a sultry place. The soil is hot and dry; the
+wind comes across the lazily murmuring leaves laden with a warm,
+sickening smell drawn from the rapidly growing, broad-flung banners of
+the corn. The sun, nearly vertical, drops a flood of dazzling light upon
+the field over which the cool shadows run, only to make the heat seem
+the more intense.
+
+Julia Peterson, faint with hunger, was tolling back and forth between
+the corn-rows, holding the handles of the double-shovel corn-plough,
+while her little brother Otto rode the steaming horse. Her heart was
+full of bitterness, her face flushed with heat, and her muscles aching
+with fatigue. The heat grew terrible. The corn came to her shoulders,
+and not a breath seemed to reach her, while the sun, nearing the noon
+mark, lay pitilessly upon her shoulders, protected only by a calico
+dress. The dust rose under her feet, and as she was wet with
+perspiration it soiled her till with a woman's instinctive cleanliness,
+she shuddered. Her head throbbed dangerously. What matter to her that
+the kingbird pitched jovially from the maples to catch a wandering
+bluebottle fly, that the robin was feeding its young, that the bobolink
+was singing? All these things, if she saw them, only threw her bondage
+to labor into greater relief.
+
+Across the field, in another patch of corn, she could see her father--a
+big, gruff-voiced, wide-bearded Norwegian--at work also with a plough.
+The corn must be ploughed, and so she toiled on, the tears dropping from
+the shadow of the ugly sun-bonnet she wore. Her shoes, coarse and
+square-toed, chafed her feet; her hands, large and strong, were browned,
+or, more properly, burnt, on the backs by the sun. The horse's harness
+"creak-cracked" as he swung steadily and patiently forward, the moisture
+pouring from his sides, his nostrils distended.
+
+The field bordered on a road, and on the other side of the road ran a
+river--a broad, clear, shallow expanse at that point, and the eyes of
+the boy gazed longingly at the pond and the cool shadow each time that
+he turned at the fence.
+
+"Say, Jule, I'm goin' in! Come, can't I? Come--say!" he pleaded, as they
+stopped at the fence to let the horse breathe.
+
+"I've let you go wade twice."
+
+"But that don't do any good. My legs is all smarty, 'cause ol' Jack
+sweats so." The boy turned around on the horse's back and slid back to
+his rump. "I can't stand it!" he burst out, sliding off and darting
+under the fence. "Father can't see."
+
+The girl put her elbows on the fence and watched her little brother as
+he sped away to the pool, throwing off his clothes as he ran, whooping
+with uncontrollable delight. Soon she could hear him splashing about in
+the water a short distance up the stream, and caught glimpses of his
+little shiny body and happy face. How cool that water looked! And the
+shadows there by the big basswood! How that water would cool her
+blistered feet. An impulse seized her, and she squeezed between the
+rails of the fence, and stood in the road looking up and down to see
+that the way was clear. It was not a main-travelled road; no one was
+likely to come; why not?
+
+She hurriedly took off her shoes and stockings--how delicious the cool,
+soft velvet of the grass! and sitting down on the bank under the great
+basswood, whose roots formed an abrupt bank, she slid her poor
+blistered, chafed feet into the water, her bare head leaned against the
+huge tree-trunk.
+
+And now, as she rested, the beauty of the scene came to her. Over her
+the wind moved the leaves. A jay screamed far off, as if answering the
+cries of the boy. A kingfisher crossed and recrossed the stream with
+dipping sweep of his wings. The river sang with its lips to the pebbles.
+The vast clouds went by majestically, far above the tree-tops, and the
+snap and buzzing and ringing whir of July insects made a ceaseless,
+slumberous undertone of song solvent of all else. The tired girl forgot
+her work. She began to dream. This would not last always. Some one would
+come to release her from such drudgery. This was her constant,
+tenderest, and most secret dream. He would be a Yankee, not a Norwegian.
+The Yankees didn't ask their wives to work in the field. He would have a
+home. Perhaps he'd live in town--perhaps a merchant! And then she
+thought of the drug clerk in Rock River who had looked at her--A voice
+broke in on her dream, a fresh, manly voice.
+
+"Well, by jinks! if it ain't Julia! Just the one I wanted to see!"
+
+The girl turned, saw a pleasant-faced young fellow in a derby hat and a
+cutaway suit of diagonals.
+
+"Bod Rodemaker! How come--"
+
+She remembered her situation and flushed, looked down at the water, and
+remained perfectly still.
+
+"Ain't you goin' to shake hands? Y' don't seem very glad t' see me."
+
+She began to grow angry. "If you had any eyes, you'd see."
+
+Rob looked over the edge of the bank, whistled, turned away. "Oh, I see!
+Excuse me! Don't blame yeh a bit, though. Good weather f'r corn," he
+went on, looking up at the trees. "Corn seems to be pretty well
+forward," he continued, in a louder voice, as he walked away, still
+gazing into the air. "Crops is looking first-class in Boomtown. Hello!
+This Otto? H'yare, y' little scamp! Get on to that horse agin. Quick, 'r
+I'll take y'r skin off an' hang it on the fence. What y' been doing?"
+
+"Ben in swimmin'. Jimminy, ain't it fun! When 'd y' get back?" said the
+boy, grinning.
+
+"Never you mind!" replied Rob, leaping the fence by laying his left hand
+on the top rail. "Get on to that horse." He tossed the boy up on the
+horse, and hung his coat on the fence. "I s'pose the ol' man makes her
+plough, same as usual?"
+
+"Yup," said Otto.
+
+"Dod ding a man that'll do that! I don't mind if it's necessary, but it
+ain't necessary in his case." He continued to mutter in this way as he
+went across to the other side of the field. As they turned to come back,
+Rob went up and looked at the horse's mouth. "Gettin' purty near of age.
+Say, who's sparkin' Julia now--anybody?"
+
+"Nobody 'cept some ol' Norwegians. She won't have them. Por wants her
+to, but she won't."
+
+"Good f'r her. Nobody comes t' see her Sunday nights, eh?"
+
+"Nope, only 'Tias Anderson an' Ole Hoover; but she goes off an' leaves
+'em."
+
+"Chk!" said Rob, starting old Jack across the field.
+
+It was almost noon, and Jack moved reluctantly. He knew the time of day
+as well as the boy. He made this round after distinct protest.
+
+In the meantime Julia, putting on her shoes and stockings, went to the
+fence and watched the man's shining white shirt as he moved across the
+corn-field. There had never been any special tenderness between them,
+but she had always liked him. They had been at school together. She
+wondered why he had come back at this time of the year, and wondered how
+long he would stay. How long had he stood looking at her? She flushed
+again at the thought of it. But he wasn't to blame; it was a public
+road. She might have known better.
+
+She stood under a little popple tree, whose leaves shook musically at
+every zephyr, and her eyes, through half-shut lids, roved over the sea
+of deep-green, glossy leaves, dappled here and there by cloud shadows,
+stirred here and there like water by the wind; and out of it all a
+longing to be free from such toil rose like a breath, filling her throat
+and quickening the motion of her heart. Must this go on forever, this
+life of heat and dust and labor? What did it all mean?
+
+The girl laid her chin on her strong red wrists, and looked up into the
+blue spaces between the vast clouds--aerial mountains dissolving in a
+shoreless azure sea. How cool and sweet and restful they looked! If she
+might only lie out on the billowy, snow-white, sunlit edge! The voices
+of the driver and the ploughman recalled her, and she fixed her eyes
+again upon the slowly nodding head of the patient horse, on the boy
+turned half about on his saddle, talking to the white-sleeved man, whose
+derby hat bobbed up and down quite curiously, like the horse's head.
+Would she ask him to dinner? What would her people say?
+
+"Phew! it's hot!" was the greeting the young fellow gave as he came up.
+He smiled in a frank, boyish way, as he hung his hat on the top of a
+stake and looked up at her. "D' y' know, I kind o' enjoy gettin' at it
+again? Fact. It ain't no work for a girl, though," he added.
+
+"When 'd you get back?" she asked, the flush not yet out of her face.
+Rob was looking at her thick, fine hair and full Scandinavian face, rich
+as a rose in color, and did not reply for a few seconds. She stood with
+her hideous sun-bonnet pushed back on her shoulders. A kingbird was
+chattering overhead.
+
+"Oh, a few days ago."
+
+"How long y' goin' t' stay?"
+
+"Oh, I d' know. A week, mebbe."
+
+A far-off halloo came pulsing across the shimmering air. The boy
+screamed "Dinner!" and waved his hat with an answering whoop, then
+flopped off the horse like a turtle off a stone into water. He had the
+horse unhooked in an instant, and had flung his toes up over the horse's
+back, in act to climb on, when Rob said:
+
+"H'yare, young feller! wait a minute. Tired?" he asked the girl, with a
+tone that was more than kindly. It was almost tender.
+
+"Yes," she replied, in a low voice. "My shoes hurt me."
+
+"Well, here y' go," he replied, taking his stand by the horse, and
+holding out his hand like a step. She colored and smiled a little as she
+lifted her foot into his huge, hard, sunburned hand.
+
+"Oop-a-daisy!" he called. She gave a spring, and sat on the horse like
+one at home there.
+
+Rob had a deliciously unconscious, abstracted, business-like air. He
+really left her nothing to do but enjoy his company, while he went ahead
+and did precisely as he pleased.
+
+"We don't raise much corn out there, an' so I kind o' like to see it
+once more."
+
+"I wish I didn't have to see another hill of corn as long as I live!"
+replied the girl, bitterly.
+
+"Don't know as I blame yeh a bit. But, all the same, I'm glad you was
+working in it to-day," he thought to himself, as he walked beside her
+horse toward the house.
+
+"Will you stop to dinner?" she inquired bluntly, almost surlily. It was
+evident there were reasons why she didn't mean to press him to do so.
+
+"You bet I will," he replied; "that is, if you want I should."
+
+"You know how we live," she replied evasively. "If you can stand it,
+why--" She broke off abruptly.
+
+Yes, he remembered how they lived in that big, square, dirty, white
+frame house. It had been three or four years since he had been in it,
+but the smell of the cabbage and onions, the penetrating, peculiar
+mixture of odors, assailed his memory as something unforgettable.
+
+"I guess I'll stop," he said, as she hesitated. She said no more, but
+tried to act as if she were not in any way responsible for what came
+afterward.
+
+"I guess I c'n stand f'r one meal what you stand all the while," he
+added.
+
+As she left them at the well and went to the house he saw her limp
+painfully, and the memory of her face so close to his lips as he helped
+her down from the horse gave him pleasure at the same time that he was
+touched by its tired and gloomy look. Mrs. Peterson came to the door of
+the kitchen, looking just the same as ever. Broad-faced, unwieldly,
+flabby, apparently wearing the same dress he remembered to have seen her
+in years before,--a dirty drab-colored thing,--she looked as shapeless
+as a sack of wool. Her English was limited to, "How de do, Rob?"
+
+He washed at the pump, while the girl, in the attempt to be hospitable,
+held the clean towel for him.
+
+"You're purty well used up, eh?" he said to her.
+
+"Yes; it's awful hot out there."
+
+"Can't you lay off this afternoon? It ain't right"
+
+"No. He won't listen to that."
+
+"Well, let me take your place."
+
+"No; there ain't any use o' that."
+
+Peterson, a brawny, wide-bearded Norwegian, came up at this moment, and
+spoke to Rob in a sullen, gruff way.
+
+"Hallo, when yo' gaet back?"
+
+"To-day. He ain't very glad to see me," said Rob, winking at Julia. "He
+ain't b'ilin' over with enthusiasm; but I c'n stand it, for your sake,"
+he added, with amazing assurance; but the girl had turned away, and it
+was wasted.
+
+At the table he ate heartily of the "bean swaagen," which filled a large
+wooden bowl in the centre of the table, and which was ladled into
+smaller wooden bowls at each plate. Julia had tried hard to convert her
+mother to Yankee ways, and had at last given it up in despair. Rob kept
+on safe subjects, mainly asking questions about the crops of Peterson,
+and when addressing the girl, inquired of the schoolmates. By skilful
+questioning, he kept the subject of marriage uppermost, and seemingly
+was getting an inventory of the girls not yet married or engaged.
+
+It was embarrassing for the girl. She was all too well aware of the
+difference between her home and the home of her schoolmates and friends.
+She knew that it was not pleasant for her "Yankee" friends to come to
+visit her when they could not feel sure of a welcome from the tireless,
+silent, and grim-visaged old Norse, if, indeed, they could escape
+insult. Julia ate her food mechanically, and it could hardly be said
+that she enjoyed the brisk talk of the young man, his eyes were upon her
+so constantly and his smile so obviously addressed to her, She rose as
+soon as possible and, going outside, took a seat on a chair under the
+trees in the yard. She was not a coarse or dull girl. In fact, she had
+developed so rapidly by contact with the young people of the
+neighborhood that she no longer found pleasure in her own home. She
+didn't believe in keeping up the old-fashioned Norwegian customs, and
+her life with her mother was not one to breed love or confidence. She
+was more like a hired hand. The love of the mother for her "Yulyie" was
+sincere though rough and inarticulate, and it was her jealousy of the
+young "Yankees" that widened the chasm between the girl and herself--an
+inevitable result.
+
+Rob followed the girl out into the yard, and threw himself on the grass
+at her feet, perfectly unconscious of the fact that this attitude was
+exceedingly graceful and becoming to them both. He did it because he
+wanted to talk to her, and the grass was cool and easy; there wasn't any
+other chair, anyway.
+
+"Do they keep up the ly-ceum and the sociables same as ever?"
+
+"Yes. The others go a good 'eal, but I don't. We're gettin' such a stock
+round us, and father thinks he needs me s' much, I don't get out often.
+I'm gettin' sick of it."
+
+"I sh'd think y' would," he replied, his eyes on her face,
+
+"I c'd stand the churnin' and housework, but when it comes t' workin'
+outdoors in the dirt an' hot sun, gettin' all sunburned and chapped up,
+it's another thing. An' then it seems as if he gets stingier 'n'
+stingier every year. I ain't had a new dress in--I d'-know-how-long. He
+says it's all nonsense, an' mother's just about as bad. She don't want a
+new dress, an' so she thinks I don't." The girl was feeling the
+influence of a sympathetic listener and was making up for the long
+silence. "I've tried t' go out t' work, but they won't let me. They'd
+have t' pay a hand twenty dollars a month f'r the work I do, an' they
+like cheap help; but I'm not goin' t' stand it much longer, I can tell
+you that."
+
+Rob thought she was very handsome as she sat there with her eyes fixed
+on the horizon, while these rebellious thoughts found utterance in her
+quivering, passionate voice.
+
+"Yulie! Kom haar!" roared the old man from the well.
+
+A frown of anger and pain came into her face. She looked at Rob. "That
+means more work."
+
+"Say! let me go out in your place. Come, now; what's the use--"
+
+"No; it wouldn't do no good. It ain't t'day s' much; it's every day,
+and--"
+
+"Yulie!" called Peterson again, with a string of impatient Norwegian.
+"Batter yo' kom pooty hal quick."
+
+"Well, all right, only I'd like to--" Rob submitted.
+
+"Well, good-by," she said, with a little touch of feeling. "When d' ye
+go back?"
+
+"I don't know. I'll see y' again before I go. Good-by."
+
+He stood watching her slow, painful pace till she reached the well,
+where Otto was standing with the horse. He stood watching them as they
+moved out into the road and turned down toward the field. He felt that
+she had sent him away; but still there was a look in her eyes which was
+not altogether--
+
+He gave it up in despair at last. He was not good at analyses of this
+nature; he was used to plain, blunt expressions. There was a woman's
+subtlety here quite beyond his reach.
+
+He sauntered slowly off up the road after his talk with Julia. His head
+was low on his breast; he was thinking as one who is about to take a
+decided and important step.
+
+He stopped at length, and, turning, watched the girl moving along in the
+deeps of the corn. Hardly a leaf was stirring; the untempered sunlight
+fell in a burning flood upon the field; the grasshoppers rose, snapped,
+buzzed, and fell; the locust uttered its dry, heat-intensifying cry. The
+man lifted his head.
+
+"It's a d--n shame!" he said, beginning rapidly to retrace his steps. He
+stood leaning on the fence, awaiting the girl's coming very much as she
+had waited his on the round he had made before dinner. He grew impatient
+at the slow gait of the horse, and drummed on the rail while he
+whistled. Then he took off his hat and dusted it nervously. As the horse
+got a little nearer he wiped his face carefully, pushed his hat back on
+his head, and climbed over the fence, where he stood with elbows on the
+middle rail as the girl and boy and horse came to the end of the furrow.
+
+"Hot, ain't it?" he said, as she looked up.
+
+"Jimminy Peters, it's awful!" puffed the boy. The girl did not reply
+till she swung the plough about after the horse, and set it upright into
+the next row. Her powerful body had a superb swaying motion at the waist
+as she did this--a motion which affected Rob vaguely but massively.
+
+"I thought you'd gone," she said gravely, pushing back her bonnet till
+he could see her face dewed with sweat, and pink as a rose. She had the
+high cheek-bones of her race, but she had also their exquisite fairess
+of color.
+
+"Say, Otto," asked Rob, alluringly, "wan' to go swimmin'?"
+
+"You bet!" replied Otto.
+
+"Well, I'll go a round if--"
+
+The boy dropped off the horse, not waiting to hear any more. Rob
+grinned, but the girl dropped her eyes, then looked away.
+
+"Got rid o' him mighty quick. Say, Julyie, I hate like thunder t' see
+you out here; it ain't right. I wish you'd--I wish--"
+
+She could not look at him now, and her bosom rose and fell with a motion
+that was not due to fatigue. Her moist hair matted around her forehead
+gave her a boyish look.
+
+Rob nervously tried again, tearing splinters from the fence. "Say, now,
+I'll tell yeh what I came back here for--t' git married; and if you're
+willin' I'll do it to-night. Come, now, whaddy y' say?"
+
+"What've I got t' do 'bout it?" she finally asked, the color flooding
+her face, and a faint smile coming to her lips. "Go ahead. I ain't got
+anything--"
+
+Rob put a splinter in his mouth and faced her. "Oh, looky here, now,
+Julyie! you know what I mean. I've got a good claim out near Boomtown--a
+rattlin' good claim; a shanty on it fourteen by sixteen--no tarred paper
+about it, and a suller to keep butter in, and a hundred acres o' wheat
+just about ready to turn now. I need a wife."
+
+Here he straightened up, threw away the splinter, and took off his hat.
+He was a very pleasant figure as the girl stole a look at him. His black
+laughing eyes were especially earnest just now. His voice had a touch of
+pleading. The popple tree over their heads murmured applause at his
+eloquence, then hushed to listen. A cloud dropped a silent shadow down
+upon them, and it sent a little thrill of fear through Rob, as if it
+were an omen of failure. As the girl remained silent, looking away, he
+began, man-fashion, to desire her more and more, as he feared to lose
+her. He put his hat on the post again and took out his jack-knife. Her
+calico dress draped her supple and powerful figure simply but naturally.
+The stoop in her shoulders, given by labor, disappeared as she partly
+leaned upon the fence. The curves of her muscular arms showed through
+her sleeve.
+
+"It's all-fired lonesome f'r me out there on that claim, and it ain't no
+picnic f'r you here. Now, if you'll come out there with me, you needn't
+do anything but cook f'r me, and after harvest we can git a good layout
+o' furniture, an' I'll lath and plaster the house and put a little hell
+[ell] in the rear." He smiled, and so did she. He felt encouraged to
+say: "An' there we be, as snug as y' please. We're close t' Boomtown,
+an' we can go down there to church sociables an' things, and they're a
+jolly lot there."
+
+The girl was still silent, but the man's simple enthusiasm came to her
+charged with passion and a sort of romance such as her hard life had
+known little of. There was something enticing about this trip to the
+West.
+
+"What'll my folks say?" she said at last.
+
+A virtual surrender, but Rob was not acute enough to see it. He pressed
+on eagerly:
+
+"I don't care. Do you? They'll jest keep y' ploughin' corn and milkin'
+cows till the day of judgment. Come, Julyie, I ain't got no time to fool
+away. I've got t' get back t' that grain. It's a whoopin' old crop, 
+sure's y'r born, an' that means sompin purty scrumptious in furniture
+this fall. Come, now." He approached her and laid his hand on her
+shoulder very much as he would have touched Albert Seagraves or any
+other comrade. "Whaddy y' say?"
+
+She neither started nor shrunk nor looked at him. She simply moved a
+step away. "They'd never let me go," she replied bitterly. "I'm too
+cheap a hand. I do a man's work an' get no pay at all."
+
+"You'll have half o' all I c'n make," he put in.
+
+"How long c'n you wait?" she asked, looking down at her dress.
+
+"Just two minutes," he said, pulling out his watch. "It ain't no use t'
+wait. The old man'll be jest as mad a week from now as he is to-day. Why
+not go now?"
+
+"I'm of age in a few days," she mused, wavering, calculating.
+
+"You c'n be of age to-night if you'll jest call on old Square Hatfield
+with me."
+
+"All right, Rob," the girl said, turning and holding out her hand.
+
+"That's the talk!" he exclaimed, seizing it. "And now a kiss, to bind
+the bargain, as the fellah says."
+
+"I guess we c'n get along without that."
+
+"No, we can't. It won't seem like an engagement without it."
+
+"It ain't goin' to seem much like one, anyway," she answered, with a
+sudden realization of how far from her dreams of courtship this reality
+was.
+
+"Say, now, Julyie, that ain't fair; it ain't treatin' me right. You
+don't seem to understand that I like you, but I do."
+
+Rob was carried quite out of himself by the time, the place, and the
+girl. He had said a very moving thing.
+
+The tears sprang involuntarily to the girl's eyes. "Do you mean it? If
+y' do, you may."
+
+She was trembling with emotion for the first time. The sincerity of the
+man's voice had gone deep.
+
+He put his arm around her almost timidly, and kissed her on the cheek,
+a great love for her springing up in his heart. "That settles it," he
+said. "Don't cry, Julyie. You'll never be sorry for it. Don't cry. It
+kind o' hurts me to see it."
+
+He didn't understand her feelings. He was only aware that she was
+crying, and tried in a bungling way to soothe her. But now that she had
+given way, she sat down in the grass and wept bitterly.
+
+"Yulyie!" yelled the vigilant old Norwegian, like a distant foghorn.
+
+The girl sprang up; the habit of obedience was strong.
+
+"No; you set right there, and I'll go round," he said. "Otto!"
+
+The boy came scrambling out of the wood, half dressed. Rob tossed him
+upon the horse, snatched Julia's sun-bonnet, put his own hat on her
+head, and moved off down the corn-rows, leaving the girl smiling through
+her tears as he whistled and chirped to the horse. Farmer Peterson,
+seeing the familiar sun-bonnet above the corn-rows, went back to his
+work, with a sentence of Norwegian trailing after him like the tail of a
+kite--something about lazy girls who didn't earn the crust of their
+bread, etc.
+
+Rob was wild with delight. "Git up there, Jack! Hay, you old corncrib!
+Say, Otto, can you keep your mouth shet if it puts money in your
+pocket?"
+
+"Jest try me 'n' see," said the keen-eyed little scamp.
+
+"Well, you keep quiet about my bein' here this afternoon, and I'll put a
+dollar on y'r tongue--hay?--what?--understand?"
+
+"Show me y'r dollar," said the boy, turning about and showing his
+tongue.
+
+"All right. Begin to practise now by not talkin' to me."
+
+Rob went over the whole situation on his way back, and when he got in
+sight of the girl his plan was made. She stood waiting for him with a
+new look on her face. Her sullenness had given way to a peculiar
+eagerness and anxiety to believe in him. She was already living that
+free life in a far-off, wonderful country. No more would her stern
+father and sullen mother force her to tasks which she hated. She'd be a
+member of a new firm. She'd work, of course, but it would be because she
+wanted to, and not because she was forced to. The independence and the
+love promised grew more and more attractive. She laughed back with a
+softer light in her eyes, when she saw the smiling face of Rob looking
+at her from her sun-bonnet.
+
+"Now you mustn't do any more o' this," he said. "You go back to the
+house an' tell y'r mother you're too lame to plough any more to-day, and
+it's gettin' late, anyhow. To-night!" he whispered quickly. "Eleven!
+Here!"
+
+The girl's heart leaped with fear. "I'm afraid."
+
+"Not of me, are yeh?"
+
+"No, I'm not afraid of you, Rob."
+
+"I'm glad o' that. I--I want you--to like me, Julyie; won't you?"
+
+"I'll try," she answered, with a smile.
+
+"To-night, then," he said, as she moved away.
+
+"To-night. Good-by."
+
+"Good-by."
+
+He stood and watched her till her tall figure was lost among the
+drooping corn-leaves. There was a singular choking feeling in his
+throat. The girl's voice and face had brought up so many memories of
+parties and picnics and excursions on far-off holidays, and at the same
+time held suggestions of the future. He already felt that it was going
+to be an unconscionably long time before eleven o'clock.
+
+He saw her go to the house, and then he turned and walked slowly up the
+dusty road. Out of the May-weed the grasshoppers sprang, buzzing and
+snapping their dull red wings. Butterflies, yellow and white, fluttered
+around moist places in the ditch, and slender, striped water-snakes
+glided across the stagnant pools at sound of footsteps.
+
+But the mind of the man was far away on his claim, building a new house,
+with a woman's advice and presence.
+
+It was a windless night. The katydids and an occasional cricket were the
+only sounds Rob could hear as he stood beside his team and strained his
+ear to listen. At long intervals a little breeze ran through the corn
+like a swift serpent, bringing to his nostrils the sappy smell of the
+growing corn. The horses stamped uneasily as the mosquitoes settled on
+their shining limbs. The sky was full of stars, but there was no moon.
+
+"What if she don't come?" he thought. "Or can't come? I can't stand
+that. I'll go to the old man an' say, 'Looky here--' Sh!"
+
+He listened again. There was a rustling in the corn. It was not like the
+fitful movement of the wind; it was steady, slower, and approaching. It
+ceased. He whistled the wailing, sweet cry of the prairie-chicken. Then
+a figure came out into the road--a woman--Julia!
+
+He took her in his arms as she came panting up to him.
+
+"Rob!"
+
+"Julyie!"
+
+A few words, the dull tread of swift horses, the rising of a silent
+train of dust, and then--the wind wandered in the growing corn, the dust
+fell, a dog barked down the road, and the katydids sang to the liquid
+contralto of the river in its shallows.
+
+
+
+
+The Return of a Private
+
+"On the road leading 'back to God's country' and wife and babies."
+
+I
+
+The nearer the train drew toward La Crosse, the soberer the little group
+of "vets" became. On the long way from New Orleans they had beguiled
+tedium with jokes and friendly chaff; or with planning with elaborate
+detail what they were going to do now, after the war. A long journey,
+slowly, irregularly, yet persistently pushing northward. When they
+entered on Wisconsin territory they gave a cheer, and another when they
+reached Madison, but after that they sank into a dumb expectancy.
+Comrades dropped off at one or two points beyond, until there were only
+four or five left who were bound for La Crosse County.
+
+Three of them were gaunt and brown, the fourth was gaunt and pale, with
+signs of fever and ague upon him. One had a great scar down his temple,
+one limped, and they all had unnaturally large, bright eyes, showing
+emaciation. There were no bands greeting them at the stations, no banks
+of gayly dressed ladies waving handkerchiefs and shouting "Bravo!" as
+they came in on the caboose of a freight train into the towns that had
+cheered and blared at them on their way to war. As they looked out or
+stepped upon the platform for a moment, while the train stood at the
+station, the loafers looked at them indifferently. Their blue coats,
+dusty and grimy, were too familiar now to excite notice, much less a
+friendly word. They were the last of the army to return, and the loafers
+were surfeited with such sights.
+
+The train jogged forward so slowly that it seemed likely to be midnight
+before they should reach La Crosse. The little squad grumbled and swore,
+but it was no use; the train would not hurry, and, as a matter of fact,
+it was nearly two o'clock when the engine whistled "down brakes."
+
+All of the group were farmers, living in districts several miles out of
+the town, and all were poor.
+
+"Now, boys," said Private Smith, he of the fever and ague, "we are
+landed in La Crosse in the night. We've got to stay somewhere till
+mornin'. Now I ain't got no two dollars to waste on a hotel. I've got a
+wife and children, so I'm goin' to roost on a bench and take the cost of
+a bed out of my hide."
+
+"Same here," put in one of the other men. "Hide'll grow on again,
+dollars'll come hard. It's goin' to be mighty hot skirmishin' to find a
+dollar these days."
+
+"Don't think they'll be a deputation of citizens waitin' to 'scort us to
+a hotel, eh?" said another. His sarcasm was too obvious to require an
+answer.
+
+Smith went on, "Then at daybreak we'll start for home--at least, I
+will."
+
+"Well, I'll be dummed if I'll take two dollars out o' my hide," one of
+the younger men said. "I'm goin' to a hotel, ef I don't never lay up a
+cent."
+
+"That'll do f'r you," said Smith; "but if you had a wife an' three young
+uns dependin' on yeh--"
+
+"Which I ain't, thank the Lord! and don't intend havin' while the court
+knows itself."
+
+The station was deserted, chill, and dark, as they came into it at
+exactly a quarter to two in the morning. Lit by the oil lamps that
+flared a dull red light over the dingy benches, the waiting room was not
+an inviting place. The younger man went off to look up a hotel, while
+the rest remained and prepared to camp down on the floor and benches.
+Smith was attended to tenderly by the other men, who spread their
+blankets on the bench for him, and, by robbing themselves, made quite a
+comfortable bed, though the narrowness of the bench made his sleeping
+precarious.
+
+It was chill, though August, and the two men, sitting with bowed heads,
+grew stiff with cold and weariness, and were forced to rise now and
+again and walk about to warm their stiffened limbs. It did not occur to
+them, probably, to contrast their coming home with their going forth, or
+with the coming home of the generals, colonels, or even captains--but to
+Private Smith, at any rate, there came a sickness at heart almost deadly
+as he lay there on his hard bed and went over his situation.
+
+In the deep of the night, lying on a board in the town where he had
+enlisted three years ago, all elation and enthusiasm gone out of him, he
+faced the fact that with the joy of home-coming was already mingled the
+bitter juice of care. He saw himself sick, worn out, taking up the work
+on his half-cleared farm, the inevitable mortgage standing ready with
+open jaw to swallow half his earnings. He had given three years of his
+life for a mere pittance of pay, and now!--
+
+Morning dawned at last, slowly, with a pale yellow dome of light rising
+silently above the bluffs, which stand like some huge storm-devastated
+castle, just east of the city. Out to the left the great river swept on
+its massive yet silent way to the south. Bluejays called across the
+water from hillside to hillside through the clear, beautiful air, and
+hawks began to skim the tops of the hills. The older men were astir
+early, but Private Smith had fallen at last into a sleep, and they went
+out without waking him. He lay on his knapsack, his gaunt face turned
+toward the ceiling, his hands clasped on his breast, with a curious
+pathetic effect of weakness and appeal.
+
+An engine switching near woke him at last, and he slowly sat up and
+stared about. He looked out of the window and saw that the sun was
+lightening the hills across the river. He rose and brushed his hair as
+well as he could, folded his blankets up, and went out to find his
+companions. They stood gazing silently at the river and at the hills.
+
+"Looks natcher'l, don't it?" they said, as he came out.
+
+"That's what it does," he replied. "An' it looks good. D 'yeh see that
+peak?" He pointed at a beautiful symmetrical peak, rising like a
+slightly truncated cone, so high that it seemed the very highest of them
+all. It was touched by the morning sun and it glowed like a beacon, and
+a light scarf of gray morning fog was rolling up its shadowed side.
+
+"My farm's just beyond that. Now, if I can only ketch a ride, we'll be
+home by dinner-time."
+
+"I'm talkin' about breakfast," said one of the others.
+
+"I guess it's one more meal o' hardtack f'r me," said Smith.
+
+They foraged around, and finally found a restaurant with a sleepy old
+German behind the counter, and procured some coffee, which they drank to
+wash down their hardtack.
+
+"Time'll come," said Smith, holding up a piece by the corner, "when
+this'll be a curiosity."
+
+"I hope to God it will! I bet I've chawed hardtack enough to shingle
+every house in the coolly. I've chawed it when my lampers was down, and
+when they wasn't. I've took it dry, soaked, and mashed. I've had it
+wormy, musty, sour, and blue-mouldy. I've had it in little bits and big
+bits; 'fore coffee an' after coffee. I'm ready f'r a change. I'd like t'
+git holt jest about now o' some of the hot biscuits my wife c'n make
+when she lays herself out f'r company."
+
+"Well, if you set there gabblin', you'll never see yer wife."
+
+"Come on," said Private Smith. "Wait a moment, boys; less take suthin'.
+It's on me." He led them to the rusty tin dipper which hung on a nail
+beside the wooden water-pail, and they grinned and drank. Then
+shouldering their blankets and muskets, which they were "takin' home to
+the boys," they struck out on their last march.
+
+"They called that coffee Jayvy," grumbled one of them, "but it never
+went by the road where government Jayvy resides. I reckon I know coffee
+from peas."
+
+They kept together on the road along the turnpike, and up the winding
+road by the river, which they followed for some miles. The river was
+very lovely, curving down along its sandy beds, pausing now and then
+under broad basswood trees, or running in dark, swift, silent currents
+under tangles of wild grapevines, and drooping alders, and haw trees.
+At one of these lovely spots the three vets sat down on the thick green
+sward to rest, "on Smith's account." The leaves of the trees were as
+fresh and green as in June, the jays called cheery greetings to them,
+and kingfishers darted to and fro with swooping, noiseless flight.
+
+"I tell yeh, boys, this knocks the swamps of Loueesiana into kingdom
+come."
+
+"You bet. All they c'n raise down there is snakes, niggers, and
+p'rticler hell."
+
+"An' fightin' men," put in the older man.
+
+"An' fightin' men. If I had a good hook an' line I'd sneak a pick'rel
+out o' that pond. Say, remember that time I shot that alligator--"
+
+"I guess we'd better be crawlin' along," interrupted Smith, rising and
+shouldering his knapsack, with considerable effort, which he tried to
+hide.
+
+"Say, Smith, lemme give you a lift on that."
+
+"I guess I c'n manage," said Smith, grimly.
+
+"Course. But, yo' see, I may not have a chance right off to pay yeh back
+for the times you've carried my gun and hull caboodle. Say, now, gimme
+that gun, anyway."
+
+"All right, if yeh feel like it, Jim," Smith replied, and they trudged
+along doggedly in the sun, which was getting higher and hotter each
+half-mile.
+
+"Ain't it queer there ain't no teams comin' along," said Smith, after a
+long silence.
+
+"Well, no, seein's it's Sunday."
+
+"By jinks, that's a fact! It is Sunday. I'll git home in time f'r
+dinner, sure!" he exulted. "She don't hev dinner usially till about one
+on Sundays." And he fell into a muse, in which he smiled.
+
+"Well, I'll git home jest about six o'clock, jest about when the boys
+are milkin' the cows," said old Jim Cranby. "I'll step into the barn,
+an' then I'll say: 'Heah! why ain't this milkin' done before this time
+o' day?' An' then won't they yell!" he added, slapping his thigh in
+great glee.
+
+Smith went on. "I'll jest go up the path. Old Rover'll come down the
+road to meet me. He won't bark; he'll know me, an' he'll come down
+waggin' his tail an' showin' his teeth. That's his way of laughin'. An'
+so I'll walk up to the kitchen door, an' I'll say, 'Dinner f'r a hungry
+man!' An' then she'll jump up, an'--"
+
+He couldn't go on. His voice choked at the thought of it. Saunders, the
+third man, hardly uttered a word, but walked silently behind the others.
+He had lost his wife the first year he was in the army. She died of
+pneumonia, caught in the autumn rains while working in the fields in his
+place.
+
+They plodded along till at last they came to a parting of the ways. To
+the right the road continued up the main valley; to the left it went
+over the big ridge.
+
+"Well, boys," began Smith, as they grounded their muskets and looked
+away up the valley, "here's where we shake hands. We've marched together
+a good many miles, an' now I s'pose we're done."
+
+"Yes, I don't think we'll do any more of it f'r a while. I don't want
+to, I know."
+
+"I hope I'll see yeh once in a while, boys, to talk over old times."
+
+"Of course," said Saunders, whose voice trembled a little, too. "It
+ain't exactly like dyin'." They all found it hard to look at each other.
+
+"But we'd ought'r go home with you," said Cranby. "You'll never climb
+that ridge with all them things on yer back."
+
+"Oh, I'm all right! Don't worry about me. Every step takes me nearer
+home, yeh see. Well, good-by, boys."
+
+They shook hands. "Good-by. Good luck!"
+
+"Same to you. Lemme know how you find things at home."
+
+"Good-by."
+
+"Good-by."
+
+He turned once before they passed out of sight, and waved his cap, and
+they did the same, and all yelled. Then all marched away with their
+long, steady, loping, veteran step. The solitary climber in blue walked
+on for a time, with his mind filled with the kindness of his comrades,
+and musing upon the many wonderful days they had had together in camp
+and field.
+
+He thought of his chum, Billy Tripp. Poor Billy! A "minie" ball fell
+into his breast one day, fell wailing like a cat, and tore a great
+ragged hole in his heart. He looked forward to a sad scene with Billy's
+mother and sweetheart. They would want to know all about it. He tried to
+recall all that Billy had said, and the particulars of it, but there was
+little to remember, just that wild wailing sound high in the air, a dull
+slap, a short, quick, expulsive groan, and the boy lay with his face in
+the dirt in the ploughed field they were marching across.
+
+That was all. But all the scenes he had since been through had not
+dimmed the horror, the terror of that moment, when his boy comrade fell,
+with only a breath between a laugh and a death-groan. Poor handsome
+Billy! Worth millions of dollars was his young life.
+
+These sombre recollections gave way at length to more cheerful feelings
+as he began to approach his home coolly. The fields and houses grew
+familiar, and in one or two he was greeted by people seated in the
+doorway. But he was in no mood to talk, and pushed on steadily, though
+he stopped and accepted a drink of milk once at the well-side of a
+neighbor.
+
+The sun was getting hot on that slope, and his step grew slower, in
+spite of his iron resolution. He sat down several times to rest. Slowly
+he crawled up the rough, reddish-brown road, which wound along the
+hillside, under great trees, through dense groves of jack oaks, with
+tree-tops far below him on his left hand, and the hills far above him on
+his right. He crawled along like some minute, wingless variety of fly.
+
+He ate some hardtack, sauced with wild berries, when he reached the
+summit of the ridge, and sat there for some time, looking down into his
+home coolly.
+
+Sombre, pathetic figure! His wide, round, gray eyes gazing down into the
+beautiful valley, seeing and not seeing, the splendid cloud-shadows
+sweeping over the western hills and across the green and yellow wheat
+far below. His head drooped forward on his palm, his shoulders took on a
+tired stoop, his cheek-bones showed painfully. An observer might have
+said, "He is looking down upon his own grave."
+
+II
+
+Sunday comes in a Western wheat harvest with such sweet and sudden
+relaxation to man and beast that it would be holy for that reason, if
+for no other, and Sundays are usually fair in harvest-time. As one goes
+out into the field in the hot morning sunshine, with no sound abroad
+save the crickets and the indescribably pleasant silken rustling of the
+ripened grain, the reaper and the very sheaves in the stubble seem to be
+resting, dreaming.
+
+Around the house, in the shade of the trees, the men sit, smoking,
+dozing, or reading the papers, while the women, never resting, move
+about at the housework. The men eat on Sundays about the same as on
+other days, and breakfast is no sooner over and out of the way than
+dinner begins.
+
+But at the Smith farm there were no men dozing or reading. Mrs. Smith
+was alone with her three children, Mary, nine, Tommy, six, and little
+Ted, just past four. Her farm, rented to a neighbor, lay at the head of
+a coolly or narrow gully, made at some far-off post-glacial period by
+the vast and angry floods of water which gullied these tremendous
+furrows in the level prairie--furrows so deep that undisturbed portions
+of the original level rose like hills on either side, rose to quite
+considerable mountains.
+
+The chickens wakened her as usual that Sabbath morning from dreams of
+her absent husband, from whom she had not heard for weeks. The shadows
+drifted over the hills, down the slopes, across the wheat, and up the
+opposite wall in leisurely way, as if, being Sunday, they could take it
+easy also. The fowls clustered about the housewife as she went out into
+the yard. Fuzzy little chickens swarmed out from the coops, where their
+clucking and perpetually disgruntled mothers tramped about, petulantly
+thrusting their heads through the spaces between the slats.
+
+A cow called in a deep, musical bass, and a calf answered from a little
+pen near by, and a pig scurried guiltily out of the cabbages. Seeing all
+this, seeing the pig in the cabbages, the tangle of grass in the garden,
+the broken fence which she had mended again and again--the little woman,
+hardly more than a girl, sat down and cried. The bright Sabbath morning
+was only a mockery without him!
+
+A few years ago they had bought this farm, paying part, mortgaging the
+rest in the usual way. Edward Smith was a man of terrible energy. He
+worked "nights and Sundays," as the saying goes, to clear the farm of
+its brush and of its insatiate mortgage! In the midst of his Herculean
+struggle came the call for volunteers, and with the grim and unselfish
+devotion to his country which made the Eagle Brigade able to "whip its
+weight in wild-cats," he threw down his scythe and grub-axe, turned his
+cattle loose, and became a blue-coated cog in a vast machine for killing
+men, and not thistles. While the millionaire sent his money to England
+for safe-keeping, this man, with his girl-wife and three babies, left
+them on a mortgaged farm, and went away to fight for an idea. It was
+foolish, but it was sublime for all that.
+
+That was three years before, and the young wife, sitting on the
+well-curb on this bright Sabbath harvest morning, was righteously
+rebellious. It seemed to her that she had borne her share of the
+country's sorrow. Two brothers had been killed, the renter in whose
+hands her husband had left the farm had proved a villain; one year the
+farm had been without crops, and now the overripe grain was waiting the
+tardy hand of the neighbor who had rented it, and who was cutting his
+own grain first.
+
+About six weeks before, she had received a letter saying, "We'll be
+discharged in a little while." But no other word had come from him. She
+had seen by the papers that his army was being discharged, and from day
+to day other soldiers slowly percolated in blue streams back into the
+State and county, but still her hero did not return.
+
+Each week she had told the children that he was coming, and she had
+watched the road so long that it had become unconscious; and as she
+stood at the well, or by the kitchen door, her eyes were fixed
+unthinkingly on the road that wound down the coolly.
+
+Nothing wears on the human soul like waiting. If the stranded mariner,
+searching the sun-bright seas, could once give up hope of a ship, that
+horrible grinding on his brain would cease. It was this waiting, hoping,
+on the edge of despair, that gave Emma Smith no rest.
+
+Neighbors said, with kind intentions, "He's sick, maybe, an' can't start
+north just yet. He'll come along one o' these days."
+
+"Why don't he write?" was her question, which silenced them all. This
+Sunday morning it seemed to her as if she could not stand it longer. The
+house seemed intolerably lonely. So she dressed the little ones in their
+best calico dresses and home-made jackets, and, closing up the house,
+set off down the coolly to old Mother Gray's.
+
+"Old Widder Gray" lived at the "mouth of the coolly." She was a widow
+woman with a large family of stalwart boys and laughing girls. She was
+the visible incarnation of hospitality and optimistic poverty. With
+Western open-heartedness she fed every mouth that asked food of her, and
+worked herself to death as cheerfully as her girls danced in the
+neighborhood harvest dances.
+
+She waddled down the path to meet Mrs. Smith with a broad smile on her
+face.
+
+"Oh, you little dears! Come right to your granny. Gimme a kiss! Come
+right in, Mis' Smith. How are yeh, anyway? Nice mornin', ain't it? Come
+in an' set down. Everything's in a clutter, but that won't scare you
+any."
+
+She led the way into the best room, a sunny, square room, carpeted with
+a faded and patched rag carpet, and papered with white-and-green-striped
+wall-paper, where a few faded effigies of dead members of the family
+hung in variously sized oval walnut frames. The house resounded with
+singing, laughter, whistling, tramping of heavy boots, and riotous
+scufflings. Half-grown boys came to the door and crooked their fingers
+at the children, who ran out, and were soon heard in the midst of the
+fun.
+
+"Don't s'pose you've heard from Ed?" Mrs. Smith shook her head. "He'll
+turn up some day, when you ain't lookin' for 'm." The good old soul had
+said that so many times that poor Mrs. Smith derived no comfort from it
+any longer.
+
+"Liz heard from Al the other day. He's comin' some day this week.
+Anyhow, they expect him."
+
+"Did he say anything of--"
+
+"No, he didn't," Mrs. Gray admitted. "But then it was only a short
+letter, anyhow. Al ain't much for writin', anyhow.--But come out and see
+my new cheese. I tell yeh, I don't believe I ever had better luck in my
+life. If Ed should come, I want you should take him up a piece of this
+cheese."
+
+It was beyond human nature to resist the influence of that noisy,
+hearty, loving household, and in the midst of the singing and laughing
+the wife forgot her anxiety, for the time at least, and laughed and sang
+with the rest.
+
+About eleven o'clock a wagon-load more drove up to the door, and Bill
+Gray, the widow's oldest son, and his whole family, from Sand Lake
+Coolly, piled out amid a good-natured uproar. Every one talked at once,
+except Bill, who sat in the wagon with his wrists on his knees, a straw
+in his mouth, and an amused twinkle in his blue eyes.
+
+"Ain't heard nothin' o' Ed, I s'pose?" he asked in a kind of bellow.
+Mrs. Smith shook her head. Bill, with a delicacy very striking in such a
+great giant, rolled his quid in his mouth, and said:
+
+"Didn't know but you had. I hear two or three of the Sand Lake boys are
+comin'. Left New Orleenes some time this week. Didn't write nothin'
+about Ed, but no news is good news in such cases, mother always says."
+
+"Well, go put out yer team," said Mrs. Gray, "an' go'n bring me in some
+taters, an', Sim, you go see if you c'n find some corn. Sadie, you put
+on the water to bile. Come now, hustle yer boots, all o' yeh. If I feed
+this yer crowd, we've got to have some raw materials. If y' think I'm
+goin' to feed yeh on pie--your jest mightily mistaken."
+
+The children went off into the fields, the girls put dinner on to boil,
+and then went to change their dresses and fix their hair. "Somebody
+might come," they said.
+
+"Land sakes, I hope not! I don't know where in time I'd set 'em, 'less
+they'd eat at the second table," Mrs. Gray laughed, in pretended dismay.
+
+The two older boys, who had served their time in the army, lay out on
+the grass before the house, and whittled and talked desultorily about
+the war and the crops, and planned buying a threshing-machine. The older
+girls and Mrs. Smith helped enlarge the table and put on the dishes,
+talking all the time in that cheery, incoherent, and meaningful way a
+group of such women have,--a conversation to be taken for its spirit
+rather than for its letter, though Mrs. Gray at last got the ear of them
+all and dissertated at length on girls.
+
+"Girls in love ain't no use in the whole blessed week," she said.
+"Sundays they're a-lookin' down the road, expectin' he'll come. Sunday
+afternoons they can't think o' nothin' else, 'cause he's here. Monday
+mornin's they're sleepy and kind o' dreamy and slimpsy, and good f'r
+nothin' on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday they git absent-minded, an'
+begin to look off toward Sunday agin, an' mope aroun' and let the
+dishwater git cold, right under their noses. Friday they break dishes,
+an' go off in the best room an' snivel, an' look out o' the winder.
+Saturdays they have queer spurts o' workin' like all p'ssessed, an'
+spurts o' frizzin' their hair. An' Sunday they begin it all over agin."
+
+The girls giggled and blushed, all through this tirade from their
+mother, their broad faces and powerful frames anything but suggestive of
+lackadaisical sentiment. But Mrs. Smith said:
+
+"Now, Mrs. Gray, I hadn't ought to stay to dinner. You've got--"
+
+"Now you set right down! If any of them girls' beaus comes, they'll have
+to take what's left, that's all. They ain't s'posed to have much
+appetite, nohow. No, you're goin' to stay if they starve, an' they ain't
+no danger o' that."
+
+At one o'clock the long table was piled with boiled potatoes, cords of
+boiled corn on the cob, squash and pumpkin pies, hot biscuit, sweet
+pickles, bread and butter, and honey. Then one of the girls took down a
+conch-shell from a nail, and going to the door, blew a long, fine, tree
+blast, that showed there was no weakness of lungs in her ample chest.
+
+Then the children came out of the forest of corn, out of the creek, out
+of the loft of the barn, and out of the garden.
+
+"They come to their feed f'r all the world jest like the pigs when y'
+holler 'poo-ee!' See 'em scoot!" laughed Mrs. Gray, every wrinkle on her
+face shining with delight.
+
+The men shut up their jack-knives, and surrounded the horse-trough to
+souse their faces in the cold, hard water, and in a few moments the
+table was filled with a merry crowd, and a row of wistful-eyed
+youngsters circled the kitchen wall, where they stood first on one leg
+and then on the other, in impatient hunger.
+
+"Now pitch in, Mrs. Smith," said Mrs. Gray, presiding over the table.
+"You know these men critters. They'll eat every grain of it, if yeh give
+'em a chance. I swan, they're made o' India-rubber, their stomachs is, I
+know it."
+
+"Haf to eat to work," said Bill, gnawing a cob with a swift, circular
+motion that rivalled a corn-sheller in results.
+
+"More like workin' to eat," put in one of the girls, with a giggle.
+"More eat 'n work with you."
+
+"You needn't say anything, Net. Any one that'll eat seven ears--"
+
+"I didn't, no such thing. You piled your cobs on my plate."
+
+"That'll do to tell Ed Varney. It won't go down here where we know yeh."
+
+"Good land! Eat all yeh want! They's plenty more in the fiel's, but I
+can't afford to give you young uns tea. The tea is for us women-folks,
+and 'specially f'r Mis' Smith an' Bill's wife. We're a-goin' to tell
+fortunes by it."
+
+One by one the men filled up and shoved back, and one by one the
+children slipped into their places, and by two o'clock the women alone
+remained around the débris-covered table, sipping their tea and telling
+fortunes.
+
+As they got well down to the grounds in the cup, they shook them with a
+circular motion in the hand, and then turned them bottom-side-up quickly
+in the saucer, then twirled them three or four times one way, and three
+or four times the other, during a breathless pause. Then Mrs. Gray
+lifted the cup, and, gazing into it with profound gravity, pronounced
+the impending fate.
+
+It must be admitted that, to a critical observer, she had abundant
+preparation for hitting close to the mark, as when she told the girls
+that "somebody was comin'." "It's a man," she went on gravely. "He is
+cross-eyed--"
+
+"Oh, you hush!" cried Nettie.
+
+"He has red hair, and is death on b'iled corn and hot biscuit."
+
+The others shrieked with delight.
+
+"But he's goin' to get the mitten, that red-headed feller is, for I see
+another feller comin' up behind him."
+
+"Oh, lemme see, lemme see!" cried Nettie.
+
+"Keep off," said the priestess, with a lofty gesture. "His hair is
+black. He don't eat so much, and he works more."
+
+The girls exploded in a shriek of laughter, and pounded their sister on
+the back.
+
+At last came Mrs. Smith's turn, and she was trembling with excitement as
+Mrs. Gray again composed her jolly face to what she considered a proper
+solemnity of expression.
+
+"Somebody is comin' to you," she said, after a long pause. "He's got a
+musket on his back. He's a soldier. He's almost here. See?"
+
+She pointed at two little tea-stems, which really formed a faint
+suggestion of a man with a musket on his back. He had climbed nearly to
+the edge of the cup. Mrs. Smith grew pale with excitement. She trembled
+so she could hardly hold the cup in her hand as she gazed into it.
+
+"It's Ed," cried the old woman. "He's on the way home. Heavens an'
+earth! There he is now!" She turned and waved her hand out toward the
+road. They rushed to the door to look where she pointed.
+
+A man in a blue coat, with a musket on his back, was toiling slowly up
+the hill on the sun-bright, dusty road, toiling slowly, with bent head
+half hidden by a heavy knapsack. So tired it seemed that walking was
+indeed a process of falling. So eager to get home he would not stop,
+would not look aside, but plodded on, amid the cries of the locusts, the
+welcome of the crickets, and the rustle of the yellow wheat. Getting
+back to God's country, and his wife and babies!
+
+Laughing, crying, trying to call him and the children at the same time,
+the little wife, almost hysterical, snatched her hat and ran out into
+the yard. But the soldier had disappeared over the hill into the hollow
+beyond, and, by the time she had found the children, he was too far away
+for her voice to reach him. And, besides, she was not sure it was her
+husband, for he had not turned his head at their shouts. This seemed so
+strange. Why didn't he stop to rest at his old neighbor's house?
+Tortured by hope and doubt, she hurried up the coolly as fast as she
+could push the baby wagon, the blue-coated figure just ahead pushing
+steadily, silently forward up the coolly.
+
+When the excited, panting little group came in sight of the gate they
+saw the blue-coated figure standing, leaning upon the rough rail fence,
+his chin on his palms, gazing at the empty house. His knapsack, canteen,
+blankets, and musket lay upon the dusty grass at his feet.
+
+He was like a man lost in a dream. His wide, hungry eyes devoured the
+scene. The rough lawn, the little unpainted house, the field of clear
+yellow wheat behind it, down across which streamed the sun, now almost
+ready to touch the high hill to the west, the crickets crying merrily, a
+cat on the fence near by, dreaming, unmindful of the stranger in blue--
+
+How peaceful it all was. O God! How far removed from all camps,
+hospitals, battle lines. A little cabin in a Wisconsin coolly, but it
+was majestic in its peace. How did he ever leave it for those years of
+tramping, thirsting, killing?
+
+Trembling, weak with emotion, her eyes on the silent figure, Mrs. Smith
+hurried up to the fence. Her feet made no noise in the dust and grass,
+and they were close upon him before he knew of them. The oldest boy ran
+a little ahead. He will never forget that figure, that face. It will
+always remain as something epic, that return of the private. He fixed
+his eyes on the pale face covered with a ragged beard.
+
+"Who are you, sir?" asked the wife, or, rather, started to ask, for he
+turned, stood a moment, and then cried:
+
+"Emma!"
+
+"Edward!"
+
+The children stood in a curious row to see their mother kiss this
+bearded, strange man, the elder girl sobbing sympathetically with her
+mother. Illness had left the soldier partly deaf, and this added to the
+strangeness of his manner.
+
+But the youngest child stood away, even after the girl had recognized
+her father and kissed him. The man turned then to the baby, and said in
+a curiously unpaternal tone:
+
+"Come here, my little man; don't you know me?" But the baby backed away
+under the fence and stood peering at him critically.
+
+"My little man!" What meaning in those words! This baby seemed like some
+other woman's child, and not the infant he had left in his wife's arms.
+The war had come between him and his baby--he was only a strange man to
+him, with big eyes; a soldier, with mother hanging to his arm, and
+talking in a loud voice.
+
+"And this is Tom," the private said, drawing the oldest boy to him.
+"He'll come and see me. He knows his poor old pap when he comes home
+from the war."
+
+The mother heard the pain and reproach in his voice and hastened to
+apologize.
+
+"You've changed so, Ed. He can't know yeh. This is papa, Teddy; come and
+kiss him--Tom and Mary do. Come, won't you?" But Teddy still peered
+through the fence with solemn eyes, well out of reach. He resembled a
+half-wild kitten that hesitates, studying the tones of one's voice.
+
+"I'll fix him," said the soldier, and sat down to undo his knapsack, out
+of which he drew three enormous and very red apples. After giving one to
+each of the older children, he said:
+
+"Now I guess he'll come. Eh, my little man? Now come see your pap."
+
+Teddy crept slowly under the fence, assisted by the overzealous Tommy,
+and a moment later was kicking and squalling in his father's arms. Then
+they entered the house, into the sitting room, poor, bare, art-forsaken
+little room, too, with its rag carpet, its square clock, and its two or
+three chromos and pictures from Harper's Weekly pinned about.
+
+"Emma, I'm all tired out," said Private Smith, as he flung himself down
+on the carpet as he used to do, while his wife brought a pillow to put
+under his head, and the children stood about munching their apples.
+
+"Tommy, you run and get me a pan of chips, and Mary, you get the
+tea-kettle on, and I'll go and make some biscuit."
+
+And the soldier talked. Question after question he poured forth about
+the crops, the cattle, the renter, the neighbors. He slipped his heavy
+government brogan shoes off his poor, tired, blistered feet, and lay out
+with utter, sweet relaxation. He was a free man again, no longer a
+soldier under command. At supper he stopped once, listened and smiled.
+"That's old Spot. I know her voice. I s'pose that's her calf out there
+in the pen. I can't milk her to-night, though. I'm too tired. But I tell
+you, I'd like a drink o' her milk. What's become of old Rove?"
+
+"He died last winter. Poisoned, I guess." There was a moment of sadness
+for them all. It was some time before the husband spoke again, in a
+voice that trembled a little.
+
+"Poor old feller! He'd 'a' known me a half a mile away. I expected him
+to come down the hill to meet me. It 'ud 'a' been more like comin' home
+if I could 'a' seen him comin' down the road an' waggin' his tail, an'
+laughin' that way he has. I tell yeh, it kind o' took hold o' me to see
+the blinds down an' the house shut up."
+
+"But, yeh see, we--we expected you'd write again 'fore you started. And
+then we thought we'd see you if you did come," she hastened to explain.
+
+"Well, I ain't worth a cent on writin'. Besides, it's just as well yeh
+didn't know when I was comin'. I tell you, it sounds good to hear them
+chickens out there, an' turkeys, an' the crickets. Do you know they
+don't have just the same kind o' crickets down South? Who's Sam hired
+t' help cut yer grain?"
+
+"The Ramsey boys."
+
+"Looks like a good crop; but I'm afraid I won't do much gettin' it cut.
+This cussed fever an' ague has got me down pretty low. I don't know when
+I'll get rid of it. I'll bet I've took twenty-five pounds of quinine if
+I've taken a bit. Gimme another biscuit. I tell yeh, they taste good,
+Emma. I ain't had anything like it--Say, if you'd 'a' hear'd me braggin'
+to th' boys about your butter 'n' biscuits I'll bet your ears 'ud 'a'
+burnt."
+
+The private's wife colored with pleasure. "Oh, you're always a-braggin'
+about your things. Everybody makes good butter."
+
+"Yes; old lady Snyder, for instance."
+
+"Oh, well, she ain't to be mentioned. She's Dutch."
+
+"Or old Mis' Snively. One more cup o' tea, Mary. That's my girl! I'm
+feeling better already. I just b'lieve the matter with me is, I'm
+starved."
+
+This was a delicious hour, one long to be remembered. They were like
+lovers again. But their tenderness, like that of a typical American
+family, found utterance in tones, rather than in words. He was praising
+her when praising her biscuit, and she knew it. They grew soberer when
+he showed where he had been struck, one ball burning the back of his
+hand, one cutting away a lock of hair from his temple, and one passing
+through the calf of his leg. The wife shuddered to think how near she
+had come to being a soldier's widow. Her waiting no longer seemed hard.
+This sweet, glorious hour effaced it all.
+
+Then they rose, and all went out into the garden and down to the barn.
+He stood beside her while she milked old Spot. They began to plan fields
+and crops for next year.
+
+His farm was weedy and encumbered, a rascally renter had run away with
+his machinery (departing between two days), his children needed
+clothing, the years were coming upon him, he was sick and emaciated, but
+his heroic soul did not quail. With the same courage with which he faced
+his Southern march he entered upon a still more hazardous future.
+
+Oh, that mystic hour! The pale man with big eyes standing there by the
+well, with his young wife by his side. The vast moon swinging above the
+eastern peaks, the cattle winding down the pasture slopes with jangling
+bells, the crickets singing, the stars blooming out sweet and far and
+serene; the katydids rhythmically calling, the little turkeys crying
+querulously, as they settled to roost in the poplar tree near the open
+gate. The voices at the well drop lower, the little ones nestle in their
+father's arms at last, and Teddy falls asleep there.
+
+The common soldier of the American volunteer army had returned. His war
+with the South was over, and his fight, his daily running fight with
+nature and against the injustice of his fellow-men, was begun again.
+
+
+
+Under the Lion's Paw
+
+"Along this main-travelled road trailed an endless line of prairie
+schooners, coming into sight at the east, and passing out of sight over
+the swell to the west. We children used to wonder where they were going
+and why they went."
+
+I
+
+It was the last of autumn and first day of winter coming together. All
+day long the ploughmen on their prairie farms had moved to and fro in
+their wide level fields through the falling snow, which melted as it
+fell, wetting them to the skin--all day, notwithstanding the frequent
+squalls of snow, the dripping, desolate clouds, and the muck of the
+furrows, black and tenacious as tar.
+
+Under their dripping harness the horses swung to and fro silently, with
+that marvellous uncomplaining patience which marks the horse. All day
+the wild geese, honking wildly, as they sprawled sidewise down the wind,
+seemed to be fleeing from an enemy behind, and with neck outthrust and
+wings extended, sailed down the wind, soon lost to sight.
+
+Yet the ploughman behind his plough, though the snow lay on his ragged
+great-coat, and the cold clinging mud rose on his heavy boots, fettering
+him like gyves, whistled in the very beard of the gale. As day passed,
+the snow, ceasing to melt, lay along the ploughed land, and lodged in
+the depth of the stubble, till on each slow round the last furrow stood
+out black and shining as jet between the ploughed land and the gray
+stubble.
+
+When night began to fall, and the geese, flying low, began to alight
+invisibly in the near corn-field, Stephen Council was still at work
+"finishing a land." He rode on his sulky plough when going with the
+wind, but walked when facing it. Sitting bent and cold but cheery under
+his slouch hat, he talked encouragingly to his four-in-hand.
+
+"Come round there, boys!--Round agin! We got t' finish this land. Come
+in there, Dan! Stiddy, Kate,--stiddy! None o' y'r tantrums, Kittie. It's
+purty tuff, but got a be did. Tchk! tchk! Step along, Pete! Don't let
+Kate git y'r single-tree on the wheel. Once more!"
+
+They seemed to know what he meant, and that this was the last round, for
+they worked with greater vigor than before.
+
+"Once more, boys, an' then, sez I, oats an' a nice warm stall, an' sleep
+f'r all."
+
+By the time the last furrow was turned on the land it was too dark to
+see the house, and the snow was changing to rain again. The tired and
+hungry man could see the light from the kitchen shining through the
+leafless hedge, and he lifted a great shout, "Supper f'r a half a
+dozen!"
+
+It was nearly eight o'clock by the time he had finished his chores and
+started for supper. He was picking his way carefully through the mud,
+when the tall form of a man loomed up before him with a premonitory
+cough.
+
+"Waddy ye want?" was the rather startled question of the farmer.
+
+"Well, ye see," began the stranger, in a deprecating tone, "we'd like
+t' git in f'r the night. We've tried every house f'r the last two miles,
+but they hadn't any room f'r us. My wife's jest about sick, 'n' the
+children are cold and hungry--"
+
+"Oh, y' want 'o stay all night, eh?"
+
+"Yes, sir; it 'ud be a great accom--"
+
+"Waal, I don't make it a practice t' turn anybuddy way hungry, not on
+sech nights as this. Drive right in. We ain't got much, but sech as it
+is--"
+
+But the stranger had disappeared. And soon his steaming, weary team,
+with drooping heads and swinging single-trees, moved past the well to
+the block beside the path. Council stood at the side of the "schooner"
+and helped the children out--two little half-sleeping children--and then
+a small woman with a babe in her arms.
+
+"There ye go!" he shouted jovially, to the children. "Now we're all
+right! Run right along to the house there, an' tell Mam' Council you
+wants sumpthin' t' eat. Right this way, Mis'--keep right off t' the
+right there. I'll go an' git a lantern. Come," he said to the dazed and
+silent group at his side.
+
+"Mother," he shouted, as he neared the fragrant and warmly lighted
+kitchen, "here are some wayfarers an' folks who need sumpthin' t' eat
+an' a place t' snooze." He ended by pushing them all in.
+
+Mrs. Council, a large, jolly, rather coarse-looking woman, took the
+children in her arms. "Come right in, you little rabbits. 'Most asleep,
+hey? Now here's a drink o' milk f'r each o' ye. I'll have s'm tea in a
+minute. Take off y'r things and set up t' the fire."
+
+While she set the children to drinking milk, Council got out his lantern
+and went out to the barn to help the stranger about his team, where his
+loud, hearty voice could be heard as it came and went between the
+haymow and the stalls.
+
+The woman came to light as a small, timid, and discouraged-looking
+woman, but still pretty, in a thin and sorrowful way.
+
+"Land sakes! An' you've travelled all the way from Clear Lake t'-day in
+this mud! Waal! waal! No wonder you're all tired out. Don't wait f'r the
+men, Mis'--" She hesitated, waiting for the name.
+
+"Haskins."
+
+"Mis' Haskins, set right up to the table an' take a good swig o' tea
+whilst I make y' s'm toast. It's green tea, an' it's good. I tell
+Council as I git older I don't seem to enjoy Young Hyson n'r Gunpowder.
+I want the reel green tea, jest as it comes off'n the vines. Seems t'
+have more heart in it, some way. Don't s'pose it has. Council says it's
+all in m' eye."
+
+Going on in this easy way, she soon had the children filled with bread
+and milk and the woman thoroughly at home, eating some toast and
+sweet-melon pickles, and sipping the tea.
+
+"See the little rats!" she laughed at the children. "They're full as
+they can stick now, and they want to go to bed. Now, don't git up,
+Mis' Haskins; set right where you are an' let me look after 'em. I know
+all about young ones, though I'm all alone now. Jane went an' married
+last fall. But, as I tell Council, it's lucky we keep our health. Set
+right there, Mis' Haskins; I won't have you stir a finger."
+
+It was an unmeasured pleasure to sit there in the warm, homely kitchen,
+the jovial chatter of the housewife driving out and holding at bay the
+growl of the impotent, cheated wind.
+
+The little woman's eyes filled with tears which fell down upon the
+sleeping baby in her arms. The world was not so desolate and cold and
+hopeless, after all.
+
+"Now I hope Council won't stop out there and talk politics all night.
+He's the greatest man to talk politics an' read the Tribune--How old is
+it?"
+
+She broke off and peered down at the face of the babe.
+
+"Two months 'n' five days," said the mother, with a mother's exactness.
+
+"Ye don't say! I want 'o know! The dear little pudzy-wudzy!" she went
+on, stirring it up in the neighborhood of the ribs with her fat
+forefinger.
+
+"Pooty tough on 'oo to go gallivant'n' 'cross lots this way--"
+
+"Yes, that's so; a man can't lift a mountain," said Council, entering
+the door. "Mother, this is Mr. Haskins, from Kansas. He's been eat up
+'n' drove out by grasshoppers."
+
+"Glad t' see yeh!--Pa, empty that wash-basin 'n' give him a chance t'
+wash."
+
+Haskins was a tall man, with a thin, gloomy face. His hair was a reddish
+brown, like his coat, and seemed equally faded by the wind and sun, and
+his sallow face, though hard and set, was pathetic somehow. You would
+have felt that he had suffered much by the line of his mouth showing
+under his thin, yellow mustache.
+
+"Hadn't Ike got home yet, Sairy?"
+
+"Hadn't seen 'im."
+
+"W-a-a-l, set right up, Mr. Haskins; wade right into what we've got;
+'taint much, but we manage to live on it--she gits fat on it," laughed
+Council, pointing his thumb at his wife.
+
+After supper, while the women put the children to bed, Haskins and
+Council talked on, seated near the huge cooking-stove, the steam rising
+from their wet clothing. In the Western fashion Council told as much of
+his own life as he drew from his guest. He asked but few questions, but
+by and by the story of Haskins' struggles and defeat came out. The story
+was a terrible one, but he told it quietly, seated with his elbows on
+his knees, gazing most of the time at the hearth.
+
+"I didn't like the looks of the country, anyhow," Haskins said, partly
+rising and glancing at his wife. "I was ust t' northern Ingyannie, where
+we have lots o' timber 'n' lots o' rain, 'n' I didn't like the looks o'
+that dry prairie. What galled me the worst was goin' s' far away acrosst
+so much fine land layin' all through here vacant."
+
+"And the 'hoppers eat ye four years, hand runnin', did they?"
+
+"Eat! They wiped us out. They chawed everything that was green. They
+jest set around waitin' f'r us to die t' eat us, too. My God! I ust t'
+dream of 'em sittin' 'round on the bedpost, six feet long, workin' their
+jaws. They eet the fork-handles. They got worse 'n' worse till they jest
+rolled on one another, piled up like snow in winter. Well, it ain't no
+use. If I was t' talk all winter I couldn't tell nawthin'. But all the
+while I couldn't help thinkin' of all that land back here that nobuddy
+was usin' that I ought 'o had 'stead o' bein' out there in that cussed
+country."
+
+"Waal, why didn't ye stop an' settle here?" asked Ike, who had come in
+and was eating his supper.
+
+"Fer the simple reason that you fellers wantid ten 'r fifteen dollars an
+acre fer the bare land, and I hadn't no money fer that kind o' thing."
+
+"Yes, I do my own work," Mrs. Council was heard to say in the pause
+which followed. "I'm a gettin' purty heavy t' be on m' laigs all day,
+but we can't afford t' hire, so I keep rackin' around somehow, like a
+foundered horse. S' lame--I tell Council he can't tell how lame I am,
+f'r I'm jest as lame in one laig as t'other." And the good soul laughed
+at the joke on herself as she took a handful of flour and dusted the
+biscuit-board to keep the dough from sticking.
+
+"Well, I hain't never been very strong," said Mrs. Haskins. "Our folks
+was Canadians an' small-boned, and then since my last child I hain't got
+up again fairly. I don't like t' complain. Tim has about all he can bear
+now--but they was days this week when I jest wanted to lay right down
+an' die."
+
+"Waal, now, I'll tell ye," said Council, from his side of the stove,
+silencing everybody with his good-natured roar, "I'd go down and see
+Butler, anyway, if I was you. I guess he'd let you have his place purty
+cheap; the farm's all run down. He's ben anxious t' let t' somebuddy
+next year. It 'ud be a good chance fer you. Anyhow, you go to bed and
+sleep like a babe. I've got some ploughing t' do, anyhow, an' we'll see
+if somethin' can't be done about your case. Ike, you go out an' see if
+the horses is all right, an' I'll show the folks t' bed."
+
+When the tired husband and wife were lying under the generous quilts of
+the spare bed, Haskins listened a moment to the wind in the eaves, and
+then said, with a slow and solemn tone,
+
+"There are people in this world who are good enough t' be angels, an'
+only haff t' die to be angels."
+
+II
+
+Jim Butler was one of those men called in the West "land poor." Early in
+the history of Rock River he had come into the town and started in the
+grocery business in a small way, occupying a small building in a mean
+part of the town. At this period of his life he earned all he got, and
+was up early and late sorting beans, working over butter, and carting
+his goods to and from the station. But a change came over him at the end
+of the second year, when he sold a lot of land for four times what he
+paid for it. From that time forward he believed in land speculation as
+the surest way of getting rich. Every cent he could save or spare from
+his trade he put into land at forced sale, or mortgages on land, which
+were "just as good as the wheat," he was accustomed to say.
+
+Farm after farm fell into his hands, until he was recognized as one of
+the leading landowners of the county. His mortgages were scattered all
+over Cedar County, and as they slowly but surely fell in he sought
+usually to retain the former owner as tenant.
+
+He was not ready to foreclose; indeed, he had the name of being one of
+the "easiest" men in the town. He let the debtor off again and again,
+extending the time whenever possible.
+
+"I don't want y'r land," he said. "All I'm after is the int'rest on my
+money--that's all. Now, if y' want 'o stay on the farm, why, I'll give
+y' a good chance. I can't have the land layin' vacant." And in many
+cases the owner remained as tenant.
+
+In the meantime he had sold his store; he couldn't spend time in it; he
+was mainly occupied now with sitting around town on rainy days smoking
+and "gassin' with the boys," or in riding to and from his farms. In
+fishing-time he fished a good deal. Doc Grimes, Ben Ashley, and Cal
+Cheatham were his cronies on these fishing excursions or hunting trips
+in the time of chickens or partridges. In winter they went to Northern
+Wisconsin to shoot deer.
+
+In spite of all these signs of easy life Butler persisted in saying he
+"hadn't enough money to pay taxes on his land," and was careful to
+convey the impression that he was poor in spite of his twenty farms. At
+one time he was said to be worth fifty thousand dollars, but land had
+been a little slow of sale of late, so that he was not worth so much.
+
+A fine farm, known as the Higley place, had fallen into his hands in the
+usual way the previous year, and he had not been able to find a tenant
+for it. Poor Higley, after working himself nearly to death on it in the
+attempt to lift the mortgage, had gone off to Dakota, leaving the farm
+and his curse to Butler.
+
+This was the farm which Council advised Haskins to apply for; and the
+next day Council hitched up his team and drove down to see Butler.
+
+"You jest let me do the talkin'," he said. "We'll find him wearin' out
+his pants on some salt barrel somew'ers; and if he thought you wanted a
+place he'd sock it to you hot and heavy. You jest keep quiet; I'll fix
+'im."
+
+Butler was seated in Ben Ashley's store telling fish yarns when Council
+sauntered in casually.
+
+"Hello, But; lyin' agin, hey?"
+
+"Hello, Steve! how goes it?"
+
+"Oh, so-so. Too dang much rain these days. I thought it was goin' t'
+freeze up f'r good last night. Tight squeak if I get m' ploughin' done.
+How's farmin' with you these days?"
+
+"Bad. Ploughin' ain't half done."
+
+"It 'ud be a religious idee f'r you t' go out an' take a hand y'rself."
+
+"I don't haff to," said Butler, with a wink.
+
+"Got anybody on the Higley place?"
+
+"No. Know of anybody?"
+
+"Waal, no; not eggsackly. I've got a relation back t' Michigan who's
+ben hot an' cold on the idee o' comin' West f'r some time. Might come if
+he could get a good lay-out. What do you talk on the farm?"
+
+"Well, I d' know. I'll rent it on shares or I'll rent it money rent."
+
+"Waal, how much money, say?"
+
+"Well, say ten per cent, on the price--two-fifty."
+
+"Waal, that ain't bad. Wait on 'im till 'e thrashes?"
+
+Haskins listened eagerly to his important question, but Council was
+coolly eating a dried apple which he had speared out of a barrel with
+his knife. Butler studied him carefully.
+
+"Well, knocks me out of twenty-five dollars interest."
+
+"My relation'll need all he's got t' git his crops in," said Council,
+in the same, indifferent way.
+
+"Well, all right; say wait," concluded Butler.
+
+"All right; this is the man. Haskins, this is Mr. Butler--no relation to
+Ben--the hardest-working man in Cedar County."
+
+On the way home Haskins said: "I ain't much better off. I'd like that
+farm; it's a good farm, but it's all run down, an' so 'm I. I could make
+a good farm of it if I had half a show. But I can't stock it n'r seed
+it."
+
+"Waal, now, don't you worry," roared Council in his ear. "We'll pull y'
+through somehow till next harvest. He's agreed t' hire it ploughed, an'
+you can earn a hundred dollars ploughin' an' y' c'n git the seed o' me,
+an' pay me back when y' can."
+
+Haskins was silent with emotion, but at last he said, "I ain't got
+nothin' t' live on."
+
+"Now, don't you worry 'bout that. You jest make your headquarters at ol'
+Steve Council's. Mother'll take a pile o' comfort in havin' y'r wife an'
+children 'round. Y' see, Jane's married off lately, an' Ike's away a
+good 'eal, so we'll be darn glad t' have y' stop with us this winter.
+Nex' spring we'll see if y' can't git a start agin." And he chirruped to
+the team, which sprang forward with the rumbling, clattering wagon.
+
+"Say, looky here, Council, you can't do this. I never saw--" shouted
+Haskins in his neighbor's ear.
+
+Council moved about uneasily in his seat and stopped his stammering
+gratitude by saying: "Hold on, now; don't make such a fuss over a little
+thing. When I see a man down, an' things all on top of 'm, I jest like
+t' kick 'em off an' help 'm up. That's the kind of religion I got, an'
+it's about the only kind."
+
+They rode the rest of the way home in silence. And when the red light of
+the lamp shone out into the darkness of the cold and windy night, and he
+thought of this refuge for his children and wife, Haskins could have
+put his arm around the neck of his burly companion and squeezed him like
+a lover. But he contented himself with saying, "Steve Council, you'll
+git y'r pay f'r this some day."
+
+"Don't want any pay. My religion ain't run on such business principles."
+
+The wind was growing colder, and the ground was covered with a white
+frost, as they turned into the gate of the Council farm, and the
+children came rushing out, shouting, "Papa's come!" They hardly looked
+like the same children who had sat at the table the night before. Their
+torpidity, under the influence of sunshine and Mother Council, had given
+way to a sort of spasmodic cheerfulness, as insects in winter revive
+when laid on the hearth.
+
+III
+
+Haskins worked like a fiend, and his wife, like the heroic woman that
+she was, bore also uncomplainingly the most terrible burdens. They rose
+early and toiled without intermission till the darkness fell on the
+plain, then tumbled into bed, every bone and muscle aching with fatigue,
+to rise with the sun next morning to the same round of the same ferocity
+of labor.
+
+The eldest boy drove a team all through the spring, ploughing and
+seeding, milked the cows, and did chores innumerable, in most ways
+taking the place of a man.
+
+An infinitely pathetic but common figure--this boy on the American farm,
+where there is no law against child labor. To see him in his coarse
+clothing, his huge boots, and his ragged cap, as he staggered with a
+pail of water from the well, or trudged in the cold and cheerless dawn
+out into the frosty field behind his team, gave the city-bred visitor a
+sharp pang of sympathetic pain. Yet Haskins loved his boy, and would
+have saved him from this if he could, but he could not.
+
+By June the first year the result of such Herculean toil began to show
+on the farm. The yard was cleaned up and sown to grass, the garden
+ploughed and planted, and the house mended.
+
+Council had given them four of his cows.
+
+"Take 'em an' run 'em on shares. I don't want 'o milk s' many. Ike's
+away s' much now, Sat'd'ys an' Sund'ys, I can't stand the bother
+anyhow."
+
+Other men, seeing the confidence of Council in the newcomer, had sold
+him tools on time; and as he was really an able farmer, he soon had
+round him many evidences of his care and thrift. At the advice of
+Council he had taken the farm for three years, with the privilege of
+re-renting or buying at the end of the term.
+
+"It's a good bargain, an' y' want 'o nail it," said Council. "If you
+have any kind ov a crop, you c'n pay y'r debts, an' keep seed an'
+bread."
+
+The new hope which now sprang up in the heart of Haskins and his wife
+grew almost as a pain by the time the wide field of wheat began to wave
+and rustle and swirl in the winds of July. Day after day he would snatch
+a few moments after supper to go and look at it.
+
+"'Have ye seen the wheat t'-day, Nettie?" he asked one night as he rose
+from supper.
+
+"No, Tim, I ain't had time."
+
+"Well, take time now. Le's go look at it."
+
+She threw an old hat on her head--Tommy's hat--and looking almost pretty
+in her thin, sad way, went out with her husband to the hedge.
+
+"Ain't it grand, Nettie? Just look at it."
+
+It was grand. Level, russet here and there, heavy-headed, wide as a
+lake, and full of multitudinous whispers and gleams of wealth, it
+stretched away before the gazers like the fabled field of the cloth of
+gold.
+
+"Oh, I think--I hope we'll have a good crop, Tim; and oh, how good the
+people have been to us!"
+
+"Yes; I don't know where we'd be t'-day if it hadn't ben f'r Council and
+his wife."
+
+"They're the best people in the world," said the little woman, with a
+great sob of gratitude.
+
+"We'll be in the field on Monday, sure," said Haskins, gripping the rail
+on the fence as if already at the work of the harvest.
+
+The harvest came, bounteous, glorious, but the winds came and blew it
+into tangles, and the rain matted it here and there close to the ground,
+increasing the work of gathering it threefold.
+
+Oh, how they toiled in those glorious days! Clothing dripping with
+sweat, arms aching, filled with briers, fingers raw and bleeding, backs
+broken with the weight of heavy bundles, Haskins and his man toiled on.
+Tommy drove the harvester, while his father and a hired man bound on the
+machine. In this way they cut ten acres every day, and almost every
+night after supper, when the hand went to bed, Haskins returned to the
+field shocking the bound grain in the light of the moon. Many a night he
+worked till his anxious wife came out at ten o'clock to call him in to
+rest and lunch.
+
+At the same time she cooked for the men, took care of the children,
+washed and ironed, milked the cows at night, made the butter, and
+sometimes fed the horses and watered them while her husband kept at the
+shocking.
+
+No slave in the Roman galleys could have toiled so frightfully and
+lived, for this man thought himself a free man, and that he was working
+for his wife and babes.
+
+When he sank into his bed with a deep groan of relief, too tired to
+change his grimy, dripping clothing, he felt that he was getting nearer
+and nearer to a home of his own, and pushing the wolf of want a little
+farther from his door.
+
+There is no despair so deep as the despair of a homeless man or woman.
+To roam the roads of the country or the streets of the city, to feel
+there is no rood of ground on which the feet can rest, to halt weary and
+hungry outside lighted windows and hear laughter and song within,--these
+are the hungers and rebellions that drive men to crime and women to
+shame.
+
+It was the memory of this homelessness, and the fear of its coming
+again, that spurred Timothy Haskins and Nettie, his wife, to such
+ferocious labor during that first year.
+
+IV
+
+"'M, yes; 'm, yes; first-rate," said Butler, as his eye took in the neat
+garden, the pig-pen, and the well-filled barnyard. "You're gitt'n' quite
+a stock around yeh. Done well, eh?"
+
+Haskins was showing Butler around the place. He had not seen it for a
+year, having spent the year in Washington and Boston with Ashley, his
+brother-in-law, who had been elected to Congress.
+
+"Yes, I've laid out a good deal of money durin' the last three years.
+I've paid out three hundred dollars f'r fencin'."
+
+"Um--h'm! I see, I see," said Butler, while Haskins went on:
+
+"The kitchen there cost two hundred; the barn ain't cost much in money,
+but I've put a lot o' time on it. I've dug a new well, and I--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I see. You've done well. Stock worth a thousand dollars,"
+said Butler, picking his teeth with a straw.
+
+"About that," said Haskins, modestly. "We begin to feel's if we was
+gitt'n' a home f'r ourselves; but we've worked hard. I tell you we begin
+to feel it, Mr. Butler, and we're goin' t' begin to ease up purty soon.
+We've been kind o' plannin' a trip back t' her folks after the fall
+ploughin's done."
+
+"Eggs-actly!" said Butler, who was evidently thinking of something else.
+"I suppose you've kind o' calc'lated on stayin' here three years more?"
+
+"Well, yes. Fact is, I think I c'n buy the farm this fall, if you'll
+give me a reasonable show."
+
+"Um--m! What do you call a reasonable show?"
+
+"Well, say a quarter down and three years' time."
+
+Butler looked at the huge stacks of wheat, which filled the yard, over
+which the chickens were fluttering and crawling, catching grasshoppers,
+and out of which the crickets were singing innumerably. He smiled in a
+peculiar way as he said, "Oh, I won't be hard on yeh. But what did you
+expect to pay f'r the place?"
+
+"Why, about what you offered it for before, two thousand five hundred,
+or possibly three thousand dollars," he added quickly, as he saw the
+owner shake his head.
+
+"This farm is worth five thousand and five hundred dollars," said
+Butler, in a careless and decided voice.
+
+"What!" almost shrieked the astounded Haskins. "What's that? Five
+thousand? Why, that's double what you offered it for three years ago."
+
+"Of course, and it's worth it. It was all run down then; now it's in
+good shape. You've laid out fifteen hundred dollars in improvements,
+according to your own story."
+
+"But you had nothin' t' do about that. It's my work an' my money."
+
+"You bet it was; but it's my land."
+
+"But what's to pay me for all my--"
+
+"Ain't you had the use of 'em?" replied Butler, smiling calmly into his
+face.
+
+Haskins was like a man struck on the head with a sandbag; he couldn't
+think; he stammered as he tried to say: "But--I never'd git the
+use--You'd rob me! More'n that: you agreed--you promised that I could
+buy or rent at the end of three years at--"
+
+"That's all right. But I didn't say I'd let you carry off the
+improvements, nor that I'd go on renting the farm at two-fifty. The land
+is doubled in value, it don't matter how; it don't enter into the
+question; an' now you can pay me five hundred dollars a year rent, or
+take it on your own terms at fifty-five hundred, or--git out."
+
+He was turning away when Haskins, the sweat pouring from his face,
+fronted him, saying again:
+
+"But you've done nothing to make it so. You hain't added a cent. I put
+it all there myself, expectin' to buy. I worked an' sweat to improve it.
+I was workin' for myself an' babes--"
+
+"Well, why didn't you buy when I offered to sell? What y' kickin'
+about?"
+
+"I'm kickin' about payin' you twice f'r my own things,--my own fences,
+my own kitchen, my own garden."
+
+Butler laughed. "You're too green t' eat, young feller. Your
+improvements! The law will sing another tune."
+
+"But I trusted your word."
+
+"Never trust anybody, my friend. Besides, I didn't promise not to do
+this thing. Why, man, don't look at me like that. Don't take me for a
+thief. It's the law. The reg'lar thing. Everybody does it."
+
+"I don't care if they do. It's stealin' jest the same. You take three
+thousand dollars of my money--the work o' my hands and my wife's." He
+broke down at this point. He was not a strong man mentally. He could
+face hardship, ceaseless toil, but he could not face the cold and
+sneering face of Butler.
+
+"But I don't take it," said Butler, coolly. "All you've got to do is to
+go on jest as you've been a-doin', or give me a thousand dollars down,
+and a mortgage at ten per cent on the rest."
+
+Haskins sat down blindly on a bundle of oats near by, and with staring
+eyes and drooping head went over the situation. He was under the lion's
+paw. He felt a horrible numbness in his heart and limbs. He was hid in a
+mist, and there was no path out.
+
+Butler walked about, looking at the huge stacks of grain, and pulling
+now and again a few handfuls out, shelling the heads in his hands and
+blowing the chaff away. He hummed a little tune as he did so. He had an
+accommodating air of waiting.
+
+Haskins was in the midst of the terrible toil of the last year. He was
+walking again in the rain and the mud behind his plough; he felt the
+dust and dirt of the threshing. The ferocious husking-time, with its
+cutting wind and biting, clinging snows, lay hard upon him. Then he
+thought of his wife, how she had cheerfully cooked and baked, without
+holiday and without rest.
+
+"Well, what do you think of it?" inquired the cool, mocking, insinuating
+voice of Butler.
+
+"I think you're a thief and a liar!" shouted Haskins, leaping up. "A
+black-hearted houn'!" Butler's smile maddened him; with a sudden leap he
+caught a fork in his hands, and whirled it in the air. "You'll never rob
+another man, damn ye!" he grated through his teeth, a look of pitiless
+ferocity in his accusing eyes.
+
+Butler shrank and quivered, expecting the blow; stood, held hypnotized
+by the eyes of the man he had a moment before despised--a man
+transformed into an avenging demon. But in the deadly hush between the
+lift of the weapon and its fall there came a gush of faint, childish
+laughter and then across the range of his vision, far away and dim, he
+saw the sun-bright head of his baby girl, as, with the pretty, tottering
+run of a two-year-old, she moved across the grass of the dooryard. His
+hands relaxed: the fork fell to the ground; his head lowered.
+
+"Make out y'r deed an' mor'gage, an' git off'n my land, an' don't ye
+never cross my line agin; if y' do, I'll kill ye."
+
+Butler backed away from the man in wild haste, and climbing into his
+buggy with trembling limbs drove off down the road, leaving Haskins
+seated dumbly on the sunny pile of sheaves, his head sunk into his
+hands.
+
+
+
+
+The Creamery Man
+
+"Along these woods in storm and sun the busy people go."
+
+The tin-peddler has gone out of the West. Amiable gossip and sharp
+trader that he was, his visits once brought a sharp business grapple to
+the farmer's wife and daughters, after which, as the man of trade was
+repacking his unsold wares, a moment of cheerful talk often took place.
+It was his cue, if he chanced to be a tactful peddler, to drop all
+attempts at sale and become distinctly human and neighborly.
+
+His calls were not always well received, but they were at their best
+pleasant breaks of a monotonous round of duties. But he is no longer a
+familiar spot on the landscape. He has passed into the limbo of the
+things no longer necessary. His red wagon may be rumbling and rattling
+through some newer region, but the "Coolly Country" knows him no more.
+
+"The creamery man" has taken his place. Every afternoon, rain or shine,
+the wagons of the North Star Creamery in "Dutcher's Coolly" stop at the
+farmers' windmills to skim the cream from the "submerged cans." His
+wagon is not gay; it is generally battered and covered with mud and
+filled with tall cans; but the driver himself is generally young and
+sometimes attractive. The driver in Molasses Gap, which is a small
+coolly leading into Dutcher's Coolly, was particularly good-looking and
+amusing.
+
+He was aware of his good looks, and his dress not only showed that he
+was single, but that he hoped to be married soon. He wore brown
+trousers, which fitted him very well, and a dark blue shirt, which had a
+gay lacing of red cord in front, and a pair of suspenders that were a
+vivid green. On his head he wore a Chinese straw helmet, which was as
+ugly as anything could conceivably be, but he was as proud of it as he
+was of his green suspenders. In summer he wore no coat at all, and even
+in pretty cold weather he left his vest on his wagon-seat, not being
+able to bring himself to the point of covering up the red and green of
+his attire.
+
+It was noticeable that the women of the neighborhood always came out,
+even on wash-day, to see that Claude (his name was Claude Williams)
+measured the cream properly. There was much banter about this. Mrs.
+Kennedy always said she wouldn't trust him "fur's you can fling a
+yearlin' bull by the tail."
+
+"Now that's the difference between us," he would reply. "I'd trust you
+anywhere. Anybody with such a daughter as your'n."
+
+He seldom got further, for Lucindy always said (in substance), "Oh, you
+go 'long."
+
+There need be no mystery in the matter. 'Cindy was the girl for whose
+delight he wore the green and red. He made no secret of his love, and
+she made no secret of her scorn. She laughed at his green 'spenders and
+the "red shoestring" in his shirt; but Claude considered himself very
+learned in women's ways, by reason of two years' driving the creamery
+wagon, and he merely winked at Mrs. Kennedy when the girl was looking,
+and kissed his hand at 'Cindy when her mother was not looking.
+
+He looked forward every afternoon to these little exchanges of wit, and
+was depressed when for any reason the women folks were away. There were
+other places pleasanter than the Kennedy farm--some of "the Dutchmen"
+had fine big brick houses and finer and bigger barns, but their women
+were mostly homely, and went around bare-footed and bare-legged, with
+ugly blue dresses hanging frayed and greasy round their lank ribs and
+big joints.
+
+"Someway their big houses have a look like a stable when you get close
+to 'em," Claude said to 'Cindy once. "Their women work so much in the
+field they don't have any time to fix up--the way you do. I don't
+believe in women workin' in the fields." He said this looking 'Cindy in
+the face. "My wife needn't set her foot outdoors 'less she's a mind to."
+
+"Oh, you can talk," replied the girl, scornfully, "but you'd be like the
+rest of 'em." But she was glad that she had on a clean collar and
+apron--if it was ironing-day.
+
+What Claude would have said further 'Cindy could not divine, for her
+mother called her away, as she generally did when she saw her daughter
+lingering too long with the creamery man. Claude was not considered a
+suitable match for Lucindy Kennedy, whose father owned one of the finest
+farms in the Coolly. Worldly considerations hold in Molasses Gap as well
+as in Bluff Siding and Tyre.
+
+But Claude gave little heed to these moods in Mrs. Kennedy. If 'Cindy
+sputtered, he laughed; and if she smiled, he rode on whistling till he
+came to old man Haldeman's, who owned the whole lower half of Molasses
+Gap, and had one ummarried daughter, who thought Claude one of the
+handsomest men in the world. She was always at the gate to greet him as
+he drove up, and forced sections of cake and pieces of gooseberry pie
+upon him each day.
+
+"She's good enough--for a Dutchman," Claude said of her, "but I hate to
+see a woman go around looking as if her clothes would drop off if it
+rained on her. And on Sundays, when she dresses up, she looks like a boy
+rigged out in some girl's cast-off duds."
+
+This was pretty hard on Nina. She was tall and lank and sandy, with
+small blue eyes, her limbs were heavy, and she did wear her Sunday
+clothes badly, but she was a good, generous soul, and very much in love
+with the creamery man. She was not very clean, but then she could not
+help that; the dust of the field is no respecter of sex. No, she was not
+lovely, but she was the only daughter of old Ernest Haldeman, and the
+old man was not very strong.
+
+Claude was the daily bulletin of the Gap. He knew whose cow died the
+night before, who was at the strawberry dance, and all about Abe
+Anderson's night in jail up at the Siding. If his coming was welcome to
+the Kennedy's, who took the Bluff Siding Gimlet and the county paper,
+how much the more cordial ought his greeting to be at Haldeman's, where
+they only took the Milwaukee Weekly Freiheit.
+
+Nina in her poor way had longings and aspirations. She wanted to marry
+"a Yankee," and not one of her own kind. She had a little schooling
+obtained at the small brick shed under the towering cottonwood tree at
+the corner of her father's farm; but her life had been one of hard work
+and mighty little play. Her parents spoke in German about the farm, and
+could speak English only very brokenly. Her only brother had adventured
+into the foreign parts of Pine County, and had been killed in a sawmill.
+Her life was lonely and hard.
+
+She had suitors among the Germans, plenty of them, but she had a disgust
+of them--considered as possible husbands--and though she went to their
+beery dances occasionally, she had always in her mind the ease,
+lightness, and color of Claude. She knew that the Yankee girls did not
+work in the fields,--even the Norwegian girls seldom did so now, they
+worked out in town,--but she had been brought up to hoe and pull weeds
+from her childhood, and her father and mother considered it good for
+her, and being a gentle and obedient child, she still continued to do as
+she was told. Claude pitied the girl, and used to talk with her, during
+his short stay, in his cheeriest manner.
+
+"Hello, Nina! How you vass, ain't it? How much cream already you got
+this morning? Did you hear the news, not?"
+
+"No, vot hass happened?"
+
+"Everything. Frank McVey's horse stepped through the bridge and broke
+his leg, and he's going to sue the county--mean Frank is, not the
+horse."
+
+"Iss dot so?"
+
+"Sure! and Bill Hetner had a fight, and Julia Doorflinger's got home."
+
+"Vot wass Bill fightding apoudt?"
+
+"Oh, drunk--fighting for exercise. Hain't got a fresh pie cut?"
+
+Her face lighted up, and she turned so suddenly to go that her bare leg
+showed below her dress. Her unstockinged feet were thrust into coarse
+working shoes. Claude wrinkled his nose in disgust, but he took the
+piece of green currant pie on the palm of his hand and bit the acute
+angle from it.
+
+"First rate. You do make lickin' good pies," he said, out of pure
+kindness of heart; and Nina was radiant.
+
+"She wouldn't be so bad-lookin' if they didn't work her in the fields
+like a horse," he said to himself as he drove away.
+
+The neighbors were well aware of Nina's devotion, and Mrs. Smith, who
+lived two or three houses down the road, said, "Good-evening, Claude.
+Seen Nina to-day?"
+
+"Sure! and she gave me a piece of currant pie--her own make."
+
+"Did you eat it?"
+
+"Did I? I guess yes. I ain't refusin' pie from Nina--not while her pa
+has five hundred acres of the best land in Molasses Gap."
+
+Now, it was this innocent joking on his part that started all Claude's
+trouble. Mrs. Smith called a couple of days later, and had her joke with
+'Cindy.
+
+"'Cindy, your cake's all dough."
+
+"Why, what's the matter now?"
+
+"Claude come along t'other day grinnin' from ear to ear, and some
+currant pie in his musstache. He had jest fixed it up with Nina. He jest
+as much as said he was after the old man's acres."
+
+"Well, let him have 'em. I don't know as it interests me," replied
+'Cindy, waving her head like a banner. "If he wants to sell himself to
+that greasy Dutchwoman--why, let him, that's all! I don't care."
+
+Her heated manner betrayed her to Mrs. Smith, who laughed with huge
+enjoyment.
+
+"Well, you better watch out!"
+
+The next day was very warm, and when Claude drove up under the shade of
+the big maples he was ready for a chat while his horses rested, but
+'Cindy was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Kennedy came out to get the amount
+of the skimming, and started to reënter the house without talk.
+
+"Where's the young folks?" asked Claude, carelessly.
+
+"If you mean Lucindy, she's in the house."
+
+"Ain't sick or nothin', is she?"
+
+"Not that anybody knows of. Don't expect her to be here to gass with you
+every time, do ye?"
+
+"Well, I wouldn't mind," replied Claude. He was too keen not to see his
+chance. "In fact, I'd like to have her with me all the time, Mrs.
+Kennedy," he said, with engaging frankness.
+
+"Well, you can't have her," the mother replied ungraciously.
+
+"What's the matter with me?"
+
+"Oh, I like you well enough, but 'Cindy'd be a big fool to marry a man
+without a roof to cover his head."
+
+"That's where you take your inning, sure," Claude replied. "I'm not much
+better than a hired hand. Well, now, see here, I'm going to make a
+strike one of these days, and then--look out for me! You don't know but
+what I've invested in a gold mine. I may be a Dutch lord in disguise.
+Better not be brash."
+
+Mrs. Kennedy's sourness could not stand against such sweetness and
+drollery. She smiled in wry fashion. "You'd better be moving, or you'll
+be late."
+
+"Sure enough. If I only had you for a mother-in-law--that's why I'm so
+poor. Nobody to keep me moving. If I had some one to do the talking for
+me, I'd work." He grinned broadly and drove out.
+
+His irritation led him to say some things to Nina which he would not
+have thought of saying the day before. She had been working in the
+field, and had dropped her hoe to see him.
+
+"Say, Nina, I wouldn't work outdoors such a day as this if I was you.
+I'd tell the old man to go to thunder, and I'd go in and wash up and
+look decent. Yankee women don't do that kind of work, and your old dad's
+rich; no use of your sweatin' around a corn-field with a hoe in your
+hands. I don't like to see a woman goin' round without stockin's, and
+her hands all chapped and calloused. It ain't accordin' to Hoyle. No,
+sir! I wouldn't stand it. I'd serve an injunction on the old man right
+now."
+
+A dull, slow flush crept into the girl's face and she put one hand over
+the other as they rested on the fence. One looked so much less monstrous
+than two.
+
+Claude went on, "Yes, sir! I'd brace up and go to Yankee meeting instead
+of Dutch; you'd pick up a Yankee beau like as not."
+
+He gathered his cream while she stood silently by, and when he looked at
+her again she was in deep thought.
+
+"Good-day," he said cheerily.
+
+"Good-by," she replied, and her face flushed again.
+
+It rained that night and the roads were very bad, and he was late the
+next time he arrived at Haldeman's. Nina came out in her best dress, but
+he said nothing about it, supposing she was going to town or something
+like that, and he hurried through with his task and had mounted his seat
+before he realized that anything was wrong.
+
+Then Mrs. Haldeman appeared at the kitchen door and hurled a lot of
+unintelligible German at him. He knew she was mad, and mad at him, and
+also at Nina, for she shook her fist at them alternately.
+
+Singular to tell, Nina paid no attention to her mother's sputter. She
+looked at Claude with a certain timid audacity.
+
+"How you like me to-day?"
+
+"That's better," he said, as he eyed her critically. "Now you're
+talkin'! I'd do a little reading of the newspaper myself, if I was you.
+A woman's business ain't to work out in the hot sun--it's to cook and
+fix up things round the house, and then put on her clean dress and set
+in the shade and read or sew on something. Stand up to 'em! doggone me
+if I'd paddle round that hot corn-field with a mess o' Dutchmen--it
+ain't decent!"
+
+He drove off with a chuckle at the old man, who was seated at the back
+of the house with a newspaper in his hand. He was lame, or pretended he
+was, and made his wife and daughter wait upon him. Claude had no
+conception of what was working in Nina's mind, but he could not help
+observing the changes for the better in her appearance. Each day he
+called she was neatly dressed, and wore her shoes laced up to the very
+top hook.
+
+She was passing through tribulation on his account, but she said nothing
+about it. The old man, her father, no longer spoke to her, and the
+mother sputtered continually, but the girl seemed sustained by some
+inner power. She calmly went about doing as she pleased, and no fury of
+words could check her or turn her aside.
+
+Her hands grew smooth and supple once more, and her face lost the
+parboiled look it once had.
+
+Claude noticed all these gains, and commented on them with the freedom
+of a man who had established friendly relations with a child.
+
+"I tell you what, Nina, you're coming along, sure. Next ground hop
+you'll be wearin' silk stockin's and high-heeled shoes. How's the old
+man? Still mad?"
+
+"He don't speak to me no more. My mudder says I am a big fool."
+
+"She does? Well, you tell her I think you're just getting sensible."
+
+She smiled again, and there was a subtle quality in the mixture of
+boldness and timidity of her manner. His praise was so sweet and
+stimulating.
+
+"I sold my pigs," she said. "The old man, he wass madt, but I didn't
+mind. I pought me a new dress with the money."
+
+"That's right! I like to see a woman have plenty of new dresses," Claude
+replied. He was really enjoying the girl's rebellion and growing
+womanliness.
+
+Meanwhile his own affairs with Lucindy were in a bad way. He seldom saw
+her now. Mrs. Smith was careful to convey to her that Claude stopped
+longer than was necessary at Haldeman's, and so Mrs. Kennedy attended to
+the matter of recording the cream. Kennedy himself was always in the
+field, and Claude had no opportunity for a conversation with him, as he
+very much wished to have. Once, when he saw 'Cindy in the kitchen at
+work, he left his team to rest in the shade and sauntered to the door
+and looked in.
+
+She was kneading out cake dough, and she looked the loveliest thing he
+had ever seen. Her sleeves were rolled up. Her neat brown dress was
+covered with a big apron, and her collar was open a little at the
+throat, for it was warm in the kitchen. She frowned when she saw him.
+
+He began jocularly. "Oh, thank you, I can wait till it bakes. No trouble
+at all."
+
+"Well, it's a good deal of trouble to me to have you standin' there
+gappin' at me!"
+
+"Ain't gappin' at you. I'm waitin' for the pie."
+
+"'Tain't pie; it's cake."
+
+"Oh, well, cake'll do for a change. Say, 'Cindy--"
+
+"Don't call me 'Cindy!"
+
+"Well, Lucindy. It's mighty lonesome when I don't see you on my trips."
+
+"Oh, I guess you can stand it with Nina to talk to."
+
+"Aha! jealous, are you?"
+
+"Jealous of that Dutchwoman! I don't care who you talk to, and you
+needn't think it."
+
+Claude was learned in woman's ways, and this pleased him mightily.
+
+"Well, when shall I speak to your daddy?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean, and I don't care."
+
+"Oh, yes, you do. I'm going to come up here next Sunday in my best bib
+and tucker, and I'm going to say, 'Mr. Kennedy'--"
+
+The sound of Mrs. Kennedy's voice and footsteps approaching made Claude
+suddenly remember his duties.
+
+"See ye later," he said, with a grin. "I'll call for the cake next
+time."
+
+"Call till you split your throat, if you want to," said 'Cindy.
+
+Apparently this could have gone on indefinitely, but it didn't. Lucindy
+went to Minneapolis for a few weeks to stay with her brother, and that
+threw Claude deeper into despair than anything Mrs. Kennedy might do or
+any word Lucindy might say. It was a dreadful blow to him to have her
+pack up and go so suddenly, and without one backward look at him, and,
+besides, he had planned taking her to Tyre on the Fourth of July.
+
+Mr. Kennedy, much better-natured than the mother, told Claude where she
+had gone.
+
+"By mighty! That's a knock on the nose for me. When did she go?"
+
+"Yistady. I took her down to the Siding."
+
+"When's she coming back?"
+
+"Oh, after the hot weather is over; four or five weeks."
+
+"I hope I'll be alive when she returns," said Claude, gloomily.
+
+Naturally he had a little more time to give to Nina and her remarkable
+doings, which had set the whole neighborhood to wondering "what had come
+over the girl."
+
+She no longer worked in the field. She dressed better, and had taken to
+going to the most fashionable church in town. She was as a woman
+transformed. Nothing was able to prevent her steady progression and
+bloom. She grew plumper and fairer, and became so much more attractive
+that the young Germans thickened round her, and one or two Yankee boys
+looked her way. Through it all Claude kept up his half-humorous banter
+and altogether serious daily advice, without once realizing that
+anything sentimental connected him with it all. He knew she liked him,
+and sometimes he felt a little annoyed by her attempts to please him,
+but that she was doing all that she did and ordering her whole life to
+please him never entered his self-sufficient head.
+
+There wasn't much room left in that head for any one else except
+Lucindy, and his plans for winning her. Plan as he might, he saw no way
+of making more than the two dollars a day he was earning as a cream
+collector.
+
+Things ran along thus from week to week till it was nearly time for
+Lucindy to return. Claude was having his top buggy repainted, and was
+preparing for a vigorous campaign when Lucindy should be at home again.
+He owned his team and wagon and the buggy--nothing more.
+
+One Saturday Mr. Kennedy said, "Lucindy's coming home. I'm going down
+after her to-night."
+
+"Let me bring her up," said Claude, with suspicious eagerness.
+
+Mr. Kennedy hesitated. "No, I guess I'll go myself. I want to go to
+town, anyway."
+
+Claude was in high spirits as he drove into Haldeman's yard that
+afternoon.
+
+Nina was leaning over the fence singing softly to herself, but a fierce
+altercation was going on inside the house. The walls resounded. It was
+all Dutch to Claude, but he knew the old people were quarrelling.
+
+Nina smiled and colored as Claude drew up at the side gate. She seemed
+not to hear the eloquent discussion inside.
+
+"What's going on?" asked Claude.
+
+"Dey tink I am in house."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"My mudder she lock me up."
+
+Claude stared. "Locked you up? What for?"
+
+"She tondt like it dot I come out to see you."
+
+"Oh, she don't?" said Claude. "What's the matter o' me? I ain't a
+dangerous chap. I ain't eatin' up little girls."
+
+Nina went on placidly. "She saidt dot you was goin' to marry me undt get
+the farm."
+
+Claude grinned, then chuckled, and at last roared and whooped with the
+delight of it. He took off his hat and said:
+
+"She said that, did she? Why, bless her old cabbage head--"
+
+The opening of the door and the sudden irruption of Frau Haldeman
+interrupted him. She came rushing toward him like a she grizzly bear,
+uttering a torrent of German expletives, and hurled herself upon him,
+clutching at his hair and throat. He leaped aside and struck down her
+hands with a sweep of his hard right arm. As she turned to come again he
+shouted,
+
+"Keep off! or I'll knock you down!"
+
+But before the blow came Nina seized the infuriated woman from behind
+and threw her down, and held her till the old man came hobbling to the
+rescue. He seemed a little dazed by it all, and made no effort to
+assault Claude.
+
+The old woman, who was already black in the face with rage, suddenly
+fell limp, and Nina, kneeling beside her, grew white with fear.
+
+"Oh, vat is the matter! I haf kildt her!"
+
+Claude rushed for a bucket of water, and dashed it in the old woman's
+face. He flooded her with slashings of it, especially after he saw her
+open her eyes, ending by emptying the bucket in her face. He was a
+little malicious about that.
+
+The mother sat up soon, wet, scared, bewildered, gasping.
+
+"Mein Gott! Mein Gott! Ich bin ertrinken!"
+
+"What does she say--she's been drinkin'? Well, that looks reasonable."
+
+"No, no--she thinks she is trouned."
+
+"Oh, drowned!" Claude roared again. "Not much she ain't. She's only just
+getting cooled off."
+
+He helped the girl get her mother to the house and stretch her out on a
+bed. The old woman seemed to have completely exhausted herself with her
+effort, and submitted like a child to be waited upon. Her sudden
+fainting had subdued her.
+
+Claude had never penetrated so far into the house before, and was much
+pleased with the neatness and good order of the rooms, though they were
+bare of furniture and carpets.
+
+As the girl came out with him to the gate he uttered the most serious
+word he had ever had with her.
+
+"Now, I want you to notice," he said, "that I did nothing to call out
+the old lady's rush at me. I'd 'a' hit her, sure, if she'd 'a' clinched
+me again. I don't believe in striking a woman, but she was after my hide
+for the time bein', and I can't stand two such clutches in the same
+place. You don't blame me, I hope."
+
+"No. You done choost ride."
+
+"What do you suppose the old woman went for me for?"
+
+Nina looked down uneasily.
+
+"She know you an' me lige one anudder, an' she is afrait you marry me,
+an' den ven she tie you get the farm a-ready."
+
+Claude whistled. "Great Jehosaphat! She really thinks that, does she?
+Well, dog my cats! What put that idea into her head?"
+
+"I told her," said Nina calmly.
+
+"You told her?" Claude turned and stared at her. She looked down, and
+her face slowly grew to a deep red. She moved uneasily from one foot to
+the other, like an awkward, embarrassed child. As he looked at her
+standing like a culprit before him, his first impulse was to laugh. He
+was not specially refined, but he was a kindly man, and it suddenly
+occurred to him that the girl was suffering.
+
+"Well, you were mistaken," he said at last, gently enough. "I don't know
+why you should think so, but I never thought of marrying you--never
+thought of it."
+
+The flush faded from her face, and she stopped swaying. She lifted her
+eyes to his in a tearful, appealing stare.
+
+"I t'ought so--you made me t'ink so."
+
+"I did? How? I never said a word to you about--liking you
+or--marrying--or anything like that. I--" He was going to tell her he
+intended to marry Lucindy, but he checked himself.
+
+Her lashes fell again, and the tears began to stream down her cheeks.
+She knew the worst now. His face had convinced her. She could not tell
+him the grounds of her belief--that every time he had said, "I don't
+like to see a woman do this or that," or, "I like to see a woman fix up
+around the house," she had considered his words in the light of
+courtship, believing that in such ways the Yankees made love. So she
+stood suffering dumbly while he loaded his cream-can and stood by the
+wheel ready to mount his wagon.
+
+He turned. "I'm mighty sorry about it," he said. "Mebbe I was to blame.
+I didn't mean nothing by it--not a thing. It was all a mistake. Let's
+shake hands over it, and call the whole business off."
+
+He held his hand out to her, and with a low cry she seized it and laid
+her cheek upon it. He started back in amazement, and drew his hand away.
+She fell upon her knees in the path and covered her face with her apron,
+while he hastily mounted his seat and drove away.
+
+Nothing so profoundly moving had come into his life since the death of
+his mother, and as he rode on down the road he did a great deal of
+thinking. First it gave him a pleasant sensation to think a woman should
+care so much for him. He had lived a homeless life for years, and had
+come into intimate relations with few women, good or bad. They had
+always laughed with him (not at him, for Claude was able to take care of
+himself), and no woman before had taken him seriously, and there was a
+certain charm about the realization.
+
+Then he fell to wondering what he had said or done to give the girl such
+a notion of his purposes. Perhaps he had been too free with his talk. He
+was so troubled that he hardly smiled once during the rest of his
+circuit, and at night he refrained from going up town, and sat under the
+trees back of the creamery, and smoked and pondered on the astounding
+situation.
+
+He came at last to the resolution that it was his duty to declare
+himself to Lucindy and end all uncertainty, so that no other woman would
+fall into Nina's error. He was as good as an engaged man, and the world
+should know it.
+
+The next day, with his newly painted buggy flashing in the sun, and the
+extra dozen ivory rings he had purchased for his harnesses clashing
+together, he drove up the road as a man of leisure and a resolved lover.
+It was a beautiful day in August.
+
+Lucindy was getting a light tea for some friends up from the Siding,
+when she saw Claude drive up.
+
+"Well, for the land sake!" she broke out, using one of her mother's
+phrases, "if here isn't that creamery man!" In that phrase lay the
+answer to Claude's question--if he had heard it. He drove in, and Mr.
+Kennedy, with impartial hospitality, went out and asked him to 'light
+and put his team in the barn.
+
+He did so, feeling very much exhilarated. He never before had gone
+courting in this direct and aboveboard fashion. He mistook the father's
+hospitality for compliance in his designs. He followed his host into the
+house, and faced, with very fair composure, two girls who smiled broadly
+as they shook hands with him. Mrs. Kennedy gave him a lax hand and a
+curt how-de-do, and Lucindy fairly scowled in answer to his radiant
+smile.
+
+She was much changed, he could see. She wore a dress with puffed
+sleeves, and her hair was dressed differently. She seemed strange and
+distant, but he thought she was "putting that on" for the benefit of
+others. At the table the three girls talked of things at the Siding, and
+ignored him so that he was obliged to turn to Farmer Kennedy for refuge.
+He kept his courage up by thinking, "Wait till we are alone."
+
+After supper, when Lucindy explained that the dishes would have to be
+washed, he offered to help her in his best manner.
+
+"Thank you, I don't need any help," was Lucindy's curt reply.
+
+Ordinarily he was a man of much facility and ease in addressing women,
+but he was vastly disconcerted by her manner. He sat rather silently
+waiting for the room to clear. When the visitors intimated that they
+must go, he rose with cheerful alacrity.
+
+"I'll get your horse for you."
+
+He helped hitch the horse into the buggy, and helped the girls in with a
+return of easy gallantry, and watched them drive off with joy. At last
+the field was clear.
+
+They returned to the sitting room, where the old folks remained for a
+decent interval, and then left the young people alone. His courage
+returned then, and he turned toward her with resolution in his voice and
+eyes.
+
+"Lucindy," he began.
+
+"Miss Kennedy, please," interrupted Lucindy, with cutting emphasis.
+
+"I'll be darned if I do," he replied hotly. "What's the matter with you?
+Since going to Minneapolis you put on a lot of city airs, it seems to
+me."
+
+"If you don't like my airs, you know what you can do!"
+
+He saw his mistake.
+
+"Now see here, Lucindy, there's no sense in our quarrelling."
+
+"I don't want to quarrel; I don't want anything to do with you. I wish
+I'd never seen you."
+
+"Oh, you don't mean that! after all the good talks we've had."
+
+She flushed red. "I never had any such talks with you."
+
+He pursued his advantage.
+
+"Oh, yes, you did, and you took pains that I should see you."
+
+"I didn't; no such thing. You came poking into the kitchen where you'd
+no business to be."
+
+"Say, now, stop fooling. You like me and--"
+
+"I don't. I hate you, and if you don't clear out I'll call father.
+You're one o' these kind o' men that think if a girl looks at 'em that
+they want to marry 'em. I tell you I don't want anything more to do with
+you, and I'm engaged to another man, and I wish you'd attend to your own
+business. So there! I hope you're satisfied."
+
+Claude sat for nearly a minute in silence, then he rose. "I guess you're
+right. I've made a mistake. I've made a mistake in the girl." He spoke
+with a curious hardness in his voice. "Good-evening, Miss Kennedy."
+
+He went out with dignity and in good order. His retreat was not
+ludicrous. He left the girl with the feeling that she had lost her
+temper, and with the knowledge that she had uttered a lie.
+
+He put his horses to the buggy with a mournful self-pity as he saw the
+wheels glisten. He had done all this for a scornful girl who could not
+treat him decently. As he drove slowly down the road he mused deeply. It
+was a knock-down blow, surely. He was a just man, so far as he knew, and
+as he studied the situation over he could not blame the girl. In the
+light of her convincing wrath he comprehended that the sharp things she
+had said to him in the past were not make-believe--not love-taps, but
+real blows. She had not been coquetting with him; she had tried to keep
+him away. She considered herself too good for a hired man. Well, maybe
+she was. Anyhow, she had gone out of his reach, hopelessly.
+
+As he came past the Haldemans' he saw Nina sitting out under the trees
+in the twilight. On the impulse he pulled in. His mind took another
+turn. Here was a woman who was open and aboveboard in her affection. Her
+words meant what they stood for. He remembered how she had bloomed out
+the last few months. She has the making of a handsome woman in her, he
+thought.
+
+She saw him and came out to the gate, and while he leaned out of his
+carriage she rested her arms on the gate and looked up at him. She
+looked pale and sad, and he was touched.
+
+"How's the old lady?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, she's up! She is much change-ed. She is veak and quiet."
+
+"Quiet, is she? Well, that's good."
+
+"She t'inks God strike her fer her vickedness. Never before did she
+fainted like dot."
+
+"Well, don't spoil that notion in her. It may do her a world of good."
+
+"Der priest come. He saidt it wass a punishment. She saidt I should
+marry who I like."
+
+Claude looked at her searchingly. She was certainly much improved. All
+she needed was a little encouragement and advice and she would make a
+handsome wife. If the old lady had softened down, her son-in-law could
+safely throw up the creamery job and become the boss of the farm. The
+old man was used up, and the farm needed some one right away.
+
+He straightened up suddenly. "Get your hat," he said, "and we'll take a
+ride."
+
+She started erect, and he could see her pale face glow with joy.
+
+"With you?"
+
+"With me. Get your best hat. We may turn up at the minister's and get
+married--if a Sunday marriage is legal."
+
+As she hurried up the walk he said to himself,
+
+"I'll bet it gives Lucindy a shock!"
+
+And the thought pleased him mightily.
+
+
+
+
+
+A Day's Pleasure
+
+"Mainly it is long and wearyful, and has a home of toil at one end and a
+dull little town at the other."
+
+I
+
+When Markham came in from shovelling his last wagon-load of corn into
+the crib he found that his wife had put the children to bed, and was
+kneading a batch of dough with the dogged action of a tired and sullen
+woman.
+
+He slipped his soggy boots off his feet, and having laid a piece of wood
+on top of the stove, put his heels on it comfortably. His chair squeaked
+as he leaned back on its hinder legs, but he paid no attention; he was
+used to it, exactly as he was used to his wife's lameness and ceaseless
+toil.
+
+"That closes up my corn," he said after a silence. "I guess I'll go to
+town to-morrow to git my horses shod."
+
+"I guess I'll git ready and go along," said his wife, in a sorry attempt
+to be firm and confident of tone.
+
+"What do you want to go to town fer?" he grumbled.
+
+"What does anybody want to go to town fer?" she burst out, facing him.
+"I ain't been out o' this house fer six months, while you go an' go!"
+
+"Oh, it ain't six months. You went down that day I got the mower."
+
+"When was that? The tenth of July, and you know it."
+
+"Well, mebbe 'twas. I didn't think it was so long ago. I ain't no
+objection to your goin', only I'm goin' to take a load of wheat."
+
+"Well, jest leave off a sack, an' that'll balance me an' the baby," she
+said spiritedly.
+
+"All right," he replied good-naturedly, seeing she was roused. "Only
+that wheat ought to be put up to-night if you're goin'. You won't have
+any time to hold sacks for me in the morning with them young ones to get
+off to school."
+
+"Well, let's go do it then," she said, sullenly resolute.
+
+"I hate to go out agin; but I s'pose we'd better."
+
+He yawned dismally and began pulling his boots on again, stamping his
+swollen feet into them with grunts of pain. She put on his coat and one
+of the boy's caps, and they went out to the granary. The night was cold
+and clear.
+
+"Don't look so much like snow as it did last night," said Sam. "It may
+turn warm."
+
+Laying out the sacks in the light of the lantern, they sorted out those
+which were whole, and Sam climbed into the bin with a tin pail in his
+hand, and the work began.
+
+He was a sturdy fellow, and he worked desperately fast; the shining tin
+pail dived deep into the cold wheat and dragged heavily on the woman's
+tired hands as it came to the mouth of the sack, and she trembled with
+fatigue, but held on and dragged the sacks away when filled, and brought
+others, till at last Sam climbed out, puffing and wheezing, to tie them
+up.
+
+"I guess I'll load 'em in the morning," he said. "You needn't wait fer
+me. I'll tie 'em up alone."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind," she replied, feeling a little touched by his
+unexpectedly easy acquiescence to her request. When they went back to
+the house the moon had risen.
+
+It had scarcely set when they were wakened by the crowing roosters. The
+man rolled stiffly out of bed and began rattling at the stove in the
+dark, cold kitchen.
+
+His wife arose lamer and stiffer than usual, and began twisting her thin
+hair into a knot.
+
+Sam did not stop to wash, but went out to the barn. The woman, however,
+hastily soused her face into the hard limestone water at the sink, and
+put the kettle on. Then she called the children. She knew it was early,
+and they would need several callings. She pushed breakfast forward,
+running over in her mind the things she must have: two spools of thread,
+six yards of cotton flannel, a can of coffee, and mittens for Kitty.
+These she must have--there were oceans of things she needed.
+
+The children soon came scudding down out of the darkness of the upstairs
+to dress tumultuously at the kitchen stove. They humped and shivered,
+holding up their bare feet from the cold floor, like chickens in new
+fallen snow. They were irritable, and snarled and snapped and struck
+like cats and dogs. Mrs. Markham stood it for a while with mere commands
+to "hush up," but at last her patience gave out, and she charged down on
+the struggling mob and cuffed them right and left.
+
+They ate their breakfast by lamplight, and when Sam went back to his
+work around the barnyard it was scarcely dawn. The children, left alone
+with their mother, began to tease her to let them go to town also.
+
+"No, sir--nobody goes but baby. Your father's goin' to take a load of
+wheat."
+
+She was weak with the worry of it all when she had sent the older
+children away to school and the kitchen work was finished. She went into
+the cold bedroom off the little sitting room and put on her best dress.
+It had never been a good fit, and now she was getting so thin it hung in
+wrinkled folds everywhere about the shoulders and waist. She lay down on
+the bed a moment to ease that dull pain in her back. She had a moment's
+distaste for going out at all. The thought of sleep was more alluring.
+Then the thought of the long, long day, and the sickening sameness of
+her life, swept over her again, and she rose and prepared the baby for
+the journey.
+
+It was but little after sunrise when Sam drove out into the road and
+started for Belleplain. His wife sat perched upon the wheat-sacks behind
+him, holding the baby in her lap, a cotton quilt under her, and a cotton
+horse-blanket over her knees.
+
+Sam was disposed to be very good-natured, and he talked back at her
+occasionally, though she could only understand him when he turned his
+face toward her. The baby stared out at the passing fence-posts, and
+wiggled his hands out of his mittens at every opportunity. He was merry
+at least.
+
+It grew warmer as they went on, and a strong south wind arose. The dust
+settled upon the woman's shawl and hat. Her hair loosened and blew
+unkemptly about her face. The road which led across the high, level
+prairie was quite smooth and dry, but still it jolted her, and the pain
+in her back increased. She had nothing to lean against, and the weight
+of the child grew greater, till she was forced to place him on the sacks
+beside her, though she could not loose her hold for a moment.
+
+The town drew in sight--a cluster of small frame houses and stores on
+the dry prairie beside a railway station. There were no trees yet which
+could be called shade trees. The pitilessly severe light of the sun
+flooded everything. A few teams were hitched about, and in the lee of
+the stores a few men could be seen seated comfortably, their broad
+hat-rims flopping up and down, their faces brown as leather.
+
+Markham put his wife out at one of the grocery-stores, and drove off
+down toward the elevators to sell his wheat.
+
+The grocer greeted Mrs. Markham in a perfunctorily kind manner, and
+offered her a chair, which she took gratefully. She sat for a quarter of
+an hour almost without moving, leaning against the back of the high
+chair. At last the child began to get restless and troublesome, and she
+spent half an hour helping him amuse himself around the nail-kegs.
+
+At length she rose and went out on the walk, carrying the baby. She went
+into the dry-goods store and took a seat on one of the little revolving
+stools. A woman was buying some woollen goods for a dress. It was worth
+twenty-seven cents a yard, the clerk said, but he would knock off two
+cents if she took ten yards. It looked warm, and Mrs. Markham wished she
+could afford it for Mary.
+
+A pretty young girl came in and laughed and chatted with the clerk, and
+bought a pair of gloves. She was the daughter of the grocer. Her
+happiness made the wife and mother sad. When Sam came back she asked him
+for some money.
+
+"Want you want to do with it?" he asked.
+
+"I want to spend it," she said.
+
+She was not to be trifled with, so he gave her a dollar.
+
+"I need a dollar more."
+
+"Well, I've got to go take up that note at the bank."
+
+"Well, the children's got to have some new underclo'es," she said.
+
+He handed her a two-dollar bill and then went out to pay his note.
+
+She bought her cotton flannel and mittens and thread, and then sat
+leaning against the counter. It was noon, and she was hungry. She went
+out to the wagon, got the lunch she had brought, and took it into the
+grocery to eat it--where she could get a drink of water.
+
+The grocer gave the baby a stick of candy and handed the mother an
+apple.
+
+"It'll kind o' go down with your doughnuts," he said.
+
+After eating her lunch she got up and went out. She felt ashamed to sit
+there any longer. She entered another dry-goods store, but when the
+clerk came toward her saying, "Anything to-day, Mrs.--?" she answered,
+"No, I guess not," and turned away with foolish face.
+
+She walked up and down the street, desolately homeless. She did not know
+what to do with herself. She knew no one except the grocer. She grew
+bitter as she saw a couple of ladies pass, holding their demi-trains in
+the latest city fashion. Another woman went by pushing a baby carriage,
+in which sat a child just about as big as her own. It was bouncing
+itself up and down on the long slender springs, and laughing and
+shouting. Its clean round face glowed from its pretty fringed hood. She
+looked down at the dusty clothes and grimy face of her own little one,
+and walked on savagely.
+
+She went into the drug store where the soda fountain was, but it made
+her thirsty to sit there and she went out on the street again. She heard
+Sam laugh, and saw him in a group of men over by the blacksmith shop. He
+was having a good time and had forgotten her.
+
+Her back ached so intolerably that she concluded to go in and rest once
+more in the grocer's chair. The baby was growing cross and fretful. She
+bought five cents' worth of candy to take home to the children, and gave
+baby a little piece to keep him quiet. She wished Sam would come. It
+must be getting late. The grocer said it was not much after one. Time
+seemed terribly long. She felt that she ought to do something while she
+was in town. She ran over her purchases--yes, that was all she had
+planned to buy. She fell to figuring on the things she needed. It was
+terrible. It ran away up into twenty or thirty dollars at the least. Sam
+as well as she, needed underwear for the cold winter, but they would
+have to wear the old ones, even if they were thin and ragged. She would
+not need a dress, she thought bitterly, because she never went anywhere.
+She rose and went out on the street once more, and wandered up and down,
+looking at everything in the hope of enjoying something.
+
+A man from Boon Creek backed a load of apples up to the sidewalk, and as
+he stood waiting for the grocer he noticed Mrs. Markham and the baby,
+and gave the baby an apple. This was a pleasure. He had such a hearty
+way about him. He on his part saw an ordinary farmer's wife with dusty
+dress, unkempt hair, and tired face. He did not know exactly why she
+appealed to him, but he tried to cheer her up.
+
+The grocer was familiar with these bedraggled and weary wives. He was
+accustomed to see them sit for hours in his big wooden chair, and nurse
+tired and fretful children. Their forlorn, aimless, pathetic wandering
+up and down the street was a daily occurrence, and had never possessed
+any special meaning to him.
+
+II
+
+In a cottage around the corner from the grocery store two men and a
+woman were finishing a dainty luncheon. The woman was dressed in cool,
+white garments, and she seemed to make the day one of perfect comfort.
+
+The home of the Honorable Mr. Hall was by no means the costliest in the
+town, but his wife made it the most attractive. He was one of the
+leading lawyers of the county, and a man of culture and progressive
+views. He was entertaining a friend who had lectured the night before
+in the Congregational church.
+
+They were by no means in serious discussion. The talk was rather
+frivolous. Hall had the ability to caricature men with a few gestures
+and attitudes, and was giving to his Eastern friend some descriptions of
+the old-fashioned Western lawyers he had met in his practice. He was
+very amusing, and his guest laughed heartily for a time.
+
+But suddenly Hall became aware that Otis was not listening. Then he
+perceived that he was peering out of the window at some one, and that on
+his face a look of bitter sadness was falling.
+
+Hall stopped. "What do you see, Otis?"
+
+Otis replied, "I see a forlorn, weary woman."
+
+Mrs. Hall rose and went to the window. Mrs. Markham was walking by the
+house, her baby in her arms. Savage anger and weeping were in her eyes
+and on her lips, and there was hopeless tragedy in her shambling walk
+and weak back.
+
+In the silence Otis went on: "I saw the poor, dejected creature twice
+this morning. I couldn't forget her."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Hall, very softly.
+
+"Her name is Markham; she's Sam Markham's wife," said Hall.
+
+The young wife led the way into the sitting room, and the men took seats
+and lit their cigars. Hall was meditating a diversion when Otis resumed
+suddenly:
+
+"That woman came to town to-day to get a change, to have a little
+play-spell, and she's wandering around like a starved and weary cat. I
+wonder if there is a woman in this town with sympathy enough and courage
+enough to go out and help that woman? The saloon-keepers, the
+politicians, and the grocers make it pleasant for the man--so pleasant
+that he forgets his wife. But the wife is left without a word."
+
+Mrs. Hall's work dropped, and on her pretty face was a look of pain. The
+man's harsh words had wounded her--and wakened her. She took up her hat
+and hurried out on the walk. The men looked at each other, and then the
+husband said:
+
+"It's going to be a little sultry for the men around these diggings.
+Suppose we go out for a walk."
+
+Delia felt a hand on her arm as she stood at the corner.
+
+"You look tired, Mrs. Markham; won't you come in a little while? I'm
+Mrs. Hall."
+
+Mrs. Markham turned with a scowl on her face and a biting word on her
+tongue, but something in the sweet, round little face of the other woman
+silenced her, and her brow smoothed out.
+
+"Thank you kindly, but it's most time to go home. I'm looking fer Mr.
+Markham now."
+
+"Oh, come in a little while, the baby is cross and tired out; please
+do."
+
+Mrs. Markham yielded to the friendly voice, and together the two women
+reached the gate just as two men hurriedly turned the other corner.
+
+"Let me relieve you," said Mrs. Hall.
+
+The mother hesitated: "He's so dusty."
+
+"Oh, that won't matter. Oh, what a big fellow he is! I haven't any of my
+own," said Mrs. Hall, and a look passed like an electric spark between
+the two women, and Delia was her willing guest from that moment.
+
+They went into the little sitting room, so dainty and lovely to the
+farmer's wife, and as she sank into an easy-chair she was faint and
+drowsy with the pleasure of it. She submitted to being brushed. She gave
+the baby into the hands of the Swedish girl, who washed its face and
+hands and sang it to sleep, while its mother sipped some tea. Through it
+all she lay back in her easy-chair, not speaking a word, while the ache
+passed out of her back, and her hot, swollen head ceased to throb.
+
+But she saw everything--the piano, the pictures, the curtains, the
+wall-paper, the little tea-stand. They were almost as grateful to her
+as the food and fragrant tea. Such housekeeping as this she had never
+seen. Her mother had worn her kitchen floor thin as brown paper in
+keeping a speckless house, and she had been in houses that were larger
+and costlier, but something of the charm of her hostess was in the
+arrangement of vases, chairs, or pictures. It was tasteful.
+
+Mrs. Hall did not ask about her affairs. She talked to her about the
+sturdy little baby, and about the things upon which Delia's eyes dwelt.
+If she seemed interested in a vase she was told what it was and where it
+was made. She was shown all the pictures and books. Mrs. Hall seemed to
+read her visitor's mind. She kept as far from the farm and her guest's
+affairs as possible, and at last she opened the piano and sang to
+her--not slow-moving hymns, but catchy love-songs full of sentiment, and
+then played some simple melodies, knowing that Mrs. Markham's eyes were
+studying her hands, her rings, and the flash of her fingers on the
+keys--seeing more than she heard--and through it all Mrs. Hall conveyed
+the impression that she, too, was having a good time.
+
+The rattle of the wagon outside roused them both. Sam was at the gate
+for her. Mrs. Markham rose hastily. "Oh, it's almost sundown!" she
+gasped in astonishment as she looked out of the window.
+
+"Oh, that won't kill anybody," replied her hostess. "Don't hurry.
+Carrie, take the baby out to the wagon for Mrs. Markham while I help her
+with her things."
+
+"Oh, I've had such a good time," Mrs. Markham said as they went down the
+little walk.
+
+"So have I," replied Mrs. Hall. She took the baby a moment as her guest
+climbed in. "Oh, you big, fat fellow!" she cried as she gave him a
+squeeze. "You must bring your wife in oftener, Mr. Markham," she said,
+as she handed the baby up.
+
+Sam was staring with amazement.
+
+"Thank you, I will," he finally managed to say.
+
+"Good-night," said Mrs. Markham.
+
+"Good-night, dear," called Mrs. Hall, and the wagon began to rattle off.
+
+The tenderness and sympathy in her voice brought the tears to Delia's
+eyes--not hot nor bitter tears, but tears that cooled her eyes and
+cleared her mind.
+
+The wind had gone down, and the red sunlight fell mistily over the world
+of corn and stubble. The crickets were still chirping and the feeding
+cattle were drifting toward the farmyards. The day had been made
+beautiful by human sympathy.
+
+
+
+Mrs. Ripley's Trip
+
+"And in winter the winds sweep the snows across it."
+
+The night was in windy November, and the blast, threatening rain, roared
+around the poor little shanty of Uncle Ripley, set like a chicken-trap
+on the vast Iowa prairie. Uncle Ethan was mending his old violin, with
+many York State "dums!" and "I gol darns!" totally oblivious of his
+tireless old wife, who, having "finished the supper-dishes," sat
+knitting a stocking, evidently for the little grandson who lay before
+the stove like a cat.
+
+Neither of the old people wore glasses, and their light was a tallow
+candle; they couldn't afford "none o' them new-fangled lamps." The room
+was small, the chairs were wooden, and the walls bare--a home where
+poverty was a never-absent guest. The old lady looked pathetically
+little, weazened, and hopeless in her ill-fitting garments (whose
+original color had long since vanished), intent as she was on the
+stocking in her knotted, stiffened fingers, and there was a peculiar
+sparkle in her little black eyes, and an unusual resolution in the
+straight line of her withered and shapeless lips.
+
+Suddenly she paused, stuck a needle in the spare knob of her hair at the
+back of her head, and looking at Ripley, said decisively: "Ethan Ripley,
+you'll haff to do your own cooking from now on to New Year's. I'm goin'
+back to Yaark State."
+
+The old man's leather-brown face stiffened into a look of quizzical
+surprise for a moment; then he cackled, incredulously: "Ho! Ho! har!
+Sho! be y', now? I want to know if y' be."
+
+"Well, you'll find out."
+
+"Goin' to start to-morrow, mother?"
+
+"No, sir, I ain't; but I am on Thursday. I want to get to Sally's by
+Sunday, sure, an' to Silas's on Thanksgivin'."
+
+There was a note in the old woman's voice that brought genuine
+stupefaction into the face of Uncle Ripley. Of course in this case, as
+in all others, the money consideration was uppermost.
+
+"Howgy 'xpect to get the money, mother? Anybody died an' left yeh a
+pile?"
+
+"Never you mind where I get the money so 's 't you don't haff to bear
+it. The land knows if I'd 'a' waited for you to pay my way--"
+
+"You needn't twit me of bein' poor, old woman," said Ripley, flaming up
+after the manner of many old people. "I've done my part t' get along.
+I've worked day in and day out--"
+
+"Oh! I ain't done no work, have I?" snapped she, laying down the
+stocking and levelling a needle at him, and putting a frightful emphasis
+on "I."
+
+"I didn't say you hadn't done no work."
+
+"Yes, you did!"
+
+"I didn't neither. I said--
+
+"I know what you said."
+
+"I said I'd done my part!" roared the husband, dominating her as usual
+by superior lung power. "I didn't say you hadn't done your part," he
+added with an unfortunate touch of emphasis.
+
+"I know y' didn't say it, but y' meant it. I don't know what y' call
+doin' my part, Ethan Ripley; but if cookin' for a drove of harvest hands
+and thrashin' hands, takin' care o' the eggs and butter, 'n' diggin'
+'taters an' milkin' ain't my part, I don't never expect to do my part,
+'n' you might as well know it fust 's last."
+
+"I'm sixty years old," she went on, with a little break in her harsh
+voice, dominating him now by woman's logic, "an' I've never had a day to
+myself, not even Fourth o' July. If I've went a-visitin' 'r to a picnic,
+I've had to come home an' milk 'n' get supper for you men-folks. I ain't
+been away t' stay overnight for thirteen years in this house, 'n' it was
+just so in Davis County for ten more. For twenty-three years, Ethan
+Ripley, I've stuck right to the stove an' churn without a day or a night
+off."
+
+Her voice choked again, but she rallied, and continued impressively,
+"And now I'm a-goin' back to Yaark State."
+
+Ethan was vanquished. He stared at her in speechless surprise, his jaw
+hanging. It was incredible.
+
+"For twenty-three years," she went on, musingly, "I've just about
+promised myself every year I'd go back an' see my folks." She was
+distinctly talking to herself now, and her voice had a touching, wistful
+cadence. "I've wanted to go back an' see the old folks, an' the hills
+where we played, an' eat apples off the old tree down by the well. I've
+had them trees an' hills in my mind days and days--nights, too--an' the
+girls I used to know, an' my own folks--"
+
+She fell into a silent muse, which lasted so long that the ticking of
+the clock grew loud as the gong in the man's ears, and the wind outside
+seemed to sound drearier than usual. He returned to the money problem;
+kindly, though.
+
+"But how y' goin' t' raise the money? I ain't got no extra cash this
+time. Agin Roach is paid, an' the interest paid, we ain't got no hundred
+dollars to spare, Jane, not by a jugful."
+
+"Wal, don't you lay awake nights studyin' on where I'm a-goin' to get
+the money," said the old woman, taking delight in mystifying him. She
+had him now, and he couldn't escape. He strove to show his indifference,
+however, by playing a tune or two on the violin.
+
+"Come, Tukey, you better climb the wooden hill," Mrs. Ripley said, a
+half-hour later, to the little chap on the floor, who was beginning to
+get drowsy under the influence of his grandpa's fiddling. "Pa, you had
+orta 'a' put that string in the clock to-day--on the 'larm side the
+string is broke," she said, upon returning from the boy's bedroom. "I
+orta git up early to-morrow, to git some sewin' done. Land knows, I
+can't fix up much, but they is a little I c'n do. I want to look
+decent."
+
+They were alone now, and they both sat expectantly.
+
+"You 'pear to think, mother, that I'm agin yer goin'."
+
+"Wal, it would kinder seem as if y' hadn't hustled yerself any t' help
+me git off."
+
+He was smarting under the sense of being wronged. "Wal, I'm just as
+willin' you should go as I am for myself, but if I ain't got no money I
+don't see how I'm goin' to send--"
+
+"I don't want ye to send; nobody ast ye to, Ethan Ripley. I guess if I
+had what I've earnt since we came on this farm I'd have enough to go to
+Jericho with."
+
+"You've got as much out of it as I have," he replied gently. "You talk
+about your goin' back. Ain't I been wantin' to go back myself? And ain't
+I kep' still 'cause I see it wa'n't no use? I guess I've worked jest as
+long and as hard as you, an' in storms an' in mud an' heat, ef it comes
+t' that."
+
+The woman was staggered, but she wouldn't give up; she must get in one
+more thrust.
+
+"Wal, if you'd 'a' managed as well as I have, you'd have some money to
+go with." And she rose and went to mix her bread and set it "raisin'."
+
+He sat by the fire twanging his fiddle softly. He was plainly thrown
+into gloomy retrospection, something quite unusual for him. But his
+fingers picking out the bars of a familiar tune set him to smiling, and
+whipping his bow across the strings, he forgot all about his wife's
+resolutions and his own hardships. "Trouble always slid off his back
+like punkins off a haystack, anyway," his wife said.
+
+The old man still sat fiddling softly after his wife disappeared in the
+hot and stuffy little bedroom off the kitchen. His shaggy head bent
+lower over his violin. He heard her shoes drop--one, two. Pretty soon
+she called:
+
+"Come, put up that squeakin' old fiddle, and go to bed. Seems as if you
+orta have sense enough not to set there keepin' everybody in the house
+awake."
+
+"You hush up," retorted he. "I'll come when I git ready, and not till.
+I'll be glad when you're gone--"
+
+"Yes, I warrant that."
+
+With which amiable good-night they went off to sleep, or at least she
+did, while he lay awake pondering on "where under the sun she was goin'
+t' raise that money."
+
+The next day she was up bright and early, working away on her own
+affairs, ignoring Ripley entirely, the fixed look of resolution still on
+her little old wrinkled face. She killed a hen and dressed and baked it.
+She fried up a pan of doughnuts and made a cake. She was engaged in the
+doughnuts when a neighbor came in, one of these women who take it as a
+personal affront when any one in the neighborhood does anything without
+asking their advice. She was fat, and could talk a man blind in three
+minutes by the watch. Her neighbor said:
+
+"What's this I hear, Mis' Ripley?"
+
+"I dun know. I expect you hear about all they is goin' on in this
+neighborhood," replied Mrs. Ripley, with crushing bluntness; but the
+gossip did not flinch.
+
+"Well, Sett Turner told me that her husband told her that Ripley told
+him this mornin' that you was goin' back East on a visit."
+
+"Wal, what of it?"
+
+"Well, air yeh?"
+
+"The Lord willin' an' the weather permittin', I expect to be."
+
+"Good land, I want to know! Well, well! I never was so astonished in my
+life. I said, says I, 'It can't be.' 'Well,' ses 'e, 'tha's what she
+told me,' ses 'e. 'But,' says I, 'she is the last woman in the world to
+go gallivantin' off East,' ses I. 'An',' ses he, 'but it comes from good
+authority,' ses he. 'Well, then, it must be so,' ses I. But, land sakes!
+do tell me all about it. How come you to make up y'r mind? All these
+years you've been kind a' talkin' it over, an' now y'r actshelly
+goin'--well, I never! 'I s'pose Ripley furnishes the money,' ses I to
+him. 'Well, no,' ses 'e. 'Ripley says he'll be blowed if he sees where
+the money's comin' from,' ses 'e; and ses I, 'But maybe she's jest
+jokin',' ses I. 'Not much,' he says. S' 'e: 'Ripley believes she's
+goin' fast enough. He's jest as anxious to find out as we be--'"
+
+Here Mrs. Doudney paused for breath; she had walked so fast and had
+rested so little that her interminable flow of "ses I's" and "ses he's"
+ceased necessarily. She had reached, moreover, the point of most vital
+interest--the money.
+
+"An' you'll find out jest 'bout as soon as he does," was the dry
+response from the figure hovering over the stove; and with all her
+manœuvring that was all she got.
+
+All day Ripley went about his work exceedingly thoughtful for him. It
+was cold blustering weather. The wind rustled among the corn-stalks with
+a wild and mournful sound, the geese and ducks went sprawling down the
+wind, and the horses' coats were ruffled and backs raised.
+
+The old man was husking all alone in the field, his spare form rigged
+out in two or three ragged coats, his hands inserted in a pair of gloves
+minus nearly all the fingers, his thumbs done up in "stalls," and his
+feet thrust into huge coarse boots. The "down ears" wet and chapped his
+hands, already worn to the quick. Toward night it grew colder and
+threatened snow. In spite of all these attacks he kept his cheerfulness,
+and though he was very tired, he was softened in temper.
+
+Having plenty of time to think matters over, he had come to the
+conclusion that the old woman needed a play-spell. "I ain't likely to be
+no richer next year than I am this one; if I wait till I'm able to send
+her she won't never go. I calc'late I c'n git enough out o' them shoats
+to send her. I'd kind a' lotted on eat'n' them pigs done up in
+sassengers, but if the ol' woman goes East, Tukey an' me'll kind a' haff
+to pull through without 'em. We'll have a turkey f'r Thanksgivin', an' a
+chicken once 'n a while. Lord! but we'll miss the gravy on the
+flapjacks." (He smacked his lips over the thought of the lost dainty.)
+"But let 'er rip! We can stand it. Then there is my buffalo overcoat.
+I'd kind a' calc'lated on havin' a buffalo--but that's gone up the spout
+along with them sassengers."
+
+These heroic sacrifices having been determined upon, he put them into
+effect at once.
+
+This he was able to do, for his corn-rows ran alongside the road leading
+to Cedarville, and his neighbors were passing almost all hours of the
+day.
+
+It would have softened Jane Ripley's heart could she have seen his bent
+and stiffened form among the corn-rows, the cold wind piercing to the
+bone through his threadbare and insufficient clothing. The rising wind
+sent the snow rattling among the moaning stalks at intervals. The cold
+made his poor dim eyes water, and he had to stop now and then to swing
+his arms about his chest to warm them. His voice was hoarse with
+shouting at the shivering team.
+
+That night as Mrs. Ripley was clearing the dishes away she got to
+thinking about the departure of the next day, and she began to soften.
+She gave way to a few tears when little Tewksbury Gilchrist, her
+grandson, came up and stood beside her.
+
+"Gran'ma, you ain't goin' to stay away always, are yeh?"
+
+"Why, course not, Tukey. What made y' think that?"
+
+"Well, y' ain't told us nawthin' 't all about it. An' yeh kind o' look
+'s if yeh was mad."
+
+"Well, I ain't mad; I'm jest a-thinkin', Tukey. Y' see, I come away from
+them hills when I was a little girl a'most; before I married y'r
+grandad. And I ain't never been back. 'Most all my folks is there,
+sonny, an' we've been s' poor all these years I couldn't seem t' never
+git started. Now, when I'm 'most ready t' go, I feel kind a queer--'s if
+I'd cry."
+
+And cry she did, while little Tewksbury stood patting her trembling
+hands. Hearing Ripley's step on the porch, she rose hastily and, drying
+her eyes, plunged at the work again.
+
+Ripley came in with a big armful of wood, which he rolled into the
+wood-box with a thundering crash. Then he pulled off his mittens,
+slapped them together to knock off the ice and snow, and laid them side
+by side under the stove. He then removed cap, coat, blouse, and finally
+his boots, which he laid upon the wood-box, the soles turned toward the
+stove-pipe.
+
+As he sat down without speaking, he opened the front doors of the stove,
+and held the palms of his stiffened hands to the blaze. The light
+brought out a thoughtful look on his large, uncouth, yet kindly, visage.
+Life had laid hard lines on his brown skin, but it had not entirely
+soured a naturally kind and simple nature. It had made him penurious and
+dull and iron-muscled; had stifled all the slender flowers of his
+nature; yet there was warm soil somewhere hid in his heart.
+
+"It's snowin' like all p'ssessed," he remarked finally. "I guess we'll
+have a sleigh-ride to-morrow. I calc'late t' drive y' daown in
+scrumptious style. If yeh must leave, why, we'll give yeh a whoopin' old
+send-off--won't we, Tukey?"
+
+Nobody replying, he waited a moment. "I've ben a-thinkin' things over
+kind o' t'-day, mother, an' I've come t' the conclusion that we have
+been kind o' hard on yeh, without knowin' it, y' see. Y' see I'm kind o'
+easy-goin', 'an' little Tuke he's only a child, an' we ain't c'nsidered
+how you felt."
+
+She didn't appear to be listening, but she was, and he didn't appear, on
+his part, to be talking to her, and he kept his voice as hard and dry as
+he could.
+
+"An' I was tellin' Tukey t'-day that it was a dum shame our crops hadn't
+turned out better. An' when I saw ol' Hatfield go by I hailed him, an'
+asked him what he'd gimme for two o' m' shoats. Wal, the upshot is, I
+sent t' town for some things I calc'lated you'd need. An' here's a
+ticket to Georgetown, and ten dollars. Why, ma, what's up?"
+
+Mrs. Ripley broke down, and with her hands all wet with dish-water, as
+they were, covered her face, and sobbed. She felt like kissing him, but
+she didn't. Tewksbury began to whimper too; but the old man was
+astonished. His wife had not wept for years (before him). He rose and
+walking clumsily up to her timidly touched her hair--
+
+"Why, mother! What's the matter? What've I done now? I was calc'latin'
+to sell them pigs anyway. Hatfield jest advanced the money on 'em."
+
+She hopped up and dashed into the bedroom, and in a few minutes returned
+with a yarn mitten, tied around the wrist, which she laid on the table
+with a thump, saying: "I don't want yer money. There's money enough to
+take me where I want to go."
+
+"Whee--ew! Thunder and gimpsum root! Where 'd ye get that? Didn't dig it
+out of a hole?"
+
+"No, I jest saved it--a dime at a time--see!"
+
+Here she turned it out on the table--some bills, but mostly silver dimes
+and quarters.
+
+"Thunder and scissors! Must be two er three hundred dollars there," he
+exclaimed.
+
+"They's jest seventy-five dollars and thirty cents; jest about enough to
+go back on. Tickets is fifty-five dollars, goin' an' comin'. That leaves
+twenty dollars for other expenses, not countin' what I've already spent,
+which is six-fifty," said she, recovering her self-possession. "It's
+plenty."
+
+"But y' ain't calc'lated on no sleepers nor hotel bills."
+
+"I ain't goin' on no sleeper. Mis' Doudney says it's jest scandalous the
+way things is managed on them cars. I'm goin' on the old-fashioned cars,
+where they ain't no half-dressed men runnin' around."
+
+"But you needn't be afraid of them, mother; at your age--"
+
+"There! you needn't throw my age an' homeliness into my face, Ethan
+Ripley. If I hadn't waited an' tended on you so long, I'd look a little
+more's I did when I married yeh."
+
+Ripley gave it up in despair. He didn't realize fully enough how the
+proposed trip had unsettled his wife's nerves. She didn't realize it
+herself.
+
+"As for the hotel bills, they won't be none. I agoin' to pay them
+pirates as much for a day's board as we'd charge for a week's, an' have
+nawthin' to eat but dishes. I'm goin' to take a chicken an' some
+hard-boiled eggs, an' I'm goin' right through to Georgetown."
+
+"Wal, all right, mother; but here's the ticket I got."
+
+"I don't want yer ticket."
+
+"But you've got to take it."
+
+"Well, I hain't."
+
+"Why, yes, ye have. It's bought, an' they won't take it back."
+
+"Won't they?" She was perplexed again.
+
+"Not much they won't. I ast 'em. A ticket sold is sold."
+
+"Wal, if they won't--"
+
+"You bet they won't."
+
+"I s'pose I'll haff to use it." And that ended it.
+
+They were a familiar sight as they rode down the road toward town next
+day. As usual, Mrs. Ripley sat up straight and stiff as "a half-drove
+wedge in a white-oak log." The day was cold and raw. There was some snow
+on the ground, but not enough to warrant the use of sleighs. It was
+"neither sleddin' nor wheelin'." The old people sat on a board laid
+across the box, and had an old quilt or two drawn up over their knees.
+Tewksbury lay in the back part of the box (which was filled with hay),
+where he jounced up and down, in company with a queer old trunk and a
+brand-new imitation-leather hand-bag.
+
+There is no ride quite so desolate and uncomfortable as a ride in a
+lumber-wagon on a cold day in autumn, when the ground is frozen, and the
+wind is strong and raw with threatening snow. The wagon-wheels grind
+along in the snow, the cold gets in under the seat at the calves of
+one's legs, and the ceaseless bumping of the bottom of the box on the
+feet is almost intolerable.
+
+There was not much talk on the way down, and what little there was
+related mainly to certain domestic regulations, to be strictly followed,
+regarding churning, pickles, pancakes, etc. Mrs. Ripley wore a shawl
+over her head, and carried her queer little black bonnet in her hand.
+Tewksbury was also wrapped in a shawl. The boy's teeth were pounding
+together like castanets by the time they reached Cedarville, and every
+muscle ached with the fatigue of shaking.
+
+After a few purchases they drove down to the station, a frightful little
+den (common in the West), which was always too hot or too cold. It
+happened to be hot just now--a fact which rejoiced little Tewksbury.
+
+"Now git my trunk stamped, 'r fixed, 'r whatever they call it," she said
+to Ripley, in a commanding tone, which gave great delight to the
+inevitable crowd of loafers beginning to assemble. "Now remember, Tukey,
+have grandad kill that biggest turkey night before Thanksgiving, an'
+then you run right over to Mis' Doudney's--she's got a nawful tongue,
+but she can bake a turkey first-rate--an' she'll fix up some squash-pies
+for yeh. You can warm up one o' them mince-pies. I wish ye could be with
+me, but ye can't; so do the best ye can."
+
+Ripley returning now, she said: "Wal, now, I've fixed things up the best
+I could. I've baked bread enough to last a week, an' Mis' Doudney has
+promised to bake for yeh--"
+
+"I don't like her bakin'."
+
+"Wal, you'll haff to stand it till I get back, 'n' you'll find a jar o'
+sweet pickles an' some crab-apple sauce down suller, 'n' you'd better
+melt up brown sugar for 'lasses, 'n' for goodness' sake don't eat all
+them mince-pies up the fust week, 'n' see that Tukey ain't froze goin'
+to school. An' now you'd better get out for home. Good-by! an' remember
+them pies."
+
+As they were riding home, Ripley roused up after a long silence.
+
+"Did she--a--kiss you good-by, Tukey?"
+
+"No, sir," piped Tewksbury.
+
+"Thunder! didn't she?" After a silence: "She didn't me, neither. I guess
+she kind a' sort a' forgot it, bein' so flustrated, y' know."
+
+One cold, windy, intensely bright day, Mrs. Stacey, who lives about two
+miles from Cedarville, looking out of the window, saw a queer little
+figure struggling along the road, which was blocked here and there with
+drifts. It was an old woman laden with a good half-dozen parcels, which
+the wind seemed determined to wrench from her.
+
+She was dressed in black, with a full skirt, and her cloak being short,
+the wind had excellent opportunity to inflate her garments and sail her
+off occasionally into the deep snow outside the track, but she held out
+bravely till she reached the gate. As she turned in, Mrs. Stacey cried:
+
+"Why! it's Gran'ma Ripley, just getting back from her trip. Why! how do
+you do? Come in. Why! you must be nearly frozen. Let me take off your
+hat and veil."
+
+"No, thank ye kindly, but I can't stop," was the given reply. "I must be
+gittin' back to Ripley. I expec' that man has jest let ev'rything go six
+ways f'r Sunday."
+
+"Oh, you must sit down just a minute and warm."
+
+"Wal, I will; but I've got to git home by sundown sure. I don't s'pose
+they's a thing in the house to eat," she said solemnly.
+
+"Oh dear! I wish Stacey was here, so he could take you home. An' the
+boys at school--"
+
+"Don't need any help, if 't wa'nt for these bundles an' things. I guess
+I'll jest leave some of 'em here, an'--Here! take one of these apples. I
+brought 'em from Lizy Jane's suller, back to Yaark State."
+
+"Oh! they're delicious! You must have had a lovely time."
+
+"Pretty good. But I kep' thinkin' of Ripley an' Tukey all the time. I
+s'pose they have had a gay time of it" (she meant the opposite of gay).
+"Wal, as I told Lizy Jane, I've had my spree, an' now I've got to git
+back to work. They ain't no rest for such as we are. As I told Lizy
+Jane, them folks in the big houses have Thanksgivin' dinners every day
+of their lives, and men an' women in splendid clo's to wait on 'em, so
+'t Thanksgivin' don't mean anything to 'em; but we poor critters, we
+make a great to-do if we have a good dinner onct a year. I've saw a pile
+o' this world, Mrs. Stacey--a pile of it! I didn't think they was so
+many big houses in the world as I saw b'tween here an' Chicago. Wal, I
+can't set here gabbin'." She rose resolutely. "I must get home to
+Ripley. Jest kind o' stow them bags away. I'll take two an' leave them
+three others. Good-by! I must be gittin' home to Ripley. He'll want his
+supper on time."
+
+And off up the road the indomitable little figure trudged, head held
+down to the cutting blast--little snow-fly, a speck on a measureless
+expanse, crawling along with painful breathing, and slipping, sliding
+steps--"Gittin' home to Ripley an' the boy."
+
+Ripley was out to the barn when she entered, but Tewksbury was building
+a fire in the old cook-stove. He sprang up with a cry of joy, and ran to
+her. She seized him and kissed him, and it did her so much good she
+hugged him close, and kissed him again and again, crying hysterically.
+
+"Oh, gran'ma, I'm so glad to see you! We've had an awful time since
+you've been gone."
+
+She released him, and looked around. A lot of dirty dishes were on the
+table, the table-cloth was a "sight to behold" (as she afterward said),
+and so was the stove--kettle-marks all over the table-cloth, splotches
+of pancake batter all over the stove.
+
+"Wal, I sh'd say as much," she dryly assented, untying her
+bonnet-strings.
+
+When Ripley came in she had her regimentals on, the stove was brushed,
+the room swept, and she was elbow-deep in the dish-pan. "Hullo, mother!
+Got back, hev yeh?"
+
+"I sh'd say it was about time," she replied curtly, without looking up
+or ceasing work. "Has ol' 'Crumpy' dried up yit?" This was her greeting.
+
+Her trip was a fact now; no chance could rob her of it. She had looked
+forward twenty-three years toward it, and now she could look back at it
+accomplished. She took up her burden again, never more thinking to lay
+it down.
+
+
+
+
+Uncle Ethan Ripley
+
+"Like the Main-Travelled Road of Life, it is traversed by many classes
+of people."
+
+Uncle Ethan had a theory that a man's character could be told by the way
+he sat in a wagon seat.
+
+"A mean man sets right plumb in the middle o' the seat, as much as to
+say, 'Walk, gol darn yeh, who cares!' But a man that sets in the corner
+o' the seat, much as to say, 'Jump in--cheaper t' ride 'n to walk,' you
+can jest tie to."
+
+Uncle Ripley was prejudiced in favor of the stranger, therefore, before
+he came opposite the potato patch, where the old man was "bugging his
+vines." The stranger drove a jaded-looking pair of calico ponies,
+hitched to a clattering democrat wagon, and he sat on the extreme end of
+the seat, with the lines in his right hand, while his left rested on his
+thigh, with his little finger gracefully crooked and his elbows akimbo.
+He wore a blue shirt, with gay-colored armlets just above the elbows,
+and his vest hung unbuttoned down his lank ribs. It was plain he was
+well pleased with himself.
+
+As he pulled up and threw one leg over the end of the seat, Uncle Ethan
+observed that the left spring was much more worn than the other, which
+proved that it was not accidental, but that it was the driver's habit to
+sit on that end of the seat.
+
+"Good afternoon," said the stranger, pleasantly.
+
+"Good afternoon, sir."
+
+"Bugs purty plenty?"
+
+"Plenty enough, I gol! I don't see where they all come fum."
+
+"Early Rose?" inquired the man, as if referring to the bugs.
+
+"No; Peachblows an' Carter Reds. My Early Rose is over near the house.
+The old woman wants 'em near. See the darned things!" he pursued,
+rapping savagely on the edge of the pan to rattle the bugs back.
+
+"How do yeh kill 'em--scald 'em?"
+
+"Mostly. Sometimes I--
+
+"Good piece of oats," yawned the stranger, listlessly.
+
+"That's barley."
+
+"So 'tis. Didn't notice."
+
+Uncle Ethan was wondering who the man was. He had some pots of black
+paint in the wagon, and two or three square boxes.
+
+"What do yeh think o' Cleveland's chances for a second term?" continued
+the man, as if they had been talking politics all the while.
+
+Uncle Ripley scratched his head. "Waal--I dunno--bein' a Republican--I
+think--"
+
+"That's so--it's a purty scaly outlook. I don't believe in second terms
+myself," the man hastened to say.
+
+"Is that your new barn acrosst there?" he asked, pointing with his whip.
+
+"Yes, sir, it is," replied the old man, proudly. After years of planning
+and hard work he had managed to erect a little wooden barn, costing
+possibly three hundred dollars. It was plain to be seen he took a
+childish pride in the fact of its newness.
+
+The stranger mused. "A lovely place for a sign," he said, as his eyes
+wandered across its shining yellow broadside.
+
+Uncle Ethan stared, unmindful of the bugs crawling over the edge of his
+pan. His interest in the pots of paint deepened.
+
+"Couldn't think o' lettin' me paint a sign on that barn?" the stranger
+continued, putting his locked hands around one knee, and gazing away
+across the pig-pen at the building.
+
+"What kind of a sign? Gol darn your skins!" Uncle Ethan pounded the pan
+with his paddle and scraped two or three crawling abominations off his
+leathery wrist.
+
+It was a beautiful day, and the man in the wagon seemed unusually loath
+to attend to business. The tired ponies slept in the shade of the
+lombardies. The plain was draped in a warm mist, and shadowed by vast,
+vaguely defined masses of clouds--a lazy June day.
+
+"Dodd's Family Bitters," said the man, waking out of his abstraction
+with a start, and resuming his working manner. "The best bitter in the
+market." He alluded to it in the singular. "Like to look at it? No
+trouble to show goods, as the fellah says," he went on hastily, seeing
+Uncle Ethan's hesitation.
+
+He produced a large bottle of triangular shape, like a bottle for
+pickled onions. It had a red seal on top, and a strenuous caution in red
+letters on the neck, "None genuine unless 'Dodd's Family Bitters' is
+blown in the bottom."
+
+"Here's what it cures," pursued the agent, pointing at the side, where,
+in an inverted pyramid, the names of several hundred diseases were
+arranged, running from "gout" to "pulmonary complaints," etc.
+
+"I gol! she cuts a wide swath, don't she?" exclaimed Uncle Ethan,
+profoundly impressed with the list.
+
+"They ain't no better bitter in the world," said the agent, with a
+conclusive inflection.
+
+"What's its speshy-ality? Most of 'em have some speshy-ality."
+
+"Well--summer complaints--an'--an'--spring an' fall troubles--tones ye
+up, sort of."
+
+Uncle Ethan's forgotten pan was empty of his gathered bugs. He was
+deeply interested in this man. There was something he liked about him.
+
+"What does it sell fur?" he asked, after a pause.
+
+"Same price as them cheap medicines--dollar a bottle--big bottles, too.
+Want one?"
+
+"Wal, mother ain't to home, an' I don't know as she'd like this kind.
+We ain't been sick f'r years. Still, they's no tellin'," he added,
+seeing the answer to his objection in the agent's eyes. "Times is purty
+close too, with us, y' see; we've jest built that stable--"
+
+"Say I'll tell yeh what I'll do," said the stranger, waking up and
+speaking in a warmly generous tone. "I'll give you ten bottles of the
+bitter if you'll let me paint a sign on that barn. It won't hurt the
+barn a bit, and if you want 'o you can paint it out a year from date.
+Come, what d'ye say?"
+
+"I guess I hadn't better."
+
+The agent thought that Uncle Ethan was after more pay, but in reality he
+was thinking of what his little old wife would say.
+
+"It simply puts a family bitter in your home that may save you fifty
+dollars this comin' fall. You can't tell."
+
+Just what the man said after that Uncle Ethan didn't follow. His voice
+had a confidential purring sound as he stretched across the wagon-seat
+and talked on, eyes half shut. He straightened up at last, and concluded
+in the tone of one who has carried his point:
+
+"So! If you didn't want to use the whole twenty-five bottles y'rself,
+why! sell it to your neighbors. You can get twenty dollars out of it
+easy, and still have five bottles of the best family bitter that ever
+went into a bottle."
+
+It was the thought of this opportunity to get a buffalo-skin coat that
+consoled Uncle Ethan as he saw the hideous black letters appearing under
+the agent's lazy brush.
+
+It was the hot side of the barn, and painting was no light work. The
+agent was forced to mop his forehead with his sleeve.
+
+"Say, hain't got a cooky or anything, and a cup o' milk, handy?" he said
+at the end of the first enormous word, which ran the whole length of the
+barn.
+
+Uncle Ethan got him the milk and cooky, which he ate with an
+exaggeratedly dainty action of his fingers, seated meanwhile on the
+staging which Uncle Ripley had helped him to build. This lunch infused
+new energy into him, and in a short time "Dodd's Family Bitters, Best in
+the Market," disfigured the sweet-smelling pine boards.
+
+Ethan was eating his self-obtained supper of bread and milk when his
+wife came home.
+
+"Who's been a-paintin' on that barn?" she demanded, her bead-like eyes
+flashing, her withered little face set in an ominous frown. "Ethan
+Ripley, what you been doin'?"
+
+"Nawthin'," he replied feebly.
+
+"Who painted that sign on there?"
+
+"A man come along an' he wanted to paint that on there, and I let 'im;
+and it's my barn anyway. I guess I can do what I'm a min' to with it,"
+he ended, defiantly; but his eyes wavered.
+
+Mrs. Ripley ignored the defiance. "What under the sun p'sessed you to do
+such a thing as that, Ethan Ripley? I declare I don't see! You git
+fooler an' fooler ev'ry day you live, I do believe."
+
+Uncle Ethan attempted a defence.
+
+"Wal, he paid me twenty-five dollars f'r it, anyway."
+
+"Did 'e?" She was visibly affected by this news.
+
+"Wal, anyhow, it amounts to that; he give me twenty-five bottles--"
+
+Mrs. Ripley sank back in her chair. "Wal, I swan to Bungay! Ethan
+Ripley--wal, you beat all I ever see!" she added, in despair of
+expression. "I thought you had some sense left; but you hain't, not one
+blessed scimpton. Where is the stuff?"
+
+"Down cellar, an' you needn't take on no airs, ol' woman. I've known you
+to buy things you didn't need time an' time an' agin--tins an' things,
+an' I guess you wish you had back that ten dollars you paid for that
+illustrated Bible."
+
+"Go 'long an' bring that stuff up here. I never see such a man in my
+life. It's a wonder he didn't do it f'r two bottles." She glared out at
+the sign, which faced directly upon the kitchen window.
+
+Uncle Ethan tugged the two cases up and set them down on the floor of
+the kitchen. Mrs. Ripley opened a bottle and smelled of it like a
+cautious cat.
+
+"Ugh! Merciful sakes, what stuff! It ain't fit f'r a hog to take. What'd
+you think you was goin' to do with it?" she asked in poignant disgust.
+
+"I expected to take it--if I was sick. Whaddy ye s'pose?" He defiantly
+stood his ground, towering above her like a leaning tower.
+
+"The hull cartload of it?"
+
+"No. I'm goin' to sell part of it an' git me an overcoat--"
+
+"Sell it!" she shouted. "Nobuddy'll buy that sick'nin' stuff but an old
+numskull like you. Take that slop out o' the house this minute! Take it
+right down to the sink-hole an' smash every bottle on the stones."
+
+Uncle Ethan and the cases of medicine disappeared, and the old woman
+addressed her concluding remarks to little Tewksbury, her grandson, who
+stood timidly on one leg in the doorway, like an intruding pullet.
+
+"Everything around this place 'ud go to rack an' ruin if I didn't keep a
+watch on that soft-pated old dummy. I thought that lightnin'-rod man had
+give him a lesson he'd remember; but no, he must go an' make a reg'lar--"
+
+She subsided in a tumult of banging pans, which helped her out in the
+matter of expression and reduced her to a grim sort of quiet. Uncle
+Ethan went about the house like a convict on shipboard. Once she caught
+him looking out of the window.
+
+"I should think you'd feel proud o' that."
+
+Uncle Ethan had never been sick a day in his life. He was bent and
+bruised with never-ending toil, but he had nothing especial the matter
+with him.
+
+He did not smash the medicine, as Mrs. Ripley commanded, because he had
+determined to sell it. The next Sunday morning, after his chores were
+done, he put on his best coat of faded diagonal, and was brushing his
+hair into a ridge across the centre of his high, narrow head, when Mrs.
+Ripley came in from feeding the calves.
+
+"Where you goin' now?"
+
+"None o' your business," he replied. "It's darn funny if I can't stir
+without you wantin' to know all about it. Where's Tukey?"
+
+"Feedin' the chickens. You ain't goin' to take him off this mornin' now!
+I don't care where you go."
+
+"Who's a-goin' to take him off? I ain't said nothin' about takin' him
+off."
+
+"Wal, take y'rself off, an' if y' ain't here f'r dinner, I ain't goin'
+to get no supper."
+
+Ripley took a water-pail and put four bottles of "the bitter" into it,
+and trudged away up the road with it in a pleasant glow of hope. All
+nature seemed to declare the day a time of rest, and invited men to
+disassociate ideas of toil from the rustling green wheat, shining grass,
+and tossing blooms. Something of the sweetness and buoyancy of all
+nature permeated the old man's work-calloused body, and he whistled
+little snatches of the dance tunes he played on his fiddle.
+
+But he found neighbor Johnson to be supplied with another variety of
+bitter, which was all he needed for the present. He qualified his
+refusal to buy with a cordial invitation to go out and see his shoats,
+in which he took infinite pride. But Uncle Ripley said: "I guess I'll
+haf t' be goin'; I want 'o git up to Jennings' before dinner."
+
+He couldn't help feeling a little depressed when he found Jennings away.
+The next house along the pleasant lane was inhabited by a "newcomer." He
+was sitting on the horse-trough, holding a horse's halter, while his
+hired man dashed cold water upon the galled spot on the animal's
+shoulder.
+
+After some preliminary talk Ripley presented his medicine.
+
+"Hell, no! What do I want of such stuff? When they's anything the matter
+with me, I take a lunkin' ol' swig of popple-bark and bourbon! That fixes
+me."
+
+Uncle Ethan moved off up the lane. He hardly felt like whistling now. At
+the next house he set his pail down in the weeds beside the fence, and
+went in without it. Doudney came to the door in his bare feet, buttoning
+his suspenders over a clean boiled shirt. He was dressing to go out.
+
+"Hello, Ripley. I was just goin' down your way. Jest wait a minute, an'
+I'll be out."
+
+When he came out, fully dressed, Uncle Ethan grappled him.
+
+"Say, what d' you think o' paytent med--"
+
+"Some of 'em are boss. But y' want 'o know what y're gittin'."
+
+"What d' ye think o' Dodd's--"
+
+"Best in the market."
+
+Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted. Doudney went on:
+
+"Yes, sir; best bitter that ever went into a bottle. I know, I've tried
+it. I don't go much on patent medicines, but when I get a good--"
+
+"Don't want 'o buy a bottle?"
+
+Doudney turned and faced him.
+
+"Buy! No. I've got nineteen bottles I want 'o sell." Ripley glanced up at
+Doudney's new granary and there read "Dodd's Family Bitters." He was
+stricken dumb. Doudney saw it all, and roared.
+
+"Wal, that's a good one! We two tryin' to sell each other bitters.
+Ho--ho--ho--har, whoop! wal, this is rich! How many bottles did you git?"
+
+"None o' your business," said Uncle Ethan, as he turned and made off,
+while Doudney screamed with merriment.
+
+On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his burden. Doudney had
+canvassed the whole neighborhood, and he practically gave up the
+struggle. Everybody he met seemed determined to find out what he had been
+doing, and at last he began lying about it.
+
+"Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that pail?"
+
+"Goose eggs f'r settin'."
+
+He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson. Gus never paid his debts,
+and he would only promise fifty cents "on tick" for the bottle, and yet
+so desperate was Ripley that this questionable sale cheered him up not a
+little.
+
+As he came down the road, tired, dusty, and hungry, he climbed over the
+fence in order to avoid seeing that sign on the barn, and slunk into the
+house without looking back.
+
+He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a Democratic
+poster to be pasted there.
+
+The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he saw that sign
+wriggling across the side of the barn like boa-constrictors hung on
+rails. He tried to paint them out, but every time he tried it the man
+seemed to come back with a sheriff, and savagely warned him to let it
+stay till the year was up. In some mysterious way the agent seemed to
+know every time he brought out the paint-pot, and he was no longer the
+pleasant-voiced individual who drove the calico ponies.
+
+As he stepped out into the yard next morning that abominable, sickening,
+scrawling advertisement was the first thing that claimed his glance--it
+blotted out the beauty of the morning.
+
+Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress at the throat, a wisp
+of her hair sticking assertively from the little knob at the back of her
+head.
+
+"Lovely, ain't it! An' I've got to see it all day long. I can't look out
+the winder but that thing's right in my face." It seemed to make her
+savage. She hadn't been in such a temper since her visit to New York.
+"I hope you feel satisfied with it."
+
+Ripley walked off to the barn. His pride in its clean sweet newness was
+gone. He slyly tried the paint to see if it couldn't be scraped off, but
+it was dried in thoroughly. Whereas before he had taken delight in having
+his neighbors turn and look at the building, now he kept out of sight
+whenever he saw a team coming. He hoed corn away in the back of the
+field, when he should have been bugging potatoes by the roadside.
+
+Mrs. Ripley was in a frightful mood about it, but she held herself in
+check for several days. At last she burst forth:
+
+"Ethan Ripley, I can't stand that thing any longer, and I ain't goin' to,
+that's all! You've got to go and paint that thing out, or I will. I'm
+just about crazy with it."
+
+"But, mother, I promised--"
+
+"I don't care what you promised, it's got to be painted out. I've got the
+nightmare now, seein' it. I'm goin' to send f'r a pail o' red paint, and
+I'm goin' to paint that out if it takes the last breath I've got to do
+it."
+
+"I'll tend to it, mother, if you won't hurry me--"
+
+"I can't stand it another day. It makes me boil every time I look out the
+winder."
+
+Uncle Ethan hitched up his team and drove gloomily off to town, where he
+tried to find the agent. He lived in some other part of the county,
+however, and so the old man gave up and bought a pot of red paint, not
+daring to go back to his desperate wife without it.
+
+"Goin' to paint y'r new barn?" inquired the merchant, with friendly
+interest.
+
+Uncle Ethan turned with guilty sharpness; but the merchant's face was
+grave and kindly.
+
+"Yes, I thought I'd tech it up a little--don't cost much."
+
+"It pays--always," the merchant said emphatically.
+
+"Will it--stick jest as well put on evenings?" inquired Uncle Ethan,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"Yes--won't make any difference. Why? Ain't goin' to have--"
+
+"Wal,--I kind o' thought I'd do it odd times night an' mornin'--kind o'
+odd times--"
+
+He seemed oddly confused about it, and the merchant looked after him
+anxiously as he drove away.
+
+After supper that night he went out to the barn, and Mrs. Ripley heard
+him sawing and hammering. Then the noise ceased, and he came in and sat
+down in his usual place.
+
+"What y' ben makin'?" she inquired. Tewksbury had gone to bed. She sat
+darning a stocking.
+
+"I jest thought I'd git the stagin' ready f'r paintin'," he said,
+evasively.
+
+"Wal! I'll be glad when it's covered up." When she got ready for bed, he
+was still seated in his chair, and after she had dozed off two or three
+times she began to wonder why he didn't come. When the clock struck ten,
+and she realized that he had not stirred, she began to get impatient.
+"Come, are y' goin' to sit there all night?" There was no reply. She rose
+up in bed and looked about the room. The broad moon flooded it with
+light, so that she could see he was not asleep in his chair, as she had
+supposed. There was something ominous in his disappearance.
+
+"Ethan! Ethan Ripley, where are yeh!" There was no reply to her sharp
+call. She rose and distractedly looked about among the furniture, as if
+he might somehow be a cat and be hiding in a corner somewhere. Then she
+went upstairs where the boy slept, her hard little heels making a curious
+tunking noise on the bare boards. The moon fell across the sleeping boy
+like a robe of silver. He was alone.
+
+She began to be alarmed. Her eyes widened in fear. All sorts of vague
+horrors sprang unbidden into her brain. She still had the mist of sleep
+in her brain.
+
+She hurried down the stairs and out into the fragrant night. The katydids
+were singing in infinite peace under the solemn splendor of the moon. The
+cattle sniffed and sighed, jangling their bells now and then, and the
+chickens in the coop stirred uneasily as if overheated. The old woman
+stood there in her bare feet and long nightgown, horror-stricken. The
+ghastly story of a man who had hung himself in his barn because his wife
+deserted him came into her mind, and stayed there with frightful
+persistency. Her throat filled chokingly.
+
+She felt a wild rush of loneliness. She had a sudden realization of how
+dear that gaunt old figure was, with its grizzled face and ready smile.
+Her breath came quick and quicker, and she was at the point of bursting
+into a wild cry to Tewksbury, when she heard a strange noise. It came
+from the barn, a creaking noise. She looked that way, and saw in the
+shadowed side a deeper shadow moving to and fro. A revulsion to
+astonishment and anger took place in her.
+
+"Land o' Bungay! If he ain't paintin' that barn, like a perfect old
+idiot, in the night."
+
+Uncle Ethan, working desperately, did not hear her feet pattering down
+the path, and was startled by her shrill voice.
+
+"Well, Ethan Ripley, whaddy y' think you're doin' now?"
+
+He made two or three slapping passes with the brush, and then snapped
+out, "I'm a-paintin' this barn--whaddy ye s'pose? If ye had eyes y'
+wouldn't ask."
+
+"Well, you come right straight to bed. What d'you mean by actin' so?"
+
+"You go back into the house an' let me be. I know what I'm a-doin'.
+You've pestered me about this sign jest about enough." He dabbed his
+brush to and fro as he spoke. His gaunt figure towered above her in
+shadow. His slapping brush had a vicious sound.
+
+Neither spoke for some time. At length she said more gently, "Ain't you
+comin' in?"
+
+"No--not till I get a-ready. You go 'long an' tend to y'r own business.
+Don't stan' there an' ketch cold."
+
+She moved off slowly toward the house. His shout subdued her. Working
+alone out there had rendered him savage; he was not to be pushed any
+further. She knew by the tone of his voice that he must now be respected.
+She slipped on her shoes and a shawl, and came back where he was working,
+and took a seat on a saw-horse.
+
+"I'm goin' to set right here till you come in, Ethan Ripley," she said,
+in a firm voice, but gentler than usual.
+
+"Wal, you'll set a good while," was his ungracious reply, but each felt
+a furtive tenderness for the other. He worked on in silence. The boards
+creaked heavily as he walked to and fro, and the slapping sound of the
+paint-brush sounded loud in the sweet harmony of the night. The majestic
+moon swung slowly round the corner of the barn, and fell upon the old
+man's grizzled head and bent shoulders. The horses inside could be heard
+stamping the mosquitoes away, and chewing their hay in pleasant chorus.
+
+The little figure seated on the saw-horse drew the shawl closer about her
+thin shoulders. Her eyes were in shadow, and her hands were wrapped in
+her shawl. At last she spoke in a curious tone.
+
+"Wal, I don't know as you was so very much to blame. I didn't want that
+Bible myself--I held out I did, but I didn't."
+
+Ethan worked on until the full meaning of this unprecedented surrender
+penetrated his head, and then he threw down his brush.
+
+"Wal, I guess I'll let 'er go at that. I've covered up the most of it,
+anyhow. Guess we better go in."
+
+
+
+
+God's Ravens
+
+I
+
+Chicago has three winds that blow upon it. One comes from the east, and
+the mind goes out to the cold gray-blue lake. One from the north, and men
+think of illimitable spaces of pine-lands and maple-clad ridges which
+lead to the unknown deeps of the arctic woods.
+
+But the third is the west or southwest wind, dry, magnetic, full of smell
+of unmeasured miles of growing grain in summer, or ripening corn and
+wheat in autumn. When it comes in winter the air glitters with incredible
+brilliancy. The snow of the country dazzles and flames in the eyes;
+deep-blue shadows everywhere stream like stains of ink. Sleigh-bells
+wrangle from early morning till late at night, and every step is quick
+and alert. In the city, smoke dims its clarity, but it is welcome.
+
+But its greatest moment of domination is spring. The bitter gray wind of
+the east has held unchecked rule for days, giving place to its brother
+the north wind only at intervals, till some day in March the wind of the
+southwest begins to blow. Then the eaves begin to drip. Here and there a
+fowl (in a house that is really a prison) begins to sing the song it sang
+on the farm, and toward noon its song becomes a chant of articulate joy.
+
+Then the poor crawl out of their reeking hovels on the south and west
+sides to stand in the sun--the blessed sun--and felicitate themselves on
+being alive. Windows of sick-rooms are opened, the merry small boy goes
+to school without his tippet, and men lay off their long ulsters for
+their beaver coats. Caps give place to hats, and men and women pause to
+chat when they meet each other on the street. The open door is the sign
+of the great change of wind.
+
+There are imaginative souls who are stirred yet deeper by this wind--men
+like Robert Bloom, to whom come vague and very sweet reminiscences of
+farm life when the snow is melting and the dry ground begins to appear.
+To these people the wind comes from the wide unending spaces of the
+prairie west. They can smell the strange thrilling odor of newly
+uncovered sod and moist brown ploughed lands. To them it is like the
+opening door of a prison.
+
+Robert had crawled down-town and up to his office high in the Star block
+after a month's sickness. He had resolutely pulled a pad of paper under
+his hand to write, but the window was open and that wind coming in, and
+he could not write--he could only dream.
+
+His brown hair fell over the thin white hand which propped his head. His
+face was like ivory with dull yellowish stains in it. His eyes did not
+see the mountainous roofs humped and piled into vast masses of brick and
+stone, crossed and riven by streets, and swept by masses of gray-white
+vapor; they saw a little valley circled by low-wooded bluffs--his native
+town in Wisconsin.
+
+As his weakness grew his ambition fell away, and his heart turned back to
+nature and to the things he had known in his youth, to the kindly people
+of the olden time. It did not occur to him that the spirit of the country
+might have changed.
+
+Sitting thus, he had a mighty longing come upon him to give up the
+struggle, to go back to the simplest life with his wife and two boys. Why
+should he tread in the mill, when every day was taking the life-blood out
+of his heart?
+
+Slowly his longing took resolution. At last he drew his desk down, and as
+the lock clicked it seemed like the shutting of a prison gate behind him.
+
+At the elevator door he met a fellow-editor. "Hello, Bloom! Didn't know
+you were down to-day."
+
+"I'm only trying it. I'm going to take a vacation for a while."
+
+"That's right, man. You look like a ghost."
+
+He hadn't the courage to tell him he never expected to work there again.
+His step on the way home was firmer than it had been for weeks. In his
+white face his wife saw some subtle change.
+
+"What is it, Robert?"
+
+"Mate, let's give it up."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"The struggle is too hard. I can't stand it. I'm hungry for the country
+again. Let's get out of this."
+
+"Where'll we go?"
+
+"Back to my native town--up among the Wisconsin hills and coulies. Go
+anywhere, so that we escape this pressure--it's killing me. Let's go to
+Bluff Siding for a year. It will do me good--may bring me back to life. I
+can do enough special work to pay our grocery bill; and the Merrill
+place--so Jack tells me--is empty. We can get it for seventy-five dollars
+for a year. We can pull through some way."
+
+"Very well, Robert."
+
+"I must have rest. All the bounce has gone out of me, Mate," he said,
+with sad lines in his face. "Any extra work here is out of the question.
+I can only shamble around--an excuse for a man."
+
+The wife had ceased to smile. Her strenuous cheerfulness could not hold
+before his tragically drawn and bloodless face.
+
+"I'll go wherever you think best, Robert. It will be just as well for the
+boys. I suppose there is a school there?"
+
+"Oh, yes. At any rate, they can get a year's schooling in nature."
+
+"Well--no matter, Robert; you are the one to be considered." She had the
+self-sacrificing devotion of the average woman. She fancied herself
+hopelessly his inferior.
+
+They had dwelt so long on the crumbling edge of poverty that they were
+hardened to its threat, and yet the failure of Robert's health had been
+of the sort which terrifies. It was a slow but steady sinking of vital
+force. It had its ups and downs, but it was a downward trail, always
+downward. The time for self-deception had passed.
+
+His paper paid him a meagre salary, for his work was prized only by the
+more thoughtful readers of the Star. In addition to his regular work he
+occasionally hazarded a story for the juvenile magazines of the East. In
+this way he turned the antics of his growing boys to account, as he often
+said to his wife.
+
+He had also passed the preliminary stages of literary success by getting
+a couple of stories accepted by an Eastern magazine, and he still
+confidently looked forward to seeing them printed.
+
+His wife, a sturdy, practical little body, did her part in the bitter
+struggle by keeping their little home one of the most attractive on the
+West Side, the North Side being altogether too high for them.
+
+In addition, her sorely pressed brain sought out other ways of helping.
+She wrote out all her husband's stories on the typewriter, and secretly
+she had tried composing others herself, the results being queer dry
+little chronicles of the doings of men and women, strung together without
+a touch of literary grace.
+
+She proposed taking a large house and re-renting rooms, but Robert would
+not hear to it. "As long as I can crawl about we'll leave that to
+others."
+
+In the month of preparation which followed he talked a great deal about
+their venture.
+
+"I want to get there," he said, "just when the leaves are coming out on
+the trees. I want to see the cherry-trees blossom on the hillsides. The
+popple-trees always get green first."
+
+At other times he talked about the people. "It will be a rest just to get
+back among people who aren't ready to tread on your head in order to lift
+themselves up. I believe a year among those kind, unhurried people will
+give me all the material I'll need for years. I'll write a series of
+studies somewhat like Jefferies'--or Barrie's--only, of course, I'll be
+original. I'll just take his plan of telling about the people I meet and
+their queer ways, so quaint and good."
+
+"I'm tired of the scramble," he kept breaking out of silence to say. "I
+don't blame the boys, but it's plain to me they see that my going will
+let them move up one. Mason cynically voiced the whole thing today: 'I
+can say, 'sorry to see you go, Bloom,' because your going doesn't concern
+me. I'm not in line of succession, but some of the other boys don't feel
+so. There's no divinity doth hedge an editor; nothing but law prevents
+the murder of those above by those below.'"
+
+"I don't like Mr. Mason when he talks like that," said the wife.
+
+"Well--I don't." He didn't tell her what Mason said when Robert talked
+about the good simple life of the people in Bluff Siding:
+
+"Oh, bosh, Bloom! You'll find the struggle of the outside world reflected
+in your little town. You'll find men and women just as hard and selfish
+in their small way. It'll be harder to bear, because it will all be so
+petty and pusillanimous."
+
+It was a lovely day in late April when they took the train out of the
+great grimy terrible city. It was eight o'clock, but the streets were
+muddy and wet, a cold east wind blowing off the lake.
+
+With clanging bell the train moved away piercing the ragged gray formless
+mob of houses and streets (through which railways always run in a city).
+Men were hurrying to work, and Robert pitied them, poor fellows,
+condemned to do that thing forever.
+
+In an hour they reached the prairies, already clothed upon faintly with
+green grass and tender springing wheat. The purple-brown squares reserved
+for the corn looked deliciously soft and warm to the sick man, and he
+longed to set his bare feet into it.
+
+His boys were wild with delight. They had the natural love of the earth
+still in them, and correspondingly cared little for the city. They raced
+through the cars like colts. They saw everything. Every blossoming plant,
+every budding tree, was precious to them all.
+
+All day they rode. Toward noon they left the sunny prairie-land of
+northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, and entered upon the
+hill-land of Madison and beyond. As they went north, the season was less
+advanced, but spring was in the fresh wind and the warm sunshine.
+
+As evening drew on, the hylas began to peep from the pools, and their
+chorus deepened as they came on toward Bluff Siding, which seemed very
+small, very squalid, and uninteresting, but Robert pointed at the
+circling wine-colored wall of hills and the warm sunset sky.
+
+"We're in luck to find a hotel," said Robert. "They burn down every three
+months."
+
+They were met by a middle-aged man, and conducted across the road to a
+hotel, which had been a roller-skating rink in other days, and was not
+prepossessing. However, they were ushered into the parlor, which
+resembled the sitting-room of a rather ambitious village home, and there
+they took seats, while the landlord consulted about rooms.
+
+The wife's heart sank. From the window she could see several of the low
+houses, and far off just the hills which seemed to make the town so very
+small, very lonely. She was not given time to shed tears. The children
+clamored for food, tired and cross.
+
+Robert went out into the office, where he signed his name under the
+close and silent scrutiny of a half-dozen roughly clad men, who sat
+leaning against the wall. They were merely working-men to him, but in
+Mrs. Bloom's eyes they were dangerous people.
+
+The landlord looked at the name as Robert wrote. "Your boxes are all
+here," he said.
+
+Robert looked up at him in surprise. "What boxes?"
+
+"Your household goods. They came in on No. 9."
+
+Robert recovered himself. He remembered this was a village where
+everything that goes on--everything--is known.
+
+The stairway rose picturesquely out of the office to the low second
+story, and up these stairs they tramped to their tiny rooms which were
+like cells.
+
+"Oh, mamma, ain't it queer?" cried the boys.
+
+"Supper is all ready," the landlord's soft, deep voice announced a few
+moments later, and the boys responded with whoops of hunger.
+
+They were met by the close scrutiny of every boarder as they entered, and
+they heard also the muttered comments and explanations.
+
+"Family to take the Merrill house."
+
+"He looks purty well flaxed out, don't he?"
+
+They were agreeably surprised to find everything neat and clean and
+wholesome. The bread was good and the butter delicious. Their spirits
+revived.
+
+"That butter tastes like old times," said Robert. "It's fresh. It's
+really butter."
+
+They made a hearty meal, and the boys, being filled up, grew sleepy.
+After they were put to bed Robert said, "Now, Mate, let's go see the
+house."
+
+They walked out arm in arm like lovers. Her sturdy form steadied him,
+though he would not have acknowledged it. The red flush was not yet gone
+from the west, and the hills still kept a splendid tone of purple-black.
+It was very clear, the stars were out, the wind deliciously soft. "Isn't
+it still?" Robert almost whispered.
+
+They walked on under the budding trees up the hill, till they came at
+last to the small frame house set under tall maples and locust-trees,
+just showing a feathery fringe of foliage.
+
+"This is our home," said Robert.
+
+Mate leaned on the gate in silence. Frogs were peeping. The smell of
+spring was in the air. There was a magnificent repose in the hour,
+restful, recreating, impressive.
+
+"Oh, it's beautiful, Robert! I know we shall like it."
+
+"We must like it," he said.
+
+II
+
+First contact with the people disappointed Robert. In the work of moving
+in he had to do with people who work at day's work, and the fault was his
+more than theirs. He forgot that they did not consider their work
+degrading. They resented his bossing. The drayman grew rebellious.
+
+"Look a-here, my Christian friend, if you'll go 'long in the house and
+let us alone it'll be a good job. We know what we're about."
+
+This was not pleasant, and he did not perceive the trouble. In the same
+way he got foul of the carpenter and the man who ploughed his garden.
+Some way his tone was not right. His voice was cold and distant. He
+generally found that the men knew better than he what was to be done and
+how to do it; and sometimes he felt like apologizing, but their attitude
+had changed till apology was impossible.
+
+He had repelled their friendly advances because he considered them
+(without meaning to do so) as workmen, and not as neighbors. They
+reported, therefore, that he was cranky and rode a high horse.
+
+"He thinks he's a little tin god on wheels," the drayman said.
+
+"Oh, he'll get over that," said McLane. "I knew the boy's folks years
+ago--tiptop folks, too. He ain't well, and that makes him a little
+crusty."
+
+"That's the trouble--he thinks he's an upper crust," said Jim Cullen, the
+drayman.
+
+At the end of ten days they were settled, and nothing remained to do but
+plan a little garden and--get well. The boys, with their unspoiled
+natures, were able to melt into the ranks of the village-boy life at
+once, with no more friction than was indicated by a couple of
+rough-and-tumble fights. They were sturdy fellows, like their mother, and
+these fights gave them high rank.
+
+Robert got along in a dull, smooth way with his neighbors. He was too
+formal with them. He met them only at the meat-shop and the post-office.
+They nodded genially, and said, "Got settled yet?" And he replied,
+"Quite comfortable, thank you." They felt his coldness. Conversation
+halted when he came near, and made him feel that he was the subject of
+their talk. As a matter of fact, he generally was. He was a source of
+great speculation with them. Some of them had gone so far as to bet he
+wouldn't live a year. They all seemed grotesque to him, so work-scarred
+and bent and hairy. Even the men whose names he had known from childhood
+were queer to him. They seemed shy and distant, too, not like his ideas
+of them.
+
+To Mate they were almost caricatures. "What makes them look so--so 'way
+behind the times, Robert?"
+
+"Well, I suppose they are," said Robert. "Life in these coulies goes on
+rather slower than in Chicago. Then there are a great many Welsh and
+Germans and Norwegians, living 'way up the coulies, and they're the ones
+you notice. They're not all so." He could be generous toward them in
+general; it was in special cases where he failed to know them.
+
+They had been there nearly two weeks without meeting any of them
+socially, and Robert was beginning to change his opinion about them.
+"They let us severely alone," he was saying one night to his wife.
+
+"It's very odd. I wonder what I'd better do, Robert. I don't know the
+etiquette of these small towns. I never lived in one before, you know.
+Whether I ought to call first--and, good gracious, who'll I call on? I'm
+in the dark."
+
+"So am I, to tell the truth. I haven't lived in one of these small towns
+since I was a lad. I have a faint recollection that introductions were
+absolutely necessary. They have an etiquette which is as binding as that
+of McAllister's Four Hundred, but what it is I don't know."
+
+"Well, we'll wait."
+
+"The boys are perfectly at home," said Robert, with a little emphasis on
+boys, which was the first indication of his disappointment. The people he
+had failed to reach.
+
+There came a knock on the door that startled them both. "Come in," said
+Robert, in a nervous shout.
+
+"Land sakes! did I scare ye? Seem so, way ye yelled," said a high-keyed
+nasal voice, and a tall woman came in, followed by an equally stalwart
+man.
+
+"How d'e do, Mrs. Folsom? My wife, Mr. Folsom."
+
+Folsom's voice was lost in the bustle of getting settled, but Mrs.
+Folsom's voice rose above the clamor. "I was tellin' him it was about
+time we got neighborly. I never let anybody come to town a week without
+callin' on 'em. It does a body a heap o' good to see a face outside the
+family once in a while, specially in a new place. How do you like up here
+on the hill?"
+
+"Very much. The view is so fine."
+
+"Yes, I s'pose it is. Still, it ain't my notion. I don't like to climb
+hills well enough. Still, I've heard of people buildin' just for the
+view. It's all in taste, as the old woman said that kissed the cow."
+
+There was an element of shrewdness and self-analysis in Mrs. Folsom which
+saved her from being grotesque. She knew she was queer to Mrs. Bloom, but
+she did not resent it. She was still young in form and face, but her
+teeth were gone, and, like so many of her neighbors, she was too poor to
+replace them from the dentist's. She wore a decent calico dress and a
+shawl and hat.
+
+As she talked her eyes took in every article of furniture in the room,
+and every little piece of fancy-work and bric-à-brac. In fact, she
+reproduced the pattern of one of the tidies within two days.
+
+Folsom sat dumbly in his chair. Robert, who met him now as a neighbor for
+the first time, tried to talk with him, but failed, and turned himself
+gladly to Mrs. Folsom, who delighted him with her vigorous phrases.
+
+"Oh, we're a-movin', though you wouldn't think it. This town is filled
+with a lot of old skinflints. Close ain't no name for 'em. Jest ask
+Folsom thar about 'em. He's been buildin' their houses for 'em. Still, I
+suppose they say the same thing o' me," she added, with a touch of
+humor which always saved her. She used a man's phrases. "We're always
+ready to tax some other feller, but we kick like mules when the tax falls
+on us," she went on. "My land! the fight we've had to git sidewalks in
+this town!"
+
+"You should be mayor."
+
+"That's what I tell Folsom. Takes a woman to clean things up. Well, I
+must run along. Thought I'd jest call in and see how you all was. Come
+down when ye kin."
+
+"Thank you, I will."
+
+After they had gone Robert turned with a smile: "Our first formal call."
+
+"Oh, dear, Robert, what can I do with such people?"
+
+"Go see 'em. I like her. She's shrewd. You'll like her, too."
+
+"But what can I say to such people? Did you hear her say 'we fellers' to
+me?"
+
+Robert laughed. "That's nothing. She feels as much of a man, or 'feller,'
+as any one. Why shouldn't she?"
+
+"But she's so vulgar."
+
+"I admit she isn't elegant, but I think she's a good wife and mother."
+
+"I wonder if they're all like that?"
+
+"Now, Mate, we must try not to offend them. We must try to be one of
+them."
+
+But this was easier said than done. As he went down to the post-office
+and stood waiting for his mail like the rest he tried to enter into
+conversation with them, but mainly they moved away from him. William
+McTurg nodded at him and said, "How de do?" and McLane asked how he liked
+his new place, and that was about all.
+
+He couldn't reach them. They suspected him. They had only the estimate of
+the men who had worked for him; and, while they were civil, they plainly
+didn't need him in the slightest degree, except as a topic of
+conversation.
+
+He did not improve as he had hoped to do. The spring was wet and cold,
+the most rainy and depressing the valley had seen in many years. Day
+after day the rain-clouds sailed in over the northern hills and deluged
+the flat little town with water, till the frogs sang in every street,
+till the main street mired down every team that drove into it.
+
+The corn rotted in the earth, but the grass grew tall and yellow-green,
+the trees glistened through the gray air, and the hills were like green
+jewels of incalculable worth, when the sun shone, at sweet infrequent
+intervals.
+
+The cold and damp struck through into the alien's heart. It seemed to
+prophesy his dark future. He sat at his desk and looked out into the gray
+rain with gloomy eyes--a prisoner when he had expected to be free.
+
+He had failed in his last venture. He had not gained any power--he was
+really weaker than ever. The rain had kept him confined to the house. The
+joy he had anticipated of tracing out all his boyish pleasure haunts was
+cut off. He had relied, too, upon that as a source of literary power.
+
+He could not do much more than walk down to the post-office and back on
+the pleasantest days. A few people called, but he could not talk to them,
+and they did not call again.
+
+In the mean while his little bank-account was vanishing. The boys were
+strong and happy; that was his only comfort. And his wife seemed strong,
+too. She had little time to get lonesome.
+
+He grew morbid. His weakness and insecurity made him jealous of the
+security and health of others.
+
+He grew almost to hate the people as he saw them coming and going in the
+mud, or heard their loud hearty voices sounding from the street. He hated
+their gossip, their dull jokes. The flat little town grew vulgar and low
+and desolate to him.
+
+Every little thing which had amused him now annoyed him. The cut of their
+beards worried him. Their voices jarred upon him. Every day or two he
+broke forth to his wife in long tirades of abuse.
+
+"Oh, I can't stand these people! They don't know anything. They talk
+every rag of gossip into shreds. 'Taters, fish, hops; hops, fish, and
+'taters. They've saved and pinched and toiled till their souls are
+pinched and ground away. You're right. They are caricatures. They don't
+read or think about anything in which I'm interested. This life is
+nerve-destroying. Talk about the health of the village life! it destroys
+body and soul. It debilitates me. It will warp us both down to the level
+of these people."
+
+She tried to stop him, but he went on, a flush of fever on his cheek:
+
+"They degrade the nature they have touched. Their squat little town is a
+caricature like themselves. Everything they touch they belittle. Here
+they sit while sidewalks rot and teams mire in the streets."
+
+He raged on like one demented--bitter, accusing, rebellious. In such a
+mood he could not write. In place of inspiring him, the little town and
+its people seemed to undermine his power and turn his sweetness of spirit
+into gall and acid. He only bowed to them now as he walked feebly among
+them, and they excused it by referring to his sickness. They eyed him
+each time with pitying eyes. "He's failin' fast," they said among
+themselves.
+
+One day, as he was returning from the post-office, he felt blind for a
+moment and put his hand to his head. The world of vivid green grew gray,
+and life receded from him into illimitable distance. He had one dim
+fading glimpse of a shaggy-bearded face looking down at him, and felt the
+clutch of an iron-hard strong arm under him, and then he lost hold even
+on so much consciousness.
+
+He came back slowly, rising out of immeasurable deeps toward a distant
+light which was like the mouth of a well filled with clouds of misty
+vapor. Occasionally he saw a brown big hairy face floating in over this
+lighted horizon, to smile kindly and go away again. Others came with
+shaggy beards. He heard a cheery tenor voice which he recognized, and
+then another face, a big brown smiling face; very lovely it looked now to
+him--almost as lovely as his wife's, which floated in from the other
+side.
+
+"He's all right now," said the cheery tenor voice from the big bearded
+face.
+
+"Oh, Mr. McTurg, do you think so?"
+
+"Ye-e-s, sir. He's all right. The fever's left him. Brace up, old man. We
+need ye yit awhile." Then all was silent again.
+
+The well-mouth cleared away its mist again, and he saw more clearly. Part
+of the time he knew he was in bed staring at the ceiling. Part of the
+time the well-mouth remained closed in with clouds.
+
+Gaunt old women put spoons of delicious broth to his lips, and their
+toothless mouths had kindly lines about them. He heard their high voices
+sounding faintly.
+
+"Now, Mis' Bloom, jest let Mis' Folsom an' me attend to things out here.
+We'll get supper for the boys, an' you jest go an' lay down. We'll take
+care of him. Don't worry. Bell's a good hand with sick."
+
+Then the light came again, and he heard a robin singing, and a cat-bird
+squalled softly, pitifully. He could see the ceiling again. He lay on his
+back, with his hands on his breast. He felt as if he had been dead. He
+seemed to feel his body as if it were an alien thing.
+
+"How are you, sir?" called the laughing, thrillingly hearty voice of
+William McTurg.
+
+He tried to turn his head, but it wouldn't move. He tried to speak, but
+his dry throat made no noise.
+
+The big man bent over him. "Want 'o change place a little?"
+
+He closed his eyes in answer.
+
+A giant arm ran deftly under his shoulders and turned him as if he were
+an infant, and a new part of the good old world burst on his sight. The
+sunshine streamed in the windows through a waving screen of lilac leaves
+and fell upon the carpet in a priceless flood of radiance.
+
+There sat William McTurg smiling at him. He had no coat on and no hat,
+and his bushy thick hair rose up from his forehead like thick
+marsh-grass. He looked to be the embodiment of sunshine and health. Sun
+and air were in his brown face, and the perfect health of a fine animal
+was in his huge limbs. He looked at Robert with a smile that brought a
+strange feeling into his throat. It made him try to speak; at last he
+whispered.
+
+The great figure bent closer: "What is it?"
+
+"Thank--you."
+
+William laughed a low chuckle. "Don't bother about thanks. Would you like
+some water?"
+
+A tall figure joined William, awkwardly.
+
+"Hello, Evan!"
+
+"How is he, Bill?"
+
+"He's awake to-day."
+
+"That's good. Anything I can do?"
+
+"No, I guess not. All he needs is somethin' to eat."
+
+"I jest brought a chicken up, an' some jell an' things the women sent.
+I'll stay with him till twelve, then Folsom will come in."
+
+Thereafter he lay hearing the robins laugh and the orioles whistle, and
+then the frogs and katydids at night. These men with greasy vests and
+unkempt beards came in every day. They bathed him, and helped him to and
+from the bed. They helped to dress him and move him to the window, where
+he could look out on the blessed green of the grass.
+
+O God, it was so beautiful! It was a lover's joy only to live, to look
+into these radiant vistas again. A cat-bird was singing in the
+currant-hedge. A robin was hopping across the lawn. The voices of the
+children sounded soft and jocund across the road. And the
+sunshine--"Beloved Christ, Thy sunshine falling upon my feet!" His soul
+ached with the joy of it, and when his wife came in she found him sobbing
+like a child.
+
+They seemed never to weary in his service. They lifted him about, and
+talked to him in loud and hearty voices which roused him like fresh winds
+from free spaces.
+
+He heard the women busy with things in the kitchen. He often saw them
+loaded with things to eat passing his window, and often his wife came in
+and knelt down at his bed.
+
+"Oh, Robert, they're so good! They feed us like God's ravens."
+
+One day, as he sat at the window fully dressed for the fourth of fifth
+time, William McTurg came up the walk.
+
+"Well, Robert, how are ye to-day?"
+
+"First rate, William," he smiled. "I believe I can walk out a little if
+you'll help me."
+
+"All right, sir."
+
+And he went forth leaning on William's arm, a piteous wraith of a man.
+
+On every side the golden June sunshine fell, filling the valley from
+purple brim to purple brim. Down over the hill to the west the light
+poured, tangled and glowing in the plum and cherry trees, leaving the
+glistening grass spraying through the elms, and flinging streamers of
+pink across the shaven green slopes where the cattle fed.
+
+On every side he saw kindly faces and heard hearty voices: "Good day,
+Robert. Glad to see you out again." It thrilled him to hear them call him
+by his first name.
+
+His heart swelled till he could hardly breathe. The passion of living
+came back upon him, shaking, uplifting him. His pallid lips moved. His
+face was turned to the sky.
+
+"O God, let me live! It is so beautiful! O God, give me strength again!
+Keep me in the light of the sun! Let me see the green grass come and go!"
+
+He turned to William with trembling lips, trying to speak:
+
+"Oh, I understand you now. I know you all now."
+
+But William did not understand him.
+
+"There! there!" he said, soothingly. "I guess you're gettin' tired." He
+led Robert back and put him to bed.
+
+"I'd know but we was a little brash about goin' out," William said to
+him, as Robert lay there smiling up at him.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right now," the sick man said.
+
+"Matie," the alien cried, when William had gone, "we know our neighbors
+now, don't we? We never can hate or ridicule them again."
+
+"Yes, Robert. They never will be caricatures again--to me."
+
+
+
+A "Good Fellow's" Wife
+
+I
+
+Life in the small towns of the older West moves slowly--almost as slowly
+as in the seaport villages or little towns of the East. Towns like Tyre
+and Bluff Siding have grown during the last twenty years, but very
+slowly, by almost imperceptible degrees. Lying too far away from the
+Mississippi to be affected by the lumber interest, they are merely
+trading-points for the farmers, with no perceivable germs of boom in
+their quiet life.
+
+A stranger coming into Belfast, Minnesota, excites much the same languid
+but persistent inquiry as in Belfast, New Hampshire. Juries of men,
+seated on salt-barrels and nail-kegs, discuss the stranger's appearance
+and his probable action, just as in Kittery, Maine, but with a lazier
+speech-tune, and with a shade less of apparent interest.
+
+On such a rainy day as comes in May after the corn is planted--a cold,
+wet rainy day--the usual crowd was gathered in Wilson's grocery-store at
+Bluff Siding, a small town in "The Coally Country." They were farmers,
+for the most part, retired from active service. Their coats were of
+cheap diagonal or cassimere, much faded and burned by the sun; their
+hats, flapped about by winds and soaked with countless rains, were also
+of the same yellow-brown tints. One or two wore paper collars on their
+hickory shirts.
+
+McIlvaine, farmer and wheat-buyer, wore a paper collar and a butterfly
+necktie, as befitted a man of his station in life. He was a short,
+squarely made Scotchman, with sandy whiskers much grayed, and with a
+keen, intensely blue eye.
+
+"Say," called McPhail, ex-sheriff of the county, in the silence that
+followed some remark about the rain, "any o' you fellers had any talk
+with this feller Sanford?"
+
+"I hain't," said Vance. "You, Bill?"
+
+"No; but somebody was sayin' he thought o' startin' in trade here."
+
+"Don't Sam know? He generally knows what's goin' on."
+
+"Knows he registered from Pittsfield, Mass., an' that's all. Say, that's
+a mighty smart-lookin' woman o' his."
+
+"Vance always sees how the women look. Where'd you see her?"
+
+"Came in here the other day to look up prices."
+
+"Wha'd she say 'bout settlin'?"
+
+"Hadn't decided yet."
+
+"He's too slick to have much business in him. That waxed mustache gives
+'im away."
+
+The discussion having reached that point where his word would have most
+effect, Steve Gilbert said, while opening the hearth to rap out the ashes
+of his pipe, "Sam's wife heerd that he was kind o' thinkin' some of goin'
+into business here, if things suited 'im first-rate."
+
+They all knew the old man was aching to tell something, but they didn't
+purpose to gratify him by any questions. The rain dripped from the awning
+in front, and fell upon the roof of the storeroom at the back with a soft
+and steady roar.
+
+"Good f'r the corn," McPhail said, after a long pause.
+
+"Purty cold, though."
+
+Gilbert was tranquil--he had a shot in reserve.
+
+"Sam's wife said his wife said he was thinkin' some of goin' into a bank
+here--"
+
+"A bank!"
+
+"What in thunder--"
+
+Vance turned, with a comical look on his long, placid face, one hand
+stroking his beard.
+
+"Well, now, gents, I'll tell you what's the matter with this town. It
+needs a bank. Yes, sir! I need a bank."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes, me. I didn't know just what did ail me, but I do now. It's the need
+of a bank that keeps me down."
+
+"Well, you fellers can talk an' laugh, but I tell yeh they's a boom goin'
+to strike this town. It's got to come. W'y, just look at Lumberville!"
+
+"Their boom is our bu'st," was McPhail's comment.
+
+"I don't think so," said Sanford, who had entered in time to hear these
+last two speeches. They all looked at him with deep interest. He was a
+smallish man. He wore a derby hat and a neat suit. "I've looked things
+over pretty close--a man don't like to invest his capital" (here the rest
+looked at one another) "till he does; and I believe there's an opening
+for a bank."
+
+As he dwelt upon the scheme from day to day, the citizens warmed to him,
+and he became "Jim" Sanford. He hired a little cottage, and went to
+housekeeping at once; but the entire summer went by before he made his
+decision to settle. In fact, it was in the last week of August that the
+little paper announced it in the usual style:
+
+Mr. James G. Sanford, popularly known as "Jim," has decided to open an
+exchange bank for the convenience of our citizens, who have hitherto been
+forced to transact business in Lumberville. The thanks of the town are
+due Mr. Sanford, who comes well recommended from Massachusetts and from
+Milwaukee, and, better still, with a bag of ducats. Mr. S. will be well
+patronized. Success, Jim!
+
+The bank was open by the time the corn-crop and the hogs were being
+marketed, and money was received on deposit while the carpenters were
+still at work on the building. Everybody knew now that he was as solid as
+oak.
+
+He had taken into the bank, as bookkeeper, Lincoln Bingham, one of
+McPhail's multitudinous nephews; and this was a capital move. Everybody
+knew Link, and knew he was a McPhail, which meant that he "could be tied
+to in all kinds o' weather." Of course the McPhails, McIlvaines, and the
+rest of the Scotch contingency "banked on Link." As old Andrew McPhail
+put it:
+
+"Link's there, an' he knows the bank an' books, an' just how things
+stand"; and so when he sold his hogs he put the whole sum--over fifteen
+hundred dollars--into the bank. The McIlvaines and the Binghams did the
+same, and the bank was at once firmly established among the farmers.
+
+Only two people held out against Sanford, old Freeme Cole and Mrs.
+Bingham, Lincoln's mother; but they didn't count, for Freeme hadn't a
+cent, and Mrs. Bingham was too unreasoning in her opposition. She could
+only say: "I don't like him, that's all. I knowed a man back in New York
+that curled his mustaches just that way, an' he wa'n't no earthly good."
+
+It might have been said by a cynic that Banker Sanford had all the
+virtues of a defaulting bank cashier. He had no bad habits beyond
+smoking. He was genial, companionable, and especially ready to help when
+sickness came. When old Freeme Cole got down with delirium tremens that
+winter, Sanford was one of the most heroic of nurses, and the service was
+so clearly disinterested and magnanimous that every one spoke of it.
+
+His wife and he were included in every dance or picnic; for Mrs. Sanford
+was as great a favorite as the banker himself, she was so sincere, and
+her gray eyes were so charmingly frank, and then she said "such funny
+things."
+
+"I wish I had something to do besides housework. It's a kind of a
+putterin' job, best ye can do," she'd say, merrily, just to see the
+others stare. "There's too much moppin' an' dustin'. Seems 's if a woman
+used up half her life on things that don't amount to anything, don't it?"
+
+"I tell yeh that feller's a scallywag. I know it buh the way 'e walks
+'long the sidewalk," Mrs. Bingham insisted to her son, who wished her to
+put her savings into the bank.
+
+The youngest of a large family, Link had been accustomed all his life to
+Mrs. Bingham's many whimsicalities.
+
+"I s'pose you can smell he's a thief, just as you can tell when it's
+goin' to rain, or the butter's comin', by the smell."
+
+"Well, you needn't laugh, Lincoln. I can," maintained the old lady,
+stoutly. "An' I ain't goin' to put a red cent o' my money into his
+pocket--f'r there's where it 'ud go to."
+
+She yielded at last, and received a little bank-book in return for her
+money. "Jest about all I'll ever get," she said, privately; and
+thereafter out of her brass-bowed spectacles with an eagle's gaze she
+watched the banker go by. But the banker, seeing the dear old soul at the
+window looking out at him, always smiled and bowed, unaware of her
+suspicion.
+
+At the end of the year he bought the lot next his rented house, and began
+building one of his own, a modest little affair, shaped like a pork-pie
+with a cupola, or a Tam-o'-Shanter cap--a style of architecture which
+became fashionable at once.
+
+He worked heroically to get the location of the plow-factory at Bluff
+Siding, and all but succeeded; but Tyre, once their ally, turned against
+them, and refused to consider the fact of the Siding's position at the
+centre of the county. However, for some reason or other, the town woke up
+to something of a boom during the next two years. Several large farmers
+decided to retire and live off the sweat of some other fellow's brow, and
+so built some houses of the pork-pie order, and moved into town.
+
+This inflow of moneyed men from the country resulted in the establishment
+of a "seminary of learning" on the hillside, where the Soldiers' Home was
+to be located. This called in more farmers from the country, and a new
+hotel was built, a sash-and-door factory followed, and Burt McPhail set
+up a feed-mill.
+
+All this improvement unquestionably dated from the opening of the bank,
+and the most unreasoning partisans of the banker held him to be the chief
+cause of the resulting development of the town, though he himself
+modestly disclaimed any hand in the affair.
+
+Had Bluff Siding been a city, the highest civic honors would have been
+open to Banker Sanford; indeed, his name was repeatedly mentioned in
+connection with the county offices.
+
+"No, gentlemen," he explained, firmly, but courteously, in Wilson's store
+one night; "I'm a banker, not a politician. I can't ride two horses."
+
+In the second year of the bank's history he went up to the north part of
+the state on business, visiting West Superior, Duluth, Ashland, and other
+booming towns, and came back full of the wonders of what he saw.
+
+"There's big money up there, Nell," he said to his wife.
+
+But she had the woman's tendency to hold fast to what she had, and would
+not listen to any plans about moving.
+
+"Build up your business here, Jim, and don't worry about what good
+chances there are somewhere else."
+
+He said no more about it, but he took great interest in all the news the
+"boys" brought back from their annual deer-hunts "up north." They were
+all enthusiastic over West Superior and Duluth, and their wonderful
+development was the never-ending theme of discussion in Wilson's store.
+
+II
+
+The first two years of the bank's history were solidly successful, and
+"Jim" and "Nellie" were the head and front of all good works, and the
+provoking cause of most of the fun. No one seemed more care-free.
+
+"We consider ourselves just as young as anybody," Mrs. Sanford would say,
+when joked about going out with the young people so much; but sometimes
+at home, after the children were asleep, she sighed a little.
+
+"Jim, I wish you was in some kind of a business so I could help. I don't
+have enough to do. I s'pose I could mop an' dust, an' dust an' mop; but
+it seems sinful to waste time that way. Can't I do anything, Jim?"
+
+"Why, no. If you 'tend to the children and keep house, that's all
+anybody asks of you."
+
+She was silent, but not convinced. She had a desire to do something
+outside the walls of her house--a desire transmitted to her from her
+father, for a woman inherits these things.
+
+In the spring of the second year a number of the depositors drew out
+money to invest in Duluth and Superior lots, and the whole town was
+excited over the matter.
+
+The summer passed, Link and Sanford spending their time in the bank--that
+is, when not out swimming or fishing with the boys. But July and August
+were terribly hot and dry, and oats and corn were only half-crop, and the
+farmers were grumbling. Some of them were forced to draw on the bank
+instead of depositing.
+
+McPhail came in, one day in November, to draw a thousand dollars to pay
+for a house and lot he had recently bought.
+
+Sanford was alone. He whistled. "Phew! You're comin' at me hard. Come in
+to-morrow. Link's gone down to the city to get some money."
+
+"All right," said McPhail; "any time."
+
+"Goin' t' snow?"
+
+"Looks like it. I'll haf to load a lot o' ca'tridges ready f'r biz."
+
+About an hour later old lady Bingham burst upon the banker, wild and
+breathless. "I want my money," she announced.
+
+"Good-morning, Mrs. Bingham. Pleasant--"
+
+"I want my money. Where's Lincoln?"
+
+She had read that morning of two bank failures--one in Nova Scotia and
+one in Massachusetts--and they seemed providential warnings to her.
+Lincoln's absence confirmed them.
+
+"He's gone to St. Paul--won't be back till the five-o'clock train. Do you
+need some money this morning? How much?"
+
+"All of it, sir. Every cent."
+
+Sanford saw something was out of gear. He tried to explain. "I've sent
+your son to St. Paul after some money--"
+
+"Where's my money? What have you done with that?" In her excitement she
+thought of her money just as she hand handed it in--silver and little
+rolls and wads of bills.
+
+"If you'll let me explain--"
+
+"I don't want you to explain nawthin'. Jest hand me out my money."
+
+Two or three loafers, seeing her gesticulate, stopped on the walk outside
+and looked in at the door. Sanford was annoyed, but he remained calm and
+persuasive. He saw that something had caused a panic in the good, simple
+old woman. He wished for Lincoln as one wishes for a policeman sometimes.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Bingham, if you'll only wait till Lincoln--"
+
+"I don't want 'o wait. I want my money, right now."
+
+"Will fifty dollars do?"
+
+"No, sir; I want it all--every cent of it--jest as it was."
+
+"But I can't do that. Your money is gone--"
+
+"Gone? Where is it gone? What have you done with it? You thief--"
+
+"'Sh!" He tried to quiet her. "I mean I can't give you your money--"
+
+"Why can't you?" she stormed, trotting nervously on her feet as she stood
+there.
+
+"Because--if you'd let me explain--we don't keep the money just as it
+comes to us. We pay it out, and take in other--"
+
+Mrs. Bingham was getting more and more bewildered. She now had only one
+clear idea--she couldn't get her money. Her voice grew tearful like an
+angry child's.
+
+"I want my money--I knew you'd steal it--that I worked for. Give me my
+money."
+
+Sanford hastily handed her some money. "Here's fifty dollars. You can
+have the rest when--"
+
+The old lady clutched the money, and literally ran out of the door, and
+went off up the sidewalk, talking incoherently. To every one she met she
+told her story; but the men smiled and passed on. They had heard her
+predictions of calamity before.
+
+But Mrs. McIlvaine was made a trifle uneasy by it. "He wouldn't give you
+y'r money? Or did he say he couldn't?" she inquired, in her moderate way.
+
+"He couldn't, an' he wouldn't!" she said. "If you've got any money there,
+you'd better get it out quick. It ain't safe a minute. When Lincoln comes
+home I'm goin' to see if I can't--"
+
+"Well, I was calc'latin' to go to Lumberville this week, anyway, to buy a
+carpet and a chamber set. I guess I might 's well get the money to-day."
+
+When she came in and demanded the money, Sanford was scared. Were these
+two old women the beginning of the deluge? Would McPhail insist on being
+paid also? There was just one hundred dollars left in the bank, together
+with a little silver. With rare strategy he smiled.
+
+"Certainly, Mrs. McIlvaine. How much will you need?"
+
+She had intended to demand the whole of her deposit--one hundred and
+seventeen dollars--but his readiness mollified her a little. "I did 'low
+I'd take the hull, but I guess seventy-five dollars 'll do."
+
+He paid the money briskly out over the little glass shelf. "How is your
+children, Mrs. McIlvaine?"
+
+"Purty well, thanky," replied Mrs. McIlvaine, laboriously counting the
+bills.
+
+"Is it all right?"
+
+"I guess so," she replied, dubiously. "I'll count it after I get home."
+
+She went up the street with the feeling that the bank was all right, and
+she stepped in and told Mrs. Bingham that she had no trouble in getting
+her money.
+
+After she had gone Sanford sat down and wrote a telegram which he sent to
+St. Paul. This telegram, according to the duplicate at the station, read
+in this puzzling way:
+
+E. O., Exchange Block, No. 96. All out of paper. Send five hundred
+note-heads and envelopes to match. Business brisk. Press of
+correspondence just now. Get them out quick. Wire.
+
+Sanford.
+
+Two or three others came in after a little money, but he put them off
+easily. "Just been cashing some paper, and took all the ready cash I can
+spare. Can't you wait till to-morrow? Link's gone down to St. Paul to
+collect on some paper. Be back on the five-o'clock. Nine o'clock, sure."
+
+An old Norwegian woman came in to deposit ten dollars, and he counted it
+in briskly, and put the amount down on her little book for her. Barney
+Mace came in to deposit a hundred dollars, the proceeds of a horse sale,
+and this helped him through the day. Those who wanted small sums he paid.
+
+"Glad this ain't a big demand. Rather close on cash to-day," he said,
+smiling, as Lincoln's wife's sister came in.
+
+She laughed, "I guess it won't bu'st yeh. If I thought it would, I'd
+leave it in."
+
+"Bu'sted!" he said, when Vance wanted him to cash a draft. "Can't do it.
+Sorry, Van. Do it in the morning all right. Can you wait?"
+
+"Oh, I guess so. Haf to, won't I?"
+
+"Curious," said Sanford, in a confidential way. "I don't know that I ever
+saw things get in just such shape. Paper enough--but exchange, ye know,
+and readjustment of accounts."
+
+"I don't know much about banking, myself," said Vance, good-naturedly;
+"but I s'pose it's a good 'eal same as with a man. Git short o' cash,
+first they know--'ain't got a cent to spare."
+
+"That's the idea exactly. Credit all right, plenty o' property, but--"
+and he smiled and went at his books. The smile died out of his eyes as
+Vance went out, and he pulled a little morocco book from his pocket and
+began studying the beautiful columns of figures with which it seemed to
+be filled. Those he compared with the books with great care, thrusting
+the book out of sight when any one entered.
+
+He closed the bank as usual at five. Lincoln had not come--couldn't come
+now till the nine-o'clock accommodation. For an hour after the shades
+were drawn he sat there in the semi-darkness, silently pondering on his
+situation. This attitude and deep quiet were unusual to him. He heard the
+feet of friends and neighbors passing the door as he sat there by the
+smouldering coal-fire, in the growing darkness. There was something
+impressive in his attitude.
+
+He started up at last, and tried to see what the hour was by turning the
+face of his watch to the dull glow from the cannon-stove's open door.
+
+"Supper-time," he said, and threw the whole matter off, as if he had
+decided it or had put off the decision till another time.
+
+As he went by the post-office Vance said to McIlvaine in a smiling way,
+as if it were a good joke on Sanford:
+
+"Little short o' cash down at the bank."
+
+"He's a good fellow," McIlvaine said.
+
+"So's his wife," added Vance, with a chuckle.
+
+III
+
+That night, after supper, Sanford sat in his snug little sitting-room
+with a baby on each knee, looking as cheerful and happy as any man in the
+village. The children crowed and shouted as he "trotted them to Boston,"
+or rode them on the toe of his boot. They made a noisy, merry group.
+
+Mrs. Sanford "did her own work," and her swift feet could be heard moving
+to and fro out in the kitchen. It was pleasant there; the woodwork, the
+furniture, the stove, the curtains--all had that look of newness just
+growing into coziness. The coal-stove was lighted and the curtains were
+drawn.
+
+After the work in the kitchen was done, Mrs. Sanford came in and sat
+awhile by the fire with the children, looking very wifely in her dark
+dress and white apron, her round, smiling face glowing with love and
+pride--the gloating look of a mother seeing her children in the arms of
+her husband.
+
+"How is Mrs. Peterson's baby, Jim?" she said, suddenly, her face
+sobering.
+
+"Pretty bad, I guess. La, la, la--deedle-dee! The doctor seemed to think
+it was a tight squeak if it lived. Guess it's done for--oop 'e goes!"
+
+She made a little leap at the youngest child, and clasped it convulsively
+to her bosom. Her swift maternal imagination had made another's loss
+very near and terrible.
+
+"Oh, say, Nell," he broke out, on seeing her sober, "I had the
+confoundedest time to-day with old lady Bingham--"
+
+"'Sh! Baby's gone to sleep."
+
+After the children had been put to bed in the little alcove off the
+sitting-room, Mrs. Sanford came back, to find Jim absorbed over a little
+book of accounts.
+
+"What are you studying, Jim?"
+
+Some one knocked on the door before he had time to reply.
+
+"Come in!" he said.
+
+"Sh! Don't yell so," his wife whispered.
+
+"Telegram, Jim," said a voice in the obscurity.
+
+"Oh! That you, Sam? Come in."
+
+Sam, a lathy fellow with a quid in his cheek, stepped in. "How d' 'e do,
+Mis' Sanford?"
+
+"Set down--se' down."
+
+"Can't stop; 'most train-time."
+
+Sanford tore the envelope open, read the telegram rapidly, the smile
+fading out of his face. He read it again, word for word, then sat looking
+at it.
+
+"Any answer?" asked Sam.
+
+"No."
+
+"All right. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+After the door slammed, Sanford took the sheet from the envelope and
+reread it. At length he dropped into his chair. "That settles it," he
+said, aloud.
+
+"Settles what? What's the news?" His wife came up and looked over his
+shoulder.
+
+"Settles I've got to go on that nine-thirty train."
+
+"Be back on the morning train?"
+
+"Yes; I guess so--I mean, of course--I'll have to be--to open the bank."
+
+Mrs. Sanford looked at him for a few seconds in silence. There was
+something in his look, and especially in his tone, that troubled her.
+
+"What do you mean? Jim, you don't intend to come back!" She took his arm.
+"What's the matter? Now tell me! What are you going away for?"
+
+He knew he could not deceive his wife's ears and eyes just then, so he
+remained silent. "We've got to leave, Nell," he admitted at last.
+
+"Why? What for?"
+
+"Because I'm bu'sted--broke--gone up the spout--and all the rest!" he
+said, desperately, with an attempt at fun. "Mrs. Bingham and Mrs.
+McIlvaine have bu'sted me--dead."
+
+"Why--why--what has become of the money--all the money the people have
+put in there?"
+
+"Gone up with the rest."
+
+"What 've you done with it? I don't--"
+
+"Well, I've invested it--and lost it."
+
+"James Gordon Sanford!" she exclaimed, trying to realize it. "Was that
+right? Ain't that a case of--of--"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder. A case of embezzlement such as you read of in the
+newspapers." His tone was easy, but he avoided the look in his wife's
+beautiful gray eyes.
+
+"But it's--stealing--ain't it?" She stared at him, bewildered by his
+reckless lightness of mood.
+
+"It is now, because I've lost. If I'd 'a' won it, it 'ud 'a' been
+financial shrewdness!"
+
+She asked her next question after a pause, in a low voice, and through
+teeth almost set. "Did you go into this bank to--steal this money? Tell
+me that!"
+
+"No; I didn't, Nell. I ain't quite up to that."
+
+His answer softened her a little, and she sat looking at him steadily as
+he went on. The tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks. Her hands
+were clenched.
+
+"The fact is, the idea came into my head last fall when I went up to
+Superior. My partner wanted me to go in with him on some land, and I did.
+We speculated on the growth of the town toward the south. We made a
+strike; then he wanted me to go in on a copper-mine. Of course I
+expected--"
+
+As he went on with the usual excuses her mind made all the allowances
+possible for him. He had always been boyish, impulsive, and lacking in
+judgment and strength of character. She was humiliated and frightened,
+but she loved and sympathized with him.
+
+Her silence alarmed him, and he made excuses for himself. He was
+speculating for her sake more than for his own, and so on.
+
+"Choo--choo!" whistled the far-off train through the still air.
+
+He sprang up and reached for his coat.
+
+She seized his arm again. "Where are you going?" she sternly asked.
+
+"To take that train."
+
+"When are you coming back?"
+
+"I don't know." But his tone said, "Never."
+
+She felt it. Her face grew bitter. "Going to leave me and--the babies?"
+
+"I'll send for you soon. Come, good-by!" He tried to put his arm about
+her. She stepped back.
+
+"Jim, if you leave me to-night" ("Choo--choo!" whistled the engine), "you
+leave me forever." There was a terrible resolution in her tone.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I'm going to stay here. If you go--I'll never be your
+wife--again--never!" She glanced at the sleeping children, and her chin
+trembled.
+
+"I can't face those fellows--they'll kill me," he said, in a sullen tone.
+
+"No, they won't. They'll respect you, if you stay and tell 'em exactly
+how--it--all--is. You've disgraced me and my children, that's what you've
+done! If you don't stay--"
+
+The clear jangle of the engine-bell sounded through the night as with the
+whiz of escaping steam and scrape and jar of gripping brakes and howl of
+wheels the train came to a stop at the station. Sanford dropped his coat
+and sat down again.
+
+"I'll have to stay now." His tone was dry and lifeless. It had a reproach
+in it that cut the wife deep--deep as the fountain of tears; and she went
+across the room and knelt at the bedside, burying her face in the clothes
+on the feet of her children, and sobbed silently.
+
+The man sat with bent head, looking into the glowing coal, whistling
+through his teeth, a look of sullen resignation and endurance on his face
+that had never been there before. His very attitude was alien and
+ominous.
+
+Neither spoke for a long time. At last he rose and began taking off his
+coat and vest.
+
+"Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but go to bed."
+
+She did not stir--she might have been asleep so far as any sound or
+motion was concerned. He went off to the bed in the little parlor, and
+she still knelt there, her heart full of anger, bitterness, sorrow.
+
+The sunny uneventfulness of her past life made this great storm the more
+terrifying. Her trust in her husband had been absolute. A farmer's
+daughter, the bank clerk had seemed to her the equal of any gentleman in
+the world--her world; and when she knew his delicacy, his unfailing
+kindness, and his abounding good nature, she had accepted him as the
+father of her children, and this was the first revelation to her of his
+inherent moral weakness.
+
+Her mind went over the whole ground again and again, in a sort of
+blinding rush. She was convinced of his lack of honor more by his tone,
+his inflections, than by his words. His lack of deep regret, his
+readiness to leave her to bear the whole shock of the discovery--these
+were in his flippant tones; and every time she thought of them the hot
+blood surged over her. At such moments she hated him, and her white teeth
+clenched.
+
+To these moods succeeded others, when she remembered his smile, the
+dimple in his chin, his tender care for the sick, his buoyancy, his songs
+to the children--How could he sit there, with the children on his knees,
+and plan to run away, leaving them disgraced?
+
+She went to bed at last with the babies, and with their soft, warm little
+bodies touching her side fell asleep, pondering, suffering as only a
+mother and wife can suffer when distrust and doubt of her husband
+supplant confidence and adoration.
+
+IV
+
+The children awakened her by their delighted cooing and kissing. It was a
+great event, this waking to find mamma in their bed. It was hardly light,
+of a dull gray morning; and with the children tumbling about over her,
+feeling the pressure of the warm little hands and soft lips, she went
+over the whole situation again, and at last settled upon her action.
+
+She rose, shook down the coal in the stove in the sitting-room, and
+started a fire in the kitchen; then she dressed the children by the
+coal-burner. The elder of them, as soon as dressed, ran in to wake
+"poppa" while the mother went about breakfast-getting.
+
+Sanford came out of his bedroom unwontedly gloomy, greeting the children
+in a subdued maimer. He shivered as he sat by the fire, and stirred the
+stove as if he thought the room was cold. His face was pale and moist.
+
+"Breakfast is ready, James," called Mrs. Sanford, in a tone which she
+meant to be habitual, but which had a cadence of sadness in it.
+
+Someway, he found it hard to look at her as he came out. She busied
+herself with placing the children at the table, in order to conceal her
+own emotion.
+
+"I don't believe I'll eat any meat this morning, Nellie. I ain't very
+well."
+
+She glanced at him quickly, keenly. "What's the matter?"
+
+"I d'know. My stomach is kind of upset by this failure o' mine. I'm in
+great shape to go down to the bank this morning--and face them fellows--"
+
+"It's got to be done."
+
+"I know it; but that don't help me any." He tried to smile.
+
+She mused, while the baby hammered on his tin plate.
+
+"You've got to go down. If you don't--I will," said she, resolutely. "And
+you must say that that money will be paid back--every cent."
+
+"But that's more'n I can do--"
+
+"It must be done."
+
+"But under the law--"
+
+"There's nothing can make this thing right except paying every cent we
+owe. I ain't a-goin' to have it said that my children--that I'm livin'
+on somebody else. If you don't pay these debts, I will. I've thought it
+all out. If you don't stay and face it, and pay these men, I won't own
+you as my husband. I loved and trusted you, Jim--I thought you was
+honorable--it's been a terrible blow--but I've decided it all in my mind."
+
+She conquered her little weakness, and went on to the end firmly. Her
+face looked pale. There was a square look about the mouth and chin. The
+iron resolution and Puritanic strength of her father, old John Foreman,
+had come to the surface. Her look and tone mastered the man, for he loved
+her deeply.
+
+She had set him a hard task, and when he rose and went down the street he
+walked with bent head, quite unlike his usual self.
+
+There were not many men on the street. It seemed earlier than it was, for
+it was a raw, cold morning, promising snow. The sun was completely masked
+in a seamless dust-gray cloud. He met Vance with a brown parcel
+(beefsteak for breakfast) under his arm.
+
+"Hello, Jim! How are ye, so early in the morning?"
+
+"Blessed near used up."
+
+"That so? What's the matter?"
+
+"I d'know," said Jim, listlessly. "Bilious, I guess. Headache--stomach
+bad."
+
+"Oh! Well, now, you try them pills I was tellin' you of."
+
+Arrived at the bank, he let himself in, and locked the door behind him.
+He stood in the middle of the floor a few minutes, then went behind the
+railing and sat down. He didn't build a fire, though it was cold and
+damp, and he shivered as he sat leaning on the desk. At length he drew a
+large sheet of paper toward him and wrote something on it in a heavy
+hand.
+
+He was writing on this when Lincoln entered at the back, whistling
+boyishly. "Hello, Jim! Ain't you up early? No fire, eh?" He rattled at
+the stove.
+
+Sanford said nothing, but finished his writing. Then he said, quietly,
+"You needn't build a fire on my account, Link."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, I'm used up."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I'm sick, and the business has gone to the devil." He looked out of the
+window.
+
+Link dropped the poker, and came around behind the counter, and stared at
+Sanford with fallen mouth.
+
+"Wha'd you say?"
+
+"I said the business had gone to the devil. We're
+broke--bu'sted--petered--gone up the spout." He took a sort of morbid
+pleasure in saying these things.
+
+"What's bu'sted us? Have--"
+
+"I've been speculatin' in copper. My partner's bu'sted me."
+
+Link came closer. His mouth stiffened and an ominous look came into his
+eyes. "You don't mean to say you've lost my money, and mother's, and
+Uncle Andrew's, and all the rest?"
+
+Sanford was getting irritated. "------it! What's the use? I tell you,
+yes! It's all gone--every cent of it."
+
+Link caught him by the shoulder as he sat at the desk. Sanford's tone
+enraged him. "You thief! But you'll pay me back, or I'll--"
+
+"Oh, go ahead! Pound a sick man, if it 'll do you any good," said
+Sanford, with a peculiar recklessness of lifeless misery. "Pay y'rself
+out of the safe. Here's the combination."
+
+Lincoln released him, and began turning the knob of the door. At last it
+swung open, and he searched the money-drawers. Less than forty dollars,
+all told. His voice was full of helpless rage as he turned at last and
+walked up close to Sanford's bowed head.
+
+"I'd like to pound the life out o' you!"
+
+"You're at liberty to do so, if it 'll be any satisfaction."
+
+This desperate courage awed the younger man. He gazed at Sanford in
+amazement.
+
+"If you'll cool down and wait a little, Link, I'll tell you all about it.
+I'm sick as a horse. I guess I'll go home. You can put this up in the
+window, and go home, too, if you want to."
+
+Lincoln saw that Sanford was sick. He was shivering, and drops of sweat
+were on his white forehead. Lincoln stood aside silently, and let him go
+out.
+
+"Better lock up, Link. You can't do anything by staying here."
+
+Lincoln took refuge in a boyish phrase that would have made any one but a
+sick man laugh: "Well, this is a------of a note!"
+
+He took up the paper. It read:
+
+BANK CLOSED
+
+To my creditors and depositors
+
+Through a combination of events I find myself obliged to temporarily
+suspend payment. I ask the depositors to be patient, and their claims
+will be met. I think I can pay twenty-five cents on the dollar, if given
+a little time. I shall not run away. I shall stay right here till all
+matters are honorably settled.
+
+James G. Sanford.
+
+Lincoln hastily pinned this paper to the window-sash so that it could be
+seen from without, then pulled down the blinds and locked the door. His
+fun-loving nature rose superior to his rage for the moment. "There'll be
+the devil to pay in this burg before two hours."
+
+He slipped out the back way, taking the keys with him. "I'll go and tell
+uncle, and then we'll see if Jim can't turn in the house on our account,"
+he thought, as he harnessed a team to drive out to McPhail's.
+
+The first man to try the door was an old Norwegian in a spotted Mackinac
+jacket and a fur cap, with the inevitable little red tippet about his
+neck. He turned the knob, knocked, and at last saw the writing, which he
+could not read, and went away to tell Johnson that the bank was closed.
+Johnson thought nothing special of that; it was early, and they weren't
+very particular to open on time, anyway.
+
+Then the barber across the street tried to get in to have a bill changed.
+Trying to peer in the window, he saw the notice, which he read with a
+grin.
+
+"One o' Link's jobs," he explained to the fellows in the shop. "He's too
+darned lazy to open on time, so he puts up notice that the bank is
+bu'sted."
+
+"Let's go and see."
+
+"Don't do it! He's watchin' to see us all rush across and look. Just keep
+quiet, and see the solid citizens rear around."
+
+Old Orrin McIlvaine came out of the post-office and tried the door next,
+then stood for a long time reading the notice, and at last walked
+thoughtfully away. Soon he returned, to the merriment of the fellows in
+the barber shop, with two or three solid citizens who had been smoking an
+after-breakfast cigar and planning a deer-hunt. They stood before the
+window in a row and read the notice. McIlvaine gesticulated with his
+cigar.
+
+"Gentlemen, there's a pig loose here."
+
+"One o' Link's jokes, I reckon."
+
+"But that's Sanford's writin'. An' here it is nine o'clock, and no one
+round. I don't like the looks of it, myself."
+
+The crowd thickened; the fellows came out of the blacksmith shop, while
+the jokers in the barber shop smote their knees and yelled with
+merriment.
+
+"What's up?" queried Vance, coming up and repeating the universal
+question.
+
+McIlvaine pointed at the poster with his cigar.
+
+Vance read the notice, while the crowd waited silently.
+
+"What ye think of it?" asked some one, impatiently.
+
+Vance smoked a moment. "Can't say. Where's Jim?"
+
+"That's it! Where is he?"
+
+"Best way to find out is to send a boy up to the house." He called a boy
+and sent him scurrying up the street.
+
+The crowd now grew sober and discussed possibilities.
+
+"If that's true, it's the worst crack on the head I ever had," said
+McIlvaine. "Seventeen hundred dollars is my pile in there." He took a
+seat on the window-sill.
+
+"Well, I'm tickled to death to think I got my little stake out before
+anything happened."
+
+"When you think of it--what security did he ever give?" McIlvaine
+continued.
+
+"Not a cent--not a red cent."
+
+"No, sir; we simply banked on him. Now, he's a good fellow, an' this may
+be a joke o' Link's; but the fact is, it might 'a' happened. Well,
+sonny?" he said to the boy, who came running up.
+
+"Link ain't to home, an' Mrs. Sanford she says Jim's sick, an' can't come
+down."
+
+There was a silence. "Anybody see him this morning?" asked Wilson.
+
+"Yes; I saw him," said Vance. "Looked bad, too."
+
+The crowd changed; people came and went, some to get news, some to carry
+it away. In a short time the whole town knew the bank had "bu'sted all to
+smash." Farmers drove along, and stopped to find out what it all meant.
+The more they talked, the more excited they grew; and "Scoundrel," and
+"I always had my doubts of that feller," were phrases growing more
+frequent.
+
+The list of the victims grew until it was evident that nearly all of the
+savings of a dozen or more depositors were swallowed up, and the sum
+reached was nearly twenty thousand dollars.
+
+"What did he do with it?" was the question. He never gambled or drank. He
+lived frugally. There was no apparent cause for this failure of a trusted
+institution.
+
+It was beginning to snow in great, damp, driving flakes, which melted as
+they fell, giving to the street a strangeness and gloom that were
+impressive. The men left the sidewalk at last, and gathered in the
+saloons and stores to continue the discussion.
+
+The crowd at the railroad saloon was very decided in its belief. Sanford
+had pocketed the money and skipped. That yarn about his being at home
+sick was a blind. Some went so far as to say that it was almighty curious
+where Link was, hinting darkly that the bank ought to be broken into, and
+so on.
+
+Upon this company burst Barney and Sam Mace from "Hogan's Corners." They
+were excited by the news and already inflamed with drink.
+
+"Say!" yelled Barney, "any o' you fellers know anything about Jim
+Sanford?"
+
+"No. Why? Got any money there?"
+
+"Yes; and I'm goin' to git it out, if I haf to smash the door in."
+
+"That's the talk!" shouted some of the loafers. They sprang up and
+surrounded Barney. There was something in his voice that aroused all
+their latent ferocity. "I'm goin' to get into that bank an' see how
+things look, an' then I'm goin' to find Sanford an' get my money, or
+pound--out of 'im, one o' the six."
+
+"Go find him first. He's up home, sick--so's his wife."
+
+"I'll see whether he's sick 'r not. I'll drag 'im out by the scruff o'
+the neck! Come on!" He ended with a sudden resolution, leading the way
+out into the street, where the falling snow was softening the dirt into a
+sticky mud.
+
+A rabble of a dozen or two of men and boys followed Mace up the street.
+He led the way with great strides, shouting his threats. As they passed
+along, women thrust their heads out at the windows, asking, "What's the
+matter?" And some one answered each time, in a voice of unconcealed
+delight:
+
+"Sanford's stole all the money in the bank, and they're goin' up to lick
+'im. Come on if ye want to see the fun."
+
+In a few moments the street looked as if an alarm of fire had been
+sounded. Half the town seemed to be out, and the other half
+coming--women in shawls, like squaws; children capering and laughing;
+young men grinning at the girls who came out and stood at the gates.
+
+Some of the citizens tried to stop it. Vance found the constable looking
+on, and ordered him to do his duty and stop that crowd.
+
+"I can't do anything," he said, helplessly. "They ain't done nawthin'
+yet, an' I don't know--"
+
+"Oh, git out! They're goin' up there to whale Jim, an' you know it. If
+you don't stop 'em, I'll telephone f'r the sheriff, and have you arrested
+with 'em."
+
+Under this pressure, the constable ran along after the crowd, in an
+attempt to stop it. He reached them as they stood about the little porch
+of the house, packed closely around Barney and Sam, who said nothing, but
+followed Barney like his shadow. If the sun had been shining, it might
+not have happened as it did; but there was a semi-obscurity, a weird
+half-light shed by the thick sky and falling snow, which somehow
+encouraged the enraged ruffians, who pounded on the door just as the
+pleading voice of the constable was heard.
+
+"Hold on, gentlemen! This is ag'inst the law--"
+
+"Law to--!" said some one. "This is a case f'r something besides law."
+
+"Open up there!" roared the raucous voice of Barney Mace, as he pounded
+at the door fiercely.
+
+The door opened, and the wife appeared, one child in her arms, the other
+at her side.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"Where's that banker? Tell the thief to come out here! We want to talk
+with him."
+
+The woman did not quail, but her face seemed a ghastly yellow, seen
+through the falling snow.
+
+"He can't come. He's sick."
+
+"Sick! We'll sick 'im! Tell 'im t' come out, or we'll snake 'im out by
+the heels." The crowd laughed. The worst elements of the saloons
+surrounded the two half-savage men. It was amusing to them to see the
+woman face them all in that way.
+
+"Where's McPhail?" Vance inquired, anxiously. "Somebody find McPhail."
+
+"Stand out o' the way!" snarled Barney, as he pushed the struggling woman
+aside.
+
+The wife raised her voice to that wild, animal-like pitch a woman uses
+when desperate.
+
+"I sha'n't do it, I tell you! Help!"
+
+"Keep out o' my way, or I'll wring y'r neck f'r yeh."
+
+She struggled with him, but he pushed her aside and entered the room.
+
+"What's goin' on here?" called the ringing voice of Andrew McPhail, who
+had just driven up with Link.
+
+Several of the crowd looked over their shoulders at McPhail.
+
+"Hello, Mac! Just in time. Oh, nawthin'. Barney's callin' on the banker,
+that's all."
+
+Over the heads of the crowd, packed struggling about the door, came the
+woman's scream again. McPhail dashed around the crowd, running two or
+three of them down, and entered the back door. Vance, McIlvaine, and
+Lincoln followed him.
+
+"Cowards!" the wife said, as the ruffians approached the bed. They swept
+her aside, but paused an instant before the glance of the sick man's eye.
+He lay there, desperately, deathly sick. The blood throbbed in his
+whirling brain, his eyes were bloodshot and blinded, his strength was
+gone. He could hardly speak. He partly rose and stretched out his hand,
+and then fell back.
+
+"Kill me--if you want to--but let her--alone. She's--"
+
+The children were crying. The wind whistled drearily across the room,
+carrying the evanescent flakes of soft snow over the heads of the
+pausing, listening crowd in the doorway. Quick steps were heard.
+
+"Hold on there!" cried McPhail, as he burst into the room. He seemed an
+angel of God to the wife and mother.
+
+He spread his great arms in a gesture which suggested irresistible
+strength and resolution. "Clear out! Out with ye!"
+
+No man had ever seen him look like that before. He awed them with the
+look in his eyes. His long service as sheriff gave him authority. He
+hustled them, cuffed them out of the door like school-boys. Barney backed
+out, cursing. He knew McPhall too well to refuse to obey.
+
+McPhail pushed Barney out, shut the door behind him, and stood on the
+steps, looking at the crowd.
+
+"Well, you're a great lot! You fellers, would ye jump on a sick man? What
+ye think ye're all doin', anyhow?"
+
+The crowd laughed. "Hey, Mac; give us a speech!"
+
+"You ought to be booted, the whole lot o' yeh!" he replied.
+
+"That houn' in there's run the bank into the ground, with every cent o'
+money we'd put in," said Barney. "I s'pose ye know that."
+
+"Well, s'pose he has--what's the use o' jumpin' on 'im?"
+
+"Git it out of his hide."
+
+"I've heerd that talk before. How much you got in?"
+
+"Two hundred dollars."
+
+"Well, I've got two thousand." The crowd saw the point.
+
+"I guess if anybody was goin' t' take it out of his hide, I'd be the man;
+but I want the feller to live and have a chance to pay it back. Killin'
+'im is a dead loss."
+
+"That's so!" shouted somebody. "Mac ain't no fool, if he does chaw hay,"
+said another, and the crowd laughed. They were losing that frenzy,
+largely imitative and involuntary, which actuates a mob. There was
+something counteracting in the ex-sheriff's cool, humorous tone.
+
+"Give us the rest of it, Mac!"
+
+"The rest of it is--clear out o' here, 'r I'll boot every mother's son of
+yeh!"
+
+"Can't do it!"
+
+"Come down an' try it!"
+
+McIlvaine opened the door and looked out. "Mac, Mrs. Sanford wants to say
+something--if it's safe."
+
+"Safe as eatin' dinner."
+
+Mrs. Sanford came out, looking pale and almost like a child as she stood
+beside her defender's towering bulk. But her face was resolute.
+
+"That money will be paid back," she said, "dollar for dollar, if you'll
+just give us a chance. As soon as Jim gets well enough every cent will be
+paid, if I live."
+
+The crowd received this little speech in silence. One or two said, in low
+voices: "That's business. She'll do it, too, if any one can."
+
+Barney pushed his way through the crowd with contemptuous curses.
+"The------she will!" he said.
+
+"We'll see 't you have a chance," McPhall and McIlvaine assured Mrs.
+Sanford.
+
+She went in and closed the door.
+
+"Now git!" said Andrew, coming down the steps. The crowd scattered with
+laughing taunts. He turned, and entered the house. The rest drifted off
+down the street through the soft flurries of snow, and in a few moments
+the street assumed its usual appearance.
+
+The failure of the bank and the raid on the banker had passed into
+history.
+
+V
+
+In the light of the days of calm afterthought which followed, this
+attempt upon the peace of the Sanford home grew more monstrous, and
+helped largely to mitigate the feeling against the banker. Besides, he
+had not run away; that was a strong point in his favor.
+
+"Don't that show," argued Vance, in the post-office--"don't that show he
+didn't intend to steal? An' don't it show he's goin' to try to make
+things square?"
+
+"I guess we might as well think that as anything."
+
+"I claim the boys has a right t' take sumpthin' out o' his hide," Bent
+Wilson stubbornly insisted.
+
+"Ain't enough t' go 'round," laughed McPhail. "Besides, I can't have it.
+Link an' I own the biggest share in 'im, an' we can't have him hurt."
+
+McIlvaine and Vance grinned. "That's a fact, Mac. We four fellers are the
+main losers. He's ours, an' we can't have him foundered 'r crippled 'r
+cut up in any way. Ain't that woman of his gritty?"
+
+"Gritty ain't no name for her. She's goin' into business."
+
+"So I hear. They say Jim was crawling around a little yesterday. I didn't
+see 'im.
+
+"I did. He looks pretty streak-id--now you bet."
+
+"Wha'd he say for himself?"
+
+"Oh, said give 'im time--he'd fix it all up."
+
+"How much time?"
+
+"Time enough. Hain't been able to look at a book since. Say, ain't it a
+little curious he was so sick just then--sick as a p'isened dog?"
+
+The two men looked at each other in a manner most comically significant.
+The thought of poison was in the mind of each.
+
+It was under these trying circumstances that Sanford began to crawl
+about, a week or ten days after his sickness. It was really the most
+terrible punishment for him. Before, everybody used to sing out, "Hello,
+Jim!" or "Mornin', banker," or some other jovial, heart-warming
+salutation. Now, as he went down the street, the groups of men smoking on
+the sunny side of the stores ignored him, or looked at him with scornful
+eyes.
+
+Nobody said, "Hello, Jim!"--not even McPhail or Vance. They nodded
+merely, and went on with their smoking. The children followed him and
+stared at him without compassion. They had heard him called a scoundrel
+and a thief too often at home to feel any pity for his pale face.
+
+After his first trip down the street, bright with the December sunshine,
+he came home in a bitter, weak mood, smarting, aching with a poignant
+self-pity over the treatment he had received from his old cronies.
+
+"It's all your fault," he burst out to his wife. "If you'd only let me go
+away and look up another place I wouldn't have to put up with all these
+sneers and insults."
+
+"What sneers and insults?" she asked, coming over to him.
+
+"Why, nobody 'll speak to me."
+
+"Won't Mr. McPhail and Mr. McIlvaine?"
+
+"Yes; but not as they used to."
+
+"You can't blame 'em, Jim. You must go to work and win back their
+confidence."
+
+"I can't do that. Let's go away, Nell, and try again."
+
+Her mouth closed firmly. A hard look came into her eyes. "You can go if
+you want to, Jim. I'm goin' to stay right here till we can leave
+honorably. We can't run away from this. It would follow us anywhere we
+went; and it would get worse the farther we went."
+
+He knew the unyielding quality of his wife's resolution, and from that
+moment he submitted to his fate. He loved his wife and children with a
+passionate love that made life with them, among the citizens he had
+robbed, better than life anywhere else on earth; he had no power to leave
+them.
+
+As soon as possible he went over his books and found out that he owed,
+above all notes coming in, about eleven thousand dollars. This was a
+large sum to look forward to paying by anything he could do in the
+Siding, now that his credit was gone. Nobody would take him as a clerk,
+and there was nothing else to be done except manual labor, and he was not
+strong enough for that.
+
+His wife, however, had a plan. She sent East to friends for a little
+money at once, and with a few hundred dollars opened a little store in
+time for the holiday trade--wall-paper, notions, light dry-goods, toys,
+and millinery. She did her own housework and attended to her shop in a
+grim, uncomplaining fashion that made Sanford feel like a criminal in her
+presence. He couldn't propose to help her in the store, for he knew the
+people would refuse to trade with him, so he attended to the children and
+did little things about the house for the first few months of the winter.
+
+His life for a time was abjectly pitiful. He didn't know what to do. He
+had lost his footing, and, worst of all, he felt that his wife no longer
+respected him. She loved and pitied him, but she no longer looked up to
+him. She went about her work and down to her store with a silent,
+resolute, uncommunicative air, utterly unlike her former sunny, domestic
+self, so that even she seemed alien like the rest. If he had been ill,
+Vance and McPhail would have attended him; as it was, they could not help
+him.
+
+She already had the sympathy of the entire town, and McIlvaine had said:
+"If you need more money, you can have it, Mrs. Sanford. Call on us at any
+time."
+
+"Thank you. I don't think I'll need it. All I ask is your trade," she
+replied. "I don't ask anybody to pay more'n a thing's worth, either. I'm
+goin' to sell goods on business principles, and I expect folks to buy of
+me because I'm selling reliable goods as cheap as anybody else."
+
+Her business was successful from the start, but she did not allow herself
+to get too confident.
+
+"This is a kind of charity trade. It won't last on that basis. Folks
+ain't goin' to buy of me because I'm poor--not very long," she said to
+Vance, who went in to congratulate her on her booming trade during
+Christmas and New Year.
+
+Vance called so often, advising or congratulating her, that the boys
+joked him. "Say, looky here! You're goin' to get into a peck o' trouble
+with your wife yet. You spend about half y'r time in the new store."
+
+Vance looked serene as he replied, "I'd stay longer and go oftener if I
+could."
+
+"Well, if you ain't cheekier 'n ol' cheek! I should think you'd be
+ashamed to say it."
+
+"'Shamed of it? I'm proud of it! As I tell my wife, if I'd 'a' met Mis'
+Sanford when we was both young, they wouldn't 'a' be'n no such present
+arrangement."
+
+The new life made its changes in Mrs. Sanford. She grew thinner and
+graver, but as she went on, and trade steadily increased, a feeling of
+pride, a sort of exultation, came into her soul and shone from her steady
+eyes. It was glorious to feel that she was holding her own with men in
+the world, winning their respect, which is better than their flattery.
+She arose each day at five o'clock with a distinct pleasure, for her
+physical health was excellent, never better.
+
+She began to dream. She could pay off five hundred dollars a year of the
+interest--perhaps she could pay some of the principal, if all went well.
+Perhaps in a year or two she could take a larger store, and, if Jim got
+something to do, in ten years they could pay it all off--every cent! She
+talked with business men, and read and studied, and felt each day a
+firmer hold on affairs.
+
+Sanford got the agency of an insurance company or two, and earned a few
+dollars during the spring. In June things brightened up a little. The
+money for a note of a thousand dollars fell due--a note he had considered
+virtually worthless, but the debtor, having had a "streak o' luck," sent
+seven hundred and fifty dollars. Sanford at once called a meeting of his
+creditors, and paid them, pro rata, a thousand dollars. The meeting took
+place in his wife's store, and in making the speech Sanford said:
+
+"I tell you, gentlemen, if you'll only give us a chance, we'll clear this
+thing all up--that is, the principal. We can't--"
+
+"Yes, we can, James. We can pay it all, principal and interest. We owe
+the interest just as much as the rest." It was evident that there was to
+be no letting down while she lived.
+
+The effect of this payment was marked. The general feeling was much more
+kindly than before. Most of the fellows dropped back into the habit of
+calling him Jim; but, after all, it was not like the greeting of old,
+when he was "banker." Still the gain in confidence found a reflex in him.
+His shoulders, which had begun to droop a little, lifted, and his eyes
+brightened.
+
+"We'll win yet," he began to say.
+
+"She's a-holdin' of 'im right to time," Mrs. Bingham said.
+
+It was shortly after this that he got the agency for a new cash-delivery
+system, and went on the road with it, travelling in northern Wisconsin
+and Minnesota. He came back after a three weeks' trip, quite jubilant.
+"I've made a hundred dollars, Nell. I'm all right if this holds out, and
+I guess it will."
+
+In the following November, just a year after the failure, they celebrated\
+the day, at her suggestion, by paying interest on the unpaid sums they
+owed.
+
+"I could pay a little more on the principal," she explained, "but I guess
+it 'll be better to use it for my stock. I can pay better dividends next
+year.
+
+"Take y'r time, Mrs. Sanford," Vance said.
+
+Of course she could not escape criticism. There were the usual number of
+women who noticed that she kept her "young uns" in the latest style, when
+as a matter of fact she sat up nights to make their little things. They
+also noticed that she retained her house and her furniture.
+
+"If I was in her place, seems to me, I'd turn in some o' my fine
+furniture toward my debts," Mrs. Sam Gilbert said, spitefully.
+
+She did not even escape calumny. Mrs. Sam Gilbert darkly hinted at
+certain "goin's on durin' his bein' away. Lit up till after midnight some
+nights. I c'n see her winder from mine."
+
+Rose McPhail, one of Mrs. Sanford's most devoted friends, asked, quietly,
+"Do you sit up all night t' see?"
+
+"S'posin' I do!" she snapped. "I can't sleep with such things goin' on."
+
+"If it'll do you any good, Jane, I'll say that she's settin' up there
+sewin' for the children. If you'd keep your nose out o' other folks'
+affairs, and attend better to your own, your house wouldn't look like a
+pig-pen, an' your children like A-rabs."
+
+But in spite of a few annoyances of this character Mrs. Sanford found her
+new life wholesomer and broader than her old life, and the pain of her
+loss grew less poignant.
+
+VI
+
+One day in spring, in the lazy, odorous hush of the afternoon, the usual
+number of loafers were standing on the platform, waiting for the train.
+The sun was going down the slope toward the hills, through a warm April
+haze.
+
+"Hello!" exclaimed the man who always sees things first. "Here comes Mrs.
+Sanford and the ducklings."
+
+Everybody looked.
+
+"Ain't goin' off, is she?"
+
+"Nope; guess not. Meet somebody, prob'ly Sanford."
+
+"Well, somethin's up. She don't often get out o' that store."
+
+"Le's see; he's been gone most o' the winter, hain't he?"
+
+"Yes; went away about New-Year's."
+
+Mrs. Sanford came past, leading a child by each hand, nodding and smiling
+to friends--for all seemed friends. She looked very resolute and
+business-like in her plain, dark dress, with a dull flame of color at the
+throat, while the broad hat she wore gave her face a touch of piquancy
+very charming. Evidently she was in excellent spirits, and laughed and
+chatted in quite a care-free way.
+
+She was now an institution at the Siding. Her store had grown in
+proportions yearly, until it was as large and commodious as any in the
+town. The drummers for dry-goods all called there, and the fact that she
+did not sell any groceries at all did not deter the drummers for grocery
+houses from calling to see each time if she hadn't decided to put in a
+stock of groceries.
+
+These keen-eyed young fellows had spread her fame all up and down the
+road. She had captured them, not by beauty, but by her pluck, candor,
+honesty, and by a certain fearless but reserved camaraderie. She was not
+afraid of them, or of anybody else, now.
+
+The train whistled, and everybody turned to watch it as it came pushing
+around the bluff like a huge hound on a trail, its nose close to the
+ground. Among the first to alight was Sanford, in a shining new silk hat
+and a new suit of clothes. He was smiling gaily as he fought his way
+through the crowd to his wife's side. "Hello!" he shouted. "I thought I'd
+see you all here."
+
+"W'y, Jim, ain't you cuttin' a swell?"
+
+"A swell! Well, who's got a better right? A man wants to look as well as
+he can when he comes home to such a family."
+
+"Hello, Jim! That plug 'll never do."
+
+"Hello, Vance! Yes; but it's got to do. Say, you tell all the fellers
+that's got anything ag'inst me to come around to-morrow night to the
+store. I want to make some kind of a settlement."
+
+"All right, Jim. Goin' to pay a new dividend?"
+
+"That's what I am," he beamed, as he walked off with his wife, who was
+studying him sharply.
+
+"Jim, what ails you?"
+
+"Nothin'; I'm all right."
+
+"But this new suit? And the hat? And the necktie?"
+
+He laughed merrily--so merrily, in fact, that his wife looked at him the
+more anxiously. He appeared to be in a queer state of intoxication--a
+state that made him happy without impairing his faculties, however. He
+turned suddenly and put his lips down toward her ear. "Well, Nell, I
+can't hold in any longer. We've struck it!"
+
+"Struck what?"
+
+"Well, you see that derned fool partner o' mine got me to go into a lot
+o' land in the copper country. That's where all the trouble came. He got
+awfully let down. Well, he's had some surveyors to go up there lately and
+look it over, and the next thing we knew the Superior Mining Company came
+along an' wanted to buy it. Of course we didn't want to sell just then."
+
+They had reached the store door, and he paused.
+
+"We'll go right home to supper," she said. "The girls will look out for
+things till I get back."
+
+They walked on together, the children laughing and playing ahead.
+
+"Well, upshot of it is, I sold out my share to Osgood for twenty thousand
+dollars."
+
+She stopped, and stared at him. "Jim--Gordon Sanford!"
+
+"Fact! I can prove it." He patted his breast pocket mysteriously. "Ten
+thousand right there."
+
+"Gracious sakes alive! How dare you carry so much money?"
+
+"I'm mighty glad o' the chance." He grinned.
+
+They walked on almost in silence, with only a word now and then. She
+seemed to be thinking deeply, and he didn't want to disturb her. It was a
+delicious spring hour. The snow was all gone, even under the hedges. The
+roads were warm and brown. The red sun was flooding the valley with a
+misty, rich-colored light, and against the orange and gold of the sky the
+hills stood in Tyrian purple. Wagons were rattling along the road. Men on
+the farms in the edge of the village could be heard whistling at their
+work. A discordant jangle of a neighboring farmer's supper-bell announced
+that it was time "to turn out."
+
+Sanford was almost as gay as a lover. He seemed to be on the point of
+regaining his old place in his wife's respect. Somehow the possession of
+the package of money in his pocket seemed to make him more worthy of her,
+to put him more on an equality with her.
+
+As they reached the little one-story square cottage he sat down on the
+porch, where the red light fell warmly, and romped with the children,
+while his wife went in and took off her things. She "kept a girl" now,
+so that the work of getting supper did not devolve entirely upon her. She
+came out soon to call them all to the supper-table in the little kitchen
+back of the sitting-room.
+
+The children were wild with delight to have "poppa" back, and the meal
+was the merriest they had had for a long time. The doors and windows were
+open, and the spring evening air came in, laden with the sweet,
+suggestive smell of bare ground. The alert chuckle of an occasional robin
+could be heard.
+
+Mrs. Sanford looked up from her tea. "There's one thing I don't like,
+Jim, and that's the way that money comes. You didn't--you didn't really
+earn it."
+
+"Oh, don't worry yourself about that. That's the way things go. It's just
+luck."
+
+"Well, I can't see it just that way. It seems to me just--like gambling.
+You win, but--but somebody else must lose."
+
+"Oh well, look a-here; if you go to lookin' too sharp into things like
+that, you'll find a good 'eal of any business like gamblin'."
+
+She said no more, but her face remained clouded. On the way down to the
+store they met Lincoln.
+
+"Come down to the store, Link, and bring Joe. I want to talk with yeh."
+
+Lincoln stared, but said, "All right." Then added, as the others walked
+away, "Well, that feller ain't got no cheek t' talk to me like that--more
+cheek 'n a gov'ment mule!"
+
+Jim took a seat near the door, and watched his wife as she went about the
+store. She employed two clerks now, while she attended to the books and
+the cash. He thought how different she was, and he liked (and, in a way,
+feared) her cool, business-like manner, her self-possession, and her
+smileless conversation with a drummer who came in. Jim was puzzled. He
+didn't quite understand the peculiar effect his wife's manner had upon
+him.
+
+Outside, word had passed around that Jim had got back and that something
+was in the wind, and the fellows began to drop in. When McPhail came in
+and said, "Hello!" in his hearty way, Sanford went over to his wife and
+said:
+
+"Say, Nell, I can't stand this. I'm goin' to get rid o' this money right
+off, now!"
+
+"Very well; just as you please."
+
+"Gents," he began, turning his back to the counter and smiling blandly on
+them, one thumb in his vest pocket, "any o' you fellers got anything
+against the Lumber County Bank--any certificates of deposit, or notes?"
+
+Two or three nodded, and McPhail said, humorously, slapping his pocket,
+"I always go loaded."
+
+"Produce your paper, gents," continued Sanford, with a dramatic whang of
+a leathern wallet down into his palm. "I'm buying up all paper on the
+bank."
+
+It was a superb stroke. The fellows whistled and stared and swore at one
+another. This was coming down on them. Link was dumb with amazement as he
+received sixteen hundred and fifty dollars in crisp, new bills.
+
+"Andrew, it's your turn next." Sanford's tone was actually patronizing as
+he faced McPhail.
+
+"I was jokin'. I ain't got my certificate here."
+
+"Don't matter--don't matter. Here's fifteen hundred dollars. Just give us
+a receipt, and bring the certif. any time. I want to get rid o' this
+stuff right now."
+
+"Say, Jim, we'd like to know jest--jest where this windfall comes from,"
+said Vance, as he took his share.
+
+"Comes from the copper country," was all he ever said about it.
+
+"I don't see where he invested," Link said. "Wasn't a scratch of a pen to
+show that he invested anything while he was in the bank. Guess that's
+where our money went."
+
+"Well, I ain't squealin'," said Vance. "I'm glad to get out of it without
+asking any questions. I'll tell yeh one thing, though," he added, as they
+stood outside the door; "we'd 'a' never smelt of our money again if it
+hadn't 'a' been f'r that woman in there. She'd 'a' paid it alone if Jim
+hadn't 'a' made this strike, whereas he never 'd 'a'--Well, all right.
+We're out of it."
+
+It was one of the greatest moments of Sanford's life. He expanded in it.
+He was as pleasantly aware of the glances of his wife as he used to be
+when, as a clerk, he saw her pass and look in at the window where he sat
+dreaming over his ledger.
+
+As for her, she was going over the whole situation from this new
+standpoint. He had been weak, he had fallen in her estimation, and yet,
+as he stood there, so boyish in his exultation, the father of her
+children, she loved him with a touch of maternal tenderness and hope, and
+her heart throbbed in an unconscious, swift determination to do him good.
+She no longer deceived herself. She was his equal--in some ways his
+superior. Her love had friendship in it, but less of sex, and no
+adoration.
+
+As she blew out the lights, stepped out on the walk, and turned the key
+in the lock, he said, "Well, Nellie, you won't have to do that any more."
+
+"No; I won't have to, but I guess I'll keep on just the same, Jim."
+
+"Keep on? What for?"
+
+"Well, I rather like it."
+
+"But you don't need to--"
+
+"I like being my own boss," she said. "I've done a lot o' figuring, Jim,
+these last three years, and it's kind o' broadened me, I hope. I can't go
+back where I was. I'm a better woman than I was before, and I hope and
+believe that I'm better able to be a real mother to my children."
+
+Jim looked up at the moon filling the warm, moist air with a
+transfiguring light that fell in a luminous mist on the distant hills. "I
+know one thing, Nellie; I'm a better man than I was before, and it's all
+owin' to you."
+
+His voice trembled a little, and the sympathetic tears came into her
+eyes. She didn't speak at once--she couldn't. At last she stopped him by
+a touch on the arm.
+
+"Jim, I want a partner in my store. Let us begin again, right here. I
+can't say that I'll ever feel just as I did once--I don't know as it's
+right to. I looked up to you too much. I expected too much of you, too.
+Let's begin again, as equal partners." She held out her hand, as one man
+to another. He took it wonderingly.
+
+"All right, Nell; I'll do it."
+
+Then, as he put his arm around her, she held up her lips to be kissed.
+"And we'll be happy again--happy as we deserve, I s'pose," she said, with
+a smile and a sigh.
+
+"It's almost like getting married again, Nell--for me."
+
+As they walked off up the sidewalk in the soft moonlight, their arms were
+interlocked.
+
+They loitered like a couple of lovers.
+
+
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes
+
+
+Welcome to Project Gutenberg's edition of Main-Travelled Roads by
+Hamlin Garland. Garland produced several versions of this book during his
+life. The first was released in 1891, containing six short stories: A
+Branch Road, Up the Coolly, Among the Corn-Rows, The Return of a Private,
+Under the Lion's Paw, and Mrs. Ripley's Trip. In 1899, MacMillan released
+a new version of the book with three additions: The Creamery Man, A Day's
+Pleasure, and Uncle Ethan Ripley. The 1920 edition of the book added two
+more short stories: God's Ravens and A "Good Fellow's" Wife. The 1930
+edition added The Fireplace and featured illustrations by Garland's wife.
+
+The 1930 edition of Main-Travelled Roads is not in the public domain. The
+last version of the book in the public domain is the 1922 Border Edition,
+a reprint of the 1920 edition with a foreward written by the author. We
+used the 1922 Border Edition of the book for this transcription. A
+scanned version of this book is available on Hathitrust courtesy of The
+University of Michigan.
+
+Page ii of this book lists other publications written by the author
+available through Harper & Brothers. All of those books are in the Public
+Domain. We appended a list of other books by the author which were not
+available through Harper & Brothers, yet also published before this book
+was printed, in a section called Other Editions. We have provided links
+to versions of the books available through Project Gutenberg. As of this
+writing, we are missing ten books written by Garland in the public
+domain, but we're always adding new titles!
+
+The Introduction by William Dean Howells first appeared in the 1893
+release of the book.
+
+We used a web site on Hamlin Garland, created and maintained by professor
+Keith Newlin, to help compile the list of Garland's publications and the
+publication history of Main-Travelled Roads.
+
+Our e-book has links at the top of each chapter, and the top of each
+part, designed to improve navigation. The links at the top of each
+chapter return the reader to the Table of Contents. The links at the top
+of each part send the reader to the next part. For example, if you want
+to reach part III of A Good-Fellow's Wife from the Table of Contents, you
+would click on the page number to send you to the top of the chapter.
+Click on part I to go to part II, then click on part II to go to part
+III. The link for the last part in each chapter will take you back to the
+beginning of the chapter.
+
+
+Detailed Notes
+
+This section contains a list of emendations to the text and decisions
+made in transcribing the text, as well as accompanying explanations.
+
+For many of the short stories with several parts, the physical book used
+a convention of not printing I. for the first part of the story. We put
+those in, to give better structure to the document.
+
+The quotes at the beginning of each chapter were not closed with a period
+in the physical book. We put them in the e-book, to give better results
+with the tools that we use to check e-books that we produce.
+
+
+Foreward
+
+On Page xiv, farm-house was hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. There were three other occurrences of farmhouse or farmhouses
+without the hyphen, and no occurrences with the hyphen. We transcribed
+the word without the hyphen.
+
+
+A Branch Road
+
+On Page 50, grape-vine is hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. There are three other occurrences of grapevine without the
+hyphen, and none with. We transcribed the word without the hyphen.
+
+
+Under the Coolly
+
+Several times in this short story, Howard was abbreviated as How. with
+the period. This convention was retained.
+
+On Page 105, add to after them in the sentence He simply pushed them one
+side and went on with his reading.
+
+On Page 120, barn-yard is hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. In the same short story, barn-yard is hyphenated on Page 124 in
+the middle of the line. However, barnyard is spelled without the hyphen
+on Page 78, also in the same short story. Barnyard is spelled without a
+hyphen on Page 213 and on Page 249. We went with the majority and spelled
+barnyard without a hyphen here, which makes the item on page 124 the sole
+outlier.
+
+On Page 124, barn-door is hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. There are no other occurrences of the word in this book. We
+transcribed barn-door, with the hyphen, mainly because barn-yard is
+spelled with a hyphen on the same page.
+
+On Page 124, horse-trough is hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. Horse-trough also occurs on page 185 and 291, with the hyphen,
+so it was retained here as well.
+
+
+Return of a Private
+
+On Page 173-Page 174, we added a missing quote before but in the
+paragraph:
+
+"They called that coffee Jayvy," grumbled one of them, "but it never went
+by the road where government Jayvy resides. I reckon I know coffee from
+peas."
+
+On Page 182, remove me from Gimme me a kiss!
+
+
+Under the Lion's Paw
+
+On Page 204, some-buddy was hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. There is no other usage of somebuddy, but anybuddy and nobuddy
+can be found in the same short story. Therefore, we transcribed somebuddy
+without the hyphen.
+
+On Page 216, we added a closing quote following the period after rest:
+
+"But I don't take it," said Butler, coolly. "All you've got to do is to
+go on jest as you've been a-doin', or give me a thousand dollars down,
+and a mortgage at ten per cent on the rest."
+
+
+Mrs. Ripley's Trip
+
+On Page 277, flustrated is some cross between flustered and frustrated,
+and given it is used in dialect, perhaps this is some midwest variation
+of one of the two words. Therefore, we left the following sentence as is:
+I guess she kind a' sort a' forgot it, bein' so flustrated, y' know.
+
+
+Uncle Ethan Ripley
+
+On Page 289, sick'-nin' is hyphenated and split between two lines for
+spacing. We transcribed the word without the hyphen: Nobuddy'll buy that
+sick'nin' stuff but an old numskull like you.
+
+
+God's Raven
+
+The convention in this story and in the next one was to spell it 'll with
+a space, but in the earlier short stories, the contraction was spelled
+it'll. We retained this inconsistency.
+
+On Page 308, there is a triple-nested quote. The book uses a
+double-quote for the first quote, a single quote for the second, and a
+double quote for the third quote. This will cause a problem with our
+error-checking mechanism. We have also used a single quote for the third
+quote.
+
+"I'm tired of the scramble," he kept breaking out of silence to say. "I
+don't blame the boys, but it's plain to me they see that my going will
+let them move up one. Mason cynically voiced the whole thing today: 'I
+can say, 'sorry to see you go, Bloom,' because your going doesn't concern
+me. I'm not in line of succession, but some of the other boys don't feel
+so. There's no divinity doth hedge an editor; nothing but law prevents
+the murder of those above by those below.'"
+
+
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 2809-h.htm or 2809-h.zip *****
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/X/X/X/XXXXX/
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be
+renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one
+owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and
+you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission
+and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the
+General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and
+distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the Project
+Gutenberg™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered
+trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you
+receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of
+this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
+for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
+performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
+away--you may do practically anything with public domain eBooks.
+Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially
+commercial redistribution.
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+
+Please read this before you distribute or use this work.
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
+any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg™ License (available with this file or online at 
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
+electronic works
+
+1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic
+work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept
+all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the
+terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all
+copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you
+paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™
+electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this
+agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you
+paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be used
+on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree
+to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that
+you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without
+complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below.
+There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic
+works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free
+future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E
+below.
+
+1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely
+sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this
+agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the
+work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping
+this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™
+License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a
+constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the
+laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before
+downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating
+derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work.
+The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status
+of any work in any country outside the United States.
+
+1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook
+or online at www.gutenberg.org.
+
+1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or
+charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you
+must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through
+1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project
+Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to
+the Project Gutenberg ™ License for all works posted with the permission
+of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work
+or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
+
+1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently
+displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or
+immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License.
+
+1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version posted
+on the official Project Gutenberg™ web site (www.gutenberg.org), you
+must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy,
+a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request,
+of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any
+alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as
+specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless
+you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access
+to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that
+
+ •  You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the
+use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already
+use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of
+the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties
+under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each
+date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
+periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such
+and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to the
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+ •  You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does
+not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must
+require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works
+possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access
+to other copies of Project Gutenberg ™ works.
+ •  You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
+receipt of the work.
+ •  You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
+
+1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth
+in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from both the
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael Hart, the owner
+of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth
+in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection.
+Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the
+medium on which they may be stored, may contain "Defects," such as, but
+not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription
+errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a
+defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES: Except for the "Right of
+Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability
+to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. You agree
+that you have no remedies for negligence, strict liability, breach of
+warranty or breach of contract except those provided in Paragraph F3.
+You agree that the Foundation, the trademark owner, and any distributor
+under this agreement will not be liable to you for actual, direct,
+indirect, consequential, punitive or incidental damages even if you give
+notice of the possibility of such damage.
+
+1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND: If you discover a defect
+in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written
+explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received
+the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your
+written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
+defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', with no other
+warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to
+warranties of merchantibility or fitness for any purpose.
+
+1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6. INDEMNITY: You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
+
+Project Gutenberg ™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg's™ goals
+and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely
+available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and
+permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn
+more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how
+your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the
+Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state
+of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue
+Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification number is
+64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at 
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809
+North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official page
+at https://pglaf.org.
+
+For additional contact information:
+
+Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+Chief Executive and Director
+gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without wide spread
+public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the
+number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely
+distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest array of
+equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to
+$5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with
+the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where
+we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To send
+donations or determine the status of compliance for any particular
+state visit https://pglaf.org.
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any
+statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside
+the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways
+including including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate.
+
+Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
+facility:
+    https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including
+how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to
+our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
\ No newline at end of file