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font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;} +/* Footer styling */ +div.footer { border-style:solid; border-color:silver; border-width:thin; + border-top:none; border-bottom:none; + text-indent:0em; text-align:justify; + font-size:80%; padding-left:9%; padding-right:9%;} +/* Table of Contents styling */ +table.toc {margin:0 auto;} +table.toc caption {font-variant:small-caps; font-weight:bold; + padding-bottom:1.5em;} +table.toc th {font-size:small; } +table.toc tr td {vertical-align:top;} +table.toc tr td:first-child {padding-right:3em; font-variant:small-caps;} +table.toc tr td:last-child {text-align:right;} +</style> + </head> + <body> + + +<div class="boilerplate"> +<p> + The Project Gutenberg EBook of Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin Garland. +</p> + +<p> +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 +</p> + +<p> + Title: Main-Travelled Roads<br /> + Author: Hamlin Garland<br /> + Posting Date: April 11, 2010 [EBook #2809]<br /> + Last Updated: May 1, 2017<br /> + Character set encoding: utf-8 +</p> + +<p> + Prepared by David Reed and Robert Homa +</p> +<br /> +<p> +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS *** +</p> +</div> + +<div id="HamlinGarland"> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">ii</a></span> +<span class="underline bold">Books by Hamlin Garland</span></p> +<p> + <i>Border Edition</i> +</p> +<ul> +<li><span class="smcap">Main-Travelled Roads</span></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20714">Other Main-Travelled Roads</a></li> +<li>Boy Life</li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35805">Rose of Dutcher's Coolly</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21255">The Eagle's Heart</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33458">The Captain of the Gray Horse Troop</a></li> +<li>Hesper</li> +<li>Mart Haney's Mate</li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26244">Cavanaugh, Forest Rangers</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29119">They of the High Trails</a></li> +<li>The Long Trail</li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26239">The Forester's Daughter</a></li> +</ul> +<p> + <i>Regular Edition</i> +</p> +<ul> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28492">The Light of the Star</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20697">Prarie Folks</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22593">The Shadow World</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28551">Trail of the Gold-Seekers</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24220">The Tyranny of the Dark</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34250">Victor Ollnee's Discipline</a></li> +</ul> +<hr class="break" /> +<p> + Harper & Brothers<br /> + <i>Publishers</i> +</p> +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p> + <a name="HGOtherEditions" id="HGOtherEditions"></a> + <i>Other Editions</i> +</p> +<ul> +<li>Under the Wheel</li> +<li>Jason Edwards</li> +<li>A Member of the Third House</li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21850">A Little Norsk</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26189">A Spoil of Office</a></li> +<li>Prairie Songs</li> +<li>Crumbling Idols</li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20247">Wayside Courtships</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20695">The Spirit of Sweetwater</a></li> +<li>Ulysses S. Grant, his life and character</li> +<li>Her Mountain Lover</li> +<li>Witch's Gold</li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30318">Money Magic</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19764">Moccassin Ranch</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28791">A Son of the Middle Border</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22329">A Daughter of the Middle Border</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48442">A Prairie Mother</a></li> +</ul> + +</div> + + + +<div id="titlepage"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">iii</a></span> + <h1>Main-Travelled Roads</h1> + <p class="author">By<br/> Hamlin Garland</p> + <p> + <i>Author of</i><br /> + Other Main-Travelled Roads, etc.<br /> + <br /> + <i>Border Edition</i><br /><br /> + </p> + <hr class="tiny" /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + <span class="lg">Harper & Brothers</span><br /> + Publishers<br /> + New York and London + </p> + <p><br /><br /><br /></p> + <p class="small"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">iv</a></span> + <span class="smcap">Main-Travelled Roads</span> + </p> + <hr class="tiny" /> + <p class="small"> + Copyright, 1891, by The Arena Publishing Company<br /> + Copyright, 1893, by The Century Co. <br /> + Copyright, 1893, 1899, by Hamlin Garland + </p> +</div> + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">v</a></span> + <a name="Dedication" id="Dedication"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h3>Dedication</h3> +</div> +<p class="chaptertitle">To</p> +<p class="chaptertitle">My Father and Mother</p> +<p class="small caps"> + 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 +</p> +<p> + <br /> +</p> + + +<div class="openingthought"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a></span> + <a name="OpeningThought" id="OpeningThought"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h3>Opening Thought</h3> +<p> +<span class="smcap">The main-travelled road</span> +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. +</p> +<p> +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. +</p> +</div> +<p> +<br /> +</p> + +<p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span> + <br /><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <h2>Table of Contents.</h2> + <table class="toc" summary="Table of Contents for Main-Travelled Roads"> +<caption>Main-Travelled Roads</caption> +<tbody> + <tr> + <td>Foreword</td> + <td><a href="#Foreword">xi</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Introduction</td> + <td><a href="#Introduction">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>A Branch Road</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter01">7</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Up the Coolly</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter02">67</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Among the Corn-Rows</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter03">131</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The Return of a Private</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter04">167</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Under the Lion's Paw</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter05">195</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The Creamery Man</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter06">219</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>A Day's Pleasure</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter07">245</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mrs. Ripley's Trip</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter08">261</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Uncle Ethan Ripley</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter09">281</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>God's Ravens</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter10">301</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>A "Good-Fellow's" Wife</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter11">327</a></td> + </tr> +</tbody> +</table> + + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">xi</a></span> + <a name="Foreword" id="Foreword"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">Foreword</a></h2> + + +<p id="id00065"> +<span class="smcap">In</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00066"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00067"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">xii</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00068"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00069"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00070"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">xiii</a></span> +words of <i>Mrs. +Ripley's Trip</i>, the first of the series of sketches which became +<i>Main Travelled Roads</i>.</p> + +<p id="id00071"> +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 +<i>Main Travelled Roads</i>, a novelette for the <i>Century Magazine</i>, 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.</p> + +<p id="id00072">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.</p> + +<p id="id00073"> +"Old Paps Flaxen," "Jason Edwards," "A Spoil of Office," and +most of the stories gathered into the second volume of +<i>Main Travelled Roads</i> 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.</p> + +<p id="id00074"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">xiv</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00075"> +The two volumes of <i>Main Travelled Roads</i> 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.</p> + +<p class="right">H. G.</p> + +<p class="italic">March 1, 1922.</p> + + + +<div class='figcenter'> +<a name='picture_01' id='picture_01'></a> +<img src='images/border.jpg' alt='Border Edition Logo' + title='Border Edition Logo' + style='width: 340px; height: 500px;' /><br /> +<p class="smcap" style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center; width: 340px;'> +Border Edition Logo<br /> +</p> +</div> + + + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_001" id="Page_001">1</a></span> + <a name="Introduction" id="Introduction"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">Introduction</a></h2> + +<p> + <a name="IntroPart01" id="IntroPart01"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#IntroPart02">I</a></h3> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">An</span> +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." +</p> +<p> +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; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_002" id="Page_002">2</a></span> +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. +</p> +<p> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_003" id="Page_003">3</a></span> +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. +</p> + +<p> + <a name="IntroPart02" id="IntroPart02"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Introduction">II</a></h3> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">These</span> +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 <i>novella</i> 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. +</p> +<p> +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 <i>Main-Travelled Roads</i>. That is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_004" id="Page_004">4</a></span> +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. +</p> +<p> +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 <i>Main-Travelled Roads</i>, 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. +</p> +<p> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_005" id="Page_005">5</a></span> +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. +</p> +<p> +"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. +</p> +<p> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_006" id="Page_006">6</a></span> +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. +</p> +<p class="right"> +<span class="two-em-space">W. D. HOWELLS</span><br /> +<i>(In the Editor's Study, "Harper's Magazine").</i> +</p> + + + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_007" id="Page_007">7</a></span> + <a name="Chapter01" id="Chapter01"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">A Branch Road</a></h2> + +<p class="pullquote"> +"Keep the main-travelled road till you come to a branch leading +off—keep to the right."</p> + +<p> +<a name="Chapter01Part01" id="Chapter01Part01"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_009" id="Page_009">9</a></span> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter01Part02">I</a></h3> + +<p id="id00081"> +<span class="smcap">In</span> 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.</p> + +<p id="id00082"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00083"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00084"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_010" id="Page_010">10</a></span> +vague thoughts and great emotions which rolled in his brain as the +wonder of the morning grew.</p> + +<p id="id00085"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00086"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00087"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00088"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00089"> +"Hello, Will!"</p> + +<p id="id00090"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_011" id="Page_011">11</a></span> +"Hello, Ed!"</p> + +<p id="id00091"> +"Going down to help Dingman thrash!"</p> + +<p id="id00092"> +"Yes," replied Will, shortly. It was easy to see he did not welcome +company.</p> + +<p id="id00093"> +"So'm I. Who's goin' to do your thrashin'—Dave McTurg?"</p> + +<p id="id00094"> +"Yes, I guess so. Haven't spoken to anybody yet."</p> + +<p id="id00095"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00096"> +"When do you go back to the Sem?" Ed asked after a little.</p> + +<p id="id00097"> +"Term begins next week. I'll make a break about second week."</p> + +<p id="id00098"> +"Le's see: you graduate next year, don't yeh?"</p> + +<p id="id00099"> +"I expect to, if I don't slip up on it."</p> + +<p id="id00100"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00101"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00102"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_012" id="Page_012">12</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00103"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00104"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00105">"Heave ho, there! <em>Up</em> she rises!"</p> + +<p id="id00106"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00107">"Hello, Will!" was the general greeting, given with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_013" id="Page_013">13</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00108"> +Dingman came up. "Will, I guess you'd better go on the stack +with Ed." +</p> + +<p id="id00109"> +"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.</p> + +<p>The driver began to talk: +</p> + +<p id="id00110"> +"<i>Chk, chk</i>! All ready, boys! Stiddy there, Dan! +<i>Chk, chk</i>! <em>All</em> ready, boys! <em>Stiddy</em> +there, boys! <em>All</em> ready now!" The horses began to +strain at the sweeps. The cylinder began to hum.</p> + +<p id="id00111"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00112"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_014" id="Page_014">14</a></span> +into an even belt of entering wheat, on which the cylinder tore with +its smothered, ferocious snarl.</p> + +<p id="id00113"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00114"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00115"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00116"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_015" id="Page_015">15</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00117"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00118"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00119"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00120"> +"Keep your eye on me," said Shep Wilson.</p> + +<p id="id00121"> +"You?" laughed one of the others. "Anybody knows if a girl so +much as looked crossways at you, you'd fall in a fit."</p> + +<p id="id00122"> +"Another thing," said David. "I can't have you fellers carryin' grain +goin' to the house every minute for fried cakes or cookies."</p> + +<p id="id00123"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_016" id="Page_016">16</a></span> +"Now you git out," said Bill Young from the straw pile. "You ain't +goin' to have all the fun to yerself."</p> + +<p id="id00124"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00125"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00126"> +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 <i>pièce de resistance</i> 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.</p> + +<p id="id00127"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_017" id="Page_017">17</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00128"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00129"> +They ranged along the table with a great deal of noise, boots +thumping, squeaking, knives and forks rattling, voices bellowing +out.</p> + +<p id="id00130"> +"Now hold on, Steve! Can't hev yeh so near that chickun!"</p> + +<p id="id00131"> +"Move along, Shep! I want to be next to the kitchen door! I won't +get nothin' with <em>you</em> on that side o' me."</p> + +<p id="id00132"> +"Oh, that's too thin! I see what you're—"</p> + +<p id="id00133"> +"No, I won't need any sugar, if you just smile into it." This from +gallant David, greeted with roars of laughter.</p> + +<p id="id00134"> +"Now, Dave, s'pose your wife 'ud hear o' that?"</p> + +<p id="id00135"> +"She'd snatch 'im bald-headed, that's what she'd do."</p> + +<p id="id00136"> +"Say, somebody drive that ceow down this way," said Bill.</p> + +<p id="id00137"> +"Don't get off that drive! It's too old," criticised Shep, +passing the milk-jug.</p> + +<p id="id00138"> +Potatoes were seized, cut in halves, sopped in gravy, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_018" id="Page_018">18</a></span> +and taken <em>one, two</em>! 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.</p> + +<p id="id00139"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00140"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00141"> +"Ha, ha! Oh, there'd be a place for <em>him</em>!"</p> + +<p id="id00142"> +"Don't worry, Will! Always room for <em>you</em> here!"</p> + +<p id="id00143"> +Will took his seat with a sudden, angry flame. </p> + +<p> +"Why can't she keep it from these fools?" was his thought. +He didn't even thank her for showing him the chair.</p> + +<p id="id00144"> +She flushed vividly, but smiled back. She was so proud and happy +she didn't care very much if they <em>did</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id00145"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_019" id="Page_019">19</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00146"> +"See that? That's the way we do down to the Sem! See? Fork for +pie in yer right hand! Hey? <em>I</em> can't do it? Watch me."</p> + +<p id="id00147"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id00148"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00149"> +"I will—with a fork, please."</p> + +<p id="id00150"> +"This is 'bout the only place <em>you</em> can use a fork," +said Bill Young, anticipating a laugh by his own broad grin.</p> + +<p id="id00151"> +"Oh, that's too old," said Shep Watson. "Don't drag that out agin. +A man that'll eat seven taters—"</p> + +<p id="id00152"> +"Shows who does the work."</p> + +<p id="id00153"> +"Yes, with his jaws," put in Jim Wheelock, the driver. </p> + +<p> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00154"> +"It ain't healthy to wash."</p> + +<p id="id00155"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_020" id="Page_020">20</a></span> +"Well, you'll live forever, then."</p> + +<p id="id00156"> +"He ain't washed his face sence I knew 'im."</p> + +<p id="id00157"> +"Oh, that's a little too tough! He washes once a week," said Ed +Kinney. +</p> + +<p id="id00158"> +"Back of his ears?" inquired David, who was munching a +doughnut, his black eyes twinkling with fun.</p> + +<p>"Yep."</p> + +<p id="id00159"> +"What's the cause of it?"</p> + +<p id="id00160"> +"Dade says she won't kiss 'im if he don't."</p> + +<p> Everybody roared.</p> + +<p id="id00161"> +"Good fer Dade! I wouldn't if I was in her place."</p> + +<p id="id00162"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00163"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00164"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00165"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_021" id="Page_021">21</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p id="id00166"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00167"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00168"> +"She's pretty sweet on him, ain't she? Did yeh notus how she stood +around over him?"</p> + +<p id="id00169"> +"Yes; an' did yeh see him when she passed the cup o' tea down +over his shoulder?"</p> + +<p id="id00170"> +Will got up, white with wrath, as they laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00171"> +"Someway he didn't seem to enjoy it as I would. I wish she'd reach +her arm over my neck that way."</p> + +<p id="id00172"> +Will walked around the machine, and came on the group lying on +the chaff near the straw-pile.</p> + +<p id="id00173"> +"Say, I want you fellers to understand that I won't have any more of +this talk. I won't have it."</p> + +<p id="id00174"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_022" id="Page_022">22</a></span> +There was a dead silence. Then Bill Young got up.</p> + +<p id="id00175"> +"What yeh goin' to do about ut?" he sneered.</p> + +<p id="id00176"> +"I'm going to stop it."</p> + +<p id="id00177"> +The wolf rose in Young. He moved forward, his ferocious soul +flaming from his eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00178"> +"W'y, you damned seminary dude, I can break you in two!"</p> + +<p id="id00179"> +An answering glare came into Will's eyes. He grasped and slightly +shook his fork, which he had brought with him unconsciously.</p> + +<p id="id00180"> +"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 <em>kill</em> you, but I won't <em>fight</em> +with such men as you are."</p> + +<p id="id00181"> +Bill quailed and slunk away, muttering some epithet like "coward."</p> + +<p id="id00182"> +"I don't care what you call <em>me</em>, but just remember what +I say: you keep your tongue off that girl's affairs."</p> + +<p id="id00183"> +"That's the talk!" said David. "Stand up for your girl always, but +don't use a fork. You can handle him without that."</p> + +<p id="id00184"> +"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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_023" id="Page_023">23</a></span> +She was laughing at something Ed was saying as he +slowly moved the handle up and down.</p> + +<p id="id00185"> +Instantly, like a foaming, turbid flood, his rage swept out toward +her. "It's all <em>her</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id00186"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00187"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00188"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_024" id="Page_024">24</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00189"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00190"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00191"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00192"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00193"> +As night drew on the men worked with a steadier, more +mechanical action. No one spoke now. Each +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_025" id="Page_025">25</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00194">"Phe-e-eew-<i>ee</i>," whistled the driver with the +sweet, cheery, rising notes of a bird. "<i>Chk, chk, chk</i>! +Phe-e-eew-e! Go on there, boys! <i>Chk, chk, chk</i>! Step up there, +Dan, step up! (<i>Snap</i>!) Phe-e-eew-ee! G'-wan—g'-wan, +g'-wan! <i>Chk, chk, chk</i>! Wheest, wheest, wheest! +<i>Chk, chk</i>!" +</p> + +<p id="id00195"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00196"> +"Come, Aggie," said Mrs. Dingman, "they're gettin' 'most down +to the bottom of the stack. They'll be pilin' in here soon."</p> + +<p id="id00197"> +"Phe-e-eew-ee! G'-wan, Doll! G'-wan, boys! <i>Chk, chk, chk</i>! +Phe-e-eew-ee!" called the driver out in the dusk, cheerily swinging +the whip over the horses' +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_026" id="Page_026">26</a></span> +backs. <i>Boom-oo-oo-oom</i>! roared the machine, with a muffled, +monotonous, solemn tone. "G'-wan, boys! G'-wan, g'-wan!"</p> + +<p id="id00198"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00199"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00200"> +"Wo-o-o, lads! Stiddy-y-y, boys! Wo-o-o, there, Dan. Stiddy, +stiddy, old man! <em>Ho</em>, 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.</p> + +<p id="id00201">The stillness and the dusk were very impressive. So +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_027" id="Page_027">27</a></span> +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. +</p> + +<p id="id00202"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00203"> +"Come, Will, supper's all ready. Go in and eat."</p> + +<p id="id00204"> +"I guess I'll go home to supper."</p> + +<p id="id00205"> +"Oh, no; that won't do. The women'll be expecting you to stay."</p> + +<p id="id00206"> +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.</p> + + +<p><a name="Chapter01Part02" id="Chapter01Part02"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter01Part03">II</a></h3> + +<p id="id00208"> +<span class="smcap">On</span> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_028" id="Page_028">28</a></span> +of hiring a top-buggy, in which to take his sweetheart to the +neighboring town.</p> + +<p id="id00209"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00210"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00211"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00212"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00213"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_029" id="Page_029">29</a></span> +"Pretty sharp last night," said his brother John, who was scrubbing +his face at the cistern.</p> + +<p id="id00214"> +"Should say so by that rim of ice," Will replied, dipping his hands +into the icy water.</p> + +<p id="id00215"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00216"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00217"> +"B'ekfuss, poppa; all yeady!"</p> + +<p id="id00218"> +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. </p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00219"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00220"> +"Is yuncle Will goin' yide nour buggy?"</p> + +<p id="id00221"> +"Yus; the buggy and the colts."</p> + +<p id="id00222"> +"Is he goin' to take his girl?"</p> + +<p id="id00223"> +Will blushed a little and John roared.</p> + +<p id="id00224"> +"Yes, I'm goin'—"</p> + +<p id="id00225"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_030" id="Page_030">30</a></span> +"Is Aggie your girl?"</p> + +<p id="id00226"> +"H'yer! h'yer! young man," called John, "you're gettin' personal."</p> + +<p id="id00227"> +"Well, set up!" said Nettie, and with a good deal of clatter they +drew around the cheerful table.</p> + +<p id="id00228"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00229"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00230"> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id00231"> +They vibrated between the house and the barn while the chores +were being finished, and their happy cries +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_031" id="Page_031">31</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00232"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00233"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00234"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00235"> +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—</p> + +<p> +"Whoa! <i>Ho!</i>"</p> + +<p id="id00236"> +There was a swift lurch that sent him flying over the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_032" id="Page_032">32</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00237"> +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 <i>burr</i> whose failure to hold its place had done all the mischief. +He soon had the wheel on, but to find the <i>burr</i> was a harder task. +Back and forth he ranged, looking, scraping in the dust, searching +the weeds.</p> + +<p id="id00238"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00239"> +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. +</p> + +<p id="id00241"> +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." +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_033" id="Page_033">33</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00242"> +It was ten o'clock as he climbed again into the buggy, and started +his team on a swift trot down the road. What <em>would</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id00243"> +But she'd <em>know</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id00244"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00245"> +"Agnes!" he called. "Hello! I'm here at last!"</p> + +<p id="id00246"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00247"> +An old man came around the corner of the house with a potato +fork in his hands, his teeth displayed in a grin.</p> + +<p id="id00248"> +"She ain't here. She's gone."</p> + +<p id="id00249"> +"Gone!"</p> + +<p id="id00250"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_034" id="Page_034">34</a></span> +"Yes—more'n an hour ago."</p> + +<p id="id00251"> +"Who'd she go with?"</p> + +<p id="id00252"> +"Ed Kinney," said the old fellow, with a malicious grin. "I guess +your goose is cooked."</p> + +<p id="id00253"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00254"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00255"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00256"> +"It you want to go to hell with Ed Kinney, you can. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_035" id="Page_035">35</a></span> +I won't say a word. That's where he'll take you. +You won't see me again."</p> + +<p id="id00257"> +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.</p> + +<p><a name="Chapter01Part03" id="Chapter01Part03"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter01Part04">III</a></h3> + +<p id="id00259"> +<span class="smcap">The</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00260"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00261"> +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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_036" id="Page_036">36</a></span> +They had given place to the large farm and the stock-raiser. +Still the whole scene was bountiful and beautiful to the eye.</p> + +<p id="id00262"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00263"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00264"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00265"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00266"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_037" id="Page_037">37</a></span> +"Nice day to sit under a tree and fish."</p> + +<p id="id00267"> +Will smiled. "I ought to know you, I suppose; I used to live here +years ago."</p> + +<p id="id00268"> +"Guess not; we came in three years ago."</p> + +<p id="id00269"> +The young man was quick-spoken and pleasant to look at. +Will felt freer with him. +</p> + +<p id="id00270"> +"Are the Kinneys still living over there?" He nodded at a group of +large buildings.</p> + +<p id="id00271"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00272"> +Will wanted to ask after Agnes, but hardly felt able. "I s'pose John +Hannan is on his old farm?" +</p> + +<p id="id00273"> +"Yes. Got a good crop this year."</p> + +<p id="id00274"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00275"> +"You're from Arizony, then?"</p> + +<p id="id00276"> +"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.</p> + +<p> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00277"> +"I wonder if they're the same identical chaps that used to boil and +glitter there when I was a boy—looks +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_038" id="Page_038">38</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00278"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00279"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00280"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00281"> +Seven years of hard, busy life had made changes in Will.</p> + +<p id="id00282"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_039" id="Page_039">39</a></span> +that there came into his deep eyes a preoccupied, almost sad, look +which showed kinship with his old self.</p> + +<p id="id00283"> +This look was on his face as he walked toward the clump of trees +on the right of the road.</p> + +<p id="id00284"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00285"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00286"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00287"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00288"> +He heard the patter of feet and the half-mumbled monologue +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_040" id="Page_040">40</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00289"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00290"> +The boy crept upon the dime.</p> + +<p id="id00291"> +Will smiled. "You ought to be a Kinney. What is your name?"</p> + +<p id="id00292"> +"Tomath Dickinthon Kinney. I'm thix and a half. I've got a colt," +lisped the youngster, breathlessly, as he crept toward the money.</p> + +<p id="id00293"> +"Oh, you are, eh? Well, now, are you Tom's boy, or Ed's?"</p> + +<p id="id00294"> +"Tomth's boy. Uncle Ed heth got a little—"</p> + +<p id="id00295"> +"Ed got a boy?"</p> + +<p id="id00296"> +"Yeth, thir—a lil baby. Aunt Agg letth me hold 'im."</p> + +<p id="id00297"> +"Agg! Is that her name?"</p> + +<p id="id00298"> +"Tha'th what Uncle Ed callth her."</p> + +<p id="id00299"> +The man's head fell, and it was a long time before he asked his +next question.</p> + +<p id="id00300">"How <em>is</em> she anyhow?"</p> + +<p id="id00301"> +"Purty well," piped the boy, with a prolongation of the last words +into a kind of chirp. "She'th been thick, though," he added.</p> + +<p id="id00302"> +"Been sick? How long?"</p> + +<p id="id00303"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_041" id="Page_041">41</a></span> +"Oh, a long time. But she ain't thick abed; she'th awful poor, +though. Gran'pa thayth she'th poor ath a rake."</p> + +<p id="id00304"> +"Oh, he does, eh?"</p> + +<p id="id00305"> +"Yeth, thir. Uncle Ed he jawth her, then she crieth."</p> + +<p id="id00306"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00307"> +"Here, my boy, I want you to tell me some more. Where does your +Aunt Agnes live?" +</p> + +<p id="id00308"> +"At gran'pa'th. You know where my gran'pa livth?"</p> + +<p id="id00309"> +"Well, <em>you</em> do. Now I want you to take this letter to her. +Give it to <em>her</em>." He wrote a little note and folded it. +"Now dust out o' here."</p> + +<p id="id00310"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00311"> +As he stood there, feeling the wind lift his hair, listening to the +crickets' ever-present crying, and facing the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_042" id="Page_042">42</a></span> +majesty of space, a strange sadness and despair came into his eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00312"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00313"> +An old man was driving the cows, crying out:</p> + +<p id="id00314"> +"St—<em>boy</em>, there! Go on there! Whay, boss!"</p> + +<p id="id00315"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00316"> +"Good-evening, uncle!"</p> + +<p id="id00317"> +"I ain't y'r uncle, young man."</p> + +<p id="id00318"> +His dim eyes did not recognize the boy he had chased out of his +plum patch years before.</p> + +<p id="id00319"> +"I don't know yeh, neither," he added.</p> + +<p id="id00320"> +"Oh, you will, later on. I'm from the East. I'm a sort +of a relative to John Hannan." +</p> + +<p id="id00321"> +"I want 'o know if y' be!" the old man exclaimed, peering closer.</p> + +<p id="id00322"> +"Yes. I'm just up from Rock River. John's harvesting, I s'pose?"</p> + +<p>"Yus." +</p> + +<p id="id00323"> +"Where's the youngest one—Will?"</p> + +<p id="id00324"> +"William? Oh! he's a bad aig—he lit out f'r the West somewhere. He +was a hard boy. He stole a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_043" id="Page_043">43</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00325"> +"How's that?"</p> + +<p id="id00326"> +The old man chuckled.</p> + +<p id="id00327"> +"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." +</p> + +<p id="id00328"> +"Ain't, heh?"</p> + +<p id="id00329"> +"No. But they say he's makin' a <em>terrible</em> lot o' money," the +old man said in a hushed voice. "But the <em>way</em> 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!"</p> + +<p id="id00330"> +"You wouldn't? Why?"</p> + +<p id="id00331"> +"'Cause it ain't right. It ain't made right noway, you—"</p> + +<p id="id00332"> +"But <em>how</em> is it made? What's the feller's trade?"</p> + +<p id="id00333"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00334"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id00335"> +The old man's jaw fell; he began to back away.</p> + +<p id="id00336"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_044" id="Page_044">44</a></span> +"Your neighbors tell some good stories about you. Now skip along +after those cows, or I'll tickle your old legs for you!"</p> + +<p id="id00337"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00338"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id00339"> +"Hullo! A whippoorwill. Takes a man back into childhood—No, +<em>don't 'whip poor Will'</em>; he's got all he can bear now."</p> + +<p id="id00340"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00341"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00342"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00343"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_045" id="Page_045">45</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00344"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00345"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00346"> +"But I'll see her—just once more. And then—" +</p> + +<p> +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.</p> + + +<p><a name="Chapter01Part04" id="Chapter01Part04"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter01">IV</a></h3> + +<p id="id00348"> +<span class="smcap">Old</span> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_046" id="Page_046">46</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00349"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00350"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00351"> +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—</p> + +<p> +He roused himself. This was nonsense! He was trembling. +He composed himself by looking around again.</p> + +<p id="id00352"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00353"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00354"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_047" id="Page_047">47</a></span> +"How de do? How de do?" said Will, walking in, his eyes fixed on +a woman seated beyond, a child in her lap.</p> + +<p id="id00355"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00356"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00357"> +"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:</p> + +<p id="id00358"> +"I'm glad to get back, Agnes. I hadn't ought to have gone." Then he +turned to the old people:</p> + +<p> +"I'm Will Hannan. You needn't be scared, Daddy; +I was jokin' last night."</p> + +<p id="id00359"> +"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 <em>dretful</em> humly boy; but my sakes, that +mustache—"</p> + +<p id="id00360"> +"Wal, he give me a <em>turrible</em> scare last night. My land! +scared me out of a year's growth," cackled the old man.</p> + +<p id="id00361"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_048" id="Page_048">48</a></span> +moved; his throat swelled and tears came to his eyes every time +he looked at her.</p> + +<p id="id00362"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00363"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00364"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00365"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00366"> +"It's most time f'r Ed to be gittin' back, ain't it, pa?"</p> + +<p id="id00367"> +"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 <em>did</em> believe in horse-tradin' anyhow."</p> + +<p id="id00368"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_049" id="Page_049">49</a></span> +"Have y' come back to stay, Willie?" asked the old lady.</p> + +<p id="id00369"> +"Well—it's hard tellin'," answered Will, looking at Agnes.</p> + +<p id="id00370"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00371"> +"You'll stay to dinner, Will?" asked Agnes.</p> + +<p id="id00372"> +"Yes—if you wish it."</p> + +<p id="id00373"> +"I <em>do</em> wish it."</p> + +<p id="id00374"> +"Thank you; I want to have a good visit with you. I don't know +when I'll see you again."</p> + +<p id="id00375"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00376"> +Agnes was outwardly calm, but her real distraction did not escape +Mrs. Kinney's hawk-like eyes. +</p> + +<p id="id00377"> +"Well, I declare if you hain't put the butter on in one o' my blue +chainy saucers? Now you <em>know</em> 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?"</p> + +<p id="id00378"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_050" id="Page_050">50</a></span> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id00379"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00380"> +"<em>Good</em> land o' Goshen!" screamed Granny. "If you ain't the +worst I <em>ever</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id00381"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00382"> +Agnes cried quickly:</p> + +<p id="id00383"> +"Oh, don't do that, Will! It ain't <em>her</em> plate. It's +<em>my</em> plate, and I can break every plate in the house +if I want to," she cried defiantly.</p> + +<p id="id00384"> +"'Course you can," Will agreed.</p> + +<p id="id00385"> +"Wal, she <em>can't</em>! Not while <em>I'm</em> around," +put in Daddy. "I've helped to pay f'r them plates, if she +does call 'em her'n—"</p> + +<p id="id00386"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00387"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_051" id="Page_051">51</a></span> +as he lounged in with insolent swagger, clothed in greasy overalls +and a hickory shirt.</p> + +<p id="id00388"> +"Hello, Will! I heard you'd got home. John told me as I came +along."</p> + +<p id="id00389"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00390"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00391"> +"Dinner ready?" he asked of Agnes. "Where's Pete?"</p> + +<p id="id00392"> +"He's asleep."</p> + +<p id="id00393"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00394"> +He led the way out into the little kitchen where the dinner was set.</p> + +<p id="id00395"> +"What was the row about? Hain't been breakin' some dish, Agg?"</p> + +<p id="id00396"> +"Yes, she has," broke in the old lady.</p> + +<p id="id00397"> +"One o' the blue ones?" winked Ed.</p> + +<p id="id00398"> +"No, thank goodness, it was a white one."</p> + +<p id="id00399"> +"Well, now, I'll git into that dod-gasted cubberd some day an' break +the whole eternal outfit. I ain't +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_052" id="Page_052">52</a></span> +goin' to have this damned jawin' goin' on," he ended, brutally +unconscious of his own "jawin'."</p> + +<p id="id00400"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00401"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00402"> +Agnes felt that she must vindicate herself a little. +</p> + +<p> +"I do drive 'em out, but they come right in again. The screen-door is +broken and they come right in."</p> + +<p id="id00403"> +"I told Dad to <em>fix</em> that door."</p> + +<p id="id00404"> +"But he won't do it for me."</p> + +<p id="id00405"> +Ed rested his elbows on the table and fixed his bright black eyes on +his father.</p> + +<p id="id00406"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00407"> +"I guess I've as good a right here as you have, Ed Kinney."</p> + +<p id="id00408"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id00409"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_053" id="Page_053">53</a></span> +Daddy began to snivel. Agnes could not look up for shame. Will +felt sick. Ed laughed.</p> + +<p id="id00410"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00411"> +"No, never mind; I can't stay but a few minutes."</p> + +<p id="id00412"> +"Goin' to be round the country long?"</p> + +<p id="id00413"> +"A week—maybe."</p> + +<p id="id00414"> +Agnes looked up a moment, and then let her eyes fall.</p> + +<p id="id00415"> +"Goin' back West, I s'pose?"</p> + +<p id="id00416"> +"No. May go East, to Europe, mebbe."</p> + +<p id="id00417"> +"The devul y' say! You must 'a' made a ten-strike out West."</p> + +<p id="id00418"> +"They say it didn't come lawful," piped Daddy, over his +blackberries and milk.</p> + +<p id="id00419"> +"Oh, you shet up, who wants your put-in? Don't work in any o' +your Bible on us."</p> + +<p id="id00420"> +Daddy rose to go into the other room.</p> + +<p id="id00421"> +"Hold on, old man. You goin' to fix that door?"</p> + +<p id="id00422"> +"Course I be," quavered he.</p> + +<p id="id00423"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00425"> +He went out unceremoniously, and Agnes was alone with Will.</p> + +<p id="id00426"> +"Do you go to church?" he asked. She shook her +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_054" id="Page_054">54</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00427"> +"Agnes, I want to say something to you; not now—after they're +gone."</p> + +<p id="id00428"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00429"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00430"> +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—</p> + +<p>"Oh, let me be a girl again!"</p> + +<p id="id00431"> +She did not look forward to happiness. She hadn't power to look +forward at all.</p> + +<p id="id00432"> +As she worked, she heard the high, shrill voices of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_055" id="Page_055">55</a></span> +the old people as they bustled about and nagged at each other.</p> + +<p id="id00433"> +"Ma, where's my specticles?"</p> + +<p id="id00434"> +"I ain't seen y'r specticles."</p> + +<p id="id00435"> +"You have, too."</p> + +<p id="id00436"> +"I ain't neither."</p> + +<p id="id00437"> +"You had 'em this forenoon."</p> + +<p id="id00438"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00439"> +"I want 'o know if I would," the old man snorted.</p> + +<p id="id00440"> +"Wal, you'd orter know."</p> + +<p id="id00441"> +"Oh, you're awful smart, ain't yeh? <em>You</em> never have no trouble, +and use mine—do yeh?—an' lose 'em so 't I can't—"</p> + +<p id="id00442"> +"And if this is the thing that goes on when I'm here it must be hell +when visitors are gone," thought Will.</p> + +<p id="id00443"> +"Willy, ain't you goin' to meetin'?"</p> + +<p id="id00444"> +"No, not to-day. I want to visit a little with Agnes, then I've got to +drive back to John's."</p> + +<p id="id00445"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00446"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00447"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_056" id="Page_056">56</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00448"> +"Don't—don't look at me like that," she said in a whisper. His pity +hurt her.</p> + +<p id="id00449"> +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—</p> + +<p> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00450"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id00451"> +He rose, and raged up and down the room till he had mastered +himself.</p> + +<p id="id00452"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00453"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_057" id="Page_057">57</a></span> +She lifted her head and looked at him in a slow way. She seemed +to be remembering. The tears lay on her hollow cheeks.</p> + +<p id="id00454"> +"I thought you was ashamed of me. I didn't know—why—"</p> + +<p id="id00455"> +He uttered a snarl of self-disgust.</p> + +<p id="id00456"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00457"> +"How could I, Will—after your letter?"</p> + +<p id="id00458"> +He groaned, and turned away.</p> + +<p id="id00459"> +"And Will, I—I got mad too. I <em>couldn't</em> write."</p> + +<p id="id00460"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id00461"> +She stopped him with a startled look in her great eyes. </p> + +<p> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00462"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00463"> +"Ed was good to me; and he offered a home, anyway, for mother—"</p> + +<p id="id00464"> +"And all the time I was waiting for some line to break down my +cussed pride, so I could write to you +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_058" id="Page_058">58</a></span> +and explain. But you <em>did</em> go with Ed to the fair," he ended +suddenly, seeking a morsel of justification for himself.</p> + +<p id="id00465"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00466"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00467"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00468"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00469"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id00470"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00471"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00472"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_059" id="Page_059">59</a></span> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00473"> +She looked at him in a daze of wonder as he went on.</p> + +<p> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id00474"> +"Oh, Will, don't!" she cried; "for pity's sake don't talk—"</p> + +<p id="id00475"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id00476"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00477"> +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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_060" id="Page_060">60</a></span> +Your whole life is agony. Come! Don't cry. There's a chance for life +yet."</p> + +<p id="id00478"> +She didn't speak, but her sobs were less violent; his voice growing +stronger reassured her.</p> + +<p id="id00479"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00480"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00481"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00482"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_061" id="Page_061">61</a></span> +"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?" +</p> + +<p id="id00483"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00484"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00485"> +"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 <em>then</em>?"</p> + +<p id="id00486"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00487"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00488"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_062" id="Page_062">62</a></span> +when we get back. Don't wait, Aggie; make up your mind."</p> + +<p id="id00489"> +She hesitated, and was lost.</p> + +<p id="id00490"> +"What will people say?"</p> + +<p id="id00491"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00492"> +As he went on his argument rose to the level of Browning's +philosophy.</p> + +<p id="id00493"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00494"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00495">"You can't live here, Aggie. You'll die in less than +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_063" id="Page_063">63</a></span> +five years. It would kill me to see you die here. Come! It's suicide."</p> + +<p id="id00496"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00497"> +He grew insistent, a sterner note creeping into his voice.</p> + +<p id="id00498"> +"If I leave this time of course you know I'll never come back."</p> + +<p id="id00499"> +Her hoarse breathing, growing quicker each moment, was her only +reply.</p> + +<p id="id00500"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id00501"> +"Oh, give me time to think, Will!" she cried out, lifting her face.</p> + +<p id="id00502"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id00503"> +She stopped breathing; her fingers closed convulsively on the +chair. As he opened the door she sprang up.</p> + +<p id="id00504"> +"Don't go, Will! Don't go, please don't! I need you here—I—"</p> + +<p id="id00505"> +"That ain't the question. Are you going with me, Agnes?"</p> + +<p id="id00506"> +"Yes, yes! I tried to speak before. I trust you, Will; you're—"</p> + +<p id="id00507"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_064" id="Page_064">64</a></span> +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—"</p> + +<p id="id00508"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00509"> +"Mommie's 'ittle pet! <em>She</em> 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!"</p> + +<p id="id00510"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00511"> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id00512"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00513"> +"That closes the door on your sufferings," he said, smiling down at +her. "Good-by to it all."</p> + +<p id="id00514"> +The baby laughed and stretched out its hands toward the light.</p> + +<p id="id00515"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_065" id="Page_065">65</a></span> +"Boo, boo!" he cried.</p> + +<p id="id00516"> +"What's he talking about?"</p> + +<p id="id00517"> +She smiled in perfect trust and fearlessness, seeing her child's face +beside his own. "He says it's beautiful."</p> + +<p id="id00518"> +"Oh, he does? I can't follow his French accent."</p> + +<p id="id00519"> +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.</p> + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_067" id="Page_067">67</a></span> + <a name="Chapter02" id="Chapter02"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">Up the Coolly</a></h2> + +<p class="pullquote"> +"Keep the main-travelled road up the Coolly—it's the second house +after crossin' the crick." +</p> + +<p> +<a name="Chapter02Part01" id="Chapter02Part01"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_069" id="Page_069">69</a></span> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter02Part02">I</a></h3> + +<p id="id00523"> +<span class="smcap">The </span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00524"> +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, <em>his</em> West. He still took pride in being a Western man.</p> + +<p id="id00525"> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_070" id="Page_070">70</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00526"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00527"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00528"> +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; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_071" id="Page_071">71</a></span> +the same—only worse and more squalid—was the town.</p> + +<p id="id00529"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00530"> +"Glorious!" he cried involuntarily.</p> + +<p id="id00531"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00532"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00533"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00534"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_072" id="Page_072">72</a></span> +They ruminated on him as he passed, speculating in a perfectly +audible way upon his business.</p> + +<p id="id00535"> +"Looks like a drummer."</p> + +<p id="id00536"> +"No, he ain't no drummer. See them Boston glasses?"</p> + +<p id="id00537"> +"That's so. Guess he's a teacher."</p> + +<p id="id00538"> +"Looks like a moneyed cuss."</p> + +<p id="id00539"> +"Bos'n, I <em>guess</em>."</p> + +<p id="id00540"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00541"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00542"> +"Hit 'im! hit 'im! Jump off and knock 'im!" suggested a bystander, +jovially.</p> + +<p id="id00543"> +Howard knew the voice.</p> + +<p id="id00544"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00545"> +"You're William McTurg," Howard said, coming up to him.</p> + +<p id="id00546"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_073" id="Page_073">73</a></span> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00547"> +"I'm Howard McLane."</p> + +<p id="id00548"> +"Ye begin t' look it," said McTurg, removing his right hand from +his pocket. "How are yeh?"</p> + +<p id="id00549"> +"I'm first-rate. How's mother and Grant?"</p> + +<p id="id00550"> +"Saw 'm ploughing corn as I came down. Guess he's all right. Want +a boost?"</p> + +<p id="id00551"> +"Well, yes. Are you down with a team?"</p> + +<p id="id00552"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00553"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00554"> +"Want to go by river, or 'round by the hills?"</p> + +<p id="id00555"> +"Hills, I guess."</p> + +<p id="id00556"> +The whole matter began to seem trivial, as if he had been +away only for a month or two.</p> + +<p id="id00557"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00558"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_074" id="Page_074">74</a></span> +As they passed familiar spots, the younger man broke the silence +with a question.</p> + +<p id="id00559"> +"That's old man McElvaine's place, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yep."</p> + +<p id="id00560"> +"Old man living?"</p> + +<p id="id00561"> +"I <em>guess</em> he is. Husk more corn'n any man he c'n hire."</p> + +<p id="id00562"> +In the edge of the village they passed an open lot on the left, +marked with circus-rings of different eras.</p> + +<p id="id00563"> +"There's the old ball-ground. Do they have circuses on it just the +same as ever?"</p> + +<p id="id00564"> +"Just the same."</p> + +<p id="id00565"> +"What fun that field calls up! The games of ball we used to have! +Do you play yet?" +</p> + +<p id="id00566"> +"Sometimes. Can't stoop as well as I used to." +He smiled a little. "Too much fat." +</p> + +<p id="id00567"> +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. +</p> + +<p id="id00568"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_075" id="Page_075">75</a></span> +the rounded, distant purple peaks, and streamed in bars of +gold and crimson across the blue mist of the narrower upper +Coollies.</p> + +<p id="id00569"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00570"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00571"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00572"> +"Any trout left?" he asked.</p> + +<p id="id00573"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00574"> +"Yes, yes; I'm an actor."</p> + +<p id="id00575"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_076" id="Page_076">76</a></span> +"Pay much?"</p> + +<p id="id00576"> +"Pretty well."</p> + +<p id="id00577"> +That seemed to end William's curiosity about the matter.</p> + +<p id="id00578"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00579"> +"Yep; only they don't live there."</p> + +<p id="id00580"> +"What! They don't!"</p> + +<p id="id00581"> +"Who does?"</p> + +<p id="id00582"> +"Dutchman."</p> + +<p id="id00583"> +Howard was silent for some moments. "Who lives on the Dunlap +place?"</p> + +<p id="id00584"> +"'Nother Dutchman."</p> + +<p id="id00585"> +"Where's Grant living, anyhow?"</p> + +<p id="id00586"> +"Farther up the Coolly."</p> + +<p id="id00587"> +"Well, then, I'd better get out here, hadn't I?"</p> + +<p id="id00588"> +"Oh, I'll drive ye up."</p> + +<p id="id00589"> +"No, I'd rather walk."</p> + +<p id="id00590"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00591"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_077" id="Page_077">77</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00592"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00593"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00594"> +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 <em>this</em> year, sure." But +a new play to be produced, or a new yachting trip, or a tour of +Europe, had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_078" id="Page_078">78</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00595"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00596"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00597"> +"Good-evening," Howard began. "Does Mr. Grant McLane live +here?"</p> + +<p id="id00598"> +"Yes, sir, he does. He's right over there milkin'."</p> + +<p id="id00599"> +"I'll go over there an—"</p> + +<p id="id00600"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00601"> +"Very well; I'll wait."</p> + +<p id="id00602"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_079" id="Page_079">79</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00603"> +"Good-evening," said Howard, out of the dusk.</p> + +<p id="id00604"> +Grant stared a moment. "Good-evening."</p> + +<p id="id00605"> +Howard knew the voice, though it was older and deeper and more +sullen. "Don't you know me, Grant? I am Howard."</p> + +<p id="id00606"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00607"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00608"> +The gleam of Howard's white hands angered him. When he spoke, +it was in a hard, gruff tone, full of rebellion.</p> + +<p id="id00609"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00610"> +"But mother—"</p> + +<p id="id00611"> +"She's 'round somewhere. Just knock on the door under the porch +round there."</p> + +<p id="id00612"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_080" id="Page_080">80</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00613"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00614"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00615"> +"Mother! Dear old mother!"</p> + +<p id="id00616"> +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—"</p> + +<p id="id00617"> +Mrs. McLane began speaking. "Oh, I've longed to see yeh, Howard. +I was afraid you wouldn't come till—too late." +</p> + +<p id="id00618"> +"What do you mean, mother? Ain't you well?"</p> + +<p id="id00619"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00620"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_081" id="Page_081">81</a></span> +"You mustn't work. You <em>needn't</em> work. Why didn't you write to me +how you were?" Howard asked, in an agony of remorse.</p> + +<p id="id00621"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00623"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00624"> +"It don't matter now," she interrupted gently. "It's the way things +go. Our boys grow up and leave us."</p> + +<p id="id00625"> +"Well, come in to supper," said Grant's ungracious voice from the +doorway. "Come, mother."</p> + +<p id="id00626"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00627"> +"How.—this is my wife," said Grant, in a cold, peculiar tone.</p> + +<p id="id00628"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00629"> +"Set down anywhere," was the young woman's cordial invitation.</p> + +<p id="id00630"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_082" id="Page_082">82</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00631"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00632"> +"Did I look like that at his age?" thought Howard.</p> + +<p id="id00633"> +"You see we live just about the same as ever," said Grant, as they +began eating, speaking with a grim, almost challenging, inflection.</p> + +<p id="id00634"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00635"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_083" id="Page_083">83</a></span> +Scotch in his face than Howard, and he looked much older.</p> + +<p id="id00636"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00637"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00638"> +The baby, having ceased to be afraid, was curious, gazing silently +at the stranger.</p> + +<p id="id00639"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00640"> +The mother's face cleared up a little. "I declare, she wants to go to +you."</p> + +<p id="id00641"> +"Course she does. Dogs and kittens always come to me when I call +'em. Why shouldn't my own niece come?"</p> + +<p id="id00642"> +He took the little one and began walking up and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_084" id="Page_084">84</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00643"> +"You don't mean to say you put babies on the stage, Howard," said +his mother in surprise.</p> + +<p id="id00644"> +"Oh, yes. Domestic comedy must have a baby these days."</p> + +<p id="id00645"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00646"> +"Sometimes we make a thousand a week; oftener we don't."</p> + +<p id="id00647"> +"A thousand dollars!" They all stared.</p> + +<p id="id00648"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00649"> +"I wish you weren't in it, Howard. I don't like to have my son—"</p> + +<p id="id00650"> +"I wish I was in somethin' that paid better than farmin'. Anything +under God's heavens is better 'n farmin'," said Grant.</p> + +<p id="id00651"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00652"> +Grant looked at him, darkly meditative.</p> + +<p id="id00653"> +Howard went on: "How'd ye come to sell the old farm? +I was in hopes—"</p> + +<p id="id00655"> +"How'd we come to sell it?" said Grant with terrible +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_085" id="Page_085">85</a></span> +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 <em>that</em>."</p> + +<p id="id00656"> +"No, you didn't."</p> + +<p id="id00657"> +"Yes, I did."</p> + +<p id="id00658"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00659"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00660"> +"But, good heavens! I never got it."</p> + +<p id="id00661"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00662"> +"Grant, don't talk so! Howard didn't realize—"</p> + +<p id="id00663"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00664"> +Howard leaped to his feet, his face twitching. +</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_086" id="Page_086">86</a></span> +"By God, I'll go back to-morrow morning!" he threatened.</p> + +<p id="id00665"> +"Go, an' be damned! I don't care what yeh do," Grant growled, +rising and going out.</p> + +<p id="id00666"> +"Boys," called the mother, piteously, "it's terrible to see you +quarrel."</p> + +<p id="id00667"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00668"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00669"> +"If it wasn't for you, mother, I'd leave now, and never see that +savage again."</p> + +<p id="id00670"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00671"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00672"> +"He can go to hell! I'll not try to do anything more for him. I don't +care if he <em>is</em> 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!" +</p> + +<p id="id00673"> +He thought of the presents in his trunk and valise, which he couldn't +show to him that night after what had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_087" id="Page_087">87</a></span> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00674"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00675"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00676"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00677"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_088" id="Page_088">88</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00678">"I forgive him, poor fellow! He's not to blame."</p> + +<p><a name="Chapter02Part02" id="Chapter02Part02"></a> +</p> +<h2 id="id00679"><a href="#Chapter02Part03">II</a></h2> + +<p id="id00680"> +<span class="smcap">He</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00681"> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_089" id="Page_089">89</a></span> +after milking, currying the horses, and eating breakfast—had been at +work two hours and a half.</p> + +<p id="id00682"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00683"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00684"> +"Been to breakfast?" He frowned reproachfully. "Why didn't you +call me? I wanted to get up, just as I used to, at sunrise."</p> + +<p id="id00685"> +"We thought you was tired, and so we didn't—"</p> + +<p id="id00686"> +"Tired! Just wait till you see me help Grant pitch hay or +something. Hasn't finished his haying yet, has he?"</p> + +<p id="id00687"> +"No, I guess not. He will to-day if it don't rain again."</p> + +<p id="id00688"> +"Well, breakfast is all ready—Howard," said Laura, +hesitating a little on his name.</p> + +<p id="id00689"> +"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."</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_090" id="Page_090">90</a></span> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00691"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00692">"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."</p> + +<p id="id00693"> +"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. +</p> + +<p id="id00694"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00695"> +"I guess I'll see somebody goin' down," said Laura.</p> + +<p id="id00696"> +"All right. Now for the hay-field," he smiled, and went out into the +glorious morning.</p> + +<p id="id00697"> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_091" id="Page_091">91</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00698"> +Walking toward the haymakers, Howard felt a twinge of pain and +distrust. Would Grant ignore it all and smile—</p> + +<p id="id00699"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00700"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00701"> +"Need some help? I'm ready to take a hand. Got on my regimentals +this morning."</p> + +<p id="id00702"> +Grant looked at him a moment. "You look it."</p> + +<p id="id00703"> +Howard smiled. "Gimme a hold on that fork, and I'll show you. +I'm not so soft as I look, now you bet."</p> + +<p id="id00705"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_092" id="Page_092">92</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00706"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00707"> +Grant was studying him, too, but not in admiration.</p> + +<p id="id00708"> +"I shouldn't say you had," said the old man, tugging at the forkful.</p> + +<p id="id00709"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00710"> +"Oh, these don't matter. They're made for this kind of thing."</p> + +<p id="id00711"> +"Oh, are they? I guess I'll dress in that kind of a rig. What did that +shirt cost? I need one."</p> + +<p id="id00712"> +"Six dollars a pair; but then it's old."</p> + +<p id="id00713"> +"And them pants," he pursued; "they cost six dollars, too, didn't +they?"</p> + +<p id="id00714"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00715"> +"Good idea," said Grant, with a forced, mocking smile. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_093" id="Page_093">93</a></span> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00716"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00717"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00718"> +Howard threw down the rake and folded his arms. "My God! you're +enough to make a man forget the same mother bore us!"</p> + +<p id="id00719"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00720"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00721"> +He, a man associating with poets, artists, sought after by brilliant +women, accustomed to deference even from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_094" id="Page_094">94</a></span> +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. +</p> + +<p id="id00722"> +And worst of all, underneath it was a consciousness that Grant was +right in distrusting him. He <em>had</em> neglected him; he +<em>had</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id00723"> +"What can I do? What can I do?" he groaned.</p> + +<p id="id00724"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00725"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00726"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_095" id="Page_095">95</a></span> +bushes loaded with great sticky, rough, green burs, his +heart threw off part of its load.</p> + +<p id="id00727"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00731"> +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?</p> + +<p id="id00732"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00733"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00734"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_096" id="Page_096">96</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00735"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00736"> +"Good-morning," he called cheerily.</p> + +<p id="id00737"> +"Morgen," she said, looking up at him with a startled and very red +face. She was German in every line of her body.</p> + +<p id="id00738"> +"Ich bin Herr McLane," he said, after a pause.</p> + +<p id="id00739"> +"So?" she replied, with a questioning inflection.</p> + +<p id="id00740"> +"Yah; ich bin Herr Grant's Bruder."</p> + +<p id="id00741"> +"Ach, so!" she said, with a downward inflection. "Ich no spick +Inglish. No spick Inglis." +</p> + +<p id="id00742"> +"Ich bin durstig," he said. Leaving her pans, she went with him to +the house, which was what he really wanted to see.</p> + +<p id="id00743"> +"Ich bin hier geboren."</p> + +<p id="id00744"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_097" id="Page_097">97</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00745"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00746"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00747"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00748"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_098" id="Page_098">98</a></span> +bosom and rest! To watch the flames on the hearth!—</p> + +<p id="id00749"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00750"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00751"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00752"> +The old German woman came in at length, bringing some cakes +and a bowl of milk, smiling broadly and hospitably as she waddled +forward.</p> + +<p id="id00753"> +"Ach! Goot!" he said, smacking his lips over the pleasant draught.</p> + +<p id="id00754"> +"Wo ist ihre goot mann?" he inquired, ready for business.</p> + +<p><a name="Chapter02Part03" id="Chapter02Part03"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter02Part04">III</a></h3> + +<p id="id00756"> +<span class="smcap">When</span> +Grant came in at noon Mrs. McLane met him at the door +with a tender smile on her face.</p> + +<p id="id00757"> +"Where's Howard, Grant?"</p> + +<p id="id00758"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_099" id="Page_099">99</a></span> +"I don't know," he replied, in a tone that implied "I don't care."</p> + +<p id="id00759"> +The dim eyes clouded with quick tears.</p> + +<p id="id00760"> +"Ain't you seen him?"</p> + +<p id="id00761"> +"Not since nine o'clock."</p> + +<p id="id00762"> +"Where do you think he is?"</p> + +<p id="id00763"> +"I tell yeh I don't know. He'll take care of himself; don't worry."</p> + +<p id="id00764"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00765"> +"Grant, why do you stand out against Howard so?"</p> + +<p id="id00766"> +"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 +<em>I'm</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id00767"> +Mrs. McLane knew too well the temper of her son to say any more, +but she inquired about Howard of the old hired man.</p> + +<p id="id00768"> +"He went off down the valley. He 'n' Grant had s'm <em>words</em>, +and he pulled out down toward the old farm. That's the last I see +of 'im."</p> + +<p id="id00769"> +Laura took Howard's part at the table. "Pity you +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> +can't be decent," she said, brutally direct as usual. "You treat +Howard as if he was a—a—I do' know what."</p> + +<p id="id00770">"Will you let me alone?"</p> + +<p id="id00771"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00772"> +A look came into Grant's face which the wife knew meant bitter and +terrible silence. He ate his dinner without another word.</p> + +<p id="id00773"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00774"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00775"> +Howard stood and looked at him in silence, remembering how +often he had worked there in that furnace-heat, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> +his muscles quivering, cold chills running over his flesh, red +shadows dancing before his eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00776"> +His mother met him at the door, anxiously, but smiled as she saw +his pleasant face and cheerful eyes.</p> + +<p id="id00777"> +"You're a little late, m' son."</p> + +<p id="id00778"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00779"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00780"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00781"> +He was very tender. Everything conspired to make him simple, +direct, and honest.</p> + +<p id="id00782"> +"Mother, if you'll only forgive me for staying away so long, I'll +surely come to see you every summer."</p> + +<p id="id00783"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00784"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> +Howard told her how he had succeeded.</p> + +<p id="id00785"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00786"> +The doting mother thought it not at all strange that they all helped +him.</p> + +<p id="id00787"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00788"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00789"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00790"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> +in a pleasant tangle of sound; the air pulsed with the deepening +chorus of katydids and other nocturnal singers.</p> + +<p id="id00791"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00792"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00793"> +"So, <em>so</em>! you beast!" roared the old man, as he finally +cornered the shrinking, nearly frantic creature.</p> + +<p id="id00794"> +"Don't you want to look at the garden?" asked Mrs. McLane of +Howard; and they went out among the vegetables and berries. +</p> + +<p id="id00795"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00796"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> +"There's Wesley with your trunk," Mrs. McLane said, recalling him +to himself.</p> + +<p id="id00797"> +Wesley helped him carry the trunk in, and waved off thanks.</p> + +<p id="id00798"> +"Oh, that's all right," he said; and Howard knew the Western man +too well to press the matter of pay.</p> + +<p id="id00799"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00800"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00801"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00802"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00804"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00805"> +"Grant, won't you come in?" asked his mother, quiveringly.</p> + +<p id="id00806"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00807"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00808"> +"I didn't know how old the baby was, so she'll have to grow to +some of these things."</p> + +<p id="id00809"> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id00810"> +Upon this moment, when it seemed as if he could endure no more, +came the smooth voice of William McTurg:</p> + +<p id="id00811"> +"Hello, folkses!"</p> + +<p id="id00812"> +"Hello, Uncle Bill! Come in."</p> + +<p id="id00813"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> +"That's what we came for," laughed a woman's voice.</p> + +<p id="id00814"> +"Is that you, Rose?" asked Laura.</p> + +<p id="id00815"> +"It's me—Rose," replied the laughing girl, as she bounced into +the room and greeted everybody in a breathless sort of way.</p> + +<p id="id00816"> +"You don't mean little Rosy?"</p> + +<p id="id00817"> +"Big Rosy now," said William.</p> + +<p id="id00818"> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id00819"> +"Oh, look at all this purple and fine linen! Am I left out?"</p> + +<p id="id00820"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00821"> +"Where's Rachel?" Howard inquired. Her smile faded away.</p> + +<p id="id00822"> +"Shellie married Orrin McIlvaine. They're 'way out in Dakota. +Shellie's havin' a hard row of stumps." +</p> + +<p id="id00823"> +There was a little silence.</p> + +<p id="id00824"> +"And Tommy?"</p> + +<p id="id00825"> +"Gone West. Most all the boys have gone West. That's the reason +there's so many old maids."</p> + +<p id="id00826">"You don't mean to say—"</p> + +<p id="id00827"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> +"I don't <em>need</em> to say—I'm an old maid. Lots of the +girls are. It don't pay to marry these days." "Are you married?"</p> + +<p id="id00830"> +"Not <em>yet</em>." His eyes lighted up again in a humorous way.</p> + +<p id="id00831"> +"Not yet! That's good! That's the way old maids all talk."</p> + +<p id="id00832"> +"You don't mean to tell me that no young fellow comes prowling +around—"</p> + +<p id="id00833"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id00834"> +"It certainly is."</p> + +<p id="id00835"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00836"> +"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.</p> + +<p> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00838"> +"Whoa, there, Sampson!"</p> + +<p id="id00839"> +"Hullo, the house!"</p> + +<p id="id00840"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> +Rose looked at her father with a smile in her black eyes exactly +like his. They went to the door.</p> + +<p id="id00841"> +"Hullo! What's wanted?"</p> + +<p id="id00842"> +"Grant McLane live here?"</p> + +<p id="id00843"> +"Yup. Right here."</p> + +<p id="id00844"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00845"> +Rose stood at the door as if she were hostess.</p> + +<p id="id00846"> +"Come in, Nettie. Glad to see yeh—glad to see yeh! Mrs. McIlvaine, +come right in! Take a seat. Make yerself to home, <em>do</em>! And Mrs. +Peavey! Wal, I never! This must be a surprise party. Well, I swan! +How many more o' ye air they?"<br/> +</p> + +<p id="id00847"> +All was confusion, merriment, hand-shakings as Rose introduced +them in her roguish way.</p> + +<p id="id00848"> +"Folks, this is Mr. Howard McLane of New York. He's an actor, +but it hain't spoiled him a bit as <em>I</em> can see. How., +this is Nettie McIlvaine—Wilson that was."</p> + +<p id="id00849"> +Howard shook hands with Nettie, a tall, plain girl with prominent +teeth.</p> + +<p id="id00850"> +"This is Ma McIlvaine."</p> + +<p id="id00851"> +"She looks just the same," said Howard, shaking her hand and +feeling how hard and work-worn it was.</p> + +<p id="id00852"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> +rocked vigorously to and fro to hide their embarrassment. They all +talked in loud voices.</p> + +<p id="id00853"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00854"> +Rose was the life of the party. Her tongue rattled on in the most +delightful way.</p> + +<p id="id00855"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00856"> +Howard winced a little at her familiarity of tone. He couldn't help +it for the life of him.</p> + +<p id="id00857"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00858"> +"Married, I s'pose," said Mrs. McIlvaine, abruptly.</p> + +<p id="id00859"> +"No, not yet."</p> + +<p id="id00860"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00861"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00862"> +For the first few minutes the presents were the subjects of +conversation. The women especially spent a good deal of talk upon +them.</p> + +<p id="id00863"> +Howard found himself forced to taking the initiative, so he +inquired about the crops and about the farms.</p> + +<p id="id00864"> +"I see you don't plough the hills as we used to. And reap! +<em>What</em> a job it used to be. It makes the hills more +beautiful to have them covered with smooth grass and cattle."</p> + +<p id="id00865"> +There was only dead silence to this touching upon the idea of +beauty.</p> + +<p id="id00866"> +"I s'pose it pays reasonably?"</p> + +<p id="id00867"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00868"> +"I'm a free-trader, myself," said one young fellow, blushing and +looking away as Howard turned and said cheerily:</p> + +<p id="id00869"> +"So'm I."</p> + +<p id="id00870"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00871"> +Grant sat silently in the kitchen doorway, not saying a word, not +looking at his brother.</p> + +<p id="id00872"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> +"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 +<em>would</em> be more cleansin'."</p> + +<p id="id00873"> +Rose had the younger folks in a giggle with a droll telling of a joke +on herself.</p> + +<p id="id00874"> +"How d' y' stop 'em from laffin'?"</p> + +<p id="id00875"> +"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." +</p> + +<p id="id00876"> +"Yes, that's all hand-work." Laura was showing the baby's Sunday +clothes.</p> + +<p id="id00877"> +"Goodness Peter! How do you find time to do so much?"</p> + +<p id="id00878"> +"I take time."</p> + +<p id="id00879"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00880"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> +definite statement of their dissatisfaction. The older people felt +it less. They practically said, with a sigh of pathetic resignation:</p> + +<p id="id00881"> +"Well, I don't expect ever to see these things <em>now</em>."</p> + +<p id="id00882"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00883"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00884"> +"Of course I ain't. Who is? A man that's satisfied to live as we do is +a fool."</p> + +<p id="id00885"> +"The worst of it is," said Grant, without seeing Howard, "a man can't +get out of it during his lifetime, and <em>I</em> don't know that +he'll have any chance in the next—the speculator 'll be there +ahead of us."</p> + +<p id="id00886"> +The rest laughed, but Grant went on grimly:</p> + +<p id="id00887"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00888"> +"Plenty o' land to rent," suggested some one.</p> + +<p id="id00889"> +"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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id00890"> +These brutally bald words made Howard thrill with emotion like the +reading of some great tragic poem. A silence fell on the group.</p> + +<p id="id00891"> +"That's the God's truth, Grant," said young Cosgrove, after a pause.</p> + +<p id="id00892"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00893"> +"What can he do?"</p> + +<p>"Nothin'."</p> + +<p id="id00894"> +The men listened in silence.</p> + +<p id="id00895"> +"Oh, come, don't talk politics all night!" cried Rose, breaking in. +"Come, let's have a dance. Where's that fiddle?" +</p> + +<p id="id00896"> +"Fiddle!" cried Howard, glad of a chance to laugh. "Well, now! +Bring out that fiddle. Is it William's?"<br/> +</p> + +<p id="id00897"> +"Yes, pap's old fiddle."</p> + +<p id="id00898"> +"O Gosh! he don't want to hear me play," protested William. +"He's heard s' many fiddlers." +</p> + +<p id="id00899"> +"Fiddlers! I've heard a thousand violinists, but not fiddlers. Come, +give us 'Honest John.'"</p> + +<p id="id00900"> +William took the fiddle in his work-calloused and crooked hands +and began tuning it. The group at the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span> +kitchen door turned to listen, their faces lighting up a little. +Rose tried to get a "set" on the floor.</p> + +<p id="id00901"> +"Oh, good land!" said some. "We're all tuckered out. What makes +you so anxious?"</p> + +<p id="id00902"> +"She wants a chance to dance with the New Yorker."</p> + +<p id="id00903"> +"That's it, exactly," Rose admitted.</p> + +<p id="id00904"> +"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." +</p> + +<p id="id00905"> +"Oh, bother! Life's short. Come quick, get Bettie out. Come, Wess, +never mind your hobby-horse."</p> + +<p id="id00906"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00907"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00908"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00909"> +And then William played again. His fingers, now grown more +supple, brought out clearer, firmer tones. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00910"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00911"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00912"> +He played on, forgetful of everybody, his long beard sweeping the +violin, his toil-worn hands marvellously obedient to his will.</p> + +<p id="id00913"> +At last he stopped, looked up with a faint, apologetic smile, and +said with a sigh:</p> + +<p id="id00914"> +"Well, folkses, time to go home."</p> + +<p id="id00915"> +The going was quiet. Not much laughing. Howard stood at the +door and said good-night to them all, his heart very tender.</p> + +<p id="id00916"> +"Come and see us," they said.</p> + +<p id="id00917"> +"I will," he replied cordially. "I'll try and get around to see +everybody, and talk over old times, before I go back."</p> + +<p id="id00918"> +After the wagons had driven out of the yard, Howard turned and +put his arm about his mother's neck.</p> + +<p id="id00919"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> +"Tired?"</p> + +<p id="id00920">"A little."</p> + +<p id="id00921"> +"Well, now good night. I'm going for a little stroll."</p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00922"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00923"> +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. </p> + +<p> +They must live and die practically as he saw them to-night.</p> + +<p id="id00924"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00925"> +"<em>I'll</em> make the best of it," he said at last, and his +thought came back to his mother and Grant.</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> +<a name="Chapter02Part04" id="Chapter02Part04"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter02">IV</a></h3> + +<p id="id00927"> +<span class="smcap">The</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00928"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00929"> +"Now ain't there something more I can—"</p> + +<p id="id00930"> +"Good heavens! No!" he cried in dismay. "I'm likely to die of +dyspepsia now. This honey and milk, and these delicious hot +biscuits—"</p> + +<p id="id00931"> +"I'm afraid it ain't much like the breakfasts you have in the city."</p> + +<p id="id00932"> +"Well, no, it ain't," he confessed. "But this is the kind a man needs +when he lives in the open air."</p> + +<p id="id00933"> +She sat down opposite him, with her elbows on the table, her chin +in her palm, her eyes full of shadows.</p> + +<p id="id00934"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id00935"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00936"> +"Do you ever expect to see <em>me</em> in New York?"</p> + +<p id="id00937"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00938"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00939"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00940">The young wife went on with a deeper note:</p> + +<p id="id00941"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> +farm, as Grant does. I'd get away and I'd do something. I wouldn't +care what, but I'd get away."</p> + +<p id="id00942"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00943"> +"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. +<em>He's</em> growlin' 'round half the time, and there's no chance +of his ever being different."</p> + +<p id="id00944"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00945"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00946"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00949"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id00950"> +"If it were not for you (just to let you know the mood I'm in)—if +it were not <em>for</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id00951"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00952"> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> +slumping to and fro without more additional protection than a ragged +coat and a shapeless felt hat.</p> + +<p id="id00953"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00954"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00955"> +"What are they doing? It can't be they're at work such a day as +this," Howard said, standing at the window.</p> + +<p id="id00956"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00957"> +"I'll go out and see them." He turned suddenly. "Mother, why +should Grant treat me so? Have I deserved it?"</p> + +<p id="id00958"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> +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." +</p> + +<p id="id00959"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id00960"> +"Oh, I couldn't do that!" she cried in terror. "I couldn't live +in a big city—never!"</p> + +<p id="id00961"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00962"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00963"> +"Well, then, how would you like to go back into the old house?"</p> + +<p id="id00964"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00965"> +"Oh, Howard! Do you mean—"</p> + +<p id="id00968"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00969">There was no refuge for her now except in tears, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> +she put up her thin, trembling old hands about his neck, and cried in +that easy, placid, restful way age has.</p> + +<p id="id00970"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id00971"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00972"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00973"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id00974">Laura advised him not to attempt to get to the barn; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00975"> +"Darn the difference!" he laughed in his old way. "Besides, I've got +rubbers."</p> + +<p id="id00976"> +"Better go round by the fence," she advised, as he stepped out into +the pouring rain.</p> + +<p id="id00977"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00978"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00979"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id00980"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> +Grant looked up an instant, and then went on with his work.</p> + +<p id="id00981"> +"Did yeh wade through?" grinned Lewis, exposing his broken +teeth.</p> + +<p id="id00982"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00983"> +"I need a good many things more'n I'll ever get," Grant replied +shortly.</p> + +<p id="id00984"> +"How long did you say you'd been on this farm?"</p> + +<p id="id00985"> +"Three years this fall."</p> + +<p id="id00986"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00987"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00989"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id00990"> +"You might 'a' come to see."</p> + +<p id="id00991"> +"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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> +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—"</p> + +<p id="id00992"> +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?</p> + +<p id="id00993"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id00994"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00995"> +"I don't want any of your charity."</p> + +<p id="id00996"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id00997"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id00998"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> +"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, <em>you</em> might have met a +man like Cook, <em>you</em> might have gone to New York and have been +where I am".</p> + +<p id="id00999"> +"Well, it can't be helped now. So drop it."</p> + +<p id="id01000"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01001"> +"Good God! I see it all now," Howard burst out in an impassioned +tone. "I went ahead with <em>my</em> education, got <em>my</em> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01002"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01003"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span> +saying to myself, 'His turn'll come in a year or two.' +But it didn't."</p> + +<p id="id01004"> +His voice choked. He walked to the door, stood a moment, came +back. His eyes were full of tears.</p> + +<p id="id01005"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01006"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01007"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id01008"> +He broke off, turned, and threw his open palms out +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> +toward his brother, as if throwing aside the last attempt at +an excuse.</p> + +<p id="id01009"> +"I <em>did</em> neglect you, and it's a damned shame! and I ask your +forgiveness. Come, old man!"</p> + +<p id="id01010"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01011"> +"I want you to let me help you, old man. That's the way to forgive +me. Will you?"</p> + +<p id="id01012"> +"Yes, if you can help me."</p> + +<p id="id01013"> +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—"</p> + +<p id="id01014"> +"I don't mean that, How." Grant's voice was very grave. "Money +can't give me a chance now."</p> + +<p id="id01015"> +"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p id="id01016"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01017"> +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.</p> + + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> + <a name="Chapter03" id="Chapter03"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">Among the Corn-Rows</a></h2> + +<p class="pullquote"> +"But the road sometimes passes a rich meadow, where the songs of +larks and bobolinks and blackbirds are tangled."</p> + + +<p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> + <a name="Chapter03Part01" id="Chapter03Part01"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter03Part02">I</a></h3> + +<p id="id01021"> +<span class="smcap">Rob</span> +held up his hands, from which the dough depended in ragged +strings.</p> + +<p id="id01022"> +"Biscuits," he said, with an elaborate working of his jaws, intended +to convey the idea that they were going to be specially delicious.</p> + +<p id="id01023"> +Seagraves laughed, but did not enter the shanty door. +"How do you like baching it?"</p> + +<p id="id01024"> +"Oh, don't mention it!" entreated Rob, mauling the dough again. +"Come in an' sit down. What in thunder y' standin' out there for?" +</p> + +<p id="id01025"> +"Oh, I'd rather be where I can see the prairie. Great weather!"</p> + +<p id="id01026"> +"<em>Im</em>-mense!"</p> + +<p id="id01027"> +"How goes breaking?"</p> + +<p id="id01028"> +"Tip-top! A <em>leette</em> dry now; but the bulls pull the plough through two +acres a day. How's things in Boomtown?"</p> + +<p id="id01029"> +"Oh, same old grind."</p> + +<p id="id01030"> +"Judge still lyin'?"</p> + +<p id="id01031"> +"Still at it."</p> + +<p id="id01032"> +"Major Mullens still swearin' to it?"</p> + +<p id="id01033"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01034"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> +"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 <em>settlers</em> have got to work."</p> + +<p id="id01035"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01036"> +Seagraves, an impressionable young man (junior editor of the +Boomtown <i>Spike</i>), 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01037"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01038"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01039"> +"Hello, Seagraves!" yelled Rob from the door. "The biscuit are +'most done."</p> + +<p id="id01040"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01041"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01042"> +Rob, though visibly affected by the scene also, couldn't let his +biscuit spoil or go without proper attention.</p> + +<p id="id01043"> +"Say, ain't y' comin' t' grub?" he asked impatiently.</p> + +<p id="id01044"> +"In a minute," replied his friend, taking a last wistful look at the +scene. "I want one more look at the landscape."</p> + +<p id="id01045"> +"Landscape be blessed! If you'd been breakin' all day—Come, take +that stool an' draw up."</p> + +<p id="id01046"> +"No; I'll take the candle-box."</p> + +<p id="id01047"> +"Not much. I know what manners are, if I am a bull-driver."</p> + +<p id="id01048"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01049"> +"How's that f'r a lay-out?" Rob inquired proudly.</p> + +<p id="id01050"> +"Well, you <em>have</em> spread yourself! Biscuit and canned peaches and +sardines and cheese. Why, this is—is—prodigal."</p> + +<p id="id01051"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> +"It ain't nothin' else."</p> + +<p id="id01052"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01053"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01054"> +"Some drawbacks, I s'pose?"</p> + +<p id="id01055"> +"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."</p> + +<p>Seagraves quoted an old rhyme:</p> + +<div class="poem1"> +<p class="poem1 indent30 left-indent10">"'The rats and the mice they made such a strife</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">He had to go to London to buy him a wife.'"</p> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +"Don't blush. I've probed your secret thought."</p> + +<p id="id01058"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01059"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> +"No, I should say not."</p> + +<p id="id01060"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01061"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id01062"> +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 <em>rine</em>. +We know a <em>couple</em> 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 <em>hands</em>, 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> +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!'"</p> + +<p id="id01063"> +Seagraves knew what he meant, but listened in astonishment at his +outburst.</p> + +<p id="id01064"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01065"> +Seagraves thought them grand hands, worthy to grasp the hand of +any man or woman living.</p> + +<p id="id01066"> +"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 +<em>stay</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id01067"> +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. </p> + +<p id="id01068"> +"I'd like to use your idea for an editorial, Rob," he said.</p> + +<p id="id01069"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> +"<em>My</em> ideas!" exclaimed the astounded host, pausing in the act of +filling his pipe. "My ideas! Why, I didn't know I had any."</p> + +<p id="id01070"> +"Well, you've given me some, anyhow."</p> + +<p id="id01071"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01072"> +"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 <em>upright</em> goin' up here, +with a porch and a bay-winder."</p> + +<p id="id01073"> +"And you'll still be living here alone, frying leathery slapjacks an' +chopping 'taters and bacon."</p> + +<p id="id01074"> +"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 <em>not</em>!" He rose. +"Well, see y' later. Must go water my bulls."</p> + +<p id="id01075"> +As he went off down the slope, Seagraves smiled to hear him sing:</p> + +<div class="poem1"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> +<p class="poem1 indent30 left-indent10">"I wish that some kind-hearted girl</p> +<p class="poem1 indent275 left-indent10">Would pity on me take,</p> +<p class="poem1 indent275 left-indent10">And extricate me from the mess I'm in.</p> +<p class="poem1 indent275 left-indent10">The angel—how I'd bless her,</p> +<p class="poem1 indent275 left-indent10">If this her home she'd make,</p> +<p class="poem1 indent275 left-indent10">In my little old sod shanty on the plain."</p> +</div> + +<p class="space-top" id="id01077"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01078"> +"Hit him, somebody!"</p> + +<p id="id01079"> +"It's a clean collar!"</p> + +<p id="id01080"> +"He's started f'r Congress!"</p> + +<p id="id01081"> +"He's going to get married," put in Seagraves, in a tone that brought +conviction.</p> + +<p id="id01082"> +"What!" screamed Jack Adams, O'Neill, and Wilson, in one breath. +"That man?" +</p> + +<p id="id01083"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01084"> +The crowd stared at him in a dead silence.</p> + +<p id="id01085"> +"Where's he going to do it?" asked Jack Adams. "Where's he going +to find a girl?"</p> + +<p id="id01086"> +"Ask him," said Seagraves.</p> + +<p id="id01087"> +"I ain't tellin'," put in Rob, with his mouth full of potato.</p> + +<p id="id01088"> +"You're afraid of our competition."</p> + +<p id="id01089"> +"That's right; <em>our</em> competition, Jack; not <em>your</em> +competition. Come, now, Rob, tell us where you found her."</p> + +<p id="id01090"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> +"I ain't found her."</p> + +<p id="id01091"> +"What! And yet you're goin' away t' get married!"</p> + +<p id="id01092"> +"I'm goin' t' bring a wife back with me ten days fr'm date."</p> + +<p id="id01093"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01094"> +"Hold on!" interrupted Rob, holding up his fork. "Ain't quite right. +Every <em>good lookin'</em> girl I meet." +</p> + +<p id="id01095"> +"Well, I'll be blanked!" exclaimed Jack, impressively; "that simply +lets me out. Any man with such a cheek ought to—"</p> + +<p id="id01096"> +"Succeed," interrupted Seagraves.</p> + +<p id="id01097"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id01098"> +"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</p> + +<div class="poem1"> +<p class="poem1 indent30 left-indent10">'Mislike him for his complexion,</p> +<p class="poem1 indent275 left-indent10">The shadowed livery of the burning sun.'"</p> +</div> + +<p id="id01100"> +"Shakespeare," said Adams, at a venture.</p> + +<p id="id01101"> +Wilson turned to Rob. "Brother in adversity, when do you +embark another Jason on an untried sea?"</p> + +<p id="id01102"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span> +"Hay!" said Rob, winking at Seagraves. "Oh, I go to-night—night +train."</p> + +<p id="id01103"> +"And return?"</p> + +<p id="id01104"> +"Ten days from date."</p> + +<p id="id01105"> +"I'll wager a wedding supper he brings a blonde," said Wilson, in +his clean-cut, languid speech compelling attention.</p> + +<p id="id01106"> +"Oh, come, now, Wilson; that's too thin! We all know that rule +about dark marryin' light."</p> + +<p id="id01107"> +"I'll wager she'll be tall," continued Wilson. "I'll wager +<em>you</em>, friend Rodemaker, she'll be blonde and tall." +</p> + +<p id="id01108"> +The rest roared at Rob's astonishment and confusion. </p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p id="id01109"> +Mrs. Whiting and the kitchen-girls came in, wondering at the +merriment. Rob began to get uneasy.</p> + +<p id="id01110"> +"What is it? What is it?" said Mrs. Whiting, a jolly little matron.</p> + +<p id="id01111"> +Rivers put the case. "Rob's on his way back to Wisconsin t' get +married, and Wilson has offered to bet <em>him</em> that his wife +will be a blonde and tall, and Rob dassent bet!" And they roared +again.</p> + +<p id="id01112"> +"Why, the idea! The man's crazy!" said Mrs. Whiting.</p> + +<p> +The crowd looked at each other. This was hint enough; they sobered, nodding +at each other commiseratingly.</p> + +<p id="id01113"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span> +"Aha! I see; I understand."</p> + +<p id="id01114"> +"It's the heat."</p> + +<p id="id01115"> +"And the Boston beans."</p> + +<p id="id01116"> +"Let up on him, Wilson. Don't badger a poor irresponsible fellow. I +<em>thought</em> something was wrong when I saw the collar."</p> + +<p id="id01117"> +"Oh, keep it up!" said Rob, a little nettled by their evident intention +to have fun with him.</p> + +<p id="id01118"> +"Soothe him—<em>soo-o-o-o-the</em> him!" said Wilson. +"Don't be harsh."</p> + +<p id="id01119"> +Rob rose from the table. "Go to thunder! You fellows make me tired."</p> + +<p id="id01120"> +"The fit is on him again!"</p> + +<p id="id01121"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01122"> +"Waupac!" announced the one nearest the victim.</p> + +<p id="id01123"> +"Waupac!" said the next man, and the word was passed along the +street up town.</p> + +<p id="id01124"> +"Make a note of it," said Wilson; "Waupac—a county where a man's +proposal for marriage is honored upon presentation. Sight drafts."</p> + +<p id="id01125"> +Rivers struck up a song, while Rob stood around, patiently bearing +the jokes of the crowd:</p> + +<div class="poem1"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> +<p class="poem1 indent30 left-indent10">"We're lookin' rather seedy now,</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">While holdin' down our claims,</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">And our vittles are not always of the best,</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">And the mice play slyly round us</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">As we lay down to sleep</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">In our little old tarred shanties on the claim.</p> +<br /> +<p class="poem1 indent30 left-indent10">"Yet we rather like the novelty</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">Of livin' in this way,</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">Though the bill of fare is often rather tame;</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">An' we're happy as a clam</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">On the land of Uncle Sam</p> +<p class="poem1 indent25 left-indent10">In our little old tarred shanty on the claim."</p> +</div> + +<p class="space-top" id="id01128"> +The train drew up at length, to the immense relief of Rob, whose +stoical resignation was beginning to weaken.</p> + +<p id="id01129"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01130"> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id01131"> +"All <em>abo-o-o-a-rd</em>!' said the conductor, grinning his +appreciation at the crowd, and the train was off.</p> + +<p id="id01132"> +"Oh, won't we make him groan when he gets back!" +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> +said Barney, the young lawyer, who sang the shouting tenor.</p> + +<p id="id01133"> +"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.</p> + +<p> + <a name="Chapter03Part02" id="Chapter03Part02"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter03">II</a></h3> + +<p class="pullquote"> +"Follow it far enough and it may pass the bend in the river where +the water laughs eternally over its shallows."</p> + +<p id="id01136"> +<span class="smcap">A corn-field</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01137"> +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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01138"> +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, <em>burnt</em>, on the backs by the sun. The horse's +harness "<em>creak</em>-cracked" as he swung steadily and patiently +forward, the moisture pouring from his sides, his nostrils +distended.</p> + +<p id="id01139"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01140"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01141"> +"I've let you go wade twice."</p> + +<p id="id01142"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01143"> +The girl put her elbows on the fence and watched her +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p id="id01144"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01145"> +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. <em>He</em> would be a Yankee, not a Norwegian. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01146"> +"Well, by jinks! if it ain't Julia! Just the one I wanted to see!"</p> + +<p id="id01147"> +The girl turned, saw a pleasant-faced young fellow in a derby hat +and a cutaway suit of diagonals.</p> + +<p id="id01148"> +"Bod Rodemaker! How come—"</p> + +<p id="id01149"> +She remembered her situation and flushed, looked down at the +water, and remained perfectly still.</p> + +<p id="id01150"> +"Ain't you goin' to shake hands? Y' don't seem very glad t' see me."</p> + +<p id="id01151"> +She began to grow angry. "If you had any eyes, you'd see."</p> + +<p id="id01152"> +Rob looked over the edge of the bank, whistled, turned away. "Oh, +I see! Excuse <em>me</em>! 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?"</p> + +<p id="id01153"> +"Ben in swimmin'. Jimminy, ain't it fun! When 'd y' get back?" said +the boy, grinning.</p> + +<p id="id01154"> +"Never you mind!" replied Rob, leaping the fence +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id01155"> +"Yup," said Otto.</p> + +<p id="id01156"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id01157"> +"Nobody 'cept some ol' Norwegians. She won't have them. Por +wants her to, but she won't."</p> + +<p id="id01158"> +"Good f'r her. Nobody comes t' see her Sunday nights, eh?"</p> + +<p id="id01159"> +"Nope, only 'Tias Anderson an' Ole Hoover; but she goes off an' +leaves 'em."</p> + +<p id="id01160"> +"Chk!" said Rob, starting old Jack across the field.</p> + +<p id="id01161"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01162"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> +again at the thought of it. But he wasn't to blame; it was a public +road. She might have known better.</p> + +<p id="id01163"> +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?</p> + +<p id="id01164"> +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?</p> + +<p id="id01165"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01166"> +"When 'd you get back?" she asked, the flush not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01167"> +"Oh, a few days ago."</p> + +<p id="id01168"> +"How long y' goin' t' stay?"</p> + +<p id="id01169"> +"Oh, I d' know. A week, mebbe."</p> + +<p id="id01170"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id01171"> +"H'yare, young feller! wait a minute. Tired?" he asked the girl, with +a tone that was more than kindly. It was almost tender.</p> + +<p id="id01172"> +"Yes," she replied, in a low voice. "My shoes hurt me."</p> + +<p id="id01173"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01174"> +"Oop-a-daisy!" he called. She gave a spring, and sat on the horse like +one at home there.</p> + +<p id="id01175"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01176"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> +"We don't raise much corn out there, an' so I kind o' like to see it +once more."</p> + +<p id="id01177"> +"I wish I didn't have to see another hill of corn as long as I live!" +replied the girl, bitterly.</p> + +<p id="id01178"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01179"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01180"> +"You bet I will," he replied; "that is, if you want I should."</p> + +<p id="id01181"> +"You know how we live," she replied evasively. "If you can stand it, +why—" She broke off abruptly.</p> + +<p id="id01182"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01183"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01184"> +"I guess I c'n stand f'r one meal what you stand all the while," he +added.</p> + +<p id="id01185"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id01186"> +He washed at the pump, while the girl, in the attempt to be +hospitable, held the clean towel for him.</p> + +<p id="id01187"> +"You're purty well used up, eh?" he said to her.</p> + +<p id="id01188"> +"Yes; it's awful hot out there."</p> + +<p id="id01189"> +"Can't you lay off this afternoon? It ain't right"</p> + +<p id="id01190"> +"No. <em>He</em> won't listen to that."</p> + +<p id="id01191"> +"Well, let me take your place."</p> + +<p id="id01192"> +"No; there ain't any use o' that."</p> + +<p id="id01193"> +Peterson, a brawny, wide-bearded Norwegian, came up at this +moment, and spoke to Rob in a sullen, gruff way.</p> + +<p> +"Hallo, when yo' gaet back?" +</p> +<p id="id01194"> +"To-day. He ain't <em>very</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id01195"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> +questioning, he kept the subject of marriage uppermost, +and seemingly was getting an inventory of the girls not +yet married or engaged.</p> + +<p id="id01196"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01197"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> +wanted to talk to her, and the grass was cool and easy; +there wasn't any other chair, anyway.</p> + +<p id="id01198"> +"Do they keep up the ly-ceum and the sociables same as ever?"</p> + +<p id="id01199"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01200"> +"I sh'd think y' would," he replied, his eyes on her face,</p> + +<p id="id01201"> +"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. <em>She</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id01202"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01203"> +"Yulie! Kom haar!" roared the old man from the well. </p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span> +A frown of anger and pain came into her face. She looked at Rob. "That +means more work."</p> + +<p id="id01204"> +"Say! let me go out in your place. Come, now; what's the use—"</p> + +<p id="id01205"> +"No; it wouldn't do no good. It ain't t'day s' much; it's every day, +and—"</p> + +<p id="id01206"> +"Yu<em>lie</em>!" called Peterson again, with a string of +impatient Norwegian. "Batter yo' kom pooty hal quick." +</p> + +<p id="id01207"> +"Well, all right, only I'd like to—" Rob submitted.</p> + +<p id="id01208"> +"Well, good-by," she said, with a little touch of feeling. "When +d' ye go back?"</p> + +<p id="id01209"> +"I don't know. I'll see y' again before I go. Good-by." </p> + +<p> +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—</p> + +<p id="id01210"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01211"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01212"> +He stopped at length, and, turning, watched the girl moving along +in the deeps of the corn. Hardly a leaf +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01213"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01214"> +"Hot, ain't it?" he said, as she looked up.</p> + +<p id="id01215"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01216"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01217"> +"Say, Otto," asked Rob, alluringly, "wan' to go swimmin'?"</p> + +<p id="id01218"> +"You bet!" replied Otto.</p> + +<p id="id01219"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> +"Well, I'll go a round if—"</p> + +<p id="id01220"> +The boy dropped off the horse, not waiting to hear any more. Rob +grinned, but the girl dropped her eyes, then looked away.</p> + +<p id="id01221"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id01222"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01223"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id01224"> +"What've <em>I</em> 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—"</p> + +<p id="id01225"> +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 <em>rattlin'</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id01226"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01227"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01228"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01229"> +"What'll my folks say?" she said at last.</p> + +<p id="id01230"> +A virtual surrender, but Rob was not acute enough to see it. He +pressed on eagerly:</p> + +<p id="id01231"> +"I don't care. Do you? They'll jest keep y' +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id01232"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01233"> +"You'll have half o' all I c'n make," he put in.</p> + +<p id="id01234"> +"How long c'n you wait?" she asked, looking down at her dress.</p> + +<p id="id01235"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id01236"> +"I'm of age in a few days," she mused, wavering, calculating.</p> + +<p id="id01237"> +"You c'n be of age to-night if you'll jest call on old Square Hatfield +with me."</p> + +<p id="id01238"> +"All right, Rob," the girl said, turning and holding out her hand.</p> + +<p id="id01239"> +"That's the talk!" he exclaimed, seizing it. "And now a kiss, to bind +the bargain, as the fellah says."</p> + +<p id="id01240"> +"I guess we c'n get along without that."</p> + +<p id="id01241"> +"No, we can't. It won't seem like an engagement without it."</p> + +<p id="id01242"> +"It ain't goin' to seem much like one, anyway," she +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> +answered, with a sudden realization of how far from her +dreams of courtship this reality was.</p> + +<p id="id01243"> +"Say, now, Julyie, that ain't fair; it ain't treatin' me right. +You don't seem to understand that I <em>like</em> you, but I do."</p> + +<p id="id01244"> +Rob was carried quite out of himself by the time, the place, and the +girl. He had said a very moving thing.</p> + +<p id="id01245"> +The tears sprang involuntarily to the girl's eyes. "Do you mean it? +If y' do, you may." +</p> + +<p id="id01246"> +She was trembling with emotion for the first time. The sincerity of +the man's voice had gone deep.</p> + +<p id="id01247"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01248"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01249"> +"<em>Yulyie</em>!" yelled the vigilant old Norwegian, like a +distant foghorn.</p> + +<p id="id01250"> +The girl sprang up; the habit of obedience was strong.</p> + +<p id="id01251"> +"No; you set right there, and I'll go round," he said. +"<em>Otto</em>!"</p> + +<p id="id01252"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01253"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id01254"> +"Jest try me 'n' see," said the keen-eyed little scamp. </p> + +<p> +"Well, you keep quiet about my bein' here this afternoon, and +I'll put a dollar on y'r tongue—hay?—what?—understand?"</p> + +<p id="id01255"> +"Show me y'r dollar," said the boy, turning about and showing his +tongue.</p> + +<p id="id01256"> +"All right. Begin to practise now by not talkin' to me."</p> + +<p id="id01257"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01258"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id01259"> +The girl's heart leaped with fear. "I'm afraid."</p> + +<p id="id01260"> +"Not of <em>me</em>, are yeh?"</p> + +<p id="id01261"> +"No, I'm not afraid of you, Rob."</p> + +<p id="id01262"> +"I'm glad o' that. I—I want you—to <em>like</em> me, +Julyie; won't you?"</p> + +<p id="id01263"> +"I'll try," she answered, with a smile.</p> + +<p id="id01264"> +"To-night, then," he said, as she moved away.</p> + +<p id="id01265"> +"To-night. Good-by."</p> + +<p id="id01266"> +"Good-by."</p> + +<p id="id01267"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01268"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01269"> +But the mind of the man was far away on his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> +claim, building a new house, with a woman's advice and presence.</p> + +<hr class="break" /> + +<p id="id01271"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01272"> +"What if she don't come?" he thought. "Or <em>can't</em> come? +I can't stand that. I'll go to the old man an' say, +'Looky here—' Sh!"</p> + +<p id="id01273"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id01274"> +He took her in his arms as she came panting up to him.</p> + +<p id="id01275"> +"Rob!"</p> + +<p id="id01276"> +"Julyie!"</p> + +<hr class="break" /> + +<p id="id01278"> +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.</p> + + + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> + <a name="Chapter04" id="Chapter04"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">The Return of a Private</a></h2> + +<p class="pullquote"> +"On the road leading 'back to God's country' and wife and babies."</p> + +<p> +<a name="Chapter04Part01" id="Chapter04Part01"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter04Part02">I</a></h3> + +<p id="id01282"> +<span class="smcap">The</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01283"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01284"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01285"> +All of the group were farmers, living in districts several miles +out of the town, and all were poor.</p> + +<p id="id01286"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01287"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01288"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01289"> +Smith went on, "Then at daybreak we'll start for home—at +least, I will."</p> + +<p id="id01290"> +"Well, I'll be dummed if I'll take two dollars out o' +<em>my</em> hide," one of the younger men said. "I'm +goin' to a hotel, ef I don't never lay up a cent."</p> + +<p id="id01291"> +"That'll do f'r you," said Smith; "but if you had a wife an' three +young uns dependin' on yeh—"</p> + +<p id="id01292"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span> +"Which I ain't, thank the Lord! and don't intend havin' while the +court knows itself."</p> + +<p id="id01293"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01294"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01295"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span> +his earnings. He had given three years of his life for a mere pittance of +pay, and now!—</p> + +<p id="id01296"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01297"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01298"> +"Looks natcher'l, don't it?" they said, as he came out.</p> + +<p id="id01299"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01300"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span> +"My farm's just beyond that. Now, if I can only ketch a ride, we'll +be home by dinner-time."</p> + +<p id="id01301"> +"I'm talkin' about breakfast," said one of the others.</p> + +<p id="id01302"> +"I guess it's one more meal o' hardtack f'r me," said Smith.</p> + +<p id="id01303"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01304"> +"Time'll come," said Smith, holding up a piece by the corner, +"when this'll be a curiosity."</p> + +<p id="id01305"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01306"> +"Well, if you set there gabblin', you'll never <em>see</em> +yer wife."</p> + +<p id="id01307"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01308"> +"They called that coffee Jayvy," grumbled one of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> +them, "but it never went by the road where government Jayvy resides. +I reckon I know coffee from peas."</p> + +<p id="id01309"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01310"> +"I tell yeh, boys, this knocks the swamps of Loueesiana into +kingdom come."</p> + +<p id="id01311"> +"You bet. All they c'n raise down there is snakes, niggers, and +p'rticler hell."</p> + +<p id="id01312"> +"An' fightin' men," put in the older man.</p> + +<p id="id01313"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id01314"> +"I guess we'd better be crawlin' along," interrupted Smith, rising +and shouldering his knapsack, with considerable effort, which he +tried to hide.</p> + +<p id="id01315"> +"Say, Smith, lemme give you a lift on that."</p> + +<p id="id01316"> +"I guess I c'n manage," said Smith, grimly.</p> + +<p id="id01317"> +"Course. But, yo' see, I may not have a chance right off to pay yeh +back for the times you've carried +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> +my gun and hull caboodle. Say, now, gimme that gun, anyway."</p> + +<p id="id01318"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01319"> +"Ain't it queer there ain't no teams comin' along," said Smith, +after a long silence.</p> + +<p id="id01320"> +"Well, no, seein's it's Sunday."</p> + +<p id="id01321"> +"By jinks, that's a fact! It <em>is</em> Sunday. I'll git home in +time f'r dinner, sure!" he exulted. "She don't hev dinner usially +till about <em>one</em> on Sundays." And he fell into a muse, +in which he smiled.</p> + +<p id="id01322"> +"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: 'He<em>ah</em>! 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.</p> + +<p id="id01323"> +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, +'<em>Dinner</em> f'r a hungry man!' An' then she'll jump up, +an'—"</p> + +<p id="id01324"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01325"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01326"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01327"> +"Yes, I don't think we'll do any more of it f'r a while. I don't want +to, I know."</p> + +<p id="id01328"> +"I hope I'll see yeh once in a while, boys, to talk over old times."</p> + +<p id="id01329"> +"Of course," said Saunders, whose voice trembled a little, too. "It +ain't <em>exactly</em> like dyin'." They all found it hard to look +at each other.</p> + +<p id="id01330"> +"But we'd ought'r go home with you," said Cranby. "You'll +never climb that ridge with all them things on yer back."</p> + +<p id="id01331"> +"Oh, I'm all right! Don't worry about me. Every step takes me +nearer home, yeh see. Well, good-by, boys."</p> + +<p id="id01332"> +They shook hands. "Good-by. Good luck!"</p> + +<p id="id01333"> +"Same to you. Lemme know how you find things at home."</p> + +<p>"Good-by."</p> +<p>"Good-by."</p> + +<p id="id01334"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span> +comrades, and musing upon the many wonderful days they had had +together in camp and field.</p> + +<p id="id01335"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01336"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01337"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01338"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01339"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01340"> +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."</p> + +<p> +<a name="Chapter04Part02" id="Chapter04Part02"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter04">II</a></h3> + +<p id="id01342"> +<span class="smcap">Sunday</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01343"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01344"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01345"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01346"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id01347"> +A few years ago they had bought this farm, paying +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01348"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01349"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> +back into the State and county, but still <em>her</em> hero did +not return.</p> + +<p id="id01350"> +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.</p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01351"> +Neighbors said, with kind intentions, "He's sick, maybe, an' can't +start north just yet. He'll come along one o' these days."</p> + +<p id="id01352"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01353"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01354"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> +She waddled down the path to meet Mrs. Smith with a broad smile on +her face.</p> + +<p id="id01355"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01356"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01357"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01358"> +"Liz heard from Al the other day. He's comin' some day this week. +Anyhow, they expect him." +</p> + +<p id="id01359"> +"Did he say anything of—"</p> + +<p id="id01360"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01361"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01362"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01363"> +"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:</p> + +<p id="id01364"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01365"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01366"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01367"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span> +"Land sakes, <em>I hope</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id01368"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01369"> +"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 +<em>come</em>. Sunday afternoons they can't think o' nothin' else, +'cause he's <em>here</em>. 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."</p> + +<p id="id01370"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id01371"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> +"Now, Mrs. Gray, I hadn't ought to stay to dinner. You've got—"</p> + +<p id="id01372"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01373"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01374"> +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. </p> + +<p id="id01375"> +"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. </p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p> +"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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> +I swan, they're made o' India-rubber, their stomachs is, +I know it."</p> + +<p id="id01376"> +"Haf to eat to work," said Bill, gnawing a cob with a swift, +circular motion that rivalled a corn-sheller in results.</p> + +<p id="id01377"> +"More like workin' to eat," put in one of the girls, with a giggle. +"More eat 'n work with you." +</p> + +<p id="id01378"> +"<em>You</em> needn't say anything, Net. Any one that'll eat +seven ears—"</p> + +<p id="id01379"> +"I didn't, no such thing. You piled your cobs on my plate."</p> + +<p id="id01380"> +"That'll do to tell Ed Varney. It won't go down here where we +know yeh."</p> + +<p id="id01381"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01382"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01383"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01384"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> +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—"</p> + +<p id="id01385"> +"Oh, you hush!" cried Nettie.</p> + +<p id="id01386"> +"He has red hair, and is death on b'iled corn and hot biscuit."</p> + +<p id="id01387"> +The others shrieked with delight.</p> + +<p id="id01388"> +"But he's goin' to get the mitten, that red-headed feller is, for I see +another feller comin' up behind him."</p> + +<p id="id01389"> +"Oh, lemme see, lemme see!" cried Nettie.</p> + +<p id="id01390"> +"Keep off," said the priestess, with a lofty gesture. "His hair is +black. He don't eat so much, and he works more."</p> + +<p id="id01391"> +The girls exploded in a shriek of laughter, and pounded their sister +on the back.</p> + +<p id="id01392"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01393"> +"Somebody is comin' to <em>you</em>," she said, after a long pause. +"He's got a musket on his back. He's a soldier. He's almost here. +See?"</p> + +<p id="id01394"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01395"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01396"> +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!</p> + +<p id="id01397"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01398"> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> +blankets, and musket lay upon the dusty grass +at his feet.</p> + +<p id="id01399"> +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—</p> + +<p id="id01400"> +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?</p> + +<p id="id01401"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01402"> +"Who <em>are</em> you, sir?" asked the wife, or, rather, +started to ask, for he turned, stood a moment, and then cried:</p> + +<p id="id01403">"Emma!"</p> + +<p id="id01404">"Edward!"</p> + +<p id="id01405"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> +left the soldier partly deaf, and this added +to the strangeness of his manner.</p> + +<p id="id01406"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id01407"> +"Come here, my little man; don't you know me?" But the baby +backed away under the fence and stood peering at him critically.</p> + +<p id="id01408"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01409"> +"And this is Tom," the private said, drawing the oldest boy to him. +"<em>He'll</em> come and see me. <em>He</em> knows his poor old pap +when he comes home from the war."</p> + +<p id="id01410"> +The mother heard the pain and reproach in his voice and hastened +to apologize.</p> + +<p id="id01411"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01412"> +"I'll fix him," said the soldier, and sat down to undo his knapsack, +out of which he drew three enormous and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> +very red apples. After giving one to each of the older children, +he said:</p> + +<p id="id01413"> +"<em>Now</em> I guess he'll come. Eh, my little man? Now come see your +pap."</p> + +<p id="id01414"> +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 +<i>Harper's Weekly</i> pinned about.</p> + +<p id="id01415"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01416"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01417"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id01418"> +"He died last winter. Poisoned, I guess." There +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> +was a moment of sadness for them all. It was some time before the +husband spoke again, in a voice that trembled a little.</p> + +<p id="id01419"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01420"> +"But, yeh see, we—we expected you'd write again 'fore you started. +And then we thought we'd see you if you <em>did</em> come," she hastened +to explain.</p> + +<p id="id01421"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id01422"> +"The Ramsey boys."</p> + +<p id="id01423"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01424">The private's wife colored with pleasure. "Oh, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> +you're always a-braggin' about your things. Everybody makes +good butter."</p> + +<p id="id01425"> +"Yes; old lady Snyder, for instance."</p> + +<p id="id01426"> +"Oh, well, she ain't to be mentioned. She's Dutch."</p> + +<p id="id01427"> +"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 <em>starved</em>."</p> + +<p id="id01428"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01429"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01430"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01431"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01432"> +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. </p> + + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> + <a name="Chapter05" id="Chapter05"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">Under the Lion's Paw</a></h2> + + +<p class="pullquote"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01436"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span> +<a name="Chapter05Part01" id="Chapter05Part01"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter05Part02">I</a></h3> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">It</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01437"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01438"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01439"> +When night began to fall, and the geese, flying low, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01440"> +"Come round there, boys!—Round agin! We got t' finish this land. +Come in there, Dan! <em>Stiddy</em>, Kate,—stiddy! None o' y'r +tantrums, Kittie. It's purty tuff, but got a be did. <em>Tchk! +tchk!</em> Step along, Pete! Don't let Kate git y'r single-tree on the +wheel. <em>Once</em> more!" +</p> + +<p id="id01441"> +They seemed to know what he meant, and that this was the last +round, for they worked with greater vigor than before.</p> + +<p> +"Once more, boys, an' then, sez I, oats an' a nice warm stall, +an' sleep f'r all."</p> + +<p id="id01442"> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id01443"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01444"> +"Waddy ye want?" was the rather startled question of the farmer.</p> + +<p id="id01445"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id01446"> +"Oh, y' want 'o stay all night, eh?"</p> + +<p id="id01447"> +"Yes, sir; it 'ud be a great accom—"</p> + +<p id="id01448"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id01449"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01450"> +"There ye go!" he shouted jovially, to the children. +"<em>Now</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id01451"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01452"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01453"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01454"> +The woman came to light as a small, timid, and +discouraged-looking woman, but still pretty, in a +thin and sorrowful way.</p> + +<p id="id01455"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01456"> +"Haskins."</p> + +<p id="id01457"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01458"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01459"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01460"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01461"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01462"> +"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 +<i>Tribune</i>—How old is it?"</p> + +<p id="id01463"> +She broke off and peered down at the face of the babe.</p> + +<p id="id01464"> +"Two months 'n' five days," said the mother, with a mother's +exactness.</p> + +<p id="id01465"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01466"> +"Pooty tough on 'oo to go gallivant'n' 'cross lots this way—"</p> + +<p id="id01467"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01468"> +"Glad t' see yeh!—Pa, empty that wash-basin 'n' give +him a chance t' wash."</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01469"> +"Hadn't Ike got home yet, Sairy?"</p> + +<p id="id01470"> +"Hadn't seen 'im."</p> + +<p id="id01471"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01472"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01473"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01474"> +"And the 'hoppers eat ye four years, hand runnin', did they?"</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01475"> +"Waal, why didn't ye stop an' settle here?" asked Ike, who had +come in and was eating his supper.</p> + +<p id="id01476"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01477"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01478"> +"Well, I hain't <em>never</em> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> +bear now—but they was days this week when I jest +wanted to lay right down an' die."</p> + +<p id="id01479"> +"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 <em>see</em> Butler, <em>anyway</em>, 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." +</p> + +<p id="id01480"> +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,</p> + +<p id="id01481"> +"There are people in this world who are good enough t' be angels, +an' only haff t' die to <em>be</em> angels."</p> + +<p> +<a name="Chapter05Part02" id="Chapter05Part02"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter05Part03">II</a></h3> + + +<p id="id01482"> +<span class="smcap">Jim Butler</span> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01483"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01484"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01485"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01486"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01487"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01488"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01489"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01490"> +"You jest let <em>me</em> do the talkin'," he said. "We'll find +him wearin' out his pants on some salt barrel somew'ers; and if +he thought you <em>wanted</em> a place he'd sock it to you hot +and heavy. You jest keep quiet; I'll fix 'im."</p> + +<p id="id01491"> +Butler was seated in Ben Ashley's store telling fish yarns when +Council sauntered in casually. +</p> + +<p id="id01492"> +"Hello, But; lyin' agin, hey?"</p> + +<p id="id01493"> +"Hello, Steve! how goes it?"</p> + +<p id="id01494"> +"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 <em>you</em> these days?"</p> + +<p id="id01495"> +"Bad. Ploughin' ain't half done."</p> + +<p id="id01496"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> +"It 'ud be a religious idee f'r you t' go out an' take a hand y'rself."</p> + +<p id="id01497"> +"I don't haff to," said Butler, with a wink.</p> + +<p id="id01498"> +"Got anybody on the Higley place?"</p> + +<p id="id01499"> +"No. Know of anybody?"</p> + +<p id="id01500"> +"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. +<em>Might</em> come if he could get a good lay-out. What do you +talk on the farm?"</p> + +<p id="id01501"> +"Well, I d' know. I'll rent it on shares or I'll rent +it money rent."</p> + +<p id="id01502"> +"Waal, how much money, say?"</p> + +<p id="id01503"> +"Well, say ten per cent, on the price—two-fifty."</p> + +<p id="id01504"> +"Waal, that ain't bad. Wait on 'im till 'e thrashes?"</p> + +<p id="id01505"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01506"> +"Well, knocks me out of twenty-five dollars interest."</p> + +<p id="id01507"> +"My relation'll need all he's got t' git his crops in," said +Council, in the same, indifferent way.</p> + +<p id="id01508"> +"Well, all right; <em>say</em> wait," concluded Butler.</p> + +<p id="id01509"> +"All right; this is the man. Haskins, this is Mr. +Butler—no relation to Ben—the hardest-working +man in Cedar County." +</p> + +<p id="id01510"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01511"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01512"> +Haskins was silent with emotion, but at last he said, "I ain't got +nothin' t' live on."</p> + +<p id="id01513"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01515"> +"Say, looky here, Council, you can't do this. I never +saw—" shouted Haskins in his neighbor's ear. +</p> + +<p id="id01516"> +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 <em>only</em> kind."</p> + +<p id="id01517"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01518"> +"Don't want any pay. My religion ain't run on such business +principles."</p> + +<p id="id01519"> +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.</p> + +<p> +<a name="Chapter05Part03" id="Chapter05Part03"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter05Part04">III</a></h3> + + +<p id="id01520"> +<span class="smcap">Haskins</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01521"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01522"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01523"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01524"> +Council had given them four of his cows.</p> + +<p id="id01525"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01526"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01527"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01528"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span> +would snatch a few moments after supper to go and look at +it.</p> + +<p id="id01529"> +"'Have ye seen the wheat t'-day, Nettie?" he asked one night as he +rose from supper.</p> + +<p id="id01530"> +"No, Tim, I ain't had time."</p> + +<p id="id01531"> +"Well, take time now. Le's go look at it."</p> + +<p id="id01532"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01533"> +"Ain't it grand, Nettie? Just look at it."</p> + +<p id="id01534"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01535"> +"Oh, I think—I <em>hope</em> we'll have a good crop, Tim; +and oh, how good the people have been to us!"</p> + +<p id="id01536"> +"Yes; I don't know where we'd be t'-day if it hadn't ben f'r +Council and his wife."</p> + +<p id="id01537"> +"They're the best people in the world," said the little woman, +with a great sob of gratitude.</p> + +<p id="id01538"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01539"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01540"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01541"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01542"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01543"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01544"> +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.</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span> +<a name="Chapter05Part04" id="Chapter05Part04"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter05">IV</a></h3> + +<p id="id01545"> +"<span class="smcap">'M, yes;</span> +'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?" </p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01546"> +"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'." +</p> + +<p id="id01547"> +"Um—h'm! I see, I see," said Butler, while Haskins went on:</p> + +<p id="id01548"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id01549"> +"Yes, yes, I see. You've done well. Stock worth a thousand dollars," +said Butler, picking his teeth with a straw.</p> + +<p id="id01550"> +"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' <em>her</em> folks +after the fall ploughin's done."</p> + +<p id="id01551"> +"<em>Eggs</em>-actly!" said Butler, who was evidently thinking of +something else. "I suppose you've kind o' calc'lated on stayin' +here three years more?"</p> + +<p id="id01552"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> +"Well, yes. Fact is, I think I c'n buy the farm this fall, if +you'll give me a reasonable show."</p> + +<p id="id01553"> +"Um—m! What do you call a reasonable show?"</p> + +<p id="id01554"> +"Well, say a quarter down and three years' time."</p> + +<p id="id01555"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id01556"> +"Why, about what you offered it for before, two thousand five +hundred, or <em>possibly</em> three thousand dollars," he added +quickly, as he saw the owner shake his head.</p> + +<p id="id01557"> +"This farm is worth five thousand and five hundred dollars," said +Butler, in a careless and decided voice. +</p> + +<p id="id01558"> +"<em>What</em>!" almost shrieked the astounded Haskins. "What's +that? Five thousand? Why, that's double what you offered it for +three years ago."</p> + +<p id="id01559"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01560"> +"But <em>you</em> had nothin' t' do about that. It's my work +an' my money."</p> + +<p id="id01561"> +"You bet it was; but it's my land."</p> + +<p id="id01562"> +"But what's to pay me for all my—"</p> + +<p id="id01563"> +"Ain't you had the use of 'em?" replied Butler, smiling calmly into +his face.</p> + +<p id="id01564"> +Haskins was like a man struck on the head with a sandbag; he +couldn't think; he stammered as he tried +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span> +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—"</p> + +<p id="id01565"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01566"> +He was turning away when Haskins, the sweat pouring from his +face, fronted him, saying again:</p> + +<p id="id01567"> +"But <em>you've</em> 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—"</p> + +<p id="id01568"> +"Well, why didn't you buy when I offered to sell? What y' kickin' +about?"</p> + +<p id="id01569"> +"I'm kickin' about payin' you twice f'r my own things,—my +own fences, my own kitchen, my own garden."</p> + +<p id="id01570"> +Butler laughed. "You're too green t' eat, young feller. +<em>Your</em> improvements! The law will sing another tune."</p> + +<p id="id01571"> +"But I trusted your word."</p> + +<p id="id01572"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01573"> +"I don't care if they do. It's stealin' jest the same. You take three +thousand dollars of my money—the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01574"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01575"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01576"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01577"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01578"> +"Well, what do you think of it?" inquired the cool, mocking, +insinuating voice of Butler.</p> + +<p id="id01579"> +"I think you're a thief and a liar!" shouted Haskins, leaping +up. "A black-hearted houn'!" Butler's smile +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01580"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01581"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01582"> +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.</p> + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span> + <a name="Chapter06" id="Chapter06"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">The Creamery Man</a></h2> + +<p class="pullquote"> +"Along these woods in storm and sun the busy people go."</p> + +<p id="id01585"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span> +<span class="smcap">The</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01586"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01587"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01588"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01589"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01590"> +"Now that's the difference between us," he would reply. "I'd trust +you anywhere. Anybody with such a daughter as your'n."</p> + +<p id="id01591"> +He seldom got further, for Lucindy always said (in substance), +"Oh, you go 'long." +</p> + +<p id="id01592"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span> +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 <em>not</em> looking.</p> + +<p id="id01593"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01594"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01595"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01596"> +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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> +Worldly considerations hold in Molasses Gap as well as in Bluff +Siding and Tyre.</p> + +<p id="id01597"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01598"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01599"> +This was pretty hard on Nina. She was tall and lank and sandy, +with small blue eyes, her limbs were heavy, and she <em>did</em> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01600"> +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 <i>Bluff Siding Gimlet</i> and +the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span> +county paper, how much the more cordial ought his greeting to +be at Haldeman's, where they only took the <i>Milwaukee Weekly +Freiheit</i>.</p> + +<p id="id01601"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01602"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01603"> +"Hello, Nina! How you vass, ain't it? How much cream already you +got this morning? Did you hear the news, not?"</p> + +<p id="id01604"> +"No, vot hass happened?"</p> + +<p id="id01605"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01606"> +"Iss dot so?"</p> + +<p id="id01607"> +"Sure! and Bill Hetner had a fight, and Julia Doorflinger's got +home."</p> + +<p id="id01608"> +"Vot wass Bill fightding apoudt?"</p> + +<p id="id01609"> +"Oh, drunk—fighting for exercise. Hain't got a fresh pie cut?"</p> + +<p id="id01610"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01611"> +"First rate. You <em>do</em> make lickin' good pies," he said, +out of pure kindness of heart; and Nina was radiant.</p> + +<p id="id01612"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01613"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id01614"> +"Sure! and she gave me a piece of currant pie—her +own make."</p> + +<p id="id01615"> +"Did you eat it?"</p> + +<p id="id01616"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01617"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01618"> +"'Cindy, your cake's all dough."</p> + +<p id="id01619"> +"Why, what's the matter now?"</p> + +<p id="id01620"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01621"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01622"> +Her heated manner betrayed her to Mrs. Smith, who laughed with +huge enjoyment.</p> + +<p id="id01623"> +"Well, you better watch out!"</p> + +<p id="id01624"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01625"> +"Where's the young folks?" asked Claude, carelessly.</p> + +<p id="id01626"> +"If you mean Lucindy, she's in the house."</p> + +<p id="id01627"> +"Ain't sick or nothin', is she?"</p> + +<p id="id01628"> +"Not that anybody knows of. Don't expect her to be here to gass +with you every time, do ye?"</p> + +<p id="id01629"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01630"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span> +"Well, you can't have her," the mother replied ungraciously.</p> + +<p id="id01631"> +"What's the matter with me?"</p> + +<p id="id01632"> +"Oh, I like you well enough, but 'Cindy'd be a big fool to marry a +man without a roof to cover his head."</p> + +<p id="id01633"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01634"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01635"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01636"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01637"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> +wouldn't stand it. I'd serve an injunction on the old man right now." +</p> + +<p id="id01638"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01639"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01640"> +He gathered his cream while she stood silently by, and when he +looked at her again she was in deep thought.</p> + +<p id="id01641"> +"Good-day," he said cheerily.</p> + +<p id="id01642"> +"Good-by," she replied, and her face flushed again.</p> + +<p id="id01643"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01644"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01645"> +Singular to tell, Nina paid no attention to her mother's sputter. She +looked at Claude with a certain timid audacity.</p> + +<p id="id01646"> +"How you like me to-day?"</p> + +<p id="id01647"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id01648"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01649"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01650"> +Her hands grew smooth and supple once more, and her face lost +the parboiled look it once had.</p> + +<p id="id01651"> +Claude noticed all these gains, and commented on them with the +freedom of a man who had established friendly relations with a +child.</p> + +<p id="id01652"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id01653"> +"He don't speak to me no more. My mudder says I am a big fool."</p> + +<p id="id01654"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span> +"She does? Well, you tell her I think you're just getting sensible."</p> + +<p id="id01655"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01656"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01657"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01658"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01659"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01660"> +He began jocularly. "Oh, thank you, I can wait till it bakes. No +trouble at all."</p> + +<p id="id01661"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span> +"Well, it's a good deal of trouble to me to have you standin' there +gappin' at me!"</p> + +<p id="id01662"> +"Ain't gappin' at you. I'm waitin' for the pie."</p> + +<p id="id01663"> +"'Tain't pie; it's cake."</p> + +<p id="id01664"> +"Oh, well, cake'll do for a change. Say, 'Cindy—"</p> + +<p id="id01665"> +"Don't call me 'Cindy!"</p> + +<p id="id01666"> +"Well, Lucindy. It's mighty lonesome when I don't see you on my +trips."</p> + +<p id="id01667"> +"Oh, I guess you can stand it with Nina to talk to."</p> + +<p id="id01668"> +"Aha! jealous, are you?"</p> + +<p id="id01669"> +"Jealous of that Dutchwoman! I don't care who you talk to, and +you needn't think it."</p> + +<p id="id01670"> +Claude was learned in woman's ways, and this pleased him +mightily.</p> + +<p id="id01671"> +"Well, when shall I speak to your daddy?"</p> + +<p id="id01672"> +"I don't know what you mean, and I don't care."</p> + +<p id="id01673"> +"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'—"</p> + +<p id="id01674"> +The sound of Mrs. Kennedy's voice and footsteps approaching +made Claude suddenly remember his duties.</p> + +<p id="id01675"> +"See ye later," he said, with a grin. "I'll call for the cake +next time."</p> + +<p id="id01676"> +"Call till you split your throat, if you want to," said 'Cindy.</p> + +<p id="id01677"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01678"> +Mr. Kennedy, much better-natured than the mother, told Claude +where she had gone.</p> + +<p id="id01679"> +"By mighty! That's a knock on the nose for me. When did she go?"</p> + +<p id="id01680"> +"Yistady. I took her down to the Siding."</p> + +<p id="id01681"> +"When's she coming back?"</p> + +<p id="id01682"> +"Oh, after the hot weather is over; four or five weeks."</p> + +<p id="id01683"> +"I hope I'll be alive when she returns," said Claude, gloomily.</p> + +<p id="id01684"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01685"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> +that she did and ordering her whole life to please +him never entered his self-sufficient head.</p> + +<p id="id01686"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01687"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01688"> +One Saturday Mr. Kennedy said, "Lucindy's coming home. I'm +going down after her to-night."</p> + +<p id="id01689"> +"Let me bring her up," said Claude, with suspicious eagerness.</p> + +<p id="id01690"> +Mr. Kennedy hesitated. "No, I guess I'll go myself. I want to go to +town, anyway."</p> + +<p id="id01691"> +Claude was in high spirits as he drove into Haldeman's yard that +afternoon.</p> + +<p id="id01692"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01693"> +Nina smiled and colored as Claude drew up at the side gate. She +seemed not to hear the eloquent discussion inside.</p> + +<p id="id01694"> +"What's going on?" asked Claude.</p> + +<p id="id01695"> +"Dey tink I am in house."</p> + +<p id="id01696"> +"How's that?"</p> + +<p id="id01697"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> +"My mudder she lock me up."</p> + +<p id="id01698"> +Claude stared. "Locked you up? What for?"</p> + +<p id="id01699"> +"She tondt like it dot I come out to see you."</p> + +<p id="id01700"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01701"> +Nina went on placidly. "She saidt dot you was goin' to marry me +undt get the farm."</p> + +<p id="id01702"> +Claude grinned, then chuckled, and at last roared and whooped +with the delight of it. He took off his hat and said:</p> + +<p id="id01703"> +"She said that, did she? Why, bless her old cabbage head—"</p> + +<p id="id01704"> +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,</p> + +<p id="id01705"> +"Keep off! or I'll knock you down!"</p> + +<p id="id01706"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01707"> +The old woman, who was already black in the face with rage, +suddenly fell limp, and Nina, kneeling beside her, grew white with +fear.</p> + +<p id="id01708"> +"Oh, vat is the matter! I haf kildt her!"</p> + +<p id="id01709"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01710"> +The mother sat up soon, wet, scared, bewildered, gasping.</p> + +<p id="id01711"> +"Mein Gott! Mein Gott! Ich bin ertrinken!"</p> + +<p id="id01712"> +"What does she say—she's been drinkin'? Well, that looks +reasonable."</p> + +<p id="id01713"> +"No, no—she thinks she is trouned."</p> + +<p id="id01714"> +"Oh, drowned!" Claude roared again. "Not much she ain't. She's +only just getting cooled off."</p> + +<p id="id01715"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01716"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01717"> +As the girl came out with him to the gate he uttered the most +serious word he had ever had with her.</p> + +<p id="id01718"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01719"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> +"No. You done choost ride."</p> + +<p id="id01720"> +"What do you suppose the old woman went for me for?"</p> + +<p id="id01721"> +Nina looked down uneasily.</p> + +<p id="id01722"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01723"> +Claude whistled. "Great Jehosaphat! She really thinks that, does +she? Well, dog my cats! What put that idea into her head?"</p> + +<p id="id01724"> +"I told her," said Nina calmly.</p> + +<p id="id01725"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01726"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01727"> +The flush faded from her face, and she stopped swaying. She lifted +her eyes to his in a tearful, appealing stare.</p> + +<p id="id01728"> +"I t'ought so—you made me t'ink so."</p> + +<p id="id01729"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01730"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01731"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01732"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01733"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01734"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01735"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01736"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01737"> +Lucindy was getting a light tea for some friends up from the +Siding, when she saw Claude drive up. +</p> + +<p id="id01738"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01739"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01740"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01741"> +After supper, when Lucindy explained that the dishes would have +to be washed, he offered to help her in his best manner.</p> + +<p id="id01742"> +"Thank you, I don't need any help," was Lucindy's curt reply.</p> + +<p id="id01743"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01744"> +"I'll get your horse for you."</p> + +<p id="id01745"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01746"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01747"> +"Lucindy," he began.</p> + +<p id="id01748"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span> +"Miss Kennedy, please," interrupted Lucindy, with cutting +emphasis.</p> + +<p id="id01749"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01750"> +"If you don't like my airs, you know what you can do!"</p> + +<p id="id01751"> +He saw his mistake.</p> + +<p id="id01752"> +"Now see here, Lucindy, there's no sense in our quarrelling."</p> + +<p id="id01753"> +"I don't want to quarrel; I don't want anything to do with you. I +wish I'd never seen you."</p> + +<p id="id01754"> +"Oh, you don't mean that! after all the good talks we've had."</p> + +<p id="id01755"> +She flushed red. "I never had any such talks with you."</p> + +<p id="id01756"> +He pursued his advantage.</p> + +<p id="id01757"> +"Oh, yes, you did, and you took pains that I should see you."</p> + +<p id="id01758"> +"I didn't; no such thing. You came poking into the kitchen where +you'd no business to be."</p> + +<p id="id01759"> +"Say, now, stop fooling. You like me and—"</p> + +<p id="id01760"> +"I don't. I <em>hate</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id01761"> +Claude sat for nearly a minute in silence, then he rose. "I guess +you're right. I've made a mistake. I've made +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span> +a mistake in the girl." He spoke with a curious hardness in his voice. +"Good-evening, <em>Miss</em> Kennedy."<br/> +</p> + +<p id="id01762"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01763"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01764"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01765"> +She saw him and came out to the gate, and while he leaned out of +his carriage she rested her arms on the gate +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span> +and looked up at him. She looked pale and sad, and he was touched.</p> + +<p id="id01766"> +"How's the old lady?" he asked.</p> + +<p id="id01767"> +"Oh, she's up! She is much change-ed. She is veak and quiet."</p> + +<p id="id01768"> +"Quiet, is she? Well, that's good."</p> + +<p id="id01769"> +"She t'inks God strike her fer her vickedness. Never before did she +fainted like dot."</p> + +<p id="id01770"> +"Well, don't spoil that notion in her. It may do her a world of +good."</p> + +<p id="id01771"> +"Der priest come. He saidt it wass a punishment. She saidt I should +marry who I like."</p> + +<p id="id01772"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01773"> +He straightened up suddenly. "Get your hat," he said, "and we'll +take a ride."</p> + +<p id="id01774"> +She started erect, and he could see her pale face glow with joy.</p> + +<p id="id01775"> +"With you?"</p> + +<p id="id01776"> +"With me. Get your best hat. We may turn up at the minister's and +get married—if a Sunday marriage is legal."</p> + +<p id="id01777"> +As she hurried up the walk he said to himself,</p> + +<p> +"I'll bet it gives Lucindy a shock!" +</p> + +<p id="id01778"> +And the thought pleased him mightily.</p> +<p><br /></p> + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> + <a name="Chapter07" id="Chapter07"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">A Day's Pleasure</a></h2> + + +<p class="pullquote"> +"Mainly it is long and wearyful, and has a home of toil at one end +and a dull little town at the other."</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span> +<a name="Chapter07Part01" id="Chapter07Part01"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter07Part02">I</a></h3> + + +<p id="id01781"> +<span class="smcap">When</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01782"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01783"> +"That closes up my corn," he said after a silence. "I guess I'll go to +town to-morrow to git my horses shod."</p> + +<p id="id01784"> +"I guess I'll git ready and go along," said his wife, in a sorry attempt +to be firm and confident of tone.</p> + +<p id="id01785"> +"What do you want to go to town fer?" he grumbled.</p> + +<p> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id01786"> +"Oh, it ain't six months. You went down that day I got the mower."</p> + +<p id="id01787"> +"When was that? The tenth of July, and you know it."</p> + +<p id="id01788"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01789"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span> +"Well, jest leave off a sack, an' that'll balance me an' the baby," she +said spiritedly.</p> + +<p id="id01790"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01791"> +"Well, let's go do it then," she said, sullenly resolute.</p> + +<p id="id01792"> +"I hate to go out agin; but I s'pose we'd better."</p> + +<p id="id01793"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01794"> +"Don't look so much like snow as it did last night," said Sam. "It +may turn warm."</p> + +<p id="id01795"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01796"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01797"> +"I guess I'll load 'em in the morning," he said. "You needn't wait fer +me. I'll tie 'em up alone."</p> + +<p id="id01798"> +"Oh, I don't mind," she replied, feeling a little +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span> +touched by his unexpectedly easy acquiescence to her request. +When they went back to the house the moon had risen.</p> + +<p id="id01799"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01800"> +His wife arose lamer and stiffer than usual, and began twisting her +thin hair into a knot.</p> + +<p id="id01801"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01802"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01803"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01804"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span> +"No, sir—nobody goes but baby. Your father's goin' to +take a load of wheat."</p> + +<p id="id01805"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01806"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01807"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01808"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01809"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01810"> +Markham put his wife out at one of the grocery-stores, and drove +off down toward the elevators to sell his wheat.</p> + +<p id="id01811"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01812"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01813"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01814"> +"Want you want to do with it?" he asked.</p> + +<p id="id01815"> +"I want to spend it," she said.</p> + +<p id="id01816"> +She was not to be trifled with, so he gave her a dollar.</p> + +<p id="id01817"> +"I need a dollar more."</p> + +<p id="id01818"> +"Well, I've got to go take up that note at the bank."</p> + +<p id="id01819"> +"Well, the children's got to have some new underclo'es," she said.</p> + +<p id="id01820"> +He handed her a two-dollar bill and then went out to pay his note.</p> + +<p id="id01821"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01822"> +The grocer gave the baby a stick of candy and handed the mother +an apple.</p> + +<p id="id01823"> +"It'll kind o' go down with your doughnuts," he said. </p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01824"> +She walked up and down the street, desolately homeless. She did +not know what to do with herself. She +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01825"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01826"> +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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span> +She rose and went out on the street once more, and +wandered up and down, looking at everything in the hope of +enjoying something.</p> + +<p id="id01827"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01828"> +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.</p> + +<p> +<a name="Chapter07Part02" id="Chapter07Part02"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter07">II</a></h3> + +<p id="id01830"> +<span class="smcap">In</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01831"> +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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span> +He was entertaining a friend who had lectured +the night before in the Congregational church.</p> + +<p id="id01832"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01833"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01834"> +Hall stopped. "What do you see, Otis?"</p> + +<p id="id01835"> +Otis replied, "I see a forlorn, weary woman."</p> + +<p id="id01836"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01837"> +In the silence Otis went on: "I saw the poor, dejected creature +twice this morning. I couldn't forget her."</p> + +<p id="id01838"> +"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Hall, very softly.</p> + +<p id="id01839"> +"Her name is Markham; she's Sam Markham's wife," said Hall.</p> + +<p id="id01840"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id01841"> +"That woman came to town to-day to get a change, to have a little +play-spell, and she's wandering around +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01842"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id01843"> +"It's going to be a little sultry for the men around these diggings. +Suppose we go out for a walk." +</p> + +<p id="id01844"> +Delia felt a hand on her arm as she stood at the corner.</p> + +<p> +"You look tired, Mrs. Markham; won't you come in a little while? +I'm Mrs. Hall."</p> + +<p id="id01845"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01846"> +"Thank you kindly, but it's most time to go home. I'm looking fer +Mr. Markham now." +</p> + +<p id="id01847"> +"Oh, come in a little while, the baby is cross and tired out; +please do."</p> + +<p id="id01848"> +Mrs. Markham yielded to the friendly voice, and together the two +women reached the gate just as two men hurriedly turned the other +corner.</p> + +<p id="id01849"> +"Let me relieve you," said Mrs. Hall.</p> + +<p id="id01850"> +The mother hesitated: "He's so dusty."</p> + +<p id="id01851"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01852"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01853"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01854"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01855"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01856"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01857"> +"Oh, I've had such a good time," Mrs. Markham said as they went +down the little walk.</p> + +<p id="id01858"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01859"> +Sam was staring with amazement.</p> + +<p id="id01860"> +"Thank you, I will," he finally managed to say.</p> + +<p id="id01861"> +"Good-night," said Mrs. Markham.</p> + +<p id="id01862"> +"Good-night, dear," called Mrs. Hall, and the wagon began to rattle +off.</p> + +<p id="id01863"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01864"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> +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.</p> +<p><br /></p> + + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span> + <a name="Chapter08" id="Chapter08"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">Mrs. Ripley's Trip</a></h2> + +<p class="pullquote"> +"And in winter the winds sweep the snows across it."</p> + +<p id="id01867"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> +<span class="smcap">The</span> +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. </p> + +<p> +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. </p> + +<p> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> +to do your own cooking from now on to New Year's. I'm goin' +back to Yaark State."</p> + +<p id="id01868"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01869"> +"Well, you'll find out."</p> + +<p id="id01870"> +"Goin' to start to-morrow, mother?"</p> + +<p id="id01871"> +"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'." +</p> + +<p id="id01872"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01873"> +"Howgy 'xpect to get the money, mother? Anybody died an' left +yeh a pile?"</p> + +<p id="id01874"> +"Never you mind where I get the money so 's 't <em>you</em> don't +haff to bear it. The land knows if I'd 'a' waited for <em>you</em> +to pay my way—"</p> + +<p id="id01875"> +"You needn't twit me of bein' poor, old woman," said Ripley, +flaming up after the manner of many old people. "I've done +<em>my</em> part t' get along. I've worked day in and day +out—"</p> + +<p id="id01876"> +"Oh! <em>I</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id01877"> +"I didn't say you hadn't done no work."</p> + +<p id="id01878"> +"Yes, you did!"</p> + +<p id="id01879"> +"I didn't neither. I said—</p> + +<p id="id01880"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span> +"I <em>know</em> what you said."</p> + +<p id="id01881"> +"I said I'd done <em>my part</em>!" roared the husband, dominating +her as usual by superior lung power. "I didn't <em>say</em> you +hadn't done your part," he added with an unfortunate touch of +emphasis.</p> + +<p id="id01882"> +"I know y' didn't <em>say</em> 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 <em>my</em> part, I don't never expect to do my +part, 'n' you might as well know it fust 's last." </p> + +<p>"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." </p> + +<p>Her voice choked again, but she rallied, and continued +impressively, "And now I'm a-goin' back to Yaark State."</p> + +<p id="id01883"> +Ethan was vanquished. He stared at her in speechless surprise, his +jaw hanging. It was incredible.</p> + +<p id="id01884"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span> +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—"</p> + +<p id="id01885"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01886"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01887"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01888"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01889"> +They were alone now, and they both sat expectantly. +</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span> +"You 'pear to think, mother, that I'm agin yer goin'."</p> + +<p> +"Wal, it would kinder seem as if y' hadn't hustled yerself any t' +help me git off."</p> + +<p id="id01890"> +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—"</p> + +<p id="id01891"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01892"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01893"> +The woman was staggered, but she wouldn't give up; she must get +in one more thrust.</p> + +<p id="id01894"> +"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'." </p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01895"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> +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—<em>one, two</em>. Pretty soon she called:</p> + +<p id="id01896"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01897"> +"You hush up," retorted he. "I'll come when I git ready, and +not till. I'll be glad when you're gone—"</p> + +<p id="id01898"> +"Yes, I warrant <em>that</em>."</p> + +<p id="id01899"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01900"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id01901"> +"What's this I hear, Mis' Ripley?"</p> + +<p id="id01902"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01903"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span> +"Well, Sett Turner told <em>me</em> that her husband told +<em>her</em> that Ripley told <em>him</em> this mornin' that you +was goin' back East on a visit."</p> + +<p id="id01904"> +"Wal, what of it?"</p> + +<p id="id01905"> +"Well, air yeh?"</p> + +<p id="id01906"> +"The Lord willin' an' the weather permittin', I expect to be."</p> + +<p id="id01907"> +"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 <em>she</em> 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 <em>never</em>! '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—'"</p> + +<p id="id01908"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01909"> +"An' you'll find out jest 'bout as soon as he does," was the dry +response from the figure hovering over the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span> +stove; and with all her manœuvring that was all she got.</p> + +<p id="id01910"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01911"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01912"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> +on havin' a buffalo—but that's gone up the spout along with them +sassengers."</p> + +<p id="id01913"> +These heroic sacrifices having been determined upon, he put them +into effect at once.</p> + +<p id="id01914"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01915"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01916"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01917"> +"Gran'ma, you ain't goin' to stay away always, are yeh?"</p> + +<p id="id01918"> +"Why, course not, Tukey. What made y' think that?"</p> + +<p id="id01919"> +"Well, y' ain't told us nawthin' 't all about it. An' yeh kind o' +look 's if yeh was mad."</p> + +<p id="id01920"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01921"> +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. </p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01922"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01923"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id01924"> +Nobody replying, he waited a moment. "I've ben +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> +a-thinkin' things over kind o' t'-day, mother, an' I've come t' +the conclusion that we <em>have</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id01925"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01926"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id01927"> +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—</p> + +<p id="id01928"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01929"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01931"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span> +"Whee—ew! Thunder and gimpsum root! Where 'd ye get that? +Didn't dig it out of a hole?"</p> + +<p id="id01932"> +"No, I jest saved it—a dime at a time—see!"</p> + +<p id="id01933"> +Here she turned it out on the table—some bills, but mostly +silver dimes and quarters.</p> + +<p id="id01934"> +"Thunder and scissors! Must be two er three hundred dollars +there," he exclaimed.</p> + +<p id="id01935"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01936"> +"But y' ain't calc'lated on no sleepers nor hotel bills."</p> + +<p id="id01937"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01938"> +"But <em>you</em> needn't be afraid of them, mother; at your age—"</p> + +<p id="id01939"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01940"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01941"> +"As for the hotel bills, they won't be none. I agoin' to pay them +pirates as much for a day's board as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01942"> +"Wal, all right, mother; but here's the ticket I got."</p> + +<p id="id01943"> +"I don't want yer ticket."</p> + +<p id="id01944"> +"But you've got to take it."</p> + +<p id="id01945"> +"Well, I hain't."</p> + +<p id="id01946"> +"Why, yes, ye have. It's bought, an' they won't take it +back."</p> + +<p id="id01947"> +"Won't they?" She was perplexed again.</p> + +<p id="id01948"> +"Not much they won't. I ast 'em. A ticket sold is sold."</p> + +<p id="id01949"> +"Wal, if they won't—"</p> + +<p id="id01950"> +"You bet they won't."</p> + +<p id="id01951"> +"I s'pose I'll haff to use it." And that ended it.</p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p> +There is no ride quite so desolate and uncomfortable as a ride +in a lumber-wagon on a cold day in autumn, when +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01952"> +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. </p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01953"> +"Now git my trunk <em>stamped</em>, 'r <em>fixed</em>, '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."</p> + +<p id="id01954">Ripley returning now, she said: "Wal, now, I've +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span> +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—"</p> + +<p id="id01955"> +"I don't like her bakin'."</p> + +<p id="id01956"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01957"> +As they were riding home, Ripley roused up after a long silence.</p> + +<p id="id01958"> +"Did she—a—kiss you good-by, Tukey?"</p> + +<p id="id01959"> +"No, sir," piped Tewksbury.</p> + +<p id="id01960"> +"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."</p> + +<hr class="break" /> + +<p id="id01961"> +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. </p> + +<p> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> +till she reached the gate. As she turned in, Mrs. Stacey cried:</p> + +<p id="id01962"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01963"> +"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." +</p> + +<p id="id01964"> +"Oh, you <em>must</em> sit down just a minute and warm."</p> + +<p id="id01965"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01966"> +"Oh dear! I wish Stacey was here, so he could take you home. An' +the boys at school—"</p> + +<p id="id01967"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id01968"> +"Oh! they're delicious! You must have had a lovely time."</p> + +<p id="id01969"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span> +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 <em>o'</em> 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."</p> + +<p> +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."</p> + +<p id="id01970"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01971"> +"Oh, gran'ma, I'm so glad to see you! We've had an awful time +since you've been gone."</p> + +<p id="id01972"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01973"> +"Wal, I sh'd say as much," she dryly assented, untying her +bonnet-strings.</p> + +<p id="id01974"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id01975"> +"I sh'd say it was about <em>time</em>," she replied curtly, +without looking up or ceasing work. "Has ol' 'Crumpy' dried +up yit?" This was her greeting.</p> + +<p id="id01976"> +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.</p> + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span> + <a name="Chapter09" id="Chapter09"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">Uncle Ethan Ripley</a></h2> + +<p class="pullquote"> +"Like the Main-Travelled Road of Life, it is traversed by many +classes of people."</p> + +<p id="id01979"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> +<span class="smcap">Uncle Ethan</span> +had a theory that a man's character could be told +by the way he sat in a wagon seat.</p> + +<p id="id01980"> +"A mean man sets right plumb in the <em>middle</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id01981"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01982"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id01983"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span> +"Good afternoon," said the stranger, pleasantly.</p> + +<p id="id01984"> +"Good afternoon, sir."</p> + +<p id="id01985"> +"Bugs purty plenty?"</p> + +<p id="id01986"> +"Plenty enough, I gol! I don't see where they all come fum."</p> + +<p id="id01987"> +"Early Rose?" inquired the man, as if referring to the bugs.</p> + +<p id="id01988"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01989"> +"How do yeh kill 'em—scald 'em?"</p> + +<p id="id01990"> +"Mostly. Sometimes I—</p> + +<p id="id01991"> +"Good piece of oats," yawned the stranger, listlessly.</p> + +<p id="id01992"> +"That's barley."</p> + +<p id="id01993"> +"So 'tis. Didn't notice."</p> + +<p id="id01994"> +Uncle Ethan was wondering who the man was. He had some pots +of black paint in the wagon, and two or three square boxes.</p> + +<p id="id01995"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id01996"> +Uncle Ripley scratched his head. "Waal—I dunno—bein' +a Republican—I think—" +</p> + +<p id="id01997"> +"That's so—it's a purty scaly outlook. I don't believe in +second terms myself," the man hastened to say.</p> + +<p id="id01998"> +"Is that your new barn acrosst there?" he asked, pointing with his +whip.</p> + +<p id="id01999"> +"Yes, sir, it is," replied the old man, proudly. After +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02000"> +The stranger mused. "A lovely place for a sign," he said, as his eyes +wandered across its shining yellow broadside.</p> + +<p id="id02001"> +Uncle Ethan stared, unmindful of the bugs crawling over the edge +of his pan. His interest in the pots of paint deepened.</p> + +<p id="id02002"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02003"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02004"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02005"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02006"> +He produced a large bottle of triangular shape, like a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02007"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02008"> +"I gol! she cuts a wide swath, don't she?" exclaimed Uncle Ethan, +profoundly impressed with the list.</p> + +<p id="id02009"> +"They ain't no better bitter in the world," said the agent, with a +conclusive inflection.</p> + +<p id="id02010"> +"What's its speshy-<em>al</em>ity? +Most of 'em have some speshy-<em>al</em>ity."</p> + +<p id="id02011"> +"Well—summer complaints—an'—an'—spring +an' fall troubles—tones ye up, sort of."</p> + +<p id="id02012"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02013"> +"What does it sell fur?" he asked, after a pause.</p> + +<p id="id02014"> +"Same price as them cheap medicines—dollar a bottle—big +bottles, too. Want one?"</p> + +<p id="id02015"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id02016"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id02017"> +"I guess I hadn't better."</p> + +<p id="id02018"> +The agent thought that Uncle Ethan was after more pay, but in +reality he was thinking of what his little old wife would say.</p> + +<p id="id02019"> +"It simply puts a family bitter in your home that may save you fifty +dollars this comin' fall. You can't tell."</p> + +<p id="id02020"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id02021"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02022"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02023"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02024"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02025"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span> +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 +<span class="smcap">"Dodd's Family Bitters,</span> +Best in the Market," disfigured the +sweet-smelling pine boards.</p> + +<hr class="break" /> + +<p id="id02026"> +Ethan was eating his self-obtained supper of bread and milk when +his wife came home.</p> + +<p id="id02027"> +"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'?"</p> + +<p id="id02028"> +"Nawthin'," he replied feebly.</p> + +<p id="id02029"> +"Who painted that sign on there?"</p> + +<p id="id02030"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02031"> +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 <em>do</em> +believe."</p> + +<p id="id02032"> +Uncle Ethan attempted a defence.</p> + +<p id="id02033"> +"Wal, he paid me twenty-five dollars f'r it, anyway."</p> + +<p id="id02034"> +"Did 'e?" She was visibly affected by this news.</p> + +<p id="id02035"> +"Wal, anyhow, it amounts to that; he give me twenty-five bottles—"</p> + +<p id="id02036"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span> +Mrs. Ripley sank back in her chair. "Wal, I swan to Bungay! Ethan +Ripley—wal, you beat all I <em>ever</em> see!" she added, +in despair of expression. "I thought you had <em>some</em> sense left; +but you hain't, not one blessed scimpton. Where <em>is</em> +the stuff?"</p> + +<p id="id02037"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02038"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02039"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02040"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02041"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02042"> +"The hull cartload of it?"</p> + +<p id="id02043"> +"No. I'm goin' to sell part of it an' git me an overcoat—"</p> + +<p id="id02044"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02045"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02046"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id02047"> +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. +</p> + +<p id="id02048"> +"I should <em>think</em> you'd feel proud o' that."</p> + +<p id="id02049"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02050"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02051"> +"Where you goin' now?"</p> + +<p id="id02052"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id02053"> +"Feedin' the chickens. You ain't goin' to take +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span> +him off this mornin' now! I don't care where you go."</p> + +<p id="id02054"> +"Who's a-goin' to take him off? I ain't said nothin' about takin' him +off."</p> + +<p id="id02055"> +"Wal, take y'rself off, an' if y' ain't here f'r dinner, I ain't goin' to get +no supper."</p> + +<p id="id02056"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02057"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02058"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02059"> +After some preliminary talk Ripley presented his medicine.</p> + +<p id="id02060"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02061"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02062"> +"Hello, Ripley. I was just goin' down your way. Jest wait a minute, +an' I'll be out."</p> + +<p id="id02063"> +When he came out, fully dressed, Uncle Ethan grappled him.</p> + +<p id="id02064"> +"Say, what d' you think o' paytent med—"</p> + +<p id="id02065"> +"Some of 'em are boss. But y' want 'o know what y're gittin'."</p> + +<p id="id02066"> +"What d' ye think o' Dodd's—"</p> + +<p id="id02067"> +"Best in the market."</p> + +<p id="id02068"> +Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted. Doudney went +on:</p> + +<p id="id02069"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id02070"> +"Don't want 'o buy a bottle?"</p> + +<p id="id02071"> +Doudney turned and faced him.</p> + +<p id="id02072"> +"Buy! No. I've got nineteen bottles I want 'o <em>sell</em>." +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.</p> + +<p id="id02073"> +"Wal, that's a good one! We two tryin' to sell +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span> +each other bitters. Ho—ho—ho—har, whoop! +wal, this is rich! How many bottles did you git?"</p> + +<p id="id02074"> +"None o' your business," said Uncle Ethan, as he turned and made +off, while Doudney screamed with merriment.</p> + +<p id="id02075"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02076"> +"Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that pail?"</p> + +<p id="id02077"> +"Goose eggs f'r settin'."</p> + +<p id="id02078"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02079"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02080"> +He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a +Democratic poster to be pasted there. +</p> + +<p id="id02081"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02082"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02083"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02084"> +"Lovely, ain't it! An' <em>I</em>'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." +</p> + +<p id="id02085"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02086"> +Mrs. Ripley was in a frightful mood about it, but she held herself +in check for several days. At last she burst forth:</p> + +<p id="id02087"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02088"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span> +"But, mother, I promised—"</p> + +<p id="id02089"> +"I don't care <em>what</em> 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."</p> + +<p id="id02090"> +"I'll tend to it, mother, if you won't hurry me—"</p> + +<p id="id02091"> +"I can't stand it another day. It makes me boil every time I look out +the winder."</p> + +<p id="id02092"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02093"> +"Goin' to paint y'r new barn?" inquired the merchant, with friendly +interest.</p> + +<p id="id02094"> +Uncle Ethan turned with guilty sharpness; but the merchant's face +was grave and kindly.</p> + +<p id="id02095"> +"Yes, I thought I'd tech it up a little—don't cost much."</p> + +<p id="id02096"> +"It pays—always," the merchant said emphatically.</p> + +<p id="id02097"> +"Will it—stick jest as well put on evenings?" inquired Uncle Ethan, +hesitatingly.</p> + +<p id="id02098"> +"Yes—won't make any difference. Why? Ain't goin' to have—"</p> + +<p id="id02099"> +"Wal,—I kind o' thought I'd do it odd times night an' +mornin'—kind o' odd times—"</p> + +<p id="id02100"> +He seemed oddly confused about it, and the merchant looked after +him anxiously as he drove away.</p> + +<p id="id02101"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02102"> +"What y' ben makin'?" she inquired. Tewksbury had gone to bed. +She sat darning a stocking. +</p> + +<p id="id02103"> +"I jest thought I'd git the stagin' ready f'r paintin'," he said, +evasively.</p> + +<p id="id02104"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02105"> +"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 <em>tunking</em> noise on the +bare boards. The moon fell across the sleeping boy like a robe +of silver. He was alone.</p> + +<p id="id02106"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02107"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02108"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02109"> +"Land o' Bungay! If he ain't paintin' that barn, like a perfect old +idiot, in the night."</p> + +<p id="id02110"> +Uncle Ethan, working desperately, did not hear her feet pattering +down the path, and was startled by her shrill voice.</p> + +<p id="id02111"> +"Well, Ethan Ripley, whaddy y' think you're doin' now?"</p> + +<p id="id02112"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02113"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span> +"Well, you come right straight to bed. What d'you mean by actin' +so?"</p> + +<p id="id02114"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02115"> +Neither spoke for some time. At length she said more gently, "Ain't +you comin' in?"</p> + +<p id="id02116"> +"No—not till I get a-ready. You go 'long an' tend to y'r own business. +Don't stan' there an' ketch cold." +</p> + +<p id="id02117"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02119"> +"I'm goin' to set right here till you come in, Ethan Ripley," she said, +in a firm voice, but gentler than usual.</p> + +<p id="id02120"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02121"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02122"> +"Wal, I don't know as you <em>was</em> so very much to blame. +I <em>didn't</em> want that Bible myself—I held out I +did, but I didn't."</p> + +<p id="id02123"> +Ethan worked on until the full meaning of this unprecedented +surrender penetrated his head, and then he threw down his brush.</p> + +<p id="id02124"> +"Wal, I guess I'll let 'er go at that. I've covered up the most of it, +anyhow. Guess we better go in."</p> + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span> + <a name="Chapter10" id="Chapter10"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">God's Ravens</a></h2> + + +<p> +<a name="Chapter10Part01" id="Chapter10Part01"></a> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span> +</p> +<h3 id="id02126"><a href="#Chapter10Part02">I</a></h3> + +<p id="id02127"> +<span class="smcap">Chicago</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02128"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02129"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02130">Then the poor crawl out of their reeking hovels on the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02131"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02132"> +Robert had crawled down-town and up to his office high in the <i>Star</i> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02133"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02134">As his weakness grew his ambition fell away, and his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span> +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. +</p> + +<p id="id02135"> +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?</p> + +<p id="id02136"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02137"> +At the elevator door he met a fellow-editor. "Hello, Bloom! Didn't +know you were down to-day."</p> + +<p id="id02138"> +"I'm only trying it. I'm going to take a vacation for a while."</p> + +<p id="id02139"> +"That's right, man. You look like a ghost."</p> + +<p id="id02140"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02141"> +"What is it, Robert?"</p> + +<p id="id02142"> +"Mate, let's give it up."</p> + +<p id="id02143"> +"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p id="id02144"> +"The struggle is too hard. I can't stand it. I'm hungry for the country +again. Let's get out of this."</p> + +<p id="id02145"> +"Where'll we go?"</p> + +<p id="id02146"> +"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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02147"> +"Very well, Robert."</p> + +<p id="id02148"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02149"> +The wife had ceased to smile. Her strenuous cheerfulness could +not hold before his tragically drawn and bloodless face.</p> + +<p id="id02150"> +"I'll go wherever you think best, Robert. It will be just as well for +the boys. I suppose there is a school there?"</p> + +<p id="id02151"> +"Oh, yes. At any rate, they can get a year's schooling in nature."</p> + +<p id="id02152"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02153"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02154"> +His paper paid him a meagre salary, for his work was prized only +by the more thoughtful readers of the <i>Star</i>. In addition to +his regular work he occasionally +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02156"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02157"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02158"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02159"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02160"> +In the month of preparation which followed he talked a great deal +about their venture.</p> + +<p id="id02161"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02162"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02163"> +"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.'"</p> + +<p id="id02164"> +"I don't like Mr. Mason when he talks like that," said the wife.</p> + +<p id="id02165"> +"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:</p> + +<p id="id02166"> +"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."</p> + +<hr class="break" /> + +<p id="id02167"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02168"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span> +to work, and Robert pitied them, poor fellows, condemned to do +that thing forever.</p> + +<p id="id02169"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02170"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02171"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02172"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02173"> +"We're in luck to find a hotel," said Robert. "They burn down every +three months."</p> + +<p id="id02174"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02175"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02176"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02177"> +The landlord looked at the name as Robert wrote. "Your boxes are +all here," he said.</p> + +<p id="id02178"> +Robert looked up at him in surprise. "What boxes?"</p> + +<p id="id02179"> +"Your household goods. They came in on No. 9."</p> + +<p id="id02180"> +Robert recovered himself. He remembered this was a village +where everything that goes on—everything—is known.</p> + +<p id="id02181"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02182"> +"Oh, mamma, ain't it queer?" cried the boys.</p> + +<p id="id02183"> +"Supper is all ready," the landlord's soft, deep voice +announced a few moments later, and the boys responded +with whoops of hunger.</p> + +<p id="id02184"> +They were met by the close scrutiny of every boarder as they +entered, and they heard also the muttered comments and +explanations.</p> + +<p id="id02185"> +"Family to take the Merrill house."</p> + +<p id="id02186"> +"He looks purty well flaxed out, don't he?"</p> + +<p id="id02187"> +They were agreeably surprised to find everything +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span> +neat and clean and wholesome. The bread was good and the butter +delicious. Their spirits revived.</p> + +<p id="id02188"> +"That butter tastes like old times," said Robert. "It's fresh. +It's really butter."</p> + +<p id="id02189"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02190"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02191"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02192"> +"This is our home," said Robert.</p> + +<p id="id02193"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02194"> +"Oh, it's beautiful, Robert! I know we shall like it."</p> + +<p id="id02195">"We <em>must</em> like it," he said.</p> + +<p> +<a name="Chapter10Part02" id="Chapter10Part02"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter10">II</a></h3> + +<p id="id02197"> +<span class="smcap">First</span> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span> +theirs. He forgot that they did not consider their work degrading. +They resented his bossing. The drayman grew rebellious.</p> + +<p id="id02198"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02199"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02200"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02201"> +"He thinks he's a little tin god on wheels," the drayman said.</p> + +<p id="id02202"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02203"> +"That's the trouble—he thinks he's an upper crust," said +Jim Cullen, the drayman.</p> + +<p id="id02204"> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span> +like their mother, and these fights gave them high rank.</p> + +<p id="id02205"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02206"> +To Mate they were almost caricatures. "What makes them look +so—so 'way behind the times, Robert?"</p> + +<p id="id02207"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02208"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02209"> +"It's very odd. I wonder what I'd better do, Robert. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02210"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02211"> +"Well, we'll wait."</p> + +<p id="id02212"> +"The <em>boys</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id02213"> +There came a knock on the door that startled them both. "Come +in," said Robert, in a nervous shout.</p> + +<p id="id02214"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02215"> +"How d'e do, Mrs. Folsom? My wife, Mr. Folsom."</p> + +<p id="id02216"> +Folsom's voice was lost in the bustle of getting settled, but Mrs. +Folsom's voice rose above the clamor. "I was tellin' <em>him</em> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id02217"> +"Very much. The view is so fine."</p> + +<p id="id02218"> +"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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span> +of people buildin' just <em>for</em> the view. It's all in taste, +as the old woman said that kissed the cow."</p> + +<p id="id02219"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02220"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02221"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02222"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id02223"> +"You should be mayor."</p> + +<p id="id02224"> +"That's what I tell Folsom. Takes a woman to clean things up. +Well, I must run along. Thought +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span> +I'd jest call in and see how you all +was. Come down when ye kin."</p> + +<p id="id02225"> +"Thank you, I will."</p> + +<p id="id02226"> +After they had gone Robert turned with a smile: "Our first formal +call."</p> + +<p id="id02227"> +"Oh, dear, Robert, what can I do with such people?"</p> + +<p id="id02228"> +"Go see 'em. I like her. She's shrewd. You'll like her, too."</p> + +<p id="id02229"> +"But what can I say to such people? Did you hear her say 'we +fellers' to me?"</p> + +<p id="id02230"> +Robert laughed. "That's nothing. She feels as much of a man, or +'feller,' as any one. Why shouldn't she?"</p> + +<p id="id02231"> +"But she's so vulgar."</p> + +<p id="id02232"> +"I admit she isn't elegant, but I think she's a good wife and +mother."</p> + +<p id="id02233"> +"I wonder if they're all like that?"</p> + +<p id="id02234"> +"Now, Mate, we must try not to offend them. We must try to be +one of them."</p> + +<p id="id02235"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02236"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02237"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02238"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02239"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02240"> +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. +</p> + +<p id="id02241"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02242"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02243"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span> +He grew morbid. His weakness and insecurity made him jealous of +the security and health of others.</p> + +<p id="id02244"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02245"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02246"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02247"> +She tried to stop him, but he went on, a flush of fever on his cheek:</p> + +<p id="id02248"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02249"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02250"> +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.</p> + +<hr class="break" /> + +<p id="id02251"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02252"> +"He's all right now," said the cheery tenor voice from the big +bearded face.</p> + +<p id="id02253">"Oh, Mr. McTurg, do you think so?"</p> + +<p id="id02254"> +"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. +</p> + +<p id="id02255">The well-mouth cleared away its mist again, and he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02256"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02257"> +"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 <em>him</em>. Don't worry. Bell's a good hand +with sick."</p> + +<p id="id02258"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02259"> +"How are you, sir?" called the laughing, thrillingly hearty voice of +William McTurg. +</p> + +<p id="id02260"> +He tried to turn his head, but it wouldn't move. He tried to speak, +but his dry throat made no noise.</p> + +<p id="id02261"> +The big man bent over him. "Want 'o change place a little?"</p> + +<p id="id02262"> +He closed his eyes in answer.</p> + +<p id="id02263"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02264"> +There sat William McTurg smiling at him. He had no coat on and +no hat, and his bushy thick hair rose up +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02265"> +The great figure bent closer: "What is it?"</p> + +<p id="id02266"> +"Thank—you."</p> + +<p id="id02267"> +William laughed a low chuckle. "Don't bother about thanks. Would +you like some water?"</p> + +<p id="id02268"> +A tall figure joined William, awkwardly.</p> + +<p id="id02269"> +"Hello, Evan!"</p> + +<p id="id02270"> +"How is he, Bill?"</p> + +<p id="id02271"> +"He's awake to-day."</p> + +<p id="id02272"> +"That's good. Anything I can do?"</p> + +<p id="id02273"> +"No, I guess not. All he needs is somethin' to eat."</p> + +<p id="id02274"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02275"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02276"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02277"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02278"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02279"> +"Oh, Robert, they're so good! They feed us like God's ravens."</p> + +<p id="id02280"> +One day, as he sat at the window fully dressed for the fourth of +fifth time, William McTurg came up the walk.</p> + +<p id="id02281"> +"Well, Robert, how are ye to-day?"</p> + +<p id="id02282"> +"First rate, William," he smiled. "I believe I can walk out a little if +you'll help me."</p> + +<p id="id02283"> +"All right, sir."</p> + +<p id="id02284"> +And he went forth leaning on William's arm, a piteous wraith of a +man.</p> + +<p id="id02285"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02286"> +On every side he saw kindly faces and heard hearty +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span> +voices: "Good day, Robert. Glad to see you out again." It thrilled +him to hear them call him by his first name.</p> + +<p id="id02287"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02288"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id02289"> +He turned to William with trembling lips, trying to speak:</p> + +<p id="id02290"> +"Oh, I understand you now. I know you all now."</p> + +<p id="id02291"> +But William did not understand him.</p> + +<p id="id02292"> +"There! there!" he said, soothingly. "I guess you're gettin' tired." He +led Robert back and put him to bed.</p> + +<p id="id02293"> +"I'd know but we was a little brash about goin' out," William said +to him, as Robert lay there smiling up at him.</p> + +<p id="id02294"> +"Oh, I'm all right now," the sick man said.</p> + +<hr class="break" /> + +<p id="id02295"> +"Matie," the alien cried, when William had gone, "we know our +neighbors now, don't we? We never can hate or ridicule them +again."</p> + +<p id="id02296"> +"Yes, Robert. They never will be caricatures again—to me."</p> + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span> + <a name="Chapter11" id="Chapter11"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> +</div> +<h2><a href="#Contents">A "Good Fellow's" Wife</a></h2> + +<p> + <a name="Chapter11Part01" id="Chapter11Part01"></a> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span> +</p> +<h3 id="id02298"><a href="#Chapter11Part02">I</a></h3> + +<p id="id02299"> +<span class="smcap">Life</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02300"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02301"> +On such a rainy day as comes in May after the corn is planted—a +cold, <em>wet</em> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02302"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02303"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id02304"> +"I hain't," said Vance. "You, Bill?"</p> + +<p id="id02305"> +"No; but somebody was sayin' he thought o' startin' in trade here."</p> + +<p id="id02306"> +"Don't Sam know? He generally knows what's goin' on."</p> + +<p id="id02307"> +"Knows he registered from Pittsfield, Mass., an' that's all. Say, +that's a mighty smart-lookin' woman o' his."</p> + +<p id="id02308"> +"Vance always sees how the women look. Where'd you see <em>her</em>?"</p> + +<p id="id02309"> +"Came in here the other day to look up prices."</p> + +<p id="id02310"> +"Wha'd <em>she</em> say 'bout settlin'?"</p> + +<p id="id02311"> +"Hadn't decided yet."</p> + +<p id="id02312"> +"He's too <em>slick</em> to have much business in him. That waxed +<em>mus</em>tache gives 'im away."</p> + +<p id="id02313"> +The discussion having reached that point where his word would +have most effect, Steve Gilbert said, while +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02314"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02315"> +"Good f'r the corn," McPhail said, after a long pause.</p> + +<p id="id02316"> +"Purty cold, though."</p> + +<p id="id02317"> +Gilbert was tranquil—he had a shot in reserve. </p> + +<p> +"Sam's wife said <em>his</em> wife said he was thinkin' some +of goin' into a bank here—"</p> + +<p id="id02318"> +"A bank!"</p> + +<p id="id02319"> +"What in thunder—"</p> + +<p id="id02320"> +Vance turned, with a comical look on his long, placid face, one +hand stroking his beard.</p> + +<p id="id02321"> +"Well, now, gents, I'll tell you what's the matter with this town. It +needs a bank. Yes, sir! <em>I</em> need a bank."</p> + +<p id="id02322"> +"You?"</p> + +<p id="id02323"> +"Yes, me. I didn't know just what <em>did</em> ail me, but I do +now. It's the need of a bank that keeps me down."</p> + +<p id="id02324"> +"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!"</p> + +<p id="id02325"> +"Their <em>boom</em> is our <em>bu'st</em>," was McPhail's comment.</p> + +<p id="id02326"> +"I don't think so," said Sanford, who had entered in time to hear +these last two speeches. They all looked +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02327"> +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:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p id="id02328"> +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!</p> +</blockquote> + +<p id="id02329"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02330"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span> +the McPhails, McIlvaines, and the rest of the Scotch contingency +"banked on Link." As old Andrew McPhail put it:</p> + +<p id="id02331"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02332"> +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 <em>mus</em>taches +just that way, an' he wa'n't no earthly good."</p> + +<p id="id02334"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02335"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02336"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id02337"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02338"> +The youngest of a large family, Link had been accustomed all his +life to Mrs. Bingham's many whimsicalities.</p> + +<p id="id02339"> +"I s'pose you can <em>smell</em> he's a thief, just as you can +tell when it's goin' to rain, or the butter's comin', by the smell."</p> + +<p id="id02340"> +"Well, you needn't laugh, Lincoln. I <em>can,</em>" 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."</p> + +<p id="id02341"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02342"> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span> +or a Tam-o'-Shanter cap—a style of architecture which became +fashionable at once.</p> + +<p id="id02343"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02344"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02345"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02346"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02347"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02348"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02349"> +"There's big money up there, Nell," he said to his wife.</p> + +<p id="id02350"> +But she had the woman's tendency to hold fast to what she had, +and would not listen to any plans about moving.</p> + +<p id="id02351"> +"Build up your business here, Jim, and don't worry about what +good chances there are somewhere else."</p> + +<p id="id02352"> +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.</p> + +<p> + <a name="Chapter11Part02" id="Chapter11Part02"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter11Part03">II</a></h3> + +<p id="id02354"> +<span class="smcap">The</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02355"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02356"> +"Jim, I wish you was in some kind of a business +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span> +so I could help. I don't have enough to do. I s'pose I <em>could</em> +mop an' dust, an' dust an' mop; but it seems sinful to waste time +that way. Can't I do anything, Jim?"</p> + +<p id="id02357"> +"Why, no. If you 'tend to the children and keep house, that's all +anybody asks of you."</p> + +<p id="id02358"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02359"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02360"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02361"> +McPhail came in, one day in November, to draw a thousand +dollars to pay for a house and lot he had recently bought.</p> + +<p id="id02362"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02363"> +"All right," said McPhail; "any time."</p> + +<p id="id02364"> +"Goin' t' snow?"</p> + +<p id="id02365"> +"Looks like it. I'll haf to load a lot o' ca'tridges +ready f'r biz."</p> + +<p id="id02366"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span> +About an hour later old lady Bingham burst upon the banker, wild +and breathless. "I want my money," she announced.</p> + +<p id="id02367"> +"Good-morning, Mrs. Bingham. Pleasant—"</p> + +<p id="id02368"> +"I want my money. Where's Lincoln?"</p> + +<p id="id02369"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02370"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id02371"> +"<em>All</em> of it, sir. Every cent."</p> + +<p id="id02372"> +Sanford saw something was out of gear. He tried to explain. "I've +sent your son to St. Paul after some money—"</p> + +<p id="id02373"> +"Where's my money? What have you done with <em>that</em>?" In her +excitement she thought of her money just as she hand handed it +in—silver and little rolls and wads of bills.</p> + +<p id="id02374"> +"If you'll let me explain—"</p> + +<p id="id02375"> +"I don't want you to explain nawthin'. Jest hand me out my +money."</p> + +<p id="id02376"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02377"> +"Now, Mrs. Bingham, if you'll only wait till Lincoln—"</p> + +<p id="id02378"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span> +"I don't want 'o wait. I want my money, right now."</p> + +<p id="id02379"> +"Will fifty dollars do?"</p> + +<p id="id02380"> +"No, sir; I want it all—every cent of it—jest as it was."</p> + +<p id="id02381"> +"But I can't do that. <em>Your</em> money is gone—"</p> + +<p id="id02382"> +"Gone? <em>Where</em> is it gone? What have you done with it? +You thief—"</p> + +<p id="id02383"> +"'Sh!" He tried to quiet her. "I mean I can't give you +your money—"</p> + +<p id="id02384"> +"Why can't you?" she stormed, trotting nervously on her feet as she +stood there.</p> + +<p id="id02385"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id02386"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02387"> +"I want my money—I knew you'd steal it—that I worked for. Give me +my money."</p> + +<p id="id02388"> +Sanford hastily handed her some money. "Here's fifty dollars. You +can have the rest when—"</p> + +<p id="id02389"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02390"> +But Mrs. McIlvaine was made a trifle uneasy by it. "He <em>wouldn't</em> +give you y'r money? Or did he say he <em>couldn't</em>?" she inquired, +in her moderate way.</p> + +<p id="id02391"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id02392"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02393"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02394"> +"Certainly, Mrs. McIlvaine. How much will you need?" </p> + +<p> +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." +</p> + +<p id="id02395"> +He paid the money briskly out over the little glass shelf. "How is +your children, Mrs. McIlvaine?"</p> + +<p id="id02396"> +"Purty well, thanky," replied Mrs. McIlvaine, laboriously counting +the bills.</p> + +<p id="id02397"> +"Is it all right?"</p> + +<p id="id02398"> +"I guess so," she replied, dubiously. "I'll count it after I get home."</p> + +<p id="id02399"> +She went up the street with the feeling that the bank was all right, +and she stepped in and told Mrs. Bingham that <em>she</em> had no +trouble in getting her money.</p> + +<p id="id02400"> +After she had gone Sanford sat down and wrote a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span> +telegram which he sent to St. Paul. This telegram, according to the +duplicate at the station, read in this puzzling way:</p> +<blockquote> +<p id="id02401"> +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.</p> + +<p class="right smcap">Sanford.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p id="id02403"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02404"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02405"> +"Glad this ain't a big demand. Rather close on cash to-day," he said, +smiling, as Lincoln's wife's sister came in.</p> + +<p id="id02406"> +She laughed, "I guess it won't bu'st yeh. If I thought it would, I'd +leave it in."</p> + +<p id="id02407"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id02408"> +"Oh, I guess so. Haf to, won't I?"</p> + +<p id="id02409"> +"Curious," said Sanford, in a confidential way. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span> +"I don't know that I ever saw things get in just such shape. +Paper enough—but exchange, ye know, and readjustment +of accounts."</p> + +<p id="id02410"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02411"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02412"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02413"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02414"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02415"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span> +As he went by the post-office Vance said to McIlvaine in a smiling +way, as if it were a good joke on Sanford:</p> + +<p id="id02416"> +"Little short o' cash down at the bank."</p> + +<p id="id02417"> +"He's a good fellow," McIlvaine said.</p> + +<p id="id02418"> +"So's his wife," added Vance, with a chuckle.</p> + + +<p> + <a name="Chapter11Part03" id="Chapter11Part03"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter11Part04">III</a></h3> + +<p id="id02420"> +<span class="smcap">That</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02421"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02422"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02423"> +"How is Mrs. Peterson's baby, Jim?" she said, suddenly, her face +sobering.</p> + +<p id="id02424">"Pretty bad, I guess. La, la, la—deedle-dee! The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span> +doctor seemed to think it was a tight squeak if it lived. +Guess it's done for—oop 'e goes!" +</p> + +<p id="id02425"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02426"> +"Oh, say, Nell," he broke out, on seeing her sober, "I had the +confoundedest time to-day with old lady Bingham—"</p> + +<p id="id02427"> +"'Sh! Baby's gone to sleep."</p> + +<p id="id02428"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02429"> +"What are you studying, Jim?"</p> + +<p id="id02430"> +Some one knocked on the door before he had time to reply.</p> + +<p id="id02431"> +"Come in!" he said.</p> + +<p id="id02432"> +"Sh! Don't <em>yell</em> so," his wife whispered.</p> + +<p id="id02433"> +"Telegram, Jim," said a voice in the obscurity.</p> + +<p id="id02434"> +"Oh! That you, Sam? Come in."</p> + +<p id="id02435"> +Sam, a lathy fellow with a quid in his cheek, stepped in. "How d' 'e +do, Mis' Sanford?"</p> + +<p id="id02436"> +"Set down—se' down."</p> + +<p id="id02437"> +"Can't stop; 'most train-time."</p> + +<p id="id02438"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02439"> +"Any answer?" asked Sam.</p> + +<p> +"No."</p> + +<p id="id02440"> +"All right. Good-night."</p> + +<p id="id02441"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span> +"Good-night."</p> + +<p id="id02442"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02443"> +"Settles what? What's the news?" His wife came up and looked +over his shoulder.</p> + +<p id="id02444"> +"Settles I've got to go on that nine-thirty train."</p> + +<p id="id02445"> +"Be back on the morning train?"</p> + +<p id="id02446"> +"Yes; I guess so—I mean, of course—I'll have to be—to +open the bank."</p> + +<p id="id02447"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02448"> +"What do you mean? Jim, you don't intend to come back!" She +took his arm. "What's the matter? Now tell me! What +<em>are</em> you going away for?"</p> + +<p id="id02449"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02450"> +"Why? What for?"</p> + +<p id="id02451"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02452"> +"Why—why—what has become of the money—all the money +the people have put in there?"</p> + +<p id="id02453"> +"Gone up with the rest."</p> + +<p id="id02454"> +"What 've you done with it? I don't—"</p> + +<p id="id02455"> +"Well, I've invested it—and lost it."</p> + +<p id="id02456"> +"James Gordon Sanford!" she exclaimed, trying +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span> +to realize it. "Was that right? Ain't that a case of—of—"</p> + +<p id="id02457"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02458"> +"But it's—<em>stealing</em>—ain't it?" She stared at him, +bewildered by his reckless lightness of mood.</p> + +<p> +"It is <em>now</em>, because I've lost. If I'd 'a' won it, +it 'ud 'a' been financial shrewdness!"</p> + +<p id="id02459"> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id02460"> +"No; I didn't, Nell. I ain't quite up to that."</p> + +<p id="id02461"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02462"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id02463"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02464"> +Her silence alarmed him, and he made excuses for himself. He was +speculating for her sake more than for his own, and so on.</p> + +<p id="id02465"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span> +"Choo—choo!" whistled the far-off train through the still air.</p> + +<p id="id02466"> +He sprang up and reached for his coat.</p> + +<p id="id02467"> +She seized his arm again. "Where are you going?" she sternly +asked.</p> + +<p id="id02468"> +"To take that train."</p> + +<p id="id02469"> +"When are you coming back?"</p> + +<p id="id02470"> +"I don't know." But his tone said, "Never."</p> + +<p id="id02471"> +She felt it. Her face grew bitter. "Going to leave me and—the +babies?"</p> + +<p id="id02472"> +"I'll send for you soon. Come, good-by!" He tried to put his arm +about her. She stepped back.</p> + +<p id="id02473"> +"Jim, if you leave me to-night" ("Choo—choo!" whistled the engine), +"you leave me forever." There was a terrible resolution in her tone.</p> + +<p id="id02474"> +"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p id="id02475"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02476"> +"I can't face those fellows—they'll kill me," he said, in a +sullen tone.</p> + +<p id="id02477"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id02478"> +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.</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span> +"I'll <em>have</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id02479"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02480"> +Neither spoke for a long time. At last he rose and began taking off +his coat and vest.</p> + +<p id="id02481"> +"Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but go to bed."</p> + +<p id="id02482"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02483"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02484"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02485"> +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 <em>could</em> he +sit there, with the children on his knees, and plan to run away, +leaving them disgraced?</p> + +<p id="id02486"> +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.</p> + +<p> + <a name="Chapter11Part04" id="Chapter11Part04"></a> +</p> + +<h3><a href="#Chapter11Part05">IV</a></h3> + +<p id="id02488"> +<span class="smcap">The</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02489"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02490"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02491"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02492"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02493"> +"I don't believe I'll eat any meat this morning, Nellie. I ain't very +well."</p> + +<p id="id02494"> +She glanced at him quickly, keenly. "What's the matter?"</p> + +<p id="id02495"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id02496"> +"It's got to be done."</p> + +<p id="id02497"> +"I know it; but that don't help me any." He tried to smile.</p> + +<p id="id02498"> +She mused, while the baby hammered on his tin plate. </p> + +<p> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02499"> +"But that's more'n I can do—"</p> + +<p id="id02500"> +"It must be done."</p> + +<p id="id02501"> +"But under the law—"</p> + +<p id="id02502"> +"There's nothing can make this thing right except paying every cent +we owe. I ain't a-goin' to have it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span> +said that my children—that I'm livin' on somebody else. +If you don't pay these debts, <em>I will</em>. 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."</p> + +<p id="id02503"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02504"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02505"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02506"> +"Hello, Jim! How are ye, so early in the morning?"</p> + +<p id="id02507"> +"Blessed near used up."</p> + +<p id="id02508"> +"That so? What's the matter?"</p> + +<p id="id02509"> +"I d'know," said Jim, listlessly. "Bilious, I guess. +Headache—stomach bad." +</p> + +<p id="id02510"> +"Oh! Well, now, you try them pills I was tellin' you of." </p> + +<p> +Arrived at the bank, he let himself in, and locked the door behind +him. He stood in the middle of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02511"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02512"> +Sanford said nothing, but finished his writing. Then he said, +quietly, "You needn't build a fire on my account, Link."</p> + +<p id="id02513"> +"Why not?"</p> + +<p id="id02514"> +"Well, I'm used up."</p> + +<p id="id02515"> +"What's the matter?"</p> + +<p id="id02516"> +"I'm sick, and the business has gone to the devil." +He looked out of the window.</p> + +<p id="id02517"> +Link dropped the poker, and came around behind the counter, and +stared at Sanford with fallen mouth.</p> + +<p id="id02518"> +"Wha'd you say?"</p> + +<p id="id02519"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02520"> +"What's bu'sted us? Have—"</p> + +<p id="id02521"> +"I've been speculatin' in copper. My partner's bu'sted me."</p> + +<p id="id02522"> +Link came closer. His mouth stiffened and an ominous look came +into his eyes. "You don't mean to say you've lost <em>my</em> +money, and mother's, and Uncle Andrew's, and all the rest?" +</p> + +<p id="id02523"> +Sanford was getting irritated. "———it! What's +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span> +the use? I tell you, <em>yes</em>! It's all gone—every cent of it." +</p> + +<p id="id02524"> +Link caught him by the shoulder as he sat at the desk. Sanford's +tone enraged him. "You thief! But you'll pay <em>me</em> back, +or I'll—"</p> + +<p id="id02525"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02526"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02527"> +"I'd like to pound the life out o' you!"</p> + +<p id="id02528"> +"You're at liberty to do so, if it 'll be any satisfaction."</p> + +<p> +This desperate courage awed the younger man. He gazed at +Sanford in amazement.</p> + +<p id="id02529"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02530"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02531"> +"Better lock up, Link. You can't do anything by staying here."</p> + +<p id="id02532"> +Lincoln took refuge in a boyish phrase that would +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span> +have made any one but a sick man laugh: +"Well, this is a———of a note!"</p> + +<p id="id02533"> +He took up the paper. It read:</p> +<blockquote> +<p class="noindent center lg">BANK CLOSED</p> +<hr class="tiny" /> +<p class="noindent center small caps">To my creditors and depositors</p> + +<p class="space-top" id="id02536"> +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.</p> + +<p class="right smcap">James G. Sanford.</p> +</blockquote> +<p id="id02538"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02539"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02540"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02541"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02542"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02543"> +"Let's go and see."</p> + +<p id="id02544"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02545"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02546"> +"Gentlemen, there's a pig loose here."</p> + +<p id="id02547"> +"One o' Link's jokes, I reckon."</p> + +<p id="id02548"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02549"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02550"> +"What's up?" queried Vance, coming up and repeating the +universal question.</p> + +<p id="id02551"> +McIlvaine pointed at the poster with his cigar.</p> + +<p id="id02552"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">354</a></span> +Vance read the notice, while the crowd waited silently.</p> + +<p id="id02553"> +"What ye think of it?" asked some one, impatiently.</p> + +<p> +Vance smoked a moment. "Can't say. Where's Jim?"</p> + +<p id="id02554"> +"That's it! Where <em>is</em> he?"</p> + +<p id="id02555"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02556"> +The crowd now grew sober and discussed possibilities.</p> + +<p> +"<em>If</em> that's true, it's the worst crack on the head +<em>I</em> ever had," said McIlvaine. "Seventeen hundred +dollars is my pile in there." He took a seat on the +window-sill.</p> + +<p id="id02557"> +"Well, I'm tickled to death to think I got my little stake out before +anything happened."</p> + +<p id="id02558"> +"When you think of it—what security did he ever give?" McIlvaine +continued.</p> + +<p id="id02559"> +"Not a cent—not a red cent."</p> + +<p id="id02560"> +"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 <em>might</em> +'a' happened. Well, sonny?" he said to the boy, who came running up.</p> + +<p id="id02561"> +"Link ain't to home, an' Mrs. Sanford she says Jim's sick, an' can't +come down."</p> + +<p id="id02562"> +There was a silence. "Anybody see him this morning?" asked +Wilson. +</p> + +<p id="id02563"> +"Yes; I saw him," said Vance. "Looked bad, too." </p> + +<p> +The crowd changed; people came and went, some to get news, some to carry +it away. In a short time the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02564"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02565"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02566"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02567"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02568"> +Upon this company burst Barney and Sam Mace from "Hogan's +Corners." They were excited by the news and already inflamed +with drink.</p> + +<p id="id02569"> +"Say!" yelled Barney, "any o' you fellers know anything about Jim +Sanford?" +</p> + +<p id="id02570"> +"No. Why? Got any money there?"</p> + +<p id="id02571"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span> +"Yes; and I'm goin' to git it out, if I haf to smash the door in."</p> + +<p id="id02572"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02573"> +"Go find him first. He's up home, sick—so's his wife."</p> + +<p id="id02574"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02575"> +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:</p> + +<p id="id02576"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02577"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02578"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">357</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02579"> +"I can't do anything," he said, helplessly. "They ain't done nawthin' +yet, an' I don't know—"</p> + +<p id="id02580"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02581"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02582"> +"Hold on, gentlemen! This is ag'inst the law—"</p> + +<p id="id02583"> +"Law to—!" said some one. "This is a case f'r something besides +law."</p> + +<p id="id02584"> +"Open up there!" roared the raucous voice of Barney Mace, as he +pounded at the door fiercely.</p> + +<p id="id02585"> +The door opened, and the wife appeared, one child in her arms, the +other at her side.</p> + +<p id="id02586"> +"What do you want?"</p> + +<p id="id02587"> +"Where's that banker? Tell the thief to come out here! We want to +talk with him."</p> + +<p id="id02588"> +The woman did not quail, but her face seemed a ghastly yellow, +seen through the falling snow.</p> + +<p id="id02589"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">358</a></span> +"He can't come. He's sick."</p> + +<p id="id02590"> +"Sick! We'll <em>sick</em> '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.</p> + +<p id="id02591"> +"Where's McPhail?" Vance inquired, anxiously. "Somebody find +McPhail." +</p> + +<p id="id02592"> +"Stand out o' the way!" snarled Barney, as he pushed the struggling +woman aside.</p> + +<p id="id02593"> +The wife raised her voice to that wild, animal-like pitch a woman +uses when desperate.</p> + +<p id="id02594"> +"I sha'n't do it, I tell you! <em>Help</em>!"</p> + +<p id="id02595"> +"Keep out o' my way, or I'll wring y'r neck f'r yeh." </p> + +<p> +She struggled with him, but he pushed her aside and entered the room.</p> + +<p id="id02596"> +"What's goin' on here?" called the ringing voice of Andrew +McPhail, who had just driven up with Link. +</p> + +<p id="id02597"> +Several of the crowd looked over their shoulders at McPhail.</p> + +<p id="id02598"> +"Hello, Mac! Just in time. Oh, nawthin'. Barney's callin' on the +banker, that's all."</p> + +<p id="id02599"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02600"> +"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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">359</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02601"> +"Kill me—if you want to—but let her—alone. +She's—"</p> + +<p id="id02602"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02603"> +"Hold on there!" cried McPhail, as he burst into the room. He +seemed an angel of God to the wife and mother.</p> + +<p id="id02604"> +He spread his great arms in a gesture which suggested irresistible +strength and resolution. "Clear out! Out with ye!"</p> + +<p id="id02605"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02606"> +McPhail pushed Barney out, shut the door behind him, and stood +on the steps, looking at the crowd.</p> + +<p id="id02607"> +"Well, you're a great lot! You fellers, would ye jump on a sick +man? What ye think ye're all doin', anyhow?"</p> + +<p id="id02608"> +The crowd laughed. "Hey, Mac; give us a speech!"</p> + +<p id="id02609"> +"You ought to be booted, the whole lot o' yeh!" he replied.</p> + +<p id="id02610"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">360</a></span> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02611"> +"Well, s'pose he has—what's the use o' jumpin' on 'im?"</p> + +<p id="id02612"> +"Git it out of his hide."</p> + +<p id="id02613"> +"I've heerd that talk before. How much <em>you</em> got in?"</p> + +<p id="id02614"> +"Two hundred dollars."</p> + +<p id="id02615"> +"Well, I've got two thousand." The crowd saw the point.</p> + +<p id="id02616"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02617"> +"That's so!" shouted somebody. "Mac ain't no fool, if he +<em>does</em> 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.</p> + +<p id="id02618"> +"Give us the rest of it, Mac!"</p> + +<p id="id02619"> +"The rest of it is—clear out o' here, 'r I'll boot every +mother's son of yeh!"</p> + +<p id="id02620"> +"Can't do it!"</p> + +<p id="id02621"> +"Come down an' try it!"</p> + +<p id="id02622"> +McIlvaine opened the door and looked out. "Mac, Mrs. Sanford +wants to say something—if it's safe."</p> + +<p id="id02623"> +"Safe as eatin' dinner."</p> + +<p id="id02624"> +Mrs. Sanford came out, looking pale and almost +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">361</a></span> +like a child as she stood beside her defender's towering bulk. +But her face was resolute.</p> + +<p id="id02625"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02626"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02627"> +Barney pushed his way through the crowd with contemptuous +curses. "The———she will!" he said.</p> + +<p id="id02628"> +"We'll see 't you have a chance," McPhall and McIlvaine assured +Mrs. Sanford. +</p> + +<p id="id02629"> +She went in and closed the door.</p> + +<p id="id02630"> +"Now <em>git</em>!" 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.</p> + +<p id="id02631"> +The failure of the bank and the raid on the banker had passed into +history.</p> + +<p> + <a name="Chapter11Part05" id="Chapter11Part05"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter11Part06">V</a></h3> + +<p id="id02633"> +<span class="smcap">In</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02634"> +"Don't that show," argued Vance, in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">362</a></span> +post-office—"don't that <em>show</em> he didn't intend to +steal? An' don't it show he's goin' to try to make things square?"</p> + +<p id="id02635"> +"I guess we might as well think that as anything."</p> + +<p id="id02636"> +"I claim the boys has a right t' take sumpthin' out o' his hide," Bent +Wilson stubbornly insisted. +</p> + +<p id="id02637"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02638"> +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?"</p> + +<p id="id02639"> +"Gritty ain't no name for her. She's goin' into business."</p> + +<p id="id02640"> +"So I hear. They say Jim was crawling around a little yesterday. I +didn't see 'im.</p> + +<p id="id02641"> +"I did. He looks pretty streak-id—now you bet."</p> + +<p id="id02642"> +"Wha'd he say for himself?"</p> + +<p id="id02643"> +"Oh, said give 'im time—he'd fix it all up."</p> + +<p id="id02644"> +"How much time?"</p> + +<p id="id02645"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id02646"> +The two men looked at each other in a manner most comically +significant. The thought of poison was in the mind of each.</p> + +<p id="id02647"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">363</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02648"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02649"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02650"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02651"> +"What sneers and insults?" she asked, coming over to him.</p> + +<p id="id02652"> +"Why, nobody 'll speak to me."</p> + +<p id="id02653"> +"Won't Mr. McPhail and Mr. McIlvaine?"</p> + +<p id="id02654"> +"Yes; but not as they used to."</p> + +<p id="id02655"> +"You can't blame 'em, Jim. You must go to work and win back +their confidence."</p> + +<p id="id02656"> +"I can't do that. Let's go away, Nell, and try again."</p> + +<p> +Her mouth closed firmly. A hard look came into her eyes. +"<em>You </em>can go if you want to, Jim. I'm goin' to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">364</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02657"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02658"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02659"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02660"> +His life for a time was abjectly pitiful. He didn't know what to do. +He had lost his footing, and, worst +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">365</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02661"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02662"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02663"> +Her business was successful from the start, but she did not allow +herself to get too confident.</p> + +<p id="id02664"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02665"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02666"> +Vance looked serene as he replied, "I'd stay longer and go oftener +if I could." +</p> + +<p id="id02667"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">366</a></span> +"Well, if you ain't cheekier 'n ol' cheek! I should think you'd be +ashamed to say it."</p> + +<p id="id02668"> +"'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 +<em>present</em> arrangement."</p> + +<p id="id02669"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02670"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02671"> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">367</a></span> +and paid them, pro rata, a thousand dollars. The meeting took +place in his wife's store, and in making the speech Sanford said:</p> + +<p id="id02672"> +"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—"</p> + +<p id="id02673"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02674"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02675"> +"We'll win yet," he began to say.</p> + +<p id="id02676"> +"She's a-holdin' of 'im right to time," Mrs. Bingham said.</p> + +<p id="id02677"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02678"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02679"> +"I could pay a little more on the principal," she explained, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">368</a></span> +"but I guess it 'll be better to use it for my stock. I can pay better +dividends next year.</p> + +<p id="id02680"> +"Take y'r time, Mrs. Sanford," Vance said.</p> + +<p id="id02681"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02682"> +"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.</p> + +<p id="id02683"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02684"> +Rose McPhail, one of Mrs. Sanford's most devoted friends, asked, +quietly, "Do you sit up all night t' see?"</p> + +<p id="id02685"> +"S'posin' I do!" she snapped. "I can't sleep with such things goin' +on."</p> + +<p id="id02686"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02687"> +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.</p> + +<p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">369</a></span> + <a name="Chapter11Part06" id="Chapter11Part06"></a> +</p> +<h3><a href="#Chapter11">VI</a></h3> + +<p id="id02689"> +<span class="smcap">One</span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02690"> +"Hello!" exclaimed the man who always sees things first. "Here +comes Mrs. Sanford and the ducklings."</p> + +<p id="id02691"> +Everybody looked.</p> + +<p id="id02692"> +"Ain't goin' off, is she?"</p> + +<p id="id02693"> +"Nope; guess not. Meet somebody, prob'ly Sanford."</p> + +<p id="id02694"> +"Well, somethin's up. She don't often get out o' that store."</p> + +<p id="id02695"> +"Le's see; he's been gone most o' the winter, hain't he?"</p> + +<p id="id02696"> +"Yes; went away about New-Year's."</p> + +<p id="id02697"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02698"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">370</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02699"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02700"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02701"> +"W'y, Jim, ain't you cuttin' a swell?"</p> + +<p id="id02702"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02703"> +"Hello, Jim! That plug 'll never do."</p> + +<p id="id02704"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02705"> +"All right, Jim. Goin' to pay a new dividend?"</p> + +<p id="id02706"> +"That's what I am," he beamed, as he walked off with his wife, who +was studying him sharply.</p> + +<p id="id02707"> +"Jim, what ails you?"</p> + +<p id="id02708"> +"Nothin'; I'm all right."</p> + +<p id="id02709"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">371</a></span> +"But this new suit? And the hat? And the necktie?" </p> + +<p> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id02710"> +"Struck what?"</p> + +<p id="id02711"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02712"> +They had reached the store door, and he paused.</p> + +<p id="id02713"> +"We'll go right home to supper," she said. "The girls will look out +for things till I get back."</p> + +<p id="id02714"> +They walked on together, the children laughing and playing ahead.</p> + +<p id="id02715"> +"Well, upshot of it is, I sold out my share to Osgood for twenty +thousand dollars."</p> + +<p id="id02716"> +She stopped, and stared at him. "Jim—Gordon Sanford!"</p> + +<p id="id02717"> +"Fact! I can prove it." He patted his breast pocket mysteriously. +"Ten thousand right there." +</p> + +<p id="id02718"> +"Gracious sakes alive! How dare you carry so much money?"</p> + +<p id="id02719"> +"I'm mighty glad o' the chance." He grinned.</p> + +<p id="id02720"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">372</a></span> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02721"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02722"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02723"> +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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">373</a></span> +suggestive smell of bare ground. The alert chuckle of an +occasional robin could be heard.</p> + +<p id="id02724"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02725"> +"Oh, don't worry yourself about that. That's the way things go. It's +just luck."</p> + +<p id="id02726"> +"Well, I can't see it just that way. It seems to me just—like +gambling. You win, but—but somebody else must lose."</p> + +<p id="id02727"> +"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'."</p> + +<p id="id02728"> +She said no more, but her face remained clouded. On the way +down to the store they met Lincoln.</p> + +<p id="id02729"> +"Come down to the store, Link, and bring Joe. I want to talk with +yeh."</p> + +<p id="id02730"> +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!"</p> + +<p id="id02731"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02732"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">374</a></span> +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: +</p> + +<p id="id02733"> +"Say, Nell, I can't stand this. I'm goin' to get rid o' this money right +off, <em>now</em>!"</p> + +<p id="id02734"> +"Very well; just as you please."</p> + +<p id="id02735"> +"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?"</p> + +<p id="id02736"> +Two or three nodded, and McPhail said, humorously, slapping his +pocket, "I always go loaded."</p> + +<p id="id02737"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02738"> +It was a superb stroke. The fellows whistled and stared and swore +at one another. This <em>was</em> coming down on them. Link was dumb +with amazement as he received sixteen hundred and fifty dollars in +crisp, new bills.</p> + +<p id="id02739"> +"Andrew, it's your turn next." Sanford's tone was actually +patronizing as he faced McPhail.</p> + +<p id="id02740"> +"I was jokin'. I ain't got my certificate here."</p> + +<p id="id02741"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02742"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">375</a></span> +"Say, Jim, we'd like to know jest—jest where this windfall comes +from," said Vance, as he took his share.</p> + +<p id="id02743"> +"Comes from the copper country," was all he ever said about it.</p> + +<p id="id02744"> +"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."</p> + +<p id="id02745"> +"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."</p> + +<hr class="break" /> + +<p id="id02746"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02747"> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">376</a></span> +his superior. Her love had friendship in it, but less of sex, +and no adoration.</p> + +<p id="id02748"> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02749"> +"No; I won't <em>have</em> to, but I guess I'll keep on just +the same, Jim."</p> + +<p id="id02750"> +"Keep on? What for?"</p> + +<p id="id02751"> +"Well, I rather like it."</p> + +<p id="id02752"> +"But you don't need to—"</p> + +<p id="id02753"> +"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." </p> + +<p> +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."</p> + +<p id="id02754"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02755"> +"Jim, I want a partner in my store. Let us begin again, right here. I +can't say that I'll ever feel <em>just</em> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">377</a></span> +her hand, as one man to another. He took it wonderingly.</p> + +<p id="id02756"> +"All right, Nell; I'll do it."</p> + +<p id="id02757"> +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.</p> + +<p id="id02758"> +"It's almost like getting married again, Nell—for me."</p> + +<p> +As they walked off up the sidewalk in the soft moonlight, +their arms were interlocked.</p> + +<p id="id02759"> +They loitered like a couple of lovers.</p> + +<p class="center smcap quad-space-top">The End.</p> + +<div class="chapterhead"> + <br /> + <a name="transNotes" id="transNotes"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">Transcriber's Notes</a></h2> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>Introduction</h3> +</div> + + +<p> +Welcome to <span class="smcap">Project Gutenberg's</span> edition of +<i>Main-Travelled Roads</i> 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.</p> +<p> +The 1930 edition of <i>Main-Travelled Roads</i> 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. +</p> +<p> +<a href="#Page_ii">Page ii</a> 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 <a href="#HGOtherEditions">Other Editions</a>. We have provided +links to versions of the books available through +<span class="smcap">Project Gutenberg</span>. As of this writing, we +are missing ten books written by Garland in the public domain, but we're +always adding new titles! +</p> +<p>The Introduction by William Dean Howells first appeared in the 1893 +release of the book. +</p> +<p> +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 <i>Main-Travelled Roads</i>. +</p> +<p> +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. +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<h3>Detailed Notes</h3> +<p> +This section contains a list of emendations to the text and decisions made +in transcribing the text, as well as accompanying explanations. +</p> +<p> +For many of the short stories with several parts, the physical book used a +convention of not printing <strong>I.</strong> for the first part of the +story. We put those in, to give better structure to the document. +</p> +<p>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. +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<div id="notes"> +<h4>Foreward</h4> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_xiv">Page xiv</a>, 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. +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<h4>A Branch Road</h4> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_050">Page 50</a>, 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. +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<h4>Under the Coolly</h4> +<p> + Several times in this short story, Howard was abbreviated as How. with + the period. This convention was retained. +</p> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_105">Page 105</a>, add to after them in the sentence + <strong>He simply pushed them one side and went on with his + reading.</strong> +</p> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_120">Page 120</a>, 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. +</p> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_124">Page 124</a>, 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. +</p> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_124">Page 124</a>, 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. +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<h4>Return of a Private</h4> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_173">Page 173</a>-<a href="#Page_174">Page 174</a>, + we added a missing quote before but in the paragraph: +</p> +<blockquote> +<p> + "They called that coffee Jayvy," grumbled one of them, + <strong>"</strong>but it never went by the road where government + Jayvy resides. I reckon I know coffee from peas." +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_182">Page 182</a>, remove me from <strong>Gimme + me a kiss!</strong> +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<h4>Under the Lion's Paw</h4> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_204">Page 204</a>, 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. +</p> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_216">Page 216</a>, we added a closing quote following + the period after rest: +</p> +<blockquote> +<p> +"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.<strong>"</strong> +</p> +</blockquote> +<p><br /></p> +<h4>Mrs. Ripley's Trip</h4> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_277">Page 277</a>, 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: <strong>I guess she kind a' sort a' + forgot it, bein' so flustrated, y' know.</strong> +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<h4>Uncle Ethan Ripley</h4> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_289">Page 289</a>, sick'-nin' is hyphenated and split + between two lines for spacing. We transcribed the word without the + hyphen: Nobuddy'll buy that <strong>sick'nin'</strong> stuff but an + old numskull like you. +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<h4>God's Raven</h4> +<p> + 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. +</p> +<p> + On <a href="#Page_308">Page 308</a>, 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. +</p> +<blockquote> +<p> +"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, <strong>'</strong>sorry to see you go, +Bloom,<strong>'</strong> 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.'"</p> +</blockquote> +</div> + + +<p class="quad-space-bottom"><br /></p> + + +<div class="boilerplate"> +<p class="bold"> +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAIN-TRAVELLED ROADS *** +</p> +<br /> +<p> +***** This file should be named 2809-h.htm or 2809-h.zip ***** +</p> +<p> +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<span class="neat-left-margin"> + https://www.gutenberg.org/X/X/X/XXXXX/</span> +</p> +<p> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions +will be renamed. +</p> +<br /> +<p> +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. 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