I
ON a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas two ago, a girl in against the of Northern sky. She saw no Indians now; she saw flour-mills and the of in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Nor was she of and portages, and the Yankee fur-traders were all about her. She was upon fudge, the plays of Brieux, the why over, and the that the had at the new which her ears.
A which had a thousand miles of wheat-lands her skirt in a line so graceful, so full of and moving beauty, that the of a on the road to over her quality of freedom. She her arms, she against the wind, her skirt and flared, a lock wild. A girl on a hilltop; credulous, plastic, young; the air as she to drink life. The of youth.
It is Carol Milford, for an hour from Blodgett College.
The days of pioneering, of in sunbonnets, and killed with in clearings, are now than Camelot; and a girl is the of that called the American Middlewest.
II
Blodgett College is on the of Minneapolis. It is a of religion. It is still the of Voltaire, Darwin, and Robert Ingersoll. Pious families in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, the Dakotas send their children thither, and Blodgett them from the of the universities. But it girls, men who sing, and one lady who Milton and Carlyle. So the four years which Carol at Blodgett were not wasted. The smallness of the school, the of rivals, permitted her to with her versatility. She played tennis, gave chafing-dish parties, took a in the drama, “twosing,” and joined a dozen for the of the or the of a thing called General Culture.
In her class there were two or three girls, but none more eager. She was in the and at dances, though out of the three hundred students of Blodgett, more and Bostoned more smoothly. Every of her was alive—thin wrists, quince-blossom skin, eyes, black hair.
The other girls in her at the of her when they saw her in negligee, or out wet from a shower-bath. She then but as large as they had supposed; a child who must be with kindness. “Psychic,” the girls whispered, and “spiritual.” Yet so were her nerves, so her trust in and light, that she was more than any of the who, with in heavy-ribbed bloomers, across the of the “gym” in for the Blodgett Ladies' Basket-Ball Team.
Even when she was her dark were observant. She did not yet know the ability of the world to be and proudly dull, but if she should learn those powers, her would or or amorous.
For all her enthusiasms, for all the and the “crushes” which she inspired, Carol's were of her. When she was most or she yet and critical. She was credulous, perhaps; a hero-worshipper; yet she did question and unceasingly. Whatever she might she would be static.
Her her. By she to that she had an voice, a for the piano, the ability to act, to write, to manage organizations. Always she was disappointed, but always she anew—over the Student Volunteers, who to missionaries, over painting for the club, over for the college magazine.
She was on the that Sunday when she played in chapel. Out of the her took up the organ theme, and the candle-light her in a frock, her arm to the bow, her serious. Every man in love then with religion and Carol.
Throughout Senior year she related all her and successes to a career. Daily, on the library steps or in the of the Main Building, the co-eds talked of “What shall we do when we college?” Even the girls who that they were going to be married to be positions; they who that they would have to work about suitors. As for Carol, she was an orphan; her only near relative was a vanilla-flavored sister married to an in St. Paul. She had used most of the money from her father's estate. She was not in love—that is, not often, long at a time. She would earn her living.
But how she was to earn it, how she was to the world—almost for the world's own good—she did not see. Most of the girls who were not meant to be teachers. Of these there were two sorts: careless who that they to the “beastly and children” the minute they had a to marry; and studious, sometimes bulbous-browed and pop-eyed who at class prayer-meetings God to “guide their along the paths of usefulness.” Neither Carol. The (a word of hers at this era). The were, she fancied, as likely to do as to do good by their in the value of Caesar.
At times Senior year Carol upon studying law, motion-picture scenarios, professional nursing, and marrying an hero.
Then she a hobby in sociology.
The was new. He was married, and therefore taboo, but he had come from Boston, he had among and and Jews and at the University Settlement in New York, and he had a white neck. He a class through the prisons, the bureaus, the of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Trailing at the end of the line Carol was at the of the others, their manner of at the as at a Zoo. She herself a great liberator. She put her hand to her mouth, her and thumb her lip, and frowned, and being aloof.
A named Stewart Snyder, a man in a shirt, a black tie, and the green-and-purple class cap, to her as they walked the others in the of the South St. Paul stockyards, “These college make me tired. They're so top-lofty. They ought to of on the farm, the way I have. These put it all over them.”
“I just love common workmen,” Carol.
“Only you don't want to that common don't think they're common!”
“You're right! I apologize!” Carol's in the of emotion, in a of abasement. Her the world. Stewart Snyder at her. He his large red into his pockets, he them out, he got of them by his hands him, and he stammered:
“I know. You people. Most of these co-eds——Say, Carol, you do a for people.”
“Oh—oh well—you know—sympathy and everything—if you were—say you were a lawyer's wife. You'd his clients. I'm going to be a lawyer. I admit I in sometimes. I so dog-gone with people that can't the gaff. You'd be good for a that was too serious. Make him more—more—YOU know—sympathetic!”
His lips, his eyes, were her to him to go on. She from the steam-roller of his sentiment. She cried, “Oh, see those sheep—millions and millions of them.” She on.
Stewart was not interesting. He hadn't a white neck, and he had among reformers. She wanted, just now, to have a in a settlement-house, like a without the of a black robe, and be kind, and read Bernard Shaw, and a of poor.
The reading in her to a book on village-improvement—tree-planting, town pageants, girls' clubs. It had pictures of and garden-walls in France, New England, Pennsylvania. She had it up carelessly, with a which she with her finger-tips as as a cat.
She into the book, on her window-seat, with her slim, lisle-stockinged crossed, and her up under her chin. She a pillow while she read. About her was the of a Blodgett College room: cretonne-covered window-seat, of girls, a print of the Coliseum, a chafing-dish, and a dozen or or pyrographed. Shockingly out of place was a of the Dancing Bacchante. It was the only of Carol in the room. She had the from of girl students.
It was as a part of all this that she the on village-improvement. But she stopped fidgeting. She into the book. She had half-way through it the three o'clock called her to the class in English history.
She sighed, “That's what I'll do after college! I'll my hands on one of these and make it beautiful. Be an inspiration. I I'd a teacher then, but—I won't be that of a teacher. I won't drone. Why should they have all the garden on Long Island? Nobody has done anything with the here in the Northwest and to the Elsie books. I'll make 'em put in a village green, and cottages, and a Main Street!”
Thus she through the class, which was a Blodgett a teacher and children of twenty, by the teacher his had to answer his questions, while their he by demanding, “Have you looked that up in the library? Well then, you do!”
The history was a retired minister. He was today. He of Mr. Charley Holmberg, “Now Charles, would it your of that if I were to ask you to tell us that you do not know anything about King John?” He three minutes in assuring himself of the that no one the date of Magna Charta.
Carol did not him. She was the of a half-timbered town hall. She had one man in the village who did not her picture of and arcades, but she had assembled the town and him.
III
Though she was Minnesota-born Carol was not an of the villages. Her father, the and shabby, the learned and kind, had come from Massachusetts, and through all her he had been a judge in Mankato, which is not a town, but in its garden-sheltered and of is white and green New England reborn. Mankato and the Minnesota River, hard by Traverse Sioux, where the with the Indians, and the cattle-rustlers once came hell-for-leather posses.
As she along the banks of the dark river Carol to its about the wide land of yellow and to the West; the Southern and and trees toward which it was gliding; and she again the and thick of high-stacked river on sand-reefs sixty years ago. Along the she saw missionaries, in tall pot hats, and Dakota with blankets. . . . Far off at night, the river bend, by the pines, and a on black waters.
Carol's family were self-sufficient in their life, with Christmas a full of and tenderness, and “dressing-up parties” and absurd. The in the Milford hearth-mythology were not the Night Animals who jump out of and eat little girls, but and bright-eyed creatures—the htab, who is and and in the bathroom, and to warm small feet; the oil stove, who and stories; and the skitamarigg, who will play with children if they out of and close the window at the very line of the song about which father while shaving.
Judge Milford's was to let the children read they pleased, and in his library Carol Balzac and Rabelais and Thoreau and Max Muller. He them the on the of the encyclopedias, and when visitors asked about the progress of the “little ones,” they were to the children A-And, And-Aus, Aus-Bis, Bis-Cal, Cal-Cha.
Carol's mother died when she was nine. Her father retired from the when she was eleven, and took the family to Minneapolis. There he died, two years after. Her sister, a proper soul, older than herself, had a to her when they in the same house.
From those early and days and from her of relatives Carol a to be different from book-ignoring people; an to and wonder at their when she was taking part in it. But, she approvingly, as she her career of town-planning, she was now to being and herself.
IV
In a month Carol's had clouded. Her about a teacher had returned. She was not, she worried, to the routine, and she not picture herself children and to be wise and decisive. But the for the of a town remained. When she an item about small-town women's or a photograph of a Main Street, she was for it, she of her work.
It was the of the of English which her to study professional library-work in a Chicago school. Her and the new plan. She saw herself children to read tales, helping men to books on mechanics, being so to old men who were for newspapers—the light of the library, an authority on books, to dinners with and explorers, reading a paper to an of scholars.
V
The last commencement. In five days they would be in the of final examinations.
The house of the president had been with of parlors, and in the library, a ten-foot room with a and the portraits of Whittier and Martha Washington, the student was playing “Carmen” and “Madame Butterfly.” Carol was with music and the of parting. She saw the as a jungle, the pink-shaded electric as an haze, and the eye-glassed as Olympians. She was at of the girls with she had “always to acquainted,” and the dozen men who were to in love with her.
But it was Stewart Snyder she encouraged. He was so much than the others; he was an warm brown, like his new ready-made with its shoulders. She sat with him, and with two cups of coffee and a chicken patty, upon a of in the coat-closet under the stairs, and as the thin music in, Stewart whispered:
“I can't it, this up after four years! The years of life.”
She it. “Oh, I know! To think that in just a days we'll be parting, and we'll see some of the again!”
“Carol, you got to to me! You always when I try to talk to you, but you got to to me. I'm going to be a big lawyer, maybe a judge, and I need you, and I'd protect you——”
His arm her shoulders. The music her independence. She said mournfully, “Would you take of me?” She touched his hand. It was warm, solid.
“You I would! We'd have, Lord, we'd have times in Yankton, where I'm going to settle——”
“But I want to do something with life.”
“What's than making a home and up some and people?”
It was the male reply to the woman. Thus to the Sappho the melon-venders; thus the captains to Zenobia; and in the over the thus to the woman of matriarchy. In the of Blodgett College but with the voice of Sappho was Carol's answer:
“Of course. I know. I that's so. Honestly, I do love children. But there's of that can do housework, but I—well, if you HAVE got a college education, you ought to use it for the world.”
“I know, but you can use it just as well in the home. And gee, Carol, just think of a of us going out on an picnic, some evening.”
“Yes.”
“And sleigh-riding in winter, and going fishing——”
Blarrrrrrr! The had into the “Soldiers' Chorus”; and she was protesting, “No! No! You're a dear, but I want to do things. I don't myself but I want—everything in the world! Maybe I can't sing or write, but I know I can be an in library work. Just I some boy and he a great artist! I will! I will do it! Stewart dear, I can't settle to nothing but dish-washing!”
Two minutes later—two minutes—they were by an embarrassed also the of the overshoe-closet.
After she saw Stewart Snyder again. She to him once a week—for one month.
VI
A year Carol in Chicago. Her study of library-cataloguing, recording, books of reference, was easy and not too somniferous. She in the Art Institute, in and and music, in the and dancing. She almost gave up library work to one of the who in cheese-cloth in the moonlight. She was taken to a Studio Party, with beer, cigarettes, hair, and a Russian Jewess who sang the Internationale. It cannot be reported that Carol had anything to say to the Bohemians. She was with them, and ignorant, and she was by the free manners which she had for years desired. But she and of Freud, Romain Rolland, syndicalism, the Confederation Generale du Travail, vs. haremism, Chinese lyrics, of mines, Christian Science, and in Ontario.
She home, and that was the and end of her Bohemian life.
The second of Carol's sister's husband in Winnetka, and once her out to Sunday dinner. She walked through Wilmette and Evanston, new of architecture, and her to villages. She that she would give up library work and, by a nature was not very to her, turn a town into Georgian houses and Japanese bungalows.
The next day in library class she had to read a on the use of the Cumulative Index, and she was taken so in the that she put off her career of town-planning—and in the autumn she was in the public library of St. Paul.
VII
Carol was not and she was not exhilarated, in the St. Paul Library. She slowly that she was not visibly lives. She did, at first, put into her with the a which should have moved worlds. But so of these worlds wanted to be moved. When she was in of the magazine room the readers did not ask for about essays. They grunted, “Wanta the Leather Goods Gazette for last February.” When she was out books the was, “Can you tell me of a good, light, love to read? My husband's going away for a week.”
She was of the other librarians; proud of their aspirations. And by the of she read of books to her white littleness: of with of foot-notes with of small type, Parisian imagistes, Hindu for curry, to the Solomon Isles, with modern American improvements, upon success in the real-estate business. She took walks, and was about shoes and diet. And did she that she was living.
She to and at the houses of college acquaintances. Sometimes she one-stepped demurely; sometimes, in of life's past, she into a bacchanal, her excited, her tense, as she the room.
During her three years of library work men in her—the of a fur-manufacturing firm, a teacher, a newspaper reporter, and a official. None of them her more than pause in thought. For months no male from the mass. Then, at the Marburys', she met Dr. Will Kennicott.
