IT was a and and Carol who to the of the Johnson Marburys for Sunday supper. Mrs. Marbury was a neighbor and friend of Carol's sister; Mr. Marbury a traveling of an company. They a of sandwich-salad-coffee suppers, and they Carol as their and representative. She was the one who be upon to the Caruso record, and the Chinese which Mr. Marbury had as his present from San Francisco. Carol the Marburys and therefore admirable.
This September Sunday she a with a pink lining. A had away the lines of her eyes. She was young, naive, by the coolness. She her at the chair in the of the flat, and into the green-plush living-room. The familiar group were trying to be conversational. She saw Mr. Marbury, a woman teacher of in a high school, a from the Great Northern Railway offices, a lawyer. But there was also a stranger, a thick tall man of thirty-six or -seven, with hair, used to orders, which good-naturedly, and which you remember.
Mr. Marbury boomed, “Carol, come over here and meet Doc Kennicott—Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. He all our insurance-examining up in that of the woods, and they do say he's some doctor!”
As she toward the and nothing in particular, Carol that Gopher Prairie was a Minnesota wheat-prairie town of something over three thousand people.
“Pleased to meet you,” Dr. Kennicott. His hand was strong; the soft, but the weathered, against red skin.
He looked at her as though she was an discovery. She her hand free and fluttered, “I must go out to the and help Mrs. Marbury.” She did not speak to him again till, after she had the and passed the paper napkins, Mr. Marbury her with a loud, “Oh, now. Come over here and and tell us how's tricks.” He her to a sofa with Dr. Kennicott, who was about the eyes, of shoulder, as though he was what he was to do next. As their left them, Kennicott awoke:
“Marbury tells me you're a high in the public library. I was surprised. Didn't think you were old enough. I you were a girl, still in college maybe.”
“Oh, I'm old. I to take to a lip-stick, and to a any now.”
“Huh! You must be old—prob'ly too old to be my granddaughter, I guess!”
Thus in the Vale of Arcady and the hours; thus, and not in pentameters, Elaine and the Sir Launcelot in the alley.
“How do you like your work?” asked the doctor.
“It's pleasant, but sometimes I off from things—the stacks, and the cards all over with red stamps.”
“Don't you of the city?”
“St. Paul? Why, don't you like it? I don't know of any view than when you on Summit Avenue and look across Lower Town to the Mississippi and the beyond.”
“I know but——Of I've nine years around the Twin Cities—took my B.A. and M.D. over at the U., and had my in a hospital in Minneapolis, but still, oh well, you don't to know here, way you do up home. I I've got something to say about Gopher Prairie, but you take it in a big city of two-three hundred thousand, and I'm just one on the dog's back. And then I like country driving, and the in the fall. Do you know Gopher Prairie at all?”
“No, but I it's a very town.”
“Nice? Say honestly——Of I may be prejudiced, but I've an of towns—one time I to Atlantic City for the American Medical Association meeting, and I a week in New York! But I saw a town that had such up-and-coming people as Gopher Prairie. Bresnahan—you know—the famous manufacturer—he comes from Gopher Prairie. Born and up there! And it's a town. Lots of and box-elders, and there's two of the you saw, right near town! And we've got seven miles of walks already, and more every day! Course a of these still put up with walks, but not for us, you bet!”
“Really?”
(Why was she of Stewart Snyder?)
“Gopher Prairie is going to have a great future. Some of the best dairy and land in the right near there—some of it selling right now at one-fifty an acre, and I it will go up to two and a in ten years!”
“Is——Do you like your profession?”
“Nothing like it. Keeps you out, and yet you have a to in the office for a change.”
“I don't that way. I mean—it's such an opportunity for sympathy.”
Dr. Kennicott into a heavy, “Oh, these Dutch farmers don't want sympathy. All they need is a and a good of salts.”
Carol must have flinched, for he was urging, “What I is—I don't want you to think I'm one of these old salts-and-quinine peddlers, but I mean: so many of my are farmers that I I of case-hardened.”
“It to me that a doctor a whole community, if he wanted to—if he saw it. He's the only man in the neighborhood who has any scientific training, isn't he?”
“Yes, that's so, but I most of us rusty. We land in a of and and legs. What we need is like you to jump on us. It'd be you that would the town.”
“No, I couldn't. Too flighty. I did used to think about doing just that, enough, but I to have away from the idea. Oh, I'm a one to be you!”
“No! You're just the one. You have ideas without having charm. Say! Don't you think there's a of these that go out for all these movements and so on that sacrifice——”
After his upon he questioned her about herself. His and the of his her and she him as one who had a right to know what she and and ate and read. He was positive. He had from a sketched-in to a friend, was news. She noticed the healthy of his chest. His nose, which had and large, was virile.
She was out of this when Marbury over to them and with yammered, “Say, what do you two think you're doing? Telling or making love? Let me you that the is a bacheldore, Carol. Come on now, folks, shake a leg. Let's have some or a or something.”
She did not have another word with Dr. Kennicott until their parting:
“Been a great to meet you, Miss Milford. May I see you some time when I come again? I'm here often—taking to for majors, and so on.”
“Why——”
“What's your address?”
“You can ask Mr. Marbury next time you come down—if you want to know!”
“Want to know? Say, you wait!”
II
Of the love-making of Carol and Will Kennicott there is nothing to be told which may not be on every evening, on every block.
They were and mystery; their speech was phrases and of poetry; their were contentment, or when his arm took her shoulder. All the of youth, when it is passing—and all the of a well-to-do man a girl at the time when she is of her and sees no ahead any man she is to serve.
They liked each other honestly—they were honest. She was by his to making money, but she was sure that he did not to patients, and that he did keep up with the medical magazines. What her to something more than was his when they tramping.
They walked from St. Paul the river to Mendota, Kennicott more elastic-seeming in a cap and a soft shirt, Carol in a tam-o'-shanter of velvet, a with an and turn-down collar, and above shoes. The High Bridge the Mississippi, from low banks to a of cliffs. Far it on the St. Paul side, upon flats, is a wild settlement of chicken-infested gardens and together from sign-boards, of iron, and out of the river. Carol over the rail of the to look at this Yang-tse village; in she that she was with the height; and it was an to have a male her to safety, of having a logical woman teacher or sniff, “Well, if you're scared, why don't you away from the rail, then?”
From the across the river Carol and Kennicott looked at St. Paul on its hills; an from the of the to the of the capitol.
The river road past slopes, glens, now with September, to Mendota, white and a among trees a hill, old-world in its ease. And for this fresh land, the place is ancient. Here is the house which General Sibley, the king of fur-traders, in 1835, with plaster of river mud, and of for laths. It has an air of centuries. In its solid rooms Carol and Kennicott prints from other days which the house had seen—tail-coats of robin's-egg blue, Red River with furs, Union soldiers in and sabers.
It to them a common American past, and it was they had it together. They talked more trustingly, more personally, as they on. They the Minnesota River in a ferry. They the hill to the tower of Fort Snelling. They saw the of the Mississippi and the Minnesota, and the men who had come here eighty years ago—Maine lumbermen, York traders, soldiers from the Maryland hills.
“It's a good country, and I'm proud of it. Let's make it all that those old boys about,” the Kennicott was moved to vow.
“Let's!”
“Come on. Come to Gopher Prairie. Show us. Make the town—well—make it artistic. It's pretty, but I'll admit we aren't any too artistic. Probably the lumber-yard isn't as as all these Greek temples. But go to it! Make us change!”
“I would like to. Some day!”
“Now! You'd love Gopher Prairie. We've been doing a with and the past years, and it's so homey—the big trees and——And the best people on earth. And keen. I Luke Dawson——”
Carol but to the names. She not their to her.
“I Luke Dawson has got more money than most of the on Summit Avenue; and Miss Sherwin in the high is a regular wonder—reads Latin like I do English; and Sam Clark, the man, he's a corker—not a man in the to go with; and if you want culture, Vida Sherwin there's Reverend Warren, the Congregational preacher, and Professor Mott, the of schools, and Guy Pollock, the lawyer—they say he regular and—and Raymie Wutherspoon, he's not such an when you to KNOW him, and he swell. And——And there's of others. Lym Cass. Only of none of them have your finesse, you might call it. But they don't make 'em any more and so on. Come on! We're for you to us!”
They sat on the bank the of the old fort, from observation. He her with his arm. Relaxed after the walk, a her throat, of his and power, she against him.
“You know I'm in love with you, Carol!”
She did not answer, but she touched the of his hand with an finger.
“You say I'm so materialistic. How can I help it, unless I have you to me up?”
She did not answer. She not think.
“You say a doctor a town the way he a person. Well, you the town of it, if anything does, and I'll be your kit.”
She did not his words, only the of them.
She was shocked, thrilled, as he her and cried, “There's no use saying and saying and saying things. Don't my arms talk to you—now?”
“Oh, please, please!” She if she ought to be angry, but it was a thought, and she that she was crying.
Then they were six apart, that they had been nearer, while she to be impersonal:
“I would like to—would like to see Gopher Prairie.”
“Trust me! Here she is! Brought some to you.”
Her near his sleeve, she a dozen village pictures. They were streaky; she saw only trees, shrubbery, a in shadows. But she over the lakes: dark water bluffs, a of ducks, a in shirt and a wide hat, up a of croppies. One winter picture of the of Plover Lake had the air of an etching: of ice, in the of a bank, the of a house, in thin black lines, of grasses. It was an of clear vigor.
“How'd it be to there for a of hours, or go along on a fast ice-boat, and home for coffee and some wienies?” he demanded.
“It might be—fun.”
“But here's the picture. Here's where you come in.”
A photograph of a clearing: new among stumps, a with and with hay. In of it a woman with tight-drawn hair, and a bedraggled, smeary, glorious-eyed.
“Those are the of I among, good of the time. Nels Erdstrom, clean Svenska. He'll have a farm in ten years, but now——I his wife on a table, with my driver the anesthetic. Look at that baby! Needs some woman with hands like yours. Waiting for you! Just look at that baby's eyes, look how he's begging——”
“Don't! They me. Oh, it would be sweet to help him—so sweet.”
As his arms moved toward her she answered all her with “Sweet, so sweet.”
