UNDER the clouds of the a moving of steel. An and a roar. The of the of people and baggage.
Towns as as a of boxes on an floor. The of gold only by of white houses and red barns.
No. 7, the way train, through Minnesota, the that in a thousand-mile from Mississippi to the Rockies.
It is September, hot, very dusty.
There is no Pullman to the train, and the day of the East are replaced by free chair cars, with each seat cut into two chairs, the head-rests with towels. Halfway the car is a semi-partition of columns, but the is of bare, splintery, grease-blackened wood. There is no porter, no pillows, no for beds, but all today and all tonight they will in this long box-farmers with and children who all to be of the same age; going to new jobs; traveling with and shoes.
They are and cramped, the lines of their hands with grime; they go to sleep in attitudes, against the window-panes or on rolled on seat-arms, and into the aisle. They do not read; they do not think. They wait. An early-wrinkled, young-old mother, moving as though her joints were dry, opens a suit-case in which are blouses, a pair of through at the toes, a bottle of medicine, a cup, a paper-covered book about which the news-butcher has her into buying. She out a which she to a on a seat and hopelessly. Most of the on the red of the seat, and the woman and to them away, but they up and on the plush.
A man and woman sandwiches and the on the floor. A large brick-colored Norwegian takes off his shoes, in relief, and his in their thick against the seat in of him.
An old woman mouth like a mud-turtle's, and is not so much white as yellow like linen, with of pink the tresses, her bag, opens it, in, it, puts it under the seat, and it up and opens it and it all over again. The is full of and of memories: a leather buckle, an band-concert program, of ribbon, lace, satin. In the her is an in a cage.
Two seats, overflowing with a Slovene iron-miner's family, are with shoes, dolls, bottles, in newspapers, a bag. The boy takes a mouth-organ out of his pocket, the tobacco off, and plays “Marching through Georgia” till every in the car to ache.
The news-butcher comes through selling chocolate and drops. A girl-child to the water-cooler and to her seat. The paper which she for cup in the as she goes, and on each she over the of a carpenter, who grunts, “Ouch! Look out!”
The dust-caked doors are open, and from the smoking-car a visible line of tobacco smoke, and with it a of over the which the man in the and tie and light yellow shoes has just told to the man in overalls.
The thicker, more stale.
II
To each of the his seat was his temporary home, and most of the were housekeepers. But one seat looked clean and cool. In it were an man and a black-haired, fine-skinned girl rested on an bag.
They were Dr. Will Kennicott and his bride, Carol.
They had been married at the end of a year of courtship, and they were on their way to Gopher Prairie after a wedding in the Colorado mountains.
The of the way-train were not new to Carol. She had them on from St. Paul to Chicago. But now that they had her own people, to and and adorn, she had an and in them. They her. They were so stolid. She had always that there is no American peasantry, and she now to her by and enterprise in the Swedish farmers, and in a traveling man over his order-blanks. But the older people, Yankees as well as Norwegians, Germans, Finns, Canucks, had settled into to poverty. They were peasants, she groaned.
“Isn't there any way of them up? What would if they scientific agriculture?” she of Kennicott, her hand for his.
It had been a honeymoon. She had been to how a be in her. Will had been lordly—stalwart, jolly, in making camp, and through the hours when they had by in a among high up on a spur.
His hand hers as he started from of the to which he was returning. “These people? Wake 'em up? What for? They're happy.”
“But they're so provincial. No, that isn't what I mean. They're—oh, so in the mud.”
“Look here, Carrie. You want to over your city idea that a man's aren't pressed, he's a fool. These farmers are and up-and-coming.”
“I know! That's what hurts. Life so hard for them—these and this train.”
“Oh, they don't mind it. Besides, are changing. The auto, the telephone, free delivery; they're the farmers in closer touch with the town. Takes time, you know, to a like this was fifty years ago. But already, why, they can into the Ford or the Overland and in to the on Saturday than you to 'em by in St. Paul.”
“But if it's these we've been that the farmers to for from their bleakness——Can't you understand? Just LOOK at them!”
Kennicott was amazed. Ever since he had these from on this same line. He grumbled, “Why, what's the with 'em? Good burgs. It would you to know how much and and and potatoes they ship in a year.”
“But they're so ugly.”
“I'll admit they aren't like Gopher Prairie. But give 'em time.”
“What's the use of them time unless some one has and to plan them? Hundreds of trying to make cars, but these towns—left to chance. No! That can't be true. It must have taken to make them so scrawny!”
“Oh, they're not so bad,” was all he answered. He that his hand was the cat and hers the mouse. For the time she him than him. She was out at Schoenstrom, a of a hundred and fifty inhabitants, at which the train was stopping.
A German and his pucker-mouthed wife their imitation-leather from under a seat and out. The station agent a the baggage-car. There were no other visible in Schoenstrom. In the of the halt, Carol a kicking his stall, a a roof.
The business-center of Schoenstrom took up one of one block, the railroad. It was a of one-story shops with iron, or with painted red and yellow. The were as ill-assorted, as temporary-looking, as a mining-camp in the motion-pictures. The station was a one-room box, a cattle-pen on one and a wheat-elevator on the other. The elevator, with its on the of a roof, a broad-shouldered man with a small, vicious, pointed head. The only to be were the red-brick Catholic church and at the end of Main Street.
Carol at Kennicott's sleeve. “You wouldn't call this a not-so-bad town, would you?”
“These Dutch ARE of slow. Still, at that——See that out of the store there, into the big car? I met him once. He about the town, the store. Rauskukle, his name is. He a of mortgages, and he in farm-lands. Good nut on him, that fellow. Why, they say he's three or four hundred thousand dollars! Got a great big yellow house with walks and a garden and everything, other end of town—can't see it from here—I've gone past it when I've through here. Yes sir!”
“Then, if he has all that, there's no for this place! If his three hundred thousand into the town, where it belongs, they up these shacks, and a dream-village, a jewel! Why do the farmers and the town-people let the Baron keep it?”
“I must say I don't you sometimes, Carrie. Let him? They can't help themselves! He's a old Dutchman, and the can him around his finger, but when it comes to good land, he's a regular wiz!”
“I see. He's their symbol of beauty. The town him, of buildings.”
“Honestly, don't know what you're at. You're of played out, after this long trip. You'll when you home and have a good bath, and put on the negligee. That's some costume, you witch!”
He her arm, looked at her knowingly.
They moved on from the of the Schoenstrom station. The train creaked, banged, swayed. The air was thick. Kennicott her from the window, rested her on his shoulder. She was from her mood. But she came out of it unwillingly, and when Kennicott was satisfied that he had all her and had opened a magazine of stories, she sat upright.
Here—she meditated—is the of the world; the Northern Middlewest; a land of dairy and lakes, of new and tar-paper and like red towers, of speech and a that is boundless. An which a of the world—yet its work is begun. They are pioneers, these wayfarers, for all their and bank-accounts and and co-operative leagues. And for all its richness, theirs is a land. What is its future? she wondered. A of and where now are empty fields? Homes and secure? Or with huts? Youth free to knowledge and laughter? Willingness to the lies? Or creamy-skinned women, with and chalk, in the skins of and the of birds, playing with pink-nailed fingers, who after much of labor and still their own lap-dogs? The inequalities, or something different in history, the of other empires? What and what hope?
Carol's with the riddle.
She saw the prairie, in or in long hummocks. The and of it, which had her an hour ago, to her. It spread out so; it on so uncontrollably; she know it. Kennicott was in his story. With the which comes most in the of many people she to problems, to look at the objectively.
The the had been over; it was a with of weeds. Beyond the barbed-wire were of rod. Only this thin them off from the plains-shorn wheat-lands of autumn, a hundred to a field, and near-by but in the like over hillocks. The long of wheat-shocks like soldiers in yellow tabards. The newly were black on the slope. It was a immensity, vigorous, a little harsh, by gardens.
The was by of with of wild grass; and every mile or two was a of slews, with the of blackbirds' across them.
All this land was into by the light. The was on open stubble; from clouds were across low mounds; and the sky was and and more than the sky of . . . she declared.
“It's a country; a land to be big in,” she crooned.
Then Kennicott her by chuckling, “D' you the town after the next is Gopher Prairie? Home!”
III
That one word—home—it her. Had she herself to live, inescapably, in this town called Gopher Prairie? And this thick man her, who to her future, he was a stranger! She in her seat, at him. Who was he? Why was he with her? He wasn't of her kind! His was heavy; his speech was heavy; he was twelve or thirteen years older than she; and about him was none of the magic of and eagerness. She not that she had slept in his arms. That was one of the which you had but did not officially admit.
She told herself how good he was, how and understanding. She touched his ear, the plane of his solid jaw, and, away again, upon his town. It wouldn't be like these settlements. It couldn't be! Why, it had three thousand population. That was a great many people. There would be six hundred houses or more. And——The near it would be so lovely. She'd them in the photographs. They had looked . . . hadn't they?
As the train left Wahkeenyan she to watch for the lakes—the entrance to all her life. But when she them, to the left of the track, her only of them was that they the photographs.
A mile from Gopher Prairie the a low ridge, and she see the town as a whole. With a she pushed up the window, looked out, the of her left hand on the sill, her right hand at her breast.
And she saw that Gopher Prairie was an of all the which they had been passing. Only to the of a Kennicott was it exceptional. The low houses the more than would a thicket. The up to it, past it. It was and unprotecting; there was no in it any of greatness. Only the tall red grain-elevator and a church-steeples rose from the mass. It was a camp. It was not a place to live in, not possibly, not conceivably.
The people—they'd be as as their houses, as as their fields. She couldn't here. She would have to from this man, and flee.
She at him. She was at once his fixity, and touched by his as he sent his magazine along the aisle, for their bags, came up with face, and gloated, “Here we are!”
She loyally, and looked away. The train was entering town. The houses on the were old red with frills, or like boxes, or new with stone.
Now the train was the elevator, the storage-tanks for oil, a creamery, a lumber-yard, a stock-yard and and stinking. Now they were stopping at a red station, the with farmers and with loafers—unadventurous people with eyes. She was here. She not go on. It was the end—the end of the world. She sat with closed eyes, to push past Kennicott, in the train, on toward the Pacific.
Something large in her and commanded, “Stop it! Stop being a baby!” She up quickly; she said, “Isn't it to be here at last!”
He her so. She would make herself like the place. And she was going to do things——
She Kennicott and the ends of the two which he carried. They were by the slow line of passengers. She herself that she was actually at the moment of the bride's home-coming. She ought to exalted. She nothing at all at their slow progress toward the door.
Kennicott to through the windows. He exulted:
“Look! Look! There's a come to welcome us! Sam Clark and the and Dave Dyer and Jack Elder, and, yes sir, Harry Haydock and Juanita, and a whole crowd! I they see us now. Yuh, sure, they see us! See 'em waving!”
She her to look out at them. She had of herself. She was to love them. But she was embarrassed by the of the group. From the she to them, but she a second to the of the who helped her she had the to into the of hand-shaking people, people she not tell apart. She had the that all the men had voices, large hands, tooth-brush mustaches, spots, and Masonic watch-charms.
She that they were her. Their hands, their smiles, their shouts, their her. She stammered, “Thank you, oh, thank you!”
One of the men was at Kennicott, “I my machine to take you home, doc.”
“Fine business, Sam!” Kennicott; and, to Carol, “Let's jump in. That big Paige over there. Some boat, too, me! Sam can speed to any of these Marmons from Minneapolis!”
Only when she was in the car did she the three people who were to them. The owner, now at the wheel, was the of self-satisfaction; a baldish, largish, level-eyed man, of but and of face—face like the of a spoon bowl. He was at her, “Have you got us all yet?”
“Course she has! Trust Carrie to and 'em quick! I she tell you every date in history!” her husband.
But the man looked at her and with a that he was a person she trust she confessed, “As a of I haven't got straight.”
“Course you haven't, child. Well, I'm Sam Clark, in hardware, goods, separators, and almost any of you can think of. You can call me Sam—anyway, I'm going to call you Carrie, seein' 's you've been and gone and married this fish of a that we keep here.” Carol lavishly, and that she called people by their names more easily. “The lady there you, who is that she can't me her away, is Mrs. Sam'l Clark; and this hungry-looking up here me is Dave Dyer, who his store by not your hubby's right—fact you might say he's the guy that put the 'shun' in 'prescription.' So! Well, us take the home. Say, doc, I'll sell you the Candersen place for three thousand plunks. Better be about a new home for Carrie. Prettiest Frau in G. P., if you me!”
Contentedly Sam Clark off, in the traffic of three Fords and the Minniemashie House Free 'Bus.
“I shall like Mr. Clark . . . I CAN'T call him 'Sam'! They're all so friendly.” She at the houses; not to see what she saw; gave way in: “Why do these so? They always make the bride's home-coming a of roses. Complete trust in spouse. Lies about marriage. I'm NOT changed. And this town—O my God! I can't go through with it. This junk-heap!”
Her husband over her. “You look like you were in a study. Scared? I don't you to think Gopher Prairie is a paradise, after St. Paul. I don't you to be about it, at first. But you'll come to like it so much—life's so free here and best people on earth.”
She to him (while Mrs. Clark away), “I love you for understanding. I'm just—I'm over-sensitive. Too many books. It's my of shoulder-muscles and sense. Give me time, dear.”
“You bet! All the time you want!”
She the of his hand against her cheek, near him. She was for her new home.
Kennicott had told her that, with his mother as housekeeper, he had an old house, “but and roomy, and well-heated, best I on the market.” His mother had left Carol her love, and gone to Lac-qui-Meurt.
It would be wonderful, she exulted, not to have to live in Other People's Houses, but to make her own shrine. She his hand and ahead as the car a and stopped in the a house in a small lawn.
IV
A with a “parking” of and mud. A square house, damp. A narrow walk up to it. Sickly yellow in a with of box-elder and of from the cotton-woods. A screened with of thin painted by and and of wood. No to off the public gaze. A bay-window to the right of the porch. Window of a pink marble table with a and a Family Bible.
“You'll it old-fashioned—what do you call it?—Mid-Victorian. I left it as is, so you make any you were necessary.” Kennicott for the time since he had come to his own.
“It's a home!” She was moved by his humility. She good-by to the Clarks. He the door—he was the choice of a to her, and there was no one in the house. She while he the key, and in. . . . It was next day either of them that in their they had planned that he should her over the sill.
In and she was of and and airlessness, but she insisted, “I'll make it all jolly.” As she Kennicott and the up to their she to herself the song of the little-gods of the hearth:
I have my own home,
To do what I with,
To do what I with,
My for me and my and my cubs,
My own!
She was close in her husband's arms; she to him; of and slowness and she might in him, none of that so long as she her hands his coat, her over the warm of the of his waistcoat, almost to into his body, in him strength, in the and of her man a from the world.
“Sweet, so sweet,” she whispered.
