I
“THE Clarks have some to their house to meet us, tonight,” said Kennicott, as he his suit-case.
“Oh, that is of them!”
“You bet. I told you you'd like 'em. Squarest people on earth. Uh, Carrie——Would you mind if I to the office for an hour, just to see how are?”
“Why, no. Of not. I know you're to to work.”
“Sure you don't mind?”
“Not a bit. Out of my way. Let me unpack.”
But the of in marriage was as much as a at the with which he took that and to the world of men's affairs. She about their bedroom, and its full over her: the L-shape of it; the black with and on the headboard; the bureau, with pink-daubed scent-bottles and a pin-cushion on a marble like a gravestone; the plain and the water-pitcher and bowl. The was of and and Florida Water.
“How people live with like this?” she shuddered. She saw the as a circle of judges, her to death by smothering. The chair squeaked, “Choke her—choke her—smother her.” The old of the tomb. She was alone in this house, this still house, among the of and repressions. “I it! I it!” she panted. “Why did I ever——”
She that Kennicott's mother had these family from the old home in Lac-qui-Meurt. “Stop it! They're perfectly things. They're—comfortable. Besides——Oh, they're horrible! We'll them, right away.”
Then, “But of he HAS to see how are at the office——”
She a of herself with unpacking. The chintz-lined, silver-fitted which had so a luxury in St. Paul was an here. The black of and was a at which the deep-bosomed in disgust, and she it into a drawer, it a blouse.
She gave up unpacking. She to the window, with a purely of village charm—hollyhocks and and apple-cheeked cottagers. What she saw was the of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church—a plain of a color; the ash-pile of the church; an stable; and an in which a Ford delivery-wagon had been stranded. This was the garden her boudoir; this was to be her for——
“I mustn't! I mustn't! I'm this afternoon. Am I sick? . . . Good Lord, I it isn't that! Not now! How people lie! How these lie! They say the is always so and proud and happy when she that out, but—I'd it! I'd be to death! Some day but——Please, dear Lord, not now! Bearded old men and that we children. If THEY had to them——! I wish they did have to! Not now! Not till I've got of this job of the ash-pile out there! . . . I must up. I'm insane. I'm going out for a walk. I'll see the town by myself. My view of the I'm going to conquer!”
She from the house.
She with at every crossing, every hitching-post, every for leaves; and to each house she all her speculation. What would they come to mean? How would they look six months from now? In which of them would she be dining? Which of these people she passed, now of and clothes, would turn into intimates, loved or dreaded, different from all the other people in the world?
As she came into the small business-section she a broad-beamed in an who was over the and on a in of his store. Would she talk to him? What would he say if she stopped and stated, “I am Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. Some day I to that a of as a window-display doesn't me much.”
(The was Mr. Frederick F. Ludelmeyer, market is at the of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue. In that only she was Carol was ignorant, by the of cities. She that she was through the invisible; but when she had passed, Mr. Ludelmeyer into the store and at his clerk, “I a woman, she come along the street. I she Doc Kennicott's new bride, good-looker, legs, but she a of a plain suit, no style, I wonder will she pay cash, I she goes to Howland & Gould's more as she here, what you done with the for Fluffed Oats?”)
II
When Carol had walked for thirty-two minutes she had the town, east and west, north and south; and she at the of Main Street and Washington Avenue and despaired.
Main Street with its two-story shops, its story-and-a-half residences, its from walk to walk, its of Fords and lumber-wagons, was too small to her. The broad, straight, of the let in the on every side. She the and the of the land. The iron on the farm a away, at the north end of Main Street, was like the of a cow. She of the of the Northern winter, when the houses would together in terror of out of that wild waste. They were so small and weak, the little houses. They were for sparrows, not homes for warm laughing people.
She told herself that the the were a splendor. The were orange; the a solid of raspberry. And the had been nursed with love. But the would not hold. At best the trees a woodlot. There was no park to the eyes. And since not Gopher Prairie but Wakamin was the county-seat, there was no court-house with its grounds.
She through the fly-specked of the most in sight, the one place which and their opinion of the and luxury of Gopher Prairie—the Minniemashie House. It was a tall structure, three of yellow-streaked wood, the with to stone. In the hotel office she see a of floor, a line of chairs with between, a writing-desk with in mother-of-pearl upon the glass-covered back. The dining-room was a of table-cloths and bottles.
She looked no more at the Minniemashie House.
A man in shirt-sleeves with pink arm-garters, a but no tie, his way from Dyer's Drug Store across to the hotel. He against the wall, a while, sighed, and in a way with a man in a chair. A lumber-wagon, its long green box with large of barbed-wire fencing, the block. A Ford, in reverse, as though it were to pieces, then and away. In the Greek candy-store was the of a peanut-roaster, and the of nuts.
There was no other of life.
She wanted to run, from the prairie, the security of a great city. Her of a town were ludicrous. Oozing out from every wall, she a which she conquer.
She the on one side, on the other, into the streets. It was a private Seeing Main Street tour. She was ten minutes not only the of a place called Gopher Prairie, but ten thousand from Albany to San Diego:
Dyer's Drug Store, a of regular and of stone. Inside the store, a marble soda-fountain with an electric lamp of red and green and curdled-yellow shade. Pawed-over of tooth-brushes and and of shaving-soap. Shelves of soap-cartons, teething-rings, garden-seeds, and in yellow “packages-nostrums” for consumption, for “women's diseases”—notorious of and alcohol, in the very shop to which her husband sent for the of prescriptions.
From a second-story window the “W. P. Kennicott, Phys. & Surgeon,” on black sand.
A small motion-picture called “The Rosebud Movie Palace.” Lithographs announcing a called “Fatty in Love.”
Howland & Gould's Grocery. In the window, black, and on which a cat was sleeping. Shelves with red paper which was now and and spotted. Flat against the of the second the of lodges—the Knights of Pythias, the Maccabees, the Woodmen, the Masons.
Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market—a of blood.
A jewelry shop with tinny-looking wrist-watches for women. In of it, at the curb, a clock which did not go.
A fly-buzzing with a gold and across the front. Other the block. From them a of beer, and thick voices German or out dirty songs—vice gone and and dull—the of a mining-camp its vigor. In of the saloons, on the seats of wagons, waiting for their husbands to and to start home.
A tobacco shop called “The Smoke House,” with men for cigarettes. Racks of magazines, and pictures of in bathing-suits.
A store with a of “ox-blood-shade Oxfords with bull-dog toes.” Suits which looked and while they were still new, on like with painted cheeks.
The Bon Ton Store—Haydock & Simons'—the largest shop in town. The first-story of clear glass, the plates at the with brass. The second of brick. One window of excellent for men, with of which on a ground. Newness and an of and service. Haydock & Simons. Haydock. She had met a Haydock at the station; Harry Haydock; an active person of thirty-five. He great to her, now, and very like a saint. His shop was clean!
Axel Egge's General Store, by Scandinavian farmers. In the dark window-space of sateens, galateas, shoes designed for with ankles, and red upon cards with edges, a blanket, a granite-ware frying-pan on a sun-faded blouse.
Sam Clark's Hardware Store. An air of enterprise. Guns and and of and knives.
Chester Dashaway's House Furnishing Emporium. A of with leather seats, asleep in a row.
Billy's Lunch. Thick cups on the wet oilcloth-covered counter. An odor of and the of lard. In the a man a toothpick.
The of the of and potatoes. The of a dairy.
The Ford Garage and the Buick Garage, one-story and opposite each other. Old and new on grease-blackened floors. Tire advertisements. The of a motor; a which at the nerves. Surly men in union-overalls. The most and places in town.
A large for implements. An of green and gold wheels, of and seats, to of which Carol nothing—potato-planters, manure-spreaders, silage-cutters, disk-harrows, breaking-plows.
A store, its with the of bran, a medicine painted on its roof.
Ye Art Shoppe, Prop. Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks, Christian Science Library open daily free. A at beauty. A one-room of with stucco. A show-window rich in error: starting out to tree-trunks but off into of gilt—an ash-tray “Greetings from Gopher Prairie”—a Christian Science magazine—a sofa-cushion a large to a small poppy, the of embroidery-silk on the pillow. Inside the shop, a of prints of and famous pictures, of records and camera films, toys, and in the an small woman in a chair.
A shop and room. A man in shirt sleeves, Del Snafflin the proprietor, a man who had a large Adam's apple.
Nat Hicks's Tailor Shop, on a off Main. A one-story building. A fashion-plate in which looked as hard as plate.
On another a red-brick Catholic Church with a yellow door.
The post-office—merely a partition of and off the of a room which must once have been a shop. A writing-shelf against a black and with official and army recruiting-posters.
The damp, yellow-brick in its grounds.
The State Bank, wood.
The Farmers' National Bank. An Ionic temple of marble. Pure, exquisite, solitary. A plate with “Ezra Stowbody, Pres't.”
A score of shops and establishments.
Behind them and mixed with them, the houses, or large, comfortable, of prosperity.
In all the town not one save the Ionic bank which gave to Carol's eyes; not a dozen which that, in the fifty years of Gopher Prairie's existence, the citizens had that it was either or possible to make this, their common home, or attractive.
It was not only the and the which her. It was the planlessness, the of the buildings, their colors. The was with electric-light poles, telephone poles, for cars, boxes of goods. Each man had with the most of all the others. Between a large new “block” of two-story shops on one side, and the fire-brick Overland on the other side, was a one-story into a shop. The white temple of the Farmers' Bank was by a of yellow brick. One store-building had a iron cornice; the it was with and of with of red sandstone.
She from Main Street, home.
She wouldn't have cared, she insisted, if the people had been comely. She had noted a man a shop, one hand the of an awning; a middle-aged man who had a way of at as though he had been married too long and too prosaically; an old farmer, solid, wholesome, but not clean—his like a potato fresh from the earth. None of them had for three days.
“If they can't shrines, out here on the prairie, surely there's nothing to prevent their safety-razors!” she raged.
She herself: “I must be wrong. People do live here. It CAN'T be as as—as I know it is! I must be wrong. But I can't do it. I can't go through with it.”
She came home too for hysteria; and when she Kennicott waiting for her, and exulting, “Have a walk? Well, like the town? Great and trees, eh?” she was able to say, with a self-protective new to her, “It's very interesting.”
III
The train which Carol to Gopher Prairie also Miss Bea Sorenson.
Miss Bea was a stalwart, corn-colored, laughing woman, and she was by farm-work. She the of city-life, and the way to city-life was, she had decided, to “go a as girl in Gopher Prairie.” She her from the station to her cousin, Tina Malmquist, of all work in the of Mrs. Luke Dawson.
“Vell, so you come to town,” said Tina.
“Ya. Ay a yob,” said Bea.
“Vell. . . . You got a now?”
“Ya. Yim Yacobson.”
“Vell. I'm to see you. How much you a veek?”
“Sex dollar.”
“There ain't nobody pay dat. Vait! Dr. Kennicott, I t'ink he a girl from de Cities. Maybe she pay dat. Vell. You go take a valk.”
“Ya,” said Bea.
So it that Carol Kennicott and Bea Sorenson were Main Street at the same time.
Bea had been in a town larger than Scandia Crossing, which has sixty-seven inhabitants.
As she up the she was that it didn't like it was possible there be so many all in one place at the same time. My! It would take years to with them all. And people, too! A big in a new pink shirt with a diamond, and not no washed-out working-shirt. A lady in a dress (but it must be an hard dress to wash). And the stores!
Not just three of them, like there were at Scandia Crossing, but more than four whole blocks!
The Bon Ton Store—big as four barns—my! it would a person to go in there, with seven or eight all looking at you. And the men's suits, on just like human. And Axel Egge's, like home, of Swedes and Norskes in there, and a card of buttons, like rubies.
A store with a that was just huge, long, and all marble; and on it there was a great big lamp with the biggest you saw—all different together; and the spouts, they were silver, and they came right out of the of the lamp-stand! Behind the there were shelves, and bottles of new of soft drinks, that nobody of. Suppose a took you THERE!
A hotel, high, higher than Oscar Tollefson's new red barn; three stories, one right on top of another; you had to your to look clear up to the top. There was a traveling man in there—probably been to Chicago, of times.
Oh, the people to know here! There was a lady going by, you wouldn't say she was any older than Bea herself; she a new and black pumps. She almost looked like she was looking over the town, too. But you couldn't tell what she thought. Bea would like to be that way—kind of quiet, so nobody would fresh. Kind of—oh, elegant.
A Lutheran Church. Here in the city there'd be sermons, and church twice on Sunday, EVERY Sunday!
And a movie show!
A regular theater, just for movies. With the “Change of bill every evening.” Pictures every evening!
There were in Scandia Crossing, but only once every two weeks, and it took the Sorensons an hour to drive in—papa was such a he wouldn't a Ford. But here she put on her any evening, and in three minutes' walk be to the movies, and see in dress-suits and Bill Hart and everything!
How they have so many stores? Why! There was one just for tobacco alone, and one (a one—the Art Shoppy it was) for pictures and and stuff, with oh, the so it looked just like a tree trunk!
Bea on the of Main Street and Washington Avenue. The of the city to her. There were five on the all at the same time—and one of 'em was a great big car that must of cost two thousand dollars—and the 'bus was starting for a train with five elegant-dressed fellows, and a man was up red with pictures of washing-machines on them, and the was out and wrist-watches and EVERYTHING on velvet.
What did she if she got six a week? Or two! It was while for nothing, to be allowed to here. And think how it would be in the evening, all up—and not with no lamps, but with electrics! And maybe a friend taking you to the and you a ice soda!
Bea back.
“Vell? You it?” said Tina.
“Ya. Ay it. Ay t'ink maybe Ay here,” said Bea.
IV
The house of Sam Clark, in which was the party to welcome Carol, was one of the largest in Gopher Prairie. It had a clean of clapboards, a solid squareness, a small tower, and a large screened porch. Inside, it was as shiny, as hard, and as as a new piano.
Carol looked at Sam Clark as he rolled to the door and shouted, “Welcome, little lady! The keys of the city are yourn!”
Beyond him, in the and the living-room, in a circle as though they were a funeral, she saw the guests. They were WAITING so! They were waiting for her! The to be all one of away. She of Sam, “I don't them! They so much. They'll me in one mouthful—glump!—like that!”
“Why, sister, they're going to love you—same as I would if I didn't think the here would me up!”
“B-but——I don't dare! Faces to the right of me, in of me, and wonder!”
She to herself; she that to Sam Clark she insane. But he chuckled, “Now you just under Sam's wing, and if at you too long, I'll 'em off. Here we go! Watch my smoke—Sam'l, the ladies' and the bridegrooms' terror!”
His arm about her, he her in and bawled, “Ladies and halves, the bride! We won't her yet, she'll your names anyway. Now up this star-chamber!”
They politely, but they did not move from the social security of their circle, and they did not staring.
Carol had energy to for the event. Her was demure, low on her with a and a braid. Now she that she had it high. Her was an of lawn, with a wide gold and a low square neck, which gave a of and shoulders. But as they looked her over she was that it was all wrong. She alternately that she had a high-necked dress, and that she had to them with a brick-red which she had in Chicago.
She was about the circle. Her voice produced safe remarks:
“Oh, I'm sure I'm going to like it here so much,” and “Yes, we did have the best time in Colorado—mountains,” and “Yes, I in St. Paul years. Euclid P. Tinker? No, I don't REMEMBER meeting him, but I'm sure I've of him.”
Kennicott took her and whispered, “Now I'll you to them, one at a time.”
“Tell me about them first.”
“Well, the nice-looking over there are Harry Haydock and his wife, Juanita. Harry's most of the Bon Ton, but it's Harry who it and it the pep. He's a hustler. Next to him is Dave Dyer the druggist—you met him this afternoon—mighty good duck-shot. The tall him is Jack Elder—Jackson Elder—owns the planing-mill, and the Minniemashie House, and a in the Farmers' National Bank. Him and his wife are good sports—him and Sam and I go together a lot. The old there is Luke Dawson, the man in town. Next to him is Nat Hicks, the tailor.”
“Really? A tailor?”
“Sure. Why not? Maybe we're slow, but we are democratic. I go with Nat same as I do with Jack Elder.”
“I'm glad. I've met a tailor socially. It must be to meet one and not have to think about what you him. And do you——Would you go with your barber, too?”
“No but——No use this thing into the ground. Besides, I've Nat for years, and besides, he's a good and——That's the way it is, see? Next to Nat is Chet Dashaway. Great for chinning. He'll talk your arm off, about religion or politics or books or anything.”
Carol with a to at Mr. Dashaway, a person with a wide mouth. “Oh, I know! He's the furniture-store man!” She was much pleased with herself.
“Yump, and he's the undertaker. You'll like him. Come shake hands with him.”
“Oh no, no! He doesn't—he doesn't do the and all that—himself? I couldn't shake hands with an undertaker!”
“Why not? You'd be proud to shake hands with a great surgeon, just after he'd been up people's bellies.”
She to her afternoon's of maturity. “Yes. You're right. I want—oh, my dear, do you know how much I want to like the people you like? I want to see people as they are.”
“Well, don't to see people as other see them as they are! They have the stuff. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here? Born and up here!”
“Bresnahan?”
“Yes—you know—president of the Velvet Motor Company of Boston, Mass.—make the Velvet Twelve—biggest in New England.”
“I think I've of him.”
“Sure you have. Why, he's a times over! Well, Perce comes here for the black-bass almost every summer, and he says if he away from business, he'd live here than in Boston or New York or any of those places. HE doesn't mind Chet's undertaking.”
“Please! I'll—I'll like everybody! I'll be the sunbeam!”
He her to the Dawsons.
Luke Dawson, of money on mortgages, owner of Northern cut-over land, was a man in soft clothes, with in a milky face. His wife had cheeks, hair, voice, and a manner. She her green frock, with its bosom, tassels, and the the back, as though she had it second-hand and was of meeting the owner. They were shy. It was “Professor” George Edwin Mott, of schools, a Chinese brown, who Carol's hand and her welcome.
When the Dawsons and Mr. Mott had that they were “pleased to meet her,” there to be nothing else to say, but the on automatically.
“Do you like Gopher Prairie?” Mrs. Dawson.
“Oh, I'm sure I'm going to be so happy.”
“There's so many people.” Mrs. Dawson looked to Mr. Mott for social and aid. He lectured:
“There's a class of people. I don't like some of these retired farmers who come here to their last days—especially the Germans. They to pay school-taxes. They to a cent. But the are a class of people. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here? Used to go to right at the old building!”
“I he did.”
“Yes. He's a prince. He and I together, last time he was here.”
The Dawsons and Mr. Mott upon feet, and at Carol with expressions. She on:
“Tell me, Mr. Mott: Have you any with any of the new systems? The modern methods or the Gary system?”
“Oh. Those. Most of these would-be are notoriety-seekers. I in manual training, but Latin and always will be the of Americanism, no what these advocate—heaven what they do want—knitting, I suppose, and in the ears!”
The Dawsons their of to a savant. Carol waited till Kennicott should her. The of the party waited for the of being amused.
Harry and Juanita Haydock, Rita Simons and Dr. Terry Gould—the set of Gopher Prairie. She was to them. Juanita Haydock at her in a high, cackling, voice:
“Well, this is SO to have you here. We'll have some good parties—dances and everything. You'll have to join the Jolly Seventeen. We play and we have a supper once a month. You play, of course?”
“N-no, I don't.”
“Really? In St. Paul?”
“I've always been such a book-worm.”
“We'll have to teach you. Bridge is the fun of life.” Juanita had patronizing, and she at Carol's sash, which she had admired.
Harry Haydock said politely, “How do you think you're going to like the old burg?”
“I'm sure I shall like it tremendously.”
“Best people on earth here. Great hustlers, too. Course I've had of to go live in Minneapolis, but we like it here. Real he-town. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here?”
Carol that she had been in the by her of bridge. Roused to to her position she on Dr. Terry Gould, the and pool-playing of her husband. Her with him while she gushed:
“I'll learn bridge. But what I love most is the outdoors. Can't we all up a party, and fish, or you do, and have a supper afterwards?”
“Now you're talking!” Dr. Gould affirmed. He looked too at the cream-smooth of her shoulder. “Like fishing? Fishing is my middle name. I'll teach you bridge. Like cards at all?”
“I used to be good at bezique.”
She that was a game of cards—or a game of something else. Roulette, possibly. But her was a triumph. Juanita's handsome, high-colored, doubt. Harry his nose and said humbly, “Bezique? Used to be great game, wasn't it?”
While others to her group, Carol up the conversation. She laughed and was and brittle. She not their eyes. They were a theater-audience which she self-consciously the of being the Clever Little Bride of Doc Kennicott:
“These-here Open Spaces, that's what I'm going out for. I'll read anything but the sporting-page again. Will me on our Colorado trip. There were so many who were to out of the 'bus that I to be Annie Oakley, the Wild Western Wampire, and I oh! a skirt which my perfectly to the Presbyterian of all the Ioway schoolma'ams, and I from to like the chamoys, and——You may think that Herr Doctor Kennicott is a Nimrod, but you ought to have me him to to his B. V. D.'s and go in an brook.”
She that they were of shocked, but Juanita Haydock was admiring, at least. She on:
“I'm sure I'm going to Will as a practitioner——Is he a good doctor, Dr. Gould?”
Kennicott's at this to professional ethics, and he took an second he his social manner. “I'll tell you, Mrs. Kennicott.” He at Kennicott, to that he might say in the of being was not to count against him in the commercio-medical warfare. “There's some people in town that say the is a to middlin' and prescription-writer, but let me this to you—but for heaven's don't tell him I said so—don't you go to him for anything more than a of the left ear or a of the cardiograph.”
No one save Kennicott what this meant, but they laughed, and Sam Clark's party a lemon-yellow color of panels and and and and duchesses. Carol saw that George Edwin Mott and the Mr. and Mrs. Dawson were not yet hypnotized. They looked as though they they ought to look as though they disapproved. She on them:
“But I know I wouldn't have to go to Colorado with! Mr. Dawson there! I'm sure he's a regular heart-breaker. When we were he my hand and it frightfully.”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” The entire company applauded. Mr. Dawson was beatified. He had been called many things—loan-shark, skinflint, tightwad, pussyfoot—but he had been called a flirt.
“He is wicked, isn't he, Mrs. Dawson? Don't you have to lock him up?”
“Oh no, but maybe I better,” Mrs. Dawson, a on her face.
For fifteen minutes Carol it up. She that she was going to stage a comedy, that she to beefsteak, that she Dr. Kennicott would his ability to make love to women, and that she had a pair of gold stockings. They for more. But she not keep it up. She retired to a chair Sam Clark's bulk. The smile-wrinkles out in the of all the other in having a party, and again they about but not to be amused.
Carol listened. She that did not in Gopher Prairie. Even at this affair, which out the set, the set, the set, and the solid financial set, they sat up with as with a corpse.
Juanita Haydock talked a good in her voice but it was of personalities: the that Raymie Wutherspoon was going to send for a pair of leather shoes with tops; the of Champ Perry; the of Guy Pollock's grippe; and the of Jim Howland in painting his salmon-pink.
Sam Clark had been talking to Carol about cars, but he his as host. While he droned, his up and down. He himself, “Must 'em up.” He at his wife, “Don't you think I 'em up?” He into the center of the room, and cried:
“Let's have some stunts, folks.”
“Yes, let's!” Juanita Haydock.
“Say, Dave, give us that about the Norwegian a hen.”
“You bet; that's a stunt; do that, Dave!” Chet Dashaway.
Mr. Dave Dyer obliged.
All the guests moved their in of being called on for their own stunts.
“Ella, come on and 'Old Sweetheart of Mine,' for us,” Sam.
Miss Ella Stowbody, the of the Ionic bank, her and blushed. “Oh, you don't want to that old thing again.”
“Sure we do! You bet!” Sam.
“My voice is in terrible shape tonight.”
“Tut! Come on!”
Sam to Carol, “Ella is our at elocuting. She's had professional training. She and and art and for a year, in Milwaukee.”
Miss Stowbody was reciting. As to “An Old Sweetheart of Mine,” she gave a the value of smiles.
There were four other stunts: one Jewish, one Irish, one juvenile, and Nat Hicks's of Mark Antony's oration.
During the winter Carol was to Dave Dyer's hen-catching seven times, “An Old Sweetheart of Mine” nine times, the Jewish and the twice; but now she was and, she did so want to be happy and simple-hearted, she was as as the others when the were finished, and the party into coma.
They gave up trying to be festive; they to talk naturally, as they did at their shops and homes.
The men and divided, as they had been to do all evening. Carol was by the men, left to a group of who of children, sickness, and cooks—their own shop-talk. She was piqued. She of herself as a married woman in a drawing-room, with men. Her was by as to what the men were discussing, in the the piano and the phonograph. Did they from these to a larger world of and affairs?
She her best to Mrs. Dawson; she twittered, “I won't have my husband me so soon! I'm going over and the wretch's ears.” She rose with a bow. She was self-absorbed and self-approving she had that quality of sentimentality. She proudly across the room and, to the and of all beholders, sat on the arm of Kennicott's chair.
He was with Sam Clark, Luke Dawson, Jackson Elder of the planing-mill, Chet Dashaway, Dave Dyer, Harry Haydock, and Ezra Stowbody, president of the Ionic bank.
Ezra Stowbody was a troglodyte. He had come to Gopher Prairie in 1865. He was a bird of prey—swooping thin nose, mouth, thick brows, port-wine cheeks, of white hair, eyes. He was not happy in the social of thirty years. Three ago, Dr. Westlake, Julius Flickerbaugh the lawyer, Merriman Peedy the Congregational and himself had been the arbiters. That was as it should be; the arts—medicine, law, religion, and finance—recognized as aristocratic; four Yankees with but the Ohioans and Illini and Swedes and Germans who had to them. But Westlake was old, almost retired; Julius Flickerbaugh had much of his to attorneys; Reverend (not The Reverend) Peedy was dead; and nobody was in this age of by the “spanking grays” which Ezra still drove. The town was as as Chicago. Norwegians and Germans owned stores. The social were common merchants. Selling was as as banking. These upstarts—the Clarks, the Haydocks—had no dignity. They were and in politics, but they talked about and pump-guns and only what new-fangled fads. Mr. Stowbody out of place with them. But his house with the was still the largest in town, and he his position as by occasionally appearing among the men and them by a that without the banker none of them on their businesses.
As Carol by with the men, Mr. Stowbody was to Mr. Dawson, “Say, Luke, when was't Biggins settled in Winnebago Township? Wa'n't it in 1879?”
“Why no 'twa'n't!” Mr. Dawson was indignant. “He come out from Vermont in 1867—no, wait, in 1868, it must have been—and took a on the Rum River, a above Anoka.”
“He did not!” Mr. Stowbody. “He settled in Blue Earth County, him and his father!”
(“What's the point at issue?”) Carol to Kennicott.
(“Whether this old Biggins had an English or a Llewellyn. They've been it all evening!”)
Dave Dyer to give tidings, “D' tell you that Clara Biggins was in town days ago? She a hot-water bottle—expensive one, too—two and thirty cents!”
“Yaaaaaah!” Mr. Stowbody. “Course. She's just like her was. Never save a cent. Two and twenty—thirty, was it?—two and thirty for a hot-water bottle! Brick up in a just as good, anyway!”
“How's Ella's tonsils, Mr. Stowbody?” Chet Dashaway.
While Mr. Stowbody gave a and study of them, Carol reflected, “Are they so in Ella's tonsils, or in Ella's esophagus? I wonder if I them away from personalities? Let's and try.”
“There hasn't been much labor trouble around here, has there, Mr. Stowbody?” she asked innocently.
“No, ma'am, thank God, we've been free from that, maybe with girls and farm-hands. Trouble with these farmers; if you don't watch these Swedes they turn or or some thing on you in a minute. Of course, if they have you can make 'em to reason. I just have 'em come into the bank for a talk, and tell 'em a things. I don't mind their being democrats, so much, but I won't having around. But thank God, we ain't got the labor trouble they have in these cities. Even Jack Elder here along well, in the planing-mill, don't you, Jack?”
“Yep. Sure. Don't need so many in my place, and it's a of these cranky, wage-hogging, half-baked that start trouble—reading a of this and papers and all.”
“Do you approve of labor?” Carol of Mr. Elder.
“Me? I should say not! It's like this: I don't mind with my men if they think they've got any grievances—though Lord what's come over workmen, nowadays—don't a good job. But still, if they come to me honestly, as man to man, I'll talk over with them. But I'm not going to have any outsider, any of these walking delegates, or names they call themselves now—bunch of rich grafters, on the workmen! Not going to have any of those in and telling ME how to MY business!”
Mr. Elder was more excited, more and patriotic. “I for and rights. If any man don't like my shop, he can up and git. Same way, if I don't like him, he gits. And that's all there is to it. I can't all these and hoop-te-doodles and government reports and wage-scales and God what all that these are up the labor with, when it's all perfectly simple. They like what I pay 'em, or they out. That's all there is to it!”
“What do you think of profit-sharing?” Carol ventured.
Mr. Elder his answer, while the others nodded, and in tune, like a shop-window of toys, and and and clowns, set by a from the open door:
“All this profit-sharing and work and and old-age pension is poppycock. Enfeebles a workman's independence—and a of profit. The half-baked that isn't the ears yet, and these and God what all there are that are trying to tell a man how to his business, and some of these college are just about as bad, the whole and bilin' of 'em are nothing in God's world but in disguise! And it's my as a to every attack on the of American to the last ditch. Yes—SIR!”
Mr. Elder his brow.
Dave Dyer added, “Sure! You bet! What they ought to do is to every one of these agitators, and that would settle the whole thing right off. Don't you think so, doc?”
“You bet,” Kennicott.
The was at last of the of Carol's and they settled to the question of the of the peace had sent that to for ten days or twelve. It was a not determined. Then Dave Dyer his on the trail:
“Yep. I good time out of the flivver. 'Bout a week ago I to New Wurttemberg. That's forty-three——No, let's see: It's seventeen miles to Belldale, and 'bout six and three-quarters, call it seven, to Torgenquist, and it's a good miles from there to New Wurttemberg—seventeen and seven and nineteen, that makes, uh, let me see: seventeen and seven 's twenty-four, plus nineteen, well say plus twenty, that makes forty-four, well anyway, say about forty-three or -four miles from here to New Wurttemberg. We got started about seven-fifteen, prob'ly seven-twenty, I had to stop and the radiator, and we ran along, just up a good gait——”
Mr. Dyer did finally, for and purposes and justified, to New Wurttemberg.
Once—only once—the presence of the Carol was recognized. Chet Dashaway over and said asthmatically, “Say, uh, have you been reading this 'Two Out' in Tingling Tales? Corking yarn! Gosh, the that it can slang!”
The others to look literary. Harry Haydock offered, “Juanita is a great hand for reading high-class stuff, like 'Mid the Magnolias' by this Sara Hetwiggin Butts, and 'Riders of Ranch Reckless.' Books. But me,” he about importantly, as one that no other hero had been in so a plight, “I'm so I don't have much time to read.”
“I read anything I can't check against,” said Sam Clark.
Thus ended the of the conversation, and for seven minutes Jackson Elder for that the pike-fishing was on the west of Lake Minniemashie than on the east—though it was true that on the east Nat Hicks had a admirable.
The talk on. It did go on! Their voices were monotonous, thick, emphatic. They were pompous, like men in the smoking-compartments of Pullman cars. They did not Carol. They her. She panted, “They will be to me, my man to their tribe. God help me if I were an outsider!”
Smiling as as an she sat quiescent, thought, about the living-room and hall, their of prosperity. Kennicott said, “Dandy interior, eh? My idea of how a place ought to be furnished. Modern.” She looked polite, and the floors, hard-wood staircase, with tiles which linoleum, cut-glass upon doilies, and the barred, shut, unit that were with and unread-looking sets of Dickens, Kipling, O. Henry, and Elbert Hubbard.
She that were to the party. The room with as with a fog. People their throats, to yawns. The men their and the their more into their hair.
Then a rattle, a in every eye, the of a door, the of coffee, Dave Dyer's voice in a triumphant, “The eats!” They to chatter. They had something to do. They from themselves. They upon the food—chicken sandwiches, cake, drug-store ice cream. Even when the food was gone they cheerful. They go home, any time now, and go to bed!
They went, with a of coats, scarfs, and good-bys.
Carol and Kennicott walked home.
“Did you like them?” he asked.
“They were sweet to me.”
“Uh, Carrie——You ought to be more about folks. Talking about gold stockings, and about your to and all!” More mildly: “You gave 'em a good time, but I'd watch out for that, 'f I were you. Juanita Haydock is such a cat. I wouldn't give her a to me.”
“My to up the party! Was I to try to them?”
“No! No! Honey, I didn't mean——You were the only up-and-coming person in the bunch. I just mean——Don't onto and all that stuff. Pretty crowd.”
She was silent, with the that the circle might have been her, laughing at her.
“Don't, don't worry!” he pleaded.
“Silence.”
“Gosh; I'm sorry I spoke about it. I just meant——But they were about you. Sam said to me, 'That little lady of yours is the thing that came to this town,' he said; and Ma Dawson—I didn't know she'd like you or not, she's such a dried-up old bird, but she said, 'Your is so quick and bright, I declare, she just me up.'”
Carol liked praise, the and of it, but she was so being sorry for herself that she not taste this commendation.
“Please! Come on! Cheer up!” His said it, his said it, his arm about her said it, as they on the of their house.
“Do you if they think I'm flighty, Will?”
“Me? Why, I wouldn't if the whole world you were this or that or anything else. You're my—well, you're my soul!”
He was an mass, as solid-seeming as rock. She his sleeve, it, cried, “I'm glad! It's sweet to be wanted! You must my frivolousness. You're all I have!”
He her, her into the house, and with her arms about his she Main Street.
