I
WHEN the November had down, with white the in the fields, when the small fire had been started in the furnace, which is the of a Gopher Prairie home, Carol to make the house her own. She the furniture—the table with knobs, the chairs, the picture of “The Doctor.” She to Minneapolis, to through stores and small Tenth Street shops to and high thought. She had to ship her treasures, but she wanted to them in her arms.
Carpenters had out the partition and parlor, it into a long room on which she yellow and blue; a Japanese with an of gold on tissue, which she as a against the wall; a with of and gold bands; chairs which, in Gopher Prairie, flippant. She the family in the dining-room, and replaced its with a square cabinet on which was a yellow candles.
Kennicott against a fireplace. “We'll have a new house in a of years, anyway.”
She only one room. The rest, Kennicott hinted, she'd till he “made a ten-strike.”
The of a house and awakened; it to be in motion; it her from shopping; it its repression.
The was Kennicott's “Well, by golly, I was the new wouldn't be so comfortable, but I must say this divan, or you call it, is a than that old sofa we had, and when I look around——Well, it's all it cost, I guess.”
Every one in town took an in the refurnishing. The and who did not actually the lawn to through the and exclaim, “Fine! Looks swell!” Dave Dyer at the store, Harry Haydock and Raymie Wutherspoon at the Bon Ton, daily, “How's the good work coming? I the house is to be classy.”
Even Mrs. Bogart.
Mrs. Bogart across the from the of Carol's house. She was a widow, and a Prominent Baptist, and a Good Influence. She had so three sons to be Christian that one of them had an Omaha bartender, one a of Greek, and one, Cyrus N. Bogart, a boy of fourteen who was still at home, the most of the in Boytown.
Mrs. Bogart was not the type of Good Influence. She was the soft, damp, fat, sighing, indigestive, clinging, melancholy, kind. There are in every large chicken-yard a number of old and who Mrs. Bogart, and when they are at Sunday dinner, as chicken with thick dumplings, they keep up the resemblance.
Carol had noted that Mrs. Bogart from her window an upon the house. The Kennicotts and Mrs. Bogart did not move in the same sets—which meant the same in Gopher Prairie as it did on Fifth Avenue or in Mayfair. But the good came calling.
She in, sighed, gave Carol a hand, sighed, at the of as Carol her legs, sighed, the new chairs, with a sound, and gave voice:
“I've wanted to call on you so long, dearie, you know we're neighbors, but I I'd wait till you got settled, you must in and see me, how much did that big chair cost?”
“Seventy-seven dollars!”
“Sev——Sakes alive! Well, I it's all right for them that can it, though I do sometimes think——Of as our said once, at Baptist Church——By the way, we haven't you there yet, and of your husband was up a Baptist, and I do he won't away from the fold, of we all know there isn't anything, not or gifts of gold or anything, that can make up for and the and they can say what they want to about the P. E. church, but of there's no church that has more history or has by the true of Christianity than the Baptist Church and——In what church were you raised, Mrs. Kennicott?”
“W-why, I to Congregational, as a girl in Mankato, but my college was Universalist.”
“Well——But of as the Bible says, is it the Bible, at least I know I have it in church and it, it's proper for the little to take her husband's of faith, so we all we shall see you at the Baptist Church and——As I was saying, of I agree with Reverend Zitterel in that the great trouble with this nation today is of faith—so going to church, and people on Sunday and what all. But still I do think that one trouble is this terrible waste of money, people that they've got to have bath-tubs and in their houses——I you were selling the old cheap.”
“Yes!”
“Well—of you know your own mind, but I can't help thinking, when Will's ma was here house for him—SHE used to in to SEE me, OFTEN!—it was good for her. But there, there, I mustn't croak, I just wanted to let you know that when you you can't on a of these like the Haydocks and the Dyers—and only how much money Juanita Haydock in in a year—why then you may be to know that slow old Aunty Bogart is always right there, and knows——” A sigh. “—I HOPE you and your husband won't have any of the troubles, with and and money and all that so many of these do have and——But I must be along now, dearie. It's been such a and——Just in and see me any time. I Will is well? I he looked a peaked.”
It was twenty minutes later when Mrs. Bogart out of the door. Carol ran into the living-room and open the windows. “That woman has left finger-prints in the air,” she said.
II
Carol was extravagant, but at least she did not try to clear herself of by going about whimpering, “I know I'm but I don't to be able to help it.”
Kennicott had of her an allowance. His mother had had one! As a wage-earning Carol had to her that when she was married, she was going to have an and be business-like and modern. But it was too much trouble to to Kennicott's that she was a practical as well as a playmate. She a budget-plan account book and her as exact as are likely to be when they budgets.
For the month it was a to prettily, to confess, “I haven't a in the house, dear,” and to be told, “You're an little rabbit.” But the budget book her how were her finances. She self-conscious; occasionally she was that she should always have to him for the money with which to his food. She herself his that, since his joke about trying to keep her out of the had once been as humor, it should continue to be his daily mot. It was a to have to the after him she had to ask him for money at breakfast.
But she couldn't “hurt his feelings,” she reflected. He liked the of largess.
She to the of by opening and having the sent to him. She had that groceries, sugar, flour, be most purchased at Axel Egge's store. She said to Axel:
“I think I'd open a account here.”
“I don't do no for cash,” Axel.
She flared, “Do you know who I am?”
“Yuh, sure, I know. The is good for it. But that's a I made. I make low prices. I do for cash.”
She at his red face, and her had the to him, but her with him. “You're right. You shouldn't your for me.”
Her had not been lost. It had been transferred to her husband. She wanted ten of sugar in a hurry, but she had no money. She ran up the stairs to Kennicott's office. On the door was a a and stating, “The doctor is out, at——” Naturally, the blank space was not out. She her foot. She ran to the store—the doctor's club.
As she entered she Mrs. Dyer demanding, “Dave, I've got to have some money.”
Carol saw that her husband was there, and two other men, all in amusement.
Dave Dyer snapped, “How much do you want? Dollar be enough?”
“No, it won't! I've got to some for the kids.”
“Why, good Lord, they got now to the so I couldn't my boots, last time I wanted them.”
“I don't care. They're all in rags. You got to give me ten dollars——”
Carol that Mrs. Dyer was to this indignity. She that the men, particularly Dave, it as an excellent jest. She waited—she what would come—it did. Dave yelped, “Where's that ten I gave you last year?” and he looked to the other men to laugh. They laughed.
Cold and still, Carol walked up to Kennicott and commanded, “I want to see you upstairs.”
“Why—something the matter?”
“Yes!”
He after her, up the stairs, into his office. Before he out a she stated:
“Yesterday, in of a saloon, I a German farm-wife her husband for a quarter, to a toy for the baby—and he refused. Just now I've Mrs. Dyer going through the same humiliation. And I—I'm in the same position! I have to you for money. Daily! I have just been that I couldn't have any sugar I hadn't the money to pay for it!”
“Who said that? By God, I'll kill any——”
“Tut. It wasn't his fault. It was yours. And mine. I now you to give me the money with which to for you to eat. And to it. The next time, I sha'n't beg. I shall starve. Do you understand? I can't go on being a slave——”
Her defiance, her of the role, ran out. She was against his overcoat, “How can you me so?” and he was blubbering, “Dog-gone it, I meant to give you some, and I it. I I won't again. By I won't!”
He pressed fifty upon her, and after that he to give her money . . . sometimes.
Daily she determined, “But I must have a amount—be business-like. System. I must do something about it.” And daily she didn't do anything about it.
III
Mrs. Bogart had, by the of her on the new furniture, Carol to economy. She spoke to Bea about left-overs. She read the again and, like a child with a picture-book, she the of the which to though it is into cuts.
But she was a and in her for her party, the housewarming. She on every and laundry-slip in her desk. She sent orders to Minneapolis “fancy grocers.” She patterns and sewed. She was when Kennicott was about “these big doings that are going on.” She the as an attack on Gopher Prairie's in pleasure. “I'll make 'em lively, if nothing else. I'll make 'em stop parties as committee-meetings.”
Kennicott himself the master of the house. At his desire, she hunting, which was his symbol of happiness, and she ordered for breakfast, which was his symbol of morality. But when he came home on the the he himself a slave, an intruder, a blunderer. Carol wailed, “Fix the so you won't have to touch it after supper. And for heaven's take that old door-mat off the porch. And put on your and white shirt. Why did you come home so late? Would you mind hurrying? Here it is almost suppertime, and those are just as likely as not to come at seven of eight. PLEASE hurry!”
She was as as an leading woman on a night, and he was to humility. When she came to supper, when she in the doorway, he gasped. She was in a sheath, the of a lily, her like black glass; she had the and of a Viennese goblet; and her were intense. He was to from the table and to the chair for her; and all through supper he ate his he that she would think him common if he said “Will you hand me the butter?”
IV
She had the of not her guests liked the party or not, and a of satisfied in to Bea's in serving, Kennicott from the bay-window in the living-room, “Here comes somebody!” and Mr. and Mrs. Luke Dawson in, at a to eight. Then in a the entire of Gopher Prairie: all in a profession, or earning more than twenty-five hundred a year, or of in America.
Even while they were their they were at the new decorations. Carol saw Dave Dyer turn over the gold to a price-tag, and Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh, the attorney, gasp, “Well, I'll be switched,” as he viewed the print against the Japanese obi. She was amused. But her high as she them in dress parade, in a long, silent, circle clear the living-room. She that she had been to her party, at Sam Clark's.
“Have I got to them, like so many pigs of iron? I don't know that I can make them happy, but I'll make them hectic.”
A in the circle, she around, them with her smile, and sang, “I want my party to be noisy and undignified! This is the of my house, and I want you to help me have a on it, so that it will be a house. For me, won't you all join in an old-fashioned square dance? And Mr. Dyer will call.”
She had a record on the phonograph; Dave Dyer was in the center of the floor, loose-jointed, lean, small, headed, pointed of nose, his hands and shouting, “Swing y' pardners—alamun lef!”
Even the Dawsons and Ezra Stowbody and “Professor” George Edwin Mott danced, looking only foolish; and by about the room and being and to all over forty-five, Carol got them into a and a Virginia Reel. But when she left them to themselves in their own way Harry Haydock put a one-step record on the phonograph, the people took the floor, and all the to their chairs, with which meant, “Don't I'll try this one myself, but I do the dance.”
Half of them were silent; the of that in the store. Ezra Stowbody for something to say, a yawn, and offered to Lyman Cass, the owner of the flour-mill, “How d' you like the new furnace, Lym? Huh? So.”
“Oh, let them alone. Don't them. They must like it, or they wouldn't do it.” Carol herself. But they at her so when she past that she was that in their of they had the power of play as well as the power of thought. Even the dancers were by the of fifty perfectly pure and well-behaved and negative minds; and they sat down, two by two. In twenty minutes the party was again to the of a prayer-meeting.
“We're going to do something exciting,” Carol to her new confidante, Vida Sherwin. She saw that in the her voice had across the room. Nat Hicks, Ella Stowbody, and Dave Dyer were abstracted, and moving. She with a cold that Dave was his “stunt” about the Norwegian the hen, Ella over the lines of “An Old Sweetheart of Mine,” and Nat of his popular on Mark Antony's oration.
“But I will not have use the word 'stunt' in my house,” she to Miss Sherwin.
“That's good. I tell you: why not have Raymond Wutherspoon sing?”
“Raymie? Why, my dear, he's the most in town!”
“See here, child! Your opinions on house-decorating are sound, but your opinions of people are rotten! Raymie his tail. But the dear——Longing for what he calls 'self-expression' and no in anything selling shoes. But he can sing. And some day when he away from Harry Haydock's and ridicule, he'll do something fine.”
Carol for her superciliousness. She Raymie, and the of “stunts,” “We all want you to sing, Mr. Wutherspoon. You're the only famous actor I'm going to let appear on the stage tonight.”
While Raymie and admitted, “Oh, they don't want to me,” he was his throat, his clean out of his pocket, and his the of his vest.
In her for Raymie's defender, in her to “discover talent,” Carol prepared to be by the recital.
Raymie sang “Fly as a Bird,” “Thou Art My Dove,” and “When the Little Swallow Leaves Its Tiny Nest,” all in a tenor.
Carol was with the which people when they to an “elocutionist” being humorous, or to a child publicly doing what no child should do at all. She wanted to laugh at the in Raymie's half-shut eyes; she wanted to over the which like an his face, ears, and pompadour. She to look admiring, for the of Miss Sherwin, that of all that was or be the good, the true, and the beautiful.
At the end of the third Miss Sherwin from her of and to Carol, “My! That was sweet! Of Raymond hasn't an good voice, but don't you think he puts such a of into it?”
Carol and magnificently, but without originality: “Oh yes, I do think he has so much FEELING!”
She saw that after the of in a manner the audience had collapsed; had up their last of being amused. She cried, “Now we're going to play an game which I learned in Chicago. You will have to take off your shoes, for a starter! After that you will your and shoulder-blades.”
Much attention and incredulity. A a that Doc Kennicott's was noisy and improper.
“I shall choose the most vicious, like Juanita Haydock and myself, as the shepherds. The of you are wolves. Your shoes are the sheep. The go out into the hall. The the sheep through this room, then turn off all the lights, and the in from the and in the they try to the shoes away from the shepherds—who are permitted to do anything bite and use black-jacks. The the shoes out into the hall. No one excused! Come on! Shoes off!”
Every one looked at every one else and waited for every one else to begin.
Carol off her slippers, and the at her arches. The embarrassed but Vida Sherwin her high black shoes. Ezra Stowbody cackled, “Well, you're a terror to old folks. You're like the I used to go horseback-riding with, in the sixties. Ain't much to parties barefoot, but here goes!” With a and a Ezra off his elastic-sided Congress shoes.
The others and followed.
When the sheep had been up, in the the into the living-room, squealing, halting, out of their of by the of through toward a waiting foe, a which and more menacing. The to make out landmarks, they touched arms which did not to be to a body, they with a of fear. Reality had vanished. A rose, then Juanita Haydock's high titter, and Guy Pollock's astonished, “Ouch! Quit! You're me!”
Mrs. Luke Dawson on hands and into the safety of the hallway, moaning, “I declare, I nev' was so in my life!” But the was out of her, and she to “Nev' in my LIFE” as she saw the living-room door opened by hands and shoes through it, as she from the the door a squawling, a bumping, a “Here's a of shoes. Come on, you wolves. Ow! Y' would, would you!”
When Carol on the lights in the living-room, of the company were against the walls, where they had the engagement, but in the middle of the Kennicott was with Harry Haydock—their off, their in their eyes; and the Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh was from Juanita Haydock, and with laughter. Guy Pollock's his back. Young Rita Simons's had two buttons, and more of her than was as pure in Gopher Prairie. Whether by shock, disgust, of combat, or physical activity, all the party were from their years of social decorum. George Edwin Mott giggled; Luke Dawson his beard; Mrs. Clark insisted, “I did too, Sam—I got a shoe—I I so terrible!”
Carol was that she was a great reformer.
She had combs, mirrors, brushes, and ready. She permitted them to the of buttons.
The Bea down-stairs a of soft thick of paper with designs of blossoms, dragons, apes, in and and gray, and patterns of among sea-green trees in the of Nowhere.
“These,” Carol announced, “are Chinese costumes. I got them from an shop in Minneapolis. You are to put them on over your clothes, and that you are Minnesotans, and turn into and and—and (isn't it?), and anything else you can think of.”
While they were the paper she disappeared. Ten minutes after she from the stairs upon Yankee above Oriental robes, and to them, “The Princess Winky Poo her court!”
As they looked up she their of admiration. They saw an in and of green with gold; a high gold under a proud chin; black with pins; a in an out-stretched hand; to a of towers. When she her and she Kennicott with pride—and Guy Pollock beseechingly. For a second she saw nothing in all the pink and of their save the of the two men.
She off the spell and ran down. “We're going to have a Chinese concert. Messrs. Pollock, Kennicott, and, well, Stowbody are drummers; the of us sing and play the fife.”
The were with paper; the were and the sewing-table. Loren Wheeler, of the Dauntless, the orchestra, with a ruler and a totally of rhythm. The music was a of tom-toms at fortune-telling or at the Minnesota State Fair, but the whole company and and in a sing-song, and looked rapturous.
Before they were of the Carol them in a dancing to the dining-room, to of mein, with Lichee nuts and in syrup.
None of them save that city-rounder Harry Haydock had of any Chinese dish sooey. With they through the into the of the mein; and Dave Dyer did a not very Chinese with Nat Hicks; and there was and contentment.
Carol relaxed, and that she was tired. She had them on her thin shoulders. She not keep it up. She for her father, that artist at parties. She of a cigarette, to them, and the it was formed. She they for five minutes be to talk about something the winter top of Knute Stamquist's Ford, and what Al Tingley had said about his mother-in-law. She sighed, “Oh, let 'em alone. I've done enough.” She her legs, and above her of ginger; she Pollock's still smile, and well of herself for having a rose light on the lawyer; the that any male save her husband existed; jumped up to Kennicott and whisper, “Happy, my lord? . . . No, it didn't cost much!”
“Best party this town saw. Only——Don't your in that costume. Shows your too plain.”
She was vexed. She his clumsiness. She returned to Guy Pollock and talked of Chinese religions—not that she anything about Chinese religions, but he had read a book on the as, on in his office, he had read at least one book on every in the world. Guy's thin was in her to and they were an in the yellow sea of when she that the guests were that which indicated, in the language, that they to go home and go to bed.
While they that it had been “the party they'd seen—my! so and original,” she tremendously, hands, and many children, and being sure to up warmly, and Raymie's and Juanita Haydock's at games. Then she to Kennicott in a house with and and of Chinese costumes.
He was gurgling, “I tell you, Carrie, you are a wonder, and you're right about up. Now you've 'em how, they won't go on having the same old of parties and and everything. Here! Don't touch a thing! Done enough. Pop up to bed, and I'll clear up.”
His wise surgeon's-hands her shoulder, and her at his was in his strength.
V
From the Weekly Dauntless:
One of the most social events of months was Wednesday in the of Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott, who have their home on Poplar Street, and is now in modern color scheme. The doctor and his were at home to their friends and a number of in were held, a Chinese in original and Oriental costumes, of which Ye Editor was leader. Dainty were in true Oriental style, and one and all voted a time.
VI
The week after, the Chet Dashaways gave a party. The circle of its place all evening, and Dave Dyer did the “stunt” of the Norwegian and the hen.
