“DON'T I, in looking for to do, that I'm not to Will? Am I by his work? I will be. Oh, I will be. If I can't be one of the town, if I must be an outcast——”
When Kennicott came home she bustled, “Dear, you must tell me a more about your cases. I want to know. I want to understand.”
“Sure. You bet.” And he to the furnace.
At supper she asked, “For instance, what did you do today?”
“Do today? How do you mean?”
“Medically. I want to understand——”
“Today? Oh, there wasn't much of anything: with bellyaches, and a wrist, and a woman that thinks she wants to kill herself her husband doesn't like her and——Just work.”
“But the woman doesn't routine!”
“Her? Just case of nerves. You can't do much with these marriage mix-ups.”
“But dear, PLEASE, will you tell me about the next case that you do think is interesting?”
“Sure. You bet. Tell you about anything that——Say that's good salmon. Get it at Howland's?”
II
Four days after the Jolly Seventeen Vida Sherwin called and Carol's world to pieces.
“May I come in and a while?” she said, with such of that Carol was uneasy. Vida took off her with a bounce, she sat as though it were a exercise, she out:
“Feel good, this weather! Raymond Wutherspoon says if he had my energy he'd be a singer. I always think this is the in the world, and my friends are the people in the world, and my work is the most thing in the world. Probably I myself. But I know one thing for certain: You're the little in the world.”
“And so you are about to me alive.” Carol was about it.
“Am I? Perhaps. I've been wondering—I know that the third party to a is often the most to blame: the one who A and B having a time telling each of them what the other has said. But I want you to take a big part in Gopher Prairie and so——Such a very opportunity and——Am I silly?”
“I know what you mean. I was too at the Jolly Seventeen.”
“It isn't that. Matter of fact, I'm you told them some about servants. (Though you were just a tactless.) It's than that. I wonder if you that in a like this every is on test? People to her but her all the time. I when a Latin teacher came here from Wellesley, they her A. Were sure it was affected. Of they have you——”
“Have they talked about me much?”
“My dear!”
“I always as though I walked around in a cloud, looking out at others but not being seen. I so and so normal—so normal that there's nothing about me to discuss. I can't that Mr. and Mrs. Haydock must about me.” Carol was up a small of distaste. “And I don't like it. It makes me to think of their to talk over all I do and say. Pawing me over! I it. I hate——”
“Wait, child! Perhaps they some in you. I want you to try and be impersonal. They'd over who came in new. Didn't you, with in College?”
“Yes.”
“Well then! Will you be impersonal? I'm paying you the of that you can be. I want you to be big to help me make this town while.”
“I'll be as as cold potatoes. (Not that I shall be able to help you 'make the town while.') What do they say about me? Really. I want to know.”
“Of the ones your to anything away than Minneapolis. They're so suspicious—that's it, suspicious. And some think you dress too well.”
“Oh, they do, do they! Shall I dress in gunny-sacking to them?”
“Please! Are you going to be a baby?”
“I'll be good,” sulkily.
“You will, or I won't tell you one single thing. You must this: I'm not you to yourself. Just want you to know what they think. You must do that, no how their are, if you're going to them. Is it your to make this a town, or isn't it?”
“I don't know it is or not!”
“Why—why——Tut, tut, now, of it is! Why, I on you. You're a reformer.”
“I am not—not any more!”
“Of you are.”
“Oh, if I help——So they think I'm affected?”
“My lamb, they do! Now don't say they're nervy. After all, Gopher Prairie are as to Gopher Prairie as Lake Shore Drive are to Chicago. And there's more Gopher Prairies than there are Chicagos. Or Londons. And——I'll tell you the whole story: They think you're off when you say 'American' of 'Ammurrican.' They think you're too frivolous. Life's so to them that they can't any of Juanita's snortling. Ethel Villets was sure you were her when——”
“Oh, I was not!”
“——you talked about reading; and Mrs. Elder you were when you said she had 'such a little car.' She thinks it's an car! And some of the merchants say you're too when you talk to them in the store and——”
“Poor me, when I was trying to be friendly!”
“——every in town is about your being so with your Bea. All right to be kind, but they say you act as though she were your cousin. (Wait now! There's more.) And they think you were in this room—they think the and that Japanese are absurd. (Wait! I know they're silly.) And I I've a dozen you you don't go to church and——”
“I can't it—I can't to that they've been saying all these while I've been going about so and them. I wonder if you ought to have told me? It will make me self-conscious.”
“I wonder the same thing. Only answer I can is the old saw about knowledge being power. And some day you'll see how it is to have power, here; to the town——Oh, I'm a crank. But I do like to see moving.”
“It hurts. It makes these people so and treacherous, when I've been perfectly natural with them. But let's have it all. What did they say about my Chinese house-warming party?”
“Why, uh——”
“Go on. Or I'll make up than anything you can tell me.”
“They did it. But I some of them you were off—pretending that your husband is than he is.”
“I can't——Their of mind is any I imagine. They that I——And you want to 'reform' people like that when is so cheap? Who to say that? The rich or the poor?”
“Fairly well assorted.”
“Can't they at least me well to see that though I might be and culturine, at least I couldn't that other of vulgarity? If they must know, you may tell them, with my compliments, that Will makes about four thousand a year, and the party cost of what they it did. Chinese are not very expensive, and I my own costume——”
“Stop it! Stop me! I know all that. What they meant was: they you were starting by a party such as most people here can't afford. Four thousand is a big for this town.”
“I of starting competition. Will you that it was in all love and that I to give them the party I could? It was foolish; it was and noisy. But I did it so well.”
“I know, of course. And it is of them to make fun of your having that Chinese food—chow men, was it?—and to laugh about your those trousers——”
Carol up, whimpering, “Oh, they didn't do that! They didn't fun at my feast, that I ordered so for them! And my little Chinese that I was so happy making—I it secretly, to them. And they've been it, all this while!”
She was on the couch.
Vida was her hair, muttering, “I shouldn't——”
Shrouded in shame, Carol did not know when Vida away. The clock's bell, at past five, her. “I must of myself Will comes. I he what a his wife is. . . . Frozen, sneering, hearts.”
Like a very small, very girl she up-stairs, slow step by step, her dragging, her hand on the rail. It was not her husband to she wanted to for protection—it was her father, her father, these twelve years.
III
Kennicott was yawning, in the largest chair, the and a small stove.
Cautiously, “Will dear, I wonder if the people here don't me sometimes? They must. I mean: if they do, you mustn't let it you.”
“Criticize you? Lord, I should say not. They all keep telling me you're the girl they saw.”
“Well, I've just fancied——The merchants think I'm too about shopping. I'm I Mr. Dashaway and Mr. Howland and Mr. Ludelmeyer.”
“I can tell you how that is. I didn't want to speak of it but since you've it up: Chet Dashaway the that you got this new in the Cities of here. I didn't want to any at the time but——After all, I make my money here and they naturally me to it here.”
“If Mr. Dashaway will tell me how any person can a room out of the pieces that he calls——” She remembered. She said meekly, “But I understand.”
“And Howland and Ludelmeyer——Oh, you've 'em a for the stocks they carry, when you just meant to 'em. But rats, what do we care! This is an town, not like these Eastern where you have to watch your step all the time, and live up to and social customs, and a of old always criticizing. Everybody's free here to do what he wants to.” He said it with a flourish, and Carol that he it. She her of into a yawn.
“By the way, Carrie, while we're talking of this: Of I like to keep independent, and I don't in this of to with the man that with you unless you want to, but same time: I'd be just as if you with Jenson or Ludelmeyer as much as you ran, of Howland & Gould, who go to Dr. Gould every last time, and the whole of 'em the same way. I don't see why I should be paying out my good money for and having them pass it on to Terry Gould!”
“I've gone to Howland & Gould they're better, and cleaner.”
“I know. I don't cut them out entirely. Course Jenson is tricky—give you weight—and Ludelmeyer is a old Dutch hog. But same time, I let's keep the in the family it is convenient, see how I mean?”
“I see.”
“Well, it's about time to turn in.”
He yawned, out to look at the thermometer, the door, her head, his waistcoat, yawned, the clock, to look at the furnace, yawned, and up-stairs to bed, his thick undershirt.
Till he bawled, “Aren't you up to bed?” she sat unmoving.
