I
SHE had into the to teach the a and that the were wolves. There was no way out their pressing shoulders. She was by and eyes.
She not go on the derision. She wanted to flee. She wanted to in the of cities. She saying to Kennicott, “Think I'll to St. Paul for a days.” But she not trust herself to say it carelessly; not his questioning.
Reform the town? All she wanted was to be tolerated!
She not look directly at people. She and citizens who a week ago had been objects of study, and in their good-mornings she a sniggering.
She Juanita Haydock at Ole Jenson's grocery. She besought, “Oh, how do you do! Heavens, what that is!”
“Yes, doesn't it look fresh. Harry has to have his on Sunday, the man!”
Carol out of the shop exulting, “She didn't make fun of me. . . . Did she?”
In a week she had from of insecurity, of and notoriety, but she her of people. She walked the with her down. When she Mrs. McGanum or Mrs. Dyer ahead she over with an of looking at a billboard. Always she was acting, for the of every one she saw—and for the of the which she did not see.
She that Vida Sherwin had told the truth. Whether she entered a store, or the porch, or at the bay-window in the living-room, the village at her. Once she had along the in making a home. Now she at each house, and felt, when she was safely home, that she had past a thousand with ridicule. She told herself that her was preposterous, but daily she was into panic. She saw into smoothness. Old who had been entering their houses out again to at her—in the she them on their porches. When she had for a hour the searchlight, when she was through a dusk, happy in yellow against night, her as she that a with a was up over a snow-tipped to watch her.
She that she was taking herself too seriously; that at every one. She placid, and well of her philosophy. But next she had a of as she entered Ludelmeyer's. The grocer, his clerk, and Mrs. Dave Dyer had been about something. They halted, looked embarrassed, about onions. Carol guilty. That when Kennicott took her to call on the Lyman Casses, their at their arrival. Kennicott hooted, “What makes you so hang-dog, Lym?” The Casses feebly.
Except Dave Dyer, Sam Clark, and Raymie Wutherspoon, there were no merchants of welcome Carol was certain. She that she read into but she not her suspicion, not from her collapse. She alternately and at the of the merchants. They did not know that they were being rude, but they meant to have it that they were and “not of no doctor's wife.” They often said, “One man's as good as another—and a better.” This motto, however, they did not to farmer who had had failures. The Yankee merchants were crabbed; and Ole Jenson, Ludelmeyer, and Gus Dahl, from the “Old Country,” to be taken for Yankees. James Madison Howland, in New Hampshire, and Ole Jenson, in Sweden, proved that they were free American citizens by grunting, “I don't know I got any or not,” or “Well, you can't me to it delivered by noon.”
It was good for the to back. Juanita Haydock jabbered, “You have it there by twelve or I'll that fresh delivery-boy bald-headed.” But Carol had been able to play the game of rudeness; and now she was that she would learn it. She the of going to Axel Egge's.
Axel was not and rude. He was still a foreigner, and he to one. His manner was and uninterrogative. His was more than any cross-roads store. No one save Axel himself anything. A part of the of children's was under a on a shelf, a part in a ginger-snap box, the like a of black-cotton upon a flour-barrel which was by brooms, Norwegian Bibles, for ludfisk, boxes of apricots, and a pair and a of lumbermen's rubber-footed boots. The place was with Scandinavian farmwives, in and fawn-colored leg o' mutton jackets, the return of their lords. They spoke Norwegian or Swedish, and looked at Carol uncomprehendingly. They were a to her—they were not that she was a poseur.
But what she told herself was that Axel Egge's was “so and romantic.”
It was in the of that she was most self-conscious.
When she to go shopping in her new with the black-embroidered collar, she had as good as all of Gopher Prairie (which itself in nothing so as in new and the cost thereof) to her. It was a with lines to the yellow and pink of the town. The Widow Bogart's stare, from her porch, indicated, “Well I saw anything like that before!” Mrs. McGanum stopped Carol at the shop to hint, “My, that's a suit—wasn't it expensive?” The of boys in of the store commented, “Hey, Pudgie, play you a game of on that dress.” Carol not it. She her over the and the buttons, while the boys snickered.
II
No group her so much as these roues.
She had to herself that the village, with its fresh air, its for and swimming, was than the city. But she was by of the of boys from fourteen to twenty who Dyer's Drug Store, cigarettes, “fancy” shoes and and of diamond-shaped buttons, the Hoochi-Koochi and catcalling, “Oh, you baby-doll” at every girl.
She saw them playing in the room Del Snafflin's shop, and in “The Smoke House,” and in a to to the “juicy stories” of Bert Tybee, the of the Minniemashie House. She them over every love-scene at the Rosebud Movie Palace. At the of the Greek Confectionery Parlor, while they ate of bananas, cherries, cream, and ice-cream, they to one another, “Hey, 'lone,” “Quit dog-gone you, what you and done, you almost my swater,” “Like I did,” “Hey, your hide, don't you go your in my i-scream,” “Oh you Batty, how like dancing with Tillie McGuire, last night? Some squeezing, heh, kid?”
By of American she that this was the only and manner in which boys function; that boys who were not of the and the mining-camp were and unhappy. She had taken this for granted. She had the boys pityingly, but impersonally. It had not to her that they might touch her.
Now she was aware that they all about her; that they were waiting for some over which they guffaw. No passed their observation-posts more than did Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. In she that they at her overshoes, about her legs. Theirs were not eyes—there was no in all the town, she agonized. They were old, and old and and censorious.
She again that their was and on the day when she Cy Bogart and Earl Haydock.
Cyrus N. Bogart, son of the who across the alley, was at this time a boy of fourteen or fifteen. Carol had already of Cy Bogart. On her in Gopher Prairie Cy had appeared at the of a “charivari,” upon a fender. His were in of coyotes. Kennicott had complimented; had gone out and a dollar. But Cy was a in charivaris. He returned with an new group, and this time there were three and a rattle. When Kennicott again his shaving, Cy piped, “Naw, you got to give us two dollars,” and he got it. A week later Cy a tic-tac to a window of the living-room, and the out of the Carol into screaming. Since then, in four months, she had Cy a cat, melons, at the Kennicott house, and making ski-tracks across the lawn, and had him the of generation, with great and knowledge. He was, in fact, a of what a small town, a well-disciplined public school, a of humor, and a mother produce from the material of a and mind.
Carol was of him. Far from when he set his on a kitten, she hard at not him.
The Kennicott was a with paint-cans, tools, a lawn-mower, and of hay. Above it was a which Cy Bogart and Earl Haydock, of Harry, used as a den, for smoking, from whippings, and societies. They to it by a on the of the shed.
This of late January, two or three after Vida's revelations, Carol had gone into the stable-garage to a hammer. Snow her step. She voices in the above her:
“Ah gee, lez—oh, go the and some out of somebody's traps,” Cy was yawning.
“And our ears off!” Earl Haydock.
“Gosh, these cigarettes are dandy. 'Member when we were just kids, and used to corn-silk and hayseed?”
“Yup. Gosh!”
Spit. “Silence.”
“Say Earl, ma says if you tobacco you consumption.”
“Aw rats, your old lady is a crank.”
“Yuh, that's so.” Pause. “But she says she a that did.”
“Aw, whiz, didn't Doc Kennicott used to tobacco all the time he married this-here girl from the Cities? He used to spit—-Gee! Some shot! He a tree ten off.”
This was news to the girl from the Cities.
“Say, how is she?” Earl.
“Huh? How's who?”
“You know who I mean, smarty.”
A tussle, a of boards, silence, from Cy:
“Mrs. Kennicott? Oh, she's all right, I guess.” Relief to Carol, below. “She a o' cake, one time. But Ma says she's stuck-up as hell. Ma's always talking about her. Ma says if Mrs. Kennicott as much about the as she about her clothes, the wouldn't look so peaked.”
Spit. Silence.
“Yuh. Juanita's always talking about her, too,” from Earl. “She says Mrs. Kennicott thinks she it all. Juanita says she has to laugh till she almost every time she sees Mrs. Kennicott along the with that 'take a look—I'm a skirt' way she's got. But gosh, I don't pay no attention to Juanita. She's 'n a crab.”
“Ma was telling somebody that she that Mrs. Kennicott she a week when she was on some job in the Cities, and Ma says she that she but eighteen a week—Ma says that when she's here a while she won't go making a of herself, that on that know a whole more than she does. They're all laughing up their at her.”
“Say, notice how Mrs. Kennicott around the house? Other when I was over here, she'd to the curtain, and I her for ten minutes. Jeeze, you'd 'a' died laughing. She was there all alone, and she must 'a' five minutes a picture straight. It was as the way she'd out her to the picture—deedle-dee, see my tunnin' 'ittle finger, oh my, ain't I cute, what a long my cat's got!”
“But say, Earl, she's some good-looker, just the same, and O Ignatz! the she must of for her wedding. Jever notice these low-cut and these thin shimmy-shirts she wears? I had a good at 'em when they were out on the line with the wash. And some she's got, heh?”
Then Carol fled.
In her she had not that the whole town discuss her garments, her body. She that she was being Main Street.
The moment it was she the window-shades, all the with the sill, but them she eyes.
III
She remembered, and to forget, and more the detail of her husband's having the of the land by tobacco. She would have a vice—gambling or a mistress. For these she might have a luxury of forgiveness. She not any hero of who tobacco. She that it proved him to be a man of the free West. She to him with the hairy-chested of the motion-pictures. She on the a in the twilight, and herself, and the battle. Spitting did not identify him with the buttes; it him to Gopher Prairie—to Nat Hicks the tailor and Bert Tybee the bartender.
“But he gave it up for me. Oh, what it matter! We're all in some things. I think of myself as so superior, but I do eat and digest, I do wash my dirty and scratch. I'm not a on a column. There aren't any! He gave it up for me. He by me, that every one loves me. He's the Rock of Ages—in a of that's me . . . it will drive me mad.”
All she sang Scotch to Kennicott, and when she noticed that he was an cigar she at his secret.
She not (in the exact and which a thousand women, dairy and mischief-making queens, had used her, and which a million will know hereafter), “Was it all a mistake, my marrying him?” She the doubt—without it.
IV
Kennicott had taken her north to Lac-qui-Meurt, in the Big Woods. It was the entrance to a Chippewa Indian reservation, a settlement among Norway on the of a snow-glaring lake. She had her of his mother, the at the wedding. Mrs. Kennicott had a and which her over-scrubbed with its hard in rockers. She had the child's power of wonder. She asked questions about books and cities. She murmured:
“Will is a dear hard-working boy but he's to be too serious, and you've him how to play. Last night I you laughing about the old Indian basket-seller, and I just in and your happiness.”
Carol her misery-hunting in this of family life. She upon them; she was not alone. Watching Mrs. Kennicott about the she was able to Kennicott himself. He was matter-of-fact, yes, and mature. He didn't play; he let Carol play with him. But he had his mother's for trusting, her for prying, her sure integrity.
From the two days at Lac-qui-Meurt Carol in herself, and she returned to Gopher Prairie in a like those when, he is for an free from pain, a man in living.
A hard winter day, the wind shrill, black and clouds across the sky, in motion the light. They against the of wind, through snow. Kennicott was cheerful. He Loren Wheeler, “Behave while I been away?” The bellowed, “B' you so long that all your have got well!” and took notes for the Dauntless about their journey. Jackson Elder cried, “Hey, folks! How's up North?” Mrs. McGanum to them from her porch.
“They're to see us. We something here. These people are satisfied. Why can't I be? But can I all my life and be satisfied with 'Hey, folks'? They want on Main Street, and I want in a room. Why——?”
V
Vida Sherwin ran in after a dozen times. She was tactful, anecdotal. She had about town and compliments: Mrs. Dr. Westlake had Carol a “very sweet, bright, woman,” and Brad Bemis, the at Clark's Hardware Store, had that she was “easy to work for and easy to look at.”
But Carol not yet take her in. She this outsider's knowledge of her shame. Vida was not too long tolerant. She hinted, “You're a great brooder, child. Buck up now. The town's you, almost entirely. Come with me to the Thanatopsis Club. They have some of the BEST papers, and current-events discussions—SO interesting.”
In Vida's Carol a compulsion, but she was too to obey.
It was Bea Sorenson who was her confidante.
However toward the Lower Classes she may have herself, Carol had been to assume that to a and species. But she that Bea was like girls she had loved in college, and as a to the of the Jolly Seventeen. Daily they more two girls playing at housework. Bea Carol the most and lady in the country; she was always shrieking, “My, dot's a hat!” or, “Ay t'ink all ladies die when see how you do your hair!” But it was not the of a servant, the of a slave; it was the of Freshman for Junior.
They out the day's together. Though they with propriety, Carol by the table and Bea at the or the stove, the was likely to end with of them by the table, while Bea over the ice-man's attempt to her, or Carol admitted, “Everybody that the doctor is more than Dr. McGanum.” When Carol came in from marketing, Bea into the to take off her coat, her hands, and ask, “Vos of up-town today?”
This was the welcome upon which Carol depended.
VI
Through her of there was no in her surface life. No one save Vida was aware of her agonizing. On her most days she to on the street, in stores. But without the protection of Kennicott's presence she did not go to the Jolly Seventeen; she delivered herself to the of the town only when she shopping and on the occasions of calls, when Mrs. Lyman Cass or Mrs. George Edwin Mott, with clean and minute and card-cases and of approbation, sat on the of chairs and inquired, “Do you Gopher Prairie pleasing?” When they of social profit-and-loss at the Haydocks' or the Dyers' she Kennicott, playing the bride.
Now she was unprotected. Kennicott had taken a patient to Rochester for an operation. He would be away for two or three days. She had not minded; she would the and be a girl for a time. But now that he was gone the house was empty. Bea was out this afternoon—presumably coffee and talking about “fellows” with her Tina. It was the day for the monthly supper and evening-bridge of the Jolly Seventeen, but Carol not go.
She sat alone.
