KENNICOTT was pleased by her Christmas presents, and he gave her a diamond bar-pin. But she not herself that he was much in the of the morning, in the tree she had decorated, the three she had hung, the and and messages. He said only:
“Nice way to things, all right. What do you say we go to Jack Elder's and have a game of five hundred this afternoon?”
She her father's Christmas fantasies: the old at the top of the tree, the score of presents, the and carols, the by the fire, and the with which the judge opened the children's notes and took of for sled-rides, for opinions upon the of Santa Claus. She him reading out a long of himself for being a sentimentalist, against the peace and of the State of Minnesota. She his thin their sled——
She unsteadily, “Must up and put on my shoes—slippers so cold.” In the not very of the locked she sat on the of the and wept.
II
Kennicott had five hobbies: medicine, land-investment, Carol, motoring, and hunting. It is not in what order he them. Solid though his were in the of medicine—his of this city surgeon, his of that for of country to in patients, his about fee-splitting, his in a new X-ray apparatus—none of these him as did motoring.
He nursed his two-year-old Buick in winter, when it was in the stable-garage the house. He the grease-cups, a fender, from the seat the of gloves, copper washers, maps, dust, and rags. Winter he out and at the car. He over a “trip we might take next summer.” He to the station, home railway maps, and motor-routes from Gopher Prairie to Winnipeg or Des Moines or Grand Marais, and her to be about such questions as “Now I wonder if we stop at Baraboo and the jump from La Crosse to Chicago?”
To him was a not to be questioned, a high-church cult, with electric for candles, and piston-rings the of altar-vessels. His was of and road-comments: “They say there's a good from Duluth to International Falls.”
Hunting was a devotion, full of from Carol. All winter he read sporting-catalogues, and about past shots: “'Member that time when I got two on a long chance, just at sunset?” At least once a month he his shotgun, his “pump gun,” from its of flannel; he the trigger, and moments at the ceiling. Sunday Carol him up to the and there, an hour later, she him over boots, duck-decoys, lunch-boxes, or at old shells, their with his and his as he about their uselessness.
He the loading-tools he had used as a boy: a for shot-gun shells, a for lead bullets. When once, in a for of things, she raged, “Why don't you give these away?” he them, “Well, you can't tell; they might come in some day.”
She flushed. She if he was of the child they would have when, as he put it, they were “sure they one.”
Mysteriously aching, sad, she away, half-convinced but only half-convinced that it was and unnatural, this of of mother-affection, this to her and to his for prosperity.
“But it would be if he were like Sam Clark—insisted on having children,” she considered; then, “If Will were the Prince, wouldn't I DEMAND his child?”
Kennicott's land-deals were financial and game. Driving through the country, he noticed which had good crops; he the news about the farmer who was “thinking about selling out here and his for Alberta.” He asked the about the value of different of stock; he of Lyman Cass or not Einar Gyseldson had had a of of to the acre. He was always Julius Flickerbaugh, who more than law, and more law than justice. He maps, and read of auctions.
Thus he was able to a quarter-section of land for one hundred and fifty an acre, and to sell it in a year or two, after a in the and water in the house, for one hundred and eighty or two hundred.
He spoke of these to Sam Clark . . . often.
In all his games, and and land, he Carol to take an interest. But he did not give her the which might have interest. He talked only of the and aspects; of his in finance, of the of motors.
This month of she was to his hobbies. She in the while he an hour in to put or non-freezing liquid into the radiator, or to out the water entirely. “Or no, then I wouldn't want to take her out if it warm—still, of course, I the again—wouldn't take so long—just take a of water—still, if it cold on me again I it——Course there's some people that put in kerosene, but they say it the hose-connections and——Where did I put that lug-wrench?”
It was at this point that she gave up being a and retired to the house.
In their new he was more about his practise; he her, with the not to tell, that Mrs. Sunderquist had another coming, that the “hired girl at Howland's was in trouble.” But when she asked questions he did not know how to answer; when she inquired, “Exactly what is the method of taking out the tonsils?” he yawned, “Tonsilectomy? Why you just——If there's pus, you operate. Just take 'em out. Seen the newspaper? What the did Bea do with it?”
She did not try again.
III
They had gone to the “movies.” The were almost as to Kennicott and the other solid citizens of Gopher Prairie as land-speculation and and automobiles.
The a Yankee who a South American republic. He the from their of and laughing to the sanity, the Pep and Punch and Go, of the North; he them to work in factories, to wear Klassy Kollege Klothes, and to shout, “Oh, you doll, watch me in the mazuma.” He nature itself. A which had nothing but and and clouds was by his Hustle so that it out in long sheds, and of iron to be into to iron to be into to iron ore.
The by the master was by a livelier, more and less drama: Mack Schnarken and the Bathing Suit Babes in a of manners “Right on the Coco.” Mr. Schnarken was at high moments a cook, a life-guard, a actor, and a sculptor. There was a hotel up which charged, only to be by plaster upon them from the doors. If the plot lucidity, the of and was clear and sure. Bathing and modeling were occasions for legs; the wedding-scene was but an approach to the when Mr. Schnarken a piece of into the clergyman's pocket.
The audience in the Rosebud Movie Palace and their eyes; they under the seats for overshoes, mittens, and mufflers, while the screen that next week Mr. Schnarken might be in a new, riproaring, extra-special of the Clean Comedy Corporation entitled, “Under Mollie's Bed.”
“I'm glad,” said Carol to Kennicott as they the which was the street, “that this is a country. We don't allow any of these novels.”
“Yump. Vice Society and Postal Department won't for them. The American people don't like filth.”
“Yes. It's fine. I'm we have such as 'Right on the Coco' instead.”
“Say what in do you think you're trying to do? Kid me?”
He was silent. She his anger. She upon his patois, the Boeotian of Gopher Prairie. He laughed puzzlingly. When they came into the of the house he laughed again. He condescended:
“I've got to hand it to you. You're consistent, all right. I'd of that after this look-in at a of good farmers, you'd over this high-art stuff, but you right on.”
“Well——” To herself: “He takes of my trying to be good.”
“Tell you, Carrie: There's just three of people: that haven't got any ideas at all; and that about everything; and Regular Guys, the with sticktuitiveness, that and the world's work done.”
“Then I'm a crank.” She negligently.
“No. I won't admit it. You do like to talk, but at a show-down you'd Sam Clark to any long-haired artist.”
“Oh—well——”
“Oh well!” mockingly. “My, we're just going to everything, aren't we! Going to tell that have been making for ten years how to direct 'em; and tell how to towns; and make the nothing but a of about old maids, and about that don't know what they want. Oh, we're a terror! . . . Come on now, Carrie; come out of it; wake up! You've got a nerve, kicking about a movie it a legs! Why, you're always these Greek dancers, or they are, that don't wear a shimmy!”
“But, dear, the trouble with that film—it wasn't that it got in so many legs, but that it and promised to more of them, and then didn't keep the promise. It was Peeping Tom's idea of humor.”
“I don't you. Look here now——”
She awake, while he with sleep
“I must go on. My 'crank ideas;' he calls them. I that him, him operate, would be enough. It isn't. Not after the thrill.
“I don't want to him. But I must go on.
“It isn't enough, to by while he an and me of information.
“If I by and him long enough, I would be content. I would a 'nice little woman.' The Village Virus. Already——I'm not reading anything. I haven't touched the piano for a week. I'm the days in of 'a good deal, ten more acre.' I won't! I won't succumb!
“How? I've failed at everything: the Thanatopsis, parties, pioneers, city hall, Guy and Vida. But——It doesn't MATTER! I'm not trying to 'reform the town' now. I'm not trying to Browning Clubs, and in clean white up at with eyeglasses. I am trying to save my soul.
“Will Kennicott, asleep there, me, he me. And I'm him. All of me left him when he laughed at me. It wasn't for him that I him; I must myself and like him. He takes advantage. No more. It's finished. I will go on.”
IV
Her on top of the piano. She it up. Since she had last touched it the had snapped, and upon it a gold and cigar-band.
V
She to see Guy Pollock, for the of the in the faith. But Kennicott's was upon her. She not she was by or him, or by inertia—by of the labor of the “scenes” which would be in independence. She was like the at fifty: not of death, but by the of and and up all night on barricades.
The second after the she Vida Sherwin and Guy to the house for pop-corn and cider. In the living-room Vida and Kennicott “the value of manual in the eighth,” while Carol sat Guy at the table, pop-corn. She was by the in his eyes. She murmured:
“Guy, do you want to help me?”
“My dear! How?”
“I don't know!”
He waited.
“I think I want you to help me out what has the of the women. Gray and trees. We're all in it, ten women, married with good husbands, and in collars, and that out to teas, and of under-paid miners, and who like to make and go to church. What is it we want—and need? Will Kennicott there would say that we need of children and hard work. But it isn't that. There's the same in with eight children and one more coming—always one more coming! And you it in and who scrub, just as much as in girl college-graduates who wonder how they can their parents. What do we want?”
“Essentially, I think, you are like myself, Carol; you want to go to an age of and manners. You want to good taste again.”
“Just good taste? Fastidious people? Oh—no! I all of us want the same things—we're all together, the and the and the farmers and the and the Asiatic colonies, and a of the Respectables. It's all the same revolt, in all the that have waited and taken advice. I think we want a more life. We're of and sleeping and dying. We're of just a people able to be individualists. We're of always till the next generation. We're of the politicians and and (and the husbands!) us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just give us a more time and we'll produce it; trust us; we're than you.' For ten thousand years they've said that. We want our Utopia NOW—and we're going to try our hands at it. All we want is—everything for all of us! For every and every and every Hindu and every teacher. We want everything. We shatn't it. So we shatn't be content——”
She why he was wincing. He in:
“See here, my dear, I you don't class with a of trouble-making labor-leaders! Democracy is all right theoretically, and I'll admit there are injustices, but I'd have them than see the world to a level of mediocrity. I to that you have anything in common with a of men for so that they can and player-pianos and——”
At this second, in Buenos Ayres, a newspaper his of being by to assert, “Any is than the world to a level of scientific dullness.” At this second a at the of a New York stopped his of his office-manager long to at the him, “Aw, you make me sick! I'm an individualist. I ain't going to be by no and take orders off labor-leaders. And to say a hobo's as good as you and me?”
At this second Carol that for all Guy's love of his was as to her as the of Sam Clark. She that he was not a mystery, as she had believed; not a messenger from the World Outside on she count for escape. He to Gopher Prairie, absolutely. She was from a of countries, and herself on Main Street.
He was his protest, “You don't want to be mixed up in all this of meaningless discontent?”
She him. “No, I don't. I'm not heroic. I'm by all the that's going on in the world. I want and adventure, but I want still more to on the with some one I love.”
“Would you——”
He did not it. He up a of pop-corn, let it through his fingers, looked at her wistfully.
With the of one who has put away a possible love Carol saw that he was a stranger. She saw that he had been anything but a on which she had garments. If she had let him make love to her, it was not she cared, but she did not care, it did not matter.
She at him with the of a woman a flirtation; a like an on the arm. She sighed, “You're a dear to let me tell you my troubles.” She up, and trilled, “Shall we take the pop-corn in to them now?”
Guy looked after her desolately.
While she Vida and Kennicott she was repeating, “I must go on.”
VI
Miles Bjornstam, the “Red Swede,” had his saw and portable engine to the house, to cut the of for the range. Kennicott had the order; Carol nothing of it till she the of the saw, and out to see Bjornstam, in black leather jacket and mittens, pressing against the blade, and the stove-lengths to one side. The red up a red “tip-tip-tip-tip-tip-tip.” The of the saw rose till it the of a fire-alarm at night, but always at the end it gave a clang, and in the she the of the cut on the pile.
She a over her, ran out. Bjornstam her, “Well, well, well! Here's old Miles, fresh as ever. Well say, that's all right; he ain't to be yet; next he's going to take you out on his horse-trading trip, clear into Idaho.”
“Yes, and I may go!”
“How's tricks? Crazy about the town yet?”
“No, but I shall be, some day.”
“Don't let 'em you. Kick 'em in the face!”
He at her while he worked. The of stove-wood astonishingly. The of the was with of sage-green and gray; the newly ends were fresh-colored, with the of a muffler. To the winter air the gave a of March sap.
Kennicott that he was going into the country. Bjornstam had not his work at noon, and she him to have dinner with Bea in the kitchen. She that she were to with these her guests. She their friendliness, she at “social distinctions,” she at her own taboos—and she to them as and herself as a lady. She sat in the dining-room and through the door to Bjornstam's and Bea's giggles. She was the more to herself in that, after the of alone, she go out to the kitchen, against the sink, and talk to them.
They were to each other; a Swedish Othello and Desdemona, more useful and than their prototypes. Bjornstam told his scapes: selling in a Montana mining-camp, a log-jam, being to a “two-fisted” lumberman. Bea “Oh my!” and his coffee cup filled.
He took a long time to the wood. He had to go into the to warm. Carol him to Bea, “You're a Swede girl. I if I had a woman like you I wouldn't be such a sorehead. Gosh, your is clean; makes an old sloppy. Say, that's you got. Huh? Me fresh? Saaaay, girl, if I do fresh, you'll know it. Why, I you up with one finger, and you in the air long to read Robert J. Ingersoll clean through. Ingersoll? Oh, he's a religious writer. Sure. You'd like him fine.”
When he off he to Bea; and Carol, at the window above, was of their pastoral.
“And I——But I will go on.”
