I
THE was coming. Each she was nauseated, chilly, bedraggled, and that she would again be attractive; each she was afraid. She did not exalted, but and furious. The period of daily into an time of boredom. It difficult for her to move about, and she that she, who had been and light-footed, should have to on a stick, and be upon by gossips. She was by eyes. Every hinted, “Now that you're going to be a mother, dearie, you'll over all these ideas of yours and settle down.” She that willy-nilly she was being into the of housekeepers; with the for hostage, she would escape; presently she would be coffee and and talking about diapers.
“I them. I'm used to that. But this being taken in, being taken as a of course, I can't it—and I must it!”
She alternately herself for not the women, and them for their advice: as to how much she would in labor, of baby-hygiene on long and total misunderstanding, about the she must eat and read and look at in for the baby's soul, and always a of baby-talk. Mrs. Champ Perry in to “Ben Hur,” as a of immorality. The Widow Bogart appeared exclamations, “And how is our 'ittle today! My, ain't it just like they always say: being in a Family Way make the so lovely, just like a Madonna. Tell me—” Her was with salaciousness—“does oo the dear one stirring, the of love? I with Cy, of he was so big——”
“I do not look lovely, Mrs. Bogart. My is rotten, and my is out, and I look like a potato-bag, and I think my are falling, and he isn't a of love, and I'm he WILL look like us, and I don't in mother-devotion, and the whole is a of a process,” Carol.
Then the was born, without difficulty: a boy with and legs. The day she him for the of pain and he had caused; she his ugliness. After that she loved him with all the and at which she had scoffed. She at the perfection of the hands as as did Kennicott, she was by the trust with which the to her; for him with each thing she had to do for him.
He was named Hugh, for her father.
Hugh into a thin healthy child with a large and of a brown. He was and casual—a Kennicott.
For two years nothing else existed. She did not, as the had prophesied, “give up about the world and other folks' soon as she got one of her own to for.” The of that to other children so that one child might have too much was to her. But she would herself. She consecration—she who answered Kennicott's about having Hugh christened: “I to my and myself by an man in a to him, to permit me to have him! I to him to any devil-chasing rites! If I didn't give my baby—MY BABY—enough in those nine hours of hell, then he can't any more out of the Reverend Mr. Zitterel!”
“Well, Baptists kids. I was of more about Reverend Warren,” said Kennicott.
Hugh was her for living, promise of in the future, of adoration—and a toy. “I I'd be a mother, but I'm as natural as Mrs. Bogart,” she boasted.
For two—years Carol was a part of the town; as much one of Our Young Mothers as Mrs. McGanum. Her dead; she had no for escape; her on Hugh. While she at the pearl of his ear she exulted, “I like an old woman, with a skin like sandpaper, him, and I'm of it! He is perfect. He shall have everything. He sha'n't always here in Gopher Prairie. . . . I wonder which is the best, Harvard or Yale or Oxford?”
II
The people who her in had been by Mr. and Mrs. Whittier N. Smail—Kennicott's Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie.
The true Main Streetite a relative as a person to house you go uninvited, to as long as you like. If you that Lym Cass on his East has all his time “visiting” in Oyster Center, it not that he that village to the of New England, but that he has relatives there. It not that he has to the relatives these many years, that they have of a to look upon him. But “you wouldn't a man to go and good money at a hotel in Boston, when his own third live right in the same state, would you?”
When the Smails their in North Dakota they visited Mr. Smail's sister, Kennicott's mother, at Lac-qui-Meurt, then on to Gopher Prairie to with their nephew. They appeared unannounced, the was born, took their welcome for granted, and to complain of the that their room north.
Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie that it was their as relatives to laugh at Carol, and their as Christians to let her know how her “notions” were. They to the food, to Oscarina's of friendliness, to the wind, the rain, and the of Carol's gowns. They were and enduring; for an hour at a time they go on questions about her father's income, about her theology, and about the why she had not put on her when she had gone across the street. For they had a rich, full genius, and their example in Kennicott a to the same of flaying.
If Carol was so as to that she had a small headache, the two Smails and Kennicott were at it. Every five minutes, every time she sat or rose or spoke to Oscarina, they twanged, “Is your now? Where it hurt? Don't you keep in the house? Didn't you walk too today? Have you hartshorn? Don't you keep some in the house so it will be handy? Does it now? How it feel? Do your hurt, too? What time do you to bed? As late as THAT? Well! How it now?”
In her presence Uncle Whittier at Kennicott, “Carol these often? Huh? Be for her if she didn't go around to all these bridge-whist parties, and took some of herself once in a while!”
They it up, commenting, questioning, commenting, questioning, till her and she bleated, “For heaven's SAKE, don't dis-CUSS it! My 's all RIGHT!”
She to the Smails and Kennicott trying to by the copy of the Dauntless, which Aunt Bessie wanted to send to her sister in Alberta, ought to have two or four on it. Carol would have taken it to the store and it, but then she was a dreamer, while they were practical people (as they admitted). So they to the from their consciousnesses, which, with entire in aloud, was their method of settling all problems.
The Smails did not “believe in all this nonsense” about and reticence. When Carol left a from her sister on the table, she was to from Uncle Whittier, “I see your sister says her husband is doing fine. You ought to go see her oftener. I asked Will and he says you don't go see her very often. My! You ought to go see her oftener!”
If Carol was a to a classmate, or the week's menus, she be that Aunt Bessie would in and titter, “Now don't let me you, I just wanted to see where you were, don't stop, I'm not going to only a second. I just if you possibly have that I didn't eat the this I didn't think they were properly cooked, but that wasn't the at all, it wasn't I didn't think they were well cooked, I'm sure that in your house is always very and nice, though I do think that Oscarina is careless about some things, she doesn't the big you pay her, and she is so cranky, all these Swedes are so cranky, I don't see why you have a Swede, but——But that wasn't it, I didn't eat them not I didn't think they weren't proper, it was just—I that don't agree with me, it's very strange, since I had an attack of one time, I have that onions, either or ones, and Whittier love with and sugar on them——”
It was pure affection.
Carol was that the one thing that can be more than is love.
She that she was being and in the Smails' presence, but they the heretic, and with forward-stooping they sat and to out her for their amusement. They were like the Sunday-afternoon starting at monkeys in the Zoo, and making and at the of the more race.
With a loose-lipped, superior, village Uncle Whittier hinted, “What's this I about your Gopher Prairie ought to be all and rebuilt, Carrie? I don't know where these new-fangled ideas. Lots of farmers in Dakota 'em these days. About co-operation. Think they can stores 'n storekeepers! Huh!”
“Whit and I didn't need no co-operation as long as we was farming!” Aunt Bessie. “Carrie, tell your old now: don't you go to church on Sunday? You do go sometimes? But you ought to go every Sunday! When you're as old as I am, you'll learn that no how think they are, God a whole more than they do, and then you'll and be to go and to your pastor!”
In the manner of one who has just a two-headed they that they had “never HEARD such ideas!” They were to learn that a person, in Minnesota, and married to their own flesh-and-blood relation, that may not always be immoral; that children do not any special and of curse; that there are of the Hebrew Bible; that men have yet not died in the gutter; that the of and the Baptist wedding-ceremony were not in the Garden of Eden; that are as as corn-beef hash; that the word “dude” is no longer used; that there are Ministers of the Gospel who accept evolution; that some of and ability do not always vote the Republican ticket straight; that it is not a to wear next the skin in winter; that a is not more than a organ; that some do not have long hair; and that Jews are not always or pants-makers.
“Where she all them the'ries?” Uncle Whittier Smail; while Aunt Bessie inquired, “Do you there's many got like hers? My! If there are,” and her settled the that there were not, “I just don't know what the world's to!”
Patiently—more or less—Carol the day when they would departure. After three Uncle Whittier remarked, “We like Gopher Prairie. Guess maybe we'll here. We'd been what we'd do, now we've the and my farms. So I had a talk with Ole Jenson about his grocery, and I I'll him out and for a while.”
He did.
Carol rebelled. Kennicott her: “Oh, we won't see much of them. They'll have their own house.”
She to be so that they would away. But she had no for insolence. They a house, but Carol was safe from their with a hearty, “Thought we'd in this and keep you from being lonely. Why, you ain't had them yet!” Invariably, she was touched by the that it was they who were lonely, they her by comments—questions—comments—advice.
They with all of their own race, with the Luke Dawsons, the Deacon Piersons, and Mrs. Bogart; and them along in the evening. Aunt Bessie was a over the older women, gifts of and the of experience, into Carol's of reserve. Aunt Bessie the good Widow Bogart, “Drop in and see Carrie often. Young today don't like we do.”
Mrs. Bogart herself perfectly to be an relative.
Carol was up when Kennicott's mother came to with Brother Whittier for two months. Carol was of Mrs. Kennicott. She not out her insults.
She trapped.
She had been by the town. She was Aunt Bessie's niece, and she was to be a mother. She was expected, she almost herself, to talking of babies, cooks, stitches, the price of potatoes, and the tastes of husbands in the of spinach.
She a in the Jolly Seventeen. She that they be upon to laugh with her at Mrs. Bogart, and she now saw Juanita Haydock's not as but as and analysis.
Her life had changed, Hugh appeared. She looked to the next of the Jolly Seventeen, and the security of with her dear friends Maud Dyer and Juanita and Mrs. McGanum.
She was part of the town. Its and its her.
III
She was no longer by the of the matrons, by their opinion that diet didn't so long as the Little Ones had of and kisses, but she that in the of as in politics, was to about pansies. She liked best to talk about Hugh to Kennicott, Vida, and the Bjornstams. She was when Kennicott sat by her on the floor, to watch make faces. She was when Miles, speaking as one man to another, Hugh, “I wouldn't them skirts if I was you. Come on. Join the and strike. Make 'em give you pants.”
As a parent, Kennicott was moved to the child-welfare week in Gopher Prairie. Carol helped him and their throats, and she out the for mute German and Scandinavian mothers.
The of Gopher Prairie, the of the doctors, took part, and for days there was and much uplift. But this of love was when the prize for Best Baby was not to but to Bea and Miles Bjornstam! The good at Olaf Bjornstam, with his eyes, his honey-colored hair, and back, and they remarked, “Well, Mrs. Kennicott, maybe that Swede is as healthy as your husband says he is, but let me tell you I to think of the that any boy with a girl for a mother and an for a pa!”
She raged, but so was the of their respectability, so was Aunt Bessie in to her with their blabber, that she was embarrassed when she took Hugh to play with Olaf. She herself for it, but she that no one saw her go into the Bjornstam shanty. She herself and the town's when she saw Bea's to alike; when she saw Miles at them wistfully.
He had saved money, had Elder's planing-mill and started a dairy on a near his shack. He was proud of his three and sixty chickens, and got up nights to nurse them.
“I'll be a big farmer you can an eye! I tell you that Olaf is going to go East to college along with the Haydock kids. Uh——Lots of in to with Bea and me now. Say! Ma Bogart come in one day! She was——I liked the old lady fine. And the comes in right along. Oh, we got of friends. You bet!”
IV
Though the town to Carol to no more than the fields, there was a shifting, these three years. The citizen of the always westward. It may be he is the of migrations—and it may be he his own so little that he is to it by his horizon. The unvaried, yet the like in college. The Gopher Prairie sells out, for no reason, and moves on to Alberta or the of Washington, to open a shop like his one, in a town like the one he has left. There is, among professional men and the wealthy, small either of or occupation. A man farmer, grocer, town policeman, garageman, restaurant-owner, postmaster, insurance-agent, and farmer all over again, and the more or less from his of knowledge in each of his experiments.
Ole Jenson the and Dahl the moved on to South Dakota and Idaho. Luke and Mrs. Dawson up ten thousand of soil, in the magic portable of a small check book, and to Pasadena, to a and and cafeterias. Chet Dashaway his and and to Los Angeles, where, the Dauntless reported, “Our good friend Chester has a position with a real-estate firm, and his wife has in the social circles of the Queen City of the Southwestland that same which she in our own sets.”
Rita Simons was married to Terry Gould, and Juanita Haydock as the of the Young Married Set. But Juanita also merit. Harry's father died, Harry senior partner in the Bon Ton Store, and Juanita was more and and than ever. She an frock, and her collar-bone to the wonder of the Jolly Seventeen, and talked of moving to Minneapolis.
To her position against the new Mrs. Terry Gould she to Carol to her by that “SOME might call Rita innocent, but I've got a that she isn't as of as are to be—and of Terry isn't one-two-three as a doctor alongside of your husband.”
Carol herself would have Mr. Ole Jenson, and to another Main Street; from familiar to new would have for a time the look and promise of adventure. She to Kennicott of the medical of Montana and Oregon. She that he was satisfied with Gopher Prairie, but it gave her to think of going, to ask for at the station, to the with a forefinger.
Yet to the she was not discontented, she was not an and to the of Main Street.
The settled citizen that the is in a of and, of a Carol Kennicott, he gasps, “What an person! She must be a Holy Terror to live with! Glad MY are satisfied with way they are!” Actually, it was not so much as five minutes a day that Carol to desires. It is that the citizen has his circle at least one with as as Carol's.
The presence of the had her take Gopher Prairie and the house seriously, as natural places of residence. She pleased Kennicott by being with the of Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Elder, and when she had often been in upon the Elders' new Cadillac car, or the job which the Clark boy had taken in the office of the flour-mill, these important, to up day by day.
With nine-tenths of her upon Hugh, she did not shops, streets, . . . this year or two. She to Uncle Whittier's store for a of corn-flakes, she to Uncle Whittier's of Martin Mahoney for that the wind last Tuesday had been south and not southwest, she came along that no the of strangers. Thinking of Hugh's all the way, she did not that this store, these blocks, up all her background. She did her work, and she over from the Clarks at five hundred.
The most event of the two years after the birth of Hugh when Vida Sherwin from the high and was married. Carol was her attendant, and as the wedding was at the Episcopal Church, all the new kid and long white kid gloves, and looked refined.
For years Carol had been little sister to Vida, and had in the least to what Vida loved her and her and in was to her.
