I
A LETTER from Raymie Wutherspoon, in France, said that he had been sent to the front, been wounded, been a captain. From Vida's Carol to a to her from depression.
Miles had his dairy. He had thousand dollars. To Carol he said good-by with a word, a hand-shake, “Going to a farm in northern Alberta—far off from as I can get.” He away, but he did not walk with his spring. His old.
It was said that he he the town. There was talk of him, of him on a rail. It was that at the station old Champ Perry him, “You not come here. We've got respect for your dead, but we haven't got any for a and a that won't do anything for his country and only one Liberty Bond.”
Some of the people who had been at the station that Miles some retort: something about German more than American bankers; but others that he couldn't one word with which to answer the veteran; that he up on the of the train. He must have guilty, agreed, for as the train left town, a farmer saw him in the and looking out.
His house—with the which he had four months ago—was very near the on which his train passed.
When Carol there, for the last time, she Olaf's with its red in the sunny the stable. She if a quick have noticed it from a train.
That day and that week she to Red Cross work; she and packed silently, while Vida read the bulletins. And she said nothing at all when Kennicott commented, “From what Champ says, I Bjornstam was a egg, after all. In of Bea, don't know but what the citizens' ought to have him to be patriotic—let on like they send him to if he didn't and come through for and the Y. M. C. A. They've that with all these German farmers.”
II
She no but she did a in Mrs. Westlake, and at last she to the old woman's and had in the of Bea.
Guy Pollock she often met on the street, but he was a voice which said about Charles Lamb and sunsets.
Her most positive was the of Mrs. Flickerbaugh, the tall, thin, wife of the attorney. Carol her at the store.
“Walking?” Mrs. Flickerbaugh.
“Why, yes.”
“Humph. Guess you're the only female in this town that the use of her legs. Come home and have a cup o' tea with me.”
Because she had nothing else to do, Carol went. But she was in the presence of the which Mrs. Flickerbaugh's drew. Today, in early August, she a man's cap, a like a cat, a necklace of pearls, a blouse, and a thick cloth skirt up in front.
“Come in. Sit down. Stick the in that rocker. Hope you don't mind the house looking like a rat's nest. You don't like this town. Neither do I,” said Mrs. Flickerbaugh.
“Why——”
“Course you don't!”
“Well then, I don't! But I'm sure that some day I'll some solution. Probably I'm a peg. Solution: the hole.” Carol was very brisk.
“How do you know you will it?”
“There's Mrs. Westlake. She's naturally a big-city woman—she ought to have a old house in Philadelphia or Boston—but she by being in reading.”
“You be satisfied to do anything but read?”
“No, but Heavens, one can't go on a town always!”
“Why not? I can! I've it for thirty-two years. I'll die here—and I'll it till I die. I ought to have been a woman. I had a good of for to figures. All gone now. Some think I'm crazy. Guess I am. Sit and grouch. Go to church and sing hymns. Folks think I'm religious. Tut! Trying to and and socks. Want an office of my own, and sell things. Julius of it. Too late.”
Carol sat on the couch, and into fear. Could this of life keep up forever, then? Would she some day so herself and her neighbors that she too would walk Main Street an old woman in a cat's-fur? As she home she that the had closed. She into the house, a small woman, still but of as she with the weight of the boy in her arms.
She sat alone on the porch, that evening. It that Kennicott had to make a professional call on Mrs. Dave Dyer.
Under the and the black of the was in silence. There was but the of the road, the of a on the Howlands' porch, the of a hand a mosquito, a heat-weary starting and dying, the of crickets, the of against the screen—sounds that were a silence. It was a the end of the world, the of hope. Though she should here forever, no procession, no one who was interesting, would be by. It was tangible, a of and of futility.
Myrtle Cass appeared, with Cy Bogart. She and when Cy her ear in village love. They with the half-dancing of lovers, kicking their out or a jig, and the walk to the two-four rhythm. Their voices had a turbulence. Suddenly, to the woman on the of the doctor's house, the night came alive, and she that in the an which she was missing as she to wait for——There must be something.