FERN Mullins into the house on a Saturday early in September and at Carol, “School next Tuesday. I've got to have one more I'm arrested. Let's up a the for this afternoon. Won't you come, Mrs. Kennicott, and the doctor? Cy Bogart wants to go—he's a but he's lively.”
“I don't think the doctor can go,” sedately. “He said something about having to make a country call this afternoon. But I'd love to.”
“That's dandy! Who can we get?”
“Mrs. Dyer might be chaperon. She's been so nice. And maybe Dave, if he away from the store.”
“How about Erik Valborg? I think he's got more than these town boys. You like him all right, don't you?”
So the of Carol, Fern, Erik, Cy Bogart, and the Dyers was not only but inevitable.
They to the on the south of Lake Minniemashie. Dave Dyer was his most self. He yelped, jigged, Carol's hat, an Fern's back, and when they (the in the car with the up, the men the bushes, repeating, “Gee, we don't into ivy”), Dave water on them and to his wife's ankle. He the others. Erik gave an of the Greek dancers he had in vaudeville, and when they sat to supper spread on a lap-robe on the grass, Cy a tree to at them.
But Carol not frolic.
She had herself young, with hair, and large bow, white shoes and skirt. Her had that she looked as she had in college, that her was smooth, her collar-bone not very noticeable. But she was under restraint. When they she the of the water but she was by Cy's tricks, by Dave's good spirits. She Erik's dance; he taste, as Cy did, and Dave. She waited for him to come to her. He did not come. By his he had himself to the Dyers. Maud him and, after supper, to him, “Come me, boy!” Carol at his to be a boy and come and sit, at his of a not very game in which Maud, Dave, and Cy slices of cold from one another's plates. Maud, it seemed, was from the swim. She publicly, “Dr. Kennicott has helped me so much by me on a diet,” but it was to Erik alone that she gave the complete of her in being so sensitive, so easily by the word, that she had to have friends.
Erik was and cheery.
Carol herself, “Whatever I may have, I couldn't be jealous. I do like Maud; she's always so pleasant. But I wonder if she isn't just a of for men's sympathy? Playing with Erik, and her married——Well——But she looks at him in that languishing, swooning, mid-Victorian way. Disgusting!”
Cy Bogart the of a big birch, his pipe and Fern, assuring her that a week from now, when he was again a high-school boy and she his teacher, he'd at her in class. Maud Dyer wanted Erik to “come to the beach to see the little minnies.” Carol was left to Dave, who to her with of Ella Stowbody's for chocolate peppermints. She Maud Dyer put her hand on Erik's to herself.
“Disgusting!” she thought.
Cy Bogart Fern's hand with his red paw, and when she with half-anger and shrieked, “Let go, I tell you!” he and his pipe—a twenty-year-old satyr.
“Disgusting!”
When Maud and Erik returned and the shifted, Erik at Carol, “There's a on shore. Let's off and have a row.”
“What will they think?” she worried. She saw Maud Dyer at Erik with eyes. “Yes! Let's!” she said.
She to the party, with the amount of sprightliness, “Good-by, everybody. We'll you from China.”
As the and creaked, as she on an of over which the was out thin, the of Cy and Maud away. Erik at her proudly. She him—coatless, in white thin shirt. She was of his male differentness, of his sides, his thin thighs, his easy rowing. They talked of the library, of the movies. He and she sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” A across the lake. The water was like and polished. The the in a current. Carol the of her over her throat.
“Getting cold. Afraid we'll have to go back,” she said.
“Let's not go to them yet. They'll be up. Let's keep along the shore.”
“But you the 'cutting up!' Maud and you had a time.”
“Why! We just walked on the and talked about fishing!”
She was relieved, and to her friend Maud. “Of course. I was joking.”
“I'll tell you! Let's land here and on the shore—that of hazel-brush will us from the wind—and watch the sunset. It's like melted lead. Just a while! We don't want to go and to them!”
“No, but——” She said nothing while he ashore. The on the stones. He on the seat, out his hand. They were alone, in the ripple-lapping silence. She rose slowly, slowly over the water in the of the old boat. She took his hand confidently. Unspeaking they sat on a log, in a which of autumn. Linden about them.
“I wish——Are you cold now?” he whispered.
“A little.” She shivered. But it was not with cold.
“I wish we up in the there, all up, and looking out at the dark.”
“I wish we could.” As though it was that he did not to be taken seriously.
“Like what all the say—brown and faun.”
“No. I can't be a any more. Too old——Erik, am I old? Am I and small-towny?”
“Why, you're the youngest——Your are like a girl's. They're so—well, I mean, like you everything. Even if you do teach me, I a thousand years older than you, of maybe a year younger.”
“Four or five years younger!”
“Anyway, your are so and your so soft——Damn it, it makes me want to cry, somehow, you're so defenseless; and I want to protect you and——There's nothing to protect you against!”
“Am I young? Am I? Honestly? Truly?” She for a moment the childish, mock-imploring that comes into the voice of the most woman when an man her as a girl; the and pursed-up and of the cheek.
“Yes, you are!”
“You're dear to it, Will—ERIK!”
“Will you play with me? A lot?”
“Perhaps.”
“Would you like to in the and watch the by overhead?”
“I think it's to be here!” He his with hers. “And Erik, we must go back.”
“Why?”
“It's late to all the history of social custom!”
“I know. We must. Are you we ran away though?”
“Yes.” She was quiet, perfectly simple. But she rose.
He her with a arm. She did not resist. She did not care. He was neither a tailor, a artist, a social complication, a peril. He was himself, and in him, in the from him, she was content. In his she a new view of his head; the last light out the of his neck, his cheeks, the of his nose, the of his temples. Not as or lovers but as they walked to the boat, and he her up on the prow.
She to talk intently, as he rowed: “Erik, you've got to work! You ought to be a personage. You're of your kingdom. Fight for it! Take one of these in drawing—they mayn't be any good in themselves, but they'll make you try to and——”
As they the ground she that it was dark, that they had been gone for a long time.
“What will they say?” she wondered.
The others them with the of and vexation: “Where the do you think you've been?” “You're a pair, you are!” Erik and Carol looked self-conscious; failed in their to be witty. All the way home Carol was embarrassed. Once Cy at her. That Cy, the Peeping Tom of the garage-loft, should her a fellow-sinner——She was and and by turns, and in all her moods that Kennicott would read her in her face.
She came into the house defiant.
Her husband, asleep under the lamp, her, “Well, well, have time?”
She not answer. He looked at her. But his look did not sharpen. He to wind his watch, the old “Welllllll, it's about time to turn in.”
That was all. Yet she was not glad. She was almost disappointed.
II
Mrs. Bogart called next day. She had a hen-like, crumb-pecking, appearance. Her was too innocent. The started instantly:
“Cy says you had of fun at the yesterday. Did you it?”
“Oh yes. I Cy at swimming. He me badly. He's so strong, isn't he!”
“Poor boy, just to into the war, too, but——This Erik Valborg was along, wa'n't he?”
“Yes.”
“I think he's an fellow, and they say he's smart. Do you like him?”
“He very polite.”
“Cy says you and him had a boat-ride. My, that must have been pleasant.”
“Yes, that I couldn't Mr. Valborg to say a word. I wanted to ask him about the Mr. Hicks is making for my husband. But he on singing. Still, it was restful, around on the water and singing. So happy and innocent. Don't you think it's a shame, Mrs. Bogart, that people in this town don't do more clean like that, of all this gossiping?”
“Yes. . . . Yes.”
Mrs. Bogart vacant. Her was awry; she was dowdy. Carol at her, contemptuous, at last to against the trap, and as the again, “Plannin' some more picnics?” she out, “I haven't the idea! Oh. Is that Hugh crying? I must up to him.”
But up-stairs she that Mrs. Bogart had her walking with Erik from the into town, and she was with disquietude.
At the Jolly Seventeen, two days after, she was to Maud Dyer, to Juanita Haydock. She that every one was her, but she not be sure, and in moments she did not care. She against the town's now that she had something, indistinct, for which to rebel.
In a there must be not only a place from which to but a place to which to flee. She had that she would Gopher Prairie, Main Street and all that it signified, but she had had no destination. She had one now. That was not Erik Valborg and the love of Erik. She to herself that she wasn't in love with him but “fond of him, and in his success.” Yet in him she had her need of and the that would welcome her. It was not Erik to she must escape, but and youth, in class-rooms, in studios, in offices, in to against Things in General. . . . But and Erik.
All week she of she to say to him. High, things. She to admit that she was without him. Then she was afraid.
It was at the Baptist church supper, a week after the picnic, that she saw him again. She had gone with Kennicott and Aunt Bessie to the supper, which was spread on oilcloth-covered and trestle-supported tables in the church basement. Erik was helping Myrtle Cass to coffee cups for the waitresses. The had their piety. Children under the tables, and Deacon Pierson the with a rolling, “Where's Brother Jones, sister, where's Brother Jones? Not going to be with us tonight? Well, you tell Sister Perry to hand you a plate, and make 'em give you pie!”
Erik in the cheerfulness. He laughed with Myrtle, her when she was cups, to the as they came up for coffee. Myrtle was by his humor. From the other end of the room, a among matrons, Carol Myrtle, and her, and herself at it. “To be of a wooden-faced village girl!” But she it up. She Erik; over his gaucheries—his “breaks,” she called them. When he was too expressive, too much like a Russian dancer, in Deacon Pierson, Carol had the of pain in the deacon's sneer. When, trying to talk to three girls at once, he a cup and wailed, “Oh dear!” she with—and over—the of the girls.
From him she rose to as she saw that his every one to like him. She how her be. At the she had that Maud Dyer looked upon Erik too sentimentally, and she had snarled, “I these married who themselves and on boys.” But at the supper Maud was one of the waitresses; she with of cake, she was to old women; and to Erik she gave no attention at all. Indeed, when she had her own supper, she joined the Kennicotts, and how it was to that Maud was a of Carol saw in the that she talked not to one of the town but to the safe Kennicott himself!
When Carol at Erik again she that Mrs. Bogart had an on her. It was a to know that at last there was something which make her of Mrs. Bogart's spying.
“What am I doing? Am I in love with Erik? Unfaithful? I? I want but I don't want him—I mean, I don't want youth—enough to up my life. I must out of this. Quick.”
She said to Kennicott on their way home, “Will! I want to away for a days. Wouldn't you like to to Chicago?”
“Still be there. No fun in a big city till winter. What do you want to go for?”
“People! To my mind. I want stimulus.”
“Stimulus?” He spoke good-naturedly. “Who's been you meat? You got that 'stimulus' out of one of these about that don't know when they're well off. Stimulus! Seriously, though, to cut out the jollying, I can't away.”
“Then why don't I off by myself?”
“Why——'Tisn't the money, you understand. But what about Hugh?”
“Leave him with Aunt Bessie. It would be just for a days.”
“I don't think much of this of around. Bad for 'em.”
“So you don't think——”
“I'll tell you: I think we put till after the war. Then we'll have a long trip. No, I don't think you plan much about going away now.”
So she was at Erik.
III
She at ebb-time, at three of the morning, and fully; and and as her father on a she gave judgment:
“A and love-affair.
“No splendor, no defiance. A self-deceived little woman in with a little man.
“No, he is not. He is fine. Aspiring. It's not his fault. His are sweet when he looks at me. Sweet, so sweet.”
She herself that her should be pitiful; she that in this hour, to this self, it should tawdry.
Then, in a very great of and of all her hatreds, “The and more it is, the more to Main Street. It how much I've been to escape. Any way out! Any so long as I can flee. Main Street has done this to me. I came here for nobilities, for work, and now——Any way out.
“I came them. They me with of dullness. They don't know, they don't how their is. Like and August sun on a wound.
“Tawdry! Pitiful! Carol—the clean girl that used to walk so fast!—sneaking and in dark corners, being and at church suppers!”
At breakfast-time her were night-blurred, and only as a irresolution.
IV
Few of the of the Jolly Seventeen the folk-meets of the Baptist and Methodist church suppers, where the Willis Woodfords, the Dillons, the Champ Perrys, Oleson the butcher, Brad Bemis the tinsmith, and Deacon Pierson from loneliness. But all of the set to the lawn-festivals of the Episcopal Church, and were to outsiders.
The Harry Haydocks gave the last lawn-festival of the season; a of Japanese and card-tables and chicken and Neapolitan ice-cream. Erik was no longer an outsider. He was his ice-cream with a group of the people most “in”—the Dyers, Myrtle Cass, Guy Pollock, the Jackson Elders. The Haydocks themselves aloof, but the others him. He would never, Carol fancied, be one of the town pillars, he was not in and and poker. But he was by his liveliness, his gaiety—the least in him.
When the group Carol she very well-taken points in to the weather.
Myrtle to Erik, “Come on! We don't with these old folks. I want to make you 'quainted with the girl, she comes from Wakamin, she's with Mary Howland.”
Carol saw him being to the guest from Wakamin. She saw him with Myrtle. She out to Mrs. Westlake, “Valborg and Myrtle to have a on each other.”
Mrs. Westlake at her she mumbled, “Yes, don't they.”
“I'm mad, to talk this way,” Carol worried.
She had a of social by telling Juanita Haydock “how her lawn looked with the Japanese lanterns” when she saw that Erik was her. Though he was about with his hands in his pockets, though he did not at her, she that he was calling her. She away from Juanita. Erik to her. She (she was proud of her coolness).
“Carol! I've got a chance! Don't know but what some it might be than going East to take art. Myrtle Cass says——I in to say to Myrtle last evening, and had a long talk with her father, and he said he was for a to go to work in the and learn the whole business, and maybe manager. I know something about from my farming, and I a of months in the at Curlew when I got of tailoring. What do you think? You said any work was if it was done by an artist. And is so important. What do you think?”
“Wait! Wait!”
This boy would be very into by Lyman Cass and his daughter; but did she the plan for this reason? “I must be honest. I mustn't with his to my vanity.” But she had no sure vision. She on him:
“How can I decide? It's up to you. Do you want to a person like Lym Cass, or do you want to a person like—yes, like me! Wait! Don't be flattering. Be honest. This is important.”
“I know. I am a person like you now! I mean, I want to rebel.”
“Yes. We're alike,” gravely.
“Only I'm not sure I can put through my schemes. I can't much. I I have taste in fabrics, but since I've you I don't like to think about with dress-designing. But as a miller, I'd have the means—books, piano, travel.”
“I'm going to be and beastly. Don't you that it isn't just her papa needs a man in the that Myrtle is to you? Can't you what she'll do to you when she has you, when she sends you to church and makes you respectable?”
He at her. “I don't know. I so.”
“You are unstable!”
“What if I am? Most fish out of water are! Don't talk like Mrs. Bogart! How can I be anything but 'unstable'—wandering from farm to tailor shop to books, no training, nothing but trying to make books talk to me! Probably I'll fail. Oh, I know it; I'm uneven. But I'm not in about this job in the mill—and Myrtle. I know what I want. I want you!”
“Please, please, oh, please!”
“I do. I'm not a any more. I want you. If I take Myrtle, it's to you.”
“Please, please!”
“It's you that are unstable! You talk at and play at things, but you're scared. Would I mind it if you and I off to poverty, and I had to ditches? I would not! But you would. I think you would come to like me, but you won't admit it. I wouldn't have said this, but when you at Myrtle and the mill——If I'm not to have good like those, d' you think I'll be with trying to a dressmaker, after YOU? Are you fair? Are you?”
“No, I not.”
“Do you like me? Do you?”
“Yes——No! Please! I can't talk any more.”
“Not here. Mrs. Haydock is looking at us.”
“No, anywhere. O Erik, I am of you, but I'm afraid.”
“What of?”
“Of Them! Of my rulers—Gopher Prairie. . . . My dear boy, we are talking very foolishly. I am a normal wife and a good mother, and you are—oh, a college freshman.”
“You do like me! I'm going to make you love me!”
She looked at him once, recklessly, and walked away with a that was a flight.
Kennicott on their way home, “You and this Valborg chummy.”
“Oh, we are. He's in Myrtle Cass, and I was telling him how she is.”
In her room she marveled, “I have a liar. I'm with and and desires—I who was clear and sure.”
She into Kennicott's room, sat on the of his bed. He a hand at her from the of and pillows.
“Will, I think I ought to off to St. Paul or Chicago or some place.”
“I we settled all that, nights ago! Wait till we can have a trip.” He himself out of his drowsiness. “You might give me a good-night kiss.”
She did—dutifully. He her against his for an time. “Don't you like the old man any more?” he coaxed. He sat up and his about the of her waist.
“Of course. I like you very much indeed.” Even to herself it flat. She to be able to into her voice the of a light woman. She his cheek.
He sighed, “I'm sorry you're so tired. Seems like——But of you aren't very strong.”
“Yes. . . . Then you don't think—you're sure I ought to here in town?”
“I told you so! I do!”
She to her room, a small in white.
“I can't Will down—demand the right. He'd be obstinate. And I can't go off and earn my again. Out of the of it. He's me——I'm of what he's me to. Afraid.
“That man in there, in air, my husband? Could any make him my husband?
“No. I don't want to him. I want to love him. I can't, when I'm of Erik. Am I too honest—a topsy-turvy honesty—the of unfaith? I wish I had a more mind, like men. I'm too monogamous—toward Erik!—my child Erik, who needs me.
“Is an like a debt—demands than the of matrimony, it's not legally enforced?
“That's nonsense! I don't in the least for Erik! Not for any man. I want to be let alone, in a woman world—a world without Main Street, or politicians, or men, or men with that look, that that know——
“If Erik were here, if he would just and and talk, I be still, I go to sleep.
“I am so tired. If I sleep——”
