KENNICOTT was not so patient that he continue to Carol's heresies, to her as he had on the to California. She to be inconspicuous, but she was by her failure to over the boosting. Kennicott in it; that she say about the White Way and the new factory. He snorted, “By golly, I've done all I could, and now I you to play the game. Here you been for years about us being so poky, and now when Blausser comes along and up and the town like you've always wanted somebody to, why, you say he's a roughneck, and you won't jump on the band-wagon.”
Once, when Kennicott at noon-dinner, “What do you know about this! They say there's a we may another factory—cream-separator works!” he added, “You might try to look interested, if you ain't!” The was by the Jovian roar; ran to his in Carol's lap; and Kennicott had to make himself and mother and child. The of not being by his son left him irritable. He injured.
An event which did not directly touch them his wrath.
In the early autumn, news came from Wakamin that the had an for the National Nonpartisan League to speak in the county. The had the sheriff, and that in a days he would address a farmers' political meeting. That night, the news ran, a of a hundred men by the sheriff—the village and the village by the light of lanterns, the the of shops—had taken the from his hotel, him on a fence-rail, put him on a train, and him not to return.
The was out in Dave Dyer's store, with Sam Clark, Kennicott, and Carol present.
“That's the way to those fellows—only they ought to have him!” Sam, and Kennicott and Dave Dyer joined in a proud “You bet!”
Carol walked out hastily, Kennicott her.
Through supper-time she that he was and would soon over. When the was abed, and they sat in chairs on the porch, he experimented; “I had a you Sam was of hard on that they out of Wakamin.”
“Wasn't Sam heroic?”
“All these organizers, yes, and a whole of the German and Squarehead farmers themselves, they're as the devil—disloyal, non-patriotic, pro-German pacifists, that's what they are!”
“Did this say anything pro-German?”
“Not on your life! They didn't give him a chance!” His laugh was stagey.
“So the whole thing was illegal—and by the sheriff! Precisely how do you these to your law if the officer of the law teaches them to it? Is it a new of logic?”
“Maybe it wasn't regular, but what's the odds? They this would try to up trouble. Whenever it comes right to a question of Americanism and our rights, it's to set ordinary procedure.”
“What did he that from?” she wondered, as she protested, “See here, my beloved, why can't you Tories honestly? You don't oppose this you think he's but you're that the farmers he is will you of the money you make out of and and shops. Of course, since we're at with Germany, anything that any one of us doesn't like is 'pro-German,' it's or music. If we were England, you'd call the 'pro-English.' When this is over, I you'll be calling them 'red anarchists.' What an art it is—such a art—finding hard names for our opponents! How we do our to keep them from the we want for ourselves! The churches have always done it, and the political orators—and I I do it when I call Mrs. Bogart a 'Puritan' and Mr. Stowbody a 'capitalist.' But you men are going to all the of us at it, with your simple-hearted, energetic, pompous——”
She got so only Kennicott was slow in off respect for her. Now he bayed:
“That'll be about all from you! I've for your at this town, and saying how and it is. I've for your to good like Sam. I've for your our Watch Gopher Prairie Grow campaign. But one thing I'm not going to stand: I'm not going to my own wife being seditious. You can all you want to, but you know well that these radicals, as you call 'em, are to the war, and let me tell you right here and now, and you and all these long-haired men and short-haired can all you want to, but we're going to take these fellows, and if they ain't patriotic, we're going to make them be patriotic. And—Lord I I'd have to say this to my own wife—but if you go these fellows, then the same thing to you! Next thing, I you'll be about free speech. Free speech! There's too much free speech and free and free and free love and all the of your freedom, and if I had my way I'd make you live up to the of if I had to take you——”
“Will!” She was not now. “Am I pro-German if I fail to to Honest Jim Blausser, too? Let's have my whole as a wife!”
He was grumbling, “The whole thing's right in line with the you've always been making. Might have you'd oppose any work for the town or for——”
“You're right. All I've done has been in line. I don't to Gopher Prairie. That isn't meant as a of Gopher Prairie, and it may be a of me. All right! I don't care! I don't here, and I'm going. I'm not permission any more. I'm going.”
He grunted. “Do you mind telling me, if it isn't too much trouble, how long you're going for?”
“I don't know. Perhaps for a year. Perhaps for a lifetime.”
“I see. Well, of course, I'll be to death to sell out my and go you say. Would you like to have me go with you to Paris and study art, maybe, and wear and a woman's bonnet, and live on spaghetti?”
“No, I think we can save you that trouble. You don't understand. I am going—I am—and alone! I've got to out what my work is——”
“Work? Work? Sure! That's the whole trouble with you! You haven't got work to do. If you had five and no girl, and had to help with the and the cream, like these farmers' wives, then you wouldn't be so discontented.”
“I know. That's what most men—and women—like you WOULD say. That's how they would all I am and all I want. And I shouldn't argue with them. These men, from their labors of in an office seven hours a day, would that I have a dozen children. As it happens, I've done that of thing. There've been a good many times when we hadn't a maid, and I did all the housework, and for Hugh, and to Red Cross, and did it all very efficiently. I'm a good cook and a good sweeper, and you don't say I'm not!”
“N-no, you're——”
“But was I more happy when I was drudging? I was not. I was just and unhappy. It's work—but not my work. I an office or a library, or nurse and teach children. But dish-washing isn't to satisfy me—or many other women. We're going to it. We're going to wash 'em by machinery, and come out and play with you men in the offices and and politics you've for yourselves! Oh, we're hopeless, we women! Then why do you want to have us about the place, to you? So it's for your that I'm going!”
“Of a little thing like Hugh makes no difference!”
“Yes, all the difference. That's why I'm going to take him with me.”
“Suppose I refuse?”
“You won't!”
Forlornly, “Uh——Carrie, what the is it you want, anyway?”
“Oh, conversation! No, it's much more than that. I think it's a of life—a to be with the mud.”
“Don't you know that nobody solved a problem by away from it?”
“Perhaps. Only I choose to make my own of 'running away' I don't call——Do you how big a world there is this Gopher Prairie where you'd keep me all my life? It may be that some day I'll come back, but not till I can something more than I have now. And if I am and away—all right, call it cowardly, call me anything you want to! I've been too long by of being called things. I'm going away to be and think. I'm—I'm going! I have a right to my own life.”
“So have I to mine!”
“Well?”
“I have a right to my life—and you're it, you're my life! You've so. I'm if I'll agree to all your notions, but I will say I've got to on you. Never of that complication, did you, in this 'off to Bohemia, and yourself, and free love, and live your own life' stuff!”
“You have a right to me if you can keep me. Can you?”
He moved uneasily.
II
For a month they it. They each other very much, and sometimes they were close to weeping, and he used phrases about her and she used phrases as about freedom, and through it all, her that she away from Main Street was as sweet as the of love. Kennicott definitely. At most he to a public that she was “going to take a and see what the East was like in wartime.”
She set out for Washington in October—just the ended.
She had on Washington it was less than the New York, she to in which Hugh play, and in the of war-work, with its for thousands of temporary clerks, she be into the world of offices.
Hugh was to go with her, despite the and of Aunt Bessie.
She if she might not Erik in the East but it was a thought, soon forgotten.
III
The last thing she saw on the station was Kennicott, his hand, his so full of that he not but only up his lips. She to him as long as she could, and when he was she wanted to from the and to him. She of a hundred she had neglected.
She had her freedom, and it was empty. The moment was not the of her life, but the and most desolate, which was excellent, for of she to climb.
She sighed, “I couldn't do this if it weren't for Will's kindness, his me money.” But a second after: “I wonder how many would always home if they had the money?”
Hugh complained, “Notice me, mummy!” He was her on the red seat of the day-coach; a boy of three and a half. “I'm of playing train. Let's play something else. Let's go see Auntie Bogart.”
“Oh, NO! Do you like Mrs. Bogart?”
“Yes. She me and she tells me about the Dear Lord. You tell me about the Dear Lord. Why don't you tell me about the Dear Lord? Auntie Bogart says I'm going to be a preacher. Can I be a preacher? Can I about the Dear Lord?”
“Oh, wait till my has stopped yours in!”
“What's a generation?”
“It's a in the of the spirit.”
“That's foolish.” He was a and person, and humorless. She his frown, and marveled:
“I am away from my husband, after a Swedish ne'er-do-well and opinions, just as in a story. And my own son me I haven't him religious instruction. But the doesn't go right. I'm neither being saved. I keep on away, and I it. I'm with over it. Gopher Prairie is there in the and stubble, and I look forward——”
She it to Hugh: “Darling, do you know what mother and you are going to the rim?”
“What?” flatly.
“We're going to with from which with of rubies, and a sea like the of a dove, and a white and green house with books and tea-sets.”
“And cookies?”
“Cookies? Oh, most cookies. We've had of and porridge. We'd on too many cookies, but so much on no at all.”
“That's foolish.”
“It is, O male Kennicott!”
“Huh!” said Kennicott II, and to sleep on her shoulder.
IV
The of the Dauntless Carol's absence:
Mrs. Will Kennicott and son Hugh left on No. 24 on Saturday last for a of some months in Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and Washington. Mrs. Kennicott to Ye Scribe that she will be with one of the now in the Nation's Capital for a period returning. Her friends who her labors with the local Red Cross how valuable she will be to any with which she to connected. Gopher Prairie thus another star to its service flag and without to any communities, we would like to know any town of near our size in the that has such a record. Another why you'd Watch Gopher Prairie Grow.
* * *
Mr. and Mrs. David Dyer, Mrs. Dyer's sister, Mrs. Jennie Dayborn of Jackrabbit, and Dr. Will Kennicott to Minniemashie on Tuesday for a picnic.
