"MAIN STREET\n\nBy Sinclair Lewis\n\n\n\nTo James Branch Cabell and Joseph Hergesheimer\n\n\n\n\nThis is America--a town of a few thousand, in a region of wheat and corn\nand dairies and little groves.\n\nThe town is, in our tale, called \"Gopher Prairie, Minnesota.\" But its\nMain Street is the continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story\nwould be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois,\nand not very differently would it be told Up York State or in the\nCarolina hills.\n\nMain Street is the climax of civilization. That this Ford car might\nstand in front of the Bon Ton Store, Hannibal invaded Rome and Erasmus\nwrote in Oxford cloisters. What Ole Jenson the grocer says to Ezra\nStowbody the banker is the new law for London, Prague, and the\nunprofitable isles of the sea; whatsoever Ezra does not know and\nsanction, that thing is heresy, worthless for knowing and wicked to\nconsider.\n\nOur railway station is the final aspiration of architecture. Sam\nClark's annual hardware turnover is the envy of the four counties which\nconstitute God's Country. In the sensitive art of the Rosebud Movie\nPalace there is a Message, and humor strictly moral.\n\nSuch is our comfortable tradition and sure faith. Would he not betray\nhimself an alien cynic who should otherwise portray Main Street, or\ndistress the citizens by speculating whether there may not be other\nfaiths?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nI\n\nON a hill by the Mississippi where Chippewas camped two generations ago,\na girl stood in relief against the cornflower blue of Northern sky.\nShe saw no Indians now; she saw flour-mills and the blinking windows of\nskyscrapers in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Nor was she thinking of squaws\nand portages, and the Yankee fur-traders whose shadows were all about\nher. She was meditating upon walnut fudge, the plays of Brieux, the\nreasons why heels run over, and the fact that the chemistry instructor\nhad stared at the new coiffure which concealed her ears.\n\nA breeze which had crossed a thousand miles of wheat-lands bellied her\ntaffeta skirt in a line so graceful, so full of animation and moving\nbeauty, that the heart of a chance watcher on the lower road tightened\nto wistfulness over her quality of suspended freedom. She lifted her\narms, she leaned back against the wind, her skirt dipped and flared, a\nlock blew wild. A girl on a hilltop; credulous, plastic, young; drinking\nthe air as she longed to drink life. The eternal aching comedy of\nexpectant youth.\n\nIt is Carol Milford, fleeing for an hour from Blodgett College.\n\nThe days of pioneering, of lassies in sunbonnets, and bears killed with\naxes in piney clearings, are deader now than Camelot; and a rebellious\ngirl is the spirit of that bewildered empire called the American\nMiddlewest.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nBlodgett College is on the edge of Minneapolis. It is a bulwark of sound\nreligion. It is still combating the recent heresies of Voltaire, Darwin,\nand Robert Ingersoll. Pious families in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, the\nDakotas send their children thither, and Blodgett protects them from the\nwickedness of the universities. But it secretes friendly girls, young\nmen who sing, and one lady instructress who really likes Milton and\nCarlyle. So the four years which Carol spent at Blodgett were not\naltogether wasted. The smallness of the school, the fewness of rivals,\npermitted her to experiment with her perilous versatility. She played\ntennis, gave chafing-dish parties, took a graduate seminar in the drama,\nwent \"twosing,\" and joined half a dozen societies for the practise of\nthe arts or the tense stalking of a thing called General Culture.\n\nIn her class there were two or three prettier girls, but none more\neager. She was noticeable equally in the classroom grind and at dances,\nthough out of the three hundred students of Blodgett, scores recited\nmore accurately and dozens Bostoned more smoothly. Every cell of her\nbody was alive--thin wrists, quince-blossom skin, ingenue eyes, black\nhair.\n\nThe other girls in her dormitory marveled at the slightness of her\nbody when they saw her in sheer negligee, or darting out wet from a\nshower-bath. She seemed then but half as large as they had supposed;\na fragile child who must be cloaked with understanding kindness.\n\"Psychic,\" the girls whispered, and \"spiritual.\" Yet so radioactive\nwere her nerves, so adventurous her trust in rather vaguely conceived\nsweetness and light, that she was more energetic than any of the hulking\nyoung women who, with calves bulging in heavy-ribbed woolen stockings\nbeneath decorous blue serge bloomers, thuddingly galloped across the\nfloor of the \"gym\" in practise for the Blodgett Ladies' Basket-Ball\nTeam.\n\nEven when she was tired her dark eyes were observant. She did not yet\nknow the immense ability of the world to be casually cruel and proudly\ndull, but if she should ever learn those dismaying powers, her eyes\nwould never become sullen or heavy or rheumily amorous.\n\nFor all her enthusiasms, for all the fondness and the \"crushes\" which\nshe inspired, Carol's acquaintances were shy of her. When she was most\nardently singing hymns or planning deviltry she yet seemed gently aloof\nand critical. She was credulous, perhaps; a born hero-worshipper; yet\nshe did question and examine unceasingly. Whatever she might become she\nwould never be static.\n\nHer versatility ensnared her. By turns she hoped to discover that she\nhad an unusual voice, a talent for the piano, the ability to act, to\nwrite, to manage organizations. Always she was disappointed, but always\nshe effervesced anew--over the Student Volunteers, who intended to\nbecome missionaries, over painting scenery for the dramatic club, over\nsoliciting advertisements for the college magazine.\n\nShe was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.\nOut of the dusk her violin took up the organ theme, and the candle-light\nrevealed her in a straight golden frock, her arm arched to the bow, her\nlips serious. Every man fell in love then with religion and Carol.\n\nThroughout Senior year she anxiously related all her experiments and\npartial successes to a career. Daily, on the library steps or in the\nhall of the Main Building, the co-eds talked of \"What shall we do when\nwe finish college?\" Even the girls who knew that they were going to be\nmarried pretended to be considering important business positions;\neven they who knew that they would have to work hinted about fabulous\nsuitors. As for Carol, she was an orphan; her only near relative was a\nvanilla-flavored sister married to an optician in St. Paul. She had used\nmost of the money from her father's estate. She was not in love--that\nis, not often, nor ever long at a time. She would earn her living.\n\nBut how she was to earn it, how she was to conquer the world--almost\nentirely for the world's own good--she did not see. Most of the girls\nwho were not betrothed meant to be teachers. Of these there were two\nsorts: careless young women who admitted that they intended to leave the\n\"beastly classroom and grubby children\" the minute they had a chance to\nmarry; and studious, sometimes bulbous-browed and pop-eyed maidens who\nat class prayer-meetings requested God to \"guide their feet along the\npaths of greatest usefulness.\" Neither sort tempted Carol. The former\nseemed insincere (a favorite word of hers at this era). The earnest\nvirgins were, she fancied, as likely to do harm as to do good by their\nfaith in the value of parsing Caesar.\n\nAt various times during Senior year Carol finally decided upon studying\nlaw, writing motion-picture scenarios, professional nursing, and\nmarrying an unidentified hero.\n\nThen she found a hobby in sociology.\n\nThe sociology instructor was new. He was married, and therefore taboo,\nbut he had come from Boston, he had lived among poets and socialists and\nJews and millionaire uplifters at the University Settlement in New\nYork, and he had a beautiful white strong neck. He led a giggling class\nthrough the prisons, the charity bureaus, the employment agencies of\nMinneapolis and St. Paul. Trailing at the end of the line Carol was\nindignant at the prodding curiosity of the others, their manner of\nstaring at the poor as at a Zoo. She felt herself a great liberator.\nShe put her hand to her mouth, her forefinger and thumb quite painfully\npinching her lower lip, and frowned, and enjoyed being aloof.\n\nA classmate named Stewart Snyder, a competent bulky young man in a gray\nflannel shirt, a rusty black bow tie, and the green-and-purple class\ncap, grumbled to her as they walked behind the others in the muck of the\nSouth St. Paul stockyards, \"These college chumps make me tired. They're\nso top-lofty. They ought to of worked on the farm, the way I have. These\nworkmen put it all over them.\"\n\n\"I just love common workmen,\" glowed Carol.\n\n\"Only you don't want to forget that common workmen don't think they're\ncommon!\"\n\n\"You're right! I apologize!\" Carol's brows lifted in the astonishment of\nemotion, in a glory of abasement. Her eyes mothered the world. Stewart\nSnyder peered at her. He rammed his large red fists into his pockets,\nhe jerked them out, he resolutely got rid of them by clenching his hands\nbehind him, and he stammered:\n\n\"I know. You _get_ people. Most of these darn co-eds----Say, Carol, you\ncould do a lot for people.\"\n\n\"Oh--oh well--you know--sympathy and everything--if you were--say you\nwere a lawyer's wife. You'd understand his clients. I'm going to be a\nlawyer. I admit I fall down in sympathy sometimes. I get so dog-gone\nimpatient with people that can't stand the gaff. You'd be good for\na fellow that was too serious. Make him more--more--YOU\nknow--sympathetic!\"\n\nHis slightly pouting lips, his mastiff eyes, were begging her to beg him\nto go on. She fled from the steam-roller of his sentiment. She cried,\n\"Oh, see those poor sheep--millions and millions of them.\" She darted\non.\n\nStewart was not interesting. He hadn't a shapely white neck, and he had\nnever lived among celebrated reformers. She wanted, just now, to have\na cell in a settlement-house, like a nun without the bother of a black\nrobe, and be kind, and read Bernard Shaw, and enormously improve a horde\nof grateful poor.\n\nThe supplementary reading in sociology led her to a book on\nvillage-improvement--tree-planting, town pageants, girls' clubs. It\nhad pictures of greens and garden-walls in France, New England,\nPennsylvania. She had picked it up carelessly, with a slight yawn which\nshe patted down with her finger-tips as delicately as a cat.\n\nShe dipped into the book, lounging on her window-seat, with her slim,\nlisle-stockinged legs crossed, and her knees up under her chin.\nShe stroked a satin pillow while she read. About her was the clothy\nexuberance of a Blodgett College room: cretonne-covered window-seat,\nphotographs of girls, a carbon print of the Coliseum, a chafing-dish,\nand a dozen pillows embroidered or beaded or pyrographed. Shockingly out\nof place was a miniature of the Dancing Bacchante. It was the only trace\nof Carol in the room. She had inherited the rest from generations of\ngirl students.\n\nIt was as a part of all this commonplaceness that she regarded the\ntreatise on village-improvement. But she suddenly stopped fidgeting. She\nstrode into the book. She had fled half-way through it before the three\no'clock bell called her to the class in English history.\n\nShe sighed, \"That's what I'll do after college! I'll get my hands on\none of these prairie towns and make it beautiful. Be an inspiration. I\nsuppose I'd better become a teacher then, but--I won't be that kind of\na teacher. I won't drone. Why should they have all the garden suburbs\non Long Island? Nobody has done anything with the ugly towns here in the\nNorthwest except hold revivals and build libraries to contain the Elsie\nbooks. I'll make 'em put in a village green, and darling cottages, and a\nquaint Main Street!\"\n\nThus she triumphed through the class, which was a typical Blodgett\ncontest between a dreary teacher and unwilling children of twenty, won\nby the teacher because his opponents had to answer his questions, while\ntheir treacherous queries he could counter by demanding, \"Have you\nlooked that up in the library? Well then, suppose you do!\"\n\nThe history instructor was a retired minister. He was sarcastic today.\nHe begged of sporting young Mr. Charley Holmberg, \"Now Charles, would it\ninterrupt your undoubtedly fascinating pursuit of that malevolent fly\nif I were to ask you to tell us that you do not know anything about King\nJohn?\" He spent three delightful minutes in assuring himself of the fact\nthat no one exactly remembered the date of Magna Charta.\n\nCarol did not hear him. She was completing the roof of a half-timbered\ntown hall. She had found one man in the prairie village who did not\nappreciate her picture of winding streets and arcades, but she had\nassembled the town council and dramatically defeated him.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThough she was Minnesota-born Carol was not an intimate of the prairie\nvillages. Her father, the smiling and shabby, the learned and teasingly\nkind, had come from Massachusetts, and through all her childhood he\nhad been a judge in Mankato, which is not a prairie town, but in its\ngarden-sheltered streets and aisles of elms is white and green New\nEngland reborn. Mankato lies between cliffs and the Minnesota River,\nhard by Traverse des Sioux, where the first settlers made treaties\nwith the Indians, and the cattle-rustlers once came galloping before\nhell-for-leather posses.\n\nAs she climbed along the banks of the dark river Carol listened to its\nfables about the wide land of yellow waters and bleached buffalo bones\nto the West; the Southern levees and singing darkies and palm trees\ntoward which it was forever mysteriously gliding; and she heard again\nthe startled bells and thick puffing of high-stacked river steamers\nwrecked on sand-reefs sixty years ago. Along the decks she saw\nmissionaries, gamblers in tall pot hats, and Dakota chiefs with scarlet\nblankets. . . . Far off whistles at night, round the river bend,\nplunking paddles reechoed by the pines, and a glow on black sliding\nwaters.\n\nCarol's family were self-sufficient in their inventive life, with\nChristmas a rite full of surprises and tenderness, and \"dressing-up\nparties\" spontaneous and joyously absurd. The beasts in the Milford\nhearth-mythology were not the obscene Night Animals who jump out\nof closets and eat little girls, but beneficent and bright-eyed\ncreatures--the tam htab, who is woolly and blue and lives in the\nbathroom, and runs rapidly to warm small feet; the ferruginous oil\nstove, who purrs and knows stories; and the skitamarigg, who will play\nwith children before breakfast if they spring out of bed and close the\nwindow at the very first line of the song about puellas which father\nsings while shaving.\n\nJudge Milford's pedagogical scheme was to let the children read whatever\nthey pleased, and in his brown library Carol absorbed Balzac and\nRabelais and Thoreau and Max Muller. He gravely taught them the letters\non the backs of the encyclopedias, and when polite visitors asked about\nthe mental progress of the \"little ones,\" they were horrified to hear\nthe children earnestly repeating A-And, And-Aus, Aus-Bis, Bis-Cal,\nCal-Cha.\n\nCarol's mother died when she was nine. Her father retired from the\njudiciary when she was eleven, and took the family to Minneapolis. There\nhe died, two years after. Her sister, a busy proper advisory soul, older\nthan herself, had become a stranger to her even when they lived in the\nsame house.\n\nFrom those early brown and silver days and from her independence of\nrelatives Carol retained a willingness to be different from brisk\nefficient book-ignoring people; an instinct to observe and wonder\nat their bustle even when she was taking part in it. But, she felt\napprovingly, as she discovered her career of town-planning, she was now\nroused to being brisk and efficient herself.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nIn a month Carol's ambition had clouded. Her hesitancy about becoming a\nteacher had returned. She was not, she worried, strong enough to endure\nthe routine, and she could not picture herself standing before grinning\nchildren and pretending to be wise and decisive. But the desire for\nthe creation of a beautiful town remained. When she encountered an item\nabout small-town women's clubs or a photograph of a straggling Main\nStreet, she was homesick for it, she felt robbed of her work.\n\nIt was the advice of the professor of English which led her to study\nprofessional library-work in a Chicago school. Her imagination carved\nand colored the new plan. She saw herself persuading children to read\ncharming fairy tales, helping young men to find books on mechanics,\nbeing ever so courteous to old men who were hunting for newspapers--the\nlight of the library, an authority on books, invited to dinners with\npoets and explorers, reading a paper to an association of distinguished\nscholars.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nThe last faculty reception before commencement. In five days they would\nbe in the cyclone of final examinations.\n\nThe house of the president had been massed with palms suggestive of\npolite undertaking parlors, and in the library, a ten-foot room with a\nglobe and the portraits of Whittier and Martha Washington, the student\norchestra was playing \"Carmen\" and \"Madame Butterfly.\" Carol was dizzy\nwith music and the emotions of parting. She saw the palms as a jungle,\nthe pink-shaded electric globes as an opaline haze, and the eye-glassed\nfaculty as Olympians. She was melancholy at sight of the mousey girls\nwith whom she had \"always intended to get acquainted,\" and the half\ndozen young men who were ready to fall in love with her.\n\nBut it was Stewart Snyder whom she encouraged. He was so much manlier\nthan the others; he was an even warm brown, like his new ready-made suit\nwith its padded shoulders. She sat with him, and with two cups of\ncoffee and a chicken patty, upon a pile of presidential overshoes in the\ncoat-closet under the stairs, and as the thin music seeped in, Stewart\nwhispered:\n\n\"I can't stand it, this breaking up after four years! The happiest years\nof life.\"\n\nShe believed it. \"Oh, I know! To think that in just a few days we'll be\nparting, and we'll never see some of the bunch again!\"\n\n\"Carol, you got to listen to me! You always duck when I try to talk\nseriously to you, but you got to listen to me. I'm going to be a big\nlawyer, maybe a judge, and I need you, and I'd protect you----\"\n\nHis arm slid behind her shoulders. The insinuating music drained her\nindependence. She said mournfully, \"Would you take care of me?\" She\ntouched his hand. It was warm, solid.\n\n\"You bet I would! We'd have, Lord, we'd have bully times in Yankton,\nwhere I'm going to settle----\"\n\n\"But I want to do something with life.\"\n\n\"What's better than making a comfy home and bringing up some cute kids\nand knowing nice homey people?\"\n\nIt was the immemorial male reply to the restless woman. Thus to the\nyoung Sappho spake the melon-venders; thus the captains to Zenobia; and\nin the damp cave over gnawed bones the hairy suitor thus protested to\nthe woman advocate of matriarchy. In the dialect of Blodgett College but\nwith the voice of Sappho was Carol's answer:\n\n\"Of course. I know. I suppose that's so. Honestly, I do love children.\nBut there's lots of women that can do housework, but I--well, if you\nHAVE got a college education, you ought to use it for the world.\"\n\n\"I know, but you can use it just as well in the home. And gee, Carol,\njust think of a bunch of us going out on an auto picnic, some nice\nspring evening.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And sleigh-riding in winter, and going fishing----\"\n\nBlarrrrrrr! The orchestra had crashed into the \"Soldiers' Chorus\"; and\nshe was protesting, \"No! No! You're a dear, but I want to do things.\nI don't understand myself but I want--everything in the world! Maybe I\ncan't sing or write, but I know I can be an influence in library work.\nJust suppose I encouraged some boy and he became a great artist! I\nwill! I will do it! Stewart dear, I can't settle down to nothing but\ndish-washing!\"\n\nTwo minutes later--two hectic minutes--they were disturbed by\nan embarrassed couple also seeking the idyllic seclusion of the\novershoe-closet.\n\nAfter graduation she never saw Stewart Snyder again. She wrote to him\nonce a week--for one month.\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nA year Carol spent in Chicago. Her study of library-cataloguing,\nrecording, books of reference, was easy and not too somniferous. She\nreveled in the Art Institute, in symphonies and violin recitals and\nchamber music, in the theater and classic dancing. She almost gave up\nlibrary work to become one of the young women who dance in cheese-cloth\nin the moonlight. She was taken to a certified Studio Party, with\nbeer, cigarettes, bobbed hair, and a Russian Jewess who sang the\nInternationale. It cannot be reported that Carol had anything\nsignificant to say to the Bohemians. She was awkward with them, and\nfelt ignorant, and she was shocked by the free manners which she had for\nyears desired. But she heard and remembered discussions of Freud, Romain\nRolland, syndicalism, the Confederation Generale du Travail, feminism\nvs. haremism, Chinese lyrics, nationalization of mines, Christian\nScience, and fishing in Ontario.\n\nShe went home, and that was the beginning and end of her Bohemian life.\n\nThe second cousin of Carol's sister's husband lived in Winnetka, and\nonce invited her out to Sunday dinner. She walked back through Wilmette\nand Evanston, discovered new forms of suburban architecture, and\nremembered her desire to recreate villages. She decided that she would\ngive up library work and, by a miracle whose nature was not very clearly\nrevealed to her, turn a prairie town into Georgian houses and Japanese\nbungalows.\n\nThe next day in library class she had to read a theme on the use of the\nCumulative Index, and she was taken so seriously in the discussion that\nshe put off her career of town-planning--and in the autumn she was in\nthe public library of St. Paul.\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nCarol was not unhappy and she was not exhilarated, in the St. Paul\nLibrary. She slowly confessed that she was not visibly affecting lives.\nShe did, at first, put into her contact with the patrons a willingness\nwhich should have moved worlds. But so few of these stolid worlds wanted\nto be moved. When she was in charge of the magazine room the readers did\nnot ask for suggestions about elevated essays. They grunted, \"Wanta find\nthe Leather Goods Gazette for last February.\" When she was giving\nout books the principal query was, \"Can you tell me of a good, light,\nexciting love story to read? My husband's going away for a week.\"\n\nShe was fond of the other librarians; proud of their aspirations. And by\nthe chance of propinquity she read scores of books unnatural to her gay\nwhite littleness: volumes of anthropology with ditches of foot-notes\nfilled with heaps of small dusty type, Parisian imagistes, Hindu recipes\nfor curry, voyages to the Solomon Isles, theosophy with modern American\nimprovements, treatises upon success in the real-estate business. She\ntook walks, and was sensible about shoes and diet. And never did she\nfeel that she was living.\n\nShe went to dances and suppers at the houses of college acquaintances.\nSometimes she one-stepped demurely; sometimes, in dread of life's\nslipping past, she turned into a bacchanal, her tender eyes excited, her\nthroat tense, as she slid down the room.\n\nDuring her three years of library work several men showed diligent\ninterest in her--the treasurer of a fur-manufacturing firm, a teacher, a\nnewspaper reporter, and a petty railroad official. None of them made her\nmore than pause in thought. For months no male emerged from the mass.\nThen, at the Marburys', she met Dr. Will Kennicott.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nIT was a frail and blue and lonely Carol who trotted to the flat of the\nJohnson Marburys for Sunday evening supper. Mrs. Marbury was a neighbor\nand friend of Carol's sister; Mr. Marbury a traveling representative of\nan insurance company. They made a specialty of sandwich-salad-coffee\nlap suppers, and they regarded Carol as their literary and artistic\nrepresentative. She was the one who could be depended upon to appreciate\nthe Caruso phonograph record, and the Chinese lantern which Mr. Marbury\nhad brought back as his present from San Francisco. Carol found the\nMarburys admiring and therefore admirable.\n\nThis September Sunday evening she wore a net frock with a pale pink\nlining. A nap had soothed away the faint lines of tiredness beside her\neyes. She was young, naive, stimulated by the coolness. She flung\nher coat at the chair in the hall of the flat, and exploded into\nthe green-plush living-room. The familiar group were trying to be\nconversational. She saw Mr. Marbury, a woman teacher of gymnastics in\na high school, a chief clerk from the Great Northern Railway offices,\na young lawyer. But there was also a stranger, a thick tall man of\nthirty-six or -seven, with stolid brown hair, lips used to giving\norders, eyes which followed everything good-naturedly, and clothes which\nyou could never quite remember.\n\nMr. Marbury boomed, \"Carol, come over here and meet Doc Kennicott--Dr.\nWill Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. He does all our insurance-examining up\nin that neck of the woods, and they do say he's some doctor!\"\n\nAs she edged toward the stranger and murmured nothing in particular,\nCarol remembered that Gopher Prairie was a Minnesota wheat-prairie town\nof something over three thousand people.\n\n\"Pleased to meet you,\" stated Dr. Kennicott. His hand was strong; the\npalm soft, but the back weathered, showing golden hairs against firm red\nskin.\n\nHe looked at her as though she was an agreeable discovery. She tugged\nher hand free and fluttered, \"I must go out to the kitchen and help Mrs.\nMarbury.\" She did not speak to him again till, after she had heated\nthe rolls and passed the paper napkins, Mr. Marbury captured her with\na loud, \"Oh, quit fussing now. Come over here and sit down and tell\nus how's tricks.\" He herded her to a sofa with Dr. Kennicott, who was\nrather vague about the eyes, rather drooping of bulky shoulder, as\nthough he was wondering what he was expected to do next. As their host\nleft them, Kennicott awoke:\n\n\"Marbury tells me you're a high mogul in the public library. I was\nsurprised. Didn't hardly think you were old enough. I thought you were a\ngirl, still in college maybe.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm dreadfully old. I expect to take to a lip-stick, and to find a\ngray hair any morning now.\"\n\n\"Huh! You must be frightfully old--prob'ly too old to be my\ngranddaughter, I guess!\"\n\nThus in the Vale of Arcady nymph and satyr beguiled the hours; precisely\nthus, and not in honeyed pentameters, discoursed Elaine and the worn Sir\nLauncelot in the pleached alley.\n\n\"How do you like your work?\" asked the doctor.\n\n\"It's pleasant, but sometimes I feel shut off from things--the steel\nstacks, and the everlasting cards smeared all over with red rubber\nstamps.\"\n\n\"Don't you get sick of the city?\"\n\n\"St. Paul? Why, don't you like it? I don't know of any lovelier view\nthan when you stand on Summit Avenue and look across Lower Town to the\nMississippi cliffs and the upland farms beyond.\"\n\n\"I know but----Of course I've spent nine years around the Twin\nCities--took my B.A. and M.D. over at the U., and had my internship in a\nhospital in Minneapolis, but still, oh well, you don't get to know folks\nhere, way you do up home. I feel I've got something to say about running\nGopher Prairie, but you take it in a big city of two-three hundred\nthousand, and I'm just one flea on the dog's back. And then I like\ncountry driving, and the hunting in the fall. Do you know Gopher Prairie\nat all?\"\n\n\"No, but I hear it's a very nice town.\"\n\n\"Nice? Say honestly----Of course I may be prejudiced, but I've seen an\nawful lot of towns--one time I went to Atlantic City for the American\nMedical Association meeting, and I spent practically a week in New York!\nBut I never saw a town that had such up-and-coming people as Gopher\nPrairie. Bresnahan--you know--the famous auto manufacturer--he comes\nfrom Gopher Prairie. Born and brought up there! And it's a darn pretty\ntown. Lots of fine maples and box-elders, and there's two of the\ndandiest lakes you ever saw, right near town! And we've got seven miles\nof cement walks already, and building more every day! Course a lot of\nthese towns still put up with plank walks, but not for us, you bet!\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n(Why was she thinking of Stewart Snyder?)\n\n\"Gopher Prairie is going to have a great future. Some of the best dairy\nand wheat land in the state right near there--some of it selling right\nnow at one-fifty an acre, and I bet it will go up to two and a quarter\nin ten years!\"\n\n\"Is----Do you like your profession?\"\n\n\"Nothing like it. Keeps you out, and yet you have a chance to loaf in\nthe office for a change.\"\n\n\"I don't mean that way. I mean--it's such an opportunity for sympathy.\"\n\nDr. Kennicott launched into a heavy, \"Oh, these Dutch farmers don't want\nsympathy. All they need is a bath and a good dose of salts.\"\n\nCarol must have flinched, for instantly he was urging, \"What I mean\nis--I don't want you to think I'm one of these old salts-and-quinine\npeddlers, but I mean: so many of my patients are husky farmers that I\nsuppose I get kind of case-hardened.\"\n\n\"It seems to me that a doctor could transform a whole community, if he\nwanted to--if he saw it. He's usually the only man in the neighborhood\nwho has any scientific training, isn't he?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's so, but I guess most of us get rusty. We land in a rut of\nobstetrics and typhoid and busted legs. What we need is women like you\nto jump on us. It'd be you that would transform the town.\"\n\n\"No, I couldn't. Too flighty. I did used to think about doing just that,\ncuriously enough, but I seem to have drifted away from the idea. Oh, I'm\na fine one to be lecturing you!\"\n\n\"No! You're just the one. You have ideas without having lost feminine\ncharm. Say! Don't you think there's a lot of these women that go out for\nall these movements and so on that sacrifice----\"\n\nAfter his remarks upon suffrage he abruptly questioned her about\nherself. His kindliness and the firmness of his personality enveloped\nher and she accepted him as one who had a right to know what she\nthought and wore and ate and read. He was positive. He had grown from a\nsketched-in stranger to a friend, whose gossip was important news. She\nnoticed the healthy solidity of his chest. His nose, which had seemed\nirregular and large, was suddenly virile.\n\nShe was jarred out of this serious sweetness when Marbury bounced over\nto them and with horrible publicity yammered, \"Say, what do you two\nthink you're doing? Telling fortunes or making love? Let me warn you\nthat the doc is a frisky bacheldore, Carol. Come on now, folks, shake a\nleg. Let's have some stunts or a dance or something.\"\n\nShe did not have another word with Dr. Kennicott until their parting:\n\n\"Been a great pleasure to meet you, Miss Milford. May I see you some\ntime when I come down again? I'm here quite often--taking patients to\nhospitals for majors, and so on.\"\n\n\"Why----\"\n\n\"What's your address?\"\n\n\"You can ask Mr. Marbury next time you come down--if you really want to\nknow!\"\n\n\"Want to know? Say, you wait!\"\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nOf the love-making of Carol and Will Kennicott there is nothing to be\ntold which may not be heard on every summer evening, on every shadowy\nblock.\n\nThey were biology and mystery; their speech was slang phrases and flares\nof poetry; their silences were contentment, or shaky crises when his arm\ntook her shoulder. All the beauty of youth, first discovered when it\nis passing--and all the commonplaceness of a well-to-do unmarried man\nencountering a pretty girl at the time when she is slightly weary of her\nemployment and sees no glory ahead nor any man she is glad to serve.\n\nThey liked each other honestly--they were both honest. She was\ndisappointed by his devotion to making money, but she was sure that\nhe did not lie to patients, and that he did keep up with the medical\nmagazines. What aroused her to something more than liking was his\nboyishness when they went tramping.\n\nThey walked from St. Paul down the river to Mendota, Kennicott more\nelastic-seeming in a cap and a soft crepe shirt, Carol youthful in a\ntam-o'-shanter of mole velvet, a blue serge suit with an absurdly and\nagreeably broad turn-down linen collar, and frivolous ankles above\nathletic shoes. The High Bridge crosses the Mississippi, mounting from\nlow banks to a palisade of cliffs. Far down beneath it on the St. Paul\nside, upon mud flats, is a wild settlement of chicken-infested gardens\nand shanties patched together from discarded sign-boards, sheets of\ncorrugated iron, and planks fished out of the river. Carol leaned\nover the rail of the bridge to look down at this Yang-tse village;\nin delicious imaginary fear she shrieked that she was dizzy with the\nheight; and it was an extremely human satisfaction to have a strong male\nsnatch her back to safety, instead of having a logical woman teacher or\nlibrarian sniff, \"Well, if you're scared, why don't you get away from\nthe rail, then?\"\n\nFrom the cliffs across the river Carol and Kennicott looked back at St.\nPaul on its hills; an imperial sweep from the dome of the cathedral to\nthe dome of the state capitol.\n\nThe river road led past rocky field slopes, deep glens, woods flamboyant\nnow with September, to Mendota, white walls and a spire among trees\nbeneath a hill, old-world in its placid ease. And for this fresh land,\nthe place is ancient. Here is the bold stone house which General Sibley,\nthe king of fur-traders, built in 1835, with plaster of river mud, and\nropes of twisted grass for laths. It has an air of centuries. In its\nsolid rooms Carol and Kennicott found prints from other days which the\nhouse had seen--tail-coats of robin's-egg blue, clumsy Red River carts\nladen with luxurious furs, whiskered Union soldiers in slant forage caps\nand rattling sabers.\n\nIt suggested to them a common American past, and it was memorable\nbecause they had discovered it together. They talked more trustingly,\nmore personally, as they trudged on. They crossed the Minnesota River in\na rowboat ferry. They climbed the hill to the round stone tower of Fort\nSnelling. They saw the junction of the Mississippi and the Minnesota,\nand recalled the men who had come here eighty years ago--Maine\nlumbermen, York traders, soldiers from the Maryland hills.\n\n\"It's a good country, and I'm proud of it. Let's make it all that those\nold boys dreamed about,\" the unsentimental Kennicott was moved to vow.\n\n\"Let's!\"\n\n\"Come on. Come to Gopher Prairie. Show us. Make the town--well--make\nit artistic. It's mighty pretty, but I'll admit we aren't any too darn\nartistic. Probably the lumber-yard isn't as scrumptious as all these\nGreek temples. But go to it! Make us change!\"\n\n\"I would like to. Some day!\"\n\n\"Now! You'd love Gopher Prairie. We've been doing a lot with lawns\nand gardening the past few years, and it's so homey--the big trees\nand----And the best people on earth. And keen. I bet Luke Dawson----\"\n\nCarol but half listened to the names. She could not fancy their ever\nbecoming important to her.\n\n\"I bet Luke Dawson has got more money than most of the swells on Summit\nAvenue; and Miss Sherwin in the high school is a regular wonder--reads\nLatin like I do English; and Sam Clark, the hardware man, he's a\ncorker--not a better man in the state to go hunting with; and if\nyou want culture, besides Vida Sherwin there's Reverend Warren, the\nCongregational preacher, and Professor Mott, the superintendent of\nschools, and Guy Pollock, the lawyer--they say he writes regular poetry\nand--and Raymie Wutherspoon, he's not such an awful boob when you get to\nKNOW him, and he sings swell. And----And there's plenty of others. Lym\nCass. Only of course none of them have your finesse, you might call it.\nBut they don't make 'em any more appreciative and so on. Come on! We're\nready for you to boss us!\"\n\nThey sat on the bank below the parapet of the old fort, hidden from\nobservation. He circled her shoulder with his arm. Relaxed after the\nwalk, a chill nipping her throat, conscious of his warmth and power, she\nleaned gratefully against him.\n\n\"You know I'm in love with you, Carol!\"\n\nShe did not answer, but she touched the back of his hand with an\nexploring finger.\n\n\"You say I'm so darn materialistic. How can I help it, unless I have you\nto stir me up?\"\n\nShe did not answer. She could not think.\n\n\"You say a doctor could cure a town the way he does a person. Well, you\ncure the town of whatever ails it, if anything does, and I'll be your\nsurgical kit.\"\n\nShe did not follow his words, only the burring resoluteness of them.\n\nShe was shocked, thrilled, as he kissed her cheek and cried, \"There's\nno use saying things and saying things and saying things. Don't my arms\ntalk to you--now?\"\n\n\"Oh, please, please!\" She wondered if she ought to be angry, but it was\na drifting thought, and she discovered that she was crying.\n\nThen they were sitting six inches apart, pretending that they had never\nbeen nearer, while she tried to be impersonal:\n\n\"I would like to--would like to see Gopher Prairie.\"\n\n\"Trust me! Here she is! Brought some snapshots down to show you.\"\n\nHer cheek near his sleeve, she studied a dozen village pictures. They\nwere streaky; she saw only trees, shrubbery, a porch indistinct in leafy\nshadows. But she exclaimed over the lakes: dark water reflecting wooded\nbluffs, a flight of ducks, a fisherman in shirt sleeves and a wide straw\nhat, holding up a string of croppies. One winter picture of the edge of\nPlover Lake had the air of an etching: lustrous slide of ice, snow in\nthe crevices of a boggy bank, the mound of a muskrat house, reeds in\nthin black lines, arches of frosty grasses. It was an impression of cool\nclear vigor.\n\n\"How'd it be to skate there for a couple of hours, or go zinging along\non a fast ice-boat, and skip back home for coffee and some hot wienies?\"\nhe demanded.\n\n\"It might be--fun.\"\n\n\"But here's the picture. Here's where you come in.\"\n\nA photograph of a forest clearing: pathetic new furrows straggling among\nstumps, a clumsy log cabin chinked with mud and roofed with hay.\nIn front of it a sagging woman with tight-drawn hair, and a baby\nbedraggled, smeary, glorious-eyed.\n\n\"Those are the kind of folks I practise among, good share of the time.\nNels Erdstrom, fine clean young Svenska. He'll have a corking farm in\nten years, but now----I operated his wife on a kitchen table, with my\ndriver giving the anesthetic. Look at that scared baby! Needs some woman\nwith hands like yours. Waiting for you! Just look at that baby's eyes,\nlook how he's begging----\"\n\n\"Don't! They hurt me. Oh, it would be sweet to help him--so sweet.\"\n\nAs his arms moved toward her she answered all her doubts with \"Sweet, so\nsweet.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nUNDER the rolling clouds of the prairie a moving mass of steel. An\nirritable clank and rattle beneath a prolonged roar. The sharp scent of\noranges cutting the soggy smell of unbathed people and ancient baggage.\n\nTowns as planless as a scattering of pasteboard boxes on an attic floor.\nThe stretch of faded gold stubble broken only by clumps of willows\nencircling white houses and red barns.\n\nNo. 7, the way train, grumbling through Minnesota, imperceptibly\nclimbing the giant tableland that slopes in a thousand-mile rise from\nhot Mississippi bottoms to the Rockies.\n\nIt is September, hot, very dusty.\n\nThere is no smug Pullman attached to the train, and the day coaches of\nthe East are replaced by free chair cars, with each seat cut into two\nadjustable plush chairs, the head-rests covered with doubtful linen\ntowels. Halfway down the car is a semi-partition of carved oak columns,\nbut the aisle is of bare, splintery, grease-blackened wood. There is no\nporter, no pillows, no provision for beds, but all today and all tonight\nthey will ride in this long steel box-farmers with perpetually tired\nwives and children who seem all to be of the same age; workmen going to\nnew jobs; traveling salesmen with derbies and freshly shined shoes.\n\nThey are parched and cramped, the lines of their hands filled with\ngrime; they go to sleep curled in distorted attitudes, heads against the\nwindow-panes or propped on rolled coats on seat-arms, and legs thrust\ninto the aisle. They do not read; apparently they do not think. They\nwait. An early-wrinkled, young-old mother, moving as though her joints\nwere dry, opens a suit-case in which are seen creased blouses, a pair\nof slippers worn through at the toes, a bottle of patent medicine, a tin\ncup, a paper-covered book about dreams which the news-butcher has coaxed\nher into buying. She brings out a graham cracker which she feeds to a\nbaby lying flat on a seat and wailing hopelessly. Most of the crumbs\ndrop on the red plush of the seat, and the woman sighs and tries to\nbrush them away, but they leap up impishly and fall back on the plush.\n\nA soiled man and woman munch sandwiches and throw the crusts on the\nfloor. A large brick-colored Norwegian takes off his shoes, grunts in\nrelief, and props his feet in their thick gray socks against the seat in\nfront of him.\n\nAn old woman whose toothless mouth shuts like a mud-turtle's, and whose\nhair is not so much white as yellow like moldy linen, with bands of pink\nskull apparent between the tresses, anxiously lifts her bag, opens it,\npeers in, closes it, puts it under the seat, and hastily picks it up and\nopens it and hides it all over again. The bag is full of treasures and\nof memories: a leather buckle, an ancient band-concert program,\nscraps of ribbon, lace, satin. In the aisle beside her is an extremely\nindignant parrakeet in a cage.\n\nTwo facing seats, overflowing with a Slovene iron-miner's family,\nare littered with shoes, dolls, whisky bottles, bundles wrapped in\nnewspapers, a sewing bag. The oldest boy takes a mouth-organ out of his\ncoat pocket, wipes the tobacco crumbs off, and plays \"Marching through\nGeorgia\" till every head in the car begins to ache.\n\nThe news-butcher comes through selling chocolate bars and lemon drops.\nA girl-child ceaselessly trots down to the water-cooler and back to her\nseat. The stiff paper envelope which she uses for cup drips in the aisle\nas she goes, and on each trip she stumbles over the feet of a carpenter,\nwho grunts, \"Ouch! Look out!\"\n\nThe dust-caked doors are open, and from the smoking-car drifts back a\nvisible blue line of stinging tobacco smoke, and with it a crackle of\nlaughter over the story which the young man in the bright blue suit and\nlavender tie and light yellow shoes has just told to the squat man in\ngarage overalls.\n\nThe smell grows constantly thicker, more stale.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nTo each of the passengers his seat was his temporary home, and most of\nthe passengers were slatternly housekeepers. But one seat looked clean\nand deceptively cool. In it were an obviously prosperous man and a\nblack-haired, fine-skinned girl whose pumps rested on an immaculate\nhorsehide bag.\n\nThey were Dr. Will Kennicott and his bride, Carol.\n\nThey had been married at the end of a year of conversational courtship,\nand they were on their way to Gopher Prairie after a wedding journey in\nthe Colorado mountains.\n\nThe hordes of the way-train were not altogether new to Carol. She had\nseen them on trips from St. Paul to Chicago. But now that they had\nbecome her own people, to bathe and encourage and adorn, she had an\nacute and uncomfortable interest in them. They distressed her. They\nwere so stolid. She had always maintained that there is no American\npeasantry, and she sought now to defend her faith by seeing imagination\nand enterprise in the young Swedish farmers, and in a traveling man\nworking over his order-blanks. But the older people, Yankees as well\nas Norwegians, Germans, Finns, Canucks, had settled into submission to\npoverty. They were peasants, she groaned.\n\n\"Isn't there any way of waking them up? What would happen if they\nunderstood scientific agriculture?\" she begged of Kennicott, her hand\ngroping for his.\n\nIt had been a transforming honeymoon. She had been frightened to\ndiscover how tumultuous a feeling could be roused in her. Will had been\nlordly--stalwart, jolly, impressively competent in making camp, tender\nand understanding through the hours when they had lain side by side in a\ntent pitched among pines high up on a lonely mountain spur.\n\nHis hand swallowed hers as he started from thoughts of the practise to\nwhich he was returning. \"These people? Wake 'em up? What for? They're\nhappy.\"\n\n\"But they're so provincial. No, that isn't what I mean. They're--oh, so\nsunk in the mud.\"\n\n\"Look here, Carrie. You want to get over your city idea that because a\nman's pants aren't pressed, he's a fool. These farmers are mighty keen\nand up-and-coming.\"\n\n\"I know! That's what hurts. Life seems so hard for them--these lonely\nfarms and this gritty train.\"\n\n\"Oh, they don't mind it. Besides, things are changing. The auto, the\ntelephone, rural free delivery; they're bringing the farmers in closer\ntouch with the town. Takes time, you know, to change a wilderness like\nthis was fifty years ago. But already, why, they can hop into the Ford\nor the Overland and get in to the movies on Saturday evening quicker\nthan you could get down to 'em by trolley in St. Paul.\"\n\n\"But if it's these towns we've been passing that the farmers run to for\nrelief from their bleakness----Can't you understand? Just LOOK at them!\"\n\nKennicott was amazed. Ever since childhood he had seen these towns from\ntrains on this same line. He grumbled, \"Why, what's the matter with 'em?\nGood hustling burgs. It would astonish you to know how much wheat and\nrye and corn and potatoes they ship in a year.\"\n\n\"But they're so ugly.\"\n\n\"I'll admit they aren't comfy like Gopher Prairie. But give 'em time.\"\n\n\"What's the use of giving them time unless some one has desire and\ntraining enough to plan them? Hundreds of factories trying to make\nattractive motor cars, but these towns--left to chance. No! That can't\nbe true. It must have taken genius to make them so scrawny!\"\n\n\"Oh, they're not so bad,\" was all he answered. He pretended that his\nhand was the cat and hers the mouse. For the first time she tolerated\nhim rather than encouraged him. She was staring out at Schoenstrom, a\nhamlet of perhaps a hundred and fifty inhabitants, at which the train\nwas stopping.\n\nA bearded German and his pucker-mouthed wife tugged their enormous\nimitation-leather satchel from under a seat and waddled out. The station\nagent hoisted a dead calf aboard the baggage-car. There were no other\nvisible activities in Schoenstrom. In the quiet of the halt, Carol could\nhear a horse kicking his stall, a carpenter shingling a roof.\n\nThe business-center of Schoenstrom took up one side of one block, facing\nthe railroad. It was a row of one-story shops covered with galvanized\niron, or with clapboards painted red and bilious yellow. The buildings\nwere as ill-assorted, as temporary-looking, as a mining-camp street in\nthe motion-pictures. The railroad station was a one-room frame box, a\nmirey cattle-pen on one side and a crimson wheat-elevator on the other.\nThe elevator, with its cupola on the ridge of a shingled roof, resembled\na broad-shouldered man with a small, vicious, pointed head. The only\nhabitable structures to be seen were the florid red-brick Catholic\nchurch and rectory at the end of Main Street.\n\nCarol picked at Kennicott's sleeve. \"You wouldn't call this a not-so-bad\ntown, would you?\"\n\n\"These Dutch burgs ARE kind of slow. Still, at that----See that fellow\ncoming out of the general store there, getting into the big car? I met\nhim once. He owns about half the town, besides the store. Rauskukle, his\nname is. He owns a lot of mortgages, and he gambles in farm-lands. Good\nnut on him, that fellow. Why, they say he's worth three or four hundred\nthousand dollars! Got a dandy great big yellow brick house with tiled\nwalks and a garden and everything, other end of town--can't see it from\nhere--I've gone past it when I've driven through here. Yes sir!\"\n\n\"Then, if he has all that, there's no excuse whatever for this place!\nIf his three hundred thousand went back into the town, where it belongs,\nthey could burn up these shacks, and build a dream-village, a jewel! Why\ndo the farmers and the town-people let the Baron keep it?\"\n\n\"I must say I don't quite get you sometimes, Carrie. Let him? They can't\nhelp themselves! He's a dumm old Dutchman, and probably the priest can\ntwist him around his finger, but when it comes to picking good farming\nland, he's a regular wiz!\"\n\n\"I see. He's their symbol of beauty. The town erects him, instead of\nerecting buildings.\"\n\n\"Honestly, don't know what you're driving at. You're kind of played out,\nafter this long trip. You'll feel better when you get home and have a\ngood bath, and put on the blue negligee. That's some vampire costume,\nyou witch!\"\n\nHe squeezed her arm, looked at her knowingly.\n\nThey moved on from the desert stillness of the Schoenstrom station. The\ntrain creaked, banged, swayed. The air was nauseatingly thick. Kennicott\nturned her face from the window, rested her head on his shoulder. She\nwas coaxed from her unhappy mood. But she came out of it unwillingly,\nand when Kennicott was satisfied that he had corrected all her worries\nand had opened a magazine of saffron detective stories, she sat upright.\n\nHere--she meditated--is the newest empire of the world; the Northern\nMiddlewest; a land of dairy herds and exquisite lakes, of new\nautomobiles and tar-paper shanties and silos like red towers, of clumsy\nspeech and a hope that is boundless. An empire which feeds a quarter of\nthe world--yet its work is merely begun. They are pioneers, these sweaty\nwayfarers, for all their telephones and bank-accounts and automatic\npianos and co-operative leagues. And for all its fat richness, theirs is\na pioneer land. What is its future? she wondered. A future of cities\nand factory smut where now are loping empty fields? Homes universal and\nsecure? Or placid chateaux ringed with sullen huts? Youth free to find\nknowledge and laughter? Willingness to sift the sanctified lies? Or\ncreamy-skinned fat women, smeared with grease and chalk, gorgeous in the\nskins of beasts and the bloody feathers of slain birds, playing bridge\nwith puffy pink-nailed jeweled fingers, women who after much expenditure\nof labor and bad temper still grotesquely resemble their own flatulent\nlap-dogs? The ancient stale inequalities, or something different in\nhistory, unlike the tedious maturity of other empires? What future and\nwhat hope?\n\nCarol's head ached with the riddle.\n\nShe saw the prairie, flat in giant patches or rolling in long hummocks.\nThe width and bigness of it, which had expanded her spirit an hour ago,\nbegan to frighten her. It spread out so; it went on so uncontrollably;\nshe could never know it. Kennicott was closeted in his detective story.\nWith the loneliness which comes most depressingly in the midst of many\npeople she tried to forget problems, to look at the prairie objectively.\n\nThe grass beside the railroad had been burnt over; it was a smudge\nprickly with charred stalks of weeds. Beyond the undeviating barbed-wire\nfences were clumps of golden rod. Only this thin hedge shut them off\nfrom the plains-shorn wheat-lands of autumn, a hundred acres to a field,\nprickly and gray near-by but in the blurred distance like tawny velvet\nstretched over dipping hillocks. The long rows of wheat-shocks marched\nlike soldiers in worn yellow tabards. The newly plowed fields were\nblack banners fallen on the distant slope. It was a martial immensity,\nvigorous, a little harsh, unsoftened by kindly gardens.\n\nThe expanse was relieved by clumps of oaks with patches of short wild\ngrass; and every mile or two was a chain of cobalt slews, with the\nflicker of blackbirds' wings across them.\n\nAll this working land was turned into exuberance by the light. The\nsunshine was dizzy on open stubble; shadows from immense cumulus clouds\nwere forever sliding across low mounds; and the sky was wider and\nloftier and more resolutely blue than the sky of cities . . . she\ndeclared.\n\n\"It's a glorious country; a land to be big in,\" she crooned.\n\nThen Kennicott startled her by chuckling, \"D' you realize the town after\nthe next is Gopher Prairie? Home!\"\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThat one word--home--it terrified her. Had she really bound herself to\nlive, inescapably, in this town called Gopher Prairie? And this thick\nman beside her, who dared to define her future, he was a stranger! She\nturned in her seat, stared at him. Who was he? Why was he sitting with\nher? He wasn't of her kind! His neck was heavy; his speech was heavy; he\nwas twelve or thirteen years older than she; and about him was none of\nthe magic of shared adventures and eagerness. She could not believe that\nshe had ever slept in his arms. That was one of the dreams which you had\nbut did not officially admit.\n\nShe told herself how good he was, how dependable and understanding. She\ntouched his ear, smoothed the plane of his solid jaw, and, turning away\nagain, concentrated upon liking his town. It wouldn't be like these\nbarren settlements. It couldn't be! Why, it had three thousand\npopulation. That was a great many people. There would be six hundred\nhouses or more. And----The lakes near it would be so lovely. She'd seen\nthem in the photographs. They had looked charming . . . hadn't they?\n\nAs the train left Wahkeenyan she began nervously to watch for the\nlakes--the entrance to all her future life. But when she discovered\nthem, to the left of the track, her only impression of them was that\nthey resembled the photographs.\n\nA mile from Gopher Prairie the track mounts a curving low ridge, and she\ncould see the town as a whole. With a passionate jerk she pushed up the\nwindow, looked out, the arched fingers of her left hand trembling on the\nsill, her right hand at her breast.\n\nAnd she saw that Gopher Prairie was merely an enlargement of all the\nhamlets which they had been passing. Only to the eyes of a Kennicott was\nit exceptional. The huddled low wooden houses broke the plains scarcely\nmore than would a hazel thicket. The fields swept up to it, past it.\nIt was unprotected and unprotecting; there was no dignity in it nor\nany hope of greatness. Only the tall red grain-elevator and a few tinny\nchurch-steeples rose from the mass. It was a frontier camp. It was not a\nplace to live in, not possibly, not conceivably.\n\nThe people--they'd be as drab as their houses, as flat as their fields.\nShe couldn't stay here. She would have to wrench loose from this man,\nand flee.\n\nShe peeped at him. She was at once helpless before his mature fixity,\nand touched by his excitement as he sent his magazine skittering along\nthe aisle, stooped for their bags, came up with flushed face, and\ngloated, \"Here we are!\"\n\nShe smiled loyally, and looked away. The train was entering town. The\nhouses on the outskirts were dusky old red mansions with wooden frills,\nor gaunt frame shelters like grocery boxes, or new bungalows with\nconcrete foundations imitating stone.\n\nNow the train was passing the elevator, the grim storage-tanks for oil,\na creamery, a lumber-yard, a stock-yard muddy and trampled and stinking.\nNow they were stopping at a squat red frame station, the platform\ncrowded with unshaven farmers and with loafers--unadventurous people\nwith dead eyes. She was here. She could not go on. It was the end--the\nend of the world. She sat with closed eyes, longing to push past\nKennicott, hide somewhere in the train, flee on toward the Pacific.\n\nSomething large arose in her soul and commanded, \"Stop it! Stop being a\nwhining baby!\" She stood up quickly; she said, \"Isn't it wonderful to be\nhere at last!\"\n\nHe trusted her so. She would make herself like the place. And she was\ngoing to do tremendous things----\n\nShe followed Kennicott and the bobbing ends of the two bags which\nhe carried. They were held back by the slow line of disembarking\npassengers. She reminded herself that she was actually at the dramatic\nmoment of the bride's home-coming. She ought to feel exalted. She felt\nnothing at all except irritation at their slow progress toward the door.\n\nKennicott stooped to peer through the windows. He shyly exulted:\n\n\"Look! Look! There's a bunch come down to welcome us! Sam Clark and the\nmissus and Dave Dyer and Jack Elder, and, yes sir, Harry Haydock and\nJuanita, and a whole crowd! I guess they see us now. Yuh, yuh sure, they\nsee us! See 'em waving!\"\n\nShe obediently bent her head to look out at them. She had hold of\nherself. She was ready to love them. But she was embarrassed by the\nheartiness of the cheering group. From the vestibule she waved to them,\nbut she clung a second to the sleeve of the brakeman who helped her down\nbefore she had the courage to dive into the cataract of hand-shaking\npeople, people whom she could not tell apart. She had the impression\nthat all the men had coarse voices, large damp hands, tooth-brush\nmustaches, bald spots, and Masonic watch-charms.\n\nShe knew that they were welcoming her. Their hands, their smiles, their\nshouts, their affectionate eyes overcame her. She stammered, \"Thank you,\noh, thank you!\"\n\nOne of the men was clamoring at Kennicott, \"I brought my machine down to\ntake you home, doc.\"\n\n\"Fine business, Sam!\" cried Kennicott; and, to Carol, \"Let's jump in.\nThat big Paige over there. Some boat, too, believe me! Sam can show\nspeed to any of these Marmons from Minneapolis!\"\n\nOnly when she was in the motor car did she distinguish the three people\nwho were to accompany them. The owner, now at the wheel, was the essence\nof decent self-satisfaction; a baldish, largish, level-eyed man, rugged\nof neck but sleek and round of face--face like the back of a spoon bowl.\nHe was chuckling at her, \"Have you got us all straight yet?\"\n\n\"Course she has! Trust Carrie to get things straight and get 'em darn\nquick! I bet she could tell you every date in history!\" boasted her\nhusband.\n\nBut the man looked at her reassuringly and with a certainty that he\nwas a person whom she could trust she confessed, \"As a matter of fact I\nhaven't got anybody straight.\"\n\n\"Course you haven't, child. Well, I'm Sam Clark, dealer in hardware,\nsporting goods, cream separators, and almost any kind of heavy junk you\ncan think of. You can call me Sam--anyway, I'm going to call you Carrie,\nseein' 's you've been and gone and married this poor fish of a bum medic\nthat we keep round here.\" Carol smiled lavishly, and wished that she\ncalled people by their given names more easily. \"The fat cranky lady\nback there beside you, who is pretending that she can't hear me giving\nher away, is Mrs. Sam'l Clark; and this hungry-looking squirt up here\nbeside me is Dave Dyer, who keeps his drug store running by not filling\nyour hubby's prescriptions right--fact you might say he's the guy that\nput the 'shun' in 'prescription.' So! Well, leave us take the bonny\nbride home. Say, doc, I'll sell you the Candersen place for three\nthousand plunks. Better be thinking about building a new home for\nCarrie. Prettiest Frau in G. P., if you asks me!\"\n\nContentedly Sam Clark drove off, in the heavy traffic of three Fords and\nthe Minniemashie House Free 'Bus.\n\n\"I shall like Mr. Clark . . . I CAN'T call him 'Sam'! They're all so\nfriendly.\" She glanced at the houses; tried not to see what she saw;\ngave way in: \"Why do these stories lie so? They always make the bride's\nhome-coming a bower of roses. Complete trust in noble spouse. Lies about\nmarriage. I'm NOT changed. And this town--O my God! I can't go through\nwith it. This junk-heap!\"\n\nHer husband bent over her. \"You look like you were in a brown study.\nScared? I don't expect you to think Gopher Prairie is a paradise, after\nSt. Paul. I don't expect you to be crazy about it, at first. But you'll\ncome to like it so much--life's so free here and best people on earth.\"\n\nShe whispered to him (while Mrs. Clark considerately turned away), \"I\nlove you for understanding. I'm just--I'm beastly over-sensitive. Too\nmany books. It's my lack of shoulder-muscles and sense. Give me time,\ndear.\"\n\n\"You bet! All the time you want!\"\n\nShe laid the back of his hand against her cheek, snuggled near him. She\nwas ready for her new home.\n\nKennicott had told her that, with his widowed mother as housekeeper, he\nhad occupied an old house, \"but nice and roomy, and well-heated, best\nfurnace I could find on the market.\" His mother had left Carol her love,\nand gone back to Lac-qui-Meurt.\n\nIt would be wonderful, she exulted, not to have to live in Other\nPeople's Houses, but to make her own shrine. She held his hand tightly\nand stared ahead as the car swung round a corner and stopped in the\nstreet before a prosaic frame house in a small parched lawn.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nA concrete sidewalk with a \"parking\" of grass and mud. A square smug\nbrown house, rather damp. A narrow concrete walk up to it. Sickly yellow\nleaves in a windrow with dried wings of box-elder seeds and snags\nof wool from the cotton-woods. A screened porch with pillars of thin\npainted pine surmounted by scrolls and brackets and bumps of jigsawed\nwood. No shrubbery to shut off the public gaze. A lugubrious bay-window\nto the right of the porch. Window curtains of starched cheap lace\nrevealing a pink marble table with a conch shell and a Family Bible.\n\n\"You'll find it old-fashioned--what do you call it?--Mid-Victorian. I\nleft it as is, so you could make any changes you felt were necessary.\"\nKennicott sounded doubtful for the first time since he had come back to\nhis own.\n\n\"It's a real home!\" She was moved by his humility. She gaily motioned\ngood-by to the Clarks. He unlocked the door--he was leaving the choice\nof a maid to her, and there was no one in the house. She jiggled while\nhe turned the key, and scampered in. . . . It was next day before either\nof them remembered that in their honeymoon camp they had planned that he\nshould carry her over the sill.\n\nIn hallway and front parlor she was conscious of dinginess and\nlugubriousness and airlessness, but she insisted, \"I'll make it all\njolly.\" As she followed Kennicott and the bags up to their bedroom she\nquavered to herself the song of the fat little-gods of the hearth:\n\n     I have my own home,\n     To do what I please with,\n     To do what I please with,\n     My den for me and my mate and my cubs,\n     My own!\n\nShe was close in her husband's arms; she clung to him; whatever of\nstrangeness and slowness and insularity she might find in him, none of\nthat mattered so long as she could slip her hands beneath his coat, run\nher fingers over the warm smoothness of the satin back of his waistcoat,\nseem almost to creep into his body, find in him strength, find in the\ncourage and kindness of her man a shelter from the perplexing world.\n\n\"Sweet, so sweet,\" she whispered.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nI\n\n\"THE Clarks have invited some folks to their house to meet us, tonight,\"\nsaid Kennicott, as he unpacked his suit-case.\n\n\"Oh, that is nice of them!\"\n\n\"You bet. I told you you'd like 'em. Squarest people on earth. Uh,\nCarrie----Would you mind if I sneaked down to the office for an hour,\njust to see how things are?\"\n\n\"Why, no. Of course not. I know you're keen to get back to work.\"\n\n\"Sure you don't mind?\"\n\n\"Not a bit. Out of my way. Let me unpack.\"\n\nBut the advocate of freedom in marriage was as much disappointed as\na drooping bride at the alacrity with which he took that freedom and\nescaped to the world of men's affairs. She gazed about their bedroom,\nand its full dismalness crawled over her: the awkward knuckly L-shape\nof it; the black walnut bed with apples and spotty pears carved on the\nheadboard; the imitation maple bureau, with pink-daubed scent-bottles\nand a petticoated pin-cushion on a marble slab uncomfortably like a\ngravestone; the plain pine washstand and the garlanded water-pitcher and\nbowl. The scent was of horsehair and plush and Florida Water.\n\n\"How could people ever live with things like this?\" she shuddered. She\nsaw the furniture as a circle of elderly judges, condemning her to death\nby smothering. The tottering brocade chair squeaked, \"Choke her--choke\nher--smother her.\" The old linen smelled of the tomb. She was alone in\nthis house, this strange still house, among the shadows of dead thoughts\nand haunting repressions. \"I hate it! I hate it!\" she panted. \"Why did I\never----\"\n\nShe remembered that Kennicott's mother had brought these family\nrelics from the old home in Lac-qui-Meurt. \"Stop it! They're perfectly\ncomfortable things. They're--comfortable. Besides----Oh, they're\nhorrible! We'll change them, right away.\"\n\nThen, \"But of course he HAS to see how things are at the office----\"\n\nShe made a pretense of busying herself with unpacking. The chintz-lined,\nsilver-fitted bag which had seemed so desirable a luxury in St. Paul was\nan extravagant vanity here. The daring black chemise of frail chiffon\nand lace was a hussy at which the deep-bosomed bed stiffened in disgust,\nand she hurled it into a bureau drawer, hid it beneath a sensible linen\nblouse.\n\nShe gave up unpacking. She went to the window, with a purely literary\nthought of village charm--hollyhocks and lanes and apple-cheeked\ncottagers. What she saw was the side of the Seventh-Day Adventist\nChurch--a plain clapboard wall of a sour liver color; the ash-pile\nback of the church; an unpainted stable; and an alley in which a Ford\ndelivery-wagon had been stranded. This was the terraced garden below her\nboudoir; this was to be her scenery for----\n\n\"I mustn't! I mustn't! I'm nervous this afternoon. Am I sick? . . . Good\nLord, I hope it isn't that! Not now! How people lie! How these stories\nlie! They say the bride is always so blushing and proud and happy when\nshe finds that out, but--I'd hate it! I'd be scared to death! Some\nday but----Please, dear nebulous Lord, not now! Bearded sniffy old\nmen sitting and demanding that we bear children. If THEY had to bear\nthem----! I wish they did have to! Not now! Not till I've got hold of\nthis job of liking the ash-pile out there! . . . I must shut up. I'm\nmildly insane. I'm going out for a walk. I'll see the town by myself. My\nfirst view of the empire I'm going to conquer!\"\n\nShe fled from the house.\n\nShe stared with seriousness at every concrete crossing, every\nhitching-post, every rake for leaves; and to each house she devoted all\nher speculation. What would they come to mean? How would they look six\nmonths from now? In which of them would she be dining? Which of these\npeople whom she passed, now mere arrangements of hair and clothes, would\nturn into intimates, loved or dreaded, different from all the other\npeople in the world?\n\nAs she came into the small business-section she inspected a broad-beamed\ngrocer in an alpaca coat who was bending over the apples and celery on a\nslanted platform in front of his store. Would she ever talk to him? What\nwould he say if she stopped and stated, \"I am Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. Some\nday I hope to confide that a heap of extremely dubious pumpkins as a\nwindow-display doesn't exhilarate me much.\"\n\n(The grocer was Mr. Frederick F. Ludelmeyer, whose market is at the\ncorner of Main Street and Lincoln Avenue. In supposing that only she was\nobservant Carol was ignorant, misled by the indifference of cities. She\nfancied that she was slipping through the streets invisible; but when\nshe had passed, Mr. Ludelmeyer puffed into the store and coughed at his\nclerk, \"I seen a young woman, she come along the side street. I bet she\niss Doc Kennicott's new bride, good-looker, nice legs, but she wore a\nhell of a plain suit, no style, I wonder will she pay cash, I bet she\ngoes to Howland & Gould's more as she does here, what you done with the\nposter for Fluffed Oats?\")\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nWhen Carol had walked for thirty-two minutes she had completely covered\nthe town, east and west, north and south; and she stood at the corner of\nMain Street and Washington Avenue and despaired.\n\nMain Street with its two-story brick shops, its story-and-a-half wooden\nresidences, its muddy expanse from concrete walk to walk, its huddle\nof Fords and lumber-wagons, was too small to absorb her. The broad,\nstraight, unenticing gashes of the streets let in the grasping prairie\non every side. She realized the vastness and the emptiness of the land.\nThe skeleton iron windmill on the farm a few blocks away, at the north\nend of Main Street, was like the ribs of a dead cow. She thought of the\ncoming of the Northern winter, when the unprotected houses would crouch\ntogether in terror of storms galloping out of that wild waste. They\nwere so small and weak, the little brown houses. They were shelters for\nsparrows, not homes for warm laughing people.\n\nShe told herself that down the street the leaves were a splendor. The\nmaples were orange; the oaks a solid tint of raspberry. And the lawns\nhad been nursed with love. But the thought would not hold. At best the\ntrees resembled a thinned woodlot. There was no park to rest the eyes.\nAnd since not Gopher Prairie but Wakamin was the county-seat, there was\nno court-house with its grounds.\n\nShe glanced through the fly-specked windows of the most pretentious\nbuilding in sight, the one place which welcomed strangers and\ndetermined their opinion of the charm and luxury of Gopher Prairie--the\nMinniemashie House. It was a tall lean shabby structure, three stories\nof yellow-streaked wood, the corners covered with sanded pine slabs\npurporting to symbolize stone. In the hotel office she could see a\nstretch of bare unclean floor, a line of rickety chairs with brass\ncuspidors between, a writing-desk with advertisements in mother-of-pearl\nletters upon the glass-covered back. The dining-room beyond was a jungle\nof stained table-cloths and catsup bottles.\n\nShe looked no more at the Minniemashie House.\n\nA man in cuffless shirt-sleeves with pink arm-garters, wearing a linen\ncollar but no tie, yawned his way from Dyer's Drug Store across to the\nhotel. He leaned against the wall, scratched a while, sighed, and in a\nbored way gossiped with a man tilted back in a chair. A lumber-wagon,\nits long green box filled with large spools of barbed-wire fencing,\ncreaked down the block. A Ford, in reverse, sounded as though it\nwere shaking to pieces, then recovered and rattled away. In the Greek\ncandy-store was the whine of a peanut-roaster, and the oily smell of\nnuts.\n\nThere was no other sound nor sign of life.\n\nShe wanted to run, fleeing from the encroaching prairie, demanding the\nsecurity of a great city. Her dreams of creating a beautiful town were\nludicrous. Oozing out from every drab wall, she felt a forbidding spirit\nwhich she could never conquer.\n\nShe trailed down the street on one side, back on the other, glancing\ninto the cross streets. It was a private Seeing Main Street tour. She\nwas within ten minutes beholding not only the heart of a place called\nGopher Prairie, but ten thousand towns from Albany to San Diego:\n\nDyer's Drug Store, a corner building of regular and unreal blocks of\nartificial stone. Inside the store, a greasy marble soda-fountain with\nan electric lamp of red and green and curdled-yellow mosaic\nshade. Pawed-over heaps of tooth-brushes and combs and packages of\nshaving-soap. Shelves of soap-cartons, teething-rings, garden-seeds,\nand patent medicines in yellow \"packages-nostrums\" for consumption, for\n\"women's diseases\"--notorious mixtures of opium and alcohol, in\nthe very shop to which her husband sent patients for the filling of\nprescriptions.\n\nFrom a second-story window the sign \"W. P. Kennicott, Phys. & Surgeon,\"\ngilt on black sand.\n\nA small wooden motion-picture theater called \"The Rosebud Movie Palace.\"\nLithographs announcing a film called \"Fatty in Love.\"\n\nHowland & Gould's Grocery. In the display window, black, overripe\nbananas and lettuce on which a cat was sleeping. Shelves lined with red\ncrepe paper which was now faded and torn and concentrically spotted.\nFlat against the wall of the second story the signs of lodges--the\nKnights of Pythias, the Maccabees, the Woodmen, the Masons.\n\nDahl & Oleson's Meat Market--a reek of blood.\n\nA jewelry shop with tinny-looking wrist-watches for women. In front of\nit, at the curb, a huge wooden clock which did not go.\n\nA fly-buzzing saloon with a brilliant gold and enamel whisky sign across\nthe front. Other saloons down the block. From them a stink of stale\nbeer, and thick voices bellowing pidgin German or trolling out dirty\nsongs--vice gone feeble and unenterprising and dull--the delicacy of a\nmining-camp minus its vigor. In front of the saloons, farmwives sitting\non the seats of wagons, waiting for their husbands to become drunk and\nready to start home.\n\nA tobacco shop called \"The Smoke House,\" filled with young men shaking\ndice for cigarettes. Racks of magazines, and pictures of coy fat\nprostitutes in striped bathing-suits.\n\nA clothing store with a display of \"ox-blood-shade Oxfords with bull-dog\ntoes.\" Suits which looked worn and glossless while they were still new,\nflabbily draped on dummies like corpses with painted cheeks.\n\nThe Bon Ton Store--Haydock & Simons'--the largest shop in town. The\nfirst-story front of clear glass, the plates cleverly bound at the edges\nwith brass. The second story of pleasant tapestry brick. One window of\nexcellent clothes for men, interspersed with collars of floral pique\nwhich showed mauve daisies on a saffron ground. Newness and an obvious\nnotion of neatness and service. Haydock & Simons. Haydock. She had met a\nHaydock at the station; Harry Haydock; an active person of thirty-five.\nHe seemed great to her, now, and very like a saint. His shop was clean!\n\nAxel Egge's General Store, frequented by Scandinavian farmers. In the\nshallow dark window-space heaps of sleazy sateens, badly woven galateas,\ncanvas shoes designed for women with bulging ankles, steel and red glass\nbuttons upon cards with broken edges, a cottony blanket, a granite-ware\nfrying-pan reposing on a sun-faded crepe blouse.\n\nSam Clark's Hardware Store. An air of frankly metallic enterprise. Guns\nand churns and barrels of nails and beautiful shiny butcher knives.\n\nChester Dashaway's House Furnishing Emporium. A vista of heavy oak\nrockers with leather seats, asleep in a dismal row.\n\nBilly's Lunch. Thick handleless cups on the wet oilcloth-covered\ncounter. An odor of onions and the smoke of hot lard. In the doorway a\nyoung man audibly sucking a toothpick.\n\nThe warehouse of the buyer of cream and potatoes. The sour smell of a\ndairy.\n\nThe Ford Garage and the Buick Garage, competent one-story brick\nand cement buildings opposite each other. Old and new cars on\ngrease-blackened concrete floors. Tire advertisements. The roaring of\na tested motor; a racket which beat at the nerves. Surly young men in\nkhaki union-overalls. The most energetic and vital places in town.\n\nA large warehouse for agricultural implements. An impressive barricade\nof green and gold wheels, of shafts and sulky seats, belonging\nto machinery of which Carol knew nothing--potato-planters,\nmanure-spreaders, silage-cutters, disk-harrows, breaking-plows.\n\nA feed store, its windows opaque with the dust of bran, a patent\nmedicine advertisement painted on its roof.\n\nYe Art Shoppe, Prop. Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks, Christian Science Library\nopen daily free. A touching fumble at beauty. A one-room shanty of\nboards recently covered with rough stucco. A show-window delicately rich\nin error: vases starting out to imitate tree-trunks but running off\ninto blobs of gilt--an aluminum ash-tray labeled \"Greetings from\nGopher Prairie\"--a Christian Science magazine--a stamped sofa-cushion\nportraying a large ribbon tied to a small poppy, the correct skeins of\nembroidery-silk lying on the pillow. Inside the shop, a glimpse of bad\ncarbon prints of bad and famous pictures, shelves of phonograph records\nand camera films, wooden toys, and in the midst an anxious small woman\nsitting in a padded rocking chair.\n\nA barber shop and pool room. A man in shirt sleeves, presumably Del\nSnafflin the proprietor, shaving a man who had a large Adam's apple.\n\nNat Hicks's Tailor Shop, on a side street off Main. A one-story\nbuilding. A fashion-plate showing human pitchforks in garments which\nlooked as hard as steel plate.\n\nOn another side street a raw red-brick Catholic Church with a varnished\nyellow door.\n\nThe post-office--merely a partition of glass and brass shutting off\nthe rear of a mildewed room which must once have been a shop. A tilted\nwriting-shelf against a wall rubbed black and scattered with official\nnotices and army recruiting-posters.\n\nThe damp, yellow-brick schoolbuilding in its cindery grounds.\n\nThe State Bank, stucco masking wood.\n\nThe Farmers' National Bank. An Ionic temple of marble. Pure, exquisite,\nsolitary. A brass plate with \"Ezra Stowbody, Pres't.\"\n\nA score of similar shops and establishments.\n\nBehind them and mixed with them, the houses, meek cottages or large,\ncomfortable, soundly uninteresting symbols of prosperity.\n\nIn all the town not one building save the Ionic bank which gave pleasure\nto Carol's eyes; not a dozen buildings which suggested that, in the\nfifty years of Gopher Prairie's existence, the citizens had realized\nthat it was either desirable or possible to make this, their common\nhome, amusing or attractive.\n\nIt was not only the unsparing unapologetic ugliness and the rigid\nstraightness which overwhelmed her. It was the planlessness, the flimsy\ntemporariness of the buildings, their faded unpleasant colors. The\nstreet was cluttered with electric-light poles, telephone poles,\ngasoline pumps for motor cars, boxes of goods. Each man had built\nwith the most valiant disregard of all the others. Between a large\nnew \"block\" of two-story brick shops on one side, and the fire-brick\nOverland garage on the other side, was a one-story cottage turned into\na millinery shop. The white temple of the Farmers' Bank was elbowed back\nby a grocery of glaring yellow brick. One store-building had a patchy\ngalvanized iron cornice; the building beside it was crowned with\nbattlements and pyramids of brick capped with blocks of red sandstone.\n\nShe escaped from Main Street, fled home.\n\nShe wouldn't have cared, she insisted, if the people had been comely.\nShe had noted a young man loafing before a shop, one unwashed hand\nholding the cord of an awning; a middle-aged man who had a way of\nstaring at women as though he had been married too long and too\nprosaically; an old farmer, solid, wholesome, but not clean--his face\nlike a potato fresh from the earth. None of them had shaved for three\ndays.\n\n\"If they can't build shrines, out here on the prairie, surely there's\nnothing to prevent their buying safety-razors!\" she raged.\n\nShe fought herself: \"I must be wrong. People do live here. It CAN'T be\nas ugly as--as I know it is! I must be wrong. But I can't do it. I can't\ngo through with it.\"\n\nShe came home too seriously worried for hysteria; and when she found\nKennicott waiting for her, and exulting, \"Have a walk? Well, like\nthe town? Great lawns and trees, eh?\" she was able to say, with a\nself-protective maturity new to her, \"It's very interesting.\"\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe train which brought Carol to Gopher Prairie also brought Miss Bea\nSorenson.\n\nMiss Bea was a stalwart, corn-colored, laughing young woman, and she was\nbored by farm-work. She desired the excitements of city-life, and the\nway to enjoy city-life was, she had decided, to \"go get a yob as hired\ngirl in Gopher Prairie.\" She contentedly lugged her pasteboard telescope\nfrom the station to her cousin, Tina Malmquist, maid of all work in the\nresidence of Mrs. Luke Dawson.\n\n\"Vell, so you come to town,\" said Tina.\n\n\"Ya. Ay get a yob,\" said Bea.\n\n\"Vell. . . . You got a fella now?\"\n\n\"Ya. Yim Yacobson.\"\n\n\"Vell. I'm glat to see you. How much you vant a veek?\"\n\n\"Sex dollar.\"\n\n\"There ain't nobody pay dat. Vait! Dr. Kennicott, I t'ink he marry a\ngirl from de Cities. Maybe she pay dat. Vell. You go take a valk.\"\n\n\"Ya,\" said Bea.\n\nSo it chanced that Carol Kennicott and Bea Sorenson were viewing Main\nStreet at the same time.\n\nBea had never before been in a town larger than Scandia Crossing, which\nhas sixty-seven inhabitants.\n\nAs she marched up the street she was meditating that it didn't hardly\nseem like it was possible there could be so many folks all in one place\nat the same time. My! It would take years to get acquainted with them\nall. And swell people, too! A fine big gentleman in a new pink shirt\nwith a diamond, and not no washed-out blue denim working-shirt. A lovely\nlady in a longery dress (but it must be an awful hard dress to wash).\nAnd the stores!\n\nNot just three of them, like there were at Scandia Crossing, but more\nthan four whole blocks!\n\nThe Bon Ton Store--big as four barns--my! it would simply scare a person\nto go in there, with seven or eight clerks all looking at you. And the\nmen's suits, on figures just like human. And Axel Egge's, like home,\nlots of Swedes and Norskes in there, and a card of dandy buttons, like\nrubies.\n\nA drug store with a soda fountain that was just huge, awful long, and\nall lovely marble; and on it there was a great big lamp with the biggest\nshade you ever saw--all different kinds colored glass stuck together;\nand the soda spouts, they were silver, and they came right out of the\nbottom of the lamp-stand! Behind the fountain there were glass shelves,\nand bottles of new kinds of soft drinks, that nobody ever heard of.\nSuppose a fella took you THERE!\n\nA hotel, awful high, higher than Oscar Tollefson's new red barn; three\nstories, one right on top of another; you had to stick your head back\nto look clear up to the top. There was a swell traveling man in\nthere--probably been to Chicago, lots of times.\n\nOh, the dandiest people to know here! There was a lady going by, you\nwouldn't hardly say she was any older than Bea herself; she wore a dandy\nnew gray suit and black pumps. She almost looked like she was looking\nover the town, too. But you couldn't tell what she thought. Bea would\nlike to be that way--kind of quiet, so nobody would get fresh. Kind\nof--oh, elegant.\n\nA Lutheran Church. Here in the city there'd be lovely sermons, and\nchurch twice on Sunday, EVERY Sunday!\n\nAnd a movie show!\n\nA regular theater, just for movies. With the sign \"Change of bill every\nevening.\" Pictures every evening!\n\nThere were movies in Scandia Crossing, but only once every two weeks,\nand it took the Sorensons an hour to drive in--papa was such a tightwad\nhe wouldn't get a Ford. But here she could put on her hat any evening,\nand in three minutes' walk be to the movies, and see lovely fellows in\ndress-suits and Bill Hart and everything!\n\nHow could they have so many stores? Why! There was one just for tobacco\nalone, and one (a lovely one--the Art Shoppy it was) for pictures and\nvases and stuff, with oh, the dandiest vase made so it looked just like\na tree trunk!\n\nBea stood on the corner of Main Street and Washington Avenue. The roar\nof the city began to frighten her. There were five automobiles on the\nstreet all at the same time--and one of 'em was a great big car that\nmust of cost two thousand dollars--and the 'bus was starting for a train\nwith five elegant-dressed fellows, and a man was pasting up red bills\nwith lovely pictures of washing-machines on them, and the jeweler was\nlaying out bracelets and wrist-watches and EVERYTHING on real velvet.\n\nWhat did she care if she got six dollars a week? Or two! It was worth\nwhile working for nothing, to be allowed to stay here. And think how it\nwould be in the evening, all lighted up--and not with no lamps, but with\nelectrics! And maybe a gentleman friend taking you to the movies and\nbuying you a strawberry ice cream soda!\n\nBea trudged back.\n\n\"Vell? You lak it?\" said Tina.\n\n\"Ya. Ay lak it. Ay t'ink maybe Ay stay here,\" said Bea.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThe recently built house of Sam Clark, in which was given the party to\nwelcome Carol, was one of the largest in Gopher Prairie. It had a clean\nsweep of clapboards, a solid squareness, a small tower, and a large\nscreened porch. Inside, it was as shiny, as hard, and as cheerful as a\nnew oak upright piano.\n\nCarol looked imploringly at Sam Clark as he rolled to the door and\nshouted, \"Welcome, little lady! The keys of the city are yourn!\"\n\nBeyond him, in the hallway and the living-room, sitting in a vast prim\ncircle as though they were attending a funeral, she saw the guests. They\nwere WAITING so! They were waiting for her! The determination to be all\none pretty flowerlet of appreciation leaked away. She begged of Sam,\n\"I don't dare face them! They expect so much. They'll swallow me in one\nmouthful--glump!--like that!\"\n\n\"Why, sister, they're going to love you--same as I would if I didn't\nthink the doc here would beat me up!\"\n\n\"B-but----I don't dare! Faces to the right of me, faces in front of me,\nvolley and wonder!\"\n\nShe sounded hysterical to herself; she fancied that to Sam Clark she\nsounded insane. But he chuckled, \"Now you just cuddle under Sam's wing,\nand if anybody rubbers at you too long, I'll shoo 'em off. Here we go!\nWatch my smoke--Sam'l, the ladies' delight and the bridegrooms' terror!\"\n\nHis arm about her, he led her in and bawled, \"Ladies and worser halves,\nthe bride! We won't introduce her round yet, because she'll never get\nyour bum names straight anyway. Now bust up this star-chamber!\"\n\nThey tittered politely, but they did not move from the social security\nof their circle, and they did not cease staring.\n\nCarol had given creative energy to dressing for the event. Her hair was\ndemure, low on her forehead with a parting and a coiled braid. Now she\nwished that she had piled it high. Her frock was an ingenue slip\nof lawn, with a wide gold sash and a low square neck, which gave a\nsuggestion of throat and molded shoulders. But as they looked her over\nshe was certain that it was all wrong. She wished alternately that she\nhad worn a spinsterish high-necked dress, and that she had dared to\nshock them with a violent brick-red scarf which she had bought in\nChicago.\n\nShe was led about the circle. Her voice mechanically produced safe\nremarks:\n\n\"Oh, I'm sure I'm going to like it here ever so much,\" and \"Yes, we did\nhave the best time in Colorado--mountains,\" and \"Yes, I lived in St.\nPaul several years. Euclid P. Tinker? No, I don't REMEMBER meeting him,\nbut I'm pretty sure I've heard of him.\"\n\nKennicott took her aside and whispered, \"Now I'll introduce you to them,\none at a time.\"\n\n\"Tell me about them first.\"\n\n\"Well, the nice-looking couple over there are Harry Haydock and his\nwife, Juanita. Harry's dad owns most of the Bon Ton, but it's Harry who\nruns it and gives it the pep. He's a hustler. Next to him is Dave Dyer\nthe druggist--you met him this afternoon--mighty good duck-shot.\nThe tall husk beyond him is Jack Elder--Jackson Elder--owns the\nplaning-mill, and the Minniemashie House, and quite a share in the\nFarmers' National Bank. Him and his wife are good sports--him and Sam\nand I go hunting together a lot. The old cheese there is Luke Dawson,\nthe richest man in town. Next to him is Nat Hicks, the tailor.\"\n\n\"Really? A tailor?\"\n\n\"Sure. Why not? Maybe we're slow, but we are democratic. I go hunting\nwith Nat same as I do with Jack Elder.\"\n\n\"I'm glad. I've never met a tailor socially. It must be charming to meet\none and not have to think about what you owe him. And do you----Would\nyou go hunting with your barber, too?\"\n\n\"No but----No use running this democracy thing into the ground.\nBesides, I've known Nat for years, and besides, he's a mighty good shot\nand----That's the way it is, see? Next to Nat is Chet Dashaway. Great\nfellow for chinning. He'll talk your arm off, about religion or politics\nor books or anything.\"\n\nCarol gazed with a polite approximation to interest at Mr. Dashaway,\na tan person with a wide mouth. \"Oh, I know! He's the furniture-store\nman!\" She was much pleased with herself.\n\n\"Yump, and he's the undertaker. You'll like him. Come shake hands with\nhim.\"\n\n\"Oh no, no! He doesn't--he doesn't do the embalming and all\nthat--himself? I couldn't shake hands with an undertaker!\"\n\n\"Why not? You'd be proud to shake hands with a great surgeon, just after\nhe'd been carving up people's bellies.\"\n\nShe sought to regain her afternoon's calm of maturity. \"Yes. You're\nright. I want--oh, my dear, do you know how much I want to like the\npeople you like? I want to see people as they are.\"\n\n\"Well, don't forget to see people as other folks see them as they are!\nThey have the stuff. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here?\nBorn and brought up here!\"\n\n\"Bresnahan?\"\n\n\"Yes--you know--president of the Velvet Motor Company of Boston,\nMass.--make the Velvet Twelve--biggest automobile factory in New\nEngland.\"\n\n\"I think I've heard of him.\"\n\n\"Sure you have. Why, he's a millionaire several times over! Well, Perce\ncomes back here for the black-bass fishing almost every summer, and he\nsays if he could get away from business, he'd rather live here than\nin Boston or New York or any of those places. HE doesn't mind Chet's\nundertaking.\"\n\n\"Please! I'll--I'll like everybody! I'll be the community sunbeam!\"\n\nHe led her to the Dawsons.\n\nLuke Dawson, lender of money on mortgages, owner of Northern cut-over\nland, was a hesitant man in unpressed soft gray clothes, with bulging\neyes in a milky face. His wife had bleached cheeks, bleached hair,\nbleached voice, and a bleached manner. She wore her expensive green\nfrock, with its passementeried bosom, bead tassels, and gaps between the\nbuttons down the back, as though she had bought it second-hand and was\nafraid of meeting the former owner. They were shy. It was \"Professor\"\nGeorge Edwin Mott, superintendent of schools, a Chinese mandarin turned\nbrown, who held Carol's hand and made her welcome.\n\nWhen the Dawsons and Mr. Mott had stated that they were \"pleased to meet\nher,\" there seemed to be nothing else to say, but the conversation went\non automatically.\n\n\"Do you like Gopher Prairie?\" whimpered Mrs. Dawson.\n\n\"Oh, I'm sure I'm going to be ever so happy.\"\n\n\"There's so many nice people.\" Mrs. Dawson looked to Mr. Mott for social\nand intellectual aid. He lectured:\n\n\"There's a fine class of people. I don't like some of these retired\nfarmers who come here to spend their last days--especially the Germans.\nThey hate to pay school-taxes. They hate to spend a cent. But the rest\nare a fine class of people. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan came from\nhere? Used to go to school right at the old building!\"\n\n\"I heard he did.\"\n\n\"Yes. He's a prince. He and I went fishing together, last time he was\nhere.\"\n\nThe Dawsons and Mr. Mott teetered upon weary feet, and smiled at Carol\nwith crystallized expressions. She went on:\n\n\"Tell me, Mr. Mott: Have you ever tried any experiments with any of the\nnew educational systems? The modern kindergarten methods or the Gary\nsystem?\"\n\n\"Oh. Those. Most of these would-be reformers are simply\nnotoriety-seekers. I believe in manual training, but Latin and\nmathematics always will be the backbone of sound Americanism, no matter\nwhat these faddists advocate--heaven knows what they do want--knitting,\nI suppose, and classes in wiggling the ears!\"\n\nThe Dawsons smiled their appreciation of listening to a savant. Carol\nwaited till Kennicott should rescue her. The rest of the party waited\nfor the miracle of being amused.\n\nHarry and Juanita Haydock, Rita Simons and Dr. Terry Gould--the young\nsmart set of Gopher Prairie. She was led to them. Juanita Haydock flung\nat her in a high, cackling, friendly voice:\n\n\"Well, this is SO nice to have you here. We'll have some good\nparties--dances and everything. You'll have to join the Jolly Seventeen.\nWe play bridge and we have a supper once a month. You play, of course?\"\n\n\"N-no, I don't.\"\n\n\"Really? In St. Paul?\"\n\n\"I've always been such a book-worm.\"\n\n\"We'll have to teach you. Bridge is half the fun of life.\" Juanita had\nbecome patronizing, and she glanced disrespectfully at Carol's golden\nsash, which she had previously admired.\n\nHarry Haydock said politely, \"How do you think you're going to like the\nold burg?\"\n\n\"I'm sure I shall like it tremendously.\"\n\n\"Best people on earth here. Great hustlers, too. Course I've had lots\nof chances to go live in Minneapolis, but we like it here. Real he-town.\nDid you know that Percy Bresnahan came from here?\"\n\nCarol perceived that she had been weakened in the biological struggle\nby disclosing her lack of bridge. Roused to nervous desire to regain\nher position she turned on Dr. Terry Gould, the young and pool-playing\ncompetitor of her husband. Her eyes coquetted with him while she gushed:\n\n\"I'll learn bridge. But what I really love most is the outdoors. Can't\nwe all get up a boating party, and fish, or whatever you do, and have a\npicnic supper afterwards?\"\n\n\"Now you're talking!\" Dr. Gould affirmed. He looked rather too obviously\nat the cream-smooth slope of her shoulder. \"Like fishing? Fishing is my\nmiddle name. I'll teach you bridge. Like cards at all?\"\n\n\"I used to be rather good at bezique.\"\n\nShe knew that bezique was a game of cards--or a game of something else.\nRoulette, possibly. But her lie was a triumph. Juanita's handsome,\nhigh-colored, horsey face showed doubt. Harry stroked his nose and said\nhumbly, \"Bezique? Used to be great gambling game, wasn't it?\"\n\nWhile others drifted to her group, Carol snatched up the conversation.\nShe laughed and was frivolous and rather brittle. She could not\ndistinguish their eyes. They were a blurry theater-audience before which\nshe self-consciously enacted the comedy of being the Clever Little Bride\nof Doc Kennicott:\n\n\"These-here celebrated Open Spaces, that's what I'm going out for. I'll\nnever read anything but the sporting-page again. Will converted me on\nour Colorado trip. There were so many mousey tourists who were afraid\nto get out of the motor 'bus that I decided to be Annie Oakley, the Wild\nWestern Wampire, and I bought oh! a vociferous skirt which revealed\nmy perfectly nice ankles to the Presbyterian glare of all the Ioway\nschoolma'ams, and I leaped from peak to peak like the nimble chamoys,\nand----You may think that Herr Doctor Kennicott is a Nimrod, but you\nought to have seen me daring him to strip to his B. V. D.'s and go\nswimming in an icy mountain brook.\"\n\nShe knew that they were thinking of becoming shocked, but Juanita\nHaydock was admiring, at least. She swaggered on:\n\n\"I'm sure I'm going to ruin Will as a respectable practitioner----Is he\na good doctor, Dr. Gould?\"\n\nKennicott's rival gasped at this insult to professional ethics, and he\ntook an appreciable second before he recovered his social manner.\n\"I'll tell you, Mrs. Kennicott.\" He smiled at Kennicott, to imply that\nwhatever he might say in the stress of being witty was not to count\nagainst him in the commercio-medical warfare. \"There's some people\nin town that say the doc is a fair to middlin' diagnostician and\nprescription-writer, but let me whisper this to you--but for heaven's\nsake don't tell him I said so--don't you ever go to him for anything\nmore serious than a pendectomy of the left ear or a strabismus of the\ncardiograph.\"\n\nNo one save Kennicott knew exactly what this meant, but they laughed,\nand Sam Clark's party assumed a glittering lemon-yellow color of brocade\npanels and champagne and tulle and crystal chandeliers and sporting\nduchesses. Carol saw that George Edwin Mott and the blanched Mr. and\nMrs. Dawson were not yet hypnotized. They looked as though they wondered\nwhether they ought to look as though they disapproved. She concentrated\non them:\n\n\"But I know whom I wouldn't have dared to go to Colorado with! Mr.\nDawson there! I'm sure he's a regular heart-breaker. When we were\nintroduced he held my hand and squeezed it frightfully.\"\n\n\"Haw! Haw! Haw!\" The entire company applauded. Mr. Dawson was beatified.\nHe had been called many things--loan-shark, skinflint, tightwad,\npussyfoot--but he had never before been called a flirt.\n\n\"He is wicked, isn't he, Mrs. Dawson? Don't you have to lock him up?\"\n\n\"Oh no, but maybe I better,\" attempted Mrs. Dawson, a tint on her pallid\nface.\n\nFor fifteen minutes Carol kept it up. She asserted that she was going\nto stage a musical comedy, that she preferred cafe parfait to beefsteak,\nthat she hoped Dr. Kennicott would never lose his ability to make love\nto charming women, and that she had a pair of gold stockings. They gaped\nfor more. But she could not keep it up. She retired to a chair behind\nSam Clark's bulk. The smile-wrinkles solemnly flattened out in the faces\nof all the other collaborators in having a party, and again they stood\nabout hoping but not expecting to be amused.\n\nCarol listened. She discovered that conversation did not exist in Gopher\nPrairie. Even at this affair, which brought out the young smart set,\nthe hunting squire set, the respectable intellectual set, and the solid\nfinancial set, they sat up with gaiety as with a corpse.\n\nJuanita Haydock talked a good deal in her rattling voice but it was\ninvariably of personalities: the rumor that Raymie Wutherspoon was going\nto send for a pair of patent leather shoes with gray buttoned tops; the\nrheumatism of Champ Perry; the state of Guy Pollock's grippe; and the\ndementia of Jim Howland in painting his fence salmon-pink.\n\nSam Clark had been talking to Carol about motor cars, but he felt\nhis duties as host. While he droned, his brows popped up and down. He\ninterrupted himself, \"Must stir 'em up.\" He worried at his wife, \"Don't\nyou think I better stir 'em up?\" He shouldered into the center of the\nroom, and cried:\n\n\"Let's have some stunts, folks.\"\n\n\"Yes, let's!\" shrieked Juanita Haydock.\n\n\"Say, Dave, give us that stunt about the Norwegian catching a hen.\"\n\n\"You bet; that's a slick stunt; do that, Dave!\" cheered Chet Dashaway.\n\nMr. Dave Dyer obliged.\n\nAll the guests moved their lips in anticipation of being called on for\ntheir own stunts.\n\n\"Ella, come on and recite 'Old Sweetheart of Mine,' for us,\" demanded\nSam.\n\nMiss Ella Stowbody, the spinster daughter of the Ionic bank, scratched\nher dry palms and blushed. \"Oh, you don't want to hear that old thing\nagain.\"\n\n\"Sure we do! You bet!\" asserted Sam.\n\n\"My voice is in terrible shape tonight.\"\n\n\"Tut! Come on!\"\n\nSam loudly explained to Carol, \"Ella is our shark at elocuting. She's\nhad professional training. She studied singing and oratory and dramatic\nart and shorthand for a year, in Milwaukee.\"\n\nMiss Stowbody was reciting. As encore to \"An Old Sweetheart of Mine,\"\nshe gave a peculiarly optimistic poem regarding the value of smiles.\n\nThere were four other stunts: one Jewish, one Irish, one juvenile, and\nNat Hicks's parody of Mark Antony's funeral oration.\n\nDuring the winter Carol was to hear Dave Dyer's hen-catching\nimpersonation seven times, \"An Old Sweetheart of Mine\" nine times, the\nJewish story and the funeral oration twice; but now she was ardent\nand, because she did so want to be happy and simple-hearted, she was as\ndisappointed as the others when the stunts were finished, and the party\ninstantly sank back into coma.\n\nThey gave up trying to be festive; they began to talk naturally, as they\ndid at their shops and homes.\n\nThe men and women divided, as they had been tending to do all evening.\nCarol was deserted by the men, left to a group of matrons who steadily\npattered of children, sickness, and cooks--their own shop-talk. She was\npiqued. She remembered visions of herself as a smart married woman in\na drawing-room, fencing with clever men. Her dejection was relieved by\nspeculation as to what the men were discussing, in the corner between\nthe piano and the phonograph. Did they rise from these housewifely\npersonalities to a larger world of abstractions and affairs?\n\nShe made her best curtsy to Mrs. Dawson; she twittered, \"I won't have my\nhusband leaving me so soon! I'm going over and pull the wretch's\nears.\" She rose with a jeune fille bow. She was self-absorbed and\nself-approving because she had attained that quality of sentimentality.\nShe proudly dipped across the room and, to the interest and commendation\nof all beholders, sat on the arm of Kennicott's chair.\n\nHe was gossiping with Sam Clark, Luke Dawson, Jackson Elder of the\nplaning-mill, Chet Dashaway, Dave Dyer, Harry Haydock, and Ezra\nStowbody, president of the Ionic bank.\n\nEzra Stowbody was a troglodyte. He had come to Gopher Prairie in 1865.\nHe was a distinguished bird of prey--swooping thin nose, turtle mouth,\nthick brows, port-wine cheeks, floss of white hair, contemptuous eyes.\nHe was not happy in the social changes of thirty years. Three decades\nago, Dr. Westlake, Julius Flickerbaugh the lawyer, Merriman Peedy the\nCongregational pastor and himself had been the arbiters. That was as\nit should be; the fine arts--medicine, law, religion, and\nfinance--recognized as aristocratic; four Yankees democratically\nchatting with but ruling the Ohioans and Illini and Swedes and Germans\nwho had ventured to follow them. But Westlake was old, almost retired;\nJulius Flickerbaugh had lost much of his practice to livelier attorneys;\nReverend (not The Reverend) Peedy was dead; and nobody was impressed in\nthis rotten age of automobiles by the \"spanking grays\" which Ezra still\ndrove. The town was as heterogeneous as Chicago. Norwegians and Germans\nowned stores. The social leaders were common merchants. Selling nails\nwas considered as sacred as banking. These upstarts--the Clarks, the\nHaydocks--had no dignity. They were sound and conservative in politics,\nbut they talked about motor cars and pump-guns and heaven only knew\nwhat new-fangled fads. Mr. Stowbody felt out of place with them. But\nhis brick house with the mansard roof was still the largest residence in\ntown, and he held his position as squire by occasionally appearing among\nthe younger men and reminding them by a wintry eye that without the\nbanker none of them could carry on their vulgar businesses.\n\nAs Carol defied decency by sitting down with the men, Mr. Stowbody was\npiping to Mr. Dawson, \"Say, Luke, when was't Biggins first settled in\nWinnebago Township? Wa'n't it in 1879?\"\n\n\"Why no 'twa'n't!\" Mr. Dawson was indignant. \"He come out from Vermont\nin 1867--no, wait, in 1868, it must have been--and took a claim on the\nRum River, quite a ways above Anoka.\"\n\n\"He did not!\" roared Mr. Stowbody. \"He settled first in Blue Earth\nCounty, him and his father!\"\n\n(\"What's the point at issue?\") Carol whispered to Kennicott.\n\n(\"Whether this old duck Biggins had an English setter or a Llewellyn.\nThey've been arguing it all evening!\")\n\nDave Dyer interrupted to give tidings, \"D' tell you that Clara Biggins\nwas in town couple days ago? She bought a hot-water bottle--expensive\none, too--two dollars and thirty cents!\"\n\n\"Yaaaaaah!\" snarled Mr. Stowbody. \"Course. She's just like her grandad\nwas. Never save a cent. Two dollars and twenty--thirty, was it?--two\ndollars and thirty cents for a hot-water bottle! Brick wrapped up in a\nflannel petticoat just as good, anyway!\"\n\n\"How's Ella's tonsils, Mr. Stowbody?\" yawned Chet Dashaway.\n\nWhile Mr. Stowbody gave a somatic and psychic study of them, Carol\nreflected, \"Are they really so terribly interested in Ella's tonsils,\nor even in Ella's esophagus? I wonder if I could get them away from\npersonalities? Let's risk damnation and try.\"\n\n\"There hasn't been much labor trouble around here, has there, Mr.\nStowbody?\" she asked innocently.\n\n\"No, ma'am, thank God, we've been free from that, except maybe with\nhired girls and farm-hands. Trouble enough with these foreign farmers;\nif you don't watch these Swedes they turn socialist or populist or some\nfool thing on you in a minute. Of course, if they have loans you can\nmake 'em listen to reason. I just have 'em come into the bank for a\ntalk, and tell 'em a few things. I don't mind their being democrats,\nso much, but I won't stand having socialists around. But thank God, we\nain't got the labor trouble they have in these cities. Even Jack Elder\nhere gets along pretty well, in the planing-mill, don't you, Jack?\"\n\n\"Yep. Sure. Don't need so many skilled workmen in my place, and it's\na lot of these cranky, wage-hogging, half-baked skilled mechanics that\nstart trouble--reading a lot of this anarchist literature and union\npapers and all.\"\n\n\"Do you approve of union labor?\" Carol inquired of Mr. Elder.\n\n\"Me? I should say not! It's like this: I don't mind dealing with my men\nif they think they've got any grievances--though Lord knows what's come\nover workmen, nowadays--don't appreciate a good job. But still, if they\ncome to me honestly, as man to man, I'll talk things over with them. But\nI'm not going to have any outsider, any of these walking delegates, or\nwhatever fancy names they call themselves now--bunch of rich grafters,\nliving on the ignorant workmen! Not going to have any of those fellows\nbutting in and telling ME how to run MY business!\"\n\nMr. Elder was growing more excited, more belligerent and patriotic. \"I\nstand for freedom and constitutional rights. If any man don't like my\nshop, he can get up and git. Same way, if I don't like him, he gits.\nAnd that's all there is to it. I simply can't understand all these\ncomplications and hoop-te-doodles and government reports and wage-scales\nand God knows what all that these fellows are balling up the labor\nsituation with, when it's all perfectly simple. They like what I pay\n'em, or they get out. That's all there is to it!\"\n\n\"What do you think of profit-sharing?\" Carol ventured.\n\nMr. Elder thundered his answer, while the others nodded, solemnly and\nin tune, like a shop-window of flexible toys, comic mandarins and judges\nand ducks and clowns, set quivering by a breeze from the open door:\n\n\"All this profit-sharing and welfare work and insurance and old-age\npension is simply poppycock. Enfeebles a workman's independence--and\nwastes a lot of honest profit. The half-baked thinker that isn't dry\nbehind the ears yet, and these suffragettes and God knows what all\nbuttinskis there are that are trying to tell a business man how to run\nhis business, and some of these college professors are just about as\nbad, the whole kit and bilin' of 'em are nothing in God's world but\nsocialism in disguise! And it's my bounden duty as a producer to resist\nevery attack on the integrity of American industry to the last ditch.\nYes--SIR!\"\n\nMr. Elder wiped his brow.\n\nDave Dyer added, \"Sure! You bet! What they ought to do is simply to\nhang every one of these agitators, and that would settle the whole thing\nright off. Don't you think so, doc?\"\n\n\"You bet,\" agreed Kennicott.\n\nThe conversation was at last relieved of the plague of Carol's\nintrusions and they settled down to the question of whether the justice\nof the peace had sent that hobo drunk to jail for ten days or twelve.\nIt was a matter not readily determined. Then Dave Dyer communicated his\ncarefree adventures on the gipsy trail:\n\n\"Yep. I get good time out of the flivver. 'Bout a week ago I motored\ndown to New Wurttemberg. That's forty-three----No, let's see: It's\nseventeen miles to Belldale, and 'bout six and three-quarters, call it\nseven, to Torgenquist, and it's a good nineteen miles from there to New\nWurttemberg--seventeen and seven and nineteen, that makes, uh, let me\nsee: seventeen and seven 's twenty-four, plus nineteen, well say plus\ntwenty, that makes forty-four, well anyway, say about forty-three\nor -four miles from here to New Wurttemberg. We got started about\nseven-fifteen, prob'ly seven-twenty, because I had to stop and fill the\nradiator, and we ran along, just keeping up a good steady gait----\"\n\nMr. Dyer did finally, for reasons and purposes admitted and justified,\nattain to New Wurttemberg.\n\nOnce--only once--the presence of the alien Carol was recognized. Chet\nDashaway leaned over and said asthmatically, \"Say, uh, have you been\nreading this serial 'Two Out' in Tingling Tales? Corking yarn! Gosh, the\nfellow that wrote it certainly can sling baseball slang!\"\n\nThe others tried to look literary. Harry Haydock offered, \"Juanita is\na great hand for reading high-class stuff, like 'Mid the Magnolias' by\nthis Sara Hetwiggin Butts, and 'Riders of Ranch Reckless.' Books. But\nme,\" he glanced about importantly, as one convinced that no other hero\nhad ever been in so strange a plight, \"I'm so darn busy I don't have\nmuch time to read.\"\n\n\"I never read anything I can't check against,\" said Sam Clark.\n\nThus ended the literary portion of the conversation, and for seven\nminutes Jackson Elder outlined reasons for believing that the\npike-fishing was better on the west shore of Lake Minniemashie than on\nthe east--though it was indeed quite true that on the east shore Nat\nHicks had caught a pike altogether admirable.\n\nThe talk went on. It did go on! Their voices were monotonous,\nthick, emphatic. They were harshly pompous, like men in the\nsmoking-compartments of Pullman cars. They did not bore Carol. They\nfrightened her. She panted, \"They will be cordial to me, because my man\nbelongs to their tribe. God help me if I were an outsider!\"\n\nSmiling as changelessly as an ivory figurine she sat quiescent, avoiding\nthought, glancing about the living-room and hall, noting their betrayal\nof unimaginative commercial prosperity. Kennicott said, \"Dandy interior,\neh? My idea of how a place ought to be furnished. Modern.\" She looked\npolite, and observed the oiled floors, hard-wood staircase, unused\nfireplace with tiles which resembled brown linoleum, cut-glass vases\nstanding upon doilies, and the barred, shut, forbidding unit bookcases\nthat were half filled with swashbuckler novels and unread-looking sets\nof Dickens, Kipling, O. Henry, and Elbert Hubbard.\n\nShe perceived that even personalities were failing to hold the party.\nThe room filled with hesitancy as with a fog. People cleared their\nthroats, tried to choke down yawns. The men shot their cuffs and the\nwomen stuck their combs more firmly into their back hair.\n\nThen a rattle, a daring hope in every eye, the swinging of a door, the\nsmell of strong coffee, Dave Dyer's mewing voice in a triumphant, \"The\neats!\" They began to chatter. They had something to do. They could\nescape from themselves. They fell upon the food--chicken sandwiches,\nmaple cake, drug-store ice cream. Even when the food was gone they\nremained cheerful. They could go home, any time now, and go to bed!\n\nThey went, with a flutter of coats, chiffon scarfs, and good-bys.\n\nCarol and Kennicott walked home.\n\n\"Did you like them?\" he asked.\n\n\"They were terribly sweet to me.\"\n\n\"Uh, Carrie----You ought to be more careful about shocking folks.\nTalking about gold stockings, and about showing your ankles to\nschoolteachers and all!\" More mildly: \"You gave 'em a good time, but I'd\nwatch out for that, 'f I were you. Juanita Haydock is such a damn cat. I\nwouldn't give her a chance to criticize me.\"\n\n\"My poor effort to lift up the party! Was I wrong to try to amuse them?\"\n\n\"No! No! Honey, I didn't mean----You were the only up-and-coming person\nin the bunch. I just mean----Don't get onto legs and all that immoral\nstuff. Pretty conservative crowd.\"\n\nShe was silent, raw with the shameful thought that the attentive circle\nmight have been criticizing her, laughing at her.\n\n\"Don't, please don't worry!\" he pleaded.\n\n\"Silence.\"\n\n\"Gosh; I'm sorry I spoke about it. I just meant----But they were crazy\nabout you. Sam said to me, 'That little lady of yours is the slickest\nthing that ever came to this town,' he said; and Ma Dawson--I didn't\nhardly know whether she'd like you or not, she's such a dried-up old\nbird, but she said, 'Your bride is so quick and bright, I declare, she\njust wakes me up.'\"\n\nCarol liked praise, the flavor and fatness of it, but she was so\nenergetically being sorry for herself that she could not taste this\ncommendation.\n\n\"Please! Come on! Cheer up!\" His lips said it, his anxious shoulder said\nit, his arm about her said it, as they halted on the obscure porch of\ntheir house.\n\n\"Do you care if they think I'm flighty, Will?\"\n\n\"Me? Why, I wouldn't care if the whole world thought you were this or\nthat or anything else. You're my--well, you're my soul!\"\n\nHe was an undefined mass, as solid-seeming as rock. She found his\nsleeve, pinched it, cried, \"I'm glad! It's sweet to be wanted! You must\ntolerate my frivolousness. You're all I have!\"\n\nHe lifted her, carried her into the house, and with her arms about his\nneck she forgot Main Street.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nI\n\n\n\"WE'LL steal the whole day, and go hunting. I want you to see the\ncountry round here,\" Kennicott announced at breakfast. \"I'd take the\ncar--want you to see how swell she runs since I put in a new piston.\nBut we'll take a team, so we can get right out into the fields. Not many\nprairie chickens left now, but we might just happen to run onto a small\ncovey.\"\n\nHe fussed over his hunting-kit. He pulled his hip boots out to full\nlength and examined them for holes. He feverishly counted his shotgun\nshells, lecturing her on the qualities of smokeless powder. He drew the\nnew hammerless shotgun out of its heavy tan leather case and made her\npeep through the barrels to see how dazzlingly free they were from rust.\n\nThe world of hunting and camping-outfits and fishing-tackle was\nunfamiliar to her, and in Kennicott's interest she found something\ncreative and joyous. She examined the smooth stock, the carved hard\nrubber butt of the gun. The shells, with their brass caps and sleek\ngreen bodies and hieroglyphics on the wads, were cool and comfortably\nheavy in her hands.\n\nKennicott wore a brown canvas hunting-coat with vast pockets lining\nthe inside, corduroy trousers which bulged at the wrinkles, peeled and\nscarred shoes, a scarecrow felt hat. In this uniform he felt virile.\nThey clumped out to the livery buggy, they packed the kit and the box of\nlunch into the back, crying to each other that it was a magnificent day.\n\nKennicott had borrowed Jackson Elder's red and white English setter, a\ncomplacent dog with a waving tail of silver hair which flickered in the\nsunshine. As they started, the dog yelped, and leaped at the horses'\nheads, till Kennicott took him into the buggy, where he nuzzled Carol's\nknees and leaned out to sneer at farm mongrels.\n\nThe grays clattered out on the hard dirt road with a pleasant song of\nhoofs: \"Ta ta ta rat! Ta ta ta rat!\" It was early and fresh, the air\nwhistling, frost bright on the golden rod. As the sun warmed the world\nof stubble into a welter of yellow they turned from the highroad,\nthrough the bars of a farmer's gate, into a field, slowly bumping over\nthe uneven earth. In a hollow of the rolling prairie they lost sight\neven of the country road. It was warm and placid. Locusts trilled among\nthe dry wheat-stalks, and brilliant little flies hurtled across the\nbuggy. A buzz of content filled the air. Crows loitered and gossiped in\nthe sky.\n\nThe dog had been let out and after a dance of excitement he settled down\nto a steady quartering of the field, forth and back, forth and back, his\nnose down.\n\n\"Pete Rustad owns this farm, and he told me he saw a small covey of\nchickens in the west forty, last week. Maybe we'll get some sport after\nall,\" Kennicott chuckled blissfully.\n\nShe watched the dog in suspense, breathing quickly every time he seemed\nto halt. She had no desire to slaughter birds, but she did desire to\nbelong to Kennicott's world.\n\nThe dog stopped, on the point, a forepaw held up.\n\n\"By golly! He's hit a scent! Come on!\" squealed Kennicott. He leaped\nfrom the buggy, twisted the reins about the whip-socket, swung her out,\ncaught up his gun, slipped in two shells, stalked toward the rigid dog,\nCarol pattering after him. The setter crawled ahead, his tail quivering,\nhis belly close to the stubble. Carol was nervous. She expected clouds\nof large birds to fly up instantly. Her eyes were strained with staring.\nBut they followed the dog for a quarter of a mile, turning, doubling,\ncrossing two low hills, kicking through a swale of weeds, crawling\nbetween the strands of a barbed-wire fence. The walking was hard on\nher pavement-trained feet. The earth was lumpy, the stubble prickly and\nlined with grass, thistles, abortive stumps of clover. She dragged and\nfloundered.\n\nShe heard Kennicott gasp, \"Look!\" Three gray birds were starting up\nfrom the stubble. They were round, dumpy, like enormous bumble bees.\nKennicott was sighting, moving the barrel. She was agitated. Why didn't\nhe fire? The birds would be gone! Then a crash, another, and two birds\nturned somersaults in the air, plumped down.\n\nWhen he showed her the birds she had no sensation of blood. These heaps\nof feathers were so soft and unbruised--there was about them no hint of\ndeath. She watched her conquering man tuck them into his inside pocket,\nand trudged with him back to the buggy.\n\nThey found no more prairie chickens that morning.\n\nAt noon they drove into her first farmyard, a private village, a white\nhouse with no porches save a low and quite dirty stoop at the back,\na crimson barn with white trimmings, a glazed brick silo, an\nex-carriage-shed, now the garage of a Ford, an unpainted cow-stable, a\nchicken-house, a pig-pen, a corn-crib, a granary, the galvanized-iron\nskeleton tower of a wind-mill. The dooryard was of packed yellow clay,\ntreeless, barren of grass, littered with rusty plowshares and wheels\nof discarded cultivators. Hardened trampled mud, like lava, filled the\npig-pen. The doors of the house were grime-rubbed, the corners and eaves\nwere rusted with rain, and the child who stared at them from the kitchen\nwindow was smeary-faced. But beyond the barn was a clump of scarlet\ngeraniums; the prairie breeze was sunshine in motion; the flashing metal\nblades of the windmill revolved with a lively hum; a horse neighed, a\nrooster crowed, martins flew in and out of the cow-stable.\n\nA small spare woman with flaxen hair trotted from the house. She was\ntwanging a Swedish patois--not in monotone, like English, but singing\nit, with a lyrical whine:\n\n\"Pete he say you kom pretty soon hunting, doctor. My, dot's fine you\nkom. Is dis de bride? Ohhhh! Ve yoost say las' night, ve hope maybe ve\nsee her som day. My, soch a pretty lady!\" Mrs. Rustad was shining with\nwelcome. \"Vell, vell! Ay hope you lak dis country! Von't you stay for\ndinner, doctor?\"\n\n\"No, but I wonder if you wouldn't like to give us a glass of milk?\"\ncondescended Kennicott.\n\n\"Vell Ay should say Ay vill! You vait har a second and Ay run on de\nmilk-house!\" She nervously hastened to a tiny red building beside the\nwindmill; she came back with a pitcher of milk from which Carol filled\nthe thermos bottle.\n\nAs they drove off Carol admired, \"She's the dearest thing I ever saw.\nAnd she adores you. You are the Lord of the Manor.\"\n\n\"Oh no,\" much pleased, \"but still they do ask my advice about things.\nBully people, these Scandinavian farmers. And prosperous, too. Helga\nRustad, she's still scared of America, but her kids will be doctors and\nlawyers and governors of the state and any darn thing they want to.\"\n\n\"I wonder----\" Carol was plunged back into last night's Weltschmerz.\n\"I wonder if these farmers aren't bigger than we are? So simple and\nhard-working. The town lives on them. We townies are parasites, and yet\nwe feel superior to them. Last night I heard Mr. Haydock talking about\n'hicks.' Apparently he despises the farmers because they haven't reached\nthe social heights of selling thread and buttons.\"\n\n\"Parasites? Us? Where'd the farmers be without the town? Who lends them\nmoney? Who--why, we supply them with everything!\"\n\n\"Don't you find that some of the farmers think they pay too much for the\nservices of the towns?\"\n\n\"Oh, of course there's a lot of cranks among the farmers same as there\nare among any class. Listen to some of these kickers, a fellow'd\nthink that the farmers ought to run the state and the whole\nshooting-match--probably if they had their way they'd fill up the\nlegislature with a lot of farmers in manure-covered boots--yes, and\nthey'd come tell me I was hired on a salary now, and couldn't fix my\nfees! That'd be fine for you, wouldn't it!\"\n\n\"But why shouldn't they?\"\n\n\"Why? That bunch of----Telling ME----Oh, for heaven's sake, let's quit\narguing. All this discussing may be all right at a party but----Let's\nforget it while we're hunting.\"\n\n\"I know. The Wonderlust--probably it's a worse affliction than the\nWanderlust. I just wonder----\"\n\nShe told herself that she had everything in the world. And after each\nself-rebuke she stumbled again on \"I just wonder----\"\n\nThey ate their sandwiches by a prairie slew: long grass reaching up out\nof clear water, mossy bogs, red-winged black-birds, the scum a splash of\ngold-green. Kennicott smoked a pipe while she leaned back in the buggy\nand let her tired spirit be absorbed in the Nirvana of the incomparable\nsky.\n\nThey lurched to the highroad and awoke from their sun-soaked drowse at\nthe sound of the clopping hoofs. They paused to look for partridges in a\nrim of woods, little woods, very clean and shiny and gay, silver birches\nand poplars with immaculate green trunks, encircling a lake of sandy\nbottom, a splashing seclusion demure in the welter of hot prairie.\n\nKennicott brought down a fat red squirrel and at dusk he had a dramatic\nshot at a flight of ducks whirling down from the upper air, skimming the\nlake, instantly vanishing.\n\nThey drove home under the sunset. Mounds of straw, and wheat-stacks like\nbee-hives, stood out in startling rose and gold, and the green-tufted\nstubble glistened. As the vast girdle of crimson darkened, the fulfilled\nland became autumnal in deep reds and browns. The black road before\nthe buggy turned to a faint lavender, then was blotted to uncertain\ngrayness. Cattle came in a long line up to the barred gates of the\nfarmyards, and over the resting land was a dark glow.\n\nCarol had found the dignity and greatness which had failed her in Main\nStreet.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nTill they had a maid they took noon dinner and six o'clock supper at\nMrs. Gurrey's boarding-house.\n\nMrs. Elisha Gurrey, relict of Deacon Gurrey the dealer in hay and grain,\nwas a pointed-nosed, simpering woman with iron-gray hair drawn so tight\nthat it resembled a soiled handkerchief covering her head. But she was\nunexpectedly cheerful, and her dining-room, with its thin tablecloth on\na long pine table, had the decency of clean bareness.\n\nIn the line of unsmiling, methodically chewing guests, like horses at\na manger, Carol came to distinguish one countenance: the pale, long,\nspectacled face and sandy pompadour hair of Mr. Raymond P. Wutherspoon,\nknown as \"Raymie,\" professional bachelor, manager and one half the\nsales-force in the shoe-department of the Bon Ton Store.\n\n\"You will enjoy Gopher Prairie very much, Mrs. Kennicott,\" petitioned\nRaymie. His eyes were like those of a dog waiting to be let in out of\nthe cold. He passed the stewed apricots effusively. \"There are a great\nmany bright cultured people here. Mrs. Wilks, the Christian Science\nreader, is a very bright woman--though I am not a Scientist myself,\nin fact I sing in the Episcopal choir. And Miss Sherwin of the high\nschool--she is such a pleasing, bright girl--I was fitting her to a pair\nof tan gaiters yesterday, I declare, it really was a pleasure.\"\n\n\"Gimme the butter, Carrie,\" was Kennicott's comment. She defied him by\nencouraging Raymie:\n\n\"Do you have amateur dramatics and so on here?\"\n\n\"Oh yes! The town's just full of talent. The Knights of Pythias put on a\ndandy minstrel show last year.\"\n\n\"It's nice you're so enthusiastic.\"\n\n\"Oh, do you really think so? Lots of folks jolly me for trying to get\nup shows and so on. I tell them they have more artistic gifts than they\nknow. Just yesterday I was saying to Harry Haydock: if he would read\npoetry, like Longfellow, or if he would join the band--I get so much\npleasure out of playing the cornet, and our band-leader, Del Snafflin,\nis such a good musician, I often say he ought to give up his barbering\nand become a professional musician, he could play the clarinet in\nMinneapolis or New York or anywhere, but--but I couldn't get Harry to\nsee it at all and--I hear you and the doctor went out hunting yesterday.\nLovely country, isn't it. And did you make some calls? The mercantile\nlife isn't inspiring like medicine. It must be wonderful to see how\npatients trust you, doctor.\"\n\n\"Huh. It's me that's got to do all the trusting. Be damn sight more\nwonderful 'f they'd pay their bills,\" grumbled Kennicott and, to Carol,\nhe whispered something which sounded like \"gentleman hen.\"\n\nBut Raymie's pale eyes were watering at her. She helped him with, \"So\nyou like to read poetry?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, so much--though to tell the truth, I don't get much time\nfor reading, we're always so busy at the store and----But we had the\ndandiest professional reciter at the Pythian Sisters sociable last\nwinter.\"\n\nCarol thought she heard a grunt from the traveling salesman at the end\nof the table, and Kennicott's jerking elbow was a grunt embodied. She\npersisted:\n\n\"Do you get to see many plays, Mr. Wutherspoon?\"\n\nHe shone at her like a dim blue March moon, and sighed, \"No, but I do\nlove the movies. I'm a real fan. One trouble with books is that they're\nnot so thoroughly safeguarded by intelligent censors as the movies are,\nand when you drop into the library and take out a book you never know\nwhat you're wasting your time on. What I like in books is a wholesome,\nreally improving story, and sometimes----Why, once I started a novel by\nthis fellow Balzac that you read about, and it told how a lady wasn't\nliving with her husband, I mean she wasn't his wife. It went into\ndetails, disgustingly! And the English was real poor. I spoke to the\nlibrary about it, and they took it off the shelves. I'm not narrow,\nbut I must say I don't see any use in this deliberately dragging in\nimmorality! Life itself is so full of temptations that in literature one\nwants only that which is pure and uplifting.\"\n\n\"What's the name of that Balzac yarn? Where can I get hold of it?\"\ngiggled the traveling salesman.\n\nRaymie ignored him. \"But the movies, they are mostly clean, and their\nhumor----Don't you think that the most essential quality for a person to\nhave is a sense of humor?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I really haven't much,\" said Carol.\n\nHe shook his finger at her. \"Now, now, you're too modest. I'm sure we\ncan all see that you have a perfectly corking sense of humor. Besides,\nDr. Kennicott wouldn't marry a lady that didn't have. We all know how he\nloves his fun!\"\n\n\"You bet. I'm a jokey old bird. Come on, Carrie; let's beat it,\"\nremarked Kennicott.\n\nRaymie implored, \"And what is your chief artistic interest, Mrs.\nKennicott?\"\n\n\"Oh----\" Aware that the traveling salesman had murmured, \"Dentistry,\"\nshe desperately hazarded, \"Architecture.\"\n\n\"That's a real nice art. I've always said--when Haydock & Simons were\nfinishing the new front on the Bon Ton building, the old man came to me,\nyou know, Harry's father, 'D. H.,' I always call him, and he asked me\nhow I liked it, and I said to him, 'Look here, D. H.,' I said--you see,\nhe was going to leave the front plain, and I said to him, 'It's all very\nwell to have modern lighting and a big display-space,' I said, 'but when\nyou get that in, you want to have some architecture, too,' I said, and\nhe laughed and said he guessed maybe I was right, and so he had 'em put\non a cornice.\"\n\n\"Tin!\" observed the traveling salesman.\n\nRaymie bared his teeth like a belligerent mouse. \"Well, what if it is\ntin? That's not my fault. I told D. H. to make it polished granite. You\nmake me tired!\"\n\n\"Leave us go! Come on, Carrie, leave us go!\" from Kennicott.\n\nRaymie waylaid them in the hall and secretly informed Carol that she\nmusn't mind the traveling salesman's coarseness--he belonged to the\nhwa pollwa.\n\nKennicott chuckled, \"Well, child, how about it? Do you prefer an\nartistic guy like Raymie to stupid boobs like Sam Clark and me?\"\n\n\"My dear! Let's go home, and play pinochle, and laugh, and be foolish,\nand slip up to bed, and sleep without dreaming. It's beautiful to be\njust a solid citizeness!\"\n\n\n\nIII\n\nFrom the Gopher Prairie Weekly Dauntless:\n\n\nOne of the most charming affairs of the season was held Tuesday evening\nat the handsome new residence of Sam and Mrs. Clark when many of our\nmost prominent citizens gathered to greet the lovely new bride of our\npopular local physician, Dr. Will Kennicott. All present spoke of the\nmany charms of the bride, formerly Miss Carol Milford of St. Paul. Games\nand stunts were the order of the day, with merry talk and conversation.\nAt a late hour dainty refreshments were served, and the party broke up\nwith many expressions of pleasure at the pleasant affair. Among those\npresent were Mesdames Kennicott, Elder----\n\n* * * * *\n\nDr. Will Kennicott, for the past several years one of our most popular\nand skilful physicians and surgeons, gave the town a delightful surprise\nwhen he returned from an extended honeymoon tour in Colorado this week\nwith his charming bride, nee Miss Carol Milford of St. Paul, whose\nfamily are socially prominent in Minneapolis and Mankato. Mrs. Kennicott\nis a lady of manifold charms, not only of striking charm of appearance\nbut is also a distinguished graduate of a school in the East and has\nfor the past year been prominently connected in an important position\nof responsibility with the St. Paul Public Library, in which city Dr.\n\"Will\" had the good fortune to meet her. The city of Gopher Prairie\nwelcomes her to our midst and prophesies for her many happy years in\nthe energetic city of the twin lakes and the future. The Dr. and Mrs.\nKennicott will reside for the present at the Doctor's home on Poplar\nStreet which his charming mother has been keeping for him who has now\nreturned to her own home at Lac-qui-Meurt leaving a host of friends who\nregret her absence and hope to see her soon with us again.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nShe knew that if she was ever to effect any of the \"reforms\" which she\nhad pictured, she must have a starting-place. What confused her during\nthe three or four months after her marriage was not lack of perception\nthat she must be definite, but sheer careless happiness of her first\nhome.\n\nIn the pride of being a housewife she loved every detail--the brocade\narmchair with the weak back, even the brass water-cock on the hot-water\nreservoir, when she had become familiar with it by trying to scour it to\nbrilliance.\n\nShe found a maid--plump radiant Bea Sorenson from Scandia Crossing. Bea\nwas droll in her attempt to be at once a respectful servant and a bosom\nfriend. They laughed together over the fact that the stove did not draw,\nover the slipperiness of fish in the pan.\n\nLike a child playing Grandma in a trailing skirt, Carol paraded uptown\nfor her marketing, crying greetings to housewives along the way.\nEverybody bowed to her, strangers and all, and made her feel that they\nwanted her, that she belonged here. In city shops she was merely A\nCustomer--a hat, a voice to bore a harassed clerk. Here she was Mrs. Doc\nKennicott, and her preferences in grape-fruit and manners were known\nand remembered and worth discussing . . . even if they weren't worth\nfulfilling.\n\nShopping was a delight of brisk conferences. The very merchants whose\ndroning she found the dullest at the two or three parties which were\ngiven to welcome her were the pleasantest confidants of all when they\nhad something to talk about--lemons or cotton voile or floor-oil.\nWith that skip-jack Dave Dyer, the druggist, she conducted a long\nmock-quarrel. She pretended that he cheated her in the price of\nmagazines and candy; he pretended she was a detective from the Twin\nCities. He hid behind the prescription-counter, and when she stamped\nher foot he came out wailing, \"Honest, I haven't done nothing crooked\ntoday--not yet.\"\n\nShe never recalled her first impression of Main Street; never\nhad precisely the same despair at its ugliness. By the end of two\nshopping-tours everything had changed proportions. As she never entered\nit, the Minniemashie House ceased to exist for her. Clark's Hardware\nStore, Dyer's Drug Store, the groceries of Ole Jenson and Frederick\nLudelmeyer and Howland & Gould, the meat markets, the notions\nshop--they expanded, and hid all other structures. When she entered Mr.\nLudelmeyer's store and he wheezed, \"Goot mornin', Mrs. Kennicott. Vell,\ndis iss a fine day,\" she did not notice the dustiness of the shelves\nnor the stupidity of the girl clerk; and she did not remember the mute\ncolloquy with him on her first view of Main Street.\n\nShe could not find half the kinds of food she wanted, but that made\nshopping more of an adventure. When she did contrive to get sweetbreads\nat Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market the triumph was so vast that she buzzed\nwith excitement and admired the strong wise butcher, Mr. Dahl.\n\nShe appreciated the homely ease of village life. She liked the old men,\nfarmers, G.A.R. veterans, who when they gossiped sometimes squatted on\ntheir heels on the sidewalk, like resting Indians, and reflectively spat\nover the curb.\n\nShe found beauty in the children.\n\nShe had suspected that her married friends exaggerated their passion\nfor children. But in her work in the library, children had become\nindividuals to her, citizens of the State with their own rights and\ntheir own senses of humor. In the library she had not had much time\nto give them, but now she knew the luxury of stopping, gravely asking\nBessie Clark whether her doll had yet recovered from its rheumatism, and\nagreeing with Oscar Martinsen that it would be Good Fun to go trapping\n\"mushrats.\"\n\nShe touched the thought, \"It would be sweet to have a baby of my own. I\ndo want one. Tiny----No! Not yet! There's so much to do. And I'm still\ntired from the job. It's in my bones.\"\n\nShe rested at home. She listened to the village noises common to all\nthe world, jungle or prairie; sounds simple and charged with magic--dogs\nbarking, chickens making a gurgling sound of content, children at play,\na man beating a rug, wind in the cottonwood trees, a locust fiddling,\na footstep on the walk, jaunty voices of Bea and a grocer's boy in the\nkitchen, a clinking anvil, a piano--not too near.\n\nTwice a week, at least, she drove into the country with Kennicott, to\nhunt ducks in lakes enameled with sunset, or to call on patients who\nlooked up to her as the squire's lady and thanked her for toys and\nmagazines. Evenings she went with her husband to the motion pictures and\nwas boisterously greeted by every other couple; or, till it became too\ncold, they sat on the porch, bawling to passers-by in motors, or to\nneighbors who were raking the leaves. The dust became golden in the low\nsun; the street was filled with the fragrance of burning leaves.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nBut she hazily wanted some one to whom she could say what she thought.\n\nOn a slow afternoon when she fidgeted over sewing and wished that the\ntelephone would ring, Bea announced Miss Vida Sherwin.\n\nDespite Vida Sherwin's lively blue eyes, if you had looked at her in\ndetail you would have found her face slightly lined, and not so much\nsallow as with the bloom rubbed off; you would have found her chest\nflat, and her fingers rough from needle and chalk and penholder; her\nblouses and plain cloth skirts undistinguished; and her hat worn too far\nback, betraying a dry forehead. But you never did look at Vida Sherwin\nin detail. You couldn't. Her electric activity veiled her. She was as\nenergetic as a chipmunk. Her fingers fluttered; her sympathy came out\nin spurts; she sat on the edge of a chair in eagerness to be near her\nauditor, to send her enthusiasms and optimism across.\n\nShe rushed into the room pouring out: \"I'm afraid you'll think the\nteachers have been shabby in not coming near you, but we wanted to\ngive you a chance to get settled. I am Vida Sherwin, and I try to teach\nFrench and English and a few other things in the high school.\"\n\n\"I've been hoping to know the teachers. You see, I was a librarian----\"\n\n\"Oh, you needn't tell me. I know all about you! Awful how much I\nknow--this gossipy village. We need you so much here. It's a dear loyal\ntown (and isn't loyalty the finest thing in the world!) but it's a\nrough diamond, and we need you for the polishing, and we're ever so\nhumble----\" She stopped for breath and finished her compliment with a\nsmile.\n\n\"If I COULD help you in any way----Would I be committing the\nunpardonable sin if I whispered that I think Gopher Prairie is a tiny\nbit ugly?\"\n\n\"Of course it's ugly. Dreadfully! Though I'm probably the only person in\ntown to whom you could safely say that. (Except perhaps Guy Pollock\nthe lawyer--have you met him?--oh, you MUST!--he's simply a\ndarling--intelligence and culture and so gentle.) But I don't care so\nmuch about the ugliness. That will change. It's the spirit that gives\nme hope. It's sound. Wholesome. But afraid. It needs live creatures like\nyou to awaken it. I shall slave-drive you!\"\n\n\"Splendid. What shall I do? I've been wondering if it would be possible\nto have a good architect come here to lecture.\"\n\n\"Ye-es, but don't you think it would be better to work with existing\nagencies? Perhaps it will sound slow to you, but I was thinking----It\nwould be lovely if we could get you to teach Sunday School.\"\n\nCarol had the empty expression of one who finds that she has been\naffectionately bowing to a complete stranger. \"Oh yes. But I'm afraid I\nwouldn't be much good at that. My religion is so foggy.\"\n\n\"I know. So is mine. I don't care a bit for dogma. Though I do stick\nfirmly to the belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man\nand the leadership of Jesus. As you do, of course.\"\n\nCarol looked respectable and thought about having tea.\n\n\"And that's all you need teach in Sunday School. It's the personal\ninfluence. Then there's the library-board. You'd be so useful on that.\nAnd of course there's our women's study club--the Thanatopsis Club.\"\n\n\"Are they doing anything? Or do they read papers made out of the\nEncyclopedia?\"\n\nMiss Sherwin shrugged. \"Perhaps. But still, they are so earnest. They\nwill respond to your fresher interest. And the Thanatopsis does do a\ngood social work--they've made the city plant ever so many trees, and\nthey run the rest-room for farmers' wives. And they do take such an\ninterest in refinement and culture. So--in fact, so very unique.\"\n\nCarol was disappointed--by nothing very tangible. She said politely,\n\"I'll think them all over. I must have a while to look around first.\"\n\nMiss Sherwin darted to her, smoothed her hair, peered at her. \"Oh,\nmy dear, don't you suppose I know? These first tender days of\nmarriage--they're sacred to me. Home, and children that need you, and\ndepend on you to keep them alive, and turn to you with their wrinkly\nlittle smiles. And the hearth and----\" She hid her face from Carol as\nshe made an activity of patting the cushion of her chair, but she went\non with her former briskness:\n\n\"I mean, you must help us when you're ready. . . . I'm afraid you'll\nthink I'm conservative. I am! So much to conserve. All this treasure of\nAmerican ideals. Sturdiness and democracy and opportunity. Maybe not at\nPalm Beach. But, thank heaven, we're free from such social distinctions\nin Gopher Prairie. I have only one good quality--overwhelming belief in\nthe brains and hearts of our nation, our state, our town. It's so strong\nthat sometimes I do have a tiny effect on the haughty ten-thousandaires.\nI shake 'em up and make 'em believe in ideals--yes, in themselves. But\nI get into a rut of teaching. I need young critical things like you to\npunch me up. Tell me, what are you reading?\"\n\n\"I've been re-reading 'The Damnation of Theron Ware.' Do you know it?\"\n\n\"Yes. It was clever. But hard. Man wanted to tear down, not build up.\nCynical. Oh, I do hope I'm not a sentimentalist. But I can't see any use\nin this high-art stuff that doesn't encourage us day-laborers to plod\non.\"\n\nEnsued a fifteen-minute argument about the oldest topic in the world:\nIt's art but is it pretty? Carol tried to be eloquent regarding honesty\nof observation. Miss Sherwin stood out for sweetness and a cautious use\nof the uncomfortable properties of light. At the end Carol cried:\n\n\"I don't care how much we disagree. It's a relief to have somebody\ntalk something besides crops. Let's make Gopher Prairie rock to its\nfoundations: let's have afternoon tea instead of afternoon coffee.\"\n\nThe delighted Bea helped her bring out the ancestral folding\nsewing-table, whose yellow and black top was scarred with dotted lines\nfrom a dressmaker's tracing-wheel, and to set it with an embroidered\nlunch-cloth, and the mauve-glazed Japanese tea-set which she had brought\nfrom St. Paul. Miss Sherwin confided her latest scheme--moral motion\npictures for country districts, with light from a portable dynamo\nhitched to a Ford engine. Bea was twice called to fill the hot-water\npitcher and to make cinnamon toast.\n\nWhen Kennicott came home at five he tried to be courtly, as befits the\nhusband of one who has afternoon tea. Carol suggested that Miss Sherwin\nstay for supper, and that Kennicott invite Guy Pollock, the much-praised\nlawyer, the poetic bachelor.\n\nYes, Pollock could come. Yes, he was over the grippe which had prevented\nhis going to Sam Clark's party.\n\nCarol regretted her impulse. The man would be an opinionated politician,\nheavily jocular about The Bride. But at the entrance of Guy Pollock she\ndiscovered a personality. Pollock was a man of perhaps thirty-eight,\nslender, still, deferential. His voice was low. \"It was very good of you\nto want me,\" he said, and he offered no humorous remarks, and did not\nask her if she didn't think Gopher Prairie was \"the livest little burg\nin the state.\"\n\nShe fancied that his even grayness might reveal a thousand tints of\nlavender and blue and silver.\n\nAt supper he hinted his love for Sir Thomas Browne, Thoreau, Agnes\nRepplier, Arthur Symons, Claude Washburn, Charles Flandrau. He presented\nhis idols diffidently, but he expanded in Carol's bookishness, in Miss\nSherwin's voluminous praise, in Kennicott's tolerance of any one who\namused his wife.\n\nCarol wondered why Guy Pollock went on digging at routine law-cases;\nwhy he remained in Gopher Prairie. She had no one whom she could ask.\nNeither Kennicott nor Vida Sherwin would understand that there might be\nreasons why a Pollock should not remain in Gopher Prairie. She enjoyed\nthe faint mystery. She felt triumphant and rather literary. She already\nhad a Group. It would be only a while now before she provided the town\nwith fanlights and a knowledge of Galsworthy. She was doing things! As\nshe served the emergency dessert of cocoanut and sliced oranges, she\ncried to Pollock, \"Don't you think we ought to get up a dramatic club?\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nI\n\nWHEN the first dubious November snow had filtered down, shading with\nwhite the bare clods in the plowed fields, when the first small fire\nhad been started in the furnace, which is the shrine of a Gopher Prairie\nhome, Carol began to make the house her own. She dismissed the parlor\nfurniture--the golden oak table with brass knobs, the moldy brocade\nchairs, the picture of \"The Doctor.\" She went to Minneapolis, to scamper\nthrough department stores and small Tenth Street shops devoted to\nceramics and high thought. She had to ship her treasures, but she wanted\nto bring them back in her arms.\n\nCarpenters had torn out the partition between front parlor and back\nparlor, thrown it into a long room on which she lavished yellow and\ndeep blue; a Japanese obi with an intricacy of gold thread on stiff\nultramarine tissue, which she hung as a panel against the maize wall; a\ncouch with pillows of sapphire velvet and gold bands; chairs which, in\nGopher Prairie, seemed flippant. She hid the sacred family phonograph in\nthe dining-room, and replaced its stand with a square cabinet on which\nwas a squat blue jar between yellow candles.\n\nKennicott decided against a fireplace. \"We'll have a new house in a\ncouple of years, anyway.\"\n\nShe decorated only one room. The rest, Kennicott hinted, she'd better\nleave till he \"made a ten-strike.\"\n\nThe brown cube of a house stirred and awakened; it seemed to be in\nmotion; it welcomed her back from shopping; it lost its mildewed\nrepression.\n\nThe supreme verdict was Kennicott's \"Well, by golly, I was afraid the\nnew junk wouldn't be so comfortable, but I must say this divan, or\nwhatever you call it, is a lot better than that bumpy old sofa we had,\nand when I look around----Well, it's worth all it cost, I guess.\"\n\nEvery one in town took an interest in the refurnishing. The carpenters\nand painters who did not actually assist crossed the lawn to peer\nthrough the windows and exclaim, \"Fine! Looks swell!\" Dave Dyer at\nthe drug store, Harry Haydock and Raymie Wutherspoon at the Bon Ton,\nrepeated daily, \"How's the good work coming? I hear the house is getting\nto be real classy.\"\n\nEven Mrs. Bogart.\n\nMrs. Bogart lived across the alley from the rear of Carol's house. She\nwas a widow, and a Prominent Baptist, and a Good Influence. She had so\npainfully reared three sons to be Christian gentlemen that one of them\nhad become an Omaha bartender, one a professor of Greek, and one, Cyrus\nN. Bogart, a boy of fourteen who was still at home, the most brazen\nmember of the toughest gang in Boytown.\n\nMrs. Bogart was not the acid type of Good Influence. She was the soft,\ndamp, fat, sighing, indigestive, clinging, melancholy, depressingly\nhopeful kind. There are in every large chicken-yard a number of old and\nindignant hens who resemble Mrs. Bogart, and when they are served at\nSunday noon dinner, as fricasseed chicken with thick dumplings, they\nkeep up the resemblance.\n\nCarol had noted that Mrs. Bogart from her side window kept an eye upon\nthe house. The Kennicotts and Mrs. Bogart did not move in the same\nsets--which meant precisely the same in Gopher Prairie as it did on\nFifth Avenue or in Mayfair. But the good widow came calling.\n\nShe wheezed in, sighed, gave Carol a pulpy hand, sighed, glanced sharply\nat the revelation of ankles as Carol crossed her legs, sighed, inspected\nthe new blue chairs, smiled with a coy sighing sound, and gave voice:\n\n\"I've wanted to call on you so long, dearie, you know we're neighbors,\nbut I thought I'd wait till you got settled, you must run in and see me,\nhow much did that big chair cost?\"\n\n\"Seventy-seven dollars!\"\n\n\"Sev----Sakes alive! Well, I suppose it's all right for them that can\nafford it, though I do sometimes think----Of course as our pastor said\nonce, at Baptist Church----By the way, we haven't seen you there yet,\nand of course your husband was raised up a Baptist, and I do hope\nhe won't drift away from the fold, of course we all know there isn't\nanything, not cleverness or gifts of gold or anything, that can make\nup for humility and the inward grace and they can say what they want to\nabout the P. E. church, but of course there's no church that has more\nhistory or has stayed by the true principles of Christianity better\nthan the Baptist Church and----In what church were you raised, Mrs.\nKennicott?\"\n\n\"W-why, I went to Congregational, as a girl in Mankato, but my college\nwas Universalist.\"\n\n\"Well----But of course as the Bible says, is it the Bible, at least I\nknow I have heard it in church and everybody admits it, it's proper for\nthe little bride to take her husband's vessel of faith, so we all hope\nwe shall see you at the Baptist Church and----As I was saying, of course\nI agree with Reverend Zitterel in thinking that the great trouble with\nthis nation today is lack of spiritual faith--so few going to church,\nand people automobiling on Sunday and heaven knows what all. But still\nI do think that one trouble is this terrible waste of money, people\nfeeling that they've got to have bath-tubs and telephones in their\nhouses----I heard you were selling the old furniture cheap.\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"Well--of course you know your own mind, but I can't help thinking, when\nWill's ma was down here keeping house for him--SHE used to run in to SEE\nme, real OFTEN!--it was good enough furniture for her. But there, there,\nI mustn't croak, I just wanted to let you know that when you find you\ncan't depend on a lot of these gadding young folks like the Haydocks and\nthe Dyers--and heaven only knows how much money Juanita Haydock blows in\nin a year--why then you may be glad to know that slow old Aunty Bogart\nis always right there, and heaven knows----\" A portentous sigh. \"--I\nHOPE you and your husband won't have any of the troubles, with sickness\nand quarreling and wasting money and all that so many of these young\ncouples do have and----But I must be running along now, dearie. It's\nbeen such a pleasure and----Just run in and see me any time. I hope Will\nis well? I thought he looked a wee mite peaked.\"\n\nIt was twenty minutes later when Mrs. Bogart finally oozed out of the\nfront door. Carol ran back into the living-room and jerked open the\nwindows. \"That woman has left damp finger-prints in the air,\" she said.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nCarol was extravagant, but at least she did not try to clear herself of\nblame by going about whimpering, \"I know I'm terribly extravagant but I\ndon't seem to be able to help it.\"\n\nKennicott had never thought of giving her an allowance. His mother had\nnever had one! As a wage-earning spinster Carol had asserted to her\nfellow librarians that when she was married, she was going to have an\nallowance and be business-like and modern. But it was too much trouble\nto explain to Kennicott's kindly stubbornness that she was a practical\nhousekeeper as well as a flighty playmate. She bought a budget-plan\naccount book and made her budgets as exact as budgets are likely to be\nwhen they lack budgets.\n\nFor the first month it was a honeymoon jest to beg prettily, to confess,\n\"I haven't a cent in the house, dear,\" and to be told, \"You're an\nextravagant little rabbit.\" But the budget book made her realize how\ninexact were her finances. She became self-conscious; occasionally she\nwas indignant that she should always have to petition him for the money\nwith which to buy his food. She caught herself criticizing his belief\nthat, since his joke about trying to keep her out of the poorhouse had\nonce been accepted as admirable humor, it should continue to be his\ndaily bon mot. It was a nuisance to have to run down the street after\nhim because she had forgotten to ask him for money at breakfast.\n\nBut she couldn't \"hurt his feelings,\" she reflected. He liked the\nlordliness of giving largess.\n\nShe tried to reduce the frequency of begging by opening accounts and\nhaving the bills sent to him. She had found that staple groceries,\nsugar, flour, could be most cheaply purchased at Axel Egge's rustic\ngeneral store. She said sweetly to Axel:\n\n\"I think I'd better open a charge account here.\"\n\n\"I don't do no business except for cash,\" grunted Axel.\n\nShe flared, \"Do you know who I am?\"\n\n\"Yuh, sure, I know. The doc is good for it. But that's yoost a rule I\nmade. I make low prices. I do business for cash.\"\n\nShe stared at his red impassive face, and her fingers had the\nundignified desire to slap him, but her reason agreed with him. \"You're\nquite right. You shouldn't break your rule for me.\"\n\nHer rage had not been lost. It had been transferred to her husband. She\nwanted ten pounds of sugar in a hurry, but she had no money. She ran up\nthe stairs to Kennicott's office. On the door was a sign advertising a\nheadache cure and stating, \"The doctor is out, back at----\" Naturally,\nthe blank space was not filled out. She stamped her foot. She ran down\nto the drug store--the doctor's club.\n\nAs she entered she heard Mrs. Dyer demanding, \"Dave, I've got to have\nsome money.\"\n\nCarol saw that her husband was there, and two other men, all listening\nin amusement.\n\nDave Dyer snapped, \"How much do you want? Dollar be enough?\"\n\n\"No, it won't! I've got to get some underclothes for the kids.\"\n\n\"Why, good Lord, they got enough now to fill the closet so I couldn't\nfind my hunting boots, last time I wanted them.\"\n\n\"I don't care. They're all in rags. You got to give me ten dollars----\"\n\nCarol perceived that Mrs. Dyer was accustomed to this indignity. She\nperceived that the men, particularly Dave, regarded it as an excellent\njest. She waited--she knew what would come--it did. Dave yelped,\n\"Where's that ten dollars I gave you last year?\" and he looked to the\nother men to laugh. They laughed.\n\nCold and still, Carol walked up to Kennicott and commanded, \"I want to\nsee you upstairs.\"\n\n\"Why--something the matter?\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\nHe clumped after her, up the stairs, into his barren office. Before he\ncould get out a query she stated:\n\n\"Yesterday, in front of a saloon, I heard a German farm-wife beg her\nhusband for a quarter, to get a toy for the baby--and he refused. Just\nnow I've heard Mrs. Dyer going through the same humiliation. And I--I'm\nin the same position! I have to beg you for money. Daily! I have just\nbeen informed that I couldn't have any sugar because I hadn't the money\nto pay for it!\"\n\n\"Who said that? By God, I'll kill any----\"\n\n\"Tut. It wasn't his fault. It was yours. And mine. I now humbly beg\nyou to give me the money with which to buy meals for you to eat. And\nhereafter to remember it. The next time, I sha'n't beg. I shall simply\nstarve. Do you understand? I can't go on being a slave----\"\n\nHer defiance, her enjoyment of the role, ran out. She was sobbing\nagainst his overcoat, \"How can you shame me so?\" and he was blubbering,\n\"Dog-gone it, I meant to give you some, and I forgot it. I swear I won't\nagain. By golly I won't!\"\n\nHe pressed fifty dollars upon her, and after that he remembered to give\nher money regularly . . . sometimes.\n\nDaily she determined, \"But I must have a stated amount--be\nbusiness-like. System. I must do something about it.\" And daily she\ndidn't do anything about it.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nMrs. Bogart had, by the simpering viciousness of her comments on the new\nfurniture, stirred Carol to economy. She spoke judiciously to Bea\nabout left-overs. She read the cookbook again and, like a child with\na picture-book, she studied the diagram of the beef which gallantly\ncontinues to browse though it is divided into cuts.\n\nBut she was a deliberate and joyous spendthrift in her preparations for\nher first party, the housewarming. She made lists on every envelope\nand laundry-slip in her desk. She sent orders to Minneapolis \"fancy\ngrocers.\" She pinned patterns and sewed. She was irritated when\nKennicott was jocular about \"these frightful big doings that are going\non.\" She regarded the affair as an attack on Gopher Prairie's timidity\nin pleasure. \"I'll make 'em lively, if nothing else. I'll make 'em stop\nregarding parties as committee-meetings.\"\n\nKennicott usually considered himself the master of the house. At his\ndesire, she went hunting, which was his symbol of happiness, and she\nordered porridge for breakfast, which was his symbol of morality. But\nwhen he came home on the afternoon before the housewarming he found\nhimself a slave, an intruder, a blunderer. Carol wailed, \"Fix the\nfurnace so you won't have to touch it after supper. And for heaven's\nsake take that horrible old door-mat off the porch. And put on your nice\nbrown and white shirt. Why did you come home so late? Would you mind\nhurrying? Here it is almost suppertime, and those fiends are just as\nlikely as not to come at seven instead of eight. PLEASE hurry!\"\n\nShe was as unreasonable as an amateur leading woman on a first night,\nand he was reduced to humility. When she came down to supper, when she\nstood in the doorway, he gasped. She was in a silver sheath, the calyx\nof a lily, her piled hair like black glass; she had the fragility and\ncostliness of a Viennese goblet; and her eyes were intense. He was\nstirred to rise from the table and to hold the chair for her; and all\nthrough supper he ate his bread dry because he felt that she would think\nhim common if he said \"Will you hand me the butter?\"\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nShe had reached the calmness of not caring whether her guests liked\nthe party or not, and a state of satisfied suspense in regard to Bea's\ntechnique in serving, before Kennicott cried from the bay-window in\nthe living-room, \"Here comes somebody!\" and Mr. and Mrs. Luke Dawson\nfaltered in, at a quarter to eight. Then in a shy avalanche arrived\nthe entire aristocracy of Gopher Prairie: all persons engaged in a\nprofession, or earning more than twenty-five hundred dollars a year, or\npossessed of grandparents born in America.\n\nEven while they were removing their overshoes they were peeping at the\nnew decorations. Carol saw Dave Dyer secretively turn over the gold\npillows to find a price-tag, and heard Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh, the\nattorney, gasp, \"Well, I'll be switched,\" as he viewed the vermilion\nprint hanging against the Japanese obi. She was amused. But her high\nspirits slackened as she beheld them form in dress parade, in a long,\nsilent, uneasy circle clear round the living-room. She felt that she had\nbeen magically whisked back to her first party, at Sam Clark's.\n\n\"Have I got to lift them, like so many pigs of iron? I don't know that I\ncan make them happy, but I'll make them hectic.\"\n\nA silver flame in the darkling circle, she whirled around, drew them\nwith her smile, and sang, \"I want my party to be noisy and undignified!\nThis is the christening of my house, and I want you to help me have a\nbad influence on it, so that it will be a giddy house. For me, won't you\nall join in an old-fashioned square dance? And Mr. Dyer will call.\"\n\nShe had a record on the phonograph; Dave Dyer was capering in the center\nof the floor, loose-jointed, lean, small, rusty headed, pointed of nose,\nclapping his hands and shouting, \"Swing y' pardners--alamun lef!\"\n\nEven the millionaire Dawsons and Ezra Stowbody and \"Professor\" George\nEdwin Mott danced, looking only slightly foolish; and by rushing about\nthe room and being coy and coaxing to all persons over forty-five, Carol\ngot them into a waltz and a Virginia Reel. But when she left them to\ndisenjoy themselves in their own way Harry Haydock put a one-step record\non the phonograph, the younger people took the floor, and all the elders\nsneaked back to their chairs, with crystallized smiles which meant,\n\"Don't believe I'll try this one myself, but I do enjoy watching the\nyoungsters dance.\"\n\nHalf of them were silent; half resumed the discussions of that afternoon\nin the store. Ezra Stowbody hunted for something to say, hid a yawn, and\noffered to Lyman Cass, the owner of the flour-mill, \"How d' you folks\nlike the new furnace, Lym? Huh? So.\"\n\n\"Oh, let them alone. Don't pester them. They must like it, or they\nwouldn't do it.\" Carol warned herself. But they gazed at her so\nexpectantly when she flickered past that she was reconvinced that in\ntheir debauches of respectability they had lost the power of play as\nwell as the power of impersonal thought. Even the dancers were gradually\ncrushed by the invisible force of fifty perfectly pure and well-behaved\nand negative minds; and they sat down, two by two. In twenty minutes the\nparty was again elevated to the decorum of a prayer-meeting.\n\n\"We're going to do something exciting,\" Carol exclaimed to her new\nconfidante, Vida Sherwin. She saw that in the growing quiet her voice\nhad carried across the room. Nat Hicks, Ella Stowbody, and Dave Dyer\nwere abstracted, fingers and lips slightly moving. She knew with a\ncold certainty that Dave was rehearsing his \"stunt\" about the Norwegian\ncatching the hen, Ella running over the first lines of \"An Old\nSweetheart of Mine,\" and Nat thinking of his popular parody on Mark\nAntony's oration.\n\n\"But I will not have anybody use the word 'stunt' in my house,\" she\nwhispered to Miss Sherwin.\n\n\"That's good. I tell you: why not have Raymond Wutherspoon sing?\"\n\n\"Raymie? Why, my dear, he's the most sentimental yearner in town!\"\n\n\"See here, child! Your opinions on house-decorating are sound, but your\nopinions of people are rotten! Raymie does wag his tail. But the poor\ndear----Longing for what he calls 'self-expression' and no training in\nanything except selling shoes. But he can sing. And some day when\nhe gets away from Harry Haydock's patronage and ridicule, he'll do\nsomething fine.\"\n\nCarol apologized for her superciliousness. She urged Raymie, and warned\nthe planners of \"stunts,\" \"We all want you to sing, Mr. Wutherspoon.\nYou're the only famous actor I'm going to let appear on the stage\ntonight.\"\n\nWhile Raymie blushed and admitted, \"Oh, they don't want to hear me,\" he\nwas clearing his throat, pulling his clean handkerchief farther out of\nhis breast pocket, and thrusting his fingers between the buttons of his\nvest.\n\nIn her affection for Raymie's defender, in her desire to \"discover\nartistic talent,\" Carol prepared to be delighted by the recital.\n\nRaymie sang \"Fly as a Bird,\" \"Thou Art My Dove,\" and \"When the Little\nSwallow Leaves Its Tiny Nest,\" all in a reasonably bad offertory tenor.\n\nCarol was shuddering with the vicarious shame which sensitive people\nfeel when they listen to an \"elocutionist\" being humorous, or to a\nprecocious child publicly doing badly what no child should do at all.\nShe wanted to laugh at the gratified importance in Raymie's half-shut\neyes; she wanted to weep over the meek ambitiousness which clouded like\nan aura his pale face, flap ears, and sandy pompadour. She tried to look\nadmiring, for the benefit of Miss Sherwin, that trusting admirer of all\nthat was or conceivably could be the good, the true, and the beautiful.\n\nAt the end of the third ornithological lyric Miss Sherwin roused from\nher attitude of inspired vision and breathed to Carol, \"My! That was\nsweet! Of course Raymond hasn't an unusually good voice, but don't you\nthink he puts such a lot of feeling into it?\"\n\nCarol lied blackly and magnificently, but without originality: \"Oh yes,\nI do think he has so much FEELING!\"\n\nShe saw that after the strain of listening in a cultured manner the\naudience had collapsed; had given up their last hope of being amused.\nShe cried, \"Now we're going to play an idiotic game which I learned in\nChicago. You will have to take off your shoes, for a starter! After that\nyou will probably break your knees and shoulder-blades.\"\n\nMuch attention and incredulity. A few eyebrows indicating a verdict that\nDoc Kennicott's bride was noisy and improper.\n\n\"I shall choose the most vicious, like Juanita Haydock and myself, as\nthe shepherds. The rest of you are wolves. Your shoes are the sheep.\nThe wolves go out into the hall. The shepherds scatter the sheep through\nthis room, then turn off all the lights, and the wolves crawl in from\nthe hall and in the darkness they try to get the shoes away from\nthe shepherds--who are permitted to do anything except bite and use\nblack-jacks. The wolves chuck the captured shoes out into the hall. No\none excused! Come on! Shoes off!\"\n\nEvery one looked at every one else and waited for every one else to\nbegin.\n\nCarol kicked off her silver slippers, and ignored the universal glance\nat her arches. The embarrassed but loyal Vida Sherwin unbuttoned her\nhigh black shoes. Ezra Stowbody cackled, \"Well, you're a terror to old\nfolks. You're like the gals I used to go horseback-riding with, back in\nthe sixties. Ain't much accustomed to attending parties barefoot,\nbut here goes!\" With a whoop and a gallant jerk Ezra snatched off his\nelastic-sided Congress shoes.\n\nThe others giggled and followed.\n\nWhen the sheep had been penned up, in the darkness the timorous wolves\ncrept into the living-room, squealing, halting, thrown out of their\nhabit of stolidity by the strangeness of advancing through nothingness\ntoward a waiting foe, a mysterious foe which expanded and grew more\nmenacing. The wolves peered to make out landmarks, they touched gliding\narms which did not seem to be attached to a body, they quivered with a\nrapture of fear. Reality had vanished. A yelping squabble suddenly rose,\nthen Juanita Haydock's high titter, and Guy Pollock's astonished, \"Ouch!\nQuit! You're scalping me!\"\n\nMrs. Luke Dawson galloped backward on stiff hands and knees into the\nsafety of the lighted hallway, moaning, \"I declare, I nev' was so\nupset in my life!\" But the propriety was shaken out of her, and she\ndelightedly continued to ejaculate \"Nev' in my LIFE\" as she saw the\nliving-room door opened by invisible hands and shoes hurling through it,\nas she heard from the darkness beyond the door a squawling, a bumping,\na resolute \"Here's a lot of shoes. Come on, you wolves. Ow! Y' would,\nwould you!\"\n\nWhen Carol abruptly turned on the lights in the embattled living-room,\nhalf of the company were sitting back against the walls, where they had\ncraftily remained throughout the engagement, but in the middle of the\nfloor Kennicott was wrestling with Harry Haydock--their collars torn\noff, their hair in their eyes; and the owlish Mr. Julius Flickerbaugh\nwas retreating from Juanita Haydock, and gulping with unaccustomed\nlaughter. Guy Pollock's discreet brown scarf hung down his back. Young\nRita Simons's net blouse had lost two buttons, and betrayed more of her\ndelicious plump shoulder than was regarded as pure in Gopher Prairie.\nWhether by shock, disgust, joy of combat, or physical activity, all the\nparty were freed from their years of social decorum. George Edwin Mott\ngiggled; Luke Dawson twisted his beard; Mrs. Clark insisted, \"I did too,\nSam--I got a shoe--I never knew I could fight so terrible!\"\n\nCarol was certain that she was a great reformer.\n\nShe mercifully had combs, mirrors, brushes, needle and thread ready. She\npermitted them to restore the divine decency of buttons.\n\nThe grinning Bea brought down-stairs a pile of soft thick sheets of\npaper with designs of lotos blossoms, dragons, apes, in cobalt and\ncrimson and gray, and patterns of purple birds flying among sea-green\ntrees in the valleys of Nowhere.\n\n\"These,\" Carol announced, \"are real Chinese masquerade costumes. I got\nthem from an importing shop in Minneapolis. You are to put them on over\nyour clothes, and please forget that you are Minnesotans, and turn into\nmandarins and coolies and--and samurai (isn't it?), and anything else\nyou can think of.\"\n\nWhile they were shyly rustling the paper costumes she disappeared. Ten\nminutes after she gazed down from the stairs upon grotesquely ruddy\nYankee heads above Oriental robes, and cried to them, \"The Princess\nWinky Poo salutes her court!\"\n\nAs they looked up she caught their suspense of admiration. They saw an\nairy figure in trousers and coat of green brocade edged with gold; a\nhigh gold collar under a proud chin; black hair pierced with jade pins;\na languid peacock fan in an out-stretched hand; eyes uplifted to a\nvision of pagoda towers. When she dropped her pose and smiled down\nshe discovered Kennicott apoplectic with domestic pride--and gray Guy\nPollock staring beseechingly. For a second she saw nothing in all the\npink and brown mass of their faces save the hunger of the two men.\n\nShe shook off the spell and ran down. \"We're going to have a real\nChinese concert. Messrs. Pollock, Kennicott, and, well, Stowbody are\ndrummers; the rest of us sing and play the fife.\"\n\nThe fifes were combs with tissue paper; the drums were tabourets and the\nsewing-table. Loren Wheeler, editor of the Dauntless, led the orchestra,\nwith a ruler and a totally inaccurate sense of rhythm. The music was a\nreminiscence of tom-toms heard at circus fortune-telling tents or at\nthe Minnesota State Fair, but the whole company pounded and puffed and\nwhined in a sing-song, and looked rapturous.\n\nBefore they were quite tired of the concert Carol led them in a dancing\nprocession to the dining-room, to blue bowls of chow mein, with Lichee\nnuts and ginger preserved in syrup.\n\nNone of them save that city-rounder Harry Haydock had heard of any\nChinese dish except chop sooey. With agreeable doubt they ventured\nthrough the bamboo shoots into the golden fried noodles of the chow\nmein; and Dave Dyer did a not very humorous Chinese dance with Nat\nHicks; and there was hubbub and contentment.\n\nCarol relaxed, and found that she was shockingly tired. She had carried\nthem on her thin shoulders. She could not keep it up. She longed for\nher father, that artist at creating hysterical parties. She thought of\nsmoking a cigarette, to shock them, and dismissed the obscene thought\nbefore it was quite formed. She wondered whether they could for five\nminutes be coaxed to talk about something besides the winter top\nof Knute Stamquist's Ford, and what Al Tingley had said about his\nmother-in-law. She sighed, \"Oh, let 'em alone. I've done enough.\" She\ncrossed her trousered legs, and snuggled luxuriously above her saucer\nof ginger; she caught Pollock's congratulatory still smile, and thought\nwell of herself for having thrown a rose light on the pallid lawyer;\nrepented the heretical supposition that any male save her husband\nexisted; jumped up to find Kennicott and whisper, \"Happy, my lord? . . .\nNo, it didn't cost much!\"\n\n\"Best party this town ever saw. Only----Don't cross your legs in that\ncostume. Shows your knees too plain.\"\n\nShe was vexed. She resented his clumsiness. She returned to Guy Pollock\nand talked of Chinese religions--not that she knew anything whatever\nabout Chinese religions, but he had read a book on the subject as, on\nlonely evenings in his office, he had read at least one book on every\nsubject in the world. Guy's thin maturity was changing in her vision\nto flushed youth and they were roaming an island in the yellow sea of\nchatter when she realized that the guests were beginning that cough\nwhich indicated, in the universal instinctive language, that they\ndesired to go home and go to bed.\n\nWhile they asserted that it had been \"the nicest party they'd ever\nseen--my! so clever and original,\" she smiled tremendously, shook hands,\nand cried many suitable things regarding children, and being sure to\nwrap up warmly, and Raymie's singing and Juanita Haydock's prowess at\ngames. Then she turned wearily to Kennicott in a house filled with quiet\nand crumbs and shreds of Chinese costumes.\n\nHe was gurgling, \"I tell you, Carrie, you certainly are a wonder, and\nguess you're right about waking folks up. Now you've showed 'em how,\nthey won't go on having the same old kind of parties and stunts and\neverything. Here! Don't touch a thing! Done enough. Pop up to bed, and\nI'll clear up.\"\n\nHis wise surgeon's-hands stroked her shoulder, and her irritation at his\nclumsiness was lost in his strength.\n\n\n\nV\n\nFrom the Weekly Dauntless:\n\n\nOne of the most delightful social events of recent months was held\nWednesday evening in the housewarming of Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott, who\nhave completely redecorated their charming home on Poplar Street, and\nis now extremely nifty in modern color scheme. The doctor and his bride\nwere at home to their numerous friends and a number of novelties in\ndiversions were held, including a Chinese orchestra in original and\ngenuine Oriental costumes, of which Ye Editor was leader. Dainty\nrefreshments were served in true Oriental style, and one and all voted a\ndelightful time.\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nThe week after, the Chet Dashaways gave a party. The circle of mourners\nkept its place all evening, and Dave Dyer did the \"stunt\" of the\nNorwegian and the hen.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nI\n\nGOPHER PRAIRIE was digging in for the winter. Through late November and\nall December it snowed daily; the thermometer was at zero and might\ndrop to twenty below, or thirty. Winter is not a season in the North\nMiddlewest; it is an industry. Storm sheds were erected at every door.\nIn every block the householders, Sam Clark, the wealthy Mr. Dawson, all\nsave asthmatic Ezra Stowbody who extravagantly hired a boy, were seen\nperilously staggering up ladders, carrying storm windows and screwing\nthem to second-story jambs. While Kennicott put up his windows Carol\ndanced inside the bedrooms and begged him not to swallow the screws,\nwhich he held in his mouth like an extraordinary set of external false\nteeth.\n\nThe universal sign of winter was the town handyman--Miles Bjornstam, a\ntall, thick, red-mustached bachelor, opinionated atheist, general-store\narguer, cynical Santa Claus. Children loved him, and he sneaked\naway from work to tell them improbable stories of sea-faring and\nhorse-trading and bears. The children's parents either laughed at him\nor hated him. He was the one democrat in town. He called both Lyman Cass\nthe miller and the Finn homesteader from Lost Lake by their first names.\nHe was known as \"The Red Swede,\" and considered slightly insane.\n\nBjornstam could do anything with his hands--solder a pan, weld an\nautomobile spring, soothe a frightened filly, tinker a clock, carve a\nGloucester schooner which magically went into a bottle. Now, for a week,\nhe was commissioner general of Gopher Prairie. He was the only person\nbesides the repairman at Sam Clark's who understood plumbing. Everybody\nbegged him to look over the furnace and the water-pipes. He rushed\nfrom house to house till after bedtime--ten o'clock. Icicles from burst\nwater-pipes hung along the skirt of his brown dog-skin overcoat; his\nplush cap, which he never took off in the house, was a pulp of ice and\ncoal-dust; his red hands were cracked to rawness; he chewed the stub of\na cigar.\n\nBut he was courtly to Carol. He stooped to examine the furnace flues; he\nstraightened, glanced down at her, and hemmed, \"Got to fix your furnace,\nno matter what else I do.\"\n\nThe poorer houses of Gopher Prairie, where the services of Miles\nBjornstam were a luxury--which included the shanty of Miles\nBjornstam--were banked to the lower windows with earth and manure. Along\nthe railroad the sections of snow fence, which had been stacked all\nsummer in romantic wooden tents occupied by roving small boys, were set\nup to prevent drifts from covering the track.\n\nThe farmers came into town in home-made sleighs, with bed-quilts and hay\npiled in the rough boxes.\n\nFur coats, fur caps, fur mittens, overshoes buckling almost to the\nknees, gray knitted scarfs ten feet long, thick woolen socks, canvas\njackets lined with fluffy yellow wool like the plumage of ducklings,\nmoccasins, red flannel wristlets for the blazing chapped wrists\nof boys--these protections against winter were busily dug out of\nmoth-ball-sprinkled drawers and tar-bags in closets, and all over town\nsmall boys were squealing, \"Oh, there's my mittens!\" or \"Look at my\nshoe-packs!\" There is so sharp a division between the panting summer and\nthe stinging winter of the Northern plains that they rediscovered with\nsurprise and a feeling of heroism this armor of an Artic explorer.\n\nWinter garments surpassed even personal gossip as the topic at parties.\nIt was good form to ask, \"Put on your heavies yet?\" There were as many\ndistinctions in wraps as in motor cars. The lesser sort appeared in\nyellow and black dogskin coats, but Kennicott was lordly in a long\nraccoon ulster and a new seal cap. When the snow was too deep for his\nmotor he went off on country calls in a shiny, floral, steel-tipped\ncutter, only his ruddy nose and his cigar emerging from the fur.\n\nCarol herself stirred Main Street by a loose coat of nutria. Her\nfinger-tips loved the silken fur.\n\nHer liveliest activity now was organizing outdoor sports in the\nmotor-paralyzed town.\n\nThe automobile and bridge-whist had not only made more evident the\nsocial divisions in Gopher Prairie but they had also enfeebled the\nlove of activity. It was so rich-looking to sit and drive--and so easy.\nSkiing and sliding were \"stupid\" and \"old-fashioned.\" In fact, the\nvillage longed for the elegance of city recreations almost as much as\nthe cities longed for village sports; and Gopher Prairie took as\nmuch pride in neglecting coasting as St. Paul--or New York--in going\ncoasting. Carol did inspire a successful skating-party in mid-November.\nPlover Lake glistened in clear sweeps of gray-green ice, ringing to the\nskates. On shore the ice-tipped reeds clattered in the wind, and oak\ntwigs with stubborn last leaves hung against a milky sky. Harry Haydock\ndid figure-eights, and Carol was certain that she had found the perfect\nlife. But when snow had ended the skating and she tried to get up a\nmoonlight sliding party, the matrons hesitated to stir away from their\nradiators and their daily bridge-whist imitations of the city. She had\nto nag them. They scooted down a long hill on a bob-sled, they upset\nand got snow down their necks they shrieked that they would do it again\nimmediately--and they did not do it again at all.\n\nShe badgered another group into going skiing. They shouted and threw\nsnowballs, and informed her that it was SUCH fun, and they'd have\nanother skiing expedition right away, and they jollily returned home and\nnever thereafter left their manuals of bridge.\n\nCarol was discouraged. She was grateful when Kennicott invited her to\ngo rabbit-hunting in the woods. She waded down stilly cloisters\nbetween burnt stump and icy oak, through drifts marked with a million\nhieroglyphics of rabbit and mouse and bird. She squealed as he leaped\non a pile of brush and fired at the rabbit which ran out. He belonged\nthere, masculine in reefer and sweater and high-laced boots. That night\nshe ate prodigiously of steak and fried potatoes; she produced electric\nsparks by touching his ear with her finger-tip; she slept twelve hours;\nand awoke to think how glorious was this brave land.\n\nShe rose to a radiance of sun on snow. Snug in her furs she\ntrotted up-town. Frosted shingles smoked against a sky colored like\nflax-blossoms, sleigh-bells clinked, shouts of greeting were loud in the\nthin bright air, and everywhere was a rhythmic sound of wood-sawing. It\nwas Saturday, and the neighbors' sons were getting up the winter fuel.\nBehind walls of corded wood in back yards their sawbucks stood in\ndepressions scattered with canary-yellow flakes of sawdust. The frames\nof their buck-saws were cherry-red, the blades blued steel, and the\nfresh cut ends of the sticks--poplar, maple, iron-wood, birch--were\nmarked with engraved rings of growth. The boys wore shoe-packs, blue\nflannel shirts with enormous pearl buttons, and mackinaws of crimson,\nlemon yellow, and foxy brown.\n\nCarol cried \"Fine day!\" to the boys; she came in a glow to Howland &\nGould's grocery, her collar white with frost from her breath; she bought\na can of tomatoes as though it were Orient fruit; and returned home\nplanning to surprise Kennicott with an omelet creole for dinner.\n\nSo brilliant was the snow-glare that when she entered the house she\nsaw the door-knobs, the newspaper on the table, every white surface as\ndazzling mauve, and her head was dizzy in the pyrotechnic dimness. When\nher eyes had recovered she felt expanded, drunk with health, mistress of\nlife. The world was so luminous that she sat down at her rickety little\ndesk in the living-room to make a poem. (She got no farther than \"The\nsky is bright, the sun is warm, there ne'er will be another storm.\")\n\nIn the mid-afternoon of this same day Kennicott was called into the\ncountry. It was Bea's evening out--her evening for the Lutheran Dance.\nCarol was alone from three till midnight. She wearied of reading pure\nlove stories in the magazines and sat by a radiator, beginning to brood.\n\nThus she chanced to discover that she had nothing to do.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe had, she meditated, passed through the novelty of seeing the\ntown and meeting people, of skating and sliding and hunting. Bea was\ncompetent; there was no household labor except sewing and darning\nand gossipy assistance to Bea in bed-making. She couldn't satisfy her\ningenuity in planning meals. At Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market you didn't\ngive orders--you wofully inquired whether there was anything today\nbesides steak and pork and ham. The cuts of beef were not cuts. They\nwere hacks. Lamb chops were as exotic as sharks' fins. The meat-dealers\nshipped their best to the city, with its higher prices.\n\nIn all the shops there was the same lack of choice. She could not find\na glass-headed picture-nail in town; she did not hunt for the sort of\nveiling she wanted--she took what she could get; and only at Howland &\nGould's was there such a luxury as canned asparagus. Routine care was\nall she could devote to the house. Only by such fussing as the Widow\nBogart's could she make it fill her time.\n\nShe could not have outside employment. To the village doctor's wife it\nwas taboo.\n\nShe was a woman with a working brain and no work.\n\nThere were only three things which she could do: Have children; start\nher career of reforming; or become so definitely a part of the town that\nshe would be fulfilled by the activities of church and study-club and\nbridge-parties.\n\nChildren, yes, she wanted them, but----She was not quite ready. She had\nbeen embarrassed by Kennicott's frankness, but she agreed with him\nthat in the insane condition of civilization, which made the rearing\nof citizens more costly and perilous than any other crime, it was\ninadvisable to have children till he had made more money. She was\nsorry----Perhaps he had made all the mystery of love a mechanical\ncautiousness but----She fled from the thought with a dubious, \"Some\nday.\"\n\nHer \"reforms,\" her impulses toward beauty in raw Main Street, they had\nbecome indistinct. But she would set them going now. She would! She\nswore it with soft fist beating the edges of the radiator. And at the\nend of all her vows she had no notion as to when and where the crusade\nwas to begin.\n\nBecome an authentic part of the town? She began to think with unpleasant\nlucidity. She reflected that she did not know whether the people liked\nher. She had gone to the women at afternoon-coffees, to the merchants\nin their stores, with so many outpouring comments and whimsies that\nshe hadn't given them a chance to betray their opinions of her. The men\nsmiled--but did they like her? She was lively among the women--but\nwas she one of them? She could not recall many times when she had been\nadmitted to the whispering of scandal which is the secret chamber of\nGopher Prairie conversation.\n\nShe was poisoned with doubt, as she drooped up to bed.\n\nNext day, through her shopping, her mind sat back and observed. Dave\nDyer and Sam Clark were as cordial as she had been fancying; but wasn't\nthere an impersonal abruptness in the \"H' are yuh?\" of Chet Dashaway?\nHowland the grocer was curt. Was that merely his usual manner?\n\n\"It's infuriating to have to pay attention to what people think. In\nSt. Paul I didn't care. But here I'm spied on. They're watching\nme. I mustn't let it make me self-conscious,\" she coaxed\nherself--overstimulated by the drug of thought, and offensively on the\ndefensive.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nA thaw which stripped the snow from the sidewalks; a ringing iron night\nwhen the lakes could be heard booming; a clear roistering morning. In\ntam o'shanter and tweed skirt Carol felt herself a college junior going\nout to play hockey. She wanted to whoop, her legs ached to run. On the\nway home from shopping she yielded, as a pup would have yielded. She\ngalloped down a block and as she jumped from a curb across a welter of\nslush, she gave a student \"Yippee!\"\n\nShe saw that in a window three old women were gasping. Their triple\nglare was paralyzing. Across the street, at another window, the curtain\nhad secretively moved. She stopped, walked on sedately, changed from the\ngirl Carol into Mrs. Dr. Kennicott.\n\nShe never again felt quite young enough and defiant enough and free\nenough to run and halloo in the public streets; and it was as a Nice\nMarried Woman that she attended the next weekly bridge of the Jolly\nSeventeen.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThe Jolly Seventeen (the membership of which ranged from fourteen to\ntwenty-six) was the social cornice of Gopher Prairie. It was the country\nclub, the diplomatic set, the St. Cecilia, the Ritz oval room, the Club\nde Vingt. To belong to it was to be \"in.\" Though its membership partly\ncoincided with that of the Thanatopsis study club, the Jolly Seventeen\nas a separate entity guffawed at the Thanatopsis, and considered it\nmiddle-class and even \"highbrow.\"\n\nMost of the Jolly Seventeen were young married women, with their\nhusbands as associate members. Once a week they had a women's\nafternoon-bridge; once a month the husbands joined them for supper and\nevening-bridge; twice a year they had dances at I. O. O. F. Hall. Then\nthe town exploded. Only at the annual balls of the Firemen and of the\nEastern Star was there such prodigality of chiffon scarfs and tangoing\nand heart-burnings, and these rival institutions were not select--hired\ngirls attended the Firemen's Ball, with section-hands and laborers. Ella\nStowbody had once gone to a Jolly Seventeen Soiree in the village hack,\nhitherto confined to chief mourners at funerals; and Harry Haydock and\nDr. Terry Gould always appeared in the town's only specimens of evening\nclothes.\n\nThe afternoon-bridge of the Jolly Seventeen which followed Carol's\nlonely doubting was held at Juanita Haydock's new concrete bungalow,\nwith its door of polished oak and beveled plate-glass, jar of ferns in\nthe plastered hall, and in the living-room, a fumed oak Morris chair,\nsixteen color-prints, and a square varnished table with a mat made of\ncigar-ribbons on which was one Illustrated Gift Edition and one pack of\ncards in a burnt-leather case.\n\nCarol stepped into a sirocco of furnace heat. They were already playing.\nDespite her flabby resolves she had not yet learned bridge. She was\nwinningly apologetic about it to Juanita, and ashamed that she should\nhave to go on being apologetic.\n\nMrs. Dave Dyer, a sallow woman with a thin prettiness devoted to\nexperiments in religious cults, illnesses, and scandal-bearing, shook\nher finger at Carol and trilled, \"You're a naughty one! I don't believe\nyou appreciate the honor, when you got into the Jolly Seventeen so\neasy!\"\n\nMrs. Chet Dashaway nudged her neighbor at the second table. But Carol\nkept up the appealing bridal manner so far as possible. She twittered,\n\"You're perfectly right. I'm a lazy thing. I'll make Will start teaching\nme this very evening.\" Her supplication had all the sound of birdies\nin the nest, and Easter church-bells, and frosted Christmas cards.\nInternally she snarled, \"That ought to be saccharine enough.\" She sat in\nthe smallest rocking-chair, a model of Victorian modesty. But she saw or\nshe imagined that the women who had gurgled at her so welcomingly when\nshe had first come to Gopher Prairie were nodding at her brusquely.\n\nDuring the pause after the first game she petitioned Mrs. Jackson Elder,\n\"Don't you think we ought to get up another bob-sled party soon?\"\n\n\"It's so cold when you get dumped in the snow,\" said Mrs. Elder,\nindifferently.\n\n\"I hate snow down my neck,\" volunteered Mrs. Dave Dyer, with an\nunpleasant look at Carol and, turning her back, she bubbled at Rita\nSimons, \"Dearie, won't you run in this evening? I've got the loveliest\nnew Butterick pattern I want to show you.\"\n\nCarol crept back to her chair. In the fervor of discussing the game they\nignored her. She was not used to being a wallflower. She struggled to\nkeep from oversensitiveness, from becoming unpopular by the sure method\nof believing that she was unpopular; but she hadn't much reserve of\npatience, and at the end of the second game, when Ella Stowbody sniffily\nasked her, \"Are you going to send to Minneapolis for your dress for\nthe next soiree--heard you were,\" Carol said \"Don't know yet\" with\nunnecessary sharpness.\n\nShe was relieved by the admiration with which the jeune fille Rita\nSimons looked at the steel buckles on her pumps; but she resented Mrs.\nHowland's tart demand, \"Don't you find that new couch of yours is too\nbroad to be practical?\" She nodded, then shook her head, and touchily\nleft Mrs. Howland to get out of it any meaning she desired. Immediately\nshe wanted to make peace. She was close to simpering in the sweetness\nwith which she addressed Mrs Howland: \"I think that is the prettiest\ndisplay of beef-tea your husband has in his store.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, Gopher Prairie isn't so much behind the times,\" gibed Mrs.\nHowland. Some one giggled.\n\nTheir rebuffs made her haughty; her haughtiness irritated them to\nfranker rebuffs; they were working up to a state of painfully righteous\nwar when they were saved by the coming of food.\n\nThough Juanita Haydock was highly advanced in the matters of\nfinger-bowls, doilies, and bath-mats, her \"refreshments\" were typical\nof all the afternoon-coffees. Juanita's best friends, Mrs. Dyer and Mrs.\nDashaway, passed large dinner plates, each with a spoon, a fork, and a\ncoffee cup without saucer. They apologized and discussed the afternoon's\ngame as they passed through the thicket of women's feet. Then they\ndistributed hot buttered rolls, coffee poured from an enamel-ware pot,\nstuffed olives, potato salad, and angel's-food cake. There was, even in\nthe most strictly conforming Gopher Prairie circles, a certain option\nas to collations. The olives need not be stuffed. Doughnuts were in some\nhouses well thought of as a substitute for the hot buttered rolls.\nBut there was in all the town no heretic save Carol who omitted\nangel's-food.\n\nThey ate enormously. Carol had a suspicion that the thriftier housewives\nmade the afternoon treat do for evening supper.\n\nShe tried to get back into the current. She edged over to Mrs. McGanum.\nChunky, amiable, young Mrs. McGanum with her breast and arms of a\nmilkmaid, and her loud delayed laugh which burst startlingly from\na sober face, was the daughter of old Dr. Westlake, and the wife of\nWestlake's partner, Dr. McGanum. Kennicott asserted that Westlake and\nMcGanum and their contaminated families were tricky, but Carol had found\nthem gracious. She asked for friendliness by crying to Mrs. McGanum,\n\"How is the baby's throat now?\" and she was attentive while Mrs. McGanum\nrocked and knitted and placidly described symptoms.\n\nVida Sherwin came in after school, with Miss Ethel Villets, the\ntown librarian. Miss Sherwin's optimistic presence gave Carol more\nconfidence. She talked. She informed the circle \"I drove almost down to\nWahkeenyan with Will, a few days ago. Isn't the country lovely! And I do\nadmire the Scandinavian farmers down there so: their big red barns and\nsilos and milking-machines and everything. Do you all know that lonely\nLutheran church, with the tin-covered spire, that stands out alone on\na hill? It's so bleak; somehow it seems so brave. I do think the\nScandinavians are the hardiest and best people----\"\n\n\"Oh, do you THINK so?\" protested Mrs. Jackson Elder. \"My husband says\nthe Svenskas that work in the planing-mill are perfectly terrible--so\nsilent and cranky, and so selfish, the way they keep demanding raises.\nIf they had their way they'd simply ruin the business.\"\n\n\"Yes, and they're simply GHASTLY hired girls!\" wailed Mrs. Dave Dyer.\n\"I swear, I work myself to skin and bone trying to please my hired\ngirls--when I can get them! I do everything in the world for them. They\ncan have their gentleman friends call on them in the kitchen any time,\nand they get just the same to eat as we do, if there's, any left over,\nand I practically never jump on them.\"\n\nJuanita Haydock rattled, \"They're ungrateful, all that class of people.\nI do think the domestic problem is simply becoming awful. I don't know\nwhat the country's coming to, with these Scandahoofian clodhoppers\ndemanding every cent you can save, and so ignorant and impertinent,\nand on my word, demanding bath-tubs and everything--as if they weren't\nmighty good and lucky at home if they got a bath in the wash-tub.\"\n\nThey were off, riding hard. Carol thought of Bea and waylaid them:\n\n\"But isn't it possibly the fault of the mistresses if the maids are\nungrateful? For generations we've given them the leavings of food, and\nholes to live in. I don't want to boast, but I must say I don't have\nmuch trouble with Bea. She's so friendly. The Scandinavians are sturdy\nand honest----\"\n\nMrs. Dave Dyer snapped, \"Honest? Do you call it honest to hold us up for\nevery cent of pay they can get? I can't say that I've had any of them\nsteal anything (though you might call it stealing to eat so much that a\nroast of beef hardly lasts three days), but just the same I don't intend\nto let them think they can put anything over on ME! I always make them\npack and unpack their trunks down-stairs, right under my eyes, and then\nI know they aren't being tempted to dishonesty by any slackness on MY\npart!\"\n\n\"How much do the maids get here?\" Carol ventured.\n\nMrs. B. J. Gougerling, wife of the banker, stated in a shocked manner,\n\"Any place from three-fifty to five-fifty a week! I know positively that\nMrs. Clark, after swearing that she wouldn't weaken and encourage them\nin their outrageous demands, went and paid five-fifty--think of it!\npractically a dollar a day for unskilled work and, of course, her food\nand room and a chance to do her own washing right in with the rest of\nthe wash. HOW MUCH DO YOU PAY, Mrs. KENNICOTT?\"\n\n\"Yes! How much do you pay?\" insisted half a dozen.\n\n\"W-why, I pay six a week,\" she feebly confessed.\n\nThey gasped. Juanita protested, \"Don't you think it's hard on the rest\nof us when you pay so much?\" Juanita's demand was reinforced by the\nuniversal glower.\n\nCarol was angry. \"I don't care! A maid has one of the hardest jobs on\nearth. She works from ten to eighteen hours a day. She has to wash slimy\ndishes and dirty clothes. She tends the children and runs to the door\nwith wet chapped hands and----\"\n\nMrs. Dave Dyer broke into Carol's peroration with a furious, \"That's all\nvery well, but believe me, I do those things myself when I'm without\na maid--and that's a good share of the time for a person that isn't\nwilling to yield and pay exorbitant wages!\"\n\nCarol was retorting, \"But a maid does it for strangers, and all she gets\nout of it is the pay----\"\n\nTheir eyes were hostile. Four of them were talking at once. Vida\nSherwin's dictatorial voice cut through, took control of the revolution:\n\n\"Tut, tut, tut, tut! What angry passions--and what an idiotic\ndiscussion! All of you getting too serious. Stop it! Carol Kennicott,\nyou're probably right, but you're too much ahead of the times. Juanita,\nquit looking so belligerent. What is this, a card party or a hen fight?\nCarol, you stop admiring yourself as the Joan of Arc of the hired girls,\nor I'll spank you. You come over here and talk libraries with Ethel\nVillets. Boooooo! If there's any more pecking, I'll take charge of the\nhen roost myself!\"\n\nThey all laughed artificially, and Carol obediently \"talked libraries.\"\n\nA small-town bungalow, the wives of a village doctor and a village\ndry-goods merchant, a provincial teacher, a colloquial brawl over\npaying a servant a dollar more a week. Yet this insignificance echoed\ncellar-plots and cabinet meetings and labor conferences in Persia\nand Prussia, Rome and Boston, and the orators who deemed themselves\ninternational leaders were but the raised voices of a billion Juanitas\ndenouncing a million Carols, with a hundred thousand Vida Sherwins\ntrying to shoo away the storm.\n\nCarol felt guilty. She devoted herself to admiring the spinsterish Miss\nVillets--and immediately committed another offense against the laws of\ndecency.\n\n\"We haven't seen you at the library yet,\" Miss Villets reproved.\n\n\"I've wanted to run in so much but I've been getting settled and----I'll\nprobably come in so often you'll get tired of me! I hear you have such a\nnice library.\"\n\n\"There are many who like it. We have two thousand more books than\nWakamin.\"\n\n\"Isn't that fine. I'm sure you are largely responsible. I've had some\nexperience, in St. Paul.\"\n\n\"So I have been informed. Not that I entirely approve of library methods\nin these large cities. So careless, letting tramps and all sorts of\ndirty persons practically sleep in the reading-rooms.\"\n\n\"I know, but the poor souls----Well, I'm sure you will agree with me in\none thing: The chief task of a librarian is to get people to read.\"\n\n\"You feel so? My feeling, Mrs. Kennicott, and I am merely quoting\nthe librarian of a very large college, is that the first duty of the\nCONSCIENTIOUS librarian is to preserve the books.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" Carol repented her \"Oh.\" Miss Villets stiffened, and attacked:\n\n\"It may be all very well in cities, where they have unlimited funds, to\nlet nasty children ruin books and just deliberately tear them up, and\nfresh young men take more books out than they are entitled to by the\nregulations, but I'm never going to permit it in this library!\"\n\n\"What if some children are destructive? They learn to read. Books are\ncheaper than minds.\"\n\n\"Nothing is cheaper than the minds of some of these children that come\nin and bother me simply because their mothers don't keep them home where\nthey belong. Some librarians may choose to be so wishy-washy and turn\ntheir libraries into nursing-homes and kindergartens, but as long as I'm\nin charge, the Gopher Prairie library is going to be quiet and decent,\nand the books well kept!\"\n\nCarol saw that the others were listening, waiting for her to be\nobjectionable. She flinched before their dislike. She hastened to smile\nin agreement with Miss Villets, to glance publicly at her wrist-watch,\nto warble that it was \"so late--have to hurry home--husband--such nice\nparty--maybe you were right about maids, prejudiced because Bea so\nnice--such perfectly divine angel's-food, Mrs. Haydock must give me the\nrecipe--good-by, such happy party----\"\n\nShe walked home. She reflected, \"It was my fault. I was touchy. And I\nopposed them so much. Only----I can't! I can't be one of them if I must\ndamn all the maids toiling in filthy kitchens, all the ragged hungry\nchildren. And these women are to be my arbiters, the rest of my life!\"\n\nShe ignored Bea's call from the kitchen; she ran up-stairs to the\nunfrequented guest-room; she wept in terror, her body a pale arc as\nshe knelt beside a cumbrous black-walnut bed, beside a puffy mattress\ncovered with a red quilt, in a shuttered and airless room.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\n\"DON'T I, in looking for things to do, show that I'm not attentive\nenough to Will? Am I impressed enough by his work? I will be. Oh, I will\nbe. If I can't be one of the town, if I must be an outcast----\"\n\nWhen Kennicott came home she bustled, \"Dear, you must tell me a lot more\nabout your cases. I want to know. I want to understand.\"\n\n\"Sure. You bet.\" And he went down to fix the furnace.\n\nAt supper she asked, \"For instance, what did you do today?\"\n\n\"Do today? How do you mean?\"\n\n\"Medically. I want to understand----\"\n\n\"Today? Oh, there wasn't much of anything: couple chumps with\nbellyaches, and a sprained wrist, and a fool woman that thinks she wants\nto kill herself because her husband doesn't like her and----Just routine\nwork.\"\n\n\"But the unhappy woman doesn't sound routine!\"\n\n\"Her? Just case of nerves. You can't do much with these marriage\nmix-ups.\"\n\n\"But dear, PLEASE, will you tell me about the next case that you do\nthink is interesting?\"\n\n\"Sure. You bet. Tell you about anything that----Say that's pretty good\nsalmon. Get it at Howland's?\"\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nFour days after the Jolly Seventeen debacle Vida Sherwin called and\ncasually blew Carol's world to pieces.\n\n\"May I come in and gossip a while?\" she said, with such excess of bright\ninnocence that Carol was uneasy. Vida took off her furs with a bounce,\nshe sat down as though it were a gymnasium exercise, she flung out:\n\n\"Feel disgracefully good, this weather! Raymond Wutherspoon says if he\nhad my energy he'd be a grand opera singer. I always think this climate\nis the finest in the world, and my friends are the dearest people in the\nworld, and my work is the most essential thing in the world. Probably\nI fool myself. But I know one thing for certain: You're the pluckiest\nlittle idiot in the world.\"\n\n\"And so you are about to flay me alive.\" Carol was cheerful about it.\n\n\"Am I? Perhaps. I've been wondering--I know that the third party to a\nsquabble is often the most to blame: the one who runs between A and B\nhaving a beautiful time telling each of them what the other has said.\nBut I want you to take a big part in vitalizing Gopher Prairie and\nso----Such a very unique opportunity and----Am I silly?\"\n\n\"I know what you mean. I was too abrupt at the Jolly Seventeen.\"\n\n\"It isn't that. Matter of fact, I'm glad you told them some wholesome\ntruths about servants. (Though perhaps you were just a bit tactless.)\nIt's bigger than that. I wonder if you understand that in a secluded\ncommunity like this every newcomer is on test? People cordial to her\nbut watching her all the time. I remember when a Latin teacher came here\nfrom Wellesley, they resented her broad A. Were sure it was affected. Of\ncourse they have discussed you----\"\n\n\"Have they talked about me much?\"\n\n\"My dear!\"\n\n\"I always feel as though I walked around in a cloud, looking out at\nothers but not being seen. I feel so inconspicuous and so normal--so\nnormal that there's nothing about me to discuss. I can't realize that\nMr. and Mrs. Haydock must gossip about me.\" Carol was working up a small\npassion of distaste. \"And I don't like it. It makes me crawly to think\nof their daring to talk over all I do and say. Pawing me over! I resent\nit. I hate----\"\n\n\"Wait, child! Perhaps they resent some things in you. I want you to try\nand be impersonal. They'd paw over anybody who came in new. Didn't you,\nwith newcomers in College?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well then! Will you be impersonal? I'm paying you the compliment of\nsupposing that you can be. I want you to be big enough to help me make\nthis town worth while.\"\n\n\"I'll be as impersonal as cold boiled potatoes. (Not that I shall ever\nbe able to help you 'make the town worth while.') What do they say about\nme? Really. I want to know.\"\n\n\"Of course the illiterate ones resent your references to anything\nfarther away than Minneapolis. They're so suspicious--that's it,\nsuspicious. And some think you dress too well.\"\n\n\"Oh, they do, do they! Shall I dress in gunny-sacking to suit them?\"\n\n\"Please! Are you going to be a baby?\"\n\n\"I'll be good,\" sulkily.\n\n\"You certainly will, or I won't tell you one single thing. You must\nunderstand this: I'm not asking you to change yourself. Just want you\nto know what they think. You must do that, no matter how absurd their\nprejudices are, if you're going to handle them. Is it your ambition to\nmake this a better town, or isn't it?\"\n\n\"I don't know whether it is or not!\"\n\n\"Why--why----Tut, tut, now, of course it is! Why, I depend on you.\nYou're a born reformer.\"\n\n\"I am not--not any more!\"\n\n\"Of course you are.\"\n\n\"Oh, if I really could help----So they think I'm affected?\"\n\n\"My lamb, they do! Now don't say they're nervy. After all, Gopher\nPrairie standards are as reasonable to Gopher Prairie as Lake Shore\nDrive standards are to Chicago. And there's more Gopher Prairies than\nthere are Chicagos. Or Londons. And----I'll tell you the whole story:\nThey think you're showing off when you say 'American' instead of\n'Ammurrican.' They think you're too frivolous. Life's so serious to them\nthat they can't imagine any kind of laughter except Juanita's snortling.\nEthel Villets was sure you were patronizing her when----\"\n\n\"Oh, I was not!\"\n\n\"----you talked about encouraging reading; and Mrs. Elder thought you\nwere patronizing when you said she had 'such a pretty little car.' She\nthinks it's an enormous car! And some of the merchants say you're too\nflip when you talk to them in the store and----\"\n\n\"Poor me, when I was trying to be friendly!\"\n\n\"----every housewife in town is doubtful about your being so chummy with\nyour Bea. All right to be kind, but they say you act as though she were\nyour cousin. (Wait now! There's plenty more.) And they think you were\neccentric in furnishing this room--they think the broad couch and that\nJapanese dingus are absurd. (Wait! I know they're silly.) And I guess\nI've heard a dozen criticize you because you don't go to church oftener\nand----\"\n\n\"I can't stand it--I can't bear to realize that they've been saying all\nthese things while I've been going about so happily and liking them. I\nwonder if you ought to have told me? It will make me self-conscious.\"\n\n\"I wonder the same thing. Only answer I can get is the old saw about\nknowledge being power. And some day you'll see how absorbing it is to\nhave power, even here; to control the town----Oh, I'm a crank. But I do\nlike to see things moving.\"\n\n\"It hurts. It makes these people seem so beastly and treacherous, when\nI've been perfectly natural with them. But let's have it all. What did\nthey say about my Chinese house-warming party?\"\n\n\"Why, uh----\"\n\n\"Go on. Or I'll make up worse things than anything you can tell me.\"\n\n\"They did enjoy it. But I guess some of them felt you were showing\noff--pretending that your husband is richer than he is.\"\n\n\"I can't----Their meanness of mind is beyond any horrors I could\nimagine. They really thought that I----And you want to 'reform' people\nlike that when dynamite is so cheap? Who dared to say that? The rich or\nthe poor?\"\n\n\"Fairly well assorted.\"\n\n\"Can't they at least understand me well enough to see that though I\nmight be affected and culturine, at least I simply couldn't commit that\nother kind of vulgarity? If they must know, you may tell them, with my\ncompliments, that Will makes about four thousand a year, and the party\ncost half of what they probably thought it did. Chinese things are not\nvery expensive, and I made my own costume----\"\n\n\"Stop it! Stop beating me! I know all that. What they meant was: they\nfelt you were starting dangerous competition by giving a party such as\nmost people here can't afford. Four thousand is a pretty big income for\nthis town.\"\n\n\"I never thought of starting competition. Will you believe that it was\nin all love and friendliness that I tried to give them the gayest party\nI could? It was foolish; it was childish and noisy. But I did mean it so\nwell.\"\n\n\"I know, of course. And it certainly is unfair of them to make fun of\nyour having that Chinese food--chow men, was it?--and to laugh about\nyour wearing those pretty trousers----\"\n\nCarol sprang up, whimpering, \"Oh, they didn't do that! They didn't poke\nfun at my feast, that I ordered so carefully for them! And my little\nChinese costume that I was so happy making--I made it secretly, to\nsurprise them. And they've been ridiculing it, all this while!\"\n\nShe was huddled on the couch.\n\nVida was stroking her hair, muttering, \"I shouldn't----\"\n\nShrouded in shame, Carol did not know when Vida slipped away. The\nclock's bell, at half past five, aroused her. \"I must get hold of myself\nbefore Will comes. I hope he never knows what a fool his wife is. . . .\nFrozen, sneering, horrible hearts.\"\n\nLike a very small, very lonely girl she trudged up-stairs, slow step by\nstep, her feet dragging, her hand on the rail. It was not her husband\nto whom she wanted to run for protection--it was her father, her smiling\nunderstanding father, dead these twelve years.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nKennicott was yawning, stretched in the largest chair, between the\nradiator and a small kerosene stove.\n\nCautiously, \"Will dear, I wonder if the people here don't criticize me\nsometimes? They must. I mean: if they ever do, you mustn't let it bother\nyou.\"\n\n\"Criticize you? Lord, I should say not. They all keep telling me you're\nthe swellest girl they ever saw.\"\n\n\"Well, I've just fancied----The merchants probably think I'm too fussy\nabout shopping. I'm afraid I bore Mr. Dashaway and Mr. Howland and Mr.\nLudelmeyer.\"\n\n\"I can tell you how that is. I didn't want to speak of it but since\nyou've brought it up: Chet Dashaway probably resents the fact that you\ngot this new furniture down in the Cities instead of here. I didn't want\nto raise any objection at the time but----After all, I make my money\nhere and they naturally expect me to spend it here.\"\n\n\"If Mr. Dashaway will kindly tell me how any civilized person can\nfurnish a room out of the mortuary pieces that he calls----\" She\nremembered. She said meekly, \"But I understand.\"\n\n\"And Howland and Ludelmeyer----Oh, you've probably handed 'em a few\nroasts for the bum stocks they carry, when you just meant to jolly 'em.\nBut rats, what do we care! This is an independent town, not like these\nEastern holes where you have to watch your step all the time, and live\nup to fool demands and social customs, and a lot of old tabbies always\nbusy criticizing. Everybody's free here to do what he wants to.\" He said\nit with a flourish, and Carol perceived that he believed it. She turned\nher breath of fury into a yawn.\n\n\"By the way, Carrie, while we're talking of this: Of course I like\nto keep independent, and I don't believe in this business of binding\nyourself to trade with the man that trades with you unless you really\nwant to, but same time: I'd be just as glad if you dealt with Jenson or\nLudelmeyer as much as you ran, instead of Howland & Gould, who go to Dr.\nGould every last time, and the whole tribe of 'em the same way. I don't\nsee why I should be paying out my good money for groceries and having\nthem pass it on to Terry Gould!\"\n\n\"I've gone to Howland & Gould because they're better, and cleaner.\"\n\n\"I know. I don't mean cut them out entirely. Course Jenson is\ntricky--give you short weight--and Ludelmeyer is a shiftless old Dutch\nhog. But same time, I mean let's keep the trade in the family whenever\nit is convenient, see how I mean?\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\n\"Well, guess it's about time to turn in.\"\n\nHe yawned, went out to look at the thermometer, slammed the door, patted\nher head, unbuttoned his waistcoat, yawned, wound the clock, went down\nto look at the furnace, yawned, and clumped up-stairs to bed, casually\nscratching his thick woolen undershirt.\n\nTill he bawled, \"Aren't you ever coming up to bed?\" she sat unmoving.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nI\n\nSHE had tripped into the meadow to teach the lambs a pretty educational\ndance and found that the lambs were wolves. There was no way out between\ntheir pressing gray shoulders. She was surrounded by fangs and sneering\neyes.\n\nShe could not go on enduring the hidden derision. She wanted to flee.\nShe wanted to hide in the generous indifference of cities. She practised\nsaying to Kennicott, \"Think perhaps I'll run down to St. Paul for a few\ndays.\" But she could not trust herself to say it carelessly; could not\nabide his certain questioning.\n\nReform the town? All she wanted was to be tolerated!\n\nShe could not look directly at people. She flushed and winced before\ncitizens who a week ago had been amusing objects of study, and in their\ngood-mornings she heard a cruel sniggering.\n\nShe encountered Juanita Haydock at Ole Jenson's grocery. She besought,\n\"Oh, how do you do! Heavens, what beautiful celery that is!\"\n\n\"Yes, doesn't it look fresh. Harry simply has to have his celery on\nSunday, drat the man!\"\n\nCarol hastened out of the shop exulting, \"She didn't make fun of me. . . .\nDid she?\"\n\nIn a week she had recovered from consciousness of insecurity, of shame\nand whispering notoriety, but she kept her habit of avoiding people. She\nwalked the streets with her head down. When she spied Mrs. McGanum or\nMrs. Dyer ahead she crossed over with an elaborate pretense of looking\nat a billboard. Always she was acting, for the benefit of every one she\nsaw--and for the benefit of the ambushed leering eyes which she did not\nsee.\n\nShe perceived that Vida Sherwin had told the truth. Whether she entered\na store, or swept the back porch, or stood at the bay-window in the\nliving-room, the village peeped at her. Once she had swung along the\nstreet triumphant in making a home. Now she glanced at each house, and\nfelt, when she was safely home, that she had won past a thousand\nenemies armed with ridicule. She told herself that her sensitiveness\nwas preposterous, but daily she was thrown into panic. She saw curtains\nslide back into innocent smoothness. Old women who had been entering\ntheir houses slipped out again to stare at her--in the wintry quiet she\ncould hear them tiptoeing on their porches. When she had for a blessed\nhour forgotten the searchlight, when she was scampering through a chill\ndusk, happy in yellow windows against gray night, her heart checked\nas she realized that a head covered with a shawl was thrust up over a\nsnow-tipped bush to watch her.\n\nShe admitted that she was taking herself too seriously; that villagers\ngape at every one. She became placid, and thought well of her\nphilosophy. But next morning she had a shock of shame as she entered\nLudelmeyer's. The grocer, his clerk, and neurotic Mrs. Dave Dyer had been\ngiggling about something. They halted, looked embarrassed, babbled about\nonions. Carol felt guilty. That evening when Kennicott took her to call\non the crochety Lyman Casses, their hosts seemed flustered at their\narrival. Kennicott jovially hooted, \"What makes you so hang-dog, Lym?\"\nThe Casses tittered feebly.\n\nExcept Dave Dyer, Sam Clark, and Raymie Wutherspoon, there were no\nmerchants of whose welcome Carol was certain. She knew that she read\nmockery into greetings but she could not control her suspicion, could\nnot rise from her psychic collapse. She alternately raged and flinched\nat the superiority of the merchants. They did not know that they\nwere being rude, but they meant to have it understood that they were\nprosperous and \"not scared of no doctor's wife.\" They often said, \"One\nman's as good as another--and a darn sight better.\" This motto, however,\nthey did not commend to farmer customers who had had crop failures. The\nYankee merchants were crabbed; and Ole Jenson, Ludelmeyer, and Gus Dahl,\nfrom the \"Old Country,\" wished to be taken for Yankees. James Madison\nHowland, born in New Hampshire, and Ole Jenson, born in Sweden, both\nproved that they were free American citizens by grunting, \"I don't\nknow whether I got any or not,\" or \"Well, you can't expect me to get it\ndelivered by noon.\"\n\nIt was good form for the customers to fight back. Juanita Haydock\ncheerfully jabbered, \"You have it there by twelve or I'll snatch that\nfresh delivery-boy bald-headed.\" But Carol had never been able to play\nthe game of friendly rudeness; and now she was certain that she never\nwould learn it. She formed the cowardly habit of going to Axel Egge's.\n\nAxel was not respectable and rude. He was still a foreigner, and he\nexpected to remain one. His manner was heavy and uninterrogative. His\nestablishment was more fantastic than any cross-roads store. No one save\nAxel himself could find anything. A part of the assortment of children's\nstockings was under a blanket on a shelf, a part in a tin ginger-snap\nbox, the rest heaped like a nest of black-cotton snakes upon a\nflour-barrel which was surrounded by brooms, Norwegian Bibles, dried\ncod for ludfisk, boxes of apricots, and a pair and a half of lumbermen's\nrubber-footed boots. The place was crowded with Scandinavian farmwives,\nstanding aloof in shawls and ancient fawn-colored leg o' mutton jackets,\nawaiting the return of their lords. They spoke Norwegian or Swedish, and\nlooked at Carol uncomprehendingly. They were a relief to her--they were\nnot whispering that she was a poseur.\n\nBut what she told herself was that Axel Egge's was \"so picturesque and\nromantic.\"\n\nIt was in the matter of clothes that she was most self-conscious.\n\nWhen she dared to go shopping in her new checked suit with the\nblack-embroidered sulphur collar, she had as good as invited all of\nGopher Prairie (which interested itself in nothing so intimately as in\nnew clothes and the cost thereof) to investigate her. It was a smart\nsuit with lines unfamiliar to the dragging yellow and pink frocks of the\ntown. The Widow Bogart's stare, from her porch, indicated, \"Well I\nnever saw anything like that before!\" Mrs. McGanum stopped Carol at\nthe notions shop to hint, \"My, that's a nice suit--wasn't it terribly\nexpensive?\" The gang of boys in front of the drug store commented, \"Hey,\nPudgie, play you a game of checkers on that dress.\" Carol could not\nendure it. She drew her fur coat over the suit and hastily fastened the\nbuttons, while the boys snickered.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nNo group angered her quite so much as these staring young roues.\n\nShe had tried to convince herself that the village, with its fresh air,\nits lakes for fishing and swimming, was healthier than the artificial\ncity. But she was sickened by glimpses of the gang of boys from fourteen\nto twenty who loafed before Dyer's Drug Store, smoking cigarettes,\ndisplaying \"fancy\" shoes and purple ties and coats of diamond-shaped\nbuttons, whistling the Hoochi-Koochi and catcalling, \"Oh, you baby-doll\"\nat every passing girl.\n\nShe saw them playing pool in the stinking room behind Del Snafflin's\nbarber shop, and shaking dice in \"The Smoke House,\" and gathered in\na snickering knot to listen to the \"juicy stories\" of Bert Tybee, the\nbartender of the Minniemashie House. She heard them smacking moist lips\nover every love-scene at the Rosebud Movie Palace. At the counter of the\nGreek Confectionery Parlor, while they ate dreadful messes of decayed\nbananas, acid cherries, whipped cream, and gelatinous ice-cream, they\nscreamed to one another, \"Hey, lemme 'lone,\" \"Quit dog-gone you, looka\nwhat you went and done, you almost spilled my glass swater,\" \"Like hell\nI did,\" \"Hey, gol darn your hide, don't you go sticking your coffin\nnail in my i-scream,\" \"Oh you Batty, how juh like dancing with Tillie\nMcGuire, last night? Some squeezing, heh, kid?\"\n\nBy diligent consultation of American fiction she discovered that this\nwas the only virile and amusing manner in which boys could function;\nthat boys who were not compounded of the gutter and the mining-camp\nwere mollycoddles and unhappy. She had taken this for granted. She had\nstudied the boys pityingly, but impersonally. It had not occurred to her\nthat they might touch her.\n\nNow she was aware that they knew all about her; that they were waiting\nfor some affectation over which they could guffaw. No schoolgirl passed\ntheir observation-posts more flushingly than did Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. In\nshame she knew that they glanced appraisingly at her snowy overshoes,\nspeculating about her legs. Theirs were not young eyes--there was no\nyouth in all the town, she agonized. They were born old, grim and old\nand spying and censorious.\n\nShe cried again that their youth was senile and cruel on the day when\nshe overheard Cy Bogart and Earl Haydock.\n\nCyrus N. Bogart, son of the righteous widow who lived across the alley,\nwas at this time a boy of fourteen or fifteen. Carol had already seen\nquite enough of Cy Bogart. On her first evening in Gopher Prairie Cy\nhad appeared at the head of a \"charivari,\" banging immensely upon a\ndiscarded automobile fender. His companions were yelping in imitation\nof coyotes. Kennicott had felt rather complimented; had gone out and\ndistributed a dollar. But Cy was a capitalist in charivaris. He returned\nwith an entirely new group, and this time there were three automobile\nfenders and a carnival rattle. When Kennicott again interrupted his\nshaving, Cy piped, \"Naw, you got to give us two dollars,\" and he got it.\nA week later Cy rigged a tic-tac to a window of the living-room, and the\ntattoo out of the darkness frightened Carol into screaming. Since\nthen, in four months, she had beheld Cy hanging a cat, stealing melons,\nthrowing tomatoes at the Kennicott house, and making ski-tracks across\nthe lawn, and had heard him explaining the mysteries of generation,\nwith great audibility and dismaying knowledge. He was, in fact, a museum\nspecimen of what a small town, a well-disciplined public school, a\ntradition of hearty humor, and a pious mother could produce from the\nmaterial of a courageous and ingenious mind.\n\nCarol was afraid of him. Far from protesting when he set his mongrel on\na kitten, she worked hard at not seeing him.\n\nThe Kennicott garage was a shed littered with paint-cans, tools, a\nlawn-mower, and ancient wisps of hay. Above it was a loft which Cy\nBogart and Earl Haydock, young brother of Harry, used as a den, for\nsmoking, hiding from whippings, and planning secret societies. They\nclimbed to it by a ladder on the alley side of the shed.\n\nThis morning of late January, two or three weeks after Vida's\nrevelations, Carol had gone into the stable-garage to find a hammer.\nSnow softened her step. She heard voices in the loft above her:\n\n\"Ah gee, lez--oh, lez go down the lake and swipe some mushrats out of\nsomebody's traps,\" Cy was yawning.\n\n\"And get our ears beat off!\" grumbled Earl Haydock.\n\n\"Gosh, these cigarettes are dandy. 'Member when we were just kids, and\nused to smoke corn-silk and hayseed?\"\n\n\"Yup. Gosh!\"\n\nSpit. \"Silence.\"\n\n\"Say Earl, ma says if you chew tobacco you get consumption.\"\n\n\"Aw rats, your old lady is a crank.\"\n\n\"Yuh, that's so.\" Pause. \"But she says she knows a fella that did.\"\n\n\"Aw, gee whiz, didn't Doc Kennicott used to chew tobacco all the time\nbefore he married this-here girl from the Cities? He used to spit---Gee!\nSome shot! He could hit a tree ten feet off.\"\n\nThis was news to the girl from the Cities.\n\n\"Say, how is she?\" continued Earl.\n\n\"Huh? How's who?\"\n\n\"You know who I mean, smarty.\"\n\nA tussle, a thumping of loose boards, silence, weary narration from Cy:\n\n\"Mrs. Kennicott? Oh, she's all right, I guess.\" Relief to Carol, below.\n\"She gimme a hunk o' cake, one time. But Ma says she's stuck-up as hell.\nMa's always talking about her. Ma says if Mrs. Kennicott thought as much\nabout the doc as she does about her clothes, the doc wouldn't look so\npeaked.\"\n\nSpit. Silence.\n\n\"Yuh. Juanita's always talking about her, too,\" from Earl. \"She says\nMrs. Kennicott thinks she knows it all. Juanita says she has to laugh\ntill she almost busts every time she sees Mrs. Kennicott peerading along\nthe street with that 'take a look--I'm a swell skirt' way she's got. But\ngosh, I don't pay no attention to Juanita. She's meaner 'n a crab.\"\n\n\"Ma was telling somebody that she heard that Mrs. Kennicott claimed she\nmade forty dollars a week when she was on some job in the Cities, and\nMa says she knows posolutely that she never made but eighteen a week--Ma\nsays that when she's lived here a while she won't go round making a fool\nof herself, pulling that bighead stuff on folks that know a whole lot\nmore than she does. They're all laughing up their sleeves at her.\"\n\n\"Say, jever notice how Mrs. Kennicott fusses around the house? Other\nevening when I was coming over here, she'd forgot to pull down the\ncurtain, and I watched her for ten minutes. Jeeze, you'd 'a' died\nlaughing. She was there all alone, and she must 'a' spent five minutes\ngetting a picture straight. It was funny as hell the way she'd stick out\nher finger to straighten the picture--deedle-dee, see my tunnin' 'ittle\nfinger, oh my, ain't I cute, what a fine long tail my cat's got!\"\n\n\"But say, Earl, she's some good-looker, just the same, and O Ignatz! the\nglad rags she must of bought for her wedding. Jever notice these low-cut\ndresses and these thin shimmy-shirts she wears? I had a good squint at\n'em when they were out on the line with the wash. And some ankles she's\ngot, heh?\"\n\nThen Carol fled.\n\nIn her innocence she had not known that the whole town could discuss\neven her garments, her body. She felt that she was being dragged naked\ndown Main Street.\n\nThe moment it was dusk she pulled down the window-shades, all the shades\nflush with the sill, but beyond them she felt moist fleering eyes.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nShe remembered, and tried to forget, and remembered more sharply the\nvulgar detail of her husband's having observed the ancient customs\nof the land by chewing tobacco. She would have preferred a prettier\nvice--gambling or a mistress. For these she might have found a luxury\nof forgiveness. She could not remember any fascinatingly wicked hero of\nfiction who chewed tobacco. She asserted that it proved him to be a man\nof the bold free West. She tried to align him with the hairy-chested\nheroes of the motion-pictures. She curled on the couch a pallid softness\nin the twilight, and fought herself, and lost the battle. Spitting did\nnot identify him with rangers riding the buttes; it merely bound him to\nGopher Prairie--to Nat Hicks the tailor and Bert Tybee the bartender.\n\n\"But he gave it up for me. Oh, what does it matter! We're all filthy in\nsome things. I think of myself as so superior, but I do eat and digest,\nI do wash my dirty paws and scratch. I'm not a cool slim goddess on\na column. There aren't any! He gave it up for me. He stands by me,\nbelieving that every one loves me. He's the Rock of Ages--in a storm of\nmeanness that's driving me mad . . . it will drive me mad.\"\n\nAll evening she sang Scotch ballads to Kennicott, and when she noticed\nthat he was chewing an unlighted cigar she smiled maternally at his\nsecret.\n\nShe could not escape asking (in the exact words and mental intonations\nwhich a thousand million women, dairy wenches and mischief-making\nqueens, had used before her, and which a million million women will\nknow hereafter), \"Was it all a horrible mistake, my marrying him?\" She\nquieted the doubt--without answering it.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nKennicott had taken her north to Lac-qui-Meurt, in the Big Woods. It was\nthe entrance to a Chippewa Indian reservation, a sandy settlement among\nNorway pines on the shore of a huge snow-glaring lake. She had her first\nsight of his mother, except the glimpse at the wedding. Mrs. Kennicott\nhad a hushed and delicate breeding which dignified her woodeny\nover-scrubbed cottage with its worn hard cushions in heavy rockers.\nShe had never lost the child's miraculous power of wonder. She asked\nquestions about books and cities. She murmured:\n\n\"Will is a dear hard-working boy but he's inclined to be too serious,\nand you've taught him how to play. Last night I heard you both laughing\nabout the old Indian basket-seller, and I just lay in bed and enjoyed\nyour happiness.\"\n\nCarol forgot her misery-hunting in this solidarity of family life.\nShe could depend upon them; she was not battling alone. Watching Mrs.\nKennicott flit about the kitchen she was better able to translate\nKennicott himself. He was matter-of-fact, yes, and incurably mature. He\ndidn't really play; he let Carol play with him. But he had his mother's\ngenius for trusting, her disdain for prying, her sure integrity.\n\nFrom the two days at Lac-qui-Meurt Carol drew confidence in herself,\nand she returned to Gopher Prairie in a throbbing calm like those golden\ndrugged seconds when, because he is for an instant free from pain, a\nsick man revels in living.\n\nA bright hard winter day, the wind shrill, black and silver clouds\nbooming across the sky, everything in panicky motion during the brief\nlight. They struggled against the surf of wind, through deep snow.\nKennicott was cheerful. He hailed Loren Wheeler, \"Behave yourself while\nI been away?\" The editor bellowed, \"B' gosh you stayed so long that\nall your patients have got well!\" and importantly took notes for the\nDauntless about their journey. Jackson Elder cried, \"Hey, folks! How's\ntricks up North?\" Mrs. McGanum waved to them from her porch.\n\n\"They're glad to see us. We mean something here. These people are\nsatisfied. Why can't I be? But can I sit back all my life and be\nsatisfied with 'Hey, folks'? They want shouts on Main Street, and I want\nviolins in a paneled room. Why----?\"\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nVida Sherwin ran in after school a dozen times. She was tactful,\ntorrentially anecdotal. She had scuttled about town and plucked\ncompliments: Mrs. Dr. Westlake had pronounced Carol a \"very sweet,\nbright, cultured young woman,\" and Brad Bemis, the tinsmith at Clark's\nHardware Store, had declared that she was \"easy to work for and awful\neasy to look at.\"\n\nBut Carol could not yet take her in. She resented this outsider's\nknowledge of her shame. Vida was not too long tolerant. She hinted,\n\"You're a great brooder, child. Buck up now. The town's quit criticizing\nyou, almost entirely. Come with me to the Thanatopsis Club. They\nhave some of the BEST papers, and current-events discussions--SO\ninteresting.\"\n\nIn Vida's demands Carol felt a compulsion, but she was too listless to\nobey.\n\nIt was Bea Sorenson who was really her confidante.\n\nHowever charitable toward the Lower Classes she may have thought\nherself, Carol had been reared to assume that servants belong to\na distinct and inferior species. But she discovered that Bea was\nextraordinarily like girls she had loved in college, and as a companion\naltogether superior to the young matrons of the Jolly Seventeen. Daily\nthey became more frankly two girls playing at housework. Bea artlessly\nconsidered Carol the most beautiful and accomplished lady in the\ncountry; she was always shrieking, \"My, dot's a swell hat!\" or, \"Ay\nt'ink all dese ladies yoost die when dey see how elegant you do your\nhair!\" But it was not the humbleness of a servant, nor the hypocrisy of\na slave; it was the admiration of Freshman for Junior.\n\nThey made out the day's menus together. Though they began with\npropriety, Carol sitting by the kitchen table and Bea at the sink or\nblacking the stove, the conference was likely to end with both of them\nby the table, while Bea gurgled over the ice-man's attempt to kiss her,\nor Carol admitted, \"Everybody knows that the doctor is lots more clever\nthan Dr. McGanum.\" When Carol came in from marketing, Bea plunged into\nthe hall to take off her coat, rub her frostied hands, and ask, \"Vos\ndere lots of folks up-town today?\"\n\nThis was the welcome upon which Carol depended.\n\n\n\nVI\n\nThrough her weeks of cowering there was no change in her surface life.\nNo one save Vida was aware of her agonizing. On her most despairing\ndays she chatted to women on the street, in stores. But without\nthe protection of Kennicott's presence she did not go to the Jolly\nSeventeen; she delivered herself to the judgment of the town only when\nshe went shopping and on the ritualistic occasions of formal afternoon\ncalls, when Mrs. Lyman Cass or Mrs. George Edwin Mott, with clean gloves\nand minute handkerchiefs and sealskin card-cases and countenances of\nfrozen approbation, sat on the edges of chairs and inquired, \"Do you\nfind Gopher Prairie pleasing?\" When they spent evenings of social\nprofit-and-loss at the Haydocks' or the Dyers' she hid behind Kennicott,\nplaying the simple bride.\n\nNow she was unprotected. Kennicott had taken a patient to Rochester\nfor an operation. He would be away for two or three days. She had not\nminded; she would loosen the matrimonial tension and be a fanciful girl\nfor a time. But now that he was gone the house was listeningly empty.\nBea was out this afternoon--presumably drinking coffee and talking about\n\"fellows\" with her cousin Tina. It was the day for the monthly supper\nand evening-bridge of the Jolly Seventeen, but Carol dared not go.\n\nShe sat alone.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE house was haunted, long before evening. Shadows slipped down the\nwalls and waited behind every chair.\n\nDid that door move?\n\nNo. She wouldn't go to the Jolly Seventeen. She hadn't energy enough to\ncaper before them, to smile blandly at Juanita's rudeness. Not today.\nBut she did want a party. Now! If some one would come in this afternoon,\nsome one who liked her--Vida or Mrs. Sam Clark or old Mrs. Champ Perry\nor gentle Mrs. Dr. Westlake. Or Guy Pollock! She'd telephone----\n\nNo. That wouldn't be it. They must come of themselves.\n\nPerhaps they would.\n\nWhy not?\n\nShe'd have tea ready, anyway. If they came--splendid. If not--what did\nshe care? She wasn't going to yield to the village and let down; she was\ngoing to keep up a belief in the rite of tea, to which she had always\nlooked forward as the symbol of a leisurely fine existence. And it would\nbe just as much fun, even if it was so babyish, to have tea by herself\nand pretend that she was entertaining clever men. It would!\n\nShe turned the shining thought into action. She bustled to the kitchen,\nstoked the wood-range, sang Schumann while she boiled the kettle, warmed\nup raisin cookies on a newspaper spread on the rack in the oven. She\nscampered up-stairs to bring down her filmiest tea-cloth. She arranged\na silver tray. She proudly carried it into the living-room and set it on\nthe long cherrywood table, pushing aside a hoop of embroidery, a volume\nof Conrad from the library, copies of the Saturday Evening Post, the\nLiterary Digest, and Kennicott's National Geographic Magazine.\n\nShe moved the tray back and forth and regarded the effect. She shook\nher head. She busily unfolded the sewing-table set it in the bay-window,\npatted the tea-cloth to smoothness, moved the tray. \"Some time I'll have\na mahogany tea-table,\" she said happily.\n\nShe had brought in two cups, two plates. For herself, a straight chair,\nbut for the guest the big wing-chair, which she pantingly tugged to the\ntable.\n\nShe had finished all the preparations she could think of. She sat and\nwaited. She listened for the door-bell, the telephone. Her eagerness was\nstilled. Her hands drooped.\n\nSurely Vida Sherwin would hear the summons.\n\nShe glanced through the bay-window. Snow was sifting over the ridge\nof the Howland house like sprays of water from a hose. The wide\nyards across the street were gray with moving eddies. The black trees\nshivered. The roadway was gashed with ruts of ice.\n\nShe looked at the extra cup and plate. She looked at the wing-chair. It\nwas so empty.\n\nThe tea was cold in the pot. With wearily dipping fingertip she tested\nit. Yes. Quite cold. She couldn't wait any longer.\n\nThe cup across from her was icily clean, glisteningly empty.\n\nSimply absurd to wait. She poured her own cup of tea. She sat and stared\nat it. What was it she was going to do now? Oh yes; how idiotic; take a\nlump of sugar.\n\nShe didn't want the beastly tea.\n\nShe was springing up. She was on the couch, sobbing.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe was thinking more sharply than she had for weeks.\n\nShe reverted to her resolution to change the town--awaken it, prod it,\n\"reform\" it. What if they were wolves instead of lambs? They'd eat her\nall the sooner if she was meek to them. Fight or be eaten. It was easier\nto change the town completely than to conciliate it! She could not take\ntheir point of view; it was a negative thing; an intellectual squalor;\na swamp of prejudices and fears. She would have to make them take hers.\nShe was not a Vincent de Paul, to govern and mold a people. What of\nthat? The tiniest change in their distrust of beauty would be the\nbeginning of the end; a seed to sprout and some day with thickening\nroots to crack their wall of mediocrity. If she could not, as she\ndesired, do a great thing nobly and with laughter, yet she need not be\ncontent with village nothingness. She would plant one seed in the blank\nwall.\n\nWas she just? Was it merely a blank wall, this town which to three\nthousand and more people was the center of the universe? Hadn't she,\nreturning from Lac-qui-Meurt, felt the heartiness of their greetings?\nNo. The ten thousand Gopher Prairies had no monopoly of greetings and\nfriendly hands. Sam Clark was no more loyal than girl librarians she\nknew in St. Paul, the people she had met in Chicago. And those others\nhad so much that Gopher Prairie complacently lacked--the world of gaiety\nand adventure, of music and the integrity of bronze, of remembered\nmists from tropic isles and Paris nights and the walls of Bagdad, of\nindustrial justice and a God who spake not in doggerel hymns.\n\nOne seed. Which seed it was did not matter. All knowledge and freedom\nwere one. But she had delayed so long in finding that seed. Could she\ndo something with this Thanatopsis Club? Or should she make her house\nso charming that it would be an influence? She'd make Kennicott like\npoetry. That was it, for a beginning! She conceived so clear a picture\nof their bending over large fair pages by the fire (in a non-existent\nfireplace) that the spectral presences slipped away. Doors no longer\nmoved; curtains were not creeping shadows but lovely dark masses in the\ndusk; and when Bea came home Carol was singing at the piano which she\nhad not touched for many days.\n\nTheir supper was the feast of two girls. Carol was in the dining-room,\nin a frock of black satin edged with gold, and Bea, in blue gingham and\nan apron, dined in the kitchen; but the door was open between, and\nCarol was inquiring, \"Did you see any ducks in Dahl's window?\" and Bea\nchanting, \"No, ma'am. Say, ve have a svell time, dis afternoon. Tina she\nhave coffee and knackebrod, and her fella vos dere, and ve yoost laughed\nand laughed, and her fella say he vos president and he going to make\nme queen of Finland, and Ay stick a fedder in may hair and say Ay bane\ngoing to go to var--oh, ve vos so foolish and ve LAUGH so!\"\n\nWhen Carol sat at the piano again she did not think of her husband but\nof the book-drugged hermit, Guy Pollock. She wished that Pollock would\ncome calling.\n\n\"If a girl really kissed him, he'd creep out of his den and be human. If\nWill were as literate as Guy, or Guy were as executive as Will, I think\nI could endure even Gopher Prairie. It's so hard to mother Will. I\ncould be maternal with Guy. Is that what I want, something to mother, a\nman or a baby or a town? I WILL have a baby. Some day. But to have him\nisolated here all his receptive years----\n\n\"And so to bed.\n\n\"Have I found my real level in Bea and kitchen-gossip?\n\n\"Oh, I do miss you, Will. But it will be pleasant to turn over in bed as\noften as I want to, without worrying about waking you up.\n\n\"Am I really this settled thing called a 'married woman'? I feel\nso unmarried tonight. So free. To think that there was once a Mrs.\nKennicott who let herself worry over a town called Gopher Prairie when\nthere was a whole world outside it!\n\n\"Of course Will is going to like poetry.\"\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nA black February day. Clouds hewn of ponderous timber weighing down\non the earth; an irresolute dropping of snow specks upon the trampled\nwastes. Gloom but no veiling of angularity. The lines of roofs and\nsidewalks sharp and inescapable.\n\nThe second day of Kennicott's absence.\n\nShe fled from the creepy house for a walk. It was thirty below zero;\ntoo cold to exhilarate her. In the spaces between houses the wind caught\nher. It stung, it gnawed at nose and ears and aching cheeks, and she\nhastened from shelter to shelter, catching her breath in the lee of a\nbarn, grateful for the protection of a billboard covered with ragged\nposters showing layer under layer of paste-smeared green and streaky\nred.\n\nThe grove of oaks at the end of the street suggested Indians, hunting,\nsnow-shoes, and she struggled past the earth-banked cottages to the\nopen country, to a farm and a low hill corrugated with hard snow. In\nher loose nutria coat, seal toque, virginal cheeks unmarked by lines of\nvillage jealousies, she was as out of place on this dreary hillside as\na scarlet tanager on an ice-floe. She looked down on Gopher Prairie. The\nsnow, stretching without break from streets to devouring prairie beyond,\nwiped out the town's pretense of being a shelter. The houses were black\nspecks on a white sheet. Her heart shivered with that still loneliness\nas her body shivered with the wind.\n\nShe ran back into the huddle of streets, all the while protesting that\nshe wanted a city's yellow glare of shop-windows and restaurants, or the\nprimitive forest with hooded furs and a rifle, or a barnyard warm and\nsteamy, noisy with hens and cattle, certainly not these dun houses,\nthese yards choked with winter ash-piles, these roads of dirty snow and\nclotted frozen mud. The zest of winter was gone. Three months more, till\nMay, the cold might drag on, with the snow ever filthier, the weakened\nbody less resistent. She wondered why the good citizens insisted on\nadding the chill of prejudice, why they did not make the houses of their\nspirits more warm and frivolous, like the wise chatterers of Stockholm\nand Moscow.\n\nShe circled the outskirts of the town and viewed the slum of \"Swede\nHollow.\" Wherever as many as three houses are gathered there will be a\nslum of at least one house. In Gopher Prairie, the Sam Clarks boasted,\n\"you don't get any of this poverty that you find in cities--always\nplenty of work--no need of charity--man got to be blame shiftless if he\ndon't get ahead.\" But now that the summer mask of leaves and grass was\ngone, Carol discovered misery and dead hope. In a shack of thin boards\ncovered with tar-paper she saw the washerwoman, Mrs. Steinhof, working\nin gray steam. Outside, her six-year-old boy chopped wood. He had a torn\njacket, muffler of a blue like skimmed milk. His hands were covered with\nred mittens through which protruded his chapped raw knuckles. He halted\nto blow on them, to cry disinterestedly.\n\nA family of recently arrived Finns were camped in an abandoned stable. A\nman of eighty was picking up lumps of coal along the railroad.\n\nShe did not know what to do about it. She felt that these independent\ncitizens, who had been taught that they belonged to a democracy, would\nresent her trying to play Lady Bountiful.\n\nShe lost her loneliness in the activity of the village industries--the\nrailroad-yards with a freight-train switching, the wheat-elevator,\noil-tanks, a slaughter-house with blood-marks on the snow, the creamery\nwith the sleds of farmers and piles of milk-cans, an unexplained stone\nhut labeled \"Danger--Powder Stored Here.\" The jolly tombstone-yard,\nwhere a utilitarian sculptor in a red calfskin overcoat whistled as\nhe hammered the shiniest of granite headstones. Jackson Elder's small\nplaning-mill, with the smell of fresh pine shavings and the burr of\ncircular saws. Most important, the Gopher Prairie Flour and Milling\nCompany, Lyman Cass president. Its windows were blanketed with\nflour-dust, but it was the most stirring spot in town. Workmen were\nwheeling barrels of flour into a box-car; a farmer sitting on sacks of\nwheat in a bobsled argued with the wheat-buyer; machinery within the\nmill boomed and whined, water gurgled in the ice-freed mill-race.\n\nThe clatter was a relief to Carol after months of smug houses. She\nwished that she could work in the mill; that she did not belong to the\ncaste of professional-man's-wife.\n\nShe started for home, through the small slum. Before a tar-paper shack,\nat a gateless gate, a man in rough brown dogskin coat and black plush\ncap with lappets was watching her. His square face was confident,\nhis foxy mustache was picaresque. He stood erect, his hands in his\nside-pockets, his pipe puffing slowly. He was forty-five or -six,\nperhaps.\n\n\"How do, Mrs. Kennicott,\" he drawled.\n\nShe recalled him--the town handyman, who had repaired their furnace at\nthe beginning of winter.\n\n\"Oh, how do you do,\" she fluttered.\n\n\"My name 's Bjornstam. 'The Red Swede' they call me. Remember? Always\nthought I'd kind of like to say howdy to you again.\"\n\n\"Ye--yes----I've been exploring the outskirts of town.\"\n\n\"Yump. Fine mess. No sewage, no street cleaning, and the Lutheran\nminister and the priest represent the arts and sciences. Well, thunder,\nwe submerged tenth down here in Swede Hollow are no worse off than you\nfolks. Thank God, we don't have to go and purr at Juanity Haydock at the\nJolly Old Seventeen.\"\n\nThe Carol who regarded herself as completely adaptable was uncomfortable\nat being chosen as comrade by a pipe-reeking odd-job man. Probably he\nwas one of her husband's patients. But she must keep her dignity.\n\n\"Yes, even the Jolly Seventeen isn't always so exciting. It's very cold\nagain today, isn't it. Well----\"\n\nBjornstam was not respectfully valedictory. He showed no signs of\npulling a forelock. His eyebrows moved as though they had a life of\ntheir own. With a subgrin he went on:\n\n\"Maybe I hadn't ought to talk about Mrs. Haydock and her Solemcholy\nSeventeen in that fresh way. I suppose I'd be tickled to death if I was\ninvited to sit in with that gang. I'm what they call a pariah, I guess.\nI'm the town badman, Mrs. Kennicott: town atheist, and I suppose I must\nbe an anarchist, too. Everybody who doesn't love the bankers and the\nGrand Old Republican Party is an anarchist.\"\n\nCarol had unconsciously slipped from her attitude of departure into an\nattitude of listening, her face full toward him, her muff lowered. She\nfumbled:\n\n\"Yes, I suppose so.\" Her own grudges came in a flood. \"I don't see why\nyou shouldn't criticize the Jolly Seventeen if you want to. They aren't\nsacred.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, they are! The dollar-sign has chased the crucifix clean off\nthe map. But then, I've got no kick. I do what I please, and I suppose I\nought to let them do the same.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by saying you're a pariah?\"\n\n\"I'm poor, and yet I don't decently envy the rich. I'm an old bach.\nI make enough money for a stake, and then I sit around by myself, and\nshake hands with myself, and have a smoke, and read history, and I don't\ncontribute to the wealth of Brother Elder or Daddy Cass.\"\n\n\"You----I fancy you read a good deal.\"\n\n\"Yep. In a hit-or-a-miss way. I'll tell you: I'm a lone wolf. I trade\nhorses, and saw wood, and work in lumber-camps--I'm a first-rate\nswamper. Always wished I could go to college. Though I s'pose I'd find\nit pretty slow, and they'd probably kick me out.\"\n\n\"You really are a curious person, Mr.----\"\n\n\"Bjornstam. Miles Bjornstam. Half Yank and half Swede. Usually known as\n'that damn lazy big-mouthed calamity-howler that ain't satisfied with\nthe way we run things.' No, I ain't curious--whatever you mean by\nthat! I'm just a bookworm. Probably too much reading for the amount\nof digestion I've got. Probably half-baked. I'm going to get in\n'half-baked' first, and beat you to it, because it's dead sure to be\nhanded to a radical that wears jeans!\"\n\nThey grinned together. She demanded:\n\n\"You say that the Jolly Seventeen is stupid. What makes you think so?\"\n\n\"Oh, trust us borers into the foundation to know about your leisure\nclass. Fact, Mrs. Kennicott, I'll say that far as I can make out, the\nonly people in this man's town that do have any brains--I don't mean\nledger-keeping brains or duck-hunting brains or baby-spanking brains,\nbut real imaginative brains--are you and me and Guy Pollock and the\nforeman at the flour-mill. He's a socialist, the foreman. (Don't tell\nLym Cass that! Lym would fire a socialist quicker than he would a\nhorse-thief!)\"\n\n\"Indeed no, I sha'n't tell him.\"\n\n\"This foreman and I have some great set-to's. He's a regular old-line\nparty-member. Too dogmatic. Expects to reform everything from\ndeforestration to nosebleed by saying phrases like 'surplus value.'\nLike reading the prayer-book. But same time, he's a Plato J. Aristotle\ncompared with people like Ezry Stowbody or Professor Mott or Julius\nFlickerbaugh.\"\n\n\"It's interesting to hear about him.\"\n\nHe dug his toe into a drift, like a schoolboy. \"Rats. You mean I talk\ntoo much. Well, I do, when I get hold of somebody like you. You probably\nwant to run along and keep your nose from freezing.\"\n\n\"Yes, I must go, I suppose. But tell me: Why did you leave Miss Sherwin,\nof the high school, out of your list of the town intelligentsia?\"\n\n\"I guess maybe she does belong in it. From all I can hear she's in\neverything and behind everything that looks like a reform--lot more\nthan most folks realize. She lets Mrs. Reverend Warren, the president\nof this-here Thanatopsis Club, think she's running the works, but Miss\nSherwin is the secret boss, and nags all the easy-going dames into doing\nsomething. But way I figure it out----You see, I'm not interested in\nthese dinky reforms. Miss Sherwin's trying to repair the holes in this\nbarnacle-covered ship of a town by keeping busy bailing out the water.\nAnd Pollock tries to repair it by reading poetry to the crew! Me, I want\nto yank it up on the ways, and fire the poor bum of a shoemaker that\nbuilt it so it sails crooked, and have it rebuilt right, from the keel\nup.\"\n\n\"Yes--that--that would be better. But I must run home. My poor nose is\nnearly frozen.\"\n\n\"Say, you better come in and get warm, and see what an old bach's shack\nis like.\"\n\nShe looked doubtfully at him, at the low shanty, the yard that was\nlittered with cord-wood, moldy planks, a hoopless wash-tub. She was\ndisquieted, but Bjornstam did not give her the opportunity to be\ndelicate. He flung out his hand in a welcoming gesture which assumed\nthat she was her own counselor, that she was not a Respectable Married\nWoman but fully a human being. With a shaky, \"Well, just a moment, to\nwarm my nose,\" she glanced down the street to make sure that she was not\nspied on, and bolted toward the shanty.\n\nShe remained for one hour, and never had she known a more considerate\nhost than the Red Swede.\n\nHe had but one room: bare pine floor, small work-bench, wall bunk with\namazingly neat bed, frying-pan and ash-stippled coffee-pot on the\nshelf behind the pot-bellied cannon-ball stove, backwoods chairs--one\nconstructed from half a barrel, one from a tilted plank--and a row of\nbooks incredibly assorted; Byron and Tennyson and Stevenson, a manual of\ngas-engines, a book by Thorstein Veblen, and a spotty treatise on \"The\nCare, Feeding, Diseases, and Breeding of Poultry and Cattle.\"\n\nThere was but one picture--a magazine color-plate of a steep-roofed\nvillage in the Harz Mountains which suggested kobolds and maidens with\ngolden hair.\n\nBjornstam did not fuss over her. He suggested, \"Might throw open your\ncoat and put your feet up on the box in front of the stove.\" He tossed\nhis dogskin coat into the bunk, lowered himself into the barrel chair,\nand droned on:\n\n\"Yeh, I'm probably a yahoo, but by gum I do keep my independence by\ndoing odd jobs, and that's more 'n these polite cusses like the clerks\nin the banks do. When I'm rude to some slob, it may be partly because I\ndon't know better (and God knows I'm not no authority on trick forks\nand what pants you wear with a Prince Albert), but mostly it's because I\nmean something. I'm about the only man in Johnson County that remembers\nthe joker in the Declaration of Independence about Americans being\nsupposed to have the right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of\nhappiness.'\n\n\"I meet old Ezra Stowbody on the street. He looks at me like he wants me\nto remember he's a highmuckamuck and worth two hundred thousand dollars,\nand he says, 'Uh, Bjornquist----'\n\n\"'Bjornstam's my name, Ezra,' I says. HE knows my name, all rightee.\n\n\"'Well, whatever your name is,' he says, 'I understand you have a\ngasoline saw. I want you to come around and saw up four cords of maple\nfor me,' he says.\n\n\"'So you like my looks, eh?' I says, kind of innocent.\n\n\"'What difference does that make? Want you to saw that wood before\nSaturday,' he says, real sharp. Common workman going and getting fresh\nwith a fifth of a million dollars all walking around in a hand-me-down\nfur coat!\n\n\"'Here's the difference it makes,' I says, just to devil him. 'How do\nyou know I like YOUR looks?' Maybe he didn't look sore! 'Nope,' I says,\nthinking it all over, 'I don't like your application for a loan. Take it\nto another bank, only there ain't any,' I says, and I walks off on him.\n\n\"Sure. Probably I was surly--and foolish. But I figured there had to be\nONE man in town independent enough to sass the banker!\"\n\nHe hitched out of his chair, made coffee, gave Carol a cup, and talked\non, half defiant and half apologetic, half wistful for friendliness\nand half amused by her surprise at the discovery that there was a\nproletarian philosophy.\n\nAt the door, she hinted:\n\n\"Mr. Bjornstam, if you were I, would you worry when people thought you\nwere affected?\"\n\n\"Huh? Kick 'em in the face! Say, if I were a sea-gull, and all over\nsilver, think I'd care what a pack of dirty seals thought about my\nflying?\"\n\nIt was not the wind at her back, it was the thrust of Bjornstam's scorn\nwhich carried her through town. She faced Juanita Haydock, cocked\nher head at Maud Dyer's brief nod, and came home to Bea radiant. She\ntelephoned Vida Sherwin to \"run over this evening.\" She lustily played\nTschaikowsky--the virile chords an echo of the red laughing philosopher\nof the tar-paper shack.\n\n(When she hinted to Vida, \"Isn't there a man here who amuses himself by\nbeing irreverent to the village gods--Bjornstam, some such a name?\"\nthe reform-leader said \"Bjornstam? Oh yes. Fixes things. He's awfully\nimpertinent.\")\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nKennicott had returned at midnight. At breakfast he said four several\ntimes that he had missed her every moment.\n\nOn her way to market Sam Clark hailed her, \"The top o' the mornin'\nto yez! Going to stop and pass the time of day mit Sam'l? Warmer, eh?\nWhat'd the doc's thermometer say it was? Say, you folks better come\nround and visit with us, one of these evenings. Don't be so dog-gone\nproud, staying by yourselves.\"\n\nChamp Perry the pioneer, wheat-buyer at the elevator, stopped her in\nthe post-office, held her hand in his withered paws, peered at her\nwith faded eyes, and chuckled, \"You are so fresh and blooming, my dear.\nMother was saying t'other day that a sight of you was better 'n a dose\nof medicine.\"\n\nIn the Bon Ton Store she found Guy Pollock tentatively buying a modest\ngray scarf. \"We haven't seen you for so long,\" she said. \"Wouldn't you\nlike to come in and play cribbage, some evening?\" As though he meant it,\nPollock begged, \"May I, really?\"\n\nWhile she was purchasing two yards of malines the vocal Raymie\nWutherspoon tiptoed up to her, his long sallow face bobbing, and he\nbesought, \"You've just got to come back to my department and see a pair\nof patent leather slippers I set aside for you.\"\n\nIn a manner of more than sacerdotal reverence he unlaced her boots,\ntucked her skirt about her ankles, slid on the slippers. She took them.\n\n\"You're a good salesman,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm not a salesman at all! I just like elegant things. All this is so\ninartistic.\" He indicated with a forlornly waving hand the shelves of\nshoe-boxes, the seat of thin wood perforated in rosettes, the display of\nshoe-trees and tin boxes of blacking, the lithograph of a smirking\nyoung woman with cherry cheeks who proclaimed in the exalted poetry of\nadvertising, \"My tootsies never got hep to what pedal perfection was\ntill I got a pair of clever classy Cleopatra Shoes.\"\n\n\"But sometimes,\" Raymie sighed, \"there is a pair of dainty little shoes\nlike these, and I set them aside for some one who will appreciate. When\nI saw these I said right away, 'Wouldn't it be nice if they fitted Mrs.\nKennicott,' and I meant to speak to you first chance I had. I haven't\nforgotten our jolly talks at Mrs. Gurrey's!\"\n\nThat evening Guy Pollock came in and, though Kennicott instantly\nimpressed him into a cribbage game, Carol was happy again.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nShe did not, in recovering something of her buoyancy, forget her\ndetermination to begin the liberalizing of Gopher Prairie by the easy\nand agreeable propaganda of teaching Kennicott to enjoy reading poetry\nin the lamplight. The campaign was delayed. Twice he suggested that they\ncall on neighbors; once he was in the country. The fourth evening\nhe yawned pleasantly, stretched, and inquired, \"Well, what'll we do\ntonight? Shall we go to the movies?\"\n\n\"I know exactly what we're going to do. Now don't ask questions! Come\nand sit down by the table. There, are you comfy? Lean back and forget\nyou're a practical man, and listen to me.\"\n\nIt may be that she had been influenced by the managerial Vida Sherwin;\ncertainly she sounded as though she was selling culture. But she dropped\nit when she sat on the couch, her chin in her hands, a volume of Yeats\non her knees, and read aloud.\n\nInstantly she was released from the homely comfort of a prairie town.\nShe was in the world of lonely things--the flutter of twilight linnets,\nthe aching call of gulls along a shore to which the netted foam crept\nout of darkness, the island of Aengus and the elder gods and the eternal\nglories that never were, tall kings and women girdled with crusted gold,\nthe woful incessant chanting and the----\n\n\"Heh-cha-cha!\" coughed Dr. Kennicott. She stopped. She remembered that\nhe was the sort of person who chewed tobacco. She glared, while he\nuneasily petitioned, \"That's great stuff. Study it in college? I\nlike poetry fine--James Whitcomb Riley and some of Longfellow--this\n'Hiawatha.' Gosh, I wish I could appreciate that highbrow art stuff. But\nI guess I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks.\"\n\nWith pity for his bewilderment, and a certain desire to giggle, she\nconsoled him, \"Then let's try some Tennyson. You've read him?\"\n\n\"Tennyson? You bet. Read him in school. There's that:\n\n     And let there be no (what is it?) of farewell\n     When I put out to sea,\n     But let the----\n\nWell, I don't remember all of it but----Oh, sure! And there's that 'I\nmet a little country boy who----' I don't remember exactly how it goes,\nbut the chorus ends up, 'We are seven.'\"\n\n\"Yes. Well----Shall we try 'The Idylls of the King?' They're so full of\ncolor.\"\n\n\"Go to it. Shoot.\" But he hastened to shelter himself behind a cigar.\n\nShe was not transported to Camelot. She read with an eye cocked on him,\nand when she saw how much he was suffering she ran to him, kissed his\nforehead, cried, \"You poor forced tube-rose that wants to be a decent\nturnip!\"\n\n\"Look here now, that ain't----\"\n\n\"Anyway, I sha'n't torture you any longer.\"\n\nShe could not quite give up. She read Kipling, with a great deal of\nemphasis:\n\n\nThere's a REGIMENT a-COMING down the GRAND Trunk ROAD.\n\n\nHe tapped his foot to the rhythm; he looked normal and reassured. But\nwhen he complimented her, \"That was fine. I don't know but what you\ncan elocute just as good as Ella Stowbody,\" she banged the book and\nsuggested that they were not too late for the nine o'clock show at the\nmovies.\n\nThat was her last effort to harvest the April wind, to teach divine\nunhappiness by a correspondence course, to buy the lilies of Avalon and\nthe sunsets of Cockaigne in tin cans at Ole Jenson's Grocery.\n\nBut the fact is that at the motion-pictures she discovered herself\nlaughing as heartily as Kennicott at the humor of an actor who stuffed\nspaghetti down a woman's evening frock. For a second she loathed her\nlaughter; mourned for the day when on her hill by the Mississippi\nshe had walked the battlements with queens. But the celebrated cinema\njester's conceit of dropping toads into a soup-plate flung her into\nunwilling tittering, and the afterglow faded, the dead queens fled\nthrough darkness.\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nShe went to the Jolly Seventeen's afternoon bridge. She had learned\nthe elements of the game from the Sam Clarks. She played quietly and\nreasonably badly. She had no opinions on anything more polemic than\nwoolen union-suits, a topic on which Mrs. Howland discoursed for five\nminutes. She smiled frequently, and was the complete canary-bird in her\nmanner of thanking the hostess, Mrs. Dave Dyer.\n\nHer only anxious period was during the conference on husbands.\n\nThe young matrons discussed the intimacies of domesticity with a\nfrankness and a minuteness which dismayed Carol. Juanita Haydock\ncommunicated Harry's method of shaving, and his interest in\ndeer-shooting. Mrs. Gougerling reported fully, and with some irritation,\nher husband's inappreciation of liver and bacon. Maud Dyer chronicled\nDave's digestive disorders; quoted a recent bedtime controversy with\nhim in regard to Christian Science, socks and the sewing of buttons\nupon vests; announced that she \"simply wasn't going to stand his always\npawing girls when he went and got crazy-jealous if a man just danced\nwith her\"; and rather more than sketched Dave's varieties of kisses.\n\nSo meekly did Carol give attention, so obviously was she at last\ndesirous of being one of them, that they looked on her fondly, and\nencouraged her to give such details of her honeymoon as might be of\ninterest. She was embarrassed rather than resentful. She deliberately\nmisunderstood. She talked of Kennicott's overshoes and medical ideals\ntill they were thoroughly bored. They regarded her as agreeable but\ngreen.\n\nTill the end she labored to satisfy the inquisition. She bubbled at\nJuanita, the president of the club, that she wanted to entertain them.\n\"Only,\" she said, \"I don't know that I can give you any refreshments as\nnice as Mrs. Dyer's salad, or that simply delicious angel's-food we had\nat your house, dear.\"\n\n\"Fine! We need a hostess for the seventeenth of March. Wouldn't it be\nawfully original if you made it a St. Patrick's Day bridge! I'll be\ntickled to death to help you with it. I'm glad you've learned to play\nbridge. At first I didn't hardly know if you were going to like Gopher\nPrairie. Isn't it dandy that you've settled down to being homey with us!\nMaybe we aren't as highbrow as the Cities, but we do have the daisiest\ntimes and--oh, we go swimming in summer, and dances and--oh, lots of\ngood times. If folks will just take us as we are, I think we're a pretty\ngood bunch!\"\n\n\"I'm sure of it. Thank you so much for the idea about having a St.\nPatrick's Day bridge.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's nothing. I always think the Jolly Seventeen are so good at\noriginal ideas. If you knew these other towns Wakamin and Joralemon and\nall, you'd find out and realize that G. P. is the liveliest, smartest\ntown in the state. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan, the famous auto\nmanufacturer, came from here and----Yes, I think that a St. Patrick's\nDay party would be awfully cunning and original, and yet not too queer\nor freaky or anything.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nI\n\nSHE had often been invited to the weekly meetings of the Thanatopsis,\nthe women's study club, but she had put it off. The Thanatopsis was,\nVida Sherwin promised, \"such a cozy group, and yet it puts you in touch\nwith all the intellectual thoughts that are going on everywhere.\"\n\nEarly in March Mrs. Westlake, wife of the veteran physician, marched\ninto Carol's living-room like an amiable old pussy and suggested, \"My\ndear, you really must come to the Thanatopsis this afternoon. Mrs.\nDawson is going to be leader and the poor soul is frightened to death.\nShe wanted me to get you to come. She says she's sure you will brighten\nup the meeting with your knowledge of books and writings. (English\npoetry is our topic today.) So shoo! Put on your coat!\"\n\n\"English poetry? Really? I'd love to go. I didn't realize you were\nreading poetry.\"\n\n\"Oh, we're not so slow!\"\n\nMrs. Luke Dawson, wife of the richest man in town, gaped at them\npiteously when they appeared. Her expensive frock of beaver-colored\nsatin with rows, plasters, and pendants of solemn brown beads was\nintended for a woman twice her size. She stood wringing her hands in\nfront of nineteen folding chairs, in her front parlor with its faded\nphotograph of Minnehaha Falls in 1890, its \"colored enlargement\" of\nMr. Dawson, its bulbous lamp painted with sepia cows and mountains and\nstanding on a mortuary marble column.\n\nShe creaked, \"O Mrs. Kennicott, I'm in such a fix. I'm supposed to lead\nthe discussion, and I wondered would you come and help?\"\n\n\"What poet do you take up today?\" demanded Carol, in her library tone of\n\"What book do you wish to take out?\"\n\n\"Why, the English ones.\"\n\n\"Not all of them?\"\n\n\"W-why yes. We're learning all of European Literature this year.\nThe club gets such a nice magazine, Culture Hints, and we follow its\nprograms. Last year our subject was Men and Women of the Bible, and next\nyear we'll probably take up Furnishings and China. My, it does make a\nbody hustle to keep up with all these new culture subjects, but it is\nimproving. So will you help us with the discussion today?\"\n\nOn her way over Carol had decided to use the Thanatopsis as the tool\nwith which to liberalize the town. She had immediately conceived\nenormous enthusiasm; she had chanted, \"These are the real people. When\nthe housewives, who bear the burdens, are interested in poetry, it means\nsomething. I'll work with them--for them--anything!\"\n\nHer enthusiasm had become watery even before thirteen women resolutely\nremoved their overshoes, sat down meatily, ate peppermints, dusted their\nfingers, folded their hands, composed their lower thoughts, and invited\nthe naked muse of poetry to deliver her most improving message. They had\ngreeted Carol affectionately, and she tried to be a daughter to them.\nBut she felt insecure. Her chair was out in the open, exposed to their\ngaze, and it was a hard-slatted, quivery, slippery church-parlor chair,\nlikely to collapse publicly and without warning. It was impossible to\nsit on it without folding the hands and listening piously.\n\nShe wanted to kick the chair and run. It would make a magnificent\nclatter.\n\nShe saw that Vida Sherwin was watching her. She pinched her wrist, as\nthough she were a noisy child in church, and when she was decent and\ncramped again, she listened.\n\nMrs. Dawson opened the meeting by sighing, \"I'm sure I'm glad to see you\nall here today, and I understand that the ladies have prepared a number\nof very interesting papers, this is such an interesting subject, the\npoets, they have been an inspiration for higher thought, in fact wasn't\nit Reverend Benlick who said that some of the poets have been as much an\ninspiration as a good many of the ministers, and so we shall be glad to\nhear----\"\n\nThe poor lady smiled neuralgically, panted with fright, scrabbled about\nthe small oak table to find her eye-glasses, and continued, \"We\nwill first have the pleasure of hearing Mrs. Jenson on the subject\n'Shakespeare and Milton.'\"\n\nMrs. Ole Jenson said that Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died 1616. He\nlived in London, England, and in Stratford-on-Avon, which many American\ntourists loved to visit, a lovely town with many curios and old houses\nwell worth examination. Many people believed that Shakespeare was the\ngreatest play-wright who ever lived, also a fine poet. Not much was\nknown about his life, but after all that did not really make so much\ndifference, because they loved to read his numerous plays, several of\nthe best known of which she would now criticize.\n\nPerhaps the best known of his plays was \"The Merchant of Venice,\" having\na beautiful love story and a fine appreciation of a woman's brains,\nwhich a woman's club, even those who did not care to commit themselves\non the question of suffrage, ought to appreciate. (Laughter.) Mrs.\nJenson was sure that she, for one, would love to be like Portia. The\nplay was about a Jew named Shylock, and he didn't want his daughter to\nmarry a Venice gentleman named Antonio----\n\nMrs. Leonard Warren, a slender, gray, nervous woman, president of the\nThanatopsis and wife of the Congregational pastor, reported the birth\nand death dates of Byron, Scott, Moore, Burns; and wound up:\n\n\"Burns was quite a poor boy and he did not enjoy the advantages we enjoy\ntoday, except for the advantages of the fine old Scotch kirk where he\nheard the Word of God preached more fearlessly than even in the finest\nbig brick churches in the big and so-called advanced cities of today,\nbut he did not have our educational advantages and Latin and the other\ntreasures of the mind so richly strewn before the, alas, too ofttimes\ninattentive feet of our youth who do not always sufficiently appreciate\nthe privileges freely granted to every American boy rich or poor. Burns\nhad to work hard and was sometimes led by evil companionship into low\nhabits. But it is morally instructive to know that he was a good\nstudent and educated himself, in striking contrast to the loose ways and\nso-called aristocratic society-life of Lord Byron, on which I have just\nspoken. And certainly though the lords and earls of his day may have\nlooked down upon Burns as a humble person, many of us have greatly\nenjoyed his pieces about the mouse and other rustic subjects, with their\nmessage of humble beauty--I am so sorry I have not got the time to quote\nsome of them.\"\n\nMrs. George Edwin Mott gave ten minutes to Tennyson and Browning.\n\nMrs. Nat Hicks, a wry-faced, curiously sweet woman, so awed by her\nbetters that Carol wanted to kiss her, completed the day's grim task by\na paper on \"Other Poets.\" The other poets worthy of consideration were\nColeridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Gray, Mrs. Hemans, and Kipling.\n\nMiss Ella Stowbody obliged with a recital of \"The Recessional\" and\nextracts from \"Lalla Rookh.\" By request, she gave \"An Old Sweetheart of\nMine\" as encore.\n\nGopher Prairie had finished the poets. It was ready for the next week's\nlabor: English Fiction and Essays.\n\nMrs. Dawson besought, \"Now we will have a discussion of the papers, and\nI am sure we shall all enjoy hearing from one who we hope to have as a\nnew member, Mrs. Kennicott, who with her splendid literary training and\nall should be able to give us many pointers and--many helpful pointers.\"\n\nCarol had warned herself not to be so \"beastly supercilious.\" She had\ninsisted that in the belated quest of these work-stained women was\nan aspiration which ought to stir her tears. \"But they're so\nself-satisfied. They think they're doing Burns a favor. They don't\nbelieve they have a 'belated quest.' They're sure that they have culture\nsalted and hung up.\" It was out of this stupor of doubt that Mrs.\nDawson's summons roused her. She was in a panic. How could she speak\nwithout hurting them?\n\nMrs. Champ Perry leaned over to stroke her hand and whisper, \"You look\ntired, dearie. Don't you talk unless you want to.\"\n\nAffection flooded Carol; she was on her feet, searching for words and\ncourtesies:\n\n\"The only thing in the way of suggestion----I know you are following\na definite program, but I do wish that now you've had such a splendid\nintroduction, instead of going on with some other subject next year you\ncould return and take up the poets more in detail. Especially actual\nquotations--even though their lives are so interesting and, as Mrs.\nWarren said, so morally instructive. And perhaps there are several poets\nnot mentioned today whom it might be worth while considering--Keats, for\ninstance, and Matthew Arnold and Rossetti and Swinburne. Swinburne would\nbe such a--well, that is, such a contrast to life as we all enjoy it in\nour beautiful Middle-west----\"\n\nShe saw that Mrs. Leonard Warren was not with her. She captured her by\ninnocently continuing:\n\n\"Unless perhaps Swinburne tends to be, uh, more outspoken than you, than\nwe really like. What do you think, Mrs. Warren?\"\n\nThe pastor's wife decided, \"Why, you've caught my very thoughts, Mrs.\nKennicott. Of course I have never READ Swinburne, but years ago, when\nhe was in vogue, I remember Mr. Warren saying that Swinburne (or was\nit Oscar Wilde? but anyway:) he said that though many so-called\nintellectual people posed and pretended to find beauty in Swinburne,\nthere can never be genuine beauty without the message from the heart.\nBut at the same time I do think you have an excellent idea, and though\nwe have talked about Furnishings and China as the probable subject for\nnext year, I believe that it would be nice if the program committee\nwould try to work in another day entirely devoted to English poetry! In\nfact, Madame Chairman, I so move you.\"\n\nWhen Mrs. Dawson's coffee and angel's-food had helped them to recover\nfrom the depression caused by thoughts of Shakespeare's death they all\ntold Carol that it was a pleasure to have her with them. The membership\ncommittee retired to the sitting-room for three minutes and elected her\na member.\n\nAnd she stopped being patronizing.\n\nShe wanted to be one of them. They were so loyal and kind. It was they\nwho would carry out her aspiration. Her campaign against village sloth\nwas actually begun! On what specific reform should she first loose\nher army? During the gossip after the meeting Mrs. George Edwin Mott\nremarked that the city hall seemed inadequate for the splendid modern\nGopher Prairie. Mrs. Nat Hicks timidly wished that the young people\ncould have free dances there--the lodge dances were so exclusive. The\ncity hall. That was it! Carol hurried home.\n\nShe had not realized that Gopher Prairie was a city. From Kennicott she\ndiscovered that it was legally organized with a mayor and city-council\nand wards. She was delighted by the simplicity of voting one's self a\nmetropolis. Why not?\n\nShe was a proud and patriotic citizen, all evening.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe examined the city hall, next morning. She had remembered it only as\na bleak inconspicuousness. She found it a liver-colored frame coop half\na block from Main Street. The front was an unrelieved wall of clapboards\nand dirty windows. It had an unobstructed view of a vacant lot and Nat\nHicks's tailor shop. It was larger than the carpenter shop beside it,\nbut not so well built.\n\nNo one was about. She walked into the corridor. On one side was the\nmunicipal court, like a country school; on the other, the room of the\nvolunteer fire company, with a Ford hose-cart and the ornamental helmets\nused in parades, at the end of the hall, a filthy two-cell jail, now\nempty but smelling of ammonia and ancient sweat. The whole second story\nwas a large unfinished room littered with piles of folding chairs, a\nlime-crusted mortar-mixing box, and the skeletons of Fourth of July\nfloats covered with decomposing plaster shields and faded red, white,\nand blue bunting. At the end was an abortive stage. The room was large\nenough for the community dances which Mrs. Nat Hicks advocated. But\nCarol was after something bigger than dances.\n\nIn the afternoon she scampered to the public library.\n\nThe library was open three afternoons and four evenings a week. It was\nhoused in an old dwelling, sufficient but unattractive. Carol caught\nherself picturing pleasanter reading-rooms, chairs for children, an art\ncollection, a librarian young enough to experiment.\n\nShe berated herself, \"Stop this fever of reforming everything! I WILL be\nsatisfied with the library! The city hall is enough for a beginning.\nAnd it's really an excellent library. It's--it isn't so bad. . . . Is\nit possible that I am to find dishonesties and stupidity in every\nhuman activity I encounter? In schools and business and government and\neverything? Is there never any contentment, never any rest?\"\n\nShe shook her head as though she were shaking off water, and hastened\ninto the library, a young, light, amiable presence, modest in unbuttoned\nfur coat, blue suit, fresh organdy collar, and tan boots roughened from\nscuffling snow. Miss Villets stared at her, and Carol purred, \"I was so\nsorry not to see you at the Thanatopsis yesterday. Vida said you might\ncome.\"\n\n\"Oh. You went to the Thanatopsis. Did you enjoy it?\"\n\n\"So much. Such good papers on the poets.\" Carol lied resolutely. \"But I\ndid think they should have had you give one of the papers on poetry!\"\n\n\"Well----Of course I'm not one of the bunch that seem to have the\ntime to take and run the club, and if they prefer to have papers on\nliterature by other ladies who have no literary training--after all, why\nshould I complain? What am I but a city employee!\"\n\n\"You're not! You're the one person that does--that does--oh, you do so\nmuch. Tell me, is there, uh----Who are the people who control the club?\"\n\nMiss Villets emphatically stamped a date in the front of \"Frank on the\nLower Mississippi\" for a small flaxen boy, glowered at him as though she\nwere stamping a warning on his brain, and sighed:\n\n\"I wouldn't put myself forward or criticize any one for the world, and\nVida is one of my best friends, and such a splendid teacher, and there\nis no one in town more advanced and interested in all movements, but I\nmust say that no matter who the president or the committees are, Vida\nSherwin seems to be behind them all the time, and though she is always\ntelling me about what she is pleased to call my 'fine work in the\nlibrary,' I notice that I'm not often called on for papers, though Mrs.\nLyman Cass once volunteered and told me that she thought my paper on\n'The Cathedrals of England' was the most interesting paper we had, the\nyear we took up English and French travel and architecture. But----And\nof course Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Warren are very important in the club, as\nyou might expect of the wives of the superintendent of schools and\nthe Congregational pastor, and indeed they are both very cultured,\nbut----No, you may regard me as entirely unimportant. I'm sure what I\nsay doesn't matter a bit!\"\n\n\"You're much too modest, and I'm going to tell Vida so, and, uh, I\nwonder if you can give me just a teeny bit of your time and show me\nwhere the magazine files are kept?\"\n\nShe had won. She was profusely escorted to a room like a grandmother's\nattic, where she discovered periodicals devoted to house-decoration and\ntown-planning, with a six-year file of the National Geographic. Miss\nVillets blessedly left her alone. Humming, fluttering pages with\ndelighted fingers, Carol sat cross-legged on the floor, the magazines in\nheaps about her.\n\nShe found pictures of New England streets: the dignity of Falmouth, the\ncharm of Concord, Stockbridge and Farmington and Hillhouse Avenue. The\nfairy-book suburb of Forest Hills on Long Island. Devonshire cottages\nand Essex manors and a Yorkshire High Street and Port Sunlight. The\nArab village of Djeddah--an intricately chased jewel-box. A town in\nCalifornia which had changed itself from the barren brick fronts and\nslatternly frame sheds of a Main Street to a way which led the eye down\na vista of arcades and gardens.\n\nAssured that she was not quite mad in her belief that a small American\ntown might be lovely, as well as useful in buying wheat and selling\nplows, she sat brooding, her thin fingers playing a tattoo on her\ncheeks. She saw in Gopher Prairie a Georgian city hall: warm brick walls\nwith white shutters, a fanlight, a wide hall and curving stair. She\nsaw it the common home and inspiration not only of the town but of\nthe country about. It should contain the court-room (she couldn't get\nherself to put in a jail), public library, a collection of excellent\nprints, rest-room and model kitchen for farmwives, theater, lecture\nroom, free community ballroom, farm-bureau, gymnasium. Forming about it\nand influenced by it, as mediaeval villages gathered about the castle,\nshe saw a new Georgian town as graceful and beloved as Annapolis or that\nbowery Alexandria to which Washington rode.\n\nAll this the Thanatopsis Club was to accomplish with no difficulty\nwhatever, since its several husbands were the controllers of business\nand politics. She was proud of herself for this practical view.\n\nShe had taken only half an hour to change a wire-fenced potato-plot into\na walled rose-garden. She hurried out to apprize Mrs. Leonard Warren, as\npresident of the Thanatopsis, of the miracle which had been worked.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nAt a quarter to three Carol had left home; at half-past four she had\ncreated the Georgian town; at a quarter to five she was in the dignified\npoverty of the Congregational parsonage, her enthusiasm pattering upon\nMrs. Leonard Warren like summer rain upon an old gray roof; at two\nminutes to five a town of demure courtyards and welcoming dormer windows\nhad been erected, and at two minutes past five the entire town was as\nflat as Babylon.\n\nErect in a black William and Mary chair against gray and speckly-brown\nvolumes of sermons and Biblical commentaries and Palestine geographies\nupon long pine shelves, her neat black shoes firm on a rag-rug, herself\nas correct and low-toned as her background, Mrs. Warren listened without\ncomment till Carol was quite through, then answered delicately:\n\n\"Yes, I think you draw a very nice picture of what might easily come to\npass--some day. I have no doubt that such villages will be found on the\nprairie--some day. But if I might make just the least little criticism:\nit seems to me that you are wrong in supposing either that the city hall\nwould be the proper start, or that the Thanatopsis would be the right\ninstrument. After all, it's the churches, isn't it, that are the\nreal heart of the community. As you may possibly know, my husband\nis prominent in Congregational circles all through the state for\nhis advocacy of church-union. He hopes to see all the evangelical\ndenominations joined in one strong body, opposing Catholicism and\nChristian Science, and properly guiding all movements that make for\nmorality and prohibition. Here, the combined churches could afford\na splendid club-house, maybe a stucco and half-timber building with\ngargoyles and all sorts of pleasing decorations on it, which, it seems\nto me, would be lots better to impress the ordinary class of people than\njust a plain old-fashioned colonial house, such as you describe. And\nthat would be the proper center for all educational and pleasurable\nactivities, instead of letting them fall into the hands of the\npoliticians.\"\n\n\"I don't suppose it will take more than thirty or forty years for the\nchurches to get together?\" Carol said innocently.\n\n\"Hardly that long even; things are moving so rapidly. So it would be a\nmistake to make any other plans.\"\n\nCarol did not recover her zeal till two days after, when she tried Mrs.\nGeorge Edwin Mott, wife of the superintendent of schools.\n\nMrs. Mott commented, \"Personally, I am terribly busy with dressmaking\nand having the seamstress in the house and all, but it would be splendid\nto have the other members of the Thanatopsis take up the question.\nExcept for one thing: First and foremost, we must have a new\nschoolbuilding. Mr. Mott says they are terribly cramped.\"\n\nCarol went to view the old building. The grades and the high school were\ncombined in a damp yellow-brick structure with the narrow windows of an\nantiquated jail--a hulk which expressed hatred and compulsory training.\nShe conceded Mrs. Mott's demand so violently that for two days she\ndropped her own campaign. Then she built the school and city hall\ntogether, as the center of the reborn town.\n\nShe ventured to the lead-colored dwelling of Mrs. Dave Dyer. Behind the\nmask of winter-stripped vines and a wide porch only a foot above the\nground, the cottage was so impersonal that Carol could never visualize\nit. Nor could she remember anything that was inside it. But Mrs. Dyer\nwas personal enough. With Carol, Mrs. Howland, Mrs. McGanum, and Vida\nSherwin she was a link between the Jolly Seventeen and the serious\nThanatopsis (in contrast to Juanita Haydock, who unnecessarily boasted\nof being a \"lowbrow\" and publicly stated that she would \"see herself\nin jail before she'd write any darned old club papers\"). Mrs. Dyer was\nsuperfeminine in the kimono in which she received Carol. Her skin was\nfine, pale, soft, suggesting a weak voluptuousness. At afternoon-coffees\nshe had been rude but now she addressed Carol as \"dear,\" and insisted on\nbeing called Maud. Carol did not quite know why she was uncomfortable\nin this talcum-powder atmosphere, but she hastened to get into the fresh\nair of her plans.\n\nMaud Dyer granted that the city hall wasn't \"so very nice,\" yet, as Dave\nsaid, there was no use doing anything about it till they received\nan appropriation from the state and combined a new city hall with\na national guard armory. Dave had given verdict, \"What these mouthy\nyoungsters that hang around the pool-room need is universal military\ntraining. Make men of 'em.\"\n\nMrs. Dyer removed the new schoolbuilding from the city hall:\n\n\"Oh, so Mrs. Mott has got you going on her school craze! She's been\ndinging at that till everybody's sick and tired. What she really wants\nis a big office for her dear bald-headed Gawge to sit around and look\nimportant in. Of course I admire Mrs. Mott, and I'm very fond of\nher, she's so brainy, even if she does try to butt in and run the\nThanatopsis, but I must say we're sick of her nagging. The old building\nwas good enough for us when we were kids! I hate these would-be women\npoliticians, don't you?\"\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThe first week of March had given promise of spring and stirred Carol\nwith a thousand desires for lakes and fields and roads. The snow was\ngone except for filthy woolly patches under trees, the thermometer\nleaped in a day from wind-bitten chill to itchy warmth. As soon as Carol\nwas convinced that even in this imprisoned North, spring could exist\nagain, the snow came down as abruptly as a paper storm in a theater; the\nnorthwest gale flung it up in a half blizzard; and with her hope of a\nglorified town went hope of summer meadows.\n\nBut a week later, though the snow was everywhere in slushy heaps, the\npromise was unmistakable. By the invisible hints in air and sky and\nearth which had aroused her every year through ten thousand generations\nshe knew that spring was coming. It was not a scorching, hard, dusty day\nlike the treacherous intruder of a week before, but soaked with languor,\nsoftened with a milky light. Rivulets were hurrying in each alley; a\ncalling robin appeared by magic on the crab-apple tree in the Howlands'\nyard. Everybody chuckled, \"Looks like winter is going,\" and \"This 'll\nbring the frost out of the roads--have the autos out pretty soon\nnow--wonder what kind of bass-fishing we'll get this summer--ought to be\ngood crops this year.\"\n\nEach evening Kennicott repeated, \"We better not take off our Heavy\nUnderwear or the storm windows too soon--might be 'nother spell of\ncold--got to be careful 'bout catching cold--wonder if the coal will\nlast through?\"\n\nThe expanding forces of life within her choked the desire for reforming.\nShe trotted through the house, planning the spring cleaning with Bea.\nWhen she attended her second meeting of the Thanatopsis she said nothing\nabout remaking the town. She listened respectably to statistics on\nDickens, Thackeray, Jane Austen, George Eliot, Scott, Hardy, Lamb, De\nQuincey, and Mrs. Humphry Ward, who, it seemed, constituted the writers\nof English Fiction and Essays.\n\nNot till she inspected the rest-room did she again become a fanatic.\nShe had often glanced at the store-building which had been turned into\na refuge in which farmwives could wait while their husbands transacted\nbusiness. She had heard Vida Sherwin and Mrs. Warren caress the virtue\nof the Thanatopsis in establishing the rest-room and in sharing with the\ncity council the expense of maintaining it. But she had never entered it\ntill this March day.\n\nShe went in impulsively; nodded at the matron, a plump worthy widow\nnamed Nodelquist, and at a couple of farm-women who were meekly rocking.\nThe rest-room resembled a second-hand store. It was furnished with\ndiscarded patent rockers, lopsided reed chairs, a scratched pine table,\na gritty straw mat, old steel engravings of milkmaids being morally\namorous under willow-trees, faded chromos of roses and fish, and a\nkerosene stove for warming lunches. The front window was darkened by\ntorn net curtains and by a mound of geraniums and rubber-plants.\n\nWhile she was listening to Mrs. Nodelquist's account of how many\nthousands of farmers' wives used the rest-room every year, and how much\nthey \"appreciated the kindness of the ladies in providing them with\nthis lovely place, and all free,\" she thought, \"Kindness nothing! The\nkind-ladies' husbands get the farmers' trade. This is mere commercial\naccommodation. And it's horrible. It ought to be the most charming room\nin town, to comfort women sick of prairie kitchens. Certainly it ought\nto have a clear window, so that they can see the metropolitan life go\nby. Some day I'm going to make a better rest-room--a club-room. Why!\nI've already planned that as part of my Georgian town hall!\"\n\nSo it chanced that she was plotting against the peace of the Thanatopsis\nat her third meeting (which covered Scandinavian, Russian, and Polish\nLiterature, with remarks by Mrs. Leonard Warren on the sinful paganism\nof the Russian so-called church). Even before the entrance of the\ncoffee and hot rolls Carol seized on Mrs. Champ Perry, the kind and\nample-bosomed pioneer woman who gave historic dignity to the modern\nmatrons of the Thanatopsis. She poured out her plans. Mrs. Perry nodded\nand stroked Carol's hand, but at the end she sighed:\n\n\"I wish I could agree with you, dearie. I'm sure you're one of the\nLord's anointed (even if we don't see you at the Baptist Church as often\nas we'd like to)! But I'm afraid you're too tender-hearted. When Champ\nand I came here we teamed-it with an ox-cart from Sauk Centre to Gopher\nPrairie, and there was nothing here then but a stockade and a few\nsoldiers and some log cabins. When we wanted salt pork and gunpowder, we\nsent out a man on horseback, and probably he was shot dead by the\nInjuns before he got back. We ladies--of course we were all farmers\nat first--we didn't expect any rest-room in those days. My, we'd have\nthought the one they have now was simply elegant! My house was roofed\nwith hay and it leaked something terrible when it rained--only dry place\nwas under a shelf.\n\n\"And when the town grew up we thought the new city hall was real fine.\nAnd I don't see any need for dance-halls. Dancing isn't what it was,\nanyway. We used to dance modest, and we had just as much fun as all\nthese young folks do now with their terrible Turkey Trots and hugging\nand all. But if they must neglect the Lord's injunction that young girls\nought to be modest, then I guess they manage pretty well at the K.\nP. Hall and the Oddfellows', even if some of tie lodges don't always\nwelcome a lot of these foreigners and hired help to all their dances.\nAnd I certainly don't see any need of a farm-bureau or this domestic\nscience demonstration you talk about. In my day the boys learned to farm\nby honest sweating, and every gal could cook, or her ma learned her\nhow across her knee! Besides, ain't there a county agent at Wakamin? He\ncomes here once a fortnight, maybe. That's enough monkeying with this\nscientific farming--Champ says there's nothing to it anyway.\n\n\"And as for a lecture hall--haven't we got the churches? Good deal\nbetter to listen to a good old-fashioned sermon than a lot of geography\nand books and things that nobody needs to know--more 'n enough heathen\nlearning right here in the Thanatopsis. And as for trying to make a\nwhole town in this Colonial architecture you talk about----I do love\nnice things; to this day I run ribbons into my petticoats, even if\nChamp Perry does laugh at me, the old villain! But just the same I don't\nbelieve any of us old-timers would like to see the town that we worked\nso hard to build being tore down to make a place that wouldn't look like\nnothing but some Dutch story-book and not a bit like the place we loved.\nAnd don't you think it's sweet now? All the trees and lawns? And such\ncomfy houses, and hot-water heat and electric lights and telephones\nand cement walks and everything? Why, I thought everybody from the Twin\nCities always said it was such a beautiful town!\"\n\nCarol forswore herself; declared that Gopher Prairie had the color of\nAlgiers and the gaiety of Mardi Gras.\n\nYet the next afternoon she was pouncing on Mrs. Lyman Cass, the\nhook-nosed consort of the owner of the flour-mill.\n\nMrs. Cass's parlor belonged to the crammed-Victorian school, as Mrs.\nLuke Dawson's belonged to the bare-Victorian. It was furnished on two\nprinciples: First, everything must resemble something else. A rocker had\na back like a lyre, a near-leather seat imitating tufted cloth, and\narms like Scotch Presbyterian lions; with knobs, scrolls, shields, and\nspear-points on unexpected portions of the chair. The second principle\nof the crammed-Victorian school was that every inch of the interior must\nbe filled with useless objects.\n\nThe walls of Mrs. Cass's parlor were plastered with \"hand-painted\"\npictures, \"buckeye\" pictures, of birch-trees, news-boys, puppies, and\nchurch-steeples on Christmas Eve; with a plaque depicting the Exposition\nBuilding in Minneapolis, burnt-wood portraits of Indian chiefs of no\ntribe in particular, a pansy-decked poetic motto, a Yard of Roses, and\nthe banners of the educational institutions attended by the Casses' two\nsons--Chicopee Falls Business College and McGillicuddy University. One\nsmall square table contained a card-receiver of painted china with a rim\nof wrought and gilded lead, a Family Bible, Grant's Memoirs, the latest\nnovel by Mrs. Gene Stratton Porter, a wooden model of a Swiss chalet\nwhich was also a bank for dimes, a polished abalone shell holding one\nblack-headed pin and one empty spool, a velvet pin-cushion in a gilded\nmetal slipper with \"Souvenir of Troy, N. Y.\" stamped on the toe, and an\nunexplained red glass dish which had warts.\n\nMrs. Cass's first remark was, \"I must show you all my pretty things and\nart objects.\"\n\nShe piped, after Carol's appeal:\n\n\"I see. You think the New England villages and Colonial houses are so\nmuch more cunning than these Middlewestern towns. I'm glad you feel that\nway. You'll be interested to know I was born in Vermont.\"\n\n\"And don't you think we ought to try to make Gopher Prai----\"\n\n\"My gracious no! We can't afford it. Taxes are much too high as it is.\nWe ought to retrench, and not let the city council spend another cent.\nUh----Don't you think that was a grand paper Mrs. Westlake read about\nTolstoy? I was so glad she pointed out how all his silly socialistic\nideas failed.\"\n\nWhat Mrs. Cass said was what Kennicott said, that evening. Not in twenty\nyears would the council propose or Gopher Prairie vote the funds for a\nnew city hall.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nCarol had avoided exposing her plans to Vida Sherwin. She was shy of the\nbig-sister manner; Vida would either laugh at her or snatch the idea and\nchange it to suit herself. But there was no other hope. When Vida came\nin to tea Carol sketched her Utopia.\n\nVida was soothing but decisive:\n\n\"My dear, you're all off. I would like to see it: a real gardeny place\nto shut out the gales. But it can't be done. What could the clubwomen\naccomplish?\"\n\n\"Their husbands are the most important men in town. They ARE the town!\"\n\n\"But the town as a separate unit is not the husband of the Thanatopsis.\nIf you knew the trouble we had in getting the city council to spend the\nmoney and cover the pumping-station with vines! Whatever you may think\nof Gopher Prairie women, they're twice as progressive as the men.\"\n\n\"But can't the men see the ugliness?\"\n\n\"They don't think it's ugly. And how can you prove it? Matter of taste.\nWhy should they like what a Boston architect likes?\"\n\n\"What they like is to sell prunes!\"\n\n\"Well, why not? Anyway, the point is that you have to work from the\ninside, with what we have, rather than from the outside, with foreign\nideas. The shell ought not to be forced on the spirit. It can't be! The\nbright shell has to grow out of the spirit, and express it. That means\nwaiting. If we keep after the city council for another ten years they\nMAY vote the bonds for a new school.\"\n\n\"I refuse to believe that if they saw it the big men would be too\ntight-fisted to spend a few dollars each for a building--think!--dancing\nand lectures and plays, all done co-operatively!\"\n\n\"You mention the word 'co-operative' to the merchants and they'll\nlynch you! The one thing they fear more than mail-order houses is that\nfarmers' co-operative movements may get started.\"\n\n\"The secret trails that lead to scared pocket-books! Always, in\neverything! And I don't have any of the fine melodrama of fiction: the\ndictagraphs and speeches by torchlight. I'm merely blocked by stupidity.\nOh, I know I'm a fool. I dream of Venice, and I live in Archangel and\nscold because the Northern seas aren't tender-colored. But at least they\nsha'n't keep me from loving Venice, and sometime I'll run away----All\nright. No more.\"\n\nShe flung out her hands in a gesture of renunciation.\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nEarly May; wheat springing up in blades like grass; corn and potatoes\nbeing planted; the land humming. For two days there had been steady\nrain. Even in town the roads were a furrowed welter of mud, hideous to\nview and difficult to cross. Main Street was a black swamp from curb to\ncurb; on residence streets the grass parking beside the walks oozed gray\nwater. It was prickly hot, yet the town was barren under the bleak sky.\nSoftened neither by snow nor by waving boughs the houses squatted and\nscowled, revealed in their unkempt harshness.\n\nAs she dragged homeward Carol looked with distaste at her clay-loaded\nrubbers, the smeared hem of her skirt. She passed Lyman Cass's\npinnacled, dark-red, hulking house. She waded a streaky yellow pool.\nThis morass was not her home, she insisted. Her home, and her beautiful\ntown, existed in her mind. They had already been created. The task was\ndone. What she really had been questing was some one to share them with\nher. Vida would not; Kennicott could not.\n\nSome one to share her refuge.\n\nSuddenly she was thinking of Guy Pollock.\n\nShe dismissed him. He was too cautious. She needed a spirit as young and\nunreasonable as her own. And she would never find it. Youth would never\ncome singing. She was beaten.\n\nYet that same evening she had an idea which solved the rebuilding of\nGopher Prairie.\n\nWithin ten minutes she was jerking the old-fashioned bell-pull of Luke\nDawson. Mrs. Dawson opened the door and peered doubtfully about the\nedge of it. Carol kissed her cheek, and frisked into the lugubrious\nsitting-room.\n\n\"Well, well, you're a sight for sore eyes!\" chuckled Mr. Dawson,\ndropping his newspaper, pushing his spectacles back on his forehead.\n\n\"You seem so excited,\" sighed Mrs. Dawson.\n\n\"I am! Mr. Dawson, aren't you a millionaire?\"\n\nHe cocked his head, and purred, \"Well, I guess if I cashed in on all my\nsecurities and farm-holdings and my interests in iron on the Mesaba and\nin Northern timber and cut-over lands, I could push two million dollars\npretty close, and I've made every cent of it by hard work and having the\nsense to not go out and spend every----\"\n\n\"I think I want most of it from you!\"\n\nThe Dawsons glanced at each other in appreciation of the jest; and\nhe chirped, \"You're worse than Reverend Benlick! He don't hardly ever\nstrike me for more than ten dollars--at a time!\"\n\n\"I'm not joking. I mean it! Your children in the Cities are grown-up and\nwell-to-do. You don't want to die and leave your name unknown. Why not\ndo a big, original thing? Why not rebuild the whole town? Get a great\narchitect, and have him plan a town that would be suitable to the\nprairie. Perhaps he'd create some entirely new form of architecture.\nThen tear down all these shambling buildings----\"\n\nMr. Dawson had decided that she really did mean it. He wailed, \"Why,\nthat would cost at least three or four million dollars!\"\n\n\"But you alone, just one man, have two of those millions!\"\n\n\"Me? Spend all my hard-earned cash on building houses for a lot of\nshiftless beggars that never had the sense to save their money? Not\nthat I've ever been mean. Mama could always have a hired girl to do the\nwork--when we could find one. But her and I have worked our fingers to\nthe bone and--spend it on a lot of these rascals----?\"\n\n\"Please! Don't be angry! I just mean--I mean----Oh, not spend all of it,\nof course, but if you led off the list, and the others came in, and if\nthey heard you talk about a more attractive town----\"\n\n\"Why now, child, you've got a lot of notions. Besides what's the matter\nwith the town? Looks good to me. I've had people that have traveled\nall over the world tell me time and again that Gopher Prairie is the\nprettiest place in the Middlewest. Good enough for anybody. Certainly\ngood enough for Mama and me. Besides! Mama and me are planning to go\nout to Pasadena and buy a bungalow and live there.\"\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nShe had met Miles Bjornstam on the street. For the second of welcome\nencounter this workman with the bandit mustache and the muddy overalls\nseemed nearer than any one else to the credulous youth which she was\nseeking to fight beside her, and she told him, as a cheerful anecdote, a\nlittle of her story.\n\nHe grunted, \"I never thought I'd be agreeing with Old Man Dawson, the\npenny-pinching old land-thief--and a fine briber he is, too. But you\ngot the wrong slant. You aren't one of the people--yet. You want to do\nsomething for the town. I don't! I want the town to do something for\nitself. We don't want old Dawson's money--not if it's a gift, with a\nstring. We'll take it away from him, because it belongs to us. You got\nto get more iron and cussedness into you. Come join us cheerful bums,\nand some day--when we educate ourselves and quit being bums--we'll take\nthings and run 'em straight.\"\n\nHe had changed from her friend to a cynical man in overalls. She could\nnot relish the autocracy of \"cheerful bums.\"\n\nShe forgot him as she tramped the outskirts of town.\n\nShe had replaced the city hall project by an entirely new and highly\nexhilarating thought of how little was done for these unpicturesque\npoor.\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nThe spring of the plains is not a reluctant virgin but brazen and soon\naway. The mud roads of a few days ago are powdery dust and the puddles\nbeside them have hardened into lozenges of black sleek earth like\ncracked patent leather.\n\nCarol was panting as she crept to the meeting of the Thanatopsis program\ncommittee which was to decide the subject for next fall and winter.\n\nMadam Chairman (Miss Ella Stowbody in an oyster-colored blouse) asked if\nthere was any new business.\n\nCarol rose. She suggested that the Thanatopsis ought to help the poor\nof the town. She was ever so correct and modern. She did not, she said,\nwant charity for them, but a chance of self-help; an employment bureau,\ndirection in washing babies and making pleasing stews, possibly a\nmunicipal fund for home-building. \"What do you think of my plans, Mrs.\nWarren?\" she concluded.\n\nSpeaking judiciously, as one related to the church by marriage, Mrs.\nWarren gave verdict:\n\n\"I'm sure we're all heartily in accord with Mrs. Kennicott in feeling\nthat wherever genuine poverty is encountered, it is not only noblesse\noblige but a joy to fulfil our duty to the less fortunate ones. But I\nmust say it seems to me we should lose the whole point of the thing by\nnot regarding it as charity. Why, that's the chief adornment of the true\nChristian and the church! The Bible has laid it down for our guidance.\n'Faith, Hope, and CHARITY,' it says, and, 'The poor ye have with ye\nalways,' which indicates that there never can be anything to these\nso-called scientific schemes for abolishing charity, never! And isn't it\nbetter so? I should hate to think of a world in which we were deprived\nof all the pleasure of giving. Besides, if these shiftless folks realize\nthey're getting charity, and not something to which they have a right,\nthey're so much more grateful.\"\n\n\"Besides,\" snorted Miss Ella Stowbody, \"they've been fooling you, Mrs.\nKennicott. There isn't any real poverty here. Take that Mrs. Steinhof\nyou speak of: I send her our washing whenever there's too much for our\nhired girl--I must have sent her ten dollars' worth the past year alone!\nI'm sure Papa would never approve of a city home-building fund. Papa\nsays these folks are fakers. Especially all these tenant farmers that\npretend they have so much trouble getting seed and machinery. Papa\nsays they simply won't pay their debts. He says he's sure he hates to\nforeclose mortgages, but it's the only way to make them respect the\nlaw.\"\n\n\"And then think of all the clothes we give these people!\" said Mrs.\nJackson Elder.\n\nCarol intruded again. \"Oh yes. The clothes. I was going to speak of\nthat. Don't you think that when we give clothes to the poor, if we\ndo give them old ones, we ought to mend them first and make them as\npresentable as we can? Next Christmas when the Thanatopsis makes its\ndistribution, wouldn't it be jolly if we got together and sewed on the\nclothes, and trimmed hats, and made them----\"\n\n\"Heavens and earth, they have more time than we have! They ought to be\nmighty good and grateful to get anything, no matter what shape it's in.\nI know I'm not going to sit and sew for that lazy Mrs. Vopni, with all\nI've got to do!\" snapped Ella Stowbody.\n\nThey were glaring at Carol. She reflected that Mrs. Vopni, whose husband\nhad been killed by a train, had ten children.\n\nBut Mrs. Mary Ellen Wilks was smiling. Mrs. Wilks was the proprietor of\nYe Art Shoppe and Magazine and Book Store, and the reader of the small\nChristian Science church. She made it all clear:\n\n\"If this class of people had an understanding of Science and that we are\nthe children of God and nothing can harm us, they wouldn't be in error\nand poverty.\"\n\nMrs. Jackson Elder confirmed, \"Besides, it strikes me the club is\nalready doing enough, with tree-planting and the anti-fly campaign and\nthe responsibility for the rest-room--to say nothing of the fact that\nwe've talked of trying to get the railroad to put in a park at the\nstation!\"\n\n\"I think so too!\" said Madam Chairman. She glanced uneasily at Miss\nSherwin. \"But what do you think, Vida?\"\n\nVida smiled tactfully at each of the committee, and announced, \"Well, I\ndon't believe we'd better start anything more right now. But it's been\na privilege to hear Carol's dear generous ideas, hasn't it! Oh! There is\none thing we must decide on at once. We must get together and oppose\nany move on the part of the Minneapolis clubs to elect another State\nFederation president from the Twin Cities. And this Mrs. Edgar Potbury\nthey're putting forward--I know there are people who think she's a\nbright interesting speaker, but I regard her as very shallow. What do\nyou say to my writing to the Lake Ojibawasha Club, telling them that if\ntheir district will support Mrs. Warren for second vice-president, we'll\nsupport their Mrs. Hagelton (and such a dear, lovely, cultivated woman,\ntoo) for president.\"\n\n\"Yes! We ought to show up those Minneapolis folks!\" Ella Stowbody\nsaid acidly. \"And oh, by the way, we must oppose this movement of Mrs.\nPotbury's to have the state clubs come out definitely in favor of woman\nsuffrage. Women haven't any place in politics. They would lose all their\ndaintiness and charm if they became involved in these horried plots\nand log-rolling and all this awful political stuff about scandal and\npersonalities and so on.\"\n\nAll--save one--nodded. They interrupted the formal business-meeting\nto discuss Mrs. Edgar Potbury's husband, Mrs. Potbury's income, Mrs.\nPotbury's sedan, Mrs. Potbury's residence, Mrs. Potbury's oratorical\nstyle, Mrs. Potbury's mandarin evening coat, Mrs. Potbury's coiffure,\nand Mrs. Potbury's altogether reprehensible influence on the State\nFederation of Women's Clubs.\n\nBefore the program committee adjourned they took three minutes to\ndecide which of the subjects suggested by the magazine Culture Hints,\nFurnishings and China, or The Bible as Literature, would be better for\nthe coming year. There was one annoying incident. Mrs. Dr. Kennicott\ninterfered and showed off again. She commented, \"Don't you think that we\nalready get enough of the Bible in our churches and Sunday Schools?\"\n\nMrs. Leonard Warren, somewhat out of order but much more out of temper,\ncried, \"Well upon my word! I didn't suppose there was any one who felt\nthat we could get enough of the Bible! I guess if the Grand Old Book\nhas withstood the attacks of infidels for these two thousand years it is\nworth our SLIGHT consideration!\"\n\n\"Oh, I didn't mean----\" Carol begged. Inasmuch as she did mean, it was\nhard to be extremely lucid. \"But I wish, instead of limiting ourselves\neither to the Bible, or to anecdotes about the Brothers Adam's wigs,\nwhich Culture Hints seems to regard as the significant point about\nfurniture, we could study some of the really stirring ideas that are\nspringing up today--whether it's chemistry or anthropology or labor\nproblems--the things that are going to mean so terribly much.\"\n\nEverybody cleared her polite throat.\n\nMadam Chairman inquired, \"Is there any other discussion? Will some\none make a motion to adopt the suggestion of Vida Sherwin--to take up\nFurnishings and China?\"\n\nIt was adopted, unanimously.\n\n\"Checkmate!\" murmured Carol, as she held up her hand.\n\nHad she actually believed that she could plant a seed of liberalism\nin the blank wall of mediocrity? How had she fallen into the folly of\ntrying to plant anything whatever in a wall so smooth and sun-glazed,\nand so satisfying to the happy sleepers within?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nONE week of authentic spring, one rare sweet week of May, one tranquil\nmoment between the blast of winter and the charge of summer. Daily Carol\nwalked from town into flashing country hysteric with new life.\n\nOne enchanted hour when she returned to youth and a belief in the\npossibility of beauty.\n\nShe had walked northward toward the upper shore of Plover Lake, taking\nto the railroad track, whose directness and dryness make it the natural\nhighway for pedestrians on the plains. She stepped from tie to tie, in\nlong strides. At each road-crossing she had to crawl over a cattle-guard\nof sharpened timbers. She walked the rails, balancing with arms\nextended, cautious heel before toe. As she lost balance her body bent\nover, her arms revolved wildly, and when she toppled she laughed aloud.\n\nThe thick grass beside the track, coarse and prickly with many burnings,\nhid canary-yellow buttercups and the mauve petals and woolly sage-green\ncoats of the pasque flowers. The branches of the kinnikinic brush were\nred and smooth as lacquer on a saki bowl.\n\nShe ran down the gravelly embankment, smiled at children gathering\nflowers in a little basket, thrust a handful of the soft pasque flowers\ninto the bosom of her white blouse. Fields of springing wheat drew her\nfrom the straight propriety of the railroad and she crawled through the\nrusty barbed-wire fence. She followed a furrow between low wheat blades\nand a field of rye which showed silver lights as it flowed before the\nwind. She found a pasture by the lake. So sprinkled was the pasture with\nrag-baby blossoms and the cottony herb of Indian tobacco that it spread\nout like a rare old Persian carpet of cream and rose and delicate green.\nUnder her feet the rough grass made a pleasant crunching. Sweet winds\nblew from the sunny lake beside her, and small waves sputtered on the\nmeadowy shore. She leaped a tiny creek bowered in pussy-willow buds. She\nwas nearing a frivolous grove of birch and poplar and wild plum trees.\n\nThe poplar foliage had the downiness of a Corot arbor; the green and\nsilver trunks were as candid as the birches, as slender and lustrous\nas the limbs of a Pierrot. The cloudy white blossoms of the plum trees\nfilled the grove with a springtime mistiness which gave an illusion of\ndistance.\n\nShe ran into the wood, crying out for joy of freedom regained after\nwinter. Choke-cherry blossoms lured her from the outer sun-warmed spaces\nto depths of green stillness, where a submarine light came through the\nyoung leaves. She walked pensively along an abandoned road. She found a\nmoccasin-flower beside a lichen-covered log. At the end of the road she\nsaw the open acres--dipping rolling fields bright with wheat.\n\n\"I believe! The woodland gods still live! And out there, the great land.\nIt's beautiful as the mountains. What do I care for Thanatopsises?\"\n\nShe came out on the prairie, spacious under an arch of boldly cut\nclouds. Small pools glittered. Above a marsh red-winged blackbirds\nchased a crow in a swift melodrama of the air. On a hill was silhouetted\na man following a drag. His horse bent its neck and plodded, content.\n\nA path took her to the Corinth road, leading back to town. Dandelions\nglowed in patches amidst the wild grass by the way. A stream golloped\nthrough a concrete culvert beneath the road. She trudged in healthy\nweariness.\n\nA man in a bumping Ford rattled up beside her, hailed, \"Give you a lift,\nMrs. Kennicott?\"\n\n\"Thank you. It's awfully good of you, but I'm enjoying the walk.\"\n\n\"Great day, by golly. I seen some wheat that must of been five inches\nhigh. Well, so long.\"\n\nShe hadn't the dimmest notion who he was, but his greeting warmed her.\nThis countryman gave her a companionship which she had never (whether\nby her fault or theirs or neither) been able to find in the matrons and\ncommercial lords of the town.\n\nHalf a mile from town, in a hollow between hazelnut bushes and a brook,\nshe discovered a gipsy encampment: a covered wagon, a tent, a bunch of\npegged-out horses. A broad-shouldered man was squatted on his heels,\nholding a frying-pan over a camp-fire. He looked toward her. He was\nMiles Bjornstam.\n\n\"Well, well, what you doing out here?\" he roared. \"Come have a hunk o'\nbacon. Pete! Hey, Pete!\"\n\nA tousled person came from behind the covered wagon.\n\n\"Pete, here's the one honest-to-God lady in my bum town. Come on, crawl\nin and set a couple minutes, Mrs. Kennicott. I'm hiking off for all\nsummer.\"\n\nThe Red Swede staggered up, rubbed his cramped knees, lumbered to the\nwire fence, held the strands apart for her. She unconsciously smiled at\nhim as she went through. Her skirt caught on a barb; he carefully freed\nit.\n\nBeside this man in blue flannel shirt, baggy khaki trousers, uneven\nsuspenders, and vile felt hat, she was small and exquisite.\n\nThe surly Pete set out an upturned bucket for her. She lounged on it,\nher elbows on her knees. \"Where are you going?\" she asked.\n\n\"Just starting off for the summer, horse-trading.\" Bjornstam chuckled.\nHis red mustache caught the sun. \"Regular hoboes and public benefactors\nwe are. Take a hike like this every once in a while. Sharks on horses.\nBuy 'em from farmers and sell 'em to others. We're honest--frequently.\nGreat time. Camp along the road. I was wishing I had a chance to say\ngood-by to you before I ducked out but----Say, you better come along\nwith us.\"\n\n\"I'd like to.\"\n\n\"While you're playing mumblety-peg with Mrs. Lym Cass, Pete and me\nwill be rambling across Dakota, through the Bad Lands, into the butte\ncountry, and when fall comes, we'll be crossing over a pass of the Big\nHorn Mountains, maybe, and camp in a snow-storm, quarter of a mile right\nstraight up above a lake. Then in the morning we'll lie snug in our\nblankets and look up through the pines at an eagle. How'd it strike you?\nHeh? Eagle soaring and soaring all day--big wide sky----\"\n\n\"Don't! Or I will go with you, and I'm afraid there might be some slight\nscandal. Perhaps some day I'll do it. Good-by.\"\n\nHer hand disappeared in his blackened leather glove. From the turn in\nthe road she waved at him. She walked on more soberly now, and she was\nlonely.\n\nBut the wheat and grass were sleek velvet under the sunset; the prairie\nclouds were tawny gold; and she swung happily into Main Street.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThrough the first days of June she drove with Kennicott on his calls.\nShe identified him with the virile land; she admired him as she saw with\nwhat respect the farmers obeyed him. She was out in the early chill,\nafter a hasty cup of coffee, reaching open country as the fresh sun came\nup in that unspoiled world. Meadow larks called from the tops of thin\nsplit fence-posts. The wild roses smelled clean.\n\nAs they returned in late afternoon the low sun was a solemnity of radial\nbands, like a heavenly fan of beaten gold; the limitless circle of the\ngrain was a green sea rimmed with fog, and the willow wind-breaks were\npalmy isles.\n\nBefore July the close heat blanketed them. The tortured earth cracked.\nFarmers panted through corn-fields behind cultivators and the sweating\nflanks of horses. While she waited for Kennicott in the car, before a\nfarmhouse, the seat burned her fingers and her head ached with the glare\non fenders and hood.\n\nA black thunder-shower was followed by a dust storm which turned the\nsky yellow with the hint of a coming tornado. Impalpable black dust\nfar-borne from Dakota covered the inner sills of the closed windows.\n\nThe July heat was ever more stifling. They crawled along Main Street by\nday; they found it hard to sleep at night. They brought mattresses down\nto the living-room, and thrashed and turned by the open window. Ten\ntimes a night they talked of going out to soak themselves with the\nhose and wade through the dew, but they were too listless to take the\ntrouble. On cool evenings, when they tried to go walking, the gnats\nappeared in swarms which peppered their faces and caught in their\nthroats.\n\nShe wanted the Northern pines, the Eastern sea, but Kennicott declared\nthat it would be \"kind of hard to get away, just NOW.\" The Health and\nImprovement Committee of the Thanatopsis asked her to take part in the\nanti-fly campaign, and she toiled about town persuading householders to\nuse the fly-traps furnished by the club, or giving out money prizes to\nfly-swatting children. She was loyal enough but not ardent, and without\never quite intending to, she began to neglect the task as heat sucked at\nher strength.\n\nKennicott and she motored North and spent a week with his mother--that\nis, Carol spent it with his mother, while he fished for bass.\n\nThe great event was their purchase of a summer cottage, down on Lake\nMinniemashie.\n\nPerhaps the most amiable feature of life in Gopher Prairie was the\nsummer cottages. They were merely two-room shanties, with a seepage of\nbroken-down chairs, peeling veneered tables, chromos pasted on wooden\nwalls, and inefficient kerosene stoves. They were so thin-walled and so\nclose together that you could--and did--hear a baby being spanked in the\nfifth cottage off. But they were set among elms and lindens on a bluff\nwhich looked across the lake to fields of ripened wheat sloping up to\ngreen woods.\n\nHere the matrons forgot social jealousies, and sat gossiping in gingham;\nor, in old bathing-suits, surrounded by hysterical children, they\npaddled for hours. Carol joined them; she ducked shrieking small boys,\nand helped babies construct sand-basins for unfortunate minnows.\nShe liked Juanita Haydock and Maud Dyer when she helped them make\npicnic-supper for the men, who came motoring out from town each evening.\nShe was easier and more natural with them. In the debate as to whether\nthere should be veal loaf or poached egg on hash, she had no chance to\nbe heretical and oversensitive.\n\nThey danced sometimes, in the evening; they had a minstrel show, with\nKennicott surprisingly good as end-man; always they were encircled by\nchildren wise in the lore of woodchucks and gophers and rafts and willow\nwhistles.\n\nIf they could have continued this normal barbaric life Carol would have\nbeen the most enthusiastic citizen of Gopher Prairie. She was relieved\nto be assured that she did not want bookish conversation alone; that she\ndid not expect the town to become a Bohemia. She was content now. She\ndid not criticize.\n\nBut in September, when the year was at its richest, custom dictated that\nit was time to return to town; to remove the children from the waste\noccupation of learning the earth, and send them back to lessons about\nthe number of potatoes which (in a delightful world untroubled by\ncommission-houses or shortages in freight-cars) William sold to John.\nThe women who had cheerfully gone bathing all summer looked doubtful\nwhen Carol begged, \"Let's keep up an outdoor life this winter, let's\nslide and skate.\" Their hearts shut again till spring, and the nine\nmonths of cliques and radiators and dainty refreshments began all over.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nCarol had started a salon.\n\nSince Kennicott, Vida Sherwin, and Guy Pollock were her only lions,\nand since Kennicott would have preferred Sam Clark to all the poets and\nradicals in the entire world, her private and self-defensive clique did\nnot get beyond one evening dinner for Vida and Guy, on her first wedding\nanniversary; and that dinner did not get beyond a controversy regarding\nRaymie Wutherspoon's yearnings.\n\nGuy Pollock was the gentlest person she had found here. He spoke of her\nnew jade and cream frock naturally, not jocosely; he held her chair\nfor her as they sat down to dinner; and he did not, like Kennicott,\ninterrupt her to shout, \"Oh say, speaking of that, I heard a good story\ntoday.\" But Guy was incurably hermit. He sat late and talked hard, and\ndid not come again.\n\nThen she met Champ Perry in the post-office--and decided that in the\nhistory of the pioneers was the panacea for Gopher Prairie, for all\nof America. We have lost their sturdiness, she told herself. We must\nrestore the last of the veterans to power and follow them on the\nbackward path to the integrity of Lincoln, to the gaiety of settlers\ndancing in a saw-mill.\n\nShe read in the records of the Minnesota Territorial Pioneers that only\nsixty years ago, not so far back as the birth of her own father, four\ncabins had composed Gopher Prairie. The log stockade which Mrs. Champ\nPerry was to find when she trekked in was built afterward by the\nsoldiers as a defense against the Sioux. The four cabins were inhabited\nby Maine Yankees who had come up the Mississippi to St. Paul and driven\nnorth over virgin prairie into virgin woods. They ground their own\ncorn; the men-folks shot ducks and pigeons and prairie chickens; the\nnew breakings yielded the turnip-like rutabagas, which they ate raw\nand boiled and baked and raw again. For treat they had wild plums and\ncrab-apples and tiny wild strawberries.\n\nGrasshoppers came darkening the sky, and in an hour ate the farmwife's\ngarden and the farmer's coat. Precious horses painfully brought from\nIllinois, were drowned in bogs or stampeded by the fear of blizzards.\nSnow blew through the chinks of new-made cabins, and Eastern children,\nwith flowery muslin dresses, shivered all winter and in summer were red\nand black with mosquito bites. Indians were everywhere; they camped in\ndooryards, stalked into kitchens to demand doughnuts, came with rifles\nacross their backs into schoolhouses and begged to see the pictures\nin the geographies. Packs of timber-wolves treed the children; and the\nsettlers found dens of rattle-snakes, killed fifty, a hundred, in a day.\n\nYet it was a buoyant life. Carol read enviously in the admirable\nMinnesota chronicles called \"Old Rail Fence Corners\" the reminiscence of\nMrs. Mahlon Black, who settled in Stillwater in 1848:\n\n\"There was nothing to parade over in those days. We took it as it came\nand had happy lives. . . . We would all gather together and in about two\nminutes would be having a good time--playing cards or dancing. . . . We\nused to waltz and dance contra dances. None of these new jigs and not\nwear any clothes to speak of. We covered our hides in those days; no\ntight skirts like now. You could take three or four steps inside our\nskirts and then not reach the edge. One of the boys would fiddle a while\nand then some one would spell him and he could get a dance. Sometimes\nthey would dance and fiddle too.\"\n\nShe reflected that if she could not have ballrooms of gray and rose\nand crystal, she wanted to be swinging across a puncheon-floor with a\ndancing fiddler. This smug in-between town, which had exchanged \"Money\nMusk\" for phonographs grinding out ragtime, it was neither the heroic\nold nor the sophisticated new. Couldn't she somehow, some yet unimagined\nhow, turn it back to simplicity?\n\nShe herself knew two of the pioneers: the Perrys. Champ Perry was the\nbuyer at the grain-elevator. He weighed wagons of wheat on a rough\nplatform-scale, in the cracks of which the kernels sprouted every\nspring. Between times he napped in the dusty peace of his office.\n\nShe called on the Perrys at their rooms above Howland & Gould's grocery.\n\nWhen they were already old they had lost the money, which they had\ninvested in an elevator. They had given up their beloved yellow brick\nhouse and moved into these rooms over a store, which were the Gopher\nPrairie equivalent of a flat. A broad stairway led from the street\nto the upper hall, along which were the doors of a lawyer's office, a\ndentist's, a photographer's \"studio,\" the lodge-rooms of the Affiliated\nOrder of Spartans and, at the back, the Perrys' apartment.\n\nThey received her (their first caller in a month) with aged fluttering\ntenderness. Mrs. Perry confided, \"My, it's a shame we got to entertain\nyou in such a cramped place. And there ain't any water except that ole\niron sink outside in the hall, but still, as I say to Champ, beggars\ncan't be choosers. 'Sides, the brick house was too big for me to sweep,\nand it was way out, and it's nice to be living down here among folks.\nYes, we're glad to be here. But----Some day, maybe we can have a house\nof our own again. We're saving up----Oh, dear, if we could have our own\nhome! But these rooms are real nice, ain't they!\"\n\nAs old people will, the world over, they had moved as much as possible\nof their familiar furniture into this small space. Carol had none of the\nsuperiority she felt toward Mrs. Lyman Cass's plutocratic parlor. She\nwas at home here. She noted with tenderness all the makeshifts: the\ndarned chair-arms, the patent rocker covered with sleazy cretonne, the\npasted strips of paper mending the birch-bark napkin-rings labeled \"Papa\"\nand \"Mama.\"\n\nShe hinted of her new enthusiasm. To find one of the \"young folks\" who\ntook them seriously, heartened the Perrys, and she easily drew from\nthem the principles by which Gopher Prairie should be born again--should\nagain become amusing to live in.\n\nThis was their philosophy complete . . . in the era of aeroplanes and\nsyndicalism:\n\nThe Baptist Church (and, somewhat less, the Methodist, Congregational,\nand Presbyterian Churches) is the perfect, the divinely ordained\nstandard in music, oratory, philanthropy, and ethics. \"We don't need\nall this new-fangled science, or this terrible Higher Criticism that's\nruining our young men in colleges. What we need is to get back to the\ntrue Word of God, and a good sound belief in hell, like we used to have\nit preached to us.\"\n\nThe Republican Party, the Grand Old Party of Blaine and McKinley, is the\nagent of the Lord and of the Baptist Church in temporal affairs.\n\nAll socialists ought to be hanged.\n\n\"Harold Bell Wright is a lovely writer, and he teaches such good morals\nin his novels, and folks say he's made prett' near a million dollars out\nof 'em.\"\n\nPeople who make more than ten thousand a year or less than eight hundred\nare wicked.\n\nEuropeans are still wickeder.\n\nIt doesn't hurt any to drink a glass of beer on a warm day, but anybody\nwho touches wine is headed straight for hell.\n\nVirgins are not so virginal as they used to be.\n\nNobody needs drug-store ice cream; pie is good enough for anybody.\n\nThe farmers want too much for their wheat.\n\nThe owners of the elevator-company expect too much for the salaries they\npay.\n\nThere would be no more trouble or discontent in the world if everybody\nworked as hard as Pa did when he cleared our first farm.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nCarol's hero-worship dwindled to polite nodding, and the nodding\ndwindled to a desire to escape, and she went home with a headache.\n\nNext day she saw Miles Bjornstam on the street.\n\n\"Just back from Montana. Great summer. Pumped my lungs chuck-full of\nRocky Mountain air. Now for another whirl at sassing the bosses of\nGopher Prairie.\" She smiled at him, and the Perrys faded, the pioneers\nfaded, till they were but daguerreotypes in a black walnut cupboard.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nSHE tried, more from loyalty than from desire, to call upon the Perrys\non a November evening when Kennicott was away. They were not at home.\n\nLike a child who has no one to play with she loitered through the dark\nhall. She saw a light under an office door. She knocked. To the person\nwho opened she murmured, \"Do you happen to know where the Perrys are?\"\nShe realized that it was Guy Pollock.\n\n\"I'm awfully sorry, Mrs. Kennicott, but I don't know. Won't you come in\nand wait for them?\"\n\n\"W-why----\" she observed, as she reflected that in Gopher Prairie it\nis not decent to call on a man; as she decided that no, really, she\nwouldn't go in; and as she went in.\n\n\"I didn't know your office was up here.\"\n\n\"Yes, office, town-house, and chateau in Picardy. But you can't see\nthe chateau and town-house (next to the Duke of Sutherland's). They're\nbeyond that inner door. They are a cot and a wash-stand and my other\nsuit and the blue crepe tie you said you liked.\"\n\n\"You remember my saying that?\"\n\n\"Of course. I always shall. Please try this chair.\"\n\nShe glanced about the rusty office--gaunt stove, shelves of tan\nlaw-books, desk-chair filled with newspapers so long sat upon that they\nwere in holes and smudged to grayness. There were only two things which\nsuggested Guy Pollock. On the green felt of the table-desk, between\nlegal blanks and a clotted inkwell, was a cloissone vase. On a swing\nshelf was a row of books unfamiliar to Gopher Prairie: Mosher editions\nof the poets, black and red German novels, a Charles Lamb in crushed\nlevant.\n\nGuy did not sit down. He quartered the office, a grayhound on the scent;\na grayhound with glasses tilted forward on his thin nose, and a silky\nindecisive brown mustache. He had a golf jacket of jersey, worn through\nat the creases in the sleeves. She noted that he did not apologize for\nit, as Kennicott would have done.\n\nHe made conversation: \"I didn't know you were a bosom friend of the\nPerrys. Champ is the salt of the earth but somehow I can't imagine him\njoining you in symbolic dancing, or making improvements on the Diesel\nengine.\"\n\n\"No. He's a dear soul, bless him, but he belongs in the National Museum,\nalong with General Grant's sword, and I'm----Oh, I suppose I'm seeking\nfor a gospel that will evangelize Gopher Prairie.\"\n\n\"Really? Evangelize it to what?\"\n\n\"To anything that's definite. Seriousness or frivolousness or both. I\nwouldn't care whether it was a laboratory or a carnival. But it's merely\nsafe. Tell me, Mr. Pollock, what is the matter with Gopher Prairie?\"\n\n\"Is anything the matter with it? Isn't there perhaps something the\nmatter with you and me? (May I join you in the honor of having something\nthe matter?)\"\n\n\"(Yes, thanks.) No, I think it's the town.\"\n\n\"Because they enjoy skating more than biology?\"\n\n\"But I'm not only more interested in biology than the Jolly Seventeen,\nbut also in skating! I'll skate with them, or slide, or throw snowballs,\njust as gladly as talk with you.\"\n\n(\"Oh no!\")\n\n(\"Yes!) But they want to stay home and embroider.\"\n\n\"Perhaps. I'm not defending the town. It's merely----I'm a confirmed\ndoubter of myself. (Probably I'm conceited about my lack of conceit!)\nAnyway, Gopher Prairie isn't particularly bad. It's like all villages in\nall countries. Most places that have lost the smell of earth but not\nyet acquired the smell of patchouli--or of factory-smoke--are just as\nsuspicious and righteous. I wonder if the small town isn't, with some\nlovely exceptions, a social appendix? Some day these dull market-towns\nmay be as obsolete as monasteries. I can imagine the farmer and his\nlocal store-manager going by monorail, at the end of the day, into a\ncity more charming than any William Morris Utopia--music, a university,\nclubs for loafers like me. (Lord, how I'd like to have a real club!)\"\n\nShe asked impulsively, \"You, why do you stay here?\"\n\n\"I have the Village Virus.\"\n\n\"It sounds dangerous.\"\n\n\"It is. More dangerous than the cancer that will certainly get me\nat fifty unless I stop this smoking. The Village Virus is the germ\nwhich--it's extraordinarily like the hook-worm--it infects ambitious\npeople who stay too long in the provinces. You'll find it epidemic among\nlawyers and doctors and ministers and college-bred merchants--all these\npeople who have had a glimpse of the world that thinks and laughs,\nbut have returned to their swamp. I'm a perfect example. But I sha'n't\npester you with my dolors.\"\n\n\"You won't. And do sit down, so I can see you.\"\n\nHe dropped into the shrieking desk-chair. He looked squarely at her; she\nwas conscious of the pupils of his eyes; of the fact that he was a man,\nand lonely. They were embarrassed. They elaborately glanced away, and\nwere relieved as he went on:\n\n\"The diagnosis of my Village Virus is simple enough. I was born in an\nOhio town about the same size as Gopher Prairie, and much less\nfriendly. It'd had more generations in which to form an oligarchy of\nrespectability. Here, a stranger is taken in if he is correct, if he\nlikes hunting and motoring and God and our Senator. There, we didn't\ntake in even our own till we had contemptuously got used to them. It\nwas a red-brick Ohio town, and the trees made it damp, and it smelled of\nrotten apples. The country wasn't like our lakes and prairie. There were\nsmall stuffy corn-fields and brick-yards and greasy oil-wells.\n\n\"I went to a denominational college and learned that since dictating\nthe Bible, and hiring a perfect race of ministers to explain it, God has\nnever done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it. From\ncollege I went to New York, to the Columbia Law School. And for four\nyears I lived. Oh, I won't rhapsodize about New York. It was dirty and\nnoisy and breathless and ghastly expensive. But compared with the moldy\nacademy in which I had been smothered----! I went to symphonies twice\na week. I saw Irving and Terry and Duse and Bernhardt, from the top\ngallery. I walked in Gramercy Park. And I read, oh, everything.\n\n\"Through a cousin I learned that Julius Flickerbaugh was sick and\nneeded a partner. I came here. Julius got well. He didn't like my way of\nloafing five hours and then doing my work (really not so badly) in one.\nWe parted.\n\n\"When I first came here I swore I'd 'keep up my interests.' Very lofty!\nI read Browning, and went to Minneapolis for the theaters. I thought I\nwas 'keeping up.' But I guess the Village Virus had me already. I was\nreading four copies of cheap fiction-magazines to one poem. I'd put off\nthe Minneapolis trips till I simply had to go there on a lot of legal\nmatters.\n\n\"A few years ago I was talking to a patent lawyer from Chicago, and\nI realized that----I'd always felt so superior to people like Julius\nFlickerbaugh, but I saw that I was as provincial and behind-the-times as\nJulius. (Worse! Julius plows through the Literary Digest and the Outlook\nfaithfully, while I'm turning over pages of a book by Charles Flandrau\nthat I already know by heart.)\n\n\"I decided to leave here. Stern resolution. Grasp the world. Then I\nfound that the Village Virus had me, absolute: I didn't want to face\nnew streets and younger men--real competition. It was too easy to go on\nmaking out conveyances and arguing ditching cases. So----That's all of\nthe biography of a living dead man, except the diverting last chapter,\nthe lies about my having been 'a tower of strength and legal wisdom'\nwhich some day a preacher will spin over my lean dry body.\"\n\nHe looked down at his table-desk, fingering the starry enameled vase.\n\nShe could not comment. She pictured herself running across the room\nto pat his hair. She saw that his lips were firm, under his soft faded\nmustache. She sat still and maundered, \"I know. The Village Virus.\nPerhaps it will get me. Some day I'm going----Oh, no matter. At least,\nI am making you talk! Usually you have to be polite to my garrulousness,\nbut now I'm sitting at your feet.\"\n\n\"It would be rather nice to have you literally sitting at my feet, by a\nfire.\"\n\n\"Would you have a fireplace for me?\"\n\n\"Naturally! Please don't snub me now! Let the old man rave. How old are\nyou, Carol?\"\n\n\"Twenty-six, Guy.\"\n\n\"Twenty-six! I was just leaving New York, at twenty-six. I heard Patti\nsing, at twenty-six. And now I'm forty-seven. I feel like a child, yet\nI'm old enough to be your father. So it's decently paternal to imagine\nyou curled at my feet. . . . Of course I hope it isn't, but we'll\nreflect the morals of Gopher Prairie by officially announcing that it\nis! . . . These standards that you and I live up to! There's one thing\nthat's the matter with Gopher Prairie, at least with the ruling-class\n(there is a ruling-class, despite all our professions of democracy).\nAnd the penalty we tribal rulers pay is that our subjects watch us\nevery minute. We can't get wholesomely drunk and relax. We have to be\nso correct about sex morals, and inconspicuous clothes, and doing our\ncommercial trickery only in the traditional ways, that none of us can\nlive up to it, and we become horribly hypocritical. Unavoidably. The\nwidow-robbing deacon of fiction can't help being hypocritical. The\nwidows themselves demand it! They admire his unctuousness. And look at\nme. Suppose I did dare to make love to--some exquisite married woman.\nI wouldn't admit it to myself. I giggle with the most revolting\nsalaciousness over La Vie Parisienne, when I get hold of one in Chicago,\nyet I shouldn't even try to hold your hand. I'm broken. It's the\nhistorical Anglo-Saxon way of making life miserable. . . . Oh, my dear,\nI haven't talked to anybody about myself and all our selves for years.\"\n\n\"Guy! Can't we do something with the town? Really?\"\n\n\"No, we can't!\" He disposed of it like a judge ruling out an improper\nobjection; returned to matters less uncomfortably energetic: \"Curious.\nMost troubles are unnecessary. We have Nature beaten; we can make her\ngrow wheat; we can keep warm when she sends blizzards. So we raise the\ndevil just for pleasure--wars, politics, race-hatreds, labor-disputes.\nHere in Gopher Prairie we've cleared the fields, and become soft, so\nwe make ourselves unhappy artificially, at great expense and exertion:\nMethodists disliking Episcopalians, the man with the Hudson laughing at\nthe man with the flivver. The worst is the commercial hatred--the grocer\nfeeling that any man who doesn't deal with him is robbing him. What\nhurts me is that it applies to lawyers and doctors (and decidedly\nto their wives!) as much as to grocers. The doctors--you know about\nthat--how your husband and Westlake and Gould dislike one another.\"\n\n\"No! I won't admit it!\"\n\nHe grinned.\n\n\"Oh, maybe once or twice, when Will has positively known of a case where\nDoctor--where one of the others has continued to call on patients longer\nthan necessary, he has laughed about it, but----\"\n\nHe still grinned.\n\n\"No, REALLY! And when you say the wives of the doctors share these\njealousies----Mrs. McGanum and I haven't any particular crush on each\nother; she's so stolid. But her mother, Mrs. Westlake--nobody could be\nsweeter.\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm sure she's very bland. But I wouldn't tell her my heart's\nsecrets if I were you, my dear. I insist that there's only one\nprofessional-man's wife in this town who doesn't plot, and that is you,\nyou blessed, credulous outsider!\"\n\n\"I won't be cajoled! I won't believe that medicine, the priesthood of\nhealing, can be turned into a penny-picking business.\"\n\n\"See here: Hasn't Kennicott ever hinted to you that you'd better be nice\nto some old woman because she tells her friends which doctor to call in?\nBut I oughtn't to----\"\n\nShe remembered certain remarks which Kennicott had offered regarding the\nWidow Bogart. She flinched, looked at Guy beseechingly.\n\nHe sprang up, strode to her with a nervous step, smoothed her hand. She\nwondered if she ought to be offended by his caress. Then she wondered if\nhe liked her hat, the new Oriental turban of rose and silver brocade.\n\nHe dropped her hand. His elbow brushed her shoulder. He flitted over to\nthe desk-chair, his thin back stooped. He picked up the cloisonne vase.\nAcross it he peered at her with such loneliness that she was startled.\nBut his eyes faded into impersonality as he talked of the jealousies\nof Gopher Prairie. He stopped himself with a sharp, \"Good Lord, Carol,\nyou're not a jury. You are within your legal rights in refusing to\nbe subjected to this summing-up. I'm a tedious old fool analyzing the\nobvious, while you're the spirit of rebellion. Tell me your side. What\nis Gopher Prairie to you?\"\n\n\"A bore!\"\n\n\"Can I help?\"\n\n\"How could you?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Perhaps by listening. I haven't done that tonight.\nBut normally----Can't I be the confidant of the old French plays, the\ntiring-maid with the mirror and the loyal ears?\"\n\n\"Oh, what is there to confide? The people are savorless and proud of\nit. And even if I liked you tremendously, I couldn't talk to you without\ntwenty old hexes watching, whispering.\"\n\n\"But you will come talk to me, once in a while?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure that I shall. I'm trying to develop my own large capacity\nfor dullness and contentment. I've failed at every positive thing I've\ntried. I'd better 'settle down,' as they call it, and be satisfied to\nbe--nothing.\"\n\n\"Don't be cynical. It hurts me, in you. It's like blood on the wing of a\nhumming-bird.\"\n\n\"I'm not a humming-bird. I'm a hawk; a tiny leashed hawk, pecked to\ndeath by these large, white, flabby, wormy hens. But I am grateful to\nyou for confirming me in the faith. And I'm going home!\"\n\n\"Please stay and have some coffee with me.\"\n\n\"I'd like to. But they've succeeded in terrorizing me. I'm afraid of\nwhat people might say.\"\n\n\"I'm not afraid of that. I'm only afraid of what you might say!\" He\nstalked to her; took her unresponsive hand. \"Carol! You have been happy\nhere tonight? (Yes. I'm begging!)\"\n\nShe squeezed his hand quickly, then snatched hers away. She had but\nlittle of the curiosity of the flirt, and none of the intrigante's joy\nin furtiveness. If she was the naive girl, Guy Pollock was the clumsy\nboy. He raced about the office; he rammed his fists into his pockets.\nHe stammered, \"I--I--I----Oh, the devil! Why do I awaken from smooth\ndustiness to this jagged rawness? I'll make I'm going to trot down the\nhall and bring in the Dillons, and we'll all have coffee or something.\"\n\n\"The Dillons?\"\n\n\"Yes. Really quite a decent young pair--Harvey Dillon and his wife. He's\na dentist, just come to town. They live in a room behind his office,\nsame as I do here. They don't know much of anybody----\"\n\n\"I've heard of them. And I've never thought to call. I'm horribly\nashamed. Do bring them----\"\n\nShe stopped, for no very clear reason, but his expression said, her\nfaltering admitted, that they wished they had never mentioned the\nDillons. With spurious enthusiasm he said, \"Splendid! I will.\" From the\ndoor he glanced at her, curled in the peeled leather chair. He slipped\nout, came back with Dr. and Mrs. Dillon.\n\nThe four of them drank rather bad coffee which Pollock made on a\nkerosene burner. They laughed, and spoke of Minneapolis, and were\ntremendously tactful; and Carol started for home, through the November\nwind.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nSHE was marching home.\n\n\"No. I couldn't fall in love with him. I like him, very much. But\nhe's too much of a recluse. Could I kiss him? No! No! Guy Pollock at\ntwenty-six I could have kissed him then, maybe, even if I were married\nto some one else, and probably I'd have been glib in persuading myself\nthat 'it wasn't really wrong.'\n\n\"The amazing thing is that I'm not more amazed at myself. I, the\nvirtuous young matron. Am I to be trusted? If the Prince Charming\ncame----\n\n\"A Gopher Prairie housewife, married a year, and yearning for a 'Prince\nCharming' like a bachfisch of sixteen! They say that marriage is a magic\nchange. But I'm not changed. But----\n\n\"No! I wouldn't want to fall in love, even if the Prince did come. I\nwouldn't want to hurt Will. I am fond of Will. I am! He doesn't stir me,\nnot any longer. But I depend on him. He is home and children.\n\n\"I wonder when we will begin to have children? I do want them.\n\n\"I wonder whether I remembered to tell Bea to have hominy tomorrow,\ninstead of oatmeal? She will have gone to bed by now. Perhaps I'll be up\nearly enough----\n\n\"Ever so fond of Will. I wouldn't hurt him, even if I had to lose the\nmad love. If the Prince came I'd look once at him, and run. Darn fast!\nOh, Carol, you are not heroic nor fine. You are the immutable vulgar\nyoung female.\n\n\"But I'm not the faithless wife who enjoys confiding that she's\n'misunderstood.' Oh, I'm not, I'm not!\n\n\"Am I?\n\n\"At least I didn't whisper to Guy about Will's faults and his blindness\nto my remarkable soul. I didn't! Matter of fact, Will probably\nunderstands me perfectly! If only--if he would just back me up in\nrousing the town.\n\n\"How many, how incredibly many wives there must be who tingle over the\nfirst Guy Pollock who smiles at them. No! I will not be one of that\nherd of yearners! The coy virgin brides. Yet probably if the Prince were\nyoung and dared to face life----\n\n\"I'm not half as well oriented as that Mrs. Dillon. So obviously adoring\nher dentist! And seeing Guy only as an eccentric fogy.\n\n\"They weren't silk, Mrs. Dillon's stockings. They were lisle. Her legs\nare nice and slim. But no nicer than mine. I hate cotton tops on silk\nstockings. . . . Are my ankles getting fat? I will NOT have fat ankles!\n\n\"No. I am fond of Will. His work--one farmer he pulls through diphtheria\nis worth all my yammering for a castle in Spain. A castle with baths.\n\n\"This hat is so tight. I must stretch it. Guy liked it.\n\n\"There's the house. I'm awfully chilly. Time to get out the fur coat.\nI wonder if I'll ever have a beaver coat? Nutria is NOT the same thing!\nBeaver-glossy. Like to run my fingers over it. Guy's mustache like\nbeaver. How utterly absurd!\n\n\"I am, I AM fond of Will, and----Can't I ever find another word than\n'fond'?\n\n\"He's home. He'll think I was out late.\n\n\"Why can't he ever remember to pull down the shades? Cy Bogart and all\nthe beastly boys peeping in. But the poor dear, he's absent-minded about\nminute--minush--whatever the word is. He has so much worry and work,\nwhile I do nothing but jabber to Bea.\n\n\"I MUSTN'T forget the hominy----\"\n\nShe was flying into the hall. Kennicott looked up from the Journal of\nthe American Medical Society.\n\n\"Hello! What time did you get back?\" she cried.\n\n\"About nine. You been gadding. Here it is past eleven!\" Good-natured yet\nnot quite approving.\n\n\"Did it feel neglected?\"\n\n\"Well, you didn't remember to close the lower draft in the furnace.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm so sorry. But I don't often forget things like that, do I?\"\n\nShe dropped into his lap and (after he had jerked back his head to save\nhis eye-glasses, and removed the glasses, and settled her in a position\nless cramping to his legs, and casually cleared his throat) he kissed\nher amiably, and remarked:\n\n\"Nope, I must say you're fairly good about things like that. I wasn't\nkicking. I just meant I wouldn't want the fire to go out on us. Leave\nthat draft open and the fire might burn up and go out on us. And the\nnights are beginning to get pretty cold again. Pretty cold on my drive.\nI put the side-curtains up, it was so chilly. But the generator is\nworking all right now.\"\n\n\"Yes. It is chilly. But I feel fine after my walk.\"\n\n\"Go walking?\"\n\n\"I went up to see the Perrys.\" By a definite act of will she added\nthe truth: \"They weren't in. And I saw Guy Pollock. Dropped into his\noffice.\"\n\n\"Why, you haven't been sitting and chinning with him till eleven\no'clock?\"\n\n\"Of course there were some other people there and----Will! What do you\nthink of Dr. Westlake?\"\n\n\"Westlake? Why?\"\n\n\"I noticed him on the street today.\"\n\n\"Was he limping? If the poor fish would have his teeth X-rayed, I'll bet\nnine and a half cents he'd find an abscess there. 'Rheumatism' he calls\nit. Rheumatism, hell! He's behind the times. Wonder he doesn't bleed\nhimself! Wellllllll----\" A profound and serious yawn. \"I hate to break\nup the party, but it's getting late, and a doctor never knows when he'll\nget routed out before morning.\" (She remembered that he had given this\nexplanation, in these words, not less than thirty times in the year.) \"I\nguess we better be trotting up to bed. I've wound the clock and looked\nat the furnace. Did you lock the front door when you came in?\"\n\nThey trailed up-stairs, after he had turned out the lights and twice\ntested the front door to make sure it was fast. While they talked\nthey were preparing for bed. Carol still sought to maintain privacy by\nundressing behind the screen of the closet door. Kennicott was not so\nreticent. Tonight, as every night, she was irritated by having to push\nthe old plush chair out of the way before she could open the closet\ndoor. Every time she opened the door she shoved the chair. Ten times an\nhour. But Kennicott liked to have the chair in the room, and there was\nno place for it except in front of the closet.\n\nShe pushed it, felt angry, hid her anger. Kennicott was yawning, more\nportentously. The room smelled stale. She shrugged and became chatty:\n\n\"You were speaking of Dr. Westlake. Tell me--you've never summed him up:\nIs he really a good doctor?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, he's a wise old coot.\"\n\n(\"There! You see there is no medical rivalry. Not in my house!\" she said\ntriumphantly to Guy Pollock.)\n\nShe hung her silk petticoat on a closet hook, and went on, \"Dr. Westlake\nis so gentle and scholarly----\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know as I'd say he was such a whale of a scholar. I've\nalways had a suspicion he did a good deal of four-flushing about that.\nHe likes to have people think he keeps up his French and Greek and Lord\nknows what all; and he's always got an old Dago book lying around the\nsitting-room, but I've got a hunch he reads detective stories 'bout like\nthe rest of us. And I don't know where he'd ever learn so dog-gone many\nlanguages anyway! He kind of lets people assume he went to Harvard\nor Berlin or Oxford or somewhere, but I looked him up in the medical\nregister, and he graduated from a hick college in Pennsylvania, 'way\nback in 1861!\"\n\n\"But this is the important thing: Is he an honest doctor?\"\n\n\"How do you mean 'honest'? Depends on what you mean.\"\n\n\"Suppose you were sick. Would you call him in? Would you let me call him\nin?\"\n\n\"Not if I were well enough to cuss and bite, I wouldn't! No, SIR! I\nwouldn't have the old fake in the house. Makes me tired, his everlasting\npalavering and soft-soaping. He's all right for an ordinary bellyache\nor holding some fool woman's hand, but I wouldn't call him in for an\nhonest-to-God illness, not much I wouldn't, NO-sir! You know I don't\ndo much back-biting, but same time----I'll tell you, Carrrie: I've never\ngot over being sore at Westlake for the way he treated Mrs. Jonderquist.\nNothing the matter with her, what she really needed was a rest, but\nWestlake kept calling on her and calling on her for weeks, almost every\nday, and he sent her a good big fat bill, too, you can bet! I never\ndid forgive him for that. Nice decent hard-working people like the\nJonderquists!\"\n\nIn her batiste nightgown she was standing at the bureau engaged in the\ninvariable rites of wishing that she had a real dressing-table with a\ntriple mirror, of bending toward the streaky glass and raising her chin\nto inspect a pin-head mole on her throat, and finally of brushing her\nhair. In rhythm to the strokes she went on:\n\n\"But, Will, there isn't any of what you might call financial rivalry\nbetween you and the partners--Westlake and McGanum--is there?\"\n\nHe flipped into bed with a solemn back-somersault and a ludicrous kick\nof his heels as he tucked his legs under the blankets. He snorted, \"Lord\nno! I never begrudge any man a nickel he can get away from me--fairly.\"\n\n\"But is Westlake fair? Isn't he sly?\"\n\n\"Sly is the word. He's a fox, that boy!\"\n\nShe saw Guy Pollock's grin in the mirror. She flushed.\n\nKennicott, with his arms behind his head, was yawning:\n\n\"Yump. He's smooth, too smooth. But I bet I make prett' near as much\nas Westlake and McGanum both together, though I've never wanted to grab\nmore than my just share. If anybody wants to go to the partners instead\nof to me, that's his business. Though I must say it makes me tired when\nWestlake gets hold of the Dawsons. Here Luke Dawson had been coming to\nme for every toeache and headache and a lot of little things that just\nwasted my time, and then when his grandchild was here last summer and\nhad summer-complaint, I suppose, or something like that, probably--you\nknow, the time you and I drove up to Lac-qui-Meurt--why, Westlake got\nhold of Ma Dawson, and scared her to death, and made her think the kid\nhad appendicitis, and, by golly, if he and McGanum didn't operate, and\nholler their heads off about the terrible adhesions they found, and what\na regular Charley and Will Mayo they were for classy surgery. They let\non that if they'd waited two hours more the kid would have developed\nperitonitis, and God knows what all; and then they collected a nice\nfat hundred and fifty dollars. And probably they'd have charged three\nhundred, if they hadn't been afraid of me! I'm no hog, but I certainly\ndo hate to give old Luke ten dollars' worth of advice for a dollar and a\nhalf, and then see a hundred and fifty go glimmering. And if I can't do\na better 'pendectomy than either Westlake or McGanum, I'll eat my hat!\"\n\nAs she crept into bed she was dazzled by Guy's blazing grin. She\nexperimented:\n\n\"But Westlake is cleverer than his son-in-law, don't you think?\"\n\n\"Yes, Westlake may be old-fashioned and all that, but he's got a certain\namount of intuition, while McGanum goes into everything bull-headed, and\nbutts his way through like a damn yahoo, and tries to argue his patients\ninto having whatever he diagnoses them as having! About the best thing\nMac can do is to stick to baby-snatching. He's just about on a par with\nthis bone-pounding chiropractor female, Mrs. Mattie Gooch.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Westlake and Mrs. McGanum, though--they're nice. They've been\nawfully cordial to me.\"\n\n\"Well, no reason why they shouldn't be, is there? Oh, they're nice\nenough--though you can bet your bottom dollar they're both plugging for\ntheir husbands all the time, trying to get the business. And I don't\nknow as I call it so damn cordial in Mrs. McGanum when I holler at her\non the street and she nods back like she had a sore neck. Still, she's\nall right. It's Ma Westlake that makes the mischief, pussyfooting around\nall the time. But I wouldn't trust any Westlake out of the whole lot,\nand while Mrs. McGanum SEEMS square enough, you don't never want to\nforget that she's Westlake's daughter. You bet!\"\n\n\"What about Dr. Gould? Don't you think he's worse than either Westlake\nor McGanum? He's so cheap--drinking, and playing pool, and always\nsmoking cigars in such a cocky way----\"\n\n\"That's all right now! Terry Gould is a good deal of a tin-horn sport,\nbut he knows a lot about medicine, and don't you forget it for one\nsecond!\"\n\nShe stared down Guy's grin, and asked more cheerfully, \"Is he honest,\ntoo?\"\n\n\"Ooooooooooo! Gosh I'm sleepy!\" He burrowed beneath the bedclothes in\na luxurious stretch, and came up like a diver, shaking his head, as\nhe complained, \"How's that? Who? Terry Gould honest? Don't start me\nlaughing--I'm too nice and sleepy! I didn't say he was honest. I said\nhe had savvy enough to find the index in 'Gray's Anatomy,' which is more\nthan McGanum can do! But I didn't say anything about his being honest.\nHe isn't. Terry is crooked as a dog's hind leg. He's done me more than\none dirty trick. He told Mrs. Glorbach, seventeen miles out, that I\nwasn't up-to-date in obstetrics. Fat lot of good it did him! She came\nright in and told me! And Terry's lazy. He'd let a pneumonia patient\nchoke rather than interrupt a poker game.\"\n\n\"Oh no. I can't believe----\"\n\n\"Well now, I'm telling you!\"\n\n\"Does he play much poker? Dr. Dillon told me that Dr. Gould wanted him\nto play----\"\n\n\"Dillon told you what? Where'd you meet Dillon? He's just come to town.\"\n\n\"He and his wife were at Mr. Pollock's tonight.\"\n\n\"Say, uh, what'd you think of them? Didn't Dillon strike you as pretty\nlight-waisted?\"\n\n\"Why no. He seemed intelligent. I'm sure he's much more wide-awake than\nour dentist.\"\n\n\"Well now, the old man is a good dentist. He knows his business. And\nDillon----I wouldn't cuddle up to the Dillons too close, if I were you.\nAll right for Pollock, and that's none of our business, but we----I\nthink I'd just give the Dillons the glad hand and pass 'em up.\"\n\n\"But why? He isn't a rival.\"\n\n\"That's--all--right!\" Kennicott was aggressively awake now. \"He'll work\nright in with Westlake and McGanum. Matter of fact, I suspect they\nwere largely responsible for his locating here. They'll be sending him\npatients, and he'll send all that he can get hold of to them. I don't\ntrust anybody that's too much hand-in-glove with Westlake. You give\nDillon a shot at some fellow that's just bought a farm here and drifts\ninto town to get his teeth looked at, and after Dillon gets through with\nhim, you'll see him edging around to Westlake and McGanum, every time!\"\n\nCarol reached for her blouse, which hung on a chair by the bed. She\ndraped it about her shoulders, and sat up studying Kennicott, her chin\nin her hands. In the gray light from the small electric bulb down the\nhall she could see that he was frowning.\n\n\"Will, this is--I must get this straight. Some one said to me the other\nday that in towns like this, even more than in cities, all the doctors\nhate each other, because of the money----\"\n\n\"Who said that?\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter.\"\n\n\"I'll bet a hat it was your Vida Sherwin. She's a brainy woman, but\nshe'd be a damn sight brainier if she kept her mouth shut and didn't let\nso much of her brains ooze out that way.\"\n\n\"Will! O Will! That's horrible! Aside from the vulgarity----Some ways,\nVida is my best friend. Even if she HAD said it. Which, as a matter of\nfact, she didn't.\" He reared up his thick shoulders, in absurd pink and\ngreen flannelette pajamas. He sat straight, and irritatingly snapped his\nfingers, and growled:\n\n\"Well, if she didn't say it, let's forget her. Doesn't make any\ndifference who said it, anyway. The point is that you believe it. God!\nTo think you don't understand me any better than that! Money!\"\n\n(\"This is the first real quarrel we've ever had,\" she was agonizing.)\n\nHe thrust out his long arm and snatched his wrinkly vest from a chair.\nHe took out a cigar, a match. He tossed the vest on the floor. He\nlighted the cigar and puffed savagely. He broke up the match and snapped\nthe fragments at the foot-board.\n\nShe suddenly saw the foot-board of the bed as the foot-stone of the\ngrave of love.\n\nThe room was drab-colored and ill-ventilated--Kennicott did not \"believe\nin opening the windows so darn wide that you heat all outdoors.\" The\nstale air seemed never to change. In the light from the hall they were\ntwo lumps of bedclothes with shoulders and tousled heads attached.\n\nShe begged, \"I didn't mean to wake you up, dear. And please don't smoke.\nYou've been smoking so much. Please go back to sleep. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Being sorry 's all right, but I'm going to tell you one or two things.\nThis falling for anybody's say-so about medical jealousy and competition\nis simply part and parcel of your usual willingness to think the worst\nyou possibly can of us poor dubs in Gopher Prairie. Trouble with women\nlike you is, you always want to ARGUE. Can't take things the way they\nare. Got to argue. Well, I'm not going to argue about this in any way,\nshape, manner, or form. Trouble with you is, you don't make any effort\nto appreciate us. You're so damned superior, and think the city is such\na hell of a lot finer place, and you want us to do what YOU want, all\nthe time----\"\n\n\"That's not true! It's I who make the effort. It's they--it's you--who\nstand back and criticize. I have to come over to the town's opinion;\nI have to devote myself to their interests. They can't even SEE my\ninterests, to say nothing of adopting them. I get ever so excited about\ntheir old Lake Minniemashie and the cottages, but they simply guffaw (in\nthat lovely friendly way you advertise so much) if I speak of wanting to\nsee Taormina also.\"\n\n\"Sure, Tormina, whatever that is--some nice expensive millionaire\ncolony, I suppose. Sure; that's the idea; champagne taste and beer\nincome; and make sure that we never will have more than a beer income,\ntoo!\"\n\n\"Are you by any chance implying that I am not economical?\"\n\n\"Well, I hadn't intended to, but since you bring it up yourself, I don't\nmind saying the grocery bills are about twice what they ought to be.\"\n\n\"Yes, they probably are. I'm not economical. I can't be. Thanks to you!\"\n\n\"Where d' you get that 'thanks to you'?\"\n\n\"Please don't be quite so colloquial--or shall I say VULGAR?\"\n\n\"I'll be as damn colloquial as I want to. How do you get that 'thanks to\nyou'? Here about a year ago you jump me for not remembering to give you\nmoney. Well, I'm reasonable. I didn't blame you, and I SAID I was to\nblame. But have I ever forgotten it since--practically?\"\n\n\"No. You haven't--practically! But that isn't it. I ought to have an\nallowance. I will, too! I must have an agreement for a regular stated\namount, every month.\"\n\n\"Fine idea! Of course a doctor gets a regular stated amount! Sure! A\nthousand one month--and lucky if he makes a hundred the next.\"\n\n\"Very well then, a percentage. Or something else. No matter how much you\nvary, you can make a rough average for----\"\n\n\"But what's the idea? What are you trying to get at? Mean to say I'm\nunreasonable? Think I'm so unreliable and tightwad that you've got to\ntie me down with a contract? By God, that hurts! I thought I'd been\npretty generous and decent, and I took a lot of pleasure--thinks I,\n'she'll be tickled when I hand her over this twenty'--or fifty, or\nwhatever it was; and now seems you been wanting to make it a kind of\nalimony. Me, like a poor fool, thinking I was liberal all the while, and\nyou----\"\n\n\"Please stop pitying yourself! You're having a beautiful time feeling\ninjured. I admit all you say. Certainly. You've given me money both\nfreely and amiably. Quite as if I were your mistress!\"\n\n\"Carrie!\"\n\n\"I mean it! What was a magnificent spectacle of generosity to you was\nhumiliation to me. You GAVE me money--gave it to your mistress, if she\nwas complaisant, and then you----\"\n\n\"Carrie!\"\n\n\"(Don't interrupt me!)--then you felt you'd discharged all obligation.\nWell, hereafter I'll refuse your money, as a gift. Either I'm your\npartner, in charge of the household department of our business, with a\nregular budget for it, or else I'm nothing. If I'm to be a mistress,\nI shall choose my lovers. Oh, I hate it--I hate it--this smirking and\nhoping for money--and then not even spending it on jewels as a mistress\nhas a right to, but spending it on double-boilers and socks for you!\nYes indeed! You're generous! You give me a dollar, right out--the only\nproviso is that I must spend it on a tie for you! And you give it when\nand as you wish. How can I be anything but uneconomical?\"\n\n\"Oh well, of course, looking at it that way----\"\n\n\"I can't shop around, can't buy in large quantities, have to stick to\nstores where I have a charge account, good deal of the time, can't plan\nbecause I don't know how much money I can depend on. That's what I pay\nfor your charming sentimentalities about giving so generously. You make\nme----\"\n\n\"Wait! Wait! You know you're exaggerating. You never thought about that\nmistress stuff till just this minute! Matter of fact, you never have\n'smirked and hoped for money.' But all the same, you may be right. You\nought to run the household as a business. I'll figure out a definite\nplan tomorrow, and hereafter you'll be on a regular amount or\npercentage, with your own checking account.\"\n\n\"Oh, that IS decent of you!\" She turned toward him, trying to be\naffectionate. But his eyes were pink and unlovely in the flare of the\nmatch with which he lighted his dead and malodorous cigar. His head\ndrooped, and a ridge of flesh scattered with pale small bristles bulged\nout under his chin.\n\nShe sat in abeyance till he croaked:\n\n\"No. 'Tisn't especially decent. It's just fair. And God knows I want\nto be fair. But I expect others to be fair, too. And you're so high and\nmighty about people. Take Sam Clark; best soul that ever lived, honest\nand loyal and a damn good fellow----\"\n\n(\"Yes, and a good shot at ducks, don't forget that!\")\n\n(\"Well, and he is a good shot, too!) Sam drops around in the evening to\nsit and visit, and by golly just because he takes a dry smoke and rolls\nhis cigar around in his mouth, and maybe spits a few times, you look\nat him as if he was a hog. Oh, you didn't know I was onto you, and I\ncertainly hope Sam hasn't noticed it, but I never miss it.\"\n\n\"I have felt that way. Spitting--ugh! But I'm sorry you caught my\nthoughts. I tried to be nice; I tried to hide them.\"\n\n\"Maybe I catch a whole lot more than you think I do!\"\n\n\"Yes, perhaps you do.\"\n\n\"And d' you know why Sam doesn't light his cigar when he's here?\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"He's so darn afraid you'll be offended if he smokes. You scare him.\nEvery time he speaks of the weather you jump him because he ain't\ntalking about poetry or Gertie--Goethe?--or some other highbrow junk.\nYou've got him so leery he scarcely dares to come here.\"\n\n\"Oh, I AM sorry. (Though I'm sure it's you who are exaggerating now.\")\n\n\"Well now, I don't know as I am! And I can tell you one thing: if you\nkeep on you'll manage to drive away every friend I've got.\"\n\n\"That would be horrible of me. You KNOW I don't mean to Will, what is it\nabout me that frightens Sam--if I do frighten him.\"\n\n\"Oh, you do, all right! 'Stead of putting his legs up on another chair,\nand unbuttoning his vest, and telling a good story or maybe kidding\nme about something, he sits on the edge of his chair and tries to make\nconversation about politics, and he doesn't even cuss, and Sam's never\nreal comfortable unless he can cuss a little!\"\n\n\"In other words, he isn't comfortable unless he can behave like a\npeasant in a mud hut!\"\n\n\"Now that'll be about enough of that! You want to know how you scare\nhim? First you deliberately fire some question at him that you know darn\nwell he can't answer--any fool could see you were experimenting with\nhim--and then you shock him by talking of mistresses or something, like\nyou were doing just now----\"\n\n\"Of course the pure Samuel never speaks of such erring ladies in his\nprivate conversations!\"\n\n\"Not when there's ladies around! You can bet your life on that!\"\n\n\"So the impurity lies in failing to pretend that----\"\n\n\"Now we won't go into all that--eugenics or whatever damn fad you choose\nto call it. As I say, first you shock him, and then you become so darn\nflighty that nobody can follow you. Either you want to dance, or you\nbang the piano, or else you get moody as the devil and don't want to\ntalk or anything else. If you must be temperamental, why can't you be\nthat way by yourself?\"\n\n\"My dear man, there's nothing I'd like better than to be by myself\noccasionally! To have a room of my own! I suppose you expect me to sit\nhere and dream delicately and satisfy my 'temperamentality' while you\nwander in from the bathroom with lather all over your face, and shout,\n'Seen my brown pants?'\"\n\n\"Huh!\" He did not sound impressed. He made no answer. He turned out of\nbed, his feet making one solid thud on the floor. He marched from the\nroom, a grotesque figure in baggy union-pajamas. She heard him drawing\na drink of water at the bathroom tap. She was furious at the\ncontemptuousness of his exit. She snuggled down in bed, and looked\naway from him as he returned. He ignored her. As he flumped into bed he\nyawned, and casually stated:\n\n\"Well, you'll have plenty of privacy when we build a new house.\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll build it all right, don't you fret! But of course I don't\nexpect any credit for it.\"\n\nNow it was she who grunted \"Huh!\" and ignored him, and felt independent\nand masterful as she shot up out of bed, turned her back on him,\nfished a lone and petrified chocolate out of her glove-box in the\ntop right-hand drawer of the bureau, gnawed at it, found that it had\ncocoanut filling, said \"Damn!\" wished that she had not said it, so that\nshe might be superior to his colloquialism, and hurled the chocolate\ninto the wastebasket, where it made an evil and mocking clatter among\nthe debris of torn linen collars and toothpaste box. Then, in great\ndignity and self-dramatization, she returned to bed.\n\nAll this time he had been talking on, embroidering his assertion that\nhe \"didn't expect any credit.\" She was reflecting that he was a rustic,\nthat she hated him, that she had been insane to marry him, that she had\nmarried him only because she was tired of work, that she must get her\nlong gloves cleaned, that she would never do anything more for him,\nand that she mustn't forget his hominy for breakfast. She was roused to\nattention by his storming:\n\n\"I'm a fool to think about a new house. By the time I get it built\nyou'll probably have succeeded in your plan to get me completely in\nDutch with every friend and every patient I've got.\"\n\nShe sat up with a bounce. She said coldly, \"Thank you very much for\nrevealing your real opinion of me. If that's the way you feel, if I'm\nsuch a hindrance to you, I can't stay under this roof another minute.\nAnd I am perfectly well able to earn my own living. I will go at once,\nand you may get a divorce at your pleasure! What you want is a nice\nsweet cow of a woman who will enjoy having your dear friends talk about\nthe weather and spit on the floor!\"\n\n\"Tut! Don't be a fool!\"\n\n\"You will very soon find out whether I'm a fool or not! I mean it! Do\nyou think I'd stay here one second after I found out that I was injuring\nyou? At least I have enough sense of justice not to do that.\"\n\n\"Please stop flying off at tangents, Carrie. This----\"\n\n\"Tangents? TANGENTS! Let me tell you----\"\n\n\"----isn't a theater-play; it's a serious effort to have us get together\non fundamentals. We've both been cranky, and said a lot of things we\ndidn't mean. I wish we were a couple o' bloomin' poets and just talked\nabout roses and moonshine, but we're human. All right. Let's cut out\njabbing at each other. Let's admit we both do fool things. See here: You\nKNOW you feel superior to folks. You're not as bad as I say, but you're\nnot as good as you say--not by a long shot! What's the reason you're so\nsuperior? Why can't you take folks as they are?\"\n\nHer preparations for stalking out of the Doll's House were not yet\nvisible. She mused:\n\n\"I think perhaps it's my childhood.\" She halted. When she went on\nher voice had an artificial sound, her words the bookish quality of\nemotional meditation. \"My father was the tenderest man in the world, but\nhe did feel superior to ordinary people. Well, he was! And the Minnesota\nValley----I used to sit there on the cliffs above Mankato for hours at a\ntime, my chin in my hand, looking way down the valley, wanting to write\npoems. The shiny tilted roofs below me, and the river, and beyond it the\nlevel fields in the mist, and the rim of palisades across----It held my\nthoughts in. I LIVED, in the valley. But the prairie--all my thoughts go\nflying off into the big space. Do you think it might be that?\"\n\n\"Um, well, maybe, but----Carrie, you always talk so much about getting\nall you can out of life, and not letting the years slip by, and here you\ndeliberately go and deprive yourself of a lot of real good home pleasure\nby not enjoying people unless they wear frock coats and trot out----\"\n\n(\"Morning clothes. Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean t' interrupt you.\")\n\n\"----to a lot of tea-parties. Take Jack Elder. You think Jack hasn't got\nany ideas about anything but manufacturing and the tariff on lumber.\nBut do you know that Jack is nutty about music? He'll put a grand-opera\nrecord on the phonograph and sit and listen to it and close his\neyes----Or you take Lym Cass. Ever realize what a well-informed man he\nis?\"\n\n\"But IS he? Gopher Prairie calls anybody 'well-informed' who's been\nthrough the State Capitol and heard about Gladstone.\"\n\n\"Now I'm telling you! Lym reads a lot--solid stuff--history. Or take\nMart Mahoney, the garageman. He's got a lot of Perry prints of famous\npictures in his office. Or old Bingham Playfair, that died here 'bout a\nyear ago--lived seven miles out. He was a captain in the Civil War,\nand knew General Sherman, and they say he was a miner in Nevada right\nalongside of Mark Twain. You'll find these characters in all these small\ntowns, and a pile of savvy in every single one of them, if you just dig\nfor it.\"\n\n\"I know. And I do love them. Especially people like Champ Perry. But I\ncan't be so very enthusiastic over the smug cits like Jack Elder.\"\n\n\"Then I'm a smug cit, too, whatever that is.\"\n\n\"No, you're a scientist. Oh, I will try and get the music out of Mr.\nElder. Only, why can't he let it COME out, instead of being ashamed of\nit, and always talking about hunting dogs? But I will try. Is it all\nright now?\"\n\n\"Sure. But there's one other thing. You might give me some attention,\ntoo!\"\n\n\"That's unjust! You have everything I am!\"\n\n\"No, I haven't. You think you respect me--you always hand out some\nspiel about my being so 'useful.' But you never think of me as having\nambitions, just as much as you have----\"\n\n\"Perhaps not. I think of you as being perfectly satisfied.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm not, not by a long shot! I don't want to be a plug general\npractitioner all my life, like Westlake, and die in harness because I\ncan't get out of it, and have 'em say, 'He was a good fellow, but he\ncouldn't save a cent.' Not that I care a whoop what they say, after I've\nkicked in and can't hear 'em, but I want to put enough money away so you\nand I can be independent some day, and not have to work unless I feel\nlike it, and I want to have a good house--by golly, I'll have as good\na house as anybody in THIS town!--and if we want to travel and see your\nTormina or whatever it is, why we can do it, with enough money in our\njeans so we won't have to take anything off anybody, or fret about our\nold age. You never worry about what might happen if we got sick and\ndidn't have a good fat wad salted away, do you!\"\n\n\"I don't suppose I do.\"\n\n\"Well then, I have to do it for you. And if you think for one moment\nI want to be stuck in this burg all my life, and not have a chance to\ntravel and see the different points of interest and all that, then you\nsimply don't get me. I want to have a squint at the world, much's you\ndo. Only, I'm practical about it. First place, I'm going to make the\nmoney--I'm investing in good safe farmlands. Do you understand why now?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Will you try and see if you can't think of me as something more than\njust a dollar-chasing roughneck?\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear, I haven't been just! I AM difficile. And I won't call on\nthe Dillons! And if Dr. Dillon is working for Westlake and McGanum, I\nhate him!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTHAT December she was in love with her husband.\n\nShe romanticized herself not as a great reformer but as the wife of a\ncountry physician. The realities of the doctor's household were colored\nby her pride.\n\nLate at night, a step on the wooden porch, heard through her confusion\nof sleep; the storm-door opened; fumbling over the inner door-panels;\nthe buzz of the electric bell. Kennicott muttering \"Gol darn it,\" but\npatiently creeping out of bed, remembering to draw the covers up to keep\nher warm, feeling for slippers and bathrobe, clumping down-stairs.\n\nFrom below, half-heard in her drowsiness, a colloquy in the\npidgin-German of the farmers who have forgotten the Old Country language\nwithout learning the new:\n\n\"Hello, Barney, wass willst du?\"\n\n\"Morgen, doctor. Die Frau ist ja awful sick. All night she been having\nan awful pain in de belly.\"\n\n\"How long she been this way? Wie lang, eh?\"\n\n\"I dunno, maybe two days.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you come for me yesterday, instead of waking me up out of a\nsound sleep? Here it is two o'clock! So spat--warum, eh?\"\n\n\"Nun aber, I know it, but she got soch a lot vorse last evening. I\nt'ought maybe all de time it go avay, but it got a lot vorse.\"\n\n\"Any fever?\"\n\n\"Vell ja, I t'ink she got fever.\"\n\n\"Which side is the pain on?\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"Das Schmertz--die Weh--which side is it on? Here?\"\n\n\"So. Right here it is.\"\n\n\"Any rigidity there?\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\n\"Is it rigid--stiff--I mean, does the belly feel hard to the fingers?\"\n\n\"I dunno. She ain't said yet.\"\n\n\"What she been eating?\"\n\n\"Vell, I t'ink about vot ve alwis eat, maybe corn beef and cabbage and\nsausage, und so weiter. Doc, sie weint immer, all the time she holler\nlike hell. I vish you come.\"\n\n\"Well, all right, but you call me earlier, next time. Look here, Barney,\nyou better install a 'phone--telephone haben. Some of you Dutchmen will\nbe dying one of these days before you can fetch the doctor.\"\n\nThe door closing. Barney's wagon--the wheels silent in the snow, but the\nwagon-body rattling. Kennicott clicking the receiver-hook to rouse the\nnight telephone-operator, giving a number, waiting, cursing mildly,\nwaiting again, and at last growling, \"Hello, Gus, this is the doctor.\nSay, uh, send me up a team. Guess snow's too thick for a machine. Going\neight miles south. All right. Huh? The hell I will! Don't you go back\nto sleep. Huh? Well, that's all right now, you didn't wait so very darn\nlong. All right, Gus; shoot her along. By!\"\n\nHis step on the stairs; his quiet moving about the frigid room while he\ndressed; his abstracted and meaningless cough. She was supposed to be\nasleep; she was too exquisitely drowsy to break the charm by speaking.\nOn a slip of paper laid on the bureau--she could hear the pencil\ngrinding against the marble slab--he wrote his destination. He went out,\nhungry, chilly, unprotesting; and she, before she fell asleep again,\nloved him for his sturdiness, and saw the drama of his riding by night\nto the frightened household on the distant farm; pictured children\nstanding at a window, waiting for him. He suddenly had in her eyes the\nheroism of a wireless operator on a ship in a collision; of an explorer,\nfever-clawed, deserted by his bearers, but going on--jungle--going----\n\nAt six, when the light faltered in as through ground glass and bleakly\nidentified the chairs as gray rectangles, she heard his step on the\nporch; heard him at the furnace: the rattle of shaking the grate, the\nslow grinding removal of ashes, the shovel thrust into the coal-bin,\nthe abrupt clatter of the coal as it flew into the fire-box, the fussy\nregulation of drafts--the daily sounds of a Gopher Prairie life, now\nfirst appealing to her as something brave and enduring, many-colored\nand free. She visioned the fire-box: flames turned to lemon and metallic\ngold as the coal-dust sifted over them; thin twisty flutters of purple,\nghost flames which gave no light, slipping up between the dark banked\ncoals.\n\nIt was luxurious in bed, and the house would be warm for her when\nshe rose, she reflected. What a worthless cat she was! What were her\naspirations beside his capability?\n\nShe awoke again as he dropped into bed.\n\n\"Seems just a few minutes ago that you started out!\"\n\n\"I've been away four hours. I've operated a woman for appendicitis, in\na Dutch kitchen. Came awful close to losing her, too, but I pulled her\nthrough all right. Close squeak. Barney says he shot ten rabbits last\nSunday.\"\n\nHe was instantly asleep--one hour of rest before he had to be up and\nready for the farmers who came in early. She marveled that in what was\nto her but a night-blurred moment, he should have been in a distant\nplace, have taken charge of a strange house, have slashed a woman, saved\na life.\n\nWhat wonder he detested the lazy Westlake and McGanum! How could the\neasy Guy Pollock understand this skill and endurance?\n\nThen Kennicott was grumbling, \"Seven-fifteen! Aren't you ever going\nto get up for breakfast?\" and he was not a hero-scientist but a rather\nirritable and commonplace man who needed a shave. They had coffee,\ngriddle-cakes, and sausages, and talked about Mrs. McGanum's atrocious\nalligator-hide belt. Night witchery and morning disillusion were alike\nforgotten in the march of realities and days.\n\n\nII\n\nFamiliar to the doctor's wife was the man with an injured leg, driven in\nfrom the country on a Sunday afternoon and brought to the house. He\nsat in a rocker in the back of a lumber-wagon, his face pale from the\nanguish of the jolting. His leg was thrust out before him, resting on\na starch-box and covered with a leather-bound horse-blanket. His drab\ncourageous wife drove the wagon, and she helped Kennicott support him as\nhe hobbled up the steps, into the house.\n\n\"Fellow cut his leg with an ax--pretty bad gash--Halvor Nelson, nine\nmiles out,\" Kennicott observed.\n\nCarol fluttered at the back of the room, childishly excited when she was\nsent to fetch towels and a basin of water. Kennicott lifted the farmer\ninto a chair and chuckled, \"There we are, Halvor! We'll have you out\nfixing fences and drinking aquavit in a month.\" The farmwife sat on\nthe couch, expressionless, bulky in a man's dogskin coat and unplumbed\nlayers of jackets. The flowery silk handkerchief which she had worn over\nher head now hung about her seamed neck. Her white wool gloves lay in\nher lap.\n\nKennicott drew from the injured leg the thick red \"German sock,\" the\ninnumerous other socks of gray and white wool, then the spiral bandage.\nThe leg was of an unwholesome dead white, with the black hairs feeble\nand thin and flattened, and the scar a puckered line of crimson. Surely,\nCarol shuddered, this was not human flesh, the rosy shining tissue of\nthe amorous poets.\n\nKennicott examined the scar, smiled at Halvor and his wife, chanted,\n\"Fine, b' gosh! Couldn't be better!\"\n\nThe Nelsons looked deprecating. The farmer nodded a cue to his wife and\nshe mourned:\n\n\"Vell, how much ve going to owe you, doctor?\"\n\n\"I guess it'll be----Let's see: one drive out and two calls. I guess\nit'll be about eleven dollars in all, Lena.\"\n\n\"I dunno ve can pay you yoost a little w'ile, doctor.\"\n\nKennicott lumbered over to her, patted her shoulder, roared, \"Why, Lord\nlove you, sister, I won't worry if I never get it! You pay me next fall,\nwhen you get your crop. . . . Carrie! Suppose you or Bea could shake up\na cup of coffee and some cold lamb for the Nelsons? They got a long cold\ndrive ahead.\"\n\n\nIII\n\n\nHe had been gone since morning; her eyes ached with reading; Vida\nSherwin could not come to tea. She wandered through the house, empty as\nthe bleary street without. The problem of \"Will the doctor be home in\ntime for supper, or shall I sit down without him?\" was important in\nthe household. Six was the rigid, the canonical supper-hour, but at\nhalf-past six he had not come. Much speculation with Bea: Had the\nobstetrical case taken longer than he had expected? Had he been called\nsomewhere else? Was the snow much heavier out in the country, so that he\nshould have taken a buggy, or even a cutter, instead of the car? Here in\ntown it had melted a lot, but still----\n\nA honking, a shout, the motor engine raced before it was shut off.\n\nShe hurried to the window. The car was a monster at rest after furious\nadventures. The headlights blazed on the clots of ice in the road so\nthat the tiniest lumps gave mountainous shadows, and the taillight cast\na circle of ruby on the snow behind. Kennicott was opening the door,\ncrying, \"Here we are, old girl! Got stuck couple times, but we made it,\nby golly, we made it, and here we be! Come on! Food! Eatin's!\"\n\nShe rushed to him, patted his fur coat, the long hairs smooth but chilly\nto her fingers. She joyously summoned Bea, \"All right! He's here! We'll\nsit right down!\"\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThere were, to inform the doctor's wife of his successes no clapping\naudiences nor book-reviews nor honorary degrees. But there was a\nletter written by a German farmer recently moved from Minnesota to\nSaskatchewan:\n\n\nDear sor, as you haf bin treading mee for a fue Weaks dis Somer and\nseen wat is rong wit mee so in Regarding to dat i wont to tank you. the\nDoctor heir say wat shot bee rong wit mee and day give mee som Madsin\nbut it diten halp mee like wat you dit. Now day glaim dat i Woten Neet\naney Madsin ad all wat you tink?\n\nWell i haven ben tacking aney ting for about one & 1/2 Mont but i dont\nget better so i like to heir Wat you tink about it i feel like dis\nDisconfebil feeling around the Stomac after eating and dat Pain around\nHeard and down the arm and about 3 to 3 1/2 Hour after Eating i feel\nweeak like and dissy and a dull Hadig. Now you gust lett mee know Wat\nyou tink about mee, i do Wat you say.\n\n\nV\n\n\nShe encountered Guy Pollock at the drug store. He looked at her as\nthough he had a right to; he spoke softly. \"I haven't see you, the last\nfew days.\"\n\n\"No. I've been out in the country with Will several times. He's so----Do\nyou know that people like you and me can never understand people like\nhim? We're a pair of hypercritical loafers, you and I, while he quietly\ngoes and does things.\"\n\nShe nodded and smiled and was very busy about purchasing boric acid. He\nstared after her, and slipped away.\n\nWhen she found that he was gone she was slightly disconcerted.\n\n\nVI\n\n\nShe could--at times--agree with Kennicott that the shaving-and-corsets\nfamiliarity of married life was not dreary vulgarity but a wholesome\nfrankness; that artificial reticences might merely be irritating. She\nwas not much disturbed when for hours he sat about the living-room in\nhis honest socks. But she would not listen to his theory that \"all this\nromance stuff is simply moonshine--elegant when you're courting, but no\nuse busting yourself keeping it up all your life.\"\n\nShe thought of surprises, games, to vary the days. She knitted an\nastounding purple scarf, which she hid under his supper plate. (When\nhe discovered it he looked embarrassed, and gasped, \"Is today an\nanniversary or something? Gosh, I'd forgotten it!\")\n\nOnce she filled a thermos bottle with hot coffee a corn-flakes box with\ncookies just baked by Bea, and bustled to his office at three in the\nafternoon. She hid her bundles in the hall and peeped in.\n\nThe office was shabby. Kennicott had inherited it from a medical\npredecessor, and changed it only by adding a white enameled\noperating-table, a sterilizer, a Roentgen-ray apparatus, and a small\nportable typewriter. It was a suite of two rooms: a waiting-room with\nstraight chairs, shaky pine table, and those coverless and unknown\nmagazines which are found only in the offices of dentists and\ndoctors. The room beyond, looking on Main Street, was business-office,\nconsulting-room, operating-room, and, in an alcove, bacteriological\nand chemical laboratory. The wooden floors of both rooms were bare; the\nfurniture was brown and scaly.\n\nWaiting for the doctor were two women, as still as though they were\nparalyzed, and a man in a railroad brakeman's uniform, holding his\nbandaged right hand with his tanned left. They stared at Carol. She sat\nmodestly in a stiff chair, feeling frivolous and out of place.\n\nKennicott appeared at the inner door, ushering out a bleached man with\na trickle of wan beard, and consoling him, \"All right, Dad. Be careful\nabout the sugar, and mind the diet I gave you. Gut the prescription\nfilled, and come in and see me next week. Say, uh, better, uh, better\nnot drink too much beer. All right, Dad.\"\n\nHis voice was artificially hearty. He looked absently at Carol. He was\na medical machine now, not a domestic machine. \"What is it, Carrie?\" he\ndroned.\n\n\"No hurry. Just wanted to say hello.\"\n\n\"Well----\"\n\nSelf-pity because he did not divine that this was a surprise party\nrendered her sad and interesting to herself, and she had the pleasure of\nthe martyrs in saying bravely to him, \"It's nothing special. If you're\nbusy long I'll trot home.\"\n\nWhile she waited she ceased to pity and began to mock herself. For the\nfirst time she observed the waiting-room. Oh yes, the doctor's family\nhad to have obi panels and a wide couch and an electric percolator, but\nany hole was good enough for sick tired common people who were nothing\nbut the one means and excuse for the doctor's existing! No. She couldn't\nblame Kennicott. He was satisfied by the shabby chairs. He put up with\nthem as his patients did. It was her neglected province--she who had\nbeen going about talking of rebuilding the whole town!\n\nWhen the patients were gone she brought in her bundles.\n\n\"What's those?\" wondered Kennicott.\n\n\"Turn your back! Look out of the window!\"\n\nHe obeyed--not very much bored. When she cried \"Now!\" a feast of cookies\nand small hard candies and hot coffee was spread on the roll-top desk in\nthe inner room.\n\nHis broad face lightened. \"That's a new one on me! Never was more\nsurprised in my life! And, by golly, I believe I am hungry. Say, this is\nfine.\"\n\nWhen the first exhilaration of the surprise had declined she demanded,\n\"Will! I'm going to refurnish your waiting-room!\"\n\n\"What's the matter with it? It's all right.\"\n\n\"It is not! It's hideous. We can afford to give your patients a better\nplace. And it would be good business.\" She felt tremendously politic.\n\n\"Rats! I don't worry about the business. You look here now: As I told\nyou----Just because I like to tuck a few dollars away, I'll be switched\nif I'll stand for your thinking I'm nothing but a dollar-chasing----\"\n\n\"Stop it! Quick! I'm not hurting your feelings! I'm not criticizing! I'm\nthe adoring least one of thy harem. I just mean----\"\n\nTwo days later, with pictures, wicker chairs, a rug, she had made the\nwaiting-room habitable; and Kennicott admitted, \"Does look a lot better.\nNever thought much about it. Guess I need being bullied.\"\n\nShe was convinced that she was gloriously content in her career as\ndoctor's-wife.\n\n\nVII\n\n\nShe tried to free herself from the speculation and disillusionment which\nhad been twitching at her; sought to dismiss all the opinionation of an\ninsurgent era. She wanted to shine upon the veal-faced bristly-bearded\nLyman Cass as much as upon Miles Bjornstam or Guy Pollock. She gave a\nreception for the Thanatopsis Club. But her real acquiring of merit\nwas in calling upon that Mrs. Bogart whose gossipy good opinion was so\nvaluable to a doctor.\n\nThough the Bogart house was next door she had entered it but three\ntimes. Now she put on her new moleskin cap, which made her face small\nand innocent, she rubbed off the traces of a lip-stick--and fled across\nthe alley before her admirable resolution should sneak away.\n\nThe age of houses, like the age of men, has small relation to their\nyears. The dull-green cottage of the good Widow Bogart was twenty years\nold, but it had the antiquity of Cheops, and the smell of mummy-dust.\nIts neatness rebuked the street. The two stones by the path were painted\nyellow; the outhouse was so overmodestly masked with vines and lattice\nthat it was not concealed at all; the last iron dog remaining in Gopher\nPrairie stood among whitewashed conch-shells upon the lawn. The hallway\nwas dismayingly scrubbed; the kitchen was an exercise in mathematics,\nwith problems worked out in equidistant chairs.\n\nThe parlor was kept for visitors. Carol suggested, \"Let's sit in the\nkitchen. Please don't trouble to light the parlor stove.\"\n\n\"No trouble at all! My gracious, and you coming so seldom and all, and\nthe kitchen is a perfect sight, I try to keep it clean, but Cy will\ntrack mud all over it, I've spoken to him about it a hundred times if\nI've spoken once, no, you sit right there, dearie, and I'll make a fire,\nno trouble at all, practically no trouble at all.\"\n\nMrs. Bogart groaned, rubbed her joints, and repeatedly dusted her hands\nwhile she made the fire, and when Carol tried to help she lamented,\n\"Oh, it doesn't matter; guess I ain't good for much but toil and workin'\nanyway; seems as though that's what a lot of folks think.\"\n\nThe parlor was distinguished by an expanse of rag carpet from which, as\nthey entered, Mrs. Bogart hastily picked one sad dead fly. In the center\nof the carpet was a rug depicting a red Newfoundland dog, reclining in a\ngreen and yellow daisy field and labeled \"Our Friend.\" The parlor organ,\ntall and thin, was adorned with a mirror partly circular, partly square,\nand partly diamond-shaped, and with brackets holding a pot of geraniums,\na mouth-organ, and a copy of \"The Oldtime Hymnal.\" On the center\ntable was a Sears-Roebuck mail-order catalogue, a silver frame with\nphotographs of the Baptist Church and of an elderly clergyman, and\nan aluminum tray containing a rattlesnake's rattle and a broken\nspectacle-lens.\n\nMrs. Bogart spoke of the eloquence of the Reverend Mr. Zitterel,\nthe coldness of cold days, the price of poplar wood, Dave Dyer's new\nhair-cut, and Cy Bogart's essential piety. \"As I said to his Sunday\nSchool teacher, Cy may be a little wild, but that's because he's got so\nmuch better brains than a lot of these boys, and this farmer that claims\nhe caught Cy stealing 'beggies, is a liar, and I ought to have the law\non him.\"\n\nMrs. Bogart went thoroughly into the rumor that the girl waiter at\nBilly's Lunch was not all she might be--or, rather, was quite all she\nmight be.\n\n\"My lands, what can you expect when everybody knows what her mother was?\nAnd if these traveling salesmen would let her alone she would be all\nright, though I certainly don't believe she ought to be allowed to think\nshe can pull the wool over our eyes. The sooner she's sent to the\nschool for incorrigible girls down at Sauk Centre, the better for all\nand----Won't you just have a cup of coffee, Carol dearie, I'm sure you\nwon't mind old Aunty Bogart calling you by your first name when you\nthink how long I've known Will, and I was such a friend of his dear\nlovely mother when she lived here and--was that fur cap expensive?\nBut----Don't you think it's awful, the way folks talk in this town?\"\n\nMrs. Bogart hitched her chair nearer. Her large face, with its\ndisturbing collection of moles and lone black hairs, wrinkled\ncunningly. She showed her decayed teeth in a reproving smile, and in the\nconfidential voice of one who scents stale bedroom scandal she breathed:\n\n\"I just don't see how folks can talk and act like they do. You don't\nknow the things that go on under cover. This town--why it's only the\nreligious training I've given Cy that's kept him so innocent of--things.\nJust the other day----I never pay no attention to stories, but I heard\nit mighty good and straight that Harry Haydock is carrying on with a\ngirl that clerks in a store down in Minneapolis, and poor Juanita\nnot knowing anything about it--though maybe it's the judgment of\nGod, because before she married Harry she acted up with more than one\nboy----Well, I don't like to say it, and maybe I ain't up-to-date, like\nCy says, but I always believed a lady shouldn't even give names to all\nsorts of dreadful things, but just the same I know there was at least\none case where Juanita and a boy--well, they were just dreadful.\nAnd--and----Then there's that Ole Jenson the grocer, that thinks he's so\nplaguey smart, and I know he made up to a farmer's wife and----And this\nawful man Bjornstam that does chores, and Nat Hicks and----\"\n\nThere was, it seemed, no person in town who was not living a life of\nshame except Mrs. Bogart, and naturally she resented it.\n\nShe knew. She had always happened to be there. Once, she whispered, she\nwas going by when an indiscreet window-shade had been left up a couple\nof inches. Once she had noticed a man and woman holding hands, and right\nat a Methodist sociable!\n\n\"Another thing----Heaven knows I never want to start trouble, but I\ncan't help what I see from my back steps, and I notice your hired girl\nBea carrying on with the grocery boys and all----\"\n\n\"Mrs. Bogart! I'd trust Bea as I would myself!\"\n\n\"Oh, dearie, you don't understand me! I'm sure she's a good girl. I mean\nshe's green, and I hope that none of these horrid young men that there\nare around town will get her into trouble! It's their parents' fault,\nletting them run wild and hear evil things. If I had my way there\nwouldn't be none of them, not boys nor girls neither, allowed to know\nanything about--about things till they was married. It's terrible the\nbald way that some folks talk. It just shows and gives away what awful\nthoughts they got inside them, and there's nothing can cure them except\ncoming right to God and kneeling down like I do at prayer-meeting every\nWednesday evening, and saying, 'O God, I would be a miserable sinner\nexcept for thy grace.'\n\n\"I'd make every last one of these brats go to Sunday School and learn\nto think about nice things 'stead of about cigarettes and goings-on--and\nthese dances they have at the lodges are the worst thing that ever\nhappened to this town, lot of young men squeezing girls and finding\nout----Oh, it's dreadful. I've told the mayor he ought to put a stop\nto them and----There was one boy in this town, I don't want to be\nsuspicious or uncharitable but----\"\n\nIt was half an hour before Carol escaped.\n\nShe stopped on her own porch and thought viciously:\n\n\"If that woman is on the side of the angels, then I have no choice; I\nmust be on the side of the devil. But--isn't she like me? She too wants\nto 'reform the town'! She too criticizes everybody! She too thinks the\nmen are vulgar and limited! AM I LIKE HER? This is ghastly!\"\n\nThat evening she did not merely consent to play cribbage with Kennicott;\nshe urged him to play; and she worked up a hectic interest in land-deals\nand Sam Clark.\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nIn courtship days Kennicott had shown her a photograph of Nels\nErdstrom's baby and log cabin, but she had never seen the Erdstroms.\nThey had become merely \"patients of the doctor.\" Kennicott telephoned\nher on a mid-December afternoon, \"Want to throw your coat on and drive\nout to Erdstrom's with me? Fairly warm. Nels got the jaundice.\"\n\n\"Oh yes!\" She hastened to put on woolen stockings, high boots, sweater,\nmuffler, cap, mittens.\n\nThe snow was too thick and the ruts frozen too hard for the motor. They\ndrove out in a clumsy high carriage. Tucked over them was a blue woolen\ncover, prickly to her wrists, and outside of it a buffalo robe, humble\nand moth-eaten now, used ever since the bison herds had streaked the\nprairie a few miles to the west.\n\nThe scattered houses between which they passed in town were small and\ndesolate in contrast to the expanse of huge snowy yards and wide\nstreet. They crossed the railroad tracks, and instantly were in the farm\ncountry. The big piebald horses snorted clouds of steam, and started to\ntrot. The carriage squeaked in rhythm. Kennicott drove with clucks of\n\"There boy, take it easy!\" He was thinking. He paid no attention to\nCarol. Yet it was he who commented, \"Pretty nice, over there,\" as they\napproached an oak-grove where shifty winter sunlight quivered in the\nhollow between two snow-drifts.\n\nThey drove from the natural prairie to a cleared district which twenty\nyears ago had been forest. The country seemed to stretch unchanging to\nthe North Pole: low hill, brush-scraggly bottom, reedy creek, muskrat\nmound, fields with frozen brown clods thrust up through the snow.\n\nHer ears and nose were pinched; her breath frosted her collar; her\nfingers ached.\n\n\"Getting colder,\" she said.\n\n\"Yup.\"\n\nThat was all their conversation for three miles. Yet she was happy.\n\nThey reached Nels Erdstrom's at four, and with a throb she recognized\nthe courageous venture which had lured her to Gopher Prairie: the\ncleared fields, furrows among stumps, a log cabin chinked with mud and\nroofed with dry hay. But Nels had prospered. He used the log cabin as a\nbarn; and a new house reared up, a proud, unwise, Gopher Prairie\nhouse, the more naked and ungraceful in its glossy white paint and pink\ntrimmings. Every tree had been cut down. The house was so unsheltered,\nso battered by the wind, so bleakly thrust out into the harsh clearing,\nthat Carol shivered. But they were welcomed warmly enough in the\nkitchen, with its crisp new plaster, its black and nickel range, its\ncream separator in a corner.\n\nMrs. Erdstrom begged her to sit in the parlor, where there was a\nphonograph and an oak and leather davenport, the prairie farmer's\nproofs of social progress, but she dropped down by the kitchen stove and\ninsisted, \"Please don't mind me.\" When Mrs. Erdstrom had followed the\ndoctor out of the room Carol glanced in a friendly way at the grained\npine cupboard, the framed Lutheran Konfirmations Attest, the traces\nof fried eggs and sausages on the dining table against the wall, and a\njewel among calendars, presenting not only a lithographic young woman\nwith cherry lips, and a Swedish advertisement of Axel Egge's grocery,\nbut also a thermometer and a match-holder.\n\nShe saw that a boy of four or five was staring at her from the hall,\na boy in gingham shirt and faded corduroy trousers, but large-eyed,\nfirm-mouthed, wide-browed. He vanished, then peeped in again, biting his\nknuckles, turning his shoulder toward her in shyness.\n\nDidn't she remember--what was it?--Kennicott sitting beside her at Fort\nSnelling, urging, \"See how scared that baby is. Needs some woman like\nyou.\"\n\nMagic had fluttered about her then--magic of sunset and cool air and the\ncuriosity of lovers. She held out her hands as much to that sanctity as\nto the boy.\n\nHe edged into the room, doubtfully sucking his thumb.\n\n\"Hello,\" she said. \"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Hee, hee, hee!\"\n\n\"You're quite right. I agree with you. Silly people like me always ask\nchildren their names.\"\n\n\"Hee, hee, hee!\"\n\n\"Come here and I'll tell you the story of--well, I don't know what it\nwill be about, but it will have a slim heroine and a Prince Charming.\"\n\nHe stood stoically while she spun nonsense. His giggling ceased. She was\nwinning him. Then the telephone bell--two long rings, one short.\n\nMrs. Erdstrom galloped into the room, shrieked into the transmitter,\n\"Vell? Yes, yes, dis is Erdstrom's place! Heh? Oh, you vant de doctor?\"\n\nKennicott appeared, growled into the telephone:\n\n\"Well, what do you want? Oh, hello Dave; what do you want? Which\nMorgenroth's? Adolph's? All right. Amputation? Yuh, I see. Say, Dave,\nget Gus to harness up and take my surgical kit down there--and have him\ntake some chloroform. I'll go straight down from here. May not get\nhome tonight. You can get me at Adolph's. Huh? No, Carrie can give the\nanesthetic, I guess. G'-by. Huh? No; tell me about that tomorrow--too\ndamn many people always listening in on this farmers' line.\"\n\nHe turned to Carol. \"Adolph Morgenroth, farmer ten miles southwest of\ntown, got his arm crushed-fixing his cow-shed and a post caved in on\nhim--smashed him up pretty bad--may have to amputate, Dave Dyer says.\nAfraid we'll have to go right from here. Darn sorry to drag you clear\ndown there with me----\"\n\n\"Please do. Don't mind me a bit.\"\n\n\"Think you could give the anesthetic? Usually have my driver do it.\"\n\n\"If you'll tell me how.\"\n\n\"All right. Say, did you hear me putting one over on these goats that\nare always rubbering in on party-wires? I hope they heard me! Well. . . .\nNow, Bessie, don't you worry about Nels. He's getting along all right.\nTomorrow you or one of the neighbors drive in and get this prescription\nfilled at Dyer's. Give him a teaspoonful every four hours. Good-by.\nHel-lo! Here's the little fellow! My Lord, Bessie, it ain't possible\nthis is the fellow that used to be so sickly? Why, say, he's a great big\nstrapping Svenska now--going to be bigger 'n his daddy!\"\n\nKennicott's bluffness made the child squirm with a delight which Carol\ncould not evoke. It was a humble wife who followed the busy doctor out\nto the carriage, and her ambition was not to play Rachmaninoff better,\nnor to build town halls, but to chuckle at babies.\n\nThe sunset was merely a flush of rose on a dome of silver, with oak\ntwigs and thin poplar branches against it, but a silo on the horizon\nchanged from a red tank to a tower of violet misted over with gray. The\npurple road vanished, and without lights, in the darkness of a world\ndestroyed, they swayed on--toward nothing.\n\nIt was a bumpy cold way to the Morgenroth farm, and she was asleep when\nthey arrived.\n\nHere was no glaring new house with a proud phonograph, but a low\nwhitewashed kitchen smelling of cream and cabbage. Adolph Morgenroth was\nlying on a couch in the rarely used dining-room. His heavy work-scarred\nwife was shaking her hands in anxiety.\n\nCarol felt that Kennicott would do something magnificent and startling.\nBut he was casual. He greeted the man, \"Well, well, Adolph, have to fix\nyou up, eh?\" Quietly, to the wife, \"Hat die drug store my schwartze bag\nhier geschickt? So--schon. Wie viel Uhr ist 's? Sieben? Nun, lassen uns\nein wenig supper zuerst haben. Got any of that good beer left--giebt 's\nnoch Bier?\"\n\nHe had supped in four minutes. His coat off, his sleeves rolled up, he\nwas scrubbing his hands in a tin basin in the sink, using the bar of\nyellow kitchen soap.\n\nCarol had not dared to look into the farther room while she labored over\nthe supper of beer, rye bread, moist cornbeef and cabbage, set on the\nkitchen table. The man in there was groaning. In her one glance she\nhad seen that his blue flannel shirt was open at a corded tobacco-brown\nneck, the hollows of which were sprinkled with thin black and gray\nhairs. He was covered with a sheet, like a corpse, and outside the sheet\nwas his right arm, wrapped in towels stained with blood.\n\nBut Kennicott strode into the other room gaily, and she followed him.\nWith surprising delicacy in his large fingers he unwrapped the towels\nand revealed an arm which, below the elbow, was a mass of blood and raw\nflesh. The man bellowed. The room grew thick about her; she was very\nseasick; she fled to a chair in the kitchen. Through the haze of nausea\nshe heard Kennicott grumbling, \"Afraid it will have to come off, Adolph.\nWhat did you do? Fall on a reaper blade? We'll fix it right up. Carrie!\nCAROL!\"\n\nShe couldn't--she couldn't get up. Then she was up, her knees like\nwater, her stomach revolving a thousand times a second, her eyes filmed,\nher ears full of roaring. She couldn't reach the dining-room. She was\ngoing to faint. Then she was in the dining-room, leaning against the\nwall, trying to smile, flushing hot and cold along her chest and sides,\nwhile Kennicott mumbled, \"Say, help Mrs. Morgenroth and me carry him\nin on the kitchen table. No, first go out and shove those two tables\ntogether, and put a blanket on them and a clean sheet.\"\n\nIt was salvation to push the heavy tables, to scrub them, to be exact in\nplacing the sheet. Her head cleared; she was able to look calmly in at\nher husband and the farmwife while they undressed the wailing man, got\nhim into a clean nightgown, and washed his arm. Kennicott came to lay\nout his instruments. She realized that, with no hospital facilities, yet\nwith no worry about it, her husband--HER HUSBAND--was going to perform\na surgical operation, that miraculous boldness of which one read in\nstories about famous surgeons.\n\nShe helped them to move Adolph into the kitchen. The man was in such a\nfunk that he would not use his legs. He was heavy, and smelled of sweat\nand the stable. But she put her arm about his waist, her sleek head by\nhis chest; she tugged at him; she clicked her tongue in imitation of\nKennicott's cheerful noises.\n\nWhen Adolph was on the table Kennicott laid a hemispheric steel and\ncotton frame on his face; suggested to Carol, \"Now you sit here at his\nhead and keep the ether dripping--about this fast, see? I'll watch\nhis breathing. Look who's here! Real anesthetist! Ochsner hasn't got a\nbetter one! Class, eh? . . . Now, now, Adolph, take it easy. This won't\nhurt you a bit. Put you all nice and asleep and it won't hurt a bit.\nSchweig' mal! Bald schlaft man grat wie ein Kind. So! So! Bald geht's\nbesser!\"\n\nAs she let the ether drip, nervously trying to keep the rhythm that\nKennicott had indicated, Carol stared at her husband with the abandon of\nhero-worship.\n\nHe shook his head. \"Bad light--bad light. Here, Mrs. Morgenroth, you\nstand right here and hold this lamp. Hier, und dieses--dieses lamp\nhalten--so!\"\n\nBy that streaky glimmer he worked, swiftly, at ease. The room was still.\nCarol tried to look at him, yet not look at the seeping blood, the\ncrimson slash, the vicious scalpel. The ether fumes were sweet, choking.\nHer head seemed to be floating away from her body. Her arm was feeble.\n\nIt was not the blood but the grating of the surgical saw on the living\nbone that broke her, and she knew that she had been fighting off nausea,\nthat she was beaten. She was lost in dizziness. She heard Kennicott's\nvoice--\n\n\"Sick? Trot outdoors couple minutes. Adolph will stay under now.\"\n\nShe was fumbling at a door-knob which whirled in insulting circles;\nshe was on the stoop, gasping, forcing air into her chest, her head\nclearing. As she returned she caught the scene as a whole: the cavernous\nkitchen, two milk-cans a leaden patch by the wall, hams dangling from a\nbeam, bats of light at the stove door, and in the center, illuminated\nby a small glass lamp held by a frightened stout woman, Dr. Kennicott\nbending over a body which was humped under a sheet--the surgeon, his\nbare arms daubed with blood, his hands, in pale-yellow rubber gloves,\nloosening the tourniquet, his face without emotion save when he threw\nup his head and clucked at the farmwife, \"Hold that light steady just a\nsecond more--noch blos esn wenig.\"\n\n\"He speaks a vulgar, common, incorrect German of life and death and\nbirth and the soil. I read the French and German of sentimental\nlovers and Christmas garlands. And I thought that it was I who had the\nculture!\" she worshiped as she returned to her place.\n\nAfter a time he snapped, \"That's enough. Don't give him any more ether.\"\nHe was concentrated on tying an artery. His gruffness seemed heroic to\nher.\n\nAs he shaped the flap of flesh she murmured, \"Oh, you ARE wonderful!\"\n\nHe was surprised. \"Why, this is a cinch. Now if it had been like last\nweek----Get me some more water. Now last week I had a case with an ooze\nin the peritoneal cavity, and by golly if it wasn't a stomach ulcer that\nI hadn't suspected and----There. Say, I certainly am sleepy. Let's turn\nin here. Too late to drive home. And tastes to me like a storm coming.\"\n\n\nIX\n\n\nThey slept on a feather bed with their fur coats over them; in the\nmorning they broke ice in the pitcher--the vast flowered and gilt\npitcher.\n\nKennicott's storm had not come. When they set out it was hazy and\ngrowing warmer. After a mile she saw that he was studying a dark cloud\nin the north. He urged the horses to the run. But she forgot his unusual\nhaste in wonder at the tragic landscape. The pale snow, the prickles of\nold stubble, and the clumps of ragged brush faded into a gray obscurity.\nUnder the hillocks were cold shadows. The willows about a farmhouse were\nagitated by the rising wind, and the patches of bare wood where the bark\nhad peeled away were white as the flesh of a leper. The snowy slews were\nof a harsh flatness. The whole land was cruel, and a climbing cloud of\nslate-edged blackness dominated the sky.\n\n\"Guess we're about in for a blizzard,\" speculated Kennicott \"We can make\nBen McGonegal's, anyway.\"\n\n\"Blizzard? Really? Why----But still we used to think they were fun when\nI was a girl. Daddy had to stay home from court, and we'd stand at the\nwindow and watch the snow.\"\n\n\"Not much fun on the prairie. Get lost. Freeze to death. Take no\nchances.\" He chirruped at the horses. They were flying now, the carriage\nrocking on the hard ruts.\n\nThe whole air suddenly crystallized into large damp flakes. The horses\nand the buffalo robe were covered with snow; her face was wet; the\nthin butt of the whip held a white ridge. The air became colder. The\nsnowflakes were harder; they shot in level lines, clawing at her face.\n\nShe could not see a hundred feet ahead.\n\nKennicott was stern. He bent forward, the reins firm in his coonskin\ngauntlets. She was certain that he would get through. He always got\nthrough things.\n\nSave for his presence, the world and all normal living disappeared. They\nwere lost in the boiling snow. He leaned close to bawl, \"Letting the\nhorses have their heads. They'll get us home.\"\n\nWith a terrifying bump they were off the road, slanting with two wheels\nin the ditch, but instantly they were jerked back as the horses fled\non. She gasped. She tried to, and did not, feel brave as she pulled the\nwoolen robe up about her chin.\n\nThey were passing something like a dark wall on the right. \"I know that\nbarn!\" he yelped. He pulled at the reins. Peeping from the covers she\nsaw his teeth pinch his lower lip, saw him scowl as he slackened and\nsawed and jerked sharply again at the racing horses.\n\nThey stopped.\n\n\"Farmhouse there. Put robe around you and come on,\" he cried.\n\nIt was like diving into icy water to climb out of the carriage, but\non the ground she smiled at him, her face little and childish and pink\nabove the buffalo robe over her shoulders. In a swirl of flakes which\nscratched at their eyes like a maniac darkness, he unbuckled the\nharness. He turned and plodded back, a ponderous furry figure, holding\nthe horses' bridles, Carol's hand dragging at his sleeve.\n\nThey came to the cloudy bulk of a barn whose outer wall was directly\nupon the road. Feeling along it, he found a gate, led them into a yard,\ninto the barn. The interior was warm. It stunned them with its languid\nquiet.\n\nHe carefully drove the horses into stalls.\n\nHer toes were coals of pain. \"Let's run for the house,\" she said.\n\n\"Can't. Not yet. Might never find it. Might get lost ten feet away from\nit. Sit over in this stall, near the horses. We'll rush for the house\nwhen the blizzard lifts.\"\n\n\"I'm so stiff! I can't walk!\"\n\nHe carried her into the stall, stripped off her overshoes and boots,\nstopping to blow on his purple fingers as he fumbled at her laces.\nHe rubbed her feet, and covered her with the buffalo robe and\nhorse-blankets from the pile on the feed-box. She was drowsy, hemmed in\nby the storm. She sighed:\n\n\"You're so strong and yet so skilful and not afraid of blood or storm\nor----\"\n\n\"Used to it. Only thing that's bothered me was the chance the ether\nfumes might explode, last night.\"\n\n\"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Why, Dave, the darn fool, sent me ether, instead of chloroform like I\ntold him, and you know ether fumes are mighty inflammable, especially\nwith that lamp right by the table. But I had to operate, of\ncourse--wound chuck-full of barnyard filth that way.\"\n\n\"You knew all the time that----Both you and I might have been blown up?\nYou knew it while you were operating?\"\n\n\"Sure. Didn't you? Why, what's the matter?\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nKENNICOTT was heavily pleased by her Christmas presents, and he gave her\na diamond bar-pin. But she could not persuade herself that he was much\ninterested in the rites of the morning, in the tree she had decorated,\nthe three stockings she had hung, the ribbons and gilt seals and hidden\nmessages. He said only:\n\n\"Nice way to fix things, all right. What do you say we go down to Jack\nElder's and have a game of five hundred this afternoon?\"\n\nShe remembered her father's Christmas fantasies: the sacred old rag\ndoll at the top of the tree, the score of cheap presents, the punch and\ncarols, the roast chestnuts by the fire, and the gravity with which the\njudge opened the children's scrawly notes and took cognizance of demands\nfor sled-rides, for opinions upon the existence of Santa Claus. She\nremembered him reading out a long indictment of himself for being a\nsentimentalist, against the peace and dignity of the State of Minnesota.\nShe remembered his thin legs twinkling before their sled----\n\nShe muttered unsteadily, \"Must run up and put on my shoes--slippers so\ncold.\" In the not very romantic solitude of the locked bathroom she sat\non the slippery edge of the tub and wept.\n\n\nII\n\n\nKennicott had five hobbies: medicine, land-investment, Carol, motoring,\nand hunting. It is not certain in what order he preferred them. Solid\nthough his enthusiasms were in the matter of medicine--his admiration\nof this city surgeon, his condemnation of that for tricky ways of\npersuading country practitioners to bring in surgical patients,\nhis indignation about fee-splitting, his pride in a new X-ray\napparatus--none of these beatified him as did motoring.\n\nHe nursed his two-year-old Buick even in winter, when it was stored in\nthe stable-garage behind the house. He filled the grease-cups, varnished\na fender, removed from beneath the back seat the debris of gloves,\ncopper washers, crumpled maps, dust, and greasy rags. Winter noons he\nwandered out and stared owlishly at the car. He became excited over a\nfabulous \"trip we might take next summer.\" He galloped to the station,\nbrought home railway maps, and traced motor-routes from Gopher Prairie\nto Winnipeg or Des Moines or Grand Marais, thinking aloud and expecting\nher to be effusive about such academic questions as \"Now I wonder if we\ncould stop at Baraboo and break the jump from La Crosse to Chicago?\"\n\nTo him motoring was a faith not to be questioned, a high-church cult,\nwith electric sparks for candles, and piston-rings possessing the\nsanctity of altar-vessels. His liturgy was composed of intoned and\nmetrical road-comments: \"They say there's a pretty good hike from Duluth\nto International Falls.\"\n\nHunting was equally a devotion, full of metaphysical concepts veiled\nfrom Carol. All winter he read sporting-catalogues, and thought about\nremarkable past shots: \"'Member that time when I got two ducks on a\nlong chance, just at sunset?\" At least once a month he drew his favorite\nrepeating shotgun, his \"pump gun,\" from its wrapper of greased canton\nflannel; he oiled the trigger, and spent silent ecstatic moments aiming\nat the ceiling. Sunday mornings Carol heard him trudging up to the\nattic and there, an hour later, she found him turning over boots, wooden\nduck-decoys, lunch-boxes, or reflectively squinting at old shells,\nrubbing their brass caps with his sleeve and shaking his head as he\nthought about their uselessness.\n\nHe kept the loading-tools he had used as a boy: a capper for shot-gun\nshells, a mold for lead bullets. When once, in a housewifely frenzy for\ngetting rid of things, she raged, \"Why don't you give these away?\" he\nsolemnly defended them, \"Well, you can't tell; they might come in handy\nsome day.\"\n\nShe flushed. She wondered if he was thinking of the child they would\nhave when, as he put it, they were \"sure they could afford one.\"\n\nMysteriously aching, nebulously sad, she slipped away, half-convinced\nbut only half-convinced that it was horrible and unnatural, this\npostponement of release of mother-affection, this sacrifice to her\nopinionation and to his cautious desire for prosperity.\n\n\"But it would be worse if he were like Sam Clark--insisted on having\nchildren,\" she considered; then, \"If Will were the Prince, wouldn't I\nDEMAND his child?\"\n\nKennicott's land-deals were both financial advancement and favorite\ngame. Driving through the country, he noticed which farms had good\ncrops; he heard the news about the restless farmer who was \"thinking\nabout selling out here and pulling his freight for Alberta.\" He asked\nthe veterinarian about the value of different breeds of stock; he\ninquired of Lyman Cass whether or not Einar Gyseldson really had had a\nyield of forty bushels of wheat to the acre. He was always consulting\nJulius Flickerbaugh, who handled more real estate than law, and more law\nthan justice. He studied township maps, and read notices of auctions.\n\nThus he was able to buy a quarter-section of land for one hundred and\nfifty dollars an acre, and to sell it in a year or two, after installing\na cement floor in the barn and running water in the house, for one\nhundred and eighty or even two hundred.\n\nHe spoke of these details to Sam Clark . . . rather often.\n\nIn all his games, cars and guns and land, he expected Carol to take an\ninterest. But he did not give her the facts which might have created\ninterest. He talked only of the obvious and tedious aspects; never of\nhis aspirations in finance, nor of the mechanical principles of motors.\n\nThis month of romance she was eager to understand his hobbies. She\nshivered in the garage while he spent half an hour in deciding whether\nto put alcohol or patent non-freezing liquid into the radiator, or to\ndrain out the water entirely. \"Or no, then I wouldn't want to take\nher out if it turned warm--still, of course, I could fill the\nradiator again--wouldn't take so awful long--just take a few pails\nof water--still, if it turned cold on me again before I drained\nit----Course there's some people that put in kerosene, but they say it\nrots the hose-connections and----Where did I put that lug-wrench?\"\n\nIt was at this point that she gave up being a motorist and retired to\nthe house.\n\nIn their new intimacy he was more communicative about his practise;\nhe informed her, with the invariable warning not to tell, that Mrs.\nSunderquist had another baby coming, that the \"hired girl at Howland's\nwas in trouble.\" But when she asked technical questions he did not know\nhow to answer; when she inquired, \"Exactly what is the method of taking\nout the tonsils?\" he yawned, \"Tonsilectomy? Why you just----If there's\npus, you operate. Just take 'em out. Seen the newspaper? What the devil\ndid Bea do with it?\"\n\nShe did not try again.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThey had gone to the \"movies.\" The movies were almost as vital\nto Kennicott and the other solid citizens of Gopher Prairie as\nland-speculation and guns and automobiles.\n\nThe feature film portrayed a brave young Yankee who conquered a South\nAmerican republic. He turned the natives from their barbarous habits of\nsinging and laughing to the vigorous sanity, the Pep and Punch and\nGo, of the North; he taught them to work in factories, to wear Klassy\nKollege Klothes, and to shout, \"Oh, you baby doll, watch me gather\nin the mazuma.\" He changed nature itself. A mountain which had borne\nnothing but lilies and cedars and loafing clouds was by his Hustle so\ninspirited that it broke out in long wooden sheds, and piles of iron\nore to be converted into steamers to carry iron ore to be converted into\nsteamers to carry iron ore.\n\nThe intellectual tension induced by the master film was relieved by a\nlivelier, more lyric and less philosophical drama: Mack Schnarken and\nthe Bathing Suit Babes in a comedy of manners entitled \"Right on the\nCoco.\" Mr. Schnarken was at various high moments a cook, a life-guard,\na burlesque actor, and a sculptor. There was a hotel hallway up which\npolicemen charged, only to be stunned by plaster busts hurled upon them\nfrom the innumerous doors. If the plot lacked lucidity, the dual motif\nof legs and pie was clear and sure. Bathing and modeling were equally\nsound occasions for legs; the wedding-scene was but an approach to the\nthunderous climax when Mr. Schnarken slipped a piece of custard pie into\nthe clergyman's rear pocket.\n\nThe audience in the Rosebud Movie Palace squealed and wiped their eyes;\nthey scrambled under the seats for overshoes, mittens, and mufflers,\nwhile the screen announced that next week Mr. Schnarken might be seen\nin a new, riproaring, extra-special superfeature of the Clean Comedy\nCorporation entitled, \"Under Mollie's Bed.\"\n\n\"I'm glad,\" said Carol to Kennicott as they stooped before the northwest\ngale which was torturing the barren street, \"that this is a moral\ncountry. We don't allow any of these beastly frank novels.\"\n\n\"Yump. Vice Society and Postal Department won't stand for them. The\nAmerican people don't like filth.\"\n\n\"Yes. It's fine. I'm glad we have such dainty romances as 'Right on the\nCoco' instead.\"\n\n\"Say what in heck do you think you're trying to do? Kid me?\"\n\nHe was silent. She awaited his anger. She meditated upon his gutter\npatois, the Boeotian dialect characteristic of Gopher Prairie. He\nlaughed puzzlingly. When they came into the glow of the house he laughed\nagain. He condescended:\n\n\"I've got to hand it to you. You're consistent, all right. I'd of\nthought that after getting this look-in at a lot of good decent farmers,\nyou'd get over this high-art stuff, but you hang right on.\"\n\n\"Well----\" To herself: \"He takes advantage of my trying to be good.\"\n\n\"Tell you, Carrie: There's just three classes of people: folks that\nhaven't got any ideas at all; and cranks that kick about everything; and\nRegular Guys, the fellows with sticktuitiveness, that boost and get the\nworld's work done.\"\n\n\"Then I'm probably a crank.\" She smiled negligently.\n\n\"No. I won't admit it. You do like to talk, but at a show-down you'd\nprefer Sam Clark to any damn long-haired artist.\"\n\n\"Oh--well----\"\n\n\"Oh well!\" mockingly. \"My, we're just going to change everything, aren't\nwe! Going to tell fellows that have been making movies for ten years\nhow to direct 'em; and tell architects how to build towns; and make the\nmagazines publish nothing but a lot of highbrow stories about old maids,\nand about wives that don't know what they want. Oh, we're a terror! . . .\nCome on now, Carrie; come out of it; wake up! You've got a fine nerve,\nkicking about a movie because it shows a few legs! Why, you're always\ntouting these Greek dancers, or whatever they are, that don't even wear\na shimmy!\"\n\n\"But, dear, the trouble with that film--it wasn't that it got in so many\nlegs, but that it giggled coyly and promised to show more of them, and\nthen didn't keep the promise. It was Peeping Tom's idea of humor.\"\n\n\"I don't get you. Look here now----\"\n\nShe lay awake, while he rumbled with sleep\n\n\"I must go on. My 'crank ideas;' he calls them. I thought that adoring\nhim, watching him operate, would be enough. It isn't. Not after the\nfirst thrill.\n\n\"I don't want to hurt him. But I must go on.\n\n\"It isn't enough, to stand by while he fills an automobile radiator and\nchucks me bits of information.\n\n\"If I stood by and admired him long enough, I would be content. I would\nbecome a 'nice little woman.' The Village Virus. Already----I'm not\nreading anything. I haven't touched the piano for a week. I'm letting\nthe days drown in worship of 'a good deal, ten plunks more per acre.' I\nwon't! I won't succumb!\n\n\"How? I've failed at everything: the Thanatopsis, parties, pioneers,\ncity hall, Guy and Vida. But----It doesn't MATTER! I'm not trying to\n'reform the town' now. I'm not trying to organize Browning Clubs,\nand sit in clean white kids yearning up at lecturers with ribbony\neyeglasses. I am trying to save my soul.\n\n\"Will Kennicott, asleep there, trusting me, thinking he holds me. And\nI'm leaving him. All of me left him when he laughed at me. It wasn't\nenough for him that I admired him; I must change myself and grow like\nhim. He takes advantage. No more. It's finished. I will go on.\"\n\n\nIV\n\n\nHer violin lay on top of the upright piano. She picked it up. Since she\nhad last touched it the dried strings had snapped, and upon it lay a\ngold and crimson cigar-band.\n\n\nV\n\n\nShe longed to see Guy Pollock, for the confirming of the brethren in\nthe faith. But Kennicott's dominance was heavy upon her. She could not\ndetermine whether she was checked by fear or him, or by inertia--by\ndislike of the emotional labor of the \"scenes\" which would be involved\nin asserting independence. She was like the revolutionist at fifty:\nnot afraid of death, but bored by the probability of bad steaks and bad\nbreaths and sitting up all night on windy barricades.\n\nThe second evening after the movies she impulsively summoned Vida\nSherwin and Guy to the house for pop-corn and cider. In the living-room\nVida and Kennicott debated \"the value of manual training in grades below\nthe eighth,\" while Carol sat beside Guy at the dining table, buttering\npop-corn. She was quickened by the speculation in his eyes. She\nmurmured:\n\n\"Guy, do you want to help me?\"\n\n\"My dear! How?\"\n\n\"I don't know!\"\n\nHe waited.\n\n\"I think I want you to help me find out what has made the darkness of\nthe women. Gray darkness and shadowy trees. We're all in it, ten million\nwomen, young married women with good prosperous husbands, and business\nwomen in linen collars, and grandmothers that gad out to teas, and wives\nof under-paid miners, and farmwives who really like to make butter and\ngo to church. What is it we want--and need? Will Kennicott there would\nsay that we need lots of children and hard work. But it isn't that.\nThere's the same discontent in women with eight children and one more\ncoming--always one more coming! And you find it in stenographers and\nwives who scrub, just as much as in girl college-graduates who wonder\nhow they can escape their kind parents. What do we want?\"\n\n\"Essentially, I think, you are like myself, Carol; you want to go back\nto an age of tranquillity and charming manners. You want to enthrone\ngood taste again.\"\n\n\"Just good taste? Fastidious people? Oh--no! I believe all of us want\nthe same things--we're all together, the industrial workers and the\nwomen and the farmers and the negro race and the Asiatic colonies, and\neven a few of the Respectables. It's all the same revolt, in all the\nclasses that have waited and taken advice. I think perhaps we want a\nmore conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying.\nWe're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're\ntired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired\nof hearing the politicians and priests and cautious reformers (and the\nhusbands!) coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a\nUtopia already made; just give us a bit more time and we'll produce it;\ntrust us; we're wiser than you.' For ten thousand years they've said\nthat. We want our Utopia NOW--and we're going to try our hands at it.\nAll we want is--everything for all of us! For every housewife and every\nlongshoreman and every Hindu nationalist and every teacher. We want\neverything. We shatn't get it. So we shatn't ever be content----\"\n\nShe wondered why he was wincing. He broke in:\n\n\"See here, my dear, I certainly hope you don't class yourself with a lot\nof trouble-making labor-leaders! Democracy is all right theoretically,\nand I'll admit there are industrial injustices, but I'd rather have them\nthan see the world reduced to a dead level of mediocrity. I refuse to\nbelieve that you have anything in common with a lot of laboring men\nrowing for bigger wages so that they can buy wretched flivvers and\nhideous player-pianos and----\"\n\nAt this second, in Buenos Ayres, a newspaper editor broke his routine of\nbeing bored by exchanges to assert, \"Any injustice is better than seeing\nthe world reduced to a gray level of scientific dullness.\" At this\nsecond a clerk standing at the bar of a New York saloon stopped milling\nhis secret fear of his nagging office-manager long enough to growl\nat the chauffeur beside him, \"Aw, you socialists make me sick! I'm an\nindividualist. I ain't going to be nagged by no bureaus and take orders\noff labor-leaders. And mean to say a hobo's as good as you and me?\"\n\nAt this second Carol realized that for all Guy's love of dead elegances\nhis timidity was as depressing to her as the bulkiness of Sam Clark. She\nrealized that he was not a mystery, as she had excitedly believed; not\na romantic messenger from the World Outside on whom she could count for\nescape. He belonged to Gopher Prairie, absolutely. She was snatched back\nfrom a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street.\n\nHe was completing his protest, \"You don't want to be mixed up in all\nthis orgy of meaningless discontent?\"\n\nShe soothed him. \"No, I don't. I'm not heroic. I'm scared by all the\nfighting that's going on in the world. I want nobility and adventure,\nbut perhaps I want still more to curl on the hearth with some one I\nlove.\"\n\n\"Would you----\"\n\nHe did not finish it. He picked up a handful of pop-corn, let it run\nthrough his fingers, looked at her wistfully.\n\nWith the loneliness of one who has put away a possible love Carol saw\nthat he was a stranger. She saw that he had never been anything but\na frame on which she had hung shining garments. If she had let him\ndiffidently make love to her, it was not because she cared, but because\nshe did not care, because it did not matter.\n\nShe smiled at him with the exasperating tactfulness of a woman checking\na flirtation; a smile like an airy pat on the arm. She sighed, \"You're\na dear to let me tell you my imaginary troubles.\" She bounced up, and\ntrilled, \"Shall we take the pop-corn in to them now?\"\n\nGuy looked after her desolately.\n\nWhile she teased Vida and Kennicott she was repeating, \"I must go on.\"\n\n\nVI\n\n\nMiles Bjornstam, the pariah \"Red Swede,\" had brought his circular saw\nand portable gasoline engine to the house, to cut the cords of poplar\nfor the kitchen range. Kennicott had given the order; Carol knew nothing\nof it till she heard the ringing of the saw, and glanced out to see\nBjornstam, in black leather jacket and enormous ragged purple\nmittens, pressing sticks against the whirling blade, and flinging\nthe stove-lengths to one side. The red irritable motor kept up a red\nirritable \"tip-tip-tip-tip-tip-tip.\" The whine of the saw rose till it\nsimulated the shriek of a fire-alarm whistle at night, but always at the\nend it gave a lively metallic clang, and in the stillness she heard the\nflump of the cut stick falling on the pile.\n\nShe threw a motor robe over her, ran out. Bjornstam welcomed her, \"Well,\nwell, well! Here's old Miles, fresh as ever. Well say, that's all right;\nhe ain't even begun to be cheeky yet; next summer he's going to take you\nout on his horse-trading trip, clear into Idaho.\"\n\n\"Yes, and I may go!\"\n\n\"How's tricks? Crazy about the town yet?\"\n\n\"No, but I probably shall be, some day.\"\n\n\"Don't let 'em get you. Kick 'em in the face!\"\n\nHe shouted at her while he worked. The pile of stove-wood grew\nastonishingly. The pale bark of the poplar sticks was mottled with\nlichens of sage-green and dusty gray; the newly sawed ends were\nfresh-colored, with the agreeable roughness of a woolen muffler. To the\nsterile winter air the wood gave a scent of March sap.\n\nKennicott telephoned that he was going into the country. Bjornstam had\nnot finished his work at noon, and she invited him to have dinner with\nBea in the kitchen. She wished that she were independent enough to dine\nwith these her guests. She considered their friendliness, she sneered at\n\"social distinctions,\" she raged at her own taboos--and she continued\nto regard them as retainers and herself as a lady. She sat in the\ndining-room and listened through the door to Bjornstam's booming and\nBea's giggles. She was the more absurd to herself in that, after the\nrite of dining alone, she could go out to the kitchen, lean against the\nsink, and talk to them.\n\nThey were attracted to each other; a Swedish Othello and Desdemona, more\nuseful and amiable than their prototypes. Bjornstam told his scapes:\nselling horses in a Montana mining-camp, breaking a log-jam, being\nimpertinent to a \"two-fisted\" millionaire lumberman. Bea gurgled \"Oh\nmy!\" and kept his coffee cup filled.\n\nHe took a long time to finish the wood. He had frequently to go into the\nkitchen to get warm. Carol heard him confiding to Bea, \"You're a darn\nnice Swede girl. I guess if I had a woman like you I wouldn't be such\na sorehead. Gosh, your kitchen is clean; makes an old bach feel sloppy.\nSay, that's nice hair you got. Huh? Me fresh? Saaaay, girl, if I ever do\nget fresh, you'll know it. Why, I could pick you up with one finger,\nand hold you in the air long enough to read Robert J. Ingersoll clean\nthrough. Ingersoll? Oh, he's a religious writer. Sure. You'd like him\nfine.\"\n\nWhen he drove off he waved to Bea; and Carol, lonely at the window\nabove, was envious of their pastoral.\n\n\"And I----But I will go on.\"\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nI\n\nTHEY were driving down the lake to the cottages that moonlit January\nnight, twenty of them in the bob-sled. They sang \"Toy Land\" and \"Seeing\nNelly Home\"; they leaped from the low back of the sled to race over the\nslippery snow ruts; and when they were tired they climbed on the runners\nfor a lift. The moon-tipped flakes kicked up by the horses settled over\nthe revelers and dripped down their necks, but they laughed, yelped,\nbeat their leather mittens against their chests. The harness rattled,\nthe sleigh-bells were frantic, Jack Elder's setter sprang beside the\nhorses, barking.\n\nFor a time Carol raced with them. The cold air gave fictive power. She\nfelt that she could run on all night, leap twenty feet at a stride. But\nthe excess of energy tired her, and she was glad to snuggle under the\ncomforters which covered the hay in the sled-box.\n\nIn the midst of the babel she found enchanted quietude.\n\nAlong the road the shadows from oak-branches were inked on the snow\nlike bars of music. Then the sled came out on the surface of Lake\nMinniemashie. Across the thick ice was a veritable road, a short-cut\nfor farmers. On the glaring expanse of the lake-levels of hard crust,\nflashes of green ice blown clear, chains of drifts ribbed like the\nsea-beach--the moonlight was overwhelming. It stormed on the snow, it\nturned the woods ashore into crystals of fire. The night was tropical\nand voluptuous. In that drugged magic there was no difference between\nheavy heat and insinuating cold.\n\nCarol was dream-strayed. The turbulent voices, even Guy Pollock being\nconnotative beside her, were nothing. She repeated:\n\n     Deep on the convent-roof the snows\n     Are sparkling to the moon.\n\nThe words and the light blurred into one vast indefinite happiness, and\nshe believed that some great thing was coming to her. She withdrew from\nthe clamor into a worship of incomprehensible gods. The night expanded,\nshe was conscious of the universe, and all mysteries stooped down to\nher.\n\nShe was jarred out of her ecstasy as the bob-sled bumped up the steep\nroad to the bluff where stood the cottages.\n\nThey dismounted at Jack Elder's shack. The interior walls of unpainted\nboards, which had been grateful in August, were forbidding in the chill.\nIn fur coats and mufflers tied over caps they were a strange company,\nbears and walruses talking. Jack Elder lighted the shavings waiting in\nthe belly of a cast-iron stove which was like an enlarged bean-pot.\nThey piled their wraps high on a rocker, and cheered the rocker as it\nsolemnly tipped over backward.\n\nMrs. Elder and Mrs. Sam Clark made coffee in an enormous blackened tin\npot; Vida Sherwin and Mrs. McGanum unpacked doughnuts and gingerbread;\nMrs. Dave Dyer warmed up \"hot dogs\"--frankfurters in rolls; Dr. Terry\nGould, after announcing, \"Ladies and gents, prepare to be shocked; shock\nline forms on the right,\" produced a bottle of bourbon whisky.\n\nThe others danced, muttering \"Ouch!\" as their frosted feet struck the\npine planks. Carol had lost her dream. Harry Haydock lifted her by the\nwaist and swung her. She laughed. The gravity of the people who stood\napart and talked made her the more impatient for frolic.\n\nKennicott, Sam Clark, Jackson Elder, young Dr. McGanum, and James\nMadison Howland, teetering on their toes near the stove, conversed\nwith the sedate pomposity of the commercialist. In details the men were\nunlike, yet they said the same things in the same hearty monotonous\nvoices. You had to look at them to see which was speaking.\n\n\"Well, we made pretty good time coming up,\" from one--any one.\n\n\"Yump, we hit it up after we struck the good going on the lake.\"\n\n\"Seems kind of slow though, after driving an auto.\"\n\n\"Yump, it does, at that. Say, how'd you make out with that Sphinx tire\nyou got?\"\n\n\"Seems to hold out fine. Still, I don't know's I like it any better than\nthe Roadeater Cord.\"\n\n\"Yump, nothing better than a Roadeater. Especially the cord. The cord's\nlots better than the fabric.\"\n\n\"Yump, you said something----Roadeater's a good tire.\"\n\n\"Say, how'd you come out with Pete Garsheim on his payments?\"\n\n\"He's paying up pretty good. That's a nice piece of land he's got.\"\n\n\"Yump, that's a dandy farm.\"\n\n\"Yump, Pete's got a good place there.\"\n\nThey glided from these serious topics into the jocose insults which are\nthe wit of Main Street. Sam Clark was particularly apt at them. \"What's\nthis wild-eyed sale of summer caps you think you're trying to pull\noff?\" he clamored at Harry Haydock. \"Did you steal 'em, or are you just\novercharging us, as usual? . . . Oh say, speaking about caps, d'I ever\ntell you the good one I've got on Will? The doc thinks he's a pretty\ngood driver, fact, he thinks he's almost got human intelligence, but one\ntime he had his machine out in the rain, and the poor fish, he hadn't\nput on chains, and thinks I----\"\n\nCarol had heard the story rather often. She fled back to the dancers,\nand at Dave Dyer's masterstroke of dropping an icicle down Mrs.\nMcGanum's back she applauded hysterically.\n\nThey sat on the floor, devouring the food. The men giggled amiably as\nthey passed the whisky bottle, and laughed, \"There's a real sport!\" when\nJuanita Haydock took a sip. Carol tried to follow; she believed that she\ndesired to be drunk and riotous; but the whisky choked her and as she\nsaw Kennicott frown she handed the bottle on repentantly. Somewhat too\nlate she remembered that she had given up domesticity and repentance.\n\n\"Let's play charades!\" said Raymie Wutherspoon.\n\n\"Oh yes, do let us,\" said Ella Stowbody.\n\n\"That's the caper,\" sanctioned Harry Haydock.\n\nThey interpreted the word \"making\" as May and King. The crown was a red\nflannel mitten cocked on Sam Clark's broad pink bald head. They forgot\nthey were respectable. They made-believe. Carol was stimulated to cry:\n\n\"Let's form a dramatic club and give a play! Shall we? It's been so much\nfun tonight!\"\n\nThey looked affable.\n\n\"Sure,\" observed Sam Clark loyally.\n\n\"Oh, do let us! I think it would be lovely to present 'Romeo and\nJuliet'!\" yearned Ella Stowbody.\n\n\"Be a whale of a lot of fun,\" Dr. Terry Gould granted.\n\n\"But if we did,\" Carol cautioned, \"it would be awfully silly to have\namateur theatricals. We ought to paint our own scenery and everything,\nand really do something fine. There'd be a lot of hard work. Would\nyou--would we all be punctual at rehearsals, do you suppose?\"\n\n\"You bet!\" \"Sure.\" \"That's the idea.\" \"Fellow ought to be prompt at\nrehearsals,\" they all agreed.\n\n\"Then let's meet next week and form the Gopher Prairie Dramatic\nAssociation!\" Carol sang.\n\nShe drove home loving these friends who raced through moonlit snow,\nhad Bohemian parties, and were about to create beauty in the theater.\nEverything was solved. She would be an authentic part of the town,\nyet escape the coma of the Village Virus. . . . She would be free of\nKennicott again, without hurting him, without his knowing.\n\nShe had triumphed.\n\nThe moon was small and high now, and unheeding.\n\n\nII\n\n\nThough they had all been certain that they longed for the privilege of\nattending committee meetings and rehearsals, the dramatic association as\ndefinitely formed consisted only of Kennicott, Carol, Guy Pollock,\nVida Sherwin, Ella Stowbody, the Harry Haydocks, the Dave Dyers, Raymie\nWutherspoon, Dr. Terry Gould, and four new candidates: flirtatious Rita\nSimons, Dr. and Mrs. Harvey Dillon and Myrtle Cass, an uncomely but\nintense girl of nineteen. Of these fifteen only seven came to the first\nmeeting. The rest telephoned their unparalleled regrets and engagements\nand illnesses, and announced that they would be present at all other\nmeetings through eternity.\n\nCarol was made president and director.\n\nShe had added the Dillons. Despite Kennicott's apprehension the dentist\nand his wife had not been taken up by the Westlakes but had remained\nas definitely outside really smart society as Willis Woodford, who was\nteller, bookkeeper, and janitor in Stowbody's bank. Carol had noted Mrs.\nDillon dragging past the house during a bridge of the Jolly Seventeen,\nlooking in with pathetic lips at the splendor of the accepted. She\nimpulsively invited the Dillons to the dramatic association meeting, and\nwhen Kennicott was brusque to them she was unusually cordial, and felt\nvirtuous.\n\nThat self-approval balanced her disappointment at the smallness of the\nmeeting, and her embarrassment during Raymie Wutherspoon's repetitions\nof \"The stage needs uplifting,\" and \"I believe that there are great\nlessons in some plays.\"\n\nElla Stowbody, who was a professional, having studied elocution in\nMilwaukee, disapproved of Carol's enthusiasm for recent plays. Miss\nStowbody expressed the fundamental principle of the American drama: the\nonly way to be artistic is to present Shakespeare. As no one listened to\nher she sat back and looked like Lady Macbeth.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe Little Theaters, which were to give piquancy to American drama three\nor four years later, were only in embryo. But of this fast coming revolt\nCarol had premonitions. She knew from some lost magazine article that\nin Dublin were innovators called The Irish Players. She knew confusedly\nthat a man named Gordon Craig had painted scenery--or had he written\nplays? She felt that in the turbulence of the drama she was discovering\na history more important than the commonplace chronicles which dealt\nwith senators and their pompous puerilities. She had a sensation of\nfamiliarity; a dream of sitting in a Brussels cafe and going afterward\nto a tiny gay theater under a cathedral wall.\n\nThe advertisement in the Minneapolis paper leaped from the page to her\neyes:\n\n     The Cosmos School of Music, Oratory, and\n     Dramatic Art announces a program of four\n     one-act plays by Schnitzler, Shaw, Yeats,\n     and Lord Dunsany.\n\nShe had to be there! She begged Kennicott to \"run down to the Cities\"\nwith her.\n\n\"Well, I don't know. Be fun to take in a show, but why the deuce do you\nwant to see those darn foreign plays, given by a lot of amateurs? Why\ndon't you wait for a regular play, later on? There's going to be some\ncorkers coming: 'Lottie of Two-Gun Rancho,' and 'Cops and Crooks'--real\nBroadway stuff, with the New York casts. What's this junk you want\nto see? Hm. 'How He Lied to Her Husband.' That doesn't listen so bad.\nSounds racy. And, uh, well, I could go to the motor show, I suppose. I'd\nlike to see this new Hup roadster. Well----\"\n\nShe never knew which attraction made him decide.\n\nShe had four days of delightful worry--over the hole in her one good\nsilk petticoat, the loss of a string of beads from her chiffon and brown\nvelvet frock, the catsup stain on her best georgette crepe blouse. She\nwailed, \"I haven't a single solitary thing that's fit to be seen in,\"\nand enjoyed herself very much indeed.\n\nKennicott went about casually letting people know that he was \"going to\nrun down to the Cities and see some shows.\"\n\nAs the train plodded through the gray prairie, on a windless day with\nthe smoke from the engine clinging to the fields in giant cotton-rolls,\nin a low and writhing wall which shut off the snowy fields, she did not\nlook out of the window. She closed her eyes and hummed, and did not know\nthat she was humming.\n\nShe was the young poet attacking fame and Paris.\n\nIn the Minneapolis station the crowd of lumberjacks, farmers, and\nSwedish families with innumerous children and grandparents and paper\nparcels, their foggy crowding and their clamor confused her. She felt\nrustic in this once familiar city, after a year and a half of\nGopher Prairie. She was certain that Kennicott was taking the wrong\ntrolley-car. By dusk, the liquor warehouses, Hebraic clothing-shops,\nand lodging-houses on lower Hennepin Avenue were smoky, hideous,\nill-tempered. She was battered by the noise and shuttling of the\nrush-hour traffic. When a clerk in an overcoat too closely fitted at the\nwaist stared at her, she moved nearer to Kennicott's arm. The clerk was\nflippant and urban. He was a superior person, used to this tumult. Was\nhe laughing at her?\n\nFor a moment she wanted the secure quiet of Gopher Prairie.\n\nIn the hotel-lobby she was self-conscious. She was not used to hotels;\nshe remembered with jealousy how often Juanita Haydock talked of the\nfamous hotels in Chicago. She could not face the traveling salesmen,\nbaronial in large leather chairs. She wanted people to believe that her\nhusband and she were accustomed to luxury and chill elegance; she was\nfaintly angry at him for the vulgar way in which, after signing the\nregister \"Dr. W. P. Kennicott & wife,\" he bellowed at the clerk, \"Got a\nnice room with bath for us, old man?\" She gazed about haughtily, but as\nshe discovered that no one was interested in her she felt foolish, and\nashamed of her irritation.\n\nShe asserted, \"This silly lobby is too florid,\" and simultaneously she\nadmired it: the onyx columns with gilt capitals, the crown-embroidered\nvelvet curtains at the restaurant door, the silk-roped alcove where\npretty girls perpetually waited for mysterious men, the two-pound boxes\nof candy and the variety of magazines at the news-stand. The hidden\norchestra was lively. She saw a man who looked like a European diplomat,\nin a loose top-coat and a Homburg hat. A woman with a broadtail coat,\na heavy lace veil, pearl earrings, and a close black hat entered the\nrestaurant. \"Heavens! That's the first really smart woman I've seen in a\nyear!\" Carol exulted. She felt metropolitan.\n\nBut as she followed Kennicott to the elevator the coat-check girl, a\nconfident young woman, with cheeks powdered like lime, and a blouse\nlow and thin and furiously crimson, inspected her, and under that\nsupercilious glance Carol was shy again. She unconsciously waited\nfor the bellboy to precede her into the elevator. When he snorted \"Go\nahead!\" she was mortified. He thought she was a hayseed, she worried.\n\nThe moment she was in their room, with the bellboy safely out of the\nway, she looked critically at Kennicott. For the first time in months\nshe really saw him.\n\nHis clothes were too heavy and provincial. His decent gray suit, made\nby Nat Hicks of Gopher Prairie, might have been of sheet iron; it had\nno distinction of cut, no easy grace like the diplomat's Burberry. His\nblack shoes were blunt and not well polished. His scarf was a stupid\nbrown. He needed a shave.\n\nBut she forgot her doubt as she realized the ingenuities of the room.\nShe ran about, turning on the taps of the bathtub, which gushed instead\nof dribbling like the taps at home, snatching the new wash-rag out of\nits envelope of oiled paper, trying the rose-shaded light between the\ntwin beds, pulling out the drawers of the kidney-shaped walnut desk to\nexamine the engraved stationery, planning to write on it to every one\nshe knew, admiring the claret-colored velvet armchair and the blue rug,\ntesting the ice-water tap, and squealing happily when the water really\ndid come out cold. She flung her arms about Kennicott, kissed him.\n\n\"Like it, old lady?\"\n\n\"It's adorable. It's so amusing. I love you for bringing me. You really\nare a dear!\"\n\nHe looked blankly indulgent, and yawned, and condescended, \"That's a\npretty slick arrangement on the radiator, so you can adjust it at any\ntemperature you want. Must take a big furnace to run this place. Gosh, I\nhope Bea remembers to turn off the drafts tonight.\"\n\nUnder the glass cover of the dressing-table was a menu with the most\nenchanting dishes: breast of guinea hen De Vitresse, pommes de terre a\nla Russe, meringue Chantilly, gateaux Bruxelles.\n\n\"Oh, let's----I'm going to have a hot bath, and put on my new hat with\nthe wool flowers, and let's go down and eat for hours, and we'll have a\ncocktail!\" she chanted.\n\nWhile Kennicott labored over ordering it was annoying to see him permit\nthe waiter to be impertinent, but as the cocktail elevated her to a\nbridge among colored stars, as the oysters came in--not canned oysters\nin the Gopher Prairie fashion, but on the half-shell--she cried, \"If you\nonly knew how wonderful it is not to have had to plan this dinner, and\norder it at the butcher's and fuss and think about it, and then\nwatch Bea cook it! I feel so free. And to have new kinds of food, and\ndifferent patterns of dishes and linen, and not worry about whether the\npudding is being spoiled! Oh, this is a great moment for me!\"\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThey had all the experiences of provincials in a metropolis. After\nbreakfast Carol bustled to a hair-dresser's, bought gloves and a blouse,\nand importantly met Kennicott in front of an optician's, in accordance\nwith plans laid down, revised, and verified. They admired the diamonds\nand furs and frosty silverware and mahogany chairs and polished morocco\nsewing-boxes in shop-windows, and were abashed by the throngs in the\ndepartment-stores, and were bullied by a clerk into buying too many\nshirts for Kennicott, and gaped at the \"clever novelty perfumes--just\nin from New York.\" Carol got three books on the theater, and spent\nan exultant hour in warning herself that she could not afford this\nrajah-silk frock, in thinking how envious it would make Juanita Haydock,\nin closing her eyes, and buying it. Kennicott went from shop to shop,\nearnestly hunting down a felt-covered device to keep the windshield of\nhis car clear of rain.\n\nThey dined extravagantly at their hotel at night, and next morning\nsneaked round the corner to economize at a Childs' Restaurant. They were\ntired by three in the afternoon, and dozed at the motion-pictures and\nsaid they wished they were back in Gopher Prairie--and by eleven in the\nevening they were again so lively that they went to a Chinese restaurant\nthat was frequented by clerks and their sweethearts on pay-days. They\nsat at a teak and marble table eating Eggs Fooyung, and listened to a\nbrassy automatic piano, and were altogether cosmopolitan.\n\nOn the street they met people from home--the McGanums. They laughed,\nshook hands repeatedly, and exclaimed, \"Well, this is quite a\ncoincidence!\" They asked when the McGanums had come down, and begged for\nnews of the town they had left two days before. Whatever the\nMcGanums were at home, here they stood out as so superior to all the\nundistinguishable strangers absurdly hurrying past that the Kennicotts\nheld them as long as they could. The McGanums said good-by as though\nthey were going to Tibet instead of to the station to catch No. 7 north.\n\nThey explored Minneapolis. Kennicott was conversational and technical\nregarding gluten and cockle-cylinders and No. I Hard, when they were\nshown through the gray stone hulks and new cement elevators of the\nlargest flour-mills in the world. They looked across Loring Park and\nthe Parade to the towers of St. Mark's and the Procathedral, and the\nred roofs of houses climbing Kenwood Hill. They drove about the chain of\ngarden-circled lakes, and viewed the houses of the millers and lumbermen\nand real estate peers--the potentates of the expanding city. They\nsurveyed the small eccentric bungalows with pergolas, the houses of\npebbledash and tapestry brick with sleeping-porches above sun-parlors,\nand one vast incredible chateau fronting the Lake of the Isles. They\ntramped through a shining-new section of apartment-houses; not the tall\nbleak apartments of Eastern cities but low structures of cheerful yellow\nbrick, in which each flat had its glass-enclosed porch with swinging\ncouch and scarlet cushions and Russian brass bowls. Between a waste of\ntracks and a raw gouged hill they found poverty in staggering shanties.\n\nThey saw miles of the city which they had never known in their days\nof absorption in college. They were distinguished explorers, and they\nremarked, in great mutual esteem, \"I bet Harry Haydock's never seen the\nCity like this! Why, he'd never have sense enough to study the machinery\nin the mills, or go through all these outlying districts. Wonder folks\nin Gopher Prairie wouldn't use their legs and explore, the way we do!\"\n\nThey had two meals with Carol's sister, and were bored, and felt that\nintimacy which beatifies married people when they suddenly admit that\nthey equally dislike a relative of either of them.\n\nSo it was with affection but also with weariness that they approached\nthe evening on which Carol was to see the plays at the dramatic school.\nKennicott suggested not going. \"So darn tired from all this walking;\ndon't know but what we better turn in early and get rested up.\" It was\nonly from duty that Carol dragged him and herself out of the warm\nhotel, into a stinking trolley, up the brownstone steps of the converted\nresidence which lugubriously housed the dramatic school.\n\n\nV\n\n\nThey were in a long whitewashed hall with a clumsy draw-curtain across\nthe front. The folding chairs were filled with people who looked washed\nand ironed: parents of the pupils, girl students, dutiful teachers.\n\n\"Strikes me it's going to be punk. If the first play isn't good, let's\nbeat it,\" said Kennicott hopefully.\n\n\"All right,\" she yawned. With hazy eyes she tried to read the lists of\ncharacters, which were hidden among lifeless advertisements of pianos,\nmusic-dealers, restaurants, candy.\n\nShe regarded the Schnitzler play with no vast interest. The actors\nmoved and spoke stiffly. Just as its cynicism was beginning to rouse her\nvillage-dulled frivolity, it was over.\n\n\"Don't think a whale of a lot of that. How about taking a sneak?\"\npetitioned Kennicott.\n\n\"Oh, let's try the next one, 'How He Lied to Her Husband.'\"\n\nThe Shaw conceit amused her, and perplexed Kennicott:\n\n\"Strikes me it's darn fresh. Thought it would be racy. Don't know as I\nthink much of a play where a husband actually claims he wants a fellow\nto make love to his wife. No husband ever did that! Shall we shake a\nleg?\"\n\n\"I want to see this Yeats thing, 'Land of Heart's Desire.' I used to\nlove it in college.\" She was awake now, and urgent. \"I know you didn't\ncare so much for Yeats when I read him aloud to you, but you just see if\nyou don't adore him on the stage.\"\n\nMost of the cast were as unwieldy as oak chairs marching, and the\nsetting was an arty arrangement of batik scarfs and heavy tables, but\nMaire Bruin was slim as Carol, and larger-eyed, and her voice was\na morning bell. In her, Carol lived, and on her lifting voice was\ntransported from this sleepy small-town husband and all the rows of\npolite parents to the stilly loft of a thatched cottage where in a green\ndimness, beside a window caressed by linden branches, she bent over a\nchronicle of twilight women and the ancient gods.\n\n\"Well--gosh--nice kid played that girl--good-looker,\" said Kennicott.\n\"Want to stay for the last piece? Heh?\"\n\nShe shivered. She did not answer.\n\nThe curtain was again drawn aside. On the stage they saw nothing but\nlong green curtains and a leather chair. Two young men in brown robes\nlike furniture-covers were gesturing vacuously and droning cryptic\nsentences full of repetitions.\n\nIt was Carol's first hearing of Dunsany. She sympathized with the\nrestless Kennicott as he felt in his pocket for a cigar and unhappily\nput it back.\n\nWithout understanding when or how, without a tangible change in the\nstilted intoning of the stage-puppets, she was conscious of another time\nand place.\n\nStately and aloof among vainglorious tiring-maids, a queen in robes\nthat murmured on the marble floor, she trod the gallery of a crumbling\npalace. In the courtyard, elephants trumpeted, and swart men with beards\ndyed crimson stood with blood-stained hands folded upon their hilts,\nguarding the caravan from El Sharnak, the camels with Tyrian stuffs\nof topaz and cinnabar. Beyond the turrets of the outer wall the jungle\nglared and shrieked, and the sun was furious above drenched orchids.\nA youth came striding through the steel-bossed doors, the sword-bitten\ndoors that were higher than ten tall men. He was in flexible mail, and\nunder the rim of his planished morion were amorous curls. His hand was\nout to her; before she touched it she could feel its warmth----\n\n\"Gosh all hemlock! What the dickens is all this stuff about, Carrie?\"\n\nShe was no Syrian queen. She was Mrs. Dr. Kennicott. She fell with a\njolt into a whitewashed hall and sat looking at two scared girls and a\nyoung man in wrinkled tights.\n\nKennicott fondly rambled as they left the hall:\n\n\"What the deuce did that last spiel mean? Couldn't make head or tail of\nit. If that's highbrow drama, give me a cow-puncher movie, every time!\nThank God, that's over, and we can get to bed. Wonder if we wouldn't\nmake time by walking over to Nicollet to take a car? One thing I will\nsay for that dump: they had it warm enough. Must have a big hot-air\nfurnace, I guess. Wonder how much coal it takes to run 'em through the\nwinter?\"\n\nIn the car he affectionately patted her knee, and he was for a second\nthe striding youth in armor; then he was Doc Kennicott of Gopher\nPrairie, and she was recaptured by Main Street. Never, not all her life,\nwould she behold jungles and the tombs of kings. There were strange\nthings in the world, they really existed; but she would never see them.\n\nShe would recreate them in plays!\n\nShe would make the dramatic association understand her aspiration. They\nwould, surely they would----\n\nShe looked doubtfully at the impenetrable reality of yawning trolley\nconductor and sleepy passengers and placards advertising soap and\nunderwear.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nI\n\nSHE hurried to the first meeting of the play-reading committee. Her\njungle romance had faded, but she retained a religious fervor, a surge\nof half-formed thought about the creation of beauty by suggestion.\n\nA Dunsany play would be too difficult for the Gopher Prairie\nassociation. She would let them compromise on Shaw--on \"Androcles and\nthe Lion,\" which had just been published.\n\nThe committee was composed of Carol, Vida Sherwin, Guy Pollock, Raymie\nWutherspoon, and Juanita Haydock. They were exalted by the picture of\nthemselves as being simultaneously business-like and artistic. They\nwere entertained by Vida in the parlor of Mrs. Elisha Gurrey's\nboarding-house, with its steel engraving of Grant at Appomattox, its\nbasket of stereoscopic views, and its mysterious stains on the gritty\ncarpet.\n\nVida was an advocate of culture-buying and efficiency-systems. She\nhinted that they ought to have (as at the committee-meetings of the\nThanatopsis) a \"regular order of business,\" and \"the reading of the\nminutes,\" but as there were no minutes to read, and as no one knew\nexactly what was the regular order of the business of being literary,\nthey had to give up efficiency.\n\nCarol, as chairman, said politely, \"Have you any ideas about what play\nwe'd better give first?\" She waited for them to look abashed and vacant,\nso that she might suggest \"Androcles.\"\n\nGuy Pollock answered with disconcerting readiness, \"I'll tell you: since\nwe're going to try to do something artistic, and not simply fool around,\nI believe we ought to give something classic. How about 'The School for\nScandal'?\"\n\n\"Why----Don't you think that has been done a good deal?\"\n\n\"Yes, perhaps it has.\"\n\nCarol was ready to say, \"How about Bernard Shaw?\" when he treacherously\nwent on, \"How would it be then to give a Greek drama--say 'Oedipus\nTyrannus'?\"\n\n\"Why, I don't believe----\"\n\nVida Sherwin intruded, \"I'm sure that would be too hard for us. Now I've\nbrought something that I think would be awfully jolly.\"\n\nShe held out, and Carol incredulously took, a thin gray pamphlet\nentitled \"McGinerty's Mother-in-law.\" It was the sort of farce which is\nadvertised in \"school entertainment\" catalogues as:\n\n\nRiproaring knock-out, 5 m. 3 f., time 2 hrs., interior set, popular with\nchurches and all high-class occasions.\n\n\nCarol glanced from the scabrous object to Vida, and realized that she\nwas not joking.\n\n\"But this is--this is--why, it's just a----Why, Vida, I thought you\nappreciated--well--appreciated art.\"\n\nVida snorted, \"Oh. Art. Oh yes. I do like art. It's very nice. But after\nall, what does it matter what kind of play we give as long as we get the\nassociation started? The thing that matters is something that none of\nyou have spoken of, that is: what are we going to do with the money, if\nwe make any? I think it would be awfully nice if we presented the high\nschool with a full set of Stoddard's travel-lectures!\"\n\nCarol moaned, \"Oh, but Vida dear, do forgive me but this farce----Now\nwhat I'd like us to give is something distinguished. Say Shaw's\n'Androcles.' Have any of you read it?\"\n\n\"Yes. Good play,\" said Guy Pollock.\n\nThen Raymie Wutherspoon astoundingly spoke up:\n\n\"So have I. I read through all the plays in the public library, so's\nto be ready for this meeting. And----But I don't believe you grasp\nthe irreligious ideas in this 'Androcles,' Mrs. Kennicott. I guess the\nfeminine mind is too innocent to understand all these immoral writers.\nI'm sure I don't want to criticize Bernard Shaw; I understand he is very\npopular with the highbrows in Minneapolis; but just the same----As far\nas I can make out, he's downright improper! The things he SAYS----Well,\nit would be a very risky thing for our young folks to see. It seems to\nme that a play that doesn't leave a nice taste in the mouth and that\nhasn't any message is nothing but--nothing but----Well, whatever it may\nbe, it isn't art. So----Now I've found a play that is clean, and there's\nsome awfully funny scenes in it, too. I laughed out loud, reading it.\nIt's called 'His Mother's Heart,' and it's about a young man in college\nwho gets in with a lot of free-thinkers and boozers and everything, but\nin the end his mother's influence----\"\n\nJuanita Haydock broke in with a derisive, \"Oh rats, Raymie! Can the\nmother's influence! I say let's give something with some class to it.\nI bet we could get the rights to 'The Girl from Kankakee,' and that's a\nreal show. It ran for eleven months in New York!\"\n\n\"That would be lots of fun, if it wouldn't cost too much,\" reflected\nVida.\n\nCarol's was the only vote cast against \"The Girl from Kankakee.\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe disliked \"The Girl from Kankakee\" even more than she had expected.\nIt narrated the success of a farm-lassie in clearing her brother of a\ncharge of forgery. She became secretary to a New York millionaire and\nsocial counselor to his wife; and after a well-conceived speech on the\ndiscomfort of having money, she married his son.\n\nThere was also a humorous office-boy.\n\nCarol discerned that both Juanita Haydock and Ella Stowbody wanted the\nlead. She let Juanita have it. Juanita kissed her and in the exuberant\nmanner of a new star presented to the executive committee her theory,\n\"What we want in a play is humor and pep. There's where American\nplaywrights put it all over these darn old European glooms.\"\n\nAs selected by Carol and confirmed by the committee, the persons of the\nplay were:\n\n     John Grimm, a millionaire .  .   .  .  Guy Pollock\n     His wife.   .  .   .  .   .  .   .  .  Miss Vida Sherwin\n     His son .   .  .   .  .   .  .   .  .  Dr. Harvey Dillon\n     His business rival.   .  .   .  .  . . Raymond T.  Wutherspoon\n     Friend of Mrs. Grimm .  .   .  .   . . Miss Ella Stowbody\n     The girl from Kankakee .   .  .   .  . Mrs. Harold C.  Haydock\n     Her brother.  .   .  .   .  .   .  .   Dr. Terence Gould\n     Her mother .  .   .  .   .  .   .  .   Mrs. David Dyer\n     Stenographer .   .  .   .  .   .  .  . Miss Rita Simons\n     Office-boy .  .   .  .   .  .   .  .   Miss Myrtle Cass\n     Maid in the Grimms' home  .  .  .  .   Mrs. W.  P.  Kennicott\n     Direction of Mrs. Kennicott\n\nAmong the minor lamentations was Maud Dyer's \"Well of course I suppose I\nlook old enough to be Juanita's mother, even if Juanita is eight months\nolder than I am, but I don't know as I care to have everybody noticing\nit and----\"\n\nCarol pleaded, \"Oh, my DEAR! You two look exactly the same age. I chose\nyou because you have such a darling complexion, and you know with powder\nand a white wig, anybody looks twice her age, and I want the mother to\nbe sweet, no matter who else is.\"\n\nElla Stowbody, the professional, perceiving that it was because of a\nconspiracy of jealousy that she had been given a small part, alternated\nbetween lofty amusement and Christian patience.\n\nCarol hinted that the play would be improved by cutting, but as every\nactor except Vida and Guy and herself wailed at the loss of a single\nline, she was defeated. She told herself that, after all, a great deal\ncould be done with direction and settings.\n\nSam Clark had boastfully written about the dramatic association to his\nschoolmate, Percy Bresnahan, president of the Velvet Motor Company\nof Boston. Bresnahan sent a check for a hundred dollars; Sam added\ntwenty-five and brought the fund to Carol, fondly crying, \"There!\nThat'll give you a start for putting the thing across swell!\"\n\nShe rented the second floor of the city hall for two months. All through\nthe spring the association thrilled to its own talent in that dismal\nroom. They cleared out the bunting, ballot-boxes, handbills, legless\nchairs. They attacked the stage. It was a simple-minded stage. It was\nraised above the floor, and it did have a movable curtain, painted with\nthe advertisement of a druggist dead these ten years, but otherwise\nit might not have been recognized as a stage. There were two\ndressing-rooms, one for men, one for women, on either side. The\ndressing-room doors were also the stage-entrances, opening from the\nhouse, and many a citizen of Gopher Prairie had for his first glimpse of\nromance the bare shoulders of the leading woman.\n\nThere were three sets of scenery: a woodland, a Poor Interior, and a\nRich Interior, the last also useful for railway stations, offices, and\nas a background for the Swedish Quartette from Chicago. There were three\ngradations of lighting: full on, half on, and entirely off.\n\nThis was the only theater in Gopher Prairie. It was known as the \"op'ra\nhouse.\" Once, strolling companies had used it for performances of \"The\nTwo Orphans,\" and \"Nellie the Beautiful Cloak Model,\" and \"Othello\" with\nspecialties between acts, but now the motion-pictures had ousted the\ngipsy drama.\n\nCarol intended to be furiously modern in constructing the office-set,\nthe drawing-room for Mr. Grimm, and the Humble Home near Kankakee.\nIt was the first time that any one in Gopher Prairie had been so\nrevolutionary as to use enclosed scenes with continuous side-walls. The\nrooms in the op'ra house sets had separate wing-pieces for sides, which\nsimplified dramaturgy, as the villain could always get out of the hero's\nway by walking out through the wall.\n\nThe inhabitants of the Humble Home were supposed to be amiable and\nintelligent. Carol planned for them a simple set with warm color. She\ncould see the beginning of the play: all dark save the high settles and\nthe solid wooden table between them, which were to be illuminated by a\nray from offstage. The high light was a polished copper pot filled with\nprimroses. Less clearly she sketched the Grimm drawing-room as a series\nof cool high white arches.\n\nAs to how she was to produce these effects she had no notion.\n\nShe discovered that, despite the enthusiastic young writers, the\ndrama was not half so native and close to the soil as motor cars and\ntelephones. She discovered that simple arts require sophisticated\ntraining. She discovered that to produce one perfect stage-picture would\nbe as difficult as to turn all of Gopher Prairie into a Georgian garden.\n\nShe read all she could find regarding staging, she bought paint and\nlight wood; she borrowed furniture and drapes unscrupulously; she made\nKennicott turn carpenter. She collided with the problem of lighting.\nAgainst the protest of Kennicott and Vida she mortgaged the association\nby sending to Minneapolis for a baby spotlight, a strip light, a dimming\ndevice, and blue and amber bulbs; and with the gloating rapture of\na born painter first turned loose among colors, she spent absorbed\nevenings in grouping, dimming-painting with lights.\n\nOnly Kennicott, Guy, and Vida helped her. They speculated as to how\nflats could be lashed together to form a wall; they hung crocus-yellow\ncurtains at the windows; they blacked the sheet-iron stove; they put on\naprons and swept. The rest of the association dropped into the theater\nevery evening, and were literary and superior. They had borrowed\nCarol's manuals of play-production and had become extremely stagey in\nvocabulary.\n\nJuanita Haydock, Rita Simons, and Raymie Wutherspoon sat on a sawhorse,\nwatching Carol try to get the right position for a picture on the wall\nin the first scene.\n\n\"I don't want to hand myself anything but I believe I'll give a swell\nperformance in this first act,\" confided Juanita. \"I wish Carol wasn't\nso bossy though. She doesn't understand clothes. I want to wear, oh,\na dandy dress I have--all scarlet--and I said to her, 'When I enter\nwouldn't it knock their eyes out if I just stood there at the door in\nthis straight scarlet thing?' But she wouldn't let me.\"\n\nYoung Rita agreed, \"She's so much taken up with her old details and\ncarpentering and everything that she can't see the picture as a whole.\nNow I thought it would be lovely if we had an office-scene like the one\nin 'Little, But Oh My!' Because I SAW that, in Duluth. But she simply\nwouldn't listen at all.\"\n\nJuanita sighed, \"I wanted to give one speech like Ethel Barrymore would,\nif she was in a play like this. (Harry and I heard her one time in\nMinneapolis--we had dandy seats, in the orchestra--I just know I could\nimitate her.) Carol didn't pay any attention to my suggestion. I don't\nwant to criticize but I guess Ethel knows more about acting than Carol\ndoes!\"\n\n\"Say, do you think Carol has the right dope about using a strip light\nbehind the fireplace in the second act? I told her I thought we ought to\nuse a bunch,\" offered Raymie. \"And I suggested it would be lovely if we\nused a cyclorama outside the window in the first act, and what do you\nthink she said? 'Yes, and it would be lovely to have Eleanora Duse play\nthe lead,' she said, 'and aside from the fact that it's evening in the\nfirst act, you're a great technician,' she said. I must say I think she\nwas pretty sarcastic. I've been reading up, and I know I could build a\ncyclorama, if she didn't want to run everything.\"\n\n\"Yes, and another thing, I think the entrance in the first act ought to\nbe L. U. E., not L. 3 E.,\" from Juanita.\n\n\"And why does she just use plain white tormenters?\"\n\n\"What's a tormenter?\" blurted Rita Simons.\n\nThe savants stared at her ignorance.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nCarol did not resent their criticisms, she didn't very much resent\ntheir sudden knowledge, so long as they let her make pictures. It was at\nrehearsals that the quarrrels broke. No one understood that rehearsals\nwere as real engagements as bridge-games or sociables at the Episcopal\nChurch. They gaily came in half an hour late, or they vociferously came\nin ten minutes early, and they were so hurt that they whispered about\nresigning when Carol protested. They telephoned, \"I don't think I'd\nbetter come out; afraid the dampness might start my toothache,\" or\n\"Guess can't make it tonight; Dave wants me to sit in on a poker game.\"\n\nWhen, after a month of labor, as many as nine-elevenths of the cast were\noften present at a rehearsal; when most of them had learned their parts\nand some of them spoke like human beings, Carol had a new shock in the\nrealization that Guy Pollock and herself were very bad actors, and that\nRaymie Wutherspoon was a surprisingly good one. For all her visions\nshe could not control her voice, and she was bored by the fiftieth\nrepetition of her few lines as maid. Guy pulled his soft mustache,\nlooked self-conscious, and turned Mr. Grimm into a limp dummy. But\nRaymie, as the villain, had no repressions. The tilt of his head was\nfull of character; his drawl was admirably vicious.\n\nThere was an evening when Carol hoped she was going to make a play; a\nrehearsal during which Guy stopped looking abashed.\n\nFrom that evening the play declined.\n\nThey were weary. \"We know our parts well enough now; what's the use of\ngetting sick of them?\" they complained. They began to skylark; to play\nwith the sacred lights; to giggle when Carol was trying to make the\nsentimental Myrtle Cass into a humorous office-boy; to act everything\nbut \"The Girl from Kankakee.\" After loafing through his proper part\nDr. Terry Gould had great applause for his burlesque of \"Hamlet.\" Even\nRaymie lost his simple faith, and tried to show that he could do a\nvaudeville shuffle.\n\nCarol turned on the company. \"See here, I want this nonsense to stop.\nWe've simply got to get down to work.\"\n\nJuanita Haydock led the mutiny: \"Look here, Carol, don't be so bossy.\nAfter all, we're doing this play principally for the fun of it, and if\nwe have fun out of a lot of monkey-shines, why then----\"\n\n\"Ye-es,\" feebly.\n\n\"You said one time that folks in G. P. didn't get enough fun out of\nlife. And now we are having a circus, you want us to stop!\"\n\nCarol answered slowly: \"I wonder if I can explain what I mean? It's the\ndifference between looking at the comic page and looking at Manet. I\nwant fun out of this, of course. Only----I don't think it would be\nless fun, but more, to produce as perfect a play as we can.\" She was\ncuriously exalted; her voice was strained; she stared not at the company\nbut at the grotesques scrawled on the backs of wing-pieces by forgotten\nstage-hands. \"I wonder if you can understand the 'fun' of making a\nbeautiful thing, the pride and satisfaction of it, and the holiness!\"\n\nThe company glanced doubtfully at one another. In Gopher Prairie it\nis not good form to be holy except at a church, between ten-thirty and\ntwelve on Sunday.\n\n\"But if we want to do it, we've got to work; we must have\nself-discipline.\"\n\nThey were at once amused and embarrassed. They did not want to affront\nthis mad woman. They backed off and tried to rehearse. Carol did not\nhear Juanita, in front, protesting to Maud Dyer, \"If she calls it fun\nand holiness to sweat over her darned old play--well, I don't!\"\n\n\nIV\n\n\nCarol attended the only professional play which came to Gopher Prairie\nthat spring. It was a \"tent show, presenting snappy new dramas under\ncanvas.\" The hard-working actors doubled in brass, and took tickets;\nand between acts sang about the moon in June, and sold Dr. Wintergreen's\nSurefire Tonic for Ills of the Heart, Lungs, Kidneys, and Bowels. They\npresented \"Sunbonnet Nell: A Dramatic Comedy of the Ozarks,\" with J.\nWitherbee Boothby wringing the soul by his resonant \"Yuh ain't done\nright by mah little gal, Mr. City Man, but yer a-goin' to find that back\nin these-yere hills there's honest folks and good shots!\"\n\nThe audience, on planks beneath the patched tent, admired Mr. Boothby's\nbeard and long rifle; stamped their feet in the dust at the spectacle\nof his heroism; shouted when the comedian aped the City Lady's use of a\nlorgnon by looking through a doughnut stuck on a fork; wept visibly over\nMr. Boothby's Little Gal Nell, who was also Mr. Boothby's legal wife\nPearl, and when the curtain went down, listened respectfully to Mr.\nBoothby's lecture on Dr. Wintergreen's Tonic as a cure for tape-worms,\nwhich he illustrated by horrible pallid objects curled in bottles of\nyellowing alcohol.\n\nCarol shook her head. \"Juanita is right. I'm a fool. Holiness of the\ndrama! Bernard Shaw! The only trouble with 'The Girl from Kankakee' is\nthat it's too subtle for Gopher Prairie!\"\n\nShe sought faith in spacious banal phrases, taken from books: \"the\ninstinctive nobility of simple souls,\" \"need only the opportunity, to\nappreciate fine things,\" and \"sturdy exponents of democracy.\" But these\noptimisms did not sound so loud as the laughter of the audience at the\nfunny-man's line, \"Yes, by heckelum, I'm a smart fella.\" She wanted to\ngive up the play, the dramatic association, the town. As she came out\nof the tent and walked with Kennicott down the dusty spring street, she\npeered at this straggling wooden village and felt that she could not\npossibly stay here through all of tomorrow.\n\nIt was Miles Bjornstam who gave her strength--he and the fact that every\nseat for \"The Girl from Kankakee\" had been sold.\n\nBjornstam was \"keeping company\" with Bea. Every night he was sitting on\nthe back steps. Once when Carol appeared he grumbled, \"Hope you're going\nto give this burg one good show. If you don't, reckon nobody ever will.\"\n\n\nV\n\n\nIt was the great night; it was the night of the play. The two\ndressing-rooms were swirling with actors, panting, twitchy pale. Del\nSnafflin the barber, who was as much a professional as Ella, having once\ngone on in a mob scene at a stock-company performance in Minneapolis,\nwas making them up, and showing his scorn for amateurs with, \"Stand\nstill! For the love o' Mike, how do you expect me to get your eyelids\ndark if you keep a-wigglin'?\" The actors were beseeching, \"Hey, Del, put\nsome red in my nostrils--you put some in Rita's--gee, you didn't hardly\ndo anything to my face.\"\n\nThey were enormously theatric. They examined Del's makeup box, they\nsniffed the scent of grease-paint, every minute they ran out to peep\nthrough the hole in the curtain, they came back to inspect their wigs\nand costumes, they read on the whitewashed walls of the dressing-rooms\nthe pencil inscriptions: \"The Flora Flanders Comedy Company,\" and \"This\nis a bum theater,\" and felt that they were companions of these vanished\ntroupers.\n\nCarol, smart in maid's uniform, coaxed the temporary stage-hands to\nfinish setting the first act, wailed at Kennicott, the electrician, \"Now\nfor heaven's sake remember the change in cue for the ambers in Act Two,\"\nslipped out to ask Dave Dyer, the ticket-taker, if he could get some\nmore chairs, warned the frightened Myrtle Cass to be sure to upset the\nwaste-basket when John Grimm called, \"Here you, Reddy.\"\n\nDel Snafflin's orchestra of piano, violin, and cornet began to tune up\nand every one behind the magic line of the proscenic arch was frightened\ninto paralysis. Carol wavered to the hole in the curtain. There were so\nmany people out there, staring so hard----\n\nIn the second row she saw Miles Bjornstam, not with Bea but alone.\nHe really wanted to see the play! It was a good omen. Who could tell?\nPerhaps this evening would convert Gopher Prairie to conscious beauty.\n\nShe darted into the women's dressing-room, roused Maud Dyer from her\nfainting panic, pushed her to the wings, and ordered the curtain up.\n\nIt rose doubtfully, it staggered and trembled, but it did get up without\ncatching--this time. Then she realized that Kennicott had forgotten to\nturn off the houselights. Some one out front was giggling.\n\nShe galloped round to the left wing, herself pulled the switch, looked\nso ferociously at Kennicott that he quaked, and fled back.\n\nMrs. Dyer was creeping out on the half-darkened stage. The play was\nbegun.\n\nAnd with that instant Carol realized that it was a bad play abominably\nacted.\n\nEncouraging them with lying smiles, she watched her work go to pieces.\nThe settings seemed flimsy, the lighting commonplace. She watched\nGuy Pollock stammer and twist his mustache when he should have been a\nbullying magnate; Vida Sherwin, as Grimm's timid wife, chatter at the\naudience as though they were her class in high-school English; Juanita,\nin the leading role, defy Mr. Grimm as though she were repeating a list\nof things she had to buy at the grocery this morning; Ella Stowbody\nremark \"I'd like a cup of tea\" as though she were reciting \"Curfew Shall\nNot Ring Tonight\"; and Dr. Gould, making love to Rita Simons, squeak,\n\"My--my--you--are--a--won'erful--girl.\"\n\nMyrtle Cass, as the office-boy, was so much pleased by the applause of\nher relatives, then so much agitated by the remarks of Cy Bogart, in the\nback row, in reference to her wearing trousers, that she could hardly\nbe got off the stage. Only Raymie was so unsociable as to devote himself\nentirely to acting.\n\nThat she was right in her opinion of the play Carol was certain when\nMiles Bjornstam went out after the first act, and did not come back.\n\n\nVI\n\n\nBetween the second and third acts she called the company together,\nand supplicated, \"I want to know something, before we have a chance to\nseparate. Whether we're doing well or badly tonight, it is a beginning.\nBut will we take it as merely a beginning? How many of you will pledge\nyourselves to start in with me, right away, tomorrow, and plan for\nanother play, to be given in September?\"\n\nThey stared at her; they nodded at Juanita's protest: \"I think\none's enough for a while. It's going elegant tonight, but another\nplay----Seems to me it'll be time enough to talk about that next fall.\nCarol! I hope you don't mean to hint and suggest we're not doing fine\ntonight? I'm sure the applause shows the audience think it's just\ndandy!\"\n\nThen Carol knew how completely she had failed.\n\nAs the audience seeped out she heard B. J. Gougerling the banker say to\nHowland the grocer, \"Well, I think the folks did splendid; just as good\nas professionals. But I don't care much for these plays. What I like is\na good movie, with auto accidents and hold-ups, and some git to it, and\nnot all this talky-talk.\"\n\nThen Carol knew how certain she was to fail again.\n\nShe wearily did not blame them, company nor audience. Herself she blamed\nfor trying to carve intaglios in good wholesome jack-pine.\n\n\"It's the worst defeat of all. I'm beaten. By Main Street. 'I must go\non.' But I can't!\"\n\nShe was not vastly encouraged by the Gopher Prairie Dauntless:\n\n. . . would be impossible to distinguish among the actors when all gave\nsuch fine account of themselves in difficult roles of this well-known\nNew York stage play. Guy Pollock as the old millionaire could not have\nbeen bettered for his fine impersonation of the gruff old millionaire;\nMrs. Harry Haydock as the young lady from the West who so easily showed\nthe New York four-flushers where they got off was a vision of loveliness\nand with fine stage presence. Miss Vida Sherwin the ever popular teacher\nin our high school pleased as Mrs. Grimm, Dr. Gould was well suited in\nthe role of young lover--girls you better look out, remember the doc is a\nbachelor. The local Four Hundred also report that he is a great hand at\nshaking the light fantastic tootsies in the dance. As the stenographer\nRita Simons was pretty as a picture, and Miss Ella Stowbody's long and\nintensive study of the drama and kindred arts in Eastern schools was\nseen in the fine finish of her part.\n\n. . . to no one is greater credit to be given than to Mrs. Will Kennicott\non whose capable shoulders fell the burden of directing.\n\n\n\"So kindly,\" Carol mused, \"so well meant, so neighborly--and so\nconfoundedly untrue. Is it really my failure, or theirs?\"\n\nShe sought to be sensible; she elaborately explained to herself that it\nwas hysterical to condemn Gopher Prairie because it did not foam over\nthe drama. Its justification was in its service as a market-town for\nfarmers. How bravely and generously it did its work, forwarding the\nbread of the world, feeding and healing the farmers!\n\nThen, on the corner below her husband's office, she heard a farmer\nholding forth:\n\n\"Sure. Course I was beaten. The shipper and the grocers here wouldn't\npay us a decent price for our potatoes, even though folks in the cities\nwere howling for 'em. So we says, well, we'll get a truck and ship 'em\nright down to Minneapolis. But the commission merchants there were in\ncahoots with the local shipper here; they said they wouldn't pay us\na cent more than he would, not even if they was nearer to the market.\nWell, we found we could get higher prices in Chicago, but when we tried\nto get freight cars to ship there, the railroads wouldn't let us have\n'em--even though they had cars standing empty right here in the yards.\nThere you got it--good market, and these towns keeping us from it. Gus,\nthat's the way these towns work all the time. They pay what they want\nto for our wheat, but we pay what they want us to for their clothes.\nStowbody and Dawson foreclose every mortgage they can, and put in tenant\nfarmers. The Dauntless lies to us about the Nonpartisan League, the\nlawyers sting us, the machinery-dealers hate to carry us over bad years,\nand then their daughters put on swell dresses and look at us as if we\nwere a bunch of hoboes. Man, I'd like to burn this town!\"\n\nKennicott observed, \"There's that old crank Wes Brannigan shooting off\nhis mouth again. Gosh, but he loves to hear himself talk! They ought to\nrun that fellow out of town!\"\n\n\nVII\n\n\nShe felt old and detached through high-school commencement week, which\nis the fete of youth in Gopher Prairie; through baccalaureate sermon,\nsenior Parade, junior entertainment, commencement address by an Iowa\nclergyman who asserted that he believed in the virtue of virtuousness,\nand the procession of Decoration Day, when the few Civil War veterans\nfollowed Champ Perry, in his rusty forage-cap, along the spring-powdered\nroad to the cemetery. She met Guy; she found that she had nothing to\nsay to him. Her head ached in an aimless way. When Kennicott rejoiced,\n\"We'll have a great time this summer; move down to the lake early and\nwear old clothes and act natural,\" she smiled, but her smile creaked.\n\nIn the prairie heat she trudged along unchanging ways, talked about\nnothing to tepid people, and reflected that she might never escape from\nthem.\n\nShe was startled to find that she was using the word \"escape.\"\n\nThen, for three years which passed like one curt paragraph, she ceased\nto find anything interesting save the Bjornstams and her baby.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nI\n\nIN three years of exile from herself Carol had certain experiences\nchronicled as important by the Dauntless, or discussed by the Jolly\nSeventeen, but the event unchronicled, undiscussed, and supremely\ncontrolling, was her slow admission of longing to find her own people.\n\n\nII\n\n\nBea and Miles Bjornstam were married in June, a month after \"The Girl\nfrom Kankakee.\" Miles had turned respectable. He had renounced his\ncriticisms of state and society; he had given up roving as horse-trader,\nand wearing red mackinaws in lumber-camps; he had gone to work as\nengineer in Jackson Elder's planing-mill; he was to be seen upon the\nstreets endeavoring to be neighborly with suspicious men whom he had\ntaunted for years.\n\nCarol was the patroness and manager of the wedding. Juanita Haydock\nmocked, \"You're a chump to let a good hired girl like Bea go. Besides!\nHow do you know it's a good thing, her marrying a sassy bum like this\nawful Red Swede person? Get wise! Chase the man off with a mop, and\nhold onto your Svenska while the holding's good. Huh? Me go to their\nScandahoofian wedding? Not a chance!\"\n\nThe other matrons echoed Juanita. Carol was dismayed by the casualness\nof their cruelty, but she persisted. Miles had exclaimed to her, \"Jack\nElder says maybe he'll come to the wedding! Gee, it would be nice to\nhave Bea meet the Boss as a reg'lar married lady. Some day I'll be so\nwell off that Bea can play with Mrs. Elder--and you! Watch us!\"\n\nThere was an uneasy knot of only nine guests at the service in the\nunpainted Lutheran Church--Carol, Kennicott, Guy Pollock, and the Champ\nPerrys, all brought by Carol; Bea's frightened rustic parents, her\ncousin Tina, and Pete, Miles's ex-partner in horse-trading, a surly,\nhairy man who had bought a black suit and come twelve hundred miles from\nSpokane for the event.\n\nMiles continuously glanced back at the church door. Jackson Elder did\nnot appear. The door did not once open after the awkward entrance of the\nfirst guests. Miles's hand closed on Bea's arm.\n\nHe had, with Carol's help, made his shanty over into a cottage with\nwhite curtains and a canary and a chintz chair.\n\nCarol coaxed the powerful matrons to call on Bea. They half scoffed,\nhalf promised to go.\n\nBea's successor was the oldish, broad, silent Oscarina, who was\nsuspicious of her frivolous mistress for a month, so that Juanita\nHaydock was able to crow, \"There, smarty, I told you you'd run into the\nDomestic Problem!\" But Oscarina adopted Carol as a daughter, and with\nher as faithful to the kitchen as Bea had been, there was nothing\nchanged in Carol's life.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nShe was unexpectedly appointed to the town library-board by Ole Jenson,\nthe new mayor. The other members were Dr. Westlake, Lyman Cass, Julius\nFlickerbaugh the attorney, Guy Pollock, and Martin Mahoney, former\nlivery-stable keeper and now owner of a garage. She was delighted. She\nwent to the first meeting rather condescendingly, regarding herself\nas the only one besides Guy who knew anything about books or library\nmethods. She was planning to revolutionize the whole system.\n\nHer condescension was ruined and her humility wholesomely increased when\nshe found the board, in the shabby room on the second floor of the house\nwhich had been converted into the library, not discussing the weather\nand longing to play checkers, but talking about books. She discovered\nthat amiable old Dr. Westlake read everything in verse and \"light\nfiction\"; that Lyman Cass, the veal-faced, bristly-bearded owner of the\nmill, had tramped through Gibbon, Hume, Grote, Prescott, and the other\nthick historians; that he could repeat pages from them--and did. When\nDr. Westlake whispered to her, \"Yes, Lym is a very well-informed man,\nbut he's modest about it,\" she felt uninformed and immodest, and scolded\nat herself that she had missed the human potentialities in this vast\nGopher Prairie. When Dr. Westlake quoted the \"Paradiso,\" \"Don Quixote,\"\n\"Wilhelm Meister,\" and the Koran, she reflected that no one she knew,\nnot even her father, had read all four.\n\nShe came diffidently to the second meeting of the board. She did not\nplan to revolutionize anything. She hoped that the wise elders might be\nso tolerant as to listen to her suggestions about changing the shelving\nof the juveniles.\n\nYet after four sessions of the library-board she was where she had been\nbefore the first session. She had found that for all their pride in\nbeing reading men, Westlake and Cass and even Guy had no conception of\nmaking the library familiar to the whole town. They used it, they passed\nresolutions about it, and they left it as dead as Moses. Only the Henty\nbooks and the Elsie books and the latest optimisms by moral female\nnovelists and virile clergymen were in general demand, and the board\nthemselves were interested only in old, stilted volumes. They had no\ntenderness for the noisiness of youth discovering great literature.\n\nIf she was egotistic about her tiny learning, they were at least as much\nso regarding theirs. And for all their talk of the need of additional\nlibrary-tax none of them was willing to risk censure by battling for it,\nthough they now had so small a fund that, after paying for rent, heat,\nlight, and Miss Villets's salary, they had only a hundred dollars a year\nfor the purchase of books.\n\nThe Incident of the Seventeen Cents killed her none too enduring\ninterest.\n\nShe had come to the board-meeting singing with a plan. She had made\na list of thirty European novels of the past ten years, with twenty\nimportant books on psychology, education, and economics which the\nlibrary lacked. She had made Kennicott promise to give fifteen dollars.\nIf each of the board would contribute the same, they could have the\nbooks.\n\nLym Cass looked alarmed, scratched himself, and protested, \"I think\nit would be a bad precedent for the board-members to contribute\nmoney--uh--not that I mind, but it wouldn't be fair--establish\nprecedent. Gracious! They don't pay us a cent for our services!\nCertainly can't expect us to pay for the privilege of serving!\"\n\nOnly Guy looked sympathetic, and he stroked the pine table and said\nnothing.\n\nThe rest of the meeting they gave to a bellicose investigation of the\nfact that there was seventeen cents less than there should be in the\nFund. Miss Villets was summoned; she spent half an hour in explosively\ndefending herself; the seventeen cents were gnawed over, penny by penny;\nand Carol, glancing at the carefully inscribed list which had been\nso lovely and exciting an hour before, was silent, and sorry for Miss\nVillets, and sorrier for herself.\n\nShe was reasonably regular in attendance till her two years were up and\nVida Sherwin was appointed to the board in her place, but she did not\ntry to be revolutionary. In the plodding course of her life there was\nnothing changed, and nothing new.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nKennicott made an excellent land-deal, but as he told her none of the\ndetails, she was not greatly exalted or agitated. What did agitate her\nwas his announcement, half whispered and half blurted, half tender and\nhalf coldly medical, that they \"ought to have a baby, now they could\nafford it.\" They had so long agreed that \"perhaps it would be just as\nwell not to have any children for a while yet,\" that childlessness had\ncome to be natural. Now, she feared and longed and did not know; she\nhesitatingly assented, and wished that she had not assented.\n\nAs there appeared no change in their drowsy relations, she forgot all\nabout it, and life was planless.\n\n\nV\n\n\nIdling on the porch of their summer cottage at the lake, on afternoons\nwhen Kennicott was in town, when the water was glazed and the whole air\nlanguid, she pictured a hundred escapes: Fifth Avenue in a snow-storm,\nwith limousines, golden shops, a cathedral spire. A reed hut on\nfantastic piles above the mud of a jungle river. A suite in Paris,\nimmense high grave rooms, with lambrequins and a balcony. The Enchanted\nMesa. An ancient stone mill in Maryland, at the turn of the road,\nbetween rocky brook and abrupt hills. An upland moor of sheep and\nflitting cool sunlight. A clanging dock where steel cranes unloaded\nsteamers from Buenos Ayres and Tsing-tao. A Munich concert-hall, and a\nfamous 'cellist playing--playing to her.\n\nOne scene had a persistent witchery:\n\nShe stood on a terrace overlooking a boulevard by the warm sea. She was\ncertain, though she had no reason for it, that the place was Mentone.\nAlong the drive below her swept barouches, with a mechanical tlot-tlot,\ntlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, and great cars with polished black hoods and\nengines quiet as the sigh of an old man. In them were women erect,\nslender, enameled, and expressionless as marionettes, their small hands\nupon parasols, their unchanging eyes always forward, ignoring the men\nbeside them, tall men with gray hair and distinguished faces. Beyond the\ndrive were painted sea and painted sands, and blue and yellow pavilions.\nNothing moved except the gliding carriages, and the people were small\nand wooden, spots in a picture drenched with gold and hard bright blues.\nThere was no sound of sea or winds; no softness of whispers nor of\nfalling petals; nothing but yellow and cobalt and staring light, and the\nnever-changing tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot----\n\nShe startled. She whimpered. It was the rapid ticking of the clock which\nhad hypnotized her into hearing the steady hoofs. No aching color of the\nsea and pride of supercilious people, but the reality of a round-bellied\nnickel alarm-clock on a shelf against a fuzzy unplaned pine wall, with\na stiff gray wash-rag hanging above it and a kerosene-stove standing\nbelow.\n\nA thousand dreams governed by the fiction she had read, drawn from the\npictures she had envied, absorbed her drowsy lake afternoons, but\nalways in the midst of them Kennicott came out from town, drew on khaki\ntrousers which were plastered with dry fish-scales, asked, \"Enjoying\nyourself?\" and did not listen to her answer.\n\nAnd nothing was changed, and there was no reason to believe that there\never would be change.\n\n\nVI\n\n\nTrains!\n\nAt the lake cottage she missed the passing of the trains. She realized\nthat in town she had depended upon them for assurance that there\nremained a world beyond.\n\nThe railroad was more than a means of transportation to Gopher Prairie.\nIt was a new god; a monster of steel limbs, oak ribs, flesh of gravel,\nand a stupendous hunger for freight; a deity created by man that he\nmight keep himself respectful to Property, as elsewhere he had elevated\nand served as tribal gods the mines, cotton-mills, motor-factories,\ncolleges, army.\n\nThe East remembered generations when there had been no railroad, and had\nno awe of it; but here the railroads had been before time was. The towns\nhad been staked out on barren prairie as convenient points for future\ntrain-halts; and back in 1860 and 1870 there had been much profit, much\nopportunity to found aristocratic families, in the possession of advance\nknowledge as to where the towns would arise.\n\nIf a town was in disfavor, the railroad could ignore it, cut it off from\ncommerce, slay it. To Gopher Prairie the tracks were eternal verities,\nand boards of railroad directors an omnipotence. The smallest boy or the\nmost secluded grandam could tell you whether No. 32 had a hot-box last\nTuesday, whether No. 7 was going to put on an extra day-coach; and the\nname of the president of the road was familiar to every breakfast table.\n\nEven in this new era of motors the citizens went down to the station\nto see the trains go through. It was their romance; their only mystery\nbesides mass at the Catholic Church; and from the trains came lords of\nthe outer world--traveling salesmen with piping on their waistcoats, and\nvisiting cousins from Milwaukee.\n\nGopher Prairie had once been a \"division-point.\" The roundhouse and\nrepair-shops were gone, but two conductors still retained residence,\nand they were persons of distinction, men who traveled and talked to\nstrangers, who wore uniforms with brass buttons, and knew all about\nthese crooked games of con-men. They were a special caste, neither above\nnor below the Haydocks, but apart, artists and adventurers.\n\nThe night telegraph-operator at the railroad station was the most\nmelodramatic figure in town: awake at three in the morning, alone in a\nroom hectic with clatter of the telegraph key. All night he \"talked\"\nto operators twenty, fifty, a hundred miles away. It was always to be\nexpected that he would be held up by robbers. He never was, but round\nhim was a suggestion of masked faces at the window, revolvers, cords\nbinding him to a chair, his struggle to crawl to the key before he\nfainted.\n\nDuring blizzards everything about the railroad was melodramatic. There\nwere days when the town was completely shut off, when they had no mail,\nno express, no fresh meat, no newspapers. At last the rotary snow-plow\ncame through, bucking the drifts, sending up a geyser, and the way to\nthe Outside was open again. The brakemen, in mufflers and fur caps,\nrunning along the tops of ice-coated freight-cars; the engineers\nscratching frost from the cab windows and looking out, inscrutable,\nself-contained, pilots of the prairie sea--they were heroism, they were\nto Carol the daring of the quest in a world of groceries and sermons.\n\nTo the small boys the railroad was a familiar playground. They climbed\nthe iron ladders on the sides of the box-cars; built fires behind piles\nof old ties; waved to favorite brakemen. But to Carol it was magic.\n\nShe was motoring with Kennicott, the car lumping through darkness, the\nlights showing mud-puddles and ragged weeds by the road. A train coming!\nA rapid chuck-a-chuck, chuck-a-chuck, chuck-a-chuck. It was hurling\npast--the Pacific Flyer, an arrow of golden flame. Light from the\nfire-box splashed the under side of the trailing smoke. Instantly the\nvision was gone; Carol was back in the long darkness; and Kennicott was\ngiving his version of that fire and wonder: \"No. 19. Must be 'bout ten\nminutes late.\"\n\nIn town, she listened from bed to the express whistling in the cut a\nmile north. Uuuuuuu!--faint, nervous, distrait, horn of the free night\nriders journeying to the tall towns where were laughter and\nbanners and the sound of bells--Uuuuu! Uuuuu!--the world going\nby--Uuuuuuu!--fainter, more wistful, gone.\n\nDown here there were no trains. The stillness was very great. The\nprairie encircled the lake, lay round her, raw, dusty, thick. Only the\ntrain could cut it. Some day she would take a train; and that would be a\ngreat taking.\n\n\nVII\n\n\nShe turned to the Chautauqua as she had turned to the dramatic\nassociation, to the library-board.\n\nBesides the permanent Mother Chautauqua, in New York, there are, all\nover these States, commercial Chautauqua companies which send out to\nevery smallest town troupes of lecturers and \"entertainers\" to give a\nweek of culture under canvas. Living in Minneapolis, Carol had never\nencountered the ambulant Chautauqua, and the announcement of its coming\nto Gopher Prairie gave her hope that others might be doing the vague\nthings which she had attempted. She pictured a condensed university\ncourse brought to the people. Mornings when she came in from the lake\nwith Kennicott she saw placards in every shop-window, and strung on\na cord across Main Street, a line of pennants alternately worded\n\"The Boland Chautauqua COMING!\" and \"A solid week of inspiration and\nenjoyment!\" But she was disappointed when she saw the program. It did\nnot seem to be a tabloid university; it did not seem to be any kind of\na university; it seemed to be a combination of vaudeville performance Y.\nM. C. A. lecture, and the graduation exercises of an elocution class.\n\nShe took her doubt to Kennicott. He insisted, \"Well, maybe it won't be\nso awful darn intellectual, the way you and I might like it, but it's\na whole lot better than nothing.\" Vida Sherwin added, \"They have\nsome splendid speakers. If the people don't carry off so much actual\ninformation, they do get a lot of new ideas, and that's what counts.\"\n\nDuring the Chautauqua Carol attended three evening meetings, two\nafternoon meetings, and one in the morning. She was impressed by the\naudience: the sallow women in skirts and blouses, eager to be made to\nthink, the men in vests and shirt-sleeves, eager to be allowed to laugh,\nand the wriggling children, eager to sneak away. She liked the plain\nbenches, the portable stage under its red marquee, the great tent over\nall, shadowy above strings of incandescent bulbs at night and by day\ncasting an amber radiance on the patient crowd. The scent of dust\nand trampled grass and sun-baked wood gave her an illusion of Syrian\ncaravans; she forgot the speakers while she listened to noises outside\nthe tent: two farmers talking hoarsely, a wagon creaking down Main\nStreet, the crow of a rooster. She was content. But it was the\ncontentment of the lost hunter stopping to rest.\n\nFor from the Chautauqua itself she got nothing but wind and chaff and\nheavy laughter, the laughter of yokels at old jokes, a mirthless and\nprimitive sound like the cries of beasts on a farm.\n\nThese were the several instructors in the condensed university's\nseven-day course:\n\nNine lecturers, four of them ex-ministers, and one an ex-congressman,\nall of them delivering \"inspirational addresses.\" The only facts or\nopinions which Carol derived from them were: Lincoln was a celebrated\npresident of the United States, but in his youth extremely poor. James\nJ. Hill was the best-known railroad-man of the West, and in his youth\nextremely poor. Honesty and courtesy in business are preferable\nto boorishness and exposed trickery, but this is not to be taken\npersonally, since all persons in Gopher Prairie are known to be honest\nand courteous. London is a large city. A distinguished statesman once\ntaught Sunday School.\n\nFour \"entertainers\" who told Jewish stories, Irish stories, German\nstories, Chinese stories, and Tennessee mountaineer stories, most of\nwhich Carol had heard.\n\nA \"lady elocutionist\" who recited Kipling and imitated children.\n\nA lecturer with motion-pictures of an Andean exploration; excellent\npictures and a halting narrative.\n\nThree brass-bands, a company of six opera-singers, a Hawaiian sextette,\nand four youths who played saxophones and guitars disguised as\nwash-boards. The most applauded pieces were those, such as the \"Lucia\"\ninevitability, which the audience had heard most often.\n\nThe local superintendent, who remained through the week while the other\nenlighteners went to other Chautauquas for their daily performances. The\nsuperintendent was a bookish, underfed man who worked hard at rousing\nartificial enthusiasm, at trying to make the audience cheer by dividing\nthem into competitive squads and telling them that they were intelligent\nand made splendid communal noises. He gave most of the morning lectures,\ndroning with equal unhappy facility about poetry, the Holy Land, and the\ninjustice to employers in any system of profit-sharing.\n\nThe final item was a man who neither lectured, inspired, nor\nentertained; a plain little man with his hands in his pockets. All the\nother speakers had confessed, \"I cannot keep from telling the citizens\nof your beautiful city that none of the talent on this circuit have\nfound a more charming spot or more enterprising and hospitable people.\"\nBut the little man suggested that the architecture of Gopher Prairie was\nhaphazard, and that it was sottish to let the lake-front be monopolized\nby the cinder-heaped wall of the railroad embankment. Afterward the\naudience grumbled, \"Maybe that guy's got the right dope, but what's the\nuse of looking on the dark side of things all the time? New ideas are\nfirst-rate, but not all this criticism. Enough trouble in life without\nlooking for it!\"\n\nThus the Chautauqua, as Carol saw it. After it, the town felt proud and\neducated.\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nTwo weeks later the Great War smote Europe.\n\nFor a month Gopher Prairie had the delight of shuddering, then, as the\nwar settled down to a business of trench-fighting, they forgot.\n\nWhen Carol talked about the Balkans, and the possibility of a German\nrevolution, Kennicott yawned, \"Oh yes, it's a great old scrap, but it's\nnone of our business. Folks out here are too busy growing corn to monkey\nwith any fool war that those foreigners want to get themselves into.\"\n\nIt was Miles Bjornstam who said, \"I can't figure it out. I'm opposed to\nwars, but still, seems like Germany has got to be licked because them\nJunkers stands in the way of progress.\"\n\nShe was calling on Miles and Bea, early in autumn. They had received\nher with cries, with dusting of chairs, and a running to fetch water for\ncoffee. Miles stood and beamed at her. He fell often and joyously into\nhis old irreverence about the lords of Gopher Prairie, but always--with\na certain difficulty--he added something decorous and appreciative.\n\n\"Lots of people have come to see you, haven't they?\" Carol hinted.\n\n\"Why, Bea's cousin Tina comes in right along, and the foreman at the\nmill, and----Oh, we have good times. Say, take a look at that Bea!\nWouldn't you think she was a canary-bird, to listen to her, and to see\nthat Scandahoofian tow-head of hers? But say, know what she is? She's\na mother hen! Way she fusses over me--way she makes old Miles wear a\nnecktie! Hate to spoil her by letting her hear it, but she's one pretty\ndarn nice--nice----Hell! What do we care if none of the dirty snobs come\nand call? We've got each other.\"\n\nCarol worried about their struggle, but she forgot it in the stress of\nsickness and fear. For that autumn she knew that a baby was coming,\nthat at last life promised to be interesting in the peril of the great\nchange.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nI\n\nTHE baby was coming. Each morning she was nauseated, chilly, bedraggled,\nand certain that she would never again be attractive; each twilight\nshe was afraid. She did not feel exalted, but unkempt and furious. The\nperiod of daily sickness crawled into an endless time of boredom. It\nbecame difficult for her to move about, and she raged that she, who\nhad been slim and light-footed, should have to lean on a stick, and be\nheartily commented upon by street gossips. She was encircled by greasy\neyes. Every matron hinted, \"Now that you're going to be a mother,\ndearie, you'll get over all these ideas of yours and settle down.\"\nShe felt that willy-nilly she was being initiated into the assembly\nof housekeepers; with the baby for hostage, she would never escape;\npresently she would be drinking coffee and rocking and talking about\ndiapers.\n\n\"I could stand fighting them. I'm used to that. But this being taken in,\nbeing taken as a matter of course, I can't stand it--and I must stand\nit!\"\n\nShe alternately detested herself for not appreciating the kindly women,\nand detested them for their advice: lugubrious hints as to how much she\nwould suffer in labor, details of baby-hygiene based on long experience\nand total misunderstanding, superstitious cautions about the things she\nmust eat and read and look at in prenatal care for the baby's soul, and\nalways a pest of simpering baby-talk. Mrs. Champ Perry bustled in to\nlend \"Ben Hur,\" as a preventive of future infant immorality. The Widow\nBogart appeared trailing pinkish exclamations, \"And how is our lovely\n'ittle muzzy today! My, ain't it just like they always say: being in\na Family Way does make the girlie so lovely, just like a Madonna. Tell\nme--\" Her whisper was tinged with salaciousness--\"does oo feel the dear\nitsy one stirring, the pledge of love? I remember with Cy, of course he\nwas so big----\"\n\n\"I do not look lovely, Mrs. Bogart. My complexion is rotten, and my hair\nis coming out, and I look like a potato-bag, and I think my arches are\nfalling, and he isn't a pledge of love, and I'm afraid he WILL look like\nus, and I don't believe in mother-devotion, and the whole business is a\nconfounded nuisance of a biological process,\" remarked Carol.\n\nThen the baby was born, without unusual difficulty: a boy with straight\nback and strong legs. The first day she hated him for the tides of pain\nand hopeless fear he had caused; she resented his raw ugliness. After\nthat she loved him with all the devotion and instinct at which she\nhad scoffed. She marveled at the perfection of the miniature hands as\nnoisily as did Kennicott, she was overwhelmed by the trust with\nwhich the baby turned to her; passion for him grew with each unpoetic\nirritating thing she had to do for him.\n\nHe was named Hugh, for her father.\n\nHugh developed into a thin healthy child with a large head and straight\ndelicate hair of a faint brown. He was thoughtful and casual--a\nKennicott.\n\nFor two years nothing else existed. She did not, as the cynical matrons\nhad prophesied, \"give up worrying about the world and other folks'\nbabies soon as she got one of her own to fight for.\" The barbarity of\nthat willingness to sacrifice other children so that one child might\nhave too much was impossible to her. But she would sacrifice herself.\nShe understood consecration--she who answered Kennicott's hints about\nhaving Hugh christened: \"I refuse to insult my baby and myself by asking\nan ignorant young man in a frock coat to sanction him, to permit me\nto have him! I refuse to subject him to any devil-chasing rites! If I\ndidn't give my baby--MY BABY--enough sanctification in those nine hours\nof hell, then he can't get any more out of the Reverend Mr. Zitterel!\"\n\n\"Well, Baptists hardly ever christen kids. I was kind of thinking more\nabout Reverend Warren,\" said Kennicott.\n\nHugh was her reason for living, promise of accomplishment in the future,\nshrine of adoration--and a diverting toy. \"I thought I'd be a dilettante\nmother, but I'm as dismayingly natural as Mrs. Bogart,\" she boasted.\n\nFor two--years Carol was a part of the town; as much one of Our Young\nMothers as Mrs. McGanum. Her opinionation seemed dead; she had no\napparent desire for escape; her brooding centered on Hugh. While she\nwondered at the pearl texture of his ear she exulted, \"I feel like an\nold woman, with a skin like sandpaper, beside him, and I'm glad of it!\nHe is perfect. He shall have everything. He sha'n't always stay here in\nGopher Prairie. . . . I wonder which is really the best, Harvard or Yale\nor Oxford?\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe people who hemmed her in had been brilliantly reinforced by Mr. and\nMrs. Whittier N. Smail--Kennicott's Uncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie.\n\nThe true Main Streetite defines a relative as a person to whose house\nyou go uninvited, to stay as long as you like. If you hear that Lym Cass\non his journey East has spent all his time \"visiting\" in Oyster Center,\nit does not mean that he prefers that village to the rest of New\nEngland, but that he has relatives there. It does not mean that he has\nwritten to the relatives these many years, nor that they have ever given\nsigns of a desire to look upon him. But \"you wouldn't expect a man to\ngo and spend good money at a hotel in Boston, when his own third cousins\nlive right in the same state, would you?\"\n\nWhen the Smails sold their creamery in North Dakota they visited Mr.\nSmail's sister, Kennicott's mother, at Lac-qui-Meurt, then plodded on\nto Gopher Prairie to stay with their nephew. They appeared unannounced,\nbefore the baby was born, took their welcome for granted, and\nimmediately began to complain of the fact that their room faced north.\n\nUncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie assumed that it was their privilege as\nrelatives to laugh at Carol, and their duty as Christians to let her\nknow how absurd her \"notions\" were. They objected to the food, to\nOscarina's lack of friendliness, to the wind, the rain, and the\nimmodesty of Carol's maternity gowns. They were strong and enduring; for\nan hour at a time they could go on heaving questions about her father's\nincome, about her theology, and about the reason why she had not put on\nher rubbers when she had gone across the street. For fussy discussion\nthey had a rich, full genius, and their example developed in Kennicott a\ntendency to the same form of affectionate flaying.\n\nIf Carol was so indiscreet as to murmur that she had a small headache,\ninstantly the two Smails and Kennicott were at it. Every five minutes,\nevery time she sat down or rose or spoke to Oscarina, they twanged, \"Is\nyour head better now? Where does it hurt? Don't you keep hartshorn in\nthe house? Didn't you walk too far today? Have you tried hartshorn?\nDon't you keep some in the house so it will be handy? Does it feel\nbetter now? How does it feel? Do your eyes hurt, too? What time do you\nusually get to bed? As late as THAT? Well! How does it feel now?\"\n\nIn her presence Uncle Whittier snorted at Kennicott, \"Carol get these\nheadaches often? Huh? Be better for her if she didn't go gadding around\nto all these bridge-whist parties, and took some care of herself once in\na while!\"\n\nThey kept it up, commenting, questioning, commenting, questioning,\ntill her determination broke and she bleated, \"For heaven's SAKE, don't\ndis-CUSS it! My head 's all RIGHT!\"\n\nShe listened to the Smails and Kennicott trying to determine by\ndialectics whether the copy of the Dauntless, which Aunt Bessie wanted\nto send to her sister in Alberta, ought to have two or four cents\npostage on it. Carol would have taken it to the drug store and weighed\nit, but then she was a dreamer, while they were practical people (as\nthey frequently admitted). So they sought to evolve the postal rate from\ntheir inner consciousnesses, which, combined with entire frankness in\nthinking aloud, was their method of settling all problems.\n\nThe Smails did not \"believe in all this nonsense\" about privacy and\nreticence. When Carol left a letter from her sister on the table, she\nwas astounded to hear from Uncle Whittier, \"I see your sister says her\nhusband is doing fine. You ought to go see her oftener. I asked Will\nand he says you don't go see her very often. My! You ought to go see her\noftener!\"\n\nIf Carol was writing a letter to a classmate, or planning the week's\nmenus, she could be certain that Aunt Bessie would pop in and titter,\n\"Now don't let me disturb you, I just wanted to see where you were,\ndon't stop, I'm not going to stay only a second. I just wondered if\nyou could possibly have thought that I didn't eat the onions this noon\nbecause I didn't think they were properly cooked, but that wasn't the\nreason at all, it wasn't because I didn't think they were well cooked,\nI'm sure that everything in your house is always very dainty and nice,\nthough I do think that Oscarina is careless about some things, she\ndoesn't appreciate the big wages you pay her, and she is so cranky, all\nthese Swedes are so cranky, I don't really see why you have a Swede,\nbut----But that wasn't it, I didn't eat them not because I didn't think\nthey weren't cooked proper, it was just--I find that onions don't agree\nwith me, it's very strange, ever since I had an attack of biliousness\none time, I have found that onions, either fried onions or raw ones, and\nWhittier does love raw onions with vinegar and sugar on them----\"\n\nIt was pure affection.\n\nCarol was discovering that the one thing that can be more disconcerting\nthan intelligent hatred is demanding love.\n\nShe supposed that she was being gracefully dull and standardized in\nthe Smails' presence, but they scented the heretic, and with\nforward-stooping delight they sat and tried to drag out her ludicrous\nconcepts for their amusement. They were like the Sunday-afternoon mob\nstarting at monkeys in the Zoo, poking fingers and making faces and\ngiggling at the resentment of the more dignified race.\n\nWith a loose-lipped, superior, village smile Uncle Whittier hinted,\n\"What's this I hear about your thinking Gopher Prairie ought to be\nall tore down and rebuilt, Carrie? I don't know where folks get these\nnew-fangled ideas. Lots of farmers in Dakota getting 'em these days.\nAbout co-operation. Think they can run stores better 'n storekeepers!\nHuh!\"\n\n\"Whit and I didn't need no co-operation as long as we was farming!\"\ntriumphed Aunt Bessie. \"Carrie, tell your old auntie now: don't you ever\ngo to church on Sunday? You do go sometimes? But you ought to go every\nSunday! When you're as old as I am, you'll learn that no matter how\nsmart folks think they are, God knows a whole lot more than they do, and\nthen you'll realize and be glad to go and listen to your pastor!\"\n\nIn the manner of one who has just beheld a two-headed calf they repeated\nthat they had \"never HEARD such funny ideas!\" They were staggered to\nlearn that a real tangible person, living in Minnesota, and married\nto their own flesh-and-blood relation, could apparently believe that\ndivorce may not always be immoral; that illegitimate children do not\nbear any special and guaranteed form of curse; that there are ethical\nauthorities outside of the Hebrew Bible; that men have drunk wine yet\nnot died in the gutter; that the capitalistic system of distribution and\nthe Baptist wedding-ceremony were not known in the Garden of Eden; that\nmushrooms are as edible as corn-beef hash; that the word \"dude\" is\nno longer frequently used; that there are Ministers of the Gospel\nwho accept evolution; that some persons of apparent intelligence and\nbusiness ability do not always vote the Republican ticket straight; that\nit is not a universal custom to wear scratchy flannels next the skin\nin winter; that a violin is not inherently more immoral than a chapel\norgan; that some poets do not have long hair; and that Jews are not\nalways pedlers or pants-makers.\n\n\"Where does she get all them the'ries?\" marveled Uncle Whittier Smail;\nwhile Aunt Bessie inquired, \"Do you suppose there's many folks got\nnotions like hers? My! If there are,\" and her tone settled the fact that\nthere were not, \"I just don't know what the world's coming to!\"\n\nPatiently--more or less--Carol awaited the exquisite day when they would\nannounce departure. After three weeks Uncle Whittier remarked, \"We kinda\nlike Gopher Prairie. Guess maybe we'll stay here. We'd been wondering\nwhat we'd do, now we've sold the creamery and my farms. So I had a talk\nwith Ole Jenson about his grocery, and I guess I'll buy him out and\nstorekeep for a while.\"\n\nHe did.\n\nCarol rebelled. Kennicott soothed her: \"Oh, we won't see much of them.\nThey'll have their own house.\"\n\nShe resolved to be so chilly that they would stay away. But she had no\ntalent for conscious insolence. They found a house, but Carol was never\nsafe from their appearance with a hearty, \"Thought we'd drop in this\nevening and keep you from being lonely. Why, you ain't had them curtains\nwashed yet!\" Invariably, whenever she was touched by the realization\nthat it was they who were lonely, they wrecked her pitying affection by\ncomments--questions--comments--advice.\n\nThey immediately became friendly with all of their own race, with the\nLuke Dawsons, the Deacon Piersons, and Mrs. Bogart; and brought them\nalong in the evening. Aunt Bessie was a bridge over whom the older\nwomen, bearing gifts of counsel and the ignorance of experience, poured\ninto Carol's island of reserve. Aunt Bessie urged the good Widow Bogart,\n\"Drop in and see Carrie real often. Young folks today don't understand\nhousekeeping like we do.\"\n\nMrs. Bogart showed herself perfectly willing to be an associate\nrelative.\n\nCarol was thinking up protective insults when Kennicott's mother came\ndown to stay with Brother Whittier for two months. Carol was fond of\nMrs. Kennicott. She could not carry out her insults.\n\nShe felt trapped.\n\nShe had been kidnaped by the town. She was Aunt Bessie's niece, and she\nwas to be a mother. She was expected, she almost expected herself, to\nsit forever talking of babies, cooks, embroidery stitches, the price of\npotatoes, and the tastes of husbands in the matter of spinach.\n\nShe found a refuge in the Jolly Seventeen. She suddenly understood that\nthey could be depended upon to laugh with her at Mrs. Bogart, and she\nnow saw Juanita Haydock's gossip not as vulgarity but as gaiety and\nremarkable analysis.\n\nHer life had changed, even before Hugh appeared. She looked forward to\nthe next bridge of the Jolly Seventeen, and the security of whispering\nwith her dear friends Maud Dyer and Juanita and Mrs. McGanum.\n\nShe was part of the town. Its philosophy and its feuds dominated her.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nShe was no longer irritated by the cooing of the matrons, nor by their\nopinion that diet didn't matter so long as the Little Ones had plenty of\nlace and moist kisses, but she concluded that in the care of babies as\nin politics, intelligence was superior to quotations about pansies. She\nliked best to talk about Hugh to Kennicott, Vida, and the Bjornstams.\nShe was happily domestic when Kennicott sat by her on the floor, to\nwatch baby make faces. She was delighted when Miles, speaking as one man\nto another, admonished Hugh, \"I wouldn't stand them skirts if I was you.\nCome on. Join the union and strike. Make 'em give you pants.\"\n\nAs a parent, Kennicott was moved to establish the first child-welfare\nweek held in Gopher Prairie. Carol helped him weigh babies and\nexamine their throats, and she wrote out the diets for mute German and\nScandinavian mothers.\n\nThe aristocracy of Gopher Prairie, even the wives of the rival doctors,\ntook part, and for several days there was community spirit and much\nuplift. But this reign of love was overthrown when the prize for Best\nBaby was awarded not to decent parents but to Bea and Miles Bjornstam!\nThe good matrons glared at Olaf Bjornstam, with his blue eyes, his\nhoney-colored hair, and magnificent back, and they remarked, \"Well, Mrs.\nKennicott, maybe that Swede brat is as healthy as your husband says he\nis, but let me tell you I hate to think of the future that awaits any\nboy with a hired girl for a mother and an awful irreligious socialist\nfor a pa!\"\n\nShe raged, but so violent was the current of their respectability, so\npersistent was Aunt Bessie in running to her with their blabber, that\nshe was embarrassed when she took Hugh to play with Olaf. She hated\nherself for it, but she hoped that no one saw her go into the Bjornstam\nshanty. She hated herself and the town's indifferent cruelty when she\nsaw Bea's radiant devotion to both babies alike; when she saw Miles\nstaring at them wistfully.\n\nHe had saved money, had quit Elder's planing-mill and started a dairy\non a vacant lot near his shack. He was proud of his three cows and sixty\nchickens, and got up nights to nurse them.\n\n\"I'll be a big farmer before you can bat an eye! I tell you that young\nfellow Olaf is going to go East to college along with the Haydock kids.\nUh----Lots of folks dropping in to chin with Bea and me now. Say! Ma\nBogart come in one day! She was----I liked the old lady fine. And the\nmill foreman comes in right along. Oh, we got lots of friends. You bet!\"\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThough the town seemed to Carol to change no more than the surrounding\nfields, there was a constant shifting, these three years. The citizen of\nthe prairie drifts always westward. It may be because he is the heir of\nancient migrations--and it may be because he finds within his own\nspirit so little adventure that he is driven to seek it by changing his\nhorizon. The towns remain unvaried, yet the individual faces alter\nlike classes in college. The Gopher Prairie jeweler sells out, for no\ndiscernible reason, and moves on to Alberta or the state of Washington,\nto open a shop precisely like his former one, in a town precisely like\nthe one he has left. There is, except among professional men and the\nwealthy, small permanence either of residence or occupation. A man\nbecomes farmer, grocer, town policeman, garageman, restaurant-owner,\npostmaster, insurance-agent, and farmer all over again, and the\ncommunity more or less patiently suffers from his lack of knowledge in\neach of his experiments.\n\nOle Jenson the grocer and Dahl the butcher moved on to South Dakota\nand Idaho. Luke and Mrs. Dawson picked up ten thousand acres of prairie\nsoil, in the magic portable form of a small check book, and went to\nPasadena, to a bungalow and sunshine and cafeterias. Chet Dashaway sold\nhis furniture and undertaking business and wandered to Los Angeles,\nwhere, the Dauntless reported, \"Our good friend Chester has accepted a\nfine position with a real-estate firm, and his wife has in the charming\nsocial circles of the Queen City of the Southwestland that same\npopularity which she enjoyed in our own society sets.\"\n\nRita Simons was married to Terry Gould, and rivaled Juanita Haydock as\nthe gayest of the Young Married Set. But Juanita also acquired merit.\nHarry's father died, Harry became senior partner in the Bon Ton Store,\nand Juanita was more acidulous and shrewd and cackling than ever. She\nbought an evening frock, and exposed her collar-bone to the wonder of\nthe Jolly Seventeen, and talked of moving to Minneapolis.\n\nTo defend her position against the new Mrs. Terry Gould she sought to\nattach Carol to her faction by giggling that \"SOME folks might call Rita\ninnocent, but I've got a hunch that she isn't half as ignorant of things\nas brides are supposed to be--and of course Terry isn't one-two-three as\na doctor alongside of your husband.\"\n\nCarol herself would gladly have followed Mr. Ole Jenson, and migrated\neven to another Main Street; flight from familiar tedium to new tedium\nwould have for a time the outer look and promise of adventure. She\nhinted to Kennicott of the probable medical advantages of Montana and\nOregon. She knew that he was satisfied with Gopher Prairie, but it gave\nher vicarious hope to think of going, to ask for railroad folders at the\nstation, to trace the maps with a restless forefinger.\n\nYet to the casual eye she was not discontented, she was not an abnormal\nand distressing traitor to the faith of Main Street.\n\nThe settled citizen believes that the rebel is constantly in a stew of\ncomplaining and, hearing of a Carol Kennicott, he gasps, \"What an\nawful person! She must be a Holy Terror to live with! Glad MY folks are\nsatisfied with things way they are!\" Actually, it was not so much as\nfive minutes a day that Carol devoted to lonely desires. It is\nprobable that the agitated citizen has within his circle at least one\ninarticulate rebel with aspirations as wayward as Carol's.\n\nThe presence of the baby had made her take Gopher Prairie and the brown\nhouse seriously, as natural places of residence. She pleased Kennicott\nby being friendly with the complacent maturity of Mrs. Clark and Mrs.\nElder, and when she had often enough been in conference upon the Elders'\nnew Cadillac car, or the job which the oldest Clark boy had taken in\nthe office of the flour-mill, these topics became important, things to\nfollow up day by day.\n\nWith nine-tenths of her emotion concentrated upon Hugh, she did not\ncriticize shops, streets, acquaintances . . . this year or two. She\nhurried to Uncle Whittier's store for a package of corn-flakes, she\nabstractedly listened to Uncle Whittier's denunciation of Martin\nMahoney for asserting that the wind last Tuesday had been south and not\nsouthwest, she came back along streets that held no surprises nor the\nstartling faces of strangers. Thinking of Hugh's teething all the way,\nshe did not reflect that this store, these drab blocks, made up all her\nbackground. She did her work, and she triumphed over winning from the\nClarks at five hundred.\n\nThe most considerable event of the two years after the birth of Hugh\noccurred when Vida Sherwin resigned from the high school and was\nmarried. Carol was her attendant, and as the wedding was at the\nEpiscopal Church, all the women wore new kid slippers and long white kid\ngloves, and looked refined.\n\nFor years Carol had been little sister to Vida, and had never in the\nleast known to what degree Vida loved her and hated her and in curious\nstrained ways was bound to her.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nI\n\nGRAY steel that seems unmoving because it spins so fast in the balanced\nfly-wheel, gray snow in an avenue of elms, gray dawn with the sun behind\nit--this was the gray of Vida Sherwin's life at thirty-six.\n\nShe was small and active and sallow; her yellow hair was faded, and\nlooked dry; her blue silk blouses and modest lace collars and high black\nshoes and sailor hats were as literal and uncharming as a schoolroom\ndesk; but her eyes determined her appearance, revealed her as a\npersonage and a force, indicated her faith in the goodness and purpose\nof everything. They were blue, and they were never still; they expressed\namusement, pity, enthusiasm. If she had been seen in sleep, with the\nwrinkles beside her eyes stilled and the creased lids hiding the radiant\nirises, she would have lost her potency.\n\nShe was born in a hill-smothered Wisconsin village where her father\nwas a prosy minister; she labored through a sanctimonious college; she\ntaught for two years in an iron-range town of blurry-faced Tatars and\nMontenegrins, and wastes of ore, and when she came to Gopher Prairie,\nits trees and the shining spaciousness of the wheat prairie made her\ncertain that she was in paradise.\n\nShe admitted to her fellow-teachers that the schoolbuilding was\nslightly damp, but she insisted that the rooms were \"arranged so\nconveniently--and then that bust of President McKinley at the head of\nthe stairs, it's a lovely art-work, and isn't it an inspiration to have\nthe brave, honest, martyr president to think about!\" She taught French,\nEnglish, and history, and the Sophomore Latin class, which dealt in\nmatters of a metaphysical nature called Indirect Discourse and the\nAblative Absolute. Each year she was reconvinced that the pupils were\nbeginning to learn more quickly. She spent four winters in building up\nthe Debating Society, and when the debate really was lively one Friday\nafternoon, and the speakers of pieces did not forget their lines, she\nfelt rewarded.\n\nShe lived an engrossed useful life, and seemed as cool and simple as an\napple. But secretly she was creeping among fears, longing, and guilt.\nShe knew what it was, but she dared not name it. She hated even the\nsound of the word \"sex.\" When she dreamed of being a woman of the harem,\nwith great white warm limbs, she awoke to shudder, defenseless in\nthe dusk of her room. She prayed to Jesus, always to the Son of God,\noffering him the terrible power of her adoration, addressing him as the\neternal lover, growing passionate, exalted, large, as she contemplated\nhis splendor. Thus she mounted to endurance and surcease.\n\nBy day, rattling about in many activities, she was able to ridicule her\nblazing nights of darkness. With spurious cheerfulness she announced\neverywhere, \"I guess I'm a born spinster,\" and \"No one will ever marry\na plain schoolma'am like me,\" and \"You men, great big noisy bothersome\ncreatures, we women wouldn't have you round the place, dirtying up nice\nclean rooms, if it wasn't that you have to be petted and guided. We just\nought to say 'Scat!' to all of you!\"\n\nBut when a man held her close at a dance, even when \"Professor\"\nGeorge Edwin Mott patted her hand paternally as they considered the\nnaughtinesses of Cy Bogart, she quivered, and reflected how superior she\nwas to have kept her virginity.\n\nIn the autumn of 1911, a year before Dr. Will Kennicott was married,\nVida was his partner at a five-hundred tournament. She was thirty-four\nthen; Kennicott about thirty-six. To her he was a superb, boyish,\ndiverting creature; all the heroic qualities in a manly magnificent\nbody. They had been helping the hostess to serve the Waldorf salad and\ncoffee and gingerbread. They were in the kitchen, side by side on a\nbench, while the others ponderously supped in the room beyond.\n\nKennicott was masculine and experimental. He stroked Vida's hand, he put\nhis arm carelessly about her shoulder.\n\n\"Don't!\" she said sharply.\n\n\"You're a cunning thing,\" he offered, patting the back of her shoulder\nin an exploratory manner.\n\nWhile she strained away, she longed to move nearer to him. He bent over,\nlooked at her knowingly. She glanced down at his left hand as it touched\nher knee. She sprang up, started noisily and needlessly to wash the\ndishes. He helped her. He was too lazy to adventure further--and too\nused to women in his profession. She was grateful for the impersonality\nof his talk. It enabled her to gain control. She knew that she had\nskirted wild thoughts.\n\nA month after, on a sleighing-party, under the buffalo robes in the\nbob-sled, he whispered, \"You pretend to be a grown-up schoolteacher, but\nyou're nothing but a kiddie.\" His arm was about her. She resisted.\n\n\"Don't you like the poor lonely bachelor?\" he yammered in a fatuous way.\n\n\"No, I don't! You don't care for me in the least. You're just practising\non me.\"\n\n\"You're so mean! I'm terribly fond of you.\"\n\n\"I'm not of you. And I'm not going to let myself be fond of you,\neither.\"\n\nHe persistently drew her toward him. She clutched his arm. Then she\nthrew off the robe, climbed out of the sled, raced after it with Harry\nHaydock. At the dance which followed the sleigh-ride Kennicott was\ndevoted to the watery prettiness of Maud Dyer, and Vida was noisily\ninterested in getting up a Virginia Reel. Without seeming to watch\nKennicott, she knew that he did not once look at her.\n\nThat was all of her first love-affair.\n\nHe gave no sign of remembering that he was \"terribly fond.\" She waited\nfor him; she reveled in longing, and in a sense of guilt because she\nlonged. She told herself that she did not want part of him; unless he\ngave her all his devotion she would never let him touch her; and when\nshe found that she was probably lying, she burned with scorn. She fought\nit out in prayer. She knelt in a pink flannel nightgown, her thin hair\ndown her back, her forehead as full of horror as a mask of tragedy,\nwhile she identified her love for the Son of God with her love for a\nmortal, and wondered if any other woman had ever been so sacrilegious.\nShe wanted to be a nun and observe perpetual adoration. She bought a\nrosary, but she had been so bitterly reared as a Protestant that she\ncould not bring herself to use it.\n\nYet none of her intimates in the school and in the boarding-house knew\nof her abyss of passion. They said she was \"so optimistic.\"\n\nWhen she heard that Kennicott was to marry a girl, pretty, young, and\nimposingly from the Cities, Vida despaired. She congratulated Kennicott;\ncarelessly ascertained from him the hour of marriage. At that hour,\nsitting in her room, Vida pictured the wedding in St. Paul. Full of an\necstasy which horrified her, she followed Kennicott and the girl who had\nstolen her place, followed them to the train, through the evening, the\nnight.\n\nShe was relieved when she had worked out a belief that she wasn't really\nshameful, that there was a mystical relation between herself and Carol,\nso that she was vicariously yet veritably with Kennicott, and had the\nright to be.\n\nShe saw Carol during the first five minutes in Gopher Prairie. She\nstared at the passing motor, at Kennicott and the girl beside him. In\nthat fog world of transference of emotion Vida had no normal jealousy\nbut a conviction that, since through Carol she had received Kennicott's\nlove, then Carol was a part of her, an astral self, a heightened and\nmore beloved self. She was glad of the girl's charm, of the smooth black\nhair, the airy head and young shoulders. But she was suddenly angry.\nCarol glanced at her for a quarter-second, but looked past her, at an\nold roadside barn. If she had made the great sacrifice, at least she\nexpected gratitude and recognition, Vida raged, while her conscious\nschoolroom mind fussily begged her to control this insanity.\n\nDuring her first call half of her wanted to welcome a fellow reader of\nbooks; the other half itched to find out whether Carol knew anything\nabout Kennicott's former interest in herself. She discovered that Carol\nwas not aware that he had ever touched another woman's hand. Carol was\nan amusing, naive, curiously learned child. While Vida was most actively\ndescribing the glories of the Thanatopsis, and complimenting this\nlibrarian on her training as a worker, she was fancying that this girl\nwas the child born of herself and Kennicott; and out of that symbolizing\nshe had a comfort she had not known for months.\n\nWhen she came home, after supper with the Kennicotts and Guy Pollock,\nshe had a sudden and rather pleasant backsliding from devotion. She\nbustled into her room, she slammed her hat on the bed, and chattered, \"I\ndon't CARE! I'm a lot like her--except a few years older. I'm light and\nquick, too, and I can talk just as well as she can, and I'm sure----Men\nare such fools. I'd be ten times as sweet to make love to as that dreamy\nbaby. And I AM as good-looking!\"\n\nBut as she sat on the bed and stared at her thin thighs, defiance oozed\naway. She mourned:\n\n\"No. I'm not. Dear God, how we fool ourselves! I pretend I'm\n'spiritual.' I pretend my legs are graceful. They aren't. They're\nskinny. Old-maidish. I hate it! I hate that impertinent young woman! A\nselfish cat, taking his love for granted. . . . No, she's adorable. . . .\nI don't think she ought to be so friendly with Guy Pollock.\"\n\nFor a year Vida loved Carol, longed to and did not pry into the details\nof her relations with Kennicott, enjoyed her spirit of play as expressed\nin childish tea-parties, and, with the mystic bond between them\nforgotten, was healthily vexed by Carol's assumption that she was a\nsociological messiah come to save Gopher Prairie. This last facet of\nVida's thought was the one which, after a year, was most often turned to\nthe light. In a testy way she brooded, \"These people that want to change\neverything all of a sudden without doing any work, make me tired! Here I\nhave to go and work for four years, picking out the pupils for\ndebates, and drilling them, and nagging at them to get them to look up\nreferences, and begging them to choose their own subjects--four years,\nto get up a couple of good debates! And she comes rushing in, and\nexpects in one year to change the whole town into a lollypop paradise\nwith everybody stopping everything else to grow tulips and drink tea.\nAnd it's a comfy homey old town, too!\"\n\nShe had such an outburst after each of Carol's campaigns--for better\nThanatopsis programs, for Shavian plays, for more human schools--but she\nnever betrayed herself, and always she was penitent.\n\nVida was, and always would be, a reformer, a liberal. She believed that\ndetails could excitingly be altered, but that things-in-general were\ncomely and kind and immutable. Carol was, without understanding or\naccepting it, a revolutionist, a radical, and therefore possessed of\n\"constructive ideas,\" which only the destroyer can have, since the\nreformer believes that all the essential constructing has already been\ndone. After years of intimacy it was this unexpressed opposition more\nthan the fancied loss of Kennicott's love which held Vida irritably\nfascinated.\n\nBut the birth of Hugh revived the transcendental emotion. She was\nindignant that Carol should not be utterly fulfilled in having borne\nKennicott's child. She admitted that Carol seemed to have affection and\nimmaculate care for the baby, but she began to identify herself now with\nKennicott, and in this phase to feel that she had endured quite too much\nfrom Carol's instability.\n\nShe recalled certain other women who had come from the Outside and had\nnot appreciated Gopher Prairie. She remembered the rector's wife who had\nbeen chilly to callers and who was rumored throughout the town to\nhave said, \"Re-ah-ly I cawn't endure this bucolic heartiness in the\nresponses.\" The woman was positively known to have worn handkerchiefs in\nher bodice as padding--oh, the town had simply roared at her. Of course\nthe rector and she were got rid of in a few months.\n\nThen there was the mysterious woman with the dyed hair and penciled\neyebrows, who wore tight English dresses, like basques, who smelled of\nstale musk, who flirted with the men and got them to advance money\nfor her expenses in a lawsuit, who laughed at Vida's reading at a\nschool-entertainment, and went off owing a hotel-bill and the three\nhundred dollars she had borrowed.\n\nVida insisted that she loved Carol, but with some satisfaction she\ncompared her to these traducers of the town.\n\n\nII\n\n\nVida had enjoyed Raymie Wutherspoon's singing in the Episcopal choir;\nshe had thoroughly reviewed the weather with him at Methodist sociables\nand in the Bon Ton. But she did not really know him till she moved to\nMrs. Gurrey's boarding-house. It was five years after her affair with\nKennicott. She was thirty-nine, Raymie perhaps a year younger.\n\nShe said to him, and sincerely, \"My! You can do anything, with your\nbrains and tact and that heavenly voice. You were so good in 'The Girl\nfrom Kankakee.' You made me feel terribly stupid. If you'd gone on the\nstage, I believe you'd be just as good as anybody in Minneapolis. But\nstill, I'm not sorry you stuck to business. It's such a constructive\ncareer.\"\n\n\"Do you really think so?\" yearned Raymie, across the apple-sauce.\n\nIt was the first time that either of them had found a dependable\nintellectual companionship. They looked down on Willis Woodford the\nbank-clerk, and his anxious babycentric wife, the silent Lyman Casses,\nthe slangy traveling man, and the rest of Mrs. Gurrey's unenlightened\nguests. They sat opposite, and they sat late. They were exhilarated to\nfind that they agreed in confession of faith:\n\n\"People like Sam Clark and Harry Haydock aren't earnest about music and\npictures and eloquent sermons and really refined movies, but then, on\nthe other hand, people like Carol Kennicott put too much stress on all\nthis art. Folks ought to appreciate lovely things, but just the same,\nthey got to be practical and--they got to look at things in a practical\nway.\"\n\nSmiling, passing each other the pressed-glass pickle-dish, seeing Mrs.\nGurrey's linty supper-cloth irradiated by the light of intimacy, Vida\nand Raymie talked about Carol's rose-colored turban, Carol's sweetness,\nCarol's new low shoes, Carol's erroneous theory that there was no need\nof strict discipline in school, Carol's amiability in the Bon Ton,\nCarol's flow of wild ideas, which, honestly, just simply made you\nnervous trying to keep track of them.\n\nAbout the lovely display of gents' shirts in the Bon Ton window as\ndressed by Raymie, about Raymie's offertory last Sunday, the fact that\nthere weren't any of these new solos as nice as \"Jerusalem the Golden,\"\nand the way Raymie stood up to Juanita Haydock when she came into the\nstore and tried to run things and he as much as told her that she was\nso anxious to have folks think she was smart and bright that she\nsaid things she didn't mean, and anyway, Raymie was running the\nshoe-department, and if Juanita, or Harry either, didn't like the way he\nran things, they could go get another man.\n\nAbout Vida's new jabot which made her look thirty-two (Vida's estimate)\nor twenty-two (Raymie's estimate), Vida's plan to have the high-school\nDebating Society give a playlet, and the difficulty of keeping the\nyounger boys well behaved on the playground when a big lubber like Cy\nBogart acted up so.\n\nAbout the picture post-card which Mrs. Dawson had sent to Mrs. Cass from\nPasadena, showing roses growing right outdoors in February, the change\nin time on No. 4, the reckless way Dr. Gould always drove his auto, the\nreckless way almost all these people drove their autos, the fallacy of\nsupposing that these socialists could carry on a government for as much\nas six months if they ever did have a chance to try out their theories,\nand the crazy way in which Carol jumped from subject to subject.\n\nVida had once beheld Raymie as a thin man with spectacles, mournful\ndrawn-out face, and colorless stiff hair. Now she noted that his jaw was\nsquare, that his long hands moved quickly and were bleached in a refined\nmanner, and that his trusting eyes indicated that he had \"led a clean\nlife.\" She began to call him \"Ray,\" and to bounce in defense of his\nunselfishness and thoughtfulness every time Juanita Haydock or Rita\nGould giggled about him at the Jolly Seventeen.\n\nOn a Sunday afternoon of late autumn they walked down to Lake\nMinniemashie. Ray said that he would like to see the ocean; it must be a\ngrand sight; it must be much grander than a lake, even a great big lake.\nVida had seen it, she stated modestly; she had seen it on a summer trip\nto Cape Cod.\n\n\"Have you been clear to Cape Cod? Massachusetts? I knew you'd traveled,\nbut I never realized you'd been that far!\"\n\nMade taller and younger by his interest she poured out, \"Oh my yes.\nIt was a wonderful trip. So many points of interest through\nMassachusetts--historical. There's Lexington where we turned back\nthe redcoats, and Longfellow's home at Cambridge, and Cape Cod--just\neverything--fishermen and whale-ships and sand-dunes and everything.\"\n\nShe wished that she had a little cane to carry. He broke off a willow\nbranch.\n\n\"My, you're strong!\" she said.\n\n\"No, not very. I wish there was a Y. M. C. A. here, so I could take up\nregular exercise. I used to think I could do pretty good acrobatics, if\nI had a chance.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you could. You're unusually lithe, for a large man.\"\n\n\"Oh no, not so very. But I wish we had a Y. M. It would be dandy to have\nlectures and everything, and I'd like to take a class in improving\nthe memory--I believe a fellow ought to go on educating himself and\nimproving his mind even if he is in business, don't you, Vida--I guess\nI'm kind of fresh to call you 'Vida'!\"\n\n\"I've been calling you 'Ray' for weeks!\"\n\nHe wondered why she sounded tart.\n\nHe helped her down the bank to the edge of the lake but dropped her hand\nabruptly, and as they sat on a willow log and he brushed her sleeve, he\ndelicately moved over and murmured, \"Oh, excuse me--accident.\"\n\nShe stared at the mud-browned chilly water, the floating gray reeds.\n\n\"You look so thoughtful,\" he said.\n\nShe threw out her hands. \"I am! Will you kindly tell me what's the use\nof--anything! Oh, don't mind me. I'm a moody old hen. Tell me about your\nplan for getting a partnership in the Bon Ton. I do think you're right:\nHarry Haydock and that mean old Simons ought to give you one.\"\n\nHe hymned the old unhappy wars in which he had been Achilles and the\nmellifluous Nestor, yet gone his righteous ways unheeded by the cruel\nkings. . . . \"Why, if I've told 'em once, I've told 'em a dozen times to\nget in a side-line of light-weight pants for gents' summer wear, and of\ncourse here they go and let a cheap kike like Rifkin beat them to it and\ngrab the trade right off 'em, and then Harry said--you know how Harry\nis, maybe he don't mean to be grouchy, but he's such a sore-head----\"\n\nHe gave her a hand to rise. \"If you don't MIND. I think a fellow is\nawful if a lady goes on a walk with him and she can't trust him and he\ntries to flirt with her and all.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you're highly trustworthy!\" she snapped, and she sprang up\nwithout his aid. Then, smiling excessively, \"Uh--don't you think Carol\nsometimes fails to appreciate Dr. Will's ability?\"\n\n\nIII\n\n\nRay habitually asked her about his window-trimming, the display of the\nnew shoes, the best music for the entertainment at the Eastern Star, and\n(though he was recognized as a professional authority on what the town\ncalled \"gents' furnishings\") about his own clothes. She persuaded him\nnot to wear the small bow ties which made him look like an elongated\nSunday School scholar. Once she burst out:\n\n\"Ray, I could shake you! Do you know you're too apologetic? You always\nappreciate other people too much. You fuss over Carol Kennicott when she\nhas some crazy theory that we all ought to turn anarchists or live on\nfigs and nuts or something. And you listen when Harry Haydock tries to\nshow off and talk about turnovers and credits and things you know lots\nbetter than he does. Look folks in the eye! Glare at 'em! Talk deep!\nYou're the smartest man in town, if you only knew it. You ARE!\"\n\nHe could not believe it. He kept coming back to her for confirmation. He\npractised glaring and talking deep, but he circuitously hinted to Vida\nthat when he had tried to look Harry Haydock in the eye, Harry had\ninquired, \"What's the matter with you, Raymie? Got a pain?\" But\nafterward Harry had asked about Kantbeatum socks in a manner which, Ray\nfelt, was somehow different from his former condescension.\n\nThey were sitting on the squat yellow satin settee in the boarding-house\nparlor. As Ray reannounced that he simply wouldn't stand it many more\nyears if Harry didn't give him a partnership, his gesticulating hand\ntouched Vida's shoulders.\n\n\"Oh, excuse me!\" he pleaded.\n\n\"It's all right. Well, I think I must be running up to my room.\nHeadache,\" she said briefly.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nRay and she had stopped in at Dyer's for a hot chocolate on their way\nhome from the movies, that March evening. Vida speculated, \"Do you know\nthat I may not be here next year?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nWith her fragile narrow nails she smoothed the glass slab which formed\nthe top of the round table at which they sat. She peeped through the\nglass at the perfume-boxes of black and gold and citron in the hollow\ntable. She looked about at shelves of red rubber water-bottles, pale\nyellow sponges, wash-rags with blue borders, hair-brushes of polished\ncherry backs. She shook her head like a nervous medium coming out of a\ntrance, stared at him unhappily, demanded:\n\n\"Why should I stay here? And I must make up my mind. Now. Time to renew\nour teaching-contracts for next year. I think I'll go teach in some\nother town. Everybody here is tired of me. I might as well go. Before\nfolks come out and SAY they're tired of me. I have to decide tonight. I\nmight as well----Oh, no matter. Come. Let's skip. It's late.\"\n\nShe sprang up, ignoring his wail of \"Vida! Wait! Sit down! Gosh! I'm\nflabbergasted! Gee! Vida!\" She marched out. While he was paying his\ncheck she got ahead. He ran after her, blubbering, \"Vida! Wait!\" In the\nshade of the lilacs in front of the Gougerling house he came up with\nher, stayed her flight by a hand on her shoulder.\n\n\"Oh, don't! Don't! What does it matter?\" she begged. She was sobbing,\nher soft wrinkly lids soaked with tears. \"Who cares for my affection or\nhelp? I might as well drift on, forgotten. O Ray, please don't hold\nme. Let me go. I'll just decide not to renew my contract here, and--and\ndrift--way off----\"\n\nHis hand was steady on her shoulder. She dropped her head, rubbed the\nback of his hand with her cheek.\n\nThey were married in June.\n\n\nV\n\n\nThey took the Ole Jenson house. \"It's small,\" said Vida, \"but it's got\nthe dearest vegetable garden, and I love having time to get near to\nNature for once.\"\n\nThough she became Vida Wutherspoon technically, and though she certainly\nhad no ideals about the independence of keeping her name, she continued\nto be known as Vida Sherwin.\n\nShe had resigned from the school, but she kept up one class in English.\nShe bustled about on every committee of the Thanatopsis; she was always\npopping into the rest-room to make Mrs. Nodelquist sweep the floor;\nshe was appointed to the library-board to succeed Carol; she taught the\nSenior Girls' Class in the Episcopal Sunday School, and tried to revive\nthe King's Daughters. She exploded into self-confidence and happiness;\nher draining thoughts were by marriage turned into energy. She became\ndaily and visibly more plump, and though she chattered as eagerly, she\nwas less obviously admiring of marital bliss, less sentimental about\nbabies, sharper in demanding that the entire town share her reforms--the\npurchase of a park, the compulsory cleaning of back-yards.\n\nShe penned Harry Haydock at his desk in the Bon Ton; she interrupted\nhis joking; she told him that it was Ray who had built up the\nshoe-department and men's department; she demanded that he be made a\npartner. Before Harry could answer she threatened that Ray and she would\nstart a rival shop. \"I'll clerk behind the counter myself, and a Certain\nParty is all ready to put up the money.\"\n\nShe rather wondered who the Certain Party was.\n\nRay was made a one-sixth partner.\n\nHe became a glorified floor-walker, greeting the men with new poise, no\nlonger coyly subservient to pretty women. When he was not affectionately\ncoercing people into buying things they did not need, he stood at the\nback of the store, glowing, abstracted, feeling masculine as he recalled\nthe tempestuous surprises of love revealed by Vida.\n\nThe only remnant of Vida's identification of herself with Carol was a\njealousy when she saw Kennicott and Ray together, and reflected that\nsome people might suppose that Kennicott was his superior. She was sure\nthat Carol thought so, and she wanted to shriek, \"You needn't try to\ngloat! I wouldn't have your pokey old husband. He hasn't one single bit\nof Ray's spiritual nobility.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nI\n\nTHE greatest mystery about a human being is not his reaction to sex or\npraise, but the manner in which he contrives to put in twenty-four hours\na day. It is this which puzzles the long-shoreman about the clerk, the\nLondoner about the bushman. It was this which puzzled Carol in regard\nto the married Vida. Carol herself had the baby, a larger house to care\nfor, all the telephone calls for Kennicott when he was away; and she\nread everything, while Vida was satisfied with newspaper headlines.\n\nBut after detached brown years in boarding-houses, Vida was hungry for\nhousework, for the most pottering detail of it. She had no maid, nor\nwanted one. She cooked, baked, swept, washed supper-cloths, with\nthe triumph of a chemist in a new laboratory. To her the hearth was\nveritably the altar. When she went shopping she hugged the cans of soup,\nand she bought a mop or a side of bacon as though she were preparing for\na reception. She knelt beside a bean sprout and crooned, \"I raised this\nwith my own hands--I brought this new life into the world.\"\n\n\"I love her for being so happy,\" Carol brooded. \"I ought to be that way.\nI worship the baby, but the housework----Oh, I suppose I'm fortunate; so\nmuch better off than farm-women on a new clearing, or people in a slum.\"\n\nIt has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very\nlarge or permanent contentment from meditation upon the fact that he is\nbetter off than others.\n\nIn Carol's own twenty-four hours a day she got up, dressed the baby, had\nbreakfast, talked to Oscarina about the day's shopping, put the baby on\nthe porch to play, went to the butcher's to choose between steak and\npork chops, bathed the baby, nailed up a shelf, had dinner, put the baby\nto bed for a nap, paid the iceman, read for an hour, took the baby out\nfor a walk, called on Vida, had supper, put the baby to bed, darned\nsocks, listened to Kennicott's yawning comment on what a fool Dr.\nMcGanum was to try to use that cheap X-ray outfit of his on an\nepithelioma, repaired a frock, drowsily heard Kennicott stoke the\nfurnace, tried to read a page of Thorstein Veblen--and the day was gone.\n\nExcept when Hugh was vigorously naughty, or whiney, or laughing,\nor saying \"I like my chair\" with thrilling maturity, she was always\nenfeebled by loneliness. She no longer felt superior about that\nmisfortune. She would gladly have been converted to Vida's satisfaction\nin Gopher Prairie and mopping the floor.\n\n\nII\n\n\nCarol drove through an astonishing number of books from the public\nlibrary and from city shops. Kennicott was at first uncomfortable over\nher disconcerting habit of buying them. A book was a book, and if you\nhad several thousand of them right here in the library, free, why the\ndickens should you spend your good money? After worrying about it for\ntwo or three years, he decided that this was one of the Funny Ideas\nwhich she had caught as a librarian and from which she would never\nentirely recover.\n\nThe authors whom she read were most of them frightfully annoyed by the\nVida Sherwins. They were young American sociologists, young English\nrealists, Russian horrorists; Anatole France, Rolland, Nexo, Wells,\nShaw, Key, Edgar Lee Masters, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Henry\nMencken, and all the other subversive philosophers and artists whom\nwomen were consulting everywhere, in batik-curtained studios in New\nYork, in Kansas farmhouses, San Francisco drawing-rooms, Alabama schools\nfor negroes. From them she got the same confused desire which the\nmillion other women felt; the same determination to be class-conscious\nwithout discovering the class of which she was to be conscious.\n\nCertainly her reading precipitated her observations of Main Street, of\nGopher Prairie and of the several adjacent Gopher Prairies which she had\nseen on drives with Kennicott. In her fluid thought certain convictions\nappeared, jaggedly, a fragment of an impression at a time, while she was\ngoing to sleep, or manicuring her nails, or waiting for Kennicott.\n\nThese convictions she presented to Vida Sherwin--Vida\nWutherspoon--beside a radiator, over a bowl of not very good walnuts and\npecans from Uncle Whittier's grocery, on an evening when both Kennicott\nand Raymie had gone out of town with the other officers of the Ancient\nand Affiliated Order of Spartans, to inaugurate a new chapter at\nWakamin. Vida had come to the house for the night. She helped in putting\nHugh to bed, sputtering the while about his soft skin. Then they talked\ntill midnight.\n\nWhat Carol said that evening, what she was passionately thinking, was\nalso emerging in the minds of women in ten thousand Gopher Prairies. Her\nformulations were not pat solutions but visions of a tragic futility.\nShe did not utter them so compactly that they can be given in her words;\nthey were roughened with \"Well, you see\" and \"if you get what I mean\"\nand \"I don't know that I'm making myself clear.\" But they were definite\nenough, and indignant enough.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nIn reading popular stories and seeing plays, asserted Carol, she\nhad found only two traditions of the American small town. The first\ntradition, repeated in scores of magazines every month, is that the\nAmerican village remains the one sure abode of friendship, honesty,\nand clean sweet marriageable girls. Therefore all men who succeed in\npainting in Paris or in finance in New York at last become weary of\nsmart women, return to their native towns, assert that cities are\nvicious, marry their childhood sweethearts and, presumably, joyously\nabide in those towns until death.\n\nThe other tradition is that the significant features of all villages are\nwhiskers, iron dogs upon lawns, gold bricks, checkers, jars of gilded\ncat-tails, and shrewd comic old men who are known as \"hicks\" and who\nejaculate \"Waal I swan.\" This altogether admirable tradition rules\nthe vaudeville stage, facetious illustrators, and syndicated newspaper\nhumor, but out of actual life it passed forty years ago. Carol's small\ntown thinks not in hoss-swapping but in cheap motor cars,\ntelephones, ready-made clothes, silos, alfalfa, kodaks, phonographs,\nleather-upholstered Morris chairs, bridge-prizes, oil-stocks,\nmotion-pictures, land-deals, unread sets of Mark Twain, and a chaste\nversion of national politics.\n\nWith such a small-town life a Kennicott or a Champ Perry is content, but\nthere are also hundreds of thousands, particularly women and young men,\nwho are not at all content. The more intelligent young people (and the\nfortunate widows!) flee to the cities with agility and, despite the\nfictional tradition, resolutely stay there, seldom returning even for\nholidays. The most protesting patriots of the towns leave them in old\nage, if they can afford it, and go to live in California or in the\ncities.\n\nThe reason, Carol insisted, is not a whiskered rusticity. It is nothing\nso amusing!\n\nIt is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of\nspeech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear\nrespectable. It is contentment . . . the contentment of the quiet\ndead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is\nnegation canonized as the one positive virtue. It is the prohibition of\nhappiness. It is slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness\nmade God.\n\nA savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward,\ncoatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane\ndecorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things\nabout the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the\ngreatest race in the world.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nShe had inquired as to the effect of this dominating dullness upon\nforeigners. She remembered the feeble exotic quality to be found in the\nfirst-generation Scandinavians; she recalled the Norwegian Fair at the\nLutheran Church, to which Bea had taken her. There, in the bondestue,\nthe replica of a Norse farm kitchen, pale women in scarlet jackets\nembroidered with gold thread and colored beads, in black skirts with a\nline of blue, green-striped aprons, and ridged caps very pretty to set\noff a fresh face, had served rommegrod og lefse--sweet cakes and sour\nmilk pudding spiced with cinnamon. For the first time in Gopher Prairie\nCarol had found novelty. She had reveled in the mild foreignness of it.\n\nBut she saw these Scandinavian women zealously exchanging their spiced\npuddings and red jackets for fried pork chops and congealed white\nblouses, trading the ancient Christmas hymns of the fjords for \"She's My\nJazzland Cutie,\" being Americanized into uniformity, and in less than\na generation losing in the grayness whatever pleasant new customs\nthey might have added to the life of the town. Their sons finished the\nprocess. In ready-made clothes and ready-made high-school phrases they\nsank into propriety, and the sound American customs had absorbed without\none trace of pollution another alien invasion.\n\nAnd along with these foreigners, she felt herself being ironed into\nglossy mediocrity, and she rebelled, in fear.\n\nThe respectability of the Gopher Prairies, said Carol, is reinforced by\nvows of poverty and chastity in the matter of knowledge. Except for\nhalf a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement\nof ignorance which it is so easy to come by. To be \"intellectual\" or\n\"artistic\" or, in their own word, to be \"highbrow,\" is to be priggish\nand of dubious virtue.\n\nLarge experiments in politics and in co-operative distribution, ventures\nrequiring knowledge, courage, and imagination, do originate in the West\nand Middlewest, but they are not of the towns, they are of the farmers.\nIf these heresies are supported by the townsmen it is only by occasional\nteachers doctors, lawyers, the labor unions, and workmen like Miles\nBjornstam, who are punished by being mocked as \"cranks,\" as \"half-baked\nparlor socialists.\" The editor and the rector preach at them. The cloud\nof serene ignorance submerges them in unhappiness and futility.\n\n\nV\n\n\nHere Vida observed, \"Yes--well----Do you know, I've always thought\nthat Ray would have made a wonderful rector. He has what I call an\nessentially religious soul. My! He'd have read the service beautifully!\nI suppose it's too late now, but as I tell him, he can also serve\nthe world by selling shoes and----I wonder if we oughtn't to have\nfamily-prayers?\"\n\n\nVI\n\n\nDoubtless all small towns, in all countries, in all ages, Carol\nadmitted, have a tendency to be not only dull but mean, bitter, infested\nwith curiosity. In France or Tibet quite as much as in Wyoming or\nIndiana these timidities are inherent in isolation.\n\nBut a village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether\nstandardized and pure, which aspires to succeed Victorian England as the\nchief mediocrity of the world, is no longer merely provincial, no longer\ndowny and restful in its leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking\nto dominate the earth, to drain the hills and sea of color, to set Dante\nat boosting Gopher Prairie, and to dress the high gods in Klassy Kollege\nKlothes. Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations, as a traveling\nsalesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks\nadvertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicate to the\nsayings of Confucius.\n\nSuch a society functions admirably in the large production of cheap\nautomobiles, dollar watches, and safety razors. But it is not satisfied\nuntil the entire world also admits that the end and joyous purpose of\nliving is to ride in flivvers, to make advertising-pictures of dollar\nwatches, and in the twilight to sit talking not of love and courage but\nof the convenience of safety razors.\n\nAnd such a society, such a nation, is determined by the Gopher Prairies.\nThe greatest manufacturer is but a busier Sam Clark, and all the rotund\nsenators and presidents are village lawyers and bankers grown nine feet\ntall.\n\nThough a Gopher Prairie regards itself as a part of the Great World,\ncompares itself to Rome and Vienna, it will not acquire the scientific\nspirit, the international mind, which would make it great. It picks at\ninformation which will visibly procure money or social distinction.\nIts conception of a community ideal is not the grand manner, the noble\naspiration, the fine aristocratic pride, but cheap labor for the kitchen\nand rapid increase in the price of land. It plays at cards on greasy\noil-cloth in a shanty, and does not know that prophets are walking and\ntalking on the terrace.\n\nIf all the provincials were as kindly as Champ Perry and Sam Clark there\nwould be no reason for desiring the town to seek great traditions. It is\nthe Harry Haydocks, the Dave Dyers, the Jackson Elders, small busy men\ncrushingly powerful in their common purpose, viewing themselves as men\nof the world but keeping themselves men of the cash-register and the\ncomic film, who make the town a sterile oligarchy.\n\n\nVII\n\n\nShe had sought to be definite in analyzing the surface ugliness of\nthe Gopher Prairies. She asserted that it is a matter of universal\nsimilarity; of flimsiness of construction, so that the towns resemble\nfrontier camps; of neglect of natural advantages, so that the hills\nare covered with brush, the lakes shut off by railroads, and the\ncreeks lined with dumping-grounds; of depressing sobriety of color;\nrectangularity of buildings; and excessive breadth and straightness of\nthe gashed streets, so that there is no escape from gales and from sight\nof the grim sweep of land, nor any windings to coax the loiterer along,\nwhile the breadth which would be majestic in an avenue of palaces makes\nthe low shabby shops creeping down the typical Main Street the more mean\nby comparison.\n\nThe universal similarity--that is the physical expression of the\nphilosophy of dull safety. Nine-tenths of the American towns are so\nalike that it is the completest boredom to wander from one to another.\nAlways, west of Pittsburg, and often, east of it, there is the same\nlumber yard, the same railroad station, the same Ford garage, the same\ncreamery, the same box-like houses and two-story shops. The new, more\nconscious houses are alike in their very attempts at diversity: the same\nbungalows, the same square houses of stucco or tapestry brick. The shops\nshow the same standardized, nationally advertised wares; the newspapers\nof sections three thousand miles apart have the same \"syndicated\nfeatures\"; the boy in Arkansas displays just such a flamboyant\nready-made suit as is found on just such a boy in Delaware, both of them\niterate the same slang phrases from the same sporting-pages, and if\none of them is in college and the other is a barber, no one may surmise\nwhich is which.\n\nIf Kennicott were snatched from Gopher Prairie and instantly conveyed\nto a town leagues away, he would not realize it. He would go down\napparently the same Main Street (almost certainly it would be called\nMain Street); in the same drug store he would see the same young man\nserving the same ice-cream soda to the same young woman with the same\nmagazines and phonograph records under her arm. Not till he had climbed\nto his office and found another sign on the door, another Dr. Kennicott\ninside, would he understand that something curious had presumably\nhappened.\n\nFinally, behind all her comments, Carol saw the fact that the prairie\ntowns no more exist to serve the farmers who are their reason of\nexistence than do the great capitals; they exist to fatten on the\nfarmers, to provide for the townsmen large motors and social preferment;\nand, unlike the capitals, they do not give to the district in return for\nusury a stately and permanent center, but only this ragged camp. It is a\n\"parasitic Greek civilization\"--minus the civilization.\n\n\"There we are then,\" said Carol. \"The remedy? Is there any? Criticism,\nperhaps, for the beginning of the beginning. Oh, there's nothing that\nattacks the Tribal God Mediocrity that doesn't help a little . . . and\nprobably there's nothing that helps very much. Perhaps some day the\nfarmers will build and own their market-towns. (Think of the club they\ncould have!) But I'm afraid I haven't any 'reform program.' Not any\nmore! The trouble is spiritual, and no League or Party can enact a\npreference for gardens rather than dumping-grounds. . . . There's my\nconfession. WELL?\"\n\n\"In other words, all you want is perfection?\"\n\n\"Yes! Why not?\"\n\n\"How you hate this place! How can you expect to do anything with it if\nyou haven't any sympathy?\"\n\n\"But I have! And affection. Or else I wouldn't fume so. I've learned\nthat Gopher Prairie isn't just an eruption on the prairie, as I thought\nfirst, but as large as New York. In New York I wouldn't know more than\nforty or fifty people, and I know that many here. Go on! Say what you're\nthinking.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear, if I DID take all your notions seriously, it would be\npretty discouraging. Imagine how a person would feel, after working hard\nfor years and helping to build up a nice town, to have you airily flit\nin and simply say 'Rotten!' Think that's fair?\"\n\n\"Why not? It must be just as discouraging for the Gopher Prairieite to\nsee Venice and make comparisons.\"\n\n\"It would not! I imagine gondolas are kind of nice to ride in, but we've\ngot better bath-rooms! But----My dear, you're not the only person in\nthis town who has done some thinking for herself, although (pardon my\nrudeness) I'm afraid you think so. I'll admit we lack some things. Maybe\nour theater isn't as good as shows in Paris. All right! I don't want\nto see any foreign culture suddenly forced on us--whether it's\nstreet-planning or table-manners or crazy communistic ideas.\"\n\nVida sketched what she termed \"practical things that will make a happier\nand prettier town, but that do belong to our life, that actually are\nbeing done.\" Of the Thanatopsis Club she spoke; of the rest-room, the\nfight against mosquitos, the campaign for more gardens and shade-trees\nand sewers--matters not fantastic and nebulous and distant, but\nimmediate and sure.\n\nCarol's answer was fantastic and nebulous enough:\n\n\"Yes. . . . Yes. . . . I know. They're good. But if I could put through\nall those reforms at once, I'd still want startling, exotic things. Life\nis comfortable and clean enough here already. And so secure. What it\nneeds is to be less secure, more eager. The civic improvements which\nI'd like the Thanatopsis to advocate are Strindberg plays, and classic\ndancers--exquisite legs beneath tulle--and (I can see him so clearly!)\na thick, black-bearded, cynical Frenchman who would sit about and drink\nand sing opera and tell bawdy stories and laugh at our proprieties and\nquote Rabelais and not be ashamed to kiss my hand!\"\n\n\"Huh! Not sure about the rest of it but I guess that's what you and all\nthe other discontented young women really want: some stranger kissing\nyour hand!\" At Carol's gasp, the old squirrel-like Vida darted out and\ncried, \"Oh, my dear, don't take that too seriously. I just meant----\"\n\n\"I know. You just meant it. Go on. Be good for my soul. Isn't it funny:\nhere we all are--me trying to be good for Gopher Prairie's soul, and\nGopher Prairie trying to be good for my soul. What are my other sins?\"\n\n\"Oh, there's plenty of them. Possibly some day we shall have your fat\ncynical Frenchman (horrible, sneering, tobacco-stained object, ruining\nhis brains and his digestion with vile liquor!) but, thank heaven, for\na while we'll manage to keep busy with our lawns and pavements! You see,\nthese things really are coming! The Thanatopsis is getting somewhere.\nAnd you----\" Her tone italicized the words--\"to my great disappointment,\nare doing less, not more, than the people you laugh at! Sam Clark,\non the school-board, is working for better school ventilation. Ella\nStowbody (whose elocuting you always think is so absurd) has persuaded\nthe railroad to share the expense of a parked space at the station, to\ndo away with that vacant lot.\n\n\"You sneer so easily. I'm sorry, but I do think there's something\nessentially cheap in your attitude. Especially about religion.\n\n\"If you must know, you're not a sound reformer at all. You're an\nimpossibilist. And you give up too easily. You gave up on the new\ncity hall, the anti-fly campaign, club papers, the library-board, the\ndramatic association--just because we didn't graduate into Ibsen the\nvery first thing. You want perfection all at once. Do you know what the\nfinest thing you've done is--aside from bringing Hugh into the world?\nIt was the help you gave Dr. Will during baby-welfare week. You didn't\ndemand that each baby be a philosopher and artist before you weighed\nhim, as you do with the rest of us.\n\n\"And now I'm afraid perhaps I'll hurt you. We're going to have a new\nschoolbuilding in this town--in just a few years--and we'll have it\nwithout one bit of help or interest from you!\n\n\"Professor Mott and I and some others have been dinging away at the\nmoneyed men for years. We didn't call on you because you would never\nstand the pound-pound-pounding year after year without one bit of\nencouragement. And we've won! I've got the promise of everybody who\ncounts that just as soon as war-conditions permit, they'll vote the\nbonds for the schoolhouse. And we'll have a wonderful building--lovely\nbrown brick, with big windows, and agricultural and manual-training\ndepartments. When we get it, that'll be my answer to all your theories!\"\n\n\"I'm glad. And I'm ashamed I haven't had any part in getting it.\nBut----Please don't think I'm unsympathetic if I ask one question: Will\nthe teachers in the hygienic new building go on informing the children\nthat Persia is a yellow spot on the map, and 'Caesar' the title of a\nbook of grammatical puzzles?\"\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nVida was indignant; Carol was apologetic; they talked for another hour,\nthe eternal Mary and Martha--an immoralist Mary and a reformist Martha.\nIt was Vida who conquered.\n\nThe fact that she had been left out of the campaign for the new\nschoolbuilding disconcerted Carol. She laid her dreams of perfection\naside. When Vida asked her to take charge of a group of Camp Fire Girls,\nshe obeyed, and had definite pleasure out of the Indian dances and\nritual and costumes. She went more regularly to the Thanatopsis. With\nVida as lieutenant and unofficial commander she campaigned for a village\nnurse to attend poor families, raised the fund herself, saw to it that\nthe nurse was young and strong and amiable and intelligent.\n\nYet all the while she beheld the burly cynical Frenchman and the\ndiaphanous dancers as clearly as the child sees its air-born playmates;\nshe relished the Camp Fire Girls not because, in Vida's words, \"this\nScout training will help so much to make them Good Wives,\" but because\nshe hoped that the Sioux dances would bring subversive color into their\ndinginess.\n\nShe helped Ella Stowbody to set out plants in the tiny triangular park\nat the railroad station; she squatted in the dirt, with a small curved\ntrowel and the most decorous of gardening gauntlets; she talked to Ella\nabout the public-spiritedness of fuchsias and cannas; and she felt\nthat she was scrubbing a temple deserted by the gods and empty even of\nincense and the sound of chanting. Passengers looking from trains saw\nher as a village woman of fading prettiness, incorruptible virtue, and\nno abnormalities; the baggageman heard her say, \"Oh yes, I do think\nit will be a good example for the children\"; and all the while she saw\nherself running garlanded through the streets of Babylon.\n\nPlanting led her to botanizing. She never got much farther than\nrecognizing the tiger lily and the wild rose, but she rediscovered\nHugh. \"What does the buttercup say, mummy?\" he cried, his hand full of\nstraggly grasses, his cheek gilded with pollen. She knelt to embrace\nhim; she affirmed that he made life more than full; she was altogether\nreconciled . . . for an hour.\n\nBut she awoke at night to hovering death. She crept away from the hump\nof bedding that was Kennicott; tiptoed into the bathroom and, by the\nmirror in the door of the medicine-cabinet, examined her pallid face.\n\nWasn't she growing visibly older in ratio as Vida grew plumper and\nyounger? Wasn't her nose sharper? Wasn't her neck granulated? She\nstared and choked. She was only thirty. But the five years since her\nmarriage--had they not gone by as hastily and stupidly as though she had\nbeen under ether; would time not slink past till death? She pounded her\nfist on the cool enameled rim of the bathtub and raged mutely against\nthe indifferent gods:\n\n\"I don't care! I won't endure it! They lie so--Vida and Will and Aunt\nBessie--they tell me I ought to be satisfied with Hugh and a good home\nand planting seven nasturtiums in a station garden! I am I! When I die\nthe world will be annihilated, as far as I'm concerned. I am I! I'm not\ncontent to leave the sea and the ivory towers to others. I want them for\nme! Damn Vida! Damn all of them! Do they think they can make me believe\nthat a display of potatoes at Howland & Gould's is enough beauty and\nstrangeness?\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nI\n\nWHEN America entered the Great European War, Vida sent Raymie off to an\nofficers' training-camp--less than a year after her wedding. Raymie was\ndiligent and rather strong. He came out a first lieutenant of infantry,\nand was one of the earliest sent abroad.\n\nCarol grew definitely afraid of Vida as Vida transferred the passion\nwhich had been released in marriage to the cause of the war; as she\nlost all tolerance. When Carol was touched by the desire for heroism\nin Raymie and tried tactfully to express it, Vida made her feel like an\nimpertinent child.\n\nBy enlistment and draft, the sons of Lyman Cass, Nat Hicks, Sam Clark\njoined the army. But most of the soldiers were the sons of German and\nSwedish farmers unknown to Carol. Dr. Terry Gould and Dr. McGanum became\ncaptains in the medical corps, and were stationed at camps in Iowa and\nGeorgia. They were the only officers, besides Raymie, from the Gopher\nPrairie district. Kennicott wanted to go with them, but the several\ndoctors of the town forgot medical rivalry and, meeting in council,\ndecided that he would do better to wait and keep the town well till he\nshould be needed. Kennicott was forty-two now; the only youngish doctor\nleft in a radius of eighteen miles. Old Dr. Westlake, who loved comfort\nlike a cat, protestingly rolled out at night for country calls, and\nhunted through his collar-box for his G. A. R. button.\n\nCarol did not quite know what she thought about Kennicott's going.\nCertainly she was no Spartan wife. She knew that he wanted to go; she\nknew that this longing was always in him, behind his unchanged\ntrudging and remarks about the weather. She felt for him an admiring\naffection--and she was sorry that she had nothing more than affection.\n\nCy Bogart was the spectacular warrior of the town. Cy was no longer the\nweedy boy who had sat in the loft speculating about Carol's egotism and\nthe mysteries of generation. He was nineteen now, tall, broad, busy, the\n\"town sport,\" famous for his ability to drink beer, to shake dice, to\ntell undesirable stories, and, from his post in front of Dyer's drug\nstore, to embarrass the girls by \"jollying\" them as they passed. His\nface was at once peach-bloomed and pimply.\n\nCy was to be heard publishing it abroad that if he couldn't get the\nWidow Bogart's permission to enlist, he'd run away and enlist without\nit. He shouted that he \"hated every dirty Hun; by gosh, if he could just\npoke a bayonet into one big fat Heinie and learn him some decency and\ndemocracy, he'd die happy.\" Cy got much reputation by whipping a farmboy\nnamed Adolph Pochbauer for being a \"damn hyphenated German.\" . . . This\nwas the younger Pochbauer, who was killed in the Argonne, while he was\ntrying to bring the body of his Yankee captain back to the lines. At\nthis time Cy Bogart was still dwelling in Gopher Prairie and planning to\ngo to war.\n\n\nII\n\n\nEverywhere Carol heard that the war was going to bring a basic change\nin psychology, to purify and uplift everything from marital relations to\nnational politics, and she tried to exult in it. Only she did not find\nit. She saw the women who made bandages for the Red Cross giving\nup bridge, and laughing at having to do without sugar, but over the\nsurgical-dressings they did not speak of God and the souls of men, but\nof Miles Bjornstam's impudence, of Terry Gould's scandalous carryings-on\nwith a farmer's daughter four years ago, of cooking cabbage, and of\naltering blouses. Their references to the war touched atrocities only.\nShe herself was punctual, and efficient at making dressings, but she\ncould not, like Mrs. Lyman Cass and Mrs. Bogart, fill the dressings with\nhate for enemies.\n\nWhen she protested to Vida, \"The young do the work while these old ones\nsit around and interrupt us and gag with hate because they're too feeble\nto do anything but hate,\" then Vida turned on her:\n\n\"If you can't be reverent, at least don't be so pert and opinionated,\nnow when men and women are dying. Some of us--we have given up so much,\nand we're glad to. At least we expect that you others sha'n't try to be\nwitty at our expense.\"\n\nThere was weeping.\n\nCarol did desire to see the Prussian autocracy defeated; she did\npersuade herself that there were no autocracies save that of Prussia;\nshe did thrill to motion-pictures of troops embarking in New York; and\nshe was uncomfortable when she met Miles Bjornstam on the street and he\ncroaked:\n\n\"How's tricks? Things going fine with me; got two new cows. Well, have\nyou become a patriot? Eh? Sure, they'll bring democracy--the democracy\nof death. Yes, sure, in every war since the Garden of Eden the workmen\nhave gone out to fight each other for perfectly good reasons--handed to\nthem by their bosses. Now me, I'm wise. I'm so wise that I know I don't\nknow anything about the war.\"\n\nIt was not a thought of the war that remained with her after Miles's\ndeclamation but a perception that she and Vida and all of the\ngood-intentioners who wanted to \"do something for the common people\"\nwere insignificant, because the \"common people\" were able to do things\nfor themselves, and highly likely to, as soon as they learned the\nfact. The conception of millions of workmen like Miles taking control\nfrightened her, and she scuttled rapidly away from the thought of a time\nwhen she might no longer retain the position of Lady Bountiful to the\nBjornstams and Beas and Oscarinas whom she loved--and patronized.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nIt was in June, two months after America's entrance into the war, that\nthe momentous event happened--the visit of the great Percy Bresnahan,\nthe millionaire president of the Velvet Motor Car Company of Boston, the\none native son who was always to be mentioned to strangers.\n\nFor two weeks there were rumors. Sam Clark cried to Kennicott, \"Say, I\nhear Perce Bresnahan is coming! By golly it'll be great to see the old\nscout, eh?\" Finally the Dauntless printed, on the front page with a No. 1\nhead, a letter from Bresnahan to Jackson Elder:\n\nDEAR JACK:\n\nWell, Jack, I find I can make it. I'm to go to Washington as a dollar\na year man for the government, in the aviation motor section, and tell\nthem how much I don't know about carburetors. But before I start in\nbeing a hero I want to shoot out and catch me a big black bass and cuss\nout you and Sam Clark and Harry Haydock and Will Kennicott and the rest\nof you pirates. I'll land in G. P. on June 7, on No. 7 from Mpls. Shake\na day-day. Tell Bert Tybee to save me a glass of beer.\n\nSincerely yours,\n\nPerce.\n\n\n\nAll members of the social, financial, scientific, literary, and sporting\nsets were at No. 7 to meet Bresnahan; Mrs. Lyman Cass was beside Del\nSnafflin the barber, and Juanita Haydock almost cordial to Miss Villets\nthe librarian. Carol saw Bresnahan laughing down at them from the train\nvestibule--big, immaculate, overjawed, with the eye of an executive. In\nthe voice of the professional Good Fellow he bellowed, \"Howdy, folks!\"\nAs she was introduced to him (not he to her) Bresnahan looked into her\neyes, and his hand-shake was warm, unhurried.\n\nHe declined the offers of motors; he walked off, his arm about the\nshoulder of Nat Hicks the sporting tailor, with the elegant Harry\nHaydock carrying one of his enormous pale leather bags, Del Snafflin\nthe other, Jack Elder bearing an overcoat, and Julius Flickerbaugh\nthe fishing-tackle. Carol noted that though Bresnahan wore spats and\na stick, no small boy jeered. She decided, \"I must have Will get a\ndouble-breasted blue coat and a wing collar and a dotted bow-tie like\nhis.\"\n\nThat evening, when Kennicott was trimming the grass along the walk\nwith sheep-shears, Bresnahan rolled up, alone. He was now in corduroy\ntrousers, khaki shirt open at the throat, a white boating hat, and\nmarvelous canvas-and-leather shoes \"On the job there, old Will! Say, my\nLord, this is living, to come back and get into a regular man-sized pair\nof pants. They can talk all they want to about the city, but my idea of\na good time is to loaf around and see you boys and catch a gamey bass!\"\n\nHe hustled up the walk and blared at Carol, \"Where's that little fellow?\nI hear you've got one fine big he-boy that you're holding out on me!\"\n\n\"He's gone to bed,\" rather briefly.\n\n\"I know. And rules are rules, these days. Kids get routed through the\nshop like a motor. But look here, sister; I'm one great hand at busting\nrules. Come on now, let Uncle Perce have a look at him. Please now,\nsister?\"\n\nHe put his arm about her waist; it was a large, strong, sophisticated\narm, and very agreeable; he grinned at her with a devastating\nknowingness, while Kennicott glowed inanely. She flushed; she was\nalarmed by the ease with which the big-city man invaded her guarded\npersonality. She was glad, in retreat, to scamper ahead of the two men\nup-stairs to the hall-room in which Hugh slept. All the way Kennicott\nmuttered, \"Well, well, say, gee whittakers but it's good to have you\nback, certainly is good to see you!\"\n\nHugh lay on his stomach, making an earnest business of sleeping. He\nburrowed his eyes in the dwarf blue pillow to escape the electric light,\nthen sat up abruptly, small and frail in his woolly nightdrawers, his\nfloss of brown hair wild, the pillow clutched to his breast. He\nwailed. He stared at the stranger, in a manner of patient dismissal.\nHe explained confidentially to Carol, \"Daddy wouldn't let it be morning\nyet. What does the pillow say?\"\n\nBresnahan dropped his arm caressingly on Carol's shoulder; he\npronounced, \"My Lord, you're a lucky girl to have a fine young husk like\nthat. I figure Will knew what he was doing when he persuaded you to take\na chance on an old bum like him! They tell me you come from St. Paul.\nWe're going to get you to come to Boston some day.\" He leaned over\nthe bed. \"Young man, you're the slickest sight I've seen this side of\nBoston. With your permission, may we present you with a slight token of\nour regard and appreciation of your long service?\"\n\nHe held out a red rubber Pierrot. Hugh remarked, \"Gimme it,\" hid it\nunder the bedclothes, and stared at Bresnahan as though he had never\nseen the man before.\n\nFor once Carol permitted herself the spiritual luxury of not asking\n\"Why, Hugh dear, what do you say when some one gives you a present?\"\nThe great man was apparently waiting. They stood in inane suspense till\nBresnahan led them out, rumbling, \"How about planning a fishing-trip,\nWill?\"\n\nHe remained for half an hour. Always he told Carol what a charming\nperson she was; always he looked at her knowingly.\n\n\"Yes. He probably would make a woman fall in love with him. But it\nwouldn't last a week. I'd get tired of his confounded buoyancy.\nHis hypocrisy. He's a spiritual bully. He makes me rude to him in\nself-defense. Oh yes, he is glad to be here. He does like us. He's so\ngood an actor that he convinces his own self. . . . I'd HATE him in\nBoston. He'd have all the obvious big-city things. Limousines.\nDiscreet evening-clothes. Order a clever dinner at a smart restaurant.\nDrawing-room decorated by the best firm--but the pictures giving him\naway. I'd rather talk to Guy Pollock in his dusty office. . . . How I\nlie! His arm coaxed my shoulder and his eyes dared me not to admire him.\nI'd be afraid of him. I hate him! . . . Oh, the inconceivable egotistic\nimagination of women! All this stew of analysis about a man, a good,\ndecent, friendly, efficient man, because he was kind to me, as Will's\nwife!\"\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThe Kennicotts, the Elders, the Clarks, and Bresnahan went fishing\nat Red Squaw Lake. They drove forty miles to the lake in Elder's new\nCadillac. There was much laughter and bustle at the start, much storing\nof lunch-baskets and jointed poles, much inquiry as to whether it would\nreally bother Carol to sit with her feet up on a roll of shawls.\nWhen they were ready to go Mrs. Clark lamented, \"Oh, Sam, I forgot\nmy magazine,\" and Bresnahan bullied, \"Come on now, if you women think\nyou're going to be literary, you can't go with us tough guys!\" Every\none laughed a great deal, and as they drove on Mrs. Clark explained that\nthough probably she would not have read it, still, she might have wanted\nto, while the other girls had a nap in the afternoon, and she was right\nin the middle of a serial--it was an awfully exciting story--it seems\nthat this girl was a Turkish dancer (only she was really the daughter of\nan American lady and a Russian prince) and men kept running after her,\njust disgustingly, but she remained pure, and there was a scene----\n\nWhile the men floated on the lake, casting for black bass, the women\nprepared lunch and yawned. Carol was a little resentful of the manner in\nwhich the men assumed that they did not care to fish. \"I don't want to\ngo with them, but I would like the privilege of refusing.\"\n\nThe lunch was long and pleasant. It was a background for the talk of the\ngreat man come home, hints of cities and large imperative affairs and\nfamous people, jocosely modest admissions that, yes, their friend Perce\nwas doing about as well as most of these \"Boston swells that think so\nmuch of themselves because they come from rich old families and went to\ncollege and everything. Believe me, it's us new business men that are\nrunning Beantown today, and not a lot of fussy old bucks snoozing in\ntheir clubs!\"\n\nCarol realized that he was not one of the sons of Gopher Prairie who,\nif they do not actually starve in the East, are invariably spoken of as\n\"highly successful\"; and she found behind his too incessant flattery a\ngenuine affection for his mates. It was in the matter of the war that\nhe most favored and thrilled them. Dropping his voice while they bent\nnearer (there was no one within two miles to overhear), he disclosed\nthe fact that in both Boston and Washington he'd been getting a lot of\ninside stuff on the war--right straight from headquarters--he was in\ntouch with some men--couldn't name them but they were darn high up in\nboth the War and State Departments--and he would say--only for Pete's\nsake they mustn't breathe one word of this; it was strictly on the\nQ.T. and not generally known outside of Washington--but just between\nourselves--and they could take this for gospel--Spain had finally\ndecided to join the Entente allies in the Grand Scrap. Yes, sir, there'd\nbe two million fully equipped Spanish soldiers fighting with us in\nFrance in one month now. Some surprise for Germany, all right!\n\n\"How about the prospects for revolution in Germany?\" reverently asked\nKennicott.\n\nThe authority grunted, \"Nothing to it. The one thing you can bet on is\nthat no matter what happens to the German people, win or lose, they'll\nstick by the Kaiser till hell freezes over. I got that absolutely\nstraight, from a fellow who's on the inside of the inside in Washington.\nNo, sir! I don't pretend to know much about international affairs\nbut one thing you can put down as settled is that Germany will be a\nHohenzollern empire for the next forty years. At that, I don't know as\nit's so bad. The Kaiser and the Junkers keep a firm hand on a lot\nof these red agitators who'd be worse than a king if they could get\ncontrol.\"\n\n\"I'm terribly interested in this uprising that overthrew the Czar in\nRussia,\" suggested Carol. She had finally been conquered by the man's\nwizard knowledge of affairs.\n\nKennicott apologized for her: \"Carrie's nuts about this Russian\nrevolution. Is there much to it, Perce?\"\n\n\"There is not!\" Bresnahan said flatly. \"I can speak by the book there.\nCarol, honey, I'm surprised to find you talking like a New York Russian\nJew, or one of these long-hairs! I can tell you, only you don't need to\nlet every one in on it, this is confidential, I got it from a man who's\nclose to the State Department, but as a matter of fact the Czar will\nbe back in power before the end of the year. You read a lot about his\nretiring and about his being killed, but I know he's got a big army back\nof him, and he'll show these damn agitators, lazy beggars hunting for\na soft berth bossing the poor goats that fall for 'em, he'll show 'em\nwhere they get off!\"\n\nCarol was sorry to hear that the Czar was coming back, but she said\nnothing. The others had looked vacant at the mention of a country so far\naway as Russia. Now they edged in and asked Bresnahan what he thought\nabout the Packard car, investments in Texas oil-wells, the comparative\nmerits of young men born in Minnesota and in Massachusetts, the question\nof prohibition, the future cost of motor tires, and wasn't it true that\nAmerican aviators put it all over these Frenchmen?\n\nThey were glad to find that he agreed with them on every point.\n\nAs she heard Bresnahan announce, \"We're perfectly willing to talk to\nany committee the men may choose, but we're not going to stand for some\noutside agitator butting in and telling us how we're going to run our\nplant!\" Carol remembered that Jackson Elder (now meekly receiving New\nIdeas) had said the same thing in the same words.\n\nWhile Sam Clark was digging up from his memory a long and immensely\ndetailed story of the crushing things he had said to a Pullman porter,\nnamed George, Bresnahan hugged his knees and rocked and watched Carol.\nShe wondered if he did not understand the laboriousness of the smile\nwith which she listened to Kennicott's account of the \"good one he had\non Carrie,\" that marital, coyly improper, ten-times-told tale of how she\nhad forgotten to attend to Hugh because she was \"all het up pounding the\nbox\"--which may be translated as \"eagerly playing the piano.\" She was\ncertain that Bresnahan saw through her when she pretended not to hear\nKennicott's invitation to join a game of cribbage. She feared the\ncomments he might make; she was irritated by her fear.\n\nShe was equally irritated, when the motor returned through Gopher\nPrairie, to find that she was proud of sharing in Bresnahan's kudos\nas people waved, and Juanita Haydock leaned from a window. She said to\nherself, \"As though I cared whether I'm seen with this fat phonograph!\"\nand simultaneously, \"Everybody has noticed how much Will and I are\nplaying with Mr. Bresnahan.\"\n\nThe town was full of his stories, his friendliness, his memory for\nnames, his clothes, his trout-flies, his generosity. He had given\na hundred dollars to Father Klubok the priest, and a hundred to the\nReverend Mr. Zitterel the Baptist minister, for Americanization work.\n\nAt the Bon Ton, Carol heard Nat Hicks the tailor exulting:\n\n\"Old Perce certainly pulled a good one on this fellow Bjornstam that\nalways is shooting off his mouth. He's supposed to of settled down since\nhe got married, but Lord, those fellows that think they know it all,\nthey never change. Well, the Red Swede got the grand razz handed to him,\nall right. He had the nerve to breeze up to Perce, at Dave Dyer's, and\nhe said, he said to Perce, 'I've always wanted to look at a man that was\nso useful that folks would pay him a million dollars for existing,' and\nPerce gave him the once-over and come right back, 'Have, eh?' he says.\n'Well,' he says, 'I've been looking for a man so useful sweeping floors\nthat I could pay him four dollars a day. Want the job, my friend?' Ha,\nha, ha! Say, you know how lippy Bjornstam is? Well for once he didn't\nhave a thing to say. He tried to get fresh, and tell what a rotten\ntown this is, and Perce come right back at him, 'If you don't like this\ncountry, you better get out of it and go back to Germany, where you\nbelong!' Say, maybe us fellows didn't give Bjornstam the horse-laugh\nthough! Oh, Perce is the white-haired boy in this burg, all rightee!\"\n\n\nV\n\n\nBresnahan had borrowed Jackson Elder's motor; he stopped at the\nKennicotts'; he bawled at Carol, rocking with Hugh on the porch, \"Better\ncome for a ride.\"\n\nShe wanted to snub him. \"Thanks so much, but I'm being maternal.\"\n\n\"Bring him along! Bring him along!\" Bresnahan was out of the seat,\nstalking up the sidewalk, and the rest of her protests and dignities\nwere feeble.\n\nShe did not bring Hugh along.\n\nBresnahan was silent for a mile, in words, But he looked at her as\nthough he meant her to know that he understood everything she thought.\n\nShe observed how deep was his chest.\n\n\"Lovely fields over there,\" he said.\n\n\"You really like them? There's no profit in them.\"\n\nHe chuckled. \"Sister, you can't get away with it. I'm onto you. You\nconsider me a big bluff. Well, maybe I am. But so are you, my dear--and\npretty enough so that I'd try to make love to you, if I weren't afraid\nyou'd slap me.\"\n\n\"Mr. Bresnahan, do you talk that way to your wife's friends? And do you\ncall them 'sister'?\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact, I do! And I make 'em like it. Score two!\" But his\nchuckle was not so rotund, and he was very attentive to the ammeter.\n\nIn a moment he was cautiously attacking: \"That's a wonderful boy, Will\nKennicott. Great work these country practitioners are doing. The other\nday, in Washington, I was talking to a big scientific shark, a professor\nin Johns Hopkins medical school, and he was saying that no one has ever\nsufficiently appreciated the general practitioner and the sympathy\nand help he gives folks. These crack specialists, the young scientific\nfellows, they're so cocksure and so wrapped up in their laboratories\nthat they miss the human element. Except in the case of a few freak\ndiseases that no respectable human being would waste his time having,\nit's the old doc that keeps a community well, mind and body. And\nstrikes me that Will is one of the steadiest and clearest-headed counter\npractitioners I've ever met. Eh?\"\n\n\"I'm sure he is. He's a servant of reality.\"\n\n\"Come again? Um. Yes. All of that, whatever that is. . . . Say, child,\nyou don't care a whole lot for Gopher Prairie, if I'm not mistaken.\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"There's where you're missing a big chance. There's nothing to these\ncities. Believe me, I KNOW! This is a good town, as they go. You're\nlucky to be here. I wish I could shy on!\"\n\n\"Very well, why don't you?\"\n\n\"Huh? Why--Lord--can't get away fr----\"\n\n\"You don't have to stay. I do! So I want to change it. Do you know that\nmen like you, prominent men, do quite a reasonable amount of harm by\ninsisting that your native towns and native states are perfect? It's\nyou who encourage the denizens not to change. They quote you, and go on\nbelieving that they live in paradise, and----\" She clenched her fist.\n\"The incredible dullness of it!\"\n\n\"Suppose you were right. Even so, don't you think you waste a lot of\nthundering on one poor scared little town? Kind of mean!\"\n\n\"I tell you it's dull. DULL!\"\n\n\"The folks don't find it dull. These couples like the Haydocks have a\nhigh old time; dances and cards----\"\n\n\"They don't. They're bored. Almost every one here is. Vacuousness and\nbad manners and spiteful gossip--that's what I hate.\"\n\n\"Those things--course they're here. So are they in Boston! And every\nplace else! Why, the faults you find in this town are simply human\nnature, and never will be changed.\"\n\n\"Perhaps. But in a Boston all the good Carols (I'll admit I have no\nfaults) can find one another and play. But here--I'm alone, in a stale\npool--except as it's stirred by the great Mr. Bresnahan!\"\n\n\"My Lord, to hear you tell it, a fellow 'd think that all the denizens,\nas you impolitely call 'em, are so confoundedly unhappy that it's a\nwonder they don't all up and commit suicide. But they seem to struggle\nalong somehow!\"\n\n\"They don't know what they miss. And anybody can endure anything. Look\nat men in mines and in prisons.\"\n\nHe drew up on the south shore of Lake Minniemashie. He glanced across\nthe reeds reflected on the water, the quiver of wavelets like crumpled\ntinfoil, the distant shores patched with dark woods, silvery oats and\ndeep yellow wheat. He patted her hand. \"Sis----Carol, you're a darling\ngirl, but you're difficult. Know what I think?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Humph. Maybe you do, but----My humble (not too humble!) opinion is that\nyou like to be different. You like to think you're peculiar. Why, if you\nknew how many tens of thousands of women, especially in New York, say\njust what you do, you'd lose all the fun of thinking you're a lone\ngenius and you'd be on the band-wagon whooping it up for Gopher Prairie\nand a good decent family life. There's always about a million young\nwomen just out of college who want to teach their grandmothers how to\nsuck eggs.\"\n\n\"How proud you are of that homely rustic metaphor! You use it at\n'banquets' and directors' meetings, and boast of your climb from a\nhumble homestead.\"\n\n\"Huh! You may have my number. I'm not telling. But look here: You're\nso prejudiced against Gopher Prairie that you overshoot the mark;\nyou antagonize those who might be inclined to agree with you in some\nparticulars but----Great guns, the town can't be all wrong!\"\n\n\"No, it isn't. But it could be. Let me tell you a fable. Imagine a\ncavewoman complaining to her mate. She doesn't like one single thing;\nshe hates the damp cave, the rats running over her bare legs, the stiff\nskin garments, the eating of half-raw meat, her husband's bushy face,\nthe constant battles, and the worship of the spirits who will hoodoo her\nunless she gives the priests her best claw necklace. Her man protests,\n'But it can't all be wrong!' and he thinks he has reduced her to\nabsurdity. Now you assume that a world which produces a Percy Bresnahan\nand a Velvet Motor Company must be civilized. It is? Aren't we only\nabout half-way along in barbarism? I suggest Mrs. Bogart as a test. And\nwe'll continue in barbarism just as long as people as nearly intelligent\nas you continue to defend things as they are because they are.\"\n\n\"You're a fair spieler, child. But, by golly, I'd like to see you try\nto design a new manifold, or run a factory and keep a lot of your fellow\nreds from Czech-slovenski-magyar-godknowswheria on the job! You'd drop\nyour theories so darn quick! I'm not any defender of things as they are.\nSure. They're rotten. Only I'm sensible.\"\n\nHe preached his gospel: love of outdoors, Playing the Game, loyalty\nto friends. She had the neophyte's shock of discovery that, outside\nof tracts, conservatives do not tremble and find no answer when\nan iconoclast turns on them, but retort with agility and confusing\nstatistics.\n\nHe was so much the man, the worker, the friend, that she liked him when\nshe most tried to stand out against him; he was so much the successful\nexecutive that she did not want him to despise her. His manner of\nsneering at what he called \"parlor socialists\" (though the phrase was\nnot overwhelmingly new) had a power which made her wish to placate his\ncompany of well-fed, speed-loving administrators. When he demanded,\n\"Would you like to associate with nothing but a lot of turkey-necked,\nhorn-spectacled nuts that have adenoids and need a hair-cut, and that\nspend all their time kicking about 'conditions' and never do a lick of\nwork?\" she said, \"No, but just the same----\" When he asserted, \"Even\nif your cavewoman was right in knocking the whole works, I bet some\nred-blooded Regular Fellow, some real He-man, found her a nice dry cave,\nand not any whining criticizing radical,\" she wriggled her head feebly,\nbetween a nod and a shake.\n\nHis large hands, sensual lips, easy voice supported his self-confidence.\nHe made her feel young and soft--as Kennicott had once made her feel.\nShe had nothing to say when he bent his powerful head and experimented,\n\"My dear, I'm sorry I'm going away from this town. You'd be a darling\nchild to play with. You ARE pretty! Some day in Boston I'll show you how\nwe buy a lunch. Well, hang it, got to be starting back.\"\n\nThe only answer to his gospel of beef which she could find, when she was\nhome, was a wail of \"But just the same----\"\n\nShe did not see him again before he departed for Washington.\n\nHis eyes remained. His glances at her lips and hair and shoulders had\nrevealed to her that she was not a wife-and-mother alone, but a girl;\nthat there still were men in the world, as there had been in college\ndays.\n\nThat admiration led her to study Kennicott, to tear at the shroud of\nintimacy, to perceive the strangeness of the most familiar.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nI\n\nALL that midsummer month Carol was sensitive to Kennicott. She recalled\na hundred grotesqueries: her comic dismay at his having chewed tobacco,\nthe evening when she had tried to read poetry to him; matters which had\nseemed to vanish with no trace or sequence. Always she repeated that\nhe had been heroically patient in his desire to join the army. She made\nmuch of her consoling affection for him in little things. She liked the\nhomeliness of his tinkering about the house; his strength and handiness\nas he tightened the hinges of a shutter; his boyishness when he ran\nto her to be comforted because he had found rust in the barrel of his\npump-gun. But at the highest he was to her another Hugh, without the\nglamor of Hugh's unknown future.\n\nThere was, late in June, a day of heat-lightning.\n\nBecause of the work imposed by the absence of the other doctors the\nKennicotts had not moved to the lake cottage but remained in town, dusty\nand irritable. In the afternoon, when she went to Oleson & McGuire's\n(formerly Dahl & Oleson's), Carol was vexed by the assumption of\nthe youthful clerk, recently come from the farm, that he had to be\nneighborly and rude. He was no more brusquely familiar than a dozen\nother clerks of the town, but her nerves were heat-scorched.\n\nWhen she asked for codfish, for supper, he grunted, \"What d'you want\nthat darned old dry stuff for?\"\n\n\"I like it!\"\n\n\"Punk! Guess the doc can afford something better than that. Try some of\nthe new wienies we got in. Swell. The Haydocks use 'em.\"\n\nShe exploded. \"My dear young man, it is not your duty to instruct me in\nhousekeeping, and it doesn't particularly concern me what the Haydocks\ncondescend to approve!\"\n\nHe was hurt. He hastily wrapped up the leprous fragment of fish; he\ngaped as she trailed out. She lamented, \"I shouldn't have spoken so. He\ndidn't mean anything. He doesn't know when he is being rude.\"\n\nHer repentance was not proof against Uncle Whittier when she stopped in\nat his grocery for salt and a package of safety matches. Uncle Whittier,\nin a shirt collarless and soaked with sweat in a brown streak down his\nback, was whining at a clerk, \"Come on now, get a hustle on and lug\nthat pound cake up to Mis' Cass's. Some folks in this town think a\nstorekeeper ain't got nothing to do but chase out 'phone-orders. . . .\nHello, Carrie. That dress you got on looks kind of low in the neck to\nme. May be decent and modest--I suppose I'm old-fashioned--but I never\nthought much of showing the whole town a woman's bust! Hee, hee, hee!\n. . . Afternoon, Mrs. Hicks. Sage? Just out of it. Lemme sell you some\nother spices. Heh?\" Uncle Whittier was nasally indignant \"CERTAINLY! Got\nPLENTY other spices jus' good as sage for any purp'se whatever! What's\nthe matter with--well, with allspice?\" When Mrs. Hicks had gone, he\nraged, \"Some folks don't know what they want!\"\n\n\"Sweating sanctimonious bully--my husband's uncle!\" thought Carol.\n\nShe crept into Dave Dyer's. Dave held up his arms with, \"Don't shoot!\nI surrender!\" She smiled, but it occurred to her that for nearly five\nyears Dave had kept up this game of pretending that she threatened his\nlife.\n\nAs she went dragging through the prickly-hot street she reflected that a\ncitizen of Gopher Prairie does not have jests--he has a jest. Every\ncold morning for five winters Lyman Cass had remarked, \"Fair to middlin'\nchilly--get worse before it gets better.\" Fifty times had Ezra Stowbody\ninformed the public that Carol had once asked, \"Shall I indorse this\ncheck on the back?\" Fifty times had Sam Clark called to her, \"Where'd\nyou steal that hat?\" Fifty times had the mention of Barney Cahoon,\nthe town drayman, like a nickel in a slot produced from Kennicott the\napocryphal story of Barney's directing a minister, \"Come down to the\ndepot and get your case of religious books--they're leaking!\"\n\nShe came home by the unvarying route. She knew every house-front, every\nstreet-crossing, every billboard, every tree, every dog. She knew every\nblackened banana-skin and empty cigarette-box in the gutters. She knew\nevery greeting. When Jim Howland stopped and gaped at her there was\nno possibility that he was about to confide anything but his grudging,\n\"Well, haryuh t'day?\"\n\nAll her future life, this same red-labeled bread-crate in front of the\nbakery, this same thimble-shaped crack in the sidewalk a quarter of a\nblock beyond Stowbody's granite hitching-post----\n\nShe silently handed her purchases to the silent Oscarina. She sat on the\nporch, rocking, fanning, twitchy with Hugh's whining.\n\nKennicott came home, grumbled, \"What the devil is the kid yapping\nabout?\"\n\n\"I guess you can stand it ten minutes if I can stand it all day!\"\n\nHe came to supper in his shirt sleeves, his vest partly open, revealing\ndiscolored suspenders.\n\n\"Why don't you put on your nice Palm Beach suit, and take off that\nhideous vest?\" she complained.\n\n\"Too much trouble. Too hot to go up-stairs.\"\n\nShe realized that for perhaps a year she had not definitely looked\nat her husband. She regarded his table-manners. He violently chased\nfragments of fish about his plate with a knife and licked the knife\nafter gobbling them. She was slightly sick. She asserted, \"I'm\nridiculous. What do these things matter! Don't be so simple!\" But she\nknew that to her they did matter, these solecisms and mixed tenses of\nthe table.\n\nShe realized that they found little to say; that, incredibly, they were\nlike the talked-out couples whom she had pitied at restaurants.\n\nBresnahan would have spouted in a lively, exciting, unreliable manner.\n\nShe realized that Kennicott's clothes were seldom pressed. His coat was\nwrinkled; his trousers would flap at the knees when he arose. His shoes\nwere unblacked, and they were of an elderly shapelessness. He refused\nto wear soft hats; cleaved to a hard derby, as a symbol of virility and\nprosperity; and sometimes he forgot to take it off in the house. She\npeeped at his cuffs. They were frayed in prickles of starched linen.\nShe had turned them once; she clipped them every week; but when she had\nbegged him to throw the shirt away, last Sunday morning at the crisis\nof the weekly bath, he had uneasily protested, \"Oh, it'll wear quite a\nwhile yet.\"\n\nHe was shaved (by himself or more socially by Del Snafflin) only three\ntimes a week. This morning had not been one of the three times.\n\nYet he was vain of his new turn-down collars and sleek ties; he often\nspoke of the \"sloppy dressing\" of Dr. McGanum; and he laughed at old men\nwho wore detachable cuffs or Gladstone collars.\n\nCarol did not care much for the creamed codfish that evening.\n\nShe noted that his nails were jagged and ill-shaped from his habit of\ncutting them with a pocket-knife and despising a nail-file as effeminate\nand urban. That they were invariably clean, that his were the scoured\nfingers of the surgeon, made his stubborn untidiness the more jarring.\nThey were wise hands, kind hands, but they were not the hands of love.\n\nShe remembered him in the days of courtship. He had tried to please her,\nthen, had touched her by sheepishly wearing a colored band on his straw\nhat. Was it possible that those days of fumbling for each other were\ngone so completely? He had read books, to impress her; had said (she\nrecalled it ironically) that she was to point out his every fault; had\ninsisted once, as they sat in the secret place beneath the walls of Fort\nSnelling----\n\nShe shut the door on her thoughts. That was sacred ground. But it WAS a\nshame that----\n\nShe nervously pushed away her cake and stewed apricots.\n\nAfter supper, when they had been driven in from the porch by mosquitos,\nwhen Kennicott had for the two-hundredth time in five years commented,\n\"We must have a new screen on the porch--lets all the bugs in,\" they sat\nreading, and she noted, and detested herself for noting, and noted again\nhis habitual awkwardness. He slumped down in one chair, his legs up on\nanother, and he explored the recesses of his left ear with the end of\nhis little finger--she could hear the faint smack--he kept it up--he\nkept it up----\n\nHe blurted, \"Oh. Forgot tell you. Some of the fellows coming in to play\npoker this evening. Suppose we could have some crackers and cheese and\nbeer?\"\n\nShe nodded.\n\n\"He might have mentioned it before. Oh well, it's his house.\"\n\nThe poker-party straggled in: Sam Clark, Jack Elder, Dave Dyer, Jim\nHowland. To her they mechanically said, \"'Devenin',\" but to Kennicott,\nin a heroic male manner, \"Well, well, shall we start playing? Got a\nhunch I'm going to lick somebody real bad.\" No one suggested that she\njoin them. She told herself that it was her own fault, because she was\nnot more friendly; but she remembered that they never asked Mrs. Sam\nClark to play.\n\nBresnahan would have asked her.\n\nShe sat in the living-room, glancing across the hall at the men as they\nhumped over the dining table.\n\nThey were in shirt sleeves; smoking, chewing, spitting incessantly;\nlowering their voices for a moment so that she did not hear what they\nsaid and afterward giggling hoarsely; using over and over the canonical\nphrases: \"Three to dole,\" \"I raise you a finif,\" \"Come on now, ante up;\nwhat do you think this is, a pink tea?\" The cigar-smoke was acrid and\npervasive. The firmness with which the men mouthed their cigars made the\nlower part of their faces expressionless, heavy, unappealing. They were\nlike politicians cynically dividing appointments.\n\nHow could they understand her world?\n\nDid that faint and delicate world exist? Was she a fool? She doubted her\nworld, doubted herself, and was sick in the acid, smoke-stained air.\n\nShe slipped back into brooding upon the habituality of the house.\n\nKennicott was as fixed in routine as an isolated old man. At first\nhe had amorously deceived himself into liking her experiments with\nfood--the one medium in which she could express imagination--but now\nhe wanted only his round of favorite dishes: steak, roast beef, boiled\npig's-feet, oatmeal, baked apples. Because at some more flexible period\nhe had advanced from oranges to grape-fruit he considered himself an\nepicure.\n\nDuring their first autumn she had smiled over his affection for his\nhunting-coat, but now that the leather had come unstitched in dribbles\nof pale yellow thread, and tatters of canvas, smeared with dirt of the\nfields and grease from gun-cleaning, hung in a border of rags, she hated\nthe thing.\n\nWasn't her whole life like that hunting-coat?\n\nShe knew every nick and brown spot on each piece of the set of china\npurchased by Kennicott's mother in 1895--discreet china with a pattern\nof washed-out forget-me-nots, rimmed with blurred gold: the gravy-boat,\nin a saucer which did not match, the solemn and evangelical covered\nvegetable-dishes, the two platters.\n\nTwenty times had Kennicott sighed over the fact that Bea had broken the\nother platter--the medium-sized one.\n\nThe kitchen.\n\nDamp black iron sink, damp whitey-yellow drain-board with shreds of\ndiscolored wood which from long scrubbing were as soft as cotton thread,\nwarped table, alarm clock, stove bravely blackened by Oscarina but an\nabomination in its loose doors and broken drafts and oven that never\nwould keep an even heat.\n\nCarol had done her best by the kitchen: painted it white, put up\ncurtains, replaced a six-year-old calendar by a color print. She had\nhoped for tiling, and a kerosene range for summer cooking, but Kennicott\nalways postponed these expenses.\n\nShe was better acquainted with the utensils in the kitchen than with\nVida Sherwin or Guy Pollock. The can-opener, whose soft gray metal\nhandle was twisted from some ancient effort to pry open a window,\nwas more pertinent to her than all the cathedrals in Europe; and\nmore significant than the future of Asia was the never-settled weekly\nquestion as to whether the small kitchen knife with the unpainted handle\nor the second-best buckhorn carving-knife was better for cutting up cold\nchicken for Sunday supper.\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe was ignored by the males till midnight. Her husband called, \"Suppose\nwe could have some eats, Carrie?\" As she passed through the dining-room\nthe men smiled on her, belly-smiles. None of them noticed her while she\nwas serving the crackers and cheese and sardines and beer. They were\ndetermining the exact psychology of Dave Dyer in standing pat, two hours\nbefore.\n\nWhen they were gone she said to Kennicott, \"Your friends have the\nmanners of a barroom. They expect me to wait on them like a servant.\nThey're not so much interested in me as they would be in a waiter,\nbecause they don't have to tip me. Unfortunately! Well, good night.\"\n\nSo rarely did she nag in this petty, hot-weather fashion that he was\nastonished rather than angry. \"Hey! Wait! What's the idea? I must say\nI don't get you. The boys----Barroom? Why, Perce Bresnahan was saying\nthere isn't a finer bunch of royal good fellows anywhere than just the\ncrowd that were here tonight!\"\n\nThey stood in the lower hall. He was too shocked to go on with his\nduties of locking the front door and winding his watch and the clock.\n\n\"Bresnahan! I'm sick of him!\" She meant nothing in particular.\n\n\"Why, Carrie, he's one of the biggest men in the country! Boston just\neats out of his hand!\"\n\n\"I wonder if it does? How do we know but that in Boston, among well-bred\npeople, he may be regarded as an absolute lout? The way he calls women\n'Sister,' and the way----\"\n\n\"Now look here! That'll do! Of course I know you don't mean it--you're\nsimply hot and tired, and trying to work off your peeve on me. But just\nthe same, I won't stand your jumping on Perce. You----It's just like\nyour attitude toward the war--so darn afraid that America will become\nmilitaristic----\"\n\n\"But you are the pure patriot!\"\n\n\"By God, I am!\"\n\n\"Yes, I heard you talking to Sam Clark tonight about ways of avoiding\nthe income tax!\"\n\nHe had recovered enough to lock the door; he clumped up-stairs ahead of\nher, growling, \"You don't know what you're talking about. I'm perfectly\nwilling to pay my full tax--fact, I'm in favor of the income tax--even\nthough I do think it's a penalty on frugality and enterprise--fact, it's\nan unjust, darn-fool tax. But just the same, I'll pay it. Only, I'm not\nidiot enough to pay more than the government makes me pay, and Sam and\nI were just figuring out whether all automobile expenses oughn't to be\nexemptions. I'll take a lot off you, Carrie, but I don't propose for one\nsecond to stand your saying I'm not patriotic. You know mighty well and\ngood that I've tried to get away and join the army. And at the beginning\nof the whole fracas I said--I've said right along--that we ought to have\nentered the war the minute Germany invaded Belgium. You don't get me at\nall. You can't appreciate a man's work. You're abnormal. You've\nfussed so much with these fool novels and books and all this highbrow\njunk----You like to argue!\"\n\nIt ended, a quarter of an hour later, in his calling her a \"neurotic\"\nbefore he turned away and pretended to sleep.\n\nFor the first time they had failed to make peace.\n\n\"There are two races of people, only two, and they live side by\nside. His calls mine 'neurotic'; mine calls his 'stupid.' We'll never\nunderstand each other, never; and it's madness for us to debate--to lie\ntogether in a hot bed in a creepy room--enemies, yoked.\"\n\n\nIII\n\n\nIt clarified in her the longing for a place of her own.\n\n\"While it's so hot, I think I'll sleep in the spare room,\" she said next\nday.\n\n\"Not a bad idea.\" He was cheerful and kindly.\n\nThe room was filled with a lumbering double bed and a cheap pine bureau.\nShe stored the bed in the attic; replaced it by a cot which, with a\ndenim cover, made a couch by day; put in a dressing-table, a rocker\ntransformed by a cretonne cover; had Miles Bjornstam build book-shelves.\n\nKennicott slowly understood that she meant to keep up her seclusion. In\nhis queries, \"Changing the whole room?\" \"Putting your books in there?\"\nshe caught his dismay. But it was so easy, once her door was closed, to\nshut out his worry. That hurt her--the ease of forgetting him.\n\nAunt Bessie Smail sleuthed out this anarchy. She yammered, \"Why, Carrie,\nyou ain't going to sleep all alone by yourself? I don't believe in that.\nMarried folks should have the same room, of course! Don't go getting\nsilly notions. No telling what a thing like that might lead to. Suppose\nI up and told your Uncle Whit that I wanted a room of my own!\"\n\nCarol spoke of recipes for corn-pudding.\n\nBut from Mrs. Dr. Westlake she drew encouragement. She had made an\nafternoon call on Mrs. Westlake. She was for the first time invited\nup-stairs, and found the suave old woman sewing in a white and mahogany\nroom with a small bed.\n\n\"Oh, do you have your own royal apartments, and the doctor his?\" Carol\nhinted.\n\n\"Indeed I do! The doctor says it's bad enough to have to stand my temper\nat meals. Do----\" Mrs. Westlake looked at her sharply. \"Why, don't you\ndo the same thing?\"\n\n\"I've been thinking about it.\" Carol laughed in an embarrassed way.\n\"Then you wouldn't regard me as a complete hussy if I wanted to be by\nmyself now and then?\"\n\n\"Why, child, every woman ought to get off by herself and turn over her\nthoughts--about children, and God, and how bad her complexion is, and\nthe way men don't really understand her, and how much work she finds to\ndo in the house, and how much patience it takes to endure some things in\na man's love.\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Carol said it in a gasp, her hands twisted together. She wanted\nto confess not only her hatred for the Aunt Bessies but her covert\nirritation toward those she best loved: her alienation from Kennicott,\nher disappointment in Guy Pollock, her uneasiness in the presence of\nVida. She had enough self-control to confine herself to, \"Yes. Men! The\ndear blundering souls, we do have to get off and laugh at them.\"\n\n\"Of course we do. Not that you have to laugh at Dr. Kennicott so much,\nbut MY man, heavens, now there's a rare old bird! Reading story-books\nwhen he ought to be tending to business! 'Marcus Westlake,' I say to\nhim, 'you're a romantic old fool.' And does he get angry? He does not!\nHe chuckles and says, 'Yes, my beloved, folks do say that married\npeople grow to resemble each other!' Drat him!\" Mrs. Westlake laughed\ncomfortably.\n\nAfter such a disclosure what could Carol do but return the courtesy by\nremarking that as for Kennicott, he wasn't romantic enough--the darling.\nBefore she left she had babbled to Mrs. Westlake her dislike for Aunt\nBessie, the fact that Kennicott's income was now more than five thousand\na year, her view of the reason why Vida had married Raymie (which\nincluded some thoroughly insincere praise of Raymie's \"kind heart\"), her\nopinion of the library-board, just what Kennicott had said about Mrs.\nCarthal's diabetes, and what Kennicott thought of the several surgeons\nin the Cities.\n\nShe went home soothed by confession, inspirited by finding a new friend.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nThe tragicomedy of the \"domestic situation.\"\n\nOscarina went back home to help on the farm, and Carol had a succession\nof maids, with gaps between. The lack of servants was becoming one\nof the most cramping problems of the prairie town. Increasingly the\nfarmers' daughters rebelled against village dullness, and against the\nunchanged attitude of the Juanitas toward \"hired girls.\" They went off\nto city kitchens, or to city shops and factories, that they might be\nfree and even human after hours.\n\nThe Jolly Seventeen were delighted at Carol's desertion by the loyal\nOscarina. They reminded her that she had said, \"I don't have any trouble\nwith maids; see how Oscarina stays on.\"\n\nBetween incumbencies of Finn maids from the North Woods, Germans from\nthe prairies, occasional Swedes and Norwegians and Icelanders, Carol did\nher own work--and endured Aunt Bessie's skittering in to tell her how to\ndampen a broom for fluffy dust, how to sugar doughnuts, how to stuff\na goose. Carol was deft, and won shy praise from Kennicott, but as her\nshoulder blades began to sting, she wondered how many millions of women\nhad lied to themselves during the death-rimmed years through which they\nhad pretended to enjoy the puerile methods persisting in housework.\n\nShe doubted the convenience and, as a natural sequent, the sanctity of\nthe monogamous and separate home which she had regarded as the basis of\nall decent life.\n\nShe considered her doubts vicious. She refused to remember how many of\nthe women of the Jolly Seventeen nagged their husbands and were nagged\nby them.\n\nShe energetically did not whine to Kennicott. But her eyes ached; she\nwas not the girl in breeches and a flannel shirt who had cooked over a\ncamp-fire in the Colorado mountains five years ago. Her ambition was to\nget to bed at nine; her strongest emotion was resentment over rising at\nhalf-past six to care for Hugh. The back of her neck ached as she got\nout of bed. She was cynical about the joys of a simple laborious life.\nShe understood why workmen and workmen's wives are not grateful to their\nkind employers.\n\nAt mid-morning, when she was momentarily free from the ache in her neck\nand back, she was glad of the reality of work. The hours were living\nand nimble. But she had no desire to read the eloquent little newspaper\nessays in praise of labor which are daily written by the white-browed\njournalistic prophets. She felt independent and (though she hid it) a\nbit surly.\n\nIn cleaning the house she pondered upon the maid's-room. It was a\nslant-roofed, small-windowed hole above the kitchen, oppressive in\nsummer, frigid in winter. She saw that while she had been considering\nherself an unusually good mistress, she had been permitting her friends\nBea and Oscarina to live in a sty. She complained to Kennicott. \"What's\nthe matter with it?\" he growled, as they stood on the perilous stairs\ndodging up from the kitchen. She commented upon the sloping roof of\nunplastered boards stained in brown rings by the rain, the uneven floor,\nthe cot and its tumbled discouraged-looking quilts, the broken rocker,\nthe distorting mirror.\n\n\"Maybe it ain't any Hotel Radisson parlor, but still, it's so much\nbetter than anything these hired girls are accustomed to at home that\nthey think it's fine. Seems foolish to spend money when they wouldn't\nappreciate it.\"\n\nBut that night he drawled, with the casualness of a man who wishes to be\nsurprising and delightful, \"Carrie, don't know but what we might begin\nto think about building a new house, one of these days. How'd you like\nthat?\"\n\n\"W-why----\"\n\n\"I'm getting to the point now where I feel we can afford one--and a\ncorker! I'll show this burg something like a real house! We'll put one\nover on Sam and Harry! Make folks sit up an' take notice!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said.\n\nHe did not go on.\n\nDaily he returned to the subject of the new house, but as to time and\nmode he was indefinite. At first she believed. She babbled of a low\nstone house with lattice windows and tulip-beds, of colonial brick, of\na white frame cottage with green shutters and dormer windows. To her\nenthusiasms he answered, \"Well, ye-es, might be worth thinking about.\nRemember where I put my pipe?\" When she pressed him he fidgeted, \"I\ndon't know; seems to me those kind of houses you speak of have been\noverdone.\"\n\nIt proved that what he wanted was a house exactly like Sam Clark's,\nwhich was exactly like every third new house in every town in the\ncountry: a square, yellow stolidity with immaculate clapboards, a broad\nscreened porch, tidy grass-plots, and concrete walks; a house resembling\nthe mind of a merchant who votes the party ticket straight and goes to\nchurch once a month and owns a good car.\n\nHe admitted, \"Well, yes, maybe it isn't so darn artistic but----Matter\nof fact, though, I don't want a place just like Sam's. Maybe I would cut\noff that fool tower he's got, and I think probably it would look better\npainted a nice cream color. That yellow on Sam's house is too kind\nof flashy. Then there's another kind of house that's mighty nice and\nsubstantial-looking, with shingles, in a nice brown stain, instead of\nclapboards--seen some in Minneapolis. You're way off your base when you\nsay I only like one kind of house!\"\n\nUncle Whittier and Aunt Bessie came in one evening when Carol was\nsleepily advocating a rose-garden cottage.\n\n\"You've had a lot of experience with housekeeping, aunty, and don't you\nthink,\" Kennicott appealed, \"that it would be sensible to have a nice\nsquare house, and pay more attention to getting a crackajack furnace\nthan to all this architecture and doodads?\"\n\nAunt Bessie worked her lips as though they were an elastic band. \"Why\nof course! I know how it is with young folks like you, Carrie; you want\ntowers and bay-windows and pianos and heaven knows what all, but the\nthing to get is closets and a good furnace and a handy place to hang out\nthe washing, and the rest don't matter.\"\n\nUncle Whittier dribbled a little, put his face near to Carol's, and\nsputtered, \"Course it don't! What d'you care what folks think about\nthe outside of your house? It's the inside you're living in. None of my\nbusiness, but I must say you young folks that'd rather have cakes than\npotatoes get me riled.\"\n\nShe reached her room before she became savage. Below, dreadfully\nnear, she could hear the broom-swish of Aunt Bessie's voice, and the\nmop-pounding of Uncle Whittier's grumble. She had a reasonless dread\nthat they would intrude on her, then a fear that she would yield\nto Gopher Prairie's conception of duty toward an Aunt Bessie and go\ndown-stairs to be \"nice.\" She felt the demand for standardized behavior\ncoming in waves from all the citizens who sat in their sitting-rooms\nwatching her with respectable eyes, waiting, demanding, unyielding. She\nsnarled, \"Oh, all right, I'll go!\" She powdered her nose, straightened\nher collar, and coldly marched down-stairs. The three elders ignored\nher. They had advanced from the new house to agreeable general fussing.\nAunt Bessie was saying, in a tone like the munching of dry toast:\n\n\"I do think Mr. Stowbody ought to have had the rain-pipe fixed at our\nstore right away. I went to see him on Tuesday morning before ten, no,\nit was couple minutes after ten, but anyway, it was long before noon--I\nknow because I went right from the bank to the meat market to get some\nsteak--my! I think it's outrageous, the prices Oleson & McGuire charge\nfor their meat, and it isn't as if they gave you a good cut either but\njust any old thing, and I had time to get it, and I stopped in at Mrs.\nBogart's to ask about her rheumatism----\"\n\nCarol was watching Uncle Whittier. She knew from his taut expression\nthat he was not listening to Aunt Bessie but herding his own thoughts,\nand that he would interrupt her bluntly. He did:\n\n\"Will, where c'n I get an extra pair of pants for this coat and vest? D'\nwant to pay too much.\"\n\n\"Well, guess Nat Hicks could make you up a pair. But if I were you, I'd\ndrop into Ike Rifkin's--his prices are lower than the Bon Ton's.\"\n\n\"Humph. Got the new stove in your office yet?\"\n\n\"No, been looking at some at Sam Clark's but----\"\n\n\"Well, y' ought get 't in. Don't do to put off getting a stove all\nsummer, and then have it come cold on you in the fall.\"\n\nCarol smiled upon them ingratiatingly. \"Do you dears mind if I slip up\nto bed? I'm rather tired--cleaned the upstairs today.\"\n\nShe retreated. She was certain that they were discussing her, and foully\nforgiving her. She lay awake till she heard the distant creak of a bed\nwhich indicated that Kennicott had retired. Then she felt safe.\n\nIt was Kennicott who brought up the matter of the Smails at breakfast.\nWith no visible connection he said, \"Uncle Whit is kind of clumsy, but\njust the same, he's a pretty wise old coot. He's certainly making good\nwith the store.\"\n\nCarol smiled, and Kennicott was pleased that she had come to her senses.\n\"As Whit says, after all the first thing is to have the inside of a\nhouse right, and darn the people on the outside looking in!\"\n\nIt seemed settled that the house was to be a sound example of the Sam\nClark school.\n\nKennicott made much of erecting it entirely for her and the baby. He\nspoke of closets for her frocks, and \"a comfy sewing-room.\" But when\nhe drew on a leaf from an old account-book (he was a paper-saver and a\nstring-picker) the plans for the garage, he gave much more attention\nto a cement floor and a work-bench and a gasoline-tank than he had to\nsewing-rooms.\n\nShe sat back and was afraid.\n\nIn the present rookery there were odd things--a step up from the hall\nto the dining-room, a picturesqueness in the shed and bedraggled lilac\nbush. But the new place would be smooth, standardized, fixed. It was\nprobable, now that Kennicott was past forty, and settled, that this\nwould be the last venture he would ever make in building. So long as she\nstayed in this ark, she would always have a possibility of change, but\nonce she was in the new house, there she would sit for all the rest of\nher life--there she would die. Desperately she wanted to put it off,\nagainst the chance of miracles. While Kennicott was chattering about a\npatent swing-door for the garage she saw the swing-doors of a prison.\n\nShe never voluntarily returned to the project. Aggrieved, Kennicott\nstopped drawing plans, and in ten days the new house was forgotten.\n\n\nV\n\n\nEvery year since their marriage Carol had longed for a trip through the\nEast. Every year Kennicott had talked of attending the American Medical\nAssociation convention, \"and then afterwards we could do the East\nup brown. I know New York clean through--spent pretty near a week\nthere--but I would like to see New England and all these historic places\nand have some sea-food.\" He talked of it from February to May, and in\nMay he invariably decided that coming confinement-cases or land-deals\nwould prevent his \"getting away from home-base for very long THIS\nyear--and no sense going till we can do it right.\"\n\nThe weariness of dish-washing had increased her desire to go. She\npictured herself looking at Emerson's manse, bathing in a surf of jade\nand ivory, wearing a trottoir and a summer fur, meeting an aristocratic\nStranger. In the spring Kennicott had pathetically volunteered, \"S'pose\nyou'd like to get in a good long tour this summer, but with Gould and\nMac away and so many patients depending on me, don't see how I can make\nit. By golly, I feel like a tightwad though, not taking you.\" Through\nall this restless July after she had tasted Bresnahan's disturbing\nflavor of travel and gaiety, she wanted to go, but she said nothing.\nThey spoke of and postponed a trip to the Twin Cities. When she\nsuggested, as though it were a tremendous joke, \"I think baby and I\nmight up and leave you, and run off to Cape Cod by ourselves!\" his only\nreaction was \"Golly, don't know but what you may almost have to do that,\nif we don't get in a trip next year.\"\n\nToward the end of July he proposed, \"Say, the Beavers are holding a\nconvention in Joralemon, street fair and everything. We might go down\ntomorrow. And I'd like to see Dr. Calibree about some business. Put in\nthe whole day. Might help some to make up for our trip. Fine fellow, Dr.\nCalibree.\"\n\nJoralemon was a prairie town of the size of Gopher Prairie.\n\nTheir motor was out of order, and there was no passenger-train at an\nearly hour. They went down by freight-train, after the weighty and\nconversational business of leaving Hugh with Aunt Bessie. Carol was\nexultant over this irregular jaunting. It was the first unusual thing,\nexcept the glance of Bresnahan, that had happened since the weaning of\nHugh. They rode in the caboose, the small red cupola-topped car jerked\nalong at the end of the train. It was a roving shanty, the cabin of a\nland schooner, with black oilcloth seats along the side, and for desk, a\npine board to be let down on hinges. Kennicott played seven-up with the\nconductor and two brakemen. Carol liked the blue silk kerchiefs about\nthe brakemen's throats; she liked their welcome to her, and their air of\nfriendly independence. Since there were no sweating passengers crammed\nin beside her, she reveled in the train's slowness. She was part of\nthese lakes and tawny wheat-fields. She liked the smell of hot earth and\nclean grease; and the leisurely chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug of the trucks\nwas a song of contentment in the sun.\n\nShe pretended that she was going to the Rockies. When they reached\nJoralemon she was radiant with holiday-making.\n\nHer eagerness began to lessen the moment they stopped at a red frame\nstation exactly like the one they had just left at Gopher Prairie,\nand Kennicott yawned, \"Right on time. Just in time for dinner at the\nCalibrees'. I 'phoned the doctor from G. P. that we'd be here. 'We'll\ncatch the freight that gets in before twelve,' I told him. He said\nhe'd meet us at the depot and take us right up to the house for dinner.\nCalibree is a good man, and you'll find his wife is a mighty brainy\nlittle woman, bright as a dollar. By golly, there he is.\"\n\nDr. Calibree was a squat, clean-shaven, conscientious-looking man of\nforty. He was curiously like his own brown-painted motor car, with\neye-glasses for windshield. \"Want you to meet my wife, doctor--Carrie,\nmake you 'quainted with Dr. Calibree,\" said Kennicott. Calibree bowed\nquietly and shook her hand, but before he had finished shaking it he was\nconcentrating upon Kennicott with, \"Nice to see you, doctor. Say, don't\nlet me forget to ask you about what you did in that exopthalmic goiter\ncase--that Bohemian woman at Wahkeenyan.\"\n\nThe two men, on the front seat of the car, chanted goiters and ignored\nher. She did not know it. She was trying to feed her illusion of\nadventure by staring at unfamiliar houses . . . drab cottages, artificial\nstone bungalows, square painty stolidities with immaculate clapboards\nand broad screened porches and tidy grass-plots.\n\nCalibree handed her over to his wife, a thick woman who called\nher \"dearie,\" and asked if she was hot and, visibly searching for\nconversation, produced, \"Let's see, you and the doctor have a Little\nOne, haven't you?\" At dinner Mrs. Calibree served the corned beef and\ncabbage and looked steamy, looked like the steamy leaves of cabbage. The\nmen were oblivious of their wives as they gave the social passwords of\nMain Street, the orthodox opinions on weather, crops, and motor cars,\nthen flung away restraint and gyrated in the debauch of shop-talk.\nStroking his chin, drawling in the ecstasy of being erudite, Kennicott\ninquired, \"Say, doctor, what success have you had with thyroid for\ntreatment of pains in the legs before child-birth?\"\n\nCarol did not resent their assumption that she was too ignorant to be\nadmitted to masculine mysteries. She was used to it. But the cabbage and\nMrs. Calibree's monotonous \"I don't know what we're coming to with\nall this difficulty getting hired girls\" were gumming her eyes with\ndrowsiness. She sought to clear them by appealing to Calibree, in a\nmanner of exaggerated liveliness, \"Doctor, have the medical societies\nin Minnesota ever advocated legislation for help to nursing mothers?\"\n\nCalibree slowly revolved toward her. \"Uh--I've never--uh--never looked\ninto it. I don't believe much in getting mixed up in politics.\" He\nturned squarely from her and, peering earnestly at Kennicott, resumed,\n\"Doctor, what's been your experience with unilateral pyelonephritis?\nBuckburn of Baltimore advocates decapsulation and nephrotomy, but seems\nto me----\"\n\nNot till after two did they rise. In the lee of the stonily mature trio\nCarol proceeded to the street fair which added mundane gaiety to the\nannual rites of the United and Fraternal Order of Beavers. Beavers,\nhuman Beavers, were everywhere: thirty-second degree Beavers in gray\nsack suits and decent derbies, more flippant Beavers in crash summer\ncoats and straw hats, rustic Beavers in shirt sleeves and frayed\nsuspenders; but whatever his caste-symbols, every Beaver was\ndistinguished by an enormous shrimp-colored ribbon lettered in silver,\n\"Sir Knight and Brother, U. F. O. B., Annual State Convention.\" On the\nmotherly shirtwaist of each of their wives was a badge \"Sir Knight's\nLady.\" The Duluth delegation had brought their famous Beaver amateur\nband, in Zouave costumes of green velvet jacket, blue trousers, and\nscarlet fez. The strange thing was that beneath their scarlet pride the\nZouaves' faces remained those of American business-men, pink, smooth,\neye-glassed; and as they stood playing in a circle, at the corner of\nMain Street and Second, as they tootled on fifes or with swelling cheeks\nblew into cornets, their eyes remained as owlish as though they were\nsitting at desks under the sign \"This Is My Busy Day.\"\n\nCarol had supposed that the Beavers were average citizens organized for\nthe purposes of getting cheap life-insurance and playing poker at the\nlodge-rooms every second Wednesday, but she saw a large poster which\nproclaimed:\n\n     BEAVERS\n     U. F. O. B.\n\n     The greatest influence for good citizenship in the\n     country.  The jolliest aggregation of red-blooded,\n     open-handed, hustle-em-up good fellows in the world.\n     Joralemon welcomes you to her hospitable city.\n\nKennicott read the poster and to Calibree admired, \"Strong lodge, the\nBeavers. Never joined. Don't know but what I will.\"\n\nCalibree adumbrated, \"They're a good bunch. Good strong lodge. See that\nfellow there that's playing the snare drum? He's the smartest wholesale\ngrocer in Duluth, they say. Guess it would be worth joining. Oh say, are\nyou doing much insurance examining?\"\n\nThey went on to the street fair.\n\nLining one block of Main Street were the \"attractions\"--two hot-dog\nstands, a lemonade and pop-corn stand, a merry-go-round, and booths in\nwhich balls might be thrown at rag dolls, if one wished to throw balls\nat rag dolls. The dignified delegates were shy of the booths, but\ncountry boys with brickred necks and pale-blue ties and bright-yellow\nshoes, who had brought sweethearts into town in somewhat dusty and\nlisted Fords, were wolfing sandwiches, drinking strawberry pop out of\nbottles, and riding the revolving crimson and gold horses. They shrieked\nand giggled; peanut-roasters whistled; the merry-go-round pounded out\nmonotonous music; the barkers bawled, \"Here's your chance--here's\nyour chance--come on here, boy--come on here--give that girl a good\ntime--give her a swell time--here's your chance to win a genuwine gold\nwatch for five cents, half a dime, the twentieth part of a dollah!\"\nThe prairie sun jabbed the unshaded street with shafts that were like\npoisonous thorns the tinny cornices above the brick stores were glaring;\nthe dull breeze scattered dust on sweaty Beavers who crawled along in\ntight scorching new shoes, up two blocks and back, up two blocks and\nback, wondering what to do next, working at having a good time.\n\nCarol's head ached as she trailed behind the unsmiling Calibrees along\nthe block of booths. She chirruped at Kennicott, \"Let's be wild! Let's\nride on the merry-go-round and grab a gold ring!\"\n\nKennicott considered it, and mumbled to Calibree, \"Think you folks would\nlike to stop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?\"\n\nCalibree considered it, and mumbled to his wife, \"Think you'd like to\nstop and try a ride on the merry-go-round?\"\n\nMrs. Calibree smiled in a washed-out manner, and sighed, \"Oh no, I don't\nbelieve I care to much, but you folks go ahead and try it.\"\n\nCalibree stated to Kennicott, \"No, I don't believe we care to a whole\nlot, but you folks go ahead and try it.\"\n\nKennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: \"Let's try it some\nother time, Carrie.\"\n\nShe gave it up. She looked at the town. She saw that in adventuring\nfrom Main Street, Gopher Prairie, to Main Street, Joralemon, she had not\nstirred. There were the same two-story brick groceries with lodge-signs\nabove the awnings; the same one-story wooden millinery shop; the same\nfire-brick garages; the same prairie at the open end of the wide\nstreet; the same people wondering whether the levity of eating a hot-dog\nsandwich would break their taboos.\n\nThey reached Gopher Prairie at nine in the evening.\n\n\"You look kind of hot,\" said Kennicott.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Joralemon is an enterprising town, don't you think so?\" She broke. \"No!\nI think it's an ash-heap.\"\n\n\"Why, Carrie!\"\n\nHe worried over it for a week. While he ground his plate with his knife\nas he energetically pursued fragments of bacon, he peeped at her.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\n\"CARRIE'S all right. She's finicky, but she'll get over it. But I wish\nshe'd hurry up about it! What she can't understand is that a fellow\npractising medicine in a small town like this has got to cut out the\nhighbrow stuff, and not spend all his time going to concerts and\nshining his shoes. (Not but what he might be just as good at all these\nintellectual and art things as some other folks, if he had the time\nfor it!)\" Dr. Will Kennicott was brooding in his office, during a free\nmoment toward the end of the summer afternoon. He hunched down in his\ntilted desk-chair, undid a button of his shirt, glanced at the state\nnews in the back of the Journal of the American Medical Association,\ndropped the magazine, leaned back with his right thumb hooked in the\narm-hole of his vest and his left thumb stroking the back of his hair.\n\n\"By golly, she's taking an awful big chance, though. You'd expect her\nto learn by and by that I won't be a parlor lizard. She says we try\nto 'make her over.' Well, she's always trying to make me over, from a\nperfectly good M. D. into a damn poet with a socialist necktie! She'd\nhave a fit if she knew how many women would be willing to cuddle up to\nFriend Will and comfort him, if he'd give 'em the chance! There's still\na few dames that think the old man isn't so darn unattractive! I'm\nglad I've ducked all that woman-game since I've been married but----Be\nswitched if sometimes I don't feel tempted to shine up to some girl that\nhas sense enough to take life as it is; some frau that doesn't want to\ntalk Longfellow all the time, but just hold my hand and say, 'You look\nall in, honey. Take it easy, and don't try to talk.'\n\n\"Carrie thinks she's such a whale at analyzing folks. Giving the town\nthe once-over. Telling us where we get off. Why, she'd simply turn up\nher toes and croak if she found out how much she doesn't know about the\nhigh old times a wise guy could have in this burg on the Q.T., if he\nwasn't faithful to his wife. But I am. At that, no matter what faults\nshe's got, there's nobody here, no, nor in Minn'aplus either, that's as\nnice-looking and square and bright as Carrie. She ought to of been an\nartist or a writer or one of those things. But once she took a shot at\nliving here, she ought to stick by it. Pretty----Lord yes. But cold. She\nsimply doesn't know what passion is. She simply hasn't got an í-dea how\nhard it is for a full-blooded man to go on pretending to be satisfied\nwith just being endured. It gets awful tiresome, having to feel like a\ncriminal just because I'm normal. She's getting so she doesn't even care\nfor my kissing her. Well----\n\n\"I guess I can weather it, same as I did earning my way through school\nand getting started in practise. But I wonder how long I can stand being\nan outsider in my own home?\"\n\nHe sat up at the entrance of Mrs. Dave Dyer. She slumped into a chair\nand gasped with the heat. He chuckled, \"Well, well, Maud, this is fine.\nWhere's the subscription-list? What cause do I get robbed for, this\ntrip?\"\n\n\"I haven't any subscription-list, Will. I want to see you\nprofessionally.\"\n\n\"And you a Christian Scientist? Have you given that up? What next? New\nThought or Spiritualism?\"\n\n\"No, I have not given it up!\"\n\n\"Strikes me it's kind of a knock on the sisterhood, your coming to see a\ndoctor!\"\n\n\"No, it isn't. It's just that my faith isn't strong enough yet. So there\nnow! And besides, you ARE kind of consoling, Will. I mean as a man, not\njust as a doctor. You're so strong and placid.\"\n\nHe sat on the edge of his desk, coatless, his vest swinging open with\nthe thick gold line of his watch-chain across the gap, his hands in his\ntrousers pockets, his big arms bent and easy. As she purred he cocked\nan interested eye. Maud Dyer was neurotic, religiocentric, faded; her\nemotions were moist, and her figure was unsystematic--splendid thighs\nand arms, with thick ankles, and a body that was bulgy in the wrong\nplaces. But her milky skin was delicious, her eyes were alive, her\nchestnut hair shone, and there was a tender slope from her ears to the\nshadowy place below her jaw.\n\nWith unusual solicitude he uttered his stock phrase, \"Well, what seems\nto be the matter, Maud?\"\n\n\"I've got such a backache all the time. I'm afraid the organic trouble\nthat you treated me for is coming back.\"\n\n\"Any definite signs of it?\"\n\n\"N-no, but I think you'd better examine me.\"\n\n\"Nope. Don't believe it's necessary, Maud. To be honest, between old\nfriends, I think your troubles are mostly imaginary. I can't really\nadvise you to have an examination.\"\n\nShe flushed, looked out of the window. He was conscious that his voice\nwas not impersonal and even.\n\nShe turned quickly. \"Will, you always say my troubles are imaginary. Why\ncan't you be scientific? I've been reading an article about these new\nnerve-specialists, and they claim that lots of 'imaginary' ailments,\nyes, and lots of real pain, too, are what they call psychoses, and they\norder a change in a woman's way of living so she can get on a higher\nplane----\"\n\n\"Wait! Wait! Whoa-up! Wait now! Don't mix up your Christian Science and\nyour psychology! They're two entirely different fads! You'll be mixing\nin socialism next! You're as bad as Carrie, with your 'psychoses.'\nWhy, Good Lord, Maud, I could talk about neuroses and psychoses and\ninhibitions and repressions and complexes just as well as any damn\nspecialist, if I got paid for it, if I was in the city and had the nerve\nto charge the fees that those fellows do. If a specialist stung you for\na hundred-dollar consultation-fee and told you to go to New York to duck\nDave's nagging, you'd do it, to save the hundred dollars! But you know\nme--I'm your neighbor--you see me mowing the lawn--you figure I'm just\na plug general practitioner. If I said, 'Go to New York,' Dave and you\nwould laugh your heads off and say, 'Look at the airs Will is putting\non. What does he think he is?'\n\n\"As a matter of fact, you're right. You have a perfectly well-developed\ncase of repression of sex instinct, and it raises the old Ned with your\nbody. What you need is to get away from Dave and travel, yes, and go to\nevery dog-gone kind of New Thought and Bahai and Swami and Hooptedoodle\nmeeting you can find. I know it, well 's you do. But how can I advise\nit? Dave would be up here taking my hide off. I'm willing to be family\nphysician and priest and lawyer and plumber and wet-nurse, but I draw\nthe line at making Dave loosen up on money. Too hard a job in weather\nlike this! So, savvy, my dear? Believe it will rain if this heat\nkeeps----\"\n\n\"But, Will, he'd never give it to me on my say-so. He'd never let me\ngo away. You know how Dave is: so jolly and liberal in society, and oh,\njust LOVES to match quarters, and such a perfect sport if he loses! But\nat home he pinches a nickel till the buffalo drips blood. I have to nag\nhim for every single dollar.\"\n\n\"Sure, I know, but it's your fight, honey. Keep after him. He'd simply\nresent my butting in.\"\n\nHe crossed over and patted her shoulder. Outside the window, beyond the\nfly-screen that was opaque with dust and cottonwood lint, Main Street\nwas hushed except for the impatient throb of a standing motor car. She\ntook his firm hand, pressed his knuckles against her cheek.\n\n\"O Will, Dave is so mean and little and noisy--the shrimp! You're\nso calm. When he's cutting up at parties I see you standing back and\nwatching him--the way a mastiff watches a terrier.\"\n\nHe fought for professional dignity with, \"Dave 's not a bad fellow.\"\n\nLingeringly she released his hand. \"Will, drop round by the house this\nevening and scold me. Make me be good and sensible. And I'm so lonely.\"\n\n\"If I did, Dave would be there, and we'd have to play cards. It's his\nevening off from the store.\"\n\n\"No. The clerk just got called to Corinth--mother sick. Dave will be in\nthe store till midnight. Oh, come on over. There's some lovely beer on\nthe ice, and we can sit and talk and be all cool and lazy. That wouldn't\nbe wrong of us, WOULD it!\"\n\n\"No, no, course it wouldn't be wrong. But still, oughtn't to----\" He saw\nCarol, slim black and ivory, cool, scornful of intrigue.\n\n\"All right. But I'll be so lonely.\"\n\nHer throat seemed young, above her loose blouse of muslin and\nmachine-lace.\n\n\"Tell you, Maud: I'll drop in just for a minute, if I happen to be\ncalled down that way.\"\n\n\"If you'd like,\" demurely. \"O Will, I just want comfort. I know you're\nall married, and my, such a proud papa, and of course now----If I could\njust sit near you in the dusk, and be quiet, and forget Dave! You WILL\ncome?\"\n\n\"Sure I will!\"\n\n\"I'll expect you. I'll be lonely if you don't come! Good-by.\"\n\nHe cursed himself: \"Darned fool, what 'd I promise to go for? I'll\nhave to keep my promise, or she'll feel hurt. She's a good, decent,\naffectionate girl, and Dave's a cheap skate, all right. She's got more\nlife to her than Carol has. All my fault, anyway. Why can't I be more\ncagey, like Calibree and McGanum and the rest of the doctors? Oh, I\nam, but Maud's such a demanding idiot. Deliberately bamboozling me into\ngoing up there tonight. Matter of principle: ought not to let her get\naway with it. I won't go. I'll call her up and tell her I won't go.\nMe, with Carrie at home, finest little woman in the world, and a\nmessy-minded female like Maud Dyer--no, SIR! Though there's no need of\nhurting her feelings. I may just drop in for a second, to tell her I\ncan't stay. All my fault anyway; ought never to have started in and\njollied Maud along in the old days. If it's my fault, I've got no right\nto punish Maud. I could just drop in for a second and then pretend I\nhad a country call and beat it. Damn nuisance, though, having to fake up\nexcuses. Lord, why can't the women let you alone? Just because once or\ntwice, seven hundred million years ago, you were a poor fool, why can't\nthey let you forget it? Maud's own fault. I'll stay strictly away. Take\nCarrie to the movies, and forget Maud. . . . But it would be kind of hot\nat the movies tonight.\"\n\nHe fled from himself. He rammed on his hat, threw his coat over his arm,\nbanged the door, locked it, tramped downstairs. \"I won't go!\" he said\nsturdily and, as he said it, he would have given a good deal to know\nwhether he was going.\n\nHe was refreshed, as always, by the familiar windows and faces. It\nrestored his soul to have Sam Clark trustingly bellow, \"Better come down\nto the lake this evening and have a swim, doc. Ain't you going to open\nyour cottage at all, this summer? By golly, we miss you.\" He noted the\nprogress on the new garage. He had triumphed in the laying of every\ncourse of bricks; in them he had seen the growth of the town. His pride\nwas ushered back to its throne by the respectfulness of Oley Sundquist:\n\"Evenin', doc! The woman is a lot better. That was swell medicine you\ngave her.\" He was calmed by the mechanicalness of the tasks at home:\nburning the gray web of a tent-worm on the wild cherry tree, sealing\nwith gum a cut in the right front tire of the car, sprinkling the road\nbefore the house. The hose was cool to his hands. As the bright arrows\nfell with a faint puttering sound, a crescent of blackness was formed in\nthe gray dust.\n\nDave Dyer came along.\n\n\"Where going, Dave?\"\n\n\"Down to the store. Just had supper.\"\n\n\"But Thursday 's your night off.\"\n\n\"Sure, but Pete went home. His mother 's supposed to be sick. Gosh,\nthese clerks you get nowadays--overpay 'em and then they won't work!\"\n\n\"That's tough, Dave. You'll have to work clear up till twelve, then.\"\n\n\"Yup. Better drop in and have a cigar, if you're downtown.\n\n\"Well, I may, at that. May have to go down and see Mrs. Champ Perry.\nShe's ailing. So long, Dave.\"\n\nKennicott had not yet entered the house. He was conscious that Carol was\nnear him, that she was important, that he was afraid of her disapproval;\nbut he was content to be alone. When he had finished sprinkling he\nstrolled into the house, up to the baby's room, and cried to Hugh,\n\"Story-time for the old man, eh?\"\n\nCarol was in a low chair, framed and haloed by the window behind her,\nan image in pale gold. The baby curled in her lap, his head on her arm,\nlistening with gravity while she sang from Gene Field:\n\n     'Tis little Luddy-Dud in the morning--\n     'Tis little Luddy-Dud at night:\n     And all day long\n     'Tis the same dear song\n     Of that growing, crowing, knowing little sprite.\n\nKennicott was enchanted.\n\n\"Maud Dyer? I should say not!\"\n\nWhen the current maid bawled up-stairs, \"Supper on de table!\" Kennicott\nwas upon his back, flapping his hands in the earnest effort to be a\nseal, thrilled by the strength with which his son kicked him. He slipped\nhis arm about Carol's shoulder; he went down to supper rejoicing that he\nwas cleansed of perilous stuff. While Carol was putting the baby to\nbed he sat on the front steps. Nat Hicks, tailor and roue, came to sit\nbeside him. Between waves of his hand as he drove off mosquitos, Nat\nwhispered, \"Say, doc, you don't feel like imagining you're a bacheldore\nagain, and coming out for a Time tonight, do you?\"\n\n\"As how?\"\n\n\"You know this new dressmaker, Mrs. Swiftwaite?--swell dame with\nblondine hair? Well, she's a pretty good goer. Me and Harry Haydock are\ngoing to take her and that fat wren that works in the Bon Ton--nice kid,\ntoo--on an auto ride tonight. Maybe we'll drive down to that farm Harry\nbought. We're taking some beer, and some of the smoothest rye you ever\nlaid tongue to. I'm not predicting none, but if we don't have a picnic,\nI'll miss my guess.\"\n\n\"Go to it. No skin off my ear, Nat. Think I want to be fifth wheel in\nthe coach?\"\n\n\"No, but look here: The little Swiftwaite has a friend with her from\nWinona, dandy looker and some gay bird, and Harry and me thought maybe\nyou'd like to sneak off for one evening.\"\n\n\"No--no----\"\n\n\"Rats now, doc, forget your everlasting dignity. You used to be a pretty\ngood sport yourself, when you were foot-free.\"\n\nIt may have been the fact that Mrs. Swiftwaite's friend remained to\nKennicott an ill-told rumor, it may have been Carol's voice, wistful\nin the pallid evening as she sang to Hugh, it may have been natural and\ncommendable virtue, but certainly he was positive:\n\n\"Nope. I'm married for keeps. Don't pretend to be any saint. Like to\nget out and raise Cain and shoot a few drinks. But a fellow owes a\nduty----Straight now, won't you feel like a sneak when you come back to\nthe missus after your jamboree?\"\n\n\"Me? My moral in life is, 'What they don't know won't hurt 'em none.'\nThe way to handle wives, like the fellow says, is to catch 'em early,\ntreat 'em rough, and tell 'em nothing!\"\n\n\"Well, that's your business, I suppose. But I can't get away with it.\nBesides that--way I figure it, this illicit love-making is the one game\nthat you always lose at. If you do lose, you feel foolish; and if you\nwin, as soon as you find out how little it is that you've been scheming\nfor, why then you lose worse than ever. Nature stinging us, as usual.\nBut at that, I guess a lot of wives in this burg would be surprised if\nthey knew everything that goes on behind their backs, eh, Nattie?\"\n\n\"WOULD they! Say, boy! If the good wives knew what some of the boys get\naway with when they go down to the Cities, why, they'd throw a fit!\nSure you won't come, doc? Think of getting all cooled off by a good long\ndrive, and then the lov-e-ly Swiftwaite's white hand mixing you a good\nstiff highball!\"\n\n\"Nope. Nope. Sorry. Guess I won't,\" grumbled Kennicott.\n\nHe was glad that Nat showed signs of going. But he was restless. He\nheard Carol on the stairs. \"Come have a seat--have the whole earth!\" he\nshouted jovially.\n\nShe did not answer his joviality. She sat on the porch, rocked silently,\nthen sighed, \"So many mosquitos out here. You haven't had the screen\nfixed.\"\n\nAs though he was testing her he said quietly, \"Head aching again?\"\n\n\"Oh, not much, but----This maid is SO slow to learn. I have to show her\neverything. I had to clean most of the silver myself. And Hugh was so\nbad all afternoon. He whined so. Poor soul, he was hot, but he did wear\nme out.\"\n\n\"Uh----You usually want to get out. Like to walk down to the lake shore?\n(The girl can stay home.) Or go to the movies? Come on, let's go to the\nmovies! Or shall we jump in the car and run out to Sam's, for a swim?\"\n\n\"If you don't mind, dear, I'm afraid I'm rather tired.\"\n\n\"Why don't you sleep down-stairs tonight, on the couch? Be cooler. I'm\ngoing to bring down my mattress. Come on! Keep the old man company.\nCan't tell--I might get scared of burglars. Lettin' little fellow like\nme stay all alone by himself!\"\n\n\"It's sweet of you to think of it, but I like my own room so much. But\nyou go ahead and do it, dear. Why don't you sleep on the couch, instead\nof putting your mattress on the floor? Well I believe I'll run in and\nread for just a second--want to look at the last Vogue--and then perhaps\nI'll go by-by. Unless you want me, dear? Of course if there's anything\nyou really WANT me for?\"\n\n\"No. No. . . . Matter of fact, I really ought to run down and see Mrs.\nChamp Perry. She's ailing. So you skip in and----May drop in at the drug\nstore. If I'm not home when you get sleepy, don't wait up for me.\"\n\nHe kissed her, rambled off, nodded to Jim Howland, stopped indifferently\nto speak to Mrs. Terry Gould. But his heart was racing, his stomach\nwas constricted. He walked more slowly. He reached Dave Dyer's yard. He\nglanced in. On the porch, sheltered by a wild-grape vine, was the\nfigure of a woman in white. He heard the swing-couch creak as she sat up\nabruptly, peered, then leaned back and pretended to relax.\n\n\"Be nice to have some cool beer. Just drop in for a second,\" he\ninsisted, as he opened the Dyer gate.\n\n\nII\n\n\nMrs. Bogart was calling upon Carol, protected by Aunt Bessie Smail.\n\n\"Have you heard about this awful woman that's supposed to have come here\nto do dressmaking--a Mrs. Swiftwaite--awful peroxide blonde?\" moaned\nMrs. Bogart. \"They say there's some of the awfullest goings-on at her\nhouse--mere boys and old gray-headed rips sneaking in there evenings\nand drinking licker and every kind of goings-on. We women can't never\nrealize the carnal thoughts in the hearts of men. I tell you, even\nthough I been acquainted with Will Kennicott almost since he was a mere\nboy, seems like, I wouldn't trust even him! Who knows what designin'\nwomen might tempt him! Especially a doctor, with women rushin' in to see\nhim at his office and all! You know I never hint around, but haven't you\nfelt that----\"\n\nCarol was furious. \"I don't pretend that Will has no faults. But one\nthing I do know: He's as simple-hearted about what you call 'goings-on'\nas a babe. And if he ever were such a sad dog as to look at another\nwoman, I certainly hope he'd have spirit enough to do the tempting, and\nnot be coaxed into it, as in your depressing picture!\"\n\n\"Why, what a wicked thing to say, Carrie!\" from Aunt Bessie.\n\n\"No, I mean it! Oh, of course, I don't mean it! But----I know every\nthought in his head so well that he couldn't hide anything even if he\nwanted to. Now this morning----He was out late, last night; he had to\ngo see Mrs. Perry, who is ailing, and then fix a man's hand, and this\nmorning he was so quiet and thoughtful at breakfast and----\" She leaned\nforward, breathed dramatically to the two perched harpies, \"What do you\nsuppose he was thinking of?\"\n\n\"What?\" trembled Mrs. Bogart.\n\n\"Whether the grass needs cutting, probably! There, there! Don't mind my\nnaughtiness. I have some fresh-made raisin cookies for you.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nCAROL'S liveliest interest was in her walks with the baby. Hugh wanted\nto know what the box-elder tree said, and what the Ford garage said, and\nwhat the big cloud said, and she told him, with a feeling that she was\nnot in the least making up stories, but discovering the souls of things.\nThey had an especial fondness for the hitching-post in front of the\nmill. It was a brown post, stout and agreeable; the smooth leg of it\nheld the sunlight, while its neck, grooved by hitching-straps, tickled\none's fingers. Carol had never been awake to the earth except as a show\nof changing color and great satisfying masses; she had lived in people\nand in ideas about having ideas; but Hugh's questions made her attentive\nto the comedies of sparrows, robins, blue jays, yellowhammers; she\nregained her pleasure in the arching flight of swallows, and added to it\na solicitude about their nests and family squabbles.\n\nShe forgot her seasons of boredom. She said to Hugh, \"We're two fat\ndisreputable old minstrels roaming round the world,\" and he echoed her,\n\"Roamin' round--roamin' round.\"\n\nThe high adventure, the secret place to which they both fled joyously,\nwas the house of Miles and Bea and Olaf Bjornstam.\n\nKennicott steadily disapproved of the Bjornstams. He protested, \"What\ndo you want to talk to that crank for?\" He hinted that a former \"Swede\nhired girl\" was low company for the son of Dr. Will Kennicott. She did\nnot explain. She did not quite understand it herself; did not know that\nin the Bjornstams she found her friends, her club, her sympathy and her\nration of blessed cynicism. For a time the gossip of Juanita Haydock and\nthe Jolly Seventeen had been a refuge from the droning of Aunt Bessie,\nbut the relief had not continued. The young matrons made her nervous.\nThey talked so loud, always so loud. They filled a room with\nclashing cackle; their jests and gags they repeated nine times over.\nUnconsciously, she had discarded the Jolly Seventeen, Guy Pollock, Vida,\nand every one save Mrs. Dr. Westlake and the friends whom she did not\nclearly know as friends--the Bjornstams.\n\nTo Hugh, the Red Swede was the most heroic and powerful person in the\nworld. With unrestrained adoration he trotted after while Miles fed the\ncows, chased his one pig--an animal of lax and migratory instincts--or\ndramatically slaughtered a chicken. And to Hugh, Olaf was lord among\nmortal men, less stalwart than the old monarch, King Miles, but more\nunderstanding of the relations and values of things, of small sticks,\nlone playing-cards, and irretrievably injured hoops.\n\nCarol saw, though she did not admit, that Olaf was not only more\nbeautiful than her own dark child, but more gracious. Olaf was a Norse\nchieftain: straight, sunny-haired, large-limbed, resplendently amiable\nto his subjects. Hugh was a vulgarian; a bustling business man. It was\nHugh that bounced and said \"Let's play\"; Olaf that opened luminous blue\neyes and agreed \"All right,\" in condescending gentleness. If Hugh batted\nhim--and Hugh did bat him--Olaf was unafraid but shocked. In magnificent\nsolitude he marched toward the house, while Hugh bewailed his sin and\nthe overclouding of august favor.\n\nThe two friends played with an imperial chariot which Miles had made out\nof a starch-box and four red spools; together they stuck switches into\na mouse-hole, with vast satisfaction though entirely without known\nresults.\n\nBea, the chubby and humming Bea, impartially gave cookies and scoldings\nto both children, and if Carol refused a cup of coffee and a wafer of\nbuttered knackebrod, she was desolated.\n\nMiles had done well with his dairy. He had six cows, two hundred\nchickens, a cream separator, a Ford truck. In the spring he had built a\ntwo-room addition to his shack. That illustrious building was to Hugh a\ncarnival. Uncle Miles did the most spectacular, unexpected things: ran\nup the ladder; stood on the ridge-pole, waving a hammer and singing\nsomething about \"To arms, my citizens\"; nailed shingles faster than\nAunt Bessie could iron handkerchiefs; and lifted a two-by-six with Hugh\nriding on one end and Olaf on the other. Uncle Miles's most ecstatic\ntrick was to make figures not on paper but right on a new pine board,\nwith the broadest softest pencil in the world. There was a thing worth\nseeing!\n\nThe tools! In his office Father had tools fascinating in their shininess\nand curious shapes, but they were sharp, they were something called\nsterized, and they distinctly were not for boys to touch. In fact it\nwas a good dodge to volunteer \"I must not touch,\" when you looked at the\ntools on the glass shelves in Father's office. But Uncle Miles, who\nwas a person altogether superior to Father, let you handle all his kit\nexcept the saws. There was a hammer with a silver head; there was a\nmetal thing like a big L; there was a magic instrument, very precious,\nmade out of costly red wood and gold, with a tube which contained a\ndrop--no, it wasn't a drop, it was a nothing, which lived in the water,\nbut the nothing LOOKED like a drop, and it ran in a frightened way\nup and down the tube, no matter how cautiously you tilted the magic\ninstrument. And there were nails, very different and clever--big\nvaliant spikes, middle-sized ones which were not very interesting, and\nshingle-nails much jollier than the fussed-up fairies in the yellow\nbook.\n\n\nII\n\n\nWhile he had worked on the addition Miles had talked frankly to Carol.\nHe admitted now that so long as he stayed in Gopher Prairie he would\nremain a pariah. Bea's Lutheran friends were as much offended by his\nagnostic gibes as the merchants by his radicalism. \"And I can't seem to\nkeep my mouth shut. I think I'm being a baa-lamb, and not springing any\ntheories wilder than 'c-a-t spells cat,' but when folks have gone, I\nre'lize I've been stepping on their pet religious corns. Oh, the mill\nforeman keeps dropping in, and that Danish shoemaker, and one fellow\nfrom Elder's factory, and a few Svenskas, but you know Bea: big\ngood-hearted wench like her wants a lot of folks around--likes to fuss\nover 'em--never satisfied unless she tiring herself out making coffee\nfor somebody.\n\n\"Once she kidnapped me and drug me to the Methodist Church. I goes in,\npious as Widow Bogart, and sits still and never cracks a smile while\nthe preacher is favoring us with his misinformation on evolution. But\nafterwards, when the old stalwarts were pumphandling everybody at the\ndoor and calling 'em 'Brother' and 'Sister,' they let me sail right by\nwith nary a clinch. They figure I'm the town badman. Always will be, I\nguess. It'll have to be Olaf who goes on. 'And sometimes----Blamed if I\ndon't feel like coming out and saying, 'I've been conservative. Nothing\nto it. Now I'm going to start something in these rotten one-horse\nlumber-camps west of town.' But Bea's got me hypnotized. Lord, Mrs.\nKennicott, do you re'lize what a jolly, square, faithful woman she is?\nAnd I love Olaf----Oh well, I won't go and get sentimental on you.\n\n\"Course I've had thoughts of pulling up stakes and going West. Maybe\nif they didn't know it beforehand, they wouldn't find out I'd ever been\nguilty of trying to think for myself. But--oh, I've worked hard, and\nbuilt up this dairy business, and I hate to start all over again, and\nmove Bea and the kid into another one-room shack. That's how they get\nus! Encourage us to be thrifty and own our own houses, and then, by\ngolly, they've got us; they know we won't dare risk everything by\ncommitting lez--what is it? lez majesty?--I mean they know we won't be\nhinting around that if we had a co-operative bank, we could get along\nwithout Stowbody. Well----As long as I can sit and play pinochle with\nBea, and tell whoppers to Olaf about his daddy's adventures in the\nwoods, and how he snared a wapaloosie and knew Paul Bunyan, why, I\ndon't mind being a bum. It's just for them that I mind. Say! Say! Don't\nwhisper a word to Bea, but when I get this addition done, I'm going to\nbuy her a phonograph!\"\n\nHe did.\n\nWhile she was busy with the activities her work-hungry muscles\nfound--washing, ironing, mending, baking, dusting, preserving, plucking\na chicken, painting the sink; tasks which, because she was Miles's full\npartner, were exciting and creative--Bea listened to the phonograph\nrecords with rapture like that of cattle in a warm stable. The addition\ngave her a kitchen with a bedroom above. The original one-room shack was\nnow a living-room, with the phonograph, a genuine leather-upholstered\ngolden-oak rocker, and a picture of Governor John Johnson.\n\nIn late July Carol went to the Bjornstams' desirous of a chance to\nexpress her opinion of Beavers and Calibrees and Joralemons. She found\nOlaf abed, restless from a slight fever, and Bea flushed and dizzy but\ntrying to keep up her work. She lured Miles aside and worried:\n\n\"They don't look at all well. What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Their stomachs are out of whack. I wanted to call in Doc Kennicott, but\nBea thinks the doc doesn't like us--she thinks maybe he's sore because\nyou come down here. But I'm getting worried.\"\n\n\"I'm going to call the doctor at once.\"\n\nShe yearned over Olaf. His lambent eyes were stupid, he moaned, he\nrubbed his forehead.\n\n\"Have they been eating something that's been bad for them?\" she\nfluttered to Miles.\n\n\"Might be bum water. I'll tell you: We used to get our water at Oscar\nEklund's place, over across the street, but Oscar kept dinging at me,\nand hinting I was a tightwad not to dig a well of my own. One time\nhe said, 'Sure, you socialists are great on divvying up other folks'\nmoney--and water!' I knew if he kept it up there'd be a fuss, and I\nain't safe to have around, once a fuss starts; I'm likely to forget\nmyself and let loose with a punch in the snoot. I offered to pay Oscar\nbut he refused--he'd rather have the chance to kid me. So I starts\ngetting water down at Mrs. Fageros's, in the hollow there, and I don't\nbelieve it's real good. Figuring to dig my own well this fall.\"\n\nOne scarlet word was before Carol's eyes while she listened. She fled to\nKennicott's office. He gravely heard her out; nodded, said, \"Be right\nover.\"\n\nHe examined Bea and Olaf. He shook his head. \"Yes. Looks to me like\ntyphoid.\"\n\n\"Golly, I've seen typhoid in lumber-camps,\" groaned Miles, all the\nstrength dripping out of him. \"Have they got it very bad?\"\n\n\"Oh, we'll take good care of them,\" said Kennicott, and for the first\ntime in their acquaintance he smiled on Miles and clapped his shoulder.\n\n\"Won't you need a nurse?\" demanded Carol.\n\n\"Why----\" To Miles, Kennicott hinted, \"Couldn't you get Bea's cousin,\nTina?\"\n\n\"She's down at the old folks', in the country.\"\n\n\"Then let me do it!\" Carol insisted. \"They need some one to cook for\nthem, and isn't it good to give them sponge baths, in typhoid?\"\n\n\"Yes. All right.\" Kennicott was automatic; he was the official, the\nphysician. \"I guess probably it would be hard to get a nurse here in\ntown just now. Mrs. Stiver is busy with an obstetrical case, and that\ntown nurse of yours is off on vacation, ain't she? All right, Bjornstam\ncan spell you at night.\"\n\nAll week, from eight each morning till midnight, Carol fed them, bathed\nthem, smoothed sheets, took temperatures. Miles refused to let her cook.\nTerrified, pallid, noiseless in stocking feet, he did the kitchen work\nand the sweeping, his big red hands awkwardly careful. Kennicott came\nin three times a day, unchangingly tender and hopeful in the sick-room,\nevenly polite to Miles.\n\nCarol understood how great was her love for her friends. It bore\nher through; it made her arm steady and tireless to bathe them.\nWhat exhausted her was the sight of Bea and Olaf turned into flaccid\ninvalids, uncomfortably flushed after taking food, begging for the\nhealing of sleep at night.\n\nDuring the second week Olaf's powerful legs were flabby. Spots of a\nviciously delicate pink came out on his chest and back. His cheeks sank.\nHe looked frightened. His tongue was brown and revolting. His confident\nvoice dwindled to a bewildered murmur, ceaseless and racking.\n\nBea had stayed on her feet too long at the beginning. The moment\nKennicott had ordered her to bed she had begun to collapse. One early\nevening she startled them by screaming, in an intense abdominal pain,\nand within half an hour she was in a delirium. Till dawn Carol was\nwith her, and not all of Bea's groping through the blackness of\nhalf-delirious pain was so pitiful to Carol as the way in which Miles\nsilently peered into the room from the top of the narrow stairs.\nCarol slept three hours next morning, and ran back. Bea was altogether\ndelirious but she muttered nothing save, \"Olaf--ve have such a good\ntime----\"\n\nAt ten, while Carol was preparing an ice-bag in the kitchen, Miles\nanswered a knock. At the front door she saw Vida Sherwin, Maud Dyer, and\nMrs. Zitterel, wife of the Baptist pastor. They were carrying grapes,\nand women's-magazines, magazines with high-colored pictures and\noptimistic fiction.\n\n\"We just heard your wife was sick. We've come to see if there isn't\nsomething we can do,\" chirruped Vida.\n\nMiles looked steadily at the three women. \"You're too late. You can't\ndo nothing now. Bea's always kind of hoped that you folks would come see\nher. She wanted to have a chance and be friends. She used to sit waiting\nfor somebody to knock. I've seen her sitting here, waiting. Now----Oh,\nyou ain't worth God-damning.\" He shut the door.\n\nAll day Carol watched Olaf's strength oozing. He was emaciated. His ribs\nwere grim clear lines, his skin was clammy, his pulse was feeble but\nterrifyingly rapid. It beat--beat--beat in a drum-roll of death. Late\nthat afternoon he sobbed, and died.\n\nBea did not know it. She was delirious. Next morning, when she went,\nshe did not know that Olaf would no longer swing his lath sword on the\ndoor-step, no longer rule his subjects of the cattle-yard; that Miles's\nson would not go East to college.\n\nMiles, Carol, Kennicott were silent. They washed the bodies together,\ntheir eyes veiled.\n\n\"Go home now and sleep. You're pretty tired. I can't ever pay you back\nfor what you done,\" Miles whispered to Carol.\n\n\"Yes. But I'll be back here tomorrow. Go with you to the funeral,\" she\nsaid laboriously.\n\nWhen the time for the funeral came, Carol was in bed, collapsed. She\nassumed that neighbors would go. They had not told her that word of\nMiles's rebuff to Vida had spread through town, a cyclonic fury.\n\nIt was only by chance that, leaning on her elbow in bed, she glanced\nthrough the window and saw the funeral of Bea and Olaf. There was\nno music, no carriages. There was only Miles Bjornstam, in his black\nwedding-suit, walking quite alone, head down, behind the shabby hearse\nthat bore the bodies of his wife and baby.\n\nAn hour after, Hugh came into her room crying, and when she said as\ncheerily as she could, \"What is it, dear?\" he besought, \"Mummy, I want\nto go play with Olaf.\"\n\nThat afternoon Juanita Haydock dropped in to brighten Carol. She said,\n\"Too bad about this Bea that was your hired girl. But I don't waste\nany sympathy on that man of hers. Everybody says he drank too much, and\ntreated his family awful, and that's how they got sick.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\nI\n\nA LETTER from Raymie Wutherspoon, in France, said that he had been sent\nto the front, been slightly wounded, been made a captain. From Vida's\npride Carol sought to draw a stimulant to rouse her from depression.\n\nMiles had sold his dairy. He had several thousand dollars. To Carol he\nsaid good-by with a mumbled word, a harsh hand-shake, \"Going to buy a\nfarm in northern Alberta--far off from folks as I can get.\" He turned\nsharply away, but he did not walk with his former spring. His shoulders\nseemed old.\n\nIt was said that before he went he cursed the town. There was talk\nof arresting him, of riding him on a rail. It was rumored that at the\nstation old Champ Perry rebuked him, \"You better not come back here.\nWe've got respect for your dead, but we haven't got any for a blasphemer\nand a traitor that won't do anything for his country and only bought one\nLiberty Bond.\"\n\nSome of the people who had been at the station declared that Miles made\nsome dreadful seditious retort: something about loving German workmen\nmore than American bankers; but others asserted that he couldn't find\none word with which to answer the veteran; that he merely sneaked up on\nthe platform of the train. He must have felt guilty, everybody agreed,\nfor as the train left town, a farmer saw him standing in the vestibule\nand looking out.\n\nHis house--with the addition which he had built four months ago--was\nvery near the track on which his train passed.\n\nWhen Carol went there, for the last time, she found Olaf's chariot with\nits red spool wheels standing in the sunny corner beside the stable. She\nwondered if a quick eye could have noticed it from a train.\n\nThat day and that week she went reluctantly to Red Cross work; she\nstitched and packed silently, while Vida read the war bulletins. And she\nsaid nothing at all when Kennicott commented, \"From what Champ says,\nI guess Bjornstam was a bad egg, after all. In spite of Bea, don't\nknow but what the citizens' committee ought to have forced him to\nbe patriotic--let on like they could send him to jail if he didn't\nvolunteer and come through for bonds and the Y. M. C. A. They've worked\nthat stunt fine with all these German farmers.\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe found no inspiration but she did find a dependable kindness in Mrs.\nWestlake, and at last she yielded to the old woman's receptivity and had\nrelief in sobbing the story of Bea.\n\nGuy Pollock she often met on the street, but he was merely a pleasant\nvoice which said things about Charles Lamb and sunsets.\n\nHer most positive experience was the revelation of Mrs. Flickerbaugh,\nthe tall, thin, twitchy wife of the attorney. Carol encountered her at\nthe drug store.\n\n\"Walking?\" snapped Mrs. Flickerbaugh.\n\n\"Why, yes.\"\n\n\"Humph. Guess you're the only female in this town that retains the use\nof her legs. Come home and have a cup o' tea with me.\"\n\nBecause she had nothing else to do, Carol went. But she was\nuncomfortable in the presence of the amused stares which Mrs.\nFlickerbaugh's raiment drew. Today, in reeking early August, she wore a\nman's cap, a skinny fur like a dead cat, a necklace of imitation pearls,\na scabrous satin blouse, and a thick cloth skirt hiked up in front.\n\n\"Come in. Sit down. Stick the baby in that rocker. Hope you don't mind\nthe house looking like a rat's nest. You don't like this town. Neither\ndo I,\" said Mrs. Flickerbaugh.\n\n\"Why----\"\n\n\"Course you don't!\"\n\n\"Well then, I don't! But I'm sure that some day I'll find some solution.\nProbably I'm a hexagonal peg. Solution: find the hexagonal hole.\" Carol\nwas very brisk.\n\n\"How do you know you ever will find it?\"\n\n\"There's Mrs. Westlake. She's naturally a big-city woman--she ought to\nhave a lovely old house in Philadelphia or Boston--but she escapes by\nbeing absorbed in reading.\"\n\n\"You be satisfied to never do anything but read?\"\n\n\"No, but Heavens, one can't go on hating a town always!\"\n\n\"Why not? I can! I've hated it for thirty-two years. I'll die here--and\nI'll hate it till I die. I ought to have been a business woman. I had\na good deal of talent for tending to figures. All gone now. Some folks\nthink I'm crazy. Guess I am. Sit and grouch. Go to church and sing\nhymns. Folks think I'm religious. Tut! Trying to forget washing and\nironing and mending socks. Want an office of my own, and sell things.\nJulius never hear of it. Too late.\"\n\nCarol sat on the gritty couch, and sank into fear. Could this drabness\nof life keep up forever, then? Would she some day so despise herself\nand her neighbors that she too would walk Main Street an old skinny\neccentric woman in a mangy cat's-fur? As she crept home she felt that\nthe trap had finally closed. She went into the house, a frail small\nwoman, still winsome but hopeless of eye as she staggered with the\nweight of the drowsy boy in her arms.\n\nShe sat alone on the porch, that evening. It seemed that Kennicott had\nto make a professional call on Mrs. Dave Dyer.\n\nUnder the stilly boughs and the black gauze of dusk the street was\nmeshed in silence. There was but the hum of motor tires crunching the\nroad, the creak of a rocker on the Howlands' porch, the slap of a hand\nattacking a mosquito, a heat-weary conversation starting and dying, the\nprecise rhythm of crickets, the thud of moths against the screen--sounds\nthat were a distilled silence. It was a street beyond the end of\nthe world, beyond the boundaries of hope. Though she should sit here\nforever, no brave procession, no one who was interesting, would be\ncoming by. It was tediousness made tangible, a street builded of\nlassitude and of futility.\n\nMyrtle Cass appeared, with Cy Bogart. She giggled and bounced when Cy\ntickled her ear in village love. They strolled with the half-dancing\ngait of lovers, kicking their feet out sideways or shuffling a dragging\njig, and the concrete walk sounded to the broken two-four rhythm. Their\nvoices had a dusky turbulence. Suddenly, to the woman rocking on the\nporch of the doctor's house, the night came alive, and she felt that\neverywhere in the darkness panted an ardent quest which she was missing\nas she sank back to wait for----There must be something.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\nIT WAS at a supper of the Jolly Seventeen in August that Carol heard of\n\"Elizabeth,\" from Mrs. Dave Dyer.\n\nCarol was fond of Maud Dyer, because she had been particularly agreeable\nlately; had obviously repented of the nervous distaste which she had\nonce shown. Maud patted her hand when they met, and asked about Hugh.\n\nKennicott said that he was \"kind of sorry for the girl, some ways; she's\ntoo darn emotional, but still, Dave is sort of mean to her.\" He was\npolite to poor Maud when they all went down to the cottages for a swim.\nCarol was proud of that sympathy in him, and now she took pains to sit\nwith their new friend.\n\nMrs. Dyer was bubbling, \"Oh, have you folks heard about this young\nfellow that's just come to town that the boys call 'Elizabeth'? He's\nworking in Nat Hicks's tailor shop. I bet he doesn't make eighteen a\nweek, but my! isn't he the perfect lady though! He talks so refined, and\noh, the lugs he puts on--belted coat, and pique collar with a gold pin,\nand socks to match his necktie, and honest--you won't believe this, but\nI got it straight--this fellow, you know he's staying at Mrs. Gurrey's\npunk old boarding-house, and they say he asked Mrs. Gurrey if he ought\nto put on a dress-suit for supper! Imagine! Can you beat that? And him\nnothing but a Swede tailor--Erik Valborg his name is. But he used to be\nin a tailor shop in Minneapolis (they do say he's a smart needle-pusher,\nat that) and he tries to let on that he's a regular city fellow. They\nsay he tries to make people think he's a poet--carries books around and\npretends to read 'em. Myrtle Cass says she met him at a dance, and he\nwas mooning around all over the place, and he asked her did she like\nflowers and poetry and music and everything; he spieled like he was a\nregular United States Senator; and Myrtle--she's a devil, that girl,\nha! ha!--she kidded him along, and got him going, and honest, what d'you\nthink he said? He said he didn't find any intellectual companionship\nin this town. Can you BEAT it? Imagine! And him a Swede tailor! My! And\nthey say he's the most awful mollycoddle--looks just like a girl. The\nboys call him 'Elizabeth,' and they stop him and ask about the books he\nlets on to have read, and he goes and tells them, and they take it\nall in and jolly him terribly, and he never gets onto the fact they're\nkidding him. Oh, I think it's just TOO funny!\"\n\nThe Jolly Seventeen laughed, and Carol laughed with them. Mrs. Jack\nElder added that this Erik Valborg had confided to Mrs. Gurrey that he\nwould \"love to design clothes for women.\" Imagine! Mrs. Harvey Dillon\nhad had a glimpse of him, but honestly, she'd thought he was awfully\nhandsome. This was instantly controverted by Mrs. B. J. Gougerling, wife\nof the banker. Mrs. Gougerling had had, she reported, a good look\nat this Valborg fellow. She and B. J. had been motoring, and passed\n\"Elizabeth\" out by McGruder's Bridge. He was wearing the awfullest\nclothes, with the waist pinched in like a girl's. He was sitting on\na rock doing nothing, but when he heard the Gougerling car coming he\nsnatched a book out of his pocket, and as they went by he pretended to\nbe reading it, to show off. And he wasn't really good-looking--just kind\nof soft, as B. J. had pointed out.\n\nWhen the husbands came they joined in the expose. \"My name is Elizabeth.\nI'm the celebrated musical tailor. The skirts fall for me by the thou.\nDo I get some more veal loaf?\" merrily shrieked Dave Dyer. He had some\nadmirable stories about the tricks the town youngsters had played on\nValborg. They had dropped a decaying perch into his pocket. They had\npinned on his back a sign, \"I'm the prize boob, kick me.\"\n\nGlad of any laughter, Carol joined the frolic, and surprised them by\ncrying, \"Dave, I do think you're the dearest thing since you got your\nhair cut!\" That was an excellent sally. Everybody applauded. Kennicott\nlooked proud.\n\nShe decided that sometime she really must go out of her way to pass\nHicks's shop and see this freak.\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe was at Sunday morning service at the Baptist Church, in a solemn row\nwith her husband, Hugh, Uncle Whittier, Aunt Bessie.\n\nDespite Aunt Bessie's nagging the Kennicotts rarely attended church. The\ndoctor asserted, \"Sure, religion is a fine influence--got to have it to\nkeep the lower classes in order--fact, it's the only thing that appeals\nto a lot of those fellows and makes 'em respect the rights of property.\nAnd I guess this theology is O.K.; lot of wise old coots figured it\nall out, and they knew more about it than we do.\" He believed in the\nChristian religion, and never thought about it, he believed in the\nchurch, and seldom went near it; he was shocked by Carol's lack of\nfaith, and wasn't quite sure what was the nature of the faith that she\nlacked.\n\nCarol herself was an uneasy and dodging agnostic.\n\nWhen she ventured to Sunday School and heard the teachers droning that\nthe genealogy of Shamsherai was a valuable ethical problem for children\nto think about; when she experimented with Wednesday prayer-meeting and\nlistened to store-keeping elders giving their unvarying weekly testimony\nin primitive erotic symbols and such gory Chaldean phrases as \"washed\nin the blood of the lamb\" and \"a vengeful God\"; when Mrs. Bogart boasted\nthat through his boyhood she had made Cy confess nightly upon the basis\nof the Ten Commandments; then Carol was dismayed to find the Christian\nreligion, in America, in the twentieth century, as abnormal as\nZoroastrianism--without the splendor. But when she went to church\nsuppers and felt the friendliness, saw the gaiety with which the sisters\nserved cold ham and scalloped potatoes; when Mrs. Champ Perry cried to\nher, on an afternoon call, \"My dear, if you just knew how happy it makes\nyou to come into abiding grace,\" then Carol found the humanness behind\nthe sanguinary and alien theology. Always she perceived that the\nchurches--Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, Catholic, all of\nthem--which had seemed so unimportant to the judge's home in her\nchildhood, so isolated from the city struggle in St. Paul, were\nstill, in Gopher Prairie, the strongest of the forces compelling\nrespectability.\n\nThis August Sunday she had been tempted by the announcement that the\nReverend Edmund Zitterel would preach on the topic \"America, Face Your\nProblems!\" With the great war, workmen in every nation showing a desire\nto control industries, Russia hinting a leftward revolution against\nKerensky, woman suffrage coming, there seemed to be plenty of problems\nfor the Reverend Mr. Zitterel to call on America to face. Carol gathered\nher family and trotted off behind Uncle Whittier.\n\nThe congregation faced the heat with informality. Men with highly\nplastered hair, so painfully shaved that their faces looked sore,\nremoved their coats, sighed, and unbuttoned two buttons of their\nuncreased Sunday vests. Large-bosomed, white-bloused, hot-necked,\nspectacled matrons--the Mothers in Israel, pioneers and friends of Mrs.\nChamp Perry--waved their palm-leaf fans in a steady rhythm. Abashed boys\nslunk into the rear pews and giggled, while milky little girls, up front\nwith their mothers, self-consciously kept from turning around.\n\nThe church was half barn and half Gopher Prairie parlor. The streaky\nbrown wallpaper was broken in its dismal sweep only by framed texts,\n\"Come unto Me\" and \"The Lord is My Shepherd,\" by a list of hymns, and by\na crimson and green diagram, staggeringly drawn upon hemp-colored paper,\nindicating the alarming ease with which a young man may descend from\nPalaces of Pleasure and the House of Pride to Eternal Damnation. But the\nvarnished oak pews and the new red carpet and the three large chairs on\nthe platform, behind the bare reading-stand, were all of a rocking-chair\ncomfort.\n\nCarol was civic and neighborly and commendable today. She beamed and\nbowed. She trolled out with the others the hymn:\n\n     How pleasant 'tis on Sabbath morn\n     To gather in the church\n     And there I'll have no carnal thoughts,\n     Nor sin shall me besmirch.\n\nWith a rustle of starched linen skirts and stiff shirt-fronts, the\ncongregation sat down, and gave heed to the Reverend Mr. Zitterel. The\npriest was a thin, swart, intense young man with a bang. He wore a\nblack sack suit and a lilac tie. He smote the enormous Bible on the\nreading-stand, vociferated, \"Come, let us reason together,\" delivered a\nprayer informing Almighty God of the news of the past week, and began to\nreason.\n\nIt proved that the only problems which America had to face were\nMormonism and Prohibition:\n\n\"Don't let any of these self-conceited fellows that are always trying to\nstir up trouble deceive you with the belief that there's anything to\nall these smart-aleck movements to let the unions and the Farmers'\nNonpartisan League kill all our initiative and enterprise by fixing\nwages and prices. There isn't any movement that amounts to a whoop\nwithout it's got a moral background. And let me tell you that while\nfolks are fussing about what they call 'economics' and 'socialism'\nand 'science' and a lot of things that are nothing in the world but a\ndisguise for atheism, the Old Satan is busy spreading his secret net\nand tentacles out there in Utah, under his guise of Joe Smith or Brigham\nYoung or whoever their leaders happen to be today, it doesn't make any\ndifference, and they're making game of the Old Bible that has led this\nAmerican people through its manifold trials and tribulations to its firm\nposition as the fulfilment of the prophecies and the recognized leader\nof all nations. 'Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies\nthe footstool of my feet,' said the Lord of Hosts, Acts II, the\nthirty-fourth verse--and let me tell you right now, you got to get up a\ngood deal earlier in the morning than you get up even when you're going\nfishing, if you want to be smarter than the Lord, who has shown us the\nstraight and narrow way, and he that passeth therefrom is in\neternal peril and, to return to this vital and terrible subject of\nMormonism--and as I say, it is terrible to realize how little attention\nis given to this evil right here in our midst and on our very doorstep,\nas it were--it's a shame and a disgrace that the Congress of these\nUnited States spends all its time talking about inconsequential\nfinancial matters that ought to be left to the Treasury Department, as I\nunderstand it, instead of arising in their might and passing a law that\nany one admitting he is a Mormon shall simply be deported and as it were\nkicked out of this free country in which we haven't got any room for\npolygamy and the tyrannies of Satan.\n\n\"And, to digress for a moment, especially as there are more of them in\nthis state than there are Mormons, though you never can tell what will\nhappen with this vain generation of young girls, that think more about\nwearing silk stockings than about minding their mothers and learning to\nbake a good loaf of bread, and many of them listening to these sneaking\nMormon missionaries--and I actually heard one of them talking right out\non a street-corner in Duluth, a few years ago, and the officers of the\nlaw not protesting--but still, as they are a smaller but more immediate\nproblem, let me stop for just a moment to pay my respects to these\nSeventh-Day Adventists. Not that they are immoral, I don't mean, but\nwhen a body of men go on insisting that Saturday is the Sabbath, after\nChrist himself has clearly indicated the new dispensation, then I think\nthe legislature ought to step in----\"\n\nAt this point Carol awoke.\n\nShe got through three more minutes by studying the face of a girl in\nthe pew across: a sensitive unhappy girl whose longing poured out\nwith intimidating self-revelation as she worshiped Mr. Zitterel. Carol\nwondered who the girl was. She had seen her at church suppers. She\nconsidered how many of the three thousand people in the town she did not\nknow; to how many of them the Thanatopsis and the Jolly Seventeen were\nicy social peaks; how many of them might be toiling through boredom\nthicker than her own--with greater courage.\n\nShe examined her nails. She read two hymns. She got some satisfaction\nout of rubbing an itching knuckle. She pillowed on her shoulder the head\nof the baby who, after killing time in the same manner as his mother,\nwas so fortunate as to fall asleep. She read the introduction,\ntitle-page, and acknowledgment of copyrights, in the hymnal. She tried\nto evolve a philosophy which would explain why Kennicott could never\ntie his scarf so that it would reach the top of the gap in his turn-down\ncollar.\n\nThere were no other diversions to be found in the pew. She glanced back\nat the congregation. She thought that it would be amiable to bow to Mrs.\nChamp Perry.\n\nHer slow turning head stopped, galvanized.\n\nAcross the aisle, two rows back, was a strange young man who shone among\nthe cud-chewing citizens like a visitant from the sun-amber curls, low\nforehead, fine nose, chin smooth but not raw from Sabbath shaving. His\nlips startled her. The lips of men in Gopher Prairie are flat in the\nface, straight and grudging. The stranger's mouth was arched, the upper\nlip short. He wore a brown jersey coat, a delft-blue bow, a white silk\nshirt, white flannel trousers. He suggested the ocean beach, a tennis\ncourt, anything but the sun-blistered utility of Main Street.\n\nA visitor from Minneapolis, here for business? No. He wasn't a business\nman. He was a poet. Keats was in his face, and Shelley, and Arthur\nUpson, whom she had once seen in Minneapolis. He was at once too\nsensitive and too sophisticated to touch business as she knew it in\nGopher Prairie.\n\nWith restrained amusement he was analyzing the noisy Mr. Zitterel. Carol\nwas ashamed to have this spy from the Great World hear the pastor's\nmaundering. She felt responsible for the town. She resented his gaping\nat their private rites. She flushed, turned away. But she continued to\nfeel his presence.\n\nHow could she meet him? She must! For an hour of talk. He was all that\nshe was hungry for. She could not let him get away without a word--and\nshe would have to. She pictured, and ridiculed, herself as walking up\nto him and remarking, \"I am sick with the Village Virus. Will you please\ntell me what people are saying and playing in New York?\" She pictured,\nand groaned over, the expression of Kennicott if she should say,\n\"Why wouldn't it be reasonable for you, my soul, to ask that complete\nstranger in the brown jersey coat to come to supper tonight?\"\n\nShe brooded, not looking back. She warned herself that she was probably\nexaggerating; that no young man could have all these exalted qualities.\nWasn't he too obviously smart, too glossy-new? Like a movie actor.\nProbably he was a traveling salesman who sang tenor and fancied himself\nin imitations of Newport clothes and spoke of \"the swellest business\nproposition that ever came down the pike.\" In a panic she peered at him.\nNo! This was no hustling salesman, this boy with the curving Grecian\nlips and the serious eyes.\n\nShe rose after the service, carefully taking Kennicott's arm and smiling\nat him in a mute assertion that she was devoted to him no matter what\nhappened. She followed the Mystery's soft brown jersey shoulders out of\nthe church.\n\nFatty Hicks, the shrill and puffy son of Nat, flapped his hand at the\nbeautiful stranger and jeered, \"How's the kid? All dolled up like a\nplush horse today, ain't we!\"\n\nCarol was exceeding sick. Her herald from the outside was Erik Valborg,\n\"Elizabeth.\" Apprentice tailor! Gasoline and hot goose! Mending dirty\njackets! Respectfully holding a tape-measure about a paunch!\n\nAnd yet, she insisted, this boy was also himself.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThey had Sunday dinner with the Smails, in a dining-room which centered\nabout a fruit and flower piece and a crayon-enlargement of Uncle\nWhittier. Carol did not heed Aunt Bessie's fussing in regard to Mrs.\nRobert B. Schminke's bead necklace and Whittier's error in putting on\nthe striped pants, day like this. She did not taste the shreds of roast\npork. She said vacuously:\n\n\"Uh--Will, I wonder if that young man in the white flannel trousers, at\nchurch this morning, was this Valborg person that they're all talking\nabout?\"\n\n\"Yump. That's him. Wasn't that the darndest get-up he had on!\" Kennicott\nscratched at a white smear on his hard gray sleeve.\n\n\"It wasn't so bad. I wonder where he comes from? He seems to have lived\nin cities a good deal. Is he from the East?\"\n\n\"The East? Him? Why, he comes from a farm right up north here, just this\nside of Jefferson. I know his father slightly--Adolph Valborg--typical\ncranky old Swede farmer.\"\n\n\"Oh, really?\" blandly.\n\n\"Believe he has lived in Minneapolis for quite some time, though.\nLearned his trade there. And I will say he's bright, some ways. Reads\na lot. Pollock says he takes more books out of the library than anybody\nelse in town. Huh! He's kind of like you in that!\"\n\nThe Smails and Kennicott laughed very much at this sly jest. Uncle\nWhittier seized the conversation. \"That fellow that's working for Hicks?\nMilksop, that's what he is. Makes me tired to see a young fellow that\nought to be in the war, or anyway out in the fields earning his living\nhonest, like I done when I was young, doing a woman's work and then come\nout and dress up like a show-actor! Why, when I was his age----\"\n\nCarol reflected that the carving-knife would make an excellent dagger\nwith which to kill Uncle Whittier. It would slide in easily. The\nheadlines would be terrible.\n\nKennicott said judiciously, \"Oh, I don't want to be unjust to him.\nI believe he took his physical examination for military service. Got\nvaricose veins--not bad, but enough to disqualify him. Though I will say\nhe doesn't look like a fellow that would be so awful darn crazy to poke\nhis bayonet into a Hun's guts.\"\n\n\"Will! PLEASE!\"\n\n\"Well, he don't. Looks soft to me. And they say he told Del Snafflin,\nwhen he was getting a hair-cut on Saturday, that he wished he could play\nthe piano.\"\n\n\"Isn't it wonderful how much we all know about one another in a town\nlike this,\" said Carol innocently.\n\nKennicott was suspicious, but Aunt Bessie, serving the floating island\npudding, agreed, \"Yes, it is wonderful. Folks can get away with all\nsorts of meannesses and sins in these terrible cities, but they can't\nhere. I was noticing this tailor fellow this morning, and when Mrs.\nRiggs offered to share her hymn-book with him, he shook his head, and\nall the while we was singing he just stood there like a bump on a log\nand never opened his mouth. Everybody says he's got an idea that he's\ngot so much better manners and all than what the rest of us have, but if\nthat's what he calls good manners, I want to know!\"\n\nCarol again studied the carving-knife. Blood on the whiteness of a\ntablecloth might be gorgeous.\n\nThen:\n\n\"Fool! Neurotic impossibilist! Telling yourself orchard fairy-tales--at\nthirty. . . . Dear Lord, am I really THIRTY? That boy can't be more than\ntwenty-five.\"\n\n\nIV\n\n\nShe went calling.\n\nBoarding with the Widow Bogart was Fern Mullins, a girl of twenty-two\nwho was to be teacher of English, French, and gymnastics in the high\nschool this coming session. Fern Mullins had come to town early, for the\nsix-weeks normal course for country teachers. Carol had noticed her on\nthe street, had heard almost as much about her as about Erik Valborg.\nShe was tall, weedy, pretty, and incurably rakish. Whether she wore a\nlow middy collar or dressed reticently for school in a black suit with a\nhigh-necked blouse, she was airy, flippant. \"She looks like an absolute\ntotty,\" said all the Mrs. Sam Clarks, disapprovingly, and all the\nJuanita Haydocks, enviously.\n\nThat Sunday evening, sitting in baggy canvas lawn-chairs beside the\nhouse, the Kennicotts saw Fern laughing with Cy Bogart who, though still\na junior in high school, was now a lump of a man, only two or three\nyears younger than Fern. Cy had to go downtown for weighty matters\nconnected with the pool-parlor. Fern drooped on the Bogart porch, her\nchin in her hands.\n\n\"She looks lonely,\" said Kennicott.\n\n\"She does, poor soul. I believe I'll go over and speak to her. I was\nintroduced to her at Dave's but I haven't called.\" Carol was slipping\nacross the lawn, a white figure in the dimness, faintly brushing the\ndewy grass. She was thinking of Erik and of the fact that her feet\nwere wet, and she was casual in her greeting: \"Hello! The doctor and I\nwondered if you were lonely.\"\n\nResentfully, \"I am!\"\n\nCarol concentrated on her. \"My dear, you sound so! I know how it is. I\nused to be tired when I was on the job--I was a librarian. What was your\ncollege? I was Blodgett.\"\n\nMore interestedly, \"I went to the U.\" Fern meant the University of\nMinnesota.\n\n\"You must have had a splendid time. Blodgett was a bit dull.\"\n\n\"Where were you a librarian?\" challengingly.\n\n\"St. Paul--the main library.\"\n\n\"Honest? Oh dear, I wish I was back in the Cities! This is my first year\nof teaching, and I'm scared stiff. I did have the best time in college:\ndramatics and basket-ball and fussing and dancing--I'm simply crazy\nabout dancing. And here, except when I have the kids in gymnasium class,\nor when I'm chaperoning the basket-ball team on a trip out-of-town, I\nwon't dare to move above a whisper. I guess they don't care much if\nyou put any pep into teaching or not, as long as you look like a Good\nInfluence out of school-hours--and that means never doing anything you\nwant to. This normal course is bad enough, but the regular school will\nbe FIERCE! If it wasn't too late to get a job in the Cities, I swear I'd\nresign here. I bet I won't dare to go to a single dance all winter. If\nI cut loose and danced the way I like to, they'd think I was a perfect\nhellion--poor harmless me! Oh, I oughtn't to be talking like this. Fern,\nyou never could be cagey!\"\n\n\"Don't be frightened, my dear! . . . Doesn't that sound atrociously old\nand kind! I'm talking to you the way Mrs. Westlake talks to me! That's\nhaving a husband and a kitchen range, I suppose. But I feel young, and I\nwant to dance like a--like a hellion?--too. So I sympathize.\"\n\nFern made a sound of gratitude. Carol inquired, \"What experience did you\nhave with college dramatics? I tried to start a kind of Little Theater\nhere. It was dreadful. I must tell you about it----\"\n\nTwo hours later, when Kennicott came over to greet Fern and to yawn,\n\"Look here, Carrie, don't you suppose you better be thinking about\nturning in? I've got a hard day tomorrow,\" the two were talking so\nintimately that they constantly interrupted each other.\n\nAs she went respectably home, convoyed by a husband, and decorously\nholding up her skirts, Carol rejoiced, \"Everything has changed! I have\ntwo friends, Fern and----But who's the other? That's queer; I thought\nthere was----Oh, how absurd!\"\n\n\nV\n\n\nShe often passed Erik Valborg on the street; the brown jersey coat\nbecame unremarkable. When she was driving with Kennicott, in early\nevening, she saw him on the lake shore, reading a thin book which might\neasily have been poetry. She noted that he was the only person in the\nmotorized town who still took long walks.\n\nShe told herself that she was the daughter of a judge, the wife of a\ndoctor, and that she did not care to know a capering tailor. She told\nherself that she was not responsive to men . . . not even to Percy\nBresnahan. She told herself that a woman of thirty who heeded a boy\nof twenty-five was ridiculous. And on Friday, when she had convinced\nherself that the errand was necessary, she went to Nat Hicks's shop,\nbearing the not very romantic burden of a pair of her husband's\ntrousers. Hicks was in the back room. She faced the Greek god who, in a\nsomewhat ungodlike way, was stitching a coat on a scaley sewing-machine,\nin a room of smutted plaster walls.\n\nShe saw that his hands were not in keeping with a Hellenic face. They\nwere thick, roughened with needle and hot iron and plow-handle. Even\nin the shop he persisted in his finery. He wore a silk shirt, a topaz\nscarf, thin tan shoes.\n\nThis she absorbed while she was saying curtly, \"Can I get these pressed,\nplease?\"\n\nNot rising from the sewing-machine he stuck out his hand, mumbled, \"When\ndo you want them?\"\n\n\"Oh, Monday.\"\n\nThe adventure was over. She was marching out.\n\n\"What name?\" he called after her.\n\nHe had risen and, despite the farcicality of Dr. Will Kennicott's bulgy\ntrousers draped over his arm, he had the grace of a cat.\n\n\"Kennicott.\"\n\n\"Kennicott. Oh! Oh say, you're Mrs. Dr. Kennicott then, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She stood at the door. Now that she had carried out her\npreposterous impulse to see what he was like, she was cold, she was as\nready to detect familiarities as the virtuous Miss Ella Stowbody.\n\n\"I've heard about you. Myrtle Cass was saying you got up a dramatic club\nand gave a dandy play. I've always wished I had a chance to belong to a\nLittle Theater, and give some European plays, or whimsical like Barrie,\nor a pageant.\"\n\nHe pronounced it \"pagent\"; he rhymed \"pag\" with \"rag.\"\n\nCarol nodded in the manner of a lady being kind to a tradesman, and one\nof her selves sneered, \"Our Erik is indeed a lost John Keats.\"\n\nHe was appealing, \"Do you suppose it would be possible to get up another\ndramatic club this coming fall?\"\n\n\"Well, it might be worth thinking of.\" She came out of her several\nconflicting poses, and said sincerely, \"There's a new teacher, Miss\nMullins, who might have some talent. That would make three of us for a\nnucleus. If we could scrape up half a dozen we might give a real play\nwith a small cast. Have you had any experience?\"\n\n\"Just a bum club that some of us got up in Minneapolis when I was\nworking there. We had one good man, an interior decorator--maybe he was\nkind of sis and effeminate, but he really was an artist, and we gave one\ndandy play. But I----Of course I've always had to work hard, and study\nby myself, and I'm probably sloppy, and I'd love it if I had training in\nrehearsing--I mean, the crankier the director was, the better I'd like\nit. If you didn't want to use me as an actor, I'd love to design the\ncostumes. I'm crazy about fabrics--textures and colors and designs.\"\n\nShe knew that he was trying to keep her from going, trying to indicate\nthat he was something more than a person to whom one brought trousers\nfor pressing. He besought:\n\n\"Some day I hope I can get away from this fool repairing, when I have\nthe money saved up. I want to go East and work for some big dressmaker,\nand study art drawing, and become a high-class designer. Or do you think\nthat's a kind of fiddlin' ambition for a fellow? I was brought up on\na farm. And then monkeyin' round with silks! I don't know. What do you\nthink? Myrtle Cass says you're awfully educated.\"\n\n\"I am. Awfully. Tell me: Have the boys made fun of your ambition?\"\n\nShe was seventy years old, and sexless, and more advisory than Vida\nSherwin.\n\n\"Well, they have, at that. They've jollied me a good deal, here and\nMinneapolis both. They say dressmaking is ladies' work. (But I was\nwilling to get drafted for the war! I tried to get in. But they\nrejected me. But I did try! ) I thought some of working up in a gents'\nfurnishings store, and I had a chance to travel on the road for a\nclothing house, but somehow--I hate this tailoring, but I can't seem\nto get enthusiastic about salesmanship. I keep thinking about a room in\ngray oatmeal paper with prints in very narrow gold frames--or would it\nbe better in white enamel paneling?--but anyway, it looks out on\nFifth Avenue, and I'm designing a sumptuous----\" He made it\n\"sump-too-ous\"--\"robe of linden green chiffon over cloth of gold! You\nknow--tileul. It's elegant. . . . What do you think?\"\n\n\"Why not? What do you care for the opinion of city rowdies, or a lot\nof farm boys? But you mustn't, you really mustn't, let casual strangers\nlike me have a chance to judge you.\"\n\n\"Well----You aren't a stranger, one way. Myrtle Cass--Miss Cass, should\nsay--she's spoken about you so often. I wanted to call on you--and the\ndoctor--but I didn't quite have the nerve. One evening I walked past\nyour house, but you and your husband were talking on the porch, and you\nlooked so chummy and happy I didn't dare butt in.\"\n\nMaternally, \"I think it's extremely nice of you to want to be trained\nin--in enunciation by a stage-director. Perhaps I could help you. I'm\na thoroughly sound and uninspired schoolma'am by instinct; quite\nhopelessly mature.\"\n\n\"Oh, you aren't EITHER!\"\n\nShe was not very successful at accepting his fervor with the air of\namused woman of the world, but she sounded reasonably impersonal: \"Thank\nyou. Shall we see if we really can get up a new dramatic club? I'll tell\nyou: Come to the house this evening, about eight. I'll ask Miss Mullins\nto come over, and we'll talk about it.\"\n\n\nVI\n\n\n\"He has absolutely no sense of humor. Less than Will. But hasn't\nhe-----What is a 'sense of humor'? Isn't the thing he lacks the\nback-slapping jocosity that passes for humor here? Anyway----Poor lamb,\ncoaxing me to stay and play with him! Poor lonely lamb! If he could be\nfree from Nat Hickses, from people who say 'dandy' and 'bum,' would he\ndevelop?\n\n\"I wonder if Whitman didn't use Brooklyn back-street slang, as a boy?\n\n\"No. Not Whitman. He's Keats--sensitive to silken things. 'Innumerable\nof stains and splendid dyes as are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd\nwings.' Keats, here! A bewildered spirit fallen on Main Street. And Main\nStreet laughs till it aches, giggles till the spirit doubts his own self\nand tries to give up the use of wings for the correct uses of a 'gents'\nfurnishings store.' Gopher Prairie with its celebrated eleven miles of\ncement walk. . . . I wonder how much of the cement is made out of the\ntombstones of John Keatses?\"\n\n\nVII\n\n\nKennicott was cordial to Fern Mullins, teased her, told her he was a\n\"great hand for running off with pretty school-teachers,\" and promised\nthat if the school-board should object to her dancing, he would \"bat 'em\none over the head and tell 'em how lucky they were to get a girl with\nsome go to her, for once.\"\n\nBut to Erik Valborg he was not cordial. He shook hands loosely, and\nsaid, \"H' are yuh.\"\n\nNat Hicks was socially acceptable; he had been here for years, and\nowned his shop; but this person was merely Nat's workman, and the\ntown's principle of perfect democracy was not meant to be applied\nindiscriminately.\n\nThe conference on a dramatic club theoretically included Kennicott, but\nhe sat back, patting yawns, conscious of Fern's ankles, smiling amiably\non the children at their sport.\n\nFern wanted to tell her grievances; Carol was sulky every time she\nthought of \"The Girl from Kankakee\"; it was Erik who made suggestions.\nHe had read with astounding breadth, and astounding lack of judgment.\nHis voice was sensitive to liquids, but he overused the word \"glorious.\"\nHe mispronounced a tenth of the words he had from books, but he knew it.\nHe was insistent, but he was shy.\n\nWhen he demanded, \"I'd like to stage 'Suppressed Desires,' by Cook and\nMiss Glaspell,\" Carol ceased to be patronizing. He was not the yearner:\nhe was the artist, sure of his vision. \"I'd make it simple. Use a big\nwindow at the back, with a cyclorama of a blue that would simply hit you\nin the eye, and just one tree-branch, to suggest a park below. Put\nthe breakfast table on a dais. Let the colors be kind of arty and\ntea-roomy--orange chairs, and orange and blue table, and blue Japanese\nbreakfast set, and some place, one big flat smear of black--bang! Oh.\nAnother play I wish we could do is Tennyson Jesse's 'The Black Mask.'\nI've never seen it but----Glorious ending, where this woman looks at\nthe man with his face all blown away, and she just gives one horrible\nscream.\"\n\n\"Good God, is that your idea of a glorious ending?\" bayed Kennicott.\n\n\"That sounds fierce! I do love artistic things, but not the horrible\nones,\" moaned Fern Mullins.\n\nErik was bewildered; glanced at Carol. She nodded loyally.\n\nAt the end of the conference they had decided nothing.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\nSHE had walked up the railroad track with Hugh, this Sunday afternoon.\n\nShe saw Erik Valborg coming, in an ancient highwater suit, tramping\nsullenly and alone, striking at the rails with a stick. For a second\nshe unreasoningly wanted to avoid him, but she kept on, and she serenely\ntalked about God, whose voice, Hugh asserted, made the humming in the\ntelegraph wires. Erik stared, straightened. They greeted each other with\n\"Hello.\"\n\n\"Hugh, say how-do-you-do to Mr. Valborg.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me, he's got a button unbuttoned,\" worried Erik, kneeling.\nCarol frowned, then noted the strength with which he swung the baby in\nthe air.\n\n\"May I walk along a piece with you?\"\n\n\"I'm tired. Let's rest on those ties. Then I must be trotting back.\"\n\nThey sat on a heap of discarded railroad ties, oak logs spotted with\ncinnamon-colored dry-rot and marked with metallic brown streaks where\niron plates had rested. Hugh learned that the pile was the hiding-place\nof Injuns; he went gunning for them while the elders talked of\nuninteresting things.\n\nThe telegraph wires thrummed, thrummed, thrummed above them; the rails\nwere glaring hard lines; the goldenrod smelled dusty. Across the track\nwas a pasture of dwarf clover and sparse lawn cut by earthy cow-paths;\nbeyond its placid narrow green, the rough immensity of new stubble,\njagged with wheat-stacks like huge pineapples.\n\nErik talked of books; flamed like a recent convert to any faith. He\nexhibited as many titles and authors as possible, halting only to\nappeal, \"Have you read his last book? Don't you think he's a terribly\nstrong writer?\"\n\nShe was dizzy. But when he insisted, \"You've been a librarian; tell\nme; do I read too much fiction?\" she advised him loftily, rather\ndiscursively. He had, she indicated, never studied. He had skipped from\none emotion to another. Especially--she hesitated, then flung it at\nhim--he must not guess at pronunciations; he must endure the nuisance of\nstopping to reach for the dictionary.\n\n\"I'm talking like a cranky teacher,\" she sighed.\n\n\"No! And I will study! Read the damned dictionary right through.\" He\ncrossed his legs and bent over, clutching his ankle with both hands. \"I\nknow what you mean. I've been rushing from picture to picture, like a\nkid let loose in an art gallery for the first time. You see, it's so\nawful recent that I've found there was a world--well, a world where\nbeautiful things counted. I was on the farm till I was nineteen. Dad is\na good farmer, but nothing else. Do you know why he first sent me off to\nlearn tailoring? I wanted to study drawing, and he had a cousin that'd\nmade a lot of money tailoring out in Dakota, and he said tailoring was\na lot like drawing, so he sent me down to a punk hole called Curlew,\nto work in a tailor shop. Up to that time I'd only had three months'\nschooling a year--walked to school two miles, through snow up to my\nknees--and Dad never would stand for my having a single book except\nschoolbooks.\n\n\"I never read a novel till I got 'Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall' out\nof the library at Curlew. I thought it was the loveliest thing in the\nworld! Next I read 'Barriers Burned Away' and then Pope's translation of\nHomer. Some combination, all right! When I went to Minneapolis, just\ntwo years ago, I guess I'd read pretty much everything in that Curlew\nlibrary, but I'd never heard of Rossetti or John Sargent or Balzac or\nBrahms. But----Yump, I'll study. Look here! Shall I get out of this\ntailoring, this pressing and repairing?\"\n\n\"I don't see why a surgeon should spend very much time cobbling shoes.\"\n\n\"But what if I find I can't really draw and design? After fussing around\nin New York or Chicago, I'd feel like a fool if I had to go back to work\nin a gents' furnishings store!\"\n\n\"Please say 'haberdashery.'\"\n\n\"Haberdashery? All right. I'll remember.\" He shrugged and spread his\nfingers wide.\n\nShe was humbled by his humility; she put away in her mind, to take out\nand worry over later, a speculation as to whether it was not she who\nwas naive. She urged, \"What if you do have to go back? Most of us do! We\ncan't all be artists--myself, for instance. We have to darn socks, and\nyet we're not content to think of nothing but socks and darning-cotton.\nI'd demand all I could get--whether I finally settled down to designing\nfrocks or building temples or pressing pants. What if you do drop back?\nYou'll have had the adventure. Don't be too meek toward life! Go! You're\nyoung, you're unmarried. Try everything! Don't listen to Nat Hicks and\nSam Clark and be a 'steady young man'--in order to help them make\nmoney. You're still a blessed innocent. Go and play till the Good People\ncapture you!\"\n\n\"But I don't just want to play. I want to make something beautiful. God!\nAnd I don't know enough. Do you get it? Do you understand? Nobody else\never has! Do you understand?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And so----But here's what bothers me: I like fabrics; dinky things like\nthat; little drawings and elegant words. But look over there at those\nfields. Big! New! Don't it seem kind of a shame to leave this and go\nback to the East and Europe, and do what all those people have been\ndoing so long? Being careful about words, when there's millions of\nbushels off wheat here! Reading this fellow Pater, when I've helped Dad\nto clear fields!\"\n\n\"It's good to clear fields. But it's not for you. It's one of our\nfavorite American myths that broad plains necessarily make broad minds,\nand high mountains make high purpose. I thought that myself, when I\nfirst came to the prairie. 'Big--new.' Oh, I don't want to deny the\nprairie future. It will be magnificent. But equally I'm hanged if I want\nto be bullied by it, go to war on behalf of Main Street, be bullied and\nBULLIED by the faith that the future is already here in the present, and\nthat all of us must stay and worship wheat-stacks and insist that\nthis is 'God's Country'--and never, of course, do anything original\nor gay-colored that would help to make that future! Anyway, you don't\nbelong here. Sam Clark and Nat Hicks, that's what our big newness has\nproduced. Go! Before it's too late, as it has been for--for some of us.\nYoung man, go East and grow up with the revolution! Then perhaps you\nmay come back and tell Sam and Nat and me what to do with the land we've\nbeen clearing--if we'll listen--if we don't lynch you first!\"\n\nHe looked at her reverently. She could hear him saying,\n\n\"I've always wanted to know a woman who would talk to me like that.\"\n\nHer hearing was faulty. He was saying nothing of the sort. He was\nsaying:\n\n\"Why aren't you happy with your husband?\"\n\n\"I--you----\"\n\n\"He doesn't care for the 'blessed innocent' part of you, does he!\"\n\n\"Erik, you mustn't----\"\n\n\"First you tell me to go and be free, and then you say that I\n'mustn't'!\"\n\n\"I know. But you mustn't----You must be more impersonal!\"\n\nHe glowered at her like a downy young owl. She wasn't sure but she\nthought that he muttered, \"I'm damned if I will.\" She considered with\nwholesome fear the perils of meddling with other people's destinies, and\nshe said timidly, \"Hadn't we better start back now?\"\n\nHe mused, \"You're younger than I am. Your lips are for songs about\nrivers in the morning and lakes at twilight. I don't see how anybody\ncould ever hurt you. . . . Yes. We better go.\"\n\nHe trudged beside her, his eyes averted. Hugh experimentally took his\nthumb. He looked down at the baby seriously. He burst out, \"All right.\nI'll do it. I'll stay here one year. Save. Not spend so much money on\nclothes. And then I'll go East, to art-school. Work on the side-tailor\nshop, dressmaker's. I'll learn what I'm good for: designing clothes,\nstage-settings, illustrating, or selling collars to fat men. All\nsettled.\" He peered at her, unsmiling.\n\n\"Can you stand it here in town for a year?\"\n\n\"With you to look at?\"\n\n\"Please! I mean: Don't the people here think you're an odd bird? (They\ndo me, I assure you!)\"\n\n\"I don't know. I never notice much. Oh, they do kid me about not being\nin the army--especially the old warhorses, the old men that aren't going\nthemselves. And this Bogart boy. And Mr. Hicks's son--he's a horrible\nbrat. But probably he's licensed to say what he thinks about his\nfather's hired man!\"\n\n\"He's beastly!\"\n\nThey were in town. They passed Aunt Bessie's house. Aunt Bessie and\nMrs. Bogart were at the window, and Carol saw that they were staring so\nintently that they answered her wave only with the stiffly raised hands\nof automatons. In the next block Mrs. Dr. Westlake was gaping from her\nporch. Carol said with an embarrassed quaver:\n\n\"I want to run in and see Mrs. Westlake. I'll say good-by here.\"\n\nShe avoided his eyes.\n\nMrs. Westlake was affable. Carol felt that she was expected to explain;\nand while she was mentally asserting that she'd be hanged if she'd\nexplain, she was explaining:\n\n\"Hugh captured that Valborg boy up the track. They became such good\nfriends. And I talked to him for a while. I'd heard he was eccentric,\nbut really, I found him quite intelligent. Crude, but he reads--reads\nalmost the way Dr. Westlake does.\"\n\n\"That's fine. Why does he stick here in town? What's this I hear about\nhis being interested in Myrtle Cass?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Is he? I'm sure he isn't! He said he was quite lonely!\nBesides, Myrtle is a babe in arms!\"\n\n\"Twenty-one if she's a day!\"\n\n\"Well----Is the doctor going to do any hunting this fall?\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe need of explaining Erik dragged her back into doubting. For all his\nardent reading, and his ardent life, was he anything but a small-town\nyouth bred on an illiberal farm and in cheap tailor shops? He had rough\nhands. She had been attracted only by hands that were fine and suave,\nlike those of her father. Delicate hands and resolute purpose. But this\nboy--powerful seamed hands and flabby will.\n\n\"It's not appealing weakness like his, but sane strength that will\nanimate the Gopher Prairies. Only----Does that mean anything? Or am\nI echoing Vida? The world has always let 'strong' statesmen and\nsoldiers--the men with strong voices--take control, and what have the\nthundering boobies done? What is 'strength'?\n\n\"This classifying of people! I suppose tailors differ as much as\nburglars or kings.\n\n\"Erik frightened me when he turned on me. Of course he didn't mean\nanything, but I mustn't let him be so personal.\n\n\"Amazing impertinence!\n\n\"But he didn't mean to be.\n\n\"His hands are FIRM. I wonder if sculptors don't have thick hands, too?\n\n\"Of course if there really is anything I can do to HELP the boy----\n\n\"Though I despise these people who interfere. He must be independent.\"\n\n\nIII\n\n\nShe wasn't altogether pleased, the week after, when Erik was independent\nand, without asking for her inspiration, planned the tennis tournament.\nIt proved that he had learned to play in Minneapolis; that, next to\nJuanita Haydock, he had the best serve in town. Tennis was well spoken\nof in Gopher Prairie and almost never played. There were three courts:\none belonging to Harry Haydock, one to the cottages at the lake, and\none, a rough field on the outskirts, laid out by a defunct tennis\nassociation.\n\nErik had been seen in flannels and an imitation panama hat, playing on\nthe abandoned court with Willis Woodford, the clerk in Stowbody's bank.\nSuddenly he was going about proposing the reorganization of the tennis\nassociation, and writing names in a fifteen-cent note-book bought for\nthe purpose at Dyer's. When he came to Carol he was so excited over\nbeing an organizer that he did not stop to talk of himself and Aubrey\nBeardsley for more than ten minutes. He begged, \"Will you get some of\nthe folks to come in?\" and she nodded agreeably.\n\nHe proposed an informal exhibition match to advertise the association;\nhe suggested that Carol and himself, the Haydocks, the Woodfords, and\nthe Dillons play doubles, and that the association be formed from\nthe gathered enthusiasts. He had asked Harry Haydock to be tentative\npresident. Harry, he reported, had promised, \"All right. You bet. But\nyou go ahead and arrange things, and I'll O.K. 'em.\" Erik planned that\nthe match should be held Saturday afternoon, on the old public court\nat the edge of town. He was happy in being, for the first time, part of\nGopher Prairie.\n\nThrough the week Carol heard how select an attendance there was to be.\n\nKennicott growled that he didn't care to go.\n\nHad he any objections to her playing with Erik?\n\nNo; sure not; she needed the exercise. Carol went to the match early.\nThe court was in a meadow out on the New Antonia road. Only Erik was\nthere. He was dashing about with a rake, trying to make the court\nsomewhat less like a plowed field. He admitted that he had stage fright\nat the thought of the coming horde. Willis and Mrs. Woodford arrived,\nWillis in home-made knickers and black sneakers through at the toe;\nthen Dr. and Mrs. Harvey Dillon, people as harmless and grateful as the\nWoodfords.\n\nCarol was embarrassed and excessively agreeable, like the bishop's lady\ntrying not to feel out of place at a Baptist bazaar.\n\nThey waited.\n\nThe match was scheduled for three. As spectators there assembled one\nyouthful grocery clerk, stopping his Ford delivery wagon to stare from\nthe seat, and one solemn small boy, tugging a smaller sister who had a\ncareless nose.\n\n\"I wonder where the Haydocks are? They ought to show up, at least,\" said\nErik.\n\nCarol smiled confidently at him, and peered down the empty road toward\ntown. Only heat-waves and dust and dusty weeds.\n\nAt half-past three no one had come, and the grocery boy reluctantly got\nout, cranked his Ford, glared at them in a disillusioned manner, and\nrattled away. The small boy and his sister ate grass and sighed.\n\nThe players pretended to be exhilarated by practising service, but they\nstartled at each dust-cloud from a motor car. None of the cars turned\ninto the meadow-none till a quarter to four, when Kennicott drove in.\n\nCarol's heart swelled. \"How loyal he is! Depend on him! He'd come,\nif nobody else did. Even though he doesn't care for the game. The old\ndarling!\"\n\nKennicott did not alight. He called out, \"Carrie! Harry Haydock 'phoned\nme that they've decided to hold the tennis matches, or whatever you call\n'em, down at the cottages at the lake, instead of here. The bunch are\ndown there now: Haydocks and Dyers and Clarks and everybody. Harry\nwanted to know if I'd bring you down. I guess I can take the time--come\nright back after supper.\"\n\nBefore Carol could sum it all up, Erik stammered, \"Why, Haydock didn't\nsay anything to me about the change. Of course he's the president,\nbut----\"\n\nKennicott looked at him heavily, and grunted, \"I don't know a thing\nabout it. . . . Coming, Carrie?\"\n\n\"I am not! The match was to be here, and it will be here! You can tell\nHarry Haydock that he's beastly rude!\" She rallied the five who had\nbeen left out, who would always be left out. \"Come on! We'll toss to\nsee which four of us play the Only and Original First Annual Tennis\nTournament of Forest Hills, Del Monte, and Gopher Prairie!\"\n\n\"Don't know as I blame you,\" said Kennicott. \"Well have supper at home\nthen?\" He drove off.\n\nShe hated him for his composure. He had ruined her defiance. She felt\nmuch less like Susan B. Anthony as she turned to her huddled followers.\n\nMrs. Dillon and Willis Woodford lost the toss. The others played out\nthe game, slowly, painfully, stumbling on the rough earth, muffing the\neasiest shots, watched only by the small boy and his sniveling sister.\nBeyond the court stretched the eternal stubble-fields. The four\nmarionettes, awkwardly going through exercises, insignificant in the hot\nsweep of contemptuous land, were not heroic; their voices did not ring\nout in the score, but sounded apologetic; and when the game was over\nthey glanced about as though they were waiting to be laughed at.\n\nThey walked home. Carol took Erik's arm. Through her thin linen sleeve\nshe could feel the crumply warmth of his familiar brown jersey coat. She\nobserved that there were purple and red gold threads interwoven with the\nbrown. She remembered the first time she had seen it.\n\nTheir talk was nothing but improvisations on the theme: \"I never did\nlike this Haydock. He just considers his own convenience.\" Ahead\nof them, the Dillons and Woodfords spoke of the weather and B. J.\nGougerling's new bungalow. No one referred to their tennis tournament.\nAt her gate Carol shook hands firmly with Erik and smiled at him.\n\nNext morning, Sunday morning, when Carol was on the porch, the Haydocks\ndrove up.\n\n\"We didn't mean to be rude to you, dearie!\" implored Juanita. \"I\nwouldn't have you think that for anything. We planned that Will and you\nshould come down and have supper at our cottage.\"\n\n\"No. I'm sure you didn't mean to be.\" Carol was super-neighborly. \"But\nI do think you ought to apologize to poor Erik Valborg. He was terribly\nhurt.\"\n\n\"Oh. Valborg. I don't care so much what he thinks,\" objected Harry.\n\"He's nothing but a conceited buttinsky. Juanita and I kind of figured\nhe was trying to run this tennis thing too darn much anyway.\"\n\n\"But you asked him to make arrangements.\"\n\n\"I know, but I don't like him. Good Lord, you couldn't hurt his\nfeelings! He dresses up like a chorus man--and, by golly, he looks like\none!--but he's nothing but a Swede farm boy, and these foreigners, they\nall got hides like a covey of rhinoceroses .\"\n\n\"But he IS hurt!\"\n\n\"Well----I don't suppose I ought to have gone off half-cocked, and not\njollied him along. I'll give him a cigar. He'll----\"\n\nJuanita had been licking her lips and staring at Carol. She interrupted\nher husband, \"Yes, I do think Harry ought to fix it up with him. You\nLIKE him, DON'T you, Carol??\"\n\nOver and through Carol ran a frightened cautiousness. \"Like him? I\nhaven't an í-dea. He seems to be a very decent young man. I just felt\nthat when he'd worked so hard on the plans for the match, it was a shame\nnot to be nice to him.\"\n\n\"Maybe there's something to that,\" mumbled Harry; then, at sight of\nKennicott coming round the corner tugging the red garden hose by its\nbrass nozzle, he roared in relief, \"What d' you think you're trying to\ndo, doc?\"\n\nWhile Kennicott explained in detail all that he thought he was trying\nto do, while he rubbed his chin and gravely stated, \"Struck me the grass\nwas looking kind of brown in patches--didn't know but what I'd give it\na sprinkling,\" and while Harry agreed that this was an excellent\nidea, Juanita made friendly noises and, behind the gilt screen of an\naffectionate smile, watched Carol's face.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nShe wanted to see Erik. She wanted some one to play with! There wasn't\neven so dignified and sound an excuse as having Kennicott's trousers\npressed; when she inspected them, all three pairs looked discouragingly\nneat. She probably would not have ventured on it had she not spied Nat\nHicks in the pool-parlor, being witty over bottle-pool. Erik was alone!\nShe fluttered toward the tailor shop, dashed into its slovenly heat\nwith the comic fastidiousness of a humming bird dipping into a dry\ntiger-lily. It was after she had entered that she found an excuse.\n\nErik was in the back room, cross-legged on a long table, sewing a vest.\nBut he looked as though he were doing this eccentric thing to amuse\nhimself.\n\n\"Hello. I wonder if you couldn't plan a sports-suit for me?\" she said\nbreathlessly.\n\nHe stared at her; he protested, \"No, I won't! God! I'm not going to be a\ntailor with you!\"\n\n\"Why, Erik!\" she said, like a mildly shocked mother.\n\nIt occurred to her that she did not need a suit, and that the order\nmight have been hard to explain to Kennicott.\n\nHe swung down from the table. \"I want to show you something.\" He\nrummaged in the roll-top desk on which Nat Hicks kept bills, buttons,\ncalendars, buckles, thread-channeled wax, shotgun shells, samples of\nbrocade for \"fancy vests,\" fishing-reels, pornographic post-cards,\nshreds of buckram lining. He pulled out a blurred sheet of Bristol board\nand anxiously gave it to her. It was a sketch for a frock. It was not\nwell drawn; it was too finicking; the pillars in the background were\ngrotesquely squat. But the frock had an original back, very low, with\na central triangular section from the waist to a string of jet beads at\nthe neck.\n\n\"It's stunning. But how it would shock Mrs. Clark!\"\n\n\"Yes, wouldn't it!\"\n\n\"You must let yourself go more when you're drawing.\"\n\n\"Don't know if I can. I've started kind of late. But listen! What do you\nthink I've done this two weeks? I've read almost clear through a Latin\ngrammar, and about twenty pages of Caesar.\"\n\n\"Splendid! You are lucky. You haven't a teacher to make you artificial.\"\n\n\"You're my teacher!\"\n\nThere was a dangerous edge of personality to his voice. She was offended\nand agitated. She turned her shoulder on him, stared through the back\nwindow, studying this typical center of a typical Main Street block,\na vista hidden from casual strollers. The backs of the chief\nestablishments in town surrounded a quadrangle neglected, dirty, and\nincomparably dismal. From the front, Howland & Gould's grocery was smug\nenough, but attached to the rear was a lean-to of storm streaked pine\nlumber with a sanded tar roof--a staggering doubtful shed behind which\nwas a heap of ashes, splintered packing-boxes, shreds of excelsior,\ncrumpled straw-board, broken olive-bottles, rotten fruit, and utterly\ndisintegrated vegetables: orange carrots turning black, and potatoes\nwith ulcers. The rear of the Bon Ton Store was grim with blistered\nblack-painted iron shutters, under them a pile of once glossy red\nshirt-boxes, now a pulp from recent rain.\n\nAs seen from Main Street, Oleson & McGuire's Meat Market had a sanitary\nand virtuous expression with its new tile counter, fresh sawdust on the\nfloor, and a hanging veal cut in rosettes. But she now viewed a back\nroom with a homemade refrigerator of yellow smeared with black grease.\nA man in an apron spotted with dry blood was hoisting out a hard slab of\nmeat.\n\nBehind Billy's Lunch, the cook, in an apron which must long ago have\nbeen white, smoked a pipe and spat at the pest of sticky flies. In the\ncenter of the block, by itself, was the stable for the three horses of\nthe drayman, and beside it a pile of manure.\n\nThe rear of Ezra Stowbody's bank was whitewashed, and back of it was\na concrete walk and a three-foot square of grass, but the window was\nbarred, and behind the bars she saw Willis Woodford cramped over figures\nin pompous books. He raised his head, jerkily rubbed his eyes, and went\nback to the eternity of figures.\n\nThe backs of the other shops were an impressionistic picture of dirty\ngrays, drained browns, writhing heaps of refuse.\n\n\"Mine is a back-yard romance--with a journeyman tailor!\"\n\nShe was saved from self-pity as she began to think through Erik's mind.\nShe turned to him with an indignant, \"It's disgusting that this is all\nyou have to look at.\"\n\nHe considered it. \"Outside there? I don't notice much. I'm learning to\nlook inside. Not awful easy!\"\n\n\"Yes. . . . I must be hurrying.\"\n\nAs she walked home--without hurrying--she remembered her father saying\nto a serious ten-year-old Carol, \"Lady, only a fool thinks he's superior\nto beautiful bindings, but only a double-distilled fool reads nothing\nbut bindings.\"\n\nShe was startled by the return of her father, startled by a sudden\nconviction that in this flaxen boy she had found the gray reticent judge\nwho was divine love, perfect under-standing. She debated it, furiously\ndenied it, reaffirmed it, ridiculed it. Of one thing she was unhappily\ncertain: there was nothing of the beloved father image in Will\nKennicott.\n\n\nV\n\n\nShe wondered why she sang so often, and why she found so many pleasant\nthings--lamplight seen though trees on a cool evening, sunshine on brown\nwood, morning sparrows, black sloping roofs turned to plates of silver\nby moonlight. Pleasant things, small friendly things, and pleasant\nplaces--a field of goldenrod, a pasture by the creek--and suddenly\na wealth of pleasant people. Vida was lenient to Carol at the\nsurgical-dressing class; Mrs. Dave Dyer flattered her with questions\nabout her health, baby, cook, and opinions on the war.\n\nMrs. Dyer seemed not to share the town's prejudice against Erik. \"He's\na nice-looking fellow; we must have him go on one of our picnics some\ntime.\" Unexpectedly, Dave Dyer also liked him. The tight-fisted little\nfarceur had a confused reverence for anything that seemed to him refined\nor clever. He answered Harry Haydock's sneers, \"That's all right now!\nElizabeth may doll himself up too much, but he's smart, and don't you\nforget it! I was asking round trying to find out where this Ukraine is,\nand darn if he didn't tell me. What's the matter with his talking so\npolite? Hell's bells, Harry, no harm in being polite. There's some\nregular he-men that are just as polite as women, prett' near.\"\n\nCarol found herself going about rejoicing, \"How neighborly the town is!\"\nShe drew up with a dismayed \"Am I falling in love with this boy? That's\nridiculous! I'm merely interested in him. I like to think of helping him\nto succeed.\"\n\nBut as she dusted the living-room, mended a collar-band, bathed Hugh,\nshe was picturing herself and a young artistan Apollo nameless and\nevasive--building a house in the Berkshires or in Virginia; exuberantly\nbuying a chair with his first check; reading poetry together, and\nfrequently being earnest over valuable statistics about labor; tumbling\nout of bed early for a Sunday walk, and chattering (where Kennicott\nwould have yawned) over bread and butter by a lake. Hugh was in her\npictures, and he adored the young artist, who made castles of chairs and\nrugs for him. Beyond these playtimes she saw the \"things I could do for\nErik\"--and she admitted that Erik did partly make up the image of her\naltogether perfect artist.\n\nIn panic she insisted on being attentive to Kennicott, when he wanted to\nbe left alone to read the newspaper.\n\n\nVI\n\n\nShe needed new clothes. Kennicott had promised, \"We'll have a good trip\ndown to the Cities in the fall, and take plenty of time for it, and you\ncan get your new glad-rags then.\" But as she examined her wardrobe she\nflung her ancient black velvet frock on the floor and raged, \"They're\ndisgraceful. Everything I have is falling to pieces.\"\n\nThere was a new dressmaker and milliner, a Mrs. Swiftwaite. It was\nsaid that she was not altogether an elevating influence in the way she\nglanced at men; that she would as soon take away a legally appropriated\nhusband as not; that if there WAS any Mr. Swiftwaite, \"it certainly was\nstrange that nobody seemed to know anything about him!\" But she had made\nfor Rita Gould an organdy frock and hat to match universally admitted\nto be \"too cunning for words,\" and the matrons went cautiously,\nwith darting eyes and excessive politeness, to the rooms which Mrs.\nSwiftwaite had taken in the old Luke Dawson house, on Floral Avenue.\n\nWith none of the spiritual preparation which normally precedes the\nbuying of new clothes in Gopher Prairie, Carol marched into Mrs.\nSwiftwaite's, and demanded, \"I want to see a hat, and possibly a\nblouse.\"\n\nIn the dingy old front parlor which she had tried to make smart with a\npier glass, covers from fashion magazines, anemic French prints, Mrs.\nSwiftwaite moved smoothly among the dress-dummies and hat-rests, spoke\nsmoothly as she took up a small black and red turban. \"I am sure the\nlady will find this extremely attractive.\"\n\n\"It's dreadfully tabby and small-towny,\" thought Carol, while she\nsoothed, \"I don't believe it quite goes with me.\"\n\n\"It's the choicest thing I have, and I'm sure you'll find it suits you\nbeautifully. It has a great deal of chic. Please try it on,\" said Mrs.\nSwiftwaite, more smoothly than ever.\n\nCarol studied the woman. She was as imitative as a glass diamond. She\nwas the more rustic in her effort to appear urban. She wore a severe\nhigh-collared blouse with a row of small black buttons, which\nwas becoming to her low-breasted slim neatness, but her skirt was\nhysterically checkered, her cheeks were too highly rouged, her lips too\nsharply penciled. She was magnificently a specimen of the illiterate\ndivorcee of forty made up to look thirty, clever, and alluring.\n\nWhile she was trying on the hat Carol felt very condescending. She took\nit off, shook her head, explained with the kind smile for inferiors,\n\"I'm afraid it won't do, though it's unusually nice for so small a town\nas this.\"\n\n\"But it's really absolutely New-Yorkish.\"\n\n\"Well, it----\"\n\n\"You see, I know my New York styles. I lived in New York for years,\nbesides almost a year in Akron!\"\n\n\"You did?\" Carol was polite, and edged away, and went home unhappily.\nShe was wondering whether her own airs were as laughable as Mrs.\nSwiftwaite's. She put on the eye-glasses which Kennicott had recently\ngiven to her for reading, and looked over a grocery bill. She\nwent hastily up to her room, to her mirror. She was in a mood of\nself-depreciation. Accurately or not, this was the picture she saw in\nthe mirror:\n\nNeat rimless eye-glasses. Black hair clumsily tucked under a mauve straw\nhat which would have suited a spinster. Cheeks clear, bloodless. Thin\nnose. Gentle mouth and chin. A modest voile blouse with an edging of\nlace at the neck. A virginal sweetness and timorousness--no flare of\ngaiety, no suggestion of cities, music, quick laughter.\n\n\"I have become a small-town woman. Absolute. Typical. Modest and moral\nand safe. Protected from life. GENTEEL! The Village Virus--the village\nvirtuousness. My hair--just scrambled together. What can Erik see in\nthat wedded spinster there? He does like me! Because I'm the only woman\nwho's decent to him! How long before he'll wake up to me? . . . I've\nwaked up to myself. . . . Am I as old as--as old as I am?\n\n\"Not really old. Become careless. Let myself look tabby.\n\n\"I want to chuck every stitch I own. Black hair and pale cheeks--they'd\ngo with a Spanish dancer's costume--rose behind my ear, scarlet mantilla\nover one shoulder, the other bare.\"\n\nShe seized the rouge sponge, daubed her cheeks, scratched at her lips\nwith the vermilion pencil until they stung, tore open her collar. She\nposed with her thin arms in the attitude of the fandango. She dropped\nthem sharply. She shook her head. \"My heart doesn't dance,\" she said.\nShe flushed as she fastened her blouse.\n\n\"At least I'm much more graceful than Fern Mullins. Heavens! When I came\nhere from the Cities, girls imitated me. Now I'm trying to imitate a\ncity girl.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\nFERN Mullins rushed into the house on a Saturday morning early in\nSeptember and shrieked at Carol, \"School starts next Tuesday. I've got\nto have one more spree before I'm arrested. Let's get up a picnic down\nthe lake for this afternoon. Won't you come, Mrs. Kennicott, and the\ndoctor? Cy Bogart wants to go--he's a brat but he's lively.\"\n\n\"I don't think the doctor can go,\" sedately. \"He said something about\nhaving to make a country call this afternoon. But I'd love to.\"\n\n\"That's dandy! Who can we get?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Dyer might be chaperon. She's been so nice. And maybe Dave, if he\ncould get away from the store.\"\n\n\"How about Erik Valborg? I think he's got lots more style than these\ntown boys. You like him all right, don't you?\"\n\nSo the picnic of Carol, Fern, Erik, Cy Bogart, and the Dyers was not\nonly moral but inevitable.\n\nThey drove to the birch grove on the south shore of Lake Minniemashie.\nDave Dyer was his most clownish self. He yelped, jigged, wore Carol's\nhat, dropped an ant down Fern's back, and when they went swimming (the\nwomen modestly changing in the car with the side curtains up, the men\nundressing behind the bushes, constantly repeating, \"Gee, hope we don't\nrun into poison ivy\"), Dave splashed water on them and dived to clutch\nhis wife's ankle. He infected the others. Erik gave an imitation of\nthe Greek dancers he had seen in vaudeville, and when they sat down to\npicnic supper spread on a lap-robe on the grass, Cy climbed a tree to\nthrow acorns at them.\n\nBut Carol could not frolic.\n\nShe had made herself young, with parted hair, sailor blouse and large\nblue bow, white canvas shoes and short linen skirt. Her mirror had\nasserted that she looked exactly as she had in college, that her throat\nwas smooth, her collar-bone not very noticeable. But she was under\nrestraint. When they swam she enjoyed the freshness of the water but\nshe was irritated by Cy's tricks, by Dave's excessive good spirits. She\nadmired Erik's dance; he could never betray bad taste, as Cy did,\nand Dave. She waited for him to come to her. He did not come. By his\njoyousness he had apparently endeared himself to the Dyers. Maud watched\nhim and, after supper, cried to him, \"Come sit down beside me, bad boy!\"\nCarol winced at his willingness to be a bad boy and come and sit, at\nhis enjoyment of a not very stimulating game in which Maud, Dave, and\nCy snatched slices of cold tongue from one another's plates. Maud, it\nseemed, was slightly dizzy from the swim. She remarked publicly, \"Dr.\nKennicott has helped me so much by putting me on a diet,\" but it was\nto Erik alone that she gave the complete version of her peculiarity in\nbeing so sensitive, so easily hurt by the slightest cross word, that she\nsimply had to have nice cheery friends.\n\nErik was nice and cheery.\n\nCarol assured herself, \"Whatever faults I may have, I certainly couldn't\never be jealous. I do like Maud; she's always so pleasant. But I wonder\nif she isn't just a bit fond of fishing for men's sympathy? Playing\nwith Erik, and her married----Well----But she looks at him in that\nlanguishing, swooning, mid-Victorian way. Disgusting!\"\n\nCy Bogart lay between the roots of a big birch, smoking his pipe and\nteasing Fern, assuring her that a week from now, when he was again a\nhigh-school boy and she his teacher, he'd wink at her in class. Maud\nDyer wanted Erik to \"come down to the beach to see the darling little\nminnies.\" Carol was left to Dave, who tried to entertain her with\nhumorous accounts of Ella Stowbody's fondness for chocolate peppermints.\nShe watched Maud Dyer put her hand on Erik's shoulder to steady herself.\n\n\"Disgusting!\" she thought.\n\nCy Bogart covered Fern's nervous hand with his red paw, and when she\nbounced with half-anger and shrieked, \"Let go, I tell you!\" he grinned\nand waved his pipe--a gangling twenty-year-old satyr.\n\n\"Disgusting!\"\n\nWhen Maud and Erik returned and the grouping shifted, Erik muttered at\nCarol, \"There's a boat on shore. Let's skip off and have a row.\"\n\n\"What will they think?\" she worried. She saw Maud Dyer peer at Erik with\nmoist possessive eyes. \"Yes! Let's!\" she said.\n\nShe cried to the party, with the canonical amount of sprightliness,\n\"Good-by, everybody. We'll wireless you from China.\"\n\nAs the rhythmic oars plopped and creaked, as she floated on an unreality\nof delicate gray over which the sunset was poured out thin, the\nirritation of Cy and Maud slipped away. Erik smiled at her proudly. She\nconsidered him--coatless, in white thin shirt. She was conscious of his\nmale differentness, of his flat masculine sides, his thin thighs, his\neasy rowing. They talked of the library, of the movies. He hummed and\nshe softly sang \"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.\" A breeze shivered across the\nagate lake. The wrinkled water was like armor damascened and polished.\nThe breeze flowed round the boat in a chill current. Carol drew the\ncollar of her middy blouse over her bare throat.\n\n\"Getting cold. Afraid we'll have to go back,\" she said.\n\n\"Let's not go back to them yet. They'll be cutting up. Let's keep along\nthe shore.\"\n\n\"But you enjoy the 'cutting up!' Maud and you had a beautiful time.\"\n\n\"Why! We just walked on the shore and talked about fishing!\"\n\nShe was relieved, and apologetic to her friend Maud. \"Of course. I was\njoking.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you! Let's land here and sit on the shore--that bunch of\nhazel-brush will shelter us from the wind--and watch the sunset. It's\nlike melted lead. Just a short while! We don't want to go back and\nlisten to them!\"\n\n\"No, but----\" She said nothing while he sped ashore. The keel clashed\non the stones. He stood on the forward seat, holding out his hand.\nThey were alone, in the ripple-lapping silence. She rose slowly, slowly\nstepped over the water in the bottom of the old boat. She took his hand\nconfidently. Unspeaking they sat on a bleached log, in a russet twilight\nwhich hinted of autumn. Linden leaves fluttered about them.\n\n\"I wish----Are you cold now?\" he whispered.\n\n\"A little.\" She shivered. But it was not with cold.\n\n\"I wish we could curl up in the leaves there, covered all up, and lie\nlooking out at the dark.\"\n\n\"I wish we could.\" As though it was comfortably understood that he did\nnot mean to be taken seriously.\n\n\"Like what all the poets say--brown nymph and faun.\"\n\n\"No. I can't be a nymph any more. Too old----Erik, am I old? Am I faded\nand small-towny?\"\n\n\"Why, you're the youngest----Your eyes are like a girl's. They're\nso--well, I mean, like you believed everything. Even if you do teach\nme, I feel a thousand years older than you, instead of maybe a year\nyounger.\"\n\n\"Four or five years younger!\"\n\n\"Anyway, your eyes are so innocent and your cheeks so soft----Damn it,\nit makes me want to cry, somehow, you're so defenseless; and I want to\nprotect you and----There's nothing to protect you against!\"\n\n\"Am I young? Am I? Honestly? Truly?\" She betrayed for a moment the\nchildish, mock-imploring tone that comes into the voice of the most\nserious woman when an agreeable man treats her as a girl; the childish\ntone and childish pursed-up lips and shy lift of the cheek.\n\n\"Yes, you are!\"\n\n\"You're dear to believe it, Will--ERIK!\"\n\n\"Will you play with me? A lot?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\n\"Would you really like to curl in the leaves and watch the stars swing\nby overhead?\"\n\n\"I think it's rather better to be sitting here!\" He twined his fingers\nwith hers. \"And Erik, we must go back.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"It's somewhat late to outline all the history of social custom!\"\n\n\"I know. We must. Are you glad we ran away though?\"\n\n\"Yes.\" She was quiet, perfectly simple. But she rose.\n\nHe circled her waist with a brusque arm. She did not resist. She did\nnot care. He was neither a peasant tailor, a potential artist, a\nsocial complication, nor a peril. He was himself, and in him, in the\npersonality flowing from him, she was unreasoningly content. In his\nnearness she caught a new view of his head; the last light brought out\nthe planes of his neck, his flat ruddied cheeks, the side of his nose,\nthe depression of his temples. Not as coy or uneasy lovers but as\ncompanions they walked to the boat, and he lifted her up on the prow.\n\nShe began to talk intently, as he rowed: \"Erik, you've got to work! You\nought to be a personage. You're robbed of your kingdom. Fight for it!\nTake one of these correspondence courses in drawing--they mayn't be any\ngood in themselves, but they'll make you try to draw and----\"\n\nAs they reached the picnic ground she perceived that it was dark, that\nthey had been gone for a long time.\n\n\"What will they say?\" she wondered.\n\nThe others greeted them with the inevitable storm of humor and slight\nvexation: \"Where the deuce do you think you've been?\" \"You're a fine\npair, you are!\" Erik and Carol looked self-conscious; failed in their\neffort to be witty. All the way home Carol was embarrassed. Once Cy\nwinked at her. That Cy, the Peeping Tom of the garage-loft, should\nconsider her a fellow-sinner----She was furious and frightened and\nexultant by turns, and in all her moods certain that Kennicott would\nread her adventuring in her face.\n\nShe came into the house awkwardly defiant.\n\nHer husband, half asleep under the lamp, greeted her, \"Well, well, have\nnice time?\"\n\nShe could not answer. He looked at her. But his look did not sharpen.\nHe began to wind his watch, yawning the old \"Welllllll, guess it's about\ntime to turn in.\"\n\nThat was all. Yet she was not glad. She was almost disappointed.\n\n\nII\n\n\nMrs. Bogart called next day. She had a hen-like, crumb-pecking, diligent\nappearance. Her smile was too innocent. The pecking started instantly:\n\n\"Cy says you had lots of fun at the picnic yesterday. Did you enjoy it?\"\n\n\"Oh yes. I raced Cy at swimming. He beat me badly. He's so strong, isn't\nhe!\"\n\n\"Poor boy, just crazy to get into the war, too, but----This Erik Valborg\nwas along, wa'n't he?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I think he's an awful handsome fellow, and they say he's smart. Do you\nlike him?\"\n\n\"He seems very polite.\"\n\n\"Cy says you and him had a lovely boat-ride. My, that must have been\npleasant.\"\n\n\"Yes, except that I couldn't get Mr. Valborg to say a word. I wanted\nto ask him about the suit Mr. Hicks is making for my husband. But he\ninsisted on singing. Still, it was restful, floating around on the water\nand singing. So happy and innocent. Don't you think it's a shame, Mrs.\nBogart, that people in this town don't do more nice clean things like\nthat, instead of all this horrible gossiping?\"\n\n\"Yes. . . . Yes.\"\n\nMrs. Bogart sounded vacant. Her bonnet was awry; she was incomparably\ndowdy. Carol stared at her, felt contemptuous, ready at last to rebel\nagainst the trap, and as the rusty goodwife fished again, \"Plannin' some\nmore picnics?\" she flung out, \"I haven't the slightest idea! Oh. Is that\nHugh crying? I must run up to him.\"\n\nBut up-stairs she remembered that Mrs. Bogart had seen her walking\nwith Erik from the railroad track into town, and she was chilly with\ndisquietude.\n\nAt the Jolly Seventeen, two days after, she was effusive to Maud Dyer,\nto Juanita Haydock. She fancied that every one was watching her, but\nshe could not be sure, and in rare strong moments she did not care.\nShe could rebel against the town's prying now that she had something,\nhowever indistinct, for which to rebel.\n\nIn a passionate escape there must be not only a place from which to flee\nbut a place to which to flee. She had known that she would gladly leave\nGopher Prairie, leave Main Street and all that it signified, but she\nhad had no destination. She had one now. That destination was not Erik\nValborg and the love of Erik. She continued to assure herself that she\nwasn't in love with him but merely \"fond of him, and interested in his\nsuccess.\" Yet in him she had discovered both her need of youth and the\nfact that youth would welcome her. It was not Erik to whom she must\nescape, but universal and joyous youth, in class-rooms, in studios, in\noffices, in meetings to protest against Things in General. . . . But\nuniversal and joyous youth rather resembled Erik.\n\nAll week she thought of things she wished to say to him. High, improving\nthings. She began to admit that she was lonely without him. Then she was\nafraid.\n\nIt was at the Baptist church supper, a week after the picnic, that\nshe saw him again. She had gone with Kennicott and Aunt Bessie to the\nsupper, which was spread on oilcloth-covered and trestle-supported\ntables in the church basement. Erik was helping Myrtle Cass to fill\ncoffee cups for the waitresses. The congregation had doffed their\npiety. Children tumbled under the tables, and Deacon Pierson greeted the\nwomen with a rolling, \"Where's Brother Jones, sister, where's Brother\nJones? Not going to be with us tonight? Well, you tell Sister Perry to\nhand you a plate, and make 'em give you enough oyster pie!\"\n\nErik shared in the cheerfulness. He laughed with Myrtle, jogged her\nelbow when she was filling cups, made deep mock bows to the waitresses\nas they came up for coffee. Myrtle was enchanted by his humor. From the\nother end of the room, a matron among matrons, Carol observed\nMyrtle, and hated her, and caught herself at it. \"To be jealous of\na wooden-faced village girl!\" But she kept it up. She detested Erik;\ngloated over his gaucheries--his \"breaks,\" she called them. When he\nwas too expressive, too much like a Russian dancer, in saluting Deacon\nPierson, Carol had the ecstasy of pain in seeing the deacon's sneer.\nWhen, trying to talk to three girls at once, he dropped a cup and\neffeminately wailed, \"Oh dear!\" she sympathized with--and ached\nover--the insulting secret glances of the girls.\n\nFrom meanly hating him she rose to compassion as she saw that his eyes\nbegged every one to like him. She perceived how inaccurate her judgments\ncould be. At the picnic she had fancied that Maud Dyer looked upon Erik\ntoo sentimentally, and she had snarled, \"I hate these married women who\ncheapen themselves and feed on boys.\" But at the supper Maud was one of\nthe waitresses; she bustled with platters of cake, she was pleasant to\nold women; and to Erik she gave no attention at all. Indeed, when she\nhad her own supper, she joined the Kennicotts, and how ludicrous it was\nto suppose that Maud was a gourmet of emotions Carol saw in the fact\nthat she talked not to one of the town beaux but to the safe Kennicott\nhimself!\n\nWhen Carol glanced at Erik again she discovered that Mrs. Bogart had\nan eye on her. It was a shock to know that at last there was something\nwhich could make her afraid of Mrs. Bogart's spying.\n\n\"What am I doing? Am I in love with Erik? Unfaithful? I? I want youth\nbut I don't want him--I mean, I don't want youth--enough to break up my\nlife. I must get out of this. Quick.\"\n\nShe said to Kennicott on their way home, \"Will! I want to run away for a\nfew days. Wouldn't you like to skip down to Chicago?\"\n\n\"Still be pretty hot there. No fun in a big city till winter. What do\nyou want to go for?\"\n\n\"People! To occupy my mind. I want stimulus.\"\n\n\"Stimulus?\" He spoke good-naturedly. \"Who's been feeding you meat? You\ngot that 'stimulus' out of one of these fool stories about wives that\ndon't know when they're well off. Stimulus! Seriously, though, to cut\nout the jollying, I can't get away.\"\n\n\"Then why don't I run off by myself?\"\n\n\"Why----'Tisn't the money, you understand. But what about Hugh?\"\n\n\"Leave him with Aunt Bessie. It would be just for a few days.\"\n\n\"I don't think much of this business of leaving kids around. Bad for\n'em.\"\n\n\"So you don't think----\"\n\n\"I'll tell you: I think we better stay put till after the war. Then\nwe'll have a dandy long trip. No, I don't think you better plan much\nabout going away now.\"\n\nSo she was thrown at Erik.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nShe awoke at ebb-time, at three of the morning, woke sharply and fully;\nand sharply and coldly as her father pronouncing sentence on a cruel\nswindler she gave judgment:\n\n\"A pitiful and tawdry love-affair.\n\n\"No splendor, no defiance. A self-deceived little woman whispering in\ncorners with a pretentious little man.\n\n\"No, he is not. He is fine. Aspiring. It's not his fault. His eyes are\nsweet when he looks at me. Sweet, so sweet.\"\n\nShe pitied herself that her romance should be pitiful; she sighed that\nin this colorless hour, to this austere self, it should seem tawdry.\n\nThen, in a very great desire of rebellion and unleashing of all her\nhatreds, \"The pettier and more tawdry it is, the more blame to Main\nStreet. It shows how much I've been longing to escape. Any way out! Any\nhumility so long as I can flee. Main Street has done this to me. I came\nhere eager for nobilities, ready for work, and now----Any way out.\n\n\"I came trusting them. They beat me with rods of dullness. They don't\nknow, they don't understand how agonizing their complacent dullness is.\nLike ants and August sun on a wound.\n\n\"Tawdry! Pitiful! Carol--the clean girl that used to walk so\nfast!--sneaking and tittering in dark corners, being sentimental and\njealous at church suppers!\"\n\nAt breakfast-time her agonies were night-blurred, and persisted only as\na nervous irresolution.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nFew of the aristocrats of the Jolly Seventeen attended the humble\nfolk-meets of the Baptist and Methodist church suppers, where the Willis\nWoodfords, the Dillons, the Champ Perrys, Oleson the butcher, Brad Bemis\nthe tinsmith, and Deacon Pierson found release from loneliness. But all\nof the smart set went to the lawn-festivals of the Episcopal Church, and\nwere reprovingly polite to outsiders.\n\nThe Harry Haydocks gave the last lawn-festival of the season; a splendor\nof Japanese lanterns and card-tables and chicken patties and Neapolitan\nice-cream. Erik was no longer entirely an outsider. He was eating his\nice-cream with a group of the people most solidly \"in\"--the Dyers,\nMyrtle Cass, Guy Pollock, the Jackson Elders. The Haydocks themselves\nkept aloof, but the others tolerated him. He would never, Carol fancied,\nbe one of the town pillars, because he was not orthodox in hunting and\nmotoring and poker. But he was winning approbation by his liveliness,\nhis gaiety--the qualities least important in him.\n\nWhen the group summoned Carol she made several very well-taken points in\nregard to the weather.\n\nMyrtle cried to Erik, \"Come on! We don't belong with these old folks.\nI want to make you 'quainted with the jolliest girl, she comes from\nWakamin, she's staying with Mary Howland.\"\n\nCarol saw him being profuse to the guest from Wakamin. She saw him\nconfidentially strolling with Myrtle. She burst out to Mrs. Westlake,\n\"Valborg and Myrtle seem to have quite a crush on each other.\"\n\nMrs. Westlake glanced at her curiously before she mumbled, \"Yes, don't\nthey.\"\n\n\"I'm mad, to talk this way,\" Carol worried.\n\nShe had regained a feeling of social virtue by telling Juanita Haydock\n\"how darling her lawn looked with the Japanese lanterns\" when she saw\nthat Erik was stalking her. Though he was merely ambling about with his\nhands in his pockets, though he did not peep at her, she knew that he\nwas calling her. She sidled away from Juanita. Erik hastened to her. She\nnodded coolly (she was proud of her coolness).\n\n\"Carol! I've got a wonderful chance! Don't know but what some ways\nit might be better than going East to take art. Myrtle Cass says----I\ndropped in to say howdy to Myrtle last evening, and had quite a long\ntalk with her father, and he said he was hunting for a fellow to go to\nwork in the flour mill and learn the whole business, and maybe become\ngeneral manager. I know something about wheat from my farming, and I\nworked a couple of months in the flour mill at Curlew when I got sick of\ntailoring. What do you think? You said any work was artistic if it was\ndone by an artist. And flour is so important. What do you think?\"\n\n\"Wait! Wait!\"\n\nThis sensitive boy would be very skilfully stamped into conformity by\nLyman Cass and his sallow daughter; but did she detest the plan for this\nreason? \"I must be honest. I mustn't tamper with his future to please my\nvanity.\" But she had no sure vision. She turned on him:\n\n\"How can I decide? It's up to you. Do you want to become a person like\nLym Cass, or do you want to become a person like--yes, like me! Wait!\nDon't be flattering. Be honest. This is important.\"\n\n\"I know. I am a person like you now! I mean, I want to rebel.\"\n\n\"Yes. We're alike,\" gravely.\n\n\"Only I'm not sure I can put through my schemes. I really can't draw\nmuch. I guess I have pretty fair taste in fabrics, but since I've known\nyou I don't like to think about fussing with dress-designing. But as a\nmiller, I'd have the means--books, piano, travel.\"\n\n\"I'm going to be frank and beastly. Don't you realize that it isn't just\nbecause her papa needs a bright young man in the mill that Myrtle is\namiable to you? Can't you understand what she'll do to you when she has\nyou, when she sends you to church and makes you become respectable?\"\n\nHe glared at her. \"I don't know. I suppose so.\"\n\n\"You are thoroughly unstable!\"\n\n\"What if I am? Most fish out of water are! Don't talk like Mrs. Bogart!\nHow can I be anything but 'unstable'--wandering from farm to tailor\nshop to books, no training, nothing but trying to make books talk to\nme! Probably I'll fail. Oh, I know it; probably I'm uneven. But I'm not\nunstable in thinking about this job in the mill--and Myrtle. I know what\nI want. I want you!\"\n\n\"Please, please, oh, please!\"\n\n\"I do. I'm not a schoolboy any more. I want you. If I take Myrtle, it's\nto forget you.\"\n\n\"Please, please!\"\n\n\"It's you that are unstable! You talk at things and play at things, but\nyou're scared. Would I mind it if you and I went off to poverty, and I\nhad to dig ditches? I would not! But you would. I think you would come\nto like me, but you won't admit it. I wouldn't have said this, but when\nyou sneer at Myrtle and the mill----If I'm not to have good sensible\nthings like those, d' you think I'll be content with trying to become a\ndamn dressmaker, after YOU? Are you fair? Are you?\"\n\n\"No, I suppose not.\"\n\n\"Do you like me? Do you?\"\n\n\"Yes----No! Please! I can't talk any more.\"\n\n\"Not here. Mrs. Haydock is looking at us.\"\n\n\"No, nor anywhere. O Erik, I am fond of you, but I'm afraid.\"\n\n\"What of?\"\n\n\"Of Them! Of my rulers--Gopher Prairie. . . . My dear boy, we are\ntalking very foolishly. I am a normal wife and a good mother, and you\nare--oh, a college freshman.\"\n\n\"You do like me! I'm going to make you love me!\"\n\nShe looked at him once, recklessly, and walked away with a serene gait\nthat was a disordered flight.\n\nKennicott grumbled on their way home, \"You and this Valborg fellow seem\nquite chummy.\"\n\n\"Oh, we are. He's interested in Myrtle Cass, and I was telling him how\nnice she is.\"\n\nIn her room she marveled, \"I have become a liar. I'm snarled with lies\nand foggy analyses and desires--I who was clear and sure.\"\n\nShe hurried into Kennicott's room, sat on the edge of his bed. He\nflapped a drowsy welcoming hand at her from the expanse of quilt and\ndented pillows.\n\n\"Will, I really think I ought to trot off to St. Paul or Chicago or some\nplace.\"\n\n\"I thought we settled all that, few nights ago! Wait till we can have a\nreal trip.\" He shook himself out of his drowsiness. \"You might give me a\ngood-night kiss.\"\n\nShe did--dutifully. He held her lips against his for an intolerable\ntime. \"Don't you like the old man any more?\" he coaxed. He sat up and\nshyly fitted his palm about the slimness of her waist.\n\n\"Of course. I like you very much indeed.\" Even to herself it sounded\nflat. She longed to be able to throw into her voice the facile passion\nof a light woman. She patted his cheek.\n\nHe sighed, \"I'm sorry you're so tired. Seems like----But of course you\naren't very strong.\"\n\n\"Yes. . . . Then you don't think--you're quite sure I ought to stay here\nin town?\"\n\n\"I told you so! I certainly do!\"\n\nShe crept back to her room, a small timorous figure in white.\n\n\"I can't face Will down--demand the right. He'd be obstinate. And I\ncan't even go off and earn my living again. Out of the habit of it. He's\ndriving me----I'm afraid of what he's driving me to. Afraid.\n\n\"That man in there, snoring in stale air, my husband? Could any ceremony\nmake him my husband?\n\n\"No. I don't want to hurt him. I want to love him. I can't, when I'm\nthinking of Erik. Am I too honest--a funny topsy-turvy honesty--the\nfaithfulness of unfaith? I wish I had a more compartmental mind, like\nmen. I'm too monogamous--toward Erik!--my child Erik, who needs me.\n\n\"Is an illicit affair like a gambling debt--demands stricter honor than\nthe legitimate debt of matrimony, because it's not legally enforced?\n\n\"That's nonsense! I don't care in the least for Erik! Not for any man. I\nwant to be let alone, in a woman world--a world without Main Street,\nor politicians, or business men, or men with that sudden beastly hungry\nlook, that glistening unfrank expression that wives know----\n\n\"If Erik were here, if he would just sit quiet and kind and talk, I\ncould be still, I could go to sleep.\n\n\"I am so tired. If I could sleep----\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\nTHEIR night came unheralded.\n\nKennicott was on a country call. It was cool but Carol huddled on the\nporch, rocking, meditating, rocking. The house was lonely and repellent,\nand though she sighed, \"I ought to go in and read--so many things to\nread--ought to go in,\" she remained. Suddenly Erik was coming, turning\nin, swinging open the screen door, touching her hand.\n\n\"Erik!\"\n\n\"Saw your husband driving out of town. Couldn't stand it.\"\n\n\"Well----You mustn't stay more than five minutes.\"\n\n\"Couldn't stand not seeing you. Every day, towards evening, felt I had\nto see you--pictured you so clear. I've been good though, staying away,\nhaven't I!\"\n\n\"And you must go on being good.\"\n\n\"Why must I?\"\n\n\"We better not stay here on the porch. The Howlands across the street\nare such window-peepers, and Mrs. Bogart----\"\n\nShe did not look at him but she could divine his tremulousness as he\nstumbled indoors. A moment ago the night had been coldly empty; now it\nwas incalculable, hot, treacherous. But it is women who are the calm\nrealists once they discard the fetishes of the premarital hunt. Carol\nwas serene as she murmured, \"Hungry? I have some little honey-colored\ncakes. You may have two, and then you must skip home.\"\n\n\"Take me up and let me see Hugh asleep.\"\n\n\"I don't believe----\"\n\n\"Just a glimpse!\"\n\n\"Well----\"\n\nShe doubtfully led the way to the hallroom-nursery. Their heads close,\nErik's curls pleasant as they touched her cheek, they looked in at the\nbaby. Hugh was pink with slumber. He had burrowed into his pillow with\nsuch energy that it was almost smothering him. Beside it was a celluloid\nrhinoceros; tight in his hand a torn picture of Old King Cole.\n\n\"Shhh!\" said Carol, quite automatically. She tiptoed in to pat the\npillow. As she returned to Erik she had a friendly sense of his waiting\nfor her. They smiled at each other. She did not think of Kennicott, the\nbaby's father. What she did think was that some one rather like Erik, an\nolder and surer Erik, ought to be Hugh's father. The three of them would\nplay--incredible imaginative games.\n\n\"Carol! You've told me about your own room. Let me peep in at it.\"\n\n\"But you mustn't stay, not a second. We must go downstairs.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Will you be good?\"\n\n\"R-reasonably!\" He was pale, large-eyed, serious.\n\n\"You've got to be more than reasonably good!\" She felt sensible and\nsuperior; she was energetic about pushing open the door.\n\nKennicott had always seemed out of place there but Erik surprisingly\nharmonized with the spirit of the room as he stroked the books, glanced\nat the prints. He held out his hands. He came toward her. She was weak,\nbetrayed to a warm softness. Her head was tilted back. Her eyes were\nclosed. Her thoughts were formless but many-colored. She felt his kiss,\ndiffident and reverent, on her eyelid.\n\nThen she knew that it was impossible.\n\nShe shook herself. She sprang from him. \"Please!\" she said sharply.\n\nHe looked at her unyielding.\n\n\"I am fond of you,\" she said. \"Don't spoil everything. Be my friend.\"\n\n\"How many thousands and millions of women must have said that! And now\nyou! And it doesn't spoil everything. It glorifies everything.\"\n\n\"Dear, I do think there's a tiny streak of fairy in you--whatever you do\nwith it. Perhaps I'd have loved that once. But I won't. It's too late.\nBut I'll keep a fondness for you. Impersonal--I will be impersonal! It\nneedn't be just a thin talky fondness. You do need me, don't you? Only\nyou and my son need me. I've wanted so to be wanted! Once I wanted\nlove to be given to me. Now I'll be content if I can give. . . . Almost\ncontent!\n\n\"We women, we like to do things for men. Poor men! We swoop on you when\nyou're defenseless and fuss over you and insist on reforming you. But\nit's so pitifully deep in us. You'll be the one thing in which I haven't\nfailed. Do something definite! Even if it's just selling cottons. Sell\nbeautiful cottons--caravans from China----\"\n\n\"Carol! Stop! You do love me!\"\n\n\"I do not! It's just----Can't you understand? Everything crushes in on\nme so, all the gaping dull people, and I look for a way out----Please\ngo. I can't stand any more. Please!\"\n\nHe was gone. And she was not relieved by the quiet of the house. She was\nempty and the house was empty and she needed him. She wanted to go\non talking, to get this threshed out, to build a sane friendship. She\nwavered down to the living-room, looked out of the bay-window. He was\nnot to be seen. But Mrs. Westlake was. She was walking past, and in\nthe light from the corner arc-lamp she quickly inspected the porch, the\nwindows. Carol dropped the curtain, stood with movement and reflection\nparalyzed. Automatically, without reasoning, she mumbled, \"I will see\nhim again soon and make him understand we must be friends. But----The\nhouse is so empty. It echoes so.\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nKennicott had seemed nervous and absent-minded through that supper-hour,\ntwo evenings after. He prowled about the living-room, then growled:\n\n\"What the dickens have you been saying to Ma Westlake?\"\n\nCarol's book rattled. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I told you that Westlake and his wife were jealous of us, and here you\nbeen chumming up to them and----From what Dave tells me, Ma Westlake has\nbeen going around town saying you told her that you hate Aunt Bessie,\nand that you fixed up your own room because I snore, and you said\nBjornstam was too good for Bea, and then, just recent, that you were\nsore on the town because we don't all go down on our knees and beg this\nValborg fellow to come take supper with us. God only knows what else she\nsays you said.\"\n\n\"It's not true, any of it! I did like Mrs. Westlake, and I've called on\nher, and apparently she's gone and twisted everything I've said----\"\n\n\"Sure. Of course she would. Didn't I tell you she would? She's an old\ncat, like her pussyfooting, hand-holding husband. Lord, if I was sick,\nI'd rather have a faith-healer than Westlake, and she's another slice\noff the same bacon. What I can't understand though----\"\n\nShe waited, taut.\n\n\"----is whatever possessed you to let her pump you, bright a girl as\nyou are. I don't care what you told her--we all get peeved sometimes\nand want to blow off steam, that's natural--but if you wanted to keep it\ndark, why didn't you advertise it in the Dauntless, or get a megaphone\nand stand on top of the hotel and holler, or do anything besides spill\nit to her!\"\n\n\"I know. You told me. But she was so motherly. And I didn't have any\nwoman----Vida 's become so married and proprietary.\"\n\n\"Well, next time you'll have better sense.\"\n\nHe patted her head, flumped down behind his newspaper, said nothing\nmore.\n\nEnemies leered through the windows, stole on her from the hall. She had\nno one save Erik. This kind good man Kennicott--he was an elder\nbrother. It was Erik, her fellow outcast, to whom she wanted to run for\nsanctuary. Through her storm she was, to the eye, sitting quietly with\nher fingers between the pages of a baby-blue book on home-dressmaking.\nBut her dismay at Mrs. Westlake's treachery had risen to active dread.\nWhat had the woman said of her and Erik? What did she know? What had she\nseen? Who else would join in the baying hunt? Who else had seen her\nwith Erik? What had she to fear from the Dyers, Cy Bogart, Juanita, Aunt\nBessie? What precisely had she answered to Mrs. Bogart's questioning?\n\nAll next day she was too restless to stay home, yet as she walked the\nstreets on fictitious errands she was afraid of every person she met.\nShe waited for them to speak; waited with foreboding. She repeated, \"I\nmustn't ever see Erik again.\" But the words did not register. She had no\necstatic indulgence in the sense of guilt which is, to the women of Main\nStreet, the surest escape from blank tediousness.\n\nAt five, crumpled in a chair in the living-room, she started at the\nsound of the bell. Some one opened the door. She waited, uneasy. Vida\nSherwin charged into the room. \"Here's the one person I can trust!\"\nCarol rejoiced.\n\nVida was serious but affectionate. She bustled at Carol with, \"Oh, there\nyou are, dearie, so glad t' find you in, sit down, want to talk to you.\"\n\nCarol sat, obedient.\n\nVida fussily tugged over a large chair and launched out:\n\n\"I've been hearing vague rumors you were interested in this Erik\nValborg. I knew you couldn't be guilty, and I'm surer than ever of it\nnow. Here we are, as blooming as a daisy.\"\n\n\"How does a respectable matron look when she feels guilty?\"\n\nCarol sounded resentful.\n\n\"Why----Oh, it would show! Besides! I know that you, of all people, are\nthe one that can appreciate Dr. Will.\"\n\n\"What have you been hearing?\"\n\n\"Nothing, really. I just heard Mrs. Bogart say she'd seen you and\nValborg walking together a lot.\" Vida's chirping slackened. She looked\nat her nails. \"But----I suspect you do like Valborg. Oh, I don't mean in\nany wrong way. But you're young; you don't know what an innocent liking\nmight drift into. You always pretend to be so sophisticated and all,\nbut you're a baby. Just because you are so innocent, you don't know what\nevil thoughts may lurk in that fellow's brain.\"\n\n\"You don't suppose Valborg could actually think about making love to\nme?\"\n\nHer rather cheap sport ended abruptly as Vida cried, with contorted\nface, \"What do you know about the thoughts in hearts? You just play at\nreforming the world. You don't know what it means to suffer.\"\n\nThere are two insults which no human being will endure: the assertion\nthat he hasn't a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion\nthat he has never known trouble. Carol said furiously, \"You think I\ndon't suffer? You think I've always had an easy----\"\n\n\"No, you don't. I'm going to tell you something I've never told a living\nsoul, not even Ray.\" The dam of repressed imagination which Vida had\nbuilded for years, which now, with Raymie off at the wars, she was\nbuilding again, gave way.\n\n\"I was--I liked Will terribly well. One time at a party--oh, before\nhe met you, of course--but we held hands, and we were so happy. But I\ndidn't feel I was really suited to him. I let him go. Please don't think\nI still love him! I see now that Ray was predestined to be my mate. But\nbecause I liked him, I know how sincere and pure and noble Will is, and\nhis thoughts never straying from the path of rectitude, and----If I gave\nhim up to you, at least you've got to appreciate him! We danced together\nand laughed so, and I gave him up, but----This IS my affair! I'm NOT\nintruding! I see the whole thing as he does, because of all I've told\nyou. Maybe it's shameless to bare my heart this way, but I do it for\nhim--for him and you!\"\n\nCarol understood that Vida believed herself to have recited minutely and\nbrazenly a story of intimate love; understood that, in alarm, she was\ntrying to cover her shame as she struggled on, \"Liked him in the most\nhonorable way--simply can't help it if I still see things through\nhis eyes----If I gave him up, I certainly am not beyond my rights\nin demanding that you take care to avoid even the appearance of evil\nand----\" She was weeping; an insignificant, flushed, ungracefully\nweeping woman.\n\nCarol could not endure it. She ran to Vida, kissed her forehead,\ncomforted her with a murmur of dove-like sounds, sought to reassure her\nwith worn and hastily assembled gifts of words: \"Oh, I appreciate it so\nmuch,\" and \"You are so fine and splendid,\" and \"Let me assure you there\nisn't a thing to what you've heard,\" and \"Oh, indeed, I do know how\nsincere Will is, and as you say, so--so sincere.\"\n\nVida believed that she had explained many deep and devious matters. She\ncame out of her hysteria like a sparrow shaking off rain-drops. She sat\nup, and took advantage of her victory:\n\n\"I don't want to rub it in, but you can see for yourself now, this is\nall a result of your being so discontented and not appreciating the dear\ngood people here. And another thing: People like you and me, who want to\nreform things, have to be particularly careful about appearances. Think\nhow much better you can criticize conventional customs if you yourself\nlive up to them, scrupulously. Then people can't say you're attacking\nthem to excuse your own infractions.\"\n\nTo Carol was given a sudden great philosophical understanding, an\nexplanation of half the cautious reforms in history. \"Yes. I've heard\nthat plea. It's a good one. It sets revolts aside to cool. It keeps\nstrays in the flock. To word it differently: 'You must live up to the\npopular code if you believe in it; but if you don't believe in it, then\nyou MUST live up to it!'\"\n\n\"I don't think so at all,\" said Vida vaguely. She began to look hurt,\nand Carol let her be oracular.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nVida had done her a service; had made all agonizing seem so fatuous that\nshe ceased writhing and saw that her whole problem was simple as mutton:\nshe was interested in Erik's aspiration; interest gave her a hesitating\nfondness for him; and the future would take care of the event. . . .\nBut at night, thinking in bed, she protested, \"I'm not a falsely\naccused innocent, though! If it were some one more resolute than Erik, a\nfighter, an artist with bearded surly lips----They're only in books.\nIs that the real tragedy, that I never shall know tragedy, never find\nanything but blustery complications that turn out to be a farce?\n\n\"No one big enough or pitiful enough to sacrifice for. Tragedy in\nneat blouses; the eternal flame all nice and safe in a kerosene stove.\nNeither heroic faith nor heroic guilt. Peeping at love from behind lace\ncurtains--on Main Street!\"\n\nAunt Bessie crept in next day, tried to pump her, tried to prime the\npump by again hinting that Kennicott might have his own affairs. Carol\nsnapped, \"Whatever I may do, I'll have you to understand that Will is\nonly too safe!\" She wished afterward that she had not been so lofty. How\nmuch would Aunt Bessie make of \"Whatever I may do?\"\n\nWhen Kennicott came home he poked at things, and hemmed, and brought\nout, \"Saw aunty, this afternoon. She said you weren't very polite to\nher.\"\n\nCarol laughed. He looked at her in a puzzled way and fled to his\nnewspaper.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nShe lay sleepless. She alternately considered ways of leaving Kennicott,\nand remembered his virtues, pitied his bewilderment in face of the\nsubtle corroding sicknesses which he could not dose nor cut out. Didn't\nhe perhaps need her more than did the book-solaced Erik? Suppose Will\nwere to die, suddenly. Suppose she never again saw him at breakfast,\nsilent but amiable, listening to her chatter. Suppose he never again\nplayed elephant for Hugh. Suppose----A country call, a slippery road,\nhis motor skidding, the edge of the road crumbling, the car turning\nturtle, Will pinned beneath, suffering, brought home maimed, looking at\nher with spaniel eyes--or waiting for her, calling for her, while she\nwas in Chicago, knowing nothing of it. Suppose he were sued by some\nvicious shrieking woman for malpractice. He tried to get witnesses;\nWestlake spread lies; his friends doubted him; his self-confidence was\nso broken that it was horrible to see the indecision of the decisive\nman; he was convicted, handcuffed, taken on a train----\n\nShe ran to his room. At her nervous push the door swung sharply in,\nstruck a chair. He awoke, gasped, then in a steady voice: \"What is it,\ndear? Anything wrong?\" She darted to him, fumbled for the familiar harsh\nbristly cheek. How well she knew it, every seam, and hardness of bone,\nand roll of fat! Yet when he sighed, \"This is a nice visit,\" and dropped\nhis hand on her thin-covered shoulder, she said, too cheerily, \"I\nthought I heard you moaning. So silly of me. Good night, dear.\"\n\n\nV\n\n\nShe did not see Erik for a fortnight, save once at church and once when\nshe went to the tailor shop to talk over the plans, contingencies, and\nstrategy of Kennicott's annual campaign for getting a new suit. Nat\nHicks was there, and he was not so deferential as he had been. With\nunnecessary jauntiness he chuckled, \"Some nice flannels, them\nsamples, heh?\" Needlessly he touched her arm to call attention to the\nfashion-plates, and humorously he glanced from her to Erik. At home she\nwondered if the little beast might not be suggesting himself as a rival\nto Erik, but that abysmal bedragglement she would not consider.\n\nShe saw Juanita Haydock slowly walking past the house--as Mrs. Westlake\nhad once walked past.\n\nShe met Mrs. Westlake in Uncle Whittier's store, and before that alert\nstare forgot her determination to be rude, and was shakily cordial.\n\nShe was sure that all the men on the street, even Guy Pollock and Sam\nClark, leered at her in an interested hopeful way, as though she were\na notorious divorcee. She felt as insecure as a shadowed criminal. She\nwished to see Erik, and wished that she had never seen him. She fancied\nthat Kennicott was the only person in town who did not know all--know\nincomparably more than there was to know--about herself and Erik. She\ncrouched in her chair as she imagined men talking of her, thick-voiced,\nobscene, in barber shops and the tobacco-stinking pool parlor.\n\nThrough early autumn Fern Mullins was the only person who broke the\nsuspense. The frivolous teacher had come to accept Carol as of her\nown youth, and though school had begun she rushed in daily to suggest\ndances, welsh-rabbit parties.\n\nFern begged her to go as chaperon to a barn-dance in the country, on a\nSaturday evening. Carol could not go. The next day, the storm crashed.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\nI\n\nCAROL was on the back porch, tightening a bolt on the baby's go-cart,\nthis Sunday afternoon. Through an open window of the Bogart house she\nheard a screeching, heard Mrs. Bogart's haggish voice:\n\n\" . . . did too, and there's no use your denying it no you don't, you march\nyourself right straight out of the house . . . never in my life heard of\nsuch . . . never had nobody talk to me like . . . walk in the ways of sin\nand nastiness . . . leave your clothes here, and heaven knows that's more\nthan you deserve . . . any of your lip or I'll call the policeman.\"\n\nThe voice of the other interlocutor Carol did not catch, nor, though\nMrs. Bogart was proclaiming that he was her confidant and present\nassistant, did she catch the voice of Mrs. Bogart's God.\n\n\"Another row with Cy,\" Carol inferred.\n\nShe trundled the go-cart down the back steps and tentatively wheeled it\nacross the yard, proud of her repairs. She heard steps on the sidewalk.\nShe saw not Cy Bogart but Fern Mullins, carrying a suit-case, hurrying\nup the street with her head low. The widow, standing on the porch with\nbuttery arms akimbo, yammered after the fleeing girl:\n\n\"And don't you dare show your face on this block again. You can send the\ndrayman for your trunk. My house has been contaminated long enough. Why\nthe Lord should afflict me----\"\n\nFern was gone. The righteous widow glared, banged into the house, came\nout poking at her bonnet, marched away. By this time Carol was staring\nin a manner not visibly to be distinguished from the window-peeping of\nthe rest of Gopher Prairie. She saw Mrs. Bogart enter the Howland house,\nthen the Casses'. Not till suppertime did she reach the Kennicotts. The\ndoctor answered her ring, and greeted her, \"Well, well? how's the good\nneighbor?\"\n\nThe good neighbor charged into the living-room, waving the most unctuous\nof black kid gloves and delightedly sputtering:\n\n\"You may well ask how I am! I really do wonder how I could go through\nthe awful scenes of this day--and the impudence I took from that woman's\ntongue, that ought to be cut out----\"\n\n\"Whoa! Whoa! Hold up!\" roared Kennicott. \"Who's the hussy, Sister\nBogart? Sit down and take it cool and tell us about it.\"\n\n\"I can't sit down, I must hurry home, but I couldn't devote myself to my\nown selfish cares till I'd warned you, and heaven knows I don't expect\nany thanks for trying to warn the town against her, there's always so\nmuch evil in the world that folks simply won't see or appreciate your\ntrying to safeguard them----And forcing herself in here to get in with\nyou and Carrie, many 's the time I've seen her doing it, and, thank\nheaven, she was found out in time before she could do any more harm, it\nsimply breaks my heart and prostrates me to think what she may have done\nalready, even if some of us that understand and know about things----\"\n\n\"Whoa-up! Who are you talking about?\"\n\n\"She's talking about Fern Mullins,\" Carol put in, not pleasantly.\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\nKennicott was incredulous.\n\n\"I certainly am!\" flourished Mrs. Bogart, \"and good and thankful you\nmay be that I found her out in time, before she could get YOU into\nsomething, Carol, because even if you are my neighbor and Will's wife\nand a cultured lady, let me tell you right now, Carol Kennicott, that\nyou ain't always as respectful to--you ain't as reverent--you don't\nstick by the good old ways like they was laid down for us by God in the\nBible, and while of course there ain't a bit of harm in having a good\nlaugh, and I know there ain't any real wickedness in you, yet just the\nsame you don't fear God and hate the transgressors of his commandments\nlike you ought to, and you may be thankful I found out this serpent I\nnourished in my bosom--and oh yes! oh yes indeed! my lady must have\ntwo eggs every morning for breakfast, and eggs sixty cents a dozen, and\nwa'n't satisfied with one, like most folks--what did she care how much\nthey cost or if a person couldn't make hardly nothing on her board and\nroom, in fact I just took her in out of charity and I might have known\nfrom the kind of stockings and clothes that she sneaked into my house in\nher trunk----\"\n\nBefore they got her story she had five more minutes of obscene\nwallowing. The gutter comedy turned into high tragedy, with Nemesis\nin black kid gloves. The actual story was simple, depressing, and\nunimportant. As to details Mrs. Bogart was indefinite, and angry that\nshe should be questioned.\n\nFern Mullins and Cy had, the evening before, driven alone to a\nbarn-dance in the country. (Carol brought out the admission that Fern\nhad tried to get a chaperon.) At the dance Cy had kissed Fern--she\nconfessed that. Cy had obtained a pint of whisky; he said that he didn't\nremember where he had got it; Mrs. Bogart implied that Fern had given\nit to him; Fern herself insisted that he had stolen it from a farmer's\novercoat--which, Mrs. Bogart raged, was obviously a lie. He had become\nsoggily drunk. Fern had driven him home; deposited him, retching and\nwabbling, on the Bogart porch.\n\nNever before had her boy been drunk, shrieked Mrs. Bogart. When\nKennicott grunted, she owned, \"Well, maybe once or twice I've smelled\nlicker on his breath.\" She also, with an air of being only too\nscrupulously exact, granted that sometimes he did not come home till\nmorning. But he couldn't ever have been drunk, for he always had\nthe best excuses: the other boys had tempted him to go down the lake\nspearing pickerel by torchlight, or he had been out in a \"machine that\nran out of gas.\" Anyway, never before had her boy fallen into the hands\nof a \"designing woman.\"\n\n\"What do you suppose Miss Mullins could design to do with him?\" insisted\nCarol.\n\nMrs. Bogart was puzzled, gave it up, went on. This morning, when she had\nfaced both of them, Cy had manfully confessed that all of the blame was\non Fern, because the teacher--his own teacher--had dared him to take a\ndrink. Fern had tried to deny it.\n\n\"Then,\" gabbled Mrs. Bogart, \"then that woman had the impudence to\nsay to me, 'What purpose could I have in wanting the filthy pup to get\ndrunk?' That's just what she called him--pup. 'I'll have no such nasty\nlanguage in my house,' I says, 'and you pretending and pulling the wool\nover people's eyes and making them think you're educated and fit to be\na teacher and look out for young people's morals--you're worse 'n any\nstreet-walker!' I says. I let her have it good. I wa'n't going to flinch\nfrom my bounden duty and let her think that decent folks had to stand\nfor her vile talk. 'Purpose?' I says, 'Purpose? I'll tell you what\npurpose you had! Ain't I seen you making up to everything in pants\nthat'd waste time and pay attention to your impert'nence? Ain't I seen\nyou showing off your legs with them short skirts of yours, trying\nto make out like you was so girlish and la-de-da, running along the\nstreet?'\"\n\nCarol was very sick at this version of Fern's eager youth, but she was\nsicker as Mrs. Bogart hinted that no one could tell what had happened\nbetween Fern and Cy before the drive home. Without exactly describing\nthe scene, by her power of lustful imagination the woman suggested dark\ncountry places apart from the lanterns and rude fiddling and banging\ndance-steps in the barn, then madness and harsh hateful conquest. Carol\nwas too sick to interrupt. It was Kennicott who cried, \"Oh, for God's\nsake quit it! You haven't any idea what happened. You haven't given us a\nsingle proof yet that Fern is anything but a rattle-brained youngster.\"\n\n\"I haven't, eh? Well, what do you say to this? I come straight out and\nI says to her, 'Did you or did you not taste the whisky Cy had?' and she\nsays, 'I think I did take one sip--Cy made me,' she said. She owned up\nto that much, so you can imagine----\"\n\n\"Does that prove her a prostitute?\" asked Carol.\n\n\"Carrie! Don't you never use a word like that again!\" wailed the\noutraged Puritan.\n\n\"Well, does it prove her to be a bad woman, that she took a taste of\nwhisky? I've done it myself!\"\n\n\"That's different. Not that I approve your doing it. What do the\nScriptures tell us? 'Strong drink is a mocker'! But that's entirely\ndifferent from a teacher drinking with one of her own pupils.\"\n\n\"Yes, it does sound bad. Fern was silly, undoubtedly. But as a matter\nof fact she's only a year or two older than Cy and probably a good many\nyears younger in experience of vice.\"\n\n\"That's--not--true! She is plenty old enough to corrupt him!\n\n\"The job of corrupting Cy was done by your sinless town, five years\nago!\"\n\nMrs. Bogart did not rage in return. Suddenly she was hopeless. Her head\ndrooped. She patted her black kid gloves, picked at a thread of her\nfaded brown skirt, and sighed, \"He's a good boy, and awful affectionate\nif you treat him right. Some thinks he's terrible wild, but that's\nbecause he's young. And he's so brave and truthful--why, he was one of\nthe first in town that wanted to enlist for the war, and I had to speak\nreal sharp to him to keep him from running away. I didn't want him to\nget into no bad influences round these camps--and then,\" Mrs. Bogart\nrose from her pitifulness, recovered her pace, \"then I go and bring into\nmy own house a woman that's worse, when all's said and done, than any\nbad woman he could have met. You say this Mullins woman is too young\nand inexperienced to corrupt Cy. Well then, she's too young and\ninexperienced to teach him, too, one or t'other, you can't have your\ncake and eat it! So it don't make no difference which reason they fire\nher for, and that's practically almost what I said to the school-board.\"\n\n\"Have you been telling this story to the members of the school-board?\"\n\n\"I certainly have! Every one of 'em! And their wives I says to them,\n''Tain't my affair to decide what you should or should not do with your\nteachers,' I says, 'and I ain't presuming to dictate in any way, shape,\nmanner, or form. I just want to know,' I says, 'whether you're going\nto go on record as keeping here in our schools, among a lot of innocent\nboys and girls, a woman that drinks, smokes, curses, uses bad language,\nand does such dreadful things as I wouldn't lay tongue to but you know\nwhat I mean,' I says, 'and if so, I'll just see to it that the town\nlearns about it.' And that's what I told Professor Mott, too, being\nsuperintendent--and he's a righteous man, not going autoing on the\nSabbath like the school-board members. And the professor as much as\nadmitted he was suspicious of the Mullins woman himself.\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nKennicott was less shocked and much less frightened than Carol, and more\narticulate in his description of Mrs. Bogart, when she had gone.\n\nMaud Dyer telephoned to Carol and, after a rather improbable question\nabout cooking lima beans with bacon, demanded, \"Have you heard the\nscandal about this Miss Mullins and Cy Bogart?\"\n\n\"I'm sure it's a lie.\"\n\n\"Oh, probably is.\" Maud's manner indicated that the falsity of the story\nwas an insignificant flaw in its general delightfulness.\n\nCarol crept to her room, sat with hands curled tight together as she\nlistened to a plague of voices. She could hear the town yelping with it,\nevery soul of them, gleeful at new details, panting to win importance by\nhaving details of their own to add. How well they would make up for what\nthey had been afraid to do by imagining it in another! They who had\nnot been entirely afraid (but merely careful and sneaky), all the\nbarber-shop roues and millinery-parlor mondaines, how archly they\nwere giggling (this second--she could hear them at it); with what\nself-commendation they were cackling their suavest wit: \"You can't tell\nME she ain't a gay bird; I'm wise!\"\n\nAnd not one man in town to carry out their pioneer tradition of superb\nand contemptuous cursing, not one to verify the myth that their \"rough\nchivalry\" and \"rugged virtues\" were more generous than the petty\nscandal-picking of older lands, not one dramatic frontiersman to\nthunder, with fantastic and fictional oaths, \"What are you hinting\nat? What are you snickering at? What facts have you? What are these\nunheard-of sins you condemn so much--and like so well?\"\n\nNo one to say it. Not Kennicott nor Guy Pollock nor Champ Perry.\n\nErik? Possibly. He would sputter uneasy protest.\n\nShe suddenly wondered what subterranean connection her interest in Erik\nhad with this affair. Wasn't it because they had been prevented by her\ncaste from bounding on her own trail that they were howling at Fern?\n\n\nIII\n\n\nBefore supper she found, by half a dozen telephone calls, that Fern had\nfled to the Minniemashie House. She hastened there, trying not to be\nself-conscious about the people who looked at her on the street. The\nclerk said indifferently that he \"guessed\" Miss Mullins was up in Room\n37, and left Carol to find the way. She hunted along the stale-smelling\ncorridors with their wallpaper of cerise daisies and poison-green\nrosettes, streaked in white spots from spilled water, their frayed red\nand yellow matting, and rows of pine doors painted a sickly blue. She\ncould not find the number. In the darkness at the end of a corridor she\nhad to feel the aluminum figures on the door-panels. She was startled\nonce by a man's voice: \"Yep? Whadyuh want?\" and fled. When she reached\nthe right door she stood listening. She made out a long sobbing. There\nwas no answer till her third knock; then an alarmed \"Who is it? Go\naway!\"\n\nHer hatred of the town turned resolute as she pushed open the door.\n\nYesterday she had seen Fern Mullins in boots and tweed skirt and\ncanary-yellow sweater, fleet and self-possessed. Now she lay across\nthe bed, in crumpled lavender cotton and shabby pumps, very feminine,\nutterly cowed. She lifted her head in stupid terror. Her hair was in\ntousled strings and her face was sallow, creased. Her eyes were a blur\nfrom weeping.\n\n\"I didn't! I didn't!\" was all she would say at first, and she repeated\nit while Carol kissed her cheek, stroked her hair, bathed her forehead.\nShe rested then, while Carol looked about the room--the welcome to\nstrangers, the sanctuary of hospitable Main Street, the lucrative\nproperty of Kennicott's friend, Jackson Elder. It smelled of old linen\nand decaying carpet and ancient tobacco smoke. The bed was rickety,\nwith a thin knotty mattress; the sand-colored walls were scratched and\ngouged; in every corner, under everything, were fluffy dust and cigar\nashes; on the tilted wash-stand was a nicked and squatty pitcher; the\nonly chair was a grim straight object of spotty varnish; but there was\nan altogether splendid gilt and rose cuspidor.\n\nShe did not try to draw out Fern's story; Fern insisted on telling it.\n\nShe had gone to the party, not quite liking Cy but willing to endure him\nfor the sake of dancing, of escaping from Mrs. Bogart's flow of moral\ncomments, of relaxing after the first strained weeks of teaching. Cy\n\"promised to be good.\" He was, on the way out. There were a few workmen\nfrom Gopher Prairie at the dance, with many young farm-people. Half\na dozen squatters from a degenerate colony in a brush-hidden hollow,\nplanters of potatoes, suspected thieves, came in noisily drunk. They all\npounded the floor of the barn in old-fashioned square dances, swinging\ntheir partners, skipping, laughing, under the incantations of Del\nSnafflin the barber, who fiddled and called the figures. Cy had two\ndrinks from pocket-flasks. Fern saw him fumbling among the overcoats\npiled on the feedbox at the far end of the barn; soon after she heard a\nfarmer declaring that some one had stolen his bottle. She taxed Cy with\nthe theft; he chuckled, \"Oh, it's just a joke; I'm going to give it\nback.\" He demanded that she take a drink. Unless she did, he wouldn't\nreturn the bottle.\n\n\"I just brushed my lips with it, and gave it back to him,\" moaned Fern.\nShe sat up, glared at Carol. \"Did you ever take a drink?\"\n\n\"I have. A few. I'd love to have one right now! This contact with\nrighteousness has about done me up!\"\n\nFern could laugh then. \"So would I! I don't suppose I've had five drinks\nin my life, but if I meet just one more Bogart and Son----Well, I didn't\nreally touch that bottle--horrible raw whisky--though I'd have loved\nsome wine. I felt so jolly. The barn was almost like a stage scene--the\nhigh rafters, and the dark stalls, and tin lanterns swinging, and a\nsilage-cutter up at the end like some mysterious kind of machine. And\nI'd been having lots of fun dancing with the nicest young farmer, so\nstrong and nice, and awfully intelligent. But I got uneasy when I saw\nhow Cy was. So I doubt if I touched two drops of the beastly stuff. Do\nyou suppose God is punishing me for even wanting wine?\"\n\n\"My dear, Mrs. Bogart's god may be--Main Street's god. But all the\ncourageous intelligent people are fighting him . . . though he slay us.\"\n\nFern danced again with the young farmer; she forgot Cy while she was\ntalking with a girl who had taken the University agricultural course.\nCy could not have returned the bottle; he came staggering toward\nher--taking time to make himself offensive to every girl on the way\nand to dance a jig. She insisted on their returning. Cy went with her,\nchuckling and jigging. He kissed her, outside the door. . . . \"And\nto think I used to think it was interesting to have men kiss you at\na dance!\". . . She ignored the kiss, in the need of getting him home\nbefore he started a fight. A farmer helped her harness the buggy, while\nCy snored in the seat. He awoke before they set out; all the way home he\nalternately slept and tried to make love to her.\n\n\"I'm almost as strong as he is. I managed to keep him away while I\ndrove--such a rickety buggy. I didn't feel like a girl; I felt like a\nscrubwoman--no, I guess I was too scared to have any feelings at all. It\nwas terribly dark. I got home, somehow. But it was hard, the time I had\nto get out, and it was quite muddy, to read a sign-post--I lit matches\nthat I took from Cy's coat pocket, and he followed me--he fell off\nthe buggy step into the mud, and got up and tried to make love to me,\nand----I was scared. But I hit him. Quite hard. And got in, and so he\nran after the buggy, crying like a baby, and I let him in again, and\nright away again he was trying----But no matter. I got him home. Up on\nthe porch. Mrs. Bogart was waiting up. . . .\n\n\"You know, it was funny; all the time she was--oh, talking to me--and Cy\nwas being terribly sick--I just kept thinking, 'I've still got to drive\nthe buggy down to the livery stable. I wonder if the livery man will be\nawake?' But I got through somehow. I took the buggy down to the stable,\nand got to my room. I locked my door, but Mrs. Bogart kept saying\nthings, outside the door. Stood out there saying things about me,\ndreadful things, and rattling the knob. And all the while I could hear\nCy in the back yard-being sick. I don't think I'll ever marry any man.\nAnd then today----\n\n\"She drove me right out of the house. She wouldn't listen to me, all\nmorning. Just to Cy. I suppose he's over his headache now. Even at\nbreakfast he thought the whole thing was a grand joke. I suppose right\nthis minute he's going around town boasting about his 'conquest.' You\nunderstand--oh, DON'T you understand? I DID keep him away! But I don't\nsee how I can face my school. They say country towns are fine for\nbringing up boys in, but----I can't believe this is me, lying here and\nsaying this. I don't BELIEVE what happened last night.\n\n\"Oh. This was curious: When I took off my dress last night--it was a\ndarling dress, I loved it so, but of course the mud had spoiled it. I\ncried over it and----No matter. But my white silk stockings were all\ntorn, and the strange thing is, I don't know whether I caught my legs\nin the briers when I got out to look at the sign-post, or whether Cy\nscratched me when I was fighting him off.\"\n\n\nIV\n\n\nSam Clark was president of the school-board. When Carol told him Fern's\nstory Sam looked sympathetic and neighborly, and Mrs. Clark sat by\ncooing, \"Oh, isn't that too bad.\" Carol was interrupted only when Mrs.\nClark begged, \"Dear, don't speak so bitter about 'pious' people. There's\nlots of sincere practising Christians that are real tolerant. Like the\nChamp Perrys.\"\n\n\"Yes. I know. Unfortunately there are enough kindly people in the\nchurches to keep them going.\"\n\nWhen Carol had finished, Mrs. Clark breathed, \"Poor girl; I don't doubt\nher story a bit,\" and Sam rumbled, \"Yuh, sure. Miss Mullins is young and\nreckless, but everybody in town, except Ma Bogart, knows what Cy is. But\nMiss Mullins was a fool to go with him.\"\n\n\"But not wicked enough to pay for it with disgrace?\"\n\n\"N-no, but----\" Sam avoided verdicts, clung to the entrancing horrors\nof the story. \"Ma Bogart cussed her out all morning, did she? Jumped her\nneck, eh? Ma certainly is one hell-cat.\"\n\n\"Yes, you know how she is; so vicious.\"\n\n\"Oh no, her best style ain't her viciousness. What she pulls in our\nstore is to come in smiling with Christian Fortitude and keep a clerk\nbusy for one hour while she picks out half a dozen fourpenny nails. I\nremember one time----\"\n\n\"Sam!\" Carol was uneasy. \"You'll fight for Fern, won't you? When Mrs.\nBogart came to see you did she make definite charges?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, you might say she did.\"\n\n\"But the school-board won't act on them?\"\n\n\"Guess we'll more or less have to.\"\n\n\"But you'll exonerate Fern?\"\n\n\"I'll do what I can for the girl personally, but you know what the board\nis. There's Reverend Zitterel; Sister Bogart about half runs his church,\nso of course he'll take her say-so; and Ezra Stowbody, as a banker he\nhas to be all hell for morality and purity. Might 's well admit it,\nCarrie; I'm afraid there'll be a majority of the board against her. Not\nthat any of us would believe a word Cy said, not if he swore it on a\nstack of Bibles, but still, after all this gossip, Miss Mullins wouldn't\nhardly be the party to chaperon our basket-ball team when it went out of\ntown to play other high schools, would she!\"\n\n\"Perhaps not, but couldn't some one else?\"\n\n\"Why, that's one of the things she was hired for.\" Sam sounded stubborn.\n\n\"Do you realize that this isn't just a matter of a job, and hiring and\nfiring; that it's actually sending a splendid girl out with a beastly\nstain on her, giving all the other Bogarts in the world a chance at her?\nThat's what will happen if you discharge her.\"\n\nSam moved uncomfortably, looked at his wife, scratched his head, sighed,\nsaid nothing.\n\n\"Won't you fight for her on the board? If you lose, won't you, and\nwhoever agrees with you, make a minority report?\"\n\n\"No reports made in a case like this. Our rule is to just decide the\nthing and announce the final decision, whether it's unanimous or not.\"\n\n\"Rules! Against a girl's future! Dear God! Rules of a school-board! Sam!\nWon't you stand by Fern, and threaten to resign from the board if they\ntry to discharge her?\"\n\nRather testy, tired of so many subtleties, he complained, \"Well, I'll do\nwhat I can, but I'll have to wait till the board meets.\"\n\nAnd \"I'll do what I can,\" together with the secret admission \"Of\ncourse you and I know what Ma Bogart is,\" was all Carol could get\nfrom Superintendent George Edwin Mott, Ezra Stowbody, the Reverend Mr.\nZitterel or any other member of the school-board.\n\nAfterward she wondered whether Mr. Zitterel could have been referring\nto herself when he observed, \"There's too much license in high places\nin this town, though, and the wages of sin is death--or anyway, bein'\nfired.\" The holy leer with which the priest said it remained in her\nmind.\n\nShe was at the hotel before eight next morning. Fern longed to go to\nschool, to face the tittering, but she was too shaky. Carol read to\nher all day and, by reassuring her, convinced her own self that the\nschool-board would be just. She was less sure of it that evening when,\nat the motion pictures, she heard Mrs. Gougerling exclaim to Mrs.\nHowland, \"She may be so innocent and all, and I suppose she probably is,\nbut still, if she drank a whole bottle of whisky at that dance, the way\neverybody says she did, she may have forgotten she was so innocent! Hee,\nhee, hee!\" Maud Dyer, leaning back from her seat, put in, \"That's what\nI've said all along. I don't want to roast anybody, but have you noticed\nthe way she looks at men?\"\n\n\"When will they have me on the scaffold?\" Carol speculated.\n\nNat Hicks stopped the Kennicotts on their way home. Carol hated him for\nhis manner of assuming that they two had a mysterious understanding.\nWithout quite winking he seemed to wink at her as he gurgled, \"What do\nyou folks think about this Mullins woman? I'm not strait-laced, but I\ntell you we got to have decent women in our schools. D' you know what I\nheard? They say whatever she may of done afterwards, this Mullins dame\ntook two quarts of whisky to the dance with her, and got stewed before\nCy did! Some tank, that wren! Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\n\"Rats, I don't believe it,\" Kennicott muttered.\n\nHe got Carol away before she was able to speak.\n\nShe saw Erik passing the house, late, alone, and she stared after him,\nlonging for the lively bitterness of the things he would say about the\ntown. Kennicott had nothing for her but \"Oh, course, ev'body likes a\njuicy story, but they don't intend to be mean.\"\n\nShe went up to bed proving to herself that the members of the\nschool-board were superior men.\n\nIt was Tuesday afternoon before she learned that the board had met\nat ten in the morning and voted to \"accept Miss Fern Mullins's\nresignation.\" Sam Clark telephoned the news to her. \"We're not making\nany charges. We're just letting her resign. Would you like to drop over\nto the hotel and ask her to write the resignation, now we've accepted\nit? Glad I could get the board to put it that way. It's thanks to you.\"\n\n\"But can't you see that the town will take this as proof of the\ncharges?\"\n\n\"We're--not--making--no--charges--whatever!\" Sam was obviously finding\nit hard to be patient.\n\nFern left town that evening.\n\nCarol went with her to the train. The two girls elbowed through a silent\nlip-licking crowd. Carol tried to stare them down but in face of\nthe impishness of the boys and the bovine gaping of the men, she was\nembarrassed. Fern did not glance at them. Carol felt her arm tremble,\nthough she was tearless, listless, plodding. She squeezed Carol's hand,\nsaid something unintelligible, stumbled up into the vestibule.\n\nCarol remembered that Miles Bjornstam had also taken a train. What would\nbe the scene at the station when she herself took departure?\n\nShe walked up-town behind two strangers.\n\nOne of them was giggling, \"See that good-looking wench that got on here?\nThe swell kid with the small black hat? She's some charmer! I was here\nyesterday, before my jump to Ojibway Falls, and I heard all about\nher. Seems she was a teacher, but she certainly was a high-roller--O\nboy!--high, wide, and fancy! Her and couple of other skirts bought a\nwhole case of whisky and went on a tear, and one night, darned if this\nbunch of cradle-robbers didn't get hold of some young kids, just small\nboys, and they all got lit up like a White Way, and went out to a\nroughneck dance, and they say----\"\n\nThe narrator turned, saw a woman near and, not being a common person nor\na coarse workman but a clever salesman and a householder, lowered\nhis voice for the rest of the tale. During it the other man laughed\nhoarsely.\n\nCarol turned off on a side-street.\n\nShe passed Cy Bogart. He was humorously narrating some achievement to a\ngroup which included Nat Hicks, Del Snafflin, Bert Tybee the bartender,\nand A. Tennyson O'Hearn the shyster lawyer. They were men far older than\nCy but they accepted him as one of their own, and encouraged him to go\non.\n\nIt was a week before she received from Fern a letter of which this was a\npart:\n\n. . . & of course my family did not really believe the story but as\nthey were sure I must have done something wrong they just lectured\nme generally, in fact jawed me till I have gone to live at a boarding\nhouse. The teachers' agencies must know the story, man at one almost\nslammed the door in my face when I went to ask about a job, & at another\nthe woman in charge was beastly. Don't know what I will do. Don't seem\nto feel very well. May marry a fellow that's in love with me but he's so\nstupid that he makes me SCREAM.\n\nDear Mrs. Kennicott you were the only one that believed me. I guess it's\na joke on me, I was such a simp, I felt quite heroic while I was driving\nthe buggy back that night & keeping Cy away from me. I guess I expected\nthe people in Gopher Prairie to admire me. I did use to be admired for\nmy athletics at the U.--just five months ago.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\nFOR a month which was one suspended moment of doubt she saw Erik only\ncasually, at an Eastern Star dance, at the shop, where, in the\npresence of Nat Hicks, they conferred with immense particularity on the\nsignificance of having one or two buttons on the cuff of Kennicott's New\nSuit. For the benefit of beholders they were respectably vacuous.\n\nThus barred from him, depressed in the thought of Fern, Carol was\nsuddenly and for the first time convinced that she loved Erik.\n\nShe told herself a thousand inspiriting things which he would say if he\nhad the opportunity; for them she admired him, loved him. But she was\nafraid to summon him. He understood, he did not come. She forgot her\nevery doubt of him, and her discomfort in his background. Each day it\nseemed impossible to get through the desolation of not seeing him. Each\nmorning, each afternoon, each evening was a compartment divided from all\nother units of time, distinguished by a sudden \"Oh! I want to see Erik!\"\nwhich was as devastating as though she had never said it before.\n\nThere were wretched periods when she could not picture him. Usually\nhe stood out in her mind in some little moment--glancing up from his\npreposterous pressing-iron, or running on the beach with Dave Dyer.\nBut sometimes he had vanished; he was only an opinion. She worried then\nabout his appearance: Weren't his wrists too large and red? Wasn't his\nnose a snub, like so many Scandinavians? Was he at all the graceful\nthing she had fancied? When she encountered him on the street she was\nas much reassuring herself as rejoicing in his presence. More disturbing\nthan being unable to visualize him was the darting remembrance of some\nintimate aspect: his face as they had walked to the boat together at the\npicnic; the ruddy light on his temples, neck-cords, flat cheeks.\n\nOn a November evening when Kennicott was in the country she answered the\nbell and was confused to find Erik at the door, stooped, imploring, his\nhands in the pockets of his topcoat. As though he had been rehearsing\nhis speech he instantly besought:\n\n\"Saw your husband driving away. I've got to see you. I can't stand it.\nCome for a walk. I know! People might see us. But they won't if we hike\ninto the country. I'll wait for you by the elevator. Take as long as you\nwant to--oh, come quick!\"\n\n\"In a few minutes,\" she promised.\n\nShe murmured, \"I'll just talk to him for a quarter of an hour and come\nhome.\" She put an her tweed coat and rubber overshoes, considering how\nhonest and hopeless are rubbers, how clearly their chaperonage proved\nthat she wasn't going to a lovers' tryst.\n\nShe found him in the shadow of the grain-elevator, sulkily kicking at\na rail of the side-track. As she came toward him she fancied that his\nwhole body expanded. But he said nothing, nor she; he patted her sleeve,\nshe returned the pat, and they crossed the railroad tracks, found a\nroad, clumped toward open country.\n\n\"Chilly night, but I like this melancholy gray,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThey passed a moaning clump of trees and splashed along the wet road.\nHe tucked her hand into the side-pocket of his overcoat. She caught his\nthumb and, sighing, held it exactly as Hugh held hers when they went\nwalking. She thought about Hugh. The current maid was in for the\nevening, but was it safe to leave the baby with her? The thought was\ndistant and elusive.\n\nErik began to talk, slowly, revealingly. He made for her a picture of\nhis work in a large tailor shop in Minneapolis: the steam and heat, and\nthe drudgery; the men in darned vests and crumpled trousers, men who\n\"rushed growlers of beer\" and were cynical about women, who laughed at\nhim and played jokes on him. \"But I didn't mind, because I could keep\naway from them outside. I used to go to the Art Institute and the Walker\nGallery, and tramp clear around Lake Harriet, or hike out to the Gates\nhouse and imagine it was a chateau in Italy and I lived in it. I was a\nmarquis and collected tapestries--that was after I was wounded in Padua.\nThe only really bad time was when a tailor named Finkelfarb found a\ndiary I was trying to keep and he read it aloud in the shop--it was a\nbad fight.\" He laughed. \"I got fined five dollars. But that's all gone\nnow. Seems as though you stand between me and the gas stoves--the long\nflames with mauve edges, licking up around the irons and making that\nsneering sound all day--aaaaah!\"\n\nHer fingers tightened about his thumb as she perceived the hot low room,\nthe pounding of pressing-irons, the reek of scorched cloth, and Erik\namong giggling gnomes. His fingertip crept through the opening of her\nglove and smoothed her palm. She snatched her hand away, stripped off\nher glove, tucked her hand back into his.\n\nHe was saying something about a \"wonderful person.\" In her tranquillity\nshe let the words blow by and heeded only the beating wings of his\nvoice.\n\nShe was conscious that he was fumbling for impressive speech.\n\n\"Say, uh--Carol, I've written a poem about you.\"\n\n\"That's nice. Let's hear it.\"\n\n\"Damn it, don't be so casual about it! Can't you take me seriously?\"\n\n\"My dear boy, if I took you seriously----! I don't want us to be hurt\nmore than--more than we will be. Tell me the poem. I've never had a poem\nwritten about me!\"\n\n\"It isn't really a poem. It's just some words that I love because it\nseems to me they catch what you are. Of course probably they won't seem\nso to anybody else, but----Well----\n\n     Little and tender and merry and wise\n     With eyes that meet my eyes.\n\nDo you get the idea the way I do?\"\n\n\"Yes! I'm terribly grateful!\" And she was grateful--while she\nimpersonally noted how bad a verse it was.\n\nShe was aware of the haggard beauty in the lowering night. Monstrous\ntattered clouds sprawled round a forlorn moon; puddles and rocks\nglistened with inner light. They were passing a grove of scrub poplars,\nfeeble by day but looming now like a menacing wall. She stopped. They\nheard the branches dripping, the wet leaves sullenly plumping on the\nsoggy earth.\n\n\"Waiting--waiting--everything is waiting,\" she whispered. She drew her\nhand from his, pressed her clenched fingers against her lips. She was\nlost in the somberness. \"I am happy--so we must go home, before we have\ntime to become unhappy. But can't we sit on a log for a minute and just\nlisten?\"\n\n\"No. Too wet. But I wish we could build a fire, and you could sit on\nmy overcoat beside it. I'm a grand fire-builder! My cousin Lars and me\nspent a week one time in a cabin way up in the Big Woods, snowed in.\nThe fireplace was filled with a dome of ice when we got there, but we\nchopped it out, and jammed the thing full of pine-boughs. Couldn't we\nbuild a fire back here in the woods and sit by it for a while?\"\n\nShe pondered, half-way between yielding and refusal. Her head ached\nfaintly. She was in abeyance. Everything, the night, his silhouette, the\ncautious-treading future, was as undistinguishable as though she were\ndrifting bodiless in a Fourth Dimension. While her mind groped, the\nlights of a motor car swooped round a bend in the road, and they stood\nfarther apart. \"What ought I to do?\" she mused. \"I think----Oh, I won't\nbe robbed! I AM good! If I'm so enslaved that I can't sit by the fire\nwith a man and talk, then I'd better be dead!\"\n\nThe lights of the thrumming car grew magically; were upon them; abruptly\nstopped. From behind the dimness of the windshield a voice, annoyed,\nsharp: \"Hello there!\"\n\nShe realized that it was Kennicott.\n\nThe irritation in his voice smoothed out. \"Having a walk?\"\n\nThey made schoolboyish sounds of assent.\n\n\"Pretty wet, isn't it? Better ride back. Jump up in front here,\nValborg.\"\n\nHis manner of swinging open the door was a command. Carol was conscious\nthat Erik was climbing in, that she was apparently to sit in the back,\nand that she had been left to open the rear door for herself. Instantly\nthe wonder which had flamed to the gusty skies was quenched, and she was\nMrs. W. P. Kennicott of Gopher Prairie, riding in a squeaking old car,\nand likely to be lectured by her husband.\n\nShe feared what Kennicott would say to Erik. She bent toward them.\nKennicott was observing, \"Going to have some rain before the night 's\nover, all right.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Erik.\n\n\"Been funny season this year, anyway. Never saw it with such a cold\nOctober and such a nice November. 'Member we had a snow way back on\nOctober ninth! But it certainly was nice up to the twenty-first, this\nmonth--as I remember it, not a flake of snow in November so far, has\nthere been? But I shouldn't wonder if we'd be having some snow 'most any\ntime now.\"\n\n\"Yes, good chance of it,\" said Erik.\n\n\"Wish I'd had more time to go after the ducks this fall. By golly, what\ndo you think?\" Kennicott sounded appealing. \"Fellow wrote me from Man\nTrap Lake that he shot seven mallards and couple of canvas-back in one\nhour!\"\n\n\"That must have been fine,\" said Erik.\n\nCarol was ignored. But Kennicott was blustrously cheerful. He shouted\nto a farmer, as he slowed up to pass the frightened team, \"There we\nare--schon gut!\" She sat back, neglected, frozen, unheroic heroine in\na drama insanely undramatic. She made a decision resolute and enduring.\nShe would tell Kennicott----What would she tell him? She could not say\nthat she loved Erik. DID she love him? But she would have it out.\nShe was not sure whether it was pity for Kennicott's blindness, or\nirritation at his assumption that he was enough to fill any woman's\nlife, which prompted her, but she knew that she was out of the trap,\nthat she could be frank; and she was exhilarated with the adventure of\nit . . . while in front he was entertaining Erik:\n\n\"Nothing like an hour on a duck-pass to make you relish your victuals\nand----Gosh, this machine hasn't got the power of a fountain pen. Guess\nthe cylinders are jam-cram-full of carbon again. Don't know but what\nmaybe I'll have to put in another set of piston-rings.\"\n\nHe stopped on Main Street and clucked hospitably, \"There, that'll give\nyou just a block to walk. G' night.\"\n\nCarol was in suspense. Would Erik sneak away?\n\nHe stolidly moved to the back of the car, thrust in his hand, muttered,\n\"Good night--Carol. I'm glad we had our walk.\" She pressed his hand. The\ncar was flapping on. He was hidden from her--by a corner drug store on\nMain Street!\n\nKennicott did not recognize her till he drew up before the house. Then\nhe condescended, \"Better jump out here and I'll take the boat around\nback. Say, see if the back door is unlocked, will you?\" She unlatched\nthe door for him. She realized that she still carried the damp glove she\nhad stripped off for Erik. She drew it on. She stood in the center of\nthe living-room, unmoving, in damp coat and muddy rubbers. Kennicott was\nas opaque as ever. Her task wouldn't be anything so lively as having\nto endure a scolding, but only an exasperating effort to command his\nattention so that he would understand the nebulous things she had to\ntell him, instead of interrupting her by yawning, winding the clock, and\ngoing up to bed. She heard him shoveling coal into the furnace. He came\nthrough the kitchen energetically, but before he spoke to her he did\nstop in the hall, did wind the clock.\n\nHe sauntered into the living-room and his glance passed from her\ndrenched hat to her smeared rubbers. She could hear--she could hear,\nsee, taste, smell, touch--his \"Better take your coat off, Carrie; looks\nkind of wet.\" Yes, there it was:\n\n\"Well, Carrie, you better----\" He chucked his own coat on a chair,\nstalked to her, went on with a rising tingling voice, \"----you better\ncut it out now. I'm not going to do the out-raged husband stunt. I like\nyou and I respect you, and I'd probably look like a boob if I tried to\nbe dramatic. But I think it's about time for you and Valborg to call a\nhalt before you get in Dutch, like Fern Mullins did.\"\n\n\"Do you----\"\n\n\"Course. I know all about it. What d' you expect in a town that's as\nfilled with busybodies, that have plenty of time to stick their noses\ninto other folks' business, as this is? Not that they've had the nerve\nto do much tattling to me, but they've hinted around a lot, and anyway,\nI could see for myself that you liked him. But of course I knew how cold\nyou were, I knew you wouldn't stand it even if Valborg did try to hold\nyour hand or kiss you, so I didn't worry. But same time, I hope you\ndon't suppose this husky young Swede farmer is as innocent and Platonic\nand all that stuff as you are! Wait now, don't get sore! I'm not\nknocking him. He isn't a bad sort. And he's young and likes to gas about\nbooks. Course you like him. That isn't the real rub. But haven't you\njust seen what this town can do, once it goes and gets moral on you,\nlike it did with Fern? You probably think that two young folks making\nlove are alone if anybody ever is, but there's nothing in this town\nthat you don't do in company with a whole lot of uninvited but awful\ninterested guests. Don't you realize that if Ma Westlake and a few\nothers got started they'd drive you up a tree, and you'd find yourself\nso well advertised as being in love with this Valborg fellow that you'd\nHAVE to be, just to spite 'em!\"\n\n\"Let me sit down,\" was all Carol could say. She drooped on the couch,\nwearily, without elasticity.\n\nHe yawned, \"Gimme your coat and rubbers,\" and while she stripped them\noff he twiddled his watch-chain, felt the radiator, peered at the\nthermometer. He shook out her wraps in the hall, hung them up with\nexactly his usual care. He pushed a chair near to her and sat bolt up.\nHe looked like a physician about to give sound and undesired advice.\n\nBefore he could launch into his heavy discourse she desperately got in,\n\"Please! I want you to know that I was going to tell you everything,\ntonight.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't suppose there's really much to tell.\"\n\n\"But there is. I'm fond of Erik. He appeals to something in here.\" She\ntouched her breast. \"And I admire him. He isn't just a 'young Swede\nfarmer.' He's an artist----\"\n\n\"Wait now! He's had a chance all evening to tell you what a whale of\na fine fellow he is. Now it's my turn. I can't talk artistic,\nbut----Carrie, do you understand my work?\" He leaned forward, thick\ncapable hands on thick sturdy thighs, mature and slow, yet beseeching.\n\"No matter even if you are cold, I like you better than anybody in\nthe world. One time I said that you were my soul. And that still goes.\nYou're all the things that I see in a sunset when I'm driving in from\nthe country, the things that I like but can't make poetry of. Do you\nrealize what my job is? I go round twenty-four hours a day, in mud and\nblizzard, trying my damnedest to heal everybody, rich or poor. You--that\n're always spieling about how scientists ought to rule the world,\ninstead of a bunch of spread-eagle politicians--can't you see that I'm\nall the science there is here? And I can stand the cold and the bumpy\nroads and the lonely rides at night. All I need is to have you here at\nhome to welcome me. I don't expect you to be passionate--not any more\nI don't--but I do expect you to appreciate my work. I bring babies into\nthe world, and save lives, and make cranky husbands quit being mean to\ntheir wives. And then you go and moon over a Swede tailor because he can\ntalk about how to put ruchings on a skirt! Hell of a thing for a man to\nfuss over!\"\n\nShe flew out at him: \"You make your side clear. Let me give mine. I\nadmit all you say--except about Erik. But is it only you, and the baby,\nthat want me to back you up, that demand things from me? They're all on\nme, the whole town! I can feel their hot breaths on my neck! Aunt Bessie\nand that horrible slavering old Uncle Whittier and Juanita and Mrs.\nWestlake and Mrs. Bogart and all of them. And you welcome them, you\nencourage them to drag me down into their cave! I won't stand it! Do you\nhear? Now, right now, I'm done. And it's Erik who gives me the courage.\nYou say he just thinks about ruches (which do not usually go on skirts,\nby the way!). I tell you he thinks about God, the God that Mrs. Bogart\ncovers up with greasy gingham wrappers! Erik will be a great man some\nday, and if I could contribute one tiny bit to his success----\"\n\n\"Wait, wait, wait now! Hold up! You're assuming that your Erik will make\ngood. As a matter of fact, at my age he'll be running a one-man tailor\nshop in some burg about the size of Schoenstrom.\"\n\n\"He will not!\"\n\n\"That's what he's headed for now all right, and he's twenty-five or -six\nand----What's he done to make you think he'll ever be anything but a\npants-presser?\"\n\n\"He has sensitiveness and talent----\"\n\n\"Wait now! What has he actually done in the art line? Has he done one\nfirst-class picture or--sketch, d' you call it? Or one poem, or played\nthe piano, or anything except gas about what he's going to do?\"\n\nShe looked thoughtful.\n\n\"Then it's a hundred to one shot that he never will. Way I understand\nit, even these fellows that do something pretty good at home and get to\ngo to art school, there ain't more than one out of ten of 'em, maybe one\nout of a hundred, that ever get above grinding out a bum living--about\nas artistic as plumbing. And when it comes down to this tailor, why,\ncan't you see--you that take on so about psychology--can't you see that\nit's just by contrast with folks like Doc McGanum or Lym Cass that this\nfellow seems artistic? Suppose you'd met up with him first in one of\nthese reg'lar New York studios! You wouldn't notice him any more 'n a\nrabbit!\"\n\nShe huddled over folded hands like a temple virgin shivering on her\nknees before the thin warmth of a brazier. She could not answer.\n\nKennicott rose quickly, sat on the couch, took both her hands. \"Suppose\nhe fails--as he will! Suppose he goes back to tailoring, and you're his\nwife. Is that going to be this artistic life you've been thinking about?\nHe's in some bum shack, pressing pants all day, or stooped over sewing,\nand having to be polite to any grouch that blows in and jams a dirty\nstinking old suit in his face and says, 'Here you, fix this, and be\nblame quick about it.' He won't even have enough savvy to get him a big\nshop. He'll pike along doing his own work--unless you, his wife, go help\nhim, go help him in the shop, and stand over a table all day, pushing a\nbig heavy iron. Your complexion will look fine after about fifteen years\nof baking that way, won't it! And you'll be humped over like an old\nhag. And probably you'll live in one room back of the shop. And then\nat night--oh, you'll have your artist--sure! He'll come in stinking\nof gasoline, and cranky from hard work, and hinting around that if it\nhadn't been for you, he'd of gone East and been a great artist. Sure!\nAnd you'll be entertaining his relatives----Talk about Uncle Whit!\nYou'll be having some old Axel Axelberg coming in with manure on his\nboots and sitting down to supper in his socks and yelling at you, 'Hurry\nup now, you vimmin make me sick!' Yes, and you'll have a squalling brat\nevery year, tugging at you while you press clothes, and you won't love\n'em like you do Hugh up-stairs, all downy and asleep----\"\n\n\"Please! Not any more!\"\n\nHer face was on his knee.\n\nHe bent to kiss her neck. \"I don't want to be unfair. I guess love is\na great thing, all right. But think it would stand much of that kind of\nstuff? Oh, honey, am I so bad? Can't you like me at all? I've--I've been\nso fond of you!\"\n\nShe snatched up his hand, she kissed it. Presently she sobbed, \"I won't\never see him again. I can't, now. The hot living-room behind the tailor\nshop----I don't love him enough for that. And you are----Even if I were\nsure of him, sure he was the real thing, I don't think I could actually\nleave you. This marriage, it weaves people together. It's not easy to\nbreak, even when it ought to be broken.\"\n\n\"And do you want to break it?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\nHe lifted her, carried her up-stairs, laid her on her bed, turned to the\ndoor.\n\n\"Come kiss me,\" she whimpered.\n\nHe kissed her lightly and slipped away. For an hour she heard him moving\nabout his room, lighting a cigar, drumming with his knuckles on a chair.\nShe felt that he was a bulwark between her and the darkness that grew\nthicker as the delayed storm came down in sleet.\n\n\nII\n\n\nHe was cheery and more casual than ever at breakfast. All day she tried\nto devise a way of giving Erik up. Telephone? The village central would\nunquestionably \"listen in.\" A letter? It might be found. Go to see\nhim? Impossible. That evening Kennicott gave her, without comment, an\nenvelope. The letter was signed \"E. V.\"\n\n\nI know I can't do anything but make trouble for you, I think. I am going\nto Minneapolis tonight and from there as soon as I can either to New\nYork or Chicago. I will do as big things as I can. I--I can't write I\nlove you too much--God keep you.\n\n\nUntil she heard the whistle which told her that the Minneapolis train\nwas leaving town, she kept herself from thinking, from moving. Then it\nwas all over. She had no plan nor desire for anything.\n\nWhen she caught Kennicott looking at her over his newspaper she fled\nto his arms, thrusting the paper aside, and for the first time in years\nthey were lovers. But she knew that she still had no plan in life, save\nalways to go along the same streets, past the same people, to the same\nshops.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nA week after Erik's going the maid startled her by announcing, \"There's\na Mr. Valborg down-stairs say he vant to see you.\"\n\nShe was conscious of the maid's interested stare, angry at this\nshattering of the calm in which she had hidden. She crept down, peeped\ninto the living-room. It was not Erik Valborg who stood there; it was a\nsmall, gray-bearded, yellow-faced man in mucky boots, canvas jacket, and\nred mittens. He glowered at her with shrewd red eyes.\n\n\"You de doc's wife?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I'm Adolph Valborg, from up by Jefferson. I'm Erik's father.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" He was a monkey-faced little man, and not gentle.\n\n\"What you done wit' my son?\"\n\n\"I don't think I understand you.\"\n\n\"I t'ink you're going to understand before I get t'rough! Where is he?\"\n\n\"Why, really----I presume that he's in Minneapolis.\"\n\n\"You presume!\" He looked through her with a contemptuousness such as\nshe could not have imagined. Only an insane contortion of spelling could\nportray his lyric whine, his mangled consonants. He clamored, \"Presume!\nDot's a fine word! I don't want no fine words and I don't want no more\nlies! I want to know what you KNOW!\"\n\n\"See here, Mr. Valborg, you may stop this bullying right now. I'm not\none of your farmwomen. I don't know where your son is, and there's no\nreason why I should know.\" Her defiance ran out in face of his immense\nflaxen stolidity. He raised his fist, worked up his anger with the\ngesture, and sneered:\n\n\"You dirty city women wit' your fine ways and fine dresses! A father\ncome here trying to save his boy from wickedness, and you call him a\nbully! By God, I don't have to take nothin' off you nor your husband! I\nain't one of your hired men. For one time a woman like you is going to\nhear de trut' about what you are, and no fine city words to it, needer.\"\n\n\"Really, Mr. Valborg----\"\n\n\"What you done wit' him? Heh? I'll yoost tell you what you done! He was\na good boy, even if he was a damn fool. I want him back on de farm. He\ndon't make enough money tailoring. And I can't get me no hired man! I\nwant to take him back on de farm. And you butt in and fool wit' him and\nmake love wit' him, and get him to run away!\"\n\n\"You are lying! It's not true that----It's not true, and if it were, you\nwould have no right to speak like this.\"\n\n\"Don't talk foolish. I know. Ain't I heard from a fellow dot live right\nhere in town how you been acting wit' de boy? I know what you done!\nWalking wit' him in de country! Hiding in de woods wit' him! Yes and I\nguess you talk about religion in de woods! Sure! Women like you--you're\nworse dan street-walkers! Rich women like you, wit' fine husbands and\nno decent work to do--and me, look at my hands, look how I work, look at\nthose hands! But you, oh God no, you mustn't work, you're too fine to\ndo decent work. You got to play wit' young fellows, younger as you are,\nlaughing and rolling around and acting like de animals! You let my son\nalone, d' you hear?\" He was shaking his fist in her face. She could\nsmell the manure and sweat. \"It ain't no use talkin' to women like you.\nGet no trut' out of you. But next time I go by your husband!\"\n\nHe was marching into the hall. Carol flung herself on him, her clenching\nhand on his hayseed-dusty shoulder. \"You horrible old man, you've always\ntried to turn Erik into a slave, to fatten your pocketbook! You've\nsneered at him, and overworked him, and probably you've succeeded in\npreventing his ever rising above your muck-heap! And now because you\ncan't drag him back, you come here to vent----Go tell my husband, go\ntell him, and don't blame me when he kills you, when my husband kills\nyou--he will kill you----\"\n\nThe man grunted, looked at her impassively, said one word, and walked\nout.\n\nShe heard the word very plainly.\n\nShe did not quite reach the couch. Her knees gave way, she pitched\nforward. She heard her mind saying, \"You haven't fainted. This is\nridiculous. You're simply dramatizing yourself. Get up.\" But she could\nnot move. When Kennicott arrived she was lying on the couch. His step\nquickened. \"What's happened, Carrie? You haven't got a bit of blood in\nyour face.\"\n\nShe clutched his arm. \"You've got to be sweet to me, and kind! I'm going\nto California--mountains, sea. Please don't argue about it, because I'm\ngoing.\"\n\nQuietly, \"All right. We'll go. You and I. Leave the kid here with Aunt\nBessie.\"\n\n\"Now!\"\n\n\"Well yes, just as soon as we can get away. Now don't talk any more.\nJust imagine you've already started.\" He smoothed her hair, and not till\nafter supper did he continue: \"I meant it about California. But I think\nwe better wait three weeks or so, till I get hold of some young fellow\nreleased from the medical corps to take my practice. And if people are\ngossiping, you don't want to give them a chance by running away. Can you\nstand it and face 'em for three weeks or so?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said emptily.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nPeople covertly stared at her on the street. Aunt Bessie tried to\ncatechize her about Erik's disappearance, and it was Kennicott who\nsilenced the woman with a savage, \"Say, are you hinting that Carrie had\nanything to do with that fellow's beating it? Then let me tell you, and\nyou can go right out and tell the whole bloomin' town, that Carrie and\nI took Val--took Erik riding, and he asked me about getting a better job\nin Minneapolis, and I advised him to go to it. . . . Getting much sugar\nin at the store now?\"\n\nGuy Pollock crossed the street to be pleasant apropos of California and\nnew novels. Vida Sherwin dragged her to the Jolly Seventeen. There, with\nevery one rigidly listening, Maud Dyer shot at Carol, \"I hear Erik has\nleft town.\"\n\nCarol was amiable. \"Yes, so I hear. In fact, he called me up--told me he\nhad been offered a lovely job in the city. So sorry he's gone. He would\nhave been valuable if we'd tried to start the dramatic association\nagain. Still, I wouldn't be here for the association myself, because\nWill is all in from work, and I'm thinking of taking him to California.\nJuanita--you know the Coast so well--tell me: would you start in at Los\nAngeles or San Francisco, and what are the best hotels?\"\n\nThe Jolly Seventeen looked disappointed, but the Jolly Seventeen liked\nto give advice, the Jolly Seventeen liked to mention the expensive\nhotels at which they had stayed. (A meal counted as a stay.) Before they\ncould question her again Carol escorted in with drum and fife the topic\nof Raymie Wutherspoon. Vida had news from her husband. He had been\ngassed in the trenches, had been in a hospital for two weeks, had been\npromoted to major, was learning French.\n\nShe left Hugh with Aunt Bessie.\n\nBut for Kennicott she would have taken him. She hoped that in some\nmiraculous way yet unrevealed she might find it possible to remain in\nCalifornia. She did not want to see Gopher Prairie again.\n\nThe Smails were to occupy the Kennicott house, and quite the hardest\nthing to endure in the month of waiting was the series of conferences\nbetween Kennicott and Uncle Whittier in regard to heating the garage and\nhaving the furnace flues cleaned.\n\nDid Carol, Kennicott inquired, wish to stop in Minneapolis to buy new\nclothes?\n\n\"No! I want to get as far away as I can as soon as I can. Let's wait\ntill Los Angeles.\"\n\n\"Sure, sure! Just as you like. Cheer up! We're going to have a large\nwide time, and everything 'll be different when we come back.\"\n\n\nVI\n\n\nDusk on a snowy December afternoon. The sleeper which would connect\nat Kansas City with the California train rolled out of St. Paul with\na chick-a-chick, chick-a-chick, chick-a-chick as it crossed the other\ntracks. It bumped through the factory belt, gained speed. Carol could\nsee nothing but gray fields, which had closed in on her all the way from\nGopher Prairie. Ahead was darkness.\n\n\"For an hour, in Minneapolis, I must have been near Erik. He's still\nthere, somewhere. He'll be gone when I come back. I'll never know where\nhe has gone.\"\n\nAs Kennicott switched on the seat-light she turned drearily to the\nillustrations in a motion-picture magazine.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\nTHEY journeyed for three and a half months. They saw the Grand Canyon,\nthe adobe walls of Sante Fe and, in a drive from El Paso into Mexico,\ntheir first foreign land. They jogged from San Diego and La Jolla to Los\nAngeles, Pasadena, Riverside, through towns with bell-towered missions\nand orange-groves; they viewed Monterey and San Francisco and a forest\nof sequoias. They bathed in the surf and climbed foothills and danced,\nthey saw a polo game and the making of motion-pictures, they sent one\nhundred and seventeen souvenir post-cards to Gopher Prairie, and once,\non a dune by a foggy sea when she was walking alone, Carol found an\nartist, and he looked up at her and said, \"Too damned wet to paint; sit\ndown and talk,\" and so for ten minutes she lived in a romantic novel.\n\nHer only struggle was in coaxing Kennicott not to spend all his time\nwith the tourists from the ten thousand other Gopher Prairies. In\nwinter, California is full of people from Iowa and Nebraska, Ohio and\nOklahoma, who, having traveled thousands of miles from their familiar\nvillages, hasten to secure an illusion of not having left them. They\nhunt for people from their own states to stand between them and the\nshame of naked mountains; they talk steadily, in Pullmans, on hotel\nporches, at cafeterias and motion-picture shows, about the motors and\ncrops and county politics back home. Kennicott discussed land-prices\nwith them, he went into the merits of the several sorts of motor cars\nwith them, he was intimate with train porters, and he insisted on seeing\nthe Luke Dawsons at their flimsy bungalow in Pasadena, where Luke sat\nand yearned to go back and make some more money. But Kennicott gave\npromise of learning to play. He shouted in the pool at the Coronado, and\nhe spoke of (though he did nothing more radical than speak of) buying\nevening-clothes. Carol was touched by his efforts to enjoy picture\ngalleries, and the dogged way in which he accumulated dates and\ndimensions when they followed monkish guides through missions.\n\nShe felt strong. Whenever she was restless she dodged her thoughts by\nthe familiar vagabond fallacy of running away from them, of moving on\nto a new place, and thus she persuaded herself that she was tranquil. In\nMarch she willingly agreed with Kennicott that it was time to go home.\nShe was longing for Hugh.\n\nThey left Monterey on April first, on a day of high blue skies and\npoppies and a summer sea.\n\nAs the train struck in among the hills she resolved, \"I'm going to love\nthe fine Will Kennicott quality that there is in Gopher Prairie. The\nnobility of good sense. It will be sweet to see Vida and Guy and the\nClarks. And I'm going to see my baby! All the words he'll be able to say\nnow! It's a new start. Everything will be different!\"\n\nThus on April first, among dappled hills and the bronze of scrub oaks,\nwhile Kennicott seesawed on his toes and chuckled, \"Wonder what Hugh'll\nsay when he sees us?\"\n\nThree days later they reached Gopher Prairie in a sleet storm.\n\n\nII\n\n\nNo one knew that they were coming; no one met them; and because of the\nicy roads, the only conveyance at the station was the hotel 'bus, which\nthey missed while Kennicott was giving his trunk-check to the station\nagent--the only person to welcome them. Carol waited for him in the\nstation, among huddled German women with shawls and umbrellas, and\nragged-bearded farmers in corduroy coats; peasants mute as oxen, in a\nroom thick with the steam of wet coats, the reek of the red-hot stove,\nthe stench of sawdust boxes which served as cuspidors. The afternoon\nlight was as reluctant as a winter dawn.\n\n\"This is a useful market-center, an interesting pioneer post, but it is\nnot a home for me,\" meditated the stranger Carol.\n\nKennicott suggested, \"I'd 'phone for a flivver but it'd take quite a\nwhile for it to get here. Let's walk.\"\n\nThey stepped uncomfortably from the safety of the plank platform and,\nbalancing on their toes, taking cautious strides, ventured along the\nroad. The sleety rain was turning to snow. The air was stealthily cold.\nBeneath an inch of water was a layer of ice, so that as they wavered\nwith their suit-cases they slid and almost fell. The wet snow drenched\ntheir gloves; the water underfoot splashed their itching ankles. They\nscuffled inch by inch for three blocks. In front of Harry Haydock's\nKennicott sighed:\n\n\"We better stop in here and 'phone for a machine.\"\n\nShe followed him like a wet kitten.\n\nThe Haydocks saw them laboring up the slippery concrete walk, up the\nperilous front steps, and came to the door chanting:\n\n\"Well, well, well, back again, eh? Say, this is fine! Have a fine trip?\nMy, you look like a rose, Carol. How did you like the coast, doc? Well,\nwell, well! Where-all did you go?\"\n\nBut as Kennicott began to proclaim the list of places achieved, Harry\ninterrupted with an account of how much he himself had seen, two years\nago. When Kennicott boasted, \"We went through the mission at Santa\nBarbara,\" Harry broke in, \"Yeh, that's an interesting old mission. Say,\nI'll never forget that hotel there, doc. It was swell. Why, the rooms\nwere made just like these old monasteries. Juanita and I went from Santa\nBarbara to San Luis Obispo. You folks go to San Luis Obispo?\"\n\n\"No, but----\"\n\n\"Well you ought to gone to San Luis Obispo. And then we went from there\nto a ranch, least they called it a ranch----\"\n\nKennicott got in only one considerable narrative, which began:\n\n\"Say, I never knew--did you, Harry?--that in the Chicago district the\nKutz Kar sells as well as the Overland? I never thought much of the\nKutz. But I met a gentleman on the train--it was when we were pulling\nout of Albuquerque, and I was sitting on the back platform of the\nobservation car, and this man was next to me and he asked me for a\nlight, and we got to talking, and come to find out, he came from Aurora,\nand when he found out I came from Minnesota he asked me if I knew Dr.\nClemworth of Red Wing, and of course, while I've never met him, I've\nheard of Clemworth lots of times, and seems he's this man's brother!\nQuite a coincidence! Well, we got to talking, and we called the\nporter--that was a pretty good porter on that car--and we had a couple\nbottles of ginger ale, and I happened to mention the Kutz Kar, and this\nman--seems he's driven a lot of different kinds of cars--he's got\na Franklin now--and he said that he'd tried the Kutz and liked it\nfirst-rate. Well, when we got into a station--I don't remember the name\nof it--Carrie, what the deuce was the name of that first stop we made\nthe other side of Albuquerque?--well, anyway, I guess we must have\nstopped there to take on water, and this man and I got out to stretch\nour legs, and darned if there wasn't a Kutz drawn right up at the depot\nplatform, and he pointed out something I'd never noticed, and I was\nglad to learn about it: seems that the gear lever in the Kutz is an inch\nlonger----\"\n\nEven this chronicle of voyages Harry interrupted, with remarks on the\nadvantages of the ball-gear-shift.\n\nKennicott gave up hope of adequate credit for being a traveled man, and\ntelephoned to a garage for a Ford taxicab, while Juanita kissed Carol\nand made sure of being the first to tell the latest, which included\nseven distinct and proven scandals about Mrs. Swiftwaite, and one\nconsiderable doubt as to the chastity of Cy Bogart.\n\nThey saw the Ford sedan making its way over the water-lined ice, through\nthe snow-storm, like a tug-boat in a fog. The driver stopped at a\ncorner. The car skidded, it turned about with comic reluctance, crashed\ninto a tree, and stood tilted on a broken wheel.\n\nThe Kennicotts refused Harry Haydock's not too urgent offer to take them\nhome in his car \"if I can manage to get it out of the garage--terrible\nday--stayed home from the store--but if you say so, I'll take a shot at\nit.\" Carol gurgled, \"No, I think we'd better walk; probably make better\ntime, and I'm just crazy to see my baby.\" With their suit-cases they\nwaddled on. Their coats were soaked through.\n\nCarol had forgotten her facile hopes. She looked about with impersonal\neyes. But Kennicott, through rain-blurred lashes, caught the glory that\nwas Back Home.\n\nShe noted bare tree-trunks, black branches, the spongy brown earth\nbetween patches of decayed snow on the lawns. The vacant lots were\nfull of tall dead weeds. Stripped of summer leaves the houses were\nhopeless--temporary shelters.\n\nKennicott chuckled, \"By golly, look down there! Jack Elder must have\npainted his garage. And look! Martin Mahoney has put up a new fence\naround his chicken yard. Say, that's a good fence, eh? Chicken-tight\nand dog-tight. That's certainly a dandy fence. Wonder how much it cost a\nyard? Yes, sir, they been building right along, even in winter. Got more\nenterprise than these Californians. Pretty good to be home, eh?\"\n\nShe noted that all winter long the citizens had been throwing garbage\ninto their back yards, to be cleaned up in spring. The recent thaw had\ndisclosed heaps of ashes, dog-bones, torn bedding, clotted paint-cans,\nall half covered by the icy pools which filled the hollows of the yards.\nThe refuse had stained the water to vile colors of waste: thin red, sour\nyellow, streaky brown.\n\nKennicott chuckled, \"Look over there on Main Street! They got the\nfeed store all fixed up, and a new sign on it, black and gold. That'll\nimprove the appearance of the block a lot.\"\n\nShe noted that the few people whom they passed wore their raggedest\ncoats for the evil day. They were scarecrows in a shanty town. . . . \"To\nthink,\" she marveled, \"of coming two thousand miles, past mountains\nand cities, to get off here, and to plan to stay here! What conceivable\nreason for choosing this particular place?\"\n\nShe noted a figure in a rusty coat and a cloth cap.\n\nKennicott chuckled, \"Look who's coming! It's Sam Clark! Gosh, all rigged\nout for the weather.\"\n\nThe two men shook hands a dozen times and, in the Western fashion,\nbumbled, \"Well, well, well, well, you old hell-hound, you old devil,\nhow are you, anyway? You old horse-thief, maybe it ain't good to see\nyou again!\" While Sam nodded at her over Kennicott's shoulder, she was\nembarrassed.\n\n\"Perhaps I should never have gone away. I'm out of practise in lying. I\nwish they would get it over! Just a block more and--my baby!\"\n\nThey were home. She brushed past the welcoming Aunt Bessie and knelt\nby Hugh. As he stammered, \"O mummy, mummy, don't go away! Stay with me,\nmummy!\" she cried, \"No, I'll never leave you again!\"\n\nHe volunteered, \"That's daddy.\"\n\n\"By golly, he knows us just as if we'd never been away!\" said Kennicott.\n\"You don't find any of these California kids as bright as he is, at his\nage!\"\n\nWhen the trunk came they piled about Hugh the bewhiskered little wooden\nmen fitting one inside another, the miniature junk, and the Oriental\ndrum, from San Francisco Chinatown; the blocks carved by the old\nFrenchman in San Diego; the lariat from San Antonio.\n\n\"Will you forgive mummy for going away? Will you?\" she whispered.\n\nAbsorbed in Hugh, asking a hundred questions about him--had he had any\ncolds? did he still dawdle over his oatmeal? what about unfortunate\nmorning incidents? she viewed Aunt Bessie only as a source of\ninformation, and was able to ignore her hint, pointed by a coyly shaken\nfinger, \"Now that you've had such a fine long trip and spent so much\nmoney and all, I hope you're going to settle down and be satisfied and\nnot----\"\n\n\"Does he like carrots yet?\" replied Carol.\n\nShe was cheerful as the snow began to conceal the slatternly yards. She\nassured herself that the streets of New York and Chicago were as ugly as\nGopher Prairie in such weather; she dismissed the thought, \"But they\ndo have charming interiors for refuge.\" She sang as she energetically\nlooked over Hugh's clothes.\n\nThe afternoon grew old and dark. Aunt Bessie went home. Carol took the\nbaby into her own room. The maid came in complaining, \"I can't get no\nextra milk to make chipped beef for supper.\" Hugh was sleepy, and he had\nbeen spoiled by Aunt Bessie. Even to a returned mother, his whining and\nhis trick of seven times snatching her silver brush were fatiguing. As a\nbackground, behind the noises of Hugh and the kitchen, the house reeked\nwith a colorless stillness.\n\nFrom the window she heard Kennicott greeting the Widow Bogart as he had\nalways done, always, every snowy evening: \"Guess this 'll keep up all\nnight.\" She waited. There they were, the furnace sounds, unalterable,\neternal: removing ashes, shoveling coal.\n\nYes. She was back home! Nothing had changed. She had never been away.\nCalifornia? Had she seen it? Had she for one minute left this scraping\nsound of the small shovel in the ash-pit of the furnace? But Kennicott\npreposterously supposed that she had. Never had she been quite so far\nfrom going away as now when he believed she had just come back. She\nfelt oozing through the walls the spirit of small houses and righteous\npeople. At that instant she knew that in running away she had merely\nhidden her doubts behind the officious stir of travel.\n\n\"Dear God, don't let me begin agonizing again!\" she sobbed. Hugh wept\nwith her.\n\n\"Wait for mummy a second!\" She hastened down to the cellar, to\nKennicott.\n\nHe was standing before the furnace. However inadequate the rest of the\nhouse, he had seen to it that the fundamental cellar should be large\nand clean, the square pillars whitewashed, and the bins for coal and\npotatoes and trunks convenient. A glow from the drafts fell on the\nsmooth gray cement floor at his feet. He was whistling tenderly, staring\nat the furnace with eyes which saw the black-domed monster as a symbol\nof home and of the beloved routine to which he had returned--his\ngipsying decently accomplished, his duty of viewing \"sights\" and\n\"curios\" performed with thoroughness. Unconscious of her, he stooped\nand peered in at the blue flames among the coals. He closed the door\nbriskly, and made a whirling gesture with his right hand, out of pure\nbliss.\n\nHe saw her. \"Why, hello, old lady! Pretty darn good to be back, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she lied, while she quaked, \"Not now. I can't face the job of\nexplaining now. He's been so good. He trusts me. And I'm going to break\nhis heart!\"\n\nShe smiled at him. She tidied his sacred cellar by throwing an empty\nbluing bottle into the trash bin. She mourned, \"It's only the baby that\nholds me. If Hugh died----\" She fled upstairs in panic and made sure\nthat nothing had happened to Hugh in these four minutes.\n\nShe saw a pencil-mark on a window-sill. She had made it on a September\nday when she had been planning a picnic for Fern Mullins and Erik. Fern\nand she had been hysterical with nonsense, had invented mad parties for\nall the coming winter. She glanced across the alley at the room which\nFern had occupied. A rag of a gray curtain masked the still window.\n\nShe tried to think of some one to whom she wanted to telephone. There\nwas no one.\n\nThe Sam Clarks called that evening and encouraged her to describe the\nmissions. A dozen times they told her how glad they were to have her\nback.\n\n\"It is good to be wanted,\" she thought. \"It will drug me. But----Oh, is\nall life, always, an unresolved But?\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\nSHE tried to be content, which was a contradiction in terms. She\nfanatically cleaned house all April. She knitted a sweater for Hugh.\nShe was diligent at Red Cross work. She was silent when Vida raved that\nthough America hated war as much as ever, we must invade Germany and\nwipe out every man, because it was now proven that there was no soldier\nin the German army who was not crucifying prisoners and cutting off\nbabies' hands.\n\nCarol was volunteer nurse when Mrs. Champ Perry suddenly died of\npneumonia.\n\nIn her funeral procession were the eleven people left out of the Grand\nArmy and the Territorial Pioneers, old men and women, very old and weak,\nwho a few decades ago had been boys and girls of the frontier, riding\nbroncos through the rank windy grass of this prairie. They hobbled\nbehind a band made up of business men and high-school boys, who\nstraggled along without uniforms or ranks or leader, trying to play\nChopin's Funeral March--a shabby group of neighbors with grave eyes,\nstumbling through the slush under a solemnity of faltering music.\n\nChamp was broken. His rheumatism was worse. The rooms over the store\nwere silent. He could not do his work as buyer at the elevator. Farmers\ncoming in with sled-loads of wheat complained that Champ could not read\nthe scale, that he seemed always to be watching some one back in the\ndarkness of the bins. He was seen slipping through alleys, talking to\nhimself, trying to avoid observation, creeping at last to the cemetery.\nOnce Carol followed him and found the coarse, tobacco-stained,\nunimaginative old man lying on the snow of the grave, his thick arms\nspread out across the raw mound as if to protect her from the cold, her\nwhom he had carefully covered up every night for sixty years, who was\nalone there now, uncared for.\n\nThe elevator company, Ezra Stowbody president, let him go. The company,\nEzra explained to Carol, had no funds for giving pensions.\n\nShe tried to have him appointed to the postmastership, which, since all\nthe work was done by assistants, was the one sinecure in town, the one\nreward for political purity. But it proved that Mr. Bert Tybee, the\nformer bartender, desired the postmastership.\n\nAt her solicitation Lyman Cass gave Champ a warm berth as night\nwatchman. Small boys played a good many tricks on Champ when he fell\nasleep at the mill.\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe had vicarious happiness in the return of Major Raymond Wutherspoon.\nHe was well, but still weak from having been gassed; he had been\ndischarged and he came home as the first of the war veterans. It was\nrumored that he surprised Vida by coming unannounced, that Vida fainted\nwhen she saw him, and for a night and day would not share him with the\ntown. When Carol saw them Vida was hazy about everything except Raymie,\nand never went so far from him that she could not slip her hand under\nhis. Without understanding why Carol was troubled by this intensity. And\nRaymie--surely this was not Raymie, but a sterner brother of his, this\nman with the tight blouse, the shoulder emblems, the trim legs in boots.\nHis face seemed different, his lips more tight. He was not Raymie; he\nwas Major Wutherspoon; and Kennicott and Carol were grateful when he\ndivulged that Paris wasn't half as pretty as Minneapolis, that all of\nthe American soldiers had been distinguished by their morality when on\nleave. Kennicott was respectful as he inquired whether the Germans had\ngood aeroplanes, and what a salient was, and a cootie, and Going West.\n\nIn a week Major Wutherspoon was made full manager of the Bon Ton. Harry\nHaydock was going to devote himself to the half-dozen branch stores\nwhich he was establishing at crossroads hamlets. Harry would be the\ntown's rich man in the coming generation, and Major Wutherspoon would\nrise with him, and Vida was jubilant, though she was regretful at having\nto give up most of her Red Cross work. Ray still needed nursing, she\nexplained.\n\nWhen Carol saw him with his uniform off, in a pepper-and salt suit and\na new gray felt hat, she was disappointed. He was not Major Wutherspoon;\nhe was Raymie.\n\nFor a month small boys followed him down the street, and everybody\ncalled him Major, but that was presently shortened to Maje, and the\nsmall boys did not look up from their marbles as he went by.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe town was booming, as a result of the war price of wheat.\n\nThe wheat money did not remain in the pockets of the farmers; the towns\nexisted to take care of all that. Iowa farmers were selling their land\nat four hundred dollars an acre and coming into Minnesota. But whoever\nbought or sold or mortgaged, the townsmen invited themselves to the\nfeast--millers, real-estate men, lawyers, merchants, and Dr. Will\nKennicott. They bought land at a hundred and fifty, sold it next day at\na hundred and seventy, and bought again. In three months Kennicott made\nseven thousand dollars, which was rather more than four times as much as\nsociety paid him for healing the sick.\n\nIn early summer began a \"campaign of boosting.\" The Commercial Club\ndecided that Gopher Prairie was not only a wheat-center but also the\nperfect site for factories, summer cottages, and state institutions. In\ncharge of the campaign was Mr. James Blausser, who had recently come to\ntown to speculate in land. Mr. Blausser was known as a Hustler. He liked\nto be called Honest Jim. He was a bulky, gauche, noisy, humorous man,\nwith narrow eyes, a rustic complexion, large red hands, and brilliant\nclothes. He was attentive to all women. He was the first man in town who\nhad not been sensitive enough to feel Carol's aloofness. He put his arm\nabout her shoulder while he condescended to Kennicott, \"Nice lil wifey,\nI'll say, doc,\" and when she answered, not warmly, \"Thank you very much\nfor the imprimatur,\" he blew on her neck, and did not know that he had\nbeen insulted.\n\nHe was a layer-on of hands. He never came to the house without trying to\npaw her. He touched her arm, let his fist brush her side. She hated the\nman, and she was afraid of him. She wondered if he had heard of Erik,\nand was taking advantage. She spoke ill of him at home and in public\nplaces, but Kennicott and the other powers insisted, \"Maybe he is\nkind of a roughneck, but you got to hand it to him; he's got more\ngit-up-and-git than any fellow that ever hit this burg. And he's pretty\ncute, too. Hear what he said to old Ezra? Chucked him in the ribs and\nsaid, 'Say, boy, what do you want to go to Denver for? Wait 'll I get\ntime and I'll move the mountains here. Any mountain will be tickled to\ndeath to locate here once we get the White Way in!'\"\n\nThe town welcomed Mr. Blausser as fully as Carol snubbed him. He was the\nguest of honor at the Commercial Club Banquet at the Minniemashie House,\nan occasion for menus printed in gold (but injudiciously proof-read),\nfor free cigars, soft damp slabs of Lake Superior whitefish served as\nfillet of sole, drenched cigar-ashes gradually filling the saucers\nof coffee cups, and oratorical references to Pep, Punch, Go, Vigor,\nEnterprise, Red Blood, He-Men, Fair Women, God's Country, James J.\nHill, the Blue Sky, the Green Fields, the Bountiful Harvest, Increasing\nPopulation, Fair Return on Investments, Alien Agitators Who Threaten\nthe Security of Our Institutions, the Hearthstone the Foundation of\nthe State, Senator Knute Nelson, One Hundred Per Cent. Americanism, and\nPointing with Pride.\n\nHarry Haydock, as chairman, introduced Honest Jim Blausser. \"And I\nam proud to say, my fellow citizens, that in his brief stay here\nMr. Blausser has become my warm personal friend as well as my fellow\nbooster, and I advise you all to very carefully attend to the hints of a\nman who knows how to achieve.\"\n\nMr. Blausser reared up like an elephant with a camel's neck--red faced,\nred eyed, heavy fisted, slightly belching--a born leader, divinely\nintended to be a congressman but deflected to the more lucrative honors\nof real-estate. He smiled on his warm personal friends and fellow\nboosters, and boomed:\n\n\"I certainly was astonished in the streets of our lovely little\ncity, the other day. I met the meanest kind of critter that God ever\nmade--meaner than the horned toad or the Texas lallapaluza! (Laughter.)\nAnd do you know what the animile was? He was a knocker! (Laughter and\napplause.)\n\n\"I want to tell you good people, and it's just as sure as God made\nlittle apples, the thing that distinguishes our American commonwealth\nfrom the pikers and tin-horns in other countries is our Punch. You take\na genuwine, honest-to-God homo Americanibus and there ain't anything\nhe's afraid to tackle. Snap and speed are his middle name! He'll put\nher across if he has to ride from hell to breakfast, and believe me, I'm\nmighty good and sorry for the boob that's so unlucky as to get in his\nway, because that poor slob is going to wonder where he was at when Old\nMr. Cyclone hit town! (Laughter.)\n\n\"Now, frien's, there's some folks so yellow and small and so few in the\npod that they go to work and claim that those of us that have the big\nvision are off our trolleys. They say we can't make Gopher Prairie, God\nbless her! just as big as Minneapolis or St. Paul or Duluth. But lemme\ntell you right here and now that there ain't a town under the blue\ncanopy of heaven that's got a better chance to take a running jump and\ngo scooting right up into the two-hundred-thousand class than little\nold G. P.! And if there's anybody that's got such cold kismets that he's\nafraid to tag after Jim Blausser on the Big Going Up, then we don't want\nhim here! Way I figger it, you folks are just patriotic enough so that\nyou ain't going to stand for any guy sneering and knocking his own town,\nno matter how much of a smart Aleck he is--and just on the side I want\nto add that this Farmers' Nonpartisan League and the whole bunch of\nsocialists are right in the same category, or, as the fellow says,\nin the same scategory, meaning This Way Out, Exit, Beat It While the\nGoing's Good, This Means You, for all knockers of prosperity and the\nrights of property!\n\n\"Fellow citizens, there's a lot of folks, even right here in this fair\nstate, fairest and richest of all the glorious union, that stand up on\ntheir hind legs and claim that the East and Europe put it all over\nthe golden Northwestland. Now let me nail that lie right here and now.\n'Ah-ha,' says they, 'so Jim Blausser is claiming that Gopher Prairie is\nas good a place to live in as London and Rome and--and all the rest of\nthe Big Burgs, is he? How does the poor fish know?' says they. Well I'll\ntell you how I know! I've seen 'em! I've done Europe from soup to nuts!\nThey can't spring that stuff on Jim Blausser and get away with it! And\nlet me tell you that the only live thing in Europe is our boys that are\nfighting there now! London--I spent three days, sixteen straight hours a\nday, giving London the once-over, and let me tell you that it's nothing\nbut a bunch of fog and out-of-date buildings that no live American burg\nwould stand for one minute. You may not believe it, but there ain't one\nfirst-class skyscraper in the whole works. And the same thing goes for\nthat crowd of crabs and snobs Down East, and next time you hear some zob\nfrom Yahooville-on-the-Hudson chewing the rag and bulling and trying to\nget your goat, you tell him that no two-fisted enterprising Westerner\nwould have New York for a gift!\n\n\"Now the point of this is: I'm not only insisting that Gopher Prairie\nis going to be Minnesota's pride, the brightest ray in the glory of the\nNorth Star State, but also and furthermore that it is right now, and\nstill more shall be, as good a place to live in, and love in, and bring\nup the Little Ones in, and it's got as much refinement and culture, as\nany burg on the whole bloomin' expanse of God's Green Footstool, and\nthat goes, get me, that goes!\"\n\nHalf an hour later Chairman Haydock moved a vote of thanks to Mr.\nBlausser.\n\nThe boosters' campaign was on.\n\nThe town sought that efficient and modern variety of fame which is known\nas \"publicity.\" The band was reorganized, and provided by the Commercial\nClub with uniforms of purple and gold. The amateur baseball-team hired a\nsemi-professional pitcher from Des Moines, and made a schedule of games\nwith every town for fifty miles about. The citizens accompanied it as\n\"rooters,\" in a special car, with banners lettered \"Watch Gopher Prairie\nGrow,\" and with the band playing \"Smile, Smile, Smile.\" Whether the\nteam won or lost the Dauntless loyally shrieked, \"Boost, Boys, and\nBoost Together--Put Gopher Prairie on the Map--Brilliant Record of Our\nMatchless Team.\"\n\nThen, glory of glories, the town put in a White Way. White Ways were in\nfashion in the Middlewest. They were composed of ornamented posts with\nclusters of high-powered electric lights along two or three blocks on\nMain Street. The Dauntless confessed: \"White Way Is Installed--Town\nLit Up Like Broadway--Speech by Hon. James Blausser--Come On You Twin\nCities--Our Hat Is In the Ring.\"\n\nThe Commercial Club issued a booklet prepared by a great and expensive\nliterary person from a Minneapolis advertising agency, a red-headed\nyoung man who smoked cigarettes in a long amber holder. Carol read the\nbooklet with a certain wonder. She learned that Plover and Minniemashie\nLakes were world-famed for their beauteous wooded shores and gamey pike\nand bass not to be equalled elsewhere in the entire country; that\nthe residences of Gopher Prairie were models of dignity, comfort, and\nculture, with lawns and gardens known far and wide; that the Gopher\nPrairie schools and public library, in its neat and commodious building,\nwere celebrated throughout the state; that the Gopher Prairie mills\nmade the best flour in the country; that the surrounding farm lands were\nrenowned, where'er men ate bread and butter, for their incomparable No. 1\nHard Wheat and Holstein-Friesian cattle; and that the stores in\nGopher Prairie compared favorably with Minneapolis and Chicago in their\nabundance of luxuries and necessities and the ever-courteous attention\nof the skilled clerks. She learned, in brief, that this was the one\nLogical Location for factories and wholesale houses.\n\n\"THERE'S where I want to go; to that model town Gopher Prairie,\" said\nCarol.\n\nKennicott was triumphant when the Commercial Club did capture one small\nshy factory which planned to make wooden automobile-wheels, but\nwhen Carol saw the promoter she could not feel that his coming much\nmattered--and a year after, when he failed, she could not be very\nsorrowful.\n\nRetired farmers were moving into town. The price of lots had increased\na third. But Carol could discover no more pictures nor interesting food\nnor gracious voices nor amusing conversation nor questing minds. She\ncould, she asserted, endure a shabby but modest town; the town shabby\nand egomaniac she could not endure. She could nurse Champ Perry,\nand warm to the neighborliness of Sam Clark, but she could not sit\napplauding Honest Jim Blausser. Kennicott had begged her, in courtship\ndays, to convert the town to beauty. If it was now as beautiful as Mr.\nBlausser and the Dauntless said, then her work was over, and she could\ngo.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\nKENNICOTT was not so inhumanly patient that he could continue to forgive\nCarol's heresies, to woo her as he had on the venture to California. She\ntried to be inconspicuous, but she was betrayed by her failure to glow\nover the boosting. Kennicott believed in it; demanded that she say\npatriotic things about the White Way and the new factory. He snorted,\n\"By golly, I've done all I could, and now I expect you to play the game.\nHere you been complaining for years about us being so poky, and now when\nBlausser comes along and does stir up excitement and beautify the town\nlike you've always wanted somebody to, why, you say he's a roughneck,\nand you won't jump on the band-wagon.\"\n\nOnce, when Kennicott announced at noon-dinner, \"What do you know\nabout this! They say there's a chance we may get another\nfactory--cream-separator works!\" he added, \"You might try to look\ninterested, even if you ain't!\" The baby was frightened by the Jovian\nroar; ran wailing to hide his face in Carol's lap; and Kennicott had to\nmake himself humble and court both mother and child. The dim injustice\nof not being understood even by his son left him irritable. He felt\ninjured.\n\nAn event which did not directly touch them brought down his wrath.\n\nIn the early autumn, news came from Wakamin that the sheriff had\nforbidden an organizer for the National Nonpartisan League to speak\nanywhere in the county. The organizer had defied the sheriff, and\nannounced that in a few days he would address a farmers' political\nmeeting. That night, the news ran, a mob of a hundred business men\nled by the sheriff--the tame village street and the smug village faces\nruddled by the light of bobbing lanterns, the mob flowing between the\nsquatty rows of shops--had taken the organizer from his hotel, ridden\nhim on a fence-rail, put him on a freight train, and warned him not to\nreturn.\n\nThe story was threshed out in Dave Dyer's drug store, with Sam Clark,\nKennicott, and Carol present.\n\n\"That's the way to treat those fellows--only they ought to have lynched\nhim!\" declared Sam, and Kennicott and Dave Dyer joined in a proud \"You\nbet!\"\n\nCarol walked out hastily, Kennicott observing her.\n\nThrough supper-time she knew that he was bubbling and would soon boil\nover. When the baby was abed, and they sat composedly in canvas chairs\non the porch, he experimented; \"I had a hunch you thought Sam was kind\nof hard on that fellow they kicked out of Wakamin.\"\n\n\"Wasn't Sam rather needlessly heroic?\"\n\n\"All these organizers, yes, and a whole lot of the German and\nSquarehead farmers themselves, they're seditious as the devil--disloyal,\nnon-patriotic, pro-German pacifists, that's what they are!\"\n\n\"Did this organizer say anything pro-German?\"\n\n\"Not on your life! They didn't give him a chance!\" His laugh was stagey.\n\n\"So the whole thing was illegal--and led by the sheriff! Precisely how\ndo you expect these aliens to obey your law if the officer of the law\nteaches them to break it? Is it a new kind of logic?\"\n\n\"Maybe it wasn't exactly regular, but what's the odds? They knew this\nfellow would try to stir up trouble. Whenever it comes right down to a\nquestion of defending Americanism and our constitutional rights, it's\njustifiable to set aside ordinary procedure.\"\n\n\"What editorial did he get that from?\" she wondered, as she protested,\n\"See here, my beloved, why can't you Tories declare war honestly? You\ndon't oppose this organizer because you think he's seditious but\nbecause you're afraid that the farmers he is organizing will deprive you\ntownsmen of the money you make out of mortgages and wheat and shops.\nOf course, since we're at war with Germany, anything that any one of us\ndoesn't like is 'pro-German,' whether it's business competition or\nbad music. If we were fighting England, you'd call the radicals\n'pro-English.' When this war is over, I suppose you'll be calling them\n'red anarchists.' What an eternal art it is--such a glittery delightful\nart--finding hard names for our opponents! How we do sanctify our\nefforts to keep them from getting the holy dollars we want for\nourselves! The churches have always done it, and the political\norators--and I suppose I do it when I call Mrs. Bogart a 'Puritan' and\nMr. Stowbody a 'capitalist.' But you business men are going to beat all\nthe rest of us at it, with your simple-hearted, energetic, pompous----\"\n\nShe got so far only because Kennicott was slow in shaking off respect\nfor her. Now he bayed:\n\n\"That'll be about all from you! I've stood for your sneering at this\ntown, and saying how ugly and dull it is. I've stood for your refusing\nto appreciate good fellows like Sam. I've even stood for your ridiculing\nour Watch Gopher Prairie Grow campaign. But one thing I'm not going\nto stand: I'm not going to stand my own wife being seditious. You can\ncamouflage all you want to, but you know darn well that these radicals,\nas you call 'em, are opposed to the war, and let me tell you right here\nand now, and you and all these long-haired men and short-haired women\ncan beef all you want to, but we're going to take these fellows, and if\nthey ain't patriotic, we're going to make them be patriotic. And--Lord\nknows I never thought I'd have to say this to my own wife--but if you go\ndefending these fellows, then the same thing applies to you! Next thing,\nI suppose you'll be yapping about free speech. Free speech! There's too\nmuch free speech and free gas and free beer and free love and all the\nrest of your damned mouthy freedom, and if I had my way I'd make you\nfolks live up to the established rules of decency even if I had to take\nyou----\"\n\n\"Will!\" She was not timorous now. \"Am I pro-German if I fail to throb to\nHonest Jim Blausser, too? Let's have my whole duty as a wife!\"\n\nHe was grumbling, \"The whole thing's right in line with the criticism\nyou've always been making. Might have known you'd oppose any decent\nconstructive work for the town or for----\"\n\n\"You're right. All I've done has been in line. I don't belong to Gopher\nPrairie. That isn't meant as a condemnation of Gopher Prairie, and it\nmay be a condemnation of me. All right! I don't care! I don't belong\nhere, and I'm going. I'm not asking permission any more. I'm simply\ngoing.\"\n\nHe grunted. \"Do you mind telling me, if it isn't too much trouble, how\nlong you're going for?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Perhaps for a year. Perhaps for a lifetime.\"\n\n\"I see. Well, of course, I'll be tickled to death to sell out my\npractise and go anywhere you say. Would you like to have me go with you\nto Paris and study art, maybe, and wear velveteen pants and a woman's\nbonnet, and live on spaghetti?\"\n\n\"No, I think we can save you that trouble. You don't quite understand.\nI am going--I really am--and alone! I've got to find out what my work\nis----\"\n\n\"Work? Work? Sure! That's the whole trouble with you! You haven't got\nenough work to do. If you had five kids and no hired girl, and had to\nhelp with the chores and separate the cream, like these farmers' wives,\nthen you wouldn't be so discontented.\"\n\n\"I know. That's what most men--and women--like you WOULD say. That's how\nthey would explain all I am and all I want. And I shouldn't argue with\nthem. These business men, from their crushing labors of sitting in an\noffice seven hours a day, would calmly recommend that I have a dozen\nchildren. As it happens, I've done that sort of thing. There've been a\ngood many times when we hadn't a maid, and I did all the housework, and\ncared for Hugh, and went to Red Cross, and did it all very efficiently.\nI'm a good cook and a good sweeper, and you don't dare say I'm not!\"\n\n\"N-no, you're----\"\n\n\"But was I more happy when I was drudging? I was not. I was just\nbedraggled and unhappy. It's work--but not my work. I could run\nan office or a library, or nurse and teach children. But solitary\ndish-washing isn't enough to satisfy me--or many other women. We're\ngoing to chuck it. We're going to wash 'em by machinery, and come out\nand play with you men in the offices and clubs and politics you've\ncleverly kept for yourselves! Oh, we're hopeless, we dissatisfied women!\nThen why do you want to have us about the place, to fret you? So it's\nfor your sake that I'm going!\"\n\n\"Of course a little thing like Hugh makes no difference!\"\n\n\"Yes, all the difference. That's why I'm going to take him with me.\"\n\n\"Suppose I refuse?\"\n\n\"You won't!\"\n\nForlornly, \"Uh----Carrie, what the devil is it you want, anyway?\"\n\n\"Oh, conversation! No, it's much more than that. I think it's a\ngreatness of life--a refusal to be content with even the healthiest\nmud.\"\n\n\"Don't you know that nobody ever solved a problem by running away from\nit?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. Only I choose to make my own definition of 'running away' I\ndon't call----Do you realize how big a world there is beyond this Gopher\nPrairie where you'd keep me all my life? It may be that some day I'll\ncome back, but not till I can bring something more than I have now. And\neven if I am cowardly and run away--all right, call it cowardly, call me\nanything you want to! I've been ruled too long by fear of being called\nthings. I'm going away to be quiet and think. I'm--I'm going! I have a\nright to my own life.\"\n\n\"So have I to mine!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I have a right to my life--and you're it, you're my life! You've made\nyourself so. I'm damned if I'll agree to all your freak notions, but I\nwill say I've got to depend on you. Never thought of that complication,\ndid you, in this 'off to Bohemia, and express yourself, and free love,\nand live your own life' stuff!\"\n\n\"You have a right to me if you can keep me. Can you?\"\n\nHe moved uneasily.\n\n\nII\n\n\nFor a month they discussed it. They hurt each other very much, and\nsometimes they were close to weeping, and invariably he used banal\nphrases about her duties and she used phrases quite as banal about\nfreedom, and through it all, her discovery that she really could get\naway from Main Street was as sweet as the discovery of love. Kennicott\nnever consented definitely. At most he agreed to a public theory that\nshe was \"going to take a short trip and see what the East was like in\nwartime.\"\n\nShe set out for Washington in October--just before the war ended.\n\nShe had determined on Washington because it was less intimidating than\nthe obvious New York, because she hoped to find streets in which Hugh\ncould play, and because in the stress of war-work, with its demand for\nthousands of temporary clerks, she could be initiated into the world of\noffices.\n\nHugh was to go with her, despite the wails and rather extensive comments\nof Aunt Bessie.\n\nShe wondered if she might not encounter Erik in the East but it was a\nchance thought, soon forgotten.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThe last thing she saw on the station platform was Kennicott, faithfully\nwaving his hand, his face so full of uncomprehending loneliness that he\ncould not smile but only twitch up his lips. She waved to him as long\nas she could, and when he was lost she wanted to leap from the vestibule\nand run back to him. She thought of a hundred tendernesses she had\nneglected.\n\nShe had her freedom, and it was empty. The moment was not the highest\nof her life, but the lowest and most desolate, which was altogether\nexcellent, for instead of slipping downward she began to climb.\n\nShe sighed, \"I couldn't do this if it weren't for Will's kindness, his\ngiving me money.\" But a second after: \"I wonder how many women would\nalways stay home if they had the money?\"\n\nHugh complained, \"Notice me, mummy!\" He was beside her on the red plush\nseat of the day-coach; a boy of three and a half. \"I'm tired of playing\ntrain. Let's play something else. Let's go see Auntie Bogart.\"\n\n\"Oh, NO! Do you really like Mrs. Bogart?\"\n\n\"Yes. She gives me cookies and she tells me about the Dear Lord. You\nnever tell me about the Dear Lord. Why don't you tell me about the\nDear Lord? Auntie Bogart says I'm going to be a preacher. Can I be a\npreacher? Can I preach about the Dear Lord?\"\n\n\"Oh, please wait till my generation has stopped rebelling before yours\nstarts in!\"\n\n\"What's a generation?\"\n\n\"It's a ray in the illumination of the spirit.\"\n\n\"That's foolish.\" He was a serious and literal person, and rather\nhumorless. She kissed his frown, and marveled:\n\n\"I am running away from my husband, after liking a Swedish ne'er-do-well\nand expressing immoral opinions, just as in a romantic story. And my own\nson reproves me because I haven't given him religious instruction. But\nthe story doesn't go right. I'm neither groaning nor being dramatically\nsaved. I keep on running away, and I enjoy it. I'm mad with joy over it.\nGopher Prairie is lost back there in the dust and stubble, and I look\nforward----\"\n\nShe continued it to Hugh: \"Darling, do you know what mother and you are\ngoing to find beyond the blue horizon rim?\"\n\n\"What?\" flatly.\n\n\"We're going to find elephants with golden howdahs from which peep young\nmaharanees with necklaces of rubies, and a dawn sea colored like the\nbreast of a dove, and a white and green house filled with books and\nsilver tea-sets.\"\n\n\"And cookies?\"\n\n\"Cookies? Oh, most decidedly cookies. We've had enough of bread and\nporridge. We'd get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on\nno cookies at all.\"\n\n\"That's foolish.\"\n\n\"It is, O male Kennicott!\"\n\n\"Huh!\" said Kennicott II, and went to sleep on her shoulder.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe theory of the Dauntless regarding Carol's absence:\n\nMrs. Will Kennicott and son Hugh left on No. 24 on Saturday last for\na stay of some months in Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and Washington.\nMrs. Kennicott confided to _Ye Scribe_ that she will be connected with one\nof the multifarious war activities now centering in the Nation's\nCapital for a brief period before returning. Her countless friends who\nappreciate her splendid labors with the local Red Cross realize how\nvaluable she will be to any war board with which she chooses to become\nconnected. Gopher Prairie thus adds another shining star to its service\nflag and without wishing to knock any neighboring communities, we would\nlike to know any town of anywheres near our size in the state that has\nsuch a sterling war record. Another reason why you'd better Watch Gopher\nPrairie Grow.\n\n* * *\n\nMr. and Mrs. David Dyer, Mrs. Dyer's sister, Mrs. Jennie Dayborn of\nJackrabbit, and Dr. Will Kennicott drove to Minniemashie on Tuesday for\na delightful picnic.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\nI\n\nSHE found employment in the Bureau of War Risk Insurance. Though the\narmistice with Germany was signed a few weeks after her coming to\nWashington, the work of the bureau continued. She filed correspondence\nall day; then she dictated answers to letters of inquiry. It was an\nendurance of monotonous details, yet she asserted that she had found\n\"real work.\"\n\nDisillusions she did have. She discovered that in the afternoon, office\nroutine stretches to the grave. She discovered that an office is as full\nof cliques and scandals as a Gopher Prairie. She discovered that most\nof the women in the government bureaus lived unhealthfully, dining\non snatches in their crammed apartments. But she also discovered that\nbusiness women may have friendships and enmities as frankly as men and\nmay revel in a bliss which no housewife attains--a free Sunday. It did\nnot appear that the Great World needed her inspiration, but she felt\nthat her letters, her contact with the anxieties of men and women all\nover the country, were a part of vast affairs, not confined to Main\nStreet and a kitchen but linked with Paris, Bangkok, Madrid.\n\nShe perceived that she could do office work without losing any of the\nputative feminine virtue of domesticity; that cooking and cleaning, when\ndivested of the fussing of an Aunt Bessie, take but a tenth of the time\nwhich, in a Gopher Prairie, it is but decent to devote to them.\n\nNot to have to apologize for her thoughts to the Jolly Seventeen, not to\nhave to report to Kennicott at the end of the day all that she had done\nor might do, was a relief which made up for the office weariness. She\nfelt that she was no longer one-half of a marriage but the whole of a\nhuman being.\n\n\nII\n\n\nWashington gave her all the graciousness in which she had had faith:\nwhite columns seen across leafy parks, spacious avenues, twisty alleys.\nDaily she passed a dark square house with a hint of magnolias and a\ncourtyard behind it, and a tall curtained second-story window through\nwhich a woman was always peering. The woman was mystery, romance, a\nstory which told itself differently every day; now she was a murderess,\nnow the neglected wife of an ambassador. It was mystery which Carol had\nmost lacked in Gopher Prairie, where every house was open to view, where\nevery person was but too easy to meet, where there were no secret gates\nopening upon moors over which one might walk by moss-deadened paths to\nstrange high adventures in an ancient garden.\n\nAs she flitted up Sixteenth Street after a Kreisler recital, given late\nin the afternoon for the government clerks, as the lamps kindled in\nspheres of soft fire, as the breeze flowed into the street, fresh\nas prairie winds and kindlier, as she glanced up the elm alley of\nMassachusetts Avenue, as she was rested by the integrity of the Scottish\nRite Temple, she loved the city as she loved no one save Hugh. She\nencountered negro shanties turned into studios, with orange curtains and\npots of mignonette; marble houses on New Hampshire Avenue, with\nbutlers and limousines; and men who looked like fictional explorers and\naviators. Her days were swift, and she knew that in her folly of running\naway she had found the courage to be wise.\n\nShe had a dispiriting first month of hunting lodgings in the crowded\ncity. She had to roost in a hall-room in a moldy mansion conducted by an\nindignant decayed gentlewoman, and leave Hugh to the care of a doubtful\nnurse. But later she made a home.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nHer first acquaintances were the members of the Tincomb Methodist\nChurch, a vast red-brick tabernacle. Vida Sherwin had given her a letter\nto an earnest woman with eye-glasses, plaid silk waist, and a belief in\nBible Classes, who introduced her to the Pastor and the Nicer Members\nof Tincomb. Carol recognized in Washington as she had in California a\ntransplanted and guarded Main Street. Two-thirds of the church-members\nhad come from Gopher Prairies. The church was their society and\ntheir standard; they went to Sunday service, Sunday School, Christian\nEndeavor, missionary lectures, church suppers, precisely as they had at\nhome; they agreed that ambassadors and flippant newspapermen and infidel\nscientists of the bureaus were equally wicked and to be avoided; and\nby cleaving to Tincomb Church they kept their ideals from all\ncontamination.\n\nThey welcomed Carol, asked about her husband, gave her advice regarding\ncolic in babies, passed her the gingerbread and scalloped potatoes at\nchurch suppers, and in general made her very unhappy and lonely, so\nthat she wondered if she might not enlist in the militant suffrage\norganization and be allowed to go to jail.\n\nAlways she was to perceive in Washington (as doubtless she would have\nperceived in New York or London) a thick streak of Main Street. The\ncautious dullness of a Gopher Prairie appeared in boarding-houses where\nladylike bureau-clerks gossiped to polite young army officers about\nthe movies; a thousand Sam Clarks and a few Widow Bogarts were to be\nidentified in the Sunday motor procession, in theater parties, and\nat the dinners of State Societies, to which the emigres from Texas or\nMichigan surged that they might confirm themselves in the faith that\ntheir several Gopher Prairies were notoriously \"a whole lot peppier and\nchummier than this stuck-up East.\"\n\nBut she found a Washington which did not cleave to Main Street.\n\nGuy Pollock wrote to a cousin, a temporary army captain, a confiding and\nbuoyant lad who took Carol to tea-dances, and laughed, as she had always\nwanted some one to laugh, about nothing in particular. The captain\nintroduced her to the secretary of a congressman, a cynical young widow\nwith many acquaintances in the navy. Through her Carol met commanders\nand majors, newspapermen, chemists and geographers and fiscal experts\nfrom the bureaus, and a teacher who was a familiar of the militant\nsuffrage headquarters. The teacher took her to headquarters. Carol never\nbecame a prominent suffragist. Indeed her only recognized position was\nas an able addresser of envelopes. But she was casually adopted by\nthis family of friendly women who, when they were not being mobbed or\narrested, took dancing lessons or went picnicking up the Chesapeake\nCanal or talked about the politics of the American Federation of Labor.\n\nWith the congressman's secretary and the teacher Carol leased a small\nflat. Here she found home, her own place and her own people. She had,\nthough it absorbed most of her salary, an excellent nurse for Hugh. She\nherself put him to bed and played with him on holidays. There were\nwalks with him, there were motionless evenings of reading, but chiefly\nWashington was associated with people, scores of them, sitting about the\nflat, talking, talking, talking, not always wisely but always excitedly.\nIt was not at all the \"artist's studio\" of which, because of its\npersistence in fiction, she had dreamed. Most of them were in offices\nall day, and thought more in card-catalogues or statistics than in mass\nand color. But they played, very simply, and they saw no reason why\nanything which exists cannot also be acknowledged.\n\nShe was sometimes shocked quite as she had shocked Gopher Prairie by\nthese girls with their cigarettes and elfish knowledge. When they were\nmost eager about soviets or canoeing, she listened, longed to have\nsome special learning which would distinguish her, and sighed that her\nadventure had come so late. Kennicott and Main Street had drained\nher self-reliance; the presence of Hugh made her feel temporary. Some\nday--oh, she'd have to take him back to open fields and the right to\nclimb about hay-lofts.\n\nBut the fact that she could never be eminent among these scoffing\nenthusiasts did not keep her from being proud of them, from defending\nthem in imaginary conversations with Kennicott, who grunted (she could\nhear his voice), \"They're simply a bunch of wild impractical theorists\nsittin' round chewing the rag,\" and \"I haven't got the time to chase\nafter a lot of these fool fads; I'm too busy putting aside a stake for\nour old age.\"\n\nMost of the men who came to the flat, whether they were army officers or\nradicals who hated the army, had the easy gentleness, the acceptance\nof women without embarrassed banter, for which she had longed in Gopher\nPrairie. Yet they seemed to be as efficient as the Sam Clarks. She\nconcluded that it was because they were of secure reputation, not hemmed\nin by the fire of provincial jealousies. Kennicott had asserted that the\nvillager's lack of courtesy is due to his poverty. \"We're no millionaire\ndudes,\" he boasted. Yet these army and navy men, these bureau experts,\nand organizers of multitudinous leagues, were cheerful on three or four\nthousand a year, while Kennicott had, outside of his land speculations,\nsix thousand or more, and Sam had eight.\n\nNor could she upon inquiry learn that many of this reckless race died in\nthe poorhouse. That institution is reserved for men like Kennicott who,\nafter devoting fifty years to \"putting aside a stake,\" incontinently\ninvest the stake in spurious oil-stocks.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nShe was encouraged to believe that she had not been abnormal in viewing\nGopher Prairie as unduly tedious and slatternly. She found the same\nfaith not only in girls escaped from domesticity but also in demure\nold ladies who, tragically deprived of esteemed husbands and huge old\nhouses, yet managed to make a very comfortable thing of it by living in\nsmall flats and having time to read.\n\nBut she also learned that by comparison Gopher Prairie was a model of\ndaring color, clever planning, and frenzied intellectuality. From her\nteacher-housemate she had a sardonic description of a Middlewestern\nrailroad-division town, of the same size as Gopher Prairie but devoid\nof lawns and trees, a town where the tracks sprawled along the\ncinder-scabbed Main Street, and the railroad shops, dripping soot from\neaves and doorway, rolled out smoke in greasy coils.\n\nOther towns she came to know by anecdote: a prairie village where the\nwind blew all day long, and the mud was two feet thick in spring, and in\nsummer the flying sand scarred new-painted houses and dust covered\nthe few flowers set out in pots. New England mill-towns with the hands\nliving in rows of cottages like blocks of lava. A rich farming-center\nin New Jersey, off the railroad, furiously pious, ruled by old men,\nunbelievably ignorant old men, sitting about the grocery talking of\nJames G. Blaine. A Southern town, full of the magnolias and white\ncolumns which Carol had accepted as proof of romance, but hating the\nnegroes, obsequious to the Old Families. A Western mining-settlement\nlike a tumor. A booming semi-city with parks and clever architects,\nvisited by famous pianists and unctuous lecturers, but irritable from a\nstruggle between union labor and the manufacturers' association, so\nthat in even the gayest of the new houses there was a ceaseless and\nintimidating heresy-hunt.\n\n\nV\n\n\nThe chart which plots Carol's progress is not easy to read. The lines\nare broken and uncertain of direction; often instead of rising they sink\nin wavering scrawls; and the colors are watery blue and pink and the dim\ngray of rubbed pencil marks. A few lines are traceable.\n\nUnhappy women are given to protecting their sensitiveness by cynical\ngossip, by whining, by high-church and new-thought religions, or by\na fog of vagueness. Carol had hidden in none of these refuges from\nreality, but she, who was tender and merry, had been made timorous by\nGopher Prairie. Even her flight had been but the temporary courage of\npanic. The thing she gained in Washington was not information about\noffice-systems and labor unions but renewed courage, that amiable\ncontempt called poise. Her glimpse of tasks involving millions of people\nand a score of nations reduced Main Street from bloated importance to\nits actual pettiness. She could never again be quite so awed by the\npower with which she herself had endowed the Vidas and Blaussers and\nBogarts.\n\nFrom her work and from her association with women who had organized\nsuffrage associations in hostile cities, or had defended political\nprisoners, she caught something of an impersonal attitude; saw that she\nhad been as touchily personal as Maud Dyer.\n\nAnd why, she began to ask, did she rage at individuals? Not individuals\nbut institutions are the enemies, and they most afflict the disciples\nwho the most generously serve them. They insinuate their tyranny under\na hundred guises and pompous names, such as Polite Society, the Family,\nthe Church, Sound Business, the Party, the Country, the Superior White\nRace; and the only defense against them, Carol beheld, is unembittered\nlaughter.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\n\nSHE had lived in Washington for a year. She was tired of the office.\nIt was tolerable, far more tolerable than housework, but it was not\nadventurous.\n\nShe was having tea and cinnamon toast, alone at a small round table on\nthe balcony of Rauscher's Confiserie. Four debutantes clattered in. She\nhad felt young and dissipated, had thought rather well of her black and\nleaf-green suit, but as she watched them, thin of ankle, soft under the\nchin, seventeen or eighteen at most, smoking cigarettes with the correct\nennui and talking of \"bedroom farces\" and their desire to \"run up to New\nYork and see something racy,\" she became old and rustic and plain, and\ndesirous of retreating from these hard brilliant children to a life\neasier and more sympathetic. When they flickered out and one child gave\norders to a chauffeur, Carol was not a defiant philosopher but a faded\ngovernment clerk from Gopher Prairie, Minnesota.\n\nShe started dejectedly up Connecticut Avenue. She stopped, her heart\nstopped. Coming toward her were Harry and Juanita Haydock. She ran to\nthem, she kissed Juanita, while Harry confided, \"Hadn't expected to come\nto Washington--had to go to New York for some buying--didn't have your\naddress along--just got in this morning--wondered how in the world we\ncould get hold of you.\"\n\nShe was definitely sorry to hear that they were to leave at nine that\nevening, and she clung to them as long as she could. She took them to\nSt. Mark's for dinner. Stooped, her elbows on the table, she heard\nwith excitement that \"Cy Bogart had the 'flu, but of course he was too\ngol-darn mean to die of it.\"\n\n\"Will wrote me that Mr. Blausser has gone away. How did he get on?\"\n\n\"Fine! Fine! Great loss to the town. There was a real public-spirited\nfellow, all right!\"\n\nShe discovered that she now had no opinions whatever about Mr. Blausser,\nand she said sympathetically, \"Will you keep up the town-boosting\ncampaign?\"\n\nHarry fumbled, \"Well, we've dropped it just temporarily, but--sure you\nbet! Say, did the doc write you about the luck B. J. Gougerling had\nhunting ducks down in Texas?\"\n\nWhen the news had been told and their enthusiasm had slackened she\nlooked about and was proud to be able to point out a senator, to explain\nthe cleverness of the canopied garden. She fancied that a man with\ndinner-coat and waxed mustache glanced superciliously at Harry's highly\nform-fitting bright-brown suit and Juanita's tan silk frock, which was\ndoubtful at the seams. She glared back, defending her own, daring the\nworld not to appreciate them.\n\nThen, waving to them, she lost them down the long train shed. She stood\nreading the list of stations: Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Chicago. Beyond\nChicago----? She saw the lakes and stubble fields, heard the rhythm\nof insects and the creak of a buggy, was greeted by Sam Clark's \"Well,\nwell, how's the little lady?\"\n\nNobody in Washington cared enough for her to fret about her sins as Sam\ndid.\n\nBut that night they had at the flat a man just back from Finland.\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe was on the Powhatan roof with the captain. At a table, somewhat\nvociferously buying improbable \"soft drinks\" for two fluffy girls, was a\nman with a large familiar back.\n\n\"Oh! I think I know him,\" she murmured.\n\n\"Who? There? Oh, Bresnahan, Percy Bresnahan.\"\n\n\"Yes. You've met him? What sort of a man is he?\"\n\n\"He's a good-hearted idiot. I rather like him, and I believe that as a\nsalesman of motors he's a wonder. But he's a nuisance in the aeronautic\nsection. Tries so hard to be useful but he doesn't know anything--he\ndoesn't know anything. Rather pathetic: rich man poking around and\ntrying to be useful. Do you want to speak to him?\"\n\n\"No--no--I don't think so.\"\n\n\nIII\n\n\nShe was at a motion-picture show. The film was a highly advertised\nand abysmal thing smacking of simpering hair-dressers, cheap perfume,\nred-plush suites on the back streets of tenderloins, and complacent fat\nwomen chewing gum. It pretended to deal with the life of studios. The\nleading man did a portrait which was a masterpiece. He also saw visions\nin pipe-smoke, and was very brave and poor and pure. He had ringlets,\nand his masterpiece was strangely like an enlarged photograph.\n\nCarol prepared to leave.\n\nOn the screen, in the role of a composer, appeared an actor called Eric\nValour.\n\nShe was startled, incredulous, then wretched. Looking straight out at\nher, wearing a beret and a velvet jacket, was Erik Valborg.\n\nHe had a pale part, which he played neither well nor badly. She\nspeculated, \"I could have made so much of him----\" She did not finish\nher speculation.\n\nShe went home and read Kennicott's letters. They had seemed stiff and\nundetailed, but now there strode from them a personality, a personality\nunlike that of the languishing young man in the velvet jacket playing a\ndummy piano in a canvas room.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nKennicott first came to see her in November, thirteen months after her\narrival in Washington. When he announced that he was coming she was not\nat all sure that she wished to see him. She was glad that he had made\nthe decision himself.\n\nShe had leave from the office for two days.\n\nShe watched him marching from the train, solid, assured, carrying his\nheavy suit-case, and she was diffident--he was such a bulky person to\nhandle. They kissed each other questioningly, and said at the same time,\n\"You're looking fine; how's the baby?\" and \"You're looking awfully well,\ndear; how is everything?\"\n\nHe grumbled, \"I don't want to butt in on any plans you've made or your\nfriends or anything, but if you've got time for it, I'd like to chase\naround Washington, and take in some restaurants and shows and stuff, and\nforget work for a while.\"\n\nShe realized, in the taxicab, that he was wearing a soft gray suit, a\nsoft easy hat, a flippant tie.\n\n\"Like the new outfit? Got 'em in Chicago. Gosh, I hope they're the kind\nyou like.\"\n\nThey spent half an hour at the flat, with Hugh. She was flustered, but\nhe gave no sign of kissing her again.\n\nAs he moved about the small rooms she realized that he had had his new\ntan shoes polished to a brassy luster. There was a recent cut on\nhis chin. He must have shaved on the train just before coming into\nWashington.\n\nIt was pleasant to feel how important she was, how many people she\nrecognized, as she took him to the Capitol, as she told him (he asked\nand she obligingly guessed) how many feet it was to the top of the dome,\nas she pointed out Senator LaFollette and the vice-president, and\nat lunch-time showed herself an habitue by leading him through the\ncatacombs to the senate restaurant.\n\nShe realized that he was slightly more bald. The familiar way in which\nhis hair was parted on the left side agitated her. She looked down\nat his hands, and the fact that his nails were as ill-treated as ever\ntouched her more than his pleading shoe-shine.\n\n\"You'd like to motor down to Mount Vernon this afternoon, wouldn't you?\"\nshe said.\n\nIt was the one thing he had planned. He was delighted that it seemed to\nbe a perfectly well bred and Washingtonian thing to do.\n\nHe shyly held her hand on the way, and told her the news: they were\nexcavating the basement for the new schoolbuilding, Vida \"made him tired\nthe way she always looked at the Maje,\" poor Chet Dashaway had been\nkilled in a motor accident out on the Coast. He did not coax her to like\nhim. At Mount Vernon he admired the paneled library and Washington's\ndental tools.\n\nShe knew that he would want oysters, that he would have heard of\nHarvey's apropos of Grant and Blaine, and she took him there. At dinner\nhis hearty voice, his holiday enjoyment of everything, turned into\nnervousness in his desire to know a number of interesting matters, such\nas whether they still were married. But he did not ask questions, and\nhe said nothing about her returning. He cleared his throat and observed,\n\"Oh say, been trying out the old camera. Don't you think these are\npretty good?\"\n\nHe tossed over to her thirty prints of Gopher Prairie and the country\nabout. Without defense, she was thrown into it. She remembered that he\nhad lured her with photographs in courtship days; she made a note of\nhis sameness, his satisfaction with the tactics which had proved good\nbefore; but she forgot it in the familiar places. She was seeing\nthe sun-speckled ferns among birches on the shore of Minniemashie,\nwind-rippled miles of wheat, the porch of their own house where Hugh had\nplayed, Main Street where she knew every window and every face.\n\nShe handed them back, with praise for his photography, and he talked of\nlenses and time-exposures.\n\nDinner was over and they were gossiping of her friends at the flat, but\nan intruder was with them, sitting back, persistent, inescapable. She\ncould not endure it. She stammered:\n\n\"I had you check your bag at the station because I wasn't quite sure\nwhere you'd stay. I'm dreadfully sorry we haven't room to put you up at\nthe flat. We ought to have seen about a room for you before. Don't you\nthink you better call up the Willard or the Washington now?\"\n\nHe peered at her cloudily. Without words he asked, without speech she\nanswered, whether she was also going to the Willard or the Washington.\nBut she tried to look as though she did not know that they were debating\nanything of the sort. She would have hated him had he been meek about\nit. But he was neither meek nor angry. However impatient he may have\nbeen with her blandness he said readily:\n\n\"Yes, guess I better do that. Excuse me a second. Then how about\ngrabbing a taxi (Gosh, isn't it the limit the way these taxi shuffers\nskin around a corner? Got more nerve driving than I have!) and going\nup to your flat for a while? Like to meet your friends--must be fine\nwomen--and I might take a look and see how Hugh sleeps. Like to know how\nhe breathes. Don't think he has adenoids, but I better make sure, eh?\"\nHe patted her shoulder.\n\nAt the flat they found her two housemates and a girl who had been to\njail for suffrage. Kennicott fitted in surprisingly. He laughed at the\ngirl's story of the humors of a hunger-strike; he told the secretary\nwhat to do when her eyes were tired from typing; and the teacher asked\nhim--not as the husband of a friend but as a physician--whether there\nwas \"anything to this inoculation for colds.\"\n\nHis colloquialisms seemed to Carol no more lax than their habitual\nslang.\n\nLike an older brother he kissed her good-night in the midst of the\ncompany.\n\n\"He's terribly nice,\" said her housemates, and waited for confidences.\nThey got none, nor did her own heart. She could find nothing definite to\nagonize about. She felt that she was no longer analyzing and controlling\nforces, but swept on by them.\n\nHe came to the flat for breakfast, and washed the dishes. That was her\nonly occasion for spite. Back home he never thought of washing dishes!\n\nShe took him to the obvious \"sights\"--the Treasury, the Monument, the\nCorcoran Gallery, the Pan-American Building, the Lincoln Memorial, with\nthe Potomac beyond it and the Arlington hills and the columns of the Lee\nMansion. For all his willingness to play there was over him a melancholy\nwhich piqued her. His normally expressionless eyes had depths to them\nnow, and strangeness. As they walked through Lafayette Square, looking\npast the Jackson statue at the lovely tranquil facade of the White\nHouse, he sighed, \"I wish I'd had a shot at places like this. When I was\nin the U., I had to earn part of my way, and when I wasn't doing that\nor studying, I guess I was roughhousing. My gang were a great bunch for\nbumming around and raising Cain. Maybe if I'd been caught early and\nsent to concerts and all that----Would I have been what you call\nintelligent?\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear, don't be humble! You are intelligent! For instance, you're\nthe most thorough doctor----\"\n\nHe was edging about something he wished to say. He pounced on it:\n\n\"You did like those pictures of G. P. pretty well, after all, didn't\nyou!\"\n\n\"Yes, of course.\"\n\n\"Wouldn't be so bad to have a glimpse of the old town, would it!\"\n\n\"No, it wouldn't. Just as I was terribly glad to see the Haydocks.\nBut please understand me! That doesn't mean that I withdraw all my\ncriticisms. The fact that I might like a glimpse of old friends hasn't\nany particular relation to the question of whether Gopher Prairie\noughtn't to have festivals and lamb chops.\"\n\nHastily, \"No, no! Sure not. I und'stand.\"\n\n\"But I know it must have been pretty tiresome to have to live with\nanybody as perfect as I was.\"\n\nHe grinned. She liked his grin.\n\n\nV\n\n\nHe was thrilled by old negro coachmen, admirals, aeroplanes, the\nbuilding to which his income tax would eventually go, a Rolls-Royce,\nLynnhaven oysters, the Supreme Court Room, a New York theatrical manager\ndown for the try-out of a play, the house where Lincoln died, the cloaks\nof Italian officers, the barrows at which clerks buy their box-lunches\nat noon, the barges on the Chesapeake Canal, and the fact that District\nof Columbia cars had both District and Maryland licenses.\n\nShe resolutely took him to her favorite white and green cottages and\nGeorgian houses. He admitted that fanlights, and white shutters against\nrosy brick, were more homelike than a painty wooden box. He volunteered,\n\"I see how you mean. They make me think of these pictures of an\nold-fashioned Christmas. Oh, if you keep at it long enough you'll have\nSam and me reading poetry and everything. Oh say, d' I tell you about\nthis fierce green Jack Elder's had his machine painted?\"\n\n\nVI\n\n\nThey were at dinner.\n\nHe hinted, \"Before you showed me those places today, I'd already made up\nmy mind that when I built the new house we used to talk about, I'd fix\nit the way you wanted it. I'm pretty practical about foundations and\nradiation and stuff like that, but I guess I don't know a whole lot\nabout architecture.\"\n\n\"My dear, it occurs to me with a sudden shock that I don't either!\"\n\n\"Well--anyway--you let me plan the garage and the plumbing, and you do\nthe rest, if you ever--I mean--if you ever want to.\"\n\nDoubtfully, \"That's sweet of you.\"\n\n\"Look here, Carrie; you think I'm going to ask you to love me. I'm not.\nAnd I'm not going to ask you to come back to Gopher Prairie!\"\n\nShe gaped.\n\n\"It's been a whale of a fight. But I guess I've got myself to see that\nyou won't ever stand G. P. unless you WANT to come back to it. I needn't\nsay I'm crazy to have you. But I won't ask you. I just want you to know\nhow I wait for you. Every mail I look for a letter, and when I get one\nI'm kind of scared to open it, I'm hoping so much that you're coming\nback. Evenings----You know I didn't open the cottage down at the lake at\nall, this past summer. Simply couldn't stand all the others laughing and\nswimming, and you not there. I used to sit on the porch, in town, and\nI--I couldn't get over the feeling that you'd simply run up to the drug\nstore and would be right back, and till after it got dark I'd catch\nmyself watching, looking up the street, and you never came, and the\nhouse was so empty and still that I didn't like to go in. And sometimes\nI fell asleep there, in my chair, and didn't wake up till after\nmidnight, and the house----Oh, the devil! Please get me, Carrie. I just\nwant you to know how welcome you'll be if you ever do come. But I'm not\nasking you to.\"\n\n\"You're----It's awfully----\"\n\n\"'Nother thing. I'm going to be frank. I haven't always been absolutely,\nuh, absolutely, proper. I've always loved you more than anything else in\nthe world, you and the kid. But sometimes when you were chilly to me I'd\nget lonely and sore, and pike out and----Never intended----\"\n\nShe rescued him with a pitying, \"It's all right. Let's forget it.\"\n\n\"But before we were married you said if your husband ever did anything\nwrong, you'd want him to tell you.\"\n\n\"Did I? I can't remember. And I can't seem to think. Oh, my dear, I\ndo know how generously you're trying to make me happy. The only thing\nis----I can't think. I don't know what I think.\"\n\n\"Then listen! Don't think! Here's what I want you to do! Get a two-weeks\nleave from your office. Weather's beginning to get chilly here. Let's\nrun down to Charleston and Savannah and maybe Florida.\n\n\"A second honeymoon?\" indecisively.\n\n\"No. Don't even call it that. Call it a second wooing. I won't ask\nanything. I just want the chance to chase around with you. I guess I\nnever appreciated how lucky I was to have a girl with imagination and\nlively feet to play with. So----Could you maybe run away and see the\nSouth with me? If you wanted to, you could just--you could just pretend\nyou were my sister and----I'll get an extra nurse for Hugh! I'll get the\nbest dog-gone nurse in Washington!\"\n\n\nVII\n\n\nIt was in the Villa Margherita, by the palms of the Charleston Battery\nand the metallic harbor, that her aloofness melted.\n\nWhen they sat on the upper balcony, enchanted by the moon glitter, she\ncried, \"Shall I go back to Gopher Prairie with you? Decide for me. I'm\ntired of deciding and undeciding.\"\n\n\"No. You've got to do your own deciding. As a matter of fact, in spite\nof this honeymoon, I don't think I want you to come home. Not yet.\"\n\nShe could only stare.\n\n\"I want you to be satisfied when you get there. I'll do everything I can\nto keep you happy, but I'll make lots of breaks, so I want you to take\ntime and think it over.\"\n\nShe was relieved. She still had a chance to seize splendid indefinite\nfreedoms. She might go--oh, she'd see Europe, somehow, before she was\nrecaptured. But she also had a firmer respect for Kennicott. She had\nfancied that her life might make a story. She knew that there was\nnothing heroic or obviously dramatic in it, no magic of rare hours,\nnor valiant challenge, but it seemed to her that she was of some\nsignificance because she was commonplaceness, the ordinary life of the\nage, made articulate and protesting. It had not occurred to her that\nthere was also a story of Will Kennicott, into which she entered only so\nmuch as he entered into hers; that he had bewilderments and concealments\nas intricate as her own, and soft treacherous desires for sympathy.\n\nThus she brooded, looking at the amazing sea, holding his hand.\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nShe was in Washington; Kennicott was in Gopher Prairie, writing as dryly\nas ever about water-pipes and goose-hunting and Mrs. Fageros's mastoid.\n\nShe was talking at dinner to a generalissima of suffrage. Should she\nreturn?\n\nThe leader spoke wearily:\n\n\"My dear, I'm perfectly selfish. I can't quite visualize the needs of\nyour husband, and it seems to me that your baby will do quite as well in\nthe schools here as in your barracks at home.\"\n\n\"Then you think I'd better not go back?\" Carol sounded disappointed.\n\n\"It's more difficult than that. When I say that I'm selfish I mean that\nthe only thing I consider about women is whether they're likely to prove\nuseful in building up real political power for women. And you? Shall I\nbe frank? Remember when I say 'you' I don't mean you alone. I'm thinking\nof thousands of women who come to Washington and New York and\nChicago every year, dissatisfied at home and seeking a sign in the\nheavens--women of all sorts, from timid mothers of fifty in cotton\ngloves, to girls just out of Vassar who organize strikes in their own\nfathers' factories! All of you are more or less useful to me, but only\na few of you can take my place, because I have one virtue (only one): I\nhave given up father and mother and children for the love of God.\n\n\"Here's the test for you: Do you come to 'conquer the East,' as people\nsay, or do you come to conquer yourself?\n\n\"It's so much more complicated than any of you know--so much more\ncomplicated than I knew when I put on Ground Grippers and started out to\nreform the world. The final complication in 'conquering Washington' or\n'conquering New York' is that the conquerors must beyond all things not\nconquer! It must have been so easy in the good old days when authors\ndreamed only of selling a hundred thousand volumes, and sculptors\nof being feted in big houses, and even the Uplifters like me had a\nsimple-hearted ambition to be elected to important offices and invited\nto go round lecturing. But we meddlers have upset everything. Now the\none thing that is disgraceful to any of us is obvious success. The\nUplifter who is very popular with wealthy patrons can be pretty sure\nthat he has softened his philosophy to please them, and the author who\nis making lots of money--poor things, I've heard 'em apologizing for it\nto the shabby bitter-enders; I've seen 'em ashamed of the sleek luggage\nthey got from movie rights.\n\n\"Do you want to sacrifice yourself in such a topsy-turvy world, where\npopularity makes you unpopular with the people you love, and the only\nfailure is cheap success, and the only individualist is the person who\ngives up all his individualism to serve a jolly ungrateful proletariat\nwhich thumbs its nose at him?\"\n\nCarol smiled ingratiatingly, to indicate that she was indeed one who\ndesired to sacrifice, but she sighed, \"I don't know; I'm afraid I'm not\nheroic. I certainly wasn't out home. Why didn't I do big effective----\"\n\n\"Not a matter of heroism. Matter of endurance. Your Middlewest is\ndouble-Puritan--prairie Puritan on top of New England Puritan; bluff\nfrontiersman on the surface, but in its heart it still has the ideal of\nPlymouth Rock in a sleet-storm. There's one attack you can make on it,\nperhaps the only kind that accomplishes much anywhere: you can keep on\nlooking at one thing after another in your home and church and bank, and\nask why it is, and who first laid down the law that it had to be that\nway. If enough of us do this impolitely enough, then we'll become\ncivilized in merely twenty thousand years or so, instead of having\nto wait the two hundred thousand years that my cynical anthropologist\nfriends allow. . . . Easy, pleasant, lucrative home-work for wives:\nasking people to define their jobs. That's the most dangerous doctrine I\nknow!\"\n\nCarol was mediating, \"I will go back! I will go on asking questions.\nI've always done it, and always failed at it, and it's all I can do. I'm\ngoing to ask Ezra Stowbody why he's opposed to the nationalization of\nrailroads, and ask Dave Dyer why a druggist always is pleased when he's\ncalled 'doctor,' and maybe ask Mrs. Bogart why she wears a widow's veil\nthat looks like a dead crow.\"\n\nThe woman leader straightened. \"And you have one thing. You have a baby\nto hug. That's my temptation. I dream of babies--of a baby--and I sneak\naround parks to see them playing. (The children in Dupont Circle are\nlike a poppy-garden.) And the antis call me 'unsexed'!\"\n\nCarol was thinking, in panic, \"Oughtn't Hugh to have country air? I\nwon't let him become a yokel. I can guide him away from street-corner\nloafing. . . . I think I can.\"\n\nOn her way home: \"Now that I've made a precedent, joined the union and\ngone out on one strike and learned personal solidarity, I won't be\nso afraid. Will won't always be resisting my running away. Some day I\nreally will go to Europe with him . . . or without him.\n\n\"I've lived with people who are not afraid to go to jail. I could invite\na Miles Bjornstam to dinner without being afraid of the Haydocks . . . I\nthink I could.\n\n\"I'll take back the sound of Yvette Guilbert's songs and Elman's violin.\nThey'll be only the lovelier against the thrumming of crickets in the\nstubble on an autumn day.\n\n\"I can laugh now and be serene . . . I think I can.\"\n\nThough she should return, she said, she would not be utterly defeated.\nShe was glad of her rebellion. The prairie was no longer empty land in\nthe sun-glare; it was the living tawny beast which she had fought and\nmade beautiful by fighting; and in the village streets were shadows of\nher desires and the sound of her marching and the seeds of mystery and\ngreatness.\n\n\nIX\n\n\nHer active hatred of Gopher Prairie had run out. She saw it now as a\ntoiling new settlement. With sympathy she remembered Kennicott's defense\nof its citizens as \"a lot of pretty good folks, working hard and trying\nto bring up their families the best they can.\" She recalled tenderly the\nyoung awkwardness of Main Street and the makeshifts of the little brown\ncottages; she pitied their shabbiness and isolation; had compassion for\ntheir assertion of culture, even as expressed in Thanatopsis papers, for\ntheir pretense of greatness, even as trumpeted in \"boosting.\" She saw\nMain Street in the dusty prairie sunset, a line of frontier shanties\nwith solemn lonely people waiting for her, solemn and lonely as an old\nman who has outlived his friends. She remembered that Kennicott and Sam\nClark had listened to her songs, and she wanted to run to them and sing.\n\n\"At last,\" she rejoiced, \"I've come to a fairer attitude toward the\ntown. I can love it, now.\"\n\nShe was, perhaps, rather proud of herself for having acquired so much\ntolerance.\n\nShe awoke at three in the morning, after a dream of being tortured by\nElla Stowbody and the Widow Bogart.\n\n\"I've been making the town a myth. This is how people keep up the\ntradition of the perfect home-town, the happy boyhood, the brilliant\ncollege friends. We forget so. I've been forgetting that Main Street\ndoesn't think it's in the least lonely and pitiful. It thinks it's God's\nOwn Country. It isn't waiting for me. It doesn't care.\"\n\nBut the next evening she again saw Gopher Prairie as her home, waiting\nfor her in the sunset, rimmed round with splendor.\n\nShe did not return for five months more; five months crammed with greedy\naccumulation of sounds and colors to take back for the long still days.\n\nShe had spent nearly two years in Washington.\n\nWhen she departed for Gopher Prairie, in June, her second baby was\nstirring within her.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX\n\nSHE wondered all the way home what her sensations would be. She wondered\nabout it so much that she had every sensation she had imagined. She was\nexcited by each familiar porch, each hearty \"Well, well!\" and flattered\nto be, for a day, the most important news of the community. She bustled\nabout, making calls. Juanita Haydock bubbled over their Washington\nencounter, and took Carol to her social bosom. This ancient opponent\nseemed likely to be her most intimate friend, for Vida Sherwin, though\nshe was cordial, stood back and watched for imported heresies.\n\nIn the evening Carol went to the mill. The mystical Om-Om-Om of the\ndynamos in the electric-light plant behind the mill was louder in the\ndarkness. Outside sat the night watchman, Champ Perry. He held up his\nstringy hands and squeaked, \"We've all missed you terrible.\"\n\nWho in Washington would miss her?\n\nWho in Washington could be depended upon like Guy Pollock? When she saw\nhim on the street, smiling as always, he seemed an eternal thing, a part\nof her own self.\n\nAfter a week she decided that she was neither glad nor sorry to be back.\nShe entered each day with the matter-of-fact attitude with which she\nhad gone to her office in Washington. It was her task; there would be\nmechanical details and meaningless talk; what of it?\n\nThe only problem which she had approached with emotion proved\ninsignificant. She had, on the train, worked herself up to such devotion\nthat she was willing to give up her own room, to try to share all of her\nlife with Kennicott.\n\nHe mumbled, ten minutes after she had entered the house, \"Say, I've kept\nyour room for you like it was. I've kind of come round to your way of\nthinking. Don't see why folks need to get on each other's nerves just\nbecause they're friendly. Darned if I haven't got so I like a little\nprivacy and mulling things over by myself.\"\n\n\nII\n\n\nShe had left a city which sat up nights to talk of universal transition;\nof European revolution, guild socialism, free verse. She had fancied\nthat all the world was changing.\n\nShe found that it was not.\n\nIn Gopher Prairie the only ardent new topics were prohibition, the place\nin Minneapolis where you could get whisky at thirteen dollars a quart,\nrecipes for home-made beer, the \"high cost of living,\" the presidential\nelection, Clark's new car, and not very novel foibles of Cy Bogart.\nTheir problems were exactly what they had been two years ago, what they\nhad been twenty years ago, and what they would be for twenty years to\ncome. With the world a possible volcano, the husbandmen were plowing at\nthe base of the mountain. A volcano does occasionally drop a river\nof lava on even the best of agriculturists, to their astonishment and\nconsiderable injury, but their cousins inherit the farms and a year or\ntwo later go back to the plowing.\n\nShe was unable to rhapsodize much over the seven new bungalows and the\ntwo garages which Kennicott had made to seem so important. Her intensest\nthought about them was, \"Oh yes, they're all right I suppose.\" The\nchange which she did heed was the erection of the schoolbuilding, with\nits cheerful brick walls, broad windows, gymnasium, classrooms for\nagriculture and cooking. It indicated Vida's triumph, and it stirred her\nto activity--any activity. She went to Vida with a jaunty, \"I think I\nshall work for you. And I'll begin at the bottom.\"\n\nShe did. She relieved the attendant at the rest-room for an hour a\nday. Her only innovation was painting the pine table a black and orange\nrather shocking to the Thanatopsis. She talked to the farmwives and\nsoothed their babies and was happy.\n\nThinking of them she did not think of the ugliness of Main Street as she\nhurried along it to the chatter of the Jolly Seventeen.\n\nShe wore her eye-glasses on the street now. She was beginning to ask\nKennicott and Juanita if she didn't look young, much younger than\nthirty-three. The eye-glasses pinched her nose. She considered\nspectacles. They would make her seem older, and hopelessly settled.\nNo! She would not wear spectacles yet. But she tried on a pair at\nKennicott's office. They really were much more comfortable.\n\n\nIII\n\n\nDr. Westlake, Sam Clark, Nat Hicks, and Del Snafflin were talking in\nDel's barber shop.\n\n\"Well, I see Kennicott's wife is taking a whirl at the rest-room, now,\"\nsaid Dr. Westlake. He emphasized the \"now.\"\n\nDel interrupted the shaving of Sam and, with his brush dripping lather,\nhe observed jocularly:\n\n\"What'll she be up to next? They say she used to claim this burg wasn't\nswell enough for a city girl like her, and would we please tax ourselves\nabout thirty-seven point nine and fix it all up pretty, with tidies on\nthe hydrants and statoos on the lawns----\"\n\nSam irritably blew the lather from his lips, with milky small bubbles,\nand snorted, \"Be a good thing for most of us roughnecks if we did have\na smart woman to tell us how to fix up the town. Just as much to her\nkicking as there was to Jim Blausser's gassing about factories. And you\ncan bet Mrs. Kennicott is smart, even if she is skittish. Glad to see\nher back.\"\n\nDr. Westlake hastened to play safe. \"So was I! So was I! She's got a\nnice way about her, and she knows a good deal about books, or fiction\nanyway. Of course she's like all the rest of these women--not\nsolidly founded--not scholarly--doesn't know anything about political\neconomy--falls for every new idea that some windjamming crank puts out.\nBut she's a nice woman. She'll probably fix up the rest-room, and the\nrest-room is a fine thing, brings a lot of business to town. And now\nthat Mrs. Kennicott's been away, maybe she's got over some of her fool\nideas. Maybe she realizes that folks simply laugh at her when she tries\nto tell us how to run everything.\"\n\n\"Sure. She'll take a tumble to herself,\" said Nat Hicks, sucking in\nhis lips judicially. \"As far as I'm concerned, I'll say she's as nice a\nlooking skirt as there is in town. But yow!\" His tone electrified them.\n\"Guess she'll miss that Swede Valborg that used to work for me! They was\na pair! Talking poetry and moonshine! If they could of got away with it,\nthey'd of been so darn lovey-dovey----\"\n\nSam Clark interrupted, \"Rats, they never even thought about making love,\nJust talking books and all that junk. I tell you, Carrie Kennicott's\na smart woman, and these smart educated women all get funny ideas, but\nthey get over 'em after they've had three or four kids. You'll see her\nsettled down one of these days, and teaching Sunday School and helping\nat sociables and behaving herself, and not trying to butt into business\nand politics. Sure!\"\n\nAfter only fifteen minutes of conference on her stockings, her son, her\nseparate bedroom, her music, her ancient interest in Guy Pollock, her\nprobable salary in Washington, and every remark which she was known to\nhave made since her return, the supreme council decided that they would\npermit Carol Kennicott to live, and they passed on to a consideration of\nNat Hicks's New One about the traveling salesman and the old maid.\n\n\nIV\n\n\nFor some reason which was totally mysterious to Carol, Maud Dyer seemed\nto resent her return. At the Jolly Seventeen Maud giggled nervously,\n\"Well, I suppose you found war-work a good excuse to stay away and have\na swell time. Juanita! Don't you think we ought to make Carrie tell us\nabout the officers she met in Washington?\"\n\nThey rustled and stared. Carol looked at them. Their curiosity seemed\nnatural and unimportant.\n\n\"Oh yes, yes indeed, have to do that some day,\" she yawned.\n\nShe no longer took Aunt Bessie Smail seriously enough to struggle for\nindependence. She saw that Aunt Bessie did not mean to intrude; that\nshe wanted to do things for all the Kennicotts. Thus Carol hit upon the\ntragedy of old age, which is not that it is less vigorous than youth,\nbut that it is not needed by youth; that its love and prosy sageness,\nso important a few years ago, so gladly offered now, are rejected\nwith laughter. She divined that when Aunt Bessie came in with a jar of\nwild-grape jelly she was waiting in hope of being asked for the recipe.\nAfter that she could be irritated but she could not be depressed by Aunt\nBessie's simoom of questioning.\n\nShe wasn't depressed even when she heard Mrs. Bogart observe, \"Now we've\ngot prohibition it seems to me that the next problem of the country\nain't so much abolishing cigarettes as it is to make folks observe the\nSabbath and arrest these law-breakers that play baseball and go to the\nmovies and all on the Lord's Day.\"\n\nOnly one thing bruised Carol's vanity. Few people asked her about\nWashington. They who had most admiringly begged Percy Bresnahan for his\nopinions were least interested in her facts. She laughed at herself when\nshe saw that she had expected to be at once a heretic and a returned\nhero; she was very reasonable and merry about it; and it hurt just as\nmuch as ever.\n\nHer baby, born in August, was a girl. Carol could not decide whether she\nwas to become a feminist leader or marry a scientist or both, but did\nsettle on Vassar and a tricolette suit with a small black hat for her\nFreshman year.\n\n\nVI\n\n\nHugh was loquacious at breakfast. He desired to give his impressions of\nowls and F Street.\n\n\"Don't make so much noise. You talk too much,\" growled Kennicott.\n\nCarol flared. \"Don't speak to him that way! Why don't you listen to him?\nHe has some very interesting things to tell.\"\n\n\"What's the idea? Mean to say you expect me to spend all my time\nlistening to his chatter?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"For one thing, he's got to learn a little discipline. Time for him to\nstart getting educated.\"\n\n\"I've learned much more discipline, I've had much more education, from\nhim than he has from me.\"\n\n\"What's this? Some new-fangled idea of raising kids you got in\nWashington?\"\n\n\"Perhaps. Did you ever realize that children are people?\"\n\n\"That's all right. I'm not going to have him monopolizing the\nconversation.\"\n\n\"No, of course. We have our rights, too. But I'm going to bring him up\nas a human being. He has just as many thoughts as we have, and I want\nhim to develop them, not take Gopher Prairie's version of them. That's\nmy biggest work now--keeping myself, keeping you, from 'educating' him.\"\n\n\"Well, let's not scrap about it. But I'm not going to have him spoiled.\"\n\nKennicott had forgotten it in ten minutes; and she forgot it--this time.\n\n\nVII\n\n\nThe Kennicotts and the Sam Clarks had driven north to a duck-pass\nbetween two lakes, on an autumn day of blue and copper.\n\nKennicott had given her a light twenty-gauge shotgun. She had a first\nlesson in shooting, in keeping her eyes open, not wincing, understanding\nthat the bead at the end of the barrel really had something to do with\npointing the gun. She was radiant; she almost believed Sam when he\ninsisted that it was she who had shot the mallard at which they had\nfired together.\n\nShe sat on the bank of the reedy lake and found rest in Mrs. Clark's\ndrawling comments on nothing. The brown dusk was still. Behind them were\ndark marshes. The plowed acres smelled fresh. The lake was garnet and\nsilver. The voices of the men, waiting for the last flight, were clear\nin the cool air.\n\n\"Mark left!\" sang Kennicott, in a long-drawn call.\n\nThree ducks were swooping down in a swift line. The guns banged, and\na duck fluttered. The men pushed their light boat out on the burnished\nlake, disappeared beyond the reeds. Their cheerful voices and the slow\nsplash and clank of oars came back to Carol from the dimness. In the sky\na fiery plain sloped down to a serene harbor. It dissolved; the lake\nwas white marble; and Kennicott was crying, \"Well, old lady, how about\nhiking out for home? Supper taste pretty good, eh?\"\n\n\"I'll sit back with Ethel,\" she said, at the car.\n\nIt was the first time she had called Mrs. Clark by her given name; the\nfirst time she had willingly sat back, a woman of Main Street.\n\n\"I'm hungry. It's good to be hungry,\" she reflected, as they drove away.\n\nShe looked across the silent fields to the west. She was conscious of an\nunbroken sweep of land to the Rockies, to Alaska, a dominion which\nwill rise to unexampled greatness when other empires have grown senile.\nBefore that time, she knew, a hundred generations of Carols will aspire\nand go down in tragedy devoid of palls and solemn chanting, the humdrum\ninevitable tragedy of struggle against inertia.\n\n\"Let's all go to the movies tomorrow night. Awfully exciting film,\" said\nEthel Clark.\n\n\"Well, I was going to read a new book but----All right, let's go,\" said\nCarol.\n\n\nVIII\n\n\n\"They're too much for me,\" Carol sighed to Kennicott. \"I've been\nthinking about getting up an annual Community Day, when the whole town\nwould forget feuds and go out and have sports and a picnic and a dance.\nBut Bert Tybee (why did you ever elect him mayor?)--he's kidnapped my\nidea. He wants the Community Day, but he wants to have some politician\n'give an address.' That's just the stilted sort of thing I've tried to\navoid. He asked Vida, and of course she agreed with him.\"\n\nKennicott considered the matter while he wound the clock and they\ntramped up-stairs.\n\n\"Yes, it would jar you to have Bert butting in,\" he said amiably. \"Are\nyou going to do much fussing over this Community stunt? Don't you ever\nget tired of fretting and stewing and experimenting?\"\n\n\"I haven't even started. Look!\" She led him to the nursery door, pointed\nat the fuzzy brown head of her daughter. \"Do you see that object on the\npillow? Do you know what it is? It's a bomb to blow up smugness. If you\nTories were wise, you wouldn't arrest anarchists; you'd arrest all these\nchildren while they're asleep in their cribs. Think what that baby will\nsee and meddle with before she dies in the year 2000! She may see an\nindustrial union of the whole world, she may see aeroplanes going to\nMars.\"\n\n\"Yump, probably be changes all right,\" yawned Kennicott.\n\nShe sat on the edge of his bed while he hunted through his bureau for a\ncollar which ought to be there and persistently wasn't.\n\n\"I'll go on, always. And I am happy. But this Community Day makes me see\nhow thoroughly I'm beaten.\"\n\n\"That darn collar certainly is gone for keeps,\" muttered Kennicott and,\nlouder, \"Yes, I guess you----I didn't quite catch what you said, dear.\"\n\nShe patted his pillows, turned down his sheets, as she reflected:\n\n\"But I have won in this: I've never excused my failures by sneering at\nmy aspirations, by pretending to have gone beyond them. I do not admit\nthat Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that\nGopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe! I do not admit\nthat dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fought\nthe good fight, but I have kept the faith.\"\n\n\"Sure. You bet you have,\" said Kennicott. \"Well, good night. Sort of\nfeels to me like it might snow tomorrow. Have to be thinking about\nputting up the storm-windows pretty soon. Say, did you notice whether\nthe girl put that screwdriver back?\""