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1

U»KAR\\i^^!^F THF

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Tirmniinpiim [EMiSQwSrnirin in'iinuiiiiiirB

Main -Travelled
Roads

By

HAMLIN GARLAND

Author of
Other Main -Travelled Roads, etc.

Border Edition

Harper & Brothers

Publishers
New York and London

)"!

:.

^><. ;^"

^. ---

Main-Tbavbllbd Roam

Copyrisht. XS91, by The Arena Publishing Company

Copyrisht. xSgj. by The Century Co.

Copyright, Z893* Z899. by Hamlin Garland

MY FATHER AND MOTHER

WHOSE HALF-CENTURY PILGRIMAGE ON THE MAIN-
TRAVELLED ROAD OF LIFE HAS BROUGHT THEM
ONLY TOIL AND DEPRIVATION, THIS BOOK OF STO-
RIES IS DEDICATED BY A SON TO WHOM EVERY
DAY BRINGS A DEEPENING SENSE OF HIS PARENTS*
SILENT HEROISM ««««««««

406813

THE MAIN^TRAVELLED ROAD in the West
(as everywhere) is hot and dusty in summer^ and desolate
and drear with mud in fall and springy and in winter the
winds sweep the snow across it ; but it does sometimes cross a
rich meadow where the songs of the larks and bobolinks and
blackbirds are tangled. Follow it far enough^ it may lead
past a bend in the river where the water laughs etemalfy
over its shallows.

Mainly it is long and weary ful^ and has a dull little town
at one end and a home of toil at the other. Like the main-
travelled road of life it is traversed by many classes of people^
but the poor and the weary predominate.

Table of Contents

PAGE

Foreword xi

Introduction . • i

A BRANCH Road 7

>©Jp THE Coolly 67

. Among the Corn-Rows 131

>; The Return of a Private {, 167

(^nder the Lion's Paw ^^195

* The Creamery Man 219

A Day's Pleasure 245

MRs^^pfcEY*s'TRip .261

Bn««-Ethan Ripley 281

Ge©VRA¥BifS'- 301

A "QuuD F ellowV*^ ^Wife 327

FOREWORD

In the summer of 1887, after having been three years
in Boston, and six years absent from my old home in
northern Iowa, I found myself with money ehough to
pay my railway fare to Ordway, South Dakota, where
my father and mother were living, and as it cost very
little extra to go by way of Dubuque and Charles
City, I planned to visit Osage, Iowa, and the farm
we had opened on Dry Run prairie in 1871.

Up to this time I had written only a few poems, and
some articles descriptive of boy life on the prairie,
although I was doing a good deal of thinking and lectur-
ing on land reform, and was regarded as a very intense
disciple of Herbert Spencer and Henry George — a singu-
lar combination, as I see it now. On my way westward,
that summer day in 1887, rural life presented itself
from an entirely new angle. The ugliness, the endless
drudgery, and the loneliness of the farmer's lot smote me
with stem insistence. I was the militant reformer.

The farther I got from Chicago the more depressing
the landscape became. It was bad enough in our former
home in Mitchell County, but my pity grew more
intense as I passed from northwest Iowa into southern
Dakota. The houses, bare as boxes, dropped on the

I

Foreword

treeless plains, the barbed-wire fences running at right
angles, and the towns mere assemblages of flimsy
wooden sheds with painted-pine battlement, produced
on me the eflpect of an almost helpless and sterile
poverty.

My dark mood was deepened into bitterness by my
father^s farm, where I found my mother imprisoned in
a small cabin on the enormous sunburnt, treeless plain,
with no expectation of ever living anywhere else. De-
serted by her sons and failing in health, she endured the
discomforts of her life uncomplainingly — but my re-
sentment of "things as they are" deepened during my
talks with her neighbors who were all housed in the
same unshaded cabins in equal poverty and loneliness.
The fact that at twenty-seven I was without power to
aid my mother in any substantial way added to my
despairing mood.

My savings for the two years of my teaching in Bos-
ton were not sufficient to enable me to purchase my
return ticket, and when my father oflFered me a stacker's
wages in the harvest field I accepted and for two weeks
or more proved my worth with the fork, which was
still mightier — ^with me — than the pen.

However, I did not entirely neglect the pen. In spite
of the dust and heat of the wheat ricks I dreamed of
poems and stories. My mind teemed with subjects for
fiction, and one Sunday morning I set to work on a story
which had been suggested to me by a talk with my
mother, and a few hours later I read to her (seated on
the low sill of that treeless cottage) the first two thou-

Foreword

d words of Mrs. Ripley* s Tripy the first of the series

oi tches which became Main Travelled Roads,

I i not succeed in finishing it, however, till after

return to Boston in September. During the fall

winter of '87 and the winter and spring of '88, I

\ \ the most of the stories in Main Travelled Roads ^

1 rte for t Century Magamney and a play called

" : the W el/* The actual work of the composi-

p car: d on in the south attic room of Doctor

t h at 21 Seavems Avenue, Jamaica Plain.

' od of bitterness in which these books were

renewed and augmented by a second visit

I nts in 1889, for during my stay my mother

a oke of paralysis due to overwork and the

J t of the summer. She grew better before

:ai for me to return to my teaching in Boston,

like a sneak as I took my way to the train

my mother and sister on that bleak and sun-

u

Flaxen," "Jason Edwards," "A Spoil of

most of the stories gathered into the sec-

Main Travelled Roads were written in the

defeats. If they seem unduly austere,

remember the times in which they were

they were true of the farms of that day

J better than I, for I was there — a

ns of Iowa and Wisconsin — even on

:ota — ^has gained in beauty and secu-

but there are still wide stretches of

Foreword

territory in Kansas and Nebraska where the farm-
house is a lonely shelter. Groves and lawns, better
roads, the rural free delivery, the telephone, and the
motor car have done much to bring the farmer into a
frame of mind where he is contented with his lot, but
much remains to be done before the stream of young life
from the country to the city can be checked.

The two volumes of Main Travelled Roads can now
be taken to be what William Dean Howells called
them, "historical fiction," for they form a record of
the farmer's life as I lived it and studied it. In these
two books is a record of the privations and hardships
of the men and women who subdued the midland wil-
derness and prepared the way for the present golden
age of agriculture.

H. G.

March /, IQ22.

INTRODUCTION

An interesting phase of fiction, at present, is the ma*
terial prosperity of the short story, which seems to have
followed its artistic excellence among us with uncommon
obedience to a law that ought always to prevail. Until
of late the publisher has been able to say to the author,
dazzled and perhaps deceived by his magazine success
with short stories, and fondly intending to make a book
of them, " Yes. But collections of short stories don't
sell. The public won't have them. I don't know why ;
but it won't."

This was never quite true of the short stories of Mr.
Bret Harte,or of Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, or of Mr. T.
B. Aldrich ; but it was too true of the short stories of most
other writers. For some reason, or for none, the very
people who liked an author's short stories in the maga-
zine could not bear them, or would not buy them, when
he put several of them together in a volume. They then
became obnoxious, or at least undesirable ; somewhat as
human beings, agreeable enough as long as they are singly
domiciled in one's block, become a positive detriment to
the neighborhood when gathered together in a boarding-
house. A novel not half so good by the same author
would formerly outsell his collection of short stories five
times over. Serhaps it would still outsell the stories ;

B I

2 Main -Travelled Roads

we rather think it would; but not in that proportion.
The hour of the short story in book form has struck,
apparently, for with all our love and veneration for pub-
lishers, we have never regarded them as martyrs to litera-
ture, and we do not believe they would now be issuing
so many volumes of short stories if these did not pay.
Publishers, with all their virtues, are as distinctly made a
little lower than the angels as any class of mortals we
know. They are, in fact, a tentative and timid kind,
never quite happy except in full view of the main chance j
and just at this moment, this chance seems to wear the
diversified physiognomy of the collected short stories.
We do not know how it has happened ; we should not
at all undertake to say ; but it is probably attributable to
a number of causes. It may be the prodigious popularity
of Mr. Kipling, which has broken down all prejudices
against the form of his success. The vogue that Mau-
passant's tales in the original or in versions have enjoyed
may have had something to do with it. Possibly the
critical recognition of the American supremacy in this
sort has helped. But however it has come about, it is
certain that the result has come, and the publishers are
fearlessly adventuring volumes of short stories on every
hand; and not only short stories by authors of estab^
lished repute, but by new writers, who would certainly
not have found this way to the public some time ago.

The change by no means indicates that the pleasure
in large fiction is dying out. This remains of as ample
gorge as ever. But it does mean that a quite reasonless
reluctance has given way, and that a young writer can

J

Introduction 3

now hope to come under the fire of criticism much sooner
than before. This may not be altogether a blessing ; it
has its penalties inherent in the defective nature of criti-
cism, or the critics ; but undoubtedly it gives the young
author definition and fixity in the reader's knowledge.
It enables him to continue a short-story writer if he likes,
or it prepares the public not to be surprised at him if he
turns out a novelist.

II

These are advantages, and we must not be impatient
of any writer who continues a short-story writer when
he might freely become a novelist. Now that a writer
can profitably do so, he may prefer to grow his fiction
on the dwarf stock. He may plausibly contend that this
was the original stock, and that the novella was a short
story many ages before its name was appropriated by the
standard variety, the duodecimo American, or the three-
volume English J that Boccaccio was a world-wide celeb-
rity five centuries before George Eliot was known to
be a woman. To be sure, we might come back at him
with the Greek romancers ; we might ask him what he
had to say to the interminable tales of Heliodorus and
Longus, and the rest, and then not let him say.

But no such controversy is necessary to the enjoyment
of the half dozen volumes of short stories at hand, and
we gladly postpone it till we have nothing to talk about.
At present we have only too much to talk about in a
book so robust and terribly serious as Mr. Hamlin Gar-
land's volume called Main -Travelled Roads. That is

4 Main -Travelled Roads

what they call the highways in the part of the West that
Mr. Garland comes from and writes about ; and these
stories are full of the bitter and burning dust, the foul
and trampled slush, of the common avenues of life, the
life of the men who hopelessly and cheerlessly make the
wealth that enriches the alien and the idler, and impover-
ishes the producer.

If any one is still at a loss to account for that uprising
of the farmers in the West which is the translation of
the Peasants' War into modern and republican terms, let
him read Main -Travelled Roads^ and he will begin to
understand, unless, indeed, Mr. Garland is painting the
exceptional rather than the average. The stories are
full of those gaunt, grim, sordid, pathetic, ferocious
figures, whom our satirists find so easy to caricature as
Hayseeds, and whose blind groping for fairer conditions
is so grotesque to the newspapers and so menacing to
the politicians. They feel that something is wrong, and
they know that the wrong is not theirs. The type
caught in Mr. Garland's book is not pretty 5 it is ugly
and often ridiculous; but it is heart-breaking in its rude
despair.

The story of a farm mortgage, as it is told in the

powerful sketch " Under the Lion's Paw," is a lesson in

^ j^m II -- •"■ ' II ^ . „ , ,.■.,,..„.

political economy, as well as a tragedy of the darkest
cast. "The Return of the Private " is a satire of the
keenest edge, as well as a tender and mournful idyl of
the unknown soldier who comes back after the war with
no blare of welcoming trumpets or flash of streaming
flaffs, but foot-sore, heart-sore, with no stake in the

Introduction 5

country he has helped to make safe and rich but the poor
man's chance to snatch an uncertain subsistence from
the furrows he left for the battle-field.

" Up the Coolly," however, is the story which most
pitilessly of all accuses our vaunted conditions, wherein
every man has the chance to rise above his brother and
make himself richer than his fellows. It shows us once
for all what the risen man may be, and portrays in his
good-natured selfishness and indifference that favorite
ideal of our system. The successful brother comes
back to the old farmstead, prosperous, handsome, well-
dressed, and full of patronizing sentiment for his boy-
hood days there, and he cannot understand why his
brother, whom hard work and corroding mortgages have
eaten all the joy out of, gives him a grudging and surly
welcome. It is a tremendous situation, and it is the
allegory of the whole world's civilization : the upper
dog and the under dog are everywhere, and the under
dog nowhere likes it.

But the allegorical effects are not the primary intent
of Mr. Garland's work : it is a work of art, first of all,
and we think of fine art ; though the material will strike
many gentilities as coarse and common. In one of the
stories, " Among the Corn-Rows," there is a good deal
of burly, broad-shouldered humor of a fresh and native
kind ; in " Mrs. Ripley's Trip " is a delicate touch, like
that of Miss Wilkins ; but Mr. Garland's touches are
his own, here and elsewhere. He has a certain harsh-
ness and bluntness, an indifference to the more delicate
charms of style, and he has still to learn that though the

6 Main -Travelled Roads

thistle is full of an unrecognized poetry, the rose has
a poetry, too, that even over-praise cannot spoil. But
he has a fine courage to leave a fact with the reader,
ungarnished and unvarnished, which is almost the rarest
trait in an Anglo-Saxon writer, so infantile and feeble is
the custom of our art ; and this attains tragical sublim-
ity in the opening sketch, "A Branch Road," where
the lover who has quarrelled wiffi~his betrothed comes
back to find her mismated and miserable, such a farm
wife as Mr. Garland has alone dared to draw, and
tempts the broken-hearted drudge away from her love-
less home. It is all morally wrong, but the author
leaves you to say that yourself. He knows that his
business was with those two people, their passions and
their probabilities.

W. D. HOWELLS
{In the Editor's Study, ** Harper's Magamm '*).

A BRANCH ROAD

**Keep the main-travelled road till y9M
iome to a branch leading off — keep t$
the right'*

A BRANCH ROAD

In the windless September dawn a voice went ring-
ing clear and sweet, a man's voice, singing a cheap
and common air. Yet something in the sound of it
told he was young, jubilant, and a happy lover*

Above the level belt of timber to the east a vast
dome of pale undazzling gold was rising, silently and
swiftly. Jays called in the thickets where the maples
flamed amid the green oaks, with irregular splashes of
red and orange. The grass was crisp with frost under
the feet, the road smooth and gray-white in color, the
air was indescribably pure, resonant, and stimulating.
No wonder the man sang !

He came into view around the curve in the lane. He
had a fork on his shoulder, a graceful and polished tool.
His straw hat was tilted on the back of his head; his
rough, faded coat was buttoned close to the chin,
and he wore thin buckskin gloves on his hands. He
looked muscular and intelligent, and was evidently about
twenty-two years of age.

As he walked on, and the sunrise came nearer to him,
he stopped his song. The broadening heavens had a
majesty and sweetness that made him forget the physical
joy of happy youth. He grew almost sad with the

9

lO Main -Travelled Roads

vague thoughts and great emotions which rolled in his
brain as the wonder of the morning grew.

He walked more slowly, mechanically following the
road, his eyes on the ever-shifting streaming banners of
rose and pale green, which made the east too glorious
for any words to tell. The air was so still it seemed to
await expectantly the coming of the sun.

Then his mind went forward to Agnes. Would she
see it ? She was at work, getting breakfast, but he
hoped she had time to see it. He was in that mood,
so common to him now, wherein he could not fully
enjoy any sight or sound unless sharing it with her.
Far down the road he heard the sharp clatter of a
wagon. The roosters were calling near and far, in
many keys and tunes. The dogs were barking, cattle-
bells were jangling in the wooded pastures, and as the
youth passed farmhouses, lights in the kitchen windows
showed that the women were astir about breakfast, and
the sound of voices and the tapping of curry-combs at
the br.rn told that the men were at their morning chores.

And the east bloomed broader ! The dome of gold
grew brighter, the faint clouds here and there flamed
with a flush of red. The frost began to glisten with a
reflected color. The youth dreamed as he walked ; his
broad face and deep earnest eyes caught and retained
some part of the beauty and majesty of the sky.

But his brow darkened as he passed a farm gate and
a young man of about his own age joined him. The
other man was equipped for work like himself.

" HeUo, Will ! " ,

A Branch Road ii

« Hello, Ed ! '•

" Going down to help Dingman thrash ! *'

*' Yes,** replied Will, shortly. It was easy to see he
did not welcome company.

" So'm I. Who's goin' to do your thrashin' — Dave
McTurg ? "

" Yes, I guess so. Haven't spoken to anybody yet."

They walked on side by side. Will hardly felt like
being rudely broken in on in this way. The two men
were rivals, but Will, being the victor, would have been
magnanimous, only he wanted to be alone with his lover's
dream.

" When do you go back to the Sem ? " Ed asked after
a little.

*' Term begins next week. I'll make a break about
second week."

" Le's see : you graduate next year, don't yeh ? "

'' I expect to, if I don't slip up on it."

They walked on side by side, both handsome
fellows; Ed a little more showy in his face, which
had a certain clear-cut precision of line, and a peculiai
clear pallor that never browned under the sun. H<
chewed vigorously on a quid of tobacco, one of his most;
noticeable bad habits.

Teams could be heard clattering along on several
roads now, and jovial voices singing. One team coming
along rapidly behind the two men, the driver sung out
in good-natured warning, " Get out o' the way, there."
And with a laugh and a chirp spurred his hor$e$ to pass
them.

12 Main-Travelled Roads

Ed, with a swift understanding of the driver's trick,
flung out his left hand and caught the end-gate, threw his
fork in and leaped after it. Will walked on, disdaining
attempt to catch the wagon. On all sides now the
wagons of the ploughmen or threshers were getting out
into the fields, with a pounding, rumbling sound.

The pale-red sun was shooting light through the
leaves, and warming the boles of the great oaks that
stood in the yard, and melting the frost off the great
gaudy, red and gold striped threshing machine standing
between the stacks. The interest, picturesqueness, of
it all got hold of Will Hannan, accustomed to it as
he was. The horses stood about in a circle, hitched
to the ends of the six sweeps, every rod shining with
frost.

The driver was oiling the great tarry cog-wheela
underneath. Laughing fellows were wrestling about the
yard. Ed Kinney had scaled the highest stack, and
stood ready to throw the first sheaf. The sun, lighting
him where he stood, made his fork-handle gleam like
dull gold. Cheery words, jests, and snatches of song
rose everywhere. Dingman bustled about giving his
orders and placing his men, and the voice of big David
McTurg was heard calling to the men as they raised the
long stacker into place :

'' Heave ho, there ! Up she rises ! "

And, best of all. Will caught a glimpse of a smiling
girl-face at the kitchen window that made the blood beat
in his throat.

'' Hello, Will ! " was the general greeting, given with

A Branch Road 13

some constraint by most of the young fellows, for Will
had been going to Rock River to school for some years,
and there was a little feeling of jealousy on the part of
those who pretended to sneer at the '' seminary chaps
like Will Hannan and Milton Jennings."

Dingman came up. " Will, I guess you'd better go
on the stack with Ed."

." All ready. Hurrah, there ! " said David in his soft
but resonant bass voice that always had a laugh in it.
" Come, come, every sucker of yeh git hold o' some-
thing. All ready ! " He waved his hand at the driver,
who climbed upon his platform. Everybody scrambled
into place.

The driver began to talk :

"CZ^i, chk! All ready, boys! Stiddy there, Dan!
Chk^ chk ! All ready, boys ! Stiddy there, boys ! Ml
ready now ! " The horses began to strain at the
sweeps. The cylinder began to hum.

" Grab a root there ! Where's my band-cutter ?
Here, you, climb on here ! " And David reached down
and pulled Shep Watson up by the shoulder with his
gigantic hand.

Boo-00-oo-oom, Boo-woo-woo-oom-oom-ow-owm,
yarr, yarr ! The whirling cylinder boomed, roared, and
snarled as it rose in speed. At last, when its tone be-
came a rattling yell, David nodded to the pitchers and
rasped his hands together. The sheaves began to fall
from the stack ; the band-cutter, knife in hand, slashed
the bands In twain, and the feeder with easy majestic
movement gathered them under his arm, rolled them out

14 Main -Travelled Roads

into an even belt of entering wheat, on which the
cylinder tore with its smothered, ferocious snarl.

Will was very happy in a quiet way. He enjoyed
the smooth roll of his great muscles, and the sense of
power in his hands as he lifted, turned, and swung the
heavy sheaves two by two upon the table, where the band-
cutter madly slashed away. His frame, sturdy rather than
tall, was nevertheless lithe, and he made a fine figure to
look at, so Agnes thought, as she came out a moment
and bowed and smiled.

This scene, one of the jolliest and most sociable of
the Western farm, had a charm quite aside from human
companionship. The beautiful yellow straw entering
the cylinder ; the clear yellow-brown wheat pulsing out
at the side ; the broken straw, chafF, and dust puffing out
on the great stacker ; the cheery whistling and calling of
the driver ; the keen, crisp air, and the bright sun some-
how weirdly suggestive of the passage of time.

Will and Agnes had arrived at a tacit understand-
ing of mutual love only the night before, and Will was
powerfully moved to glance often toward the house, but
feared as never before the jokes of his companions. He
worked on, therefore, methodically, eagerly; but his
thoughts were on the future — the rustle of the oak-tree
near by, the noise of whose sere leaves he could distin-
guish sifting beneath the booming snarl of the machine,
was like the sound of a woman's dress: on the sky
were great fleets of clouds sailing on the rising wind,
like merchantmen bound to some land of love and
plenty.

A Branch Road 15

When the Dingmans first came in, only a coupie
of years before, Agnes had been at once surrounded by
a swarm of suitors. Her pleasant face and her abound-
ing good-nature made her an instant favorite with all.
Will, however, had disdained to become one of the
crowd, and held himself aloof, as he could easily do,
being away at school most of the time.

The second winter, however, Agnes also attended
the seminary, and Will saw her daily, and grew to love
her. He had been just a bit jealous of Ed Kinney all
the time, for Ed had a certain rakish grace in dancing
and a dashing skill in handling a team, which made him
a dangerous rival.

But, as Will worked beside him all the Monday, he
felt so secure in his knowledge of the caress Agnes had
given him at parting the night before that he was per-
fectly happy — so happy that he didn't care to talk, only
to work on and dream as he worked.

Shrewd David McTurg had his joke when the ma-
chine stopped for a few minutes. " Well, you fellers
do better 'n I expected yeh to, after bein' out so late last
night. The first feller I see gappin' has got to treat to
the apples." *

" Keep your eye on me," said Shep Watson.

" You ? " laughed one of the others. " Anybody
knows if a girl so much as looked crossways at you,
you'd fall in a fit."

"Another thing," said David. "I can't have you
fellers carryin' grain goin' to the house every minute
for fried cakes or cookies/'

1 6 Main -Travelled Roads

" Now you git out," said Bill Young from the straw
pile. " You ain't goin' to have all the fun to yerself."

Will's blood began to grow hot in his face. If Bill
had said much more, or mentioned Agnes by name, he
would have silenced him. To have this rough joking
come to a close upon the holiest and most exquisite
evening of his life was horrible. It was not the words
they said, but the tones they used, that vulgarized it ^11.
He breathed a sigh of relief when the sound of the ma-
chine began again.

This jesting made him more wary, and when the call
for dinner sounded and he knew he was going to see
her, he shrank from it. He took no part in the race
of the dust-blackened, half-famished men to get at the
washing-place first. He took no part in the scurry to
get seats at the first table.

Threshing-time was always a season of great trial
to the housewife. To have a dozen men with the
appetites of dragons to cook for, in addition to their
other everyday duties, was no small task for a couple
of women. Preparations usually began the night before
with a raid on a hen-roost, for " biled chickun " formed
the piece de resistance of the dinner. The table, enlarged
by boards, filled the sitting room. Extra seats were
made out of planks placed on chairs, and dishes were
borrowed from neighbors, who came for such aid in their
turn.

Sometimes the neighboring women came in to help ;
but Agnes and her mother were determined to manage
the job alone this year, and so the girl, in neat dark

A Branch Road 17

dress, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed with the
work, received the men as they came in, dusty, coatless,
with grime behind their ears, but a jolly good smile on
every face.

Most of them were farmers of the neighborhood, and
her schoolmates. The only one she shrank from was
Bill Young, with his hard, glittering eyes and red, sordid
face. She received their jokes, their noise, with a silent
smile which showed her even teeth and dimpled her
round cheek. "She was good for sore eyes," as one of
the fellows said to Shep. She seemed deliciously sweet
and dainty to these roughly dressed fellows.

They ranged along the table with a great deal of noise,
boots thumping, squeaking, knives and forks rattling,
voices bellowing out.

" Now hold on, Steve ! Can't hev yeh so near that
chickun ! "

"Move along, Shep! I want to be next to the
kitchen door ! I won't get nothin' with you on that
side o' me."

" Oh, that's too thin ! I see what you're — "

"No, I won't need any sugar, if you just smile into it."
This from gallant David, greeted with roars of laughter.

" Now, Dave, s'pose your wife 'ud hear o' that ? "

" She'd snatch 'im bald-headed, that's what she'd do."

"Say, somebody drive that ceow down this way,"
said Bill.

" Don't get off that drive ! It's too old," criticised
Shep, passing the milk-jug.

Potatoes were seized, cut in halves, sopped in gravy^
c

1 8 Main -Travelled Roads

and taken one^ two ! Corn cakes went into great jaws
like coal into a steam-engine. Knives in the right hand
cut meat and scooped gravy up. Great, musculari
grimy, but wholesome fellows they were, feeding like
ancient Norse, and capable of working like dei
They were deep in the process, half-hidden by st
from the potatoes and stew, in less than sixty seconds
after their entrance.

With a shrinking from the comments of the others
upon his regard for Agnes, Will assumed a reserved and
almost haughty air toward his fellow-workmen, and a
curious coldness toward her. As he went in, she came
forward smiling brightly.

'' There's one more place, Will." A tender, invol-
untary droop in her voice betrayed her, and Will felt a
wave of hot blood surge over him as the rest roared.

" Ha, ha ! Oh, there'd be a place for him ! "

" Don't worry. Will ! Always room for you here ! **

Will took his seat with a sudden, angry flame.

'' Why can't she keep it from these fools ? " was his
thought. He didn't even thank her for showing him
the chair.

She flushed vividly, but smiled back. She was so
proud and happy she didn't care very much if they £d
know it. But as Will looked at her with that quick,
angry glance, she was hurt and puzzled. She redoubled
her exertions to please him, and by so doing added to
the amusement of the crowd that gnawed chicken-bones,
rattled cups, knives, and forks, and joked as they ate
with small grace and no material loss of time.

A Branch Road 19

Will remained silent through it all, eating his potato,
in marked contrast to the others, with his fork instead
of his knife, and drinking his tea from his cup rather
than from his saucer — ^' finnickies " which did not
escape the notice of the girl nor the sharp eyes of the
workmen.

" See that ? That's the way we do down to the
Sem ! See ? Fork for pie in yer right hand ! Hey ?
/ can't do it ? Watch me ! "

When Agnes leaned over to say, "Won't you have
some more tea. Will ? " they nudged each other and
grinned. " Aha ! What did I tell you ? "

Agnes saw at last that for some reason Will didn't
want her to show her regard for him — that he was
ashamed of it in some way, and she was wounded. To
cover it up, she resorted to the natural device of smiling
and chatting with the others. She asked £d if he
wouldn't have another piece of pie.

" I will — with a fork, please."

" This is 'bout th^ only place you can use a fork," said
Bill Young, anticipating a laugh by his own broad grin.

" Oh, that's too old," said Shep Watson. " Don't
drag that out agin. A man that'll eat seven taters — "

" Shows who does the work."

'*Yes, with his jaws," put in Jim Wheelock, the
driver.

"If you'd put in a little more work with soap 'n water
before comin' in to dinner, it 'ud be a religious idee,"
said David.

*' It am't healthy to wash."

20 Main -Travelled Roads

" Well, you'll live forever, then."

" He ain't washed his face sence I knew *im/*

^^ Oh, that's a little too tough ! He washes once a
week," said Ed Kinney.

" Back of his ears ? " inquired David, who was
munching a doughnut, his black eyes twinkling with
fun.

« Yep."

" What's the cause of it ? "

" Dade says she won't kiss 'im if he don't."

Everybody roared.

" Good fer Dade ! I wouldn't if I was in her place."

Wheelock gripped a chicken-leg imperturbably, and
left it bare as a toothpick with one or two bites at it.
His face shone in two clean sections around his nose
and mouth. Behind his ears the dirt lay undisturbed.
The grease on his hands could not be washed off.

Will began to suffer now because Agnes treated the
other fellows too well. With a lover's exacting jeal-
ousy, he wanted her in some way to hide their tender-
ness from the rest, and also to show her indifference to
men like Young and Kinney. He didn't stop to in-
quire of himself the justice of such a demand, nor just
how it was to be done. He only insisted she ought to
do it.

He rose and left the table at the end of his dinner
without having spoken to her, without even a tender,
significant glance, and he knew, too, that she was
troubled and hurt. But he was suffering. It seemed
as if he had lost something sweet, lost it irrecoverably.

A Branch Road 21

He noticed Ed Kinney and Bill Young were the last
to come out, just before the machine started up again
after dinner, and he saw them pause outside the thresh-
old and laugh back at Agnes standing in the doorway.
Why couldn't she keep those fellows at a distance, not
go out of her way to bandy jokes with them ?

In some way the elation of the morning was gone.
He worked on doggedly now, without looking up, with-
out listening to the leaves, without seeing the sunlighted
clouds. Of course he didn't think that she meant any-
thing by it, but it irritated him and made him unhappy.
She gave herself too freely.

Toward the middle of the afternoon the machine
stopped for some repairing ; and while Will lay on his
stack in the bright yellow sunshine, shelling wheat in his
hands and listening to the wind in the oaks, he heard
his name and her name mentioned on the other side
of the machine, where the measuring-box stood. He
listened.

"She's pretty sweet on him, ain't she? Did yeh
notus how she stood around over him ? "

" Yes ; an' did yeh see him when she passed the cup
o' tea down over his shoulder ? "

Will got up, white with wrath, as they laughed.

*' Someway he didn't seem to enjoy it as I would. I
wish she'd reach her arm over my neck that way."

Will walked around the machine, and came on the
group lying on the chaff near the straw-pile.

"Say, I want you fellers to understand that I won't
have wj more gf this talk, I won't have it.*'

22 Main -Travelled Roads

There was a dead silence. Then Bill Young got
up.

" What yeh goin* to do about ut ? " he sneered.

" I'm going to stop it."

The wolf rose in Young. He moved forward, his
ferocious soul flaming from his eyes.

" W'y, you damned seminary dude, I can break you
in two ! "

An answering glare came into Will's eyes. He
grasped and slightly shook his fork, which he had
brought with him unconsciously.

'^ If you make one motion at me, I'll smash your head
like an egg-shell ! " His voice was low but terrific.
There was a tone in it that made his own blood stop in
his veins. " If you think I'm going to roll around on
this ground with a hyena like you, you've mistaken your
man. I'll iill you, but I won't fight with such men as
you are."

Bill quailed and slunk away, muttering some epithet
like *' coward."

" I don't care what you call me^ but just remember
what I say: you keep your tongue off that girl's
affairs."

" That's the talk," said David. " Stand up for your
girl always, but don't use a fork. You can handle him
without that."

"I don't propose to try," said Will, as he turned
away. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Ed Kinney
at the well, pumping a pail of water for Agnes, who
stood beside him, the $un pn hcr beautiful yellow hair.

/

A Branch Road 23

She was laughing at something £d was saying as he
slowly moved the handle up and down.

Instantly, like a foaming, turbid flood, his rage swept
out toward her. '' It's all her fault," he thought, grind-
ing his teeth. ^ She's a fool. If she'd hold herself in,
like other girls ! But no ; she must smile and smile at
everybody." It was a beautiful picture, but it sent a
shiver through him.

He worked on with teeth set, white with rage. He
had an impulse that would have made him assault her
with words as with a knife. He was possessed of a
terrible passion which was hitherto latent in him, and
which he now felt to be his worst self. But he was
powerless to exorcise it. His set teeth ached with the
stress of his muscular tension, and his eyes smarted with
the strain.

He had always prided himself on being cool, calm,
above these absurd quarrels which his companions had
indulged in. He didn't suppose he could be so moved.
As he worked on, his rage settled into a sort of stubborn
bitterness — stubborn bitterness of conflict between this
evil nature and his usual self. It was the instinct of
possession, the organic feeling of proprietorship of a
woman, which rose to the surface and mastered him.
He was not a self-analyst, of course, being young, though
he was more introspective than the ordinary farmer.

He had a great deal of time to think it over as he
worked on there, pitching the heavy bundles, but still
he did not get rid of the miserable desire to punish
Agnes ; and when she came out, looking very pretty in

24 Main -Travelled Roads

her straw hat, and came around near his stack, he knew
she came to see him, to have an explanation, a smile;
and yet he worked away with his hat pulled over his
eyes, hardly noticing her.

£d went over to the edge of the stack and chatted
with her; and she — poor girl! — feeling Will's neg-
lect, could only put a good face on the matter, and show
that she didn't mind it, by laughing back at Ed.

All this Will saw, though he didn't appear to be look^
ing. And when Jim Wheelock — Dirty Jim — with
his whip in his hand, came up and playfully pretended
to pour oil on her hair, and she laughingly struck at him
with a handful of straw. Will wouldn't have looked at
her if she had called him by name.

She looked so bright and charming in her snowy apron
and her boy's straw hat tipped jauntily over one pink
ear, that David and Steve and Bill, and even Shep, found
a way to get a word with her, and the poor fellows in
the high straw-pile looked their disappointment and shook
their forks in mock rage at the lucky dogs on the ground.
But Will worked on like a fiend, while the dapples of
light and shade fell on the bright face of the merry girL

To save his soul from hell-flames he couldn't have
gone over there and smiled at her. It was impossible.
A wall of bronze seemed to have arisen between them.
Yesterday — last night — seemed a dream. The clasp
of her hands at his neck, the touch of her lips, were like
the caresses of an ideal in some revery long ago.

As night drew on the men worked with a steadier,
more mechanical action. No one spoke now. Each

A Branch Road 25

man was intent on his work. No one had any strength
or breath to waste. The driver on his power, changed
his weight on weary feet and whistled and sang at the
tired horses. The feeder, his face gray with dust, rolled
the grain into the cylinder so evenly, so steadily, so
swiftly that it ran on with a sullen, booming roar. Far
up on the straw-pile the stackers worked with the steady,
rhythmic action of men rowing a boat, their figures loom-
ing vague and dim in the flying dust and chafF, outlined
against the glorious yellow and orange-tinted clouds.

" Phe-e-eew-^^," whistled the driver with the sweet,
cheery, rising notes of a bird. *' Chk^ chk^ chk! Phe-
e-eew-e ! Go on there, boys ! Chk^ chk^ chk ! Step
up there, Dan, step up ! (^Snap /) Phe-e-eew-ee !
G'-wan — g'-wan, g*-wan ! Chk^ chk^ chk! Wheest,
wheest, wheest ! Chk^ chk ! "

In the house the women were setting the table for
supper. The sun had gone down behind the oaks,
flinging glorious rose-color and orange shadows along
the edges of the slate-blue clouds. Agnes stopped her
work at the kitchen window to look up at the sky, and
cry silently. " What was the ^natter with Will ? "
She felt a sort of distrust of him now. She thought she
knew him so well, but now he was so strange.

" Come, Aggie," said Mrs. Dingman, " they're gettin'
' most down to the bottom of die stack. They'll be pilin'
in here soon."

'' Phe-e-eew-ee ! G'-wan, Doll ! G'-wan, boys !
Chk^ chkj chk ! Phe-e-eew-ee ! " called the driver out
in the dusk, cheerily swinging the whip over the horses'

a6 Main -Travelled Roads

backs. Boom-oo-oo-oom ! roared the machine, with a muf*
fled, monotonous, solemn tone. " G'-wan, boys {
G'-wan, g'-wan ! "

Will had worked unceasingly all day. His muscles
ached with fatigue. His hands trembled. He clenched
his teeth, however, and worked on, determined not to
yield. He wanted them to understand that he could do
as much pitching as any of them,' and read Caesar's Com-
mentaries beside. It seemed as if each bundle were
the last he could raise. The sinews of his wrist pained
him so; they seemed swollen to twice their natural size.
But still he worked on grimly, while the dusk fell and
the air grew chill.

At last the bottom bundle was pitched up, and he got
down on his knees to help scrape the loose wheat into
baskets. What a sweet relief it was to kneel down, to
release the fork, and let the worn and cramping muscles
settle into rest ! A new note came into the driver's
voice, a soothing tone, full of kindness and admiration
for the work his teams had done.

*' Wo-o-o, lads ! Stiddy-y-y, boys ! Wo-o-o, there,
Dan. Stiddy, stiddy, old man ! Ho^ there ! " The cyl-
inder took on a lower key, with short, rising yells, as it
ran empty for a moment. The horses had been going
so long that they came to a stop reluctantly. At last
David called, '* Turn out ! " The men seized the ends
of the sweep, David uncoupled the tumbling-rods, and
Shep slowly shoved a sheaf of grain into the cylinder,
choking it into silence.

The stillness and the dusk were very impressive. So

A Branch Road 27

long had the bell-metal cog-wheel sung its deafening
song into his ear that, as he walked away into the dusk,
Will had a weird feeling of being suddenly deaf, and his
legs were so numb that he could hardly feel the earth.
He stumbled away like a man paralyzed.

He took out his handkerchief, wiped the dust from
his face as best he could, shook his coat, dusted his
shoulders with a grain-sack, and was starting away,
when Mr. Dingman, a rather feeble, elderly man, came
up.

" Come, Will, supper's all ready. Go in and eat."

" I guess I'll go home to supper."

" Oh, no ; that won't do. The women'U be expect-
ing you to stay."

The men were laughing at the well, the warm yellow
light shone from the kitchen, the chill air making it seem
very inviting, and she was there — waiting ! But the
demon rose in him. He knew Agnes would expect
him, and she would cry that night with disappointment,
but his face hardened. " I guess I'll go home," he said,
and his tone- was relentless. He turned and walked
away, hungry, tired — so tired he stumbled, and so un-
happy he could have wept.

II

On Thursday the county fair was to be held. The
fair is one of the gala-days of the year in the country
districts of the West, and one of the times when the
country lover rises above expense to the ^extravagance

28 Main -Travelled Roads

of hiring a top-buggy, in which to take his sweetheart
to the neighboring town.

It was customary to prepare for this long beforehand,
for the demand for top-buggies was so great the livery-
men grew dictatorial, and took no chances. Slowly but
surely the country beaux began to compete with the
clerks, and in many cases actually outbid them, as they
furnished their own horses and could bid higher, in con-
sequence, on the carriages.

Will had secured his brother's "rig," and early on
Thursday morning he was at work, busily washing the
mud from the carriage, dusting the cushions, and polish-
ing up the buckles and rosettes on his horses' harnesses.
It was a beautiful, crisp, clear dawn — the ideal day for
a ride; and Will was singing as he worked. He had
regained his real self, and, having passed through a bitter
period of shame, was now joyous with anticipation of
forgiveness. He looked forward to the day, with its
chances of doing a thousand little things to show his
regret and his love.

He had not seen Agnes since Monday ; Tuesday he
did not go back to help thresh, and Wednesday he had
been obliged to go to town to see about board for the
coming term ; but he felt sure of her. It had all been
arranged the Sunday before ; she'd expect him, and he
was to call at eight o'clock.

He polished up the colts with merry tick-tack of the
brush and comb, and after the last stroke on their shin-
ing limbs, threw his tools in the box and went to the
house.

A Branch Road 29

" Pretty sharp last night," said his brother John, who
was scrubbing his face at the cistern.

" Should say so by that rim of ice," Will replied, dip-
ping his hands into the icy water.

'' I ought 'o stay home to-day and dig 'tates," con-
tinued the older man, thoughtfully, as they went into
the woodshed and wiped consecutively on the long
roller-towel. ''Some o' them Early Rose lay right on
top o* the ground. They'll get nipped, sure."

" Oh, I guess not. You'd better go. Jack ; you don't
get away very often. And then it would disappoint
Nettie and the children so. Their little hearts are
overflowing," he ended, as the door opened and two
sturdy little boys rushed out.

*' B'ekfuss, poppa ; all yeady ! "

The kitchen table was set near the stove } the window
let in the sun, and the smell of sizzling sausages and
the aroma of coffee filled the room.

The kettle was doing its duty cheerily, and the wife,
with flushed face and smiling eyes, was hurrying to and
fro, her heart full of anticipation of the day's outing.

There was a hilarity almost like some strange intoxi-
cation on the part of the two children. They danced
and chattered and clapped their chubby brown hands
and ran to the windows ceaselessly.

" Is yuncle Will goin' yide nour buggy ?

" Yus ; the buggy and the colts.'

" Is he goin' to take his girl ?

Will blushed a little and John roared.

**Yes, I'm goin' — "

9>

30 Mjun -Travelled Roads

*' Is Aggie your girl ? "

"H'yer! h'yer! young man/' called John, "you're
gettin* personal."

" Well, set up ! " said Nettie, and with a good deal
of clatter they drew around the cheerful table.

Will had already begun to see the pathos, the pitiful
significance of his great joy over a day's outing, and he
took himself a little to task at his own selfish freedom.
He resolved to stay at home some time and let Nettie
go in his place. A few hours in the middle of the day
on Sunday, three or four holidays in summer ; the rest
of the year, for this cheerful little wife and her patient
husband, ^as made up of work — :Work which accom-
plished little and brought them almost nothing that was
beautiful.

While they were eating breakfast, teams began to
clatter by, huge lumber-wagons with three seats across,
and a boy or two jouncing up and down with the dinner
baskets near the end-gate. The children rushed to the
window each time to announce who it was and how
many there were in.

But as Johnny said "firteen" each time, and Ned
wavered between " seven " and " sixteen," it was doubt-
ful if they could be relied upon. They had very little
appetite, so keen was their anticipation of the ride and
the wonderful sights before them. Their little hearts
shuddered with joy at every fresh token of preparation
— a joy that made Will say, " Poor little men ! "

They vibrated between the house and the barn while
the chores were being finished, and their happy cries

A Branch Road 31

started the young roosters into a renewed season of
crowing. And when at last the wagon was brought
out and the horses hitched to it, they danced like mad
sprites.

After they had driven away, Will brought out the
colts, hitched them in, and drove them to the hitching-
post. Then he leisurely dressed himself in his best suit,
blacked his boots with considerable exertion, and at
about 7.30 o'clock climbed into his carriage and gathered
up the reins.

He was quite happy again. The crisp, bracing air,
the strong pull of the spirited young team, put all
thought of sorrow behind him. He had planned it all
out. He would first put his arm round her and kiss
her — there would not need to be any words to tell her
how sorry and ashamed he was. She would know !

Now, when he was alone and going toward her on a
beautiful morning, the anger and bitterness of Monday
fled away, became unreal, and the sweet dream of the
Sunday parting grew the reality. She was waiting for
him now. She had on her pretty blue dress, and the
wide hat that always made her look so arch. He had
said about eight o'clock.

The swift team was carrying him along the cross-
road, which was little travelled, and he was alone with
his thoughts. He fell again upon his plans. Another
year at school for them both, and then he'd go into a
law office. Judge Brown had told him he'd give him —

"Whoa! Ho!''

Tber^ wa§ a §vf ift lurch th^t sent him flying over thq

32 Main -Travelled Roads

dasher. A confused vision of a roadside ditch full of
weeds and bushes, and then he felt the reins in his hands
and heard the snorting horses trample on the hard road.

He rose dizzy, bruised, and covered with dust. The
team he held securely and soon quieted. The cause of
the accident was plain ; the right fore-wheel had come off,
letting the front of the buggy drop. He unhitched the
excited team from the carriage, drove them to the fence
and tied them securely, then went back to find the wheel,
and the burr whose failure to hold its place had done all
the mischief. He soon had the wheel on, but to find
the burr was a harder task. Back and forth he ranged,
looking, scraping in the dust, searching the weeds.

He knew that sometimes a wheel will run without
the burr for many rods before coming off, and so each
time he extended his search. He traversed the entire
half mile several times, each time his rage and disappoint-
ment getting more bitter. He ground his teeth in a
fever of vexation and dismay.

He had a vision of Agnes waiting, wondering why he
did not come. It was this vision that kept him from
seeing the burr in the wheel-track, partly covered by a
clod. Once he passed it looking wildly at his watch,
which was showing nine o'clock. Another time he
passed it with eyes dimmed with a mist that was almost
tears of anger.

There is no contrivance that will replace an axle-
burr, and farm-yards have no unused axle-burrs, and so
Will searched. Each moment he said : ^^ I'll give it up,
get Qotg Qne of the horses, and go down and tell her,"

A Branch Road 33

But searching for a lost axle-burr is like fishing; the
searcher expects each moment to find it. And so he
groped, and ran breathlessly, furiously, back and forth,
and at last kicked away the clod that covered it, and
hurried, hot and dusty, cursing his stupidity, back to the
team.

It was ten o'clock as he climbed again into the buggy,
and started his team on a swift trot down the road.
What would she think ? He saw her now with tearful
eyes and pouting lips. She was sitting at the window,
with hat and gloves on ; the rest had gone, and she was
waiting for him.

But she'd inow something had happened, because he
had promised to be there at eight. He had told her
what team he'd have. (He had forgotten at this mo-
ment the doubt and distrust he had given her on Mon-
day.) She'd know he'd surely come.

But there was no smiling or tearful face watching at
the window as he came down the lane at a tearing pace,
and turned into the yard. The house was silent, and
the curtains down. The silence sent a chill to his heart.
Something rose up in his throat to choke him.

" Agnes ! " he called. " Hello ! I'm here at last ! "

There was no reply. As he sat there the part he had
played on Monday came back to him. She may be
sick ! he thought, with a cold thrill of fear.

An old man came round the corner of the house with
a potato fork in his hands, his teeth displayed in a grin.

^'She ain't here. She's gone'*

«*GoncP'

34 Main -Travelled Roads

"Yes — more'n an hour ago/*

" Who'd she go with ? "

" Ed Kinney," said the old fellow, with a malicious
grin. " I guess your goose is cooked."

Will lashed the horses into a run, and swung round
the yard and out of the gate. His face was white as a
dead man's, and his teeth were set like a vice. He
glared straight ahead. The team ran wildly, steadily
homeward, while their driver guided them unconsciously
without seeing them. His mind was filled with a tern-*
pest of rages, despairs, and shames.

That ride he will never forget. In it he threw away
all his plans. He gave up his year's schooling. He
gave up his law aspirations. He deserted his brother
and his friends. In the dizzying whirl of passions he
had only one clear idea — to get away, to go West, ta
escape from the sneers and laughter of his neighbors, and
to make her suffer by it all.

He drove into the yard, did not stop to unharness the
team, but rushed into the house, and began packing his
trunk. His plan was formed. He would drive to Cedar-
ville, and hire some one to bring the team back. He
had no thought of anything but the shame, the insult,
she had put upon him. Her action on Monday took on
the same levity it wore then, and excited him in the
same way. He saw her laughing with Ed over his dis-
may. He sat down and wrote a letter to her at last —
a letter that came from the ferocity of the mediaeval
savage in him :

" If you want to go to hell with Ed Kinney, you can.

A Branch Road 35

I won't say a word. That's where he'll take you. You
won't see me again."

This he signed and sealed, and then he bowed his
head and wept like a girl. But his tears did not soften
the effect of the letter. It went as straight to its mark
as he meant it should. It tore a seared and ragged path
to an innocent, happy heart, and he took a savage pleas-
ure in the thought of it as he rode away in the cars
toward the South.

Ill

The seven years lying between 1880 and 1887 made
a great change in Rock River and in the adjacent farm-
ing land. Signs changed and firms went out of business
with characteristic Western ease of shift. The trees
grew rapidly, dwarfing the houses beneath them, and
contrasts of newness and decay thickened.

Will found the country changed, as he walked along
the dusty road from Rock River toward " The Corners."
The landscape was at its fairest and liberalest, with its
seas of corn, deep-green and moving with a mournful
rustle, in sharp contrast to its flashing blades ; its gleam-
ing fields of barley, and its wheat already mottled with
soft gold in the midst of its pea-green.

The changes were in the hedges, grown higher, in the
greater predominance of cornfields and cattle pastures,
and especially in the destruction of homes. As he
passed on. Will saw the grass growing and cattle feed-
ing on a dozen places where homes had once stood.

36 Main -Travelled Roads

They had given place to the large farm and the stock*
raiser. Still the whole scene was bountiful and beautiful
to the eye.

It was especially grateful to Will, for he had spent
nearly all his years of absence among the rocks, treeless
swells, and bleak cliffs of the Southwest. The crickets
rising before his dusty feet appeared to him something
sweet and suggestive, and the cattle feeding in the clover
moved him to deep thought — they were so peaceful and
slow motioned.

As he reached a little popple tree by the roadside, he
stopped, removed his broad-brimmed hat, put his elbows
on the fence, and looked hungrily upon the scene. The
sky was deeply blue, with only here and there a huge,
heavy, slow-moving, massive, sharply outlined cloud sail-
ing like a berg of ice in a shoreless sea of azure.

In the fields the men were harvesting the ripened oats
and barley, and the sound of their machines clattering,
now low, now loud, came to his ears. Flies buzzed
near him, and a kingbird clattered overhead. He noticed
again, as he had many a time when a boy, that the soft-
ened sound of the far-off reaper was at times exactly
like the hum of a bluebottle fly buzzing heedlessly
about his ears.

A slender and very handsome young man was shock-
ing grain near the fence, working so desperately he did
not see Will until greeted by him. He looked up,
replied to the greeting, but kept on until he had finished
his last stook ; then he came to the shade of the tree
and took off his hat.

A Branch Road

'' Nice day to sit under a tree and fish."

Will smiled. " I ought to know you, I suppose ; I
used to live here years ago."

" Guess not ; we came in three years ago."

The young man was quick-spoken and pleasant to
look at. Will felt freer with him.

'' Are the Kinneys still living over there ? " He
nodded at a group of large buildings.

" Tom lives there. Old man lives with Ed. Tom
ousted the old man some way, nobody seems to know
how, and so he lives with Ed."

Will wanted to ask after Agnes, but hardly felt able.
'' I s'pose John Hannan is on his old farm ? "

" Yes. Got a good crop this year."

Will looked again at the fields of rustling wheat over
which the clouds rippled, and said with an air of con-
viction : " This lays over Arizony, dead sure."

"You're from Arizony, then ? "

"Yes — a good ways from it," Will replied, in a
way that stopped further question. " Good luck ! " he
added, as he walked on down the road toward the creek,
musing.

" And the spring — I wonder if that's there yet. I'd
like a drink." The sun seemed hotter than at noon,
and he walked slowly. At the bridge that spanned the
meadow brook, just where it widened over a sandy ford,
he paused again. He hung over the rail and looked at
the minnows swimming there.

"I wonder if they're the same identical chaps that
used to boil and glitter there when I was a boy — looks

38 Main -Travelled Roads

so. Men change from one generation to another, but
the fish remain the same. The same eternal procession
of types. I suppose Darwin 'ud say their environment
remains the same."

He hung for a long time over the railing, thinking
of a vast number of things, mostly vague, flitting things,
looking into the clear depths of the brook, and listening
to the delicious liquid note of a blackbird swinging on
the willow. Red lilies starred the grass with fire, and
golden-rod and chicory grew everywhere; purple and
orange and yellow-green the prevailing tints.

Suddenly a water-snake wriggled across the dark pool
above the ford and the minnows disappeared under the
shadow of the bridge. Then Will sighed, lifted his
head and walked on. There seemed to be something
prophetic in it, and he drew a long breath. That's the
way his plans broke and faded away.

Human life does not move with the regularity of a
clock. In living there are gaps and silences when the
soul stands still in its flight through abysses — and there
come times of trial and times of struggle when we grow
old without knowing it. Body and soul change appal-
lingly.

Seven years of hard, busy life had made changes in
Will.

His face had grown bold, resolute, and rugged ; some
of its delicacy and all of its boyish quality was gone.
His figure was stouter, erect as of old, but less graceful.
He bore himself like a man accustomed to look out
for himself in all kinds of places. I( wa§ only at times

A Branch Road 39

that there came into his deep eyes a preoccupied, almost
sad, look which showed kinship with his old self.

This look was on his face as he walked toward the
clump of trees on the right of the road.

He reached the grove of popple trees and made his
way at once to the spring. When he saw it, he was
again shocked. They had allowed it to fill with leaves
and dirt !

Overcome by the memories of the past, he flung
himself down on the cool and shadowy bank, and gave
himself up to the bitter-sweet reveries of a man returning
to his boyhood's home. He was filled somehow with
a strange and powerful feeling of the passage of time ;
with a vague feeling of the mystery and elusiveness of
human life. The leaves whispered it overhead, the
birds sang it in chorus with the insects, and far above,
in the measureless spaces of sky, the hawk told it in
the silence and majesty of his flight from cloud to
cloud.

It was a feeling hardly to be expressed in words —
one of those emotions whose springs lie far back in
the brain. He lay so still the chipmunks came curi-
ously up to his very feet, only to scurry away when he
stirred like a sleeper in pain.

He had cut himself off entirely from the life at The
Comers. He had sent money home to John, but had
concealed his own address carefully. The enormity of
his folly now came back to him, racking him till he
groaned.

He heard the patter of feet and half-mumbled mono*

40 Mdn -Travelled Roads

logue of a running child. He roused up and faced a
small boy, who started back in terror like a wild fawn.
He was deeply surprised to find a man there, where
only boys and squirrels now came. He stuck his fist
in his eye, and was backing away when Will spoke.

" Hold on, sonny ! Nobody's hit you. Come, I
ain't goin' to eat yeh." He took a bit of money from
his pocket. " Come here and tell me your name. I
want to talk with you."

The boy crept upon the dime.

Will smiled. " You ought to be a Kinney. What
is your name ? "

" Tomath Dickinthon Kinney. I'm thix and a half.
I've got a colt," lisped the youngster, breathlessly, as he
crept toward the money.

'' Oh, you are, eh ? Well, now. are you Tom's boy,
or Ed's ? "

" Tomth's boy. Uncle Ed heth got a little — "

" Ed got a boy ? "

" Yeth, thir — a lil baby. Aunt Agg letth me hold

im.

" Agg ! Is that her name ? "

" Tha'th what Uncle Ed callth her."

The man's head fell, and it was a long time before he
asked his next question.

" How is she anyhow ? "

" Purty well," piped the boy, with a prolongation of
the last words into a kind of chirp. " She'th been thick,
though," he added.

" Been sick ? How long ? "

A Branch Road 41

^^ Oh, a long time. But she ain't thick abed ; she'th
awful poor, though. Gran'pa thayth she'th poor ath a
rake."

" Oh, he does, eh ? "

" Yeth, thir. Uncle Ed he jawth her, then she crieth."

Will's anger and remorse broke out in a groaning
curse. " O my God ! I see it all. That great lunkin
houn' has made life a hell for her." Then that letter
came back to his mind — he had never been able to put
it out of his mind — he never would till he saw her and
asked her pardon.

" Here, my boy, I want you to tell me some more.
Where does your Aunt Agnes live ? "

" At gran'pa'th. You know where my gran'pa
livth?"

" Well, you do. Now I want you to take this letter
to her. Give it to her.^^ He wrote a little note and
folded it. " Now dust out o' here."

The boy slipped away through the trees like a rabbit ;
his little brown feet hardly rustled. He was like some
little wood-animal. Left alone, the man fell back into
a revery which lasted till the shadows fell on the thick
little grove around the spring. He rose at last, and tak-
ing his stick in hand, walked out to the wood again and
stood there gazing at the sky. He seemed loath to go
farther. The sky was full of flame-colored clouds float-
ing in a yellow-green sea, where bars of faint pink
streamed broadly away.

As he stood there, feeling the wind lift his hair, listen-
ing to the crickets' ever-present crying, and facing the

42 Main -Travelled Roads

majesty of space, a strange sadness and despair came into
his eyes.

Drawing a quick breath, he leaped the fence and was
about going on up the road, when he heard, at a litde
distance, the sound of a drove of catde approaching, and
he stood aside to allow them to pass. They snuffed and
shied at the silent figure by the fence, and hurried by
with snapping heels — a peculiar sound that made Will
smile with pleasure.

An old man was driving the cows, crying out :

" St — %, there ! Go on there ! Whay, boss ! "

Will knew that' hard-featured, wiry old man, now
entering his second childhood and beginning to limp
painfully. He had his hands full of hard clods which he
threw impatiently at the lumbering animals.

" Good-evening, uncle ! '*

" I ain't y'r uncle, young man."

His dim eyes did not recognize the boy he had chased
out of his plum patch years before,

'' I don't know yeh, neither," he added.

" Oh, you will, later on. I'm from the East. I'm a
sort of a relative to John Hannan."

" I want 'o know if y' be ! " the old man exclaimed,
peering closer.

" Yes. I'm just up from Rock River. John's har-
vesting, I s'pose ? "

" Yus."

" Where's the youngest one — Will ? "

" William ? Oh ! he's a bad aig — he lit out f r the
WQ$t somewhere. He v^as a hard boy. He stole a

A Branch Road 43

hatful o' my plums once. He left home kind o' sudden.
He ! he ! I s'pose he was purty well cut up jest about
them days.'*

"How's that?"

The old man chuckled.

" Well, y* see, they was both courtin' Agnes then, an*
my son cut William out. Then William he lit out Pr
the West, Arizony, 'r California, 'r somewhere out West.
Never been back sence."

" Ain't, heh ? "

" No. But they say he's makin' a terrible lot o'
money," the old man said in a hushed voice. " But the
way he makes it is awful scaly. I tell my wife if I
had a son like that an' he'd send me home a bushel*
basket o' money, eamt like that, I wouldn't touch a
finger to it — no sir ! "

" You would'nt ? Why ? "

"'Cause it ain't right. It ain't made right noway,
you —

" But how is it made ? What's the feller's trade ? "

" He's a gambler — that's his trade ! He plays cards,
and every cent is bloody. I wouldn't touch such money
nohow you could fix it."

" Wouldn't, heh ? " The young man straightened up,
" Well, look-a-here, old man : did you ever hear of a
man foreclosing a mortgage on a widow and two boys,'
getting a farm fr one quarter what it was really worth ?
You damned old hypocrite ! I know all about you and
your whole tribe — you old blood-sucker ! "

The old man's jaw fell; he began to back away.

44 Main -Tt^velled Roads

"Your neighbors tell some good stories about ymu
Now skip along after those cows, or I'll tickle your old
legs for you ! "

The old man, appalled and dazed at this sudden change
of manner, backed away, and at last turned and racked oft
up the road, looking back with a wild face, at which the
young man laughed remorselessly.

" The doggoned old skeesucks ! " Will soliloquized
«s he walked up the road. ^^So that's the kind of a
character he's been r-ivin' me ! "

^' Hullo ! A whippoorwill. Takes a man back into
;hildhood — No, don^t 'whip poor Wiir; he's got all he
an bear now."

He came at last totAe little farm Dingman had owned,
Jid he stopped in sorrowful surprise. The barn had
been moved away, the garden ploughed up, and the house,
turned into a granary, stood with boards nailed across its
dusty, cobwebbed windows. The tears started into the
man's eyes ; he stood staring at it silently.

In the face of this house the seven years that he had
last lived stretched away into a wild waste of time. It
stood as a symbol of his wasted, ruined life. It was
personal, intimately personal, this decay of her home.

All that last scene came back to him ; the booming
roar of the threshing-machine, the cheery whistle of the
driver, the loud, merry shouts of the men. He remem-
bered how warmly the lamp-light streamed out of that
door as he turned away tired, hungry, sullen with rage
and jealousy. Oh, if he had only had the courage of a
man!

A Branch Road 45

Then he thought of the boy's words. She was sick,
Ed abused her. She had met her punishment. A hun-
dred times he had been over the whole scene. A thou-
sand times he had seen her at the pump smiling at Ed
Kinney, the sun lighting her hair ; and he never thought
of that without hardening.

At this very gate he had driven up that last forenoon ;
to find that she had gone with Ed. He had lived that
sickening, depressing moment over many times, but not
times enough to keep down the bitter passion he had
felt then, and felt now as he went over it in detail.

He was so happy and confident that morning, so
perfectly certain that all would be made right by a kiss
and a cheery jest. And now ! Here he stood sick with
despair and doubt of all the world. He turned away
from the desolate homestead and walked on.

"But I'll see her — just once more. And then — "

And again the mighty significance, responsibility of
life, fell upon him. He felt, as young people seldom do,
the irrevocableness of living, the determinate, unalter-
able character of living. He determined to begin to
live in some new way — just how he could not say.

IV

Old man Kinney and his wife were getting their
Sunday-school lessons with much bickering, when Will
drove up the next day to the dilapidated gate and hitched
his team to a leaning-post under the oaks. Will saw
the old man's head at the open window, but no one else,

46 Main -Travelled Roads

though he looked eagerly for Agnes as he walked up the
familiar path. There stood the great oak under whose
shade he had grown to be a man. How close the great
tree seemed to stand to his heart, someway ! As the
wind stirred in the leaves, it was like a rusde of greeting.

In that old house they had all lived, and his mother
had toiled for thirty years. A sort of prison after alL
There they were all born, and there his father and his
little sister had died. And then it passed into old
Kinney's hands.

Walking along up the path he felt a serious weakness
in his limbs, and he made a pretence of stopping to look
at a flower-bed containing nothing but weeds. After
seven years of separation he was about to face once
more the woman whose life came so near being a part
of his — Agnes, now a wife and a mother.

How would she look ? Would her face have that
old-time peachy bloom, her mouth that peculiar beauti-
ful curve ? She was large and fair, he recalled^ hair
yellow and shining, eyes blue —

He roused himself. This was nonsense ! He was
trembling. He composed himself by looking around
again.

" The old scoundrel has let the weeds choke out the
flowers and surround the^ bee-hives. Old man Kinney
never believed in anything but a petty utility."

Will set his teeth, and marched up to the door and
struck it like a man delivering a challenge. Kinney
opened the door, and started back in fear when he saw
who it was.

A Branch Road 47

** How de do ? How de do ? '* said Will, walking
in, his eyes fixed on a woman seated beyond, a child in
her lap.

Agnes rose, without a word; a fawn-like, startled
widening of the eyes, her breath coming quick, and her
face flushing. They couldn't speak ; they only looked
at each other an instant, then Will shivered, passed his
hand over his eyes and sat down.

There was no one there but the Ad people, who were
looking at him in bewilderment. They did not notice
any confusion in Agnes's face. She recovered first.

''Pm glad to see you back, WiJ, ' she said, rising
and putting the sleeping child down in a neighboring
room. As she gave him her hand, he said :

"I'm glad to get back, Agnes. I hadn't ought to
have gone." Then he turned to the old people :

"I'm Will Hannan. You needn't be scared, Daddy;
I was jokin' last night."

" Dew tell ! I want *o know ! " exclaimed Granny.
" Wal, I never ! An' you're my little Willy boy who
ust 'o be in my class ? Well ! Well ! W'y, pa,
ain't he growed tall ! Grew handsome tew. I ust 'o
think he was a dretful humly boy ; but my sakes, that
mustache — "

"Wal, he gave me a turrihle scare last night. My
land ! scared me out of a year's growth," cackled the
old man.

This gave them all a chance to laugh, and the air was
cleared. It gave Agnes time to recover herself, and to
be able to meet Will's eyes. Will himself was power-

4.8 Main -Travelled Roads

fully moved ; his throat swelled and tears came to his
eyes every time he looked at her.

She was worn and wasted incredibly. The blue of
her eyes seemed dimmed and faded by weeping, and the
old-time scarlet of her lips had been washed away. The
sinews of her neck showed painfully when she turned
her head, and her trembling hands were worn, discolored,
and lumpy at the joints.

Poor girl ! She knew she was under scrutiny, and
her eyes felt hot and restless. She wished to run away
and cry, but she dared not. She stayed, while Will be-
gan to tell her of his life and to ask questions about old
friends.

The old people took it up and relieved her of any share
in it ; and Will, seeing that she was suffering, told some
funny stories which made the old people cackle in spite
of themselves.

But it was forced merriment on Will's part. Once
or twice Agnes smiled, with just a little flash of the
old-time sunny temper. But there was no dimple in the
cheek now, and the smile had more suggestion of an in-
valid — or even a skeleton. He was almost ready to
take her in his arms and weep, her face appealed so piti-
fully to him.

'' It's most time f'r Ed to be gittin' back, ain't it, pa ? "

" Sh'd say 't was ! He jest went over to Hobkirk's
to trade horses. It's dretful tryin' to me to have him go
off tradin' horses on Sunday. Seems if he might wait
till a rainy day, 'r do it evenin's. I never did believe in
horse-tradin' anyhow/'

A Branch Roaa 49

" Have y* come back to stay, Willie ? " asked the old
lady.

'' Well — it's hard tellin'," answered Will, looking at
Agnes.

" Well, Agnes, ain't you goin' to git no dinner ? I'm
'bout ready Pr dinner. We must git to church early to-
day. Elder Wheat is goin' to preach, an' they'll be a
crowd. He's goin' to hold communion."

" You'll stay to dinner. Will ? " asked Agnes.

*' Yes — if you wish it."

« I ^ wish it."

'' Thank you ; I want to have a good visit with you,
I don't know when I'll see you again."

As she moved about, getting dinner on the table. Will
sat with gloomy face, listening to the "clack" of the
old man. The room was a poor little sitting room, with
furniture worn and shapeless ; hardly a touch of pleas-
ant color, save here and there a little bit of Agnes's
handiwork. The lounge, covered with calico, was rick-
ety ; the rocking-chair matched it, and the carpet of rags
was patched and darned with twine in twenty places.
Everywhere was the influence of the Kinneys. The
furniture looked like them, in fact.

Agnes was outwardly calm, but her real distraction
did not escape Mrs. Kinney's hawk-like eyes.

" Well, I declare if you hain't put the butter on in
one o* my blue chainy saucers ? Now you know I don't
allow that saucer to be took down by nobody. I don't
see what's got into yeh ! Anybody'd s'pose you never
see any comp'ny b'fore — wouldn't they, pa ? "

50 Main -Travelled Roads

^^ ShM say th' would," said pa, stopping short in a
long story about Ed. " Seems if we couldn't keep any-
thing in this house sep'rit from the rest. £d he uses my
curry-comb — "

He launched out a long list of grievances, to which
Will shut his ears as completely as possible, and was
thinking how to stop him, when there came a sudden
crash. Agnes had dropped a plate.

" Good land o' Goshen ! *' screamed Granny. ** If
you ain't the worst I ever see. I'll bet that's my grape-
vine plate. If it is — Well, of all the mercies, it ain't
But it might 'a' ben. I never see your beat — never!
That's the third plate since I came to live here."

"Oh, look-a-here. Granny," said Will, desperately,
" don't make so much fuss about the plate. What's it
worth, anyway ? Here's a dollar."

Agnes cried quickly:

" Oh, don't do that. Will ! It ain't her plate. It's
my plate, and I can break every plate in the house if I
want to," she cried defiantly.

" Course you can," Will agreed.

" Wal, she can't ! Not while Pm around," put in
Daddy. " I've helped to pay Pr them plates, if she does
call 'em her'n — "

'' What the devul is all this row about ? Agg, can't
you get along without stirring up the old folks every time
I'm out o' the house ? "

The speaker was Ed, now a tall and slouchily dressed
man of thirty-two or three ; his face still handsome in a
certain dark, cleanly-cut style, but he wore a surlv look

A Branch Road 51

as he lounged in with insolent swagger, clothed in
greasy overalls and a hickory shirt.

" Hello, Will ! I heard you'd got home. John told
me as I came along."

They shook hands, and Ed slouched down on the
lounge. Will could have kicked him for laying the
blame of the dispute upon Agnes ; it showed him in a
flash just how he treated her. He disdained to quarrel ;
he simply silenced and dominated her.

Will asked a few questions about crops, with such
grace as he could show, and Ed, with keen eyes fixed on
Will's face, talked easily and stridently.

" Dinner ready ? " he asked of Agnes. " Where's
Pete ? "

" He's asleep."

''All right. Let *im sleep. Well, let's go out an'
set up. Come, Dad, sling away that Bible and come to
grub. Mother, what the devul are you snifflin' at ?
Say, now, look here ! If I hear any more about this
row, I'll simply let you walk down to meetin'. Come,
Will, set up."

He led the way into the little kitchen where the din-
ner was set.

" What was the row about ? Hain't been breakin'
some dish, Agg ? "

" Yes, she has," broke in the old lady.

'' One o' the blue ones ? " winked Ed.

" No, thank goodness, it was a white one."

"Well, now, I'll git into that dod-gasted cubberd
eome day an' break the whole eternal outfit. I ain't

51 Main -Travelled Roads

goin' to have this damned jawin' goin' on," he ended,
brutally unconscious of his own " jawin'."

After this the dinner proceeded in comparative silence,
Agnes sobbing under breath. The room was small and
very hot ; the table was warped so badly that the dishes
had a tendency to slide to the centre; the walls were
bare plaster, grayed with time ; the food was poor and
scant, and the flies absolutely swarmed upon everything,
like bees. Otherwise the room was clean and orderly.

" They say you've made a pile o' money out West,
Bill. I'm glad of it. We fellers back here don't make
anything. It's a dam tight squeeze. Agg, it seems to
me the flies are devilish thick to-day. Can't you drive
'em out ? "

Agnes felt that she must vindicate herself a little.

" I do drive *em out, but they come right in again.
The screen-door is broken and they come right in."

" I told Dad to fix that door."

" But he won't do it for me."

Ed rested his elbows on the table and fixed his bright
black eyes on his father.

'' Say, what d' you mean by actin' like a mule ? I
swear I'll trade you oflF Pr a yaller dog. What do /
keep you round here for anyway — to look purty ? "

^^ I guess I've as good a right here as you have, Ed
Kinney."

" Oh, go soak y'r head, old man. If you don't 'tend
out here a little better, down goes your meat-house ! I
won't drive you down to meetin' till you promise to fix
that door. Hear me ! "

A Branch Road 53

Daddy began to snivel. Agnes could not look up for
shame. Will felt sick. Ed laughed.

" I c'n bring the old man to terms that way ; he can't
walk very well late years, an' he can't drive my colt.
You know what a cuss I used to be about fast nags ?
Well, I'm just the same. Hobkirk's got a colt I want.
Say, that reminds me : your team's out there by the
fence. I forgot. I'll go out and put 'em up."

*' No, never mind 5 I can't stay but a few minutes."

" Goin' to be round the country long ? "

" A week — maybe."

Agnes looked up a moment, and then let her eyes
fall.

*' Goin' back West, I s'pose ? "

" No. May go East, to Europe, mebbe."

** The devul y' say 1 You must 'a' made a ten-strike
out West."

*' They say it didn't come lawful," piped Daddy, over
his blackberries and milk.

*' Oh, you shet up, who wants your put-in ? Don't
work in any o' your Bible on us."

Daddy rose to go into the other room.

" Hold on, old man. You goin* to fix that door ? **

" Course I be," quavered he.

" Well see *t y' do, that's all. Now get on y'r duds,
an' I'll go an* hitch up." He rose from the table.
" Don't keep me waiting."

He went out unceremoniously, and Agnes was alone
with Will.

(( Do you go to church ? " he asked. She shook her

if 4 Main -Travelled Roads

head. "No, I don't go anywhere now. I have too
much to do s I haven't strength left. And Pm not fit
anyway."

" Agnes, I want to say something to you ; not now
— after they're gone."

He went into the other room, leaving her to wash the
dinner-things. She worked on in a curious, almost
dazed way, a dream of something sweet and irrevocable
in her eyes. Will represented so much to her. His
voice brought up times and places that thrilled her like
song. He was associated with all that was sweetest
and most care-free and most girlish in her life.

Ever since the boy had handed her that note she had
been re-living those days. In the midst of her drudgery
she stopped to dream — to let some picture come back
into her mind. She was a student again at the Semi-
nary, and stood in the recitation-room with suffocating
beat of the heart ; Will was waiting outside — waiting
in a tremor like her own, to walk home with her under
the maples.

Then she remembered the painfully sweet mixture of
pride and fear with which she walked up the aisle of the
little church behind him. Her pretty new gown rustled,
the dim light of the church had something like romance
in it, and he was so strong and handsome. Her heart
went out in a greait silent cry to God —

" Oh, let me be a girl again ! "

She did not look forward to happiness. She hadn't
power to look forward at all.

As she worked., she heard the high, shrill vpicQS of

A Branch Road 55

the old people as they bustled about and nagged at each
other.

" Ma, where's my specticles ? "

" I ain- 1 seen y'r specticles."

" You have, too."

" I ain't neither."

" You had 'em this forenoon."

" Didn't no such thing. Them was my own brass-
bowed ones. You had your'n jest 'fore goin' to dinner.
If you'd put 'em into a proper place you'd find 'em
again."

" I want 'o know if I would," the old man snorted.

" Wal, you'd orter know."

*' Oh, you're awful smart, ain't yeh ? Tbu never
have no trouble, and use mine — do yeh ? — an' lose
*em so 't I can't — "

" And if this is the thing that goes on when I'm here
it must be hell when visitors are gone," thought Will.

" Willy, ain't you goin' to meetin' ? "

" No, not to-day. I want to visit a little with Agnes,
then I've got to drive back to John's."

"Wal, we must be goin'. Don't you leave them
dishes f r me to wash," she screamed at Agnes as she
went out the door. " An' if we don't git home by five,
them caaves orter be fed."

As Agnes stood at the door to watch them drivt
away. Will studied her, a smothering ache in his heart
as he saw how thin and bent and weary she was. In
his soul he felt that she was a dying woman unless she
had rest and tender care.

56 Main -Travelled Roads

As she turned, she saw something in his face — a
pity and an agony of self-accusation — that made her
weak and white. She sank into a chair, putting her
hand on her chest, as if she felt a failing of breath.
Then the blood came back to her face and her eyes
filled with tears.

"Don't — don't look at me like that," she said in
a whisper. His pity hurt her.

At sight of her sitting there pathetic, abashed, bewil-
dered, like some gentle animal, Will's throat contracted
so that he could not speak. His voice came at last in
one terrific cry —

" Oh, Agnes, for God's sake forgive me ! " He
knelt by her side and put his arm about her shoulders
and kissed her bowed head. A curious numbness in-
volved his whole body ; his voice was husky, the tears
burned in his eyes. His whole soul and body ached
with his pity and his remorseful, self-accusing wrath.

" It was all my fault. Lay it all to me. ... I am
the one to bear it. . . . Oh, I've dreamed a thousand
times of sayin' this to you, Aggie ! I thought if I could
only see you again and ask your forgiveness, I'd — "
He ground his teeth together in his assault upon him-
self. "I threw my life away an' killed you — that's
what I did ! "

He rose, and raged up and down the room till he had
mastered himself.

" What did you think I meant that day of the thrash-
ing ? " he said, turning suddenly. He spoke of it as if
it were but a month or two past.

99

A Branch Road 57

She lifted her head and looked at him in a slow way.
She seemed to be remembering. The tears lay on her
hollow cheeks.

" I thought you was ashamed of me. I didn't know
_why — "

He uttered a snarl of self-disgust.

"You couldn't know. Nobody could tell what I
meant. But why didn't you write ? I was ready to
come back. I only wanted an excuse — only a line.

" How could I, Will — after your letter ?

He groaned, and turned away.

'* And Will, I — I got piad too. I couldn't write.

" Oh, that letter — I can see every line of it ! F'r
God's sake, don't think of it again ! But I didn't think,
even when I wrote that letter, that I'd find you where
you are. I didn't think. I hoped, anyhow, Ed Kinney
wouldn't — "

She stopped him with a startled look in her great
eyes.

"Don't talk about him- — it ain't right. I mean it
don't do any good. What could I do, after father died ?
Mother and I. Besides, I waited three years to hear
from you. Will."

He gave a strange, choking cry. It burst from his
throat — that terrible thing, a man's sob of agony.
She went on, curiously calm now.

" Ed was good to me ; and he offered a home, any-
way, for mother— "

"And all the time I was waiting for some line to
brtsak down my cussed pride, so I could write to you

58 Main -Travelled Roads

and explain. But you did go with Ed to the fair," he
ended suddenly, seeking a morsel of justification foi
himself.

^^ Yes. But I waited an' waited ; and I thought you
was mad at me, so when they came I — no, I didn't
really go with Ed. There was a wagon-load of them."

" But I started," he explained, " but the wheel came
o(F. I didn't send word because I thought you'd feel
sure I'd come. If you'd only trusted me a little more
— No ! It was all my fault. I acted like a crazy fool.
I didn't stop to reason about anything."

They sat in silence after these explanations. The
sound of the snapping wings of the grasshoppers came
through the windows, and a locust high in a poplar sent
down his ringing whir.

" It can't be helped now. Will," Agnes said at last,
her voice full of the woman's resignation. ** We've
got to bear it."

Will straightened up. " Bear it ? " He paused.
'' Yes, I s'pose so. If you hadn't married Ed Kinney !
Anybody but him. How did you do it ? "

'' Oh, I don't know," she answered, wearily brushing
her hair back from her eyes. " It seemed best when
I did it — and it can't be helped now." There was
infinite, dull despair and resignation in her voice.

Will went over to the window. He thought how
bright and handsome Ed used to be. " After all, it's no
wonder you married him. Life pushes us into such
things." Suddenly he turned, something resolute and
imoerious in his eyes and voice.

A Branch Road 59

*'It tan be helped, Aggie," he said. "Now just
listen to me. We've made an awful mistake. We've
lost seven years o* life, but that's no reason why we
should waste the rest of it. Now hold on ; don't inter-
rupt me just yet. I come back thinking just as much
of you as ever. I'm not going to say a word more
about Ed; let the past stay past. Pm going to talk
about the future."

She looked at him in a daze of wonder as he went on.

" Now I've got some money, I've got a third interest
in a ranch, and I've got a standing offer to go back on
the Santa Fee road as conductor. There is a team
standing out there. I'd like to make another trip to
Cedarville — with you — "

"Oh, Will, don't!" she cried; "for pity's sake
don't talk — "

" Wait ! " he exclaimed, imperiously. " Now look at
it. Here you are in hell ! Caged up with two old
crows picking the life out of you. They'll kill you —
I can see it ; your being killed by inches. You can't go
anywhere, you can't have anything. Life is just torture
for you — "

She gave a little moan of anguish and despair, and
turned her face to her chair-back. Her shoulders shook
with weeping, but she listened. He went to her and
stood with his hand on the chair-back.

His voice trembled and broke. "There's just one
way to get out of this, Agnes. Come with me. He
don't care for you ; his whole idea of women is that
they are created for his pleasure and to keep house*

6o Main -Travelled Roads

Your whole life is agony. Come ! Don't cry. There's
a chance for life yet."

She didn't speak, but her sobs were less violent ; his
voice growing stronger reassured her.

^^ I'm going East, maybe to Europe ; and the woman
who goes with me will have nothing to do but get
strong and well again. I've made you suffer so, I oi^ht
to spend the rest of my life making you happy. Come !
My wife will sit with me on the deck of the steamer
and see the moon rise, and walk with me by the sea,
till she gets strong and happy again — till the dimples
get back into her cheeks. I never will rest till I sec
her eyes laugh again."

She rose flushed, wild-eyed, breathing hard with the
emotion his vibrant voice called up, but she could not
speak. He put his hand gently upon her shoulder, and
she sank down again. And he went on with his appeal.
There was something hypnotic, dominating, in his voice
and eyes.

On his part there was no passion of an ignoble sort,
only a passion of pity and remorse, and a sweet, tender,
reminiscent love. He did not love the woman before
him so much as the girl whose ghost she was — the
woman whose promise she was. He held himself respon-
sible for it all, and he throbbed with desire to repair the
ravage he had indirectly caused. There was nothing
equivocal in his position — nothing to disown. How
others might look at it, he did not consider, and did not
care. His impetuous soul was carried to a point where
nothing came in to mar or divert.

A Branch Road 6i

" And then after you're well, after our trip, we'll
come back — to Houston, or somewhere in Texas, and
I'll build my wife a house that will make her eyes shine.
My cattle will give us a good living, and she can have
a piano and books, and go to the theatre and concerts.
Come, what do you think of that ? "

Then she heard his words beneath his voice somehow,
and they produced pictures that dazzled her. Luminous
shadows moved before her eyes, drifting across the gray
background of her poor, starved, work-weary life.

As his voice ceased the rosy cloud faded, and she
realized again the faded, musty little room, the calico-
covered furniture, and looking down at her own cheap
and ill-fitting dress, she saw her ugly hands lying there.
Then she cried out with a gush of tears :

" Oh, Will, I'm so old and homely now, I ain't fit to
go with you now ! Oh, why couldn't we have married
then?''

She was seeing herself as she was then, and so was
he ; but it deepened his resolution. How beautiful she
used to be ! He seemed to see her there as if she stood
in perpetual sunlight, with a warm sheen in her hair and
dimples in her cheeks.

She saw her thin red wrists, her gaunt and knotted
hands. There was a pitiful droop in the thin, pale lips,
and the tears fell slowly from her drooping lashes. He
went on :

"Well, it's no use to cry over what was. We must
think of what we're going to do. Don't worry about
your looks ; you'll be the prettiest woman in the country

62 Main -Travelled Roads

when we get back. Don't wait, Aggie ; make up your
mind."

She hesitated, and was lost.

" What will people say ? "

"I don't care what they say,** he flamed out.
'' They'd, say, stay here and be killed by inches. I say
you've had your share of suffering. They'd say — the
liberal ones — stay and get a divorce ; but how do you
know we can get one after you've been dragged through
the mud of a trial ? We can get one as well in some
other state. Why should you be worn out at thirty ?
What right or justice is there in making you bear all
your life the consequences of our — my schoolboy
follv ? "

As he went on his argument rose to the level of
Browning's philosophy.

"We can make this experience count for us yet.
But we mustn't let a mistake ruin us — it should teach
us. What right has any one to keep you in a hole ?
God don't expect a toad to stay in a stump and starve if
it can get out. He don't ask the snakes to suffer as you
do."

She had lost the threads of right and wrong out of her
hands. She was lost in a maze, but she was not moved
by passion. Flesh had ceased to stir her ; but there was
vast power in the new and thrilling words her deliverer
spoke. He seemed to open a door for her, and through
it turrets shone and great ships crossed on dim blue
seas.

" You can't live here, Aggie. You'll die in less than

A Branch Road 63

five years. It would kill me to see you die here. Come !
It's suicide."

She did not move, save the convulsive motion of her
breath and the nervous action of her fingers. She stared
down at a spot in the carpet. She could not face him.

He grew insistent, a sterner note creeping into his voice.

" If I leave this time of course you know PU never
come back."

Her hoarse breathing, growing quicker each moment,
was her only reply.

" I'm done," he said with a note of angry disappoint-
ment. He did not give her up, however. " I've told
you what I'd do for you. Now, if you think — "

" Oh, give me time to think. Will ! " she cried out,
lifting her face.

He shook his head. "No. You might as well
decide now. It won't be any easier to-morrow. Come,
one minute more and I go out o' that door — unless
— " He crossed the room slowly, doubtful himself of
his desperate last measure. " My hand is on the knob.
Shall I open it ? "

She stopped breathing ; her fingers closed convulsively
on the chafr. As he opened the door she sprang
up.

" Don't go. Will ! Don't go, please don't ! I need
you here — I — "

" That ain't the question. Are you going with me,
Agnes ? "

"Yes, yes! I tried to speak before. I trust you.
Will; you're — "

64 Main -Travelled Roads

He flung the door open wide. ^^ See the sunlight out
there shining on that field o' wheat ? That's where PIl
take you — out into the sunshine. You shall see it
shining on the Bay of Naples. Come, get on your hat;
don't take anything more'n you actually need. Leave
the past behind you — "

The woman turned wildly and darted into the litde
bedroom. The man listened. He whistled in surprise
almost comical. He had forgotten the baby. He could
hear the mother talking, cooing.

"Mommie's 'ittle pet! She wasn't goin' to leave
her 'ittle man — no, she wasn't ! There, there, don't
'e cry. Mommie ain't goin' away and leave him —
wicked mommie ain't — 'ittle treasure ! "

She was confused again; and when she reappeared
at the door, with the child in her arms, there was a
wandering look on her face pitiful to see. She tried to
speak, tried to say, " Please go. Will."

He designedly failed to understand her whisper. He
stepped forward. " The baby ! Sure enough. Why,
certainly ! to the mother belongs the child. Blue eyes,
thank heaven ! "

He put his arm about them both. She obeyed silently.
There was something irresistible in his frank, clear eyes,
his sunny smile, his strong brown hand. He slammed
the door behind them.

" That closes the door on your sufferings," he said,
smiling down at her. " Good-by to it all."

The baby laughed and stretched out its hands toward
the light.

N

A Branch Road 65

^ Boo, boo ! " he cried.

" What's he talking about ? "

She smiled in perfect trust and fearlessness, seeing
her child's face beside his own. " He says it's
beautiful."

" Oh, he does ! I can't follow his French accent."

She smiled again, in spite of herself. Will shuddered
with a thrill of fear, she was so weak and worn. But
the sun shone on the dazzling, rustling wheat, the
fathomless sky, blue as a sea, bent above them — and
the world lay before tnem.

r

UP THE COOLLY

^'Keep tb» main-travelled road up
ibe Coolly — it's the second Imse
4fter crossiif the crick

UP THE COOLLY

The ride from Milwaukee to the Mississippi is a fine
ride at any time, superb in summer. To lean back in
a reclining-chair and whirl away in a breezy July day,
past lakes, groves of oak, past fields of barley being
reaped, past hay-fields, where the heavy grass is toppling
before the swift sickle, is a panorama^qf delight, a road
full of delicious surprises, where down a sudden vista
lakes open, or a distant wooded hill looms darkly blue,
or swift streams, foaming deep down the solid rock,
send whifis of cool breezes in at the windo .y.

It has majesty, breadth. The farming has nothing
apparently petty about it. All seems vigorous, youth-
ful, and prosperous. Mr. Howard McLane in his
chair let his newspaper fall on his lap, and gazed out
upon it with dreaming eyes. It had a certain mysteri-
ous glamour to him ; the lakes were cooler and brighter
to his eye, the greens fresher, and the grain more golden
than to any one else, for he was coming back to it all
after an absence of ten years. It was, besides, his West.
He still took prid^ in being a Western man.

His mind all day flew ahead of the train to the little
town, far on toward the Mississippi, where he had spent
his boyhood and youth. As the train passed the Wis-
consin River, with its curiously carved clifis, its cold,

m

yo Main -Travelled Roads

dark, swift-swirling water eating slowly under cedar*
clothed banks, Howard began to feel curious little move-
ments of the heart, like those of a lover nearing his
sweetheart.

The hills changed in character, growing more inti-
mately recognizable. They rose higher as the train left
the ridge and passed down into the Black River valley,
and specifically into the La Crosse valley. They ceased
to have any hint of upheavals of rock, and became
simply parts of the ancient level left standing after the
water had practically given up its post-glacial scooping
action.

It was about six o'clock as he caught sight of the
splendid broken line of hills on which his baby eyes had
looked thirty-five years ago. A few minutes lafer, and
the tram drew up at the grimy little station set into the
hillside, and, giving him just time to leap oiF, plunged
on again toward the West. Howard felt a ridiculous
weakness in his legs as he stepped out upon the broiling-
hot, splintery planks of the station and faced the few
idlers lounging about. He simply stood and gazed with
the same intensity and absorption one of the idlers might
show standing before the Brooklyn Bridge.

The town caught and held his eyes first. How poor
and dull and sleepy and squalid It seemed! The one
main street ended at the hillside at his left, and stretched
away to the north, between two rows of the usual vil-
lage stores, unrelieved by a tree or a touch of beauty.
An unpaved street, with walled, drab-colored, miserably
rotting wooden buildings, with the inevitable battlements j

Up the Coolly 71

the same — only worse and more squalid — was the
town.

The same, only more beautiful still, was the majestic
amphitheatre of green wooded hills that circled the hori-
zon, and toward which he lifted his eyes. He thrilled
at the sight.

*' Glorious ! " he cried involuntarily.

Accustomed to the White Mountains, to the Alle-
ghanies, he had wondered if these hills would retain
their old-time charm. They did. He took off his hat
to them as he stood there. Richly wooded, with gently
sloping green sides, rising to massive square or rounded
tops with dim vistas, they glowed down upon the squat
little town, gracious, lofty in their greeting, immortal in
their vivid and delicate beauty.

He was a goodly figure of a man as he stood there
beside his valise. Portly, erect, handsomely dressed,
and with something unusually winning in his brown
mustache and blue eyes, something scholarly suggested
by the pinch-nose glasses, something strong in the re-
pose of the head. He smiled as he saw how unchanged
was the grouping of the old loafers on the salt-barrels
and nail-kegs. He recognized most of them — a little
dirtier, a little more bent, and a little grayer.

They sat in the same attitudes, spat tobacco with
the same calm delight, and joked each other, breaking
into short and sudden fits of laughter, and pounded each
other on the back, just as when he was a student at the
La Crosse Seminary and going to and fro daily on the
train.

fl Main -Travelled Roads

They ruminated on him as he passed, speculating in
a perfectly audible way upon his business.

" Looks like a drummer."

"No, he ain't no drummer. See them Boston
glasses ? **

'' That's so. Guess he's a teacher."

" Looks like a moneyed cuss."

** Bos'n, I guess.*'

He knew the one who spoke last — Freeme Cole, a
man who was the fighting wonder of Howard's boy-
hood, now degenerated into a stoop-shouldered, faded,
garrulous, and quarrelsome old man. Yet there was
something epic in the old man's stories, something en-
thralling in the dramatic power of recital.

Over by the blacksmith shop the usual game of
'' quaits " was in progress, and the drug-clerk on the
corner was chasing a crony with the squirt-pump with
which he was about to wash the windows. A few
teams stood ankle-deep in the mud, tied to the fantasti-
cally gnawed pine pillars of the wooden awnings. A man
on a load of hay was "jawing " with the attendant of the
platform scales, who stood below, pad and pencil in hand.

" Hit 'im ! hit 'im ! Jump off and knock 'im ! " sug-
gested a bystander, jovially.

Howard knew the voice.

** Talk's cheap. Takes money to buy whiskey," he
said, when the man on the load repeated his threat of
getting off and whipping the scales-man.

"You're William McTurg," Howard said, coming
up to him.

Up the Coolly 73

^^I am, sir/' replied the soft-voiced giant, turning
and looking down on the stranger, with an amused
twinkle in his deep brown eyes. He stood as erect
as an Indian, though his hair and beard were white.

"Pm Howard McLane."

"Ye begin t' look it," said McTurg, removing his
right hand from his pocket. '* How are ye ? *'

" I'm first-rate. How's mother and Grant ? "

"Saw 'm ploughing corn as I came down. Guess
he's all right. Want a boost ? "

" Well, yes. Are you down with a team ? "

" Yep. 'Bout goin' home. Climb right in. That's
my rig, right there," nodding at a sleek bay colt hitched
in a covered buggy. ** Heave y'r grip under the

seat."

They climbed into the seat after William had lowered
the buggy-top and unhitched the horse from the post.
The loafers were mildly curious. Guessed Bill had got
hooked onto by a lightnin'-rod peddler, or somethin' o'
that kind.

"Want to go by river, or 'round by the hills ? "

" Hills, I guess."

The whole matter began to seem trivial, as If he had
been away only for a month or two.

William McTurg was a man little given to talk.
Even the coming back of a nephew did not cause any
flow of questions or reminiscences. They rode in
silence. He sat a little bent forward, the lines held
carelessly in his hands, his great lion-like head swaying
to and fro with the movement of the buggy.

74 Main -Travelled Roads

As tbey passed familiar spots, the younger man broke
the silence with a question.

" That's old man McElvaine's place, ain't it ? "

" Yep."

"Old man living?"

** I guess he is. Husk more corn'n any man he c'n hire."

In the edge of the village they passed an open lot on
the left, marked with circus-rings of different eras.

"There's the old ball-ground. Do they have cir-
cuses on it just the same as ever ? "

"Just the same."

" What fun that field calls up ! The games of ball
we used to have ! Do you play yet ? "

"Sometimes. Can't stoop as well as I used to.'* He
smiled a little. " Too much fat."

It all swept back upon Howard in a flood of names
and faces and sights and sounds ; something sweet and
stirring somehow, though it had little of aesthetic charms
at the time. They were passing along lanes now, be-
tween superb fields of corn, wherein ploughmen were at
work. Kingbirds flew from post to post ahead of them ;
the insects called from the grass. The valley slowly
outspread below them. The workmen in the fields
were "turning out" for the night. They all had a
word of chafF with McTurg.

Over the western wall of the circling amphitheatre
the sun was setting. A few scattering clouds were
drifting on the west wind, their shadows sliding down
the green and purpled slopes. The dazzling sunlight
^med along the luscious velvety grass, and shot amid

Up the Coolly 75

the rounded, distant purple peaks, and streamed in bars
of gold and crimson across the blue mist of^the narrower
upper CooUies. /

The heart of the young man swelled with pleasure
almost like pain, and the eyes of the silent older man
took on a far-off, dreaming look, as he gazed at the
scene which had repeated itself a thousand times in his
life, but of whose beauty he never spoke.

Far down to the left was the break in the wall through
which the river ran on its way to join the Mississippi.
They climbed slowly among the hills, and the valley
they had left grew still more beautiful as the squalor of
the little town was hid by the dusk of distance. Both
men were silent for a long time. Howard knew the
peculiarities of his companion too well to make any re-
marks or ask any questions, and besides it was a genuine
pleasure to ride with one who understood that silence was
the only speech amid such splendors.

Once they passed a little brook singing in a mourn-
fully sweet way its eternal song over its pebbles. It
called back to Howard the days when he and Grant, his
younger brother, had fished in this little brook for trout,
with trousers rolled above the knee and wrecks of hats
upon their heads.

" Any trout left ? " he asked.

"Not many. Little fellers." Finding the silence
broken, William asked the first question since he met
Howard. "Le* 's see: you're a show feller nowf
Belong to a troupe?**

*^ Yes, yes j Vm an aqtor/'

76 Main -Travelled Roads

$9

99

" Pay much ?

" Pretty well.'

That seemed to end William's curiosity about the
matter.

"Ah, there's our old bouse, ain't it?" Howard
broke out, pointing to one of the houses farther up the
Coolly. " It'll be a surprise to them, won't it ?

" Yep ; only they don't live there.'

" What ! They don't !

" No.'

" Who does ? "

"Dutchman."

Howard was silent for some moments. " Who lives
on the Dunlap place ? "

" 'Nother Dutchman."

*' Where's Grant living, anyhow ? "

" Farther up the Coolly."

" Well, then, Pd better get out here, hadn't I ? "

" Oh, I'll drive ye up."

" No, I'd rather walk."

The sun had set, and the Coolly was getting dusk
when Howard got out of McTurg's carriage and set ofF
up the winding lane toward his brother's house. He
walked slowly to absorb the coolness and fragrance and
color of the hour. The katydids sang a rhythmic song
of welcome to him. Fireflies were in the grass. A
whippoorwill in the deep of the wood was calling
weirdly, and an occasional night-hawk, flying high,
gave his grating shriek, or hollow boom, suggestive
and resounding.

Up the Coolly 77

He had been wonderfully successful, and yet had car-
ried into his success as a dramatic author as well as actor
a certain puritanism that made him a paradox to his
fellows. He was one of those actors who are always in
luck, and the best of it was he kept and made use of his
luck. Jovial as he appeared, he was inflexible as granite
against drink and tobacco. He retained through it all a
certain freshness of enjoyment that made him one of
the best companions in the profession ; and now, as he
walked on, the hour and the place appealed to him with
great power. It seemed to sweep away the life that
came between.

How close it all was to him, after all ! In his rest-
less life, surrounded by the glare of electric lights, painted
canvas, hot colors, creak of machinery, mock trees,
stones, and brooks, he had not lost, but gained, appre-
ciation for the coolness, quiet, and low tones, the shy-
ness of the wood and field.

In the farmhouse ahead of him a light was shining
as he peered ahead, and his heart gave another painful
movement. His brother was awaiting him there, and
his mother, whom he had not seen for ten years and who
had lost the power to write. And when Grant wrote,
which had been more and more seldom of late, his
letters had been cold and curt.

He began to feel that in the pleasure and excitement
of his life he had grown away from his mother and
brother. Each summer he had said, " Well, now, I'll
go home this year, sure." But a new play to be pro-
duced, or fi new yachting trip, or a tour of Europe, had

78 Main -Travelled Roads

put the home-coming ofF; and now it was with a dis-
tinct consciousness of neglect of duty that he walked up
to the fence and looked into the yard, where William
had told him his brother lived.

It was humble enough — a small white story-and
a-half structure, with a wing set in the midst of a few
locust-trees; a small drab-colored barn with a sagging
ridge-pole; a barnyard full of mud, in which a few cows
were standing, fighting the flies and waiting to be milked.
An old man was pumping water at the well ; the pigs
were squealing from a pen ndkr by ; a child was crying.

Instantly the beautiful, peaceful valley was forgotten.
A sickening chill struck into Howard's soul as he looked
at it all. In the dim light he could see a figure milking
a cow. Leaving his valise at the gate, he entered and
walked up to the old man, who had finished pumping
and was about to go to feed the hogs.

" Good-evening," Howard began. " Does Mr. Grant
McLane live here ? "

" Yes, sir, he does. He's right over there milkin'."

" I'll go over there an — "

" Don't b'lieve I would. It's darn muddy over there.
It's been turrible rainy. He'll be done in a minute,
anyway."

" Very well ; I'U wait."

As he waited, he could hear a woman's fretful voice
and the impatient jerk and jar of kitchen things, indica*
tive of ill-temper or worry. The longer he stood absorb-
ing this farm-scene, with all its sordidness, dullness,
triviality, and its endless drudgeries, the lower his heart

Up the Coolly 79.

"■ "i

9 -

sank. All the joy of the home-coming was gone, ^hen
the figure arose from the cow and approached the gate,
and put the pail of milk down on the platform by the
pump.

" Good-evening," said Howard, out of the dusk.

Grant stared a moment. " Good-evening."

Howard knew the voice, though it was older and
deeper and more sullen. " Don't you know me. Grant ?
I am. Howard."

The man approached him, gazing intently at his face.
"You are?" after a pause. "Well, I'm glad to see
you, but I can't shake hands. That damned cow had
laid down in the mud."

They stood and looked at each other. Howard's
cufFs, collar, and shirt, alien in their elegance, showed
through the dusk, and a glint of light shot out from the
jewel of his necktie, as the light from the house caught
it at the right angle. As they gazed in silence at each
other, Howard divined something of the hard, bitter
feeling that came into Grant's heart, as he stood there,
ragged, ankle-deep in muck, his sleeves rolled up, a
shapeless old straw hat on his head.

The gleam of Howard's white hands angeced him.
When he spoke, it was in a hard, .gruff tone, full of
rebellion.

"Well, go in the house and set down. I'll be in
soon 's I strain the milk and wash the dirt off my hands."

" But mother — "

"She's 'round somewhere. Just knock on the door
under the porch round there."

to Main -Travelled Roads

Howard went slowly around the comer of the housCi
past a vilely smelling rain-barrel, toward the west. A
gray-haired woman was sitting in a rocking-chair on the
porch, her hands in her lap, her eyes fixed on the faintly
yellow sky, against which the hills stood, dim purple
silhouettes, and on which the locust trees were etched as
fine as lace. There was sorrow, resignation, and a sort
of dumb despair in her attitude.

Howard stood, his throat swelling till it seemed as if
he would suffocate. This was his mother — the woman
who bore him, the being who had taken her life in her
hand for him ; and he, in his excited and pleasurable
life, had neglected her !

He stepped into the faint light before her. She turned
and looked at him without fear. " Mother ! ** he said.
She uttered one little, breathing, gasping cry, called his
name, rose, and stood still. He bounded up the steps,
and took her in his arms.

" Mother ! Dear old mother ! "

In the silence, almost painful, which followed, an
angry woman's voice could be heard inside : " I don't
care ! I ain't goin' to wear myself out fer him. He
c'n eat out here with us, or else — "

Mrs. McLane began speaking. " Oh, I've longed to
see yeh, Howard. I was afraid you wouldn't come till
— too late."

" What do you mean, mother ? Ain't you well ? '*

*' I don't seem to be able to do much now 'cept sit
around and knit a little. I tried to pick some berries
the other day, and I got so dizzy I had to give it up."

Up the Coolly 8i

"You mustn't work. You needn't work. Why
didn't you write to me how you were ? " Howard asked,
in an agony of remorse.

*' Well, we felt as if you probably had all you could
do to take care of yourself. Are you married, How-
ard ? " she broke ofF to ask.

" No, mother ; and there ain't any excuse for me —
not a bit," he said, dropping back into her colloquialisms.
" I'm ashamed when I think of how long it's been since
I saw you. I could have come."

'' It don't matter now," she interrupted gently. " It's
the way things go. Our boys grow up and leave us."

*' Well, come in to supper," said Grant's ungracious
voice from the doorway. *' Come, mother."

Mrs, McLane moved with difficulty. Howard sprang
to her aid, and, leaning on his arm, she went through
the little sitting room, which was unlighted, out into the
kitchen, where the supper table stood near the cook-stove.

"How. — this is my wife," said Grant, in a cold,
peculiar tone.

Howard bowed toward a remarkably handsome young
woman, on whose forehead was a scowl, which did not
change as she looked at him and the old lady.

" Set down anywhere," was the young woman's cor-
dial invitation.

Howard sat down next his mother, and facing the
wife, who had a small, fretful child in her arms. At
Howard's left was the old man, Lewis. The supper
was spread upon a gay-colored oil-cloth, and consisted
of a pan of milk, set in the midst, with bowls at each

Q

V

82 Main -Travelled Roads

plate. Beside the pan was a dipper and a large plate
of bread, and at one end of the table was a dish of
fine honey.

A boy of about fourteen leaned upon the table, his
bent shoulders making him look like an old man. His
hickory shirt, like Grant's, was still wet with sweat, and
discolored here and there with grease, or green from
grass. His hair, freshly wet and combed, was smoothed
away from his face, and shone in the light of the
kerosene lamp. As he ate, he stared at Howard, as
though he would make an inventory of each thread of
the visitor's clothing.

^^ Did I look like that at his age ? " thought Howard.

" You see we live just about the same as ever," said
Grant, as they began eating, speaking with a grim,
almost challenging, inflection.

The two brothers studied each other curiously, as
they talked of neighborhood scenes. Howard seemed
incredibly elegant and handsome to them all, with his
rich, soft clothing, his spotless linen, and his exquisite
enunciation and ease of speech. He had always been
*' smooth-spoken," and he had become '* elegandy per-
suasive," as his friends said of him, and it was a laige
factor in his success.

Every detail of the kitchen, the heat, the flies buzzing
aloft, the poor furniture, the dress of the people — all
smote him like the lash of a wire whip. His brother
was a man of great character. He could see that now.
His deep-set, gray eyes and rugged face showed at tlurty
a man of great natural ability. He had more of the

Up the Coolly • 83^

Scotch in his face than Howard, and he looked much
older.

He was dressed, like the old man and the boy, in a
checked shirt, without vest. His suspenders, once gay*
colored, had given most of their color to his shirt, and
had marked irregular broad bands of pink and brown
and green over his shoulders. His hair was uncombed,
merely pushed away from his face. He ^ore a mus-
tache only, though his face was covered with a week's
growth of beard. His face was rather gaunt, and was
brown as leather.

Howard could not eat much. He was disturbed by
his mother's strange silence and oppression, and sick-
ened by the long-drawn gasps with which the old man
ate his bread and milk, and by the way the boy ate.
He had his knife gripped tightly in his fist, knuckles up,
and was scooping honey upon his bread.

The baby, having ceased to be afraid, was curious,
gazing silently at the stranger.

" Hello, little one ! Come and see your uncle. Eh ?
Course 'e will," cooed Howard, in the attempt to escape
the depressing atmosphere. The little one listened to
his inflections as a kitten does, and at last lifted its arms
in sign of surrender.

The mother's face cleared up a little. "I declare^^
she wants to go to you."

^^ Course she does. Dogs and kittens always come to
me when I call 'em. Why shouldn't my own niece
come ? "

He took the little one and began walking up and

84 Main -Travelled Roads

down the kitchen with her, while she pulled at hi&
beard and nose. ^^ I ought to have you, my lady, in my
new comedy. You'd bring down the house."

*' You don't mean to say you put babies on the stage,
Howard ? " said his mother in surprise.

"Oh, yes. Domestic comedy must have a baby
these days."

"Well, that's another way of makin' a livin% sure,'*
said Grant. The baby had cleared the atmosphere a
little. " I s'pose you fellers make a pile of money."

"Sometimes we make a thousand a week; oftener
we don't."

" A thousand dollars ! " They all stared.

" A thousand dollars sometimes, and then lose it all
the next week in another town. The dramatic business
is a good deal like gambling — you take your chances."

" I wish you weren't in it, Howard. I don't like to
have my son — "
, *'I wish I was in somethin' that paid better than

t:yl farmin'. Anything under God's heavens is better 'n
'/ ; \ ■ farmin'," said Grant.

i v«, u j>Jq^ I ain't laid up much," Howard went on, as if

^ * explaining why he hadn't helped them. "Costs me a

good deal to live, and I need about ten thousand dollars

leeway to work on. I've made a good living, but I — I

ain't made any money."

Grant looked at him, darkly meditative.

Howard went on : " How'd ye come to sell the old
farm? I was in hopes — "

" How'd we come to sell it ? " said Grant with terri-

I •■ »

\'

Up the Coolly 85

ble bitterness. "We had something on it that didn't
leave anything to sell. You probably don't remember
anything about it, but there was a mortgage on it that;
eat us up in just four years by the almanac. 'Most
killed mother to leave it. We wrote to you for money,
but' I don't suppose you remember that J*

" No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

" When was it ? I don't — why, it's — I never re-
ceived it. It must have been that summer I went with
Bob Manning to Europe." Howard put the baby down
and faced his brother. " Why, Grant, you didn't think
I refused to help ? "

" Well, it looked that way. We never heard a word
from yeh, all summer, and when y' did write, it was all
about yerself 'n plays 'n things we didn't know anything
about. I swore to God I'd never write to you again,
and I won't."

" But, good heavens ! I never got it.'*

"Suppose you didn't. You might have known we
were poor as Job's ofF-ox. Everybody is that earns a
living. We fellers on the farm have to earn a livin'
for ourselves and you fellers that don't work. I don't
blame you. I'd do it if I could."

" Grant, don't talk so ! Howard didn't realize — "

" I tell yeh I don't blame him ! Only I don't want
him to come the brotherly business over me, after livin'
as he has — that's all." There was a bitter accusation
in the man's voice.

Howard leaped to his feet, his face twitching.

85 Main -Travelled Roads

"By God, rU go back to-morrow morning!** he
threatened.

" Go, an' be damned ! I don't care what yeh do,'*
Grant growled, rising and going out.

" Boys," called the mother, piteously, " it's terrible to
see you quarrel."

'' But I'm not to blame, mother," cried Howard, in a
sickness that made him white as chalk. " The man is
a savage. I came home to help you all, not to quarrel."

" Grant's got one o' his fits on," said the young wife,
speaking for the first time. " Don't pay any attention
to him. He'll be all right in the morning."

"If it wasn't for you, mother, I'd leave now, and
never see that savage again."

He lashed himself up and down In the room, in horri-
ble disgust and hate of his brother and of this home in
his heart. He remembered his tender anticipations of
the home-copiing with a kind of self-pity and disgust.
This was his greeting !

He went to bed, to toss about on the bard, straw-filled
mattress in the stuffy little best room. Tossing, writh-
ing under the bludgeoning of his brother's accusing in-
flections, a dozen times he said, with a half-articulate
snarl :

" He can go to hell ! I'll not try to do anything
more for him. I don't care if he is my brother ; he has
no right to jump on me like that. On the night of my
return, too. My God ! he is a brute, a fool ! "

He thought of the presents in his trunk and valise,
which he couldn't show to him that night after what had

Up the Coolly 87

been said. He had intended to have such a happy even-
ing of it, such a tender reunion ! It was to be so bright
and cheery !

In the midst of his cursings — his hot indignation —
would come visions of himself in his own modest rooms.
He seemed to be yawning and stretching in his beauti-
ful bed, the sun shining in, his books, foils, pictures,
around him to say good-morning and tempt him to rise,
while the squat little clock on the mantel struck eleven
warningly.

He could see the olive walls, the unique copper-and*
crimson arabesque frieze (his own selection), and the
delicate draperies ; an open grate full of glowing coals,
to temper the sea-winds ; and in the midst of it, between
a landscape by Enneking and an Indian in a canoe in a
caflon, by Brush, he saw a sombre landscape by a master
greater than Millet, a melancholy subject, treated with
pitiless fidelity.

A farm in the valley ! Over the mountains swept
jagged, gray, angry, sprawling clouds, sending a freezing,
thin drizzle of rain, as they passed, upon a man following
a plough. The horses had a sullen and weary look, and
their manes and tails streamed sidewise in the blast.
The ploughman, clad in a ragged gray coat, with uncouth,
muddy boots upon his feet, walked with his head inclined
toward the sleet, to shield his face from the cold and
sting of it. The soil rolled away black and sticky and
with a dull sheen upon it. Near by, a boy with tears on
his cheeks was watching cattle ; a dog seated near, his
back to the gale.

88 Main -Travelled Roads

As he looked at this picture, his heart softened. He
looked down at the sleeve of his soft and fleecy night-
shirt, at his white, rounded arm, muscular, yet fine as a
woman's, and when he looked for the picture it was gone.
Then came again the assertive odor of stagnant air, laden
with camphor; he felt the springless bed under him,
and caught dimly a few soap-advertising lithographs
on the walls. He thought of his brother, in his still
more inhospitable bedroom, disturbed by the child, con-
demned to rise at five o'clock and begin another day's
pitiless labor. His heart shrank and quivered, and the
tears started to his eyes.

" I forgive him, poor fellow ! He's not to blame."

n

He woke, however, with a dull, languid pulse, and an
oppressive melancholy on his heart. He looked around
the little room, clean enough, but oh, how poor ! how
barren ! Cold plaster walls, a cheap wash-stand, a wash-
set of three pieces, with a blue band around each ; the
windows rectangular, and fitted with fantastic green
shades.

Outside he could hear the bees humming. Chickens
were merrily moving about. Cow-bells far up the road
were sounding irregularly. A jay came by and yelled an
insolent reveille, and Howard sat up. He could hear
nothing in the house but the rattle of pans on the back
side of the kitchen. He looked at his watch, which
indicated half-past seven. Grant was already in the field|

Up the Coolly 89

after milking, currying the horses, and eating breakfast
— had been at work two hours and a half.

He dressed himself hurriedly, in a neglige shirt, with
a Windsor scarf, light-colored, serviceable trousers with
a belt, russet shoes, and a tennis hat — a knockabout
costume, he considered. His mother, good soul, thought
it a special suit put on for her benefit, and admired it
through her glasses.

He kissed her with a bright smile, nodded at Laura,
the young wife, and tossed the baby, all in a breath, and
with the manner, as he himself saw, of the returned cap-
tain in the war-dramas of the day.

" Been to breakfast ? " He frowned reproachfully.
'' Why didn't you call me ? I wanted to get up, just as
I used to, at sunrise."

" We thought you was tired, and so we didn't — "

''Tired! Just wait till you see me help Grant
pitch hay or something. Hasn't finished his haying yet,
has he ? "

" No, I guess not. He will to-day if it don't rain again."

" Well, breakfast is all ready — Howard," said Laura,
hesitating a little on his name.

" Good ! I am ready for it. Bacon and eggs, as I'm
a jay ! Just what I was wanting. I was saying to
myself: 'Now if they'll only get bacon and eggs and
hot biscuits and honey — ' Oh, say, mother, I h'^rd the
bees humming this morning ; same noise they used to
make when I was a boy, exactly. Must be the same
bees, — Hey, you young rascal ! come here and have
some breakfast with your uncle."

r**.

90 Main -Travelled Roads

" I never saw her take to any one so quick," Laura
said, emphasizing the baby's sex. She had on a clean
calico dress and a gingham apron, and she looked strong
and fresh and handsome. Her head was intellectual,
her eyes full of power. She seemed anxious to remove
the impression of her unpleasant looks and words the
night before. Indeed it would have been hard to resist
Howard's sunny good-nature.

The baby laughed and crowed. The old mother
could not take her dim eyes off the face of her son, but
sat smiling at him as he ate and rattled on. When he
rose from the table at last, after eating heartily and
praising it all, he said, with a smile :

'' Well, now ril just telephone down to the express
and have my trunk brought up. I've got a few little
things in there you'll enjoy seeing. But this fellow,'*
indicating the baby, " I didn't take him into account.
But never mind : Uncle How. '11 make that all right."

*' You ain't going to lay it up agin Grant, be you, my
son ? " Mrs. McLane faltered, as they went out into
the best room.

" Of course not ! He didn't mean it. Now, can't
you send word down and have my trunk brought up ?
Or shall I have to walk down ? "

" I guess I'll see somebody goin' down," said Laura.

" All right. Now for the hay-field," he smiled, and
went out into the glorious morning.

The circling hills were the same, yet not the same as at
night, a cooler, tenderer, more subdued cloak of color lay
upon them. Far down the valley a cool, deep, impalpablei

Up the Coolly 91

blue mist hung, beneath which one divined the river ran,
under its elms and basswoods and wild grapevines. On
the shaven slopes of the hill cattle and sheep were feed-
ing, their cries and bells coming to the ear with a sweet
suggestiveness. There was something immemorial in
the sunny slopes dotted with red and brown and gray
cattle.

Walking toward the haymakers, Howard felt a twinge
of pain and distrust. Would Grant ignore it all and
smile —

He stopped short. He had not seen Grant smile in
so long — he couldn't quite see him smiling. He had ,/
been cold and bitter for years. When he came up to
them. Grant was pitching on ; the old man was loading,
and the boy was raking after.

'* Good-morning," Howard cried cheerily ; the old
man nodded, the boy stared. Grant growled something,
without looking up. These " finical " things of saying
good-morning and good-night are not much practised in
such homes as Grant McLane's.

" Need some help ? I'm ready to take a hand. Got
on my regimentals this morning."

Grant looked at him a moment. " You look it."

Howard smiled. " Gimme a hold on that fork, and
I'll show you. I'm not so soft as I look, now you bet."

He laid hold upon the fork in Grant's hands, who
released it sullenly and stood back sneering. Howard
stuck the fork into the pile in the old way, threw his
left hand to the end of the polished handle, brought it
down into the hollow of his thigh, and laid out his

92 Main -Travelled Roads

strength till the handle bent like a bow. "Oop she
rises ! " ' he called laughingly, as the huge pile began
slowly to rise, and finally rolled upon the high load.

" Oh, I ain't forgot how to do it," he laughed, as
he looked around at the boy, who was eyeing the
tennis suit with a devouring gaze.

Grant was studying him, too, but not in admiration.

" I shouldn't say you had," said the old man, tugging
at the forkful.

" Mighty funny to come out here and do a little of
this. But if you had to come here and do it all the
while, you wouldn't look so white and soft in the hands,"
Grant said, as they moved on to another pile. " Give
me that fork. You'll be spoiling your fine clothes."

" Oh, these don't matter. They're made for this
kind of thing."

" Oh, are they ? I guess I'll dress in that kind of a
rig. What did that shirt cost ? I need one."

" Six dollars a pair ; but then it's old."

" And them pants," he pursued ; " they cost six dollars^
too, didn't they ? "

Howard's face darkened. He saw his brother's pur-
pose. He resented it. "They cost fifteen dollars, if
you want to know, and the shoes cost six-fifty. This
ring on my cravat cost sixty dollars, and the suit I had
on last night cost eighty-five. My suits are made by
Breckstern, on Fifth Avenue, if you want to patronize
him," he ended brutally, spurred on by the sneer in his
brother's eyes. "I'll introduce you."

" Good idea," said Grant, with a forced, mocking smile.

Up the Coolly 93

" I need just such a get-up for haying and corn-ploughing.
Singular I never thought of it. Now my pants cost
eighty-five cents, s'spenders fifteen, hat twenty, shoes
one-fifty ; stockin's I don't bother about."

He had his brother at a disadvantage, and he grew
fluent and caustic as he went on, almost changing
places with Howard, who took the rake out of the boy's
hand, and followed, raking up the scatterings.

" Singular we fellers here are discontented and mulish,
ain't it? Singular we don't believe your letters when
you write, sayin', ' I just about make a live of it ' ?
Singular we think the country's goin' to hell, we fellers,
in a two-dollar suit, wadin' around in the mud or
sweatin' around in the hay-field, while you fellers lay
around New York and smoke and wear good clothes
and toady to millionaires ? "

Howard threw down the rake and folded his arms.
" My God ! you're enough to make a man forget the
same mother bore us ! "

" I guess it wouldn't take much to make you forget
that. You ain't put much thought on me nor her for
ten years."

The old man cackled, the boy grinned, and Howard,
sick and weak with anger and sorrow, turned away and
walked down toward the brook. He had tried once

»

more to get near his brother, and had failed. Oh, God ! j
how miserably, pitiably ! The hot blood gushed all i
over him as he thought of the shame and disgrace of it.
He, a man associating with poets, artists, sought after
by brilliant women, accustomed to deference even from

94 Main -Travelled Roads

such people, to be sneered at, outfaced, shamed, shoved
aside, by a man in a stained hickory shirt and patched
overalls, and that man his brother ! He lay down on
the bright grass, with the sheep all around him, and
writhed and groaned with the agony and despair of it.

And worst of all, underneath it was a consciousness
that Grant was right in distrusting him. He had neg-
lected him; he hadsziA^ " I guess they're getting along
all right." He had put them behind him when the
invitation to spend summer on the Mediterranean or in
the Adirondacks, came.

'' What can I do ? What can I do ? " he groaned.

The sheep nibbled the grass near him, the jays called
pertly, "Shame, shame," a quail piped somewhere on
the hillside, and the brook sung a soft, soothing melody
that took away at last the sharp edge of his pain, and
he sat up and gazed down the valley, bright with the
sun and apparently filled with happy and prosperous
people.

Suddenly a thought seized him. He stood up so
suddenly that the sheep fled in affright. He leaped the
brook, crossed the flat, and began searching in the
bushes on the hillside. " Hurrah ! " he said, with a
smile.

He had found an old road which he used to travel
when a boy — a road that skirted the edge of the valley,
now grown up to brush, but still passable for footmen.
As he ran lightly along down the beautiful path, under
oaks and hickories, past masses of poison-ivy, under
hanging grapevines, through clumps of splendid hazel-

Up the Coofly 95

nut bushes loaded with great sticky, rough, green burs,
his heart threw off part of its load.

How it all came back to him ! How many days,
when the autumn sun burned the frost of the bushes,
had he gathered hazel-nuts here with his boy and girl
friends — Hugh and Shelley McTurg, Rome Sawyer,
Orrin Mcllvaine, and the rest ! What had become of
them all ? How he had forgotten them !

This thought stopped him again, and he fell into a
deep muse, leaning against an oak tree, and gazing into
the vast fleckless space above. The thrilling, inscruta-
ble mystery of life fell upon him like a blinding light.
Why was he living in the crush and thunder and mental
unrest of a great city, while his companions, seemingly
his equals in powers, were milking cows, making but-
ter, and growing corn and wheat in the silence and
drear monotony of the farm ?

His boyish sweethearts ! their names came back to
his ear now, with a dull, sweet sound as of faint bells.
He saw their faces, their pink sunbonnets tipped back
upon their necks, their brown ankles flying with the
swift action of the scurrying partridge. His eyes soft-
ened, he took off his hat. The sound of the wind and
the leaves moved him almost to tears.

A woodpecker gave a shrill, high-keyed, sustained
cry " Ki, ki, ki ! " and he started from his revery,
the dapples of the sun and shade falling upon his lithe
figure as he hurried on down the path.

He came at last to a field of corn that ran to the very
w^ill of a large weather-beaten house, the sight of which

96 Main -Travelled Roads

made his breathing quicker. It was the place where he
was born. The mystery of his life began there. In
the branches of those poplar and hickory trees he had
swung and sung in the rushing breeze, fearless as a
squirrel. Here was the brook where, like a larger
kildee, he with Grant had waded after crawfish, or had
stolen upon some wary trout, rough-cut pole in hand.

Seeing someone in the garden, he went down along
the corn-row through the rustling ranks of green leaves.
An old woman was picking berries, a squat and shape-
less figure.

" Good-morning," he called cheerily.

" Morgen," she said, looking up at him with a
startled and very red face. She was German in every
line of her body.

" Ich bin Herr McLane," he said, after a pause.

" So ? " she replied, with a questioning inflection.

" Yah ; ich bin Herr Grant's Bruder."

" Ach, so ! " she said, with a downward inflection.
" Ich no spick Inglish. No spick Inglis."

" Ich bin durstig," he said. Leaving her pans, she
went with him to the house, which was what he really
wanted to see.

" Ich bin hier geboren."

" Ach, so ! " She recognized the little bit of senti-
ment, and said some sentences in German whose gen-
eral meaning was sympathy. She took him to the cool
cellar where the spring had been trained to run into a
tank containing pans of cream and milk ; she gave him
a cool draught from a large tin cup, and at his request

Up the Coolly 97

went with him upstairs. The house was the same, but
somehow seemed cold and empty. It was clean and
sweet, but it showed so little evidence of being lived in.
The old part, which was built of logs, was used as best
room, and modelled after the best rooms of the neigh-
boring " Yankee " homes, only it was emptier, without the
cabinet organ and the rag-carpet and the chromos.

The old fireplace was bricked up and plastered — the
fireplace beside which, in the far-off days, he had lain on
winter nights, to hear his uncles tell tales of hunting, or
to hear them play the violin, great dreaming giants that
they were.

The old woman went out and left him sitting there,
the centre of a swarm of memories, coming and going
like so many ghostly birds and butterflies.

A curious heartache and listlessness, a nerveless mood
came on him. What was it worth, anyhow — success ?
Struggle, strife, trampling on some one else. His play
crowding out some other poor fellow's hope. The hawk
eats the partridge, the partridge eats the flies and bugs,
the bugs eat each other and the hawk, when he in his
turn is shot by man. So in the world of business, the
life of one man seemed to him to be drawn from the
life of another man, each success to spring from other
failures.

He was like a man from whom all motives had been
withdrawn. He was sick, sick to the heart. Oh, to be
a boy again ! An ignorant baby, pleased with a block
and string, with no knowledge and no care of the great
unknown ! To lay his head again on his mother's

- • -v-

« m * " *
«« <* * *

98 Main -Travelled Roads

bosom and rest! To watch the flames on the
hearth ! —

Why not ? Was not that the very thing to do ? To
buy back the old farm ? It would cripple him a little
for the next season, but he could do it. Think of it !
To see his mother back in the old home, with the fire-
place restored, the old furniture in the sitting room
around her, and fine new things in the parlor !

His spirits rose again. Grant couldn't stand out
when he brought to him a deed of the farm. Surely
his debt would be cancelled when he had seen them all
back in the wide old kitchen. He began to plan and to
dream. He went to the windows, and looked out on
the yard to see how much it had changed.

He'd build a new barn and buy them a new carriage.
His heart glowed again, and his lips softened into their
usual feminine grace — lips a little full and falling easily
into curves.

The old German woman came in at length, bringing
some cakes and a bowl of milk, smiling broadly and hos-
pitably as she waddled forward.

" Ach ! Goot ! " Sie said, smacking his lips over the
pleasant draught.

"Wo ist ihre goot mann?" he inquired, ready for
business.

Ill

When Grant came in at noon Mrs. McLane met
him at the door with a tender smile on her face.
" Where's Howard, Grant ? "

Up the Coolly 99

*' I don't know," he replied, in a tone that implied *' I
don't care."

The dim eyes clouded with quick tears.

" Ain't you seen him ? "

" Not since nine o'clock."

" Where do you think he is ? "

*' I tell yeh I don't know. He'll take care of him-
self; don't worry."

He flung off his hat and plunged into the wash-basin.
His shirt was wet with sweat and covered with dust of
the hay and fragments of leaves. He splashed his burn-
ing face with the water, paying no further attention to
his mother. She spoke again, very gently, in reproof :

" Grant, why do you stand out against Howard so ? "

" I don't stand out against him," he replied harshly,
pausing with the towel in his hands. His eyes were
hard and piercing. " But if he expects me to gush over
his coming back, he's fooled, that's all. He's left us to
paddle our own canoe all this while, and, 90 far as Pm
concerned, he can leave us alone hereafter. He looked
out for his precious hide mighty well, and now he comes
back here to play big gun and pat us on the head. I
don't propose to let him come that over me.'*

Mrs. McLane knew too well the temper of her son to
say any more, but she inquired about Howard of the old
hired man.

" He went off down the valley. He 'n' Grant had
s'm words^ and he pulled out down toward the old farm.
That's the last I see of *im."

Laura took Howard's part at the table. '* Pitf jou

J J

J J J

lOO Main -Travelled Roads

can't be decent," she said, brutally direct as usual.
"You treat Howard as if he was a — a — I do' know
what."

"Will you let me alone?"

" No, I won't. If you think I'm going to set by an'
agree to your bullyraggin' him, you're mistaken. It's a
shame ! You're mad 'cause he's succeeded and you
hain't. He ain't to blame for his brains. If you and
Vd had any, we'd 'a' succeeded too. It ain't our fault,
and it ain't his ; so what's the use ? "

A look came into Grant's face which the wife knew
meant bitter and terrible silence. He ate his dinner
without another word.

It was beginning to cloud up. A thin, whitish, all-
pervasive vapor which meant rain was dimming the sky,
and Grant forced his hands to their utmost during the
afternoon, in order to get most of the down hay in before
the rain came. He was pitching from the load into the
barn when Howard came by, just before one o'clock.

It was windless there. The sun fell through the
white mist with undiminished fury, and the fragrant hay
sent up a breath that was hot as an oven-draught.
Grant was a powerful man, and there was something
majestic in his action as he rolled the huge flakes of hay
through the door. The sweat poured from his face like
rain, and he was forced to draw his drenched sleeve
across his face to clear away the blinding sweat that
poured into his eyes.

Howard stood and looked at him in silence, remem-
bering how often he had worked there in that furnace-

Up the Coolly loi

heat, his muscles quivering, cold chills running over his
flesh, red shadows dancing before his eyes.

His mother met him at the door, anxiously, but smiled
as she saw his pleasant face and cheerful eyes.

'' You're a little late, m' son."

Howard spent most of the afternoon sitting with his
mother on the porch, or under the trees, lying sprawled
out like a boy, resting at times with sweet forgetfulness
of the whole world, but feeling a dull pain whenever he
remembered the stern, silent man pitching hay in the hot
sun on the torrid side of the barn.

His mother did not say anything about the quarrel;
she feared to reopen it. She talked mainly of old times
in a gentle monotone of reminiscence, while he listened,
looking up into her patient face.

The heat slowly lessened as the sun sank down toward
the dun clouds rising like a more distant and majestic
line of mountains beyond the western hills. The sound
of cow-bells came irregularly to the ear, and the voices
and sounds of the haying-fields had a jocund, pleasant
sound to the ear of the city-dweller.

He was very tender. Everything conspired to make
him simple, direct, and honest.

" Mother, if you'll only forgive me for staying away
so long, I'll surely come to see you every summer.'*

She had nothing to forgive. She was so glad to have him
there at her feet — her great, handsome, successful boy !
She could only love him and enjoy him every moment
of the precious days. If Grant would only reconcile him-
self to Howard ! That was the great thorn in her flesh.

I02 Main -Travelled Roads

Howard told her how he had succeeded.

^ It was luck, mother. First I met Cook, and he uv
troduced me to Jake Saulsman of Chicago. Jake asked
me to go to New York with him, and — I don't know
why — took a fancy to me some way. He introduced
me to a lot of the fellows in New York, and they all
helped me along. I did nothing to merit it. Everybody
helps me. Anybody can succeed in that way."

The doting mother thought it not at all strange that
they all helped him.

At the supper table Grant was gloomily silent, ignor-
ing Howard completely. Mrs. McLane sat and grieved
silently, not daring to say a word in protest. Laura
and the baby tried to amuse Howard, and under cover
of their talk the meal was eaten.

The boy fascinated Howard. He "sawed wood"
with a rapidity and uninterruptedness which gave alarm.
He had the air of coaling up for a long voyage.

" At that age," Howard thought, " I must have gripped
my knife in my right hand so, and poured my tea into
my saucer so. I must have buttered and bit into a huge
slice of bread just so, and chewed at it with a smacking
sound in just that way. I must have gone to the length
of scooping up honey with my knife-blade."

The sky was magically beautiful over all this
squalor and toil and bitterness, from five till seven — a
moving hour. Again the falling sun streamed in broad
banners across the valleys ; again the blue mist lay far
down the Coolly over the river; the cattle called from
the hills in the moistening, sonorous air i the b^Hs came

Up the Coolly 103

in a pleasant tangle of sound ; the air pulsed with the
deepening chorus of katydids and other nocturnal
singers.

Sweet and deep as the very springs of his life was all
this to the soul of the elder brother ; but in the midst
of it, the younger man, in ill-smelling clothes and great
boots that chafed his feet, went out to milk the cows, —
on whose legs the (lies and mosquitoes swarmed, bloated
with blood, — to sit by the hot side of a cow and be
lashed with her tail as she tried frantically to keep the
savage insects from eating her raw.

" The poet who writes of milking the cows does it
from the hammock, looking on," Howard soliloquized, as
he watched the old man Lewis racing around the filthy
yard after one of the young heifers that had kicked over
the pail in her agony with the flies, and was unwilling to
stand still and be eaten alive.

" So, so ! you beast ! ** roared the old man, as he
finally cornered the shrinking, nearly frantic creature.

" Don't you want to look at the garden ? " asked
Mrs. McLane of Howard; and they went out among
the vegetables and berries.

The bees were coming home heavily laden and crawl-
ing slowly into the hives. The level, red light streamed
through the trees, blazed along the grass, and lighted a
few old-fashioned flowers into red and gold flame. It
was beautiful, and Howard looked at it through his half-
shut eyes as the painters do, and turned away with a
sigh at the sound of blows where the wet and grimy
men were assailing the frantic cows*

I04 Main -Travelled Roads

" There's Wesley with your trunk/' Mrs. McLane
said, recalling him to himself.

Wesley helped him carry the trunk in, and waved off
thanks.

'^ Oh, that's all right," he said ; and Howard knew
the Western man too well to press the matter of pay.

As he went in an hour later and stood by the trunk,
the dull ache came back to his heart. How he had
failed ! It seemed like a bitter mockery now to show
his gifts.

Grant had come in from his work, and with his feet
released from his chafing boots, in his wet shirt and
milk-spIashed overalls, sat at the kitchen table reading a
newspaper which he held close to a small kerosene lamp.
He paid no attention to any one. His attitude, curiously
like his father's, was perfectly definite to Howard. It
meant that from that time forward there were to be no
words of any sort between them. It meant that they
were no longer brothers, not even acquaintances. " How
inexorable that face ! " thought Howard.

He turned sick with disgust and despair, and would
have closed his trunk without showing any of the
presents, only for the childish expectancy of his mother
and Laura.

" Here's something for you, mother," he said, assum-
ing a cheerful voice, as he took a fold of fine silk from
the trunk and held it up. " All the way from Paris.'*
He laid it on his mother's lap and stooped and kissed
her, and then turned hastily away to hide the tears that
tame to his own eyes as he saw her keen pleasure.

N

Up the Coolly 165

" And here's a parasol for Laura. I don't know how
1 came to have that in here. And here's General
Grant's autobiography for his namesake," he said, with
an effort at carelessness, and waited to hear Grant
rise.

" Grant, won't you come in ? " asked his mother,
quaveringly.

Grant did not reply nor move. Laura took the
handsome volumes out and laid them beside him on the
table. He simply pushed them one side and went on
with his reading.

Again that horrible anger swept hot as flame over
Howard. He could have cursed him. His hands
shook as he handed out other presents to his mother and
Laura and the baby. He tried to joke.

" I didn't know how old the baby was, so she'll have
to grow to some of these things."

But the pleasure was all gone for him and for the
rest. His heart swelled almost to a '"feeling of pain as
he looked at his mother. There she sat with the
presents in her lap. The shining silk came too late for
her. It threw into appalling relief her age, her poverty,
her work-weary frame. " My God ! " he almost cried
aloud, " how little* it would have taken to lighten her
life!"

Upon this moment, when it seemed as if he could
endure no more, came the smooth voice of William
McTurg:

" Hello, folkses ! "

" Hello, Uncle Bill ! Come in."

io6 Main -Travelled Roads

*' That's what we came for," laughed a woman's
voice.

" Is that you, Rose ? " asked Laura.

"It's me — Rose," replied the laughing girl, as she
bounced into the room and greeted everybody in a
breathless sort of way.

" You don't mean little Rosy ? "

" Big Rosy now," said William.

Howard looked at the handsome girl and smiled,
saying in a nasal sort of tone, " Wal, wal ! Rosy, how
you've growed since I saw yeh ! "

" Oh, look at all this purple and fine linen ! Am I
left out ? "

Rose was a large girl of twenty-five or thereabouts,
and was called an old maid. She radiated good-nature
from every line of her buxom self. Her black eyes
were full of drollery, and she was on the best of terms
with Howard at once. She had been a teacher, but
that did not prevent her from assuming a homely direct-
ness of speech. Of course they talked about old
friends.

" Where's Rachel ? " Howard inquired. Her smile
faded away.

" Shellie married Orrin Mcllvaine. They're *way out
in Dakota. Shellie's havin' a hard row of stumps."

There was a little silence.

" And Tommy ? "

" Gone West. Most all the boys have gone West
That's the reason there's so many old maids."

** You don't mean to say ^ "

Up the Coolly 107

"I don't need to say — rm an old maid. Lots of
the girls are. It don't pay to marry these days. Are
you married ? '*

'* Not yet^* His eyes lighted up again in a humorous
way.

" Not yet ! That's good ! That's the way old maids
all talk."

''You don't mean to tell me that no young fellow
comes prowling around — " \

" Oh, a young Dutchman or Norwegian once in a
while. Nobody that counts. Fact is, we're getting like \ f-"
Boston — four women to one man ; and when you con-
sider that we're getting more particular each year, the
outlook is — well, it's dreadful ! "

" It certainly is."

" Marriage is a failure these days for most of us.
We can't live on a farm, and can't get a living in the
city, and there we are." She laid her hand on his arm.
'' I declare, Howard, you're the same boy you used to
be. I ain't a bit afraid of you, for all your success."

" And you're the same girl ? No, I can't say that.
It seems to me you've grown more than I have — I
don't mean physically, I mean mentally,'* he explained,
as he saw her smile in the defensive way a fleshy girl
has, alert to ward off a joke.

They were in the midst of talk, Howard telling one
of his funny stories, when a wagon clattered up to
the door, and merry voices called loudly:

" Whoa, there, Sampson !

" Hullo, the house !

iOIl I "

9>

io8 Main -Travelled Roads

Rose looked at her father with a smile in her black
eyes exactly like his. They went to the door.

" Hullo ! What's wanted ? "

" Grant McLane live here ? "

*' Yup. Right here."

A moment later there came a laughing, chattering
squad of women to the door. Mrs. McLane and Laura
stared at each other in amazement. Grant went out-
doors.

Rose stood at the door as if she were hostess.

"Come in, Nettie. Glad to see yeh — glad to see
yeh ! Mrs. Mcllvaine, come right in ! Take a seat.
Make yerself to home, do ! And Mrs. Peavey ! Wal,
I never ! This must be a surprise party. Wal, I
swan ! How many more o' ye air they ? "

All was confusion, merriment, hand-shakings as Rose
introduced them in her roguish way.

" Folks, this is Mr. Howard McLane of New York.
He's an actor, but it hain't spoiled him a bit as / can
see. How., this is Nettie Mcllvaine — Wilson that

was."

Howard shook hands with Nettie, a tall, plain girl
with prominent teeth.

" This is Ma Mcllvaine."

"She looks just the same," said Howard, shaking
her hand and feeling how hard and work-worn it
was.

And so amid bustle, chatter, and invitations "to lay
off y'r things an' stay awhile," the women got disposed
about the room at last. Those that had rocking-chairs

Up the Coolly 109

rocked vigorously to and fro to hide their embarrass-
ment. They all talked in loud voices.

Howard felt nervous under this furtive scrutiny. He
wished that his clothes didn't look so confoundedly
dressy. Why didn't he have sense enough to go and
buy a fifteen-dollar suit of diagonals for everyday
wear.

Rose was the life of the party. Her tongue rattled
on in the most delightful way.

"It's all Rose and Bill's doin's," Mrs. Mcllvaine
explained. " They told us to come over and pick up
anybody we see on the road. So we did."

Howard winced a little at her familiarity of tone.
He couldn't help it for the life of him.

" Well, I wanted to come to-night because I'm going
away next week, and I wanted to see how he'd act at
a surprise-party again," Rose explained.

" Married, I s'pose ? " said Mrs. Mcllvaine, abruptly.

" No, not yet."

" Good land ! Why, y' mus' be thirty-five. How.
Must 'a' dis'p'inted y'r mam not to have a young 'un
to call 'er granny."

The men came clumping in, talking about haying
and horses. Some of the older ones Howard knew
and greeted, but the younger ones were mainly too
much changed. They were all very ill at ease. Most
of them were in compromise dress — something lying
between working "rig" and Sunday dress. Some of
them had on clean shirts and paper collars, and wore
their Sunday coats (thick woollen garments) over rough

no Main -Travelled Roads

trousers. Most of them crossed their legs at once, and
all of them sought the wall and leaned back perilously
upon the hind legs of their chairs, eyeing Howard
slowly.

For the first few minutes the presents were the sub-
jects of conversation. The women especially spent a
good deal of talk upon them.

Howard found himself forced to taking the initiative,
so he inquired about the crops and about the farms.

" I see you don't plough the hills as we used to.
And reap ! What a job it used to be. It makes the
hills more beautiful to have them covered with smooth
grass and cattle."

There was only dead silence to this touching upon
the idea of beauty.

" I s'pose it pays reasonably ? "

" Not enough to kill,*' said one of the younger men.
" You c'n see that by the houses we live in — that is,
most of us. A few that came in early an' got land
cheap, like Mcllvaine, here — he got a lift that the rest
of us can't get."

" I'm a free-trader, myself," said one young fellow,
blushing and looking away as Howard turned and said
cheerily :

« So 'm I."

The rest seemed to feel that this was a tabooed sub-
ject — a subject to be talked out of doors, where a man
could prance about and yell and do justice to it.

Grant sat silently in the kitchen doorway, not saying
a word, not looking at his brother.

Up the Coolly iii

" Well, I don't never use hot vinegar for mine,"
Mrs. Mcllvaine was heard to say. "I jest use hot
w^ater, and I rinse 'em out good, and set 'em bottom-side
up in the sun. I do' know but what hot vinegar would
be more cleansin'."

Rose had the younger folks in a giggle with a droll
telling of a joke on herself.

" How d' y' stop 'em from laffin' ? "

"I let 'em laugh. Oh, my school is a disgrace —
so one director says. But I like to see children laugh.
It broadens their cheeks."

"Yes, that's all hand-work." Laura was showing
the baby's Sunday clothes.

" Goodness Peter ! How do you find time to do so
much ? "

" I take time."

Howard, being the lion of the evening, tried his best
to be agreeable. IJe kept near his mother, because it
afforded her so much pride and satisfaction, and because
he was obliged to keep away from Grant, who had
begun to talk to the men. Howard talked mainly about
their affairs, but still was forced more and more into
telling of his life in the city. As he told of the theatre
and the concerts, a sudden change fell upon them ; they
grew sober, and he felt deep down in the hearts of these
people a melancholy which was expressed only illusively
with little tones or sighs. Their gayety was fitful.

They were hungry for the world, for life — these
young people. Discontented, and yet hardly daring to *^
acknowledge it 5 indeed, fe\y pf tbem could have made

i

112 Main -Travelled Roads

definite statement of their dissatisfaction. The oldei
people felt it less. They practically said, with a sigh of
pathetic resignation :

" Well, I don't expect ever to see these things nrnv^

A casual observer would have said, " What a pleasant
bucolic — this little surprise-party of welcome ! " But
Howard, with his native ear and eye, had no such pleas-
ing illusion. He knew too well these suggestions of
despair and bitterness. He knew that, like the smile of
the slave, this cheerfulness was self-defence ; deep down
was another unsatisfied ego.

Seeing Grant talking with a group of men over by the
kitchen door, he crossed over slowly and stood listening.
Wesley Cosgrove — a tall, raw-boned young fellow with
a grave, almost tragic face — was saying :

" Of course I ain't. Who is ? A man that's satis-
fied to live as we do is a fool."

"The worst of it is," said Grant, without seeing
Howard, " a man can't get out of it during his lifetime,
and / don't know that he'll have any chance in the
next — the speculator '11 be there ahead of us."

The rest laughed, but Grant went on grimly :

" Ten years ago Wess, here, could have got land in
Dakota pretty easy, but now it's about all a feller's life's
worth to try it. I tell you things seem shuttin' down on
us fellers."

" Plenty o' laod to rent," suggested some one.

" Yes, in terms that skin a man alive. More than
that, farmin' ain't so free a life as it used to be. This
cattle-raisin' and butter-makin' makes a nigger of a man.

Up the Coolly 113

Binds him right down to the grindstone and he gets
nothin' out of it — that's what rubs it in. He simply
wallers around in the manure for somebody else. I'd y
like to know what a man's life is worth who lives
as we do ? How much higher is it than the lives the
niggers used to live ? "

These brutally bald words made Howard thrill with
emotion like the reading of some great tragic poem. A
silence fell on the group.

"That's the God's truth, Grant," said young Cos-
grove, after a pause.

''A man like me is helpless," Grant was saying.
^^Just like a fly in a pan of molasses. There's no
escape for him. The more he tears around the more
liable he is to rip his legs ofF."

" What can he do ? "

" Nothin'."

The men listened in silence.

" Oh, come, don't talk politics all night ! " cried Rose,
breaking in. "Come, let's have a dance. Where's
that fiddle ? "

" Fiddle ! " cried Howard, glad of a chance to laugh.
" Well, now ! Bring out that fiddle. Is it William's ? "

"Yes, pap's old fiddle."

" O Gosh ! he don't want to hear me play," protested
William. " He's heard s' many fiddlers."

" Fiddlers ! I've heard a thousand violinists, but not
fiddlers. Come, give us ' Honest John.' "

William took the fiddle in his work-calloused and
crooked hands and began tuning it. The group at the
I

114 Main -Travelled Roads

kitchen door turned to listen, their faces lighting up a
little. Rose tried to get a " set " on the floor.

" Oh, good land ! " said some. " We're all tuckered
out. What makes you so anxious ? "

" She wants a chance to dance with the New Yorker."

" That's it, exactly," Rose admitted.

'* Wal, if you'd churned and mopped and cooked for
hayin' hands as I have to-day, you wouldn't be so full
o' nonsense."

" Oh, bother ! Life's short. Come, quick, get Bettie
out. Come, Wess, never mind your hobby-horse."

By incredible exertion she got a set on the floor, and
William got the fiddle in tune. Howard looked across
at Wesley, and thought the change in him splendidly
dramatic. His face was lighted with a timid, depre-
cating, boyish smile. Rose could do anything with him.

William played some of the old tunes that had a thou-
sand associated memories in Howard's brain, memories
of harvest-moons, of melon-feasts, and of clear, cold
winter nights. As he danced, his eyes filled with a
tender light. He came closer to them all than he had
been able to do before. Grant had gone out into the
kitchen.

After two or three sets had been danced, the company
took seats and could not be stirred again. So Laura
and Rose disappeared for a few moments, and returning,
served strawberries and cream, which Laura said she
"just happened to have in the house."

And then William played again. His fingers, now
grown more supple, brought out clearer, firmer tones.

Up the Coolly 115

As he played, silence fell on these people. The magic
of music sobered every face; the women looked older
and more careworn, the men slouched sullenly in their
chairs, or leaned back against the wall.

It seemed to Howard as if the spirit of tragedy had
entered this house. Music had always been William's
unconscious expression of his unsatisfied desires. He
was never melancholy except when he played. Then
his eyes grew sombre, his drooping face full of
shadows.

He played on slowly, softly, wailing Scotch tunes and
mournful Irish love songs. He seemed to find in these
melodies, and especially in a wild, sweet, low-keyed
negro song, some expression for his indefinable inner
melancholy.

He played on, forgetful of everybody, his long beard
sweeping the violin, his toil-worn hands marvellously
obedient to his will.

At last he stopped, looked up with a faint, apologetic
smile, and said with a sigh :

" Well, folkses, time to go home."

The going was quiet. Not much laughing. Howard
stood at the door and said good-night to them all, his
heart very tender.

" Come and see us," they said.

"I will," he replied cordially. "I'll try and get
around to see everybody, and talk over old times, before
I go back."

After the wagons had driven out of the yard, Howard
turned and put his arm about his mother's neck.

Ii6 Main -Travelled Roads

« Tired ? "

" A little."

" Well, now good night. Pm going for a little stroll.**

His brain was too active to sleep. He kissed his
Mother good-night, and went out into the road, his hat
in his hand, the cool moist wind on his hair.

It was very dark, the stars being partly hidden by a
thin vapor. On each side the hills rose, every line
familiar as the face of an old friend. A whippoorwill
called occasionally from the hillside, and the spasmodic
jangle of a bell now and then told of some cow's battle
with the mosquitoes. '

As he walked, he pondered upon the tragedy he had
rediscovered in these people's lives. Out here under
the inexorable spaces of the sky, a deep distaste of his
own life took possession of him. He felt like giving it
all up. He thought of the infinite tragedy of these
lives which the world loves to call peaceful and pastoral.
His mind went out in the aim to help them. What
could he do to make life better worth living ? Nothing.

They must live and die practically as he saw them
to-night.

And yet he knew this was a mood, and that in a few
hours the love and the habit of life would come back
upon him and upon them ; that he would go back to
the city in a few days ; that these people would live on
and make the best of it.

" /'// make the best of it," he said at last, and his
thought came back to his mother and Grant,

Up the Coolly 117

IV

The next day was a rainy day ; not a shower, but a
steady rain — an unusual thing in midsummer in the
West. A cold, dismal day in the fireless, colorless
farmhouses. It came to Howard in that peculiar
reaction which surely comes during a visit of this
character, when thought is a weariness, when the visitor
longs for his own familiar walls and pictures and books,
and longs to meet his friends, feeling at the same time
the tragedy of life which makes friends nearer and more
congenial than blood-relations.

Howard ate his breakfast alone, save Baby and Laura
its mother going about the room. Baby and mother
alike insisted on feeding him to death. Already dyspep-
tic pangs were setting in.

'' Now ain't there something more I can — "

" Good heavens ! No ! " he cried in dismay. " Pm
likely to die of dyspepsia now. This honey and milk,
and these delicious hot biscuits — "

** I'm afraid it ain't much like the breakfasts you have
in the city."

" Well, no, it ain't," he confessed. " But this is
the kind a man needs when he lives in the open air,"

She sat down opposite him, with her elbows on
the table, her chin in her palm, her eyes full of
shadows.

*' I'd like to go to a city once. I never saw a town
biggci^n La Crosse, I've never seen a play, but I've

ii8 Main -Travelled Roads

read of 'em in the magazines. It must be wonderful ;
they say they have wharves and real ships coming up to
the wharf, and people getting off and on. How do they
do it ? "

"Oh, that's too long a story to tell. It's a lot of
machinery and paint and canvas. If I told you how it
was done, you wouldn't enjoy it so well when you come
on and see it."

" Do you ever expect to see me in New York ? "

" Why, yes. Why not ? I expect Grant to come
on and bring you all some day, especially Tonikins here.
Tonikins, you hear, sir ? I expect you to come on you'
forf birfday, sure." He tried thus to stop the woman's
gloomy confidence.

" I hate farm-life," she went on with a bitter inflec-
tion. " It's nothing but fret, fret, and work the whole
time, never going any place, never seeing anybody but a
lot of neighbors just as big fools as you are. I spend
my time fighting flies and washing dishes and churning.
I'm sick of it all."

Howard was silent. What could he say to such an
indictment ? The ceiling swarmed with flies which the
cold rain had driven to seek the warmth of the kitchen.
The gray rain was falling with a dreary sound outside,
and down the kitchen stove-pipe an occasional drop fell
on the stove with a hissing, angry sound.

The young wife went on with a deeper note :

"I lived in La Crosse two years, going to school,
and I know a little something of what city life is. If
I was a man, I bet I wouldn't wear my life out on a

Up the Coolly 119

farm, as Grant does. I'd get away and I'd do some-
thing. I wouldn't care what, but I'd get away."

There was a certain volcanic energy back of all the
woman said, that made Howard feel she would make
the attempt. She did not know that the struggle for a
place to stand on this planet was eating the heart and
soul out of men and women in the city, just as in the
country. But he could say nothing. If he had said in
conventional phrase, sitting there in his soft clothing,
" We must make the best of it all," the woman could
justly have thrown the dish-cloth in his face. He could
say nothing.

" I was a fool for ever marrying," she went on, while
the baby pushed a chair across the room. " I made a
decent living teaching, I was free to come and go, my
money was my own. Now I'm tied right down to a
churn or a dish-pan, I never have a cent of my own.
He^s growlin' 'round half the time, and there's no chance
of his ever being different."

She stopped with a bitter sob in her throat. She
forgot she was talking to her husband's brother. She
was conscious only of his sympathy.

As if a great black cloud had settled down upon him,
Howard felt it all — the horror, hopelessness, imminent
tragedy of it all. The glory of nature, the bounty and
splendor of the sky, only made it the more benumbing.
He thought of a sentence Millet once wrote :

'' I see very well the aureole of the dandelions, and
the sun also, far down there behind the hills, flinging his
glory upon the clouds. But not alone that — I see in

I20 Main -Travelled Roads

the plains the smoke of the tired horses at the plough,
or, on a stony-hearted spot of ground, a back-broken
man trying to raise himself upright for a moment to
breathe. The tragedy is surrounded by glories — that
is no invention of mine."

Howard arose abruptly and went back to his little
bedroom, where he walked up and down the floor till he
was calm enough to write, and then he sat down and
poured it all out to "Dearest Margaret," and his first,
sentence was this :

" If it were not for you (just to let you know the
mood I'm in) — if it were not for you, and I had the
world in my hands, I'd crush it like a pufF-ball ; evil so
predominates, suffering is so universal and persistent,
happiness so fleeting and so infrequent."

He wrote on for two hours, and by the time he had
sealed and directed several letters he felt calmer, but
still terribly depressed. The rain was still falling,
sweeping down from the half-seen hills, wreathing the
wooded peaks with a gray garment of mist, and filling
the valley with a whitish cloud.

It fell around the house drearily. It ran down into
the tubs placed to catch it, dripped from the mossy
pump, and drummed on the upturned milk-pails, and
upon the brown and yellow beehives under the maple
trees. The chickens seemed depressed, but the irrepress-
ible bluejay screamed amid it all, with the same insolent
spirit, his plumage untarnished by the wet. The barn-
yard showed a horrible mixture of mud and mire,
through which Howard caught glimpses of the men,

Up the Coolly 121

slumping to and fro without more additional protection
than a ragged coat and a shapeless felt hat.

In the sitting room where his mother sat sewing there
was not an ornament, save the etching he had brought.
The clock stood on a small shelf, its dial so much
defaced that one could not tell the time of day; and
when it struck, it was with noticeably disproportionate
deliberation, as if it wished to correct any mistake into
which the family might have fallen by reason of its
illegible dial.

The paper on the walls showed the first concession
of the Puritans to the Spirit of Beauty, and was made
up of a heterogeneous mixture of flowers of unheard-of
shapes and colors, arranged in four different ways along
the wall. There were no books, no music, and only a
few newspapers in sight — a bare, blank, cold, drab-
colored shelter from the rain, not a home. Nothing
cosey, nothing heart-warming ; a grim and horrible shed.

" What are they doing ? It can't be they're at work
such a day as this," Howard said, standing at the window.

"They find plenty to do, even on rainy days," an-
swered his mother. " Grant always has some job to
set the men at. It's the only way to live."

" I'll go out and see them." He turned suddenly.
" Mother, why should Grant treat me so f Have I
deserved it ? "

Mrs. McLane sighed in pathetic hopelessness. "I
don't know, Howard. I'm worried about Grant. He
gets more an' more down-hearted an' gloomy every
day. Seems if he'd go crazy. He don't care how he

122 Main -Travelled Roads

looks any more, won't dress up on Sunday. Days an
days he'll go aroun' not sayin' a word. I was in hopes
you could help him, Howard."

^^ My coming seems to have had an opposite eiFect«
He hasn't spoken a word to me, except when he had
to, since I came. Mother, what do you say to going
nome with me to New York ? "

*' Oh, I couldn't do that ! " she cried in terror. " I
couldn't live in a big city — never ! "

" There speaks the truly rural mind," smiled Howard
at his mother, who was looking up at him through her
glasses with a pathetic forlornness which sobered him
again. " Why, mother, you could live in Orange, New
Jersey, or out in Connecticut, and be just as lonesome
as you are here. You wouldn't need to live in the city.
I could see you then every day or two."

" Well, I couldn't leave Grant an' the baby, anyway,"
she replied, not realizing how one could live in New
Jersey and do business daily in New York.

" Well, then, how would you like to go back into the
old house ? "

The patient hands fell to the lap, the dim eyes fixed
in searching glance on his face. There was a wistful
cry in the voice.

" Oh, Howard ! Do you mean — "

He came and sat down by her, and put his arm about
her and hugged her hard. " I mean, you dear, good^
patient, work-weary old mother, I'm going to buy back
the old farm and put you in it."

There was no refuge for her now except in tears* and

Up the Coolly 123

she put up her thin, trembling old hands about his neck,
and cried in that easy, placid, restful way age has.

Howard could not speak. His throat ached with re-
morse and pity. He saw his forgetfulness of them all
once more without relief, — the black thing it was !

"There, there, mother, don't cry!" he said, torn with
anguish by her tears. Measured by man's tearlessness,
her weeping seemed terrible to him. " I didn't realize
how things were going here. It was all my fault — or,
at least, most of it. Grant's letter didn't reach me. I
thought you were still on the old farm. But no matter;
it's all over now. Come, don't cry any more, mother
dear. I'm going to take care of you now."

It had been years since the poor, lonely woman had
felt such warmth of love. Her sons had been like her
husband, chary of expressing their affection; and like
most Puritan families, there was little of caressing among
them. Sitting there with the rain on the roof and driv-
ing through the trees, they planned getting back into the
old house. Howard's plan seemed to her full of splen--
dor and audacity. She began to understand his power
and wealth now, as he put it into concrete form before
her.

*' I wish I could eat Thanksgiving dinner there with
you." he said at last, "but it can't be thought of. How-
ever, I'll have you all in there before I go home. I'm
going out now and tell Grant. Now don't worry any
more ; I'm going to fix it all up with him, sure." He
gave her a parting hug.

Laura advised him not to attempt to get to the barn;

124 Main -Travelled Roads

but as he persisted in going, she hunted up an old rubber
coat for him. '' You'll mire down and spoil your shoes/*
she said, glancing at his neat calf gaiters.

" Darn the difference ! " he laughed in his old way.
" Besides, I've got rubbers."

'^ Better go round by the fence," she advised, as he
stepped out into the pouring rain.

How wretchedly familiar it all was ! The miry cow-
yard, with the hollow trampled out around the horse-
trough, the disconsolate hens standing under the wagons
and sheds, a pig wallowing across its sty, and for at-
mosphere the desolate, falling rain. It was so familiar
he felt a pang of the old rebellious despair which seized
him on such days in his boyhood.

Catching up courage, he stepped out on the grass,
opened the gate and entered the barn-yard. A narrow
ribbon of turf, ran around the fence, on which he could
walk by clinging with one hand to the rough boards. In
this way he slowly made his way around the periphery,
and came at last to the open barn-door without much
harm.

It was a desolate interior. In the open floor-way
Grant, seated upon a half-bushel, was mending a harness.
The old man was holding the trace in his hard brown
hands ; the boy was lying on a wisp of hay. It wr.s a
small barn, and poor at that. There was a bad smell,
as of dead rats, about it, and the rain fell through the
shingles here and there. To the right, and below, the
horses stood, looking up with their calm and beautiful
eyes, in which the whole scene was idealized.

Up the Coolly 125

Grant looked up an instant, and then went on with
his work.

" Did yeh wade through ? " grinned Lewis, exposing
his broken teeth.

"No, I kinder circumambiated the pond." He sat
down on the little tool-box near Grant. "Your barn
is a good deal like that in 'The Arkansaw Traveller.'
Needs a new roof, Grant." His voice had a pleas*
ant sound, full of the tenderness of the scene through
which he had just been. "In fact, you need a new
barn."

" I need a good many things more'n Til ever get,"
Grant replied shortly.

" How long did you say you'd been on this farm ? "

" Three years this fall."

" I don't s'pose you've been able to think of buying
— Now hold on. Grant," he cried, as Grant threw his
head back. " For God's sake, don't get mad again !
Wait till you see what I'm driving at."

" I don't see what you're drivin' at, and I don't care.
All I want you to do is to let us alone. That ought to
be easy enough for you."

" I tell you, I didn't get your letter. I didn't know
you'd lost the old farm." Howard was determined not
to quarrel. " I didn't suppose — "

" You might 'a' come to see."

" Well, I'll admit that. All I can say in excuse is
that since I got to managing plays I've kept looking
ahead to making a big hit and getting a barrel of nioney
— just as the old miners used to hope and watch. Be-

126 Main -Travelled Roads

sides, you don't understand how much pressure there is
on me. A hundred diiFerent people pulling and hauling
to have me go here or go there, or do this or do that.
When it isn't yachting, it's canoeing, or — "

He stopped. His heart gave a painful tnrob, and a
shiver ran through him. Again he saw his life, so rich,
so bright, so free, set over against the routine life in the
little low kitchen, the barren sitting room, and this still
more horrible barn. Why should his brother sit there
in wet and grimy clothing, mending a broken trace,
while he enjoyed all the light and civilization of the age ?

He looked at Grant's fine figure, his great, strong
face; recalled his deep, stern, masterful voice. "Am
I so much superior to him ? Flave not circumstances
made me and destroyed him ? "

" Grant, for God's sake, don't sit there like that !
I'll admit I've been negligent and careless. I can't
understand it all myself. But let me do something for
you now. I've sent to New York for five thousand
dollars. I've got terms on the old farm. Let me see
you all back there once more before I return.'*

" I don't want any of your charity.*'

"It ain't charity. It's only justice to you.** He
rose. " Come, now, let's get at an understanding.
Grant. I can't go on this way. I can't go back to
New York and leave you here like this."

Grant rose too. "I tell you, I don't ask your help.
You can't fix this thing up with money. If you've got
more brains'n I have, why, it's all right. I ain't got
any right to take anything that I don't earn.**

Up the Coolly 127

** But you don't get what you do earn. It ain't your
fault. I begin to see it now. Being the oldest, I had
the best chance. I was going to town to school while
you were ploughing and husking corn. Of course I
thought you'd be going soon yourself. I had three years
the start of you. If you'd been in my place, you might
have met a man like Cook, you might have gone to New
York and have been where I am."

" Well, it can't be helped now. So drop it."

" But it must be helped!" Howard said, pacing about,
his hands in his coat-pockets. Grant had stopped work,
and was gloomily looking out of the door at a pig nosing
in the mud for stray grains of wheat at the granary
door. The old man and the boy quietly withdrew.

" Good God ! I see it all now," Howard burst out
in an impassioned tone. ^^ I went ahead with my educa-
tion, got my start in life, then father died, and you took
up his burdens. Circumstances made me and crushed
you. That's all there is about that. Luck made me
and cheated you. It ain't right."

His voice faltered. Both men were now oblivious
of their companions and of the scene. Both were think-
ing of the days when they both planned great things in
the way of education, two ambitious, dreamful boys.

" I used to think of you. Grant, when I pulled out
Monday morning in my best suit — cost fifteen dollars
in those days." He smiled a little at the recollection.
"While you in overalls and an old 'wammus' were
going out into the field to plough, or husk corn in the
mud. It made me feel uneasy, but, as I said, I kept

fi8 Main -Travelled Roads

saying to myself, * His turn'll come in a year or two/
But it didn't."

His voice choked. He walked to the door, stood a
moment, came back. His eyes were full of tears.

" I tell you, old man, many a time in my boarding-
house down to the city, when I thought of the jolly
times I was having, my heart hurt me. But I said,
' It's no use to cry. Better go on and do the best you
can, and then help them afterward. There'll only be
one more miserable member of the family if you stay at
home.' Besides, it seemed right to me to have first
chance. But I never thought you'd be shut off. Grant.
If I had, I never would have gone on. Come, old man,
[ want you to believe that." His voice was very tendei
now and almost humble.

" I don't know as I blame you for that. How.," said
Grant, slowly. It was the first time he had called How-
ard by his boyish nickname. His voice was softer, too,
and higher in key. But he looked steadily away.

" I went to New York. People liked my work. I
was very successful. Grant ; more successful than you
realize. I could have helped you at any time. There's
no use lying about it. And I ought to have done it j
but some way — it's no excuse, I don't mean it for an
excuse, only an explanation — some way I got in with
the boys. I don't mean I was a drinker and all that.
But I bought pictures and kept a horse and a yacht, and
of course I had to pay my share of all expeditions, and
— oh, what's the use ! "

He broke off, turned, and threw his open palms out

Up the Coolly 129

toward his brother, as if throwing aside the last attempt
at an excuse.

'' I did neglect you, and it's a damned shame ! and
I ask your forgiveness. Come, old man ! "

He held out his hand, and Grant slowly approached
and fook it. There was a little silence. Then How-
ard went on, his voice trembling, the tears on his face.

'^ I want you to let me help you, old man. That's
the way to forgive me. Will you ? "

" Yes, if you can help me."

Howard squeezed his hand. " That's all right, old
man. Now you make me a boy again. Course I can
help you. I've got ten — "

" I don't mean that. How." Grant's voice was very
grave. " Money can't give me a chance now."

" What do you mean ? '•

'' I mean life ain't worth very much to me. I'm too
old to take a new start. I'm a dead failure. I've come
to the conclusion that life's a failure for ninety-nine per
cent of us. You can't help me now. It's too late."

The two men stood there, face to face, hands clasped,
the one fair-skinned, full-lipped, handsome in his neat
suit ; the other tragic, sombre in his softened mood, his
large, long^rugged Scotch face bronzed with sun and
scarred with wrinkles that had histories, like sabre-cuts
on a veteran, the record of his battles.

AMONG THE CORN-ROWS

*'But the road sometimes passes a rich
meadow, where the songs of larks and
bobolinks and blackbirds are tangled^*

I

AMONG THE CORN-ROWS

Rob held up his hands, from which the dough de-
pended in ragged strings.

" Biscuits," he said, with an elaborate working oi his
jaws, intended to convey the idea that they were going
to be specially delicious.

Seagraves laughed, but did not enter the shanty door.
" How do you like baching it ? "

" Oh, don't mention it ! " entreated Rob, mauling the
dough again. '^ Come in an' sit down. What in thun-
der y' standin' out there for ? "

" Oh, rd rather be where I can see the prairie.
Great weather ! "

" Im-mensQ ! "

" How goes breaking ? "

" Tip-top ! A leetle dry now ; but the bulls pull the
plough through two acres a day. How's things in
Boomtown ? "

" Oh, same old grind."

" Judge still lyin' ? "

*^ Still at it."

" Major Mullens still swearin' to it ? **

"You hit it like a mallet. Railroad schemes are
thicker 'n prairie-chickens. You've got grit, Rob. I
don't have anything but crackers and sardines over to
my shanty, and here you are making soda-biscuit."

133

134 Main -Travelled Roads

" I have t' do it. Couldn't break if I didn't. You
editors c'n take things easy, lay around on the prairie,
and watch the plovers and medderlarks ; but we settlers
have got to work."

Leaving Rob to sputter over his cooking, Seagraves
took his slow way ofF down toward the oxen grazing in
a little hollow. The scene was characteristically, won-
derfully beautiful. It was about five o'clock in a day
in late June, and the level plain was green and yellow,
and infinite in reach as a sea; the lowering sun was
casting over its distant swells a faint impalpable mist,
through which the breaking teams on the neighboring
claims ploughed noiselessly, as figures in a dream. The
whistle of gophers, the faint, wailing, fluttering cry of
the falling plover, the whir of the swift-winged prairie-
pigeon, or the quack of a lonely duck, came through
the shimmering air. The lark's infrequent whistle,
piercingly sweet, broke from the longer grass in the
swales near by. No other climate, sky, plain, could
produce the same unnamable weird charm. No tree
to wave, no grass to rustle, scarcely a sound of domestic
life ; only the faint melancholy soughing of the wind
in the short grass, and the voices of the wild things of
che prairie.

Seagraves, an impressionable young man (junior editor
of the Boomtown Spike\ threw himself down on the sod,
pulled his hat-rim down over his eyes, and looked away
over the plain. It was the second year of Boomtown's
existence, and Seagraves had not yet grown restless
under it3 nionotony. Around him the gophers played

Among the Corn- Rows 135

saucily. Teams were moving here and there across the
sod, with a peculiar noiseless, effortless motion, that
made them seem as calm, lazy, and insubstantial as the
mist through which they made their way; even the
sound of passing wagons seemed a sort of low, well-fed,
self-satisfied chuckle.

Seagraves, " holding down a claim " near Rob, had
come to see his neighboring '' bach " because feeling the
need of company ; but now that he was near enough to
hear him prancing about getting supper, he was content
to lie alone on a slope of the green sod.

The silence of the prairie at night was well-nigh
terrible. Many a night, as Seagraves lay in his bunk
against the side of his cabin, he would strain his ear to
hear the slightest sound, and be listening thus sometimes
for minutes before the squeak of a mouse or the step
of a passing fox came as a relief to the aching sense.
In the daytime, however, and especially on a morning,
the prairie was another thing. The pigeons, the larks,
the cranes, the multitudinous voices of the ground-birds
and snipes and insects, made the air pulsate with sound
— a chorus that died away into an infinite murmur of
music.

" Hello, Seagraves ! " yelled Rob from the door.
" The biscuit are 'most done."

Seagraves did not speak, only nodded his head, and
slowly rose. The faint clouds in the west were getting
a superb flame-color above and a misty purple below,
and the sun had pierced them with lances of yellow
light. As the air grew denser with moisture, the sounds

-6

136 Main -Travelled Roads

of neighboring life began to reach the ear. Children
screamed and laughed, and afar oflF a woman was singing
a lullaby. The rattle of wagons and the voices of men
speaking to their teams multiplied. Ducks in a neigh-
boring lowland were quacking sociably. The whole
scene took hold upon Seagraves with irresistible power.

" It is American," he exclaimed. " No other land
or time can match this mellow air, this wealth of color,
much less the strange social conditions of life on this
sunlit Dakota prairie."

Rob, though visibly affected by the scene also,
couldn't let his biscuit spoil or go without proper
attention.

" Say, ain't y' comin' t' grub ? " he asked impatiently.

" In a minute," replied his friend, taking a last wistful
look at the scene. ^^ I want one more look at the land-
scape."

" Landscape be blessed ! If you'd been breakin' all
day — Come, take that stool an' draw up."

" No ; I'll take the candle-box."

" Not much. I know what manners are, if I am a
bull-driver."

Seagraves took the three-legged and rather precarious*
looking stool and drew up to the table, which was a flat
broad box nailed up against the side of the wall, with
two strips of board spiked at the outer corners for legs.

" How's that Pr a lay-out ? " Rob inquired proudly.

''Well, you have spread yourself! Biscuit and
canned peaches and sardines and cheese. Why, this is
'—is — prodigal."

Among the Corn-Rows 137

" It ain't nothin' else."

Rob was from one of the finest counties of Wiscon-
sin, over toward Milwaukee. He was of German par-
entage, a middle-sized, cheery, wide-awake, good-looking
young fellow — a typical claim-holder. He was always
confident, jovial, and full of plans for the future. He
had dug his own well, built his own shanty, washed and
mended his own clothing. He could do anything, and
do it well. He had a fine field of wheat, and was finish-
ing the ploughing of his entire quarter-section.

" This is what I call settin' under a feller's own vine
an' fig tree" — after Seagraves' compliments — "an' I
like it. I'm my own boss. No man can say 'come
here ' 'r ' go there ' to me. I get up when I'm a min*
to, an' go t' bed when I'm a min' to."

" Some drawbacks, I s'pose ? "

" Yes. Mice, fr instance, give me a devilish lot o*
trouble. They get into my flour-barrel, eat up my
cheese, an' fall into my well. But it ain't no use t*

swear."

Seagraves quoted an old rhyme :

** * The rats and the mice they made such a strife
He had to go to London to buy him a wife.' **

" Don't blush. I've probed your secret thought."

" Well, to tell the honest truth," said Rob, a little
sheepishly, leaning across the table, " I ain't satisfied
with my style o' cookin'. It's good, but a little too plain,
y' know. I'd like a change. It ain't much fun to break
all day, and then go to work an' cook y'r own supper."

138 Main -Travelled Roads

" No, I should say not."

'' This fall Pm going back to Wisconsin. Girls are
thick as huckleberries back there, and I'm goin* t* bring
one back, now you hear me."

" Good ! That's the plan," laughed Seagraves,
amused at a certain timid and apprehensive look in his
companion's eye. "Just think what a woman would
do to put this shanty in shape ; and think how nice it
would be to take her arm and saunter out after supper,
and look at the farm, and plan, and lay out gardens and
paths, and tend the chickens ! "

Rob's manly and self-reliant nature had the settler's
typical buoyancy and hopefulness, as well as a certain
power of analysis, which enabled him now to say : '' The
fact is, we fellers holdin' down claims out here ain't fools
clear to the rine. We know a couple o* things. Now I
didn't leave Waupac County Pr fun. Did y' ever see
Waupac ? Well, it's one o' the handsomest counties
the sun ever shone on, full o' lakes and rivers and groves
of timber. I miss 'em all out here, and I miss the boys
an' girls ; but they wa'n't no chance there Pr a feller.
Land that was good was so blamed high you couldn't
touch it with a ten-foot pole from a balloon. Rent was
high, if you wanted t' rent, an' so a feller like me
had t' get out, an' now I'm out here, I'm goin' t' make
the most of it. Another thing," he went on, after a
pause — "we fellers workin' out back there got more
'n' more like handsy an' less like human beings. Y'
know, Waupac is a kind of a summer resort, and the
people that u$e' t' come in summers looked down on us

Among the Corn- Rows 139

cusses in the fields an' shops. I couldn't stand it. By
God ! " he said, with a sudden impulse of rage quite
unusual, " I'd rather live on an iceberg and claw crabs
fv a livin' than have some feller passin' me on the road
an' callin' me ' fellah ! ' "

Seagraves knew what he meant, but listened in aston-
ishment at his outburst.

" I consider myself a sight better 'n any man who
lives on somebody else's hard work. I've never had a
cent I didn't earn with them hands." He held them
up and broke into a grin. " Beauties, ain't they ? But
they never wore gloves that some other poor cuss
earned."

Seagraves thought them grand hands, worthy to grasp
the hand of any man or woman living.

" Well, so I come West, just like a thousand other
fellers, to get a start where the cussed European aris-
tocracy hadn't got a holt on the people. I like it here
— course I'd like the lakes an' meadows of Waupac
better — but I'm my own boss, as I say, and I'm goin'
to stay my own boss if I have to live on crackers an' /
wheat coffee to do it; that's the kind of a hair-pin
I am."

In the pause which followed, Seagraves, plunged deep
into thought by Rob's words, leaned his head on his
hand. This working farmer had voiced the modern
idea. It was an absolute overturn of all the ideas of
nobility and special privilege born of the feudal past.

" I'd like to use your idea for an editorial, Rob," he
said.

140 Main -Travelled Roads

'^ My ideas ! " exclaimed the astounded host, pausing
in the act of filling his pipe. " My ideas ! Why, I
didn't know I had any."

" Well, you've given me some, anyhow."

Seagraves felt that it was a wild, grand upstirring of
the modern democrat against the aristocrat, against the
idea of caste and the privilege of living on the labor of
others. This atom of humanity (how infinitesimal this
drop in the ocean of humanity !) was feeling the name-
less longing of expanding personality. He had declared
rebellion against laws that were survivals of hate and
prejudice. He had exposed also the native spring of
the emigrant by uttering the feeling that it is better to be
an equal among peasants than a servant before nobles.

" So I have good reasons Pr liking the country," Rob
resumed, in a quiet way. "The soil is rich, the climate
good so far, an' if I have a couple o' decent crops you'll
see a neat upright goin' up here, with a porch and a bay-
winder."

" And you'll still be living here alone, frying leathery
slapjacks an' chopping 'taters and bacon,"

" I think I see myself," drawled Rob, " goin' around
all summer wearin' the same shirt without washin', an'
wipin' on the same towel four straight weeks, an'
wearin' holes in my socks, an' eatin' musty ginger-
snaps, mouldy bacon, an' canned Boston beans Pr the
rest o' my endurin' days ! Oh, yes ; I guess not ! " He
rose. " Well, see y' later. Must go water my bulls."

As he went off down the slope, Seagraves smiled to
hear him sing :

Among the Corn-Rows 141

** I wish that some kind-hearted girl
Would pity on me take.
And extricate me from the mess I'm in.
The angel — how Pd bless her.
If this her home she'd make.
In my litde old sod shanty on the plain."

The boys nearly fell ofF their chairs in the Western
House dining room, a few days later, when Rob came
in to supper with a collar and necktie as the finishing
touch of a remarkable outfit.

" Hit him, somebody ! "

" It's a clean collar ! "

*' He's started Pr Congress ! "

" He's going to get married," put in Seagraves, in a
tone that brought conviction.

"What ! " screamed Jack Adams, O'Neill, and Wil*
son, in one breath. " That man ? "

" That man," replied Seagraves, amazed at Rob, who
coolly took his seat, squared his elbows, pressed his
collar down at the back, and called for the bacon an(^
eggs.

The crowd stared at him in a dead silence.

" Where's he going to do it ? " asked Jack Adams.
" Where's he going to find a girl ? "

" Ask him," said Seagraves.

" I ain't tellin'," put in Rob, with his mouth full of
potato.

" You're afraid of our competition."

" That's right ; our competition, Jack ; not your com-
petition. Come, now, Rob, tell us where you found her.*'

142 Main -Travelled Roads

" I ain't found her/'

" What ! And yet you're goin' away t' get married ! "

"Fm goin' t' bring a wife back with me ten days
fr'm date."

" I see his scheme," put in Jim Rivers. " He's
goin' back East somewhere, an' he's goin' to propose to
every girl he meets."

" Hold on ! " interrupted Rob, holding up his fork.
"Ain't quite right. Every good lookirC girl I meet,"

" Well, I'll be blanked ! " exclaimed Jack, impres-
sively ; " that simply lets me out. Any man with such
a cheek ought to — "

" Succeed," interrupted Seagraves.

" That's what I say," bawled Hank Whiting, the pro-
prietor of the house. " You fellers ain't got any enter-
prise to yeh. Why don't you go to work an' help settle
the country like men ? 'Cause y' ain't got no sand.
Girls are thicker 'n huckleberries back East. I say it's
a dum shame ! "

" Easy, Henry," said the elegant bank-clerk, Wilson,
looking gravely about through his spectacles. " I com-
mend the courage and the resolution of Mr. Rodemaken
I pray the lady may not

* Mislike him for his complexion.
The shadowed livery of the burning sun."-

" Shakespeare," said Adams, at a venture.

Wilson turned to Rob. " Brother in adversity,
when do you embark another Jason on an untried
sea ? "

Among the Corn-Rows 143

" Hay ! " said Rob, winking at Seagraves. " Oh, I
go to-night — night train."

"And return? "

" Ten days from date."

" rU wager a wedding supper he brings a blonde,"
said Wilson, his clean-cut, languid speech compelling
attention.

" Oh, come, now, Wilson ; that's too thin ! We all
know that rule about dark marryin' light."

"I'll wager she'll be tall," continued Wilson. "I'll
wager you^ friend Rodemaker, she'll be blonde and
tall."

The rest roared at Rob's astonishment and confusion.

The absurdity of it grew, and they went into spasms
of laughter. But Wilson remained impassive, not the
twitching of a muscle betraying that he saw anything to
laugh at in the proposition.

Mrs. Whiting and the kitchen-girls came in, wonder-
ing at the merriment. Rob began to get uneasy.

" What is it ? What is it ? " said Mrs. Whiting, a
jolly little matron.

Rivers put the case. " Rob's on his way back to
Wisconsin t' get married, and Wilson has offered to
bet him that his wife will be a blonde and tall, and Rob
dassent bet I " And they roared again.

" Why, the idea ! the man's crazy ! " said Mrs.
Whiting.

The crowd looked at each other. This was hint
enough; they sobered, nodding at each other com-
miseratingly.

144 Main -Travelled Roads

" Aha ! I see ; I understand."

« It's the heat.''

" And the Boston beans."

" Let up on him, Wilson. Don't badger a poor irre-
sponsible fellow. I thought something was wrong when
I saw the collar."

" Oh, keep it up ! " said Rob, a little nettled by their
evident intention to have fun with him.

'' Soothe him — soo-o-o-a-the him ! " said Wilson.
"Don't be harsh."

Rob rose from the table. " Go to thunder ! You
fellows make me tired."

" The fit is on him again ! "

He rose disgustedly and went out. They followed
him in single file. The rest of the town " caught on."
Frank Graham heaved an apple at him, and joined the
procession. Rob went into the store to buy some to-
bacco. They all followed, and perched like crows on
the counters till he went out ; then they followed him,
as before. They watched him check his trunk ; they
witnessed the purchase of the ticket. The town had
turned out by this time.

" Waupac ! " announced the one nearest the victim.

'' Waupac ! " said the next man, and the word was
passed along the street up town.

"Make a note of it," said Wilson; "Waupac — a
county where a man's proposal for marriage is honored
upon presentation. Sight drafts."

Rivers struck up a song, while Rob stood around,
patiently bearing the jokes of the crowd:

Among the Corn-Rows 145

** We're lookin' rather seedy now.
While holdin' down our clidms.
And our vittles are not always of the best.
And the mice play slyly round us
As we lay down to sleep
In our little old tarred shanties on the claim.

*' Yet we rather like the novelty
Of livin' in this way.

Though the bill of fare is often rather tame ;
And we're happy as a clam
On the land of Uncle Sam
In our little old tarred shanty on the claim."

The train drew up at length, to the immense relief
of Rob, whose stoical resignation was beginning to
weaken.

" Don't y' wish y' had sand ? " he yelled to the crowd,
as he plunged into the car, thinking he was rid of them
at last.

He was mistaken. Their last stroke was to follow
him into the car, nodding, pointing to their heads, and
whispering, managing in the half-minute the train stood
at the platform to set every person in the car staring
at the " crazy man." Rob groaned, and pulled his hat
down over his eyes — an action which confirmed his
tormentors' words and made several ladies click their
tongues in sympathy — " Tick ! tick ! poor fellow ! "

'^ All abo-o-o-a-rd / " said the conductor, grinning his
appreciation at the crowd, and the train was ofF.

'' Oh. won't we make him groan when he gets back ! "

146 Main -Travelled Roads

said Barney, the young lawyer, who sang the shouting
tenor.

"We'll meet him with the timbrel and the harp.
Anybody want to wager? I've got two to one on a
short brunette," said Wilson.

II

" Follow it far enough and it may pats the bend in the ri'ver where the
water laughs eternally over its shallow s»**

A corn-field in July is a sultry place. The soil is
hot and dry ; the wind comes across the lazily murmur-
ing leaves laden with a warm, sickening smell drawn
from the rapidly growing, broad-flung banners of the
corn. The sun, nearly vertical, drops a flood of
dazzling light upon the field over which the cool
shadows run, only to make the heat seem the more
intense.

Julia Peterson, faint with hunger, was toiling back and
forth between the corn-rows, holding the handles of the
double-shovel corn-plough, while her little brother Otto
rode the steaming horse. Her heart was full of bitter-
ness, her face flushed with heat, and her muscles aching
with fatigue. The heat grew terrible. The com came
to her shoulders, and not a breath seemed to reach her,
while the sun, nearing the noon mark, lay pitilessly upon
her shoulders, protected only by a calico dress. The
dust rose under her feet, and as she was wet with perspi-
ration it soiled her till with a woman's instinctive clean-
liness, she shuddered. Her head throbbed dangerously.

Among the Corn-Rows 147

What matter to her that the kingbird pitched jovially
from the maples to catch a wandering bluebottle fly,
that the robin was feeding its young, that the bobolink
was singing ? All these things, if she saw them, only
threw her bondage to labor into greater relief.

Across the field, in another patch of corn, she could
see her father — a big, grufF-voiced, wide-bearded Nor-
wegian — at work also with a plough. The corn must
be ploughed, and so she toiled on, the tears dropping
from the shadow of the ugly sun-bonnet she wore. Her
shoes, coarse and square-toed, chafed her feet ; her hands,
large and strong, were browned, or, more properly, burnt^
on the backs by the sun. The horse's harness " creak-
cracked" as he swung steadily and patiently forward,
the moisture pouring from his sides, his nostrils distended.

The field bordered on a road, and on the other side of
the road ran a river — a broad, clear, shallow expanse at
that point, and the eyes of the boy gazed longingly at the
pond and the cool shadow each time that he turned at
the fence.

" Say, Jule, I'm goin' in ! Come, can't I ? Come
— say ! " he pleaded, as they stopped at the fence to let
the horse breathe.

" I've let you go wade twice."

" But that don't do any good. My legs is all smarty,
'cause ol' Jack sweats so." The boy turned around on
the horse's back and slid back to his rump. ^^ I can't
stand it ! " he burst out, sliding ofF and darting under the
fence. " Father can't see."

The girl put her elbows on the fence and watched her

148 Main -Travelled Roads

little brother as he sped away to the pool, throwing ofF
his clothes as he ran, whooping with uncontrollable de-
light. Soon she could hear him splashing about in the
water a short distance up the stream, and caught glimpses
of his little shiny body and happy face. How cool that
water looked ! And the shadows there by the big bass-
wood ! How that water would cool her blistered feet
An impulse seized her, and she squeezed between the
rails of the fence, and stood in the road looking up and
down to see that the way was clear. It was not a main-
travelled road ; no one was likely to come ; why not ?

She hurriedly took off her shoes and stockings — how
delicious the cool, soft velvet of the grass ! and sitting
down on the bank under the great basswood, whose roots
formed an abrupt bank, she slid her poor blistered, chafed
feet into the water, her bare head leaned against the huge
tree-trunk.

And now, as she rested, the beauty of the scene came
to her. Over her the wind moved the leaves. A jay
screamed far off, as if answering the cries of the boy.
A kingfisher crossed and recrossed the stream with dip-
ping sweep of his wings. The river sang with its lips
to the pebbles. The vast clouds went by majestically,
far above the tree-tops, and the snap and buzzing and
ringing whir of July insects made a ceaseless, slumberous
undertone of song solvent of all else. The tired girl for-
got her work. She began to dream. This would not
last always. Some one would come to release her from
such drudgery. This was her constant, tenderest, and
most secret dream. He would be a Yankee, not a Nor-

Among the Corn-Rows 149

wegian. The Yankees didn't ask their wives to work in
the field. He would have a home. Perhaps he'd live
in town — perhaps a merchant ! And then she thought
of the drug clerk in Rock River who had looked at
her — A voice broke in on her dream, a fresh, manly
voice.

" Well, by jinks ! if it ain't Julia ! Just the one I
wanted to see ! "

The girl turned, saw a pleasant-faced young fellow in
a derby hat and a cutaway suit of diagonals.

" Bob Rodemaker ! How come — "

She remembered her situation and flushed, looked
down at the water, and remained perfectly still.

" Ain't you goin' to shake hands ? Y' don't seem
very glad t' see me."

She began to grow angry. " If you had any eyes,
you'd see."

Rob looked over the edge of the bank, whistled, turned
away. " Oh, I see ! Excuse me ! Don't blame yeh a
bit, though. Good weather f 'r corn," he went on, look-
ing up at the trees. " Corn seems to be pretty well for-
ward," he continued, in a louder voice, as he walked
away, still gazing into the air. ^^ Crops is looking first-
class in Boomtown. Hello ! This Otto ? H'yare, y'
little scamp ! Get on to that horse agin. Quick, 'r I'll
take y*r skin off an' hang it on the fence. What y' been
doin'?"

** Ben in swimmin'. Jimminy, ain't it fun ! When
*d jr* get back ? " said the boy, grinning.

** Never you mind!" replied Rob, leaping the fence

150 Main -Travelled Roads

by laying his left hand on the top rail. " Get on to
that horse." He tossed the boy up on the horse, and
hung his coat on the fence. "I s'pose the ol' man
makes her plough, same as usual ? '*

« Yup," said Otto.

^^ Dod ding a man that'll do that ! I don't mind if
it's necessary, but it ain't necessary in his case." He
continued to mutter in this way as he went across to
the other side of the field. As they turned to come
back, Rob went up and looked at the horse's mouth.
'' Gettin' purty near of age. Say, who's sparkin' Julia
now — anybody ? "

" Nobody 'cept some ol' Norwegians. She won't have
them. For wants her to, but she won't."

" Good Pr her. Nobody comes t' see her Sunday
nights, eh ? "

"Nope; only 'Tias Anderson an' Ole Hoover; but
she goes off an' leaves 'em."

" Chk ! " said Rob, starting old Jack across the field.

It was almost noon, and Jack moved reluctantly. He
knew the time of day as well as the boy. He made this
round after distinct protest.

In the meantime Julia, putting on her shoes and stock-
ings, went to the fence and watched the man's shining
white shirt as he moved across the corn-field. There
had never been any special tenderness between them,
but she had always liked him. They had been at school
together. She wondered why he had come back at this
time of the year, and wondered how long he would stay.

How long had be 3tQo4 lopking ^t b^r? She flnsb^d

Among the Corn- Rows 151

again at the thought of it. But he wasn't to blame ; it
was a public road. She might have known better.

She stood under a little popple tree, whose leaves
shook musically at every zephyr, and her eyes, through
half-shut lids, roved over the sea of deep-green, glossy
leaves, dappled here and there by cloud shadows, stirred
here and there like water by the wind ; and out of it all
a longing to be free from such toil rose like a breath,
filling her throat and quickening the motion of her heart.
Must this go on forever, this life of heat and dust and
labor ? What did it all mean ?

The girl laid her chin on her strong red wrists, and
looked up into the blue spaces between the vast clouds
— aerial mountains dissolving in a shoreless azure sea.
How cool and sweet and restful they looked ! If she
might only lie out on the billowy, snow-white, sunlit
edge ! The voices of the driver and the ploughman
recalled her, and she fixed her eyes again upon the
slowly nodding head of the patient horse, on the boy
turned half about on his saddle, talking to the white-
sleeved man, whose derby hat bobbed up and down quite
curiously, like the horse's head. Would she ask him to
dinner ? What would her people say ?

" Phew ! it's hot ! " was the greeting the young fellow
gave as he came up. He smiled in a frank, boyish way,
as he hung his hat on the top of a stake and looked up
at her. "D' y' know, I kind o' enjoy gettin' at it
again ? Fact. It ain't no work for a girl, though," he
added.

" When 'd you get back ? " she asked, the flush not

99

99

152 Main -Travelled Roads

yet out of her face. Rob was looking at her thick, fine
hair and full Scandinavian face, rich as a rose in color,
and did not reply for a few seconds. She stood with
her hideous sun-bonnet pushed back on her shoulders.
A kingbird was chattering overhead.

" Oh, a few days ago.'

" How long y' goin' t' stay ?

" Oh, I d' know. A week, mebbe.'

A far-off halloo came pulsing across the shimmering
air. The boy screamed " Dinner ! " and waved his hat
with an answering whoop, then flopped off the horse
like a turtle off a stone into water. He had the horse
unhooked in an instant, and had flung his toes up over
the horse's back, in act to climb on, when Rob
said :

" H'yare, young feller ! wait a minute. Tired ? " he
asked the girl, with 'a tone that was more than kindly.
It was almost tender.

" Yes," she replied, in a low voice. " My shoes hurt

me.

" Well, here y' go," he replied, taking his stand by
the horse, and holding out his hand like a step. She
colored and smiled a little as she lifted her foot into his
huge, hard, sunburned hand.

" Oop-a-daisy ! " he called. She gave a spring, and
sat on the horse like one at home there.

Rob had a deliciously unconscious, abstracted, busi-
ness-like air. He really left her nothing to do but enjoy
his company, while he went ahead and did precisely as
he pleased.

Among the Corn- Rows 153

*' We don't raise much com out there, an' so I kind
o' like to see it once more."

" I wish I didn't have to see another hill of corn as
long as I live ! " replied the girl, bitterly.

" Don't know as I blame yeh a bit. But, all the
same, I'm glad you was working in it to-day," he
thought to himself, as he walked beside her horse toward
the house.

" Will you stop to dinner ? " she inquired bluntly,
almost surlily. It was evident there were reasons why
she didn't mean to press him to do so.

" You bet I will," he replied ; " that is, if you want 1
should."

"You know how we live," she replied evasively,
'' If you can stand it, why — " She broke ofF abruptly.

Yes, he remembered how they lived in that big,
square, dirty, white frame house. It had been three or
four years since he had been in it, but the smell of the
cabbage and onions, the penetrating, peculiar mixture of
odors, assailed his memory as something unforgettable.

" I guess I'll stop," he said, as she hesitated. She
said no more, but tried to act as if she were not in any
way responsible for what came afterward.

" I guess I c'n stand fr one meal what you stand all
the while," he added.

As she left them at the well and went to the house
he saw her limp painfully, and the memory of her face
so close to his lips as he helped her down from the horse
gave him pleasure at the same time that he was touched
by its tired and gloomy look. Mrs. Peterson came to

99

99

154 Main -Travelled Roads

the door of the kitchen, looking just the same as ever.
Broad-faced, unwieldy, flabby, apparently wearing the
same dress he remembered to have seen her in years
before, — a dirty drab-colored thing, — she looked as
shapeless as a sack of wool. Her English was limited
to, " How de do, Rob ? "

He washed at the pump, while the girl, in the attempt
to be hospitable, held the clean towel for him.

" You're purty well used up, eh ? " he said to her.

" Yes ; it's awful hot out there."

" Can't you lay off this afternoon ? It ain't right/*

" No. He won't listen to that."

*' Well, let me take your place.

" No ; there ain't any use o' that.

Peterson, a brawny, wide-bearded Norwegian, came up
at this moment, and spoke to Rob in a sullen, gruff way.

" Hallo, whan yo' gaet back ? "

'' Td-day. He ain't very glad to see me," said Rob,
winking at Julia. " He ain't b'ilin' over with enthusi-
asm ; but I c'n stand it, for your sake," he added, with
amazing assurance; but the girl had turned away, and
it was wasted.

At the table he ate heartily of the " bean swaagen,"
which filled a large wooden bowl in the centre of the
table, and which was ladled into smaller wooden bowls
ftt each plate. Julia had tried hard to convert her
mother to Yankee ways, and had at last given it up
in despair. Rob kept on safe subjects, mainly asking
questions about the crops of Peterson, and when address*
ing the girl, inquired of the schoolmates. By skilful

Among the Corn-Rows 155

questioning, he kept the subject of marriage uppermost,
and seemingly was getting an inventory of the girls not
yet married or engaged.

It was embarrassing for the girl. She was all too well
aware of the difference between her home and the home
of her schoolmates and friends. She knew that it was
not pleasant for her '^ Yankee " friends to come to visit
her when they could not feel sure of a welcome from
the tireless, silent, and grim-visaged old Norse, if, in-
deed, they could escape insult. Julia ate her food
mechanically, and it could hardly be said that she en-
joyed the brisk talk of the young man, his eyes were
upon her so constantly and his smile so obviously ad-
dressed to her. She rose as soon as possible and, going
outside, took a seat on a chair under the trees in the
yard. She was not a coarse or dull girl. In fact, she
had developed so rapidly by contact with the young
people of the neighborhood that she no longer found
pleasure in her own home. She didn't believe in keep-
ing up the old-fashioned Norwegian customs, and her
life with her mother was jiot one to breed love or con-
fidence. She was more like a hired hand. The love
of the mother for her "Yulyie" was sincere though
rough and inarticulate, and it was her jealousy of the
young " Yankees " that widened the chasm between the
girl and herself — an inevitable result.

Rob followed the girl out into the yard, and threw
himself on the grass at her feet, perfectly unconscious
of the fact that this attitude was exceedingly graceful
and becoming to them both. He did ic because he

156 Main -Travelled Roads

wanted to talk to her, and the grass was cool and easy ;
there wasn't any other chair, anyway.

"Do they keep up the ly-ceum and the sociables
same as ever ? "

"Yes. The others go a good 'eal, but I don't.
We're get tin' such a stock round us, and father thinks
he needs me s' much, I don't get out often. I'm gettin'
sick of it."

" I sh'd think y' would," he replied, his eyes on her
face.

" I c'd stand the chilrnin' and housework, but when
it comes t' workin' outdoors in the dirt an' hot sun^^
gettin' all sunburned and chapped up, it's anothei
thing. An' then it seems as if he gets stingier 'n'
stingier every year. I ain't had a new dress in — I
d'— know-how-long. He says it's all nonsense, an'
mother's just about as bad. She don't want a new dress,
an' so she thinks I don't." The girl was feeling the
influence of a sympathetic listener and was making up
for the long silence. " I've tried t' go out t' work, but
they won't let me. They'd have t' pay a hand twenty
dollars a month Pr the work I do, an' they like cheap
help ; but I'm not goin' t' stand it much longer, I can
tell you that."

Rob thought she was very handsome as she sat there
with her eyes fixed on the horizon, while these rebellious
thoughts found utterance in her quivering, passionate
voice.

" Yulie ! Kom haar ! " roared the old man from the
well.

Among the Corn-Rows 157

A frown of anger and pain came into her face. She
looked at Rob. " That means more work."

" Say ! let me go out in your placCo Come, now ;
what's the use — "

" No y it wouldn't do no good. It ain't t'-<lay s'
much ; it's every day, and — "

'^ Yulie ! " called Peterson again, with a string of
impatient Norwegian. " Batter yo' kom pooty hal
quick."

"Well, all right, only I'd like to — " Rob submitted.

"Well, good-by," she said, with a little touch of
feeling. *' When d' ye go back ? "

" I don't know. I'll see y' again before I go. Good-
by."

He stood watching her slow, painful pace till she
reached the well, where Otto was standing with the
horse. He stood watching them as they moved oiit
into the road and turned down toward the field. He
felt that she had sent him away ; but still there was a
look in her eyes which was not altogether —

He gave it up in despair at last. He was not good
at analyses of this nature ; he was used to plain, blunt
expressions. There was a woman's subtlety here quite
beyond his reach.

He sauntered slowly off up the road after his talk
with Julia. His head was low on his breast ; he was
thinking as one who is about to take a decided and im-
portant step.

He stopped at length, and, turning, watched the girl
moving along in the deeps of the corn. Hardly a leaf

158 Main -Travelled Roads

was stirring ; the untempered sunlight fell in a burning
flood upon the field ; the grasshoppers rose, snapped,
buzzed, and fell ; the locust uttered its dry, heat-intensi-
fying cry. The man lifted his head.

'' It's a d — n shame ! " he said, beginning rapidly to
retrace his steps. He stood leaning on the fence, await-
ing the girl's coming very much as she had waited his
on the round he had made before dinner. He grew im-
patient at the slow gait of the horse, and drummed on
the rail while he whistled. Then he took off his hat
and dusted it nervously. As the horse got a little nearer
he wiped his face carefully, pushed his hat back on his
head, and climbed over the fence, where he stood with
elbows on the middle rail as the girl and boy and horse
came to the end of the furrow.

'' Hot, ain't it ? " he said, as she looked up.

" Jimminy Peters, it's awful ! " puffed the boy. The
girl did not reply till she swung the plough about after
the horse, and set it upright into the next row. Her
powerful body had a superb swaying motion at the waist
as she did this — a motion which affected Rob vaguely
but massively.

"I thought you'd gone," she said gravely, pushing
back her bonnet till he could see her face dewed with
sweat, and pink as a rose. She had the high cheek-bones
of her race, but she had also their exquisite fairness of
color.

"Say, Otto," asked Rob, alluringly, <*wan' to go
swimmin' ? "

" You bet," replied Otto.

Among the Corn-Rows 159

"Well, ril go a round If—"

The boy dropped off the horse, not waiting to heat
any more. Rob grinned, but the girl dropped her eyes,
then looked away.

" Got rid o' him mighty quick. Say, Julyie, I hate
like thunder t' see you out here; it ain't right. I wish
you'd — I wish — "

She could not look at him now, and her bosom rose
and fell with a motion that was not due to fatigue. Her
moist hair matted around her forehead gave her a boyish
look.

Rob nervously tried again, tearing splinters from the
fence. " Say, now, I'll tell yeh what I came back here
for — t' git married; and if you're willin' I'll do it to-
night. Come, now, whaddy y' say ? "

" What've / got t' do 'bout it ? " she finally asked,
the color flooding her face, and a faint smile coming to
her lips. " Go ahead. I ain't got anything — ^*

Rob put a splinter in his mouth and faced her. " Oh,
looky here, now, Julyie ! you know what I mean. I've
got a good claim out near Boomtown — a rattlin^ good
claim; a shanty on it fourteen by sixteen — no tarred
paper about it, and a suller to keep butter in, and a
hundred acres o' wheat just about ready to turn now.
I need a wife."

Here he straightened up, threw away the splinter, ind
took off his hat. He was a very pleasant figure as the
gill stole a look at him. His black laughing eyes were
especially earnest just now. His voice had a touch of
p)ea<iin£, T^e popple tre^ over their b^ads murmured

1 60 Main -Travelled RcJtids

applause at his eloquence, then hushed to listen. A cloud
dropped a silent shadow down upon them, and it sent a
little thrill of fear through Rob, as if it were an omen
of failure. As the girl remained silent, looking away,
he began, man-fashion, to desire her more and more, as
he feared to lose her. He put his hat on the post again
and took out his jack-knife. Her calico dress draped
her supple and powerful figure simply but naturally.
The stoop in her shoulders, given by labor, disappeared
as she partly leaned upon the fence. The curves of her
muscular arms showed through her sleeve.

*' It's all-fired lonesome Pr me out there on that
claim, and it ain't no picnic Pr you here. Now, if you'll
come out there with me, you needn't do anything but
cook Pr me, and after harvest we can git a good layout
o' furniture, an' I'll lath and plaster the house and put
a little hell [ell] in the rear." He smiled, and so did
she. He felt encouraged to say : " An' there we be, as
snug as y' please. We're close t' Boomtown, an' we
can go down there to church sociables an' things, and
they're a jolly lot there."

The girl was still silent, but the man's simple en-
thusiasm came to her charged with passion and a sort
or romance such as her hard life had known little of.
There was something enticing about this trip to the
vVest.

"^^ What'U my folks say ? " she said at last.

A virtual surrender, but Rob was not acute enough
to see it. He pressed on eagerly :

**I don't care. Do you? They'll jest keep y'

Among the Corn-Rows i6i

ploughin' corn and milkin' cows till the day of judgment.
Come, Julyie, I ain't got no time to fool away. I've
got t' get back t' that grain. It's a whoopin' old crop,
sure's y'r born, an' that means sompin purty scrumptious
in furniture this fall. Come, now." He approached
her and laid his hand on her shoulder very much as he
would have touched Albert Seagraves or any other com-
rade. " Whaddy y' say ? "

She neither started nor shrunk nor looked at him.
She simply moved a step away. '^ They'd never let me
go," she replied bitterly. " I'm too cheap a hand. I
do a man's work an' get no pay at all."

" You'll have half o' all I c'n make," he put in.

" How long c'n you wait ? " she asked, looking down
at her dress.

" Just two minutes," he said, pulling out his watch.
" It ain't no use t' wait. The old man '11 be jest as mad
a week from now as he is to-day. Why not go now ? "

" I'm of age in a few days," she mused, wavering,
calculating.

*' You c'n be of age to-night if you'll jest call on old
Squire Hatfield with me."

" All right, Rob," the girl said, turning and holding
out her hand.

" That's the talk ! " he exclaimed, seizing it. " And
now a kiss, to bind the bargain, as the fellah says."

" I guess we c'n get along without that."

" No, we can't. It won't seem like an engagement
without it."

" It ain't goin' to seem much like one, anyway," she

1 62 Main -Travelled Roads

answered, with a sudden realization of how far from her
dreams of courtship this reality was.

" Say, now, Julyie, that ain't fair ; it ain't treatin' me
right. You don't seem to understand that I like you,
but I do."

Rob was carried quite out of himself by the time, the
place, and the giri. He had said a very moving thing.

The tears sprang involuntarily to the girl's eyes.
*' Do you mean it ? If y' do, you may."

She was trembling with emotion for the first time.
The sincerity of the man's voice had gone deep.

He put his arm around her almost timidly, and kissed
her on the cheek, a great love for her springing up in
his heart. "That settles it," he said. "Don't cry,
Julyie. You'll never be sorry for it. Don't cry. It
kind o' hurts me to see it."

He hardly understood her feelings. He was only
aware that she was crying, and tried in a bungling way
to soothe her. But now that she had given way, she
sat down in the grass and wept bitterly.

" Tulyie ! " yelled the vigilant old Norwegian, like a
distant foghorn.

The girl sprang up ; the habit of obedience was strong.

" No ; you set right there, and I'll go round," he said.

The boy came scrambling out of the wood, half
dressed. Rob tossed him upon the horse, snatched
Julia's sun-bonnet, put his own hat on her head, and
moved off down the corn-rows, leaving the girl smiling
through her tears as he whistled and chirped to the

Among the Corn- Rows 163

horse. Farmer Peterson, seeing the familiar sun-bonnet
above the corn-rows, went back to his work, with a
sentence of Norwegian trailing after him like the tail of
a kite — something about lazy girls who didn't earn the
crust of their bread, etc.

Rob was wild with delight. "Git up there. Jack!
Hay, you old corncrib ! Say, Otto, can you keep your
mouth shet if it puts money in your pocket ? "

" Jest try me 'n' see," said the keen-eyed little scamp.

*' Well, you keep quiet about my bein' here this after-
noon, and rU put a dollar on y'r tongue — hay ? — what ?
— understand ? "

" Show me y'r dollar," said the boy, turning about and
showing his tongue.

*' All right. Begin to practise now by not talkin' to
me.

Rob went over the whole situation on his way back,
and when he got in sight of the girl his plan was made.
She stood waiting for him with a new look on her face.
Her sullenness had given way to a peculiar eagerness
and anxiety to believe in him. She was already living
that free life in a far-off, wonderful country. No more
would her stern father and sullen mother force her to
tasks which she hated. She'd be a member of a new
firm. She'd work, of course, but it would be because
she wanted to, and not because she was forced to. The
independence and the love promised grew more and
more attractive. She laughed back with a softer light
in her eyes, when she saw the smiling face of Rob look-
ing at her from her sun-banuet.

¥ix.a. icar. ^ j. ni ainuu, **

99

164 Main -Travelled Roads

^Now you mustn't do any more o' this," he said
*' You go back to the house an' tell y'r mother you're
too lame to plough any more to-day, and it's gettin' late,
anyhow. To-night ! " he whispered quickly. **• Eleven !
Here ! "

The girl's heart leaped with fear. " I'm afraid.'

** Not of me^ are yeh ?

" No, I'm not afraid of you, Rob.'

" I'm glad o' that. I — I want you — to lite mc^
Julyie ; won't you ? "

*' I'll try," she answered, with a smile.

" To-night, then," he said, as she moved away.

" To-night. Good-by."

" Good-by."

He stood and watched her till her tall figure was lost
among the drooping corn-leaves. There was a singular
choking feeling in his throat. The girl's voice and face
had brought up so many memories of parties and picnics
and excursions on far-oiF holidays, and at the same time
held suggestions of the future. He already felt that it
was going to be an unconscionably long time before
eleven o'clock.

He saw her go to the house, and then he turned and
walked slowly up the dusty road. Out of the May-
weed the grasshoppers sprang, buzzing and snapping their
dull red wings. Butterflies, yellow and white, fluttered
around moist places in the ditch, and slender, striped
water-snakes glided across the stagnant pools at sound
of footsteps.

But the mind of the man was far away on his

Among the Corn-Rows 165

claim, building a new house, with a woman's advice and
presence.

^^^ ^w^ ^w^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^

It was a windless night. The katydids and an occa-
sional cricket were the only sounds Rob could hear as he
stood beside his team and strained his ear to listen. At
long intervals a little breeze ran through the corn like a
swift serpent, bringing to his nostrils the sappy smell of
the growing corn. The horses stamped uneasily as the
mosquitoes settled on their shining limbs. The sky was
full of stars, but there was no moon.

" What if she don't come ? " he thought. " Or canU
come ? I can't stand that. I'll go to the old man an'
say, ' Looky here — ' Sh ! "

He listened again. There was a rustling in the corn.
It was not like the fitful movement of the wind ; it was
steady, slower, and approaching. It ceased. He whis-
tled the wailing, sweet cry of the prairie-chicken. Then
a figure came out into the road — a woman — Julia !

He took her in his arms as she came panting up to
him.

" Rob ! "

" Julyie ! "

^n ^^ ^^ ^^ ^h ^r

A few words, the dull tread of swift horses, the rising
of a silent train of dust, and then — the wind wandered
in the growing corn, the dust fell, a dog barked down
the road, and the katydids sang to the liquid contralto of
the river in its shallows.

THE RETURN OF A PRIVATE

** On the road leading * back to
God's country* and wife and
babies**

THE RETURN OF A PRIVATE

The nearer the train drew toward La Crosse, the
soberer the little group of " vets " became. On the long
way from New Orleans they had beguiled tedium with
jokes and friendly chafF; or with planning with elabo-
rate detail what they were going to do now, after the war.
A long journey, slowly, irregularly, yet persistently push-
ing northward. When they entered on Wisconsin terri-
tory they gave a cheer, and another when they reached
Madison, but after that they sank into a dumb expect-
ancy. Comrades dropped off at one or two points be-
yond, until there were only four or five left who were
bound for La Crosse County.

Three of them were gaunt and brown, the fourth was
gaunt and pale, with signs of fever and ague upon him.
One had a great scar down his temple, one limped, and
they all had unnaturally large, bright eyes, showing
emaciation. There were no bands greeting them at the
station, no banks of gayly dressed ladies waving handker-
chiefs and shouting ** Bravo ! " as they came in on the
caboose of a freight train into the towns that had cheered
and blared at them on their way to war. As they looked
out or stepped upon the platform for a moment, while the
train stood at the station, the loafers looked at them in-
differently. Their blue coats, dusty and grimy, were too

169

lyo Main -Travelled Roads

familiar now to excite notice, much less a friendly word.
They were the last of the army to return, and the loafers
were surfeited with such sights.

The train jogged forward so slowly that it seemed
likely to be midnight before they should reach La Crosse.
The little squad grumbled and swore, but it was no use;
the train would not hurry, and, as a matter of fact, it was
nearly two o'clock when the engine whistled "down
brakes."

All of the group were farmers, living in districts sev-
eral miles out of the town, and all were poor.

*' Now, boys," said Private Smith, he of the fever and
ague, " we are landed in La Crosse in the night. We've
got to stay somewhere till mornin'. Now I ain't got no
two dollars to waste on a hotel. I've got a wife and
children, so I'm goin' to roost on a bench and take the
cost of a bed out of my hide."

" Same here," put in one of the other men. ** Hide'U
grow on again, dollars'!! come hard. It's goin' to be
mighty hot skirmishin' to find a dollar these days."

" Don't think they'll be a deputation of citizens waitin*
to 'scort us to a hotel, eh ? " said another. His sarcasm
was too obvious to require an answer.

Smith went on, "Then at daybreak we'll start for
home — at least, I will."

" Well, I'll be dummed if I'll take two dollars out o*
my hide," one of the younger men said. " I'm goin* to
a hotel, ef I don't never lay up a cent."

" That'll do f'r you," said Smith ; " but if you had a

fe an' three young uns dependin' on yeh — "

The Return of a Private 171

"Which I ain't, thank the Lord! and don't intend
havin' while the court knows itself."

The station was deserted, chill, and dark, as they
came into it at exactly a quarter to two in the morning.
Lit by the oil lamps that flared a dull red light over the
dingy benches, the waiting room was not an inviting
place. The younger man went off to look up a hotel,
while the rest remained and prepared to camp down on
the floor and benches. Smith was attended to tenderly
jy the other men, who spread their blankets on the
bench for him, and, by robbing themselves, made quite
a comfortable bed, though the narrowness of the bench
made his sleeping precarious.

It was chill, though August, and the two men, sitting
With bowed heads, grew stiff with cold and weariness,
and were forced to rise now and again and walk about
to warm their stiffened limbs. It did not occur to them,
probably, to contrast their coming home with their
going forth, or with the coming home of the generals,
€oloneIs, or even captains — but to Private Smith, at
any rate, there came a sickness at heart almost deadly
as he lay there on his hard bed and went over his situa-
tion.

In the deep of the night, lying on a board in the
town where he had enlisted three years ago, all elation
and enthusiasm gone out of him, he faced the fact that
mth the joy of home-coming was already mingled the
bitter juice of care. He saw himself sick, worn out,
taking up the work on his half-cleared farm, the inevita-
ble mortgage standing ready with open jaw to swallow half

17a Main -Travelled Roads

his earnings. He had given three years of his life for a
mere pittance of pay, and now ! —

Morning dawned at last, slowly, with a psde yellow
dome of light rising silently above the bluffs, which
stand like some huge storm-devastated castle, just east
of the city. Out to the left the great river swept on its
massive yet silent way to the south. Bluejays called
across the water from hillside to hillside through the
clear, beautiful air, and hawks began to skim the tops
of the hills. The older men were astir early, but Pri-
vate Smith had fallen at last into a sleep, and they went
out without waking him. He lay on his knapsack, his
gaunt face turned toward the ceiling, his hands clasped
on his breast, with a curious pathetic effect of weakness
and appeal.

An engine switching near woke him at last, and he
slowly sat up and stared about. He looked out of the
window and saw that the sun was lightening the hills
across the river. He rose and brushed his hair as well
as he could, folded his blankets up, and went out to find
his companions. They stood gazing silently at the river
and at the hills.

" Looks natcher'l, don't it ? " they said, as he came out.

"That's what it does," he replied. '^An' it looks
good. D' yeh see that peak ? " He pointed at a beau-
tiful symmetrical peak, rising like a slightly truncated
cone, so high that it seemed the very highest of them
all. It was touched by the morning sun and it glowed
like a beacon, and a light scarf of gray morning fog was
rolling up its shadowed side.

The Return of a Private 173

** My farm's just beyond that. Now, if I can only
ketch a ride, we'll be home by dinner-time,"

" I'm talkin' about breakfast," said one of the others.

"I guess it's one more meal o' hardtack Pr me,"
said Smith.

They foraged around, and finally found a restaurant
with a sleepy old German behind the counter, and pro-
cured some coffee, which they drank to wash down their
hardtack.

'' Time'U come," said Smith, holding up a piece by
the corner, " when this'll be a curiosity."

" I hope to God it will ! I bet I've chawed hardtack
enough to shingle every house in the coolly. I've
chawed it when my lampers was down, and when they
wasn't. I've took it dry, soaked, and mashed. I've
had it wormy, musty, sour, and blue-mouldy. I've had
it in little bits and big bits ; 'fore coffee an' after coffee.
I'm ready Pr a change. I'd like P git holt jest about
now o' some of the hot biscuits my wife c'n make when
she lays herself out Pr company."

" Well, if you set there gabblin', you'll never see yer
wife."

" Come on," said Private Smith. " Wait a moment,
boys; less take suthin'. It's on me." He led them to
the rusty tin dipper which hung on a nail beside the
wooden water-pail, and they grinned and drank. Then
shouldering their blankets and muskets, which they were
*' takin' home to the boys," they struck out on their last
march.

" They called that coffee Jayvy," grumbled one of

174 Main -Travelled Roads

them, but it never went by the road where govern-
ment Jayvy resides. I reckon I know cofFee from
peas."

They kept together on the road along the turnpike, and
up the winding road by the river, which they followed for
some miles. The river was very lovely, curving down
along its sandy beds, pausing now and then under broad
basswood trees, or running in dark, swift, silent currents
under tangles of wild grapevines, and drooping alders, and
haw trees. At one of these lovely spots the three vets
sat down on the thick green sward to rest, "on Smith's
account." The leaves of the trees were as fresh and
green as in June, the jays called cheery greetings to
them, and kingfishers darted to and fro with swooping,
noiseless flight.

" I tell yeh, boys, this knocks the swamps of Louee-
siana into kingdom come."

"You bet. All they c'n raise down there is snakes,
niggers, and p'rticler hell."

" An' fightin' men," put in the older man.

" An* fightin* men. If I had a good hook an* line Pd
sneak a pick'rel out o' that pond. Say, remember that
time I shot that alligator — "

" I guess we'd better be crawlin' along," interrupted
Smith, rising and shouldering his knapsack, with con-
siderable effort, which he tried to hide.

" Say, Smith, lemme give you a lift on that."

^* I guess I c'n manage," said Smith, grimly,

" Course. But, yo' see, I may not have a chance
right off to pay yeh back for the times you've carried

The Return of a Private 175

my gun and hull caboodle. Say, now, gimme that gun,
anyway."

"All right, if yeh feel like it, Jim," Smith replied, and
they trudged along doggedly in the sun, which was get-
ting higher and hotter each half-mile.

"Ain't it queer there ain't no teams comin' along,"
said Smith, after a long silence.

" Well, no, seein's it's Sunday."

" By jinks, that's a fact. It is Sunday. I'll git home
in time Pr dinner, sure ! " he exulted. " She don't hev
dinner usially till about one on Sundays." And he fell
into a muse, in which he smiled.

"Well, I'll git home jest about six o'clock, jest about
when the boys are milkin' the cows," said old Jim
Cranby. "I'll step into the barn, an' then I'll say:
' Heah ! why ain't this milkin' done before this time o'
day ? ' An' then won't they yell ! " he added, slapping
his thigh in great glee.

Smith went on. " I'll jest go up the path. Old
Rover'U come down the road to meet me. He won't
bark j he'll know me, an' he'll come down waggin' his tail
an' showin' his teeth. That's his way of laughin'. An'
so I'll walk up to the kitchen door, an' I'll say, * Dinner
Pr a hungry man ! * An' then she'll jump up, an' — "

He couldn't go on. His voice choked at the thought
of it. Saunders, the third man, hardly uttered a word,
but walked silently behind the others. He had lost his
wife the first year he was in the army. She died of
pneumonia, caught in the autumn rains while working
in the fields in his place*

176 Main -Travelled Roads

They plodded along till at last they came to a parting
of the ways. To the right the road continued up the
main valley ; to the left it went over the big ridge.

"Well, boys," began Smith, as they grounded their
muskets and looked away up the valley, " here's where
we shake hands. We've marched together a good many
miles, an' now I s'pose we're done."

" Yes, I don't think we'll do any more of it Pr a while.
I don't want to, I know."

" I hope I'll see yeh once in a while, boys, to talk over
old times."

" Of course," said Saunders, whose voice trembled a
little, too. " It ain't exactly like dyin'." They all found
it hard to look at each other.

" But we'd ought'r go home with you," said Cranby.
" You'll never climb that ridge with all them things on
yer back."

" Oh, I'm all right ! Don't worry about me. Every
step takes me nearer home, yeh see. Well, good-by,
boys."

They shook hands. " Good-by. Good luck ! "

^^Same to you. Lemme know how you find things at
home."

" Good-by."

" Good-by."

He turned once before they passed out of sight, and
waved his cap, and they did the same, and all yelled.
Then all marched away with their long, steady, loping,
veteran step. The solitary climber in blue walked on
for a time, with his mind filled with the kindness of his

The Return of a Private 177

comrades, and musing upon the many wonderful days
they had had together in camp and field.

He thought of his chum, Billy Tripp. Poor Billy !
A " minie " ball fell into his breast one day, fell wailing
like a cat, and tore a great ragged hole in his heart.
He looked forward to a sad scene with Billy*s mother
and sweetheart. They would want to know all about
it. He tried to recall all that Billy had said, and the
particulars of it, but there was little to remember, just
that wild wailing sound high in the air, a dull slap, a
short, quick, expulsive groan, and the boy lay with his
face in the dirt in the ploughed field they were marching
across.

That was all. But all the scenes he had since been
through had not dimmed the horror, the terror of that
moment, when his boy comrade fell, with only a breath
between a laugh and a death-groan. Poor handsome
Billy ! Worth millions of dollars was his young life.

These sombre recollections gave way at length to
more cheerful feelings as he began to approach his home
coolly. The fields and houses grew familiar, and in one
or two he was greeted by people seated in the doorways.
But he was in no mood to talk, and pushed on steadily,
though he stopped and accepted a drink of milk once at
the well-side of a neighbor.

The sun was burning hot on that slope, and his step
grew slower, in spite of his iron resolution. He sat
down several times to rest. Slowly he crawled up the
rough, reddish-brown road, which wound along the hill-
side, under great trees, through dense groves of jack

N

1 78 Main -Travelled Roads

•

oaks, with tree-tops far below him on his left hand^ and
the hills far above him on his right. He crawled along
like some minute, wingless variety of fly.

He ate some hardtack, sauced with wild berries, when
he reached the summit of the ridge, and sat there for
some time, looking down into his home coolly.

Sombre, pathetic figure ! His wide, round, gray eyes
gazing down into the beautiful valley, seeing and not
seeing, the splendid cloud-shadows sweeping over the
western hills and across the green and yellow wheat far
below. His head drooped forward on his palm, his
shoulders took on a tired stoop, his cheek-bones showed
painfully. An observer might have said, " He is look-
ing down upon his own grave."

n

Sunday comes in a Western wheat harvest with such
sweet and sudden relaxation to man and beast that it
would be holy for that reason, if for no other, and Sun-
days are usually fair in harvest-time. As one goes out
into the field in the hot morning sunshine, with no sound
abroad save the crickets and the indescribably pleasant
silken rustling of the ripened grain, the reaper and the
very sheaves in the stubble seem to be resting, dreaming.

Around the house, in the shade of the trees, the men
sit, smoking, dozing, or reading the papers, while the
women, never resting, move about at the housework.
The men eat on Sundays about the same as on other
days, and breakfast is no sooner over and out of the way
than dinner begins.

The Return of a Private 179

But at the Smith farm there were no men dozing or
reading, Mrs. Smith was alone with her three children,
Mary, nine. Tommy, six, and little Ted, just past four.
Her farm, rented to a neighbor, lay at the head of a
coolly or narrow gully, made at some far-off post-glacial
period by the vast and angry floods of water which
gullied these tremendous furrows in the level prairie —
furrows so deep that undisturbed portions of the original
level rose like hills on either side, rose to quite con-
siderable mountains.

The chickens wakened her as usual that Sabbath
morning from dreams of her absent husband, from
whom she had not heard for weeks. The shadows
drifted over the hills, down the slopes, across the wheat,
and up the opposite wall in leisurely way, as if, being
Sunday, they could take it easy also. The fowls clus-
tered about the housewife as she went out into the yard.
Fuzzy little chickens swarmed out from the coops,
where their clucking and perpetually disgruntled mothers
tramped about, petulantly thrusting their heads through
the spaces between the slats.

A cow called in a deep, musical bass, and a calf an-
swered from a little pen near by, and a pig scurried
guiltily out of the cabbages. Seeing all this, seeing the
pig in the cabbages, the tangle of grass in the garden,
the broken fence which she had mended again and again
— the little woman, hardly more than a girl, sat down
and cried. The bright Sabbath morning was only a
mockery without him !

A few years ago they had bought this farm, paying

i8o Main -Travelled Roads

part, mortgaging the rest in the usual way. Eldward
Smith was a man of terrible energy. He worked
^^ nights and Sundays," as the saying goes, to clear the
farm of its brush and of its insatiate mortgage ! In the
midst of his Herculean struggle came the call for volun-
teers, and with the grim and unselfish devotion to his
country which made the Eagle Brigade able to "whip
its weight in wild-cats," he threw down his scythe and
grub-axe, turned his cattle loose, and became a blue-
coated cog in a vast machine for killing men, and not
thistles. While the millionaire sent his money to Eng-
land for safe-keeping, this man, with his girl-wife and
three babies, left them on a mortgaged farm, and went
away to fight for an idea. It was foolish, but it was
sublime for all that.

That was three years before, and the yoiing wife, sit-
ting on the well-curb on this bright Sabbath harvest
morning, was righteously rebellious. It seemed to her
that she had borne her share of the country's sorrow.
Two brothers had been killed, the renter in whose hands
her husband had left the farm had proved a villain ; one
year the farm had been without crops, and now the over-
ripe grain was waiting the tardy hand of the neighbor
who had rented it, and who was cutting his own grain
first.

About six weeks before, she had received a letter say-
ing, " We'll be discharged in a little while." But no
other word had come from him. She had seen by the
papers that his army was being discharged, and from day
to day other soldiers slowly percolated in blue streams

The Return of a Private i8i

back into the State and county, but still her hero did not
return.

Each week she had told the children that he was com-
ing, and she had watched the road so long that it had
become unconscious; and as she stood at the well, or
by the kitchen door, her eyes were fixed unthinkingly on
the road that wound down the coolly.

Nothing wears on the human soul like waiting. If
the stranded mariner, searching the sun-bright seas, could
once give up hope of a ship, that horrible grinding on
his brain would cease. It was this waiting, hoping, on
the edge of despair, that gave Emma Smith no rest.

Neighbors said, with kind intentions : '' He's sick,
maybe, an' can't start north just yet. He'll come along
one o' these days."

" Why don't he write ? " was her question, which
silenced them all. This Sunday morning it seemed to
her as if she could not stand it longer. The house
seemed intolerably lonely. So she dressed the little ones
in their best calico dresses and home-made jackets, and,
closing up the house, set off down the coolly to old
Mother Gray's.

" Old Widder Gray " lived at the " mouth of the
coolly.'* She was a widow woman with a large family
of stalwart boys and laughing girls. She was the visible
incarnation of hospitality and optimistic poverty. With
Western open-heartedness she fed every mouth that
asked food of her, and worked herself to death as cheer-
fully as her girls danced in the neighborhood harvest
dances.

1 82 Main -Travelled Roads

She waddled down the path to meet Mrs. Smith with
a broad smile on her face.

^ Oh, you little dears ! Come right to your granny.
Gimme me a kiss ! Come right in. Mis' Smith. How
are yeh, anyway ? Nice mornin', ain't it ? Come in
an' set down. Everything's in a clutter, but that won't
scare you any."

She led the way into the best room, a sunny, square
room, carpeted with a faded and patched rag carpet, and
papered with white-and-green-striped wall-paper, where
a few faded efEgies of dead members of the family hung
in variously sized oval walnut frames. The house re-
sounded with singing, laughter, whistling, tramping of
heavy boots, and riotous scufflings. Half-grown boys
came to the door and crooked their fingers at the children,
who ran out, and were soon heard in the midst of the fiin.

" Don't s'pose you've heard from Ed ? " Mrs. Smith
shook her head. " He'll turn up some day, when you
ain't lookin' for 'm." The good old soul had said that
so many times that poor Mrs. Smith derived no comfort
from it any longer.

''Liz heard from Al the other day. He's comin*
some day this week. Anyhow, they expect him."

" Did he say anything of — "

" No, he didn't," Mrs. Gray admitted. " But then
it was only a short letter, anyhow. Al ain't much for
writin', anyhow. — But come out and see my new cheese.
I tell yeh, I don't believe I ever had better luck in my
life. If Ed should come, I want you should take him
wp a piece of this cheese.**

The Return of a Private 183

It was beyond human nature to resist the influence of
that noisy, hearty, loving household, and in the midst of
the singing and laughing the wife forgot her anxiety, for,
the time at least, and laughed and sang with the rest.

About eleven o'clock a wagon-load more drove up to
the door, and Bill Gray, the widow's oldest son, and his
whole family, from Sand Lake Coolly, piled out amid a
good-natured uproar. Every one talked at once, except
Bill, who sat in the wagon with his wrists on his knees,
a straw in his mouth, and an amused twinkle in his blue
eyes.

" Ain't heard nothin' o' Ed, I s'pose ? " he asked in a
kind of bellow. Mrs. Smith shook her head. Bill, with
a delicacy very striking in such a great giant, rolled his
quid in his mouth, and said :

'' Didn't know but you had. I hear two or three of
the Sand Lake boys are comin'. Left New ^Orleenes
some time this week. Didn't write nothin' about Ed,
but no news is good news in such cases, mother always
says."

" Well, go put out yer team," said Mrs. Gray, " an'
go 'n bring me in some taters, an', Sim, you go see if you
c'n find some corn. Sadie, you put on the water to bile.
Come now, hustle yer boots, all o* yeh. If I feed this
yer crowd, we've got to have some raw materials. If
y' think I'm goin* to feed yeh on pie — you're jest
mightily mistaken."

The children went off into the fields, the girls put
dinner on to boil, and then went to change their dresses
and fix their hair. '' Somebody might come," they said.

184 Main -Travelled Roads

^^ Land sakes, / h&pe not ! I don't know where in
time Fd set *em, *less they'd eat at the second table,*'
Mrs. Gray laughed, in pretended dismay.

The two older boys, who had served their time in the
army, lay out on the grass before the house, and whittled
and talked desultorily about the war and the crops, and
planned buying a threshing-machine. The older girls
and Mrs. Smith helped enlarge the table and put on the
dishes, talking all the time in that cheery, incoherent, and
meaningful way a group of such women have, — a con-
versation to be taken for its spirit rather than for its
letter, though Mrs. Gray at last got the ear of them all
and dissertated at length on girls.

" Girls in love ain't no use in the whole blessed week,"
she said. "Sundays they're a-lookin' down the road, ex-
pectin' he'll come, Sunday afternoons they can't think
o' nothin' else, 'cause he's here, Monday mornin's
they're sleepy and kind o' dreamy and slimpsy, and good
Pr nothin' on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday they
git absent-minded, an' begin to look ofF toward Sunday
agin, an' mope aroun' and let the dishwater git cold, right
under their noses. Friday they break dishes, an' go ofF
in the best room an' snivel, an' look out o' the winder.
Saturdays they have queer spurts o' workin' like all
p'ssessed, an' spurts o' frizzin* their hair. An* Sunday
they begin it all over agin."

The girls giggled and blushed, all through this tirade
from their mother, their broad faces and powerful frames
anything but suggestive of lackadaisical sentiment. But
Mrs. Smith said :

The Return of a Private 185

" Now, Mrs. Gray, I hadn't ought to stay to dinner.
YouVe got — "

" Now you set right down ! If any of them girls'
beaus comes, they'll have to take what's left, that's all.
They ain't s'posed to have much appetite, nohow. No,
you're goin' to stay if they starve, an' they ain't no dan-
ger o' that."

At one o'clock the long table was piled with boiled
potatoes, cords of boiled corn on the cob, squash and
pumpkin pies, hot biscuit, sweet pickles, bread and butter,
and honey. Then one of the girls took down a conch-
shell from a nail, and going to the door, blew a long,
fine, free blast, that showed there was no weakness of
lungs in her ample chest.

Then the children came out of the forest of corn, out
of the creek, out of the loft of the barn, and out of the
garden.

"'They come to their feed Pr all the world jest like
the pigs when y' holler ' poo-ee ! ' See 'em scoot ! "
laughed Mrs. Gray, every wrinkle on her face shining
with delight.

The men shut up their jack-knives, and surrounded
the horse-trough to souse their faces in the cold, hard
water, and in a few moments the table was filled with
a merry crowd, and a row of wistful-eyed youngsters
circled the kitchen wall, where they stood first on one
leg and then on the other, in impatient hunger.

" Now pitch in, Mrs. Smith," said Mrs. Gray, pre-
siding over the table. " You know these men critters.
They'll eat every grain of it, if yeh give 'em a chance.

1 86 Main -Travelled Roads

I swan, they're made o' India-rubber, their stomachs is,
I know it."

^^ Haf to eat to work," said Bill, gnawing a cob with a
swift, circular motion that rivalled a corn-sheller in results.

" More like workin' to eat," put in one of the girls,
with a giggle. " More eat 'n work with you."

"3^« needn't say anything. Net. Any one that'll eat
seven ears — "

" I didn't, no such thing. You piled your cobs on
my plate."

" That'll do to tell Ed Varney. It won't go down
here where we know yeh."

" Good land ! Eat all yeh want ! They's plenty
more in the fiel's, but I can't afford to give you young
uns tea. The tea is for us women-folks, and 'specially
Pr Mis' Smith an' Bill's wife. We're a-goin' to tell
fortunes by it."

One by one the men filled up and shoved back, and
one by one the children slipped into theia places, and by
two o'clock the women alone remained around the
debris-covered table, sipping their tea and telling for-
tunes.

As they got well down to the grounds in the cup,
they shook them with a circular motion in the hand,
and then turned them bottom-side-up quickly in the
saucer, then twirled them three or four times one way,
and three or four times the other, during a breathless
pause. Then Mrs. Gray lifted the cup, and, gazing
into it with profound gravity, pronounced the impend"
ing fate.

The Return of a Private 187

It must be admitted that, to a critical observer, she
had abundant preparation for hitting close to the mark,
as when she told the girls that "somebody was comin'."
" It's a man," she went on gravely. " He is cross-
eyed — "

" Oh, you hush ! " cried Nettie.

" He has red hair, and is death on b'iled corn and hot
biscuit."

The others shrieked with delight.

" But he's goin' to get the mitten, that red-headed
feller is, for I see another feller comin' up behind him."

" Oh, lemme see, lemme see ! " cried Nettie.

" Keep off," said the priestess, with a lofty gesture.
*' His hair is black. He don't eat so much, and he
works more."

The girls exploded in a shriek of laughter, and
pounded their sister on the back.

At last came Mrs. Smith's turn, and she was trem-
bling with excitement as Mrs. Gray again composed her
jolly face to what she considered a proper solemnity of
expression.

" Somebody is comin' to you^^ she said, after a long
pause. " He's got a musket on his back. He's a
soldier. He's almost here. See ? "

She pointed at two little tea-stems, which really formed
a faint suggestion of a man with a musket on his back.
He had climbed nearly to the edge of the cup. Mrs.
Smith grew pale with excitement. She trembled so she
could hardly hold the cup in her hand a$ she gazed
into it«

1 88 Main -Travelled Roads

" It's Ed," cried the old woman. *' He's on the way
home. Heavens an' earth ! There he is now ! " She
turned and waved her hand out toward the road. They
rushed to the door to look where she pointed.

A man in a blue coat, with a musket on his back,
was toiling slowly up the hill on the sun-bright, dusty
road, toiling slowly, with bent head half hidden by a
heavy knapsack. So tired it seemed that walking was
indeed a process of falling. So eager to get home he
would not stop, would not look aside, but plodded on,
amid the cries of the locusts, the welcome of the crickets,
and the rustle of the yellow wheat. Getting back to
God's country, and his wife and babies !

Laughing, crying, trying to call him and the children
at the same time, the little wife, almost hysterical,
snatched her hat and ran out into the yard. But the
soldier had disappeared over the hill into the hollow
beyond, and, by the time she had found the children,
he was too far away for her voice to reach him. And,
besides, she was not sure it was her husband, for he had
not turned his head at their shouts. This seemed so
strange. Why didn't he stop to rest at his old neigh-
bor's house ? Tortured by hope and doubt, she hurried
up the coolly as fast as she could push the baby wagon,
the blue-coated figure just ahead pushing steadily, silently
forward up the coolly.

When the excited, panting little group came in sight
of the gate they saw the blue-coated figure standing,
leaning upon the rough rail fence, his chin on his palms,
gazing at the empty house. His knapsack, canteen.

The Return of a Private 189

blankets, and musket lay upon the dusty grass at his
reet.

He was like a man lost in a dream. His wide, hun-
gry eyes devoured the scene. The rough lawn, the
*ittle unpainted house, the field of clear yellow wheat
behind it, down across which streamed the sun, now
?*lmost ready to touch the high hill to the west, the crickets
crying merrily, a cat on the fence near by, dreaming,
unmindful of the stranger in blue —

How peaceful it all was. O God ! How far re-
moved from all camps, hospitals, battle lines. A little
cibin in a Wisconsin coolly, but it was majestic in its
peace. How did he ever leave it for those years of
"ramping, thirsting, killing ?

Trembling, weak with emotion, her eyes on the
ilent figure, Mrs. Smith hurried up to the fence. Her
feet made no noise in the dust and grass, and they were
close upon him before he knew of them. The oldest
)oy ran a little ahead. He will never forget that figure,
chat face. It will always remain as something epic,
that return of the private. He fixed his eyes on the
pale face covered with a ragged beard.

" Who are you, sir ? " asked the wife, or, rather,
started to ask, for he turned, stood a moment, and then
cried :

" Emma ! "

« Edward ! "

The children stood in a curious row to see their
mother kiss this bearded, strange man, the elder girl
sobbing sympathetically with her mother. Illness had

190 Main -Travelled Roads

left the soldier partly deaf, and this added to the strange*
ness of his manner.

But the youngest child stood away, even after the
girl had recognized her father and kissed him. The
man turned then to the baby, and said in a curiously
unpaternal tone :

" Come here, my little man ; don't you know me ? *'
But the baby backed away under the fence and stood
peering at him critically.

" My little man ! " What meaning in those words!
This baby seemed like some other woman's child, and
not the infant he had left in his wife's arms. The war
had come between him and his baby — he was only a
strange man to him, with big eyes ; a soldier, with
mother hanging to his arm, and talking in a loud
voice.

"And this is Tom," the private said, drawing the
oldest boy to him. " He^ll come and see me. He
knows his poor old pap when he comes home from the
war."

The mother heard the pain and reproach in his voice
and hastened to apologize.

"You've changed so, Ed. He can't know yeh.
This is papa, Teddy ; come and kiss him — Tom and
Mary do. Come, won't you ? " But Teddy still
peered through the fence with solemn eyes, well out
of reach. He resembled a half-wild kitten that hesi-
tates, studying the tones of one's voice.

" I'll fix him," said the soldier, and sat down to undo
his knapsack, out of which he drew three enormous and

The Return of a Private 191

Very red apples. After giving one to each of the older

children, he said :
" Now I guess he'll come. Eh, my little man ?

Now come see your pap."

Teddy crept slowly under the fence, assisted by the
overzealous Tommy, and a moment later was kicking
and squalling in his father's arms. Then they entered
the house, into the sitting room, poor, bare, art-forsaken
little room, too, with its rag carpet, its square clock, and
its two or three chromos and pictures from Harper*s
Weekly pinned about.

*' Emma, I'm all tired out," said Private Smith, as he
flung himself down on the carpet as he used to do,
while his wife brought a pillow to put under his head,
and the children stood about munching their apples.

*' Tommy, you run and get me a pan of chips, and
Mary, you get the tea-kettle on, and I'll go and make
some biscuit."

And the soldier talked. Question after question he
poured forth about the crops, the cattle, the renter, the
neighbors. He slipped his heavy government brogan
8hoe9 off his poor, tired, blistered feet, and lay out with
utter, sweet relaxation. He was a free man again, no
longer a soldier under command. At supper he stopped
once, listened and smiled. ^^ That's old Spot. I know
her voice. I s'pose that's her calf out there in the pen.
I can't milk her to-night, though. I'm too tired. But
I tell you, Fd like a drink o' her milk. What's become
of old Rove ? "

^ He died last winter. Poisoned, I guess." There

192 Main -Travelled Roads

was a moment of sadness for them all. It was some
time before the husband spoke again, in a voice that
trembled a little.

*^ Poor old feller ! He'd V known me half a mile
away. I expected him to come down the hill to meet
me. It 'ud 'a' been more like comin' home if I could
'a' seen him comin' down the road an' waggin* his tail,
an' laughin' that way he has. I tell yeh, it kind o* took
hold o' me to see the blinds down an' the house shut
up.

" But, yeh see, we — we expected you'd write again
'fore you started. And then we thought we'd see you
if you did come," she hastened to explain.

" Well, I ain't worth a cent on writin'. Besides, it's
just as well yeh didn't know when I was comin'. I tell
you, it sounds good to hear them chickens out there, an'
turkeys, an' the crickets. Do you know they don't
have just the same kind o' crickets down South ? Who's
Sam hired t' help cut yer grain ? "

" The Ramsey boys."

" Looks like a good crop ; but I'm afraid I won't do
much gettin' it cut. This cussed fever an' ague has
got me down pretty low. I don't know when I'll get
rid of it. rU bet I've took twenty-five pounds of qui-
nine if I've taken a bit. Gimme another biscuit. I
tell yeh, they taste good, Emma. I ain't had anything
like it — Say, if you'd 'a' hear'd me braggin* to th'
boys about your butter 'n' biscuits I'll bet your cars 'ud
'a' burnt."

The private's wife colored with pleasure. *'Oh|

99

The Return of a Private 193

you're always a-braggin' about your things. Everybody
makes good butter.

" Yes ; old lady Snyder, for instance.

" Oh, well, she ain't to be mentioned. She's Dutch.

" Or old Mis' Snively. One more cup o' tea, Mary.
That's my girl ! I'm feeling better already. I just
b'lieve the matter with me is, I'm starved,^^

This was a delicious hour, one long to be remem-
bered. They were like lovers again. But their tender-
ness, like that of a typical American family, found
utterance in tones, rather than in words. He was prais-
ing her when praising her biscuit, and she knew it.
They grew soberer when he showed where he had been
struck, one ball burning the back of his hand, one cut-
ting away a lock of hair from his temple, and one pass-
ing through the calf of his leg. The wife shuddered to
think how near she had come to being a soldier's widow.
Her waiting no longer seemed hard. This sweet, glori-
ous hour effaced it all.

Then they rose, and all went out into the garden and
down to the barn. He stood beside her while she
milked old Spot. They began to plan fields and crops
for next year.

His farm was weedy and encumbered, a rascally
renter had run away with his machinery (departing be-
tween two days), his children needed clothing, the years
were coming upon him, he was sick and emaciated, but
his heroic soul did not quail. With the same courage
with which he had faced his Southern march he entered
upon a still more hazardous future.
o

194 Main -Travelled Roads

Oh, that mystic hour ! The pale man with big eyes
standing there by the well, with his young wife by his
side. The vast moon swinging above the eastern peaks,
the cattle winding down the pasture slopes with jangling
bells, the crickets singing, the stars blooming out sweet
and far and serene; the katydids rhythmically calling,
the little turkeys crying querulously, as they settled to
roost in the poplar tree near the open gate. The voices
at the well drop lower, the little ones nestle in their
father's arms at last, and Teddy falls asleep there.

The common soldier of the American volunteer army
had returned. His war with the South was over, and
his fight, his daily running fight with nature and against
the injustice of his fellow-men, was begun again.

UNDER THE LION'S PAW

^* Along this main-travelled road trailed an endless line
of prairie schooners , coming into sight at the east^ and
passing out of sight over the swell to the west. We
children used to wonder where they were going and
why they went**

UNDER THE LION'S PAW

It was the last of autumn and first day of winter
coming together. All day long the ploughmen on their
prairie farms had moved to and fro in their wide level
fields through the falling snow, which melted as it fell,
wetting them to the skin — all day, notwithstanding the
frequent squalls of snow, the dripping, desolate clouds,
and the muck of the furrows, black and tenacious as
tar.

Under their dripping harness the horses swung to and
fro silently, with that marvellous uncomplaining patience
which marks the horse. All day the wild geese, honk-
ing wildly, as they sprawled sidewise down the wind,
seemed to be fleeing from an enemy behind, and with
neck outthrust and wings extended, sailed down the
wind, soon lost to sight.

Yet the ploughman behind his plough, though the
snow lay on his ragged great-coat, and the cold clinging
mud rose on his heavy boots, fettering him like gyves,
whistled in the very beard of the gale. As day passed,
the snow, ceasing to melt, lay along the ploughed land,
and lodged in the depth of the stubble, till on each slow
round the last furrow stood out black and shining as jet
between the ploughed land and the gray stubble.

When night began to fall, and the geese, flying low,

197

198 Main -Travelled Roads

began to alight invisibly in the near corn-field, Stephen
Council was still at work ^^ finishing a land." He rode
on his sulky plough when going with the wind, but
walked when facing it. Sitting bent and cold but
cheery under his ^slouch hat, he talked encouragingly to
his four-in-hand.

'' Come round there, boys ! — Round agin ! We got
t' finish this land. Come in there, Dan ! Stiddy^ Kate,
— stiddy ! None o' y'r tantrums, Kittie. It's purty
tufF, but got a be did. Tchk ! tchk ! Step along, Pete !
Don't let Kate git y'r single-tree on the wheel. Onc$
more ! "

They seemed to know what he meant, and that this
was the last round, for they worked with greater vigor
than before.

" Once more, boys, an' then, sez I, oats an' a nice
warm stall, an' sleep Pr all."

By the time the last furrow was turned on the land it
was too dark to see the house, and the snow was chang-
ing to rain again. The tired and hungry man could see
the light from the kitchen shining through the leafless
hedge, and he lifted a great shout, ^^ Supper fr a half a
dozen ! "

It was nearly eight o'clock by the time he had finished
his chores and started for supper. He was picking his
way carefully through the mud, when the tall form
of a man loomed up before him with a premonitory
cough.

" Waddy ye want ? " was the rather startled question
gf the farmer.

>9

Under the Lion's Paw 199

" Well, ye see," began the stranger, in a deprecating
tone, " we'd like t' git in Pr the night. We've tried
every house Pr the last two miles, but they hadn't any
room f r us. My wife's jest about sick, 'n' the children
are cold and hungry — "

" Oh, y' want 'o stay all night, eh ?

'' Yes, sir ; it 'ud be a great accom —

" Waal, I don't make it a practice t* turn anybuddy
way hungry, not on sech nights as this. Drive right
in. We ain't got much, but sech as it is — "

But the stranger had disappeared. And soon his
steaming, weary team, with drooping heads and swinging
single-trees, moved past the well to the block beside the
path. Council stood at the side of the "schooner"
and helped the children out — two little half-sleeping
children — and then a small woman with a babe in her
arms.

" There ye go ! " he shouted jovially, to the children.
'' Now we're all right ! Run right along to the house
there, an' tell Mam' Council you wants sumpthin' t' eat.
Right this way, Mis' — keep right off t' the right there.
I'll go an' git a lantern. Come," he said to the dazed
and silent group at his side.

" Mother," he shouted, as he neared the fragrant and
warmly lighted kitchen, " here are some wayfarers an'
folks who need sumpthin' t' eat an' a place t' snooze."
He ended by pushing them all in.

Mrs. Council, a large, jolly, rather coarse-looking
woman, took the children in her arms. " Come right
in, you little rabbits. 'Most asleep, hey ? Now hcrc*s

200 Main -Travelkd Road*

a drink o* milk f'r each o' ye. Pll have s*m tea in
a minute. Take off y'r things and set up t' the
fire.'*

While she set the children to drinking milk, Council
got out his lantern and went out to the barn to help
the stranger about his team, where his loud, hearty
voice could be heard as it came and went between the
haymow and the stalls.

The woman came to light as a small, timid, and
discouraged-looking woman, but still pretty, in a thin
and sorrowful way.

" Land sakes ! An' you've travelled all the way
from Clear Lake t'-day in this mud ! Waal ! waal !
No wonder you're all tired out. Don't wait f'r the
men. Mis' — " She hesitated, waiting for the name.

" Haskins."

" Mis' Haskins, set right up to the table an' take a
good swig o' tea whilst I make y' s'm toast. It's green
tea, an' it's good. I tell Council as I git older I don't
seem to enjoy Young Hyson n'r Gunpowder. I want
the reel green tea, jest as it comes ofF'n the vines.
Seems t' have more heart in it, some way. Don't s'pose
it has. Council says it's all in m' eye."

Going on in this easy way, she soon had the chil-
dren filled with bread and milk and the woman thor-
oughly at home, eating some toast and sweet-melon
pickles, and sipping the tea.

*' See the little rats ! " she laughed at the children.
" They're full as they can stick now, and they want
to go to bed. Now, don't git up, Mis' Haskins ; set

Under the Lion's Paw aoi

right where you are an' let me look after 'em. I know
ail about young ones, though I'm all alone now. Jane
went an' married last fall. But, as I tell Council, it's
lucky we keep our health. Set right there, Mis' Ras-
kins ; I won't have you stir a finger."

It was an unmeasured pleasure to sit there in the
warm, homely kitchen, the jovial chatter of the house-
wife driving out and holding at bay the growl of the
impotent, cheated wind.

The little woman's eyes filled with tears which fell
down upon the sleeping baby in her arms. The world
was not so desolate and cold and hopeless, after all.

"Now I hope Council won't stop out there and
talk politics all night. He's the greatest man to talk
politics an' read the Tribune — How old is it f "

She broke off and peered down at the face of the
babe.

" Two months 'n' five days," said the mother, with
a mother's exactness.

" Ye don't say ! I want 'o know ! The dear little
pudzy-wudzy ! " she went on, stirring it up in the
neighborhood of the ribs with her fat forefinger.

" Pooty tough on 'oo to go gallivant'n' 'cross lots
this way — "

" Yes, that's so ; a man can't lift a mountain,'* said
Council, entering the door. " Mother, this is Mr.
Haskins, from Kansas. He's been eat up 'n' drove out
by grasshoppers."

*'Glad t' see yeh! — Pa, empty that wash-basin V
give him a chance t' wash,"

202 Main -Travelled Roads

Haskins was a tall man, with a thin, gloomy face.
His hair was a reddish brown, like his coat, and seemed
equally faded by the wind and sun, and his sallow
face, though hard and set, was pathetic somehow. You
would have felt that he had suffered much by the line
of his mouth showing under his thin, yellow mustache.

" Hain't Ike got home yet, Sairy ? "

" Hain't seen 'im."

''W-a-a-1, set right up, Mr. Haskins; wade right
into what we've got ; 'tain't much, but we manage to
live on it — she gits fat on it," laughed Council, point-
ing his thumb at his wife.

After supper, while the women put the children to
bed, Haskins and Council talked on, seated near the
huge cooking-stove, the steam rising from their wet
clothing. In the Western fashion Council told as much
of his own life as he drew from his guest. He asked
but few questions, but by and by the story of Haskins'
struggles and defeat come out. The story was a terrible
one, but he told it quietly, seated with his elbows on
his knees, gazing most of the time at the hearth.

''I didn't like the looks of the country, anyhow,"
Haskins said, partly rising and glancing at his wife.
" I was ust t' northern Ingyannie, where we have lots
o' timber 'n' lots o' rain, 'n* I didn't like the looks o'
that dry prairie. What galled me the worst was goin'
s' far away acrosst so much fine land layin' all through
here vacant."

"And the 'hoppers eat ye four years, hand running
did they ? "

Under the Lion's Paw 20j

*'Eat! They wiped us out. They chawed every-
thing that was green. They jest set around waitin' f r
us to die t' eat us, too. My God ! I ust t' dream of
*em sittin' *round on the bedpost, six feet long, workin*
their jaws. They eet the fork-handles. They got
worse *n' worse till they jest rolled on one another,
piled up like snow in winter. Well, it ain't no use.
If I was t' talk all winter I couldn't tell nawthin*.
But all the while I couldn't help thinkin' of all that land
back here that nobuddy was usin' that I ought 'o had
'stead o' bein' out there in that cussed country."

**Waal, why didn't ye stop an' settle here?"
asked Ike, who had come in and was eating his
supper.

" Fer the simple reason that you fellers wantid ten 'r
fifteen dollars an acre fer the bare land, and I hadn't no
money fer that kind o' thing."

"Yes, I do my own work," Mrs. Council was heard
to say in the pause which followed. " I'm a gettin'
purty heavy t' be on m' laigs all day, but we can't aiFord
t'hire, so I keep rackin' around somehow, like a foundered
horse. S' lame — I tell Council he can't tell how lame
I am, f 'r I'm jest as lame in one laig as t'other." And
the good soul laughed at the joke on herself as she took
a handful of flour and dusted the biscuit-board to keep
the dough from sticking.

•^Wcll, I hain't never been very strong," said Mrs.
Haskins. " Our folks was Canadians an' small-boned,
and then since my last child I hain't got up again fairly.
I don't like t' complain. Tim has about all he can

204 Main -Travelled Roads

bear now — but they was days this week when I jest
wanted to lay right down an' die."

"Waal, now, I'll tell ye," said Council, from his side
of the stove, silencing everybody with his good-natured
roar, " I'd go down and see Butler, anyway^ if I was you.
I guess he'd let you have his place purty cheap; the
farm's all run down. He's ben anxious t' let t' some-
buddy next year. It 'ud be a good chance fer you.
Anyhow, you go to bed and sleep like a babe. I've
got some ploughin' t' do, anyhow, an' we'll see if some-
thin' can't be done about your case. Ike, you go out
an' see if the horses is all right, an' I'll show the folks
t' bed."

When the tired husband and wife were lying under
the generous quilts of the spare bed, Haskins listened a
moment to the wind in the eaves, and then said, with
a slow and solemn tone,

" There are people in this world who are good enough
t' be angels, an' only hafF t' die to be angels."

II

Jim Butler was one of those men called in the West
** land poor." Early in the history of Rock River he
had come into the town and started in the grocery
business in a small way, occupying a small building in a
mean part of the town. At this period of his life he
earned all he got, and was up early and late sorting beans,
working over butter, and carting his goods to and from
the station. But a change came over him at the end

Under the Lion's Paw 205

of the second year, when he sold a lot of land for four
times what he paid for it. From that time forward he
believed in land speculation as the surest way of getting
rich. Every cent he could save or spare from his trade
he put into land at forced sale, or mortgages on land,
which were "just as good as the wheat," he was accus-
tomed to say.

Farm after farm fell into his hands, until he was rec-
ognized as one of the leading landowners of the county.
His mortgages were scattered all over Cedar County, and
as they slowly but surely fell in he sought usually to
retain the former owner as tenant.

He was not ready to foreclose; indeed, he had the
name of being one of the " easiest " men in the town.
He let the debtor off again and again, extending the time
whenever possible.

"I don't want y'r land," he said. "All Tm after is
the int'rest on my money — that's all. Now, if y' want
'o stay on the farm, why, PU give y' a good chance. I
can't have the land layin' vacant." And in many cases
the owner remained as tenant.

In the meantime he had sold his store ; he couldn't
spend time in it; he was mainly occupied now with
sitting around town on rainy days smoking and " gassin'
with the boys," or in riding to and from his farms. In
fishing-time he fished a good deal. Doc Grimes, Ben
Ashley, and Cal Cheatham were his cronies on these
fishing excursions or hunting trips in the time of chick-
ens or partridges. In winter they went to Northern
Wisconsin to shoot deer.

2o6 Main -Travelled Roads

In spite of all these signs of easy life Buder persisted
in saying he ^^ hadn't enough money to pay taxes on bis
land," and was careful to convey the impression that he
was poor in spite of his twenty farms. At one time
he was said to be worth fifty thousand dollars, but land
had been a little slow of sale of late, so that he was not
worth so much.

A fine farm, known as the Higley place, had fallen
into his hands in the usual way the previous year, and
he had not been able to find a tenant for it. Poor Hig-
ley, after working himself nearly to death on it in the
attempt to lift the mortgage, had gone off to Dakota,
leaving the farm and his curse to Butler.

This was the farm which Council advised Haskins
to apply for; and the next day Council hitched up his
team and drove down town to see Butler.

" You jest let me do the talkin*," he said. « We'll

find him wearin' out his pants on some salt barrel some-

w'ers ; and if he thought you wanted a place he'd sock

it to you hot and heavy. You jest keep quiet \ I'll fix

im.

Butler was seated in Ben Ashley's store telling fish
yarns when Council sauntered in casually.

« Hello, But ; lyin' agin, hey ? "

" Hello, Steve ! how goes it ? "

" Oh, so-so. Too dang much rain these days. I
thought it was goin' t' freeze up f 'r good last night.
Tight squeak if I get m' ploughin' done. How's
farmin' with you these days ? "

" Bad. Ploughin' ain't half done."

Under the Lion's Paw 207

** It *ud be a religious idee Tr you t' go out an' take
a hand y'rself."

" I don't haff to," said Butler, with a wink.

*' Got anybody on the Higley place ? "

" No. Know of anybody ? **

*' Waal, no ; not eggsackly. I've got a relation back
t' Michigan who's ben hot an' cold on the idee o' comin'
West f r some time. Might come if he could get a good
lay-out. What do you talk on the farm ? "

" Well, I d' know. I'll rent it on shares or I'll rent
it money rent."

" Waal, how much money, say ? "

"Well, say ten per cent, on the price — two-
fifty."

"Waal, that ain't bad. Wait on 'im till *e
thrashes ? "

Haskins listened eagerly to his important question,
but Council was coolly eating a dried apple which he
had speared out of a barrel with his knife. Butler studied
him carefully.

"Well, knocks me out of twenty-five dollars in-

terest."

" My relation'll need all he's got t' git his crops m,"
said Council, in the safe, indiiFerent way.

*' Well, all right ; say wait," concluded Butler.

" All right ; this is the man. Haskins, this is Mr.
Butler — no relation to Ben — the hardest-working man
in Cedar County."

On the way home Haskins said : " I ain't much
better off. I'd like that farm j it's a good farm, but it's

/

/

4o8 Main -Travelled Roads

all run down, an' so 'm I. I could make a good farm
/ of it if I had half a show. But I can't stock it n'r
seed it."

"Waal, now, don't you worry," roared Council in
his ear. *' We'll pull y' through somehow till next
harvest. He's agreed t' hire it ploughed, an' you can
earn a hundred dollars ploughin' an* y' c'n git the seed
o* me, an' pay me back when y' can."

Haskins was silent with emotion, but at last he said,
*'I ain't got nothin' t' live on."

" Now, don't you worry 'bout that. You jest make
your headquarters at ol' Steve Council's. Mother'U
take a pile o' comfort in havin' y'r wife an' children
'round. Y' see, Jane's married off lately, an' Ike's
away a good 'eal, so we'll be darn glad t' have y' stop
with us this winter. Nex' spring we'll see if y' can't
git a start agin." And he chirruped to the team, which
sprang forward with the rumbling, clattering wagon.

" Say, looky here. Council, you can't do this. I never
saw — " shouted Haskins in his neighbor's ear.

Council moved about uneasily in his seat and stopped
his stammering gratitude by saying : " Hold on, now ;
don't make such a fuss over a little thing. When I see
a man down, an' things all on top of 'm, I jest like t'
kick 'em off an' help 'm up. That's the kind of re-
ligion I got, an' it's about the only kind."

They rode the rest of the way home in silence. And
when the red light of the lamp shone out into the dark-
ness of the cold and windy night, and he thought of
this refuge for his children and wife, Haskins could

Under the Lion's Paw 209

have put his arm around the neck of his burly com^
panion and squeezed him like a lover. But he con-i
tented himself with saying, " Steve Council, you'll
git y'r pay Pr this some day."

" Don't want any pay. My religion ain't run on such
business principles."

The wind was growing colder, and the ground was
covered with a white frost, as they turned into the gate
of the Council farm, and the children came rushing out,
shouting, " Papa's come ! " They hardly looked like
the same children who had sat at the table the night
before. Their torpidity, under the influence of sunshine
and Mother Council, had given way to a sort of spas-
modic cheerfulness, as insects in winter revive when
laid on the hearth.

Ill

Haskins worked like a fiend, and his wife, like the
heroic woman that she was, bore also uncomplainingly
the most terrible burdens. They rose early and toiled
without intermission till the darkness fell on the plain,
then tumbled into bed, every bone and muscle aching
with fatigue, to rise with the sun next morning to the
same round of the same ferocity of labor.

The eldest boy drove a team all through the spring,
ploughing and seeding, milked the cows, and did chores
innumerable, in most ways taking the place of a
man.

2IO Main -Travelled Roads

An infinitely pathetic but common figure — this boy
on the American farm, where there is no law against
child labor. To see him in his coarse clothing, his
huge boots, and his ragged cap, as he staggered with a
pail of water from the well, or trudged in the cold and
cheerless dawn out into the frosty field behind his team,
gave the city-bred visitor a sharp pang of sympathetic
pain. Yet Haskins loved his boy, and would have saved
him from this if he could, but he could not.

By June the first year the result of such Herculean toil
began to show on the farm. The yard was cleaned up
and sown to grass, the garden ploughed and planted, and
the house mended.

Council had given them four of his cows.

" Take 'em an' run 'em on shares. I don't want 'o
milk s' many. Ike's away s' much now, Sat'd'ys an'
Sund'ys, I can't stand the bother anyhow."

Other men, seeing the confidence of Council in the
newcomer, had sold him tools on time ; and as he was
really an able farmer, he soon had round him many evi-
dences of his care and thrift. At the advice of Council
he had taken the farm for three years, with the privilege
of re-renting or buying at the end of the term.

"It's a good bargain, an' y' want 'o nail it," said
Council. "If you have any kind ov a crop, you c'n
pay y'r debts, an' keep seed an* bread."

The new hope which now sprang up in the heart of
Haskins and his wife grew great almost as a pain by the
time the wide field of wheat began to wave and rusde
and swirl in the winds of July. Day after day he

Under the Lion's Paw 211

would snatch a few moments after supper to go and look
at it.

'' Have ye seen the wheat t'-day, Nettie ? " he asked
one night as he rose from supper.

" No, Tim, I ain't had time."

" Well, take time now. Le's^go look at it."

She threw an old hat on her head — Tommy's hat —
and looking almost pretty in her thin, sad way, went out
with her husband to the hedge.

" Ain't it grand, Nettie ? Just look at it."

It was grand. Level, russet here and there, heavy-
headed, wide as a lake, and full of multitudinous whis-
pers and gleams of wealth, it stretched away before the
gazers like the fabled field of the cloth of gold.

" Oh, I think — I hope we'll have a good crop, Tim ;
and oh, how good the people have been to us ! "

'' Yes J I don't know where we'd be t*-day if it hadn't
ben f 'r Council and his wife."

'' They're the best people in the world," said the little
woman, with a great sob of gratitude.

"We'll be in the field on Monday, sure," said Haskins,
gripping the rail on the fence as if already at the work
of the harvest.

The harvest came, bounteous, glorious, but the winds
came and blew it into tangles, and the rain matted it
here and there close to the ground, increasing the work
of gathering it threefold.

Oh, how they toiled in those glorious days ! Cloth-
ing dripping with sweat, arms aching, filled with briers,
fingers raw and bleeding, backs broken with the weight

21 a Main -Travelled Roads

of heavy bundles, Haskins and his man toiled on.
Tommy drove the harvester, while his father and a
hired man bound on the machine. In this way they
cut ten acres every day, and almost every night after sup-
per, when the hand went to bed, Haskins returned to
the field shocking the bound grain in the light of the
moon. Many a night he worked till his anxious wife
came out at ten o'clock to call him in to rest and lunch.

At the same time she cooked for the men, took care
of the children, washed and ironed, milked the cows at
night, made the butter, and sometimes fed the horses and
watered them while her husband kept at the shocking.

No slave in the Roman galleys could have toiled so
frightfully and lived, for this man thought himself a free
man, and that he was working for his wife and babes.

When he sank into his bed with a deep groan of re-
lief, too tired to change his grimy, dripping clothing, he
felt that he was getting nearer and nearer to a home of
his own, and pushing the wolf of want a little farther
from his door.

There is no despair so deep as the despair of a home-
less man or woman. To roam the roads of the country
or the streets of the city, to feel there is no rood of
ground on which the feet can rest, to halt weary and
hungry outside lighted windows and hear laughter and
song within, — these are the hungers and rebellions that
drive men to crime and women to shame.

It was the memory of this homelessness, and the fear of
its coming again, that spurred Timothy Haskins and Net-
tie, his wife, to such ferecious labor during that first year.

Under the Lion's Paw 213

IV

'' 'M, yes ; 'm, yes ; first-rate/' said Butler, as his eye
took in the neat garden, the pig-pen, and the well-filled
barnyard. " You're gitt'n' quite a stock around yeh.
Done well, eh ? "

Haskins was showing Butler around the place. He
had not seen it for a year, having spent the year in
Washington and Boston with Ashley, his brother-in-law,
who had been elected to Congress.

" Yes, I've laid out a good deal of money durin' the
last three years. I've paid out three hundred dollars Pr
fencin'."

" Um — h'm ! I see, I see," said Butler, while Has-
kins went on :

" The kitchen there cost two hundred ; the barn ain't
cost much in money, but I've put a lot o' time on it. I've
dug a new well, and I — "

"Yes, yes, I see. You've done well. Stock worth a
thousand dollars," said Butler, picking his teeth with a
straw.

" About that," said Haskins, modestly. " We begin
to feel 's if we was gitt'n' a home Pr ourselves ; but we've
worked hard. I tell you we begin to feel it, Mr. Butler,
and we're goin' t' begin to ease up purty soon. We've
been kind o' plannin' a trip back t' her folks after the
fall ploughin's done."

" ^^^^-actly ! " said Butler, who was evidently think-
ing of something else. " I suppose you've kind o' cal-
c'lated on stayin' here three years more f "

214 Main -Travelled Roads

" Well, yes. Fact Is, I think I c'n buy the farm thb
fall, if you'll give me a reasonable show."

*' Um — m ! What do you call a reasonable show ? **

" Well, say a quarter down and three years* time."

Butler looked at the huge stacks of wheat, which
filled the yard, over which the chickens were fluttering
and crawling, catching grasshoppers, and out of which
the crickets were singing innumerably. He smiled in a
peculiar way as he said, ^^ Oh, I won't be hard on yeh.
But what did you expect to pay Pr the place ? "

"Why, about what you offered it for before, two
thousand five huifdred, or possibly three thousand dollars,"
he added quickly, as he saw the owner shake his head.

^^ This farm is worth five thousand and five hundred
dollars," said Butler, in a careless and decided voice.

" What ! " almost shrieked the astounded Haskins.
" What's that ? Five thousand ? Why, that's double
what you offered it for three years ago."

*' Of course, and it's worth it. It was all run down
then ; now it's in good shape. You've laid out fifteen
hundred dollars in improvements, according to your own
story."

^^ But you had nothin' t' do about that. It's my work
an' my money."

*' You bet it was j but it's my land.

" But what's to pay me for all my —

"Ain't you had the use of 'em?" replied Butler,
smiling calmly into his face.

Haskins was like a man struck on the head with a
sandbag ; he couHn't thinly i h^ ^ts^mmcrcd as he tried

99

Under the Lion's Paw 215

to say: "But — I never'd git the use — You'd rob
me ! More 'n that : you agreed — you promised that I
could buy or rent at the end of three years at — "

" That's all right. But I didn't say I'd let you carry
ofF the improvements, nor that I'd go on renting the
farm at two-fifty. The land is doubled in value, it
don't matter how ; it don't enter into the question ; an'
now you can pay me five hundred dollars a year rent, or
take it on your own terms at fifty-five hundred, or — git

out."

He was turning away when Haskins, the sweat pour-
ing from his face, fronted him, saying again :

" But yotCve done nothing to make it so. You hain't
added a cent. I put it all there myself, expectin' to buy.
I worked an' sweat to improve it. I was workin' for
myself an' babes — "

** Well, why didn't you buy when I offered to sell ?
What y' kickin' about ? "

"I'm kickin' about payin' you twice Pr my own
things, — my own fences, my own kitchen, my own
garden."

Butler laughed. " You're too green t' eat, young feller.
l^Mer improvements ! The law will sing another tune."

" But I trusted your word."

** Never trust anybody, my friend. Besides, I didn't
promise not to do this thing. Why, man, don't look at
me like that. Don't take me for a thief. It's the lawo
The it:^\aji thing. Everybody does it."

•* I don't care if they do. It's stealin' jest the same.
You take three thousand dollars of my money — the

2i6 Main -Travelled Roads

work o' my hands and my wife's." He broke down at
this point. He was not a strong man mentally. He
could face hardship, ceaseless toil, but he could not face
the cold and sneering face of Butler.

"But I don't take it," said Butler, coolly. "All
you've got to do is to go on jest as you've been a-doin',
or give me a thousand dollars down, and a mortgage at
ten per cent on the rest.

Haskins sat down blindly on a bundle of oats near by,
and with staring eyes and drooping head went over the
situation. He was under the lion's paw. He felt a
horrible numbness in his heart and limbs. He was hid
in a mist, and there was no path out.

Butler walked about, looking at the huge stacks of
grain, and pulling now and again a few handfuls out,
shelling the heads in his hands and blowing the chaff
away. He hummed a little tune as he did so. He had
an accommodating air of waiting.

Haskins was in the midst of the terrible toil of the
last year. He was walking again in the rain and the
mud behind his plough; he felt the dust and dirt of
the threshing. The ferocious husking-time, with its
cutting wind and biting, clinging snows, lay hard upon
him. Then he thought of his wife, how she had cheer-
fully cooked and baked, without holiday and without
rest.

" Well, what do you think of it ? " inquired the cool,
mocking, insinuating voice of Butler.

"I think you're a thief and a liar! " shouted Haskins,
leaping up. "A black-hearted houn*!" Butler's smile

Under the Lion's Paw 217

maddened him ; with a sudden leap he caught a fork in
his hands, and whirled it in the air. " You'll never rob
another man, damn ye ! " he grated through his teeth, a
look of pitiless ferocity in his accusing eyes.

Butler shrank and quivered, expecting the blow ; stood,
held hypnotized by the eyes of the man he had a
moment before despised — a man transformed into an
avenging demon. But in the deadly hush between the
lift of the weapon and its fall there came a gush of faint,
childish laughter and then across the range of his vision,
far away and dim, he saw the sun-bright head of his
baby girl, as, with the pretty, tottering run of a two-
year-old, she moved across the grass of the dooryard.
His hands relaxed; the fork fell to the ground; his head
lowered.

"Make out y'r deed an' mor'gage, an* git ofF'n my
land, an' don't ye never cross my line agin ; if y' do,
m kill ye."

Butler backed away from the man in wild haste, and
climbing into his buggy with trembling limbs drove off
down the road, leaving Haskins seated dumbly on the
sunny pile of sheaves, his head sunk into his hands.

THE CREAMERY MAN

** Along these woods tn storm
and sun the busy people go**

THE CREAMERY MAN

The tin-pedler has gone out of the West. Amiable
gossip and sharp trader that he was, his visits once
brought a sharp business grapple to the fanner's wife
and daughters, after which, as the man of trade was
repacking his unsold wares, a moment of cheerful talk
often took place. It was his cue, if he chanced to be a
tactful pedler, to drop all attempts at sale and become
distinctly human and neighborly.

His calls were not always well received, but they
were at their best pleasant breaks of a monotonous
round of duties. But he is no longer a familiar spot on
the landscape. He has passed into the limbo of the
things no longer necessary. His red wagon may be
rumbling and rattling through some newer region, but
the " Coolly Country " knows him no more.

^^ The creamery man ** has taken his place. Every
afternoon, rain or shine, the wagons of the North Star
Creamery in " Dutcher*8 Coolly '* stop at the farmers'
windmills to skim the cream from the '^ submeiged
cans." His wagon is not gay } it is generally battered
and covered with mud and filled with tall cans; but
the driver himself b generally young and sometimes
attractive. The driver in Molasses Gap, which is a
small coolly leading Into Dutcher's Coolly, was particu*
larly good-looking and amusing.

. aai

222 Main -Travelled Roads

He was aware of his good looks, and his dress not
only showed that he was single, but that he hoped to
be married soon. He wore brown trousers, which
fitted him very well, and a dark blue shirt, which had a
gay lacing of red cord in front, and a pair of suspenders
that were a vivid green. On his head he wore a
Chinese straw helmet, which was as ugly as anything
could conceivably be, but he was as proud of it as he
was of his green suspenders. In summer he wore no
coat at all, and even in pretty cold weather he left his
vest on his wagon-seat, not being able to bring him-
self to the point of covering up the red and green of
his attire.

It was noticeable that the women of the neighbor-
hood always came out, even on wash-day, to see that
Claude (his name was Claude Williams) measured the
cream properly. There was much banter about this.
Mrs. Kennedy always said she wouldn't trust him
" fur's you can fling a yearlin' bull by the tail."

" Now that's the difference between us," he would
reply. " I'd trust you anywhere. Anybody with such
a daughter as your'n."

He seldom got further, for Lucindy always said (in
substance), " Oh, you go 'long."

There need be no mystery in the matter. 'Cindy was
the girl for whose delight he wore the green and red. He
made no secret of his love, and she made no secret of her
scorn. She laughed at his green 'spenders and the " red
shoestring " in his shirt ; but Claude considered him-
self very learned in women's ways, by reason of two

The Creamery Man 223

years' driving the creamery wagon, and he merely
winked at Mrs. Kennedy when the girl was looking,
and kissed his hand at 'Cindy when her mother was not
looking.

He looked forward every afternoon to these little ex-
changes of wit, and was depressed when for any reason
the women folks were away. There were other places
pleasanter than the Kennedy farm — some of "the
Dutchmen" had fine big brick houses and finer and
bigger barns, but their women were mostly homely, and
went around bare-footed and bare-legged, with ugly blue
dresses hanging frayed and greasy round their lank ribs
and big joints.

" Someway their big houses have a look like a stable
when you get close to 'em," Claude said to 'Cindy once.
" Their women work so much in the field they don't
have any time to fix up — the way you do. I don't
believe in women workin' in the fields." He said this
looking 'Cindy in the face. " My wife needn't set her
foot outdoors 'less she's a mind to."

" Oh, you can talk," replied the girl, scornfully, " but
you'd be like the rest of 'em." But she was glad that
she had on a clean collar and apron — if it was ironing-
day.

What Claude would have said further *Cindy could
not divine, for her mother called her away, as she
generally did when she saw her daughter lingering too
long with the creamery man. Claude was not con-
sidered a suitable match for Lucindy Kennedy, whose
fi^th^r pwnQ4 one pf the finest farms in the Coolly,

224 Main -Travelled Roads

Worldly considerations hold in Molasses Gap as well as
in BlufF Siding and Tyre.

But Claude gave little heed to these moods in Mrs.
Kennedy. If 'Cindy sputtered, he laughed ; and if she
smiled, he rode on whistling till he came to old man
Haldeman's, who owned the whole lower half of Molas-
ses Gap, and had one unmarried daughter, who thought
Claude one of the handsomest men in the world. She
was always at the gate to greet him as he drove up, and
forced sections of cake and pieces of gooseberry pie upon
him each day.

"She's good enough — for a Dutchman," Claude said
of her, ^^ but I hate to see a woman go around looking
as if her clothes would drop off if it rained on her. And
on Sundays, when she dresses up, she looks like a boy
*!gged out in some girl's cast-ofF duds."

This was pretty hard on Nina. She was tall and
lank and sandy, with small blue eyes, her limbs were
heavy, and she did wear her Sunday clothes badly, but
she was a good, generous soul, and very much in love
with the creamery man. She was not very clean, but
then she could not help that \ the dust of the field is no
respecter of sex. No, she was not lovely, but she was
the only daughter of old Ernest Haldeman, and the old
man was not very strong.

Claude was the daily bulletin of the Gap. He knew
whose cow died the night before, who was at the straw-
berry dance, and all about Abe Anderson's night in jail
up at the Siding. If his coming was welcome to the
Kennedy's, who took the ^luff Siding Gimkt and the

' The Creamery Man 225

county paper, how much the more cordial ought his
greeting to be at Haldeman's, where they only took the
Milwaukee Weekly Freiheit,

Nina in her poor way had longings and aspirations.
She wanted to marry " a Yankee," and not one of her
own kind. She had a little schooling obtained at the small
brick shed under the towering cottonwood tree at the
corner of her father's farm ; but her life had been one of
hard work and mighty little play. Her parents spoke in
German about the farm, and could speak English only
very brokenly. Her only brother had adventured into
the foreign parts of Pine County, and had been killed in
a sawmill. Her life was lonely and hard.

She had suitors among the Germans, plenty of them,
but she had a disgust of them — considered as possible
husbands — and though she went to their beery dances
occasionally, she had always in her mind the ease, light-
ness, and color of Claude. She knew that the Yankee
girls did not work in the fields, — even the Norwegian
girls seldom did so now, they worked out in town, — but
she had been brought up to hoe and pull weeds from her
childhood, and her father and mother considered it good
for her, and being a gentle and obedient child, she still
continued to do as she was told. Claude pitied the girl,
and used to talk with her, during his short stay, in his
cheeriest manner.

" Hello, Nina ! How you vass, ain*t it ? How much
cream already you got this morning ? Did you hear the
news, not ? "

" No, vot hass happened ? '*

2i6 Main -Travelled Roadie

'' Everything. Frank McVey's horse stepped througa
the bridge and broke his leg, and he's going to sue the
county — mean Frank is, not the horse."

« Iss dot so ? "

^^ Sure ! and Bill Hetner had a fight, and Julia Door-
Singer's got home."

" Vot wass Bill fightding apoudt ? "

"Oh, drunk — fighting for exercise. Hain't got a
fresh pie cut ? "

Her face lighted up, and she turned so suddenly to go
that her bare leg showed below her dress. Her unstock-
inged feet were thrust into coarse working shoes. Claude
wrinkled his nose in disgust, but he took the piece of
green currant pie on the palm of his hand and bit the
acute angle from it.

" First rate. You do make lickin' good pies," he said,
out of pure kindness of heart ; and Nina was radiant.

" She wouldn't be so bad-lookin' if they didn't work
her in the fields like a horse," he said to himself as he
drove away.

The neighbors were well aware of Nina's devotion,
and Mrs. Smith, who lived two or three houses down
the road, said, " Good-evening, Claude. Seen Nina to-
day ? "

" Sure ! and she gave me a piece of currant pic— her
own make."

« Did you eat it ? "

" Did I ? I guess yes. I ain't refusin' pie from
Nina — not while her pa has five hundred acres of the
best land in Molasses Gap."

9»
99

The Creamery Man 227

Now, It was this innocent joking on his part that
started all Claude's trouble. Mrs. Smith called a couple
of days later, and had her joke with 'Cindy.

" 'Cindy, your cake's all dough.'

" Why, what's the matter now ?

" Claude come along t'other day grinnin' from ear to
ear, and some currant pie in his musstache. He had
jest fixed it up with Nina. He jest as much as said he
was after the old man's acres."

" Well, let him have 'em. I don't know as it inter-
ests me," replied 'Cindy, waving her head like a banner.
" If he wants to sell himself to that greasy Dutchwoman
— why, let him, that's all ! I don't care."

Her heated manner betrayed her to Mrs. Smith, who
laughed with huge enjoyment.

" Well, you better watch out ! "

The next day was very warm, and when Claude drove
up under the shade of the big maples he was ready for a
chat while his horses rested, but 'Cindy was nowhere to
be seen. Mrs. Kennedy came out to get the amount of rfie
skimming, and started to reenter the house without talk.

" Where's the young folks ? " asked Claude, carelessly.

"If you mean Lucindy, she's in the house.'*

^' Ain't sick or nothin', is she ? "

" Not that anybody knows of. Don't expect her to
be here to gass with you every time, do ye ? "

" Well, I wouldn't mind," replied Claude. He was
too keen not to see his chance. " In fact, I'd like to
have her with me all the time, Mrs. Kennedy," he said,
with engaging frankness.

228 Main -Travelled Roads

'' Well, you can*t have her," the mother replied un-
graciously.

" What's the matter with me ? "

" Oh, I like you well enough, but *Cindy*d be a big
fool to marry a man without a roof to cover his head."

" That's where you take your inning, sure," Claude
replied. ^^I'm not much better than a hired hand.
Well, now, see here, I'm going to make a strike one of
these days, and then — look out for me ! You don't
know but what I've invested in a gold mine. I may be
a Dutch lord in disguise. Better not be brash."

Mrs. Kennedy's sourness could not stand against such
sweetness and drollery. She smiled in wry fashion.
" You'd better be moving, or you'll be late."

" Sure enough. If I only had you for a mother-in-law
— that's why I'm so poor. Nobody to keep me moving.
If I had some one to do the talking for me, Pd work."
He grinned broadly and drove out.

His irritation led him to say some things to Nina which
he would not have thought of saying the day before. She
had been working in the field, and had dropped her hoe
to see him.

^^ Say, Nina, I wouldn't work outdoors such a day as
this if I was you. I'd tell the old man to go to thunder,
and I'd go in and wash up and look decent. Yankee
women don't do that kind of work, and your old dad's
rich ; no use of your sweatin' around a corn-field with a
hoe in your hands. I don't like to see a woman goin'
round without stockin's, and her hands all chapped and
calloused. It ain't accordin' to Hoyle. No, sir! I

The Creamery Man 229

wouldn't stand it. I'd serve an injunction on the old
man right now."

A dull, slow flush crept into the prPt face and the
put one hand over the other as they rested on the fence.
One looked so much less monstrous than two.

Claude went on, ^^ Yes, sir ! Fd brace up and go to
Yankee meeting instead of Dutch i you'd pick up a Yan-
kee beau like as not."

He gathered his cream while she stood silently by, and
when he looked at her again she was in deep thought*

" Good-day," he said cheerily.

<^ Good-by," she replied, and her face flushed again.

It rained that night and the roads were veiy bad, and
he was late the next time he arrived at Haldeman's.
Nina came out in her best dress, but he said nothing
about it, supposing she was going to town or something
like that, and he hurried through with his task and had
mounted his seat before he realized that anything was
wrong.

Then Mrs. Haldeman- appeared at the kitchen door
and hurled a lot of unintelligible German at hiou He
knew she was mad, and mad at him, and also at Nina,
for she shook her fist at them alternately*

Singular to tell, Nina paid no attention to her mother's
sputter. She looked at Claude with a certain timid au-
dacity.

" How you like me to-day ? "

<^ That's better," he said, as he eyed her critically.
^ Now you're talkin' I I'd do a little reading of the news-
paper myself, if I was you. A woman's business ain't

230 Main -Travelled Roads

to work out in the hot sun — it's to cook and fix up
things round the house, and then put on her clean dress
and set in the shade and read or sew on something.
Stand up to 'em ! doggone me if I'd paddle round that hot
corn-field with a mess o' Dutchmen — it ain't decent ! "

He drove ofF with a chuckle at the old man, who was
seated at the back of the house with a newspaper in his
hand. He was lame, or pretended he was, and made his
wife and daughter wait upon him. Claude had no con-
ception of what was working in Nina's mind, but he
could not help observing the changes for the better in
her appearance. Each day he called she was neatly
dressed, and wore her shoes laced up to the very top
hook.

She was passing through tribulation on his account, biit
she said nothing about it. The old man, her father, no
longer spoke to her, and the mother sputtered continu-
ally, but the girl seemed sustained by some inner power.
She calmly went about doing as she pleased, and no fury
of words could check her or turn her aside.

Her hands grew smooth and supple once more, and
her face lost the parboiled look it once had.

Claude noticed all these gains, and commented on
them with the freedom of a man who had established
friendly relations with a child.

" I tell you what, Nina, you're coming along, sure.
Next ground hop you'll be wearin' silk stockin's and
high-heeled ^hoes. How's the old man ? Still mad ? *'

" He don't speak to me no more. My mudder says
I am a big fooL"

The Creameiy Man 231

" She does ? Well, you tell her I think you're just

i getting sensible."

■ She smiled again, and there was a subtle quality in
the mixture of boldness and timidity of her manner.
His praise was so sweet and stimulating.

\ ^^ I sold my pigs," she said. ^^ The old man, he wass
madt, but I didn't mind. I pought me a new dress
with the money."

<^ That's right ! I like to see a woman have plenty of
new dresses," Claude replied. He was really enjoying
the girl's rebellion and growing womanliness.

Meanwhile his own afiairs with Lucindy were in a
bad way. He seldom saw her now. Mrs. Smith was
careful to convey to her that Claude stopped longer
than was necessary at Haldeman's, and so Mrs. Ken-
nedy attended to the matter of recording the cream.
Kennedy himself was always in the field, and Clau^
had no opportunity for a conversation with him, as
he very much wished to have. Once, when be saw
'Cindy in the kitchen at work, he left his team to rest
in the shade and sauntered to the door and looked
in.

She was kneading out cake dough, and she looked the
loveliest thing he had ever seen. Her sleeves were
rolled up. Her neat brown dress was covered with a
big apron, and her collar was open a little at the throat,
for it was warm in the kitchen. She frowned when she
saw him.

He began jocularly. ^ Oh, thank you, I can wait
till it bakes. No trouble at all."

2^2 Main -Travelled Roads

^^ Well, it's a good deal of trouble to me to have you
standin' there gappin* at me ! **

" Ain't gappin* at you. I'm waitin' for the pic"

« 'Tain't pie ; it's cake."

" Oh, well, cake'll do for a change. Say, 'Cindy—"

« Don't call me 'Cindy ! "

" Well, Lucindy. It's mighty lonesome when I don't
see you on my trips."

" Oh, I guess you can stand it with Nina to talk to."

" Aha ! jealous, are you ? "

" Jealous of that Dutchwoman ! I don't care who
you talk to, and you needn't think it."

Claude was learned in woman's ways, and this pleased
him mightily.

" Well, when shall I speak to your daddy ? "

" I don't know what you mean, and I don't care.**

"Oh, yes, you do. I'm going to come up here
next Sunday in my best bib and tucker, and I'm going
to say, ' Mr. Kennedy ' — "

The sound of Mrs. Kennedy's voice and footsteps
approaching made Claude suddenly remember his duties.

" See ye later," he said, with a grin. " I'll call for
the cake next time."

" Call till you split your throat, if you want to,'* said
'Cindy.

Apparently this could have gone on indefinitely, but
it didn't. Lucindy went to Minneapolis for a few
weeks to stay with her brother, and that threw Claude
deeper into despair than anything Mrs. Kennedy might
do or any word Lucindy might say. It was a dreadful

The Creamery Man 232

blow to him to have her pack up and go so suddenly,
and without one backward look at him, and, besides,
he had planned taking her to Tyre on the Fourth of
July.

Mr. Kennedy, much better-natured than the. mother,
told Claude where she had gone,

" By mighty ! That's a knock on the nose for me.
When did she go ? "

" Yistady, I took her down to the Siding.'*

" When's she coming back ? "

" Oh, after the hot weather is over 5 four or five
weeks."

" I hope I'll be alive when she returns," said Claude,
gloomily.

Naturally he had a little more time to give to Nina
and her remarkable doings, which had set the whole
neighborhood to wondering " what had come over the
girl."

She no longer worked in the field. She dressed better,
and had taken to going to the most fashionable church
in town. She was as a woman transformed. Nothing
was able to prevent her steady progression and bloom.
She grew plumper and fairer, and became so much more
attractive that the young Germans thickened round her,
and one or two Yankee boys looked her way. Through
it all Claude kept up his half-humorous banter and alto-
gether serious daily advice, without once realizing that any-
thing sentimental connected him with it all. He knew
she liked him, and sometimes he felt a little annoyed by
her attempts to please him, but that she was doing all

234 Main -Travelled Roads

that she did and ordering her whole life to please him
never entered his self-sufEcient head.

There wasn't much room left in that head for any one
else except Lucindy, and his plans for winning hen
Plan as he might, he saw no way of making more than the
two dollars a day he was earning as a cream collector.

Things ran along thus from week to week till it was
nearly time for Lucindy to return. Claude was having
his top buggy repainted, and was preparing for a vigor-
ous campaign when Lucindy should be at home again.
He owned his team and wagon and the buggy — nothing
more.

One Saturday Mr. Kennedy said, '* Lucindy's coming
home. Pm going down after her to-night."

^^ Let me bring her up," said Claude, with suspicious
eagerness.

Mr. Kennedy hesitated. " No, I guess FU go myself.
I want to go to town, anyway."

Claude was in high spirits as he drove into Haldeman's
yard that afternoon.

Nina was leaning over the fence singing softly to her-
self, but a fierce altercation was going on inside the
house. The walls resounded. It was all Dutch to
Claude, but he knew the old people were quarrelling.

Nina smiled and colored as Claude drew up at the
side gate. She seemed not to hear the eloquent discus-
sion inside.

" What's going on ? " asked Claude.

" Dey tink I am in house."

" How's that ? "

The Creamery Man 235

€C

My mudder she lock me up."

Claude stared. "Locked you up ? What for?**

" She tondt like it dot I come out to see you.'*

" Oh, she don't ? " said Claude. " What's the matter
o' me ? I ain't a dangerous chap. I ain't eatin' up
little girls."

Nina went on placidly. " She saidt dot you was goin'
to marry me undt get the farm."

Claude grinned, then chuckled, and at last roared and
whooped with the delight of it. He took off his hat and
said :

" She said that, did she ? Why, bless her old cab-
bage head — "

The opening of the door and the sudden irruption of
Frau Haldeman interrupted him. She came rushing
toward him like a she grizzly bear, uttering a torrent of
German expletives, and hurled herself upon him, clutch-
ing at his hair and throat. He leaped aside and struck
down her hands with a sweep of his hard right arm. As
she turned to come again he shouted,

" Keep off! or I'll knock you down ! "

But before the blow came Nina seized the infuriated
woman from behind and threw her down, and held her
till the old man came hobbling to the rescue. He
seemed a little dazed by it all, and made no effort to
assault Claude.

The old woman, who was already black in the face
with rage, suddenly fell limp, and Nina, kneeling beside
her, grew white with fear.

" Oh, vat is the matter ! I haf kildt her I "

2^6 Main -Travelled Roads

Claude rushed for a bucket of water, and dashed it in
the old woman's face. He flooded her with slashings of
it, especially after he saw her open her eyes, ending
by emptying the bucket in her face. He was a litde
malicious about that.

The mother sat up soon, wet, scared, bewildered,
gasping.

" Mein Gott ! Mein Gott ! Ich bin ertrinken ! **

'' What does she say — she's been drinkin' ? Well,
that looks reasonable."

" No, no — she thinks she is trouned." •

" Oh, drowned ! " Claude roared again. " Not much
she ain't. She's only just getting cooled ofF."

He helped the girl get her mother to the house and
stretch her out on a bed. The old woman seemed to
have completely exhausted herself with her effort, and
submitted like a child to be waited upon. Her sudden
fainting had subdued her.

Claude had never penetrated so far into the house
before, and was much pleased with the neatness and good
order of the rooms, though they were bare of furniture
and carpets.

As the girl came out with him to the gate he utterecf
the most serious word he had ever had with her.

" Now, I want you to notice," he said, " that I did
nothing to call out the old lady's rush at me. I'd 'a' hit
her, sure, if she'd 'a' clinched me again. I don't believe
in striking a woman, but she was after my hide for the
time bein', and I can't stand two such clutches in the
same place. You don't blame me, I hope."

The Creamery Man 237

" No. You done choost ride."

" What do you suppose the old woman went foi mc
for ? "

Nina looked down uneasily.

" She know you an' me lige one anudder, an' she is
afrait you marry me, an' den ven she tie you get the
farm a-ready."

Claude whistled. " Great Jehosaphat ! She really
thinks that, does she ? Well, dog my cats ! What put
that idea into her head ? "

" I told her," said Nina calmly.

"You told her?" Claude turned and stared^ at her.
She looked down, and her face slowly grew to a deep
red. She moved uneasily from one foot to the other,
like an awkward, embarrassed child. As he looked at
her standing like a culprit before him, his first impulse
was to laugh. He was not specially refined, but he was
a kindly man, and it suddenly occurred to him that the
girl was suffering.

" Well, you were mistaken," he said at last, gently
enough. " I don't know why you should think so, but I
never thought of marrying you — never thought of it."

The flush faded from her face, and she stopped sway-
ing. She lifted her eyes to his iir a tearful, appealing
stare.

" I t'ought so — you made me t'ink so."

" I did ? How ? I never said a word to you about —
liking you or — marrying — or anything like that. I — "
He was going to tell her he intended to marry Lucindv,
but he checked himself.

ajS Main -Travelled Roads

Her lashes fell again, and the tears began to stream
down her cheeks. She knew the worst now. His face
had convinced her. She could not tell him the grounds
of her belief — that every time he had said, "I don't
like to see a woman do this or that," or, " I like to see
a woman fix up around the house," she had considered
his words in the light of courtship, believing that in such
ways the Yankees made love. So she stood sufFering
dumbly while he loaded his cream-can and stood by the
wheel ready to mount his wagon.

He turned. " I'm mighty sorry about it," he said.
" Mebbe I was to blame. I didn't mean nothing by
it — not a thing. It was all a mistake. Let's shake
hands over it, and call the whole business ofF."

He held his hand out to her, and with a low cry
she seized it and laid her cheek upon it. He started
back in amazement, and drew his hand away. She fell
upon her knees in the path and covered her face with
her apron, while he hastily mounted his seat and drove
away.

Nothing so profoundly moving had come into his life
since the death of his mother, and as he rode on down
the road he did a great deal of thinking. First it gave
him a pleasant sensation to think a woman should care
so much for him. He had lived a homeless life for
years, and had come into intimate relations with few
women, good or bad. They had always laughed with
him (not at him, for Claude was able to take care of
himself), and no woman before had taken him seriously,
and there was a certain charm about the realization.

The Creamery Man 239

Then he fell to wondering what he had said or done
to give the girl such a notion of his purposes. Perhaps
he had been too free with his talk. He was so troubled
that he hardly smiled once during the rest of his circuit,
and at night he refrained from going up town, and sat
under the trees back of the creamery, and smoked and
pondered on the astounding situation.

He came at last to the resolution that it was his duty
to declare himself to Lucindy and end all uncertainty, so
that no other woman would fall into Nina's error. He
was as good as an engaged man, and the world should
know it.

The next day, with his newly painted buggy flashing
in the sun, and the extra dozen ivory rings he had pur-
chased for his harnesses clashing together, he drove up
the road as a man of leisure and a resolved lover. It
was a beautiful day in August.

Lucindy was getting a light tea for some friends up
from the Siding, when she saw Claude drive up.

"Well, for the land sake ! " she broke out, using one
of her mother's phrases, "if here isn't that creamery
man ! " In that phrase lay the answer to Claude's
question — if he had heard it. He drove in, and Mr.
Kennedy, with impartial hospitality, went out and asked
him to 'light and put his team in the barn.

He did so, feeling very much exhilarated. He never
before had gone courting in this direct and aboveboard
fashion. He mistook the father's hospitality for com**
piiance in his designs. He followed his host into the
house, and faced, with very fair composure, two girls

240 Main -Travelled Roads

who smiled broadly as they shook hands widi him. Mis.
Kennedy gave him a lax hand and a curt how-de-do, and
Lucindy fairly scowled in answer to his radiant smile.

She was much changed, he could see. She wore a
dress with pufFed sleeves, and her hair was dressed differ-
ently. She seemed strange and distant, but he thought
she was "putting that on" for the benefit of othen.
At the table the three girls talked of things at the
Siding, and ignored him so that he was obliged to turn
to Farmer Kennedy for refuge. He kept his courage
up by thinking, "Wait till we are alone."

After supper, when Lucindy explained that the dishes
would have to be washed, he offered to help her in his
best manner.

" Thank you, I don't need any help," was Lucindjr's
curt reply.

Ordinarily he was a man of much facility and ease in
addressing women, but he was vastly disconcerted by
her manner. He sat rather silently waiting for the room
to clear. When the visitors intimated that they must
go, he rose with cheerful alacrity.

" rU get your horse for you."

He helped hitch the horse into the buggy, and helped
the girls in with a return of easy gallantry, and watched
them drive off with joy. At last the field was clear.

They returned to the sitting room, where the old folks
remained for a decent interval, and then left the young
people alone. His courage returned then, and he turned
toward her with resolution in his voice and eyes.

" Lucindy," he began.

The Creamery Man 141

" Miss Kennedy, please," interrupted Lucindy, with
cutting emphasis.

« rU be darned if I do," he replied hotly. " What's
the matter with you ? Since going to Minneapolis you
put on a lot of city airs, it seems to me."

" If you don't like my airs, you know what you can
do!"

He saw his mistake.

"Now see here, Lucindy, there's no sense in our
quarrelling."

" I don't want to quarrel ; I don't want anything to
do with you. I wish I'd never seen you."

" Oh, you don't mean that ! after all the good talks
we've had."

She flushed red. " I never had any such talks with you."

He pursued his advantage.

" Oh, yes, you did, and you took pains that I should
see you."

"I didn't; no such thing. You came poking into
the kitchen where you'd no business to be.

" Say, now, stop fooling. You like me and

" I don't. I hate you, and if you don't clear out I'll
call father. You're one o' these kind o' men that think
if a girl looks at 'em that they want to marry 'em. I
tell you I don't want anything more to do with you,
and I'm engaged to another man, and I wish you'd
attend to your own business. So there ! I hope you're
satisfied."

Claude sat for nearly a minute in silence, then he rose.
" I guess you're right. I've made a mistake. I've made

9>

242 Main -Travelled Roads

a mistake in the girl." He spoke with a cuno
ness in his voice. " Good-evening, Miss Kennedy."

He went out with dignity and in good order. Ki
retreat was not ludicrous. He left the girl with
feeling that she had lost her temper, and with di
knowledge that she had uttered a lie.

He put his horses to the buggy with a mournful i
pity as he saw the wheels glisten. He had done
this for a scornful girl who could not treat him decendf.
As he drove slowly down the road he mused deeply. It
was a knock-down blow, surely. He was a just 1
so far as he knew, and as he studied the situation over
he could not blame the girl. In the light of her con-
vincing wrath he comprehended that the sharp thiiip
she had said to him in the past were not make-believe—
not love-taps, but real blows. She had not been co-
quetting with him; she had tried to keep him away.
She considered herself too good for a hired man. WeD,
maybe she was. Anyhow, she had gone out of his reachi
hopelessly.

As he came past the Haldemans' he saw Nina sitting
out under the trees in the twilight. On the impulse he
pulled in. His mind took another turn. Here was a
woman who was open and aboveboard in her affection.
Her words meant what they stood for. He remem-
bered how she had bloomed out the last few months.
She has the making of a handsome woman in her, he
thought.

She saw him and came out to the gate, and while he
leaned out of his carriage she rested her arms on the gate

The Creamery Man 243

and looked up at him. She looked pale and sad, and he
was touched.

" How's the old lady ? " he asked.

^^ Oh, she's up ! She is much change-ed. She is veak
and quiet."

" Quiet, is she ? Well, that's good."

" She t'inks God strike her fer her vickedness. Never
before did she fainted like dot."

" Well, don't spoil that notion in her. It may do her
a world of good."

" Der priest come. He saidt it wass a punishment.
She saidt I should marry who I like."

Claude looked at her searchingly. She was certainly
much improved. All she needed was a little encour-
agement and advice and she would make a handsome
wife. If the old lady had softened down, her son-in-law
could safely throw up the creamery job and become the
boss of the farm. The old man was used up, and the
farm needed some one right away.

He straightened up suddenly. "Get your hat," he
said, " and we'll take a ride."

She started erect, and he could see her pale face glow
with joy.

" With you ? "

" With me. Get your best hat. We may turn up
at the minister's and get married — if a Sunday marriage
is legal."

As she hurried up the walk he said to himself,

" I'll bet it gives Lucindy a shock ! "

And the thought pleased him mightily.

A DAY'S PLEASURE

** Mainly it is long and wearyful, and bos a
borne of toil at one end and a dull little town
at tbe otber**

A DAY'S PLEASURE

When Markham came in from shovelling his last
wagon-load of corn into the crib he found that his wife
had put the children to bed, and was kneading a batch of
dough with the dogged action of a tired and sullen woman.

He slipped his soggy boots ofF his feet, and having
laid a piece of wood on top of the stove, put his heels
on it comfortably. His chair squeaked as he leaned
back on its hinder legs, but he paid no attention; he
was used to it, exactly as he was used to his wife's lame-
ness and ceaseless toil.

" That closes up my corn," he said after a silence. " I
guess I'll go to town to-morrow to git my horses shod."

"I guess I'll git ready and go along," said his wife, in
a sorry attempt to be firm and confident of tone.

" What do you want to go to town fer ? " he grumbled.

" What does anybody want to go to town fer ? " she
burst out, facing him. " I ain't been out o' this house fer
six months, while you go an' go ! "

" Oh, it ain't six months. You went down that day
I got the mower."

** When was that ? The tenth of July, and you know

it."

** Well, mcbbe 'twas. I didn't think it was so long
ago, I ain't no objection to your goin', only I'm goin*
to take a load of wheat."

247

248 Main -Travelled Roads

^^ Well, jest leave ofF a sack, an' that'll balance me
an' the baby," she said spiritedly.

<^ All right," he replied good-naturedly, seeing she was
roused. ^^ Only that wheat ought to be put up to-night
if you're goin '. You won't have any time to hold sacks
for me in the morning with them young ones to get off
to school."

<< Well, let's go do it then," she said, sullenly resolute.

" I hate to go out agin ; but I s'pose we'd better.**

He yawned dismally and began pulling his boots on
again, stamping his swollen feet into them with grunts
of pain. She put on his coat and one of the boy's caps,
and they went out to the granary. The night was cold
and clear.

^^ Don't look so much like snow as it did last night,"
said Sam. " It may turn warm."

Laying out the sacks in the light of the lantern, they
sorted out those which were whole, and Sam climbed
into the bin with a tin pail in his hand, and the work
began.

He was a sturdy fellow, and he worked desperately
fast ; the shining tin pail dived deep into the cold wheat
and dragged heavily on the woman's tired hands as it
came to the mouth of the sack, and she trembled
with fatigue, but held on and dragged the sacks away
when filled, and brought others, till at last Sam climbed
out, puf&ng and wheezing^ to tie them up.

'^I guess I'll load 'em in the morning," he said.
" You needn't wait fer me. I'll tie 'em up alone.*'

^<Oh, I don't mind," she replied, feeling a litdf

A Day's Pleasure 249

touched by his unexpectedly easy acquiescence to her
request. When they went back to the house the moon
had risen.

It had scarcely set when they were wakened by the
crowing roosters. The man rolled stiffly out of bed and
began rattling at the stove in the dark, cold kitchen.

His wife arose lamer and stifFer than usual, and began
twisting her thin hair into a knot.

Sam did not stop to wash, but went out to the barn.
The woman, however, hastily soused her face into the
hard limestone water at the sink, and put the kettle on.
Then she called the children. She knew it was early,
and they would need several callings. She pushed
breakfast forward, running over in her mind the things
she must have : two spools of thread, six yards of cotton
flannel, a can of coffee, and mittens for Kitty. These
she must have — there were oceans of things she needed.

The children soon came scudding down out of the
darkness of the upstairs to dress tumultuously at the
kitchen stove. They humped and shivered, holding up
their bare feet from the cold floor, like chickens in new
fallen snow. They were irritable, and snarled and
snapped and struck like cats and dogs. Mrs. Markham
stood it for a while with mere commands to " hush up,'*
but at last her patience gave out, and she charged down
on the struggling mob and cuffed them right and left.

They ate their breakfast by lamplight, and when Sam
went back to his work around the barnyard it was
scarcely dawn. The children, left alone with their
mother, began to tease her to let them go to town also.

250 Main -Travelled Roads

'' No, sir — nobody goes but baby. Your fathePi
goin' to take a load of wheat."

She was weak with the worry of it all when she
had sent the older children away to school and the
kitchen work was finished. She went into the cold bed-
room ofF the little sitting room and put on her best dress.
It had never been a good fit, and now she was getting
so thin it hung in wrinkled folds everywhere about the
shoulders and waist. She lay down on the bed a
moment to ease that dull pain in her back. She had a
moment's distaste for going out at all. The thought of
sleep was more alluring. Then the thought of the
long, long day, and the sickening sameness of her life,
swept over her again, and she rose and prepared the
baby for the journey.

It was but little after sunnse when Sam drove out
into the road and started for Belleplain. His wife sat
perched upon the wheat-sacks behind him, holding the
baby in her lap, a cotton quilt under her, and a cotton
horse-blanket over her knees.

Sam was disposed to be very good-natured, and he
talked back at her occasionally, though she could only
understand him when he turned his face toward her.
The baby stared out at the passing fence-posts, and
wiggled his hands out of his mittens at every opportunity.
He was merry at least.

It grew warmer as they went on, and a strong south
wind arose. The dust settled upon the woman's shawl
and hat. Her hair loosened and blew unkemptly about
her face. The road which led across the high, level

A Day's Pleasure 251

prairie was quite smooth and dry, but still it jolted her, and
the pain in her back increased. She had nothing to lean
against, and the weight of the child grew greater, till
she was forced to place him on the sacks beside her,
though she could not loose her hold for a moment.

The town drew in sight — a cluster of small frame
houses and stores on the dry prairie beside a railway
station. There were no trees yet which could be called
shade trees. The pitilessly severe light of the sun
flooded everything. A few teams were hitched about,
and in the lee of the stores a few men could be seen
seated comfortably, their broad hat-rims flopping up and
down, their faces brown as leather.

Markham put his wife out at one of the grocery-stores,
and drove off down toward the elevators to sell his wheat.

The grocer greeted Mrs. Markham in a perfunctorily
kind manner, and offered her a chair, which she took
gratefully. She sat for a quarter of an hour almost
without moving, leaning against the back of the high
chair. At last the child began to get restless and
troublesome, and she spent half an hour helping him
amuse himself around the nail-kegs.

At length she rose and went out on the walk, carrying
the baby. She went into the dry-goods store and took
a seat on one of the little revolving stools. A woman
was buying some woollen goods for a dress. It was
worth twenty-seven cents a yard, the clerk said, but he
would knock off two cents if she took ten yards. It
looked warm, and Mrs. Markham wished she could
afford it for Mary,

252 Main -Travelled Roads

A pretty young girl came in and laughed and d
with the clerk, and bought a pair of gloves, i s n
the daughter of the grocer. Her happiness n e the
wife and mother sad. When Sam came back she asked
him for some money.

"What you want to do with it ? ** he asked.

'' I want to spend it," she said.

She was not to be trifled with, so he gave her a dollar.

" I need a dollar more."

" Well, I've got to go take up that note at the bank."

"Well, the^jjjildren's got to have some new under-
clo'es," she said. •^•

He handed her a two-dollar bill and then went out to
pay his note.

She bought her cotton flannel and mittSqis and thread,
and then sat leaning against the counter. J^^ras noon,
and she was hungry. She went out to the i^gk^ got
the lunch she had brought, and took it into tl||£ grocery
to eat it — where she could get a drink of water>/

The grocer gave the baby a stick ol^^jHidy and
handed the mother an apple. w^

" It'll kind o' go down with your doughnSBT he said.

After eating her lunch she got up ancnBpnt out.
She felt ashamed to sit there any longer. She entered
another dry-goods store, but when the clerk came toward
her saying, " Anything to-day, Mrs. ? " she an-
swered, " No, I guess not," and turned away with foolish
face.

She walked up and down the stre^, desolately home-
less. She did not know what to do with herself. She

A Day's Pleasure 253

knew no one except the grocer. She grew bitter as she
saw a couple of ladies pass, holding their demi-trains in
the latest city fashion. Another woman went by push-
ing a baby carriage, in which sat a child just about as
big as her own. It was bouncing itself up and down on
the long slender springs, and laughing and shouting.
Its clean round face glowed from its pretty fringed hood.
She looked down at the dusty clothes and grimy face of
her own little one, and walked on savagely.

She went into the drug store where the soda fountain
was, but it made her thirsty to sit there and she went
out on the street again. She heard ^am laugh, and saw
him in a group of men over by the blacksmith shop. He
was having a good time and had forgotten her.

Her back ached so intolerably that she concluded to
go in and rest once more in the grocer's chair. The
baby was growing cross and. fretful. She bought five
cents' worth of candy to take home to the children, and
gave baby a little piece to keep him quiet. She wished
Sam would come. It must be getting late. The grocer
said it was not much after one. Time seemed terribly
long. She felt that she ought to do something while
she was in town. She ran over her purchases — yes,
that was all she had planned to buy. She fell to figur*
ing on the things she needed. It was terrible. It ran
away up into twenty or thirty dollars at the least. Sam,
as well as she, needed underwear for the cold win-
ter, but they would have to wear the old ones, even if
they were thin and ragged. She would not need a dress,
she thought bitterly, because she never went anywhere*

254 Main -Travelled Roads

She rose and went out on the street once more,
wandered up and down, looking at everything in
hope of enjoying something.

A man from Boon Creek backed a load of apples up
to the sidewalk, and as he stood waiting for the grocer
he noticed Mrs. Markham and the baby, and gave
baby an apple. This was a pleasure. He had such a
hearty way about him. He on his part saw an ordinaiy
farmer's wife with dusty dress, unkempt hair, and tired
face. He did not know exactly wny she appealed to
him, but he tried to cheer her up.

The grocer was familiar with these bedraggled and
weary wives. He was accustomed to see them sit for
hours in his big wooden chair, and nurse tired and fret-
ful children. Their forlorn, aimless, pathetic wander-
ing up and down the street was a daily occurrence, and
had never possessed any special meaning to him.

II

In a cottage around the corner from the grocery
store two men and a woman were finishing a dainty
luncheon. The woman was dressed in cool, white gar-
ments, and she seemed to make the day one of perfect
comfort.

The home of the Honorable Mr. Hall was by no
means the costliest in the town, but his wife made it the
most attractive. He was one of the leading lawyers of
the county, and a man of culture and progressive views.

A Day's Pleasure 2^$

He was entertaining a friend who had lectured the night
before in the Congregational church.

They were by no means in serious discussion. The
talk was rather frivolous. Hall had the ability to cari-
cature men with a few gestures and attitudes, and was
giving to his Eastern friend some descriptions of the old-
fashioned Western lawyers he had met in his practice.
He was very amusing, and his guest laughed heartily
for a time.

But suddenly Hall became aware that Otis was not
listening. Then he perceived that he was peering out
of the window at some one, and that on his face a look
of bitter sadness was falling.

Hall stopped. "What do you see, Otis ? "

Otis replied, " I see a forlorn, weary woman."

Mrs. Hall rose and went to the window. Mrs.
Markham was walking by the house, her baby in her
arms. Savage anger and weeping were in her eyes
and on her lips, and there was hopeless tragedy in her
shambling walk and weak back.

In the silence Otis went on : " I saw the poor, dejected
creature twice this morning. I couldn't forget her."

" Who is she ? " asked Mrs. Hall, very softly.

" Her name is Markham ; she's Sam Markham's
wife," said Hall.

The young wife led the way into the sitting room,
and the men took seats and lit their cigars. Hall was
meditating a diversion when Otis resumed suddenly :

" That woman came to town to-day to get a change,

to have a little pl^y-spell, and $be's wandering around

256 Main -Travelled Roads

like a starved and weary cat. I wonder if there is a
woman in this town with sympathy enough and counge
enough to go out and help that woman ? The saloon-
keepers, the politicians, and the grocers make it pleasant
for the man — so pleasant that he forgets his wife. But
the wife is left without a word."

Mrs. Hall's work dropped, and on her pretty hice was
a look of pain. The man's harsh words had wounded
her — and wakened her. She took up her hat and
hurried out on the walk. The men looked at each
other, and then the husband said :

" It's going to be a little sultry for the men around
these diggings. Suppose we go out for a walk."

Delia felt a hand on her arm as she stood at the
corner.

" You look tired, Mrs. Markham ; won't you come in
a little while ? I'm Mrs. Hall."

Mrs. Markham turned with a scowl on her face and
a biting word on her tongue, but something in the sweet,
round little face of the other woman silenced her, and
her brow smoothed out.

" Thank you kindly, but it's most time to go home.
I'm looking fer Mr. Markham now."

^^ Oh, come in a little while, the baby is cross and
tired out ; please do."

Mrs. Markham yielded to the friendly voice, and
together the two women reached the gate just as tWQ
men hurriedly turned the other corner.

" Let me relieve you," said Mrs. Hall.

The mother hesitated : " He's so dusty/*

A Day's Pleasure 257^

<^ Oh, that won't matter. Oh, what a big fellow he
is ! I haven't any of my own," said Mrs. Hall, and
a look passed like an electric spark between the two
women, and Delia was her willing guest from that
moment.

They went into the little sitting room, so dainty and
lovely to the farmer's wife, and as she sank into an
easy-chair she was faint and drowsy with the pleasure
of it. She submitted to being brushed. She gave the
baby into the hands of the Swedish girl, who washed its
face and hands and sang it to sleep, while its mother
sipped some tea. Through it all she lay back in her
easy-chair, not speaking a word, while the ache passed
out of her back, and her hot, swollen head ceased to
throb.

But she saw everything — the piano, the pictures, the
curtains, the wall-paper, the little tea-stand. They were
almost as grateful to her as the food and fragrant tea.
Such housekeeping as this she had never seen. Her
mother had worn her kitchen floor thin as brown paper
in keeping a speckless house, and she had been in houses
that were larger and costlier, but something of the charm
of her hostess was in the arrangement pf vases, chairs, or
pictures. It was tasteful.

. Mrs* Hall did not ask about her afiairs. She talked to
her about the sturdy little baby, and about the things
upon which Delia's eyes dwelt. If she seemed interested
in a vase she was told what it was and where it was
made. She was shown all the pictures and books. Mrs.
Hall seemed to read her visitor's mind. She kept as far
•

~i -t:

a^S Main -Travelled Roads

from the farm and her guest's afFairs as possible, and at
last she opened the piano and sang to her — not slow-
moving hymns, but catchy love-songs full of sentiment,
and then played some simple melodies, knowing that
Mrs. Markham's eyes were studying her hands, her rings,
and the flash of her fingers on the keys — seeing more
than she heard — and through it all Mrs. Hall conveyed
the impression that she, too, was having a good time.

The rattle of the wagon outside roused them both.
Sam was at the gate for her. Mrs. Markham rose hast-
ily. '' Oh, it's almost sundown ! " she gasped in astonish-
ment as she looked out of the window.

" Oh, that won't kill anybody," replied her hostess.
" Don't hurry. Carrie, take the baby out to the wagon
for Mrs. Markham while I help her with her things."

" Oh, I've had such a good time," Mrs. Markham
said as they went down the little walk.

" So have I," replied Mrs. Hall. She took the baby a
moment as her guest climbed in. " Oh, you big, fat
fellow ! " she cried as she gave him a squeeze. " You
must bring your wife in oftener, Mr. Markham," she
said, as she handed the baby up.

Sam was staring with amazement.

" Thank you, I will," he finally managed to say.

" Good-night," said Mrs. Markham.

" Good-night, dear," called Mrs. Hall, and the wagon
began to rattle off.

The tenderness and sympathy in her voice brought
the tears to Delia's eyes — not hot nor bitter tears, bul
tears that cooled her eyes and cleared her mind.

A Day's Pleasure 2^9

The wind had gone down, and the red sunlight fell
mistily over the world of corn and stubble. The crickets
were still chirping and the feeding cattle were drifting
toward the farmyards. The day had been maule beautiful
by human sympathy.

MRS. RIPLEY'S TRIP

**And in winter the winds
sweep the snows across it"

MRS. RIPLEY'S TRIP

The night was in windy November, and the blast,
threatening rain, roared around the poor little shanty of
Uncle Ripley, set like a chicken-trap on the vast >Iowa
prairie. Uncle Ethan was mending his old violin, with
many York State " dums ! " and " I gol dams ! " totally
oblivious of his tireless old wife, who, having ^ finished
the supper-dishes," sat knitting a stocking, evidently
for the little grandson who lay before the stove like a
cat.

Neither of the old people wore glasses, and theii
light was a tallow candle -, they couldn't afibrd ^ noii#
o' them new-fangled lamps." The room was small^
the chairs were wooden, and the walls bare — a home
where poverty was a never-absent guest. The old lady
looked pathetically little, weazened, and hopeless in her
ilkfitdng garments (whose original color had long since
vaniihed), intent as she was on the stocking in her
knotted, stiffened fingers, and there was a peculiar
qiarkle in her little black eyes, and an unusual resolu-
tion in the straight line of her withered and shapeless
lipi*

Suddenly she paused, stuck a needle in the spare
knob of her hair at the back of her head, and lookii^
at R^iley, said decisively : ^^ Ethan Ripley, you'll haff

263

y DC. "

264 Main -Travelled Roads

to do your own cooking frooi now on to New Year's.
I'm goin' back to Yaark State."

The old man's leather-brown face stiffened into a
look of quizzical surprise for a moment; then he
cackled, incredulously : " Ho 1 Ho ! bar ! Sho ! be y%
now ? I want to know if y' be.

" Well, you'll find out.

" Goin' to start to-morrow, mother ?

" No, sir, I ain't ; but I am on Thursday. I want
to get to Sally's by Sunday, sure, an' to Silas's on
Thanksgivin*."

There was a note in the old woman's voice that
brought genuine stupefaction into the face of Uncle
Ripley. Of course in this case, as in all others, the
money consideration was uppermost.

" Howgy 'xpect to get the money, mother ? Any-
body died an' left yeh a pile ? "

"Never you mind where I get the money, so 's 't
you don't hafF to bear it. The land knows if I'd 'a'
waited for you to pay my way — "

" You needn't twit me of bein' poor, old woman,"
said Ripley, flaming up after the manner of many old
people. " I've done my part t' get along. I've worked
day in and day out — "

" Oh ! / ain't done no work, have I ? " snapped
she, laying down the stocking and levelling a needle at
him, and putting a frightful emphasis on " I."

" I didn't say you hadn't done no work."

" Yes, you did ! "

" I didn't neither. I said — "

Mrs. Ripley's Trip 165

" I inow what you said."

^^ I said rd done my part ! " roared the husband, dom*
inating her as usual by superior lung power. ^^ I didn't
say you hadn't done your part," he added with an un-
fortunate touch of emphasis.

" I know y' didn't say it, but y' meant it. I don't
know what y' call doin' my part, Ethan Ripley 5 but if
cookin' for a drove of harvest hands and thrashin' hands,
takin' care o' the eggs an,d butter, 'n' diggin' 'taters an'
milkin' ain't my part, I don't never expect to do my
part, 'n' you might as well know it fust 's last.

"I'm sixty years old," she went on, with a little
break in her harsh voice, dominating him now by
woman's logic, " an' I've never had a day to myself,
not even Fourth o' July. If I've went a-visitin' 'r to
a picnic, I've had to come home an' milk 'n' get supper
for you men-folks. I ain't been away t' stay overnight
for thirteen years in this house, 'n' it was just so in
Davis County for ten more. For twenty-three years,
Ethan Ripley, I've stuck right to the stove an* churn
without a day or a night off."

Her voice choked again, but she rallied, and con-
tinued impressively, " And now I'm a-goin' back to
Yaark State."

Ethan was vanquished. He stared at her in speech-
less surprise, his jaw hanging. It was incredible.

For twenty-three years," she went on, musingly,

I've just about promised myself every year Pd go
back an' see my folks." She was distinctly talking to
herself now, and her voice had a touching, wistful

a66 Main -Travelled Roads

cadence. ^^ I've wanted to go back an' see the old folks,
an' the hills where we played, an' eat apples off the old
tree down by the well. I've had them trees an' hills in
my mind days and days — nights, too — an' the girls I
used to know, an' my own folks — "

She fell into a silent muse, which lasted so long' that
the ticking of the clock grew loud as a gong in the
man's ears, and the wind outside seemed to sound
drearier than usual. He returned to the money prob-
lem; kindly, though.

'' But how y' goin' t' raise the money ? I ain't got
no extra cash this time. Agin Roach is paid, an' the
interest paid, we ain't got no hundred dollars to spare,
Jane, not by a jugful."

" Wal, don't you lay awake nights studyin' on where
I'm a-goin' to get the money," said the old woman, tak-
ing delight in mystifying him. She had him now, and
he couldn't escape. He strove to show his indifference,
however, by playing a tune or two on the violin.

'' Come, Tukey, you better climb the wooden hill,"
Mrs. Ripley said, a half-hour later, to the little chap on
the floor, who was beginning to get drowsy under the
influence of his grandpa's fiddling. ^^ Pa, you had orta
'a' put that string in the clock to-day — on the 'larm
side the string is broke," she said, upon returning from
the boy's bedroom. '' I orta git up early to-morrow, to
git some sewin' done. Land knows, I can't fix up
much, but they is a little I c'n do. I want to look
decent."

They were alone now, and they both sat expectantly.

Mrs. Ripley's Trip 267

'' You 'pear to think, mother, that I'm agin yer goin'."

" Wal, it would kinder seem as if y' hadn't hustled
yerself any t' help me git ofF."

He was smarting under the sense of Demg wronged.
'' Wal, I'm just as willin' you should go as I am for
myself, but if I ain't got no money I don't see how
I'm goin' to send — "

" I don't want ye to send ; nobody ast ye to, Ethan
Ripley. I guess if I had what I've earnt since we
came on this farm I'd have enough to go to Jericho
with."

" You've got as much out of it as I have," he replied
gently. " You talk about your goin' back. Ain't I been
wantin' to go back myself? And ain't I kep' still 'cause
I see it wa'n't no use ? I guess I've worked jest as long
and as hard as you, an' in storms an' in mud an' heat, ef
it comes t' that."

The woman was staggered, but she wouldn't give up ;
she must get in one more thrust.

" Wal, if you'd 'a' managed as well as I have, you'd
have some money to go with." And she rose and went
to mix her bread and set it " raisin'."

He sat by the fire twanging his fiddle softly. He
was plainly thrown into gloomy retrospection, something
quite unusual for him. But his fingers picking out the
bars of a familiar tune set him to smiling, and whipping
his bow across the strings, he forgot all about his wife's
resolutions and his own hardships. "Trouble always
slid off his back like punkins off a haystack, anyway,"
his wife said.

268 Main -Travelled Roads

The old man still sat fiddling softly after his wife
disappeared in the hot and stuffy little bedroom off the
kitchen. His shaggy head bent lower over hit violin.
He heard her shoes drop — one^ two. Pretty soon she
called :

^' Come, put up that squeakin' old fiddle, and go to
bed. Seems as if you orta have sense enough not to
set there keepin' everybody in the house awake."

" You hush up," retorted he. *' PU come when I git
ready, and not till. PU be glad when you're gone — "

" Yes, I warrant thaU^^

With which amiable good-night they went off to
sleep, or at least she did, while he lay awake pondering
on ^^ where under the sun she was goin' t' raise that
money."

The next day she was up bright and early, working
away on her own affairs, ignoring Ripley entirely, the
fixed look of resolution still on her little old wrinkled
face. She killed a hen and dressed and baked it. She
fried up a pan of doughnuts and made a cake. She was
engaged in the doughnuts when a neighbor came in, one
of these women who take it as a personal affront when
any one in the neighborhood does anything without
asking their advice. She was fat, and could talk a man
blind in three minutes by the watch. Her neighbor
said:

« What's this I hear, Mis' Ripley ? "

^^ I dun know. I expect you hear about all they it
goin' on in this neighborhood," replied Mrs. Ripley, with
crushing bluiitness ; but the gossip did not flinch.

99
9»

Mrs. Ripley's Trip 269

'' Well, Sett Turner told me that her husband told her
that Ripley told him this mornin* that you was goin*
back East on a visit."

" Wal, what of it ?

" Well, air yeh ?

"The Lord willin' an' the weather permittin', I
expect I be."

" Good land, I want to know ! Well, well ! I never
was so astonished in my whole life. I said, says I, ' It
can't be.' ' Well,' ses 'e, * tha's what she told me,' ses 'e.
^ But,' says I, ^ she is the last woman in the world to go.
gallavantin' off East,' ses I. ' An',' ses he, ' but it comes
from good authority,' ses he. * Well, then, it must be
so,' ses I. But, land sakes ! do tell me all about it.
How come you to make up y'r mind ? All these years
you've been kind a' talkin' it over, an' now y'r actshelly
goin' — well, I never! 'I s'pose Ripley furnishes the
money,' ses I to him. ' Well, no,' ses 'e. * Ripley says
he'll be bio wed if he sees where the money's coming
from,' ses 'e ; and ses I, ' But maybe she's jest jokin','
ses I. ' Not much,' he says. S' 'e : ' Ripley believes
she's goin' fast enough. He's jest as anxious to find
out as we be — ' "

Here Mrs. Doudney paused for breath; she had
walked so fast and rested so little that her interminable
flow of " ses I's " and " ses he's " ceased necessarily.
She had reached, moreover, the point of most vital
interest — the money.

" An' you'll find out jest 'bout as soon as he does,"
was the dry response from the §gure hovering over the

270 Msun -Travelled Roads

stove; and with all her manoeuvring that was al
got.

All day Ripley went about his i;irork exc i
thoughtful for him. It was cold blustering w
The wind rustled among the corn-stalks with a wil
mournful sound, the geese and ducks i;irent spra*
down the wind, and the horses' coats were rufflo
backs raised.

The old man was husking all alone in the fieL
spare form rigged out in two or three ragged coat
hands inserted in a pair of gloves minus nearly al
fingers, his thumbs done up in ^ stalls,'* and his feet t
into huge coarse boots. The " down ears ** wcl
chapped his hands, already worn to the quick. Tc
night it grew colder and threatened snow. In spite
these attacks he kept his cheerfulness, and thoug
was very tired, he was softened in temper.

Having plenty of time to think matters over, he
come to the conclusion that the old woman need
play-spell. ^^ I ain't likely to be no richer next year
I am this one ; if I wait till I'm able to send hej
won't never go. I calc'late I c'n git enough 01
them shoats to send her. I'd kind a' lotted on eat'n*
pigs done up in sassengers, but if the ol' woman
East, Tukey an' me'll kind a' hafF to pull through wit
'em. We'll have a turkey Pr Thanksgiving an' a chi
once 'n a while. Lord ! but we'll miss the grav
the flapjacks." (He smacked his lips over the the
of the lost dainty.) " But let 'er rip ! We can stai
Then there is my buffalo overcoat. I'd kind a* calc'

Mrs, Ripley's Trip 271

on havin' a buffalo — but that's gone up the spout along
'with them sassengers."

These heroic sacrifices having been determined upon,

• ' he put them into effect at once.

^ This he was able to do, for his corn-rows ran along-

' side the road leading to Cedarville, and his neighbors
were passing almost all hours of the day.

^ It would have softened Jane Ripley's heart could she
have seen his bent and stiffened form among the corn-
rows, the cold wind piercing to the bone through his
threadbare and insufficient clothing. The rising wind
sent the snow rattling among the moaning stalks at in-
tervals. The cold made his poor dim eyes water, and
he had to stop now and then to swing his arms about
his chest to warm them. His voice was hoarse with
shouting at the shivering team.

That night as Mrs. Ripley was clearing the dishes
away she got to thinking about the departure of the next
day, and she began to soften. She gave way to a few
tears when little Tewksbury Gilchrist, her grandson,
came up and stood beside her.

" Gran'ma, you ain't goin' to stay away always, are
yeh ? "

"Why, course not, Tukcy. What made y' think
that ? "

" Well, y' ain't told us nawthin' 't all about it. An*
yeh kind o' look 's if yeh was mad."

" Well, I ain't mad ; I'm jest a-thinkin', Tukey. Y*
see, I come away from them hills when I was a little
gill a'mosts before I married y'r grandad. And I

272 Main -Travelled Roads

ain't never been back. 'Most all my folka is tbetei
sonny, an' we've been s' poor all these yean I couldn't
seem t' never git started. Now, when Pm 'most ready
t' go, I feel kind a queer — 's if I'd cry,"

And cry she did, while little Tewksbury stood patting
her trembling hands. Hearing Ripley's step on the
porch, she rose hastily and, drying her eyes, plunged at
the work again.

Ripley came in with a big armful of wood, which
he rolled into the wood-box with a thundering crash.
Then he pulled off his mittens, slapped them together
to knock off the ice and snow, and laid them side fay
side under the stove. He then removed cap, coat,
blouse, and finally his boots, which he laid upon the
wood-box, the soles turned toward the stove-pipe.

As he sat down without speaking, he opened the
front doors of the stove, and held the palms of his
stiffened hands to the blaze. The light brought out a
thoughtful look on his large, uncouth, yet kindly, visage.
Life had laid hard lines on his brown skin, but it had
not entirely soured a naturally kind and simple nature.
It had made him penurious and dull and iron-muscled ;
had stifled all the slender flowers of his natures yet
there was warm soil somewhere hid in his heart.

^^ It's snowin' like all p'ssessed," he remarked finally.
^^ I guess we'll have a sleigh-ride to-morrow. I calc'late
t' drive y' daown in scrumptious style. If you must
leave, why, we'll give yeh a whoopin' old send-off —
won't we, Tukey ? "

Nobody replying, he waited a moment. ^ I've beo

Mrs. Ripley's Trip 273

a-thinkin' things over kind o' t'-day, mother, an* I've
come t' the conclusion that we have been kind o' hard
on yeh, without knowin* it, y' see. Y' see Fm kind o*
easy-goin', an' little Tuke he's only a child, an' we ain't
c'nsidered how you felt."

She didn't appear to be listening, but she was, and he
didn't appear, on his part, to be talking to her, and he
kept his voice as hard and dry as he could.

" An' I was tellin' Tukey t'-day that it was a dum
shame our crops hadn't turned out better. An' when I
saw ol' Hatfield go by I hailed him, an' asked him what
he'd gimme for two o' m' shoats. Wal, the upshot is,
I sent t' town for some things I calc'late you'd need.
An' here's a ticket to Georgetown, and ten dollars.
Why, ma, what's up ? "

Mrs. Ripley broke down, and with her hands all wet
with dish-water, as they were, covered her face, and
sobbed. She felt like kissing him, but she didn't.
Tewksbury began to whimper too; but the old man
was astonished. His wife had not wept for years
(before him). He rose and walking clumsily up to her
timidly touched her hair —

" Why, mother ! What's the matter ? What 've I
done now ? I was calc'latin' to sell them pigs anyway.
Hatfield jest advanced the money on 'em."

She hopped up and dashed into the bedroom, and in a
few minutes returned with a yarn mitten, tied around
the wrist, which she laid on the table with a thump,
saying : " I don't want yer money. There's money
enough to take me where I want to go«

T

9»

274 Main -Travelled Roads

" Whee — ew ! Thunder and gimpsum root ! Where
'd ye get that ? Didn't dig it out of a hole ? "

" No, I jest saved it — a dime at a time — sec ! **

Here she turned it out on the table — some bills, but
mostly silver dimes and quarters.

'* Thunder and scissors ! Must be two er three
hundred dollars there," he exclaimed.

'' They's jest seventy-five dollars and thirty cents ;
jest about enough to go back on. Tickets is fifty-five
dollars, goin' and comin'. That leaves twenty dollars
for other expenses, not countin' what Pve already spent,
which is six-fifty," said she, recovering her self-posses-
sion. " It's plenty."

" But y' ain't calc'lated on no sleepers nor hotel
bills."

" I ain't goin' on no sleeper. Mis' Doudney says
it's jest scandalous the way things is managed on them
cars. I'm goin' on the old-fashioned cars, where they
ain't no half-dressed men runnin' around."

'^ But you needn't be afraid of them, mother ; at your
age —

"There! you needn't throw my age an* homeliness
into my face, Ethan Ripley. If I hadn't waited an'
tended on you so long, I'd look a little more 's I did
when I married yeh."

Ripley gave it up in despair. He didn't realize fully
enough how the proposed trip had unsettled his wife's
nerves. She didn't realize it herself.

"As for the hotel bills, they won't be none. I ain't
agoin' to pay them pirates as much for a day's board as

Mrs. Ripley's Trip 275

we'd charge for a week's, and have nawthin' to eat but
dishes. I'm goin' to take a chicken an' some hard-boiled
eggs, an' I'm goin' right through to Georgetown."

'^Wal, all right, mother; but here's the ticket I
got."

" I don't want yer ticket."

" But you've got to take it."

"WeU, Ihaint."

"Why, yes, ye have. It's bought, an' they won't
take it back."

" Won't they ? " She was perplexed again.

" Not much they won't. I ast 'em. A ticket sold is
sold."

<* Wal, if they won't —

"You bet they won't.'

" I s'pose I'll hafF to use it." And that ended it.

They were a familiar sight as they rode down the
road toward town next day. As usual, Mrs. Ripley sat^
up straight and stiff as " a half-drove wedge in a whiter
oak log." The day was cold and raw. There was
tome snow on the ground, but not enough to warrant the
use of sleighs. It was ^^ neither sleddin' nor wheelin'."
The old people sat on a board laid across the box,
and had an old quilt or two drawn up over their knees.
Tewktbuiy lay in the back part of the box (which was
fiUed with hay), where he jounced up and down, in coin-
pny with a queer old trunk and a brand-new imitation*
1ii«»lK*i' haiid-baip.

There b no ride quite so desolate and uncomfortable as
a* ride in a lumber-wagon on a cold day m autumn, when

9f

276 Main -Travelled Roads

die ground is frozen, and die wind it strong and raw with
threatening snow. The wagon-wheels grind along in the
snow, the cold gets in under the seat at the calves of one's
legs, and the ceaseless bumping of the bottom of the box
on the feet is almost intolerable.

There was not much talk on the way down, and what
little there was related mainly to certain domesdc r^ula-
tions, to be strictly followed, regarding churning, pickles,
pancakes, etc. Mrs. Ripley wore a shawl over her head,
and carried her queer little black bonnet in her hand.
Tewksbury was also wrapped in a shawl. The boy's
teeth were pounding together like castanets by the dme
they reached Cedarville, and every muscle ached with
the fatigue of shaking.

After a few purchases they drove down to the station,
a frightful little den (common in the West), which was
always too hot or too cold. It happened to be hot just
now — a fact which rejoiced litde Tewksbury.

" Now git my trunk stamped^ *v fixed^ 'r whatever iJbfy
call it," she said to Ripley, in a commanding tone, which
gave great delight to the inevitable crowd of loafers be-
ginning to assemble. '^Now remember, Tukey, have
grandad kill that biggest turkey night before Thanks-
giving, an' then you run right over to Mis' Doudney's —
she's got a nawful tongue, but she can bake a turkey
first-rate — an' she'll fix up some squash-pies for yeh.
You can warm up one o' them mince-pies. I wish
ye could be with me, but ye can't; so do the best ye
can."

Ripley returning now, she said: ^^Wal, now, I've

Mrs. Ripley's Trip 277

fixed things up the best I could. Pve baked bread
enough to last, a week, an' Mis' Doudney has promised
to bake for yel

" I don't lilA her bakin'.'

" Wal, you'll hafF to stand it till I get back, 'n' you'll
find a jar o' sweet pickles an' some crab-apple sauce
down suUer, 'n' you'd better melt up brown sugar for
'lasses, 'n' for goodness' sake don't eat all them mince-
pies up the fust week, *n' see that Tukey ain't froze
goin' to school. An' now you'd better get out for home.
Good-by ! an' remember them pies."

As they were riding home, Ripley roused up after a
long silence.

" Did she — a — kiss you good-by, Tukey ? "

" No, sir," piped Tewksbury.

"Thunder! didn't she?" After a silence: "She
didn't me, neither. I guess she kind a' sort a' forgot it,
bein' so flustrated, y' know,"

One cold, windy, intensely bright day, Mrs. Stacey,
who lives about two miles from Cedarville, looking out
of the window, saw a queer little figure struggling along
the road, which was blocked here and there with drifts.
It was an old woman laden with a good half-dozen
parcels, which the wind seemed determined to wrench
from her.

She was dressed in black, with a full skirt, and her
cloak being short, the wind had excellent opportunity to
inflate her garments and sail her off occasionally into the
deep snow outside the track, but she held out bravely

278 Main -Travelled Roads

till the reached the gate. As the turned in, Mrs. Stace^
cried:

^^ Why ! it's Gran'ma Ripley, just gKng back from
her trip. Why! how do you do? CSne in. Why!
you must be nearly frozen. Let me tace off your hat
and veil.

^^No, thank ye kindly, but I can't stop," was the
given reply. ^' I must be gittin' back to Ripley. I ex-
pec' that man has jest let ev'rything go six ways Pr
Sunday."

^^ Oh, you must sit down just a minute and warm."

" Wal, I will ; but I've got to git home by sundown
sure, I don't s'pose they's a thing in the house to eat,"
she said solemnly.

^^Oh, dear! I wish Stacey was here, so he could
take you home. An' the boys at school — "

^^ Don't need any help, if 't wa'nt for these bundles
an' things. I guess I'll jest leave some of 'em here,
an' — Here! take one of these apples. I brought
'em from Lizy Jane's suller, back to Yaark State.'*

^^ Oh ! they're delicious ! You must have bad a
lovely time."

"Pretty good. But I kep' thinkin* of Ripley an'
Tukey all the time. I s'pose they have had a gay time
of it " (she meant the opposite of gay). *' Wal, as I
told Lizy Jane, I've had my spree, an' now I've got to
git back to work. They ain't no rest for such as we
are. As I told Lizy Jane, them folks in the big houses
have Thanksgivin' dinners every day of their lives, and
men an' women in splendid clo'$ to wait on 'em, so 't

Mrs. Ripley's Trip 179

Thanksgivin' don't mean anything to 'em ; but we poor
critters, we m^ a great to-do if we have a good dinner
onct a year. Are saw a pile o' this world, Mrs. Stacey
— a pile of ifl I didn't think they was so many big
houses in the Brld as I saw b'tween here an' Chicago.
Wal, I can't |pt here gabbin'." She rose resolutely.
^^ I must get nome to Ripley. Jest kind 0' stow them
bags away. I'll take two an' leave them three others.
Good-by ! I must be gittin' home to Ripley. He'll
want his supper on time."

And off up the road the indomitable little figure
trudged, head held down to the cutting blast — little
snow-fly, a speck on a measureless expanse, crawling
along with painful breathing, and slipping, sliding steps
— " Gittin' home to Ripley an' the boy."

Ripley was out to the barn when she entered, but
Tewksbury was building a fire in the old cook-stove.
He sprang up with a cry of joy, and ran to her. She
seized him and kissed him, and it did her so much good
she hugged him close, and kissed him again and again,
crying hysterically.

" Oh, gran'ma, I'm so glad to see you ! We've had
an awful time since you've been gone."

She released him, and looked around. A lot of dirty
dishes were on the table, the table-cloth was a ^^ sight
to behold" (as she afterward said), and so was the
stove — kettle-marks all over the table-cloth, splotches
of pancake batter all over the stove.

" Wal, I sh'd say as much," she dryly assented, un-
tying her bonnet-strings.

28o Mam -Travelled Roads

When Ripley came in she had her r^mentab on,
the stove was brushed, the room swe^ and she was
elbow*deep in the dish-pan. ^ HulloAiocher ! Got
back, hev yeh ? '' ■

^^I sh'd say it was about ttme^* shHepIied curtly,
without looking up or ceasing w(«. ^ Has oP
^ Crumpy ' dried up yit ? " This was h^ greeting.

Her trip was a fact now ; no chance could rob her
of it. She had looked forward twenty-three years toward
it, and now she could look back at it accomplished.
She took up her burden again, never more thinking to
lay it down.

UNCLE ETHAN RIPLEY

"Like the Main-Travelled Road of
Life, it is traversed by many classes
of people"

UNCLE ETHAN RIPLEY

Uncle Ethan had a theory that a man's character
could be told by the way he sat in a wagon seat.

^^ A mean man sets right plumb in the middle o' the
seat, as much as to say, 'Walk, gol darn yeh, who
cares ! ' But a man that sets in the corner o' the
seat, much as to say, ' Jump in — cheaper t' ride 'n to
walk,' you can jest tie to."

Uncle Ripley was prejudiced in favor of the stranger,
therefore, before he came opposite the potato patch,
where the old man was "bugging his vines." The
stranger drove a jaded-looking pair of calico ponies,
hitched to a clattering democrat wagon, and he sat on
the extreme end of the seat, with the lines in his right
hand, while his left rested on his thigh, with his little
finger gracefully crooked and his elbows akimbo. He
wore a blue shirt, with gay-colored armlets just above
the elbows, and his vest hung unbuttoned down his
lank ribs. It was plain he was well pleased with him-
self.

As he pulled up and :hrew one leg over the end of
the seat. Uncle Ethan observed that the left spring was
much more worn than the other, which proved that it
was not accidental, but that it was the driver's habit tP
sit on that end of the seat.

a83

284 Main -Travelled Roads

^ Good afternoon," said the stranger, pleauandj.

** Good afternoon, sir/*

** Bugs purty plenty ? "

^ Plenty enough, I gol ! I don't see where they aD

come fum."

^ E^rly Rose ? " inquired the man, as if referring tm

the bugs.

^^ No ; Peachblows an' Carter Reds. My Early
Rose is over near the house. The old woman wants
'em near. See the darned things ! " he pursued, raffing
savagely on the edge of the pan to rattle the bugs back*

" How do yeh kill >m — scald 'em ? "

" Mostly. Sometimes I — "

^^ Good piece of oats," yawned the stranger, listessly.

" That's barley."

" So 'tis. Didn't notice."

Uncle Ethan was wondering who the man was. He
had some pots of black paint in the wagon, and two or
three square boxes.

"What do yeh think o' Cleveland's chances for a
second term ? " continued the man, as if they had been
talking politics all the while.

Uncle Ripley scratched his head. ''Waal — I
dunno — bein' a Republican — I think — "

" That's so — it's a purty scaly outlook. I don't
believe in second terms myself," the man hastened to
say.

" Is that your new barn acrosst there ? " he asked,
pointing with his whip.

" Yes, sir, it is," replied the old man, proudly. After

Uncle Ethan Ripley 285

years of planning and hard work he had managed to
erect a little wooden barn, costing possibly three hun-
dred dollars. It was plain to be seen he took a childish
pride in the fact of its newness.

The stranger mused. "A lovely place for a sign,"
he said, as his eyes wandered across its shining yellow
broadside.

Uncle Ethan stared, unmindful of the bugs crawling
over the edge of his pan. His interest in the pots of
paint deepened.

^^ Couldn't think o' lettin' me paint a sign on that
barn ? " the stranger continued, putting his locked hands
around one knee, and gazing away across the pig-pen at
the building.

" What kind of a sign ? Gol darn your skins ! "
Uncle Ethan pounded the pan with his paddle and
scraped two or three crawling abominations off his
leathery wrist.

It was a beautiful day, and the man in the wagon
seemed unusually loath to attend to business. The tired
ponies slept in the shade of the lombardies. The plain
was draped in a warm mist, and shadowed by vast,
vaguely defined masses of clouds — a lazy June day.

" Dodd's Family Bitters," said the man, waking out
of his abstraction with a start, and resuming his work-
ing manner. "The best bitter in the market." He
alluded to it in the singular. " Like to look at it ? No
trouble to show goods, as the fellah says," he went on
hastily, seeing Uncle Ethan's hesitation.

He produced a large bottle of triangular shape, like a

286 Mdn -Travelled Roads

bottle for pickled onions. It had a red seal on top, and
a strenuous caution in red letters on the neck, ^ None
genuine unless ^ Dodd's Family Bitters ' is blown in the
bottom.'*

^^ Here's what it cures," pursued the agent, pointing
at the side, where, in an inverted pyramid, the names
of several hundred diseases were arranged, running from
" gout " to " pulmonary complaints," etc.

^^I gol ! she cuts a wide swath, don't she? " exclaimed
Uncle Ethan, profoundly impressed with the list.

'* They ain't no better bitter in the world," said the
agent, with a conclusive inflection.

^^ What's its speshy-tf Aty ? Most of 'em have some
speshy-jAty."

** Well — summer complaints — an' — an' — spring
an' fall troubles — tones ye up, sort of."

Uncle Ethan's forgotten pan was empty of his
gathered bugs. He was deeply interested in this man.
There was something he liked about him.

^^ What does it sell fur ? " he asked, after a pause.

^^Same price as them cheap medicines — dollar a
bottle — big bottles, too. Want one ? "

^^Wal, mother ain't to home, an' I don't know as
she'd like this kind. We ain't been sick Tr years.
Still, they's no tellin'," he added, seeing the answer to
his objection in the agent's eyes. ^^ Times is purty dose
too, with us, y' see; we've jest built that stable — "

^^Say I'll tell yeh what I'll do," said the stranger,
waking up and speaking in a warmly generous tone.
^^ I'll give you ten bottles of the bitter if you'll let me

99
99

Uncle Ethan Ripley 287

paint a sign on that barn. It won't hurt the barn a
bit, and if you want 'o you can paint it out a year from
date. Come, what d'ye say ?

" I guess I hadn't better.'

The agent thought that Uncle Ethan was after
more pay, but in reality he was thinking of what his
little old wife would say.

" It simply puts a family bitter in your home that
may save you fifty dollars this comin' fall. You can't
tell."

Just what the man said after that Uncle Ethan
didn't follow. His voice had a confidential purring
sound as he stretched across the wagon-seat and talked
on, eyes half shut. He straightened up at last, and
concluded in the tone of one who has carried his point :

*' So ! If you didn't want to use the whole twenty-
five bottles y'rself, why ! sell it to your neighbors.
You can get twenty dollars out of it easy, and still have
five bottles of the best family bitter that ever went into
a bottle."

It was the thought of this opportunity to get a
bufFalo-skin coat that consoled Uncle Ethan as he saw
the hideous black letters appearing under the agent's
lazy brush.

It was the hot side of the barn, and painting was no
light work. The agent was forced to mop his fore-
head with his sleeve.

" Say, hain't got a cooky or anything, and a cup o*
milk, handy ? " he said at the end of the first enormous
word, which ran the whole length of the bam.

288 Main -Travelled Roads

Uncle Ethan got him the milk and cooky^ which he
ate with an exaggeratedly dainty action of his fingers,
seated meanwhile on the staging which Uncle Ripley
had helped him to build. This lunch infused new
energy into him, and in a short time " Dodd's Family
Bitters, Best in the Market,'' disfigured the sweet-
smelling pine boards.

Ethan was eating his self-obtained supper of bread
and milk when his wife came home.

" Who's been a-paintin' on that barn ? " she de-
manded, her bead-like eyes flashing, her withered little
face set in an ominous frown. ^^ Ethan Ripley, what
you been doin' ? "

" Nawthin'," he replied feebly.

" Who painted that sign on there ? "

^^ A man come along an' he wanted to paint that on
there, and I let 'im ; and it's my barn anyway. I guess
I can do what I'm a min' to with it," he ended, defi-
antly ; but his eyes wavered.

Mrs. Ripley ignored the defiance. "What under the
sun p'sessed you to do such a thing as that, Ethan Ripley ?
I declare I don't see ! You git fooler an' fooler cv'ry
day you live, I do believe."

Uncle Ethan attempted a defence.

"Wal, he paid me twenty-five dollars f'r it, any-
way."

" Did 'e ? " She was visibly affected by this news.

"Wal, anyhow, it amounts to that; be give mc
twenty-five bottles — ■ "

Uncle Ethan Ripley 289

Mrs. Ripley sank back in her chair. ^ Wal, I swan
to Bungay ! Ethan Ripley — wal, you beat all I mrr
see ! ** she added, in despair of expression. ^ I thoi^ht
you had some sense left ; but you hain't, not one blessed
scimpton. Where is the stuff? "

^^ Down cellar, an' you needn't take on no drs, ol'
woman. I've known you to buy things you didn't
need time an' time an' agin — tins an' things, an' I
guess you wish you had back that ten dollars you paid
for that illustrated Bible."

" Go 'long an' bring that stuff up here. I never see
such a man in my life. It's a wonder he didn't do it
f'r two bottles." She glared out at the sign, which
£iiiced directly upon the kitchen window.

Uncle Ethan tugged the two cases up and set them
down on the floor of the kitchen. Mrs. Ripley opened
m bottle and smelled of it like a cautious cat.

«*Ugh! Merciful sakes, what stuff! It ain't fit
Pr a hog to take. What'd you think you was goin'
to do with it ? " she asked in poignant disgust.

** I expected to take it — if I was sick. Whaddy ye
f^jpoic?" He defiantly stood his ground, towering
ifeMrre her like a leaning tower.
. «Tlie hull cartload of it ? "

^No. I'm goin' to sell part of it an' git me an

' <* SeU.it I " she shouted. " Nobuddy'U buy that sick'-
JMifli' Stuff but an old numskull like you. Take that slop
0(0^ o' t}ie house this minute ! Take it .right down to
flit tjiifc-hohf an' smash every bottle on the stones."

290 Main -Travelled Roads

Uncle Ethan and the cases of medicine disappeared,
and the old woman addressed her concluding remarks to
little Tewksbury, her grandson, who stood timidly on
one leg in the doorway, like an intruding pullet.

^^ Everything around this place 'ud go to rack an'
ruin if I didn't keep a watch on that soft-pated old
dummy. I thought that lightnin'-rod man had give him
a lesson he'd remember -, but no, he must go an' make a
reg'lar— "

She subsided in a tumult of banging pans^ which
helped her out in the matter of expression and reduced
her to a grim sort of quiet. Uncle Ethan went about
the house like a convict on shipboard. Once she caught
him looking out of the window.

" I should think you'd feel proud o' that."

Uncle Ethan had never been sick a day in his life.
He was bent and bruised with never-ending toil, but he
had nothing especial the matter with him.

He did not smash the medicine, as Mrs. Ripley com-
manded, because he had determined to sell it. The
next Sunday morning, after his chores were done, be
put on his best coat of faded diagonal, and was brush-
ing his hair into a ridge across the centre of his high,
narrow head, when Mrs. Ripley came in from feeding
the calves.

" Where you goin' now ? "

"None o' your business," he replied. "It's darn
funny if I can't stir without you wantin' to know all
about It. Where's Tukey ? "

"Feedin* the chickens. You ain't goin* to take

p

Uncle Ethan Ripley 291

him off this mornin' now! I don't care where you

go-

^^ Who's a-goin' to take him off? I ain't said nothin'

about takin' him off,"

" Wal, take y'rsclf off, an' if y' ain't here f 'r dinner,
I ain't goin' to get no supper."

Ripley took a water-pail and put four bottles of ^^ the
bitter " into it, and trudged away up the road with it in
a pleasant glow of hope. All nature seemed to declare
the day a time of rest, and invited men to disassociate
ideas of toil from the rustling green wheat, shining grass,
and tossing blooms. Something of the sweetness and
buoyancy of all nature permeated the old man's work-
calloused body, and he whistled little snatches of the
dance tunes he played on his fiddle.

But he found neighbor Johnson to be supplied with
another variety of bitter, which was all he needed for
the present. He qualified his refusal to buy with a cor-
dial invitation to go out and see his shoats, in which he
took infinite pride. But Uncle Ripley said : ^ I guess
ril haf t' be goin'j I want 'o git up to Jennings' before
dinner."

He couldn't help feeling a little depressed when he
found Jennings away. The next house along the pleas-
ant lane was inhabited by a ^newcomer." He was
sitting on the horse-trough, holding a horse's halter,
while his hired man dashed cold water upon the galled
spot on the animal's shoulder.

After some preliminary talk Ripley presented
medicine.

2g2 Main -Travelled Roads

" Hell, no ! What do I want of such stuflT? When
they's anything the matter with me, I take a lunkin' ol'
swig of popple-bark and bourbon ! That fixes me.**

Uncle Ethan moved off up the lane. He hardly felt
like whistling now. At the next house he set his pail
down in the weeds beside the fence, and went in with*
out it. Doudney came to the door in his bare feet,
buttoning his suspenders over a clean boiled shirt. He
was dressing to go out.

" Hello, Ripley. I was just goin' down your way.
Jest wait a minute, an' Pll be out.'*

When he came out, fully dressed. Uncle Ethan grap*
pled him.

" Say, what d' you think o' pay tent med — **

" Some of 'em are boss. But y' want 'o know what
y're gittin'."

"What d' ye think o' Dodd's— "

" Best in the market."

Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted.
Doudney went on :

" Yes, sir ; best bitter that ever went into a bottle. I
know, I've tried it. I don't go much on patent medi-
cines, but when I get a good — "

" Don't want 'o buy a bottle ? "

Doudney turned and faced him.

" Buy ! No. I've got nineteen bottles I want *o
sell,'' Ripley glanced up at Doudney's new granary and
there read " Dodd's Family Bitters." He was stricken
dumb. Doudney saw it all, and roared.

" Wal, that's a good one ! We two tryin* to sell

Uncle Ethan Ripley 293

each other bitters. Ho — ho — ho — har, whoop ! wal,
this is rich ! How many bottles did you git ? "

"None o' your business," said Uncle Ethan, as he
turned and made off, while Doudney screamed with
merriment.

On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his
burden. Doudney had canvassed the whole neighbor-
hood, and he practically gave up the struggle. Every-
body he met seemed determined to find out what he had
been doing, and at last he began lying about it.

" Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that
pail ? "

" Goose eggs f 'r settin'."

He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson. Gus
never paid his debts, and he would only promise fifty
cents "on tick" for the bottle, and yet so desperate
was Ripley that this questionable sale cheered him up
not a little.

As he came down the road, tired, dusty, and hungry,
he climbed over the fence in order to avoid seeing that
sign on the barn, and slunk into the house without
looking back.

He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had
allowed a Democratic poster to be pasted there.

The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he
saw that sign wriggling across the side of the barn like
boa-constrictors hung on rails. He tried to paint them
out, but every time he tried it the man seemed to come
back with a sheriff, and savagely warned him to let it
stay till the year was up. In some mysterious way the

294 Main -Travelled Roads

agent seemed to know every time he brought out the
paint-pot, and he was no longer the pleasant«voiced in-
dividual who drove the calico ponies.

As he stepped out into the yard next morning that
abominable, sickening, scrawling advertisement was the
first thing that claimed his glance — it blotted out the
beauty of the morning.

Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress
at the throat, a wisp of her hair sticking assertively
from the little knob at the back of her head.

"Lovely, ain't it! An' /'ve got to sec it all day
long. I can't look out the winder but that thing's
right in my face." It seemed to make her savage. She
hadn't been in such a temper since her visit to New
York. " I hope you feel satisfied with it."

Ripley walked off to the barn. His pride in its clean
sweet newness was gone. He slyly tried the paint to
see if it couldn't be scraped off, but it was dried in thor-
oughly. Whereas before he had taken delight in hav-
ing his neighbors turn and look at the building, now he
kept out of sight whenever he saw a team coming. He
hoed corn away in the back of the field, when he should
have been bugging potatoes by the roadside.

Mrs. Ripley was in a frightful mood about it, but she
held herself in check for several days. At last she
burst forth :

" Ethan Ripley, I can't stand that thing any longer,
and I ain't goin' to, that's all ! You've got to go and
paint that thing out, or I will. I'm just about crazy
with it."

Uncle Ethan Ripley 295

** But, mother, I promised — "

^I don't care what you promised, it's got to be
painted out. I've got the nightmare now, seein' it. Vm
goin' to send f r a pail o' red paint, and I'm goin' to
paint that out if it takes the last breath I've got to do

it."

**I'll tend to it, mother, if you won't hurry

me — "

^^I can't stand it another day. It makes me boil
every time I look out the winder."

Uncle Ethan hitched up his team and drove gloomily
off to town, where he tried to find the agent. He lived
is some other part of the county, however, and so the
old man gave up and bought a pot of red paint, not
daring to go back to his desperate wife without it.

** Goin' to paint y'r new barn ? " inquired the mer-
chant, with friendly interest.

Uncle Ethan turned with guilty sharpness ; but the
merchant's face was grave and kindly.

** Yes, I thought I'd tech it up a little — don't cost
much.''

^ It pays — always," the merchant said emphatically.

•* Will it — stick jest as well put on evenings ?" in-
jured Uncle Ethan, hesitatingly.

**Yef— -won't make any difference. Why? Ain't
gpin'tohaye — "

. '<*Wal, — I kind o' thought I'd do it odd times night
aa' monun' — kind o' odd times — "
. He seemed oddly confused about it, and the merchant
locdced after him anxiously as he drove away.

2g6 Main -Travelled Roads

After supper that night he went out to the barn, and
Mrs. Ripley heard him sawing and hammering. Then
the noise ceased, and he came in and sat down in his
usual place.

" What y' ben makin' ? " she inquired. Tewksbury
had gone to bed. She sat darning a stocking.

" I jest thought I'd git the stagin' ready f 'r paintinV
he said^ evasively.

" Wal ! rU be glad when it's covered up.*' When
she got ready for bed, he was still seated in his chair,
and after she had dozed off two or three times she began
to wonder why he didn't come. When the clock struck
ten, and she realized that he had not stirred, she began
to get impatient. " Come, are y' goin' to sit there all
night ? " There was no reply. She rose up in bed
and looked about the room. The broad moon flooded
it with light, so that she could see he was not asleep in
his chair, as she had supposed. There was something
ominous in his disappearance.

" Ethan ! Ethan Ripley, where are yeh ! " There
was no reply to her sharp call. She rose and dis-
tractedly looked about among the furniture, as if he
might somehow be a cat and be hiding in a comer
somewhere. Then she went upstairs where the boy
slept, her hard little heels making a curious tunking
noise on the bare boards. The moon fell across the
sleeping boy Jike a robe of silver. He was alone.

She began to be alarmed. Her eyes widened in fear.
All sorts of vague horrors sprang unbidden into her
brain. She still had the mist of sleep in her brain.

Uncle Ethan Ripley 297

She hurried down the stairs and out into the fragrant
night. The katydids were singing in infinite peace
under the solemn splendor of the moon. The cattle
sniffed and sighed, jangling their bells now and then,
and the chickens in the coop stirred uneasily as if over*
heated. The old woman stood there in her bare feet
and long nightgown, horror-stricken. The ghastly
story of a man who had hung himself in his barn
because his wife deserted him came into her mind, and
stayed there with frightful persistency. Her throat
filled chokingly.

She felt a wild rush of loneliness. She had a sudden
realization of how dear that gaunt old figure was, with
its grizzled face and ready smile. Her breath came
quick and quicker, and she was at the point of bursting
into a wild cry to Tewksbury, when she heard a strange
noise. It came from the barn, a creaking noise. She
looked that way, and saw in the shadowed side a deeper
shadow moving to and fro. A revulsion to astonish-
ment and anger took place in her.

" Land o' Bungay ! If he ain't paintin' that barn,
like a perfect old idiot, in the night."

Uncle Ethan, working desperately, did not hear her
feet pattering down the path, and was startled by her
shrill voice.

" Well, Ethan Ripley, whaddy y' think you're doin'
now ? "

He made two or three slapping passes with the brush,
and then snapped out, " I'm a-paintin' this barn —
whaddy ye s'pose ? If ye had eyes y' wouldn't ask."

298 Main -Travelled Roads

" Well, you come right straight to bed. What d'you
mean by actin' so ? "

^^ You go back into the house an' let me be. I know
what I'm a-doin'. You've pestered me about this 8%n
jest about enough." He dabbed his brush to and fro
as he spoke. His gaunt figure towered above her in
shadow. His slapping brush had a vicious sound.

Neither spoke for some time. At length she sakf
more gently, " Ain't you comin' in ? "

'' No — not till I get a-ready. You go 'long an* tend
to y'r own business. Don't stan' there an' ketch cold,"

She moved ofF slowly toward the house. His shout
subdued her. Working alone out there had rendered
him savage ; he was not to be pushed any further. She
knew by the tone of his voice that he must now be
respected. She slipped on her shoes and a shawl, and
came back where he was working, and took a seat on a
saw-horse.

" I'm goin' to set right here till you come in, Ethan
Ripley," she said, in a firm voice, but gentler than usual.

'' Wal, you'll set a good while," was his ungracious
reply, but each felt a furtive tenderness for the other.
He worked on in silence. The boards creaked heavily
as he walked to and fro, and the slapping sound of the
paint-brush sounded loud in the sweet harmony of
the night. The majestic moon swung slowly round the
corner of the barn, and fell upon the old man's grizzled
head and bent shoulders. The horses inside could be
heard stamping the mosquitoes away, and chewing theii
hay in pleasant chorus.

Uncle Ethan Ripley 2^^

The little figure seated on the saw-horse drew the
shawl closer about her thin shoulders. Her eyes were
in shadow, and her hands were wrapped in her shawl.
At last she spoke in a curious tone.

"Wal, I don't know as you was so very much to
blame. I dtdn*t want that Bible myself — I held out I
did, but I didn't."

Ethan worked on until the full meaning of this un-
precedented surrender penetrated his head, and then he
threw down his brush.

'' Wal, I guess I'll let 'er go at that. I've covered
up the most of it, anyhow. Guess we better go in."

W ,

'J

'f:>

■'- .-I ■

GOD'S RAVENS

GOD'S RAVENS

Chicago has three winds that blow upon it. One
comes from the east, and the mind goes out to the cold
gray-blue lake. One from the north, and men think of
illimitable spaces of pine-lands and maple-dad ridjges
which lead to the unknown deeps of the arctic woods.

But the third is the west or southwest wind, dry,
magnetic, full of smell of unmeasured mil^ of grow-
ing grain in summer, or ripening com and wheat in au-
tumn. When it comes in winter the air fitters with
incredible brilliancy. The snow of the country dazzles
and flames in the eyes; deep-blue shadows everywhere
stream like stains of ink. Sleigh-bells wrangle from
early morning till late at night, and eveiy i(tep is quick
and alert. In the city, smoke dims its clarity^ but tt is
welcome.

But its greatest moment of domination is spring.
The bitter gray wmd of the east has held unchecked
rule for days, giving place to its brother the north wind
only at intervals, rill some day in March the wind of the
southwest begins to blow. Then the eaves heffn td
drip. Here and there a fowl (in a house that is really a
prison) begins to sing the song it sang on the farm, and
toward noon its song becomes a chant of articulate joy.

Then the poor crawl out of their reeking hovels cm the

304 Mun-Travelled Roads

south and west sides to stand in the sun — the
sun — and felicitate themselves on being alive.
dows of sick-rooms are opened, the meny small boy goci
to school without his tippet, and men lay off their 1
ulsters for their beaver coats. Caps give place to hady
and men and women pause to chat when they meet
each other on the street. The open door is the sign of
the great change of wind.

There are imaginative souls who are s ti rfed yet
deeper by this wind — men like Robert Bloom, to whom
come vague and very sweet reminiscences of farm life
when the snow is melting and the dry ground begins to
appear. To these people the wind comes fzom the
wide unending spaces of the prairie west. They can
smell the strange thrilling odor of newly uncovered sod
and moist brown ploughed lands. To them it is like the
opening door of a prison.

Robert had crawled down-town and up to his office
high in the Star block after a month's sickness. He had
resolutely pulled a pad of paper under his hand to
write, but the window was open and that wind coining
in, and he could not write — ^he could only dream.

His brown hair fell over the thin white hand which
propped his head. His face was like ivoiy with dull
yellowish stains in it. His eyes did not see the moun-
tainous roofs humped and piled into vast masses of
brick and stone, crossed and riven by streets^ and
swept by masses of gray-white vapor; they saw a little
valley circled by low-wooded bluffs — his native town
in Wisconsin.

As his weakness grew his ambition fell away, and his

God*s Ravens 305

heart turned back to nature and to the things he had
known in his youth, to the kindly people of the olden
time. It did not occur to him that the spirit of the
country might have changed.

Sitting thus, he had a mighty longing come upon
him to give up the struggle, to go back to the simplest
life with his wife and two boys. Why should he tread
in the mill, when every day was taking the life-blood
out of his heart?

Slowly his longing took resolution. At last he drew
his desk down, and as the lock clicked it seemed like the
shutting of a prison gate behind him.

At the elevator door he met a fellow-editor. "Hello,
Bloom! Didn't know you were down to-day.*'

"Tm only trying it. Vm going to take a vacation
for a while."

"That's right, man. You look like a ghost.'*

He hadn't the courag/e to tell him he never expected
to work there again. His step on the way home was
firmer than it had been for weeks. In his white face
his wife saw some subtle change.

"What is it, Robert?"

"Mate, let's give it up."

"What do you mean?"

"The struggle is too hard. I can't stand it. I'm
hungry for the country again. Let's get out of this."

"Where'llwego?"

"Back to my native town — up among the Wisconsin
hills and coulies. Go anywhere, so that we escape this
pressure — it's killing me. Let's go to BluflF Siding for a
year. It will do me good — may bring me back to life.

yA Main-Tra7eiled Roada

r -an Ao enou^ special work to pay aar aiuceiy U;
and the Merrill place — so Jack tcQa me — is empty.
W<» can ^ it for sevcntv-fivc doDars for a yeso: We
can pull throiii^ some way."

" Very -31^^11, Robert."

" I mu!}t have rest. AH the bccmce has gan^dnt of me^
Mate," he said, with sad lines in Ins fare, ''.^ny esna
work here is out of the question. I can on{y ^jmHe
around — an excuse for a man."

The wife had ceased to smile. Her strennons cfaecF-
fiilness could not hold before his tragically dzawn and
blo^idle^s face.

" ril ^o wherever you think best, Robert. It w3I be
jrji.^t a.<t well for the boys. I suppose there is a scbool
there r"

''Oh yes. At any rate, they can get a yeai^s school-
ing in nature."

"Well — no matter, Robert; you are the one to be
confiidercd." She had the self-sacrificing dc vtidu p of
the average woman. She fancied herself ho p e lcaily ha
inferior.

They had dwelt so long on the cnunbUng edge of
poverty that they were hardened to its threat, and yet
the failure of Robert's health had been of the sort idiidi
terrifies. It was a slow but steady sinking of vital
fr)rce. It had its ups and downs, but it was a down-
ward trail, always downward. The time for sdf-de-
ception had passed.

His paper paid him a meagre salary, for his woik
was prized only by the more thoughtful readers of the
Utar. In addition to his regular work he occasionally

God*s Ravens 307

hazarded a story for the juvenile magazmes of the
East. In this way he turned the antics of his growing
boys to account, as he often said to his wife.

He had also passed the preliminary stages of literary
success by getting a couple of stories accepted by an
Eastern magazine, and he still confidently looked
forward to seeing them printed.

His wife, a sturdy, practical little body, did her part
in the bitter struggle by keeping their little home one
of the most attractive on the West Side, the North
Side being altogether too high for them.

In addition, her sorely pressed brain sought out other
ways of helping. She wrote out all her husband's
stories on the typewriter, and secretly she had tried
composing others herself, the results being queer dry
little chronicles of the doings of men and women> strung
together without a touch of literary grace.

She proposed taking a large house and re-renting
XQOms, but Robert would not hear to it. "As long as I
cah'crawl about we'll leave that to others.'*
* In the month of preparation which followed he talked
a great deal about their venture.

**I want to get there," he said, "just when the
leayes are coming out on the trees. I want to see the
dheny-trees blossom on the hillsides. The popple-
trees always get green first."

At odier times he talked about the people. "It will
be ft rest just to get back among people who aren't
ready to tread on your head in order to lift themselves
op. I believe a year among those kind, unhurried people
wiU give me all the material I'll need for years. Ill

3o8 Main-Travelled Roads

write a series of studies somewhat like JeflFeries*
Barriers — only, of course, 1*11 be original. I'll just take
his plan of telling about the people I meet and their
queer ways, so quaint and good."

"I'm tired of the scramble," he kept breaking out of
silence to say. "I don't blame the boys, but it's plain
to me they see that my going will let them move up one.
Mason cynically voiced the whole thing today: *I
can say, "sorry to see you go. Bloom," because your
going doesn't concern me. I'm not in line of succession,
but some of the other boys don't feel so. There's no
divinity doth hedge an editor; nothing but law prevents
the murder of those above by those below.*"

"I don't like Mr. Mason when he talks like that/*
said the wife.

"Well— I don't." He didn't tell her what Mason
said when Robert talked about the good simple life of
the people in Bluff Siding:

"Oh, bosh. Bloom! You'll find the struggle of the
outside world reflected in your little town. You'll find
men and women just as hard and selfish in their small
way. It '11 be harder to bear, because it will all be so
petty and pusillanimous."

It was a lovely day in late April when they took the
train out of the great grimy terrible city. It was eight
o'clock, but the streets were muddy and wet, a cold
east wind blowing off the lake.

With clanging bell the train moved away piercing the
Tagged gray formless mob of houses and streets (through
which railways always run in a city). Men were hur-

God's Ravens 309

rying to work, and Robert pitied them, poor fellows, con-
demned to do that thing forever.

In an hour they reached the prairies, already clothed
upon faintly with green grass and tender springing
wheat. The purple-brown squares reserved for the
com looked deliciously soft and warm to the sick man,
and he longed to set his bare feet into it.

His boys were wild with delight. They had the
natural love of the earth still in them, and correspond-
ingly cared little for the city. They raced through the
cars like colts. They saw everything. Every blossom-
ing plant, every budding tree, was precious to them all.

All day they rode. Toward noon they left the sunny
prairie-land of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin,
and entered upon the hill-land of Madison and beyond.
As they went north, the season was less advanced, but
spring was in the fresh wind and the warm sunshine.

As evening drew on, the hylas began to peep from the
pools, and their chorus deepened as they came on tow-
ard Bluff Siding, which seemed very small, very squalid,
and uninteresting, but Robert pointed at the circling
wine-colored wall of hills and the warm sunset sky.

"We're in luck to find a hotel," said Robert. "They
bum down every three months."

They were met by a middle-aged man, and con-
ducted across the road to a hotel, which had been a
roller-skating rink in other days, and was not prepos-
sessing. However, they were ushered into the parlor,
which resembled the sitting-room of a rather ambitious
village home, and there they took seats, while the land-
lord consulted about rooms.

3IO Main-Travelled Roads

The wife's heart sank. From the window she could
see several of the low houses, and far off just the bills
which seemed to make the town so very small, very
lonely. She was not given time to shed tears. The
children clamored for food, tired and cross.

Robert went out into the office, where he signed his
name under the close and silent scrutiny of a half-
dozen roughly clad men, who sat leaning against the
wall. They were merely working-men to him, but in
Mrs. Bloom's eyes they were dangerous people.

The landlord looked at the name as Robert wrote*
"Your boxes are all here,*' he said.

Robert looked up at him in surprise. "What
boxes?"

"Your household goods. They came in on No. 9."

Robert recovered himself. He remembered this was
a village where everything that goes on — everything —
is known.

The stairway rose picturesquely out of the office to
the low second story, and up these stairs they tramped
to their tiny rooms which were like cells.

"Oh, mamma, ain't it queer?" cried the boys.

*' Supper is all ready," the landlord's soft, deep voice
announced a few moments later, and the boys responded
with whoops of hunger.

They were met by the close scrutiny of every boarder
as they entered, and they heard also the muttered
comments and explanations.

"Family to take the Merrill house."

"He looks purty well flaxed out, don't he?"

They were agreeably surprised to find everything

God's Ravens 311

neat and clean and wholesome. The bread was good
and the butter delicious. Their spirits revived.

"That butter tastes like old times/' said Robert.
"It's fresh. It's really butter."

They made a hearty meal> and the boys, being filled
up, grew sleepy. After they were put to bed Robert
said, "Now, Mate, let's go see the house."

They walked out arm in arm like lovers. Her sturdy
form steadied him, though he would not have ac-
knowledged it. The red flush was not yet gone from
the west, and the hills still kept a splendid tone of
purple-black. It was very clear, the stars were out,
the wind deliciously soft. "Isn't it still?" Robert
almost whispered.

They walked on under the budding trees up the hill,
till they came at last to the small frame house set under
tall maples and locust-trees, just showing a feathery
fringe of foliage.

"This is our home," said Robert.

Mate leaned on the gate in silence. Frogs were
peeping. The smell of spring was in the air. There
was a magnificent repose in the hour, restful, recreating,
impressive.

"Oh, it's beautiful, Robert! I know we shall like it."

"We must like it," he said.

II

First contact with the people disappointed Robert.
In the work of moving in he had to do with people who
work at day's work, and the fault was his more than

312 Main-Travelled Roads

theirs. He forgot that they did not consider their
work degrading. They resented his bossing. The
drayman grew rebellious.

"Look a-here, my Christian friend, if you^ll go 'long
in the house and let us alone it '11 be a good job. We
know what we're about."

This was not pleasant^ and he did not perceive the
trouble. In the same way he got foul of the carpenter
and the man who ploughed his garden. Some way his
tone was not right. His voice was cold and distant.
He generally found that the men knew better than he
what was to be done and how to do it; and sometimes
he felt like apologizing, but their attitude had changed
till apology was impossible.

He had repelled their friendly advances because he
considered them (without meaning to do so) as work-
men, and not as neighbors. They reported, therefore,
that he was cranky and rode a high horse.

"He thinks he's a little tin god on wheels," the
drayman said.

"Oh, he'll get over that," said McLane. "I knew
the boy's folks years ago — tiptop folks, too. He ain't
well, and that makes him a little crusty."

"That's the trouble — he thinks he's an upper crust,"
said Jim CuUen, the drayman.

At the end of ten days they were settled, and nothing
remained to do but plan a little garden and — get well.
The boys, with their unspoiled natures, were able to
melt into the ranks of the village-boy life at once,
with no more friction than was indicated by a couple of
rough-and-tumble fights. They were sturdy fellows.

God's Ravens 313

like their mother, and these fights gave them high
rank.

Robert got along in a dull, smooth way with his
neighbors. He was too formal with them. He met
them only at the meat-shop and the post-office. They
nodded genially, and said, "Got settled yet?" And
he replied, "Quite comfortable, thank you." They
felt his coldness. Conversation halted when he came
near, and made him feel that he was the subject of
their talk. As a matter of fact, he generally was.
He was a source of great speculation with them. Some
of them had gone so far as to bet he wouldn't live a year.
They all seemed grotesque to him, so work-scarred and
bent and hairy. Even the men whose names he had
known from childhood were queer to him. They
seemed shy and distant, too, not like his ideas of them.

To Mate they were almost caricatures. "What
makes them look so — so 'way behind the times,
Robert?"

"Well, I suppose they are," said Robert. "Life in
these coulies goes on rather slower than in Chicago.
Then there are a great many Welsh and Germans and
Norwegians, living 'way up the coulies, and they're
the ones you notice. They're not all so." He could
be generous toward them in general; it was in special
cases where he failed to know them.

They had been there nearly two weeks without
meeting any of them socially, and Robert was beginning
to change his opinion about them. "They let us
severely alone," he was saying one night to his wife.

**It*s very odd. I wonder what Fd better do, Rob-

314 Main-Travelled Roads

ert? I don't know the etiquette of these small towns.
I never lived in one before, you know. Whether I
ought to call first — and, good gracious, who'll I call
on? I'm in the dark."

"So am I, to tell the truth. I haven't lived in one
of these small towns since I was a lad. I have a
faint recollection that introductions were absolutely
necessary. They have an etiquette which is as binding
as that of McAllister's Four Hundred, but what it is I
don't know."

"Well, we'll wait."

"The boys are perfectly at home," said Robert, with
a little emphasis on boys, which was the first indication
of his disappointment. The people he had failed to
reach.

There came a knock on the door that startled them
both. "Come in," said Robert, in a nervous shout.

"Land sakesi did I scare ye? Seem so, way ye
yelled," said a high-keyed nasal voice, and a tall woman
came in, followed by an equally stalwart man.

" How d'e do, Mrs. Folsom ? My wife, Mr. Folsom."

Folsom's voice was lost in the bustle of getting set-
tled, but Mrs. Folsom's voice rose above the clamor.
"I was tellin' him it was about time we got neighborly.
I never let anybody come to town a week without
callin' on 'em. It does a body a heap o* good to see
a face outside the family once in a while, specially in a
new place. How do you like up here on the hill?"

"Very much. The view Is so fine."

"Yes, I s'pose it is. Still, it ain't my notion. I
don't like to climb hills well enough. Still, I've heard

God's Ravens 315

of people buildin* just for the view. It's all in taste,
as the old woman said that kissed the cow."

There was an element of shrewdness and self-analysis
in Mrs. Folsom which saved her from being grotesque.
She knew she was queer to Mrs. Bloom, but she did not
resent it. She was still young in form and face, but
her teeth were gone, and, like so many of her neighbors,
she was too poor to replace them from the dentist's.
She wore a decent calico dress and a shawl and hat.

As she talked her eyes took in every article of furni-
ture in the room, and every little piece of fancy-work
and bric-a-4)rac. In fact, she reproduced the pattern
of one of the tidies within two days.

Folsom sat dumbly in his chair. Robert, who met
him now as a neighbor for the first time, tried to talk
with him, but failed, and turned himself gladly to
Mrs. Folsom, who delighted him with her vigorous
phrases.

"Oh, we're a-movin', though you wouldn't think it.
This town is filled with a lot of old skinflints. Close
ain't no name for 'em. Jest ask Folsom thar about
'em. He's been buildin' their houses for 'em. Still,
I suppose they say the same thing o' me," she added,
with a touch of humor which always saved her. She
used a man's phrases. "We're always ready to tax
some other feller, but we kick like mules when the tax
falls on us," she went on. "My land I the fight we've
had to git sidewalks in this town!"

"You should be mayor."

"That's what I tell Folsom. Takes a woman to
clean things up. Well, I must run along. Thought

3 1 6 Main-Travelled Roads

rd jest call in and see how you all was. Come down
when ye kin/*

"Thank you, I will."

After they had gone Robert turned with a smile:
*'Our first formal call."

*'0h, dear, Robert, what can I do with such people.?"

"Go see 'em. I like her. She's shrewd. You'll like
her, too."

"But what can I say to such people? Did you hear
her say *we fellers* to me?**

Robert laughed. "That*s nothing. She feels as
much of a man, or * feller,* as any one. Why shouldn*t
she?"

"But she*s so vulgar.*'

"I admit she isn't elegant, but I think she's a good
wife and mother.**

"I wonder if they*re all like that?**

"Now, Mate, we must try not to offend them. We
must try to be one of them."

But this was easier said than done. As he went
down to the post-office and stood waiting for his mail
like the rest he tried to enter into conversation with
them, but mainly they moved away from him. William
McTurg nodded at him and said, "How de do?" and
McLane asked how he liked his new place, and that
was about all.

He couldn't reach them. They suspected him.
They had only the estimate of the men who had
worked for him; and, while they were civil, they plainly
didn't need him in the slightest degree, except as a
topic of conversation.

God's Ravens 317

He did not improve as he had hoped to do. The
spring was wet and cold, the most rainy and depressing
the valley had seen in many years. Day after day the
rain-clouds sailed in over the northern hills and deluged
the flat little town with water, till the frogs sang in
every street, till the main street mired down every
team that drove into it.

The corn rotted in the earth, but the grass grew tall
and yellow-green, the trees glistened through the gray
air, and the hills were like green jewels of incalculable
worth, when the sun shone, at sweet infrequent in-
tervals.

The cold and damp struck through into the alien's
heart. It seemed to prophesy his dark future. He sat
at his desk and looked out into the gray rain with
gloomy eyes — a prisoner when he had expected to be
free.

He had failed in his last venture. He had not gained
any power — he was really weaker than ever. The rain
had kept him confined to the house. The joy he had
anticipated of tracing out all his boyish pleasure haunts
was cut off. He had relied, too, upon that as a source
of literary power.

He could not do much more than walk down to the
post-office and back on the pleasantest days. A few
people called, but he could not talk to them, and they
did not call again.

In the mean while his little bank-account was
vanishing. The boys were strong and happy; that
was his only comfort. And his wife seemed strong,
too. She had little time to get lonesome.

3 1 8 M ain-Travell ed Roads

He grew morbid. His weakness and insecurity made
him jealous of die security and health of others.

He grew almost to hate the people as he saw them
coming and going in the mud, or heard their loud
hearty voices sounding from the street. He hated
their gossip, their dull jokes. The flat little town
grew vulgar and low and desolate to him.

Every little thing which had amused hinci now
annoyed him. The cut of their beards worried him.
Their voices jarred upon him. Every day or two he
broke forth to his wife in long tirades of abuse.

"Oh, I can't stand these people! They don't know
anything. They talk every rag of gossip into shreds.
'Taters, fish, hops; hops, fish, and 'taters. They've
saved and pinched and toiled till their souls are pinched
and ground away. You're right. They are carica-
tures. They don't read or think about anything in
which I'm interested. This life is nerve-destroying.
Talk about the health of the village life I it destroys
body and soul. It debilitates me. It will warp us
both down to the level of these people.'*

She tried to stop him, but he went on, a flush of
fever on his cheek:

"They degrade the nature they have touched.
Their squat little town is a caricature like themselves.
Everything they touch they belittle. Here they sit
while sidewalks rot and teams mire in the streets."

He raged on like one demented — ^bitter, accusing,
rebellious. In such a mood he could not write. In
place of inspiring him, the little town and its people
seemed to undermine his power and turn his sweetness

God's Ravens 319

of spirit into gall and acid. He only bowed to them now
as he walked feebly among them, and they excused it
by referring to his sickness. They eyed him each time
with pitying eyes. "He's failin* fast," they said
among themselves.

One day, as he was returning from the post-office,
he felt blind for a moment and put his hand to his
head. The world of vivid green grew gray, and life
receded from him into illimitable distance. He had
one dim fading glimpse of a shaggy-bearded face looking
down at him, and felt the clutch of an iron-hard strong
arm under him, and then he lost hold even on so much
consciousness.

He came back slowly, rising out of immeasurable
deeps toward a distant light which was like the mouth
of a well filled with clouds of misty vapor. Occa-
sionally he saw a brown big hairy face floating in over
this lighted horizon, to smile kindly and go away again.
Others came with shaggy beards. He heard a cheery
tenor voice which he recognized, and then another
face, a big brown smiling face; very lovely it looked
now to him — almost as lovely as his wife's, which
floated in from the other side.

**He's all right now," said the cheery tenor voice
from the big bearded face.
» "Oh, Mr. McTurg, do you think so?"

**Ye-e-s, sir. He's all right. The fever's left him.
Brace up, old man. We need ye yit awhile." Then
all was silent again.

The well-mouth cleared away its mist again, and he

320 Main-Travelled Roads

saw more clearly. Part of the time he knew he was in
bed staring at the ceiling. Part of the time the well-
mouth remained closed in with clouds.

Gaunt old women put spoons of delicious broth to
his lips, and their toothless mouths had kindly lines
about them. He heard their high voices sounding
faintly.

"Now, Mis* Bloom, jest let Mis* Folsom an* me
attend to things out here. We*ll get supper for the
boys, an' you jest go an' lay down. We'll take care of
him. Don't worry. Bell's a good hand with sick.**

Then the light came again, and he heard a robin
singing, and a cat-bird squalled softly, pitifully. He
could see the ceiling again. He lay on his back, with
his hands on his breast. He felt as if he had been dead.
He seemed to feel his body as if it were an alien thing.

"How are you, sir?" called the laughing, thrillingly
hearty voice of William McTurg.

He tried to turn his head, but it wouldn*t move.
He tried to speak, but his dry throat made no noise.

The big man bent over him. "Want *o change
place a little?"

He closed his eyes in answer.

A giant arm ran deftly under his shoulders and
turned him as if he were an infant, and a new part of
the good old world burst on his sight. The sunshine
streamed in the windows through a waving screen of
lilac leaves and fell upon the carpet in a priceless
flood of radiance.

There sat William McTurg smiling at him. He had
no coat on and no hat, and his bushy thick hair rose up

God's Ravens 321

from his forehead like thick marsh-grass. He looked to
be the embodiment of sunshine and health. Sun and
air were in his brown face, and the perfect health of a
fine animal was in his huge limbs. He looked at
Robert with a smile that brought a strange feeling into
his throat. It made him try to speak; at last he
whispered.

The great figure bent closer: "What is it?"

"Thank— you."

William laughed a low chuckle. "Don't bother
about thanks. Would you like some water?

A tall figure joined William, awkwardly.
Hello, Evan!

"How is he, Bill?

"He's awake to-day.
That's good. Anything I can do?"
No, I guess not. All he needs is somethin* to eat.

"I jest brought a chicken up, an' some jell an* things
the women sent. I'll stay with him till twelve, then
Folsom will come in."

Thereafter he lay hearing the robins laugh and the
orioles whistle, and then the frogs and katydids at
night. These men with greasy vests and unkempt
beards came in every day. They bathed him, and
helped him to and from the bed. They helped to dress
him and move him to the window, where he could look
out on the blessed green of the grass.

O God, it was so beautiful! It was a lover's joy only
to live, to look into these radiant vistas again. A cat-
bird was singing in the currant-hedge. A robin was
hopping across the lawn. The voices of the children

)"

322 Main-Travelled Roads

sounded soft and jocund across the road. And the
sunshine — "Beloved Christ, Thy sunshine falling upon
my feet!" His soul ached with the joy of it, and v^en
his wife came in she found him sobbing like a child.

They seemed never to weary in his service. They
lifted him about, and talked to him in loud and hearty
voices which roused him like fresh winds from free
spaces.

He heard the women busy with things in the kitchen.
He often saw them loaded with things to eat passing his
window, and often his wife came in and knelt down at
his bed.

*'0h, Robert, they're so good! They feed us like
God*s ravens."

One day, as he sat at the window fully dressed for
the fourth or fifth time, William McTuig came up the
walk.

"Well, Robert, how are ye to-day?"

"First rate, William," he smiled. "I believe I can
walk out a little if you'll help me."

"All right, sir."

And he went forth leaning on William's arm, a
piteous wraith of a man.

On every side the golden June sunshine fell, filling
the valley from purple brim to purple brim. Down
over the hill to the west the light poured, tangled and
glowing in the plum and cherry trees, leaving the glis-
tening grass spraying through the elms, and flinging
streamers of pink across the shaven green slopes where
the cattle fed.

On every side he saw kindly faces and heard hearty

God's Ravens ^'^^

voices: *'Good day, Robert. Glad to see you out
again." It thrilled him to hear them call him by his
first name.

His heart swelled till he could hardly breathe. The
passion of living came back upon him, shaking, uplifting
him. His pallid lips moved. His face was turned to
the sky.

"O God, let me live! It is so beautiful! O God,
give me strength again! Keep me in the light of the
sun! Let me see the green grass come and go!"

He turned to William with trembling lips, trying to
speak:

"Oh, I understand you now. I know you all now."

But William did not understand him.

" There I there !" he said, soothingly. "I guess you're
gettin' tired." He led Robert back and put him to bed,

"I'd know but we was a little brash about goin' out,"
William said to him, as Robert lay there smiling up at
him.

"Oh, Pm all right now," the sick man said.

"Matie," the alien cried, when William had gone,
*'we know our neighbors now, don't we? We never
can hate or ridicule them again."

"Yes, Robert. They never will be caricatures again
me.

A "GOOD FELLOW'S" WIFE

A "GOOD FELLOWS" WIFE

I

Life in the small towns of the older West moves
slowly — almost as slowly as in the seaport villages or
little towns of the East. Towns like Tyre and Bluff
Siding have grown during the last twenty years, but
very slowly, by almost imperceptible degrees. Ljring
too far away from the Mississippi to be affected by
the lumber interest, they are merely trading-points
for the farmers, with no perceivable germs of boom in
their quiet life.

A stranger coming into Belfast, Minnesota, excites
much the same languid but persistent inquiry as in
Belfast, New Hampshire. Juries of men, seated on salt-
barrels and nail-kegs, discuss the stranger's appearance
and his probable action, just as in Kittery, Maine, but
with a lazier speech-tune, and with a shade less of ap-
parent interest.

On such a rainy day as comes in May after the com
is planted — a cold, wet rainy day — ^the usual crowd was
gathered in Wilson's grocery-store at Bluff Siding, a
small town in "The Coally Country.'* They were
farmers, for the most part, retired from active service.
Their coats were of cheap diagonal or cassimere, much

328 Main-Travelled Roads

faded and burned by the sun; their hats, flapped about
by winds and soaked with countless rains, were also
of the same yellow-brown tints. One or two wore
paper collars on their hickory shirts.

McIIvainei fanner and wheat-buyer, wore a paper
collar and a butterfly necktie, as befitted a man of his
station in life. He was a short, squarely made Scotch-
man, with sandy whiskers much grayed, and with a
keen, intensely blue eye.

"Say," called McPhail, ex-sheriff of the county, in
the silence that followed some remark about the rain,
"any o' you fellers had any talk with this feller San-
ford?"

" I hain't," said Vance. "You, Bill ?"

"No; but somebody was sayin' he thought o' startin'
in trade here."

"Don't Sam know? He generally knows what's
gom on.

"Knows he registered from Pittsfield, Mass., an'
that's all. Say, that's a mighty smart-lookin' woman
o' his."

"Vance always sees how the women look. Where'd
you see her?"

"Came in here the other day to look up prices."

" Wha'd she say 'bout settlin' ?"

"Hadn't decided yet."

"He's too slick to have much business in him.
That waxed mt^jtache gives 'im away."

The discussion having reached that point where his
word would have most effect, Steve Gilbert said, while

A **GoQd Fellow's^' Wife 3^9

opening the hearth to rap out the ashes of his pipe^
"Sam's wife heerd that he was kind o' thinkin' some
of goin' into business here, if things suited 'im first-^
rate."

They all knew the old man was aching to teU some-
thing, but they didn't purpose to gratify him by any
questions. The rain dripped from the awning in front,
and fell upon the roof of the storeroom at the back
with a soft and steady roar.

"Good Ft the com/' McPhail said, after a long pause,

"Purty cold, though."

Gilbert was tranquil — he had a shot in reserve.

"Sam's wife said his wife said he was thinkin' some
of goin' into a bank here — "

"A bank!"

"What in thunder — "

Vance turned, with a comical look on his long,
placid face, one hand stroking his beard.

"Well, now, gents, I'll tell you what's the matter
with this town. It needs a bank. Yes, sir! I need a
bank."

"You?"

"Yes, me. I didn't know just what did ail me, but
I do now. It's the need of a bank that keeps me down."

"Well, you fellers can talk an' laugh, but I tell
yeh they's a boom goin* to strike this town. It's got
to come. W'y, just look at Lumberville!"

"Their boom is our bu'st/* was McPhail's comment.

"I don't think so," said Sanfprd, who had entered
In time to hear the$e last two speeches. They all looked

330 Main-Travelled Roads

at him with deep interest. He was a smallish mao.
He wore a derby hat and a neat suit. ^Tve looked
things over pretty close — a man don't like to invest
his capital'' (here the rest looked at one another)
'"till he does; and I believe there's an opening for a
bank."

As he dwelt upon the scheme from day to day, the
citizens warmed to him, and he became "Jim" Sanfoid
He hired a little cottage, and went to housekeeping at
once; but the entire summer went by before he made
his decision to settle. In fact, it was in the last week of
August that the little paper announced it in the usual
style:

Mr. James G. Sanford, popularly known as ''Jim," hat
decided to open an exchange bank for the convenience of our
citizens, who have hitherto been forced to transact business
in Lumberville. The thanks of the town are due Mr. Sanford,
who comes well recommended from Massachusetts and from
Milwaukee, and, better still, with a bag of ducats. Mr. S.
will be well patronized. Success, Jim!

The bank was open by the time the corn-crop and
the hogs were being marketed, and money was received
on deposit while the carpenters were still at work on
the building. Everybody knew now that he was as
solid as oak.

He had taken into the bank, as bookkeeper, Lincoln
Bingham, one of McPhail's multitudinous nephews;
and this was a capital move. Everybody knew Link,
and knew he was a McPhail, which meant that he
''could be tied to in all kinds o' weather." Of course

A *'Good Fellow's" Wife 331

the McPhails, Mcllvaines, and the rest of the Scotch
contingency "banked on Link." As old Andrew
McPhail put it:

"Link's there, an' he knows the bank an' books,
an' just how things stand"; and so when he sold his
hogs he put the whole sum — over fifteen hundred
dollars — into the bank. The Mcllvaines and the Bing-
hams did the same, and the bank was at once finnly
established among the farmers.

Only two people held out against Sanford, old Freeme
Cole and Mrs. Bingham, Lincoln's mother; but they
didn't count, for Freeme hadn't a cent, and Mrs. Bing-
ham was too unreasoning in her opposition. She
could only say: "I don't like him, that's all. I knowed
a man back in New York that curled his mustzchts just
that way, an' he wa'n't no earthly good."

It might have been said by a cynic that Banker
Sanford had all the virtues of a defaulting bank cashier.
He had no bad habits beyond smoking. He was genial,
companionable, and especially ready to help when
sickness came. When old Freeme Cole got down with
delirium tremens that winter, Sanford was one of the
most heroic of nurses, and the service was so clearly
disinterested and magnanimous that every one spoke
of it.

His wife and he were included in every dance or
picnic; for Mrs. Sanford was as great a favorite as the
banker himself, she was so sincere, and her gray eyes
were so charmingly frank, and then she said "such
funny things."

332 Main-Travelled Roads

''I wish I had something to do besides housewocL
It's a kind of a putterin' job^ best ye can do,'' she'd
say, merrily, just to see the others stare. ''There's
too much moppin' an' dustin'. Seems 's if a woman
used up half her life on things that don't amount to
anything, don't it?"

''I tell yeh that fellei^s a scallywag. I know it buh
the way 'e walks 'long the sidewalk," Mrs. Bingham
insisted to her son, who wished her to put her savings
into the bank.

The youngest of a large family. Link had been accus-
tomed all his life to Mrs. Bingham's many whimsicali-
ties.

^'I s'pose you can smell he's a thief, just as you can
tell when it's goin' to rain, or the butter's comin', by
the smell."

"Well, you needn't laugh, Lincoln. I cfln," main-
tained the old lady, stoutly. "An' I ain't goin' to put
a red cent o' my money into his pocket — Ft there's
where it 'ud go to."

She yielded at last, and received a little bank-book
in return for her money. "Jest about all I'll ever get,"
she said, privately; and thereafter out of her brass-
bowed spectacles with an eagle's gaze she watched the
banker go by. But the banker, seeing the dear old soul
at the window looking out at him, always smiled and
bowed, unaware of her suspicion.

At the end of the year he bought the lot nert his
rented house, and began building one of his own, a
modest little affair, shaped like a pork-pie with a cu-

A "Good FeUow's*' Wife 333

pola, or a Tam-o^-Shanter cap — a style of architectuie
which became fashionable at once.

He worked heroically to get the location of the plow-
factory at Bluff Siding, and all but succeeded; but
Tyre, once their ally, turned against them, and refused
to consider the fact of the Siding's positicm at the cen-
tre of the county! However, for some reason or other,
the town woke up to something of a boom durmg the
next two years. Several large farmers decided to re-
tire and live off the sweat of some other fellow's brow>
and so built some houses of the pork-pie otder^ and
moved into town*

This inflow of moneyed men from the country re-
sulted in the establishment of a "seminary of learning''
on the hillside, where the Soldiers' Home was to be
located. This called in more farmers from the country,
and a new hotel was built, a sash-and-door factory
followed, and Burt McPhail set up a feed-mill.

All this improvement unquestionably dated from
the opening of the bank, and the most unreasoning
partisans of the banker held him to be the chief cause of
the resulting development of the town, though he him-
self modestly disclaimed any hand in the affair.

Had Bluff Siding been a city, the highest dvic hon-
ors would have been open to Banker Sanford; indeed,
his name was repeatedly mentioned in connection with
the county ojfices.

"No, gentlemen," he explained, firmly, but courte-
ously, in Wilson's store one night; "I'm a banker,
not a politician. I can't ride two horses."

334 Main-Travelled Roads

In the second year of the bank's history he went up
to the north part of the state on business, visiting
West Superior, Duluth, Ashland, and other booming
towns, and came back full of the wonders of what he
saw.

^'There's big money up there, Nell," he said to his
wife.

But she had the woman's tendency to hold fast to
what she had, and would not listen to any plans about
moving.

"Build up your business here, Jim, and don't wony
about what good chances there are somewhere else."

He said no more about it, but he took great interest
in all the news the "boys" brought back from their
annual deer-hunts "up north." They were all enthu-
siastic over West Superior and Duluth, and their
wonderful development was the never-ending theme of
discussion in Wilson's store.

II

The first two years of the bank's history were
solidly successful, and "Jim" and "Nellie" were the
head and front of all good works, and the provoking
cause of most of the fun. No one seemed more care-free.

"We consider ourselves just as young as anybody,"
Mrs. Sanford would say, when joked about going out
with the young people so much; but sometimes at
home, after the children were asleep, she sighed a little.

"Jim, I wish you was in some kind of a business

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 335

so I could help. I don't have enough to do. I s'pose
I could mop an' dust, an' dust an' mop; but It seems
sinful to waste time that way. Can't I do anything,
Jim?"

^'Why, no. If you 'tend to the children and keep
house, that's all anybody asks of you.''

She was silent, but not convinced. She had a desire
to do something outside the walls of her house — a
desire transmitted to her from her father, for a woman
inherits these things.

In the spring of the second year a number of the
depositors drew out money to invest in Duluth and
Superior lots, and the whole town was excited over the
matter.

The summer passed, Link and Sanford spending
their time in the bank — that is, when not out swimming
or fishing with the boys. But July and August were
terribly hot and dry, and oats and com were only half-
crop, and the farmers were grumbling. Some of them
were forced to draw on the bank instead of depositing.

McPhail came in, one day in November, to draw a
thousand dollars to pay for a house and lot he had
recently bought.

Sanford was alone. He whistled. **PhewI You're
comin' at me hard. Come in to-morrow. Link's gone
down to the city to get some money."

"All right," said McPhafl; "any time.''

"Goin' t' snow?"

"Looks like it. I'll haf to load a lot o' ca'tridges
ready fr biz.'

ft

336 Main-Travelled Roads

About an hour later old lady Bingham burst upon
the banker, wild and breathless. ''I want my money,''
she announced.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Bingham. Pleasant — **

"I want my money. Where's Lincoln?**

She had read that morning of two bank failures-
one in Nova Scotia and one in Massachusetts — and
they seemed providential warnings to her. Lincoln's
absence confirmed them.

"He's gone to St. Paul — ^won't be back till the five-
o'clock train. Do you need some money this morn-
ing? How much?'*

"All of it, sir. Every cent.**

Sanford saw something was out of gear. He tried
to explain. ^'I*ve sent your son to St. Paul after some
money — **

" Where*s my money? What have you done widi
thatr* In her excitement she thought of her numey
just as she had handed it in— silver and little idk
and wads of bills.

"If you'll let me explain—"

"I don't want you to explain nawthin*. Jest hand
me out my money.**

Two or three loafers, seeing her gesticulate, stopped
on the walk outside and looked in at the door. Sanford
was annoyed, but he remained calm and persuasive.
He saw that something had caused a panic in the good,
simple old woman. He wished for Lincoln as one wishes
for a policeman sometimes.

" Now, Mrs. Bingham, if you'll only wait till Lincolii— **

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 337

€€

I don't want 'o wait. I want my money, right now."
"Will fifty dollars do?"
**No, sir; I want it all — every cent of it— jest as it

IS.''

**But I can't do that. Your money is gone—"

"Gone? Where is it gone? What have you done
ivith it? You thief—"

"'Sh!" He tried to quiet her. "I mean I can't give
yrou your money — "

"Why can't you?" she stormed, trotting nervously
3n her feet as she stood there.

"Because — if you'd let me explain— we don't keep
the money just as it comes to us. We pay it out, and
take in other — "

Mrs. Bingham was getting more and more bewil-
dered. She now had only one clear idea — she couldn't
get her money. Her voice grew tearful like an angry
zhild's.

"I want my money — I knew you'd steal it' — that I
forked for. Give me my money."

Sanford hastily handed her some money. "Here's
[ifty dollars. You can have the rest when-^"

The old lady clutched the money, and literally ran
Dut of the door, and went oiF up the sidewalk, talking
incoherently. To every one she met she told her
jtory; but the men smiled and passed on. They had
leard her predictions of calamity before.

But Mrs. Mcllvaine was made a trifle uneasy by it.
'*He wouldn't give you y'r money? Or did he say he
Touldn't?" she inquired, in her moderate way.

338 Main-Travelled Roads

"He couldn't, an' he wouldn't!" she said. "Ifi t
got any money there, you'd better get it out <
It ain't safe a minute. When Lincoln comes ho 1
goin* to see if I can't — "

''Well, I was calc'latin' to go to Lumberville
week, anjrway, to buy a carpet and a chamber I
guess I might 's well get the money to-day/*

When she came in and demanded the money^ San-
ford was scared. Were these two old women the be-
ginning of the deluge? Would McPhail insist on being
paid also? There was just one hundred dollars left in
the bank, together with a little silver. With r
strategy he smiled.

"Certainly, Mrs. Mcllvaine. How much will y
need?"

She had intended to demand the whole of her p
— one hundred and seventeen dollars — ^but his read
mollified her a little. "I did 'low I'd take the hull,
but I guess seventy-five dollars '11 do."

He paid the money briskly out over the little glass
shelf. "How is your children, Mrs. Mcllvaine?**

"Purty well, thanky," replied Mrs. Mcllvaine,
laboriously counting the bills.

"Is it all right?"

"I guess so," she replied, dubiously. "I'll count it
after I get home."

She went up the street with the feeling that the bank
was all right, and she stepped in and told Mrs. Bing-
ham that she had no trouble in getting her money.

After she had gone Sanford sat down and wrote a

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 339

telegram which he sent to St. Paul. This telegram, ac-
cording to the duplicate at the station, read in this
puzzling way:

£. O., Exchange Block, No. 96. All out of paper. Send
Rve hundred note-heads and envelopes to match. Business
brisk. Press of correspondence just now. Get them out
quick. Wire.

Sanford.

Two or three others came in after a little money,
but he put them off easily. "Just been cashing some
paper, and took all the ready cash I can spare. Can't
you wait till to-morrow? Link's gone down to St. Paul
to collect on some paper. Be back on the five-o'clock.
Nine o'clock, sure."

An old Norwegian woman came in to deposit ten
dollars, and he counted it in briskly, and put the
amount down on her little book for her. Barney Mace
came in to deposit a hundred dollars, the proceeds of a
horse sale, and this helped him through the day.
Those who wanted small sums he paid.

"Glad this ain't a big demand. Rather close on cash
to-day," he said, smiling, as Lincoln's wife's sister came
in.

She laughed. "I guess it won't bu'st yeh. If I
thought it would, I'd leave it in."

"Bu'sted!" he said, when Vance wanted him to cash
a draft. "Can't do it. Sorry, Van. Do it in the morn-
ing all right. Can you wait?"

"Oh, I guess so. Haf to, won't I?"

"Curious," said Sanford, in a confidential way.

34^ Main-Travelled Roads

**I don't know that I ever saw things get in just such
shape. Paper enough — but exchange, ye know, and
readjustment of accounts/*

^'I don't know much about banking, myself/' said
Vance, good-naturedly; "but I s'pose it's a good 'eal
same as with a man. Git short o' cash, first they know
— ^'ain't got a cent to spare."

"That's the idea exactly. Credit all right, plenty o*
property, but — " and he smiled and went at his books.
The smile died out of his eyes as Vance went out, and
he pulled a little morocco book from his pocket and
began studying the beautiful columns of figures with
which it seemed to be filled. Those he compared with
the books with great care, thrusting the book out of
sight when any one entered.

He closed the bank as usual at five. Lincoln had
not come — couldn't come now till the nine-o'clock
accommodation. For an hour after the shades were
drawn he sat there in the semi-darkness, silently pon-
dering on his situation. This attitude and deep quiet
were unusual to him. He heard the feet of friends and
neighbors passing the door as he sat there by the smoul-
dering coal-fire, in the growing darkness. There was
something impressive in his attitude.

He started up at last, and tried to see what the hour
was by turning the face of his watch to the dull glow
from the cannon-stove's open door.

"Supper-time," he said, and threw the whole matter
ofF, as if he had decided it or had put off the decision
till another time.

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 341

As he went by the post-office Vance said to Mcllvaine
in a smiling way, as if it were a good joke on San-
ford:

"Little short o' cash down at the bank,"

"He's a good fellow," Mcllvaine said.

"So's his wife," added Vance, with a chuckle.

Ill

That night, after supper, Sanford sat in his snug
little sitting-room with a baby on each knee, looking
as cheerful and happy as any man in the village. The
children crowed and shouted as he "trotted them to
Boston," or rode them on the toe of his boot. They
made a noisy, merry group.

Mrs. Sanford "did her own work," and her swift feet
could be heard moving to and fro out in the kitchen.
It was pleasant there; the woodwork, the furniture,
the stove, the curtains — all had that look of newness
just growing into coziness. The coal-stove was lighted
and the curtains were drawn.

After the work in the kitchen was done, Mrs. Sanford
came in and sat awhile by the fire with the chfldren,
looking very wifely in her dark dress and white apron,
her round, smiling face glowing with love and pride —
the gloating look of a mother seeing her children in the
arms of her husband.

"How is Mrs. Peterson's baby, Jim?" she said, sud-
4enly, her face sobering.

"Pretty bad, I guess. La, la, la — deedle-deel The

34^ Main-Travelled Roads

doctor seemed to think it was a tight squeak if it lived.
Guess it*s done for — oop 'e goes!"

She made a little leap at the youngest child, and
clasped it convulsively to her bosom. Her swift mater-
nal imagination had made another's loss very near
and terrible.

'^Ohy say, Nell/' he broke out, on seeing her sober,
^'I had the confoundedest time to-day with old lady
Bingham — *'

"'Shi Baby's gone to sleep."

After the children had been put to bed in the little
alcove off the sitting-room, Mrs. Sanford came back,
to find Jim absorbed over a little book of accounts.

"What are you studying, Jim?**

Some one knocked on the door before he had time
to reply.

"Come in!" he said.

"'Sh! Don't yell so," his wife whispered.

"Telegram, Jim," said a voice in the obscurity.

"Oh! That you, Sam? Come in."

Sam, a lathy fellow with a quid in his cheek, stepped
in. "How d* *e do. Mis* Sanford r

"Set down — se* down."

"Can't stop; 'most train-time."

Sanford tore the envelope open, read the telegram
rapidly, the smile fading out of his face. He read it
again, word for word, then sat looking at it.

"Any answer?" asked Sam.

"No."

"All right. Good-night."

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 343

"Good-night."

After the door slammed, Sanford took the sheet from
the envelope and reread it. At length he dropped into
his chair. "That settles it," he said, aloud.

"Settles what? What's the news?" His wife came up
and looked over his shoulder.

"Settles Tve got to go on that nine-thirty train."

"Be back on the morning train?"

"Yes; I guess so — I mean, of course — ^I*II have to be
— to open the bank."

Mrs. Sanford looked at him for a few seconds in
silence. There was something in his look, and espe-
cially in his tone, that troubled her.

"What do you mean? Jim, you don't intend to come
back!" She took his arm. "What's the matter? Now
tell me! What are you going away for?"

He knew he could not deceive his wife's ears and eyes
just then, so he remained silent. "We've got to leave,
Nell," he admitted at last.

"Why? What for?"

"Because I'm bu'sted — broke — gone up the spout —
and all the rest!" he said, desperately, with an attempt
at fun. "Mrs. Bingham and Mrs. Mcllvaine have
bu'sted me — dead."

"Why — why — ^what has become of the money — all
the money the people have put in there?"

"Gone up with the rest."

"What 've you done with it? I don't — "

"Well, I've invested it — and lost it."

"James Gordon Sanford!" she exclaimed, trying

|9»
19

344 Main-Travelled Roads

to realize it. '^Was that right? Ain't that a case
of— of— ''

''Shouldn't wonder. A case of embezzlement such as
you read of in the newspapers." His tone was easy,
but he avoided the look in his wife's beautiful gray eyes.

"But it's — stealing — ain't it?" She stared at him,
bewildered by his reckless lightness of mood.

"It is nozvy because I've lost. If I'd 'a' won it, it *ud
'a* been financial shrewdness!"

She asked her next question after a pause, in a low
voice, and through teeth almost set. "Did you go into
this bank to — steal this money? Tell me that I'

"No; I didn't, Nell. I ain't quite up to that.'

His answer softened her a little, and she sat looking
at him steadily as he went on. The tears began to
roll slowly down her cheeks. Her hands were clenched.

"The fact is, the idea came into my head last fall
when I went up to Superior. My partner wanted me to
go in with him on some land, and I did. We speculated
on the growth of the town toward the south. We made
a strike; then he wanted me to go in on a copper-mine.
Of course I expected — "

As he went on with the usual excuses her mind
made all the allowances possible for him. He had al-
ways been boyish, impulsive, and lacking in judgment
and strength of character. She was humiliated and
frightened, but she loved and sympathized with him.

Her silence alarmed him, and he made excuses for
himself. He was speculating for her sake more than
for his own, and so on.

9»

9»

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 345

"Choc — choc!" whistled the far-off train through the
still air.

He sprang up and reached for his coat.

She seized his arm again. "Where are you going?"
she sternly asked.

"To take that train.

"When are you coming back?

"I don't know." But his tone said, "Never.

She felt it. Her face grew bitter. "Going to leave
me and — the babies?"

"ril send for you soon. Come, good-by!" He tried
to put his arm about her. She stepped back.

"Jim, if you leave me to-night" ("Choo — choo!"
whistled the engine), "you leave me forever." There
was a terrible resolution in her tone.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Fm going to stay here. If you go — I'll
never be your wife — again — never!" She glanced at the
sleeping children, and her chin trembled.

"I can't face those fellows — they'll kill me," he said,
in a sullen tone.

"No, they won't. They'll respect you, if you stay
and tell 'em exactly how — it — all — is. YouVe disgraced
me and my children, that's what you've done! If you
don't stay — "

The clear jangle of the engine-bell sounded through
the night as with the whiz of escaping steam and scrape
and jar of gripping brakes and howl of wheels the train
came to a stop at the station. Sanford dropped his
coat and sat down again.

346 Main-Travelled Roads

■

'^rU have to stay now." His tone was dry and lifeless.
It had a reproach in it that cut the wife deep — deep as
the fountain of tears; and she went across the room and
knelt at the bedside^ burying her face in the clothes
on the feet of her children, and sobbed silently.

The man sat with bent head, looking into the glow-
ing coal, whistling through his teeth, a look of sullen
resignation and endurance on his face that had never
been there before. His very attitude was alien and
ominous.

Neither spoke for a long time. At last he rose and
began taking off his coat and vest.

"Well, I suppose there's nothing to do but go to bed.'*

She did not stir — she might have been asleep so far
as any sound or motion was concerned. He went off
to the bed in the little parlor, and she still knelt there,
her heart full of anger, bitterness, sorrow.

The sunny uneventfulness of her past life made
this great storm the more terrifying. Her trust in
her husband had been absolute. A farmer^s daughter,
the bank clerk had seemed to her the equal of any
gentleman in the world — her world; and when she
knew his delicacy, his unfailing kindness, and his
abounding good nature, she had accepted him as the
father of her children, and this was the first revelation
to her of his inherent moral weakness.

Her mind went over the whole ground again and
again, in a sort of blinding rush. She was convinced of
his lack of honor more by his tone, his inflections,
than by his words. His lack of deep regret, his readir

A *'Good Fellow's" Wife 347

ness to leave her to bear the whole shock of the dis-
covery — these were in his flippant tones; and every
time she thought of them the hot blood surged over
her. At such moments she hated him, and her white
teeth clenched.

To these moods succeeded others, when she remem-
bered his smile, the dimple in his chin, his tender care
for the sick, his buoyancy, his songs to the children —
How could he sit there, with the children on his knees,
and plan to run away, leaving them disgraced?

She went to bed at last with the babies, and with
their soft, warm little bodies touching her side fell
asleep, pondering, suffering as only a mother and wife
can suffer when distrust and doubt of her husband
supplant confidence and adoration.

IV

The children awakened her by their delighted cooing
and kissing. It was a great event, this waking to find
mamma in their bed. It was hardly light, of a dull
gray morning; and with the children tumbling about
over her, feeling the pressure of the warm little hands
and soft lips, she went over the whole situation again,
and at last settled upon her action.

She rose, shook down the coal in the stove in the sit-
ting-room, and started a fire in the kitchen; then she
dressed the children by the coal-burner. The elder
of them, as soon as dressed, ran in to wake "poppa**
while the mother went about breakfast-getting.

34^ Main-Travelled Roads

Sanford came out of his bedroom unwontedly gloomy,
greeting the children in a subdued manner. He shiv-
ered as he sat by the fire, and stirred the stove as if he
thought the room was cold. His face was pale and
moist.

'^Breakfast is ready, James/' called Mrs. Sanford,
in a tone which she meant to be habitual, but which
had a cadence of sadness in it.

Someway, he found it hard to look at her as he came
out. She busied herself with placing the children
at the table, in order to conceal her own emotion.

'^I don't believe Til eat any meat this moming,
Nellie. I ain't very well."

She glanced at him quickly, keenly. "What's the
matter?"

"I d'know. My stomach is kind of upset by this
failure o' mine. I'm in great shape to go down to the
bank this moming — and face them fellows — '*

"It's got to be done."

"I know it; but that don't help me any.** He tried
to smile.

She mused, while the baby hanmiered on his tin plate.

"You've got to go down. If you don't — I will,"
said she, resolutely. "And you must say that that
money will be paid back — every cent."

" But that's more'n I can do — "

"It must be done."

" But under the law — "

"There's nothing can make this thing right except
paying every cent we owe. I ain't a-goin* to have it

A "Good Fellow^s'^ Wife 349

said that my children — ^that Fm livin' on somebody
else. If you don't pay these debts, / zvilL Fve thought
it all out. If you don't stay and face it, and pay these
men, I won't own you as my husband. I loved and
trusted you, Jim — I thought you was honorable — it's
been a terrible blow — but Fve decided it all in my
mind."

She conquered her little weakness, and went on to
the end firmly. Her face looked pale. There was a
square look about the mouth and chin. The iron resolu-
tion and Puritanic strength of her father, old John
Foreman, had come to the surface. Her look and tone
mastered the man, for he loved her deeply.

She had set him a hard task, and when he rose and
went down the street he walked with bent head, quite
unlike his usual self.

There were not many men on the street. It seemed
earlier than it was, for it was a raw, cold morning,
promising snow. The sun was completely masked in a
seamless dust-gray cloud. He met Vance with a brown
parcel (beefsteak for breakfast) under his arm.

"Hello, Jiml How are ye, so early in the morning?"

"Blessed near used up."

"That so? What's the matter?"

"I d'know," said Jim, listlessly. "Bilious, I guess.
Headache — stomach bad."

"Oh! Well, now, you try them pills I was tellin'
you of."

Arrived at the bank, he let himself in, and locked
the door behind him. He stood in the middle of the

350 Main-Travelled Roads

floor a few minutes, then went behind the railing and
sat down. He didn't build a fire, though it was cold
and damp, and he shivered as he sat leaning on the
desk. At length he drew a large sheet of paper toward
him and wrote something on it in a heavy hand.

He was writing on this when Lincoln entered at the
back, whistling boyishly. "Hello, Jim! Ain't you up
early? No fire, eh?" He rattled at the stove.

Sanford said nothing, but finished his writing. Then
he said, quietly, "You needn't build a fire on my
account, Link."

"Why not?"

"Well, Fm used up."

"What's the matter?"

"I'm sick, and the business has gone to the devil.**
He looked out of the window.

Link dropped the poker, and came around behind
the counter, and stared at Sanford with fallen mouth.

"Wha'dyousay?"

"I said the business had gone to the devil. We're
broke — bu'sted — petered — gone up the spout." He
took a sort of morbid pleasure in saying these things.

"What's bu'sted us? Have—"

"I've been speculatin' in copper. My partnei^s
bu'sted me."

Link came closer. His mouth stifi^ened and an omi-
nous look came into his eyes. **You don't mean to
say you've lost my money, and mother^s, and Unde
Andrew's, and all the rest?"

Sanford was getting irritated. " it! What's

A "Good Fellow's'' Wife 351

the use? I tell you, yes! It's all gone — every cent
of it."

Link caught him by the shoulder as he sat at the
desk. Sanford's tone enraged him. "You thief! But
you'll pay me back, or I'll — "

"Oh, go ahead! Pound a sick man, if it '11 do you
any good," said Sanford, with a peculiar recklessness of
lifeless misery. " Pay y'rself out of the safe. Here's
the combination."

Lincoln released him, and began turning the knob of
the door. At last it swung open, and he searched the
money-drawers. Less than forty dollars, all told. His
voice was full of helpless rage as he turned at last and
walked up close to Sanford's bowed head.

"Fd like to pound the life out o* youl"

"You're at liberty to do so, if it 'II be any satisfac-

tion."

This desperate courage awed the younger man. He
gazed at Sanford in amazement.

"If you'll cool down and wait a little. Link, I'll tell
you all about it. I'm sick as a horse. I guess I'll go
home. You can put this up in the window, and go
home, too, if you want to."

Lincoln saw that Sanford was sick. He was shiver-
ing, and drops of sweat were on his white fore-
head. Lincoln stood aside silently, and let him go
out.

"Better lock up. Link. You can't do an3rthing by
staying here."

Lincoln took refuge in a boyish phrase that would

35^ Main-Travelled Roads

have made any one but a sick man laugh: "Wdl»

this IS a of a note!"

He took up the paper. It read:

BANK CLOSED

TO MY CREDrrORS AND DEPOSnORS

Through a combination of events I find myself obliged
to temporarily suspend payment. I ask the depositora to be
patient, and their claims will be met. I think I can pay twen-
ty-five cents on the dollar, if given a little time. I shall not
run away. I shall stay right here till all matters are hon-
orably settled.

James G. Sanfqrd.

Lincoln hastily pinned this paper to the window-sash
so that it could be seen from without, then pulled down
the blinds and locked the door. His fun-loving nature
rose superior to his rage for the moment. "ThereTI
be the devil to pay in this burg before two hours.**

He slipped out the back way, taking the keys with
him. "rU go and tell uncle, and then we'll see if Jim
can't turn in the house on our account," he thought,
as he harnessed a team to drive out to McPhail's.

The first man to try the door was an old Norwegian
in a spotted Mackinac jacket and a fur cap, with the
inevitable little red tippet about his neck. He turned
the knob, knocked, and at last saw the writing, which
he could not read, and went away to tell Johnson that
the bank was closed. Johnson thought nothing special
of that; it was early, and they weren't very particular
to open on time, anyway,

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 353

Then the barber across the street tried to get in to
have a bill changed. Trying to peer in the window, he
saw the notice, which he read with a grin.

"One o* Link's jobs/* he explained to the fellows in
the shop. "He's too darned lazy to open on time, so
he puts up notice that the bank is bu'sted.''

"Let's go and see."

"Don't do it! He's watchin' to see us all rush across
and look. Just keep quiet, and see the solid citizens
rear around."

Old Orrin Mcllvaine came out of the post-office and
tried the door next, then stood for a long time reading
the notice, and at last walked thoughtfully away.
Soon he returned, to the merriment of the fellows in the
barber shop, with two or three solid citizens who had
been smoking an after-breakfast cigar and planning
a deer-hunt. They stood before the window in a row
and read the notice. Mcllvaine gesticulated with
his cigar.

"Gentlemen, there's a pig loose here/*

"One o* Link's jokes, I reckon."

"But that's Sanford's writin'. An* here it is nine
o'clock, and no one round. I don't like the looks of it,
myself."

The crowd thickened; the fellows came out of the
blacksmith shop, while the jokers in the barber shop
smote their knees and yelled with merriment.

"What's up?" queried Vance, coming up and re-
peating the universal question.

Mcllvaine pointed at the poster with his cigar.

354 Main-Travelled Roads

Vance read the notice, while the crowd waited
silently.

'"What ye think of it?'' asked some one, impatiendy.

Vance smoked a moment. "Can't say. Where's
Jim?"

"That's it! Where i> he?"

"Best way to find out is to send a boy up to the
house." He called a boy and sent him scurrying up
the street.

The crowd now grew sober and discussed possibilities.

"// that's true, it's the worst crack on the head /
ever had," said Mcllvaine. "Seventeen hundred dol-
lars is my pile in there." He took a seat on the window-
sill.

"Well, I'm tickled to death to think I got my little
stake out before anything happened."

"When you think of it — ^what security did he ever
give?" Mcllvaine continued.

"Not a cent — not a red cent."

"No, sir; we simply banked on him. Now, he's a
good fellow, an' this may be a joke o' Link's; but
the fact is, it might 'a' happened. Well, sonny?" he
said to the boy, who came running up.

"Link ain't to home, an' Mrs. Sanford she says
Jim's sick, an' can't come down."

There was a silence. "Anybody see him this morn-
ing?" asked Wilson.

"Yes; I saw him," said Vance. "Looked bad, too."

The crowd changed; people came and went, some to
get news, some to carry it away. In a short time the

A ^'Good Fellow's" Wife 355

whole town knew the bank had "bu'sted all to smash."
Farmers drove along, and stopped to find out what it
all meant. The more they talked, the more excited they
grew; and "Scoundrel," and "I always had my doubts
of that feller," were phrases growing more frequent.

The list of the victims grew until it was evident
that nearly all of the savings of a dozen or more de-
positors were swallowed up, and the sum reached was
nearly twenty thousand dollars.

"What did he do with it?" was the question. He
never gambled or drank. He lived frugally. There
was no apparent cause for this failure of a trusted in-
stitution.

It was beginning to snow in great, damp, driving
flakes, which melted as they fell, giving to the street a
strangeness and gloom that were impressive. The
men left the sidewalk at last, and gathered in the sa-
loons and stores to continue the discussion.

The crowd at the railroad saloon was very decided
in its belief. Sanford had pocketed the money and
skipped. That yarn about his being at home sick
was a blind. Some went so far as to say that it was
almighty curious where Link was, hinting darkly that
the bank ought to be broken Into, and so on.

Upon this company burst Barney and Sam Mace
from "Hogan's Corners." They were excited by the
pews and already inflamed with drink.

"Say!" yelled Barney, "any o* you fellers know
anything about Jim Sanford ?"

"No. Why? Got any money there?"

35^ Main-Travelled Roads

''Yes; and I'm goin' to git it out, if I haf to smaih
the door in/*

''That's the talk!" shouted some of the loaferL
They sprang up and surrounded Barney. There was
something in his voice that aroused all their latent
ferocity. "Fm goin' to get into that bank an' see how
things look, an' then I'm goin' to find Sanford an' get
my money, or pound out of 'im, one o' the six."

"Go find him first. He's up home, sick — so's his
wife."

"I'll see whether he's sick 'r not. I'll drag 'im out
by the scrufF o' the neckl Come on!" He ended with
a sudden resolution, leading the way out into the
street, where the falling snow was softening the dirt
into a sticky mud.

A rabble of a dozen or two of men and boys followed
Mace up the street. He led the way with great strides,
shouting his threats. As they passed along, women
thrust their heads out at the windows, asking, "What's
the matter?" And some one answered each time, in
a voice of unconcealed delight:

"Sanford's stole all the money in the bank, and
they're goin' up to lick 'im. Come on if ye want to
see the fun."

In a few moments the street looked as if an alarm
of fire had been sounded. Half the town seemed to
be out, and the other half coming — ^women in shawls,
like squaws; children capering and laughing; young
men grinning at the girls who came out and stood at
tht gates.

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 357

Some of the citizens tried to stop it. Vance found the
constable looking on, and ordered him to do his duty
and stop that crowd.

"I can't do anything," he said, helplessly. "They
ain't done nawthin' yet, an* I don't know — '*

"Oh, git out! They're goin' up there to whale Jim,
an' you know it. If you don't stop *em, FU telephone
Pr the sheriff, and have you arrested with 'em."

Under this pressure, the constable ran along after
the crowd, in an attempt to stop it. He reached them
as they stood about the little porch of the house,
packed closely around Barney and Sam, who said noth-
ing, but followed Barney like his shadow. If the sun
had been shining, it might not have happened as it did;
but there was a semi-obscurity, a weird half-light shed
by the thick sky and falling snow, which somehow en-
couraged the enraged ruffians, who pounded on the door
just as the pleading voice of the constable was heard.

"Hold on, gentlemen I This is ag'inst the law — "

"Law to !" said some one. "This is a case Pr

something besides law."

"Open up there!" roared the raucous voice of Bar-
ney Mace, as he pounded at the door fiercely.

The door opened, and the wife appeared, one child
in her arms, the other at her side.

"What do you want?"

"Where's that banker? Tell the thief to come out
here! We want to talk with him."

The woman did not quail, but her face seemed a
ghastly yellow, seen through the falling snow.

358 Main-Travelled Roads

**He can't come. He's sick/'

"Sick I We'll sick 'imi Tell 'im t' come out, or
we'll snake 'im out by the heels." The crowd laughed.
The worst elements of the saloons surrounded the
two half-savage men. It was amusing to them to see
the woman face them all in that way.

"Where's McPhail?" Vance inquired, anxiously.
"Somebody find McPhall."

"Stand out o' the way!" snarled Barney, as he pushed
the struggling woman aside.

The wife raised her voice to that wild, animal-like
pitch a woman uses when desperate.

"I sha'n't do it, I tell you I Helpr

"Keep out o' my way, or I'll wring y'r neck Pr yeh."

She struggled with him, but he pushed her aside
and entered the room.

"What's goin' on here?" called the ringing voice of
Andrew McPhall, who had just driven up with Link.

Several of the crowd looked over their shoulders
at McPhail.

"Hello, Mac! Just in time. Oh, nawthin*. Barney's
callin' on the banker, that's all."

Over the heads of the crowd, packed struggling about
the door, came the woman's scream again. McPhail
dashed around the crowd, running two or three of them
down, and entered the back door. Vance, Mcllvaine,
and Lincoln followed him.

"Cowards!" the wife said, as the ruffians approached
the bed. They swept her aside, but paused an instant
tefore the glance of the §ick m^n's eye. He lay th^rCi

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 359

desperately, deathly sick. The blood throbbed in his
whirling brain, his eyes were bloodshot and blinded, his
strength was gone. He could hardly speak. He partly
rose and stretched out his hand, and then fell back.

"Kill me — if you want to — but let her — alone.
She^s— "

The children were crying. The wind whistled drear-
ily across the room, carrying the evanescent flakes of
soft snow over the heads of the pausing, listening crowd
in the doorway. Quick steps were heard.

"Hold on there!" cried McPhail, as he burst into the
room. He seemed an angel of God to the wife and
mother.

He spread his great arms in a gesture which sug-
gested irresistible strength and resolution. "Qear
outl Out with ye!"

No man had ever seen him look like that before.
He awed them with the look in his eyes. His long
service as sheriff gave him authority. He hustled
them, cuffed them out of the door like school-boys.
Barney backed out, cursing. He knew McPhail too
well to refuse to obey.

McPhail pushed Barney out, shut the door behind
him, and stood on the steps, looking at the crowd.

"Well, you* re a great lot! You fellers, would ye
jump on a sick man? What ye think ye're all doin',
anyhow?"

The crowd laughed. "Hey, Mac; give us a speech !"

"You ought to be booted, the whole lot o' yehl**
he replied.

360 Main-Travelled Roads

''That hoiin' in there's run the bank into the ground,
with every cent o* money we'd put in/* said Barney.
"I s'pose ye know that."

"Well, s'pose he has— what's the use o* jumpin' oa
'imr

"Git it out of his hide."

"I've heerd that talk before. How much you got
in?"

"Two hundred dollars.**

"Well, I've got two thousand/* The crowd saw the
point.

"I guess if anybody was goin* t' take it out of his
hijde^ I'd be the man; but I want the feller to live
and have a chance to pay it back. Killin* *im is a dead
loss."

"That's so!" shouted somebody. "Mac ain*t no
fool, if he does chaw hay," said another, and the crowd
laughed. They were losing that frenzy, largely imi-
tative and involuntary, which actuates a mob. There
was something counteracting in the ex-sheriff's cool,
humorous tone.

"Give us the rest of it, Mac!"

"The rest of it is — clear out o' here, *r I'll boot every
mother's son of yeh !"

"Can't do it!"

"Come down an' try it!"

Mcllvaine opened the door and looked out. **Mac,
Mrs. Sanford wants to say something — ^if it's safe.**

"Safe as eatin' dinner."

Mrs. Sanford came out, looking pale and almost

A *'Good Fellow:s" Wife 361

like a child as she stood beside her defender's towering
bulk. But her face was resolute.

"That money will be paid back," she said, "dollar
for dollar, if you'll just give us a chance. As soon
as Jim gets well enough every cent will be paid, if I
live."

The crowd received this little speech in silence.
One or two said, in low voices: "That's business.
She*ll do it, too, if any one can."

Barney pushed his way through the crowd with con-
temptuous curses. "The she will!" he said.

"We'll see 't you have a chance," McPhail and
Mcllvaine assured Mrs. Sanford.

She went in and closed the door.

"Now git!'* said Andrew, coming down the steps.
The crowd scattered with laughing taunts. He turned,
and entered the house. The rest drifted oflF down
the street through the soft flurries of snow, and in a
few moments the street assumed its usual appearance.

The failure of the bank and the raid on the banker
had passed into history.

In the light of the days of calm afterthought which
followed, this attempt upon the peace of the Sanford
home grew more monstrous, and helped largely to
mitigate the feeling against the banker. Besides, he
had not run away; that was a strong point in his favor.

"Don't that show," argued Vance, in the post-

362 Main-Travelled Roads

office — *' don't that show he didn't intend to steal?
An' don't it show he's goin' to tiy to make things
square ?"

I guess we might as well think that as an3/thing."
I claim the boys has a right t' take sumpthin' out
o' his hide," Bent Wilson stubbornly insisted.

"Ain't enough t' go 'round," laughed McPhail. "Be-
sides, I can't have it. Link an' I own the biggest share
in 'im, an' we can't have him hurt."

Mcllvaine and Vance grinned. "That's a fact, Mac.
We four fellers are the main losers. He's ours, an'
we can't have him foundered *r crippled 'r cut up in
any way. Ain't that woman of his gritty?"

"Gritty ain't no name for her. She's goin* into
business."

"So I hear. They say Jim was crawling around a
little yesterday. I didn't see 'im."

"I did. He looks pretty streak-id — ^now you bet,"

"Wha'd he say for himself?"

"Oh, said give 'im time — he'd fix it all up.'*

"How much time?"

"Time enough. Hain't been able to look at a book
since. Say, ain't it a little curious he was so sick just
then — sick as a p'isened dog?"

The two men looked at each other in a manner most
comically significant. The. thought of poison was in
the mind of each.

It was under these trying circumstances that San-
ford began to crawl about, a week or ten days after
his sickness. It was really the most terrible punishment

A **Good Fellow's" Wife 363

for him. Before, everybody used to sing out, "Hello,
Jim!" or "Momin*, banker," or some other jovial,
heart-warming salutation. Now, as he went down the
street, the groups of men smoking on the sunny side
of the stores ignored him, or looked at him with scornful
eyes.

Nobody said, "Hello, Jim!"— not even McPhail
or Vance. They nodded merely, and went on with
their smoking. The children followed him and stared
at him without compassion. They had heard him
called a scoundrel and a thief too often at home to
feel any pity for his pale face.

After his first trip down the street, bright with the
December sunshine, he came home in a bitter, weak
mood, smarting, aching with a poignant self-pity over
the treatment he had received from his old cronies.

"It*s all your fault," he burst out to his wife. "If
you*d only let me go away and look up another place
I wouldn't have to put up with all these sneers and
insults."

"What sneers and insults?" she asked, coming over
to him.

"Why, nobody *11 speak to me."

"Won't Mr. McPhail and Mr. Mcllvaine?"

"Yes; but not as they used to."

"You can't blame 'em, Jim. You must go to work
and win back their confidence."

**I can't do that. Let's go away, Nell, and try again."

Her mouth closed firmly. A hard look came into her
eyes. " You can go if you want to, Jim, I'm goin* to

364 Main-Travelled Roads

stay right here till we can leave honorably. We can't
run away from this. It would follow us anywhere we
went; and it would get worse the farther we went/'

He knew the unyielding quality of his wife's resolu-
tion, and from that moment he submitted to his fote.
He loved his wife and children with a passionate love
that made life with them, among the citizens he had
robbed, better than life anywhere else on earth; he
had no power to leave thenu

As soon as possible he went over his booIi:s and found
out that he owed, above all notes coming in, about
eleven thousand dollars. This was a large sum to look
forward to paying by anything ht could do in the Siding,
now that his credit was gone. Nobody would take him
as a clerk, and there was nothing else to be done ex-
cept manual labor, and he was not strong enough for
that.

His wife, however, had a plan. She sent East to
friends for a little money at once, and with a few hun-
dred dollars opened a little store in time for the holiday
trade — wall-paper, notions, light dry-goods, toys, and
millinery. She did her own housework and attended
to her shop in a grim, uncomplaining fashi<Hi that
made Sanford feel like a criminal in her presence. He
couldn't propose to help her in the store, for he knew
the people would refuse to trade with him, so he at-
tended to the children and did little things about the
house for the first few months of the winter.

His life for a time was abjectly pitiful. He didn't
know what to do. He had lost his footing, and, worst

A *'Gopd Fellow's" Wife 365

of all, he felt that his wife no longer respected him.
She loved and pitied him, but she no longer looked up
to him. She went about her work and down to her
store with a silent, resolute, uncommunicative air,
utterly unlike her former sunny, domestic self, so that
even she seemed alien like the rest. If he had been ill,
Vance and McPhail would have attended him; as it
was, they could not help him.

She already had the sympathy of the entire town,
and Mcllvaine had said: "If you need more money,
you can have it, Mrs. Sanford. Call on us at any time.'*

"Thank you. I don't think FU need it. All I ask is
your trade," she replied. "I don't ask anybody to
pay more'n a thing's worth, either. I'm goin' to sell
goods on business principles, and I expect folks to buy
of me because I'm selling reliable goods as cheap as
anybody else."

Her business was successful from the start, but she
did not allow herself to get too confident.

"This is a kind of charity trade. It won't last on
that basis. Folks ain't goin' to buy of me because I'm
poor — not very long," she said to Vance, who went
in to congratulate her on her booming trade during
Christmas and New Year.

Vance called so often, advising or congratulating
her, that the boys joked him. " Say, looky here! You're
goin' to get into a peck o' trouble with your wife yet.
You spend about half y'r time in the new store."

Vance looked serene as he replied, "I'd stay longer
and go oftener if I could."

366 Main-Travelled Roads

''Welly if you ain't cheekier 'n ol' cheek I I should
think you'd be ashamed to say it/'

'"Shamed of it? I'm proud of it! As I tell my
wife, if I'd 'a' met Mis' Sanford when we wbs both
young, they wouldn't *a* be'n no such present ar-
rangement."

The new life made its changes in ^^rs. Sanford.
She grew thinner and graver, but as she went on, and
trade steadily increased, a feeling of pride, a sort of
exultation, came into her soul and shone from her
steady eyes. It was glorious to feel that she was hold-
ing her own with men in the world, winning their
respect, which is better than their flattery. She arose
each day at five o'clock with a distinct pleasure, for
her physical health was excellent, never better.

She began to dream. She could pay off five hun-
dred dollars a year of the interest — ^periiaps she could
pay some of the principal, if all went well. Perhaps .
in a year or two she could take a larger store, and, if
Jim got something to do, in ten years they could pay
it all off — every cent! She talked with business men,
and read and studied, and felt each day a firmer bold
on affairs.

Sanford got the agency of an insurance company
or two, and earned a few dollars during the spring. In
June things brightened up a little. The money for a
note of a thousand dollars fell due — a note he had
considered virtually worthless, but the debtor, having
had a "streak o' luck," sent seven hundred and fifty
dollars. Sanford at once called a meeting of his cred-

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 367

Itors, and paid them, pro rata, a thousand dollars.
The meeting took place in his wife*s store, and in mak-
ing the speech Sanford said:

"I tell you, gentlemen, if you'll only give us a chance,
we'll clear this thing all up — that is, the principal.
We can't—"

"Yes, we can, James. We can pay it all, principal
and interest. We owe the interest just as much as
the rest." It was evident that there was to be no letting
down while she lived.

The effect of this payment was marked. The general
feeling was much more kindly than before. Most of the
fellows dropped back into the habit of calling him
Jim; but, after all, it was not like the greeting of old,
when he was "banker." Still the gain in confidence
found a reflex in him. His shoulders, which had
begun to droop a little, lifted, and his eyes brightened.

"We'll win yet," he began to say.

"She's a-holdin' of 'im right to time," Mrs. Bing-
ham said.

It was shortly after this that he got the agency for
a new cash-delivery system, and went on the road
with it, travelling in northern Wisconsin and Minne-
sota. He came back after a three weeks' trip, quite
jubilant. "I've made a hundred dollars, Nell. I'm
all right if this holds out, and I guess it will."

In the following November, just a year after the
failure, they celebrated the day, at her suggestion, by
paying interest on the unpaid sums they owed.

•' ^ could pay a little more on the principal/* she exn

368 Main-Travelled Roads

plained, ''but I guess it 'II be better to use it for my
stock. I can pay better dividends next year/'

**Take y^r time, Mrs. Sanford/' Vance said.

Of course she could not escape criticism. There
were the usual number of women who noticed that she
kept her ''young uns" in the latest style, when as a
matter of fact she sat up nights to make their little
things. They also noticed that she retained her house
and her furniture.

"If I was in her place, seems to me, Fd turn in some
o' my fine furniture towards my debts,'' Mrs. Sam Gil-
bert said, spitefully.

She did not even escape calumny. Mrs. Sam Gil-
bert darkly hinted at certain "goin's on durin' his bein'
away. Lit up till after midnight some nights. I c'n
see her winder from mine."

Rose McPhail, one of Mrs. Sanford's most devoted
friends, asked, quietly, ''Do you sit up all night t*
seer

"S'posin' I do!" she snapped. ''I can't sleep with
such things goin' on."

"If it '11 do you any good, Jane, I'll say that she's
settin* up there sewin' for the children. If you'd keep
your nose out o' other folks' affairs, and attend better
to your own, your house wouldn't look like a pig*pen,
an' your children like A-rabs."

But in spite of a few annoyances of this character
Mrs. Sanford found her new life wholesomer and
broader than her old life, and the pain of her loss
grew less poignant.

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 369

VI

One day in springs in the lazy, odorous hush of the
afternoon, the usual number of loafers were standing
on the platform, waiting for the train. The sun was
going down the slope toward the hills, through a warm
April haze.

"Hello!" exclaimed the man who always sees things
first. "Here comes Mrs. Sanford and the ducklings.'^

Everybody looked.

"Ain't goin' off, is she?"

"Nope; guess not. Meet somebody, prob*ly San-
ford."

"Well, somethin's up. She don't often get out o'
that store."

"Le's see; he's been gone most o' the winter, hain't
he?"

"Yes; went away about New-Year's."

Mrs. Sanford came past, leading a child by each
hand, nodding and smiling to friends — for all seemed
friends. She looked very resolute and business-like in
her plain, dark dress, with a dull flame of color at the
throat, while the broad hat she wore gave her face a
touch of piquancy very charming. Evidently she was
in excellent spirits, and laughed and chatted in quite a
care-free way.

She was now an institution at the Siding. Her
store had grown in proportions yearly, until it was as
large and commodious as any in the town. The drum-
mers for dry-goods all called there, and the fact that

3 TO Main-Travelled Roads

she did not sell any groceries at all did not deter the
drummers for grcxrery houses from calling to see eadi
time if she hadn't decided to put in a stock of groceries.

These keen-eyed young fellows had spread her fame
all up and down the road. She had captured them,
not by beauty, but by her pluck, candor, honesty, and
by a certain fearless but reserved camaraderie. She
was not afraid of them, or of anybody else, now.

The train whistled, and everybody turned to watch
It as it came pushing around the bluff like a huge
hound on a trail, its nose close to the ground. Among
the first to alight was Sanford, in a shining new silk
hat and a new suit of clothes. He was smiling gaily
as he fought his way through the crowd to his wife's
side. "Hello!" he shouted. **I thought Fd see you
all here.''

W'y, Jim, ain't you cuttin' a swell?"
A swell I Well, who's got a better right? A man
wants to look as well as he can when he comes home
to such a family."

''Hello, Jim! That plug '11 never do."

"Hello, Vance! Yes; but it's got to do- Say, you
tell all the fellers that's got anything ag'inst me to
come around to-morrow night to the store. I want
to make some kind of a settlement."

"All right, Jim. Goin' to pay a new dividend?"

"That's what I am," he beamed, as he walked off
with his wife, who was studying him sharply.

"Jim, what ails you?"

"Nothin'; I'm all right."

if

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 371

" But this new suit ? And the hat? And the necktie?''

He laughed merrily — so merrily, in fact, that his
wife looked at him the more anxiously. He appeared
to be in a queer state of intoxication — a state that made
him happy without impairing his faculties, however.
He turned suddenly and put his lips down toward
her ear. *'Well, Nell, I can't hold in any longer.
We've struck it!"

"Struck what?"

"Well, you see that demed fool partner o' mine
got me to go into a lot o' land in the copper country.
That's where all the trouble came. He got awfully let
down. Well, he's had some surveyors to go up there
lately and look it over, and the next thing we knew
the Superior Mining Company came along an' wanted
to buy it. Of course we didn't want to sell just then."

They had reached the store door, and he paused

"We'll go right home to supper," she said. "The
girls will look out for things till I get back."

They walked on together, the children laughing and
playing ahead.

"Well, upshot of it is, I sold out my share to Osgood
for twenty thousand dollars."

She stopped, and stared at him. "Jim — Gordon
Sanford!"

"Fact! I can prove it." He patted his breast pocket
mysteriously. "Ten thousand right there."

"Gracious sakes alive! How dare you carry so much
money?"

"Fm mighty glad o' the chance." He grinned.

372 Main-Travelled Roads

They walked on almost in silence, with only a word
now and then. She seemed to be thinking deeply,
and he didn't want to disturb her. It was a delicious
spring hour. The snow was all gone, even under the
hedges. The loads were warm and biown. The red
sun was flooding the valley with a misty, rich-colored
light, and against the orange and gold of the sky the
hills stood in Tyrian purple. Wagons were rattling
along the road. Men on the farms in the edge of the
village could be heard whistling at their work. A dis-
cordant jangle of a neighboring farmer^s supper-bell
announced that it was time **to turn out.**

Sanford was almost as gay as a lover. He seemed
to be on the point of regaining his old place in hb
wife's respect. Somehow the possession of the package
of money in his pocket seemed to make him more
worthy of her, to put him more on an equality with
her.

As they reached the little one-story square cottage
he sat down on the porch, where the red light feO
warmly, and romped with the children, while his wife
went in and took off her things. She "kept a girl**
now, so that the work of getting supper did not devolve
entirely upon her. She came out soon to call them
all to the supper-table in the little kitchen back of the
sitting-room.

The children were wild with delight to have "poppa**
back, and the meal was the merriest they had had for
a long time. The doors and windows were open, and
the spring evening air came in, laden with the 8weet»

A "Good Fellow's" Wife 373

suggestive smell of bare ground. The alert chuckle
of an occasional robin could be heard.

Mrs. Sanford looked up from her tea. "There's
one thing I don't like, Jim, and that's the way that
money comes. You didn't — ^you didn't really earn it."

"Oh, don't worry yourself about that. That's
the way things go. It's just luck."

"Well, I can't see it just that way. It seems to me
just — like gambling. You win, but — but somebody
else must lose."

"Oh well, look a-here; if you go to lookin' too sharp
into things like that, you'll find a good 'eal of any
business like gamblin'."

She said no more, but her face remained clouded.
On the way down to the store they met Lincoln.

"Come down to the store. Link, and bring Joe. I
want to talk with yeh."

Lincoln stared, but said, "All right." Then added,
as the others walked away, "Well, that feller ain't
got no cheek t' talk to me like that — ^more cheek 'n
a gov'ment mule!"

Jim took a seat near the door, and watched his wife
as she went about the store. She employed two clerks
now, while she attended to the books and the cash.
He thought how different she was, and he liked (and,
in a way, feared) her cool, business-like manner, her
self-possession, and her smileless conversation with a
drummer who came in. Jim was puzzled. He didn't
quite understand the peculiar effect his wife's manner
had upon him.

374 Main-Travelled Roads

Outside, word had passed around that Jim had got
back and that something was in the wind, and the
fellows began to drop in. When McPhail came in and
said, "Hello!" in his hearty way, Sanford went over
to his wife and said:

"Say, Nell, I can't stand this. Vm goin' to get rid
o' this money right off, now!"

"Very well; just as you please.**

"Gents," he began, turning his back to the comiter
and smiling blandly on them, one thumb in his vest
pocket, "any o* you fellers got anything against the
Lumber County Bank — any certificates of deposit, or
notes ?"

Two or three nodded, and McPhail said, humorously,
slapping his pocket, "I always go loaded/*

"Produce your paper, gents,** continued Sanford,
with a dramatic whang of a leathern wallet down into
his palm. "I'm buying up all paper on the bank.**

It was a superb stroke. The fellows whistled and
stared and swore at one another. This was coming
down on them. Link was dumb with amazement as
he received sixteen hundred and fifty dollars in crisp,
new bills.

"Andrew, it*s your turn next,*' Sanford*s tone was
actually patronizing as he faced McPhail.

"I was jokin*. I ain't got m}'^ certificate here."

"Don't matter — don't matter. Here's fifteen hun-
dred dollars. Just give us a receipt, and bring the
certif. any time. I want to get rid o* this stuflF right

now."

A "Good FeUow's'' Wife 375

**Say, Jim, we'd like to know jest — ^jest where this
windfall comes from/' said Vance, as he took his share.

"Comes from the copper country," was all he ever
said about it.

"I don't see where he invested,'' Link said. ** Wasn't
a scratch of a pen to show that he invested anything
while he was in the bank. Guess that's where our
money went."

"Well, I ain't squealin'," said Vance. **Pm g^ad
to get out of it without asking any questions. Ill tell
yeh one thing, though," he added, as they stood out-
side the door; "we'd V never smelt of our money
again if it hadn't 'a' been fr that woman in there.
She'd 'a' paid it alone if Jim hadn't 'a' made this
strike, whereas he never 'd V — Wdl, all right. We're
out of it."

It was one of the greatest moments of Sanford's life.
He expanded in it. He was as pleasantly aware of
the Ranees of his wife as he used to be when, as a
clerk, he saw her pass and look in at the window vdiere
he sat dreaming over his ledger.

As for her, she was gomg over the whole situation
from this new standpoint. He had been weak, he had
fallen in her estimation, and yet, as he stood there, so
boyish in his exultation, die father of her cJiildren,
she loved him with a toudi of maternal tenderness
and hope, and her heart throbbed in an unconscious,
swift determination to do him good. She |io longer
deceived herself. She was his equal — in some wa^

376 Main-Travelled Roads

his superior. Her love had friendship in it, but less of
sex, and no adoration.

As she blew out the lights, stepped out on the walk,
and turned the key in the lock, he said, "Well, Nellie,
you won't have to do that any more.**

"No; I won*t have to, but I guess FU keep on just
the same, Jim.*'

"Keep on? What for?**

"Well, I rather like it.**

"But you don*t need to — **

"I like being my own boss,** she said. "I've done
a lot o* figuring, Jim, these last three years, and it*s
kind o* broadened me, I hope. I can*t go back where I
was. Fm a better woman than I was before, and I
hope and believe that Fm better able to be a real
mother to my children.**

Jim looked up at the moon filling the warm, moist
air with a transfiguring light that fell in a luminous
mist on the distant hills. "I know one thing, Nellie;
Fm a better man than I was before, and it*s all owin*
to you.**

His voice trembled a little, and the sympathetic
tears came into her eyes. She didn't speak at once —
she couldn't. At last she stopped him by a touch on
the arm.

"Jim, I want a partner in my store. Let us begin
again, right here. I can*t say that FU ever feel j%^st
as I did once — I don't know as it's right to. I looked
up to you too much. I expected too much of you, too.
Let's begin again, as equal partners.** She held out