Main Street
their house to meet us, tonight," said
is nice
earth. Uh, Carrie -- Would you mind if I sneaked down
ot. I know you're kee
ou don'
t of my way. L
and its full dismalness crawled over her: the awkward knuckly L-shape of it; the black walnut bed with apples and spotty pears carved on the headboard; the imitation maple bureau, with pink-daubed scent-bott
smothering. The tottering brocade chair squeaked, "Choke her - choke her - smother her." The old linen smelled of the tomb. She was alone in this h
old home in Lac-qui-Meurt. "Stop it! They're perfectly comfortable things. They'
e HAS to see how thing
luxury in St. Paul was an extravagant vanity here. The daring black chemise of frail chiffon and lace was a hussy at whic
she saw was the side of the Seventh–Day Adventist Church - a plain clapboard wall of a sour liver color; the ash-pile back of the church; an unpainted
that out, but - I'd hate it! I'd be scared to death! Some day but -- Please, dear nebulous Lord, not now! Bearded sniffy old men sitting and demanding that we bear children. If THEY had to bear them --! I wish they did have t
from th
tion. What would they come to mean? How would they look six months from now? In which of them would she be dining? Which of these people whom she
celery on a slanted platform in front of his store. Would she ever talk to him? What would he say if she stopped and stated, "I am Mrs
that she was slipping through the streets invisible; but when she had passed, Mr. Ludelmeyer puffed into the store and coughed at his clerk, "I seen a young woman, she come along the side street. I bet she iss Doc Kennico
covered the town, east and west, north and south; and she stood
s let in the grasping prairie on every side. She realized the vastness and the emptiness of the land. The skeleton iron windmill on the farm a few blocks away, at the north end of Main Street, was like the ribs of a dead cow. She thought of the coming
d the lawns had been nursed with love. But the thought would not hold. At best the trees resembled a thinned woodlot. There was
. It was a tall lean shabby structure, three stories of yellow-streaked wood, the corners covered with sanded pine slabs purporting to symbolize stone. In the hotel office she could see a stretch of bare unclean floor, a
ore at the Minn
a while, sighed, and in a bored way gossiped with a man tilted back in a chair. A lumber-wagon, its long green box filled with large spools of barbed-wire fencing, creaked down the bloc
ther sound nor
f a great city. Her dreams of creating a beautiful town were ludicrous. Oozing ou
. It was a private Seeing Main Street tour. She was within ten minutes beholding not only t
d-yellow mosaic shade. Pawed-over heaps of tooth- brushes and combs and packages of shaving-soap. Shelves of soap-cartons teething-rings, garden-seeds, and patent medicines in yellow p
sign "W. P. Kennicott, Phys.
ed "The Rosebud Movie Palace." Lithographs
ng. Shelves lined with red crepe paper which was now faded and torn and concentrically spotted. Flat against th
Meat Market -
atches for women. In front of it, at the
nd thick voices bellowing pidgin German or trolling out dirty songs - vice gone feeble and unenterprising and dull - the delicacy of a mining-camp m
g men shaking dice for cigarettes. Racks of magazines, an
-dog toes." Suits which looked worn and glossless while they were st
ry brick. One window of excellent clothes for men, interspersed with collars of floral pique which showed mauve daisies on a saffron ground. Newness and an obvious notion of neatness and se
sateens, badly woven galateas, canvas shoes designed for women with bulging ankles, steel and red glass buttons
metallic enterprise. Guns and churns and barre
orium. A vista of heavy oak rockers wit
covered counter. An odor of onions and the smoke of hot la
r of cream and potatoes.
and new cars on grease-blackened concrete floors. Tire advertisements. The roaring of a tested motor; a racket
old wheels, of shafts and sulky seats, belonging to machinery of which Carol knew not
h the dust of bran, a patent medicin
tate tree-trunks but running off into blobs of gilt - an aluminum ash-tray labeled "Greetings from Gopher Prairie" - a Christian Science magazine - a stamped sofa-cushion portraying a large ribbon tied to a small poppy, the correct skeins of emb
leeves, presumably Del Snafflin the proprieto
one- story building. A fashion-plate showing human pit
red-brick Catholic Church w
mildewed room which must once have been a shop. A tilted writing-shelf against a
ck schoolbuilding in
nk, stucco m
le of marble. Pure, exquisite, solitary.
ilar shops and
s, meek cottages or large, comfortable, so
buildings which suggested that, in the fifty years of Gopher Prairie's existence, the citizens had rea
oline pumps for motor cars, boxes of goods. Each man had built with the most valiant disregard of all the others. Between a large new "block" of two-story brick shops on one side, and the fire-brick Overland garage on the other side, was a one-story cottage turned into a mi
rom Main Stre
holding the cord of an awning; a middle-aged man who had a way of staring at women as though he had been married too long and too prosaic
the prairie, surely there's nothing to pre
re. It CAN'T be as ugly as - as I know it is! I must be
for her, and exulting, "Have a walk? Well, like the town? Great lawns and trees, eh?" s
I
rol to Gopher Prairie also
life, and the way to enjoy city-life was, she had decided, to "go get a yob as hired girl in Gopher Prairie." She contentedly lug
come to town
et a yob,
. You got a
im Yac
see you. How much
dol
ott, I t'ink he marry a girl from de Cities.
said
ott and Bea Sorenson were viewi
wn larger than Scandia Crossing,
he same time. My! It would take years to get acquainted with them all. And swell people, too! A fine big gentleman in a new pink shirt with a diam
ere were at Scandia Crossing, b
even or eight clerks all looking at you. And the men's suits, on figures just like human. And Axe
ever saw - all different kinds colored glass stuck together; and the soda spouts, they were silver, and they came right out of the bottom of the lamp-
right on top of another; you had to stick your head back to look clear up to the top
f; she wore a dandy new gray suit and black pumps. She almost looked like she was looking over the town, too. But you coul
y there'd be lovely sermons, and c
movi
With the sign "Change of bill ever
rive in - papa was such a tightwad he wouldn't get a Ford. But here she could put on her hat any evening, an
e, and one (a lovely one - the Art Shoppy it was) for pictures and vases and
ime - and one of 'em was a great big car that must of cost two thousand dollars - and the 'bus was starting for a train with five elegant- dressed fellows, and a ma
ed to stay here. And think how it would be in the evening, all lighted up - and not with no lamps, but with
rudge
lak it?"
t'ink maybe Ay st
largest in Gopher Prairie. It had a clean sweep of clapboards, a solid squareness, a small tower, and
rolled to the door and shouted, "Welcome,
e guests. They were WAITING so! They were waiting for her! The determination to be all one pretty flowerlet of appreciation leake
you - same as I would if I didn't
to the right of me, faces in f
ckled, "Now you just cuddle under Sam's wing, and if anybody rubbers at you too long, I'll shoo
es, the bride! We won't introduce her round yet, because she'll neve
t move from the social security of thei
k was an ingenue slip of lawn, with a wide gold sash and a low square neck, which gave a suggestion of throat and molded shoulders. But as they looked her over she was certain that it wa
cle. Her voice mechanical
t time in Colorado - mountains," and "Yes, I lived in St. Paul several years. Euclid
whispered, "Now I'll introduc
about the
ve Dyer the druggist - you met him this afternoon - mighty good duck-shot. The tall husk beyond him is Jack Elder - Jackson Elder - owns the planing-mill, and the Minniemashie House, and quite a share in t
y? A t
t we are democratic. I go hunting wi
ming to meet one and not have to think about what you owe hi
nd besides, he's a mighty good shot and -- That's the way it is, see? Next to Nat is Chet Dashaway.
Dashaway, a tan person with a wide mouth. "Oh, I know! He's
taker. You'll like him. C
he embalming and all that - himself? I c
ds with a great surgeon, just after h
ou're right. I want - oh, my dear, do you know how much I want
m as they are! They have the stuff. Did you know that Pe
snah
Company of Boston, Mass. - make the Velvet Twe
I've hear
lack-bass fishing almost every summer, and he says if he could get away from business, he'd rathe
ike everybody! I'll be
er to th
r, bleached voice, and a bleached manner. She wore her expensive green frock, with its passementeried bosom, bead tassels, and gaps between the buttons down the back, as though she had bought it second- h
e "pleased to meet her," there seemed to be nothing el
er Prairie?" whim
'm going to be
Dawson looked to Mr. Mott for soci
ys - especially the Germans. They hate to pay school-taxes. They hate to spend a cent. But the rest are a fine c
ard h
nd I went fishing togethe
weary feet, and smiled at Carol with
iments with any of the new educational systems? T
, but Latin and mathematics always will be the backbone of sound Americanism, no matter what these fadd
avant. Carol waited till Kennicott should rescue her. The
he young smart set of Gopher Prairie. She was led to them. Jua
- dances and everything. You'll have to join the Jolly Seventeen. We
, I d
? In St
been such a
uanita had become patronizing, and she glanced disrespectful
, "How do you think you're
hall like it
lots of chances to go live in Minneapolis, but we like it here.
f bridge. Roused to nervous desire to regain her position she turned on Dr. Terry Gould, the y
utdoors. Can't we all get up a boating party, and fish,
ed. He looked rather too obviously at
y middle name. I'll teach yo
e rather goo
. But her lie was a triumph. Juanita's handsome, high-colored, horsey face showed doubt. Ha
s and rather brittle. She could not distinguish their eyes. They were a blurry theater-audience bef
ut of the motor 'bus that I decided to be Annie Oakley, the Wild Western Wampire, and I bought oh! a vociferous skirt which revealed my perfectly nice ankles to the Presbyterian glare of all the Ioway schoolma'ams, and I
coming shocked, but Juanita Haydock wa
as a respectable practitioner -
atever he might say in the stress of being witty was not to count against him in the commercio-medical warfare. "There's some people in town that say the doc is a fair to middlin' diagnostician and prescription
anels and champagne and tulle and crystal chandeliers and sporting duchesses. Carol saw that George Edwin Mott and the blanched Mr. and Mrs. Daw
Mr. Dawson there! I'm sure he's a regular heart- breaker. When
tified. He had been called many things - loan-shark, skinflint, t
, Mrs. Dawson? Don't yo
," attempted Mrs. Dawson,
er lose his ability to make love to charming women, and that she had a pair of gold stockings. They gaped for more. But she could not keep it up. She retired to a chair behind Sam C
this affair, which brought out the young smart set, the hunting squire set, the respectabl
aymie Wutherspoon was going to send for a pair of patent leather shoes with gray buttoned tops; the rheumatism of
ned, his brows popped up and down. He interrupted himself, "Must stir 'em up." He worried at his w
e some stu
shrieked Jua
at stunt about the Nor
k stunt; do that, Dave!
e Dyer
ps in anticipation of being c
e 'Old Sweetheart of Min
Ionic bank, scratched her dry palms and blushed.
You bet!" a
in terrible s
Come
. She's had professional training. She studied singing and ora
ld Sweetheart of Mine," she gave a peculiarly
one Irish, one juvenile, and Nat Hicks's
mes, the Jewish story and the funeral oration twice; but now she was ardent and, because she did so want to be happy and sim
they began to talk naturally, as
their own shop-talk. She was piqued. She re- membered visions of herself as a smart married woman in a drawing-room, fencing with clever men. Her dejection was relieved by speculation
h's ears." She rose with a jeune fille bow. She was self-absorbed and self-approving because she had attained that quality of sentimen
der of the planing-mill, Chet Dashaway, Dave Dyer, Harry
emocratically chatting with but ruling the Ohioans and Illini and Swedes and Germans who had ventured to follow them. But Westlake was old, almost retired; Julius Flickerbaugh had lost much of his practice to livelier attorneys; Reverend (not The Reverend) Peedy was dead; and nobody was impressed in this rotten age of automobiles by the "spanking grays" which Ezra still drove. The town was as heterogeneous as Chicago. Norwegians and Germans owned stores. The social leaders were common merchants. Selling nails was considered as s
owbody was piping to Mr. Dawson, "Say, Luke, when was't Bigg
om Vermont in 1867 - no, wait, in 1868, it must have been -
dy. "He settled first in Blue E
at issue?" Carol wh
an English setter or a Llewellyn. Th
a Biggins was in town couple days ago? She bought a hot-water
ve a cent. Two dollars and twenty - thirty, was it? - two dollars and thirty cents f
ls, Mr. Stowbody?"
they really so terribly interested in Ella's tonsils, or even in Ella's esophagus?
ouble around here, has there, Mr
me fool thing on you in a minute. Of course, if they have loans you can make 'em listen to reason. I just have 'em come into the bank for a talk, and tell 'em a few things. I don't mind their being democrats,
of these cranky, wage-hogging, half- baked skilled mechanics that start tro
nion labor?" Carol i
e a good job. But still, if they come to me honestly, as man to man, I'll talk things over with them. But I'm not going to have any outsider, any of these walking delegates, or whatever
, if I don't like him, he gits. And that's all there is to it. I simply can't understand all these complications and hoop-te- doodles and government reports and wage-scales and G
of profit-sharing
in tune, like a shop-window of flexible toys, comic mandarins and judg
nd the ears yet, and these suffragettes and God knows what all buttinskis there are that are trying to tell a business man how to run his business, and some of these college professors are just about as bad, the
r wiped
imply to hang every one of these agitators, and that would
" agreed
estion of whether the justice of the peace had sent that hobo drunk to jail for ten days or twelve. It wa
and it's a good nineteen miles from there to New Wurttemberg - seventeen and seven and nineteen, that makes, uh, let me see: seventeen and seven 's twenty-four, plus nineteen, well say plus twenty, that makes forty-four, well any
s and purposes admitted and just
er and said asthmatically, "Say, uh, have you been reading this serial 'Two Out' in Tingli
the Magnolias' by this Sara Hetwiggin Butts, and 'Riders of Ranch Reckless.' Books. But me," he glanced about importantly,
ng I can't check aga
for believing that the pike-fishing was better on the west shore of Lake Minniemashie than on the east -
ike men in the smoking-compartments of Pullman cars. They did not bore Carol. They frightened her. She pant
dy interior, eh? My idea of how a place ought to be furnished. Modern." She looked polite, and observed the oiled floors, hard-wood staircase, unused fireplace with tiles which resembled brown linoleum, cu
ith hesitancy as with a fog. People cleared their throats, tried to choke down yawns. T
"The eats!" They began to chatter. They had something to do; They could escape from themselves. They fell upon the food - chicken sandwic
ter of coats, chiffon
Kennicott
ike them?"
terribly sw
showing your ankles to schoolteachers and all!" More mildly: "You gave 'em a good time, but I'd watch out
up the party! Was I wron
coming person in the bunch. I just mean -- Don't get onto
ought that the attentive circle might ha
e don't worry
le
s is the slickest thing that ever came to this town,' he said; and Ma Dawson - I didn't hardly know whether she'd like you
, but she was so energetically being sorry for h
anxious shoulder said it, his arm about her said it
they think I'm
ld thought you were this or that or anythi
his sleeve, pinched it, cried, "I'm glad! It's sweet to be w
he house, and with her arms about
ype="