Main Street

. "I'd take the car - want you to see how swell she runs since I put in a new piston. But we'll take a team, so we can

counted his shotgun shells, lecturing her on the qualities of smokeless powder. He drew the new hammerless shotgun o

nd something creative and joyous. She examined the smooth stock, the carved hard rubber butt of the gun. The shells, w

wrinkles, peeled and scarred shoes, a scarecrow felt hat. In this uniform he felt virile. They clumped out to the li

lver hair which flickered in the sunshine. As they started, the dog yelped, and leaped at the horses' heads, t

stubble into a welter of yellow they turned from the highroad, through the bars of a farmer's gate, into a field, slowly bumping over the uneven earth. In a hollow of the rolling prairie they lost sight even of

ment he settled down to a steady quartering of the f

covey of chickens in the west forty, last week. Maybe we'

time he seemed to halt. She had no desire to slaughter

on the point, a

d, his tail quivering, his belly close to the stubble. Carol was nervous. She expected clouds of large birds to fly up instantly. Her eyes were strained with staring. But they followed the dog for a quarter of a mile, turning, doubling, crossing two low hills, ki

, like enormous bumble bees. Kennicott was sighting, moving the barrel. She was agitated. Why didn't he fire

ere so soft and unbruised - there was about them no hint of death. She watched her co

re prairie chick

he galvanized-iron skeleton tower of a wind- mill. The dooryard was of packed yellow clay, treeless, barren of grass, littered with rusty plowshares and wheels of discarded cultivators. Hardened trampled mud, like lava, filled the pig-pen. The doors of the house were grime-rubbed, the corners and eaves were rusted with ra

ouse. She was twanging a Swedish patois - not in monoto

e yoost say las' night, ve hope maybe ve see her som day. My, soch a pretty lady!" Mrs. Rustad was

n't like to give us a glass of

se!" She nervously hastened to a tiny red building beside the windmill; she

the dearest thing I ever saw. And she ad

ndinavian farmers. And prosperous, too. Helga Rustad, she's still scared of America, but her

d hard-working. The town lives on them. We townies are parasites, and yet we feel superior to them. Last night I heard Mr. Haydock tal

ithout the town? Who lends them money? W

farmers think they pay too much

he farmers ought to run the state and the whole shooting-match - probably if they had their way they'd fill up the legislature with a lot of farmers

shouldn

, let's quit arguing. All this discussing may be all righ

ly it's a worse affliction than

in the world. And after each self-rebuk

s, red-winged black- birds, the scum a splash of gold-green. Kennicott smoked a pipe while she le

to look for partridges in a rim of woods, little woods, very clean and shiny and gay, silver birches and poplars with

had a dramatic shot at a flight of ducks whirling down fr

ned. As the vast girdle of crimson darkened, the fulfilled land became autumnal in deep reds and browns. The black road before the buggy turned to a faint la

y and greatness which had

oon dinner and six o'clock suppe

h iron-gray hair drawn so tight that it resembled a soiled handkerchief covering her head. But she was unexpected

ountenance: the pale, long, spectacled face and sandy pompadour hair of Mr. Raymond P. Wutherspoon, known as "R

sively. "There are a great many bright cultured people here. Mrs. Wilks, the Christian Science reader, is a very bright woman - though I am not a Scientist myself, in fact I sing in th

s Kennicott's comment. She def

ateur dramatics

alent. The Knights of Pythias put

you're so e

I get so much pleasure out of playing the cornet, and our band-leader, Del Snafflin, is such a good musician, I often say he ought to give up his barbering and become a professional musician, he could play the clarinet in Minneapolis or New York or anywhere, but -

e wonderful 'f they'd pay their bills," grumbled Kennicott and, to

ering at her. She helped him wi

reading, we're always so busy at the store and -- But we had the dand

salesman at the end of the table, and Kennicott's

ee many plays, M

wasting your time on. What I like in books is a wholesome, really improving story, and sometimes -- Why, once I started a novel by this fellow Balzac that you read about, and it told how a lady wasn't living with her husband, I mean she wasn't his wife. It went into details, disgustingly! And

yarn? Where can I get hold of it

an, and their humor -- Don't you think that the most ess

really haven't

l see that you have a perfectly corking sense of humor. Besides, Dr. Kennico

rd. Come on, Carrie; let's b

t is your chief artistic

esman had murmured, "Dentistry," she

, and he asked me how I liked it, and I said to him, 'Look here, D. H.,' I said - you see, he was going to leave the front plain, and I said to him, 'It's all very well to have modern lighting and

ed the travel

ll, what if it is tin? That's not my fault. I told D

n, Carrie, leave us

rmed Carol that she musn't mind the traveling sal

it? Do you prefer an artistic guy like Ray

and be foolish, and slip up to bed, and sleep without d

I

er Prairie We

e of our popular local physician, Dr. Will Kennicott. All present spoke of the many charms of the bride, formerly Miss Carol Milford of St. Paul. Games and stunts were the order of the day, with merry t

nifold charms, not only of striking charm of appearance but is also a distinguished graduate of a school in the East and has for the past year been prominently connected in an important position of responsibility with the St. Paul Public Library, in which city Dr. "Will" had the good fortune to meet her. The city of Gopher Prairie welcomes her to our midst and prophes

ave a starting-place. What confused her during the three or four months after her marriage was

air with the weak back, even the brass water- cock on the hot-water reservoi

her attempt to be at once a respectful servant and a bosom friend. They laughed togeth

ers and all, and made her feel that they wanted her, that she belonged here. In city shops she was merely A Customer - a hat, a voice to bore a harassed clerk. Here s

ad something to talk about - lemons or cotton voile or floor-oil. With that skip-jack Dave Dyer, the druggist, she conducted a long mock-quarrel. She pretended that he cheated her in the price of magazines and

r her. Clark's Hardware Store, Dyer's Drug Store, the groceries of Ole Jenson and Frederick Ludelmeyer and Howland & Gould, the meat markets, the notions shop - they expanded, and hid all other structures. When she entered Mr. Ludelmeyer's store

enture. When she did contrive to get sweetbreads at Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market the triumph

ers, G.A.R. veterans, who when they gossiped sometimes squatted on their hee

eauty in th

f the State with their own rights and their own senses of humor. In the library she had not had much time to give them, but now she knew the luxury of stopping, grav

f my own. I do want one. Tiny -- No! Not yet! There's so muc

- dogs barking, chickens making a gurgling sound of content, children at play, a man beating a rug wind in the cottonwood trees, a loc

nked her for toys and magazines. Evenings she went with her husband to the motion pictures and was boisterously greeted by every other couple; or, till it became too cold, they sat on

ome one to whom she cou

r sewing and wished that the telephone wo

rough from needle and chalk and penholder; her blouses and plain cloth skirts undistinguished; and her hat worn too far back, betraying a dry forehead. But you never did look at Vida Sherwin in detail. You couldn't. Her electr

bby in not coming near you, but we wanted to give you a chance to get settled. I am Vida

ow the teachers. You se

re. It's a dear loyal town (and isn't loyalty the finest thing in the world!) but it's a rough diamond, and we need

ommitting the unpardonable sin if I whispered t

have you met him? - oh, you MUST! - he's simply a darling - intelligence and culture and so gentle.) But I don't care so much about the ugliness. That w

ondering if it would be possible to hav

ng agencies? Perhaps it will sound slow to you, but I was thinking

n affectionately bowing to a complete stranger. "Oh yes. But I'm

tick firmly to the belief in the fatherhood of God and the broth

ctable and thought

fluence. Then there's the library-board. You'd be so useful on that.

Or do they read papers mad

he Thanatopsis does do a good social work - they've made the city plant ever so many trees, and they run the rest-

ble. She said politely, "I'll think them all o

e sacred to me. Home, and children that need you, and depend on you to keep them alive, and turn to you with their wrinkly little smiles. And the

thank heaven, we're free from such social distinctions in Gopher Prairie. I have only one good quality - overwhelming belief in the brains and hearts of our nation, our state, our town. It's so strong that sometimes I do have a ti

The Damnation of Theron

nical. Oh, I do hope I'm not a sentimentalist. But I can't see any use i

ty? Carol tried to be eloquent regarding honesty of observation. Miss Sherwin stood out for s

talk something besides crops. Let's make Gopher Prairie rock to its

to set it with an embroidered lunch-cloth, and the mauve-glazed Japanese tea-set which she had brought from St. Paul. Miss Sherwin confided her latest scheme - moral motio

one who has afternoon tea. Carol suggested that Miss Sherwin stay for supper, an

as over the grippe which had preve

scovered a personality. Pollock was a man of perhaps thirty-eight, slender, still, deferential. His voice was low. "It was very good of you to want

ss might reveal a thousand tints

Washburn, Charles Flandrau. He presented his idols diffidently, but he expanded in Carol's bookis

s why a Pollock should not remain in Gopher Prairie. She enjoyed the faint mystery. She felt triumphant and rather literary. She already had a Group. It would be only a while now before she provided the town with fanl