Main Street

Winter is not a season in the North Middlewest; it is an industry. Storm sheds were erected at every door. In every block the householders, Sam Clark, the wealthy Mr. Dawson

rooms and begged him not to swallow the screws, which he held

ved him, and he sneaked away from work to tell them improbable stories of sea-faring and horse-trading and bears. The children's parents either laughed at him or hated him. He was the

of Gopher Prairie. He was the only person besides the repairman at Sam Clark's who understood plumbing. Everybody begged him to look over the furnace and the water-pipes. He rushed from house to house till after bedtime - ten o'clock. I

rnace flues; he straightened, glanced down at her, and he

ornstam - were banked to the lower windows with earth and manure. Along the railroad the sections of snow fence, which had been

e-made sleighs, with bed- quilts

wristlets for the blazing chapped wrists of boys - these protections against winter were busily dug out of moth-ball-sprinkled drawers and tar-bags in closets, and all over town small boys were squealing, "Oh, there's my mittens

raps as in motor cars. The lesser sort appeared in yellow and black dogskin coats, but Kennicott was lordly in a long raccoon ulster and a new seal cap. When th

t by a loose coat of nutria. Her

as organizing outdoor sports

h pride in neglecting coasting as St. Paul - or New York - in going coasting. Carol did inspire a successful skating-party in mid- November. Plover Lake glistened in clear sweeps of gray- green ice, ringing to the skates. On shore the ice-tipped reeds clattered in the wind, and oak twigs with stubborn last leaves hung against a milky sky. Harry Haydock did figure-eights, and Carol was certain that she had found

informed her that it was SUCH fun, and they'd have another skiing expedition right a

hieroglyphics of rabbit and mouse and bird. She squealed as he leaped on a pile of brush and fired at the rabbit which ran out. He belonged there, masculine in reefer and sweater and high-laced boots. Tha

sawing. It was Saturday, and the neighbors' sons were getting up the winter fuel. Behind walls of corded wood in back yards their sawbucks stood in depressions scattered with canary-yellow flakes of sawdust. The frames of their buck-saws were cherry-red, the bla

ollar white with frost from her breath; she bought a can of tomatoes as though it were Orie

ead was dizzy in the pyrotechnic dimness. When her eyes had recovered she felt expanded, drunk with health, mistress of life. The world was so luminous that she sat

ing out - her evening for the Lutheran Dance. Carol was alone from three till midnight. She we

o discover that sh

nd gossipy assistance to Bea in bed-making. She couldn't satisfy her ingenuity in planning meals. At Dahl & Oleson's Meat Market you didn't give orders - you wofully inquired whether there was anything

e sort of veiling she wanted - she took what she could get; and only at Howland & Gould's was there such a luxury as canned asparag

employment. To the village

with a working b

reer of reforming; or become so definitely a part of the town that she would

ondition of civilization, which made the rearing of citizens more costly and perilous than any other crime, it was inadvisable to have children till he had mad

would set them going now. She would! She swore it with soft fist beating the edges of the radiat

to the merchants in their stores, with so many outpouring comments and whimsies that she hadn't given them a chance to betray their opinions of her. The men smiled - but did they like her? She was

ith doubt, as she

e as cordial as she had been fancying; but wasn't there an impersonal abruptness in the "H'

. But here I'm spied on. They're watching me. I mustn't let it make me self-conscious," sh

I

er and tweed skirt Carol felt herself a college junior going out to play hockey. She wanted to whoop, her legs ached to run. On the way home from shoppin

lyzing. Across the street, at another window, the curtain had secretively moved. S

ugh to run and halloo in the public streets; and it was as a Nice Marri

diplomatic set, the St. Cecilia, the Ritz oval room, the Club de Vingt. To belong to it was to be "in." Though its membership partly coincided with that

all. Then the town exploded. Only at the annual balls of the Firemen and of the Eastern Star was there such prodigality of chiffon scarfs and tangoing and heart-burnings, and these rival institutions were not select - hired girls attended the Firemen's Ball,

of polished oak and beveled plate-glass, jar of ferns in the plastered hall, and in the living-room, a fumed oak Morris chair, sixteen color-prints,

her flabby resolves she had not yet learned bridge. She was winningly apologeti

ts, illnesses, and scandal- bearing, shook her finger at Carol and trilled, "You're a naughty

ng me this very evening." Her supplication had all the sound of birdies in the nest, and Easter church-bells, and frosted Christmas cards. Internally she snarled, "That ought to be saccharine enough." She sat in

tioned Mrs. Jackson Elder, "Don't you think we

dumped in the snow," said

t Carol and, turning her back, she bubbled at Rita Simons, "Dearie, won't you run

from becoming unpopular by the sure method of believing that she was unpopular; but she hadn't much reserve of patience, and at the end of the second game, when Ella Stow

t new couch of yours is too broad to be practical?" She nodded, then shook her head, and touchily left Mrs. Howland to get out of it any meaning she desired. Immediately she wanted

o much behind the times," gibed

m to franker rebuffs; they were working up to a state of pain

cup without saucer. They apologized and discussed the afternoon's game as they passed through the thicket of women's feet. Then they distributed hot buttered rolls, coffee poured from an enamel-ware pot, stuffed olives, potato salad, and angel's-food cake. There was, even in the

on that the thriftier housewives made th

m a sober face, was the daughter of old Dr. Westlake, and the wife of Westlake's partner, Dr. McGanum. Kennicott asserted that Westlake and McGanum and their contaminated families were tricky, but Carol

o Wahkeenyan with Will, a few days ago. Isn't the country lovely! And I do admire the Scandinavian farmers down there so: their big red barns and silos and milking-machines and everything. Do you all k

ork in the planing-mill are perfectly terrible - so silent and cranky, and so selfish, th

hired girls - when I can get them! I do everything in the world for them. They can have their gentleman friends call on them in t

know what the country's coming to, with these Scandahoofian clodhoppers demanding every cent you can save, and so ignorant and impertinent

hard. Carol thought of

e've given them the leavings of food, and holes to live in. I don't want to boast, but I must say

might call it stealing to eat so much that a roast of beef hardly lasts three days), but just the same I don't intend to let them think they can put anything over on ME

maids get here?

fter swearing that she wouldn't weaken and encourage them in their outrageous demands, went and paid five-fifty - think of it! practically a dollar a day for

o you pay?" insi

x a week," she f

s hard on the rest of us when you pay so much?" Juan

works from ten to eighteen hours a day. She has to wash slimy dishes and dirty cl

but believe me, I do those things myself when I'm without a maid - and that's a good

does it for strangers, and all

lking at once Vida Sherwin's dictatorial voic

o much ahead of the times. Juanita, quit looking so belligerent. What is this, a card party or a hen fight? Carol, you stop admiring yourself as the Joan of Arc of the h

cially, and Carol obedi

ek. Yet this insignificance echoed cellar-plots and cabinet meetings and labor conferences in Persia and Prussia, Rome and Boston, and the orators who deemed themselves

the spinsterish Miss Villets - and immediately co

at the library yet,"

settled and -- I'll probably come in so often you'll

it. We have two thousand

are largely responsible. I've h

methods in these large cities. So careless, letting tramps and al

you will agree with me in one thing: The chief

ting the librarian of a very large college, is that the first

er "Oh." Miss Villets

ruin books and just deliberately tear them up, and fresh young men take more books out than

tructive? They learn to read.

them home where they belong. Some librarians may choose to be so wishy-washy and turn their libraries into nursing-homes and k

Miss Villets, to glance publicly at her wrist-watch, to warble that it was "so late - have to hurry home - husband - such nice party - maybe you were ri

nly -- I can't! I can't be one of them if I must damn all the maids toiling in filthy kitchen

he wept in terror, her body a pale arc as she knelt beside a cumbrous black-walnut bed, besi