Main Street

evening. Shadows slipped down the w

at doo

ita's rudeness. Not today. But she did want a party. Now! If some one would come in this afternoon, some one who li

be it. They must c

s they

y

was going to keep up a belief in the rite of tea, to which she had always looked forward as the symbol of a leisurely fine existence. And

the rack in the oven. She scampered up-stairs to bring down her filmiest tea-cloth. She arranged a silver tray. She proudly carried it into the living-room and set it on the long cherryw

sily unfolded the sewing-table set it in the bay-window, patted the tea-cloth to smoo

lf, a straight chair, but for the guest the big wi

. She sat and waited. She listened for the door-bell, th

erwin would he

ouse like sprays of water from a hose. The wide yards across the street were gray wi

and plate. She looked at the

y dipping fingertip she tested it. Yes.

her was icily clean,

She sat and stared at it. What was it she was going

want the

up. She was on t

more sharply than

take their point of view; it was a negative thing; an intellectual squalor; a swamp of prejudices and fears. She would have to make them take hers. She was not a Vincent de Paul, to govern and mold a people. What of that? The tiniest change in their distrust of beauty would be the

opher Prairies had no monopoly of greetings and friendly hands. Sam Clark was no more loyal than girl librarians she knew in St. Paul, the people she had met in Chicago. And those others had so much that Gopher Prairie complacen

g that it would be an influence? She'd make Kennicott like poetry. That was it, for a beginning! She conceived so clear a picture of their bending over large fair pages by the fire (in a non-existent fireplace) that the

d Carol was inquiring, "Did you see any ducks in Dahl's window?" and Bea chanting, "No, ma'am. Say, ve have a svell time, dis afternoon. Tina she have coffee and knackebrod, and her fella vos dere, and ve yoo

of her husband but of the book-drugged hermit, Guy

Will, I think I could endure even Gopher Prairie. It's so hard to mother Will. I could be maternal with Guy. Is that what I want, s

so to

eal level in Bea a

easant to turn over in bed as often as I wa

onight. So free. To think that there was once a Mrs. Kennicott who let herself

ll is going t

I

h; an irresolute dropping of snow specks upon the trampled wastes. Gloom but no

ay of Kennic

her. It stung, it gnawed at nose and ears and aching cheeks, and she hastened from shelter to shelter, catching her breath in the lee of a b

coat, seal toque, virginal cheeks unmarked by lines of village jealousies, she was as out of place on this dreary hillside as a scarlet tanager on an ice-floe. She looked down on Gopher Prairie. The snow, stretching without b

d cattle, certainly not these dun houses, these yards choked with winter ash-piles, these roads of dirty snow and clotted frozen mud. The zest of winter was gone. Three months more, till May, the cold might drag on, with the snow ever filth

ays plenty of work-no need of charity-man got to be blame shiftless if he don't get ahead." But now that the summer mask of leaves and grass was gone, Carol discovered misery and dead hope. In a shack of thin boards covered with tar-paper she saw the washerwoman, Mrs. Ste

d in an abandoned stable. A man of eighty was

dependent citizens, who had been taught that they belonged t

" The jolly tombstone-yard, where a utilitarian sculptor in a red calfskin overcoat whistled as he hammered the shiniest of granite headstones. Jackson Elder's small planing-mill, with the smell of fresh pine shavings and the burr of circular saws. Most important, the Gopher Prairie Flour and Milling Company, Lyman Ca

uses. She wished that she could work in the mill; that sh

skin coat and black plush cap with lappets was watching her. His square face was confident, his foxy mustache was pi

. Kennicott,

man, who had repaired their fur

you do," s

hey call me. Remember? Always thought I'

n exploring the o

he arts and sciences. Well, thunder, we submerged tenth down here in Swede Hollow are no worse off th

ble at being chosen as comrade by a pipe-reeking odd-job man. Probabl

't always so exciting. It's very c

signs of pulling a forelock. His eyebrows moved as though

f I was invited to sit in with that gang. I'm what they call a pariah, I guess. I'm the town badman, Mrs. Kennicott: town atheist, a

of departure into an attitude of listening, her fa

od. "I don't see why you shouldn't criticize the J

x clean off the map. But then, I've got no kick. I do wha

an by saying yo

or a stake, and then I sit around by myself, and shake hands with myself, and have a smok

y you read a

w wood, and work in lumber-camps-I'm a first-rate swamper. Always wished I could go

re a curious

y we run things.' No, I ain't curious-whatever you mean by that! I'm just a bookworm. Probably too much reading for the amount of digestion I've got

together. S

Seventeen is stupid. W

town that do have any brains-I don't mean ledger-keeping brains or duck-hunting brains or baby-spanking brains, but real imaginative brains-are you and me and Guy P

, I sha'n'

verything from deforestration to nosebleed by saying phrases like 'surplus value.' Like reading the prayer-book. But

sting to hea

talk too much. Well, I do, when I get hold of somebody like you.

id you leave Miss Sherwin, of the high school,

works, but Miss Sherwin is the secret boss, and nags all the easy-going dames into doing something. But way I figure it out--You see, I'm not interested in these dinky reforms. Miss Sherwin's trying to repair the holes in this barnacle-covered ship of a tow

er. But I must run home. My

d get warm, and see what an

her the opportunity to be delicate. He flung out his hand in a welcoming gesture which assumed that she was her own counselor, that she was not a Respectable Married Woman bu

never had she known a more cons

llied cannon-ball stove, backwoods chairs-one constructed from half a barrel, one from a tilted plank-and a row of books incredibly assorted; Byron and Tennyson

f a steep-roofed village in the Harz Mountains whi

and put your feet up on the box in front of the stove." He tossed his dogsk

y be partly because I don't know better (and God knows I'm not no authority on trick forks and what pants you wear with a Prince Albert), but mostly it's because I mean something. I'm about

e he wants me to remember he's a highmuckamuck and worth tw

Ezra,' I says. HE kno

and you have a gasoline saw. I want you to come aro

ooks, eh?' I says,

day,' he says, real sharp. Common workman going and getting fresh with a

s?' Maybe he didn't look sore! 'Nope,' I says, thinking it all over, 'I don't like your applica

ut I figured there had to be ONE man in to

alf defiant and half apologetic, half wistful for friendliness and half amus

oor, she

I, would you worry when peop

a-gull, and all over silver, think I'd care wha

ydock, cocked her head at Maud Dyer's brief nod, and came home to Bea radiant. She telephoned Vida Sherwin to "run over this

ing irreverent to the village gods-Bjornstam, some such a name?" the refor

t breakfast he said four several time

time of day mit Sam'l? Warmer, eh? What'd the doc's thermometer say it was? Say, you folks better co

nd in his withered paws, peered at her with faded eyes, and chuckled, "You are so fresh and bloom

"We haven't seen you for so long," she said. "Wouldn't you like to come in and pl

up to her, his long sallow face bobbing, and he besought, "You've just got to come

he unlaced her boots, tucked her skirt about h

ood salesma

seat of thin wood perforated in rosettes, the display of shoe-trees and tin boxes of blacking, the lithograph of a smirking young woman with cherry cheeks wh

ome one who will appreciate. When I saw these I said right away, 'Wouldn't it be nice if they fitted Mrs. Kenn

ugh Kennicott instantly impressed him int

propaganda of teaching Kennicott to enjoy reading poetry in the lamplight. The campaign was delayed. Twice he suggested that they call on neighbors;

ons! Come and sit down by the table. There, are you comfy? L

she sounded as though she was selling culture. But she dropped it when she sat on

linnets, the aching call of gulls along a shore to which the netted foam crept out of darkness, the island of Aengus and the elder

while he uneasily petitioned, "That's great stuff. Study it in college? I like poetry fine-James Whitcomb Riley and some of Longf

in desire to giggle, she consoled him, "The

t. Read him in sc

e no (what is i

put out

let

that 'I met a little country boy who--' I don't remember e

'The Idylls of the King?'

he hastened to shelter

nd when she saw how much he was suffering she ran to him, kissed his fore

e now, th

'n't torture y

up. She read Kipling, wit

a-COMING down the

, "That was fine. I don't know but what you can elocute just as good as Ella Stowbody," she ba

unhappiness by a correspondence course, to buy the lilies of Avalo

ening frock. For a second she loathed her laughter; mourned for the day when on her hill by the Mississippi she had walked the battlements with queens. But the celeb

y and reasonably badly. She had no opinions on anything more polemic than woolen union-suits, a topic on which Mrs. Howland discour

iod was during the c

ted fully, and with some irritation, her husband's inappreciation of liver and bacon. Maud Dyer chronicled Dave's digestive disorders; quoted a recent bedtime controversy with him in regard to Christian Science, socks and the

aged her to give such details of her honeymoon as might be of interest. She was embarrassed rather than resentful. She deliberately misund

b, that she wanted to entertain them. "Only," she said, "I don't know that I can give you any refresh

learned to play bridge. At first I didn't hardly know if you were going to like Gopher Prairie. Isn't it dandy that you've settled down to being homey with us! Maybe we aren't as highbrow as

much for the idea about havi

you'd find out and realize that G. P. is the liveliest, smartest town in the state. Did you know that Percy Bresnahan, the famous auto manufacturer,