They lurched to the highroad and awoke from their
sun-soaked drowse at the sound of the clopping hoofs.
They paused to look for partridges in a rim of woods,
little woods, very clean and shiny and gay, silver
birches and poplars with immaculate green trunks,
encircling a lake of sandy bottom, a splashing seclusion
demure in the welter of hot prairie.
Kennicott brought down a fat red squirrel and at dusk
he had a dramatic shot at a flight of ducks whirling
down from the upper air, skimming the lake, instantly
vanishing.
They drove home under the sunset. Mounds of straw,
and wheat-stacks like bee-hives, stood out in startling
rose and gold, and the green-tufted stubble glistened.
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
lavender, then was blotted to uncertain grayness.
Cattle came in a long line up to the barred gates of
the farmyards, and over the resting land was a dark
glow.
Carol had found the dignity and greatness which had
failed her in Main Street.
Till they had a maid they took noon dinner and six
o’clock supper at Mrs. Gurrey’s boarding-house.
Mrs. Elisha Gurrey, relict of Deacon Gurrey the dealer
in hay and grain, was a pointed-nosed, simpering woman
with iron-gray hair drawn so tight that it resembled
a soiled handkerchief covering her head. But she
was unexpectedly cheerful, and her dining-room, with
its thin tablecloth on a long pine table, had the
decency of clean bareness.
In the line of unsmiling, methodically chewing guests,
like horses at a manger, Carol came to distinguish
one countenance: the pale, long, spectacled face
and sandy pompadour hair of Mr. Raymond P. Wutherspoon,
known as “Raymie,” professional bachelor,
manager and one half the sales-force in the shoe-department
of the Bon Ton Store.
“You will enjoy Gopher Prairie very much, Mrs.
Kennicott,” petitioned Raymie. His eyes
were like those of a dog waiting to be let in out of
the cold. He passed the stewed apricots effusively.
“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 the Episcopal
choir. And Miss Sherwin of the high school—she
is such a pleasing, bright girl—I was fitting
her to a pair of tan gaiters yesterday, I declare,
it really was a pleasure.”
“Gimme the butter, Carrie,” was Kennicott’s
comment. She defied him by encouraging Raymie:
“Do you have amateur dramatics and so on here?”
“Oh yes! The town’s just full of
talent. The Knights of Pythias put on a dandy
minstrel show last year.”
“It’s nice you’re so enthusiastic.”
