Carol cried “Fine day!” to the boys; she
came in a glow to Howland & Gould’s grocery,
her collar white with frost from her breath; she bought
a can of tomatoes as though it were Orient fruit; and
returned home planning to surprise Kennicott with
an omelet creole for dinner.
So brilliant was the snow-glare that when she entered
the house she saw the door-knobs, the newspaper on
the table, every white surface as dazzling mauve,
and her head 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 down at her rickety little
desk in the living-room to make a poem. (She got no
farther than “The sky is bright, the sun is
warm, there ne’er will be another storm.”)
In the mid-afternoon of this same day Kennicott was
called into the country. It was Bea’s evening
out—her evening for the Lutheran Dance.
Carol was alone from three till midnight. She
wearied of reading pure love stories in the magazines
and sat by a radiator, beginning to brood.
Thus she chanced to discover that she had nothing
to do.
She had, she meditated, passed through the novelty
of seeing the town and meeting people, of skating
and sliding and hunting. Bea was competent; there
was no household labor except sewing and darning and
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 today besides steak and pork and ham.
The cuts of beef were not cuts. They were hacks.
Lamb chops were as exotic as sharks’ fins.
The meat-dealers shipped their best to the city, with
its higher prices.
In all the shops there was the same lack of choice.
She could not find a glass-headed picture-nail in
town; she did not hunt for the sort of veiling she
wanted—she took what she could get; and
only at Howland & Gould’s was there such a luxury
as canned asparagus. Routine care was all she
could devote to the house. Only by such fussing
as the Widow Bogart’s could she make it fill
her time.
She could not have outside employment. To the
village doctor’s wife it was taboo.
She was a woman with a working brain and no work.
There were only three things which she could do:
Have children; start her career of reforming; or become
so definitely a part of the town that she would be
fulfilled by the activities of church and study-club
and bridge-parties.
Children, yes, she wanted them, but——She
was not quite ready. She had been embarrassed
by Kennicott’s frankness, but she agreed with
him that in the insane condition 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 made more money.
She was sorry——Perhaps he had made
all the mystery of love a mechanical cautiousness
but——She fled from the thought with
a dubious, “Some day.”
