She could not escape asking (in the exact words and
mental intonations which a thousand million women,
dairy wenches and mischief-making queens, had used
before her, and which a million million women will
know hereafter), “Was it all a horrible mistake,
my marrying him?” She quieted the doubt—without
answering it.
Kennicott had taken her north to Lac-qui-Meurt, in
the Big Woods. It was the entrance to a Chippewa
Indian reservation, a sandy settlement among Norway
pines on the shore of a huge snow-glaring lake.
She had her first sight of his mother, except the
glimpse at the wedding. Mrs. Kennicott had a
hushed and delicate breeding which dignified her woodeny
over-scrubbed cottage with its worn hard cushions in
heavy rockers. She had never lost the child’s
miraculous power of wonder. She asked questions
about books and cities. She murmured:
“Will is a dear hard-working boy but he’s
inclined to be too serious, and you’ve taught
him how to play. Last night I heard you both laughing
about the old Indian basket-seller, and I just lay
in bed and enjoyed your happiness.”
Carol forgot her misery-hunting in this solidarity
of family life. She could depend upon them; she
was not battling alone. Watching Mrs. Kennicott
flit about the kitchen she was better able to translate
Kennicott himself. He was matter-of-fact, yes,
and incurably mature. He didn’t really
play; he let Carol play with him. But he had his
mother’s genius for trusting, her disdain for
prying, her sure integrity.
From the two days at Lac-qui-Meurt Carol drew confidence
in herself, and she returned to Gopher Prairie in
a throbbing calm like those golden drugged seconds
when, because he is for an instant free from pain,
a sick man revels in living.
A bright hard winter day, the wind shrill, black and
silver clouds booming across the sky, everything in
panicky motion during the brief light. They struggled
against the surf of wind, through deep snow.
Kennicott was cheerful. He hailed Loren Wheeler,
“Behave yourself while I been away?” The
editor bellowed, “B’ gosh you stayed so
long that all your patients have got well!”
and importantly took notes for the Dauntless about
their journey. Jackson Elder cried, “Hey,
folks! How’s tricks up North?” Mrs.
McGanum waved to them from her porch.
“They’re glad to see us. We mean
something here. These people are satisfied.
Why can’t I be? But can I sit back all my
life and be satisfied with ‘Hey, folks’?
They want shouts on Main Street, and I want violins
in a paneled room. Why——?”
Vida Sherwin ran in after school a dozen times.
She was tactful, torrentially anecdotal. She
had scuttled about town and plucked compliments:
Mrs. Dr. Westlake had pronounced Carol a “very
sweet, bright, cultured young woman,” and Brad
Bemis, the tinsmith at Clark’s Hardware Store,
had declared that she was “easy to work for and
awful easy to look at.”
