"O PIONEERS!\n\nby Willa Cather\n\n\n\n\nPART I. The Wild Land\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nOne January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover,\nanchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown\naway. A mist of fine snowflakes was curling and eddying about the\ncluster of low drab buildings huddled on the gray prairie, under\na gray sky. The dwelling-houses were set about haphazard on the\ntough prairie sod; some of them looked as if they had been moved in\novernight, and others as if they were straying off by themselves,\nheaded straight for the open plain. None of them had any appearance\nof permanence, and the howling wind blew under them as well as over\nthem. The main street was a deeply rutted road, now frozen hard,\nwhich ran from the squat red railway station and the grain \"elevator\"\nat the north end of the town to the lumber yard and the horse pond\nat the south end. On either side of this road straggled two uneven\nrows of wooden buildings; the general merchandise stores, the two\nbanks, the drug store, the feed store, the saloon, the post-office.\nThe board sidewalks were gray with trampled snow, but at two o'clock\nin the afternoon the shopkeepers, having come back from dinner,\nwere keeping well behind their frosty windows. The children were\nall in school, and there was nobody abroad in the streets but a\nfew rough-looking countrymen in coarse overcoats, with their long\ncaps pulled down to their noses. Some of them had brought their\nwives to town, and now and then a red or a plaid shawl flashed out\nof one store into the shelter of another. At the hitch-bars along\nthe street a few heavy work-horses, harnessed to farm wagons,\nshivered under their blankets. About the station everything was\nquiet, for there would not be another train in until night.\n\nOn the sidewalk in front of one of the stores sat a little Swede\nboy, crying bitterly. He was about five years old. His black cloth\ncoat was much too big for him and made him look like a little old\nman. His shrunken brown flannel dress had been washed many times\nand left a long stretch of stocking between the hem of his skirt\nand the tops of his clumsy, copper-toed shoes. His cap was pulled\ndown over his ears; his nose and his chubby cheeks were chapped and\nred with cold. He cried quietly, and the few people who hurried\nby did not notice him. He was afraid to stop any one, afraid to\ngo into the store and ask for help, so he sat wringing his long\nsleeves and looking up a telegraph pole beside him, whimpering, \"My\nkitten, oh, my kitten! Her will fweeze!\" At the top of the pole\ncrouched a shivering gray kitten, mewing faintly and clinging\ndesperately to the wood with her claws. The boy had been left\nat the store while his sister went to the doctor's office, and in\nher absence a dog had chased his kitten up the pole. The little\ncreature had never been so high before, and she was too frightened\nto move. Her master was sunk in despair. He was a little country\nboy, and this village was to him a very strange and perplexing\nplace, where people wore fine clothes and had hard hearts. He\nalways felt shy and awkward here, and wanted to hide behind things\nfor fear some one might laugh at him. Just now, he was too unhappy\nto care who laughed. At last he seemed to see a ray of hope: his\nsister was coming, and he got up and ran toward her in his heavy\nshoes.\n\nHis sister was a tall, strong girl, and she walked rapidly and\nresolutely, as if she knew exactly where she was going and what she\nwas going to do next. She wore a man's long ulster (not as if it\nwere an affliction, but as if it were very comfortable and belonged\nto her; carried it like a young soldier), and a round plush cap,\ntied down with a thick veil. She had a serious, thoughtful face,\nand her clear, deep blue eyes were fixed intently on the distance,\nwithout seeming to see anything, as if she were in trouble. She\ndid not notice the little boy until he pulled her by the coat.\nThen she stopped short and stooped down to wipe his wet face.\n\n\"Why, Emil! I told you to stay in the store and not to come out.\nWhat is the matter with you?\"\n\n\"My kitten, sister, my kitten! A man put her out, and a dog chased\nher up there.\" His forefinger, projecting from the sleeve of his\ncoat, pointed up to the wretched little creature on the pole.\n\n\"Oh, Emil! Didn't I tell you she'd get us into trouble of some\nkind, if you brought her? What made you tease me so? But there,\nI ought to have known better myself.\" She went to the foot of the\npole and held out her arms, crying, \"Kitty, kitty, kitty,\" but the\nkitten only mewed and faintly waved its tail. Alexandra turned\naway decidedly. \"No, she won't come down. Somebody will have to\ngo up after her. I saw the Linstrums' wagon in town. I'll go and\nsee if I can find Carl. Maybe he can do something. Only you must\nstop crying, or I won't go a step. Where's your comforter? Did\nyou leave it in the store? Never mind. Hold still, till I put\nthis on you.\"\n\nShe unwound the brown veil from her head and tied it about his\nthroat. A shabby little traveling man, who was just then coming out\nof the store on his way to the saloon, stopped and gazed stupidly\nat the shining mass of hair she bared when she took off her veil;\ntwo thick braids, pinned about her head in the German way, with a\nfringe of reddish-yellow curls blowing out from under her cap. He\ntook his cigar out of his mouth and held the wet end between the\nfingers of his woolen glove. \"My God, girl, what a head of hair!\"\nhe exclaimed, quite innocently and foolishly. She stabbed him with\na glance of Amazonian fierceness and drew in her lower lip--most\nunnecessary severity. It gave the little clothing drummer such a\nstart that he actually let his cigar fall to the sidewalk and went\noff weakly in the teeth of the wind to the saloon. His hand was\nstill unsteady when he took his glass from the bartender. His\nfeeble flirtatious instincts had been crushed before, but never\nso mercilessly. He felt cheap and ill-used, as if some one had\ntaken advantage of him. When a drummer had been knocking about in\nlittle drab towns and crawling across the wintry country in dirty\nsmoking-cars, was he to be blamed if, when he chanced upon a fine\nhuman creature, he suddenly wished himself more of a man?\n\nWhile the little drummer was drinking to recover his nerve, Alexandra\nhurried to the drug store as the most likely place to find Carl\nLinstrum. There he was, turning over a portfolio of chromo \"studies\"\nwhich the druggist sold to the Hanover women who did china-painting.\nAlexandra explained her predicament, and the boy followed her to\nthe corner, where Emil still sat by the pole.\n\n\"I'll have to go up after her, Alexandra. I think at the depot\nthey have some spikes I can strap on my feet. Wait a minute.\" Carl\nthrust his hands into his pockets, lowered his head, and darted up\nthe street against the north wind. He was a tall boy of fifteen,\nslight and narrow-chested. When he came back with the spikes,\nAlexandra asked him what he had done with his overcoat.\n\n\"I left it in the drug store. I couldn't climb in it, anyhow.\nCatch me if I fall, Emil,\" he called back as he began his ascent.\nAlexandra watched him anxiously; the cold was bitter enough on the\nground. The kitten would not budge an inch. Carl had to go to\nthe very top of the pole, and then had some difficulty in tearing\nher from her hold. When he reached the ground, he handed the cat\nto her tearful little master. \"Now go into the store with her,\nEmil, and get warm.\" He opened the door for the child. \"Wait a\nminute, Alexandra. Why can't I drive for you as far as our place?\nIt's getting colder every minute. Have you seen the doctor?\"\n\n\"Yes. He is coming over to-morrow. But he says father can't\nget better; can't get well.\" The girl's lip trembled. She looked\nfixedly up the bleak street as if she were gathering her strength\nto face something, as if she were trying with all her might to\ngrasp a situation which, no matter how painful, must be met and\ndealt with somehow. The wind flapped the skirts of her heavy coat\nabout her.\n\nCarl did not say anything, but she felt his sympathy. He, too, was\nlonely. He was a thin, frail boy, with brooding dark eyes, very\nquiet in all his movements. There was a delicate pallor in his thin\nface, and his mouth was too sensitive for a boy's. The lips had\nalready a little curl of bitterness and skepticism. The two friends\nstood for a few moments on the windy street corner, not speaking\na word, as two travelers, who have lost their way, sometimes stand\nand admit their perplexity in silence. When Carl turned away he\nsaid, \"I'll see to your team.\" Alexandra went into the store to\nhave her purchases packed in the egg-boxes, and to get warm before\nshe set out on her long cold drive.\n\nWhen she looked for Emil, she found him sitting on a step of the\nstaircase that led up to the clothing and carpet department. He\nwas playing with a little Bohemian girl, Marie Tovesky, who was\ntying her handkerchief over the kitten's head for a bonnet. Marie\nwas a stranger in the country, having come from Omaha with her mother\nto visit her uncle, Joe Tovesky. She was a dark child, with brown\ncurly hair, like a brunette doll's, a coaxing little red mouth, and\nround, yellow-brown eyes. Every one noticed her eyes; the brown\niris had golden glints that made them look like gold-stone, or, in\nsofter lights, like that Colorado mineral called tiger-eye.\n\nThe country children thereabouts wore their dresses to their\nshoe-tops, but this city child was dressed in what was then called\nthe \"Kate Greenaway\" manner, and her red cashmere frock, gathered\nfull from the yoke, came almost to the floor. This, with her\npoke bonnet, gave her the look of a quaint little woman. She had\na white fur tippet about her neck and made no fussy objections when\nEmil fingered it admiringly. Alexandra had not the heart to take\nhim away from so pretty a playfellow, and she let them tease the\nkitten together until Joe Tovesky came in noisily and picked up\nhis little niece, setting her on his shoulder for every one to see.\nHis children were all boys, and he adored this little creature.\nHis cronies formed a circle about him, admiring and teasing the\nlittle girl, who took their jokes with great good nature. They\nwere all delighted with her, for they seldom saw so pretty and\ncarefully nurtured a child. They told her that she must choose\none of them for a sweetheart, and each began pressing his suit and\noffering her bribes; candy, and little pigs, and spotted calves.\nShe looked archly into the big, brown, mustached faces, smelling\nof spirits and tobacco, then she ran her tiny forefinger delicately\nover Joe's bristly chin and said, \"Here is my sweetheart.\"\n\nThe Bohemians roared with laughter, and Marie's uncle hugged her\nuntil she cried, \"Please don't, Uncle Joe! You hurt me.\" Each\nof Joe's friends gave her a bag of candy, and she kissed them all\naround, though she did not like country candy very well. Perhaps\nthat was why she bethought herself of Emil. \"Let me down, Uncle\nJoe,\" she said, \"I want to give some of my candy to that nice little\nboy I found.\" She walked graciously over to Emil, followed by her\nlusty admirers, who formed a new circle and teased the little boy\nuntil he hid his face in his sister's skirts, and she had to scold\nhim for being such a baby.\n\nThe farm people were making preparations to start for home. The\nwomen were checking over their groceries and pinning their big red\nshawls about their heads. The men were buying tobacco and candy\nwith what money they had left, were showing each other new boots and\ngloves and blue flannel shirts. Three big Bohemians were drinking\nraw alcohol, tinctured with oil of cinnamon. This was said to\nfortify one effectually against the cold, and they smacked their\nlips after each pull at the flask. Their volubility drowned every\nother noise in the place, and the overheated store sounded of\ntheir spirited language as it reeked of pipe smoke, damp woolens,\nand kerosene.\n\nCarl came in, wearing his overcoat and carrying a wooden box with\na brass handle. \"Come,\" he said, \"I've fed and watered your team,\nand the wagon is ready.\" He carried Emil out and tucked him down\nin the straw in the wagonbox. The heat had made the little boy\nsleepy, but he still clung to his kitten.\n\n\"You were awful good to climb so high and get my kitten, Carl.\nWhen I get big I'll climb and get little boys' kittens for them,\"\nhe murmured drowsily. Before the horses were over the first hill,\nEmil and his cat were both fast asleep.\n\nAlthough it was only four o'clock, the winter day was fading. The\nroad led southwest, toward the streak of pale, watery light that\nglimmered in the leaden sky. The light fell upon the two sad young\nfaces that were turned mutely toward it: upon the eyes of the girl,\nwho seemed to be looking with such anguished perplexity into the\nfuture; upon the sombre eyes of the boy, who seemed already to be\nlooking into the past. The little town behind them had vanished as\nif it had never been, had fallen behind the swell of the prairie,\nand the stern frozen country received them into its bosom. The\nhomesteads were few and far apart; here and there a windmill gaunt\nagainst the sky, a sod house crouching in a hollow. But the great\nfact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little\nbeginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes.\nIt was from facing this vast hardness that the boy's mouth had\nbecome so bitter; because he felt that men were too weak to make\nany mark here, that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve\nits own fierce strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its\nuninterrupted mournfulness.\n\nThe wagon jolted along over the frozen road. The two friends had\nless to say to each other than usual, as if the cold had somehow\npenetrated to their hearts.\n\n\"Did Lou and Oscar go to the Blue to cut wood to-day?\" Carl asked.\n\n\"Yes. I'm almost sorry I let them go, it's turned so cold. But\nmother frets if the wood gets low.\" She stopped and put her hand\nto her forehead, brushing back her hair. \"I don't know what is to\nbecome of us, Carl, if father has to die. I don't dare to think\nabout it. I wish we could all go with him and let the grass grow\nback over everything.\"\n\nCarl made no reply. Just ahead of them was the Norwegian graveyard,\nwhere the grass had, indeed, grown back over everything, shaggy and\nred, hiding even the wire fence. Carl realized that he was not a\nvery helpful companion, but there was nothing he could say.\n\n\"Of course,\" Alexandra went on, steadying her voice a little, \"the\nboys are strong and work hard, but we've always depended so on\nfather that I don't see how we can go ahead. I almost feel as if\nthere were nothing to go ahead for.\"\n\n\"Does your father know?\"\n\n\"Yes, I think he does. He lies and counts on his fingers all day.\nI think he is trying to count up what he is leaving for us. It's\na comfort to him that my chickens are laying right on through the\ncold weather and bringing in a little money. I wish we could keep\nhis mind off such things, but I don't have much time to be with\nhim now.\"\n\n\"I wonder if he'd like to have me bring my magic lantern over some\nevening?\"\n\nAlexandra turned her face toward him. \"Oh, Carl! Have you got\nit?\"\n\n\"Yes. It's back there in the straw. Didn't you notice the box\nI was carrying? I tried it all morning in the drug-store cellar,\nand it worked ever so well, makes fine big pictures.\"\n\n\"What are they about?\"\n\n\"Oh, hunting pictures in Germany, and Robinson Crusoe and funny\npictures about cannibals. I'm going to paint some slides for it\non glass, out of the Hans Andersen book.\"\n\nAlexandra seemed actually cheered. There is often a good deal of\nthe child left in people who have had to grow up too soon. \"Do\nbring it over, Carl. I can hardly wait to see it, and I'm sure it\nwill please father. Are the pictures colored? Then I know he'll\nlike them. He likes the calendars I get him in town. I wish I\ncould get more. You must leave me here, mustn't you? It's been\nnice to have company.\"\n\nCarl stopped the horses and looked dubiously up at the black sky.\n\"It's pretty dark. Of course the horses will take you home, but\nI think I'd better light your lantern, in case you should need it.\"\n\nHe gave her the reins and climbed back into the wagon-box, where\nhe crouched down and made a tent of his overcoat. After a dozen\ntrials he succeeded in lighting the lantern, which he placed in\nfront of Alexandra, half covering it with a blanket so that the\nlight would not shine in her eyes. \"Now, wait until I find my box.\nYes, here it is. Good-night, Alexandra. Try not to worry.\" Carl\nsprang to the ground and ran off across the fields toward the Linstrum\nhomestead. \"Hoo, hoo-o-o-o!\" he called back as he disappeared over\na ridge and dropped into a sand gully. The wind answered him like\nan echo, \"Hoo, hoo-o-o-o-o-o!\" Alexandra drove off alone. The\nrattle of her wagon was lost in the howling of the wind, but her\nlantern, held firmly between her feet, made a moving point of light\nalong the highway, going deeper and deeper into the dark country.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nOn one of the ridges of that wintry waste stood the low log house\nin which John Bergson was dying. The Bergson homestead was easier\nto find than many another, because it overlooked Norway Creek, a\nshallow, muddy stream that sometimes flowed, and sometimes stood\nstill, at the bottom of a winding ravine with steep, shelving sides\novergrown with brush and cottonwoods and dwarf ash. This creek\ngave a sort of identity to the farms that bordered upon it. Of all\nthe bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human\nlandmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening. The\nhouses on the Divide were small and were usually tucked away\nin low places; you did not see them until you came directly upon\nthem. Most of them were built of the sod itself, and were only\nthe unescapable ground in another form. The roads were but faint\ntracks in the grass, and the fields were scarcely noticeable. The\nrecord of the plow was insignificant, like the feeble scratches on\nstone left by prehistoric races, so indeterminate that they may,\nafter all, be only the markings of glaciers, and not a record of\nhuman strivings.\n\nIn eleven long years John Bergson had made but little impression\nupon the wild land he had come to tame. It was still a wild thing\nthat had its ugly moods; and no one knew when they were likely to\ncome, or why. Mischance hung over it. Its Genius was unfriendly\nto man. The sick man was feeling this as he lay looking out of\nthe window, after the doctor had left him, on the day following\nAlexandra's trip to town. There it lay outside his door, the same\nland, the same lead-colored miles. He knew every ridge and draw\nand gully between him and the horizon. To the south, his plowed\nfields; to the east, the sod stables, the cattle corral, the\npond,--and then the grass.\n\nBergson went over in his mind the things that had held him back.\nOne winter his cattle had perished in a blizzard. The next summer\none of his plow horses broke its leg in a prairiedog hole and had\nto be shot. Another summer he lost his hogs from cholera, and\na valuable stallion died from a rattlesnake bite. Time and again\nhis crops had failed. He had lost two children, boys, that came\nbetween Lou and Emil, and there had been the cost of sickness and\ndeath. Now, when he had at last struggled out of debt, he was\ngoing to die himself. He was only forty-six, and had, of course,\ncounted upon more time.\n\nBergson had spent his first five years on the Divide getting into\ndebt, and the last six getting out. He had paid off his mortgages\nand had ended pretty much where he began, with the land. He owned\nexactly six hundred and forty acres of what stretched outside his\ndoor; his own original homestead and timber claim, making three\nhundred and twenty acres, and the half-section adjoining, the\nhomestead of a younger brother who had given up the fight, gone\nback to Chicago to work in a fancy bakery and distinguish himself\nin a Swedish athletic club. So far John had not attempted to\ncultivate the second half-section, but used it for pasture land,\nand one of his sons rode herd there in open weather.\n\nJohn Bergson had the Old-World belief that land, in itself, is\ndesirable. But this land was an enigma. It was like a horse that\nno one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks\nthings to pieces. He had an idea that no one understood how to\nfarm it properly, and this he often discussed with Alexandra. Their\nneighbors, certainly, knew even less about farming than he did.\nMany of them had never worked on a farm until they took up their\nhomesteads. They had been HANDWERKERS at home; tailors, locksmiths,\njoiners, cigar-makers, etc. Bergson himself had worked in a\nshipyard.\n\nFor weeks, John Bergson had been thinking about these things. His\nbed stood in the sitting-room, next to the kitchen. Through the\nday, while the baking and washing and ironing were going on, the\nfather lay and looked up at the roof beams that he himself had\nhewn, or out at the cattle in the corral. He counted the cattle\nover and over. It diverted him to speculate as to how much weight\neach of the steers would probably put on by spring. He often called\nhis daughter in to talk to her about this. Before Alexandra was\ntwelve years old she had begun to be a help to him, and as she grew\nolder he had come to depend more and more upon her resourcefulness\nand good judgment. His boys were willing enough to work, but when\nhe talked with them they usually irritated him. It was Alexandra\nwho read the papers and followed the markets, and who learned by\nthe mistakes of their neighbors. It was Alexandra who could always\ntell about what it had cost to fatten each steer, and who could\nguess the weight of a hog before it went on the scales closer than\nJohn Bergson himself. Lou and Oscar were industrious, but he could\nnever teach them to use their heads about their work.\n\nAlexandra, her father often said to himself, was like her\ngrandfather; which was his way of saying that she was intelligent.\nJohn Bergson's father had been a shipbuilder, a man of considerable\nforce and of some fortune. Late in life he married a second time,\na Stockholm woman of questionable character, much younger than he,\nwho goaded him into every sort of extravagance. On the shipbuilder's\npart, this marriage was an infatuation, the despairing folly of\na powerful man who cannot bear to grow old. In a few years his\nunprincipled wife warped the probity of a lifetime. He speculated,\nlost his own fortune and funds entrusted to him by poor seafaring\nmen, and died disgraced, leaving his children nothing. But when all\nwas said, he had come up from the sea himself, had built up a proud\nlittle business with no capital but his own skill and foresight, and\nhad proved himself a man. In his daughter, John Bergson recognized\nthe strength of will, and the simple direct way of thinking things\nout, that had characterized his father in his better days. He\nwould much rather, of course, have seen this likeness in one of\nhis sons, but it was not a question of choice. As he lay there\nday after day he had to accept the situation as it was, and to be\nthankful that there was one among his children to whom he could\nentrust the future of his family and the possibilities of his\nhard-won land.\n\nThe winter twilight was fading. The sick man heard his wife strike\na match in the kitchen, and the light of a lamp glimmered through\nthe cracks of the door. It seemed like a light shining far away.\nHe turned painfully in his bed and looked at his white hands, with\nall the work gone out of them. He was ready to give up, he felt.\nHe did not know how it had come about, but he was quite willing to\ngo deep under his fields and rest, where the plow could not find\nhim. He was tired of making mistakes. He was content to leave the\ntangle to other hands; he thought of his Alexandra's strong ones.\n\n\"DOTTER,\" he called feebly, \"DOTTER!\" He heard her quick step and\nsaw her tall figure appear in the doorway, with the light of the\nlamp behind her. He felt her youth and strength, how easily she\nmoved and stooped and lifted. But he would not have had it again\nif he could, not he! He knew the end too well to wish to begin\nagain. He knew where it all went to, what it all became.\n\nHis daughter came and lifted him up on his pillows. She called\nhim by an old Swedish name that she used to call him when she was\nlittle and took his dinner to him in the shipyard.\n\n\"Tell the boys to come here, daughter. I want to speak to them.\"\n\n\"They are feeding the horses, father. They have just come back\nfrom the Blue. Shall I call them?\"\n\nHe sighed. \"No, no. Wait until they come in. Alexandra, you will\nhave to do the best you can for your brothers. Everything will\ncome on you.\"\n\n\"I will do all I can, father.\"\n\n\"Don't let them get discouraged and go off like Uncle Otto. I want\nthem to keep the land.\"\n\n\"We will, father. We will never lose the land.\"\n\nThere was a sound of heavy feet in the kitchen. Alexandra went\nto the door and beckoned to her brothers, two strapping boys of\nseventeen and nineteen. They came in and stood at the foot of the\nbed. Their father looked at them searchingly, though it was too\ndark to see their faces; they were just the same boys, he told\nhimself, he had not been mistaken in them. The square head and\nheavy shoulders belonged to Oscar, the elder. The younger boy was\nquicker, but vacillating.\n\n\"Boys,\" said the father wearily, \"I want you to keep the land\ntogether and to be guided by your sister. I have talked to her\nsince I have been sick, and she knows all my wishes. I want no\nquarrels among my children, and so long as there is one house there\nmust be one head. Alexandra is the oldest, and she knows my wishes.\nShe will do the best she can. If she makes mistakes, she will not\nmake so many as I have made. When you marry, and want a house of\nyour own, the land will be divided fairly, according to the courts.\nBut for the next few years you will have it hard, and you must all\nkeep together. Alexandra will manage the best she can.\"\n\nOscar, who was usually the last to speak, replied because he\nwas the older, \"Yes, father. It would be so anyway, without your\nspeaking. We will all work the place together.\"\n\n\"And you will be guided by your sister, boys, and be good brothers\nto her, and good sons to your mother? That is good. And Alexandra\nmust not work in the fields any more. There is no necessity now.\nHire a man when you need help. She can make much more with her\neggs and butter than the wages of a man. It was one of my mistakes\nthat I did not find that out sooner. Try to break a little more\nland every year; sod corn is good for fodder. Keep turning the\nland, and always put up more hay than you need. Don't grudge your\nmother a little time for plowing her garden and setting out fruit\ntrees, even if it comes in a busy season. She has been a good\nmother to you, and she has always missed the old country.\"\n\nWhen they went back to the kitchen the boys sat down silently at\nthe table. Throughout the meal they looked down at their plates\nand did not lift their red eyes. They did not eat much, although\nthey had been working in the cold all day, and there was a rabbit\nstewed in gravy for supper, and prune pies.\n\nJohn Bergson had married beneath him, but he had married a good\nhousewife. Mrs. Bergson was a fair-skinned, corpulent woman, heavy\nand placid like her son, Oscar, but there was something comfortable\nabout her; perhaps it was her own love of comfort. For eleven years\nshe had worthily striven to maintain some semblance of household\norder amid conditions that made order very difficult. Habit\nwas very strong with Mrs. Bergson, and her unremitting efforts to\nrepeat the routine of her old life among new surroundings had done\na great deal to keep the family from disintegrating morally and\ngetting careless in their ways. The Bergsons had a log house, for\ninstance, only because Mrs. Bergson would not live in a sod house.\nShe missed the fish diet of her own country, and twice every summer\nshe sent the boys to the river, twenty miles to the southward, to\nfish for channel cat. When the children were little she used to\nload them all into the wagon, the baby in its crib, and go fishing\nherself.\n\nAlexandra often said that if her mother were cast upon a desert\nisland, she would thank God for her deliverance, make a garden,\nand find something to preserve. Preserving was almost a mania with\nMrs. Bergson. Stout as she was, she roamed the scrubby banks of\nNorway Creek looking for fox grapes and goose plums, like a wild\ncreature in search of prey. She made a yellow jam of the insipid\nground-cherries that grew on the prairie, flavoring it with lemon\npeel; and she made a sticky dark conserve of garden tomatoes. She\nhad experimented even with the rank buffalo-pea, and she could\nnot see a fine bronze cluster of them without shaking her head and\nmurmuring, \"What a pity!\" When there was nothing more to preserve,\nshe began to pickle. The amount of sugar she used in these processes\nwas sometimes a serious drain upon the family resources. She was\na good mother, but she was glad when her children were old enough\nnot to be in her way in the kitchen. She had never quite forgiven\nJohn Bergson for bringing her to the end of the earth; but, now\nthat she was there, she wanted to be let alone to reconstruct her\nold life in so far as that was possible. She could still take some\ncomfort in the world if she had bacon in the cave, glass jars on\nthe shelves, and sheets in the press. She disapproved of all her\nneighbors because of their slovenly housekeeping, and the women\nthought her very proud. Once when Mrs. Bergson, on her way to\nNorway Creek, stopped to see old Mrs. Lee, the old woman hid in\nthe haymow \"for fear Mis' Bergson would catch her barefoot.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nOne Sunday afternoon in July, six months after John Bergson's death,\nCarl was sitting in the doorway of the Linstrum kitchen, dreaming\nover an illustrated paper, when he heard the rattle of a wagon along\nthe hill road. Looking up he recognized the Bergsons' team, with\ntwo seats in the wagon, which meant they were off for a pleasure\nexcursion. Oscar and Lou, on the front seat, wore their cloth hats\nand coats, never worn except on Sundays, and Emil, on the second\nseat with Alexandra, sat proudly in his new trousers, made from a\npair of his father's, and a pink-striped shirt, with a wide ruffled\ncollar. Oscar stopped the horses and waved to Carl, who caught up\nhis hat and ran through the melon patch to join them.\n\n\"Want to go with us?\" Lou called. \"We're going to Crazy Ivar's to\nbuy a hammock.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Carl ran up panting, and clambering over the wheel sat\ndown beside Emil. \"I've always wanted to see Ivar's pond. They\nsay it's the biggest in all the country. Aren't you afraid to go\nto Ivar's in that new shirt, Emil? He might want it and take it\nright off your back.\"\n\nEmil grinned. \"I'd be awful scared to go,\" he admitted, \"if you\nbig boys weren't along to take care of me. Did you ever hear him\nhowl, Carl? People say sometimes he runs about the country howling\nat night because he is afraid the Lord will destroy him. Mother\nthinks he must have done something awful wicked.\"\n\nLou looked back and winked at Carl. \"What would you do, Emil, if\nyou was out on the prairie by yourself and seen him coming?\"\n\nEmil stared. \"Maybe I could hide in a badger-hole,\" he suggested\ndoubtfully.\n\n\"But suppose there wasn't any badger-hole,\" Lou persisted. \"Would\nyou run?\"\n\n\"No, I'd be too scared to run,\" Emil admitted mournfully, twisting\nhis fingers. \"I guess I'd sit right down on the ground and say my\nprayers.\"\n\nThe big boys laughed, and Oscar brandished his whip over the broad\nbacks of the horses.\n\n\"He wouldn't hurt you, Emil,\" said Carl persuasively. \"He came\nto doctor our mare when she ate green corn and swelled up most as\nbig as the water-tank. He petted her just like you do your cats.\nI couldn't understand much he said, for he don't talk any English,\nbut he kept patting her and groaning as if he had the pain himself,\nand saying, 'There now, sister, that's easier, that's better!'\"\n\nLou and Oscar laughed, and Emil giggled delightedly and looked up\nat his sister.\n\n\"I don't think he knows anything at all about doctoring,\" said\nOscar scornfully. \"They say when horses have distemper he takes\nthe medicine himself, and then prays over the horses.\"\n\nAlexandra spoke up. \"That's what the Crows said, but he cured\ntheir horses, all the same. Some days his mind is cloudy, like.\nBut if you can get him on a clear day, you can learn a great deal\nfrom him. He understands animals. Didn't I see him take the horn\noff the Berquist's cow when she had torn it loose and went crazy?\nShe was tearing all over the place, knocking herself against things.\nAnd at last she ran out on the roof of the old dugout and her legs\nwent through and there she stuck, bellowing. Ivar came running\nwith his white bag, and the moment he got to her she was quiet and\nlet him saw her horn off and daub the place with tar.\"\n\nEmil had been watching his sister, his face reflecting the sufferings\nof the cow. \"And then didn't it hurt her any more?\" he asked.\n\nAlexandra patted him. \"No, not any more. And in two days they\ncould use her milk again.\"\n\nThe road to Ivar's homestead was a very poor one. He had settled\nin the rough country across the county line, where no one lived but\nsome Russians,--half a dozen families who dwelt together in one long\nhouse, divided off like barracks. Ivar had explained his choice\nby saying that the fewer neighbors he had, the fewer temptations.\nNevertheless, when one considered that his chief business was\nhorse-doctoring, it seemed rather short-sighted of him to live in the\nmost inaccessible place he could find. The Bergson wagon lurched\nalong over the rough hummocks and grass banks, followed the bottom\nof winding draws, or skirted the margin of wide lagoons, where the\ngolden coreopsis grew up out of the clear water and the wild ducks\nrose with a whirr of wings.\n\nLou looked after them helplessly. \"I wish I'd brought my gun,\nanyway, Alexandra,\" he said fretfully. \"I could have hidden it\nunder the straw in the bottom of the wagon.\"\n\n\"Then we'd have had to lie to Ivar. Besides, they say he can smell\ndead birds. And if he knew, we wouldn't get anything out of him,\nnot even a hammock. I want to talk to him, and he won't talk sense\nif he's angry. It makes him foolish.\"\n\nLou sniffed. \"Whoever heard of him talking sense, anyhow! I'd\nrather have ducks for supper than Crazy Ivar's tongue.\"\n\nEmil was alarmed. \"Oh, but, Lou, you don't want to make him mad!\nHe might howl!\"\n\nThey all laughed again, and Oscar urged the horses up the crumbling\nside of a clay bank. They had left the lagoons and the red grass\nbehind them. In Crazy Ivar's country the grass was short and gray,\nthe draws deeper than they were in the Bergsons' neighborhood,\nand the land was all broken up into hillocks and clay ridges. The\nwild flowers disappeared, and only in the bottom of the draws and\ngullies grew a few of the very toughest and hardiest: shoestring,\nand ironweed, and snow-on-the-mountain.\n\n\"Look, look, Emil, there's Ivar's big pond!\" Alexandra pointed to\na shining sheet of water that lay at the bottom of a shallow draw.\nAt one end of the pond was an earthen dam, planted with green willow\nbushes, and above it a door and a single window were set into the\nhillside. You would not have seen them at all but for the reflection\nof the sunlight upon the four panes of window-glass. And that was\nall you saw. Not a shed, not a corral, not a well, not even a path\nbroken in the curly grass. But for the piece of rusty stovepipe\nsticking up through the sod, you could have walked over the roof\nof Ivar's dwelling without dreaming that you were near a human\nhabitation. Ivar had lived for three years in the clay bank,\nwithout defiling the face of nature any more than the coyote that\nhad lived there before him had done.\n\nWhen the Bergsons drove over the hill, Ivar was sitting in the\ndoorway of his house, reading the Norwegian Bible. He was a queerly\nshaped old man, with a thick, powerful body set on short bow-legs.\nHis shaggy white hair, falling in a thick mane about his ruddy\ncheeks, made him look older than he was. He was barefoot, but\nhe wore a clean shirt of unbleached cotton, open at the neck. He\nalways put on a clean shirt when Sunday morning came round, though\nhe never went to church. He had a peculiar religion of his own\nand could not get on with any of the denominations. Often he did\nnot see anybody from one week's end to another. He kept a calendar,\nand every morning he checked off a day, so that he was never in\nany doubt as to which day of the week it was. Ivar hired himself\nout in threshing and corn-husking time, and he doctored sick animals\nwhen he was sent for. When he was at home, he made hammocks out\nof twine and committed chapters of the Bible to memory.\n\nIvar found contentment in the solitude he had sought out for himself.\nHe disliked the litter of human dwellings: the broken food, the\nbits of broken china, the old wash-boilers and tea-kettles thrown\ninto the sunflower patch. He preferred the cleanness and tidiness of\nthe wild sod. He always said that the badgers had cleaner houses\nthan people, and that when he took a housekeeper her name would\nbe Mrs. Badger. He best expressed his preference for his wild\nhomestead by saying that his Bible seemed truer to him there. If\none stood in the doorway of his cave, and looked off at the rough\nland, the smiling sky, the curly grass white in the hot sunlight;\nif one listened to the rapturous song of the lark, the drumming of\nthe quail, the burr of the locust against that vast silence, one\nunderstood what Ivar meant.\n\nOn this Sunday afternoon his face shone with happiness. He closed\nthe book on his knee, keeping the place with his horny finger, and\nrepeated softly:--\n\n  He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills;\n\n  They give drink to every beast of the field; the wild asses quench\n  their thirst.\n\n  The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon which\n  he hath planted;\n\n  Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees\n  are her house.\n\n  The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; and the rocks for\n  the conies.\n\nBefore he opened his Bible again, Ivar heard the Bergsons' wagon\napproaching, and he sprang up and ran toward it.\n\n\"No guns, no guns!\" he shouted, waving his arms distractedly.\n\n\"No, Ivar, no guns,\" Alexandra called reassuringly.\n\nHe dropped his arms and went up to the wagon, smiling amiably and\nlooking at them out of his pale blue eyes.\n\n\"We want to buy a hammock, if you have one,\" Alexandra explained,\n\"and my little brother, here, wants to see your big pond, where so\nmany birds come.\"\n\nIvar smiled foolishly, and began rubbing the horses' noses and\nfeeling about their mouths behind the bits. \"Not many birds just\nnow. A few ducks this morning; and some snipe come to drink. But\nthere was a crane last week. She spent one night and came back the\nnext evening. I don't know why. It is not her season, of course.\nMany of them go over in the fall. Then the pond is full of strange\nvoices every night.\"\n\nAlexandra translated for Carl, who looked thoughtful. \"Ask him,\nAlexandra, if it is true that a sea gull came here once. I have\nheard so.\"\n\nShe had some difficulty in making the old man understand.\n\nHe looked puzzled at first, then smote his hands together as he\nremembered. \"Oh, yes, yes! A big white bird with long wings and\npink feet. My! what a voice she had! She came in the afternoon\nand kept flying about the pond and screaming until dark. She was\nin trouble of some sort, but I could not understand her. She was\ngoing over to the other ocean, maybe, and did not know how far it\nwas. She was afraid of never getting there. She was more mournful\nthan our birds here; she cried in the night. She saw the light\nfrom my window and darted up to it. Maybe she thought my house\nwas a boat, she was such a wild thing. Next morning, when the sun\nrose, I went out to take her food, but she flew up into the sky\nand went on her way.\" Ivar ran his fingers through his thick hair.\n\"I have many strange birds stop with me here. They come from very\nfar away and are great company. I hope you boys never shoot wild\nbirds?\"\n\nLou and Oscar grinned, and Ivar shook his bushy head. \"Yes, I know\nboys are thoughtless. But these wild things are God's birds. He\nwatches over them and counts them, as we do our cattle; Christ says\nso in the New Testament.\"\n\n\"Now, Ivar,\" Lou asked, \"may we water our horses at your pond and\ngive them some feed? It's a bad road to your place.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, it is.\" The old man scrambled about and began to loose\nthe tugs. \"A bad road, eh, girls? And the bay with a colt at\nhome!\"\n\nOscar brushed the old man aside. \"We'll take care of the horses,\nIvar. You'll be finding some disease on them. Alexandra wants to\nsee your hammocks.\"\n\nIvar led Alexandra and Emil to his little cave house. He had but\none room, neatly plastered and whitewashed, and there was a wooden\nfloor. There was a kitchen stove, a table covered with oilcloth,\ntwo chairs, a clock, a calendar, a few books on the window-shelf;\nnothing more. But the place was as clean as a cupboard.\n\n\"But where do you sleep, Ivar?\" Emil asked, looking about.\n\nIvar unslung a hammock from a hook on the wall; in it was rolled\na buffalo robe. \"There, my son. A hammock is a good bed, and in\nwinter I wrap up in this skin. Where I go to work, the beds are\nnot half so easy as this.\"\n\nBy this time Emil had lost all his timidity. He thought a cave a\nvery superior kind of house. There was something pleasantly unusual\nabout it and about Ivar. \"Do the birds know you will be kind to\nthem, Ivar? Is that why so many come?\" he asked.\n\nIvar sat down on the floor and tucked his feet under him. \"See,\nlittle brother, they have come from a long way, and they are very\ntired. From up there where they are flying, our country looks dark\nand flat. They must have water to drink and to bathe in before\nthey can go on with their journey. They look this way and that,\nand far below them they see something shining, like a piece of glass\nset in the dark earth. That is my pond. They come to it and are\nnot disturbed. Maybe I sprinkle a little corn. They tell the other\nbirds, and next year more come this way. They have their roads up\nthere, as we have down here.\"\n\nEmil rubbed his knees thoughtfully. \"And is that true, Ivar, about\nthe head ducks falling back when they are tired, and the hind ones\ntaking their place?\"\n\n\"Yes. The point of the wedge gets the worst of it; they cut the\nwind. They can only stand it there a little while--half an hour,\nmaybe. Then they fall back and the wedge splits a little, while\nthe rear ones come up the middle to the front. Then it closes up\nand they fly on, with a new edge. They are always changing like\nthat, up in the air. Never any confusion; just like soldiers who\nhave been drilled.\"\n\nAlexandra had selected her hammock by the time the boys came up\nfrom the pond. They would not come in, but sat in the shade of\nthe bank outside while Alexandra and Ivar talked about the birds\nand about his housekeeping, and why he never ate meat, fresh or\nsalt.\n\nAlexandra was sitting on one of the wooden chairs, her arms resting\non the table. Ivar was sitting on the floor at her feet. \"Ivar,\"\nshe said suddenly, beginning to trace the pattern on the oilcloth\nwith her forefinger, \"I came to-day more because I wanted to talk\nto you than because I wanted to buy a hammock.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" The old man scraped his bare feet on the plank floor.\n\n\"We have a big bunch of hogs, Ivar. I wouldn't sell in the spring,\nwhen everybody advised me to, and now so many people are losing\ntheir hogs that I am frightened. What can be done?\"\n\nIvar's little eyes began to shine. They lost their vagueness.\n\n\"You feed them swill and such stuff? Of course! And sour milk?\nOh, yes! And keep them in a stinking pen? I tell you, sister,\nthe hogs of this country are put upon! They become unclean, like\nthe hogs in the Bible. If you kept your chickens like that, what\nwould happen? You have a little sorghum patch, maybe? Put a fence\naround it, and turn the hogs in. Build a shed to give them shade,\na thatch on poles. Let the boys haul water to them in barrels,\nclean water, and plenty. Get them off the old stinking ground, and\ndo not let them go back there until winter. Give them only grain\nand clean feed, such as you would give horses or cattle. Hogs do\nnot like to be filthy.\"\n\nThe boys outside the door had been listening. Lou nudged his\nbrother. \"Come, the horses are done eating. Let's hitch up and\nget out of here. He'll fill her full of notions. She'll be for\nhaving the pigs sleep with us, next.\"\n\nOscar grunted and got up. Carl, who could not understand what Ivar\nsaid, saw that the two boys were displeased. They did not mind\nhard work, but they hated experiments and could never see the use\nof taking pains. Even Lou, who was more elastic than his older\nbrother, disliked to do anything different from their neighbors.\nHe felt that it made them conspicuous and gave people a chance to\ntalk about them.\n\nOnce they were on the homeward road, the boys forgot their ill-humor\nand joked about Ivar and his birds. Alexandra did not propose any\nreforms in the care of the pigs, and they hoped she had forgotten\nIvar's talk. They agreed that he was crazier than ever, and would\nnever be able to prove up on his land because he worked it so little.\nAlexandra privately resolved that she would have a talk with Ivar\nabout this and stir him up. The boys persuaded Carl to stay for\nsupper and go swimming in the pasture pond after dark.\n\nThat evening, after she had washed the supper dishes, Alexandra\nsat down on the kitchen doorstep, while her mother was mixing the\nbread. It was a still, deep-breathing summer night, full of the\nsmell of the hay fields. Sounds of laughter and splashing came\nup from the pasture, and when the moon rose rapidly above the bare\nrim of the prairie, the pond glittered like polished metal, and\nshe could see the flash of white bodies as the boys ran about the\nedge, or jumped into the water. Alexandra watched the shimmering\npool dreamily, but eventually her eyes went back to the sorghum\npatch south of the barn, where she was planning to make her new\npig corral.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nFor the first three years after John Bergson's death, the affairs\nof his family prospered. Then came the hard times that brought\nevery one on the Divide to the brink of despair; three years of\ndrouth and failure, the last struggle of a wild soil against the\nencroaching plowshare. The first of these fruitless summers the\nBergson boys bore courageously. The failure of the corn crop made\nlabor cheap. Lou and Oscar hired two men and put in bigger crops\nthan ever before. They lost everything they spent. The whole\ncountry was discouraged. Farmers who were already in debt had to\ngive up their land. A few foreclosures demoralized the county.\nThe settlers sat about on the wooden sidewalks in the little town\nand told each other that the country was never meant for men to live\nin; the thing to do was to get back to Iowa, to Illinois, to any\nplace that had been proved habitable. The Bergson boys, certainly,\nwould have been happier with their uncle Otto, in the bakery shop\nin Chicago. Like most of their neighbors, they were meant to follow\nin paths already marked out for them, not to break trails in a new\ncountry. A steady job, a few holidays, nothing to think about, and\nthey would have been very happy. It was no fault of theirs that\nthey had been dragged into the wilderness when they were little\nboys. A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy\nthe idea of things more than the things themselves.\n\nThe second of these barren summers was passing. One September\nafternoon Alexandra had gone over to the garden across the draw to\ndig sweet potatoes--they had been thriving upon the weather that\nwas fatal to everything else. But when Carl Linstrum came up the\ngarden rows to find her, she was not working. She was standing\nlost in thought, leaning upon her pitchfork, her sunbonnet lying\nbeside her on the ground. The dry garden patch smelled of drying\nvines and was strewn with yellow seed-cucumbers and pumpkins and\ncitrons. At one end, next the rhubarb, grew feathery asparagus,\nwith red berries. Down the middle of the garden was a row of\ngooseberry and currant bushes. A few tough zenias and marigolds\nand a row of scarlet sage bore witness to the buckets of water\nthat Mrs. Bergson had carried there after sundown, against the\nprohibition of her sons. Carl came quietly and slowly up the garden\npath, looking intently at Alexandra. She did not hear him. She was\nstanding perfectly still, with that serious ease so characteristic\nof her. Her thick, reddish braids, twisted about her head, fairly\nburned in the sunlight. The air was cool enough to make the warm\nsun pleasant on one's back and shoulders, and so clear that the\neye could follow a hawk up and up, into the blazing blue depths of\nthe sky. Even Carl, never a very cheerful boy, and considerably\ndarkened by these last two bitter years, loved the country on days\nlike this, felt something strong and young and wild come out of\nit, that laughed at care.\n\n\"Alexandra,\" he said as he approached her, \"I want to talk to you.\nLet's sit down by the gooseberry bushes.\" He picked up her sack\nof potatoes and they crossed the garden. \"Boys gone to town?\" he\nasked as he sank down on the warm, sun-baked earth. \"Well, we have\nmade up our minds at last, Alexandra. We are really going away.\"\n\nShe looked at him as if she were a little frightened. \"Really,\nCarl? Is it settled?\"\n\n\"Yes, father has heard from St. Louis, and they will give him back\nhis old job in the cigar factory. He must be there by the first\nof November. They are taking on new men then. We will sell the\nplace for whatever we can get, and auction the stock. We haven't\nenough to ship. I am going to learn engraving with a German engraver\nthere, and then try to get work in Chicago.\"\n\nAlexandra's hands dropped in her lap. Her eyes became dreamy and\nfilled with tears.\n\nCarl's sensitive lower lip trembled. He scratched in the soft earth\nbeside him with a stick. \"That's all I hate about it, Alexandra,\"\nhe said slowly. \"You've stood by us through so much and helped\nfather out so many times, and now it seems as if we were running\noff and leaving you to face the worst of it. But it isn't as if\nwe could really ever be of any help to you. We are only one more\ndrag, one more thing you look out for and feel responsible for.\nFather was never meant for a farmer, you know that. And I hate\nit. We'd only get in deeper and deeper.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, Carl, I know. You are wasting your life here. You are\nable to do much better things. You are nearly nineteen now, and\nI wouldn't have you stay. I've always hoped you would get away.\nBut I can't help feeling scared when I think how I will miss\nyou--more than you will ever know.\" She brushed the tears from her\ncheeks, not trying to hide them.\n\n\"But, Alexandra,\" he said sadly and wistfully, \"I've never been\nany real help to you, beyond sometimes trying to keep the boys in\na good humor.\"\n\nAlexandra smiled and shook her head. \"Oh, it's not that. Nothing\nlike that. It's by understanding me, and the boys, and mother,\nthat you've helped me. I expect that is the only way one person\never really can help another. I think you are about the only one\nthat ever helped me. Somehow it will take more courage to bear\nyour going than everything that has happened before.\"\n\nCarl looked at the ground. \"You see, we've all depended so on you,\"\nhe said, \"even father. He makes me laugh. When anything comes up\nhe always says, 'I wonder what the Bergsons are going to do about\nthat? I guess I'll go and ask her.' I'll never forget that time,\nwhen we first came here, and our horse had the colic, and I ran\nover to your place--your father was away, and you came home with me\nand showed father how to let the wind out of the horse. You were\nonly a little girl then, but you knew ever so much more about farm\nwork than poor father. You remember how homesick I used to get,\nand what long talks we used to have coming from school? We've\nsomeway always felt alike about things.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's it; we've liked the same things and we've liked them\ntogether, without anybody else knowing. And we've had good times,\nhunting for Christmas trees and going for ducks and making our plum\nwine together every year. We've never either of us had any other\nclose friend. And now--\" Alexandra wiped her eyes with the corner\nof her apron, \"and now I must remember that you are going where\nyou will have many friends, and will find the work you were meant\nto do. But you'll write to me, Carl? That will mean a great deal\nto me here.\"\n\n\"I'll write as long as I live,\" cried the boy impetuously. \"And\nI'll be working for you as much as for myself, Alexandra. I want\nto do something you'll like and be proud of. I'm a fool here, but\nI know I can do something!\" He sat up and frowned at the red grass.\n\nAlexandra sighed. \"How discouraged the boys will be when they\nhear. They always come home from town discouraged, anyway. So\nmany people are trying to leave the country, and they talk to our\nboys and make them low-spirited. I'm afraid they are beginning to\nfeel hard toward me because I won't listen to any talk about going.\nSometimes I feel like I'm getting tired of standing up for this\ncountry.\"\n\n\"I won't tell the boys yet, if you'd rather not.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll tell them myself, to-night, when they come home. They'll\nbe talking wild, anyway, and no good comes of keeping bad news.\nIt's all harder on them than it is on me. Lou wants to get married,\npoor boy, and he can't until times are better. See, there goes the\nsun, Carl. I must be getting back. Mother will want her potatoes.\nIt's chilly already, the moment the light goes.\"\n\nAlexandra rose and looked about. A golden afterglow throbbed in\nthe west, but the country already looked empty and mournful. A dark\nmoving mass came over the western hill, the Lee boy was bringing in\nthe herd from the other half-section. Emil ran from the windmill\nto open the corral gate. From the log house, on the little rise\nacross the draw, the smoke was curling. The cattle lowed and\nbellowed. In the sky the pale half-moon was slowly silvering.\nAlexandra and Carl walked together down the potato rows. \"I have\nto keep telling myself what is going to happen,\" she said softly.\n\"Since you have been here, ten years now, I have never really been\nlonely. But I can remember what it was like before. Now I shall\nhave nobody but Emil. But he is my boy, and he is tender-hearted.\"\n\nThat night, when the boys were called to supper, they sat down\nmoodily. They had worn their coats to town, but they ate in their\nstriped shirts and suspenders. They were grown men now, and, as\nAlexandra said, for the last few years they had been growing more\nand more like themselves. Lou was still the slighter of the two,\nthe quicker and more intelligent, but apt to go off at half-cock.\nHe had a lively blue eye, a thin, fair skin (always burned red to\nthe neckband of his shirt in summer), stiff, yellow hair that would\nnot lie down on his head, and a bristly little yellow mustache,\nof which he was very proud. Oscar could not grow a mustache; his\npale face was as bare as an egg, and his white eyebrows gave it an\nempty look. He was a man of powerful body and unusual endurance;\nthe sort of man you could attach to a corn-sheller as you would\nan engine. He would turn it all day, without hurrying, without\nslowing down. But he was as indolent of mind as he was unsparing\nof his body. His love of routine amounted to a vice. He worked\nlike an insect, always doing the same thing over in the same way,\nregardless of whether it was best or no. He felt that there was\na sovereign virtue in mere bodily toil, and he rather liked to\ndo things in the hardest way. If a field had once been in corn,\nhe couldn't bear to put it into wheat. He liked to begin his\ncorn-planting at the same time every year, whether the season were\nbackward or forward. He seemed to feel that by his own irreproachable\nregularity he would clear himself of blame and reprove the weather.\nWhen the wheat crop failed, he threshed the straw at a dead loss\nto demonstrate how little grain there was, and thus prove his case\nagainst Providence.\n\nLou, on the other hand, was fussy and flighty; always planned to\nget through two days' work in one, and often got only the least\nimportant things done. He liked to keep the place up, but he never\ngot round to doing odd jobs until he had to neglect more pressing\nwork to attend to them. In the middle of the wheat harvest, when\nthe grain was over-ripe and every hand was needed, he would stop\nto mend fences or to patch the harness; then dash down to the\nfield and overwork and be laid up in bed for a week. The two boys\nbalanced each other, and they pulled well together. They had been\ngood friends since they were children. One seldom went anywhere,\neven to town, without the other.\n\nTo-night, after they sat down to supper, Oscar kept looking at Lou\nas if he expected him to say something, and Lou blinked his eyes\nand frowned at his plate. It was Alexandra herself who at last\nopened the discussion.\n\n\"The Linstrums,\" she said calmly, as she put another plate of hot\nbiscuit on the table, \"are going back to St. Louis. The old man\nis going to work in the cigar factory again.\"\n\nAt this Lou plunged in. \"You see, Alexandra, everybody who can\ncrawl out is going away. There's no use of us trying to stick it\nout, just to be stubborn. There's something in knowing when to\nquit.\"\n\n\"Where do you want to go, Lou?\"\n\n\"Any place where things will grow,\" said Oscar grimly.\n\nLou reached for a potato. \"Chris Arnson has traded his half-section\nfor a place down on the river.\"\n\n\"Who did he trade with?\"\n\n\"Charley Fuller, in town.\"\n\n\"Fuller the real estate man? You see, Lou, that Fuller has a head\non him. He's buying and trading for every bit of land he can get\nup here. It'll make him a rich man, some day.\"\n\n\"He's rich now, that's why he can take a chance.\"\n\n\"Why can't we? We'll live longer than he will. Some day the land\nitself will be worth more than all we can ever raise on it.\"\n\nLou laughed. \"It could be worth that, and still not be worth\nmuch. Why, Alexandra, you don't know what you're talking about.\nOur place wouldn't bring now what it would six years ago. The\nfellows that settled up here just made a mistake. Now they're\nbeginning to see this high land wasn't never meant to grow nothing\non, and everybody who ain't fixed to graze cattle is trying to\ncrawl out. It's too high to farm up here. All the Americans are\nskinning out. That man Percy Adams, north of town, told me that\nhe was going to let Fuller take his land and stuff for four hundred\ndollars and a ticket to Chicago.\"\n\n\"There's Fuller again!\" Alexandra exclaimed. \"I wish that man\nwould take me for a partner. He's feathering his nest! If only\npoor people could learn a little from rich people! But all these\nfellows who are running off are bad farmers, like poor Mr. Linstrum.\nThey couldn't get ahead even in good years, and they all got into\ndebt while father was getting out. I think we ought to hold on as\nlong as we can on father's account. He was so set on keeping this\nland. He must have seen harder times than this, here. How was it\nin the early days, mother?\"\n\nMrs. Bergson was weeping quietly. These family discussions always\ndepressed her, and made her remember all that she had been torn\naway from. \"I don't see why the boys are always taking on about\ngoing away,\" she said, wiping her eyes. \"I don't want to move\nagain; out to some raw place, maybe, where we'd be worse off than\nwe are here, and all to do over again. I won't move! If the rest\nof you go, I will ask some of the neighbors to take me in, and stay\nand be buried by father. I'm not going to leave him by himself\non the prairie, for cattle to run over.\" She began to cry more\nbitterly.\n\nThe boys looked angry. Alexandra put a soothing hand on her mother's\nshoulder. \"There's no question of that, mother. You don't have\nto go if you don't want to. A third of the place belongs to you\nby American law, and we can't sell without your consent. We only\nwant you to advise us. How did it use to be when you and father\nfirst came? Was it really as bad as this, or not?\"\n\n\"Oh, worse! Much worse,\" moaned Mrs. Bergson. \"Drouth, chince-bugs,\nhail, everything! My garden all cut to pieces like sauerkraut. No\ngrapes on the creek, no nothing. The people all lived just like\ncoyotes.\"\n\nOscar got up and tramped out of the kitchen. Lou followed him.\nThey felt that Alexandra had taken an unfair advantage in turning\ntheir mother loose on them. The next morning they were silent and\nreserved. They did not offer to take the women to church, but went\ndown to the barn immediately after breakfast and stayed there all\nday. When Carl Linstrum came over in the afternoon, Alexandra\nwinked to him and pointed toward the barn. He understood her and\nwent down to play cards with the boys. They believed that a very\nwicked thing to do on Sunday, and it relieved their feelings.\n\nAlexandra stayed in the house. On Sunday afternoon Mrs. Bergson\nalways took a nap, and Alexandra read. During the week she read\nonly the newspaper, but on Sunday, and in the long evenings of\nwinter, she read a good deal; read a few things over a great many\ntimes. She knew long portions of the \"Frithjof Saga\" by heart,\nand, like most Swedes who read at all, she was fond of Longfellow's\nverse,--the ballads and the \"Golden Legend\" and \"The Spanish Student.\"\nTo-day she sat in the wooden rocking-chair with the Swedish Bible\nopen on her knees, but she was not reading. She was looking\nthoughtfully away at the point where the upland road disappeared\nover the rim of the prairie. Her body was in an attitude of perfect\nrepose, such as it was apt to take when she was thinking earnestly.\nHer mind was slow, truthful, steadfast. She had not the least\nspark of cleverness.\n\nAll afternoon the sitting-room was full of quiet and sunlight.\nEmil was making rabbit traps in the kitchen shed. The hens were\nclucking and scratching brown holes in the flower beds, and the\nwind was teasing the prince's feather by the door.\n\nThat evening Carl came in with the boys to supper.\n\n\"Emil,\" said Alexandra, when they were all seated at the table,\n\"how would you like to go traveling? Because I am going to take\na trip, and you can go with me if you want to.\"\n\nThe boys looked up in amazement; they were always afraid of\nAlexandra's schemes. Carl was interested.\n\n\"I've been thinking, boys,\" she went on, \"that maybe I am too set\nagainst making a change. I'm going to take Brigham and the buckboard\nto-morrow and drive down to the river country and spend a few days\nlooking over what they've got down there. If I find anything good,\nyou boys can go down and make a trade.\"\n\n\"Nobody down there will trade for anything up here,\" said Oscar\ngloomily.\n\n\"That's just what I want to find out. Maybe they are just as\ndiscontented down there as we are up here. Things away from home\noften look better than they are. You know what your Hans Andersen\nbook says, Carl, about the Swedes liking to buy Danish bread and\nthe Danes liking to buy Swedish bread, because people always think\nthe bread of another country is better than their own. Anyway,\nI've heard so much about the river farms, I won't be satisfied till\nI've seen for myself.\"\n\nLou fidgeted. \"Look out! Don't agree to anything. Don't let them\nfool you.\"\n\nLou was apt to be fooled himself. He had not yet learned to keep\naway from the shell-game wagons that followed the circus.\n\nAfter supper Lou put on a necktie and went across the fields to\ncourt Annie Lee, and Carl and Oscar sat down to a game of checkers,\nwhile Alexandra read \"The Swiss Family Robinson\" aloud to her mother\nand Emil. It was not long before the two boys at the table neglected\ntheir game to listen. They were all big children together, and they\nfound the adventures of the family in the tree house so absorbing\nthat they gave them their undivided attention.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nAlexandra and Emil spent five days down among the river farms,\ndriving up and down the valley. Alexandra talked to the men about\ntheir crops and to the women about their poultry. She spent a\nwhole day with one young farmer who had been away at school, and\nwho was experimenting with a new kind of clover hay. She learned\na great deal. As they drove along, she and Emil talked and planned.\nAt last, on the sixth day, Alexandra turned Brigham's head northward\nand left the river behind.\n\n\"There's nothing in it for us down there, Emil. There are a few\nfine farms, but they are owned by the rich men in town, and couldn't\nbe bought. Most of the land is rough and hilly. They can always\nscrape along down there, but they can never do anything big. Down\nthere they have a little certainty, but up with us there is a big\nchance. We must have faith in the high land, Emil. I want to hold\non harder than ever, and when you're a man you'll thank me.\" She\nurged Brigham forward.\n\nWhen the road began to climb the first long swells of the Divide,\nAlexandra hummed an old Swedish hymn, and Emil wondered why his\nsister looked so happy. Her face was so radiant that he felt shy\nabout asking her. For the first time, perhaps, since that land\nemerged from the waters of geologic ages, a human face was set toward\nit with love and yearning. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and\nstrong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it, until\nher tears blinded her. Then the Genius of the Divide, the great,\nfree spirit which breathes across it, must have bent lower than\nit ever bent to a human will before. The history of every country\nbegins in the heart of a man or a woman.\n\nAlexandra reached home in the afternoon. That evening she held\na family council and told her brothers all that she had seen and\nheard.\n\n\"I want you boys to go down yourselves and look it over. Nothing\nwill convince you like seeing with your own eyes. The river land\nwas settled before this, and so they are a few years ahead of us,\nand have learned more about farming. The land sells for three\ntimes as much as this, but in five years we will double it. The\nrich men down there own all the best land, and they are buying\nall they can get. The thing to do is to sell our cattle and what\nlittle old corn we have, and buy the Linstrum place. Then the next\nthing to do is to take out two loans on our half-sections, and buy\nPeter Crow's place; raise every dollar we can, and buy every acre\nwe can.\"\n\n\"Mortgage the homestead again?\" Lou cried. He sprang up and began\nto wind the clock furiously. \"I won't slave to pay off another\nmortgage. I'll never do it. You'd just as soon kill us all,\nAlexandra, to carry out some scheme!\"\n\nOscar rubbed his high, pale forehead. \"How do you propose to pay\noff your mortgages?\"\n\nAlexandra looked from one to the other and bit her lip. They had\nnever seen her so nervous. \"See here,\" she brought out at last.\n\"We borrow the money for six years. Well, with the money we buy\na half-section from Linstrum and a half from Crow, and a quarter\nfrom Struble, maybe. That will give us upwards of fourteen hundred\nacres, won't it? You won't have to pay off your mortgages for six\nyears. By that time, any of this land will be worth thirty dollars\nan acre--it will be worth fifty, but we'll say thirty; then you\ncan sell a garden patch anywhere, and pay off a debt of sixteen\nhundred dollars. It's not the principal I'm worried about, it's\nthe interest and taxes. We'll have to strain to meet the payments.\nBut as sure as we are sitting here to-night, we can sit down here\nten years from now independent landowners, not struggling farmers\nany longer. The chance that father was always looking for has\ncome.\"\n\nLou was pacing the floor. \"But how do you KNOW that land is going\nto go up enough to pay the mortgages and--\"\n\n\"And make us rich besides?\" Alexandra put in firmly. \"I can't\nexplain that, Lou. You'll have to take my word for it. I KNOW,\nthat's all. When you drive about over the country you can feel it\ncoming.\"\n\nOscar had been sitting with his head lowered, his hands hanging\nbetween his knees. \"But we can't work so much land,\" he said\ndully, as if he were talking to himself. \"We can't even try. It\nwould just lie there and we'd work ourselves to death.\" He sighed,\nand laid his calloused fist on the table.\n\nAlexandra's eyes filled with tears. She put her hand on his\nshoulder. \"You poor boy, you won't have to work it. The men in\ntown who are buying up other people's land don't try to farm it.\nThey are the men to watch, in a new country. Let's try to do\nlike the shrewd ones, and not like these stupid fellows. I don't\nwant you boys always to have to work like this. I want you to be\nindependent, and Emil to go to school.\"\n\nLou held his head as if it were splitting. \"Everybody will say we\nare crazy. It must be crazy, or everybody would be doing it.\"\n\n\"If they were, we wouldn't have much chance. No, Lou, I was talking\nabout that with the smart young man who is raising the new kind\nof clover. He says the right thing is usually just what everybody\ndon't do. Why are we better fixed than any of our neighbors? Because\nfather had more brains. Our people were better people than these\nin the old country. We OUGHT to do more than they do, and see\nfurther ahead. Yes, mother, I'm going to clear the table now.\"\n\nAlexandra rose. The boys went to the stable to see to the stock,\nand they were gone a long while. When they came back Lou played on\nhis DRAGHARMONIKA and Oscar sat figuring at his father's secretary\nall evening. They said nothing more about Alexandra's project,\nbut she felt sure now that they would consent to it. Just before\nbedtime Oscar went out for a pail of water. When he did not come\nback, Alexandra threw a shawl over her head and ran down the path\nto the windmill. She found him sitting there with his head in his\nhands, and she sat down beside him.\n\n\"Don't do anything you don't want to do, Oscar,\" she whispered.\nShe waited a moment, but he did not stir. \"I won't say any more\nabout it, if you'd rather not. What makes you so discouraged?\"\n\n\"I dread signing my name to them pieces of paper,\" he said slowly.\n\"All the time I was a boy we had a mortgage hanging over us.\"\n\n\"Then don't sign one. I don't want you to, if you feel that way.\"\n\nOscar shook his head. \"No, I can see there's a chance that way.\nI've thought a good while there might be. We're in so deep now, we\nmight as well go deeper. But it's hard work pulling out of debt.\nLike pulling a threshing-machine out of the mud; breaks your back.\nMe and Lou's worked hard, and I can't see it's got us ahead much.\"\n\n\"Nobody knows about that as well as I do, Oscar. That's why I want\nto try an easier way. I don't want you to have to grub for every\ndollar.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know what you mean. Maybe it'll come out right. But signing\npapers is signing papers. There ain't no maybe about that.\" He\ntook his pail and trudged up the path to the house.\n\nAlexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against\nthe frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so\nkeenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch\nthem, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered\nmarch. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations\nof nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them,\nshe felt a sense of personal security. That night she had a new\nconsciousness of the country, felt almost a new relation to it.\nEven her talk with the boys had not taken away the feeling that had\noverwhelmed her when she drove back to the Divide that afternoon.\nShe had never known before how much the country meant to her. The\nchirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the\nsweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down\nthere, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little\nwild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. Under the long\nshaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.\n\n\n\n\nPART II. Neighboring Fields\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nIT is sixteen years since John Bergson died. His wife now lies\nbeside him, and the white shaft that marks their graves gleams\nacross the wheat-fields. Could he rise from beneath it, he would\nnot know the country under which he has been asleep. The shaggy coat\nof the prairie, which they lifted to make him a bed, has vanished\nforever. From the Norwegian graveyard one looks out over a vast\nchecker-board, marked off in squares of wheat and corn; light and\ndark, dark and light. Telephone wires hum along the white roads,\nwhich always run at right angles. From the graveyard gate one can\ncount a dozen gayly painted farmhouses; the gilded weather-vanes\non the big red barns wink at each other across the green and brown\nand yellow fields. The light steel windmills tremble throughout\ntheir frames and tug at their moorings, as they vibrate in the wind\nthat often blows from one week's end to another across that high,\nactive, resolute stretch of country.\n\nThe Divide is now thickly populated. The rich soil yields heavy\nharvests; the dry, bracing climate and the smoothness of the land\nmake labor easy for men and beasts. There are few scenes more\ngratifying than a spring plowing in that country, where the furrows\nof a single field often lie a mile in length, and the brown earth,\nwith such a strong, clean smell, and such a power of growth and\nfertility in it, yields itself eagerly to the plow; rolls away\nfrom the shear, not even dimming the brightness of the metal, with\na soft, deep sigh of happiness. The wheat-cutting sometimes goes\non all night as well as all day, and in good seasons there are\nscarcely men and horses enough to do the harvesting. The grain is\nso heavy that it bends toward the blade and cuts like velvet.\n\nThere is something frank and joyous and young in the open face\nof the country. It gives itself ungrudgingly to the moods of the\nseason, holding nothing back. Like the plains of Lombardy, it\nseems to rise a little to meet the sun. The air and the earth are\ncuriously mated and intermingled, as if the one were the breath\nof the other. You feel in the atmosphere the same tonic, puissant\nquality that is in the tilth, the same strength and resoluteness.\n\nOne June morning a young man stood at the gate of the Norwegian\ngraveyard, sharpening his scythe in strokes unconsciously timed to\nthe tune he was whistling. He wore a flannel cap and duck trousers,\nand the sleeves of his white flannel shirt were rolled back to\nthe elbow. When he was satisfied with the edge of his blade, he\nslipped the whetstone into his hip pocket and began to swing his\nscythe, still whistling, but softly, out of respect to the quiet\nfolk about him. Unconscious respect, probably, for he seemed\nintent upon his own thoughts, and, like the Gladiator's, they were\nfar away. He was a splendid figure of a boy, tall and straight\nas a young pine tree, with a handsome head, and stormy gray eyes,\ndeeply set under a serious brow. The space between his two front\nteeth, which were unusually far apart, gave him the proficiency\nin whistling for which he was distinguished at college. (He also\nplayed the cornet in the University band.)\n\nWhen the grass required his close attention, or when he had to\nstoop to cut about a head-stone, he paused in his lively air,--the\n\"Jewel\" song,--taking it up where he had left it when his scythe\nswung free again. He was not thinking about the tired pioneers\nover whom his blade glittered. The old wild country, the struggle\nin which his sister was destined to succeed while so many men broke\ntheir hearts and died, he can scarcely remember. That is all among\nthe dim things of childhood and has been forgotten in the brighter\npattern life weaves to-day, in the bright facts of being captain\nof the track team, and holding the interstate record for the high\njump, in the all-suffusing brightness of being twenty-one. Yet\nsometimes, in the pauses of his work, the young man frowned and\nlooked at the ground with an intentness which suggested that even\ntwenty-one might have its problems.\n\nWhen he had been mowing the better part of an hour, he heard the\nrattle of a light cart on the road behind him. Supposing that it\nwas his sister coming back from one of her farms, he kept on with\nhis work. The cart stopped at the gate and a merry contralto voice\ncalled, \"Almost through, Emil?\" He dropped his scythe and went\ntoward the fence, wiping his face and neck with his handkerchief.\nIn the cart sat a young woman who wore driving gauntlets and a wide\nshade hat, trimmed with red poppies. Her face, too, was rather\nlike a poppy, round and brown, with rich color in her cheeks and\nlips, and her dancing yellow-brown eyes bubbled with gayety. The\nwind was flapping her big hat and teasing a curl of her chestnut-colored\nhair. She shook her head at the tall youth.\n\n\"What time did you get over here? That's not much of a job for\nan athlete. Here I've been to town and back. Alexandra lets you\nsleep late. Oh, I know! Lou's wife was telling me about the way\nshe spoils you. I was going to give you a lift, if you were done.\"\nShe gathered up her reins.\n\n\"But I will be, in a minute. Please wait for me, Marie,\" Emil\ncoaxed. \"Alexandra sent me to mow our lot, but I've done half a\ndozen others, you see. Just wait till I finish off the Kourdnas'.\nBy the way, they were Bohemians. Why aren't they up in the Catholic\ngraveyard?\"\n\n\"Free-thinkers,\" replied the young woman laconically.\n\n\"Lots of the Bohemian boys at the University are,\" said Emil, taking\nup his scythe again. \"What did you ever burn John Huss for, anyway?\nIt's made an awful row. They still jaw about it in history classes.\"\n\n\"We'd do it right over again, most of us,\" said the young woman\nhotly. \"Don't they ever teach you in your history classes that\nyou'd all be heathen Turks if it hadn't been for the Bohemians?\"\n\nEmil had fallen to mowing. \"Oh, there's no denying you're a spunky\nlittle bunch, you Czechs,\" he called back over his shoulder.\n\nMarie Shabata settled herself in her seat and watched the rhythmical\nmovement of the young man's long arms, swinging her foot as if\nin time to some air that was going through her mind. The minutes\npassed. Emil mowed vigorously and Marie sat sunning herself and\nwatching the long grass fall. She sat with the ease that belongs\nto persons of an essentially happy nature, who can find a comfortable\nspot almost anywhere; who are supple, and quick in adapting themselves\nto circumstances. After a final swish, Emil snapped the gate and\nsprang into the cart, holding his scythe well out over the wheel.\n\"There,\" he sighed. \"I gave old man Lee a cut or so, too. Lou's\nwife needn't talk. I never see Lou's scythe over here.\"\n\nMarie clucked to her horse. \"Oh, you know Annie!\" She looked at\nthe young man's bare arms. \"How brown you've got since you came\nhome. I wish I had an athlete to mow my orchard. I get wet to my\nknees when I go down to pick cherries.\"\n\n\"You can have one, any time you want him. Better wait until after\nit rains.\" Emil squinted off at the horizon as if he were looking\nfor clouds.\n\n\"Will you? Oh, there's a good boy!\" She turned her head to him\nwith a quick, bright smile. He felt it rather than saw it. Indeed,\nhe had looked away with the purpose of not seeing it. \"I've been\nup looking at Angelique's wedding clothes,\" Marie went on, \"and\nI'm so excited I can hardly wait until Sunday. Amedee will be\na handsome bridegroom. Is anybody but you going to stand up with\nhim? Well, then it will be a handsome wedding party.\" She made a\ndroll face at Emil, who flushed. \"Frank,\" Marie continued, flicking\nher horse, \"is cranky at me because I loaned his saddle to Jan\nSmirka, and I'm terribly afraid he won't take me to the dance in\nthe evening. Maybe the supper will tempt him. All Angelique's\nfolks are baking for it, and all Amedee's twenty cousins. There\nwill be barrels of beer. If once I get Frank to the supper, I'll\nsee that I stay for the dance. And by the way, Emil, you mustn't\ndance with me but once or twice. You must dance with all the French\ngirls. It hurts their feelings if you don't. They think you're\nproud because you've been away to school or something.\"\n\nEmil sniffed. \"How do you know they think that?\"\n\n\"Well, you didn't dance with them much at Raoul Marcel's party, and\nI could tell how they took it by the way they looked at you--and\nat me.\"\n\n\"All right,\" said Emil shortly, studying the glittering blade of\nhis scythe.\n\nThey drove westward toward Norway Creek, and toward a big white\nhouse that stood on a hill, several miles across the fields. There\nwere so many sheds and outbuildings grouped about it that the\nplace looked not unlike a tiny village. A stranger, approaching\nit, could not help noticing the beauty and fruitfulness of the\noutlying fields. There was something individual about the great\nfarm, a most unusual trimness and care for detail. On either side\nof the road, for a mile before you reached the foot of the hill,\nstood tall osage orange hedges, their glossy green marking off\nthe yellow fields. South of the hill, in a low, sheltered swale,\nsurrounded by a mulberry hedge, was the orchard, its fruit trees\nknee-deep in timothy grass. Any one thereabouts would have told\nyou that this was one of the richest farms on the Divide, and that\nthe farmer was a woman, Alexandra Bergson.\n\nIf you go up the hill and enter Alexandra's big house, you will\nfind that it is curiously unfinished and uneven in comfort. One\nroom is papered, carpeted, over-furnished; the next is almost\nbare. The pleasantest rooms in the house are the kitchen--where\nAlexandra's three young Swedish girls chatter and cook and pickle\nand preserve all summer long--and the sitting-room, in which\nAlexandra has brought together the old homely furniture that the\nBergsons used in their first log house, the family portraits, and\nthe few things her mother brought from Sweden.\n\nWhen you go out of the house into the flower garden, there you feel\nagain the order and fine arrangement manifest all over the great\nfarm; in the fencing and hedging, in the windbreaks and sheds, in\nthe symmetrical pasture ponds, planted with scrub willows to give\nshade to the cattle in fly-time. There is even a white row of\nbeehives in the orchard, under the walnut trees. You feel that,\nproperly, Alexandra's house is the big out-of-doors, and that it\nis in the soil that she expresses herself best.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nEmil reached home a little past noon, and when he went into the\nkitchen Alexandra was already seated at the head of the long table,\nhaving dinner with her men, as she always did unless there were\nvisitors. He slipped into his empty place at his sister's right.\nThe three pretty young Swedish girls who did Alexandra's housework\nwere cutting pies, refilling coffeecups, placing platters of bread\nand meat and potatoes upon the red tablecloth, and continually\ngetting in each other's way between the table and the stove. To be\nsure they always wasted a good deal of time getting in each other's\nway and giggling at each other's mistakes. But, as Alexandra had\npointedly told her sisters-in-law, it was to hear them giggle that\nshe kept three young things in her kitchen; the work she could\ndo herself, if it were necessary. These girls, with their long\nletters from home, their finery, and their love-affairs, afforded\nher a great deal of entertainment, and they were company for her\nwhen Emil was away at school.\n\nOf the youngest girl, Signa, who has a pretty figure, mottled pink\ncheeks, and yellow hair, Alexandra is very fond, though she keeps\na sharp eye upon her. Signa is apt to be skittish at mealtime, when\nthe men are about, and to spill the coffee or upset the cream. It\nis supposed that Nelse Jensen, one of the six men at the dinner-table,\nis courting Signa, though he has been so careful not to commit\nhimself that no one in the house, least of all Signa, can tell\njust how far the matter has progressed. Nelse watches her glumly\nas she waits upon the table, and in the evening he sits on a bench\nbehind the stove with his DRAGHARMONIKA, playing mournful airs\nand watching her as she goes about her work. When Alexandra asked\nSigna whether she thought Nelse was in earnest, the poor child hid\nher hands under her apron and murmured, \"I don't know, ma'm. But\nhe scolds me about everything, like as if he wanted to have me!\"\n\nAt Alexandra's left sat a very old man, barefoot and wearing a long\nblue blouse, open at the neck. His shaggy head is scarcely whiter\nthan it was sixteen years ago, but his little blue eyes have become\npale and watery, and his ruddy face is withered, like an apple that\nhas clung all winter to the tree. When Ivar lost his land through\nmismanagement a dozen years ago, Alexandra took him in, and he has\nbeen a member of her household ever since. He is too old to work\nin the fields, but he hitches and unhitches the work-teams and\nlooks after the health of the stock. Sometimes of a winter evening\nAlexandra calls him into the sitting-room to read the Bible aloud\nto her, for he still reads very well. He dislikes human habitations,\nso Alexandra has fitted him up a room in the barn, where he is very\ncomfortable, being near the horses and, as he says, further from\ntemptations. No one has ever found out what his temptations are.\nIn cold weather he sits by the kitchen fire and makes hammocks\nor mends harness until it is time to go to bed. Then he says his\nprayers at great length behind the stove, puts on his buffalo-skin\ncoat and goes out to his room in the barn.\n\nAlexandra herself has changed very little. Her figure is fuller,\nand she has more color. She seems sunnier and more vigorous than\nshe did as a young girl. But she still has the same calmness and\ndeliberation of manner, the same clear eyes, and she still wears\nher hair in two braids wound round her head. It is so curly that\nfiery ends escape from the braids and make her head look like one\nof the big double sunflowers that fringe her vegetable garden.\nHer face is always tanned in summer, for her sunbonnet is oftener\non her arm than on her head. But where her collar falls away from\nher neck, or where her sleeves are pushed back from her wrist, the\nskin is of such smoothness and whiteness as none but Swedish women\never possess; skin with the freshness of the snow itself.\n\nAlexandra did not talk much at the table, but she encouraged her\nmen to talk, and she always listened attentively, even when they\nseemed to be talking foolishly.\n\nTo-day Barney Flinn, the big red-headed Irishman who had been with\nAlexandra for five years and who was actually her foreman, though\nhe had no such title, was grumbling about the new silo she had put\nup that spring. It happened to be the first silo on the Divide,\nand Alexandra's neighbors and her men were skeptical about it. \"To\nbe sure, if the thing don't work, we'll have plenty of feed without\nit, indeed,\" Barney conceded.\n\nNelse Jensen, Signa's gloomy suitor, had his word. \"Lou, he says\nhe wouldn't have no silo on his place if you'd give it to him.\nHe says the feed outen it gives the stock the bloat. He heard of\nsomebody lost four head of horses, feedin' 'em that stuff.\"\n\nAlexandra looked down the table from one to another. \"Well,\nthe only way we can find out is to try. Lou and I have different\nnotions about feeding stock, and that's a good thing. It's bad if\nall the members of a family think alike. They never get anywhere.\nLou can learn by my mistakes and I can learn by his. Isn't that\nfair, Barney?\"\n\nThe Irishman laughed. He had no love for Lou, who was always uppish\nwith him and who said that Alexandra paid her hands too much. \"I've\nno thought but to give the thing an honest try, mum. 'T would be\nonly right, after puttin' so much expense into it. Maybe Emil will\ncome out an' have a look at it wid me.\" He pushed back his chair,\ntook his hat from the nail, and marched out with Emil, who, with\nhis university ideas, was supposed to have instigated the silo.\nThe other hands followed them, all except old Ivar. He had been\ndepressed throughout the meal and had paid no heed to the talk of\nthe men, even when they mentioned cornstalk bloat, upon which he\nwas sure to have opinions.\n\n\"Did you want to speak to me, Ivar?\" Alexandra asked as she rose\nfrom the table. \"Come into the sitting-room.\"\n\nThe old man followed Alexandra, but when she motioned him to a chair\nhe shook his head. She took up her workbasket and waited for him\nto speak. He stood looking at the carpet, his bushy head bowed,\nhis hands clasped in front of him. Ivar's bandy legs seemed to\nhave grown shorter with years, and they were completely misfitted\nto his broad, thick body and heavy shoulders.\n\n\"Well, Ivar, what is it?\" Alexandra asked after she had waited\nlonger than usual.\n\nIvar had never learned to speak English and his Norwegian was quaint\nand grave, like the speech of the more old-fashioned people. He\nalways addressed Alexandra in terms of the deepest respect, hoping\nto set a good example to the kitchen girls, whom he thought too\nfamiliar in their manners.\n\n\"Mistress,\" he began faintly, without raising his eyes, \"the folk\nhave been looking coldly at me of late. You know there has been\ntalk.\"\n\n\"Talk about what, Ivar?\"\n\n\"About sending me away; to the asylum.\"\n\nAlexandra put down her sewing-basket. \"Nobody has come to me with\nsuch talk,\" she said decidedly. \"Why need you listen? You know\nI would never consent to such a thing.\"\n\nIvar lifted his shaggy head and looked at her out of his little\neyes. \"They say that you cannot prevent it if the folk complain of\nme, if your brothers complain to the authorities. They say that\nyour brothers are afraid--God forbid!--that I may do you some\ninjury when my spells are on me. Mistress, how can any one think\nthat?--that I could bite the hand that fed me!\" The tears trickled\ndown on the old man's beard.\n\nAlexandra frowned. \"Ivar, I wonder at you, that you should come\nbothering me with such nonsense. I am still running my own house,\nand other people have nothing to do with either you or me. So long\nas I am suited with you, there is nothing to be said.\"\n\nIvar pulled a red handkerchief out of the breast of his blouse and\nwiped his eyes and beard. \"But I should not wish you to keep me\nif, as they say, it is against your interests, and if it is hard\nfor you to get hands because I am here.\"\n\nAlexandra made an impatient gesture, but the old man put out his\nhand and went on earnestly:--\n\n\"Listen, mistress, it is right that you should take these things\ninto account. You know that my spells come from God, and that\nI would not harm any living creature. You believe that every one\nshould worship God in the way revealed to him. But that is not\nthe way of this country. The way here is for all to do alike. I\nam despised because I do not wear shoes, because I do not cut my\nhair, and because I have visions. At home, in the old country,\nthere were many like me, who had been touched by God, or who had\nseen things in the graveyard at night and were different afterward.\nWe thought nothing of it, and let them alone. But here, if a man\nis different in his feet or in his head, they put him in the asylum.\nLook at Peter Kralik; when he was a boy, drinking out of a creek,\nhe swallowed a snake, and always after that he could eat only\nsuch food as the creature liked, for when he ate anything else, it\nbecame enraged and gnawed him. When he felt it whipping about in\nhim, he drank alcohol to stupefy it and get some ease for himself.\nHe could work as good as any man, and his head was clear, but they\nlocked him up for being different in his stomach. That is the way;\nthey have built the asylum for people who are different, and they\nwill not even let us live in the holes with the badgers. Only\nyour great prosperity has protected me so far. If you had had\nill-fortune, they would have taken me to Hastings long ago.\"\n\nAs Ivar talked, his gloom lifted. Alexandra had found that she\ncould often break his fasts and long penances by talking to him\nand letting him pour out the thoughts that troubled him. Sympathy\nalways cleared his mind, and ridicule was poison to him.\n\n\"There is a great deal in what you say, Ivar. Like as not they\nwill be wanting to take me to Hastings because I have built a silo;\nand then I may take you with me. But at present I need you here.\nOnly don't come to me again telling me what people say. Let people\ngo on talking as they like, and we will go on living as we think\nbest. You have been with me now for twelve years, and I have gone\nto you for advice oftener than I have ever gone to any one. That\nought to satisfy you.\"\n\nIvar bowed humbly. \"Yes, mistress, I shall not trouble you with\ntheir talk again. And as for my feet, I have observed your wishes\nall these years, though you have never questioned me; washing them\nevery night, even in winter.\"\n\nAlexandra laughed. \"Oh, never mind about your feet, Ivar. We can\nremember when half our neighbors went barefoot in summer. I expect\nold Mrs. Lee would love to slip her shoes off now sometimes, if\nshe dared. I'm glad I'm not Lou's mother-in-law.\"\n\nIvar looked about mysteriously and lowered his voice almost to a\nwhisper. \"You know what they have over at Lou's house? A great\nwhite tub, like the stone water-troughs in the old country, to wash\nthemselves in. When you sent me over with the strawberries, they\nwere all in town but the old woman Lee and the baby. She took me\nin and showed me the thing, and she told me it was impossible to\nwash yourself clean in it, because, in so much water, you could\nnot make a strong suds. So when they fill it up and send her in\nthere, she pretends, and makes a splashing noise. Then, when they\nare all asleep, she washes herself in a little wooden tub she keeps\nunder her bed.\"\n\nAlexandra shook with laughter. \"Poor old Mrs. Lee! They won't let\nher wear nightcaps, either. Never mind; when she comes to visit\nme, she can do all the old things in the old way, and have as much\nbeer as she wants. We'll start an asylum for old-time people,\nIvar.\"\n\nIvar folded his big handkerchief carefully and thrust it back into\nhis blouse. \"This is always the way, mistress. I come to you\nsorrowing, and you send me away with a light heart. And will you\nbe so good as to tell the Irishman that he is not to work the brown\ngelding until the sore on its shoulder is healed?\"\n\n\"That I will. Now go and put Emil's mare to the cart. I am going\nto drive up to the north quarter to meet the man from town who is\nto buy my alfalfa hay.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nAlexandra was to hear more of Ivar's case, however. On Sunday her\nmarried brothers came to dinner. She had asked them for that day\nbecause Emil, who hated family parties, would be absent, dancing\nat Amedee Chevalier's wedding, up in the French country. The table\nwas set for company in the dining-room, where highly varnished\nwood and colored glass and useless pieces of china were conspicuous\nenough to satisfy the standards of the new prosperity. Alexandra\nhad put herself into the hands of the Hanover furniture dealer, and\nhe had conscientiously done his best to make her dining-room look\nlike his display window. She said frankly that she knew nothing\nabout such things, and she was willing to be governed by the general\nconviction that the more useless and utterly unusable objects\nwere, the greater their virtue as ornament. That seemed reasonable\nenough. Since she liked plain things herself, it was all the more\nnecessary to have jars and punchbowls and candlesticks in the company\nrooms for people who did appreciate them. Her guests liked to see\nabout them these reassuring emblems of prosperity.\n\nThe family party was complete except for Emil, and Oscar's wife\nwho, in the country phrase, \"was not going anywhere just now.\"\nOscar sat at the foot of the table and his four tow-headed little\nboys, aged from twelve to five, were ranged at one side. Neither\nOscar nor Lou has changed much; they have simply, as Alexandra said\nof them long ago, grown to be more and more like themselves. Lou\nnow looks the older of the two; his face is thin and shrewd and\nwrinkled about the eyes, while Oscar's is thick and dull. For all\nhis dullness, however, Oscar makes more money than his brother,\nwhich adds to Lou's sharpness and uneasiness and tempts him to\nmake a show. The trouble with Lou is that he is tricky, and his\nneighbors have found out that, as Ivar says, he has not a fox's face\nfor nothing. Politics being the natural field for such talents,\nhe neglects his farm to attend conventions and to run for county\noffices.\n\nLou's wife, formerly Annie Lee, has grown to look curiously like\nher husband. Her face has become longer, sharper, more aggressive.\nShe wears her yellow hair in a high pompadour, and is bedecked with\nrings and chains and \"beauty pins.\" Her tight, high-heeled shoes\ngive her an awkward walk, and she is always more or less preoccupied\nwith her clothes. As she sat at the table, she kept telling her\nyoungest daughter to \"be careful now, and not drop anything on\nmother.\"\n\nThe conversation at the table was all in English. Oscar's wife,\nfrom the malaria district of Missouri, was ashamed of marrying a\nforeigner, and his boys do not understand a word of Swedish. Annie\nand Lou sometimes speak Swedish at home, but Annie is almost as\nmuch afraid of being \"caught\" at it as ever her mother was of being\ncaught barefoot. Oscar still has a thick accent, but Lou speaks\nlike anybody from Iowa.\n\n\"When I was in Hastings to attend the convention,\" he was saying,\n\"I saw the superintendent of the asylum, and I was telling him about\nIvar's symptoms. He says Ivar's case is one of the most dangerous\nkind, and it's a wonder he hasn't done something violent before\nthis.\"\n\nAlexandra laughed good-humoredly. \"Oh, nonsense, Lou! The doctors\nwould have us all crazy if they could. Ivar's queer, certainly,\nbut he has more sense than half the hands I hire.\"\n\nLou flew at his fried chicken. \"Oh, I guess the doctor knows his\nbusiness, Alexandra. He was very much surprised when I told him\nhow you'd put up with Ivar. He says he's likely to set fire to the\nbarn any night, or to take after you and the girls with an axe.\"\n\nLittle Signa, who was waiting on the table, giggled and fled to\nthe kitchen. Alexandra's eyes twinkled. \"That was too much for\nSigna, Lou. We all know that Ivar's perfectly harmless. The girls\nwould as soon expect me to chase them with an axe.\"\n\nLou flushed and signaled to his wife. \"All the same, the neighbors\nwill be having a say about it before long. He may burn anybody's\nbarn. It's only necessary for one property-owner in the township\nto make complaint, and he'll be taken up by force. You'd better\nsend him yourself and not have any hard feelings.\"\n\nAlexandra helped one of her little nephews to gravy. \"Well, Lou,\nif any of the neighbors try that, I'll have myself appointed Ivar's\nguardian and take the case to court, that's all. I am perfectly\nsatisfied with him.\"\n\n\"Pass the preserves, Lou,\" said Annie in a warning tone. She had\nreasons for not wishing her husband to cross Alexandra too openly.\n\"But don't you sort of hate to have people see him around here,\nAlexandra?\" she went on with persuasive smoothness. \"He IS a\ndisgraceful object, and you're fixed up so nice now. It sort of\nmakes people distant with you, when they never know when they'll\nhear him scratching about. My girls are afraid as death of him,\naren't you, Milly, dear?\"\n\nMilly was fifteen, fat and jolly and pompadoured, with a creamy\ncomplexion, square white teeth, and a short upper lip. She\nlooked like her grandmother Bergson, and had her comfortable and\ncomfort-loving nature. She grinned at her aunt, with whom she was\na great deal more at ease than she was with her mother. Alexandra\nwinked a reply.\n\n\"Milly needn't be afraid of Ivar. She's an especial favorite of\nhis. In my opinion Ivar has just as much right to his own way of\ndressing and thinking as we have. But I'll see that he doesn't\nbother other people. I'll keep him at home, so don't trouble any\nmore about him, Lou. I've been wanting to ask you about your new\nbathtub. How does it work?\"\n\nAnnie came to the fore to give Lou time to recover himself. \"Oh,\nit works something grand! I can't keep him out of it. He washes\nhimself all over three times a week now, and uses all the hot water.\nI think it's weakening to stay in as long as he does. You ought\nto have one, Alexandra.\"\n\n\"I'm thinking of it. I might have one put in the barn for Ivar,\nif it will ease people's minds. But before I get a bathtub, I'm\ngoing to get a piano for Milly.\"\n\nOscar, at the end of the table, looked up from his plate. \"What\ndoes Milly want of a pianny? What's the matter with her organ?\nShe can make some use of that, and play in church.\"\n\nAnnie looked flustered. She had begged Alexandra not to say\nanything about this plan before Oscar, who was apt to be jealous\nof what his sister did for Lou's children. Alexandra did not get\non with Oscar's wife at all. \"Milly can play in church just the\nsame, and she'll still play on the organ. But practising on it\nso much spoils her touch. Her teacher says so,\" Annie brought out\nwith spirit.\n\nOscar rolled his eyes. \"Well, Milly must have got on pretty good\nif she's got past the organ. I know plenty of grown folks that\nain't,\" he said bluntly.\n\nAnnie threw up her chin. \"She has got on good, and she's going to\nplay for her commencement when she graduates in town next year.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Alexandra firmly, \"I think Milly deserves a piano.\nAll the girls around here have been taking lessons for years, but\nMilly is the only one of them who can ever play anything when you\nask her. I'll tell you when I first thought I would like to give\nyou a piano, Milly, and that was when you learned that book of old\nSwedish songs that your grandfather used to sing. He had a sweet\ntenor voice, and when he was a young man he loved to sing. I can\nremember hearing him singing with the sailors down in the shipyard,\nwhen I was no bigger than Stella here,\" pointing to Annie's younger\ndaughter.\n\nMilly and Stella both looked through the door into the sitting-room,\nwhere a crayon portrait of John Bergson hung on the wall. Alexandra\nhad had it made from a little photograph, taken for his friends\njust before he left Sweden; a slender man of thirty-five, with\nsoft hair curling about his high forehead, a drooping mustache,\nand wondering, sad eyes that looked forward into the distance, as\nif they already beheld the New World.\n\nAfter dinner Lou and Oscar went to the orchard to pick cherries--they\nhad neither of them had the patience to grow an orchard of their\nown--and Annie went down to gossip with Alexandra's kitchen girls\nwhile they washed the dishes. She could always find out more about\nAlexandra's domestic economy from the prattling maids than from\nAlexandra herself, and what she discovered she used to her own\nadvantage with Lou. On the Divide, farmers' daughters no longer\nwent out into service, so Alexandra got her girls from Sweden, by\npaying their fare over. They stayed with her until they married,\nand were replaced by sisters or cousins from the old country.\n\nAlexandra took her three nieces into the flower garden. She was\nfond of the little girls, especially of Milly, who came to spend\na week with her aunt now and then, and read aloud to her from the\nold books about the house, or listened to stories about the early\ndays on the Divide. While they were walking among the flower beds,\na buggy drove up the hill and stopped in front of the gate. A man\ngot out and stood talking to the driver. The little girls were\ndelighted at the advent of a stranger, some one from very far away,\nthey knew by his clothes, his gloves, and the sharp, pointed cut\nof his dark beard. The girls fell behind their aunt and peeped out\nat him from among the castor beans. The stranger came up to the\ngate and stood holding his hat in his hand, smiling, while Alexandra\nadvanced slowly to meet him. As she approached he spoke in a low,\npleasant voice.\n\n\"Don't you know me, Alexandra? I would have known you, anywhere.\"\n\nAlexandra shaded her eyes with her hand. Suddenly she took a quick\nstep forward. \"Can it be!\" she exclaimed with feeling; \"can it be\nthat it is Carl Linstrum? Why, Carl, it is!\" She threw out both\nher hands and caught his across the gate. \"Sadie, Milly, run tell\nyour father and Uncle Oscar that our old friend Carl Linstrum is\nhere. Be quick! Why, Carl, how did it happen? I can't believe\nthis!\" Alexandra shook the tears from her eyes and laughed.\n\nThe stranger nodded to his driver, dropped his suitcase inside\nthe fence, and opened the gate. \"Then you are glad to see me, and\nyou can put me up overnight? I couldn't go through this country\nwithout stopping off to have a look at you. How little you have\nchanged! Do you know, I was sure it would be like that. You\nsimply couldn't be different. How fine you are!\" He stepped back\nand looked at her admiringly.\n\nAlexandra blushed and laughed again. \"But you yourself, Carl--with\nthat beard--how could I have known you? You went away a little\nboy.\" She reached for his suitcase and when he intercepted her\nshe threw up her hands. \"You see, I give myself away. I have only\nwomen come to visit me, and I do not know how to behave. Where is\nyour trunk?\"\n\n\"It's in Hanover. I can stay only a few days. I am on my way to\nthe coast.\"\n\nThey started up the path. \"A few days? After all these years!\"\nAlexandra shook her finger at him. \"See this, you have walked\ninto a trap. You do not get away so easy.\" She put her hand\naffectionately on his shoulder. \"You owe me a visit for the sake\nof old times. Why must you go to the coast at all?\"\n\n\"Oh, I must! I am a fortune hunter. From Seattle I go on to\nAlaska.\"\n\n\"Alaska?\" She looked at him in astonishment. \"Are you going to\npaint the Indians?\"\n\n\"Paint?\" the young man frowned. \"Oh! I'm not a painter, Alexandra.\nI'm an engraver. I have nothing to do with painting.\"\n\n\"But on my parlor wall I have the paintings--\"\n\nHe interrupted nervously. \"Oh, water-color sketches--done for\namusement. I sent them to remind you of me, not because they were\ngood. What a wonderful place you have made of this, Alexandra.\"\nHe turned and looked back at the wide, map-like prospect of field\nand hedge and pasture. \"I would never have believed it could be\ndone. I'm disappointed in my own eye, in my imagination.\"\n\nAt this moment Lou and Oscar came up the hill from the orchard.\nThey did not quicken their pace when they saw Carl; indeed, they\ndid not openly look in his direction. They advanced distrustfully,\nand as if they wished the distance were longer.\n\nAlexandra beckoned to them. \"They think I am trying to fool them.\nCome, boys, it's Carl Linstrum, our old Carl!\"\n\nLou gave the visitor a quick, sidelong glance and thrust out his\nhand. \"Glad to see you.\"\n\nOscar followed with \"How d' do.\" Carl could not tell whether their\noffishness came from unfriendliness or from embarrassment. He and\nAlexandra led the way to the porch.\n\n\"Carl,\" Alexandra explained, \"is on his way to Seattle. He is\ngoing to Alaska.\"\n\nOscar studied the visitor's yellow shoes. \"Got business there?\"\nhe asked.\n\nCarl laughed. \"Yes, very pressing business. I'm going there to\nget rich. Engraving's a very interesting profession, but a man\nnever makes any money at it. So I'm going to try the goldfields.\"\n\nAlexandra felt that this was a tactful speech, and Lou looked up\nwith some interest. \"Ever done anything in that line before?\"\n\n\"No, but I'm going to join a friend of mine who went out from New\nYork and has done well. He has offered to break me in.\"\n\n\"Turrible cold winters, there, I hear,\" remarked Oscar. \"I thought\npeople went up there in the spring.\"\n\n\"They do. But my friend is going to spend the winter in Seattle and\nI am to stay with him there and learn something about prospecting\nbefore we start north next year.\"\n\nLou looked skeptical. \"Let's see, how long have you been away from\nhere?\"\n\n\"Sixteen years. You ought to remember that, Lou, for you were\nmarried just after we went away.\"\n\n\"Going to stay with us some time?\" Oscar asked.\n\n\"A few days, if Alexandra can keep me.\"\n\n\"I expect you'll be wanting to see your old place,\" Lou observed\nmore cordially. \"You won't hardly know it. But there's a few\nchunks of your old sod house left. Alexandra wouldn't never let\nFrank Shabata plough over it.\"\n\nAnnie Lee, who, ever since the visitor was announced, had been\ntouching up her hair and settling her lace and wishing she had worn\nanother dress, now emerged with her three daughters and introduced\nthem. She was greatly impressed by Carl's urban appearance, and\nin her excitement talked very loud and threw her head about. \"And\nyou ain't married yet? At your age, now! Think of that! You'll\nhave to wait for Milly. Yes, we've got a boy, too. The youngest.\nHe's at home with his grandma. You must come over to see mother\nand hear Milly play. She's the musician of the family. She does\npyrography, too. That's burnt wood, you know. You wouldn't believe\nwhat she can do with her poker. Yes, she goes to school in town,\nand she is the youngest in her class by two years.\"\n\nMilly looked uncomfortable and Carl took her hand again. He liked\nher creamy skin and happy, innocent eyes, and he could see that her\nmother's way of talking distressed her. \"I'm sure she's a clever\nlittle girl,\" he murmured, looking at her thoughtfully. \"Let me\nsee--Ah, it's your mother that she looks like, Alexandra. Mrs.\nBergson must have looked just like this when she was a little\ngirl. Does Milly run about over the country as you and Alexandra\nused to, Annie?\"\n\nMilly's mother protested. \"Oh, my, no! Things has changed since\nwe was girls. Milly has it very different. We are going to rent\nthe place and move into town as soon as the girls are old enough\nto go out into company. A good many are doing that here now. Lou\nis going into business.\"\n\nLou grinned. \"That's what she says. You better go get your things\non. Ivar's hitching up,\" he added, turning to Annie.\n\nYoung farmers seldom address their wives by name. It is always\n\"you,\" or \"she.\"\n\nHaving got his wife out of the way, Lou sat down on the step and\nbegan to whittle. \"Well, what do folks in New York think of William\nJennings Bryan?\" Lou began to bluster, as he always did when he\ntalked politics. \"We gave Wall Street a scare in ninety-six, all\nright, and we're fixing another to hand them. Silver wasn't the\nonly issue,\" he nodded mysteriously. \"There's a good many things\ngot to be changed. The West is going to make itself heard.\"\n\nCarl laughed. \"But, surely, it did do that, if nothing else.\"\n\nLou's thin face reddened up to the roots of his bristly hair. \"Oh,\nwe've only begun. We're waking up to a sense of our responsibilities,\nout here, and we ain't afraid, neither. You fellows back there\nmust be a tame lot. If you had any nerve you'd get together and\nmarch down to Wall Street and blow it up. Dynamite it, I mean,\"\nwith a threatening nod.\n\nHe was so much in earnest that Carl scarcely knew how to answer\nhim. \"That would be a waste of powder. The same business would\ngo on in another street. The street doesn't matter. But what have\nyou fellows out here got to kick about? You have the only safe\nplace there is. Morgan himself couldn't touch you. One only has\nto drive through this country to see that you're all as rich as\nbarons.\"\n\n\"We have a good deal more to say than we had when we were poor,\"\nsaid Lou threateningly. \"We're getting on to a whole lot of things.\"\n\nAs Ivar drove a double carriage up to the gate, Annie came out in\na hat that looked like the model of a battleship. Carl rose and\ntook her down to the carriage, while Lou lingered for a word with\nhis sister.\n\n\"What do you suppose he's come for?\" he asked, jerking his head\ntoward the gate.\n\n\"Why, to pay us a visit. I've been begging him to for years.\"\n\nOscar looked at Alexandra. \"He didn't let you know he was coming?\"\n\n\"No. Why should he? I told him to come at any time.\"\n\nLou shrugged his shoulders. \"He doesn't seem to have done much\nfor himself. Wandering around this way!\"\n\nOscar spoke solemnly, as from the depths of a cavern. \"He never\nwas much account.\"\n\nAlexandra left them and hurried down to the gate where Annie was\nrattling on to Carl about her new dining-room furniture. \"You\nmust bring Mr. Linstrum over real soon, only be sure to telephone\nme first,\" she called back, as Carl helped her into the carriage.\nOld Ivar, his white head bare, stood holding the horses. Lou came\ndown the path and climbed into the front seat, took up the reins,\nand drove off without saying anything further to any one. Oscar\npicked up his youngest boy and trudged off down the road, the other\nthree trotting after him. Carl, holding the gate open for Alexandra,\nbegan to laugh. \"Up and coming on the Divide, eh, Alexandra?\" he\ncried gayly.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nCarl had changed, Alexandra felt, much less than one might have\nexpected. He had not become a trim, self-satisfied city man. There\nwas still something homely and wayward and definitely personal\nabout him. Even his clothes, his Norfolk coat and his very high\ncollars, were a little unconventional. He seemed to shrink into\nhimself as he used to do; to hold himself away from things, as if\nhe were afraid of being hurt. In short, he was more self-conscious\nthan a man of thirty-five is expected to be. He looked older than\nhis years and not very strong. His black hair, which still hung\nin a triangle over his pale forehead, was thin at the crown, and\nthere were fine, relentless lines about his eyes. His back, with\nits high, sharp shoulders, looked like the back of an over-worked\nGerman professor off on his holiday. His face was intelligent,\nsensitive, unhappy.\n\nThat evening after supper, Carl and Alexandra were sitting by the\nclump of castor beans in the middle of the flower garden. The\ngravel paths glittered in the moonlight, and below them the fields\nlay white and still.\n\n\"Do you know, Alexandra,\" he was saying, \"I've been thinking how\nstrangely things work out. I've been away engraving other men's\npictures, and you've stayed at home and made your own.\" He pointed\nwith his cigar toward the sleeping landscape. \"How in the world\nhave you done it? How have your neighbors done it?\"\n\n\"We hadn't any of us much to do with it, Carl. The land did it.\nIt had its little joke. It pretended to be poor because nobody\nknew how to work it right; and then, all at once, it worked itself.\nIt woke up out of its sleep and stretched itself, and it was so big,\nso rich, that we suddenly found we were rich, just from sitting\nstill. As for me, you remember when I began to buy land. For\nyears after that I was always squeezing and borrowing until I was\nashamed to show my face in the banks. And then, all at once, men\nbegan to come to me offering to lend me money--and I didn't need\nit! Then I went ahead and built this house. I really built it\nfor Emil. I want you to see Emil, Carl. He is so different from\nthe rest of us!\"\n\n\"How different?\"\n\n\"Oh, you'll see! I'm sure it was to have sons like Emil, and to\ngive them a chance, that father left the old country. It's curious,\ntoo; on the outside Emil is just like an American boy,--he graduated\nfrom the State University in June, you know,--but underneath he is\nmore Swedish than any of us. Sometimes he is so like father that\nhe frightens me; he is so violent in his feelings like that.\"\n\n\"Is he going to farm here with you?\"\n\n\"He shall do whatever he wants to,\" Alexandra declared warmly. \"He\nis going to have a chance, a whole chance; that's what I've worked\nfor. Sometimes he talks about studying law, and sometimes, just\nlately, he's been talking about going out into the sand hills and\ntaking up more land. He has his sad times, like father. But I\nhope he won't do that. We have land enough, at last!\" Alexandra\nlaughed.\n\n\"How about Lou and Oscar? They've done well, haven't they?\"\n\n\"Yes, very well; but they are different, and now that they have\nfarms of their own I do not see so much of them. We divided the\nland equally when Lou married. They have their own way of doing\nthings, and they do not altogether like my way, I am afraid. Perhaps\nthey think me too independent. But I have had to think for myself\na good many years and am not likely to change. On the whole,\nthough, we take as much comfort in each other as most brothers and\nsisters do. And I am very fond of Lou's oldest daughter.\"\n\n\"I think I liked the old Lou and Oscar better, and they probably\nfeel the same about me. I even, if you can keep a secret,\"--Carl\nleaned forward and touched her arm, smiling,--\"I even think I liked\nthe old country better. This is all very splendid in its way,\nbut there was something about this country when it was a wild old\nbeast that has haunted me all these years. Now, when I come back\nto all this milk and honey, I feel like the old German song, 'Wo\nbist du, wo bist du, mein geliebtest Land?'--Do you ever feel like\nthat, I wonder?\"\n\n\"Yes, sometimes, when I think about father and mother and those\nwho are gone; so many of our old neighbors.\" Alexandra paused and\nlooked up thoughtfully at the stars. \"We can remember the graveyard\nwhen it was wild prairie, Carl, and now--\"\n\n\"And now the old story has begun to write itself over there,\" said\nCarl softly. \"Isn't it queer: there are only two or three human\nstories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they\nhad never happened before; like the larks in this country, that\nhave been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! The young people, they live so hard. And yet I sometimes\nenvy them. There is my little neighbor, now; the people who bought\nyour old place. I wouldn't have sold it to any one else, but I\nwas always fond of that girl. You must remember her, little Marie\nTovesky, from Omaha, who used to visit here? When she was eighteen\nshe ran away from the convent school and got married, crazy child!\nShe came out here a bride, with her father and husband. He had\nnothing, and the old man was willing to buy them a place and set\nthem up. Your farm took her fancy, and I was glad to have her so\nnear me. I've never been sorry, either. I even try to get along\nwith Frank on her account.\"\n\n\"Is Frank her husband?\"\n\n\"Yes. He's one of these wild fellows. Most Bohemians are\ngood-natured, but Frank thinks we don't appreciate him here, I\nguess. He's jealous about everything, his farm and his horses and\nhis pretty wife. Everybody likes her, just the same as when she\nwas little. Sometimes I go up to the Catholic church with Emil,\nand it's funny to see Marie standing there laughing and shaking\nhands with people, looking so excited and gay, with Frank sulking\nbehind her as if he could eat everybody alive. Frank's not a bad\nneighbor, but to get on with him you've got to make a fuss over\nhim and act as if you thought he was a very important person all\nthe time, and different from other people. I find it hard to keep\nthat up from one year's end to another.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't think you'd be very successful at that kind of thing,\nAlexandra.\" Carl seemed to find the idea amusing.\n\n\"Well,\" said Alexandra firmly, \"I do the best I can, on Marie's\naccount. She has it hard enough, anyway. She's too young and\npretty for this sort of life. We're all ever so much older and\nslower. But she's the kind that won't be downed easily. She'll\nwork all day and go to a Bohemian wedding and dance all night, and\ndrive the hay wagon for a cross man next morning. I could stay by\na job, but I never had the go in me that she has, when I was going\nmy best. I'll have to take you over to see her to-morrow.\"\n\nCarl dropped the end of his cigar softly among the castor beans and\nsighed. \"Yes, I suppose I must see the old place. I'm cowardly\nabout things that remind me of myself. It took courage to come\nat all, Alexandra. I wouldn't have, if I hadn't wanted to see you\nvery, very much.\"\n\nAlexandra looked at him with her calm, deliberate eyes. \"Why do\nyou dread things like that, Carl?\" she asked earnestly. \"Why are\nyou dissatisfied with yourself?\"\n\nHer visitor winced. \"How direct you are, Alexandra! Just like\nyou used to be. Do I give myself away so quickly? Well, you see,\nfor one thing, there's nothing to look forward to in my profession.\nWood-engraving is the only thing I care about, and that had gone out\nbefore I began. Everything's cheap metal work nowadays, touching\nup miserable photographs, forcing up poor drawings, and spoiling good\nones. I'm absolutely sick of it all.\" Carl frowned. \"Alexandra,\nall the way out from New York I've been planning how I could\ndeceive you and make you think me a very enviable fellow, and here\nI am telling you the truth the first night. I waste a lot of time\npretending to people, and the joke of it is, I don't think I ever\ndeceive any one. There are too many of my kind; people know us on\nsight.\"\n\nCarl paused. Alexandra pushed her hair back from her brow with a\npuzzled, thoughtful gesture. \"You see,\" he went on calmly, \"measured\nby your standards here, I'm a failure. I couldn't buy even one of\nyour cornfields. I've enjoyed a great many things, but I've got\nnothing to show for it all.\"\n\n\"But you show for it yourself, Carl. I'd rather have had your\nfreedom than my land.\"\n\nCarl shook his head mournfully. \"Freedom so often means that one\nisn't needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you have a\nbackground of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the\ncities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all\nalike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one\nof us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him. Our landlady and\nthe delicatessen man are our mourners, and we leave nothing behind\nus but a frock-coat and a fiddle, or an easel, or a typewriter, or\nwhatever tool we got our living by. All we have ever managed to\ndo is to pay our rent, the exorbitant rent that one has to pay for\na few square feet of space near the heart of things. We have no\nhouse, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets,\nin the parks, in the theatres. We sit in restaurants and concert\nhalls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.\"\n\nAlexandra was silent. She sat looking at the silver spot the moon\nmade on the surface of the pond down in the pasture. He knew that\nshe understood what he meant. At last she said slowly, \"And yet I\nwould rather have Emil grow up like that than like his two brothers.\nWe pay a high rent, too, though we pay differently. We grow hard\nand heavy here. We don't move lightly and easily as you do, and\nour minds get stiff. If the world were no wider than my cornfields,\nif there were not something beside this, I wouldn't feel that it\nwas much worth while to work. No, I would rather have Emil like\nyou than like them. I felt that as soon as you came.\"\n\n\"I wonder why you feel like that?\" Carl mused.\n\n\"I don't know. Perhaps I am like Carrie Jensen, the sister of one\nof my hired men. She had never been out of the cornfields, and a\nfew years ago she got despondent and said life was just the same\nthing over and over, and she didn't see the use of it. After she\nhad tried to kill herself once or twice, her folks got worried and\nsent her over to Iowa to visit some relations. Ever since she's\ncome back she's been perfectly cheerful, and she says she's contented\nto live and work in a world that's so big and interesting. She\nsaid that anything as big as the bridges over the Platte and the\nMissouri reconciled her. And it's what goes on in the world that\nreconciles me.\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nAlexandra did not find time to go to her neighbor's the next day, nor\nthe next. It was a busy season on the farm, with the corn-plowing\ngoing on, and even Emil was in the field with a team and cultivator.\nCarl went about over the farms with Alexandra in the morning, and\nin the afternoon and evening they found a great deal to talk about.\nEmil, for all his track practice, did not stand up under farmwork\nvery well, and by night he was too tired to talk or even to practise\non his cornet.\n\nOn Wednesday morning Carl got up before it was light, and stole\ndownstairs and out of the kitchen door just as old Ivar was making\nhis morning ablutions at the pump. Carl nodded to him and hurried\nup the draw, past the garden, and into the pasture where the milking\ncows used to be kept.\n\nThe dawn in the east looked like the light from some great fire that\nwas burning under the edge of the world. The color was reflected\nin the globules of dew that sheathed the short gray pasture grass.\nCarl walked rapidly until he came to the crest of the second hill,\nwhere the Bergson pasture joined the one that had belonged to his\nfather. There he sat down and waited for the sun to rise. It was\njust there that he and Alexandra used to do their milking together, he\non his side of the fence, she on hers. He could remember exactly\nhow she looked when she came over the close-cropped grass, her\nskirts pinned up, her head bare, a bright tin pail in either hand,\nand the milky light of the early morning all about her. Even as\na boy he used to feel, when he saw her coming with her free step,\nher upright head and calm shoulders, that she looked as if she had\nwalked straight out of the morning itself. Since then, when he had\nhappened to see the sun come up in the country or on the water, he\nhad often remembered the young Swedish girl and her milking pails.\n\nCarl sat musing until the sun leaped above the prairie, and in the\ngrass about him all the small creatures of day began to tune their\ntiny instruments. Birds and insects without number began to chirp,\nto twitter, to snap and whistle, to make all manner of fresh shrill\nnoises. The pasture was flooded with light; every clump of ironweed\nand snow-on-the-mountain threw a long shadow, and the golden light\nseemed to be rippling through the curly grass like the tide racing\nin.\n\nHe crossed the fence into the pasture that was now the Shabatas' and\ncontinued his walk toward the pond. He had not gone far, however,\nwhen he discovered that he was not the only person abroad. In the\ndraw below, his gun in his hands, was Emil, advancing cautiously,\nwith a young woman beside him. They were moving softly, keeping\nclose together, and Carl knew that they expected to find ducks on\nthe pond. At the moment when they came in sight of the bright spot\nof water, he heard a whirr of wings and the ducks shot up into the\nair. There was a sharp crack from the gun, and five of the birds\nfell to the ground. Emil and his companion laughed delightedly,\nand Emil ran to pick them up. When he came back, dangling the\nducks by their feet, Marie held her apron and he dropped them into\nit. As she stood looking down at them, her face changed. She\ntook up one of the birds, a rumpled ball of feathers with the blood\ndripping slowly from its mouth, and looked at the live color that\nstill burned on its plumage.\n\nAs she let it fall, she cried in distress, \"Oh, Emil, why did you?\"\n\n\"I like that!\" the boy exclaimed indignantly. \"Why, Marie, you\nasked me to come yourself.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, I know,\" she said tearfully, \"but I didn't think. I\nhate to see them when they are first shot. They were having such\na good time, and we've spoiled it all for them.\"\n\nEmil gave a rather sore laugh. \"I should say we had! I'm not going\nhunting with you any more. You're as bad as Ivar. Here, let me\ntake them.\" He snatched the ducks out of her apron.\n\n\"Don't be cross, Emil. Only--Ivar's right about wild things. They're\ntoo happy to kill. You can tell just how they felt when they flew\nup. They were scared, but they didn't really think anything could\nhurt them. No, we won't do that any more.\"\n\n\"All right,\" Emil assented. \"I'm sorry I made you feel bad.\" As\nhe looked down into her tearful eyes, there was a curious, sharp\nyoung bitterness in his own.\n\nCarl watched them as they moved slowly down the draw. They had\nnot seen him at all. He had not overheard much of their dialogue,\nbut he felt the import of it. It made him, somehow, unreasonably\nmournful to find two young things abroad in the pasture in the\nearly morning. He decided that he needed his breakfast.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nAt dinner that day Alexandra said she thought they must really\nmanage to go over to the Shabatas' that afternoon. \"It's not often\nI let three days go by without seeing Marie. She will think I have\nforsaken her, now that my old friend has come back.\"\n\nAfter the men had gone back to work, Alexandra put on a white dress\nand her sun-hat, and she and Carl set forth across the fields.\n\"You see we have kept up the old path, Carl. It has been so nice\nfor me to feel that there was a friend at the other end of it\nagain.\"\n\nCarl smiled a little ruefully. \"All the same, I hope it hasn't\nbeen QUITE the same.\"\n\nAlexandra looked at him with surprise. \"Why, no, of course not.\nNot the same. She could not very well take your place, if that's\nwhat you mean. I'm friendly with all my neighbors, I hope. But\nMarie is really a companion, some one I can talk to quite frankly.\nYou wouldn't want me to be more lonely than I have been, would\nyou?\"\n\nCarl laughed and pushed back the triangular lock of hair with the\nedge of his hat. \"Of course I don't. I ought to be thankful that\nthis path hasn't been worn by--well, by friends with more pressing\nerrands than your little Bohemian is likely to have.\" He paused\nto give Alexandra his hand as she stepped over the stile. \"Are\nyou the least bit disappointed in our coming together again?\" he\nasked abruptly. \"Is it the way you hoped it would be?\"\n\nAlexandra smiled at this. \"Only better. When I've thought about\nyour coming, I've sometimes been a little afraid of it. You have\nlived where things move so fast, and everything is slow here; the\npeople slowest of all. Our lives are like the years, all made up\nof weather and crops and cows. How you hated cows!\" She shook her\nhead and laughed to herself.\n\n\"I didn't when we milked together. I walked up to the pasture\ncorners this morning. I wonder whether I shall ever be able to\ntell you all that I was thinking about up there. It's a strange\nthing, Alexandra; I find it easy to be frank with you about everything\nunder the sun except--yourself!\"\n\n\"You are afraid of hurting my feelings, perhaps.\" Alexandra looked\nat him thoughtfully.\n\n\"No, I'm afraid of giving you a shock. You've seen yourself for\nso long in the dull minds of the people about you, that if I were\nto tell you how you seem to me, it would startle you. But you must\nsee that you astonish me. You must feel when people admire you.\"\n\nAlexandra blushed and laughed with some confusion. \"I felt that\nyou were pleased with me, if you mean that.\"\n\n\"And you've felt when other people were pleased with you?\" he\ninsisted.\n\n\"Well, sometimes. The men in town, at the banks and the county\noffices, seem glad to see me. I think, myself, it is more pleasant\nto do business with people who are clean and healthy-looking,\" she\nadmitted blandly.\n\nCarl gave a little chuckle as he opened the Shabatas' gate for her.\n\"Oh, do you?\" he asked dryly.\n\nThere was no sign of life about the Shabatas' house except a big\nyellow cat, sunning itself on the kitchen doorstep.\n\nAlexandra took the path that led to the orchard. \"She often sits\nthere and sews. I didn't telephone her we were coming, because I\ndidn't want her to go to work and bake cake and freeze ice-cream.\nShe'll always make a party if you give her the least excuse. Do\nyou recognize the apple trees, Carl?\"\n\nLinstrum looked about him. \"I wish I had a dollar for every bucket\nof water I've carried for those trees. Poor father, he was an\neasy man, but he was perfectly merciless when it came to watering\nthe orchard.\"\n\n\"That's one thing I like about Germans; they make an orchard grow\nif they can't make anything else. I'm so glad these trees belong\nto some one who takes comfort in them. When I rented this place,\nthe tenants never kept the orchard up, and Emil and I used to come\nover and take care of it ourselves. It needs mowing now. There\nshe is, down in the corner. Maria-a-a!\" she called.\n\nA recumbent figure started up from the grass and came running toward\nthem through the flickering screen of light and shade.\n\n\"Look at her! Isn't she like a little brown rabbit?\" Alexandra\nlaughed.\n\nMaria ran up panting and threw her arms about Alexandra. \"Oh, I\nhad begun to think you were not coming at all, maybe. I knew you\nwere so busy. Yes, Emil told me about Mr. Linstrum being here.\nWon't you come up to the house?\"\n\n\"Why not sit down there in your corner? Carl wants to see the\norchard. He kept all these trees alive for years, watering them\nwith his own back.\"\n\nMarie turned to Carl. \"Then I'm thankful to you, Mr. Linstrum. We'd\nnever have bought the place if it hadn't been for this orchard, and\nthen I wouldn't have had Alexandra, either.\" She gave Alexandra's\narm a little squeeze as she walked beside her. \"How nice your dress\nsmells, Alexandra; you put rosemary leaves in your chest, like I\ntold you.\"\n\nShe led them to the northwest corner of the orchard, sheltered on\none side by a thick mulberry hedge and bordered on the other by a\nwheatfield, just beginning to yellow. In this corner the ground\ndipped a little, and the blue-grass, which the weeds had driven out\nin the upper part of the orchard, grew thick and luxuriant. Wild\nroses were flaming in the tufts of bunchgrass along the fence.\nUnder a white mulberry tree there was an old wagon-seat. Beside\nit lay a book and a workbasket.\n\n\"You must have the seat, Alexandra. The grass would stain your\ndress,\" the hostess insisted. She dropped down on the ground\nat Alexandra's side and tucked her feet under her. Carl sat at\na little distance from the two women, his back to the wheatfield,\nand watched them. Alexandra took off her shade-hat and threw it on\nthe ground. Marie picked it up and played with the white ribbons,\ntwisting them about her brown fingers as she talked. They made a\npretty picture in the strong sunlight, the leafy pattern surrounding\nthem like a net; the Swedish woman so white and gold, kindly and\namused, but armored in calm, and the alert brown one, her full lips\nparted, points of yellow light dancing in her eyes as she laughed\nand chattered. Carl had never forgotten little Marie Tovesky's\neyes, and he was glad to have an opportunity to study them. The\nbrown iris, he found, was curiously slashed with yellow, the color\nof sunflower honey, or of old amber. In each eye one of these\nstreaks must have been larger than the others, for the effect was\nthat of two dancing points of light, two little yellow bubbles,\nsuch as rise in a glass of champagne. Sometimes they seemed like\nthe sparks from a forge. She seemed so easily excited, to kindle\nwith a fierce little flame if one but breathed upon her. \"What\na waste,\" Carl reflected. \"She ought to be doing all that for a\nsweetheart. How awkwardly things come about!\"\n\nIt was not very long before Marie sprang up out of the grass again.\n\"Wait a moment. I want to show you something.\" She ran away and\ndisappeared behind the low-growing apple trees.\n\n\"What a charming creature,\" Carl murmured. \"I don't wonder that\nher husband is jealous. But can't she walk? does she always run?\"\n\nAlexandra nodded. \"Always. I don't see many people, but I don't\nbelieve there are many like her, anywhere.\"\n\nMarie came back with a branch she had broken from an apricot tree,\nladen with pale yellow, pink-cheeked fruit. She dropped it beside\nCarl. \"Did you plant those, too? They are such beautiful little\ntrees.\"\n\nCarl fingered the blue-green leaves, porous like blotting-paper and\nshaped like birch leaves, hung on waxen red stems. \"Yes, I think\nI did. Are these the circus trees, Alexandra?\"\n\n\"Shall I tell her about them?\" Alexandra asked. \"Sit down like\na good girl, Marie, and don't ruin my poor hat, and I'll tell you\na story. A long time ago, when Carl and I were, say, sixteen and\ntwelve, a circus came to Hanover and we went to town in our wagon,\nwith Lou and Oscar, to see the parade. We hadn't money enough to\ngo to the circus. We followed the parade out to the circus grounds\nand hung around until the show began and the crowd went inside the\ntent. Then Lou was afraid we looked foolish standing outside in\nthe pasture, so we went back to Hanover feeling very sad. There\nwas a man in the streets selling apricots, and we had never seen\nany before. He had driven down from somewhere up in the French\ncountry, and he was selling them twenty-five cents a peck. We had\na little money our fathers had given us for candy, and I bought\ntwo pecks and Carl bought one. They cheered us a good deal, and\nwe saved all the seeds and planted them. Up to the time Carl went\naway, they hadn't borne at all.\"\n\n\"And now he's come back to eat them,\" cried Marie, nodding at Carl.\n\"That IS a good story. I can remember you a little, Mr. Linstrum.\nI used to see you in Hanover sometimes, when Uncle Joe took me to\ntown. I remember you because you were always buying pencils and\ntubes of paint at the drug store. Once, when my uncle left me at\nthe store, you drew a lot of little birds and flowers for me on a\npiece of wrapping-paper. I kept them for a long while. I thought\nyou were very romantic because you could draw and had such black\neyes.\"\n\nCarl smiled. \"Yes, I remember that time. Your uncle bought you\nsome kind of a mechanical toy, a Turkish lady sitting on an ottoman\nand smoking a hookah, wasn't it? And she turned her head backwards\nand forwards.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! Wasn't she splendid! I knew well enough I ought not\nto tell Uncle Joe I wanted it, for he had just come back from the\nsaloon and was feeling good. You remember how he laughed? She\ntickled him, too. But when we got home, my aunt scolded him for\nbuying toys when she needed so many things. We wound our lady up\nevery night, and when she began to move her head my aunt used to\nlaugh as hard as any of us. It was a music-box, you know, and the\nTurkish lady played a tune while she smoked. That was how she made\nyou feel so jolly. As I remember her, she was lovely, and had a\ngold crescent on her turban.\"\n\nHalf an hour later, as they were leaving the house, Carl and Alexandra\nwere met in the path by a strapping fellow in overalls and a blue\nshirt. He was breathing hard, as if he had been running, and was\nmuttering to himself.\n\nMarie ran forward, and, taking him by the arm, gave him a little\npush toward her guests. \"Frank, this is Mr. Linstrum.\"\n\nFrank took off his broad straw hat and nodded to Alexandra. When\nhe spoke to Carl, he showed a fine set of white teeth. He was burned\na dull red down to his neckband, and there was a heavy three-days'\nstubble on his face. Even in his agitation he was handsome, but\nhe looked a rash and violent man.\n\nBarely saluting the callers, he turned at once to his wife and\nbegan, in an outraged tone, \"I have to leave my team to drive the\nold woman Hiller's hogs out-a my wheat. I go to take dat old woman\nto de court if she ain't careful, I tell you!\"\n\nHis wife spoke soothingly. \"But, Frank, she has only her lame boy\nto help her. She does the best she can.\"\n\nAlexandra looked at the excited man and offered a suggestion. \"Why\ndon't you go over there some afternoon and hog-tight her fences?\nYou'd save time for yourself in the end.\"\n\nFrank's neck stiffened. \"Not-a-much, I won't. I keep my hogs\nhome. Other peoples can do like me. See? If that Louis can mend\nshoes, he can mend fence.\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" said Alexandra placidly; \"but I've found it sometimes pays\nto mend other people's fences. Good-bye, Marie. Come to see me\nsoon.\"\n\nAlexandra walked firmly down the path and Carl followed her.\n\nFrank went into the house and threw himself on the sofa, his face\nto the wall, his clenched fist on his hip. Marie, having seen her\nguests off, came in and put her hand coaxingly on his shoulder.\n\n\"Poor Frank! You've run until you've made your head ache, now\nhaven't you? Let me make you some coffee.\"\n\n\"What else am I to do?\" he cried hotly in Bohemian. \"Am I to let\nany old woman's hogs root up my wheat? Is that what I work myself\nto death for?\"\n\n\"Don't worry about it, Frank. I'll speak to Mrs. Hiller again.\nBut, really, she almost cried last time they got out, she was so\nsorry.\"\n\nFrank bounced over on his other side. \"That's it; you always side\nwith them against me. They all know it. Anybody here feels free\nto borrow the mower and break it, or turn their hogs in on me.\nThey know you won't care!\"\n\nMarie hurried away to make his coffee. When she came back, he was\nfast asleep. She sat down and looked at him for a long while, very\nthoughtfully. When the kitchen clock struck six she went out to\nget supper, closing the door gently behind her. She was always\nsorry for Frank when he worked himself into one of these rages, and\nshe was sorry to have him rough and quarrelsome with his neighbors.\nShe was perfectly aware that the neighbors had a good deal to put\nup with, and that they bore with Frank for her sake.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nMarie's father, Albert Tovesky, was one of the more intelligent\nBohemians who came West in the early seventies. He settled in Omaha\nand became a leader and adviser among his people there. Marie was\nhis youngest child, by a second wife, and was the apple of his eye.\nShe was barely sixteen, and was in the graduating class of the\nOmaha High School, when Frank Shabata arrived from the old country\nand set all the Bohemian girls in a flutter. He was easily the\nbuck of the beer-gardens, and on Sunday he was a sight to see, with\nhis silk hat and tucked shirt and blue frock-coat, wearing gloves\nand carrying a little wisp of a yellow cane. He was tall and fair,\nwith splendid teeth and close-cropped yellow curls, and he wore a\nslightly disdainful expression, proper for a young man with high\nconnections, whose mother had a big farm in the Elbe valley. There\nwas often an interesting discontent in his blue eyes, and every\nBohemian girl he met imagined herself the cause of that unsatisfied\nexpression. He had a way of drawing out his cambric handkerchief\nslowly, by one corner, from his breast-pocket, that was melancholy\nand romantic in the extreme. He took a little flight with each\nof the more eligible Bohemian girls, but it was when he was with\nlittle Marie Tovesky that he drew his handkerchief out most slowly,\nand, after he had lit a fresh cigar, dropped the match most\ndespairingly. Any one could see, with half an eye, that his proud\nheart was bleeding for somebody.\n\nOne Sunday, late in the summer after Marie's graduation, she met\nFrank at a Bohemian picnic down the river and went rowing with him\nall the afternoon. When she got home that evening she went straight\nto her father's room and told him that she was engaged to Shabata.\nOld Tovesky was having a comfortable pipe before he went to bed.\nWhen he heard his daughter's announcement, he first prudently\ncorked his beer bottle and then leaped to his feet and had a turn\nof temper. He characterized Frank Shabata by a Bohemian expression\nwhich is the equivalent of stuffed shirt.\n\n\"Why don't he go to work like the rest of us did? His farm in the\nElbe valley, indeed! Ain't he got plenty brothers and sisters?\nIt's his mother's farm, and why don't he stay at home and help her?\nHaven't I seen his mother out in the morning at five o'clock with\nher ladle and her big bucket on wheels, putting liquid manure on\nthe cabbages? Don't I know the look of old Eva Shabata's hands?\nLike an old horse's hoofs they are--and this fellow wearing gloves\nand rings! Engaged, indeed! You aren't fit to be out of school,\nand that's what's the matter with you. I will send you off to the\nSisters of the Sacred Heart in St. Louis, and they will teach you\nsome sense, _I_ guess!\"\n\nAccordingly, the very next week, Albert Tovesky took his daughter,\npale and tearful, down the river to the convent. But the way to\nmake Frank want anything was to tell him he couldn't have it. He\nmanaged to have an interview with Marie before she went away,\nand whereas he had been only half in love with her before, he now\npersuaded himself that he would not stop at anything. Marie took\nwith her to the convent, under the canvas lining of her trunk, the\nresults of a laborious and satisfying morning on Frank's part; no\nless than a dozen photographs of himself, taken in a dozen different\nlove-lorn attitudes. There was a little round photograph for her\nwatch-case, photographs for her wall and dresser, and even long\nnarrow ones to be used as bookmarks. More than once the handsome\ngentleman was torn to pieces before the French class by an indignant\nnun.\n\nMarie pined in the convent for a year, until her eighteenth birthday\nwas passed. Then she met Frank Shabata in the Union Station in\nSt. Louis and ran away with him. Old Tovesky forgave his daughter\nbecause there was nothing else to do, and bought her a farm in\nthe country that she had loved so well as a child. Since then her\nstory had been a part of the history of the Divide. She and Frank\nhad been living there for five years when Carl Linstrum came back\nto pay his long deferred visit to Alexandra. Frank had, on the\nwhole, done better than one might have expected. He had flung\nhimself at the soil with savage energy. Once a year he went to\nHastings or to Omaha, on a spree. He stayed away for a week or\ntwo, and then came home and worked like a demon. He did work; if\nhe felt sorry for himself, that was his own affair.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nOn the evening of the day of Alexandra's call at the Shabatas',\na heavy rain set in. Frank sat up until a late hour reading the\nSunday newspapers. One of the Goulds was getting a divorce, and\nFrank took it as a personal affront. In printing the story of the\nyoung man's marital troubles, the knowing editor gave a sufficiently\ncolored account of his career, stating the amount of his income\nand the manner in which he was supposed to spend it. Frank read\nEnglish slowly, and the more he read about this divorce case, the\nangrier he grew. At last he threw down the page with a snort. He\nturned to his farm-hand who was reading the other half of the paper.\n\n\"By God! if I have that young feller in de hayfield once, I show\nhim someting. Listen here what he do wit his money.\" And Frank\nbegan the catalogue of the young man's reputed extravagances.\n\nMarie sighed. She thought it hard that the Goulds, for whom she\nhad nothing but good will, should make her so much trouble. She\nhated to see the Sunday newspapers come into the house. Frank was\nalways reading about the doings of rich people and feeling outraged.\nHe had an inexhaustible stock of stories about their crimes and\nfollies, how they bribed the courts and shot down their butlers\nwith impunity whenever they chose. Frank and Lou Bergson had very\nsimilar ideas, and they were two of the political agitators of the\ncounty.\n\nThe next morning broke clear and brilliant, but Frank said the\nground was too wet to plough, so he took the cart and drove over to\nSainte-Agnes to spend the day at Moses Marcel's saloon. After he\nwas gone, Marie went out to the back porch to begin her butter-making.\nA brisk wind had come up and was driving puffy white clouds across\nthe sky. The orchard was sparkling and rippling in the sun. Marie\nstood looking toward it wistfully, her hand on the lid of the\nchurn, when she heard a sharp ring in the air, the merry sound of\nthe whetstone on the scythe. That invitation decided her. She ran\ninto the house, put on a short skirt and a pair of her husband's\nboots, caught up a tin pail and started for the orchard. Emil\nhad already begun work and was mowing vigorously. When he saw her\ncoming, he stopped and wiped his brow. His yellow canvas leggings\nand khaki trousers were splashed to the knees.\n\n\"Don't let me disturb you, Emil. I'm going to pick cherries.\nIsn't everything beautiful after the rain? Oh, but I'm glad to get\nthis place mowed! When I heard it raining in the night, I thought\nmaybe you would come and do it for me to-day. The wind wakened\nme. Didn't it blow dreadfully? Just smell the wild roses! They\nare always so spicy after a rain. We never had so many of them\nin here before. I suppose it's the wet season. Will you have to\ncut them, too?\"\n\n\"If I cut the grass, I will,\" Emil said teasingly. \"What's the\nmatter with you? What makes you so flighty?\"\n\n\"Am I flighty? I suppose that's the wet season, too, then. It's\nexciting to see everything growing so fast,--and to get the grass\ncut! Please leave the roses till last, if you must cut them. Oh,\nI don't mean all of them, I mean that low place down by my tree, where\nthere are so many. Aren't you splashed! Look at the spider-webs\nall over the grass. Good-bye. I'll call you if I see a snake.\"\n\nShe tripped away and Emil stood looking after her. In a few moments\nhe heard the cherries dropping smartly into the pail, and he began\nto swing his scythe with that long, even stroke that few American\nboys ever learn. Marie picked cherries and sang softly to herself,\nstripping one glittering branch after another, shivering when she\ncaught a shower of raindrops on her neck and hair. And Emil mowed\nhis way slowly down toward the cherry trees.\n\nThat summer the rains had been so many and opportune that it was\nalmost more than Shabata and his man could do to keep up with the\ncorn; the orchard was a neglected wilderness. All sorts of weeds and\nherbs and flowers had grown up there; splotches of wild larkspur,\npale green-and-white spikes of hoarhound, plantations of wild\ncotton, tangles of foxtail and wild wheat. South of the apricot\ntrees, cornering on the wheatfield, was Frank's alfalfa, where\nmyriads of white and yellow butterflies were always fluttering\nabove the purple blossoms. When Emil reached the lower corner by\nthe hedge, Marie was sitting under her white mulberry tree, the\npailful of cherries beside her, looking off at the gentle, tireless\nswelling of the wheat.\n\n\"Emil,\" she said suddenly--he was mowing quietly about under the\ntree so as not to disturb her--\"what religion did the Swedes have\naway back, before they were Christians?\"\n\nEmil paused and straightened his back. \"I don't know. About like\nthe Germans', wasn't it?\"\n\nMarie went on as if she had not heard him. \"The Bohemians, you\nknow, were tree worshipers before the missionaries came. Father says\nthe people in the mountains still do queer things, sometimes,--they\nbelieve that trees bring good or bad luck.\"\n\nEmil looked superior. \"Do they? Well, which are the lucky trees?\nI'd like to know.\"\n\n\"I don't know all of them, but I know lindens are. The old people\nin the mountains plant lindens to purify the forest, and to do away\nwith the spells that come from the old trees they say have lasted\nfrom heathen times. I'm a good Catholic, but I think I could get\nalong with caring for trees, if I hadn't anything else.\"\n\n\"That's a poor saying,\" said Emil, stooping over to wipe his hands\nin the wet grass.\n\n\"Why is it? If I feel that way, I feel that way. I like trees\nbecause they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than\nother things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever\nthink of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to\nremind it of anything; I begin just where I left off.\"\n\nEmil had nothing to say to this. He reached up among the branches\nand began to pick the sweet, insipid fruit,--long ivory-colored\nberries, tipped with faint pink, like white coral, that fall to\nthe ground unheeded all summer through. He dropped a handful into\nher lap.\n\n\"Do you like Mr. Linstrum?\" Marie asked suddenly.\n\n\"Yes. Don't you?\"\n\n\"Oh, ever so much; only he seems kind of staid and school-teachery.\nBut, of course, he is older than Frank, even. I'm sure I don't\nwant to live to be more than thirty, do you? Do you think Alexandra\nlikes him very much?\"\n\n\"I suppose so. They were old friends.\"\n\n\"Oh, Emil, you know what I mean!\" Marie tossed her head impatiently.\n\"Does she really care about him? When she used to tell me about\nhim, I always wondered whether she wasn't a little in love with\nhim.\"\n\n\"Who, Alexandra?\" Emil laughed and thrust his hands into his\ntrousers pockets. \"Alexandra's never been in love, you crazy!\" He\nlaughed again. \"She wouldn't know how to go about it. The idea!\"\n\nMarie shrugged her shoulders. \"Oh, you don't know Alexandra as well\nas you think you do! If you had any eyes, you would see that she\nis very fond of him. It would serve you all right if she walked\noff with Carl. I like him because he appreciates her more than\nyou do.\"\n\nEmil frowned. \"What are you talking about, Marie? Alexandra's\nall right. She and I have always been good friends. What more do\nyou want? I like to talk to Carl about New York and what a fellow\ncan do there.\"\n\n\"Oh, Emil! Surely you are not thinking of going off there?\"\n\n\"Why not? I must go somewhere, mustn't I?\" The young man took up\nhis scythe and leaned on it. \"Would you rather I went off in the\nsand hills and lived like Ivar?\"\n\nMarie's face fell under his brooding gaze. She looked down at his\nwet leggings. \"I'm sure Alexandra hopes you will stay on here,\"\nshe murmured.\n\n\"Then Alexandra will be disappointed,\" the young man said roughly.\n\"What do I want to hang around here for? Alexandra can run the\nfarm all right, without me. I don't want to stand around and look\non. I want to be doing something on my own account.\"\n\n\"That's so,\" Marie sighed. \"There are so many, many things you\ncan do. Almost anything you choose.\"\n\n\"And there are so many, many things I can't do.\" Emil echoed her\ntone sarcastically. \"Sometimes I don't want to do anything at\nall, and sometimes I want to pull the four corners of the Divide\ntogether,\"--he threw out his arm and brought it back with a jerk,--\"so,\nlike a table-cloth. I get tired of seeing men and horses going up\nand down, up and down.\"\n\nMarie looked up at his defiant figure and her face clouded. \"I wish\nyou weren't so restless, and didn't get so worked up over things,\"\nshe said sadly.\n\n\"Thank you,\" he returned shortly.\n\nShe sighed despondently. \"Everything I say makes you cross, don't\nit? And you never used to be cross to me.\"\n\nEmil took a step nearer and stood frowning down at her bent head.\nHe stood in an attitude of self-defense, his feet well apart, his\nhands clenched and drawn up at his sides, so that the cords stood\nout on his bare arms. \"I can't play with you like a little boy\nany more,\" he said slowly. \"That's what you miss, Marie. You'll\nhave to get some other little boy to play with.\" He stopped and took\na deep breath. Then he went on in a low tone, so intense that it\nwas almost threatening: \"Sometimes you seem to understand perfectly,\nand then sometimes you pretend you don't. You don't help things\nany by pretending. It's then that I want to pull the corners of\nthe Divide together. If you WON'T understand, you know, I could\nmake you!\"\n\nMarie clasped her hands and started up from her seat. She had grown\nvery pale and her eyes were shining with excitement and distress.\n\"But, Emil, if I understand, then all our good times are over, we\ncan never do nice things together any more. We shall have to behave\nlike Mr. Linstrum. And, anyhow, there's nothing to understand!\"\nShe struck the ground with her little foot fiercely. \"That won't\nlast. It will go away, and things will be just as they used to.\nI wish you were a Catholic. The Church helps people, indeed it\ndoes. I pray for you, but that's not the same as if you prayed\nyourself.\"\n\nShe spoke rapidly and pleadingly, looked entreatingly into his\nface. Emil stood defiant, gazing down at her.\n\n\"I can't pray to have the things I want,\" he said slowly, \"and I\nwon't pray not to have them, not if I'm damned for it.\"\n\nMarie turned away, wringing her hands. \"Oh, Emil, you won't try!\nThen all our good times are over.\"\n\n\"Yes; over. I never expect to have any more.\"\n\nEmil gripped the hand-holds of his scythe and began to mow. Marie\ntook up her cherries and went slowly toward the house, crying\nbitterly.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nOn Sunday afternoon, a month after Carl Linstrum's arrival, he rode\nwith Emil up into the French country to attend a Catholic fair. He\nsat for most of the afternoon in the basement of the church, where\nthe fair was held, talking to Marie Shabata, or strolled about the\ngravel terrace, thrown up on the hillside in front of the basement\ndoors, where the French boys were jumping and wrestling and throwing\nthe discus. Some of the boys were in their white baseball suits;\nthey had just come up from a Sunday practice game down in the\nballgrounds. Amedee, the newly married, Emil's best friend, was\ntheir pitcher, renowned among the country towns for his dash and\nskill. Amedee was a little fellow, a year younger than Emil and\nmuch more boyish in appearance; very lithe and active and neatly\nmade, with a clear brown and white skin, and flashing white teeth.\nThe Sainte-Agnes boys were to play the Hastings nine in a fortnight,\nand Amedee's lightning balls were the hope of his team. The little\nFrenchman seemed to get every ounce there was in him behind the\nball as it left his hand.\n\n\"You'd have made the battery at the University for sure, 'Medee,\"\nEmil said as they were walking from the ball-grounds back to the\nchurch on the hill. \"You're pitching better than you did in the\nspring.\"\n\nAmedee grinned. \"Sure! A married man don't lose his head no more.\"\nHe slapped Emil on the back as he caught step with him. \"Oh, Emil,\nyou wanna get married right off quick! It's the greatest thing\never!\"\n\nEmil laughed. \"How am I going to get married without any girl?\"\n\nAmedee took his arm. \"Pooh! There are plenty girls will have\nyou. You wanna get some nice French girl, now. She treat you well;\nalways be jolly. See,\"--he began checking off on his fingers,--\"there\nis Severine, and Alphosen, and Josephine, and Hectorine, and Louise,\nand Malvina--why, I could love any of them girls! Why don't you\nget after them? Are you stuck up, Emil, or is anything the matter\nwith you? I never did know a boy twenty-two years old before that\ndidn't have no girl. You wanna be a priest, maybe? Not-a for me!\"\nAmedee swaggered. \"I bring many good Catholics into this world,\nI hope, and that's a way I help the Church.\"\n\nEmil looked down and patted him on the shoulder. \"Now you're windy,\n'Medee. You Frenchies like to brag.\"\n\nBut Amedee had the zeal of the newly married, and he was not\nto be lightly shaken off. \"Honest and true, Emil, don't you want\nANY girl? Maybe there's some young lady in Lincoln, now, very\ngrand,\"--Amedee waved his hand languidly before his face to denote\nthe fan of heartless beauty,--\"and you lost your heart up there.\nIs that it?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" said Emil.\n\nBut Amedee saw no appropriate glow in his friend's face. \"Bah!\"\nhe exclaimed in disgust. \"I tell all the French girls to keep 'way\nfrom you. You gotta rock in there,\" thumping Emil on the ribs.\n\nWhen they reached the terrace at the side of the church, Amedee,\nwho was excited by his success on the ball-grounds, challenged\nEmil to a jumping-match, though he knew he would be beaten. They\nbelted themselves up, and Raoul Marcel, the choir tenor and Father\nDuchesne's pet, and Jean Bordelau, held the string over which they\nvaulted. All the French boys stood round, cheering and humping\nthemselves up when Emil or Amedee went over the wire, as if they\nwere helping in the lift. Emil stopped at five-feet-five, declaring\nthat he would spoil his appetite for supper if he jumped any more.\n\nAngelique, Amedee's pretty bride, as blonde and fair as her name,\nwho had come out to watch the match, tossed her head at Emil and\nsaid:--\n\n\"'Medee could jump much higher than you if he were as tall. And\nanyhow, he is much more graceful. He goes over like a bird, and\nyou have to hump yourself all up.\"\n\n\"Oh, I do, do I?\" Emil caught her and kissed her saucy mouth squarely,\nwhile she laughed and struggled and called, \"'Medee! 'Medee!\"\n\n\"There, you see your 'Medee isn't even big enough to get you away\nfrom me. I could run away with you right now and he could only\nsit down and cry about it. I'll show you whether I have to hump\nmyself!\" Laughing and panting, he picked Angelique up in his arms\nand began running about the rectangle with her. Not until he saw\nMarie Shabata's tiger eyes flashing from the gloom of the basement\ndoorway did he hand the disheveled bride over to her husband.\n\"There, go to your graceful; I haven't the heart to take you away\nfrom him.\"\n\nAngelique clung to her husband and made faces at Emil over the\nwhite shoulder of Amedee's ball-shirt. Emil was greatly amused at\nher air of proprietorship and at Amedee's shameless submission to\nit. He was delighted with his friend's good fortune. He liked to\nsee and to think about Amedee's sunny, natural, happy love.\n\nHe and Amedee had ridden and wrestled and larked together since\nthey were lads of twelve. On Sundays and holidays they were always\narm in arm. It seemed strange that now he should have to hide the\nthing that Amedee was so proud of, that the feeling which gave one\nof them such happiness should bring the other such despair. It\nwas like that when Alexandra tested her seed-corn in the spring,\nhe mused. From two ears that had grown side by side, the grains\nof one shot up joyfully into the light, projecting themselves into\nthe future, and the grains from the other lay still in the earth\nand rotted; and nobody knew why.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nWhile Emil and Carl were amusing themselves at the fair, Alexandra\nwas at home, busy with her account-books, which had been neglected\nof late. She was almost through with her figures when she heard\na cart drive up to the gate, and looking out of the window she saw\nher two older brothers. They had seemed to avoid her ever since\nCarl Linstrum's arrival, four weeks ago that day, and she hurried\nto the door to welcome them. She saw at once that they had come\nwith some very definite purpose. They followed her stiffly into\nthe sitting-room. Oscar sat down, but Lou walked over to the window\nand remained standing, his hands behind him.\n\n\"You are by yourself?\" he asked, looking toward the doorway into\nthe parlor.\n\n\"Yes. Carl and Emil went up to the Catholic fair.\"\n\nFor a few moments neither of the men spoke.\n\nThen Lou came out sharply. \"How soon does he intend to go away\nfrom here?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Lou. Not for some time, I hope.\" Alexandra spoke\nin an even, quiet tone that often exasperated her brothers. They\nfelt that she was trying to be superior with them.\n\nOscar spoke up grimly. \"We thought we ought to tell you that people\nhave begun to talk,\" he said meaningly.\n\nAlexandra looked at him. \"What about?\"\n\nOscar met her eyes blankly. \"About you, keeping him here so long.\nIt looks bad for him to be hanging on to a woman this way. People\nthink you're getting taken in.\"\n\nAlexandra shut her account-book firmly. \"Boys,\" she said seriously,\n\"don't let's go on with this. We won't come out anywhere. I can't\ntake advice on such a matter. I know you mean well, but you must\nnot feel responsible for me in things of this sort. If we go on\nwith this talk it will only make hard feeling.\"\n\nLou whipped about from the window. \"You ought to think a little\nabout your family. You're making us all ridiculous.\"\n\n\"How am I?\"\n\n\"People are beginning to say you want to marry the fellow.\"\n\n\"Well, and what is ridiculous about that?\"\n\nLou and Oscar exchanged outraged looks. \"Alexandra! Can't you\nsee he's just a tramp and he's after your money? He wants to be\ntaken care of, he does!\"\n\n\"Well, suppose I want to take care of him? Whose business is it\nbut my own?\"\n\n\"Don't you know he'd get hold of your property?\"\n\n\"He'd get hold of what I wished to give him, certainly.\"\n\nOscar sat up suddenly and Lou clutched at his bristly hair.\n\n\"Give him?\" Lou shouted. \"Our property, our homestead?\"\n\n\"I don't know about the homestead,\" said Alexandra quietly. \"I\nknow you and Oscar have always expected that it would be left to\nyour children, and I'm not sure but what you're right. But I'll\ndo exactly as I please with the rest of my land, boys.\"\n\n\"The rest of your land!\" cried Lou, growing more excited every\nminute. \"Didn't all the land come out of the homestead? It was\nbought with money borrowed on the homestead, and Oscar and me worked\nourselves to the bone paying interest on it.\"\n\n\"Yes, you paid the interest. But when you married we made a division\nof the land, and you were satisfied. I've made more on my farms\nsince I've been alone than when we all worked together.\"\n\n\"Everything you've made has come out of the original land that us\nboys worked for, hasn't it? The farms and all that comes out of\nthem belongs to us as a family.\"\n\nAlexandra waved her hand impatiently. \"Come now, Lou. Stick to\nthe facts. You are talking nonsense. Go to the county clerk and\nask him who owns my land, and whether my titles are good.\"\n\nLou turned to his brother. \"This is what comes of letting a woman\nmeddle in business,\" he said bitterly. \"We ought to have taken\nthings in our own hands years ago. But she liked to run things,\nand we humored her. We thought you had good sense, Alexandra. We\nnever thought you'd do anything foolish.\"\n\nAlexandra rapped impatiently on her desk with her knuckles.\n\"Listen, Lou. Don't talk wild. You say you ought to have taken\nthings into your own hands years ago. I suppose you mean before\nyou left home. But how could you take hold of what wasn't there?\nI've got most of what I have now since we divided the property;\nI've built it up myself, and it has nothing to do with you.\"\n\nOscar spoke up solemnly. \"The property of a family really belongs\nto the men of the family, no matter about the title. If anything\ngoes wrong, it's the men that are held responsible.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" Lou broke in. \"Everybody knows that. Oscar and\nme have always been easy-going and we've never made any fuss. We\nwere willing you should hold the land and have the good of it, but\nyou got no right to part with any of it. We worked in the fields\nto pay for the first land you bought, and whatever's come out of\nit has got to be kept in the family.\"\n\nOscar reinforced his brother, his mind fixed on the one point he\ncould see. \"The property of a family belongs to the men of the\nfamily, because they are held responsible, and because they do the\nwork.\"\n\nAlexandra looked from one to the other, her eyes full of indignation.\nShe had been impatient before, but now she was beginning to feel\nangry. \"And what about my work?\" she asked in an unsteady voice.\n\nLou looked at the carpet. \"Oh, now, Alexandra, you always took\nit pretty easy! Of course we wanted you to. You liked to manage\nround, and we always humored you. We realize you were a great\ndeal of help to us. There's no woman anywhere around that knows\nas much about business as you do, and we've always been proud of\nthat, and thought you were pretty smart. But, of course, the real\nwork always fell on us. Good advice is all right, but it don't\nget the weeds out of the corn.\"\n\n\"Maybe not, but it sometimes puts in the crop, and it sometimes\nkeeps the fields for corn to grow in,\" said Alexandra dryly. \"Why,\nLou, I can remember when you and Oscar wanted to sell this homestead\nand all the improvements to old preacher Ericson for two thousand\ndollars. If I'd consented, you'd have gone down to the river and\nscraped along on poor farms for the rest of your lives. When I put\nin our first field of alfalfa you both opposed me, just because I\nfirst heard about it from a young man who had been to the University.\nYou said I was being taken in then, and all the neighbors said\nso. You know as well as I do that alfalfa has been the salvation\nof this country. You all laughed at me when I said our land here\nwas about ready for wheat, and I had to raise three big wheat crops\nbefore the neighbors quit putting all their land in corn. Why, I\nremember you cried, Lou, when we put in the first big wheat-planting,\nand said everybody was laughing at us.\"\n\nLou turned to Oscar. \"That's the woman of it; if she tells you to\nput in a crop, she thinks she's put it in. It makes women conceited\nto meddle in business. I shouldn't think you'd want to remind us\nhow hard you were on us, Alexandra, after the way you baby Emil.\"\n\n\"Hard on you? I never meant to be hard. Conditions were hard.\nMaybe I would never have been very soft, anyhow; but I certainly\ndidn't choose to be the kind of girl I was. If you take even a\nvine and cut it back again and again, it grows hard, like a tree.\"\n\nLou felt that they were wandering from the point, and that\nin digression Alexandra might unnerve him. He wiped his forehead\nwith a jerk of his handkerchief. \"We never doubted you, Alexandra.\nWe never questioned anything you did. You've always had your own\nway. But you can't expect us to sit like stumps and see you done\nout of the property by any loafer who happens along, and making\nyourself ridiculous into the bargain.\"\n\nOscar rose. \"Yes,\" he broke in, \"everybody's laughing to see you\nget took in; at your age, too. Everybody knows he's nearly five\nyears younger than you, and is after your money. Why, Alexandra,\nyou are forty years old!\"\n\n\"All that doesn't concern anybody but Carl and me. Go to town and\nask your lawyers what you can do to restrain me from disposing of\nmy own property. And I advise you to do what they tell you; for\nthe authority you can exert by law is the only influence you will\never have over me again.\" Alexandra rose. \"I think I would rather\nnot have lived to find out what I have to-day,\" she said quietly,\nclosing her desk.\n\nLou and Oscar looked at each other questioningly. There seemed to\nbe nothing to do but to go, and they walked out.\n\n\"You can't do business with women,\" Oscar said heavily as he\nclambered into the cart. \"But anyhow, we've had our say, at last.\"\n\nLou scratched his head. \"Talk of that kind might come too high, you\nknow; but she's apt to be sensible. You hadn't ought to said that\nabout her age, though, Oscar. I'm afraid that hurt her feelings;\nand the worst thing we can do is to make her sore at us. She'd\nmarry him out of contrariness.\"\n\n\"I only meant,\" said Oscar, \"that she is old enough to know better,\nand she is. If she was going to marry, she ought to done it long\nago, and not go making a fool of herself now.\"\n\nLou looked anxious, nevertheless. \"Of course,\" he reflected hopefully\nand inconsistently, \"Alexandra ain't much like other women-folks.\nMaybe it won't make her sore. Maybe she'd as soon be forty as\nnot!\"\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nEmil came home at about half-past seven o'clock that evening. Old\nIvar met him at the windmill and took his horse, and the young\nman went directly into the house. He called to his sister and she\nanswered from her bedroom, behind the sitting-room, saying that\nshe was lying down.\n\nEmil went to her door.\n\n\"Can I see you for a minute?\" he asked. \"I want to talk to you\nabout something before Carl comes.\"\n\nAlexandra rose quickly and came to the door. \"Where is Carl?\"\n\n\"Lou and Oscar met us and said they wanted to talk to him, so he\nrode over to Oscar's with them. Are you coming out?\" Emil asked\nimpatiently.\n\n\"Yes, sit down. I'll be dressed in a moment.\"\n\nAlexandra closed her door, and Emil sank down on the old slat lounge\nand sat with his head in his hands. When his sister came out, he\nlooked up, not knowing whether the interval had been short or long,\nand he was surprised to see that the room had grown quite dark.\nThat was just as well; it would be easier to talk if he were not\nunder the gaze of those clear, deliberate eyes, that saw so far in\nsome directions and were so blind in others. Alexandra, too, was\nglad of the dusk. Her face was swollen from crying.\n\nEmil started up and then sat down again. \"Alexandra,\" he said\nslowly, in his deep young baritone, \"I don't want to go away to\nlaw school this fall. Let me put it off another year. I want to\ntake a year off and look around. It's awfully easy to rush into\na profession you don't really like, and awfully hard to get out of\nit. Linstrum and I have been talking about that.\"\n\n\"Very well, Emil. Only don't go off looking for land.\" She came\nup and put her hand on his shoulder. \"I've been wishing you could\nstay with me this winter.\"\n\n\"That's just what I don't want to do, Alexandra. I'm restless.\nI want to go to a new place. I want to go down to the City of\nMexico to join one of the University fellows who's at the head of\nan electrical plant. He wrote me he could give me a little job,\nenough to pay my way, and I could look around and see what I want\nto do. I want to go as soon as harvest is over. I guess Lou and\nOscar will be sore about it.\"\n\n\"I suppose they will.\" Alexandra sat down on the lounge beside\nhim. \"They are very angry with me, Emil. We have had a quarrel.\nThey will not come here again.\"\n\nEmil scarcely heard what she was saying; he did not notice the\nsadness of her tone. He was thinking about the reckless life he\nmeant to live in Mexico.\n\n\"What about?\" he asked absently.\n\n\"About Carl Linstrum. They are afraid I am going to marry him,\nand that some of my property will get away from them.\"\n\nEmil shrugged his shoulders. \"What nonsense!\" he murmured. \"Just\nlike them.\"\n\nAlexandra drew back. \"Why nonsense, Emil?\"\n\n\"Why, you've never thought of such a thing, have you? They always\nhave to have something to fuss about.\"\n\n\"Emil,\" said his sister slowly, \"you ought not to take things for\ngranted. Do you agree with them that I have no right to change my\nway of living?\"\n\nEmil looked at the outline of his sister's head in the dim light.\nThey were sitting close together and he somehow felt that she\ncould hear his thoughts. He was silent for a moment, and then said\nin an embarrassed tone, \"Why, no, certainly not. You ought to do\nwhatever you want to. I'll always back you.\"\n\n\"But it would seem a little bit ridiculous to you if I married\nCarl?\"\n\nEmil fidgeted. The issue seemed to him too far-fetched to warrant\ndiscussion. \"Why, no. I should be surprised if you wanted to. I\ncan't see exactly why. But that's none of my business. You ought\nto do as you please. Certainly you ought not to pay any attention\nto what the boys say.\"\n\nAlexandra sighed. \"I had hoped you might understand, a little,\nwhy I do want to. But I suppose that's too much to expect. I've\nhad a pretty lonely life, Emil. Besides Marie, Carl is the only\nfriend I have ever had.\"\n\nEmil was awake now; a name in her last sentence roused him. He\nput out his hand and took his sister's awkwardly. \"You ought to\ndo just as you wish, and I think Carl's a fine fellow. He and I\nwould always get on. I don't believe any of the things the boys\nsay about him, honest I don't. They are suspicious of him because\nhe's intelligent. You know their way. They've been sore at me\never since you let me go away to college. They're always trying to\ncatch me up. If I were you, I wouldn't pay any attention to them.\nThere's nothing to get upset about. Carl's a sensible fellow. He\nwon't mind them.\"\n\n\"I don't know. If they talk to him the way they did to me, I think\nhe'll go away.\"\n\nEmil grew more and more uneasy. \"Think so? Well, Marie said it\nwould serve us all right if you walked off with him.\"\n\n\"Did she? Bless her little heart! SHE would.\" Alexandra's voice\nbroke.\n\nEmil began unlacing his leggings. \"Why don't you talk to her about\nit? There's Carl, I hear his horse. I guess I'll go upstairs and\nget my boots off. No, I don't want any supper. We had supper at\nfive o'clock, at the fair.\"\n\nEmil was glad to escape and get to his own room. He was a little\nashamed for his sister, though he had tried not to show it. He\nfelt that there was something indecorous in her proposal, and she\ndid seem to him somewhat ridiculous. There was trouble enough in\nthe world, he reflected, as he threw himself upon his bed, without\npeople who were forty years old imagining they wanted to get\nmarried. In the darkness and silence Emil was not likely to think\nlong about Alexandra. Every image slipped away but one. He had\nseen Marie in the crowd that afternoon. She sold candy at the\nfair. WHY had she ever run away with Frank Shabata, and how could\nshe go on laughing and working and taking an interest in things?\nWhy did she like so many people, and why had she seemed pleased when\nall the French and Bohemian boys, and the priest himself, crowded\nround her candy stand? Why did she care about any one but him? Why\ncould he never, never find the thing he looked for in her playful,\naffectionate eyes?\n\nThen he fell to imagining that he looked once more and found it\nthere, and what it would be like if she loved him,--she who, as\nAlexandra said, could give her whole heart. In that dream he could\nlie for hours, as if in a trance. His spirit went out of his body\nand crossed the fields to Marie Shabata.\n\nAt the University dances the girls had often looked wonderingly\nat the tall young Swede with the fine head, leaning against the\nwall and frowning, his arms folded, his eyes fixed on the ceiling\nor the floor. All the girls were a little afraid of him. He was\ndistinguished-looking, and not the jollying kind. They felt that\nhe was too intense and preoccupied. There was something queer about\nhim. Emil's fraternity rather prided itself upon its dances, and\nsometimes he did his duty and danced every dance. But whether he\nwas on the floor or brooding in a corner, he was always thinking\nabout Marie Shabata. For two years the storm had been gathering\nin him.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nCarl came into the sitting-room while Alexandra was lighting the\nlamp. She looked up at him as she adjusted the shade. His sharp\nshoulders stooped as if he were very tired, his face was pale,\nand there were bluish shadows under his dark eyes. His anger had\nburned itself out and left him sick and disgusted.\n\n\"You have seen Lou and Oscar?\" Alexandra asked.\n\n\"Yes.\" His eyes avoided hers.\n\nAlexandra took a deep breath. \"And now you are going away. I\nthought so.\"\n\nCarl threw himself into a chair and pushed the dark lock back\nfrom his forehead with his white, nervous hand. \"What a hopeless\nposition you are in, Alexandra!\" he exclaimed feverishly. \"It is\nyour fate to be always surrounded by little men. And I am no better\nthan the rest. I am too little to face the criticism of even such\nmen as Lou and Oscar. Yes, I am going away; to-morrow. I cannot\neven ask you to give me a promise until I have something to offer\nyou. I thought, perhaps, I could do that; but I find I can't.\"\n\n\"What good comes of offering people things they don't need?\"\nAlexandra asked sadly. \"I don't need money. But I have needed\nyou for a great many years. I wonder why I have been permitted to\nprosper, if it is only to take my friends away from me.\"\n\n\"I don't deceive myself,\" Carl said frankly. \"I know that I am\ngoing away on my own account. I must make the usual effort. I\nmust have something to show for myself. To take what you would\ngive me, I should have to be either a very large man or a very\nsmall one, and I am only in the middle class.\"\n\nAlexandra sighed. \"I have a feeling that if you go away, you will\nnot come back. Something will happen to one of us, or to both.\nPeople have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world.\nIt is always easier to lose than to find. What I have is yours,\nif you care enough about me to take it.\"\n\nCarl rose and looked up at the picture of John Bergson. \"But I\ncan't, my dear, I can't! I will go North at once. Instead of idling\nabout in California all winter, I shall be getting my bearings up\nthere. I won't waste another week. Be patient with me, Alexandra.\nGive me a year!\"\n\n\"As you will,\" said Alexandra wearily. \"All at once, in a single\nday, I lose everything; and I do not know why. Emil, too, is going\naway.\" Carl was still studying John Bergson's face and Alexandra's\neyes followed his. \"Yes,\" she said, \"if he could have seen all\nthat would come of the task he gave me, he would have been sorry.\nI hope he does not see me now. I hope that he is among the old\npeople of his blood and country, and that tidings do not reach him\nfrom the New World.\"\n\n\n\n\nPART III. Winter Memories\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nWinter has settled down over the Divide again; the season in\nwhich Nature recuperates, in which she sinks to sleep between the\nfruitfulness of autumn and the passion of spring. The birds have\ngone. The teeming life that goes on down in the long grass is\nexterminated. The prairie-dog keeps his hole. The rabbits run\nshivering from one frozen garden patch to another and are hard put\nto it to find frost-bitten cabbage-stalks. At night the coyotes\nroam the wintry waste, howling for food. The variegated fields\nare all one color now; the pastures, the stubble, the roads, the\nsky are the same leaden gray. The hedgerows and trees are scarcely\nperceptible against the bare earth, whose slaty hue they have taken\non. The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises the foot to walk\nin the roads or in the ploughed fields. It is like an iron country,\nand the spirit is oppressed by its rigor and melancholy. One could\neasily believe that in that dead landscape the germs of life and\nfruitfulness were extinct forever.\n\nAlexandra has settled back into her old routine. There are weekly\nletters from Emil. Lou and Oscar she has not seen since Carl\nwent away. To avoid awkward encounters in the presence of curious\nspectators, she has stopped going to the Norwegian Church and drives\nup to the Reform Church at Hanover, or goes with Marie Shabata to\nthe Catholic Church, locally known as \"the French Church.\" She has\nnot told Marie about Carl, or her differences with her brothers.\nShe was never very communicative about her own affairs, and when\nshe came to the point, an instinct told her that about such things\nshe and Marie would not understand one another.\n\nOld Mrs. Lee had been afraid that family misunderstandings might\ndeprive her of her yearly visit to Alexandra. But on the first day\nof December Alexandra telephoned Annie that to-morrow she would\nsend Ivar over for her mother, and the next day the old lady arrived\nwith her bundles. For twelve years Mrs. Lee had always entered\nAlexandra's sitting-room with the same exclamation, \"Now we be yust-a\nlike old times!\" She enjoyed the liberty Alexandra gave her, and\nhearing her own language about her all day long. Here she could\nwear her nightcap and sleep with all her windows shut, listen\nto Ivar reading the Bible, and here she could run about among the\nstables in a pair of Emil's old boots. Though she was bent almost\ndouble, she was as spry as a gopher. Her face was as brown as if\nit had been varnished, and as full of wrinkles as a washerwoman's\nhands. She had three jolly old teeth left in the front of her\nmouth, and when she grinned she looked very knowing, as if when\nyou found out how to take it, life wasn't half bad. While she and\nAlexandra patched and pieced and quilted, she talked incessantly\nabout stories she read in a Swedish family paper, telling the plots\nin great detail; or about her life on a dairy farm in Gottland\nwhen she was a girl. Sometimes she forgot which were the printed\nstories and which were the real stories, it all seemed so far away.\nShe loved to take a little brandy, with hot water and sugar, before\nshe went to bed, and Alexandra always had it ready for her. \"It\nsends good dreams,\" she would say with a twinkle in her eye.\n\nWhen Mrs. Lee had been with Alexandra for a week, Marie Shabata\ntelephoned one morning to say that Frank had gone to town for the\nday, and she would like them to come over for coffee in the afternoon.\nMrs. Lee hurried to wash out and iron her new cross-stitched apron,\nwhich she had finished only the night before; a checked gingham\napron worked with a design ten inches broad across the bottom;\na hunting scene, with fir trees and a stag and dogs and huntsmen.\nMrs. Lee was firm with herself at dinner, and refused a second\nhelping of apple dumplings. \"I ta-ank I save up,\" she said with\na giggle.\n\nAt two o'clock in the afternoon Alexandra's cart drove up to the\nShabatas' gate, and Marie saw Mrs. Lee's red shawl come bobbing up\nthe path. She ran to the door and pulled the old woman into the\nhouse with a hug, helping her to take off her wraps while Alexandra\nblanketed the horse outside. Mrs. Lee had put on her best black\nsatine dress--she abominated woolen stuffs, even in winter--and\na crocheted collar, fastened with a big pale gold pin, containing\nfaded daguerreotypes of her father and mother. She had not worn\nher apron for fear of rumpling it, and now she shook it out and\ntied it round her waist with a conscious air. Marie drew back and\nthrew up her hands, exclaiming, \"Oh, what a beauty! I've never\nseen this one before, have I, Mrs. Lee?\"\n\nThe old woman giggled and ducked her head. \"No, yust las' night I\nma-ake. See dis tread; verra strong, no wa-ash out, no fade. My\nsister send from Sveden. I yust-a ta-ank you like dis.\"\n\nMarie ran to the door again. \"Come in, Alexandra. I have been\nlooking at Mrs. Lee's apron. Do stop on your way home and show it\nto Mrs. Hiller. She's crazy about cross-stitch.\"\n\nWhile Alexandra removed her hat and veil, Mrs. Lee went out to the\nkitchen and settled herself in a wooden rocking-chair by the stove,\nlooking with great interest at the table, set for three, with a white\ncloth, and a pot of pink geraniums in the middle. \"My, a-an't you\ngotta fine plants; such-a much flower. How you keep from freeze?\"\n\nShe pointed to the window-shelves, full of blooming fuchsias and\ngeraniums.\n\n\"I keep the fire all night, Mrs. Lee, and when it's very cold I put\nthem all on the table, in the middle of the room. Other nights I\nonly put newspapers behind them. Frank laughs at me for fussing,\nbut when they don't bloom he says, 'What's the matter with the\ndarned things?'--What do you hear from Carl, Alexandra?\"\n\n\"He got to Dawson before the river froze, and now I suppose I won't\nhear any more until spring. Before he left California he sent me\na box of orange flowers, but they didn't keep very well. I have\nbrought a bunch of Emil's letters for you.\" Alexandra came out\nfrom the sitting-room and pinched Marie's cheek playfully. \"You\ndon't look as if the weather ever froze you up. Never have colds,\ndo you? That's a good girl. She had dark red cheeks like this\nwhen she was a little girl, Mrs. Lee. She looked like some queer\nforeign kind of a doll. I've never forgot the first time I saw\nyou in Mieklejohn's store, Marie, the time father was lying sick.\nCarl and I were talking about that before he went away.\"\n\n\"I remember, and Emil had his kitten along. When are you going to\nsend Emil's Christmas box?\"\n\n\"It ought to have gone before this. I'll have to send it by mail\nnow, to get it there in time.\"\n\nMarie pulled a dark purple silk necktie from her workbasket. \"I\nknit this for him. It's a good color, don't you think? Will you\nplease put it in with your things and tell him it's from me, to\nwear when he goes serenading.\"\n\nAlexandra laughed. \"I don't believe he goes serenading much. He\nsays in one letter that the Mexican ladies are said to be very\nbeautiful, but that don't seem to me very warm praise.\"\n\nMarie tossed her head. \"Emil can't fool me. If he's bought a\nguitar, he goes serenading. Who wouldn't, with all those Spanish\ngirls dropping flowers down from their windows! I'd sing to them\nevery night, wouldn't you, Mrs. Lee?\"\n\nThe old lady chuckled. Her eyes lit up as Marie bent down and\nopened the oven door. A delicious hot fragrance blew out into the\ntidy kitchen. \"My, somet'ing smell good!\" She turned to Alexandra\nwith a wink, her three yellow teeth making a brave show, \"I ta-ank\ndat stop my yaw from ache no more!\" she said contentedly.\n\nMarie took out a pan of delicate little rolls, stuffed with stewed\napricots, and began to dust them over with powdered sugar. \"I hope\nyou'll like these, Mrs. Lee; Alexandra does. The Bohemians always\nlike them with their coffee. But if you don't, I have a coffee-cake\nwith nuts and poppy seeds. Alexandra, will you get the cream jug?\nI put it in the window to keep cool.\"\n\n\"The Bohemians,\" said Alexandra, as they drew up to the table,\n\"certainly know how to make more kinds of bread than any other\npeople in the world. Old Mrs. Hiller told me once at the church\nsupper that she could make seven kinds of fancy bread, but Marie\ncould make a dozen.\"\n\nMrs. Lee held up one of the apricot rolls between her brown thumb\nand forefinger and weighed it critically. \"Yust like-a fedders,\"\nshe pronounced with satisfaction. \"My, a-an't dis nice!\" she\nexclaimed as she stirred her coffee. \"I yust ta-ake a liddle yelly\nnow, too, I ta-ank.\"\n\nAlexandra and Marie laughed at her forehandedness, and fell to\ntalking of their own affairs. \"I was afraid you had a cold when\nI talked to you over the telephone the other night, Marie. What\nwas the matter, had you been crying?\"\n\n\"Maybe I had,\" Marie smiled guiltily. \"Frank was out late that\nnight. Don't you get lonely sometimes in the winter, when everybody\nhas gone away?\"\n\n\"I thought it was something like that. If I hadn't had company,\nI'd have run over to see for myself. If you get down-hearted, what\nwill become of the rest of us?\" Alexandra asked.\n\n\"I don't, very often. There's Mrs. Lee without any coffee!\"\n\nLater, when Mrs. Lee declared that her powers were spent, Marie\nand Alexandra went upstairs to look for some crochet patterns the\nold lady wanted to borrow. \"Better put on your coat, Alexandra.\nIt's cold up there, and I have no idea where those patterns are. I\nmay have to look through my old trunks.\" Marie caught up a shawl\nand opened the stair door, running up the steps ahead of her guest.\n\"While I go through the bureau drawers, you might look in those\nhat-boxes on the closet-shelf, over where Frank's clothes hang.\nThere are a lot of odds and ends in them.\"\n\nShe began tossing over the contents of the drawers, and Alexandra\nwent into the clothes-closet. Presently she came back, holding a\nslender elastic yellow stick in her hand.\n\n\"What in the world is this, Marie? You don't mean to tell me Frank\never carried such a thing?\"\n\nMarie blinked at it with astonishment and sat down on the floor.\n\"Where did you find it? I didn't know he had kept it. I haven't\nseen it for years.\"\n\n\"It really is a cane, then?\"\n\n\"Yes. One he brought from the old country. He used to carry it\nwhen I first knew him. Isn't it foolish? Poor Frank!\"\n\nAlexandra twirled the stick in her fingers and laughed. \"He must\nhave looked funny!\"\n\nMarie was thoughtful. \"No, he didn't, really. It didn't seem out\nof place. He used to be awfully gay like that when he was a young\nman. I guess people always get what's hardest for them, Alexandra.\"\nMarie gathered the shawl closer about her and still looked hard at\nthe cane. \"Frank would be all right in the right place,\" she said\nreflectively. \"He ought to have a different kind of wife, for one\nthing. Do you know, Alexandra, I could pick out exactly the right\nsort of woman for Frank--now. The trouble is you almost have\nto marry a man before you can find out the sort of wife he needs;\nand usually it's exactly the sort you are not. Then what are you\ngoing to do about it?\" she asked candidly.\n\nAlexandra confessed she didn't know. \"However,\" she added, \"it\nseems to me that you get along with Frank about as well as any\nwoman I've ever seen or heard of could.\"\n\nMarie shook her head, pursing her lips and blowing her warm breath\nsoftly out into the frosty air. \"No; I was spoiled at home. I\nlike my own way, and I have a quick tongue. When Frank brags, I\nsay sharp things, and he never forgets. He goes over and over it\nin his mind; I can feel him. Then I'm too giddy. Frank's wife\nought to be timid, and she ought not to care about another living\nthing in the world but just Frank! I didn't, when I married him,\nbut I suppose I was too young to stay like that.\" Marie sighed.\n\nAlexandra had never heard Marie speak so frankly about her husband\nbefore, and she felt that it was wiser not to encourage her. No\ngood, she reasoned, ever came from talking about such things, and\nwhile Marie was thinking aloud, Alexandra had been steadily searching\nthe hat-boxes. \"Aren't these the patterns, Maria?\"\n\nMaria sprang up from the floor. \"Sure enough, we were looking\nfor patterns, weren't we? I'd forgot about everything but Frank's\nother wife. I'll put that away.\"\n\nShe poked the cane behind Frank's Sunday clothes, and though she\nlaughed, Alexandra saw there were tears in her eyes.\n\nWhen they went back to the kitchen, the snow had begun to fall,\nand Marie's visitors thought they must be getting home. She went\nout to the cart with them, and tucked the robes about old Mrs.\nLee while Alexandra took the blanket off her horse. As they drove\naway, Marie turned and went slowly back to the house. She took up\nthe package of letters Alexandra had brought, but she did not read\nthem. She turned them over and looked at the foreign stamps, and\nthen sat watching the flying snow while the dusk deepened in the\nkitchen and the stove sent out a red glow.\n\nMarie knew perfectly well that Emil's letters were written more for\nher than for Alexandra. They were not the sort of letters that a\nyoung man writes to his sister. They were both more personal and\nmore painstaking; full of descriptions of the gay life in the old\nMexican capital in the days when the strong hand of Porfirio Diaz\nwas still strong. He told about bull-fights and cock-fights,\nchurches and FIESTAS, the flower-markets and the fountains, the\nmusic and dancing, the people of all nations he met in the Italian\nrestaurants on San Francisco Street. In short, they were the kind\nof letters a young man writes to a woman when he wishes himself\nand his life to seem interesting to her, when he wishes to enlist\nher imagination in his behalf.\n\nMarie, when she was alone or when she sat sewing in the evening,\noften thought about what it must be like down there where Emil was;\nwhere there were flowers and street bands everywhere, and carriages\nrattling up and down, and where there was a little blind boot-black\nin front of the cathedral who could play any tune you asked for\nby dropping the lids of blacking-boxes on the stone steps. When\neverything is done and over for one at twenty-three, it is pleasant\nto let the mind wander forth and follow a young adventurer who has\nlife before him. \"And if it had not been for me,\" she thought,\n\"Frank might still be free like that, and having a good time making\npeople admire him. Poor Frank, getting married wasn't very good\nfor him either. I'm afraid I do set people against him, as he says.\nI seem, somehow, to give him away all the time. Perhaps he would\ntry to be agreeable to people again, if I were not around. It\nseems as if I always make him just as bad as he can be.\"\n\nLater in the winter, Alexandra looked back upon that afternoon as\nthe last satisfactory visit she had had with Marie. After that\nday the younger woman seemed to shrink more and more into herself.\nWhen she was with Alexandra she was not spontaneous and frank\nas she used to be. She seemed to be brooding over something, and\nholding something back. The weather had a good deal to do with\ntheir seeing less of each other than usual. There had not been\nsuch snowstorms in twenty years, and the path across the fields was\ndrifted deep from Christmas until March. When the two neighbors\nwent to see each other, they had to go round by the wagon-road,\nwhich was twice as far. They telephoned each other almost every\nnight, though in January there was a stretch of three weeks when\nthe wires were down, and when the postman did not come at all.\n\nMarie often ran in to see her nearest neighbor, old Mrs. Hiller,\nwho was crippled with rheumatism and had only her son, the lame\nshoemaker, to take care of her; and she went to the French Church,\nwhatever the weather. She was a sincerely devout girl. She prayed\nfor herself and for Frank, and for Emil, among the temptations of\nthat gay, corrupt old city. She found more comfort in the Church\nthat winter than ever before. It seemed to come closer to her,\nand to fill an emptiness that ached in her heart. She tried to\nbe patient with her husband. He and his hired man usually played\nCalifornia Jack in the evening. Marie sat sewing or crocheting and\ntried to take a friendly interest in the game, but she was always\nthinking about the wide fields outside, where the snow was drifting\nover the fences; and about the orchard, where the snow was falling\nand packing, crust over crust. When she went out into the dark\nkitchen to fix her plants for the night, she used to stand by the\nwindow and look out at the white fields, or watch the currents of\nsnow whirling over the orchard. She seemed to feel the weight of\nall the snow that lay down there. The branches had become so hard\nthat they wounded your hand if you but tried to break a twig. And\nyet, down under the frozen crusts, at the roots of the trees, the\nsecret of life was still safe, warm as the blood in one's heart;\nand the spring would come again! Oh, it would come again!\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nIf Alexandra had had much imagination she might have guessed what\nwas going on in Marie's mind, and she would have seen long before\nwhat was going on in Emil's. But that, as Emil himself had more\nthan once reflected, was Alexandra's blind side, and her life had\nnot been of the kind to sharpen her vision. Her training had all\nbeen toward the end of making her proficient in what she had undertaken\nto do. Her personal life, her own realization of herself, was\nalmost a subconscious existence; like an underground river that\ncame to the surface only here and there, at intervals months apart,\nand then sank again to flow on under her own fields. Nevertheless,\nthe underground stream was there, and it was because she had so much\npersonality to put into her enterprises and succeeded in putting\nit into them so completely, that her affairs prospered better than\nthose of her neighbors.\n\nThere were certain days in her life, outwardly uneventful, which\nAlexandra remembered as peculiarly happy; days when she was close\nto the flat, fallow world about her, and felt, as it were, in her\nown body the joyous germination in the soil. There were days,\ntoo, which she and Emil had spent together, upon which she loved\nto look back. There had been such a day when they were down on\nthe river in the dry year, looking over the land. They had made\nan early start one morning and had driven a long way before noon.\nWhen Emil said he was hungry, they drew back from the road, gave\nBrigham his oats among the bushes, and climbed up to the top of a\ngrassy bluff to eat their lunch under the shade of some little elm\ntrees. The river was clear there, and shallow, since there had\nbeen no rain, and it ran in ripples over the sparkling sand. Under\nthe overhanging willows of the opposite bank there was an inlet where\nthe water was deeper and flowed so slowly that it seemed to sleep\nin the sun. In this little bay a single wild duck was swimming and\ndiving and preening her feathers, disporting herself very happily\nin the flickering light and shade. They sat for a long time,\nwatching the solitary bird take its pleasure. No living thing\nhad ever seemed to Alexandra as beautiful as that wild duck. Emil\nmust have felt about it as she did, for afterward, when they were\nat home, he used sometimes to say, \"Sister, you know our duck down\nthere--\" Alexandra remembered that day as one of the happiest in\nher life. Years afterward she thought of the duck as still there,\nswimming and diving all by herself in the sunlight, a kind of\nenchanted bird that did not know age or change.\n\nMost of Alexandra's happy memories were as impersonal as this one;\nyet to her they were very personal. Her mind was a white book,\nwith clear writing about weather and beasts and growing things.\nNot many people would have cared to read it; only a happy few.\nShe had never been in love, she had never indulged in sentimental\nreveries. Even as a girl she had looked upon men as work-fellows.\nShe had grown up in serious times.\n\nThere was one fancy indeed, which persisted through her girlhood.\nIt most often came to her on Sunday mornings, the one day in\nthe week when she lay late abed listening to the familiar morning\nsounds; the windmill singing in the brisk breeze, Emil whistling\nas he blacked his boots down by the kitchen door. Sometimes, as\nshe lay thus luxuriously idle, her eyes closed, she used to have\nan illusion of being lifted up bodily and carried lightly by some\none very strong. It was a man, certainly, who carried her, but\nhe was like no man she knew; he was much larger and stronger and\nswifter, and he carried her as easily as if she were a sheaf of\nwheat. She never saw him, but, with eyes closed, she could feel\nthat he was yellow like the sunlight, and there was the smell of\nripe cornfields about him. She could feel him approach, bend over\nher and lift her, and then she could feel herself being carried\nswiftly off across the fields. After such a reverie she would rise\nhastily, angry with herself, and go down to the bath-house that\nwas partitioned off the kitchen shed. There she would stand in a\ntin tub and prosecute her bath with vigor, finishing it by pouring\nbuckets of cold well-water over her gleaming white body which no\nman on the Divide could have carried very far.\n\nAs she grew older, this fancy more often came to her when she was\ntired than when she was fresh and strong. Sometimes, after she had\nbeen in the open all day, overseeing the branding of the cattle or\nthe loading of the pigs, she would come in chilled, take a concoction\nof spices and warm home-made wine, and go to bed with her body\nactually aching with fatigue. Then, just before she went to sleep,\nshe had the old sensation of being lifted and carried by a strong\nbeing who took from her all her bodily weariness.\n\n\n\n\nPART IV. The White Mulberry Tree\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nThe French Church, properly the Church of Sainte-Agnes, stood\nupon a hill. The high, narrow, red-brick building, with its tall\nsteeple and steep roof, could be seen for miles across the wheatfields,\nthough the little town of Sainte-Agnes was completely hidden away\nat the foot of the hill. The church looked powerful and triumphant\nthere on its eminence, so high above the rest of the landscape,\nwith miles of warm color lying at its feet, and by its position and\nsetting it reminded one of some of the churches built long ago in\nthe wheat-lands of middle France.\n\nLate one June afternoon Alexandra Bergson was driving along one\nof the many roads that led through the rich French farming country\nto the big church. The sunlight was shining directly in her face,\nand there was a blaze of light all about the red church on the\nhill. Beside Alexandra lounged a strikingly exotic figure in a\ntall Mexican hat, a silk sash, and a black velvet jacket sewn with\nsilver buttons. Emil had returned only the night before, and his\nsister was so proud of him that she decided at once to take him up\nto the church supper, and to make him wear the Mexican costume he\nhad brought home in his trunk. \"All the girls who have stands are\ngoing to wear fancy costumes,\" she argued, \"and some of the boys.\nMarie is going to tell fortunes, and she sent to Omaha for a Bohemian\ndress her father brought back from a visit to the old country.\nIf you wear those clothes, they will all be pleased. And you must\ntake your guitar. Everybody ought to do what they can to help\nalong, and we have never done much. We are not a talented family.\"\n\nThe supper was to be at six o'clock, in the basement of the church,\nand afterward there would be a fair, with charades and an auction.\nAlexandra had set out from home early, leaving the house to Signa\nand Nelse Jensen, who were to be married next week. Signa had\nshyly asked to have the wedding put off until Emil came home.\n\nAlexandra was well satisfied with her brother. As they drove\nthrough the rolling French country toward the westering sun and the\nstalwart church, she was thinking of that time long ago when she\nand Emil drove back from the river valley to the still unconquered\nDivide. Yes, she told herself, it had been worth while; both Emil\nand the country had become what she had hoped. Out of her father's\nchildren there was one who was fit to cope with the world, who had\nnot been tied to the plow, and who had a personality apart from the\nsoil. And that, she reflected, was what she had worked for. She\nfelt well satisfied with her life.\n\nWhen they reached the church, a score of teams were hitched in\nfront of the basement doors that opened from the hillside upon the\nsanded terrace, where the boys wrestled and had jumping-matches.\nAmedee Chevalier, a proud father of one week, rushed out and\nembraced Emil. Amedee was an only son,--hence he was a very rich\nyoung man,--but he meant to have twenty children himself, like\nhis uncle Xavier. \"Oh, Emil,\" he cried, hugging his old friend\nrapturously, \"why ain't you been up to see my boy? You come\nto-morrow, sure? Emil, you wanna get a boy right off! It's the\ngreatest thing ever! No, no, no! Angel not sick at all. Everything\njust fine. That boy he come into this world laughin', and he been\nlaughin' ever since. You come an' see!\" He pounded Emil's ribs\nto emphasize each announcement.\n\nEmil caught his arms. \"Stop, Amedee. You're knocking the wind out\nof me. I brought him cups and spoons and blankets and moccasins\nenough for an orphan asylum. I'm awful glad it's a boy, sure\nenough!\"\n\nThe young men crowded round Emil to admire his costume and to tell\nhim in a breath everything that had happened since he went away.\nEmil had more friends up here in the French country than down on\nNorway Creek. The French and Bohemian boys were spirited and jolly,\nliked variety, and were as much predisposed to favor anything new\nas the Scandinavian boys were to reject it. The Norwegian and\nSwedish lads were much more self-centred, apt to be egotistical\nand jealous. They were cautious and reserved with Emil because he\nhad been away to college, and were prepared to take him down if he\nshould try to put on airs with them. The French boys liked a bit\nof swagger, and they were always delighted to hear about anything\nnew: new clothes, new games, new songs, new dances. Now they\ncarried Emil off to show him the club room they had just fitted up\nover the post-office, down in the village. They ran down the hill\nin a drove, all laughing and chattering at once, some in French,\nsome in English.\n\nAlexandra went into the cool, whitewashed basement where the women\nwere setting the tables. Marie was standing on a chair, building\na little tent of shawls where she was to tell fortunes. She sprang\ndown and ran toward Alexandra, stopping short and looking at her\nin disappointment. Alexandra nodded to her encouragingly.\n\n\"Oh, he will be here, Marie. The boys have taken him off to show\nhim something. You won't know him. He is a man now, sure enough.\nI have no boy left. He smokes terrible-smelling Mexican cigarettes\nand talks Spanish. How pretty you look, child. Where did you get\nthose beautiful earrings?\"\n\n\"They belonged to father's mother. He always promised them to me.\nHe sent them with the dress and said I could keep them.\"\n\nMarie wore a short red skirt of stoutly woven cloth, a white bodice\nand kirtle, a yellow silk turban wound low over her brown curls,\nand long coral pendants in her ears. Her ears had been pierced\nagainst a piece of cork by her great-aunt when she was seven years\nold. In those germless days she had worn bits of broom-straw, plucked\nfrom the common sweeping-broom, in the lobes until the holes were\nhealed and ready for little gold rings.\n\nWhen Emil came back from the village, he lingered outside on the\nterrace with the boys. Marie could hear him talking and strumming\non his guitar while Raoul Marcel sang falsetto. She was vexed\nwith him for staying out there. It made her very nervous to hear\nhim and not to see him; for, certainly, she told herself, she was\nnot going out to look for him. When the supper bell rang and the\nboys came trooping in to get seats at the first table, she forgot\nall about her annoyance and ran to greet the tallest of the crowd,\nin his conspicuous attire. She didn't mind showing her embarrassment\nat all. She blushed and laughed excitedly as she gave Emil her\nhand, and looked delightedly at the black velvet coat that brought\nout his fair skin and fine blond head. Marie was incapable of being\nlukewarm about anything that pleased her. She simply did not know\nhow to give a half-hearted response. When she was delighted, she\nwas as likely as not to stand on her tip-toes and clap her hands.\nIf people laughed at her, she laughed with them.\n\n\"Do the men wear clothes like that every day, in the street?\" She\ncaught Emil by his sleeve and turned him about. \"Oh, I wish I lived\nwhere people wore things like that! Are the buttons real silver?\nPut on the hat, please. What a heavy thing! How do you ever wear\nit? Why don't you tell us about the bull-fights?\"\n\nShe wanted to wring all his experiences from him at once, without\nwaiting a moment. Emil smiled tolerantly and stood looking down at\nher with his old, brooding gaze, while the French girls fluttered\nabout him in their white dresses and ribbons, and Alexandra watched\nthe scene with pride. Several of the French girls, Marie knew, were\nhoping that Emil would take them to supper, and she was relieved\nwhen he took only his sister. Marie caught Frank's arm and dragged\nhim to the same table, managing to get seats opposite the Bergsons,\nso that she could hear what they were talking about. Alexandra\nmade Emil tell Mrs. Xavier Chevalier, the mother of the twenty,\nabout how he had seen a famous matador killed in the bull-ring.\nMarie listened to every word, only taking her eyes from Emil to\nwatch Frank's plate and keep it filled. When Emil finished his\naccount,--bloody enough to satisfy Mrs. Xavier and to make her\nfeel thankful that she was not a matador,--Marie broke out with\na volley of questions. How did the women dress when they went to\nbull-fights? Did they wear mantillas? Did they never wear hats?\n\nAfter supper the young people played charades for the amusement\nof their elders, who sat gossiping between their guesses. All the\nshops in Sainte-Agnes were closed at eight o'clock that night, so\nthat the merchants and their clerks could attend the fair. The\nauction was the liveliest part of the entertainment, for the French\nboys always lost their heads when they began to bid, satisfied that\ntheir extravagance was in a good cause. After all the pincushions\nand sofa pillows and embroidered slippers were sold, Emil precipitated\na panic by taking out one of his turquoise shirt studs, which every\none had been admiring, and handing it to the auctioneer. All the\nFrench girls clamored for it, and their sweethearts bid against\neach other recklessly. Marie wanted it, too, and she kept making\nsignals to Frank, which he took a sour pleasure in disregarding.\nHe didn't see the use of making a fuss over a fellow just because\nhe was dressed like a clown. When the turquoise went to Malvina\nSauvage, the French banker's daughter, Marie shrugged her shoulders\nand betook herself to her little tent of shawls, where she began\nto shuffle her cards by the light of a tallow candle, calling out,\n\"Fortunes, fortunes!\"\n\nThe young priest, Father Duchesne, went first to have his fortune\nread. Marie took his long white hand, looked at it, and then\nbegan to run off her cards. \"I see a long journey across water for\nyou, Father. You will go to a town all cut up by water; built on\nislands, it seems to be, with rivers and green fields all about.\nAnd you will visit an old lady with a white cap and gold hoops in\nher ears, and you will be very happy there.\"\n\n\"Mais, oui,\" said the priest, with a melancholy smile. \"C'est\nL'Isle-Adam, chez ma mere. Vous etes tres savante, ma fille.\" He\npatted her yellow turban, calling, \"Venez donc, mes garcons! Il\ny a ici une veritable clairvoyante!\"\n\nMarie was clever at fortune-telling, indulging in a light irony\nthat amused the crowd. She told old Brunot, the miser, that he\nwould lose all his money, marry a girl of sixteen, and live happily\non a crust. Sholte, the fat Russian boy, who lived for his stomach,\nwas to be disappointed in love, grow thin, and shoot himself from\ndespondency. Amedee was to have twenty children, and nineteen of\nthem were to be girls. Amedee slapped Frank on the back and asked\nhim why he didn't see what the fortune-teller would promise him.\nBut Frank shook off his friendly hand and grunted, \"She tell my\nfortune long ago; bad enough!\" Then he withdrew to a corner and\nsat glowering at his wife.\n\nFrank's case was all the more painful because he had no one\nin particular to fix his jealousy upon. Sometimes he could have\nthanked the man who would bring him evidence against his wife.\nHe had discharged a good farm-boy, Jan Smirka, because he thought\nMarie was fond of him; but she had not seemed to miss Jan when\nhe was gone, and she had been just as kind to the next boy. The\nfarm-hands would always do anything for Marie; Frank couldn't find\none so surly that he would not make an effort to please her. At\nthe bottom of his heart Frank knew well enough that if he could once\ngive up his grudge, his wife would come back to him. But he could\nnever in the world do that. The grudge was fundamental. Perhaps\nhe could not have given it up if he had tried. Perhaps he got more\nsatisfaction out of feeling himself abused than he would have got\nout of being loved. If he could once have made Marie thoroughly\nunhappy, he might have relented and raised her from the dust. But\nshe had never humbled herself. In the first days of their love\nshe had been his slave; she had admired him abandonedly. But the\nmoment he began to bully her and to be unjust, she began to draw\naway; at first in tearful amazement, then in quiet, unspoken disgust.\nThe distance between them had widened and hardened. It no longer\ncontracted and brought them suddenly together. The spark of her\nlife went somewhere else, and he was always watching to surprise\nit. He knew that somewhere she must get a feeling to live upon,\nfor she was not a woman who could live without loving. He wanted\nto prove to himself the wrong he felt. What did she hide in her\nheart? Where did it go? Even Frank had his churlish delicacies;\nhe never reminded her of how much she had once loved him. For that\nMarie was grateful to him.\n\nWhile Marie was chattering to the French boys, Amedee called Emil\nto the back of the room and whispered to him that they were going\nto play a joke on the girls. At eleven o'clock, Amedee was to go\nup to the switchboard in the vestibule and turn off the electric\nlights, and every boy would have a chance to kiss his sweetheart\nbefore Father Duchesne could find his way up the stairs to turn the\ncurrent on again. The only difficulty was the candle in Marie's\ntent; perhaps, as Emil had no sweetheart, he would oblige the boys\nby blowing out the candle. Emil said he would undertake to do\nthat.\n\nAt five minutes to eleven he sauntered up to Marie's booth, and\nthe French boys dispersed to find their girls. He leaned over the\ncard-table and gave himself up to looking at her. \"Do you think\nyou could tell my fortune?\" he murmured. It was the first word he\nhad had alone with her for almost a year. \"My luck hasn't changed\nany. It's just the same.\"\n\nMarie had often wondered whether there was anyone else who could\nlook his thoughts to you as Emil could. To-night, when she met his\nsteady, powerful eyes, it was impossible not to feel the sweetness\nof the dream he was dreaming; it reached her before she could shut\nit out, and hid itself in her heart. She began to shuffle her\ncards furiously. \"I'm angry with you, Emil,\" she broke out with\npetulance. \"Why did you give them that lovely blue stone to sell?\nYou might have known Frank wouldn't buy it for me, and I wanted it\nawfully!\"\n\nEmil laughed shortly. \"People who want such little things surely\nought to have them,\" he said dryly. He thrust his hand into the\npocket of his velvet trousers and brought out a handful of uncut\nturquoises, as big as marbles. Leaning over the table he dropped\nthem into her lap. \"There, will those do? Be careful, don't let\nany one see them. Now, I suppose you want me to go away and let\nyou play with them?\"\n\nMarie was gazing in rapture at the soft blue color of the stones.\n\"Oh, Emil! Is everything down there beautiful like these? How\ncould you ever come away?\"\n\nAt that instant Amedee laid hands on the switchboard. There was a\nshiver and a giggle, and every one looked toward the red blur that\nMarie's candle made in the dark. Immediately that, too, was gone.\nLittle shrieks and currents of soft laughter ran up and down the\ndark hall. Marie started up,--directly into Emil's arms. In the\nsame instant she felt his lips. The veil that had hung uncertainly\nbetween them for so long was dissolved. Before she knew what she\nwas doing, she had committed herself to that kiss that was at once\na boy's and a man's, as timid as it was tender; so like Emil and\nso unlike any one else in the world. Not until it was over did\nshe realize what it meant. And Emil, who had so often imagined\nthe shock of this first kiss, was surprised at its gentleness and\nnaturalness. It was like a sigh which they had breathed together;\nalmost sorrowful, as if each were afraid of wakening something in\nthe other.\n\nWhen the lights came on again, everybody was laughing and shouting,\nand all the French girls were rosy and shining with mirth. Only\nMarie, in her little tent of shawls, was pale and quiet. Under her\nyellow turban the red coral pendants swung against white cheeks.\nFrank was still staring at her, but he seemed to see nothing. Years\nago, he himself had had the power to take the blood from her cheeks\nlike that. Perhaps he did not remember--perhaps he had never\nnoticed! Emil was already at the other end of the hall, walking\nabout with the shoulder-motion he had acquired among the Mexicans,\nstudying the floor with his intent, deep-set eyes. Marie began to\ntake down and fold her shawls. She did not glance up again. The\nyoung people drifted to the other end of the hall where the guitar\nwas sounding. In a moment she heard Emil and Raoul singing:--\n\n\n\"Across the Rio Grand-e There lies a sunny land-e, My bright-eyed\nMexico!\"\n\n\nAlexandra Bergson came up to the card booth. \"Let me help you,\nMarie. You look tired.\"\n\nShe placed her hand on Marie's arm and felt her shiver. Marie\nstiffened under that kind, calm hand. Alexandra drew back, perplexed\nand hurt.\n\nThere was about Alexandra something of the impervious calm of the\nfatalist, always disconcerting to very young people, who cannot\nfeel that the heart lives at all unless it is still at the mercy\nof storms; unless its strings can scream to the touch of pain.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nSigna's wedding supper was over. The guests, and the tiresome\nlittle Norwegian preacher who had performed the marriage ceremony,\nwere saying good-night. Old Ivar was hitching the horses to the\nwagon to take the wedding presents and the bride and groom up to\ntheir new home, on Alexandra's north quarter. When Ivar drove up\nto the gate, Emil and Marie Shabata began to carry out the presents,\nand Alexandra went into her bedroom to bid Signa good-bye and to\ngive her a few words of good counsel. She was surprised to find\nthat the bride had changed her slippers for heavy shoes and was\npinning up her skirts. At that moment Nelse appeared at the gate\nwith the two milk cows that Alexandra had given Signa for a wedding\npresent.\n\nAlexandra began to laugh. \"Why, Signa, you and Nelse are to ride\nhome. I'll send Ivar over with the cows in the morning.\"\n\nSigna hesitated and looked perplexed. When her husband called her,\nshe pinned her hat on resolutely. \"I ta-ank I better do yust like\nhe say,\" she murmured in confusion.\n\nAlexandra and Marie accompanied Signa to the gate and saw the\nparty set off, old Ivar driving ahead in the wagon and the bride\nand groom following on foot, each leading a cow. Emil burst into\na laugh before they were out of hearing.\n\n\"Those two will get on,\" said Alexandra as they turned back to the\nhouse. \"They are not going to take any chances. They will feel\nsafer with those cows in their own stable. Marie, I am going to\nsend for an old woman next. As soon as I get the girls broken in,\nI marry them off.\"\n\n\"I've no patience with Signa, marrying that grumpy fellow!\" Marie\ndeclared. \"I wanted her to marry that nice Smirka boy who worked\nfor us last winter. I think she liked him, too.\"\n\n\"Yes, I think she did,\" Alexandra assented, \"but I suppose she was\ntoo much afraid of Nelse to marry any one else. Now that I think\nof it, most of my girls have married men they were afraid of. I\nbelieve there is a good deal of the cow in most Swedish girls.\nYou high-strung Bohemian can't understand us. We're a terribly\npractical people, and I guess we think a cross man makes a good\nmanager.\"\n\nMarie shrugged her shoulders and turned to pin up a lock of hair\nthat had fallen on her neck. Somehow Alexandra had irritated her\nof late. Everybody irritated her. She was tired of everybody. \"I'm\ngoing home alone, Emil, so you needn't get your hat,\" she said as\nshe wound her scarf quickly about her head. \"Good-night, Alexandra,\"\nshe called back in a strained voice, running down the gravel walk.\n\nEmil followed with long strides until he overtook her. Then she began\nto walk slowly. It was a night of warm wind and faint starlight,\nand the fireflies were glimmering over the wheat.\n\n\"Marie,\" said Emil after they had walked for a while, \"I wonder if\nyou know how unhappy I am?\"\n\nMarie did not answer him. Her head, in its white scarf, drooped\nforward a little.\n\nEmil kicked a clod from the path and went on:--\n\n\"I wonder whether you are really shallow-hearted, like you seem?\nSometimes I think one boy does just as well as another for you.\nIt never seems to make much difference whether it is me or Raoul\nMarcel or Jan Smirka. Are you really like that?\"\n\n\"Perhaps I am. What do you want me to do? Sit round and cry all\nday? When I've cried until I can't cry any more, then--then I must\ndo something else.\"\n\n\"Are you sorry for me?\" he persisted.\n\n\"No, I'm not. If I were big and free like you, I wouldn't let\nanything make me unhappy. As old Napoleon Brunot said at the fair,\nI wouldn't go lovering after no woman. I'd take the first train\nand go off and have all the fun there is.\"\n\n\"I tried that, but it didn't do any good. Everything reminded me.\nThe nicer the place was, the more I wanted you.\" They had come to\nthe stile and Emil pointed to it persuasively. \"Sit down a moment,\nI want to ask you something.\" Marie sat down on the top step and\nEmil drew nearer. \"Would you tell me something that's none of my\nbusiness if you thought it would help me out? Well, then, tell\nme, PLEASE tell me, why you ran away with Frank Shabata!\"\n\nMarie drew back. \"Because I was in love with him,\" she said firmly.\n\n\"Really?\" he asked incredulously.\n\n\"Yes, indeed. Very much in love with him. I think I was the one\nwho suggested our running away. From the first it was more my\nfault than his.\"\n\nEmil turned away his face.\n\n\"And now,\" Marie went on, \"I've got to remember that. Frank is\njust the same now as he was then, only then I would see him as I\nwanted him to be. I would have my own way. And now I pay for it.\"\n\n\"You don't do all the paying.\"\n\n\"That's it. When one makes a mistake, there's no telling where\nit will stop. But you can go away; you can leave all this behind\nyou.\"\n\n\"Not everything. I can't leave you behind. Will you go away with\nme, Marie?\"\n\nMarie started up and stepped across the stile. \"Emil! How wickedly\nyou talk! I am not that kind of a girl, and you know it. But what\nam I going to do if you keep tormenting me like this!\" she added\nplaintively.\n\n\"Marie, I won't bother you any more if you will tell me just\none thing. Stop a minute and look at me. No, nobody can see us.\nEverybody's asleep. That was only a firefly. Marie, STOP and tell\nme!\"\n\nEmil overtook her and catching her by the shoulders shook her\ngently, as if he were trying to awaken a sleepwalker.\n\nMarie hid her face on his arm. \"Don't ask me anything more. I\ndon't know anything except how miserable I am. And I thought it\nwould be all right when you came back. Oh, Emil,\" she clutched his\nsleeve and began to cry, \"what am I to do if you don't go away? I\ncan't go, and one of us must. Can't you see?\"\n\nEmil stood looking down at her, holding his shoulders stiff and\nstiffening the arm to which she clung. Her white dress looked\ngray in the darkness. She seemed like a troubled spirit, like some\nshadow out of the earth, clinging to him and entreating him to give\nher peace. Behind her the fireflies were weaving in and out over\nthe wheat. He put his hand on her bent head. \"On my honor, Marie,\nif you will say you love me, I will go away.\"\n\nShe lifted her face to his. \"How could I help it? Didn't you\nknow?\"\n\nEmil was the one who trembled, through all his frame. After he\nleft Marie at her gate, he wandered about the fields all night,\ntill morning put out the fireflies and the stars.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nOne evening, a week after Signa's wedding, Emil was kneeling before\na box in the sitting-room, packing his books. From time to time\nhe rose and wandered about the house, picking up stray volumes and\nbringing them listlessly back to his box. He was packing without\nenthusiasm. He was not very sanguine about his future. Alexandra\nsat sewing by the table. She had helped him pack his trunk in\nthe afternoon. As Emil came and went by her chair with his books,\nhe thought to himself that it had not been so hard to leave his\nsister since he first went away to school. He was going directly\nto Omaha, to read law in the office of a Swedish lawyer until\nOctober, when he would enter the law school at Ann Arbor. They\nhad planned that Alexandra was to come to Michigan--a long journey\nfor her--at Christmas time, and spend several weeks with him.\nNevertheless, he felt that this leave-taking would be more final\nthan his earlier ones had been; that it meant a definite break with\nhis old home and the beginning of something new--he did not know\nwhat. His ideas about the future would not crystallize; the more\nhe tried to think about it, the vaguer his conception of it became.\nBut one thing was clear, he told himself; it was high time that he\nmade good to Alexandra, and that ought to be incentive enough to\nbegin with.\n\nAs he went about gathering up his books he felt as if he were\nuprooting things. At last he threw himself down on the old slat\nlounge where he had slept when he was little, and lay looking up\nat the familiar cracks in the ceiling.\n\n\"Tired, Emil?\" his sister asked.\n\n\"Lazy,\" he murmured, turning on his side and looking at her. He\nstudied Alexandra's face for a long time in the lamplight. It had\nnever occurred to him that his sister was a handsome woman until\nMarie Shabata had told him so. Indeed, he had never thought of\nher as being a woman at all, only a sister. As he studied her bent\nhead, he looked up at the picture of John Bergson above the lamp.\n\"No,\" he thought to himself, \"she didn't get it there. I suppose\nI am more like that.\"\n\n\"Alexandra,\" he said suddenly, \"that old walnut secretary you use\nfor a desk was father's, wasn't it?\"\n\nAlexandra went on stitching. \"Yes. It was one of the first things\nhe bought for the old log house. It was a great extravagance\nin those days. But he wrote a great many letters back to the old\ncountry. He had many friends there, and they wrote to him up to the\ntime he died. No one ever blamed him for grandfather's disgrace.\nI can see him now, sitting there on Sundays, in his white shirt,\nwriting pages and pages, so carefully. He wrote a fine, regular\nhand, almost like engraving. Yours is something like his, when\nyou take pains.\"\n\n\"Grandfather was really crooked, was he?\"\n\n\"He married an unscrupulous woman, and then--then I'm afraid he\nwas really crooked. When we first came here father used to have\ndreams about making a great fortune and going back to Sweden to\npay back to the poor sailors the money grandfather had lost.\"\n\nEmil stirred on the lounge. \"I say, that would have been worth\nwhile, wouldn't it? Father wasn't a bit like Lou or Oscar, was\nhe? I can't remember much about him before he got sick.\"\n\n\"Oh, not at all!\" Alexandra dropped her sewing on her knee. \"He\nhad better opportunities; not to make money, but to make something\nof himself. He was a quiet man, but he was very intelligent. You\nwould have been proud of him, Emil.\"\n\nAlexandra felt that he would like to know there had been a man of\nhis kin whom he could admire. She knew that Emil was ashamed of\nLou and Oscar, because they were bigoted and self-satisfied. He\nnever said much about them, but she could feel his disgust. His\nbrothers had shown their disapproval of him ever since he first\nwent away to school. The only thing that would have satisfied them\nwould have been his failure at the University. As it was, they\nresented every change in his speech, in his dress, in his point of\nview; though the latter they had to conjecture, for Emil avoided\ntalking to them about any but family matters. All his interests\nthey treated as affectations.\n\nAlexandra took up her sewing again. \"I can remember father when\nhe was quite a young man. He belonged to some kind of a musical\nsociety, a male chorus, in Stockholm. I can remember going with\nmother to hear them sing. There must have been a hundred of them,\nand they all wore long black coats and white neckties. I was\nused to seeing father in a blue coat, a sort of jacket, and when I\nrecognized him on the platform, I was very proud. Do you remember\nthat Swedish song he taught you, about the ship boy?\"\n\n\"Yes. I used to sing it to the Mexicans. They like anything\ndifferent.\" Emil paused. \"Father had a hard fight here, didn't\nhe?\" he added thoughtfully.\n\n\"Yes, and he died in a dark time. Still, he had hope. He believed\nin the land.\"\n\n\"And in you, I guess,\" Emil said to himself. There was another\nperiod of silence; that warm, friendly silence, full of perfect\nunderstanding, in which Emil and Alexandra had spent many of their\nhappiest half-hours.\n\nAt last Emil said abruptly, \"Lou and Oscar would be better off if\nthey were poor, wouldn't they?\"\n\nAlexandra smiled. \"Maybe. But their children wouldn't. I have\ngreat hopes of Milly.\"\n\nEmil shivered. \"I don't know. Seems to me it gets worse as it\ngoes on. The worst of the Swedes is that they're never willing\nto find out how much they don't know. It was like that at the\nUniversity. Always so pleased with themselves! There's no getting\nbehind that conceited Swedish grin. The Bohemians and Germans were\nso different.\"\n\n\"Come, Emil, don't go back on your own people. Father wasn't\nconceited, Uncle Otto wasn't. Even Lou and Oscar weren't when they\nwere boys.\"\n\nEmil looked incredulous, but he did not dispute the point. He\nturned on his back and lay still for a long time, his hands locked\nunder his head, looking up at the ceiling. Alexandra knew that he\nwas thinking of many things. She felt no anxiety about Emil. She\nhad always believed in him, as she had believed in the land. He\nhad been more like himself since he got back from Mexico; seemed\nglad to be at home, and talked to her as he used to do. She had\nno doubt that his wandering fit was over, and that he would soon\nbe settled in life.\n\n\"Alexandra,\" said Emil suddenly, \"do you remember the wild duck we\nsaw down on the river that time?\"\n\nHis sister looked up. \"I often think of her. It always seems to\nme she's there still, just like we saw her.\"\n\n\"I know. It's queer what things one remembers and what things one\nforgets.\" Emil yawned and sat up. \"Well, it's time to turn in.\"\nHe rose, and going over to Alexandra stooped down and kissed her\nlightly on the cheek. \"Good-night, sister. I think you did pretty\nwell by us.\"\n\nEmil took up his lamp and went upstairs. Alexandra sat finishing\nhis new nightshirt, that must go in the top tray of his trunk.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nThe next morning Angelique, Amedee's wife, was in the kitchen baking\npies, assisted by old Mrs. Chevalier. Between the mixing-board\nand the stove stood the old cradle that had been Amedee's, and in\nit was his black-eyed son. As Angelique, flushed and excited, with\nflour on her hands, stopped to smile at the baby, Emil Bergson rode\nup to the kitchen door on his mare and dismounted.\n\n\"'Medee is out in the field, Emil,\" Angelique called as she ran\nacross the kitchen to the oven. \"He begins to cut his wheat to-day;\nthe first wheat ready to cut anywhere about here. He bought a new\nheader, you know, because all the wheat's so short this year. I\nhope he can rent it to the neighbors, it cost so much. He and his\ncousins bought a steam thresher on shares. You ought to go out and\nsee that header work. I watched it an hour this morning, busy as\nI am with all the men to feed. He has a lot of hands, but he's\nthe only one that knows how to drive the header or how to run the\nengine, so he has to be everywhere at once. He's sick, too, and\nought to be in his bed.\"\n\nEmil bent over Hector Baptiste, trying to make him blink his round,\nbead-like black eyes. \"Sick? What's the matter with your daddy,\nkid? Been making him walk the floor with you?\"\n\nAngelique sniffed. \"Not much! We don't have that kind of babies.\nIt was his father that kept Baptiste awake. All night I had to be\ngetting up and making mustard plasters to put on his stomach. He\nhad an awful colic. He said he felt better this morning, but I\ndon't think he ought to be out in the field, overheating himself.\"\n\nAngelique did not speak with much anxiety, not because she was\nindifferent, but because she felt so secure in their good fortune.\nOnly good things could happen to a rich, energetic, handsome young\nman like Amedee, with a new baby in the cradle and a new header in\nthe field.\n\nEmil stroked the black fuzz on Baptiste's head. \"I say, Angelique,\none of 'Medee's grandmothers, 'way back, must have been a squaw.\nThis kid looks exactly like the Indian babies.\"\n\nAngelique made a face at him, but old Mrs. Chevalier had been\ntouched on a sore point, and she let out such a stream of fiery\nPATOIS that Emil fled from the kitchen and mounted his mare.\n\nOpening the pasture gate from the saddle, Emil rode across the field\nto the clearing where the thresher stood, driven by a stationary\nengine and fed from the header boxes. As Amedee was not on the\nengine, Emil rode on to the wheatfield, where he recognized, on\nthe header, the slight, wiry figure of his friend, coatless, his\nwhite shirt puffed out by the wind, his straw hat stuck jauntily\non the side of his head. The six big work-horses that drew, or\nrather pushed, the header, went abreast at a rapid walk, and as they\nwere still green at the work they required a good deal of management\non Amedee's part; especially when they turned the corners, where\nthey divided, three and three, and then swung round into line again\nwith a movement that looked as complicated as a wheel of artillery.\nEmil felt a new thrill of admiration for his friend, and with it\nthe old pang of envy at the way in which Amedee could do with his\nmight what his hand found to do, and feel that, whatever it was,\nit was the most important thing in the world. \"I'll have to bring\nAlexandra up to see this thing work,\" Emil thought; \"it's splendid!\"\n\nWhen he saw Emil, Amedee waved to him and called to one of his\ntwenty cousins to take the reins. Stepping off the header without\nstopping it, he ran up to Emil who had dismounted. \"Come along,\"\nhe called. \"I have to go over to the engine for a minute. I gotta\ngreen man running it, and I gotta to keep an eye on him.\"\n\nEmil thought the lad was unnaturally flushed and more excited than\neven the cares of managing a big farm at a critical time warranted.\nAs they passed behind a last year's stack, Amedee clutched at his\nright side and sank down for a moment on the straw.\n\n\"Ouch! I got an awful pain in me, Emil. Something's the matter\nwith my insides, for sure.\"\n\nEmil felt his fiery cheek. \"You ought to go straight to bed,\n'Medee, and telephone for the doctor; that's what you ought to do.\"\n\nAmedee staggered up with a gesture of despair. \"How can I? I got\nno time to be sick. Three thousand dollars' worth of new machinery\nto manage, and the wheat so ripe it will begin to shatter next\nweek. My wheat's short, but it's gotta grand full berries. What's\nhe slowing down for? We haven't got header boxes enough to feed\nthe thresher, I guess.\"\n\nAmedee started hot-foot across the stubble, leaning a little to the\nright as he ran, and waved to the engineer not to stop the engine.\n\nEmil saw that this was no time to talk about his own affairs. He\nmounted his mare and rode on to Sainte-Agnes, to bid his friends\nthere good-bye. He went first to see Raoul Marcel, and found him\ninnocently practising the \"Gloria\" for the big confirmation service\non Sunday while he polished the mirrors of his father's saloon.\n\nAs Emil rode homewards at three o'clock in the afternoon, he saw\nAmedee staggering out of the wheatfield, supported by two of his\ncousins. Emil stopped and helped them put the boy to bed.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nWhen Frank Shabata came in from work at five o'clock that evening,\nold Moses Marcel, Raoul's father, telephoned him that Amedee had\nhad a seizure in the wheatfield, and that Doctor Paradis was going\nto operate on him as soon as the Hanover doctor got there to help.\nFrank dropped a word of this at the table, bolted his supper, and\nrode off to Sainte-Agnes, where there would be sympathetic discussion\nof Amedee's case at Marcel's saloon.\n\nAs soon as Frank was gone, Marie telephoned Alexandra. It was a\ncomfort to hear her friend's voice. Yes, Alexandra knew what there\nwas to be known about Amedee. Emil had been there when they carried\nhim out of the field, and had stayed with him until the doctors\noperated for appendicitis at five o'clock. They were afraid it\nwas too late to do much good; it should have been done three days\nago. Amedee was in a very bad way. Emil had just come home, worn\nout and sick himself. She had given him some brandy and put him\nto bed.\n\nMarie hung up the receiver. Poor Amedee's illness had taken on a\nnew meaning to her, now that she knew Emil had been with him. And\nit might so easily have been the other way--Emil who was ill and\nAmedee who was sad! Marie looked about the dusky sitting-room.\nShe had seldom felt so utterly lonely. If Emil was asleep, there\nwas not even a chance of his coming; and she could not go to\nAlexandra for sympathy. She meant to tell Alexandra everything,\nas soon as Emil went away. Then whatever was left between them\nwould be honest.\n\nBut she could not stay in the house this evening. Where should she\ngo? She walked slowly down through the orchard, where the evening\nair was heavy with the smell of wild cotton. The fresh, salty scent\nof the wild roses had given way before this more powerful perfume\nof midsummer. Wherever those ashes-of-rose balls hung on their\nmilky stalks, the air about them was saturated with their breath.\nThe sky was still red in the west and the evening star hung\ndirectly over the Bergsons' wind-mill. Marie crossed the fence at\nthe wheatfield corner, and walked slowly along the path that led\nto Alexandra's. She could not help feeling hurt that Emil had not\ncome to tell her about Amedee. It seemed to her most unnatural\nthat he should not have come. If she were in trouble, certainly\nhe was the one person in the world she would want to see. Perhaps\nhe wished her to understand that for her he was as good as gone\nalready.\n\nMarie stole slowly, flutteringly, along the path, like a white\nnight-moth out of the fields. The years seemed to stretch before\nher like the land; spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always\nthe same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives;\nalways the same yearning, the same pulling at the chain--until the\ninstinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last\ntime, until the chain secured a dead woman, who might cautiously\nbe released. Marie walked on, her face lifted toward the remote,\ninaccessible evening star.\n\nWhen she reached the stile she sat down and waited. How terrible\nit was to love people when you could not really share their lives!\n\nYes, in so far as she was concerned, Emil was already gone. They\ncouldn't meet any more. There was nothing for them to say. They\nhad spent the last penny of their small change; there was nothing\nleft but gold. The day of love-tokens was past. They had now\nonly their hearts to give each other. And Emil being gone, what\nwas her life to be like? In some ways, it would be easier. She\nwould not, at least, live in perpetual fear. If Emil were once\naway and settled at work, she would not have the feeling that she\nwas spoiling his life. With the memory he left her, she could be\nas rash as she chose. Nobody could be the worse for it but herself;\nand that, surely, did not matter. Her own case was clear. When a\ngirl had loved one man, and then loved another while that man was\nstill alive, everybody knew what to think of her. What happened\nto her was of little consequence, so long as she did not drag other\npeople down with her. Emil once away, she could let everything\nelse go and live a new life of perfect love.\n\nMarie left the stile reluctantly. She had, after all, thought he\nmight come. And how glad she ought to be, she told herself, that\nhe was asleep. She left the path and went across the pasture. The\nmoon was almost full. An owl was hooting somewhere in the fields.\nShe had scarcely thought about where she was going when the pond\nglittered before her, where Emil had shot the ducks. She stopped\nand looked at it. Yes, there would be a dirty way out of life, if\none chose to take it. But she did not want to die. She wanted to\nlive and dream--a hundred years, forever! As long as this sweetness\nwelled up in her heart, as long as her breast could hold this\ntreasure of pain! She felt as the pond must feel when it held the\nmoon like that; when it encircled and swelled with that image of\ngold.\n\nIn the morning, when Emil came down-stairs, Alexandra met him\nin the sitting-room and put her hands on his shoulders. \"Emil, I\nwent to your room as soon as it was light, but you were sleeping\nso sound I hated to wake you. There was nothing you could do, so\nI let you sleep. They telephoned from Sainte-Agnes that Amedee\ndied at three o'clock this morning.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nThe Church has always held that life is for the living. On Saturday,\nwhile half the village of Sainte-Agnes was mourning for Amedee and\npreparing the funeral black for his burial on Monday, the other\nhalf was busy with white dresses and white veils for the great\nconfirmation service to-morrow, when the bishop was to confirm a\nclass of one hundred boys and girls. Father Duchesne divided his\ntime between the living and the dead. All day Saturday the church\nwas a scene of bustling activity, a little hushed by the thought\nof Amedee. The choir were busy rehearsing a mass of Rossini, which\nthey had studied and practised for this occasion. The women were\ntrimming the altar, the boys and girls were bringing flowers.\n\nOn Sunday morning the bishop was to drive overland to Sainte-Agnes\nfrom Hanover, and Emil Bergson had been asked to take the place of\none of Amedee's cousins in the cavalcade of forty French boys who\nwere to ride across country to meet the bishop's carriage. At\nsix o'clock on Sunday morning the boys met at the church. As they\nstood holding their horses by the bridle, they talked in low tones\nof their dead comrade. They kept repeating that Amedee had always\nbeen a good boy, glancing toward the red brick church which had\nplayed so large a part in Amedee's life, had been the scene of his\nmost serious moments and of his happiest hours. He had played and\nwrestled and sung and courted under its shadow. Only three weeks\nago he had proudly carried his baby there to be christened. They\ncould not doubt that that invisible arm was still about Amedee; that\nthrough the church on earth he had passed to the church triumphant,\nthe goal of the hopes and faith of so many hundred years.\n\nWhen the word was given to mount, the young men rode at a walk out\nof the village; but once out among the wheatfields in the morning\nsun, their horses and their own youth got the better of them. A\nwave of zeal and fiery enthusiasm swept over them. They longed\nfor a Jerusalem to deliver. The thud of their galloping hoofs\ninterrupted many a country breakfast and brought many a woman and\nchild to the door of the farmhouses as they passed. Five miles east\nof Sainte-Agnes they met the bishop in his open carriage, attended\nby two priests. Like one man the boys swung off their hats in a\nbroad salute, and bowed their heads as the handsome old man lifted\nhis two fingers in the episcopal blessing. The horsemen closed\nabout the carriage like a guard, and whenever a restless horse broke\nfrom control and shot down the road ahead of the body, the bishop\nlaughed and rubbed his plump hands together. \"What fine boys!\" he\nsaid to his priests. \"The Church still has her cavalry.\"\n\nAs the troop swept past the graveyard half a mile east of the\ntown,--the first frame church of the parish had stood there,--old\nPierre Seguin was already out with his pick and spade, digging\nAmedee's grave. He knelt and uncovered as the bishop passed. The\nboys with one accord looked away from old Pierre to the red church\non the hill, with the gold cross flaming on its steeple.\n\nMass was at eleven. While the church was filling, Emil Bergson waited\noutside, watching the wagons and buggies drive up the hill. After\nthe bell began to ring, he saw Frank Shabata ride up on horseback\nand tie his horse to the hitch-bar. Marie, then, was not coming.\nEmil turned and went into the church. Amedee's was the only empty\npew, and he sat down in it. Some of Amedee's cousins were there,\ndressed in black and weeping. When all the pews were full, the\nold men and boys packed the open space at the back of the church,\nkneeling on the floor. There was scarcely a family in town that was\nnot represented in the confirmation class, by a cousin, at least.\nThe new communicants, with their clear, reverent faces, were beautiful\nto look upon as they entered in a body and took the front benches\nreserved for them. Even before the Mass began, the air was charged\nwith feeling. The choir had never sung so well and Raoul Marcel,\nin the \"Gloria,\" drew even the bishop's eyes to the organ loft.\nFor the offertory he sang Gounod's \"Ave Maria,\"--always spoken of\nin Sainte-Agnes as \"the Ave Maria.\"\n\nEmil began to torture himself with questions about Marie. Was she\nill? Had she quarreled with her husband? Was she too unhappy to\nfind comfort even here? Had she, perhaps, thought that he would\ncome to her? Was she waiting for him? Overtaxed by excitement\nand sorrow as he was, the rapture of the service took hold upon his\nbody and mind. As he listened to Raoul, he seemed to emerge from\nthe conflicting emotions which had been whirling him about and\nsucking him under. He felt as if a clear light broke upon his\nmind, and with it a conviction that good was, after all, stronger\nthan evil, and that good was possible to men. He seemed to discover\nthat there was a kind of rapture in which he could love forever\nwithout faltering and without sin. He looked across the heads of\nthe people at Frank Shabata with calmness. That rapture was for those\nwho could feel it; for people who could not, it was non-existent.\nHe coveted nothing that was Frank Shabata's. The spirit he had\nmet in music was his own. Frank Shabata had never found it; would\nnever find it if he lived beside it a thousand years; would have\ndestroyed it if he had found it, as Herod slew the innocents, as\nRome slew the martyrs.\n\nSAN--CTA MARI-I-I-A,\n\nwailed Raoul from the organ loft;\n\nO--RA PRO NO-O-BIS!\n\nAnd it did not occur to Emil that any one had ever reasoned thus\nbefore, that music had ever before given a man this equivocal\nrevelation.\n\nThe confirmation service followed the Mass. When it was over, the\ncongregation thronged about the newly confirmed. The girls, and\neven the boys, were kissed and embraced and wept over. All the\naunts and grandmothers wept with joy. The housewives had much ado\nto tear themselves away from the general rejoicing and hurry back\nto their kitchens. The country parishioners were staying in town\nfor dinner, and nearly every house in Sainte-Agnes entertained\nvisitors that day. Father Duchesne, the bishop, and the visiting\npriests dined with Fabien Sauvage, the banker. Emil and Frank\nShabata were both guests of old Moise Marcel. After dinner Frank\nand old Moise retired to the rear room of the saloon to play\nCalifornia Jack and drink their cognac, and Emil went over to the\nbanker's with Raoul, who had been asked to sing for the bishop.\n\nAt three o'clock, Emil felt that he could stand it no longer. He\nslipped out under cover of \"The Holy City,\" followed by Malvina's\nwistful eye, and went to the stable for his mare. He was at that\nheight of excitement from which everything is foreshortened, from\nwhich life seems short and simple, death very near, and the soul\nseems to soar like an eagle. As he rode past the graveyard he looked\nat the brown hole in the earth where Amedee was to lie, and felt\nno horror. That, too, was beautiful, that simple doorway into\nforgetfulness. The heart, when it is too much alive, aches for\nthat brown earth, and ecstasy has no fear of death. It is the old\nand the poor and the maimed who shrink from that brown hole; its\nwooers are found among the young, the passionate, the gallant-hearted.\nIt was not until he had passed the graveyard that Emil realized\nwhere he was going. It was the hour for saying good-bye. It might\nbe the last time that he would see her alone, and today he could\nleave her without rancor, without bitterness.\n\nEverywhere the grain stood ripe and the hot afternoon was full of\nthe smell of the ripe wheat, like the smell of bread baking in an\noven. The breath of the wheat and the sweet clover passed him like\npleasant things in a dream. He could feel nothing but the sense of\ndiminishing distance. It seemed to him that his mare was flying,\nor running on wheels, like a railway train. The sunlight, flashing\non the window-glass of the big red barns, drove him wild with joy.\nHe was like an arrow shot from the bow. His life poured itself\nout along the road before him as he rode to the Shabata farm.\n\nWhen Emil alighted at the Shabatas' gate, his horse was in a lather.\nHe tied her in the stable and hurried to the house. It was empty.\nShe might be at Mrs. Hiller's or with Alexandra. But anything\nthat reminded him of her would be enough, the orchard, the mulberry\ntree... When he reached the orchard the sun was hanging low over\nthe wheatfield. Long fingers of light reached through the apple\nbranches as through a net; the orchard was riddled and shot with\ngold; light was the reality, the trees were merely interferences\nthat reflected and refracted light. Emil went softly down between\nthe cherry trees toward the wheatfield. When he came to the corner,\nhe stopped short and put his hand over his mouth. Marie was lying\non her side under the white mulberry tree, her face half hidden in\nthe grass, her eyes closed, her hands lying limply where they had\nhappened to fall. She had lived a day of her new life of perfect\nlove, and it had left her like this. Her breast rose and fell\nfaintly, as if she were asleep. Emil threw himself down beside\nher and took her in his arms. The blood came back to her cheeks,\nher amber eyes opened slowly, and in them Emil saw his own face\nand the orchard and the sun. \"I was dreaming this,\" she whispered,\nhiding her face against him, \"don't take my dream away!\"\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nWhen Frank Shabata got home that night, he found Emil's mare in\nhis stable. Such an impertinence amazed him. Like everybody else,\nFrank had had an exciting day. Since noon he had been drinking too\nmuch, and he was in a bad temper. He talked bitterly to himself\nwhile he put his own horse away, and as he went up the path and\nsaw that the house was dark he felt an added sense of injury. He\napproached quietly and listened on the doorstep. Hearing nothing,\nhe opened the kitchen door and went softly from one room to another.\nThen he went through the house again, upstairs and down, with no\nbetter result. He sat down on the bottom step of the box stairway\nand tried to get his wits together. In that unnatural quiet there\nwas no sound but his own heavy breathing. Suddenly an owl began\nto hoot out in the fields. Frank lifted his head. An idea flashed\ninto his mind, and his sense of injury and outrage grew. He went\ninto his bedroom and took his murderous 405 Winchester from the\ncloset.\n\nWhen Frank took up his gun and walked out of the house, he had not\nthe faintest purpose of doing anything with it. He did not believe\nthat he had any real grievance. But it gratified him to feel like\na desperate man. He had got into the habit of seeing himself always\nin desperate straits. His unhappy temperament was like a cage; he\ncould never get out of it; and he felt that other people, his wife\nin particular, must have put him there. It had never more than\ndimly occurred to Frank that he made his own unhappiness. Though\nhe took up his gun with dark projects in his mind, he would have\nbeen paralyzed with fright had he known that there was the slightest\nprobability of his ever carrying any of them out.\n\nFrank went slowly down to the orchard gate, stopped and stood for\na moment lost in thought. He retraced his steps and looked through\nthe barn and the hayloft. Then he went out to the road, where he\ntook the foot-path along the outside of the orchard hedge. The\nhedge was twice as tall as Frank himself, and so dense that one\ncould see through it only by peering closely between the leaves.\nHe could see the empty path a long way in the moonlight. His mind\ntraveled ahead to the stile, which he always thought of as haunted\nby Emil Bergson. But why had he left his horse?\n\nAt the wheatfield corner, where the orchard hedge ended and the\npath led across the pasture to the Bergsons', Frank stopped. In\nthe warm, breathless night air he heard a murmuring sound, perfectly\ninarticulate, as low as the sound of water coming from a spring,\nwhere there is no fall, and where there are no stones to fret it.\nFrank strained his ears. It ceased. He held his breath and began\nto tremble. Resting the butt of his gun on the ground, he parted\nthe mulberry leaves softly with his fingers and peered through\nthe hedge at the dark figures on the grass, in the shadow of the\nmulberry tree. It seemed to him that they must feel his eyes,\nthat they must hear him breathing. But they did not. Frank, who\nhad always wanted to see things blacker than they were, for once\nwanted to believe less than he saw. The woman lying in the shadow\nmight so easily be one of the Bergsons' farm-girls.... Again\nthe murmur, like water welling out of the ground. This time he\nheard it more distinctly, and his blood was quicker than his brain.\nHe began to act, just as a man who falls into the fire begins to\nact. The gun sprang to his shoulder, he sighted mechanically and\nfired three times without stopping, stopped without knowing why.\nEither he shut his eyes or he had vertigo. He did not see anything\nwhile he was firing. He thought he heard a cry simultaneous with\nthe second report, but he was not sure. He peered again through\nthe hedge, at the two dark figures under the tree. They had fallen\na little apart from each other, and were perfectly still--No,\nnot quite; in a white patch of light, where the moon shone through\nthe branches, a man's hand was plucking spasmodically at the grass.\n\nSuddenly the woman stirred and uttered a cry, then another, and\nanother. She was living! She was dragging herself toward the\nhedge! Frank dropped his gun and ran back along the path, shaking,\nstumbling, gasping. He had never imagined such horror. The\ncries followed him. They grew fainter and thicker, as if she were\nchoking. He dropped on his knees beside the hedge and crouched\nlike a rabbit, listening; fainter, fainter; a sound like a whine;\nagain--a moan--another--silence. Frank scrambled to his feet and\nran on, groaning and praying. From habit he went toward the house,\nwhere he was used to being soothed when he had worked himself into\na frenzy, but at the sight of the black, open door, he started back.\nHe knew that he had murdered somebody, that a woman was bleeding\nand moaning in the orchard, but he had not realized before that\nit was his wife. The gate stared him in the face. He threw his\nhands over his head. Which way to turn? He lifted his tormented\nface and looked at the sky. \"Holy Mother of God, not to suffer!\nShe was a good girl--not to suffer!\"\n\nFrank had been wont to see himself in dramatic situations; but\nnow, when he stood by the windmill, in the bright space between the\nbarn and the house, facing his own black doorway, he did not see\nhimself at all. He stood like the hare when the dogs are approaching\nfrom all sides. And he ran like a hare, back and forth about that\nmoonlit space, before he could make up his mind to go into the\ndark stable for a horse. The thought of going into a doorway was\nterrible to him. He caught Emil's horse by the bit and led it out.\nHe could not have buckled a bridle on his own. After two or three\nattempts, he lifted himself into the saddle and started for Hanover.\nIf he could catch the one o'clock train, he had money enough to\nget as far as Omaha.\n\nWhile he was thinking dully of this in some less sensitized part\nof his brain, his acuter faculties were going over and over the\ncries he had heard in the orchard. Terror was the only thing that\nkept him from going back to her, terror that she might still be\nshe, that she might still be suffering. A woman, mutilated and\nbleeding in his orchard--it was because it was a woman that he\nwas so afraid. It was inconceivable that he should have hurt a\nwoman. He would rather be eaten by wild beasts than see her move\non the ground as she had moved in the orchard. Why had she been\nso careless? She knew he was like a crazy man when he was angry.\nShe had more than once taken that gun away from him and held it,\nwhen he was angry with other people. Once it had gone off while\nthey were struggling over it. She was never afraid. But, when\nshe knew him, why hadn't she been more careful? Didn't she have\nall summer before her to love Emil Bergson in, without taking such\nchances? Probably she had met the Smirka boy, too, down there in\nthe orchard. He didn't care. She could have met all the men on the\nDivide there, and welcome, if only she hadn't brought this horror\non him.\n\nThere was a wrench in Frank's mind. He did not honestly believe that\nof her. He knew that he was doing her wrong. He stopped his horse\nto admit this to himself the more directly, to think it out the more\nclearly. He knew that he was to blame. For three years he had been\ntrying to break her spirit. She had a way of making the best of\nthings that seemed to him a sentimental affectation. He wanted his\nwife to resent that he was wasting his best years among these stupid\nand unappreciative people; but she had seemed to find the people\nquite good enough. If he ever got rich he meant to buy her pretty\nclothes and take her to California in a Pullman car, and treat her\nlike a lady; but in the mean time he wanted her to feel that life was\nas ugly and as unjust as he felt it. He had tried to make her life\nugly. He had refused to share any of the little pleasures she was so\nplucky about making for herself. She could be gay about the least\nthing in the world; but she must be gay! When she first came to him,\nher faith in him, her adoration--Frank struck the mare with his fist.\nWhy had Marie made him do this thing; why had she brought this upon\nhim? He was overwhelmed by sickening misfortune. All at once he\nheard her cries again--he had forgotten for a moment. \"Maria,\" he\nsobbed aloud, \"Maria!\"\n\nWhen Frank was halfway to Hanover, the motion of his horse brought\non a violent attack of nausea. After it had passed, he rode on\nagain, but he could think of nothing except his physical weakness\nand his desire to be comforted by his wife. He wanted to get into\nhis own bed. Had his wife been at home, he would have turned and\ngone back to her meekly enough.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nWhen old Ivar climbed down from his loft at four o'clock the next\nmorning, he came upon Emil's mare, jaded and lather-stained, her\nbridle broken, chewing the scattered tufts of hay outside the stable\ndoor. The old man was thrown into a fright at once. He put the\nmare in her stall, threw her a measure of oats, and then set out\nas fast as his bow-legs could carry him on the path to the nearest\nneighbor.\n\n\"Something is wrong with that boy. Some misfortune has come upon\nus. He would never have used her so, in his right senses. It is\nnot his way to abuse his mare,\" the old man kept muttering, as he\nscuttled through the short, wet pasture grass on his bare feet.\n\nWhile Ivar was hurrying across the fields, the first long rays of\nthe sun were reaching down between the orchard boughs to those two\ndew-drenched figures. The story of what had happened was written\nplainly on the orchard grass, and on the white mulberries that had\nfallen in the night and were covered with dark stain. For Emil the\nchapter had been short. He was shot in the heart, and had rolled\nover on his back and died. His face was turned up to the sky and\nhis brows were drawn in a frown, as if he had realized that something\nhad befallen him. But for Marie Shabata it had not been so easy.\nOne ball had torn through her right lung, another had shattered\nthe carotid artery. She must have started up and gone toward the\nhedge, leaving a trail of blood. There she had fallen and bled.\nFrom that spot there was another trail, heavier than the first,\nwhere she must have dragged herself back to Emil's body. Once\nthere, she seemed not to have struggled any more. She had lifted\nher head to her lover's breast, taken his hand in both her own,\nand bled quietly to death. She was lying on her right side in an\neasy and natural position, her cheek on Emil's shoulder. On her\nface there was a look of ineffable content. Her lips were parted\na little; her eyes were lightly closed, as if in a day-dream or a\nlight slumber. After she lay down there, she seemed not to have\nmoved an eyelash. The hand she held was covered with dark stains,\nwhere she had kissed it.\n\nBut the stained, slippery grass, the darkened mulberries, told only\nhalf the story. Above Marie and Emil, two white butterflies from\nFrank's alfalfa-field were fluttering in and out among the interlacing\nshadows; diving and soaring, now close together, now far apart;\nand in the long grass by the fence the last wild roses of the year\nopened their pink hearts to die.\n\nWhen Ivar reached the path by the hedge, he saw Shabata's rifle\nlying in the way. He turned and peered through the branches,\nfalling upon his knees as if his legs had been mowed from under\nhim. \"Merciful God!\" he groaned.\n\nAlexandra, too, had risen early that morning, because of her anxiety\nabout Emil. She was in Emil's room upstairs when, from the window,\nshe saw Ivar coming along the path that led from the Shabatas'.\nHe was running like a spent man, tottering and lurching from side\nto side. Ivar never drank, and Alexandra thought at once that one\nof his spells had come upon him, and that he must be in a very bad\nway indeed. She ran downstairs and hurried out to meet him, to\nhide his infirmity from the eyes of her household. The old man\nfell in the road at her feet and caught her hand, over which he\nbowed his shaggy head. \"Mistress, mistress,\" he sobbed, \"it has\nfallen! Sin and death for the young ones! God have mercy upon\nus!\"\n\n\n\n\nPART V. Alexandra\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nIvar was sitting at a cobbler's bench in the barn, mending harness\nby the light of a lantern and repeating to himself the 101st Psalm.\nIt was only five o'clock of a mid-October day, but a storm had\ncome up in the afternoon, bringing black clouds, a cold wind and\ntorrents of rain. The old man wore his buffalo-skin coat, and\noccasionally stopped to warm his fingers at the lantern. Suddenly\na woman burst into the shed, as if she had been blown in, accompanied by\na shower of rain-drops. It was Signa, wrapped in a man's overcoat\nand wearing a pair of boots over her shoes. In time of trouble\nSigna had come back to stay with her mistress, for she was the only\none of the maids from whom Alexandra would accept much personal\nservice. It was three months now since the news of the terrible\nthing that had happened in Frank Shabata's orchard had first run\nlike a fire over the Divide. Signa and Nelse were staying on with\nAlexandra until winter.\n\n\"Ivar,\" Signa exclaimed as she wiped the rain from her face, \"do\nyou know where she is?\"\n\nThe old man put down his cobbler's knife. \"Who, the mistress?\"\n\n\"Yes. She went away about three o'clock. I happened to look out\nof the window and saw her going across the fields in her thin dress\nand sun-hat. And now this storm has come on. I thought she was\ngoing to Mrs. Hiller's, and I telephoned as soon as the thunder\nstopped, but she had not been there. I'm afraid she is out somewhere\nand will get her death of cold.\"\n\nIvar put on his cap and took up the lantern. \"JA, JA, we will see.\nI will hitch the boy's mare to the cart and go.\"\n\nSigna followed him across the wagon-shed to the horses' stable.\nShe was shivering with cold and excitement. \"Where do you suppose\nshe can be, Ivar?\"\n\nThe old man lifted a set of single harness carefully from its peg.\n\"How should I know?\"\n\n\"But you think she is at the graveyard, don't you?\" Signa persisted.\n\"So do I. Oh, I wish she would be more like herself! I can't\nbelieve it's Alexandra Bergson come to this, with no head about\nanything. I have to tell her when to eat and when to go to bed.\"\n\n\"Patience, patience, sister,\" muttered Ivar as he settled the bit\nin the horse's mouth. \"When the eyes of the flesh are shut, the\neyes of the spirit are open. She will have a message from those\nwho are gone, and that will bring her peace. Until then we must\nbear with her. You and I are the only ones who have weight with\nher. She trusts us.\"\n\n\"How awful it's been these last three months.\" Signa held the\nlantern so that he could see to buckle the straps. \"It don't seem\nright that we must all be so miserable. Why do we all have to be\npunished? Seems to me like good times would never come again.\"\n\nIvar expressed himself in a deep sigh, but said nothing. He stooped\nand took a sandburr from his toe.\n\n\"Ivar,\" Signa asked suddenly, \"will you tell me why you go barefoot?\nAll the time I lived here in the house I wanted to ask you. Is it\nfor a penance, or what?\"\n\n\"No, sister. It is for the indulgence of the body. From my youth\nup I have had a strong, rebellious body, and have been subject to\nevery kind of temptation. Even in age my temptations are prolonged.\nIt was necessary to make some allowances; and the feet, as I\nunderstand it, are free members. There is no divine prohibition\nfor them in the Ten Commandments. The hands, the tongue, the eyes,\nthe heart, all the bodily desires we are commanded to subdue; but\nthe feet are free members. I indulge them without harm to any\none, even to trampling in filth when my desires are low. They are\nquickly cleaned again.\"\n\nSigna did not laugh. She looked thoughtful as she followed Ivar out\nto the wagon-shed and held the shafts up for him, while he backed\nin the mare and buckled the hold-backs. \"You have been a good\nfriend to the mistress, Ivar,\" she murmured.\n\n\"And you, God be with you,\" replied Ivar as he clambered into the\ncart and put the lantern under the oilcloth lap-cover. \"Now for\na ducking, my girl,\" he said to the mare, gathering up the reins.\n\nAs they emerged from the shed, a stream of water, running off the\nthatch, struck the mare on the neck. She tossed her head indignantly,\nthen struck out bravely on the soft ground, slipping back again and\nagain as she climbed the hill to the main road. Between the rain\nand the darkness Ivar could see very little, so he let Emil's mare\nhave the rein, keeping her head in the right direction. When the\nground was level, he turned her out of the dirt road upon the sod,\nwhere she was able to trot without slipping.\n\nBefore Ivar reached the graveyard, three miles from the house,\nthe storm had spent itself, and the downpour had died into a soft,\ndripping rain. The sky and the land were a dark smoke color, and\nseemed to be coming together, like two waves. When Ivar stopped\nat the gate and swung out his lantern, a white figure rose from\nbeside John Bergson's white stone.\n\nThe old man sprang to the ground and shuffled toward the gate\ncalling, \"Mistress, mistress!\"\n\nAlexandra hurried to meet him and put her hand on his shoulder.\n\"TYST! Ivar. There's nothing to be worried about. I'm sorry if\nI've scared you all. I didn't notice the storm till it was on me,\nand I couldn't walk against it. I'm glad you've come. I am so\ntired I didn't know how I'd ever get home.\"\n\nIvar swung the lantern up so that it shone in her face. \"GUD!\nYou are enough to frighten us, mistress. You look like a drowned\nwoman. How could you do such a thing!\"\n\nGroaning and mumbling he led her out of the gate and helped her\ninto the cart, wrapping her in the dry blankets on which he had\nbeen sitting.\n\nAlexandra smiled at his solicitude. \"Not much use in that, Ivar.\nYou will only shut the wet in. I don't feel so cold now; but I'm\nheavy and numb. I'm glad you came.\"\n\nIvar turned the mare and urged her into a sliding trot. Her feet\nsent back a continual spatter of mud.\n\nAlexandra spoke to the old man as they jogged along through the\nsullen gray twilight of the storm. \"Ivar, I think it has done me\ngood to get cold clear through like this, once. I don't believe\nI shall suffer so much any more. When you get so near the dead,\nthey seem more real than the living. Worldly thoughts leave one.\nEver since Emil died, I've suffered so when it rained. Now that\nI've been out in it with him, I shan't dread it. After you once\nget cold clear through, the feeling of the rain on you is sweet.\nIt seems to bring back feelings you had when you were a baby. It\ncarries you back into the dark, before you were born; you can't\nsee things, but they come to you, somehow, and you know them and\naren't afraid of them. Maybe it's like that with the dead. If\nthey feel anything at all, it's the old things, before they were\nborn, that comfort people like the feeling of their own bed does\nwhen they are little.\"\n\n\"Mistress,\" said Ivar reproachfully, \"those are bad thoughts. The\ndead are in Paradise.\"\n\nThen he hung his head, for he did not believe that Emil was in\nParadise.\n\nWhen they got home, Signa had a fire burning in the sitting-room\nstove. She undressed Alexandra and gave her a hot footbath, while\nIvar made ginger tea in the kitchen. When Alexandra was in bed,\nwrapped in hot blankets, Ivar came in with his tea and saw that\nshe drank it. Signa asked permission to sleep on the slat lounge\noutside her door. Alexandra endured their attentions patiently,\nbut she was glad when they put out the lamp and left her. As she\nlay alone in the dark, it occurred to her for the first time that\nperhaps she was actually tired of life. All the physical operations\nof life seemed difficult and painful. She longed to be free from\nher own body, which ached and was so heavy. And longing itself\nwas heavy: she yearned to be free of that.\n\nAs she lay with her eyes closed, she had again, more vividly than\nfor many years, the old illusion of her girlhood, of being lifted\nand carried lightly by some one very strong. He was with her\na long while this time, and carried her very far, and in his arms\nshe felt free from pain. When he laid her down on her bed again,\nshe opened her eyes, and, for the first time in her life, she saw\nhim, saw him clearly, though the room was dark, and his face was\ncovered. He was standing in the doorway of her room. His white\ncloak was thrown over his face, and his head was bent a little\nforward. His shoulders seemed as strong as the foundations of the\nworld. His right arm, bared from the elbow, was dark and gleaming,\nlike bronze, and she knew at once that it was the arm of the\nmightiest of all lovers. She knew at last for whom it was she had\nwaited, and where he would carry her. That, she told herself, was\nvery well. Then she went to sleep.\n\nAlexandra wakened in the morning with nothing worse than a hard cold\nand a stiff shoulder. She kept her bed for several days, and it\nwas during that time that she formed a resolution to go to Lincoln\nto see Frank Shabata. Ever since she last saw him in the courtroom,\nFrank's haggard face and wild eyes had haunted her. The trial had\nlasted only three days. Frank had given himself up to the police\nin Omaha and pleaded guilty of killing without malice and without\npremeditation. The gun was, of course, against him, and the judge\nhad given him the full sentence,--ten years. He had now been in\nthe State Penitentiary for a month.\n\nFrank was the only one, Alexandra told herself, for whom anything\ncould be done. He had been less in the wrong than any of them,\nand he was paying the heaviest penalty. She often felt that she\nherself had been more to blame than poor Frank. From the time the\nShabatas had first moved to the neighboring farm, she had omitted\nno opportunity of throwing Marie and Emil together. Because she\nknew Frank was surly about doing little things to help his wife,\nshe was always sending Emil over to spade or plant or carpenter\nfor Marie. She was glad to have Emil see as much as possible of an\nintelligent, city-bred girl like their neighbor; she noticed that\nit improved his manners. She knew that Emil was fond of Marie, but\nit had never occurred to her that Emil's feeling might be different\nfrom her own. She wondered at herself now, but she had never\nthought of danger in that direction. If Marie had been unmarried,--oh,\nyes! Then she would have kept her eyes open. But the mere fact that\nshe was Shabata's wife, for Alexandra, settled everything. That she was\nbeautiful, impulsive, barely two years older than Emil, these facts had\nhad no weight with Alexandra. Emil was a good boy, and only bad boys\nran after married women.\n\nNow, Alexandra could in a measure realize that Marie was, after\nall, Marie; not merely a \"married woman.\" Sometimes, when Alexandra\nthought of her, it was with an aching tenderness. The moment she\nhad reached them in the orchard that morning, everything was clear\nto her. There was something about those two lying in the grass,\nsomething in the way Marie had settled her cheek on Emil's shoulder,\nthat told her everything. She wondered then how they could have\nhelped loving each other; how she could have helped knowing that\nthey must. Emil's cold, frowning face, the girl's content--Alexandra\nhad felt awe of them, even in the first shock of her grief.\n\nThe idleness of those days in bed, the relaxation of body which\nattended them, enabled Alexandra to think more calmly than she had\ndone since Emil's death. She and Frank, she told herself, were left\nout of that group of friends who had been overwhelmed by disaster.\nShe must certainly see Frank Shabata. Even in the courtroom her\nheart had grieved for him. He was in a strange country, he had no\nkinsmen or friends, and in a moment he had ruined his life. Being\nwhat he was, she felt, Frank could not have acted otherwise. She\ncould understand his behavior more easily than she could understand\nMarie's. Yes, she must go to Lincoln to see Frank Shabata.\n\nThe day after Emil's funeral, Alexandra had written to Carl Linstrum;\na single page of notepaper, a bare statement of what had happened.\nShe was not a woman who could write much about such a thing, and\nabout her own feelings she could never write very freely. She knew\nthat Carl was away from post-offices, prospecting somewhere in the\ninterior. Before he started he had written her where he expected\nto go, but her ideas about Alaska were vague. As the weeks went\nby and she heard nothing from him, it seemed to Alexandra that\nher heart grew hard against Carl. She began to wonder whether she\nwould not do better to finish her life alone. What was left of\nlife seemed unimportant.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nLate in the afternoon of a brilliant October day, Alexandra Bergson,\ndressed in a black suit and traveling-hat, alighted at the Burlington\ndepot in Lincoln. She drove to the Lindell Hotel, where she had\nstayed two years ago when she came up for Emil's Commencement. In\nspite of her usual air of sureness and self-possession, Alexandra\nfelt ill at ease in hotels, and she was glad, when she went to the\nclerk's desk to register, that there were not many people in the\nlobby. She had her supper early, wearing her hat and black jacket\ndown to the dining-room and carrying her handbag. After supper\nshe went out for a walk.\n\nIt was growing dark when she reached the university campus. She\ndid not go into the grounds, but walked slowly up and down the\nstone walk outside the long iron fence, looking through at the young\nmen who were running from one building to another, at the lights\nshining from the armory and the library. A squad of cadets were\ngoing through their drill behind the armory, and the commands of\ntheir young officer rang out at regular intervals, so sharp and\nquick that Alexandra could not understand them. Two stalwart girls\ncame down the library steps and out through one of the iron gates.\nAs they passed her, Alexandra was pleased to hear them speaking\nBohemian to each other. Every few moments a boy would come running\ndown the flagged walk and dash out into the street as if he were\nrushing to announce some wonder to the world. Alexandra felt a\ngreat tenderness for them all. She wished one of them would stop\nand speak to her. She wished she could ask them whether they had\nknown Emil.\n\nAs she lingered by the south gate she actually did encounter one\nof the boys. He had on his drill cap and was swinging his books\nat the end of a long strap. It was dark by this time; he did not\nsee her and ran against her. He snatched off his cap and stood\nbareheaded and panting. \"I'm awfully sorry,\" he said in a bright,\nclear voice, with a rising inflection, as if he expected her to\nsay something.\n\n\"Oh, it was my fault!\" said Alexandra eagerly. \"Are you an old\nstudent here, may I ask?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am. I'm a Freshie, just off the farm. Cherry County.\nWere you hunting somebody?\"\n\n\"No, thank you. That is--\" Alexandra wanted to detain him. \"That\nis, I would like to find some of my brother's friends. He graduated\ntwo years ago.\"\n\n\"Then you'd have to try the Seniors, wouldn't you? Let's see; I\ndon't know any of them yet, but there'll be sure to be some of them\naround the library. That red building, right there,\" he pointed.\n\n\"Thank you, I'll try there,\" said Alexandra lingeringly.\n\n\"Oh, that's all right! Good-night.\" The lad clapped his cap on\nhis head and ran straight down Eleventh Street. Alexandra looked\nafter him wistfully.\n\nShe walked back to her hotel unreasonably comforted. \"What a nice\nvoice that boy had, and how polite he was. I know Emil was always\nlike that to women.\" And again, after she had undressed and was\nstanding in her nightgown, brushing her long, heavy hair by the\nelectric light, she remembered him and said to herself, \"I don't\nthink I ever heard a nicer voice than that boy had. I hope he\nwill get on well here. Cherry County; that's where the hay is so\nfine, and the coyotes can scratch down to water.\"\n\nAt nine o'clock the next morning Alexandra presented herself\nat the warden's office in the State Penitentiary. The warden was\na German, a ruddy, cheerful-looking man who had formerly been a\nharness-maker. Alexandra had a letter to him from the German banker\nin Hanover. As he glanced at the letter, Mr. Schwartz put away\nhis pipe.\n\n\"That big Bohemian, is it? Sure, he's gettin' along fine,\" said\nMr. Schwartz cheerfully.\n\n\"I am glad to hear that. I was afraid he might be quarrelsome and\nget himself into more trouble. Mr. Schwartz, if you have time, I\nwould like to tell you a little about Frank Shabata, and why I am\ninterested in him.\"\n\nThe warden listened genially while she told him briefly something\nof Frank's history and character, but he did not seem to find\nanything unusual in her account.\n\n\"Sure, I'll keep an eye on him. We'll take care of him all right,\"\nhe said, rising. \"You can talk to him here, while I go to see to\nthings in the kitchen. I'll have him sent in. He ought to be done\nwashing out his cell by this time. We have to keep 'em clean, you\nknow.\"\n\nThe warden paused at the door, speaking back over his shoulder to\na pale young man in convicts' clothes who was seated at a desk in\nthe corner, writing in a big ledger.\n\n\"Bertie, when 1037 is brought in, you just step out and give this\nlady a chance to talk.\"\n\nThe young man bowed his head and bent over his ledger again.\n\nWhen Mr. Schwartz disappeared, Alexandra thrust her black-edged\nhandkerchief nervously into her handbag. Coming out on the streetcar\nshe had not had the least dread of meeting Frank. But since she\nhad been here the sounds and smells in the corridor, the look of the\nmen in convicts' clothes who passed the glass door of the warden's\noffice, affected her unpleasantly.\n\nThe warden's clock ticked, the young convict's pen scratched\nbusily in the big book, and his sharp shoulders were shaken every\nfew seconds by a loose cough which he tried to smother. It was easy\nto see that he was a sick man. Alexandra looked at him timidly,\nbut he did not once raise his eyes. He wore a white shirt under\nhis striped jacket, a high collar, and a necktie, very carefully\ntied. His hands were thin and white and well cared for, and he had\na seal ring on his little finger. When he heard steps approaching\nin the corridor, he rose, blotted his book, put his pen in the rack,\nand left the room without raising his eyes. Through the door he\nopened a guard came in, bringing Frank Shabata.\n\n\"You the lady that wanted to talk to 1037? Here he is. Be on your\ngood behavior, now. He can set down, lady,\" seeing that Alexandra\nremained standing. \"Push that white button when you're through\nwith him, and I'll come.\"\n\nThe guard went out and Alexandra and Frank were left alone.\n\nAlexandra tried not to see his hideous clothes. She tried to look\nstraight into his face, which she could scarcely believe was his.\nIt was already bleached to a chalky gray. His lips were colorless,\nhis fine teeth looked yellowish. He glanced at Alexandra sullenly,\nblinked as if he had come from a dark place, and one eyebrow twitched\ncontinually. She felt at once that this interview was a terrible\nordeal to him. His shaved head, showing the conformation of his\nskull, gave him a criminal look which he had not had during the\ntrial.\n\nAlexandra held out her hand. \"Frank,\" she said, her eyes filling\nsuddenly, \"I hope you'll let me be friendly with you. I understand\nhow you did it. I don't feel hard toward you. They were more to\nblame than you.\"\n\nFrank jerked a dirty blue handkerchief from his trousers pocket.\nHe had begun to cry. He turned away from Alexandra. \"I never\ndid mean to do not'ing to dat woman,\" he muttered. \"I never mean\nto do not'ing to dat boy. I ain't had not'ing ag'in' dat boy. I\nalways like dat boy fine. An' then I find him--\" He stopped. The\nfeeling went out of his face and eyes. He dropped into a chair\nand sat looking stolidly at the floor, his hands hanging loosely\nbetween his knees, the handkerchief lying across his striped leg.\nHe seemed to have stirred up in his mind a disgust that had paralyzed\nhis faculties.\n\n\"I haven't come up here to blame you, Frank. I think they were\nmore to blame than you.\" Alexandra, too, felt benumbed.\n\nFrank looked up suddenly and stared out of the office window. \"I\nguess dat place all go to hell what I work so hard on,\" he said\nwith a slow, bitter smile. \"I not care a damn.\" He stopped and\nrubbed the palm of his hand over the light bristles on his head\nwith annoyance. \"I no can t'ink without my hair,\" he complained.\n\"I forget English. We not talk here, except swear.\"\n\nAlexandra was bewildered. Frank seemed to have undergone a change\nof personality. There was scarcely anything by which she could\nrecognize her handsome Bohemian neighbor. He seemed, somehow, not\naltogether human. She did not know what to say to him.\n\n\"You do not feel hard to me, Frank?\" she asked at last.\n\nFrank clenched his fist and broke out in excitement. \"I not feel\nhard at no woman. I tell you I not that kind-a man. I never hit\nmy wife. No, never I hurt her when she devil me something awful!\"\nHe struck his fist down on the warden's desk so hard that he\nafterward stroked it absently. A pale pink crept over his neck and\nface. \"Two, t'ree years I know dat woman don' care no more 'bout\nme, Alexandra Bergson. I know she after some other man. I know\nher, oo-oo! An' I ain't never hurt her. I never would-a done\ndat, if I ain't had dat gun along. I don' know what in hell make\nme take dat gun. She always say I ain't no man to carry gun. If\nshe been in dat house, where she ought-a been--But das a foolish\ntalk.\"\n\nFrank rubbed his head and stopped suddenly, as he had stopped\nbefore. Alexandra felt that there was something strange in the way\nhe chilled off, as if something came up in him that extinguished\nhis power of feeling or thinking.\n\n\"Yes, Frank,\" she said kindly. \"I know you never meant to hurt\nMarie.\"\n\nFrank smiled at her queerly. His eyes filled slowly with tears.\n\"You know, I most forgit dat woman's name. She ain't got no name\nfor me no more. I never hate my wife, but dat woman what make me\ndo dat--Honest to God, but I hate her! I no man to fight. I\ndon' want to kill no boy and no woman. I not care how many men\nshe take under dat tree. I no care for not'ing but dat fine boy\nI kill, Alexandra Bergson. I guess I go crazy sure 'nough.\"\n\nAlexandra remembered the little yellow cane she had found in Frank's\nclothes-closet. She thought of how he had come to this country a\ngay young fellow, so attractive that the prettiest Bohemian girl\nin Omaha had run away with him. It seemed unreasonable that life\nshould have landed him in such a place as this. She blamed Marie\nbitterly. And why, with her happy, affectionate nature, should\nshe have brought destruction and sorrow to all who had loved her,\neven to poor old Joe Tovesky, the uncle who used to carry her about\nso proudly when she was a little girl? That was the strangest thing\nof all. Was there, then, something wrong in being warm-hearted\nand impulsive like that? Alexandra hated to think so. But there\nwas Emil, in the Norwegian graveyard at home, and here was Frank\nShabata. Alexandra rose and took him by the hand.\n\n\"Frank Shabata, I am never going to stop trying until I get you\npardoned. I'll never give the Governor any peace. I know I can\nget you out of this place.\"\n\nFrank looked at her distrustfully, but he gathered confidence from\nher face. \"Alexandra,\" he said earnestly, \"if I git out-a here,\nI not trouble dis country no more. I go back where I come from;\nsee my mother.\"\n\nAlexandra tried to withdraw her hand, but Frank held on to it\nnervously. He put out his finger and absently touched a button\non her black jacket. \"Alexandra,\" he said in a low tone, looking\nsteadily at the button, \"you ain' t'ink I use dat girl awful bad\nbefore--\"\n\n\"No, Frank. We won't talk about that,\" Alexandra said, pressing\nhis hand. \"I can't help Emil now, so I'm going to do what I can\nfor you. You know I don't go away from home often, and I came up\nhere on purpose to tell you this.\"\n\nThe warden at the glass door looked in inquiringly. Alexandra\nnodded, and he came in and touched the white button on his desk.\nThe guard appeared, and with a sinking heart Alexandra saw Frank\nled away down the corridor. After a few words with Mr. Schwartz,\nshe left the prison and made her way to the street-car. She had\nrefused with horror the warden's cordial invitation to \"go through\nthe institution.\" As the car lurched over its uneven roadbed, back\ntoward Lincoln, Alexandra thought of how she and Frank had been\nwrecked by the same storm and of how, although she could come out\ninto the sunlight, she had not much more left in her life than\nhe. She remembered some lines from a poem she had liked in her\nschooldays:--\n\n   Henceforth the world will only be\n   A wider prison-house to me,--\n\nand sighed. A disgust of life weighed upon her heart; some such\nfeeling as had twice frozen Frank Shabata's features while they\ntalked together. She wished she were back on the Divide.\n\nWhen Alexandra entered her hotel, the clerk held up one finger\nand beckoned to her. As she approached his desk, he handed her a\ntelegram. Alexandra took the yellow envelope and looked at it in\nperplexity, then stepped into the elevator without opening it. As\nshe walked down the corridor toward her room, she reflected that\nshe was, in a manner, immune from evil tidings. On reaching her\nroom she locked the door, and sitting down on a chair by the dresser,\nopened the telegram. It was from Hanover, and it read:--\n\n   Arrived Hanover last night. Shall wait here until you come.\n   Please hurry. CARL LINSTRUM.\n\nAlexandra put her head down on the dresser and burst into tears.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nThe next afternoon Carl and Alexandra were walking across the fields\nfrom Mrs. Hiller's. Alexandra had left Lincoln after midnight,\nand Carl had met her at the Hanover station early in the morning.\nAfter they reached home, Alexandra had gone over to Mrs. Hiller's\nto leave a little present she had bought for her in the city. They\nstayed at the old lady's door but a moment, and then came out to\nspend the rest of the afternoon in the sunny fields.\n\nAlexandra had taken off her black traveling suit and put on\na white dress; partly because she saw that her black clothes made\nCarl uncomfortable and partly because she felt oppressed by them\nherself. They seemed a little like the prison where she had worn\nthem yesterday, and to be out of place in the open fields. Carl\nhad changed very little. His cheeks were browner and fuller. He\nlooked less like a tired scholar than when he went away a year ago,\nbut no one, even now, would have taken him for a man of business.\nHis soft, lustrous black eyes, his whimsical smile, would be less\nagainst him in the Klondike than on the Divide. There are always\ndreamers on the frontier.\n\nCarl and Alexandra had been talking since morning. Her letter had\nnever reached him. He had first learned of her misfortune from\na San Francisco paper, four weeks old, which he had picked up in\na saloon, and which contained a brief account of Frank Shabata's\ntrial. When he put down the paper, he had already made up his\nmind that he could reach Alexandra as quickly as a letter could;\nand ever since he had been on the way; day and night, by the fastest\nboats and trains he could catch. His steamer had been held back\ntwo days by rough weather.\n\nAs they came out of Mrs. Hiller's garden they took up their talk\nagain where they had left it.\n\n\"But could you come away like that, Carl, without arranging things?\nCould you just walk off and leave your business?\" Alexandra asked.\n\nCarl laughed. \"Prudent Alexandra! You see, my dear, I happen to\nhave an honest partner. I trust him with everything. In fact,\nit's been his enterprise from the beginning, you know. I'm in it\nonly because he took me in. I'll have to go back in the spring.\nPerhaps you will want to go with me then. We haven't turned up\nmillions yet, but we've got a start that's worth following. But\nthis winter I'd like to spend with you. You won't feel that we\nought to wait longer, on Emil's account, will you, Alexandra?\"\n\nAlexandra shook her head. \"No, Carl; I don't feel that way about\nit. And surely you needn't mind anything Lou and Oscar say now.\nThey are much angrier with me about Emil, now, than about you.\nThey say it was all my fault. That I ruined him by sending him to\ncollege.\"\n\n\"No, I don't care a button for Lou or Oscar. The moment I knew\nyou were in trouble, the moment I thought you might need me, it all\nlooked different. You've always been a triumphant kind of person.\"\nCarl hesitated, looking sidewise at her strong, full figure. \"But\nyou do need me now, Alexandra?\"\n\nShe put her hand on his arm. \"I needed you terribly when it\nhappened, Carl. I cried for you at night. Then everything seemed\nto get hard inside of me, and I thought perhaps I should never care\nfor you again. But when I got your telegram yesterday, then--then\nit was just as it used to be. You are all I have in the world,\nyou know.\"\n\nCarl pressed her hand in silence. They were passing the Shabatas'\nempty house now, but they avoided the orchard path and took one\nthat led over by the pasture pond.\n\n\"Can you understand it, Carl?\" Alexandra murmured. \"I have had\nnobody but Ivar and Signa to talk to. Do talk to me. Can you\nunderstand it? Could you have believed that of Marie Tovesky? I\nwould have been cut to pieces, little by little, before I would\nhave betrayed her trust in me!\"\n\nCarl looked at the shining spot of water before them. \"Maybe she\nwas cut to pieces, too, Alexandra. I am sure she tried hard; they\nboth did. That was why Emil went to Mexico, of course. And he was\ngoing away again, you tell me, though he had only been home three\nweeks. You remember that Sunday when I went with Emil up to\nthe French Church fair? I thought that day there was some kind\nof feeling, something unusual, between them. I meant to talk to\nyou about it. But on my way back I met Lou and Oscar and got so\nangry that I forgot everything else. You mustn't be hard on them,\nAlexandra. Sit down here by the pond a minute. I want to tell\nyou something.\"\n\nThey sat down on the grass-tufted bank and Carl told her how he had\nseen Emil and Marie out by the pond that morning, more than a year\nago, and how young and charming and full of grace they had seemed\nto him. \"It happens like that in the world sometimes, Alexandra,\"\nhe added earnestly. \"I've seen it before. There are women who\nspread ruin around them through no fault of theirs, just by being\ntoo beautiful, too full of life and love. They can't help it.\nPeople come to them as people go to a warm fire in winter. I used\nto feel that in her when she was a little girl. Do you remember\nhow all the Bohemians crowded round her in the store that day, when\nshe gave Emil her candy? You remember those yellow sparks in her\neyes?\"\n\nAlexandra sighed. \"Yes. People couldn't help loving her. Poor\nFrank does, even now, I think; though he's got himself in such\na tangle that for a long time his love has been bitterer than his\nhate. But if you saw there was anything wrong, you ought to have\ntold me, Carl.\"\n\nCarl took her hand and smiled patiently. \"My dear, it was something\none felt in the air, as you feel the spring coming, or a storm in\nsummer. I didn't SEE anything. Simply, when I was with those two\nyoung things, I felt my blood go quicker, I felt--how shall I say\nit?--an acceleration of life. After I got away, it was all too\ndelicate, too intangible, to write about.\"\n\nAlexandra looked at him mournfully. \"I try to be more liberal\nabout such things than I used to be. I try to realize that we are\nnot all made alike. Only, why couldn't it have been Raoul Marcel,\nor Jan Smirka? Why did it have to be my boy?\"\n\n\"Because he was the best there was, I suppose. They were both the\nbest you had here.\"\n\nThe sun was dropping low in the west when the two friends rose and\ntook the path again. The straw-stacks were throwing long shadows,\nthe owls were flying home to the prairie-dog town. When they came\nto the corner where the pastures joined, Alexandra's twelve young\ncolts were galloping in a drove over the brow of the hill.\n\n\"Carl,\" said Alexandra, \"I should like to go up there with you in\nthe spring. I haven't been on the water since we crossed the ocean,\nwhen I was a little girl. After we first came out here I used\nto dream sometimes about the shipyard where father worked, and a\nlittle sort of inlet, full of masts.\" Alexandra paused. After a\nmoment's thought she said, \"But you would never ask me to go away\nfor good, would you?\"\n\n\"Of course not, my dearest. I think I know how you feel about this\ncountry as well as you do yourself.\" Carl took her hand in both\nhis own and pressed it tenderly.\n\n\"Yes, I still feel that way, though Emil is gone. When I was on\nthe train this morning, and we got near Hanover, I felt something\nlike I did when I drove back with Emil from the river that time,\nin the dry year. I was glad to come back to it. I've lived here\na long time. There is great peace here, Carl, and freedom....\nI thought when I came out of that prison, where poor Frank is,\nthat I should never feel free again. But I do, here.\" Alexandra\ntook a deep breath and looked off into the red west.\n\n\"You belong to the land,\" Carl murmured, \"as you have always said.\nNow more than ever.\"\n\n\"Yes, now more than ever. You remember what you once said about\nthe graveyard, and the old story writing itself over? Only it is\nwe who write it, with the best we have.\"\n\nThey paused on the last ridge of the pasture, overlooking the\nhouse and the windmill and the stables that marked the site of John\nBergson's homestead. On every side the brown waves of the earth\nrolled away to meet the sky.\n\n\"Lou and Oscar can't see those things,\" said Alexandra suddenly.\n\"Suppose I do will my land to their children, what difference will\nthat make? The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way\nit seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk's plat\nwill be there in fifty years? I might as well try to will the\nsunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, but\nthe land is always here. And the people who love it and understand\nit are the people who own it--for a little while.\"\n\nCarl looked at her wonderingly. She was still gazing into the west,\nand in her face there was that exalted serenity that sometimes came\nto her at moments of deep feeling. The level rays of the sinking\nsun shone in her clear eyes.\n\n\"Why are you thinking of such things now, Alexandra?\"\n\n\"I had a dream before I went to Lincoln--But I will tell you about\nthat afterward, after we are married. It will never come true,\nnow, in the way I thought it might.\" She took Carl's arm and they\nwalked toward the gate. \"How many times we have walked this path\ntogether, Carl. How many times we will walk it again! Does it seem\nto you like coming back to your own place? Do you feel at peace\nwith the world here? I think we shall be very happy. I haven't\nany fears. I think when friends marry, they are safe. We don't\nsuffer like--those young ones.\" Alexandra ended with a sigh.\n\nThey had reached the gate. Before Carl opened it, he drew Alexandra\nto him and kissed her softly, on her lips and on her eyes.\n\nShe leaned heavily on his shoulder. \"I am tired,\" she murmured.\n\"I have been very lonely, Carl.\"\n\nThey went into the house together, leaving the Divide behind them,\nunder the evening star. Fortunate country, that is one day to\nreceive hearts like Alexandra's into its bosom, to give them out\nagain in the yellow wheat, in the rustling corn, in the shining\neyes of youth!"