Books: Main Travelled Roads

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She already had the sympathy of the entire town, and McIlvaine
had said: "If you need more money, you can have it, Mrs. Sanford.
Call on us at any time."

"Thank you. I don't think I'll need it. All I ask is your trade," she
replied. "I don't ask anybody to pay more'n a thing's worth, either.
I'm goin' to sell goods on business principles, and I expect folks to
buy of me because I'm selling reliable goods as cheap as anybody
else."

Her business was successful from the start, but she did not allow
herself to get too confident.

"This is a kind of charity trade. It won't last on that basis. Folks
ain't goin' to buy of me because I'm poor-not very long," she said to
Vance, who went in to congratulate her on her booming trade
during Christmas and New Year.

Vance called so often, advising or congratulating her, that the boys
joked him. "Say, looky here! You're gom' to get into a peck o'
trouble with your wife yet. You spend about hall y'r time in the
new store."

Vance looked serene as he replied, "I'd stay longer and go oftener
If I could."

"Well, if you ain't cheekier 'n ol' cheek! I should think you'd be
ashamed to say it."

"'Shamed of it? I'm proud of it! As I tell my wife, if I'd 'a' met Mis'
Sanford when we was both young, they wouldn't 'a' be'n no such
present arrangement."

The new life made its changes in Mrs. Sanford. She grew thinner
and graver, but as she went on, and trade steadily increased, a
feeling of pride, a sort of exultation, came into her soul and shone
from her steady eyes. It was glorious to feel that she was holding
her own with men in the world, winning their respect, which is
better than their flattery. She arose each day at five o'clock with a
distinct pleasure, for her physical health was excellent, never
better.

She began to dream. She could pay off five hundred dollars a year
of the interest-perhaps she could pay some of the principal, if all
went well. Perhaps in a year br two she could take a larger store,
and, if Jim got something to do, in ten years they could pay it all
off-every cent! She talked with businessmen, and read and studied,
and felt each day a firmer hold on affairs.

Sanford got the agency of an insurance company or two and earned
a few dollars during the spring. In June things brightened up a
little. The money for a note of a thousand dollars fell due-a note he
had considered virtually worthless, but the debtor, having had a
"streak o' luck," sent seven hundred and fifty dollars. Sanford at
once called a meeting of his creditors, and paid them, pro rata, a
thousand dollars. The meeting took place in his wife's store, and in
making the speech Sanford said:

"I tell you, gentlemen, if you'll only give us a chance, we'll clear
this thing all up-that is, the principal. We can't-"

"Yes, we can, James. We can pay it all, principal and interest. We
owe the interest just as much as the rest." It was evident that there
was to be no letting down while she lived.

The effect of this payment was marked. The general feeling was
much more kindly than before. Most of the fellows dropped back
into the habit of calling him Jim; but, after all, it was not like the
greeting of old, when he was "banker." Still the gain in confidence
found a reflex in him. His shoulders, which had begun to droop a
little, lifted, and his eyes brightened.

"We'll win yet," he began to say.

"She's a-holdin' of 'im right to time," Mrs. Bingham said.

It was shortly after this that he got the agency for a new
cash-delivery system, and went on the road with it, traveling in
northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. He came back after a three
weeks' trip, quite jubilant. "I've made a hundred dollars, Nell. I'm
all right if this holds out, and I guess it will."

In the following November, just a year after the failure, they
celebrated the day, at her suggestion, by paying interest on the
unpaid sums they owed.

"I could pay a little more on the principal," she explained, "but I
guess it'll be better to use it for my stock. I can pay better
dividends next year.

"Take y'r time, Mrs. Sanford," Vance said.

Of course she could not escape criticism. There were the usual
number of women who noticed that she kept her 'young uns" in the
latest style, when as a matter of fact she sat up nights to make their
little things. They also noticed that she retained her house and her
furniture.

"If I was in her place, seems to me, I'd turn in some o' my fine
furniture toward my debts," Mrs. Sam Gilbert said spitefully.

She did not even escape calumny. Mrs. Sam Gilbert darkly hinted
at certain "goin's on durin' his bein' away. Lit up till after midnight
some nights. I c'n see her winder from mine."

Rose McPhail, one of Mrs. Sanford's most devoted friends, asked
quietly, "Do you sit up all night t' see?"

"S'posin' I do!" she snapped. "I can't sleep with such things goin'
on."

"If it'll do you any good, Jane, I'll say that she's settin' up there
sewin' for the children. If you'd keep your nose out o' other folks'
affairs, and attend better to your own, your house wouldn't look'
like a pigpen, all' your children like A-rabs."

But in spite of a few annoyances of this character Mrs. Sanford
found her new life wholesomer and broader than her old life, and
the pain of her loss grew less poignant.

VI

One day in spring, in the lazy, odorous hush of the afternoon, the
usual number of loafers were standing on the platform, waiting for
the train. The sun was going down the slope toward the hills,
through a warm April haze.

"Hello!" exclaimed the man who always sees things first. "Here
comes Mrs. Sanford and the ducklings."

Everybody looked.

"Ain't goin' off, is she?"

"Nope; guess not. Meet somebody, prob'ly Sanford."

"Well, sornethin's up. She don't often get out o' that store."

"Le's see; he's been gone most o' the winter, hain't he?"

"Yes; went away about New Year's."

Mrs. Sanford came past, leading a child by each hand, nodding and
smiling to friends-for all seemed friends. She looked very resolute
and businesslike in her plain, dark dress, with a dull flame of color
at the throat, while the broad hat she wore gave her face a touch of
piquancy very charming. Evidently she was in excellent spirits,
and laughed and chatted in quite a carefree way.

She was now an institution at the Siding. Her store had grown in
proportions yearly, until it was as large and commodious as any in
the town. The drummers for dry goods all called there, and the fact
that she did not sell any groceries at all did not deter the drummers
for grocery houses from calling to see each time if she hadn't
decided to put in a stock of groceries.

These keen-eyed young fellows had spread her fame all up and
down the road. She had captured them, not by beauty, but by her
pluck, candor, honesty, and by a certain fearless but reserved
camaraderie. She was not afraid of them, or of anybody else, now.

The train whistled, and everybody turned to watch it as it came
pushing around the bluff like a huge hound on a trail, its nose close
to the ground. Among the first to alight was Sanford, in a shining
new silk hat and a new suit of clothes. He was smiling gaily as he
fought his way through the crowd to his wife's side. "Hello!" he
shouted. "I thought I'd see you all here."

"W'y, Jim, ain't you cuttin' a swell?"

"A swell! Well, who's got a better right? A man wants to look as
well as he can when he comes home to such a family."

"Hello, Jim!. That plug 'll never do."

"Hello, Vance! Yes; but it's got to do. Say, you tell all the fellers
that's got anything ag'inst me to come around tomorrow night to
the store. I want to make some kind of a settlement."

"All right, Jim. Goin' to pay a new dividend?"

"That's what I am," he beamed as he walked off with his wife, who
was studying him sharply.

"Jim, what ails you?"

"Nothin'; I'm all right."

"But this new suit? And the hat? And the necktie?" He laughed
merrily-so merrily, in fact, that his wife looked at him the more
anxiously. He appeared to be in a queer state of intoxication-a state
that made him happy without impairing his faculties, however. He
turned suddenly and put his lips down toward her ear. "Well, Nell,
I can't hold in any longer. We've struck it!"

"Struck what?"

"Well, you see that derned fool partner o' mine got me to go into a
lot o' land in the copper country. That's where all the trouble came.
He got awfully let down. Well, he's had some surveyors to go up
there lately and look it over, and the next thing we knew the
Superior Mining Company came along an' wanted to buy it. Of
course we didn't want to sell just then."

They had reached the store door, and he paused.

"We'll go right home to supper," she said. "The girls will look out
for things till I get back."

They walked on together, the children laughing and playing ahead.

"Well, upshot of it is, I sold out my share to Osgood for twenty
thousand dollars."

She stopped and stared at him. "Jim-Gordon Sanford!"

"Fact! I can prove it." He patted his breast pocket mysteriously.
"Ten thousand right there."

"Gracious sakes alive! How dare you' carry so much money?"

"I'm mighty glad o' the chance." He grinned.

They walked on almost in silence, with only a word now and then.
She seemed to be thinking deeply, and he didn't want to disturb
her. It was a delicious spring hour. The snow was all gone, even
under the hedges. The roads were warm and brown. The red sun
was flooding the valley with a misty, rich-colored light, and
against the orange and gold of the sky the hills stood in Tyrian
purple. Wagons were rattling along the road. Men on the farms in
the edge of the village could be heard whistling at their work. A
discordant jangle of a neighboring farmer's supper bell announced
that it was time "to turn out."

Sanford was almost as gay as a lover. He seemed to be on the point
of regaining his old place in his wife's respect. Somehow the
possession of the package of money in his pocket seemed to make
him more worthy of her, to put him more on an equality with her.

As they reached the little one-story square cottage he sat down on
the porch, where the red light fell warmly, and romped with the
children, while his wife went in and took off her things. She "kept
a girl" now, so that the work of getting supper did not devolve
entirely upon her. She came out soon to call them all to the supper
table in the little kitchen back of the sitting room.

The children were wild with delight to have "Poppa" back, and the
meal was the merriest they had had for a long time. The doors and
windows were open, and the spring evening air came in' laden with
the sweet, suggestive smell of bare ground. The alert chuckle of an
occasional robin could be heard.

Mrs. Sanford looked up from her tea. "There's one thing I don't
like, Jim, and that's the way that money comes. You didn't-you
didn't really earn it."

"Oh' don't worry yourself about that. That's the way things go. It's
just luck."

"Well, I can't see it just that way. It seems to me just-like
gambling. You win' but-but somebody else must lose."

"Oh well, look a-here; if you go to lookin' too sharp into things
like that, you'll find a good 'eal of any business like gamblin'."

She said no more, but her face remained clouded. On the way
down to the store they met Lincoln.

"Come down to the store, Link, and bring Joe. I want to talk with
yeh."

Lincoln stared, but said, "All right." Then added, as the others
walked away, "Well, that feller ain't got no cheek t' talk to me like
that-more cheek 'n a gov'ment mule!"

Jim took a seat near the door and watched his wife as she went
about the store. She employed two clerks now, while she attended
to the books and the cash. He thought how different she was, and
he liked (and, in a way, feared) her cool, businesslike manner, her
self-possession, and her smileless conversation with a drummer
who came in. Jim was puzzled. He didn't quite -understand the
peculiar effect his wife's manner had upon him.

Outside, word had passed around that Jim had got back and that
something was in the wind, and the fellows began to drop in.
When McPhail came in and said, "Hello!" in his hearty way,
Sanford went over to his wile and said:

"Say, Nell, I can't stand this. I'm goin' to get rid o' this money right
off, now!"

"Very well; just as you please."

"Gents," he began, turning his back to the. counter and smiling
blandly on them, one thumb in his vest pocket, "any o' you fellers
got anything against the Lumber Cpunty Bank-any certificates of
deposit, or notes?"

Two or three nodded, and McPhail said humorously, slapping his
pocket, "I always go loaded."

"Produce your paper, gents," continued Sanford, with a dramatic
whang of a leathern wallet down into his palm. "I'm buying up all
paper on the bank."

It was a superb stroke. The fellows whistled and stared and swore
at one another. This was coming down on them. Link was dumb
with amazement as he received sixteen hundred and fifty dollars in
crisp, new bills.

"Andrew, it's your turn next." Sanford's tone was actually
patronizing as he faced McPhail.

"I was jokin'. I ain't got my certificate here."

"Don't .matter-don't matter. Here's fifteen hundred dollars. Just
give us a receipt, and bring the certif. any time. I want to get rid o'
this stuff right now."

"Say, Jim, we'd like to know jest-jest where this windfall comes
from," said Vance as he took his share.

"Comes from the copper country," was all he ever said about it.

"I don't see where he invested," Link said. "Wasn't a scratch of a
pen to show that he invested anything while he was in the bank.
Guess that's where our money went."

"Well, I ain't squealin'," said Vance. "I'm glad to get out of it
without asking any questions. I'll tell yeh one thing, though," he
added as they stood outside the door; "we'd 'a' never smelt of our
money again if it hadn't 'a' been f'r that woman in there. She'd 'a'
paid it alone if Jim hadn't 'a' made this strike, whereas he never'd
'a'-Well, all right. We're out of it."

It was one of the greatest moments of Sanford's life. He expanded
in it. He was as pleasantly aware of the glances of his wife as he
used to be when, as a clerk, he saw her pass and look in at the
window where he sat dreaming over his ledger.

As for her, she was going over the whole situation from this new
standpoint. He had been weak, he had fallen in her estimation, and
yet, as he stood there, so boyish in his exultation, the father of her
children, she loved him with a touch of maternal tenderness and
hope, and her heart throbbed in an unconscious, swift
determination to do him good. She no longer deceived herself. She
was his equal-in some ways his superior. Her love had friendship
in it, but less of sex, and no adoration.

As she blew out the lights, stepped out on the walk, and turned the
key in the lock, he said, "Well, Nellie, you won't have to do that
any more."

"No; I won't have to, but I guess I'll keep on just the same, Jim."

"Keep on? What for?"

"Well, I rather like it."

"But you don't need to-"

"I like being my own boss," she said. "I've done a lot o' figuring,
Jim, these last three years, and it's kind o' broadened me, I hope. I
can't go back where I was. I'm a better woman than I was before,
and I hope and believe that I'm better able to be a real mother to
my children." Jim looked up at the moon filling the warm, moist
air with a transfiguring light that fell in a luminous mist on the
distant hills. "I know one thing, Nellie; I'm a better man than I was
before, and it's all owin' to you."

His voice trembled a little, and the sympathetic tears came into her
eyes. She didn't speak at once-she couldn't At last she stopped him
by a touch on the arm.

"Jim, I want a partner in my store. Let us begin again, right here. I
can't say that I'll ever feel just as I did once I don't know as it's
right to. I looked up to you too much. I expected too much of you,
too. Let's' begin again, as equal partners." She held out her hand, as
one man to another. He took it wonderingly.

"All right, Nell; I'll do it."

Then, as he put his arm around her, she held up her lips to be
kissed. "And we'll be happy again-happy as we deserve, I s'pose,"
she said with a smile and a sigh.

"It's almost like getting married again, Nell-for me." As they
walked off up the sidewalk in the soft moon-light, their arms were
interlocked.

They loitered like a couple of lovers.

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