Books: Main Travelled Roads
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Hamlin Garland >> Main Travelled Roads
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Bill quailed and slunk away, muttering some epithet like "coward."
"I don't care what you call me, but just remember what I say: you
keep your tongue off that girl's affairs."
"That's the talk!" said David. "Stand up for your girl always, but
don't use a fork. You can handle him without that:'
"I don't propose to try," said Will, as he turned away. As be did so,
he caught a glimpse of Ed Kinney at the well, pumping a pail of
water for Agnes, who stood beside him, the sun on her beautiful
yellow hair. She was laughing at something Ed was saying as he
slowly moved the handle up and down.
Instantly, like a foaming, turbid flood, his rage swept out toward
her. "It's all her fault," he thought, grinding his teeth. "She's a fool.
If she'd hold herself in like other girls! But no; she must smile and
smile at everybody." It was a beautiful picture, but it sent a shiver
through him.
He worked on with teeth set, white with rage. He had an impulse
that would ?have made him assault her with words as with a knife.
He was possessed with a terrible passion which was hitherto latent
in him, and which he now felt to be his worst self. But he was
powerless to exorcise it. His set teeth ached with the stress of his
muscular tension, and his eyes smarted with the strain.
He had always prided himself on being cool, calm, above these
absurd quarrels that his companions had so often indulged in. He
didn't suppose he could be so moved. As he worked on, his rage
settled down into a sort of stubborn bitterness-stubborn bitterness
of conflict between this evil nature and his usual self. It was the
instinct of possession, the organic feeling of proprietor-ship of a
woman, which rose to the surface and mastered him. He was not a
self-analyst, of course, being young, though he was more
introspective than the ordinary farmer.
He had a great deal of time to think it over as he worked on there,
pitching the heavy bundles, but still he did not get rid of the
miserable desire to punish Agnes; and when she came out, looking
very pretty in her straw hat, and came around near his stack, he
knew she came to see him, to have an explanation, a smile; and yet
he worked away with his hat pulled over his eyes, hardly noticing
her.
Ed went over to the edge of the stack and chatted with her; and
she-poor girl!-feeling Will's neglect, could only put a good face on
the matter, and show that she didn't mind it, by laughing back at
Ed.
All this Will saw, though he didn't appear to be looking. And when
Jim Wheelock-Dirty Jim-with his whip in his hand, came up and
playfully pretended to pour oil on her hair, and she laughingly
struck at him with a handful of straw, Will wouldn't have looked at
her if she had called him by name.
She looked so bright and charming in her snowy apron and her
boy's straw hat tipped jauntily over one pink ear that David and
Steve and Bill, and even Shep, found a way to get a word with her,
and the poor fellows in the high straw pile looked their
disappoimment and shook their forks in mock rage at the lucky
dogs on the ground. But Will worked on like a fiend, while the
dapples of light and shade fell on the bright face of the merry girl.
To save his soul from hell flames he couldn't have gone over there
and smiled at her. It was impossible. A wall of bronze seemed to
have arisen between them. Yesterday, last night, seemed a dream.
The clasp of her hands at his neck, the touch of her lips, were like
the caresses of an ideal in some dim reverie.
As night drew on, the men worked with a steadier, more
mechanical action. No one spoke now. Each man was intent on his
work. No one had any strength or breath to waste. The driver on
his power changed his weight on weary feet, and whistled and sang
at the tired horses. The feeder, his face gray with dust, rolled the
grain into the cylinder so even, so steady, so swift that it ran on
with a sullen, booming roar. Far up on the straw pile the stackers
worked with the steady, rhythmic action of men rowing a boat,
their figures looming vague and dim in the flying dust and chaff,
outlined against the glorious yellow and orange-tinted clouds.
"Phe-e-eew-ee," whistled the driver with the sweet, cheery, rising
notes of a bird. "Chk, chk, chk! Phe-e-eewee. Go on there, boys!
Chk, chk, chk! Step up, there Dan, step up! (Snap!) Phe-e-eew-ee!
G'-wan-g'-wan, g'-wan! Chk, clik, chk! Wheest, wheest, wheest!
Clik, chk!"
In the house the women were setting the table for supper. The sun
had gone down behind the oaks, flinging glorious rose color and
orange shadows along the edges of the slate-blue clouds. Agnes
stopped her work at the kitchen window to look up at the sky and
cry silently. "What was the matter with Will?" She felt a sort of
distrust of him now. She thought she knew him so well, but now
he was so strange.
"Come, Aggie," said Mrs. Dingman, "they're gettin' most down to
the bottom of the stack. They'll be pilin' in here soon."
"Phe-e-eew-ee! G'-wan, Doll! G'-wan, boys! Chk, chk, chk!
Phe-e-eew-ee!" called the driver out in the dusk, cheerily swinging
the whip over the horses' backs. Boomoo-oo-oom! roared the
machine, with a muffled, monotonous, solemn tone. "G'-wan,
boys! G'-wan, g'-wan!"
Will had worked unceasingly all day. His muscles ached with
fatigue. His hands trembled. He clenched his teeth, however, and
worked on, determined not to yield. He wanted them to understand
that he could do as much pitching as any of them and read Caesar's
Commentaries besides. It seemed as if each bundle were the last
he could raise. The sinews of his wrist pained him so, they seemed
swollen to twice their natural size. But still he worked on grimly,
while the dusk fell and the air grew chill.
At last the bottom bundle was pitched up, and he got down on his
knees to help scrape the loose wheat into baskets. What a sweet
relief it was to kneel down, to release the fork and let the worn and
cramping muscles settle into rest! A new note came into the
driver's voice, a soothing tone, full of kindness and admiration for
the work his team had done.
"Wo-o-o, lads! Stiddy-y-y, boys! Wo-o-o, there, Dan. Stiddy,
stiddy, old man! Ho, there!" The cylinder took on a lower key, with
short rising yells, as it ran empty for a moment. The horses had
been going so long that they came to a stop reluctantly. At last
David called, "Turn out!" The men seized the ends of the sweep,
David uncoupled the tumbling rods, and Shep threw a sheaf of
grain into the cylinder, choking it into silence.
The stillness and the dusk were very impressive. So long had the
bell-metal cogwheel sung its deafening song into Will's ear that, as
he walked away into the dusk, he had a weird feeling of being
suddenly deaf, and his legs were so numb that he could hardly feel
the earth. He stumbled away like a man paralyzed.
He took out his handkerchief, wiped the dust from his face as best
he could, shook his coat, dusted his shoulders with a grain sack,
and was starting away, when Mr. Dingman, a rather feeble elderly
man, came up.
"Come, Will, supper's all ready. Go in and eat."
"I guess I'll go home to supper."
"Oh, no, that won't do. The women'll be expecting yeh to stay."
The men were laughing at the well, the warm yellow light shone
from the kitchen, the chill air making it seem very inviting, and
she was there, waiting! But the demon rose in him. He knew Agnes
would expect him, that she would cry that night with
disappointment, but his face hardened. "I guess I'll go home," he
said, and his tone was relentless. He turned and walked away,
hungry, tired
-so tired he stumbled, and so unhappy he could have wept.
II
ON Thursday the county fair was to be held. The fair is one of the
gala days of the year in the country districts of the West, and one
of the times when the country lover rises above expense to the
extravagance of hiring a top buggy in which to take his sweetheart
to the neighboring town.
It was customary to prepare for this long beforehand, for the
demand for top buggies was so great the livery-men grew
dictatorial and took no chances. Slowly but surely the country
beaux began to compete with the clerks, and in many cases
actually outbid them, as they furnished their own horses and could
bid higher, in consequence, on the carriages.
Will had secured his brother's "rig," and early on Thursday
morning he was at work, busily washing the mud from the
carriage, dusting the cushions, and polishing up the buckles and
rosettes on his horses' harnesses. It was a beautiful, crisp, clear
dawn-the ideal day for a ride; and Will was singing as he worked.
He had regained his real sell, and, having passed through a bitter
period of shame, was now joyous with anticipation of forgiveness.
He looked forward to the day with its chances of doing a thousand
little things to show his regret and his love.
He had not seen Agnes since Monday, because Tuesday he did not
go back to help thresh, and Wednesday he had been obliged to go
to town to see about board for the coming term; but he felt sure of
her. It had all been arranged the Sunday before; she'd expect him,
and he was to call at eight o'clock.
He polished up the colts with merry tick-tack of the brush and
comb, and after the last stroke on their shining limbs, threw his
tools in the box and went to the house.
"Pretty sharp last night," said his brother John, who was scrubbing
his face at the cistern.
"Should say so by that rim of ice," Will replied, dipping his hands
into the icy water.
"I ought'o stay home today an' dig tates," continued the older man
thoughtfully as they went into the wood-shed and wiped
consecutively on the long roller towel. "Some o' them Early Rose
lay right on top o' the ground. They'll get nipped sure."
"Oh, I guess not. You'd better go, Jack; you don't get away very
often. And then it would disappoint Nettie and the children so.
Their little hearts are overflowing," he ended as the door opened
and two sturdy little boys rushed out.
"B'ekfuss, Poppa; all yeady!"
The kitchen table was set near the stove; the room was full of sun,
and the smell of sizzling sausages and the aroma of coffee filled
the room. The kettle was doing its duty cheerily, and the wife with
flushed face and smiling eyes was hurrying to and fro, her heart
full of anticipation of the day's outing.
There was a hilarity almost like some strange intoxication on the
part of the two children. They danced, and chattered, and clapped
their chubby brown hands, and ran to the windows ceaselessly.
"Is yuncle Will goin' yide flour buggy?"
"Yus; the buggy and the colts."
"Is he goin' to take his girl?"
Will blushed a little, and John roared.
"Yes, I'm goin'-"
"Is Aggie your girl?"
"H'yer! h'yer! young man," called John, "you're gettin' personal."
"Well, set up," said Nettie, and with a good deal of clatter they
drew around the cheerful table.
Will had already begun to see the pathos, the pitiful significance of
this great joy over a day's outing, and he took himself a little to
task at his own selfish freedom. He resolved to stay at home some
time and let Nettie go in his place. A few hours in the middle of
the day on Sunday, three or four holidays in summer; the rest for
this cheerful little wife and her patient husband was work-work
that some way accomplished so little and left no trace on their
souls that was beautiful.
While they were eating breakfast, teams began to clatter by, huge
lumber wagons with three seats across, and a boy or two jouncing
up and down with the dinner baskets near the end-gate. The
children rushed to the window each time to announce who it was,
and how many there were in.
But as Johnny said "firteen" each time, and Ned wavered between
"seven" and "sixteen," it was doubtful if they could be relied upon.
They had very little appetite, so keen was their anticipation of the
ride and the wonderful sights before them. Their little hearts
shuddered with joy at every fresh token of preparation-a joy that
made Will say, "Poor little men!"
They vibrated between the house and the barn while the chores
were being finished, and their happy cries started the young
roosters into a renewed season of crowing. And when at last the
wagon was brought out and the horses hitched to it, they danced
like mad sprites.
After they had driven away, Will brought out the colts, hitched
them in, and drove them to the hitching post. Then he leisurely
dressed himself in his best suit, blacked his boots with
considerable exertion, and at about 7:3o o'clock climbed into his
carriage and gathered up the reins.
He was quite happy again. The crisp, bracing air, the strong pull of
the spirited young team put all thought of sorrow behind him. He
had planned it all out. He would first put his arm around her and
kiss her-there would not need to be any words to tell her how sorry
and ashamed he was. She would know!
Now, when he was alone and going toward her on a beautiful
morning, the anger and bitterness of Monday fled away, became
unreal, and the sweet dream of the Sunday parting grew the reality.
She was waiting for him now. She had on her pretty blue dress and
the wide hat that always made her look so arch. He had said about
eight o'clock.
The swift team was carrying him along the crossroad, which was
little travelled, and he was alone with his thoughts. He fell again
upon his plans. Another year at school for them both, and then he'd
go into a law office. Judge Brown had told him he'd give
him-"Whoa! Ho!"
There was a swift lurch that sent him flying over the dasher. A
confused vision of a roadside ditch full of weeds and bushes, and
then he felt the reins in his hands and heard the snorting horses
trample on the hard road.
He rose dizzy, bruised, and covered with dust. The team he held
securely and soon quieted. He saw the cause of it all: the right
forewheel had come off, letting the front of the buggy drop. He
unhitched the excited team from the carriage, drove them to the
fence and tied them securely, then went back to find the wheel and
the "nut" whose failure to hold its place had done all the mischief.
He soon had the wheel on, but to find the burr was a harder task.
Back and forth he ranged, looking, scraping in the dust, searching
the weeds.
He knew that sometimes a wheel will run without the burr for
many rods before corning off, and so each time he extended his
search. He traversed the entire half-mile several times, each time
his rage and disappointment getting more bitter. He ground his
teeth in a fever of vexation and dismay.
He had a vision of Agnes waiting, wondering why he did not
come. It was this vision that kept him from seeing the burr in the
wheel-track, partly covered by a clod.
Once he passed it looking wildly at his watch, which was showing
nine o'clock. Another time he passed it with eyes dimmed with a
mist that was almost tears of anger.
There is no contrivance that will replace an axle burr, and
farmyards have no unused axle burrs, and so Will searched. Each
moment he said: "I'll give it up, get onto one of the horses, and go
down and tell her." But searching for a lost axle burr is like
fishing: the searcher expects each moment to find it. And so he
groped, and ran breathlessly, furiously, back and forth, and at last
kicked away the clod that covered it, and hurried, hot and dusty,
cursing his stupidity, back to the team.
It was ten o'clock as he climbed again into the buggy and started
his team on a swift trot down the road. What would she think? He
saw her now with tearful eyes and pouting lips. She was sitting at
the window, with hat and gloves on; the rest had gone, and she was
waiting for him.
But she'd know something had happened, because he had promised
to be there at eight. He had told her what team he'd have. (He had
forgotten at this moment the doubt and distrust he had given her on
Monday.) She'd know he'd surely come.
But there was no smiling or tearful face watching at the window as
he came down the lane at a tearing pace and turned into the yard.
The house was silent and the curtains down. The silence sent a
chill to his heart. Something rose up in his throat to choke him.
"Agnes!" he called. "Hello! I'm here at last!"
There was no reply. As he sat there, the part he had played on
Monday came back to him. She may be sick! he thought with a
cold thrill of fear.
An old man came around the corner of the house with a potato
fork in his hands, his teeth displayed in a grin.
"She ain't here. She's gone."
"Gone!"
"Yes-more'n an hour ago."
"Who'd she go with?"
"Ed Kinney," said the old fellow with a malicious grin. "I guess
your goose is cooked."
Will lashed the horses into a run and swung round the yard and out
of the gate. His face was white as a dead man's, and his teeth were
set like a vise. He glared straight ahead. The team ran wildly,
steadily homeward, while their driver guided them unconsciously.
He did not see them. His mind was filled with a tempest of rages,
despairs, and shames.
That ride he will never forget. In it he threw away all his plans.
He gave up his year's schooling. He gave up his law aspirations. He
deserted his brother and his friends. In the dizzying whirl of
passions he had only one clear idea-to get away, to go West, to get
away from the sneers and laughter of his neighbors, and to make
her suffer by it all.
He drove into the yard, did not stop to unharness the team, but
rushed into the house and began packing his trunk. His plan was
formed, which was to drive to Cedarville and hire someone to
bring the team back. He had no thought of anything but the shame,
the insult she had put upon him. Her action on Monday took on the
same levity it wore then, and excited him in the same way. He saw
her laughing with Ed over his dismay. He sat down and wrote a
letter to her at last-a letter that came from the ferocity of the
medieval savage in him:
"It you want to go to hell with Ed Kinney, you can. I won't say a
word. That's where he'll take you. You won't see me again."
This he signed and sealed, and then he bowed his head and wept
like a girl. But his tears did not soften the effect of the letter. It
went as straight to its mark as he meant it should. It tore a seared
and ragged path to an innocent, happy heart, and be took a savage
pleasure in the thought of it as he rode away on the cars toward
the South.
III
The seven years lying between 188o and 1887 made a great
change in Rock River and in The adjacent farming land. Signs
changed and firms went out of business with characteristic
Western ease of shift. The trees grew rapidly, dwarfing The houses
beneath them, and contrasts of
newness and decay thickened.
Will found The country changed, as he walked along The dusty
road from Rock River toward "The Comers." The landscape was at
its fairest and liberalest, with its seas of corn deep green and
moving with a mournful rustle, in sharp contrast to its flashing
blades; its gleaming fields of barley, and its wheat already mottled
with soft gold in The midst of its pea-green.
The changes were in The hedges, grown higher, In The greater
predominance of cornfields and cattle pastures, but especially in
The destruction of homes. As he passed on Will saw The grass
growing and cattle feeding on a dozen places where homes had
once stood. They had given place to The large farm and The stock
raiser. Still The whole scene was bountiful and very beautiful to
The
eye.
It was especially grateful to Will, for he had spent nearly all his
years of absence among The rocks, treeless swells, and bleak cliffs
of The Southwest. The crickets rising before his dusty feet
appeared
to him something sweet and suggestive and The cattle feeding in
The clover moved him to deep thought-they were so peaceful and
slow-motioned.
As he reached a little popple tree by The roadside, he stopped,
removed his broad-brimmed hat, put his elbows on The fence, and
looked hungrily upon The scene. The sky was deeply blue, with
only here and there a huge, heavy, slow-moving, massive, sharply
outlined cloud sailing like a berg of ice in a shoreless sea of azure.
In the fields the men were harvesting the ripened oats and barley,
and The sound of their machines clattering, now low, now loud,
came to his ears. Flies buzzed near him, and a king bird clattered
overhead. He noticed again, as he had many a time when a boy,
that The softened sound of The far-off reaper was at times exactly
like The hum of a bluebottle fly buzzing heedlessly about his ears.
A slender and very handsome young man was shocking grain near
The fence, working so desperately he did not see Will until greeted
by him. He looked up, replied to The greeting, but kept on till he
had finished his last stook, then he came to the shade of the tree
and took off his hat
"Nice day to sit under a tree and fish."
Will smiled. "I ought to know you, I suppose; I used to live here
years ago."
"Guess not; we came in three years ago."
The young man was quick-spoken and very pleasant to look at.
Will felt freer with him.
"Are The Kinneys still living over there?" He nodded at a group of
large buildings.
"Tom lives there. Old man lives with Ed. Tom ousted The old man
some way, nobody seems to know how, and so he lives with Ed."
Will wanted to ask after Agnes, but hardly felt able. "I s'pose John
Hannan is on his old farm?"
"Yes. Got a good crop this year."
Will looked again at The fields of rustling wheat over which The
clouds rippled, and said with an air of conviction: "This lays over
Arizona, dead sure."
"You're from Arizona, then?"
"Yes-a good ways from it"' Will replied in a way that stopped
further question. "Good luck!" he added as he walked on down The
road toward The creek, musing. "And the spring-I wonder if that's
there yet. I'd like a drink." The sun seemed hotter than at noon, and
he walked slowly. At the bridge that spanned the meadow brook,
just where it widened over a sandy ford, he paused again. He hung
over the rail and looked at the minnows swimming there.
"I wonder if they're The same identical chaps that used to boil and
glitter there when I was a boy-looks so. Men change from one
generation to another, but The fish remain The same. The same
eternal procession of types. I suppose Darwin 'ud say their
environment remains The same."
He hung for a long time over The railing, thinking of a vast
number of things, mostly vague, flitting things, looking into the
clear depths of the brook, and listening to the delicious liquid note
of a blackbird swinging on the willow. Red lilies starred the grass
with fire, and goldenrod and chicory grew everywhere; purple and
orange and yellow-green the prevailing tints.
Suddenly a water snake wriggled across the dark pool above the
ford, and the minnows disappeared under the shadow of the
bridge. Then Will sighed, lifted his head, and walked on. There
seemed to be something prophetic in it, and he drew a long breath.
That's the way his plans broke and faded away.
Human life does not move with the regularity of a clock. In living
there are gaps and silences when the soul stands still in its flight
through abysses-and then there come times of trial and times of
struggle when we grow old without knowing it. Body and soul
change appallingly.
Seven years of hard, busy life had made changes in Will.
His face had grown bold, resolute, and rugged, some of its delicacy
and all of its boyish quality gone. His figure was stouter, erect as
of old, but less graceful. He bore himself like a man accustomed to
look out for himself in all kinds of places. It was only at times that
there came into his deep eyes a preoccupied, almost sad look that
showed kinship with his old self.
This look was on his face as he walked toward the clump of trees
on the right of the road.
He reached the grove of popple trees and made his way at once to
the spring. When he saw it, it gave him a shock. They had let it fill
up with leaves and dirt.
Overcome by the memories of the past, he flung him-sell down on
the cool and shadowy bank, and gave him-sell up to the bittersweet
reveries of a man returning to his boyhood's home. He was filled
somehow with a strange and powerful feeling of the passage of
time; with a vague feeling of the mystery and elusiveness of
human life. The leaves whispered it overhead, the birds sang it in
chorus with the insects, and far above, in the measureless spaces of
sky, the hawk told it in the silence and majesty of his flight from
cloud to cloud.
It was a feeling hardly to be expressed in word~ one of those
emotions whose springs lie far back in the brain. He lay so still, the
chipmunks came curiously up to
A Branch Road
35
his very feet, only to scurry away when he stirred like a sleeper in
pain.
He had cut himself off entirely from the life at The Corners. He
had sent money home to John, but had concealed his own address
carefully. The enormity of this folly now came back to him,
racking him till he groaned.
He heard the patter of feet and the half-mumbled monologue of a
running child. He roused up and faced a small boy, who started
back in terror like a wild fawn. He was deeply surprised to find a
man there where only boys and squirrels now came. He stuck his
fist in his eye, and was backing away when Will spoke.
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