Books: Main Travelled Roads
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Hamlin Garland >> Main Travelled Roads
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"Hot, ain't it?" he said as she looked up.
"Jimminy Peters, it's awful!" puffed the boy. The girl did not reply
trn she swung the plow about after the horse, and set it upright into
the next row. Her powerful body had a superb swaying motion at
the waist as she did this-a motion which affected Rob vaguely but
massively.
"I thought you'd gone," she said gravely, pushing hack her bonnet
trn he could see her face dewed with sweat and pink as a rose. She
had the high cheekbones of her race, but she had also their
exquisite fairess of color.
"Say, Otto," asked Rob alluringiy, "wan' to go swimming?"
"You bet!" replied Otto.
"Well, I'll go a round if-"
The boy dropped off the horse, not waiting to hear any more. Rob
grinned; but the girl dropped her eyes, then looked away.
"Got rid o' him mighty quick. Say, Julyie, I hate like thunder t' see
you out here; it ain't right. I wish you'd -I wish-"
She could not look at him now, and her bosom rose and fell with a
motion that was not due to fatigue. Her moist hair matted around
her forehead gave her a boyish look.
Rob nervously tried again, tearing splinters from the fence. "Say,
now, I'll tell yeh what I came back here fer -t' git married; and if
you're willin', I'll do it tonight. Come, now, whaddy y' say?"
"What 've I got t' do 'bout it?" she finally asked, the color flooding
her face and a faint smile coming to her lips. "Go ahead. I ain't got
anything-"
Rob put a splinter in his mouth and faced her. "Oh, looky here,
now, Julyie! you know what I mean. I've got a good claim out near
Boomtown-a rattlin' good claim; a shanty on it fourteen by
sixteen-no tarred paper about it; and a suller to keep butter in; and
a hundred acres wheat just about ready to turn now. I need a wife."
Here he straightened up, threw away the splinter, and took off his
hat. He was a very pleasant figure as the girl stole a look at him.
His black laughing eyes were especially earnest just now. His
voice had a touch of pleading. The popple tree over their heads
murmured applause at his eloquence, then hushed to listen. A
cloud dropped a silent shadow down upon them, and it sent a
little thrill of fear through Rob, as if it were an omen of failure. As
the girl remained silent, looking away, he began, man-fashion, to
desire her more and more as he feared to lose her. He put his hat
on the post again and took out his jackknife. Her calico dress
draped her supple and powerful figure simply but naturally. The
stoop in her shoulders, given by labor, disappeared as she partly
leaned upon the fence. The curves of her muscular arms showed
through her sleeve.
"It's all-fired lonesome fr me out there on that claim, and it ain't no
picnic f'r you here. Now, if you'll come out there with me, you
needn't do anything but cook f'r me, and after harvest we can git a
good layout o' furniture, an' I'll lath and plaster the house, an' put a
little hell [ell] in the rear." He smiled, and so did she. He felt
encouraged to say: "An' there we be, as snug as y' please. We're
close t' Boomtown, an' we can go down there to church sociables
an' things, and they're a jolly lot there."
The girl was still silent, but the man's simple enthusiasm came to
her charged with passion and a sort of romance such as her hard
life had known little of. There was something enticing about this
trip to the West.
"What 'li my folks say?" she said at last.
A virtual surrender, but Rob was not acute enough to see it. He
pressed on eagerly:
"I don't care. Do you? They'll jest keep y' plowin' corn and milkin'
cows till the day of judgment. Come, Julyie, I ain't got no time to
fool away. I've got t' get back t' that grain. It's a whoopin' old crop,
sure's y'r born, an' that means som'pin' purty scrumptious in
furniture this fall. Come, now." He approached her and laid his
hand on her shoulder very much as he would have touched Albert
Seagraves or any other comrade. "Whady y' say?"
She neither started, nor shrunk, nor looked at him. She simply
moved a step away. "They'd never let me ge," she replied bitterly.
"I'm too cheap a hand. I do a man's work an' get no pay at all."
"You'll have half o' all I c'n make," he put in.
"How long c'n you wait?" she asked, looking down at her dress.
"Just two minutes," he said, pulling out his watch. "It ain't no use t'
wait. The old man 'li be jest as mad a week from now as he is
today. why not go now?"
"I'm of age day after tomorrow," she mused, wavering, calculating.
"You c'n be of age tonight if you'll jest call on old Square Hatfield
with me."
"All right, Rob," the girl said, turning and holding out her hand.
"That's the talk!" he exclaimed, seizing it. "An' now a kiss, to bind
the bargain, as the fellah says."
"I guess we c'n get along without that."
"No, we can't. It won't seem like an engagement without it."
"It ain't goin' to seem much like one anyway," she answered with a
sudden realization of how far from her dreams of courtship this
reality was.
"Say, now, Julyie, that ain't fair; it ain't treatin' me right. You don't
seem to understand that I like you, but I do."
Rob was carried quite out of himself by the time, the place, and the
girl. He had said a very moving thing.
The tears sprang involuntarily to the girl's eyes. "Do you mean it?
If y' do, you may."
She was trembling with emotion for the first time. The sincerity of
the man's voice had gone deep.
He put his arm around her almost timidly and kissed her on the
cheek, a great love for her springing up in his heart. "That setties
it," he said. "Don't cry, Jalyie. You'll never be sorry for it. Don't
cry. It kind o' hurts me to see it."
He didn't understand her feelings. He was only aware that she was
crying, and tried in a bungling way to soothe her. But now that she
had given way, she sat down in the grass and wept bitterly.
"Yulyie!" yelled the old Norwegian, like a distant fog-horn.
The girl sprang up; the habit of obedience was strong.
"No; you set right there, and I'll go round," he said. "Otto!"
The boy came scrambling out of the wood half dressed. Rob tossed
him upon the horse, snatched Julia's sun-bonnet, put his own hat
on her head, and moved off down the corn rows, leaving the girl
smiling throgh her tears as he whistled and chirped to the horse.
Farmer Peterson, seeing the familiar sunbonnet above the corn
rows, went back to his work, with a sentence of Norwegian trailing
after him like the tail of a kite-something about lazy girls who
didn't earn the crust of their bread, etc.
Rob was wild with delight. "Git up there Jack! Hay, you old
corncrib! Say, Otto, can you keep your mouth shet if it puts money
in your pocket?"
"Jest try me 'n' see," said the keen-eyed little scamp. "Well, you
keep quiet about my being here this alter-noon, and I'll put a dollar
on y'r tongue-hay?-what? -understand?"
"Show me y'r dollar," said the boy, turning about and showing his
tongue.
"All right. Begin to practice now by not talkin' to me."
Rob went over the whole situation on his way back, and when he
got in sight of the girl his plan was made. She stood waiting for
him with a new look on her face. Her sullenness had given way to
a peculiar eagerness and anxiety to believe in him. She was
already living that free life in a far-off wonderful country. No more
would her stern father and sullen mother force her to tasks which
she hated. She'd be a member of a new firm. She'd work, of course,
but it would be because she wanted to, and not because she was
forced to. The independence and the love promised grew more and
more attractive. She laughed back with a softer light in her eyes
when she saw the smiling face of Rob looking at her from her
sun-bonnet
"Now you mustn't do any more o' this," he said. "You go back to
the house an' tell y'r mother you're too lame to plow any more
today, and it's too late, anyhow. To-night!" he whispered quickiy.
"Eleven! Here!"
The girl's heart leaped with fear. "I'm afraid."
"Not of me, are yeh?"
"No, I'm not afraid of you, Rob."
"I'm glad o' that. I-I want you to-to like me, Julyie; won't you?"
"I'll try," she answered with a smile.
"Tonight, then," he said as she moved away.
"Tonight. Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
He stood and watched her till her tall figure was lost among the
drooping corn leaves. There was a singular choking feeling in his
throat. The girl's voice and face had brought up so many memories
of parties and picnics and excursions on far-off holidays, and at the
same time such suggestions of the future. He already felt that it
was going to be an unconscionably long time before eleven
o'clock.
He saw her go to the house, and then he turned and walked slowly
up the dusty road. Out of the May weed the grasshoppers sprang,
buzzing and snapping their dull red wings. Butterflies, yellow and
white, fluttered around moist places in the ditch, and slender
striped water snakes glided across the stagnant pools at sound o~
footsteps.
But the mind of the man was far away on his claim, building a new
house, with a woman's advice and presence.
* * * * * *
It was a windless night. The katydids and an occasional cricket
were the only sounds Rob could hear as he stood beside his team
and strained his ear to listen. At long intervals a little breeze ran
through the corn like a swift serpent, bringing to the nostrils the
sappy smell of the growing corn. The horses stamped uneasily as
the mosquitoes settled on their shining limbs. The sky was full of
stars, but there was no moon.
"What if she don't come?" he thought. "Or can't come? I can't stand
that. I'll go to the old man an' say, 'Looky here-' Sh!"
He listened again. There was a rustling in the corn. It was not like
the fitful movement of the wind; it was steady, slower, and
approaching. It ceased. He whistled the wailing, sweet cry of the
prairie chicken. Then a figure came out into the road-a woman-
Julia!
He took her in his arms as she came panting up to him.
"Rob!"
"Julyie!"
* * * * * *
A few words, the dull tread of swift horses, the rising of a silent
train of dust, and then the wind wandered in the growing corn. The
dust fell, a dog barked down the road and the katydids sang to the
liquid contralto of the river in its shallows.
THE RETURN OF A PRIVATE
On the road leading "back to God's country" and wile and babies.
I
The nearer the train drew toward La Crosse, the soberer the little
group of "vets" became. On the long way from New Orleans they
had beguiled tedium with jokes and friendly chaff; or with
planning with elaborate detail what they were going to do now,
after the war. A long journey, slowly, irregularly, yet persistently
pushing northward. when they entered on Wisconsin Territory they
gave a cheer, and another when they reached Madison, but after
that they sank into a dumb expectancy. Comrades dropped off at
one or two points beyond, until there were only four or five left
who were bound for La Crosse County
Three of them were gaunt and brown, the fourth was gaunt and
pale, with signs of fever and ague upon him. One had a great scar
down his temple; one limped; and they all had unnaturally large
bright eyes, showing emaciation. There were no bands greeting
them at the stations, no banks of gaily dressed ladies waving
hand-kerchiefs and shouting "Bravo!" as they came in on the
caboose of a freight tram into the towns that had cheered and
blared at them on their way to war. As they looked out or stepped
upon the platform for a moment, as the train stood at the station,
the loafers looked at them indifferenfly. Their blue coats, dusty
and grimy, were too familiar now to excite notice, much less a
friendly word. They were the last of the army to return, and the
loafers were surfeited with such sights.
The train jogged forward so slowly that it seemed likely to be
midnight before they should reach La Crosse. The little squad of
"vets" grumbled and swore, but it was no use, the train would not
hurry; and as a matter of fact, rt was nearly two o'clock when the
engine whistled "down brakes."
Most of the group were farmers, living in districts several miles
out of the town, and all were poor.
"Now, boys," said Private Smith, he of the fever and ague, "we are
landed in La Crosse in the night. We've got to stay somewhere till
mornin'. Now, I ain't got no two dollars to waste on a hotel. I've got
a wife and children, so I'm goin' to roost on a bench and take the
cost of a bed out of my hide."
"Same here," put in one of the other men. "Hide'll grow on again,
dollars come hard. It's goin' to be mighty hot skirmishin' to find a
dollar these days."
"Don't think they'll be a deputation of citizens waitin' to 'scort us to
a hotel, eh?" said another. His sarcasm was too obvious to require
an answer.
Smith went on: "Then at daybreak we'll start f'r home; at least I
will."
"Well, I'll be dummed if I'll take two dollars out o' my hide," one
of the younger men said. "I'm goin' to a hotel, ef I don't never lay
up a cent."
"That'll do f'r you," said Smith; "but if you had a wife an' three
young 'uns dependin' on yeh-"
"Which I ain't, thank the Lord! and don't intend havin' while the
court knows itself."
The station was deserted, chill, and dark, as they came into it at
exactly a quarter to two in the morning. Lit by the oil lamps that
flared a dull red light over the dingy benches, the waiting room
was not an inviting place. The younger man went off to look up a
hotel, while the rest remained and prepared to camp down on the
floor and benches. Smith was attended to tenderly by the other
men, who spread their blankets on the bench for him, and by
robbing themselves made quite a comfortable bed, though the
narrowness of the bench made his sleeping precarious.
It was chill, though August, and the two men sitting with bowed
heads grew stiff with cold and weariness, and were forced to rise
now and again, and walk about to warm their stiffened limbs It
didn't occur to them, probably, to contrast their coming home with
their going forth, or with the coming home of the generals,
colonels, or even captains-but to Private Smith, at any rate, there
came a sickness at heart almost deadly, as he lay there on his hard
bed and went over his situation.
In the deep of the night, lying on a board in the town where he had
enlisted three years ago, all elation and enthusiasm gone out of
him, he faced the fact that with the joy of homecoming was
mingled the bitter juice of care. He saw himself sick, worn out,
taking up the work on his half-cleared farm, the inevitable
mortgage standing ready with open jaw to swallow half his
earnings. He had given three years of his life for a mere pittance of
pay, and now-
Morning dawned at last, slowly, with a pale yellow dome of light
rising silently above the bluffs which stand like some huge
battlemented castle, just east of the city. Out to the left the great
river swept on its massive yet silent way to the south. Jays called
across the river from hillside to hillside, through the clear,
beautiful air, and hawks began to skim the tops of the hills.
The two vets were astir early, but Private Smith had fallen at last
into a sleep, and they went out without waking him. He lay on his
knapsack, his gaunt face turned toward the ceiling, his hands
clasped on his breast, with a curious pathetic effect of weakness
and appeal.
An engine switching near woke him at last, and he slowly sat up
and stared about. He looked out of the window and saw that the
sun was lightening the hills across the river. He rose and brushed
his hair as well as he could, folded his blankets up, and went out to
find his companions. They stood gazing silently at the river and at
the hills.
"Looks nat'cherl, don't it?" they said as he came out.
"That's what it does," he replied. "An' it looks good. D'yeh see that
peak?" He pointed at a beautiful symmetrical peak, rising like a
slightly truncated cone, so high that it seemed the very highest of
them all. It was lighted by the morning sun till it glowed like a
beacon, and a light scarf of gray morning fog was rolling up its
shadowed side.
"My farm's just beyond that. Now, ef I can only ketch a ride, we'll
be home by dinnertime."
"I'm talkin' about breakfast," said one of the others.
"I guess it's one more meal o' hardtack f'r me," said Smith.
They foraged around, and finally found a restaurant with a sleepy
old German behind the counter, and procured some coffee, which
they drank to wash down their hardtack.
"Time'll come," said Smith, holding up a piece by the corner,
"when this'll be a curiosity."
"I hope to God it will! I bet I've chawed hardtack enough to
shingle every house in the coulee. I've chawed it when my lampers
was down, and when they wasn't. I've took it dry, soaked, and
mashed. I've had it wormy, musty, sour, and blue-moldy. I've had it
in little bits and big bits; 'fore coffee an' after coffee. I'm ready f'r a
change. I'd like t' git hol't jest about now o' some of the hot biscuits
my wife c'n make when she lays herself out f'r company."
"Well, if you set there gablin', you'll never see yer wife."
"Come on," said Private Smith. "Wait a moment, boys; less take
suthin'. It's on me." He led them to the rusty tin dipper which hung
on a nail beside the wooden water pail, and they grinned and
drank. (Things were primitive in La Crosse then.) Then,
shouldering their blankets and muskets, which they were "taking
home to the boys," they struck out on their last march.
"They called that coffee 'Jayvy," grumbled one of them, "but it
never went by the road where government Jayvy resides. I reckon I
know coffee from peas."
They kept together on the road along the turnpike, and up the
winding road by the river, which they followed for some miles.
The river was very lovely, curving down along its sandy beds,
pausing now and then under broad basswood trees, or running in
dark, swift, silent currents under tangles of wild grapevines, and
drooping alders, and haw trees. At one of these lovely spots the
three vets sat down on the thick green sward to rest, "on Smith's
account." The leaves of the trees were as fresh and green as in
June, the jays called cheery greetings to them, and kingflshers
darted to and fro, with swooping, noiseless flight.
"I tell yeh, boys, this knocks the swamps of Loueesiana into
kingdom come."
"You bet. All they c'n raise down there is snakes, niggers, and
p'rticler hell."
"An' fightin' men," put in the older man.
"An' fightin' men. If I had a good hook an' line I'd sneak a pick'rel
out o' that pond. Say, remember that time I shot that alligator-"
"I guess we'd better be crawlin' along," interrupted Smith, rising
and shouldering his knapsack, with considerable effort, which he
tried to hide.
"Say, Smith, lemme give you a lift on that."
"I guess I c'n manage," said Smith grimly.
"'Course. But, yeh see, I may not have a chance right off to pay yeh
back for the times ye've carried my gun and hull caboodie. Say,
now, girne that gun, any-way."
"All right, if yeh feel like it, Jim," Smith replied, and they trudged
along doggedly in the sun, which was getting higher and hotter
each half mile.
"Ain't it queer there ain't no teams cornin' along."
"Well, no, seem's it's Sunday."
"By jinks, that's a fact! It is Sunday. I'll git home in time fr dinner,
sure. She don't hev dinner usually till-about one on Sundays." And
he fell into a muse, in which he smiled.
"Well, I'll git home jest about six o'clock, jest about when the boys
are milkin' the cows," said old Jim Cranby. "I'll step into the barn
an' then I'll say, 'Heah! why ain't this milkin' done before this time
o' day? An' then won't they yell!" he added, slapping his thigh in
great glee.
Smith went on. "I'll jest go up the path. Old Rover'll come down
the road to meet me. He won't bark; he'll know me, an' he'll come
down waggin' his tail an' shonin' his teeth. That's his way of
laughin'. An' so I'll walk up to the kitchen door, an' I'll say 'Dinner
f'r a hungry man!' An' then she'll jump up, an'-"
He couldn't go on. His voice choked at the thought of it. Saunders,
the third man, hardly uttered a word. He walked silently behind the
others. He had lost his wife the first year he was in the army. She
died of pneumonia caught in the autumn rains, while working in
the fields in his place.
They plodded along till at last they came to a parting of the ways.
To the right the road continued up the main valley; to the left it
went over the ridge.
"Well, boys," began Smith as they grounded their muskets and
looked away up the valley, "here's where we shake hands. We've
marched together a good many miles, an' now I s'pose we're done."
"Yes, I don't think we'll do any more of it f'r a while. I don't want
to, I know."
"I hope I'll see yeh once in a while, boys, to taik over old times."
"Of course," said Saunders, whose voice trembled a little, too. "It
ain't exactly like dyin'."
"But we'd ought'r go home with you," said the younger man. "You
never'll climb that ridge with all them things on yer back."
"Oh, I'm all right! Don't worry about me. Every step takes me
nearer home, yeh see. Well, goodbye, boys."
They shook hands. "Goodbye. Good luck!"
"Same to you. Lemme know how you find things at home."
He turned once before they passed out of sight and waved his cap,
and they did the same, and all yelled. Then all marched away with
their long, steady, loping, veteran step. The solitary climber in blue
walked on for a time, with his mind filled with the kindness of his
comrades, and musing upon the many jolly days they had had
together in camp and field.
He thought of his chum, Billy Tripp. Poor Billy! A "mime" ball fell
into his breast one day, fell wailing like a cat, and tore a great
ragged hole in his heart. He looked forward to a sad scene with
Billy's mother and sweet-heart. They would want to know all about
it. He tried to recall all that Billy had said, and the particulars of it,
but there was little to remember, just that wild wailing sound high
in the air, a dull slap, a short, quick, expulsive groan, and the boy
lay with his face in the dirt in the plowed field they were marching
across.
That was all. But all the scenes he had since been through had not
dimmed the horror, the terror of that moment, when his boy
comrade fell, with only a breath between a laugh and a death
groan. Poor handsome Billy! Worth millions of dollars was his
young wife.
These somber recollections gave way at length to more cheerful
feelings as he began to approach his home coulee. The fields and
houses grew familiar, and in one or two he was greeted by people
seated in the doorway. But he was in no mood to talk, and pushed
on steadily, though he stopped and accepted a drink of milk once
at the well-side of a neighbor.
The sun was getting hot on that slope, and his step grew slower, in
spite of his iron resolution. He sat down several times to rest.
Slowly he crawled up the rough, reddish-brown road, which
wound along the hillside, under great trees, through dense groves
of jack oaks, with treetops' far below him on his left hand, and the
hills far above him on his right. He crawled along like some
minute wingless variety of fly.
He ate some hardtack, sauced with wild berries, when he reached
the summit of the ridge, and sat there for some time, looking down
into his home coulee.
Somber, pathetic figure! His wide, round, gray eyes gazing down
into the beautiful valley, seeing and not seeing, the splendid
cloud-shadows sweeping over the western hills and across the
green and yellow wheat far below. His head drooped forward on
his palm, his shoulders took on a tired stoop, his cheekbones
showed painfully. An observer might have said, "He is looking
down upon his own grave."
II
Sunday comes in a Western wheat harvest with such sweet and
sudden relaxation to man and beast that it would be holy for that
reason, if for no other. And Sundays are usually fair in harvest
time. As one goes out into the field in the hot morning sunshine,
with no sound abroad save the crickets and the indescribably
pleasant, silken rustling of the ripened grain, the reaper and the
very sheaves in the stubble seem to be resting, dreaming.
Around the house, in the shade of the trees, the men sit, smoking,
dozing, or reading the papers, while the women, never resting,
move about at the housework. The men eat on Sundays about the
same as on other days; and breakfast is no sooner over and out of
the way than dinner begins.
But at the Smith farm there were no men dozing or reading. Mrs.
Smith was alone with her three children, Mary, nine, Tommy, six,
and littie Ted, just past four. Her farm, rented to a neighbor, lay at
the head of a coulee or narrow galley, made at some far-off
postglacial period by the vast and angry floods of water which
gullied these trememdous furrows in the level prairie-furrows so
deep that undisturbed portions of the original level rose like hills
on either sid~rose to quite considerable mountains.
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