I
It was two years before Niel Herbert came home again, and when he came
the first acquaintance he met was Ivy Peters. Ivy got on the train at
one of the little stations east of Sweet Water, where he had been trying
a case. As he strolled through the Pullman he noticed among the
passengers a young man in a grey flannel suit, with a silk shirt of one
shade of blue and a necktie of another. After regarding this urban
figure from the rear for a few seconds, Ivy glanced down at his own
clothes with gloating satisfaction. It was a hot day in June, but he
wore the black felt hat and ready-made coat of winter weight he had
always affected as a boy. He stepped forward, his hands thrust in his
pockets.
"Hullo, Niel. Thought I couldn't be mistaken."
Niel looked up and saw the red, bee-stung face, with its two permanent
dimples, smiling down at him in contemptuous jocularity.
"Hello, Ivy. I couldn't be mistaken in you, either."
"Coming home to go into business?"
Niel replied that he was coming only for the summer vacation.
"Oh, you're not through school yet? I suppose it takes longer to make an
architect than it does to make a shyster. Just as well; there's not much
building going on in Sweet Water these days. You'll find a good many
changes."
"Won't you sit down?" Niel indicated the neighbouring chair. "You are
practising law?"
"Yes, along with a few other things. Have to keep more than one iron in
the fire to make a living with us. I farm a little on the side. I rent
that meadow-land on the Forrester place. I've drained the old marsh and
put it into wheat. My brother John does the work, and I boss the job.
It's quite profitable. I pay them a good rent, and they need it. I doubt
if they could get along without. Their influential friends don't seem to
help them out much. Remember all those chesty old boys the Captain used
to drive about in his democrat wagon, and ship in barrels of Bourbon
for? Good deal of bluff about all those old-timers. The panic put them
out of the game. The Forresters have come down in the world like the
rest. You remember how the old man used to put it over us kids and not
let us carry a gun in there? I'm just mean enough to like to shoot along
that creek a little better than anywhere else, now. There wasn't any
harm in the old Captain, but he had the delusion of grandeur. He's
happier now that he's like the rest of us and don't have to change his
shirt every day." Ivy's unblinking greenish eyes rested upon Niel's
haberdashery.
Niel, however, did not notice this. He knew that Ivy wanted him to show
disappointment, and he was determined not to do so. He enquired about
the Captain's health, pointedly keeping Mrs. Forrester's name out of the
conversation.
"He's only about half there . . . seems contented enough. . . . She
takes good care of him, I'll say that for her. . . . She seeks
consolation, always did, you know . . . too much French brandy . . . but
she never neglects him. I don't blame her. Real work comes hard on her."
Niel heard these remarks dully, through the buzz of an idea. He felt
that Ivy had drained the marsh quite as much to spite him and Mrs.
Forrester as to reclaim the land. Moreover, he seemed to know that until
this moment Ivy himself had not realized how much that consideration
weighed with him. He and Ivy had disliked each other from childhood,
blindly, instinctively, recognizing each other through antipathy, as
hostile insects do. By draining the marsh Ivy had obliterated a few
acres of something he hated, though he could not name it, and had
asserted his power over the people who had loved those unproductive
meadows for their idleness and silvery beauty.
After Ivy had gone on into the smoker, Niel sat looking out at the
windings of the Sweet Water and playing with his idea. The Old West had
been settled by dreamers, great-hearted adventurers who were unpractical
to the point of magnificence; a courteous brotherhood, strong in attack
but weak in defence, who could conquer but could not hold. Now all the
vast territory they had won was to be at the mercy of men like Ivy
Peters, who had never dared anything, never risked anything. They would
drink up the mirage, dispel the morning freshness, root out the great
brooding spirit of freedom, the generous, easy life of the great
land-holders. The space, the colour, the princely carelessness of the
pioneer they would destroy and cut up into profitable bits, as the match
factory splinters the primeval forest. All the way from the Missouri to
the mountains this generation of shrewd young men, trained to petty
economies by hard times, would do exactly what Ivy Peters had done when
he drained the Forrester marsh.