Sunday is the day for courtship on the prairie. It has also the piety of
cleanliness. It allows the young man to get back to a self-respecting
sweetness of person, and enables the girls to look as nature intended,
dainty and sweet as posies.
The change from everyday clothing on the part of young workmen like Ben
Griswold was more than change; it approached transformation. It took
more than courage to go through the change,--it required love.
Ben arose a little later on Sunday morning than on weekdays, but there
were the chores to do as usual. The horses must be watered, fed, and
curried, and the cows were to milk, but after breakfast Ben threw off
the cares of the hired hand. When he came down from the little garret
into which the hot August sun streamed redly, he was a changed creature.
Clean from tip to toe, newly shaven, wearing a crackling white shirt, a
linen collar and a new suit of store clothes, he felt himself a man
again, fit to meet maidens.
His partner, being a married man, was slouching around in his tattered
and greasy brown denim overalls. He looked at Ben and grinned.
"Got a tag on y'rself?"
"No, why?"
"Nobod'y know ye, if anything happened on the road. There's thirty
dollars gone to the dogs." He sighed. "Oh, well, you'll get over that,
just as I did."
"I hope I won't get over liking to be clean," Ben said a little sourly.
"I won't be back to milk."
"Didn't expect ye. That's the very time o' day the girls are
purtiest,--just about sundown. Better take Rock. I may want the old team
myself."
Ben hitched up and drove off in the warm bright morning, with wonderful
elation, clean and self-respecting once more. His freshly shaven face
felt cool, and his new suit fitted him well. His heart took on a great
resolution, which was to call upon Grace.
The thought of her made his brown hands shake, and he remembered how
many times he had sworn to visit her, but had failed of courage, though
it seemed she had invited him by word and look to do so.
He overtook Milton Jennings on his way along the poplar-lined lane.
"Hello, Milt, where you bound?"
Milton glanced up with a curious look in his laughing eyes. From the
pockets of his long linen duster he drew a handful of beautiful scarlet
and yellow Siberian crab-apples.
"See them crabs?"
"Yes, I see 'em."