The younger man mused a few minutes, as if he had forgotten his new
acquaintance. Suddenly he roused up.
"Say, would you take a country school several miles out?"
"I think I would, if nothing better offered."
"Well, in my old district they're without a teacher. It's six miles out,
and it isn't a lovely neighborhood! However, they will pay fifty dollars
a month; that's ten dollars extra for the scrimmages. They wanted me to
teach this winter--my sister tackles it in summer--but, great Peter! I
can't waste my time teaching school, when I can run up to Chicago and
take a shy at the pit and make a whole term's wages in thirty minutes!"
"I don't understand," said Stacey.
"Wheat Exchange. I've got a lot of friends in the pit, and I can come in
any time on a little deal. I'm no Jim Keene, but I hope to get cash
enough to handle five thousand. I wanted the old gent to start me up in
it, but he said, 'Nix come arouse.' Fact is, I dropped the money he gave
me to go through college with." He smiled at Stacey's disapproving look.
"Yes, indeedy; there's where the jar came into our tender relations. Oh,
I call on the Governor--always when I've got a wad. I have fun with
him." He smiled brightly. "Ask him if he don't need a little cash to pay
for hog-killin', or something like that." He laughed again. "No, I
didn't graduate at Ann Arbor. Funny how things go, ain't it? I was on my
way back the third year, when I stopped in to see the pit--it's one o'
the sights of Chicago, you know--and Billy Krans saw me looking over the
rail, I went in, won, and then took a flyer on December. Come a big
slump, and I failed to materialize at school."
"What did you do then?" asked Stacey, to whom this did not seem
humorous.
"I wrote a contrite letter to the Governor, stating case, requesting
forgiveness--and money. No go! Couldn't raise neither. I then wrote,
casting him off. 'You are no longer father of mine.'" He smiled again
radiantly. "You should have seen me the next time I went home! Plug hat!
Imported suit! Gold watch! Diamond shirt-stud! Cost me $200 to paralyze
the General, but I did it. My glory absolutely turned him white as a
sheet. I knew what he thought, so I said: 'Perfectly legitimate, Dad.
The walls of Joliet are not gaping for me.' That about half-fetched
him--calling him _Dad_, I mean; but he can't get reconciled to my
business. 'Too many ups and downs,' he says. Fact is, he thinks it's
gambling, and I don't argue the case with him. I'm on my way home now to
stay over Sunday."
The train whistled, and Allen looked out into the darkness. "We're
coming to the crossing. Now, I can't go up to the boarding-place when
you do, but I'll give you directions, and you tell the landlady I sent
you, and it'll be all right. Allen, you remember--Herman Allen."
Following directions, Stacey came at length to a two-story frame house
situated on the edge of the bank, with its back to the river. It stood
alone, with vacant lots all about. A pleasant-faced woman answered the
ring.
He explained briefly. "How do you do? I'm a teacher, and I'd like to get
board here a few days while passing my examinations. Mr. Herman Allen
sent me."
The woman's quick eye and ear were satisfied. "All right. Walk in, sir.
I'm pretty full, but I expect I can accommodate you--if you don't mind
Mr. Allen for a room-mate."
"Oh, not at all," he said, while taking off his coat.
"Come right in this way. Supper will be ready soon."
He went into a comfortable sitting-room, where a huge open fire of soft
coal was blazing magnificently. The walls were papered in florid
patterns, and several enlarged portraits were on the walls. The fire was
the only adornment; all else was cheap, and some of it was tawdry.
Stacey spread his thin hands to the blaze, while the landlady sat down a
moment, out of politeness, to chat, scanning him keenly. She was a
handsome woman, strong, well-rounded, about forty years of age, with
quick, gray eyes, and a clean, firm-lipped mouth.
"Did you just get in?"
"Yes. I've been on the road all day," he said, on an impulse of
communication. "Indeed, I'm just out of college."
"Is that so!" exclaimed Mrs. Mills, stopping her rocking in an access of
interest. "What college?"
"Jackson University. I've been sick, and only came West--"
There came a look into her face that transformed and transfigured her.
"_My_ boy was in Ann Arbor. He was killed on the train on his way home
one day." She stopped, for fear of breaking into a quaver, and smiled
brightly. "That's why I always like college boys. They all stop here
with me." She rose hastily. "Well, you'll excuse me, won't you, and I'll
go an' 'tend to supper."
There was a great deal that was feminine in Stacey, and he felt at once
the pathos of the woman's life. He looked a refined, studious, rather
delicate young man, as he sat low in his chair and observed the light
and heat of the fire. His large head was heavy with learning, and his
dark eyes deep with religious fervor.
Several young women entered, and the room was filled with the clatter of
tongues. Herman came in a few moments later, his face in a girlish glow
of color. Everybody rushed at him with loud outcry. He was evidently a
great favorite. He threw his arms about Mrs. Mills, giving her a hearty
hug. The girls pretended to be shocked when he reached out for them, but
they were not afraid of him. They hung on his arms and besieged him with
questions till he cried out, in jolly perplexity:
"Girls, girls! This will never do!"
Mrs. Mills brushed out his damp yellow curls with her hands. "You're all
wet."
"Girls, if you'll let me sit down, I'll take one on each knee," he said,
pleadingly, and they released him.
Stacey grew red with sympathetic embarrassment, and shrank away into a
corner.
"Go get supper ready," commanded Herman. And it was only after they had
left him that he said to Stacey: "Oh, you found your way all right." He
took a seat by the fire and surveyed his wet shoes. "I took a run up to
Mott's house--only a half block out o' the way. He said they'd be
tickled to have you at Cyene. By-the-way, you're a theolog, aren't you?"
Wallace nodded, and Herman went on: "So I told Mott. He said you might
work up a society out there at Cyene."
"Is there a church there?"
"Used to be, but--say, I tell you what you do: you go out with me
to-morrow, and I'll give you a history of the township."
The ringing of the bell took them all out into the cheerful dining-room
in a good-natured scramble. Mrs. Mills put Stacey at one end of the
table, near a young woman who looked like a teacher, and he had full
sweep of the table, which was surrounded by bright and happy faces. The
station-hand was there, and a couple of grocery clerks, and a brakeman
sat at Stacey's right hand. They all seemed very much at home, and
called one another by their Christian names, and there was very obvious
courtship on the part of several young couples.
Stacey escaped from the table as soon as possible, and returned to his
seat beside the fire. He was young enough to enjoy the chatter of the
girls, but his timidity made him glad they paid so little attention to
him. The rain had changed to sleet outside and hammered at the window
viciously, but the blazing fire and the romping young people set it at
defiance. The landlady came to the door of the dining-room, dish and
cloth in hand, to share in each outburst of laughter, and not
infrequently the hired girl peered over her shoulder with a broad smile
on her face. A little later, having finished their work, they both came
in and took active part in the light-hearted fun.
Herman and one of the girls were having a great struggle over some
trifle he had snatched from her hand, and the rest stood about laughing
to see her desperate attempts to recover it. This was a familiar form of
courtship in Kesota, and an evening filled with such romping was
considered a "cracking good time." After the girl, red and dishevelled,
had given up, Herman sat down at the organ, and they all sang Moody and
Sankey hymns, negro melodies, and college songs till ten o'clock. Then
Mrs. Mills called, "Come, now, boys and girls!" and they all said
good-night, like obedient children.
Herman and Wallace went up to their bedroom together.
"Say, Stacey, have you got a policy?" Wallace shook his head. "And don't
want any, I suppose. Well, I just asked you as a matter of form. You
see," he went on, winking at Wallace comically, "nominally I'm an
insurance agent, but practically I'm a 'lamb'--but I get a mouthful o'
fur myself occasionally. What I'm working for is to get on that Wheat
Exchange. That's where you get life! I'd rather be an established broker
in that howling mob than go to Congress."
He rose on his elbow in bed and looked at Wallace, who was rising from a
silent prayer.
"Say, why didn't you shout? I forgot all about it--I mean your
profession."
Wallace crept into bed beside his communicative bedfellow in silence.
He didn't know how to deal with such spirits.
"Say," called Herman suddenly, as Wallace was about dropping off to
sleep, "you ain't got no picnic, old man!"
"Why, what do you mean?"
"Wait till you see Cyene Church. Oh, it's a daisy snarl!"
"I wish you'd tell me about it."
"Oh, it's quiet now. The calmness of death," said Herman. "Well, you
see, it came this way. The church is made up of Baptists and Methodists,
and the Methodists wanted an organ, because, you understand, father was
the head centre, and Mattie is the only girl among the Methodists who
can play. The old man has got a head like a mule. He can't be switched
off, once he makes up his mind. Deacon Marsden, he don't believe in
anything above tuning-forks, and he's tighter'n the bark on a bulldog.
He stood out like a sore thumb, and Dad wouldn't give an inch.
"You see, they held meetings every other Sunday. So Dad worked up the
organ business and got one, and then locked it up when the Baptists held
their services. Things went from bad to worse. They didn't speak as they
passed by--that is, the old folks; we young folks didn't care a
continental whether school kept or not. Well, upshot is, the church died
out. The wind blew the horse-sheds down, and there they lie--and the
church is standing there empty as an--old boot--and--Say, Stacey--by
Jinks!--are you a Baptist?"
"Yes."
"Oh, Peter! ain't that lovely!" He chuckled shamelessly, and went off to
sleep without another word.