The transcontinental express swung along the windings of the Sand River
Valley, and in the rear seat of the observation car a young man sat
greatly at his ease, not in the least discomfited by the fierce sunlight
which beat in upon his brown face and neck and strong back. There was
a look of relaxation and of great passivity about his broad shoulders,
which seemed almost too heavy until he stood up and squared them. He
wore a pale flannel shirt and a blue silk necktie with loose ends. His
trousers were wide and belted at the waist, and his short sack coat hung
open. His heavy shoes had seen good service. His reddish-brown hair,
like his clothes, had a foreign cut. He had deep-set, dark blue eyes
under heavy reddish eyebrows. His face was kept clean only by close
shaving, and even the sharpest razor left a glint of yellow in the
smooth brown of his skin. His teeth and the palms of his hands were very
white. His head, which looked hard and stubborn, lay indolently in the
green cushion of the wicker chair, and as he looked out at the ripe
summer country a teasing, not unkindly smile played over his lips.
Once, as he basked thus comfortably, a quick light flashed in his eyes,
curiously dilating the pupils, and his mouth became a hard, straight
line, gradually relaxing into its former smile of rather kindly mockery.
He told himself, apparently, that there was no point in getting excited;
and he seemed a master hand at taking his ease when he could. Neither
the sharp whistle of the locomotive nor the brakeman's call disturbed
him. It was not until after the train had stopped that he rose, put on
a Panama hat, took from the rack a small valise and a flute case, and
stepped deliberately to the station platform. The baggage was already
unloaded, and the stranger presented a check for a battered sole-leather
steamer trunk.
“Can you keep it here for a day or two?” he asked the agent. “I may send
for it, and I may not.”
“Depends on whether you like the country, I suppose?” demanded the agent
in a challenging tone.
“Just so.”
The agent shrugged his shoulders, looked scornfully at the small trunk,
which was marked “N.E.,” and handed out a claim check without further
comment. The stranger watched him as he caught one end of the trunk and
dragged it into the express room. The agent's manner seemed to remind
him of something amusing. “Doesn't seem to be a very big place,” he
remarked, looking about.
“It's big enough for us,” snapped the agent, as he banged the trunk into
a corner.
That remark, apparently, was what Nils Ericson had wanted. He chuckled
quietly as he took a leather strap from his pocket and swung his valise
around his shoulder. Then he settled his Panama securely on his head,
turned up his trousers, tucked the flute case under his arm, and started
off across the fields. He gave the town, as he would have said, a wide
berth, and cut through a great fenced pasture, emerging, when he rolled
under the barbed wire at the farther corner, upon a white dusty road
which ran straight up from the river valley to the high prairies, where
the ripe wheat stood yellow and the tin roofs and weathercocks were
twinkling in the fierce sunlight. By the time Nils had done three miles,
the sun was sinking and the farm wagons on their way home from town came
rattling by, covering him with dust and making him sneeze. When one of
the farmers pulled up and offered to give him a lift, he clambered in
willingly. The driver was a thin, grizzled old man with a long lean
neck and a foolish sort of beard, like a goat's. “How fur ye goin'?” he
asked, as he clucked to his horses and started off.
“Do you go by the Ericson place?”
“Which Ericson?” The old man drew in his reins as if he expected to stop
again.
“Preacher Ericson's.”
“Oh, the Old Lady Ericson's!” He turned and looked at Nils. “La, me! If
you're goin' out there you might a' rid out in the automobile. That's a
pity, now. The Old Lady Ericson was in town with her auto. You might 'a'
heard it snortin' anywhere about the post-office er the butcher shop.”
“Has she a motor?” asked the stranger absently.
“'Deed an' she has! She runs into town every night about this time for
her mail and meat for supper. Some folks say she's afraid her auto won't
get exercise enough, but I say that's jealousy.”
“Aren't there any other motors about here?”
“Oh, yes! we have fourteen in all. But nobody else gets around like
the Old Lady Ericson. She's out, rain er shine, over the whole county,
chargin' into town and out amongst her farms, an' up to her sons'
places. Sure you ain't goin' to the wrong place?” He craned his neck and
looked at Nils' flute case with eager curiosity. “The old woman ain't
got any piany that I knows on. Olaf, he has a grand. His wife's musical:
took lessons in Chicago.”
“I'm going up there tomorrow,” said Nils imperturbably. He saw that the
driver took him for a piano tuner.
“Oh, I see!” The old man screwed up his eyes mysteriously. He was a
little dashed by the stranger's noncommunicativeness, but he soon broke
out again.
“I'm one o' Miss Ericson's tenants. Look after one of her places. I did
own the place myself once, but I lost it a while back, in the bad years
just after the World's Fair. Just as well, too, I say. Lets you out o'
payin' taxes. The Ericsons do own most of the county now. I remember
the old preacher's favorite text used to be, 'To them that hath shall be
given.' They've spread something wonderful--run over this here country
like bindweed. But I ain't one that begretches it to 'em. Folks is
entitled to what they kin git; and they're hustlers. Olaf, he's in the
Legislature now, and a likely man fur Congress. Listen, if that ain't
the old woman comin' now. Want I should stop her?”
Nils shook his head. He heard the deep chug-chug of a motor vibrating
steadily in the clear twilight behind them. The pale lights of the car
swam over the hill, and the old man slapped his reins and turned clear
out of the road, ducking his head at the first of three angry snorts
from behind. The motor was running at a hot, even speed, and passed
without turning an inch from its course. The driver was a stalwart woman
who sat at ease in the front seat and drove her car bareheaded. She left
a cloud of dust and a trail of gasoline behind her. Her tenant threw
back his head and sneezed.
“Whew! I sometimes say I'd as lief be _before_ Mrs. Ericson as behind
her. She does beat all! Nearly seventy, and never lets another soul
touch that car. Puts it into commission herself every morning, and keeps
it tuned up by the hitch-bar all day. I never stop work for a drink
o' water that I don't hear her a-churnin' up the road. I reckon her
darter-in-laws never sets down easy nowadays. Never know when she'll pop
in. Mis' Otto, she says to me: 'We're so afraid that thing'll blow up
and do Ma some injury yet, she's so turrible venturesome.' Says I: 'I
wouldn't stew, Mis' Otto; the old lady'll drive that car to the funeral
of every darter-in-law she's got.' That was after the old woman had
jumped a turrible bad culvert.”
The stranger heard vaguely what the old man was saying. Just now he was
experiencing something very much like homesickness, and he was wondering
what had brought it about. The mention of a name or two, perhaps;
the rattle of a wagon along a dusty road; the rank, resinous smell of
sunflowers and ironweed, which the night damp brought up from the draws
and low places; perhaps, more than all, the dancing lights of the motor
that had plunged by. He squared his shoulders with a comfortable sense
of strength.
The wagon, as it jolted westward, climbed a pretty steady up-grade. The
country, receding from the rough river valley, swelled more and more
gently, as if it had been smoothed out by the wind. On one of the last
of the rugged ridges, at the end of a branch road, stood a grim square
house with a tin roof and double porches. Behind the house stretched a
row of broken, wind-racked poplars, and down the hill slope to the left
straggled the sheds and stables. The old man stopped his horses where
the Ericsons' road branched across a dry sand creek that wound about the
foot of the hill.
“That's the old lady's place. Want I should drive in?” “No, thank you.
I'll roll out here. Much obliged to you. Good night.”
His passenger stepped down over the front wheel, and the old man drove
on reluctantly, looking back as if he would like to see how the stranger
would be received.
As Nils was crossing the dry creek he heard the restive tramp of a horse
coming toward him down the hill. Instantly he flashed out of the road
and stood behind a thicket of wild plum bushes that grew in the sandy
bed. Peering through the dusk, he saw a light horse, under tight
rein, descending the hill at a sharp walk. The rider was a slender
woman--barely visible against the dark hillside--wearing an
old-fashioned derby hat and a long riding skirt. She sat lightly in the
saddle, with her chin high, and seemed to be looking into the distance.
As she passed the plum thicket her horse snuffed the air and shied.
She struck him, pulling him in sharply, with an angry exclamation,
_“Blazne!”_ in Bohemian. Once in the main road, she let him out into
a lope, and they soon emerged upon the crest of high land, where they
moved along the skyline, silhouetted against the band of faint colour
that lingered in the west. This horse and rider, with their free,
rhythmical gallop, were the only moving things to be seen on the face of
the flat country. They seemed, in the last sad light of evening, not to
be there accidentally, but as an inevitable detail of the landscape.
Nils watched them until they had shrunk to a mere moving speck against
the sky, then he crossed the sand creek and climbed the hill. When
he reached the gate the front of the house was dark, but a light was
shining from the side windows. The pigs were squealing in the hog
corral, and Nils could see a tall boy, who carried two big wooden
buckets, moving about among them. Halfway between the barn and the
house, the windmill wheezed lazily. Following the path that ran around
to the back porch, Nils stopped to look through the screen door into
the lamplit kitchen. The kitchen was the largest room in the house; Nils
remembered that his older brothers used to give dances there when he was
a boy. Beside the stove stood a little girl with two light yellow braids
and a broad, flushed face, peering anxiously into a frying pan. In the
dining-room beyond, a large, broad-shouldered woman was moving about the
table. She walked with an active, springy step. Her face was heavy and
florid, almost without wrinkles, and her hair was black at seventy.
Nils felt proud of her as he watched her deliberate activity; never a
momentary hesitation, or a movement that did not tell. He waited until
she came out into the kitchen and, brushing the child aside, took her
place at the stove. Then he tapped on the screen door and entered.
“It's nobody but Nils, Mother. I expect you weren't looking for me.”
Mrs. Ericson turned away from the stove and stood staring at him. “Bring
the lamp, Hilda, and let me look.”
Nils laughed and unslung his valise. “What's the matter, Mother? Don't
you know me?”
Mrs. Ericson put down the lamp. “You must be Nils. You don't look very
different, anyway.”
“Nor you, Mother. You hold your own. Don't you wear glasses yet?”
“Only to read by. Where's your trunk, Nils?”
“Oh, I left that in town. I thought it might not be convenient for you
to have company so near threshing-time.”
“Don't be foolish, Nils.” Mrs. Ericson turned back to the stove. “I
don't thresh now. I hitched the wheat land onto the next farm and have
a tenant. Hilda, take some hot water up to the company room, and go call
little Eric.”
The tow-haired child, who had been standing in mute amazement, took up
the tea-kettle and withdrew, giving Nils a long, admiring look from the
door of the kitchen stairs.
“Who's the youngster?” Nils asked, dropping down on the bench behind the
kitchen stove.
“One of your Cousin Henrik's.”
“How long has Cousin Henrik been dead?”
“Six years. There are two boys. One stays with Peter and one with
Anders. Olaf is their guardeen.”
There was a clatter of pails on the porch, and a tall, lanky boy peered
wonderingly in through the screen door. He had a fair, gentle face and
big grey eyes, and wisps of soft yellow hair hung down under his cap.
Nils sprang up and pulled him into the kitchen, hugging him and slapping
him on the shoulders. “Well, if it isn't my kid! Look at the size of
him! Don't you know me, Eric?”
The boy reddened tinder his sunburn and freckles, and hung his head. “I
guess it's Nils,” he said shyly.
“You're a good guesser,” laughed Nils giving the lad's hand a swing. To
himself he was thinking: “That's why the little girl looked so friendly.
He's taught her to like me. He was only six when I went away, and he's
remembered for twelve years.”
Eric stood fumbling with his cap and smiling. “You look just like I
thought you would,” he ventured.
“Go wash your hands, Eric,” called Mrs. Ericson. “I've got cob corn for
supper, Nils. You used to like it. I guess you don't get much of that in
the old country. Here's Hilda; she'll take you up to your room. You'll
want to get the dust off you before you eat.”
Mrs. Ericson went into the dining-room to lay another plate, and the
little girl came up and nodded to Nils as if to let him know that his
room was ready. He put out his hand and she took it, with a startled
glance up at his face. Little Eric dropped his towel, threw an arm about
Nils and one about Hilda, gave them a clumsy squeeze, and then stumbled
out to the porch.
During supper Nils heard exactly how much land each of his eight grown
brothers farmed, how their crops were coming on, and how much livestock
they were feeding. His mother watched him narrowly as she talked.
“You've got better looking, Nils,” she remarked abruptly, whereupon he
grinned and the children giggled. Eric, although he was eighteen and as
tall as Nils, was always accounted a child, being the last of so many
sons. His face seemed childlike, too, Nils thought, and he had the open,
wandering eyes of a little boy. All the others had been men at his age.
After supper Nils went out to the front porch and sat down on the step
to smoke a pipe. Mrs. Ericson drew a rocking-chair up near him and began
to knit busily. It was one of the few Old World customs she had kept up,
for she could not bear to sit with idle hands.
“Where's little Eric, Mother?”
“He's helping Hilda with the dishes. He does it of his own will; I don't
like a boy to be too handy about the house.”
“He seems like a nice kid.”
“He's very obedient.”
Nils smiled a little in the dark. It was just as well to shift the line
of conversation. “What are you knitting there, Mother?”
“Baby stockings. The boys keep me busy.” Mrs. Ericson chuckled and
clicked her needles.
“How many grandchildren have you?”
“Only thirty-one now. Olaf lost his three. They were sickly, like their
mother.”
“I supposed he had a second crop by this time!”
“His second wife has no children. She's too proud. She tears about on
horseback all the time. But she'll get caught up with, yet. She sets
herself very high, though nobody knows what for. They were low enough
Bohemians she came of. I never thought much of Bohemians; always
drinking.”
Nils puffed away at his pipe in silence, and Mrs. Ericson knitted on. In
a few moments she added grimly: “She was down here tonight, just before
you came. She'd like to quarrel with me and come between me and Olaf,
but I don't give her the chance. I suppose you'll be bringing a wife
home some day.”
“I don't know. I've never thought much about it.”
“Well, perhaps it's best as it is,” suggested Mrs. Ericson hopefully.
“You'd never be contented tied down to the land. There was roving blood
in your father's family, and it's come out in you. I expect your own
way of life suits you best.” Mrs. Ericson had dropped into a blandly
agreeable tone which Nils well remembered. It seemed to amuse him a
good deal and his white teeth flashed behind his pipe. His mother's
strategies had always diverted him, even when he was a boy--they were so
flimsy and patent, so illy proportioned to her vigor and force. “They've
been waiting to see which way I'd jump,” he reflected. He felt that Mrs.
Ericson was pondering his case deeply as she sat clicking her needles.
“I don't suppose you've ever got used to steady work,” she went on
presently. “Men ain't apt to if they roam around too long. It's a pity
you didn't come back the year after the World's Fair. Your father picked
up a good bit of land cheap then, in the hard times, and I expect maybe
he'd have give you a farm, it's too bad you put off comin' back so long,
for I always thought he meant to do something by you.”
Nils laughed and shook the ashes out of his pipe. “I'd have missed a lot
if I had come back then. But I'm sorry I didn't get back to see father.”
“Well, I suppose we have to miss things at one end or the other. Perhaps
you are as well satisfied with your own doings, now, as you'd have been
with a farm,” said Mrs. Ericson reassuringly.
“Land's a good thing to have,” Nils commented, as he lit another match
and sheltered it with his hand.
His mother looked sharply at his face until the match burned out. “Only
when you stay on it!” she hastened to say.
Eric came round the house by the path just then, and Nils rose, with a
yawn. “Mother, if you don't mind, Eric and I will take a little tramp
before bedtime. It will make me sleep.”
“Very well; only don't stay long. I'll sit up and wait for you. I like
to lock up myself.”
Nils put his hand on Eric's shoulder, and the two tramped down the hill
and across the sand creek into the dusty highroad beyond. Neither spoke.
They swung along at an even gait, Nils puffing at his pipe. There was no
moon, and the white road and the wide fields lay faint in the starlight.
Over everything was darkness and thick silence, and the smell of dust
and sunflowers. The brothers followed the road for a mile or more
without finding a place to sit down. Finally, Nils perched on a stile
over the wire fence, and Eric sat on the lower step.
“I began to think you never would come back, Nils,” said the boy softly.
“Didn't I promise you I would?”
“Yes; but people don't bother about promises they make to babies. Did
you really know you were going away for good when you went to Chicago
with the cattle that time?”
“I thought it very likely, if I could make my way.”
“I don't see how you did it, Nils. Not many fellows could.” Eric rubbed
his shoulder against his brother's knee.
“The hard thing was leaving home you and father. It was easy enough,
once I got beyond Chicago. Of course I got awful homesick; used to cry
myself to sleep. But I'd burned my bridges.”
“You had always wanted to go, hadn't you?”
“Always. Do you still sleep in our little room? Is that cottonwood still
by the window?”
Eric nodded eagerly and smiled up at his brother in the grey darkness.
“You remember how we always said the leaves were whispering when they
rustled at night? Well, they always whispered to me about the sea.
Sometimes they said names out of the geography books. In a high wind
they had a desperate sound, like someone trying to tear loose.”
“How funny, Nils,” said Eric dreamily, resting his chin on his hand.
“That tree still talks like that, and 'most always it talks to me about
you.”
They sat a while longer, watching the stars. At last Eric whispered
anxiously: “Hadn't we better go back now? Mother will get tired waiting
for us.” They rose and took a short cut home, through the pasture.