AT thirty-four, Martin was still unmarried, and though he had not
travelled far on that strange road to affluence which for some seems a
macadamized boulevard, but for so many, like himself, a rough cow-path,
he had done better than the average farmer of Fallon County. To be sure,
this was nothing over which to gloat. A man who received forty cents a
bushel for wheat was satisfied; corn sold at twenty-eight cents, and
the hogs it fattened in proportion. But his hundred and sixty acres were
clear from debt, four thousand dollars were on deposit drawing three per
cent in The First State Bank--the old Bank of Fallon, now incorporated
with Robinson as its president. In the pasture, fourteen sows with
their seventy-five spring pigs rooted beside the sleek herd of steers
fattening for market; the granary bulged with corn; two hundred bushels
of seed wheat were ready for sowing; his machinery was in excellent
condition; his four Percheron mares brought him, each, a fine mule colt
once a year; and the well never went dry, even in August. Martin was--if
one discounted the harshness of the life, the dirt, the endless duties
and the ever-pressing chores--a Kansas plutocrat.
One fiery July day, David Robinson drew up before Martin's shack. The
little old box-house was still unpainted without and unpapered within.
Two chairs, a home-made table with a Kansas City Star as a cloth,
a sheetless bed, a rough cupboard, a stove and floors carpeted with
accumulations of untidiness completed the furnishings.
“Chris-to-pher Columbus!” exploded Robinson, “why don't you fix yourself
up a bit, Martin? The Lord knows you're going to be able to afford it.
What you need is a wife--someone to look after you.” And as Martin,
observing him calmly, made no response, he added, “I suppose you know
what I want. You've been watching for this day, eh, Martin? All Fallon
County's sitting on its haunches--waiting.”
“Oh, I haven't been worrying. A fellow situated like me, with a
hundred and sixty right in the way of a coal company, can afford to be
independent.”
“You understand our procedure, Martin,” Robinson continued. “We are
frank and aboveboard. We set the price, and if you can't see your way
clear to take it there are no hard feelings. We simply call it off--for
good.”
Wade knew how true this was. When the mining first began, several rebels
toward the East had tried profitlessly to buck this irrefragable game
and had found they had battered their unyielding heads against
an equally unyielding stone wall. These men had demanded more and
Robinson's company, true to its threat, had urbanely gone around their
farms, travelled on and left them behind, their coal untouched and
certain to so remain. Such inelastic lessons, given time to soak in,
were sobering.
“Now,” said Robinson, in his amiable matter-of-fact manner, “as I happen
to know the history of this quarter, backwards and forwards, we can do
up this deal in short order. You sign this contract, which is exactly
like all the others we use, and I'll hand over your check. We get the
bottom; you keep the top; I give you the sixteen thousand, and the thing
is done.”
“Well, Martin,” he added, genially, as Wade signed his name, “it's a
long day since you came in with your father to make that first loan
to buy seed corn. Wouldn't he have opened his eyes if any one had
prophesied this? It's a pity your mother couldn't have lived to enjoy
your good fortune. A fine, plucky woman, your mother. They don't make
many like her.”
Long after Robinson's buggy was out of sight, Martin stood in his
doorway and stared at the five handsome figures, spelled out the even
more convincing words and admired the excellent reproduction of The
First State Bank.
“This is a whole lot of money,” his thoughts ran. “I'm rich. All this
land still mine--practically as much mine as ever--all this stock and
twenty thousand dollars in money--in cash. It's a fact. I, Martin Wade,
am rich.”
He remembered how he had exulted, how jubilant, even intoxicated, he had
felt when he had received the ten dollars for the first load of wheat
he had hauled to Fort Scott. Now, with a check for sixteen
thousand--SIXTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!--in his hand, he stood dumbly,
curiously unmoved.
Slowly, the first bitter months on this land, little Benny's death from
lack of nourishment, his father's desperate efforts to establish
his family, the years of his mother's slow crucifixion, his own
long struggle--all floated before him in a fog of reverie. Years of
deprivation, of bending toil and then, suddenly, this had come--this
miracle symbolized by this piece of paper. Martin moistened his
lips. Mentally, he realized all the dramatic significance of what had
happened, but it gave him none of the elation he had expected.
This bewildered and angered him. Sixteen thousand dollars and with it no
thrill. What was lacking? As he pondered, puzzled and disappointed, it
came to him that he needed something by which to measure his wealth,
someone whose appreciation of it would make it real to him, give him
a genuine sense of its possession. What if he were to take Robinson's
advice: fix up a bit and--marry?
Nellie had often urged the advantages of this, but he had never had much
to do with women; they did not belong in his world and he had not
missed them; he had never before felt a need of marriage. Upon the
few occasions when, driven by his sister's persistence, he had vaguely
considered it, he had shrunk away quickly from the thought of the
unavoidable changes which would be ushered in by such a step. This
shack, itself--no one whom he would want would, in this day, consent to
live in it, and, if he should marry, his wife must be a superior woman,
good looking, and with the push and energy of his mother. He thought of
all she had meant to his father; and there was Nellie, not to be spoken
of in the same breath, yet making Bert Mall a good wife. What a cook she
was! Memories of her hot, fluffy biscuits, baked chicken, apple pies
and delicious coffee, carried trailing aromas that set his nostrils
twitching. It would be pleasant to have satisfying meals once more, to
be relieved, too, of the bother of the three hundred chickens, to have
some one about in the evenings. True, there would be expense, oh, such
expense--the courting, the presents, the wedding, the building, the
furniture, and, later, innumerable new kinds of bills. But weren't all
the men around him married? Surely, if they, not nearly as well off as
himself, could afford it, so could he.
Besides, wasn't it all different now that he held this check in his
hand? These sixteen thousand dollars were not the same dollars which he
had extorted from close-fisted Nature. Each of those had come so lamely,
was such a symbol of sweat and aching muscles, that to spend one was
like parting with a portion of himself, but this new, almost incredible
fortune, had come without a turn of his hand, without an hour's labor.
To Martin, the distinction was sharp and actual.
He figured quickly. Five thousand dollars would do wonders. With that
amount, he would build so substantially that his neighbors could no
longer feel the disapprobation in which, according to Nellie, he was
beginning to be held, because of his sordid, hermit-like life. That five
thousand could buy many cows and additional acreage--but just now a home
and a wife would be better investments. Yes, he would marry and a house
should be his bait. That was settled. He would drive into Fallon at once
to see the carpenter and deposit the check.
He was already out of the house when a thought struck him. Suppose
he were to meet just the woman he might want? These soiled, once-blue
overalls, these heavy, manure-spotted shoes, this greasy, shapeless
straw hat, with its dozen matches showing their red heads over the band,
the good soils and fertilizers of Kansas resting placidly in his ears
and the lines of his neck--such a Romeo might not tempt his Juliet; he
must spruce up.
On an aged soap-box behind the house, several inches of grey water in
a battered tin-pan indicated a previous effort. He tossed the greasy
liquid to the ground and from the well, near the large, home-built
barn, refilled the make-shift basin. Martin's ablutions were always a
strenuous affair. In his cupped hands he brought the water toward
his face and, at the moment he was about to apply it, made pointless
attempts to blow it away. This blowing and sputtering indicated the
especial importance of an occasion--the more important, the more
vigorously he blew. Today, the cold water gave a healthy glow to his
face, which, after much stropping of his razor, he shaved of a week's
growth of beard, tawny as his thick, crisp hair where the sun had not
yet bleached it. This, he soaked thoroughly, in lieu of brushing, before
using a crippled piece of comb. The dividing line between washed and
unwashed was one inch above his neckband and two above his wrists. Even
when fresh from a scrubbing, his hands were not entirely clean. They had
been so long in contact with the earth that it had become absorbed into
the very pores of his skin; but they were powerful hands, interesting,
with long palms and spatulate fingers. The black strips at the end of
each nail, Martin pared off with his jackknife.
He entered the house a trifle nervously, positive that his only clean
shirt, at present spread over his precious shot-gun, had been worn once
more than he could have wished, but, after all, how much of one's shirt
showed? It would pass. The coat-shirt not yet introduced, a man had
to slip the old-fashioned kind over his head, drag it down past his
shoulders and poke blindly for the sleeve openings. Martin was thankful
when he felt the collar buttons in their holes. His salt and pepper suit
was of a stiff, unyielding material, and the first time he had worn
it the creases had vanished never to return. Before putting on his
celluloid collar, he spat on it and smeared it off with the tail of his
shirt. A recalcitrant metal shaper insisted on peeking from under his
lapels, and his ready-made tie with its two grey satin-covered
cardboard wings pushed out of sight, see-sawed, necessitating frequent
adjustments. His brown derby, the rim of which made almost three
quarters of a circle at each side, seemed to want to get as far as
possible from his ears and, at the same time, remain perched on his
head. The yellow shoes looked as though each had half a billiard ball in
the toe, and the entire tops were perforated with many diverging lines
in an attempt for the decorative. Those were the days of sore feet
and corns! Hart Schaffner and Marx had not yet become rural America's
tailor. Sartorial magicians in Chicago had not yet won over the young
men of the great corn belt, with their snappy lines and style for the
millions. In 1890, when a suit served merely as contrast to a pair of
overalls, the Martin Wades who would clothe themselves pulled their
garments from the piles on long tables. It was for the next generation
to patronize clothiers who kept each suit on its separate hanger. A
moving-picture of the tall, broad-shouldered fellow, as, with creaking
steps, he walked from the house, might bring a laugh from the young
farmers of this more fastidious day, but Martin was dressed no worse
than any of his neighbors and far better than many. Health, vigor,
sturdiness, self-reliance shone from him, and once his make-up had
ceased to obtrude its clumsiness, he struck one as handsome. His was a
commanding physique, hard as the grim plains from which he wrested his
living.
As Martin drove into Fallon, his attention was directed toward the
architecture and the women. He observed that the average homes were
merely a little larger than his own--four, six, or eight rooms instead
of one, made a little trimmer with neat porches and surrounded by
well-cut lawns, instead of weeds. He, with his new budget, could do
better. Even Robinson's well-constructed residence had probably
cost only three thousand more than he himself planned to spend. Its
suggestion of originality had been all but submerged by carpenters
spoiled through constant work on commonplace buildings. But to Martin it
was a marvellous mansion. He told himself that with such a place moved
out to his quarter-section, he could have stood on his door-step and
chosen whomever he wished for a wife.
It was an elemental materialism, difficult to understand, but it was a
language very clear to Martin. Marriage with the men and women of his
world was a practical business, arranged and conducted by practical
people, who lived practical lives, and died practical deaths. The women
who might pass his way could deny their lust for concrete possessions,
but their actions, however concealed their motives, would give the lie
to any ineffectual glamour of romance they might attempt to fling over
their carefully measured adventures of the heart.
Martin smiled cynically as he let his thoughts drift along this channel.
“What a lot of bosh is talked about lovers,” his comment ran. “As if
everyone didn't really know how much like drunken men they are--saying
things which in a month they'll have forgotten. Folks pretend to approve
of 'em and all the while they're laughing at 'em up their sleeves. But
how they respect a man who's got the root they're all grubbing for! It
may be the root of all evil, but it's a fact that everything people want
grows from it. They hate a man for having it, but they'd like to be
him. Their hearts have all got strings dangling from 'em, especially
the women's. A house tied onto the other end ought to be hefty enough to
fetch the best of the lot.”
Who could she be, anyway? Was she someone in Fallon? He drove slowly,
thinking over the families in the different houses--four to each side
of the block. The street, even yet, was little more than a country road.
There was no indication of the six miles of pavement which later were
to be Fallon's pride. It had rained earlier in the week and Martin was
obliged to be careful of the chuck-holes in the sticky, heavy gumbo soon
to be the bane of pioneers venturing forth in what were to be known for
a few short years as “horseless carriages.”
Bumping along he recalled to his mind the various girls with whom he had
gone to school. As if the sight of the building, itself, would sharpen
his memory, he turned north and drove past it. Like its south, east and
west counterparts, it was a solid two-story brick affair. In time it
would be demolished to make way for what would be known as the “Emerson
School,” in which, to be worthy of this high title, the huge stoves
would be supplanted with hot-water pipes, oil lamps with soft, indirect
lighting, and unsightly out-buildings with modern plumbing. The South
building would become the “Whittier School,” the East, the “Longfellow,”
and the West, not to be neglected by culture's invasion, the “Oliver
Wendell Holmes.” But these changes were still to be effected. Many
a school board meeting was first to be split into stormy factions of
conservatives fighting to hold the old, and of anarchists threatening
civilization with their clamors for experimentation. Many a bond
election was yet to rip the town in two, with the retired farmers, whose
children were grown and through school, satisfied with things as they
were and parents of the new generation demanding gymnasiums, tennis
courts, victrolas, domestic science laboratories, a public health nurse
and individual lockers. Yes, and the faddists were to win despite
the other side's incontrovertible evidence that Fallon was headed for
bankruptcy and that the proposed bonds and outstanding ones could never
be met.
Martin drove, meditatively, around the school-house and was still
engrossed in the problem of “Who?” when he reached the Square. The neat
canvas drops of later years had not yet replaced the wooden awnings
which gave to the town such a decidedly western appearance and which
threw the sidewalks and sheltered windows into deep pools of shadow. The
old brick store-building which housed The First State Bank was like
a cool cavern. He brought out the check quietly but with a full
consciousness that with one gesture he was shoving enough over that
scratched and worn walnut counter to buy out half the bank.
James Osborne, the youthful cashier, feigned complete paralysis.
“Why don't you give a poor fellow some warning?” he beamed
good-naturedly, “or maybe you think you've strayed into Wall Street.
This is Fallon. Fallon, Kansas. So you've had your merry little session
with Robinson? Put it here!” and he extended a cordial hand.
“Oh, considering the wait, it isn't so wonderful. Sixteen thousand is an
awful lot when it's coming, but it just seems about half as big when it
gets here.”
Martin was talking not so much for Osborne's benefit as to impress a
woman who had entered behind him and was awaiting her turn. He wondered
why, in his mental quest, he had not thought of her. Here was the very
person for whom he was looking. Rose Conroy, the editor of the better
local weekly, a year or so younger than himself, pleasant, capable. Here
was a real woman, one above the average in character and brains.
With a quick glance he took in her well-built figure. Everything
about Rose--every line, every tone of her coloring suggested warmth,
generosity, bigness. She was as much above medium height for a woman as
Martin for a man. About her temples the line of her bright golden-brown
hair had an oddly pleasing irregularity. The rosy color in her cheeks
brought out the rich creamy whiteness of her skin. Warm, gray-blue eyes
were set far apart beneath a kind, broad forehead and her wide, generous
mouth seemed made to smile. The impression of good temper and fun
was accented by her nose, ever so slightly up-tilted. Some might have
thought Rose too large, her hips too rounded, the soft deep bosom too
full, but Martin's eyes were approving. Even her hands, plump, with
broad palms, square fingers and well-kept nails, suggested decision.
He felt the quiet distinction of her simple white dress. She was like a
full-blown, luxuriant white and gold flower--like a rose, a full-blown
white rose, Martin realized, suddenly. One couldn't call her pretty, but
there was something about her that gave the impression of sumptuous
good looks. He liked, too, the spirited carriage of her head. “Healthy,
good-sense, sound all through,” was his final appraisement.
Pocketing his bank-book, he gave her a sharp nod, a colorless
“how-de-do, Miss Rose,” and a tip of the hat that might have been a
little less stiff had he been more accustomed to greeting the ladies.
“Right well, thank you, Martin,” was her cordial response, and her
friendly smile told him she had heard and understood the remarks about
the big deal. He was curious to know how it had impressed her.
Hurrying out, he asked himself how he could begin advances. Either he
must do something quickly in time to get home for the evening chores
or he must wait until another day. He must think out a plan, at once.
Passing the bakery, half way down the block, he dropped in, ordered a
chocolate ice-cream soda, and chose a seat near the window. As he had
expected, it was not long before he saw Rose go across the courthouse
yard toward her office on the north side of the square. He liked the
swift, easy way in which she walked. She had been walking the first time
he had ever seen her, thirteen years before, when her father had led his
family uptown from the station, the day of their arrival in Fallon.
Patrick Conroy had come from Sharon, Illinois, to perform the thankless
task of starting a weekly newspaper in a town already undernourishing
one. By sheer stubbornness he had at last established it. Twelve hundred
subscribers, their little printing jobs, advertisers who bought liberal
portions of space at ten cents an inch--all had enabled him to give his
children a living that was a shade better than an existence. He had died
less than a year ago, and Martin, like the rest of the community, had
supposed the Fallon Independent would be sold or suspended. Instead, as
quietly and matter-of-factly as she had filled her dead mother's place
in the home while her brothers and sisters were growing up, Rose stepped
into her father's business, took over the editorship and with a boy to
do the typesetting and presswork, continued the paper without missing
an issue. It even paid a little better than before, partly because it
flattered Fallon's sense of Christian helpfulness to throw whatever
it could in Rose's way, but chiefly because she made the Independent a
livelier sheet with double the usual number of “Personals.”
Yes, decidedly, Rose had force and push. Martin's mind was made up. He
would drop into the Independent ostensibly to extend his subscription,
but really to get on more intimate terms with the woman whom he had
now firmly determined should become his wife. He drew a deep breath
of relaxation and finished the glass of sweetness with that sense of
self-conscious sheepishness which most men feel when they surrender to
the sticky charms of an ice-cream soda. A few minutes later he stood
beside Rose's worn desk.
“How-do-you-do, once more, Miss Rose of Sharon. You're not the Bible's
Rose of Sharon, are you?” he joshed a bit awkwardly.
“If I were a rose of anywhere, I'd soon wilt in this stuffy little
office of inky smells,” she answered pleasantly. “A rose would need
petals of leather to get by here.”
“A rose, by rights, belongs out of doors,”--Martin indicated the
direction of his farm--“out there where the sun shines and there's no
smells except the rich, healthy smells of nature.”
A merry twinkle appeared in Rose's eyes. “Aren't roses out there”--and
her gesture was in the same direction--“rather apt to be crowded down by
the weeds?”
“Not if there was a good strong man about--a man who wanted to cultivate
the soil and give the rose a pretty place in which to bloom.”
“Why, Martin,” Rose laughed lightly, “the way you're fixed out there
with that shack, the only thing that ever blooms is a fine crop of
rag-weeds.”
At this gratuitous thrust a flood of crimson surged up Martin's
magnificent, column-like throat and broke in hot waves over his cheeks.
“Well, it's not going to be that way for long,” he announced evenly.
“I'm going to plant a rose--a real rose there soon and everything is
going to be right--garden, house and all.”
“Is this your way of telling me you're going to be married?”
“Kinda. The only trouble is, I haven't got my rose yet.”
“Well, if I can't have that item, at least I can print something about
the selling of your coal rights. People will be interested because it
shows the operators are coming in our direction. Here in Fallon, we can
hardly realize all that this sudden new promotion may mean. From that
conversation I heard at the bank I guess you got the regulation hundred
an acre.”
“Yes, and a good part of it is going into a first-class modern house
with a heating plant and running hot and cold water in a tiled-floor
bath-room, and a concrete cellar for the woman's preserved things and
built-in cupboards, lots of closets, a big garret, and hardwood floors
and fancy paper on the walls, and the prettiest polished golden oak
furniture you can buy in Kansas City, not to mention a big fireplace
and wide, sunny porches. A rose ought to be happy in a garden like that,
don't you think? Folks'll say I've gone crazy when they see my building
spree, but I know what I'm about. It's time I married and the woman who
decides to be my wife is going to be glad to stay with me--”
“See here, Martin Wade, what ARE you driving at? What does all this talk
mean anyway? Do you want me to give you a boost with someone?”
“You've hit it.”
“Who is she?” Rose asked, with genuine curiosity.
“You,” he said bluntly.
“Well, of all the proposals!”
“There's nothing to beat around the bush about. I'm only thirty-four, a
hard worker, with a tidy sum to boot--not that I'm boasting about it.”
“But, Martin, what makes you think I could make you happy?”
Martin felt embarrassed. He was not looking for happiness but merely
for more of the physical comforts, and an escape from loneliness. He
was practical; he fancied he knew about what could be expected from
marriage, just as he knew exactly how many steers and hogs his farm
could support. This was a new idea--happiness. It had never entered into
his calculations. Life as he knew it was hard. There was no happiness in
those fields when burned by the hot August winds, the soil breaking into
cakes that left crevices which seemed to groan for water. That sky with
its clouds that gave no rain was a hard sky. The people he knew were
sometimes contented, but he could not remember ever having known any to
whom the word “happy” could be applied. His father and mother--they had
been a good husband and wife. But happy? They had been far too absorbed
in the bitter struggle for a livelihood to have time to think of
happiness. This had been equally true of the elder Malls, was true today
of Nellie and her husband. A man and a woman needed each other's help,
could make a more successful fight, go farther together than either
could alone. To Martin that was the whole matter in a nutshell, and
Rose's gentle question threw him into momentary confusion.
“I don't know,” he answered uneasily. “We both like to make a success of
things and we'd have plenty to do with. We'd make a pretty good pulling
team.”
Rose considered this thoughtfully. “Perhaps the people who work together
best are the happiest. But somehow I'd never pictured myself on a farm.”
“Of course, I don't expect you to make up your mind right away,” Martin
conceded. “It's something to study over. I'll come around to your place
tomorrow evening after I get the chores done up and we can talk some
more.”
So far as Martin was concerned, the matter was clinched. He felt not the
slightest doubt but that it was merely a question of time before Rose
would consent to his proposition.
After he had left, she reviewed it a little sadly. It wasn't the kind
of marriage of which she had always dreamed. She realized that she was
capable of profound devotion, of responding with her whole being to
a deep love. But was it probable that this love would ever come? She
thought over the men of Fallon and its neighborhood. There were few as
handsome as Martin--not one with such generous plans. She knew her own
domestic talents. She was a born housekeeper and home-maker. It had been
a curious destiny that had driven her into a newspaper office, and at
that very moment, there lay on her desk, like a whisper from Fate, the
written offer from the rival paper to buy her out for fifteen hundred
dollars, giving herself a position on the consolidated staff. She had
been pondering over this proposal when Martin interrupted her.
It wasn't as if she were younger or likely to start somewhere else.
She would live out her life in Fallon, that she knew. There was little
chance of her meeting new men, and those established enough to make
marriage with them desirable were already married. Candidly, she
admitted that if she turned Martin Wade down now, she might never have
another such opportunity. If only she could feel that he cared for
her--loved her. But wasn't the fact that he was asking her to be his
wife proof of that? It was very strange. She had never suspected that
Martin had ever felt drawn to her. With a sigh she pressed her large,
capable hands to her heart. Its deep piercing ache brought tears to her
eyes. She felt, bitterly, that she was being cheated of too much that
was sweet and precious--it was all wrong--she would be making a mistake.
For a moment, she was overwhelmed. Then the practical common sense that
had been instilled into her from her earliest consciousness, even as it
had been instilled into Martin, reasserted itself. After all, perhaps he
was right--the busy people were the happy people. Many couples who began
marriage madly in love ended in the divorce courts. Martin was kind and
it would be wonderful to have the home he had described. She imagined
herself mistress of it, thrilled with the warm hospitality she would
radiate, entertained already at missionary meetings and at club. At
least, she would be less lonely. It would be a fuller life than now.
What was she getting, really getting, alone, out of this world? She and
Martin would be good partners. Poor boy! What a long, hard, cheerless
existence he had led. Tenderness welled in her heart and stilled its
pain. Perhaps his emotions were far deeper than he could express in
words. His way was to plan for her comfort. Wasn't there something big
about his simple cards-on-the-table wooing? And he had called her his
rose, his Rose of Sharon. The new house was to be the garden in which
she should blossom. To be sure, he had said it all awkwardly, but Rose,
who was devout, knew the stately Song of Solomon and as she recalled the
magnificent outburst of passion she almost let herself be convinced that
Martin was a poet-lover in the rough.
And all the while, giving pattern to her flying thoughts, the contents
of a letter, received the day before, echoed through her mind. Her
sister, Norah, the youngest of the family, had told of her first baby.
“We have named her for you, darling,” she wrote. “Oh, Rose, she has
brought me such deep happiness. I wonder if this ecstasy can last. Her
little hand against my breast--it is so warm and soft--like a flower's
curling petal, as delicate and as beautiful as a butterfly's wing.
I never knew until now what life really meant.” As Rose reread the
throbbing lines and pictured the eager-eyed young mother, her own sweet
face glowed with reflected joy and with the knowledge that this ecstasy,
this deeper understanding could come to her, too--Martin, he was
vigorous, so worthy of being the father of her children. He would love
them, of course, and provide for them better than any other man she
knew. Had not Norah married a plain farmer who was only a tenant? The
new little Rose's father was not to be compared to Martin, and yet he
had brought the supreme experience to her sister. So Rose sat dreaming,
the arid level of monotonous days which, one short hour ago, had
stretched before her, flowering into fragrant, sun-filled fields.
Meanwhile, Martin congratulated himself upon having found a woman as
sensible, industrious and free from foolish notions, as even he could
wish.