The corn was husked. The year’s work in the fields was over. Wully
had sold from sixty of the acres for which his father had paid two
hundred and ten dollars in sixty-four, wheat worth three thousand
and sixty dollars. He had his house all paid for now. He owned three
hundred acres of land, some of it a bit farther west, where a bushel
of wheat still bought an acre of the faithful soil. His little pines
had grown steadily, and his orchard, now that the grasses and weeds
were frosted, was visible to the naked eye from the house, a lot of
little switches ready to stand bravely against the gales. Everything
prospered with him. Everything, except for that shadow of evil that
clouded their lives hatefully. Every day Wully’s mind dwelt futilely
upon the problem of Peter Keith’s fate. And Chirstie’s eyes, he
observed, still shifted apprehensively under their tender lids.
And what was he to do now, when he must go to the timber for his
winter’s supply of wood? When he must leave early in the morning, and
return at nightfall? He couldn’t leave her alone. He had remarked
to one neighbor and another that he wanted some man to bring his
wood home for hire. But he found no man willing to do his work.
Chirstie would have to take the baby and go to her father’s or his
mother’s. She didn’t want to do that. Either Wully would have to take
her back and forth daily--and that was a difficult thing under the
circumstances--or else she would have to stay away for days together,
and then Wully would come home to a cold house and no food ready.
They dreaded those days.
He finished the corn on a Wednesday, and on Thursday they were to
have a great lark. They were to go to town together for the first
time. He had a wagonload of prairie chickens to sell, which ought to
bring at least ten dollars--silly birds he had caught almost without
effort as he husked his corn. Everything was ready. For one day they
would put aside all their misgivings, and be happy together. They
were enjoying what seemed to be a second Indian summer, bland days
for riding across the country. And there was that spring-seat ready
for Chirstie’s comfort. Moreover, she was to have a new coat. Wully
had wanted to get her one the fall before, but she had said that
there were so many things that they had to buy for their house that
they really couldn’t afford the coat. She still protested that she
really didn’t need it. But Wully was the more determined because he
suspected she wore her mother’s old wrap for the principle of the
thing. As if she needed to act humble! He wouldn’t have it!
The store in which they found the right coat finally was narrow and
dark and full of dull necessities, mittens and milk-crocks, grim
boots, and grimmer tobacco. Wully hated the clerk the moment he saw
him fix upon Chirstie eyes that narrowed expressively. Nevertheless,
the odious man brought out from some dark recess behind the main room
the very garment they were searching for.
“Put this on,” he urged familiarly. She put it on. It was a green
thing, so dark a green it was almost black, and rich-looking, short
in front, and falling, mantle-wise, well down over her skirts behind.
It had rich fringe on it, and intricate frogs for fastenings. Wully
would have forestalled the clerk, and buttoned it for her, but his
fingers were awkward and helpless in such a task. So the man did it,
standing as near her as he dared. But when she stood forth arrayed,
Wully’s annoyance was forgotten. He heaved a sigh of satisfaction.
He saw again with surprise how garments change women. She was
scarcely the same being who had walked in, in that faded old dingy
wrap. This coat was made for her, beyond a doubt She asked the price.
“Sixteen dollars.”
She sighed and began undoing it. She would look at some others, she
said. The man left them.
“Don’t you like it?” demanded Wully.
“It’s too fine for me. Sixteen dollars!” she commented.
“It’s _not_ too fine. It’s becoming, Chirstie!”
“But _sixteen dollars_!” she exclaimed, as if that settled the matter.
“Ah, sixteen dollars isn’t going to break us up!” Wully urged,
determinedly. “It’s a grand coat. It’s nobby.” He was at a loss to
express his admiration for the garment. He only felt vaguely that it
looked like Glasgow.
“But sixteen dollars, Wully! The _idea_!”
“You’ll have it, anyway.”
“I will _not_!” She was indignant “Why, Wully, your coat, your
overcoat was only ten last winter!”
“But I hadn’t any red dress to match. Nor any feather!”
The man had come back.
“If you want something cheap now, for your wife----”
“I don’t want anything cheap!” said Wully, “We’ll take this.”
Chirstie stood examining it inside and out. She was wondering what
her father would say to such a coat.
She wore the nobby coat away. Wully carried the old garment. He had
been gay, almost hilarious all the morning, ever since selling the
prairie chickens so well. And now as he looked at his stunning wife,
walking demurely along in such grandeur, his spirits rose higher. He
watched people look at her. He chuckled to see them.
They walked down the busy little street. He left the old coat at the
hotel. She saw a shawl she admired, and he wanted to buy it for her.
But she was thinking how nice it would be for his mother, a little
soft fine shawl like that. He wondered that he hadn’t thought of that
himself. They bought the shawl, and went on down the street. They
came to a place where tintypes were taken. It came over him like a
flash.
“We’ll go in and have our pictures taken!” he exclaimed.
“Oh,” she said hesitating. “How much will it cost?”
“Oh, nothing much!” he exclaimed. He made her go in with him. There
was a picture, was there, he was thinking, that made Wee Johnnie look
like the son of that snake? Well, there should soon be another that
made him look like another man’s son. Chirstie had never had her
likeness taken. But Wully had had his made in St. Louis, to be sent
to his mother. He knew how to walk in and have the thing done grandly.
He sat down in a chair, and put the baby on one knee, paternally. On
the other knee he spread out a great hand. Chirstie took her place
behind him, her hand on his shoulder, her feather curling down over
her hat, her new sixteen-dollar coat, her wine-colored skirts showing
bravely. And when that was done, he made her sit down with the baby
on her knee, for a picture of just the mother and son. And then a
further happy thought came to him. He sat down and took the baby,
and cuddled his face right up against his own, and demanded a picture.
“It ain’t usual,” the photographer protested. “I can’t take a picture
like that! It ain’t usual!”
“This ain’t no usual baby!” Wully replied chuckling. Who could have
made a statement more paternal than that? “I want his face against
mine!” And he got the picture taken that way, in the end.
They sought the street again. Chirstie was rather overcome by her
husband’s grandness. He had such a worldly air--commanding people
about. He kept getting more imperious, more happy all the time though
he was entirely sober. After a while, when it was growing dusk, he
spied a friend on the street, just going into his office.
“That’s Mr. Knight, Chirstie! You remember! The man that drove me
home that time! I’ll take you to see him!” He wanted to show her to
everybody.
They went into an office having not only a kerosene lamp, but a lamp
with a rich green shade, most luxurious, most metropolitan-looking.
Chirstie was shy, and Mr. Knight puzzled for a moment.
“I’m McLaughlin,” Wully explained. “The soldier you drove out to
Harmony, two years ago. I was sick, you remember!”
Mr. Knight’s face lighted up with recognition.
“Come in, McLaughlin!” he said heartily. “I didn’t recognize you!
Sit down!” Around a table at one end of the room, men were playing
cards, well dressed men, who paused and looked up, and continued
looking at the newcomers. A tall wide bookcase screened off one
corner into something like a private office and to this Mr. Knight
led them.
“My wife!” Wully said proudly, as he seated them.
“Your wife? Your baby? Why, it doesn’t seem possible! How the time
gets away! And where did you find her?” he asked, so frankly pleased
with her appearance that she blushed more deeply than she had at his
first remark.
“She’s from out there! From Harmony.”
“She _is_,” he exclaimed. He continued looking at her. “Well,
I always said that that was a remarkable country. A remarkable
country,” he drawled.
Wully was delighted. Knight was a man whose opinion was valuable, a
prosperous man, a man dressed as men dress in cities, whose interest
he felt was not merely assumed for political ends. “How’s your
mother?” he went on. He asked about the children, and the crops, and
the new town which was to be near them. Finally he said:
“Well you certainly don’t look much like you did that morning. You
were sick. Skin and bones. Do you remember?”
“Do I remember!” exclaimed Wully. “Will I ever forget!” He turned to
his wife. “Chirstie, I was sitting right down there by the elevator,
where the sidewalk is built up high, you know. I wasn’t sitting,
either, I was lying stretched out, to try to keep from throwing up! I
thought I’d seen Jimmy Sproul out there, and I’d ride home with him,
and when I hurried up to him, it wasn’t Jimmy at all! It just made
me sick! And I was lying there when Mr. Knight came along, and began
asking me what was the matter of me. He said he would take me home.
‘How far is it?’ you asked, and when I said twenty-six miles, you
said, ‘Oh! Twenty-six miles!’ Naturally. That made some difference.
My heart sank, as they say. Or maybe it was my breakfast trying to
get out. Anyway, I had a pang of some kind. And you said, ‘You wait
here!’ And pretty soon along you came with those grays! I tell you
I felt better even then. I got better all the way home. Every step.
It seemed that morning as if I couldn’t wait another minute to start
home!”
“Naturally!” remarked Mr. Knight, looking again with a smile, at
Chirstie.
“Oh, I didn’t know her then! If I had known her I’d have started
home crawling! Have you got those grays yet?” asked Wully, suddenly
curious.
“No, I haven’t.” The man smiled reminiscently. “I wish I had,
sometimes. A Chicago man came along and wanted them. He was
determined to have them. I let them go for a half section of land in
Lyons County. I wouldn’t have done it,” he added confidently, “only
my son had a baby born a day or two before that. I thought the land
would be a good thing to keep for the child. How old is this little
fellow?” He snapped his fingers invitingly towards the child.
“Oh, he’s--a year or two. Something like that, isn’t he?” he asked
his wife.
“Tut, tut, McLaughlin! You need experience! When they’re young like
that the women count them in months. Don’t they, Mrs. McLaughlin?” he
appealed.
“How old is your grandchild?” Wully parried boldly.
“Oh, mine’s several months. Mine’s--well, he’s got two teeth
already!” And they laughed. Wully hastened to safer ground. If he
wasn’t careful, someone might ask him when he was married.
“I’ll tell you another thing I remember!” he began. “I got in on
that night train, that time, you know, and I went to the hotel where
we had always stayed. Sick, I was, you know! I told the man--he’d
seen me a dozen times before--that I hadn’t the price of a room.
He’d had too much. He never even looked to see who I was. Just saw
my uniform and began swearing! Wasn’t going to be eaten out of house
and home by a lot of begging soldiers, he said. It nearly knocked me
over. I went out to the street. And I couldn’t get up face enough to
go some place else and ask for a bed, at first. I just sat around.
Then finally I went into the Great West--that’s where we all stay
now when we come in. And Pierson there almost began swearing at me
because I said I’d pay him later. He didn’t take soldiers’ last cents
away from them, he said. He saw how I felt, and he went and got some
milk toast made for me. And soft boiled eggs. And then, do you know
what he did? He went to a room with me, and when he saw the pillows
on the bed, he went and got me a pair of good pillows from some
place. I hadn’t slept on a pillow for I don’t know how long! A man
notices those things when he’s most dead, I tell you! Milk toast, and
pillows, by _Jiminy_! And in the morning he sat and fed me such a lot
of breakfast--no wonder I had trouble! I felt as if I’d never get
enough to eat.”
Mr. Knight made him go on talking. They sat there till the street
was dark. And then Wully led his wife away, right up to the hotel.
And then into the dining room. It seemed lordly to her that dining
room--an amazing day--and Wully most lordly and amazing of all. It
was like a fine wedding trip, almost, that day.