by Willa Cather
XI
WICK CUTTER was the money-lender who had fleeced poor Russian Peter. Whena farmer once got into the habit of going to Cutter, it was like gamblingor the lottery; in an hour of discouragement he went back.
Cutter's first name was Wycliffe, and he liked to talk about his piousbringing-up. He contributed regularly to the Protestant churches, "forsentiment's sake," as he said with a flourish of the hand. He came from atown in Iowa where there were a great many Swedes, and could speak alittle Swedish, which gave him a great advantage with the earlyScandinavian settlers.
In every frontier settlement there are men who have come there to escaperestraint. Cutter was one of the "fast set" of Black Hawk business men. Hewas an inveterate gambler, though a poor loser. When we saw a lightburning in his office late at night, we knew that a game of poker wasgoing on. Cutter boasted that he never drank anything stronger thansherry, and he said he got his start in life by saving the money thatother young men spent for cigars. He was full of moral maxims for boys.When he came to our house on business, he quoted "Poor Richard's Almanack"to me, and told me he was delighted to find a town boy who could milk acow. He was particularly affable to grandmother, and whenever they met hewould begin at once to talk about "the good old times" and simple living.I detested his pink, bald head, and his yellow whiskers, always soft andglistening. It was said he brushed them every night, as a woman does herhair. His white teeth looked factory-made. His skin was red and rough, asif from perpetual sunburn; he often went away to hot springs to take mudbaths. He was notoriously dissolute with women. Two Swedish girls who hadlived in his house were the worse for the experience. One of them he hadtaken to Omaha and established in the business for which he had fittedher. He still visited her.
Cutter lived in a state of perpetual warfare with his wife, and yet,apparently, they never thought of separating. They dwelt in a fussy,scroll-work house, painted white and buried in thick evergreens, with afussy white fence and barn. Cutter thought he knew a great deal abouthorses, and usually had a colt which he was training for the track. OnSunday mornings one could see him out at the fair grounds, speeding aroundthe race-course in his trotting-buggy, wearing yellow gloves and ablack-and-white-check traveling cap, his whiskers blowing back in thebreeze. If there were any boys about, Cutter would offer one of them aquarter to hold the stop-watch, and then drive off, saying he had nochange and would "fix it up next time." No one could cut his lawn or washhis buggy to suit him. He was so fastidious and prim about his place thata boy would go to a good deal of trouble to throw a dead cat into his backyard, or to dump a sackful of tin cans in his alley. It was a peculiarcombination of old-maidishness and licentiousness that made Cutter seem sodespicable.
He had certainly met his match when he married Mrs. Cutter. She was aterrifying-looking person; almost a giantess in height, raw-boned, withiron-gray hair, a face always flushed, and prominent, hysterical eyes.When she meant to be entertaining and agreeable, she nodded her headincessantly and snapped her eyes at one. Her teeth were long and curved,like a horse's; people said babies always cried if she smiled at them. Herface had a kind of fascination for me; it was the very color and shape ofanger. There was a gleam of something akin to insanity in her full,intense eyes. She was formal in manner, and made calls in rustling,steel-gray brocades and a tall bonnet with bristling aigrettes.
Mrs. Cutter painted china so assiduously that even her washbowls andpitchers, and her husband's shaving-mug, were covered with violets andlilies. Once when Cutter was exhibiting some of his wife's china to acaller, he dropped a piece. Mrs. Cutter put her handkerchief to her lipsas if she were going to faint and said grandly: "Mr. Cutter, you havebroken all the Commandments--spare the finger-bowls!"
They quarreled from the moment Cutter came into the house until they wentto bed at night, and their hired girls reported these scenes to the townat large. Mrs. Cutter had several times cut paragraphs about unfaithfulhusbands out of the newspapers and mailed them to Cutter in a disguisedhandwriting. Cutter would come home at noon, find the mutilated journal inthe paper-rack, and triumphantly fit the clipping into the space fromwhich it had been cut. Those two could quarrel all morning about whetherhe ought to put on his heavy or his light underwear, and all evening aboutwhether he had taken cold or not.
The Cutters had major as well as minor subjects for dispute. The chief ofthese was the question of inheritance: Mrs. Cutter told her husband it wasplainly his fault they had no children. He insisted that Mrs. Cutter hadpurposely remained childless, with the determination to outlive him and toshare his property with her "people," whom he detested. To this she wouldreply that unless he changed his mode of life, she would certainly outlivehim. After listening to her insinuations about his physical soundness,Cutter would resume his dumb-bell practice for a month, or rise daily atthe hour when his wife most liked to sleep, dress noisily, and drive outto the track with his trotting-horse.
Once when they had quarreled about household expenses, Mrs. Cutter put onher brocade and went among their friends soliciting orders for paintedchina, saying that Mr. Cutter had compelled her "to live by her brush."Cutter was n't shamed as she had expected; he was delighted!
Cutter often threatened to chop down the cedar trees which half-buried thehouse. His wife declared she would leave him if she were stripped of the"privacy" which she felt these trees afforded her. That was hisopportunity, surely; but he never cut down the trees. The Cutters seemedto find their relations to each other interesting and stimulating, andcertainly the rest of us found them so. Wick Cutter was different from anyother rascal I have ever known, but I have found Mrs. Cutters all over theworld; sometimes founding new religions, sometimes being forciblyfed--easily recognizable, even when superficially tamed.