Main-Travelled Roads

by Garland, Hamlin

  Seagraves, "holding down a claim" near Rob, had come to see his neighboring "bach" because of feeling the need of company; but now that he was near enough to hear him prancing about getting supper, he was content to lie alone on a slope of the green sod.

  The silence of the prairie at night was well-nigh terrible. Many a night, as Seagraves lay in his bunk against the side of his cabin, he would strain his ear to hear the slightest sound, and he listening thus sometimes for minutes before the squeak of a mouse or the step of a passing fox came as a relief to the aching sense. In the daytime, however, and especially on a morning, the prairie was another thing. The pigeons, the larks; the cranes, the multitudinous voices of the ground birds and snipes and insects, made the air pulsate with sound-a chorus that died away into an infinite murmur of music.

  "Hello, Seagraves!" yelled Rob from the door. "The biscuit are 'most done."

  Seagraves did not speak, only nodded his head and slowly rose. The faint clouds in the west were getting a superb flame color above and a misty purple below, and the sun had shot them with lances of yellow light. As the air grew denser with moisture, the sounds of neighboring life began to reach the ear. Children screamed and laughed, and afar off a woman was singing a lullaby. The rattle of wagons and voices of men speaking to their teams multiplied. Ducks in a neighboring lowland were quacking. The whole scene took hold upon Seagraves with irresistible power.

  "It is American," he exclaimed. 'No other land or time can match this mellow air, this wealth of color, much less the strange social conditions of life on this sunlit Dakota prairie."

  Rob, though visibly affected by the scene also, couldn't let his biscuit spoil or go without proper attention.

  "Say, ain't y' comin' t' grub?" he asked impatiently.

  "Th a minute," replied his friend, taking a last wistful look at the scene. "I want one more look at the landscape."

  "Landscape be blessed! If you'd been breakin' all day-Come, take that stool an' draw up."

  "No; I'll take the candle box."

  "Not much. I know what manners are, if I am a bull driver."

  Seagraves took the three-legged and rather precarious-looking stool and drew up to the table, which was a flat broad box nailed up against the side of the wall, with two strips of board nailed at the outer corners for legs.

  "How's that f'r a layout?" Rob inquired proudly.

  "Well, you have spread yourself! Biscuit and canned peaches and sardines and cheese. why, this is-is- prodigal."

  "It ain't nothin' else."

  Rob was from one of the finest counties of Wisconsin, over toward Milwaukee. He was of German parentage, a middle-sized, cheery, wide-awake, good-looking young fellow-a typical claimholder. He was always confident, jovial, and full of plans for the future. He had dug his own well, built his own shanty, washed and mended his own clothing. He could do anything, and do it well. He had a fine field of wheat, and was finishing the plowing of his entire quarter section.

  "This is what I call settin' under a feller's own vine an' fig tree"-after Seagraves's compliments-"an' I like it. I'm my own boss. No man can say 'come here' 'n' 'go there' to me. I get up when I'm a min' to, an' go t' bed when I'm a min' t'."

  "Some drawbacks, I s'pose?"

  "Yes. Mice, f'r instance, give me a devilish lot o' trouble. They get into my flour barrel, eat up my cheese, an' fall into my well. But it ain't no use t' swear."

  "The rats and the mlce they made such a strife

  He had to go to London to buy him a wife,"

  quoted Seagraves. "Don't blush. I've probed your secret thought."

  "Well, to tell the honest truth," said Rob a little sheepishly, leaning across the table, "I ain't satisfied with my style o' cookin'. It's good, but a little too plain, y' know. I'd like a change. It ain't much fun to break all day and then go to work an' cook y'r own supper."

  "No, I should say not."

  "This fall I'm going back to Wisconsin. Girls are thick as huckleberries back there, and I'm goin' t' bring one back, now you hear me."

  "Good! That's the plan," laughed Seagraves, amused at a certain timid and apprehensive look in his companion's eye. "Just think what a woman 'd do to put this shanty in shape; and think how nice it would be to take her arm and saunter out after supper, and look at the farm, and plan and lay out gardens and paths, and tend the chickens!"

  Rob's manly and self-reliant nature had the settler's typical buoyancy and hopefulness, as well as a certain power of analysis, which enabled him now to say: "The fact is, we fellers holdin' down claims out here ain't fools clear to the rine. We know a couple o' things. Now I didn't leave Waupac County f'r fun. Did y' ever see Wanpac? Well, it's one o' the handsomest counties the sun ever shone on, full o' lakes and rivers and groves of timber. I miss 'em all out here, and I miss the boys an' girls; but they wa'n't no chance there f'r a feller. Land that was good was so blamed high you couldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole from a balloon. Rent was high, if you wanted t' rent, an' so a feller like me had t' get out, an' now I'm out here, I'm goin' f make the most of it. An other thing," he went on, after a pause-"we fellers work-in' out back there got more 'n' more like hands, an' less like human beings. Y'know, Waupac is a kind of a summer resort, and the people that use' t' come in summers looked down on us cusses in the fields an' shops. I couldn't stand it. By God!" he said with a sudden im pulse of rage quite unlike him, "I'd rather live on an ice-berg and claw crabs f'r a livin' than have some feller passin' me on the road an' callin' me fellah!'"

  Seagraves knew what he meant and listened in astonishment at this outburst.

  "I consider myself a sight better 'n any man who lives on somebody else's hard work. I've never had a cent I didn't earn with them hands." He held them up and broke into a grin. "Beauties, ain't they? But they never wore gloves that some other poor cuss earned."

  Seagraves thought them grand hands, worthy to grasp the hand of any man or woman living.

  "Well, so I come West, just like a thousand other fellers, to get a start where the cussed European aristocracy hadn't got a holt on the people. I like it here-course I'd like the lakes an' meadows of Waupac better-but I'm my own boss, as I say, an' I'm goin' to stay my own boss if I haf to live on crackers an' wheat coffee to do it; that's the kind of a hairpin I am."

  In the pause which followed, Seagraves, plunged deep into thought by Rob's words, leaned his head on his hand. This working farmer had voiced the modem idea. It was an absolute overturn of all the ideas of nobility and special privilege born of the feudal past. Rob had spoken upon impulse, but that impulse appeared to Sea-graves to be right.

  "I'd like to use your idea for an editorial, Rob," he said.

  "My ideas!" exclaimed the astounded host, pausing in the act of filling his pipe. "My ideas! why, I didn't know I had any."

  "Well, you've given me some, anyhow."

  Seagraves felt that it was a wild, grand upstirring of the modem democrat against the aristocratic, against the idea of caste and the privilege of living on the labor of others. This atom of humanity (how infinitesimal this drop in the ocean of humanity!) was feeling the name-less longing of expanding personality, and had already pierced the conventions of society and declared as nil the laws of the land-laws that were survivals of hate and prejudice. He had exposed also the native spring of the emigrant by uttering the feeling that it is better to be an equal among peasants than a servant before nobles.

  "So I have good reasons f'r liking the country," Rob resumed in a quiet way. "The soil is rich, the climate good so far, an' if I have a couple o' decent crops you'll see a neat upright goin' up here, with a porch and a bay winder."

  "And you'll still be livin' here alone, frying leathery slapjacks an' choppin' taters and bacon."

  "I think I see myself," drawled Rob, "goin' around all summer wearin' the same shirt without washin', an' wipin' on the same towel four straight weeks, an' wearin' holes in my socks, an' eatin' musty gingersnaps, moldy bacon, an' canned Boston beans f'r the rest o' my e
ndurin' days! Oh, yes; I guess not! Well, see y' later. Must go water my bulls."

  As he went off down the slope, Seagraves smiled to hear him sing:

  "I wish that some kindhearted girl

  Would pity on me take,

  And extricate me from the mess I'm in.

  The angel-how I'd bless her,

  li this her home she'd make,

  In my little old sod shanty on the plain!"

  The boys nearly fell off their chairs in the Western House dining room, a few days later, at seeing Rob come into supper with a collar and necktie as the finishing touch of a remarkable outfit.

  "Hit him, somebody!"

  "It's a clean collar!"

  "He's started f'r Congress!"

  "He's going to get married," put in Seagraves in a tone that brought conviction.

  "What!" screamed Jack Adams, O'Neill, and Wilson in one breath.

  "That man?"

  "That man," replied Seagraves, amazed at Rob, who coolly took his seat, squared his elbows, pressed his collar down at the back, and called for the bacon and eggs.

  The crowd stared at him in a dead silence.

  "Where's he going to do it?" asked Jack Adarns. "where's he going to find a girl?"

  "Ask him," said Seagraves.

  "I ain't tellin'," put in Rob, with his mouth full of potato.

  "You're afraid of our competition."

  "That's right; our competition, Jack; not your competition. Come, now, Rob, tell us where you found her."

  "I ain't found her."

  "What! And yet you're goin' away t' get married!"

  "I'm goin' t' bring a wife back with me ten days fr'm date."

  "I see his scheme," put in Jim Rivers. "He's goin' back East somewhere, an' he's goin' to propose to every girl he meets."

  "Hold on!" interrupted Rob, holding up his fork. "Ain't quite right.

  Every good-lookin' girl I meet."

  "Well, I'll be blanked!" exclaimed Jack impatientiy; "that simply lets me out. Any man with such a cheek ought to-"

  "Succeed," interrupted Seagraves.

  "That's what I say," bawled Hank whiting, the proprietor of the house. "You fellers ain't got any enterprise to yeh. Why don't you go to work an' help settle the country like men? 'Cause y' ain't got no sand. Girls are thicker'n huckleberries back East. I say it's a dum shame!"

  "Easy, Henry," said the elegant bank clerk, Wilson, looking gravely about through his spectacles. "I commend the courage and the resolution of Mr. Rodemaker. I pray the lady may not

  "Mislike him for his complexion,

  The shadowed livery of the burning sun."

  "Shakespeare," said Adams at a venture.

  "Brother in adversity, when do you embark? Another 3ason on an untried sea~"

  "Hay!" said Rob, winking at Seagraves. "Oh, I go tonight-night train."

  "And return?"

  "Ten days from date."

  "I'll wager a wedding supper he brings a blonde," said Wilson in his clean-cut, languid speech.

  "Oh, come now, Wilson; that's too thin! We all know that rule about dark marryin' light."

  "I'll wager she'll be tall," continued Wilson. "I'll wager you, friend

  Rodemaker, she'll be blonde and tall."

  The rest roared at Rob's astonishment and contusion. The absurdity of it grew, and they went into spasms of laughter. But Wilson remained impassive, not the twitching of a muscle betraying that he saw anything to laugh at in the proposition.

  Mrs. Whiting and the kitchen girls came in, wondering at the merriment. Rob began to get uneasy.

  "What is it? What is it?" said Mrs. Whiting, a jolly little matron.

  Rivers put the case. "Rob's on his way back to Wisconsin t' get married, and Wilson has offered to bet him that his wife will be a blonde and tall, and Rob dassent bet!" And they roared again.

  "Why, the idea! The man's crazy!" said Mrs. Whiting. The crowd looked at each other. This was hint enough; they sobered, nodding at each other.

  "Aha! I see; I understand."

  "It's the heat."

  "And the Boston beans."

  "Let up on him, Wilson. Don't badger a poor irresponsible fellow. I thought something was wrong when I saw the collar."

  "Oh, keep it up!" said Rob, a little nettled by their evident intention to "have fun" with him.

  "Soothe him-soo-o-o-o-the him!" said Wilson. "Don't be harsh."

  Rob rose from the table. "Go to thunder! You make me tired."

  "The fit is on him again!"

  He rose disgustedly and went out. They followed him in singie file. The rest of the town "caught on." Frank Graham heaved an apple at him and joined the procession. Rob went into the store to buy some tobacco. They followed and perched like crows on the counters till he went out; then they followed him, as before. They watched him check his trunk; they witnessed the purchase of the ticket. The town had turned out by this time.

  "Waupac!" announced the one nearest the victim.

  "Waupac!" said the next man, and the word was passed along the street up town.

  "Make a note of it," said Wilson: "Waupa-a county where a man's proposal for marriage is honored upon presentation. Sight drafts."

  Rivers struck up a song, while Rob stood around, patientiy bearing the jokes of the crowd:

  "We're lookin' rather seedy now,

  While holdin' down our claims,

  And our vittles are not always of the best,

  And the mice play slyly round us

  As we lay down to sleep

  In our little old tarred shanties on the claim.

  "Yet we rather like the novelty

  Of livin' in this way,

  Though the bill of fare is often rather tame;

  An' we're happy as a clam

  On the land of Uncle Sam

  In our little old tarred shanty on the claim."

  The train drew up at length, to the immense relief of Rob, whose stoical resiguation was beginning to weaken.

  "Don't y' wish y' had sand?" he yelled to the crowd as he plunged into the car, thinking he was rid of them.

  But no; their last stroke was to follow him into the car, nodding, pointing to their heads, and whispering, managing in the half-minute the train stood at the platform to set every person in the car staring at the crazy man. Rob groaned and pulled his hat down over his eyes-an action which confirmed his tormentors' words and made several ladies click their tongues in sympathy-"Tick! tick! poor fellow!"

  "All abo-o-o-a-rd!' said the conductor, grinning his appreciation at the crowd, and the train was off.

  "Oh, won't we make him groan when he gets back!" said Barney, the young lawyer who sang the shouting tenor.

  "We'll meet him with the timbrel and the harp. Anybody want to wager? I've got two to one on a short brunette," said Wilson.

  II

  "Follow it far enough and it may pass the bend in the river where the water laughs eternally over its shallows."

  A CORNFIELD in July is a hot place. The soil is hot and dry; the wind comes across the lazily murmuring leaves laden with a warm sickening smell drawn from the rapidly growing, broad-flung banners of the corn. The sun, nearly vertical, drops a flood of dazzing light and heat upon the field over which the cool shadows run, only to make the heat seem the more intense.

  Julia Peterson, faint with fatigue, was tolling back and forth between the corn rows, holding the handles of the double-shovel corn plow while her little brother Otto rode the steaming horse. Her heart was full of bitterness, and her face flushed with heat, and her muscles aching with fatigue. The heat grew terrible. The corn came to her shoulders, and not a breath seemed to reach her, while the sun, nearing the noon mark, lay pitilessly upon her shoulders, protected only by a calico dress. The dust rose under her feet, and as she was wet with perspiration it soiled her till, with a woman's instinctive cleanliness, she shuddered. Her head throbbed dangerously. what matter to her that the king bird pitched jovially from the maples to catch a wandering bluebottle
fly, that the robin was feeding its young, that the bobolink was singing? All these things, if she saw them, only threw her bondage to labor into greater relief.

  Across the field, in another patch of corn, she could see her father-a big, gruff-voiced, wide-bearded Norwegian-at work also with a plow. The corn must be plowed, and so she toiled on, the tears dropping from the shadow of the ugly sunbonnet she wore. Her shoes, coarse and square-toed, chafed her feet; her hands, large and strong, were browned, or more properly burned, on the backs by the sun. The horse's harness "creak-cracked" as he swung steadily and patientiy forward, the moisture pouring from his sides, his nostrils distended.

  The field ran down to a road, and on the other side of the road ran a river-a broad, clear, shallow expanse at that point, and the eyes of the boy gazed longingly at the pond and the cool shadow each time that he turned at the fence.

  "Say, Jule, I'm goin' in! Come, can't I? Come-say!" he pleaded as they stopped at the fence to let the horse breathe.

  "I've let you go wade twice."

  "But that don't do any good. My legs is all smarty, 'cause ol' Jack sweats so." The boy turned around on the horse's back and slid back to his rump. "I can't stand it!" he burst out, sliding off and darting under the fence. "Father can't see."

  The girl put her elbows on the fence and watched her little brother as be sped away to the pool, throwing off his clothes as he ran, whooping with uncontrollable delight. Soon she could hear him splashing about in the water a short distance up the stream, and caught glimpses of his little shiny body and happy face. How cool that water looked! And the shadows there by the big basswood! How that water would cool her blistered feet! An impulse seized her, and she squeezed between the rails of the fence and stood in the road looking up and down to see that the way was clear. It was not a main-travelled road; no one was likely to come; why not?