No more desolate place could well be imagined. A level plain, apparently bare of houses, swept by a ferocious wind; a dingy little den called a station—no other shelter in sight; no sign of life save the dull glare of two windows to the left, alternately lost and found in the storm.
Albert's heart contracted with a sudden fear; the outlook was appalling.
"Where's the town?" he asked of a dimly seen figure with a lantern—a man evidently locking the station door, his only refuge.
"Over there," was the surly reply.
"How far?"
"'Bout a mile."
"A mile!"
"That's what I said—a mile."
"Well, I'll be blanked!"
"Well, y' better be doing something besides standing here, 'r y' 'll freeze t' death. I'd go over to the Arteeshun House an' go t' bed if I was in your fix."
"Well, where is the Artesian House?"
"See them lights?"
"I see them lights."
"Well, they're it."
"Oh, wouldn't your grammar make Old Grammaticuss curl up, though!"
"What say?" queried the man bending his head toward Albert, his form being almost lost in the snow that streamed against them both.
"I said I guessed I'd try it," grinned the youth, invisibly.
"Well, I would if I was in your fix. Keep right close after me; they's some ditches here, and the foot-bridges are none too wide."
"The Artesian is owned by the railway, eh?"
"Yup."
"And you're the clerk?"
"Yup; nice little scheme, ain't it?"
"Well, it'll do," replied Albert.
The man laughed without looking around.
In the little bar-room, lighted by a vilely smelling kerosene lamp, the clerk, hitherto a shadow and a voice, came to light as a middle-aged man with a sullen face slightly belied by a sly twinkle in his eyes.
"This beats all the winters I ever did see. It don't do nawthin' but blow, blow. Want to go to bed, I s'pose. Well, come along."
He took up one of the absurd little lamps and tried to get more light out of it.
"Dummed if a white bean wouldn't be better."
"Spit on it!" suggested Albert.
"I'd throw the whole business out o' the window for a cent!" growled the man.
"Here's y'r cent," said the boy.
"You're mighty frisky f'r a feller gitt'n' off'n a midnight train," replied the man, as he tramped along a narrow hallway. He spoke in a voice loud enough to awaken every sleeper in the house.
"Have t' be, or there'd be a pair of us."
"You'll laugh out o' the other side o' y'r mouth when you saw away on one o' the bell-collar steaks this house puts up," ended the clerk, as he put the lamp down.
"Sufficient unto the morn is the evil thereof,'" called Albert after him.
He was awakened the next morning by the cooks pounding steak down in the kitchen and wrangling over some division of duty. It was a vile place at any time, but on a morning like this it was appalling. The water was frozen, the floor like ice, the seven-by-nine glass frosted so that he couldn't see to comb his hair.
"All that got me out of bed," he remarked to the clerk, "was the thought of leaving."
The breakfast was incredibly bad—so much worse than he expected that Albert was forced to admit he had never seen its like. He fled from the place without a glance behind, and took passage in an omnibus for the town, a mile away. It was terribly cold, the thermometer registering twenty below zero; but the sun was very brilliant, and the air still.
The driver pulled up before a very ambitious wooden hotel entitled "The Eldorado," and Albert dashed in at the door and up to the stove, with both hands covering his ears.
As he stood there, frantic with pain, kicking his toes and rubbing his hands, he heard a chuckle—a slow, sly, insulting chuckle—turned, and saw Hartley standing in the doorway, visibly exulting over his misery.
"Hello, Bert! that you?"
"What's left of me. Say, you're a good one, you are? Why didn't you telegraph me at Marion? A deuce of a night I've had of it!"
"Do ye good," laughed Hartley, a tall, alert, handsome fellow nearly thirty years of age.
After a short and vigorous "blowing up," Albert asked: "Well, now, what's the meaning of all this, anyhow? Why this change from Racine?"
"Well, you see, I got wind of another fellow going to work this county for a Life of Logan, and thinks I, 'By jinks! I'd better drop in ahead of him with Blaine's Twenty Tears.' I telegraphed f'r territory, got it, and telegraphed to stop you."
"You did it. When did you come down?"
"Last night, six o'clock."
Albert was getting warmer and better-natured.
"Well, I'm here; what are you going t' do with me?"
"I'll use you some way. First thing is to find a boarding-place where we can work in a couple o' books on the bill."
"Well, I don't know about that, but I'm going to look up a place a brakeman gave me a pointer on."
"All right; here goes!"
Scarcely any one was stirring on the streets. The wind was pitilessly cold, though not strong. The snow under their feet cried out with a note like glass and steel. The windows of the stores were thick with frost, and Albert shivered with a sense of homelessness. He had never experienced anything like this before. "I don't want much of this," he muttered, through his scarf.
Mrs. Welsh lived in a large frame house standing on the edge of a bank, and as the young men waited at the door they could look down on the meadow-land, where the river lay blue and hard as steel.
A pale little girl, ten or twelve years of age, opened the door.
"Is this where Mrs. Welsh lives?"
"Yes, sir."
"Will you ask her to come here a moment?"
"Yes, sir," piped the little one. "Won't you come in and sit down by the fire?" she added, with a quaint air of hospitality.
The room was the usual village sitting-room. A cylinder heater full of wood stood at one side of it. A rag carpet, much faded, covered the floor. The paper on the wall was like striped candy, and the chairs were nondescript; but everything was clean—worn more with brushing than with use.
A slim woman of fifty, with hollow eyes and a patient smile, came in, wiping her hands on her apron.
"How d'ye do? Did you want to see me?"
"Yes," said Hartley, smiling. "The fact is, we're book agents, and looking for a place to board."
"Well—a—I—yes, I keep boarders."
"I was sent here by a brakeman on the midnight express," put in Bert,
"Oh, Tom," said the woman, her face clearing. "Tom's always sending us people. Why, yes; I've got room for you, I guess—this room here." She pushed open a folding door leading into what had been her parlor.
"You can have this."
"And the price?"
"Four dollars."
"Eight dollars f'r the two of us. All right; we'll be with you a week or two if we have luck."
Mrs. Welsh smiled. "Excuse me, won't you? I've got to be at my baking; make y'rselves at home."
Bert remarked how much she looked like his own mother in the back. She had the same tired droop in the shoulders, the same colorless dress, characterless with much washing.
"Certainly. I feel at home already," replied Bert. "Now, Jim," he said, after she left the room, "I'm going t' stay right here while you go and order our trunks around—just t' pay you off f'r last night."
"All right," said Hartley cheerily, going out.
After getting warm, Bert returned to the sitting-room, and sat down at the parlor organ and played a gospel hymn or two from the Moody and Sankey hymnal. He was in the midst of the chorus of Let Your Lower Lights, etc., when a young woman entered the room. She had a whisk-broom in her hand, and stood a picture of gentle surprise. Bert wheeled about on his stool.
"I thought it was Stella," she began.
"I'm a book agent," Bert explained. "I might as well out with it.
There are two of us. Come here to board."
"Oh!" said the girl, with some relief. She was very fair and very slight, almost frail. Her eyes were of the sunniest blue, her face pale and somewhat thin, but her lips showed scarlet, and her teeth were fine. Bert liked her and smiled.
"A book agent is the next thing to a burglar, I know; but still—"
"Oh, I didn't mean that, but I was surprised. When did you come?"
"Just a few moments ago. Am I in your way?" he inquired, with elaborate solicitude.
"Oh no! Please go on. You play very well. It is seldom young men play at all."
"I had to at college; the other fellows all wanted to sing. You play, of course."
"When I have time." She sighed. There was a weary droop in her voice; she seemed aware of it, and said more brightly:
"You mean Madison, I suppose?"
"Yes; I'm in my second year."
"I went there two years. Then I had to quit and come home to help mother."
"Did you? That's why I'm out here on this infernal book business—to get money to go on with."
She looked at him with interest now, noticing his fine eyes and waving brown hair.
"It's dreadful, isn't it? But you've got a hope to go back. I haven't." She ended with a sigh, a far-off expression in her eyes. "It almost killed me to give it up. I don't s'pose I'd know any of the scholars you know. Even the teachers are not the same. Oh, yes—Sarah Shaw; I think she's back for the normal course."
"Oh yes!" exclaimed Bert, "I know Sarah. We boarded on the same street; used t' go home together after class. An awful nice girl, too."
"She's a worker. She teaches school. I can't do that, for mother needs me at home." There was another pause, broken by the little girl, who called:
"Maud, mamma wants you."
Maud rose and went out, with a tired smile on her face that emphasized her resemblance to her mother. Bert couldn't forget that smile, and he was still thinking about the girl, and what her life must be, when Hartley came in.
"By jinks! It's snifty, as dad used to say. You can't draw a long breath through your nostrils without freezing y'r nose solid as a bottle," he announced, throwing off his coat. "By-the-way, I've just found out why you was so anxious to get into this house. Another case o' girl, hey?"
Bert blushed; he couldn't help it, notwithstanding his innocence in this case. "I didn't know it myself till about ten minutes ago," he protested.
Hartley winked prodigiously.
"Don't tell me! Is she pretty?"
The girl returned at this moment with an armful of wood.
"Let me put it in," cried Hartley, springing up. "Excuse me. My name is Hartley, book agent: Blaine's Twenty Years, plain cloth, sprinkled edges, three dollars; half calf, three fifty. This is my friend Mr. Lohr, of Marion; German extraction, soph at the university."
The girl bowed and smiled, and pushed by him toward the door of the parlor. Hartley followed her in, and Bert could hear them rattling away at the stove.
"Won't you sit down and play for us?" asked Hartley, after they returned to the sitting-room. The persuasive music of the book agent was in his fine voice.
"Oh no! It's nearly dinner-time, and I must help about the table."
"Now make yourselves at home," said Mrs. Welsh, appearing at the door leading to the kitchen; "if you want anything, just let me know."
"All right. We will," replied Hartley.
By the time the dinner-bell rang they were feeling at home in their new quarters. At the table they met the usual group of village boarders: the Brann brothers, newsdealers; old man Troutt, who ran the livery-stable—and smelled of it; and a small, dark, and wizened woman who kept the millinery store. The others, who came in late, were clerks in the stores near by.
Maud served the dinner, while Stella and her mother waited upon the table. Albert admired the hands of the girl, which no amount of work could quite rob of their essential shapeliness. She was not more than twenty, he decided, but she looked older, so wistful was her face.
"They's one thing ag'in' yeh," Troutt, the liveryman, remarked to Hartley: "we've jest been worked for one o' the goldingedest schemes you ever see! 'Bout six munce ago s'm' fellers come all through here claimin' t' be after information about the county and the leadin' citizens; wanted t' write a history, an' wanted all the pitchers of the leading men, old settlers, an' so on. You paid ten dollars, an' you had a book an' your pitcher in it."
"I know the scheme," grinned Hartley.
"Wal, sir, I s'pose them fellers roped in every man in this town. I don't s'pose they got out with a cent less'n one thousand dollars. An' when the book come—wal!" Here he stopped to roar. "I don't s'pose you ever see a madder lot o' men in your life. In the first place, they got the names and the pitchers mixed so that I was Judge Ricker, an' Judge Ricker was ol' man Daggett. Didn't the judge swear—oh, it was awful!"
"I should say so."
"An the pitchers that wa'n't mixed was so goldinged black you couldn't tell 'em from niggers. You know how kind o' lily-livered Lawyer Ransom is? Wal, he looked like ol' black Joe; he was the maddest man of the hull bi'lin'. He throwed the book in the fire, and tromped around like a blind bull."
"It wasn't a success, I take it, then. Why, I should 'a' thought they'd 'a' nabbed the fellows."
"Not much! They was too keen for that. They didn't deliver the books theirselves; they hired Dick Bascom to do it f'r them. 'Course, Dick wa'n't t' blame."
"No; I never tried it before," Albert was saying to Maud, at their end of the table. "Hartley offered me a job, and as I needed money, I came. I don't know what he's going to do with me, now I'm here."
Albert did not go out after dinner with Hartley; it was too cold. He had brought his books with him, planning to keep up with his class, if possible, and was deep in "Cæsar" when a timid knock came upon the door.
"Come!" he called, student fashion,
Maud entered, her face aglow.
"How natural that sounds!" she said.
Albert sprang up to take the wood from her arms. "I wish you'd let me do that," he said, pleadingly, as she refused his aid.
"I wasn't sure you were in. Were you reading?"
"Cæsar," he replied, holding up the book. "I am conditioned on Latin. I'm going over the 'Commentaries' again."
"I thought I knew the book," she laughed.
"You read Latin?"
"Yes, a little—Vergil."
"Maybe you can help me out on these oratia obliqua. They bother me yet. I hate these 'Cæsar saids.' I like Vergil better."
She stood at his shoulder while he pointed out the knotty passage. She read it easily, and he thanked her. It was amazing how well acquainted they felt after this.
The wind roared outside in the bare maples, and the fire boomed in its pent place within, but these young people had forgotten time and place. The girl sank into a chair almost unconsciously as they talked of Madison—a great city to them—of the Capitol building, of the splendid campus, of the lakes, and the gay sailing there in summer and ice-boating in winter.
"Oh, it makes me homesick!" cried the girl, with a deep sigh. "It was the happiest, sunniest time of all my life. Oh, those walks and talks! Those recitations in the dear, chalky old rooms! Oh, how I would like to go back over that hollow door-stone again!"
She broke off, with tears in her eyes, and he was obliged to cough two or three times before he could break the silence.
"I know just how you feel. The first spring when I went back on the farm it seemed as if I couldn't stand it. I thought I'd go crazy. The days seemed forty-eight hours long. It was so lonesome, and so dreary on rainy days! But of course I expected to go back; that's what kept me up. I don't think I could have stood it if I hadn't had hope."
"I've given it up now," she said, plaintively; "it's no use hoping."
"Why don't you teach?" he asked, deeply affected by her voice and manner.
"I did teach here for a year, but I couldn't endure the strain; I
'm not very strong, and the boys were so rude. If I could teach in a seminary—teach Latin and English—I should be happy, I think. But I can't leave mother now."
She was a wholly different girl in Albert's eyes as she said this. Her cheap dress, her check apron, could not hide the pure intellectual flame of her spirit. Her large, blue eyes were deep with thought, and the pale face, lighted by the glow of the fire, was as lovely as a rose. Almost before he knew it, he was telling her of his life.
"I don't see how I endured it as long as I did," he went on. "It was nothing but work, work, and dust or mud the whole year round; farm-life, especially on a dairy farm, is slavery."
"Yes," she agreed, "that is true. Father was a carpenter, and I've always lived here; but we have people who are farmers, and I know how it is with them."
"Why, when I think of it now it makes me crawl! To think of getting up in the morning before daylight, and going out to the barn to do chores, to get ready to go into the field to work! Working, wasting y'r life on dirt. Waiting and tending on cows seven hundred times a year. Goin' round and round in a circle, and never getting out. You needn't talk to me of the poetry of a farmer's life."
"It's just the same for us women," she corroborated. "Think of us going around the house day after day, and doing just the same things over an' over, year after year! That's the whole of most women's lives. Dishwashing almost drives me crazy."
"I know it," said Albert; "but somebody has t' do it. And if a fellow's folks are workin' hard, why, of course he can't lay around and study. They're not to blame. I don't know that anybody's to blame."
"I don't suppose anybody is, but it makes me sad to see mother going around as she does, day after day. She won't let me do as much as I would." The girl looked at her slender hands. "You see, I'm not very strong. It makes my heart ache to see her going around in that quiet, patient way; she's so good."
"I know, I know! I've felt just like that about my mother and father, too."
There was a long pause, full of deep feeling, and then the girl continued in a low, hesitating voice:
"Mother's had an awful hard time since father died. We had to go to keeping boarders, which was hard—very hard for mother." The boy felt a sympathetic lump in his throat as the girl went on again: "But she doesn't complain, and she didn't want me to come home from school; but of course I couldn't do anything else."
Other Main-Travelled Roads Page 11