LITMIR.BIZ

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that might jeopardize his whole life, topple over the structure that decades of work had built. Why, it was scarcely less than suicidal to let a stranger come into his heart and maybe weaken his position. He remembered his last thought before falling asleep. It appeared unutterably rash, though when hit upon, it had been a decision that moderated a more extreme action. Now he realized that it was the very acme of foolishness deliberately to sacrifice half his fortune, especially the farm itself, to which he had given so many years of complete concentration. Certainly, if Rose were ready to be his, he might not hesitate even a second; but this flower was still to be won by him, and this morning, aware of what scant grounds he had upon which to venture any forecasts, he felt as full of doubt as he had been of confidence last night. It had been a saddening experience, but fortunate, for all that, inasmuch as nothing serious had come of it, except that he was greatly sobered. Martin could not understand that mysterious something which had risen up in his nature and threatened to wreck a carefully-built life. It was his first meeting with the little demon that rebels in a man after he thinks his character and his reactions thoroughly established, and he shuddered as he realized how close the strange imp had pulled him to the precipice. Yesterday, that precipice had seemed a new paradise; now it was a yawning chasm—and he drew back, frightened.

      Cows, horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys, dogs, barn cats—all do not remain patient while the man who owns them lies in bed dreaming dreams. They wait a while and then get nervous. The many messages for food which they sent to Martin forced him to spring out of bed and hurry to them, for nothing is as unbearably insistent as a barn and yard full of living things clamoring their determination to have something to eat. As Martin ran to stop the bedlam, he saw the world as an enormous, empty stomach, at the opening of which he stood, hurling in the feed as fast as his muscles would permit. It was all there was to farming—raising crops and then shovelling the hay and the grain into these stomachs. Martin stood back a few feet and with loving eyes watched his animals enjoy their food. Here were the creatures he loved. The fine herd of Holstein cows—their big eyes looked at him with such trust! And their black and white markings—so spick and span with shininess because he threw salt on them that each cow might lick the other clean—their heavy milk veins, great udders, and backs as straight as a die—all appealed to his sense of the beautiful. “God Almighty!” he thought, “but they’re wonders! There’s none like them west of Chicago.” The mule colts, so huge and handsome, and oh, so knowing! made him chuckle his pride and satisfaction in a muttered: “Man’s creation, are you, you fine young devils? Well, you’re a credit, the lot of you, to whoever deserves it.” His eyes wandered over the rest of his stock, swept his wide realm. It was all a very part of himself. Yes, here was his life—here was his world. It would be the height of folly to leave it.

      At breakfast, his wife ate sullenly, refusing to be drawn into the conversation, but by a wise compression of her lips and a flicker of amusement in her eyes, which seemed to say: “Oh, if only you could see how absurd you appear,” she contrived very cleverly to render Martin miserably self-conscious. Hampered by this new and unexpected feeling, his attempts to be pleasant fell flat and he lapsed into his old grimness, while Rose, eating quickly, confined her remarks to her determination to go to town in search of a job. Had Martin not talked as he had to his wife he would have been able, undoubtedly, to disregard her and to continue the line of chatter which he had hit upon so happily and which he had never suspected was in him. But the fact, not so much that she knew, but that from this vantage point of knowledge she was ridiculing him, was too much for even his self-possession. It made the light banter impossible. Especially, as there was no doubt that Rose did not seem anxious for it.

      For Martin had not been the only member of that household who had held early communion with himself. The girl had sat long and dreamily at her dressing table—the dainty one of rich, dark mahogany that Uncle Martin’s thoughtfulness had provided. It seemed unbelievable, but there was no use pretending she was mistaken—Uncle Martin, Aunt Rose’s husband, was falling in love with her. She felt a little heady with the excitement of it. He was so different from the callow youths and dapper fellows who had heretofore worshipped at her shrine. There was something so imposing, so important about him. She was conscious that a man so much older might not appeal to many girls of her age, but it so happened that he did appeal to her. She would be able to have everything she wished, too—didn’t she know how good, how kind, how tender he could be. And her heart yearned toward him—he was so clearly misunderstood, unhappy. But what about Aunt Rose? Well, then, why had she let herself get to be so ugly? She looked as if the greases of her own kitchen stove had cooked into her skin, thought the girl, mercilessly. Didn’t she know there was such a thing as a powder puff? Women like that brought their own troubles upon themselves, that’s what they did. And she was an old prude, too. Anyone could see with half an eye that she didn’t like the idea of Uncle Martin learning to dance—why, she didn’t even like his getting the Victrola—when it was just what both he and Bill had been wanting. But for all that she was her aunt, her own mother’s sister and, poor dear, she was a good soul. It would probably upset her awfully and besides, oh well, it just wasn’t right.

      Before her mirror Rose blushed furiously, quite ashamed of the light way in which she had been leading Uncle Martin on. “But I haven’t said one solitary thing auntie couldn’t have heard,” she justified herself. Oh, well, no harm had been done. But she mustn’t stay here, that was certain. She wouldn’t say so, or hurt their feelings, for she wanted to be on the best of terms with them always, but she would stop flirting with Uncle Martin and just turn him back into a dear good friend. She hoped she was clever enough to do that much. And the dark-brown curls received a brushing that left no doubt of the vigor of her decisions.

      She insisted that she go to Fallon that morning. “I’ve been here eight whole days, Uncle Martin,” she announced firmly, “eight whole days and haven’t tried to get a thing. It’s terrible, isn’t it, Aunt Rose, how lazy I am. I’m going to have Bill take me in right straight after breakfast.”

      “If you’re so set on it, I’ll see about your position this afternoon,” conceded Martin reluctantly. “We’ll drive in in the car.”

      “Oh, Uncle Martin,” she coaxed innocently, “let me try my luck alone first. Bill can tell me who the different men are and if I know he’s waiting for me outside in the buggy, it will keep me from being scared.” And her young cousin, only too pleased with the proposed arrangement, chimed in with: “That’s the stuff, Rose. Folks have got to go it on their own, to get anywhere.”

      By evening she had a position in an insurance agent’s office with wages upon which she could live with fair decency. As it had rained all day and her employer wanted her to begin the next morning, she had the best possible excuse for renting a room in Fallon and asking Bill to ride in horseback with some things which she would ask Aunt Rose, over the telephone, to pack. It rained all the next day, too, and Sunday, when she met Mrs. Wade and Bill at church, she told them she had some extra typing she had promised to do by Monday. “No, auntie, this week it is really and truly just impossible, but next week—honest and true!” she insisted as the older woman seconded rather impersonally her son’s urgent invitation to chicken and noodles.

      Soon winter was upon them in good earnest, and Rose’s visits “home,” as she always called it, were naturally infrequent. By Christmas time, she was receiving attentions from Frank Mall, Nellie’s second son, a young farmer of twenty-five.

      To Mrs. Wade’s everlasting credit, she never twitted Martin with this, although she knew it from Rose’s own lips, a month before he heard of it through Bill. She was too grateful for their narrow escape to feel vindictive and might have convinced herself they had merely endured a bad nightmare if it had not been for the shiny Victrola; the sight of it underscored the whole experience and she wished there were some way to get rid of the thing, a wish that was echoed even more fervently by Martin. In the evenings they would sit around the cleared supper table, she doing odd jobs of mending, Martin reading, checking up the interest dates on his mortgages or making entries in his account book, while Bill at his books, would study to the accompaniment of record after record, blissfully unconscious of what a thorn in the flesh he and his music were to both his parents. It was all so unpleasant. To Mrs. Wade it brought up pictures. And it made Martin feel sheepish—the way he had felt that afternoon, decades

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