Grace Hartwell graduated at Hillsdale College in 18—, and settled as an assistant teacher in the Union school on College Hill, living with her mother across the narrow river near by, where she would pass the old homestead of Richard Baker, son of a well-to-do farmer adjoining the village, and who early became interested in the fair young teacher.
Grace was a full brunette, of fairer complexion than is common to her school of beauty.
She was beautiful, with well rounded arms, heavy black hair, rosy lips, white hands, eyes of marked expression—eyes that stood out full, and shone in striking contrasts, the black portionand the white being clear and sharply defined.
Grace was no less a beauty than a dreamer, and longed for the kind of change that best suits a girl of her quick, passionate, and impulsive nature—a marriage.
Richard was below the medium size, with very light hair, of slim figure, reticent of speech, shy and bashful, especially so in the presence of Grace, whom he met at parties, donations, and college receptions, so frequent and amusing in their lively village.
Both went too long a distance for their dinner to make the trip agreeable, and both often carried their daily lunches in little baskets for convenience.
On their homeward trips they met occasionally, bowed, passed the time of day, chatted of the last night’s party. It was growing so much of a custom with Richard to meet these road-sideappointments, self-made, and well timed to match his lonely companion, that they soon became a matter of each day’s history.
Grace was willing to listen, Richard was anxious to turn aside from his regular pathway and go round a square to bear her company.
They were in love without romance, and against both the belief and expectation of all their associates.
She was the prize of the village; he was neither well-off nor popular, but plain and unhandsome. He was not her only suitor, but the first had taken some pique at her attentions to a stranger in the village, that offended the haughty admirer of her beauty, and each was claimant for her entire devotion.
Miss Hartwell’s father was a tall black-eyed Virginian, warm-blooded, swarthy, and impulsive, and liked not the manner of his daughter’s new friendship.
He put his foot down with emphasis. He insisted on obedience. He wanted position, old family, wealth and social standing, or no marriage.
Grace could not always govern her scholars, but herself she was determined to control.
Herein both father and daughter were much alike.
Time passed; attachment increased by opposition. Such is more often the way of lovers separated; but these were not wholly separated.
At the death of Richard’s stepfather a division of the estate netted a round three thousand to the young farmer, who had done nearly all the farm work lately, and now started on an early Northwestern visit to the wheat-growing regions, resolved on a test of climate, comparison of prices, and general outlook for an investment. He bought early and largely in prairie lands of finest quality. He struggled, prospered, and grew well-to-do as a farmer.
And what became of Grace, the teacher? Lettersto and from Dakota, neatly written, choicely worded, and carefully punctuated, from one side; hurried notes, badly composed, from the other. The mind is never quite full of two subjects at once, and the surest cure for heartache is active employment and earnest work.
The increasing cares of farming, the magnitude of the business, the constant desire for money (for the seed-time of farming is in its early stages), were a source of daily anxiety to Richard. “My poor Richard” was not a common name for a heading to Grace’s letters; truly she had found a fit name for her absent lover; a lover of land and of cattle, a lover of acres and of reapers, a lover of fences and shade-trees, and a growing Northwesterner; but poor, indeed, in actual happiness.
They were married; Grace removed to her rude quarters and furnished them by taste, skill, and refinement. She took to her new home allthe delicacy of rare machine-work, neat stitching, and tidy ornaments of her Eastern education; the sewing of many odd hours of industry.
It seemed like an endless harvest, a long busy day, a strife and a struggle, in a wilderness of bleak broad fields at great distance from market. They raised vast crops, but sold at low prices.
The panic of ’73, and the cold winter following, made not a very happy honeymoon to both, but they endured it all, risked all in a fond large hope of abundant future riches. In a land of no railroads (it’s changed now; it’s as much more brilliant to-day as an electric light compared with the light of a common candle), Dakota was then rather a dreary country.
Sometimes, it is true, there would come over Grace a feeling of lonesome homesickness. It comes to a far-away settler many times in a lifetime; but she would choke it under, andresolve to be a brave wife and a worthy companion.
Ten years have rolled by, and times are better; both are older, worn a little by climate, larger, changed.
On the way to the National Park I chanced past their village one evening on the great Pacific Railroad, and mentioned “Hillsdale” incidentally.
I saw a woman turn half-way round and look towards me, but went on unmindful of the situation. Suddenly her companion arose and asked me if I said Hillsdale, to which I assented, and then a vacant seat was made and both came back and questioned me. They were strange people, truly.
He a stout-built, long-bearded man, half gray, with buffalo overcoat, fur cap and mittens on; she well wrapped in beaver; both Western-looking in every particular.
“You spoke of Hillsdale, sir,” began the woman; “and we lived there once, and feel curious to know if you would not remain all night with us. We have a farm near by next station. I hope you will consent to spend the night with us;” clearly the woman was the social leader.
There was a pleading in the look, a frank expression that said, Please do, and I consented.
Two miles, a drive by a cold open sleigh-ride—cold is hardly strong enough to mark the term,—and we found a low unpainted farm-house, plastered below, with chamber-floor for ceiling overhead, and rudely formed walls; a house of three rooms, mainly in two; a farm of six thousand acres, five teams, three tenant-houses, wagons and sleighs and farming-tools without stint, but comfort nowhere.
After breakfast the farmer fed his flocks and attended to his general chores, while I stayed inand chatted by a sickly pretence of fire made of bad coal and green kindling-wood. I had seen, each time as he came in, how gently he handled his little pet dogs, that seemed their only children, how deeply absorbed he was in farm and stock, and how anxious he was I should see the ranch, but how little he noticed his superior companion.
“Where are your children?” I ventured to inquire.
“They are all three yonder in the field,” she said, and I knew they all slept in narrow houses there. This seemed to let loose the flood that held her feelings since the night before. “But for my husband,” she added, “I should go home ere this. He promised me to go as soon as the road was built; but then it costs so much, we keep on putting off from year to year. But I am longing so much to go! And when I heard that word Hillsdale last night, it filled me so full of home I could not contain myself. I hope youwere not offended; but it seemed if some one would come and talk to me, my life would all be new again! It is so blank, so bleak, so cold and desolate, and I am heart hungry.” The tears came fast, and filled her large dark eyes and softened down her voice to tones of confidence. With eagerness she spoke of care, and work and trouble, sorrow and neglect; for, in his greed of gain, he had forgotten her as year by year rolled on, and both were growing older fast, and he not heeding it,—living on in his farm, reapers, sheep and crops; his heart was full of such, and had no room for her, no room for life.
“And you have been out here for fifteen years?” I said. “How many years in that long time have you really lived?”
“Lived!” said Grace—for this was Grace and Richard, as you must know ere this—“lived!” she replied;—“in work and trouble a long lifeindeed; in happiness, not one year yet. We have been waiting every year for that good time to come when we would find our happiness; we have not found it yet. The more he gets, the more he wants. Land means care, and taxes, and hired men, anxiety of crops, and overwork.
“I had rather liveone yearback by the old farm school-house, when I carried my dinner to my school, and had a loving group of faces looking into my eyes each noon, and loving me, than own all our acres and be here a dozen years.
“Life is not all in years to me! I have learned that lesson dearly, learned it living where we see so little of real life that memory is all the hope I have.”
“Starving amid plenty is cruelty,” I said. “Sell half and live while you may. You are wasting your whole lives in a fruitless hunt for happiness.”
I have since learned that my visit was a revolutionand reform, and that they are living better.
And I thought, as I turned to the States and cast a long sad look at the lonely form in the doorway, and one at the bundle of robes beside me, who was driving me to the land of daily enjoyment, if their children had grown up and lived in such a place, where would have been their hope? In land and horses! Where their company? The company of flocks and cattle. The hope of sometime finding more congenial quarters. I turned in sadness, saying inwardly, “God pity the land-poor farmers, and pity their wives, and show them the lives they are leading!”