A Hallowe'en party at the Methodist Episcopal church in Brailsford Junction was a social event of the first magnitude. The Epworth Leaguers excelled Salem witch-burners in striking terror into one another's hearts and upsetting usually sturdy stomachs. They put skinned grapes in one another's hands in lieu of cats' eyes, poured thick red fluid down each other's necks after having realistically cut the jugular vein with rubber daggers, they removed boards on the dark stairs to the organ loft so that one fell ten feet into a pile of leaves in the woodshed, burned each other withred hot pokers which were in reality slivers of ice, and in general proved themselves worthy disciples of Torquemada. Unholy shrieks from belfry, organ loft, and song-book cupboard kept the girls mildly hysterical. No good young Methodist would have thought of missing the fun.
For days the entertainment committee had been decorating and ripping up the church. Half a cornfield and a wagon load of pumpkins had been transported to the basement and arranged realistically around the pillars and in the corners. Red leaves, jack-o'-lanterns, miles of orange tissue paper, black cats, witches, and tubs for apple bobbing completed the effect in the dimly lit cavern where early on Hallowe'en the young people began to gather.
Peter arrived at seven-thirty wearing a cardboard pumpkin head but otherwise uncostumed. He wanted to parade his stylish new green suit, his tie which would have enraged a bull, and his oxfords with exaggerated bows. Young Brailsford was celebrating his two-dollar-and-a-half raise at the "Trailer" where he had gained the ear of Mike O'Casey with his invention and had been promoted to the role of super office boy in charge of making blue prints for the draftsmen.
Radiating pride and self-assurance he strodeacross the room toward the knot of Epworth Leaguers in the far corner. But as he approached he felt an electric discharge of uncordiality which could mean but one thing. Bud Spillman, who was holding forth to his coterie of pretty girls and local scions, had been jeering at his expense. Peter was a farm boy and definitely an outsider.
"My, my! Ain't you stylish!" said the erstwhile football hero, dressed for the occasion in Roman toga and laurel wreath.
"Take that back or I'll give you a poke," warned Peter, forgetting that he stood on sacred ground.
"All right, hayseed. You look like you was all dressed up for greasing trailers."
"Come on out in back and I'll show you."
"You might get your new pants all dirty," said Bud.
The crowd sniggered.
"What about your nightshirt?"
"Don't get funny or I'll make you laugh out of the other side of your mouth."
"I'll give you a leave," Peter said.
"I wouldn't dirty my hands fighting a clodhopper. Go clean your cowbarns."
"What about you?" Peter said. "Your old man runs a livery stable."
"Kick in his box car," the boys shouted to Bud, "poke him in the breadbasket."
"Anybody busted in your new shoes?" Bud asked, stamping on one of Peter's toes and spitting on the crushed leather.
Unwanted tears were welling up in Peter's eyes but his voice was brave and scornful. "I dare you. I double-dare you. You yellow Brailsford Junction smart Aleck!"
Then a minor miracle occurred. Maxine Larabee squealed, "Punch him in the nose, Peter. Knock his block off."
That was all the encouragement Peter needed. Dumbfounded but deliriously happy and filled with a soul-satisfying desire to beat Bud Spillman to a pulp he waded into the big fellow while the girls scattered screeching to view the fight from piano-top or chair, and the boys formed a yelling circle about the young battlers.
"Knock him for a gool ... cave in his shanty ... kick him in the belly," advised Bud Spillman's supporters. They also suggested that he beat Peter's ears off, flatten his beezer and knock all his teeth down his throat. Forgetting the fact that they were in the presence of ladies and the Methodist Deity, these same young Christians remembered and used effectively allthe forbidden four-letter Anglo-Saxon words.
More agile than his big opponent, lighter on his feet and faster with his punches, Peter slipped in and out with sharp slashing blows which bruised and cut the big football player but did not stop him. Bud's haymakers seldom connected, but when they did they carried the weight of a pile driver behind them.
They clinched, broke apart, flayed the air, drew a little blood, maneuvered about the basement knocking over shocks of corn and stumbling on pumpkins. Bud began to tire while Peter was still as fresh as a daisy. This change in probabilities did not go unnoticed by the ringside who one by one shifted their loyalties to the farm boy. Maxine in particular was cheering for Peter. Now they were all engrossed in telling their new hero just how to mutilate the winded Spillman.
Peter was slipping through the guard of the big fellow time after time. He gave him a final clip to the chin followed by a clout which sent Bud spinning and by accident landed him squarely in a tub filled with water for apple bobbing....
"Boys, boys! In the House of God?" cried the Reverend Mr. Tooton, who had entered at that moment. "Is that Christian? Is that the way Jesus teaches us to treat one another?"
"He started it," blubbered Bud Spillman who was struggling to get out of the icy water.
"Yes, and I finished it," said Peter. He walked over to where the Bully stood crestfallen and dripping, and added in an undertone, "Any more funny stuff at the 'Trailer' and I'll give you a real licking."
"I'm your friend," said Bud. "I always was your friend."
With the ice very thoroughly broken, and everyone at his hilarious ease, the fun began. Peter, a somewhat disheveled but happy ringleader, promoted charades, Blind Man's Bluff, Drop the Handkerchief, Skip-Come-a-Lou, and a version of the Virginia Reel which included elements of the Tango and the Bunny Hug. They splashed and shrieked while bobbing for apples, giggled as they stole kisses in the Den of Horrors and behind the piano, sang at the top of their lungs while playing Four in a Boat and Going to Jerusalem, and ended a perfectly wonderful evening with pumpkin pie and coffee.
Bud Spillman left early.
And that night, for the second time in their lives, Peter and Maxine walked together under the bright autumn stars. They watched, with the superior amusement of teen-age individuals theHallowe'en antics of the younger hellions who were taking out a year's grievances on Old Man Ottoson who always spoiled the ice on his hill by spreading ashes, Aunt Nellie Fitch who was stingy with her apples, and Grandpa Green who had once peppered with rock salt a boy who was stealing one of his watermelons. It was only tit for tat if the kids now ripped up their board sidewalks, pulled down their gates, and tipped over their backhouses.
Peter lent a hand hoisting a particularly obstreperous billy goat onto the porch roof of Old Lady Perkins' general store, then, with his girl on his arm, strolled leisurely to the Tobacco City Ice Cream Parlor, where beneath pink and green lights reflected in gilt-framed mirrors they lingered long over a concoction known as "Lover's Delight" while the nickel-in-the-slot piano played "Everybody's Doing It."
Feeling deliciously extravagant, he bought her a three pound box of bon bons adorned with large red roses, and they made their way through the crisp cold to Maxine's home on the hill where the girl discovered with joy that her parents were not yet home from their evening of bridge in Janesville, wherefore Peter must come in for a cup of hot cocoa.
Unbelievable delight! To be invited into her house. To be near her, allowed to touch her, and perhaps even to kiss her if he chose.
The very air seemed different in the house where his love ate and slept and bathed and dressed. He was sure that never before had he seen anything so exquisite as the sofa pillows she had made out of cigarette flags, or the pictures she had burned on wood.
She had a little alcove off the sitting room which was all her own hung with school pennants and drawings of the Charles Dana Gibson variety. She had a cupboard full of bon bon boxes, dance programs, comic postcards inscribed with "Oh, You Girl!" and a whole album of snapshots.
Peter was awed. He had never before seen an alcohol burner nor a chafing dish. He watched the glowing girl as she prepared cocoa and Welsh rarebit, was delighted with every movement she made and every word she spoke.
"I got a raise," Peter said. "I'm a draftsman's assistant now. Mike O'Casey says he might build one of my camp trailers when I get it designed."
"Gee, could I meet Mr. O'Casey sometime?" Maxine asked.
"Well, gosh, Maxine. I dunno. That's pretty hard to arrange."
"Oh, all right, smarty. You think he's too good for a little girl like me."
"But, darling...." He could have bitten his tongue for having said a thing like that. Calling her "darling"! Who did he think he was? She stood perfectly still, waiting.
"You're an awful pretty girl," he said at last. He watched her as she turned to the chafing dish again. Her movements were deft and very feminine.
"I ... I wish you would let me kiss you like you said that night."
"Why not?" said Maxine. She turned up her face for the first kiss Peter had given a girl in his life.
To Peter the world was non-existent for that moment. Maxine broke away to keep the cocoa from boiling over.
Afterwards she turned out the lights and they sat on the sofa looking out into the starlight. They could see across the creek and across mysterious miles of frozen brown marshland beyond the town to where lights twinkled in distant farmhouses. She put his hand down the neck of her dress and he was surprised and almost frightened by the soft delicacy of her breasts.
"Well," said Maxine from the depths of herpillows. "Are you just going to sit there all night?"
She put her arms around him and kissed him again and again. She drew him down toward her and he found himself strangely wishing to be free.
"No, no, Maxine," he said humbly. "I couldn't. Why, Maxine, you're just an angel to me. I never even thought of you like that."
Throughout the rest of her days Temperance Crandall measured time as before or after 1913. Often in later Novembers when the leaves hurried across her lawn and the hickory nuts tumbled down from the shagbark hickory she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
It was of little interest to her that Mrs. Sean McGinty died of cancer of the uterus after bearing thirteen children in eighteen years, or that Father O'Malley in laying her away spoke of her as an outstanding example of motherhood. She scarcely bothered to learn the details of the scandalous conduct of the Reverend Charles MacArthur of the Congregational church who had been caught in a compromising situation with his soprano soloist, thus confirming the worst suspicionsof the Methodists. And although Gerty MacDougal, 18, entered the bonds of holy matrimony with Cornelius Vandenheim, 82, just in time to inherit a Civil War pension for life, Temperance all but forgot to pass on the information to Sister Dickenson.
For Temperance Crandall was discovering that when tragedy and scandal touch one's own household the salt has lost its savor.
In the first place her mother was definitely sinking. Doctor Whitehead doubted that the old heart could stand the strain of another winter. Secondly Temperance's own Peter Brailsford was being seen so often with that wanton hussy Maxine Larabee that Temperance could have wept. Now, as she waited for Peter to come to breakfast, the harsh whisper of calloused fingers on hard knuckles filled the room.
Peter Brailsford, awaking from a sound sleep, was instantly aware that this was no usual day. He jumped out of bed with a shout, threw his flannel nightgown into a corner, dashed half a pitcher of icy water into the wash bowl, and with chattering teeth sponged his warm skin with a washcloth and rubbed dry with a rough towel. He danced around on his toes throwing a flurry of effective punches into some large, tough adversary,burst into a baritone solo which suddenly went soprano, pulled on long scratchy underwear, corduroy trousers, stiff cowhide boots, and a rough woolen shirt and hurried to the kitchen.
"Um! Pancakes!"
"Put on plenty of butter and mmaple syrup," said Temperance. "I ain't going to let any boy starve under my roof."
It was a bright, cold Saturday morning. Peter had begged the day off. Now he ran shouting with exuberance to join the crowd gathered on the Library steps. Maxine, the English teacher for chaperon, and nearly a dozen others were headed for Lake Koshkonong and a day in the woods.
They piled into an ancient Ford three deep and several on the running boards, chugged and steamed up hills and through valleys bright with maple and sumac until at last they came to Charley's Bluff where they unloaded and built a fire of driftwood on the beach between huge granite boulders. They raced, wrestled and shot at targets with a twenty-two, buried each other in the leaves and shook down hickory nuts.
At noon they gathered about the fire to roast wieners on sticks and to drink black coffee.
All went well until the couples paired off andMaxine decided to sing songs to the accompaniment of Thomas Carlyle's five-string banjo. Who did that half-witted son of a horse-doctor think he was, Peter wondered. They were making outrageous love, Peter thought. Starting off with such comparatively innocuous ditties as "Moonlight Bay" and "You're a Great Big Blue-Eyed Baby," they were soon harmonizing on "Cuddle Up a Little Closer, Lovey Mine," and "Every Little Movement Has a Meaning All Its Own." Peter began to wonder what sort of a girl Maxine was.
Then he was remorseful.
He was ashamed that he had let himself question Maxine's character. Certainly she had never let another boy kiss her or touch her breasts. She was sitting beside Thomas Carlyle singing songs because he had a banjo; but very soon now she would come over to Peter and they would wander off together. He mustn't let himself be jealous like this. Peter didn't think that he could trust himself if he should find that Maxine was in any way unfaithful. He thought that he would kill her and then himself, and that people would find them locked in each other's arms.
He would write a verse for their commongravestone which would be inscribed beneath twin turtle doves on pure white marble.
He told himself that he was talking nonsense, that no boy should keep his girl from singing songs and flirting a little. But he lay among the leaves, looking up at the sky and brooding over the loss of this precious day which was to mean so much to them. He had intended to ask her to marry him and had thought out just what he was going to say. He had intended to tell her that first love like theirs was always true love, and how their marriage wouldn't turn out like so many marriages. Their life together was going to be different.
He had envisioned the whole scene over and over. They would be cozily sitting in deep leaves in some protected ravine with nothing but the trees and sky to hear what they were saying. He would pour out his heart, and she would listen with rapt attention and turn up her lips for kisses.
He would tell her of his progress at the factory, and of the house they would have on Shannon's hill. They would talk about their children, and about life together after they were married. It was to have been an idyllic day.And now, a gaunt, freckle-faced, banjo-strumming young fool had spoiled it all. Peter felt like going over and pushing the boy in the face and picking up Maxine as he might a child and carrying her away. It would be easy to do. She was as light as a feather and always tripped along as though she were made of thistle down. Her flesh was like thistle down too. It made his head whirr to think of her soft flesh.
Always, always something came between Peter and happiness. He had been brooding and miserable for as long as he could remember, with only now and then a moment of intense happiness to repay him for his misery.
All his life he had worried about good and evil, about God and hell, about his features, his clothes, what people were thinking of him, and whether he would ever amount to anything. And now that he was in love he was experiencing a deeper and more exquisite misery than he could have imagined possible.
Maxine! Maxine!
But here she came at last, all radiant and smiling, her cheeks as red as apples. His heart leapt up in a moment and all his doubts left him. They walked along the beach, skipped stones on the thin ice and on the open stretches of water, dug a bird's nest out of the high, black banks of peatwhich skirt the beach to the south of Charley's Bluff. They discovered a little stream and followed its course back through the willows to a clearing where they explored a deserted cabin and a barn still filled with timothy and clover. From the wide door of the loft they could see across the lake to Lake House Point and to the Brailsford farm with its bright red barns and to the great cottonwood tree on Cottonwood Hill.
"You see that big tree," Peter said. "Not a man in the country can climb it, not even my father. But I'm going to climb it some day."
"Uh huh," said Maxine comfortably.
"I'm going to do lots of things in my life. Great things. I'm learning a heap about draftsmanship at the Trailer factory. I'm almost finished with my blue prints for that camp trailer. Maybe some day when I get to be famous...."
"Don't talk shop," Maxine said.
"Well, what shall we talk about?"
"Don't let's talk, beautiful boy."
She stopped his mouth with kisses and unashamed gave him his first lesson in love.
As was usual in Brailsford Junction death came before the doctor. Temperance was alone in the house when her mother died. She went up thestairs at six o'clock bringing the old lady a bite of supper and found her breathing heavily and rather chilled. She tried to reach Doctor Whitehead by telephone, but no one answered at the house or the office. She called out the upstairs window to a passing boy and told him to look for the doctor in front of the pool hall, then turned back to the stricken woman who opened her eyes once and smiled at Temperance feebly.
Temperance thought that the poor old thing was humming a hymn but when she leaned closer she realized that it was "Daisy Bell," a great favorite of her mother's. Thinking about it later she realized that her mother had never been what Brailsford Junction usually termed a Christian.
Even before the death rattle began, the thin face turned blue and the small hands clutching the counterpane were as cold as ice.
Temperance did not break down until she had pulled the sheet up over the face of the dead. Then a great flood of loneliness and grief came over her and she ran down the street in her house dress with her hair stringing out behind. Hardly knowing what she was doing she hurried up the stairs leading to the offices of Timothy Halleck and incidentally to the fly-blown waiting-room of Doctor Whitehead.
Brailsford Junction's leading physician was hanging up his prevaricating gilt placard, "Back in Half an Hour."
"Well, well, I was just heading for your home," he said. "I hope it ain't anything serious. How is your mother?"
"As well as could be expected with you on the case," cried Temperance, bitterly. "She died fifteen minutes ago."
"Now ain't that too bad," said Doctor Whitehead, squirting a stream of tobacco juice into a convenient corner. "I suppose you'll want a death certificate, eh?"
Temperance burst in upon Timothy Halleck who during that day had met a delegation of indignant mothers complaining about the oldest son of Crazy Jack Bailey, a young wife whose drunken husband beat her up every Saturday night with the stove poker, and the president of the bank who threatened to cut off his credit if he cancelled his mortgage against the Widow Morrison. For once his patience was tried beyond endurance.
"No, Miss Crandall, this time I will not listen to your gossip. I've heard all that I can stand for one day. Why can't you leave people alone? Let them live their lives and you liveyours. For twenty years I've been wanting to tell you that you're a meddlesome, tale-bearing.... There, there now. Don't cry, Temperance. I realize I was a bit thoughtless. Why ... why, what is it?"
"I didn't know who else to tell," Temperance said, hiding her face in her hands. "Mother's dead, Timothy."
Temperance Crandall was to remember to her dying day that Timothy Halleck came around the desk and put his arm across her shoulders and told her that he would take care of the funeral arrangements.
The eastbound train had gone shrieking through Brailsford Junction pulled by two engines to buck the drifts. Bundles of Madison papers were tossed from the baggage car as the train passed, and the engineer had waved at Nat Cumlien, the station master.
Now in a corner of the station half a dozen rosy-faced young rascals fought and laughed as they stuffed their paper sacks.
"Wish I had about ten kids," thought Stud, watching the boys while waiting for the long over-due four-thirty-nine from Chicago. "Six or eight sons and a batch of girls."
He sighed as he looked out at the unexpected November blizzard. The telephone wires sang a high monotonous tune. Snow drifted in rippled waves over the tracks and the cinder piles beyond. The station windows rattled in the forty mile gale and the telegraph instrument kept up its incessant, monotonous tattoo.
"Gol darn! There never was nothing in my life I wanted like a lot of youngsters. Big strapping boys to help me with the cows and crops. Good looking girls to help Sarah."
He spat reflectively at the roaring stove, shifted his position on the bench.
"Peter's a good boy, and he certainly ran that thrashing machine slicker than a greased pig. But now he's figuring on spending all his mortal days in a trailer factory."
He couldn't make the boy out, always mooning around and sighing. Not mean nor hard to handle, but with a head full of silly ideas. Maybe all he needed was to sow his wild oats.
Peter'd make a good enough farmer if he'd put his mind to it. He was smart enough, and strong enough, and a real good worker. But Stud doubted that he would ever see the boy back on the farm again.
He wished he had a dozen big sons, strapping fellows who could handle a quarter section at sixteen. He wished it were as easy to get human young ones as it was calves, colts and lambs.
Why, if a mare didn't foal you tried another mare. If a cow didn't calve you turned her into beef steak. And any stallion, bull or ramcould serve half a hundred females of his species.
"Wish I had a harem," thought Stud; "I'd get me all the children a man could want. We've got enough victuals to feed about forty on that farm. I'd breed 'em big and feed 'em plenty. It'd be a sight for sore eyes to see my litter."
Stud was awaiting Early Ann's train from the big city. She would be getting off the cars any time now all rosy and fresh and pert with her tongue running away with her and her feet fairly dancing. Young, healthy, and going to waste. What was the matter with young fellows these days, didn't they know a good thing when they saw it? Early Ann was just what Stud needed around the farm: a good little filly that'd make a good mare.
"Shoot, such a way to talk," thought Stud, spitting at the glowing stove. "Can't breed humans like you breed cattle. Got to think about marriage vows and morality and all that sort of business."
Nevertheless the thought stayed with him,—how he was getting along in his forties and how he wanted more boys. Often that winter he would stop work in the snowy fields where he was husking corn to look out across the frozen lake and sigh.
"Four-thirty-nine'll be another half hour late," said Nat Cumlien, coming out of his cage to throw half a hod of soft coal into the stove. "Got some big drifts down near Janesville."
"Four-thirty-nine ain't been on time in ten years, drifts or no drifts," said Stud.
"Well, I do my best," said Nat.
He went out onto the platform and changed the lantern, threw a couple of bundles of hides and some milk cans onto the truck, came in blowing on his fingers and brushing off the snow.
"Whew, that'd freeze the ears off a brass monkey," said Nat. He retired to his cage and his game of solitaire.
After an eternity the big headlight cut through the snow and the muffled whistle shook the windows. Stud hurried out to the platform as the train wheezed in and ground to a stop. Early Ann jumped off, laughing and squealing. He carried her baggage to the cutter and they streaked home through the storm to the accompaniment of jingling sleigh-bells and creaking snow beneath the polished runners. Deeply covered with robes and sharing each other's warmth, they shouted to each other above the storm.
It was good to be home again, good to be turning in at the Brailsford gate with the windowsof the farmhouse shining on the snow. Stud hurried off to unhitch while Gus helped Early Ann with her bundles.
Sarah stood on the back stoop shivering and wiping her hands on her apron.
"Welcome home, Early Ann," she cried.
"Here I am safe and sound, Mrs. Brailsford. I had a wonderful time."
"Did you see the stock yards?" Gus wanted to know. "Or Sears, Roebuck's?"
"It'll take a year to tell all I saw," said Early Ann. She went into the warm, lamp-lit kitchen fragrant with the smells of pie and coffee and roasting meat. They had a surprise for Early Ann. Gus had caught a raccoon in one of his traps. They were having a raccoon supper with sweet potatoes and corn bread.
"Hope it tastes as good as it smells," said Early Ann. "Here, Mrs. Brailsford, let me help with everything."
"Change your dress first, child."
Throughout supper she regaled them with the wonders of Chicago: the room she had had six stories above the street with electric lights and a brass bed, and a private bathroom with hot and cold running water. She had lived like a queen. She had slept until eight o'clock every morning,and once she had taken her breakfast in bed.
"And you should see the limousines and street cars, and boats on the river! They got bridges that lift up, and buildings five times as tall as the windmill," said Early Ann.
"Did you see the Board of Trade?" Stud wanted to know.
"No I didn't," the girl admitted, "but I saw a woman smoking a cigarette, and couples doing the tango on a glass dance floor. It was lovely the way they served food, with white napkins and pretty glass and silver."
"I'm so glad you went," Sarah said. "It'll be something to think about until the day you die."
"Such pretty dresses in the stores," said Early Ann. "I sure do wish you could have been along, Mrs. Brailsford. I bought myself a new corset and.... Oh, I shouldn't."
"Don't mind me," said Gus.
"There was a big parade for Emmeline Pankhurst who came all the way from London to talk about woman suffrage, and I was as close as across this room from her. She looked like a fighter all right."
"She's a criminal," said Gus, "she oughta be hanged."
"She's a great leader and a fine woman," said Sarah, quietly. "They'll treat her like a real saint before she dies."
"And everybody was all aflutter about General Booth coming to town, and I went to a drama called 'Lead, Kindly Light.' It was awful uplifting."
When she couldn't think of another thing to tell them, Early Ann brought some packages to the table.
"This is for you, Mrs. Brailsford."
Sarah opened the pretty box with trembling fingers, saying, "You shouldn't have done it, Early Ann. I don't deserve a thing." And when she found silk stockings in the box she started to cry.
"Why, I never had a pair of silk stockings in my life," she said.
"I'll have to watch you, now you got silk stockings," said Stud. "You'll be running off with Vern Barton or somebody the first thing I know."
Sarah looked through the silk at the lamp and rubbed the smooth stuff against her cheek. She kept them treasured in her bureau drawer, but never wore them to the day she died.
The present Early Ann had bought for Gus was a set of arm garters and matching green tie.The hired man grinned like a Cheshire cat when he opened the box.
Stud was given a magnificent, fancy white vest of imported bird's-eye weave with detachable pearl buttons.
"Never seen anything so classy in all my born days," said Stud, slipping into the vest. He put his watch in the watch pocket, draped his gold log-chain across his middle, and paraded in front of the kitchen mirror, holding up the lamp to get the full effect.
"That's mighty nice of you, girl," said Stud. "I reckon I ought to kiss you for that."
"Stanley," said Sarah, in laughing disapproval, "I reckon you better not."
Early Ann said she would keep Peter's present until she saw him. Meanwhile she had one more gift for the entire family. She unwrapped a small stereopticon on which she had squandered seven dollars. Sarah put up a sheet at one end of the kitchen, while Early Ann lighted the coal-oil lamp in the little black box and blew out all the other lights in the room. There in the warm, dark kitchen they spent two magic hours. Over and over again they called for "Rock of Ages," "Niagara Falls," "The Statue of Liberty," "The Sinking of the Maine" and "The WashingtonMonument." Altogether there were twenty-four slides in full color.
"Next time you go to Chicago you got to take me," said Gus, pouring Early Ann another mug of cider.
It was not until Early Ann saw Peter, and gave him the gold watch she had bought him, that she told the other side of her trip to Chicago.
"I was scared half the time and so lonesome. I felt like coming home on the first train. I didn't know a single soul and the city was so big and noisy. You don't catch me going to Chicago all alone again."
"And I'll bet you spent all your money," Peter growled accusingly.
"I got two hundred and three dollars left," said Early Ann, averting her eyes. "I feel kind of wicked when I think how I've squandered ninety-seven dollars. But I ain't going to spend one more cent until the day I'm married. I've got to have something left to help set up housekeeping."
"Who you going to marry?" Peter asked.
"Oh, I got a fellow," lied Early Ann. She wanted to egg him on, and she was a trifle disappointed at the casual way in which he had taken it.
One windy November afternoon when Stud and Gus were cutting firewood in the grove beside the lake, Stud looked across the bay and was surprised to see smoke streaming from the chimney of the old hunting lodge on Lake House Point. The blizzard, which had flung ten-foot waves against the crumbling cliff, had stripped the leaves from oak and elm and maple, sent them in cascades down every ravine and gully, left the old building naked to the eye.
"Looks like we got a neighbor," said Stud.
"Better not monkey with my mushrat traps."
"What'd you do?"
"Pepper his behind with rock salt from the old ten gauge."
"You talk big," Stud admitted. "Why don't you mosey over and see who it is?"
"Not me," said Gus. "It ain't healthy."
Stud grinned. He knew that Gus would rather sleep in a cemetery or break a looking-glass than set foot on Lake House Point.
Long ago the limestone bluff had been the stronghold of Indians. Later a small colony of Mormons, hated alike for their polygamy and their horse-thieving, had made the Point theirhide-away until chased from the country by the indignant settlers. In the eighties a club of rich Chicago duck hunters had put up the present lodge where shortly before the turn of the century a bloody murder had occurred. No one went near the lodge now. The porches were drifted deep with leaves, the old boathouse was strewn in whitened planks the length of the beach. The bluff was overgrown with sumac, ivy and grapevines. Scrub oak extended from the edge of the cliff to the marsh behind the Point.
Old women, children and hired hands believed implicitly that ghosts could be seen at the broken windows of the lodge and in the rotting halls and paneled rooms. Stud scoffed at all these old-wives' tales, but admitted he would rather live on his own side of the bay than on that bluff with its unpleasant memories.
"Might be that feller," suggested Gus.
"The one prowling around here nights?"
"Might be."
"Might be, but probably ain't."
Possibly Gus was right. Stud had an uneasy feeling that a man by the name of Joe Valentine was living in the lodge, trapping perhaps, catching fish, stealing a few chickens.
Stud had heard of Joe Valentine from TimothyHalleck who in tracing Early Ann's claim to the Horicon farm had run across Joe's trail. Later Early Ann herself had admitted the existence of this stepfather, and had confessed to Stud that it was Joe who had been annoying her. She told Stud something of her early life, her days with Joe and her mother in the shack near Rockford, Illinois, her mother's death, and her flight from her stepfather.
She said she had been ashamed of Joe, of his treatment of her mother, and of his attitude towardher. She had wanted to forget the past, to live where no one would know that she was the illegitimate child of Bung Sherman, or the stepdaughter of Joe Valentine.
Stud thought of Joe as more of a nuisance than a menace. Nevertheless he was determined to investigate his new neighbor on Lake House Point.
Other matters intervened. Ulysses S. Grant had acquired a taste for chicken, and almost every unlucky fowl who got into his pen was caught by the wily boar and eaten alive. Stud had to put chicken wire outside the planks of the boar's pen to save Sarah's flock from destruction.
Then there was the problem of Peter and Maxine Larabee. Stud was of the opinion that theboy would never be a man until he learned the facts of life first-hand, but Sarah was worrying herself into another nervous breakdown. Stud made a futile trip to town. Peter was belligerent and uncommunicative. Stud was outwardly bellicose but secretly sympathetic. The net result was a widened breach between father and son, although Stanley led Sarah to believe that he had put some sense into the boy's head.
Brailsford had momentarily forgotten his plan to investigate the old hunting lodge when one morning—the day before Thanksgiving—he found a man setting a trap at the end of a hollow log just out of sight of the house over the crest of Cottonwood Hill.
"Trying to catch one of my 'coons?" Stud asked amiably.
The man whirled to face him, his hand on his sheath knife.
"Nothing to fight about," said Stud. "What's your name?"
"Joe Valentine."
"You ain't the fellow who's moved in over on the Point?"
"That's my business," said Joe.
"I'll make it my business. You been prowling around here quite a bit lately."
"I got a right to catch my living," said Joe. Every night he looked across the bay at the glowing windows of the Brailsford farm, thought of his stepdaughter over there, all the good things to eat. "I got a right," he said.
"I got a right to run you off my land."
"You ain't got a right to Early Ann."
"Get off my place before I get mad," Stud said. He had his womenfolks and cattle to think about.
Joe whipped out his knife and prepared to spring. Like sticking a pig, he thought. Like the time his father killed his kitten with a butcher knife. He had buried the cat and put flowers on its grave. After a few days he dug it up to see if it had gone to heaven.
Joe leapt. Stud sidestepped, put out his foot. Joe tripped, fell into the bushes, turned a complete somersault and was up again, knife in hand.
"You're going to hurt yourself with that knife," Stud said. "We don't fight with knives in these parts."
Stud never gouged or bunted, but he could see that anything went with Joe Valentine.
Joe sprang again. His knife slashed empty air. Simultaneously something like a sledge hammerhit him behind the ear. He staggered, whirled.
More careful now, the men feinted, maneuvered, circled for advantage.
Joe doubled over as though caught with pain. Stud rushed. Joe tossed a handful of snow and fine gravel into Stud's eyes. Half-blinded, Stud leapt back. He felt the knife rip into his right shoulder and the blood wet his shirt. Bright blood sprinkled the dirty snow.
Now Stud was fighting in earnest. As Joe came on, Stud aimed a kick at the knife arm, missed, fell. Joe tried to hamstring the fallen giant, was lifted bodily into the air by a great backward kick.
They were up again, feinting and charging. Stud grabbed the knife arm in a clinch, held it as in a vise, slugged with his other fist Joe's head and body. Joe brought up his knee. Sickness swept over Stud in a great wave.
They were rolling on the ground now, panting and straining, tearing up the bloody snow and gravel. Stud caught Joe's arm in a hammer-lock. Joe screamed in pain, dropped his knife. Stud grabbed for a full Nelson, and Joe slipped out of his grasp like a snake.
Stud kicked the knife out of reach as they leaptto their feet. They slugged, sweat and panted. Two men on a hilltop overlooking the world. Murder in their hearts.
Joe was quicker and more slippery, a tricky boxer, fast with rabbit punches, kidney punches, jabs below the belt. Stud had the power of a bull, was tireless and able to take almost limitless punishment. He sent haymakers crashing to Joe's lantern jaw, heart, and solar plexus. His shoulder was throbbing, but he battled on.
Joe made a crying sound through his torn lips. Suddenly he was afraid. He turned and ran down the hill through the hazel brush, sobbing, breathless.
Stud did not follow. He watched Joe Valentine bee-lining for Lake House Point. Slowly he doubled his right arm and felt the huge bicep.
"That's the last we'll see of Joe Valentine," he told the giant cottonwood. He chuckled as he strode back toward the house.
With silos full, full haymows, bins of grain; with sheds loaded to the last beam with tobacco; with the farm shipshape and bright with new paint they faced the coming winter.
The provision cellar was loaded with earthenwarecrocks of pickles, sauerkraut and preserves; glasses of jelly; mason jars of cherries, applesauce, plums, pears, raspberries, and strawberries.
The smokehouse reeked of ham and pleasant hickory smoke from morning until night. Hams hung in the cellar beside the slabs of bacon, and the small white ears of popcorn. In a dry bin with a wooden floor were hickory nuts and walnuts by the bushel with a few pecks of butternuts and hazel nuts to furnish variety.
Apple cider in brown jugs, wild grape juice in tight bottles, with just a gallon or two of blackberry cordial in case of sickness lined the lower shelf of the can cupboard. There were bins of sand for carrots, beets and celery. Pie pumpkins in one corner, hubbard squashes in another.
And although Stanley Brailsford longed for more children, wished that Sarah could have better health, and mourned the rift which was slowly arising between himself and Peter, he had much to be thankful for as he said the blessing over his Thanksgiving dinner.
Above all he thanked God most devoutly that he was the strongest man in Southern Wisconsin and could provide for and protect his womenfolks and cattle.
"Stop the team a minute," Peter told Gus. He looked down upon the white-roofed house and barns, the frozen creek, strawstacks like giant mushrooms capped with white, the drifted hedgerows interlaced with rabbit tracks, Lake Koshkonong like a floor of green glass surrounded by its gnarled forests of black, leafless oaks.
"What's the matter?" Gus asked. "Had a fight with your girl?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"Don't trust no woman farther'n you could throw a horse," counseled the hired man.
"I told her that if she went off to her Grandmother's in Madison over Christmas she could stay away for good."
"And so she went!"
"How'd you know?"
"Any woman would."
"Damn her," said Peter. "No, I don't mean that." He wondered why he was confiding in Gus. No one else to confide in, really.
"Just act like she doesn't exist," said Gus. "Go ahead and have a good time without her. She'll come crawling back on her belly."
"You don't know this girl."
"Maybe not this one," Gus admitted, "but they're all cats out of the same litter."
* * *
"You home, boy?" Stud asked.
Early Ann helped Peter off with his coat and chucked him under the chin.
"Trailer factory's shut down, Dad. They're losing money."
"Shut down for good?"
"Start up again the first of the year more'n likely."
"What'd you do if the 'Trailer' shut down for good?"
"Don't know, Father."
"Might you come back to the farm?"
"I might," said the boy, averting his eyes.
Four days until Christmas. The house was already decorated with holly and red bells. There were frost flowers on the window panes and the base burner glowed brightly. His mother was sitting before the stove in her favorite rocker piecing a quilt.
"There's lots of rabbits this year," Sarah said. She thought: I don't want him to kill rabbits. I hate trapping, hunting, and slaughtering. It made me sick the time I saw Stanley castrating the little boars.
"I'll have a good time, Mother," Peter said. He thought: why shouldn't I have a good time. Maxine probably lets half the boys in Brailsford Junction kiss her.
"We haven't had a good rabbit stew all season," Sarah said. She thought: I used to tell him stories about every piece in the quilt. What dress it came from and where I wore it. This piece is out of the brown silk I took along on my honeymoon. I wore it that night we rowed out on Lake Mendota and saw the dome of the capitol at Madison shining in the moonlight. I wonder if Stanley remembers.
"That's a pretty quilt," Peter said. He thought: she used to tell me stories about the pieces she was sewing. I wish she would again.
"See, it's a flower design," she said. She thought: he's grown up now. He wouldn't want to listen.
"I got the drawings for my camp trailer done, Ma," he said. He thought: I'll do something great for Mother when I'm rich.
"I'm sure Mr. O'Casey will build one," she said. She thought: then he'll be gone forever.
"I'm not so sure," Peter said. He thought: if the "Trailer" shuts down I'll probably have to come back to the farm and be glad of the chance.
Sarah thought: I want to know every little thing about his life—how he gets on at the factory, how Temperance Crandall takes care of him, whether he smokes or drinks, whether he's a good boy and goes to church, or whether he hangs around the pool hall. I want to know about Maxine Larabee. But I don't dare ask. It would frighten him still farther away.
The needle clicked against the thimble. The silk rustled in Sarah's hands. Coal crackled in the stove and the wind whispered at the corners of the house. After a while the smell of roasting chicken drifted in from the kitchen.
"You're getting to be a big boy," she said. She thought: I wanted him to stay little forever. I wanted to keep him close to me, but he's grown so far away.
"I'm more than six feet," the boy said. He thought: it's beautiful with Maxine. I can't get along without her any more. I'm a man now and know all there is to know about women.
Sarah was startled looking into his face. She thought: why, he isn't my little boy. He's a stranger.
That night at supper—chicken, dressing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, hot mince pie and coffee—Stud waved a drumstick while orating just what he would do if Joe Valentine came across the Brailsford line again.
Still grasping the drumstick he assumed a fighting pose which would have startled John L. Sullivan, the strong boy from Boston.
"I can't sleep nights for thinking of that terrible man," Sarah confessed.
"Why don't we chase him off the Point?" Peter asked.
"Or have the law on him?" suggested Gus.
"I'll shoot him if I ever get a chance," Early Ann cried passionately.
"Leave him to me," Stud told the rest of the family. "He ain't harmful. He's got a right to live the same as we have. We ain't going to shoot him or have the law on him, or run him off the Point. But if he comes across our line again I'll give him a real licking."
"Give him a couple of extra punches for me,"said Early Ann. "I wish I was a man. I'll bet I could lick him."
"And meanwhile," said Stud, "it's almost Christmas day. We'll have to take him some victuals for his Christmas dinner,—something for the Olesons and the Widow Morrison, too. We'll do it tonight."
"Drive over to Lake House Point at night?" Gus asked in dismay.
"Scared cat," taunted Early Ann.
"I wasn't thinking of myself," said Gus, "I was just worrying about the womenfolks."
Early Ann tittered.
After supper they put on sheepskin coats and mufflers, filled a bob-sleigh with pecks of potatoes, bags of apples, three small picnic hams, and some canned fruit. They sat in the deep straw covered with fur robes and went gayly down the road to the tumble-down Oleson shack.
"They're Svenskies," said Stud, "but they're better neighbors than some civilized people." He poked Gus in the ribs to emphasize the taunt.
"I'd rather be a Scandihoovian than a gol darn beef-eating Englishman," sniffed Gus.
It made Sarah sad to see how grateful Hilda Oleson was for the presents. Ole Oleson was sullen as usual.
"Ay t'ink next yar Ay vill gif you sometink to eat, ya?" He puffed vigorously at his corncob, and continued to carve his ship model.
The rosy Hilda, all aflutter, began to apologize for the state of her house which was as spotless as a new pan. She led them in on tiptoe to see young Ole, who would be a year old in a few months now. He lay with his small, plump arms thrown above his head, his lips working busily as he dreamed of Hilda's breast. The lamp light made a halo of his blond fuzz, shone upon his pink cheeks and his long eyelashes. The soft spot on his head beat rhythmically with his pulse. He stirred, made a lusty sucking noise with his mouth, opened his big blue eyes, and began to cry for his evening nursing.
Sarah, as always in the presence of a baby, mourned her age. Stud was frankly envious; Gus, embarrassed.
"It seems like yesterday you were this size," Sarah told the discomfited Peter.
Hilda put the baby in Sarah's arms, and he began to nuzzle at her shrunken breasts. Quick tears sprang to her eyes.
"Ve yoost love little Ole," Hilda whispered to Sarah as they returned to the other room. "Ay t'ink anudder kom pretty soon."
Ole senior brightened, seeing the Brailsfords gathered around his son. He helped his wife to serve coffee cake and coffee, and when the visitors were leaving forced them to take a beautiful little full-rigged ship with a Norse figurehead at its prow. They had never seen such exquisite carving. He followed them to the door, and called after them, "Tack sa mycket ... thanks, thanks."
They were only a few minutes at the Widow Morrison's, then went jingling through the snowy moonlight down the all but overgrown road to Lake House Point. They crossed the corduroy stretch bordered by leafless willow trees and climbed the rutted, precipitous lane which rose through scrub oak and hazel brush to the old hunting lodge. As they reached the kitchen door the light went out, and although Stud went boldly in and called Joe Valentine no one answered. They unloaded the food and carried it into the dark kitchen, then turned the horses toward home and went plunging down the hill,—sparks flying from the sharp-shod hooves.
One evening they went hunting rabbits in the moonlight to test out the new shotgun which Temperance had given Peter as a pre-dated Christmas present, and the next night all theyoung folks for miles gathered for a bob-sleigh party.
Coming home at three in the morning through a white, silent world Early Ann rested her head on Peter's shoulder. The moon was going down in the west throwing long shadows from fenceposts and trees. The tired horses walked slowly, blowing steam from their frosty nostrils. Peter slipped his arm around Early Ann and she did not take it away. He kissed her as they turned in at the farm and she returned the kiss.
But he was happy that next morning she made no allusions to their love-making. Instead she challenged him to a skating race and they battled eagerly across the bay with the wind stinging their cheeks and their skates ringing.
On Christmas Eve the whole family helped to decorate the Christmas tree. They pinned their socks and stockings to the branches and each in turn played surreptitious Santa Claus. Such rare luxuries as oranges and English walnuts were stuffed into bags of red netting, and these in turn were shoved into the foot of each stocking. A very few inexpensive but thoughtful gifts were wrapped in tissue paper and tied with silver ribbons.Stud had the worst of it, trying to tie pretty bow knots with his large, blunt fingers.
They gathered about the organ and sang Christmas carols while Sarah played. Beginning with such semi-frivolous songs as "Jingle Bells" and "Deck the Halls with Wreaths of Holly," they progressed to the more moving hymns such as "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," and "Silent Night, Holy Night." Sarah's sweet soprano, Stud's deep bass, Early Ann's husky alto, and Peter's clear baritone joined to praise the Mother and Child who one thousand nine hundred and thirteen years before had occupied a manger in Bethlehem.
On that same Christmas Eve, Joe Whalen and Kate Barton who had been respectively pumping and playing the Methodist pipe organ since their late teens decided to elope to Janesville. Kate had finally induced Joe to take the temperance pledge, but he felt that a quart of rye was imperative to celebrate his coming nuptials.
Temperance Crandall lit the candle in her front window. She could hear the children singing at the church, but she did not cross the street to attend the cantata. After a while she blew out the candle, stoked the fire, went up the cold, dark stairs to her bed.
On a Pullman sleeper roaring toward New York, Mike O'Casey awoke from a fretful sleep, pulled up the blind, and found he was in Cleveland. Christmas carollers were making an ungodly racket on the station platform. He made obscene remarks about the whole idea of Christmas as well as the fool notion of attempting to run a trailer factory in Brailsford Junction. His friend O'Hallohan, the New York banker, would have to sign his note for fifty thousand dollars, or he would tell Tammany what he knew about O'Hallohan.
To the tune of the "Junkman Rag" Maxine Larabee was dancing the night away in Madison, Wisconsin, with a Beta from the University of Wisconsin who would presently know the last word on legumes, rotation of crops, and soil analysis. She was very sleepy the next morning when her wealthy grandmother came into her bedroom crying "Merry Christmas."
From the windows where he sat brooding Joe Valentine could see the Brailsford home ablaze with Christmas. A plan began to take form in his slow mind. If Stud Brailsford thought that he could buy him with a few groceries he was badly mistaken. Joe never forgot. He hadn't forgotten that nigger who had knifed him inRockford, Illinois. Some black woman was probably still hunting for that shine.
And Stud Brailsford—when the others were in bed—went out with his lantern to take a last look at the barns. The ponies drowsed in their box stalls, the big bull's eyes glowed in the lantern light. Stud stopped to pet the stallion and the twin Percheron colts. One of those twins would some day make a great sire.
He noticed that the stars were very large and bright above his barn that night.
BOOK FOUR
During 1913 the Palace of Peace at The Hague was dedicated. War and cholera swept the Balkans. The munition works prospered as Germany and France greatly increased their standing armies. Irish Home Rule agitators and militant suffragettes made life miserable for British statesmen. Forty million American church-goers gave four hundred million dollars to religious organizations. American junkers and the oil interests wanted armed intervention in Mexico. Pavlowa in a syndicated newspaper feature taught America the tango and other popular steps, while Aunt Prudence in her advice to the lovelorn sternly counseled "Anxious" against kissing any man but the one she intended to marry....
But to Peter Brailsford, enamored of woman, a trifle uncertain of his newly attained maturity, six feet tall, his muscles swelling toward the gigantic proportions of his father's, his chest deepening,and his mind exploring ever more distant horizons....
To this big healthy product of Southern Wisconsin the year's-end meant but one thing. He was invited to supper and a New Year's Eve celebration at Maxine Larabee's home, and he was determined to create the right impression in the household of Brailsford Junction's leading attorney.
There was little doubt that he was correctly attired, his table manners would pass muster—though he must remember not to tuck his napkin in his vest—and he had learned by rote what he was going to say when he spoke to Attorney Larabee about marrying Maxine.
Nevertheless the big fellow trembled as he was admitted into the magnificence of the Larabee home with its golden-oak mission furniture, its wilton carpets and its beaded portieres. Mrs. Larabee descended upon him plump, pink, and gushing. Maxine laughed musically as she gave him her hand, but Attorney Larabee merely grunted a hello from behind his paper and rolled his cigar into the other corner of his mouth.
Peter felt depressed.
Despite Maxine's rendition (at her mother's request) of "Too Much Mustard," and "I've Gota Pain in My Sawdust," with other instrumental and vocal numbers. Despite comic postcards showing vegetables the size of freight cars, Fords no larger than insects, and the romantic series by Harrison Fisher entitled "Six Periods in a Girl's Life." Despite such notable diversions as a Chinese puzzle and a set of views showing the Grand Cañon in its actual colors—
Peter felt depressed.
Supper was served at last. After the blessing, soup was ladled from a tureen embossed with lilacs into soup bowls of the same design. And with the soup came the deluge:
"I understand you want to marry my daughter," boomed Mr. Larabee.
"Well, yes, sir," Peter admitted, looking into the green, viscous liquid in his bowl and feeling ill.
"Are you prepared to support her in the manner to which...."
"Now, Charles," said Mrs. Larabee, "you were as poor as a church mouse when you asked me."
"Mother!" said the stern head of the house, "I will take care of this."
Mrs. Larabee slipped back into the soft and matronly sea of pink chiffon from which she had momentarily arisen.
"I suppose you realize," said Attorney Larabee, "that Maxine comes from one of Brailsford Junction's first families...."
"They named the town after a Brailsford," blurted Peter. "My dad's the biggest stock breeder in Rock County. And I've got the best chance in the world to be a great inventor or something.... And, well, anyhow I love her," he finished weakly.
"Hmmm, hmmm," said Mr. Larabee. "I shall have to think about it."
Fuming, and scarcely touching his supper, Peter managed somehow to last out the eternity between soup and pie. He wished violently that he might forget for a moment that Mr. Larabee was Maxine's father so that he could give him the beating he so richly deserved. He wondered how it was possible that anyone so delightful as Maxine could be the daughter of such a conceited, bigoted old thundercloud as Attorney Larabee and his addle-pated wife.
At last the meal was over. Mrs. Larabee was remorseful, but announced that she and Mr. Larabee could not stay for the young folks' party. They could scarcely turn down the Billings who had invited them over for the evening.
Peter waited until the old folks were gone,then with rapidly beating heart went up the stairs and slipped into Maxine's bedroom where the girl was dressing for the party.
She was in bloomers and silk shirt and was pulling on her stockings.
"Go away, Peter," she said. "No, no ... I can't."
He sat on the edge of the bed watching her moodily as she dressed and primped before the mirror. She could turn his heart inside out with the least gesture of her lovely hands. The way she threw back her curls as she combed her hair, the way she tilted her chin as she looked at herself in the mirror! He was mad about her, and she was as cool as a cucumber.
It had been in this very room that they had been together that night. They had lain, listening to the wind scattering the leaves in a shower across the roof; hearing the distant clop, clop of horses' hooves. They had almost been caught when the Larabee automobile had turned in at the drive half an hour previous to their expectations. Peter had slipped out a side door not a minute too soon. He had been tying his tie when he was a block down the street.
"I guess you're getting tired of me," Peter said with a lump in his throat. "I guess you'll bemaking love to some other fellow one of these days."
"How dare you, Peter Brailsford!" she cried, taking the hairpins out of her mouth and turning to glare at him. "Suggesting that it might be any boy like that. What kind of a girl do you think I am?"
"I'm beginning to wonder," Peter admitted, shocked at his frankness.
"Don't be tiresome," said the pretty girl, giving a final pat to her hair. "Do you think anybody will notice if I don't wear a corset? I simply loathe corsets."
"I suppose I am tiresome," said Peter, gloomily.
"Oh, shush!" said Maxine. "I asked you a question."
"Wear whatever you please," Peter said.
"Why, Peter Brailsford," cried Maxine. "You're simply horrid. Now do be a good boy and help me with these hooks and eyes. I never can get them by myself."