Sterling North

“ Peter Brailsford, from the way he was mooning around, was certainly in love, probably with Maxine Larabee.
Unlike Temperance, Old Mrs. Crandall had no desire to reform mankind. She liked to hum popular music and feel the vibration. She enjoyed love-making, fights, and all the other delightful and rowdy actions of mortals. She lay in a world of almost complete silence, looking out wistfully at the young people going by, and the blowing autumn leaves; feeling the wind pushing against the house. ”

“ 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 peat [181] which 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. ”

“ The creek at Busseyville, meandering through its wide valley, looked so inviting that Stud drove his car in among the willows, kicked through a meadow of deep grass and dusty milkweed bloom on which the big, brown butterflies were gathered, and came at last to the deep hole at the bend where he had often gone swimming as a boy.
There was not a farm woman in sight, so Stud stripped, took a running dive, and sported in the cool, clear water. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Oh, she was a beautiful girl. Such big, clear blue eyes, such shining blond hair ... like, like a regular gold crown on her head. Her skin was as soft as ... as the petal of a flower, and she had the littlest feet.
He wasn't worthy of her. He wasn't even worthy to touch the hem of her garments. He, a big awkward farm boy without any manners. He wished he could give himself a good poke in the jaw for not saying right away, "Why, of course, Maxine. I would be delighted to give you a ride on my motorcycle." ”

“ Vern Barton, Ole Oleson and Dutchy Bloom were carrying water from the stock tanks. Sarah and Gus were leading out the cows.
The big flames ran in sheets up the curving walls of the wooden silo, burst like a volcano through the peaked roof, cracked and thundered like a kettle drum in the half-empty cylinder. The resinous siding of the barn burned like a fire of pine knots, kindling the hand-hewn oak and hickory timbers cut from the forest with axe and adz fifty years before.
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Cows bawled. Pigeons and sparrows shot out like flaming rockets and fell into the fields. ”

“ Stud said.
"You don't appreciate a woman until you've lost her," Halleck said quietly.
"No," said Stud, "I don't suppose you do."
"You're apt to take her for granted."
"Sarah's happy," Stanley said. "We get along all right."
"It isn't just getting along all right," the lawyer said, gazing down upon the street where small boys jubilant with spring were fighting, roller-skating, and playing marbles; little girls skipping rope, and chalking squares for sky-blue. "It's treating a woman like another human being. Like an individual." ”

“ He had a Poland China boar, a Jersey bull, and a Percheron stallion which were the talk of the countryside. He had cornfed sows which looked like minor blimps wallowing in his pig yards and scratching their ample backs against mail-order scratching posts which turned like screws twisting sinuous curls of soothing grease upward to salve the noble porcine flanks; soft-eyed Jersey cows whose pedigrees compared favorably with that of any reigning monarch; Shetland ponies, Shropshire sheep, and a small herd of goats. ”

“ Far overhead they could hear the honk of the wild geese flying south and the whistle of wings cutting the air.
They stood for a long time at the gate of the Larabee home whose windows gleamed invitingly. A smell of wood-smoke came from the chimney of the fireplace. The wind stirred in the trees.
"Well, ain't you going to kiss me goodnight," Maxine pouted, putting up her lips.
He thought she couldn't have said it. Nothing so wonderful could happen to a country boy. He hesitated, looking down at her loveliness, her lips a trifle apart, her eyes closed, waiting. ”

“ It would be good to get on one end of a cross-cut saw again, to make Gus cry out for mercy as they sliced through three feet of oak. His big muscles yearned for the sixteen pound mall he used for driving wedges, a sledge which [158] made the average man pant like a one-cylinder gas engine, but which was a plaything for Stud.
At night he came in tired, soaked with sweat, but almost happy. Sarah noticed and was glad.
Fall, with the red of sumac and of hard maple, the leathery brown of hickory leaves, and the pale yellow of elm was upon the land. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He would invent an "equalizer" to take the "whip" out of the action between car and trailer. He would make a half a million dollars and would live in a large house on Shannon's Hill with Maxine Larabee and their many children.
The day began to brighten all about him as he dreamed. The farmers and their wives looked more kindly, the girls more handsome and the men more noble. By the time Peter had reached the Brailsford Junction National Bank he was noticing how blue the sky seemed overhead, how bright the leaves, how keen the wood-smoke in the air. ”

“ 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 leapt [200] to 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Stud asked the bright-eyed girl, whose ripe young breasts under her middy rose and fell with her breathing, and whose well-turned ankles under her sailor skirt were a treat to the eye.
"I've been wanting all my life to see Chicago," Early Ann said. "I never seen a tall building, or rich ladies riding in limousines, or the silver dollars in the Palmer House floor. I never seen Irene Castle dance, or heard Grand Opera, or had people wait on me like they do in a hotel."
"Yes, Early Ann, I know, I know," said Sarah, earnestly. "You got a right to have one good time like that in your life. ”

“ 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." ”

“ But to Peter Brailsford, impatient with his youth; torn with fear of God, of hell, and of sex; romantic, inexperienced, wistful; anxious to get ahead in the world, yet essentially unworldly; intolerant, rebellious, headstrong; filled with hatreds, jealousies, and a morbid interest in death; saddled with concepts of duty, patriotism, and courage which were fatal to millions of his generation; big, clumsy, lovable; obsessed with the idea that he was only a country boy; almost as supersensitive as Sarah and nearly as lusty as Stud ”

“ The huge shadows cast by the men sprang up the walls and fell noiselessly. And Peter, surefooted as a cat among the beams, was jousting with shadows while he worked. Would he come back to the farm if this ten day layoff were extended, or would he catch a train for Chicago? Where would he forget Maxine the more easily? Where would he find happiness again?
On this night of fog, smelling of oak woods, of thawing earth and maple sap; surrounded by men he had known since childhood; watching his father moving gigantically in lantern light, he [241] wrestled with his problems. ”

“ Sarah hurried off to the ice house to fetch the half freezer of homemade ice cream left from supper, and with it a bowl of sugared strawberries. The game over, Early Ann went in for soup bowls and table-spoons. And together on the lawn, under stars so large, soft, and near they seemed almost to be caught in the upper branches of the oak tree, they ate such a dish for the gods as one may never find in these later years in distant cities.
The frogs began in the marshes along the lake. The crickets shrilled. ”

“ Early Ann taunted. Swinging the mallet menacingly she dashed behind the lilac bushes and out again, encircled the mail box and the big oak tree, and, laughing and screeching came to grips with Peter on an open strip of lawn. He tried to wrench the mallet from her hands and was surprised at her strength. ”

“ CHAPTER III 1 The basement of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Brailsford Junction rang with the shouts of children playing tag despite the scolding of their busy mothers. Flushed matrons buzzed in laden down with loaves of homemade bread, pans of biscuits ready for the oven, mason jars full of sweet, sour, and mixed pickles, bags of ground coffee, and huge pots of dressed and dismembered chickens so tender and plump that their flesh would have warranted the term "voluptuous" if stewed by a less austere generation. ”

“ Why, Temperance Crandall! Whatever are you thinking of? the good woman asked herself while showing the man to his room. Why not tell Mother? Evil woman! Nasty woman! She bustled about the parlor flicking the dust from the gilded cat-tails, ferocious crayon portraits of her ancestors, and the model of the Washington Monument made of ground-up paper money.
But if Temperance had any idea she could deceive her mother she was rudely disillusioned the next morning when she took toast and poor-man's tea to the invalid.
"Temperance," shouted the old lady. "You've got a man in the house." ”

“ The work was thrown completely upon the shoulders of Early Ann. Stud would have been blind not to have noticed how well she bore up under this burden and how gladly she cared for Sarah. The girl could cook as fine a meal as he had ever tasted, and be as gay and fresh after hours over the cook stove as when she came clicking down the stairs with the chamber pots at four in the morning.
She never asked Stud to kill chickens for her. She went to the chicken house herself, chased down a pair of plump friers, and chopped off their heads without more ado. ”

“ You're just running around like a couple of strange new dogs. You ain't curious."
"It ain't nice for a girl to talk the way you talk," said Gus. "It ain't proper for a girl to talk about dogs like that."
"I wasn't talking about dogs, I was talking about you," Early Ann said.
"Don't you ever want to be a lady, Early Ann? Don't you ever want to ride in a hansom cab or a limousine, with ostrich plumes in your hat, and a parasol? Don't you ever want to learn how to be sweet and talk nice like Sarah Brailsford?" ”

“ He was away from the farm at last, had freedom, a job, and a room in town. His third weekly paycheck of twenty-two dollars and fifty cents was in his pocket. He had a girl who some day might give him a kiss, and a dapper little employer, Mike O'Casey, whom he admired beyond all power of expression.
Still he was miserable.
The very eminence of O'Casey was deflating to Peter. How could a country lout with big feet and clumsy red hands ever hope to reach such pinnacles of success? ”

“ He decided that his stallion, who had recently had a touch of colic, needed more exercise, and within ten minutes had filled out an order for a skeleton road cart of sturdy design. He lingered over the new cream separators, bright red gasoline engines, ornamental fences, milk cans, lanterns, and one of the most inspiring manure spreaders which ever spread manure. The 1914 catalogue was epochal in the life of this big farmer.
When Sarah and Early Ann were given a chance to look between the covers they devoured the sections on clothes, jewelry, silverware and kitchen equipment. ”