Chapter VI

One day in spring, in the lazy, odorous hush of the afternoon, the usual number of loafers were standing on the platform, waiting for the train. The sun was going down the slope toward the hills, through a warm April haze.

"Hello!" exclaimed the man who always sees things first. "Here comes Mrs. Sanford and the ducklings."

Everybody looked.

"Ain't goin' off, is she?"

"Nope; guess not. Meet somebody, prob'ly Sanford."

"Well, somethin's up. She don't often get out o' that store."

"Le's see; he's been gone most o' the winter, hain't he?"

"Yes; went away about New-Year's."

Mrs. Sanford came past, leading a child by each hand, nodding and smiling to friends--for all seemed friends. She looked very resolute and business-like in her plain, dark dress, with a dull flame of color at the throat, while the broad hat she wore gave her face a touch of piquancy very charming. Evidently she was in excellent spirits, and laughed and chatted in quite a care-free way.

She was now an institution at the Siding. Her store had grown in proportions yearly, until it was as large and commodious as any in the town. The drummers for dry-goods all called there, and the fact that she did not sell any groceries at all did not deter the drummers for grocery houses from calling to see each time if she hadn't decided to put in a stock of groceries.

These keen-eyed young fellows had spread her fame all up and down the road. She had captured them, not by beauty, but by her pluck, candor, honesty, and by a certain fearless but reserved camaraderie. She was not afraid of them, or of anybody else, now.

The train whistled, and everybody turned to watch it as it came pushing around the bluff like a huge hound on a trail, its nose close to the ground. Among the first to alight was Sanford, in a shining new silk hat and a new suit of clothes. He was smiling gaily as he fought his way through the crowd to his wife's side. "Hello!" he shouted. "I thought I'd see you all here."

"W'y, Jim, ain't you cuttin' a swell?"

"A swell! Well, who's got a better right? A man wants to look as well as he can when he comes home to such a family."

"Hello, Jim! That plug 'll never do."

"Hello, Vance! Yes; but it's got to do. Say, you tell all the fellers that's got anything ag'inst me to come around to-morrow night to the store. I want to make some kind of a settlement."

"All right, Jim. Goin' to pay a new dividend?"

"That's what I am," he beamed, as he walked off with his wife, who was studying him sharply.

"Jim, what ails you?"

"Nothin'; I'm all right."

"But this new suit? And the hat? And the necktie?"

He laughed merrily--so merrily, in fact, that his wife looked at him the more anxiously. He appeared to be in a queer state of intoxication--a state that made him happy without impairing his faculties, however. He turned suddenly and put his lips down toward her ear. "Well, Nell, I can't hold in any longer. We've struck it!"

"Struck what?"

"Well, you see that derned fool partner o' mine got me to go into a lot o' land in the copper country. That's where all the trouble came. He got awfully let down. Well, he's had some surveyors to go up there lately and look it over, and the next thing we knew the Superior Mining Company came along an' wanted to buy it. Of course we didn't want to sell just then."

They had reached the store door, and he paused.

"We'll go right home to supper," she said. "The girls will look out for things till I get back."

They walked on together, the children laughing and playing ahead.

"Well, upshot of it is, I sold out my share to Osgood for twenty thousand dollars."

She stopped, and stared at him. "Jim--Gordon Sanford!"

"Fact! I can prove it." He patted his breast pocket mysteriously. "Ten thousand right there."

"Gracious sakes alive! How dare you carry so much money?"

"I'm mighty glad o' the chance." He grinned.

They walked on almost in silence, with only a word now and then. She seemed to be thinking deeply, and he didn't want to disturb her. It was a delicious spring hour. The snow was all gone, even under the hedges. The roads were warm and brown. The red sun was flooding the valley with a misty, rich-colored light, and against the orange and gold of the sky the hills stood in Tyrian purple. Wagons were rattling along the road. Men on the farms in the edge of the village could be heard whistling at their work. A discordant jangle of a neighboring farmer's supper-bell announced that it was time "to turn out."

Sanford was almost as gay as a lover. He seemed to be on the point of regaining his old place in his wife's respect. Somehow the possession of the package of money in his pocket seemed to make him more worthy of her, to put him more on an equality with her.

As they reached the little one-story square cottage he sat down on the porch, where the red light fell warmly, and romped with the children, while his wife went in and took off her things. She "kept a girl" now, so that the work of getting supper did not devolve entirely upon her. She came out soon to call them all to the supper-table in the little kitchen back of the sitting-room.

The children were wild with delight to have "poppa" back, and the meal was the merriest they had had for a long time. The doors and windows were open, and the spring evening air came in, laden with the sweet, suggestive smell of bare ground. The alert chuckle of an occasional robin could be heard.

Mrs. Sanford looked up from her tea. "There's one thing I don't like, Jim, and that's the way that money comes. You didn't--you didn't really earn it."

"Oh, don't worry yourself about that. That's the way things go. It's just luck."

"Well, I can't see it just that way. It seems to me just--like gambling. You win, but--but somebody else must lose."

"Oh well, look a-here; if you go to lookin' too sharp into things like that, you'll find a good 'eal of any business like gamblin'."

She said no more, but her face remained clouded. On the way down to the store they met Lincoln.

"Come down to the store, Link, and bring Joe. I want to talk with yeh."

Lincoln stared, but said, "All right." Then added, as the others walked away, "Well, that feller ain't got no cheek t' talk to me like that--more cheek 'n a gov'ment mule!"

Jim took a seat near the door, and watched his wife as she went about the store. She employed two clerks now, while she attended to the books and the cash. He thought how different she was, and he liked (and, in a way, feared) her cool, business-like manner, her self-possession, and her smileless conversation with a drummer who came in. Jim was puzzled. He didn't quite understand the peculiar effect his wife's manner had upon him.

Outside, word had passed around that Jim had got back and that something was in the wind, and the fellows began to drop in. When McPhail came in and said, "Hello!" in his hearty way, Sanford went over to his wife and said:

"Say, Nell, I can't stand this. I'm goin' to get rid o' this money right off, now!"

"Very well; just as you please."

"Gents," he began, turning his back to the counter and smiling blandly on them, one thumb in his vest pocket, "any o' you fellers got anything against the Lumber County Bank--any certificates of deposit, or notes?"

Two or three nodded, and McPhail said, humorously, slapping his pocket, "I always go loaded."

"Produce your paper, gents," continued Sanford, with a dramatic whang of a leathern wallet down into his palm. "I'm buying up all paper on the bank."

It was a superb stroke. The fellows whistled and stared and swore at one another. This was coming down on them. Link was dumb with amazement as he received sixteen hundred and fifty dollars in crisp, new bills.

"Andrew, it's your turn next." Sanford's tone was actually patronizing as he faced McPhail.

"I was jokin'. I ain't got my certificate here."

"Don't matter--don't matter. Here's fifteen hundred dollars. Just give us a receipt, and bring the certif. any time. I want to get rid o' this stuff right now."

"Say, Jim, we'd like to know jest--jest where this windfall comes from," said Vance, as he took his share.

"Comes from the copper country," was all he ever said about it.

"I don't see where he invested," Link said. "Wasn't a scratch of a pen to show that he invested anything while he was in the bank. Guess that's where our money went."

"Well, I ain't squealin'," said Vance. "I'm glad to get out of it without asking any questions. I'll tell yeh one thing, though," he added, as they stood outside the door; "we'd 'a' never smelt of our money again if it hadn't 'a' been f'r that woman in there. She'd 'a' paid it alone if Jim hadn't 'a' made this strike, whereas he never 'd 'a'--Well, all right. We're out of it."

It was one of the greatest moments of Sanford's life. He expanded in it. He was as pleasantly aware of the glances of his wife as he used to be when, as a clerk, he saw her pass and look in at the window where he sat dreaming over his ledger.

As for her, she was going over the whole situation from this new standpoint. He had been weak, he had fallen in her estimation, and yet, as he stood there, so boyish in his exultation, the father of her children, she loved him with a touch of maternal tenderness and hope, and her heart throbbed in an unconscious, swift determination to do him good. She no longer deceived herself. She was his equal--in some ways his superior. Her love had friendship in it, but less of sex, and no adoration.

As she blew out the lights, stepped out on the walk, and turned the key in the lock, he said, "Well, Nellie, you won't have to do that any more."

"No; I won't have to, but I guess I'll keep on just the same, Jim."

"Keep on? What for?"

"Well, I rather like it."

"But you don't need to--"

"I like being my own boss," she said. "I've done a lot o' figuring, Jim, these last three years, and it's kind o' broadened me, I hope. I can't go back where I was. I'm a better woman than I was before, and I hope and believe that I'm better able to be a real mother to my children."

Jim looked up at the moon filling the warm, moist air with a transfiguring light that fell in a luminous mist on the distant hills. "I know one thing, Nellie; I'm a better man than I was before, and it's all owin' to you."

His voice trembled a little, and the sympathetic tears came into her eyes. She didn't speak at once--she couldn't. At last she stopped him by a touch on the arm.

"Jim, I want a partner in my store. Let us begin again, right here. I can't say that I'll ever feel just as I did once--I don't know as it's right to. I looked up to you too much. I expected too much of you, too. Let's begin again, as equal partners." She held out her hand, as one man to another. He took it wonderingly.

"All right, Nell; I'll do it."

Then, as he put his arm around her, she held up her lips to be kissed. "And we'll be happy again--happy as we deserve, I s'pose," she said, with a smile and a sigh.

"It's almost like getting married again, Nell--for me."

As they walked off up the sidewalk in the soft moonlight, their arms were interlocked.

They loitered like a couple of lovers.

The End.

Transcriber's Notes

Welcome to Project Gutenberg's edition of Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin Garland. Garland produced several versions of this book during his life. The first was released in 1891, containing six short stories: A Branch Road, Up the Coolly, Among the Corn-Rows, The Return of a Private, Under the Lion's Paw, and Mrs. Ripley's Trip. In 1899, MacMillan released a new version of the book with three additions: The Creamery Man, A Day's Pleasure, and Uncle Ethan Ripley. The 1920 edition of the book added two more short stories: God's Ravens and A "Good Fellow's" Wife. The 1930 edition added The Fireplace and featured illustrations by Garland's wife.

The 1930 edition of Main-Travelled Roads is not in the public domain. The last version of the book in the public domain is the 1922 Border Edition, a reprint of the 1920 edition with a foreward written by the author. We used the 1922 Border Edition of the book for this transcription. A scanned version of this book is available on Hathitrust courtesy of The University of Michigan.

Page ii of this book lists other publications written by the author available through Harper & Brothers. All of those books are in the Public Domain. We appended a list of other books by the author which were not available through Harper & Brothers, yet also published before this book was printed, in a section called Other Editions. We have provided links to versions of the books available through Project Gutenberg. As of this writing, we are missing ten books written by Garland in the public domain, but we're always adding new titles!

The Introduction by William Dean Howells first appeared in the 1893 release of the book.

We used a web site on Hamlin Garland, created and maintained by professor Keith Newlin, to help compile the list of Garland's publications and the publication history of Main-Travelled Roads.

Our e-book has links at the top of each chapter, and the top of each part, designed to improve navigation. The links at the top of each chapter return the reader to the Table of Contents. The links at the top of each part send the reader to the next part. For example, if you want to reach part III of A Good-Fellow's Wife from the Table of Contents, you would click on the page number to send you to the top of the chapter. Click on part I to go to part II, then click on part II to go to part III. The link for the last part in each chapter will take you back to the beginning of the chapter.

Detailed Notes

This section contains a list of emendations to the text and decisions made in transcribing the text, as well as accompanying explanations.

For many of the short stories with several parts, the physical book used a convention of not printing I. for the first part of the story. We put those in, to give better structure to the document.

The quotes at the beginning of each chapter were not closed with a period in the physical book. We put them in the e-book, to give better results with the tools that we use to check e-books that we produce.

Foreward

On Page xiv, farm-house was hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing. There were three other occurrences of farmhouse or farmhouses without the hyphen, and no occurrences with the hyphen. We transcribed the word without the hyphen.

A Branch Road

On Page 50, grape-vine is hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing. There are three other occurrences of grapevine without the hyphen, and none with. We transcribed the word without the hyphen.

Under the Coolly

Several times in this short story, Howard was abbreviated as How. with the period. This convention was retained.

On Page 105, add to after them in the sentence He simply pushed them one side and went on with his reading.

On Page 120, barn-yard is hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing. In the same short story, barn-yard is hyphenated on Page 124 in the middle of the line. However, barnyard is spelled without the hyphen on Page 78, also in the same short story. Barnyard is spelled without a hyphen on Page 213 and on Page 249. We went with the majority and spelled barnyard without a hyphen here, which makes the item on page 124 the sole outlier.

On Page 124, barn-door is hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing. There are no other occurrences of the word in this book. We transcribed barn-door, with the hyphen, mainly because barn-yard is spelled with a hyphen on the same page.

On Page 124, horse-trough is hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing. Horse-trough also occurs on page 185 and 291, with the hyphen, so it was retained here as well.

Return of a Private

On Page 173-Page 174, we added a missing quote before but in the paragraph:

"They called that coffee Jayvy," grumbled one of them, "but it never went by the road where government Jayvy resides. I reckon I know coffee from peas."

On Page 182, remove me from Gimme me a kiss!

Under the Lion's Paw

On Page 204, some-buddy was hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing. There is no other usage of somebuddy, but anybuddy and nobuddy can be found in the same short story. Therefore, we transcribed somebuddy without the hyphen.

On Page 216, we added a closing quote following the period after rest:

"But I don't take it," said Butler, coolly. "All you've got to do is to go on jest as you've been a-doin', or give me a thousand dollars down, and a mortgage at ten per cent on the rest."

Mrs. Ripley's Trip

On Page 277, flustrated is some cross between flustered and frustrated, and given it is used in dialect, perhaps this is some midwest variation of one of the two words. Therefore, we left the following sentence as is: I guess she kind a' sort a' forgot it, bein' so flustrated, y' know.

Uncle Ethan Ripley

On Page 289, sick'-nin' is hyphenated and split between two lines for spacing. We transcribed the word without the hyphen: Nobuddy'll buy that sick'nin' stuff but an old numskull like you.

God's Raven

The convention in this story and in the next one was to spell it 'll with a space, but in the earlier short stories, the contraction was spelled it'll. We retained this inconsistency.

On Page 308, there is a triple-nested quote. The book uses a double-quote for the first quote, a single quote for the second, and a double quote for the third quote. This will cause a problem with our error-checking mechanism. We have also used a single quote for the third quote.

"I'm tired of the scramble," he kept breaking out of silence to say. "I don't blame the boys, but it's plain to me they see that my going will let them move up one. Mason cynically voiced the whole thing today: 'I can say, 'sorry to see you go, Bloom,' because your going doesn't concern me. I'm not in line of succession, but some of the other boys don't feel so. There's no divinity doth hedge an editor; nothing but law prevents the murder of those above by those below.'"