III
Before supper she found, by half a dozen telephone calls,
that Fern had fled to the Minniemashie House. She hastened
there, trying not to be self-conscious about the people who
looked at her on the street. The clerk said indifferently that
he "guessed" Miss Mullins was up in Room 37, and left Carol
to find the way. She hunted along the stale-smelling corridors
with their wallpaper of cerise daisies and poison-green rosettes,
streaked in white spots from spilled water, their frayed
red and yellow matting, and rows of pine doors painted a
sickly blue. She could not find the number. In the darkness
at the end of a corridor she had to feel the aluminum figures
on the door-panels. She was startled once by a man's voice:
"Yep? Whadyuh want?" and fled. When she reached the
right door she stood listening. She made out a long sobbing.
There was no answer till her third knock; then an alarmed
"Who is it? Go away!"
Her hatred of the town turned resolute as she pushed open
the door.
Yesterday she had seen Fern Mullins in boots and tweed
skirt and canary-yellow sweater, fleet and self-possessed. Now
she lay across the bed, in crumpled lavender cotton and shabby
pumps, very feminine, utterly cowed. She lifted her head in
stupid terror. Her hair was in tousled strings and her face
was sallow, creased. Her eyes were a blur from weeping.
"I didn't! I didn't!" was all she would say at first, and
she repeated it while Carol kissed her cheek, stroked her
hair, bathed her forehead. She rested then, while Carol looked
about the room—the welcome to strangers, the sanctuary of
hospitable Main Street, the lucrative property of Kennicott's
friend, Jackson Elder. It smelled of old linen and decaying
carpet and ancient tobacco smoke. The bed was rickety, with
a thin knotty mattress; the sand-colored walls were scratched
and gouged; in every corner, under everything, were fluffy
dust and cigar ashes; on the tilted wash-stand was a nicked
and squatty pitcher; the only chair was a grim straight object
of spotty varnish; but there was an altogether splendid gilt
and rose cuspidor.
She did not try to draw out Fern's story; Fern insisted on
telling it.
She had gone to the party, not quite liking Cy but willing
to endure him for the sake of dancing, of escaping from Mrs.
Bogart's flow of moral comments, of relaxing after the first
strained weeks of teaching. Cy "promised to be good." He
was, on the way out. There were a few workmen from Gopher
Prairie at the dance, with many young farm-people. Half
a dozen squatters from a degenerate colony in a brush-hidden
hollow, planters of potatoes, suspected thieves, came in noisily
drunk. They all pounded the floor of the barn in old-fashioned
square dances, swinging their partners, skipping, laughing,
under the incantations of Del Snafflin the barber, who fiddled
and called the figures. Cy had two drinks from pocket-flasks.
Fern saw him fumbling among the overcoats piled on the feedbox
at the far end of the barn; soon after she heard a farmer
declaring that some one had stolen his bottle. She taxed Cy
with the theft; he chuckled, "Oh, it's just a joke; I'm going
to give it back." He demanded that she take a drink. Unless
she did, he wouldn't return the bottle.
"I just brushed my lips with it, and gave it back to him,"
moaned Fern. She sat up, glared at Carol. "Did you ever
take a drink?"
"I have. A few. I'd love to have one right now! This
contact with righteousness has about done me up!"
Fern could laugh then. "So would I! I don't suppose I've
had five drinks in my life, but if I meet just one more Bogart
and Son— Well, I didn't really touch that bottle—horrible
raw whisky—though I'd have loved some wine. I felt so jolly.
The barn was almost like a stage scene—the high rafters, and
the dark stalls, and tin lanterns swinging, and a silage-cutter
up at the end like some mysterious kind of machine. And
I'd been having lots of fun dancing with the nicest young
farmer, so strong and nice, and awfully intelligent. But I got
uneasy when I saw how Cy was. So I doubt if I touched two
drops of the beastly stuff. Do you suppose God is punishing
me for even wanting wine?"
"My dear, Mrs. Bogart's god may be—Main Street's god.
But all the courageous intelligent people are fighting him
. . . though he slay us."
Fern danced again with the young farmer; she forgot Cy
while she was talking with a girl who had taken the University
agricultural course. Cy could not have returned the bottle;
he came staggering toward her—taking time to make himself
offensive to every girl on the way and to dance a jig. She
insisted on their returning. Cy went with her, chuckling and
jigging. He kissed her, outside the door. . . . "And
to think I used to think it was interesting to have men kiss
you at a dance!" . . . She ignored the kiss, in the need
of getting him home before he started a fight. A farmer helped
her harness the buggy, while Cy snored in the seat. He awoke
before they set out; all the way home he alternately slept and
tried to make love to her.
"I'm almost as strong as he is. I managed to keep him
away while I drove—such a rickety buggy. I didn't feel like
a girl; I felt like a scrubwoman—no, I guess I was too scared
to have any feelings at all. It was terribly dark. I got home,
somehow. But it was hard, the time I had to get out, and it
was quite muddy, to read a sign-post—I lit matches that I
took from Cy's coat pocket, and he followed me—he fell off the
buggy step into the mud, and got up and tried to make love
to me, and— I was scared. But I hit him. Quite hard.
And got in, and so he ran after the buggy, crying like a baby,
and I let him in again, and right away again he was trying—
But no matter. I got him home. Up on the porch. Mrs.
Bogart was waiting up. . . .
"You know, it was funny; all the time she was—oh, talking
to me—and Cy was being terribly sick—I just kept thinking,
`I've still got to drive the buggy down to the livery stable.
I wonder if the livery man will be awake?' But I got through
somehow. I took the buggy down to the stable, and got to
my room. I locked my door, but Mrs. Bogart kept saying
things, outside the door. Stood out there saying things about
me, dreadful things, and rattling the knob. And all the while
I could hear Cy in the back yard-being sick. I don't think
I'll ever marry any man. And then today—
"She drove me right out of the house. She wouldn't listen
to me, all morning. Just to Cy. I suppose he's over his
headache now. Even at breakfast he thought the whole thing
was a grand joke. I suppose right this minute he's going
around town boasting about his `conquest.' You understand—
oh, don't you understand? I
did keep him away! But I don't
see how I can face my school. They say country towns are
fine for bringing up boys in, but— I can't believe this is
me, lying here and saying this. I don't believe
what happened
last night.
"Oh. This was curious: When I took off my dress last
night—it was a darling dress, I loved it so, but of course the
mud had spoiled it. I cried over it and— No matter. But
my white silk stockings were all torn, and the strange thing is,
I don't know whether I caught my legs in the briers when I got
out to look at the sign-post, or whether Cy scratched me when
I was fighting him off."