VII
The Kennicotts and the Sam Clarks had driven north to a
duck-pass between two lakes, on an autumn day of blue and
copper.
Kennicott had given her a light twenty-gauge shotgun. She
had a first lesson in shooting, in keeping her eyes open, not
wincing, understanding that the bead at the end of the barrel
really had something to do with pointing the gun. She was
radiant; she almost believed Sam when he insisted that it was
she who had shot the mallard at which they had fired together.
She sat on the bank of the reedy lake and found rest in
Mrs. Clark's drawling comments on nothing. The brown dusk
was still. Behind them were dark marshes. The plowed acres
smelled fresh. The lake was garnet and silver. The voices of
the men, waiting for the last flight, were clear in the cool
air.
"Mark left!" sang Kennicott, in a long-drawn call.
Three ducks were swooping down in a swift line. The guns
banged, and a duck fluttered. The men pushed their light
boat out on the burnished lake, disappeared beyond the reeds.
Their cheerful voices and the slow splash and clank of oars
came back to Carol from the dimness. In the sky a fiery plain
sloped down to a serene harbor. It dissolved; the lake was
white marble; and Kennicott was crying, "Well, old lady, how
about hiking out for home? Supper taste pretty good, eh?"
"I'll sit back with Ethel," she said, at the car.
It was the first time she had called Mrs. Clark by her given
name; the first time she had willingly sat back, a woman of
Main Street.
"I'm hungry. It's good to be hungry," she reflected, as
they drove away.
She looked across the silent fields to the west. She was
conscious of an unbroken sweep of land to the Rockies, to
Alaska, a dominion which will rise to unexampled greatness
when other empires have grown senile. Before that time, she
knew, a hundred generations of Carols will aspire and go down
in tragedy devoid of palls and solemn chanting, the humdrum
inevitable tragedy of struggle against inertia.
"Let's all go to the movies tomorrow night. Awfully
exciting film," said Ethel Clark.
"Well, I was going to read a new book but— All right,
let's go," said Carol.
