Sadie urged that one got nothing worth having without a struggle.  Bob rejoined:  “If you get the thing you aim at, the struggle’s justified; if you don’t you think of what you’ve missed while you were uselessly employed.  Of course, if you like a struggle, you have the satisfaction of following your bent; but hustling is a habit that has no charm for me.”

Sadie reflected that the last remark was true.  Bob never hustled; his talk and movements were marked by a languid grace that sometimes pleased and sometimes irritated her.  It was difficult to make him angry, and she was often silenced by his whimsical arguments when she knew she was right.  But he was her husband, and she meant to baulk the man who hoped to profit by his carelessness.

Then she urged the horse.  It was a long drive to the settlement where she had kept the hotel, and she had not been there for some time.  The goods she and her neighbors bought came from the new settlement on the railroad, which was not far off; but she had an object in visiting the other.  It was noon when she reached the hotel and sat down to dinner in the familiar room.  She did not know if she was pleased or disappointed to find the meal served as well as before, but her thoughts were not cheerful while she ate.  She remembered her ambitions and her resolve to leave the dreary plains and make her mark in Toronto or Montreal.  Now her dreams had vanished and she must grapple with dull realities that jarred her worse than they had done.

The dining-room was clean, but unattractive, with its varnished board walls, bare floor, and wire-mesh filling the skeleton door, which a spring banged to before the mosquitoes could get in.  There were no curtains or ventilator-fans, the room was very hot, and the glaring sunshine emphasized its ugliness.  Then it was full of flies that fell upon boards and tables from the poisonous papers, and a big gramophone made a discordant noise.  Sadie remembered Keller’s pride in the machine and how he had bought it, to amuse the boys, after hearing an electric organ in a Montreal restaurant.  Yet she knew her craving for society must be gratified at such places as this; a rare visit to the settlement was the only change from monotonous toil.

When she offered her meal-ticket at the desk the clerk shook his head.

“You don’t need to open your wallet in this house.  The boss left word he’d be glad to see you at the store.”

Sadie, who had meant to see the proprietor, complied, and found him and his wife in the back office, where she and Bob had often sat.  The woman gave Sadie a friendly smile.

“I hope they served you well.  When you’re in town we want you to use the house like it still belonged to you.”

Sadie made a suitable reply.  She had charged a good price for the business, but had stuck to the Keller traditions and made a straight deal.  Stock and furniture had been justly valued, and when the buyers examined the accounts she had frankly told them which debts were doubtful and which were probably bad.  It was about these things they wished to talk to her, and she meant to indulge them.