The settled citizen believes that the rebel is constantly in a stew of complaining and, hearing of a Carol Kennicott, he gasps, “What an awful person!  She must be a Holy Terror to live with!  Glad my folks are satisfied with things way they are!” Actually, it was not so much as five minutes a day that Carol devoted to lonely desires.  It is probable that the agitated citizen has within his circle at least one inarticulate rebel with aspirations as wayward as Carol’s.

The presence of the baby had made her take Gopher Prairie and the brown house seriously, as natural places of residence.  She pleased Kennicott by being friendly with the complacent maturity of Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Elder, and when she had often enough been in conference upon the Elders’ new Cadillac car, or the job which the oldest Clark boy had taken in the office of the flour-mill, these topics became important, things to follow up day by day.

With nine-tenths of her emotion concentrated upon Hugh, she did not criticize shops, streets, acquaintances . . . this year or two.  She hurried to Uncle Whittier’s store for a package of corn-flakes, she abstractedly listened to Uncle Whittier’s denunciation of Martin Mahoney for asserting that the wind last Tuesday had been south and not southwest, she came back along streets that held no surprises nor the startling faces of strangers.  Thinking of Hugh’s teething all the way, she did not reflect that this store, these drab blocks, made up all her background.  She did her work, and she triumphed over winning from the Clarks at five hundred.

The most considerable event of the two years after the birth of Hugh occurred when Vida Sherwin resigned from the high school and was married.  Carol was her attendant, and as the wedding was at the Episcopal Church, all the women wore new kid slippers and long white kid gloves, and looked refined.

For years Carol had been little sister to Vida, and had never in the least known to what degree Vida loved her and hated her and in curious strained ways was bound to her.

CHAPTER XXI

I

Gray steel that seems unmoving because it spins so fast in the balanced fly-wheel, gray snow in an avenue of elms, gray dawn with the sun behind it—­this was the gray of Vida Sherwin’s life at thirty-six.

She was small and active and sallow; her yellow hair was faded, and looked dry; her blue silk blouses and modest lace collars and high black shoes and sailor hats were as literal and uncharming as a schoolroom desk; but her eyes determined her appearance, revealed her as a personage and a force, indicated her faith in the goodness and purpose of everything.  They were blue, and they were never still; they expressed amusement, pity, enthusiasm.  If she had been seen in sleep, with the wrinkles beside her eyes stilled and the creased lids hiding the radiant irises, she would have lost her potency.