III

That one word—­home—­it terrified her.  Had she really bound herself to live, inescapably, in this town called Gopher Prairie?  And this thick man beside her, who dared to define her future, he was a stranger!  She turned in her seat, stared at him.  Who was he?  Why was he sitting with her?  He wasn’t of her kind!  His neck was heavy; his speech was heavy; he was twelve or thirteen years older than she; and about him was none of the magic of shared adventures and eagerness.  She could not believe that she had ever slept in his arms.  That was one of the dreams which you had but did not officially admit.

She told herself how good he was, how dependable and understanding.  She touched his ear, smoothed the plane of his solid jaw, and, turning away again, concentrated upon liking his town.  It wouldn’t be like these barren settlements.  It couldn’t be!  Why, it had three thousand population.  That was a great many people.  There would be six hundred houses or more.  And——­The lakes near it would be so lovely.  She’d seen them in the photographs.  They had looked charming . . . hadn’t they?

As the train left Wahkeenyan she began nervously to watch for the lakes—­the entrance to all her future life.  But when she discovered them, to the left of the track, her only impression of them was that they resembled the photographs.

A mile from Gopher Prairie the track mounts a curving low ridge, and she could see the town as a whole.  With a passionate jerk she pushed up the window, looked out, the arched fingers of her left hand trembling on the sill, her right hand at her breast.

And she saw that Gopher Prairie was merely an enlargement of all the hamlets which they had been passing.  Only to the eyes of a Kennicott was it exceptional.  The huddled low wooden houses broke the plains scarcely more than would a hazel thicket.  The fields swept up to it, past it.  It was unprotected and unprotecting; there was no dignity in it nor any hope of greatness.  Only the tall red grain-elevator and a few tinny church-steeples rose from the mass.  It was a frontier camp.  It was not a place to live in, not possibly, not conceivably.

The people—­they’d be as drab as their houses, as flat as their fields.  She couldn’t stay here.  She would have to wrench loose from this man, and flee.

She peeped at him.  She was at once helpless before his mature fixity, and touched by his excitement as he sent his magazine skittering along the aisle, stooped for their bags, came up with flushed face, and gloated, “Here we are!”

She smiled loyally, and looked away.  The train was entering town.  The houses on the outskirts were dusky old red mansions with wooden frills, or gaunt frame shelters like grocery boxes, or new bungalows with concrete foundations imitating stone.