Free Air Part 5

What business you say your father's in?"

"I didn't say, but---- Oh, railroad."

"G. N. or N. P.?"

"I don't think I quite understand----"

Mr. Boltwood interposed, "Are the ham and eggs ready?"

"I'll beat it out and see." When she brought them, she put a spoon in Claire's saucer of peas, and demanded, "Say, you don't wear that silk dress in the auto, do you?"

"No."

"I should think you'd put a pink sash on it. Seems like it's kind of plain--it's a real pretty piece of goods, though. A pink sash would be real pretty. You dark-complected ladies always looks better for a touch of color."

Then was Claire certain that the waitress was baiting her, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the men at the long table. She exploded. Probably the waitress did not know there had been an explosion when Claire looked coldly up, raised her brows, looked down, and poked the cold and salty slab of ham, for she was continuing:

"A light-complected lady like me don't need so much color, you notice my hair is black, but I'm light, really, Pete Liverquist says I'm a blonde brunette, gee, he certainly is killing that fellow, oh, he's a case, he sure does like to hear himself talk, my! there's Old Man Walters, he runs the telephone exchange here, I heard he went down to St. Cloud on Number 2, but I guess he couldn't of, he'll be yodeling for friend soup and a couple slabs of moo, I better beat it, I'll say so, so long."

Claire's comment was as acid as the pale beets before her, as bitter as the peas, as hard as the lumps in the watery mashed potatoes:

"I don't know whether the woman is insane or ignorant. I wish I could tell whether she was trying to make me angry for the benefit of those horrid unshaven men, or merely for her private edification."

"By me, dolly. So is this pie. Let's get some medium to levitate us up to bed. Uh--uh---- I think perhaps we'd better not try to drive clear to Seattle. If we just went through to Montana?--or even just to Bismarck?"

"Drive through with the hotels like this? My dear man, if we have one more such day, we stop right there. I hope we get by the man at the desk. I have a feeling he's lurking there, trying to think up something insulting to say to us. Oh, my dear, I hope you aren't as beastly tired as I am. My bones are hot pokers."

The man at the desk got in only one cynical question, "Driving far?"

before Claire seized her father's arm and started him upstairs.

For the first time since she had been ten--and in a state of naughtiness immediately following a p.r.o.nounced state of grace induced by the pulpit oratory of the new rector of St. Chrysostom's--she permitted herself the luxury of not stopping to brush her teeth before she went to bed. Her sleep was drugged--it was not sleep, but an aching exhaustion of the body which did not prevent her mind from revisualizing the road, going stupidly over the muddy stretches and sharp corners, then becoming conscious of that bed, the lump under her shoulder blades, the slope to westward, and the creak that rose every time she tossed. For at least fifteen minutes she lay awake for hours.

Thus Claire Boltwood's first voyage into democracy.

It was not so much that the sun was s.h.i.+ning, in the morning, as that a ripple of fresh breeze came through the window. She discovered that she again longed to go on--keep going on--see new places, conquer new roads.

She didn't want all good road. She wanted something to struggle against.

She'd try it for one more day. She was stiff as she crawled out of bed, but a rub with cold water left her feeling that she was stronger than she ever had been; that she was a woman, not a dependent girl. Already, in the beating prairie sun-glare, the wide main street of Gopher Prairie was drying; the mud ruts flattening out. Beyond the town hovered the note of a meadow lark--sunlight in sound.

"Oh, it's a sweet morning! Sweet! We will go on! I'm terribly excited!"

she laughed.

She found her father dressed. He did not know whether or not he wanted to go on. "I seem to have lost my grip on things. I used to be rather decisive. But we'll try it one more day, if you like," he said.

When she had gaily marched him downstairs, she suddenly and unhappily remembered the people she would have to face, the gibing questions she would have to answer.

The night clerk was still at the desk, as though he had slept standing.

He hailed them. "Well, well! Up bright and early! Hope you folks slept well. Beds aren't so good as they might be, but we're kind of planning to get some new mattresses. But you get pretty good air to sleep in.

Hope you have a fine hike today."

His voice was cordial; he was their old friend; faithful watcher of their progress. Claire found herself dimpling at him.

In the dining-room their inquisitional acquaintance, the waitress, fairly ran to them. "Sit down, folks. Waffles this morning. You want to stock up for your drive. My, ain't it an elegant morning! I hope you have a swell drive today!"

"Why!" Claire gasped, "why, they aren't rude. They care--about people they never saw before. That's why they ask questions! I never thought--I never thought! There's people in the world who want to know us without having looked us up in the Social Register! I'm so ashamed! Not that the suns.h.i.+ne changes my impression of this coffee. It's frightful! But that will improve. And the people--they were being friendly, all the time.

Oh, Henry B., young Henry Boltwood, you and your G.o.dmother Claire have a lot to learn about the world!"

As they came into the garage, their surly acquaintance of the night before looked just as surly, but Claire tried a boisterous "Good morning!"

"Mornin'! Going north? Better take the left-hand road at Wakamin. Easier going. Drive your car out for you?"

As the car stood outside taking on gas, a man flapped up, spelled out the New York license, looked at Claire and her father, and inquired, "Quite a ways from home, aren't you?"

This time Claire did not say "Yes!" She experimented with, "Yes, quite a ways."

"Well, hope you have a good trip. Good luck!"

Claire leaned her head on her hand, thought hard. "It's I who wasn't friendly," she propounded to her father. "How much I've been losing.

Though I still refuse to like that coffee!"

She noticed the sign on the air-hose of the garage--"Free Air."

"There's our motto for the pilgrimage!" she cried.

She knew the exaltation of starting out in the fresh morning for places she had never seen, without the bond of having to return at night.

Thus Claire's second voyage into democracy.

While she was starting the young man who had pulled her out of the mud and given her lunch was folding up the tarpaulin and blankets on which he had slept beside his Teal bug, in the woods three miles north of Gopher Prairie. To the high-well-born cat, Vere de Vere, Milt Daggett mused aloud, "Your ladys.h.i.+p, as Shakespeare says, the man that gets cold feet never wins the girl. And I'm scared, cat, clean scared."

CHAPTER V

RELEASE BRAKES--s.h.i.+FT TO THIRD

Milt Daggett had not been accurate in his implication that he had not noticed Claire at a garage in Schoenstrom. For one thing, he owned the garage.

Milt was the most prosperous young man in the village of Schoenstrom.

Neither the village itself nor the nearby _Strom_ is really _schoen_.

The entire business district of Schoenstrom consists of Heinie Rauskukle's general store, which is brick; the Leipzig House, which is frame; the Old Home Poolroom and Restaurant, which is of old logs concealed by a frame sheathing; the farm-machinery agency, which is galvanized iron, its roof like an enlarged washboard; the church; the three saloons; and the Red Trail Garage, which is also, according to various signs, the Agency for Teal Car Best at the Test, Stonewall Tire Service Station, Sewing Machines and Binders Repaired, Dr. Hostrum the Veterinarian every Thursday, Gas Today 27c.

The Red Trail Garage is of cement and tapestry brick. In the office is a clean hardwood floor, a typewriter, and a picture of Elsie Ferguson. The establishment has an automatic rim-stretcher, a wheel jack, and a reputation for honesty.

The father of Milt Daggett was the Old Doctor, born in Maine, coming to this frontier in the day when Chippewas camped in your dooryard, and came in to help themselves to coffee, which you made of roasted corn.

The Old Doctor bucked northwest blizzards, read d.i.c.kens and Byron, pulled people through typhoid, and left to Milt his shabby old medicine case and thousands of dollars--in uncollectible accounts. Mrs. Daggett had long since folded her crinkly hands in quiet death.

Milt had covered the first two years of high school by studying with the priest, and been sent to the city of St. Cloud for the last two years.