Other Main-Travelled Roads Part 49

"Do you? Then perhaps you can tell me the name of your County Superintendent. I'm looking for a school." He smiled frankly. "I'm just out of Jackson University, and--"

"That so? I'm an Ann Arbor man myself." They took a moment for mutual warming up. "Yes, I know the Superintendent. Why not come right up to my boarding-place, and to-morrow I'll introduce you? Looking for a school, eh? What kind of a school?"

"Oh, a village school, or even a country school. It's too late to get a good place; but I've been sick, and--"

"Yes, the good positions are all snapped up; still, you might by accident hit on something. I know Mott; he'll do all he can for you.

By-the-way, my name's Allen."

The young student understood this hint and spoke. "Mine is Stacey."

The younger man mused a few minutes, as if he had forgotten his new acquaintance. Suddenly he roused up.

"Say, would you take a country school several miles out?"

"I think I would, if nothing better offered."

"Well, in my old district they're without a teacher. It's six miles out, and it isn't a lovely neighborhood! However, they will pay fifty dollars a month; that's ten dollars extra for the scrimmages. They wanted me to teach this winter--my sister tackles it in summer--but, great Peter! I can't waste my time teaching school, when I can run up to Chicago and take a shy at the pit and make a whole term's wages in thirty minutes!"

"I don't understand," said Stacey.

"Wheat Exchange. I've got a lot of friends in the pit, and I can come in any time on a little deal. I'm no Jim Keene, but I hope to get cash enough to handle five thousand. I wanted the old gent to start me up in it, but he said, 'Nix come arouse.' Fact is, I dropped the money he gave me to go through college with." He smiled at Stacey's disapproving look.

"Yes, indeedy; there's where the jar came into our tender relations. Oh, I call on the Governor--always when I've got a wad. I have fun with him." He smiled brightly. "Ask him if he don't need a little cash to pay for hog-killin', or something like that." He laughed again. "No, I didn't graduate at Ann Arbor. Funny how things go, ain't it? I was on my way back the third year, when I stopped in to see the pit--it's one o'

the sights of Chicago, you know--and Billy Krans saw me looking over the rail, I went in, won, and then took a flyer on December. Come a big slump, and I failed to materialize at school."

"What did you do then?" asked Stacey, to whom this did not seem humorous.

"I wrote a contrite letter to the Governor, stating case, requesting forgiveness--and money. No go! Couldn't raise neither. I then wrote, casting him off. 'You are no longer father of mine.'" He smiled again radiantly. "You should have seen me the next time I went home! Plug hat!

Imported suit! Gold watch! Diamond s.h.i.+rt-stud! Cost me $200 to paralyze the General, but I did it. My glory absolutely turned him white as a sheet. I knew what he thought, so I said: 'Perfectly legitimate, Dad.

The walls of Joliet are not gaping for me.' That about half-fetched him--calling him _Dad_, I mean; but he can't get reconciled to my business. 'Too many ups and downs,' he says. Fact is, he thinks it's gambling, and I don't argue the case with him. I'm on my way home now to stay over Sunday."

The train whistled, and Allen looked out into the darkness. "We're coming to the crossing. Now, I can't go up to the boarding-place when you do, but I'll give you directions, and you tell the landlady I sent you, and it'll be all right. Allen, you remember--Herman Allen."

Following directions, Stacey came at length to a two-story frame house situated on the edge of the bank, with its back to the river. It stood alone, with vacant lots all about. A pleasant-faced woman answered the ring.

He explained briefly. "How do you do? I'm a teacher, and I'd like to get board here a few days while pa.s.sing my examinations. Mr. Herman Allen sent me."

The woman's quick eye and ear were satisfied. "All right. Walk in, sir.

I'm pretty full, but I expect I can accommodate you--if you don't mind Mr. Allen for a room-mate."

"Oh, not at all," he said, while taking off his coat.

"Come right in this way. Supper will be ready soon."

He went into a comfortable sitting-room, where a huge open fire of soft coal was blazing magnificently. The walls were papered in florid patterns, and several enlarged portraits were on the walls. The fire was the only adornment; all else was cheap, and some of it was tawdry.

Stacey spread his thin hands to the blaze, while the landlady sat down a moment, out of politeness, to chat, scanning him keenly. She was a handsome woman, strong, well-rounded, about forty years of age, with quick, gray eyes, and a clean, firm-lipped mouth.

"Did you just get in?"

"Yes. I've been on the road all day," he said, on an impulse of communication. "Indeed, I'm just out of college."

"Is that so!" exclaimed Mrs. Mills, stopping her rocking in an access of interest. "What college?"

"Jackson University. I've been sick, and only came West--"

There came a look into her face that transformed and transfigured her.

"_My_ boy was in Ann Arbor. He was killed on the train on his way home one day." She stopped, for fear of breaking into a quaver, and smiled brightly. "That's why I always like college boys. They all stop here with me." She rose hastily. "Well, you'll excuse me, won't you, and I'll go an' 'tend to supper."

There was a great deal that was feminine in Stacey, and he felt at once the pathos of the woman's life. He looked a refined, studious, rather delicate young man, as he sat low in his chair and observed the light and heat of the fire. His large head was heavy with learning, and his dark eyes deep with religious fervor.

Several young women entered, and the room was filled with the clatter of tongues. Herman came in a few moments later, his face in a girlish glow of color. Everybody rushed at him with loud outcry. He was evidently a great favorite. He threw his arms about Mrs. Mills, giving her a hearty hug. The girls pretended to be shocked when he reached out for them, but they were not afraid of him. They hung on his arms and besieged him with questions till he cried out, in jolly perplexity:

"Girls, girls! This will never do!"

Mrs. Mills brushed out his damp yellow curls with her hands. "You're all wet."

"Girls, if you'll let me sit down, I'll take one on each knee," he said, pleadingly, and they released him.

Stacey grew red with sympathetic embarra.s.sment, and shrank away into a corner.

"Go get supper ready," commanded Herman. And it was only after they had left him that he said to Stacey: "Oh, you found your way all right." He took a seat by the fire and surveyed his wet shoes. "I took a run up to Mott's house--only a half block out o' the way. He said they'd be tickled to have you at Cyene. By-the-way, you're a theolog, aren't you?"

Wallace nodded, and Herman went on: "So I told Mott. He said you might work up a society out there at Cyene."

"Is there a church there?"

"Used to be, but--say, I tell you what you do: you go out with me to-morrow, and I'll give you a history of the towns.h.i.+p."

The ringing of the bell took them all out into the cheerful dining-room in a good-natured scramble. Mrs. Mills put Stacey at one end of the table, near a young woman who looked like a teacher, and he had full sweep of the table, which was surrounded by bright and happy faces. The station-hand was there, and a couple of grocery clerks, and a brakeman sat at Stacey's right hand. They all seemed very much at home, and called one another by their Christian names, and there was very obvious courts.h.i.+p on the part of several young couples.

Stacey escaped from the table as soon as possible, and returned to his seat beside the fire. He was young enough to enjoy the chatter of the girls, but his timidity made him glad they paid so little attention to him. The rain had changed to sleet outside and hammered at the window viciously, but the blazing fire and the romping young people set it at defiance. The landlady came to the door of the dining-room, dish and cloth in hand, to share in each outburst of laughter, and not infrequently the hired girl peered over her shoulder with a broad smile on her face. A little later, having finished their work, they both came in and took active part in the light-hearted fun.

Herman and one of the girls were having a great struggle over some trifle he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from her hand, and the rest stood about laughing to see her desperate attempts to recover it. This was a familiar form of courts.h.i.+p in Kesota, and an evening filled with such romping was considered a "cracking good time." After the girl, red and dishevelled, had given up, Herman sat down at the organ, and they all sang Moody and Sankey hymns, negro melodies, and college songs till ten o'clock. Then Mrs. Mills called, "Come, now, boys and girls!" and they all said good-night, like obedient children.

Herman and Wallace went up to their bedroom together.

"Say, Stacey, have you got a policy?" Wallace shook his head. "And don't want any, I suppose. Well, I just asked you as a matter of form. You see," he went on, winking at Wallace comically, "nominally I'm an insurance agent, but practically I'm a 'lamb'--but I get a mouthful o'

fur myself occasionally. What I'm working for is to get on that Wheat Exchange. That's where you get life! I'd rather be an established broker in that howling mob than go to Congress."

He rose on his elbow in bed and looked at Wallace, who was rising from a silent prayer.

"Say, why didn't you shout? I forgot all about it--I mean your profession."

Wallace crept into bed beside his communicative bedfellow in silence.

He didn't know how to deal with such spirits.

"Say," called Herman suddenly, as Wallace was about dropping off to sleep, "you ain't got no picnic, old man!"

"Why, what do you mean?"