Rose of Dutcher's Coolly

John ate slowly, his eyes fixed on his plate. Rose ate not at all and looked out of the window, with big tears rolling childishly down her cheeks. She didn't want to go at all now. Her home seemed all at once so comfortable and happy and safe!

John looked up and saw her tears, and immediately he was choked and could not eat.

"There, there! Rosie, don't cry. We'll be all right, and you'll be back almost 'fore you know it. June comes early in the summer, you know." They were both so childlike they did not consider it possible to come home before the year was up. She came around and knelt down by his side and buried her face on his knees.

"I wish I hadn't promised to go," she wailed; "I don't want to go one bit. I want to stay with you."

He understood her feeling and soothed her and diverted her, though tears would have been a relief to him.

She went with him out to the barn, and she cried over the bossies and the horses, and said good-by to them under her breath, so that her father might not hear.

When she went to bed she lay down disconsolate and miserable. O it was so hard to go, and it was hard not to go. Life was not so simple as it had seemed before. Why did this great fear rise up in her heart? Why should she have this terrible revulsion at the last moment? So she thought and thought. Her only stay in the midst of chaos was Dr. Thatcher. William De Lisle was very far away, like a cold white star.

Just as she made up her mind that she could not sleep, she heard her father call her.

"Rose, time to get up!"

Her heart contracted with a sharp spasm that almost made her scream. The time had come for action – momentous, irrevocable action, like Napoleon's embarking from Elba for France.

It was very chill and dark. She rose and groped about for a light. Her teeth chattered with cold and it seemed to her she was going to be sick. She dressed hurriedly and went down.

John and her aunt were seated at breakfast. She slipped into her seat, white and silent. It was still dark and the lighted lamps made it seem like a midnight meal.

John was strenuously cheerful. "We have to get up early if we get that seven o'clock train," he said.

"Better take some coffee anyhow," urged Mrs. Diehl.

"O, I can't eat a thing," Rose insisted.

"Don't worry her, sis," interposed John. "She'll feel like it later."

While John went to get the team Rose got on her things and walked about, uttering a little moaning sound, like a babe in delirium. It was terrible to hear her and Mrs. Diehl lost patience at last.

"Stop that fuss! Good land! anybody'd think you was goin' to die dead as a hammer, the way you take on, and after all the time we've had gettin' you ready. I declare to goodness I never see such a young'un in all my born days. I will be glad to get rid of you!"

This was good strong medicine to Rose, and she uttered no more of her grief. She punished her aunt by refusing to say good-bye at the door, which grieved John very much.

"You folks had a tiff this morning a'ready?"

It was cold and damp. The wind pushed against their faces like the touch of wet palms. The horses splashed along in pools of water, and out of the dim light the hills rose against the sky full of soft sprawling rain-clouds.

They rode in silence. Rose saw no more of the splendid visions of the world. It was all dark and rainy ahead. Home, and peace, and comfort were all behind her. She was so miserable it seemed as if she must cry out, but her aunt's contemptuous words helped her to silence.

John talked a little about the trains on the road, and the weather, but talk was an effort to him also. As he rode he thought of it all again. He felt as if he were losing his heart, but he did not waver.

He helped her on the cars and then stooped and hugged her hard without kissing her, and so stumbled out again, while she sat white and rigid, breathing hard.

The sun came out after a little, and covered the earth with a glory that found its way into the girl's heart. She ceased to sob, and the ache passed out of her throat, although the shadow still hung in her eyes.

The car interested her. It seemed a palace and of enormous size. She figured out the number of people it would hold, and wondered how the seats which were turned the other way came to be so. The car was mainly occupied by men in careless clothing. Everybody seemed sleepy and unkempt. She wondered where they all came from, and so speculating, she lost something of her poignant sorrow.

Then came one moment of quiet elation. She was going out into the world! the enormous, the incredible had happened! She was going to Madison, the state capital. The speed of the train, which seemed to her very great, aided her to realize how swiftly she was getting into the world. The fields and farms whirled by in dizzying fashion, and the whistle of the engine was like the furious, defiant neigh of a rushing horse. It was all on a scale more splendid than her dreams.

In the midst of her exultant moment the brakeman came through and eyed her with the glare of a sex-maniac. She felt as if a hot iron had touched her flesh, and she shrank back into herself, like a scared mollusk. The man passed on, but her exultation was gone.

She noticed that the hills grew lower as they sped southward, and queer rocks rose squarely out of the flat lands, which were covered with wild swamps of small trees, out of which long skeletons of dead pines lifted with a desolate effect.

There were several tunnels, and every time they went through one Rose clung to the seat in terror. Some young men in the rear of the car smacked their lips to represent kisses, and laughed boisterously afterward, as if that were a very good joke indeed.

The conductor, when he came through the next time, eyed her closely and smiled broadly. She did not understand why he should smile at her. After he had been through the car several times he came and sat down by her.

"Nice day, ain't it? Live in Madison?"

"No, sir," she replied, looking away. She did not want to say more, but some power made her add, "I am going to school there."

He seemed pleased.

"Ah, hah! Going to the university?"

"Yes, sir."

"O, I see." He put his knee against the back of the seat in front of her and took an easy position.

"It's a nice town. Wish I could stop off and help you find a boarding-place."

The brakeman, coming through, winked at the conductor as if to say: "I like your 'mash,'" and the terror and shame of her position flashed over Rose, flushing her from head to foot. Her eyes filled with angry tears, and she looked out of the window, not knowing what to do. She was so helpless here, for she was out in the world alone.

The conductor went on serenely, knowing well how scared and angry she was.

"Yes, sir; it's a fine little town. Great place for boating, summer or winter. You'll see a hundred ice-boats out on Monona there all at once. I've got a cousin there who has a boat. He'd be glad to take you out if I'd tell him about you."

"I don't want to know him," she said, in what she intended to be a fierce tone, but which was a pitifully scared tone.

The conductor saw the brakeman looking at him and in order to convey the impression that he was getting on nicely he bent forward and looked around into her face.

"O, you'd like him first rate."

Rose would have screamed, or burst out into some wild action had not the engine whistled. This gave the conductor an excuse to give the talk up for the moment.

"She's a daisy and as green as grass," he said to the brakeman. Her innocence seemed to place her in his hand.

For the next hour they persecuted the girl with their low presences. First one and then the other came along the aisle and sat down beside her. And when she put her valise there, blocking the seat, the brakeman sat on the armrest and tormented her with questions to which she gave no answer.

Just after Pine City she heard a cool, firm woman's voice ask: "May I sit with you?"

She looked up and made room for a handsome, middle-aged woman, in a neat traveling dress.

"It's a shame!" she said. "I've just got in, but I saw at once how those men were torturing you. Strange no one in the car could see it and take your part."

Rose turned to her gratefully, and laid her head on the lady's stalwart shoulder.

"There, there, no harm done! You must learn to expect such things from some men. It would be libelous on the brutes to call them beasts." She said a great many things which Rose hardly understood, but her presence was strong and helpful. Rose liked her very much.

"How far are you going?"

Rose told her in a few words.

"Ah, are you? You could not have made a better choice. Who sends you there – pardon me?"

"Dr. Thatcher."

"Dr. Thatcher! Well, well, how things come about. I know the Doctor very well."

"Do you? I'm going to live there for a while."

Rose was smiling now.

"Well, you couldn't be more fortunate. You'll get into the most progressive home in the city."

From this on they had a royal good time. Rose grew happier than she had been for weeks. There was something strangely masterful about this woman in spite of her sweet smile and soft gray eyes.

When the conductor came down the aisle again she met his eye with a keen, stern glance.

"Young man, I shall have you discharged from this road."

The astonished cur took her card, and when he read the name of a famous woman lawyer of Milwaukee his face fell.

"I didn't mean any harm."

"I know better. I shall see Mr. Millet, and see that he makes an example of you."

Rose was awed by her calm and commanding voice.

"It has been our boast that our girls could travel from east to west in our broad land, and be safe from insult, and I'm not going to let such a thing pass."

She returned to her grave sweet mood presently, and began to talk of other things.

As they neared the town where they were to part company, the elder woman said:

"Now, my dear, I am to get off here. I may never see you again, but I think I shall. You interest me very much. I am likely to be in Madison during the year, and if I do I will see you. I am getting old though, and things of this life are uncertain to us with gray hair. I like that forehead on you, it tells me you are not to be a victim to the first man who lays his hand on you. Let me give one last word of advice. Don't marry till you are thirty. Choose a profession and work for it. Marry only when you want to be a mother."

She rose. "You don't understand what I mean now, but keep my words in your mind. Some day you will comprehend all I mean – good-bye." Rose was tearful as Mrs. Spencer kissed her and moved away.

Rose saw her on the steps and waved her hand back at her as the train drew away. Her presence had been oppressive in spite of her kindness, and her last words filled the girl's mind with vague doubts of life and of men. Everything seemed forcing her thoughts of marriage to definiteness. Her sex was so emphasized, so insisted upon by this first day's experience in the world, that she leaned her head against the window and cried out: "O, I wish I was dead."

But the train shot round the low green hills fringed with the glorious foliage of the maples, the lake sparkled in the afternoon's sun, the dome of the capitol building loomed against the sky, and the romance and terror of her entry into the world came back to her, driving out her more morbid emotions. She became again the healthy country girl to whom Madison was a center of art and society and literature.

CHAPTER IX

ROSE ENTERS MADISON

The train drew up to a long platform swarming with people, moving anxiously about with valises in hand, broad-hatted and kindly; many of them were like the people of the coulé. But the young hackmen terrified her with their hard, bold eyes and cruel, tobacco-stained mouths.

She alighted from the car, white and tremulous with fear, and her eyes moved about anxiously. When they fell upon Thatcher the blood gushed up over her face, and her eyes filled with tears of relief.

"Ah, here you are!" he said with a smile, as he shook her hand and took her valise. "I began to fear you'd been delayed."

She followed him to the carriage with down-cast eyes. Her regard for him would not permit her to say a word, even when they were seated together in the carriage and driving up the street. Her breath came so quick and strange the Doctor noticed it.

"A little bit excited about it, aren't you?" he smilingly said. "I remember how I felt when I went to Chicago the first time. I suppose this seems like Chicago to you. How did you leave the people in the coulé, all well?"

"Yes, sir," she replied without looking up.

"Well, now you are about to begin work. I've got everything all arranged. You are to stay with us for the present at least. My niece is with us and you will get along famously I know. How do you like my horse?" he asked, in his effort to get her to speak.

She studied the horse critically.

"First rate!" she said at last.

He laughed. "Well, I am glad you like him, for I know you are a judge. He is a pretty good stepper, too, though he hasn't quite enough fling in his knees, you notice. I'll let you drive him some time."

He drew up before a pretty cottage, set in the midst of a neat lawn. It was discouragingly fine and handsome to the girl. She was afraid it was too good for her to enter.

A very blonde young girl came dancing out to the block.

"O Uncle Joe, did Rose – " Rose suddenly appeared.

"This is Rose. Rose, this is our little chatter-box."

"Now, Uncle Joe! Come right in, Rose. I'm going to call you Rose, mayn't I?"

Mrs. Thatcher, a tall thin woman, welcomed Rose in sober fashion, and led the way into the little parlor, which seemed incredibly elegant to the shy girl.

She sat silently while the rest moved about her. There was a certain dignity in this reserve, and both Mrs. Thatcher and Josie were impressed by it. She was larger and handsomer than either of them and that gave her an advantage, though she did not realize that. She was comparing in swift, disparaging fashion her heavy boots with their dainty soft shoes, and wondering what she could do to escape from them.

"Josie, take her right up to her room," said Mrs. Thatcher, "and let her get ready for dinner."

"Yes, come up, you must feel like a good scrub."

Rose flushed again, wondering if her face had grown grimy enough to be noticeable.

The young girl led Rose into a pretty room with light green walls, and lovely curtains at the windows. There were two dainty little beds occupying opposite corners.

"We're to occupy this room together," said Josie. "This is my dressing case and that's yours."

Rose saw at once Josie had given her the best one. Josie bustled about helping her lay off her things, pouring water for her and talking on with gleeful flow.

"I'm awful glad you've come. I know we'll be just as thick! I wish you were in my classes though, but you won't be, so Doctor says. Don't you think this is a nice room?"

Rose washed her hands as quickly as possible because they looked so big and dingy beside the supple whiteness of Josephine's. She felt dusty and coarse and hopeless in the midst of this exquisite room, the most beautiful room she had ever seen.

Her eyes moving about fell upon a picture which had the gleam of white limbs in it. Josephine followed her look: "O, that's young Samson choking the lion. I just love that; isn't he lovely?"

Rose blushed and tried to answer but could not. The beautiful splendid limbs of the young man flamed upon her with marvelous appeal. It was beautiful, and yet her training made her think it somehow not to be talked about.

Josephine led the way downstairs into the little parlor, which was quite as uncomfortably beautiful as the bedroom. The vases and flowers, and simple pictures, and the piano, all seemed like the furnishings of the homes she had read about in stories.

But dazed as she was she kept her self-command, at least she kept silence and sat in sombre, almost sullen dejection amid it all. Mrs. Thatcher hardly knew what to think of her, but the Doctor comprehended her mood better for he had passed through such experiences himself. He talked to her for a few minutes about her plans, and then they went out to dinner.

Rose entered the dining-room with a great fear in her heart. She longed to run away and hide.

"O I don't know anything!" was the bitter cry welling up in her throat again and again, and she nearly cried out upon the impulse.

The Doctor liked to have his dinner at one, and so Rose found two knives, and two forks at her plate, and two spoons also. She had read in stories of banquets, and she saw that this was to be her greatest trial. She sat very stiff and silent as the soup was brought on by the Norwegian girl.

She took the plate as it was handed her, and handed back the one which was turned down with the napkin on top of it. The Norwegian girl smiled broadly and handed them both back. Then Rose saw her mistake and the hot blood swept over her brown face in a purple wave.

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