down. He gave no sign of suffering from her neglect except that he
drank more and avoided the other Norwegians more carefully than
ever. He lay around in his den and no one knew what he felt or
thought, but little Jim Peterson, who had seen him glowering at Lena
in church one Sunday when she was there with the town man, said that
he would not give an acre of his wheat for Lena’s life or the town
chap’s either; and Jim’s wheat was so wondrously worthless that the
statement was an exceedingly strong one.
Canute had bought a new suit of clothes that looked as nearly like
the town man’s as possible. They had cost him half a millet crop;
for tailors are not accustomed to fitting giants and they charge for
it. He had hung those clothes in his shanty two months ago and had
never put them on, partly from fear of ridicule, partly from
discouragement, and partly because there was something in his own
soul that revolted at the littleness of the device.
Lena was at home just at this time. Work was slack in the laundry
and Mary had not been well, so Lena stayed at home, glad enough to
get an opportunity to torment Canute once more.
She was washing in the side kitchen, singing loudly as she worked.
Mary was on her knees, blacking the stove and scolding violently
about the young man who was coming out from town that night. The
young man had committed the fatal error of laughing at Mary’s
ceaseless babble and had never been forgiven.
“He is no good, and you will come to a bad end by running with him!
I do not see why a daughter of mine should act so. I do not see why
the Lord should visit such a punishment upon me as to give me such a
daughter. There are plenty of good men you can marry.”
Lena tossed her head and answered curtly, “I don’t happen to want to
marry any man right away, and so long as Dick dresses nice and has
plenty of money to spend, there is no harm in my going with him.”
“Money to spend? Yes, and that is all he does with it I’ll be bound.
You think it very fine now, but you will change your tune when you
have been married five years and see your children running naked and
your cupboard empty. Did Anne Hermanson come to any good end by
marrying a town man?”
“I don’t know anything about Anne Hermanson, but I know any of the
laundry girls would have Dick quick enough if they could get him.”
“Yes, and a nice lot of store clothes huzzies you are too. Now there
is Canuteson who has an ‘eighty’ proved up and fifty head of cattle
and----”
“And hair that ain’t been cut since he was a baby, and a big dirty
beard, and he wears overalls on Sundays, and drinks like a pig.
Besides he will keep. I can have all the fun I want, and when I am
old and ugly like you he can have me and take care of me. The Lord
knows there ain’t nobody else going to marry him.”
Canute drew his hand back from the latch as though it were red hot.
He was not the kind of a man to make a good eavesdropper, and he
wished he had knocked sooner. He pulled himself together and struck
the door like a battering ram. Mary jumped and opened it with a
screech.
“God! Canute, how you scared us! I thought it was crazy Lou,—he has
been tearing around the neighborhood trying to convert folks. I am
afraid as death of him. He ought to be sent off, I think. He is just
as liable as not to kill us all, or burn the barn, or poison the
dogs. He has been worrying even the poor minister to death, and he
laid up with the rheumatism, too! Did you notice that he was too
sick to preach last Sunday? But don’t stand there in the cold,—come
in. Yensen isn’t here, but he just went over to Sorenson’s for the
mail; he won’t be gone long. Walk right in the other room and sit
down.”
Canute followed her, looking steadily in front of him and not
noticing Lena as he passed her. But Lena’s vanity would not allow
him to pass unmolested. She took the wet sheet she was wringing out
and cracked him across the face with it, and ran giggling to the
other side of the room. The blow stung his cheeks and the soapy
water flew in his eyes, and he involuntarily began rubbing them with
his hands. Lena giggled with delight at his discomfiture, and the
wrath in Canute’s face grew blacker than ever. A big man humiliated
is vastly more undignified than a little one. He forgot the sting of
his face in the bitter consciousness that he had made a fool of
himself. He stumbled blindly into the living room, knocking his head
against the door jamb because he forgot to stoop. He dropped into a
chair behind the stove, thrusting his big feet back helplessly on
either side of him.
Ole was a long time in coming, and Canute sat there, still and
silent, with his hands clenched on his knees, and the skin of his
face seemed to have shriveled up into little wrinkles that trembled
when he lowered his brows. His life had been one long lethargy of
solitude and alcohol, but now he was awakening, and it was as when
the dumb stagnant heat of summer breaks out into thunder.
When Ole came staggering in, heavy with liquor, Canute rose at once.
“Yensen,” he said quietly, “I have come to see if you will let me
marry your daughter today.”
“Today!” gasped Ole.
“Yes, I will not wait until tomorrow. I am tired of living alone.”
Ole braced his staggering knees against the bedstead, and stammered
eloquently: “Do you think I will marry my daughter to a drunkard? a
man who drinks raw alcohol? a man who sleeps with rattle snakes? Get
out of my house or I will kick you out for your impudence.” And Ole
began looking anxiously for his feet.
Canute answered not a word, but he put on his hat and went out into
the kitchen. He went up to Lena and said without looking at her,
“Get your things on and come with me!”
The tones of his voice startled her, and she said angrily, dropping
the soap, “Are you drunk?”
“If you do not come with me, I will take you,—you had better come,”
said Canute quietly.
She lifted a sheet to strike him, but he caught her arm roughly and
wrenched the sheet from her. He turned to the wall and took down a
hood and shawl that hung there, and began wrapping her up. Lena
scratched and fought like a wild thing. Ole stood in the door,
cursing, and Mary howled and screeched at the top of her voice. As
for Canute, he lifted the girl in his arms and went out of the
house. She kicked and struggled, but the helpless wailing of Mary
and Ole soon died away in the distance, and her face was held down
tightly on Canute’s shoulder so that she could not see whither he
was taking her. She was conscious only of the north wind whistling
in her ears, and of rapid steady motion and of a great breast that
heaved beneath her in quick, irregular breaths. The harder she
struggled the tighter those iron arms that had held the heels of
horses crushed about her, until she felt as if they would crush the
breath from her, and lay still with fear. Canute was striding across
the level fields at a pace at which man never went before, drawing
the stinging north wind into his lungs in great gulps. He walked
with his eyes half closed and looking straight in front of him, only
lowering them when he bent his head to blow away the snow flakes
that settled on her hair. So it was that Canute took her to his
home, even as his bearded barbarian ancestors took the fair
frivolous women of the South in their hairy arms and bore them down