"Yes, but look here, Bone; I was just thinking about it, that's all. You're always drumming it into me about not taking anything for granted. Anyway, by the time I go to Plato I'll know--"
"D'you mean to say you're going to that back-creek nunnery? That Blackhaw University? Are you going to play checkers all through life?"
"Oh, I don't know, now, Bone. Plato ain't so bad. A fellow's got to go some place so he can mix with people that know what's the proper thing to do. Refining influences and like that."
"Proper! Refining! Son, son, are you going to get Joralemonized? If you want what the French folks call the grand manner, if you're going to be a tip-top, A Number 1, genuwine grand senyor, or however they pronounce it, why, all right, go to it; that's one way of playing a big game. But when it comes down to a short-bit, fresh-water sewing-circle like Plato College, where an imitation scholar teaches you imitation translations of useless classics, and amble-footed girls teach you imitation party manners that 'd make you just as plumb ridic'lous in a real salon as they would in a lumber-camp, why--Oh, sa-a-a-y! I've got it. Girls, eh? What girl 've you been falling in love with to get this Plato idea from, eh?"
"Aw, I ain't in love, Bone."
"No, I don't opine you are. At your age you got about as much chance of being in love as you have of being a grandfather. But somehow I seem to have a little old suspicion that you think you're in love. But it's none of my business, and I ain't going to ask questions about it." He patted Carl on the shoulder, moving his arm with difficulty in their small, dark space. "Son, I've learned this in my life-and I've done quite some hiking at that, even if I didn't have the book-l'arnin' and the git-up-and-git to make anything out of my experience. It's a thing I ain't big enough to follow up, but I know it's there. Life is just a little old checker game played by the alfalfa contingent at the country store unless you've got an ambition that's too big to ever quite lasso it. You want to know that there's something ahead that's bigger and more beautiful than anything you've ever seen, and never stop till-well, till you can't follow the road any more. And anything or anybody that doesn't pack any surprises-get that?-surprises for you, is dead, and you want to slough it like a snake does its skin. You want to keep on remembering that Chicago's beyond Joralemon, and Paris beyond Chicago, and beyond Paris-well, maybe there's some big peak of the Himalayas."
For hours they talked, Bone desperately striving to make his dreams articulate to Carl-and to himself. They ate fish fried on the powder-can stove, with half-warm coffee. They walked a few steps outside the shack in the ringing cold, to stretch stiff legs. Carl saw a world of unuttered freedom and beauty forthshadowed in Bone's cloudy speech. But he was melancholy. For he was going to give up his citizenship in wonderland for Gertie Cowles.
* * * * *
Gertie continued to enjoy ill health for another week. Every evening Carl walked past her house, hoping that he might see her at a window, longing to dare to call. Each night he pictured rescuing her from things-rescuing her from fire, from drowning, from evil men. He felt himself the more bound to her by the social recognition of having his name in the Joralemon Dynamite, the following Thursday:
One of the pleasantest affairs of the holiday season among
the younger set was held last Friday evening, when Gertrude
Cowles entertained a number of her young friends at a party
at her mother's handsome residence on Maple Hill. Among
those present were Mesdames Benner and Rusk, who came in for
a brief time to assist in the jollities of the evening,
Misses Benner, Carson, Wesselius, Madlund, Ripka, Smith,
Lansing, and Brick; and Messrs. Ray Cowles, his classmate
Howard Griffin, who is spending his vacation here from Plato
College, Carl Ericson, Joseph Jordan, Irving Lamb, Benjamin
Rusk, Nels Thorsten, Peter Schoenhof, and William T. Upham.
After dancing and games, which were thoroughly enjoyed by
all present, and a social hour spent in discussing the
events of the season in J. H. S., a most delicious repast
was served and the party adjourned, one and all voting that
they had been royally entertained.
The glory was the greater because at least seven names had been omitted from the list of guests. Such social recognition satisfied Carl-for half an hour. Possibly it nerved him finally to call on Gertie.
Since for a week he had been dreading a chilly reception when he should call, he was immeasurably surprised when he did call and got what he expected. He had not expected the fates to be so treacherous as to treat him as he expected, after he had disarmed them by expecting it.
When he rang the bell he was an immensely grown-up lawyer (though he couldn't get his worn, navy-blue tie to hang exactly right). He turned into a crestfallen youth as Mrs. Cowles opened the door and waited-waited!-for him to speak, after a crisp:
"Well? What is it, Carl?"
"Why, uh, I just thought I'd come and see how Gertie is."
"Gertrude is much better, thank you. I presume she will return to school at the end of vacation."
The hall behind Mrs. Cowles seemed very stately, very long.
"I've heard a lot saying they hoped she was better."
"You may tell them that she is better."
Mrs. Cowles shivered. No one could possibly have looked more like a person closing a door without actually closing one. "Lena!" she shrieked, "close the kitchen door. There's a draught." She turned back to Carl.
The shy lover vanished. An angry young man challenged, "If Gertie 's up I think I'll come in a few minutes and see her."
"Why, uh--" hesitated Mrs. Cowles.
He merely walked in past her. His anger kept its own council, for he could depend upon Gertie's warm greeting-lonely Gertie, he would bring her the cheer of the great open.
The piano sounded in the library, and the voice of the one perfect girl mingled with a man's tenor in "Old Black Joe." Carl stalked into the library. Gertie was there, much corseted, well powdered, wearing a blue foulard frenziedly dotted with white, and being cultured in company with Dr. Doyle, the lively young dentist who had recently taken an office in the National Bank Block. He was a graduate of the University of Minnesota-dental department. He had oily black hair, and smiled with gold-filled teeth before one came to the real point of a joke. He sang in the Congregational church choir, and played tennis in a crimson-and-black blazer-the only one in Joralemon.
To Carl Dr. Doyle was dismayingly mature and smart. He horribly feared him as a rival. For the second time that evening he did not balk fate by fearing it. The dentist was a rival. After fluttering about the mature charms of Miss Dietz, the school drawing-teacher, and taking a tentative buggy-ride or two with the miller's daughter, Dr. Doyle was bringing all the charm of his professional position and professional teeth and patent-leather shoes to bear upon Gertie.
And Gertie was interested. Obviously. She was all of eighteen to-night. She frowned slightly as she turned on the piano-stool at Carl's entrance, and mechanically: "This is a pleasant surprise." Then, enthusiastically: "Isn't it too bad that Dr. Doyle was out of town, or I would have invited him to my party, and he would have given us some of his lovely songs.... Do try the second verse, doctor. The harmony is so lovely."
Carl sat at the other end of the library from Gertie and the piano, while Mrs. Cowles entertained him. He obediently said "Yessum" and "No, 'm" to the observations which she offered from the fullness of her lack of experience of life. He sat straight and still. Behind his fixed smile he was simultaneously longing to break into the musical fiesta, and envying the dentist's ability to get married without having to wait to grow up, and trying to follow what Mrs. Cowles was saying.