Show TT T T fat S B by EDNA FERBER K CHAPTER VI continued derius drove into the chicago martet market every other day during july and august lie he sometimes did not have his clothes ot off for a week together he anil and jan steen would load the wagon with tile the days garnering at tour four he would start on the tedious trip into town the liestol historic le old haymarket nay market on west randolph street had become the stand for market gardeners for miles around chicago here they stationed their wagons in preparation for the next nest days selling the early comer coiner got the advantageous stand there was na no regular allotment ot of space cervus tried to reach the haymarket by nine at night often bad roads roada made a detour necessary and bebas he was late that usually meant bad business next day the men tor for the most part slept on their wagons curled up on the wagon seat or stretched out on the sacks their horses were stabled and fed in nearby near by sheds with more actual comfort than the men themselves one could get a room for twenty five cents in one of the ramshackle rooming houses that faced the street but the rooms were small email stuffy none too clean the beds little more comfortable than the wagons besides twenty five cents you got awen ty five cents for half a barrel of tomatoes you got twenty five flye cents tor for a sack of potatoes onions brought seventy five cents a sack cabbages went a hundred heads for two dollars and they were five pound heads if you drove home with ten dollars in your pocket it represented a profit of exactly zero the sum must go above that no one lid did not pay out cents tor for the mere privilege of sleeping in a bed one june day a month or more after their marriage selina drove into alij chicago with pervus an incongruous little figure in her brides finery perched on the seat of the vegetable wagon piled high with early garden stuff it was in a way their wedding trip for selina had not been away from the farm since her marriage As they jogged bogged along now she revealed magnificent plans that had been forming in her imagination during the past tour four weeks it had not taken her four weeks or days to discover that this great broad shouldered man she had married was a I kindly creature tender and good but lacking any vestige of initiative of spirit she marveled sometimes at the memory of his boldness bo luness in bidding for her lunch box bos that evening of the raffle it seemed incredible now though he frequently referred to it wagging his hie head doggishly and grinning the broadly complacent grin of tile conquering male but he was after all a dull fellow and there was ln in selina a dash of fire of wholesome wickedness of adventure that he never quite under 0 a T tor for or rc eer r es Z ot dame 0 ye he had a mingled feeling of uneasiness and pride in the manner of all young brides selina started bravely out to make her husband over ne ile was handsome strong gentle stow slow conservative morose she would make him keen daring successful buoyant now bumping down the halsted road she bhe sketched some of her plans in large dashing strokes pervus we must point paint the house in october before the frost sets in and after the summer work Is over then that west sixteen well drain it yell teh drain pervus muttered its clay land drain and you have got yet clay hard clay soil selina had the answer to that 1 11 I know it youve got to use tile drainage and wait a minute humus dumns I 1 know what hat humus Is its decayed vegetables theres always a the side of the barn and youve been using it on the quick land all the west sixteen cla clay y part of its muckland auckland muc kland all it needs Is draining and manure with potash too and phosphoric acid pervus laughed a great hearty laugh that selina found surprisingly infuriating well well well school teacher Is a farmer now huh I 1 bet even widow Paar lenberg dont know as much as my little farmer about lie l exploded again about this now potash and what kind of add acid tell me little una from where did you learn all this about truck farming out of a book selina bellna said almost snappishly 1 I sent to chicago for it A book A book ile he slapped ills is knee A vegetable farmer out of a book why not the man who wrote it knows more about vegetable farming than anybody in all high 11 prairie r a firle H he e knows about new ways youre running the farm just the way your father ran it what was good enough for my father Is good enough for me it I 1 cried selina it the book says clay loam Is all right for cabbages pens peas and beans it tells you how it tells you how bow I 1 she was like a frantic little sy fly darting and pricking him on to accelerate the taj e stolid sluggishness of his slow plodding galt gait pervus stared straight ahead down the road between his horses ears much as klaas pool had done so maddeningly on Se gelinas SeIi linas naB first ride on the halsted road fine talk fine talk it talk its plans youve got to plan fine talk fine talk oh 1 selina beat her knee with an impotent list fist it was the nearest they had ever come to quarreling it would seem that pervus had the best of the oie argument for when two years had passed the west sixteen was stilla still a hocey boj clar li mass and and the jj 0 old giouse louse stared out shabby and at the dense willows by the roadside they slept that night la in one 0 of the twenty flye cent ceat rooming houses rather pervus slept the woman lay awake wept a little perhaps but in the morning pervus might have noted if lie bud bad been a man given to noting that the fine jaw line was set as ue de as ever with avith nn an angle that spelled inevitably paint dr drainage liu bu mus potash phosphoric add acid and a horse team slie she rose before four with pen us glad to be out ot of the stuffy little room with its spotted and scaly green wall paper its rickety bed and chair they had a cup clip of coffee and a slice of bread in the eating house on the first floor selina waited while lie he tended ended tile the horse it was scarcely dawn when the trading began selina watching it froni from the x agon seat thought that tills this was a ridiculously haphazard and perilous method of distributing the food for whose fruition perus pen us had tolled with aching back and tired arras arms but she said bald nothing she kept perforce to the house that first year and the second cervus declared that Ms his woman should never work in the fields as did many ot of the high prairie wives and daughters selina learned much that first year rear and the second but she said little she kept tile house in order rough work and endless and she managed miraculously ulous ly to keep herself looking fresh and neat she understood now maartje aartje BI pools drab garments harassed face heavily swift feet never at rest the idea of flowers in bowls was abandoned by july had it not been for faithful tending the flower beds themselves planted with such hopes w have perished for lack of care came often to the house louse ile he found there a tranquillity and pence peace never known in tile the root pool place with its hubbub and clatter in order to make her house louse attractive selina had actually diled riled her precious lutle little bank hoard the four hundred and ninety seven dollars left her by her father she still had one of the clear white diamonds slie she kept it sewed in the hem of an old flannel petticoat the can of white print and the brush actually did materialize for weeks it was dangerous to sit lean or tread upon any palatable thing in the dejong farmhouse without eliciting a cry of warning from selina slie she would actually have tried her hand at the outside of the house with a quart can and a three inch brush if pervus intervened she hemmed dimity curtains made slip covers tor for the hideous parlor sofa and the ugliest of the chairs subscribed for a magazine called house and garden together she and roelf u aed ed to pore over ove r this r as lul 1111 11 11 A t 1 1 iru ru irle r e had ever overheard one of these conversations between the farm woman who won would always be a girl and the farm boy who had never been quite a child it would have raised palms high in an oe hedell of horror but nigh high prairie never heard and have understood if it had selina was up dally daily at tour four dressing was a swift and mechanical covering of the body breakfast must be ready tor for pervus and jan ion when they I 1 came in from the barn the house to iclean clean tile the chickens to tend sewing washing ironing cooking slie she contrived ways of minimizing her steps of lightening her labor and she saw clearly how the little farm was mismanaged man aged through lack of foresight imagination and she he faced it squarely through stupidity she was fond of this great kindly blundering stubborn boy who was her husband but s she h e s saw it w him with amazing clearness through the mists mist of her love there was something prophetic about the way slie she began to absorb knowledge of the farm work of vegetable culture of marketing listening seeing she learned about boll boil planting weather selling the dally daily talk of the house and fields was of nothing else about tills this little tv enty alve acre garden patch there of the majesty of the iowa illinois and kansas grain farms with nith their endless billows of wheat and corn rye alfalfa and barley rolling away to the lio horizon Bery everything thing was done in diminutive here selina sensed that every inch of soil should have been made to yield to the utmost yet let there lay the west sixteen useless during most of the year reliable never and there was no money to drain it or enrich it no ready cash for the purchase of profitable neighboring nc acreage renge she did not know the term intensive farming but this was what nihat she meant during that winter she was often hideously lonely she never got over her hunger tor for companionship here she was a gregarious and fun loving creature burled in in a snowbound snow bound illinois prairie farmhouse with a husband who looked upon conversation as u n comen coni lenience eni ence lence not mot a pastime she learned much that winter about the utter sordidness 0 of f farm life she rarely saw the pools she rarely saw any one outside her own little household iwas the front room the parlor was usually bitterly cold but sometimes she used to slip in there a sharil over her shoulders and sit at the frosty window to watch tor for a wagon to go by or a chance pedestrian up tile road she did not pity herself nor regret her step she felt physically physical ly pretty well for a childbearing child bearing woman and pervus was tender kindly sympathetic pat hetle it if not always understanding she struggled gallantly to keep up the small decencies of existence she loved the glow of pervus eyes when she appeared with a bright abrl ht ribbon a fresh collar though he said nothing and perhaps she only fancied that be noticed once or twice she had walked the mile and a halt half of slippery road to the pools and had bad sat in Maart jes warm bright bustling kitchen tor for comfort where was adventure now and where was life and where the love of chance bred in her by her father the two years following dirks birth were always somewhat vague in se alnas mind like a dream in which hor her aznev she would take taka dirk with her into the fields placing him on a he heap a P of empty sacks in the shade and happiness are inextricably blended the boy was a plump hardy bards infant lie ile had bad ills his fathers blond ex perlor his mothers brunette vivacity at two he was a child of average ave rage intel Il gence sturdy physique a and d marked never good hui humor llor ile he almost never cried ile he was just twelve months old when gelinas Se linas second child a girl was vas born dead twice during those two years pervus fell victim to his so called rheumatic attacks folloni following ing the early spring planting when he was often forced to stand in water up to his ankles lie ile suffered intensely and during its his illness was as tractable as a goaded bull selina understood wily why halt half of high prairie was bent and twisted with rheumatism why the little dutch reformed church on sunday mornings resembled a to which sick and crippled pilgrims creep selina had been married almost alinosi three years when there came to her a letter from julle julie hempel now married the letter had been sent to the klaas pool farm and jozina had brought it to her seated on her kitchen steps in her calico dress she read lt it darling selina 1 I thought it was so queer that you answer my letter and now I 1 know that you must have thought it queer that I 1 did not answer yours I 1 found your letter to me written long ion ago when I 1 was going over mothers things last week it was the letter you must have written when I 1 was in kansas city mother had never given it to me Ma mamma ninia died three weeks ago last week I 1 was going over her things a trying task you may imagine and there were your two letters addressed to me she had never destroyed them poor manima mamma well dear selina I 1 suppose you dont even know that I 1 am married I 1 married michael chael arnold of kansas city the arnolds were in the packing business there you know michael has zone eone into bus buens ns with chicago and I 1 suppose you have heard of pas success just all of a sudden lie he began to make a great deal of money after he left the butcher bustness and auld went into the yards the stock yards you know poor mamma was vas so happy these last few years and had everything that was beautiful I 1 have two children eugene and raullene raul pauline lne 1 I am getting to be quite a society person you would laugh to see me I 1 am on the ladles entertainment committee of the worlds fair we are supposed to entertain nil all the visiting big bugs that Is the lady bugs there I 1 how Is that for a joke 1 I suppose you know about the infanta eulaile Eu Bu lalle of spain you kenoly know and what she did about the potter palmer ball selina the letter in her work bori stained hand looked up and across the fields and away to where the prairie met the sky and closed in on her her world the infanta eulaile of spain slie she wont went back to the letter well she came to chicago for the fair and mrs potter palmer was to give a huge reception and ball tor for her mrs mra P Is head of the whole committee you know and I 1 must say she looks queenly with her white hair so beautifully dressed and her diamond dog collar and her black velvet and all I 1 well at the very last minute the infanta refused to attend the ball because she had just juet heard beard that mrs P was an Inn keepers wife imagine I 1 the palmer house of course selina holding the letter in her hand imagined it was fas in the third year of Sell nas marriage that she first went into the fields to work pervus had protested miserably though the vegetables were sp spoiling in the ground selina had bad regained health and vigor after two years of wretchedness she felt steel strong and even hopeful again sure sign of physical well being long before now she had realized that this time must inevitably come so she answered briskly nonsense pervus working in the fields no harder than washing or ironing or scrubbing or standing over a hot stove in august work 1 House works the hardest work in the world why men wont do it she would often take the boy dirk with her into the fields placing him on a heap of empty sacks sachs in the shade he invariably crawled off thi slowly throne to dig and burrow in the warm black dirt he even made as though to help his mother pulling at the rooted things with futile fingers and sitting bitting back with a bump when a shallow root did unexpectedly yield to his tugging look I 1 iles hes a farmer already per pe J aus would say TO BE CONTINUED |