Prairie Folks Read online

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  PRAIRIE FOLKS

  By HAMLIN GARLAND, AUTHOR OF"MAIN-TRAVELED ROADS," "A MEMBER OFTHE THIRD HOUSE," "A SPOIL OF OFFICE,"ETC., ETC.

  F. J. SCHULTE & COMPANY

  PUBLISHERS CHICAGO. M DCCC XCIII

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  Copyright, 1892,by HAMLIN GARLAND.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  Prairie Folks.

  Pioneers.

  They rise to mastery of wind and snow; They go like soldiers grimly into strife, To colonize the plain; they plow and sow, And fertilize the sod with their own life As did the Indian and the buffalo.

  Settlers.

  Above them soars a dazzling sky, In winter blue and clear as steel, In summer like an Arctic sea Wherein vast icebergs drift and reel And melt like sudden sorcery.

  Beneath them plains stretch far and fair, Rich with sunlight and with rain; Vast harvests ripen with their care And fill with overplus of grain Their square, great bins.

  Yet still they strive! I see them rise At dawn-light, going forth to toil: The same salt sweat has filled my eyes, My feet have trod the self-same soil Behind the snarling plow.

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  CONTENTS

  UNCLE ETHAN'S SPECULATION 11

  THE TEST OF ELDER PILL 33

  WILLIAM BACON'S HIRED MAN 73

  SIM BURNS'S WIFE 101

  SATURDAY NIGHT ON THE FARM 143

  VILLAGE CRONIES 169

  DRIFTING CRANE 187

  OLD DADDY DEERING 201

  THE SOCIABLE AT DUDLEY'S 227

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  PART I.

  UNCLE ETHAN'S SPECULATION IN PATENT MEDICINES

  A certain guileless trust in human kind Too often leads them into nets Spread by some wandering trader, Smooth, and deft, and sure.

  UNCLE ETHAN RIPLEY.

  Uncle Ethan had a theory that a man's character could be told by the wayhe sat in a wagon seat.

  "A mean man sets right plumb in the _middle_ o' the seat, as much as tosay, 'Walk, gol darn yeh, who cares?' But a man that sets in one cornero' the seat, much as to say, 'Jump in--cheaper t' ride 'n to walk,' youcan jest tie to."

  Uncle Ripley was prejudiced in favor of the stranger, therefore, beforehe came opposite the potato patch, where the old man was "bugging hisvines." The stranger drove a jaded-looking pair of calico ponies,hitched to a clattering democrat wagon, and he sat on the extreme end ofthe seat, with the lines in his right hand, while his left rested on histhigh, with his little finger gracefully crooked and his elbows akimbo.He wore a blue shirt, with gay-colored armlets just above the elbows,and his vest hung unbuttoned down his lank ribs. It was plain he waswell pleased with himself.

  As he pulled up and threw one leg over the end of the seat, Uncle Ethanobserved that the left spring was much more worn than the other, whichproved that it was not accidental, but that it was the driver's habit tosit on that end of the seat.

  "Good afternoon," said the stranger, pleasantly.

  "Good afternoon, sir."

  "Bugs purty plenty?"

  "Plenty enough, I gol! I don't see where they all come fum."

  "Early Rose?" inquired the man, as if referring to the bugs.

  "No; Peachblows an' Carter Reds. My Early Rose is over near the house.The old woman wants 'em near. See the darned things!" he pursued,rapping savagely on the edge of the pan to rattle the bugs back.

  "How do yeh kill 'em--scald 'em?"

  "Mostly. Sometimes I"----

  "Good piece of oats," yawned the stranger, listlessly.

  "That's barley."

  "So 'tis. Didn't notice."

  Uncle Ethan was wondering what the man was. He had some pots of blackpaint in the wagon, and two or three square boxes.

  "What do yeh think o' Cleveland's chances for a second term?" continuedthe man, as if they had been talking politics all the while.

  Uncle Ripley scratched his head. "Waal--I dunno--bein' a Republican--Ithink "----

  "That's so--it's a purty scaly outlook. I don't believe in second termsmyself," the man hastened to say.

  "Is that your new barn acrost there?" pointing with his whip.

  "Yes, sir, it is," replied the old man, proudly. After years of planningand hard work he had managed to erect a little wooden barn, costingpossibly three hundred dollars. It was plain to be seen he took achildish pride in the fact of its newness.

  The stranger mused. "A lovely place for a sign," he said, as his eyeswandered across its shining yellow broadside.

  Uncle Ethan stared, unmindful of the bugs crawling over the edge of hispan. His interest in the pots of paint deepened.

  "Couldn't think o' lettin' me paint a sign on that barn?" the strangercontinued, putting his locked hands around one knee, and gazing awayacross the pig-pen at the building.

  "What kind of a sign? Gol darn your skins!" Uncle Ethan pounded the panwith his paddle and scraped two or three crawling abominations off hisleathery wrist.

  It was a beautiful day, and the man in the wagon seemed unusually loathto attend to business. The tired ponies slept in the shade of thelombardies. The plain was draped in a warm mist, and shadowed by vast,vaguely defined masses of clouds--a lazy June day.

  "Dodd's Family Bitters," said the man, waking out of his abstractionwith a start, and resuming his working manner. "The best bitter in themarket." He alluded to it in the singular. "Like to look at it? Notrouble to show goods, as the fellah says," he went on hastily, seeingUncle Ethan's hesitation.

  He produced a large bottle of triangular shape, like a bottle forpickled onions. It had a red seal on top, and a strenuous caution in redletters on the neck, "None genuine unless 'Dodd's Family Bitters' isblown in the bottom."

  "Here's what it cures," pursued the agent, pointing at the side, where,in an inverted pyramid, the names of several hundred diseases werearranged, running from "gout" to "pulmonary complaints," etc.

  "I gol! she cuts a wide swath, don't she?" exclaimed Uncle Ethan,profoundly impressed with the list.

  "They ain't no better bitter in the world," said the agent, with aconclusive inflection.

  "What's its speshy-_al_ity? Most of 'em have some speshy-_al_ity."

  "Well--summer complaints--an'--an'--spring an' fall troubles--tones yeup, sort of."

  Uncle Ethan's forgotten pan was empty of his gathered bugs. He wasdeeply interested in this man. There was something he liked about him.

  "What does it sell fur?" he asked, after a pause.

  "Same price as them cheap medicines--dollar a bottle--big bottles, too.Want one?"

  "Wal, mother ain't to home, an' I don't know as she'd like this kind. Weain't been sick f'r years. Still, they's no tellin'," he added, seeingthe answer to his objection in the agent's eyes. "Times is purty close,too, with us, y' see; we've jest built that stable "----

  "Say, I'll tell yeh what I'll do," said the stranger, waking up andspeaking in a warmly generous tone. "I'll give you ten bottles of thebitter if you'll let me paint a sign on that barn. It won't hurt thebarn a bit, and if you want 'o, you can paint it out a year from date.Come, what d' ye say?"

  "I guess I hadn't better."
/>
  The agent thought that Uncle Ethan was after more pay, but in reality hewas thinking of what his little old wife would say.

  "It simply puts a family bitter in your home that may save you fiftydollars this comin' fall. You can't tell."

  Just what the man said after that Uncle Ethan didn't follow. His voicehad a confidential purring sound as he stretched across the wagon-seatand talked on, eyes half shut. He straightened up at last, and concludedin the tone of one who has carried his point:

  "So! If you didn't want to use the whole twenty-five bottles y'rself,why! sell it to your neighbors. You can get twenty dollars out of iteasy, and still have five bottles of the best family bitter that everwent into a bottle."

  It was the thought of this opportunity to get a buffalo-skin coat thatconsoled Uncle Ethan as he saw the hideous black letters appearing underthe agent's lazy brush.

  It was the hot side of the barn, and painting was no light work. Theagent was forced to mop his forehead with his sleeve.

  "Say, hain't got a cooky or anything, and a cup o' milk handy?" he saidat the end of the first enormous word, which ran the whole length of thebarn.

  Uncle Ethan got him the milk and cooky, which he ate with anexaggeratedly dainty action of his fingers, seated meanwhile on thestaging which Uncle Ripley had helped him to build. This lunch infusednew energy into him, and in a short time "DODD'S FAMILY BITTERS, Bestin the Market," disfigured the sweet-smelling pine boards.

  * * * * *

  Ethan was eating his self-obtained supper of bread and milk when hiswife came home.

  "Who's been a-paintin' on that barn?" she demanded, her bead-like eyesflashing, her withered little face set in an ominous frown. "EthanRipley, what you been doin'?"

  "Nawthin'," he replied, feebly.

  "Who painted that sign on there?"

  "A man come along an' he wanted to paint that on there, and I let 'im;and it's my barn, anyway. I guess I can do what I'm a min' to with it,"he ended, defiantly; but his eyes wavered.

  Mrs. Ripley ignored the defiance. "What under the sun p'sessed you to dosuch a thing as that, Ethan Ripley? I declare I don't see! You gitfooler an' fooler ev'ry day you live, I _do_ believe."

  Uncle Ethan attempted a defense.

  "Well, he paid me twenty-five dollars f'r it, anyway."

  "Did 'e?" She was visibly affected by this news.

  "Well, anyhow, it amounts to that; he give me twenty-five bottles"----

  Mrs. Ripley sank back in her chair. "Well, I swan to Bungay! EthanRipley--wal, you beat all I _ever_ see!" she added in despair ofexpression. "I thought you had _some_ sense left, but you hain't, notone blessed scimpton. Where _is_ the stuff?"

  "Down cellar, an' you needn't take on no airs, ol' woman. I've known youto buy things you didn't need time an' time 'n' agin, tins and things,an' I guess you wish you had back that ten dollars you paid for thatillustrated Bible."

  "Go 'long an' bring that stuff up here. I never see such a man in mylife. It's a wonder he didn't do it f'r two bottles." She glared out atthe sign, which faced directly upon the kitchen window.

  Uncle Ethan tugged the two cases up and set them down on the floor ofthe kitchen. Mrs. Ripley opened a bottle and smelled of it like acautious cat.

  "Ugh! Merciful sakes, what stuff! It ain't fit f'r a hog to take. What'dyou think you was goin'to do with it?" she asked in poignant disgust.

  "I expected to take it--if I was sick. Whaddy ye s'pose?" He defiantlystood his ground, towering above her like a leaning tower.

  "The hull cartload of it?"

  "No. I'm goin' to sell part of it an' git me an overcoat"----

  "Sell it!" she shouted. "Nobuddy'll buy that sick'nin' stuff but an oldnumbskull like you. Take that slop out o' the house this minute! Takeit right down to the sink-hole an' smash every bottle on the stones."

  Uncle Ethan and the cases of medicine disappeared, and the old womanaddressed her concluding remarks to little Tewksbury, her grandson, whostood timidly on one leg in the doorway, like an intruding pullet.

  "Everything around this place 'ud go to rack an' ruin if I didn't keep awatch on that soft-pated old dummy. I thought that lightenin'-rod manhad give him a lesson he'd remember, but no, he must go an' make areg'lar"----

  She subsided in a tumult of banging pans, which helped her out in thematter of expression and reduced her to a grim sort of quiet. UncleEthan went about the house like a convict on shipboard. Once she caughthim looking out of the window.

  "I should _think_ you'd feel proud o' that."

  Uncle Ethan had never been sick a day in his life. He was bent andbruised with never-ending toil, but he had nothing especial the matterwith him.

  He did not smash the medicine, as Mrs. Ripley commanded, because he haddetermined to sell it. The next Sunday morning, after his chores weredone, he put on his best coat of faded diagonal, and was brushing hishair into a ridge across the center of his high, narrow head, when Mrs.Ripley came in from feeding the calves.

  "Where you goin' now?"

  "None o' your business," he replied. "It's darn funny if I can't stirwithout you wantin' to know all about it. Where's Tewky?"

  "Feedin' the chickens. You ain't goin' to take him off this mornin' now!I don't care where you go."

  "Who's a-goin' to take him off? I ain't said nothin' about takin' himoff."

  "Wall, take y'rself off, an' if y' ain't here f'r dinner, I ain't goin'to get no supper."

  Ripley took a water-pail and put four bottles of "the bitter" into it,and trudged away up the road with it in a pleasant glow of hope. Allnature seemed to declare the day a time of rest, and invited men todisassociate ideas of toil from the rustling green wheat, shining grass,and tossing blooms. Something of the sweetness and buoyancy of allnature permeated the old man's work-calloused body, and he whistledlittle snatches of the dance tunes he played on his fiddle.

  But he found neighbor Johnson to be supplied with another variety ofbitter, which was all he needed for the present. He qualified hisrefusal to buy with a cordial invitation to go out and see his shotes,in which he took infinite pride. But Uncle Ripley said: "I guess I'llhaf t' be goin'; I want 'o git up to Jennings' before dinner."

  He couldn't help feeling a little depressed when he found Jennings away.The next house along the pleasant lane was inhabited by a "new-comer."He was sitting on the horse-trough, holding a horse's halter, while hishired man dashed cold water upon the galled spot on the animal'sshoulder.

  After some preliminary talk Ripley presented his medicine.

  "Hell, no! What do I want of such stuff? When they's anything the matterwith me, I take a lunkin' ol' swig of popple-bark and bourbon. Thatfixes me."

  Uncle Ethan moved off up the lane. He hardly felt like whistling now. Atthe next house he set his pail down in the weeds beside the fence, andwent in without it. Doudney came to the door in his bare feet, buttoninghis suspenders over a clean boiled shirt. He was dressing to go out.

  "Hello, Ripley. I was just goin' down your way. Jest wait a minute an'I'll be out."

  When he came out fully dressed, Uncle Ethan grappled him. "Say, what d'you think o' paytent med"----

  "Some of 'em are boss. But y' want 'o know what y're gitt'n'."

  "What d' ye think o' Dodd's"----

  "Best in the market."

  Uncle Ethan straightened up and his face lighted. Doudney went on:

  "Yes, sir; best bitter that ever went into a bottle. I know, I've triedit. I don't go much on patent medicines, but when I get a good"----

  "Don't want 'o buy a bottle?"

  Doudney turned and faced him.

  "Buy! No. I've got nineteen bottles I want 'o _sell_." Ripley glanced upat Doudney's new granary and there read "Dodd's Family Bitters." He wasstricken dumb. Doudney saw it all and roared.

  "Wal, that's a good one! We two tryin' to sell each other bitters.Ho--ho--ho--har, whoop! wal, this is rich! How many bottles did yougit?"

  "None o' your business," said Uncle Et
han, as he turned and made off,while Doudney screamed with merriment.

  On his way home Uncle Ethan grew ashamed of his burden. Doudney hadcanvassed the whole neighborhood, and he practically gave up thestruggle. Everybody he met seemed determined to find out what he hadbeen doing, and at last he began lying about it.

  "Hello, Uncle Ripley, what y' got there in that pail?"

  "Goose eggs f'r settin'."

  He disposed of one bottle to old Gus Peterson. Gus never paid his debts,and he would only promise fifty cents "on tick" for the bottle, and yetso desperate was Ripley that this _quasi_ sale cheered him up not alittle.

  As he came down the road, tired, dusty and hungry, he climbed over thefence in order to avoid seeing that sign on the barn, and slunk into thehouse without looking back.

  He couldn't have felt meaner about it if he had allowed a Democraticposter to be pasted there.

  The evening passed in grim silence, and in sleep he saw that signwriggling across the side of the barn like boa-constrictors hung onrails. He tried to paint them out, but every time he tried it the manseemed to come back with a sheriff, and savagely warned him to let itstay till the year was up. In some mysterious way the agent seemed toknow every time he brought out the paint-pot, and he was no longer thepleasant-voiced individual who drove the calico ponies.

  As he stepped out into the yard next morning, that abominable,sickening, scrawling advertisement was the first thing that claimed hisglance--it blotted out the beauty of the morning.

  Mrs. Ripley came to the window, buttoning her dress at the throat, awhisp of her hair sticking assertively from the little knob at the backof her head.

  "Lovely, ain't it! An' _I_'ve got to see it all day long. I can't lookout the winder but that thing's right in my face." It seemed to make hersavage. She hadn't been in such a temper since her visit to New York. "Ihope you feel satisfied with it."

  Ripley walked off to the barn. His pride in its clean, sweet newness wasgone. 'He slyly tried the paint to see if it couldn't be scraped off,but it was dried in thoroughly. Whereas before he had taken delight inhaving his neighbors turn and look at the building, now he kept out ofsight whenever he saw a team coming. He hoed corn away in the back ofthe field, when he should have been bugging potatoes by the roadside.

  Mrs. Ripley was in a frightful mood about it, but she held herself incheck for several days. At last she burst forth:

  "Ethan Ripley, I can't stand that thing any longer, and I ain't goin'to, that's all! You've got to go and paint that thing out, or I will.I'm just about crazy with it."

  "But, mother, I promised "----

  "I don't care _what_ you promised, it's got to be painted out. I've gotthe nightmare now, seem' it. I'm goin' to send f'r a pail o' red paint,and I'm goin' to paint that out if it takes the last breath I've got todo it."

  "I'll tend to it, mother, if you won't hurry me"----

  "I can't stand it another day. It makes me boil every time I look outthe winder."

  Uncle Ethan hitched up his team and drove gloomily off to town, where hetried to find the agent. He lived in some other part of the county,however, and so the old man gave up and bought a pot of red paint, notdaring to go back to his desperate wife without it.

  "Goin' to paint y'r new barn?" inquired the merchant, with friendlyinterest.

  Uncle Ethan turned with guilty sharpness; but the merchant's face wasgrave and kindly.

  "Yes, I thought I'd touch it up a little--don't cost much."

  "It pays--always," the merchant said emphatically.

  "Will it--stick jest as well put on evenings?" inquired Uncle Ethan,hesitatingly.

  "Yes--won't make any difference. Why? Ain't goin' to have"----

  "Waal,--I kind o' thought I'd do it odd times night an' mornin.'--kindo' odd times"----

  He seemed oddly confused about it, and the merchant looked after himanxiously as he drove away.

  After supper that night he went out to the barn, and Mrs. Ripley heardhim sawing and hammering. Then the noise ceased, and he came in and satdown in his usual place.

  "What y' ben makin'?" she inquired. Tewksbury had gone to bed. She satdarning a stocking.

  "I jest thought I'd git the stagin' ready f'r paintin'," he said,evasively.

  "Waal! I'll be glad when it's covered up." When she got ready for bed,he was still seated in his chair, and after she had dozed off two orthree times she began to wonder why he didn't come. When the clockstruck ten, and she realized that he had not stirred, she began to getimpatient. "Come, are y' goin' to sit there all night?" There was noreply. She rose up in bed and looked about the room. The broad moonflooded it with light, so that she could see he was not asleep in hischair, as she had supposed. There was something ominous in hisdisappearance.

  "Ethan! Ethan Ripley, where are yeh?" There was no reply to her sharpcall. She rose and distractedly looked about among the furniture, as ifhe might somehow be a cat and be hiding in a corner somewhere. Then shewent upstairs where the boy slept, her hard little heels making acurious _tunking_ noise on the bare boards. The moon fell across thesleeping boy like a robe of silver. He was alone.

  She began to be alarmed. Her eyes widened in fear. All sorts of vaguehorrors sprang unbidden into her brain. She still had the mist of sleepin her brain.

  She hurried down the stairs and out into the fragrant night. Thekatydids were singing in infinite peace under the solemn splendor of themoon. The cattle sniffed and sighed, jangling their bells now and then,and the chickens in the coops stirred uneasily as if overheated. The oldwoman stood there in her bare feet and long nightgown, horror-stricken.The ghastly story of a man who had hung himself in his barn because hiswife deserted him came into her mind and stayed there with frightfulpersistency. Her throat filled chokingly.

  She felt a wild rush of loneliness. She had a sudden realization of howdear that gaunt old figure was, with its grizzled face and ready smile.Her breath came quick and quicker, and she was at the point of burstinginto a wild cry to Tewksbury, when she heard a strange noise. It camefrom the barn, a creaking noise. She looked that way, and saw in theshadowed side a deeper shadow moving to and fro. A revulsion toastonishment and anger took place in her.

  "Land o' Bungay! If he ain't paintin' that barn, like a perfect oldidiot, in the night."

  Uncle Ethan, working desperately, did not hear her feet pattering downthe path, and was startled by her shrill voice.

  "Well, Ethan Ripley, whaddy y' think you're doin' now?"

  He made two or three slapping passes with the brush, and then snapped,"I'm a-paintin' this barn--whaddy ye s'pose? If ye had eyes y' wouldn'task."

  "Well, you come right straight to bed. What d'you mean by actin' so?"

  "You go back into the house an' let me be. I know what I'm a-doin'.You've pestered me about this sign jest about enough." He dabbed hisbrush to and fro as he spoke. His gaunt figure towered above her inshadow. His slapping brush had a vicious sound.

  Neither spoke for some time. At length she said more gently, "Ain't youcomin' in?"

  "No--not till I get a-ready. You go 'long an' tend to y'r own business.Don't stan' there an' ketch cold."

  She moved off slowly toward the house. His voice subdued her. Workingalone out there had rendered him savage; he was not to be pushed anyfarther. She knew by the tone of his voice that he must not beassaulted. She slipped on her shoes and a shawl, and came back where hewas working, and took a seat on a saw-horse.

  "I'm a-goin' to set right here till you come in, Ethan Ripley," shesaid, in a firm voice, but gentler than usual.

  "Waal, you'll set a good while," was his ungracious reply. But each felta furtive tenderness for the other. He worked on in silence. The boardscreaked heavily as he walked to and fro, and the slapping sound of thepaint-brush sounded loud in the sweet harmony of the night. The majesticmoon swung slowly round the corner of the barn, and fell upon the oldman's grizzled head and bent shoulders. The horses inside could be heardstamping the mosquitoes away, and chewing their hay in pleasa
nt chorus.

  The little figure seated on the saw-horse drew the shawl closer abouther thin shoulders. Her eyes were in shadow, and her hands were wrappedin her shawl. At last she spoke in a curious tone.

  "Well, I don't know as you _was_ so very much to blame. I _didn't_ wantthat Bible myself--I held out I did, but I didn't."

  Ethan worked on until the full meaning of this unprecedented surrenderpenetrated his head, and then he threw down his brush.

  "Waal, I guess I'll let 'er go at that. I've covered up the most of it,anyhow. Guess we'd better go in."

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