If only he knew what time it was. Here in Chicago you couldn't tell whether it was four o'clock or seven unless you looked at your watch. To do that it was necessary to turn on the light. And to turn on the light meant that he would turn on, too, a flood of querulous protest from his wife, Bella, who lay asleep beside him.
When for forty-five years of your life you have risen at four-thirty daily, it is difficult to learn to loll. To do it successfully, you must be a natural-born loller to begin with and revert9. Bella Westerveld was and had. So there she lay, asleep. Old Ben wasn't and hadn't. So there he lay, terribly wide-awake, wondering what made his heart thump10 so fast when he was lying so still. If it had been light, you could have seen the lines of strained resignation in the sagging12 muscles of his patient face.
They had lived in the city for almost a year, but it was the same every morning. He would open his eyes, start up with one hand already reaching for the limp, drab work-worn garments that used to drape the chair by his bed. Then he would remember and sink back while a great wave of depression swept over him. Nothing to get up for. Store clothes on the chair by the bed. He was taking it easy.
Back home on the farm in southern Illinois he had known the hour the instant his eyes opened. Here the flat next door was so close that the bed-room was in twilight13 even at midday. On the farm he could tell by the feeling—an intangible thing, but infallible. He could gauge14 the very quality of the blackness that comes just before dawn. The crowing of the cocks, the stamping of the cattle, the twittering of the birds in the old elm whose branches were etched eerily15 against his window in the ghostly light—these things he had never needed. He had known. But here in the un-sylvan section of Chicago which bears the bosky name of Englewood, the very darkness had a strange quality.
A hundred unfamiliar16 noises misled him. There were no cocks, no cattle, no elm. Above all, there was no instinctive17 feeling. Once, when they first came to the city, he had risen at twelve-thirty, thinking it was morning, and had gone clumping18 about the flat, waking up everyone and loosing from his wife's lips a stream of acid vituperation that seared even his case-hardened sensibilities. The people sleeping in the bedroom of the flat next door must have heard her.
"You big rube! Getting up in the middle of the night and stomping19 around like cattle. You'd better build a shed in the back yard and sleep there if you're so dumb you can't tell night from day."
Even after thirty-three years of marriage he had never ceased to be appalled20 at the coarseness of her mind and speech—she who had seemed so mild and fragile and exquisite22 when he married her. He had crept back to bed shamefacedly. He could hear the couple in the bedroom of the flat just across the little court grumbling23 and then laughing a little, grudgingly24, and yet with appreciation25. That bedroom, too, had still the power to appall21 him. Its nearness, its forced intimacy26, were daily shocks to him whose most immediate27 neighbor, back on the farm, had been a quarter of a mile away. The sound of a shoe dropped on the hardwood floor, the rush of water in the bathroom, the murmur28 of nocturnal confidences, the fretful cry of a child in the night, all startled and distressed29 him whose ear had found music in the roar of the thresher and had been soothed30 by the rattle31 of the tractor and the hoarse32 hoot33 of the steamboat whistle at the landing. His farm's edge had been marked by the Mississippi rolling grandly by.
Since they had moved into town, he had found only one city sound that he really welcomed—the rattle and clink that marked the milkman's matutinal visit. The milkman came at six, and he was the good fairy who released Ben Westerveld from durance vile—or had until the winter months made his coming later and later, so that he became worse than useless as a timepiece. But now it was late March, and mild. The milkman's coming would soon again mark old Ben's rising hour. Before he had begun to take it easy, six o'clock had seen the entire mechanism34 of his busy little world humming smoothly35 and sweetly, the whole set in motion by his own big work-callused hands. Those hands puzzled him now. He often looked at them curiously36 and in a detached sort of way, as if they belonged to someone else. So white they were, and smooth and soft, with long, pliant37 nails that never broke off from rough work as they used to. Of late there were little splotches of brown on the backs of his hands and around the thumbs.
"Guess it's my liver," he decided38, rubbing the spots thoughtfully. "She gets kind of sluggish39 from me not doing anything. Maybe a little spring tonic40 wouldn't go bad. Tone me up."
He got a little bottle of reddish-brown mixture from the druggist on Halstead Street near Sixty-third. A genial41 gentleman, the druggist, white-coated and dapper, stepping affably about the fragrant42-smelling store. The reddish-brown mixture had toned old Ben up surprisingly—while it lasted. He had two bottles of it. But on discontinuing it he slumped43 back into his old apathy44.
Ben Westerveld, in his store clothes, his clean blue shirt, his incongruous hat, ambling45 aimlessly about Chicago's teeming46, gritty streets, was a tragedy. Those big, capable hands, now dangling47 so limply from inert48 wrists, had wrested49 a living from the soil; those strangely unfaded blue eyes had the keenness of vision which comes from scanning great stretches of earth and sky; the stocky, square-shouldered body suggested power unutilized. All these spelled tragedy. Worse than tragedy—waste.
For almost half a century this man had combated the elements, head set, eyes wary50, shoulders squared. He had fought wind and sun, rain and drought, scourge51 and flood. He had risen before dawn and slept before sunset. In the process he had taken on something of the color and the rugged52 immutability53 of the fields and hills and trees among which he toiled54. Something of their dignity, too, though your town dweller56 might fail to see it beneath the drab exterior57. He had about him none of the highlights and sharp points of the city man. He seemed to blend in with the background of nature so as to be almost undistinguishable from it, as were the furred and feathered creatures. This farmer differed from the city man as a hillock differs from an artificial golf bunker, though form and substance are the same.
Ben Westerveld didn't know he was a tragedy. Your farmer is not given to introspection. For that matter, anyone knows that a farmer in town is a comedy. Vaudeville58, burlesque59, the Sunday supplement, the comic papers, have marked him a fair target for ridicule60. Perhaps one should know him in his overalled, stubble-bearded days, with the rich black loam61 of the Mississippi bottomlands clinging to his boots.
At twenty-five, given a tasseled62 cap, doublet and hose, and a long, slim pipe, Ben Westerveld would have been the prototype of one of those rollicking, lusty young mynheers that laugh out at you from a Frans Hals canvas. A roguish fellow with a merry eye; red-cheeked, vigorous. A serious mouth, though, and great sweetness of expression. As he grew older, the seriousness crept up and up and almost entirely63 obliterated64 the roguishness. By the time the life of ease claimed him, even the ghost of that ruddy wight of boyhood had vanished.
The Westerveld ancestry65 was as Dutch as the name. It had been hundreds of years since the first Westervelds came to America, and they had married and intermarried until the original Holland strain had almost entirely disappeared. They had drifted to southern Illinois by one of those slow processes of migration66 and had settled in Calhoun County, then almost a wilderness67, but magnificent with its rolling hills, majestic68 rivers, and gold-and-purple distances. But to the practical Westerveld mind, hills and rivers and purple haze69 existed only in their relation to crops and weather. Ben, though, had a way of turning his face up to the sky sometimes, and it was not to scan the heavens for clouds. You saw him leaning on the plow70 handle to watch the whirring flight of a partridge across the meadow. He liked farming. Even the drudgery71 of it never made him grumble72. He was a natural farmer as men are natural mechanics or musicians or salesmen. Things grew for him. He seemed instinctively73 to know facts about the kin1 ship of soil and seed that other men had to learn from books or experience. It grew to be a saying in that section that "Ben Westerveld could grow a crop on rock."
At picnics and neighborhood frolics Ben could throw farther and run faster and pull harder than any of the other farmer boys who took part in the rough games. And he could pick up a girl with one hand and hold her at arm's length while she shrieked75 with pretended fear and real ecstasy76. The girls all liked Ben. There was that almost primitive77 strength which appealed to the untamed in them as his gentleness appealed to their softer side. He liked the girls, too, and could have had his pick of them. He teased them all, took them buggy riding, beaued them about to neighbor-hood parties. But by the time he was twenty-five the thing had narrowed down to the Byers girl on the farm adjoining Westerveld's. There was what the neighbors called an understanding, though perhaps he had never actually asked the Byers girl to marry him. You saw him going down the road toward the Byers place four nights out of the seven. He had a quick, light step at variance79 with his sturdy build, and very different from the heavy, slouching gait of the work-weary farmer. He had a habit of carrying in his hand a little twig80 or switch cut from a tree. This he would twirl blithely81 as he walked along. The switch and the twirl represented just so much energy and animal spirits. He never so much as flicked82 a dandelion head with it.
An inarticulate sort of thing, that courtship.
"Hello, Emma."
"How do, Ben."
"Thought you might like to walk a piece down the road. They got a calf83 at Aug Tietjens' with five legs."
"I heard. I'd just as lief walk a little piece. I'm kind of beat, though. We've got the threshers day after tomorrow. We've been cooking up."
Beneath Ben's bonhomie and roguishness there was much shyness. The two would plod84 along the road together in a sort of blissful agony of embarrassment85. The neighbors were right in their surmise86 that there was no definite understanding between them. But the thing was settled in the minds of both. Once Ben had said: "Pop says I can have the north eighty on easy payments if—when——"
Emma Byers had flushed up brightly, but had answered equably: "That's a fine piece. Your pop is an awful good man."
The stolid87 exteriors88 of these two hid much that was fine and forceful. Emma Byers' thoughtful forehead and intelligent eyes would have revealed that in her. Her mother was dead. She kept house for her father and brother. She was known as "that smart Byers girl." Her butter and eggs and garden stuff brought higher prices at Commercial, twelve miles away, than did any other's in the district. She was not a pretty girl, according to the local standards, but there was about her, even at twenty-two, a clear-headedness and a restful serenity89 that promised well for Ben Westerveld's future happiness.
But Ben Westerveld's future was not to lie in Emma Byers' capable hands. He knew that as soon as he saw Bella Huckins. Bella Huckins was the daughter of old "Red Front" Huckins, who ran the saloon of that cheerful name in Commercial. Bella had elected to teach school, not from any bent90 toward learning but because teaching appealed to her as being a rather elegant occupation. The Huckins family was not elegant. In that day a year or two of teaching in a country school took the place of the present-day normal-school diploma. Bella had an eye on St. Louis, forty miles from the town of Commercial. So she used the country school as a step toward her ultimate goal, though she hated the country and dreaded91 her apprenticeship92.
"I'll get a beau," she said, "who'll take me driving and around. And Saturdays and Sundays I can come to town."
The first time Ben Westerveld saw her she was coming down the road toward him in her tight-fitting black alpaca dress. The sunset was behind her. Her hair was very golden. In a day of tiny waists hers could have been spanned by Ben Westerveld's two hands. He discovered that later. Just now he thought he had never seen anything so fairylike and dainty, though he did not put it that way. Ben was not glib93 of thought or speech.
He knew at once this was the new schoolteacher. He had heard of her coming, though at the time the conversation had interested him not at all. Bella knew who he was, too. She had learned the name and history of every eligible94 young man in the district two days after her arrival. That was due partly to her own bold curiosity and partly to the fact that she was boarding with the Widow Becker, the most notorious gossip in the county. In Bella's mental list of the neighborhood swains Ben Westerveld already occupied a position at the top of the column.
He felt his face redden as they approached each other. To hide his embarrassment he swung his little hickory switch gaily95 and called to his dog Dunder, who was nosing about by the roadside. Dunder bounded forward, spied the newcomer, and leaped toward her playfully and with natural canine96 curiosity.
Bella screamed. She screamed and ran to Ben and clung to him, clasping her hands about his arm. Ben lifted the hickory switch in his free hand and struck Dunder a sharp cut with it. It was the first time in his life that he had done such a thing. If he had had a sane97 moment from that time until the day he married Bella Huckins, he never would have forgotten the dumb hurt in Dunder's stricken eyes and shrinking, quivering body.
Bella screamed again, still clinging to him. Ben was saying: "He won't hurt you. He won't hurt you," meanwhile patting her shoulder reassuringly98. He looked down at her pale face. She was so slight, so childlike, so apparently100 different from the sturdy country girls. From—well, from the girls he knew. Her helplessness, her utter femininity, appealed to all that was masculine in him. Bella, the experienced, clinging to him, felt herself swept from head to foot by a queer electric tingling101 that was very pleasant but that still had in it something of the sensation of a wholesale102 bumping of one's crazy bone. If she had been anything but a stupid little flirt103, she would have realized that here was a specimen104 of the virile105 male with which she could not trifle. She glanced up at him now, smiling faintly. "My, I was scared!" She stepped away from him a little—very little.
"Aw, he wouldn't hurt a flea106."
But Bella looked over her shoulder fearfully to where Dunder stood by the roadside, regarding Ben with a look of uncertainty107. He still thought that perhaps this was a new game. Not a game that he cared for, but still one to be played if his master fancied it. Ben stooped, picked up a stone, and threw it at Dunder, striking him in the flank.
"Go on home!" he commanded sternly. "Go home!" He started toward the dog with a well-feigned gesture of menace. Dunder, with a low howl, put his tail between his legs and loped off home, a disillusioned108 dog.
Bella stood looking up at Ben. Ben looked down at her. "You're the new teacher, ain't you?"
"Yes. I guess you must think I'm a fool, going on like a baby about that dog."
"Most girls would be scared of him if they didn't know he wouldn't hurt nobody. He's pretty big."
He paused a moment, awkwardly. "My name's Ben Westerveld."
"Pleased to meet you," said Bella. "Which way was you going? There's a dog down at Tietjens' that's enough to scare anybody. He looks like a pony109, he's so big."
"I forgot something at the school this afternoon, and I was walking over to get it." Which was a lie. "I hope it won't get dark before I get there. You were going the other way, weren't you?"
"Oh, I wasn't going no place in particular. I'll be pleased to keep you company down to the school and back." He was surprised at his own sudden masterfulness.
They set off together, chatting as freely as if they had known one another for years. Ben had been on his way to the Byers farm, as usual. The Byers farm and Emma Byers passed out of his mind as completely as if they had been whisked away on a magic rug.
Bella Huckins had never meant to marry him. She hated farm life.
She was contemptuous of farmer folk. She loathed110 cooking and drudgery. The Huckinses lived above the saloon in Commercial and Mrs. Huckins was always boiling ham and tongue and cooking pigs' feet and shredding111 cabbage for slaw, all these edibles112 being destined113 for the free-lunch counter downstairs. Bella had early made up her mind that there should be no boiling and stewing114 and frying in her life. Whenever she could find an excuse she loitered about the saloon. There she found life and talk and color. Old Red Front Huckins used to chase her away, but she always turned up again, somehow, with a dish for the lunch counter or with an armful of clean towels.
Ben Westerveld never said clearly to himself, "I want to marry Bella." He never dared meet the thought. He intended honestly to marry Emma Byers. But this thing was too strong for him. As for Bella, she laughed at him, but she was scared, too. They both fought the thing, she selfishly, he unselfishly, for the Byers girl, with her clear, calm eyes and her dependable ways, was heavy on his heart. Ben's appeal for Bella was merely that of the magnetic male. She never once thought of his finer qualities. Her appeal for him was that of the frail115 and alluring116 woman. But in the end they married. The neighborhood was rocked with surprise.
Usually in a courtship it is the male who assumes the bright colors of pretense117 in order to attract a mate. But Ben Westerveld had been too honest to be anything but himself. He was so honest and fundamentally truthful118 that he refused at first to allow himself to believe that this slovenly119 shrew was the fragile and exquisite creature he had married. He had the habit of personal cleanliness, had Ben, in a day when tubbing was a ceremony in an environment that made bodily nicety difficult. He discovered that Bella almost never washed and that her appearance of fragrant immaculateness, when dressed, was due to a natural clearness of skin and eye, and to the way her blond hair swept away in a clean line from her forehead. For the rest, she was a slattern, with a vocabulary of invective120 that would have been a credit to any of the habitues of old Red Front Huckins' bar.
They had three children, a girl and two boys. Ben Westerveld prospered121 in spite of his wife. As the years went on he added eighty acres here, eighty acres there, until his land swept down to the very banks of the Mississippi. There is no doubt that she hindered him greatly, but he was too expert a farmer to fail. At threshing time the crew looked forward to working for Ben, the farmer, and dreaded the meals prepared by Bella, his wife. She was notoriously the worst cook and housekeeper122 in the county. And all through the years, in trouble and in happiness, her plaint was the same—"If I'd thought I was going to stick down on a farm all my life, slavin' for a pack of menfolks day and night, I'd rather have died. Might as well be dead as rottin' here."
Her schoolteacher English had early reverted123. Her speech was as slovenly as her dress. She grew stout124, too, and unwieldy, and her skin coarsened from lack of care and from overeating. And in her children's ears she continually dinned125 a hatred126 of farm life and farming. "You can get away from it," she counseled her daughter, Minnie. "Don't you be a rube like your pa," she cautioned John, the older boy. And they profited by her advice. Minnie went to work in Commercial when she was seventeen, an overdeveloped girl with an inordinate127 love of cheap finery. At twenty, she married an artisan, a surly fellow with roving tendencies. They moved from town to town. He never stuck long at one job. John, the older boy, was as much his mother's son as Minnie was her mother's daughter. Restless, dissatisfied, emptyheaded, he was the despair of his father. He drove the farm horses as if they were racers, lashing128 them up hill and down dale. He was forever lounging off to the village or wheedling129 his mother for money to take him to Commercial. It was before the day of the ubiquitous automobile130. Given one of those present adjuncts to farm life, John would have ended his career much earlier. As it was, they found him lying by the roadside at dawn one morning after the horses had trotted131 into the yard with the wreck132 of the buggy bumping the road behind them. He had stolen the horses out of the barn after the help was asleep, had led them stealthily down the road, and then had whirled off to a rendezvous133 of his own in town. The fall from the buggy might not have hurt him, but evidently he had been dragged almost a mile before his battered134 body became somehow disentangled from the splintered wood and the reins135.
That horror might have served to bring Ben Westerveld and his wife together, but it did not. It only increased her bitterness and her hatred of the locality and the life.
"I hope you're good an' satisfied now," she repeated in endless reproach. "I hope you're good an' satisfied. You was bound you'd make a farmer out of him, an' now you finished the job. You better try your hand at Dike136 now for a change."
Dike was young Ben, sixteen; and old Ben had no need to try his hand at him. Young Ben was a born farmer, as was his father. He had come honestly by his nickname. In face, figure, expression, and manner he was a five-hundred-year throwback to his Holland ancestors. Apple-cheeked, stocky, merry of eye, and somewhat phlegmatic137. When, at school, they had come to the story of the Dutch boy who saved his town from flood by thrusting his finger into the hole in the dike and holding it there until help came, the class, after one look at the accompanying picture in the reader, dubbed139 young Ben "Dike" Westerveld. And Dike he remained.
Between Dike and his father there was a strong but unspoken feeling. The boy was cropwise, as his father had been at his age. On Sundays you might see the two walking about the farm, looking at the pigs—great black fellows worth almost their weight in silver; eying the stock; speculating on the winter wheat showing dark green in April, with rich patches that were almost black. Young Dike smoked a solemn and judicious141 pipe, spat142 expertly, and voiced the opinion that the winter wheat was a fine prospect143 Ben Westerveld, listening tolerantly to the boy's opinions, felt a great surge of joy that he did not show. Here, at last, was compensation for all the misery144 and sordidness145 and bitter disappointment of his married life.
That married life had endured now for more than thirty years. Ben Westerveld still walked with a light, quick step—for his years. The stocky, broad-shouldered figure was a little shrunken. He was as neat and clean at fifty-five as he had been at twenty-five-a habit that, on a farm, is fraught146 with difficulties. The community knew and respected him. He was a man of standing78. When he drove into town on a bright winter morning, in his big sheepskin coat and his shaggy cap and his great boots, and entered the First National Bank, even Shumway, the cashier, would look up from his desk to say:
"Hello, Westerveld! Hello! Well, how goes it?"
When Shumway greeted a farmer in that way you knew that there were no unpaid147 notes to his discredit148.
All about Ben Westerveld stretched the fruit of his toil55; the work of his hands. Orchards149, fields, cattle, barns, silos. All these things were dependent on him for their future well-being—on him and on Dike after him. His days were full and running over. Much of the work was drudgery; most of it was backbreaking and laborious151. But it was his place. It was his reason for being. And he felt that the reason was good, though he never put that thought into words, mental or spoken. He only knew that he was part of the great scheme of things and that he was functioning ably. If he had expressed himself at all, he might have said:
"Well, I got my work cut out for me, and I do it, and do it right."
There was a tractor, now, of course; and a sturdy, middle-class automobile in which Bella lolled red-faced when they drove into town.
As Ben Westerveld had prospered, his shrewish wife had reaped her benefits. Ben was not the selfish type of farmer who insists on twentieth-century farm implements152 and medieval household equipment. He had added a bedroom here, a cool summer kitchen there, an icehouse, a commodious153 porch, a washing machine, even a bathroom. But Bella remained unplacated. Her face was set toward the city. And slowly, surely, the effect of thirty years of nagging154 was beginning to tell on Ben Westerveld. He was the finer metal, but she was the heavier, the coarser. She beat him and molded him as iron beats upon gold.
Minnie was living in Chicago now—a good-natured creature, but slack like her mother. Her surly husband was still talking of his rights and crying down with the rich. They had two children.
Minnie wrote of them, and of the delights of city life. Movies every night. Halsted Street just around the corner. The big stores. State Street. The el took you downtown in no time. Something going on all the while. Bella Westerveld, after one of those letters, was more than a chronic155 shrew; she became a terrible termagant.
When Ben Westerveld decided to concentrate on hogs156 and wheat he didn't dream that a world would be clamoring for hogs and wheat for four long years. When the time came, he had them, and sold them fabulously157. But wheat and hogs and markets became negligible things on the day that Dike, with seven other farm boys from the district, left for the nearest training camp that was to fit them for France and war.
Bella made the real fuss, wailing158 and mouthing and going into hysterics. Old Ben took it like a stoic160. He drove the boy to town that day. When the train pulled out, you might have seen, if you had looked close, how the veins161 and cords swelled163 in the lean brown neck above the clean blue shirt. But that was all. As the weeks went on, the quick, light step began to lag a little. He had lost more than a son; his right-hand helper was gone. There were no farm helpers to be had. Old Ben couldn't do it all. A touch of rheumatism164 that winter half crippled him for eight weeks. Bella's voice seemed never to stop its plaint.
"There ain't no sense in you trying to make out alone. Next thing you'll die on me, and then I'll have the whole shebang on my hands." At that he eyed her dumbly from his chair by the stove. His resistance was wearing down. He knew it. He wasn't dying. He knew that, too. But something in him was. Something that had resisted her all these years. Something that had made him master and superior in spite of everything.
In those days of illness, as he sat by the stove, the memory of Emma Byers came to him often. She had left that district twenty-eight years ago, and had married, and lived in Chicago somewhere, he had heard, and was prosperous. He wasted no time in idle regrets. He had been a fool, and he paid the price of fools. Bella, slamming noisily about the room, never suspected the presence in the untidy place of a third person—a sturdy girl of twenty-two or -three, very wholesome165 to look at, and with honest, intelligent eyes and a serene166 brow.
"It'll get worse an' worse all the time," Bella's whine167 went on. "Everybody says the war'll last prob'ly for years an' years. You can't make out alone. Everything's goin' to rack and ruin. You could rent out the farm for a year, on trial. The Burdickers'd take it, and glad. They got those three strappin' louts that's all flat-footed or slab-sided or cross-eyed or somethin', and no good for the army. Let them run it on shares. Maybe they'll even buy, if things turn out. Maybe Dike'll never come b——"
But at the look on his face then, and at the low growl168 of unaccustomed rage that broke from him, even she ceased her clatter169.
They moved to Chicago in the early spring. The look that had been on Ben Westerveld's face when he drove Dike to the train that carried him to camp was stamped there again—indelibly this time, it seemed. Calhoun County in the spring has much the beauty of California. There is a peculiar170 golden light about it, and the hills are a purplish haze. Ben Westerveld, walking down his path to the gate, was more poignantly171 dramatic than any figure in a rural play. He did not turn to look back, though, as they do in a play. He dared not.
They rented a flat in Englewood, Chicago, a block from Minnie's. Bella was almost amiable172 these days. She took to city life as though the past thirty years had never been. White kid shoes, delicatessen stores, the movies, the haggling173 with peddlers, the crowds, the crashing noise, the cramped, unnatural174 mode of living—necessitated by a four-room flat—all these urban adjuncts seemed as natural to her as though she had been bred in the midst of them.
She and Minnie used to spend whole days in useless shopping. Theirs was a respectable neighborhood of well-paid artisans, bookkeepers, and small shopkeepers. The women did their own housework in drab garments and soiled boudoir caps that hid a multitude of unkempt heads. They seemed to find a great deal of time for amiable, empty gabbling From seven to four you might see a pair of boudoir caps leaning from opposite bedroom windows, conversing175 across back porches, pausing in the task of sweeping176 front steps, standing at a street corner, laden177 with grocery bundles. Minnie wasted hours in what she called "running over to Ma's for a minute." The two quarreled a great deal, being so nearly of a nature. But the very qualities that combated each other seemed, by some strange chemical process, to bring them together as well.
"I'm going downtown today to do a little shopping," Minnie would say. "Do you want to come along, Ma?"
"What you got to get?"
"Oh, I thought I'd look at a couple little dresses for Pearlie."
"When I was your age I made every stitch you wore."
"Yeh, I bet they looked like it, too. This ain't the farm. I got all I can do to tend to the house, without sewing."
"I did it. I did the housework and the sewin' and cookin', an' besides——"
"A swell162 lot of housekeepin' you did. You don't need to tell me."
The bickering178 grew to a quarrel. But in the end they took the downtown el together. You saw them, flushed of face, with twitching179 fingers, indulging in a sort of orgy of dime180 spending in the five-and-ten-cent store on the wrong side of State Street.
They pawed over bolts of cheap lace and bits of stuff in the stifling181 air of the crowded place. They would buy a sack of salted peanuts from the great mound182 in the glass case, or a bag of the greasy183 pink candy piled in profusion184 on the counter, and this they would munch185 as they went.
They came home late, fagged and irritable186, and supplemented their hurried dinner with hastily bought food from the near-by delicatessen.
Thus ran the life of ease for Ben Westerveld, retired farmer. And so now he lay impatiently in bed, rubbing a nervous forefinger187 over the edge of the sheet and saying to himself that, well, here was another day. What day was it? L'see now. Yesterday was—yesterday. A little feeling of panic came over him. He couldn't remember what yesterday had been. He counted back laboriously188 and decided that today must be Thursday. Not that it made any difference.
They had lived in the city almost a year now. But the city had not digested Ben. He was a leathery morsel189 that could not be assimilated. There he stuck in Chicago's crop, contributing nothing, gaining nothing. A rube in a comic collar ambling aimlessly about Halsted Street or State downtown. You saw him conversing hungrily with the gritty and taciturn Swede who was janitor190 for the block of red-brick flats. Ben used to follow him around pathetically, engaging him in the talk of the day. Ben knew no men except the surly Gus, Minnie's husband. Gus, the firebrand, thought Ben hardly worthy191 of his contempt. If Ben thought, sometimes, of the respect with which he had always been greeted when he clumped192 down the main street of Commercial—if he thought of how the farmers for miles around had come to him for expert advice and opinion—he said nothing.
Sometimes the janitor graciously allowed Ben to attend to the furnace of the building in which he lived. He took out ashes, shoveled193 coal. He tinkered and rattled194 and shook things. You heard him shoveling and scraping down there, and smelled the acrid195 odor of his pipe. It gave him something to do. He would emerge sooty and almost happy.
"You been monkeying with that furnace again!" Bella would scold. "If you want something to do, why don't you plant a garden in the back yard and grow something? You was crazy about it on the farm."
His face flushed a slow, dull red at that. He could not explain to her that he lost no dignity in his own eyes in fussing about an inadequate196 little furnace, but that self-respect would not allow him to stoop to gardening—he who had reigned197 over six hundred acres of bountiful soil.
On winter afternoons you saw him sometimes at the movies, whiling away one of his many idle hours in the dim, close-smelling atmosphere of the place. Tokyo and Rome and Gallipoli came to him. He saw beautiful tiger-women twining fair, false arms about the stalwart but yielding forms of young men with cleft198 chins. He was only mildly interested. He talked to anyone who would talk to him, though he was naturally a shy man. He talked to the barber, the grocer, the druggist, the streetcar conductor, the milkman, the iceman. But the price of wheat did not interest these gentlemen. They did not know that the price of wheat was the most vital topic of conversation in the world.
"Well, now," he would say, "you take this year's wheat crop, with about 917,000,000 bushels of wheat harvested, why, that's what's going to win the war! Yes, sirree! No wheat, no winning, that's what I say."
"Ya-as, it is!" the city men would scoff199. But the queer part of it is that Farmer Ben was right.
Minnie got into the habit of using him as a sort of nursemaid. It gave her many hours of freedom for gadding200 and gossiping.
"Pa, will you look after Pearlie for a little while this morning? I got to run downtown to match something and she gets so tired and mean-acting if I take her along. Ma's going with me."
He loved the feel of Pearlie's small, velvet-soft hand in his big fist. He called her "little feller," and fed her forbidden dainties. His big brown fingers were miraculously201 deft202 at buttoning and unbuttoning her tiny garments, and wiping her soft lips, and performing a hundred tender offices. He was playing a sort of game with himself, pretending this was Dike become a baby again. Once the pair managed to get over to Lincoln Park, where they spent a glorious day looking at the animals, eating popcorn203, and riding on the miniature railway.
They returned, tired, dusty, and happy, to a double tirade204.
Bella engaged in a great deal of what she called worrying about Dike. Ben spoke140 of him seldom, but the boy was always present in his thoughts. They had written him of their move, but he had not seemed to get the impression of its permanence. His letters indicated that he thought they were visiting Minnie, or taking a vacation in the city. Dike's letters were few. Ben treasured them, and read and reread them. When the Armistice205 news came, and with it the possibility of Dike's return, Ben tried to fancy him fitting into the life of the city. And his whole being revolted at the thought.
He saw the pimply-faced, sallow youths standing at the corner of Halsted and Sixty-third, spitting languidly and handling their limp cigarettes with an amazing labial206 dexterity207. Their conversation was low-voiced, sinister208, and terse209, and their eyes narrowed as they watched the overdressed, scarlet210-lipped girls go by. A great fear clutched at Ben Westerveld's heart.
The lack of exercise and manual labor150 began to tell on Ben. He did not grow fat from idleness. Instead his skin seemed to sag11 and hang on his frame, like a garment grown too large for him. He walked a great deal. Perhaps that had something to do with it. He tramped miles of city pavements. He was a very lonely man. And then, one day, quite by accident, he came upon South Water Street. Came upon it, stared at it as a water-crazed traveler in a desert gazes upon the spring in the oasis211, and drank from it, thirstily, gratefully.
South Water Street feeds Chicago. Into that close-packed thoroughfare come daily the fruits and vegetables that will supply a million tables. Ben had heard of it, vaguely212, but had never attempted to find it. Now he stumbled upon it and, standing there, felt at home in Chicago for the first time in more than a year. He saw ruddy men walking about in overalls213 and carrying whips in their hands—wagon214 whips, actually. He hadn't seen men like that since he had left the farm. The sight of them sent a great pang215 of homesickness through him. His hand reached out and he ran an accustomed finger over the potatoes in a barrel on the walk. His fingers lingered and gripped them, and passed over them lovingly.
At the contact something within him that had been tight and hungry seemed to relax, satisfied. It was his nerves, feeding on those familiar things for which they had been starving.
He walked up one side and down the other. Crates216 of lettuce217, bins218 of onions, barrels of apples. Such vegetables! The radishes were scarlet globes. Each carrot was a spear of pure orange. The green and purple of fancy asparagus held his expert eye. The cauliflower was like a great bouquet219, fit for a bride; the cabbages glowed like jade220.
And the men! He hadn't dreamed there were men like that in this big, shiny-shod, stiffly laundered221, white-collared city. Here were rufous men in overalls—worn, shabby, easy-looking overalls and old blue shirts, and mashed222 hats worn at a careless angle. Men, jovial223, good-natured, with clear eyes, and having about them some of the revivifying freshness and wholesomeness224 of the products they handled.
Ben Westerveld breathed in the strong, pungent225 smell of onions and garlic and of the earth that seemed to cling to the vegetables, washed clean though they were. He breathed deeply, gratefully, and felt strangely at peace.
It was a busy street. A hundred times he had to step quickly to avoid a hand truck, or dray, or laden wagon. And yet the busy men found time to greet him friendlily. "H'are you!" they said genially226. "H'are you this morning!"
He was marketwise enough to know that some of these busy people were commission men, and some grocers, and some buyers, stewards227, clerks. It was a womanless thoroughfare. At the busiest business corner, though, in front of the largest commission house on the street, he saw a woman. Evidently she was transacting228 business, too, for he saw the men bringing boxes of berries and vegetables for her inspection229. A woman in a plain blue skirt and a small black hat.
A funny job for a woman. What weren't they mixing into nowadays!
He turned sidewise in the narrow, crowded space in order to pass her little group. And one of the men—a red-cheeked, merry-looking young fellow in a white apron—laughed and said: "Well, Emma, you win. When it comes to driving a bargain with you, I quit. It can't be did!"
Even then he didn't know her. He did not dream that this straight, slim, tailored, white-haired woman, bargaining so shrewdly with these men, was the Emma Byers of the old days. But he stopped there a moment, in frank curiosity, and the woman looked up. She looked up, and he knew those intelligent eyes and that serene brow. He had carried the picture of them in his mind for more than thirty years, so it was not so surprising.
He did not hesitate. He might have if he had thought a moment, but he acted automatically. He stood before her. "You're Emma Byers, ain't you?"
She did not know him at first. Small blame to her, so completely had the roguish, vigorous boy vanished in this sallow, sad-eyed old man. Then: "Why, Ben!" she said quietly. And there was pity in her voice, though she did not mean to have it there. She put out one hand—that capable, reassuring99 hand—and gripped his and held it a moment. It was queer and significant that it should be his hand that lay within hers.
"Well, what in all get-out are you doing around here, Emma?" He tried to be jovial and easy. She turned to the aproned man with whom she had been dealing230 and smiled.
"What am I doing here, Joe?"
Joe grinned, waggishly231. "Nothin'; only beatin' every man on the street at his own game, and makin' so much money that——"
But she stopped him there. "I guess I'll do my own explaining." She turned to Ben again. "And what are you doing here in Chicago?"
Ben passed a faltering232 hand across his chin. "Me? Well, I'm—we're living here, I s'pose. Livin' here."
She glanced at him sharply. "Left the farm, Ben?"
"Yes."
"Wait a minute." She concluded her business with Joe; finished it briskly and to her own satisfaction. With her bright brown eyes and her alert manner and her quick little movements she made you think of a wren233—a businesslike little wren—a very early wren that is highly versed234 in the worm-catching way.
At her next utterance235 he was startled but game.
"Have you had your lunch?"
"Why, no; I——"
"I've been down here since seven, and I'm starved. Let's go and have a bite at the little Greek restaurant around the corner. A cup of coffee and a sandwich, anyway."
Seated at the bare little table, she surveyed him with those intelligent, understanding, kindly236 eyes, and he felt the years slip from him. They were walking down the country road together, and she was listening quietly and advising him.
She interrogated237 him gently. But something of his old masterfulness came back to him. "No, I want to know about you first. I can't get the rights of it, you being here on South Water, tradin' and all."
So she told him briefly238. She was in the commission business. Successful. She bought, too, for such hotels as the Blackstone and the Congress, and for half a dozen big restaurants. She gave him bare facts, but he was shrewd enough and sufficiently239 versed in business to know that here was a woman of established commercial position.
"But how does it happen you're keepin' it up, Emma, all this time? Why, you must be anyway—it ain't that you look it—but——" He floundered, stopped.
She laughed. "That's all right, Ben. I couldn't fool you on that. And I'm working because it keeps me happy. I want to work till I die. My children keep telling me to stop, but I know better than that. I'm not going to rust138 out. I want to wear out." Then, at an unspoken question in his eyes: "He's dead. These twenty years. It was hard at first, when the children were small. But I knew garden stuff if I didn't know anything else. It came natural to me. That's all."
So then she got his story from him bit by bit. He spoke of the farm and of Dike, and there was a great pride in his voice. He spoke of Bella, and the son who had been killed, and of Minnie. And the words came falteringly240. He was trying to hide something, and he was not made for deception241. When he had finished:
"Now, listen, Ben. You go back to your farm."
"I can't. She—I can't."
She leaned forward, earnestly. "You go back to the farm."
He turned up his palms with a little gesture of defeat. "I can't."
"You can't stay here. It's killing242 you. It's poisoning you. Did you ever hear of toxins243? That means poisons, and you're poisoning yourself. You'll die of it. You've got another twenty years of work in you. What's ailing159 you? You go back to your wheat and your apples and your hogs. There isn't a bigger job in the world than that."
For a moment his face took on a glow from the warmth of her own inspiring personality. But it died again. When they rose to go, his shoulders drooped244 again, his muscles sagged245. At the doorway246 he paused a moment, awkward in farewell. He blushed a little, stammered247.
"Emma—I always wanted to tell you. God knows it was luck for you the way it turned out—but I always wanted to——"
She took his hand again in her firm grip at that, and her kindly, bright brown eyes were on him. "I never held it against you, Ben. I had to live a long time to understand it. But I never held a grudge248. It just wasn't to be, I suppose. But listen to me, Ben. You do as I tell you. You go back to your wheat and your apples and your hogs. There isn't a bigger man-size job in the world. It's where you belong."
Unconsciously his shoulders straightened again. Again they sagged. And so they parted, the two.
He must have walked almost all the long way home, through miles and miles of city streets. He must have lost his way, too, for when he looked up at a corner street sign it was an unfamiliar one.
So he floundered about, asked his way, was misdirected. He took the right streetcar at last and got off at his own corner at seven o'clock, or later. He was in for a scolding, he knew.
But when he came to his own doorway he knew that even his tardiness249 could not justify250 the bedlam251 of sound that came from within. High-pitched voices. Bella's above all the rest, of course, but there was Minnie's too, and Gus's growl, and Pearlie's treble, and the boy Ed's and——
At the other voice his hand trembled so that the knob rattled in the door, and he could not turn it. But finally he did turn it, and stumbled in, breathing hard. And that other voice was Dike's.
He must have just arrived. The flurry of explanation was still in progress. Dike's knapsack was still on his back, and his canteen at his hip74, his helmet slung252 over his shoulder. A brown, hard, glowing Dike, strangely tall and handsome and older, too. Older.
All this Ben saw in less than one electric second. Then he had the boy's two shoulders in his hands, and Dike was saying, "Hello, Pop."
Of the roomful, Dike and old Ben were the only quiet ones. The others were taking up the explanation and going over it again and again, and marveling, and asking questions.
"He come in to—what's that place, Dike?—Hoboken—yesterday only. An' he sent a dispatch to the farm. Can't you read our letters, Dike, that you didn't know we was here now? And then he's only got an hour more. They got to go to Camp Grant to be, now, demobilized. He came out to Minnie's on a chance. Ain't he big!"
But Dike and his father were looking at each other quietly. Then Dike spoke. His speech was not phlegmatic, as of old. He had a new clipped way of uttering his words:
"Say, Pop, you ought to see the way the Frenchies farm! They got about an acre each, and, say, they use every inch of it. If they's a little dirt blows into the crotch of a tree, they plant a crop in there. I never seen nothin' like it. Say, we waste enough stuff over here to keep that whole country in food for a hundred years. Yessir. And tools! Outta the ark, believe me. If they ever saw our tractor, they'd think it was the Germans comin' back. But they're smart at that. I picked up a lot of new ideas over there. And you ought to see the old birds—womenfolks and men about eighty years old—runnin' everything on the farm. They had to. I learned somethin' off them about farmin'."
"Forget the farm," said Minnie.
"Yeh," echoed Gus, "forget the farm stuff. I can get you a job here out at the works for four-fifty a day, and six when you learn it right."
Dike looked from one to the other, alarm and unbelief on his face. "What d'you mean, a job? Who wants a job! What you all——"
Bella laughed jovially253. "F'r heaven's sakes, Dike, wake up! We're livin' here. This is our place. We ain't rubes no more."
Dike turned to his father. A little stunned254 look crept into his face. A stricken, pitiful look. There was something about it that suddenly made old Ben think of Pearlie when she had been slapped by her quick-tempered mother.
"But I been countin' on the farm," he said miserably255. "I just been livin' on the idea of comin' back to it. Why, I—— The streets here, they're all narrow and choked up. I been countin' on the farm. I want to go back and be a farmer. I want——"
And then Ben Westerveld spoke. A new Ben Westerveld—the old Ben Westerveld. Ben Westerveld, the farmer, the monarch256 over six hundred acres of bounteous257 bottomland.
"That's all right, Dike," he said. "You're going back. So'm I. I've got another twenty years of work in me. We're going back to the farm."
Bella turned on him, a wildcat. "We ain't! Not me! We ain't! I'm not agoin' back to the farm."
But Ben Westerveld was master again in his own house. "You're goin' back, Bella," he said quietly, "an' things are goin' to be different. You're goin' to run the house the way I say, or I'll know why. If you can't do it, I'll get them in that can. An' me and Dike, we're goin' back to our wheat and our apples and our hogs. Yessir! There ain't a bigger man-size job in the world."
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1
kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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taut
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| adj.拉紧的，绷紧的，紧张的 | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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revert
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| v.恢复，复归，回到 | |
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10
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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11
sag
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| v.下垂，下跌，消沉；n.下垂，下跌，凹陷，[航海]随风漂流 | |
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sagging
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| 下垂[沉，陷]，松垂，垂度 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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gauge
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| v.精确计量；估计；n.标准度量；计量器 | |
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eerily
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| adv.引起神秘感或害怕地 | |
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16
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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18
clumping
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| v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的现在分词 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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stomping
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| v.跺脚，践踏，重踏( stomp的现在分词 ) | |
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appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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appall
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| vt.使惊骇，使大吃一惊 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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grudgingly
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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31
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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hoot
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| n.鸟叫声，汽车的喇叭声； v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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42
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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43
slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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44
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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45
ambling
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| v.（马）缓行( amble的现在分词 )；从容地走，漫步 | |
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46
teeming
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| adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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47
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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48
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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49
wrested
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| （用力）拧( wrest的过去式和过去分词 )； 费力取得； （从…）攫取； （ 从… ） 强行取去… | |
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50
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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51
scourge
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| n.灾难，祸害；v.蹂躏 | |
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52
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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53
immutability
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| n.不变(性) | |
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54
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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55
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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56
dweller
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| n.居住者，住客 | |
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57
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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58
vaudeville
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| n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
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59
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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60
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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61
loam
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| n.沃土 | |
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62
tasseled
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| v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的过去式和过去分词 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰 | |
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63
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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64
obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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65
ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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66
migration
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| n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙 | |
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67
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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68
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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69
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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70
plow
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| n.犁，耕地，犁过的地；v.犁，费力地前进[英]plough | |
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71
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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72
grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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73
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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74
hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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75
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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76
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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77
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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78
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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79
variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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80
twig
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| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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81
blithely
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| adv.欢乐地，快活地，无挂虑地 | |
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82
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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83
calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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84
plod
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| v.沉重缓慢地走，孜孜地工作 | |
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85
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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86
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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87
stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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88
exteriors
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| n.外面( exterior的名词复数 )；外貌；户外景色图 | |
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89
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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90
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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91
dreaded
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|
| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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92
apprenticeship
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| n.学徒身份；学徒期 | |
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93
glib
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| adj.圆滑的，油嘴滑舌的 | |
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94
eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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95
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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96
canine
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| adj.犬的，犬科的 | |
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97
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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98
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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99
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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100
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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101
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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102
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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103
flirt
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| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
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104
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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105
virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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106
flea
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| n.跳蚤 | |
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107
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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108
disillusioned
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| a.不再抱幻想的，大失所望的，幻想破灭的 | |
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109
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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110
loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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111
shredding
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的现在分词 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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112
edibles
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| 可以吃的，可食用的( edible的名词复数 )； 食物 | |
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113
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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114
stewing
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| 炖 | |
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115
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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116
alluring
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| adj.吸引人的，迷人的 | |
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117
pretense
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| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
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118
truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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119
slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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120
invective
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| n.痛骂，恶意抨击 | |
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121
prospered
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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123
reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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125
dinned
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| vt.喧闹（din的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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126
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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127
inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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128
lashing
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| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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129
wheedling
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| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的现在分词 ) | |
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130
automobile
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| n.汽车，机动车 | |
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131
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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132
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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133
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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134
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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135
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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136
dike
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| n.堤，沟；v.开沟排水 | |
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137
phlegmatic
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|
| adj.冷静的，冷淡的，冷漠的，无活力的 | |
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138
rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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139
dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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140
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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141
judicious
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|
| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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142
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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143
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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144
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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145
sordidness
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| n.肮脏；污秽；卑鄙；可耻 | |
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146
fraught
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| adj.充满…的，伴有(危险等)的；忧虑的 | |
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147
unpaid
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| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
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148
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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149
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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150
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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151
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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152
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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153
commodious
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| adj.宽敞的；使用方便的 | |
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154
nagging
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| adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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155
chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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156
hogs
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| n.（尤指喂肥供食用的）猪( hog的名词复数 )；（供食用的）阉公猪；彻底地做某事；自私的或贪婪的人 | |
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157
fabulously
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| 难以置信地，惊人地 | |
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158
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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159
ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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160
stoic
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| n.坚忍克己之人，禁欲主义者 | |
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161
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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162
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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163
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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164
rheumatism
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| n.风湿病 | |
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165
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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166
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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167
whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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168
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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169
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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170
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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171
poignantly
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172
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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173
haggling
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| v.讨价还价( haggle的现在分词 ) | |
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174
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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175
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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176
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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177
laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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178
bickering
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|
| v.争吵( bicker的现在分词 )；口角；（水等）作潺潺声；闪烁 | |
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179
twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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180
dime
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| n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角 | |
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181
stifling
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| a.令人窒息的 | |
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182
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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183
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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184
profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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185
munch
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| v.用力嚼，大声咀嚼 | |
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186
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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187
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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188
laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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189
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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190
janitor
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| n.看门人，管门人 | |
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191
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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192
clumped
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| adj.[医]成群的v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的过去式和过去分词 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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193
shoveled
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| vt.铲，铲出（shovel的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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194
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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195
acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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196
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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197
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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198
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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199
scoff
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| n.嘲笑，笑柄，愚弄；v.嘲笑，嘲弄，愚弄，狼吞虎咽 | |
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200
gadding
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| n.叮搔症adj.蔓生的v.闲逛( gad的现在分词 )；游荡；找乐子；用铁棒刺 | |
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201
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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202
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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203
popcorn
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| n.爆米花 | |
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204
tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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205
armistice
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| n.休战，停战协定 | |
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206
labial
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| adj.唇的；唇音的；n.唇音，风琴管 | |
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207
dexterity
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| n.(手的)灵巧，灵活 | |
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208
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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209
terse
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| adj.(说话，文笔)精炼的，简明的 | |
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210
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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211
oasis
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方 | |
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212
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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213
overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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214
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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215
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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216
crates
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| n. 板条箱, 篓子, 旧汽车 vt. 装进纸条箱 | |
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217
lettuce
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| n.莴苣；生菜 | |
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218
bins
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| n.大储藏箱( bin的名词复数 )；宽口箱（如面包箱，垃圾箱等）v.扔掉，丢弃( bin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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219
bouquet
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| n.花束，酒香 | |
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220
jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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221
laundered
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| v.洗（衣服等），洗烫（衣服等）( launder的过去式和过去分词 )；洗（黑钱）（把非法收入改头换面，变为貌似合法的收入） | |
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222
mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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223
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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224
wholesomeness
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| 卫生性 | |
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225
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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226
genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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227
stewards
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| （轮船、飞机等的）乘务员( steward的名词复数 )； （俱乐部、旅馆、工会等的）管理员； （大型活动的）组织者； （私人家中的）管家 | |
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228
transacting
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| v.办理（业务等）( transact的现在分词 )；交易，谈判 | |
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229
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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230
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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231
waggishly
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| adv.waggish（滑稽的，诙谐的）的变形 | |
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232
faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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233
wren
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| n.鹪鹩；英国皇家海军女子服务队成员 | |
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234
versed
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| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
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235
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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236
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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237
interrogated
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| v.询问( interrogate的过去式和过去分词 )；审问；（在计算机或其他机器上）查询 | |
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238
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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239
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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240
falteringly
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| 口吃地，支吾地 | |
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241
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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242
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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243
toxins
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| n.毒素( toxin的名词复数 ) | |
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244
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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245
sagged
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| 下垂的 | |
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246
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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247
stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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248
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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249
tardiness
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| n.缓慢；迟延；拖拉 | |
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250
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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251
bedlam
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| n.混乱，骚乱；疯人院 | |
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252
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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253
jovially
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| adv.愉快地，高兴地 | |
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254
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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255
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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256
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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257
bounteous
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| adj.丰富的 | |
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