The winter months were spent at Monrovia, where Orde and his wife lived for a time at the hotel. This was somewhat expensive, but Orde was not quite ready to decide on a home, and he developed unexpected opposition1 to living at Redding in the Orde homestead.
"No, I've been thinking about it," he told Grandma Orde. "A young couple should start out on their own responsibility. I know you'd be glad to have us, but I think it's better the other way. Besides, I must be at Monrovia a good deal of the time, and I want Carroll with me. She can make you a good long visit in the spring, when I have to go up river."
To this Grandma Orde, being a wise old lady, had to nod her assent2, although she would much have liked her son near her.
At Monrovia, then, they took up their quarters. Carroll soon became acquainted with the life of the place. Monrovia, like most towns of its sort and size, consisted of an upper stratum4 of mill owners and lumber5 operators, possessed6 of considerable wealth, some cultivation7, and definite social ideas; a gawky, countrified, middle estate of storekeepers, catering8 both to the farm and local trade and the lumber mill operatives, generally of Holland extraction, who dwelt in simple unpainted board shanties9. The class first mentioned comprised a small coterie10, among whom Carroll soon found two or three congenials--Edith Fuller, wife of the young cashier in the bank; Valerie Cathcart, whose husband had been killed in the Civil War; Clara Taylor, wife of the leading young lawyer of the village; and, strangely enough, Mina Heinzman, the sixteen-year-old daughter of old Heinzman, the lumberman. Nothing was more indicative of the absolute divorce of business and social life than the unbroken evenness of Carroll's friendship for the younger girl. Though later the old German and Orde locked in serious struggle on the river, they continued to meet socially quite as usual; and the daughter of one and the wife of the other never suspected anything out of the ordinary. This impersonality11 of struggle has always been characteristic of the pioneer business man's good-nature.
Newmark received the news of his partner's sudden marriage without evincing any surprise, but with a sardonic12 gleam in one corner of his eye. He called promptly13, conversed14 politely for a half hour, and then took his leave.
"How do you like him?" asked Orde, when he had gone.
"He looks like a very shrewd man," replied Carroll, picking her words for fear of saying the wrong thing.
Orde laughed.
"You don't like him," he stated.
"I don't dislike him," said Carroll. "I've not a thing against him. But we could never be in the slightest degree sympathetic. He and I don't--don't--"
"Don't jibe," Orde finished for her. "I didn't much think you would. Joe never was much of a society bug15." It was on the tip of Carroll's tongue to reply that "society bugs16" were not the only sort she could appreciate, but she refrained. She had begun to realise the extent of her influence over her husband's opinion.
Newmark did not live at the hotel. Early in the fall he had rented a small one-story house situated17 just off Main Street, set well back from the sidewalk among clumps18 of oleanders. Into this he retired19 as a snail20 into its shell. At first he took his meals at the hotel, but later he imported an impassive, secretive man-servant, who took charge of him completely. Neither master nor man made any friends, and in fact rebuffed all advances. One Sunday, Carroll and Orde, out for a walk, passed this quaint3 little place, with its picket21 fence.
"Let's go in and return Joe's call," suggested Orde.
Their knock at the door brought the calm valet.
"Mr. Newmark is h'out, sir," said he. "Yes, sir, I'll tell him that you called."
They turned away. As they sauntered down the little brick-laid walk, Carroll suddenly pressed close to her husband's arm.
"Jack22," she begged, "I want a little house like that, for our very own."
"We can't afford it, sweetheart."
"Not to own," she explained, "just to rent. It will be next best to having a home of our own."
"We'd have to have a girl, dear," said Orde, "and we can't even afford that, yet."
"A girl!" cried Carroll indignantly. "For us two!"
"You couldn't do the housework and the cooking," said Orde. "You've never done such a thing in your life, and I won't have my little girl slaving."
"It won't be slaving, it will be fun--just like play-housekeeping," protested Carroll. "And I've got to learn some time. I was brought up most absurdly, and I realise it now."
"We'll see," said Orde vaguely23.
The subject was dropped for the time being. Later Carroll brought it up again. She was armed with several sheets of hotel stationery24, covered with figures showing how much cheaper it would be to keep house than to board.
"You certainly make out a strong case--on paper," laughed Orde. "If you buy a rooster and a hen, and she raises two broods, at the end of a year you'll have twenty-six; and if they all breed--even allowing half roosters--you'll have over three hundred; and if they all breed, you'll have about thirty-five hundred; and if--"
"Stop! stop!" cried Carroll, covering her ears.
"All right," agreed Orde equably, "but that's the way it figures. Funny the earth isn't overrun with chickens, isn't it?"
She thrust her tables of figures into her desk drawer. "You're just making fun of me always," she said reproachfully.
Two days later Orde took her one block up the street to look at a tiny little house tucked on a fifty-foot lot beneath the shadow of the church.
"It's mighty25 little," said he. "I'll have to go out in the hall to change my collar, and we couldn't have more than two people at a time to call on us."
"It's a dear!" said she, "and I'm not so e-nor-mous myself, whatever YOU may be."
They ended by renting the little house, and Carroll took charge of it delightedly. What difficulties she overcame, and what laughable and cryable mistakes she made only those who have encountered a like situation could realise. She learned fast, however, and took a real pride in her tiny box of a home. A piano was, of course, out of the question, but the great golden harp26 occupied one corner, or rather one side, of the parlour. Standing27 thus enshrouded in its covering, it rather resembled an august and tremendous veiled deity28. To Carroll's great delight, Orde used solemnly to go down on all fours and knock his forehead thrice on the floor before it when he entered the house at evening. When the very cold weather came and they had to light the base-burner stove, which Orde stoutly29 maintained occupied all the other half of the parlour, the harp's delicate constitution necessitated30 its standing in the hall. Nevertheless, Carroll had great comfort from it. While Orde was away at the office, she whispered through its mellow31 strings32 her great happiness, the dreams for her young motherhood which would come in the summer, the vague and lingering pain over the hapless but beloved ones she had left behind her in her other life. Then she arose refreshed, and went about the simple duties of her tiny domain34.
The winter was severe. All the world was white. The piles of snow along the sidewalks grew until Carroll could hardly look over them. Great fierce winds swept in from the lake. Sometimes Orde and his wife drove two miles to the top of the sand hills, where first they had met in this their present home, and looked out beyond the tumbled shore ice to the steel-gray, angry waters. The wind pricked35 their faces, and, going home, the sleigh-bells jingled36, the snowballs from the horses' hoofs37 hit against the dash, the cold air seared the inside of their nostrils38. When Orde helped Carroll from beneath the warm buffalo39 robes, she held up to him a face glowing with colour, framed in the soft fluffy40 fur of a hood33.
"You darling!" he cried, and stooped to kiss her smooth, cold cheek.
When he had returned from the stable around the corner, he found the lit lamp throwing its modified light and shade over the little round table. He shook down the base-burner vigorously, thrust several billets of wood in its door, and turned to meet her eyes across the table.
"Kind of fun being married, isn't it?" said he.
"Kind of," she admitted, nodding gravely.
The business of the firm was by now about in shape. All the boom arrangements had been made; the two tugs41 were in the water and their machinery42 installed; supplies and equipments were stored away; the foremen of the crews engaged, and the crews themselves pretty well picked out. Only there needed to build the wanigan, and to cart in the supplies for the upper river works before the spring break-up and the almost complete disappearance43 of the roads. Therefore, Orde had the good fortune of unusual leisure to enjoy these first months with his bride. They entered together the Unexplored Country, and found it more wonderful than they had dreamed. Almost before they knew it, January and February had flown.
"We must pack up, sweetheart," said Orde.
"It's only yesterday that we came," she cried regretfully.
They took the train for Redding, were installed in the gable room, explored together for three days the delights of the old-fashioned house, the spicy44 joys of Grandma Orde's and Amanda's cookery, the almost adoring adulation of the old folks. Then Orde packed his "turkey," assumed his woods clothes, and marched off down the street carrying his bag on his back.
"He looks like an old tramp in that rig," said Grandma Orde, closing the storm door.
"He looks like a conqueror45 of wildernesses46!" cried Carroll, straining her eyes after his vanishing figure. Suddenly she darted47 after him, calling in her high, bird-like tones. He turned and came back to her. She clasped him by the shoulders, reluctant to let him go.
"Good-bye," she said at last. "You'll take better care of my sweetheart than you ever did of Jack Orde, won't you, dear?"
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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stratum
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| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
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lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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catering
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| n. 给养 | |
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shanties
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| n.简陋的小木屋( shanty的名词复数 )；铁皮棚屋；船工号子；船歌 | |
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coterie
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| n.(有共同兴趣的)小团体，小圈子 | |
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impersonality
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| n.无人情味 | |
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sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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bugs
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| adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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snail
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| n.蜗牛 | |
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picket
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| n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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stationery
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| n.文具；(配套的)信笺信封 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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harp
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| n.竖琴；天琴座 | |
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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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deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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stoutly
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| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
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necessitated
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| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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jingled
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| 喝醉的 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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fluffy
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| adj.有绒毛的，空洞的 | |
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tugs
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| n.猛拉( tug的名词复数 )；猛拖；拖船v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的第三人称单数 ) | |
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42
machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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spicy
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| adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的 | |
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conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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wildernesses
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| 荒野( wilderness的名词复数 )； 沙漠； （政治家）在野； 不再当政（或掌权） | |
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darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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