Charles Bierstadt, Ice Palace in St. Paul, 1890s
The sunlight dripped over the house like golden paint over an artjar, and the freckling shadows here and there only intensifiedthe rigor of the bath of light. The Butterworth and Larkin housesflanking were entrenched behind great stodgy trees; only theHapper house took the full sun, and all day long faced the dustyroad-street with a tolerant kindly patience. This was the city ofTarleton in southernmost Georgia, September afternoon.Up in her bedroom window Sally Carrol Happer rested hernineteen-year-old chin on a fifty-two-year-old sill and watchedClark Darrow's ancient Ford turn the corner. The car washot--being partly metallic it retained all the heat it absorbedor evolved--and Clark Darrow sitting bolt upright at the wheelwore a pained, strained expression as though he consideredhimself a spare part, and rather likely to break. He laboriouslycrossed two dust ruts, the wheels squeaking indignantly at theencounter, and then with a terrifying expression he gave thesteering-gear a final wrench and deposited self and carapproximately in front of the Happer steps. There was a heavingsound, a death-rattle, followed by a short silence; and then theair was rent by a startling whistle.Sally Carrol gazed down sleepily. She started to yawn, butfinding this quite impossible unless she raised her chin from thewindow-sill, changed her mind and continued silently to regardthe car, whose owner sat brilliantly if perfunctorily atattention as he waited for an answer to his signal. After amoment the whistle once more split the dusty air."Good mawnin'."With difficulty Clark twisted his tall body round and bent adistorted glance on the window."Tain't mawnin', Sally Carrol.""Isn't it, sure enough?""What you doin'?""Eatin' 'n apple.""Come on go swimmin'--want to?""Reckon so.""How 'bout hurryin' up?""Sure enough."Sally Carrol sighed voluminously and raised herself with profoundinertia from the floor where she had been occupied inalternately destroyed parts of a green apple and painting paperdolls for her younger sister. She approached a mirror, regardedher expression with a pleased and pleasant languor, dabbed twospots of rouge on her lips and a grain of powder on her nose, andcovered her bobbed corn-colored hair with a rose-litteredsunbonnet. Then she kicked over the painting water, said, "Oh,damn!"--but let it lay--and left the room."How you, Clark?" she inquired a minute later as she slippednimbly over the side of the car."Mighty fine, Sally Carrol.""Where we go swimmin'?""Out to Walley's Pool. Told Marylyn we'd call by an' get her an'Joe Ewing."Clark was dark and lean, and when on foot was rather inclined tostoop. His eyes were ominous and his expression somewhat petulantexcept when startlingly illuminated by one of his frequentsmiles. Clark had "a income"--just enough to keep himself in easeand his car in gasolene--and he had spent the two years since hegraduated from Georgia Tech in dozing round the lazy streets ofhis home town, discussing how he could best invest his capitalfor an immediate fortune.Hanging round he found not at all difficult; a crowd of littlegirls had grown up beautifully, the amazing Sally Carrol foremostamong them; and they enjoyed being swum with and danced with andmade love to in the flower-filled summery evenings--and they allliked Clark immensely. When feminine company palled there werehalf a dozen other youths who were always just about to dosomething, and meanwhile were quite willing to join him in a fewholes of golf, or a game of billiards, or the consumption of aquart of "hard yella licker." Every once in a while one of thesecontemporaries made a farewell round of calls before going up toNew York or Philadelphia or Pittsburgh to go into business, butmostly they just stayed round in this languid paradise of dreamyskies and firefly evenings and noisy nigger street fairs--andespecially of gracious, soft-voiced girls, who were brought up onmemories instead of money.The Ford having been excited into a sort of restless resentfullife Clark and Sally Carrol rolled and rattled down Valley Avenueinto Jefferson Street, where the dust road became a pavement;along opiate Millicent Place, where there were half a dozenprosperous, substantial mansions; and on into the down-townsection. Driving was perilous here, for it was shopping time;the population idled casually across the streets and a drove oflow-moaning oxen were being urged along in front of a placidstreet-car; even the shops seemed only yawning their doors andblinking their windows in the sunshine before retiring into astate of utter and finite coma."Sally Carrol," said Clark suddenly, "it a fact that you'reengaged?"She looked at him quickly."Where'd you hear that?""Sure enough, you engaged?""'At's a nice question!""Girl told me you were engaged to a Yankee you met up inAsheville last summer."Sally Carrol sighed."Never saw such an old town for rumors.""Don't marry a Yankee, Sally Carrol. We need you round here."Sally Carrol was silent a moment."Clark," she demanded suddenly, "who on earth shall I marry?""I offer my services.""Honey, you couldn't support a wife," she answered cheerfully."Anyway, I know you too well to fall in love with you.""'At doesn't mean you ought to marry a Yankee," he persisted."S'pose I love him?"He shook his head."You couldn't. He'd be a lot different from us, every way."He broke off as he halted the car in front of a rambling,dilapidated house. Marylyn Wade and Joe Ewing appeared in thedoorway."'Lo Sally Carrol.""Hi!""How you-all?""Sally Carrol," demanded Marylyn as they started of again, "youengaged?""Lawdy, where'd all this start? Can't I look at a man 'thouteverybody in town engagin' me to him?"Clark stared straight in front of him at a bolt on the clatteringwind-shield."Sally Carrol," he said with a curious intensity, "don't you'like us?""What?""Us down here?""Why, Clark, you know I do. I adore all you boys.""Then why you gettin' engaged to a Yankee?.""Clark, I don't know. I'm not sure what I'll do, but--well, Iwant to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I wantto live where things happen on a big scale.""What you mean?""Oh, Clark, I love you, and I love Joe here and Ben Arrot, andyou-all, but you'll--you'll---""We'll all be failures?""Yes. I don't mean only money failures, but just sort of--ofineffectual and sad, and--oh, how can I tell you?""You mean because we stay here in Tarleton?""Yes, Clark; and because you like it and never want to changethings or think or go ahead."He nodded and she reached over and pressed his hand."Clark," she said softly, "I wouldn't change you for the world.You're sweet the way you are. The things that'll make you failI'll love always--the living in the past, the lazy days andnights you have, and all your carelessness and generosity.""But you're goin' away?""Yes--because I couldn't ever marry you. You've a place in myheart no one else ever could have, but tied down here I'd getrestless. I'd feel I was--wastin' myself. There's two sides tome, you see. There's the sleepy old side you love an' there's asort of energy--the feeling that makes me do wild things. That'sthe part of me that may be useful somewhere, that'll last whenI'm not beautiful any more."She broke of with characteristic suddenness and sighed, "Oh,sweet cooky!" as her mood changed.Half closing her eyes and tipping back her head till it rested onthe seat-back she let the savory breeze fan her eyes and ripplethe fluffy curls of her bobbed hair. They were in the countrynow, hurrying between tangled growths of bright-green coppice andgrass and tall trees that sent sprays of foliage to hang a coolwelcome over the road. Here and there they passed a batterednegro cabin, its oldest white-haired inhabitant smoking a corncobpipe beside the door, and half a dozen scantily clothedpickaninnies parading tattered dolls on the wild-grown grass infront. Farther out were lazy cotton-fields where even the workersseemed intangible shadows lent by the sun to the earth, not fortoil, but to while away some age-old tradition in the goldenSeptember fields. And round the drowsy picturesqueness, over thetrees and shacks and muddy rivers, flowed the heat, neverhostile, only comforting, like a great warm nourishing bosom forthe infant earth."Sally Carrol, we're here!""Poor chile's soun' asleep.""Honey, you dead at last outa sheer laziness?""Water, Sally Carrol! Cool water waitin' for you!"Her eyes opened sleepily."Hi!" she murmured, smiling.IIIn November Harry Bellamy, tall, broad, and brisk, came down fromhis Northern city to spend four days. His intention was tosettle a matter that had been hanging fire since he and SallyCarrol had met in Asheville, North Carolina, in midsummer. Thesettlement took only a quiet afternoon and an evening in front ofa glowing open fire, for Harry Bellamy had everything shewanted; and, beside, she loved him--loved him with that side ofher she kept especially for loving. Sally Carrol had severalrather clearly defined sides.On his last afternoon they walked, and she found their stepstending half-unconsciously toward one of her favorite haunts, thecemetery. When it came in sight, gray-white and golden-greenunder the cheerful late sun, she paused, irresolute, by the irongate."Are you mournful by nature, Harry?" she asked with a faintsmile."Mournful?" Not I.""Then let's go in here. It depresses some folks, but I like it."They passed through the gateway and followed a path that ledthrough a wavy valley of graves--dusty-gray and mouldy for thefifties; quaintly carved with flowers and jars for the seventies;ornate and hideous for the nineties, with fat marble cherubslying in sodden sleep on stone pillows, and great impossiblegrowths of nameless granite flowers.Occasionally they saw a kneeling figure with tributary flowers,but over most of the graves lay silence and withered leaves withonly the fragrance that their own shadowy memories could waken inliving minds.They reached the top of a hill where they were fronted by a tall,round head-stone, freckled with dark spots of damp and halfgrown over with vines."Margery Lee," she read; "1844-1873. Wasn't she nice? She diedwhen she was twenty-nine. Dear Margery Lee," she added softly."Can't you see her, Harry?""Yes, Sally Carrol."He felt a little hand insert itself into his."She was dark, I think; and she always wore her hair with aribbon in it, and gorgeous hoop-skirts of Alice blue and oldrose.""Yes.""Oh, she was sweet, Harry! And she was the sort of girl born tostand on a wide, pillared porch and welcome folks in. I thinkperhaps a lot of men went away to war meanin' to come back toher; but maybe none of 'em ever did."He stooped down close to the stone, hunting for any record ofmarriage."There's nothing here to show.""Of course not. How could there be anything there better thanjust 'Margery Lee,' and that eloquent date?"She drew close to him and an unexpected lump came into his throatas her yellow hair brushed his cheek."You see how she was, don't you Harry?""I see," he agreed gently. "I see through your precious eyes.You're beautiful now, so I know she must have been."Silent and close they stood, and he could feel her shoulderstrembling a little. An ambling breeze swept up the hill andstirred the brim of her floppidy hat."Let's go down there!"She was pointing to a flat stretch on the other side of the hillwhere along the green turf were a thousand grayish-white crossesstretching in endless, ordered rows like the stacked arms of abattalion."Those are the Confederate dead," said Sally Carrol simply.They walked along and read the inscriptions, always only a nameand a date, sometimes quite indecipherable."The last row is the saddest--see, 'way over there. Every crosshas just a date on it and the word 'Unknown.'"She looked at him and her eyes brimmed with tears."I can't tell you how real it is to me, darling--if you don'tknow.""How you feel about it is beautiful to me.""No, no, it's not me, it's them--that old time that I've tried tohave live in me. These were just men, unimportant evidently orthey wouldn't have been 'unknown'; but they died for the mostbeautiful thing in the world--the dead South. You see," shecontinued, her voice still husky, her eyes glistening with tears,"people have these dreams they fasten onto things, and I'vealways grown up with that dream. It was so easy because it wasall dead and there weren't any disillusions comin' to me. I'vetried in a way to live up to those past standards of noblesseoblige--there's just the last remnants of it, you know, like theroses of an old garden dying all round us--streaks of strangecourtliness and chivalry in some of these boys an' stories I usedto hear from a Confederate soldier who lived next door, and afew old darkies. Oh, Harry, there was something, there wassomething! I couldn't ever make you understand but it was there.""I understand," he assured her again quietly.Sally Carol smiled and dried her eyes on the tip of ahandkerchief protruding from his breast pocket."You don't feel depressed, do you, lover? Even when I cry I'mhappy here, and I get a sort of strength from it."Hand in hand they turned and walked slowly away. Finding softgrass she drew him down to a seat beside her with their backsagainst the remnants of a low broken wall."Wish those three old women would clear out," he complained. "Iwant to kiss you, Sally Carrol.""Me, too."They waited impatiently for the three bent figures to move off,and then she kissed him until the sky seemed to fade out and allher smiles and tears to vanish in an ecstasy of eternal seconds.Afterward they walked slowly back together, while on the cornerstwilight played at somnolent black-and-white checkers with theend of day."You'll be up about mid-January," he said, "and you've got tostay a month at least. It'll be slick. There's a winter carnivalon, and if you've never really seen snow it'll be like fairy-landto you. There'll be skating and skiing and tobogganing andsleigh-riding, and all sorts of torchlight parades on snow-shoes.They haven't had one for years, so they're gong to make it aknock-out.""Will I be cold, Harry?" she asked suddenly."You certainly won't. You may freeze your nose, but you won't beshivery cold. It's hard and dry, you know.""I guess I'm a summer child. I don't like any cold I've everseen."She broke off and they were both silent for a minute."Sally Carol," he said very slowly, "what do you say to--March?""I say I love you.""March?""March, Harry."IIIAll night in the Pullman it was very cold. She rang for theporter to ask for another blanket, and when he couldn't give herone she tried vainly, by squeezing down into the bottom of herberth and doubling back the bedclothes, to snatch a few hours'sleep. She wanted to look her best in the morning.She rose at six and sliding uncomfortably into her clothesstumbled up to the diner for a cup of coffee. The snow hadfiltered into the vestibules and covered the door with a slipperycoating. It was intriguing this cold, it crept in everywhere.Her breath was quite visible and she blew into the air with anaive enjoyment. Seated in the diner she stared out the window atwhite hills and valleys and scattered pines whose every branchwas a green platter for a cold feast of snow. Sometimes asolitary farmhouse would fly by, ugly and bleak and lone on thewhite waste; and with each one she had an instant of chillcompassion for the souls shut in there waiting for spring.As she left the diner and swayed back into the Pullman sheexperienced a surging rush of energy and wondered if she wasfeeling the bracing air of which Harry had spoken. This was theNorth, the North--her land now!"Then blow, ye winds, heighho!A-roving I will go,"she chanted exultantly to herself."What's 'at?" inquired the porter politely."I said: 'Brush me off.'"The long wires of the telegraph poles doubled, two tracks ran upbeside the train--three--four; came a succession of white-roofedhouses, a glimpse of a trolley-car with frosted windows,streets--more streets--the city.She stood for a dazed moment in the frosty station before she sawthree fur-bundled figures descending upon her."There she is!""Oh, Sally Carrol!"Sally Carrol dropped her bag."Hi!"A faintly familiar icy-cold face kissed her, and then she was ina group of faces all apparently emitting great clouds of heavysmoke; she was shaking hands. There were Gordon, a short, eagerman of thirty who looked like an amateur knocked-about model forHarry, and his wife, Myra, a listless lady with flaxen hair undera fur automobile cap. Almost immediately Sally Carrol thought ofher as vaguely Scandinavian. A cheerful chauffeur adopted herbag, and amid ricochets of half-phrases, exclamations andperfunctory listless "my dears" from Myra, they swept each otherfrom the station.Then they were in a sedan bound through a crooked succession ofsnowy streets where dozens of little boys were hitching sledsbehind grocery wagons and automobiles."Oh," cried Sally Carrol, "I want to do that! Can we Harry?""That's for kids. But we might---""It looks like such a circus!" she said regretfully.Home was a rambling frame house set on a white lap of snow, andthere she met a big, gray-haired man of whom she approved, and alady who was like an egg, and who kissed her--these were Harry'sparents. There was a breathless indescribable hour crammed fullof self-sentences, hot water, bacon and eggs and confusion; andafter that she was alone with Harry in the library, asking him ifshe dared smoke.It was a large room with a Madonna over the fireplace and rowsupon rows of books in covers of light gold and dark gold andshiny red. All the chairs had little lace squares where one's headshould rest, the couch was just comfortable, the books looked asif they had been read--some--and Sally Carrol had aninstantaneous vision of the battered old library at home, withher father's huge medical books, and the oil-paintings of herthree great-uncles, and the old couch that had been mended up forforty-five years and was still luxurious to dream in. This roomstruck her as being neither attractive nor particularlyotherwise. It was simply a room with a lot of fairly expensivethings in it that all looked about fifteen years old."What do you think of it up here?" demanded Harry eagerly. "Doesit surprise you? Is it what you expected I mean?""You are, Harry," she said quietly, and reached out her arms tohim.But after a brief kiss he seemed to extort enthusiasm from her."The town, I mean. Do you like it? Can you feel the pep in theair?""Oh, Harry," she laughed, "you'll have to give me time. You can'tjust fling questions at me."She puffed at her cigarette with a sigh of contentment."One thing I want to ask you," he began rather apologetically;"you Southerners put quite an emphasis on family, and allthat--not that it isn't quite all right, but you'll find it alittle different here. I mean--you'll notice a lot of thingsthat'll seem to you sort of vulgar display at first, SallyCarrol; but just remember that this is a three-generation town.Everybody has a father, and about half of us have grandfathers.Back of that we don't go.""Of course," she murmured."Our grandfathers, you see, founded the place, and a lot of themhad to take some pretty queer jobs while they were doing thefounding. For instance there's one woman who at present is aboutthe social model for the town; well, her father was the firstpublic ash man--things like that.""Why," said Sally Carol, puzzled, "did you s'pose I was goin' tomake remarks about people?""Not at all," interrupted Harry, "and I'm not apologizing for anyone either. It's just that--well, a Southern girl came up herelast summer and said some unfortunate things, and--oh, I justthought I'd tell you."Sally Carrol felt suddenly indignant--as though she had beenunjustly spanked--but Harry evidently considered the subjectclosed, for he went on with a great surge of enthusiasm."It's carnival time, you know. First in ten years. And there's anice palace they're building new that's the first they've hadsince eighty-five. Built out of blocks of the clearest ice theycould find--on a tremendous scale."She rose and walking to the window pushed aside the heavy Turkishportieres and looked out."Oh!" she cried suddenly. "There's two little boys makin' a snowman! Harry, do you reckon I can go out an' help 'em?""You dream! Come here and kiss me."She left the window rather reluctantly."I don't guess this is a very kissable climate, is it? I mean, itmakes you so you don't want to sit round, doesn't it?""We're not going to. I've got a vacation for the first weekyou're here, and there's a dinner-dance to-night.""Oh, Harry," she confessed, subsiding in a heap, half in his lap,half in the pillows, "I sure do feel confused. I haven't got anidea whether I'll like it or not, an' I don't know what peopleexpect, or anythin'. You'll have to tell me, honey.""I'll tell you," he said softly, "if you'll just tell me you'reglad to be here.""Glad--just awful glad!" she whispered, insinuating herself intohis arms in her own peculiar way. "Where you are is home for me,Harry."And as she said this she had the feeling for almost the firsttime in her life that she was acting a part.That night, amid the gleaming candles of a dinner-party, wherethe men seemed to do most of the talking while the girls sat in ahaughty and expensive aloofness, even Harry's presence on herleft failed to make her feel at home."They're a good-looking crowd, don't you think?" he demanded."Just look round. There's Spud Hubbard, tackle at Princeton lastyear, and Junie Morton--he and the red-haired fellow next to himwere both Yale hockey captains; Junie was in my class. Why, thebest athletes in the world come from these States round here.This is a man's country, I tell you. Look at John J. Fishburn!""Who's he?" asked Sally Carrol innocently."Don't you know?""I've heard the name.""Greatest wheat man in the Northwest, and one of the greatestfinanciers in the country."She turned suddenly to a voice on her right."I guess they forget to introduce us. My name's Roger Patton.""My name is Sally Carrol Happer," she said graciously."Yes, I know. Harry told me you were coming.""You a relative?""No, I'm a professor.""Oh," she laughed."At the university. You're from the South, aren't you?""Yes; Tarleton, Georgia."She liked him immediately--a reddish-brown mustache under wateryblue eyes that had something in them that these other eyeslacked, some quality of appreciation. They exchanged straysentences through dinner, and she made up her mind to see himagain.After coffee she was introduced to numerous good-looking youngmen who danced with conscious precision and seemed to take it forgranted that she wanted to talk about nothing except Harry."Heavens," she thought, "They talk as if my being engaged made meolder than they are--as if I'd tell their mothers on them!"In the South an engaged girl, even a young married woman,expected the same amount of half-affectionate badinage andflattery that would be accorded a debutante, but here all thatseemed banned. One young man after getting well started on thesubject of Sally Carrol's eyes and, how they had allured him eversince she entered the room, went into a violent convulsion whenhe found she was visiting the Bellamys--was Harry's fiancee. Heseemed to feel as though he had made some risque and inexcusableblunder, became immediately formal and left her at the firstopportunity.She was rather glad when Roger Patton cut in on her and suggestedthat they sit out a while."Well," he inquired, blinking cheerily, "how's Carmen from theSouth?""Mighty fine. How's--how's Dangerous Dan McGrew? Sorry, but he'sthe only Northerner I know much about."He seemed to enjoy that."Of course," he confessed, "as a professor of literature I'm notsupposed to have read Dangerous Dan McGrew.""Are you a native?""No, I'm a Philadelphian. Imported from Harvard to teach French.But I've been here ten years.""Nine years, three hundred an' sixty-four days longer than me.""Like it here?""Uh-huh. Sure do!""Really?""Well, why not? Don't I look as if I were havin' a good time?""I saw you look out the window a minute ago--and shiver.""Just my imagination," laughed Sally Carroll "I'm used to havin'everythin' quiet outside an' sometimes I look out an' see aflurry of snow an' it's just as if somethin' dead was movin'"He nodded appreciatively."Ever been North before?""Spent two Julys in Asheville, North Carolina.""Nice-looking crowd aren't they?" suggested Patton, indicatingthe swirling floor.Sally Carrol started. This had been Harry's remark."Sure are! They're--canine.""What?"She flushed."I'm sorry; that sounded worse than I meant it. You see I alwaysthink of people as feline or canine, irrespective of sex.""Which are you?""I'm feline. So are you. So are most Southern men an' most ofthese girls here.""What's Harry?""Harry's canine distinctly. All the men I've to-night seem to becanine.""What does canine imply? A certain conscious masculinity asopposed to subtlety?""Reckon so. I never analyzed it--only I just look at people an'say 'canine' or 'feline' right off. It's right absurd I guess.""Not at all. I'm interested. I used to have a theory about thesepeople. I think they're freezing up.""What?""Well, they're growing' like Swedes--Ibsenesque, you know. Verygradually getting gloomy and melancholy. It's these long winters.Ever read Ibsen?"She shook her head."Well, you find in his characters a certain brooding rigidity.They're righteous, narrow, and cheerless, without infinitepossibilities for great sorrow or joy.""Without smiles or tears?""Exactly. That's my theory. You see there are thousands ofSwedes up here. They come, I imagine, because the climate is verymuch like their own, and there's been a gradual mingling.There're probably not half a dozen here to-night, but--we've hadfour Swedish governors. Am I boring you?""I'm mighty interested.""Your future sister-in-law is half Swedish. Personally I likeher, but my theory is that Swedes react rather badly on us as awhole. Scandinavians, you know, have the largest suicide rate inthe world.""Why do you live here if it's so depressing?""Oh, it doesn't get me. I'm pretty well cloistered, and I supposebooks mean more than people to me anyway.""But writers all speak about the South being tragic. Youknow--Spanish senoritas, black hair and daggers an' hauntingmusic."He shook his head."No, the Northern races are the tragic races--they don't indulgein the cheering luxury of tears."Sally Carrol thought of her graveyard. She supposed that that wasvaguely what she had meant when she said it didn't depress her."The Italians are about the gayest people in the world--but it'sa dull subject," he broke off. "Anyway, I want to tell youyou're marrying a pretty fine man."Sally Carrol was moved by an impulse of confidence."I know. I'm the sort of person who wants to be taken care ofafter a certain point, and I feel sure I will be.""Shall we dance? You know," he continued as they rose, "it'sencouraging to find a girl who knows what she's marrying for.Nine-tenths of them think of it as a sort of walking into amoving-picture sunset."She laughed and liked him immensely.Two hours later on the way home she nestled near Harry in theback seat."Oh, Harry," she whispered "it's so co-old!""But it's warm in here, daring girl.""But outside it's cold; and oh, that howling wind!"She buried her face deep in his fur coat and trembledinvoluntarily as his cold lips kissed the tip of her ear.IVThe first week of her visit passed in a whirl. She had herpromised toboggan-ride at the back of an automobile through achill January twilight. Swathed in furs she put in a morningtobogganing on the country-club hill; even tried skiing, to sailthrough the air for a glorious moment and then land in a tangledlaughing bundle on a soft snow-drift. She liked all the wintersports, except an afternoon spent snow-shoeing over a glaringplain under pale yellow sunshine, but she soon realized thatthese things were for children--that she was being humored andthat the enjoyment round her was only a reflection of her own.At first the Bellamy family puzzled her. The men were reliableand she liked them; to Mr. Bellamy especially, with his iron-grayhair and energetic dignity, she took an immediate fancy, onceshe found that he was born in Kentucky; this made of him a linkbetween the old life and the new. But toward the women she felt adefinite hostility. Myra, her future sister-in-law, seemed theessence of spiritless conversationality. Her conversation was soutterly devoid of personality that Sally Carrol, who came from acountry where a certain amount of charm and assurance could betaken for granted in the women, was inclined to despise her."If those women aren't beautiful," she thought, "they're nothing.They just fade out when you look at them. They're glorifieddomestics. Men are the centre of every mixed group."Lastly there was Mrs. Bellamy, whom Sally Carrol detested. Thefirst day's impression of an egg had been confirmed--an egg witha cracked, veiny voice and such an ungracious dumpiness ofcarriage that Sally Carrol felt that if she once fell she wouldsurely scramble. In addition, Mrs. Bellamy seemed to typify thetown in being innately hostile to strangers. She called SallyCarrol "Sally," and could not be persuaded that the double namewas anything more than a tedious ridiculous nickname. To SallyCarrol this shortening of her name was presenting her to thepublic half clothed. She loved "Sally Carrol"; she loathed"Sally." She knew also that Harry's mother disapproved of herbobbed hair; and she had never dared smoke down-stairs after thatfirst day when Mrs. Bellamy had come into the library sniffingviolently.Of all the men she met she preferred Roger Patton, who was afrequent visitor at the house. He never again alluded to theIbsenesque tendency of the populace, but when he came in one dayand found her curled upon the sofa bent over "Peer Gynt" helaughed and told her to forget what he'd said--that it was allrot.They had been walking homeward between mounds of high-piled snowand under a sun which Sally Carrol scarcely recognized. Theypassed a little girl done up in gray wool until she resembled asmall Teddy bear, and Sally Carrol could not resist a gasp ofmaternal appreciation."Look! Harry!""What?""That little girl--did you see her face?""Yes, why?""It was red as a little strawberry. Oh, she was cute!""Why, your own face is almost as red as that already! Everybody'shealthy here. We're out in the cold as soon as we're old enoughto walk. Wonderful climate!"She looked at him and had to agree. He was mightyhealthy-looking; so was his brother. And she had noticed the newred in her own cheeks that very morning.Suddenly their glances were caught and held, and they stared fora moment at the street-corner ahead of them. A man was standingthere, his knees bent, his eyes gazing upward with a tenseexpression as though he were about to make a leap toward thechilly sky. And then they both exploded into a shout oflaughter, for coming closer they discovered it had been aludicrous momentary illusion produced by the extreme bagginess ofthe man's trousers."Reckon that's one on us," she laughed."He must be Southerner, judging by those trousers," suggestedHarry mischievously."Why, Harry!"Her surprised look must have irritated him."Those damn Southerners!"Sally Carrol's eyes flashed."Don't call 'em that.""I'm sorry, dear," said Harry, malignantly apologetic, "but youknow what I think of them. They're sort of--sort ofdegenerates--not at all like the old Southerners. They've livedso long down there with all the colored people that they'vegotten lazy and shiftless.""Hush your mouth, Harry!" she cried angrily. "They're not! Theymay be lazy--anybody would be in that climate--but they're mybest friends, an' I don't want to hear 'em criticised in any suchsweepin' way. Some of 'em are the finest men in the world.""Oh, I know. They're all right when they come North to college,but of all the hangdog, ill-dressed, slovenly lot I ever saw, abunch of small-town Southerners are the worst!"Sally Carrol was clinching her gloved hands and biting her lipfuriously."Why," continued Harry, if there was one in my class at NewHaven, and we all thought that at last we'd found the true typeof Southern aristocrat, but it turned out that he wasn't anaristocrat at all--just the son of a Northern carpetbagger, whoowned about all the cotton round Mobile.""A Southerner wouldn't talk the way you're talking now," she saidevenly."They haven't the energy!""Or the somethin' else.""I'm sorry Sally Carrol, but I've heard you say yourself thatyou'd never marry---""That's quite different. I told you I wouldn't want to tie mylife to any of the boys that are round Tarleton now, but I nevermade any sweepin' generalities."They walked along in silence."I probably spread it on a bit thick Sally Carrol. I'm sorry."She nodded but made no answer. Five minutes later as they stoodin the hallway she suddenly threw her arms round him."Oh, Harry," she cried, her eyes brimming with tears; "let's getmarried next week. I'm afraid of having fusses like that. I'mafraid, Harry. It wouldn't be that way if we were married."But Harry, being in the wrong, was still irritated."That'd be idiotic. We decided on March."The tears in Sally Carrol's eyes faded; her expression hardenedslightly."Very well--I suppose I shouldn't have said that."Harry melted."Dear little nut!" he cried. "Come and kiss me and let's forget."That very night at the end of a vaudeville performance theorchestra played "Dixie" and Sally Carrol felt something strongerand more enduring than her tears and smiles of the day brim upinside her. She leaned forward gripping the arms of her chairuntil her face grew crimson."Sort of get you dear?" whispered Harry.But she did not hear him. To the limited throb of the violins andthe inspiring beat of the kettle-drums her own old ghosts weremarching by and on into the darkness, and as fifes whistled andsighed in the low encore they seemed so nearly out of sight thatshe could have waved good-by."Away, Away,
Away down South in Dixie!
Away, away,
Away down South in Dixie!"VIt was a particularly cold night. A sudden thaw had nearlycleared the streets the day before, but now they were traversedagain with a powdery wraith of loose snow that travelled in wavylines before the feet of the wind, and filled the lower air witha fine-particled mist. There was no sky-- only a dark, ominoustent that draped in the tops of the streets and was in reality avast approaching army of snowflakes--while over it all, chillingaway the comfort from the brown-and-green glow of lightedwindows and muffling the steady trot of the horse pulling theirsleigh, interminably washed the north wind. It was a dismal townafter all, she though, dismal.Sometimes at night it had seemed to her as though no one livedhere--they had all gone long ago--leaving lighted houses to becovered in time by tombing heaps of sleet. Oh, if there should besnow on her grave! To be beneath great piles of it all winterlong, where even her headstone would be a light shadow againstlight shadows. Her grave--a grave that should be flower-strewnand washed with sun and rain.She thought again of those isolated country houses that her trainhad passed, and of the life there the long winter through--theceaseless glare through the windows, the crust forming on thesoft drifts of snow, finally the slow cheerless melting and theharsh spring of which Roger Patton had told her. Her spring--tolose it forever--with its lilacs and the lazy sweetness itstirred in her heart. She was laying away that spring--afterwardshe would lay away that sweetness.With a gradual insistence the storm broke. Sally Carrol felt afilm of flakes melt quickly on her eyelashes, and Harry reachedover a furry arm and drew down her complicated flannel cap. Thenthe small flakes came in skirmish-line, and the horse bent hisneck patiently as a transparency of white appeared momentarily onhis coat."Oh, he's cold, Harry," she said quickly."Who? The horse? Oh, no, he isn't. He likes it!"After another ten minutes they turned a corner and came in sightof their destination. On a tall hill outlined in vivid glaringgreen against the wintry sky stood the ice palace. It was threestories in the air, with battlements and embrasures and narrowicicled windows, and the innumerable electric lights inside madea gorgeous transparency of the great central hall. Sally Carrolclutched Harry's hand under the fur robe."It's beautiful!" he cried excitedly. "My golly, it's beautiful,isn't it! They haven't had one here since eighty-five!"Somehow the notion of there not having been one since eighty-fiveoppressed her. Ice was a ghost, and this mansion of it wassurely peopled by those shades of the eighties, with pale facesand blurred snow-filled hair."Come on, dear," said Harry.She followed him out of the sleigh and waited while he hitchedthe horse. A party of four--Gordon, Myra, Roger Patton, andanother girl-- drew up beside them with a mighty jingle of bells.There were quite a crowd already, bundled in fur or sheepskin,shouting and calling to each other as they moved through thesnow, which was now so thick that people could scarcely bedistinguished a few yards away."It's a hundred and seventy feet tall," Harry was saying to amuffled figure beside him as they trudged toward the entrance;"covers six thousand square yards.""She caught snatches of conversation: "One main hall"--"wallstwenty to forty inches thick"--"and the ice cave has almost amile of--"--"this Canuck who built it---"They found their way inside, and dazed by the magic of the greatcrystal walls Sally Carrol found herself repeating over and overtwo lines from "Kubla Khan":"It was a miracle of rare device,A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!"In the great glittering cavern with the dark shut out she took aseat on a wooded bench and the evening's oppression lifted. Harrywas right--it was beautiful; and her gaze travelled the smoothsurface of the walls, the blocks for which had been selected fortheir purity and dearness to obtain this opalescent, translucenteffect."Look! Here we go--oh, boy! " cried Harry.A band in a far corner struck up "Hail, Hail, the Gang's AllHere!" which echoed over to them in wild muddled acoustics, andthen the lights suddenly went out; silence seemed to flow downthe icy sides and sweep over them. Sally Carrol could still seeher white breath in the darkness, and a dim row of pale facesover on the other side.The music eased to a sighing complaint, and from outside driftedin the full-throated remnant chant of the marching clubs. It grewlouder like some paean of a viking tribe traversing an ancientwild; it swelled--they were coming nearer; then a row of torchesappeared, and another and another, and keeping time with theirmoccasined feet a long column of gray-mackinawed figures sweptin, snow-shoes slung at their shoulders, torches soaring andflickering as their voice rose along the great walls.The gray column ended and another followed, the light streamingluridly this time over red toboggan caps and flaming crimsonmackinaws, and as they entered they took up the refrain; thencame a long platoon of blue and white, of green, of white, ofbrown and yellow."Those white ones are the Wacouta Club," whispered Harry eagerly."Those are the men you've met round at dances."The volume of the voices grew; the great cavern was aphantasmagoria of torches waving in great banks of fire, ofcolors and the rhythm of soft-leather steps. The leading columnturned and halted, platoon deploys in front of platoon until thewhole procession made a solid flag of flame, and then fromthousands of voices burst a mighty shout that filled the air likea crash of thunder, and sent the torches wavering. It wasmagnificent, it was tremendous! To Sally Carol it was the Northoffering sacrifice on some mighty altar to the gray pagan God ofSnow. As the shout died the band struck up again and there camemore singing, and then long reverberating cheers by each club.She sat very quiet listening while the staccato cries rent thestillness; and then she started, for there was a volley ofexplosion, and great clouds of smoke went up here and therethrough the cavern--the flash-light photographers at work--andthe council was over. With the band at their head the clubsformed in column once more, took up their chant, and began tomarch out."Come on!" shouted Harry. "We want to see the labyrinthsdown-stairs before they turn the lights off!"They all rose and started toward the chute--Harry and SallyCarrol in the lead, her little mitten buried in his big furgantlet. At the bottom of the chute was a long empty room of ice,with the ceiling so low that they had to stoop--and their handswere parted. Before she realized what he intended Harry Harry haddarted down one of the half-dozen glittering passages thatopened into the room and was only a vague receding blot againstthe green shimmer."Harry!" she called."Come on!" he cried back.She looked round the empty chamber; the rest of the party hadevidently decided to go home, were already outside somewhere inthe blundering snow. She hesitated and then darted in afterHarry."Harry!" she shouted.She had reached a turning-point thirty feet down; she heard afaint muffled answer far to the left, and with a touch of panicfled toward it. She passed another turning, two more yawningalleys."Harry!"No answer. She started to run straight forward, and then turnedlike lightning and sped back the way she had come, enveloped in asudden icy terror.She reached a turn--was it here?--took the left and came to whatshould have been the outlet into the long, low room, but it wasonly another glittering passage with darkness at the end. Shecalled again, but the walls gave back a flat, lifeless echo withno reverberations. Retracing her steps she turned another corner,this time following a wide passage. It was like the green lanebetween the parted water of the Red Sea, like a damp vaultconnecting empty tombs.She slipped a little now as she walked, for ice had formed on thebottom of her overshoes; she had to run her gloves along thehalf-slippery, half-sticky walls to keep her balance."Harry!"Still no answer. The sound she made bounced mockingly down to theend of the passage.Then on an instant the lights went out, and she was in completedarkness. She gave a small, frightened cry, and sank down into acold little heap on the ice. She felt her left knee do somethingas she fell, but she scarcely noticed it as some deep terror fargreater than any fear of being lost settled upon her. She wasalone with this presence that came out of the North, the drearyloneliness that rose from ice-bound whalers in the Arctic seas,from smokeless, trackless wastes where were strewn the whitenedbones of adventure. It was an icy breath of death; it was rollingdown low across the land to clutch at her.With a furious, despairing energy she rose again and startedblindly down the darkness. She must get out. She might be lost inhere for days, freeze to death and lie embedded in the ice likecorpses she had read of, kept perfectly preserved until themelting of a glacier. Harry probably thought she had left withthe others--he had gone by now; no one would know until next day.She reached pitifully for the wall. Forty inches thick, they hadsaid--forty inches thick!On both sides of her along the walls she felt things creeping,damp souls that haunted this palace, this town, this North."Oh, send somebody--send somebody!" she cried aloud.Clark Darrow--he would understand; or Joe Ewing; she couldn't beleft here to wander forever--to be frozen, heart, body, and soul.This her-- this Sally Carrol! Why, she was a happy thing. Shewas a happy little girl. She liked warmth and summer and Dixie.These things were foreign--foreign."You're not crying," something said aloud. "You'll never cry anymore. Your tears would just freeze; all tears freeze up here!"She sprawled full length on the ice."Oh, God!" she faltered.A long single file of minutes went by, and with a great wearinessshe felt her eyes dosing. Then some one seemed to sit down nearher and take her face in warm, soft hands. She looked upgratefully."Why it's Margery Lee" she crooned softly to herself. "I knewyou'd come." It really was Margery Lee, and she was just as SallyCarrol had known she would be, with a young, white brow, andwide welcoming eyes, and a hoop-skirt of some soft material thatwas quite comforting to rest on."Margery Lee."It was getting darker now and darker--all those tombstones oughtto be repainted sure enough, only that would spoil 'em, ofcourse. Still, you ought to be able to see 'em.Then after a succession of moments that went fast and then slow,but seemed to be ultimately resolving themselves into a multitudeof blurred rays converging toward a pale-yellow sun, she heard agreat cracking noise break her new-found stillness.It was the sun, it was a light; a torch, and a torch beyond that,and another one, and voices; a face took flesh below the torch,heavy arms raised her and she felt something on her cheek--itfelt wet. Some one had seized her and was rubbing her face withsnow. How ridiculous--with snow!"Sally Carrol! Sally Carrol!"It was Dangerous Dan McGrew; and two other faces she didn't know."Child, child! We've been looking for you two hours! Harry'shalf-crazy!"Things came rushing back into place--the singing, the torches,the great shout of the marching clubs. She squirmed in Patton'sarms and gave a long low cry."Oh, I want to get out of here! I'm going back home. Take mehome"---her voice rose to a scream that sent a chill to Harry'sheart as he came racing down the next passage--"to-morrow!" shecried with delirious, unstrained passion--"To-morrow! To-morrow!To-morrow!"VIThe wealth of golden sunlight poured a quite enervating yet oddlycomforting heat over the house where day long it faced the dustystretch of road. Two birds were making a great to-do in a coolspot found among the branches of a tree next door, and down thestreet a colored woman was announcing herself melodiously as apurveyor of strawberries. It was April afternoon.Sally Carrol Happer, resting her chin on her arm, and her arm onan old window-seat, gazed sleepily down over the spangled dustwhence the heat waves were rising for the first time this spring.She was watching a very ancient Ford turn a perilous corner andrattle and groan to a jolting stop at the end of the walk. Seemade no sound and in a minute a strident familiar whistle rentthe air. Sally Carrol smiled and blinked."Good mawnin'."A head appeared tortuously from under the car-top below."Tain't mawnin', Sally Carrol.""Sure enough!" she said in affected surprise. "I guess maybenot.""What you doin'?""Eatin' a green peach. 'Spect to die any minute."Clark twisted himself a last impossible notch to get a view ofher face."Water's warm as a kettla steam, Sally Carol. Wanta go swimmin'?""Hate to move," sighed Sally Carol lazily, "but I reckon so."
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