Dust | Page 9

down past his
shoulders and poke blindly for the sleeve openings. Martin was
thankful when he felt the collar buttons in their holes. His salt and
pepper suit was of a stiff, unyielding material, and the first time he had
worn it the creases had vanished never to return. Before putting on his
celluloid collar, he spat on it and smeared it off with the tail of his shirt.
A recalcitrant metal shaper insisted on peeking from under his lapels,
and his ready-made tie with its two grey satin-covered cardboard wings
pushed out of sight, see-sawed, necessitating frequent adjustments. His
brown derby, the rim of which made almost three quarters of a circle at
each side, seemed to want to get as far as possible from his ears and, at

the same time, remain perched on his head. The yellow shoes looked as
though each had half a billiard ball in the toe, and the entire tops were
perforated with many diverging lines in an attempt for the decorative.
Those were the days of sore feet and corns! Hart Schaffner and Marx
had not yet become rural America's tailor. Sartorial magicians in
Chicago had not yet won over the young men of the great corn belt,
with their snappy lines and style for the millions. In 1890, when a suit
served merely as contrast to a pair of overalls, the Martin Wades who
would clothe themselves pulled their garments from the piles on long
tables. It was for the next generation to patronize clothiers who kept
each suit on its separate hanger. A moving-picture of the tall,
broad-shouldered fellow, as, with creaking steps, he walked from the
house, might bring a laugh from the young farmers of this more
fastidious day, but Martin was dressed no worse than any of his
neighbors and far better than many. Health, vigor, sturdiness,
self-reliance shone from him, and once his make-up had ceased to
obtrude its clumsiness, he struck one as handsome. His was a
commanding physique, hard as the grim plains from which he wrested
his living.
As Martin drove into Fallon, his attention was directed toward the
architecture and the women. He observed that the average homes were
merely a little larger than his own--four, six, or eight rooms instead of
one, made a little trimmer with neat porches and surrounded by
well-cut lawns, instead of weeds. He, with his new budget, could do
better. Even Robinson's well-constructed residence had probably cost
only three thousand more than he himself planned to spend. Its
suggestion of originality had been all but submerged by carpenters
spoiled through constant work on commonplace buildings. But to
Martin it was a marvellous mansion. He told himself that with such a
place moved out to his quarter-section, he could have stood on his
door-step and chosen whomever he wished for a wife.
It was an elemental materialism, difficult to understand, but it was a
language very clear to Martin. Marriage with the men and women of
his world was a practical business, arranged and conducted by practical
people, who lived practical lives, and died practical deaths. The women
who might pass his way could deny their lust for concrete possessions,
but their actions, however concealed their motives, would give the lie

to any ineffectual glamour of romance they might attempt to fling over
their carefully measured adventures of the heart.
Martin smiled cynically as he let his thoughts drift along this channel.
"What a lot of bosh is talked about lovers," his comment ran. "As if
everyone didn't really know how much like drunken men they
are--saying things which in a month they'll have forgotten. Folks
pretend to approve of 'em and all the while they're laughing at 'em up
their sleeves. But how they respect a man who's got the root they're all
grubbing for! It may be the root of all evil, but it's a fact that everything
people want grows from it. They hate a man for having it, but they'd
like to be him. Their hearts have all got strings dangling from 'em,
especially the women's. A house tied onto the other end ought to be
hefty enough to fetch the best of the lot."
Who could she be, anyway? Was she someone in Fallon? He drove
slowly, thinking over the families in the different houses--four to each
side of the block. The street, even yet, was little more than a country
road. There was no indication of the six miles of pavement which later
were to be Fallon's pride. It had rained earlier in the week and Martin
was obliged to be careful of the chuck-holes in the sticky, heavy gumbo
soon to be the bane of pioneers venturing forth in what were to be
known for a few short years as "horseless carriages."