O Pioneers! | Page 5

go and see if I can find Carl. Maybe he
can do something. Only you must stop crying, or I won't go a step.
Where's your comforter? Did you leave it in the store? Never mind.
Hold still, till I put this on you."
She unwound the brown veil from her head and tied it about his throat.
A shabby little traveling man, who was just then coming out of the
store on his way to the saloon, stopped and gazed stupidly at the
shining mass of hair she bared when she took off her veil; two thick
braids, pinned about her head in the German way, with a fringe of
reddish-yellow curls blowing out from under her cap. He took his cigar
out of his mouth and held the wet end between the fingers of his
woolen glove. "My God, girl, what a head of hair!" he exclaimed, quite
innocently and foolishly. She stabbed him with a glance of Amazonian
fierceness and drew in her lower lip--most unnecessary severity. It gave
the little clothing drummer such a start that he actually let his cigar fall
to the sidewalk and went off weakly in the teeth of the wind to the
saloon. His hand was still unsteady when he took his glass from the
bartender. His feeble flirtatious instincts had been crushed before, but
never so mercilessly. He felt cheap and ill-used, as if some one had
taken advantage of him. When a drummer had been knocking about in
little drab towns and crawling across the wintry country in dirty

smokingcars, was he to be blamed if, when he chanced upon a fine
human creature, he suddenly wished himself more of a man?
While the little drummer was drinking to recover his nerve, Alexandra
hurried to the drug store as the most likely place to find Carl Linstrum.
There he was, turning over a portfolio of chromo "studies" which the
druggist sold to the Hanover women who did chinapainting. Alexandra
explained her predicament, and the boy followed her to the corner,
where Emil still sat by the pole.
"I'll have to go up after her, Alexandra. I think at the depot they have
some spikes I can strap on my feet. Wait a minute." Carl thrust his
hands into his pockets, lowered his head, and darted up the street
against the north wind. He was a tall boy of fifteen, slight and
narrow-chested. When he came back with the spikes, Alexandra asked
him what he had done with his overcoat.
"I left it in the drug store. I couldn't climb in it, anyhow. Catch me if I
fall, Emil," he called back as he began his ascent. Alexandra watched
him anxiously; the cold was bitter enough on the ground. The kitten
would not budge an inch. Carl had to go to the very top of the pole, and
then had some difficulty in tearing her from her hold. When he reached
the ground, he handed the cat to her tearful little master. "Now go into
the store with her, Emil, and get warm." He opened the door for the
child. "Wait a minute, Alexandra. Why can't I drive for you as far as
our place? It's getting colder every minute. Have you seen the doctor?"
"Yes. He is coming over to-morrow. But he says father can't get better;
can't get well." The girl's lip trembled. She looked fixedly up the bleak
street as if she were gathering her strength to face something, as if she
were trying with all her might to grasp a situation which, no matter how
painful, must be met and dealt with somehow. The wind flapped the
skirts of her heavy coat about her.
Carl did not say anything, but she felt his sympathy. He, too, was
lonely. He was a thin, frail boy, with brooding dark eyes, very quiet in
all his movements. There was a delicate pallor in his thin face, and his
mouth was too sensitive for a boy's. The lips had already a little curl of

bitterness and skepticism. The two friends stood for a few moments on
the windy street corner, not speaking a word, as two travelers, who
have lost their way, sometimes stand and admit their perplexity in
silence. When Carl turned away he said, "I'll see to your team."
Alexandra went into the store to have her purchases packed in the
egg-boxes, and to get warm before she set out on her long cold drive.
When she looked for Emil, she found him sitting on a step of the
staircase that led up to the clothing and carpet department. He was
playing with a little Bohemian girl, Marie Tovesky, who was tying her
handkerchief over the kitten's head for a bonnet. Marie was a stranger
in the country, having come