The Girl From Kellers | Page 8

a bright morning when Charnock drove up to the door of Keller's hotel. The street was one-sided, and for the most part of its length, small, ship-lap-board houses boldly fronted the prairie. A few had shallow verandas that relieved their bareness, but the rest were frankly ugly, and in some the front was carried up level with the roof-ridge, giving them a harsh squareness of outline. A plank sidewalk, raised a foot or two above the ground, ran along the street, where the black soil was torn by wagon wheels.
There was nothing attractive about the settlement, and Charnock had once been repelled by its dreariness. He, however, liked society, and as the settlement was the only center of human intercourse, had acquired the habit of spending time there that ought to have been devoted to his farm. He enjoyed a game of pool, and to sit on the hotel veranda, bantering the loungers, was a pleasant change from driving the plow or plodding through the dust that rolled about the harrows. For all that, he knitted his brows as his light wagon lurched past the Chinese laundry and the poolroom in the next block. The place looked mean and shabby in the strong sunlight, and, with feelings he had thought dead re-awaking, he was conscious of a sharp distaste. There was a choice he must shortly make, and he knew what it would cost to take the line that might be forced on him.
It was with a certain shrinking he stopped his team in front of the hotel. The bare windows were open and the door was hooked back, so that one could see into the hall, where a row of tin wash-basins stood on a shelf. Dirty towels were scattered about, and the boarded floor was splashed. The veranda, on to which the hall opened, was strewn with cigar-ends and burnt matches, and occupied by a row of cheap wooden chairs. Above the door was painted /The Keller House/. The grocery in the next block, and the poolroom, bore the same owner's name.
When Charnock stopped, a man without a coat and with the sleeves of his fine white shirt rolled up came out. He as rather an old man and his movements were slack; his face was hard, but on the whole expressionless.
"Hallo!" he said. "Late again! The others have pulled out a quarter of an hour since."
"I saw them," Charnock answered with a languid hint of meaning. "Didn't want to join the procession and thought they might load up my rig if I got here on time."
Keller looked hard at him, as if he understood, and then asked: "Want a drink before you start?"
"No, thanks," said Charnock, with an effort; and Keller, going to the door, shouted: "Sadie!"
A girl came out on the veranda. She was a handsome girl, smartly dressed in white, with a fashionable hat that had a tall plume. Her hair and eyes were black, the latter marked by a rather hard sparkle; her nose was prominent and her mouth firm. Her face was colorless, but her skin had the clean smoothness of silk. She had a firmly lined, round figure, and her manner was easy and confident. Sadie Keller was then twenty-one years of age.
"I thought you had forgotten to come, Bob," she said with a smile.
"Then you were very foolish; you ought to have known me better," Charnock replied, and helped her into the wagon.
"Well, you do forget things," she resumed as he started the team.
"Not those I want to remember. Besides, if you really thought I had forgotten, you'd have been angry."
"How d'you know I'm not angry now?"
Charnock laughed. "When you're angry everybody in the neighborhood knows."
This was true. Sadie was young, but there was something imperious about her. She had a strong will, and when it was thwarted was subject to fits of rage. Reserve was not among her virtues, and Charnock's languid carelessness sometimes attracted and sometimes annoyed her. It marked him as different from the young men she knew and gave him what she called tone, but it had drawbacks.
"Let me have the reins; I want to drive," she said, and added as the horses trotted across the grass beside the torn-up trail: "You keep a smart team, but they're too light for much work about the farm."
"That's so. Still, you see, I like fast horses."
"They have to be paid for," Sadie rejoined.
"Very true, but I don't want to talk about such matters now. Then I've given up trying to make the farm pay. When you find a thing's impossible, it's better to let it go."
Sadie did not reply. She meant to talk about this later, but preferred to choose her time. Her education had been rudimentary, but she was naturally clever. She liked admiration, but was not to