The Todds' Utopia

I

LOUISA MAE hung a rusty dishpan against the outside of the warped summer kitchen, standing on her tiptoes to reach the nail under the sagging, disjointed eaves-spout. She wiped her hands on a piece of towel inside the door, and groped in the gathering dusk to find the hook again. Then she ran down the narrow path that led to the road. The hem of her scant calico dress brushed the tall dewcovered weeds in the yard, and her long black braid of hair flopped against a row of white china buttons. The air was warm, and the dust thick and heavy, curling up in little puffs at each step. The trees and bushes along the roadside appeared blurred and indistinct, and Louisa Mae walked briskly past the thick clump where the tree toads wailed their rasping song, and the katydids disputed. Down in the slough, where the crickets chipped their harsh chorus, she broke into a run again.

Across the road, a little farther beyond, she swung open a white picket gate. Then she hurried around the cinder walk to the back door, where a light shone out on a vine-covered porch. Louisa Mae stopped and listened. A song, in a high, tuneless voice, came floating out, and as she climbed the steps, she saw, through the open doorway, a plump woman in a gray dress moving an iron ladle round and round. She slipped noiselessly in, and sank into a wooden rocker by the spacious wood-box. The chorus was coming out in jerks, and the words “rolling on, rolling on ” were ascending the scale to a dizzy height.

“I just hate that song, Mrs. Sawen.” Louisa Mae spoke defiantly, and her two wrinkled, run-over shoes rested flatly on the floor.

The broad shoulders gave a perceptible start, and a round face, filled with placid surprise, confronted her.

“My! Louisa Mae, but you did give me a scare.”

“We’ve rolled on and rolled on all our lives, just like it tells us to.”

“What can be the matter?” Mrs. Sawen shoved a large crock to the side of the table, and gazed down at Louisa Mae from above her big glasses.

“Pa’s got the moving fever again, and Hank’s catching it.” The brown rocker moved jerkily over the uneven floor.

“ Why, you have n’t been here more than a couple of months!”

“I know it. I kind of thought they might be contented. I’ve seen it coming on,though.”

“Maybe it’ll blow over.”

“ No’t won’t. When it comes it sticks.”

“Where do they want to move to?” Mrs. Sawen was sifting the creamy flour into the crock before her.

Louisa Mae’s brown fingers clasped the splintered handles of the rocker tightly.

“Out to Green County. Pa’s just always been set on Green County. When we were up in Dakota he said it was Green County he ought to have gone to, and when we were down in Oklahoma he said it was Green County he ought to have gone to, and now we’re here he says it’s Green County he ought to have kept on to.” Louisa Mae sank back into the cretonne cushions with the red roses and the brown leaves.

“ Green County is n’t any better than Taylor County, Louisa Mae,”Mrs. Sawen responded promptly, a ring of loyalty in her easy tone.

The boards beneath the clumsy rockers squeaked again. Then it ceased abruptly.

“I can’t bear to leave this place.” The light in Louisa Mae’s eyes softened. “And so I’ve come to ask you if you — if you would n’t get Mr. Sawen to talk to pa. He might make him stay. Tell him to tell pa Green County ain’t got enough to keep a person alive. He’s always stayed shy of such places. And tell him there’s blizzards in winter, — pa ain’t got no more use for Dakota, — and a man has to work all day for just starvation wages.”

“I’ll see that Thomas does all he can for you.” Mrs. Sawen set the crock on the back corner of the table. “Here’s a little milk I saved for you.” She brought a thick white pitcher from the corner cupboard. “Did you have good luck with your cookies this morning?”

“They were just fine!” Louisa Mae’s eyes lighted up. “I meant to bring you over some to try, but pa and Hank ate them all up. They’re awful fond of such things.”

“And here’s something I got for you down at the store to-day.” Mrs. Sawen slipped a small roll into the brown fingers.

“Oh, it’s a red hair ribbon! Aunt Lavina sent me and Nolie each a new hat yesterday. You’re awful good, Mrs.” —

But the sitting - room door snapped shut, and so Louisa Mae stole hurriedly down the steps, and out into the summer night.

II

It was one of those little country stores whose half-dozen departments or so are compressed to a single small floor. At one side were the shelves of dry goods and shoe-boxes, at the other the groceries and post office. The hardware and clothing departments were at the rear, while the surplus stock, as far as was possible, hung suspended from the ceiling.

It was six o’clock, and trade had slackened for the day. Mr. Sawen sat tilted back in an armchair, his square-toed shoes crossed on the top of a round rusty stove, and his bald head glistening above the edge of the extended evening paper. The flies buzzed loudly, darting here and there with undisputed freedom. Suddenly a heavy step sounded outside, and the armchair rested with a thump on the floor. A lank man, with a stubby gray beard, and thick clumsy boots, entered.

“L’weezy Mae sent me down after salt. L’weezy Mae’s al’ays getting out of something,” he complained, his voice weak arid drawling.

Mr. Sawen took a dust-covered bag from the shelf behind him, and set it down on the counter.

“Nice weather we’re having, Mr. Todd.” Mr. Sawen had a brisk tone with an “eye to business” air.

“Getting pretty hot to work,” he responded, producing a nickel and five pennies.

“Finding you like this place pretty well, — eh?” The money rattled into a wooden drawer beneath the counter.

“Well, now, I’ll tell you.” Mr. Todd folded his arms and leaned up against the wooden partition setting off the “post office.” “If it wa’n’t for Green County I don’t know but what I’d as lieve stay here as most anywhere.”

“Green County ? What part of Green County ?”

“I kind of calculated on settling round Prairie Centre.”

“Got folks there ?”

“Not exactly, only my sister-in-law’s husband — Levi Dobson. He’s dead now. He came from near there.”

“Prairie Centre is n’t one bit better than this place,” answered Mr. Sawen shortly, tapping the streaked show case with his pencil.

“Now that’s just ’cording to how one thinks.” Mr. Todd leisurely unfolded his arms. “I’ve al’ays kind of hankered after Green County. I’d orter gone there in the beginning, but I got to hearing so much about Dakota land I concluded to take up a claim out there. Then when we just got settled down Oklahoma opened up, and I was afraid to miss that chance. And all that time I was feeling it was Green County we’d orter be in.” He stood up, his sluggish tone rising, and his bony arms gesticulating. “If it had n’t been for L’weezy Mae I’d been there now, too. She liked the looks of this place, and the team was about done out, so I give in. I never did feel as if ’t was justice to me and Hank, though.” Mr. Todd’s voice subsided, and he leaned back, his arms refolded.

“If you know where you’re well off, Mr. Todd, you’ll stay right here. Everybody likes Louisa Mae, and they’re going to help her.”

“I ain’t got nothing to say agin your treatment of us. Only I never was a hand to run down a place I never see.”

A little girl with a blue sunbonnet pushed back on her head appeared in the doorway, bending to one side to keep a green glass can from touching the floor.

“My mother she forgot to get some kerosene this morning, and the lamps they ain’t got no more oil left in them.”

“Kind of a case of Moses when the lights went out, at your house, eh ?”

“Yes, sir. Only my big brother’s name’s John.”

Mr. Sawen leaned down for the outstretched can, and went to the back of the store. The child turned longing eyes in the direction of a row of glass jars, securely imprisoning sticks of brightly striped candy. Mr. Todd picked up his purchase, helped himself generously from the open cracker barrel, and slouched out.

III

A rude pine table stood in the centre of the low unplastered kitchen. Mr. Todd and a tall, lank young man with a receding chin sat opposite each other. At the end was a small boy with a round face and tousled hair.

“Seems as if I never could get you men filled up.” Louisa Mae, with flushed cheeks, stood before the stove watching the white circles on the iron break into bubbles.

“Well, they taste real good, L’weezy Mae. You’re getting the hang to fancy cooking real quick.”

“This is all there is. You’ve ate nine apiece.” She piled four large puffy cakes on a cracked brown plate, and shoved it into the centre of the table. It scraped along the uncovered boards. Again the brief and occasional remarks ceased, and again the steel knives and forks clicked sharply.

“You ain’t got none, Louisa,” finally noted, with solicitude, the occupant of the lower end of the table.

“I don’t want any, Nolie. I’m not hungry.”

“I eat five. We get lots better stuff to eat than when pa did the cooking.”

“ Mrs. Sawen told me how to make other good things, too.”

“Candy!” He ran his tongue about his sticky face gleefully, and slid down from the rickety chair.

At length Mr. Todd rubbed his coarse shirt-sleeve across his mouth with a satisfied air.

“I ’bout made up my mind we’d better try and get off next week. What do you say, Hank?”

“Early summer’s always a good time to start,” Hank responded, shoving back the box he was sitting on.

“Oh, pa! you ain’t really going?” Louisa Mae caught her breath, and clasped her hands tightly together.

“Now, L’weezy, ’t ain’t no use taking on so.”

“We won’t ever get another start like we got here.”

“Green County’s got better chances for starting than this place’ll ever have.”

“You’ve never had so steady work before.”

“Nor such small pay, neither.” Mr. Todd’s voice suggested irritability. “I never worked so hard all ’t once in my life. I feel sorter all used up, — like as if I needed a good rest.”

“Nor Hank ain’t ever had such a good job, neither.”

“Hauling sand the whole time’s not what you think it is, Louisa Mae. Shoveling all day’s ’bout used up my back. I don’t know but what a rest’d seem kind of good to me, too.” Hank’s tone was an echo of his father’s.

“Rent runs out Friday, so I’ve kind of reckoned on getting off then. How does that strike you, Hank ?” Mr. Todd rested his arms on the table, squinting one eye dubiously.

“Strikes me as being just about the time,” approved Hank impassively.

“When we get to Green County, then we’ll settle down for good,” the father announced, his features relaxing.

“That’s just what I was thinking, too,” nodded Hank.

Louisa Mae picked up the cup of sugar and the molasses can with a jerk.

“You’ve always rolled on, and you’ll always keep rolling on. You don’t know when you’re the best off you ever was.”

“Now, L’weezy, now.” Mr. Todd rose heavily from the broken chair. “When we get to Green County I’ll give you everything you want, — schooling, and a silk dress, and carpets.”

Hank put on a flapping straw hat, and moved languidly toward the door.

“Be easy on the team,” warned his father. “They’ve kind of fatted up, and we’ll want them in good shape when we start off.” He set his shapeless felt hat firmer on his shaggy head, hitched up a drooping suspender, and followed.

As soon as Louisa Mae was alone she piled up the battered dishes, scraping them noisily. Then she opened the front door and let the warm sunlight and the cool, fresh air pervade the small, empty rooms. She leaned against the door casing, her eyes moving from the neglected yard before her, with its sagging, swaying fence, to the trim, well-kept place opposite, to the open pasture beyond, then up from the tree-crowned hills, to the blue sky and the shining sun. This, in some vague way, seemed to Louisa Mae a panorama of her own life. The bad things were near at hand, but the good things were away off beyond her reach.

A low cloud of dust came rolling down the road, and a small tattered figure squirmed through the broken fence, and approached the sunken steps.

“Have they gone, Nolie ?”

“Yes.” He shifted his weight from one bare foot to the other. “Guess we’re going to Green County, ain’t we?”

“No!” she cried sharply. “No, we’re not, and don’t you ever tell them you want to, either. Have you ? ”

“No, I never!” One brown foot remained suspended, and two black eyes became immovable. “I just said I’d like a ride.”

Louisa Mae clutched a brown gingham sleeve and shook her victim recklessly.

“Nolie Todd, do you want to freeze like we did up in Dakota, or starve like we did in Oklahoma, or be pestered with grasshoppers like we were in Kansas, or get robbed like we did down in Missouri, or nearly drown like we did out at Rapid Creek? Do you want to all the time be roaming round and round and never knowing nothing, or never living like other folks, — now, do you ? ”

“No —no, I’d ruther stay here,” he gasped, wriggling away from his sister’s hold.

“Course you would. Why, if you moved away Mrs. Sawen would n’t ever give you any more apples.”

She hastened back into the house and brought a tablet of pink paper, a small ink bottle and a stubby penholder, and placed them on the end of the kitchen table. Then she drew up the broken chair, took out the cork, and dipped the rusty pen deep in. But she withdrew it instantly.

“Nolie,” she called, running to the door, “Nolie.” Nothing but a blue jay from the green pump answered her. Then Louisa Mae sat down on the doorstep and buried her chin in her hands.

After a while, at the sound of light footfalls on the grass, she looked up.

“Oh, Nolie, where have you been? I want you to run right over to Mrs. Sawen ’s and ask her to please lend me a bottle of ink.”

“ We got some. I saw it on the shelf,” he answered from a safe distance.

“It won’t write a bit since I filled it up with water to make it more. Run along quick, won’t you ? I’m in such a hurry.”

He disappeared from sight around the corner of the house, but it was some time before he returned. Louisa Mae’s patience had settled into despair when she finally spied a ragged straw hat bobbing along through the branches of the trees down the road.

“ She says we can have this one. She’s got another.”

Louisa Mae took it eagerly.

“Now, Nolie, I’m going to write a letter, and I want you round handy to take it down when I’ve finished. You stay right here. I’ll let you have my reader to look at the pictures if you ’ll sit on this step.” She brought a red book with a warped, wrinkled cover, and put it reluctantly into two grimy outstretched hands.

Then Louisa Mae returned to her writing. She blotted and rubbed holes in the paper, and ran off the lines innumerable times. She spelled by sound and ignored punctuation. Nolie had already reached the last picture, that of a big Newfoundland dog, when she at length sealed it with the aid of a flatiron.

“It’s done now.” She put the letter into one hand, and a large, flimsy purse into the other. “There’s a nickel in there. You’re to get a stamp. That costs two cents. Then you can spend one cent for candy, and bring the other two cents home. And now don’t you lose it, and you let Mr. Sawen put the stamp on. You remember how you licked all the mucilage off the last one.”

“Who’s it to?” he asked dubiously.

“Oh — it’s a business letter, Nolie.”

IV

The sun had climbed high, and was sending its hot rays straight down on a drooping felt hat and some weatherstained canvas. Mr. Todd was tinkering around a covered wagon standing in the yard.

“L’weezy — L’weezy — L’weezy Mae,” he called,his weak, drawling voice taking on a petulant note.

“What is it you want, pa?” Louisa Mae stood in the open doorway, the sleeves of her tight, faded dress rolled to the elbows, and her black hair rumpled about her small, tanned face.

“Why can’t you hurry up with those things? We won’t get off to-day at this rate.”

“I am. I’m hunting for the big kettle.”

Mr. Todd continued his work. He finished hanging some pails beneath the wagon. Then he wiped his red face on his sleeve, and leaned against the wheel, fanning himself with his limp hat.

“L’weezy — L’weezy — L’weezy Mae.”

“I’m coming now.” She brought a pile of cooking utensils and set them down with a clatter.

“What’ll we do with the stove, and the table, and the what-not the folks here give us?” she asked.

“We’ll just have to leave those.”

“ We won’t find people out there who’ll give us such a start as they have here.”

“Now, L’weezy, don’t go to saying things against those you never met. There’s plenty of good folks everywhere. ”

She looked down at the tilted heap of dented tinware before her, then at the wagon, and then at the sun.

“When do you calculate to get off ?”

“It’ll be two o’clock straight before I ever get out of this yard. The harness broke again, and Hank’s fixing it.”

“I’m going over to Mrs. Sawen’s to bid her good-by.”

“Now, L’weezy, you know I can’t spare you. You’s over there last night.”

“This is the last time, sure. ’T won’t be nice to go off without seeing her just before we start.”

“Seems as if you’re getting awful fussy lately.”

Louisa Mae sped across the weedy yard to the road. Mr. Todd hastened his shuffling plod in the direction of the barn. He found Hank seated on the floor mending the broken harness with pieces of rope.

“I almost feel’s if I’s never going to see Green County,” he fretted, pacing up and down the straw-littered floor.

“Yes, we will, pa. I’m through now,” Hank reassured him, shutting up his knife, and gathering together the pieces of harness, Mr. Todd stood with folded arms gazing out at his late work.

“I do wish L’weezy’d hurry up,” he said peevishly.

There was the pattering of bare feet, and a small shadow fell across the ground before him.

“ Say, Nolie, I wish you ’d go over after L’weezy. Tell her we ain’t going to wait, much longer. Soon’s Hank hitches up we ’re going, sure. Seems as if L’weezy’s just got set this time.” He walked over to the wagon and peered into it, but returned to the shade again.

After a while Louisa Mae came across the yard up toward the barn.

“My goodness, L’weezy, why don’t you hurry up ? Hank’s got the harness fixed now. You go and see’t we have everything, and then we’ll start.”

A whistle blew, and then a bell clanged. Louisa Mae stopped motionless. Then a white column of smoke rose from the trees in the distance, and trailed along in the air.

“Do go on, L’weezy. You act like you never heard a train of cars before,” came querulously from her father, as he tugged to gather up the flapping canvas at the back of the wagon.

She went into the house and sat down on a box by the front window, her fingers nervously tying and untying the strings of the sunbonnet in her lap. Her eyes were bent obstinately in the direction of the road, where it ended abruptly in a slope. Suddenly a black satin parasol glistened above the top of the knoll, and then a straight, thin figure with a leather hand-bag appeared. Louisa Mae uttered a little cry of joy and rushed out of the door, the box falling backward with a bang.

“Aunt Lavina—oh, aunt Lavina!” she cried.

“Sister Laviny Dobson — well, I swan!” Mr. Todd stood open-mouthed and motionless.

“If ’t ain’t aunt Lavina!” Hank stopped, the straps hanging loose in his feeble grasp.

Mrs. Lavina Dobson walked straight toward the wagon, Louisa Mae close behind her.

“How do you do, Greely ? I hope my visit is convenient,” she said in cordial greeting, her face beaming complacently.

“Howdy, sister Laviny, howdy? Yes — yes—why yes, you’re welcome, real welcome,” he responded weakly.

“Was you getting ready to go to work?” Mrs. Dobson’s spectacles surveyed the scene critically.

“No — why—no. I — I was just hitching up.”

“If you don’t happen to be in much of a hurry, then, you’ll be just handy to go down and bring up my trunk.”

“Your trunk!” Mr. Todd’s arms fell helpless at his sides.

“Why, yes, Greely, my trunk. I’ve come to spend the summer with you.”

“But we’re—we’re going out to Green County.”

“To Green County! What for?”

“Well, now, I’ll tell you, Laviny.” Mr. Todd stroked his stubby beard gently. “Hank and me’s decided to settle down for good in Green County.”

Mrs. Lavina Dobson gripped the handle of her parasol tightly. The horses patiently switched the flies. Louisa Mae’s dark eyes grew large and round.

“Course I don’t want to seem not hospitable, Laviny. If I wa’n’t just on the point of starting for Green County, I ’d be — I’d be mighty glad to see you — not, of course, but what I am now —only” —

“Dobson’s folks lived there all their lives. It’s as near like this spot as two straws.”

“Yes, I know, Laviny — only you see” —

“I see you’re bound to go. That’s all I see.”

“Now sister Laviny” —

Mrs, Lavina Dobson gave the leather hand-bag an exasperated shake.

“Greely Todd, if you and Henry want to move out to Green County, you go, and you stay to Green County until you get enough of Green County. Only these two children don’t budge one inch. You dragged the life out of sister ’Melia, but you don’t out of them. I set my foot down squarely there.”

“I—I — now, Laviny. I wa’n’t meaning nothing but their good. Green County al’ays” —

“What do you intend to do, Greely Todd?”

“ Why — I — I — I’m kind of set on seeing Green County. What do you say, Hank ?”

“I — I think ’bout like you do. I’d feel better to see it, anyway.”

“Then see Green County, and see it once for all. I can run things around here about as well as they seem to be run now.”

She picked up her black lawn dress sprigged with white, and stepped carefully around the burr weeds toward the house.

“Pa, why can’t you” —

“Now, L’weezy Mae, I guess me and sister Laviny knows how to arrange business better than you. Hank, ain’t you never going to bring up that team ?”

V

It was a drizzling, cold morning in early September. Louisa Mae was sewing patchwork by the kitchen fire, and aunt Lavina was braiding a rug.

They’ve come. They’ve come home. ” Nolie fumbled at the loose latch, and stumbled into the room, his eyes wide with wonder. “The team, it’s clean played out, and pa and Hank’s just covered with mud, and the cover’s all torn and everything.”

The red and yellow blocks fluttered from Louisa Mae’s lap as she flew to meet a bedraggled, dejected-looking man coming slowly toward the house.

“Oh, pa! I’m so glad to see you. I thought you was n’t ever coming,” she cried joyfully, throwing her arms about his wet, ragged coat. “ Where’s Hank ? ”

“He’s tending to the horses. I’m going out again soon’s I get warmed up.”

Aunt Lavina shoved the coffee-pot to the front of the glistening stove. Then she brought out a tablecloth, unfolded it, and smoothed it down.

Mr. Todd sank feebly into a cushioned chair by the fire.

“I suppose you’re hungry,” she said, trying to appear cheerful.

“Yes, I be,” he responded curtly. “And Hank, he’s starved.”

She set the glass spoonholder in the centre of the red cover, and then brought out a pan of potatoes.

“And how did you find Green County?”

Mr. Todd rose stiffly, and shook his black clenched fist with a fierce gesture.

“Green County’s the blamedest hole the Lord ever made.”

After a brief silence he went out. The savory odor of coffee had taken the place of the stuffy smell of steaming clothing, when aunt Lavina lifted her shining knife from the pan of potatoes and pointed it squarely at Louisa Mae, who was cutting off thick slices of the light bread.

“Did n’t I tell you they’d come back ? I knew it all along. Why, do you know, Louisa Mae, that I sent twenty-five letters to those people I knew in and about Prairie Centre. I wrote them every one myself, too. I told them not to give Greely Todd nor his son Henry help in any kind of a way when they arrived. They were n’t even to give them so much as a meal of victuals, nor a place to sleep, nor a day’s work. Then I put my reasons and I put them good and strong, too. I told them just exactly how things stood with those two men.”

“Did you?” said Louisa Mae, a startled look in her eyes.

“ T was a pretty hard lesson, I guess. But a pretty hard lesson was what Greely Todd needed,” added Mrs. Lavina Dobson with decision, as she set her knife deftly into the skin of another potato.