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aries gave the spirit a wider range. Wire fences might mark
the end of a man's pasture, but they could not shut in his
thoughts as mountains and forests can. It was over flat
lands like this, stretching out to drink the sun, that the
larks sang--and one's heart sang there, too. Thea was
glad that this was her country, even if one did not learn to
speak elegantly there. It was, somehow, an honest coun-
try, and there was a new song in that blue air which had
never been sung in the world before. It was hard to tell
about it, for it had nothing to do with words; it was like
the light of the desert at noon, or the smell of the sagebrush
after rain; intangible but powerful. She had the sense of
going back to a friendly soil, whose friendship was some-
how going to strengthen her; a naive, generous country
that gave one its joyous force, its large-hearted, childlike
power to love, just as it gave one its coarse, brilliant
flowers.
As she drew in that glorious air Thea's mind went back
to Ray Kennedy. He, too, had that feeling of empire; as
if all the Southwest really belonged to him because he had
knocked about over it so much, and knew it, as he said,
"like the blisters on his own hands." That feeling, she
reflected, was the real element of companionship between
her and Ray. Now that she was going back to Colorado,
she realized this as she had not done before.
IX
THEA reached Moonstone in the late afternoon, and all
the Kronborgs were there to meet her except her two
older brothers. Gus and Charley were young men now,
and they had declared at noon that it would "look silly if
the whole bunch went down to the train." "There's no use
making a fuss over Thea just because she's been to Chi-
cago," Charley warned his mother. "She's inclined to
think pretty well of herself, anyhow, and if you go treating
her like company, there'll be no living in the house with
her." Mrs. Kronborg simply leveled her eyes at Charley,
and he faded away, muttering. She had, as Mr. Kronborg
always said with an inclination of his head, good control
over her children. Anna, too, wished to absent herself
from the party, but in the end her curiosity got the better
of her. So when Thea stepped down from the porter's
stool, a very creditable Kronborg representation was
grouped on the platform to greet her. After they had all
kissed her (Gunner and Axel shyly), Mr. Kronborg hurried
his flock into the hotel omnibus, in which they were to be
driven ceremoniously home, with the neighbors looking
out of their windows to see them go by.
All the family talked to her at once, except Thor,--
impressive in new trousers,-- who was gravely silent and
who refused to sit on Thea's lap. One of the first things
Anna told her was that Maggie Evans, the girl who used to
cough in prayer meeting, died yesterday, and had made
a request that Thea sing at her funeral.
Thea's smile froze. "I'm not going to sing at all this
summer, except my exercises. Bowers says I taxed my
voice last winter, singing at funerals so much. If I begin
the first day after I get home, there'll be no end to it.
You can tell them I caught cold on the train, or some-
thing."
Thea saw Anna glance at their mother. Thea remem-
bered having seen that look on Anna's face often before,
but she had never thought anything about it because she
was used to it. Now she realized that the look was dis-
tinctly spiteful, even vindictive. She suddenly realized
that Anna had always disliked her.
Mrs. Kronborg seemed to notice nothing, and changed
the trend of the conversation, telling Thea that Dr. Archie
and Mr. Upping, the jeweler, were both coming in to see
her that evening, and that she had asked Spanish Johnny
to come, because he had behaved well all winter and ought
to be encouraged.
The next morning Thea wakened early in her own room
up under the eaves and lay watching the sunlight shine
on the roses of her wall-paper. She wondered whether she
would ever like a plastered room as well as this one lined
with scantlings. It was snug and tight, like the cabin of a
little boat. Her bed faced the window and stood against the
wall, under the slant of the ceiling. When she went away
she could just touch the ceiling with the tips of her fingers;
now she could touch it with the palm of her hand. It was
so little that it was like a sunny cave, with roses running
all over the roof. Through the low window, as she lay
there, she could watch people going by on the farther side
of the street; men, going downtown to open their stores.
Thor was over there, rattling his express wagon along
the sidewalk. Tillie had put a bunch of French pinks in a
tumbler of water on her dresser, and they gave out a pleas-
ant perfume. The blue jays were fighting and screeching
in the cottonwood tree outside her window, as they always
did, and she could hear the old Baptist deacon across
the street calling his chickens, as she had heard him do
every summer morning since she could remember. It was
pleasant to waken up in that bed, in that room, and to feel
the brightness of the morning, while light quivered about
the low, papered ceiling in golden spots, refracted by the
broken mirror and the glass of water that held the pinks.
"IM LEUCHTENDEN SOMMERMORGEN"; those lines, and the face
of her old teacher, came back to Thea, floated to her out of
sleep, perhaps. She had been dreaming something pleas-
ant, but she could not remember what. She would go to
call upon Mrs. Kohler to-day, and see the pigeons washing
their pink feet in the drip under the water tank, and flying
about their house that was sure to have a fresh coat of white
paint on it for summer. On the way home she would stop
to see Mrs. Tellamantez. On Sunday she would coax
Gunner to take her out to the sand hills. She had missed
them in Chicago; had been homesick for their brilliant
morning gold and for their soft colors at evening. The
Lake, somehow, had never taken their place.
While she lay planning, relaxed in warm drowsiness, she
heard a knock at her door. She supposed it was Tillie, who
sometimes fluttered in on her before she was out of bed to
offer some service which the family would have ridiculed.
But instead, Mrs. Kronborg herself came in, carrying a
tray with Thea's breakfast set out on one of the best white
napkins. Thea sat up with some embarrassment and pulled
her nightgown together across her chest. Mrs. Kronborg
was always busy downstairs in the morning, and Thea
could not remember when her mother had come to her
room before.
"I thought you'd be tired, after traveling, and might
like to take it easy for once." Mrs. Kronborg put the tray
on the edge of the bed. "I took some thick cream for you
before the boys got at it. They raised a howl." She
chuckled and sat down in the big wooden rocking chair.
Her visit made Thea feel grown-up, and, somehow, im-
portant.
Mrs. Kronborg asked her about Bowers and the Har-
sanyis. She felt a great change in Thea, in her face and in
her manner. Mr. Kronborg had noticed it, too, and had
spoken of it to his wife with great satisfaction while they
were undressing last night. Mrs. Kronborg sat looking at
her daughter, who lay on her side, supporting herself on
her elbow and lazily drinking her coffee from the tray be-
fore her. Her short-sleeved nightgown had come open at
the throat again, and Mrs. Kronborg noticed how white
her arms and shoulders were, as if they had been dipped in
new milk. Her chest was fuller than when she went away,
her breasts rounder and firmer, and though she was so
white where she was uncovered, they looked rosy through
the thin muslin. Her body had the elasticity that comes of
being highly charged with the desire to live. Her hair,
hanging in two loose braids, one by either cheek, was just
enough disordered to catch the light in all its curly ends.
Thea always woke with a pink flush on her cheeks, and
this morning her mother thought she had never seen her
eyes so wide-open and bright; like clear green springs in the
wood, when the early sunlight sparkles in them. She would
make a very handsome woman, Mrs. Kronborg said to
herself, if she would only get rid of that fierce look she had
sometimes. Mrs. Kronborg took great pleasure in good
looks, wherever she found them. She still remembered
that, as a baby, Thea had been the "best-formed" of any
of her children.
"I'll have to get you a longer bed," she remarked, as she
put the tray on the table. "You're getting too long for
that one."
Thea looked up at her mother and laughed, dropping
back on her pillow with a magnificent stretch of her whole
body. Mrs. Kronborg sat down again.
"I don't like to press you, Thea, but I think you'd
better sing at that funeral to-morrow. I'm afraid you'll
always be sorry if you don't. Sometimes a little thing like
that, that seems nothing at the time, comes back on one
afterward and troubles one a good deal. I don't mean the
church shall run you to death this summer, like they used
to. I've spoken my mind to your father about that, and
he's very reasonable. But Maggie talked a good deal about
you to people this winter; always asked what word we'd
had, and said how she missed your singing and all. I guess
you ought to do that much for her."
"All right, mother, if you think so." Thea lay looking
at her mother with intensely bright eyes.
"That's right, daughter." Mrs. Kronborg rose and
went over to get the tray, stopping to put her hand on
Thea's chest. "You're filling out nice," she said, feeling
about. "No, I wouldn't bother about the buttons. Leave
'em stay off. This is a good time to harden your chest."
Thea lay still and heard her mother's firm step receding
along the bare floor of the trunk loft. There was no sham
about her mother, she reflected. Her mother knew a great
many things of which she never talked, and all the church
people were forever chattering about things of which they
knew nothing. She liked her mother.
Now for Mexican Town and the Kohlers! She meant to
run in on the old woman without warning, and hug her.
X
SPANISH JOHNNY had no shop of his own, but he
kept a tabl...
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