Hamlin Garland - Rose of Dutcher's Coolly

Then came one moment of quiet elation. She was going out into the world! the enormous, the incredible had happened! She was going to Madison, the state capital. The speed of the train, which seemed to her very great, aided her to realize how swiftly she was getting into the world. The fields and farms whirled by in dizzying fashion, and the whistle of the engine was like the furious, defiant neigh of a rushing horse. It was all on a scale more splendid than her dreams.

In the midst of her exultant moment the brakeman came through and eyed her with the glare of a sex-maniac. She felt as if a hot iron had touched her flesh, and she shrank back into herself, like a scared mollusk. The man passed on, but her exultation was gone.

She noticed that the hills grew lower as they sped southward, and queer rocks rose squarely out of the flat lands, which were covered with wild swamps of small trees, out of which long skeletons of dead pines lifted with a desolate effect.

There were several tunnels, and every time they went through one Rose clung to the seat in terror. Some young men in the rear of the car smacked their lips to represent kisses, and laughed boisterously afterward, as if that were a very good joke indeed.

The conductor, when he came through the next time, eyed her closely and smiled broadly. She did not understand why he should smile at her. After he had been through the car several times he came and sat down by her.

"Nice day, ain't it? Live in Madison?"

"No, sir," she replied, looking away. She did not want to say more, but some power made her add, "I am going to school there."

He seemed pleased.

"Ah, hah! Going to the university?"

"Yes, sir."

"O, I see." He put his knee against the back of the seat in front of her and took an easy position.

"It's a nice town. Wish I could stop off and help you find a boarding-place."

The brakeman, coming through, winked at the conductor as if to say: "I like your 'mash,'" and the terror and shame of her position flashed over Rose, flushing her from head to foot. Her eyes filled with angry tears, and she looked out of the window, not knowing what to do. She was so helpless here, for she was out in the world alone.

The conductor went on serenely, knowing well how scared and angry she was.

"Yes, sir; it's a fine little town. Great place for boating, summer or winter. You'll see a hundred ice-boats out on Monona there all at once. I've got a cousin there who has a boat. He'd be glad to take you out if I'd tell him about you."

"I don't want to know him," she said, in what she intended to be a fierce tone, but which was a pitifully scared tone.

The conductor saw the brakeman looking at him and in order to convey the impression that he was getting on nicely he bent forward and looked around into her face.

"O, you'd like him first rate."

Rose would have screamed, or burst out into some wild action had not the engine whistled. This gave the conductor an excuse to give the talk up for the moment.

"She's a daisy and as green as grass," he said to the brakeman. Her innocence seemed to place her in his hand.

For the next hour they persecuted the girl with their low presences. First one and then the other came along the aisle and sat down beside her. And when she put her valise there, blocking the seat, the brakeman sat on the armrest and tormented her with questions to which she gave no answer.

Just after Pine City she heard a cool, firm woman's voice ask: "May I sit with you?"

She looked up and made room for a handsome, middle-aged woman, in a neat traveling dress.

"It's a shame!" she said. "I've just got in, but I saw at once how those men were torturing you. Strange no one in the car could see it and take your part."

Rose turned to her gratefully, and laid her head on the lady's stalwart shoulder.

"There, there, no harm done! You must learn to expect such things from some men. It would be libelous on the brutes to call them beasts." She said a great many things which Rose hardly understood, but her presence was strong and helpful. Rose liked her very much.

"How far are you going?"

Rose told her in a few words.

"Ah, are you? You could not have made a better choice. Who sends you there – pardon me?"

"Dr. Thatcher."

"Dr. Thatcher! Well, well, how things come about. I know the Doctor very well."

"Do you? I'm going to live there for a while."

Rose was smiling now.

"Well, you couldn't be more fortunate. You'll get into the most progressive home in the city."

From this on they had a royal good time. Rose grew happier than she had been for weeks. There was something strangely masterful about this woman in spite of her sweet smile and soft gray eyes.

When the conductor came down the aisle again she met his eye with a keen, stern glance.

"Young man, I shall have you discharged from this road."

The astonished cur took her card, and when he read the name of a famous woman lawyer of Milwaukee his face fell.

"I didn't mean any harm."

"I know better. I shall see Mr. Millet, and see that he makes an example of you."

Rose was awed by her calm and commanding voice.

"It has been our boast that our girls could travel from east to west in our broad land, and be safe from insult, and I'm not going to let such a thing pass."

She returned to her grave sweet mood presently, and began to talk of other things.

As they neared the town where they were to part company, the elder woman said:

"Now, my dear, I am to get off here. I may never see you again, but I think I shall. You interest me very much. I am likely to be in Madison during the year, and if I do I will see you. I am getting old though, and things of this life are uncertain to us with gray hair. I like that forehead on you, it tells me you are not to be a victim to the first man who lays his hand on you. Let me give one last word of advice. Don't marry till you are thirty. Choose a profession and work for it. Marry only when you want to be a mother."

She rose. "You don't understand what I mean now, but keep my words in your mind. Some day you will comprehend all I mean – good-bye." Rose was tearful as Mrs. Spencer kissed her and moved away.

Rose saw her on the steps and waved her hand back at her as the train drew away. Her presence had been oppressive in spite of her kindness, and her last words filled the girl's mind with vague doubts of life and of men. Everything seemed forcing her thoughts of marriage to definiteness. Her sex was so emphasized, so insisted upon by this first day's experience in the world, that she leaned her head against the window and cried out: "O, I wish I was dead."

But the train shot round the low green hills fringed with the glorious foliage of the maples, the lake sparkled in the afternoon's sun, the dome of the capitol building loomed against the sky, and the romance and terror of her entry into the world came back to her, driving out her more morbid emotions. She became again the healthy country girl to whom Madison was a center of art and society and literature.

The train drew up to a long platform swarming with people, moving anxiously about with valises in hand, broad-hatted and kindly; many of them were like the people of the coulé. But the young hackmen terrified her with their hard, bold eyes and cruel, tobacco-stained mouths.

She alighted from the car, white and tremulous with fear, and her eyes moved about anxiously. When they fell upon Thatcher the blood gushed up over her face, and her eyes filled with tears of relief.

"Ah, here you are!" he said with a smile, as he shook her hand and took her valise. "I began to fear you'd been delayed."

She followed him to the carriage with down-cast eyes. Her regard for him would not permit her to say a word, even when they were seated together in the carriage and driving up the street. Her breath came so quick and strange the Doctor noticed it.