There was no indication of the six miles of pavement which later were to be Fallon’s pride. It had rained earlier in the week and Martin was obliged to be careful of the chuck-holes in the sticky, heavy gumbo soon to be the bane of pioneers venturing forth in what were to be known for a few short years as “horseless carriages.”
Bumping along he recalled to his mind the various girls with whom he had gone to school. As if the sight of the building, itself, would sharpen his memory, he turned north and drove past it. Like its south, east and west counterparts, it was a solid two-story brick affair. In time it would be demolished to make way for what would be known as the “Emerson School,” in which, to be worthy of this high title, the huge stoves would be supplanted with hot-water pipes, oil lamps with soft, indirect lighting, and unsightly out-buildings with modern plumbing. The South building would become the “Whittier School,” the East, the “Longfellow,” and the West, not to be neglected by culture’s invasion, the “Oliver Wendell Holmes.” But these changes were still to be effected. Many a school board meeting was first to be split into stormy factions of conservatives fighting to hold the old, and of anarchists threatening civilization with their clamors for experimentation. Many a bond election was yet to rip the town in two, with the retired farmers, whose children were grown and through school, satisfied with things as they were and parents of the new generation demanding gymnasiums, tennis courts, victrolas, domestic science laboratories, a public health nurse and individual lockers. Yes, and the faddists were to win despite the other side’s incontrovertible evidence that Fallon was headed for bankruptcy and that the proposed bonds and outstanding ones could never be met.
Martin drove, meditatively, around the school-house and was still engrossed in the problem of “Who?” when he reached the Square. The neat canvas drops of later years had not yet replaced the wooden awnings which gave to the town such a decidedly western appearance and which threw the sidewalks and sheltered windows into deep pools of shadow. The old brick store-building which housed The First State Bank was like a cool cavern. He brought out the check quietly but with a full consciousness that with one gesture he was shoving enough over that scratched and worn walnut counter to buy out half the bank.
James Osborne, the youthful cashier, feigned complete paralysis.
“Why don’t you give a poor fellow some warning?” he beamed good-naturedly, “or maybe you think you’ve strayed into Wall Street. This is Fallon. Fallon, Kansas. So you’ve had your merry little session with Robinson? Put it here!” and he extended a cordial hand.
“Oh, considering the wait, it isn’t so wonderful. Sixteen thousand is an awful lot when it’s coming, but it just seems about half as big when it gets here.”
Martin was talking not so much for Osborne’s benefit as to impress a woman who had entered behind him and was awaiting her turn. He wondered why, in his mental quest, he had not thought of her. Here was the very person for whom he was looking. Rose Conroy, the editor of the better local weekly, a year or so younger than himself, pleasant, capable. Here was a real woman, one above the average in character and brains.
With a quick glance he took in her well-built figure. Everything about Rose—every line, every tone of her coloring suggested warmth, generosity, bigness. She was as much above medium height for a woman as Martin for a man. About her temples the line of her bright golden-brown hair had an oddly pleasing irregularity. The rosy color in her cheeks brought out the rich creamy whiteness of her skin. Warm, gray-blue eyes were set far apart beneath a kind, broad forehead and her wide, generous mouth seemed made to smile. The impression of good temper and fun was accented by her nose, ever so slightly up-tilted. Some might have thought Rose too large, her hips too rounded, the soft deep bosom too full, but Martin’s eyes were approving. Even her hands, plump, with broad palms, square fingers and well-kept nails, suggested decision. He felt the quiet distinction of her simple white dress. She was like a full-blown, luxuriant white and gold flower—like a rose, a full-blown white rose, Martin realized, suddenly. One couldn’t call her pretty, but there was something about her that gave the impression of sumptuous good looks. He liked, too, the spirited carriage of her head. “Healthy, good-sense, sound all through,” was his final appraisement.
Pocketing his bank-book, he gave her a sharp nod, a colorless “how-de-do, Miss Rose,” and a tip of the hat that might have been a little less stiff had he been more accustomed to greeting the ladies. “Right well, thank you, Martin,” was her cordial response, and her friendly smile told him she had heard and understood the remarks about the big deal. He was curious to know how it had impressed her.
Hurrying out, he asked himself how he could begin advances. Either he must do something quickly in time to get home for the evening chores or he must wait until another day. He must think out a plan, at once. Passing the bakery, half way down the block, he dropped in, ordered a chocolate ice-cream soda, and chose a seat near the window. As he had expected, it was not long before he saw Rose go across the courthouse yard toward her office on the north side of the square. He liked the swift, easy way in which she walked. She had been walking the first time he had ever seen her, thirteen years before, when her father had led his family uptown from the station, the day of their arrival in Fallon.
Patrick Conroy had come from Sharon, Illinois, to perform the thankless task of starting a weekly newspaper in a town already undernourishing one. By sheer stubbornness he had at last established it. Twelve hundred subscribers, their little printing jobs, advertisers who bought liberal portions of space at ten cents an inch—all had enabled him to give his children a living that was a shade better than an existence. He had died less than a year ago, and Martin, like the rest of the community, had supposed the Fallon Independent would be sold or suspended. Instead, as quietly and matter-of-factly as she had filled her dead mother’s place in the home while her brothers and sisters were growing up, Rose stepped into her father’s business, took over the editorship and with a boy to do the typesetting and presswork, continued the paper without missing an issue. It even paid a little better than before, partly because it flattered Fallon’s sense of Christian helpfulness to throw whatever it could in Rose’s way, but chiefly because she made the Independent a livelier sheet with double the usual number of “Personals.”
Yes, decidedly, Rose had force and push. Martin’s mind was made up. He would drop into the Independent ostensibly to extend his subscription, but really to get on more intimate terms with the woman whom he had now firmly determined should become his wife. He drew a deep breath of relaxation and finished the glass of sweetness with that sense of self-conscious sheepishness which most men feel when they surrender to the sticky charms of an ice-cream soda. A few minutes later he stood beside Rose’s worn desk.
“How-do-you-do, once more, Miss Rose of Sharon. You’re not the Bible’s Rose of Sharon, are you?” he joshed a bit awkwardly.
“If I were a rose of anywhere, I’d soon wilt in this stuffy little office of inky smells,” she answered pleasantly. “A rose would need petals of leather to get by here.”
“A rose, by rights, belongs out of doors,”—Martin indicated the direction of his farm—“out there where the sun shines and there’s no smells except the rich, healthy smells of nature.”
A merry twinkle appeared in Rose’s eyes. “Aren’t roses out there”—and her gesture was in the same direction—“rather apt to be crowded down by the weeds?”
“Not if there was a good strong man about—a man who wanted to cultivate the soil and give the rose a pretty place in which to bloom.”
“Why, Martin,” Rose laughed lightly, “the way you’re fixed out there with that shack, the only thing that ever blooms is a fine crop of rag-weeds.”
At this gratuitous thrust a flood of crimson surged up Martin’s magnificent, column-like throat and broke in hot waves over his cheeks. “Well, it’s not going to be
